David Kirby: CDC Has Lost Control of the Autism Argument

CDC Has Lost Control of the Autism Argument
David Kirby
Huffington Post
April 3, 2007

On Wednesday, CNN's Larry King hosted Jenny McCarthy, myself, and several others to discuss the growing evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism. The CDC refused to send someone to appear on the show. Instead, on Thursday, the agency issued a statement meant to reassure the American public that all vaccines are safe for all kids.

But the CDC statement only served to show how out of touch the Administration of George (Really? Gas costs 4 dollars?) Bush really is.

A recent government decision to award nine-year-old Hannah Poling taxpayer dollars for her multiple vaccine-induced autism, has left parents anxious and alarmed, especially when their own kid has a pending appointment to receive 5 or more vaccines in one sitting (Hannah had 9 at once).

So the CDC now issues a written statement meant to soothe jittery parents, by saying that "the recommended vaccine schedule is flexible." Such decisions, the friendly announcement said, "are best made in consultation with the child's doctor, and parents shouldn't be reluctant to have such discussions."

Of course parents shouldn't be reluctant to have this discussion, but they are. I get nasty emails from some pediatricians, and the number-one complaint I get from them is that, because of people like me, they must now "waste" (their word, not mine) precious billing hours talking to layperson parents about vaccine science.

These doctors' hostility is palpable, (and they hopefully represent a minority of pediatricians). And while I cannot imagine ever consulting anyone of such temperament for medical care in the first place, many parents are simply cowed into silence. For them, the CDC suggestion to ask vaccine safety questions at a well-baby visit is laughable, if not risible.

Interestingly, after years of being told that autism is purely genetic, and not some environmentally triggered epidemic, parents now learn that the CDC has begun a massive investigation, called the SEED study, to look at "genetic, environmental and hormonal factors, as well as selected mercury exposures," that cause autism

This is encouraging news, though one can assume that thimerosal is not among those mercury exposures that have been "selected" for study.

But the real problem here is the track record and credibility of the CDC to continue conducting any vaccine safety studies at all. This is not helped when the CDC continues to issue statements such as:

"Top scientists -- with the open-mindedness that characterizes good science -- planned and conducted the highest-quality, large-scale (vaccine safety) studies. No links to autism have been found."

Now, I have no doubt that CDC officials believe these truly were the "highest quality" studies available. But but many scientists, including some who authored the studies, disagree. They say many of the studies were flawed and/or inconclusive.

THE US STUDY

The flagship study was a four-year analysis by the CDC of a large US database called the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD). This study, published in the journal Pediatrics, was authored by Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, a visiting researcher from Belgium.

The final, published version of the study found no evidence of a link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism, though earlier analyses - discovered through the Freedom of Information Act - showed remarkable correlations.

At the time, the CDC called it one of the highest quality studies of its kind ever conducted.

But in 2006, Congress asked the National Institutes of Health to convene a special panel to investigate the quality and usefulness of the VSD database - and by extension, the Verstraeten study itself - as a means of investigating such a link.

The panel determined that there were "several serious problems" with the database and the study, including many "weaknesses" and "limitations" that could render certain analyses "uninformative and potentially misleading. "

The NIH Panel was "concerned" about how autism diagnoses were made and recorded by HMOs who take part in the database, and questioned if the HMOs had adequate services for autism families, who might seek care elsewhere. Panelists said these and other problems likely led to an "under-ascertainment" of autism cases in the HMOs.

The panel also cited many problems with the Verstraeten study design. It warned that a "large proportion, around 25%, of births were excluded from the analysis." Panelists wrote that these same children "may represent a susceptible population whose removal from the analysis might unintentionally reduce the ability to detect an effect of thimerosal."

Other "serious problems" were the facts that there was no consideration of pre-natal thimerosal exposures from immune globulin, or "other vaccinations given during pregnancy," (i.e., flu shot), and no accounting for, "the cumulative exposure to organic mercurials through diet or other environmental sources. "

The NIH panel determined that these problems, "reduce the usefulness" of the VSD to prove or disprove a link between thimerosal and autism.

Shortly thereafter, panel chair Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Professor of Public Health at U.C. Davis School of Medicine, told Dan Olmsted (formerly) of UPI that the VSD study "was not the last word... things need to be looked at again, perhaps with different methodology."

And Verstraeten himself said the study proved nothing. In a letter to Pediatrics, he wrote that, "We found no evidence against an association, as a negative study would. On the contrary, additional study is recommended, which is the conclusion to which a neutral study must come."

THE DENMARK STUDIES

Two studies conducted in Denmark are always referred to by the CDC and others when trying to defend the injection of organic mercury into the systems of newborn babies and infants. These are among the best of the "highest quality" studies, we are told, that show no link between vaccines and autism.

The main Denmark study reported that the removal of mercury from vaccines was followed by a sharp increase in reported autism cases. But the authors admitted that much of this increase was possibly due to a major change in the way Denmark counted its autism cases during the study period (switching from inpatient diagnosed cases only, or about 13% of the total, to cases diagnosed in inpatient AND outpatient settings, or 100% of the total).

The CDC touts the high quality of the study, even though the authors cautioned in the study itself that "methodological limitations" - such as the exponential expansion of patients (due to counting both inpatient AND outpatient cases) -- "may have spuriously increased the apparent number of autism cases."

Adding insult to understatement, Dr. Hertz-Piccotto said that, as bad as the VSD study was, the Denmark papers were even worse. "Some studies are stronger than others," she said. "The Verstraeten study was an improvement on other studies, including the two in Denmark, both of which had serious weaknesses in their designs."

THE IOM REPORTS

In 2004, a committee of the Institute of Medicine reviewed the US, Denmark and a few other similar studies (whose methodology have been questioned in other venues including my book, "Evidence of Harm").

The IOM committee relied almost exclusively on large population studies (epidemiology), and virtually ignored the growing body of evidence emerging from clinical, animal and test tube studies from the fields of toxicology, immunology and other scientific disciplines.

(Interestingly, the US Federal Court system has determined that epidemiology alone is "insufficient" when trying to disprove a link between exposures and outcomes in an individual).

The committee concluded that the evidence did not support a vaccine link to autism. But it added that, "We cannot rule out, based on the epidemiology, the possibility that vaccines contribute to autism in some small subset," something that parents have been saying all along.

Finally, in 2005, another panel of the IOM criticized the CDC for a "lack of transparency" in its vaccine safety programs, particularly the VSD database. The IOM panel report noted that a CDC official had testified that some of the original datasets in the Verstraeten study, "had not been archived in a standard manner," and, "may not allow all the re-analyses that one might want to do, or in fact may not be available at all."

This same IOM committee, citing the Federal Information Quality Act, which makes it a felony to intentionally lose or destroy any publicly funded records, recommended that vaccine officials at the CDC's National Immunization Program "seek legal advice."

And despite all of this (and more) the CDC wants us to believe that these studies represent the "highest quality" analyses available.

The leadership of CDC Director Julie Gerberding has been replete with crushing morale depletion, embarrassing media coverage, congressional investigations into Katrina trailers, and a general sense of an agency in decline.

Sadly, the words "CDC" and "highest quality" can rarely be used in the same sentence anymore.

Julie Gerberding Admits on CNN that Vaccines can Trigger Autism

This weekend Julie Gerberding, the head of the CDC, appeared on Dr. Sanjay Gupta's show, House Call, and explained that vaccines can trigger autism in a vulnerable subset of children. This is the claim that parents like me have been making since at least the 80's, and have been dismissed and even mocked for making it.

But no one in the main stream media seems to have noticed. Not even CNN. Not even Dr. Gupta who was sitting right in front of her.

[Video updated 4/2/08]





Apparently, if you dress in soft pink and speak in dulcet, reassuring tones, you can indict yourself in the biggest international health crisis of the times and not even your interviewer will notice.

It is time for Dr. Gerberding to be forced to give cogent answers to the difficult questions that it is her responsibility to truthfully address. From all I have seen, it will take an act of Congress to do it.

I am joining Hannah Poling's parents in calling for the immediate release of the Poling case documents, and calling for congressional hearings into the autism cases in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

This obfuscation and double speak must end.


*For more on this interview, read these:

An Invitation to Julie Gerberding to Help Her Find the Missing Information on Autism

Wait! Did Julie Gerberding Just Admit that Vaccines Trigger Autism!?

Wait! Did Julie Gerberding Just Admit that Vaccines Trigger Autism!?

I think that she did!

She could not have talked around it or downplayed it more... but she said it.

I only saw the video on CNN's web site, but Kirby found the transcript of the whole show.

I am gonna dig through the transcript and get back to you.. in the mean time:

UPDATE: She did. Let's go to the tape.

