3 Newspaper Articles on Congressional Hearings

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FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org

" Healing Autism: No Finer a Cause on the Planet "

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April 29, 2001 Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp

On the Burton Hearings. . .

* Autism Alarm Sounded In D.C.

* MMR Shots Under Fire at Autism Hearing

* Recall of MMR Vaccine Urged Citing Autism Risk

The US House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform held

two days of hearings during which concerns about autism and related

neuro-developmental disorders were addressed. This hearing,

titled " Autism: Why the Increased Rates? One Year Later, an Update "

took place on Wednesday, April 25, and Thursday, April 26, with

Chairman Dan Burton as well as others of the Committee hearing

testimony on the potential dangers of vaccines and their connection

to the increase in neurodevelopmental disorders noted over the last

decade.

Among those speaking at the hearing was Wakefield, MD from the

Royal Free & University College Medical School in London, England;

Mithune, Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation

Research of the US Food and Drug Administration; Walter Spitzer, MD,

MPH, Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill

University in Montreal, Canada; Amaral, PhD, Professor of

Psychiatry, Beneto Foundation Professor, and Research Director of the

M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California ; Coleen

Boyle, Ph.D., Chief of the Developmental Disabilities Branch in the

Division of Birth Defects, Child Development, and Disabilities and

Health at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Congressman

F. Doyle of Pennsylvania and other distinguished experts and

guests.

The text of some of the presentations will be posted in the FEAT

Daily Newsletter over the next week. Below are some of the media

accounts reporting on the hearings.

*

Autism Alarm Sounded In D.C.

[by Jerry Kammer in the Republic.]

http://www.azcentral.com/health/0426autism26.html

Phoenix physician Schneider told a congressional committee

Wednesday about the help she and her husband received six years ago,

when their two young children were diagnosed with autism.

" We were left with a diagnosis and no more: no treatment, no plan of

action, no hope, " said Schneider, who gave up her medical practice to

work on autism, a developmental disorder that repeatedly was

described as an epidemic during a hearing of the House Committee on

Government Reform.

Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind., who has an autistic

grandchild, sounded an alarm about the disorder, which can wreak

havoc not only on the personality and behavior of a previously normal

child but also disrupt the life of an entire family.

" Autism rates have skyrocketed, " said Burton, noting that even

according to conservative estimates 1 in 500 U.S. children is

autistic.

Rep. , R-N.J., said the number of children diagnosed

as autistic in New Jersey schools jumped to 2,354 in 1999, from 241

in 1991.

He expressed dismay at the federal response to the problem, which

some believe is the result of environmental and genetic factors.

" I was amazed, shocked, dismayed and saddened at how little the

Centers for Disease Control and other organizations knew about

autism, " said , co-founder of a 114-member congressional caucus

formed to support work on the disorder.

Caroline Champlin, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of

Economic Security, said the number of people classified as eligible

for autism services has risen in four years to 977, from 614.

While many experts say the numbers of autism cases speak for

themselves, others caution that they also may indicate that a growing

awareness of the disorder has led to more frequent diagnoses.

Several witnesses - most of whom are conducting autism research -

spoke disapprovingly of media accounts of this week's report by a

committee of the U.S. Institute of Medicine on the possibility of a

link between autism and a childhood vaccine for measles, mumps and

rubella, or MMR. The Institute is considered to be the Supreme Court

of medical disputes.

The committee found that " the evidence favors rejection of a causal

relationship. " It also recommended that there be no changes in

current vaccination procedures intended to immunize children during

early childhood.

Schneider said in an interview that she thinks parents should be

allowed to chose whether to have their children vaccinated for

measles, mumps and rubella.

Agreeing with several of Wednesday's witnesses, she said some

children apparently have a genetic predisposition to immune system

disorders that cause autism by attacking the brain and digestive

system.

*

MMR Shots Under Fire at Autism Hearing

Lawmakers Dispute Accuracy and Fairness of New Vaccine Report

[by Jeff Levine in WebMD Medical News.]

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1728.78408

Washington -- A report that virtually cleared the measles-mumps-

rubella vaccine as a possible cause of autism came under withering

attack on Capitol Hill Wednesday, with legislators questioning the

document's accuracy and integrity. Chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) of

the House Committee on Government Reform said the analysis was

a " disservice to the American people. "

The study, which was published Monday, said that the universally used

preventive shot apparently doesn't cause the incurable brain

disorder.

Still, the panel of experts assembled by the National Academy of

Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) couldn't completely rule out

the link between the disease and the vaccine in a small number of

children. The ambiguity of the findings infuriated Burton, who is

holding two days of hearings this week on the skyrocketing rate of

autism in the United States.

" You put out a report to the people of this country, saying the [MMR

vaccine] doesn't cause autism ... and then you've got an out in the

back of the thing, and you can't tell me, the committee chairman,

under oath, that there's no causal link, because you just don't know,

do you? " Burton asked Marie McCormick, MD, ScD, of the Harvard School

of Public Health and IOM panel chairwoman.

