Bush Administration Knew Childhood Vaccines Cause Autism

[Guest guest]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb05/Pringle0207-2.htm

 

Dissendent Voice

 

Bush Administration Knew Childhood Vaccines Cause Autism

by Evelyn J. Pringle

www.dissidentvoice.org

February 7, 2005

 

Vaccines are the only drugs that American children are mandated to

receive. Although it may be true that state governments mandate

vaccines, the decision to mandate a vaccine is based on the

recommendations of Federal advisory committees. In the interest of

public safety, Congress has a duty to ensure that advisory committee

members involved in vaccine policy making are not improperly

influenced by conflicts of interest.

 

In recent years, public trust in the Federal policymaking related to

vaccines causing Autism has been broken by the practice of ignoring

obvious conflicts of interest. At this point, immediate action by

Congress is necessary to restore public confidence in the safety of

childhood vaccinations.

Is There A Link Between Childhood Vaccines And Autism?

 

Is there a connection? I'll let readers judge for themselves.

 

Mercury is a toxic metal that can cause immune, sensory, neurological,

motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits defining or

associated with autism.

 

Thimerosal is an organic mercury compound. It is metabolized to

ethylmercury and thiosalicylate and has been used since the 1930s as a

preservative in many vaccines and pharmaceutical products to prevent

bacterial and fungal contamination.

 

On Feb 9, 2004, the National Autism Association issued a press release

that reported on one of the larger studies under review based on the

Center for Disease Control's own Vaccine Safety Datalink. The release

reported that under independent investigation, CDC's data concludes

children are 27-times more likely to develop autism after exposure to

three thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs), than those who receive

thimerosal-free versions.

 

Think about it, twenty-seven times more likely to develop autism.

Then consider this, our government had this data for years, but

deliberately kept it hidden. This conduct was not due to negligence or

laziness, it was a deliberate cover-up. All those involved should be

criminally charge, prosecuted and punished.

 

The children who were affected by this cover-up will require care and

support for their entire life. These children's lives have been

destroyed. The costs to their parents will reportedly exceed $2

million dollars per child. Justice will not be served until these

mercury poisoned kids and their parents get everything necessary to

make the most of their lives.

 

The criminals involved better get out there checkbooks, now!

What Did They Know & When Did They Know It?

 

Thimerosal is composed of nearly 50% mercury, which is a known to be

especially harmful to fetuses, infants and children. It has been

linked to a range of symptoms jointly known as Autism Spectrum

Disorders. At one end of the spectrum is severe autism, in which

children are socially withdrawn, do not speak and exhibit bizarre,

repetitive, and sometimes aggressive behavior. At the other end, are

Asperger's Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, Pervasive

Developmental Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Attention

Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

 

Thimerosal was regularly added to childhood vaccines as a

preservative, and became a major source of mercury in infants and

toddlers. According to the American Academy of Pediatricians, within

the first two years of life, fully vaccinated children received

mercury levels that exceeded long-established safety limits by the FDA

and other agencies.

 

However, the focus did not zero in on thimerosal until 1997, when

Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act, which required the FDA to

investigate all drugs that contained mercury to determine their

adverse effects on humans.

 

Within one year, the FDA called for the removal of all

over-the-counter products that contained thimerosal. However, the

preservative was still included in more than 50 vaccines until the

Public Health Service (which includes the FDA, CDC and NIH) and the

American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in July 1999

" urging " vaccine manufacturers to reduce or remove Thimerosal because

of " theoretical potential for neurotoxicity. "

 

So we know by the action taken by the FDA in 1999 that our government

definitely knew about the dangers related to the preservative. But we

also know this because the staff for Rep Dan Burton (R-Ill) obtained

an incriminating FDA internal e-mail written on June 29, 1999, by

former FDA scientist Peter Patriarca, which offered a " pros and cons "

assessment of the Thimerosal statement about to be issued at that

time, and listed the questions and issues that would be raised upon

its release:

 

(1) FDA being " asleep at the switch " for decades, by allowing a

potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines,

and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products. (2)

Various advisory bodies aggressive recommendations for use. (3) The

dose of ethyl mercury was not generated by " rocket science " :

conversion of the % of Thimerosal to actual ug [micrograms] of mercury

involves 9th grade algebra. (4) What took the FDA so long to do the

calculations? (5) Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these

calculations while rapidly expanding the childhood immunization schedule?

 

So the experts in the FDA and CDC definitely knew about the dangers.

However, an article published on In These Times.com on Nov 11, 2003,

raised an interesting question: " If the CDC and FDA seemed to

acknowledge the risks of Thimerosal four years ago and the need to get

mercury out of medical products, today the official stance is to

circle the wagons against mounting public and scientific criticism

about its handling of the Thimerosal issue. "

 

I have the answer. The turn of events can easily be explained by the

fact that there had been a changing of the guard under Bush since

1999. Keep in mind that the stakes were high for the pharmaceutical

giant Eli Lilly, a long time friend of the Bush gang, but also the

company that invented Thimerosal.

 

And sure enough, evidence that Bush came through surfaced when the

pharmaceutical industry was granted protection (albeit short-lived)

from lawsuits from parents of children who developed autism after

being vaccinated, by a provision sneakily tucked into the Homeland

Security Act, at the very last minute, by Republicans who no doubt

were acting under Bush's direction.

