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Mercury : Autism rises despite MMR ban in Japan
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Posted by Sylvia on Friday, April 29, 2005 (17:46:04)
New Scientist 05/03/05
By Andy Coghlan
Parents need have no more fears about the triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella. A study of more than 30,000 children in Japan should put the final nail in the coffin of the claim that the MMR vaccine is responsible for the apparent rise in autism in recent years.
The study shows that in the city of Yokohama the number of children with autism continued to rise after the MMR vaccine was replaced with single vaccines. "The findings... are resoundingly negative," says Hideo Honda of the Yokohama Rehabilitation Center.
In the UK, parents panicked and vaccination rates plummeted after gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield claimed in a 1998 study that MMR might trigger autism, although the study was based on just 12 children and later retracted by most of its co-authors. Soon the vaccine was being blamed for the apparent rise in autism, with Wakefield citing data from California (see Graph). In some parts of the UK, the proportion of children receiving both doses of the MMR vaccine has dropped to 60 per cent. This has led to a rise in measles outbreaks and fears of an epidemic.
Not one epidemiological study has revealed a link between the vaccine and autism. But until now they have all concentrated on what happened after MMR vaccination for children was introduced. Honda's is the first to look at the autism rate after the MMR vaccine has been withdrawn. Japan withdrew it in April 1993 following reports that the anti-mumps component was causing meningitis (it plans to introduce another version).
With his colleagues Yasuo Shimizu and Michael Rutter of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, Honda looked at the records of 31,426 children born in one district of Yokohama between 1988 and 1996. The team counted children diagnosed as autistic by the age of 7. They found the cases continued to multiply after the vaccine withdrawal, ranging from 48 to 86 cases per 10,000 children before withdrawal to 97 to 161 per 10,000 afterwards. The same pattern was seen with a particular form of autism in which children appear to develop normally and then suddenly regress - the form linked to MMR by Wakefield.
The study cannot rule out the possibility that MMR triggers autism in a tiny number of children, as some claim, but it does show there is no large-scale effect. The vaccine "cannot have caused autism in the many children with autism spectrum disorders in Japan who were born and grew up in the era when MMR was not available", Honda concludes. His team's findings appear in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (DOI: 10.1111.j.1469-7610.2005.01425.x).
So if the vaccine is not responsible for the rising rates of autism, what is? "Clearly some environmental factors are causing the increases," says Irva Hertz-Picciotto of the University of California at Davis. Other experts disagree, saying the apparent rise could be the result of changing diagnostic criteria and the rising profile of the disorder (New Scientist, 17 February 2001, p 17).
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Mercury : Vaccine findings confirm fears
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 (19:34:27)
The Examiner 10/02/2005
By Marisa Lagos
Parents of children with autism said this week's revelation that at least one pharmaceutical company knew of the high levels of mercury in vaccinations years before disclosing it further supports their suspicions that the poison causes neurodevelopmental disorders.
Many parents have long been suspicious of the effects of vaccines containing thimerosal, a compound used to guard against contamination and which is almost 50 percent ethyl mercury. Until recently, the neurotoxin was used in many pediatric vaccines; public health officials first acknowledged the high levels of mercury in those shots in 1999.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times uncovered a 1991 memo from a Merck & Co. vaccinologist -- written to the president of the company's vaccine division -- warning that infants who get their shots on time could receive up to 87 times the recommended daily amount of mercury from fish.
Parents such as Kim Garrison of San Francisco and Jennifer Hoffiz of Danville link that heightened amount of mercury to the problems their children have had, although many doctors say no reputable studies reinforce their claim.
Hoffiz has two children, now 8 and 5. Her daughter, Sabrina, is learning-impaired and her son, Steven, has severe autism. She believes both suffer from mercury poisoning.
"My kids are a perfect example of the least amount of damage mercury can cause to the greatest," said Hoffiz, who runs the Sensory Center in Pleasanton, a program meant to help patients dealing with autism, other neurological disorders and brain injuries through "brain exercises."
