Maine HHS Committee Votes Against Informed Consent in Vaccination

UPDATE! Apparently I am a TERRIBLE reporter! I left too soon! (had my boys with me) One other committee member, Representative Richard S. Malaby (Republican from Hancock, Maine, father of three) returned to the room and voted with our three heroes for the bills to move forward. And I was uninformed on procedure. I thought this was a majority vote, but apparently because the vote was divided, it will go to the full legislature to be voted on!

Could not be more happy to be so wrong. (Study your state civics people)

Mainers, call your state Senators and Representatives! Ask for meetings! Educate! Go, go, go!

Go to Maine Coalition for Vaccine Choice and get on the mailing list.

Original post:

The highs and lows of trying to prevent vaccine injury...

Today the Maine Legislature's HHS committee voted NOT to allow the two informed consent bills to go to the floor to be voted on.

Much of the discussion again centered around the fact that if you tell parents what is in a vaccine, and then give them a choice, they will say no in greater numbers. And that they will do so out of "unnecessary fear." That doctors operate on the facts and mom's operate on emotion, so the state, therfore must save us parents from putting our children at "unnecessary risk". And of course, the Medical Establishment is to decide for you, what you should think about their practices.

Low point of the hearing... one committee member sharing his decision on why he would be voting the measures down. He shared that the legislature came up against the fears of the public on a regular basis and that he believed that his job as a legislator was to separate the real fears from the unfounded fears. In his estimation, fears of damage from vaccination are unfounded. I do not know the scope of his research into this opinion, but it may be as simple as, docs testified that vaccines are safe, so vaccines are safe. But he also shared that he is in the construction business and comes up against a lot of unfounded fears by people on renovations. He believes that these two situations are analogous.

What he had clearly not factored into his equation is that he, his employees, his company and his material manufacturers can be sued for making false safety claims or hurting their customers when they are wrong, and that when those big lawsuits come, they serve to first keep those in the renovation business honest, and second, the force the industry to reform itself at various stages of its evolution. No such mechanism exists in vaccination.

The Vaccine Program is Self-Policing.

I wanted to ask that committee member, "If your industry had enjoyed liability protection for the last quarter century, would you want to force builders to disclose their materials? Would you EVER renovate your house? Just how corrupt do you think that the construction business would be? Why do you assume that liability protection has not corrupted vaccine safety reporting?"

But, of course, all I could do is sit there and listen. And scream on the inside.

The high point of the proceeding today for me however was the vote, because three smart, conservative mothers, who completely got it and asked all the best questions, voted to allow the bills to continue on. They were:


Deborah J. Sanderson, Republican from Chelsea, Maine


Beth A. O'Connor, Republican from Berwick, Maine


Heather W. Sirocki, Republican from Scarborough, Maine

Between them they have 12 children and 1 grandchild. They seem to know that mom's aren't morons. And they repeatedly made the simple and straight forward case that parents need to know and have the right to decide.

I offer a very public thank you to these women for their service to our families and our children.

I hope you will consider contacting these three women in appreciation for their efforts. We are no Big Pharma, but I would like for us to thank them on behalf of Little Parenting. I am going to send them each a five dollar contribution to their campaign funds. I hope you will consider doing the same and let them know that our community values legislators like this that can think independently and that want to preserve the rights of parents to make informed decisions for their children.

As I was on the way out, the three of them were standing in the hallway together (in the same spot where I took that tongue lashing the week before), and as I passed I thanked them for their support. Like a dork, I started crying. I have gotten so cynical, run up against so much resistance to facts and logic, that just knowing that there were three people who were listening ... well it hit me kinda hard. Made me realize that it does not have to be this way. Made be grieve that we are going to go through another flu season where parents have no idea they they are injecting their 6 month old babies with levels of mercury that the EPA says its not safe for a 200lb man. Another year of parents being told to just love and accept their child, while their baby is suffering an unrecognized neurological emergency in front of them. Another year of children in medical crisis being denied treatment.

It doesn't have to be this way.

My Testimony to the Maine Legislature on Two Informed Consent Vaccine Bills

This week I have written about my experience testifying before the Maine Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Health and Human Services and my exchanges with another State Representative who testified in opposition to the bills that I was supporting.

The bills are:
LD 694 (HP 523) "An Act To Encourage Transparency in Disclosing the Ingredients in Vaccinations for Children to Parents and Guardians" Sponsored by Representative Andrea Boland, that would make doctors tell patients the ingredients of a vaccine before administering it to them, just like food.

And

LD 941 (SP 287) "An Act To Prohibit Mandatory Immunizations" Sponsored by Senator Douglas Thomas, which would simply state that no one could force a Mainer to be vaccinated against their wishes.

I had heard about the hearing some what last minute and was not able to prepare written testimony before hand, but submitted it today.

I am linking to the documents here so that they may be reviewed by the public.

I encourage Mainers to get involved in supporting these common sense measures to protect the human rights of those in our state. You can contact the committee here to offer your support and testimony.

Further, I encourage Mainers who want to be able to know what is in a vaccine, and preserve the right to say no to a vaccine if they so choose, to let their voice be heard over at the Portland Press Herald who has come out in support of removing your right for you to decide what goes into your body and what goes in the body of your children in an op ed piece.

I am posting my cover page to the testimony, and will link to the actual documents in the body of it below. While I submitted two chapters of our book Vaccine Epidemic, I will not be posting those, as I am sure that our publisher would not be pleased, so if you have not done so, please consider buying the book.

