Thomas Maugh Can't Read (or just doesn't wanna)

Wanna know how the media tries to trick ya into believing that vaccines don't cause autism? Watch closely.

Today in the LA Times, biased health reporter Thomas Maugh wrote that a new research study had been published that showed that Delaying Childhood Vaccinations Does Not Improve Children's Health. Take a moment and read it... it is quite convincing.

Booster Shots
Oddities, musings and news from the health world

Delaying childhood vaccinations does not improve children's health, study finds
May 24, 2010 | 12:11 pm

Now that the thimerosal-autism link has been thoroughly discredited, some autism advocates argue that neurodevelopmental problems are caused by overloading children's immune systems with too many vaccines too early in life. As a result, a growing number of parents are asking pediatricians to use alternative vaccination schedules that spread out the shots, even though there is no evidence to suggest that the practice may be helpful. In fact, common sense suggests that it is more likely to be harmful because the highest incidence of infection and mortality from pertussis, for example, occurs in the first six months of life. Failure to vaccinate also exposes other children in the community to infectious diseases that they might otherwise avoid.

Researchers cannot ethically conduct a clinical trial of delayed vaccinations because of the potential risks to the children involved. In an effort to circumvent this problem, pediatric infectious disease specialists Dr. Michael J. Smith and Dr. Charles R. Woods, both of the University of Louisville School of Medicine, analyzed data on 1,047 children enrolled in a previous study designed to determine whether thimerosal produced an autism risk. The children were born between 1993 and 1997, vaccinated by their parents on a schedule of the parents' choosing, and then subjected to a series of 42 neuropsychological tests between the ages of 7 and 10.

Just under half of the children (491 or 47%) received their vaccines on a timely basis, within 30 days of schedule. An additional 235 (23%) received all vaccinations, but not on schedule, and the remaining children received some but not all vaccines. On-time vaccination was most likely to occur among households in which the mother was highly educated and in which household income was higher.

The Louisville duo reported Monday in the journal Pediatrics that delayed vaccinations did not improve outcomes. In fact, outcomes in this group might have been worse. The researchers found that children vaccinated on time performed higher on 15 of the 42 tests than those who were not vaccinated on time. The latter group did not perform higher on any test. The researchers did not offer a potential explanation for this finding, but it may be linked to the higher household incomes.

Current vaccination schedules call for even more shots, so the results are not directly translatable, the authors conceded. But even with the added shots on the new schedule, children are actually exposed to lower doses of antigens because of improvements in the vaccines, they said, so the safety should remain the same.

"This study provides the strongest clinical outcomes evidence to date that on-time receipt of vaccines during infancy has no adverse effect on neurodevelopmental outcomes 7 to 10 years later," the authors wrote. "These results offer reassuring information that physicians and public health officials may use to communicate with parents who are concerned that children receive too many vaccines too soon."

The study was funded internally at the university. Woods has received honoraria from pharmaceutical companies for speeches and has received research funding from them for other projects.

-- Thomas H. Maugh II

He reviewed (badly) a study that reported that a sample of children who were both vaccinated according to the CDC schedule, and their peers who were unvaccinated or vaccinated selectively, and found that there was no difference in neuropsychological outcomes. The study, according to the authors, was needed in part because:

"as the visible threats of vaccine-preventable diseases have decreased, parental concerns about vaccine safety have increased. Most recently, these concerns have focused on the now debunked links between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine as well as concerns about the ethyl mercury–
containing preservative thimerosal..."

Well no, the thimerosal link has not been debunked, but lets skip that for now and note that parents greatest vaccine concern these days is autism. So that suggests that this study will address that concern, right?

Thomas Maugh certainly sees it that way. He wrote that the study, "analyzed data on 1,047 children enrolled in a previous study designed to determine whether thimerosal produced an autism risk."

Well GREAT! This looks like one of those studies that I personally have been begging Main Stream Medicine to do! Except that it actually isn't, it doesn't do what Maugh is telling you it does, and it looks to be just another PR stunt.

Maugh might see this too, if he read the whole study carefully. Curiously, the word "autism" only appears twice in the paper. Once in the intro, where I quoted above, and once a full nine pages in, tucked in the last paragraph before the conclusion that curiously reads:

Finally, our analyses were limited to publicly available data from the original study. Future VSD studies without this restriction would be able to assess a wider range of outcomes. These include putative vaccine adverse effects such as neurodevelopmental delay, autism, and autoimmune disorders.

What's that? Neurodevelopmental delay, autism and autoimmune disorders weren't measured? I am confused. I thought that this study was supposed to allay my fears about those things too?

You see this study is not really a new, good study, it is just a rehash of an old, bad study that the New England Journal of Medicine published to make it look like vaccines didn't cause autism. In the fall of 2007, they published a study called, "Early thimerosal exposure and neuropsychological outcomes at 7 to 10 years.", which reported that getting more thimerosal in vaccines didn't cause adverse neuropsych outcomes 7 to 10 years later. (except that if you read the whole study you find that it did cause verbal tics and speech delay). But here is where the sleight of hand takes place... pay close attention.

The abstract of that first study contains this very important note (that none of the media seemed to see):

"(We did not assess autism-spectrum disorders.)"

That's right readers... NONE of these wonderful, fab, illuminating, reassuring studies have anything to do with autism! Autism was part of the EXCLUSION criteria for the first study, therefore it was also not measured in the second study. No children in these two studies had autism. If you had autism, you were not allowed in these studies! (* see note regarding these last two sentences)

NOT AUTISM STUDIES!

(wanted to make sure I got my point across)

But you wouldn't know that from reading Maugh or from the Pediatrics study... you would have to have read the abstract in the New England Journal of Medicine yourself (not the press on it, as that was left out of the media), know that it was not an autism study, to know that this Pediatrics study is not an autism study, to know that Thomas Maugh has no idea what he is talking about. He is either incompetent to report on health research or he is purposefully lying to the public when he claims that this is based on a "previous study designed to determine whether thimerosal produced an autism risk".

You might try to point that out to him, but I have found that he is not really open to discussing the problems in his writing.

So that is how they do it folks... they do a vaccine study, not on autism, but something autism sounding and phrase it so the reader assumes that autism is included, don't mention that autism is not measured in the press release, let journalists print that it actually DOES study autism, then base more studies on that initial study that never mention that autism is not even on the menu, and viola! The public hears lots of stories about how vaccines don't cause autism.

But that one small sentence "(We did not assess autism-spectrum disorders.)" is like the pea under the mattresses for the autism mom princess. It pokes at us and keeps us awake all night, but few others will ever even notice it is there.


