Sunday, December 16, 2007

And ye shall know them by their words

A recent letter to the editor in the Lawrence Journal-World tells us everything we need to know about opponents of childhood immunization, most of whom cling to the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.

The letter contains all the half truths, insinuations, and flat-out confabulations one would expect from a movement that long ago jettisoned science in favor of guerrilla marketing.
To the editor:

Health of our children under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to decline. The United States is ranked 41st in infant mortality. Who are the 40 countries that have lower rates of infant death?

One in four children has asthma. One in six children has a neurobehavioral and/or developmental disability. Could it be that we inject infants, on their day of birth, with hepatitis B vaccines that still contain up to three micrograms of neurotoxic mercury as well as aluminum?

Where are the front page headlines when major autism researchers re-examine their research and say "oops" or when the Department of Justice conceded that thimerosal contributed to a child's autism?

Dr. Catherine DeSoto and Dr. Robert T. Hitlan both have a Ph.D. in medicine and had the courage to admit in the Journal of Child Neurology, “We have reanalyzed the data set forth originally reported in 2004 and have found that the original P value was in error and that a significant relation does exist between the blood levels of mercury and diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. Moreover, the hair sample analysis results offer some support for the idea that persons with autism may be less efficient and more variable at eliminating mercury from the blood.”

We are failing our children’s health. It is time to help stop poisoning kids.

Linda Weinmaster,
Lawrence

Sigh.

First, the hepatitis B vaccine does not contain "up to three micrograms" of mercury. From the CDC's own website we learn:

All hepatitis B vaccines intended for use in infants and children are free of thimerosal as a preservative, and an adequate supply of these vaccines is available for all infant and childhood vaccinations. This vaccine should be administered to all newborn infants and is a major cornerstone in the prevention of a potentially fatal disease in children and adults.

A Google search for "hepatitis B vaccine" +thimerosal yields a bumper crop of quack medical sites, including Mercola.com which tells us Hep B contains up to 25 micrograms of mercury. This is nonsense. Anybody can spin a defamatory yarn, and some will continue to as long as newspapers publish them.

Moving on, Dr. Catherine DeSoto and Dr. Robert T. Hitlan are not "major autism researchers", nor were they the authors of the original paper they criticized, as letter's author wants us to believe. DeSoto and Hitlan do not each have a PhD in medicine because there is no such degree. They are PhD psychologists. Why does Weinmaster feel it is necessary to make stuff up? Did she not research her letter first? Or is she relying on fabrications to cover up a lack of evidence for her claims? Falsely proclaiming the two psychologists as medical experts confers a level of respectability that Weinmaster's claims do not deserve. The DeSoto paper does not prove that mercury causes autism. You can read a detailed critique of the DeSoto paper here.

Despite what Weinmaster and her fellow travelers tell us, the Department of Justice did not "concede that thimerosal contributed to a child's autism" because there is no sound evidence that mercury in any form causes autism. This slur was lifted from fringe anti-vaccine groups who deliberately misread the respondent's notice in the ongoing Vaccine Court Hearings. The respondents told the special masters that vaccines caused a significant aggravation of an underlying condition in one of the petitioners' test cases. Serious adverse reactions do happen from time to time, which is why the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund was created 20 years ago.

The oft-repeated claim that "one in six children has a neurobehavioral and/or developmental disability," is a self-serving interpretation of normally distributed data on a bell curve. It's akin to saying that half of all children are below average. Here's a graphic explanation of the "one in six" canard.


One in six children are below the standard deviation, and one in six are above.

Yes, the US infant mortality rate is far too high, but there is no evidence that vaccines are to blame. Infant mortality tends to be a proxy for extreme poverty, and few developed countries with lower infant mortality rates have poverty rates close to that of the US. The best way to combat infant morality is with more prenatal screening and counseling, low cost or free health care, and education. Scaring parents into foregoing vaccinations for their children does not prevent deaths.

