Last May, just before Dr. Wakefield's appearance at the Center for Personal Rights rally (of which I was a coordinator) and the launch of Wakefield's book "Callous Disregard", seemingly out of nowhere, with no real precipitating event, the media was flooded with stories, old stories, unfounded stories, about how Dr. Wakefield's research was bogus, that the vaccine/autism link has been disproven and declared the vaccine safety debate over.
Imagine my surprise when this week, seemingly out of nowhere, with no real precipitating event, the media was flooded with stories, old stories, unfounded stories, about how Dr. Wakefield's research was bogus, that the vaccine/autism link has been disproven and declared the vaccine safety debate over.
It might lead someone to wonder... does the vaccine safety/choice community and/or Dr. Wakefield have any events and/or books coming out for which this might be an attempt to sabotage/distract/end around/disparage/discredit and generally torpedo? I mean they did that with "Callous Disregard" in the spring and to "Age of Autism" last fall, should I be looking for a new book from those who care about vaccine safety?
Fortunately, I already know the answer to that question is... wait for it... YES!
And I know that because I am proud to share that I am a contributing editor and co-author (along with Andrew Wakefield and more than twenty others) of the upcoming book, brought to you by the Center for Personal Rights, announced today:
How crazy that AGAIN, just like last May, that Wakefield has been declared a dastard, and vaccines cleared of all wrong doing RIGHT BEFORE our community comes out with media on the vastness of the problems in the vaccine program... darn the luck, I tell ya. Boy... do we have bad timing or what!
And that the source of this damning "new information" (which was actually from March of 2010) is once again, Brian Deer, who has mined the (illegally obtained) medical files of the children in Wakefield's paper to find evidence of "fraud" (by which he means that kids GP's who knew nothing about bowel disease and autism took different notes than the internationally known specialists in the field doing in depth research and medical evaluations on the children). Brian Deer.... who for those of you who have lost track, was the man who made the complaint that Wakefield's GMC trial was in response to (but who is also a "journalist" reporting on it... wrap your brain around those ethics if you can)... Deer has has managed to find "fraud" that was undectable by the parents of the children involved in the research project, Wakefield's 12 coauthors on the paper, the prosecutors and judges in Wakefield's 6 year/3 million dollar GMC trial, and the entire medical community and autism community, in the 13 years since this paper has been published.
Wow... that Brian Deer is one talented "journalist". So talented in fact, that he, among all journalists and doctors and people on planet earth, is allowed to illegally obtain the medical records of children, and not only escape arrest and prosecution for doing so, but is granted special dispensation to actually PUBLISH information, over the protests of the children's parents, that he claimed came from the files... in a medical journal! And not just that, but gets to have his unverifiable allegations broadcast by every mainstream media outlet in the US! (Anyone wonder why this is not being broadcast in the UK? Might there be legal problems with doing that there? Never mind... I am probably concerning myself over nothing.)
/end sarcasm
If it is not clear to you this far, let me be frank about it. The coverage of the vaccine/autism debate that you see in the media, is not scientific debate or earnest investigation... it is a dog fight. And Pharma plays dirty.
The vaccine industry is a 27 billion dollar per year business. It is as near as you get to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury as a license to print money. Vaccines are marketed and purchased by the US government and vaccine makers are immune from any financial or any other kind of liability when their vaccines kill or maim the American people. If you had a product line that you didn't have to advertise, that every child in the country had to buy (several times) and that you could not be sued for, and that even when one of your products was known to cause widespread death and damage, you could STILL go a decade or more with out having to go to the expense of updating it... how hard would you fight to keep that golden goose a'layin'? OK... pretend you have the gutter ethics of Merck, and GSK (who make MMR in the US and the UK respectively) and then tell me how hard you would fight. Ruining a man's life to prevent billions or trillions in future losses and potentially damaging a few kids is really nothing at all. It certainly would not have been the first time, nor the last. (Have I mentioned that Deers "investigations" have been mostly published by James Murdoch's newspaper? Did I mention that Murdoch is on the board of directors of GSK who makes the MMR? Or that Deer was "assisted" by Pharma's investigation hit squadfirm? So many coincidences, many more to wade through over at Age of Autism.)
Vaccine Epidemic is a real threat to those 27 billion in profits. Our book is a very serious, very in depth analysis, by a cadre of smart and respected professionals (and me), that outlines the international medical standard of informed consent, stories of a variety of vaccine damage, legal implications/historical perspectives/financial concerns/political machinations/medical opinions of vaccinations and presents information on much of the damage that 25 years of pharmaceutical liability protection has done to the vaccine program and to our children.
What you have witnessed in the media this week is a frenzied effort to convince you that:
1. This one research paper represents all of the concerns about the vaccine program. (Our book has almost 400 citations... and we didn't cite the Wakefield paper 400 times).
2. That Wakefield has been "discredited". (He hasn't).
3. That the vaccine/autism debate is settled and that all the questions have been "asked and answered". (It is actually expanding and the evidence that there is a causal association is mounting, not diminishing).
And if you read Vaccine Epidemic, you will see why the medical community and Pharma throwing out the Wakefield paper and declaring the debate "closed", is like carving a pothole in I-95 in Virginia and declaring the interstate from Florida to Maine "closed".
They don't want the media taking our book seriously and they sure as heck don't want you to read it.
So please buy our book and decide for yourself. Is the message that you are getting on NBC the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Or do you need to take responsibility for your family's vaccine decisions in your own hands, based on your own research from original sources?
UPDATE: From the Department of Backfire
Yesterday our book was ranked below 250,000 on Amazon. At the moment it is #2,886 and climbing.
Offit's book, out last week, is 8,569
Wakefield's Callous Disregard, a year old, has climbed back up to 7,706 and number 10 in autism.
When they did this to Wakefield last spring, they put his book on the Amazon top ten list. So thank you to Brian Deer and Pharma? I guess? Keep slinging mud and the people will keep seeing through your CYA tactics and looking for the truth in how to best raise their children.
Reposing a piece I wrote from a year ago. Or Two Times Ago in the "We Declare Wakefield Debunked" efforts timeline (I think we had three rounds in 2010, but I would have to check). All of it still applies, especially the part where six months from now nothing will have changed in the public skepticism of vaccine safety. What with this paper being such a small part of the vaccine/autism case.
According to Pharma scheduling, I am guessing we will see another media push sometime later this year, but we can probably set our clocks that we will be doing the Wakefield Dance next January as well. Pharma seems to like to start off their year fresh by declaring Andy dead, as they are making a habit of it:
Feb 12, 2010
Anatomy of a Witch Hunt
Much has happened in the last few weeks surrounding Andrew Wakefield, and I have not been available to write about it. It has been truly frustrating to see this story reported as if the GMC hearing was legit and The Lancet as if it was a respectable and unbiased publication, rather than the dog fight between corporate interests and safety advocates that it actually is. Was the fact that 21 autism organizations in the US and UK filed perjury charges against the head of the Lancet for lying about Wakefield's disclosures of his conflicts in the GMC hearing not relevant to the fact that the Lancet retracted Wakefield's article the following week? Apparently the press didn't think so.
