AGE OF AUTISM

Mark Blaxill on ABC's Chronicle: Toxic Kids

Age of Autism Editor at Large Mark Blaxill was featured on Boston's Chronicle news program in a feature about toxic kids. 

What is making American children sick? Cancer rates are climbing. Cases of autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma are through the roof. Is the answer all around us – in the food our kids eat, the air they breathe, and the clothes they wear? Tonight, Chronicle investigates a provocative thesis about the American lifestyle and its effects on children's health

The show featured the book, Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children (see the website HERE) by Philip and Alice Shabecoff.  Take note of the link to our sponsor www.SafeMinds.org on the WCVB site!

The four progam links are below. Mark is in the first link. See the show website HERE.

First segment, with Mark Blaxill

Second segment

Third segment

Fourth segment

A Message to Autism Speaks' Singer and Shih: ENOUGH ALREADY!

By Katie Wright

I did not want to write this piece or share this information.  I was hoping the leadership at Autism Speaks would take care of this problem. For far too long Dr. Andy Shih and Ms. Alison Singer have been representing only their own rigid belief systems in their roles at AS, doing whatever necessary to thwart environmental and vaccine research. In the meantime so many opportunities have been squandered and our children are paying the price.

I will not editorialize here; just give the reader the facts. Families and especially AS supporters have a right to know how their children’s interests are being represented.

1) Dr. Andy Shih, VP of Scientific Affairs, an avowed disbeliever of vaccines as a possible trigger for autism, appeared on “Montel” a few years ago. Shih vehemently argued that vaccines are totally safe, can not and do not trigger autism and that excessive quantities of mercury are perfectly safe to inject into babies and children.

Two years ago AS leadership was excited about a Norwegian study on vaccinated children and autism and promised the study designers full support. AS expressed a desire to take the lead as a funder and facilitator of the project. Shih surreptitiously killed almost all involvement.

Deirdre Imus: How Do I Find a Green Pediatrician?

By Kim Stagliano

We talk a lot about finding the "right" pediatrician who will accommodate our kids' unique (ahem) medical needs. Today I found a great link at Deirdre Imus' website to the "Integrative Pediatrics Council" HERE which provides a list of "green" pediatricians throughout America (and one in Canada.) Turns out I have a green pediatrician less than ten miles from my home. Of course, I'll miss the four flu vaccine posters in my current practice's examination room and I might not need my Sharpie any longer... 

While I was at Deirdre's site, I saw that you can view the replay of the webcast HERE from her "Forum on Vaccines" at Hackensack University Medical Center, in October.  David Kirby was on the panel.

The List Keeps Growing: David Kirby on the Autism Vaccine Connection

Managing Editor's Note: Who thinks this list is naughty and who thinks it's nice?

By David Kirby

It’s getting harder to keep up with the list of scientists, doctors, public health officials and government leaders who now believe that a vaccine-autism connection is at the least possible, and should be researched further.

Earlier this week, Dr. Peter Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the UK Department of Health was added. Now, eight more prominent researchers have joined the group. (See list below – they are the last eight names added).

Adventures in Autism: History of Eli Lilly's Thimerosal and Autism

Click HERE to read "History of Thimerosal and Autism" over at Ginger Taylor's Adventures in Autism.

Invented in the 1920’s by Eli Lilly, thimerosal is 49.6% ethlymercury by weight, a neurotoxin known to be more than a hundreds times more lethal to tissue than lead.

Eli Lilly’s safety testing of the product consists of a 1930 study of 22 patients dieing from mengiococcal meningitis in an Indiana hospital. Patients are injected with the solutions and followed until their death, which is within days. Because the patients die of meningitis, they are declared to show no adverse reaction to thimerosal and the product is declared safe for use. Thimerosal is subsequently introduced for use in vaccines and in over the counter remedies as a preservative to kill bacteria in the product.

RFK Jr. to Head EPA?

Managing Editor's Note: That's Robert Kennedy Jr. at the Green our Vaccines rally last June where he summarized the autism/vaccine debate better than anyone I'd ever heard. Click HERE to watch his speech at the Jenny McCarthy Green Our Vaccines rally. From your mouth to God's ears, J.B.. 

