The U.S. government has utterly failed to sweep the vaccine-autism link under the rug. Intelligent, well-informed parents are increasingly questioning the medical justification of the mass vaccination of their children, and they're saying NO to vaccines! Today, Byron Richards reveals the details on how injecting babies with multiple vaccines causes an inflammatory response that leads to autism -- even when there's NO thimerosal used. Check the "CNN Helps Autism Debacle" story below for more details.
On April 2, 2008 CNN spent the day bringing awareness to the problem of autism. Larry King's segment, which included Jenny McCarthy along with a panel of guests, was particularly enlightening. My hat is off to Jenny, a celebrity mother who is making it quite uncomfortable for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to ignore parents of autistic children seeking answers. Why does a mom have to do the work of the CDC? The answer is rather simple: our government's zeal to insist on too many vaccines while ignoring the actual risks is the driving force behind the autism tragedy. Sure there are many related factors – but the bottom line is that our government is causing disease at an alarming and devastating pace.
It is an interesting comment on our society that an outspoken and impassioned mother of an autistic child, along with her partner (actor Jim Carrey), are the catalysts that are likely to cause a warped empire to crumble. Many before them have tried; and typically been burned at the stake. Jenny and Jim are the government's worst nightmare. They can't shut down their medical practice because they don't have one. They can't financially damage them into silence. And as they lead their autism March on Washington D.C. this June 4th it is quite clear that they haven't a prayer of shutting them up. A powder keg is about to blow.
Jenny, to her credit, takes a diplomatic view on vaccines. Here main point is that there are too many vaccines given too soon and that the vaccines contain too many toxic components. As both a leading defender of health freedom in this country and a top nutritionist who has helped numerous autistic children, I am more than happy to put the entire problem into perspective and give insights that will help many parents.
A Brief History of Vaccines, Profits, and Politics
Vaccines started the Big Pharma sickness industry over 100 years ago. While the public views vaccines in a preventive health context our government's position is much more complex. Vaccines and germs are part of warfare, and the issue is deeply woven into national security interests. Military personnel are frequently subjected to experimental vaccines. Vaccines are a key component of herd mentality; i.e., the ability of those in power to get a population to behave. Public health is never in the best interest of any one person, which is why laws are concocted to enforce compliance. Unelected bureaucrats and scientists in our government agencies, tied financially to the profits of the drug industry and linked to the military, have been playing God for many decades. They know full well there will be deaths and injuries from vaccinations; collateral damage that is justified by prevented disease (a convenient and fear-driven argument).
Our government has no problem manipulating data so that the benefits appear to outweigh the risks. Imagine having a calculator that always has the same conclusion no matter what data is entered. How can the risk of injuring 1 in 150 children for life be acceptable to Big Pharma and the revolving door CDC and FDA management? Any business would love to have the opportunity to produce a product and have the government mandate its sale. Government officials find lucrative jobs in the industries they regulate – after doing "good work." Autism is partly a side effect of the cancer within government agencies.
Our government will never pay the price to screen children at risk for autism – that would be too proactive and expensive on the front end. They won't even prepare a reasonable patient history checklist that reflects obvious risk for vaccine injury – as too many parents would opt out. Rather, our government specializes in lazy medicine – fire a shotgun and if someone gets injured it is their fault for standing there. Costs are now the burden of families on the back end of the equation; more profits for the sickness industry. If autism didn't have painful little faces connected with it this problem would simply be swept under the rug, as is the 100,000 Americans (mostly elderly) killed by Big Pharma drugs every year.
The problem for our government is that an admission of guilt on the autism-vaccine link causes the entire paradigm of the Big Pharma-driven Western-medicine sickness industry to collapse. Even worse in their eyes, it would send an earthquake through the brotherhood of Big Pharma, public health, the CDC, the FDA, the global elite, and the military. Other public health programs would be questioned – like polluting our water with a neurotoxin called fluoride that makes a population more docile and controllable.
Unfortunately for parents combating autism, the problems of their child is only a portion of the issue they now must try to solve. They are up against a government dead set on preventing the truth from ever coming out. Once cornered, our government will play the national security card before fessing up to their sins or making any real effort to correct the damage they have done.
A Major Crack in Our Government's Armor
The case of Hannah Poling is raising quite a stir. She is now 9 years old. As a healthy and normally developing 18-month-old girl she showed up for her well baby visit and was pummeled with 9 vaccinations, two of them containing the mercury preservative known as thimerosal. Her health immediately deteriorated into full blown autism.
Her case was the first to be settled of 4,900 autism cases pending before federal Vaccine Court. She claimed that mercury-containing vaccines were the cause of her autism. In a shocking turn of events the federal government conceded this autism case saying that "compensation is appropriate."
However, our government refused to admit vaccines caused her autism. Indeed, the government settled the case before there was even a hearing. The last thing the government wants is to put vaccines on public trial, and place pictures of injured children on the news every night, especially when the evidence of the case is so clear that vaccines will certainly lose.
Rather, the CDC is hinting that it was Hannah's mitochondria that were to blame, not the vaccines. This argument opens another Pandora's box (more on that later).
