Anti-vac quack whacks are soooo pleasant...

They even hound parents of autistic children who know that vaccines
have nothing to do with autisms.

From Nature Medicine, 1 AUG 2007:

==============================

Nature Medicine
Published online: 1 August 2007; | doi:10.1038/nm0807-896

Mercury rising

Parents of autistic children are mounting a vicious campaign against
scientists who refute the link between vaccines and autism. Virginia
Hughes takes the temperature of the escalating debate.
Virginia Hughes

Conspiracy theory: Parents of autistic children say scientists are
hiding evidence that vaccines cause autism.

In June 2006, on the first day of the summer meeting of the Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices, more than 100 protesters crowded
the sidewalks outside the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Organized by a nonprofit called Moms Against Mercury, the mob was made
up mostly of people who believe that thimerosal-a mercury-based
vaccine preservative-is responsible for the dramatic rise in autism
over the past two decades.

As Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to
make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him
through a megaphone: "The devil-it's the devil!" One protester held a
sign that read "TERRORIST" with a photo of Offit's face. Just before
Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed
Offit's jacket. "It was harrowing," Offit recalls.

Moms against Mercury and other such groups say that autism is
triggered by the routine vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR),
by the preservative thimerosal, or a combination of the two. Dozens of
peer-reviewed studies and scientific panels have dismissed these
links, but, galvanized by a high-profile claims trial, congressional
support and a buzzing online network, this movement-informally dubbed
'the Mercurys'-has only become more organized. The movement's rising
visibility, public health experts warn, might spur lawsuits against
vaccine manufacturers and ultimately lower national immunization
rates.

Offit has been a prime target of these groups for years. In 1996,
after he published his first book on vaccines, he received a few
negative emails and letters. But by 1999, when the controversy over
thimerosal reached its peak, the harassment had "entered a darker
place," he says.

He has since received hundreds of malicious and threatening emails,
letters and phone calls accusing him of poisoning children and
"selling out" to pharmaceutical companies. One phone caller listed the
names of Offit's two young children and the name of their school. One
email contained a death threat-"I will hang you by your neck until
you're dead"-that Offit reported to federal investigators. And he is
just one of the many scientists who refute the vaccine-autism link to
endure this harassment.

"Scientists have been vilified," says Kevin Leitch, an English blogger
who once believed that vaccines caused his child's autism and who now
runs a blog, Left Brain/Right Brain, that focuses on "autism-related
quackery."

Mysterious origins

No one knows what causes autism. But there is evidence to suggest that
there might be a genetic component. For example, identical twins are
more likely to share the diagnosis than are fraternal twins. Simon
Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at the University
of Cambridge, has found that talented mathematicians are at least
twice as likely as the general population to be autistic, and that
mathematics students at Cambridge are more likely than other students
to have a sibling or parent with autism. Baron-Cohen, whose results
are in press in the journal Human Nature, says his observations
suggest that a group of genes may code for both mathematical ability
and autism.

Several teams have detected potential genetic 'hot spots' for autism,
but the factors that influence the expression of these genes are
complex, leaving much of the disorder a mystery.

What is known is that autism diagnoses across the world have
skyrocketed in the past few decades. Before 1990, the reported autism
prevalence in America was 4.7 out of every 10,000 children; it's now
60 per 10,000. The Mercurys call this an 'epidemic' that correlates
exactly with the rise in the number of vaccinations that children
receive, from 10 in 1983 to 36 in 2007.

Epidemiologists say the rise in autism diagnoses is instead a result
of a broadened definition of autism spectrum disorders. Children with
autism are sometimes diagnosed as mentally retarded, eccentric or
socially withdrawn. In some parts of the world, autism remains
stigmatized or even unknown-and thus undiagnosed.

Various factors, including changes in diagnostic practice, special
education policy and even financial incentives-some US states grant
Medicaid benefits to children labeled autistic, but not to those
labeled mentally retarded-make the increase in prevalence look like an
epidemic, says anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker, who began studying
autism's prevalence in 1994 after his daughter was diagnosed with the
disorder. "But the current numbers can't be compared to old ones-
they're like apples and automobiles," he says.

Shot of fear

A link between autism and the routine MMR vaccine first surfaced in
1998, when British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield reported that
of 12 autistic children he had observed, 8 had suddenly regressed into
autism within days of receiving an MMR shot (Lancet 351, 637-641;
1998). The paper set off a media frenzy, and over the next four years,
vaccination rates in Britain fell from 91% to 85%. Wakefield was
widely criticized for this report, and in 2004, 10 of the paper's 13
authors retracted their conclusions (Lancet 363, 750; 2004).

Every large study that has looked at the incidence of autism and rates
of vaccination has concluded that there is no link between the two. In
2002, a study analyzing data on more than 500,000 Danish children born
between 1991 and 1998 found that those given the MMR vaccine were no
more likely to develop autism than those who didn't get the vaccine
(N. Engl. J. Med. 347, 1477-1482; 2002). Another study in the UK of
nearly 6,000 children found the same rates of vaccination among
autistic children as among non-autistic ones (Lancet 364, 963-969;
2004).

