Clive Thompson Calls Questioning Vaccine Safety Decade's Worst Idea

By Julie Obradovic
 
On Sunday, Clive Thompson, a contributing writer for The New York Times and Wired Magazine posted an editorial in The Washington Post about what he believes is the worst idea of the decade: questioning vaccine safety. (Click here.) According to Mr. Thompson, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and Wired, the lack of trust that has been perpetuated by those of us in what he calls the "anti-vaccine movement" is directly responsible for the reason the US Government didn't have enough vaccine to fight swine flu this fall.
 
Trying to appease us by not using adjuvant that Canada and "most of Europe" did is his explanation for the shortage. Apparently our government officials were too worried about "spooking anti-vaccine activists" when they decided to forgo using them. He went on to include a quote from Ann Schuchat of the CDC in congressional testimony last month as support.
 
 "The public's confidence in our vaccine system and in vaccines in this country [is] very, very fragile."
 
This is the only part of his editorial in which we agree. Yes indeed, public confidence in the vaccine system in very, very fragile. Why that is, however, we profoundly disagree.
 
We also disagree about the level of influence vaccine safety advocates have. (Which is what we really are but will not be called because that makes us sound rational and educated, not the evil lunatics out to set the world aflame in infectious disease they choose to portray us as. "Anti-vaccine" does that so effectively for them, doesn't it? Yes, anyone who questions vaccine safety and those in charge of it is automatically against them, didn't you know?) According to Thompson we have become "uniquely powerful".
 
Uniquely powerful? I'll take that as a compliment. We have no money, no budget to fund the science our children so desperately deserve, and are probably among the most burdened group of activists out there. We operate from yahoo groups and a blog. And yet we're "uniquely powerful" enough to influence government policy? We're "uniquely powerful" enough to cause a swine flu vaccine shortage? Puh-leaze. We can't even get our own government agency, the IACC, to do what we want.
 
What Mr. Thompson and those like him refuse to acknowledge, however, is the real reason the public's confidence in the vaccine system in the country is so fragile: we have the most vaccinated children in the world and the sickest. If the amount of vaccines they got truly correlated with good health, they should be the healthiest people on the planet, ever, and yet, the exact opposite is true. Couple that with the lack of transparency, urgency, and integrity with which the Autism epidemic has been handled. 1 in 20 American families, if not more now, is personally affected by Autism. 1 in 20. Which means just about everyone now knows a family member, neighbor, playmate or playmate's sibling that has it. A condition that no one over the age of 30 ever remembers hearing about before St. Elsewhere or Rain Man in the late 1980's is now everywhere. And the answers for why that is are nothing short of pathetic. No wait, they're embarrassing.
 
Lack of Autism in the past? Misdiagnosis. Increase of Autism in the past decade? Better diagnosis. 50% increase of Autism in the past 2 years? Over diagnosis.

The same group of people that can't figure out how much Autism there was or is, is the same group that tells us they have no idea what causes it, if it's genetic, environmental or both. They don’t know what causes Autism, but they know for damn sure what doesn't: Vaccines. And how do they know this? Well, they've studied 1 ingredient of what, 80 now, and 1 injection of over what, 35? 45? I can't even keep track anymore.
 
Yet, they've never studied the most obvious control group: the never vaccinated. They refuse to do so in spite of congressional leadership asking, in spite of parents everywhere asking, in spite of money being allocated for the opportunity to do so. They flat out refuse to look, claiming it's unethical. Unethical to analyze 10 year olds that aren't vaccinated to look at health outcome differences? There are hundreds of thousands of them in our country, right now. There is no excuse not to. In fact, it’s unethical NOT to.
 
They've never studied the sub-populations of vulnerable or affected children for evidence of vaccine injury and they've never, ever, ever studied the current recommended vaccination schedule for safety. Ever.
 
Worse, they completely discount hundreds of thousands of parents’ testimony, first hand witnesses to what happened to their children, and dismiss it as coincidence. In fact, everything about Autism to them is a coincidence: the timing of the onset of symptoms; the eerie similarity to mercury poisoning; the ratio of boys to girls; the vast improvement via chelation therapy...the list goes on. All coincidence. One big fat coincidence. Never, ever has the almighty religion of science been allowed to be as very coincidental as it is in the case of vaccines.
 
Still, Mr. Thompson and those like him feel the quality, quantity, relevance, and bias of these studies that he calls "reputable" are perfectly adequate in dismissing any link between the two. I'm willing to bet everything I own he has never read them, for indeed in my experience, the only people who ever stand by them are those who haven’t. I have.
 
Wanna know how some mercury is different than more mercury for kids in Italy? Wanna know the difference of Autism rates for kids who got the DTP at 3 months of age versus 6 months of age in England? Wanna see what happens when kids get the Measles vaccine but not the Mumps vaccine in Japan? Wanna see how the rate of mercury uptake in Quebec affected rates of Autism in Montreal?
 
