AGE OF AUTISM

EMAILS FROM CDC AND FDA ON VACCINES AND MERCURY

By Twyla Ramos

Has Mercury Really Been Removed from Vaccines?

Last month I emailed the CDC to ask this question:

From: Twyla Ramos
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 1:19 AM
To: CDC Public Inquiry
Subject: mercury in vaccines

I understand that thimerosal is no longer used as a preservative in most vaccines, except for most flu shots and vaccines shipped to other countries.

But, I believe I heard someone say that mercury is still used in the vaccine manufacturing process, but it is removed and only "trace" amounts remain in the finished vaccines.

Can you confirm whether or not there is any mercury used in the manufacture of thimerosal-free vaccines?  If the above statement is true, how much is a "trace"?

Sincerely,

Twyla Ramos
concerned parent


I received the following response:

THE ATLANTA MANIFESTO, PART 8

By Mark Blaxill and Barbara Loe Fisher

Editor's Note: This is the final installment of a "white paper" by Blaxill and Fisher that outlines a new vision of vaccine safety and children's health. Written in 2004 and addressed to CDC Director Julie Gerberding, it is being published here for the first time, many of the concerns it raises have only deepened since then. The document will be available in its entirety on our home page – a statement of principles and practices that form the philosophical foundation of Age of Autism.
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We conclude this white paper with a distress call, not because we are alarmist by natures, but because we share a concern that the default path of vaccine development and safety management will not lead us closer to the hopeful future we described at the beginning of this report. Instead, we fear that the more likely direction will turn sharply toward an even more extreme approach to childhood public health strategy.

THE ATLANTA MANIFESTO, PART 7

By Mark Blaxill and Barbara Loe Fisher

Editor's Note: This is the seventh of eight parts of a vaccine safety "white paper" written by Blaxill and Fisher in 2004 and submitted to the CDC, but published here for the first time. This installment is titled From Conflicts of Interest to True Public Accountability and shows why the most important constituency -- parents and children -- have been excluded by what the authors call the "vaccine development complex."
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Public institutions have the responsibility to carry out public affairs with governance mechanisms that keep decisions free of conflicts of interest and resultant self-dealing by interested parties. As our society has evolved, the influence of well-organized and well-funded interest groups has made avoiding such conflicts of interest progressively more difficult. In the area of vaccine safety, we see serious conflicts between the promotion and management of the childhood immunization program and the exercise of diligence and care in the safety monitoring of the program.

BRILLIANT TRUMP REVISES VACCINE SCHEDULE FOR HIS SON

By Kim Stagliano

Donald Trump and his beautiful (and obviously smart) wife have revised the AAP vaccine schedule for their son, Baron. I wonder how many peds tossed him/his wife out on their behinds when they asked for a change in the vax schedule as has happened to so many of us?

I'd hazard a guess that a large part of Trump's financial success comes from his ability to correctly assess risks and benefits, wouldn't you? Looks like he's done that for his child's health too.  Bravo!

(That's Suzanne Wright in a gorgeous suit that matches the room decor. Wow.)

THE ATLANTA MANIFESTO, PART 6

By MARK BLAXILL and BARBARA LOE FISHER

Editor's Note: Age of Autism is publishing this "white paper" on vaccine safety and children's health at a time when the issue has never been more important -- witness the mandate for flu shots just ordered in New Jersey. It was written in response to a blue-ribbon panel's unsatisfactory review of vaccine safety at the CDC -- a panel on which Blaxill and Fisher both served. In this installment -- titled From Safety Last to a Quest for Zero Vaccine Adverse Events -- they call for a Zero Defects approach to vaccine safety in the face of the thousands of adverse events reported every year, a number they point out is far lower than the actual total.

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Members of our organizations (SafeMinds and the National Vaccine Information Center) recall private conversations during which National Immunization Program officials revealed their underlying utilitarian philosophy: parents of vaccine injured children, calling for reform of the vaccination system, were described as "selfish"; adverse events were described as "acceptable losses"; while adverse events resulting in injuries and death were dismissed as either coincidences or the inevitable by-products of the pursuit of the "greater good." Dr. Robert Chen, the man most responsible for setting the tone and direction of NIP safety practices for over a decade, described the end result of a utilitarianism mindset on safety management at NIP in  1999:

"[W]e have been relatively slow in appreciating the importance the public now places on vaccines safety. In fact, much of our resource allocations still unfortunately reflect safety last rather than safety first…Furthermore…we have not been as interested in preventing vaccine-induced illnesses as we are with vaccine-preventable diseases."

