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Weldon and Maloney Push Vaccine-Autism Scare, Fight CDC
By Molly Lee
Despite scores of studies supporting the safety of childhood vaccines, including a 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), many skeptics continue to raise the alarm, claiming that thimerosal-containing vaccines are causing an epidemic of autism in American children.
Autism is a complex developmental disorder that generally appears in the first three years of life and is estimated to occur in 2/1,000 children. It is broadly characterized by impaired communication skills and social interactions, inappropriate attachments to objects or routines, repetitive actions, and inappropriate or aberrant responses to verbal cues, pain, danger, and change. The condition is poorly understood and its causes largely unknown, one reason why some may jump to conclusions about thimerosal-containing vaccines.
Two members of congress, Rep. Dave Weldon (R-FL) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), have decided to ignore the scientific evidence -- including the conclusions of the IOM and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) -- when they reintroduce their bill, the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act of 2006, to Congress next year. This legislation would create a separate organization outside the CDC that will be responsible for vaccine safety and research. Weldon and Maloney feel the CDC has a conflict of interest involving vaccine safety, since it is the chief promoter of vaccines. "There's an enormous inherent conflict of interest within the CDC, and if we fail to move vaccine safety to a separate independent office, safety issues will remain a low priority and public confidence in vaccines will continue to erode," said Weldon. Yes, there is an erosion of public confidence in vaccines, but it is due to politicians and organizations that raise unfounded fears about lifesaving vaccines.
Motivated by fear, some parents opt out of having their children immunized. This puts them -- and their families and schoolmates -- at an increased risk of contracting a number of vaccine-preventable diseases. In fact, we have recently seen a number of outbreaks of diseases that are preventable by vaccines. Iowa experienced an outbreak of the mumps this year, which quickly spread throughout the Midwest. It was the largest outbreak of the mumps in the United States since 1988.
Pertussis, or whooping cough, is also on the rise. It is a serious disease that killed thirteen children in 2003. There are about 10,000 cases a year in the U.S. A recent report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that the rise of pertussis incidence can be attributed to the decrease in the number of children being vaccinated. In fact, pertussis incidence was twice as high in states allowing personal-belief exemptions (from state laws mandating vaccination as a condition of attending school) as in states that only offered documented religious exemptions (the crucial epidemiological difference being the relative rarity of religious objections, not the rationale behind people's decisions to opt out).
There is no scientific evidence supporting the notion that children's vaccines have anything to do with autism. Continuing to stoke fears of vaccines is irresponsible. The real threats are the diseases that can be prevented by the vaccines.
For more about autism and vaccines see: "Pediatric Vaccines and Autism" and The Promise of Vaccines: The Science and the Controversy.
Molly Lee is the Earhart Foundation Research Intern at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
Anne Downing (October 13, 2006)
Molly Lee has her facts all wrong. There are hundreds of papers showing that mercury is toxic to the body. When Ms. Lee states "Despite scores of studies supporting the safety of childhood vaccines", it is really the other way around. There are no studies showing that thimerosal in vaccines is safe. You couldn't prove mercury is safe. See www.nomercury.org for a list of study after study showing that mercury is toxic. The Weldon/Maloney bill should be applauded. It's ludicrous to have the same organization overseeing the safety of vaccines that also mandates these vaccines. Can anybody say 'fox in the hen house?'
Michael Wagnitz (October 13, 2006)
Molly Lee reports that the link
between mercury containing vaccines and
autism has now been definetly disproven. Yet, if she looked at
the most recent research coming from some of our major
universities, she would have drawn the opposite conclusion.
What we have learned in the last couple of years
is that the underlying medical condition of autism is
neuroinflammatory disease. In a study conducted at
John Hopkins University brain tissue from deceased
autistic patients was examined. The tissue showed an
active neuroinflammatory process and marked activation
of microglia cells. Neuroinflammatory disease is
synonymous with an activation of microglia cells.
A study done at the University of Washington last year
showed that baby primates exposed to injected
thimerosal (at a rate equal to the 1990's childhood
vaccine schedule) retained twice as much inorganic
mercury in their brains than primates exposed to
equal amounts of ingested methylmercury. We know from
autometallographic determination that inorganic
mercury present in the brain, following the
dealkylation of organic mercury, is the toxic agent
responsible for changes in the microglial population
and leads to neuroinflammation.
Recently it was shown that on over 250 patients
examined, urinary proporphyrins were almost 3 times
higher in autistic patients than controls.
Proporphyrins are precursors to heme, the oxygen
carrying component of blood. Mercury inhibits the
conversion of proporphyrins to heme. When the kids
were treated to remove mercury, proporphyrins returned
to normal levels.
