ACTUALLY DR. ORR, PARENTS HAVE BIG WORRIES

By Anne Dachel

In his opinion piece "Parents have no need to fear kids' vaccines" in the Eagle Tribune, North Andover, MA, Dr. Brian Orr dismisses the claim that vaccines like the MMR and mercury-containing ones have anything to do with a child developing autism.  He's got the usual official studies to tell us about.  He writes, "In fact, there has never been a verifiable research study supporting an autism-vaccine link. Many international medical groups have conducted research using vaccine data and have continually concluded that vaccines do not cause autism. There is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism nor between mercury in vaccines and autism. Yet, the rumors regarding vaccines continue."

The reason the rumors continue is because all these official studies are not proof that vaccines are safe.  Dr. Orr needs to realize that this is not about pure science.  It's about who'll be held responsible if it is clearly shown that through complete oversight failure, a generation of children has been exposed to dangerous and damaging vaccines.  Lots of individuals, agencies, and organizations have everything at stake in denying a link.

The "many international medical groups" Dr. Orr mentions include ones with direct financial ties to the vaccine makers.  Hundreds of individuals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alone have their own conflict of interest waivers because of money connections to the drug industry.  Even a cursory look at the studies that are used as proof that vaccines are safe reveals funding from drug companies.

Dr. Orr tells us that injecting three live viruses in the MMR into children is safe, but he completely ignores the growing number of experts who disagree with that claim.

This is a major issue in Britain and there are prominent doctors are challenging the safety claims.  In the Daily Mail story titled Former science chief: 'MMR fears coming true, we were told about the concerns of former chief British science officer, Dr. Peter Fletcher:

"Dr Peter Fletcher, who was Chief Scientific Officer at the Department of Health, said if it is proven that the jab causes autism, 'the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history.'

"He said he has seen a 'steady accumulation of evidence' from scientists worldwide that the measles, mumps and rubella jab is causing brain damage in certain children."

Another British physician, Dr. Richard Halvorsen has extensively studied the MMR and agrees with Dr. Fletcher.  He's written about his research in a recent book, The Truth about Vaccines.

Strangely none of it gets into stories in the American press.

Dr. Orr spends less time on mercury-containing vaccine, yet that's a huge issue here.  In fact, he gives us nothing as proof that it's safe to inject the second deadliest element on Earth into children.  The CDC again has their studies that show no harm from the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal.  We often hear about them in the news.  No one ever asks about the type of study nor do they ever ask to see the results of the original toxicity testing done on thimerosal BEFORE it was ever allowed in our children's vaccines back in the 1930s.

The current CDC studies are epidemiological ones, also known as populations studies.  They're done using numbers of people and the findings can be easily manipulated to get the results the researcher wants.  This kind of study was made famous by the tobacco industry back in the 1940s and 50s when population studies were used to prove that smoking didn't cause lung cancer.  In truth, there has never been a toxicological study done on thimerosal that showed it was safe at any level.

As for the safety testing of thimerosal back 75 years ago---there wasn't any.

Thimerosal goes back more than half a century.  It was invented and tested only by Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company in 1930.  The one study done on thimerosal was done by Eli Lilly on 22 adult patients suffering from meningitis. There was no chance for follow-up to observe long-term effects, as all of the patients died.  Even if follow-up had been possible, damage to the developing brains of very young children would have remained an unknown. Eli Lilly said it was safe and the medical community just accepted it.  After the creation of the FDA, its use was simply continued.  This is an unconscionable oversight failure which should call any safety claim into question.  All the current studies the CDC comes up with can't make up for this.

In his book, Evidence of Harm, journalist David Kirby points out that "...many researchers had sent the company documents dating back to the 1930's, each raising a red flag about thimerosal." Kirby chronologically lists over 70 years of scientific research on the damaging and deadly effects of thimerosal that was willfully ignored by Eli Lilly and the CDC.  Our CDC and FDA should be utterly embarrassed to make safety claims based on such a pathetic history of oversight. 

In addition, back in 1991, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the top vaccinologists in the world, wrote a memo to the president of Merck Pharmaceutical Co. warning about the high mercury levels children were receiving in their vaccines.  That warning was ignored and mercury exposure was only increased with additional vaccines.