Written testimony by Ginger Taylor M.S. to the Maine Joint Standing Committee on Health and Human Services

In support of: LD 694 (HP 523) "An Act To Encourage Transparency in Disclosing the Ingredients in Vaccinations for Children to Parents and Guardians" Sponsored by Representative Andrea Boland, and LD 941 (SP 287) "An Act To Prohibit Mandatory Immunizations" Sponsored by Senator Douglas Thomas


My name is Ginger Taylor and I am resident of Brunswick. I hold a BS in Psychology with a concentration in child development and an MS in Clinical Counseling from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration if adolescent and family therapy. I am a co-author and contributing editor on the new book, “Vaccine Epidemic: How Corporate Greed, Biased Science, and Coercive Government Threaten Our Human Rights, Our Health, and Our Children,” which makes the argument that informed consent in vaccination is a fundamental human right. I served on the steering committee for the 2009 Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism Conference to educate medical professionals on the current state of the research and treatment of Autism. I am the founder of Greater Brunswick Special Families, but most significant to these proceedings, I am the mother of a child who regressed into autism following the simultaneous administration of the DTaP, Hepatitis B, Polio, HIB and Pnumo vaccines. When I discovered that none of the vaccines My son received that day had been studied for their relationship to autism, and that my pediatrician’s opinion that his vaccines did not cause his autism had no basis in science, I began to investigate and document the vaccine-autism causation theory and other vaccine injuries.

My thanks to the committee for indulging my impromptu oral testimony on these bills and for allowing me to submit further written testimony on these matters.

Drastic changes have taken place in the vaccine program since I was a child growing up in the 1970s and 1980s and when vaccination is discussed most people’s frame of reference on vaccination was their own experience growing up. Vaccination has gone from a tool used to protect the health of individuals and to prevent deadly epidemics, to an over aggressive, under researched, one size fits all program to eradicate disease, even at the expense of individual patients. At the heart of this phenomenon is the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that granted liability protection to everyone involved in vaccination from the manufacturer who makes it to the public health official that recommends or mandates it to the school system that requires it and even to the doctors and nurses who administer any FDA approved vaccine regardless of the damage or death of the child or adult being vaccinated.

Because of this, over the last quarter century the vaccine program has changed drastically. Pharmaceutical companies realized what a cash cow they had on their hands when suddenly they had a product line that the government could require people to buy, and that Pharma could not be sued for. They began pouring funds into vaccine research and development and only a few short years after the act was passed, began adding new and more cheaply made vaccines to the market, and using their considerable political influence to get CDC to recommend these vaccines and states to require their purchase and administration for school entrance.

As a result the vaccine schedule has ballooned to three times its previous size, and vaccines have become a 27 billion dollar a year industry.

Children born between the mid 1960s and the mid 1980s were subject to a childhood vaccine schedule that recommended between 24 and 25 doses of vaccine (depending on whether or not they received the small pox vaccine that was discontinued in the early 1970s.) Children born today are subject to a vaccine schedule that has just had its 70th dose of vaccine added to it as of late 2010.

A child born today, if vaccinated according to the CDC recommended schedule will receive more doses of vaccine by the time he is six months old than his mother did by the time she went to college. Unlike his mother, his vaccines will begin with in hours of his birth, before he has even established a health history which can be used to evaluate whether or not a particular vaccine is safe for him.

Disturbingly, there is not one study to investigate what this aggressive vaccine schedule may do to a child and there is no safety testing of vaccines in the combinations which are recommended on the infant schedule. For example, at two months old babies are vaccinated for Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type b, Polio, Rotavirus and Pneumococcal, and there is no study to find out if this is a safe practice or what long term health problems it may lead to.

Further, CDC now has an adult vaccine schedule, and if the schedule is followed to the letter by someone living the average life span of 78 years, they will receive 167 doses of vaccine.

Aggressive insistence from the vaccine injury and vaccine safety community has yielded almost no results in requiring improved safety research and accurate risk information, rather the medical community labels all vaccine safety advocates as “anti-vaccine” and demonizes them in the press. Ironically this includes parents who continue to vaccinate their children, and even doctors who administer and advocate for vaccination, but publicly state that they do cause autism and other adverse reactions. The most recent example of this was Bill Gates appearing on CNN last month and insisting that parents who assert that vaccines can cause autism, as I am asserting to you today, are “child killers.” This is analogous to calling those who advocate for safer infant car seats and accurate product safety information, “baby killers.”

My personal appeals to the Maine CDC under the previous administration to conduct reviews of vaccine safety information and recommendations offered to Maine by the federal government on vaccine policy before adopting them have been rebuffed. As a result, Maine vaccine policy is for all practical purposes, set by a panel of only 16 people at the CDC in Atlanta on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, who bear no burden if the policy they set is errant. Instead, Maine bears almost all the cost of these flawed decisions via medical expenses, HHS, special education programs, Maine Care, law enforcement agencies and individuals and families like mine paying for the consequences of inappropriate vaccination.

There are no checks and balances in the vaccine program, and the costs of damages roll down hill from the CDC to ME to me.

The dangers of adopting the policies of the federal government on vaccine policy are most clearly highlighted during the H1N1 scare generated by Atlanta, who declared an epidemic, declared a state of emergency, activated their emergency powers, rushed an inadequately tested vaccine to market, held out the option to FORCE administration of that vaccine, and spent several billion dollars for what turned out to be the mildest flu season on record. This despite the very low uptake of the flu vaccine, as the public did not buy the hype.

Further, we had ample evidence that the H1N1 flu was no serious threat to the American people, as it was not causing problems in the southern hemisphere during their flu season in their winter (our summer) of 2009. Yet despite the evidence that this flu was actually a very weak one, CDC continued to sound a false alarm for the entire 2009 – 2010 flu season.