Also fascinating that they have tried to portray Wakefield as the guy that invented the autism/vaccine connection, despite the fact that Leo Kanner reported that one of his first 11 cases in the 1940's was a regression following a smallpox vaccine, the VCIP has been paying autism cases for 25 years, and I first heard about the connection in my undergrad psych program in 1988 at George Mason University, so that they can use this GMC hearing to declare the vaccine controversy over. (I have forty or so studies on my "no evidence of any link" page supporting the vaccine/autism connection and I have never even had Wakefield's MMR paper up there.
Today I had an hour and started mapping out the conflicts on interests in all of the forces that are posing as unbiased sources and trashing Wakefield and his work by charging him with conflicts of interest. The irony is lost on too many people.
It is a work in progress. One of my friends in the UK is looking it over to help fill in more of the blanks, so it will be updated.
A few notes not on the chart. Judge Nigel Davis is the judge who ruled that families trying to sue GlaxoSmithKline for the damage done to their children by the MMR would not be given legal aid to do so, ending MMR litigation in the UK. His brother is Sir Crispin Davis, who was the CEO of Elsevier, publisher of The Lancet and was also on the board of GlaxoSmithKline. Additionally... Paul Offit is an industry spokes person for Merck, that was too long to fit into the chart, so I used the more pejorative, "lap dog". And there is word out this afternoon that another Elsevier journal may be trying to bury the Hep B monkey study that Wakefield worked on, although no word from the journal on this yet.
Look at the energy flow in this thing... Props to Dr. Wakefield and his compadres for not backing down under this insane amount of industrial pressure. I mean just look at this billion dollar medical/pharma/media/(arms sales?) unprincipled conglomco machine! Eliot Ness wasn't even up against this big of a beast when he took on the mob. And I have not even included any of the public health infrastructure, or the GMC in this flow chart.
Keep your head up England, and understand that you are under a blitz. They are now officially throwing everything they have at you and they are only exposing their own corruption. Never, never, never, never give up.
Problem for the beast is... they are using all their ammo, and six months from now, nothing will have changed for them. Because the public knows they are full of crap.
click to see it full size.
UPDATE:
A friend in the UK brought something interesting to my attention. It is a flow chart done by a journalist in 1994 on how money and influence flowed around the Burroughs Wellcome pharmaceutical company and all it's satellites (foundations, trusts, doctors, medical institutions, universities, medical journals and even regulatory agencies). One of which is the Wellcome Trust.
I invite to you take a look at the amazingly, unbiased and completely free of conflicts of interesty type research that Wellcome is funding, by reading my piece on Professor Alan Emond's study that shows that kids with autism don't have bowel problems. He claims no conflicts of interest, but fails to mention that he is on the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (Britian's version of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.)
The chart certainly enhances the understanding of how the machine works, but the two facts that make this flow chart so much more interesting is that Burroughs Wellcome of course became Glaxo Wellcome, which became GlaxoSmithKline, who makes the MMR; and that the journalist that created this chart was Brian Deer.
UPDATE: One commenter was looking for a source for my 20 billion dollar figure.
Americans are still debating whether to roll up their sleeves for a swine flu shot, but companies have already figured it out: vaccines are good for business.
h1n1.
Drug companies have sold $1.5 billion worth of swine flu shots, in addition to the $1 billion for seasonal flu they booked earlier this year. These inoculations are part of a much wider and rapidly growing $20 billion global vaccine market.
"The vaccine market is booming," says Bruce Carlson, spokesperson at market research firm Kalorama, which publishes an annual survey of the vaccine industry. "It's an enormous growth area for pharmaceuticals at a time when other areas are not doing so well," he says, noting that the pipeline for more traditional blockbuster drugs such as Lipitor and Nexium has thinned.
As always with pandemic flus, taxpayers are footing the $1.5 billion check for the 250 million swine flu vaccines that the government has ordered so far and will be distributing free to doctors, pharmacies and schools. In addition, Congress has set aside more than $10 billion this year to research flu viruses, monitor H1N1's progress and educate the public about prevention.
Drugmakers pocket most of the revenues from flu sales, with Sanofi-Pasteur, Glaxo Smith Kline and Novartis cornering most of the market.
But some say it's not just drugmakers who stand to benefit. Doctors collect copayments for special office visits to inject shots, and there have been assertions that these doctors actually profit handsomely from these vaccinations.
It is a notion that Dr. Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Practitioners, says is simply not true.
"According to most of the physicians I have talked to, the administration of these vaccines is done for the community's benefit as opposed to anything that helps profit," she says. Heim adds that even though doctors will not have to shell out for the H1N1 vaccine, they will bear the usual costs associated with storage and administering the shots.
"There is an administration fee, for the costs that you can't get reimbursed through Medicare or Medicaid," she says. "This is usually less than, or right at the break-even point."
Still, pharmacies also charge co-payments or full price of about $25 to those without insurance and often make more money if patients end up shopping for other goods.
"Flu shots present a good opportunity to bring new customers into our stores," says Cassie Richardson, spokesperson for SUPERVALU, one of the country's largest supermarket chains. Drawing customers to the back of a store, where pharmacies are often located, offers retailers a chance to pitch products that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Even companies outside of the medical industry are benefiting: the UPS division that delivers vaccines in specially designed containers, for example, has seen a bump in business.
New Entrants in Flu Shot Business
The intensifying competition has irked some doctors.
"Retailers and other non-medical professionals have siphoned off the passive income that once helped to cover medical overhead," says Dr. Caroline Abruzese, an internist in Atlanta. "The larger retail chains can invest up front in large volumes of vaccine at low prices, and market to customers already in their stores."
The promise of profits has attracted new players into the business. Some of the world's largest drugmakers, who in the past avoided the vaccine market because of its limited scope -- its not easy to convince healthy adults to get a shot for measles -- are now jumping into the fray.
Last month alone saw three large vaccine deals. Abbott Labs bought a Belgian drug business, along with its flu vaccine facilities, for $6.6 billion. Johnson & Johnson invested $444 million in a Dutch biotech firm that makes and develops flu vaccines. Merck, which already makes vaccines for shingles and other diseases, struck a deal to distribute flu shots made by Australian CSL.
Smaller biotechs are also angling for a slice of the action, making vaccines one of the fastest-growing areas of research in the biotech industry.
Large and small drugmakers are drawn to the business largely because of scientific advances that promise to radically expand the range of health problems that vaccines can address. In addition to preventing childhood diseases such as measles and polio, vaccines can now also ward off cervical cancer, and researchers are working on vaccines for HIV and tuberculosis.
Scientists believe they can create therapeutic vaccines than treat diseases such as Alzheimers and diabetes after they have set in. (At least one company is betting on a vaccine that helps cigarette smokers quit.)
"These innovations broaden the market potential for vaccine makers and partly explained the renewed interest by drugmakers," says Anthony Cox, a professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business who specializes in the marketing of medical products.
But Mark Grayson, a spokesperson for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents the country's leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, says that drugmakers are also compelled by the government to join efforts to ensure that there is enough vaccine to go around.
"Because of national security implications, the government felt that they needed to encourage and ask [vaccine manufacturers] to move much quicker," he says. Grayson adds that vaccine manufacturers also face significant costs; aside from the expense of fitting a new vaccine into a tight production schedule, drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur were forced to acquire new vaccine production facilities in recent years to keep up with demand.
