Comment-Commending List

This item was emailed to this blog--AR

The undersigned organizations and individuals are commending KOMU TV on the excellent investigative report, "Combating Autism from Within." The friends and families of vaccine-injured children, with mercury induced autism, congratulate you on the recent coverage and discussions of this serious disorder which has reached epidemic levels across the United States.

We are so pleased to see the extensive research reported to reveal the struggles families face and the truth about the poisoning of a generation of children through the use of thimerosal containing vaccines.

The Missouri School of Journalism should be proud, this report exemplifies why it is known as the leader in the world for students desiring careers in Journalism. We believe the experience and training these student/reporters have gained through this series will prove to be immeasurable for advancement and professional careers in the media.

The amount of science that was covered is the most in-depth, thoughtful and truthful investigation we have watched unfold by any journalist, during the fifteen year explosion in diagnoses of vaccine related autism.

The journalistic integrity and credibility at KOMU has allowed your viewers to see the reality of children affected by autism and the blatant falsehood of the government and medical community trying to keep this tragedy from being exposed. Your unbiased and accurate report was the first to acknowledge the conflicts of interest which have infested the medical community where a "First Do No Harm" attitude should prevail. The heart breaking lack of medical, educational and social service support for these families was reported in a respectful and meaningful way.

Ashley Reynolds and her team uncovered and reported the misleading information, that is often provided by CDC or pharmaceutical funded scientists, and reported the fact that mercury is still in most flu, tetanus, and diphtheria/tetanus vaccines--and an array of vaccines still contain "trace" amounts. (The term "trace" is not recognized as a scientific term.)

We were pleased to see honest interviews with known experts Dr. Boyd Haley and Dr. David Ayoub speaking about the relationship between mercury exposure and neurological injury. Ms. Reynolds secured an exclusive interview with local resident and former chairman of the Microbiology Department, Dr. Frank B. Engley, Jr., whose studies from 1940's-90's found toxicity of thimerosal at a nanomolar level.

The parents of children suffering from vaccine-induced illnesses applaud you for speaking out about the families' tragedies and reporting the research supporting a causal link between mercury in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders.

We sincerely appreciate your brave reporting of all sides of the devastating disorder of autism. We look forward to your hour presentation in February.

Respectfully,

A-Champ Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury

Alan D. Clark Research Memorial Fund

Albert W. Burgstahler, PhD., Professor Emeritus of Chemistry; University of Kansas

ARROW- Autism Recovery Resources of Washington

Autism One

Autism United

Boyd Haley, PhD., Professor of Chemistry; University of Kentucky PhD.

CoMeD; The Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs

Darrel G. Moreland, DDS, MSD

David Ayoub, MD

Edward F. Fogarty, III, M.D. and Family

Exceptional Families Network

Frank B. Engley Jr., PhD., Former Professor and Chairman of Micro Biology; and Assistant Dean of the School of Medicine University of Missouri

Foundation for Autism Information and Research

Foundation for Mercury Injured Children

Generation Rescue

HEAL! Healing Every Autistic Life

MAM- Moms Against Mercury

Michael J. Cannon, DO

NAA National Autism Association

No Mercury

Oklahoma Autism Coalition

Prairie Collaborative

Richard Deth, PhD., Professor of Pharmacology Northeastern University, Massachusetts

Safe Minds

Schafer Autism Report

TN4SaferVaccine

The Wyatt Holliday Foundation

World Mercury Project

Comment-Thank You

This item was emailed to this blog--AR


Thank you, Ashley Reynolds and team!!

Sincerely, thank you for having the courage to go where few others have during this very trying, tumultuous time.

Your journalistic integrity and talent are refreshing and very warmly welcomed!!

Best wishes to all of you,

The Wessels


Lin Wessels
Sam's MAMA
(Mom on A Mission for Autism)

"Even if your are in a minority of one, the truth is still the truth."

another blog comment on autism

This item was emailed to this blog--AR

I have to say, Fogarty, Haley, Ayoub and Engley are undoubtedly on to something. As a mom who loves and cherishes ALL FOUR of her children, I am very willing to listen to the facts and do what I can to TREAT and/or RECOVER my son.

