Kennedy, Jr.: PhRMA causing mental disability

[Guest guest]

[Feel free to forward this fascinating article by

F. Kennedy, Jr. about how some

mental disabilities in the USA may be

caused by the pharmaceutical industry...

and how these drugs are on their way

more and more to developing countries.]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7395411

Deadly Immunity: Politics

Rolling Stone Magazine ^ | 6/15/2005 | F. Kennedy Jr.

Posted on 06/15/2005 8:16:34 AM PDT by CraigG

Deadly Immunity F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government

cover-up

of a mercury/autism scandal By ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health

officials

gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center

in

Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center,

nestled

in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete

secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -

-

only

private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level

officials

from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine

specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and

representatives

of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoKline,

Merck,

Wyeth

and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC

officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly

" embargoed. "

There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers

with

them when they left. The federal officials and industry

representatives

had

assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming

questions

about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered

to

infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named

Tom

Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database

containing

the

medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in

the

vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic

increase

in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among

children. " I

was

actually stunned by what I saw, " Verstraeten told those assembled at

Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that

indicate a

link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder,

hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had

recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the

preservative

be

given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of

birth

--

the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold,

from

one

in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of

life and

death, the findings were frightening. " You can play with this all you

want, "

Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics,

told the

group. The results " are statistically significant. " Dr.

ston, an

immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose

grandson

had been born early on the morning of the meeting's first day, was

even

more

alarmed. " My gut feeling? " he said. " Forgive this personal comment --

I

do

not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we

know

better what is going on. "

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the

vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at

Simpsonwood

spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the

damaging

data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of

Information

Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging

revelations

about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line. " We

are in

a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits, " said

Dr.

Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for

Children

in Delaware. " This will be a resource to our very busy plaintiff

attorneys

in this country. " Dr. Bob Chen, head of vaccine safety for the CDC,

expressed relief that " given the sensitivity of the information, we

have

been able to keep it out of the hands of, let's say, less responsible

hands. " Dr. Clements, vaccines adviser at the World Health

Organization, declared flatly that the study " should not have been

done

at

all " and warned that the results " will be taken by others and will be

used

in ways beyond the control of this group. The research results have

to

be

handled. "

In fact, the government has proved to be far more adept at handling

the

damage than at protecting children's health. The CDC paid the

Institute

of

Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal,

ordering researchers to " rule out " the chemical's link to autism. It

withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been slated for

immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original

data

had

been " lost " and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of

Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over

to a

private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time

Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003, he had gone to work

for

GlaxoKline and reworked his data to bury the link between

thimerosal

and autism.

Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal out of

injections given to American infants -- but they continued to sell

off

their

mercury-based supplies of vaccines until last year. The CDC and FDA

gave

them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for export to developing

countries and allowing drug companies to continue using the

preservative in

some American vaccines -- including several pediatric flu shots as

well

as

tetanus boosters routinely given to eleven-year-olds.

The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in

Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received

$873,000 in

contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to

immunize

vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed

by

the

parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has

tried to

seal all of the government's vaccine-related documents -- including

the

Simpsonwood transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of

thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly

slipped a

rider known as the " Eli Lilly Protection Act " into a homeland

security

bill,

the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000

copies

of

his book on bioterrorism. The measure was repealed by Congress in

2003

--

but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an

anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children

suffering

from

vaccine-related brain disorders. " The lawsuits are of such magnitude

that

they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our

capacity

to

deal with a biological attack by terrorists, " says Andy Olsen, a

legislative

assistant to Frist.

Even many conservatives are shocked by the government's effort to

cover

up

the dangers of thimerosal. Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana,

oversaw a three-year investigation of thimerosal after his grandson

was

diagnosed with autism. " Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines

is

directly related to the autism epidemic, " his House Government Reform

Committee concluded in its final report. " This epidemic in all

probability

may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at

the

switch regarding a lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal,

a

known neurotoxin. " The FDA and other public-health agencies failed to

act,

the committee added, out of " institutional malfeasance for self

protection "

and " misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry. "

The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma

to

hide

the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of

institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the

controversy

only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent

years

working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of

autistic

children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been

injured

by

vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.

I doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source, and I

certainly

understood the government's need to reassure parents that

vaccinations

are

safe; the eradication of deadly childhood diseases depends on it. I

tended

to agree with skeptics like Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from

California,

who criticized his colleagues on the House Government Reform

Committee

for

leaping to conclusions about autism and vaccinations. " Why should we

scare

people about immunization, " Waxman pointed out at one hearing, " until

we

know the facts? "

It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts, studying the

leading

scientific research and talking with many of the nation's pre-eminent

authorities on mercury that I became convinced that the link between

thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is

real.