CNN, CDC, and Some Truth
Posted March 29, 2008 | 02:20 PM (EST)
Huffington Post

It was a big morning in Atlanta today. In case you missed CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding this morning on CNN's "House Call with Dr Sanjay Gupta," it was rather interesting:

If I have read the transcript below correctly, Dr. Gerberding is saying that, yes, in some mitochondrial disorder cases, vaccines can be the trigger that causes "symptoms that have characteristics of autism." So, Dr. Gerberding admits a link -- but then denies that it is a link to autism.

The only problem with this line of argument is that I know for a fact that Hannah, as well as the kids in the new unpublished mito study were, as one doctor told me, "plucked right from autism clinics. They all have autism, there is no question of that."

JULIE GERBERDING, DR., CDC DIRECTOR: "Well, you know, I don't have all the facts because I still haven't been able to review the case files myself. But my understanding is that the child has a -- what we think is a rare mitochondrial disorder. And children that have this disease, anything that stresses them creates a situation where their cells just can't make enough energy to keep their brains functioning normally. Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you're predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism."

So, complications from vaccines can set off damage that causes characteristics of autism (just not autism itself). I don't believe I have ever heard that from a CDC official before, though that doesn't mean they never said it.

At the same time, this language does not quite jive with what Director Gerberding told reporters just over three weeks ago on a conference call:

"Let me be very clear that (the) government has made absolutely no statement about indicating that vaccines are a cause of autism. That is a complete mischaracterization of the findings of the case, and a complete mischaracterization of any of the science that we have at our disposal today. So I think we need to set the record straight on that."

I guess it all depends on what the meaning of the word, "cause," is.

The CNN interview this morning with Sanjay Gupta continues:

GUPTA: Are we ready to say right now that childhood vaccines do not cause autism?

GERBERDING: We can say absolutely for sure that we don't really understand the causes of autism. We've got a long way to go before we get to the bottom of this.

GUPTA: And you are comfortable saying that with everything we know?

GERBERDING: I'll never be comfortable with everything we know. I mean, I think we have to have an open mind about this. We know that there is very little chance that something related to a vaccine is going to cause a serious problem for a child.

Amid the usual "vaccines save lives" answer to questioning if it's possible that childhood vaccines could cause autism, there is some new and interesting rhetoric in the CDC Director's statements:

To wit:

"Set off some damage"

"Have an open mind"

"We don't know"

"Get to the bottom" of vaccines and autism.

"Ill never be comfortable"

"Very little chance" - instead of "there is no evidence"

"Something related to A vaccine" - (as opposed to several vaccines at once)

This seems like news to me, but I could be wrong. At the least, I think it is interesting, and worthy of follow up, should anyone in the media be able to talk with Dr. Gerberding. For some reason, she doesn't return my calls.

An Invitation to Julie Gerberding to Help Her Find the Missing Information on Autism

Yesterday CNN posted an interview with Julie Gerberding, head of the CDC, whom many parents of autistic children, myself included, want removed from her post for her… well… I will be generous and call it “mismanagement” of the autism epidemic.

Dr. Gupta, who has seemed to actually want to investigate this since the Poling Case was brought to our attention, did the interview, and unfortunately, could not have made it easier on her. He lobbed softballs and challenged nothing that she said. But he did say he would “stay on this”, so I am not giving up hope on him.

Of course she stuck to the same talking points, ‘CDC cares about autism’, ‘CDC are parents too’, ‘autism rates the same, just better recognition’, ‘more needs to be done’, but failed to mention that she has been saying those same things since she took the job six years ago, but has not actually done one single thing for our kids.

I would just like to call attention to a couple of her bullshit (*) remarks:

“There have been at least 15 very good scientific studies and the Institute of Medicine that has searched this out. And they have concluded that there really is no association between vaccines and autism”

The IOM report and two of those “very good” studies are the thing that got me into this debate in the first place. (David Kirby wrote a very fat book about them, which CDC still has not responded to.) The IOM decision was a horrible one. It was not based on the research presented at the meetings, the findings contradicted themselves and we have the transcripts of one of the first meetings in which they say no matter what information comes to light, they were going to give CDC what they asked for, which was that vaccines would not be indicted.

When asked about the transcripts, Dr. Harvey Fineberg, head of the IOM, states that this is an incorrect interpretation of the comments, but will not offer any alternate interpretation of what else they could mean. (I wrote to him personally, but got no response.)

Additionally… well… if you read my blog you already know how I feel about those “very good” studies.

“33,000 children a year are saved from death associated with vaccines because of our immunization program”

There is absolutely no way for her to know this. As far as I know there is no door way into an alternate universe where everything is the same except that vaccination does not exist so that she can count how many kids there die and come back and make the report to us.

“One of the things that concerns me, while the attention is focused on vaccines, in a sense, it means that people are not looking for other causes."

Nice misdirection, but you forgot to misdirect us to something. What are these other causes that we might be examining? It can’t be genetics because pretty much ALL of the government research dollars have been going into them for decades. What is it that we have become distracted from?

And now for the biggest bullshit statement of the day:

“And we have got to keep reminding ourselves that the vaccine story is one that has been debated for many, many years now. We keep looking and looking and looking and really cannot turn up any information”.

Oh. My. God.

Really? Seriously? (Where are Amy and Seth when you need them).

Because I can. Random mom in a little town in Maine with internet access and the ability to read is finding more information than you can with your thousands of scientists and billions of dollars?

Come on Julie. (Can I call you Julie? I feel like I know you personally since your actions have had such a directly destructive impact on my son and the course of the lives of each of the members of our family) Let's set the bullshit aside. I know that you know that information too, because CDC visits this blog every day, Monday through Friday. (Half the time it is to read about what we are all saying about you personally).

Tell you what. I will give you the benefit of the doubt on this one. Perhaps all this information on causes and treatments has escaped your attention. But you are in luck!

The spring DAN! Conference is next week in Cherry Hill, NJ and they have LOADS of this missing information that you cannot seem to find. So I want to offer you a personal invitation to attend the conference with me.

I will pay all your expenses. And by that I mean I will make JB Handley pay all your expenses because I am broke from treating Chandler for his ‘autistic symptoms’. (update: JB confirmed, he's got you covered.)

Just let me know where and what time to pick you up on the evening of Wednesday, April 2. World Autism Day.


* My apologies for using this crass term for those who may not believe that it is appropriate, but after four years of hearing this junk, I have come to the conclusion that it is really the only accurate term to describe these statements any more. I will be using it from now on as a technical term to describe the form of speech described by Princeton Professor Harvey G. Frankfurt in his 2005 ethics book, “On Bullshit”.

UPDATE: Apparently I am a plagiarist. Mark Blaxill gave a talk at the 2006 Autism One conference where he invokes Frankfurt's ideas in reference to Harvey Feinberg's epidemic denial comments. It is a great talk and appropriate to the absurdity of the statements coming out of the CDC and their fellow travelers these days so I will post it. I had heard the speech from the podcast a few years ago and forgot about it. I thought John Stewart had introduced me to Frankfurt, but apparently I misremembered. ;)
HT: Carrie Elsass

More on Mitochondrical Disorders from the Clevland Clinic

Since the Poling's press conference three weeks ago, we have been hearing from health authorities like Julie Gerberding and Anne Schuchat that Hannah's mitochondrial disorder was genetic and rare.

David Kirby's most recent article let us know that the CDC has known since at least March 11th that Hannah's case is not at all rare, and famed The Cleavland Clinic here informs us that mito disorders are not all genetic, but can be caused by toxins.

Which leads us back to the same question as always in dealing with CDC officials... are they incompetent, or are they liars?

I have put the relevant pieces of information in bold.

Myths and Facts About Mitochondrial Diseases

Myth
All mitochondrial diseases are known by acronym abbreviations (e.g., MELAS, MERRF, NARP, LHON).

Fact
Acronyms were commonly used when these disorders were first described. Today, the naming of mitochondrial disorders is evolving. Mitochondrial disorders are currently named by any of the following methods:

* By acronym descriptions (still in use although most people with a mitochondrial disorder do not have an "acronymic-named" disorder)
* By a name based on a person who described the disease
* By a name based on a specific genetic mutation
* By a name based on a microscopic description of tissue, or
* By a name based on the deficient enzyme

It is important to note that the labels given this disorder do not, in and of themselves, predict the long-term outcome or alter treatment.

Myth
Mitochondrial diseases are inherited only from your mother.

Fact
The current thinking is that most mitochondrial diseases are the result of one or more complex inheritance patterns. Most mitochondrial diseases are the result of mutations (changes) in DNA located in the nucleus of the cell. Only mitochondrial disorders caused by mutations in the mitochondrial DNA (a specific structure in living cells, located outside the nucleus) are inherited exclusively from mothers.

Another source of mitochondrial disorders that affects a large percentage of patients is poorly functioning mitochondria that become that way because of:

* another disease process (including other chromosomal disorders)
* exposure to toxins or viruses
* other inherited genetic mutations that are not disease-causing until "triggered" by some other genetic factor

Myth
Mitochondrial disease is a childhood disease.

Fact
Although mitochondrial disorders are commonly seen in infants and children, they can occur at any age.