I do hang on to hope...I have to. I admit, when my son was first diagnosed, and I heard some of the crazy ideas about NUTRITION and VACCINATIONS affecting these kids, I thought it was ludicrous. However, since truly looking AND listening, I have done a complete "180". The evidence is overwhelming and irrefutable. As a health professional - but more so as a parent - I won't close my eyes and refuse to believe what's right out in front of me just because the bureacracies in our country are in denial.

I accept and embrace my son AS IS, but what kind of a mother would I be if I wasn't ready to look at ALL TREATMENTS with an open mind?

Tricia Kiefer, RN BAN
Nurse Manager, Birthcenter One

Comment-Combating autism from within

This item was emailed to this blog--AR

I wanted to take a moment to comment on your blog...

I have a six-year-old son with autism. He was diagnosed almost 2 years ago to the day. I admit, when I first received the diagnosis, I was totally devastated. Since then, my outlook has changed...

Not only am I blessed (refer to my own personal blog: www.blessedwithautism.blogspot.com to have my son (and all 4 of my children!) in my life, but we are blessed with this condition we call autism. The amazing qualities that he possesses far surpass any unfavorable conditions that people tend to think of when hearing about autism.

There is a misconception that these kids lack affection and personality. On the contrary, my son (and ALL the other kids on the spectrum that I've come to know) is a loving, charismatic (and highly "quirky") individual. (And VERY intelligent - he reads many levels above his grade and consistently EXCEEDS the academic expectations in school!) He has helped me learn what it means to truly be patient. He has helped me appreciate life and everything in it. Since my son's diagnosis, I have not only learned to "accept" it, but I have embraced it. I wouldn't change a thing.



Tricia Kiefer, RN BAN
Nurse Manager, Birthcenter One

Hopeful Leadership in Treating Autism

This item was emailed to this blog--AR

http://anon.autismri.com.edgesuite.net/anon.autismri/RecoveredChildren/AutismIsTreatableVideo-highband.wmv

Despite the incredibly complex situation as relates to autism, there is hope-I strongly encourage parents and journalists visiting this site to watch the entire video above and pay attention to some of the academic credentials of some of the people involved here.

The function of children on the autistic spectrum can be improved, more and more children are showing such gains after leaving the treatment of establishment physicians. Some card-carrying members of the AAP (such as in my community) are starting to pay attention so that over time this situation will continue to improve despite the attacks on the brave clinicians who are taking on this uphill battle.

The continued improvements in increasingly larger numbers of kids is further evidence that we have neglected one of the most common pediatric problems. The neglect goes back decades to Bernard Rimland, PhD who first debunked the "bad mothering" theory from another PhD of my Alma Mater. This neglect really has huge impacts on our country's GDP down the line and state budgets RIGHT NOW.

The collective neurobehavioral functioning of this society's children needs to climb quickly so that the numerically heavy population needing their work productivity in the next 30 years will actually have a societal safety net. The baby boomers who are so set on denying this are the same people that will reap the rewards of their neglect of this issue, unfortunately a lot of lawyers, farmers, accountants, truck drivers, some teachers and others of that generation's cohorts really don't realize what the MDs of their generation are neglecting here.

Autism is treatable, and its not just behavioral interventions or by the use of a single pharmacologic approach; its complicated and its high time the real geniuses inside academic medicine started paying attention to the people on the video above.

Thanks again to KOMU and the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

There are likely few other Journalism Schools in this country (land of the free home of the brave) that would have the guts to face the wrath of academic medicine on their own university quadrangles as relates to the topics you have addressed here. Another sign of the the coercive nature of the health profession that screams across campus at those interested in finding the truth.

Seems rather unhealthy, doesn't it?

Edward F. Fogarty, MD

Chairman of Radiology

University of North Dakota School of Medicine

Comment-Scientific Criticisms-KOMU

http://www.safeminds.org/pressroom/pres_releases/Review_Miles_Takahashi_6-20-07.pdf

For those who are students of science, it would seem there are some fair assessments and issues brought to light in the piece above. As relates to the KOMU coverage of this, I would have to think Dr. Miles might want to comment on these criticisms in the February wrap up.

