It Is Time for Julie Gerberding to Step Down

I have no words.

Alliance For Human Research Protection
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

America's health care oversight agencies are running amok wasting taxpayer money while undermining the public health instead of protecting it.

Below are the highlights of the 115 page review issued by The United States Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security, Minority Office, Under the Direction of Senator Tom Coburn, Ranking Minority Member, June 2007.

U.S federal healthcare oversight agency, it appears are being run by reckless and irresponsible administrators. Previous reports confirmed this sorry state of affairs at the Food an Drug Administration--which is largely under the control of the pharmaceutical industry that it is mandated to oversee; at the National Institutes of Health financial conflicts of interest and scientist' double dipping has undermined the integrity of science and the safety of human subjects; the Environmental Protection Agency is headed by an administrator who would conduct a pesticide experiment on African American toddlers were it not for the public outcry and the intervention of several senators http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/09/07.php and
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/11/30.php

The latest indictment is contained in an extraordinary report just published by the US Senate assessing the performance of the Centers for Disease Control: "CDC Off-Center: A review of how an agency tasked with fighting and preventing disease has spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars for failed prevention efforts, international junkets, and lavish facilities, but cannot demonstrate it is controlling disease."

CDC spokesman: "We strive day in and day out to fulfill our commitment to the American taxpayer."

The report, CDC Off-Center is found at: found at:
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=OversightAction.Home&ContentRecord_id=bf7e1789-802a-23ad-42e1-57d542e77901

Dr. Coburn indicated that this is the First in a Series of Oversight Reports on Federal Agencies.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav 212-595-8974
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=OversightAction.Home&ContentRecord_id=bf7e1789-802a-23ad-42e1-57d542e77901
June 12, 2007

The First in a Series of Oversight Reports on Federal Agencies

"CDC Off Center," a 115-page oversight report authored by the Minority Office of the Federal Financial Management Subcommittee, under the direction of ranking member Senator Tom Coburn, examines how CDC has tilted off center and makes recommendations about how it might get back on track.

The American people expect CDC to spend its $10 billion budget this year treating and preventing diseases and dealing with public safety threats, including the threat of bioterrorism. While CDC will meet some of those expectations, if history is any guide, it will also waste millions of dollars.

As part of his commitment to oversight of how Washington spends taxpayer dollars, Senator Coburn plans to release a series of oversight reports on federal agencies. Senator Coburn's hope is that more and better oversight will assist federal agencies and those in Congress with responsibility for overseeing agency budgets, with reigning in wasteful spending; demanding measurable results from programs and grantees; and with reevaluating current spending before asking politicians and taxpayers to send more scarce tax dollars.

"CDC Off Center" is not an effort to discredit the good work that the CDC and those who work for it have carried out and the good work that will continue in the future. The report will hopefully be seen for what it is: an effort to shine some light on prevention efforts and funding decisions that may be holding the agency back from fulfilling its central mission of fighting and controlling disease.

Some examples in the report of CDC's spending:

$1.7 million - including terrorism funds - on a Hollywood liaison program, which happens to be run by a former employee (pg. 87);

$45 million for conferences, including those featuring prostitutes, protests, and beach parties (pgs. 48 - 60);

$30,000 employee saunas in a new $200,000 fitness center that also includes mood-enhancing light shows and $3,500 worth of zero-gravity chairs (pg. 15);

$5 billion spent over seven years on HIV/AIDS prevention funding, and yet the U.S. still sees 40,000 new cases each year, with no decrease in infection rates for over a decade (pgs. 23-37); Syphilis prevention funds used to feature a porn star's presentation (pg. 44); HIV/AIDS prevention funds spent on a transgender beauty pageant (pg. 45);

$250,000 spent so two former employees could help build staff morale, (pgs. 100 - 101);

$5.1 million on "audio visual integration" in the new Thomas R. Harkin communications and visitor center, including a giant 70-foot-wide by 25-foot-tall video wall of plasma screen TVs showcasing agency vignettes (pg. 8);

110 CDC employees traveled to two international AIDS conferences, when buying retroviral drugs with the trip funds could have prevented mother-to-child AIDS transmission for more than 115,000 infants (pgs. 50 & 52);

New Hawaii office opening soon, announcement made by Senator from Hawaii who oversees agency's funding (pg. 18);

$335 million on ads to fight childhood obesity. kids saw the ads, whether or not the ads affected their behavior is another question (pgs. 69 - 71);

$128,000 in CDC bioterrorism funds spent by L.A. County on trinkets such as letter openers, whistles, magnets, mouse pads, flashlights, pens, and travel toothbrushes (pgs. 106 - 110).