Myth
An individual with mitochondrial disease has mental retardation, growth problems, and/or seizures.

Fact
Only some individuals have these developmental problems. Patients' symptoms can range from extremely mild to severe, can involve one or more body systems, and can emerge at any age. The brain, muscles, heart, liver, nerves, eyes, ears, and kidneys are the organs and tissues most affected. Most patients' symptoms fluctuate over the course of their illness -- patients at some times experience no or few symptoms, and at other times have many and/or severe symptoms. Even family members with the same disorder can experience vastly different symptoms.

Myth
Since mitochondrial diseases are incurable, no treatments can be given to these patients.

Fact
Even though these disorders are long term and incurable, treatments are available. Early treatment of symptoms can reduce their impact and limit further disability. Avoiding certain medications and stressful situations that worsen symptoms is also helpful. Certain medications and supplements may improve mitochondrial disease-related symptoms -- just as they do for other incurable diseases -- such as diabetes and emphysema.

Myth
Patients with mitochondrial disease all have elevated lactic acid levels in their blood.

Fact
An elevated lactic acid level, along with other symptoms, typically does indicate a mitochondrial problem and requires further investigation. However, elevated lactic acid levels are not seen in all types of mitochondrial diseases. In making the diagnosis, your doctor will look for other signs of mitochondrial disorders in blood, urine, and spinal fluid samples.

Myth
A muscle biopsy is the "gold standard" for diagnosis of mitochondrial disease.

Fact
Although the muscle biopsy is a powerful diagnostic tool, it should not be considered a "gold standard." Examination of a biopsy includes microscopic evaluation, enzyme testing, and genetic testing. Although all U.S. labs that offer muscle biopsy meet strict laboratory guidelines, there is no agreed-upon standard approach for enzyme testing. Furthermore, a muscle biopsy with full analysis costs well over $10,000 and poses both surgical and anesthetic risks. In some patients, the diagnosis can be made based on clinical symptoms and a positive blood test (identifying a genetic mutation) or a combination of clinical findings and other non-invasive testing -- in either case, a muscle biopsy is not necessary. Finally, since biopsy results usually do not alter the long-term outcome or treatment considerations, some specialists and patients choose to treat without the need for a muscle biopsy.

Myth
A muscle biopsy is a muscle biopsy no matter where and how it is done.

Fact
Muscle removed for biopsy can be tested in many ways. For example, enzyme testing can be done on either ground-up muscle or on mitochondria extracted from muscle. Testing on extracted mitochondria is performed in only a few medical center laboratories and must be performed immediately. This procedure is known as a "fresh biopsy." In an alternative procedure, called a "frozen biopsy," the muscle is quickly cooled and stored at -80 degrees Celsius for testing at an outside facility. The scientific community is currently debating the advantages of testing "fresh vs. frozen" mitochondria. Some evidence indicates that the "fresh biopsy" may be the superior method. Other types of mitochondrial testing of the muscle biopsy may need to be conducted; a limited number of laboratories offer such testing.

For additional information on mitochondrial diseases, contact:

The United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation
8085 Saltsburg Road, Suite 201
Pittsburgh, PA 15239
412.793.8077
www.umdf.org

The Mitochondrial Medicine Society
www.mitosoc.org

HT: MomResearch

Pamela Felice on Actually Having a Vaccine Debate

I got an email today from Pamela at The Educated Parent who proposes that Oprah actually hold a real live vaccine debate to address the vaccine debate.

Because that is one thing that is missing from this debate, the experts on both sides actually getting in the same room and debating one another.

From her email:

With autism awareness month approaching in April and in light of the recent court ruling regarding Hannah Polling's vaccine related autism, I thought it might be interesting for Oprah to host a debate on the topic of vaccine safety.

Some suggested guests might include; David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm, Dr. Robert Sears, Author of The Vaccine Book , Dr. Boyd Haley, head of the Chemistry Dept at Kentucky State University, Dr. Jerry Kertzinel, the DAN! Dr. treating Jenny McCarthy's son and Barbbra Lowe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Ctr. on the Critic side.

Possible panelists who support the current vaccine program might include, Dr. Paul Offit, Dr. Julie Gerberding, Director of the CDC, a representative of the American
Academy of Pediatrics and/or a representative of Every Child By Two.

I bet I can guess which side of that panel would decline the invitation. If they do all agree...it would certainly make for great television.

Pamela is right on two counts. 1. This would be really interesting and 2. There is no way in hell Gerberding et. al. would ever do it. They have everything to loose and nothing to gain.

Right now the only thing that is working to their advantage any more is marginalizing advocates of the vaccine/autism link. Debating them would not only give them credibility, they would expose their own lie that there is no evidence to support the relationship between vaccines and autism.

The only way they can with this battle is by getting people to ignore it and go back to sleep.

But I think that the invitation should be extended none the less.

The Responsible Government Fantasy

So in a discussion on a yahoo list, someone posted a quote from the Boston Globe that the US spends the entire autism budget in Iraq every four hours, which they argued, was a good reason to end the war.

I argue that even if Bin Laden and his friend Al Q surrendered tomorrow and they troops were home by Tuesday, the US would still not be doing any more than it is to deal with the autism problem.

Because governments do what is important to them and if autism causes and cures were important to the US Government and its health authorities, they would have been pouring resources into it for years.

Instead, we get very stupid statements from Julie Gerberding, who, after 5 years of ignoring parents increasingly loud demand for CDC action while sitting on her hands and insisting that no one look behind the vaccine curtain, said, "CDC recognizes that parents want answers. We share their frustration at not having more answers about the causes and possible cure".

Please. OJ looked harder for Nicole's 'real killers' than Julie has looked for the causes and possible cures of autism. She has outlived her welcome.

We have all lived through what it looks like for the government to pay lip service to autism, yet ignore, and even sabotage the progress in putting the pieces together.

For the sake of fun, and envisioning a better world... let's fantasize what it would look like if the government and the medical community who follow their lead actually DID want to know the causes and possible cures of Autism!

Here's what I think:

Julie Gerberding's press statements after the Hannah Poling announcement included these: "the government has made absolutely no statement about indicating that vaccines are the cause of autism, as this would be a complete mischaracterization of any of the science that we have at our disposal today", and, "This is a complete mischaracterization of the findings of a very simple situation of one child with an unusual disorder, and it would be completely wrong to say that this has bearing to the vast majority of children with autism",

In my fantasy, our good friend Julie would have said something to the effect of:

"We are excited about all that we are learning about the possible causes and potential cures of autism from the Poling case, and are grateful that the Polings have been so open with their daughters medical information so that we can use her case to help people both now and for generations to come. I am encouraging all medical experts, especially those with knowledge in mitochondrial function to take time this week to read Dr. Poling's study on Hannah and see if you can use your expertise to help shed light on how this new information on mito dysfunction piece may fit into the autism puzzle, and share your ideas with those already at work on autism.

I have spoken with Dr. Tayloe, head of the AAP, and they will be issuing an alert to pediatricians across the country to begin screening their patients with ASD for the mito dysfunction that Hannah has, so we can get an idea of what percentage of autism cases her medical scenario may represent.

In the mean time, we understand that this ruling may give parents pause in their decision making in vaccinating their children. We too want to be sure that the vaccine schedule is not contributing to the prevalence of autism, so we are putting the following measures in place.

First, in addition to the regular vaccine schedule, we will be adding two variations as options for parents. One for parents who are concerned about a link between vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders that is a more conservative schedule. It will offer kids the same protection against diseases, but will take much longer to implement as the vaccines are spaced out. And another, much more conservative, schedule for those who who are classified as high risk.

Second, until we have a few more answers, we encourage people with ASD to forgo vaccination for the next few months until we have a better idea of how many of them may be effected by Hannah's mito problem and can put appropriate screening measures in place. We will work to have that done quickly, as we believe vaccination is important and want them to be able to continuing vaccinating if it is found that it is safe for them. Such people should only be vaccinated in the case of an immediate threat to their health from a viral outbreak of the following life threatening illnesses (insert list that does not include chicken pox or the flu)

Third, we are also working with the AAP on retraining pediatricians to accurately access, treat and report reactions to vaccines as there is a chance that these could be early signs that a child cannot tolerate vaccination. We have learned much from parents as to what the first signs of autism were in their kids and want to doctors to use that information to their advantage.

Fourth, since we know so much more than we did about the relationship between vaccination and autism that we did when the VICP was established, we are petitioning congress to remove the three year statute of limitations for filing a claim with the fund. Any one injured at any time may now apply. More from my good friend John Gilmore of A-CHAMP on that following my comments.

Further, we are petitioning DOJ and HRHS to open any other cases ruled on in the VCIP that included any symptoms of autism and inviting the families to come forward and share their stories if they feel comfortable doing so. The more we can understand these individual cases, the more clues that we will have to understanding autism as a whole.

It is our goal by the end of the year to have a screening plan in place so that every child can be screened at birth to see if they are at risk for vaccine injury.

