asj, I've been practicing natural health for approx 16 years now and it's the only way to go. I cannot understand how anyone can follow these bloody criminals words(WHO/Big Pharma) blindly.

What I'd certainly like to find out is how many of us here take the flu shot and how many of us here don't. Then find out which group usually complains about coming down with the cold and flu, feeling sick/tired,cold etc.

ASJ
I don't have the time to go through 3 pages. Just skimmed through. However let me say that I share your skepticism. Personally I can't recall a shot in the past forty odd years for any ailments including the seasonal flu . I just don't believe in the crap. I have a healthy skepticism towards big Pharmaceutical Corporation. They have a pill for every ill and 10 for the after effects. Flu Bugs including Swine Flu are allergic to me.

Guys your input and comments had helped to make this one numero uno:

http://guyanafriends.com/eve/f...67604972/m/498109773

.

quote:

Originally posted by asj:
Dangerous, Deadly H1N1 Vaccine Scam

WHO Issues H1N1 Swine Flu Propaganda
Reports BigPharma Is Testing 'Mock' Viruses In Vaccines
By Dr. Leonard Horowitz
9-6-9


NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Dr. Horowitz is advancing Healthy World Organization (HWO), a natural alternative to the UN's World Health Organization. Information about HWO is available at: HealthyWorldOrganization.org. For more information about the dangers of flu vaccinations, see Dr. Horowitz's comprehensive website FLUscam.com. Dr. Horowitz endorses natural alternatives to vaccines including the new silver hydrosols, vitamin C, and vitamin D. See his FLU TO Dos and OxySilver.com



.

Hmmm, who do we have here giving medical advice and having some people actually believe it? The good old doctor, ooops ex-dentist turned conspiracy theory author and maker of disease remedies which do not work - Dr. Leonard Horowitz.

The good old dentist left his dental career and became a fiction writer to tap into the growing market of peddling conspiracy theory crap to gullible fools who actually believe this nonsense. One of Dentist Horowitz's first "bestsellers" exposed to the world how the U.S. Government created the AIDS and Ebola viruses in order to reduce the black population in America and Africa. At the same time, the dentist also got into the business of manufacturing naturopathic products such as his "cure" for the SARS virus. Hmmm, I wonder why the dentist would try to discredit medical science. Unfortunately, his SARS remedy did not work and he was sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration for falsely marketing a product as a cure for a disease when it did not work.

So what has the good dentist been up to lately? Recently, in an interview with Al Jazeera TV, Dentist Horowitz claimed that H1N1 vaccines were manufactured to cause sterility as part of a U.S. Government plan of "pangenocide" against Muslims. In the earlier part of this decade, Dentist Horowitz attended several conferences where a similar theory was presented on the polio vaccine. This led to an outbreak of polio in Northern Africa after people there stopped taking the vaccine. But back to H1N1 which Horowitz claims is a U.S. Government conspiracy to wipe out Muslims. Remember that another conspiracy theorist, referenced previously on this thread, stated that President Obama sent a U.S. military officer aboard Air Force One to spread the H1N1 virus in Mexico after it was created in a U.S. military facility. Looks like President Obama is mightily stupid since the plan is to wipe out Muslims yet he sends his military guy to a predominantly Christian country in Mexico to spread the disease. And people actually do believe this nonsense, hehehe

Study that started the claim of an MMR vaccine - autism link found to be false



http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7d74...1f-00144feab49a.html


Lancet retracts MMR link to autism
By Andrew Jack in London

Published: February 2 2010 21:03 | Last updated: February 2 2010 21:03

The research paper that triggered claims linking autism to the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella was yesterday formally retracted by the Lancet, the medical journal that published it more than a decade ago.

Following a ruling last week by the General Medical Council that Dr Andrew Wakefield had breached his professional duties, the Lancet said in a statement on its website that he had made false claims in his 1998 paper and concluded: “We fully retract this paper from the published record.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02...search/03lancet.html

February 3, 2010
Journal Retracts 1998 Paper Linking Autism to Vaccines By GARDINER HARRIS
A prominent British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a 1998 research paper that set off a sharp decline in vaccinations in Britain after the paper’s lead author suggested that vaccines could cause autism.

The retraction by The Lancet is part of a reassessment that has lasted for years of the scientific methods and financial conflicts of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who contended that his research showed that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may be unsafe.

But the retraction may do little to tarnish Dr. Wakefield’s reputation among parents’ groups in the United States. Despite a wealth of scientific studies that have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism, the parents fervently believe that their children’s mental problems resulted from vaccinations.

Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the retraction of Dr. Wakefield’s study “significant.”

“It builds on the overwhelming body of research by the world’s leading scientists that concludes there is no link between M.M.R. vaccine and autism,” Mr. Skinner wrote in an e-mail message.

A British medical panel concluded last week that Dr. Wakefield had been dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a “callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in his research. Dr. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, said that until that decision, he had no proof that Dr. Wakefield’s 1998 paper was deceptive.

“That was a damning indictment of Andrew Wakefield and his research,” Dr. Horton said.

With that decision, Dr. Horton said he could retract the 1998 paper. Dr. Wakefield could not be reached for comment.

Jim Moody, a director of SafeMinds, a parents’ group that advances the notion the vaccines cause autism, said the retraction would strengthen Dr. Wakefield’s credibility with many parents.

“Attacking scientists and attacking doctors is dangerous,” he said. “This is about suppressing research, and it will fuel the controversy by bringing it all up again.”

Dr. Wakefield is part of a small but fervent group of doctors who discourage vaccinations because of a seeming link with autism.

Dr. Wakefield’s paper reported on his examinations of 12 children with chronic intestinal disorders who had a history of normal development followed by severe mental regressions. He speculated that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may have caused some sort of chronic intestinal measles infection that in turn damaged the children’s brains. He suggested that the combined vaccine should be split into three separate shots and given over a longer period of time.

But an investigation by a British journalist found financial and scientific conflicts that Dr. Wakefield did not reveal in his paper. For instance, part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages. Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.

After years of investigation, the General Medical Council in Britain concluded that Dr. Wakefield had subjected 11 children to invasive tests like lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they did not need and for which he did not receive ethical approval.

After Dr. Wakefield’s study, vaccination rates plunged in Britain and the number of measles cases soared.

In the United States, anti-vaccine groups have advanced other theories since then to explain why they think vaccines cause autism. For years, they blamed thimerosal, a vaccine preservative containing mercury. Because of concerns over the preservative, vaccine makers in 2001 largely eliminated thimerosal from routinely administered childhood vaccines.