The report also includes:

*A detailed graph showing CDC's yearly budget from 1995-2007, which has increased by more than 350% (pg. 7); and
*A chart showing yearly CDC's HIV/AIDS funding from 2001-2007, which has more than doubled during that time (pg. 115).
*Do you know of examples of government waste, fraud or abuse? Submit the information to FFM's website tip page, or by mail to:

Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management,
Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Further Readings:
FFM Report - CDC Off Center (829.5 KBs)
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=0e72b780-363a-4777-b841-20925a304d20

Jun 11, 2007

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
News:
Sen. Tom Coburn: Resolute and Right
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2fa2c86d-802a-23ad-41e9-56c29757ef96

Jun 14, 2007
By John W. Mashek
US News & World Report: A Capital View
Senator's report: CDC wastes millions on perks
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2562fa32-802a-23ad-45b2-0367f9916815

Jun 13, 2007
By Matt Kelley
USA TODAY
Health Agency Wastes Cash on Consultants, Screens, Report Finds
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2a9de4c8-802a-23ad-465d-b4a99f022fca

Jun 12, 2007
By John Lauerman
Bloomberg
Report: CDC wastes millions
"The top public health agency spent millions of dollars on a Hollywood consultant, a lavish visitors center, and a 70-foot-by-25 foot ``wall of plasma televisions,'' a senator's report said.
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2a9de4c8-802a-23ad-465d-b4a99f022fca

Jun 12, 2007
By Alison Young
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://coburn.senate.gov/ffm/index.cfm?
FuseAction=LatestNews.NewsStories&Con
tentRecord_id=2032cd9a-802a-23ad-4dbe-dd6bf54fab43

A British Doc Does His Own Research And Flips on Vaccines

Great article. Dr. Halvorsen breaks down the benifits/risks of each vaccine and makes a recommendation. A must read.

Are vaccines a waste of time?
By DR RICHARD HALVORSEN
The Daily Mail
17th July 2007

Children are given 25 vaccines by the age of 15 months. But many are for diseases that are extremely rare - and which they're naturally immune to. As the doctor who challenged MMR fights for his career, the author of a new book asks if other jabs are worth the risk.

How could anyone be opposed to vaccinating children?

The benefits of injecting weakened bacteria or viruses to boost immunity to a disease seem so obvious, and for decades vaccinations have been seen as a triumph of modern medicine.

But while supporters claim vaccines - including the new cervical cancer jab for 11-year-old girls - are safe and save millions of lives, critics say their effectiveness is exaggerated and we don't know enough about the side-effects.

The fact that Dr Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who first suggested a link between MMR and autism, faces a disciplinary hearing this week, with charges relating to his conduct during a MMR research project in the 1990s, only serves highlight how confusing this issue is.

Are the scares over vaccines the work of hysterical parents, anti-vaccine fanatics and a sensationalist media?

Or is the Government wilfully ignoring very real dangers and promoting vaccines that we don't need?

Seven years ago, I was a regular London GP with no particular opinion about vaccines.

I gave them to my patients and my own children, secure in the knowledge that they were safe.

That all changed in 2000 when a newspaper asked me to write about the MMR vaccine.

I knew there were a few, rare side effects of the triple vaccine, but like most GPs I had no doubt the benefits far outweighed the risks.

What I then found out led me to change my practice as a family doctor and I started to prescribe measles, mumps and rubella vaccines singly.

I am now convinced that rather than being a silver bullet in the heart of disease, vaccine programmes could actually be causing some serious health problems, with hundreds if not thousands of children adversely affected every year.

The more I researched, the more disturbed I became. I felt I'd been grossly misled by the Department of Health.

The Government's defence of the MMR vaccine - that no clear link had been proven between the MMR and autism - turned out to be extremely misleading.

When evidence emerged that there could be a problem, they consistently rejected or ignored it.

One international vaccine expert succinctly described their case as "crap".

It became clear to me that the benefits of vaccines were far from clear-cut. My research unearthed facts which often challenged, and sometimes contradicted, the established view of vaccines as a boon to mankind, the view I'd been taught at medical school and which is presented to the public as indisputable.

In fact, vaccines have nearly always been a battleground.

The current conflicts over MMR are echoes of earlier struggles over the safety of the whooping cough and polio vaccines.

Over a 20-year period, according to an article in the British Medical Journal, the oral polio vaccine caused more people to become paralysed than the illness itself.

In the Seventies, vaccination rates for whooping cough plummeted because of fears of brain damage.

So how much of our massively improved survival rates are actually due to vaccination? Not nearly as much as you've been led to believe.

What is usually forgotten is that death rates from the four big Victorian killers of children - measles, whooping cough, diphtheria and scarlet fever - were already declining from the beginning of the 20th century due to improvements in hygiene and nutrition.

Even so, by the Forties it was still worth starting a vaccination program against diphtheria and whooping cough.

For every 600 children you vaccinated against diphtheria, one life was saved; for whooping cough 800 were vaccinated for each death prevented.

But today, the number you have to vaccinate for one child's life to be saved is enormous - 30,000 in the case of the new pneumococcal vaccine intended to protect against blood poisoning, meningitis and pneumonia, which was introduced last year.

Far from protecting the nation against common killers, our current vaccination programmes are protecting against increasingly rare infections.

Which raises the question: are vaccinations - with all their side effects - now creating more problems than they solve?

A child in the UK is supposed to get 25 vaccines - many of which are for illnesses for which there is now little risk - by the time they are 15 months old.

I repeatedly heard stories of parents being patronised, bullied and forced into a corner when deciding whether to vaccinate their child, so I set out to inform parents, honestly, and without bias, so that they can make their own decisions.

MMR

The controversy over the link between the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine and autism means its other serious failures have been ignored.

Death or damage from mumps and rubella is rare, which means this combined vaccine needs to be extremely safe to outweigh any risks.

