The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has ruled that the death of Elias Tembenis, son of Harry and Gina Tembenis, board members of the National Autism Association, was a DTaP vaccine injury.
"Conclusion: Petitioners have satisfied the legal requirements for proving that Elias’s December 26, 2000 DTaP vaccination was a legal cause of his epilepsy and death."
1.
Author Affiliations: Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine (Drs Giulivi and Pessah, Mr Zhang, and Mss Omanska-Klusek, Ross-Inta, and Wong), Departments of Public Health Sciences (Dr Hertz-Picciotto) and Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine (Dr Tassone), School of Medicine (Drs Hertz-Picciotto and Tassone), and Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention (Drs Hertz-Picciotto and Pessah), and Medical Investigations of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Institute (Drs Hertz-Picciotto, Tassone, and Pessah), University of California, Davis.
Abstract
Context Impaired mitochondrial function may influence processes highly dependent on energy, such as neurodevelopment, and contribute to autism. No studies have evaluated mitochondrial dysfunction and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) abnormalities in a well-defined population of children with autism.
Objective To evaluate mitochondrial defects in children with autism.
Design, Setting, and Patients Observational study using data collected from patients aged 2 to 5 years who were a subset of children participating in the Childhood Autism Risk From Genes and Environment study in California, which is a population-based, case-control investigation with confirmed autism cases and age-matched, genetically unrelated, typically developing controls, that was launched in 2003 and is still ongoing. Mitochondrial dysfunction and mtDNA abnormalities were evaluated in lymphocytes from 10 children with autism and 10 controls.
Main Outcome Measures Oxidative phosphorylation capacity, mtDNA copy number and deletions, mitochondrial rate of hydrogen peroxide production, and plasma lactate and pyruvate.
Results The reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) oxidase activity (normalized to citrate synthase activity) in lymphocytic mitochondria from children with autism was significantly lower compared with controls (mean, 4.4 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 2.8-6.0] vs 12 [95% CI, 8-16], respectively; P = .001). The majority of children with autism (6 of 10) had complex I activity below control range values. Higher plasma pyruvate levels were found in children with autism compared with controls (0.23 mM [95% CI, 0.15-0.31 mM] vs 0.08 mM [95% CI, 0.04-0.12 mM], respectively; P = .02). Eight of 10 cases had higher pyruvate levels but only 2 cases had higher lactate levels compared with controls. These results were consistent with the lower pyruvate dehydrogenase activity observed in children with autism compared with controls (1.0 [95% CI, 0.6-1.4] nmol × [min × mg protein]−1 vs 2.3 [95% CI, 1.7-2.9] nmol × [min × mg protein]−1, respectively; P = .01). Children with autism had higher mitochondrial rates of hydrogen peroxide production compared with controls (0.34 [95% CI, 0.26-0.42] nmol × [min × mg of protein]−1 vs 0.16 [95% CI, 0.12-0.20] nmol × [min × mg protein]−1 by complex III; P = .02). Mitochondrial DNA overreplication was found in 5 cases (mean ratio of mtDNA to nuclear DNA: 239 [95% CI, 217-239] vs 179 [95% CI, 165-193] in controls; P = 10−4). Deletions at the segment of cytochrome b were observed in 2 cases (ratio of cytochrome b to ND1: 0.80 [95% CI, 0.68-0.92] vs 0.99 [95% CI, 0.93-1.05] for controls; P = .01).
Conclusion In this exploratory study, children with autism were more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA overreplication, and mtDNA deletions than typically developing children.
A few days ago, Dan Olmsted at Age of Autism wrote a piece entitled, “Why Progressives Don’t Get Autism”, where he made the case that those on the left are so enamored with the idea that government can solve the problems of humanity, like communicable disease epidemic prevention via public health policies, that they fail to see the unintended consequences of these policies.
In a rare moment of self-reflective contemplation, one of the leftiest blogs on the left, The Daily Kos, admitted that Olmsted had a point.
In reading all this, I have to face that conservatives just have another version of the same problem. We are often so enamored with the idea that business and industry can solve the problems of humanity, and that free man can, with his clever mind and by the sweat of his brow, build the bright, shining city on a hill, that we fail to see the unintended consequences of these ambitions.
Our freedom to work and to own and to engage in commerce, coupled with our dedication to creation, has done some truly astonishing things. We went from the horse and buggy to the moon in less than two centuries. What other culture in the history of man has made such advances?
Progress and innovation have lifted us out of the muck and put us in climate controlled skyscrapers, where we can have pizza delivered while we watch football, and where we don’t have to hunt through the forest and toil in the garden. Which is great. Except that we were kind of made to hunt through the forest and toil in the garden. And when we get too far away from the garden, there are consequences to our health.
When “PROGRESS” and “INDUSTRY” (insert 1950’s post war pro-business, “Better Living Through Chemistry” educational film here) push us to create thousands of compounds and molecules that have never existed on this planet before, and we manufacture them in massive quantities and spread them everywhere, to interact with one another everywhere, in the air, in the water, in homes, in clothes, in foods and in medicines, what we WILL end up with is a chemical soup that WILL harm some or all people. (Any one who does not believe that this is an eventuality is just in denial or has never read Frankenstien or any of the other thousands of cautionary tales of how man’s creations return to bite him in places to which only God and the TSA have unrestricted access.) Because THAT chemical world is not OUR chemical world, the one that nurtured the human race to the place where it could begin an industrial revolution only a very short time ago.
We belong in our garden.
There are basically two camps on how we came to be here in our garden. One is that an omnipotent and loving being made us and placed us in a garden that was created especially for us and would meet our physical needs. The other is that we evolved from the garden and are actually part and parcel of it… just another flower in the garden.
In either case, we belong in our garden. But the burning desire for Free Man to claim his manifest destiny and to build the industrial utopian shining city on a hill has become such a siren song, that we have lost sight of the blessings of the garden and begun to trample it.
And as that happens, it is the vulnerable, the tiniest ones, who still need desperately to be nurtured by that same original clean, rich garden, those little ones whom conservatives really do love and strive to protect from the moment of conception… those are the ones who get hurt first. Our sweet little canaries.
We conservatives too easily forget that just because we can exercise our power and creativity and industry to build ambitious things, does not mean we always should do so. And taking a hard look at the massive damage that unwise industrial “progress” has done to the vulnerable, to those who should have also been Free Men fulfilling their destiny when their time came, but instead will, like my son, be life long dependents, or like Elias Tembenis, never live long enough to fulfill their promise at all… well it is painful and difficult for those on the right. Because guilt is painful and it is also expensive. It means learning difficult lessons and it means that progress will have to slow down in many cases and in some cases stop completely.
And the right can be a powerhouse that does not ever want to stop.
All this is frustrating for me, because autism is something that the right really should get. Because the right is supposed to be about the rights of the individual. It is supposed to be about protecting the little guy from being pushed around by the government. It is supposed to be about individual responsibility. It is supposed to be about law and order. And if you know anything about autism, you know that if we were living in a society where the rights of the individual were being protected, the government was restrained, individual responsibility was being practiced and industrial corruption was kept in check by law and order, you would have to conclude that there would be no autism epidemic, because as soon as the first child was poisoned, the problem would be addressed at every level.
Conservatives get the Laffer curve. So why don't they get that there is a vaccine laffer curve that has a peak vaccine administration rate, and when you go beyond that, health returns start to diminish? We get that making the tax rate 100% will ironically bring in 0 dollars in taxes. How many vaccines does it take to make all our children sick and dead? Does anyone notice that we seemed to have hit the top of the bell curve in the 1970s?
Our autism community has discovered that ultimate solutions don't come from the top down, but the bottom up. Isn’t that what the Tea Party is about? For pete’s sake, the Tea Party should be all about autism. So why don’t they “get” autism?