But this change has had no apparent impact on childhood autism rates. Anti-vaccine groups now suggest that a significant number of children have a cellular disorder whose effects are set off by vaccinations.

With each new theory, parents’ groups have called for research to explore possible links between vaccination and autism. Study after study has failed to show any link, and prominent scientific agencies have concluded that scarce research dollars should be spent investigating other possible causes of autism.

http://www.northbynorthwestern...vaccines-and-autism/

Why You Should Care / Feb. 4, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Why you should care about vaccines and autism
By Matt Zeitlin
In 1998, the British medical journal The Lancet published a study that, indirectly, led to the first outbreak of measles in the British Isles in decades. How could one study in a journal that’s mostly read by scientists and doctors have such a far-ranging impact? The study argued that autism symptoms could be explained by the use of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Since then, an entire movement of parents and activists sprung up — including, most notably, Jenny McCarthy — who were convinced that the cause of their children’s autism were nefarious pharmaceutical companies who were hiding the truth so that they could sell more vaccines. In 2005, activist and lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published a piece in Rolling Stone alleging that there was a conspiracy of pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. government to repress evidence of the vaccine-autism connection.

This past week, however, The Lancet retracted the study. Although the scientific community had rejected the study’s conclusions for years, The Lancet was finally forced to formally retract the study when Britain’s medical regulator, the General Medical Council, sanctioned the lead researcher behind the study, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, for not disclosing payments he got from lawyers representing parents whose kids had received the vaccines and for conducting unnecessary, unhealthful tests on children.

The study, which was based on tests done on all of 12 children and were followed up by a statement by Dr. Wakefield recommending that parents not get the vaccine, caused a plummet in vaccinations in the UK, well past the 95% threshold needed for so-called “herd immunity.” In England, vaccination rates for measles, mumps, and rubella cratered in 2004 when only 80% of children were vaccinated. Subsequently, there were 1,000 cases of measles in the U.K. Measles, of course, was previously thought to have been eliminated in the modern world. There were even more cases of mumps: in 2004, there were more than 16,000 reported mumps cases in England and Wales, a fourfold increase over the previous year. In 2008, “Fourteen years after the local transmission of measles was halted in the United Kingdom,” there was a measles epidemic.

The irony is that in the developing world, parents and kids would love to have access to a measles vaccine. In 2008, some 164,000 died of the disease despite a vaccine being available; 95% of those deaths were in poor countries where there isn’t the medical infrastructure to distribute the vaccine. Unfounded concerns over the MMR vaccine seem to be a first-world luxury.

The populist movement against vaccines, and more specifically, the totally bogus claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism, is not just another example of a great number of people misunderstanding science — it’s a real movement that has real consequences for the kids whose rights to health care are being violated by their sadly misinformed parents. The vaccine delusion has even seeped into politics. In 2002, Indiana Republican Dan Burton took up the cause, saying that “My only grandson became autistic right before my eyes — shortly after receiving his federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines.” But obscure Indiana congressmen aren’t the most prominent leaders of this movement: celebrities are.

Jenny McCarthy, who became famous posing for Playboy, has directly blamed vaccines for causing her son, who was otherwise developing normally, to develop symptoms connected with autism. Since then she has started a foundation (which supports Dr. Wakefield) and has become an advocate for untraditional treatments for autism such as chelation therapy. Chelation therapy is in widespread use among alternative medicine practioners and removes heavy metals — like mercury — from the body. There is, not surprisingly, no scientific evidence that chelation therapy does anything to mitigate the symptoms of autism.

McCarthy’s situation, minus the relentless and reckless self-promotion, is a perfectly representative example of why the vaccine-autism connection has such a powerful grip on so many. The symptoms of autism often first manifest themselves as missed developmental landmarks, such as not being able to speak. Parents often describe, or retrospectively “remember,” a radical shift in their child’s behavior. They go from functioning, happy and normal to distant, sick and alien.

That some parents become aware of their children’s autism at around two years, as in the case of McCarthy, means that they are more likely to attribute their child’s condition to the MMR vaccine, which is often given to children at 15 months. Up until then, their child appears to be “normal,” and then their expectations are totally upended and they look for explanations. And since many people just see vaccines as something they need to get their children without any understanding of why they’re doing so, it is easy for them to scapegoat the vaccine for such a dramatic apparent change in their child. Or, as McCarthy puts it, after her son was given the MMR shot, “soon thereafter — boom — the soul’s gone from his eyes.”

The widespread mistrust of vaccine has obvious victims in those children who get mumps or measles unnecessarily. But it’s also bad for autism research and advocacy. For one, the attention that goes into quack notions like the autism-vaccine connection and quack treatments like chelation therapy could go into research looking into genetic causes of autism and behavioral therapies. There is also an entire movement — the neurodiversity movement — that doesn’t see autism and related autism-spectrum disorders like Asperger Syndrome as diseases but instead as alternate brain wirings that should be respected and accommodated. To neurodiversity advocates, the autism-vaccine story is both wrong and offensive because it implies “that their condition is a side effect of poisoning.”

While The Lancet’s retraction of its original study will probably do very little to convince those who are blaming vaccines for their children’s autism, it is a step in the right direction. Maybe now people can have an appreciation of the good that vaccines have done and accept that a great change in the expectations for their children is not the fault of any conspiracy or great malfeasance, but like so many other of life’s disruptions, autism is something that just happens.

http://www.immunize.org/catg.d/p2065.htm

Vaccines and Autism
By Paul A. Offit, MD, Director, Vaccine Education Center, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia




Dr. Offit is the Chief of Infectious Diseases, the Director of the Vaccine Education Center, and the Henle Professor of Immunologic and Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In addition, Dr. Offit is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Offit has published over 130 papers in medical and scientific journals in the areas of virology and immunology and was recently a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also the co-author of two books, Vaccines: What Every Parent Should Know and Breaking the Antibiotic Habit: A Parent's Guide to Coughs, Colds, Ear Infections, and Sore Throats, and the author of The Cutter Incident: How America's First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recently, stories carried by the media have caused some parents to fear that the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) causes autism. This article provides a summary of the studies used to support the hypothesis that MMR causes autism, the studies that refute this hypothesis, and other investigations into the causes of autism.

The "Wakefield" Studies: Studies Hypothesizing That MMR Causes Autism
Two studies have been cited by those claiming that the MMR vaccine causes autism. This section summarizes those studies and lists their critical flaws.

The first Wakefield paper
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield and colleagues published a paper in The Lancet titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children."(1) Wakefield's hypothesis was that the MMR vaccine causes a series of events that include intestinal inflammation, loss of intestinal barrier function, entrance into the bloodstream of encephalopathic proteins, and consequent development of autism. In support of his hypothesis, Dr. Wakefield described 12 children with neurodevelopmental delay (8 with autism). All of these children had gastrointestinal complaints and developed autism within 1 month of receiving MMR.