* Update:
While I was out of town this week an interesting conversation has taken place in the comments section on this last claim of mine that autism was in the exclusion criteria. I think that I may have made an assumption here. As you can see, it is not explicitly stated that those with autism were excluded from the study. I think I made that leap when reading that autism was not measured.

But it brought up more interesting questions about potential shenanigans in the sampling. To reasoning, this study should have NO ONE with and ASD diagnosis in the sample (as it is not measured) or should have a representative sample of ASD (to the rate in the gen pop of the birth cohort) as would a true random sample.

But neither is stated and as the discussion notes, children were dropped from the study with no explanation of why.

I would like to know the answer to a simple question... how many children with an ASD diagnosis are in this sample?

Mind you, even if there was a representative sample of kids with ASD in it (which I will shocked if there are) it is still not an autism study, so comments sentence "Autism was part of the EXCLUSION criteria for the first study... No children in these two studies had autism. If you had autism, you were not allowed in these studies!" would need to be dropped from this article to make it accurate.

Read the discussion below and thanks to those who held this exchange in my absence.

ANOTHER NOTE:

Another potential problems is the cessation of vaccination following autistic regression.

If you use the sample of my two sons, you would get results that the fewer vaccines one has, the higher the chance of having autism. Because when Chandler regressed after 18 months and 21 doses of vaccines, we stopped vaccinating him. While his older brother received more shots because:

1. He was older and was on the recommended schedule for twice the time his little brother was and
2. We allowed him to have two additional shots after his brother's regression (but he is now done).

So any study would need to take into account vaccination stoppage following regression, which is probably now the norm.

Which is why I think that only a fully vaccinated, completely unvaccinated study would really give us true insight into autism risk according to vaccine intake.

Neurotoxic Aluminum Adjuvants, Gulf War Syndrome, ALS, and Alzheimers

Aluminum hydroxide injections lead to motor deficits and motor neuron degeneration

Christopher A. Shaw and Michael S. Petrikc

Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Experimental Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

J Inorg Biochem. 2009 November ; 103(11): 1555. doi:10.1016/j.jinorgbio.2009.05.019.

Abstract
Gulf War Syndrome is a multi-system disorder afflicting many veterans of Western armies in the 1990–1991 Gulf War. A number of those afflicted may show neurological deficits including various cognitive dysfunctions and motor neuron disease, the latter expression virtually indistinguishable from classical amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) except for the age of onset. This ALS “cluster” represents the second such ALS cluster described in the literature to date. Possible causes of GWS include several of the adjuvants in the anthrax vaccine and others. The most likely culprit appears to be aluminum hydroxide. In an initial series of experiments, we examined the potential toxicity of aluminum hydroxide in male, outbred CD-1 mice injected subcutaneously in two equivalent-to human doses. After sacrifice, spinal cord and motor cortex samples were examined by immunohistochemistry. Aluminum-treated mice showed significantly increased apoptosis of motor neurons and increases in reactive astrocytes and microglial proliferation within the spinal cord and cortex. Morin stain detected the presence of aluminum in the cytoplasm of motor neurons with some neurons also testing positive for the presence of hyper-phosphorylated tau protein, a pathological hallmark of various neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. A second series of experiments was conducted on mice injected with six doses of aluminum hydroxide. Behavioural analyses in these mice revealed significant impairments in a number of motor functions as well as diminished spatial memory capacity. The demonstrated neurotoxicity of aluminum hydroxide and its relative ubiquity as an adjuvant suggest that greater scrutiny by the scientific community is warranted.

Keywords: Aluminum hydroxide; Adjuvant; Neurotoxicity; Gulf War Syndrome; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Full paper here

A Call to Suspend Contaminated Rotavirus Vaccines

Coalition for Vaccine Safety (CVS) Calls on FDA Commissioner to Immediately Suspend All Contaminated Rotavirus Vaccines


FDA Expert Advisory Panel Fails to Follow Safety First Agenda for Childhood Vaccines Containing DNA from Pig Viruses

WASHINGTON, May 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened a panel of experts to review recent findings that rotavirus vaccines given to infants in the U.S., Rotateq, produced by Merck Pharmaceuticals and Rotarix produced by GlaxoSmithKline, are contaminated with DNA from pig viruses PCV1 and PCV2. On March 22nd the FDA Commissioner asked doctors to suspend use of the Rotarix vaccine due to the contamination. Upon additional testing, Rotateq was also found to be contaminated.

At the meeting, the experts acknowledged that the PCV2 virus is known to cause a wasting disease in pigs, similar in type to the AIDS virus in humans. While acknowledging that the entire short and long term risks from the porcine circoviruses PCV1 and PCV2 are as yet unknown, the advisory panel decided that 'the benefits of the vaccine trump its risks.' By contrast, health authorities in Hong Kong ordered an immediate recall of Merck Rotateq despite the U.S. panel's recommendation to keep the vaccine on the market.

Shocked at the advisory panel's recommendations for the health and safety of American children, the Coalition for Vaccine Safety (CVS) calls on FDA Commissioner Hamburg to re-assess the panel's hastily-considered risk-benefit analysis and suspend the use of both rotavirus vaccines. Steering Committee member Mary Holland said, "How can you say the benefits outweigh the risks when you don't know what the risks are?" A safety first agenda demands suspension of the vaccines immediately while the short and long term risks are studied, especially since rotavirus is a relatively benign and treatable gastrointestinal disease that is rarely fatal in the United States.

The risks from PCV1 and PCV2 are real and potentially testable by analyzing lymphoid tissues, which is where the human immunodeficiency virus hides during its latency period. Immediate independent analysis should be done on children and primates who have received these vaccines before another child receives the rotavirus vaccine. According to CVS member Lyn Redwood, RN, "It is impossible for parents to give free and informed consent to a vaccine containing pig virus DNA when their risks are unknown. To continue to administer these vaccines given the impossibility of informed consent is unethical."

The FDA expert panel's failure to urge suspension of contaminated vaccines underscores the need for immediate Congressional hearings on vaccine safety. The apparent conflicts of interest in the U.S. vaccine program are illustrated by the fact that the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) until January 2009, Dr. Julie Gerberding, is now the President of Merck Vaccines. In 2007, under her stewardship, 97% of CDC outside experts failed to complete their conflict of interest disclosure forms as required by law. The lack of direct corporate accountability for vaccine products, codified by the 1986 Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act, further complicates conflicts of interests in the national vaccine program.