This is an exciting time for autism research. We have so much information to sort through and piece together, and are so pleased that so many families have been so willing to share their stories of regression and successes. CDC is proud to announce that in partnership with Defeat Autism Now, Thoughtful House, Generation Rescue and The National Autism Association, we will be holding regional conferences beginning in six months that are free to medical professionals and autism parents so that we can share all that we are learning from these autism treatment pioneers with the medical community at large.

Vaccination against deadly disease is important, and we will do everything we can to find the balance between fighting off viral infections and protecting against developmental disabilities, so that Americans can live in a society free from these epidemics.

Can you imagine?? If stuff like that happened, people might start trusting their government!

Also, I think our kids would be little rock stars in their towns, or treated like little war heroes because everyone would know that they took the hit so that everyone else's kids would not get polio.

Lastly, I think that when I went to my new pediatrician and told him that my son was half way recovered from autism and lost many of his autism symptoms, he would be excited to have come across a recovery story of his very own. He would have a special luncheon with all the docs and nurses in his practice and invite me to come and bring Chandler and talk about all the things that we have tried and what worked for him and what didn't.

What do you think the world (or your world) would be like?

Please share with the class.

My Letter To The Whitehouse

Mr. President,


This past week has not only brought the revelation that Hannah Poling's family was paid out of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program for her "autism like symptoms", but that at least nine other families in the last 18 years have been paid as well. Despite this, and the mounting evidence to the contrary, government health authorities, lead by Julie Gerberding of the CDC, continue to deny any link between vaccines and autism.

It is becoming clear that the government has been withholding vital health information from parents for almost twenty years that has denied them of right to "informed consent" in making vaccination decisions for their children, and has been misleading physicians all over the world on the information they require to properly treat their patients.

In addition, the advances that could have been made in understanding and successfully treating what are commonly referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorders certainly must have been stymied by the governments hiding of these important cases. Who knows how much the scientific community could have learned two decades ago if authorities had shared with them what came to light in the first vaccine/autism case they settled.

Would we even have an autism epidemic today?

US Health Authorities have hidden information that the public had a right to know. It is time to find out who knew what and when they knew it.

I am calling for Congressional Hearings into the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and for the DVIC to release the details of any previous case of a child who received compensation for any vaccine injury that resulted in any symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

In addition I am, along with many other parents, calling for the immediate removal of Julie Gerberding as the director of the CDC.


Sincerely,
Ginger Taylor M.S.
AdventuresInAutism.com
Autism Mom


CC: Julie Gerberding

Jenny McCarthy Calls For Julie Gerberding's Resignation

And she is not alone.

A number of different people have been calling for her ouster for a while now. Most significantly many from inside the CDC

I’m asking all parents and autism groups to join me in demanding Julie Gerberding’s immediate resignation as Director of the CDC.

On Monday, March 10th, beginning at 9:00am Eastern Daylight Time, let’s all start calling the White House and ask President Bush & Laura Bush to demand Julie Gerberding’s resignation for incompetence during the autism epidemic. The White House switchboard can be reached at:

202-456-1414

Also, on the same day, please call your local Congressperson and Senators from your state and ask them to call for her resignation, too.

Julie Gerberding has led the CDC for 6 years during a time when the autism epidemic has only gotten worse. Despite tens of thousands of children who declined just like Hannah Poling, Ms. Gerberding stood before cameras yesterday defiant, cold, and defensive. Where is her humanity in the face of such tragedy? Why couldn’t she have said, “We at CDC want to make sure what happened to Hannah doesn’t happen to any other children, we want to make vaccines safe”?

Rather than listen to the heartbreaking stories of so many parents, you can be sure that Ms. Gerberding is spending her time right now trying to get the Spin Machine up and running to minimize, confuse, and deceive the American public.

The autism epidemic won’t end until we fix the vaccine schedule by reducing total vaccines, separating shots, waiting until our kids are older to begin shots, greening our vaccines, and screening for at-risk kids. Ms Gerberding has stood by and watched self-interested parties more than triple our vaccine schedule and I’m certain her inactivity to help our kids will continue.

The chances of Ms. Gerberding taking the radical steps to reform the CDC and reform our vaccine schedule to make it kid-safe are zero! We need a new CDC Director who is an open-minded reformer and who recognizes that we are experiencing an epidemic of autism, which Ms. Gerberding has never publicly admitted.

Please, parents and national autism organizations, let’s all help make our voices heard on Monday.

Thank you,

Jenny McCarthy

Thank You Dan Olmsted

Dan Olmsted began writing his Age of Autism series more than two years ago, and in it he has brought to our attention some of the most fascinating and compelling aspects of the thimerosal/autism story. He has done much of the medical investigating that the CDC should have done, but didn't, and found that the links between autism and thimerosal go back to the first case of autism ever recorded.

If the CDC had any sense they would take their "transgender beauty pageant" budget and instead hire Dan to do their investigating for them. But then again if the CDC had any sense, none of us would be here now, would we.

One of the most significant things that I feel that Dan's work has done is show just how much the CDC et. al. does NOT want to properly investigate this. Dan's revelations, which repeatedly garnered, "Holy Crap!" reactions from autism parents, were met with a collective yawn from health officials. The fact that Julie Gerberding could make statements like, "CDC recognizes that parents want answers. We share their frustration at not having more answers about the causes and possible cure.", while failing to follow up on all that Dan has brought to the topic, is proof positive that CDC does not want to know what is going on in autism. If Julie wanted answers, Dan would not have not had to spend two plus years writing this series. The CDC would have taken his info and run with it and they would have found patient zero long before Dan did.

Dan Olmsted has proved Julie Gerberding a liar.

I am sad to see the series go, but thrilled that Dan is still on the trail. The Age of Autism series should be published in one volume and be required reading for everyone in the autism world. Evelyn Pringle was dead on when she called him, "Autism's Dick Tracy". Some smart publisher needs to give this guy a bucket of cash and send him back out. There is no telling what this hound can sniff out.

Thank you Dan for looking out for our kids.

Update:
More on Dan:

Wade at Injecting Sense
Kim Stagliano at Kim Stagliano
Lisa Blakemore-Brown at Thimerosal Thoughts

It Is Time for Julie Gerberding to Step Down

I have no words.

Alliance For Human Research Protection
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

America's health care oversight agencies are running amok wasting taxpayer money while undermining the public health instead of protecting it.

Below are the highlights of the 115 page review issued by The United States Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security, Minority Office, Under the Direction of Senator Tom Coburn, Ranking Minority Member, June 2007.

U.S federal healthcare oversight agency, it appears are being run by reckless and irresponsible administrators. Previous reports confirmed this sorry state of affairs at the Food an Drug Administration--which is largely under the control of the pharmaceutical industry that it is mandated to oversee; at the National Institutes of Health financial conflicts of interest and scientist' double dipping has undermined the integrity of science and the safety of human subjects; the Environmental Protection Agency is headed by an administrator who would conduct a pesticide experiment on African American toddlers were it not for the public outcry and the intervention of several senators http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/09/07.php and
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/11/30.php

The latest indictment is contained in an extraordinary report just published by the US Senate assessing the performance of the Centers for Disease Control: "CDC Off-Center: A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease."

CDC spokesman: "We strive day in and day out to fulfill our commitment to the American taxpayer."

The report, CDC Off-Center is found at: found at:
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=OversightAction.Home&ContentRecord_id=bf7e1789-802a-23ad-42e1-57d542e77901

Dr. Coburn indicated that this is the First in a Series of Oversight Reports on Federal Agencies.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav 212-595-8974
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=OversightAction.Home&ContentRecord_id=bf7e1789-802a-23ad-42e1-57d542e77901
June 12, 2007

The First in a Series of Oversight Reports on Federal Agencies

"CDC Off Center," a 115-page oversight report authored by the Minority Office of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee, under the direction of ranking member Senator Tom Coburn, examines how CDC has tilted off center and makes recommendations about how it might get back on track.

The American people expect CDC to spend its $10 billion budget this year treating and preventing diseases and dealing with public safety threats, including the threat of bioterrorism. While CDC will meet some of those expectations, if history is any guide, it will also waste millions of dollars.

As part of his commitment to oversight of how Washington spends taxpayer dollars, Senator Coburn plans to release a series of oversight reports on federal agencies. Senator Coburn's hope is that more and better oversight will assist federal agencies and those in Congress with responsibility for overseeing agency budgets, with reigning in wasteful spending; demanding measurable results from programs and grantees; and with reevaluating current spending before asking politicians and taxpayers to send more scarce tax dollars.

"CDC Off Center" is not an effort to discredit the good work that the CDC and those who work for it have carried out and the good work that will continue in the future. The report will hopefully be seen for what it is: an effort to shine some light on prevention efforts and funding decisions that may be holding the agency back from fulfilling its central mission of fighting and controlling disease.