Blogs on the right like The Daily Caller, Reason and Andrew Breitbart's "Bigs" blast the waste and abuses of government and the Obama administration with both barrels, but seem blind to fraud, coersion and profiteering going on by Sebelius' HHS in the vaccine program. Even in the wake of billions of dollars wasted on a fake pandemic (that we knew was not going to be a threat as it was not a threat to the southern hemisphere during their winter - our summer - of 2009) to make and push the H1N1 vaccine on the American people. Nor did they decry the additional millions of dollars spent to get rid of the nearly one hundred million of doses that had to be disposed of as hazardous materials (because mercury containing vaccines have so much mercury that they are hazmat), because three quarters of the public didn't take the vaccine because even they knew the "pandemic" was a sham to begin with.
Big Hollywood so doesn't get autism, that they actually published a piece, trashing liberal Jenny McCarthy, for probably her only conservative view point, that the government should not force vaccines on people or lie about vaccine safety in order to maniuplate the public into doing something that might harm them for the governments subjective and self-serving idea of "the greater good". Instead of applauding McCarthy for challenging the abuses by her own side of the political spectrum, Big Hollywood belittes her fight against HHS thus giving cover to Sebelius and the Obama administration for their egregious behavior in autism, in an substance-less, ad hominem, "nuts and sluts" attack.
The only way that this could ever get published on a blog that is such a vociferous critic of over reaching and corrupt government is because the editors just do not get autism.
True constitutional conservatives should be at the forefront of autism and should completely get autism, but people claiming to be conservative represent at least half the country and yet still the epidemic rages on.
Which leads me to the overall problem of why neither side, American’s left or right, get autism.
As Liberals and Conservatives we are too enamored with our selves, our big ideas and what we can do, and we do not prize wisdom and caution and the long, long view.
We see the other side's flaws and short sightedness and corruption and disasters with crystal clarity, and we are blind to our own.
The public doesn’t understand that the vaccine program represents the WORST of both worlds. It is the pairing of tyrannical government that decides the most intimate thing in your life, what goes into your body, because it has decided what is best for you, and the cold machine of industry that cannot see lives but only sees profit, BOTH unrestrained because the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 has freed them from the system of checks and balances that our brilliant founders put in place to restrain both the evil intentions and the good hearted unintended consequences of government and industry.
The government/pharma vaccine program treats children (and adults) as if they are functionaries of a system, not individuals of value to be served by the system.
Because the individual members of the public have been reduced to the position of mere functionaires in The Program that has arisen from this ‘public-private partnership’, government and industry can literally lie, cheat, steal, maim and kill, and there are no consequences to either government or industry. The deep pockets of the pharmaceutical industry buy the airwaves and the message and the doctors and the institutions and the government itself, while the government insures that free market principles cannot work and people cannot vote with their feet and leave the vaccine program. And now thanks to ObamaCare, the federal government will fund the vaccine program, so the industry can continue to buy the airwaves and the message and the doctors and the institutions and the government itself... as the pre Vaccine Injury Act, 24 dose childhood vaccine schedule continues to mutate into a bigger and bigger monster as vaccine dose number 70 was just added this month. (Will we hit 100 by 2020?)
And round and round we go, as the canaries fall one by one, and then two by two, as their biological individuality is denied and they are given the same dose of the same shots layered on top of exposures to pesticides and dental amalgam and antibiotics and GMO's and food additives and the thousands of chemicals that live in their bodies and that their great grand parents never came into contact with.
And the public doesn’t understand that those causing the problems in government and those causing the problems in private industry are really just the same unethical bunch of people serving their own grandiose ideas and careers and egos. Julie Gerberding, the government queen of the autism epidemic, is both the head of the CDC AND the head of Vaccines for Merck. Paul Offit, the worlds chief figure head Pharma Rep, is both Merck AND CDC. They fully belong to both tribes.
And the individuals who do this horrible business are given cover when they lie and obfuscate and push for universal mandatory vaccination, damn the consequences, because each side sees them as on “their side” (government public health or industry) and fails to see that the fox is guarding the hen house and making a KILLING on egg sales.
It is time for the public to walk away from these blind and/or corrupt ‘leaders’ and embrace the garden again. We have strayed too far from it and most of us know that.
But what prevents many from doing it is one of the most basic instincts of humanity, the fear of death. We have been tricked into believing that without unrestrained government and industry to save us, we will die. We have been tricked into believing that “government science” and “industrial science” is science itself, and that scientific observation is something the masses cannot practice for themselves without these institutions (much like religion centuries ago).
Through every medium government and industry cry out to the public, “You Need Us… You Need More Of Us!” And we are seduced and frightened into believing them.
There is a wise saying, “When we make decisions based in fear, rather than wisdom, we often end up bringing about the very thing we were afraid of in the first place”.
It is time for progressives to realize that the idea of the utopia ushered in by the government has never worked and will never work, and it is time for conservatives to realize that any utopia brought to you by industry is fleeting and will ultimately become poisonous ruins.
The interesting phenomenon that shows itself in the autism community is that those families and individuals so were so blindly entrenched in either of these systems and who became injured from them, become healed as they move away from them and start using their own work and reasoning, and turning to independent thinkers, to treat “autism”. (Or asthma or allergies or diabetes or cancers or insert modern neuro-immune chronic disease epidemic here.) There is a freedom in coming to grips with the shortcomings of ‘your side’.
It is time for the public to face facts that ambitious progress by either the blind right or blind left has just as great a chance of destruction as it does of salvation. And it is time to work on moving back toward the garden one person, one precious life, one unique individual, one loving family, at a time.
And people are starting to figure that out… so the vaccine program looses adherents to the schedule, and the political parties loose partiers to independent movements, and the medical industry looses customers to natural and alternative medicine.
We are neither cogs in the government program nor grist for the industrial mill.
I have gotten a round of requests to post searches for parents to do media or sign up for research. So I thought I would post them together:
My name is Latasha Kennedy and I am assisting, Mischelle Miller-Raftery, a doctoral student in psychology at California Southern University. She is conducting a study on potential prenatal environmental triggers of autism. Ms. Raftery is looking to survey at least 50 mothers raising children who have been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (Asperger’s Syndrome, autism, and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified); and 20 mothers whose children have not been diagnosed.
As a result, we would like to extend the opportunity for your readers to participate in this study, as it could potentially help professionals and mothers make informed decisions with regards to environmental exposures and life style choices during pregnancy in an effort to reduce the recurrence of autism.
If you are interested in posting the survey to your website, please let me know and I will forward you the link. Also, you are welcome to contact me via email at latashakennedy@gmail.com with any additional questions about the study.
I am the Director of Development at Pie Town Productions, a Los Angeles based television production company. I came across your organization while researching Aspergers and autism support groups throughout the nation.
We are in the early stages of developing a new show about families with multiple children that have Aspergers syndrome and/or high functioning autism. I’m contacting you to see if you could share our information on blog or possibly suggest other resources to help us get the word out.
We think this could be an amazing opportunity to shed light on misconceptions surrounding an individual's ability to live a fulfilling life with this disorder(s). Our intent is to produce a thoughtful and respectful series that will lead to a greater understanding and sensitivity about Aspergers and/or Autism through the real-life perspectives of the family members featured.
A little about us...Pie Town Productions is an award-winning company that was founded in 1995. We have produced over 3,200 episodes of programming in a variety of formats from daily series to network specials to weekly reality shows. Our client list over the last fifteen-plus years includes: Discovery, TLC, Paramount, A&E, WE, Lifetime Television, Logo, CMT, Discovery Heath, the Food Network, and HGTV. We've brought over 44 series, 36 special projects, and 1 feature documentary to the market, including the Emmy-award winning A Baby Story. We are currently producing the new Food Network hit, Meat and Potatoes and WE's new family docu-soap, Downsized. To see more about our programming go to www.pietown.tv
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.