For policy makers in state government in Missouri, this little project has done a great service to our democracy by presenting both sides of a debate. I encourage all to read through all of the many posts, understand we are human and this is of incredible importance to many not just as a medical debate but as relates to the potential for biological imperialism as imposed by state and federal government. Titer documentation not vaccination records should determine public school entrance and exemptions need to be protected. I will vaccinate my fourth child in a quite different manner than the "guidelines" given by the CDC, knowing all that I understand currently and was complete unaware of before having been engaged in this area by the experience of my family.

Evidence based medicine requires evidence of need for boosters after first dose of a vaccine in a series; it is the keep-it-simple-stupid approach that should be openly and honestly discussed between family practice and pediatrics physicians and their patients. Those who open their doors in practice to this idea may see many new patients, parents like me who want to vaccinate their children for the appropriate at-risk epidemic diseases at appropriate ages with the safest of approaches; this would shift revenue to clinical pathologists from vaccine companies selling unneeded boosters and to open-minded clinicians in the care of children. This compromise puts the patient-physician relationship back in the spotlight. The approach also dims the governance-governed relationship of the CDC and public health officials trying to do their best on a societal basis while ignoring the needs of individuals. These policy artists are so willing to overdose vaccines on the assumption that it is the best method to protect a populace that can't make decisions on its own; very unAmerican and unscientific as the idea has never ben approached any other way. A titer check approach to indicate booster need would actually help defuse a growing vaccine availability crisis, ironic isn't it?

For those who ask why a former Husker and Dakotan has so much to say on this blog, it is simple: our water is your water, I live on the banks of the great river that bears the name of your state and what we do up here on these molecules of H2O gets to Missouri eventually.

Protecting our children's environment is getting harder everyday and it is something that requires great effort from the "little" guy. Autism has a major environmental component that is a liability for the many large industries that are polluting our children's bodies; thus, though vaccines are not completely to blame they do reflect the effects of an industry who job it is to protect the environmental health of our children.

Physicians pushing pharmaceuticals to be better than the fossil fuels industry, metals manufacturers and other industrial polluters shouldn't be so hard, but as anyone can see from experience on this blog, the conditioning of MDs leads them to keep their mouths shut on politically contentious issues for fear of many backlashes.

If PHaRMA wants to push back on this issue, maybe they should spend some money on researching the environmental connections here in a productive manner for their industry by supporting the epidemiology of autism near industrial pollution sites instead of just trying to white wash their own role in this , or give Dr. Von Saal of the University of Missouri some grants to research the explosion of reproductive toxins in our food supply. The role of other industries in this internal-environmental crisis affecting the neurological health of the next generation of Americans is probably even worse than the role played by vaccines, but mom's keep blaming vaccines completely when by temporal association there is an event of vaccination and a response of neurological decline that then gets institutionally ignored.

The future will show we are on the course of a growing epigenetic epidemic, our genes and our environments are suffering increasing dysfunction. These kids are Rachel Carson's birds of the 21st century they need better than what society is doing to skirt the issues so as to protect establishment medicine (state of denial), pharmaceuticals (vaccines), big oil (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), manufacturing (heavy metals), agriculture (organophosphates), food processors (bisphenol A, aspartame), and others (including radiologists) who are playing this role in punctuated genomic instability complicated by molecular slowing of toxin handling kinetics in an increasing proportion of an entire generation of children. Sadly, all of this is only going to get much worse (slowly) for a very long time (decades); the chicken little of today will be understood as the sentinel of tomorrow-by then I fear we will not really have the American experiment anymore, being too run down as a middle class populace by these social-environmental issues to fight the good fight anymore.

As for approach to treatment, establishment academic clinicians need to start paying attention to the work and ideas of Martha Herbert, MD, PhD at Harvard, she's doing the right homework on this issue where so many others are afraid to in the ivory towers. People who want the vision to see how to make this debate productive for children need to read Changing the Course of Autism by Bryan Jepson, MD.

Thanks again to the faculty of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, you are profiles in courage for our day.

Edward F. Fogarty, III, M.D.

Chairman of Radiology

University of North Dakota School of Medicine

Lifelong resident of the banks of the Missouri.

I just wanted to thank , KOMU TV and the news team for inviting me to participate in this blog/discussion and for your covering of the never ending struggle with Autism faced by so many families all over the world.