Critical flaws

About 90% of children in England received MMR at the time this paper was written. Because MMR is administered at a time when many children are diagnosed with autism, it would be expected that most children with autism would have received an MMR vaccine, and that many would have received the vaccine recently. The observation that some children with autism recently received MMR is, therefore, expected. However, determination of whether MMR causes autism is best made by studying the incidence of autism in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. This wasn't done.

Although the authors claim that autism is a consequence of gastrointestinal inflammation, gastrointestinal symptoms were observed after, not before, symptoms of autism in all eight cases.
The second Wakefield paper
In 2002, Wakefield and coworkers published a second paper examining the relationship between measles virus and autism.(2)

The authors tested intestinal biopsy samples for the presence of measles virus genome from children with and without autism. Measles virus genome was detected by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and in situ hybridization. Seventy-five of 90 children with autism were found to have measles virus genome in intestinal biopsy tissue as compared with only 5 of 70 control patients. On its surface, this was a concerning result. However, this paper was also critically flawed.

Critical flaws

Measles vaccine virus is live and attenuated. After inoculation, the vaccine virus probably replicates 15-20 times. Measles vaccine virus is likely to be taken up by specific cells responsible for virus uptake and presentation to the immune system (termed antigen-presenting cells or APCs). Macrophages, B cells, and dendritic cells (DC) are different types of APCs. Because all APCs are mobile, and can travel throughout the body (including the intestine), it is plausible that a child immunized with MMR would have measles virus genome detected in intestinal tissues using a very sensitive assay (such as RT-PCR). To determine if MMR is associated with autism one must determine if the finding is specific for children with autism. Therefore, children with or without autism must be identical in two ways. First, children with or without autism must be matched for immunization status (i.e., receipt of the MMR vaccine).

Second, children must be matched for the length of time between receipt of MMR vaccine and collection of the biopsy specimen. Although this information was clearly available to the investigators and critical to their hypothesis, it was specifically omitted from the paper.

Because natural measles virus is still circulating in England, it would have been important to determine whether the measles virus genome detected in these samples was natural measles virus or vaccine virus. Although primers are available to distinguish these two types of virus, the authors chose not to use them.

RT-PCR is a very sensitive assay. Laboratories that work with natural measles virus (such as the lab where these studies were performed) are at high risk of getting false positive results. No mention is made in the paper as to how this problem was avoided.

As is true for all laboratory studies, the person who is performing the test should not know whether the sample is obtained from a case or a control (blinding). Because no statement is made in the method section, it is unclear that blinding of samples occurred.
Studies Showing That MMR Vaccine Does Not Cause Autism
Five major studies have been performed to refute a causal association between receipt of MMR and autism.

1. The first Taylor paper
In 1999, Brent Taylor and coworkers examined the relationship between receipt of MMR and development of autism in an excellent, well-controlled study.(3) Taylor examined the records of 498 children with autism or autism-like disorder. Cases were identified by registers from the North Thames region of England before and after the MMR vaccine was introduced into the United Kingdom in 1988. Taylor then examined the incidence and age at diagnosis of autism in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. He found the following: 1) the percentage of children vaccinated was the same in children with autism as in other children in the North Thames region; 2) no difference in the age of diagnosis of autism was found in vaccinated and unvaccinated children; and 3) the onset of "regressive" symptoms of autism did not occur within 2, 4, or 6 months of receiving the MMR vaccine.

2. The JAMA paper
In 2001, Natalie Smith and coworkers examined the relationship between the increase in the number of cases of autism in California and receipt of the MMR vaccine.(4)

The percentage of children immunized with MMR vaccine between 1980 and 1994 was compared with the incidence of autism during the same period. Although a dramatic increase in the incidence of children with autism was reported, the percentage of children that received MMR vaccine remained the same.

3. The British Medical Journal paper
In a study that supported the findings in the JAMA paper, Hershel Jick and coworkers examined the incidence of autism in England between 1988 and 1993 and compared this with MMR immunization rates.(5) Although the incidence of autism increased, MMR immunization rates remained the same.

4. The second Taylor paper
A second study by Brent Taylor and coworkers examined the relationship between MMR vaccine and "new variant autism" (Wakefield's claim that autism is associated with inflammation of the small intestine).(6) Children with autism diagnosed between 1979 and 1998 were examined. The authors compared the number of children with autism and intestinal symptoms before 1988 and after 1988 (MMR was introduced into England in 1988). There was no difference. They concluded that there was, therefore, no evidence for "new variant autism" and provided further evidence that MMR vaccine was not associated with autism.

5. The Madsen paper - http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/347/19/1477

See full study below

Perhaps the best study was that performed by Madsen and colleagues in Demark between 1991 and 1998 and reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.(7) The study included 537,303 children representing 2,129,864 person-years of study. Approximately 82 percent of children had received the MMR vaccine. The group of children was selected from the Danish Civil Registration System, vaccination status was obtained from the Danish National Board of Health, and children with autism were identified from the Danish Central Register. The risk of autism in the group of vaccinated children was the same as that in unvaccinated children. Furthermore, there was no association between the age at the time of vaccination, the time since vaccination, or the date of vaccination and the development of autism.

Studies On The Causes of Autism
Studies have focused on the genetics of autism and the timing of the first symptoms of autism.

Genetics of autism
One of the best ways to determine whether a particular disease or syndrome is genetic is to examine the incidence in identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins. Using a strict definition of autism, when one twin has autism, 60% of identical and 0% of fraternal twins have autism. Using a broader definition of autism (i.e., autistic spectrum disorder), when one twin has autism, approximately 92% of identical and 10% of fraternal twins have autism. (8,9)

Therefore, autism clearly has a genetic basis.

Timing of development of autism

Autism symptoms are present before 1 year of age
Perhaps the best data examining when symptoms of autism are first evident are the "home-movie studies." These studies took advantage of the fact that many parents take movies of their children during their first birthday (before they have received the MMR vaccine). Home movies from children who were eventually diagnosed with autism and those who were not diagnosed with autism were shown to blinded neurodevelopmental specialists. Investigators were, with a very high degree of accuracy, able to separate autistic from non-autistic children at 1 year of age.(10-14)

These studies found that subtle symptoms of autism are present earlier than some parents had suspected, and that receipt of the MMR vaccine did not precede the first symptoms of autism.