What's more, as the first national programme to combine three live vaccines - live vaccines have the potential to interact - trials should have been especially rigorous.

However, safety studies were woefully inadequate. To pick up rarer side effects, at least 10,000 children should have been followed up for at least a year.

However, no children were actively watched for more than six weeks.

So what of the components of the MMR vaccine?

Measles

In the early 1900s, measles killed more people than smallpox, scarlet fever and diphtheria combined - around 10,000 people a year.

But improved nutrition and hygiene meant that by the mid-1950s there were fewer than 100 deaths per year.

In 1968, health officials decided to embark on a programme of mass vaccination to eradicate the disease.

Manty doctors objected on the gruonds the disease was now so mild it would be better to target particularly vulnerable children.

Some pointed to the danger of replacing natural immunity (from having been exposed to a less virulent strian of the disease as a child) with vaccine immunity which is much shorter-lasting.

Certainly, the goal of eradicating the disease has not been met; there have been outbreaks in schools where 99 per cent of the children had been vaccinated.

And then there are the side effects. The measles vaccine is made from a live but weakened measles virus, so it has the potential to cause the same effects as the disease.

One study found that measles vaccination can cause "serious neurological disorders" such as inflammation of the brain - encephalitis - which can cause permanent brain damage.

In the UK, between 1968 and 2005, there have been 114 reports linking serious encephalitis in children with the vaccine.

MY ADVICE: May be worth vaccinating against measles with a single vaccine despite the side-effects - on balance, the risks of the disease remain greater than those associated with the vaccine, especially in vulnerable children with chronic illnesses.

Mumps

Mumps is a mild disease that rarely kills. For most of the 20th century the death rate has been about ten or 20 a year; most people just get a slight swelling of the glands around the face and neck and are then immune for life.

Vaccine immunity, however, wears off; within four years 20 per cent of those vaccinated have lost immunity.

The result has been to raise the age at which children catch mumps from early childhood - when side-effects are usually mild - into adolescence when they are more likely to be severe, notably permanent hearing loss, a painful swelling of the testicles and possibly infertility.

MY ADVICE: Not only unnecessary but the vaccine is making this disease worse.

Rubella

Equally dubious. It was introduced to save babies from being born with deformities as a result of their mother catching the disease when pregnant, but even before the introduction of the MMR just 30 babies a year were damaged by rubella.

A Finnish study showed that after two MMR jabs, a third of girls lost all protection by the age of 15.

MY ADVICE: Not recommended for children. More effective to screen teenage girls for acquired immunity and vaccinate the few who don't have it.

Polio

In serious cases, polio can cause paralysis and death, but until the Forties it was an insignificant disease; nearly everyone got it in childhood, had a mild fever and then developed full immunity.

What turned it into a frightening epidemic was improved hygiene - which led to fewer children catching it and therefore becoming naturally immune - and the arrival of mass vaccination.

The first polio vaccine, launched in 1959, was made from a killed polio virus and in a few years cut cases of paralysis from a high of 7,000 a year to a few hundred.

But in 1962 UK officials switched to a cheaper live vaccine. Like the virus that causes the infection naturally it could be excreted and passed on to others; this was seen as a bonus to keep the national immunity up.

But by the Seventies it was causing more cases of paralysis than the natural one.

Despite repeated calls from doctors to switch back to the killed virus, the UK used the live one, claiming it was more effective, until 2004, long after most European countries had abandoned it.

The killed version is now given as part of the new 5-in-1 vaccine called Pediacel.

MY ADVICE: Still worth having a polio jab now the safer vaccine is available.

Whooping Cough

Once a major killer, whooping cough had become increasingly mild by 1961 when a national vaccination program was launched.

In the early Seventies a highly-publicised account of 36 cases of brain damage possibly caused by the vaccine caused a huge drop in the number of children being vaccinated.

But rather than the deaths soaring, the opposite happened.

Between 1968 and 1977, when around three-quarters of British children were immunised, 101 children died from whooping cough.

Between 1978 and 1987, when immunisation rates had plummeted to as low as just one-third, only 62 children died from it.

This suggests whooping cough was becoming milder naturally, so even without vaccination people were at less risk.

Despite these official figures, the Government still warned in 2001 that parents failing to vaccinate children against it were putting them "at very high risk".

But the same level of concern did not extend to the possible harm from side effects.

Not only did the Government deny the dangers of brain damage, despite paying out millions in compensation, they also took longer than virtually all other Western countries to stop using it.

A new safer type is now part of the 5-1 vaccine, but despite the fact that about 94 per cent of people receive it, whooping cough is still widespread, but now rarely a killer.

MY ADVICE: One of the least useful childhood vaccines; I'd not now give it to my children.

HPV

This is aimed at the "human papilloma virus" which causes genital warts that can result in cervical cancer.

Sadly, it seems that all the mistakes of the past are being repeated. Cervical cancer is serious but not common; it kills a thousand women a year and accounts for 1.4 per cent of female UK cancer deaths.

Preventing them is important, but at the moment there are far too many unknowns to make it worth having this jab.

In trials, it has only prevented the pre-cancerous changes to cells rather than cancer itself.

The vaccine only protects against the two types of HPV that cause 70 per cent of this cancer.