We are failing our children’s health. It is time to help stop poisoning parents' minds with phony conspiracies and fear mongering.

26 comments:

~Zurama Arencibia Nuñez~ said...

If thimerosal was the only link to autism than I guess this debate would be over.

Those of us who link vaccines to our children's autism, don't need anyone to poisoned our minds. We saw with our eyes, our children's reaction to the vaccines.

The truth of the matter is that vaccines still contain very dangerous toxins-Aluminum, lead, viruses, bacteria, fetal tissue, anti-freeze, just to name a few.

Perhaps people pushing for vaccines should be made to drink a cocktail with the ingredients in childhood vaccines.

Anonymous said...

There is as much mercury in a can of tuna fish as in a flu shot. So I guess you could say I've already accepted that challenge. ;-)

~Zurama Arencibia Nuñez~ said...

A can of tuna is not injected into a 3 month infant is it?

Stan said...

I'm curious, anb: do you really, seriously think that putting mercury in injections is not a dangerous practice? And especially in newborns, and infants? And that the cumulative load should not be looked at as well? And that chelation therapy, with a resultant release of mercury (and other heavy metals, like aluminum - also put in vaccines) and reversal of ASD symptoms, doesn't say anything of significance?
I could go on (as with the respective roles of glutamate and glutathione, having to do with the ability or lack thereof to excrete mercury amongst a subset of children; and with the roles of testosterone in binding to mercury and aluminum in acting synergistically with it), but I would really like to know where you're coming from, so I could tailor my responses to the mental place you are inhabiting. For example, is your position really about the threat to the vaccine schedule itself from the accumulation of evidence of its damage to our children, or is it really, truly simply about the causes of autism? And let's go from there.

Anonymous said...

What evidence do you have that testosterone binds with mercury in the human body?

Anonymous said...

ANB - Brave post. Well done.

Zurama. Whilst you're right that the thimerosal debate is over (as is the MMR one) I'm not sure why in one comment you're saying people should drink thimerosal and then when ANB says that he/she effectively has, you switch that to injection? Is injection more dangerous? What science is there to back up that stance?

Interestingly, I can across a blog post where a man had drunk 5g of thimerosal. Not only did he not become autistic, he did not die either and recovered completely within 5 months (see here http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=473)

Stan - not to step on ANB shoe's but is there any scientific evidence for any of what you claim?

Anonymous said...

Hey, it's Stan. He plays a doctor on a certain autism biomed yahoo group. It's one of the more dangerous groups I've run across in the past decade. See ANB, Stan is beloved by many parents and they think he's smarter than any MD their kids have seen. He makes up, what he calls,"theroies" which he promotes as cutting-edge science. Then he concocts treatments from things he picks up from the biomed dox. Did you know, for instance, that anti-virals can detox mercury from one's body? Yep, Stan says so. He also thinks he's a psychologist, in addition to being a neuroimmunologist, which is why he lectures those who question his premises about his having to get into whatever "mental space [they] inhabit" so he can break it all down for those dolts who embrace academic science.

Anonymous said...

Fetal tissue? Really? Did you just make that up, Z?

Kathleen Seidel said...

Stan, the only published study to demonstrate that testosterone can bind to mercury is Cooper et al., The Crystal Structure and Absolute Configuration of the 2:1 Complex between Testosterone and Mercuric Chloride (Acta Crystallogr B., 1968, 15:24(7):935-41) -- an in vitro study in which a complex was formed in hot benzene. If you're interested in reading it, I'd be happy to send you a copy.

Prof. Boyd Haley has occasionally referred to an in vitro experiment that he conducted several years ago in which neurons died in the presence of mercury, and even more neurons died when testosterone was added to the mix. This experiment may have succeeded in demonstrating that neurons will die if you put them in a petri dish and throw enough stuff at them, but it seems like quite a leap to suggest that it proves that testosterone and mercury "act synergistically" in the body. Although Haley has referred to this experiment in several places (including an interview in Medical Veritas), to my knowledge, he has never published this research in a peer reviewed journal.