Neither Kathleen Sebelius nor any public official involved lost their jobs over the debacle, no investigation was launched and CDC continued to attempt to push the H1N1 scare into the following flu season.

I submit to you that the vaccine program has become a run away train that abuses its power and the trust of the public, asserts safety and efficacy claims that are not supported by the science and that there is no way for the public to challenge bad vaccine policy under current US law.

Because of this it is imperative for the legislature of the State of Maine to protect the rights of Mainers to Informed Consent in vaccination.

We must have the right to all known information about any vaccine that we may be considering for administration, and if we believe that it is not a wise health choice for ourselves and our children, then we must be allowed exercise our fundamental human right to decline a vaccine.

These two measures are reasonable protection of my rights as a citizen and a mother, and I hope you will consider the information that I am presenting to you and support these measures.

Supporting arguments:

1. Why These Laws are Needed
a. The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act
b. Vaccination Choice is a Fundamental Human Right
2. A Review of Vaccine Safety Claims
a. IOM Vaccine Safety Review Bibliography Additions
b. Evidence that vaccines can cause autism
c. The Dangers of Mercury in the H1N1 Vaccine
3. Informed Consent: HHS states that vaccines DO cause autism
a. HHS, HRSA, Vaccine Injury Compensation Table
b. Julie Gerberding Admits on CNN that Vaccines Can Cause Autism
4. An Evaluation of the Trustworthiness of Federal Public Health Assertions
a. The Role of Government and Media
5. Additional Comments

In closing, it is my opinion and experience that the majority of the medical community is employing the Semmelweiss Reflex and in denial about the true incidence of serious vaccine adverse reactions; and it is unwilling to look at the evidence to this effect. I have included a discussion of the Semmelweiss Reflex in my chapter in Vaccine Epidemic on the Role of Government and Media, and hope you will pay particular attention to it.

No doctor gets into this difficult profession in order to harm patients, and facing the fact that a practice that they are employing to make people better is many cases causing more harm than good, is not something that they have demonstrated that they are willing to do.

In light of this, I believe it is the responsibility of this committee to look at this topic in a fresh light, look at testimony of health officials, organizations and physicians with a critical eye, and make them actually prove their case. It is my belief that most of them do not know they are providing false information. Avoidable vaccine damage continues because state and federal legislators are taking the unsupported claims of these parties at face value and not forcing them under oath to address the challenges of vaccine safety and choice advocates.

Further I encourage the committee to consider formal hearings on the evidence that I have in included in my testimony and that we have compiled in Vaccine Epidemic and several other books published on the subject of vaccines and their component parts.

I thank the members of the committee and appreciate the thoughtful way in which these hearings have been carried out thus far. I will be happy to be at your disposal in providing any further information you may need to carry out your responsibilities on these matters.

North Carolina Tries to Ram Through Bill to KILL Alternative Medical Treatments in One Day

This email went out tonight from a citizen in North Carolina calling for help in getting the word out on SB31 which someone attempted to present and pass in one day! The vote has been moved to Monday and we need to get the word out on this to all North Carolinians by then.

Post this everywhere and send it to everyone.

This is really unbelievable.

Something that some people call a "sleeper bill" slipped under the radar. It came to the judiciary subcommitte yesterday morning and despite having a packed house, even after the meeting place was relocated, public comment wasn't even allowed. It was supposed to come to full floor vote today, but somehow got delayed until Monday. It's expected to pass, but then Our Governor Bev Perdue will have 10 days to Yea it or veto it. We hoping against hope for a NO vote, but would settle for a veto.

What it is:
SB31
It will make unlicensed alternative medical practicioners subject to felony prosecution, if someone decides to prosecute them. It will not affect chiropractors, acupuncturists, or doctors of chinese medicine who are already licensed in our state. It will affect all other alternatives, like homeopathy, naturopaths, ayurvedic, etc. (North Carolina's medical board has refused to set up licensing for these others despite repeated attempts.) Now they want to make it a felony. This will directly affect families here trying to heal their children who have been let down by the allopathic/western medicine doctors who offer next to no help re: autism. It will also affect midwives, so that then women everywhere in our state will no longer be able to choose HOW to have a baby, because what midwife will want to risk having a felony conviction just for helping another woman. Those women will be forced into hospitals, with all the accompanying chemicals and approaches and newborn shots.

Any family trying to find healing outside of mainstream medicine is going to be affected!

If you are able to list an action alert for North Carolinians, (or I guess anyone, maybe if they think the whole country is watching it will make the news?) it would be so appreciated.
Here is our governor to contact:

governor.office@nc.gov

Here is the link for NC Reps for people to know their rep down here and also read the bill, if they want to.

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/GIS/RandR07/Representation.html

Although I'm not a good speaker, I've also contacted by email our League of Women Voters in NC, because it's such a womens' reproductive health issue, as well as the National Organization for Women, naturalnews.com, Alliance for Natural Health. I have other groups I want to contact and will work on that again tomorrow, and also groups involved in cancer, lyme disease, MS, CFS, anaphalactic allergy groups, guiallen barre, etc. Maybe also NVIC, but I need phone calls and emails.

Thanks for anything you can do!

Announcing The Combating Autism Act Reauthorization Coalition

President Bush signed into law the Combating Autism Act (CAA) on December 19, 2006. This landmark legislation authorized $700 million in research funding over five years and set the goal of finding the cause (including possible environmental causes) and treatments for autism. The Act sunsets on September 30, 2011.

A coalition of leading community organizations is coordinating an effort to seek reauthorization and has prepared a list of Guiding Principles. A broad consensus on these principles is the essential first step before legislation can be crafted to implement these ten principles as policy (details on each principle follow below):

1) Recognize that our country faces a national public health emergency.

