Deadly Immunity By Robert F. Kennedy Jr

[Guest guest]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/

 

 

Deadly immunity

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism

in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to

prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic.

 

 

 

 

Deadly Immunity

 

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

 

June 16, 2005 |

 

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists

and health officials gathered for a meeting

at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga.

Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center,

nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River,

to ensure complete secrecy.

 

The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -

- only private invitations to 52 attendees.

There were high-level officials from the CDC and the

Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist

from the World Health Organization in Geneva,

and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer,

including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur.

 

All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials

repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly " Embargoed. "

There would be

- no making photocopies of documents,

- no taking papers with them when they left.

 

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled

to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions

about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines

administered to infants and young children.

 

According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten,

who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing

the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based

preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -

- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism

and a host of other neurological disorders among children.

 

" I was actually stunned by what I saw, " Verstraeten told those

assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier

studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays,

attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism.

 

Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that

three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given

to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -

- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased 15 fold,

from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

 

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting

issues of life and death, the findings were frightening.

" You can play with this all you want, " Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant

for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group.

 

The results " are statistically significant. " Dr. Richard Johnston,

an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado

whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting's

first day, was even more alarmed.

 

" My gut feeling? " he said. " Forgive this personal comment -

- I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing

vaccine until we know better what is going on. "

 

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public

and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials

and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days

discussing how to cover up the damaging data.

 

According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act,

many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations

about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line.

 

" We are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits, "

said Dr. Robert Brent, a pediatrician at the

Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware.

 

" This will be a resource to our very busy plaintiff attorneys

in this country. " Dr. Bob Chen, head of vaccine safety for the CDC,

expressed relief that " given the sensitivity of the information,

we have been able to keep it out of the hands of,

let's say, less responsible hands. "

 

Dr. John Clements, vaccines advisor at the World Health Organization,

declared that " perhaps this study should not have been done at all. "

He added that

" the research results have to be handled, " warning that the study

" will be taken by others and will be used in other ways

beyond the control of this group. "

 

In fact, the government has proved to be far more adept

at handling the damage than at protecting children's health.

The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study

to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers

to " rule out " the chemical's link to autism.

 

It withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been

slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists

that his original data had been " lost " and could not be replicated.

 

And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed

its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company,

declaring it off-limits to researchers.

By the time Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003,

he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data

to bury the link between thimerosal and autism.

 

Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal

out of injections given to American infants -

- but they continued to sell off their mercury-based supplies

of vaccines until last year.

>>>

The CDC and FDA gave them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines

for export to developing countries and allowing drug companies to

continue using the preservative in some American vaccines -

- including several pediatric flu shots

as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to 11-year-olds.

 

The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers

in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received

$873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry,

has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in

4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children.

 

On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the

government's vaccine-related documents -- including the Simpsonwood

transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal,

from subpoenas.

 

In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the

" Eli Lilly Protection Act " into a homeland security bill,

the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought

5,000 copies of his book on bioterrorism.

 

Congress repealed the measure in 2003 -- but earlier this year,

- Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill

- that would Deny Compensation to Children

- suffering from Vaccine-related Brain Disorders.

 

" The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put

vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity

to deal with a biological attack by terrorists, "

says Dean Rosen, health policy advisor to Frist.

 

Even many conservatives are shocked by the government's effort

to cover up the dangers of thimerosal. Rep. Dan Burton,

a Republican from Indiana, oversaw a three-year investigation

of thimerosal after his grandson was diagnosed with autism.

 

" Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines

is directly related to the autism epidemic, "

his House Government Reform Committee concluded in its final report.

 

" This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented

or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch

regarding a lack of safety data regarding injected Thimerosal,

a Known Neurotoxin. "

The FDA and other public-health agencies failed to act,

the committee added, out of

" institutional malfeasance for self protection " and

" misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry. "

 

The story of how government health agencies colluded with

Big Pharma to hide the risks of Thimerosal from the public

is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed.

I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly.

 

As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years

working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers

of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids

had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.

 

I doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source,

and I certainly understood the government's need

to reassure parents that vaccinations are safe;

the eradication of deadly childhood diseases depends on it.

 

I tended to agree with skeptics like Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat

from California, who criticized his colleagues on the

House Government Reform Committee for leaping to conclusions

about autism and vaccinations.

" Why should we scare people about immunization, "

Waxman pointed out at one hearing, " until we know the facts? "

 

It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts,

studying the leading scientific research and talking with many

of the nation's preeminent authorities on mercury

that I became convinced that the link between thimerosal

and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real.

Five of my own children are members of the Thimerosal Generation -

- those born between 1989 and 2003 -

- who received heavy doses of mercury from vaccines.

 

" The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children

who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage, "

Patti White, a school nurse, told the

House Government Reform Committee in 1999.