You get no protection against those caused by other strains. The plan is to give this vaccine to girls aged 11, before they've had time to become infected with HPV, which is sexually transmitted.

But the trials showing it worked were done on women aged 16 to 23 who were followed up for two years.

We don't know what the long-term effects will be of giving it to people much younger.

Then there is safety. Some of the women in the trial developed auto-immune problems like arthritis.

It could have happened by chance, but more trials need to be done.

MY ADVICE: Wait and see.

The British Press Does It's Job

Handley reminds the British Press that they are supposed to cover up vaccine problems, not air them out in the open where any member of the proletariat might see and make a decision for themselves.

A taste...

Doesn't Pharma Advertise in Britain?
Jb By J.B. Handley

Its MMR-Autism mayhem in Britain, while American reporters seem to have misplaced their typewriters.

Don’t British reporters know who pays their bills? It seems if I leave “the Google” for a moment, I return to find another article from a British journalist pouring fuel on the fire of the MMR-Autism controversy.

Don’t you reporters understand American-style journalism, or rather A-Merck-ican journalism, where we take care of those who take care of us? Consider the hatchet job CNN apparently did of Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko, which caused Mr. Moore to post a lengthy rebuttal, including this ditty:

“Clearly, no one is keeping you honest, so I guess I'm going to have to do that job, too. $1.5 billion is spent each year by the drug companies on ads on CNN and the other four networks. I'm sure that has nothing to do with any of this. After all, if someone gave me $1.5 billion, I have to admit, I might say a kind word or two about them. Who wouldn't?”...

Go read the rest.

Shame on Naperville District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis

[Bumping to top]

I don't know what is more upsetting, the fact that they tried to coerce the family into an IEP by with holding the communication device, the fact Leis was 'surprised' that the judge scolded him, or that AFTER the judged scolded he tried coerce the family AGAIN by offering the device to them if they would sign a gag order not to talk about the judge's scolding of him.

The moral bankruptcy that must be in place for this kind of behavior to happen... if you don't want to work in the best interests of children, THEN DON'T GO INTO THE EDUCATION FIELD!!!!

Mr. Leis and his staff would do well to read this and repent. Shadur and Wheaton aren't the only Judges angry with them.

What you do unto the least of these...


Update: Turns out Wade is friends with the Killians and has more of the story.

It was worse than I thought. He sent along the transcript of the judge's judgement.

Judge: Dist. 203 'blackmailed' parents
July 15, 2007
BY TIM WALDORF
The Naperville Sun

Two judges have said Naperville School District 203 held an autistic student "hostage" to "blackmail" his parents into agreeing to its plans for his education.

Killian Hynes, a nonverbal, autistic 6-year-old Naperville boy, communicates using a device known as a Tango, which costs $7,000. It's the only such device Killian has been able to relate to, said his father, Kevin Hynes, 43.

Six-year-old Killian Hynes and his mother, Beth, jump Thursday on their neighbor's trampoline in Naperville. Killian, who has autism, is the focus of a debate with District 203 about where he should attend school and the use of a communications device, called the Tango.

Simply put, Kevin said, the Tango is as important to Killian as a wheelchair would be to a child with a physical disability.

And that's why the Hynes family took legal action when Naperville School District 203 withheld their son's communication device.

"I know my rights, and I know my son's rights," said Kevin, who along with his wife, Beth, 44, is a lawyer. "You can get trampled on if you don't know your rights."

Judges who recently ruled on the case had harsh words for District 203. Federal Judge Milton Shadur asked District 203 the same question posed to notorious U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954: "Have you no shame?"

Where to educate

In January, Killian's reading therapist loaned the family a Tango to use while he attended Summit School Early Learning Center in Elgin. The Tango soon became an agreed upon provision in Killian's individual education plan, a curriculum and set of goals designed specifically for a special needs student. District 203 special education teachers and administrators who are part of the team creating Killian's IEP watched Killian work with the device in the spring. They then ordered one for him to use as part of his agreed upon summer IEP, and taught his teacher at Summit how to use it.

However, the IEP team, which includes Killian's parents, could not agree where he would receive his summer schooling.

The 6-year-old was bored and regressing at Summit, Kevin said. The school had grown considerably since they started sending him there in 2005, and they felt Summit's staff hadn't mastered the Tango to the point they could effectively integrate it into his instruction. So they made arrangements to send him to a more expensive but more technologically advanced Carol Stream program that could better incorporate the Tango into Killian's studies. And, Kevin said, they were willing to pay the difference - about $100 a week for nine weeks - despite the provision of laws such as the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Laws such as these require school districts to pay for placement of special needs students like Killian in private, out-of-district facilities if parents, teachers and administrators determine that the student's needs can't be met within the district.

"IDEA isn't supposed to be about how much it costs. It's about if it's appropriate for the kid, he gets it," Hynes said. "Still, I understand everybody has a budget, and we're willing to work within that."

In various e-mails to the Hyneses, District 203 administrators agreed that Killian wasn't getting what he needed at Summit. They indicated interest in the Carol Stream program, but they also expressed concerns regarding its costs.

The matter remained unresolved as of June 11, when Killian's summer IEP was set to begin, and when Kevin dropped by District 203 to pick up the new Tango. When he got there, administrators told him he couldn't have it.

