Dan Burton Addresses Congress on the Vaccine Hearings

Not quite sure how I missed this one.

"I believe the families of these autistic children deserve to be compensated for their vaccine injury as Congress intended when it created VICP. I believe the science is there to prove this case and I am hopeful that the court will agree and at the end of this arduous process these 4,800 families will finally get justice."

When a respected republican congressman who held vaccine/autism hearings stands on the floor of the house and lists some research studies that support the vaccine/autism hypothesis, how the heck does the media get away with going on the air and repeatedly saying, "No Link"?

SPEECH OF
HON. DAN BURTON
OF INDIANA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2007

• Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the Omnibus Autism Hearing which started on June 11, 2007, down at the U.S. Federal Claims Court here in Washington, DC. At issue are the 4,800 claims against the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program filed by parents of autistic children who believe, as I do, that thimerosal--the mercury-based preservative in vaccines--caused their children's disorders.



• There are many people in our health agencies, in the pharmaceutical industry and here in Congress who say that there is no the scientific evidence linking thimerosal and autism. However, during my tenure as chairman of Government Reform Committee (1997-2002), and as chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness (2003-2005), I chaired numerous hearings examining the alarming increase in autism in this country over the last several decades. In the 1980s, roughly one in 10,000 American children was diagnosed with some kind of autism spectrum disorder. Today that number has risen to 1 in 150. I believe, as do many credible scientists and researchers, that the clear correlation between the dramatic rise in the number of autism cases, and the rapid expansion of the childhood vaccination schedule during that 20-year period, points to the mercury-based preservative thimerosal--routinely used in pediatric vaccines during the period--as a contributing factor to our country's literal epidemic of autism. In fact, I firmly believe my own grandson became autistic after receiving nine shots in 1 day, seven of which contained thimerosal. In fact, Dr. Bernard Rimland--founder and director of the Autism Research Institute--testified before the committee that classic autism, (noticeable from birth) has largely been replaced by late-onset or ``acquired autism''; a form of autism in which children are born normally developing but later regress into autism in the second year of life. He was one of the first to point to environmental insult through vaccine injury as a possible leading contributing factor.


• The truth is that since the initiation of my vaccine investigation, two schools of science have evolved leading to two very different conclusions. The first, largely funded by the Centers for Disease Control, consist of epidemiological evaluations in Denmark that look at medical files in individuals who developed autism and deciding whether or not thimerosal exposure was more predominant in the autism patients. Those who have focused solely on the epidemiology research have concluded that there is no relationship between vaccine injury and the onset of autism. However, once published, these studies were discovered to have many methodological flaws. For example, using individuals in Denmark did not provide a true comparison to the U.S. vaccine schedule, and by the CDC's own admission, the study could not really provide any true conclusion as to whether or not a subset of the population--because of vaccine exposure to mercury or some other vaccine injury--developed autism.


• The second school of research has conducted so-called ``hard'' science; providing objective measures through laboratory and animal research. For example, Dr. Hornig at Columbia University replicated the thimerosal exposure in vaccines in a mouse study and discovered mice exposed to thimerosal had both behavioral and biological responses--displaying autism like behaviors and exhibiting white matter changes in the brain that were measurable. Other laboratory research has shown that thimerosal exposure affects the protective sheath of the neurofibrals in the brain as well as the IGF-I molecule. And Dr. Jill James at the University of Arkansas has shown that thimerosal exposure affects the methylation process--the mechanism used to regulate genes and protect DNA from some types of damage.


• The most recent hard science study to be published is from Dr. Burbacher, a leading expert on mercury, who investigated the different affect methyl mercury and ethyl mercury had on primates. He found that ethylmercury--the form of mercury in thimerosal--stays in the brain (doing more harm) than methylmercury.


• The bottom line is that mercury is a base element and the most toxic substance known to science outside of radioactive materials; and each of these hard science studies, and more, show that it is biologically plausible for mercury exposure in vaccines to cause the onset of autism and provide tantalizing pieces in the puzzle about how.


• My support for the link between thimerosal and autism, especially in open congressional hearings has caused many people to throw around the accusation that I am ``anti-vaccine.'' My response to that is that vaccines are the only medications that are mandatory for Americans to receive and as such we have an even greater obligation to ensure that they are as safe as possible. In addition, experience tells us that, as with any other epidemic, while there may be underlying genetic susceptibilities, there usually is some type of environmental trigger as well, such as a virus, fungus, exposure to heavy metals, pollutants, or whatever. There has never, to the best of my knowledge, been a purely genetic epidemic. So, genetics alone simply cannot explain how we went from 1 in 10,000 children with autism spectrum disorders 20 years ago to 1 in 150 today.


• No one has ever identified a positive health benefit to mercury in the human body. Thus, it was sound public health policy to eliminate mercury from thermometers, blood pressure gauges, light switches, cosmetics, teething powder, horse liniment, hat-making materials, smokestack emission, and mining operations. It would also be sound public health policy to eliminate mercury from all vaccines.