"There have been a variety of designs done by different investigators
worldwide, with different samples and different methods," says
epidemiologist Eric Fombonne, a researcher on the UK study, "and all
absolutely failed to show any association with vaccines."

In 2004, following four years of interviews with experts and review of
more than 200 scientific studies, the US Institute of Medicine
dismissed any link between autism and vaccines.

The Mercurys dismiss these and other reports and argue that the only
way to settle the dispute is to compare the rates of autism between
vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

To that end, a nonprofit group called Generation Rescue commissioned a
$200,000 telephone survey of 17,000 children in California and Oregon.
Results of the survey, released on 26 June, suggested that boys who
have been immunized-with any vaccine-have a 155% greater chance of
developing a neurological disorder such as autism than boys who are
unvaccinated.

Mistrust and manipulation

Both the results and the methods of the poll are controversial,
however. The pollers asked parents if their children had been
vaccinated, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, without defining
what the term 'partially vaccinated' meant, or noting what
specifically the children had been immunized against or when.
Generation Rescue did not release analyses of statistical
significance, and because the poll did not report how many people
refused to take the survey, the results may have selection bias. A
Generation Rescue spokesperson did not return calls made for this
article.

Still, on 22 June, US Congressional representatives reintroduced a
bill submitted last year that calls for the National Institutes of
Health to conduct a comparative study of vaccinated and unvaccinated
populations.

But epidemiologists say such a study isn't feasible, because autism
prevalence rates are relatively low and rates of unvaccinated children
are lower still.

"This is just political manipulation," adds Fombonne, who says he has
also received threatening emails and phone calls. "There's no reason
not to trust the data that we already have."

Trust is certainly in short supply among these parent groups, who have
repeatedly accused CDC scientists of corruption.

"The CDC has a revolving door with the pharmaceutical companies, and
they're the ones setting the vaccine schedule," says Ginger Taylor,
who has an autistic son and maintains the Adventures in Autism blog,
which she says receives about 500 visitors a day.

The Mercurys, too, have been accused of financial corruption.

On websites and newspaper advertisements, they tout the benefits of-
and profit from-untested approaches, including hyperbaric oxygen
tanks, chelation creams and testosterone inhibitors, that supposedly
remove mercury and other environmental toxins from the body. "An ever-
growing number of practitioners are getting aboard this gravy train
because they realize it's making a lot of money," Leitch says.

Scientists note that some chelating treatments carry the risk of liver
failure and allergic reactions. In July, a UK family whose five-year-
old autistic son died of cardiac arrest after a chelation treatment
announced that they would sue the Pittsburgh-based doctor who had
prescribed the treatment. But many parents who use the treatments say
they work wonders. "They are bringing our children back to us," Taylor
says. "Some children are coming all the way back."

Science on trial

Starting on 11 June, a vaccine court at the US Court of Federal Claims
in Washington DC heard the case of 12-year-old Michelle Cedillo, who
has autism and suffers from arthritis, grand mal seizures and severe
gastrointestinal problems. The Cedillos are one of 4,800 families who
are seeking compensation from the government for what they say are
vaccine-related injuries.

The Cedillos' case hinges on a theory proposed by heavy metal
toxicologist H. Vasken Aposhian, who testified on the family's behalf.
Aposhian says the thimerosal in six vaccines Michelle received before
she was seven months old triggered an "immune dysregulation" that nine
months later allowed the weakened measles virus in her MMR vaccination
to take root in her gut. Once there, he says, the replicating virus
caused neurological damages and inflammation in her bowels. "These are
hypotheses," Aposhian says. "We are now in the stages of trying to
find a possible mechanism by which autism is caused by the injection
of vaccines."

The trial concluded on 26 June but deliberations by the three 'special
masters' who oversaw the case are expected to take at least six
months.

If the special masters find in the family's favor, scientists warn,
the family is likely to receive $250,000 and paid medical expenses for
the rest of Michelle's life. If most of the 4,800 cases turn out
similarly, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program could go
bankrupt.

But researchers also worry about what will happen if the Cedillos
don't win. Anesthesiologist Jim Laidler, who a few years ago was "neck-
deep" in alternative autism therapy for his two autistic children, has
since turned to mainstream scientists' side. In 2005, after publishing
a statistical paper in Pediatrics that rebuffed the idea of an autism
'epidemic', he received about 30 emails and a dozen hostile phone
calls from the Mercurys, one of which he reported to the police.

"This stuff is frighteningly violent," Laidler says. "With the Omnibus
trial looking like [the Cedillos] are going to go down in flames, I
would be appalled, but not surprised, to hear that some act of
violence was carried out."

Virginia Hughes is a freelance writer based in New York.

Article brought to you by: Nature Medicine
http://www.nature.com.libproxy.unm.e...07-896_pf.html

"Vaccine-man" wrote in message
oups.com...
They even hound parents of autistic children who know that vaccines
have nothing to do with autisms.

From Nature Medicine, 1 AUG 2007:

==============================

Nature Medicine
Published online: 1 August 2007; | doi:10.1038/nm0807-896

Mercury rising

Parents of autistic children are mounting a vicious campaign against
scientists who refute the link between vaccines and autism. Virginia
Hughes takes the temperature of the escalating debate.
Virginia Hughes

Conspiracy theory: Parents of autistic children say scientists are
hiding evidence that vaccines cause autism.