In a study done at the University of Arkansas,
autistic children were found to have significantly
lower levels of the anti-oxidant glutathione.
Glutathione is the major anti-oxidant needed for the
elimination of mercury at the cellular level. This may
explain why some children are more severely affected
by thimerosal in vaccines than others.
While all the epidemiological (statistical)
studies show no link between thimerosal and autism,
the studies examining brain tissue, blood and urine show a different picture.
References:
Nataf R, Lam A, Lathe R, Skorupka, C. 2006
Porphyrinurea in Childhood Autistic Disorders:
Implications for Environmental Toxicity.
Toxicol. Appl. Pramacol. 214(2):99-108
Vargus DL, Nascimbene C, Krishnan C, Zimmerman AW,
Pardo Ca. 2005 Neuroglial activation and
neuroinflamation in the brain of patients with autism.
Annals of Neurology 57:67-81.
Burbacher T, Shen D, Liberato N, Grant K,
Cernichiari E, Clarkson T 2005. Comparison of blood
and brain mercury levels in infant monkeys exposed to
methylmercury or vaccines containing thimerosal.
Environmental Health Perspectives. 113:1015-1021
Charleston J, Body R, Bolender R, Mottet N, Vahter
M, Burbacher T 1996. Changes in the number of
astrocytes and microglia in the thalamus of the monkey
Macaca fascicularis following long-term subclinical
methylmercury exposure. Neurotoxicology 17:127-138
James SJ, Melnyk S, Jernigan S, Cleves MA, Halsted
CH, Wong DH, Cutler P, Bock K, Boris M, Bradstreet JJ,
Baker SM, Gaylor DW. 2006 Metabolic endophenotype and
related genotypes are associated with oxidative stress
in children with autism. Am J Med Genet B
Neuropsychiatr Genet. 2006 Aug 17; [Epub ahead of
print]
Streit W, Mrak R, Griffin W 2004. Microglia and
neuroinflamation: a pathological perspective. Journal
of Neuroinflamation 1:14
Bob Moffitt (October 13, 2006)
By her own account, Molly states one reason why "some may jump to conclusions about thimerosal-containing vaccines" is because the "condition is poorly understood and its causes largely unknown". Surely Molly would agree, the 75 years since autism was first identified, provided ample opportunity for the "cause and condition" of autism to be better "understood"? Especially since autism, less than two decades ago, affected 1 in 10,000 children and today affects 1 in 166.
It is too bad that Molly did not take the time and make the effort to provide readers the "scientific evidence" and "conclusions" reached by the IOM and CDC that support her accusation that Rep. Weldon and Rep. Maloney "decided to ignore" when they re-introduced their bill? With all due respect, they did not "ignore" anything, they simply responded to parents who demand a higher standard of "scientific evidence" than "concluding" there is "no evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism". With all due respect, that is "sophistry" not "science", and, an accomplished writer like Molly should be able to recognize the distinction.
Molly continues: "Yes, there is an erosion of public confidence in vaccines, but it is due to politicians and organizations that raise unfounded fears about life saving vaccines". I agree there has been a noticeable "erosion of public confidence in vaccines", but, it is not "due to politicians and organizations". It is due to the fact that parents see one in every six American children suffer some type of early childhood development problems, such as, autism, juvenile diabetes, rhumatoid arthritis, allergies, asthma, ADD, ADHD, etc. etc. The dramatic increases in childhood development problems are undeniable, and, also undeniable is the "inconvenient truth" they coincide with the dramatic increase in the number of childhood vaccines that are now recommended for children.
Molly concludes that "Motivated by fear, some parents opt out of having their children immunized". Surely Molly would agree, any legislation that would reassure these fearful parents should be supported? After all, it is not the "fear of vaccines" that causes parents to opt out. It is the legitimate fear their child will become that 1 in every 6 children who struggles to obtain normal childhood development. Who would prevent legislation that seeks to restore parental trust in our universal childhood vaccines policies? And, more importantly, why would anyone seek
Ann Onimous (October 14, 2006)
"Yes, there is an erosion of public confidence in vaccines, but it is due to politicians and organizations that raise unfounded fears about lifesaving vaccines." Exactly. Weldon wants to believe his own grandchild would have been normal except for those dratted vaccines. Talk about conflict of interest. He's interested in maintaining an image of immaculate genes in his family. It's a powerful drive behind many of the vaccine blaming parents. No one wants to think that they passed bad genes on to their kids. It's a painful reality that is easy to dodge, especially if you have a carload of ambulance chasing lawyers helping to maintain that denial. These people howling corruption at the CDC are buddies with some of the most corrupt quacks on the planet.
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