" I don't know, " responded McCormick after saying earlier that the

door was still open and that the theory had not been disproved. Her

brother, coincidentally, has two autistic children.

It's estimated that the number of children affected by this condition

has grown from 4 per 10,000 five years ago to one in 500 children

today. The symptoms range from violent behavior to total withdrawal.

Burton's grandson Christian reportedly developed the disease after

receiving vaccines that are routinely recommended by federal health

officials. And the public figure has adopted the vaccine safety issue

as a political and personal crusade.

The congressman was also angered that two of the report's reviewers

are believed to have had financial ties to the pharmaceutical

industry. The IOM's committee on immunization safety was created as

an independent body without conflicts of interests.

ne Stoiber, the IOM's executive officer, said the reviewers only

offered suggestions. They didn't change the report's basic

conclusion. " To the best of our knowledge, aside from the fact that

[the reviewers] may own mutual funds that hold pharmaceutical stocks,

there is no reason to believe that there are any financial ties, " she

said.

Nonetheless, Burton insisted on seeing the financial records of the

vaccine committee members, as well as the reviewers. He vowed to use

his subpoena power if necessary.

Wakefield, MD, also testified at the hearing. The English

scientist has his own theory about the relationship between the shot

and autism. His studies of a small number of children suggest that a

double-dose of the vaccine could lead to a low-level measles

infection. He believes the measles virus could cause a leak from the

bowel into the general system and ultimately the brain, causing a

toxic reaction, in susceptible children, that could lead to autism.

Wakefield says the IOM panel requested information on his

observations in a closed session, but it didn't wind up in the final

report. At the time, his latest studies were still being reviewed for

scientific publication, so he couldn't present them in public. When

asked at the hearing if the MMR vaccine is as safe as it can get, he

responded, " No, absolutely, not. " But Wakefield was contradicted by

another English scientist, , MD, head of that

country's Public Health Laboratory Service. Her studies show there

has not been an increase of such problems in the U.K. since the

vaccine was introduced there.

" I don't think it would be profitable to hijack the research agenda

to concentrate on answering [Wakefield's] question, which is derived

basically from speculation ... and ... unpublished evidence, " she

says.

Burton raised additional concerns that some of the information

clearing the vaccine in the IOM report came from Merck, the product's

manufacturer.

During the hearing, several physicians whose children have autism

told the committee about their ordeal. One of them is Sharon

Humiston, MD. A former immunization scientist for the U.S.

government, she says she doesn't believe that the MMR vaccine was

responsible for her son Quinn's disease. But she's desperately

looking for answers, particularly to one heartbreaking question.

" What is going to happen to Quinn after [my husband and I] die? What

are we going to do now to help? " she asked tearfully.

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*

Recall of MMR Vaccine Urged Citing Autism Risk

http://www.newsrounds.com/specialty/pediatrics/story38454.html

Reuters Health - The chair of the House Government Reform Committee

Thursday blasted federal science and health officials for not

recalling the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine

that he says may be causing autism.

An Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel earlier this week issued a

report concluding that there is no causal connection between the

vaccine and an increased risk of autism in children (see Reuters

Health report, April 23).Still, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) confronted

officials from the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health

over the vaccine. The vaccine contains thimerosal, a preservative in

which mercury is an active ingredient.

The FDA has said that future lots of MMR vaccine will contain no

thimerosal, or only trace amounts, as a precaution geared toward

reducing overall mercury exposure in children. The NIH has just begun

a 2-year, 10-center trial looking at blood and urine mercury levels

in children who receive the vaccine.

But Burton expressed outrage that the agency is allowing two lots of

thimerosal-containing vaccine--thousands of doses--to go to market

before mercury-free vaccine is produced. " If there's any doubt

whatsoever...and you're taking mercury out as a precautionary

measure, then why in the heck don't you get that stuff off the

market? " he asked.

Dr. Midthun, who directs the FDA's office of vaccine research

and review, told the committee that the agency lacks the authority to

force a recall of vaccines unless it can verify that the product

represents a clear and imminent threat to public safety.

" The preponderance of the evidence finds no causal relationship

between vaccines and autism, " she said. The FDA contends that the

premarket testing required of all vaccines before sale to the public

showed no increased risk of autism in children who received the MMR

vaccine.

Dr. Midthun and others told the committee that the benefits of the

MMR vaccine and other childhood vaccines in preventing infectious

diseases far outweighs the chance that the immunizations increase the

risk of autism. They said that pulling available MMR doses from the

market would cause shortages of available vaccine and would also

increase public concern about the safety of immunizations.

Burton called attention to his grandson, who he says developed autism

shortly after receiving recommended vaccination shots.

" If you [at the federal health agencies] think this issue is going to

go away, you guys are blowing smoke. If the health agencies don't

deal with this and deal with it quickly, you're going to have a big

problem over there, " he said.

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