CVS is an alliance of organizations dedicated to vaccine safety representing over 75,000 families. In recent letters to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of House and Senate Committees charged with oversight of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Coalition called for hearings to investigate HHS, CDC and other government agencies. These federal agencies have failed to comply with the terms of the 1986 Vaccine Injury Compensation Act (VICA) by not providing critical vaccine safety science.

For more information on vaccine safety, visit www.coalitionforvaccinesafety.org.

Contact:

Lyn Redwood, RN (404) 932-1786

Mary Holland, Esq. (917) 743-3868

coalitionforvaccinesafety@gmail.com

Reason for Hope: Docs Telling Sales Reps to Take a Hike

A little ray of light for my dream of wise physicians will take back their profession at Pharmalot.

Doctors to Sales Reps: Take a Hike

Turns out Autism IS associated with GI disorders

... who knew?

And oddest thing of all, this was "discovered" by Autism Speaks and The Autism Treatment Network, which is Kennedy Krieger, which is Johns Hopkins, not exactly friendly factions to biomed really.

So you think that they will pick up the phone and call ARI and apologize for dissing them for a decade or so, and then say sorry to the children who have been suffering while they conferenced and committied and scoffed and vacationed?

http://www.abstracts2view.com/pas/view.php?nu=PAS10L1_1926&terms

[2320.7] GI Symptoms in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD): An Autism Treatment Network Study

Kent Williams, George J. Fuchs, Glenn Furuta, Margaret Marcon, Daniel L. Coury, Autism Treatment Network GI Committee. Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AK; University of Colorado at Denver, Denver, CO; Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada; Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of GI symptoms in children and adolescents with ASD is uncertain, with studies reporting conflicting results.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of GI symptoms as reported by parents in a large ASD registry, and to identify factors associated with GI symptoms in children with ASD.

DESIGN/METHODS: Autism Treatment Network Registry enrolled 1420 children, age 2-18 years, with an ADOS-confirmed ASD diagnosis (autism, Asperger disorder, or PDD-NOS) at 15 sites in the US and Canada. Parents completed a GI symptom inventory tailored to the needs of nonverbal children, as well as Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), Child Sleep Health Questionnaire (CSHQ) and Pediatric Quality of Life (PedsQL) at time of enrollment.

RESULTS: GI symptom data were available for 1185 children. Overall 45% of children were reported to have GI symptoms at time of enrollment. Of GI complaints that occurred within the 3 months prior to enrollment, abdominal pain was most common (59%) followed by constipation (51%), diarrhea (43%), other (40%), nausea (31%) and bloating (26%). Reports of GI symptoms increased with age, ranging from 39% in those under 5 years to 51% in those 7 years and older (p<0.0001). Children ages 1 to 5 years with GI symptoms had higher CBCL t-scores for total problems and for the emotionally reactive, anxious/depressed, somatic complaints, sleep problems, internalizing problems, affective problems, and anxiety problems subscales, all p<0.05. Children ages 6 to 18 years with GI symptoms had higher CBCL t-scores for total problems and for all subscales (p<0.01). Sleep problems occurred more frequently in children with than those without GI symptoms (70% versus 30%, p<0.0001). Children with GI symptoms had lower PedsQL scores (overall score and all five subscales, p<0.01) compared to children without GI problems. Presence of GI problems did not differ by gender, ASD subtype, race, or IQ. CONCLUSIONS: Parents of children with ASD report a high prevalence of GI symptoms in their children. This prevalence increases with age. GI complaints are significantly associated with behavioral abnormalities in all age groups. GI symptoms are also significantly associated with sleep disturbances and decreased health-related quality of life. Further definition is needed on the role and potential impact of treatment of GI disorders on behavior, sleep disturbance, and quality of life in children with ASD.

And don't forget to tune into NBC to see Dr. Nancy apologize and BBC America to see the British Medical Establishment express their profound regret to Wakefield et. al and the families they have sabotaged as their children languished in GI distress that they claimed didn't exist.

Brian Deer must feel really awful right now. I can't imagine his guilt.

Offit Offensive Has Failed, Vaccine-Autism War Continues, Child Vaccine Refusals Increase in U.S.

I was going to write something, but it turns out Harold already wrote it. So go read it there.

AAP, CDC, HHS, Public Health... what is your plan? Is this really it? You really gonna ride this train right of the side of the cliff?

War, Death, Murder and Suicide

Last night I returned home, planning on watching Frontline's "The Vaccine War", which we already knew would be a hit piece on parents, as we saw the website that only offered the perspective of dismissive doctors, heard that they had cut famous UCLA pediatrician Jay Gordon out of the show (even though he was interviewed sitting next to Jenny McCarthy), and we had seen the preview which basically told vaccine resistant mothers they were bad citizens and condemning other children to death by vaccine preventable illness.

But I never got to watch the show.

Because as soon as I came in the door, the phone rang. It was a reporter from the Portland Press Harold who had interviewed me after Ashley's death looking for comment on a story. Another murder suicide of someone with autism by their parent. But this time it was just a few towns away from me.

GRAY - A father shot and killed his autistic son Tuesday at their home on Yarmouth Road before turning the rifle on himself, Maine State Police said.

Cumberland County sheriff's deputies found the bodies of Daniel McLatchie, 44, and his son, Benjamin McLatchie, 22, in the family's driveway at 227 Yarmouth Road around 2:30 p.m.

The driveway, which is several hundred feet long, slopes down from Yarmouth Road -- part of Route 115 -- before ending at a white, two-story, Cape-style home surrounded by woods.

State police Sgt. Chris Harriman said the sheriff's deputies responded to a 911 call. He did not say who made the call.

He said it appeared that Daniel McLatchie was upset about what would happen to his autistic son after he and his wife died. He was a stay-at-home father, Harriman said...

It was a punch in the gut.

I didn't know the family. It is tempting to speculate on what exactly was going on and what drove him to it, but that wouldn't be fair. It is fair to assume that he was despondent and lost all hope. It is horrible, tragic, evil, a total disaster... there aren't words strong enough for how bad it is that this happened, and keeps happening. I wish I could be more eloquent, but honestly I am at a loss. It is just grievous.

And this is the third premature death of someone with autism that we have heard about during autism month, following the drownings of two wandering children. (correction, this is the fifth premature death this month). But is PBS running documentaries on how many of our children are dying from seizures and from drowning or from being abused by caregivers or shot by police or even murdered by the people who might even love them most? Are there stories on how children with autism cannot get life insurance until they turn ten because the insurance companies know damn well how likely our kids are to die young and don't want to pay out that kind of cash? No. Frontline is worried that children might get chicken pox and measles again.

