Vaccines and My Child

Swine Flu Vaccine (H1N1)

2009-11-16T20:39:00.003-05:00

It's being called a pandemic by the World Health Organization and practically every news show is broadcasting about how important it is to get vaccinated. Yet once again, there is another side to the story, and I am encouraging my friends to do their research before getting a swine flu vaccine.

Here are a few interesting links I have viewed over the past couple of days:

From Dr. Mercola: "Swine Flu - One of the Most Massive Cover-Ups in American History"

From About.com: "Some Pregnant Women Fearful of H1N1 Vaccine" (just take a look at the comments - although they are not scientific proof, part of good science is taking a fair look at what seems to be coincidence. After all, if my shoes stink after I step in dog poo, it just might be possible the dog poo caused it.)

And let's take an objective look at the warning from the vaccine package insert: "It is also not known whether Influenza A [H1N1] 2009 Monovalent Vaccine or Fluvirin can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproduction capacity." (Yet we all know medical sources are encouraging pregnant women to be first in line.)

From a You Tube clip of a program called Know the Cause, an interview with a medical doctor who changed his recommendation after reading the vaccine package insert (thank goodness some doctors take the Hippocratic Oath's "First, do no harm" seriously enough to dare to go against the mainstream): "Medical Doctor Retracts H1N1 Advice After Reading Insert!"

As always, the National Vaccine Information Center site has an extensive amount of information.

I'm not saying it isn't important to take careful consideration of the risks of getting the flu. But I am saying there is much more information available than what the mainstream news will broadcast.

Does Merck Mourn for the Casualties of its Business?

2009-08-25T15:43:00.006-04:00

The last time I had an opportunity to read and post about Gardasil, 29 deaths had been reported. That number has grown to 39 and more frightening information is being discussed. Here is a new article from Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, who writes for the Beverly LaHaye Institute and Concerned Women for America in Washington, D.C.:

Dot.Commentary

Women's Issues From A Feminine Perspective

A weekly publication of the Beverly LaHaye Institute

HPV Vaccine Facts All Parents Need to Know

By Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D.

I sat at a picnic table listening to various mothers discussing their hectic schedules trying to keep up with teenage daughters, all on the same sports team. When one mother told of squeezing in an appointment that morning to get her daughter the HPV shot that her doctor recommended, the conversation turned to the necessity to "protect" their girls in such troubling times. I stayed quiet, hoping to learn the values guiding these parents' decisions. Predictably, they had not thought through the issues, nor did they know the facts.

Those mothers were merely following doctors' recommendations and that of all the experts. Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, was approved in 2006 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for females as young as nine and up to age 26. It has been marketed as a protection against four types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). Merck, the company that makes Gardasil, claims that the drug will protect against two types of HPV that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers and two types that cause 90 percent of genital warts. Every federal health authority recommends the shots and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about a quarter of the nation's 13-17 year olds have received the immunizations. The vaccine is on the CDC's vaccine schedule for 11- and 12-year-old girls, and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it.

Even so, some physicians remain wary of the trend to give young children a new, largely untried drug. A study in a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research revealed that about half of the doctors in a survey of over a thousand physicians in Texas did not routinely recommend Gardasil for their pre-teen patients.

What those Texas doctors suspected, we now know for sure - that serious concerns are legitimate regarding the use of Gardasil. The highly-promoted, so-called breakthrough vaccine that was recommended for all girls and given to numerous children and teens to prevent possible future cases of cervical cancer, is related to "adverse events" experienced by thousands of girls after taking the vaccine.

In a just-released article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, federal researchers report that after analyzing 12,424 "adverse events" [out of the 13,758 reports of problems as of May 1] voluntarily reported by girls vaccinated with Gardasil that two problems are common. One - fainting - is not inherently serious, but can be if the girl falls and hits her head. The other side effect - "dangerous blood clots" - is quite troubling. Most of the problems with Gardasil (93 percent) are minor: headache, nausea, and fever. But a disturbing seven percent included hospitalization, permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death.

"Adverse events" is a terribly clinical sounding description of such tragic outcomes. Perhaps more people should read the personal account of Jenny, a University of California, Berkeley professor's daughter who lost her life after getting the shot. (See Jenny's blog http://jenjensfamily.blogspot.com/).

Few parents would want their child to be among the 39 deaths to girls who had just taken the Gardasil shot. Nor would most parents want their child to take the risk of hospitalization, disability, or a life-threatening illness. Yet, heretofore, accurate information has not been forthcoming, including the fact that many additional reported cases of "adverse effects" had too few details. Thus, those cases were excluded from the study.

Even with the new information, numerous questions remain about the safety as well as the efficacy of the drug. Further, there are questions about the marketing of the drug. In fact, cervical cancer is relatively uncommon in the United States. The American Cancer Society reports under 4,000 deaths per year compared to the 250,000 deaths in other areas of the world, primarily in poor countries.

Plus, there are questions about Merck's grants to professional medical associations who promoted the vaccine's use without fully explaining the risks involved with taking the drug. Some doctors ask if the big push to sell Gardasil is Merck's method of making up the lost sales after their popular anti-pain medication, Vioxx, was banned. These facts raise questions about the appropriateness of recommending such a high-risk drug for widespread use among American children and teenagers.

In the wake of all the side effects, Merck has added warnings to the label on the drug. The warnings on all the labels state that some children receiving Gardasil have subsequent problems, such as autoimmune diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, paralysis, and seizures. Further, some doctors worry that not enough young girls were included in the clinical trials of the drug; they believe that there is really no way to know how pre-teen and teenage girls will react to such a high-powered vaccine. Merck acknowledges that the drug is effective for only five years, so giving the drug to 11 to 12 year olds hardly seems warranted.

Critics are especially concerned about the risk-benefit ratio of taking the HPV vaccine. Gardasil is very costly and most physicians recommend that women continue to get Pap smears, even if they have taken Gardasil. The known benefit of the regular Pap smear screening in preventing most cases of cervical cancer makes the benefit of the HPV risk uncertain. In fact, Those mothers around that picnic table and the thousands of other parents concerned about the well-being of their daughters need to have all the facts and know the risks involved before subjecting their little girls to this new vaccine. States need to have these facts before discussing the possibility of mandating the vaccines for all pre-teen and teenage girls.

For related links, read this publication online at:http://www.cwfa.org/articles/17595/BLI/dotcommentary/index.htm

An Aside

2009-03-05T13:33:00.002-05:00

This post has not one iota of relevance to vaccines, but I have such a heart for this family that I wanted to spread the word any way I could. I know many of us know a family that has had trouble starting a family, and in my little sphere of life, this family is that one I am always hoping for.

James and Emily Haughery are the son-in-law and daughter of a family in my church, and they have been through more pain than anyone I know. After miscarriages and general difficulty getting pregnant, they finally had that dream baby in March 2005. But little Alivia was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after her first birthday and tragically, did not live much longer after her second. It is the saddest story I've ever known. The happy part is that Alivia's joy is complete, as we believe she is present with the Lord, and her parents will see her again.

James and Emily also attempted to adopt a baby boy this past October (through the foster care system, I think), but the birth mother changed her mind and they lost that baby as well. I believe that, ultimately, God has many mysterious purposes in the Haugherys' suffering, and that at the end of all days we will finally understand. But for now, those of us who know this family are just hoping they will receive the blessing of healthy children! If you feel so inclined, visit http://hopeforthehaugherys.blogspot.com/ to become a part of helping this dear couple.

Alivia's story can be seen at http://www.aliviarachelhaughery32005.blogspot.com/

Questioning Vaccines in a Nutshell

2009-02-26T09:32:00.010-05:00

If I could sum up in a concise list some of the reasons I don't have absolute trust in the vaccine program anymore, this is it. I may add to this list in the future, but for now, this was a quick list I jotted down to highlight my major concerns.

1. There is too much money at stake for pharmaceutical companies, which lobby Congress and are intricately involved in the nation's public health bodies (According to a 2/23/09 article in The Wall Street Journal, vaccines will generate $21.5 billion in annual sales by the year 2012). They also have an unsettling amuont of control over vaccine studies in scientific journals, as recently reported in the British Medical Journal.

2. Thimerasol (mercury) was used in vaccines for years (and is still in the flu shot, as far as I know) and was given to children in their shots sometimes in levels over 100 times the EPA allowable "safe" limit. The government denies that there is any link between neurological disorders and the neurotoxin mercury given to children in shots. (Read the book Evidence of Harm by David Kirby for the story of parents who discovered their kids were poisoned by mercury and have been ostracized by the medical community.)

3. There exists much information about harm from vaccines in medical journals, but we, the public, don't have the privilege of hearing about it like we do for most other pharmaceuticals.

4. The government had no tracking system in place to monitor adverse events from vaccination until parents of vaccine-injured children lobbied for it (The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986). See the "History of NVIC" section on this page for a brief summary.

5. The government's tracking system for vaccine injury (VAERS) cannot assess causality and there is under-reporting to VAERS. Thus, there is no real paper trail for determining how many children are adversely affected by vaccines, or even if the vaccine caused their problems or not. To me, this is inexcusable. If the government wants me to use these products, it needs to know. Here again, it seems the medical community is in no hurry to protect children from vaccine injury, dismissing problems as "coincidence" all too often.

6. After recognizing a biological marker (a mitochondrial disorder) that supposedly set Hannah Poling up for regressing into autism after vaccination, the CDC was not concerned enough to start screening children for mitochondrial disorders. They said this would be risky, expensive and would raise "ethical questions." To me, this says that protecting kids from vaccine injury is not as important as protecting the vaccine program. Autism is also risky and expensive, and it raises ethical questions for me regarding why the CDC would rather risk my kid getting autism than risk not vaccinating. (See "CDC Responds to Questions About Vaccines," March 28, 2008)

7. The government has never done a comprehensive study on the overall health of vaccinated kids versus unvaccinated. Yet a parents group, Generation Rescue, conducted a survey of 17,674 children in California that found that vaccinated boys compared to unvaccinated boys were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder, 224% more likely to have ADHD and 61% more likely to have autism. Though this can't substitute for in-depth scientific studies and cannot point to definite conclusions, I wonder then, why won't the CDC take on the responsibility of doing this? We need answers. I think the CDC is afraid that they will find the same things, or worse, and have to deal with answering for a public health disaster.

Boy, this really takes time. Motherhood calls! Perhaps more on this later.

Wall Street Journal on the Vaccine Court

2009-02-25T13:46:00.003-05:00

I plan to write a "Top Ten" list of sorts for this blog one day. Sort of a "why I question vaccines" nutshell to pull out of pocket, oh, I don't know, at family gatherings or the church picnic. *Ahem* ... alright, that's kind of a joke, since vaccine conversations are usually controversial and not particularly socially acceptable... But, the idea is that I have several valid reasons for this research, many of which point to the question of "Can I trust the government for vaccine safety?" The vaccine court is one major reason I often find myself answering, "No."

Just as a general piece of information on the vaccine court, I am posting an article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal on Feb. 23rd, titled "Vaccine Makers Enjoy Immunity." (You have to subscribe to the Journal to read the whole thing, but some smart person - thanks, Jim - posted a bit more of the content on Age of Autism, which is where I read about the article in the first place.) The comment trail on the Age of Autism blog also contains some very good nuggets of information and is worth a read.

From The Wall Street Journal, 2/23/09:

One of the little-noticed reasons that Wyeth was attractive enough to command a $68 billion price for rival Pfizer Inc.'s planned takeover sits in a building catty-corner from the White House across Pennsylvania Avenue. That is where a special "vaccines court" hears cases brought by parents who claim their children have been harmed by routine vaccinations.
The court -- and the law that established it more than two decades ago -- buffers Wyeth and other makers of childhood-disease vaccines from much of the litigation risk that dogs traditional pill manufacturers and is an important reason why the vaccine business has been transformed from a risky, low-profit venture in the 1970s to one of the pharmaceutical industry's most attractive product lines today.
The legal shield, known as the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, was put into place in 1986 to encourage the development of vaccines, a mainstay of the nation's public-health policy. A spate of lawsuits against vaccine makers in the 1970s and 1980s had caused dozens of companies to get out of the low-profit business, creating a public-health scare.
The strategy worked and the public-health implications have been sizable. Vaccines have driven huge reductions -- and in the case of smallpox, for instance, complete eradications -- of major childhood diseases. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, who developed a vaccine for rotavirus with Merck & Co., says, "If that Act didn't happen, I think American children would have been at risk."
Vaccines have also become big business. They are poised to generate $21.5 billion in annual sales for their makers by 2012, according to France's Sanofi-Aventis SA, a leading producer of inoculations.
At a time when pharmaceutical companies are being battered by generic competition to their best-selling drugs, vaccines offer an appealing alternative because they are biologic products that can't yet be copied. Another big draw is the partial protection from liability risk offered by the vaccines court, officially known as the Office of Special Masters at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
Such immunity makes a product like Wyeth's Prevnar enormously attractive. Designed to protect children against seven strains of pneumoccocal disease, Prevnar had sales of $2.7 billion last year that are projected to grow to $5.5 billion in 2015, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
Pfizer spokesman Ray Kerins acknowledges that Wyeth's strength in vaccines was an important factor behind Pfizer's interest in the company, but he adds that the deal made sense for a number of other reasons.
Vaccines' transformation into a lucrative business has some observers questioning whether the shield law is still appropriate. Critics say the vaccine court's ruling this month that routine childhood immunizations aren't linked to autism underscored the limited recourse families have in claiming injury from vaccines.
"When you've got a monopoly and can dictate price in a way that you couldn't before, I'm not sure you need the liability protection," said Lars Noah, a specialist in medical technology at the University of Florida's law school who has written about vaccines.
Many plaintiffs' lawyers would prefer to take their lawsuits directly to civil court because the vaccine court limits compensation in death cases to $250,000. They also think that juries could give them a more sympathetic hearing.
Kevin Conway, an attorney at Boston law firm Conway, Homer & Chin-Caplan PC, which specializes in vaccine cases and brought one of the recent autism suits, says the lack of liability for the pharmaceutical industry compromises safety.
"The dire straits of the 1980s do not exist anymore and it calls into question the need for the program, since the ability to sue the pharmaceutical companies would provide a different level of oversight," Mr. Conway says.
Even if they had won their cases, the families of autistic children wouldn't have been paid by the companies that make the vaccines, as is common in other pharmaceutical-liability cases. Instead, the government would have footed the bill, using the funds from a tax levied on inoculations.
The pharmaceutical industry, for its part, argues that the vaccine shield is still necessary. "The Act remains an important and relevant protection against baseless litigation that may dissuade parents from having their kids receive important vaccines," says Wyeth's outside counsel for vaccine litigation, Daniel Thomasch, of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLC.
Mark Feinberg, vice president for medical affairs and policy at Merck's vaccine division, says companies need the government's protection to shoulder the risk of pricey clinical trials. "Today, there are a number of important infectious diseases that don't have vaccines," he says. "The program does provide clarity for manufacturers as they go forward with new development."
To be sure, the vaccine court has been friendly to some plaintiffs. About $970 million has been awarded in its two decades of existence, and 12,890 cases have been filed. The court has relaxed standards about which witnesses and evidence can be admitted, because its judges -- called special masters -- are better equipped to navigate dubious science than a jury.
And injured parties can still sue vaccine makers in civil court if they reject the vaccine court's decision, if the court dismisses the claim or if the claim is stalled in the court for more than 240 days. Rep. Henry Waxman, who introduced the 1986 bill, hails those limits to the liability shield. "Vaccines are products that are completely different from any others. We need to encourage companies to develop vaccines in order to protect the public health," he says. "The manufacturers have long fought for total immunity from lawsuits, but I have fought back hard to ensure that the law preserves access to courts in cases of true negligence or misconduct."
But vaccine suits, when they do get to civil court, face restrictions there on punitive damages and failure-to-warn arguments.
Barbara Loe Fisher, the co-founder of a nonprofit parents' group called the National Vaccine Information Center, says the inclusion of high-priced new vaccines, like Merck's Gardasil, which aren't vital to preventing pandemics, runs counter to the spirit of the original law, which she worked on in the 1980s.

Government Rationed (er, Controlled) Health Care

2009-02-12T05:32:00.008-05:00

[EDIT 2/25/09: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is now law, as everyone with a TV, radio or computer has surely heard. I was not able to find anything saying the health care provisions had been removed. In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama made it clear that he wants health care reform to happen this year. Hopefully the majority will allow the people to know what's going on, and we can debate whether or not we want government doing comparative research and making decisions for us.]

Yesterday, the Senate passed the economic stimulus bill, and with it, provisions to move our country toward socialized (government-run) medicine. These provisions are frightening on many levels, and if Americans actually had a chance to vote on this, its failure would be sure. Instead, the majority in the House and Senate are trying to rush it through under the cover of night and get it quickly to President Barack Obama for signature.

The Heritage Foundation's Nina Owcharenko summarizes it this way: "Veiled under this massive economic stimulus proposal are profoundly controversial and far-reaching health care provisions that would set the country on a path toward more fiscal irresponsibility, mounting unfunded entitlement liabilities, and less control of families over their personal health care decisions." She explains that the bill would "establish a framework and funding for comparative effectiveness research and health information technology," which would open a portal to "direct government intervention in the clinical decisions by physicians and other health care providers."

To read more of the Heritage Foundation article, click here. You can also find more articles at Townhall.com, such as this one by Rep. John Shadegg (R-Arizona). This Bloomberg.com article is also informative. According to Tom Daschle (whose handiwork is reflected in the provisions), doctors have to give up autonomy and "learn to operate less like solo practitioners," the article reports.