"Conspiracy" Ad hominem. http://www.whale.to/a/conspiracy.html


In June 2006, on the first day of the summer meeting of the Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices, more than 100 protesters crowded
the sidewalks outside the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

The rubber stamp committee of the CDC bandits.

"The CDC would be the last place in the world to go for information
regarding health. The CDC is a government bureacracy funded by theft
(taxation that has reached confiscatory levels) and run by white collar
criminals who regularly misinform and misdirect the public while creating
pandemonium in the marketplace (unnecessary destruction of livestock,
recalls etc) and conspiring to incite public panic on an almost daily basis,
in violation of the constitution of the United States."--Dr Duffy DC
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/cdc.html

Organized by a nonprofit called Moms Against Mercury, the mob was made
up mostly of people who believe that thimerosal-a mercury-based
vaccine preservative-is responsible for the dramatic rise in autism
over the past two decades.

"Mob" Bias


As Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to
make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him
through a megaphone: "The devil-it's the devil!" One protester held a
sign that read "TERRORIST" with a photo of Offit's face. Just before
Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed
Offit's jacket. "It was harrowing," Offit recalls.

Offit: " In fact, Dr. Offit's studies show that in theory, healthy infants
could safely get up to 100,000 vaccines at once. "

1) Dr. Offit shares the patent on the Rotavirus vaccine in development by
Merck (Application number 353547 ). He had a $350,000 grant from Merck for
Rotavirus vaccine development.
2) Dr. Offit is a consultant to Merck (listed on an attachment to his OGE
450), but does not want to disclose whether or not he received any
remuneration for his services

So that shows the committee is just a vaccine company one, and Offit a
biased expert http://www.whale.to/vaccine/acip.html

"In the case of vaccines, they have this particular panel called the ACIP
[Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices]. I've sat through their
meetings and know pretty much what goes on there. Basically, they
rubber-stamp whatever the drug companies put in front of them. But this
committee comes up with language saying, such and such a person should get
this vaccine at such and such a date. Then the drug company lobbyists take
that recommendation from the ACIP and they go around to all the state
legislatures and state health departments saying, "Did you see what the CDC
says to do?" And the American Academy of Pediatrics, of course, jumps in.
There are huge donations flowing back and forth between all these people.
It's a huge conflict of interest."--Michael Belkin

That is why unsafe ineffective vaccines get on the market that kill and maim


Moms against Mercury and other such groups say that autism is
triggered by the routine vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR),
by the preservative thimerosal, or a combination of the two.

Yes, and the leading expert on thimerosol agrees

"I think that the biological case against Thimerosal is so dramatically
overwhelming anymore that only a very foolish or a very dishonest person
with the credentials to understand this research would say that Thimerosal
wasn't most likely the cause of autism."--- Interview of Dr. Boyd E. Haley
by Teri Small: http://www.whale.to/vaccines/vax_autism_q.html




Dozens of
peer-reviewed studies and scientific panels have dismissed these
links,

See quote above to find out these are all eitheir fraudulent or used to
deceive, you can see they have all been shredded, one by one
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/mmr54.html

All lies in other words


"Scientists have been vilified," says Kevin Leitch, an English blogger
who once believed that vaccines caused his child's autism and who now
runs a blog, Left Brain/Right Brain, that focuses on "autism-related
quackery."

Leitch---that just shows the bias as he is a rabid vax man with no argument,
when I cornered him on his blog he just resorted to abuse and ad hominem
(same thing)



Mysterious origins

No one knows what causes autism.

"No one knows" this is allopath speak for an iatrogenic disease or one they
are making too much money on to cure

But there is evidence to suggest that
there might be a genetic component.

No more than 10% and that would be mercury sensitivity
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/autism_genetics.html

Several teams have detected potential genetic 'hot spots' for autism,
but the factors that influence the expression of these genes are
complex, leaving much of the disorder a mystery.

Like the Amish, no autism in unvaccinated kids. Hello?
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/olmsted_h.html

Epidemiologists say the rise in autism diagnoses is instead a result
of a broadened definition of autism spectrum disorders. Children with
autism are sometimes diagnosed as mentally retarded, eccentric or
socially withdrawn. In some parts of the world, autism remains
stigmatized or even unknown-and thus undiagnosed.

Propoganda
http://www.whale.to/a/autism_diagnosis.html

Shot of fear

Every large study that has looked at the incidence of autism and rates
of vaccination has concluded that there is no link between the two.

Lies, see above


2002, a study analyzing data on more than 500,000 Danish children born
between 1991 and 1998 found that those given the MMR vaccine were no
more likely to develop autism than those who didn't get the vaccine
(N. Engl. J. Med. 347, 1477-1482; 2002). Another study in the UK of
nearly 6,000 children found the same rates of vaccination among
autistic children as among non-autistic ones (Lancet 364, 963-969;
2004).

Lies http://www.whale.to/a/danish.html



"There have been a variety of designs done by different investigators
worldwide, with different samples and different methods," says
epidemiologist Eric Fombonne, a researcher on the UK study, "and all
absolutely failed to show any association with vaccines."

