Study the Amish

[Guest guest]

Vaccines and Autism: Looking for the Truth? Study the Amish

F. Kennedy Jr.

Tue Aug 9, 3:09 AM ET

On Sunday morning's Meet the Press, Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president of the

Institute of Medicine, debated New York Times reporter and author

Kirby about the strength of the science linking the current epidemic of

neurological disorders among American children to the mercury-based vaccine

preservative Thimerosal. The Institute of Medicine as well as the Centers

for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration base their defense

of Thimerosal on four flimsy studies ginned up by the pharmaceutical

industry and federal regulators who green-lighted the use of Thimerosal in

the first place. Those fraudulent studies deliberately targeted European

populations which were exposed to a fraction of the Thimerosal given to

American children.

If Dr. Fineberg genuinely wants to test his assertions about Thimerosal

safety with epidemiological data, he should commission a study comparing

American children who were exposed to vaccines to the Amish, Jehovah's

Witnesses, Christian Scientists or others, who, for religious reasons, did

not receive Thimerosal-laced vaccines.

A recent survey by United Press found that autism is virtually unknown among

Pennsylvania's large Amish populations -- a strong indication that vaccines

are indeed a principal culprit of the epidemic. Despite the repeated urgings

of independent scientists and the families of autistic children, the federal

agencies involved have refused to commission such a study and have closed

federal vaccine files in order to derail the creation of those studies by

outside scientists.