Guest guest Posted November 12, 2000 Report Share Posted November 12, 2000 My comments: From time to time I will forward information in that has nothing to do with TCM or herbalism if I think there's a need for the information to be more widely known. The possible link between vaccinations and autism and other problems is one of these. One of the main area of concern are the blanket vaccinations. These are when several vaccinations are given at the same time. Children's bodies and systems have not fully developed, and this may be too much of a strain. Note: Children's Spleens are not developed until I believe around the age of 6. There may be some age and development issues which Western medicine is not considering but TCM would which would make vaccinations safer. Another main issue is DO NOT VACCINATE WHEN THE CHILD IS SICK OR HAS A COMPROMISED IMMUNE SYSTEM. Even though this information is in the package insert, it frequently is ignored. Other issues concern the use of mercury in some vaccines. Another issue which is not covered in this article but is covered in other articles is does the risk of the child catching the infection outweighed by the risk of the vaccination? The hepatitis B vaccination is a good example of this. Very, very few children come down with hepatitis B. A personal note: I am very, very suspicious of the " special British medical panel " as well as American panels that found no possible link between vaccinations and autism and other problems. Some of the worst, most flawed (from a scientific methodology standpoint) studies I've seen have been issued by special British and American medical panels. In many cases subjects were included in the test group that did not meet the criteria for having the condition being studied. In at least one of these cases, after it was pointed out that most of the subjects in the test group did not meet the CDC or any other criteria for the condition, the researchers simply came up with their own very broad criteria while retaining the CDC name of the condition and continued to conduct " studies " using their new criteria and reaching the same conclusions. It's a good idea to be familiar with scientific methodlogy and to evaluate studies based on it. It's also a good idea to ask, " Who is funding these studies? " Victoria > > Tucson, Arizona Sunday, 12 November 2000 > > > MEDICINE > Parents tie kids' shots to autism > > > Benjie Sanders / Staff > Maria Bardach nuzzles 6-year-old daughter Marley, >who was diagnosed as autistic after undergoing a standard battery of >childhood immunizations as a toddler. " We lost her, " said Marley's mother. > > Shots optional for Ariz. kids > > * Childhood vaccines are required by law in >42 states. Arizona is not one of them. > Parents can obtain a waiver that allows a >child to enter school unvaccinated for " medical " or " personal " reasons. > The " medical " reason requires documentation >from a physician. The " personal " reason can be religious, or simply the >parent's wishes. > About 1 percent of Arizona schoolchildren >obtain these waivers. > > Doubting doctors say importance of vaccines >outweighs any risk > By Carla McClain > ARIZONA DAILY STAR > > Today, our American children get some three dozen >doses of vaccines by the time they are 6 years old to protect them against >nearly a dozen diseases. > > The vaccines are hailed by physicians and public >health officials worldwide as one of the most extraordinary achievements in >medical history, all but eradicating the threat of dangerous, sometime >fatal, childhood diseases. > > But some have also noted with alarm that as the >number of vaccines given to our children has increased, so have serious >chronic behavioral/medical disorders - most notably autism. > > Across the country, thousands of parents, >including many in Tucson, have reported apparently healthy, sociable >children withdrawing into the " mindblindness " of autism shortly after >vaccination. These parents are convinced the vaccine " assault " is the cause >of their children's autism. > > But most doctors and health officials insist there >is absolutely no connection - other than coincidental timing - between the >onset of autism and vaccination. And they fear that those trying to make >that connection are threatening the health of the nation's children by >questioning the safety of vaccines. > > • > > Marley Bardach was sick, running a fever, when her >mother took her to the doctor for her shots when she was almost a year old. > > Marley was due for a myriad of vaccines, including >those against hepatitis B, polio, chicken pox, and measles, mumps and >rubella. Her mother asked the doctor if she should get so many vaccines >while she was sick. Maria Bardach asked if perhaps they ought to wait until >Marley was healthy. > > " He said, 'Let's go ahead and she'll be miserable >only once,' " Bardach said. Marley got her shots. > > Hours later, Marley spiked a fever of 107 degrees, >her mother said. Within three weeks, Marley stopped talking. > > " We lost her. She stopped trying to say words. She >wouldn't play baby games anymore. She didn't want us to hold her. She was >almost catatonic - very floppy, like a rag doll. Her eyes were dilated, " >Bardach said. > > Marley has been diagnosed as autistic - a >little-understoood syndrome of behavioral abnormalities marked by >withdrawal from contact and communication, and developmental regression, >often complicated by