Fombonne is one of the chief liars, funded by guess who

"E. Fombonne has provided advice on the epidemiology and clinical aspects of
autism to scientists advising parents, to vaccine manufacturers (for a fee),
and to several Government committees." In plainer language, Fombonne had
been a paid adviser to the manufacturers of MMR in the then-impending
1,500-strong class action High Court case in the UK that alleged that MMR
had precipitated children's degeneration into autism. The wisdom of using a
paid witness to the manufacturers, as defendants, in a central authorship
role in a supposedly independent research paper, might be questioned by
many. --David Thrower

http://www.whale.to/vaccines/fombonne_h.html

In 2004, following four years of interviews with experts and review of
more than 200 scientific studies, the US Institute of Medicine
dismissed any link between autism and vaccines.

More smoke and lies http://www.whale.to/v/ion6.html

more drivel deleted

"Vaccine-man" wrote in message
oups.com...


Virginia Hughes is a freelance writer based in New York.

funny how they always end up believing what they can write about and
disbelieving what they CAN'T write

so they sing the tune of the ruling elite, doesn't pay to bight the hand
that feeds

Vaccine-man wrote:
They even hound parents of autistic children who know that vaccines
have nothing to do with autisms.

From Nature Medicine, 1 AUG 2007:

==============================

Nature Medicine
Published online: 1 August 2007; | doi:10.1038/nm0807-896

Mercury rising

Parents of autistic children are mounting a vicious campaign against
scientists who refute the link between vaccines and autism. Virginia
Hughes takes the temperature of the escalating debate.
Virginia Hughes

Conspiracy theory: Parents of autistic children say scientists are
hiding evidence that vaccines cause autism.

In June 2006, on the first day of the summer meeting of the Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices, more than 100 protesters crowded
the sidewalks outside the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Organized by a nonprofit called Moms Against Mercury, the mob was made
up mostly of people who believe that thimerosal-a mercury-based
vaccine preservative-is responsible for the dramatic rise in autism
over the past two decades.

As Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to
make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him
through a megaphone: "The devil-it's the devil!" One protester held a
sign that read "TERRORIST" with a photo of Offit's face. Just before
Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed
Offit's jacket. "It was harrowing," Offit recalls.

Moms against Mercury and other such groups say that autism is
triggered by the routine vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR),
by the preservative thimerosal, or a combination of the two. Dozens of
peer-reviewed studies and scientific panels have dismissed these
links, but, galvanized by a high-profile claims trial, congressional
support and a buzzing online network, this movement-informally dubbed
'the Mercurys'-has only become more organized. The movement's rising
visibility, public health experts warn, might spur lawsuits against
vaccine manufacturers and ultimately lower national immunization
rates.

Offit has been a prime target of these groups for years. In 1996,
after he published his first book on vaccines, he received a few
negative emails and letters. But by 1999, when the controversy over
thimerosal reached its peak, the harassment had "entered a darker
place," he says.

He has since received hundreds of malicious and threatening emails,
letters and phone calls accusing him of poisoning children and
"selling out" to pharmaceutical companies. One phone caller listed the
names of Offit's two young children and the name of their school. One
email contained a death threat-"I will hang you by your neck until
you're dead"-that Offit reported to federal investigators. And he is
just one of the many scientists who refute the vaccine-autism link to
endure this harassment.

"Scientists have been vilified," says Kevin Leitch, an English blogger
who once believed that vaccines caused his child's autism and who now
runs a blog, Left Brain/Right Brain, that focuses on "autism-related
quackery."

Mysterious origins

No one knows what causes autism. But there is evidence to suggest that
there might be a genetic component. For example, identical twins are
more likely to share the diagnosis than are fraternal twins. Simon
Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at the University
of Cambridge, has found that talented mathematicians are at least
twice as likely as the general population to be autistic, and that
mathematics students at Cambridge are more likely than other students
to have a sibling or parent with autism. Baron-Cohen, whose results
are in press in the journal Human Nature, says his observations
suggest that a group of genes may code for both mathematical ability
and autism.

Several teams have detected potential genetic 'hot spots' for autism,
but the factors that influence the expression of these genes are
complex, leaving much of the disorder a mystery.

What is known is that autism diagnoses across the world have
skyrocketed in the past few decades. Before 1990, the reported autism
prevalence in America was 4.7 out of every 10,000 children; it's now
60 per 10,000. The Mercurys call this an 'epidemic' that correlates
exactly with the rise in the number of vaccinations that children
receive, from 10 in 1983 to 36 in 2007.

Epidemiologists say the rise in autism diagnoses is instead a result
of a broadened definition of autism spectrum disorders. Children with
autism are sometimes diagnosed as mentally retarded, eccentric or
socially withdrawn. In some parts of the world, autism remains
stigmatized or even unknown-and thus undiagnosed.

Various factors, including changes in diagnostic practice, special
education policy and even financial incentives-some US states grant
Medicaid benefits to children labeled autistic, but not to those
labeled mentally retarded-make the increase in prevalence look like an
epidemic, says anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker, who began studying
autism's prevalence in 1994 after his daughter was diagnosed with the
disorder. "But the current numbers can't be compared to old ones-
they're like apples and automobiles," he says.