The defendant in all vaccine cases is the Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. Talk about conflict of interest! A pack of foxes is in charge of the national chicken coop.
How Our Government Defends Itself When It Is Clearly Wrong
It is somewhat unfortunate that those who have helped to champion the cause of our government's involvement in vaccine injury have placed so many eggs in the thimerosal basket. Of course mercury is a nerve toxin and its involvement in autism is likely as a percentage of the problem. However, neither thimerosal nor any single vaccine is an adequate overall explanation for autism.
Our government is using various studies to deflect the vaccine-autism link. These studies relate to thimerosal and MMR vaccines, but not to the collective number of vaccines given at one time and the overall number of vaccines given so early in life (the real problem). This flimsy government defense is being used to deflect attention away from vaccines as a causative link to autism. (Read their vaccine studies here: http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/vaccines.htm)
This is a classic stalling tactic used by corrupt government and industry when they have been caught red-handed. This approach involves acknowledging certain aspects of the problem, making changes (they took thimerosal out of many vaccines), creating doubt (their "study" defense), and then continuing with the mass vaccination program even though they know it causes harm. This strategy will deflect most of the legal liability from vaccine-related injury, delaying it and then minimizing it over time. A legion of government-funded scientists can be paraded in a courtroom for decades with the sole purpose of creating doubt and delaying taking responsibility for the problem. An admission of guilt opens a floodgate of liability lawsuits.
They think their skimpy studies give them breathing room so that they can now direct attention elsewhere to mysterious possibilities like genetics or environmental toxins that will also take them decades to figure out. True enough, these issues are also a percentage of the problem – so much so that they can be used to confuse the vaccine link for a long time. The government's defense is always that more research is needed. This is not research that proves what they are doing is safe before they continue to do it; it is research that proves what they are doing is harmful before they stop doing it. Unfortunately, behind closed doors they cherry pick their research results as well as what they choose to study.
In the mean time these unelected bureaucrats continue to unabashedly administer a vaccine program that injures and kills. Most societies would either call this murder or involuntary manslaughter. Why don't we hear Bush, McCain, Clinton, or Obama weighing in on this issue? Why don't they stand on stage with a group of autistic children and tell mothers everywhere how important vaccines are?
When the Hannah Polling case got on the radar map and blew up in the government's face, a damage control press conference was held. Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the CDC, stated, "There's absolutely nothing changed in the adamant recommendations that we are making to get children vaccinated. This is proven to save lives and is an essential component of health protection for children across America and the world." Dr. Gerberding should be the first to stand trial. ((http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/transcri...)
Why Vaccines are a Problem
It is quite clear that the rate of autism in this country is directly time-associated with the increased numbers of vaccines given to children. The explosion in autism between 1987 and 1992 coincides with the tripling in the numbers of vaccines given to our children. While such data is not proof of cause and effect, it is significant and cannot be ignored by any responsible parent (it is ignored by the government and medical profession).
Numerous parents report taking their healthy child to the doctor, getting a barrage of vaccinations, having their child run a high fever, and their child never again being the same. THAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM THAT PARENTS SEE WITH THEIR OWN TWO EYES.
The current government strategy is to keep arguing about thimerosal and MMR vaccines – as they know they can create enough doubt to win that argument in the majority of the scientific community. What the government does not want to discuss is the adjuvant in vaccines – which will clearly be shown to be the autism trigger.
Vaccines contain weakened "signatures" of a disease. By themselves they are not strong enough for the immune system to mount a response. This problem is solved by adding a "booster" compound called an adjuvant. An adjuvant does not contain any signature of the disease. Rather, the adjuvant initiates an inflammatory reaction (the first step in any immune response). The idea is to get the immune system revved up so that it can see the weakened disease and learn what it looks like so that if it ever sees it again it will be more prepared to fight it. This concept, in and of itself, has validity – but only given the right set of circumstances.
It is clear that those with autism have an excessively inflamed brain. If pressed, the CDC would likely argue that the brain inflammation is a result of the autism and that they need more studies to determine the cause. I will argue that they don't need any more studies at all and that the cause is blatantly obvious based on an understanding of existing science. The multiple inflammatory insults from the adjuvant in vaccines, at a rate of 1 in 150 cases, sets the brain on fire and causes autism. As an aside, and to a lesser extent (but just as important to society), a minor brush fire causes ADHD and impaired intelligence. References: http://www.wellnessresources.com/newsro...
http://www.wellnessresources.com/newsro...
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How Your Brain Works
The crumbling paradigm of Western medicine likes to break down body function according to convenient classifications such as nerves, immunity, hormones, etc. In reality your brain is a central processor of all systems in your body and thus has connections that link nerves, immune function, and hormones into one symphony of function. In other words, it is not possible to study only neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine and actually understand what your brain is doing.
Ten percent of the cells in your brain are neurotransmitter related. The other 90% are glial cells, also called astrocytes. For decades scientists thought that 90% of your brain was nothing more than a structural framework, simply because scientific tools were not adequate to understand what glial cells were doing, but that has changed in the past 10 years. Glial cells run your brain and your neurotransmitters. They are the brokers of all information coming into your brain – with direct links to your immune system and endocrine system (hormones).