For anyone who cares about freedom of medical decisions and doesn't want the government making personal health choices for them, this "economic stimulus" package is impossible to support in its current form. It is of utter importance that as many Americans hear about these provisions and make phone calls and send emails to the Hill. The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121 (you'll need to tell the operator where you're from so he/she can connect you) and you can use the House and Senate Web sites to look up direct numbers or email addresses for your representatives. Please spread the word.

One Congresswoman who is in the minority party has started a blog to keep us folks "outside the beltway" up to date on happenings on the Hill. I look forward to seeing if it actually turns out to be useful! You can check out her blog here: http://majoritytracker.wordpress.com/

To put it like one blog commenter said, "I have a hard time thinking of anything that the government runs better than the private sector." Who is a better decision-maker for your health care than you and your doctor? What about for your children? People living in countries where health care is run by the government would gravely warn us about falling into this trap. Please act.

Sample E-mail (thanks to Nina Owcharenko's article for some of the wording!) to your reps:
Dear ______,
I am writing today to urge you to please do your part to remove or revise the health care provisions in the economic stimulus bill. I ask you to please remove the funding for the comparative effectiveness and health information technology. If Congress wants to enact such provisions, it should do so not tagged on a fast-tracked stimulus bill but with a full and public debate so that the American people understand the impact of these health care decisions on their lives. Any other course would be a betrayal of the President's promise of openness with American people.
Please do not allow this great nation of ours, where personal freedom and entrepreneurship are beacons of our heritage, to move toward socialized medicine. This is not the right direction for the American people.
Sincerely,
________

Gardasil Battle Continues; 29 deaths reported so far

2009-02-12T05:00:00.000-05:00

From the National Vaccine Information Center:

NVIC Vaccine Risk Report Reveals More Serious Reaction Reports After Gardasil

Vaccine Safety Group Calls for Investigation
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Comparing serious adverse event reports to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) following Gardasil (HPV) and another vaccine for meningococcal (Menactra), the National Vaccine Information Center (http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.NVIC.org&esheet=5890912&lan=en_US&anchor=www.NVIC.org&index=1) found that there are three to 30 times more serious health problems and deaths reported to VAERS after Gardasil vaccination. As reported by CBS News, the longtime vaccine safety watchdog group is calling for action, including an investigation by the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Congress into the fast-tracked licensure and government recommendation that all young girls and women get Gardasil vaccine.

“Merck only studied the vaccine in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 and most of the serious health problems and deaths in the pre-licensure clinical trials were written off as a 'coincidence,'” said NVIC co-founder and president, Barbara Loe Fisher. “If the new Administration and Congress want to make government recommended health care safer, more effective and less expensive, a good place to start is by looking into the human and economic costs of Gardasil vaccine.”

Gardasil and Menactra vaccines are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for gradeschool, high school and college age children, although Gardasil is only given to girls while Menactra is given to both girls and boys. If reports of Gardasil vaccine-related adverse events are only coincidental as maintained by CDC officials in October 2008, there would be little or no difference in the number and severity of adverse event reports for both vaccines.

Using the MedAlerts database, compiling data for VAERS through November 30, 2008, NVIC found that compared to Menactra, Gardasil is associated with at least twice as many Emergency Room visit reports (5,021), four times as many Death reports (29); five times as many “Did Not Recover” reports (2,017) and seven times as many “Disabled” reports (261). There have been 34 reports of thrombosis, 27 reports of lupus, 23 reports of blood clots, 16 reports of stroke, and 11 reports of vasculitis following Gardasil vaccine given alone without any other vaccines. There are three to six times more fainting or syncope reports after Gardasil vaccination than after Menactra and there have been 544 reports of seizures following Gardasil and 158 after Menactra (73 Menactra-associated seizures involved co-administration with Gardasil).

Rechallenge reports to VAERS involve cases where there was a worsening of symptoms after repeated vaccination. There were 275 Rechallenge reports after Gardasil compared to eight after Menactra (7 Menactra-associated Rechallenge reports involved co-administration with Gardasil). In the entire VAERS database for all vaccine adverse event reports, there are 467 rechallenge reports, of which nearly 60 percent are for Gardasil.

A 15-year old gymnast, cheerleader and honor roll student in Kansas has been diagnosed with Gardasil vaccine-related brain inflammation after receiving three Gardasil shots. Her first symptoms included muscle and joint weakness and pain, numbness and tingling in her hands and feet, severe headaches excessive fatigue, rash, dizziness, and loss of concentration after the first shot. After the second and third shots she began losing her hair and developed seizures, bouts of paralysis, mini-strokes, partial loss of vision, and severe chest pain, memory and speech loss. Click here to learn more.

A 21-year old Maryland artist, athlete and honor roll college student died suddenly without explanation in June 2008 after her third Gardasil shot. She is one of the 29 Gardasil death reports in VAERS. Click here to learn more.

A nonprofit, non-medical organization founded by parents of vaccine injured children in 1982, NVIC issued three VAERS analyses in 2007 warning that Gardasil appeared to be highly reactive and asking for federal health agencies to inform physicians and parents about serious health problems associated with the new vaccine.

Guillain-Barre Syndrome after flu shot

2008-10-24T07:47:00.003-04:00

Thanks for the link, Brian.

Funny, it's never the vaccine's fault. No, in this case, the man supposedly had a "rare disease" that was triggered by the flu shot. Oh, and a mystery study in 1976 said the chance of developing this was "one in a million." Where's the credibility? And what about all those girls getting Guillain-Barre from their Gardasil vaccines? And all the other vaccines with Guillain-Barre listed as a side effect? No, but it's not the vaccine. The benefits always outweigh the risks. You may be paralyzed or have chronic lifetime arthritis (another auto-immune disorder), but at least you might not get the flu or whatever.

Canadian Man Paralyzed for 5 Months After Flu Shot
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,443725,00.html

A Canadian man says a rare disease triggered by the flu shot left him paralyzed for five months, cbcnews.ca reported Wednesday.
Richard Ryan, 44, from New Westminster in British Columbia, said within two weeks of receiving his flu shot last year he was in the hospital with excruciating pain.
Although he initially thought the cause of his pain was a back injury, doctors isolated the problem as Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system.
A 1976 study determined that the odds of developing the syndrome from the flu shot was 1-in-a million, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on its Web site. The CDC said most people who develop the disease from the flu shot recover completely, while some have lasting nerve damage. In very rare cases, it may result in death.
In addition to pain, Ryan also suffered from numbness and breathing problems. He spent 10 weeks in the hospital, including three weeks in intensive care, cbcnews.ca reported. One year later he remains heavily medicated, unable to work, and has memory problems.
Despite Ryan's experience, Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an epidemiologist at the British Columbia Center for Disease Control, told cbcnews.ca the benefits of the flu vaccine still outweigh the risks for most people.

Parents Protest in New Jersey

2008-10-18T09:01:00.004-04:00

[Suggested action item: Call New Jersey Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk and thank her for standing up for informed consent and freedom of choice on vaccination: (201) 666-0881. Even if you don't live there, what happens in other states affects us all. Then call your local state representative and urge him or her to protect freedom of choice on vaccination in your state.]

From The Record:

Protesters rally at State House over state-mandated vaccines
Friday, October 17, 2008
BY ELISE YOUNG
TRENTON BUREAU

About 500 activists rallied outside the State House on Thursday, many with children who they said developed autism and other disorders after state-mandated immunizations.
"The shots just have to stop," said Lisa Driscoll of Maplewood, who brought her 4-year-old son Matt. "He's allergic to everything in the shots."
For years, activists across the country have protested compulsory vaccines for such diseases as chicken pox, flu, rubella and polio.
Some suspect that mercury-derived preservatives in some formulas trigger autism and other neurological ailments. Others say they're not opposed to vaccines in general, but they want to choose when and if their children will receive them.
But public-health officials say that children who have no immunity to common diseases are a risk to themselves and others.
The officials say that vaccination programs' achievements, such as the global eradication of deadly smallpox, far outweigh rare side effects. They say the federal government has identified no scientific link between the preservatives and autism.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a program called Healthy People 2010, is aiming to immunize 95 percent of the country's kindergartners and first-graders against seven diseases.
In New Jersey — home to the country's highest rate of autism, with one in 94 children affected — the issue erupted late last year, when the state adopted a Public Health Council recommendation for additional vaccines. Starting last month, all infants and toddlers in public schools and day cares were required to get annual flu shots, and sixth-graders had to receive a meningitis vaccination and a booster for diphtheria/pertussis/tetanus, or DPT.
At the rally, Assemblywoman Charlotte Vandervalk, R-Westwood, told the crowd that forced immunizations violate the Nuremberg Code, the set of ethical standards created in the wake of Nazi experiments on humans.
"We have a right to informed consent," Vandervalk said. "This once was a closet fear that now has become a public outcry."
Vandervalk is the sponsor of a bill to allow parents a conscientious exemption from vaccinating their children. Parents would claim a "sincerely held or moral objection" on paperwork to be filed with local health departments.
An identical bill in the Senate is sponsored by Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Cresskill, with a half-dozen more North Jersey lawmakers as co-sponsors.
Nineteen states have such a provision, according to the New Jersey Coalition for Vaccination Choice. Right now, the only way New Jersey parents can avoid vaccinations — and stay within the law — is to claim a medical or religious waiver. Roughly 2,200 children have such exemptions.
At the rally, Christine Levin said she drove for two hours from Sparta with her six children, ages 12 years to 5 months. None of them is vaccinated, she said.
"With my first child, I took classes in natural childbirth and learned that at birth, children are given eye drops, a Vitamin K shot and a shot for hepatitis B," Levin said.
"Hepatitis B, for a newborn? That's something that drug addicts and prostitutes get, and the vaccine is only good for 10 years. So we're protecting 10-year-old prostitutes and drug users. I said no way. We'd rather take our chances getting an illness."
Many protesters said their main fear was that a vaccine, once injected, can't be removed.
"I want to have a choice," said Melanie Miller of Bernardsville, Somerset County, mother of 3-year-old Frances Miller. "I'm not going to put a vaccine in her body every year."
E-mail: younge@northjersey.com

It's interesting that the article says the federal government has not found a link "between the (vaccine) preservatives and autism." We keep hearing that, but I have to wonder how much top officials know and are simply covering up. In June 2005 there was a meeting of government officials, scientists and doctors that Rolling Stone magazine reported on in the article Deadly Immunity. I blogged about this back in May, when I first heard of it. Everyone should read the article - and if we find it hard to believe, I think we need to ask ourselves if Rolling Stone would completely fabricate this story, or if it is true. And since many citizens (including myself) have managed to get their hands on the actual transcripts from the meeting, it's hard to pretend it didn't happen. Yet that's kind of what the federal government is doing, because they have no answers they want to share with the public.

My second bone to pick is this: the federal vaccine court DID concede back in March that 9-year-old Hannah Poling's autism was caused by her vaccines "in the presence of her mitochondrial disorder." Then when parents started asking if the feds would start screening for mito disorders before vaccination, the CDC said that would be too "risky" and "raised ethical questions." ... Good grief, I'll raise an ethical question. How can they say this child actually developed autism from her vaccines because of a biological condition she had, then continue to tell Americans that vaccines are safe for everyone? Isn't every parent out there wondering, "What if MY child has a mitochondrial disorder?" If the government says there is a link, but doesn't think screening for the disorder is a priority, then how can I trust that my child's safety is my government's top priority? Well, I can't. And I can't trust that they are doing everything in their power to protect kids from vaccine injury either. This is where it all breaks down. The trust is gone, and I am now an independent researcher, severed from the faith I used to have in public health authority to tell me what's best for my kids.

With the economy trembling, a lot of Americans have been reminded that human corruption runs deep in the people governing our country and our financial institutions. The phrase "follow the money" just keeps coming to mind. Should it be any surprise that human corruption also exists in the public health field? In the pharmaceutical companies? Does it alarm you that pharmaceutical reps spend more time talking to your legislators on Capitol Hill than you do? Covering up mistakes, lying and greed are human problems, not sector problems. Public health authorities are certainly not immune to these sins.

(thanks, Jeff, for the article)

Sample Exemption Form

2008-10-17T19:02:00.002-04:00

I found the following document on Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's Web site (under Vax Forms). I have been thinking about creating my own documents for each vaccine (ha, if I ever get to it!) stating my reasons for not choosing to use it (should we choose not to). But for anyone looking for a standard exemption document, I thought this was pretty straightforward and helpful. I appreciate that it states specifically that there are no guarantees 1) regarding the efficacy of a vaccine nor 2) regarding a safe outcome.

Thank you, once again, Dr. Tenpenny. Here is the document:

We, _________________________, hereby state that we have chosen not to vaccinate our child,_________________ because we are philosophically opposed to the concept of vaccines.

We maintain this is a responsible and ethically justifiable position for the following
reasons:
-vaccination is a medical intervention performed on a healthy child that has the ability to result in injury or death of that child;
-the fact that there can be no guarantee that the deliberate introduction of killed or live microorganisms into the body of a healthy child will not compromise the health or cause the death of that child, either immediately or in the future;
-no predictors have been identified by medical science that can give advance warning that injury or death may occur in any individual child;
-there are no guarantees that the vaccine will indeed protect the child from contracting a disease;
-there is an absence of adequate scientific knowledge regarding the way vaccines singly, or in combination, act in the human body at the cellular and molecular level.

Therefore, we believe that vaccination is a medical procedure that could reasonably be termed as experimental each time it is performed on a healthy child.

Our state law makes provisions for non-vaccination of children whose parents object to vaccines for religious or philosophical reasons. We accept full responsibility for the health of our child, and because of philosophical conviction, do not wish our child vaccinated. In the event of any infectious condition, our child would of course remain at home. We further understand that during the course of an outbreak of any so called "vaccine preventable disease" would occur at your facility, our child is subject to exclusion from your facility for the duration of the outbreak.
_____________________________ ____________
Signature Date
______________________________ ____________
Signature Date

And After Vacation Came...

2008-09-17T21:50:00.003-04:00

I don't really know if anyone still reads this blog, and I myself haven't had the stamina or heart to think about the topic for quite some time. I haven't added anything since July 7th, because after we got back from vacation, we sold our house, packed it all up, moved, found out we were pregnant, and this blog's author just has no energy for this right now.

I don't know when I will post again, but to all who have come across these pages as searching parents, I encourage you to keep researching. You'll know you've hit home when your blood pressure rises every time you think about the topic! There's just too much cash involved and not enough accountability. I truly believe the people in the system have good intentions (doctors, nurses, many public health officials), but the system matrix is broken. The stuff trickling down from the top rungs of public health authority and the drug industry has soured the whole lot, and we trusting parents are just along for the ride.

I started researching vaccines even though my public health background taught me all was normal and safe. I now find myself in an uncharted frontier, where I don't automatically trust what I read (on either side). But I also find I can never go back to thinking that vaccines are safe for everyone nor as necessary as we've been told. I certainly don't have all the answers, but I know a lot more than I used to. And when I am tempted to fear I am making wrong decisions, I just have to remember the God who is sovereign over my children's lives. My faith cannot ultimately be in my decisions or my information, but it must rest solely in the person of Christ.

"Those who know Your name will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You." ~ Psalm 9:10

Vacation

2008-07-07T20:32:00.004-04:00

(Or will it be more like this? ...)

Here's hoping Bertha sizzles out.

Question:

2008-07-07T19:48:00.005-04:00

Why not get rid of "vaccine court" and bring paid lawyers back on the job for vaccine-injured childen?

(Currently, families who want to pursue legal recourse for vaccine injury must find a lawyer who will work for free for them for as long as it takes to win their case in the government's vaccine court. The government's lawyers are, of course, paid.)

It is just wrong that American citizens have to use this broken system to get justice.

But anyway, this post was originally going to be about HPV Vaccine. Read this: http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/2008/07/hpv-vaccine-victims-pile-up-15b-for.html

Also, check out this blog: http://www.jenjensfamily.blogspot.com/ The family wants to be clear that they are not pointing fingers at the HPV vaccine as causing their daughter's paralysis. But it seems to me, from looking at the sheer number of adverse events being reported to our public health authorities, that Jenny is definitely not alone. Lord, please heal her body. Please spare young girls from harm and bring justice to those whose carelessness is hurting others!

Related story:
HPV Vaccine Linked to Teen's Paralysis? (CBS News, 7/7/08)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/07/earlyshow/health/main4236581.shtml

Added to Side Bar: Evidence of Harm

2008-06-27T22:16:00.001-04:00

I would absolutely love, love, love to see David Kirby speak sometime. What a great American.

http://evidenceofharm.com/

A Fair Article

2008-06-27T22:04:00.003-04:00

The angst I always feel before reading a vaccine article in the mainstream press dissipated after a few sentences here. I am glad Julie Deardorff is approaching this on the level: it's not supposed to be "parents vs. the medical community." This vaccine issue is about parents learning about real information and growing concerned that our medical authorities aren't being straight with us. We deserve better.