Shot of fear

A link between autism and the routine MMR vaccine first surfaced in
1998, when British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield reported that
of 12 autistic children he had observed, 8 had suddenly regressed into
autism within days of receiving an MMR shot (Lancet 351, 637-641;
1998). The paper set off a media frenzy, and over the next four years,
vaccination rates in Britain fell from 91% to 85%. Wakefield was
widely criticized for this report, and in 2004, 10 of the paper's 13
authors retracted their conclusions (Lancet 363, 750; 2004).

Every large study that has looked at the incidence of autism and rates
of vaccination has concluded that there is no link between the two. In
2002, a study analyzing data on more than 500,000 Danish children born
between 1991 and 1998 found that those given the MMR vaccine were no
more likely to develop autism than those who didn't get the vaccine
(N. Engl. J. Med. 347, 1477-1482; 2002). Another study in the UK of
nearly 6,000 children found the same rates of vaccination among
autistic children as among non-autistic ones (Lancet 364, 963-969;
2004).

"There have been a variety of designs done by different investigators
worldwide, with different samples and different methods," says
epidemiologist Eric Fombonne, a researcher on the UK study, "and all
absolutely failed to show any association with vaccines."

In 2004, following four years of interviews with experts and review of
more than 200 scientific studies, the US Institute of Medicine
dismissed any link between autism and vaccines.

The Mercurys dismiss these and other reports and argue that the only
way to settle the dispute is to compare the rates of autism between
vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

To that end, a nonprofit group called Generation Rescue commissioned a
$200,000 telephone survey of 17,000 children in California and Oregon.
Results of the survey, released on 26 June, suggested that boys who
have been immunized-with any vaccine-have a 155% greater chance of
developing a neurological disorder such as autism than boys who are
unvaccinated.

Mistrust and manipulation

Both the results and the methods of the poll are controversial,
however. The pollers asked parents if their children had been
vaccinated, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, without defining
what the term 'partially vaccinated' meant, or noting what
specifically the children had been immunized against or when.
Generation Rescue did not release analyses of statistical
significance, and because the poll did not report how many people
refused to take the survey, the results may have selection bias. A
Generation Rescue spokesperson did not return calls made for this
article.

Still, on 22 June, US Congressional representatives reintroduced a
bill submitted last year that calls for the National Institutes of
Health to conduct a comparative study of vaccinated and unvaccinated
populations.

But epidemiologists say such a study isn't feasible, because autism
prevalence rates are relatively low and rates of unvaccinated children
are lower still.

"This is just political manipulation," adds Fombonne, who says he has
also received threatening emails and phone calls. "There's no reason
not to trust the data that we already have."

Trust is certainly in short supply among these parent groups, who have
repeatedly accused CDC scientists of corruption.

"The CDC has a revolving door with the pharmaceutical companies, and
they're the ones setting the vaccine schedule," says Ginger Taylor,
who has an autistic son and maintains the Adventures in Autism blog,
which she says receives about 500 visitors a day.

The Mercurys, too, have been accused of financial corruption.

On websites and newspaper advertisements, they tout the benefits of-
and profit from-untested approaches, including hyperbaric oxygen
tanks, chelation creams and testosterone inhibitors, that supposedly
remove mercury and other environmental toxins from the body. "An ever-
growing number of practitioners are getting aboard this gravy train
because they realize it's making a lot of money," Leitch says.

Scientists note that some chelating treatments carry the risk of liver
failure and allergic reactions. In July, a UK family whose five-year-
old autistic son died of cardiac arrest after a chelation treatment
announced that they would sue the Pittsburgh-based doctor who had
prescribed the treatment. But many parents who use the treatments say
they work wonders. "They are bringing our children back to us," Taylor
says. "Some children are coming all the way back."

Science on trial

Starting on 11 June, a vaccine court at the US Court of Federal Claims
in Washington DC heard the case of 12-year-old Michelle Cedillo, who
has autism and suffers from arthritis, grand mal seizures and severe
gastrointestinal problems. The Cedillos are one of 4,800 families who
are seeking compensation from the government for what they say are
vaccine-related injuries.

The Cedillos' case hinges on a theory proposed by heavy metal
toxicologist H. Vasken Aposhian, who testified on the family's behalf.
Aposhian says the thimerosal in six vaccines Michelle received before
she was seven months old triggered an "immune dysregulation" that nine
months later allowed the weakened measles virus in her MMR vaccination
to take root in her gut. Once there, he says, the replicating virus
caused neurological damages and inflammation in her bowels. "These are
hypotheses," Aposhian says. "We are now in the stages of trying to
find a possible mechanism by which autism is caused by the injection
of vaccines."

The trial concluded on 26 June but deliberations by the three 'special
masters' who oversaw the case are expected to take at least six
months.

If the special masters find in the family's favor, scientists warn,
the family is likely to receive $250,000 and paid medical expenses for
the rest of Michelle's life. If most of the 4,800 cases turn out
similarly, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program could go
bankrupt.

But researchers also worry about what will happen if the Cedillos
don't win. Anesthesiologist Jim Laidler, who a few years ago was "neck-
deep" in alternative autism therapy for his two autistic children, has
since turned to mainstream scientists' side. In 2005, after publishing
a statistical paper in Pediatrics that rebuffed the idea of an autism
'epidemic', he received about 30 emails and a dozen hostile phone
calls from the Mercurys, one of which he reported to the police.