There are many well-credentialed scientists who have found thimerosal to be a dangerous additive with no place in our children's vaccines.  Do a search for Dr. Boyd Haley, University of Kentucky; Dr. Mady Hornig, Columbia University; Dr. Thomas Burbacher, University of Washington;  Dr. Mark Geier, President of The Genetic Centers of America and David Geier, Vice President of The Institute of Chronic Illnesses, and Dr. Jill James, University of Arkansas. They are just a handful of the independent scientists whose work links vaccines to neurological damage in our children.

Research on vaccines can also be found on this Generation Rescue link.

This chart compares the vaccine schedules in 1983 and 2007.  There is no proof that vaccinating children with endless chemicals, including mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, antifreeze, and MSG is in any way safe.  This dramatic increase in the number of vaccines directly coincided with the explosion in the autism rate along with a host of chronic illnesses among our children like asthma, diabetes, bowel disorders, ADHD, and others. (Click here.)
It should be pointed out that there has never been an official study to determine the cumulative effect of so many additional vaccines on a developing baby.

Dr. Orr cites his 25 years as a pediatrician.  In that time he has seen the explosion in the autism rate.  One in every 150 children now has autism, including one in every 94 boys.  In New Jersey, one in every 94 kids has autism--specifically one in every 60 boys.  One in every six schoolchildren now has a learning problem like attention deficit.  As a pediatrician, Dr. Orr must have seen this change.  Why isn't he sounding an alarm over all the disabled children?

Now imagine a similar increase in the number of young adults applying for Social Security Disability in the coming years.  This is also a double blow.  These disabled young people are meant to be the replacement work force to help support the retiring post World War II generation.  Not only won't they be paying into Social Security, they'll be living off of it for the rest of their long lives.

Until we can get some straight answers from unbiased sources about the safety of vaccines, no one should expect this issue to quietly go away.   Endless official studies can't explain all the children with autism.  Every time stories like these come out, more questions are raised.  Fewer and fewer parents will be willing to risk the health and happiness of their children when officials can tell us so little.
--
Anne Dachel is media editor of Age of Autism

Comments

[C. Reilly]

Dr. Orr just received a copy of Jepson's "Changing the Course of Autism" free of charge from me. Hopefully, he'll do his clients a service and read it.

[No more Orr]

Dr. Brian Orr would be well advised to stick to known territory and continue to remain silent when it comes to either autism or vaccine risks. He's done enough damage already.

Not only did he inject our kids with the flu shots and the chicken pox vaxes that tipped them over the brink into ill health without offering accurate (or any) information about the risks, Dr. Orr never figured out that one of our children had regressed into autism while under his care. He gave no warnings, shared no observations about our child's behavior and loss of skills, nothing. Then he failed to take note of when our kids began bouncing back from GF/CF.

So Orr has it all sewn up. These vaccines don't cause autism because he refuses to notice when they do; the alternative remedies don't work because he refuses to notice when they do. Easy escape clause from primum non nocere. When evidence based medicine evidently harms, ignore the evidence.

Not that we would have wanted someone like this to make the diagnosis of autism to begin with. His waiting room is full of psychiatric drug brochures, making it clear the kind of answers his practice prescribes for vaccine injuries: ones which provide more kickback and do even more harm. Had we remained as naive as we began in terms of healthcare choices for our children and actually sought the advice of this practitioner regarding what to do about our children's iatrogenic health conditions, they wouldn't be currently recovering, would not have lost diagnoses.

[Sargent L. Goodchild, Jr]

Dr. Orr's opinion is worthless. The following quote by Dr. Orr appeared in an article about Active Healing, Inc. that was picked up by several of Boston's local newspapers. “When you are talking about theory of treatment you have to have support for that theory that isn’t just saying when we treat these kids they get better. It isn’t really proof that you treatment works or even that your theory is correct,” said Orr.

So let me get this straight. Medical doctors can say that when we vaccinate children and they do not get sick that this is proof that both vaccines work and the theory is correct. Dr. Orr and his peers contend both despite the fact that many children still get the disease for which they have been vaccinated. Furthermore, we can continue to defend vaccinations from both vantages despite strong evidence, both empirical and scientific, that thousands of children have been seriously damaged by practice of vaccination.

Certainly seems self-serving to demand further diligence of a program that offers significant help without any potential of harm while shunning study of something as controversial as vaccines. I certainly would be interested in hearing his justifications.

In health,
Sargent L. Goodchild, Jr.
Exec. Director
Active Healing, Inc.
www.activehealing.org
978.525.3608