Here is Julie's artice as printed in the Chicago Tribune today:

The AAP gets tough on vaccine dissenters
The American Academy of Pediatrics is growing so concerned about the climbing rate of vaccine exemptions--and the possible affect on community health--that it recently formed a group called the "Immunization Alliance" to address the growing refusal of some parents to vaccinate.
In a letter sent to members, the AAP identified the following as problems:
"Parent-to-parent spread of myths."
"A public that does not understand the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases."
"Unbalanced Internet and media exposure."
"Decreased trust in the government and health care providers."
"Slow response to negative news coverage."
"Increasing calls for philosophical exemptions."
But here's a problem the AAP missed: The sheer number of recommended and mandated vaccines is freaking parents out. And new combo shots that contain a stew of four or five different vaccines aren't going to help matters.
In 1982, The Centers for Disease Control recommended 23 doses of 7 vaccines for children up to age 6.
Today, the CDC recommends that children get 48 doses of 12 vaccines by age 6. That's a lot. Toss in flu shots for all infants and children and it boosts the number of recommended vaccines for children to 69 doses of 16 vaccines by age 18.
The two new combo shots approved yesterday by a federal advisory panel don't change the schedule; they just reduce the number of individual shots. GlaxoSmithKline's four-in-one shot offers protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio. Sanofi Pasteur's five-in-one shot is for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and illness due to Haemophilus influenzae type b, or HiB.
But parents who are already asking doctors to unbundle the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine because they want their child to have individual vaccines aren't likely to embrace a five-shot cocktail. The new shots are also likely to raise questions, concerns and storage issues.
And how does the AAP plan to handle it? The organization will not talk about choice or informed consent, issues that should be raised with any medical procedure that carries a risk.
Instead, the AAP suggests in a sample letter to pediatricians, that physicians tell parents who refuse to vaccinate that they have a "self-centered and unacceptable attitude" since your child is getting protection from others who have chosen to vaccinate.
And if you absolutely refuse to vaccinate your child despite your physician's efforts, you could be booted from your pediatrician's practice. The sample letter to doctors from the AAP recommends saying:
"We will ask you to find another health care provider who shares your views. We do not keep a list of such providers nor would we recommend any such physician."

Perceptions vs. Reality

2008-06-25T14:00:00.003-04:00

My husband and I just finished reading a children's book, Chasing Vermeer, for a project he was working on. It sounds silly to read 5th-grade novels, but it's actually pretty fun. We did the same thing with some of the Narnia and Harry Potter books, taking turns reading them out loud.

Anyway, the book got me thinking about vaccines many times, because the characters often wonder if the things they see are real or not. It references a real life book written by a man named Charles Fort, who collected at least 294 newspaper articles documenting showers of living things (frogs falling from the sky and that sort of thing). (It turns out Fort still has a following today, though he died in 1932.) Fort wrote that it seemed the common practice of humans was to process unexplained events or facts through the conclusions we already held about life, rather than starting with the facts and drawing conclusions (I paraphrase; the book is currently at class with my hubbie, so I can't quote it).

One of the characters in the book, at one point, feels that he has fallen into a puzzle and cannot get out. I, too, have had days where it felt like that. I have often wondered if all the research I am doing is "real," or is the perception I had before (that vaccines are generally safe) the more accurate one?

I lay in bed the other night with a scene from Disney's Alice in Wonderland in my head: Alice in the dark forest, walking a path that is in the process of being completely erased by some strange, four-footed creature with a broom for a face. The creature makes its way around her, leaving her standing on one square of path with no clue as to how to get out of the forest.

It seems like a scary place to be, not knowing where you came from or where you should go. But then, I thought, maybe we need more moments like that in life. If we don't have the "Think This Way" path in front of us, then we are forced to examine information and forge our own path.

Now, I'm not saying that all areas of life are open for re-writing. I am pretty orthodox in my beliefs, especially regarding right and wrong. But are there certain things where our thinking has been shaped by an outside force that isn't necessarily trustworthy?

It is hard to get a firm intellectual grasp on vaccine safety now. The information is very controlled. I used to think that my doctor would always know exactly what was correct, but I am beginning to see that doctors only have so much time and are most likely reading the newsletters they receive from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, or whatever other medical organizations they belong to.

When my doctor, the CDC and the AAP say that serious reactions are rare, I can't take it at face value anymore. How rare? What are the numbers? Are those pre-market numbers or post-market? When will the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System ever contain accurate numbers? Where is the paper trail for vaccine injury, and why isn't it discussed in the press? Why is vaccine injury hidden from the public? Because medical "authorities" do not trust us to decide for ourselves? No wonder we have such misconceptions about vaccines.

Why haven't the multiple vaccines in the vaccine schedule ever been tested together? Why aren't many vaccines tested for carcinogenicity before going to market? Do vaccines even work that well? How well? Why are there so many accounts of measles outbreaks among the highly vaccinated? Are the public's (and the scientific community's) perceptions of vaccine effectiveness completely wrong? Is it true what Dr. Robert Mendelsohn wrote in 1984, that no vaccine can be credited with eliminating any disease? Is it true that these diseases were on their way out before the vaccines were invented? (I have read much about this and it is shocking!) It is so hard to believe that we are vaccinating for no good reason! But what if it is true? What if we gave alllllll the numbers to little Alice on her square to calculate? What path would she re-write, and would it amaze us?

The AAP recently wrote that parents who question vaccinating simply don't understand things. They are not experts. They are selfish. Their decisions are emotional. My question is, do I not deserve to know everything? Why should the AAP and CDC make my decision for me? Why do they get to tell me what reality is? Such control of information is not fit for America.

The other day I read a TIME magazine article (dated June 2nd) titled "How Safe Are Vaccines?" In the subheading, it noted that parents are concerned about autism and are declining shots. Then it said, "What the science says about the real risks - and what you should do about it." Of course, the "experts" at TIME told me to get the shots and stop worrying (in a nutshell). (And cited the same old, faulty autism/thimerosal studies the government has been using for years.) Well, I guess I am a hard sell for TIME and whoever else commiserated to write that article (Dr. Paul Offit was quoted as always); I have a brain of my own and plan to draw my own conclusions based on the science they weren't so eager to publish. The perceptions I have regarding vaccine safety just won't fit into that neat little model of theirs anymore.

Does that make me a renegade? A fool? Or maybe a "fearless thinker," as one of the Chasing Vermeer kids called Charles Fort? (ha ha - I really don't know much about this Fort guy and say that somewhat in jest ... I'm not sure I want to align myself with him!) I read a quote in TIME that I've pondered for a few days -- a mom, whose son almost died from a vaccine-preventable bacterial infection after they elected not to get his shots, said she was "angry" that people are out there spreading information that would cause parents not to vaccinate. I felt for her as a fellow mother, and would definitely be shaken up if that happened to my child. I am sorry they went through that. I pictured her face looking angrily at me if she knew who was behind this blog. It made me want to be really sure I am sticking to facts, but not apologizing for them. I just can't see how turning a blind eye to the risks of vaccine injury is the solution.

As someone wrote recently on another blog, parents who don't vaccinate "know they are playing Russian Roulette with their child's health." Yes, the decision is emotional. It is hard to know if there are shots we should decline. But there needs to be room in this country for more than one answer. We allow many freedoms and many "ways of being" in this nation. American society assumes that not everyone believes the same things. It needs to be just as politically correct here.

Washington 101 (Part 1)

2008-06-23T11:51:00.000-04:00

I am constantly feeling like I want to DO something whenever I read about parental rights being threatened, vaccines harming children, or normal Americans being marginalized for questioning the untested vaccine schedule. Having a 14-month-old in the house, however, largely hinders me from doing much. Congressmen and lobbyists go on about their inside-the-beltway, day-to-day politics, and little moms from small-town America can easily be ignored.

But ... that doesn't mean we don't speak up anyway. A few years working in a lobbying organization in DC taught me a small bit, and I wanted to post a few more useful links.

1) Finding your officials is probably the easiest and most important first step. Once you know their names, you're well on your way. Congress.org allows you to type in your zip code and instantly see who your federal and state officials are. (There's a box on the left side of the page, and at the top right inside the navigation bar.)

2) Now that you have your representatives' names, just write down this phone number and keep it handy: Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121. When your call is answered, just say to the operator, "Senator _____'s office, please," or "Could you please direct me to Representative _______?" or something to that effect.

Sometimes this number gets very busy and it's hard to get through. You can try this number in addition: (202) 225-3121, and you can always use the House.gov or the Senate.gov Web sites to find additional phone numbers and email addresses for your legislators.

... Now, this may be elementary to most, but just as a refresher, every American has two Senators (no matter where you live in your state, your Senators are the same -- there are 2 for each of the 50 states) and one Representative in the House (different depending on your geographic location). All in all there are 535 members of Congress - 100 in the Senate and 435 in the House.

Tips on calling your Representatives/Senators:

- Don't be afraid to pick up the phone on the spur of the moment to voice your opinion. Your legislators work for you. I preach to myself when I say we need to make our voices heard. It literally could take only one or two minutes to call and speak three sentences while you're washing your dishes.

- The phone is probably being answered by a college-aged intern or an entry-level staff member (though sometimes the higher-ranked staff answer). This person may sound completely disinterested, but don't let that hinder you from saying all you want to say. Even if they only write down part of your comments or merely make a hash mark next to a topic showing that their boss got a call, your call is better than no call, and if asked for details later, they may recall some of what you said. Remember to be polite!

- This person also may not be able to explain the Rep./Senator's positions or answer "why" questions, such as, "So why did your boss vote in favor of such-and-such?" You can try, but don't be surprised if they keep mum.

- If you have lots of questions, ask if you can speak with the L.A. (legislative assistant) who works on (whatever issue). You might even be able to find a name before calling by going to the representative's Web site and looking up staff and issues. Some members provide this information. If your issue is vaccine safety, this topic may fall under something broader like "Health and Human Services." If you aren't sure, you can always just ask the person on the phone. ("Which L.A. can I speak to regarding ______?")

In-person visits can sometimes be scheduled in your vicinity when your federal Representative/Senator is home for a recess (such as in August). Or, you can call the local office and ask about meeting with staff regarding an issue anytime. Be sure to have clear talking points and handouts ready if you decide to pursue this route.

Next "Washington 101": How to Research Congressional Bills

The Academy Thinks You're Stupid

2008-06-22T07:37:00.003-04:00

It would be one thing if the American Academy of Pediatrics actually used this recent letter to doctors to calmly and professionally discuss vaccine injury and parental rights. But they've dug in their heels, insulted everyone who's not an expert on vaccines, and if you had trouble with your pediatrician before regarding your child's vaccines, it may very well get worse.

"When you can't reason, insult."

Parents, stay vigilant! You ARE correct to research your child's vaccines. It will take work, but the information is out there, and it's in medical journals and CDC documents - not just wacky Web sites as anyone who opposes you is likely to suggest! You are doing the right thing. YOU, and only you, have God-given authority over your child. Be empowered. You are not alone.

http://vaccineawakening.blogspot.com/2008/06/aap-leadership-fights-informed-vaccine.html

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/06/aap-insulting-p.html#more

What can you do?
- Contact your federal and state representatives and tell them you want your medical rights protected - we want informed consent on vaccination, a medical procedure that carries risks, and we want the option to take exemptions on vaccines. Ask them to do all they can to protect our medical rights.
- Be prepared to discuss the facts you have discovered regarding vaccination with your child's pediatrician. Personally, I am working on a binder with dividers for each vaccine/disease that I can carry with me anywhere, open it up and point right to the information I need. A good book on vaccines would also do the trick. (Do an Amazon search on vaccine books by Stephanie Cave or Neil Z. Miller)
- If you're feeling saucy, give the AAP a call and tell them you do not appreciate being insulted for taking a reasonable look at the risks and benefits of vaccines. The motto on the AAP Web site is "Dedicated to the Health of All Children" - and since the former NIH Director, Dr. Bernadine Healy, recently said that "there is this susceptible group" (who is sensitive to vaccines), then perhaps the Academy needs to take it down a few notches and admit that not all children need all those vaccines. 847/434-4000 (Elk Grove, IL, headquarters) 202/347-8600 (Washington, D.C. office - Dept. of Federal Affairs)

Go get 'em.

Travels, Family and Grad Classes

2008-06-22T07:18:00.002-04:00

These things have been the major obligations on my schedule the past few weeks (the grad classes are my husband's - it's the computer he's hogging that I need :) ha ha - j/k of course, babe) It's been hard to get to the blog since before Memorial Day, but I do have some things in the works and if you keep coming back here to the same old title, please don't give up. Umm, I'll be back. (Will my brain always automatically do its worst Arnold imitation every time I put those 3 words together?)

Stay tuned.

Where Does it End?

2008-06-10T10:33:00.001-04:00

Three questions:

1) Is anyone else wondering if we are getting too "vaccine-happy"?

2) Will the manufacturer of this stomach ulcer vaccine lobby for it to be added to the pediatric schedule?

3) Does anyone still doubt that vaccines are primarily a business and not a philanthropic endeavor?

Again, we see that drug companies are not kindly little non-profit organizations; their motivation is for profit: "Novartis has recently stepped up its investment in vaccines as part of a strategy to diversify its business."

Novartis plans new anti-ulcer vaccine trial in '08

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareNews/idUSL0418525920080604

LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) - Novartis AG (NOVN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) plans to launch a proof of concept trial for its experimental vaccine against a bug that causes stomach ulcers by the end of 2008, it said on Wednesday.
The Helicobacter pylori vaccine is currently in Phase I trials and has been shown to be safe and immunogenic in early tests.
Other products in early development include a Group B Streptococcus vaccine candidate in Phase I and a vaccine against infections from Group A Streptococcus, which is due to enter Phase I trials in 2010. A pneumoccocus vaccine to cover new strains is also expected to start Phase I testing in 2010.
The Swiss drugmaker laid out its development plans for the new vaccines in a statement ahead of a R&D meeting on its vaccines business to be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later in the day.
Division head Joerg Reinhardt said the products underlined the potential of the Novartis vaccines pipeline.
Its most advanced new vaccines are two against meningococcal infection in late stage development -- Menveo and MenB -- which analysts view as potential blockbusters.
Novartis has recently stepped up its investment in vaccines as part of a strategy to diversify its business. A new research site with up to 250 scientists is expected to open in Cambridge later in 2008. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Rory Channing)

Real Families. Real Hurt. Real Change Needed.

2008-06-07T10:32:00.002-04:00

DC Rally Pictures
(Thanks, Ginger T.)

Video Coverage
(Thanks, Autism One)

And seriously? No news in any major papers? I searched Washington Post, Washington Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS... Found a few things in smaller news outlets, and one blurb on WJLA, the Washington ABC affiliate. Nothing very substantial, and nothing giving credence to the protestors' message. Reminds me of when the March for Life comes to town - the papers virtually ignore tens of thousands of protestors marching in the bitter cold of January through Washington.

There are some truths that are, unfortunately, very inconvenient.

Please pray for June 4th rally

2008-06-03T19:25:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow (Wednesday, June 4th), hundreds (or thousands?) of parents and activists will march on Washington in one, unified voice to urge government officials to take toxic ingredients out of vaccines and ease up on the pediatric vaccine schedule. Many Americans (me included) believe that the current schedule is somewhat overzealous and that children are receiving too much immune stimulus too soon. There is also concern that the interactions of the vaccines have not been tested together, and the safety of so many injections at once is in question.

I am all for this rally and I wish I could afford to be there; however, it doesn't need me to be successful. What I do believe it needs is God's blessing, and if you are the praying sort, please join me in praying some specific things for the day:

Pray that God would work in the hearts of the members of Congress and also officials in other branches of government, that they might hear the valid concerns of these parents and do what is right.
Please pray that God would bring to light the conflicts of interest in vaccine manufacturing and approval processes and how money has corrupted a program that is supposed to be for the public good.
Pray that God will have mercy on our nation and bring about change, as the vaccine program is one that most people blindly trust in (me included, until 3 months ago!)
Pray that more families will become aware of problems with vaccines and be able to educate themselves and act in the best interests of their children.
Pray for the families of vaccine-injured children -- for strength, endurance, hope, and joy, and that their trials would point them to Jesus and the compassion He has.

Oh Lord, Your word says that the king's heart is a stream of water in Your hand; You turn it wherever You will (Proverbs 21:1). Lord, would you please use this rally to bring about change in our nation? Please work in the hearts of our rulers so that they can accomplish good things for our children. Please use this rally to protect children from future harm. Lord, you are sovereign over our land and we ask that you would divert the plans of dishonest men who care more about monetary gain than they do our health. Please give wisdom to parents and reveal the problems with vaccines to more people. In Christ's name, Amen.

The Book Every American Should Read

2008-05-27T21:50:00.004-04:00

This is the book I should have read when I first started trying to figure out what was going on with this whole autism/vaccines thing.

It hasn't been clear to me thus far, but this excellently written book, Evidence of Harm, by David Kirby is telling me the history of this whole ordeal. The issue is newer than I thought (according to this book, concerned parents didn't even know that thimerosal was mercury until 1999), yet still entirely too long-lived. A lot of hard-working, passionate parents have done a lot of good and faced a mountain of opposition. Mr. Kirby, I think this book will go down in history as the one that told the story when so many still couldn't hear.

The book reads like a novel yet is solidly documented. I have been devouring it and have learned a ton, yet I'm only 1/4th of the way through. I can't wait to read it again tomorrow (had to stop today when my eyes couldn't take it anymore!).

I don't know if this will bring me much closer to deciding what is best for my baby, since thimerosal is almost all phased out of vaccines, but it certainly gives me a greater understanding of the public health machine we're dealing with. All I can say is, you are not crazy to do your homework on your child's vaccinations. And you should read this book! Get on Amazon or Ebay or what-have-you and spend a few bucks on a cheap copy. I personally think this is one of the most important stories to be told.

Will Dr. Healy's words change things?

2008-05-27T21:30:00.005-04:00

All right, I'm waaaay behind on putting this landmark interview up. But I need this for a reference for my own research and perhaps anyone reading this blog would want it also.

Here is the link to the CBS Web site, where you can watch video of Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the National Institutes of Health and a current member of the Institute of Medicine, say that her colleagues in the public health field have been "too quick to dismiss the (vaccine-autism) hypothesis as irrational." (If the main video is too long for your liking, click on the smaller "screens" down below - the middle video that is 3:05 long is the one that aired on CBS Evening News on Monday, 5/12/08)

"What we’re seeing in the bulk of the population: vaccines are safe," said Healy. "But there may be this susceptible group. The fact that there is concern, that you don’t want to know that susceptible group is a real disappointment to me. If you know that susceptible group, you can save those children. If you turn your back on the notion that there is a susceptible group… what can I say?"