"This stuff is frighteningly violent," Laidler says. "With the Omnibus
trial looking like [the Cedillos] are going to go down in flames, I
would be appalled, but not surprised, to hear that some act of
violence was carried out."

Virginia Hughes is a freelance writer based in New York.

Article brought to you by: Nature Medicine
http://www.nature.com.libproxy.unm.e...07-896_pf.html


Thanks for posting this. It is but the tip of the iceberg of the terror
tactics used by anti-vac liars to silence anyone who does not goosestep
to their tune.

"Vaccine-man" wrote in message
oups.com...
They even hound parents of autistic children who know that vaccines
have nothing to do with autisms.

From Nature Medicine, 1 AUG 2007:

==============================

Nature Medicine
Published online: 1 August 2007; | doi:10.1038/nm0807-896

Mercury rising

Parents of autistic children are mounting a vicious campaign against
scientists who refute the link between vaccines and autism. Virginia
Hughes takes the temperature of the escalating debate.
Virginia Hughes

Conspiracy theory: Parents of autistic children say scientists are
hiding evidence that vaccines cause autism.

In June 2006, on the first day of the summer meeting of the Advisory
Committee on Immunization Practices, more than 100 protesters crowded
the sidewalks outside the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Organized by a nonprofit called Moms Against Mercury, the mob was made
up mostly of people who believe that thimerosal-a mercury-based
vaccine preservative-is responsible for the dramatic rise in autism
over the past two decades.

As Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to
make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him
through a megaphone: "The devil-it's the devil!" One protester held a
sign that read "TERRORIST" with a photo of Offit's face. Just before
Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed
Offit's jacket. "It was harrowing," Offit recalls.

Moms against Mercury and other such groups say that autism is
triggered by the routine vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR),
by the preservative thimerosal, or a combination of the two. Dozens of
peer-reviewed studies and scientific panels have dismissed these
links, but, galvanized by a high-profile claims trial, congressional
support and a buzzing online network, this movement-informally dubbed
'the Mercurys'-has only become more organized. The movement's rising
visibility, public health experts warn, might spur lawsuits against
vaccine manufacturers and ultimately lower national immunization
rates.

Offit has been a prime target of these groups for years. In 1996,
after he published his first book on vaccines, he received a few
negative emails and letters. But by 1999, when the controversy over
thimerosal reached its peak, the harassment had "entered a darker
place," he says.

He has since received hundreds of malicious and threatening emails,
letters and phone calls accusing him of poisoning children and
"selling out" to pharmaceutical companies. One phone caller listed the
names of Offit's two young children and the name of their school. One
email contained a death threat-"I will hang you by your neck until
you're dead"-that Offit reported to federal investigators. And he is
just one of the many scientists who refute the vaccine-autism link to
endure this harassment.

"Scientists have been vilified," says Kevin Leitch, an English blogger
who once believed that vaccines caused his child's autism and who now
runs a blog, Left Brain/Right Brain, that focuses on "autism-related
quackery."

Mysterious origins

No one knows what causes autism. But there is evidence to suggest that
there might be a genetic component. For example, identical twins are
more likely to share the diagnosis than are fraternal twins. Simon
Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre at the University
of Cambridge, has found that talented mathematicians are at least
twice as likely as the general population to be autistic, and that
mathematics students at Cambridge are more likely than other students
to have a sibling or parent with autism. Baron-Cohen, whose results
are in press in the journal Human Nature, says his observations
suggest that a group of genes may code for both mathematical ability
and autism.

Several teams have detected potential genetic 'hot spots' for autism,
but the factors that influence the expression of these genes are
complex, leaving much of the disorder a mystery.

What is known is that autism diagnoses across the world have
skyrocketed in the past few decades. Before 1990, the reported autism
prevalence in America was 4.7 out of every 10,000 children; it's now
60 per 10,000. The Mercurys call this an 'epidemic' that correlates
exactly with the rise in the number of vaccinations that children
receive, from 10 in 1983 to 36 in 2007.

Epidemiologists say the rise in autism diagnoses is instead a result
of a broadened definition of autism spectrum disorders. Children with
autism are sometimes diagnosed as mentally retarded, eccentric or
socially withdrawn. In some parts of the world, autism remains
stigmatized or even unknown-and thus undiagnosed.

Various factors, including changes in diagnostic practice, special
education policy and even financial incentives-some US states grant
Medicaid benefits to children labeled autistic, but not to those
labeled mentally retarded-make the increase in prevalence look like an
epidemic, says anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker, who began studying
autism's prevalence in 1994 after his daughter was diagnosed with the
disorder. "But the current numbers can't be compared to old ones-
they're like apples and automobiles," he says.

Shot of fear

A link between autism and the routine MMR vaccine first surfaced in
1998, when British gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield reported that
of 12 autistic children he had observed, 8 had suddenly regressed into
autism within days of receiving an MMR shot (Lancet 351, 637-641;
1998). The paper set off a media frenzy, and over the next four years,
vaccination rates in Britain fell from 91% to 85%. Wakefield was
widely criticized for this report, and in 2004, 10 of the paper's 13
authors retracted their conclusions (Lancet 363, 750; 2004).