Five of my own children are members of the Thimerosal Generation --

those

born between 1989 and 2003 -- who received heavy doses of mercury from

vaccines. " The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who

have

symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage, " Patti White, a

school

nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. " Vaccines

are

supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of

nursing

I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very

wrong is

happening to our children. "

More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians

diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. The disease was

unknown

until 1943, when it was identified and diagnosed among eleven

children

born

in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in

1931.

Some skeptics dispute that the rise in autism is caused by

thimerosal-tainted vaccinations. They argue that the increase is a

result of

better diagnosis -- a theory that seems questionable at best, given

that

most of the new cases of autism are clustered within a single

generation of

children. " If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis, "

scoffs

Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity,

" then

where are all the twenty-year-old autistics? " Other researchers point

out

that Americans are exposed to a greater cumulative " load " of mercury

than

ever before, from contaminated fish to dental fillings, and suggest

that

thimerosal in vaccines may be only part of a much larger problem.

It's

a

concern that certainly deserves far more attention than it has

received

--

but it overlooks the fact that the mercury concentrations in vaccines

dwarf

other sources of exposure to our children.

What is most striking is the lengths to which many of the leading

detectives

have gone to ignore -- and cover up -- the evidence against

thimerosal.

From

the very beginning, the scientific case against the mercury additive

has

been overwhelming. The preservative, which is used to stem fungi and

bacterial growth in vaccines, contains ethylmercury, a potent

neurotoxin.

Truckloads of studies have shown that mercury tends to accumulate in

the

brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with

vaccines -- and that the developing brains of infants are particularly

susceptible. In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to

much

lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American

children

still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from

children's vaccines twenty years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan,

Great

Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

" You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe, "

says

Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of

Kentucky.

" It's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal,

its

brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die.

If

you

put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it

would be

shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing

damage. "

Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed

thimerosal,

knew from the start that its product could cause damage -- and even

death --

in both animals and humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by

administering it to twenty-two patients with terminal meningitis, all

of

whom died within weeks of being injected -- a fact Lilly didn't

bother

to

report in its study declaring thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at

another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-, warned Lilly that its

claims

about thimerosal's safety " did not check with ours. " Half the dogs

Pittman

injected with thimerosal-based vaccines became sick, leading

researchers

there to declare the preservative " unsatisfactory as a serum intended

for

use on dogs. "

In the decades that followed, the evidence against thimerosal

continued

to

mount. During the Second World War, when the Department of Defense

used

the

preservative in vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to label it

" poison. " In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that

thimerosal

killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later,

Lilly's

own

studies discerned that thimerosal was " toxic to tissue cells " in

concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker

than

the

concentration in a typical vaccine. Even so, the company continued to

promote thimerosal as " nontoxic " and also incorporated it into topical

disinfectants. In 1977, ten babies at a Toronto hospital died when an

antiseptic preserved with thimerosal was dabbed onto their umbilical

cords.

In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on over-the-counter products that

contained

thimerosal, and in 1991 the agency considered banning it from animal

vaccines. But tragically, that same year, the CDC recommended that

infants

be injected with a series of mercury-laced vaccines. Newborns would be

vaccinated for hepatitis B within twenty-four hours of birth, and

two-month-old infants would be immunized for haemophilus influenzae B

and

diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis.

The drug industry knew the additional vaccines posed a danger. The

same

year

that the CDC approved the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of

the

fathers of Merck's vaccine programs, warned the company that

six-month-olds

who were administered the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to

mercury.

He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued, " especially when used

on

infants and children, " noting that the industry knew of nontoxic

alternatives. " The best way to go, " he added, " is to switch to

dispensing

the actual vaccines without adding preservatives. "

For Merck and other drug companies, however, the obstacle was money.

Thimerosal enables the pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines in

vials

that contain multiple doses, which require additional protection

because

they are more easily contaminated by multiple needle entries. The

larger

vials cost half as much to produce as smaller, single-dose vials,

making it

cheaper for international agencies to distribute them to impoverished

regions at risk of epidemics. Faced with this " cost consideration, "

Merck

ignored Hilleman's warnings, and government officials continued to

push

more

and more thimerosal-based vaccines for children. Before 1989, American

preschoolers received only three vaccinations -- for polio,

diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade

later,

thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of

twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.

As the number of vaccines increased, the rate of autism among children

exploded. During the 1990s, 40 million children were injected with

thimerosal-based vaccines, receiving unprecedented levels of mercury

during

a period critical for brain development. Despite the well-documented

dangers

of thimerosal, it appears that no one bothered to add up the

cumulative

dose

of mercury that children would receive from the mandated vaccines.