Glial cells are the inflammation brokers in your brain. When stress, a toxin pollutant, or a destructive food additive (like MSG, aspartame, or food coloring) enter your brain they induce excitotoxic reactions that inflame brain cells. This inflammation is buffered primarily by the hormone leptin and other antioxidants, a process that intimately involves the healthy function of glial cells.
When the buffering anti-inflammatory capacity of glial cells is overloaded, then inflammation becomes chronic. Minimally, this results in brain wear and tear. It is the mechanism behind all accelerated brain aging and, depending on a person's genetic weaknesses and other health issues, leads to various states of early cognitive decline and nerve-related diseases of aging such as Alzheimer's.
There is also a point at which low grade brain inflammation catches fire. In adults with an established nerve network this causes a "power outage" in the head, otherwise known as spreading depression. Such an event is typically triggered by emotional pain or physical pain of a prolonged nature or acute intensity (elevating substance P to abnormally high levels). Such trauma pushes struggling nerves over the edge.
The difference in a fetus or small child is that the nervous system is still rapidly evolving. If the brain catches fire at this age proper development of the nerves can be seriously disturbed (the autism spectrum of disorders) or functionally impaired (ADHD, lower IQ).
The adjuvant in vaccine is pro-inflammatory; i.e., neurologically excitotoxic. That is intentional so as to boost the effectiveness of the vaccine. The problem comes about when giving so many of them at once, which can injure even a perfectly healthy child. Giving multiple adjuvants is like playing Russian roulette with a child's brain. Children with already inflamed nerves are at much higher risk for reacting to multiple vaccines, as their nerves have been conditioned to hyper-react. Don't think for a moment that Dr. Gerberding and other scientists at the CDC aren't fully aware of this issue.
Government Responsibility
Our government has the responsibility to prove the safety of any vaccination being recommended for broad public health, as part of an overall vaccine program. Our current knowledge of science, the immune system, and the brain would make it unlikely that broad vaccine programs could ever be approved for use today if they hadn't being going on for so long.
Our government is not only grossly negligent on the vaccine issue itself, but on numerous other true public health issues that pose a significant risk for brain inflammation in fetuses and children. The CDC, the EPA, and the FDA all play large roles in creating huge autism risk for our population.
Space in this article only allows a few examples; there are many. Environmental pollution that is fat soluble can cross the placenta, exists in mother's milk, or occurs in the general food supply fed to small children. Fat soluble toxins cross the blood-brain barrier and induce nerve inflammation.
Huge public health risks include widespread contamination of our food supply with fat soluble PCB toxins, a problem that would cost at least 50 billion dollars to clean up. Another example of broad exposure is the neurotoxic pesticides used on food (originally Nazi nerve gas agents). Another example is the military's poisoning of our water supply with perchlorate, a contaminant now found in breast milk of mothers across the country. This interferes with thyroid function in the baby, resulting in a serious risk for faulty brain development.
Another example is iron fortification of baby formulas, which encourages the growth of hostile bacteria and Candida Albicans in the child's digestive tract; organisms that produce neurotoxic waste products. Another example is the use of antibiotics before age 1, which also encourages the growth of the very same hostile bacteria and Candida. C-Section deliveries also increased the risk for a hostile digestive terrain in the baby. Candida itself directly communicates to and promotes inflammation in the human immune system causing it to malfunction.
Yet another example is the widespread use of antidepressants by pregnant and nursing mothers, which drastically disturbs the evolving function of nerves and overall health of the fetus or baby. And then there is the vaccine preservative thimerosal (different than an adjuvant), which is a neuro-inflammatory in and of itself. And this is the short list.
All of these issues play a role as a percentage of the problem that induces friction in the developing nervous system of a fetus, baby, or young child and primes the nerves to hyper-react to vaccines. Each of these problems is a true public health problem because they are caused by industry and are allowed to continue by various vested interests. Each one will take tens of billions of dollars to fix. However, that is actually the responsibility of government – to fix costly and broad public health problems – not to make them worse.
The Genetic Red-Herring
The case of Hannah Poling has forced our government to show its hand – and a very weak hand it is. They will continue to bluff and confuse the public with scientific gibberish in an effort to misdirect. Their defense in the Poling case, even though they conceded the case, is that the child had genetic mitochondrial dysfunction.
Mitochondria are the car engines in your cells that produce energy (ATP). ATP is the energy currency in your body, much like money in your wallet. You spend ATP, as needed, to do anything. Inflammation uses up ATP by causing your body to go into a hyper mode (like a 911 phone call). If ATP production is compromised then inflammation can run wild – contributing to the brain fire called autism.
True mitochondrial gene mutations are too rare to explain autism, so the government is trying to blame this mechanism in the Poling case to deflect the idea that vaccines are a risk for the majority.
What the government isn't saying is that, independent of a true genetic issue, mitochondria can be taxed into a state of stress that predisposes any child to autism risk. You don't need to have a gene mutation; that is simply a diversion and cover-up attempt.
