Why Are They Afraid to Look?

Why Are They Afraid to Look?
By Anne McElroy Dachel
amdachel@msn.com

Last week in Washington, DC, parents got a chance to present their side alleging that vaccines caused their child's autism. This is the most heated medical controversy in the nation and it has no signs of going away.

Part of the reason the debate is guaranteed to continue is because of what officials can't tell about us about autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downplayed autism at every opportunity. It is infuriating to parents who have no reasonable explanation for why their child has autism and who are going broke paying for therapy and treatment to continually hear about what the CDC doesn't know. They don't know the cause or the cure for the disorder. They don't even know if there are more kids with autism, despite counting affected children for the last ten years. Federal officials are convinced of only one thing: Vaccines don't cause autism.

The CDC has their studies as proof of their claim, but these are rife with charges of manipulated data and conflicts of interest that reduce them to the "cigarette science" used to disprove that smoking caused lung cancer half a century ago. An official Institute of Medicine Report in 2004 settled nothing and the battle continues now in federal claims court in Washington, DC.

According to the media, the parents have no case and if they win, it won't be because they had any real proof of their claim, just that they managed to sway the minds of the three masters on the panel with their story of personal tragedy. For the public watching the coverage, it's unprecedented. The parents presented their case last week, but almost all the major news stories already had the verdict announced.

On Monday June 11th, NBC News had Pete Williams confusing the MMR vaccine with thimerosal-containing vaccines, yet adamant that "repeated studies have found no evidence linking autism to the vaccines."

Gardiner Harris at the New York Times that day also told us, "Every major study and scientific organization examining this issue has found no link between vaccination and autism but the parents and their advocates have persisted. " His story was picked up by other big city papers.

Newsday conclusively stated, "Large scientific studies have found no association between autism and vaccines containing thimerosal."

Tuesday, June 12th, ABC News earned the week's prize for saying that science doesn't support a link in more ways and with more experts than any other news source:

Dr. Susan Fisher-Hoch, professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville:

"Awarding a claim would fly in the face of reason and science."

Dr. Robert Schooley, professor of medicine and head of infectious diseases at the University of California at San Diego: If parents win it "would only further increase the cost of vaccines and lead to worsening of the public health."

Dr. Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington D.C.:

"Focusing on vaccines is really misplaced energy."

Dr. David Witt, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco:

"My personal opinion is that if there is a victory, it is a sad comment on how energy can be diverted from real health issues and causes, to faddish beliefs and diverted angst toward a handy target,"

Dr. Pascal James Imperato, chairman of preventive medicine and community health at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center:

"The scientific evidence to date does not support their claim."

If names of prominent institutions and well-credentialed experts could have settled the issue, that ABC News story would have done it. There didn't seem to be any scientist or doctor worth quoting on the parents' side, or maybe ABC News is so convinced about who's right that they didn't bother to look.

One has to wonder how the claims of 4,800 parents ever made it to federal court when it seems there is nothing to support their side.

As the week wore on, the coverage droned on. A Washington Post story on June 16th reported , "To date, no major studies have shown any connection between vaccines and autism, and the Institute of Medicine has rejected any causal relationship."

The Albuquerque Tribune reported, "Every major study and scientific organization examining this issue has found no link between vaccination and autism,"

The San Francisco Chronicle ran the story, The Truth About Autism in which we were told by Dr. Rahul K. Parikh that "large, well-conducted studies have shown no link between thimerosal and autism."

Sunday, June 17th, the Boston Herald published an editorial, Autism suit puts others at risk. There the unnamed writer dismissed the parents' case as absolutely without merit. "We are aware of nothing that justifies changing the conclusion of a special committee of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, three years ago: 'The body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism,' and ditto for vaccines containing the preservative in question, thimerosal. In plain English, children get autism at the same rate whether vaccinated or not, whether the vaccine contains thimerosal or not. The committee could find no evidence to support various postulated mechanisms by which autism might result from vaccination."

Monday, June 18th ABC Nightly News ran a story about how the autism controversy is affecting the Wright family. The founders of Autism Speaks and their daughter Katie epitomize how deep the divide is. ABC News of course had to note in the report that with regard to vaccines causing autism, "There is no scientific evidence that is the case. None."