2) Direct increased resources for a lifespan of autism services through established services infrastructure at the state level.

3) Dedicate federal research to strategic research that can halt the autism epidemic in its tracks.

4) Conduct autism surveillance with the scope, timeliness and rigor appropriate to the need.

5) Focus strategic new research in areas that can yield meaningful near term results.

6) Keep individuals with autism safe from accidental death and injury.

7) Prevent harmful restraint and seclusion of autistic individuals.

8) Address critical gaps in vaccine safety research and policy governance.

9) End health insurance discrimination against individuals with autism.

10) Develop autism policy with an open, transparent approach.

We invite all organizations to mobilize and join in this vital effort. Contact information, an updated list of organizational members, and relevant documents can be found at CAACoalition.org.

The theme underlying all the Guiding Principles is that we need a legislative response driven by the seriousness of the epidemic, by the opportunity to prevent new cases and treat existing cases with the same urgency as our national response to hurricanes, floods, and pandemics, and by the necessity to provide adequate supports and services to facilitate people on the spectrum to lead full and complete lives. Accordingly, the first principle calls for the formal legislative recognition of the autism epidemic as a national health emergency without the usual hedging language from CDC that they don’t know how much of the increase is “real.”

The original Act was primarily focused on research with some additional funding for outreach and awareness education. It established the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) to advise the Secretary of HHS on all matters relating to autism and develop and update an annual strategic plan for autism-related research. CAA 2011 must restructure management of the research enterprise into a new National Institute for Autism Research, re-engineer the grant-making process to rapidly achieve the goals of prevention and treatment, and ensure vigorous and meaningful accountability, oversight, and broad community participation.

Research Funding Priorities Research funding must be re-prioritized and focused on the specific areas with the greatest payoff to achieve the goals of prevention and treatment. It is especially important that scarce research dollars be spent wisely in order to provide the greatest and quickest leverage. Accordingly, there must be a considerably greater focus on environmental factors, epigenetics, and on “translational” research that can quickly link bench science and clinical research to immediate medical and behavioral improvements. Money must be invested in research yielding the greatest benefit in the shortest time.

The legislative history of the original Act called specifically for research on vaccines as a potential cause of autism. However, despite repeated requests from across the community, ongoing compensation of vaccine-caused autism in Vaccine Court, recommendations and coordination from the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and privately-funded research that continues to reveal damage done by vaccines to children and animals, IACC has refused to fund essential research such as a comprehensive comparison of vaccinated with unvaccinated children. CAA 2011 must specifically require a comprehensive program of vaccine safety research focusing on an ongoing comparison of vaccinated with unvaccinated children and animals and on the mechanisms of injury.

The CAA provided for research relating to services and supports but was not designed to actually fund them. Several bills have been introduced during recent sessions relating to demonstration projects and funding for services and supports, training, restraints and seclusion issues, wandering disorder, and infrastructure, but none of these has passed. Especially in view of under-funding of existing mandates in Medicare and the aging of the leading edge of the epidemic through their teenage years and transitioning into adulthood, comprehensive legislation is needed to address – and fund – these complex issues. CAA 2011 must direct significantly increased resources for services through existing state-level infrastructure to the families and providers who are in the best position to meet the specific needs of individuals with autism. As with research governance, CAA 2011 must improve services governance by separating IACC into separate specialist committees that will be better able to focus on the quite distinct constituencies, specialties, and challenges faced in marshaling and coordinating the services-related resources throughout the federal government.

Because the urgency of the response and need will be aided by timely and accurate data on the scope and nature of the epidemic, CAA 2011 must significantly strengthen the gathering and reporting of information on the number of individuals with autism, the severity of their diagnoses, and their specific needs for services and interventions.

Individuals with autism face unique safety issues. Legislation must address these by guaranteeing that children in school enjoy a learning environment free from dangerous restraints and seclusion and by providing first-responder training and funding for systems to prevent wandering and ensure the safe return of children to appropriate supervision.

Legislation reforming various aspects of insurance has passed in over 20 states, and the recently passed national healthcare reform legislation addresses some aspects. However, in view of the strong popular support for “repeal and replacement,” CAA 2011 must provide for parity of coverage with other medical conditions and ban all forms of insurance discrimination arising from an autism diagnosis.

The reauthorized CAA must be the product of an open and transparent process. In the present toxic environment in Washington, its chances of passage will a strong community consensus on first, guiding principles, and then the details of policy implementation developed through a close collaboration of organizations that have disparate interests and objectives. Most important, passage will require an extraordinary effort in grassroots lobbying from throughout the community. In this election, and in preparation for the reauthorization effort, take the time to visit your local Representatives and Senators and educate them as to the urgent of the community for a comprehensive and coordinated policy response to the autism epidemic.

We invite all organizations to mobilize and join in this vital effort. Contact information, an updated list of organizational members, and relevant documents are at CAACoalition.org.
Thank you.

Another Bad Faith Move by Autism Speaks On National Legislation

The Combatting Autism Act of 2006 expires in 2011. Corporate fat cats, autism monopoly, charitable organization, 503c3 Corporation Autism Speaks, has already written a full bill and submitted a bill to Senator Dodd's office.

What's that.... AS went ahead and put in a whole dang bill with out the input of the greater autism community? Shocked to the core am I.