Autism symptoms are present before 4 months of age
Other investigators extended the home-movie studies of 1-year-old children to include videotapes of children taken at 2-3 months of age. Using a sophisticated movement analysis, videos from children eventually diagnosed with autism or not diagnosed with autism were coded and evaluated for their capacity to predict autism. Children who were eventually diagnosed with autism were predicted from movies taken in early infancy.(15)

This study supported the hypothesis that very subtle symptoms of autism are present in early infancy and argue strongly against vaccines as a cause of autism.

Evidence that autism occurs in utero
Toxic or viral insults in utero as well as certain central nervous system disorders are associated with an increase in the incidence of autism.

For example, children exposed to thalidomide during the first or early second trimester were found to have an increased incidence of autism.(16) However, autism occurred in children with ear, but not arm or leg, abnormalities. Because arms and legs develop after 24 days gestation, the risk period for autism following receipt of thalidomide must be before 24 days gestation. In support of this finding, Rodier and colleagues(17) found evidence for structural brainstem abnormalities in children with autism. These abnormalities could only have occurred during brainstem development in utero.

Similarly, children with congenital rubella syndrome are at increased risk for development of autism.(18-24) Risk is associated with exposure to rubella prenatally, but not postnatally.

Finally, children with fragile X syndrome or tuberous sclerosis are also at increased risk of developing autism.

Taken together, these findings indicate that autism is likely due to abnormalities of the central nervous system that occur in utero.
Summing Up

Studies of 1) the genetics of autism, 2) the timing of the first symptoms of autism (home-movie studies), 3) the relationship between autism and the receipt of the MMR vaccine, 4) the histopathology of the central nervous system of children with autism, and 5) thalidomide, natural rubella infection, fragile X syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis all support the fact that autism occurs during development of the central nervous system early in utero.

Unfortunately, for current and future parents of children with autism, the controversy surrounding vaccines has diverted attention and resources away from a number of promising leads.

References
1. Wakefield, A.J., et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 351: 637-641, 1998. Click here.

2. Uhlmann, V., et al. Potential viral pathogenic mechanism for new variant inflammatory bowel disease. Journal of Clinical Pathology: Molecular Pathology 55:1-6, 2002. http://mp.bmjjournals.com/cgi/...nt/full/54/6/DC1?eaf

3. Taylor, B., et al. Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet 353:2026-2029, 1999. Click here.

4. Dales, L., et al. Time trends in autism and in MMR immunization coverage in California. JAMA 285:1183-1185,2001. Click here.

5. Kaye, J.A., et al. Mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine and the incidence of autism recorded by general practitioners: a time trend analysis. Brit Med J 322:460-463, 2001. Click here.

6. Taylor, B., et al. Abstract. Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and bowel problems or developmental regression in children with autism: population study. Brit Med J 324:393-396,2002. Click here.

7. Madsen K, et al. A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. NEJM 347:1477-1482, 2002. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/co...abstract/347/19/1477

8. Bailey, A., et al. Autism as a strongly genetic disorder: evidence from a British twin study. Psychol Med 25:63-77, 1995. Click here.

9. Folstein, S., et al. Infantile autism: a genetic study of 21 twin pairs. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 18:297-321, 1977.

10. Adrien, J., et al. Blind ratings of early symptoms of autism based upon family home movies. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 32:617-626, 1993. Click here.

11. Adrien, J., et al. Early symptoms in autism from family home movies: evaluation and comparison between 1st and 2nd year of life using I.B.S.E. scale. Acta Paedopsychiatrica 55:71-75, 1992. Click here.

12. Adrien, J., et al. Autism and family home movies: preliminary findings. J Autism Devel Disorders 21:43-49,1991. Click here.

13. Osterling, J., et al. Early recognition of children with autism: a study of first birthday home videotapes. J Autism Devel Disorders 24:247-257, 1994. Click here.

14. Mars, A.E., et al. Symptoms of pervasive developmental disorders as observed in prediagnostic home videos of infants and toddlers. J Pediatr 132:500-504, 1998. Click here.

15. Teitelbaum, P., et al. Movement analysis in infancy may be useful for the early diagnosis of autism. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95:13982-13987, 1998. Click here.

16. Stromland, K., et al. Autism in thalidomide embropathy: a population study. In Devel Med Child Neurol 36:351-356, 1994. Click here.

17. Rodier P., et al. Embryological origin for autism: developmental anomalies of the cranial nerve motor nuclei. J Comp Neurol 370:247-261, 1996. Click here.

18. Feldman, R.B., R. Lajoie, J. Mendelson, and L. Pinsky. Congenital rubella and language disorders. Lancet 2:978, 1971.

19. Feldman, R.B., L. Pinsky, J. Mendelson, and R. Lajoie. Can language disorder not due to peripheral deafness be an isolated expression of prenatal rubella? Pediatrics 52:296-299, 1973.

20. Swisher, C.N., and L. Swisher. Congenital rubella and autistic behavior. N Engl J Med 293:198, 1975.

21. Lubinsky, M. Behavioral consequences of congenital rubella. J Pediatr 94:678-679, 1979.

22. Deykin, E.Y., and B. MacMahon. Viral exposure and autism. Am J Epidemiol 109:628-638, 1979.

23. Chess, S., P. Fernandez, and S. Korn. Behavioral consequences of congenital rubella. J Pediatr 93:699-703, 1978. Click here.

24. Chess, S. Autism in children with congenital rubella. J Autism Child Schizo 1:33-47, 1971.

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/347/19/1477




A Population-Based Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism

Kreesten Meldgaard Madsen, M.D., Anders Hviid, M.Sc., Mogens Vestergaard, M.D., Diana Schendel, Ph.D., Jan Wohlfahrt, M.Sc., Poul Thorsen, M.D., Jørn Olsen, M.D., and Mads Melbye, M.D.

ABSTRACT

Background It has been suggested that vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) is a cause of autism.

Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all children born in Denmark from January 1991 through December 1998. The cohort was selected on the basis of data from the Danish Civil Registration System, which assigns a unique identification number to every live-born infant and new resident in Denmark. MMR-vaccination status was obtained from the Danish National Board of Health. Information on the children's autism status was obtained from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register, which contains information on all diagnoses received by patients in psychiatric hospitals and outpatient clinics in Denmark. We obtained information on potential confounders from the Danish Medical Birth Registry, the National Hospital Registry, and Statistics Denmark.

Results Of the 537,303 children in the cohort (representing 2,129,864 person-years), 440,655 (82.0 percent) had received the MMR vaccine. We identified 316 children with a diagnosis of autistic disorder and 422 with a diagnosis of other autistic-spectrum disorders. After adjustment for potential confounders, the relative risk of autistic disorder in the group of vaccinated children, as compared with the unvaccinated group, was 0.92 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.68 to 1.24), and the relative risk of another autistic-spectrum disorder was 0.83 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.65 to 1.07). There was no association between the age at the time of vaccination, the time since vaccination, or the date of vaccination and the development of autistic disorder.