Garrison's 12-year-old son, Tod, was diagnosed when he was three. She says no one in their family was autistic, and he was developing normally until he received a combination MMR shot -- for measles, mumps and rubella -- when he was a little over 1 year old.
"I think there is very strongly compelling evidence that my son was poisoned," Garrison said. "If somebody can argue the other way, I would be more than happy to believe them. ... I get angry sometimes that I did what the doctors told me, because I didn't want him to get ill, but I think I could have poisoned my son."
That thinking is common in parents whose children are autistic, according to Bryna Siegel, the director of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders Clinic at UC San Francisco. Siegel, who has acted as an expert witness for pharmaceutical companies being sued by parents, sees no correlation between the vaccinations and autism, pointing toward numerous studies that have found just that.
"You have to balance emotion and science," said Siegel, adding that studies before the vaccines showed autistic children developing normally, then losing skills -- such as language -- at the onset, much like Tod did. "I really worry about people going without vaccines for their kids -- people forget how deadly the diseases are you're preventing."
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Mercury : Precluding lawsuits against vaccine makers
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 (14:46:13)
US Newswire 09/02/2005
By Stephanie Morris
Once again, Senators Gregg (R-NH) and Frist (R-TN) have introduced legislation to shield the pharmaceutical industry from responsibility for exposing American children to harmful levels of mercury from thimerosal, a mercury containing preservative widely used in infant vaccines. The bill, S. 3, "Protecting America in the War on Terror Act of 2005" introduced on January 24th includes language that protects vaccine producers from product liability under the guise of shielding the nation from biological terrorism and increasing the death benefit paid to US soldiers.
SafeMinds, an advocacy group committed to raising awareness about causal links between the mercury and neurodevelopmental disorders like ADD/ADHD and autism, strongly opposes this effort. As this bill is at the top of the legislative docket it has the full support of Senator Frist.
This legislation marks the fourth occasion the Senator has attempted to insulate the vaccine industry from product liability by legally blocking civil claims for injuries caused by the mercury based vaccine ingredient. Three prior attempts to provide similar unprecedented protections for pharmaceutical companies have failed due to opposition by parents of mercury-injured children.
"This is possibly the most egregious bill introduced yet as it inappropriately ties the provision to legislation designed to compensate the families of US Soldiers killed in action and overrides state laws where legislators have had full and open discussions about the issue...something the authors of S. 3 have failed to undertake." stated Lyn Redwood, president of SafeMinds. "Not since the previous late night addition of similar language in the Homeland Security Bill in 2002 have we seen such blatant disregard for civil justice."
An article in the LA Times on Feb. 8, 2005 reveals evidence that the harmful effects of thimerosal were known to vaccine makers as early as 1991 but neither the pharmaceutical industry nor the government have taken appropriate steps to prohibit mercury-based preservatives.
The article, titled '91 Memo Warned of Mercury in Shots, states that: "A memo from Merck & Co. shows that, nearly a decade before the first public disclosure, senior executives were concerned that infants were getting an elevated dose of mercury in vaccinations containing a widely used sterilizing agent...6-month-old children who received their shots on time would get a mercury does up to 87 times higher than the guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from fish."
This provision in the legislation, which has no relation to the war on terror, smacks of payback. The pharmaceutical industry is consistently one the top of the donors to the campaigns of Senators Gregg and Frist. Internal documents reviewed as a result of discovery in current litigation filed against Eli Lilly reveal that the pharmaceutical giant was aware of concerns resulting from thimerosal exposure since the early 1940's and was advised by its Medical Science Department in 1967 that the claim "Non-toxic" be removed from its thimerosal labels. Lilly's own materials safety data sheet acknowledges that exposure in children may cause mild to severe mental retardation and that mercury poisoning may occur.
S. 3 contains provisions that will:
Preclude lawsuits against vaccine makers
Override state legislation that protects its citizen from dangerous vaccine components
Eliminate a state legislature's power to warn its citizens of the dangers of vaccine additives (such as thimerosal), making recent legislation banning the use of the mercury containing vaccines in California and Iowa void.