Then, in correspondence with the Hyneses, special education and students' rights attorney Laura Sinars, District 203's legal counsel, indicated the only way District 203 would provide the device would be if the Hyneses agreed to send Killian to one of two programs the district preferred. District 203 either wanted to continue sending him to Summit for the summer, or enroll him in a District 203 program, which Killian's IEP team already had deemed an inappropriate fit for his needs, Kevin said.

But District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis said the district believes it can provide appropriate instruction for Killian within the school system.

"We weren't opposed to the technology at all," he said. "We just wanted it integrated into a longer-term solution."
Irreparable injury
The Hyneses had a different take on the situation than did District 203.

"I'm like, 'That's coercion. My son needs a communication device, and you can't coerce me,'" Kevin said.

Judges agreed with the Hyneses, and severely scolded District 203 administrators for their decision.

Judge Shadur, who heard the case June 27 only because District 203 sought to have it dismissed, said he'd seldom been as troubled by a complaint.

"The undisputed picture here is regrettably one of the defendants holding, I guess, a 6-year-old autistic boy hostage, depriving him of what is without dispute really a promised Tango communication device, something that everyone agrees - even the professionals agree - is essential to his effective functioning," Shadur said. "And to hold that back as what has to be viewed, I regret to say, as blackmail for his parents, seeking to compel them to accept a program that the defendant's own professionals have found not to be in his best interest."

Judge Shadur said the situation was "nothing short of appalling."

"And I regret that the delay, the nondelivery, appears to be as inflicting serious damage on the boy's progress in dealing with his extremely serious developmental difficulties," he said.

Shadur denied District 203's request to dismiss the case, and sent it back to DuPage County Circuit Court for trial June 29. There, Judge Bonnie Wheaton expressed sentiments similar to Shadur's in ruling for the Hyneses.

"I think Judge Shadur's statement that this 6-year-old boy is being held hostage is absolutely four square and right on," Wheaton said. "And I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the district would withhold this communicative device, which has evidently been proved to be a mechanism by which this autistic boy can communicate, merely because his parents have a dispute with the district over the remainder of his IEP."

Wheaton ruled that District 203 was to immediately provide Killian with the Tango.

"He has a right to the services, whether it's piecemeal or as a whole, under an IEP that is formulated by the district and agreed to by his parents," Wheaton said in her ruling. "Clearly, clearly, irreparable injury will occur to him for every day that he is deprived of this assisted communicative device."

Leis said the judges' comments surprised him.

"It wasn't our plan to hold the technology hostage," he said. "We just thought it needed to be part of a plan that integrated it into his instruction."
Going public
Kevin said he hopes Killian will someday attend a "regular school." That's the dream of every parent with an autistic child, he said.

But getting there will take a lot of work, he said. So wasting a summer - or even three weeks - is costly for both Killian and the district, he said, suggesting that the legal bills for Sinars' services had to far exceed the cost of services in the dispute.

The Hyneses could have had the Tango two days before Wheaton's June 29 ruling if they'd agreed to a settlement the district's counsel presented after Judge Shadur's scolding. In that June 27 offer, Sinars said, although the district "vehemently disagrees" with Judge Shadur, it would turn over the Tango if the Hyneses would abide by a confidentiality agreement.

Or, as Kevin said, a gag order.

"You must agree never to disclose, publicize, publish, indicate or in any other manner communicate the comments made today by Milton Shadur or reference in any way today's court appearance, the litigation you initiated against the district in court, the case name or number or the terms of the parties' agreement to or with any other person or entity," the settlement proposal states.

The Hyneses turned down that offer before the June 29 trial, opting to take their case to court and then to the public.

"I said, 'I want people to know what you guys are doing here,'" Kevin said.

Contact Tim Waldorf at twaldorf@scn1.com or 630-416-5270.

Full Disclosure in Correcting My Error In Writing About Other's Errors

Last week David Kirby posted this HuffPo piece. I posted it to my site.

A short time later, Mr. Kirby posted this to the EOH list, outing well known autism author, Roy Richard Grinker, Ph. D., as someone who was posting anonymously in the comments section.

RE: This comment on Huffpost:

“Unfortunately, Mr. Kirby continues to believe that California's DDS enrollment figures constitute epidemiological data. They do not. The author even makes a claim about statistical significance! He also introduces a new term into the discussion -- "full spectrum" -- (which he suggests is equivalent to Autistic Disorder) -- and states that the DDS counts only Autistic Disorder, not PDD-NOS, or Asperger's, or Down's Syndrome children with autism, or any other phenotype. This is absolutely wrong. Not even the best epidemiological studies are particularly good at distinguishing among the subtypes. It is truly disappointing to see the Huffington Post continue to publish phony epidemiology.”

Signed: Mfano

But “backstage” I see that his email is actually rgrink@gwu.edu

If Dr. Grinker would like to debate this subject out in the open, using his real name, I would be more than happy to take part. You would think that someone of his stature would have more pressing things to do with George Washington University’s time and bandwidth than send anonymous, erroneous comments to national political blogs.

I also posted this to my site.

A list member on the Evidence of Harm list noted that Dr. Grinker has a habit of posting anonymously to talk about his own work.