" What

took the FDA so long to do the calculations? " Patriarca,

director

of

viral products for the agency, asked in an e-mail to the CDC in 1999.

" Why

didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they

rapidly

expanded the childhood immunization schedule? "

But by that time, the damage was done. Infants who received all their

vaccines, plus boosters, by the age of six months were being injected

with

levels of ethylmercury 187 times greater than the EPA's limit for

daily

exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine

industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it

breaks

down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including

one

published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest

that

ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in

the

brain longer than methylmercury.

Officials responsible for childhood immunizations insist that the

additional

vaccines were necessary to protect infants from disease and that

thimerosal

is still essential in developing nations, which, they often claim,

cannot

afford the single-dose vials that don't require a preservative. Dr.

Offit, one of CDC's top vaccine advisers, told me, " I think if we

really

have an influenza pandemic -- and certainly we will in the next twenty

years, because we always do -- there's no way on God's earth that we

immunize 280 million people with single-dose vials. There has to be

multidose vials. "

But while public-health officials may have been well-intentioned,

many

of

those on the CDC advisory committee who backed the additional

vaccines

had

close ties to the industry. Dr. Sam Katz, the committee's chair, was

a

paid

consultant for most of the major vaccine makers and shares a patent

on

a

measles vaccine with Merck, which also manufactures the hepatitis B

vaccine.

Dr. Neal Halsey, another committee member, worked as a researcher for

the

vaccine companies and received honoraria from Abbott Labs for his

research

on the hepatitis B vaccine.

Indeed, in the tight circle of scientists who work on vaccines, such

conflicts of interest are common. Rep. Burton says that the CDC

" routinely

allows scientists with blatant conflicts of interest to serve on

intellectual advisory committees that make recommendations on new

vaccines, "

even though they have " interests in the products and companies for

which

they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight. " The House

Government

Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who

approved

guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine laced with thimerosal " had

financial

ties

to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different

versions

of

the vaccine. "

Offit, who shares a patent on the vaccine, acknowledged to me that he

" would

make money " if his vote to approve it eventually leads to a marketable

product. But he dismissed my suggestion that a scientist's direct

financial

stake in CDC approval might bias his judgment. " It provides no

conflict

for

me, " he insists. " I have simply been informed by the process, not

corrupted

by it. When I sat around that table, my sole intent was trying to make

recommendations that best benefited the children in this country. It's

offensive to say that physicians and public-health people are in the

pocket

of industry and thus are making decisions that they know are unsafe

for

children. It's just not the way it works. "

Other vaccine scientists and regulators gave me similar assurances.

Like

Offit, they view themselves as enlightened guardians of children's

health,

proud of their " partnerships " with pharmaceutical companies, immune

to

the

seductions of personal profit, besieged by irrational activists whose

anti-vaccine campaigns are endangering children's health. They are

often

resentful of questioning. " Science, " says Offit, " is best left to

scientists. "

Still, some government officials were alarmed by the apparent

conflicts

of

interest. In his e-mail to CDC administrators in 1999, Patriarca

of the

FDA blasted federal regulators for failing to adequately scrutinize

the

danger posed by the added baby vaccines. " I'm not sure there will be

an

easy

way out of the potential perception that the FDA, CDC and

immunization-policy bodies may have been asleep at the switch re:

thimerosal

until now, " Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory

officials and

the pharmaceutical industry, he added, " will also raise questions

about

various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use "

of

thimerosal in child vaccines.

If federal regulators and government scientists failed to grasp the

potential risks of thimerosal over the years, no one could claim

ignorance

after the secret meeting at Simpsonwood. But rather than conduct more

studies to test the link to autism and other forms of brain damage,

the

CDC

placed politics over science. The agency turned its database on

childhood

vaccines -- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense --

over to

a private agency, America's Health Insurance Plans, ensuring that it

could

not be used for additional research. It also instructed the Institute

of

Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National

Academy

of

Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal

and

brain

disorders. The CDC " wants us to declare, well, that these things are

pretty

safe, " Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM's Immunization Safety

Review

Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January

2001.

" We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side

effect " of

thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the

committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM

would

conclude that the evidence was " inadequate to accept or reject a

causal

relation " between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the

result

" Walt wants " -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the

National Immunization Program for the CDC.

For those who had devoted their lives to promoting vaccination, the

revelations about thimerosal threatened to undermine everything they

had

worked for. " We've got a dragon by the tail here, " said Dr.

Kaback,

another committee member. " The more negative that [our] presentation

is, the

less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization -- and we

know

what

the results of that will be. We are kind of caught in a trap. How we

work

our way out of the trap, I think is the charge. "

Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary

goal

in

studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines. " Four current

studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism

and

thimerosal, " Dr. Gordon , then-director of strategic planning

for

vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a

Princeton

University gathering in May 2001. " In order to undo the harmful

effects

of

research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of

autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure

parents of safety. " formerly served as president of

vaccinations for

Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks.