Once again, AS, while claiming to represent the autism universe, tiptoes behind the back of our community to write legislation that will dramatically impact your family and mine. Autism Speaks corporate shark Exec VP Peter Bell (former worldwide marketing manager of the Johnson & Johnson drug Risperdal, you know, that drug that gives our boys breasts) has brought those same wholesome, forthright values of pharma marketing to the world of autism. *

I sent the following request to AS yesterday:

Subject: Request for a copy of your Reauthorization of CAA bill
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2010 19:00:57 -0400
From: Ginger Taylor
To: Peter Bell , Geri Dawson , Mark Roithmayr


Peter, Mark and Geri,

It is my understanding that Autism Speaks has drafted a CAA reauthorization bill and submitted it to Senator Dodd.

Previously, despite claiming to be a big tent organization, Autism Speaks has used their position to circumvent the larger autism community in order to achieve their own agenda. I see this as yet another bad faith move to bypass autism families to get a new CAA that favors AS and its narrow goals.

Will you release the current copy of the CAA bill that you are working on for Dodd? Will you be inviting other autism orgs like NAA, SafeMinds, Autism Action Network, ARI and TACA to offer input on this bill? Will random autism families or adults with autism be able to collaborate on this, or is the fate of hundreds of thousands of people effected by autism in the hands of three or four people at AS who are just about consolidating their power and protecting their unjustifiably large salaries?

AS is charitable org that raises millions of dollars by claiming to represent the autism community. As such, I believe it is incumbent upon you to be transparent in your CAA dealings and release this draft to the autism community (as it will effect ALL of the autism community). Any refusal to share the bill that AS has already submitted to Dodd should be viewed as highly suspect at best.

If you choose not to release this immediately, then please provide a reason for the back door negotiations being kept secret from those whom you claim to be serving. I plan to write a piece either way on Monday afternoon.

Additionally... please forward me a copy of your 2009 990 as it is not listed on Guidestar and I don't see a copy of it on your web site.

No response.

I can only imagine that it has the very best interests of those with autism in mind, even thought the bill they just pushed through in NY, to the loud opposition of others in the autism community, and to the cheers of the insurance industry, is already hurting our kids. John Gilmore of Autism Action Network made this comment on their recent NY activities:

"In NY Autism Speaks turned a new corner, in that they are now backing legislation that will take away what little health care coverage we have and effectively slam the door shut to access in the future. We have already received a report from a parent in Westchester county who was told by his insurance company that because of the new law (the Governor hasn't even signed it yet) payments for speech and OT will be discontinued. This is exactly what we said would happen."

Does AS work for people with autism, or are they a front for insurance groups and pharma? Did AS actually write the text or were the insurance or pharma lobby party to its creation? Does it include vaccine research? I think we all know the answer to that last question.

I encourage you to call whatever autism group you belong to, large or small, and ask them what the plan is for getting a good bill to the floor.

I would also encourage you to stop giving $$ to Autism Speaks. They are starting to seem to me more like those charities portrayed in the American classic, "Death to Smoochy", rather than one that actually improves the lives of the people whose faces adorn their fund raising posters, and whose difficult stories make them so many millions.

And if you are in NY, you might wanna call the governors office and ask him not to sign AS's anti child, pro-insurance company "autism" bill.

With that I will re run this little ditty that someone put together from their 2008 tax form about where their millions go.



*Update:

I am told that Peter never worked on risperdal, but that he worked on analgesics like tylenol and motrin. Which of course is much bigger problem as Tylenol is believed to be a player in autism causation as it impairs liver function... the liver function that might be needed by a baby who has just been vaccinated with aluminum or mercury containing vaccines to process said chemicals out of the body before they can cause neurological or immune disorders.

Autism Speaks Undercuts the Children of PA

What Autism Speaks is doing in PA is just another example of how they use their considerable resources to bring about the PERCEPTION that our kids are being helped, rather than giving them the ACTUAL help they need.

Families who have worked on the insurance bill in PA for years are now being undercut by Autism Speaks, because they want to use the PA legislation, not in the best interests of the children of PA, but to build a national movement to get autism covered in all the states.

Don't get me wrong... I want that national movement to happen, but we DO NOT compromise the treatment and care of the children of Pennsylvania to do it.

It is just another example of crappy 'greater good' logic that takes from one child to give to another. Each child needs what they need, an it is our job as a society to give it to them.

Autism Speaks... stop using children THAT ARE NOT YOURS to advance your agenda that will not be best for those specific children!

Friends:

There can be no question in the minds of Pennsylvanians with autism and their families that Speaker Dennis O'Brien has unfailingly been our community's champion in the Pennsylvania General Assembly for decades.

Dennis has seized every opportunity to advance the best interests of our community, sometimes at political peril to himself, but always with the unwavering goal of pushing forward the rights of the community that he loves so much.

Dennis O'Brien sponsored the autism insurance bill now before the General Assembly, the bill that aimed to require health insurers to step up and cover diagnosis and treatment for persons with autism. At every turn, Dennis has worked with families, with advocates, with
policy makers, and with those aligned with the insurance industry to craft and push forward a bill that would truly benefit the Pennsylvania autism community.

Autism Speaks, through its Government Affairs Department (who are not Pennsylvanians and who had no previous experience with Pennsylvania families, the service terrain, or with its legislative process) came to Pennsylvania with the promise that they would help Speaker O'Brien in his efforts to enact a sound autism insurance bill that would, above all, help our community.

In the last several days, it has become apparent that, through the efforts of the health-insurance lobby and its allies in the General Assembly, what had been an important and helpful bill, that won the overwhelming approval of a panel of national experts, has been mutated into something that lacks the most important safeguards for
Pennsylvania families and that could, if enacted in its present form, actually harm the very community Dennis O'Brien intended to help.