Furthermore, the glial cells in your brain use ATP to communicate, a separate function than energy currency. This means that any time you run low in overall body energy, brain function is compromised and tilted into a pro-inflammatory mode. This is why stress makes you tired and causes you to feel physical wear and tear. It is also why any time you exercise, which conditions your body to make ATP more efficiently, your head feels better. When glial cells run low on ATP they enter a low grade chronic inflammatory mode – a condition that seriously predisposes to vaccine injury.
Reducing the Risk for Adverse Vaccine Reactions
The bottom line for any parent is to not expose their child to vaccines under circumstances that are likely to increase the odds of a brain fire that results in autism. Fewer vaccines in general, not giving so many at once, and giving them at older ages are all common sense.
Additionally, proper nutrition during pregnancy, during lactation, and the overall fitness and health habits of the mother have a profound effect on having a child with a stronger nervous system. It is quite clear that the obesity hormone leptin is elevated in the blood of autistic children. This is a risk factor linked to obesity in the mother with consequent abnormal fetal programming of the developing brain which is then handicapped to buffer inflammation from toxic exposure like vaccines. ((http://www.wellnessresources.com/newsro...)
High leptin in the blood means that leptin isn't getting into the brain. Leptin is the primary buffer in the brain against inflammatory excitotoxic damage. This is why boys have four times the rate of autism compared to girls. Girls have naturally higher levels of protective leptin in their brains, mostly to help them get pregnant and nurse their children in later life. My books on leptin (Mastering Leptin and The Leptin Diet) explain how leptin works in much greater detail. A mother's health and eating habits, prior to and during pregnancy, play a large role in the health of her baby's nervous system. ((http://www.wellnessresources.com/Books/...)
Likewise, family stress during pregnancy and early childhood development are important to how a child processes stress and consequent nerve inflammation. Conflicts between husband and wife, in front of a child (including a child in the womb), primes nerves to be inflamed. Providing a stable environment for mother and child is a main reason for the family unit – and in my opinion the responsibility of men.
Thus we see that there are multiple factors, some under your control and many that are not, acting in one way or another to prime the nerves into a chronic low-grade inflammatory state which sets the stage for increased risk of vaccine injury.
One of the very worst times to vaccinate a child is directly after an illness or surgery – which are highly inflammatory events. Unfortunately, doctors don't seem to understand health very well and it is often the case that the parent has brought the child to the doctor because of an illness or a follow up from some other medical procedure. At that time the doctor says "Oh, your vaccinations are not up to date." And then gives them to a child who is already neurologically inflamed. Such medical malpractice is a disaster, and common in this country.
Parents who have children with digestive problems, recurring infections, asthma, allergies, or any other sign of immune weakness should not vaccinate until such problems are fully resolved. These problems also indicate a high level of existing brain inflammation.
It is pathetic that the CDC does not publish a list of guidelines for parents that would dramatically reduce the risk for vaccine injury (low cost and low tech). The "more research is needed" excuse is enough to make everyone vomit. Of course we could do far more by screening for inflammatory brain markers and immune system dysfunction ahead of any round of vaccines (high cost and high tech). The days of blindly vaccinating children according to a schedule, while ignoring the child's state of existing nerve inflammation and immune system function are over. Parents should revolt. This is a national tragedy. The government's vaccination program is indeed the cause of the autism epidemic.
About the author: Byron J. Richards, Founder/Director of Wellness Resources (www.wellnessresources.com), is a Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist and nationally-renowned health expert, radio personality, and educator. He is the author of Mastering Leptin, The Leptin Diet, and Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America.
Also , read Dr. Sorge from Abunda Life Abunda Life
Monday, April 7, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Vaccines -- Merck made $2 Billion in revenue just from Gardasil!
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Vaccine Hall of Shame
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| If you would like to nominate someone for our Hall Of Shame, please write to: info@generationrescue.org. |
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Scientific Research , who is funding it???
Do vaccinations cause autism?
Follow the money trail. Big Pharma wants to provide us with their "Clinical" and "scientific" studies showing that vaccines do not cause autism.
They want to have the money spent funding gene research. So lets ignore history and correlation with the rise of autism in direct correlation and proportion to vaccine implementation, and suddenly think we are all stupid enough to believe that our gonadal cells are now influencing the genetic material our of children causing autism. ABSURB.
Here is the bogus crazy latest article.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/31/magazines/fortune/autism_roots.fortune/index.htm?eref=rss_topstories
Follow the money trail. Big Pharma wants to provide us with their "Clinical" and "scientific" studies showing that vaccines do not cause autism.
They want to have the money spent funding gene research. So lets ignore history and correlation with the rise of autism in direct correlation and proportion to vaccine implementation, and suddenly think we are all stupid enough to believe that our gonadal cells are now influencing the genetic material our of children causing autism. ABSURB.
Here is the bogus crazy latest article.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/31/magazines/fortune/autism_roots.fortune/index.htm?eref=rss_topstories
Tracing autism's roots
Move over vaccines. The most promising research into the disorder is emerging from the quest for the genes that underlie it.
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| Hannah Poling and her parents. |
(Fortune) -- Do vaccinations cause autism?
Despite the fact that one major study after another has answered no since the issue came to the fore around 2000, 54% of parents of autistic children in a 2006 survey said the answer is yes. In fact, the parents named vaccines more frequently than any other suspected cause.
