The Rescue Post is now Age of Autism

The Rescue Post has joined forces with Dan Olmsted of UPI's The Age of Autism fame, to become AgeOfAutism.com

Put them on your favorites list because they will surely be a force to be reckoned with.

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.

What Really Happened When Katie Mentioned Vaccines On Oprah

JB Handley of Generation Resuce is a friend of Katie Wright-Hildebrand and posted an account of her experience on the Oprah Show this week. She said a good deal more about the autism-vaccine connection that was edited out. Here are JB's very frank comments:

REMINDER: There has been a little confusion in the comments section. The following is not my account or opinion... it is JB Handley's.

Katie was told by the producers before the show was filmed that if
she mentioned vaccines she would be off the show.

While taping, the pediatrician made the misstatement about vaccines
and autism (that whole "no connection" reassuring bullshit), and,
during break, Katie appealed directly to Oprah to let her respond,
as you saw on the show.

However, Oprah's response to Katie about "opening the can of worms"
and the audience's applause after what she said was actually based
on a much longer exchange, all of which was edited out of the final
cut of the show.

After the part you heard Katie say, Katie went on to say that the
preservatives in the vaccines made her son sick and that the
combination vaccines and the vaccine schedule were grossly unsafe.

Everyone's favorite pediatrician then jumped in and said that if the
schedule were changed there would epidemics. Katie responded by
saying there already is an epidemic and that our kids are not
disposable so the CDC can perpetuate irrational fears of the measles
and the flu.

I think this highlights a number of things:

- The censorship most media outlets give to this issue is very high.
My personal opinion is that this is due entirely to the power of
pharma advertising and to the fact that the media outlets hear
directly from pharma in advance of these shows and get warned. The
fact that the daughter of NBC's FORMER CEO must be deeply troubling
for pharma because this is going to be one very tough person to shut
up.

- Oprah over-ruled the directive Katie was given because she is
Oprah and appears to have strong moral fiber. If Don Imus is a 10, I
give Oprah a 5, which makes her second-best for national
personalities dealing honestly about our kids, although it is almost
incomprehensible to me that this is Oprah's first show on autism.

- The lame doctor saying "if the schedule were changed there would
be epidemics" has no idea what she is talking about. It is
unbelivable that it is NEVER reported that in the mid-1980s there
were 10 vaccines on the schedule and today its 36. We were not
having massive epidemics in the 1980s and the schedule has more than
tripled due to money and recklessness, with no monitoring system
that could ever catch a delayed-onset condition like autism.

- Katie is a true warrior for her son and all of our kids. She said
so much more than America got to hear.

JB

From PutChildrenFirst.com

Press Briefing:

Thank you all for your time today. My name is JB Handley. Along with
my wife, Lisa, I am the co-founder of putchildrenfirst, the sponsor
of this survey of over 9,000 Americans on mercury in the flu shot.
Here's a quick test for all of you. We all know household paint is a
bit toxic. Would you rather A, spill some paint on your skin? Or, B,
take that same amount of paint, pop it in a syringe, and mainline it?
If you chose A, as our survey revealed, you are like most Americans.
If you chose B, you're like the FDA, who made it a high priority to
get mercury out of topical products we use on our skin in the 1990s,
but continued to allow mercury to be injected into humans at levels
exceeding any available safety standard. In fact, we don't even have
safety standards for injected mercury, because no one considered
someone would be crazy enough to inject a well-known neurotoxin into
their bloodstream. It's actually the preposterous nature of the
situation we find ourselves in today that contributes to the public's
confusion. I find that the first time I tell people mercury is in
their flu shot, they simply don't believe me.

Our health authorities realized mercury in vaccines was a mistake in
1999 and made a public statement to warn Americans and encourage
manufacturers to change their formulations. Seven years later, we're
still talking about mercury. That's part of the problem. Our survey
showed that almost no one realizes mercury is STILL in over 90% of
this year's flu shot supply. When they find out the truth, more than
three-quarters know to stay away from mercury and even more think
children and pregnant women should avoid it.

The CDC provides a number of answers for why mercury is still used in
vaccines, none of which can be supported with any facts or evidence.
They will characterize Thimerosal's toxicity as theoretical when in
fact there is nothing theoretical about mercury's dangers. They will
tell you ethyl-mercury, the kind used in Thimerosal, is less toxic.
There is no data to support this and in fact a recent biological
study disproved this completely. They will tell you that the flu can
kill which should certainly trump any danger posed by mercury. Yet,
they fail to mention their own recent admission in an October 2006
study in the Journal of the American Medical Association where four
CDC authors write: "It is also important to note that there is scant
data on the efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccine in young
children." And a British Medical Journal article the same month,
October 2006, noted "Evidence from systematic reviews shows that
[flu vaccines] have little or no effect on the effects measured." If
a company sold a product that didn't work and left behind a
neurotoxin they would already be bankrupt.