But of course Frontline thinks that science has spoken and vaccines are good and never bad, and that the vaccine/autism connection belief is the fault of the internet and thinks that vaccine preventable illness is the greater risk and that it is the duty of every parent to enlist their child in the war on it, sacrificing them as needed. And of course they do, because:

The Vaccine War is a FRONTLINE co-production with the Palfreman Film Group. Major funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a major grant-making private foundation based in Chicago that has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978.


Jamie S. Gorelick

John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation - director
Central Intelligence Agency National Security Advisory Panel - member
Council on Foreign Relations - member
Fannie Mae - vice chair
Sallie Mae - lobbyist

http://www.muckety.com/Jamie-S-Gorelick/2302.muckety

Robert L Gallucci

John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation - president
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service - dean
Intelligence and National Security Alliance - director
Council on Foreign Relations - member

http://www.muckety.com/Robert-L-Gallucci/152184.muckety

Donald R. Hopkins

John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation - director
CDC Foundation - board member

http://www.muckety.com/Donald-R-Hopkins/30160.muckety

John M Deutch

Central Intelligence Agency - director
Citibank, N.A. - director
U.S. Department of Defense - deputy secretary

http://www.muckety.com/John-M-Deutch/4562.muckety

Schlumberger Limited

John M Deutch - director
Jamie S. Gorelick - director

Ruth J Katz

CDC Foundation - honorary board member
George Washington University School of Public Health - dean

http://www.muckety.com/Ruth-J-Katz/86637.muckety

J. Veronica Biggins

CDC Foundation - honorary board member
Kaiser Permanente - director

David Satcher

CDC Foundation - board member
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - director
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation - trustee
Johnson & Johnson - director

As was pointed out by an autism dad posting on The Age of Autism.

And another astute observation posted by another dad of a vaccine injured child points out that:

If anyone thinks PBS can be fair with their underwriters as potential litigates in court...

So yes... PBS is right about one thing. People believe that vaccines cause autism because they can go on to the internet, find that all of the supposedly objective research clearing vaccines of widespread damage is bought and paid for by people with very special interests, financial and otherwise, in seeing the vaccine program flourish. They can, like I did, go to the government's own research database and find that the vaccines their child got just before they regressed have never even been studied to see if they are associated with autism. No Hep B vax autism studies. No DTaP vax autism studies. No Pnumo vax autism studies. No Polio vax autism studies. No HIB vax autism studies. And no studies to see if giving a child Hep B, DTaP, Pnumo, Polio and HIB simultaneously will increase their chance of autism. Not even any studies comparing fully vaccinated children to unvaccinated children to see who has more autism.

And they can go the web site of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, look at the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program's table of recognized injuries and see that the vaccine induced "encephalopathy" that is caused by DTaP and MMR is just an alternate description of a child with autism:

(1) Decreased or absent response to environment (responds, if at all, only to loud voice or painful stimuli);
(2) Decreased or absent eye contact (does not fix gaze upon family members or other individuals); or
(3) Inconsistent or absent responses to external stimuli (does not recognize familiar people or things).

And they see the government pay Hannah Poling, and Baily Banks and Madison Hiatt for their vaccine induced autism, while claiming that they are not paying them for vaccine induced autism.

And they can watch Julie Gerberding claim that vaccines both do and do not cause autism, then leave her job as CDC chief to become the head of vaccines for Merck.

And they can see that "autism" can be so hard it can even lead a parent to spiral down so low that they would do the ultimate evil to a child they love. (And then condemn them self to the ultimate judgment).

And they see pleadings of the pharma paid media to vaccinate and their indifference to what happens after vaccination. And they can see that the main stream media is not even reporting the truly important and dramatic parts of this story.

For example, MSNBC is very concerned with the two children that have died following pertussis infection this year, but has not commented on the 11 who died following pertussis containing vaccines this year, and no big stories on how our children are dying early and demanding actual progress on autism be made.

Yep... it is clearly the internet's fault. Not the MSM for their embarrassingly transparent bias and constantly being caught withholding vital information, not CDC's for telling stupid lies about vaccine injury, not the AAP's for pushing inadequately tested vaccines in untested combinations on untested populations, Not public heath's for yawning at the autism epidemic while spending billions and screaming "EMERGENCY!" over a mild flu, not mainstream medicine's for not even researching regressive autism or GI problems or any of the treatments that make our childrens' lives better, not Pharm'a fault for constantly getting caught knowingly poisoning people while trying to cover their tracks and kneecap docs who point it out and not FDA's fault for approving vaccines when makers openly admit that they don't even know how some of them work.

It is the internet's fault for letting you find out about it all. BAD INTERNET! If only there was a way to prevent parents from discovering all the immoral, unethical and illegal activities of the MSM, HHS, CDC, FDA, Pharma, AAP and Public Health. Clearly we need to turn off the internet for the sake of the children.

And the shocking thing is that MSM and PBS and MSNBC and AAP and CDC and VCIP and Public Health and all the usual suspects who are bemoaning the falling vaccine uptake rate seem to see no correlation between it, and their own "parents are stupid and we don't give a shit about vaccine injury or the struggle of autism families or the suffering and dying children (and young adults) with autism enough to actually do anything that would actually put us out in any little way" attitude.

Let's see... I can swallow the clearly BS story that vaccines are in no way associated with autism and risk a vaccine injury where I will spend my life trying to keep my child alive, fight with the school system to get him educated, fight with doctors and insurance companies to meet his medical needs, not sleep for the next thirty years, become alienated from family and friends, cease participating in society, be told that I am a crazy person for thinking vaccines cause my child's autism, be called a baby killer for warning others about my child's vaccine injury, cry every day while wiping poop off of every surface of my home and possibly attend my child's funeral when he elopes and drowns in elementary school...

OR

I can feed my child lots of organic veggies and vitamin D, educate myself on how to spot disease early and treat it effectively in my child.

Clearly parents who choose the later are deluded and dangerous!

Risk of dying from polio at the height of the polio epidemic - 1 in 30,000.
Risk of having a child with autism today - at least 1 in 100, probably higher.

I am sad and disgusted and angry and horrified.

And I will ask the question again... the same one I have been asking for years...