By the way, for what may be the first time, I read a mainstream article today that didn't automatically dismiss the "autism from vaccines" theory. It was here, on U.S. News and World Report, in an article authored by Nancy Schute. Could this attitude be a sign of things to come?

Hepatitis A Vaccine

2008-05-22T22:21:00.003-04:00

Helpful links:

CDC Hepatitis A page

National Vaccine Information Center Hepatitis A vaccine page

Both of these pages are quick to read and the information is straighforward on both. I don't even feel like I need to say anything further. (Hooray!)

If I think of anything to add later, I will.

New Scientific Paper Finds Correlation between Thimerosal, Autism

2008-05-20T09:53:00.003-04:00

From the Journal of the Neurological Sciences. Abstract here.

"Consistent significantly increased rate ratios were observed for autism, autism spectrum disorders, tics, attention deficit disorder, and emotional disturbances with Hg (mercury) exposure from TCVs (thimerosal-containing vaccines). By contrast, none of the control outcomes had significantly increased rate ratios with Hg exposure from TCVs. Routine childhood vaccination should be continued to help reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with infectious diseases, but efforts should be undertaken to remove Hg from vaccines. Additional studies should be conducted to further evaluate the relationship between Hg exposure and NDs (neurodevelopmental disorders)."

Service Dogs for Autistic Children

2008-05-20T09:50:00.001-04:00

Interesting article in the New York Daily News (click here). Excerpts:

As it is for many kids with autism, life has been isolating for 12-year-old John Haugh, whose lack of verbal and play skills has kept the Floral Park, L.I., boy from making any friends. But the recent arrival of his special golden retriever, Buddy, has opened a new window to John's world. ...
For a mother, autism can be very lonely and consuming, she said. But puppies need to be walked, and Buddy gets her back out into the neighborhood - a connection to the outside world that she had lost.
"Buddy is a breath of fresh air," she said.
The North Star Foundation is supported by donations. For information, go to NorthStarDogs.com or call (860) 423-0664.

What does the CDC say about not vaccinating?

2008-05-18T09:47:00.010-04:00

Taken from a PDF document found on this page under "What if you don't immunize your child?":

We strongly encourage you to immunize your child, but ultimately the decision is yours. Please discuss any concerns you have with a trusted healthcare provider or call the immunization coordinator at your local or state health department. Your final decision affects not only the health of your child, but also the rest of your family, the health of your child’s friends and their families, classmates, neighbors, and community.

Without immunizations, your child can infect others.

Children who are not immunized can transmit vaccine-preventable diseases throughout the community. Unvaccinated people can pass diseases on to babies who are too young to be fully immunized.
Unvaccinated people pose a threat to children and adults who can’t be immunized for medical reasons. This includes people with leukemia and other cancers, HIV/AIDS and other immune system problems, and persons receiving chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or large doses of corticosteroids.
Unvaccinated people can infect the small percentage of children whose immunizations did not “take.”

Reading this brochure puzzles me and even insults my intelligence in a few ways. First of all, they use the label "unvaccinated people," when what they really mean is "sick people." Being "unvaccinated" does not make a person the carrier of a disease! Being sick does. An unvaccinated person is not the same as a sick person! And vaccinated people can get sick too, because vaccines do not necessarily confer immunity.

In fact, many times it is the vaccine itself that makes that person sick. While our society believes that smallpox and polio were eradicated by vaccines, if you look at the actual numbers, people got sick from these inoculations, with disease rates increasing after mass vaccination programs started. Many sources (doctors and historical records) say that these diseases declined naturally, having been on their way out before vaccination even began.

Which brings me to the second thing, and that is that when we are vaccinated, it is possible to "shed" the germs from the vaccine (I've read about this in vaccine package inserts and various articles). So really, those dangerous "unvaccinated" people are sometimes the ones at risk of catching disease from the vaccinated ones, not the other way around.

Third, this brochure uses the word "immunize" to mean "vaccinate." Technically, the terms are not interchangeable, even though the vast majority of medical texts use them like this. The word "immunize" literally means to make immune. Vaccines are an attempt at making us immune, but they do not guarantee immunity. Even this brochure hints at that when it says, "Unvaccinated people can infect the small percentage of children whose immunizations did not 'take.'"

I am sure there are truths in this brochure as well, but I am somewhat distracted by the way it misleads. Here, the reader is led to believe that unvaccinated people are dirty and can't be around the rest of society because of the risk they pose. It's things like this that make me now question almost everything the CDC says. It shouldn't be like this! I'm just a layperson, and I shouldn't have to question public health expertise like this. I just want the truth. I just want to know what real health problems have resulted from vaccination, and I want real numbers. I'm tired of feeling like I have to figure this out for myself.

Oh, so you'll see I added the CDC Vaccination home page to my sidebar. This is for research purposes for anyone who wants to see what they have to say. But personally, I can't help it if I read their site with the proverbial grain of salt.

Oh yea, and I still haven't heard back from them regarding my phone message about Prevnar (I called about a month ago to ask why Prevnar vaccine is not tested for carcinogenicity, mutagenic effects or impairment of fertility). Since then, I've found a few other vaccine inserts that state the same thing - they aren't tested for these things before they're mandated for our kids. And the CDC has yet to tell me why not. If you want to call them, I'll tell you that number again: 404-639-8256. Have at it, and let me know if you get any answers.

Shingles Booster Recommended by CDC

2008-05-17T18:53:00.005-04:00

The CDC is recommending shingles booster shots for anyone over 60. Shingles is the more serious form of the chickenpox virus and can be dangerous in adults.

The more I read about epidemiology as it relates to increased vaccination, it seems that diseases just find new ways to work their ways into the population. Vaccines do not confer lifetime immunity the way getting the disease does, so we are told we need booster shots, and we can never be 100% sure we are immune. For example, mumps, one of the classic old childhood diseases, now occurs at higher rates in the older populations as the vaccines wear off. So, what you have are teens and adults getting it instead of school-age kids, and these older populations are the ones who are actually more susceptible to long-term damage (such as sterility in males). (This phenomenon was cited in Neil Z. Miller's Vaccine Safety Manual and Dr. Robert Mendelsohn's How to Raise a Healthy Child ... in Spite of Your Doctor.)

Natural chickenpox immunity, which (in my understanding) would have remained steady in the adult population because most adults had it as kids, is now collectively wearing off. Dr. Sherri Tenpenny explains in her DVD, Vaccines: The Risks, the Benefits, the Choices, that our adult immune systems sort of need our kids to get chickenpox so that we can get exposed to it again --- this re-exposure actually helps our immune systems "remember" the virus and bulk up again. But instead of allowing this natural course to go on, we've just vaccinated against chickenpox and now, as a population, we are becoming weaker at fending it off. Dr. Tenpenny cites a CDC publication (the July 12, 1996, MMWR) that says the incidence of developing shingles within 10 years after vaccination is occurring at a rate of about 1 in 5,000. And so, instead of adults getting natural "immune boosters" from their kids being left alone to get this normal childhood disease, kids are getting shingles from the vaccine (!), and adults are getting shingles from their kids.

Thus, the advent of a shingles booster for adults, and more cash for the pharmaceutical industry yet again.

According to the journal Vaccine, there is a real threat of a shingles epidemic due to mass vaccination against chickenpox (as cited by Dr. Tenpenny).

I'm just a layman, but to me this seems illogical. It seems healthier for our population just to get the chickenpox and let natural immunity occur, rather than going around inventing ways to circumvent nature. I know I didn't mind the little itchy bumps, and as my husband said, remembering his long excuse for days full of video-gaming, "Those were the best two weeks of my school career!"

Why I Didn't Give a Dollar to Autism the Other Day

2008-05-14T20:17:00.002-04:00

Last Friday, my husband and I took our little man to Toys R Us to spend some of his birthday money (I was surprised by how many people give a one-year-old money on his b-day!) I'd (ahem, I mean he'd)been wanting one of those cute "push-around" buggies made by Step 2, so we can cruise around the 'hood.

At the register, there are signs hanging with puzzle pieces and children's faces on them -- the organization represented is Autism Speaks. When you pay the nice cashier, they ask you if you want to give a dollar to autism. A few months ago, I am sure I would have said yes, but after learning some things about this particular organization, I had to be "that person" who couldn't even spare a buck. Here's why:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/05/founders-of-aut.html#more

Polio Survivor Writes on the Runaway Truck of Vaccine Policy

2008-05-14T20:01:00.004-04:00

There's so much good stuff over at Age of Autism. Hope it's OK I just grabbed this story from there.

"Polio Survivor on Immunization"

BY ANNE VAN RENSSELAER

Mother Nature cleverly designs any gene pool to include pioneers, renegades, warriors and stay-at-homes, whether she's working on animal forms, germs, or algae. So in any pool of a species, there are certain individuals best suited to meet particular challenges.When we started immunizing against smallpox, we set loose a grand and persistent fantasy that we could eradicate diseases, but germs and Mother Nature are busy doing push-ups in the parking lot while we're sitting in the doctor's waiting room with our babies, waiting to be Nature-proofed.
Have you noticed how often you've read about a newly-discovered strain of measles or mumps or anything else? How many of these are produced inadvertently by laboratory buccaneers? We can't keep up our defense fast enough, and our efforts only drive the pathogens' adaptive changes on; we're forcing the production of "designer genes" in germs that used to be innocuous, by making designer drugs, designer germicides. Are any of our scientists cynical enough to think that triggering a pathogen mutation is "no biggie,"since they can come up with a new antibiotic or vaccine in response, so the cash cow never dies?
Ma Nature keeps letting us know she will not be bested in this game, but like the classic sucker, we keep signing on for a new round.
When I had polio during the epidemic of 1952-3, only 1 in 4,000 kids in America got sick with it; a tiny percentage of us were paralyzed (only 1%, according to some), but mass hysteria ruled. Did humanity jump too hard, too fast, on the vaccine bandwagon? And as we hopped on board that bandwagon to "save" one in 4,000 from one illness, did that commit us to later blindly shove one in 150 of our babies over the side, to fall by the wayside with autism disorders?
So when conservative medical opinion fondles its beard and mumbles about "Herd Immunity," I find myself muttering, "Yeah, right. Big Pharma stands in line at the patent office, while Ma Nature whistles as she tinkers in her Laboratory." At best, we can accomplish an apparent herd immunity, a momentary herd immunity, but there is no such stasis.
So, as you watch the glorious bandwagon of western medical progress come trundling by, step back a few paces and take a longer, larger view, and see if you can't see a trail of little bodies, blighted lives, broken, exhausted families, behind the great vehicle as it rumbles on. If you're quick, you might even be able to catch some as they fall, mid-air, and take them to a safe place.
I wrote some of that a few days ago, and posted it as a comment on a friend's blog. My son commented in his typically dry way, "My friend Alex just recovered from MRSA which stands for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus. I find it difficult to believe that there was MRSA before the advent of Methicillin."
And my daughter sent me an email reporting an article in The Independent (April 14) in the UK: "INCREASE IN SEVERE PNEUMONIA IN CHILDREN MAY BE CAUSED BY VACCINE" http://tinyurl.com/69skyx Written by the paper's health editor, it describes how Prevnar, a vaccine against seven of the ninety or so streptococcal germs known to cause pneumonia, is suspected of creating new problems: "When one (germ) is eliminated, it creates an opportunity for another to take its place.
In the US, where Prevnar was introduced in 2000, researchers have reported an emergence of "sero-replacement" disease—types of pneumonia not covered by the vaccine." Serotype 1 pneumonia, the strain of greatest concern, develops rapidly, ending in surgery to clean out pus and septic fluid gathered in the pleural cavity between the chest wall and lungs."Linda Glennie, head of research at the Meningitis Research Foundation, which is funding the surveillance programme with the HPA (Health Protection Agency, UK), said the challenge was to keep one step ahead of Nature." You said a mouthful, Linda Glennie. We can't even keep up with Nature's artful dodging, so how are we going to keep one step ahead, is what I want to know?
P.S. If someone knows how to let Bill and Melinda Gates in on this little insight about who's in charge (them or Nature), the future might be a better place for children everywhere.

Autism and Vaccine Studies

2008-05-13T00:06:00.009-04:00

I got myself in hot water sending the email I posted in my previous post (should have seen that coming). I offended somebody and, among other things, they wanted to know to which studies I was referring in order to support a link between autism and mercury poisoning. Well, here are some to start with. And if the CDC isn't talking about it, does that mean I'm foolish, or that the government really is whitewashing this? At some point, it begins to feels like only one of those things can be true. Thanks to TACA and Generation Rescue for compiling this list, and Ginger Taylor (adventuresinautism.com) who I know had a hand in this too (Her list is here).

[EDITED 5/14/08 to add]: This is a short list. The TACA Web site has a 346-page document containing all sorts of studies on autism. To view it, go to http://www.talkaboutcuringautism.org/index.htm and scroll down until you see "Vaccines" in the left-hand column. Mouse over it and click on the PDF link to autism studies. You can even download the whole thing to your computer. The book Evidence of Harm by David Kirby is also (I've been told) a well-documented resource on this topic. (I still need to read it.)

Blood Levels of Mercury Are Related to Diagnosis of Autism: A Reanalysis of an Important Data Set
Journal of Child Neurology, Vol. 22, No. 11, 1308-1311 (2007)
M. Catherine DeSoto, PhD, Robert T. Hitlan, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa
Excerpt: ”We have reanalyzed the data set originally reported by Ip et al. in 2004 and have found that the original p value was in error and that a significant relation does exist between the blood levels of mercury and diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. Moreover, the hair sample analysis results offer some support for the idea that persons with autism may be less efficient and more variable at eliminating mercury from the blood.”

Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism
Journal of Child Neurology / Volume 21, Number 2, February 2006
Jon S. Poling, MD, PhD, Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery
Johns Hopkins Hospital
This article showed that 38% of Kennedy Krieger Institute autism patients studied had one marker for impaired oxidative phosphorylation (mitochondrial dysfunction), and 47% had a second marker.
Excerpt: "Children who have (mitochondrial-related) dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time."

Oxidative Stress in Autism: Elevated Cerebellar 3-nitrotyrosine Levels
American Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology 4 (2): 73-84, 2008
Elizabeth M. Sajdel-Sulkowska, - Dept of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Shows a potential link between mercury and the autopsied brains of young people with autism. A marker for oxidative stress was 68.9% higher in autistic brain issue than controls (a statistically significant result), while mercury levels were 68.2% higher.
Excerpt: The preliminary data suggest a need for more extensive studies of oxidative stress, its relationship to the environmental factors and its possible attenuation by antioxidants in autism.”

Large Brains in Autism: The Challenge of Pervasive Abnormality
The Neuroscientist, Volume 11, Number 5, 2005.Martha Herbert, MD, PhD [Harvard University].
This study helps refute the notion that the brains of autistic children are simply wired differently and notes, "neuroinflammation appears to be present in autistic brain tissue from childhood through adulthood." Dr. Herbert suggests that chronic disease or an external environmental source (like heavy metals) may be causing the inflammation.
Excerpt:
"Oxidative stress, brain inflammation, and microgliosis have been much documented in association with toxic exposures including various heavy metals...the awareness that the brain as well as medical conditions of children with autism may be conditioned by chronic biomedical abnormalities such as inflammation opens the possibility that meaningful biomedical interventions may be possible well past the window of maximal neuroplasticity in early childhood because the basis for assuming that all deficits can be attributed to fixed early developmental alterations in neural architecture has now been undermined."

Neuroglial Activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brain of Patients with Autism
Annals of Neurology, Feb 2005.Diana L. Vargas, MD [Johns Hopkins University].
This study, performed independently and using a different methodology than Dr. Herbert (see above) reached the same conclusion: the brains of autistic children are suffering from inflammation. Excerpt:
"Because this neuroinflammatory process appears to be associated with an ongoing and chronic mechanism of CNS dysfunction, potential therapeutic interventions should focus on the control of its detrimental effects and thereby eventually modify the clinical course of autism."

Evidence of Toxicity, Oxidative Stress, and Neuronal Insult in Autism
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Nov-Dec 2006.Janet Kern, Anne Jones
"This article discusses the evidence for the case that some children with autism may become autistic from neuronal cell death or brain damage sometime after birth as result of insult; and addresses the hypotheses that toxicity and oxidative stress may be a cause of neuronal insult in autism..the article discusses what may be happening over the course of development and the multiple factors that may interplay and make these children more vulnerable to toxicity, oxidative stress, and neuronal insult."

Oxidative Stress in Autism
Pathophysiology, 2006.Abha Chauhan, Ved Chauhan
This study provides a helpful overview of the growing evidence supporting the link between oxidative stress and autism. Excerpt:
1"Upon completion of this article, participants should be able to: 1. Be aware of laboratory and clinical evidence of greater oxidative stress in autism. 2. Understand how gut, brain, nutritional, and toxic status in autism are consistent with greater oxidative stress. 3. Describe how anti-oxidant nutrients are used in the contemporary treatment of autism."

Porphyrinuria in Childhood Autistic Disorder: Implications for Environmental Toxicity
Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 2006.Robert Nataf, Corinne Skorupka, Lorene Amet
This new study from France utilizes a new and sophisticated measurement for environmental toxicity by assessing porphyrin levels in autistic children. It provides clear and unequivocal evidence that children with autism spectrum disorders are more toxic than their neurotypical peers. Excerpt:
"Coproporphyrin levels were elevated in children with autistic disorder relative to control groups...the elevation was significant. These data implicate environmental toxicity in childhood autistic disorder."

