ABC News cancels THREE interviews about vaccines-autism w/RFK Jr.

[Eric J in MN]

with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Read about the cancelled ABC interviews at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/2005/06/abc-bosses-tell-abc-news-.html

The interviews all centered around Mr. Kennedy's investigation of thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, used in vaccines given to children and believed to be responsible for increasing cases of neurological diseases including autism.

Mr. Kennedy's interviews were slated for prime shows ABC World News Tonight, 20/20, and Good Morning America. Salon.com and Rolling Stone Magazine have exclusive rights to Mr. Kennedy’s article and they embargoed his story on other networks because of his arrangement with ABC.

Read about the suppression of information by the Bush Admin. and
lawsuit protection of industry by Senator Bill Frist at:

http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2005_06_12.html#002253

[azndndude]

1. So much for the LIBERAL media!

[Eric J in MN]

2. CCCP: Corporate Controlled Conservative Press

ABC is

afraid of losing ad revenue from pharmarceutical companies

and/or

afraid of criticism of Bush Admin (for suppressing the vaccine-autism link data)

[bloom]

9. "ad revenue from pharmarceutical companies" "

"A 2001 Emory University Study watched ABC, CBS, and NBC in the Atlanta area for one week and found 907 advertisements for over-the-counter drugs and 428 advertisements for prescription drugs."


I wonder how much that adds up to.

[goclark]

34. We need to get that crap off the air NOW! We want RFK Jr.

From morning til night that is all we hear - DRUGS!!!

If you weren't sick in the morning ,you're sick after all day hearing about ailments.

Cut the DRUG ADS, please!

[Occulus]

22. Oh dear God, that's a good acronym.

CCCP- what we ALL saw on Soviet rockets during the cold war. Nice and subtle.

Excellent.

[Eric J in MN]

28. I like that, too. I don't know who made up that acronym.

nt

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Response to ABC:

Image from Kill Your Television

[Eric J in MN]

4. I cancelled my tv service a while ago (nt)

nt

[Eric J in MN]

5. check out the links in the original post (nt)

nt

[bloom]

10. posted in the Salon article:

"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 fifteenfold, 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."

[Junkdrawer]

11. The point of the article seems to be: Faced with evidence...

that thimerosal probably causes neurological problems, the drug companies didn't pull the preservative until definitive studies were done, they moved, and moved quickly, to suppress the evidence and cover their asses.

They should rot in Hell.

[walldude]

6. I'm sure the cancellation has nothing to do

with the $860,000 Frist got from the Pharmacutical companies. I guess they thought it might be embarassing to mention that they stopped giving thimersol to animals in the late 80's but kept giving it to our kids. My 9 year old has Autism.. Thanks Mr Frist.

[bloom]

7. "Playing Politics at Kids’ Expense" "

Some Drug Makers Act

Thimerosal defendants include Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Aventis, Weyeth and Eli Lilly. Frist’s newly proposed "anti-terror" legislation would create insurmountable burdens of proof for plaintiffs in these cases and forbid states from banning Thimerosal.

Drug makers wary of liability have reduced Thimerosal in children’s vaccines in recent years, with the exception of Chiron and Aventis’ pediatric flu vaccine. Mercury-laced vaccine stocks were given to children until the end of 2003.

Thimerosal’s inventor, Eli Lilly, donated $226,000 to Frist’s national Republican Senate Campaign Committee in 2002 and bought 5,000 copies of Frist’s book on bioterrorism. Congress will vote on Frist’s bill in the near future.

Instead of demanding the immediate removal of Thimerosal from all vaccines, and making the drug industry help defray the public and private costs of caring for injured children, Frist’s bill would give the industry a free ride at public expense.

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5798

[bloom]

8. Those who have been defending the CDC and IOM should read this:

"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."


http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2005_06_12.html#002253

[H2O Man]

12. This morning on Imus

he mentioned that RFK Jr's appearances were cancelled because of political pressures. He sounds like he is going to invite Robert onto his show. I'll e-mail Mary Beth this morning, to make sure they are aware of what Imus said. I hope Robert goes on the show.

