Week of April 16, 2009, Issue #704
FRONT
Well, Well, Well: Out of the shadows
Connie Howard / health@vueweekly.com
It’s April, the season of melting snow, warmth, and promises of new life—and I can’t think of a more poignant time for focusing on autism, that condition of regression and turning inward.
Vaccine proponents continue to assert that there is no link between autism and vaccines, and because we’re afraid—of harming our children, of being negligent—and because we desperately want to believe deception and corruption doesn’t extend to things as sacred as the health of our children, we believe them.
But the truth is that there is deceit beneath the oft-repeated message of vaccine safety we find comfort in. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), in response to major evidence of an alarming link between mercury in vaccines and autism a number of years ago, went to great lengths to cover it up and fund a new study designed to rule out mercury’s link to autism.
It made its database available to a private company, kept it from independent researchers, and to prevent financial losses to vaccine manufacturers, the CDC and FDA bought up large supplies of mercury-containing vaccines for export to developing countries as they prepared to phase them out here. Robert F. Kennedy, in a piece published in Rolling Stone a number of years ago exposed a level of corruption that shocked even me; the story is available online for those interested.
The problem with vaccines, though the mercury has now largely been taken out, is that to generate a strong and protracted immune response, vaccines need a toxic component such as mercury or aluminum. Mercury was in use for decades, and though correlation does not prove causation, increasing exposure through escalating vaccine programs correlates very strongly with increasing autism rates.
Autism was first described in 1943 as affecting children born in the 1930s, which was when thimerosal (a form of mercury) was introduced into vaccines. As vaccination rates went up, autism rates went up. By 1990, prevalence had risen to 1 in 1000. Vaccines continued to be added to the schedule, and by 2006 autism prevalence was close to 1 in 150.
Former nurse, naturopathic health practitioner, author and PhD Jennifer Craig is writing a book on the topic of vaccines, and she says the problem with exposing babies to toxins such as mercury and aluminum is that the protective myelin sheath covering nerve cells isn’t fully formed in infancy and early childhood, making children particularly susceptible to neurotoxins. Risk is further compounded by the fact that infants have immature liver function and low bile production, permitting limited mercury excretion, and further yet by the conversion of organic mercury found in vaccines to its inorganic form when it reaches nerve tissue.
Sometimes, as is the case with hepatitis B in infants—not a high risk group for the disease—damage from the vaccine exceeds damage from the disease itself. In 1996, out of 3.9 million births in the US, 54 cases of hepatitis B were reported to the CDC in children under one. In that same age group, 1080 adverse reactions to the vaccine were reported, 47 of which were deaths.
In an email correspondence with Debbie and Tim from Medina, Ohio, I learned about their family’s tragedy. Their son Branon became very ill with his 6-month shots, and then again with his 12-month shots, after which he remained ill for a month. When his parents questioned a possible connection to the immunizations, they were told it was coincidental.
They went ahead with his next shots at 15 months, at which time he again became very ill, and only then was it recorded as a vaccine reaction. He was eventually diagnosed with PDD-NOS (also known as atypical autism). Their story is one of thousands, and in the hopes of winning some injury compensation through the vaccine court, Debbie and Tim began the search for legal representation, to no avail.
The scope of human tragedy resulting from industry obfuscation is overwhelming, a dark shadow on this month of hope and new beginnings. V
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