severe gastrointestinal problems. > > Now 6 years old, Marley has undergone intensive >one-on-one intervention therapy for years, costing the Bardachs tens of >thousands of dollars. It is a burden they expect to carry for the rest of >Marley's now-disabled life. > > " I'm a mother who wholeheartedly believes the >vaccines are to blame, " Bardach said. " There can be no other explanation >for what happened. > > " We are bombarded with the message that our >children must have these vaccines, and we are not to question that, or how >or when they're given. The doctors want to eradicate these diseases, and >that's great, and we do have to think of the consequences of not >vaccinating. > > " But what bothers me most is they always say, >'We're going to lose a few children, but it's for the good of the nation.' > > " But I lost one, and I can't say it's worth it. " > > The president of the Pima County Medical Society >is calling for a national moratorium on all government-mandated childhood >vaccines. > > " Our children face the possibility of death or >serious long-term adverse effects from mandated vaccines that aren't >necessary or that have very limited benefits, " said Dr. Jane Orient, a >Tucson internist who is also executive director of the Association of >American Physicians and Surgeons. > > A small group of some 6,000 U.S. doctors, the AAPS >is dedicated to keeping the government and the insurance industry out of >the practice of medicine. The group voted unanimously last week in favor of >the vaccine moratorium. > > Orient - like the parents she supports - stressed >that she is " not anti-vaccine. " > > But " there are a lot of carefully documented case >reports of parents noting dramatic changes in their children after >vaccination - especially after the MMR (mumps, measles, rubella >combination) shot, " Orient said in a recent interview. > > " It is really a difficult situation because the >vaccine proponents are right in saying there is no scientifically valid >proof of a connection between autism and vaccines. But it is also true >there has been no real, prospective study to rule it out. . . . > > " My suspicion is there is probably a genetic >predisposition in some children that makes them vulnerable to vaccine >damage. > > " But we have to find out if there is a problem. . >. . We cannot go on with blanket mandates for vaccines that give no >consideration to the individual medical condition of the child. > > " Any parent would choose a bout with the measles >over autism. It's an absoutely devastating condition. " > > Autism is being diagnosed at exponentially higher >rates than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Some studies are showing a sevenfold >increase in the last decade. It is striking about one of every 500 American >children now - one in 250 in some areas. > > But the vast majority of pediatricians and >infectious disease specialists - in Tucson and nationwide - firmly believe >vaccines save the lives and health of millions of children, and pose little >or no danger to them. > > " This has been explored thoroughly, and all the >studies show there is no correlation whatsoever between immunization and >autism, " said Dr. Mary Cochran, a Tucson pediatrician. > > " There is no medical reason for people to be as >concerned as they are. There is no cause and effect between the two. " > > Some of the studies Cochran refers to followed a >report in the prestigious British medical journal Lancet on eight children >who developed severe autism, and chronic bowel problems soon after getting >the MMR vaccine. > > The physician studying these children theorized >that their neurologic problems were caused by malabsorption of nutrients by >their inflamed bowels, in turn linked to the viruses in the vaccine. But he >said that had not been proved and required more study. > > That doctor, Andrew Wakefield, pointed to repeated >reports by parents of brain damage their children suffered after receiving >the old pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine years ago. Public health >officials dismissed the reports as too rare to be a concern. > > " Had (doctors) not raised the issue of adverse >neurological events with pertussis, shamefully there would have been no >imperative to produce a safer, acellular vaccine " now in use, Wakefield >said. The new pertussis vaccine is considered far safer than the old one, >everyone now agrees. > > Wakefield's report resulted in a large >epidemiological survey by a special British medical panel that found no >higher rates of autism among vaccinated than unvaccinated children. The >study also noted that the rise in autism began around 1979 and did not >spike after the MMR vaccine was introduced in 1988. > > Similar studies done by the Institute of Medicine >in this country have come to the same conclusion. > > " Autism symptoms come up at a certain age in >childhood that happens to be the age when the vaccines are being given, " >said Dr. Ziad Shehab, University of Arizona pediatric infectious disease >specialist. " That does not mean there is a relationship. > > " The timing of the two is similar. It's a >coincidence, not a cause and effect. " > > But the point physicians stress most strongly is >that the damage done by these childhood diseases is far greater than any >vaccine side effects. > > A measles outbreak in this country in the late >1980s killed 120 children and hospitalized 11,000 more, according