Dennis has made clear that, no matter how fervently he believes in legislation to force health insurers to do what they should have done years ago, he will not support his own bill if the changes forced upon it by the insurance industry and its allies actually undermine the purposes of the bill and pose too great a risk of harming the
community. If that is his decision our community as a whole must accept that he has done so carefully, after excruciating deliberation, and with sound counsel, and only because he believes the current version of the bill would likely hurt the people he has spent his entire career helping. Dennis has earned our faith in him.

I have learned recently that Autism Speaks' Government Affairs team are now suggesting that they want to push the bill forward regardless of what Speaker O'Brien believes and regardless of the perils it poses to our Pennsylvania families. Recently, a leader of Autism Speaks indicated his desire to cause the "sense of a wave" in the states toward a larger National agenda. I responded to him that, in
Pennsylvania, we need to have more than a "sense" of a wave - an "illusion" of a wave - but a REAL wave that meaningfully benefits Pennsylvania's families. Many of us with considerable experience navigating the Pennsylvania service systems believe that the bill as reported out of Senator White's Committee is an "illusion" of a mandate. In other words, an insurance bill is being prepared for passage that lacks any concrete assurance that it will actually help Pennsylvanians with autism and their families. We are the people who will live with what happens in the General Assembly in the next few days. We must be the voice the Pennsylvania legislature hears and we must be the people who stand behind Speaker O'Brien during the next several days.

In deciding which of the competing positions to support, our community must consider our history. Dennis has been our standard bearer for decades. He has been in the trenches with us on every important issue we have faced. We know this man. We know his integrity and we know his heart. He is one of our own. On the other hand, the Autism Speaks' Government Affairs team are tourists in our community, and unfamiliar with the lay of Pennsylvania's service terrain. They have their own agenda, and it apparently focuses more on their national goals than on what actually happens on the ground here in Pennsylvania. If Autism Speaks tells you to ignore Dennis's position or to support the stripped-down version of HB 1150, ask yourself two simple questions: (1) Where were they in the hard times during which Dennis fought for us against MA caps and premiums and for an adult autism waiver, and (2) where will they be months or years from now if this fatally flawed bill they are endorsing starts eliminating services our children so desperately need?

In the next few hours or days, our Speaker will tell us what he believes must be done with respect to this bill – this bill that he sponsored and championed and which many of us invested many, many hours in advocating. Listen to him. Follow his lead. Do not be distracted by those who share neither our history nor our future. Our Speaker Speaks for me and I ask you all to let our Speaker speak for us as well.

Jim Bouder

It passed:

Proponents become opponents on autism bill
Intelligencer Journal
Published: Jun 30, 2008
00:06 EST
By DAVE PIDGEON, Bird's-Eye View

Private insurance companies will continue denying coverage of autism treatments under a bill passed 49-1 by the state Senate on Sunday, opponents said prior to the vote.
The opponents originally stood as proponents of a mandate forcing private coverage, but the final version of the bill was so amended, they said, the proposed mandate would actually hurt families dealing with autism.

The original version — authored by state House Speaker Dennis O'Brien, who slammed the final Senate revisions prior to its passage Sunday — would have forced insurance
companies to cover autism treatments up to $36,000, with the state's Medical Assistance program helping families with any costs above the cap.

A report commissioned by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council said
last week that the original mandate would end up costing all insurance customers about $1 per month.

The Senate Banking & Insurance Committee, however, amended the bill last week.

According to O'Brien and others who once supported the bill, the revisions passed Sunday by the Senate allow insurance companies to decide for themselves what services to cover.

While the bill sets up a system to challenge any denial, disappointed former supporters said the bill now makes affording vital but expensive treatments prohibitive.

"When insurers deny coverage, families will have no alternative but to reach into their own pockets to pay for the medical treatment," Estelle Richman, a one-time supporter and secretary of the Department of Public Welfare, wrote in a letter Sunday to Republican Sen. Don White, a former insurance broker and chairman of the Banking & Insurance Committee. "This means they will be worse off ... ."

O'Brien, who has placed much of his legacy as a legislator into getting this mandate
passed, called the bill an "illusion" of insurance coverage for autistic children.

"That's because the current version gives the insurance companies a back-door way to
continue denying coverage for autism services," he wrote in a statement. "Insurance
companies will continue to second-guess these kids' doctors and refuse to pay for autism services. The Senate-amended version gives them the power to unilaterally deny that coverage ... ."

Also rejecting the new bill were AutismLink and the Autism Center of Pittsburgh, but the national organization Autism Speaks announced its support of the current version as did Sen. Jane Orie, co-chair of the Autism Caucus.

"The bill now moving forward, if signed into law, would be the strongest autism insurance mandate yet achieved in the nation," said Elizabeth Emken, vice president of government relations for Autism Speaks.

Supporters also trumpet other amendments to the bill, including government oversight of a pending merger of two large Pennsylvania insurance companies — Highmark and
Independence Blue Cross — and insurance coverage of colorectal cancer screenings.

NAA: Call The White House

Call The White House

ACTION ALERT

Please call the White House and tell them not to veto the House Labor HHS Bill which contains provisions to protect children from mercury in vaccines. Demand that President Bush uphold his campaign promises!

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

For Immediate Release

Bush Set to Veto HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill Due to Provision to Remove Mercury from Infant Vaccines

SafeMinds and autism community call the White House declaration “irresponsible and dangerous.”

Washington, DC – According to the Congressional Quarterly, the White House stated on Tuesday that President Bush would veto the HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill because of the cost and “objectionable provisions” such as a measure to ban the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative.