Each family approaches their children's Autism in their own way. Some may be worried about their child not having descriptive language while other are just trying to get one word out. Some are trying to get their children to eat, while others which they could stop eating so many wrong foods.

Weather we believe that our children are just different, ill, or vaccine injured, Autism is still an unimaginable challenge to each one of the families affected by it.

Comment-Grateful Viewer

This item was emailed to this blog.-AR

Thank you, KOMU TV and news team for having the integrity and courage to cover the controversial issues surrounding our children's afflictions. I have been following your coverage closely. I am but another parent of a child with the autism label. Our son also has mercury toxicity. They are one in the same. So thank you Ashley Reynolds and support team for you earnest efforts on our children's behalf!!

May stories and coverage such as this enhance the truth behind the controversy that we may one day end the madness and recover the already injured children and their families.
In all sincerity and with much appreciation,

Lin Wessels
Sam's MAMA (Mom on A Mission for Autism)

Comment-Combating Autism From Within

This item was emailed to this blog.-AR

The stunning information presented by Ashley Reynolds and her news team should be setting off alarms everywhere. Our federal health agencies have done little to address the autism epidemic affecting one in every 150 children--specifically one in every 94 boys in the U.S.

For too long the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been given oversight over itself. This is the agency in charge of the vaccine program and the commonly accepted source for information on vaccine safety. It should come as no surprise that every CDC study on vaccines and autism shows no link. Many times reporters go no further but simply give the CDC the last word.

The simple truth is our children have been exposed to a known neurotoxin in their vaccines made from the second deadliest element on Earth. As they received more and more vaccines in the mandated schedule, the autism rate exploded. The CDC has been a constant state of denial and can only present easily manipulated population studies to try and show that injecting mercury into children is safe.

This research can never make up for the fact that thimerosal, the mercury-based vaccine preservative, was never tested for toxicity BEFORE it was allowed in our children's vaccines. The population studies we're continually told about are the same type of science produced by the tobacco industry in the 1940s and 50s as proof that smoking didn't cause lung cancer. The fact is that there isn't a single toxicological study that can show us that thimerosal is safe.

The CDC has left health care professionals with no choice but to defend vaccines as safe, but this heated controversy shows no sign of going away. More and more in the press are presenting the facts about autism and the link to vaccines.

Ashley did the extraordinary. She looked into the studies. She talked to the scientists and doctors who challenge the CDC findings as well as pointing out the financial ties between the people doing the CDC studies and the vaccine makers. She told the public about the difference between epidemiological and toxicological studies. Combating Autism from Within has raised the standard for reporting on the autism epidemic.

Those of us responsible for the AGE OF AUTISM blog are happy to recognize the Combating Autism From Within series in naming the work by Ashley as the best media coverage on autism for 2007! AGE OF AUTISM AWARD: BEST MEDIA Thank you Ashley Reynolds and KOMU-TV!

Anne McElroy Dachel
Media Editor: AGE OF AUTISM

Comment-Part 4 ...no better. Yes...we have no Thimerosol!

This item was emailed to this blog. -AR

I have read the transcript of Part 4...missed the visuals. Once again we have the "expert" octogenarian PhD as well as a "researcher"talking thru the top of their heads about things with which they have not a clue.

Haley the researcher makes a point of identifying vaccines as the obvious only common factor for autism across different nations. Well... of course there are other common environmental factors affecting children around the world. If you discount that the relaxed diagnostic criteria for autism, could account for increased cases, how about plastic? Plastic is now ubiquitous in the environment of the world. Then there are electromagnetic fields (TV, Cell phones), PCBs, asbestos, pesticides, agricultural use of hormones and antibiotics... the list goes on.

Hmmm...and while thinking of alternative theories, the radiologist who posts here may want to explain how it is that medical imaging...particularly prenatal ultrasound...is not the autism
culprit.

The point is, babies are born into a very different environment today than they were 60 years ago. Lets face it, there are some folks who have been opposed to vaccines from the beginning and who have latched onto autism as a selling point. Some of these people also opposed fluoridation of water (as a Communist plot), and have now, quite unfortunately, sold the idea to
some families affected by autism that they should blame "the mercury in vaccines".

I believe that KOMU and Ashley have been "played" by these same vaccine opponents. As a result, we have this very biased and poorly produced series, which merely adds to the pain of autism sufferers and could easily have the effect of children not receiving life saving
vaccines.