Mark and David Geier propagated the falsehood that testosterone binds to mercury in their early efforts to promote their speculative, patent-pending "Lupron protocol." Although emerging scientific evidence supports an association between autism and high levels of testosterone in utero, I am aware of no evidence to support the Geiers' self-serving fantasy that administering testosterone-reducing drugs to children and adolescents somehow makes it easier for them to eliminate the toxins that supposedly made them autistic. With their "Lupron protocol," Dr. and Mr. Geier are essentially using a GnRH agonist as a short-acting psychopharmaceutical. I welcome you to read my series of articles and letters on the subject for more detail.

Stan said...

I don't know what has happened; I posted a very detailed response to anb's query, but it didn't get picked up, for whatever reason. I'm not going to go through all of it again. But first:
(1) aqx: I'm not the Stan you're referring to. Since there appears to be another Stan out there in this autism comment world, I'll go by another name - though with my account currently in this name, I'll stick with it at least for the life of this thread, so as not to jeopardize my ability to 'land' here. Not that it did me much good this last time.
(2) anb: My response detailed material from both the Geiers and Prof B Haley (including the latter's paper - along with J Mutter, J Naumann, R Schneider, and H Walach - in the Neuroendocrinology Letters Vol. 26 No. 5, October 2005 entitled 'Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?' and his remarks/paper to the Kentucky Assembly in October 2004, wherein he says, in part: "Research that I have been involved in has shown that the amount of thimerosal that is needed to cause neuronal damage is easily reached in infants given the normal vaccine procedures...I, in collaboration with others, have measured the mercury levels in the birth-hair of normal and autistic children that was primarily contributed from the birth-mother's dental amalgams.
"What we observed was data that clearly showed that autistic children do not excrete mercury as do normal children. This results in a [sic] much lower blood levels of mercury and therefore lower levels of birth-hair mercury level in autistic children. The lower blood levels are due to the mercury rapidly being taken up by the cells and not effectively excreted in autistic infants. Further, the observation that the more severe the autism the less mercury in the birth hair was additional proof of retention of mercury in the autistic child. Therefore, autistic children represent a subset of the population that cannot effectively excrete mercury and, being unable to detoxify themselves are more susceptible to mercury's toxic effects.
"The other connection between thimerosal toxicity and autism comes from the observation that 4 of every 5 autistics are boys, a distinct gender bias. This ratio may be explained by the effects of estrogen versus testosterone on thimerosal toxicity. In our studies the female hormone was protective against toxicity whereas the testosterone dramatically increased the neuron killing capability of the thimerosal. This explanation was supported by the observations by a Dr. Baron-Cohen in England who reported that the amniotic fluid of mothers who gave birth to autistic children differed from the same fluid from mothers of normal children by only the elevated presence of testosterone. This can be evaluated that autistic children, on the day they are born, have higher testosterone levels and can be much more sensitive to the thimerosal exposure from the first Hepatitis B shot they receive that day..."), but you and others in your camp don't seem to think much of these scientists. Perhaps you should advise the U of Kentucky that they had an incompetent person as Professor and Chair of their Dept. of Chemistry who doesn't know what he is talking about.
(3) kathleen: Thank you for your contribution, and I will access your articles and letter on this subject when I have time. But in the meantime:
(1) You seem to be ignoring the facts on the ground. Specifically: when parents chelate their autistic children, mercury comes out, and their child's ASD symptoms dissolve. Comment?
(2) Your answer to why there is a 4:1 ratio of boys to girls caught up in ASD is - ?
(3) The rise of ASD in the 90s, corresponding with the more than 3-fold increase in the vaccine schedule - is there not some value of observation to that circumstantial evidence? Especially with all the other info that has come out about the dangers of mercury and its relation to glutathione (& cysteine) levels?
Enough for now. I hope this one gets through.

