Fwd: [Autism-Mercury] RFK Jr. His crusade continues

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http://spectrumpublications.com/index.php/April/May-2008/Spectrum-Magazine-Category/rfk-jr.htmlRFK Jr. His crusade continues.By Bridges, Ph.D. / Photos by Milazzo F. Kennedy Jr.'s watershed moment occurred in 2006 when hevisited the New York Times headquarters to discuss an editorial piece hesubmitted on the link between vaccines and neurological disorders inchildren. Ushered into a small room for what was set to be a private meetingwith an editor, he instead found the space crammed with people, overflowingonto the arms of old leather chairs, with expressions ranging from boredomto disdain. [image: Image]"I expected a discussion with the editor of the Times, but when I wentin to meet, they had assembled a group of science editors that were sohostile and antagonistic, it was like talking to a brick wall," Kennedyremembered. "They were absolutely determined that there would be no publicdiscussion in their paper about mercury and neurological disorders." Hissentences were cut short by rapid retorts, as if the room was laced withinvisible mines. Despite Kennedy's information, and the phonebook-sizedstack of articles that Dr. Boyd Haley had perched on his lap ready to share,the editors quickly shut down any discussion of thimerosal's dangers; oneperson near the door sighed and rolled his eyes. The meeting progressed for30 minutes, Kennedy offering DNA, animal, genetic, epidemiological andbiology studies, and being met repeatedly with the statement, "The CDC saysthe vaccines aresafe."Case closed.Kennedy doesn't sit still. When he isn't at his day job as a clinicalprofessor at the Pace University School of Law, he can be found whirringaround the globe to advocate for local people and the environment (heregularly travels to Latin America where he has helped indigenous tribesnegotiate treaties to protect their homelands). He was recently featured inVanity Fair's "green issue" and was named as one of Time magazine's "Heroesfor the Planet" for his work closer to home in restoring the Hudson River.Aside from these activities, he devotes a large portion of his time toWaterkeeper Alliance, an international advocacy organization dedicated tosafeguarding waterways from pollution. The non-profit just won a major suitagainst the Bush administration for its rollback of President Clinton'stougher standards for coal-burning plants. His work with Waterkeeper is onevisible aspect of his long-term advocacy against mercury and its insidiouseffects on children.When discussing Waterkeeper's recent court victory, Kennedy gets riledup: "It was absurd to have the Bush White House loosening mercuryprotections when even the EPA was acknowledging that one in six women havedangerous mercury levels in their wombs. The administration fought cleanerair standards when their own scientists reported that 640,000 kids have beenmercury-exposed in utero every year and will have neurological effects."Despite his intense involvement in curbing environmental mercury,Kennedy sidestepped the thimerosal-autism debate for years. In fact, whenapproached by parents sharing their stories, he was sympathetic butuninterested in jumping into the fray. That changed in 2004, after hereviewed the thimerosal science tooth and claw, and read the CDC's internaldocuments revealing their awareness of the danger it posed to properlyvaccinated children. First skeptical, then intrigued, he became convincedthat the mercury-based preservative was the breadcrumb trail back to theautism epidemic.In 2006, Kennedy wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine called"Deadly Immunity." The response to his piece was overwhelming: following thepublication, Kennedy received thousands of letters and emails from all overthe world. "The astounding thing was how alike all of them were and thatpeople from Mississippi to New Delhi shared such identical experiences. Hereis the typical scenario I heard: A mother took her toddler to the doctorwhere he received a spate of vaccines, became ill that night, often with afever, sometimes with seizures, then lost the language he had, developedstereotyped behavior and regressed into a looking-glass world of debilitatedrelationships and social isolation. Essentially," Kennedy adds, "their liveswere plunged into unimaginable agony." It seemed imperative to Kennedy tokeep getting the story out to prevent the catastrophe from damaging otherchildren.However, nothing prepared him for the resistance and anger he facedwhen discussing autism with politicians and the media. "The unbelievablething is how these children's stories are suppressed by the medicalcommunity, big Pharma and the American press. There is a total refusal tohave the discussion and derision towards anyone who tries."[image: Image]Television networks proved equally squeamish about reportingon the vaccine-autism link, something Kennedy attributes to the massiveinfluence wrought through the pharmaceutical industry'ss advertising dollars. A case in point: When Kennedy's Rolling Stone piecehit the newsstands, he granted an exclusive interview to NBC. "The networkcalled asking to do a major report on my piece. I talked to the editors whosaid they were outraged over what I wrote and would tear the whole issueopen. Then, the day it was supposed to air, I got a call saying,'higher-ups' had yanked the segment. I've never had this happen before in mycareer. The producer was extremely apologetic, but said it went well overhis head. When word of the cancellation leaked out, NBC was deluged byletters and emails about the killed report. The sad thing is that I wouldhave given it to another network, and when I told them so, they hastilyreconstructed the report." When the segment aired, however, it wasunrecognizable to Kennedy as it was weighed down by industry talking pointsand bracketed on either side by pharmaceutical ads.Undeterred, Kennedy continues to talk about the rise in autism wheneverhe has the chance. He is often met by misinformation or revolving-doortheories that minimize or deny the problem. "We've gone from 'refrigeratormothers' causing autism to 'hysterical mothers' destroying the vaccineprogram. You wonder what the CDC thinks these crazy women will pull offnext." Repeatedly, politicians and government officials tell him there is noincrease in autism; it is an artifact of new measurement methodology. "Thisis patently ridiculous," he adds. "As Dr. Haley says, if new diagnostictechniques are causing more autism, then where are all the 30-year-oldautistics? Why haven't the new techniques helped us find all those peoplewith the disorder born before 1989?"According to Kennedy, the U.S. has a thimerosal problem because the CDC is a"captured" agency, where grant money, industry-trained executives, and othermeans have allowed pharmaceutical companies to capture the agency that issupposed to be its watchdog. He believes these conflicts of interest arepervasive and directly correlated to the burgeoning number of environmentaltoxins in general."The United States has privatized the safety research and, byextension, the regulation of toxins. Now the people doing the studies ofpoisons in food are from Monsanto and drug safety is studied by Pfizer.Expecting objectivity under these conditions is naïve at best."Most recently, Kennedy has been speaking out against the CDC's claimthat the thimerosal debate is dead since autism rates didn't drop whenmercury was removed from vaccines. "The CDC themselves admitted that fullstrength thimerosal-laced infant vaccines were being administered until atleast 2003 to allow manufacturers to rid themselves of old inventories.Since autism typically isn't diagnosed until 44 months, even if allthimerosal was removed from vaccines in 2004, we shouldn't expect to see astatistical decline in the rates until 2009 or 2010. However, this isirrelevant since it ignores the fact that the flu vaccine contains 50percent of the mercury that we were giving to kids before the supposed banon thimerosal and is recommended for pregnant women and infants. The CDC'swillingness to continue injecting children with this neurotoxin ismystifying given the Institute of Medicine's previous recommendation that itis prudent to stop the practice. Why have they changed their view? Onesupposition that shouldn't be ignored is that the CDC is frightened by whatwould happen if we abruptly removed the toxin, leaving many people in ahorrible legal position."