Anytime Thimerosal is mentioned, autism is brought up. We are not
here to talk about autism today. We are here to tell you that
Americans do not want mercury in their shots but few know it's there.
The CDC tries to make an argument that because they believe, through
their research, that Thimerosal is not responsible for the autism
epidemic, that makes Thimerosal safe. That is one high threshold for
safety. Interestingly, CDC never mentions that in the 2003 study they
authored in Pediatrics, they did find a correlation between
Thimerosal and both "tics" and "language delay." So, here's another
test for you. You bring your child in for a flu shot. The Doctor
tells you this shot has mercury, and that CDC found shots with
mercury lead to tics and language delay. What do you do?

The CDC wants you, the journalists, to report on the dire need for
all Americans to get a flu shot. In 2004, at a Vaccine Summit, the
British Medical Journal wrote the following, in criticizing what they
called the CDC's "marketing of fear"
"Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at the NIP, spoke
on using the media to boost demand for the vaccine. One step of
a "Seven-Step `Recipe' for Generating Interest in, and Demand for,
Flu Vaccination" occurs when "medical experts and public health
authorities publicly...state concern and alarm (and predict dire
outcomes) - and urge influenza vaccination"

My four year old son suffered an adverse reaction to a mercury
containing flu shot. That's why I'm here talking to you. His symptoms
included, and I quote, "brain damage, incoordination, seizures,
inability to speak and problems of his nervous and digestive system."
Those were my son's symptoms, but that quote is not from his medical
records. It's from the CDC's own website, discussing the harmful side-
effects of mercury, where they go on to warn all Americans to "keep
all mercury-containing medicines away from children."

Our survey proves that Americans understand this. Why doesn't the CDC?

J.B. Handley: Hey CDC, You Forgot to Count Our Son

Hey CDC, You Forgot to Count Our Son
By J.B. Handley
www.generationrescue.org

I'll never forget the late fall of 2003. It felt like every day on the news I was reading another story about the flu outbreak that was killing children in Colorado and other places, I can't quite remember where.

We were panicked. With two young small boys, death from flu was horrifying, and the news also explained how limited the supply of flu vaccines was around the country. I still remember the day I came to work with the sole focus of finding flu vaccine somewhere, anywhere to help my babies. After dozens of calls, I felt lucky enough to
happen upon a doctor with some extra vaccines who was ready to see our boys immediately. Whew, bullet dodged, I figured.

Our youngest son, Jamison, was the highest priority. Fourteen months old, he was sick a lot more than his four year old older brother. Jamison was on antibiotics all the time, and he had a lot of eczema. Could he handle the flu? It seemed like it would really be tough on him – he was at risk, he needed this shot.

I couldn't make the shot appointment, I was busy. As usual, my wife soldiered on without me and endured the cries from her two warriors who got vaccinated. Jamison had been particularly brave about the whole thing. How great, we thought! He's safe now!

Our Christmas video from the fall of 2003, just a couple weeks after the first flu shot, shows a happy and engaged Jamison, very excited about all the presents in our living room, and responding and watching his older brother celebrating. A happy kid, in our world, engaged. A part of the family.

January came. Flu deaths were still in the news, although not quite as often. The flu shot was actually a two-part shot that year. Get the flu shot, come back in 4 weeks later for a booster. That's what they told us. We decided to skip the booster for our oldest son, but we knew Jamison really needed it. Dutifully again, we made sure Jamison got that second shot.

**

A study came out this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It's called: "Safety of Trivalent Inactivated Influenza Vaccine in Children 6 to 23 months old."

It basically says the flu shot is perfectly safe for kids. It also says a couple of interesting things.

One. "Financial support for this study was provided in full by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

Two. "Our primary outcome measure was any medically attended event associated with trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine in a 14-day risk window after vaccination."

Oh, and there's a third thing it says, too. It's at the end of the study. It says of the nineteen authors, nine have financial ties to vaccine manufacturers. And, four more of the authors work at CDC. Here's one of nine examples of the financial disclosure:

"Dr. Marcy reports working as a consultant for Sanofi Pasteur, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, and Abbott, and serving on the speakers' bureau for Sanofi Pasteur and GlaxoSmithKline." (Note: Sanofi Pasteur is the leading manufacturer of flu vaccine.)