Some examples in the report of CDC's spending:

$1.7 million - including terrorism funds - on a Hollywood liaison program, which happens to be run by a former employee (pg. 87);

$45 million for conferences, including those featuring prostitutes, protests, and beach parties (pgs. 48 - 60);

$30,000 employee saunas in a new $200,000 fitness center that also includes mood-enhancing light shows and $3,500 worth of zero-gravity chairs (pg. 15);

$5 billion spent over seven years on HIV/AIDS prevention funding, and yet the U.S. still sees 40,000 new cases each year, with no decrease in infection rates for over a decade (pgs. 23-37); Syphilis prevention funds used to feature a porn star's presentation (pg. 44); HIV/AIDS prevention funds spent on a transgender beauty pageant (pg. 45);

$250,000 spent so two former employees could help build staff morale, (pgs. 100 - 101);

$5.1 million on "audio visual integration" in the new Thomas R. Harkin communications and visitor center, including a giant 70-foot-wide by 25-foot-tall video wall of plasma screen TVs showcasing agency vignettes (pg. 8);

110 CDC employees traveled to two international AIDS conferences, when buying retroviral drugs with the trip funds could have prevented mother-to-child AIDS transmission for more than 115,000 infants (pgs. 50 & 52);

New Hawaii office opening soon, announcement made by Senator from Hawaii who oversees agency's funding (pg. 18);

$335 million on ads to fight childhood obesity. kids saw the ads, whether or not the ads affected their behavior is another question (pgs. 69 - 71);

$128,000 in CDC bioterrorism funds spent by L.A. County on trinkets such as letter openers, whistles, magnets, mouse pads, flashlights, pens, and travel toothbrushes (pgs. 106 - 110).

The report also includes:

*A detailed graph showing CDC's yearly budget from 1995-2007, which has increased by more than 350% (pg. 7); and
*A chart showing yearly CDC's HIV/AIDS funding from 2001-2007, which has more than doubled during that time (pg. 115).
*Do you know of examples of government waste, fraud or abuse? Submit the information to FFM's website tip page, or by mail to:

Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Further Readings:
FFM Report - CDC Off Center (829.5 KBs)
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=0e72b780-363a-4777-b841-20925a304d20

Jun 11, 2007

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News:
Sen. Tom Coburn: Resolute and Right
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2fa2c86d-802a-23ad-41e9-56c29757ef96

Jun 14, 2007
By John W. Mashek
US News & World Report: A Capital View
Senator's report: CDC wastes millions on perks
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2562fa32-802a-23ad-45b2-0367f9916815

Jun 13, 2007
By Matt Kelley
USA TODAY
Health Agency Wastes Cash on Consultants, Screens, Report Finds
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2a9de4c8-802a-23ad-465d-b4a99f022fca

Jun 12, 2007
By John Lauerman
Bloomberg
Report: CDC wastes millions
"The top public health agency spent millions of dollars on a Hollywood consultant, a lavish visitors center, and a 70-foot-by-25 foot ``wall of plasma televisions,'' a senator's report said.
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2a9de4c8-802a-23ad-465d-b4a99f022fca

Jun 12, 2007
By Alison Young
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2032cd9a-802a-23ad-4dbe-dd6bf54fab43

Julie Gerberding is Doing an Awsome Job

.. or not.

So we are to trust the CDC to tell us the truth about their vaccine schedule injuring our children when they can't be trusted not to steal stuff from their own offices?

Seriously?

Feds probe missing CDC gear Theft suspected in some cases
By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/12/07

Federal investigators will look into the disappearance of $22 million worth of scientific equipment, computers and other items from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An audit of procedures and an investigation into allegations of theft at the Atlanta-based agency will be conducted by the Inspector General's office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The inquiry was requested by a congressional oversight committee as a consequence of its "troubling" findings last month.

"A thorough audit will help stop the bleeding of taxpayer-owned property at CDC," said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) in a prepared statement Wednesday. "In cases of theft, it will also tell us what happened to the thieves."

CDC officials said they have accounted for about $9 million of the $22 million in missing goods in recent weeks as a result of efforts to track down lost items and improve accountability.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce specifically raised concerns about a suspected "insider" burglary of $500,000 in new computers, and millions of dollars worth of other items missing or unaccounted for since the last audit of the agency in 1995.

"The scope of property mismanagement and outright theft at CDC is both astonishing and baffling," said Barton, the ranking Republican on the committee.

Inspector General Daniel Levinson wrote Barton on June 25, "As requested, we will audit CDC's controls over property, such as laptops and scientific equipment, and determine whether CDC has adequately implemented the recommendations in the prior report. We will separately investigate the allegations [you] identified."

The inspector general's office declined to comment further on the inquiries.

Between fiscal 2004 and 2006, there were 61 investigations into the theft or disappearance of agency property. No arrests or disciplinary action resulted from those investigations, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner on Wednesday. He said several investigations are ongoing.

Skinner said much of the equipment was discovered missing during a major reorganization in the agency. He said staff are using new computer programs to better track items.

He said the CDC faces tough challenges in managing property as an agency with a nearly $9 billion budget and 15,000 employees. "We look forward to what the inspector general has to say, and ... steps we can take to get better at property inventory and management," he said.

"We take security very seriously."

CDC: Out of Excuses on the Autism Study that "Should be Done"

CDC: Out of Excuses on the Autism Study that "Should be Done"
Posted June 27, 2007 | 11:01 PM (EST)
HuffPo

A simple study of autism rates among vaccinated and unvaccinated children "could be done and should be done" to help settle the raging debate that has now spilled into the US Federal Courts.

The words of some anti-vaccine zealot? An overwrought parent lashing out at something, anything, to blame? Or perhaps a greedy trial lawyer pining for the big bucks of injured-kiddie tort.

No, these were the measured, thoughtful remarks of CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, at a Washington press conference two years ago.

But Gerberding never ordered the study -- one that could silence this tiresome argument once and for all; a study that any rational person would concur "should be done."

Why not? One reason, the powerful director said, is that "very high levels of vaccination... record immunization levels," make it "very, very difficult to get an effective numerator and denominator to get a reliable diagnosis."

But maybe it's not that difficult to find an "effective numerator" (i.e., unvaccinated children) after all.

It certainly wasn't hard for the respected polling company, Survey USA, to find nearly 1,000 unvaccinated children living in nine counties in California and Oregon. All they had to do was pick up the phone.

Survey USA, commissioned by the anti-thimerosal group Generation Rescue, completed telephone interviews in 11,817 households with one or more children age 4 to 17. Of the 17,674 children inventoried, 991 were described as being completely unvaccinated.

Interestingly, the survey found that, among boys (who have neurodevelopmental disorders at a 4-to-1 ratio over girls) vaccinated children were 155% more likely to have a neurological disorder, 224% more likely to have ADHD, and 61% more likely to have autism. Among boys aged 11-18, the increased autism risk was 112%.

This survey suggests there might be a trend here worthy of further investigation. But is it hard science? Of course not, and that is precisely my point.

We need the CDC, or some other well-funded agency, to conduct a comprehensive health study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, now, using the soundest epidemiological tools available.

And for those who think that phone surveys are a patently ridiculous way to study autism, consider this: The Survey USA methodology was based on the model that the CDC itself has employed in national prevalence studies for ADHD and autism. In fact, Dr. Laura Schieve, co-author of the CDC's two national autism phone surveys said that parent reports demonstrate "high reliability, or reproducibility."

Which brings us back to that numerator. There are clearly enough unvaccinated kids (outside Chicago there is an entire HMO-full) to finally do the study that Dr. Gerberding herself says "could and should be done."

Maybe the Survey USA poll is way off base. Maybe an actual scientific investigation, one that controls for bias and other potentially confounding factors, would show the exact opposite. Maybe, as one would hope and intuitively expect, vaccinated children are truly healthier and happier than unvaccinated children.

I hope that the CDC can prove that they are. Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? And like I have said before, it would certainly shut up the likes of me.

Now that Dr. Gerberding no longer has the excuse that "record immunization levels" preclude such a study, perhaps she might direct some of the recently appropriated Combating Autism Act funds to studying the two groups of children.

For those that disagree -- and I look forward to your rational comments on why this study should never be done -- I suggest you take up your concerns with the CDC director herself, and not with me.

After all, Dr. Gerberding is the one who said that this study "should be done." And I, for one, could not agree with her more.

PS: This week, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced the "Comprehensive Comparative Study of Vaccinated and Unvaccinated Populations Act of 2007" (H.R. 2832). For more information on this legislation, please visit: http://maloney.house.gov

Handley: America, Meet Our Unvaccinated Kids

J.B. Handley introduces America to its unvaccinated children today on the Rescue Post.

In this post he offered the data from the Generation Rescue Survey released today that shows that vaccinated children have a 2.5 times higher risk of developing a neurodevelopmental disorder like autism as compared to non vaccinated children.

America, Meet Our Unvaccinated Kids
By J.B. Handley

For the first time ever, we know something about them that may help our kids.