Kathleen Seidel said...

Stan wrote:
"You seem to be ignoring the facts on the ground. Specifically: when parents chelate their autistic children, mercury comes out, and their child's ASD symptoms dissolve. Comment?"

I'm not sure how you've come to the conclusion that I am "ignoring the facts on the ground" about chelation and its supposed benefits. My comment was limited to the subject of testosterone and mercury, and did not refer to chelation.

"Your answer to why there is a 4:1 ratio of boys to girls caught up in ASD is - ?"

I believe I acknowledged the existence of evidence associating autism with high levels of fetal testosterone, which influences the development and organization of brain structures. That might explain some of the difference.

FYI, "Mercury and Autism: Accelerating Evidence?" is a review article, not original research. In it, Professor Haley refers to his own unpublished experiments, but in insufficient detail to enable other scientists to replicate or critique them. Remarks to legislative bodies don't qualify as peer-reviewed research, either.

Anonymous said...

Professor Haley refers to his own unpublished experiments, but in insufficient detail to enable other scientists to replicate or critique them. Remarks to legislative bodies don't qualify as peer-reviewed research, either.

That's an important point, and I hope it's not lost on the crew after their six months long investigation of the science of autism.

Anonymous said...

"(1) You seem to be ignoring the facts on the ground. Specifically: when parents chelate their autistic children, mercury comes out, and their child's ASD symptoms dissolve. Comment?"

That is not a fact, that is an opinion. Further, it is an entirely unsupported opinion. What about the autistic kids who are chelated who's autism doesn't disolve? JB Handley of Generation Rescue has been chelating his son for three years now with no 'dissolving of autism'. Erik Nanstiel of Autism Fair Media has been chelating his daughter for over 6 years. In his own words she is still classed as 'low functioning'.

This means that:

a) Chelation only works on some kids
b) Chelation doesn't work at all and any improvement is coincedental

Until there is science on the table to answer this question, then your statement referring to 'facts' is fallacy.

Stan said...

kathleen,
You were arguing in effect the case against the role of thimerosal in ASD, since the testosterone question is in relation to the difficulty for some children - a lot of children, as it turns out, tragically - and esp. boys (4:1) in clearing mercury from their tissues and organs, including the brain. Given so much other evidence of vaccine implication in ASD, this is a legitimate take on this matter, at the least as much as your take on the possible role of "the development and organization of brain structures". (For the record, I agree with you on that; testosterone plays a major role in the foetal brain structure development. But as regards ASD, that doesn't account for regressive ASD appearing later on - after there has been the major environmental impact of the vaccine schedule; a schedule more than tripled during the 90s.)

You are basically asking (a fair enough principle): Where's the evidence. Unfortunately you are limiting your take to peer-reviewed journals. But the evidence is in such as the Generation Zero study by Verstraeten that occasioned the June 2000 Simpsonwood confab, and which was quietly airbrushed out of history by the Powers That Be. The evidence is in such as the outrageous fiddling of the stats in the Denmark study (as exposed by such seekers for the truth of ASD matters as Prof Haley). The evidence is in such as a similar hatchet job by the CDC on the ASD figures in Kent Township NJ (as exposed by such seekers for the truth of ASD matters as Mark Blaxill in his 2-part investigation titled What Did the CDC Know and When Did They Know It? on ageofautism.com). I am saying that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. And incidentally, speaking of 'legitimate' papers, there is an interesting one out now on uni.edu/hitlan (also see www.ageofautism.com/2007/11/when-smart-scie) by DeSoto, M.C. & Hitlan, R.T. (2007) Blood levels of Mercury are Related to Diagnosis of Autism: A Reanalysis of an Important Data Set/Journal of Child Neurology, 22, 1321-1323. I am saying that you should not put too much reliance on just 'peer-reviewed journal' papers. Wakefield's work on gut issues has been replicated, but he's still an outcast to the Establishment.