 

" Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however,

in 25 years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids.

Something very, very wrong is happening to our children. "

More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism,

and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year.

The disease was unknown until 1943, when it was identified

and diagnosed among 11 children born in the months

after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.

 

Some skeptics dispute that the rise in autism is caused

by thimerosal-tainted vaccinations.

They argue that the increase is a result of better diagnosis -

- a theory that seems questionable at best,

given that most of the new cases of autism

are clustered within a single generation of children.

 

" If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis, "

scoffs Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world's authorities

on mercury toxicity, " then where are all the 20-year-old autistics? "

Other researchers point out that Americans are exposed

to a greater cumulative " load " of mercury than ever before,

from contaminated fish to dental fillings, and suggest that

 

Thimerosal in vaccines may be only part of a much larger problem.

It's a concern that certainly deserves far more attention

than it has received -- but it overlooks the fact

that the mercury concentrations in vaccines

dwarf other sources of exposure to our children.

 

What is most striking is the lengths to which

many of the leading detectives have gone to ignore -

- and cover up -- the evidence against thimerosal.

 

From the very beginning, the scientific case against

the mercury additive has been overwhelming.

 

The preservative, which is used to stem fungi and bacterial growth

in vaccines, contains Ethylmercury, a Potent Neurotoxin.

 

Truckloads of studies have shown that mercury tends to accumulate

in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected

with vaccines -- and that the developing brains of infants

are particularly susceptible.

 

In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed

to much lower concentrations of Ethylmercury than those given

to American children still suffered brain damage years later.

 

Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines 20 years ago,

and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain

and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

 

" You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe, "

says Haley, who heads the chemistry department

at the University of Kentucky.

" It's just too darn toxic.

If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken.

If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die.

If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies.

Knowing these things, it would be shocking

if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage. "

 

Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed

Thimerosal, knew from the start that its product could cause damage -

- and even death -- in both animals and humans.

 

In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it

to 22 patients with Terminal Meningitis,

all of whom DIED within weeks of being injected -

- a fact Lilly didn't bother to report in its study

declaring thimerosal safe.

 

In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer,

Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims

about Thimerosal's safety " did not check with ours. "

Half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal-based vaccines

became sick, leading researchers there to declare the preservative

" Unsatisfactory as a serum intended for use on dogs. "

 

In the decades that followed, the evidence against Thimerosal

continued to mount. During the Second World War, when the

Department of Defense used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers,

it required Lilly to label it " Poison. "

In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that

thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines.

 

Four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned

that thimerosal was " Toxic to Tissue Cells "

in concentrations as low as (1) one part per million

- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine.

Even so, the company continued to promote thimerosal as " nontoxic "

and also incorporated it into topical disinfectants.

In 1977, 10 babies at a Toronto hospital DIED when an antiseptic

preserved with Thimerosal was dabbed onto their umbilical cords.

 

In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on over-the-counter products

that contained thimerosal, and in 1991 the agency considered

banning it from animal vaccines.

But tragically, that same year, the CDC recommended

that infants be injected with a series of mercury-laced vaccines.

 

Newborns would be vaccinated for hepatitis B within

24 hours of birth, and 2-month-old infants would be immunized for

haemophilus influenzae B and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis.

 

The drug industry knew the additional vaccines posed a danger.

The same year that the CDC approved the new vaccines,

Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's vaccine programs,

warned the company that 6-month-olds who were administered

the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to mercury.

He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued,

" especially when used on infants and children, "

noting that the industry knew of nontoxic alternatives.

" The best way to go is to switch to dispensing

the actual vaccines without adding preservatives. " he added.

 

For Merck and other drug companies, however, the obstacle was money.

Thimerosal enables the pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines

in vials that contain multiple doses, which require

additional protection because they are more easily contaminated

by multiple needle entries.

 

The larger vials cost half as much to produce as smaller,

single-dose vials, making it cheaper for international agencies

to distribute them to impoverished regions at risk of epidemics.

Faced with this " cost consideration, " Merck ignored

Hilleman's warnings, and government officials continued to push

more and more thimerosal-based vaccines for children.

 

Before 1989, American preschoolers received 11 vaccinations -

- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella.

A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations,

children were receiving a total of 22 immunizations

by the time they reached first grade.

 

As the number of vaccines increased, the rate of autism

among children exploded. During the 1990s, 40 million children

were injected with thimerosal-based vaccines, receiving unprecedented

levels of mercury during a period critical for brain development.

 

Despite the well-documented dangers of thimerosal, it appears

that no one bothered to add up the cumulative dose of mercury

that children would receive from the mandated vaccines.

 

" What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? "

Peter Patriarca, director of viral products for the agency,

asked in an e-mail to the CDC in 1999.

" Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations

when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule? "

 

But by that time, the damage was done.