Yep. These are the peer reviewed prizes that "science" has given us. This is what qualifies as "reputable" now-a-days.
 
Moreover, he's completely accepting of the fact that those who manufacture, profit from, create policy for, publicly endorse, and defend in a court of law vaccines are qualified to objectively do these aforementioned studies on the very product which their entire life's work and reputation resides.
 
Here's the difference between the two of us. Drum roll, please....
 
I don't. And I am so sick and tired of having to defend myself for that.
 
If it is true that vaccines are indeed responsible for the explosion of chronic disease in our children in the last 20 years, then those who will be held accountable for it do not get the luxury of finding out if they are guilty. That's not conspiracy theory. That's not anyone "painting scientists as corrupt elitists on the take from Big Pharma, cackling sadistically as they force us to get shots", as you say. No, Clive. That's Criminal Law 101.
 
In fact, Gardiner Harris's most recent New York Times piece HERE investigates the ethics and conflicts of interest of those in charge of vaccine policy for that very reason.
 
Parents and doctors alike are finally fighting back against these vicious attacks, their intelligence and humanity being insulted for having the audacity to suggest, hey, maybe we're doing too much of a good thing here? Hey, maybe we should stop layering all of these shots on top of one another until we study them cumulatively? Hey, any chance we should change the context of the law in which the protection of pharmaceutical companies was enacted because, wow, it certainly seems like once they got that liability protection vaccines have become a never ending cash cow that needs to reigned in a little? And hey, any chance now that we've been vaccinating for decades we could take a step back and see if maybe, just maybe, there have been any unintended consequences we should be aware of? Any chance lowering infectious disease has raised chronic disease? And now that we don't live in squalor and actually practice good hygiene, any chance we need to re-evaluate the true threat of some diseases that used to plague us?
 
Oh, no, don't go there, people. If you ask those questions, you are a nut. A whack job. A flat earther. Dangerous. Sinful. Reckless.
 
Never mind that extremely prestigious doctors like Bernadine Healy disagree. Never mind that Dr. Bob Sear's book on vaccines is among one of the most influential new parent books available. Never mind that the CDC studied and concluded that the average education level of those parents who don't vaccinate is extremely high, implicating that highly educated parents have doubts about what they are being asked to believe: That all vaccines, all the time, at any time, under any circumstances, for all children, are always safe and any problems that arise are extremely rare, untreatable coincidences.
 
Never mind that VAERS was created for the explicit reason that they aren't.
 
Never mind that over 2 billion dollars has been awarded to people who have indeed been injured by vaccines.
 
Never mind that Hannah Poling was found to have an underlying mitochondrial disorder that was aggravated by 9 vaccines at once that resulted in the "features" of Autism (which is only defined by it features anyway) and that we do not screen children for mitochondrial disorders before we vaccinate them, even though we know approximately 20% of children with Autism have them.
 
And never mind that there are actually some doctors out there who truly think parents are stupid enough to believe the vaccines actually didn't cause the Autism in Hanna Poling, the equivalent of trying to argue someone had an underlying thyroid problem that was aggravated by eating too much food resulting in the features of fat, but that the food had nothing to do with it and that the fat only looks like fat but really isn't fat. Or even better, that the thyroid condition alone would have caused the fat anyway.
 
I refuse to take responsibility for any assumed swine flu deaths by failure to vaccinate. First, there is no such evidence what-so-ever that is the reason for their deaths, that a vaccine would have guaranteed another fate, or that the current vaccine we have is even effective. In fact, most evidence is showing us the swine flu pandemic has been anything but.
 
To suggest I or any other advocate played a role in their death is inflammatory and deplorable, not to mention down right insulting. Contrary to those who are only interested in valuing the lives of those affected by infectious disease because of a lack of vaccination, I am interested in protecting them both: those who are equally, but negatively affected by infectious disease BECAUSE of vaccination. I value ALL lives on both sides of the issue and to insinuate otherwise is disingenuous and ignorant.
 
The current "fragile" vaccination situation was predictable and avoidable a decade ago.
 
Officials' behavior at Simpsonwood? Burying data? Lying to doctors who truly want to do right by their patients? Manipulating studies to generate specific outcomes? Redoing studies over and over again until they have that outcome? Refusing then and now to do the most basic, honest study comparing vaccinated to never vaccinated populations?
 
Lying to parents? Marginalizing them? Accusing them of conspiracy theories and fear mongering? Making them into the enemy for wanting answers to help their suffering children? Telling parents what they lived, what they witnessed with their own eyes, isn't real? Convincing them an injected neurotoxin is inconsequential to development? Telling parents it’s not in vaccines any more when it absolutely is?
 