I don't know, Dr. Marcy, I just don't know, can I trust you to tell me the truth if the vaccine hurt our kid?

Oh, and they also wrote this, towards the end of the study:

"It is also important to note that there is scant data on the efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccine in young children."

**

Like many parents trying to understand what happened to their child, we re-traced Jamison's steps back to that fall and Christmas of 2003. The decline seems to have begun sometime in January, soon after the second flu shot. He began to play alone. His words stopped. He started running back and forth along walls and fences. For hours.

Like many parents, it took us a while to figure out what was happening to our son. By March, we thought something was wrong. By April, we began to panic a little as his behaviors got worse and he seemed to always be sick. By May, we happened upon this test called the M-CHAT, and we realized our son met the criteria for autism.

Jamison didn't make the JAMA study. He didn't go to the doctor or hospital in the 2 weeks after he got the flu shot. His medical condition today, autism, is not one of the outcomes the study authors looked for.

In 2003, when Jamison got his flu shot, I didn't know that the CDC had released a 1999 statement saying:

"Because any potential risk is of concern, the Public Health Service, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agree that thimerosal-containing vaccines should be removed as soon as possible. Similar conclusions were reached this year in a meeting attended by European regulatory agencies, the European vaccine
manufacturers, and the US FDA which examined the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines produced or sold in European countries."

I also didn't know the American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement in 2001 saying:

"Mercury in all of its forms is toxic to the fetus and children and efforts should be made to reduce exposure to the extent possible to pregnant women and children as well as the general population."

Jamison's 2 flu shots contained mercury. 25 micrograms each. I didn't know that. I do know that every time I hear the word "flu vaccine" I get sick to my stomach. How come CDC or AAP didn't make a point of telling me flu vaccine in 2003 still contained mercury? It would have impacted our decision.

I wish the thirteen study authors with clear conflicts could come to my house, watch my son's videotape, and review his medical tests. I wish all of them would have spent their time differently. Four years passed between the CDC's press release and Jamison's vaccine. Did the mercury really need to be there? And, why is it still there today, seven years later?

CDC, our son is not part of the data in your study. But he should be.

Oct 26, 2006

CDC is "Disapointed" with USA Today Ad

Statement
For Immediate Release
April 6, 2006 Contact:
Division of Media Relations
404-639-3286
CDC Statement regarding autism-related advertisement in USA Today

We know that autism is a heart-wrenching situation for many families and many children and it presents special challenges that we would certainly want to prevent and do anything we could to avoid. When it comes to the nation’s immunization recommendations, the CDC and Public Health Service are always guided by one overriding goal and interest—all our recommendations are designed to protect the health and well being of all children.

We are very disappointed in an advertisement that appears in today’s edition of USA Today. The advertisement completely mischaracterizes the efforts of CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine, and others to protect the health and well being of the nation’s children. CDC has sponsored multiple public meetings and scientific reviews, we’ve involved numerous outside organizations and experts in our research and recommendations, and we’ve made continued investments in research designed to discover factors which may place children at risk for developing autism. Importantly, if levels of thimerosal found in vaccines, including influenza vaccines, were associated with harm, CDC, the Public Health Service, and the nation’s physicians (e.g., the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and American Academy of Family Physicians) would not recommend their use.

We’ve made substantial progress in removing thimerosal from vaccines – and have done so without placing infants and children at risk for potentially serious vaccine preventable diseases. As we continue in our efforts to further reduce the use of thimerosal in vaccines, we must also ensure, particularly in the case of influenza, that our efforts do not create serious undesirable outcomes, such as vaccine shortages that would place people, including children, at risk. History has shown that disruptions in vaccine supplies can render the population more vulnerable to diseases we know we can prevent.

We don't know, unfortunately, for children with autism what caused it, nor do we have sound, scientifically valid information on effective treatments. That's a fact. We just simply don't have answers to the cause of this disorder or the disorders that fall into the autism spectrum. We don't have a complete picture of the scope of the problem. We're just learning about the subtleties that can be early signs of autism, we're learning about the importance of early detection, and we're learning about the importance of early treatment, but we have a long way to go before we really understand the scope and magnitude of this problem in our country and what the trends really mean.

As we're looking for answers related to the causes and effective treatments for autism, we have to also be careful not to base our health recommendations on unproven hypotheses or fear. We have to base our decisions on the best available science that we have in front of us, and today the best available science indicates to us that vaccines save lives, and that's a very, very important message for all of us to remember.

For more information about autism, immunizations, or thimerosal, we encourage you to visit the CDC website: www.cdc.gov