[H2O Man]

13. Imus is again

talking about RFK Jr. He is saying Robert goes farther than others have on this. Robert needs to take the opportunity to get on the Imus show.

[H2O Man]

14. Part 3: RFK

Does anyone know the e-mail address to reach the Imus show? I think DUers should encourage him to have Robert on his show next week.

[Eric J in MN]

17. Email the show at

[e-mail]

[FreedomAngel82]

20. That shows me

it's all about Bill Frist. He is running in 2008.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. I keep thinking I've lost the ability to be shocked and then I am

shocked. I'm sure it is more important for ABC to keep running incomprehensible ads of people running through meadows towards each other with the tagline "Is Limpvig right for you?" then it is to report on compelling news with major implications. If this same ethos had been around in the sixties during the thalidimide situation, we would today be surrounded by thousands and thousands of children and adults with missing or incomplete limbs.

I am DISGUSTED by ABC news and I resolve as of this day to never ever ever ever turn them on again for any reason. People should email their stupid morning program or their nightly news. One other question - how many ABC News Employees have autistic children?

Side note - no one has discussed this issue more regularly than Imus.

[H2O Man]

16. Un-free press .....

"I regularly run afoul of corporate censors and bean counters who decide television contents. In November 2003, when environmentalists around the country were engaged in fiighting the Cheney energy bill, the NRDC was anxiously trying to get me airtime because no one was talking about the bill on TV. Fox TV host Bill O'Reilly agreed to schedule me, but only with the explicit proviso that I wouldn't say critical things about George W. Bush. I would first have to do a pre-interview to make sure I was capable of talking about the environment without bad-mouthing the president. Later, Fox decided that even this was too chancey; they would just tape the show, rather than risk me going off the reservation on live TV. The same week, Tom Brokaw, a committed environmentalist and fly fisherman, scheduled me for a segment on NBC Nightly News -- but the producers bumped me for yet another Michael Jackson story.

"I was most disappointed by Aaron Brown of CNN. When Ted Turner owned the network, CNN was a bastion of environmental reporting in the wasteland of network news shows. Turner employed an environmentalist specialist, Barbara Pyle, as a full-time advocate for environmental programming. But CNN then became an AOL Time Warner property, and on the day I was scheduled to appear, one of Brown's producers called to cancel the interview. Brown, she said, was aware of my criticism of the president's environmental record and was canceling my appearance because he didn't want any 'Bush bashing' on his show. Brown, too, substituted the interview with me for a segment for a segment on Michael Jackson's sex scandal."

--Crimes Against Nature; Robert Kennedy, Jr; 2004; pages 184-5

[mzmolly]

44. Oh how I wish Ted Turner still owned CNN.

:(

[stickdog]

18. MUST READ: Full Kennedy Vaccine=Autism Cover Up Article

No ads & no registration:

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/printer_061605HA.shtml

[Bozita]

25. Definitely a MUST READ --- It'll really piss you off!

[mzmolly]

45. Thank YOU.

I will forward this version instead of the Salon.com version.

[FreedomAngel82]

19. Definitley because of Frist

You can read his article at the truthout site under medicine or health or something like that. Yep, the liberal media strikes again! Oy! You'd think people would catch on. If they cancel three interviews with a president's nephew who was the most loveable democratic president that they'd think maybe this wasn't a very liberal media. But nahhhh that'd require some thinking.

[Susang]

21. An expert responds to the Salon/Rolling Stone article

Worth your time to read, before you drink the anti-vaccination kool-aid.

http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/06/saloncom-flushes-its-credibility-down.html#comments

[LibertyorDeath]

24. Get a grip this is not anti-vaccination kool-aid

This is the Center for Disease Control's own fucking epidemiologist
saying after much study the conclusion reached is there is a problem
with the mercury-based preservative thimerosal.

Got a problem with that call the fucking CDC


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

[stickdog]

26. Yes, indeed. War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Injecting Poison is Healthy

[stickdog]

27. The guy is an expert like Ari Fleischer was an expert.

His example of "quote mining" is full of shit. The larger quote summarizes almost perfectly to smaller quote.