Please feel free to contact me directly for further information.
Thanks very much for your time! I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards --
Ally Weinberg
Director of Development
Pie Town Productions
5433 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
N. Hollywood, CA 91607
818-255-9279 (Direct Line)
818-255-9333 (Fax)
ally_weinberg@pietown.tv
7:45 a.m.– 9:30 a.m. Immunizations: Vaccine Safety and Perceived Risks
Paul Offit, MD
Division of Infectious Diseases
Vaccine Education Center
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Note the disclosures on the seminar:
Disclosure information
In order to assure the highest quality of CME programming, and to comply with the ACCME Standards for Commercial Support, the AMA requires that all faculty, planning committee and CME Program Committee members disclose relevant financial relationships with any commercial or proprietary entity producing health care goods or services relevant to the content being planned or presented. The following disclosures are provided:
Planning Committee
Barry Dickinson, PhD Nothing to disclose
Mary Alice Rice Nothing to disclose
John Schneider, MD, PhD Nothing to disclose
Litjen (L.J) Tan, MS, PhD Nothing to disclose
Faculty
Paul Offit, MD Nothing to disclose
Walt Orenstein, MD Nothing to disclose
CME Program Committee Nothing to disclose
Disclosed financial relationships have been reviewed by the AMA to resolve any potential conflicts of interest. All faculty and planning committee members have attested that their financial relationships do not affect their ability to present well-balanced, evidence-based content for this activity.
And year after year the irony that all the work that they do to encourage trust in the vaccine program is what is eroding trust in the vaccine program.
It has been two and a half years now since Offit's vaccine patents were mainstream news, and a year and a half since the article in which he admitted that he was a vaccine salesman. But still he poses as your kindly neighborhood pediatrician.
Environ Health Perspect. 2010 Oct;118(10):1450-7. Epub 2010 Jun 24.
Urinary porphyrin excretion in neurotypical and autistic children.
Woods JS, Armel SE, Fulton DI, Allen J, Wessels K, Simmonds PL, Granpeesheh D, Mumper E, Bradstreet JJ, Echeverria D, Heyer NJ, Rooney JP.
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA. jwoods@u.washington.edu
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Increased urinary concentrations of pentacarboxyl-, precopro- and copro-porphyrins have been associated with prolonged mercury (Hg) exposure in adults, and comparable increases have been attributed to Hg exposure in children with autism (AU).
OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to measure and compare urinary porphyrin concentrations in neurotypical (NT) children and same-age children with autism, and to examine the association between porphyrin levels and past or current Hg exposure in children with autism.
METHODS: This exploratory study enrolled 278 children 2-12 years of age. We evaluated three groups: AU, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and NT. Mothers/caregivers provided information at enrollment regarding medical, dental, and dietary exposures. Urine samples from all children were acquired for analyses of porphyrin, creatinine, and Hg. Differences between groups for mean porphyrin and Hg levels were evaluated. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine whether porphyrin levels were associated with increased risk of autism.
RESULTS: Mean urinary porphyrin concentrations are naturally high in young children and decline by as much as 2.5-fold between 2 and 12 years of age. Elevated copro- (p < 0.009), hexacarboxyl- (p < 0.01) and pentacarboxyl- (p < 0.001) porphyrin concentrations were significantly associated with AU but not with PDD-NOS. No differences were found between NT and AU in urinary Hg levels or in past Hg exposure as determined by fish consumption, number of dental amalgam fillings, or vaccines received.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings identify disordered porphyrin metabolism as a salient characteristic of autism. Hg exposures were comparable between diagnostic groups, and a porphyrin pattern consistent with that seen in Hg-exposed adults was not apparent.
Urinary Porphyrin Excretion in Neurotypical and Autistic Children Medscape
Comparison of Urinary Porphyrins in NT and AU Children
Our findings suggest that mean concentrations of uro- and precoproporphyrins are comparable between NT and AU children of the same age ranges. In contrast, the concentrations of all remaining porphyrins, particularly hexacarboxyl-, pentacarboxyl-, and coproporphyrins, were significantly higher in AU children than NT children, especially in older age groups. Several possibilities might account for these differences. Of initial concern, Hg exposure appears unlikely to play a role in this effect, because no significant differences were observed between NT and AU subjects for indices of past exposure to Hg from dental or medical sources, as reported by parents/caregivers. Additionally, urinary Hg concentrations, measures of recent Hg exposure, were very low among all subjects in this study (Table 2), and no significant differences between diagnostic groups were observed. As noted recently (Woods et al. 2009a), incipient although statistically nonsignificant changes in urinary porphyrin concentrations were seen among children with urinary Hg concentrations derived from prolonged dental amalgam Hg exposure on the order of 3.2 µg/g creatinine. This is nearly 10 times the mean urinary Hg concentration observed among children in this study. Similar findings describing very low blood Hg levels and insignificant differences between NT and AU children have recently been reported (Hertz-Picciotto et al. 2010). These observations do not preclude a possible role of Hg exposure from sources not measured or validated in the present study, especially during the perinatal period, in the etiology of autism or related neurodevelopmental disorders in some children, particularly in relation to genetic variation that may predispose to increased risk of the neurotoxic effects of Hg as Hg0 as reported in adults (Echeverria et al. 2005, 2006, 2010; Heyer et al. 2009). Our findings indicate instead that porphyrin metabolism, particularly in preadolescent children, may be too disordered or differently regulated to permit detection of the Hg-mediated changes in urinary porphyrin excretion apparent in adult subjects. Further studies using a substantially larger population, such as the National Children's Study now in progress (National Children's Study 2010), are required to resolve this question.
In the comments section of the post, Paul Robinson, Alden's brother in law, responded to Handley, disclosing that he has a child with ASD, and claiming that Handley and Jenny McCarthy's group, Generation Rescue, had sabotaged the relationship between AAP and DAN!, that was burgeoning in 2008, by criticizing AAP too harshly. Handley responded with another post the following day called, "Dr. Errol Alden, CEO of the AAP, has a Nephew with Autism", in which he addresses Robinson's comments.
Handley expresses a sentiment, which I share, that references the difficulty of the idea that victims of malpractice should be deferential to those who have caused life long damage to children, because those public health officials are too sensitive to be criticized for their malpractice.
He then points Robinson back to the actual problem, which is that the American Academy of Pediatrics, under Alden's leadership, is encouraging physicians to commit widespread malpractice, and away from the fake smokescreen problem that the AAP is trying to distract the world with, the fact that parents and minority physicians are complaining about the actual problem.
So now that this is being put out in the open, I think it is appropriate to ask, what happened in 2008? As I am witness to a small piece of the puzzle, I will share what I know here.
I was in attendance at the April 2008 DAN conference in Cherry Hill. The month before, the Polings had announced that Hannah had been paid for her vaccine induced autism, Julie Gerberding had been forced to admit on CNN that vaccines can cause autism in children with mitochondrial dysfunction, Jenny McCarthy had announced the "Green our Vaccines" rally, the AAP had announced that it was going to work with ARI/DAN in treating autism, and Jenny McCarthy went head to head with the AAP on Larry King in an explosive interview.
Two days later, the DAN! conference started. It was jammed with people. During the conference, Misty Hiatt, a mother from Florida, stood up and told the crowd that her daughter Madison had also been paid by the VICP for her vaccine induced encephalopathy/autism. And the AAP had sent a group, lead by Dr. Louis Cooper, one of the inventors of the Rubella vaccine.