What a missed opportunity to address autism! There are real issues which these families face: Lack of school and community support, health care costs in a world without universal
health care, transition to independent living, etc. Where were the interviews with social service agencies, school officials, health departments, insurance company executives? Now that would have been a productive and informative story.

No Thimerosol in the current vaccine regime: I do appreciate that in the text of the 4th installment, there is mention that current routinely used vaccines for children, do not contain thimerosol. So, it is at the end of the series that we kind of learn that single unit dose vaccines are preservative free. That, only in the context however, of "Parents must decide if..."
Sorry...no deciding needed if the issue is Thimerosol...there ain't any!

Historically multi use vials of vaccine contained Thimerosol in very small quantities as a preservative. Single use vials do not contain any preservative, and the "live" vaccines have ALWAYS been preservative free. These would be MMR (Measles, Mumps Rubella),
Varicella (Chickenpox) and the old oral Polio vaccine.

For real information about vaccines see the Immunization Action Coalition:
http://www.immunize.org/
Check out their pictures and films of the results of unvaccinated children. Vaccine preventable illnesses are not simply normal childhood illnesses that people should experience to improve their immune systems. The microcephally, retardation, and blindness of Rubella syndrome are real. The awful sound of babies with diptheria struggling for breath, and the arched back of children dying of tetanus are real. The effectiveness of vaccines to prevent these
tragic outcomes is real.

So...this KOMU series was much ado about nothing...with a potential
terrible effect.

Bill Monroe, RN

Part Four

Here is part four...tell us what you think.

Also, web extras will be up soon.

http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/ba8a4513-c0a8-2f11-0063-9bd94c70b769/14f72f27-80ce-0971-019e-ca59a7507560

Comment-Prudence and Foresight

This item was emailed to this blog. -AR

Any epigenetic disorder arises as mix of environmental insults and genetic predisposition, leaving us the opportunity with expanding science to find the susceptible genetic populations so that we may protect them from unnecessary environmental exposures.

Precautionary principle would dictate that unneeded environmental stimuli such as vaccine boosters should be avoided in such increasingly identifiable children. Vaccinating smarter will improve outcomes.

Edward F . Fogarty, M.D.
Chairman of Radiology
University of North Dakota School of Medicine

Comment-autism bad, but not related to vaccines...sorry

This item was emailed to this blog -AR

I just saw episode 3 of your series on Autism.I am wondering if KOMU will, in the course of the series disclose that none of the vaccines now routinely used for children contain thimerosol. It has actually been several years since they have. MMR (Measle Mumps Rubella) has NEVER had Thimerosol as a preservative, as it has ALWAYS been preservative free...it being a live virus vaccine.

A few years ago the hue and cry among autism/vaccine conspiracists was that MMR was the autism culprit as it is given at 12 to 15 months andAutism is first usually noticed after that time. I have read of people testifying to the Missouri legislature that the mercury in MMR gave their child autism. I am afraid that can not possibly be true. Studies have shown that Autism is detectable by persons familiar with its symptoms in infants prior to, or at, their first birthday.

As an example see the retrospective first birthday videotape study:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m024230v47531118/

MMR is never given before age one...again, it is not responsible for autism.

As others have noted in your blog, the upsurge in autism cases is in all likelihood a matter of the broadened diagnoses of cases. It can also be related to any number of environmental factors. Some environmental factors combined with genetics are undoughtedly at work with autism and much research is needed. It is a classic fallacious argument however, to assert that vaccines are to blame simply because they are given in infancy around the time that autistic symptoms
manifest. There are plenty of substances and effects in our environment to which humans have never before been exposed. Plastic, for instance, is something that our ancestors never had to deal with, or electromagnetic fields such as are produced by microwaves, cell phones and televisions broadcasting KOMU TV.

You can always find an "expert"somewhere to back up whatever theory you want. Good reporting does not mean rooting around for fringe views. The CDC is not in the business of making people sick. Whenever a problem is found with any vaccine or medicine the CDC pulls it
immediately. (You may remember the rotavirus vaccine which was pulled a few years ago.)

