Precipitous increase in autism cases may be tied to vaccines

[Guest guest]

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/hanchette103.html

MOUNTAIN VIEWS: PRECIPITOUS INCREASE IN AUTISM CASES MAY BE TIED TO CHILDHOOD

VACCINES

By Hanchette

OLEAN -- The controversy swirling about childhood immunization was covered in

this space about 13 months ago, but it's time to visit the subject again,

specifically the possible link between certain vaccines and autism.

You'll be hearing and reading more about this soon, for various reasons explored

below.

Autism is a neurological disorder -- first recognized half a century ago -- with

varying degrees of severity that affects more and more children each year.

Classic autism symptoms include lack of speech, repetitive behaviors, little or

no social interaction, withdrawal from parental and sibling contact, jerky body

motions of specific limbs, head-banging, hand-flapping, and weird individual

obsessions like eating cardboard containers or breaking certain specific objects

each time the victims see them.

Back in the '50s, medical scientists -- who didn't have a clue as to cause --

tried to pin it on bad parenting by mothers. When that didn't fly, they shrugged

it off and said it was defective genes -- luck of the biological draw, so to

speak. There's a four-to-one chance the child affected will be a boy.

Not many Americans paid attention to autism, because 20 years ago, only one in

every 5,000 kids in the United States was affected. By the turn of the

millennium, that ratio was one in 500 children. By 2002, it was one in 250

American children. Last year, it approached one in every 155 male toddlers in

the country.

Parents have heard about it now. The raw numbers are perhaps more shocking than

the ratios, especially in certain states.

In California about 15 years ago, only 2,800 kids were afflicted. By 2002, that

had increased to 20,400 in that state and now it's up to about 24,000. The

number of autism cases has increased 440 percent in the last decade in that

state. It's up 200 percent in the last decade in New York State; in

Pennsylvania, almost 900 percent in that time. There aren't enough special-ed

teachers in any state to even begin to approach the problem. It costs states

about $2 million for each child with autism for the first 18 years of life. The

Department of Education disabilities data bank shows autism cases in school-age

children rose from about 5,500 nationwide to an astonishing 79,000 during the

1990s.

Why?

Many parents, doctors, scientists and pediatricians think it's because as the

1990s rolled in and pharmaceutical companies brought new and promising vaccines

to market, the number of scheduled shots your baby normally received in the

first four or five years of life increased from about 20 to almost 40. And some

of these vaccines contained an additive called thimerosal, a preservative that

stops contamination of vaccines and preserves shelf-life. Thimerosal contains

mercury, a toxic metallic element that attacks neurons in the body. In drinking

water, the Environmental Protection Agency limit for human consumption is two

parts per billion. In landfills, it's 200 parts per billion.

Recent lab tests on some baby teeth have shown a content of more than 3,000

parts per billion.

Dr. Mark Geier, a Washington area geneticist and vaccine expert, studied autism

rates among 85,000 children who had received mercury-containing vaccines against

about 70,000 who didn't. He found the risk of autism in the thimerosal-receiving

group was almost 27 times higher.

The thimerosal controversy came to public attention about five years ago, when

the American Academy of Pediatrics announced federal health officials would

begin phasing the substance out of childhood vaccines. Not to worry, said the

doctors, just a precaution.

But Congress told the lethargic Food and Drug Administration -- which should

have had the numbers handy, but didn't -- to find out how much of the potent

neurotoxin was actually contained in vaccines. What the FDA discovered astounded

the medical profession.

Despite drug company studies from 70 years ago that concluded mercury-containing

serum was not fit for cattle or dogs, and with all the huge, expensive federal

agencies to protect us from just such a mistake -- the Centers for Disease

Control, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health,

the Institute of Medicine -- not one had taken the time to total up how much

thimerosal and mercury had been added to the average child's intake with the new

increased immunization schedule.

In essence, it was a grade-school math problem, but the nation's medical elite

hadn't done it. The answer was about 120 times the amount allowed by the EPA for

daily mercury exposure.

As Rock -- a terrific science reporter -- points out in the current issue

of " Mother " magazine: " During the 1990s, when some 40 million children

were vaccinated, the number of thimerosal-containing vaccines given to children

nearly tripled, while autism rates inexplicably increased tenfold. "

Regulators, she notes in the " Mother " article, " chose not to act

aggressively to reduce infant exposure to thimerosal. "

As a result, mercury-containing vaccines mandated for infants remained on the

market until the end of 2002. Instead of yanking any trace of those

mercury-containing vaccines off the market, the federal agencies we pay billions

to support allowed about 8,000 children a day to be needlessly exposed over

almost four years.