Even for decades after 1943 autism was not infrequently confused with mental retardation or schizophrenia, and over the last two decades the diagnostic criteria for autism and autism spectrum disorders have been widened. In any case, if thimerosal in vaccines were the cause of autism, we would expect autism rates in Denmark and Canada to have plummeted recently, because Denmark eliminated thimerosal from its vaccines by 1995 and Canada removed them around the same time. No such decrease in autism rates has occurred in either country, even though there has been more than enough time for such a decrease to make itself apparent if there were truly a link between mercury exposure and autism. I would ask the mercury-autism activists: If this particular correlation does mean causation, if mercury in thimerosal is indeed a major cause or contributor to autism, why is it, then, that autism rates have not started to fall dramatically in Denmark and Canada by now? That there has been no such decrease is very strong epidemiological evidence that there is no link.


First this guy argues that the reason autism rates have been increasing is because the parameters for and chances of diagnosis keep increasing. In the same paragraph, he then asserts that the fact that Canadian and Denmark autism rate are not FALLING offers "very strong epidemiological evidence" that thimerosal and autism aren't linked. Now who is confusing correlation with causation here? Why wouldn't the increasing likelihood of diagnosis that he himself just posited explain the lack of dramatically falling rates regardless of any putative thimerosal connection?


The patients had "terminal meningitis" in 1930 and died after injection with thimerosal? Imagine that. Given that penicillin had not been discovered yet, I would have been surprised if any of them lived.


How disingenuous! Nobody's surprised that these patients died, just that EVERY ONE OF THEM croaked within weeks!


RFK Jr. approvingly cites the research of Dr. Mark Geier and his son David, both of whom are activists for the mercury-autism crowd, never once mentioning that Dr. Geier is a professional expert witness for vaccine plaintiffs, who has been involved in over 100 legal cases brought against vaccine manufacturers and the government on behalf of parents and whose testimony has been disallowed in some for not being sufficiently qualified. Dr. Geier's son David runs a company called MedCon, a medical–legal consulting firm that helps vaccine injury claimants to obtain money from both the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and through civil litigation.


What Orack fails to mention is that the Geier's studies the RFK, Jr. cites are based completely on the CDC's own Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database! Furthermore, the AAP's major criticism of the Geiers' studies is that the CDC's own VAERS database "should not be used for research aimed at determining whether vaccines cause certain health problems"! Congress finally forced the CDC to release the information is the VAERS database, so now the AAP argues that researchers can't draw any inferences from it!

[Susang]

29. Shows how much you know

I happen to know "this guy" , an MD PHd, a research scientist, and an oncology surgeon. I trust his opinion on this matter far more than your ridiculously uninformed one, seeing as he actually understands scientific methodology and has complete access to the information instead of the mere soundbites that you get.

And before you start rip me apart for daring to believe someone with extensive experience in the field of scientific research, how about the fact that the article never mentions any of the leaders in the field of autism research? Not a single fucking one. No Barrett Leventhal, no Cathy Lords, no Simon Baron-Cohen; not a single quote from the people who are in the trenches every day working in the field of autism research.

Bad science is bad science, even when someone like RFK (whom I normally think is great) endorses it. Until he gets his medical degree, I'm going to defer to someone who's a little more fully educated on the subject.

[stickdog]

32. CDC now mandates TWENTY-TWO fucking immunizations before kids

reach the first grade.

And "Orack" is bent out of shape because RFK, Jr. makes a strong case that kids' vaccines shouldn't be laced with a dangerous poison?

What possible public policy BENEFIT is there to continuing to inject our infants and toddlers with high levels of a substance that's indisputably HIGHLY toxic, whether or not the undisputed correlation between the recent explosion in autism diagnoses and the recent explosion in mandated vaccinations has been PROVEN causal?

This is just like the asbestos controversy and the tobacco controversy and the IUD controversy and the ozone layer controversy and the Gulf War syndrome controversy and the global warming controversy and the depleted uranium controversy and 9/11 WTC "perfectly safe to breathe" controversy and the coming "cell phone overuse leads to brain cancer/does not" controversy. Yes, the topic is scientifically controversial. No, the vaccine/autism linkage isn't scientifically indisputable. However, the CDC is itself guilty of cherry picking studies and, even worse, of suppressing critical information that would go a long way toward resolving the controversy. And because gigantic conflicts of interest have inarguably been BUILT IN to the system -- from the CDC's "trusted" inoculation experts to Bill Frist -- it would be negligent to uncritically accept the medical establishment's "don't worry, this won't hurt a bit" assurances as the last word on this subject.

