Vaccines the subject of new Congressional investigation.

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Vaccines the subject of new Congressional investigation

By Jon Brodkin/ Daily News Staff

Friday, March 17, 2006

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=124699 & format=\

text

 

Congress has asked for a new investigation into a potential link between

mercury-containing vaccines and autism, as some lawmakers claim the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention has inadequately researched the topic.

 

" If the federal government is going to have a study whose results

will be broadly accepted, such a study cannot be led by the CDC, " Sen. Joseph

Lieberman, D-Conn., and seven other members of Congress wrote in a letter to the

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

A budget appropriation approved by Congress urges the NIEHS to

examine the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a CDC database that follows 7 million

immunized children from 1990 to the present.

Some lawmakers believe a new review of this database may show a link

between autism and thimerosal -- a vaccine preservative containing mercury.

A local parent who said he believes his two autistic children were

harmed by vaccines applauded Congress for requesting a new investigation. The

parent, Jared Hansen of Framingham, said he thinks the CDC is reluctant to

expose dangers of thimerosal because the agency is responsible for ensuring

public acceptance of its vaccination program.

" They've proven far more willing to overstate the risks of disease

and understate the danger of vaccination, " Hansen said. " No one in their right

mind can say that giving mercury intravenously is a smart thing to do. "

Autism rates soared during the 1990s when thimerosal was most

heavily used in childhood vaccines. Levels of mercury injected into infants were

120 times greater than federal safety limits for oral ingestion of mercury,

congressmen wrote to the NIEHS.

Government officials asked manufacturers in 1999 to remove the

mercury-based preservative from vaccines, but it is still used in flu and

tetanus shots.

CDC's research on the Vaccine Safety Datalink is flawed, Lieberman

and his colleagues wrote, because it " was based on data collected prior to the

removal of thimerosal and failed to explicitly compare the outcome of children

who received thimerosal-containing vaccines with those who did not. "

The CDC refused to comment on the criticism of its research.

But Dr. Marie McCormick, a Harvard professor who chaired an

Institute of Medicine committee in 2004, said the group ran several analyses of

the CDC data and found no link between thimerosal and autism.

" Nothing you could do changed the results, " McCormick said. " The

results of the...study have been replicated in England. They found no

association between thimerosal and other neurodevelopmental disorders. "

In the letter to NIEHS, members of Congress criticized the IOM for

relying heavily on European data, even though American children were exposed to

mercury at levels 75 percent greater than in Europe.

The letter was not signed by any Massachusetts congressmen. But U.S.

Rep. Martin Meehan, D-5th, said he agrees with its content and would have signed

on had he been aware it was being written.

" Mercury is known as a brain poison and in the 1990s a greater

number of children were being exposed to mercury (in vaccines), " Meehan said. " I

think this is a serious public health concern and we need more research. "

A spokeswoman for the NIEHS could not be reached for comment.

(Jon Brodkin can be reached at 508-626-4424 or jbrodkin.)

 

 

" Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest

of life by the power of the spirit. " - Aurobindo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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