Every large study that has looked at the incidence of autism and rates
of vaccination has concluded that there is no link between the two. In
2002, a study analyzing data on more than 500,000 Danish children born
between 1991 and 1998 found that those given the MMR vaccine were no
more likely to develop autism than those who didn't get the vaccine
(N. Engl. J. Med. 347, 1477-1482; 2002). Another study in the UK of
nearly 6,000 children found the same rates of vaccination among
autistic children as among non-autistic ones (Lancet 364, 963-969;
2004).

"There have been a variety of designs done by different investigators
worldwide, with different samples and different methods," says
epidemiologist Eric Fombonne, a researcher on the UK study, "and all
absolutely failed to show any association with vaccines."

In 2004, following four years of interviews with experts and review of
more than 200 scientific studies, the US Institute of Medicine
dismissed any link between autism and vaccines.

The Mercurys dismiss these and other reports and argue that the only
way to settle the dispute is to compare the rates of autism between
vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

To that end, a nonprofit group called Generation Rescue commissioned a
$200,000 telephone survey of 17,000 children in California and Oregon.
Results of the survey, released on 26 June, suggested that boys who
have been immunized-with any vaccine-have a 155% greater chance of
developing a neurological disorder such as autism than boys who are
unvaccinated.

Mistrust and manipulation

Both the results and the methods of the poll are controversial,
however. The pollers asked parents if their children had been
vaccinated, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, without defining
what the term 'partially vaccinated' meant, or noting what
specifically the children had been immunized against or when.
Generation Rescue did not release analyses of statistical
significance, and because the poll did not report how many people
refused to take the survey, the results may have selection bias. A
Generation Rescue spokesperson did not return calls made for this
article.

Still, on 22 June, US Congressional representatives reintroduced a
bill submitted last year that calls for the National Institutes of
Health to conduct a comparative study of vaccinated and unvaccinated
populations.

But epidemiologists say such a study isn't feasible, because autism
prevalence rates are relatively low and rates of unvaccinated children
are lower still.

"This is just political manipulation," adds Fombonne, who says he has
also received threatening emails and phone calls. "There's no reason
not to trust the data that we already have."

Trust is certainly in short supply among these parent groups, who have
repeatedly accused CDC scientists of corruption.

"The CDC has a revolving door with the pharmaceutical companies, and
they're the ones setting the vaccine schedule," says Ginger Taylor,
who has an autistic son and maintains the Adventures in Autism blog,
which she says receives about 500 visitors a day.

The Mercurys, too, have been accused of financial corruption.

On websites and newspaper advertisements, they tout the benefits of-
and profit from-untested approaches, including hyperbaric oxygen
tanks, chelation creams and testosterone inhibitors, that supposedly
remove mercury and other environmental toxins from the body. "An ever-
growing number of practitioners are getting aboard this gravy train
because they realize it's making a lot of money," Leitch says.

Scientists note that some chelating treatments carry the risk of liver
failure and allergic reactions. In July, a UK family whose five-year-
old autistic son died of cardiac arrest after a chelation treatment
announced that they would sue the Pittsburgh-based doctor who had
prescribed the treatment. But many parents who use the treatments say
they work wonders. "They are bringing our children back to us," Taylor
says. "Some children are coming all the way back."

Science on trial

Starting on 11 June, a vaccine court at the US Court of Federal Claims
in Washington DC heard the case of 12-year-old Michelle Cedillo, who
has autism and suffers from arthritis, grand mal seizures and severe
gastrointestinal problems. The Cedillos are one of 4,800 families who
are seeking compensation from the government for what they say are
vaccine-related injuries.

The Cedillos' case hinges on a theory proposed by heavy metal
toxicologist H. Vasken Aposhian, who testified on the family's behalf.
Aposhian says the thimerosal in six vaccines Michelle received before
she was seven months old triggered an "immune dysregulation" that nine
months later allowed the weakened measles virus in her MMR vaccination
to take root in her gut. Once there, he says, the replicating virus
caused neurological damages and inflammation in her bowels. "These are
hypotheses," Aposhian says. "We are now in the stages of trying to
find a possible mechanism by which autism is caused by the injection
of vaccines."

The trial concluded on 26 June but deliberations by the three 'special
masters' who oversaw the case are expected to take at least six
months.

If the special masters find in the family's favor, scientists warn,
the family is likely to receive $250,000 and paid medical expenses for
the rest of Michelle's life. If most of the 4,800 cases turn out
similarly, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program could go
bankrupt.

But researchers also worry about what will happen if the Cedillos
don't win. Anesthesiologist Jim Laidler, who a few years ago was "neck-
deep" in alternative autism therapy for his two autistic children, has
since turned to mainstream scientists' side. In 2005, after publishing
a statistical paper in Pediatrics that rebuffed the idea of an autism
'epidemic', he received about 30 emails and a dozen hostile phone
calls from the Mercurys, one of which he reported to the police.

"This stuff is frighteningly violent," Laidler says. "With the Omnibus
trial looking like [the Cedillos] are going to go down in flames, I
would be appalled, but not surprised, to hear that some act of
violence was carried out."