What is your plan? CDC, AAP, MSM and the rest of "The Empire"... The more bullshit you pump out, the faster the trust levels of the public fall, the more people come to believe that vaccines cause autism and widespread damage. And vaccine rates continue to fall and vaccine preventable illness are coming back, but they are not causing the mass death that you try to keep scaring people into believing will happen if they don't adhere to the CDC recommendations, so you are looking a bit foolish there too. How long are you going to keep this facade up? Till autism is 1 in 20, hundreds of our kids are dying per year and half the population decides to quit vaccinating all together? Have you marked out the point at which you will abandon this garbage and issue a mia culpa?

How long will you say, "Let them eat cake?"


Addendum: Dr. Jay Gordon posted the following comment on Facebook:

I attempted to post on PBS' website and they refused my post.

"PBS documentary omitted every single word of the two hour interview they did with me and their interviews with Dr. Robert Sears and all other doctors who supported the idea of questioning the current vaccine schedule and supporting parents who do so. Read my response."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-gordon/pbs-frontline-show-about_b_554691.html
Jay N. Gordon, MD,
FAAPAssistant Professor of Pediatrics, UCLA Medical School
Former Senior Fellow in Pediatric Nutrition, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute

Update 4/30/10

How long will they say, "Let them eat cake"? Apparently for a long time to come.

HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius, who openly admits that she asks the media for favorable coverage on the autism debate (did she ask PBS to make this propaganda piece?) has appointed new members to the IACC, the government group that coordinates research into the causes and treatments of autism. All of them are people who have a long history of not making any progress in making progress for our kids, drugging them, looking for genetic causes that never materialize; except for one, who believes that autism is a natural variation, and that causes and treatments should not be researched, nor 'cures' given... Appointed to THE government committee tasked with finding a cure for autism.

This is the biggest middle finger yet that the Obama administration has given to our community. This may be the biggest that any administration has given us.

Clearly we are on our own.

Words, Beautiful Words

Have not updated on Chandler's progress in a long time and it is long overdue.

So recently we started doing hard tank hyperbaric oxygen therapy with Harold Grams and we have been seeing some pretty big wows.

Chandler's progress had been really flat since last summer, kind of disheartening after all the gains he had made in previous years, and so we decided to give it a shot. We had tried soft tank HBOT a few years back, thought we saw some small gains, but it was the same month he had a huge lead exposure (did you know dirt is yummy) so if it was helping him, it may have been canceled out.

This has been quite a different experience. After the forth session, we started to see some really cool language. More words, more flowing language, less scripting, more jokes, more engagement... just more Chandler.

The first fun little wow happened on the way home. If we are out and he wants to go home, he says one of two things, "Mommy, do you want to go home now?" or "Go to 34 Maple Street?" He has done that for years. Imagine my happiness to hear, "Mom, how long until we get to Brunswick?" I didn't even know that he knew we lived in Brunswick!

Two days later when I went to pick him up from school, I get an email in the middle of the morning from his teacher at school. She has never emailed me in the middle of the day to tell me things, much less after school:

Ginger,

Something amazing happened with Chandler this morning. We were having morning meeting and the greeting was Buenos Dias. We usually just say good morning or hello to him. I don’t remember if we assumed another language would confuse him or if he was not responding. That’s what we have been doing all year. Anyway this morning when we came to Chandler he very appropriately said "Buenos Dias Holly" before Amy could even greet him. We were all so shocked, it was the coolest thing. James said, “He’s becoming more normal.” It was precious! He had also asked me earlier this morning, “Mrs. Williams, how do you spell Mrs. Williams? Thought you would want to know.

Jane

Gotta love James! When mom's crow about their children making big gains with biomedical intervention, sometimes they are written off as seeing what they want to see, teachers might just want to have high hopes for the child, but second grade boys are immune to treatment bias, especially when they don't know there is any treatment going on!

That afternoon his aid met me in the lobby of the school for the hand off and with tears in her eyes she gushed about Chandler's day.

"In music class he was perfect, he did everything he was instructed to do, was completely attentive and I didn't even have to repeat an instruction for him!" I've got to look up this... what is it called... hyperbaric?

We just met with his school team and everyone was telling stories about his new skills. They decided they wanted to hold off making plans for him for the summer and fall until the end of the year to see how far he goes with this.

It has only been upward from there. And have not seen any significant down side. He was a little hyperactive for the first two days, but that went away and it has been all good since. His great in the tank and the pressure has never bothered him.

We have had to take a bunch of breaks due to illness and broken cars and unfaxed prescriptions and life, but have started up again this week and hope to do another six sessions in a row and will see what happens. It is a thrill to see him making gains again.

Amazing that just giving the brain more oxygen can do this kind of healing. I will keep ya posted on how this goes.

I Will Be On Autism One Radio Today

Correction! It will be on Voice America - http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vportal.aspx

At noon today Louise Habakus and I will be interviewed by Terri Arranga, about the upcoming American Rally for Personal Rights.

Combined Diphtheria and Tetanus Increase Asthma Risk - GI Link

Early-Life Infections, Immunizations Alter Childhood Asthma Risk
From Reuters Health Information CME
http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/719682

News Author: Megan Brooks
CME Author: Laurie Barclay, MD
CME Released: 04/02/2010; Valid for credit through 04/02/2011

April 2, 2010 — Recurrent bouts of gastroenteritis in the first two years of life increase the risk of asthma by age 6 years, a study in allergy-prone children suggests.

Combined diphtheria and tetanus (DT) immunization in the first year of life also increased the risk of childhood asthma in the prospective study.

"There are a range of possible explanations for the finding of an association between CDT in the first year and asthma," lead author Dr. Jennifer A. Thomson from the University of Melbourne, Australia told Reuters Health by email.

"CDT is only used for those children who meet specific indications such as a reaction to triple antigen (DTP)," she said. "The requirement for combined DT may reflect (or) be a marker for those children with delayed or altered development of their immune systems and consequent inherent allergic tendency."

The role of early childhood infections and immunizations in the development of allergic diseases "remains controversial," Dr. Thomson and colleagues noted in a March 23rd online paper in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.

To investigate associations between gastroenteritis, otitis media, and lower respiratory tract infections before age 2, immunizations, and asthma, the researchers enrolled 620 infants who had first-degree relatives with allergies. The children all belonged to the Melbourne Atopy Cohort Study. By age 6, 488 (79%) were still in the study.

Each of the three types of infection was associated with a modest increase in risk of asthma by age 6, the investigators report. The average increased risk per infection episode ranged from 7% to 58%. The relative risks (RR) with gastroenteritis, otitis media, and lower respiratory tract infection (including bronchitis) were 1.07, 1.30, and 1.58, respectively.