It was a charged weekend to say the least. On the last day, I sat in the back of the ballroom and somewhere in the middle of Sid Baker's speech, the fact that what had been done to my child, had been done to my child, washed over me and I started crying. I just sat in the back and cried quietly for an hour or so... happy to be in the back at a table next to the sound board by myself.
As the conference ended, I stayed put and watched Dr. Cooper talk with a woman at the front of the room and Stan Kurtz and a few others, waiting to see if Stan would be alone. I had been introduced to him once and hoped that he would give me a little bit of information on Cooper and the AAP's reaction to the conference. While was waiting, Dr. Cooper walked to the back of the room and took a seat about ten or fifteen feet away from me and waited. After a minute, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, DAN doc and Jenny McCarthy's co-author, pulled a chair around to face Cooper, sat down and asked what he thought.
As you might imagine, I stayed put, closed the blog post that I had begun writing on my impressions of the conference, opened a clean document and began taking notes on the conversation.
About five minutes later, Stan Kurtz joined them and the three talked openly as the room cleared until it was just the four of us.
Cooper lead most of the conversation, he was on the enthusiastic side about what he had seen and heard. Not ecstatic, but I was encouraged an that he seemed much more into it than I would have expected. I would expect that he would have played it more cool and close to the vest. On the contrary, he seemed to be very honest and speaking freely from the heart.
Kartzinel and Kurtz did more listening than talking. They were both very gentile with him, asked good questions that got to the point of the matter with out being aggressive at all.
These are the notes I took as they talked:
My notes on a conversation overheard between Dr. Jerry Kartzinel DAN! doctor, Dr. Louis Cooper representing the American Academy of Pediatrics and Stan Kurtz, immediately following the DAN! Conference on April 6, 2008
All information is directly from Dr. Louis Z. Cooper unless otherwise noted.
Dr. Cooper came into this when Stan Kurtz called Cooper and Jenny was “raising hell”. It was time to “learn about DAN!… and now the current academy leadership and I are here at DAN!.”
Cooper noted with some surprise that “the doctors in the room are our doctors”, meaning AAP doctors. He expressed concern (for several years now) for the loss of trust from parents. He posed the question, “How do we move this forward and get rid of the appearance of combativeness?”
Dr. Cooper mentioned his Rubella and HIV experience a lot. He was quite rooted in those experiences and might/maybe using that model a little too much.
On his role in the 1964 Rubella epidemic:
He took lab from Belleview with him (to Cold Creek? I am not sure where.)
When he was working on HIV, Jim Olestine called him and said, “We’ve got these kids… we need a pediatrician to look at this.”
Cooper said, “That was the second crisis in my life as far as disease epidemic. This is the third.”
Kartzinel asked Cooper what his recommendations for approaching this should be.
Cooper said, “We need to quickly pull together and have a task force and committee.”
Diagnostic tests, definitions, clear treatment protocols were what worked for Rubella.
“This is a multi system disease, a multisystem syndrome. You guys know that. It also has ethical issues, mental health issues, GI issues, public health issues, epidemiological issues, financial issues, insurance issues…”
Cooper says he will recommend that the AAP make a task force for this.
"What I want to include that’s different is…". (could not hear the end of the sentence)
Drug companies have taken over health and there has been hope that health consumers would take that back. “This group represents the best of that”.
He wants to assemble a group place for exchange of ideas and beliefs that would include academy education programs.
“The tool kit is a great start, but that let’s take it to the next step.”
Kartzinel: “What is that step?” Jerry suggests that, ‘If the leaders in each field say, this is a problem, then it becomes real.’ “If the leaders in the GI field say, “we recognize this as a problem”, that would go so far. Then docs would be free to explore the GI track.”
In reference to the pediatrician who stood up in her community and was ostracized, investigated and left the AAP, and who broke down in tears with Stan, Cooper said that that sort of thing should not be happening. He spoke with compassion toward her.
Kartzinel mentioned the Boston ’06 GI meeting that AS sponsored. It was a very distinguished group. What AAP did was provide AS with (could not hear this part) … “But there was no AAP logo” and no official sanction.
In discussing how to get DAN! theory and practice accepted, Cooper said: “Rubella advancement was accepted because”:
1. Two years after diagnostic test
2. “I was at a prestigious institution”
3. “We had the backing of world leaders”
People who were movers and shakers elite and fashion and entertainment industries opened doors for them, and from them he learned a lot about making things happen.
The term “Developmental Disabilities” was coined by congress because of the efforts of a few powerful men. Harvey Firestone had a child with CP and President of ABC and Kennedy’s sister – they talked congress into the Developmental Disabilities Services Act.
“These were accidents of politics that have impact. HIV had a different story. You have a different story.”
“I’m concerned about immunization policy and how you protect immunization.”
“I chaired a CDC blue ribbon panel for Julie Gerberding. We wrote at report and that report got buried. And then Jenny and the Polings came along, God bless them, they have raised so much hell.”
“You are helping me and what I need to do. It has engaged me at a level that I would not have been engaged in.”
Kartzinel: “How do we move forward?”
Cooper: “You have a body of work that will provide receptors with the academy.”
Jerry then shared the problems they have had with submitting research and told about his rejection from one publication. He explained that they returned it with strange objections, “They said, ‘You had no control group.’ Of course I had no control group, it was a case series, it was written write there.”
Cooper: Did you send to pediatrics?
Kartzinel said no, that he didn’t even try.
Cooper: Send it to pediatrics.
They talked about Wakefield.
Cooper: He came out with speculation about splitting the vaccine with no data, and then his failure to disclose poisoned the well.
“My colleagues have a self righteousness.”
No one does controlled measures when they are making observations.
Kartzinel: Is a fully vaccinated group of children at age 4 as healthy as an unvaccinated group of 4 year olds?
(Up until this point in the conversation, Cooper has been outgoing and engaged. When Kartzinel ask this question, Cooper starts to draw into himself a bit.)
Kartzinel: You can’t start out doing a study of vaccinated v. unvaccinarted children because of the ethical problems, but you can do it in primates.
Jerry then tells him about the vaxed v. unvaxed primate study about to begin.
Cooper: “Is there any reason to give Hep B vaccine at birth”? (said as if he is seriously questioning why we are doing it.)
Kartzinel: University of Pittsburgh veterinarian, phase two will be done in Seattle.
Here Cooper raised some question which Kartzinel takes to mean that he is worried about cost, and said that the study is already fully funded and that people are already in place for the study.
Kartzinel didn’t outright invite him to be a part of the study, but left the door open for Cooper to say he wanted AAP involvement. Cooper didn’t bite and was trying to get away from the study idea. Obviously hit a nerve and was outside of his comfort zone.
Cooper: “The public trust has been my major preoccupation in the last few years”. (Cold Spring outlined the problem and made some recommendations?)
One was to work on communication strategies – for pediatricians not be demeaning. Another was a large investment in the safety of vaccines, “not trying to cover up”.
Stan: what do we do from here… what are the objectives?
Cooper: “I want to reflect on in it. I will try to make this attractive to a cross disciplinary task force.”
No single individual should represent the academy.
“That’s how I won rubella. I learned pediatrics.”
Stan: “Parents here have learned pediatrics.”
Louis Z Cooper and Stan Kurtz at DAN! 2008
Photo by Christine Zichittella-Heeren
Amazing to know this conversation took place, isn’t it?
At this point, hotel staff came in and began stacking the chairs so we all moved out of the ballroom. Kurtz, Kartzinel and Cooper walked off together and I hopped into a cab to the train station. On the way home I wrote this cautiously optimistic post: The American Academy of Pediatrics Shows Up in Autism Treatment
I wrote that “it was my understanding that AAP thought…” and never hinted at all that I had heard, because I didn’t want to carpet bomb the delicate process that was underway between AAP and DAN/Team Jenny. What I did do was offer AAP guidelines on how they could use this window of opportunity to end the madness and the war with parents, by eating a little crow, apologizing for the bad behavior and partnering with parents.