It's likely that even more parents blame vaccines now in the wake of the recent brouhaha about 9-year-old Hannah Poling. The government agreed that her family was entitled to a settlement from a federal vaccine injury fund based on their claim that childhood vaccinations aggravated a rare metabolic disorder in Hannah, triggering autism symptoms.
Anti-vaccine advocates hailed the decision as unprecedented support for their view that either thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative once widely used in vaccines, or the vaccines themselves, are behind many cases of the brain disorder.
Federal health officials countered that the Poling case says nothing in general about autism and vaccines - they're concerned about parents refusing immunizations for their kids. Hannah, they noted, has been diagnosed with a genetic defect in her mitochondria - energy dynamos within cells. The mitochondrial disorder can cause a form of autism, and its symptoms often aren't apparent until stress, such as a fever, overtaxes energy-deficient cells. Vaccinations occasionally induce fever, hence the ones Hannah got as a toddler may have combined with her disorder to bring on signs of autism. Or they might not have - Hannah had a history of ear infections, and the associated fever might have aggravated her mitochondrial disorder.
Complex genetics
The ruckus highlights one of the great ironies surrounding autism: While anti-vaccine groups and thousands of anxious parents are fixated on a single environmental factor - vaccines - as a possible cause of autism, most of the exciting insights on its causes in recent years have come from the study of its complex genetic underpinnings.
The quickening quest for genes underlying autism promises both to improve diagnosis and treatment, and to help resolve burning questions about the disorder, such as why surveys suggest it is three times more prevalent in New Jersey than in Alabama.
The central role genes play in autism became manifest after scientists realized about two decades ago that there are different forms of the disorder involving varied sets of genes. Called "autism spectrum disorders," or ASDs, they include Asperger's syndrome, which causes social deficits but not the cognitive delays usually associated with autism.
Using this broad definition in studies of twins, researchers have repeatedly shown that if one identical twin is diagnosed with autism, the other has about a 90% chance of developing an ASD. Geneticists have concluded from such studies that most, and perhaps the great majority, of ASDs involve a genetic component.
There is a new wrinkle to the genetic research however. Based on family studies, scientists have long characterized autism-linked genes as "heritable." But recent research shows a surprisingly large number of mutations tied to autism are "de novo" glitches that arise spontaneously in children whose parents don't carry them.
Such spontaneous mutations have come to light by studying so-called "structural changes" in the genome, which, if DNA's chemical letters were arranged in book form, would consist of largish mistakes such as duplicated and missing pages. A recent study that got much less attention than the Poling story showed that 7% of kids with autism carry structural changes not found in their parents, compared with less than 1% of such glitches seen in the general population.
"This is really exciting, and a lot of people haven't picked up on it yet," says geneticist Stephen Scherer, a co-author of the study at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
Spontaneous mutations
It's likely that many more such changes will be linked to ASDs as researchers examine a wider array of cases with new gene-scanning tools. Some researchers even theorize that the majority of autism cases stem from such spontaneous mutations.
Why would genes linked to autism be so mutation-prone?
Consider a mutation on chromosome 16 recently tied to autism. The glitch is in a DNA region containing so-called "morpheus" genes, which changed very rapidly as evolution produced ever brainier apes. The genes may well help shape cognitive capacities specific to apes and humans, including ones affected by autism.
Since fast mutation goes hand in hand with fast evolution, it's likely that the new autism-linked gene lies in a DNA "hotspot" prone to spontaneous mutation. In short, the same phenomenon that helped to rapidly evolve our braininess may contribute to autism.
For all geneticists' excitement about such discoveries, few if any of them rule out environmental contributors to autism, such as exposure to certain drugs, chemicals or infections during pregnancy. As Hannah Poling's case suggests, environmental factors may conspire with predisposing genes to bring on autism.
But pinpointing the culprits among the tens of thousands of possible environmental factors - everything from air pollutants to ultrasound examinations during pregnancy to multiple immunizations given to kids all at once - is a monumental problem that could take decades to solve with traditional human studies. Parents of autistic children can't wait that long.
But gene research is helping on this front too, by speeding the quest for environmental contributors. For instance, researchers are developing various mouse models of autism by mimicking mutations linked to the disorder in the rodents. Such animals are very useful for testing suspected environmental contributors to autism.
Early intervention
Genetics research should also help explode the myth that the effects of ASD-susceptibility genes are set in stone. By helping to identify the disorder during infancy, genetic tests promise to enable early intervention that wards off some of autism's worst effects. (Autism usually isn't diagnosed until speech delays or social deficits surface after infancy.)
By teaching parents how to bolster social engagement in babies with ASD-susceptibility genes - for instance, by removing distracting objects so that a parent's face is the most salient object in a baby's visual field - "you might even be able to prevent the full syndrome from emerging," says Geri Dawson, chief science officer of Autism Speaks, an advocacy group based in New York. Toronto's Scherer adds that his team's genetic research has already led to early interventions in several cases involving families participating in studies.
