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Dr. Rimlands, MMR Vaccine Damage testimony

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http://www.house.gov/reform/hearings/healthcare/00.06.04/rimland.htm

Testimony of Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.

Before House

Committee on Government Reform

April 6, 2000

The Autism Increase: Research Needed on the Vaccine Connection

My name is Bernard Rimland. I am a research psychologist

(Ph.D.). and am Director

Of the Autism Research Institute, which I founded in 1967. I am

also the founder of the Autism Society of America (1965), and

the editor of the Autism Research Review International. My

book, Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implication for a

Neural Theory of Behavior (1964) is widely credited with changing

the field of psychiatry from its claim that autism is an

emotional illness, caused by destructive mothers, to its current

recognition that autism is a biological disorder. I have

lectured on autism and related problems throughout the world,

and am author of numerous publications. I served as primary

technical advisor on autism for the film Rain Man.

My son Mark was born in 1956. It was obvious from birth

that this perfectly normal-looking infant had something

drastically wrong with him. I had earned my Ph.D in experimental

psychology 3 years earlier and had never encountered the word

autism. Our pediatrician, with 35 years of experience, had never

heard of autism either. Autism was extremely rare then – it is

extremely common now.

Some supposed experts will tell you that the increase

reflects only greater awareness. That is nonsense. Any

pediatrician, teacher or school official with 20 or more years

experience will confirm what the studies tell us: there is a

real increase in autism and the numbers are huge and growing.

The epidemic is serious and world-wide.

Soon after my textbook on autism was published in 1964, I

began to hear from other parents. Many parents told me that

their children were normal until getting a triple vaccine – the

DPT shot. In 1965 I began systematically collecting data on the

symptoms and possible causes of autism: In 1967—33 years ago—I

began querying the parents, specifically about the child’s

response to the DPT shot. Many had reported marked

deterioration.

During the past few years the Autism Research Institute has

been flooded with an upsurge in pleas for help from parents

throughout the world – from wherever the World Health

Organization vaccine guidelines are followed. The majority of

these parents say their children were normal until getting the

MMR – another triple vaccine.

Let me dispel several myths promoted by those who deny the

autism-vaccine connection:

1. They claim the vaccines are safe, but physicians are

indoctrinated to disbelieve claims of harm and are not trained to

recognize nor required to report any adverse reactions. From 90%

to 99% of the adverse reactions reported to doctors are never

reported by those doctors to the government’s extremely lax

Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as the VAERS.

2. They say that the suspected linkage between the MMR

vaccination and autism has been disproved by a study conducted by

Brent and his colleagues in London, and published last

year in The Lancet. The study is seriously flawed in

many ways, as had been noted in a number of letters to the editor

of The Lancet and in a number of additional letters on the

subject which have been posted on the internet. It was subject

to strong attack at a recent meeting of the British Statistical

Society. I have been a full-time researcher my entire

professional life, for almost 50 years, and I respectfully asked

Dr. for a copy of the data so that I could reanalyze

them. He refused this ordinary professional courtesy, and I have

subsequently written to the editor of The Lancet requesting that

an impartial committee be asked to reexamine Dr. ’s

statistical methods. If he refuses again, I urged The Lancet to

retract his paper.

3. They say that autism has a large genetic component, and

therefore vaccines must play a minimal, if any, role in the

causation of autism. My book Infantile Autism, published in

1964, was the first systematic attempt to marshal the evidence

for genetics as a contributing cause of autism, so I am certainly

not hostile to that idea. However, genes do not begin to account

for the huge increase in the incidence of autism, ranging from

250% to 500% in various places. I might add that we have just

reviewed all of the recent genetic studies for the next issue of

the Autism Research Review International, which I edit. The

results are spectacularly inconsistent. The best guess is that

there are at least 20 different genes involved in the causation

of autism. Gene therapy is decades off, and may be infeasible.

4. They claim that autism naturally occurs at about 18

months, when the MMR is routinely given, so the association is

merely coincidental and not causal. But the onset of autism at

18 months is a recent development. Autism starting at 18 months

rose very sharply in the mid-1980s, when the MMR vaccine came

into wide use. A coincidence? Hardly! See the graph below.

Autism is not the only severe chronic illness which has

reached epidemic proportions as the number of (profitable)

vaccines has rapidly increased. Children now receive 33 vaccines

before they enter school – a huge increase. The vaccines contain

not only live viruses but also very significant amounts of highly

toxic substances such as mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde.

Could this be the reason for the upsurge in autism, ADHD, asthma,

arthritis, Crohn’s disease, lupus and other chronic disorders?

As a parent and as a full-time professional researcher, I

am bitterly disappointed with the medical establishment’s dismal

record with regard to autism over the past 60 years. The medical

schools, as well as the governmental agencies, have consistently

supported outmoded, unproven and even disproven theories from the

very beginning, and have actively opposed the most promising

approaches for the treatment of autism. They supported the

psychoanalytically-based theories which held the mother

responsible for causing autism through her supposedly hostile

attitude toward the child. They opposed the use of behavior

modification, the most uniformly beneficial treatment for autism,

by claiming that it neglected the deep-seated emotional blocks

that were supposedly at the root of autism. They have ignored,

and continue to ignore, the long series of studies conducted both

in the U. S. and Europe showing that the elimination of foods

containing gluten and casein from the diet brings about marked

improvement in many autistic children. They have consistently

ignored the series of 18 consecutive studies, conducted by

researchers in 6 countries, which showed that almost half of all

autistic children and adults respond favorably to high doses of

vitamin B6 and magnesium., with no adverse effects. Eleven of

these studies were double-blind placebo-crossover experiments.

There is no drug that comes close to B6/magnesium in terms of

safety, efficacy and positive research findings.

Tens of millions of dollars have been spent on

non-productive lines of research, while virtually no money at all

has been given to research on the methods of alternative

medicine, which are far more promising in terms of both safety

and efficacy.

The most interesting questions are not being asked: Why

does the majority of the population survive such epidemics as

autism, the bubonic plague, Legionnaires’ disease, polio and

AIDS, while relatively few succumb?

The answer is that the survivors have a healthy, effective

immune system. Would enhancing the immune system decrease the

likelihood of adverse reactions to vaccines (including the

anthrax vaccine – DOD please note!)? Very probably.

It is well known that the immune system must be adequately

supplied with many nutrients if it is to function properly,

including especially vitamins A, C, E, B6 and a number of

minerals, including zinc, magnesium, and selenium. Nutritional

levels of these substances are not only harmless, they are

essential to good health. Since people do not change their diets

readily, I believe that foods should be fortified with these

nutrients – especially foods that will be consumed by infants and

children. Research along these lines – as well as on the safety

of the vaccines – is desperately needed.

As a parent and a researcher, I believe there should be a

marked redirection of effort and funding, along the lines

suggested above.

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--------------------------------------------------------

Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Classical Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

$$ Donations to help in the work - accepted by Paypal account

vaccineinfo@... voicemail US 530-740-0561

(go to http://www.paypal.com) or by mail

Vaccines - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm

Homeopathy On-Line course - http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm

ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL

OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE

DECISION TO VACCINATE IS YOURS AND YOURS ALONE.

******

" Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down.

Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy

knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information

and religions destroy spirituality " .... Ellner

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