I noted that those parents were going to be showing up in DC in just two months, and if AAP was not on board by the time of the Green Our Vaccines rally, then their actions would be seen as empty gestures and public relations maneuvers; and that window would begin to slam shut pretty quickly.
And sadly, that is what happened. AAP did not show up, they merely sent TACA their ‘autism took kit’, which of course is a joke, because TACA is itself an ‘autism encyclopedia’ and should be writing AAP’s literature for them. They again treated us like the red headed step child, the divide between our community and AAP got wider and for all their money and power, AAP has continued to loose the “autism war” to a bunch of broke, stressed out, “Justamoms”, who daily, fearlessly, continue to speak truth to power.
But AAP still does not get that they are in the wrong, and are still under the delusion that if they just find someone with perkier boobs than Jenny McCarthy to become a vaccine cheerleader, then they can turn this thing around. Their tactics keep failing, yet they keep trying the same failing tactics over and over… “this time it’ll work”, they must be saying to each other in their offices… “..because this time we will have FOCUS GROUPS!”
They do not get it.
Rather than stopping the runaway train, they have just increased their speed as they head toward the edge of the cliff… unalarmed by the increasing numbers of parents and physicians quietly disembarking the crazy train.
There is none so blind as those that will not see.
So this brings up a lot of questions.
First off… if AAP was earnest, why would they send the man who invented the Rubella vaccine to present an evaluation on whether or not “his baby” was now giving children brain damage? It was clear when vaccine issues came up that Cooper became uncomfortable, but to his credit, he seemed genuinely impressed with biomed treatment and that he wanted to move forward on it. Did AAP expect him to dismiss all of DAN?
I am convinced that Cooper was earnest in what he said to Kurtz and Kartzinel. Did he make the recommendation to set up a task force to AAP? My BS meter had been pretty finely tuned at that point, and when he talked about treatment, he was sincere as far as I could tell. Unless he is one of those guys that really means it at the time, but really believes something else when he is with a crowd of another persuasion? So if he made these recommendations to the AAP, what happened? Did AAP blow them off? Did Tayloe and Alden put the kibosh on it?
What happened to, “Diagnostic tests, definitions, clear treatment protocols”?
Cooper said, “disease epidemic”. Why won’t AAP say it?
Cooper said that AAP wanted people weaning off Pharma and being good health consumers. And that we represented the best of that. So why are we being demonized? Did doctors want that, until they got it, and then discovered they didn’t like being challenged?
Didn’t AAP want to see the results of the primate study? Or did they use this as a heads up to bury it?
Here’s a biggie: WHAT WAS THE BLUE RIBBON PANEL THAT COOPER CHAIRED FOR GERBERDING, WHOSE RESULTS GOT BURIED? WHY DID HE NOT UNBURY THEM AND USE THEM?
Here is an easy one, “How do we move this forward and get rid of the appearance of combativeness?” I don’t know… stop being combative? Seems like its worth a try.
What were the other reports from the other docs who visited the conference?
And here is the most obvious one. If public trust is so important to the AAP, why are they lying to the public? Why are they crapping on their customers? What exactly do they think will happen if they treat parents with dismissals, insults and really bad PR?
Paul Robinson wrote this:
“Things were proceeding quite well when suddenly Stan had to leave DAN and then he joined G.R. Jenny's continual national attacks brought so much heat on Errol from the AAP's constituency that he had to back away from the whole process. G.R.'s belligerence ruined a very likely alliance and who suffers? the kids! Nice work G.R.!”
If AAP was working with DAN/ARI, then why didn't they just continue working with DAN/ARI? Who the hell cares what Jenny McCarthy was doing? If Stan ran naked through an AAP meeting and Jenny threatened to burn down Chicago just to spite the AAP, who the @#&$% cares!? Either these treatments heal our children or they don’t! Robinson’s argument seems to be that it is OK for physicians to throw children under a bus (and that phrase is only BARELY used figuratively here) if they are offended by a shock/comic actress and a guy who owns a preschool?
I don’t want to completely trash Robinson here, because he seems like he has come part of the way on this (although JB is right, IMHO he should have, and still should, throw down the gauntlet with his brother in law), but Robinson does not seem to understand that he is making the case for us on how corrupt the AAP is. If they don’t like how a few people act, they are allowed to commit malpractice on yours, mine and every child with autism in this country? And say that Generation Rescue made them do it!
And the AAP is shocked when parents are pissed at them? (It takes all my self control not to continue on in a stream of expletives at this point.)
Jerry Kartzinel could not be a nicer, more professional doctor, and he is very widely respected. If they didn’t like Stan any more, they couldn’t call Jerry? Or Lyn Redwood who was on the IACC? Or Jane Johnson at ARI? Or anyone one of the hundreds of really boring, zero drama, non-comic actresses that daily serve children with autism?
Exactly what is the mean age of an AAP member? 15?
“I’m a teenage girl. My BFF texted and said that Jenny said something mean about me. And that’s a problem. Now, I’m emotionally compromised and… whoopsies… I have just inflicted brain inflammation, neurological regression, GI damage and immune system failure on 300 children today. I’m all, OMG… Jenny is a slut”
Have we discovered a new defense for child abuse?
Judge: Billy Bob... you stand accused of hitting your child in with a base ball bat and breaking his arm. How do you plead?
Billy Bob: Not guilty by reason of Jenny McCarthy was mean to me. So I had to take out out on my boy. What else could I do?
Prosecutor: Oh, Your Honor, we had no idea that Ms. McCarthy had insulted Mr. Bob. We drop all charges.
Judge: Case dismissed with the apologies of the Court. Your are free to go Mr. Bob.
If Generation Rescue insults Pakistan, does that mean they are then allowed to nuke India? I need to get a read on just how far the McCarthy defense goes.
I will end the way I have been ending these posts for years. By asking AAP/CDC et. al. WHAT IS YOUR PLAN? How long are you going to drag this out? How far do vaccine rates have to drop, how bad does your reputation have to get? What is “bottom” for you? What is your plan here?
Wise pediatricians… rise up and take back your profession. If not you… then who? If not now, then when? How man thousands of sick children are you willing to watch fall just to keep your job or your seat at the table or your invite to the party?
You are the grown ups… take back the steering wheel.
President Bush signed into law the Combating Autism Act (CAA) on December 19, 2006. This landmark legislation authorized $700 million in research funding over five years and set the goal of finding the cause (including possible environmental causes) and treatments for autism. The Act sunsets on September 30, 2011.
A coalition of leading community organizations is coordinating an effort to seek reauthorization and has prepared a list of Guiding Principles. A broad consensus on these principles is the essential first step before legislation can be crafted to implement these ten principles as policy (details on each principle follow below):
1) Recognize that our country faces a national public health emergency.
2) Direct increased resources for a lifespan of autism services through established services infrastructure at the state level.
3) Dedicate federal research to strategic research that can halt the autism epidemic in its tracks.
4) Conduct autism surveillance with the scope, timeliness and rigor appropriate to the need.
5) Focus strategic new research in areas that can yield meaningful near term results.
6) Keep individuals with autism safe from accidental death and injury.
7) Prevent harmful restraint and seclusion of autistic individuals.
8) Address critical gaps in vaccine safety research and policy governance.
9) End health insurance discrimination against individuals with autism.
10) Develop autism policy with an open, transparent approach.
We invite all organizations to mobilize and join in this vital effort. Contact information, an updated list of organizational members, and relevant documents can be found at CAACoalition.org.