Alternatives to Vaccines Are Few
While this promise of new treatments for painful diseases brings hope to many, vaccines continue to attract critics. The National Vaccine Information Center, a non-profit advocacy group, is at the forefront of a movement demanding that vaccines be tested more thoroughly before hitting the market. Although there has been little evidence to support their claim, detractors -- including the comedian Jim Carrey -- believe that vaccines are at least partly to blame for the sharp rise in autism in recent decades.
The swine flu vaccine has also attracted its share of critics. Frank Lipman, a New York-based doctor who specializes in a mix of Western and alternative medicine, points out that the swine flu is rarely fatal and that it's too early to tell if it's safe because it hasn't been widely tested.
Others argue that Americans have little choice. The cost of a widespread pandemic, similar to Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918, which killed 675,000 Americans (and 50 million worldwide), would be devastating. The Trust for America's Health, a Washington-based non-profit organization, estimates that a severe pandemic could push down GDP by more than 5 percent and cost Americans $683 billion.
"We're not seeing a pandemic that's this severe," says Jeff Levi, director of Trust for Americas Health. "We've dodged a lot of bullets."
I don't have a ton of time for blogging these days, but someone sent me a question about the latest chapter in the Wakefield Witch Hunt and I found myself writing a response, so I am just going to post it here:
"Subject: Wanting your opinion
Ginger, How do you respond to a radio personality who makes this post:
"When your car is repaired for an oil leak, and the next day the transmission fails, you blame the mechanic. But that deduction fails to consider that the car is old, and of course things will start to go bad. When a child is vaccinated, and later displays signs of autism, you can't say that all vaccines are dangerous. I am pissed that a lie had us focusing so much energy in the wrong direction."
I posted your link there. If you feel like making a comment, the gentleman's name is Chip Franklin. He's conservative ... but thinks anyone who questions the med industry or vaccine safety is nuts.
Thanks for all your links and information you bring to my attention. You are very appreciated !"
Here is how I would answer that.
When your car is repaired for an oil leak, and the next day the transmission fails, you go check to see what exactly is wrong with the transmission. When you find that you can't account for the damage naturally, and it looks man made, then you start checking with other clients of that mechanic. When you find that tens of thousands of his customers came in for oil and left with similar damage, both crippling to the car and vastly expensive if not impossible to fix, and you find out that the mechanic has been charged BILLIONS of dollars in fines internationally for outright fraud and attacking their critics, then you call the authorities and demand that they investigate him. You recommend that they might start by checking to see how often this mechanical failure happens as compared to those who have not brought their car in.
When the authorities REFUSE to investigate, and then you find out that those authorities used to work for the mechanic shop, and than many will work for it again when their job in government is over, then you call the media to investigate.
But when the media won't investigate, but merely takes any claim coming out of that mechanic shop or friends in government at face value, and you find out that the mechanic shop is a HUGE advertiser/client of theirs, and that those few in media who do investigate get punished and learn not to do it any more... THEN you decide the system is just so corrupt that you will never get answers, that the fancy house the mechanic has is likely paid for via taking advantage of the trust of customers and that the transmission problems are probably his fault as your own small investigations are telling you, and you and the other screwed customers make a car club, and learn how to fix each others cars.
And you stop listening to media for info on what is going on, and do your own research.
Don't know Chip, but I would encourage Chip to start by asking himself one question.
How does a "journalist" get copies of confidential childrens medical records?
Because apparently no one has called his attention to the fact that this entire "fraud" case is based on Brian Deer's claim that he has found information in the kids records, which he has has admitted to keeping in his apartment for months, and that no one can confirm most of these accusations because, again, he claims that they came from stolen children's medical records.
From there he can ask why the police are not at Deer's door arresting him. Then on to why the BMJ has published what cannot be confirmed. Then he might question why the "journalist" who first "broke" the story that there were problems with the study in 2004, then became the complainant in the case against him (since no actual patients could be found that would bring a case against Wakefield), then jumped back to becoming a "journalist" and reporting on the case as if he had nothing to do with it, then jumped back into the case, actually harassing parents of the children in question as the demonstrated on Wakefield's behalf at the hearing, then again jumped back to being an oh so objective journalist (by the way writing these stories for a British newspaper run by James Murdoch, board member of GlaxoSmithKline who makes the MMR) and reported on the case again, then again becoming involved in the case with a flurry of personal lawsuits between himself and Dr. Wakefield, then, after the case is settled, comes out with NEW information, that a six year trial in the GMC could not turn up, and prints it as a "journalist".
Then he can ask himself why the BMJ is not chastising him for stealing childrens medical records but actually publishing this? And ask them why they have removed calls from their web site from physicians and parents enraged that he stole childrens medical records and is claiming to publish the information (which again... can't be confirmed by outside sources because it supposedly comes from private medical records of minor children). And he can ask why, instead they actually published this instead of calling for a legal investigation on how Deer got the records he claims to have.
Then he should ask his own community why they are not investigating Brian Deer and why they are not horrified that the guy who brought the charges against Wakefield is posing as a "journalist" and stealing childrens medical records, instead carrying this garbage as if it is the gospel truth.
Then he can look into just who else was involved in the Deer investigation and check out the Pharma research group that "assisted" Deer in his "investigation".
And from there he can research actual vaccine/autism research and see that throwing out this study and saying that the vaccine/autism theory should be thrown out is like carving a pot hole in I-95 and saying the highway from Maine to Florida should be shut down. It is a 13 year old study, what it taught us about autism and vaccines has been at least replicated and at most adopted as standard practice from the medical profession at the behest of the CDC no less.
I have been writing about vaccine autism causation for five years, I never even read the Wakefield paper until last year, in more than a thousand posts I think I have done a few about Wakefield, but not many, and I have never even included this study. I think that the list of studies I point to is in the mid forties at this point. Encourage Chip to check it for himself: No Evidence of Any Link
Vaccine autism causation did not start with Wakefield, it started half a century earlier when Leo Kanner wrote the first paper about this new syndrome that he discovered that would be called "autism" when he noted that one of the first 11 cases ever defined was a regression following a smallpox vaccine. CBS found that our government had been paying autism cases from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as early as 1991, long before Wakefield ever laid eyes on a patient with autism. This whole thing is a pharma marketing campaign and Chip is unfortunately becoming a willing sucker.
Oh... and my child regressed into autism after his vaccines AND HE NEVER GOT THE MMR.
Saying that this study shuts down vaccine autism causation is like saying that the one study on the dangers of drunk driving is flawed so everyone can go ahead and crank up the party bus!
The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has ruled that the death of Elias Tembenis, son of Harry and Gina Tembenis, board members of the National Autism Association, was a DTaP vaccine injury.
"Conclusion: Petitioners have satisfied the legal requirements for proving that Elias’s December 26, 2000 DTaP vaccination was a legal cause of his epilepsy and death."
1.
Author Affiliations: Department of Molecular Biosciences, School of Veterinary Medicine (Drs Giulivi and Pessah, Mr Zhang, and Mss Omanska-Klusek, Ross-Inta, and Wong), Departments of Public Health Sciences (Dr Hertz-Picciotto) and Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine (Dr Tassone), School of Medicine (Drs Hertz-Picciotto and Tassone), and Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention (Drs Hertz-Picciotto and Pessah), and Medical Investigations of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Institute (Drs Hertz-Picciotto, Tassone, and Pessah), University of California, Davis.