to the >American Academy of Pediatrics. > > Vaccines are credited with eliminating smallpox, >conquering polio, and bringing measles, mumps, whooping cough, diphtheria, >tetanus and infant meningitis under control. > > " These are really fantastic improvements, " said >Shehab. " We have pediatricians today who never see the diseases we saw 15 >years ago - diseases that killed and disabled children. It is one of the >most extraordinary achievements of science. " > > Even Dr. Andrew Weil, internationally known for >combining alternative and natural remedies with mainstream medicine, is a >fierce defender of almost all childhood vaccines. > > However, Weil does strongly disagree with most >doctors on this point: > > " First and foremost, never immunize children when >they're not healthy, " Weil writes in his newsletter. And that includes such >mild ailments as a colds or earaches, he says. > > This point is crucial to many parents who believe >vaccines damaged their children. None is calling for an end to childhood >immunization. > > Almost all of them believe their children were >damaged because they were vaccinated when they were sick, or had undetected >immune or auto-immune deficiencies that made them susceptible to >catastrophic reactions. > > " We are not anti-vaccine, " said Jenny Hill of >Nogales, now a national activist in the autism community. > > " At the heart of the autism community are hundreds >and hundreds of families that are absolutely convinced that any compromise >in a child's immune system - even a simple cold - puts them at risk when >they're vaccinated. But doctors today routinely give these shots - >sometimes nine doses in a single day - to sick kids. It's extremely >dangerous. " > > Hill's son Wally was born after a difficult >pregnancy involving placental problems. He had a bad reaction to his first >round of shots at 4 months and suffered continual sinus infections after >that. > > At 21 months, when Wally was on antibiotics for >yet another sinus infection, he got another round of four vaccines in one >day. > > " Two weeks later, he came down with severe >diarrhea that lasted a year. He lost his speech, he stopped looking at us, >he stopped reacting to the world around him, " Hill said. " He pushed me >away. He got night terrors - he would wake up screaming. He lost all the >expression in his face. " > > Hill believes Wally - now diagnosed with >full-blown autism - was a vulnerable child with immune system deficiencies >that developed in utero. > > " I have absolutely no doubt that if he had not >been given so many vaccines in one day when he was sick, and on >antibiotics, he would not be autistic today. " > > Most Tucson pediatricians admit they vaccinate if >a child has a " mild " illness - a cold, ear or sinus infections, even a low >fever. > > " Certainly, if a child's immune system is working >on an infection and you give them a viral antigen in a vaccine, I can see >where some might think it's a danger, " said UA pediatrician Dr. Burris >Duncan. > > " But if you send them home without the shots, >you've missed the opportunity to vaccinate. You must immunize them when you >have them. So many parents will not return later. > > " If we only vaccinated children when they are >well, we would miss a tremendous number of children, and that would be very >dangerous. " > > The measles outbreak in the late '80s was blamed >on the old policy of deferring vaccination when kids had colds, said Dr. >Elizabeth MacNeill, Pima County medical director. > > " Truthfully, kids can get vaccines very, very >safely when they have a mild illness or a low fever, " she said. > > But Utah State University biologist Vijendra >Singh, who has specialized in autism and immune system research for 15 >years, says his and others' research is showing " a clear conclusion that >there is a relationship between the MMR vaccine and autoimmune reaction in >autistic children. " > > " Evidence is accumulating to support that >connection. " > > Stressing that he is " a strong advocate " of >vaccination, Singh said, " Vaccines should be continued. But I highly >recommend to parents that before immunization, a child should be tested for >an appropriately functioning immune system, or any infection or allergy. >It's a simple blood test, and it's not very expensive, maybe $100. " > > He pointed out that the vaccine manufacturer's >information sheet clearly warns against giving them to immune-compromised >children. > > " Quite frankly, I don't think doctors or nurses >even consider this warning. They just give the shot, no questions asked. " > > The only thing public health officials are >conceding about possible risk in today's vaccines is the mercury >preservative used in several of them. > > Saying the risk is " only theoretical " at this >point, the U.S. Public Health Service has ordered mercury to be " phased >out " of childhood vaccines within the next few years. > > But a national safe-vaccine advocacy group has >filed a federal lawsuit demanding an immediate recall of all >mercury-containing vaccines. > > * Contact Carla McClain at 806-7754 or at >cmcclain. > >Front Page | Tucson | Opinion | Business | Sports | Accent | Entertainment >WEATHER | VOTE 2000 | AZ/WEST | NATIONAL | WASHINGTON | WORLD | E THE >PEOPLE | AP WIRE | NEWSLINKS > >© Arizona Daily Star _______________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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