Autism advocacy groups are outraged because President Bush stated in a questionnaire during his 2004 campaign: “I support the removal of Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood national vaccine schedule. During a second term as President, I will continue to support increased funding to support a wide variety of research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive causes and/or triggers of autism. It is important to note that while there are many possible theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one material as been definitely included or excluded.”

But since 2005, President Bush has steadfastly refused to issue an Executive Order banning high amounts of mercury in vaccines that would protect children and pregnant women despite repeated requests from the autism community that he uphold his campaign promise. Under his current administration, mercury has been and will continue to be knowingly injected into the youngest of American citizens. The controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been linked by thousands of parents as being the cause of their children’s mercury poisoning and autism.

The flu vaccine which continues to be manufactured with mercury is recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines. According to the EPA, one in every six women of childbearing age already has blood levels of mercury high enough to cause neurological damage to their unborn children due to environmental exposures alone. “Injecting even more mercury into the bodies of pregnant women, infants and children when it is not a necessary component of vaccines is just bad medicine,” said Lyn Redwood, president of SafeMinds and parent of a mercury-injured child. “It defies logic that a flu vaccine must be disposed of as a hazardous waste if it is not used, but somehow injecting the same mercury-containing vaccine into a baby is safe.”

Something Has Happened

Two weeks ago I took a break from blogging to spend time with family who came to visit. Last week was a work catch up week, and I have only begun to catch up with all that has happened in the autism world while I was gone.

As I have been reading, I am seeing things that are surprising me. It is freaking me out a little.

Something has changed around the Cedillo Trial.

I have been following autism news for three years and I have never seen the kind of stories/events that are surfacing.

Dave Weldon and Carolyn Maloney have introduced bipartisan legislation, the Mercury Free Vaccines Act of 2007. Autism Speaks has uncharacteristically decided to back it and oppose AB 16 in Sacramento that would mandate that the State of California automatically adopt any vaccine that the CDC puts on the schedule (and pushed the HPV vaccine). They have never taken a stance on vaccines before. AS is also listing mercury research that was funded by CAN before the merger on their web site, but someone who spends a lot of time on the site said they didn't remember every seeing this page there before. (Anyone know if this is new, or remember seeing it in the past?)

AS has also stepped into the insurance coverage legislation in PA and announced legislative efforts on their web site.

The CDC issued a response to Verstraeten/VSD on their web site with lots of references to thimerosal studies. (I haven't had a chance to read it yet), but how long has it been there? It is not dated and David Kirby, who is a guy who keeps track of these things, didn't even know it was there until a few days ago.

The run up to the Wakefield MMR Trial has reignited doubt in the vaccine in the UK and articles like these are coming out:

At Last They Admit It, This Jab CAN Harm Your Child

The Truth About MMR

DANGERS OF MMR JAB 'COVERED UP'

The Autism Research Institute is now being backed by the giant Autism Society of America, which is now teaming up with Easter Seals who will now make Autism their priority.

Over the last three years, my blog has been visited occasionally by CDC and NIH and a few other government agencies. These visits were few and far between, and always interesting to me when they happened. But now, ramping up with increasing frequency since about April, my blog has been regularly visited by The Powers that Be CDC, NIH, FDA, EPA, HHS, the House and the Senate, The Department of Justice (who are the governments "defendants" in the Cedillo Trial), The Department of Veterans Affairs, The US Forestry Service, The Naval Research Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, The US Census Bureau, dozens of foreign, state and local governments, a slew of Canadian government agencies, dozens of medical centers/health organizations/universities/dental schools including CHOP (Paul Offit's hospital), Johns Hopkins, The Cleavland Clinic, our pharma friends at Johnson & Johnson and Glaxo Smith Klein, Immunize.org, media corporations Tribune and Gannett, The World Health Organization and even one visit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Apparently the Department of Justice is curious to know when and if the Evidence of Harm movie will be coming out.



Here is my blog traffic graph for the last three years.



2005 - nice little blog with decent traffic. 2006 - took a break from blogging for most of the year. 2007 - Started to write again. Feb/March stats broke but I didn't notice. April was Autism Awareness Month (Damn that is a lot of awareness). May - residual autism awareness?? June - suddenly I am twice as fascinating as I have ever been on my best month! July - on track to have 8,000 visitors despite the fact that I have been on vacation most of the time.

As much as I would love to believe that it is my brilliance that people are coming for, it is probably a safer bet that more people (and more people in positions of power to do something) are awakening to the reality that autism is preventable and treatable and are taking valuable time out of their day to investigate for themselves.

Last month I said that the tide had turned. I think I might have been righter than I thought I was and that the tide might start moving faster than I had anticipated.

Even if I had 40 hours a week to sort all this stuff out, I don't think I could do a decent job. I am just going to start posting references to stories with out much comment just so I can get as much out as possible.

California: Vaccine Mandate Bill to Be Heard Wednesday

California is considering a bill that would take control of the mandated vaccine schedule out of the hands of the state authorities and hand the decision making over to a federal board.

The federal boards and their symbiotic relationships with the pharmaceutical industry are what got us in this mess in the first place.

From California based Talk About Curing Autism:

California Residents - Vaccine Mandate Bill to Be Heard Wednesday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please contact the members of the Senate Education Committee listed below and ask that they vote "no" on AB 16. You can write, e-mail, call, or show up and testify against the bill on Wednesday. Click on each name below for contact information.