At two months, when the infant brain is still at a critical stage

of development, infants routinely received three inoculations

that contained a total of 62.5 micrograms of ethylmercury -

- a level 99 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure

to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin.

 

Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury

poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly

and is removed by the body, several studies including one

published in April by the National Institutes of Health suggest that

- Ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains

- and stays in the brain longer than Methylmercury.

 

Officials responsible for childhood immunizations insist

that the additional vaccines were necessary to protect infants

from disease and that thimerosal is still essential

in developing nations, which, they often claim, cannot afford

the single-dose vials that don't require a preservative.

 

Dr. Paul Offit, one of CDC's top vaccine advisors, told me,

" I think if we really have an influenza pandemic -

- and certainly we will in the next 20 years, because we always do -

- there's no way on God's earth that we immunize 280 million people

with single-dose vials. There has to be multidose vials. "

 

But while public-health officials may have been well-intentioned,

many of those on the CDC advisory committee who backed

the additional vaccines had close ties to the industry.

Dr. Sam Katz, the committee's chair, was a paid consultant

for most of the major vaccine makers and was part of a team that

developed the measles vaccine and brought it to licensure in 1963.

 

Dr. Neal Halsey, another committee member, worked as a researcher

for the vaccine companies and received honoraria

from Abbott Labs for his research on the hepatitis B vaccine.

 

Indeed, in the tight circle of scientists who work on vaccines,

such conflicts of interest are common. Rep. Burton says that the CDC

" routinely allows scientists with blatant conflicts of interest

to serve on intellectual advisory committees that

make recommendations on new vaccines, " even though they have

" interests in the products and companies for which

they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight. "

 

The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four

of the eight CDC advisors who approved guidelines for a rotavirus

vaccine " Had financial ties to the Pharmaceutical Companies

that were developing different versions of the vaccine. "

 

Offit, who shares a patent on one of the vaccines,

acknowledged to me that he " would make money "

if his vote eventually leads to a marketable product.

But he dismissed my suggestion that a scientist's

direct financial stake in CDC approval might bias his judgment.

 

" It provides no conflict for me, " he insists.

" I have simply been informed by the process, not corrupted by it.

When I sat around that table, my sole intent was trying to make

recommendations that best benefited the children in this country.

It's offensive to say that physicians

and public-health people are in the pocket of industry

and thus are making decisions that they know are unsafe for children.

It's just not the way it works. "

 

Other vaccine scientists and regulators gave me similar assurances.

Like Offit, they view themselves as enlightened guardians

of children's health, proud of their " partnerships " with

pharmaceutical companies, immune to the seductions of personal profit,

besieged by irrational activists whose anti-vaccine campaigns

are endangering children's health. They are often resentful

of questioning. " Science, " says Offit, " is best left to scientists. "

 

Still, some government officials were alarmed by the apparent

conflicts of interest. In his e-mail to CDC administrators in 1999,

Paul Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal regulators for failing

to adequately scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby vaccines.

 

" I'm not sure there will be an easy way out of the potential

perception that the FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies

may have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal until now, "

 

Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory officials

and the pharmaceutical industry, he added,

" will also raise questions about various advisory bodies

regarding aggressive recommendations for use "

of thimerosal in child vaccines.

 

If federal regulators and government scientists failed to grasp

the potential risks of thimerosal over the years, no one

could claim ignorance after the secret meeting at Simpsonwood.

But rather than conduct more studies to test the link to autism

and other forms of brain damage, the CDC placed politics over science.

 

The agency turned its database on childhood vaccines -

- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense -

- over to a private agency, America's Health Insurance Plans,

ensuring that it could not be used for additional research.

It also instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory

organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences,

to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal

and brain disorders. The CDC " wants us to declare,

well, that these things are pretty safe, "

Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM's Immunization

Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers

when they first met in January 2001.

 

" We are not Ever going to come down that [autism]

is a true side effect " of thimerosal exposure.

According to transcripts of the meeting,

the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton,

predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was

" inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation "

between thimerosal and autism.

That, she added, was the result

" Walt wants " -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein,

director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

 

For those who had devoted their lives to promoting vaccination,

the revelations about thimerosal threatened to undermine everything

they had worked for. " We've got a dragon by the tail here, "

said Dr. Michael Kaback, another committee member.

" The more negative that [our] presentation is, the less likely

people are to use vaccination, immunization -- and we know

what the results of that will be. We are kind of caught in a trap.

How we work our way out of the trap, I think is the charge. "

 

Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary

goal in studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines.

" Four current studies are taking place to rule out

the proposed link between autism and thimerosal, "

Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning

for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health,

assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001.

 

" In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the

[measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct

and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety. "

Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck,

where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks.

 

In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final report.

Its conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal

in vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature

describing the toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on

four disastrously flawed epidemiological studies

examining European countries, where children received

much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids.