Allow the Department of Justice to design more restrictions on access to the Vaccine Compensation Fund and to prevent public access to information on vaccine safety
Provide unprecedented tax breaks and patent protection to large pharmaceutical corporations
More information about neurodevelopmental disorders, autism and mercury exposure may be found at www.safeminds.org or by calling Stephanie Morris at 202-628-7772
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Mercury : Bush Administration Knew - Childhood Vaccines Cause Autism
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Posted by sylvia on Thursday, March 03, 2005 (18:56:33)
Independant-media.tv 31/01/2005
By Evelyn Pringle
Vaccines are the only drugs that American children are mandated to receive. Although it may be true that vaccines are mandated by state governments, 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 policymaking 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 released 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 perservative, and became a major source of mercury in infants and toddlers. According to the American Academy of Pediatricians, within the first 2 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.â€
So we know by the action taken by the FDA in1999, 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, that 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 Inthesetime.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 it was headed by Frist.
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.
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Mercury : Eating lots of fish tied to high mercury levels
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Posted by sylvia on Monday, October 25, 2004 (00:45:18)
San Francisco Chronicle 21/10/2004
By Jane Kay
A study sponsored by an environmental group has produced new evidence linking high fish consumption to potentially unsafe levels of mercury.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Asheville tested hair samples from 1,449 people nationwide who volunteered to participate in the study after hearing about it through Greenpeace USA and other groups.
About 1 in 5 had mercury levels exceeding Environmental Protection Agency safety guidelines. Almost half of the volunteers who had consumed large amounts of fish exceeded the EPA guideline.
The study wasn't designed to estimate what percentage of the U.S. population may exceed the mercury guidelines, the authors said.
The study is one of the first to examine the relationship between mercury levels and the consumption of three categories of fish: canned tuna, locally caught fish, and fresh or frozen fish sold in stores and restaurants.
Richard Maas, a co-author and professor of environmental science at the University of North Carolina, noted that among those consuming the most fish, mercury levels were several times greater than the safety guidelines.
Among the findings:
-- About 50 percent of the participants who ate seven or more 6-ounce servings a month of fish purchased in restaurants or stores exceeded the safety guideline of 1 part per million.
-- Almost 33 percent of those who ate four or more servings a month of canned tuna had mercury exceeding the guideline. The study questionnaire didn't differentiate between different types of tuna. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that canned albacore has three times the mercury as chunk light.
-- Almost 36 percent of the people who ate three or more 6-ounce servings a month of locally caught fish exceeded the guideline.
Coal-fired power plant emissions and natural rock formations release mercury into the environment. The largest single source of exposure in the United States comes from fish in the diet.
Health officials agree that fish offers health benefits, and the FDA recommends 12 ounces a week of fish, while warning that women of child-bearing age and children should avoid swordfish, shark, king mackerel and tilefish. Mercury, which is toxic to the human nervous system, is linked to learning and behavioral problems in children. In adults, mercury can cause tremors, memory loss and other health problems.
The study was advertised at Greenpeace events and in an e-mail campaign. Interested parties sent $25 for a kit, then sent their hair and a questionnaire to the scientists.
"I would expect there to be some bias in our survey because the participants were self-selected,'' said Steven Patch, statistics professor at the University of North Carolina, a study co-author.
Patch said he believes the study may overrepresent people who eat a lot of fish, and may underrepresent those consuming locally caught fish.
The study also examined correlations between mercury levels in the hair samples and other sources of exposure, including dental amalgams, flu shots in which mercury is used as a preservative, workplace exposure or hair dyes.
"The effects -- if any -- were much lower than the effects from fish consumption of store-bought fish, canned tuna or locally caught fish,'' Patch said.
Data gathered in 1999-2000 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on a national nutrition survey showed that 12 percent of women of childbearing age had mercury levels above the safety guidelines.
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