TRUMP SPEAKS: "I THINK IT'S THE VACCINATIONS"

By J.B. Handley

What if you were a large national autism charity and you held a fundraiser at a billionaire’s house and the billionaire told reporters he thought autism was caused by vaccines? What if your large national autism charity was wildly dismissive of vaccines as a cause for autism, had scientists on staff who had worked to produce faulty research exonerating vaccines alongside the CDC, and had no research dollars allocated to exploring the vaccine-autism relationship?

Well, then you would be Autism Speaks holding a fundraiser at Donald Trump’s Palm Beach mansion. As THIS article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports:

“At a news conference Thursday in a gold-trimmed Mar-A-Lago ballroom, Trump's wife, Melania, noted her 22-month-old son, Baron, and said: "I cannot imagine what the mothers [with autistic children] and mothers all around the world go through. ... Let's get rid of autism."

AUTISM SPEAKS TO TRUMP: YOU'RE FIRED!

By Kim Stagliano

(Added 12/29: I wrote a slightly different version of this for Huffington Post. More background. Please go over and add a comment there, won't you?  You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/2ozdt7.  Thanks.  Kim)

Will Autism Speaks "fire" billionaire fund raiser Donald Trump for telling the world he believes vaccinations may be at the heart of the autism epidemic like they did their own daughter, Katie? (HERE is the Sun Sentinal Story.) Do you think the Wrights showed their wealthy friend their letter to the world where they disassociated themselves from her? Mr. Trump, HERE it is. (Ooooh! I'm talking to Donald Trump!)

Remember this touching line? "Many of Katie's personal views differ from ours and do not represent or reflect the ongoing mission of Autism Speaks."  That's right, Mr. Trump, the young woman whose child launched a multi-million dollar charity, the daughter of the founders, doesn't represent the ongoing mission of said charity. (Somebody get me a sweater to ward off the chill!)  Makes you and Rosie look like a lovefest.

THE EXPERTS, THE TRUTH, AND GOLD SALTS

By DAN OLMSTED

I went to college at a time and place where, in the name of academic freedom and not riling up the students any further, one could avoid almost any unpleasant subject -- by which I mean the whole of math and science. So my understanding of the complexities of biology, neurology and statistics is seriously restricted. I tend to rely on logic and an English major's reading of scientific papers as my tools -- along with a few people whose knowledge and fair-mindedness I have learned to trust.

I'm sure it won't be long before that paragraph comes back to "haunt" me -- just like the idea of doing my own natural history of autism from scratch. Here's how one person described that: "I exchanged correspondence with Dan Olmsted when he started his autism series. In response to my citation of various materials for him to look at, he told me that he wanted instead to take a fresh look at things, and not be influenced by ideas that others had before him. In other words, he prefers to draw his conclusions in a vacuum, without doing any research."

"SCIENCE" IS NOT THE NAME OF A SECRET SOCIETY!

  By ANNE VAN RENSSALAER

The modern notion of Science as a special brand of information about the world, practiced by a distinct group and pursued through a unique method, didn't take hold until the very end of the 19th century. In the 20th, it began to blend into and be overtaken by what is more recently thought of as technology.

THE HAZELHURST CASE: AUTISM OMNIBUS PROCEEDING TEST CASE 2

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq. and Legal Editor

Mom worked as a representative for a pharmaceutical company for more than ten years.  Dad is an attorney.  Grandpa was a gastro-enterologist, who when his grandson Yates began to exhibit signs of digestive problems was able to get him seen by one of the top gastro-enterologists in the country, Dr. Tim Buie of Harvard University.

These are the people who, according to lead government attorney Vincent Matanoski, were taken in by Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s malevolent scientific fraud in which he intended to panic the world in order to create a market for the measles-only virus in which he had a patent.

Which group made a better argument?