Thimerosal scandal
Time for CDC to Come Clean.
Correspondence newly obtained under the Freedom of Information Act raises troubling new
questions about CDC's role in the Thimerosal scandal. Thimerosal is the mercury-based
vaccine preservative that has been linked to epidemics of neurological disorders,
including autism, in American children born after 1989. Responding to scientific studies
linking dangerous levels of mercury to a range of health disorders, the CDC in July 1999
recommended that the nation's vaccine makers eliminate Thimerosal as a preservative,
"as soon as possible." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/
Early Downward Trends in
Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines
http://www.jpands.org/vol11no1/geier.pdf
Analysis of two independent government
databases shows that the alarming increase in reported cases of autism not only slowed but
actually reversed since thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines, according to the
lead article in the spring 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
http://www.aapsonline.org/nod/newsofday265.php
The Age of Autism: Mercury creeps
back in
New calculations suggest children today
can be exposed to more than half the mercury that was in vaccines in the 1990s, even
though manufacturers began phasing it out in 1999. Adjusted for a child's body weight at
the time of the shots, there's virtually no reduction at all, according to this analysis.
The source: Flu vaccines, which have been
recommended for millions more kids over 6 months old and pregnant women in the past few
years. Most of those shots still contain the mercury-based preservative called thimerosal
that some fear is behind a huge rise in autism diagnoses. "It's been under the radar
and it's allowed health officials to say, 'We've taken it out of all the childhood
vaccines,'" said Dr. David Ayoub, an Illinois anti-thimerosal activist who put the
data together along with Maryland researchers David Geier and Dr. Mark Geier. "They
don't consider influenza one of the mandated childhood vaccines yet," Ayoub said. But
because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends flu shots for all
pregnant women and all children between 6 months and age 5, doctors routinely give them.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=
Fluvaccin without Thimerosal -
FluMist neusspray
http://www.flumist.com/pdf/patientinfo.pdf
Don’t Eat the Fish?
In March, 2001, the FDA issued a
statement warning pregnant women and young children not to eat fish containing high levels
of mercury for fear of causing neurological problems in children. Yet, the CDC's National
Immunization Program (NIP) has continued to allow these same sensitive populations to be
exposed to mercury from routinely administered flu shots which contain more mercury than
seafood. Why?
In 2001, the CDC and its Office of the
NIP contracted with the Institute of Medicine to create the Immunization Safety Review
Committee in order to examine the scientific evidence regarding a number of vaccine injury
hypotheses including the correlation between reception of thimerosal containing vaccines
and the onset of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism.
The IOM’s first report on thimerosal
was issued in October, 2001 (Immunization Safety Review: Thimerosal - Containing Vaccines
and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (2001) Institute of Medicine) and addressed the question
if exposure to thimerosal containing vaccines could be associated with adverse
neurodevelopmental disorders. The committee stated they found the hypothesis
“biologically plausible.” The committee recommends that infants, children and
pregnant women should not be exposed to thimerosal containing vaccines.
http://www.redflagsdaily.com/articles/2005_mar01_2.html
ABC 7 Medical:
Autism Study Prompts Debate
A new study shows a dramatic decrease in
the rate of autism since mercury has been removed from most childhood vaccines. But the
whole topic of childhood vaccines remains controversial, as the centers for disease
control disputes the study. medical reporter Kathy Fowler joins us with a look at this
study. Kathy Fowler: local researchers looked at three different federal and state data
bases to determine what they say is absolute proof that thimerosal or mercury in vaccines
has been responsible for an epidemic of autism in this country. But the CDC calls the
study misleading. one local mother says all she wants is the truth.
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0306/309536.html
Merck Misled on Vaccines, Some
Say
The firm supplied shots containing a
mercury compound after saying it had halted its use
Drug maker Merck & Co. continued to
supply infant vaccine containing a mercury-based preservative for two years after
declaring that it had eliminated the chemical. In September 1999, amid rising concern
about the risks of mercury in childhood vaccines, Merck announced that the Food and Drug
Administration had approved a preservative-free version of its hepatitis B vaccine.
?Now, Merck's infant vaccine line,? the
company's press release said, ?is free of all preservatives.?
But Merck continued to distribute vaccine
containing the chemical known as thimerosal, along with the new product, until October
2001, according to an FDA letter sent in response to a congressional inquiry. The
thimerosal-containing supplies had expiration dates in 2002.
http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/9713/
We have traded treatable
childhood illnesses for lifelong, extremely costly disability and disease
Why Do Pediatricians Deny The Obvious?
It’s 2006, and for the first time in
history, U.S. children are sicker than the generation before them.
What happened? Many have argued that the
increasingly aggressive vaccination schedule is partly to blame. (18-23) In the 1980s,
more vaccines were given earlier in infancy, as were more multivalent doses, most of which
contained mercury. In the 1990s, genetically recombined vaccines came into use for the
first time, and were used universally on day-old infants, who had never before been
vaccinated with anything. Indeed, children are currently advised to get 54 vaccine doses
by age 12 — a circumstance unprecedented in human history, and one that coincides
neatly with the escalation in child health problems. If true, by vaccinating so zealously,
rather than making children healthier, as school districts, federal health programs,
corporate health infrastructures, and pediatricians insist, we have traded mostly benign
or treatable childhood illnesses for incurable, lifelong, extremely costly disability and
disease. It means that current vaccine policy and practice create more morbidity and
mortality than they prevent in U.S. children.
http://www.redflagsdaily.com/articles/2006_mar08.html
91 Memo Warned of Mercury in
Shots
A memo from Merck & Co. shows that,
nearly a decade before the first public disclosure, senior executives were concerned that
infants were getting an elevated dose of mercury in vaccinations containing a widely used
sterilizing agent.
The March 1991 memo, obtained by The
Times, said that 6-month-old children who received their shots on schedule would get a
mercury dose up to 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of
mercury from fish.
When viewed in this way, the mercury load
appears rather large,? said the memo from Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman, an internationally
renowned vaccinologist. It was written to the president of Merck's vaccine division.
The memo was prepared at a time when U.S.
health authorities were aggressively expanding their immunization schedule by adding five
new shots for children in their first six months. Many of these shots, as well as some
previously included on the vaccine schedule, contained thimerosal, an antibacterial
compound that is nearly 50% ethyl mercury, a neurotoxin.
http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/9283/
Deadly immunity
When a study revealed that mercury in
childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to
conceal the data and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in
the epidemic.
In June 2000, a group of top government
scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood
conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded
farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had
issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to 52 attendees.
There were high-level officials from the
CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health
Organization in Geneva, and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including
GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under
discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly
"embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers
with them when they left.
The federal officials and industry
representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming
questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants
and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had
analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children,
a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible
for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among
children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those
assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a
link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and
autism.
Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had
recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to
extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of
cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166
children.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/index.html
Autism cover-up video -MSNBC
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm
Interview with Robert F. Kennedy
Serious researchers are pushed
around