Children with at least three bouts of gastroenteritis in the first two years of life had a greater than twofold increased relative risk of having asthma by age 6 (crude RR, 2.36; adjusted RR, 2.03).

"Children with recurrent gastroenteritis in infancy/early childhood may be at increased risk of asthma in later childhood and therefore a higher level of clinical suspicion and monitoring for asthma is appropriate," Dr. Thomson told Reuters Health.

By age 1, approximately 98% of the children had received at least one immunization with diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis (DTP) and 99% received at least one Sabin oral polio immunization. Less than 5% received at least one combined DT immunization in each of the first or second years.

According to the researchers, combined DT immunization in the first year yielded crude and adjusted relative risks of asthma at age 6 years of 1.76 and 1.88, respectively.

Dr. Thomson said she was not aware of other studies that reported an association between combined DT vaccination and asthma. She emphasized, however, that the study does not suggest a "causal link." Rather, it shows a statistical association "for which a range of explanations (some noted above) may apply."

"While chance is an unlikely explanation for the finding, it can not be eliminated completely; nor can unknown or recognized confounders for which we lacked data be definitively excluded," Dr. Thomson said.

Importantly, she added, the association between combined DT and the later development of asthma "should not deter parents from immunizing their children when weighted against the benefits."

The study also found that oral polio immunization in the second year of life was associated with a decreased risk of asthma at 6 years (crude RR, 0.60; adjusted RR, 0.63).

"Early childhood immunizations that are administered orally such as Sabin and/or more recently introduced immunizations such as the rotavirus vaccine may offer benefit in preventing the development of childhood asthma and other allergic diseases," Dr. Thomson said.

Pediatr Allergy Immunol. Published online March 23, 2010. Abstract
Reuters Health Information 2010. © 2010 Reuters Ltd.

Clinical Context
The impact of early childhood infections and immunization on subsequently developing allergic diseases is still unclear. Results have been inconsistent from epidemiologic studies assessing immunization and allergic disease, with different findings based on which vaccines were given and in which settings.

One theory suggests that immunization may contribute to the development of allergic diseases by preventing natural infection, by providing a different microbial exposure, or by affecting the natural microbial flora. On the other hand, an alternate theory proposes that by providing some microbial exposure, immunization may help prevent the development of allergic disease.

Study Highlights
• This prospective study examined the association between early childhood infections and immunization and the development of allergic disease, particularly asthma, in a high-risk cohort of allergy-prone children from birth to age 6 years.
• The study cohort consisted of 620 infants who had first-degree relatives with allergic diseases and who were recruited into the Melbourne Atopy Cohort Study.
• A questionnaire administered by an interviewer gathered data on risk factors and outcomes, which were based on parental report and/or clinician diagnosis.
• Potential risk factors were gastroenteritis; otitis media; lower respiratory tract infections; and other early childhood infections, as well as immunizations from birth to age 2 years.
• Outcomes were current asthma, allergic rhinitis, and eczema reported at age 6 years.
• RR and confounding were determined with univariate and multivariate regression analysis.
• Study retention was 79% of the original cohort at 6 years.
• All of the early childhood infections studied, including otitis media and lower respiratory tract infections, were associated with an increased risk for asthma at age 6 years, but the most consistent increased risk was with multiple episodes of gastroenteritis.
• Participants with at least 3 episodes of gastroenteritis were at increased risk for the development of asthma at age 6 years (crude RR, 2.36; 95% CI, 1.41 - 3.95; adjusted RR, 2.03; 95% CI, 1.50 - 2.75).
• For scheduled immunizations, Sabin immunization in the second year was associated with a lower risk for asthma at age 6 years (crude RR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.37 - 0.98; adjusted RR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.39 - 1.02).
• Combined DT immunization in the first year was associated with a greater risk for asthma at age 6 years (RR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.11 - 2.78; adjusted RR, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.28 - 2.77).
• A similar pattern was not seen with combined DT immunization in the second year.
• The investigators concluded that recurrent gastroenteritis in early childhood is associated with a later risk for asthma, which could reflect a cause-and-effect relationship or exposure to common risk factors.
• They also noted that Sabin immunization in the second year is associated with a lower risk for asthma in later childhood.
• Although combined DT immunization in the first year may be a risk factor for asthma, the need for combined DT immunization could also be a marker of greater risk for asthma in later childhood.
• The investigators recommend that clinicians have a higher level of clinical suspicion and monitoring for asthma among those children with recurrent gastroenteritis.
• Limitations of this study include possible overestimation of risk for the general population of children, possible unknown confounders, limited statistical power, lack of data on perinatal risk factors or child care, reliance on parental or clinician reporting, and some loss to follow-up.
Clinical Implications
• In the prospective Melbourne Atopy Cohort Study, recurrent gastroenteritis in early childhood was associated with a later risk for asthma, which could reflect a cause-and-effect relationship or exposure to common risk factors.
• In this cohort, Sabin immunization in the second year was associated with a lower risk for asthma in later childhood. Although combined DT immunization in the first year may be a risk factor for asthma, the need for combined DT immunization could also be a marker of greater risk for asthma in later childhood.

Authors and Disclosures
As an organization accredited by the ACCME, Medscape, LLC, requires everyone who is in a position to control the content of an education activity to disclose all relevant financial relationships with any commercial interest. The ACCME defines "relevant financial relationships" as financial relationships in any amount, occurring within the past 12 months, including financial relationships of a spouse or life partner, that could create a conflict of interest.
Medscape, LLC, encourages Authors to identify investigational products or off-label uses of products regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, at first mention and where appropriate in the content.
Author(s)
Megan Brooks
Megan Brooks is a freelance writer for Reuters Health Information.

Disclosure: Megan Brooks has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
Editor(s)
Brande Nicole Martin
CME Clinical Editor, Medscape, LLC

Disclosure: Brande Nicole Martin has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
CME Author(s)
Laurie Barclay, MD
Freelance writer and reviewer, Medscape, LLC

Disclosure: Laurie Barclay, MD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

Good Friday and World Autism Awareness Day

Today is "World Autism Awareness Day", which you might think that I would like, except that, as I have pointed out previously, everyone is aware already. Almost everyone has it already.