Abstract
Context Impaired mitochondrial function may influence processes highly dependent on energy, such as neurodevelopment, and contribute to autism. No studies have evaluated mitochondrial dysfunction and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) abnormalities in a well-defined population of children with autism.
Objective To evaluate mitochondrial defects in children with autism.
Design, Setting, and Patients Observational study using data collected from patients aged 2 to 5 years who were a subset of children participating in the Childhood Autism Risk From Genes and Environment study in California, which is a population-based, case-control investigation with confirmed autism cases and age-matched, genetically unrelated, typically developing controls, that was launched in 2003 and is still ongoing. Mitochondrial dysfunction and mtDNA abnormalities were evaluated in lymphocytes from 10 children with autism and 10 controls.
Main Outcome Measures Oxidative phosphorylation capacity, mtDNA copy number and deletions, mitochondrial rate of hydrogen peroxide production, and plasma lactate and pyruvate.
Results The reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) oxidase activity (normalized to citrate synthase activity) in lymphocytic mitochondria from children with autism was significantly lower compared with controls (mean, 4.4 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 2.8-6.0] vs 12 [95% CI, 8-16], respectively; P = .001). The majority of children with autism (6 of 10) had complex I activity below control range values. Higher plasma pyruvate levels were found in children with autism compared with controls (0.23 mM [95% CI, 0.15-0.31 mM] vs 0.08 mM [95% CI, 0.04-0.12 mM], respectively; P = .02). Eight of 10 cases had higher pyruvate levels but only 2 cases had higher lactate levels compared with controls. These results were consistent with the lower pyruvate dehydrogenase activity observed in children with autism compared with controls (1.0 [95% CI, 0.6-1.4] nmol × [min × mg protein]−1 vs 2.3 [95% CI, 1.7-2.9] nmol × [min × mg protein]−1, respectively; P = .01). Children with autism had higher mitochondrial rates of hydrogen peroxide production compared with controls (0.34 [95% CI, 0.26-0.42] nmol × [min × mg of protein]−1 vs 0.16 [95% CI, 0.12-0.20] nmol × [min × mg protein]−1 by complex III; P = .02). Mitochondrial DNA overreplication was found in 5 cases (mean ratio of mtDNA to nuclear DNA: 239 [95% CI, 217-239] vs 179 [95% CI, 165-193] in controls; P = 10−4). Deletions at the segment of cytochrome b were observed in 2 cases (ratio of cytochrome b to ND1: 0.80 [95% CI, 0.68-0.92] vs 0.99 [95% CI, 0.93-1.05] for controls; P = .01).
Conclusion In this exploratory study, children with autism were more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA overreplication, and mtDNA deletions than typically developing children.
A few days ago, Dan Olmsted at Age of Autism wrote a piece entitled, “Why Progressives Don’t Get Autism”, where he made the case that those on the left are so enamored with the idea that government can solve the problems of humanity, like communicable disease epidemic prevention via public health policies, that they fail to see the unintended consequences of these policies.
In a rare moment of self-reflective contemplation, one of the leftiest blogs on the left, The Daily Kos, admitted that Olmsted had a point.
In reading all this, I have to face that conservatives just have another version of the same problem. We are often so enamored with the idea that business and industry can solve the problems of humanity, and that free man can, with his clever mind and by the sweat of his brow, build the bright, shining city on a hill, that we fail to see the unintended consequences of these ambitions.
Our freedom to work and to own and to engage in commerce, coupled with our dedication to creation, has done some truly astonishing things. We went from the horse and buggy to the moon in less than two centuries. What other culture in the history of man has made such advances?
Progress and innovation have lifted us out of the muck and put us in climate controlled skyscrapers, where we can have pizza delivered while we watch football, and where we don’t have to hunt through the forest and toil in the garden. Which is great. Except that we were kind of made to hunt through the forest and toil in the garden. And when we get too far away from the garden, there are consequences to our health.
When “PROGRESS” and “INDUSTRY” (insert 1950’s post war pro-business, “Better Living Through Chemistry” educational film here) push us to create thousands of compounds and molecules that have never existed on this planet before, and we manufacture them in massive quantities and spread them everywhere, to interact with one another everywhere, in the air, in the water, in homes, in clothes, in foods and in medicines, what we WILL end up with is a chemical soup that WILL harm some or all people. (Any one who does not believe that this is an eventuality is just in denial or has never read Frankenstien or any of the other thousands of cautionary tales of how man’s creations return to bite him in places to which only God and the TSA have unrestricted access.) Because THAT chemical world is not OUR chemical world, the one that nurtured the human race to the place where it could begin an industrial revolution only a very short time ago.
We belong in our garden.
There are basically two camps on how we came to be here in our garden. One is that an omnipotent and loving being made us and placed us in a garden that was created especially for us and would meet our physical needs. The other is that we evolved from the garden and are actually part and parcel of it… just another flower in the garden.
In either case, we belong in our garden. But the burning desire for Free Man to claim his manifest destiny and to build the industrial utopian shining city on a hill has become such a siren song, that we have lost sight of the blessings of the garden and begun to trample it.
And as that happens, it is the vulnerable, the tiniest ones, who still need desperately to be nurtured by that same original clean, rich garden, those little ones whom conservatives really do love and strive to protect from the moment of conception… those are the ones who get hurt first. Our sweet little canaries.
We conservatives too easily forget that just because we can exercise our power and creativity and industry to build ambitious things, does not mean we always should do so. And taking a hard look at the massive damage that unwise industrial “progress” has done to the vulnerable, to those who should have also been Free Men fulfilling their destiny when their time came, but instead will, like my son, be life long dependents, or like Elias Tembenis, never live long enough to fulfill their promise at all… well it is painful and difficult for those on the right. Because guilt is painful and it is also expensive. It means learning difficult lessons and it means that progress will have to slow down in many cases and in some cases stop completely.
And the right can be a powerhouse that does not ever want to stop.
All this is frustrating for me, because autism is something that the right really should get. Because the right is supposed to be about the rights of the individual. It is supposed to be about protecting the little guy from being pushed around by the government. It is supposed to be about individual responsibility. It is supposed to be about law and order. And if you know anything about autism, you know that if we were living in a society where the rights of the individual were being protected, the government was restrained, individual responsibility was being practiced and industrial corruption was kept in check by law and order, you would have to conclude that there would be no autism epidemic, because as soon as the first child was poisoned, the problem would be addressed at every level.
Conservatives get the Laffer curve. So why don't they get that there is a vaccine laffer curve that has a peak vaccine administration rate, and when you go beyond that, health returns start to diminish? We get that making the tax rate 100% will ironically bring in 0 dollars in taxes. How many vaccines does it take to make all our children sick and dead? Does anyone notice that we seemed to have hit the top of the bell curve in the 1970s?
Our autism community has discovered that ultimate solutions don't come from the top down, but the bottom up. Isn’t that what the Tea Party is about? For pete’s sake, the Tea Party should be all about autism. So why don’t they “get” autism?