Update: From "celiacdaughter" on the EOH list:
...If you search some of his (Mfano) previous posts you will also note that he enjoys using the third person when discussing himself:

"So Foresam, tell us: how Grinker should look for autistic adults? The woman Grinker and Chew wrote about in the blog wasn't on record anywhere as autistic. Grinker doesn't say, but she probably bit herself and smeared feces too. No one missed her. She was called mentally retarded and given lots of treatment and care. She just wasn't called autistic"...

I also posted this to my site.

Then a little while later, Mr. Kirby announced that he had inadvertently broken the HuffPo privacy policy in making the information public and apologized for the breach.

Dear List members

I have been informed by the editors of the Huffington Post that it is against the rules to reveal the identity of people who post comments on the blog.

I was not aware of that rule.

I apologize to Huffpost and, particularly, to Dr. Grinker, for the violation. Please do not attempt to contact him directly. He made his comment in the full belief that his identity would not be revealed, and we all need to respect that decision.

Again, my apologies to everyone.

David

I did not see the post.

Kristina Chew Ph. D. wrote to me and asked that I remove the information on Dr. Grinker. Dr. Chew is a co-author of Dr. Grinker.

I checked the EOH list and found Mr. Kirby’s apology. And sent her this reply.

Hi Kristina,

I just read all this and am genuinely unsure of what to do here.

Let me think about this.

Ginger

As I was thinking about the ethics involved, an email arrived from Mr. Kirby arrived asking me to remove the information in deference to Dr. Grinker.

I then decided to remove the information in an attempt to “keep the peace”.

Dr. Chew noted that I had forgotten to remove Dr. Grinker's name from the labels, so I did.

I also removed four comments from the post that referred to the deleted information as they only served to pique one's interest in the deleted information.

kristina has left a new comment on your post "The California Numbers: Autism Declining Among Th...":

In your "update," you quote David Kirby's message on the EoH Yahoogroups List in which he revealed Roy Richard Grinker's identity, as well as some additional messages from the EoH Yahoogroups List on this matter. Mr. Kirby's revelation of Prof. Grinker's identity was a violation of the policy of the Huffington Post. It is therefore inappropriate for the EoH messages to still appear on your blog.

Thank you very much.
Kristina Chew
Auitm

Sincerely,
Kristina Chew
http://www.autismvox.com

kristina has left a new comment on your post "The California Numbers: Autism Declining Among Th...":

Thanks very much, Ginger. As you've removed the update, perhaps it might also be possible to remove the tag for Roy Grinker? Best wishes from Kristina Chew

autismvox.com

Posted by kristina to Adventures in Autism at 7:07 PM

Camille has left a new comment on your post "The California Numbers: Autism Declining Among Th...":

Any comment on the way David Kirby outed the commenter he didn't agree with to the EoHarm yahoo! group?

Do you think it's OK that he outed an anonymous commenter? I guess you did because you posted the details of the outing here, approvingly.

Do you think Kirby ought to apologize to Grinker in public? Do you think Arianna needs to apologize for bamboozling her commenters into thinking they were anonymous to the bloggers?

Posted by Camille to Adventures in Autism at 12:17 AM

Ginger has left a new comment on your post "The California Numbers: Autism Declining Among Th...":

Well Camille, commenting on all that would kinda defeat the point of taking it down, now wouldn't it?

Posted by Ginger to Adventures in Autism at 9:11 AM

After reading discussion of the incident today, I realized that I had fallen into the same trap that I accuse main stream media of doing, making editorial decisions based on politics. I have replaced all the information so everything is back on the record.

I should not have taken the information down.

I apologize for doing it.

Today I reposted the information and sent the following email to Kristina Chew, Roy Grinker and David Kirby:

At the request of Dr. Chew and Mr. Kirby (who related Dr. Grinker's wish), the information on Dr. Grinker's anonymous posting on HuffPo was removed from my site. I was very reluctant to do it, but did so to keep the peace and try to honor the requests of those involved.

After seeing the fall out from my decision, it is apparent to me that my choice was a poor one and I have corrected it by reposting the information. I will be following it up with a discussion of the matter in a separate post. All of this information is relevant to the autism debate, Dr. Grinker's deception, Mr. Kirby's breaking of HuffPo rules (unknowingly or not), Mr. Kirby's public apology, Dr. Grinker's lack of any kind of mea culpa (as far as I know), Mr. Kirby's and Dr. Chew's request to have the information taken down, and my poor choice to self-censor after the fact.

One of my central complaints in the autism debate is the strangle hold on information that prevents the public from making informed choices on who to trust and what advice to take. When I removed the information I violated my own policy and took part in something that I have been criticizing for three years.

If any of us are to be of help to those with autism and their families, openness, transparency and integrity are essential. To be as frank as I can be, everyone needs to stop worrying about their bull shit reputations and do the right thing. If you make a mistake, then apologize and clean up your mess as best you can and face the consequences.

Any of us with letters after our name or books on autism don't have the maturity to do that, then we should not be a part of this discussion. Too many people's lives depend on its outcome.

Sincerely,
Ginger Taylor, M.S.

I try to run an honest blog, I have tried to be as open and transparent as I have challenged others to be. I will work harder to maintain that standard in the future.

I am sorry for the lapse in judgment.