The theme underlying all the Guiding Principles is that we need a legislative response driven by the seriousness of the epidemic, by the opportunity to prevent new cases and treat existing cases with the same urgency as our national response to hurricanes, floods, and pandemics, and by the necessity to provide adequate supports and services to facilitate people on the spectrum to lead full and complete lives. Accordingly, the first principle calls for the formal legislative recognition of the autism epidemic as a national health emergency without the usual hedging language from CDC that they don’t know how much of the increase is “real.”
The original Act was primarily focused on research with some additional funding for outreach and awareness education. It established the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) to advise the Secretary of HHS on all matters relating to autism and develop and update an annual strategic plan for autism-related research. CAA 2011 must restructure management of the research enterprise into a new National Institute for Autism Research, re-engineer the grant-making process to rapidly achieve the goals of prevention and treatment, and ensure vigorous and meaningful accountability, oversight, and broad community participation.
Research Funding Priorities Research funding must be re-prioritized and focused on the specific areas with the greatest payoff to achieve the goals of prevention and treatment. It is especially important that scarce research dollars be spent wisely in order to provide the greatest and quickest leverage. Accordingly, there must be a considerably greater focus on environmental factors, epigenetics, and on “translational” research that can quickly link bench science and clinical research to immediate medical and behavioral improvements. Money must be invested in research yielding the greatest benefit in the shortest time.
The legislative history of the original Act called specifically for research on vaccines as a potential cause of autism. However, despite repeated requests from across the community, ongoing compensation of vaccine-caused autism in Vaccine Court, recommendations and coordination from the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and privately-funded research that continues to reveal damage done by vaccines to children and animals, IACC has refused to fund essential research such as a comprehensive comparison of vaccinated with unvaccinated children. CAA 2011 must specifically require a comprehensive program of vaccine safety research focusing on an ongoing comparison of vaccinated with unvaccinated children and animals and on the mechanisms of injury.
The CAA provided for research relating to services and supports but was not designed to actually fund them. Several bills have been introduced during recent sessions relating to demonstration projects and funding for services and supports, training, restraints and seclusion issues, wandering disorder, and infrastructure, but none of these has passed. Especially in view of under-funding of existing mandates in Medicare and the aging of the leading edge of the epidemic through their teenage years and transitioning into adulthood, comprehensive legislation is needed to address – and fund – these complex issues. CAA 2011 must direct significantly increased resources for services through existing state-level infrastructure to the families and providers who are in the best position to meet the specific needs of individuals with autism. As with research governance, CAA 2011 must improve services governance by separating IACC into separate specialist committees that will be better able to focus on the quite distinct constituencies, specialties, and challenges faced in marshaling and coordinating the services-related resources throughout the federal government.
Because the urgency of the response and need will be aided by timely and accurate data on the scope and nature of the epidemic, CAA 2011 must significantly strengthen the gathering and reporting of information on the number of individuals with autism, the severity of their diagnoses, and their specific needs for services and interventions.
Individuals with autism face unique safety issues. Legislation must address these by guaranteeing that children in school enjoy a learning environment free from dangerous restraints and seclusion and by providing first-responder training and funding for systems to prevent wandering and ensure the safe return of children to appropriate supervision.
Legislation reforming various aspects of insurance has passed in over 20 states, and the recently passed national healthcare reform legislation addresses some aspects. However, in view of the strong popular support for “repeal and replacement,” CAA 2011 must provide for parity of coverage with other medical conditions and ban all forms of insurance discrimination arising from an autism diagnosis.
The reauthorized CAA must be the product of an open and transparent process. In the present toxic environment in Washington, its chances of passage will a strong community consensus on first, guiding principles, and then the details of policy implementation developed through a close collaboration of organizations that have disparate interests and objectives. Most important, passage will require an extraordinary effort in grassroots lobbying from throughout the community. In this election, and in preparation for the reauthorization effort, take the time to visit your local Representatives and Senators and educate them as to the urgent of the community for a comprehensive and coordinated policy response to the autism epidemic.
We invite all organizations to mobilize and join in this vital effort. Contact information, an updated list of organizational members, and relevant documents are at CAACoalition.org.
Thank you.
“I want to sell drugs to everyone. I want to sell drugs to healthy people. I want drugs to sell like chewing gum.” With those words former Merck CEO Henry Gadsden established the aim of the entire pharmaceutical industry more than 30 years ago.
Wow... for the fourth weekend in a row, Fox actually does real reporting on the autism/vaccine issue, and scores a story I don't think any other network has touched yet.
The fact that the vaccine program, as currently conducted, is almost completely untested. Because vaccines are not safety tested in the combinations in which they are given.
When my son regressed into autism following his 18 month vaccinations, I said to myself, “It couldn’t have been the shots, because ‘they’ said vaccines can’t cause autism”. However as time went on, and many of the other pronouncements that ‘they’ made concerning autism, namely that it could not be treated with diet and suppliments, were turning out to be false in my son’s case, it became apparent that I was going to have to investigate the ‘no association’ claims that ‘they’ were making about vaccines and autism.
I pulled out his shot record to look at exactly what shots he was given, and found that shortly before his regression, he had DTaP, Polio, Hib, Pnumococcal, and the Hepatitis B vaccines. So I began looking for research that applied to my son’s case and supported the position of public health. I found research on thimerosal and autism, but my son didn’t have any thimerosal in his 18 month shots. I found research on MMR and autism, but my son never got the MMR. What I needed was research that examined the relationship between:
• The Diphtheria, tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP) vaccine and autism
• The Inactivated Polio vaccine and autism
• The Haemophilus influenzae type b conjugate vaccine (Hib)
• The Pnumococcal vaccine and autism
• The Hepatitis B vaccine and autism
I also needed research on what all these vaccines can do to a child when administered at the same time.
What I discovered is that none of this research existed. At all. That ‘they’, the medical professionals who were telling me that my son’s vaccines didn’t cause his autism, were speaking from a place of ignorance and proffering a scientifically unsupported idea.
Public health is just whistling past the graveyard.
PS. Fun factoid... Where did Dr. Sears learn that the vaccine schedule was not tested? From an autism mom. In a conversation she mentioned that different shots were not tested together, and he insisted that they were.
The difference between Dr. Sears and most doctors? He actually checked. He called the mom back a few hours later to tell her that she was right.
Over the last few years, the federal government has made several statements that they know that there is a scenario by which a seemingly healthy, fully functioning child can be vaccinated and regress into autism. But instead of telling the medical community and the public what that is, they have decided to withhold that information and make parents guess.
In the Hannah Poling case, a panel of HHS doctors were forced to admit that her vaccines cause her autism. Her father was a Johns Hopkins neurologist, her mother a nurse and a lawyer, they gave her every test under the sun and closed any hole that the government could wiggle out of in trying to deny that her autism was a vaccine injury. The government has tried its damnedest to wordsmith both the concession document and every other statement that they have been forced to make on the case to make it sound like vaccines really don't cause autism, but they have frankly done a sucky job of it, and each of these non-denial denials concocted by lawyers and pr men is more embarrassingly bad than its predecessor.
First we had the concession document itself which would not refer to what Hannah has as "autism", which is what she has, but called it, "features of autism spectrum disorder", which is both factually correct and complete bullshit. Any person diagnosed with any disorder also has the features of that disorder. Hannah Poling has DSM diagnosed full syndrome autism.
Then out came the vaccine program apologists who tried to blame the victim and make it sound like it wasn't really the vaccines fault that Hannah got sick, it was that Hannah was a poor receptacle for the super wonderful vaccine.
Then Julie Gerberding appeared on CNN to tell Dr. Gupta that vaccines can cause autism in children with mitochondrial disorders, but that vaccines could not cause autism. And he let her get away with that. Julie stressed that this occurrence is "rare". This is difficult for families to swallow since there are tens of thousands with the same story as Hannah.