Every time I hear that pronouncement I want to shout, "How can you defend injecting mercury into children when it was never tested and approved by the FDA before it was put into use?" I've asked that question of countless reporters and no one has ever answered it.

These news reports all week sounded like press releases for those with everything at stake in the fight and not objective journalism. Readers would sadly come up empty if they were to search for major stories quoting any of the expert witnesses for the parents. What's implied of course is that there were none. It seemed as if news outlets were beating themselves over the head trying to put the claim that vaccines cause autism on a par with the flat Earth theory.

It was never noted in these articles that if the parents were proved right and the explosion in the autism rate is connected to the coincidental increase in the childhood vaccine schedule, especially the increase in mercury-containing vaccines, this will go down as the worst medical mistake in history. The implications are enormous.

On June 15th, CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson posted an online article, Autism: Why The Debate Rages. She outlined the suspicions, the obfuscation, and the denials that parents have had to deal with in this issue. This argument is never going quietly away no matter how many newspapers and TV networks find willing experts to tell the public that injecting mercury into children hasn't hurt them.

This week David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm had a perfectly timed piece on the Huffington Post. In Tired of Autism Yet? he tells us this war will wage on until one side concedes and he proposes a logical way to settle things. This suggestion has come out before and it would seem a simple solution: Compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children of the same birth cohort who were born at the time of the greatest mercury exposure in the vaccine schedule.

Dan Olmsted has already shown us that it's possible. He found unvaccinated Amish and he found unvaccinated kids in a medical group in Chicago. He also found no autism in those groups and that may be why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't jumped at the chance to settle this heated issue once and for all.

David Kirby says he'd welcome such a study. "If the drug companies, and the Bush Administration, and Congress, and the public health establishment, are so very confident in the total safety of all childhood vaccines (and their components, including mercury), then why would they reasonably object to such a study." This may become the rallying cry of thousands of parents: "Why are they afraid to look?"

Parents of autistic children see officials paralyzed in addressing autism. They will only continue to demand this issue be dealt with openly and fairly. There is no patience left with those who can only come up with new ways of repeating the same tired claims that have been around for years.

Autism can't continue to be referred to as a some mystery or puzzle while we pretend that one in every 150 children has always had this disorder. It's bankrupting families and school districts. I personally know the autism controversy isn't going away because there are now far too many parents who are devoting their lives to public recognition of the disaster.

NBC's Ethics Breach Angers Autism Parents

[UPDATE: NBC's web site reporting that she is 'formerly' of Johnson & Johnson. Will get confirmation of this].

NBC's stunt, using a Vice President of thimerosal lawsuit defendants Johnson & Johnson as their Chief Medical Expert without disclosing her real job is media relations for the Corporation, has garnered the ire of autism parents. Lots and lots of autism parents:

Mr. Steve Capus, President NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
June 13, 2007

Dear Mr. Capus:

The undersigned organizations are writing to you regarding the concerns among families of vaccine-injured children across the country over NBC's recent coverage of the Autism Omnibus proceedings. In particular, we take issue with the comments Dr. Nancy Snyderman made during yesterday's Today show.

While one would hope a "First do no harm" philosophy would have some bearing on the information Dr. Snyderman provides to viewers, clearly it does not.

Dr. Snyderman's ties to Johnson & Johnson, defendants in vaccine injury litigation, are obviously dictating the agenda in her appearances on your network at the risk of the safety of our children. This conflict of interest calls into serious question your journalistic integrity and credibility.

NBC's viewers were exposed to a blatant falsehood yesterday as Dr. Snyderman claimed that vaccines no longer contain mercury. This is not the case,and this misinformation has unfortunately given America’s parents a false sense of security that vaccines are now mercury-free. This false claim puts all of America's children and the unborn at risk of great harm.

The mercury-based preservative thimerosal has never been fully removed from childhood vaccines as Dr. Snyderman vehemently claimed. A simple check on the FDA's website would have confirmed this: http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm#t1. Mercury is still in most flu, tetanus, and diphtheria/tetanus vaccines--and an array of vaccines still contain "trace" amounts. (The term "trace" must be used loosely as this aspect of vaccine production is not being regulated and there is some variation on what constitutes a trace amount. As children often receive multiple "trace" amounts of mercury in one sitting, cumulative amounts and potential adverse effects are as yet unknown.)