And why is that? I.e., why are the PTB not looking strenuously at evidence of gut damage in this ASD matter? A: Because that would implicgte vaccines; and the CDC is not going to go there. Even though its remit is to look after the safety of vaccines as well as the prosecution of the v. schedule. A 2-hatted, built-in conflict of interest that must change, before we will ever get to the whole truth about ASD - and all the other chronic conditions caused by this well-meant medical modality that has gone so horribly wrong. We have been warned, by such canary-in-the-cage manifestations of trouble as the appalling increase in what used to be an uncommon affliction, now known as ASD and other names for brain damage.

No, vaccines - and their questionable ingredients - are not the only cause of these disorders. But they are one of those causes. And we are wasting precious time getting to the truth of this tragedy by stonewalling with such tactics as denial, and denial, and denial. It's time for action.

~Zurama Arencibia Nuñez~ said...

Stan........I get the feeling we are wasting our time talking to some of these people. They don't care, because their children were not poisoned.
You are right they'll keep denying, because they are not here to find answerers.

Anonymous said...

So, in conclusion, it is a waste of your time to explain away a lack of supporting data with conspiracy theories and junk science. I'd have to agree with that.

On a more positive note, I just learned that "answerer" is a real word. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Real science: reintroduce thimerosal to all kids in all vaccines whose birthdays are on even days and then make all kids with odd numbered birthdays get entirely thimerosal free vaccines. Simple, cheap, real science. Who's afraid to do that?

Stan said...

whistleblower:
'What about the autistic kids who are chelated whose autism doesn't dissolve?' I contained reference to this in my first contribution to this thread which for some reason didn't make it in. The Geiers address this in their work on testosterone: testosterone - their CASE is that testosterone binds to mercury, and that is not only the reason why boys hold mercury more than girls, but it is such a bind that chelators can't get in all the time to do their work. Thus the important role of glutathione in ASD treatment, which is necessary to eliminate mercury/heavy metals. Unfortunately, as Prof Haley points out, the process of cysteine and glutathione synthesis - absolutely crucial for this mercury detoxification - is reduced in autistic children, "possibly due to genetic polymorphisms" (his joint paper 'Mercury and autism: Accelerating Evidence?'). It's also reduced because of the presence of glutamate, which opens up the blood brain barrier, allowing such as mercury easier access to the brain, and also keeping it from being able to be excreted properly. Where does glutamate come from? Partly from diet - that's why the efficacy of a CFGF diet for ASDers - but also, lo and behold, in its form of MSG (or other names) is even present in some vaccines. What?!

The reason MSG or free glutamic acid is added to vaccines is because it acts as a stabilizer - keeping the virus alive by supplying amino acids used by the virus. This is the reason why glutamic acid is nearly always found in live vaccines. So we have the following scenario: MSG/free glutamate is found in live vaccines, AND in high amounts in dairy and wheat products, AND it lowers glutathione levels, AND it increases inflammation found in the brains of autistic children (it increases histamine response)...this is all bad, bad news, not taken into account by the PTB.

(I am indebted to a blogger named Carol H for this info on the role of glutamate in this sorry story. She is a former food process engineer with a degree in food science. She did an interview about the autism/diet/glutamate link in October with Joyce Riley of the Power Hour:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5EjDOXH9xA&feature=related

Aluminum, also found in vaccines, is also complicit in this story - it increases cell permeability and allows more mercury into organs. It's in vaccines because it's an adjuvant - helping to enhance the inflammatory response for the production of antibodies. But it's a toxin, pure and simple. But this whole sordid story is so outrageous and depressing that I think I'll let it go at that for now. I just wanted to let you know basically why chelation therapy can run into difficulties. It's a complex issue. Would that it were simpler. Would that our children could be freed from this curse yesterday. A curse that we have inflicted on them. With good intentions, perhaps, in the beginning. But it has become venal, with vested interests at play. So this is not primarily about science. It is primarily about politics. Some authorities we have.