Blogs on the right like The Daily Caller, Reason and Andrew Breitbart's "Bigs" blast the waste and abuses of government and the Obama administration with both barrels, but seem blind to fraud, coersion and profiteering going on by Sebelius' HHS in the vaccine program. Even in the wake of billions of dollars wasted on a fake pandemic (that we knew was not going to be a threat as it was not a threat to the southern hemisphere during their winter - our summer - of 2009) to make and push the H1N1 vaccine on the American people. Nor did they decry the additional millions of dollars spent to get rid of the nearly one hundred million of doses that had to be disposed of as hazardous materials (because mercury containing vaccines have so much mercury that they are hazmat), because three quarters of the public didn't take the vaccine because even they knew the "pandemic" was a sham to begin with.
Big Hollywood so doesn't get autism, that they actually published a piece, trashing liberal Jenny McCarthy, for probably her only conservative view point, that the government should not force vaccines on people or lie about vaccine safety in order to maniuplate the public into doing something that might harm them for the governments subjective and self-serving idea of "the greater good". Instead of applauding McCarthy for challenging the abuses by her own side of the political spectrum, Big Hollywood belittes her fight against HHS thus giving cover to Sebelius and the Obama administration for their egregious behavior in autism, in an substance-less, ad hominem, "nuts and sluts" attack.
The only way that this could ever get published on a blog that is such a vociferous critic of over reaching and corrupt government is because the editors just do not get autism.
True constitutional conservatives should be at the forefront of autism and should completely get autism, but people claiming to be conservative represent at least half the country and yet still the epidemic rages on.
Which leads me to the overall problem of why neither side, American’s left or right, get autism.
As Liberals and Conservatives we are too enamored with our selves, our big ideas and what we can do, and we do not prize wisdom and caution and the long, long view.
We see the other side's flaws and short sightedness and corruption and disasters with crystal clarity, and we are blind to our own.
The public doesn’t understand that the vaccine program represents the WORST of both worlds. It is the pairing of tyrannical government that decides the most intimate thing in your life, what goes into your body, because it has decided what is best for you, and the cold machine of industry that cannot see lives but only sees profit, BOTH unrestrained because the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 has freed them from the system of checks and balances that our brilliant founders put in place to restrain both the evil intentions and the good hearted unintended consequences of government and industry.
The government/pharma vaccine program treats children (and adults) as if they are functionaries of a system, not individuals of value to be served by the system.
Because the individual members of the public have been reduced to the position of mere functionaires in The Program that has arisen from this ‘public-private partnership’, government and industry can literally lie, cheat, steal, maim and kill, and there are no consequences to either government or industry. The deep pockets of the pharmaceutical industry buy the airwaves and the message and the doctors and the institutions and the government itself, while the government insures that free market principles cannot work and people cannot vote with their feet and leave the vaccine program. And now thanks to ObamaCare, the federal government will fund the vaccine program, so the industry can continue to buy the airwaves and the message and the doctors and the institutions and the government itself... as the pre Vaccine Injury Act, 24 dose childhood vaccine schedule continues to mutate into a bigger and bigger monster as vaccine dose number 70 was just added this month. (Will we hit 100 by 2020?)
And round and round we go, as the canaries fall one by one, and then two by two, as their biological individuality is denied and they are given the same dose of the same shots layered on top of exposures to pesticides and dental amalgam and antibiotics and GMO's and food additives and the thousands of chemicals that live in their bodies and that their great grand parents never came into contact with.
And the public doesn’t understand that those causing the problems in government and those causing the problems in private industry are really just the same unethical bunch of people serving their own grandiose ideas and careers and egos. Julie Gerberding, the government queen of the autism epidemic, is both the head of the CDC AND the head of Vaccines for Merck. Paul Offit, the worlds chief figure head Pharma Rep, is both Merck AND CDC. They fully belong to both tribes.
And the individuals who do this horrible business are given cover when they lie and obfuscate and push for universal mandatory vaccination, damn the consequences, because each side sees them as on “their side” (government public health or industry) and fails to see that the fox is guarding the hen house and making a KILLING on egg sales.
It is time for the public to walk away from these blind and/or corrupt ‘leaders’ and embrace the garden again. We have strayed too far from it and most of us know that.
But what prevents many from doing it is one of the most basic instincts of humanity, the fear of death. We have been tricked into believing that without unrestrained government and industry to save us, we will die. We have been tricked into believing that “government science” and “industrial science” is science itself, and that scientific observation is something the masses cannot practice for themselves without these institutions (much like religion centuries ago).
Through every medium government and industry cry out to the public, “You Need Us… You Need More Of Us!” And we are seduced and frightened into believing them.
There is a wise saying, “When we make decisions based in fear, rather than wisdom, we often end up bringing about the very thing we were afraid of in the first place”.
It is time for progressives to realize that the idea of the utopia ushered in by the government has never worked and will never work, and it is time for conservatives to realize that any utopia brought to you by industry is fleeting and will ultimately become poisonous ruins.
The interesting phenomenon that shows itself in the autism community is that those families and individuals so were so blindly entrenched in either of these systems and who became injured from them, become healed as they move away from them and start using their own work and reasoning, and turning to independent thinkers, to treat “autism”. (Or asthma or allergies or diabetes or cancers or insert modern neuro-immune chronic disease epidemic here.) There is a freedom in coming to grips with the shortcomings of ‘your side’.
It is time for the public to face facts that ambitious progress by either the blind right or blind left has just as great a chance of destruction as it does of salvation. And it is time to work on moving back toward the garden one person, one precious life, one unique individual, one loving family, at a time.
And people are starting to figure that out… so the vaccine program looses adherents to the schedule, and the political parties loose partiers to independent movements, and the medical industry looses customers to natural and alternative medicine.
We are neither cogs in the government program nor grist for the industrial mill.
I have gotten a round of requests to post searches for parents to do media or sign up for research. So I thought I would post them together:
My name is Latasha Kennedy and I am assisting, Mischelle Miller-Raftery, a doctoral student in psychology at California Southern University. She is conducting a study on potential prenatal environmental triggers of autism. Ms. Raftery is looking to survey at least 50 mothers raising children who have been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (Asperger’s Syndrome, autism, and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified); and 20 mothers whose children have not been diagnosed.
As a result, we would like to extend the opportunity for your readers to participate in this study, as it could potentially help professionals and mothers make informed decisions with regards to environmental exposures and life style choices during pregnancy in an effort to reduce the recurrence of autism.
If you are interested in posting the survey to your website, please let me know and I will forward you the link. Also, you are welcome to contact me via email at latashakennedy@gmail.com with any additional questions about the study.
I am the Director of Development at Pie Town Productions, a Los Angeles based television production company. I came across your organization while researching Aspergers and autism support groups throughout the nation.
We are in the early stages of developing a new show about families with multiple children that have Aspergers syndrome and/or high functioning autism. I’m contacting you to see if you could share our information on blog or possibly suggest other resources to help us get the word out.
We think this could be an amazing opportunity to shed light on misconceptions surrounding an individual's ability to live a fulfilling life with this disorder(s). Our intent is to produce a thoughtful and respectful series that will lead to a greater understanding and sensitivity about Aspergers and/or Autism through the real-life perspectives of the family members featured.
A little about us...Pie Town Productions is an award-winning company that was founded in 1995. We have produced over 3,200 episodes of programming in a variety of formats from daily series to network specials to weekly reality shows. Our client list over the last fifteen-plus years includes: Discovery, TLC, Paramount, A&E, WE, Lifetime Television, Logo, CMT, Discovery Heath, the Food Network, and HGTV. We've brought over 44 series, 36 special projects, and 1 feature documentary to the market, including the Emmy-award winning A Baby Story. We are currently producing the new Food Network hit, Meat and Potatoes and WE's new family docu-soap, Downsized. To see more about our programming go to www.pietown.tv
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.