By J.B. Handley

I didn't weep last night when Barack Obama was elected President, although I voted for him and was certainly thrilled to see him elected for so many reasons.

Truth be told, I was very frustrated by Obama's positions on autism relative to John McCain, and I simply heard many more things and saw a lot more action out of McCain when it came to our kids.

But, I was struck by the decency, intelligence, and compassion of Obama, and I believe he already knows or will soon understand the breadth of what is going on with our kids.

Like I said, I didn't weep when Obama won last night, but I just wept for a rumor now floating around in the blogosphere: Obama is considering RFK Jr. to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

God Bless America. And, let's pray it's true.

J.B. Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue and contributor to Age of Autism.

The News From India: Mercury Means Autism.

Editor's Note: We received and posted this comment on David Kirby's recent article, but we want to make sure everyone sees it. Cherry Sperlin Misra, in India, offers a real-time insight into the rise of mercury-containing vaccines, other mercury sources, and autism. This is consistent with an interview I did last year with a chiropractic couple from the United States who volunteered in India and watched the very same thing. (HERE.) -- Dan Olmsted
--
One thing that this autism epidemic should have taught us is to keep an open mind, unlike some people we know! But having said that, what I have personally seen with my own eyes tells me that we are looking at mercury, well, certainly in India. When many new doses of Hib and Hep B came into the schedule of the private doctors in India (the govt has a different schedule), just 3 years later I began to see 4-5 kids consistently every year with symptoms from the mercury /autism list and occasionally a fully autistic child.

David Kirby on HuffPo: Rain, Autism and Mercury

Managing Editor's Note:  Editor at Large Mark Blaxill wrote an Age of Autism post called Mercury is in the Air last spring.

Click HERE to read David Kirby's latest piece at Huffington Post on the Cornell study linking rain and autism. Click here (MERCURY MAPS) to see graphics on mercury in the air. In th HuffPo piece David says:

A new study out of Cornell University says that children growing up in the rainiest or snowiest areas of the country seem to have a higher risk for autism than children living in drier climates.

The authors estimated that removing precipitation as a factor in autism would slice the prevalence of the disorder by 33% to 43%.

Among the possible explanations given were: A lack of vitamin D from a sun-deprived life under the clouds, an increased amount of time spent indoors amid toxic household chemicals, or the presence of dangerous neurotoxins in the precipitation itself, which in turn might trigger a genetic predisposition to ASD.

One of the most omnipresent, growing (and obvious) air-borne neurotoxins in the world to consider, of course, is mercury...

Best of Age of Autism: Mercury is in the Air

Managing Editor's Note: This post ran last spring. We thought we'd run it again in light of the study from Cornell on precipitation and autism and David Kirby's latest piece on Huffington Post titled "Autism, Rain and Mercury" HERE.

By Mark Blaxill

It was March 31, 1981, less than three months into Ronald Reagan's first term. The nation had just learned that a mentally ill gunman had shot the president and the bureaucrats back at the White House were trying to figure out what to say and do next. That was when Alexander Haig, the Secretary of State at the time, decided that the most important thing he could do was to reassure the American people. In a famous press briefing, Haig told reporters "as of now, I am in control here, in the White House." Although he would later run for President himself, Haig's delusion of control was brief. (He was also wrong, constitutionally speaking, but that mattered little). Within a couple of hours the Vice President had landed back in Washington DC and any need that some panicked soul might have felt for reassurance from Secretary Haig had quickly passed.



It's a powerful impulse, the need for a sense of control in our lives. Perhaps the only more powerful impulse is the desire among political leaders like Haig to respond to that need by providing reassurances that, indeed, "everything is under control here in Washington. Don't worry your little heads, you members of the public, that anything is amiss or out of order. Just leave all the important decisions to us."

Live Webcast: Deirdre Imus' "A Forum on Vaccines"

We would like to extend an invitation for physicians, health officials, legislators and parents to join in a historic discussion on October 23rd, at Hackensack University Medical Center. 

Click HERE to register for the live webcast of “A Forum on Vaccines: All Sides of the Issue.”

The forum will address issues relating to the safety of the recommended vaccine schedule for infants and children, which continue to emerge as a national debate resulting in numerous news articles. This is particularly true here in New Jersey.