The federal government and medical establishment reacted as they almost always

do -- by covering up. Despite the obvious parallel of usage increase and

epidemic onset, articles were written in medical journals assuring parents that

there were no direct links between thimerosal and autism. When reporters,

vaccine critics and congressional investigators delved into the medical

literature, however, they found either the numbers were rigged, the data

manipulated, or the writer secretly under the employ of a vaccine manufacturer.

The vaccine-medical-pharmaceutical establishment reacts this way for a variety

of reasons: avoidance of liability, refusal to admit dire mistakes, and an

altruistic fear that growing parental aversion to inoculations will destroy

" herd immunity " -- what doctors call getting enough kids vaccinated to stamp out

the spread of contagious diseases.

Dirtball politicians, of course, gleefully joined in the medical fiasco at the

expense of injured children and parents. In November of 2002, while the final

version of the Homeland Security Act was being voted, someone snuck in as the

last four paragraphs of the 484-page document a provision that protected the Eli

Lilly Company -- largest maker of thimerosal -- from future autism lawsuits.

Nobody owned up to creating the protective clause. The giant Eli Lilly firm,

which insists it didn't ask for the provision, had just given about $1.4 million

to federal candidates and parties in the 2002 elections, 75 percent of it to

Republicans.

Dan Burton -- a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Indiana

-- whose House Government Reform Committee has been investigating autism

increases for three years, raised hell on the floor. He said that " the

legislative process was hijacked " by lobbyists who pushed the Lilly protective

provision into reality.

A year ago last week, the House and Senate -- impressed by the ensuing public

uproar -- took away the Lilly cloak against liability lawsuits.

Parents who want to recover the immense costs for damage to their autistic

children have to first go through a complicated and laborious process called the

Vaccine Injury Compensation Program -- a federal rigmarole that is stacked

against the parents, and a legal labyrinth that demands the damage claim be

filed within three years of the inoculation. Yet, in autism, first symptoms

often occur five or six years later.

Recent court rulings have gone against that provision, however, and about 4,000

cases are now headed for a special vaccine court of claims. If they fail there,

the litigants can take on the vaccine makers and doctors and federal officials

in open trial court. The wave of potential lawsuits could cost drug companies

billions of dollars.

The early schedule vaccines for your baby that used to commonly contain

thimerosal include DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), hepatitis B and Hib

influenza. Tell your doctor to make sure he's not using an old vial with mercury

in it.

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

Hanchette, a professor of journalism at St. Bonaventure University, is a

former editor of the Niagara Gazette and a Pulitzer Prize-winning national

correspondent. He was a founding editor of USA Today and was recently named by

Gannett as one of the Top 10 reporters of the past 25 years. He can be contacted

via e-mail at Hanchette6@....

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com February 24 2004

[Guest guest]

Thnx for the article, which provides an excellent overview. However,

some of Hanchette's rhetoric gave me the impression that he

believes there is no thimerosal in current shots (excepting in old

vaccine stock). His email address is at end of the article. 'Twould be

good for him to hear from several parents politely informing him that,

indeed, thimerosal remains in a number of current vaccines, including

most flu shots. And give him the urls for such information.

Rita Shreffler wrote:

>

> http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/hanchette103.html

> MOUNTAIN VIEWS: PRECIPITOUS INCREASE IN AUTISM CASES MAY BE TIED TO

> CHILDHOOD VACCINES

> By Hanchette

> OLEAN -- The controversy swirling about childhood immunization was

> covered in this space about 13 months ago, but it's time to visit the

> subject again, specifically the possible link between certain vaccines

> and autism.

>

>

[Guest guest]

A friend with an autistic 3 yr old and new baby just *today* was at

ped's office. She's following Dr. Cave's recommendations for

vaccinations. She asked for the DPT insert and, surprise!

thimerosal. The doc didn't believe there was any still in it, the

mother was frustrated. This wasn't an old lot, this is a new lot

recently produced.

Debi

indeed, thimerosal remains in a number of current vaccines,

including

> most flu shots. And give him the urls for such information.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Why not compile your details and E-mail Senator Kennedy?

http://kennedy.senate.gov/contact.html

[ ] Re: Precipitous increase in autism cases may be tied

to vaccines

A friend with an autistic 3 yr old and new baby just *today* was at

ped's office. She's following Dr. Cave's recommendations for

vaccinations. She asked for the DPT insert and, surprise!

thimerosal. The doc didn't believe there was any still in it, the

mother was frustrated. This wasn't an old lot, this is a new lot

recently produced.

Debi

indeed, thimerosal remains in a number of current vaccines,

including

> most flu shots. And give him the urls for such information.

>

>

>

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