Please feel free to contact me directly for further information.
Thanks very much for your time! I look forward to hearing from you.
Best Regards --
Ally Weinberg
Director of Development
Pie Town Productions
5433 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
N. Hollywood, CA 91607
818-255-9279 (Direct Line)
818-255-9333 (Fax)
ally_weinberg@pietown.tv
7:45 a.m.– 9:30 a.m. Immunizations: Vaccine Safety and Perceived Risks
Paul Offit, MD
Division of Infectious Diseases
Vaccine Education Center
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Note the disclosures on the seminar:
Disclosure information
In order to assure the highest quality of CME programming, and to comply with the ACCME Standards for Commercial Support, the AMA requires that all faculty, planning committee and CME Program Committee members disclose relevant financial relationships with any commercial or proprietary entity producing health care goods or services relevant to the content being planned or presented. The following disclosures are provided:
Planning Committee
Barry Dickinson, PhD Nothing to disclose
Mary Alice Rice Nothing to disclose
John Schneider, MD, PhD Nothing to disclose
Litjen (L.J) Tan, MS, PhD Nothing to disclose
Faculty
Paul Offit, MD Nothing to disclose
Walt Orenstein, MD Nothing to disclose
CME Program Committee Nothing to disclose
Disclosed financial relationships have been reviewed by the AMA to resolve any potential conflicts of interest. All faculty and planning committee members have attested that their financial relationships do not affect their ability to present well-balanced, evidence-based content for this activity.
And year after year the irony that all the work that they do to encourage trust in the vaccine program is what is eroding trust in the vaccine program.
It has been two and a half years now since Offit's vaccine patents were mainstream news, and a year and a half since the article in which he admitted that he was a vaccine salesman. But still he poses as your kindly neighborhood pediatrician.
Environ Health Perspect. 2010 Oct;118(10):1450-7. Epub 2010 Jun 24.
Urinary porphyrin excretion in neurotypical and autistic children.
Woods JS, Armel SE, Fulton DI, Allen J, Wessels K, Simmonds PL, Granpeesheh D, Mumper E, Bradstreet JJ, Echeverria D, Heyer NJ, Rooney JP.
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA. jwoods@u.washington.edu
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Increased urinary concentrations of pentacarboxyl-, precopro- and copro-porphyrins have been associated with prolonged mercury (Hg) exposure in adults, and comparable increases have been attributed to Hg exposure in children with autism (AU).
OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to measure and compare urinary porphyrin concentrations in neurotypical (NT) children and same-age children with autism, and to examine the association between porphyrin levels and past or current Hg exposure in children with autism.
METHODS: This exploratory study enrolled 278 children 2-12 years of age. We evaluated three groups: AU, pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and NT. Mothers/caregivers provided information at enrollment regarding medical, dental, and dietary exposures. Urine samples from all children were acquired for analyses of porphyrin, creatinine, and Hg. Differences between groups for mean porphyrin and Hg levels were evaluated. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine whether porphyrin levels were associated with increased risk of autism.
RESULTS: Mean urinary porphyrin concentrations are naturally high in young children and decline by as much as 2.5-fold between 2 and 12 years of age. Elevated copro- (p < 0.009), hexacarboxyl- (p < 0.01) and pentacarboxyl- (p < 0.001) porphyrin concentrations were significantly associated with AU but not with PDD-NOS. No differences were found between NT and AU in urinary Hg levels or in past Hg exposure as determined by fish consumption, number of dental amalgam fillings, or vaccines received.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings identify disordered porphyrin metabolism as a salient characteristic of autism. Hg exposures were comparable between diagnostic groups, and a porphyrin pattern consistent with that seen in Hg-exposed adults was not apparent.
Urinary Porphyrin Excretion in Neurotypical and Autistic Children Medscape
Comparison of Urinary Porphyrins in NT and AU Children
Our findings suggest that mean concentrations of uro- and precoproporphyrins are comparable between NT and AU children of the same age ranges. In contrast, the concentrations of all remaining porphyrins, particularly hexacarboxyl-, pentacarboxyl-, and coproporphyrins, were significantly higher in AU children than NT children, especially in older age groups. Several possibilities might account for these differences. Of initial concern, Hg exposure appears unlikely to play a role in this effect, because no significant differences were observed between NT and AU subjects for indices of past exposure to Hg from dental or medical sources, as reported by parents/caregivers. Additionally, urinary Hg concentrations, measures of recent Hg exposure, were very low among all subjects in this study (Table 2), and no significant differences between diagnostic groups were observed. As noted recently (Woods et al. 2009a), incipient although statistically nonsignificant changes in urinary porphyrin concentrations were seen among children with urinary Hg concentrations derived from prolonged dental amalgam Hg exposure on the order of 3.2 µg/g creatinine. This is nearly 10 times the mean urinary Hg concentration observed among children in this study. Similar findings describing very low blood Hg levels and insignificant differences between NT and AU children have recently been reported (Hertz-Picciotto et al. 2010). These observations do not preclude a possible role of Hg exposure from sources not measured or validated in the present study, especially during the perinatal period, in the etiology of autism or related neurodevelopmental disorders in some children, particularly in relation to genetic variation that may predispose to increased risk of the neurotoxic effects of Hg as Hg0 as reported in adults (Echeverria et al. 2005, 2006, 2010; Heyer et al. 2009). Our findings indicate instead that porphyrin metabolism, particularly in preadolescent children, may be too disordered or differently regulated to permit detection of the Hg-mediated changes in urinary porphyrin excretion apparent in adult subjects. Further studies using a substantially larger population, such as the National Children's Study now in progress (National Children's Study 2010), are required to resolve this question.
In the comments section of the post, Paul Robinson, Alden's brother in law, responded to Handley, disclosing that he has a child with ASD, and claiming that Handley and Jenny McCarthy's group, Generation Rescue, had sabotaged the relationship between AAP and DAN!, that was burgeoning in 2008, by criticizing AAP too harshly. Handley responded with another post the following day called, "Dr. Errol Alden, CEO of the AAP, has a Nephew with Autism", in which he addresses Robinson's comments.
Handley expresses a sentiment, which I share, that references the difficulty of the idea that victims of malpractice should be deferential to those who have caused life long damage to children, because those public health officials are too sensitive to be criticized for their malpractice.
He then points Robinson back to the actual problem, which is that the American Academy of Pediatrics, under Alden's leadership, is encouraging physicians to commit widespread malpractice, and away from the fake smokescreen problem that the AAP is trying to distract the world with, the fact that parents and minority physicians are complaining about the actual problem.
So now that this is being put out in the open, I think it is appropriate to ask, what happened in 2008? As I am witness to a small piece of the puzzle, I will share what I know here.
I was in attendance at the April 2008 DAN conference in Cherry Hill. The month before, the Polings had announced that Hannah had been paid for her vaccine induced autism, Julie Gerberding had been forced to admit on CNN that vaccines can cause autism in children with mitochondrial dysfunction, Jenny McCarthy had announced the "Green our Vaccines" rally, the AAP had announced that it was going to work with ARI/DAN in treating autism, and Jenny McCarthy went head to head with the AAP on Larry King in an explosive interview.