Wakefield's Hearing Begins

Today began the Wakefield Trial, I don't know if there will be reporting on it, but I will post it if I come across it.

His supporters have two efforts underway:

This Petition

and

CryShame.co.uk

NAA's press release today:

Parents and advocacy groups call inquiry against Dr. Andrew Wakefield a “witch hunt”

National Autism Association Tells England’s GMC to Instead Ask: Why Are So Many Kids Sick?

Washington, DC - Parents and advocacy groups around the globe are asking England’s General Medical Council (GMC) to cancel the “fitness to practice” inquiry that begins today against Dr. Andy Wakefield, and Professors Walker-Smith and Murch. Advocates say the GMC should instead be asking why so many kids are sick, especially in light of an apparently suppressed analysis showing that autism rates in England are as high as 1 in 58. The medical establishment is being criticized for doing little to find the cause, treat the kids, or prevent new cases.

“The list of charges reveal the utter lack of any case against Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues, who are at risk of losing their licenses,” according to National Autism Association (NAA) board member and parent Scott Bono. The charges, only made known last week, relate primarily to a peer-reviewed case report published in 1998 in the “Early Reports” section of The Lancet, one of England’s leading medical journals: Ileal-lymphoid-nodular-hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive disability disorder in children. This first report of a new syndrome, never refuted or retracted, has since been repeatedly reported and studied by other researchers. Vaccine-strain measles virus has been found and sequenced from gut biopsies and cerebral spinal fluid in autistic children.

The charges originated from internet blogger Brian Deer, who many parents have suggested may be linked to the pharmaceutical industry. “This is nothing more than a witch hunt brought against scientists willing to undertake ground-breaking research challenging the assumption that autism is an inherited untreatable psychiatric disorder that cannot be prevented. Implicating the safety of vaccines such as MMR isn’t acceptable to drug companies or government officials who want to protect the vaccine program itself at the cost of the health of children,” said Mr. Bono.

The evidence will demonstrate that questioned diagnostic studies used by Dr. Wakefield, such as colonoscopies and lumbar punctures, were not only approved by ethics review but were clinically indicated. These have now been accepted as the standard of care by a group of leading pediatric gastroenterologists in the United States.

Other charges concern incomplete disclosures of what the advocacy groups consider irrelevant material that could appear to be a conflict of interest only to vaccine makers and government agencies shielding vaccines from legitimate and appropriate criticism. Dr. Wakefield had consulted with lawyers and families receiving government funding from the Legal Aid Board on an entirely separate study to determine whether measles virus could be identified in the diseased gut tissue, providing vital evidence for a possible class action. The legal aid board subsequently determined that this explanation for autism was more probable than not, but under government pressure dropped funding for the suit.

In the first of 5000 cases to be heard in a special vaccine court in the US last month, evidence presented demonstrated that 12-year old Michelle Cedillo began regressing into autism just a week after her MMR vaccination at 15 months. The plausible cause was a persistent measles infection which took hold through an immune system weakened by mercury in vaccines administered prior to the MMR.

Many have cited the major theme of the Government’s defense in vaccine court was that those who have the temerity to question vaccine safety must be censored and their research stopped rather than risk impairing public confidence in vaccines. According to a growing number of parents, the actual threats involved are:

* companies making vaccines without appropriate safety considerations because they no longer need fear accountability through litigation
* government denials of the autism epidemic that allow an avoidance of funding research into cause and treatment
* a sclerotic medical establishment with its head in the sand as a tsunami of sick children rages overhead.

“The search for truth in autism must be guided by sound science and not be led astray by fear, censorship, and the greed of the pharma-government complex,” commented NAA president Wendy Fournier. “Perhaps the greatest damage done by this GMC hearing, other than a complete waste of time and resources, is the chill wind blown over parents and scientists who dare to ask the hard questions against this and any other medical orthodoxy: why are so many of our kids sick and what can, indeed what must, we do to help them?”

No parents will testify against Wakefield and his colleagues at the GMC hearing. Instead, they have organized a protest coinciding with the start of the hearing. “NAA stands shoulder to shoulder with our British friends in their search for truth, justice, and treatments for their kids,” said Ms. Fournier. “We urge the GMC to stop this persecution and take urgent action in view of a true national health emergency to care for the children afflicted with autism.”

For more information on autism, visit www.nationalautism.org.

Julie Gerberding is Doing an Awsome Job

.. or not.

So we are to trust the CDC to tell us the truth about their vaccine schedule injuring our children when they can't be trusted not to steal stuff from their own offices?

Seriously?

Feds probe missing CDC gear Theft suspected in some cases
By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/12/07

Federal investigators will look into the disappearance of $22 million worth of scientific equipment, computers and other items from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An audit of procedures and an investigation into allegations of theft at the Atlanta-based agency will be conducted by the Inspector General's office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The inquiry was requested by a congressional oversight committee as a consequence of its "troubling" findings last month.

"A thorough audit will help stop the bleeding of taxpayer-owned property at CDC," said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) in a prepared statement Wednesday. "In cases of theft, it will also tell us what happened to the thieves."

CDC officials said they have accounted for about $9 million of the $22 million in missing goods in recent weeks as a result of efforts to track down lost items and improve accountability.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce specifically raised concerns about a suspected "insider" burglary of $500,000 in new computers, and millions of dollars worth of other items missing or unaccounted for since the last audit of the agency in 1995.