In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final

report.

Its

conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal in

vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature

describing

the

toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on four disastrously flawed

epidemiological studies examining European countries, where children

received much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids. It also

cited

a new version of the Verstraeten study, published in the journal

Pediatrics,

that had been reworked to reduce the link between thimerosal and

autism. The

new study included children too young to have been diagnosed with

autism and

overlooked others who showed signs of the disease. The IOM declared

the

case

closed and -- in a startling position for a scientific body --

recommended

that no further research be conducted.

The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep.

Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida who serves on the House

Government Reform Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine,

saying

it

relied on a handful of studies that were " fatally flawed " by " poor

design "

and failed to represent " all the available scientific and medical

research. "

CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth,

Weldon

told me, because " an association between vaccines and autism would

force

them to admit that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of

children.

Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves? "

Under pressure from congress, parents and a few of its own panel

members,

the Institute of Medicine reluctantly convened a second panel to

review

the

findings of the first. In February, the new panel, composed of

different

scientists, criticized the earlier panel for its lack of transparency

and

urged the CDC to make its vaccine database available to the public.

So far, though, only two scientists have managed to gain access. Dr.

Mark

Geier, president of the Genetics Center of America, and his son,

,

spent a year battling to obtain the medical records from the CDC.

Since

August 2002, when members of Congress pressured the agency to turn

over

the

data, the Geiers have completed six studies that demonstrate a

powerful

correlation between thimerosal and neurological damage in children.

One

study, which compares the cumulative dose of mercury received by

children

born between 1981 and 1985 with those born between 1990 and 1996,

found

a

" very significant relationship " between autism and vaccines. Another

study

of educational performance found that kids who received higher doses

of

thimerosal in vaccines were nearly three times as likely to be

diagnosed

with autism and more than three times as likely to suffer from speech

disorders and mental retardation. Another soon-to-be published study

shows

that autism rates are in decline following the recent elimination of

thimerosal from most vaccines.

As the federal government worked to prevent scientists from studying

vaccines, others have stepped in to study the link to autism. In

April,

reporter Dan Olmsted of UPI undertook one of the more interesting

studies

himself. Searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury in

vaccines -- the kind of population that scientists typically use as a

" control " in experiments -- Olmsted scoured the Amish of Lancaster

County,

Pennsylvania, who refuse to immunize their infants. Given the

national

rate

of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics

among

the

Amish. He found only four. One had been exposed to high levels of

mercury

from a power plant. The other three -- including one child adopted

from

outside the Amish community -- had received their vaccines.

At the state level, many officials have also conducted in-depth

reviews

of

thimerosal. While the Institute of Medicine was busy whitewashing the

risks,

the Iowa legislature was carefully combing through all of the

available

scientific and biological data. " After three years of review, I became

convinced there was sufficient credible research to show a link

between

mercury and the increased incidences in autism, " says state Sen. Ken

Veenstra, a Republican who oversaw the investigation. " The fact that

Iowa's

700 percent increase in autism began in the 1990s, right after more

and

more

vaccines were added to the children's vaccine schedules, is solid

evidence

alone. " Last year, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury in

vaccines,

followed by California. Similar bans are now under consideration in

thirty-two other states.

But instead of following suit, the FDA continues to allow

manufacturers

to

include thimerosal in scores of over-the-counter medications as well

as

steroids and injected collagen. Even more alarming, the government

continues

to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries --

some

of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates. In

China,

where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of

thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate

that

there are now more than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable

numbers are

hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in

India,

Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using

thimerosal-laced vaccines. The World Health Organization continues to

insist

thimerosal is safe, but it promises to keep the possibility that it is

linked to neurological disorders " under review. "

I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that this is a

moral

crisis that must be addressed. If, as the evidence suggests, our

public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical

industry

to

poison an entire generation of American children, their actions

arguably

constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of American

medicine.

" The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence, " says Mark

Blaxill,

vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization concerned

about

the

role of mercury in medicines. " The damage caused by vaccine exposure

is

massive. It's bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than

anything you've ever seen. "

It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to the

international

efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third World nations come

to

believe that America's most heralded foreign-aid initiative is

poisoning

their children. It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will

be

interpreted by America's enemies abroad. The scientists and

researchers

--

many of them sincere, even idealistic -- who are participating in

efforts to

hide the science on thimerosal claim that they are trying to advance

the

lofty goal of protecting children in developing nations from disease

pandemics. They are badly misguided. Their failure to come clean on

thimerosal will come back horribly to haunt our country and the

world's

poorest populations.

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