Thimerosal Neurotoxicity is Associated with Glutathione Depletion: Protection with Glutathione Precursors.
Neurotoxicology, Jan 2005.S. Jill James, PhD [University of Arkansas].
This recent study demonstrates that Thimerosal lowers or inhibits the body's ability to produce Glutathione, an antioxidant and the body's primary cellular-level defense against mercury. Excerpt:
1"Thimerosal-induced cytotoxicity was associated with depletion of intracellular Glutathione in both cell lines...The potential effect of Glutathione or N-acetylcysteine against mercury toxicity warrants further research as possible adjunct therapy to individuals still receiving Thimerosal-containing vaccines."

Uncoupling of ATP-mediated Calcium Signaling and Dysregulated IL-6 Secretion in Dendritic Cells by Nanomolar Thimerosal
Environmental Health Perspectives, July 2006.Samuel R. Goth, Ruth A. Chu Jeffrey P. Gregg
This study demonstrates that very low-levels of Thimerosal can contribute to immune system disregulation. Excerpt:
1"Our findings that DCs primarily express the RyR1 channel complex and that this complex is uncoupled by very low levels of THI with dysregulated IL-6 secretion raise intriguing questions about a molecular basis for immune dyregulation and the possible role of the RyR1 complex in genetic susceptibility of the immune system to mercury."

Aluminum adjuvant linked to gulf war illness induces motor neuron death in mice Neuromolecular Medicine, 2007Christopher Shaw, Ph.D. [Department of Ophthalmology and Program in Neuroscience, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada]
This study demonstrates the extreme toxicity of the aluminum adjuvant used as a preservative in vaccines. Excerpt:
"testing showed motor deficits in the aluminum treatment group that expressed as a progressive decrease in strength measured...Significant cognitive deficits in water-maze learning were observed in the combined aluminum and squalene group...Apoptotic neurons were identified in aluminum-injected animals that showed significantly increased activated caspase-3 labeling in lumbar spinal cord (255%) and primary motor cortex (192%) compared with the controls. Aluminum-treated groups also showed significant motor neuron loss (35%) and increased numbers of astrocytes (350%) in the lumbar spinal cord.

Activation of Methionine Synthase by Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 and Dopamine: a Target for Neurodevelopmental Toxins and Thimerasol.
Molecular Psychiatry, July 2004.Richard C. Deth, PhD [Northeastern University].
This study demonstrates how Thimerosal inhibits methylation, a central driver of cellular communication and development. Excerpt:
"The potent inhibition of this pathway [methylation] by ethanol, lead, mercury, aluminum, and thimerosal suggests it may be an important target of neurodevelopmental toxins."

Environmental mercury release, special education rates, and autism disorder: an ecological study of Texas.
Health & Place, 2006Raymond F. Palmer, University of Texas Health Science Center
This study demonstrated the correlation between environmental mercury and autism rates in Texas. Excerpt:
"On average, for each 1,000 lb of environmentally released mercury, there was a 43% increase in the rate of special education services and a 61% increase in the rate of autism. The association between environmentally released mercury and special education rates were fully mediated by increased autism rates. This ecological study suggests the need for further research regarding the association between environmentally released mercury and developmental disorders such as autism."

Autism Spectrum Disorders in Relation to Distribution of Hazardous Air Pollutants in the SF Bay Area
Environmental Health Perspectives – Vol. 114 No. 9, September, 2006
Gayle Windham, Div. of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control, California Department of Health Services
284 ASD children & 657 controls, born in 1994 in Bay Area, were assigned exposure levels by birth tract for 19 chemicals. Risks for autism were elevated by 50% in tracts with the highest chlorinated solvents and heavy metals. The highest risk compounds were mercury, cadmium, nickel, trichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride, and the risk from heavy metals was almost twice as high as solvents.
Excerpt: “Our results suggest a potential association between autism and estimated metal concentrations, and possibly solvents, in ambient air around the birth residence.”

Comparison of Blood and Brain Mercury Levels in Infant Monkeys Exposed to Methylmercury or Vaccines Containing Thimerosal
Environmental Health Perspectives, Aug 2005.Thomas Burbacher, PhD [University of Washington].
This study demonstrates clearly and unequivocally that ethyl mercury, the kind of mercury found in vaccines, not only ends up in the brain, but leaves double the amount of inorganic mercury as methyl mercury, the kind of mercury found in fish. This work is groundbreaking because little is known about ethyl mercury, and many health authorities have asserted that the mercury found in vaccines is the "safe kind." This study also delivers a strong rebuke of the Institute of Medicine's recommendation in 2004 to no longer pursue the mercury-autism connection. Excerpt:
"A recently published IOM review (IOM 2004) appears to have abandoned the earlier recommendation [of studying mercury and autism] as well as back away from the American Academy of Pediatrics goal [of removing mercury from vaccines]. This approach is difficult to understand, given our current limited knowledge of the toxicokinetics and developmental neurotoxicity of thimerosal, a compound that has been (and will continue to be) injected in millions of newborns and infants."

A Case Series of Children with Apparent Mercury Toxic Encephalopathies Manifesting with Clinical Symptoms of Regressive Autistic Disorder
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, 2007David A. Geier, Mark R. Geier
This study reviewed the case histories and medical profiles of nine autistic children and concluded that eight of the nine children were mercury toxic and this toxicity manifested itself in a manner consistent with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Excerpt:
"...these previously normally developing children suffered mercury toxic encephalopathies that manifested with clinical symptoms consistent with regressive ASDs. Evidence for mercury intoxication should be considered in the differential diagnosis as contributing to some regressive ASDs."

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and blood mercury level: a case-control study in chinese children
Neuropediatrics, August 2006 - P.R. Kong [Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, The University of Hong Kong].
This study demonstrates that blood mercury levels are higher for children with ADHD. Excerpt:
"There was significant difference in blood mercury levels between cases and controls, which persists after adjustment for age, gender and parental occupational status. The geometric mean blood mercury level was also significantly higher in children with inattentive and combined subtypes of ADHD. High blood mercury level was associated with ADHD. Whether the relationship is causal requires further studies."

The Changing Prevalence of Autism In California
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, April 2003Mark Blaxill, MBA
This study helps to refute the supposition made by some researchers that autism's epidemic may only be due to "diagnostic substitution". Excerpt:
"They have suggested that 'diagnostic substitution' accounts for an apparent increase in the incidence of autism in California that is not real. This hypothesized substitution is not supported by proper and detailed analyses of the California data."

CBS Evening News TONIGHT

2008-05-12T11:21:00.002-04:00

My email to friends today... (if only I could tell them all I really know!):

Dear Friends,

I thought you might be interested to know that tonight, CBS Evening News is supposed to air a segment on some more of the families whose autistic children they believe were harmed by thimerasol (mercury) in vaccines. It *should* air at 6:30 or 7:00. Hopefully, the programming won't change, but I heard this first-hand from one of the families interviewed for the show.

Here is an article on yahoo about the new "test cases" coming down the pike in vaccine court -- there are about 5000 families like the one in the news back in March (Hannah Poling), and the government needs to decide how to judge them all, so they have hand-selected certain ones to be sort of like "examples." (Just so you know, Paul Offit, who makes a patronizing comment about so-called "anti-vaccine" families in the article, has a financial conflict of interest as he owns part of the patent on Rotateq, a vaccine which has actually killed and harmed babies):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080512/ap_on_re_us/autism_court_case
Documentation on Rotateq deaths here: http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/04/rotateq-causes.html

And I have a conflct of interest as I have a child I want to remain healthy.

This is a very controversial subject in the news and there is lots of misconception. What is most important to recognize here is that thimerasol is actually a mercury derivative and mercury is actually a poison. Earning my degree in public health I learned that loud and clear - and back in World War II, they actually had to label vaccines containing thimerasol as "toxic." The term "mad hatter" even came into being because hatters literally went mad -- mercury was used in the hat-curing process and they breathed it and touched it. It's very serious stuff, yet it's been injected into babies' bloodstreams for years.

Thimerasol has been removed from most vaccines, but there are still a few that contain it. (Hello!) You can see them here: http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/thi-table.htm What's strange is that instead of dumping the supply of thimerasol-containing vaccines back when the government said to phase it out, vaccine manufacturers and public health decision-makers decided to use it up here and also send it abroad to developing nations. (Again, hello!) If anyone wants documentation for this, let me know, I'll direct you to the right place.

My position is probably very clear now that you've read this far. All I meant to do was tell you about the program tonight, but couldn't help discussing a little more - sorry. Anyway, just thought you might be interested... lots of information out there and it may actually be a little worse than the mainstream media reports.

Cheers,
Sara

P.S. Feel free to forward this if you like.

Whoa. Like, whoa.

2008-05-10T22:39:00.011-04:00

Have you ever read something that kinda makes your head feel like it's gonna explode because the stuff you found out was so unbelievable? But even though it was unbelievable, you knew it was true and you finally were putting pieces together that had kind of been floating around without direction inside your head? Well, that happened to me today.

When I started researching vaccines two months ago, I had no idea what I would encounter, nor that this blog would come into being, nor that I would become so passionate about it. I even thought, if vaccines truly have legitimate dangers, then our government is not being honest with us ... and if I believe that, then I would have to be some sort of conspiracy theorist. If I discover information that makes me reconsider vaccinating, then people are going to think I am crazy. I'm going to be on the "outside." My family is going to talk about me behind my back, my doctor is going to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm endangering my child, and my friends are going to wonder what kind of nutty I'd have to be to say, "I don't believe my government, and I don't believe my doctor." I mean, that's nuts, right? That's out there.

Well, if you want to find out how those stray pieces came together for me today, read this:

1) Medical Mistakes Through the Ages, by Kim Stagliano (blogger),

and/or this:

2) Deadly Immunity, by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in Rolling Stone (2005)
[EDITED 5/14/08 to add]: I have the documents to back this story up if anyone wants them. Just email me at cadillacmtn2000@gmail.com.

and this:

3) Kennedy Report Sparks Controversy, by Rolling Stone editors (less than a month after the story above) They say, "Rolling Stone and Salon fact-checked the article thoroughly before publication, insisting on primary documentation for every statement in the story, and posted links to the most significant materials online to enable readers to judge for themselves."
And, "'Science,' as one doctor in our story insisted, 'is best left to scientists.' But when the scientists fail to do their job, resorting to closed-door meetings and rigged studies, others in society have not only a right but a moral obligation to question their work."

Epiphany. Either these things happened, or they didn't. Either I can trust the government and medical community to be honest with me about vaccines, or I can't. And though it is grave, it's still not just about the mercury -- it's still not just about the autism. There is so much more. So much.

With all this, I can only turn to the One who is sovereign over all. The One who holds my child's life in His hands. The One who watches over us when we lay down our heads and sleep. When I look at my son asleep in his bed, I am amazed that he is well, that he wakes every morning and gets to play all day. I am amazed at Christ's mercy in the midst of a suffering world.

"Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted.
Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, 'You will not call to account'?
But You do see, for You note mischief and vexation, that You may take it into Your hands;
to You the helpless commits himself;
You have been the helper of the fatherless."
-- Psalm 10:14

Watch CBS Evening News this Monday!

2008-05-10T12:20:00.003-04:00

Thank you, Fred, for leaving the following comment on Thursday's post! It is a pleasure to "meet" you and I hope CBS does a fair job telling your story. ... Here is Fred's comment:

Best of luck to both of us!

Two weeks ago my wife MyLinda and I were interviewed by CBS Evening News for a story about the upcoming trial in Vaccine Court, Our son, Jordan is the first named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit as a result of his reaction to thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that is still used in vaccines. There are about 4,900 children in the class who believe that their children developed autism as a result of exposure to mercury in vaccines.

I am writing to let you know that CBS Evening News will be broadcasting the story on Monday, May 12 at 6:30. Our family and other Oregon families were interviewed for this story and we think that part of that interview will be included.

There is more information about it at these links:

http://kimstagliano.blogspot.com/2008/03/medical-mistakes-throughout-ages-thank.html
http://home.teleport.com/~marimba/still.htm
http://safeminds.org/

Apologies for any unwanted junk mail and double postings!

The document you should read

2008-05-08T14:14:00.002-04:00

David Kirby, the journalist/author who writes regularly about the vaccine-autism story and wrote Evidence of Harm, posted the court document I assume is Hannah Poling's concession from the government (David removed the names of the family). As he suggests, perhaps every American should just read this for themselves and interpret it with their own thinking skills.

The government wants you to forget about Hannah Poling, and the nearly 5,000 other families waiting their turn in "vaccine court" with autism cases. They are hoping this will all blow over. Let's not let that happen again. This has been going on far too long.

Albeit, not every child getting vaccinated becomes autistic, but that's no reason not to make concentrated efforts to protect all children. As David says, "When a kid with peanut allergy eats a peanut and dies, we don't say 'his underlying metabolic condition was significantly aggravated to the extent of manifesting as an anaphylactic shock with features of death.' No, we say the peanut killed the poor boy. Remove the peanut from the equation, and he would still be with us today."

My question is, what are the CDC, the FDA and the AAP going to do about this? The answer is, nothing, unless the grass roots get organized and call (repeatedly and loudly) for real change. I am still not sure how we do that, but I hope to learn more and post it here. For now, there is a big rally being organized for June 4th in D.C., led by Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey and autism parents. From there, I hope this movement picks up steam and does not go away.

Working on the political side of things....

2008-05-07T09:51:00.005-04:00

I've added some things to the sidebar over there ... if you hadn't noticed. These items are for those who are interested in knowing what's going on in Congress and other branches of the government, and how we grass roots folks can voice our concerns.

Let me be clear and honest about a few things here. After only two months of researching vaccines for myself, I have grave, grave concerns about the hazards that we, as parents, are subjecting our children to unwittingly. I am FOR informed consent on vaccination. This means I believe the public deserves FULL DISCLOSURE on ALL vaccine risks, the true numbers of people affected by those complications, and the true likelihood of our children having serious problems from the very diseases we are vaccinating against -- before we vaccinate. (I believe many or most diseases are blown out of proportion, now that I've spent some time looking at them.)

I am FOR full studies on the health problems of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated populations. I believe many vaccines have created health problems in our nation's children. We deserve to know. Now.

I am not against vaccination, as long as it is safe. I'm just concerned that it's not. And people are making money off drugs that are hurting our babies. It's just wrong.

Again, every parent needs to decide for him/herself what is best for their children. I still have not decided which vaccines I will allow my children and which I will not (except for Hepatitis B, as I wrote earlier. And though I haven't "officially" decided, the MMR is one heck of a scary vaccine to me). Even if everyone found the same information as me, they may not make the same decisions as me. I respect that completely!

More later. Gotta race to get ready for the day before the baby wakes.

One more thing - I found out that the child whose case jump-started my vaccine research (a local family) was injured by the MMR. Her father makes a point of gently telling new parents her story, because he hopes some will listen and do their homework. I did. I hope my blog encourages others to do theirs as well.

Examining the CDC's "spin" on measles

2008-05-06T15:36:00.005-04:00

Thanks to Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center for a helpful article on recent news about measles. Read it here.

When I wrote about measles the other day, I didn't even think until afterwards, "How can the CDC and media say that all those measles cases were because of people not vaccinating?" I had not had a chance to look into it, but Barbara's article is insightful:

Only one fifth (14) of the cases were American children whose parents claimed a religious or personal belief exemption. This fact didn't stop CDC officials from trying to blame the measles "outbreaks" on the exemption-takers by stating "These cases and outbreaks resulted primarily from failure to vaccinate, many because of religious or personal belief exemption."

So what motives does the CDC have? Are they gearing up for putting an additional MMR shot on the pediatric schedule, as Barbara suggests? Are they stirring up fear of disease to encourage society to look down on those who don't vaccinate? Are they trying to prove (by lying about the facts) the validity of vaccine programs and hush all questions about vaccine safety, especially in light of Hannah Poling's case? Your guess is as good as mine. But the CDC's jab at non-vaccinators seems to me a calculated PR tactic in making excuses for an unproven vaccination program that is under increasing public scrutiny.

Fainting spells in adolescents

2008-05-05T09:10:00.003-04:00

At least 463 people fainted after getting vaccinated during an 18-month period from 2005 to 2007, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

... some of the patients hit their heads on the floor and at least one had a car accident, the CDC said in its weekly report on death and disease.

One 15-year-old boy died after hitting his head.

Full story on Reuters. May 2, 2008 MMWR here (the CDC document that reports this - Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.) Fainting is known clinically as "syncope."

Excerpt from MMWR: "During 2005--2007, ACIP decided to add several newly licensed adolescent vaccines to the routine immunization schedule and the Vaccines for Children Program. After these vaccines were licensed and recommended for use, the number of postvaccination syncope reports to VAERS increased, primarily among females aged 11--18 years."

Thanks to one of my commentors for this story.

[This entry edited on 5/6/08]

"No reason not to; it's a crime not to."

2008-05-03T15:48:00.005-04:00

"And it does not cause autism."

This is today's FOX video report on the measles outbreak. The words of Dr. Steven Garner of New York Methodist Hospital and Shepard Smith of FOX News. It's a "crime" not to get your child vaccinated against measles. We can only guess this doctor means a "moral crime." And we can guess that Shepard is very busy and doesn't have time to read about regressive autism.

I understand that health officials want to eliminate the spread of disease - I really do. I don't think it's a small matter that people are getting sick. Please hear me; I just think that every parent needs to be able to make an informed decision about what is best for their child. It's not just religious beliefs that keep people from vaccinating, and it's not just autism scares.

Here are some of the complications that have been shown to be associated with measles vaccine, taken from the 55th edition of the Physician's Desk Reference, a standard in medical reference:

encephalitis
subacute sclerosing panencephalitis
Guillain-Barre syndrome
febrile and afebrile convulsions
seizures
ataxia
ocular palsies
anaphylaxis
angioneurotic edema
bronchial spasms
panniculitis
vasculitis
atypical measles
thrombocytopenia
lymphadenopathy
leukocytosis
pneumonitis
Stevens-Johnson syndrome
erythema multiforme
uticaria
deafness
otitis media
retinitis
optic neuritis
rash
fever
dizziness
headache
death

The vaccine manufacturer has not evaluated the vaccine for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential nor is it known whether it can harm a fetus when administered to a pregnant woman.