Tricky questions remain about interpreting tests for autism-linked genes. But several companies, such as Mukilteo, Wash.-based CombiMatrix, France's IntegraGen SA and Melville, N.Y.-based Population Diagnostics Inc., have already introduced such diagnostics or announced plans to develop them.
Over time such tests will enable ever more precise classification of autism cases according to underlying causes. Among other things, that should help researchers sort out what's driving the extraordinarily high prevalence observed in areas such as New Jersey. Even better, it will provide a way to detect the special vulnerabilities of kids like Hannah Poling before symptoms appear - and perhaps even keep such children out of harm's wayMonday, March 31, 2008
No Mystery Here -- Vaccines
The triplets were happy, healthy boys. But at 18 months, one became withdrawn, one screamed at night and one stopped talking. Doctor after doctor told the boys' parents to just wait, but now all are known to have autism -- the neurological disorder that baffles scientists.
No mystery, vaccines caused it. Big Pharma has Big Money. It is Hush HUSH
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Promoting Vaccination, Fear, Hate & Discrimination
The discrimination begins, always, with the majority in a society pointing the finger at a minority for somehow endangering the public health and welfare. Individuals in the minority group are singled out as different - ethnically, biologically, spiritually, morally - from the majority. The human impulse to fear, judge, marginalize or eliminate those different from the rest has left a blood soaked trail winding throughout the entire history of man from the Great Inquisition to the Holocaust; from the killing fields of Cambodia to Rwanda, Serbia and Tibet; while the persecution of those with leprosy, TB, AIDS, mental illness, and handicaps continues in every society.
It was with a heavy heart that I read the March 21 New York Times article, "Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines." Then I waded through the venomous comments posted on the NY Times website attacking parents of vaccine injured autistic children and those supporting informed consent to vaccination, specifically legal exemptions.
Some New York Times readers simply engaged in adolescent name-calling, angrily accusing parents of being "stupid" for questioning the wisdom of doctors in positions of authority and "selfish" for wanting to make informed vaccine choices:
"I'm so tired of these morons who refuse to vaccinate their children. It's stupid and selfish and, as usual, the kid suffers because of an hysterical, paranoid mother. What we need is a vaccine against paranoid conspiracy theory nuts. Oh, yeah....and by all means, let's trust a primary care doc from Arizona rather than the AAP and CDC. After all, what does some pinhead in private practice know that the best trained, most informed academic docs at some backwater like Johns Hopkins or CHOP or Children's Boston know, anyhow."
Others ridiculed parents for having faith in God but not in medical science, doctors and the safety of vaccines:
"The irrational decisions of adults, including parents and even physicians, supported by superstition, faith and magical beliefs, rather than data, evidence and proof, cannot stand in the way of science's obligation to create new knowledge to protect the members of a society, especially its most vulnerable members."
"Western religion's relationship with God requires a scapegoat. Since the Satan bit is worn a little thin they have once again decided that science and technology are to blame for all man's evils. As a civilized society we have given far too much deference to religion. Those not wishing to participate should simply not be included in schools, hospitals, etc. Not allowing their children to participate is the cruelist of abuse and should be removed from their "care."
"The parents whose personal beliefs cause them to fail to vaccinate their children should be seen clearly for what they are - child abusers. They are as monstrous as people that allow their children to die because they are convinced that if their god wants their children to live, he'll take care of it."
"Science is not infallible but it works. No one doubts that savagely beating a kid and offering "religious beliefs" as a pretext is a crime. These parents are doing the same thing. They should be prosecuted for endangering the health of their children - and ours."
The idea that the unvaccinated should be made "outcasts" in society and kept in isolation or even banned from being able to go out in public was a popular one:
"To those who demand an exemption, the choice should be clear and simple. No vaccine, no attendance at any public venue, schools in particular. Let these leaches live up in the woods as hermits."
" Parents of immunized children should not allow their children to play with [unvaccinated children]. Being an outcast is a powerful tool to use against these very selfish people."
Doctors defending their belief in vaccination weighed in, too, calling for elimination of the unvaccinated from society:
"As an epidemiologist who believes in the power and strength of herd immunity, I would like to ask these people who forgo vaccination to politely leave the herd."
Several more suggested the unvaccinated be publicly branded and forced to reveal their vaccination history to all who come in contact with them:
"Those making this decision [to not vaccinate their children] should be ineligible for access to public schooling. They should also be mandated to inform any and all people with whom they come into contact of their lack of vaccinations. They should also sign a waiver to any public or insurance pool funding for treatment of avoidable disease and/or long term damage caused by contraction of that disease."
"Should parents get to decide what happens to their child, even when that decision flies in the face of all evidence? Yes. But then should I have a right to know who these children are, so that I can keep my own child away from them? Indeed, I think I should......"
Another went further, calling for hospital and medical care to be denied to the unvaccinated:
"They should not be permitted in clinics and hospitals, where immunocompromised children and adults have the right to safety. No exception, whether based on religious faith or just garden-variety ignorance and superstition."
Several others believe mothers and fathers with unvaccinated children should be not only be charged with a crime but have their children taken from them:
"This should be a reason to notify CPS so that they can remove these children from parents who endanger their lives. This should be a crime."