Anonymous said...

Stan - you are propping up one fallacious, unsupported hypothesis with another. Once again, this isn't science, its conjecture.

As a general rule, if you're getting your science for YouTube then you're getting it from the wrong place. Try peer reviewed, journal published, replicated science. Unfortunately, this immediately disqualifies the Geiers, Haley et al.

Stan said...

whistleblower,

Since ASD kids get better by their parents following DAN protocols etc etc (including enhanced detoxification through hyperbaric oxygen therapy) - based on these 'theories' - I'll stick with what works, regardless of which papers have made it into which 'peer-reviewed' journals and which have been blocked, for whatever reasons.* And may we all wish the best for ASD children and their parents in the coming year.

P.S. Excellent info, folks, on Carol Heinlein's website msgtruth.org


* And what about all those accepted studies which have been shown to have shoddy statistical use, methodological flaws like changing diagnostic categories etc etc, such as Madsen et al (the Denmark study)? And the Verstsraeten studies that went through a whitewashing transformation until it came out the other end telling a reverse story from the original? You rely too much on engineered studies - studies with a political end in mind, not a scientific one.

Anonymous said...

Your DAN! reliance gives rise to an interesting example of the misleading power of anecdote.

A blog which is now closed that I used to read regularly actually looked at the power of DAN! recovery stories on the web. He looked at various sources and found that in actual fact, of all the stories that claim to be 'recovery' stories only 5% in fact detail kids who once had an ASD diagnosis and then had that diagnosis removed. He then discussed the finding by DAN! founder Bernard Rimland that:

"Mysterious spontaneous recovery. It hasn’t happened often, but it has happened often enough for the phenomenon to be worth noting: over the past 25 years I have received a handful of letters from parents which read something like this: 'Please remove our address from your files. Our child has continued to improve so greatly - we don’t know why -that now he is no longer considered autistic.'"

In a follow up post this same blogger actually managed to get his own low functioning daughter listed on a recovery website as a success story.

This shows the fallacious nature of anecdotal 'evidence' very clearly.

Your point about Verstraten is bewildering. It underwent no whitewashing. The study that seemed to find an association was a pilot study. When it was ramped up to a second stage (as a pilot showing positives should do) the association went away. This is hardly an uncommon event with pilot studies.

I'm also not aware of any studies which have been blocked. That sounds like pretty ridiculous conspiracy theory mongering to me - unless you have evidence for this?

Stan said...

Whistleblower,
I'm not sure what value there is in returning to this thread. Thinking of all the ASD families who were not going to have a very merry Christmas this year, I wasn't interested in getting bogged down in a debate with someone who thinks that when such parents see their child getting better with chelation therapy, and tests show Hg being released and excreted because of it,* it's not a 'fact', it's only an 'opinion' - meaning that the only 'facts' are in peer-reviewed journal papers; which not so incidentally are notorious (esp. epidemiological ones) for being able to be doctored, in the most pejorative of senses of that term (and thus the expression 'lies, damned lies and statistics'), therefore the reason that I don't put as much faith in them as Whistleblower does. For good, track-record reasons.**

And while on the subject of such studies: the fact that the medical/public health profession hasn't done the long-term studies on the adverse side effects of vaccines - regarding thimerosal specifically (with no studies on its safety since it was first introduced, in the '30s, and that original one a farce) and vaccines in general - which that Establishment should have engaged in, and ESPECIALLY with such an invasive medical procedure - is hardly a feather in its cap, in crowing, "There are no studies..."