How often do these adverse events happen? Well, the CDC doesn't really know. But you're just supposed to trust them. Believe them, it's rare.

Just out of curiosity, I went to the VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) site to see how many adverse events have been reported so far this year. These are for all vaccines, not just MMR vaccine. Now remember, the FDA and CDC don't put much stock in these numbers. (Until it comes to telling you reactions are rare.)

There have been 70 cases of measles as of today.

As of today, there have been 3,787 adverse events associated with vaccination reported to VAERS.

Let's just give the CDC some slack and say that perhaps some events were reported more than once, or weren't really associated with the vaccine, and let's cut that number by a third. That still leaves 1,262 adverse events ranging from fever, dizziness, going limp and staring, joint pain, aseptic meningitis, to babies stopping breathing, to "sudden death." I don't really have the time to read 3,787 lines in detail, but that's just a sample. Most of what I read happened right after or within a few hours of vaccination.

What's more likely is that 3,787 is just the tip of the iceberg. CDC and FDA officials have both said that there is underreporting to VAERS, not overreporting.

As parents find out more about the true risks of vaccination and hesitate to do it, the CDC and the drug companies are going to be pushing harder and harder for tougher mandates. I can see it coming. I plan on urging my lawmakers to protect my medical rights. To force parents to inoculate their children with substances proven to be harmful in some cases -- that is the true crime. I pray it doesn't come to that.

"Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the LORD that a man gets justice."
- Proverbs 29:26

Measles outbreaks in U.S.

2008-05-03T10:21:00.006-04:00

A friend sent me an article from FOX News.com about measles outbreaks occurring in several states. So far, CDC reports 64 cases in nine states. An additional eight occurred in WA last week. They say 63 of those folks were either not vaccinated or it was unknown if they were. Fourteen people have been hospitalized, but no deaths have occurred.

I found this document which explains measles at length. Certainly some information to consider. (Click here to read an earlier post I wrote on measles.)

When I read about the complications of measles, for me, I always want to compare it to the risks of the vaccine. Again, the CDC says the risks are minimal. But the CDC has NO RELIABLE SYSTEM for monitoring risks. They say right up front that their adverse reaction data is unable to prove causality or provide accurate numbers (click here to read their full-page disclosure on the unreliability of VAERS). So do we really know if risks are rare?

And why isn't the CDC as vigilant with their vaccine adverse reaction data collection as they are with their disease outbreak data collection? They're our experts, yet they can't figure this out? Or they just won't?

So we have about 70 cases of measles in 2008 all over the U.S. Seventy out of 300 million U.S. citizens, in four months. Every time you read an article about disease/vaccines these days, the author points out that people must be scared to vaccinate because they think vaccines cause autism. (Understandably, parents are concerned for their children.) They then always have to point out that "no studies" have proven vaccines to be linked to autism. But let's recall that Julie Gerberding (head of CDC) herself said on CNN that vaccines CAN trigger autism in the presence of mitochondrial disorders.

Either they do, or they don't. The CDC needs to figure it out. (If they don't know already - many in the autism circles believe they've known for over a decade. Do a little reading and you learn about SV-40, a cancer-causing virus that government officials knew was in polio vaccines back in the 60s, yet they kept using them. That virus is still showing up in tumors and human tissues today. Is this a system we can trust?)

But vaccines are a sacred cow in this country. Question them and you will see. Want to see a doctor commit career suicide? Google "Andrew Wakefield" and you'll see what happened to the man who listened to parents when they said their child's MMR caused them to regress. What you find people are saying about him won't be pretty. Check out also the Autism Research Institute to see what research is still happening today.

By the way, it's not just about the autism. There are many other things to consider before vaccinating. Many, many ugly health problems have arisen from injecting little pieces of bacteria, viruses, animal and human tissues and preservatives into our bloodstreams. How could they not? Get yourself a good book on vaccine risks and benefits. I personally am reading Neil Miller's Vaccine Safety Manual right now and it is incredibly helpful and well-documented.

We need to educate ourselves, by being willing to consider what the medical journals and researchers not particularly "respected" by the CDC are finding. The CDC, in my opinion, has a vested interest in controlling the information we are allowed to hear in the media, because they need our trust more than anything. If we don't trust them, they can't do their jobs. They need us to believe them to continue waging their war on infectious disease. They need injured people to be swept under the rug. They need to cover up what is really going on.

Some may think people like me are making a mountain out of a mole hill. What is more likely is that the CDC is making a mole hill out of a mountain of evidence that vaccines are not as safe as they say.

Liz Birt and her advocacy for her child, autism

2008-05-02T22:13:00.003-04:00

I am doing some back-reading on some of the autism blogs, and found this on Adventures in Autism (thanks again, Ginger). Liz Birt did some amazing work for the cause of autistic, vaccine-injured children while she was alive. She died tragically in 2005, and it is clear that the autism community was devastated. Her story of the regression of her son and her journey into making a difference deserves a thorough read. ... This is what I am talking about when I say vaccines need a harder look. These are the families. Hear them.

November 17, 2005
Illinois General Assembly
KidCare, Human Services Subcommittee 94th General Assembly
Testimony of Elizabeth Birt

Thank you for convening this hearing today regarding the issues facing Illinois families with autistic children. Because of the need for full disclosure and transparency regarding all issues before the Illinois General Assembly and the grave importance of this matter and its implications for public policy I would like to start off my stating that I have no financial conflicts of issue regarding autism, other than as the parent of a severely affected child, and that I receive no benefit directly or indirectly from pharmaceutical companies. I strongly urge that you require all individuals providing testimony to your subcommittee including those present today and those who have testified in the past to fully disclose all conflicts of interest.

I am the parent of an 11 year old child who was developmentally normal until he received two vaccinations, a thimerosal containing Hib and an MMR at approximately 15 months of age. Prior to his receipt of these vaccinations, my son could count to ten and said many words such as “mamma”, “daddy”, “ball”, “go”, Sasaa for his sister’s name; he pointed at objects of interests and played games like peek a boo and hide and seek. He loved to be held and had excellent eye contact. He had a history of ear infections but no serious medical problems. After the receipt of these immunizations, he ran a high fever. I gave him Tylenol as directed by his pediatrician.

After the vaccination, he developed a rash on the trunk of his body. I didn’t think that anything was seriously wrong and believed that all was normal with my adorable little boy. Within a few weeks of these immunizations my son developed chronic diarrhea; at first I believed it was the babysitter’s fault for giving him too much juice. As the weeks and months went by his gastrointestinal problems worsened. He also stopped acquiring language and insidiously he slipped away from me. We initially thought that he had hearing problems and had tubes inserted into his ears. We waited and watched and hoped. My son’s condition only worsened. Hestarted screaming uncontrollably and rubbing his stomach. It was like watching a fire die out ember by ember and there was no professional who could tell me how my child who had been so full of life and interactive was now in a world of his own.

Eventually my son received a diagnosis of PDD/NOS from a physician at Rush. The physician assured me that because my son still had skills left like stacking blocks that he would be “fine” and recommended speech therapy. This therapy was not covered by his father’s insurance company so we picked up the cost personally. My son then stopped sleeping through the night. He would awaken every night at around 3:00 A.M. screaming, smearing feces over himself, the carpet and walls. It was in one simple word “hell”. My husband and I took him to see a physician, Dr. Bennett Leventhal atUniversity of Chicago who diagnosed him as autistic. I will never forget that day. I had my son’s medical records with me from Dr. Michael Chez a neurologist, and asked him why his IGA was so low. IGA is the first line of defense in a person’s gastrointestinal and mucosal tract. I was told point blank that it wasn’t important. I asked him about my son’s behavioral issues such as rubbing his stomach, lying on the floor with his hands pressed against his stomach, and night time screaming. He didn’t say anything except it was perhaps a part of his autism-in other words his behavior was a psychotic result of his autism. I left the appointment feeling a sense of doom and that there was nothing that could be done for my son except to put him into an institution. It was one of the worst days of my life.

My son’s condition began to deteriorate further; he developed shingles, was chronically sick, had “shiners” under his eyes. Exasperated by the lack of medical care I set out on a journey to find out what exactly was wrong with my child. This journey led Matthew to the only treatment available for his chronic diarrhea. The care and compassion of a physician at the Royal Free Hospital in London, England by the name of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. His group had identified in a small study published in The Lancet in 1998 a group of 12 children who had been referred to the Royal Free Hospital by their local pediatricians. Much has been made of this study and of Dr. Wakefield’s work. You should know that Leo Kanner, the individual who first identified autism relied only on 11 case reports. I have included Dr. Wakefield’s CV with your handouts; he has published 133 peer reviewed studies. This is not the work of a “mad scientist”; this is the work of a dedicated researcher who trusted parents when they told him the story of their child’s illness.

To my astonishment, the children in Dr. Wakefield’s original study had a history of normal development and then lost language, social skills and had chronic intestinal problems following the receipt of an MMR vaccination. For me, it was the only path I could follow to find relief for my child. I took him to London and there he was actually worked up clinically for his gastrointestinal disease. He was seen by seven doctors including Dr. John Walker-Smith who is regarded as the foremost pediatric gastroenterologist at that time in the world. Using a simple xray which could have been ordered at any hospital in this country, the doctors found that my son was completely constipated. The mass in his colon was the size of a small cantaloupe. He was scoped and found to have inflammatory bowel disease and put on appropriate medication for his physical condition. Immediately he started sleeping through the night. His non stop diarrhea abated and he was a much happier child.

Unfortunately, for Matthew his gastrointestinal disease has worsened and he is now on immunosuppressive treatment because he developed lesions in his esophagus. He has had several grand mal seizures. He has documented measles virus infection in his intestine and cerebral spinal fluid that matches the vaccine strain. In addition, his body is unable to detoxify. He has antibodies to myelin basic protein which acts as a conductor for nerves in his brain. His immune system is dysregulated; he has high levels of inflammatory cytokines. He is currently being evaluated for kidney stones. In short, his body is a train wreck.

Matthew, given all of these physical problems is a sweet little boy; he is affectionate and likes to be with other children. He is mischevious; he knows the rules in the house likes to push them. He is not mentally retarded; he understands everything that is said to him; he can not however, communicate verbally and relies on his caregivers, sign language and guttural sounds to get by. He has learned how to snow ski through a program offered by Challenge Aspen and has participated in a camp for autistic children founded by myself and another parent in Colorado called Extreme Sports Camp. At this camp Matthew has learned to rock climb, ice skate, and loves white water rafting. To see his smile at camp is worth a million dollars.

What children and parents of autistic children need is enormous. There is no respite care; no medical care; and the insurance companies pay nothing for services unless you are clever in coding the claims. Our children have behavioral issues that must be managed but they are also chronically ill. We don’t even know how many children and their families desperately need services not just for today but for the future. The cost of lifetime care for an autistic child in unknown but some estimates peg the national cost to be 7 TRILLION DOLLARS. There are no group homes to put these children in when their parents can not care for them at home. My fear as parents age they will take the life of their child and their own. This has already happened in England.

I am here today not just for my son but for every family in Illinois who has been affected by the devastating disorder. I worked for over two years investigating the relationship between autism and neurodevelopmental disorders as an attorney for the House Committee on Government Reform. My job was to review thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents from our federal health agencies and pharmaceutical companies. The sad story is laid out in a book called “Evidence of Harm” by David Kirby; I urge everyone to read this book.

In 2004 the Institute of Medicine issued a report stating that there was no credible evidence of a link between neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, and vaccines AND THAT NO FURTHER RESEARCH SHOULD BE CONDUCTED. This study has been highly criticized because it relied solely upon epidemiological studies that were questionable. The committee did not include the studies of researchers including Dr. Mady Hornig at Columbia University whose work on mice with autoimmune problems found that these mice exhibited obsessive compulsive disorders and had brain abnormalities similar to autistic individuals after the administration of thimerosal containing vaccines. It did not examine the presence of measles virus in the cerebral spinal fluid and not in healthy controls by Dr. Wakefield. It did not consider the work of Dr. Richard Deth of Northeastern University and Dr. Jill James of University of Arkansas demonstrating the ability of thimerosal at low levels to disrupt important metabolic pathways in cells nor the observation of these abnormalities in autistic children. In fact, none of these researchers were invited to present their findings.

One study in Denmark the IOM relied on reported an increase in the number of individuals diagnosed with autism following the removal of thimerosal containing vaccines from the vaccination schedule. What was not stated in the press and report is that the reason for the increase is that the Danish switched methods of counting autistic individuals to include both outpatient and inpatient cases. The famous CDC study authored by Thomas Verstraeten went through at least 5 “generations” of data manipulation. The author himself wrote in Pediatrics in April of 2004 that his study “does not state that we found evidence of an association, as a negative study would. It does state, on the contrary, that additional study is recommended, which the conclusion to which a neutral study must come.” The raw data from this study has apparently been destroyed and the CDC has denied access to the VSD database to independent researchers. I have personally as counsel to SAFEMINDS and for the Committee on Government Reform sought access with appropriate patient confidentiality safeguards to the database since 2001. The debate recently reached the floor of the United States Senate where Senators Lieberman and Harkin called for access to the data. In addition, this year an independent panel convened by the Institute of Medicine issued a report entitled “Vaccine Safety Research Data Access and Public Trust”. This report criticizes the CDC’s handling of this data which was bought by the taxpayers and questions why the data was moved to an independent non governmental entity in 2001 which would not only coincide with the removal of thimerosal containing vaccines from routine immunization schedules but remove it from FOIA. Many in Congress as well as respected scientists from all parts of this nation are urging that further research in this area continue; those scientists include two former heads of the National Institute of Enviornmental Health.

The “good” news is that despite this pronouncement by the IOM research is ongoing. Dr. Thomas Burbacker’s research demostrating that thimerosal in the brains of primates converted to inorganic mercury at a much greater rate than methylmercury (fish mercury) is in Phase II of funding despite the efforts of the federal government to stop this research. Phase I of this study concluded that “Knowledge of the toxicokinetics and developmental toxicity of thimerosal is needed to afford a meaningful assessment of the developmental effects of thimerosal-containing vaccines.” This study was published in Enviornmental Health Perspectives, an NIH peer reviewed publication in August of 2005. The IOM had full access to Dr. Burbaker’s research during the time they wrote their report. They never asked him to present his research.

Studies have been recently published demonstrating a breakdown of myelin in children with developmental disorders and just how toxic thimerosal is at minute quantities. I have included them in your handouts. As these studies are released the CDC is recommending that every pregnant woman and every child at 6 and 23 months receive a flu vaccine knowing that there is not enough manufacturing capacity to provide this vulnerable population with a thimerosal free vaccine. This action is at best negligent; to me it is immoral.

So how does my statement impact your committee? You have a lot of work to do to understand the scope of this problem and be assured that if vaccines are implicated that no one will help you pay for it. Today, there are ten bills before the Congress which would give blanket immunity to drug companies for vaccine injuries if the Secretary of HHS declares that the drug is necessary for a pandemic or epidemic. Further, if a citizen is injured they may not be able to access the Vaccine Compensation Act, as broken as it is, unless the Secretary of HHS allows them to do so. All meetings on vaccine matters will not be subject to FACA or FOIA; in other words all of this will be in complete secrecy.

One of the reasons that this legislation is being urged is the spin that liability issues have forced the manufacturers out of business. This is simply not the case and has been refuted in published reports. In fact, last year during the presidential election, Dr. Tony Faucci of the NIAID was quoted by the AP as stating “But that is only a very small part of the problem (liability for manufacturers)…More significant, are the low-profit margin vaccines provide, unpredictable demand and the complexity of the manufacturing process… The fragility of the vaccine enterprise is an issue that has been present for decades”. So now why is it all of a sudden a problem for the manufacturers? The answer is money and the more that the manufacturers can close off the liability exposure for products then the better. The only remaining hope for families of children who were lucky enough to know of the Vaccine Compensation Act’s three year statute of limitations from date of first symptoms limitation is to opt out. There are thousands of cases pending in Vaccine Court that will probably not be heard in my lifetime. The only chance they have is our trial system and a state court.

I believe in the concept of herd immunity; I support a vaccine program that is grounded in credible science; I believed in that system when I vaccinated my children; after 8 years I do not believe that this is the case. There are too many unanswered questions and so many injured children.

I urge this subcommittee to recommend that autism is a public health emergency in Illinois and to ask the Governor to declare it so. I urge Attorney General Lisa Madigan to utilize the talents of her staff to gain full access to the VSD. I urge this subcommittee to develop a comprehensive plan to identify affected children, provide meaningful support to their families; and to sit down with parents at the table and strategize on the best possible living arrangements for the children who are severely affected.

There is hope; I have included in your handouts an article recently published in the San Francisco Chronicle about a child who received appropriate medical and educational intervention for his “autism”; he has recovered and no longer has this diagnosis. Researchers at UC Davis Mind Institute, Mass General and other prestigious institutions are taking note and starting clinical studies to determine whether these treatments are effective. It may be that we have a constellation of “autisms” caused by not one gene but complex gene and environmental influences, including but not limited to vaccines.

We as a civilized society have an obligation to care for these children. If a portion of them were injured due to negligence on the part of federal health officials and pharmaceutical companies then so be it; what I have personally witnessed over the past eight years has been horrifying. I believe in our country and in the strength of its determination to overcome adversity. We must work together to solve this problem; I stand ready to help in any manner with the work of this committee.