• But Madam Speaker, getting the mercury out of all vaccines is only the first step. We also have a responsibility to help all of the children who have already been injured by mercury in vaccines. That is why the outcome of the Omnibus Autism Hearing is so critically important. In the 1980s, Congress creating the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to shield medical professionals and vaccine manufacturers from liability if an individual suffered an adverse event from receiving vaccines. The compensation fund, which currently contains about $2.5 billion, is financed by a tax on pediatric vaccines. We created VICP to protect the vaccine supply and to insure that all who were injured by a vaccine would receive compensation in what was supposed to be a no-fault, easy to use manner. Congress intended for families to be compensated quickly and fairly; and when the evidence was close as to whether or not the medical condition in question was vaccine related or not--as is the case with thimerosal--the court should always err in favor of the injured. But over the years the system has broken and what was supposed to be quick and fair has become slow and contentious; which is why today 4,800 families are fighting in court to be heard. They have waited a long time for their day in court and I am pleased that the court is providing the transcripts online quickly and that audio streaming on the internet is being provided for the thousands of families who are not able to travel to Washington and actually be in the courtroom during the proceedings.


• As the Omnibus hearings proceed, I hope that all of the evidence regarding vaccine injury will be received by the courts and given a full and fair review. I believe the families of these autistic children deserve to be compensated for their vaccine injury as Congress intended when it created VICP. I believe the science is there to prove this case and I am hopeful that the court will agree and at the end of this arduous process these 4,800 families will finally get justice.

Press on the Burbacher Study?

Yay!

It was written last spring, but I am happy that it was picked up as it is such an important story that no one saw. I am not sure he got all the details right, but he definitely got the meat of the story. Hopefully more outlets will look into this for themselves.

Vaccine Additive Linked to Autism

By Douglas Fischer, STAFF WRITER

A mercury-laced preservative once widely added to pediatric vaccines exposes infants' brains to twice the neurotoxin previously suspected, offering evidence that health guidelines may underestimate the risk newborns face, researchers say in a report being published today.

The additive, thimerosal, has been used in vaccines since the 1930s and is almost 50 percent mercury by weight. Since 2001, manufacturers have gradually phased it out of almost all domestic pediatric vaccines, though it remains in use overseas in cheaper "multidose" vaccines.

The study, being published today in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed publication of the National Institutes of Health, also chides health officials for abandoning an earlier recommendation that the preservative be completely phased out and further studies conducted.

And it fuels the debate over the federal government's aggressive vaccination plan that subjects infants to a battery of shots some of which contain aluminum and other potentially harmful compounds in their first weeks of life.

"We're talking about a low-level delivery of a toxin given to a baby on the first day of its life," said mercury expert Boyd Haley, chairman of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky, who was not involved in the study.

"What's needed is a total study of the sensibility of the vaccine program. Why would you want to vaccinate a baby on the first day of its life?"

The report is one of the first to look beyond mercury blood levels resulting from vaccines. Instead it examines both the amount and type of mercury reaching the brain. It suggests health officials examined the wrong compound and failed to look far enough when assessing the danger of mercury in thimerosal.

This is largely a past concern for the United States, given the predominance today of thimerosal-free vaccines. Both the study's lead author and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday urged parents to have their children vaccinated.

"That's the first message," said Thomas Burbacher, lead author and associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington's School of Public Health.

"The bottom line is that trying to assess the effects of acompound with very little or no data is not a good thing to do. ... Unfortunately, we started doing studies on this compound way too late. Basic information like this should've been available decades ago."

The problem is very much alive for developing nations, however, where the additive is common. The World Health Organization has expressed interest in Burbacher's research.

The problem, Burbacher said, is that regulators trying to assess thimerosal's harm used as a benchmark methylmercury, a widely studied compound, rather than the little-known compound called ethylmercury in thimerosal. Both compounds cross the blood- brain barrier. But methylmercury breaks down slowly, whereas ethylmercury dissipates fairly rapidly, suggesting to regulators that a standard based on methylmercury would adequately protect infants.

Burbacher and colleagues found ethylmercury's fast breakdown leaves higher levels of so-called "inorganic" mercury in the brain. Inorganic mercury lingers in the brain for a year or more, potentially altering certain cells. A previous study has shown such damaged cells are also found in children with autism. Using monkeys, Burbacher found the brains of thimerosal-exposed infants had twice as much inorganic mercury as methylmercury- exposed infants.

The Food and Drug Administration has never required testing of thimerosal's safety or of its safe exposure levels for newborns and children. Although high mercury levels particularly as a result of vaccinations have long been suspected as a leading cause of skyrocketing autism levels, the CDC and Burbacher cautioned Wednesday against drawing any conclusion linking the two.

"To date, the vast majority of the science doesn't support an association between thimerosal and incidences of autism," said CDC spokesman Glen Nowak. But "at the end of the day, we still don't know what causes autism." Others, however, expect such links to become apparent as thimerosal fades from use in the United States. Already, noted Haley, California's autism rates have decreased three of the past four quarters a first. "There's something in the vaccines doing it. That something is thimerosal."

The FDA's Web site on thimerosal and vaccinations, including a chart showing common pediatric vaccines and the date thimerosal was eliminated, can be found at http:// www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm. Contact Douglas Fischer at dfischer@angnewspapers.com.