In the meantime, I personally think refraining from injecting our kids with a known poison over and over again would be a good basic rule of thumb, don't you?

[Susang]

39. You know what?

Why don't you get back to me when you understand a little bit more about scientific methodology and autism itself; then maybe we can actually have a discussion. Until then, you're merely posting misinformation and creating unwarranted hysteria about a subject that I happen to take very seriously.

So far, you've neglected to address the fact that autism affects boys overwhelmingly more than it does girls, why RFK Jr doesn't cite any legitimate autism researchers in the Salon article and you completely misunderstood what is meant by correlation and causation, as evidenced by your illogical rebuttal to Orac's post. You have never once mentioned the strong role that genetics is believed to play in the disorder, a factor that has little to do with vaccination. You've also posted absolutely nothing to back up your views, no facts, no scientifically respected studies, nothing but your opinions and usual conspiracy theories. Comparing this particular one to big tobacco, IUDs, global warming, etc., was a nice attempt at a straw man, but try actually reading the literature next time, 'kay?

Autism rates have not gone down in countries that have removed thimerosal from their vaccines since the mid nineties, in spite of increasingly sensitive diagnostic criteria for the spectrum disorder. Were thimerosal responsible for autism, the rates in these countries would have gone down by now, as it's been ten years since the preservative was removed from the vaccines.

The US is a rich nation and can afford to pay for single use, thimerosal-free vaccination doses. Poverty stricken third world countries don't have that luxury and already face great hurdles when it comes to getting their children vaccinated against even the most common illnesses. Already there have been outbreaks of Polio, some of the worst history, across Africa. The children were defenseless because they had not been vaccinated due to fear about the vaccine's safety. http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/051105HA.shtml

My rule of thumb is to keep as many children from dying unnecessarily as possible. How about you?

[Junkdrawer]

46. So you can honestly say that, given a choice for YOUR child,...

you would chose a thimerosal preserved vaccine over a single-dose vaccine.

[Susang]

48. I've been innoculated with thimerosal vaccines for years

All of my childhood vaccines contained thimerosal. I get a flu shot every year that contains thimerosal. And believe it or not, I am actually legitimately allergic to thimerosal, a derivative of ethyl mercury (with medical documentation and everything). And yet, no autism, no neurological disorders and no mercury poisoning.

How about you? Feed your kids any tuna or salmon fish lately? If so, they've received much more mercury from their lunch than they did from their vaccinations. Live near an incinerator or coal burning plant? Live in Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, Florida, Illinois, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas or Tennessee, which are the worst environmental mercury "hot spots" in the country? This study's preliminary findings suggest a connection between environmental mercury (methylmercury) and higher autism rates in Texas. http://www.medpagetoday.com/tbprint.cfm?tbid=744

So yes, given the choice between no vaccination and vaccinations with thimerosal, I would choose the vaccinations with thimerosal for myself and my child any day. Sure beats the alternative of no vaccines at all.

[Junkdrawer]

50. First: The choice is not between no vaccination and thimerasol vaccination

thimerasol is only necessary if the drug and/or insurance company wants to save a few cents by packaging the vaccine in a multi-use vial.

Second: Got any credible sites on your "If so, they've received much more mercury from their lunch than they did from their vaccinations." claim.? RFK Jr. states in his article:

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.

RFK's observations tend to check with common sense. Somehow I doubt that a tuna sandwich has 187 times the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury.

[Susang]

51. Uh...did you even read the link I posted?

The biggest exposure we get to methylmercury comes from eating fish. Tuna, being a fatty fish, has more than the norm of mercury. Salmon as well.

Thimerosal, on the other hand, contains no methylmercury. Not a bit. It's ethyl mercury. And yes, they are different.