And as for studies that HAVE been done on various effects of vaccines in general: Viera Scheibner, Ph.D. e.g. has done extensive research on what was available over the years, as basis for her consequent belief in the dangers-in-balance of vaccines, and what has she got for her well-sourced efforts? Smear. ('Hang the messenger!') And the research by the Classens uncovering clear evidence that the Hib vaccine had more risk than benefit (because of its relationship with type 1 diabetes)? Their work has simply been ignored by the PTB. And so on. No, the medical-pharmaceutical-government complex isn't interested in science. It's interested in power - science manipulated to serve power. Don't talk to me about 'science' and 'facts'. The salient fact in all this is that it's time - well past - for a change.
(cont'd)

* and admittedly 'it' - or some specific type of chelation therapy - doesn't always work. For which there area various reasons; not time or place to go into here. But a hint of another likely factor besides the testosterone one mentioned previously (and other non-mercury-caused ASD, like other vaccine effects, or the neurotoxic risks posed by fluoride): this one with a peer-reviewed imprimatur behind it: a study published in Nov. in the Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine. "Autism is a disabling neurodevelopmental disorder whose cause is not completely understood, but is known to involve heavy metal toxicity...The autistic children followed specific detoxification protocols in an environment that was mitigated with regard to sources of EMR including mobile phones and WiFi...The researchers found that with protocols administered in the mitigataed environment, heavy metals were cleared from the children's bodies in a pattern dependent on time and molecular weight...The heaviest metals, such as mercury and uranium, cleared last. In many of the children, the decrease in metals was concomitant with symptom amelioration...Dr. Carlo [co-author] said, "These findings tie in with other studies showing adverse cell-membrane responses and disruptions of normal cell physiology. The EMR apparently causes the metals to be trapped in cells, slowing clearance and accelerating the onset of symptoms..."
(J.Aust.Coll.Nutr.&Env.Med. 2007, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp.3-7)

** Shall we take one, and speaking of Whistleblower's comment that the Generation Zero study of Verstraeten's was only a pilot' study, and therefore was only preliminary, and therefore the one that made it to print in 'Pediatrics' 3 years later was really fine and legitimate, thank you very much. Hardly.
(1) At the Simpsonwood secret meeting - called, let us not forget, to discuss the damaging results from Verstraeten's VSD study (damaging, that is to say, to the CDC's vaccine-schedule mission & primary interest) - the study was, indeed, a work in progress; with Verstraeten's CDC co-author telling the august assemblage: "So you can push, I can pull. But there was been substantial movement from this very highly significant result down to a fairly marginal result." That is, the intention, from the very beginning, was to try to come up with a more desirous study result. Desirous, that is to say, from the CFDC's vaccine-pushing perspective. (they are the ones, after all, where the buck stops; they're not going to be naturally inclined to draw attention to their immense failure of oversight.)
(2) The ultimate paper, as published in 'Pediatrics' in Nov. 2003, reflected that intention, with the CDC co-author being assigned to help look for ways to distort the methodology, and voila! - coincident with Verstraeten having by then become an employee of one of the pharmaceutical companies involved in the manufacture of these products-in-question - they succeeded, in making the autism (and NDD) risk ultimately disappear.
And dare anyone rock the CDC boat, they will make mincemeat of them. If they can do that sort of magic act, the can do anything, is the message that comes out of this squalid story. That, and the message of sleaze.

Stan said...

(cont'd)
A classic example of this corruption is in the words of the WHO representative at the Simpsonwood conclave, who wished aloud that the Verstraeten study had never been engaged in in the first place. Because he for one wasn't going to be deterred by such information anyway. He had a job to do, and all that mattered was getting that job done. Never mind about such mere details as safety concerns. The end justifies the means, period. Thus the mentality of those we have allowed to take positions of power over us. It's neither a pretty sight nor a rigorously scientific one, contrary to what some commentators would have us believe.

But good for Verstraeten, I suppose. He got a cushy job at GSK out of it. Pity that wasn't made clearer, when he finally submitted the study to the kind of peer-reviewed journal that Whistleblower puts so much faith in, and when he let some inquirer know of his affiliation with the CDC, but not with the drug company.

Not relevant? I don't agree. But then that's just suspicious me - with good reason to believe in the coverup mentality of our official keepers.

