Vaccine issues

Hummmm.....interesting. You mean to tell me that the government was aware that mercury in vaccines could cause autism....and did NOTHING about it? Wow. There's a shock.


http://www.milforddailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=87552



Milford Daily News, MA
Tuesday, March 7, 2006


Report: Government knew of autism link
By Jon Brodkin


Eight years before the U.S. government decided to remove mercury from most
childhood vaccines, federal health officials were already receiving reports
linking vaccinations to new cases of autism.

Starting in 1991 after the government set up a database to record
adverse reactions to vaccines, doctors, parents and others reported
frightening responses to inoculations in children subsequently diagnosed
with autism.

Vaccinated children exhibited severe brain damage, high-pitched "hyena"
laughs and screams, drunken behavior, senseless babbling, infantile spasms
and seizures, "bug-eyed" looks, and the complete loss of abilities like
toilet training and language, according to the Vaccine Adverse Events
Reporting System (VAERS).

There were 83 such reports from across the country before the government
asked vaccine manufacturers in 1999 to remove thimerosal -- a preservative
containing mercury.

The government still denies that toxic mercury injected into infants
caused a huge increase in autism prevalence, but parents say federal
officials did not act upon reports linking vaccines to autism quickly
enough.

"My stomach twisted and turned," Acton parent Jeannie Meijer wrote in an
e-mail after reading the reports. "It's tough to think that if people had
been paying more attention, or been more honest, the autism epidemic may not
have happened and my son may have been spared. Really tough."

The 83 autism reports in the 1990s in VAERS were submitted as evidence
in a Texas court case that ended last year.

Government officials say the VAERS database cannot be used to draw
conclusions about autism because it records reports from anyone, whether
they be doctors, patients or lawyers. But government officials relied on
VAERS data when it suspended a rotavirus vaccine in 1999 after just 15
reports linking it to infant bowel obstruction.

VAERS had already recorded 15 reports linking vaccines to autism by
1994.

"Why would the governmental agencies charged with ensuring a safe
vaccine supply ignore so many reports and continue to put millions of
children at risk, including both of our sons?" asked Jared Hansen, a
Framingham parent of two autistic boys. "Who benefits from the silence?"

Hansen and his wife, Marjorie, filed one of 4,700 claims pending in a
national vaccine court alleging that thimerosal in vaccines caused their
children to be autistic. The cases, which are being heard in a single
proceeding, are expected to be resolved in about three years. Meanwhile, the
Massachusetts Legislature is considering a proposal to ban thimerosal in the
state.

After hearing government officials spend years denying any connection
between vaccines and autism, the Hansens found it disturbing to read the
VAERS reports from long before mercury was removed from infant shots.

"It was actually pretty emotional," Jared said. "My wife was crying
about it....There's so much of it that's familiar. You read through it,
there's a real pattern that emerges. It's disturbing to think this was all
before my sons were exposed."

Federal health officials deny the VAERS reports should have spurred
earlier action on mercury in vaccines. The VAERS data "in and of itself is
not a strong signal," said Glen Nowak, spokesman for the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

"It's not a database that was ever designed to track the incidence or
prevalence of any disease or disorder," Nowak said.

In the case of the rotavirus vaccine, there was evidence from clinical
trials suggesting it may cause bowel obstruction in some infants even before
the vaccine hit the market, Nowak said. Therefore, health officials were on
the lookout for adverse events related to the rotavirus vaccine, but did not
look for patterns the VAERS database might have shown in autism reporting.

The VAERS autism reports also did not mention the mercury preservative
specifically, Nowak said. But he did not deny that the government knew
mercury -- a neurotoxin -- was present in vaccines.

While the rotavirus vaccine is now off the market, the U.S. Public
Health Service in 1999 asked -- but did not require -- manufacturers to
remove mercury from vaccines. Thimerosal was phased out of most infant shots
over several years, but it is still widely used in flu shots routinely given
to babies and pregnant women.

Research investigating a potential link between vaccines and autism was
spurred by huge increases in the disease's prevalence observed in the 1990s
after the government more than doubled the amount of mercury infants were
being given through vaccines.

An Institute of Medicine report in 2004 found no link between autism and
thimerosal. "There were five very solid epidemiologic studies (we looked
at). All of them came down on the side of no association between thimerosal
and autism," said Dr. Marie McCormick, a Harvard professor who was chairman
of the IOM committee.

But a confidential CDC study in 2000 actually found that children were
2.5 times more likely to develop autism when they receive 62.5 micrograms of
mercury from vaccines at 3 months of age. The study was uncovered by an
advocacy group under the Freedom of Information Act.

"They're on record saying there's no effect from thimerosal, it's
completely safe, even though their own internal studies show it's harmful,"
said researcher David Geier.

Children injected with 62.5 micrograms of mercury in a single day, as
many were, were given a dose 129 times higher than a federal safety limit,
Geier said.

Last week, Geier and his father, Dr. Mark Geier, reported that an
analysis of VAERS and two other databases shows that new autism diagnoses
have declined since thimerosal was removed from most childhood vaccines, a
finding supportive of an autism-vaccine connection.

Parents and researchers who believe thimerosal causes autism say the
government should have identified this possibility years ago when they began
receiving reports from doctors and families.

CDC officials argue that the VAERS database is not reliable in part
because it is influenced by media reporting on certain diseases. The media
influence may be seen in nearly 800 autism reports filed since 2000.

But the 83 reports in the 1990s came before the topic received
widespread media coverage, and likely represent just a fraction of autism
cases caused by thimerosal, advocates said.

Andy Waters, an attorney who submitted the reports as evidence in the
Texas court case, decided to use data only from the 1990s because "I didn't
want it to be an artifact of the press."

Waters' case alleging that a child became autistic because of thimerosal
was dismissed after he failed to prove the preservative harmed the specific
child. But Texas Judge T. John Ward's ruling states that the court could not
dismiss a general link between pediatric vaccines and autism.

The VAERS database, while not definitive proof of harm caused by
thimerosal, provides parents a chilling reminder of their own struggles.
Jeannie Meijer watched her son Matthew, born in 2000, develop normally until
he was 18 months old. Then, like many other children who received

mercury-containing vaccines, Matthew regressed until the only word he could
say was "mama."

The federal database includes reports of autistic children with
encephalopathy, literally a disease that alters brain function or structure.
An Illinois boy suffered a major seizure eight hours after a vaccine,
resulting in permanent brain damage.

Another autistic child lost the ability to play and began acting deaf.
One girl less than a year old developed spasms lasting 15 minutes just hours
after a vaccination. Another repeatedly banged his head and still another
was hospitalized with "full-blown" seizures.

Bobbie Manning, who has a 10-year-old son with autism, said on the day
his son was born he was given a dose of mercury in a Hepatitis B vaccine
that would be considered safe under federal guidelines only if he had
weighed 550 pounds.

Manning, vice president of A-CHAMP, a New York-based parents' advocacy
group, was shocked when she began learning about mercury's presence in
vaccines.

"I thought to myself, if I gave my child thimerosal, I'd be going to
jail," she said.