While no reputable medical practitioner in this country would allow even "trace" amounts of lead to be injected through vaccines given its known neurotoxicity, physicians continue to allow mercury, which exceeds the toxicity of lead by more than 100-fold, to be routinely injected into humans.

As a physician representing NBC, Dr. Snyderman has failed to tell the truth about mercury-containing vaccines and the known dangers associated with them. There is simply no excuse for such careless and false reporting while this country is in the throes of a childhood epidemic of neurological disorders.

During Monday's NBC Nightly News Dr. Snyderman stated, "there really is no science" behind the autism/mercury link. Vaccines and the mercury-based preservative thimerosal have not been ruled out as a cause of autism. To the contrary, there are literally thousands of scientific, peer-reviewed studies supporting the extreme neurotoxicity of mercury and the relationship between mercury exposure and neurological injury. The following link provides a copious amount of research which contradicts what Dr. Snyderman told the American public: http://www.generationrescue.org/studies.html

The CDC's own study conducted in 2000 clearly shows the agency knew that injuries were occurring to children from mercury-containing vaccines, yet the data was manipulated to obscure the link. Lead researcher Dr. Thomas Verstraeten had this to say regarding the CDC’s thimerosal findings:

"...we have found statistically significant relationships between the exposure and outcomes for these different exposures and outcomes. First, for two months of age, an unspecified developmental delay, which has its own specific ICD9 code. Exposure at three months of age, tics. Exposure at six months of age, an attention deficit disorder. Exposures at one, three, and six months of age, language and speech delays which are two separate ICD9 codes. Exposures at one, three, and six months of age, an entire category of neurodevelopmental delays, which includes all of these plus a number of other disorders." (Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, page 40, Simpsonwood meeting transcript)

The full transcript of this secret, closed-door meeting held by the CDC at the United Methodist Retreat Center, Simpsonwood, can be read at NoMercury.org or PutChildrenFirst.org.

Many European countries have banned the use of thimerosal/mercury in vaccines for many years. Seven states have passed legislation banning the use of thimerosal/mercury in vaccines and similar legislation is pending in over 30 additional states. If there was no science to back up the dangers of using mercury in vaccines, we wouldn't be seeing such legislative efforts to ban its use.

In her most recent NBC appearance, Dr. Snyderman was asked why parents were filing claims on behalf of their vaccine-injured children, to which she answered matter-of-factly, "money." This cavalier statement alone goes far beyond contempt and displays an appalling ignorance of the emotional and financial devastation faced by families of vaccine-injured children. This must be addressed by an immediate apology from NBC to all the parents of children suffering from vaccine-induced illnesses.

We urge you to speak with the growing number of scientists who have published research supporting a causal link between mercury in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, and can provide you contact information for these researchers.

Reporting false information is a disservice to the American people. When it comes to the children and the unborn in this country, we should err on the side of safety, regardless of personal belief, conviction, or backing from the pharmaceutical industry.

Based on the misinformation presented by Dr. Snyderman, and the potential for harm this has brought to bear upon children, we ask for her resignation. We will accept nothing less than a full and public retraction of her false statements, along with an apology from your
network.

We expect an immediate response to our request. We can be contacted
at 828-776-0082 or amy@....

Respectfully,
Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning (ACHAMP)
Autism Healing Network
Autism Recovery Resources of Washington (ARROW)
Autism Solution Center, Inc
Autism Society of Oregon – Lane County Chapter
Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs (CoMeD)
David A. Geier,Vice-President Institute of Chronic Illnesses, Inc.
Developmental Delay Resources (DDR)
Dr. Boyd Haley, Bio-Chemist, Chemistry Department University of Kentucky
Educate Before You Vaccinate
Foundation For Autism Information and Research
Foundation for Mercury Injured Children
Generation Rescue
John Wilson, MD Great Smokies Medical Center
K Paul Stoller, MD, President, International Hyperbaric Medical Association
KindTree Productions, Inc
Mark R. Geier, MD, Ph.D., FABMG, President Genetic Centers of America
Maryland Autism Recovery Coalition
Mercury Free Maryland
Moms Against Mercury
Moms of Hope
National Autism Association
No Mercury
SOAR! Salem Oregon Autism Resources
Talk About Curing Autism (TACA)
Texas Autism Recovery
TN4SaferVaccines
Treating Autism in the UK
UnInformed Consent
US Autism and Asperger Association
World Mercury Project