 

Well their little stunt didn't work because the provision was soon

repealed. While the effort to repeal it was under way, Senator Debbie

Stabenow (D-MI) told Wolf Blitzer on CNN, " What we have in the dead of

night, a provision put in to help a pharmaceutical company or series

of companies that help the parents and their rights for protecting

their children right off at the knees. "

 

During the original final debates on the Homeland Security Bill,

Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) had argued forcefully for granting liability

protection to makers of mercury based vaccine preservatives and said

such measures were needed to boost an industry essential for public

health. He is the only physician in the Senate and one of his party's

leaders on medical issues, the Tennessean reported on Jan 11, 2003.

 

But critics of the provision didn't see it that way and accused

" Republicans of tilting the legal system in favor of drug companies at

the expense of autistic children, " noted the Tennessean. " Hundreds of

parents have alleged in lawsuits that the vaccine preservative

thimerosal caused autism in their children. Eli Lilly & Co., the

preservative's chief maker, and other defendants in the suits deny the

charge, " it said.

 

Frist's name came up more than others because he headed the National

Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republicans' political

fund-raising arm. Critics were quick to note the large amount of

money that Eli Lilly had donated to Republicans. In fact, the

pharmaceutical and health products industry was the largest corporate

contributor to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while

Frist headed it.

 

And not surprisingly, Eli Lilly was one of the most generous

contributors in the 2002 elections, giving about $1.4 million to

federal candidates and parties, according to the nonpartisan Center

for Responsive Politics, and three-quarters went to Republicans.

 

Some critics of the amendment pointed out that some top officials at

Eli Lilly had close ties to the White House. I'll let the readers be

the judge of whether Bush may have had less than admirable motives to

allow that provision to remain in the bill. Here's a sample of people

connected to the administration who have been on the Eli Lilly payroll:

 

* Former President George Herbert Walker Bush (one-time member of

board of directors)

 

 

 

* George W Bush's former director of Management and Budget, Mitch

Daniels (a former vice president)

 

 

 

* George W Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council member, Sidney

Taurel (current CEO of Eli Lilly)

 

 

 

* The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (recipient of Eli Lilly

funding)

 

 

 

Reported by Bruce E Levine, PhD, psychologist and author of

Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life (New York-London:

Continuum, 2003).

 

The Amendment Is Repealed

 

At the time of debate on repealing the provision, on Jan 3, 2003,

MSNBC reported, " many parents across the nation are still fuming over

four small paragraphs at the end of 475 pages designed to protect

America. "

 

" What it did to the families is it took away their last option,

literally or figuratively closed the door on their last access to the

courts of justice, " said Professor Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown

University School of Law.

 

According to MSNBC, outgoing House majority leader Rep Dick Armey

(R-TX) was behind the amendment and argued that if drug companies

weren't protected, they might refuse to make vaccines, a worry amid

fears of bioterrorism.

 

To that argument I would say good! If the richest industry in the

country refuses to invest a portion of its outrageous profits into

finding vaccines the industry can guarantee are safe to administer to

vulnerable children, then they shouldn't be in the vaccine business at

all.

 

After listening to Dick Army, congressman Dan Burton (R-IN) was

furious. Burton has a grandson who is autistic. " For anybody to say

they're proud for putting that kind of an amendment in there is just

beyond me, " Burton said.

 

To begin with, when the provision was added to the bill, Burton said

he was blindsided by Dick Armey's last-minute addition, according to

MSNBC. " Now, he can take sole responsibility for it, that's his

prerogative if he wants to, but that amendment is criminal in my

opinion, " says Burton.

 

In the end, Frist announced a proposal to repeal the amendment. Under

the repealed provision, plaintiffs involved in thimerosal litigation

were forced to seek compensation out of court through a special

victims fund. Under the proposal Frist agreed to, the provision would

be repealed and the legal cases could proceed without interruption,

the Tennessean said.

Americans Must Demand Accountability

 

In May 2003 the AAP stated, " All routinely recommended infant vaccines

currently sold in the U.S. are free of thimerosal as a preservative

and have been for more than two years. " Yet because the FDA maintained

it did not have enough evidence to justify a recall of thimerosal

vaccines distributed prior to the introduction of thimerosal-free

versions and they were allowed to remain on the market until they

became outdated. That means that poisonous vaccines were still

administered until November 2002.

 

" Because the FDA chose not to recall thimerosal-containing vaccines in

1999, " the April 2003, House Committee on Government Reform report

concludes, " in addition to all of those already injured, 8,000

children a day continued to be placed at risk for overdose for at

least an additional two years. "

 

The public needs to rise up and demand accountability from the

officials in charge of all regulatory agencies involved in concealing

information that could have saved many families from the devastation

caused by these ill-administered vaccines.

 

In order to enroll in public schools, children are forced to comply

with mandatory vaccine programs, which we now know include vaccines

that may not have undergone the scientific testing necessary to

guarantee their safety, and have the potential to harm millions of

children each year.

 

If families are expected to trust the Federal government's approval of

vaccines, they have a right to demand that the vaccines administered

are approved based on the best scientific advice possible, without the

undue influence of money being handed to politicians, scientists, and

the heads of the regulatory agencies by the pharmaceutical industry.

 

Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an

investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government.

She can be reached at: e.pringle.

 

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