Virginia Hughes is a freelance writer based in New York.

Article brought to you by: Nature Medicine
http://www.nature.com.libproxy.unm.e...07-896_pf.html

"Vaccine-man" is a prime example of what can happen if you take the
vaccines.
Your brain develops an inability to see the world and how it works.
"Vaccine-man" would like you to believe that he/she has more information,
more research, more experience with vaccines than the people who work in
the area.
He/she would like you to ignore those who warn you.
He/ she could be a shill for the producers of vaccines.
Please do some of your own research, and then decide if you want to do
such a thing to your children.

http://www.whale.to/v/rapp.html

On Aug 1, 4:50 pm, Vaccine-man wrote:
They even hound parents of autistic children who know that vaccines
have nothing to do with autisms.

From Nature Medicine, 1 AUG 2007:

==============================

Nature Medicine
Published online: 1 August 2007; | doi:10.1038/nm0807-896


No one knows what causes autism. But there is evidence to suggest that
there might be a genetic component. For example, identical twins are
more likely to share the diagnosis than are fraternal twins. Simon
Baron-Cohen, director of theAutismResearch Centre at the University
of Cambridge, has found that talented mathematicians are at least
twice as likely as the general population to be autistic, and that
mathematics students at Cambridge are more likely than other students
to have a sibling or parent withautism. Baron-Cohen, whose results
are in press in the journal Human Nature, says his observations
suggest that a group of genes may code for both mathematical ability
and autism.

A fallacy. As studies have shown, often when one sibling has autism,
doctors notice autistic 'traits' in other siblings and thus postulate
that autism is genetic. If it were simply genetic or mostly, then
identical twins would ALWAYS both have autism close to or exactly to
the same degree, as with red-green colourblindness, Down's Syndrome,
and Duchenes (sp?) Muscular Dystrophy, all of which show a 100%
correspondence (not correlation) in identical twins. It has been
recently postulated, and studies begun, that it is not genetic factors
which cause autism but epigenomes, methyl molecules which control the
expression of a gene. The prenatal diet of the mother and her
exposure to pollution (or even an oxygen-poor environment) have been
shown to change the epigenomic character of the fetus. MSG,
aspartame, and pesticides are all under scrutiny as I write this.


Epidemiologists say the rise inautismdiagnoses is instead a result
of a broadened definition of autism spectrum disorders.

False. While diagnoses of autism have risen partly due to a wider
application of the diagnosis (such that many people who are simply shy
or have anxiety disorders are called, or call themselves, autistic)
the facts are much more obvious: the diagnoses of various forms of
mental retardation, fragile X syndrome, and social-psycho disorders
HAVE NOT dropped in 30 years! Therefore, the rise in autistic
diagnoses cannot be due to a newer definition or wider application, as
if it was then children previously diagnosed with other social/anxiety
disorders would see a similar drastic fall in diagnoses, which hasn't
happened!


Various factors, including changes in diagnostic practice, special
education policy and even financial incentives-some US states grant
Medicaid benefits to children labeled autistic, but not to those
labeled mentally retarded-make the increase in prevalence look like an
epidemic, says anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker, who began studyingautism'sprevalence in 1994 after his daughter was diagnosed with the
disorder. "But the current numbers can't be compared to old ones-
they're like apples and automobiles," he says.

I already proved the fallacy of this argument. Once again, changes in
diagnostic practices have not lead to a decrease in the diagnoses of
other disorders in place of autism.


"The CDC has a revolving door with the pharmaceutical companies, and
they're the ones setting the vaccine schedule," says Ginger Taylor,
who has an autistic son and maintains the Adventures inAutismblog,
which she says receives about 500 visitors a day.

A study in Japan allegedly 'proved' that vaccines don't cause autism
or other disorders; the study has since been debunked because only
one, heavily-industrialized city, was involved in the study and
randomization was ignored. I'm not saying that vaccines cause autism,
I have no idea. But does money rule? No duh. How many of you have
electric cars? Oh yah, that's right, electric cars would kill the
service and car parts industry short-term! No wonder we have no
electric cars here... ANd remember, although lead poisoning was well
known in the 1920's lead is still put in fuel worldwide because Big
OIl wants Big Profits, damn the dead and dying.


On websites and newspaper advertisements, they tout the benefits of-
and profit from-untested approaches, including hyperbaricoxygen
tanks, chelation creams and testosterone inhibitors, that supposedly
remove mercury and other environmental toxins from the body. "An ever-
growing number of practitioners are getting aboard this gravy train
because they realize it's making a lot of money," Leitch says.

Well, look at the big drug companies, you think their model doesn't
give others incentive to swindle, too?

And it's a lie to say there are no tests ongoing, they are ongoing as
I write this on most therapies. Hyperbaric chambers have been tested
on autistic people and results have been encouringing, so far. The
rest you say, not so much. But wait and see on any drugs that may
rewrite the epigenomic future of truly autistic children, animal tests
have been VERY successful, expect human trials in 10 years though.


Good luck to true autistic people (not 'autistics' who have jobs, lots
of friends, people like Michelle Dawson, I mean autistics who can't
even comprehend what I'm typing here, like my son and nephew).