Implications, Toxicology

Case Not Yet Closed on Vaccines and Autism (Mercola.com)


 
vaccine, vaccine court, autism, PPD, thimerosal, mercuryA sweeping February 12 decision by the U.S. “vaccine court” found that neither thimerosal nor the MMR vaccine cause autism. However, it cannot be considered the final word on the subject — another just-released case from the court has actually gone in favor of parents who believed that the MMR vaccine caused their son’s Pervasive Developmental Delay (PDD), a set of disorders that includes autism and other developmental problems.


The parents of Bailey Banks argued that their son had a seizure 16 days after his first MMR vaccination. That, they said, led to Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, a rare neurological disease, which in turn led to PDD.

The court ruled that the vaccine had indeed caused his Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis. According to the court decision, there was, “a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.”


The decision has given new hope to parents who believe that vaccines have caused lasting damage to their children.



Sources:



  Newsweek February 25, 2009






Dr. Mercola''s Comments Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

This February 12 U.S. Court of Claims decision rendered judgements on three “test” cases in an “Omnibus” hearing that were based on the proposed hypothesis that a combination of thimerosal containing vaccines and MMR vaccine caused three children to regress into autism. The Court has yet to render a judgement on test cases that allege that thimerosal containing vaccines alone can cause autism.

However, it wasn’t all that long ago that Julie Gerberding, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), appeared on Dr. Sanjay Gupta‘s show House Call and explained that vaccines can trigger autism in a vulnerable subset of children.

This is the claim that many parents have been making since at least the 1980s, and they have been dismissed and even mocked for making it. And yet, despite certain victories, the dispute about whether or not vaccines are responsible for a large – and ever growing – number of children developing autism rages on.


There seems to be no end to the lack of logic employed in defense of the overzealous use of childhood vaccinations.


I’m not anti-vaccinations per se. But I am firmly pro vaccine safety, and safety is unfortunately sorely lacking in many areas of the vaccine industry. I’m also for holding the guilty parties, the vaccine makers, accountable for the safety of the products they create – which is not happening, as you will see below.


Link Between MMR Vaccine and Autism Suppressed by Special Interest Groups


Just last week I published the story about Dr. Wakefield, who was persecuted for more than a decade by both Pharma-funded special interest groups and public health officials for daring to publish a study in The Lancet in 1998 that called for more scientific investigation into the possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

After his findings were publicized, rates of MMR vaccine in the UK promptly fell; Dr. Wakefield was fired from his position and later was charged with professional misconduct by the UK’s General Medical Council (GMC). The paper was also removed from The Lancet amidst all the controversy.

It has now become clear that the allegations were totally false and amounted to nothing more than a smear campaign.


Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon event. Many decent, capable physicians and scientists have lost their careers because they dared to question the safety of a vaccine. And thousands of children have been denied a fair evaluation in court because of this type of suppression of damaging evidence.


Why Aren’t Government Agencies Looking Into the Issue of Excess Vaccinations?


But vaccine safety is not just about individual vaccines. Dr. Russell Blaylock has written an excellent paper that explains the connection between excessive vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism that is definitely worth reading.


One of the strongest links to autism and other sub-classes of the disorder is the drastic change in the vaccine programs of the United States and many other countries, which included a dramatic increase in the number of vaccines being given at a very early age.  


In the early 1980s, the incidence of autism was 1 in 10,000 births. By 2005, the incidence had leaped to 1 in 250 births and today it is 1 in 150 births and still climbing.  


Pro-vaccine-safety educators have long been saying that vaccines can over-stimulate your child’s immune system, sometimes causing the very disease it’s designed to protect against, or worse. And, when several vaccines are administered together, or in close succession, their interaction may completely overwhelm your child’s developing immune system.


But it’s not over yet. In her blog, Vaccine Awakening, Barbara Loe Fisher writes:



“… a joint statement finalized February 27 by a CDC- sponsored vaccine safety writing workgroup that asked the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) to consider conducting more research into the vaccine schedule, whether some children are biologically at greater risk than others for suffering vaccine reactions and whether there are differences in immune and brain function between vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children.


The proposal to investigate adding these kinds of studies to the national vaccie safety research agenda, if approved by the entire NVAC, would include identification of biological markers and biological differences, if any, in brain and immune system function between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.”


We can only hope that the issue of the mandated vaccination schedule itself will finally be addressed and amended to a more health conscious plan that takes into account the individual variations of each child.


Until then, you will have to take matters into your own hands. To help you do so, I’ve included Dr. Miller’s recommendations for a saner vaccination schedule below.


The U.S. ‘Vaccine Court’ – Not the Legal Protection You Would Expect


The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 became law on Nov. 14, 1986 and was meant to provide a means for families to receive restitution were their child injured or killed by a vaccine. However, since then vaccine companies have used political manipulation through their strong lobbying efforts to created legislation that essentially immunizes them against any law suit damages or awards.


The Homeland Security bill even contains a provision that protects manufacturers of vaccines that contain thimerosal from liability in vaccine-related lawsuits in order to protect vaccine stockpiles.

It has now become obvious that the vaccine injury compensation program is so fatally flawed and broken it should be repealed – something Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is strongly advocating.


Imagine — during the program’s 22-year history, two out of three individuals applying for federal vaccine injury compensation have been denied!


Despite that, the program has still paid out about $1.8 billion in damages. But it didn’t cost the vaccine makers anything… The system is funded by a surcharge on each dose of vaccine sold. The doctors pay the tax initially when they purchase the vaccines, which is then passed right down to the parents of the child.

So not only are the vaccine manufacturers shielded from potential lawsuits, they are not even responsible for paying one cent of the claims filed against them — you are.


There are Safer Alternatives!


Personally, I question the validity of most all vaccinations. But there is a middle ground, one that at least protects your child during the crucial time of their brain development. The most rapid period of brain development begins in the third trimester of pregnancy and continues over the first two years of life. By then, brain development is 80 percent complete, so it makes sense to wait until this time to give any vaccinations.

Dr. Donald Miller, a cardiac surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle, came up with this user-friendly vaccination schedule back in 2004, and it is leaps and bounds ahead of the CDC’s “one-size-fits-all” schedule:


1. No vaccinations until your child is two years old
2. No vaccines that contain thimerosal (mercury)
3. No live virus vaccines
4. The following vaccines should be given one at a time (not as a combination vaccine), every six months, beginning at age 2:




  • Pertussis (acellular, not whole cell)


  • Diphtheria


  • Tetanus


  • Polio (the Salk vaccine, cultured in human cells)

This schedule takes the best interests of the individual into consideration rather than what the government judges best for society. If your pediatrician does not like this schedule (and most won’t), I’d suggest finding a new one who does.



Related Links:


Leave a Reply