There was a call for legislators who vote for vaccine exemptions to be punished:
"The parents who unilaterally decide to withhold immunization from their children should be sent to jail. The legislators who voted to condone this behavior should be identified and subjected to recall."
And some wanted to see parents and their unvaccinated children physically harmed:
.....Fine, so long as these parents are forcibly exposed to the illnesses themselves. And if their children either die, or are permanently injured, criminal charges should be laid. Then we'll see how much they still believe in their voodoo- science......"
Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, they gave public witness to their fear and loathing of fellow human beings who do not believe, think or act as they do.
I could not help but think of the children and parents forced to line up last November at a Maryland County Courthouse patrolled by armed police with dogs, a stark reminder that the parents were under threat of imprisonment and fines for failing to show schools proof that their children got chicken pox and hepatitis B shots.
I remembered the news report out of Belgium last month describing how a State court had sentenced mothers and fathers to five months in prison and a $4,000 fine because their children had not gotten vaccinated.
I thought of the persecution of Andrew Wakefield, M.D., who is being punished by his British colleagues for daring to report an association between the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine and neuroimmune dysfunction, including inflammatory bowel disease and autism. Like when the heads of heretics were impaled upon stakes on the Tower of London as a warning for all to see, the Wakefield inquisition is a spectacle designed to persuade all doctors contemplating questioning the safety of current mass vaccination policies to remain silent.
And then I thought of the Jewish orphan from Philadelphia, whose DNA I inherited from several generations back, and whose lineage in my mid-west Protestant family was not known to me for many years. Her blood is my blood, her genes belong to me just as the Norwegian and Scottish-Irish genes that predispose me and my children to autoimmunity and vaccine reactions are part of who I am.
I wondered how many of the readers of that New York Times article, who spewed fear, prejudice and hate into cyberspace and urged discrimination against and punishment of the unvaccinated, remembered that we are who we are because of the genetic strengths and vulnerabilities inherited from our mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers going back generations and generations.
I come from a family of doctors and nurses, physical therapists and social workers, historians and soldiers, artists and writers, pastors and farmers, public administrators and builders; feminists and teachers, who have made the world a little better because they were allowed to live. And all through our family there is a history of autoimmunity, including rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid disease, diabetes, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, severe allergies to foods, prescription drugs and pollen, and vaccine reactions.
My mother died of lupus two years ago this week, her body unable to protect itself from self. A nurse who once took care of polio victims at Mayo Clinic, she left three children and 11 grandchildren, all of whom carry her genes.
We do not choose the genes we inherit that make us the unique individuals we each are, as different from one another as we are similar within the human species.
My mother would have gladly laid down her life for any one of her children or grandchildren in order to protect them from harm, as I and countless other mothers around the world would do. The biological imperative, which prompts mothers and fathers to willingly sacrifice their lives to ensure their children survive, dictates we do that in order to ensure the survival of the human race.
For what is the human race but a collection of individuals from individual families living in different communities, all joined together to make up the whole of humanity? When any one life is devalued and deemed expendable, by extension, the well being and integrity of the whole is compromised.
Individual health IS public health.
Vaccine policies issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) do not recognize the potential biological vulnerability of my family and many other families to be harmed by vaccination. It does not matter if we have a vaccine injured child: CDC and AAP policies turned into law by state legislators do not provide for vaccine injured children or the siblings of vaccine injured children to be medically exempt from vaccination. Children, who have had seizures and other health deterioration after vaccination, often do not qualify for medical exemptions.
In the past quarter century, the numbers of vaccines the CDC and AAP insist that children must get has increased from 23 doses of 7 vaccines to 48 doses of 14 vaccines by age six without any large, credible studies proving it is safe for all children. How many of those genetically vulnerable to repeated atypical manipulation of the immune system through forced multiple vaccine use are among the highly vaccinated American children who are chronically ill and disabled today: 1 in 6 learning disabled; 1 in 9 asthmatic; 1 in 150 developing autism?
The doctors in charge at the CDC and AAP have refused, for more than a quarter century, to acknowledge the existence of a growing number of vaccine injured children and so they have refused to identify and screen out children biologically vulnerable to vaccine-induced brain and immune system dysfunction. One-size-fits-all vaccine policies and state laws have become a de facto selection of the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice. It is a very small step from that kind of societal thinking to the prisons, concentration camps and killing fields that stand as chilling testimony to the human impulse to dehumanize others in order to control, exploit or eliminate them.
Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel has said "When you take an idea or a concept and turn it into an abstraction, that opens the way to take human beings and turn them, also, into abstractions."
Individuals harmed by vaccines are not abstractions. They are human beings who deserve to be spared a lifetime of suffering rather than being thrown under the bus to prop up forced mass vaccination policies that fail to acknowledge biodiversity within the family of man.
In the face of a medical community committed to the utilitarian rationale that a minority of human beings can be sacrificed in service to the majority, the only way parents can protect children from being injured or killed by vaccines is by the free exercise of non- medical legal exemptions for deeply held religious or conscientious beliefs.
Doctors inside and outside of government, who have instilled fear of and discrimination against parents with vaccine injured children, bear responsibility for the hate and prejudice expressed on the New York Times website last week. It is a wake-up call for all Americans who cherish freedom and the human right to make informed, voluntary medical decisions that involve a risk of injury or death.