She went on to claim that the fact that mitochondrial disorders and vaccine induced autism are linked should not be generalized to "normal" children, but fails to tell us which babies are the "normal" ones. Hannah seemed "normal" before her shots. So did my son. If you are not looking for abnormal, aren't ALL children considered "normal" before their vaccine induce regressive autism? If not, it wouldn't be regressive, would it.
HRSA's David Bowman let us know that vaccines don't cause autism, they just cause brain damage that may turn into autism, but that they don't check to see how often that happens. This statement not only beats Clinton's CYA for hanging his testimony on what the definition of the word "IS" is, it also torpedos Gerberding's "rare" claim, as he admits that they don't even check to see how often this happens.
So now the government's position is that vaccines don't "cause" autism, the just "result" in autism.
But since the beginning of this revelation two years ago that they know of a scenario in which a seemingly "normal" child can be vaccinated and regress into autism, have they shared that with the medical community and the public so that children can be screened to see if they are the ones that are vulnerable? No. Anne Schuchat of CDC says that would be to expensive.
Instead, they have withheld that information and are now making autism families actually GUESS at why and how their children regressed into autism from their vaccines.
Last week HRSA issued a letter to autism families in the vaccine program letting them know that they were rejecting the previously submitted MMR and thimerosal claims, and that families had to come up with a new theory or risk their cases being thrown out. (Because they are the government, that's why).
Mary Holland, appearing on Fox News this week:
So for two years HHS has been open with us that they know what vaccine induced autism is, but they are not going to tell families with children what it is... they have to guess.
These people do not deserve to hold positions in government, they deserve jail time.
Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill on Fox Business talking to Imus about their book, The Age of Autism.
Is Autism Man Made?
Is There a Vaccine-Autism Link?
Update: I have just learned that these videos are being blocked in the UK. Instead of Dan and Mark, they read, "This video contains content from FOX News Network, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds". Yet Brits CAN watch the other videos on the Fox Business You Tube Channel. Just like Andrew Wakefield's book... BANNED across the pond!
Apparently not only are the Queen's subjects not allowed to speak truth to power, they are not allowed to hear anyone else do it either. They can't have mum's thinking for themselves, now can they?
Confirmation of this is welcome from our friends across the pond.
Last Tuesday, John Donvan and Caren Zucker wrote a beautiful article for The Atlantic, entitled, “Autism’s First Child”, accompanied by a video packet that ran on Good Morning America and followed by a lengthy interview on NPR, about the first patient ever diagnosed with autism. Donald Triplett. These intrepid reporters, share how they searched and found this man who had been lost to history, and share with the world what a successful life he turned out to have. Donald was raised in a small town, by parents who stuck by him despite the recommendation of professionals to institutionalize him, and alongside neighbors who loved, accepted and supported him. He went to college, joined a fraternity, worked at a bank, drives a car and plays golf. It is a story that, as a mother of an 8 year old boy with autism, gives me hope.
But the problem is that it is not their story, the whole story, and the most newsworthy part of the story.
You see, in 1943, Leo Kanner, a Johns Hopkins Child Psychologist, wrote a paper in which he described a rare disorder he found in 11 children. The disorder became known as “Autism” and Kanner referred to the first case he found as “Donald T.”, a boy who was indeed lost to history. And it was intrepid journalistic investigating that found that Donald was still alive and living well in Mississippi. But it wasn’t ABC’s Donvan and Zucker who found him in 2010. It was a UPI’s Dan Olmsted who found him in 2005.
That year, Olmsted began a series for UPI called, “The Age of Autism”, which investigated the relationship between vaccines and autism. While reading Kanner’s paper to look for clues to any toxic exposures or physical symptoms the first children with autism may have had, Olmsted discovered that Kanner’s patient zero lived in an area where a water soluble form of mercury was first used in forestry. Potentially clinically significant as mercury was the component in vaccines suspected by many of being a causal factor in autism. So Dan Olmsted decided to try to find Donald T. And he found him living a full life in Mississippi.
While Kanner’s other cases had poor outcomes, Donald did not. It turns out Donald received a medical treatment that Kanner never recorded when, as a boy, he fell victim to crippling juvenile arthritis. Donald was treated with gold salts and his brother reported that as a result, Donald not only recovered from the arthritis, but "The proclivity to excitability and extreme nervousness had all but cleared up”.
Donald began to recover from “autism”.
This is highly relevant to the autism debate because gold has an extreme affinity for mercury and pulls it from the body. It is also significant because arthritis links his “nervous disorder” to his autoimmune disorder. It is historical evidence that the claims that parents have been making, that their children with autism had regressed after their mercury containing vaccines, and that treating them for their autoimmune symptoms makes their “autism” better, are on the money.
In 2005 Dan Olmsted published a series of articles on Donald, the most explosive being, “The Age of Autism: Case 1 Revisited”, which poured gasoline on the fiery debate on whether or not autism is a result of medical poisoning and is treatable.
Everyone in the debate has known about Donald T. for five years, and although Olmsted did not publish his full name, it was known by many. Googling – “Donald T.” autism – returns more than 8,000 pages.
Olmsted wrote the “Age of Autism” series until 2007, when he left UPI and started a blog called, “Age of Autism”, where thousands a day come to comment and debate.
This past Tuesday, Olmsted published a book, written with autism parent Mark Blaxill, called “The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Manmade Epidemic”. Chapter 6 is where you will find Donald Triplett, who decided to come out of his self-imposed anonymity to be interviewed in May of 2009 by Olmsted and Blaxill to expand on the public understanding of his story for the book.
As an autism blogger whose commentary on the initial Age of Autism series eventually became an installment in the series itself, I was given an advanced copy last May. I was so floored by the book that I built them the web site for it, gratis.
Galley copies also went to The Atlantic, NPR and ABC, but the outlets didn’t tell Olmsted’s story, instead they carried Donvan and Zucker’s puff piece. Given that Donvan is a correspondent on Nightline, that Zucker is a producer for ABC in New York as well as an autism parent, and that this team has been reporting on autism for over a decade, it is impossible to fathom that they would not have known about the book (and Olmsted’s reporting) if a little autism blogger, tucked away on the coast of Maine, had one in her hands last spring.
So imagine my shock as I watched the video of Donvan and Zucker entitled, “Finding Donald”, where they describe the process of tracking down who “Donald T.” actually was, pronounce to the world that Kanner’s first autism case was sill alive, write extensively about his life, and fail to mention that he is evidence that blanket government health care mandates and FDA corruption and/or incompetence may be causing widespread neurological and immune system damage to more than one percent of children in this country.
Donvan/Zucker hit three major outlets with their Donald T. revelation at the same time that the book Olmsted has been researching for six years hit the shelves. Olmsted, his reporting, his book and Donald’s connection to the mercury/autoimmunity aspects of autism, which Donvan and Zucker even touched on in their article, are never mentioned.
It raises the question, why would these news outlets make an end around “The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Manmade Epidemic”, and try to bury this book?
Please catch my next article. I tell the world about a talented new singer I have discovered. She goes by the name of… get this…“Lady GaGa”.
Update: NYT and WaPo publish fawning articles on The Atlantic piece. Both NYT and WaPo also got advanced copies of The Age of Autism.
Update: Olmsted and Blaxill discuss the book on Fox Business:
This is why parents are not usually allowed on TV to debate docs. Because they expose the ignorance of the physicians whom the networks are trusting to bring them accurate health information.
And Becky was even too polite to point out that the study was in Pediatrics, not the New England Journal of Medicine.
Which one of these two people would you turn to with your vaccine questions?
A few days ago I posted a letter from HRSA responding to a media inquiry into the question of whether or not the Hannah Poling case showed that the government believed that vaccines caused autism.