Conclusions This study provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.



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It has been suggested that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism.1,2,3,4 The widespread use of the MMR vaccine has reportedly coincided with an increase in the incidence of autism in California,5 and there are case reports of children in whom signs of both developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms developed shortly after MMR vaccination.1 Measles virus has been found in the terminal ileum in children with developmental disorders and gastrointestinal symptoms but not in developmentally normal children with gastrointestinal symptoms.6 The measles virus used in the MMR vaccine is a live attenuated virus that normally causes no symptoms or only very mild ones. However, wild-type measles can infect the central nervous system and even cause postinfectious encephalomyelitis, probably as a result of an immune-mediated response to myelin proteins.7,8,9
Studies designed to evaluate the suggested link between MMR vaccination and autism do not support an association, but the evidence is weak and based on case-series, cross-sectional, and ecologic studies. No studies have had sufficient statistical power to detect an association, and none had a population-based cohort design.10,11,12,13,14,15,16 The World Health Organization and other organizations have requested further investigation of the hypothetical association between the MMR vaccine and autism.2,17,18,19,20 We evaluated the hypothesis in a cohort study that included all children born in Denmark in 1991 through 1998.

Methods

Study Design

We designed a retrospective follow-up study of all children born in Denmark during the period from January 1, 1991, to December 31, 1998. The cohort was established on the basis of data obtained from the Danish Civil Registration System and five other national registries.

All live-born children and new residents in Denmark are assigned a unique personal identification number (a civil-registry number), which is stored in the Danish Civil Registration System together with information on vital status, emigration, disappearance, address, and family members (mother, father, and siblings).21 The registry is updated once a week, and all changes in the stored information are reported to the registry according to established legal procedures. The civil-registry number is used as the link to information at the individual level in all other national registries. This system provides completely accurate linkage of information between registries at the individual level.

We determined MMR-vaccination status on the basis of vaccination data reported to the National Board of Health by general practitioners, who administer all MMR vaccinations in Denmark. The general practitioners are reimbursed by the state on the basis of these reports. We retrieved information on vaccinations from 1991 through 1999. The MMR vaccine was introduced in Denmark in 1987, and the single-antigen measles vaccine has not been used. The MMR vaccine used in Denmark during the study period was identical to that used in the United States and contained the following vaccine strains: Moraten (measles), Jeryl Lynn (mumps), and Wistar RA 27/3 (rubella).

The national vaccination program recommends that children be vaccinated at 15 months of age and again at 12 years. No change was made in the program during the study period. We obtained information on MMR vaccination at 15 months of age, since only this exposure is relevant to the end point under study. Since the vaccination data are transferred to the National Board of Health once a week, we chose Wednesday as the day of vaccination. When the vaccination information was recorded with the child's own civil-registry number, the information was directly linked with other registries. Before 1996, in most cases the vaccination information and the age of the child were recorded with the civil-registry number of the accompanying adult; we used information from the Danish Civil Registration System to identify the link from the accompanying adult to the child. Thus, 98.5 percent of the children were identified with the use of the child's civil-registry number or the civil-registry number of the mother or father and the age of the child at vaccination. The remaining 1.5 percent of children were identified on the basis of additional information from the Danish Civil Registration System on other relatives and information on the address at the time of vaccination.

Information about diagnoses of autism was obtained from the Danish Psychiatric Central Register, which contains information on all diagnoses received by patients in psychiatric hospitals, psychiatric departments, and outpatient clinics in Denmark.22 In our cohort, 93.1 percent of the children were treated only as outpatients, and 6.9 percent were at some point treated as inpatients in a psychiatric department. All diagnoses were based on the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10), which is similar to the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) with regard to autism.23,24,25,26 In Denmark, children are referred to specialists in child psychiatry by general practitioners, schools, and psychologists if autism is suspected. Only specialists in child psychiatry diagnose autism and assign a diagnostic code, and all diagnoses are recorded in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register. We identified all children given a diagnosis of autistic disorder (ICD-10 code F84.0 and DSM-IV code 299.00) or another autistic-spectrum disorder (ICD-10 codes F84.1 through F84.9 and DSM-IV codes 299.10 and 299.80). When a child was given diagnoses of both autistic disorder and one or more other autistic-spectrum disorders, we classified the diagnosis as autistic disorder. Autism is associated with the inherited genetic conditions tuberous sclerosis, Angelman's syndrome, and the fragile X syndrome and with congenital rubella. To maximize the homogeneity of the study population, data for children with these conditions were censored when the diagnosis was made. We obtained information on these conditions from the National Hospital Registry.

We performed an extensive record review for 40 children with autistic disorder (13 percent of all the children with autistic disorder) to validate the diagnosis of autism. A consultant in child psychiatry with expertise in autism examined the medical records. Thirty-seven of the children (92 percent) met the operational criteria for autistic disorder according to a systematic coding scheme developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for surveillance of autism and used in a prevalence study in Brick Township, New Jersey.27 The three children who did not meet the criteria for autistic disorder were all classified as having other autistic-spectrum disorders. For two of the children, the diagnosis of autistic disorder was questionable because of profound intellectual impairment. For the third child, we did not have information about the onset of symptoms before the age of three years, which is a prerequisite for the diagnosis of autistic disorder.

We obtained information on birth weight and gestational age from the Danish Medical Birth Registry and the National Hospital Registry.28,29 Information on potential confounders, including socioeconomic status (as indicated by the employment status of the head of the household) and mother's education was obtained from Statistics Denmark from the time when the child was 15 months of age.

Statistical Analysis

Follow-up for the diagnosis of autistic disorder or another autistic-spectrum disorder began for all children on the day they reached one year of age and continued until the diagnosis of autism or an associated condition (the fragile X syndrome, Angelman's syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, or congenital rubella), emigration, death, or the end of follow-up, on December 31, 1999, whichever occurred first. The incidence-rate ratios for autistic disorder and other autistic-spectrum disorders in the group of vaccinated children, as compared with the unvaccinated group, were examined in a log-linear Poisson regression model with the use of PROC GENMOD (SAS, version 6.12).30 We treated vaccination as a time-dependent covariate. The children were assigned to the nonvaccinated group until they received the MMR vaccine. From that date, they were followed in the vaccinated group. In additional analyses, the MMR-vaccinated children were grouped according to their age at the time of vaccination, the interval since vaccination, and the calendar period when vaccination was performed.