So what many in my community are advocating is "World Autism ACTION Day". Now that we are all aware, it is time to do something, so I am going to offer you five things to do today to improve the lives of people with autism (and if you don't get them all done today, you have all of April as it is autism awareness month, so no excuses:

1. Contact your officials about the "Restraint and Seclusion Act". Children with autism are being abused and even killed, in their own schools. The GAO has now issued a report on it. The stories that are now coming out of the school systems are horrifying and disgusting and are like something out of a history book, but they are happening right now, today, in your state. I will not burden you with them in this piece. Suffice it to say, we now actually need laws to tell schools that they can't slap children across the face, they can't punch them, they can't lock them in a dark closet, they can't handcuff them to their desks, and they can't sit on them until they suffocate and die.

The National Autism Association has detailed instructions on what you can do. And contact John McCain, because the man has lost his mind and is opposing this measure.

2. Take one minute and vote for Generation Rescue to win $250,000 from Pepsi to give medical grants to children with autism. And then go there every day to vote again until this contest closes.



3. Since World Autism Awareness Action Day falls on Good Friday this year, I will post links to my series on "Autism in God's Economy". If you love or know someone with autism, I think that it is important that you consider the issues that arise from this series. It it in six parts, and they build on one another, so please take some time this week to read them all.

Christ said, "what you have done to the least of these, you have done unto Me". Those with autism are the 'least of these' in our modern society. So what does that mean for you?

Autism in God’s Economy: The Least of These
Autism in God’s Economy: Those with Autism
Autism in God’s Economy: Parents of Autistic Children
Autism in God’s Economy: Friends and Family
Autism in God’s Economy: Those in Power over Those with Autism
Autism in God’s Economy: For All of Us Who Have Failed in Our Duty

4. Act Locally! Your school, your church, your neighborhood, your street... if there is not a family dealing with autism in your world, I would be shocked. Life with autism is hard. Show up. Help them. Do it.

5. Finally, as you are in church today and on Sunday, pray for my son. Pray for his health and his safety and his soul and his functioning and his friendships and his support system and please, please pray for his wisdom. Pray that with whatever neurological or biological obstacle he faces, that Chandler will grow to be a wise man.

Revenues from Global Vaccine Market 27 Billion Dollars for 2009

Twenty Seven Billion Dollars.

But I am sure that Pharma would be happy to cut that in half to avoid over vaccinating. Right?

Well... probably not.

For only $1,861.00 you can buy this report and get in on the uber lucrative vaccine market.

Revenues from global vaccine market register UD$27 Billion
companiesandmarkets.com
2010-03-25 14:43:50 - Global Vaccine Market Forecast
to 2012 - a new market research report on companiesandmarkets.com

Vaccine has emerged as one of the most profitable business segments in the healthcare industry. The segment registered revenues of around US$ 27 Billion in 2009. The growth has been driven by the emergence of some new chronic diseases and increasing demand for seasonal flu vaccines. Besides, the future growth of the vaccine market is anticipated to be driven by launch of several new vaccines, increasing trend of routine immunization and increasing support from the governments of various countries.

Our new research report ´Global Vaccine Market Forecast to 2012´ says that the vaccine industry is anticipated to enjoy a double digit growth in future. In future, it is expected that growth in demand for adult vaccines will outpace the growth in demand for pediatric vaccines. At present, the adult vaccine segment is characterised by increasing demand in the section like influenza and Hib.

Our report has found that M&A activity in the vaccine segment is likely to occur at a rapid pace than before. We have seen the recent activities have been led by pharma majors like Pfizer, Novartis and others and these companies are looking to expand their reach in emerging markets

So, most of the mergers and acquisitions are likely to occur at regional level markets. Besides, the report also provides information on various industry trends and their impact on the growth of the industry, which will give a clear industry insight to our clients.

The report also provides extensive information and rational analysis on the global vaccine market as well as on the facts like increasing investments in research and development of new products. Thus, it provides valuable information to pharmaceutical & healthcare companies and investors looking to enter into this segment. Analysis and statistics regarding market size, growth, share, regulatory environment and trends in technology development have been thoroughly analyzed in the report to present a comprehensive overview of the market to clients.

Click for report details: www.companiesandmarkets.com/Summary-Market-Report/global-vaccine ..

Doctocracy: Paul Offit, Vaccine Millionaire, Wants Coerced Vaccination and Re-education Camps, I Mean, Vaccine Classes

“Offit suggests one way to raise vaccination rates is to make it harder for people not to get themselves or their children vaccinated. This could mean, for example, attending educational classes that teach the public what the safety profiles of different vaccines are, before they are allowed to opt out of vaccination. “You have to convince people that a choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice; it’s just a choice to take a different risk.” ”
- The Lancet

Vaccination is down. For Offit, that means a loss in future profits on his vaccine patents. The solution? Make people sit though vaccine propaganda lectures (complete with pictures of children with horrible rashes and in polio wards, I am sure) before they are ALLOWED not to vaccinate.

Because, you see, your body belongs to the government and you need their permission NOT to put mercury, aluminum, foreign DNA and viruses it in. After all, having a body, is like driving a car, you should have to take classes and pass an exam in order to use it... it is a privilege.

OH WAIT.... NO IT'S NOT.... YOUR BODY BELONGS TO YOU!!!!

A few months ago I heard a very accomplished physician, bemoaning the bias and pressure tactics at work in his own profession, refer to the public health power grab that is happening as a growing "Doctocracy". That immediately popped to mind when I read Offit's new ideas.

"Public Health" has gotten way out of hand. Doctors have always been accused of having a God complex, but few would actually go as far as suggesting that you legally need permission from them to exercise informed consent on whether or not you should take a pharmaceutical.

So if the health care bill passes, will they try to make full vaccination mandatory before you can access your health care coverage? Will only AAP member doctors be covered, and will AAP only allow docs that make their patients vaccinate according to the CDC schedule? Maryland already sent out letters to parents saying that they may be subject to imprisonment and child protective services intervention if they didn't vaccinate (and conveniently left out that Maryland is a philosophical exemption state and all they had to do what sign a form to be 'legal').

Now Offit has said, and Lancet has printed, that vaccines uptake should be coerced, so if this idea is accepted, what other methods of coercion will they come up with?

Say no to forced and coerced vaccination at the The American Rally for Personal Rights. Enough is enough.

The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9719, Pages 970 – 971, 20 March 2010

Experts concerned about vaccination backlash
Priya Shetty

Public health professionals are worried about the increasingly vocal anti-vaccination lobby in the USA and other western countries and their effect on immunisations globally. Priya Shetty reports.

Vaccination was one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. Its success might now be its undoing, however. Around the world, vaccination rates are dropping, and the unthinkable is happening: children are dying from childhood diseases like measles and pertussis.