[note: "encephalopathy" is a medical term for brain damage or a change in brain functioning.]
From: Bowman, David (HRSA) [mailto:DBowman@hrsa.gov]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 5:22 PM
To: 'dkirby@nyc.rr.com'
Subject: HRSA Statement
David,
In response to your most recent inquiry, HRSA has the following
statement:
The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to
compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually
caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children
exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy
may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms
including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.
Some children who have been compensated for vaccine injuries may have
shown signs of autism before the decision to compensate, or may
ultimately end up with autism or autistic symptoms, but we do not track
cases on this basis.
Regards,
David Bowman
Office of Communications
Health Resources and Services Administration
301-443-3376
I have decided to play "If someone else said it", to show the sheer fraud at play in this statement, and of course, to ask the media if such poor quality lying and frank admissions of dereliction of duty would pass muster were it not coming from the government, and about such a sacred cow as childrens' vaccines.
From: Heston, Charlton(HRSA) [mailto:CHeston@hrsa.gov]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 5:22 PM
To: 'citizen@usa.com'
Subject: HRSA Statement
Citizen,
In response to your most recent inquiry, HRSA has the following
statement:
The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to
compensate, any case based on a determination that death was actually
caused by gunshot. We have compensated cases in which people
exhibited a perforation, or general hole in the body. Perforation
may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms
including bleeding, organ damage, or death.
Some people who have been compensated for gunshot injuries may have
shown signs of dying before the decision to compensate, or may
ultimately end up dead or with fatal symptoms, but we do not track
cases on this basis.
Regards,
Charlton Heston
Office of Communications
Gunshot Injury Compensation Program
Health Resources and Services Administration
301-443-3376
What Bowman is saying is that 'vaccines don't really cause autism, they cause brain damage that may cause autism. And we don't pay attention if it does.'
When this PR failure ran in 2009, no one else in the media picked up on it.
This week, two mainstream journalists have actually reported on the ridiculous position that the government has taken that 'vaccines don't "cause" autism, vaccines merely "result" in autism'. The first is Sharyl Attkisson at CBS, who wrote about it here and whose interest apparently was piqued enough for her to take a hard look at the "encephalopathy" shell game that HHS is playing which led to a follow up piece here: Autism, Vaccines and Brain Damage: What's in a Name? Atkisson is the latest journalist to figure out that just calling the autism cases in the VICP "encephalopathy" is their very transparent attempt to maintain some sort of denial of the widespread damage the vaccine program is doing.
She reports:
But there's a trade-off: occasionally, vaccines cause injury or death. Very rarely, patients are left with what's known as "encephalopathy", the medical term for brain damage.
In fact, CBS News has found nearly 1,300 cases in which vaccine-related brain damage has been compensated in court over the past 20 years.
1,300 hundred cases of vaccine brain damage paid by the government more than blows away the made up statistic parroted far and wide that serious vaccine damage is "ONE IN A MILLION". Because for that to be true, there would need to be 1,300,000,000 vaccinated people in the US. Which is one billion too many people.
And this 1,300 number ONLY includes brain damage, not other injuries or deaths. The total number of cases paid is 2,503. Let's say we have 300 million people vaccinated in this country in the last twenty years. That would mean that if the government has actually found, recognized and compensated every serious vaccine adverse reaction (and we know that ain't happening) then vaccine injury is about 1 in 120,000. Given that only about 1 percent of vaccine injuries are ever even reported, and that few people who fall seriously ill are ever told that their circumstance might be a vaccine reaction, if we factor that in, then we are looking at 1 in 12,000.
Keep in mind that 1 in 100 has autism, and 1 in 6 children have a developmental disability or delay, and those populations are not exactly scoured to see how many of them are vaccine injuries, and well... that is how you get a citizenry that stops believing the government.
So as there has been no research comparing vaccinated people to unvaccinated people, we can't really know the true rate of vaccine injury. My estimate is somewhere between 1 in 120,000 and 18% of the population. Lets hope someone with time and money can narrow that down for us someday.
The second journalist to have a light bulb pop in over her head, is Alisyn Camerota at Fox News, who points out the "fishy legal language" the government is using. Dr. Manny also seems to be coming to grips with the hard truth, because as I recall, years ago he was ruling out vaccines in autism.
Let's see if any other reporters are woken up by the VICP announcement of paying a child around twenty million dollars for "autism-like symptoms". (You know because people with autism have autism like symptoms, a man with no legs is also missing his big toe, I am five pounds overweight, my great, great, great grandfather currently has a mitochondrial disorder where his cells just don't make enough energy to properly power his brain, or any other small subset of a larger more dramatic condition that is both completely true and completely misleading to the listener who expects the government to tell them the truth. Did I mention that Hannah Poling has full syndrom, DSM diagnosed Autism, with a capitol "A"?)
And if you check that HRSA National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Statistic Report page one more time, you will note that there is now a "1" in the "Compensable" column of the Autism Omnibus Proceedings. Of course HRSA has added an asterisk next to it with the following note:
"HHS has never concluded in any case that autism was caused by vaccination."
And now you can go back to the beginning of this article to remind yourself that HHS only compensates for bullet holes, not for bleeding or death.
Update:
I missed this one
Karen DeSoto at MSNBC also gets the wake up call and wants to know what the hell is going on. She notes that it is the government that has sealed the case when the Polings had requested it be open to the public so it could be of value in answering the questions we all have.
With all the attacks on them since the concession was made public, including people stalking their daughter, would they still be open to that? I don't think it matters. With out even mentioning the name Poling or one detail about Hannah, HHS could say, "Here is one process by which a seemingly neurotypical child can get autism from vaccination". Or if they want to maintain their BS legal word game cover, "This is a process by which a child with an undiagnosed mitochondrial disorder may develop autism like symptoms as a result of vaccination".
I hope that DeSoto follows up on this. She is right. Parents every where should be screaming WTH? at HHS.
Update:
Fox News follows up a week later. Becky Estepp of SafeMinds and TACA is on, and has to give Dr. Mark Siegel a lesson in vaccines.
Update:
This post is generating much traffic, so I will go ahead and add the news piece that really exposed how badly the government was lying to try to keep people from waking up to the fact that HHS has been paying these cases for almost twenty years. Julie "Vaccines Cause Autism and Do Not Cause Autism" Gerberding.
Today is September 14, The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Manmade Epidemic is at book stores and available on line--we need your help.
Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill's groundbreaking book, The Age of Autism, traces the autism epidemic by examining the first diagnosed cases of autism. Dan and Mark's detailed research is impeccable and their conclusions are stunning. Their book will revolutionize the way people think about autism and children's health.
We need this book to make a big splash with the American public and you can help. Here is what we need you to do:
* Buy the book here (if you haven't already).
* Have your friends and relatives buy the book. Book purchases will drive up the book's ratings, create media interest and educate people on what happened to our children.
* Forward this e-mail to your friends in the autism community - just click on the "Forward to a Friend" button at the bottom.
* Arrange a book signing for the authors in your community. Contact Becky Estepp.
* Sign up for to receive Age of Autism action alerts here.
We must create change for all suffering with autism. Spread the word and join The Age of Autism revolution. Please help this book become a national best seller by forwarding the announcement below, and future advisories, to the media as well as family and friends.
A curious thing happened in Atlanta. The AJC posted a story on the Poling case, then some sort of internet sewer alligator monster must have climbed up from the depths and eated it or somethin', because today it was gone.
Fortunately, I still had my browser open when I heard about the disappearance of the poor missing article, so I saved a copy. You are welcome AJC. Hope you catch that creature who is stealing your stories.
Update... I have taken the article down, because apparently it take of the AJC site because it contained several inaccuracies. I don't know what they were, but I don't wanna spread misinformation, so said article goes down.