I'll close this rant by giving T. Verstraeten his due. Apparently in July 2000 - shortly after the Simpsonwod conclave, of our modern-day high priests, making decisions in secret that affect us all - he wrote to somebody: "I do not wish to be the advocate of the anti-vaccine lobby and sound like being convinced that thimerosal is or was harmful, but at least I feel we should use sound scientific argumentation and not let our standards be dictated by our desire to disprove an unpleasant theory."

Would that he had followed his own advice, down to the publication of his study. The ultimate paper, that is to say, OF his originally legitimately-conceived study. Before the CDC got hold of it, and with his help, altered it all out of proportion to the truth of the matter.

P.S. As for my reference to blocked research results (or signals not to go a certain place because of research-grant realities): One example would be that of Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, who came up with unexpected-to-her and alarming findings regarding the toxic effects of fluoride, reported her research to her superiors, and in consequence (a) was deprived of her research facilities and (b) lost her job. And I'm sure that other researchers in the field took note of her 'result' and declined entertaining the possibility of a similar fate. But that's mere 'opinion'; Whistleblower wouldn't be interested in such speculation. So how about another direct example: that of Dr Arpad Pusztai, after a long and distinguished research career, who reported HIS research findings - in his case the effects of GM potatoes on rats - and, having come up with the 'wrong' result also, endured the same fate as Dr. Mullenix. To say: we are not talking science here. We are talking politics, and power.

P.P.S. If anybody wants to see published papers on chelation therapy, Dr. Charles Rudolph of the McDonagh Medical Center clinic in Kansas City, Mo. has said that they are "the most published clinic in the world on chelation," with over 30 papers on the subject. With the story: www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/komu.com/ba8a45

Anonymous said...

How many of those 30 papers are peer reviewed?

tkasemodel said...

I see the comments above mentioning tuna vs. the flu shot. True - a 6 ounce can of tuna contains about 21 mcgs of mercury and a flu shot contains 25. There is a big difference however.

The concentration of METHYL MERCURY in a can of tuna is .12 parts per million, or 120 parts per billion. the concentration of ETHYL MERCURY in flu shots, diphtheria-tetanus, tetanus toxoid and meningococcal vaccines produced last year is 50 parts per million or 50,000 ppb.

I weigh 200 lbs. I would need to eat 49 whole cans of regular tuna (122 servings) and absorb 100% of the mercury to match the 62.5 mcg dose my son got who weighed 12.5 lbs at age 2 months. You can easily calculate this yourself if you wish.

There is also a curious double standard at play here. Another post to this blog seems to go out of the way to point out the differences between the two types of mercury, insinuating that ethyl mercury is somehow safe, or safer. Why is it that the people who so aggressively attack any suggestion that thimerosal in vaccines is not safe at any level want to have it both ways? First they want to point out that Ms. Reynolds did not point out the differences, and then they want to safe it is as safe as eating tuna.

You can not have it both ways. Since it was mentioned however, I will point out that while there is no question that an established "safe daily dose" of methylmercury was established by the EPA to be .1 mcg per kg per day, this is under question due to research by the University of Rochester (Chmically Diverse Toxicants Converge on Fyn and c-Cbl to Disrupt Precuser Cell Function; Li, Dong, Proschel and Noble). They found damaging effects of exposure to methyl mercury "at levels 90% below those previously considered to represent low dose exposures." Something to ponder the next time you eat that tuna sandwich....

There is also no debate that there has NEVER been an established "safe daily dose" of ethyl mercury or thimerosal by the EPA, CDC, FDA or any other agency who continue to mandate its injection into our bodies. If you find one, please spread it far and wide on the web. Good luck.

Anonymous said...

There is also no debate that there has NEVER been an established "safe daily dose" of ethyl mercury or thimerosal by the EPA, CDC, FDA or any other agency who continue to mandate its injection into our bodies.

Children don't receive daily doses of thimerosal. The EPA drinking water standards assume you drink water every day.