In reporting the results, we refer to the incidence-rate ratios as relative risks. For all risk estimates, we considered possible confounding by age (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 to 9 years), sex, calendar period (1992 to 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, or 1999; for other autistic-spectrum disorders, the years 1992, 1993, and 1994 were grouped together), socioeconomic status (six groups), mother's education (five groups), gestational age (36, 37 to 41, or 42 weeks), and birth weight (2499, 2500 to 2999, 3000 to 3499, 3500 to 3999, or 4000 g).

Results

A total of 537,303 children were included in the cohort and followed for a total of 2,129,864 person-years. Follow-up of 5811 children was stopped before December 31, 1999, because of a diagnosis of autistic disorder (in 316 children), other autistic-spectrum disorders (in 422), tuberous sclerosis (in 35), congenital rubella (in 2), or the fragile X or Angelman's syndrome (in 8), and because of death or emigration in the cases of 5028 children, whose data were censored. For children who received MMR vaccine, there were 1,647,504 person-years of follow-up, and for children who did not receive the vaccine, there were 482,360 person-years of follow-up.

Table 1 shows the distribution of the MMR cohort according to vaccination status, sex, birth weight, gestational age, socioeconomic status, mother's education, and age when autism was diagnosed. The mean age at diagnosis was four years and three months for autistic disorder and five years and three months for other autistic-spectrum disorders. The mean age at the time of the MMR vaccination was 17 months, and 98.5 percent of the vaccinated children were vaccinated before 3 years of age. The proportion of children who were vaccinated was the same among boys and girls (82.0 percent).

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Table 1. Characteristics of the 537,303 Children in the Danish Cohort.



Table 2 shows the association between variables related to MMR vaccination and the risk of autism. We calculated the relative risk with adjustment for age, calendar period, sex, birth weight, gestational age, mother's education, and socioeconomic status. Overall, there was no increase in the risk of autistic disorder or other autistic-spectrum disorders among vaccinated children as compared with unvaccinated children (adjusted relative risk of autistic disorder, 0.92; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.68 to 1.24; adjusted relative risk of other autistic-spectrum disorders, 0.83; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.65 to 1.07). Furthermore, we found no association between the development of autistic disorder and the age at vaccination (P=0.23), the interval since vaccination (P=0.42), or the calendar period at the time of vaccination (P=0.06).

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Table 2. Adjusted Relative Risk of Autistic Disorder and of Other Autistic-Spectrum Disorders in Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Children.



Adjustment for potential confounders with the exception of age resulted in similar estimates of risk. Changing the start of follow-up for autistic disorder and other autistic-spectrum disorders to the date of birth or 16 months of age had little effect on the estimates (data not shown). Furthermore, including children with the fragile X syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, congenital rubella, or Angelman's syndrome in the analysis did not change the estimates (data not shown).

Discussion

This study provides three strong arguments against a causal relation between MMR vaccination and autism. First, the risk of autism was similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated children, in both age-adjusted and fully adjusted analyses. Second, there was no temporal clustering of cases of autism at any time after immunization. Third, neither autistic disorder nor other autistic-spectrum disorders were associated with MMR vaccination. Furthermore, the results were derived from a nationwide cohort study with nearly complete follow-up data.

All previous studies of an association between autism and MMR vaccination have been case series,1,14,15 ecologic studies,11,12 or cross-sectional studies,10,13 and the majority have not used optimal data for risk assessment. In a well-conducted, cross-sectional prevalence study, Taylor and colleagues10 found that there was no sharp increase in the prevalence of autism after the introduction of the MMR vaccine. However, it could be argued that a more gradual increase would be expected, since autism is characterized by an insidious onset and a delay in diagnosis. A case-series study by Peltola et al.15 also provides evidence against a causal connection.

One of the main reasons for public concern has been that the widespread use of the MMR vaccine in some regions appeared to coincide with an increase in the incidence of autism. However, this is not a uniform finding. In Denmark, the prevalence of autism (according to the criteria of the International Classification of Diseases, 8th Revision) was less than 2.0 cases per 10,000 children between the ages of five and nine years in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Since then, the rates have increased in all age groups except for children younger than two years of age, and in 2000, the prevalence of autism (according to the ICD-10 criteria) was higher than 10.0 cases per 10,000 children five to nine years of age (unpublished data). Thus, the increase in autism both in California5 and in Denmark occurred well after the introduction of the MMR vaccine.

Our study was based on individual reports of vaccination and diagnoses of autism in a well-defined geographic area. The exposure data were collected prospectively, independently of parental recall and before the diagnosis of autism. Furthermore, the diagnosis was recorded independently of the recording of MMR vaccination. Thus, there was little possibility of differential misclassification of exposure or outcome measures. Furthermore, our analysis was based on complete follow-up data.

We assume that the data on MMR vaccination are almost complete, since general practitioners in Denmark are reimbursed only after reporting immunization data to the National Board of Health. We had an unvaccinated reference group with almost 500,000 person-years of follow-up, even though the study was numerically imbalanced in favor of the vaccinated group. The power of the study is reflected in the narrow 95 percent confidence intervals.

We had no information on the presence or absence of a family history of autism, which could explain our negative findings only if families with a history of autism avoided MMR vaccination. If so, we would expect to have found high relative risks at the beginning of the study period, before the hypothetical link between vaccination and autism was publicized. This was not the case. We had no information on whether the children with autism had regression, and thus we could not perform a subgroup analysis. However, the fact that the overall relative risk of autism or an autistic-spectrum disorder was less than 1.0 does not support the possibility of a subgroup of vulnerable children.

The Danish vaccination program recommends that children receive the MMR vaccine at 15 months of age and provides the vaccination free of charge. Among the children in our cohort who were born in 1995, the rate of MMR vaccination was lower than the rate of vaccination with the first Haemophilus influenzae type B vaccine (86.9 percent vs. 97.0 percent). However, the rate of MMR vaccination in our study was similar to that in the United States (87.6 percent in 1995) and Belgium (83.0 percent in 1997).31,32 Nevertheless, the main concern is the comparability of vaccinated and nonvaccinated children in relation to the end point under study. In all analyses, when risk estimates were calculated, we controlled for possible confounders (age, sex, calendar period, socioeconomic status, mother's education, gestational age, and birth weight). Except for age, none of these possible confounders changed the estimates. The confounding by age was a function of the time available for follow-up, since much of the follow-up for the unvaccinated group involved young children, in whom autism is often undiagnosed.