California State Senate Education Committee Members:
Senator Jack Scott(Chair)
Senator Mark Wyland (Vice Chair)
Senator Elaine Alquist
Senator Jeff Denham
Senator Abel Maldonado
Senator Alex Padilla
Senator Gloria Romero
Senator Joe Simitian
Senator Tom Torlakson

AB 16 (Hernandez), the bill that, among other things, would remove the review of the public and the approval by the Legislature and Governor of all new childhood vaccine mandates for every child in California and; instead, would automatically add every new vaccine recommended by a public health/vaccine manufacturer controlled panel adding dozens of new vaccines to the already 30 doses of vaccines California children receive today. It is the most significant bill ever introduced effecting children and vaccines since 1980 when California first mandated vaccines for California's children. This bill is a horrible example of special interest legislation. In my 34 years of working in and around the Capitol it is the worst.

The bill passed the Assembly after long and contentious debate, and will now be heard this Wednesday, June 27 at 9:30am by the Senate Education Committee in Room 4203, State Capitol.

Below is a copy of the bill as well as my testimony.

-Rick Rollens

Mr. Chairman and Members:

My name is Rick Rollens. This is my 33 year of being in and around the Capitol. For 24 years I served in the State Senate in numerous positions including a chief of staff to a Senator, chief consultant to the Senate Rules Committee, creator and director of the Office of Senate Floor Analyses, and finally as Secretary of the Senate. In 1996 I resigned my post ion as Secretary of the Senate in order to dedicate my life to finding effective treatments and a cure for my beloved son Russell who suffers from vaccine induced regressive autism.

Since leaving the Senate, I have been extremely active in the autism world. Iam a co-founder of FEAT...Families for Early Autism Treatment, a co-founder of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, a Speaker's appointee to the Legislative Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism, Superintendent O'Connell's appointee to his Autism Advisory Committee, I have served as a national board member of ASA, the NIH Autism Advisory Committee, and currently serve on numerous autism organizations throughout California, the nation, and the world. My family and I have been featured in dozens of local, state, national and international media stories about autism and the autism epidemic, the crown jewel of them all is this (SHOW NEWSWEEK) cover story in Newsweek magazine that featured my son Russell on the cover and a feature on Russell's story of his decent into autism at 6 months old after receiving numerous shots at his well baby check up and immediately suffering a classic adverse vaccine reaction leading to his acquired full syndrome autism. That day changed his life and the lives of ALL who know and love him. Russell is not alone.

Today, California is adding 10 new children a day, seven days a week, like Russell to our DD system. In 1980 when California first enacted it's mandatory immunization law, autism accounted for 3% of all the intakes into our DD system. Today, autism only the fastest growing condition entering the system but now accounts for 64% of all the new intakes. In 1980 the incidence of autism was 1 in 10,000, today it is 1-150, and in some areas high as 1-84 children. Twenty years ago there were 2700 persons with autism in our system, today there are 34,000. In the past 9 months alone, we added more children with autism to our system then we did over the 16 YEAR period from 1971-1987! 886 new children in the past 3 months alone.

The most telling fact is that over 91%, or 9 out of 10 persons currently in our system were born after 1980, the year that California's mandatory immunization law was enacted. There is a tsunami of young children aged 3 to 17 years old accounting for nearly 80% of the autism population moving through the system.

I am here today to vehemently oppose AB 16. AB 16 represents an outrageous and arrogant attempt by the makers of the HPV vaccine and Vioxx, as well as those who front for them in the public health community, to strip away from the Legislature and the Governor the responsibility that has been in statute for nearly 30 years to review and approve or reject the addition of new vaccines to the mandatory childhood immunization schedule; and instead, turn over that responsibility to one and a group of their own, a non-accountable bureaucrat, the state Director of Public Health and a Committee 3,000 miles away of vaccine promoters who have yet to reject an application for adding a new vaccine to the schedule, and numerous members of which are personally and professionally conflicted for accepting research and professional funding and career opportunities from the same vaccine manufactures that are suppose to be regulating. Their behavior and actions have become subject to Congressional investigation and review.

AB 16 as introduced would have added Merck's HPV vaccine to the mandatory schedule. After extensive public hearing and debate in the Assembly Health Committee, it was clear that there was little support to approve the bill and the author refused to even let the bill come up for a vote. This was the second new vaccine that has been rejected by the Legislature in the past five years. I guess enough was enough in the minds of the vaccine manufacturers and their followers. The bill was subsequently gutted and amended the bill to include the provisions before you today.

Keep in mind, that today in California children receive up to 30 doses of vaccines by the age of 6 years old, most of which are administered starting moments after birth through the first two years of life when healthy brain development is most important. If the provisions of AB 16 had been in effect during this current decade, the number of doses of vaccines our children would have been subjected to would have increased to 40 doses. Throughout the country,including right here at the M.I.N.D. Institute,dozens of research projects are currently underway examining the connection between the immune system, vaccines, and autism.

And lastly, be aware that there are over 300 new vaccines currently in development and in the pipeline, including vaccines for such things as nicotine addiction, diarrhea, mononucleosis, cocaine, mehamphetamine, and stomach ulcers. These vaccines, as well as vaccines currently in use today contain such potent toxic and poisonous agents as mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, aborted fetal tissue, MSG, live viruses, and killed bacteria. Mr. Chairman and Members, the system we have in place today has served us well for nearly three decades. You and your constituents and future members of the legislature and their constituents have a real say in the very serious issue of what new vaccines are added to MANDATORY childhood immunization schedule. There is sunshine in the current process, this bill takes away the sunshine away and replaces it with a wink and a nod by unaccountable bureaucrats and members of a Committee that have not seen a vaccine they can say no to.

On behalf of the children and their families of today, and the children yet to be born, please reject this horrific proposal. Keep this process in the hands of the people's representatives, do not hand over the future of our children's very health to those who would profit both personally and professionally by approving this bill. Please vote no. Thank you.

Click here to read the full text of the bill.