Two days later, the DAN! conference started. It was jammed with people. During the conference, Misty Hiatt, a mother from Florida, stood up and told the crowd that her daughter Madison had also been paid by the VICP for her vaccine induced encephalopathy/autism. And the AAP had sent a group, lead by Dr. Louis Cooper, one of the inventors of the Rubella vaccine.
It was a charged weekend to say the least. On the last day, I sat in the back of the ballroom and somewhere in the middle of Sid Baker's speech, the fact that what had been done to my child, had been done to my child, washed over me and I started crying. I just sat in the back and cried quietly for an hour or so... happy to be in the back at a table next to the sound board by myself.
As the conference ended, I stayed put and watched Dr. Cooper talk with a woman at the front of the room and Stan Kurtz and a few others, waiting to see if Stan would be alone. I had been introduced to him once and hoped that he would give me a little bit of information on Cooper and the AAP's reaction to the conference. While was waiting, Dr. Cooper walked to the back of the room and took a seat about ten or fifteen feet away from me and waited. After a minute, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, DAN doc and Jenny McCarthy's co-author, pulled a chair around to face Cooper, sat down and asked what he thought.
As you might imagine, I stayed put, closed the blog post that I had begun writing on my impressions of the conference, opened a clean document and began taking notes on the conversation.
About five minutes later, Stan Kurtz joined them and the three talked openly as the room cleared until it was just the four of us.
Cooper lead most of the conversation, he was on the enthusiastic side about what he had seen and heard. Not ecstatic, but I was encouraged an that he seemed much more into it than I would have expected. I would expect that he would have played it more cool and close to the vest. On the contrary, he seemed to be very honest and speaking freely from the heart.
Kartzinel and Kurtz did more listening than talking. They were both very gentile with him, asked good questions that got to the point of the matter with out being aggressive at all.
These are the notes I took as they talked:
My notes on a conversation overheard between Dr. Jerry Kartzinel DAN! doctor, Dr. Louis Cooper representing the American Academy of Pediatrics and Stan Kurtz, immediately following the DAN! Conference on April 6, 2008
All information is directly from Dr. Louis Z. Cooper unless otherwise noted.
Dr. Cooper came into this when Stan Kurtz called Cooper and Jenny was “raising hell”. It was time to “learn about DAN!… and now the current academy leadership and I are here at DAN!.”
Cooper noted with some surprise that “the doctors in the room are our doctors”, meaning AAP doctors. He expressed concern (for several years now) for the loss of trust from parents. He posed the question, “How do we move this forward and get rid of the appearance of combativeness?”
Dr. Cooper mentioned his Rubella and HIV experience a lot. He was quite rooted in those experiences and might/maybe using that model a little too much.
On his role in the 1964 Rubella epidemic:
He took lab from Belleview with him (to Cold Creek? I am not sure where.)
When he was working on HIV, Jim Olestine called him and said, “We’ve got these kids… we need a pediatrician to look at this.”
Cooper said, “That was the second crisis in my life as far as disease epidemic. This is the third.”
Kartzinel asked Cooper what his recommendations for approaching this should be.
Cooper said, “We need to quickly pull together and have a task force and committee.”
Diagnostic tests, definitions, clear treatment protocols were what worked for Rubella.
“This is a multi system disease, a multisystem syndrome. You guys know that. It also has ethical issues, mental health issues, GI issues, public health issues, epidemiological issues, financial issues, insurance issues…”
Cooper says he will recommend that the AAP make a task force for this.
"What I want to include that’s different is…". (could not hear the end of the sentence)
Drug companies have taken over health and there has been hope that health consumers would take that back. “This group represents the best of that”.
He wants to assemble a group place for exchange of ideas and beliefs that would include academy education programs.
“The tool kit is a great start, but that let’s take it to the next step.”
Kartzinel: “What is that step?” Jerry suggests that, ‘If the leaders in each field say, this is a problem, then it becomes real.’ “If the leaders in the GI field say, “we recognize this as a problem”, that would go so far. Then docs would be free to explore the GI track.”
In reference to the pediatrician who stood up in her community and was ostracized, investigated and left the AAP, and who broke down in tears with Stan, Cooper said that that sort of thing should not be happening. He spoke with compassion toward her.
Kartzinel mentioned the Boston ’06 GI meeting that AS sponsored. It was a very distinguished group. What AAP did was provide AS with (could not hear this part) … “But there was no AAP logo” and no official sanction.
In discussing how to get DAN! theory and practice accepted, Cooper said: “Rubella advancement was accepted because”:
1. Two years after diagnostic test
2. “I was at a prestigious institution”
3. “We had the backing of world leaders”
People who were movers and shakers elite and fashion and entertainment industries opened doors for them, and from them he learned a lot about making things happen.
The term “Developmental Disabilities” was coined by congress because of the efforts of a few powerful men. Harvey Firestone had a child with CP and President of ABC and Kennedy’s sister – they talked congress into the Developmental Disabilities Services Act.
“These were accidents of politics that have impact. HIV had a different story. You have a different story.”
“I’m concerned about immunization policy and how you protect immunization.”
“I chaired a CDC blue ribbon panel for Julie Gerberding. We wrote at report and that report got buried. And then Jenny and the Polings came along, God bless them, they have raised so much hell.”
“You are helping me and what I need to do. It has engaged me at a level that I would not have been engaged in.”
Kartzinel: “How do we move forward?”
Cooper: “You have a body of work that will provide receptors with the academy.”
Jerry then shared the problems they have had with submitting research and told about his rejection from one publication. He explained that they returned it with strange objections, “They said, ‘You had no control group.’ Of course I had no control group, it was a case series, it was written write there.”
Cooper: Did you send to pediatrics?
Kartzinel said no, that he didn’t even try.
Cooper: Send it to pediatrics.
They talked about Wakefield.
Cooper: He came out with speculation about splitting the vaccine with no data, and then his failure to disclose poisoned the well.
“My colleagues have a self righteousness.”
No one does controlled measures when they are making observations.
Kartzinel: Is a fully vaccinated group of children at age 4 as healthy as an unvaccinated group of 4 year olds?
(Up until this point in the conversation, Cooper has been outgoing and engaged. When Kartzinel ask this question, Cooper starts to draw into himself a bit.)
Kartzinel: You can’t start out doing a study of vaccinated v. unvaccinarted children because of the ethical problems, but you can do it in primates.
Jerry then tells him about the vaxed v. unvaxed primate study about to begin.
Cooper: “Is there any reason to give Hep B vaccine at birth”? (said as if he is seriously questioning why we are doing it.)
Kartzinel: University of Pittsburgh veterinarian, phase two will be done in Seattle.
Here Cooper raised some question which Kartzinel takes to mean that he is worried about cost, and said that the study is already fully funded and that people are already in place for the study.
Kartzinel didn’t outright invite him to be a part of the study, but left the door open for Cooper to say he wanted AAP involvement. Cooper didn’t bite and was trying to get away from the study idea. Obviously hit a nerve and was outside of his comfort zone.
Cooper: “The public trust has been my major preoccupation in the last few years”. (Cold Spring outlined the problem and made some recommendations?)
One was to work on communication strategies – for pediatricians not be demeaning. Another was a large investment in the safety of vaccines, “not trying to cover up”.