This fall in immunisation has coincided with an increasingly vocal anti-vaccination movement. Public health now seems more at threat than ever by anti-vaccination messages, and the reluctance to vaccinate has been affecting rates of uptake for other vaccines such as that for influenza A H1N1. Health experts are now faced with the daunting challenge of fighting these groups.

Anti-vaccination groups have been around for as long as the practice of vaccination has. Arguably, health watchdogs and critics are a vital part of checks and balances on the medical industry. But scientists are starting to become increasingly concerned about the medical misinformation that some groups are spreading.

Organisations such as the US National Vaccine Information Centre (NVIC), the Coalition for SafeMinds, and Know Vaccines, either oppose universal vaccination (on the basis that “all children are different”) or emphasise the parents’ right to choose whether their children are vaccinated. In a statement on the website of the NVIC, one of the biggest groups in the USA, its co-founder Barbara Loe Fisher says: “If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today, there will be no limit on which individual freedoms the State can take away in the name of the greater good tomorrow.”

Many groups use as ammunition alleged links between vaccines and diseases such as autism, diabetes, or multiple sclerosis. “At the heart of the anti-vaccine movement is the notion that we are merely substituting infectious diseases with chronic diseases”, says Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA, and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine.

Offit is one of several scientists who told The Lancet that anti-vaccination groups are unequivocally threatening public health, the evidence of which is the re-emergence of diseases that medical science had once beaten. “In 2008, we had a measles epidemic in the USA that was bigger than anything we had had in a decade, and that epidemic owed directly to the fact that some children had not been vaccinated. The parents were more afraid of the vaccine than they were of the disease, as a direct result of misinformation by anti-vaccine websites”, says Offit. Recent outbreaks of pertussis and haemophilus influenza B in undervaccinated communities in parts of the USA have resembled outbreaks from the prevaccine era, he says.

The geographical spread of people who refuse to vaccinate is important, says Saad Omer, assistant professor of global health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. If these people are uniformly spread out across an area, then the herd immunity stays intact. “However, our group and others have shown that vaccine refusal clusters geographically (and perhaps in social networks). Anti-vaccination groups often ‘think globally but act locally.’ Therefore, even if only ten of 100 people refuse vaccines but most of them live in the same neighbourhood, the likelihood of outbreaks increases due to local breakdown of herd immunity”, says Omer.

The movement has tended to be most active against childhood vaccines, with the most forceful rhetoric coming from parents who say that they do not want to expose their children to “unnecessary toxins”. One in eight American parents has refused at least one vaccine recommended for their children by their family doctor, according to a study published in Pediatrics this month, which surveyed more than 1500 parents of children aged 17 years or younger. But the reluctance to vaccinate is now permeating other areas of health.

According to the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), anti-vaccination messages have partly been responsible for the poor uptake of the H1N1 vaccine. As each influenza season progresses, “we don’t know whether the virus will stay the same”, says Giuseppe Cornaglia, former president of ESCMID, now at the Department of Pathology, University of Verona, Italy. “Because many people who could have been immunised haven’t had the vaccine, we are going to be starting from scratch”, he says.

Anti-vaccination groups have also affected the way governments responded to the pandemic, says Tevi Troy, the previous Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. “The US decision not to use adjuvants, which effectively expands the supply of the vaccines, stemmed in part from concerns about how the anti-vaccine groups would have reacted to adjuvants. This could have been a problem had the H1N1 outbreak been more severe”, he says.

However ludicrous some of the anti-vaccination messages might seem to scientists, it is hard to deny that they do hold some traction with the public. Complacency about infectious diseases in the developed world, born out of the enormous success of vaccination, might be one explanation. “As the rate of illness goes down, and people mostly encounter real or perceived vaccine associated adverse events (instead of disease), there is a change in mental calculus in terms of benefit versus risk of vaccines”, says Omer.

The internet, and the forums and social networking sites it has spawned, has allowed anti-vaccination advocacy and influence to permeate deeper than ever. For example, says Omer, “a few years ago, vaccine-related rumours would be restricted to certain (mostly developed) countries. However, now a viral video made by a vaccine opponent in California can end up being discussed in an Indian web forum.”

The increase in anti-vaccination advocacy dovetails with a growing public mistrust of science that in recent years has manifested against genetically modified food, stem cells, and, most recently, climate change.

At last month’s yearly meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ralph Cicerone, president of the US National Academy of Sciences, told delegates that recent controversies over climate change had damaged public faith in science. “There has been a widespread deterioration in the public’s attitude to science not only in the US but in many other countries in the past 3 months”, said Cicerone.

Against this background, global health experts are trying to ensure that people in developing countries can access life-saving vaccines.

Does anti-vaccination advocacy exist in these countries? “Unfortunately yes”, says Omer. “However, they are relatively less organised. Often there are entities that are organised for a different reason but end up providing a platform for opposing vaccines eg, religious and political groups in Nigeria.”

ESCMID’s Cornaglia says he is “seriously scared” about the prospect that anti-vaccination groups will take hold in the developing world. “Vaccines are the best weapon we have for the future.”

Not everyone shares this view. Offit still believes that there is much more public appreciation of vaccines in the developing world. Offit remembers taking the rotavirus vaccine to Nicaragua, and says “it was remarkable how happy people were to get a vaccine to prevent a common cause of diarrhoea and dehydration, and, at least in the developing world, death.”

Cornaglia was ESCMID’s communication officer at one time, and he believes that health agencies such as ESCMID and WHO “have to change their communication style”. “They have to address public health professionals like physicians and nurses, because if we don’t convince them, then we cannot convince the lay public at all”, he says.

“Public-health messages should be simple, honest and straightforward.” Sending a clear message, however scientifically erroneous it might be, is how the anti-vaccination movement scored big with H1N1, he says. Their message was simply: “vaccines are the devil”.

The anti-vaccination lobby has become so highly organised, says Adam Finn, professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, UK, that “they do pose a threat and need to be taken seriously. NVIC in the USA now has a yearly conference and is becoming a kind of institution…They are not amateurs—they are making careers out of this.”

Like Cornaglia, Finn says that the anti-vaccination lobby’s communication skills have a lot to do with their influence. “They, unlike most doctors and scientists, are always willing to talk to the media and are good at doing it.”

Offit suggests one way to raise vaccination rates is to make it harder for people not to get themselves or their children vaccinated. This could mean, for example, attending educational classes that teach the public what the safety profiles of different vaccines are, before they are allowed to opt out of vaccination. “You have to convince people that a choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice; it’s just a choice to take a different risk.”

HT:AVN