Also...reporting like this has consequences, as in children dying or being born with birth defects due to decreased vaccination rates. Will KOMU be running a month long 14 part series on childhood vaccine preventable diseases?

I think the public deserves to see persons with Rubella syndrome and hear from their families. Seeing an infant with diptheria struggling for each breath should make for a good B roll, and the ascites condition associated with Hepatitis B is also quite dramatic. Perhaps you can find some children with hepatitis. (One of the principle reasons infants are given Hepatitis B in the newborn nursery is to protect them from possible infection from their mothers.) Of course to
film someone dying or ill with polio or living with its effects, they would have to go to India or Africa...not sure if the KOMU budget could get behind that. Finding smallpox would also be a problem...
This website has some pictures and video you could use:
http://www.vaccineinformation.org/

As an aside...
I wonder about the quality of education being afforded by our much touted J School. Seems to me folks are being prepared for a career with the Enquirer, the Globe or some Rupert Murdock outfit and perhaps the taxpayers are not getting their money's worth.
Disappointed in KOMU,

Bill Monroe RN,
Fulton MO

I was interested in seeing how you would present the "CDC view" in the great "debate" on vaccines and autism. You have got to be kidding! So...the CDC did not have the time to address questions of the "When did you stop beating your wife..." variety from student "reporters".
Wow...big "news". You really got them, didn't you! Here is some news for you....that was NOT news.

The fact that vaccines are used safely by most of the world's population and have been studied thoroughly and found to be safe preventing thousands of deaths, suffering, miscarriages and birth defects, does not become a "debate" because a handful of people have chosen to point to vaccines as the cause of their children's autism.

Where were the local vaccine experts? Did you ask to interview anyone at the Health Department, or Dr Cooperstock at MU? Apparently not.

Instead we get more of the Octogenarian PhD (thats NOT a medical Doctor folks), who is satisfied to pass along info based on "...what they tell me". Truly pathetic. And sad.

I think I will skip the next installment in which we learn that Rep Cynthia Davis, and Matt Blunt and the Republican Party are sure to protect our little ones from these nasty vaccines.
Just what IS the agenda of KOMU?
Where are your ethics?

Bill Monroe RN
Fulton MO
--
"Voting is not enough..."
Gov. Howard Dean

Part three

Our third part of the investigation airs tonight. Tell us what you think. You can see it here.
http://www.komu.com/satellite/SatelliteRender/KOMU.com/ba8a4513-c0a8-2f11-0063-9bd94c70b769/0fcbcb66-80ce-0971-014a-e9d7f410a3e1

Comment-Ethyl and Methyl Mercury not the same thing!

This item was emailed to this blog.-AR

I find it interesting that in the report(s) concerning mercury and autism no mention was made of the fact that thimerisol contains ethyl mercury not methyl mercury. This leads me to believe that either a poor job of research was done, or the researcher had a bias ingrained that vaccines cause autism and chose not to give information that challenged that belief.

http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2005/7712/abstract.pdf

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/thimerosalqa.htm

also it is very telling that no mention was made of the fact that Denmark removed all thimerisol from vaccines in 1992. Danish children were thimerosal-free by 1995. Autism prevalence in Denmark has risen in exactly the same fashion as in the United States and the United Kingdom. http://www.autism-watch.org/general/thio.shtml

this series on autism makes me extremely leary of the validity of KOMU’s research on stories and make me much less likely to trust information from your station in the future.

As a parent it is comforting if you can find something, ANYTHING, to blame for your childs conditons or illness. Unfortunately too often the only thing to blame is your childs own genes.

As for the epidemic? Better and much more inclusive diagnostic criteria. The majority of kids now diagnosed with autism 50 yrs ago would have been considered extremely shy and/or backwards/slow, etc. Now they are diagnosed as autistic.

PFL

Evidence Based Medicine

This item was emailed to this blog. -AR

The double edged sword of vaccines is that as we increase their use we will increase adverse events particularly as relates to autoimmune phenomena. Where is the simple science that assesses the rates of autoimmune disease as a function of number of vaccinations received?

For the protection of the children of this country and improved health outcomes without threatening herd immunity we have to do more checking of vaccine efficacy rather than assume we need 3 boosters in every child in some series of vaccines. Where is the safety data that ensures giving multiple vaccines at one clinic visit is as safe as separating them. Where is the safety data with a normal saline (NOT ADJUVANT) placebo control on the hepatitis B series?