Forcing them to put out the fires of that neurotoxin on their own, and then criticizing the water they use to do it, even though when they screamed for help to 911 they were told there was no fire, that they were imagining it, and that sometimes kids just spontaneously combust...let them burn it out?
 
Making parents choose between chronic and infectious disease? Making parents choose between what their best friend, neighbor, sister, or cousin is telling them happened versus their doctor's insistence otherwise because that doctor trusts they are being told the truth by their leadership?
 
Giving pharmaceutical companies the power to make a product they never get to be accountable for in a court of law, even though it is mandated by law for use in our smallest population?
 
Underestimating the power and dedication of a parent whose child has been poisoned for profit?
 
Allowing doctors who make millions from the very product under investigation to loudly and publicly proclaim its innocence, simultaneously pleading ignorance and expertise in an area of which they clearly know nothing?
 
Abandoning an entire generation of children?
 
Those are the worst ideas of the decade. Mr. Thompson. In fact, they may be the worst ideas in the history of humanity.
 
I can guarantee you if they weren’t, we wouldn’t be “uniquely powerful” at all.

Julie Obradovic is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.

Comments

[alışveriş]

Thank you very much for the excellent and useful subject.

[Cynthia Cournoyer]

The only way the anti vaccine movement can be responsible for a lack of flu vaccine is because the manufacturer does not want to get stuck with a stockpile that is unusable next year. Market forces have made them scared. The "power" we have is and always was in our ability to refuse to participate.

Having to make them without adjuvants because of a public outcry, leading to a shortage? They chose that, assuming it would sell better in the "anti vaccine" climate. We rejected them anyway.

If the adjuvants were so harmless why didn't they just leave them in? Probably because they already knew they were reactive, and it's those darn reactions those darn parents are so darn worried about!

[Andy]

Kim - thanks for the clarification. Sorry to speculate about censorship (easy to jump to conclusions sometimes). You are correct that I have pretty much been asking the same question. You have a merry Christmas too. :-)

[Stagmom]

Andy, I'm Kim, one of the moderators. I believe we've posted all (or most) of your comments. You keep asking the same question, to the point of perseverating on the fine details - We've addressed your question several times. Whether it's to your exacting specifications is not ours to judge. We wish you well, and Merry Christmas.

Kim

[Andy]

Well. I honestly wasn't attempting to harass anybody. I've only asked questions. I attacked nobody. I insulted nobody. In fact *I* have been insulted in the process.

I realize it's an editorial. But you are speaking authoritatively whether you realize it or not. And like the media you *should* have some obligation to not mislead or lie. I assumed you knew something I didn't about the state of health in this country, apparently I'm wrong. You're right though. This is just an editorial that ought be ignored.

Sorry to have mistaken you for something you're not.

"To the rest of you who are trying to show Andy what he does not want to be shown, stop wasting your time. I do appreciate it the response, though."

I'm sorry you feel that way. I've learned more from some of your commenters than I have from you actually. I've got a PDF or two that I'm looking forward to reading tonight. But I don't expect you to let this message be posted either like you didn't my last one. I guess I don't "fall in line" enough.

[Julie Obradovic]

Andy,

You are here for one purpose, and one purpose only: to harrass people. Normally I don't bother to respond to those like you, I find it an annoying waste of time, but every once in a while I do. It flatters me to know my writing gets so deep under other people's skin that they come here to make trouble. As always, however, I regret it. This will be the last I will respond to you.

Clive Thompson's article in the Washington Post is what we call an "editorial". My response to him was also an "editorial". Here's the defintion of that word, since you seem to not know:

"An article, as in a newspaper, expressing an opinion of its editors or publishers."

It was not a research paper that needed "citations please", although it easily could have many. I stand by the facts I wrote. And if you can find any facts that are incorrect on your own time, with "citations please", that need to be fixed, I will definitely correct them. Not a problem. Mistakes happen every day in every form of media, and the idea of you spending any more time disecting my article only makes me smile. Glad it had an impact.

As for the idea that our children are the sickest and the most vaccinated? I stand by that too. But that is something that is subjective to the definition of "sick" and therefore something that may never, ever be agreed upon even "scientifically". Interestingly, however, science is rooted primarily by defintion in what we call "observation". My "observation" of the world I live in with my children, my students and my children's playmates is that they are very, very vaccinated, and very, very sick. That may or may not be related, but it certainly warrants investigation, a point lost on so many.

Common sense dictates I am refering to the tremendous increase of chronic disease our kids are currently facing, but hey, common sense hasn't had a place in the science of vaccines for quite some time, so I guess I'm not surpised. You know that, Andy, thus making my point of being here only to stir up trouble.