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"The very success of immunizations has turned out to be an Achilles' heel," said Dr. Mark Sawyer, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego. "Most of these parents have never seen measles, and don't realize it could be a bad disease so they turn their concerns to unfounded risks. They do not perceive risk of the disease but perceive risk of the vaccine." Dr. Sawyer and the vast majority of pediatricians believe strongly that vaccinations are the cornerstone of sound public health. Many doctors view the so-called exempters as parasites, of a sort, benefiting from the otherwise inoculated majority.....While the picture of an unvaccinated child was once that of the offspring of poor and uneducated parents, "exempters" are often well educated and financially stable, and hold a host of like-minded child-rearing beliefs. Vaccine skeptics provide differing explanations for their belief that vaccines may cause various illnesses and disorders, including autism. Recent news that a federal vaccine court agreed to pay the family of an autistic child in Georgia who had an underlying mitochondrial disorder has led some skeptics to speculate that vaccines may worsen such conditions. Again, researchers say there is no evidence to support this thesis. Alexandra Stewart, director of the Epidemiology of U.S. Immunization Law project at George Washington University, said many of these parents are influenced by misinformation obtained from Web sites that oppose vaccination. "The autism debate has convinced these parents to refuse vaccines to the detriment of their own children as well as the community," Ms. Stewart said." - Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times (March 21, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/0 3/21/us/21vaccine.html?hp
"Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined 4,100 euros ($8,000)....The parents can still avoid prison - their sentences were delayed to give them a chance to vaccinate their children. But if that deadline also passes without their children receiving the injections, the parents could be put behind bars.....The polio vaccine is the only one required by Belgian law. Exceptions are granted only if parents can prove their children might have a bad physical reaction to the vaccine.....Aside from Belgium, only France makes polio vaccinations mandatory by law. In the United States, children must be vaccinated against many diseases including polio, but most states allow children to opt out if their parents have religious or "philosophical" objections. In the U.S. state of Maryland, prosecutors and school officials in one county threatened truancy charges against parents who failed to vaccinate their children.....People who refuse to be vaccinated are "free riders," Harris said. "They can only afford to refuse the vaccine because they are surrounded by people who have fulfilled their obligations to the community." - Maria Cheng, Associated Press (March 12, 2008) http://news.yahoo.com/s/a p/20080312/ap_on_he_me/polio
"One of the most reprehensible weapons being wielded in the witch-hunt against Wakefield is the claim that anyone who gives any credence whatever to his concerns is responsible for the incidence of measles amongst children whose parents are as a result too frightened to give them the MMR vaccination. There are two obvious points to make in response to this piece of moral blackmail: 1) the whole panic could have been avoided by offering single measles, mumps and rubella jabs rather than the triple MMR, and 2) it is surely just as important as avoiding cases of measles mumps and rubella to avoid causing the kind of catastrophic damage to the brain and gut displayed by the children at the heart of this controversy. And there is a further and quite appalling point to note. This whole saga started because parents of such children found that their family doctors were dismissing out of hand their children's gut and brain problems, accordingly refusing to alleviate their suffering. Now, as a direct result of the animosity towards Wakefield that has been whipped up - and the fear that any doctor who suggests he might be right will similarly find him or herself at the receiving end of the medical establishment's fist - children exhibiting this combination of gut and brain damage are finding it difficult to obtain treatment." - Melanie Phillips, The Spectator (March 21, 2008) http://www.spectator.co.uk
| Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines New York Times SAN DIEGO - In a highly unusual outbreak of measles here last month, 12 children fell ill; nine of them had not been inoculated against the virus because their parents objected, and the other three were too young to receive vaccines. |
| Parents may be jailed over vaccinations Associated Press As doctors struggle to eradicate polio worldwide, one of their biggest problems is persuading parents to vaccinate their children. In Belgium, authorities are resorting to an extreme measure: prison sentences. |
 A couple of days ago, yet another story appeared claiming that fresh research had shown that there was no link between the MMR vaccination and autism. This new research was said to have shown that, contrary to the claims made by Dr Andrew Wakefield, the surgeon at the centre of the MMR scare, there was no relationship between gut problems and autism, the core of his concerns. It also claimed that the discovery furthermore damaged the related theory that a gluten- free diet could help children with autism. Dr Hilary Cass, from Great Ormond Street, said: 'It is very distressing to have a diagnosis of autism, a lifelong condition.Many families are driven to try out interventions which currently have no scientific basis. For example, advocates of the leaky gut hypothesis offer children a casein and gluten-free diet which as yet lacks an evidence base.' This particular observation is a telling indication that this study bears little relation to reality. For there are countless families whose autistic children's suffering from gut problems has only been eased, and their autistic symptoms improved, by the introduction of precisely such a diet. 'No evidence base'? Tell that to those families. It is their lived experience. Second, despite the way this was presented in the media this is not a new piece of research at all. It is instead a recycled version of a study by Baird G. et al, published in the Archive of Diseases in Childhood on February 5 and reported in the press around that time. The study drew the following response from Andrew Wakefield: |
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