Stan: what do we do from here… what are the objectives?
Cooper: “I want to reflect on in it. I will try to make this attractive to a cross disciplinary task force.”
No single individual should represent the academy.
“That’s how I won rubella. I learned pediatrics.”
Stan: “Parents here have learned pediatrics.”
Louis Z Cooper and Stan Kurtz at DAN! 2008
Photo by Christine Zichittella-Heeren
Amazing to know this conversation took place, isn’t it?
At this point, hotel staff came in and began stacking the chairs so we all moved out of the ballroom. Kurtz, Kartzinel and Cooper walked off together and I hopped into a cab to the train station. On the way home I wrote this cautiously optimistic post: The American Academy of Pediatrics Shows Up in Autism Treatment
I wrote that “it was my understanding that AAP thought…” and never hinted at all that I had heard, because I didn’t want to carpet bomb the delicate process that was underway between AAP and DAN/Team Jenny. What I did do was offer AAP guidelines on how they could use this window of opportunity to end the madness and the war with parents, by eating a little crow, apologizing for the bad behavior and partnering with parents.
I noted that those parents were going to be showing up in DC in just two months, and if AAP was not on board by the time of the Green Our Vaccines rally, then their actions would be seen as empty gestures and public relations maneuvers; and that window would begin to slam shut pretty quickly.
And sadly, that is what happened. AAP did not show up, they merely sent TACA their ‘autism took kit’, which of course is a joke, because TACA is itself an ‘autism encyclopedia’ and should be writing AAP’s literature for them. They again treated us like the red headed step child, the divide between our community and AAP got wider and for all their money and power, AAP has continued to loose the “autism war” to a bunch of broke, stressed out, “Justamoms”, who daily, fearlessly, continue to speak truth to power.
But AAP still does not get that they are in the wrong, and are still under the delusion that if they just find someone with perkier boobs than Jenny McCarthy to become a vaccine cheerleader, then they can turn this thing around. Their tactics keep failing, yet they keep trying the same failing tactics over and over… “this time it’ll work”, they must be saying to each other in their offices… “..because this time we will have FOCUS GROUPS!”
They do not get it.
Rather than stopping the runaway train, they have just increased their speed as they head toward the edge of the cliff… unalarmed by the increasing numbers of parents and physicians quietly disembarking the crazy train.
There is none so blind as those that will not see.
So this brings up a lot of questions.
First off… if AAP was earnest, why would they send the man who invented the Rubella vaccine to present an evaluation on whether or not “his baby” was now giving children brain damage? It was clear when vaccine issues came up that Cooper became uncomfortable, but to his credit, he seemed genuinely impressed with biomed treatment and that he wanted to move forward on it. Did AAP expect him to dismiss all of DAN?
I am convinced that Cooper was earnest in what he said to Kurtz and Kartzinel. Did he make the recommendation to set up a task force to AAP? My BS meter had been pretty finely tuned at that point, and when he talked about treatment, he was sincere as far as I could tell. Unless he is one of those guys that really means it at the time, but really believes something else when he is with a crowd of another persuasion? So if he made these recommendations to the AAP, what happened? Did AAP blow them off? Did Tayloe and Alden put the kibosh on it?
What happened to, “Diagnostic tests, definitions, clear treatment protocols”?
Cooper said, “disease epidemic”. Why won’t AAP say it?
Cooper said that AAP wanted people weaning off Pharma and being good health consumers. And that we represented the best of that. So why are we being demonized? Did doctors want that, until they got it, and then discovered they didn’t like being challenged?
Didn’t AAP want to see the results of the primate study? Or did they use this as a heads up to bury it?
Here’s a biggie: WHAT WAS THE BLUE RIBBON PANEL THAT COOPER CHAIRED FOR GERBERDING, WHOSE RESULTS GOT BURIED? WHY DID HE NOT UNBURY THEM AND USE THEM?
Here is an easy one, “How do we move this forward and get rid of the appearance of combativeness?” I don’t know… stop being combative? Seems like its worth a try.
What were the other reports from the other docs who visited the conference?
And here is the most obvious one. If public trust is so important to the AAP, why are they lying to the public? Why are they crapping on their customers? What exactly do they think will happen if they treat parents with dismissals, insults and really bad PR?
Paul Robinson wrote this:
“Things were proceeding quite well when suddenly Stan had to leave DAN and then he joined G.R. Jenny's continual national attacks brought so much heat on Errol from the AAP's constituency that he had to back away from the whole process. G.R.'s belligerence ruined a very likely alliance and who suffers? the kids! Nice work G.R.!”
If AAP was working with DAN/ARI, then why didn't they just continue working with DAN/ARI? Who the hell cares what Jenny McCarthy was doing? If Stan ran naked through an AAP meeting and Jenny threatened to burn down Chicago just to spite the AAP, who the @#&$% cares!? Either these treatments heal our children or they don’t! Robinson’s argument seems to be that it is OK for physicians to throw children under a bus (and that phrase is only BARELY used figuratively here) if they are offended by a shock/comic actress and a guy who owns a preschool?
I don’t want to completely trash Robinson here, because he seems like he has come part of the way on this (although JB is right, IMHO he should have, and still should, throw down the gauntlet with his brother in law), but Robinson does not seem to understand that he is making the case for us on how corrupt the AAP is. If they don’t like how a few people act, they are allowed to commit malpractice on yours, mine and every child with autism in this country? And say that Generation Rescue made them do it!
And the AAP is shocked when parents are pissed at them? (It takes all my self control not to continue on in a stream of expletives at this point.)
Jerry Kartzinel could not be a nicer, more professional doctor, and he is very widely respected. If they didn’t like Stan any more, they couldn’t call Jerry? Or Lyn Redwood who was on the IACC? Or Jane Johnson at ARI? Or anyone one of the hundreds of really boring, zero drama, non-comic actresses that daily serve children with autism?
Exactly what is the mean age of an AAP member? 15?
“I’m a teenage girl. My BFF texted and said that Jenny said something mean about me. And that’s a problem. Now, I’m emotionally compromised and… whoopsies… I have just inflicted brain inflammation, neurological regression, GI damage and immune system failure on 300 children today. I’m all, OMG… Jenny is a slut”
Have we discovered a new defense for child abuse?
Judge: Billy Bob... you stand accused of hitting your child in with a base ball bat and breaking his arm. How do you plead?
Billy Bob: Not guilty by reason of Jenny McCarthy was mean to me. So I had to take out out on my boy. What else could I do?
Prosecutor: Oh, Your Honor, we had no idea that Ms. McCarthy had insulted Mr. Bob. We drop all charges.
Judge: Case dismissed with the apologies of the Court. Your are free to go Mr. Bob.
If Generation Rescue insults Pakistan, does that mean they are then allowed to nuke India? I need to get a read on just how far the McCarthy defense goes.
I will end the way I have been ending these posts for years. By asking AAP/CDC et. al. WHAT IS YOUR PLAN? How long are you going to drag this out? How far do vaccine rates have to drop, how bad does your reputation have to get? What is “bottom” for you? What is your plan here?
Wise pediatricians… rise up and take back your profession. If not you… then who? If not now, then when? How man thousands of sick children are you willing to watch fall just to keep your job or your seat at the table or your invite to the party?
You are the grown ups… take back the steering wheel.
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.