To the rest of you who are trying to show Andy what he does not want to be shown, stop wasting your time. I do appreciate it the response, though.

Merry Christmas!

[Tony Bateson]

It really upsets me when I read the longwinded to and fro-ing of quasi statistical stuff or people taking objection to somebody's turn of phrase, wanting 'in my opinion to be inserted etc'.

In Britain we have perhaps three millions unvaccinated with childhood vaccines. In ten years ad hoc but extensive searching via websites, broadcsts, published articles in national press and journals etc., attendance at more than twenty conferences of parents and professionals in the autism community, aggregate attendance over 2,000 persons, I have spectacularly failed to find unvaccinated autistic persons. I now believe the prevalence of autism in this group to be nil!

Tony Batson, Oxford, UK

[michael framson]

To Andy,

The following comes from the landmark document, "In Harms Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development by the Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2000 report. http://action.psr.org/site/PageServer?pagename=boston_ihw-report#ihwRptDwnld

The basis for much of the scientific claims is to "understand" what is known and what is conjectured. But these are based on two linked observations: (1) that developmental disabilities are common in American children; and (2) that the causes of these disabilities are largely unknown.

The Executive Summary (page 1) already more than 10 years out of date provides these metrics:

1)It is estimated that nearly 12 million children (17%) in the United States under age 18 suffer from one or more learning, developmental or behavioral disabilities.

2) ADHD, according to conservative estimates, affects 3 to 6% of all school children, though recent evidence suggests the prevalence may be as high as 17%.

3) Learning disabilities alone may affect approximately 5-10% of children in public schools.

4) The number of children in special education programs classified with learning disabilities increased 191% from 1977-1994.

5)Aproximately 1% of all children are mentally retarded.

6)The incidence of autism may be as high as 2 per 1000 children. [Andy, since you seem interested, would you please provide me with today's numbers.]

These trends may reflect true increases, improved detection, reporting or record keeping, or some combination of these factors. Whether new or newly recognized these statistics suggest a problem of epidemic proportion.

Many of the parents at this site understand, through the biochemistry and behaviors of their children,that "In Harms Way" is about what happened to their children. These parents realize, more than any of the pediatricians or public health officials, how tiny, truly tiny amounts of toxins, like fish mercury or vaccine mercury can have horrendous, devastating, life altering, catastrophic developmental impacts in susceptible children...depending on the age of exposure. And it is all preventable, but we can't even get the medical community to be precautious.

The Clive Thompson's, Amy Wallace's, Michael Specter's, Trine Tsouderos's, Patricia Callahan's, Haddayr Copley-Woods, are pathetic writers with a malevolent agenda. When the bell curve of functional IQ distribution shifts to a trend of more dysfunction (page 16) sharing the blame will be these arrogant, pitiful writers.

[mary podlesak]

Dear Andy,
Infant mortality statistics should not be the sole criterion for ascertaining the hypothetical illness level of a population. The first question which must be asked is: What is the definition of illness?

WHO defines illness as a state of complete physical, social well-being not merely the abscence of disease or infirmity. When these conditions are not fulfilled then one is considered to have an illness.

Funk & Wagnell, 1941: Illness: the state of being out of health.

Mary Podlesak, 2009: Any bodily departure from the natural ordered state of the body.

There exist many measures which could qualify as indicators of the general health of a society, the bottom line I believe is validity and it's handmaiden, integrity. How valid, how reliable are the statistics gathered? Is there a way to assure that, from CDC? We've been told the US is 40th in the world in child mortality. You don't believe that is too bad, particularly when compared to Afganistan etc. I believe there are other methods of measurement, and one I believe is the sample method. My family is a small self contained sample. My husband and I are accomplished and educated, both learned to speak within the agreed upon normal time of life. Our four children, did not. Family members: 300+: no abnormal speech issues. That is a family sample. It is not a randomized controlled trial, but surely it is NOT anecdotal, that is, some brief account or story having nothing to do with medical events.

My dear Andy, I couldn't care less for anyone's opinion of my IQ. I do however know I am not an expert in the field of autism medicine or statistics. I'm lucky if I can quote the latest CDC autism stats correctly. All of that is beside my point - the need for a public debate on autism. that is why I'm challenging you. There is a need for Pharma to come out of the closet and debate those of us on the other side of the autism-vaccine argument in a public forum, not the rarified closet of a blog. I am the perfect foil. I have a large family some of whom are autistic, some are not, I'm no expert but only somewhat knowledgable. If you and your big money friends in Pharma can't foot the bill for a public debate, you are the cowards I always took you to be.

[Andy]

I'd also like to point out that since the original assertion in the article is apparently without basis in any scientific study that the author please change the wording to be more honest. Perhaps the addition "in my opinion" would suffice? I don't think it helps any of us to exaggerate or mislead! :-)