Respectfully,
Elizabeth Birt
Founder, Medical Interventions for Autism Founder, SAFEMINDS Board Member
A-CHAMP Board Member NAA

"Let the reader decide"

2008-05-02T10:15:00.002-04:00

More interesting information on Generation Rescue's site:

Generation Rescue is not representing that our study proves that the U.S. vaccine schedule has caused an epidemic in neurological disorders amongst our children. We are a small non-profit organization. For less than $200,000, we were able to complete a study that the CDC, with an $8 billion a year budget, has been unable or unwilling to do. We think the results of our survey lend credibility to the urgent need to do a larger scale study to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children for neurodevelopmental outcomes.

All vaccinated boys, compared to unvaccinated boys:

Vaccinated boys were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder (RR 2.55)
Vaccinated boys were 224% more likely to have ADHD (RR 3.24)
Vaccinated boys were 61% more likely to have autism (RR 1.61)

Much more where that came from at http://www.generationrescue.org/survey.html

Out of the mouths of babes

2008-05-02T09:49:00.011-04:00

Next time the newspaper tells you that "anti-vaccine" folks are endangering healthy children and ruining the country, remember that some folks become "anti-vaccine" for very good reasons. They are sitting in their homes all over America, just like you and me, trying to raise their children, just like you and me. They love their children with all their hearts, and sacrifice for them every single day - more than us folks with healthy kids can know. They hold their sweet-smelling children in their laps, wishing they had known there was a way to prevent their injuries. Some of these parents cannot ever hold their children again; vaccine reactions took their children from them.

They are human.

They are real.

They are not going away. And I for one, am standing with them. It is time to make a change. I think our health officials need to be more up front about the true numbers of adverse reactions - they need a better reporting system - and I think parents deserve informed consent to vaccinations, just like any other medical procedure.

The reason I titled this post "Out of the mouths of babes" is the following excerpt containing the words of a little girl who "recovered" from autism with the hard work of her parents using biomedical treatments to clean her body from the toxins in her vaccines. Read this:

Then she asked if she was autistic. I told her that yes, she was, but that she was almost all better now because of all of the hard work that she did with her vitamins and working with her teachers and the space machine (hbot). She loved watching the kids and seeing them get better. By the end, she knew all of their names.

When it was over, she turned to me and said, "Mom, maybe we should write to the President of the United States and tell him not to give anymore shots to kids because it makes them get lost."

I turned to her and took her face in my hands, tears began to fill my eyes. I was, at that moment, so incredibly proud and sad and overwhelmed, encouraged and hopeful.

I told her that what she just said was the smartest and most beautiful thing she has ever said in her whole life. She beamed, we hugged and then she said, "I love you, mom". I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.

And it has given me more resolve to continue the fight. Thank you for this wonderful movie.

See the whole post from Age of Autism here. (Thanks again, A of A!)

P.S. If vaccines are effective, then how can it be true that the unvaccinated are a threat to the vaccinated? If an unvaccinated child gets sick, the vaccinated should be protected, right? When we are vaccinated, it is actually possible for us to spread the germs to others (for an example, click here to see how four cases of polio in the Amish in MN were traced to a vaccine.) Just a thought.

Watch video of mercury damaging brain cells

2008-04-30T23:26:00.002-04:00

Mercury destroys brain cells.
Many vaccines did contain mercury; some still do.
Therefore, many vaccines destroyed brain cells, and some still do.

A=B
B=C
Therefore, A=C

It's quite simple, really. Click here, or copy and paste this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85tgwh3HpsM

Again, mercury is NOT out of all vaccines yet. Review the table here. ... And ask yourself what in the world is going on at FDA and CDC. I know I am.

The Elias Tembenis Walk for Autism

2008-04-30T13:52:00.003-04:00

2 men walking
3000 miles across
15 states to benefit the
1 in 150 children with autism
in the memory of
1 very special little boy

A worthy cause! Click http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/eliaswalk/ to be informed and learn how you can donate. The walk begins in May.

Thanks, Ginger via Erica for the link to this heroic feat in support of autistic children and their families.

Amish Autism

2008-04-30T10:27:00.002-04:00

This is my life: I get on my computer to check for one email or look at my online banking statement, and I get sucked into another vaccine story. Before I know it, half an hour has passed. Or, I'm feeding my son lunch and while he sits in his chair munching Cheerios, I stare off into space thinking of the next person to call, the next thing to write about, or what question I should next leave on the CDC's voicemail and never hear back from them on.

But anyway, here's the story that sucked me in today. Thanks, Dan Olmsted, of Age of Autism.

"So where are we, friends? We're badly in need of the whole truth and nothing but – the kind you get from a powerful, expensive, independent, transparent, urgent study of vaccinated-versus-never-vaccinated American children." -- D. Olmsted

Think when you read, or "Mother, should I trust the government?"

2008-04-28T10:18:00.006-04:00

Unless you sit around listening to Pink Floyd albums all day, you might not be in the habit of picking apart patronizing government statements like the one the CDC issued after Journalist David Kirby zinged them for not answering vaccine safety questions in March. But if you want to see how it's done, click here to read Ginger Taylor's response to the CDC statement. (And no, I don't mean to infer that Ginger listens to Pink Floyd :) )

Ginger's son has autism, and not only has it forever changed their lives, but it flung her headlong into the "rabbit hole" of fighting for truth in the vaccine-autism-other-injuries debate. If you don't yet read her blog, you should!

By the way, Mr. Kirby wrote a book, Evidence of Harm, all about mercury in vaccines, to which the CDC said they would reply about 3 years ago. They have yet to do so.

Hepatitis B --- No Child of Mine...

2008-04-26T15:48:00.009-04:00

... is EVER getting a Hepatitis B vaccine again. Ever! My firstborn got it, and I pray he will not succumb to any of the proven complications. [EDIT: This vaccine is given at the hospital after birth, at one month and at six months.]

I just finished watching the segment on Hep B in Dr. Sherri Tenpenny's DVD, Vaccines: The Risks, Benefits and Choices, and I need no more convincing. If you want a good starting point for researching vaccines, get this DVD. You will not regret hearing what she has to say.
Dr. Tenpenny is an osteopath and put over 6,000 hours of research (yes, she counted!) into collecting vaccine information from medical journals. As she said, this information is "hidden in plain sight." .... All right, my commercial is over. (Do you think people would hate me if I gave them this as a baby shower gift? :) ha ha) Here is what I learned. Keep in mind her data comes from medical journals and the CDC.

Is my child at risk for Hepatitis B?
Considering that the virus is transferred by blood and is endemic in populations of IV drug users, prostitutes, homosexual men, and homeless persons, I kinda doubt it. If he should end up in one of these lifestyles one day, I'll talk to him about making some better choices.

How dangerous is it?

50% of exposed people develop no symptoms and have lifetime immunity. Sweet.
30% develop flu-like symptoms, recover, and have lifetime immunity. Not bad!
20% actually develop symptoms bad enough to trek to the doctor, where they are diagnosed with the virus. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, jaundice and increased liver enzymes.
Of those 20%, 95% recover completely, but 5% become chronic carriers.

The CDC touts this as one of the first "anti-cancer" vaccines because they say it protects from the possibility of getting carcinoma and/or liver disease from Hep B. BUT ... that cancer/liver disease shows up anywhere from 10-30 years after the virus, and only in 25% of the 5% of that 20% above (that's a really small #!). And since those folks who got it are probably going on with their same unhealthy lifestyles, you gotta wonder if perhaps their behaviors were further weakening their immune systems and setting them up for disaster.

Is the vaccine risky?
YES! According to a study in the Journal of Autoimmunity, "There is no doubt that the new recombinant hepatitis B virus vaccine has the ability to trigger autoimmunity." (Dec. 1996) Dr. Tenpenny has many adult patients on long-term, chronic disability from Hep B vaccine, and this autoimmunity finding is littered throughout the medical journals. There was even a case of a 35-day-old baby getting Kawasaki disease (a blood vessel disorder) one day after his 2nd dose of Hep B!

Could this be the reason Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis is affecting one in four children under 16?! Type I diabetes is also an autoimmune disorder Dr. Tenpenny mentioned. (She explains molecular mimicry and how antibodies from vaccines can turn on our tissues.)

The CDC says that any "presumed risks" of Hep B vaccine should be weighed against the "expected risk of acute and chronic liver disease." Yet they are inoculating our infants as part of a U.S. strategy to "eliminate" Hep B transmission, with no proof that it is safe for infants (the manufacturer only tested on 5- and 10-year olds and testified before Congress to this fact). AND the CDC says the same size dose should be given to preemies, full-term infants, older children and adults. We don't even do this with Tylenol!

Dr. Tenpenny said that she would devote her life to getting this vaccine off the pediatric schedule if she could. (I wonder how much money that would take, to defeat the power of the billions of dollars of Big Pharma?)

I hope this information is helpful to some of my fellow concerned parents out there. Let them come after this mother bear the next time I'm birthing a baby ... I'll show 'em what it's like.

:) (gratuitous George Costanza quote)

Thanks, Shannon, for letting your buds borrow the DVD. And thanks, Michelle, for letting me borrow it from you!

Links to Package Inserts, Mercury Content

2008-04-26T07:16:00.001-04:00

My new acquaintance, Alicia, has found these helpful tables on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Web site:

Thimerasol (Mercury) Content in Vaccines

Vaccine Package Inserts

I have also placed these links in my sidebar, so you can come back any time and find them easily.

Alicia has an interesting post about mercury on her blog - click here to read it.

Just How Much Money?

2008-04-24T14:56:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice little synop of how much money we're actually talking about in the business of vaccines: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/30/news/companies/vaccine/index.htm

"'I expect [the vaccine industry] to more than double' by 2010, said Butler, noting he expects Merck and Wyeth will sell some $10 billion worth of vaccines a year by 2010..."

"Gardasil, on the market for nearly a year, is the potential blockbuster that helped the New Jersey-based Merck pull out of its Vioxx withdrawal blues. Since the Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil last June, Merck's stock has surged 57 percent, outperforming S&P gains of 21 percent."

"Gardasil sales totaled $365 million in the first quarter of 2007, helping Merck reach nearly $1 billion in total vaccine sales for the quarter ... Analyst projections have ranged up to $4 billion in annual sales for Gardasil, assuming the government mandates widespread vaccinations for girls."

"Merck showed that you can make quite a bit of money with vaccines, and I think that got a lot of people's attention," said Funtleyder.

... Now keep in mind that those very pharmaceutical companies are one of the most powerful (top 2?) lobbying groups on Capitol Hill, and you may see where part of the vaccine safety problem lies. They do their own vaccine research, present it to the FDA, lobby lawmakers, traipse through doctor's offices and hospitals, advertise to children on TV, publish ads in magazines.... the list goes on.

I'm just saying. Think about it. Are vaccine manufacturers just nice old philanthropists generously coming up with new ways to do good to our children out of the kindness of their hearts? Or are they in business? Did you ask for new vaccines? Or did they just give them to you?

Calling the CDC

2008-04-24T13:54:00.000-04:00

The other day I placed a call to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) by using the number given on their Web site (800-311-3435). I wanted to talk to somebody about the fact that Prevnar and other vaccines have never been tested for carcinogenic effects, mutagenic effects or fertility impairment (as the manufacturer's insert states).

I was hoping they could tell me why this is acceptable to the CDC, that the vaccines they recommend we administer to our children are not tested for such things. I am genuinely curious and am not trying to be incendiary. Though, it does seem to me that these things ought to be tested...maybe I'm missing something, but I want to know this before it's shot into my child.

The woman I reached obviously worked in some sort of call center and was not going to be able to answer detailed questions that required more than a script to reply. She repeated part of my question back to me to verify what I was asking, but didn't really get the whole thing. I repeated the question (Why is it OK with the CDC that certain vaccines are not tested for carcinogenic effects or fertility impairment?) and was put on hold.

She tried no less than three times to refer me to the vaccine manufacturer, but I told her I really wanted the CDC to tell me why. I asked if there was someone else I could talk to, but, according to her, it was not OK to give me any names of any CDC employees nor to give me a different phone number. Apparently, I had reached a general information line (CDC-INFO), and unless I had someone's specific name, I would continue to reach this line whenever I called. How convenient for the CDC.

After I persisted, she put me on hold again and came back to read me a paragraph about the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). This was mostly useless, but one thing that stood out to me was that she actually stated that vaccine manufacturers/CDC can't know everything about a vaccine's safety until it goes to market. Great. So we really are one big science experiment! (I'm only kidding.... partly. Let's remember the long history of medical mistakes such as treating acne with X-rays and pregnant women with thalidomide. So please forgive me if I'm skeptical.)

At the end of the call I had no answer to my question, but did get a phone number for the manufacturer of Prevnar (Wyeth -- 800-572-8221) and a phone number for VAERS (800-822-7967). And a very strange sensation that I had just been subdued by the giant wall of government bureaucracy.

After a little more digging, I found a REAL phone number for the Immunization Safety Office within CDC (404-639-8256). I left a voicemail two days ago and am not sure if I will ever hear back. I'll let you know.

I also called the National Vaccine Information Center this morning to ask them some questions about pending legislation by Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Florida) and what we as simple parents can do to tell our government officials we want safer government policies. I am awaiting a call back, but will post that info when I get it.

What I Read Today

2008-04-24T10:27:00.000-04:00

Vaccine Myths
http://www.nvic.org/myths.htm

SIDS deaths in Idaho (Sept/Oct 2007) leads parents to blame vaccines
http://www.vaclib.org/news/shelly.htm

This is not the first time I have read about a connection between SIDS and vaccines... This is one of the many reasons I keep researching...

Click here for Google search of "SIDS, vaccines"

Blogger: Facing Autism in New Brunswick
"Why the (Vaccine) Debate Rages"
http://autisminnb.blogspot.com/2007/06/autism-why-vaccine-debate-rages.html

3:00 a.m. Conviction

2008-04-23T03:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I posted about my phone calls to the CDC to try to ask questions about vaccine safety. I have removed the post until I can think about my words a little further... I woke up at 3:30 this morning thinking about it...

I have had the conviction lately that I am doing a poor job encouraging my friends to trust in the Lord above all else as we search out answers on vaccinations. In fact, I have not mentioned the Lord at all! Please forgive me.

Ultimately, Scripture teaches us, even "the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord," (Prov. 21:1), and whether that king (or government official) does good or evil, the Lord's purpose will stand. "The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble," says Proverbs 16:4. When we are distressed by government policies or decisions (ex: failure to fully inform us of risks), ultimately, as Christians, we can place our hope in the Lord and His promises. He has made us and crafted all our days, and His thoughts toward us are precious! (see Psalm 139)

We need God's wisdom
James 1: 5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." God promises to help His people by giving us wisdom. When we pray, we can rest in this promise and have faith that God will do it.

For me, as I know is the case for many of my friends, the information on vaccine safety, once you start digging, is overwhelming and frightening. I have a general plan of how to go about weighing the risks, but it takes a lot of work to find the information I feel I need. In the end, I just will have to trust that God led my husband and me to the right places, and we will have to make a decision for our son.

We need humility and the fear of the Lord
One thing that stood out to me last week was Proverbs 15:33: "The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor." In my interactions with others regarding this topic, I truly want to honor God by recognizing my shortcomings and the fact that I do not have all the answers. I humbly reserve the right to make decisions for my child, and need to humbly respect others' rights to do the same for theirs.

In addition, I will need to remain open to new information that may affect my son's health.

We need to trust God for our children
The topic of man's free will and God's sovereignty has filled entire books, so I can't do it justice here. But I see that I need to make the best decision I can as a parent while also trusting that God is in control of my son's life. For me, I have many doubts that certain vaccines are safe or necessary for my child. Instead of just trusting God as the needle goes in, I feel the burden to look into it more. This may not be the case for everyone. To me, it relates a little to walking down a dark alley at night. I trust God with my life, but there are certain risks I do not take.

I also need to believe that God is good and that His will is perfect, even if harm would befall my child. Jesus said, "I have said these things to you that you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) I am encouraged to know that God is not surprised by the troubles we have, but instead tells us to expect them and "take heart" in knowing that He is the ultimate Overcomer. One day, we will see his victory over all sin and injustice.

Psalm 1 speaks of the man whose "delight is in the law of the Lord," and how that man is "like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither." Lately I have felt a little that my leaves have been withering, and that I need to take some time to soak next to that stream once again. I need to devote a little more time to life outside this issue, and the posts may drop off for a while.

My next resource for personal research will be the Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Miller. As I have read one of his other books, I believe that this new one (published this year) will be a complete coverage of all current vaccines, their risks, and full information about the diseases. He has included about 1000 studies from medical journals and other sources and I expect that everything will be footnoted. Since I love to highlight on paper, I think this will be more helpful to me than dancing all over the Internet looking at different sources (though I'll keep doing that, too).

If you are looking for more spiritual guidance and refreshment, I would refer you to my friends' & pastors' blog, The Blazing Center. It is one of my favorite daily reads and is always concise yet thought-provoking.

May God give you peace as you trust Him for your children.

On Capitol Hill

2008-04-21T09:48:00.000-04:00

Barbara Loe Fisher, vaccine safety advocate since the early 1980s, has a re-cap of an important meeting that took place on Capitol Hill on Friday, April 11th, on her blog, Vaccine Awakening. I am glad to know that lawmakers are opening their doors once more to hear from parents of injured children, as well as other Americans concerned about the "crisis of trust" in the vaccination schedule. Like, Barbara, though, I hope it "was not just an old day dressed up in new clothes."

I hope to make some calls to Capitol Hill this week to find out a little more about how we, as concerned parents, can lobby our elected officials (remember, they work for us!) to take this very seriously.

Some thought-provoking quotes:

"SafeMinds board member Jim Moody, JD, commented that a lack of credible scientific studies demonstrating vaccine safety makes the application of one-size-fits-all vaccine policies on the entire child population an uncontrolled 'scientific experiment.'"