Yup, they live right down the street from you, they are 5.6% of the population, and they have less asthma, less ADHD, and less autism than our kids seem to have. At least according to our survey.

Do we expect you to believe us? Not really. Not if you’re a member of the mainstream media or the mainstream medical establishment. But, we really hope you will look at our data. Because today, unlike the CDC, we are making all of our data public simultaneously with the release of our survey. Crunch away, and decide for yourself.

We followed a very straightforward process, so anyone can retrace our steps. We told a market research firm what we wanted to know. They designed a questionnaire they felt would get us an answer. We approved the questionnaire. They ran the survey and sent us the data, which you can now access. Decide for yourself.

Some of the numbers really jump out, particularly amongst the boys. A “Risk Ratio” is a way to compare prevalence, so that if 10% of vax kids and 5% of unvax kids have ADHD, the Risk Ratio is 2.0, or a 100% difference. Risk Ratios above 2.0 tend to be allowed in a court of law to show correlation. We found many Risk Ratios well in excess of 2.0, and some higher than 4.0, the equivalent of a 300% difference. Decide for yourself.

Have we proved anything today? Yes and no. We’ve proved that unvaccinated kids are easy to find, and that a straightforward survey yielded some disturbing results. What we haven’t done is design a study with enough scale and controls to be published in a first-tier, peer-reviewed journal. But, we’ve certainly highlighted the screaming need for such a study to happen.

So, now what?

Everyone should write Dan Olmsted and thank him for his Age of Autism series from UPI. He’s the one who asked about unvaccinated kids first, and asked it loudest. He even asked Julie Gerberding, CDC Director. He just kept on asking it until we got so tired thinking about what an obvious question it was that we did something about it.

Our data should be scrutinized, analyzed, challenged, and debated by any and everyone in the autism community who cares to do so. (If you want a copy of the Excel spreadsheet with the primary data in it, email me and I will send it to you.)

Everyone and their grandmother needs to cajole their Congressperson to jump on the bandwagon and support Carolyn Maloney's Bill to study unvaccinated children.


This incredibly brave Congresswoman from New York said in a press release yesterday: “What is ultimately needed to resolve this issue one way or the other is a comprehensive national study comparing outcomes between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. As the most scientifically advanced country in the world, we should be jumping at the chance to conduct a comprehensive national study to resolve the questions that have been raised. Parents deserve answers, and children deserve no less than absolutely certainty and safety.”

The autism community should pull together and fund our own independent study, in addition to the Maloney bill, to gather as much data as quickly as possible. Autism Speaks, with the biggest war chest, should take this opportunity to fund or lead the funding for such a study, and help put this issue to rest once and for all. It would be a great opportunity for them to repair a badly burned bridge with many of us, and I hope they jump at the chance. The study must be run by researchers who have no history in this fight, on either side of the argument, and it must have the scale and controls to achieve wide acceptance through journal publication.


As for me, nothing much changes. My son is getting better, and we think the road map drawn by considering him “vaccine injured” is why. Knowing cause is so incredibly important to figuring out how to help and treat our kids, and I’m grateful for the pioneers who have been demanding answers for years. My wife and I hope, in some small way, that this survey moves things forward, and creates a deafening demand from parents for more answers. Now.

J.B. Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue.

Another Call for Julie Gerberding's Resignation

Commentary: CDC Off Center; A Call for CDC's Dr. Gerberding's resignation
by Mark R. Geier, MD
US Autism & Asperger Association Newsletter

A report just out from the US Senate Subcommittee on Financial Management under the direction of Senator Tom Coburn, a physician himself, states “A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease.”
I think it is now time we demand the resignation of Dr. Gerberding and other high officials at CDC.

CDC has spent large amounts of money in the worthy cause of AIDS prevention. The Senate report states that to CDC “HIV/AIDS prevention equals international trips, fraud, & widespread deficiencies.” The report sites a CDC 2004 Thailand conference that featured Brazilian dresses made of condoms, a drag show, art shows and fashion parades. A 2006 Toronto CDC conference featured an exhibit with 3 prostitutes lying on a satin covered bed, while one prostitute was described as standing amid pillows and sex toys in the conference lounge. The conference featured a workshop on finding a woman's erotic zone, one on how to apply condoms through sex stunts and a display of explicit artwork. The report points out that the CDC money spent on these conferences could have been better used to treat 150,000 newborns with medicine to prevent them from getting HIV.

CDC in 2004 announced that obesity was the nations number two killer only behind cigarettes in that obesity causes 400,000 deaths a year…. their own data indicated the true average is a little over 1200 per year.

The CDC spent 2.6 billion in HIV/AIDS prevention grants that had no objectives, are “abysmal” and have significant problems but are funded anyway. The CDC did no background checks and noted that 10 of 13 grants had significant deficiencies but renewed them anyway. Additionally, Inspector General audits have consistently found that CDC doctored the accomplishments of the grants. CDC claimed lack of resources to better monitor the grants despite spending $74 million dollars supposedly to oversee them. Additional CDC sponsored events in this area included a conference on how to have relations with male prostitutes, a conference on how to flirt, date and score, and zoo trips for HIV positive people. In 2001, CDC funded a drag contest, in 2002 CDC sponsored an event in Memphis featuring a male porno-star appearing in a towel and cowboy boots, and in 2005 in Utah the CDC sponsored a drug legalization conference. In Barcelona in 2002 the CDC spent a million dollars in travel expense alone to go to an International AIDS conference at which HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson was shouted down by protesters who resented the US treatment of people with AIDS. Despite spending billions over decades on HIV/AIDS programs the findings by Office of Budget Management audits rated the programs as non-performing, which the report calls unconscionable.

The CDC spent 2.6 billion in HIV/AIDS prevention grants that had no objectives, are “abysmal” and have significant problems but are funded anyway.
CDC has spent $269 million on syphilis since 1998 only to see a large rise in the rate of the disease to 58,116 new cases. According to CDC, syphilis elimination efforts meet with distrust in the African American community because of the federal governments involvement in the ethically unjustified Tuskegee human experiments in which unknown to them curative penicillin was withheld from African Americans so they could serve as a control group to determine the effects of untreated syphilis. A comment of a CDC employee was that such an incident could happen again if blacks do not take their share of responsibility for the Tuskegee experiments. Other areas that CDC has commanded CDC attention and funding include land development, bike paths, and gun control.

CDC has spent $269 million on syphilis since 1998 only to see a large rise in the rate of the disease to 58,116 new cases.

The Senate report has a section on “CDC's statistical problems and fraud.” The CDC in 2004 announced that obesity was the nations number two killer only behind cigarettes in that obesity causes 400,000 deaths a year. But in 2005, a JAMA study found only 25,814 obesity deaths a year putting obesity in seventh place of preventable deaths behind car crashes and gun shot wounds. To me this sounds very familiar as CDC maintains that influenza kills an average of 36,000 Americans a year when their own data indicated the true average is a little over 1200 per year. Another very questionable area of activities is the use of CDC tax dollars terrorism funds to insure that when Hollywood makes up a character in a fictitious TV show who talks about a health topic, he or she talks about it accurately and in doing so CDC has influenced such shows as “ER”, “House”, “Grey's Anatomy”, “Young and Restless” and “General Hospital”. CDC also does video game consulting. The report also tells of three top CD officers who recently took home over $250,000 in bonuses. Since the appointment of Dr. Gerberding, bonuses have drastically increased from $30,000 in 2000, under the previous director, to 60 premium bonuses totaling $515,075 in 2005. A former CDC employee, Jack Johnson, after retiring as CFO of CDC was hired by two private companies whom he helped get 79 contacts from CDC, 67 of which did not even have competitive bidding when before hiring Mr. Johnson the companies had only one CDC contract. The CDC leases private jets to the tune of $3.8 million a year. The CDC funds advocacy groups which help the CDC, including lobbying to trying to increase CDC funding. For example, The Campaign for Public Heath seeks to increase the CDC budget to $15 billion annually from its current level of $10 billion by 2012. The Campaign's website fails to mention that 21 of the 40 groups on its advisory council supporting the effort to increase CDC funding actually get over $300 million in CDC funding themselves. I could go on and on quoting from this incredible report of over 100 pages but I would rather recommend that everyone read it in detail for themselves to enjoy the color pictures of the strippers and the cartoons about Dr. Gerberding. See link below for full text of the report.

CDC maintains that influenza kills an average of 36,000 Americans a year when their own data indicated the true average is a little over 1200 per year.
In summary, we now have a US House report saying the autism epidemic was caused by Thimerosal in the vaccines and that the federal agencies involved are guilty of “institutional malfeasance” in covering it up (see attached report especially the last page) and we have this US Senate report accusing CDC of fraud and totally inaccurate reporting and general malfeasance while the CDC tells us to believe them that Thimerosal in vaccines did not contribute to the autism epidemic or maybe there is no autism epidemic when the vast majority of the science says otherwise. I think it is now time we demand the resignation of Dr. Gerberding and other high officials at CDC. Additionally, the entire CDC and FDA need to be placed entirely in civilian hands and removed from the quasi military Public Health Service. Public health needs to be totally reorganized and must not receive any money from the pharmaceutical industries or any other special interest groups so as to insure that they serve and protect the people who hire them rather than serving themselves and the industries whom they are supposed to carefully regulate to protect us from harm.

