AGE OF AUTISM

Dr. Wakefield on Good Morning America

Dr. Andew Wakefield appeared on Good Morning America today. Click HERE to go to their site and read more. Thank you to Bob Moffitt for this unofficial transcript of the program.

Introduction by host George Stepanopolus:

'Few debates are more emotional than the one swirling around childhood vaccines and autism.  Even though no reputable study has ever established a link .. many parents continue to worry about that link in part because of the work of Andrew Wakefield ... since he first popularized the idea that vaccines might have a role in triggering autism.  His study has been refuted by doctors and journalists .. most recently .. last week .. by the British Medical Journal which called his original study an "elaborate fraud".  Wakefield is here to answer that charge .. but .. first .. Dr. Richard Besser .. has the back-story.

Lisa Jo Rudy Feeds the Hungry Lie

By J.B. Handley
 
Has the hungry lie ever been hungrier, or better fed, than last week? For those of you who’ve read my previous work on this, you know the hungry lie, the thing they all say, that goes something like this:
 
“It’s been asked and answered, vaccines don’t cause autism.”
 
It’s infuriating to read and hear this, if you happen to be someone who has actually read all the studies the other side cites, the studies that actually ask completely different questions:
 
Q: Do children receiving more thimerosal in their vaccines have different neurological outcomes from children receiving less thimerosal in their vaccines?
 
Q: Are autism rates different for children who received 62.5 mcg or 137.5 mcg of mercury?
 
Q: Did children who all received DTP vaccine with thimerosal have higher or lower rates of developmental disorders based on when they got the shots?
 
Q: Do Thimerosal containing vaccines administered to children raise mercury blood levels above safe standards?
 
Q: Does the use of RhoGam shots during pregnancy have a correlation with autism?
 
These 5 examples above come from 5 of the most commonly listed studies cited as "proof" that "vaccines do not cause autism." Yet, not one of them comes close to addressing the real issue or answering the question we all really care about that goes something like this:
 
Our children receive 36 vaccines by the time they are five, including 20 by their first birthday. Is the administration of so many vaccines causing autism in certain children?
 
That question, so important to the health of our children and our nation, has never been asked, so how could it possibly be answered?
 
For Lisa Jo Rudy’s benefit, and many of the other ignorant haters out there, I’m going to try and spell this out a bit more for you:
 
In 1983, the maximum number of separate vaccines a child would receive by the age of 5 was 10. Today, that number is 36. By the time a child is 5 years old, if their parents follow the CDC’s recommended schedule, they will have received the following vaccines, many in multiple doses (the doses is what gets you from 11 to 36: you get DTP 4 times, for example):
 
1. Hepatitis B
2. Rotavirus
3. DTP
4. Hib
5. Pneumococcal
6. Polio
7. Flu
8. MMR
9. Varicella
10. Hepatitis A
11. Meningococcal (only for certain groups)