"Attorney Patty Healy, who was a former biotech scientist and is NVIC's Director of Counseling, told the Committee that when she became a new Mom eight years ago, she looked at the science for vaccine proof of safety and found it so lacking in substance that she made the difficult decision not to vaccinate her daughter."

"Young parents today, who trusted doctors to give them good advice about how to keep their children well, do not understand why their children are never well when they have been given twice as many vaccines as children in previous generations received. They want a full-scale, transparent scientific investigation into all potential environmental causes of autism and other chronic immune and brain disorders conducted by extra-mural researchers who are not connected to vaccine makers and policymakers with a bias toward existing policy."

Read the whole post here.

Measles

2008-04-17T10:40:00.003-04:00

This blog can not possibly serve to dish out all the information that exists about measles, or any other disease for that matter. But here are a few sources I have found helpful regarding the first "M" of MMR:

National Vaccine Information Center MMR page
Think Twice MMR page
Book: Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Z. Miller (I am reading the previous book, Vaccines, Autism and Childhood Disorders, but I imagine this one is much more extensive)
DVD: Vaccines: The Risks, The Benefits, The Choices by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
Congressional Testimonies from doctors and parents

You can read the MedLine information on measles here.

The CDC handout from the doctor's office (PDF downloadable from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#mmr) reveals the following risks with the vaccine:

Moderate Problems
• Seizure (jerking or staring) caused by fever (about
1 out of 3,000 doses)
• Temporary pain and stiffness in the joints, mostly
in teenage or adult women (up to 1 out of 4)
• Temporary low platelet count, which can cause a
bleeding disorder (about 1 out of 30,000 doses)

Severe Problems (Very Rare)
• Serious allergic reaction (less than 1 out of a million
doses)
• Several other severe problems have been known to
occur after a child gets MMR vaccine. But this
happens so rarely, experts cannot be sure whether
they are caused by the vaccine or not. These include:
- Deafness
- Long-term seizures, coma, or lowered
consciousness
- Permanent brain damage

(Kinda sounds like autism to me....) Here, the CDC's own literature says that they do not know if permanent brain damage, coma, seizures, or lowered consciousness are actually caused by the vaccine. My question is, if I can't rely on them to be sure, why should I rely on the statement that reactions are rare? (Not to mention, shouldn't they be sure??? Have they become that lackadaisical about public health?) The FDA and CDC know that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is flawed. Doctors are not required to report. And anyone whose child has had a reaction to a vaccine knows that it takes a lot of arm-twisting and hospital tests before a doctor will even consider that it was the vaccine.

Here is a quote from the meeting minutes taken from the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines Conference Call in March of last year (2007). I got this right off the HHS Web site:

"VAERS also has its weaknesses. VAERS is often missing data or has inaccurate data. There is underreporting to VAERS. Accuracy rates are not known. VAERS is better at detecting events that occur in close time proximity with vaccination, than events with long latency periods. There is a lack of an accurate denominator or number of people that are vaccinated. There is also a lack of a control group. All of these weaknesses result in the near inability to assess causality."
-- Dr. Ann McMahon, Food and Drug Administration (italics mine)

(Aside: It was estimated in a Journal of the American Medical Association study that reporting of adverse events may be as low as 1% to 10%. There were 128,035 adverse events reported in a less-than-five-year time span (around the middle of 1999-beginning of 2004). So does that mean that there were possibly 1.28 million to 12.8 million adverse events in those 5 years?)

The manufacturer of the MMR vaccine warns that it "has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential." (Source: Physician's Desk Reference, 55th edition, as quoted by Neil Miller) ... Not been tested for the possibility to cause cancer?

"Severe afflictions affecting nearly every body system -- blood, lymphatic, digestive, cardiovascular, immune, nervous, respiratory and sensory -- have been linked to this 'preventative' inoculation." -- Neil Miller, Vaccines, Autism and Childhood Disorders

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a pediatrician for almost 30 years, wrote in his 1984 book How To Raise a Healthy Child...In Spite of Your Doctor that the measles vaccine side effects included "even a relationship with Hodgkin's disease and cancer." He describes the reluctance of some doctors to even vaccinate their own children during a Los Angeles measles epidemic: "Unlike their patients, who weren't told, they realized that 'slow viruses' found in all live vaccines, and particularly in the measles vaccine, can hide in human tissue for years. They may emerge later in the form of encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, and as potential seeds for the development and growth of cancer."

Dr. Mendelsohn also noted that "in a 1978 survey of 30 states, more than half of the children who contracted measles had been adequately vaccinated." The World Health Organization has said that the chances of catching measles are about 15 times greater for those who are vaccinated than those who are not. Similar data on the inefficacy of measles vaccines is recorded by Neil Miller, whose sources are the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and several editions of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Here's why I do not think this particular disease is worth the risk of the associated vaccine for my child. (Again, this is just me; this is not medical advice.)

In 1920, 1.6% of measles cases ended in death.
In 1955, it was only 3 in 10 million.
Vaccination began in 1963.
(Source: MMWR 4/2/1999 - thank you, Dr. Tenpenny)
So the disease was already on its way out before vaccination began.

Much of what I have read indicates that measles is a pretty innocuous disease that rarely leaves behind any complications in healthy, well-nourished children. Treatment consists of bed rest, drinking fluids, and administering calamine or other lotions to relieve itching. Vitamin A has also been shown to be an important part of helping the body to fight the disease. Doctors will bring up the risk of measles encephalitis (brain infection), but I question the likelihood of this occurring in a healthy child. This is just one parent, assessing the risk for my child. (Well, and my husband makes two parents, deciding together!)

Entire books and Web sites are dedicated to the CDC/FDA/HHS/AAP/AMA-denied link between autism and the MMR. But it didn't take me much reading to be haunted forever by those three little letters. Once you start reading testimonies from parents just like you, who love their kids like you love your kids, you just can't look back. I will never look at public health policy in this country the same way.

I leave you with an excerpt from one of the Congressional Government Reform Committee meetings, that took place on April 6, 2000. The words of Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana):

"Liz Burt was one of the hundreds of parents who contacted us. Her five-year-old son, Matthew, has been classified autistic. He was developing normally. At age 15 months, following his MMR vaccine, he began to regress. Since the time of his vaccination, he’s had chronic diarrhea. This is very prevalent in autistic children. He also didn’t sleep on a regular basis for over three years. Liz took her son to numerous gastroenterologists in prominent medical facilities in the United States. with no resolution. Finally, this past November, Liz took her son to London, to the Royal Free Hospital. A team of medical experts there examined Matthew. They felt that he had a bowel obstruction. To the family, this seemed impossible since he had constant diarrhea. An x-ray indicated that Matthew had a fecal mass in his colon the size of a small cantaloupe. After the obstruction was cleared with laxatives, Matthew underwent an endoscopy and colonoscopy. The lesions in Matthew’s bowel tested positive for the measles virus."

You do the math.

[EDITED 5/2/2008 TO ADD: OK, now I see who Liz "Burt" was - her name is actually spelled "Birt," and she was a champion for autistic families. I found a bunch of information on her after her tragic death in 2005 on Adventures in Autism.]

A New Film on Autism

2008-04-17T10:24:00.002-04:00

Thanks to Age of Autism for this information.

Thank you, David Kirby, for being just plain awesome. I love that when the CDC finally issued a statement on vaccine safety after Hannah Poling's case hit the news, they felt it necessary to try to discredit you throughout the whole thing. Do you think you hit a nerve? :)
[EDIT: If you decide to read the CDC's mantra in that statement above, be sure to read this breakdown by Ginger Taylor, M.S., who runs the Adventures in Autism blog. She nails it.]

AUTISM YESTERDAY
Available on Amazon ($20)

"At a time when Big Medicine, Big Government and Big Media are trying hard to make the vaccine-autism debate go away, along comes a quiet little film like “Autism Yesterday” to throw a wrench in the establishment’s best laid plans to stifle the pesky vaccine chatter once and for all." -- David Kirby

"None of These Parents Should Have to Be Here"

2008-04-16T09:59:00.000-04:00

At the suggestion of one of my commentors, I am adding Age of Autism in my link box. I have visited the site only a few times, but really appreciate their knowledge & expertise. Through these autism blogs are whole underground networks of "collateral damage for the vaccine program," as Wendy Fournier put it (Wendy is President of the National Autism Association). Those brave and hurting parents who are standing up to the "machine" of public health policy and demanding that American children not be harmed anymore. I grieve for parents like them, that their doctors weren't more up front about the real risks of vaccination. But I also see much hope for them in the support they have in one another and the progress being made to treat autism.

"Jenny asked parents to take the microphone and talk about their children. We heard the same heartbreaking story over and over again. Our baby was perfect, he met all of his developmental milestones and after receiving multiple vaccines, we lost him.

"I stood in the back of the room with tears streaming down my face, shaking uncontrollably with profound sadness for these parents as I saw the pain on their faces and heard their voices crack with emotion."

"...as I looked around that room, all I could think was that there were so many people there - this should have been over long ago, and none of these parents should have to be here."

-- From Meltdown in Cherry Hill (where Jenny McCarthy spoke to a crowd of families with vaccine-inured children) on the Age of Autism blog

This Week

2008-04-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

I've spent a lot of time so far linking to groups and people who are on the "I question the safety of vaccines" side. As a parent, I also have many questions about the diseases themselves, and if it's even safe for me to consider not vaccinating. I'm not crazy, and I don't want my child to get sick with something that could kill or permanently harm him, if there's a vaccine that can safely protect him from it (key word: safely). I mean, that would be nuts. I hope to get more into that topic in coming posts.

This week, I really need to take time at home to research the pros and cons for the diseases and respective vaccines for my son's upcoming doctor's appointment.

Entire books have been written on this subject, so I don't expect my blog to cover it all completely.

And let me say again, just to be clear, that this blog is just one person's quest for information. I am not here to give medical advice; I am not qualified to do so. I am not claiming to be an expert. I'm just, let's say, opening the lid on a large Pandora's Box of questions and chronicling what little I can. Hopefully it will be helpful not just to me, but to others who have the same questions.

Jenny McCarthy - Autism Parent and Spokesperson

2008-04-14T21:00:00.000-04:00

I didn't get to see Jenny on Larry King Live, but there's this sweet site called "YouTube" ... I still haven't watched this, but would like to sometime. Here are the links. You can also just read the transcript, which is a lot faster.

"Thousands and thousands of us are screaming the same thing. And this is going to go down in history as the time when mothers fought the giants to save their babies." -- Jenny McCarthy

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Check out some of the Pro's

2008-04-14T19:32:00.000-04:00

And not as in, the opposite of "con's" ... but as in some of the people who have been researching and fighting for vaccine safety for years, many of them, parents of autistic children who regressed after vaccination. I have linked to some organizations in the box to the right, and describe some below. Check them out when you get a chance.

1) Barbara Loe Fisher and the National Vaccine Information Center. Ms. Fisher "founded this non-profit, educational organization in 1982 with parents of vaccine injured children. Developed strategy for and has led a national, grassroots movement and public information campaign to institute vaccine safety reforms and informed consent protections in the public health system." (more) She also runs the blog Vaccine Awakening. (Did you see that it says 1982? This has been going on a looooonnng time... I was 4 then. She's definitely a Pro in my book.)

2) Generation Rescue - this one that Jenny McCarthy is affiliated with (along with TACA). (Perhaps you've seen Jenny on Oprah or Larry King Live recently.) There is lots of information here regarding treatment and evidence, and I think this organization is the sleeping giant the CDC has awoken. They have a powerful public awareness campaign (check out the newspaper ads on their homepage) and are helping sponsor a large rally in Washington, D.C. on June 4th. They also have a list of suggestions for things to ask and do when vaccinating.

3) TACA - Talk About Curing Autism. Also a very professional Web site, and provides a support network for parents of autistic kids. They have a long list (300-some pages) of autism studies and related medical conditions. (To see this, scroll down until you get to "Vaccines" in the far-left column, mouse over it, and click the top link that appears.)

I didn't know until last month that autistic kids often have bowel problems, sleep problems, and gluten/casein allergies. It is quite obvious that autism has with it some very distinct biological markers, and it just makes me wonder - are they all symptoms of the same biological disturbance that caused neurological problems? And do children with "classic" (non-vaccine-injury) autism also have these problems? ... Well, questions for another day...

By the way, autism is not the only vaccine side-effect I hope to explore on this blog...

The Gentleman from Indiana

2008-04-12T12:57:00.000-04:00

Since today is my son's birthday, I don't have much time to post, but I wanted to put up a link to some very compelling Congressional Committee Meeting testimonies. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) has been a champion for parents and their injured kids on Capitol Hill. I know they are long, but even just looking at the April 6, 2000, testimony would be a good start.

I found these through a book my chiropractor lent me. (Most who've blazed this trail before me know that chiropractors often --or always? -- do NOT vaccinate... I just found that out, but I am curious to know what they are learning that the medical schools are not teaching M.D.s ...) The testimonies, given to the U.S. Committee on Government Reform, are unfortunately not available on the Library of Congress Web site (THOMAS), because they do not archive committtee meetings. I spent a few minutes looking for them on the Government Printing Office site and the Reform Committee site but couldn't spend any more time. Thank goodness for vaccine safety groups and moms with autistic kids who are fighting tooth and nail to keep this information from being buried forever in some drawer in Washington.

Dear Prudence

2008-04-11T09:22:00.000-04:00

If there are anecdotal stories of people living in a building that's about to be demolished, prudence (in the form of plain old-fashioned care for fellow human beings) demands that we investigate thoroughly before detonating the explosives. To ignore reports from those folks close to the building, who claim they've seen homeless families going in and out of it, would be callous, dangerous, and just plain wrong. Hopefully the project foreman would order an extensive walkthrough of the property on the day of scheduled demolition.

So it is with anecdotal stories of parents who are claiming their children have been harmed by vaccines. If the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics were prudent, they would thoroughly investigate the claims of these families before administering any more vaccines. This is what I would do, if I held the key to safeguarding America's children. Why are we, as a nation, even risking it one more day??

When I watched the video clip on WJLA of Hannah Poling's case, the images of happy, alert, healthy children descending into isolated, tormented shells of their former selves struck me like a punch in the gut. There is no way I would even want to subject my child to that risk. Isn't having measles a better option? Or the flu, or even mumps? ... I wasn't so sure about polio and life in a iron lung, but I was determined to find out. (By the way, polio, I have found, does not actually equal "iron lung." Only 0.04% of polio exposures lead to this fearful yet overexaggerated fate. That's straight from the Merck Manual - a doctor's reference book. Click here.)

As with many decisions, there is a logical path to weighing the costs and benefits. My questions at the outset, were:

1) Is autism truly a cost of childhood vaccination? (I found very quickly, YES. Though you won't hear that straight from most doctors, the AAP, or the government.) See http://generationrescue.org/studies.html, http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/Autism.htm, and/or http://thinktwice.com/autism.htm just to whet your palate.

2) What is the gravity of the risks of not vaccinating versus the risks of vaccinating? (I am still digging through the data, but so far am pretty sure neither measles nor mumps nor rubella are even worth vaccinating against, considering the 20 year history of parents' reports of MMR causing great harm to their children. More on those diseases, and others, later...)

3) Will my child be allowed to go to school if he is not vaccinated? Does the law tell me I must vaccinate? (First, yes, he can, at least in PA. All it takes is a signature. And second, no, it is not the law. I'm not sure yet where the command comes from, but for now, it isn't in the law. Let's hope our elected leaders preserve our right to make our own medical decisions.)

And so, I am on this path. Trying to collect enough information as a lay person to protect my child's health because the government does not appear to be doing so -- at least, not to the extent that I would like. Stay tuned.

Where to Start?

2008-04-10T15:08:00.003-04:00

I am creating this blog a couple of days before my son's first birthday and about a week and a half before he is due for his 12-month check-up (and next round of vaccinations). I am in the midst of a personal research project to determine if the vaccines my son is to receive are riskier than the worth of the benefits they are supposed to give.

My project started in the middle of last month, when my husband told me about an acquaintance whose autistic daughter had been developing normally until age 2 1/2. The day after her vaccines were administered, apparently, she changed completely. I had heard rumors of vaccines being linked to autism, having worked in a therapy office that treated autistic kids before our son was born. I had even asked the nurse at our pediatrician's office about the rumored vaccine-autism connection, but she replied that no evidence was out there to really legitimize it. (On that day, I nervously sat through the shots going into my screaming baby, but when he seemed OK afterwards, I sort of forgot about the whole issue.)

Ever since my husband came home with that news, I have been researching almost every day. What I have found has forever changed the way I think about vaccinations. As of today, I plan on halting all vaccines until I feel comfortable with them again (if ever). Now, let me just say that even as I type that, I never thought I would be in that boat! In college, I majored in Environmental Health Science; my studies included Immunology, Microbiology, Epidemiology, Toxicology and many more human health / public health policy courses. "CDC" is a name I admired and trusted and I even hoped, in my budding career plans, to work for them one day.

After college, I worked for a public policy organization in Washington, D.C., and got a little smarter about politics and the supposed neutrality of government bodies. ... The CDC has a major problem on its hands right now, and I am not the only one who has lost trust in them.

My current research project began the week after Hannah Poling's case hit the headlines. I watched this video (Source: WJLA - ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., March 6, 2008) and my concern level reached new peaks.

I next asked a friend for information, knowing that she had researched vaccines a lot and chose not to vaccinate her children. (I never really knew why, but respected her decision and figured she had good reasons.) She gave me some links to the National Vaccine Information Center and a set of DVDs she recommended. She also asked a challenging rhetorical question:

"If shots are so great, why is there a federal injury compensation program in place?!"

Good question indeed.
Many questions remain. Many more posts to come. The baby has awoken.