We assessed the validity of the diagnosis of autistic disorder in a subgroup of children and found it to be high. This was to be expected, since only specialists in child and adolescent psychiatry are authorized to code the diagnosis of autism in the Danish Psychiatric Central Register. All schools have access to health care personnel as well as psychologists. Because of the comprehensive health care surveillance for children in Denmark, all severe cases of autism are likely to be diagnosed and reported to the registry at some point. Reporting of the other autistic-spectrum disorders is less complete than that for autistic disorder, and some diagnoses are almost certainly missed. However, it is unlikely that this misclassification would be associated with vaccination status. It is very difficult to determine the onset of autism, and many cases are probably due to prenatal factors. Our records did not contain information on when the first autistic symptoms were noted, and we could not adjust for a differential delay in the diagnosis. Again, it is highly unlikely that a delayed diagnosis was associated with MMR vaccination in this study.

There are few published data on the incidence of autism, but the prevalence rates reported in the literature vary widely, from 1.2 cases per 10,000 (according to the criteria of the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) to 30.8 per 10,000 (according to the ICD-10 criteria).33,34 The prevalence rates among eight-year-old children in our cohort were 7.7 per 10,000 for autistic disorder and 22.2 per 10,000 for other autistic-spectrum disorders. These rates are similar to the prevalence rates of 5.4 per 10,000 for autistic disorder and 16.3 per 10,000 for other autistic-spectrum disorders in a cohort of 325,347 French children (ICD-10 criteria), reported by Fombonne et al.,35 and the rate of 11 per 10,000 for autistic disorder in a cohort of U.S. children (DSM-IV criteria), reported by Croen and colleagues.36 The DSM-IV classification system used in the United States and the ICD-10 classification system used in many European countries are almost identical with regard to the classification of autistic disorder.23,24,25,26 In our validity substudy, we found that 93 percent of cases diagnosed according to the ICD-10 criteria met the DSM-IV operational criteria for the diagnosis of autistic disorder.



Supported by grants from the Danish National Research Foundation; the National Vaccine Program Office and National Immunization Program, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the National Alliance for Autism Research.

We are indebted to Susanne Toft and Meta Jørgensen for the abstraction and review of medical records and to Catherine Rice and Nancy Dornberg for assistance with the validity substudy.


Source Information

From the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Århus, Denmark (K.M.M., M.V., P.T., J.O.); the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, Department of Epidemiology Research, Statens Serum Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark (A.H., J.W., M.M.); and the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta (D.S.).

Address reprint requests to Dr. Madsen at the Danish Epidemiology Science Center, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Vennelyst Blvd. 6, DK-8000, Aarhus C, Denmark, or at kmm@dadlnet.dk.

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Related Letters:

Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism
Spitzer W. O., Mullins M. E., Wakefield A. J., Noble K. K., Miyasaka K., Madsen K. M., Campion E. W.
Extract | Full Text | PDF
N Engl J Med 2003; 348:951-954, Mar 6, 2003. Correspondence


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http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/2522038.html

UC Davis study suggests autism risk grows with mother's advancing age
blindelof@sacbee.com
Published Monday, Feb. 08, 2010


UC Davis researchers say that a 40-year-old woman's risk of having a child with autism is 50 percent greater than a woman between of 25 and 29 years old.

The researchers' exhaustive new study also found that advanced paternal age is associated with higher autism risk only when the father is older and the mother is under 30.

The study was published today in the February issue of the journal "Autism Research." It is one of the largest population-based studies to report how each parent's age affects the risk of autism.

Advanced parental ages has been known as a risk factor. However, a UC Davis Health System news release states previous research has shown contradictory results on whether it is the mother, father or both who contribute the most to risk.

Janie Shelton, the study's lead author and a doctoral student in the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, said the study challenges a current theory that identifies the father's age as a key factor in increasing the risk.

"It shows that while maternal age consistently increases the risk of autism, the father's age only contributes an increased risk when the father is older and the mother is under 30 years old," said Shelton.

Among mothers over 30, increases in the father's age do not appear to further increase the risk of autism.

Autism is a disorder that affects language and social skills. During the 1990s, according to the press release, the number of California women over 40 who gave birth increased by more than 300 percent.

The researchers obtained records for all births in the state during the 1990s. Understanding the relationship between the age of mothers and fathers and autism is crucial to understanding the cause of autism, researchers said.

The reason that having an older parent places a child at risk for autism is not known, said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a researcher at the UC Davis MIND Institute and the study's senior author.

quote:

UC Davis study suggests autism risk grows with mother's advancing age
blindelof@sacbee.com
Published Monday, Feb. 08, 2010

Japanese Data Show Vaccines Cause Autism
Posted on June 3, 2009 by childhealthsafety

http://childhealthsafety.wordp.../06/03/japvaxautism/

Despite of what the Davis Studies suggest , we all do have our belief on Vaccines and the big Pharmacutical Companies whose aims are to make gazillions of dollars at any cost.

Maybe somewhere down the line, we might find another study that would flawed the Davis Studies.

The Debate continues......and people have their doubts.

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Links between autism and thimerosal

Autism affects 500,000 to 1.5 million Americans and has grown at an annual rate of 10 to 17 percent since the late 1980s. California found a 273 percent increase in autism between 1987 and 1998. Maryland reported a 513 percent increase in autism between 1993 and 1998 and several dozen other states reported similar findings. Some scientists say the estimated number of cases of autism has increased 15-fold –1,500 percent – since 1991, when the number of childhood vaccinations doubled. Whereas one in every 2,500 children was diagnosed with autism before 1991, one in 166 children now have the disease.
This increase in reported autism cases eerily parallels the increase in the number and frequency of thimerosal-containing vaccinations administered to infants. As of today, children are given as many as 21 immunizations in the first 15 months of life. After a number of scientists and concerned activists noticed the correlation, an investigation was launched to get to the heart of the matter.

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Statistical evidence links thimerosal with nervous system disorders

In June 2000, federal officials and industry representatives were assembled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss the disturbing evidence. According to Tom Verstraeten, an epidemiologist who had analyzed the data on the CDC's database, thimerosal appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and other neurological disorders. Verstraeten told those at the meeting that a number of earlier studies indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism.
Verstraeten offered no possible cause for this correlation, but held that the statistical evidence linking vaccines and neurological disorders was strong. Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado, presented similar concerns to the group. However, given no causal relationship, the CDC and industry representatives were quick to discredit the evidence.

Consequently, the CDC paid the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct another study on thimerosal. According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., this study was fixed in order to "whitewash" previous findings. In its 2001 report, the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee did conclude that the link between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders was biologically plausible, though the evidence neither proved nor negated it. The Committee stated that phasing out thimerosal from vaccines was “a prudent measure in support of the public health goal to reduce mercury exposure of infants and children as much as possible.” However, these findings offered no imperative. The data presented at the 2000 meeting was withheld from publication and the link between thimerosal and autism remained "inconclusive."