….it is time for truth, transparency including open access to any vaccine or drug study data and real informed consent.

With regard to the vaccine program, which I still certainly support, it is time for truth, transparency including open access to any vaccine or drug study data and real informed consent. It is time to insist on a rational vaccine schedule with adequate testing to assure good levels of efficacy while insuring safety as well. At the very least it is time to show contrition, admit the giant blunder that has been made, try to treat and compensate as best we can those unfortunate and blameless among us who were damaged by the blunder so that we can again resume the course of the greatest and most compassionate nation on earth.

Mark R. Geier, MD

Click here for the PDF file on CDC OFF CENTER, THE UNITED STATES SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, GOVERNMENT INFORMATION AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY MINORITY OFFICE UNDER THE DIRECTION OF SENATOR TOM COBURN RANKING MINORITY MEMBER JUNE 2007

Click here for the PDF file on MERCURY IN MEDICINE REPORT, HON. DAN BURTON OF INDIANA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MAY 20, 2003

Dr. Mark R. Geier has an MD., with a PhD in genetics. Dr. Geier is president of the Genetic Centers of America, president of the Institute of Chronic Illnesses and has been in clinical practice for more than 25 years. He was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health for 10 years. Dr. Geier was also a professor at the Johns Hopkins University and at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He has addressed the Institute of Medicine of the United States' National Academy of Sciences, the United States' State Department, the Government Reform Committee of the United States' House of Representatives, and numerous other professional meetings. Dr. Geier has authored almost 100 peer-reviewed scientific/medical publications, and most recently, he has co-authored about 40 peer-reviewed scientific/medical publications on vaccine safety, efficacy and policy.

Dr. Geier and his son David will present "Epidemiology and other evidence on what caused the autism epidemic and new treatment protocol for autism," as a Keynote Presentation at the USAAA 2007 International Conference in Denver, Saturday, August 11, 9:00am - 10:30am. Click here for a bio of Dr. Geier.

Dr. Stoller on His Autism Journey and the CDC

Stoller was a pediatrician that saw only two cases of autism in his first decade and a half of practice, and came to the realization with the problems with the CDC and vaccines around the same time as I did in 2004 when he was testifying before the Senate on another medical matter. He highlights the ridiculous position of the CDC:

If we were talking about children going blind read how obscene this would sound:

“The number of children diagnosed with blindness is rapidly increasing. According to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in every 150 U.S. children is blind. These numbers are startling and this disability is affecting more and more families. Twenty years ago blindness was a very rare case. Today blindness is becoming a frightening statistic in every community. April is Blindness Awareness Month and I encourage everyone to take this opportunity to learn more about this disability…”

It would be absurd to relate this information about blindness without giving any explanation about what was causing it. Everyone would be demanding answers, and I dare say there would be protests in the streets to say the least...

...No other disease in history has been subjected to the spin that has been put on autism....

...It seems the scientific world isn't concerned that more children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes and pediatric cancer combined.

It is a long article. Read the whole thing.

Throwing children into oncoming traffic: The truth about Autism
By: Kenneth Stoller, MD, FAAP with Anne McElroy Dachel
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

I have been a practicing pediatrician for over 20 years. I saw my first child with autism in the early 90’s – before that I had never seen an autistic child, and I never saw an autistic child in all my years at school. The boy was 4 years old and you could see the frustration in his face as he wanted to speak but nothing intelligible would come from his mouth except shrieks of anguish.

As I studied his tortured face, it was as if there was an old time telephone switchboard operator inside his head trying to plug in the correct phone cables but not being able to complete the call. This family had known me from an old practice I worked at in another city, but they had traveled to see me because they trusted me and were looking for answers that no one seemed to have for them, but I too had no answers and I could see the mom was greatly disappointed. After the family left my office I poured over a few dusty textbooks and wondered if I had just seen a very rare disorder, a disorder that affected one child in 10,000 children…autism.

I had been involved in pediatrics for a decade by the time I saw this boy and it wasn’t as if I had no experience working with rare disorders. I had been able to identify a boy with Fragile-X syndrome and his mom ending up starting the Fragile-X support group at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.

I had noticed there was a strange upswing in children with attention disorders and impulsivity problems. I wasn’t a neurologist, but had studied with one of the finest at UCLA. While I was still a pediatric resident I spent time in his office where he helped me study the parade of unusual maladies that was starting to afflict children. I considered myself a closet neurologist, because that was what I had really wanted to specialize in – not pediatrics, but during my neurology rotation in medical school I learned some discouraging news. The attending neurologist, whom I greatly admired, had taken me on rounds for the first time and I watched him brilliantly explain to the family of a stroke patient how he had figured out where in the brain the blood clot had lodged. Then he stood up and walked out of the room and I asked him what therapy he was going to prescribe for the patient so he could recover from his stroke, “therapy?” he said, “there is no therapy.”

Well, I scratched neurology off my list…diagnosis was only meaningful if you could offer a treatment and it seemed neurology had few treatments to offer.

My second patient with autism came to me in the mid 1990’s, but to my relief the purpose of the visit was only to treat worms. I dutifully prescribed the medicine for pinworms and went on to my next patient. Later that afternoon I received a call from the autistic boy’s mom who wanted to know what was that medicine I had given her son for pinworms….her boy was starting to make eye contact, show affection and communicate with his family. She said it was amazing! I told her I didn’t really didn’t know what was in the pinworm pill but immediately prescribed enough pills for her son to take everyday for a month (normally you only take one or two pills to treat pinworms).

I called up the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the pinworm pill and spoke to one of their technical staff. They told me the pill worked by blocking the transport of molecules of a certain size from crossing cell membranes, so in the case of the hapless pinworms they were unable to absorb the sugars they feed upon in the lower intestines of their victims.

What did that have to do with this boy’s newly found improved behavior? Either one of two things were going on: 1) the drug was either blocking a molecule that shouldn’t be passing across the gut to the blood and then the brain and that molecule was having a drug-like affect on the brain, or; 2) the drug was blocking a molecule that normally crossed from the gut into the blood but in certain children these molecules had a strange drug-like affect.

I made several calls across the country to find a researcher who might be interested in this serendipitous finding which could be an important clue into this disease, because no where had I found anything saying that the guts of these children were involved in their disease. Unfortunately, no one I talked to was interested.

Testifying to Congress...

In May 2004, I had been invited to testify in front of the Government Reform Committee to discuss new developments in treating children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. I had been invited because of the work I was doing with hyperbaric oxygen in treating brain injured children, including fetal alcohol syndrome. Hyperbaric oxygen is where oxygen is given under pressure in chambers that are used to treat scuba divers who get the bends. I and several other physicians had found that hyperbaric oxygen was returning functionality to the brains of affected children.

Sitting next to me was a physician who told the story of his son who had become autistic after receiving vaccine and how he discovered his son was retaining toxic heavy metals, specifically mercury. Over the course of a year this physician had given his son a chemical to pull out the mercury and his son began speaking again and in fact jumped on his dad’s lap and addressed the Committee members having been restored to be a healthy boy without any signs of his autism.

In the 1990’s I had known there was a problem with many of the vaccines because they contained the preservative Thimerosal (50% mercury) and I had discouraged many parents from getting vaccine containing Thimerosal – there is no safe level of mercury, and it didn’t make sense to inject the most toxic non-radioactive element on the planet into children, but I never made the connection between autism and mercury. I knew what Thimerosal was because while I was in college my brother had a very bad reaction to the Thimerosal that used to be used in contact lens solution.

I was taken aback that something so obvious had not registered with me, but I didn’t realize that I and my physician colleagues had been subjected to a disinformation campaign to make us think there was no connection between mercury and autism. It has been known for sometime that mercury was causing autism, but someone was running interference. The question was who was running interference?

In February 2007, the watchdog agency on America's health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the official announcement that a breath-taking one in 150 kids is autistic in the U.S. If you go to the CDC website on autism (http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism) you’d see lots of pictures of smiling happy children with autism and we’d be told that autism spectrum disorders are “a group of developmental disabilities defined by significant impairments in social interaction and communication and the presence of unusual behaviors and interests.”

You won’t be told that for many parents autism is a nightmare from which they never wake up. “Significant impairments” can mean that a child is violent and self-abusive, non-verbal, and physically sick. You won’t be told that this is a medical disease where most autistic children have significant inflammation in both gut and brain including colitis, super-infections and severe food allergies.

Even though autism affects one in 90 boys (four boys affected for every girl) in the U.S., the CDC can’t seem to tell us exactly why. The CDC states, “We still don’t know a lot about the causes of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Scientists think that both genes and the environment play a role, and there might be many causes that lead to ASDs.”