 

It also cited a new version of the Verstraeten study,

published in the journal Pediatrics, that had been reworked

to reduce the link between thimerosal and autism.

The new study included children too young to have been diagnosed

with autism and overlooked others who showed signs of the disease.

The IOM declared the case closed and - in a startling position for

a scientific body -- recommended that no further research be conducted.

 

The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one.

Rep. David Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida

who serves on the House Government Reform Committee,

attacked the Institute of Medicine, saying it relied on a handful

of studies that were " fatally flawed " by " poor design " and failed

to represent " all the available scientific and medical research. "

CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth,

 

Weldon told me, because

" an association between vaccines and autism would force them to admit

that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of children.

Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves? "

 

Under pressure from Congress and parents, the Institute of

Medicine convened another panel to address continuing concerns

about the Vaccine Safety Datalink data-sharing program.

In February, the new panel, composed of different scientists,

criticized the way the VSD had been used to study vaccine safety,

and urged the CDC to make its vaccine database available to the public.

 

So far, though, only two scientists

have managed to gain access. Dr. Mark Geier, president of the

Genetics Center of America, and his son, David, spent a year

battling to obtain the medical records from the CDC.

 

Since August 2002, when members of Congress pressured the agency

to turn over the data, the Geiers have completed six studies

that demonstrate a powerful correlation between

thimerosal and neurological damage in children.

 

One study, which compares the cumulative dose of mercury

received by children born between 1981 and 1985 with those born

between 1990 and 1996, found a " very significant relationship "

between autism and vaccines.

Another study of educational performance found that kids

who received higher doses of thimerosal in vaccines

were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with autism

and more than three times as likely to suffer

from speech disorders and mental retardation.

 

Another soon-to-be-published study shows

- that autism rates are in decline -

following the recent elimination of thimerosal from most vaccines.

 

As the federal government worked to prevent scientists

from studying vaccines, others have stepped in

to study the link to autism. In April, reporter Dan Olmsted of UPI

undertook one of the more interesting studies himself.

 

Searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury

in vaccines - the kind of population that scientists typically use

as a " control " in experiments -- Olmsted scoured the Amish

of Lancaster County, Penn., who refuse to immunize their infants.

 

Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated

that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish.

He found only four.

One had been exposed to high levels of mercury from a power plant.

The other three -

- including one child adopted from outside the Amish community -

- had received their vaccines.

 

At the state level,

many officials have also conducted in-depth reviews of thimerosal.

While the Institute of Medicine was busy whitewashing the risks,

the Iowa Legislature was carefully combing through

all of the available scientific and biological data.

 

" After three years of review, I became convinced there was

sufficient credible research to show a link between mercury

and the increased incidences in autism, " state

Sen. Ken Veenstra, a Republican who oversaw the investigation,

told the magazine Byronchild earlier this year.

 

" The fact that Iowa's 700 percent increase in autism

began in the 1990s, right after more and more vaccines were added

to the children's vaccine schedules, is solid evidence alone. "

 

Last year, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury

in vaccines, followed by California.

Similar bans are now under consideration in 32 other states.

 

But instead of following suit, the FDA continues to allow

manufacturers to include thimerosal in scores of over-the-counter

medications as well as steroids and injected collagen.

Even more alarming, the government continues to ship vaccines

preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which

are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates.

 

In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the

introduction of thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999,

news reports indicate that there are now more than

1.8 million autistics.

Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders

also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other

developing countries that are now using thimerosal-laced vaccines.

 

The World Health Organization continues to insist thimerosal is safe,

but it promises to keep the possibility that it is linked

to neurological disorders " under review. "

 

I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that

this is a moral crisis that must be addressed.

If, as the evidence suggests, our public-health authorities

knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison

an entire generation of American children, their actions

arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals

in the annals of American medicine.

 

" The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence, "

says Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit

organization concerned about the role of mercury in medicines.

 

" The damage caused by Vaccine Exposure is Massive.

It's Bigger than Asbestos, Bigger than Tobacco,

bigger than anything you've ever seen. "

It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -

- and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -

- if Third World nations come to believe that America's

most heralded foreign-aid initiative is Poisoning their Children.

 

It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted

by America's enemies abroad. The scientists and researchers -

- many of them sincere, even idealistic who are participating

- in Efforts to HIDE the Science on Thimerosal claim that they are

- trying to advance the lofty goal of protecting children

in developing nations from disease pandemics.(OMG)

They are badly misguided.

Their failure to come clean on thimerosal will come back horribly

to haunt our country and the world's poorest populations.

 

This story was corrected on June 17, on June 22, on June 24,

on July 1 and on July 21 after its original publication.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

 

About the writer

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is senior attorney for the

Natural Resources Defense Council, chief prosecuting attorney

for Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance.

He is the co-author of " The Riverkeepers. "