And more importantly, did you even bother to read the Salon correction for the RFK Jr article where they apologize for geting that 187 time the EPA's limit for mercury statistic wrong. They meant to say 187 micrograms, which is 40% not 187 times? Whoops, their bad! Here's a link for you. Hope it's legitimate enough. http://www.salon.com/letters/corrections/2005/index.html#thimerosal

[Junkdrawer]

52. Your statement was: 'If so, they've received much more mercury"...

NOT "If so, they've received much more methylmercury".

And, while I'm disappointed that RFK Jr. got the "187 times" figure wrong, I'm still waiting for a mercury number on that "tuna sandwich" so I can evaluate your "Feed your kids any tuna or salmon fish lately? If so, they've received much more mercury from their lunch than they did from their vaccinations." claim.

BTW: The demeanor of most of your remarks is most unbecoming.

[Susang]

53. Now you're just splitting hairs

Here's your link: http://www.pbs.org/now/science/mercuryinfish.html

Here's another: http://map1.epa.gov/html/newsaugust03.htm

~snip~
FDA is also looking into another matter of concern, canned tuna. Canned tuna is by far the most consumed fish in the U.S. The Mercury Policy Project tested 48 cans of white and albacore tuna and found mercury levels averaged 0.5 parts per million, significantly higher than FDA data. According to the article, The Mercury Policy Project feels consumers, particularly women and children, should be warned separately about tuna, since it is so popular.

And another: http://www.al.com/specialreport/mobileregister/?harvard33102.html

~snip~
While the FDA lists canned tuna as having lower mercury levels than some other fish, the Harvard study and others suggest that frequent consumption of canned tuna can lead to a significant accumulation of mercury in the body.

In New Jersey, a consumption survey conducted by the state in 1996 found that frequent consumers of canned tuna routinely exceeded the EPA's safe level for methylmercury.

One more: http://www.eurocbc.org/page238.html

~snip~
About 78 per cent of patients with high mercury levels reported eating canned tuna more than three times a month, while 74 per cent also said they ate salmon more than four times a month.

BTW, I really don't care if you find my remarks unbecoming or not. Science is rarely pretty, is it? My remarks to you were no more out of line than your posts to me were, or did you forget that you threw the first stone when you questioned my source's credibilty? Or is extreme snarkiness in your posts a becoming demeanor, but not acceptable in mine? :shrug:

[Junkdrawer]

54. Thanks for the link:

According to this PBS article, the FDA actually recommends .1 micrograms per kilogram:

Multiply child's body weight by EPA's reference dose.
Convert 45 pounds to kilograms = 20.45 kilograms
20.45 kilograms x .1 micrograms per kilogram per day
EPA RECOMMENDED LEVEL = 2.05 micrograms per day = 14.35 micrograms per week.

http://www.pbs.org/now/science/mercuryinfish.html

Thus the EPA recommends a 15 lb 3-month-old child should receive about 0.68 micrograms per day.

RFK Jr. actually understated his case.

[Junkdrawer]

31. Anti-thimerosal is not anti-vaccination.

Thimerosal is simply an ill chosen preservative that would not be necessary if the vaccines were packaged in single-dose vials.

What concerns us is:

1.) Thimerosal was used for infants despite its dangers

2.) The government and the drug companies covered up this danger

3.) Laws were passed to prevent parents from suing for damages, including medical and support costs.

4.) Laws were passed to prevent states from warning of the dangers

5.) While Thimerosal was removed from domestic vaccines, Thimerosal preserved vaccines are still shipped to poorer countries.

Kool-aid indeed.

[stickdog]

33. And it has NOT been removed from all domestic vaccines.

That is disinfo. The vast majority of domestic vaccines are now AVAILABLE in a non-thimerosal version. Thimerosol has NOT been outlawed domestically, and it's still in all multi-dose vaccines, in or outside the United States.

[Junkdrawer]

35. Thimerosal needs to be banned. Period.

If we can waste glass and plastic shipping luxury bottled water everywhere, we can ship vaccines (and especially infant vaccines) in single-use vials.

Hell, the Russians banned the shit twenty years ago.

[stickdog]

37. With 22 mandated vaccinations before first grade, the fact that all

of these vaccines were routinely laced with a highly toxic poison to save a couple of cents is nothing less than Satanic.