The site also doesn’t mention that only one in 10,000 children in the 1970s, and one in 2,500 in the 1980s were autistic.

The CDC site also doesn’t tell us about a secret meeting that was held in June of 2000 where over 50 individuals from the CDC, WHO, NIH, American Academy of Pediatrics, and many representatives from pharmaceutical interests discussed data from the CDC Vaccine Data Sets showing that the increase in mercury exposure from the stepped-up vaccine schedule in the 1990’s caused an 11 fold increase in neurobehavioral disorders (www.autismhelpforyou.com/Simpsonwood_And_Puerto%20%20Rico.htm). What you will see on the CDC website is “Several studies have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and autism. The weight of the evidence indicates that vaccines are not associated with autism.”

Evidence? Someone at the CDC was ‘cooking the books’ and what they told the public was not what they knew to be the case. You see, the CDC was put in the untenable position of helping to develop vaccines, mandate the vaccines, promote the vaccines, pay for their administration and be responsible for their safety – Ye olde fox watching the hen house scenario with the inevitable untoward result. There will always be a problem with vaccine safety until this responsibility is moved out of the CDC. Today, the CDC and its vaccine public-relation front group’s answer to any criticism is that the motivations of those that are critical of any part of the vaccine program are because they really want to destroy the vaccine program.

The truth is that the CDC has been very effective in laying the foundation to destroy the vaccine program all by themselves and their double speak is analogous to someone saying you can’t be against war and support the troops at the same time, you’re either for us or against us, etc. It is actually illegal for a federal agency to propagandize the American public, but that is exactly what the vaccine division of the CDC does. It has used the tactic of generating fear and it has earned billions of dollars for this agency.

Once the public loses trust in public health programs it can take many years to regain that trust. I am reminded of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments that are still a cause of distrust of public health programs amongst Black Americans.

Losing the Public Trust...

The cover-up at the CDC surrounding the mercury preservative found in so many vaccines (up until about 2003) has had very serious far-reaching implications. The children whose lives were forever changed by being injected with Thimerosal preservative were giving us a global ‘heads-up.’ They were showing us that the background level of mercury pollution has increased to the point that it is beginning to take its toll on the human species, but the CDC turned its head away from this crisis because it conflicted with what they were promoting in the vaccine program.

As I said before, mercury is the deadliest non-radioactive element on Earth, and 1000s of tons are spewed into the environment every year. With each coal-fire power plant that comes on line we are one step closer to exterminating human life on this planet. However, mercury is politically protected because of its connection with the fossil-fuel industry, dentistry (amalgam dental filings), and vaccine.

Thimerosal is still in the flu vaccine for children above the age of 3 and they are receiving as much as half of the dose of mercury that the child in the ‘90’s received. Thimerosal was not removed from vaccine in 1999. That was when the promise was made, but promises weren’t kept. Thimerosal is also in the meningitis vaccine.

Lower IQ levels linked to mercury exposure in the womb cost the USA $8.7 billion a year in lost-earnings potential according to a study done by the Mount Sinai Center for Children's Health and the Environment (http://fusion.mssm.edu/media/content.cfm?storynum=252). If it were publicly acknowledged that mercury pollution was the trigger for the autism epidemic this number would be in the trillions of dollars. One in six children is born to mothers with dangerous levels of mercury in their blood – perhaps the same one in six that the CDC admits have a neurobehavioral disorder.

Our regulatory agencies, such as the FDA and the EPA, have been taken over by the very industries they were mandated to regulate and the revolving door between industry and top-level appointees at these regulatory agencies has eliminated many of the normal safeguards we have relied on for our protection.

There is no disputing the numbers. Last month the Tonawanda News in New York reported “cases of autism in the state jumped from fewer than 2,000 in 1992 to 9,500 in 2003.” Even worse was the number of affected children in New York schools in 2005-2006 according to the Dept. of Education. New York’s autism total had increased to 12,257.

Maybe what we really need to be made aware of is what the eventual cost of autism will be to the U.S. The Autism Society of America tells us that autism is growing by 10-17% a year. They also say that it currently costs $90 billion a year and it's projected to increase to $200-400 billion annually in ten more years. A Harvard study out last year put the cost of lifetime support conservatively at $3.2 million per individual.

April was Autism Awareness month, but why are we only asking for awareness and not for answers? This is a glaring omission when we’re talking about so many affected children. Awareness, treatment, and identification are critical but so is preventing autism.

If we were talking about children going blind read how obscene this would sound:

“The number of children diagnosed with blindness is rapidly increasing. According to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in every 150 U.S. children is blind. These numbers are startling and this disability is affecting more and more families. Twenty years ago blindness was a very rare case. Today blindness is becoming a frightening statistic in every community. April is Blindness Awareness Month and I encourage everyone to take this opportunity to learn more about this disability…”

It would be absurd to relate this information about blindness without giving any explanation about what was causing it. Everyone would be demanding answers, and I dare say there would be protests in the streets to say the least.

The CDC and Autism...

CDC director Julie Gerberding announced the new autism rate of one in every 150 children with a flourish. She said that while there were more kids being diagnosed with autism, it doesn't mean the autism was necessarily on the rise. No one in the press seemed concerned that the CDC has been counting kids with autism for years and still can't tell us if there are actually more of them. After all, it’s just "better diagnosing by doctors" and "better statistics by the Centers for Disease Control." And now we learn that the Autism Genome Project (AGP) recently uncovered evidence shows that autism is caused by "genetic flaws.”

Common sense would tell us that pushing children onto a busy street, observing that some of them were injured, and then looking for a genetic reason why some of them were hit defies credulity.

No other disease in history has been subjected to the spin that has been put on autism.

Dr. Ezra Susser, chairman of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York indicated that he believed the new genetic findings would help scientists to understand how "the environment might lead to autism by causing genetic changes."

Susser said, "It shows us that we need to think about many environmental factors that might influence autism."

The new genetic findings on autism got a lot of coverage from major news outlets and reports made it look like we're on the cutting edge of a major autism breakthrough. But let’s do a reality check here, genes don't just spontaneously and randomly mutate all by themselves. There has to be an environmental agent affecting these genes.

Some will have you believe that autism is some medical mystery that's always been around but we just haven't been able to get a handle on. So, show me the 30 year olds with autism, the 40 year olds with autism, and the 50 year olds with autism. Guess what? They aren’t there for the most part. The explosion in the number of children with autism is real but most of the scientific community has ignored this. Let’s face it they have been encouraged to ignore it, and anyone getting close to the truth finds that they get their NIH research grants pulled.

That’s right…science is being manipulated so that a big lie can stay alive and those culpable can remain unaccountable.

It seems the scientific world isn't concerned that more children will be diagnosed with autism this year than with AIDS, diabetes and pediatric cancer combined. News stories about autistic kids are now beginning to reveal the duplicity of CDC officials. These reports clearly show that this isn't something we have all the time in the world to theorize and ponder about.

All the experts searching diligently for those elusive genetic mutations seem blissfully unaware of the impact of autism on our schools and the impending disaster, as these autistic children become autistic adults. Anyone looking at the graphs and charts based on Department of Education statistics showing the soaring autism numbers has got to be worried. The dramatic increase in children in our schools disabled with autism is a scary preview of the impact they will have on the Social Security System in the next five to ten years.

Michael Ganz's Harvard study last year conservatively put the lifetime care cost for one autistic individual at $3.2 million dollars.

Robert Krakow from Lifespire gives us estimates that put the lifespan cost at $10.125 million per autistic individual. This figure is based on an annual rate for each person of $225,000 with a life expectancy of 66 years. It doesn't include the cost for the period up to age 21.

One of the many questions we need to ask ourselves is if the very integrity of the biosphere on this planet is in jeopardy unless there is an immediate curtailment of manmade mercury pollution. Coal miners don’t look at a dead canary and blow it off or say they have just “gotten better at diagnosing dead canaries,” or “that dead canary just had a genetic defect so pay no heed.” Yet that is exactly analogous to the situation we find ourselves. We continue to pollute the planet and ourselves (there is no separation), yet the very governmental agency that would normally be taking the lead in sounding this 5 alarm alert has been compromised and remains less than silent. Mercury pollution should be considered a global crime against humanity, against mammalian life on this planet and there should be zero tolerance.

If you want to know why more isn’t being done for autistic children, why there has been a strange cover-up of the facts, then simply follow the mercury and those that benefit from its use.

Kenneth Stoller, MD, FAAP is medical director of the Hyperbaric Medical Center of New Mexico (www.hbotnm.com) and the Hyperbaric Oxygen Clinic of Sacramento (www.hbot.info). He is President of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association. He can be reached at: info@hbotnm.com

Anne McElroy Dachel of Chippewa Falls, WI is a member of A-CHAMP (Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning) and the National Autism Association (NAA). She can be reached at: amdachel@msn.com.