Participants in such a study who got placebo after safety assessments were in for day of birth immunization would have plenty of time to get catch-up vaccination, I never got hepatitis B shots until college clearly such a disease that have a major behavioral component to transmission could be intensely scrutinized for safety in childhood; there is no medical literature, no documented evidence that indicates these safety assessments have been done.

Focused, smarter protocols with titer checks will easily accomplish this. Concerned parents and a growing number of concerned physicians can develop a congress of "the evidence based" schedule. In the end it will be more appropriate to make decisions on clinical evidence of need. Boosters are inappropriate in those who have documented immunity, titer levels are all I ever had to prove immunity to the diseases of childhood when I started medical school (my vaccine records were lost). Grassroots public awareness campaigns can get the word out that titer level documentation of immunity is actually more appropriate documentation of immunity than a written record of shots that could be forged anyway. Such social nightmares for both sides of the arguments of safety and need such as occurred in Maryland recently could easily be avoided with this simple information.

Nothing is 100% safe and I do think the risks of certain diseases at certain ages warrant vaccination with serial titers for follow up, why waste the shot though if you don't need it? If parents don't want to pursue that slightly more arduous course they can make the assumptions of safety similar to the CDC, but the atmosphere needs to change so that patient education leads to this consideration of this approach as a primary discussion point.

Teasing out the small percentage of vaccine-intolerant kids on the basis of biochemical screening is the goal that government research dollars should be driven towards-it is the HONORABLE thing to do, admitting that there are vulnerable patients who will have a discordantly high risk of injury due to a universal mandate is not easy, those with character will at least admit this goal should be pursued.

I see this same point being made in other areas of medicine with much less angst. Why is this goal ignored, is it conditioning? I have on many occasions turned a friendly colleague around in their thinking on this after getting through the conditioning of medical culture.

We can come together and improve the lives of children in both areas of safety and immunity by taking these simple steps. Even if hubris prevents it coming from the CDC, the culture of pediatrics, and academia; the grassroots efforts of many Great Americans can pull this idea together for the good of our nation's health.

Its hard to argue against this approach in a way that can be justified on truly medical grounds. Simple fact is we have no good evidence of what the rates of vaccine-related iatrogenesis are because there are no prospective controlled studies on this liability issue, the onus is
on the CDC to provide that evidence; is it 1/100, 1/1000, 1/10,000 or 1/1,000,000?

Even at a 1/1,000,000 rate of adverse contrast reactions ,radiologists are still going to be put to task for how they attempted to avoid an ill fated injection by patients, lawyers and health advocates. I am glad we are; we continually improve our safety, most often by the prodding of our colleagues outside of our specialty.

Many thanks again to the KOMU staff and the University of Missouri
School of Journalism,

You have provided a brave investigation that others with a greater
audience could never endeavor!

Edward F. Fogarty, M.D.
Chairman of Radiology
University of North Dakota School of Medicine
Father of a great kid who is slowly beginning to speak.

Comment on ANB note of style

This item was emailed to this blog-AR

A Note on Knowledge:
As a licensed health care professional who knows the profoundly deficient working knowledge of chemistry and physics that nowpermeates U.S. medicine from decades of neglect of basic science understanding in pursuit of easily written scripts from large pharmaceutical companies, I can tell you that Dr. Boyd Haley's knowledge on the subject of heavy metal toxicology dwarfs that of allbut a few MDs or DOs in this country. The cultural distance of the best and brightest PhDs from MDs on the campuses of this country's universities is growing at the peril of our healthcare system. Your"note on style" appears to be a weakly veiled attempt to diminish this man's accomplishments by the title behind his name. Most of the advances of our healthcare system are pioneered by PhD's who get the willing ear of visionary MDs to creatively problem solve for the benefit of society and ultimately, many of the Pharmafia corporations that run this country.

ANB: Don't you have some connections with companies that might be interested in my ELISA in home vaccine titer check idea? We couldmake a killing on that one and short sell vaccine companies who will undoubtedly lose tons of money on having no reason for all those unnecessary boosters once we get our test kits out on the market ;-)You in?

Edward F. Fogarty, M.D.