"The scope of property mismanagement and outright theft at CDC is both astonishing and baffling," said Barton, the ranking Republican on the committee.

Inspector General Daniel Levinson wrote Barton on June 25, "As requested, we will audit CDC's controls over property, such as laptops and scientific equipment, and determine whether CDC has adequately implemented the recommendations in the prior report. We will separately investigate the allegations [you] identified."

The inspector general's office declined to comment further on the inquiries.

Between fiscal 2004 and 2006, there were 61 investigations into the theft or disappearance of agency property. No arrests or disciplinary action resulted from those investigations, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner on Wednesday. He said several investigations are ongoing.

Skinner said much of the equipment was discovered missing during a major reorganization in the agency. He said staff are using new computer programs to better track items.

He said the CDC faces tough challenges in managing property as an agency with a nearly $9 billion budget and 15,000 employees. "We look forward to what the inspector general has to say, and ... steps we can take to get better at property inventory and management," he said.

"We take security very seriously."

Support FAIR Autism Media

They are doing a helluva job.

Autism Fundraiser to Benefit F.A.I.R.
Saturday, August 18, 2007

Antipasto Lounge, Addison, IL

Come out and support FAIR at DJ Mario "Makeudance" Barbieri's 2nd Annual Autism Fundraiser! All proceeds will benefit FAIR's educational outreach programs and research funding initiatives. Last year was a blast and everyone had a great time! So call your babysitter and come out for the fun!

Interesting Story About a Vaccine/Autism Book in 2001

Lisa Blakemore-Brown is a British psychologist who wrote about a vaccine link in 2001 and now maintains the blog Thimerosal Thoughts. Her story about what happened when Eli Lilly bought one of the first copies is fascinating:

MMR, Mercury and the Mystery surrounding my book

Tomorrow at the General Medical Council will start the case against Dr Andrew Wakefield and two other Doctors who raised concerns about children they assessed in the nineties, very worried that the problems they found were linked to adverse reactions to the MMR vaccine.

As there has been an almighty reaction by the Pharmaceutical lobby there has been NO public debate on exactly what has been going on.

In my book, Reweaving the Autistic Tapestry, having seen too many children with what I called 'tapestry impairments' many of which developed following the DTP and in fewer cases, the MMR, I suggested there may be a 'tapestry' causal effect with vaccines as one thread.

I mentioned Thimerosal and included some lawyers details here and in the US.

The launch of the book was at a CHADD conference in Anaheim California in October 2001. Eli Lilly were on the next stand and bought a copy of the book.

On my return to the UK there was no contact from the publisher.

Within weeks of my book being published parents were being told by Amazon that it was a 'rare book' and that it would take a year to get and would cost $79 plus post and packing!!!

There were none in the shops.

There were none in the warehouses of the retailers.

There were none in the Distributors.

The UK National Autistic Society carry all the books on Autism - except mine.

Probably nothing to do with my concerns about the vaccine, a small part of the book incidentally, or about my concern about the use of the label Munchausen Syndrome by proxy when children were genuinely ill - many had suffered reactions to vaccines. The fact that during the time my Editor was working on the book he was invited to change jobs and work on the MSBP/Factitious Illness Guidlelines at the RCPCH - Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, I am sure was total coincidence.

Guess I'm just paranoid when it comes to the things done by the powerful vaccine lobby and the need to protect the vaccine programme more than the public...

Prior to the documentary My Family and Autism being aired on the BBC, over a year after the trip to Anaheim, in which I am seen undertaking an assessment, I was able to at least get the book made more accessible.

If just one person is allowed to speak about their concerns without being leapt on from a great height, I might have confidence that the vaccine programme is safe - but I think they have gone too far and protested too much.

We all now want to know WHY???

New French Autism Blog

More signs of things changing... Foreign Biomed Blogs.

Here is are two new ones from Capucine:

http://dansonslacapucine.blogspot.com/

http://dansonslacapucine.blog.lemonde.fr/

Something Has Happened

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

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

Something has changed around the Cedillo Trial.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Truth About MMR

DANGERS OF MMR JAB 'COVERED UP'

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

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

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



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



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

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

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

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

Draw Your Own Analogies

Johnson & Johnson Clears Their Own Product of Autism Link

Critique of JnJ's Rhogam Study

If you don't want to find something, look where it is isn't.

Hey Kids, Get Vaxed!

Bird Flu Vaccine. Now with TWICE the Mercury!

FDA's newly approved Bird Flu vaccine contains 100mgs of Thimerosal which means 50 of Mercury!

http://www.fda.gov/cber/label/h5n1san041707LB.pdf

Whereas you needed to be 550lbs to safely take the mercury laden flu shot with 25 mikes of merc according to the EPA, now you must weigh 1100 lbs to safely take the bird flu shot. Oh... and you need two doses 28 days apart.

How is this making vaccines safer?

If bird flu comes, just don't go outside.

Update: I seem to remember some bad movie from the 70's where people caught a horrible disease from a bird and locked themselves in a clinic and created an vaccine but in the end the vaccine killed them and everyone else ended up being fine. Does anyone remember this movie?