But what does "inconclusive" mean? Well, that depends on who you talk to. According to the FDA, these "inconclusive" findings negate the risk of a causal relationship between thimerosal and autism. Even Tom Verstraeten, one of the presenters of epidemiological evidence at the CDC meeting, seemingly changed his tune a bit. In 2000, Verstraeten vigorously campaigned against thimerosal based upon his "inconclusive" correlation, but after he was hired by GlaxoSmithKline, the doctor changed his position. The same evidence from 2000, in Verstraeten's eyes, became "neutral" in 2003. After criticism for this apparent flip-flop, Verstaeten wrote a letter to the editor of Pediatrics in 2004 backing the CDC's actions and his own research methods.

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Merck continues selling vaccines with thimerosal

Without an imperative to eradicate thimerosal immediately, vaccine manufacturers like Merck & Co. seemingly took their time in reducing thimerosal levels in vaccines. After a large public outcry in 1999, Merck & Co. began decreasing or eliminating the amount of thimerosal in its vaccines. In September 1999, Merck announced that its new line of vaccines were preservative-free, but still continued to distribute the remainder of thimerosal-preserved vaccines until 2001. Only after a congressional inquiry in 2002 did they stop distributing their stockpile. Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., called Merck's actions "misleading."
While officials at the Center for Disease Control claim evidence is lacking to support the possible risks of thimerosal, Dr. Mark Geier, a Maryland geneticist and vaccinologist, along with his son and research partner David Geier, says the CDC has chosen to ignore the science. According to Dr. Geier, more than 5,000 articles have been published that question the safety of thimerosal in vaccines.

The Geiers analyzed the data and determined that the more thimerosal a child receives, the greater his or her chances are of being autistic. The CDC says the Geiers misused information from a CDC database that was not intended to help prove theories. Given no real causal mechanism linking thimerosal and autism, the game seems to have become one of slanting the data to suit the needs of government and industrial interests. Even Verstraeten has admitted that these "inconclusive" findings certainly don't rule out the possibility of finding a link in the future.

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Grassroots action against vaccine manufacturers

Given the dearth of health organizations owning up to the dangers of thimerosal, many parents followed their gut instincts and took legal action against vaccine manufacturers. More than 4,200 families have filed lawsuits claiming thimerosal caused injuries to their children. These lawsuits often have two goals: First, to seek reparations for the loss of consortium (basically meaning that an autistic child creates emotional and psychological burdens on their family life), and second, to ensure that these companies exercise more concern for public health and less concern for their own bottom line.
The lawsuits are slow in producing results. The first constraint on these lawsuits is the National Childhood Vaccine Act of 1986. This act stipulates that victims cannot seek redress in the courts without first filing a claim for recovery in the federal Vaccine Court. The statute of limitations for this is within three years of "the first symptom or manifestation of onset or of the significant aggravation of a [vaccine-related] injury."

In the cases of many thimerosal victims, the link between autism and vaccines didn't appear until six years after the first vaccine was administered. While this statute has stopped some claims against vaccine manufacturers, including such big firms as Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck and Johnson & Johnson, many judges are now allowing suits against Eli Lilly, the maker of thimerosal, to stand. While the Vaccine Act shields vaccine manufacturers, one judge reasons that the legislation does not protect the production of thimerosal because it is a "component."

The burden of proof in court is also extremely problematic for most of these suits. Given the supposed lack of scientific data, lawyers are hard-pressed to prove the link between thimerosal and autism. In what seems like an underhanded move, the CDC sold its data to a private company, ensuring that lawyers could not access it under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the past five years, Congress has also aided vaccine manufacturers, supposedly for "security" reasons. In 2002, a mysterious piggyback on the 2002 Homeland Security bill freed drug companies of liability in lawsuits regarding thimerosal. Called the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" by outraged parents and activists, the then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey told CBS News he snuck the amendment in to keep vaccine-makers from going out of business. Armey claimed it was a matter of national security. "We need their vaccines if the country is attacked with germ weapons."

Ironically, foreign biological terrorism hasn't been a big problem for American citizens, but those whose lives (and the lives of their children) have been affected if not ruined by the harmful effects of thimerisol would undoubtedly say these potentially harmful vaccines are indeed a problem. Armey's piggyback bill was repealed in 2003, but that didn't stop lawmakers from continuing to protect the vaccine industry.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is no stranger to the thimerosal debate, having received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry and $10,000 from Eli Lilly. Frist's position allowed him to attempt to help the industry from the inside, according to Kennedy. Kennedy reports that on five occasions, Frist tried to seal the government's vaccine-related documents and shield Eli Lilly from subpoenas. Frist also introduced a provision in the 2005 Senate Bill S-3 called the "Protecting America in the War on Terror Act," that would effectively insulate the pharmaceutical industry from liability for thimerosal poisoning. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis, Weyeth and Eli Lilly, can basically get off scot-free for their actions, even as more and more evidence suggests that top company officials were aware of the possible dangers and did nothing.

A secret memo leaked to the Los Angeles Times reportedly implicates one vaccine manufacturer, Merck & Co., for knowing that thimerosal could pose serious threats to infants. Allegedly, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of Merck's top scientists, warned the president of Merck of a possible threat as early as 1991. Dr. Hilleman told executives that six-month-old children receiving regular immunizations frequently received mercury doses 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum consumption of mercury. Given today's more prudent mercury standards, those thimerosal doses would be 400 times that of safe levels. Dr. Hilleman recommended in the memo that thimerosal be discontinued.

Not only do government and industry officials seem to be trying to downplay the possible harms of thimerosal; the media is also denying the issue coverage. Just recently, ABC flip-flopped on whether it will air interviews with Robert Kennedy Jr., a leading critic of thimerosal. ABC has been accused of suppressing the interviews because of its ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/011764.html

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Now that the study by Dr. Wakefield, which started the bogus link between MMR vaccines and autism, has been exposed to be a fraud, the people who carried on with this charade should be ashamed of themselves. They should think of the thousands of young people who died from measles when they could have easily been immunized against the disease. Even when the most comprehensive of studies is out there showing that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. A study was done and reported by the New England Journal of Medicine using 537,000 births between 1991 and 1998 in Denmark http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/347/19/1477. The incidence of autism was the same amongst the 82% who were given the MMR vaccine as the 18% who were not. What these clowns should be asking themselves is where did the autism come from in the 18% of children who did not receive any vaccines?