Furthermore, using trumped up visions of a terrorist threat to argue that pharma-giants deserve legal immunity for making such unconscionable decisions is egregiously Fristian -- even for Frist.

[Junkdrawer]

38. Like Dubya, it seems the drug companies are incapable of admitting...

they made a mistake. A monstrous, grotesque mistake.

And, due to their absolute power, they probably never will.

[Erindamom]

47. Thimerosal has NOT been removed from teen vaccines

Or adult vaccines. Now our adolescents are being required to get multiple vaccinations to enter Middle school and high school and college. Many of these vaccines have no long term study, and they still contain thimerosal. Adults and older children are also vulnerable to the effects of chemicals like thimerosal, not to mention formaldehyde, phenol, antibiotics and foreign proteins- all found in vaccines. Thimerosal is just the tip of the iceberg. We all need to ask questions and get answers. It is preposterous to assume that no one is ever harmed by a vaccine.

[anarchy1999]

23. When will enough be too much? GD ' IT!!

I'd just like to bang my head against a wall.

:argh:

:banghead: many times over!

[dogday]

30. Always Trying To Keep The Truth From Coming Out

When will they learn that we will fight until we have truth. All these cover-ups and lies at our expense are over. We deserve the truth about what harms and kills us...

[goclark]

36. All we are saying is GIVE TRUTH A CHANCE! nt

[doni_georgia]

40. To those who think we are drinking anti-vacc Kool-Aid

I am the mom of an autistic son. My son was developing normally until he received his MMR vaccine at 18 months. After that vaccine my son's speech development STOPPED. Not only did he not start saying any new words, he QUIT talking at all - NOTHING. He no longer said "mama" or "dada" NOTHING. He started flapping his hands and spending long lengths of time lying in the floor staring at the ceiling fan. In other words, he drifted into another world. This child had hit every developmental milestone EARLY prior to this damn vaccine.

Took us two years to get a diagnosis and some help.
Our pediatrician warned us that some would try to convince us that this was connected to vaccines and for us not to believe it (this was in 1998). She also said that some would try to convince us to eliminate wheat and dairy from his diet, and for us not to do that either. Thankfully we didn't listen to our pediatrician. Her mention of these two things was the first I had heard about the vaccine/autism link and the GFCF diet. I then searched for more information on these topics and put my son on a GFCF diet. Within two weeks of taking him off all dairy, he was talking again (not as well as before - but words none the less) and he was potty trained. As the months continued and we gradually eliminated gluten as well as dairy his condition continued to improve. Within a year, his diagnosis had gone from severe autism to high functioning autism. Within two years he had been moved from a self-contained special ed classroom for moderately/severely mentally impaired children to a regular kindergarten class. His diagnosis is now Asperger's Syndrome. He has baffled the doctors who say that one does not outgrow autism and one cannot be cured. His original prospects were that he would be unable to communicate and take care of himself. Today he is a straight A student with many friends although he is odd and different and will always be that way. We have tried many of the off-the-wall treatments that Quack Watch warns against, but the result was WE HAVE OUR SON BACK! Still he will never fully recover to the boy he should have been.

Do I believe mercury in vaccines are responsible for my son's condition? You bet your ass. Why? Because I know what he was like before vaccines and what he was like after. Do I believe eliminating gluten and casein from his diet controlls his condition? Absolutely, because I see what happens to him if he gets so much as a crumb of bread (eyes dilate, he becomes agressive and uncommunicative). All of the experts can argue all they want, but I live with this every day as do some many others. You want an expert? Ask the parents who live with this day in and day out. We're the experts.

[AX10]

41. My Condolences.

I hate ABC!

:argh:

[doni_georgia]

42. Thanks

Those of us on this side of the autism fence are so use to being ignored and treated like we are pathetically insane, that we are used to this by now. What is the worse for us are the other parents of autistic children who buy the government's lies. I know too many of these types to even count.

[mzmolly]

43. Eric I am sorry I didn't see your thread, I would have recommended it.

I hope like heck this issue will get frank/candid discussion in the MSM. I am so thankful to RFK Jr. for taking an open honest look and over coming his initial skepticism on the issue.

[Eric J in MN]

49. It's OK (nt)

nt