More info on the attempt to seal the records in 2002: http://autismfacts.com/services.php?page_id=160

And I have it from a reliable source that DOJ quietly withdrew the request to seal the records because of the public outcry.

Biomedmama7, I think that they said the individual cases were sealed "to protect the families". But now that at least some of the families don't seem to want protecting, maybe some of them will be unsealed? But I'm not sure this relates to that particular effort by Bush to seal them en masse. Still need to find out what happened.

Doctor Poling, you say you aren’t as interested in mercury as you once were. You speak of a blog by Dr. D. In it, he writes:

Yet, what I find even more dumbfounding is that despite a relatively large number of clinical studies into the effects of mercury-containing vaccines on children's brain development, there has been no conclusive evidence of harm to the brain (albeit, different studies have drawn conclusions on both sides).

My response: I thought that the whole point of science was that it’s results were repeatable. If I do a study looking at the effects of mercury, somebody else ought to be able to do the same study and get the same results.

Dr. D: This lack of definitive evidence, and disagreement between studies can mean only one of three things regarding mercury in the doses at which it is present in vaccines: 1) mercury does not cause any harm to the brain. 2) mercury does cause harm, but the damage done is very difficult to detect because it is so small. 3) mercury, indeed harms the brain significantly, and genuinely contributes to disability, but only rarely in special cases.

My response: You seem to be omitting a fourth possibility. The possibility 4) that mercury does harm the brain, (in, let’s say, enough cases to raise enough concern amongst knowledgeable scientists that they themselves don’t want their own children receiving these mercury containing vaccines), but that the studies which uncover this information have either been error ridden (either deliberately or on purpose), or the studies which would uncover this information are there, you and I just don’t ever hear about them.

My concern recently hasn’t been so much with mercury, as it has been with the process whereby the parents who believe their children have been harmed by vaccines have been allowed to seek redress. I am no lawyer. However it has been my understanding that most people who believe that they’ve been harmed by some product are able, within our legal justice system, to go to a court and present their information in front of a jury of their peers (whatever that means), and have their own experts who they believe have knowledge helpful to their case try to convince a jury of this.

In the case of vaccine damaged children, they’ve been forced to go through a ‘special vaccine court’ (the NVICP), where the case is heard by ‘Special Masters’.
This strikes me as an abrogation of civil rights. Especially when the details of the case are kept sealed and never seen by the eyes of those who might have similar concerns for their own children.

Dr. C, speaking of the contradictory gooblety-gook spouted by the CDC and the Special Master:

Why the confusing remarks? The government paid a settlement to the victim of a vaccine injury. Is this not an admission that vaccines caused the injury? I'm not a lawyer myself, but something tells me the answer lies in the cryptic message displayed on the website for the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: "The VICP is a no-fault alternative to the traditional tort system for resolving vaccine injury claims that provides compensation to people found to be injured by certain vaccines." Key words, no-fault.

My response: Yes exactly.

Dr. D: Since 2001, all vaccines made for children under age 6 in the United States have been Thimerosal free (this doesn't include the flu vaccine). So, with regards to Thimerosal, the risk of vaccination right now, and in the future is almost nonexistent. Don't let a chemical which is no longer present in vaccines stop you from vaccinating. Learn exactly which vaccines are Thimerosal free and vaccinate.

My response: I’ve spent some time trying to find out how many people are likely to have been harmed by the thimerosal in the flu shots, in recent years while the manufacturers and the CDC and the media have been lying to Americans, telling them it’s been removed.

My concerns go well beyond mercury. In the last five years of looking into the vaccine matter. I’ve been banned from internet political chat rooms, large rooms, both left and right leaning political chat rooms, where I had spent years chatting amiably about topics as diverse as any you could imagine, only to be banned simply for saying the words ‘thimerosal’ and ‘autism’ in the same visit.

I’ve been threatened with arrest for politely asking people, on a public sidewalk in front of an Autism Speaks fundraising event, if they would like information about vaccine safety. I’ve been lied to and about by the local chapter president of Autism Speaks, who made the claim that the arrest attempt never occurred. She did this on a local autism support forum where she was trying to raise more money for her organization. I was denied, by the moderator of that forum, the opportunity to post documentation that she was lying and that an attempt had indeed been made to have me arrested.

Although I do still have a great many concerns with the mercury and with the other crap that I understand is in these vaccines, I understand that there is a very convoluted string of causation in these types of syndromes like autism. And I also understand that there is a very convoluted string of people and groups of people and organizations who are seeking to avoid accountability for the damage that they’ve done (quite possibility with full knowledge of what they were doing). I understand that there is a lot of finger pointing and covering up and bribery and conflict of interest.

What concerns me most, now, however, is the way this judicial process seems to have broken down, seems to have operated so very badly for the parents of these children who it now seems were harmed by their vaccines, whether it was the mercury or not. How the media has kept discussion of this off of the airwaves, (in between pharmaceutical commercials) for so very long as the incidence of autism has gone up and up and up.

I’ve often wondered why more people aren’t concerned about rulings such as the Daubert ruling, which allows a judge to decide which ‘experts’ get to testify in court. I’ve also wondered why so many people have so readily accepted the situation we have now, where there is a special NVICP, for special people.

There should not be, in my opinion, there should never have been, a special court for special people.

There has to be some accountability when harm is done, or there is no justice. This can’t happen if the ‘accountability’ is merely a fine. The corporations that have profited from the production of these vaccines seem to have a limitless supply of money with which to pay their fines from.

At any rate I don’t see how there can ever be any real accountability when some group of people is harmed by another group of people, when some people have access to one set of judicial courts, and another group of people have had to go to a special ‘vaccine court’.

I keep hearing about how vaccines are important, even if in a small group of people they might cause mitochondrial disorders. I have lost all faith in the medical profession, at this point, and I just don’t want to hear it. I’m deathly afraid of my doctor. Every time I visit the family practice I see pharma execs coming in and out, as I wait in the waiting room. The last time I was there I asked what was in the insulated bag that the man in the nice black overcoat was carrying, and I was told that it was lunch. I asked where it was from, and I was told “the Olive Garden”. That’s very nice for them. And it’s very nice hearing their reassurances, the government health department officials. (Although when I did call the CDC on Monday to ask to speak to Julie Gerberding, and to ask for her resignation when I was told that I couldn’t talk to her, I was told that “she doesn’t handle autism”). But their reassurances mean nothing to me. I will not see a doctor now, under any circumstances, under my own free will, unless I am in so much pain I am writhing on the floor.

Sandy, I have to wonder because the 2002 conceded case in Florida was sealed...?

http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080307/LIFE/803070318/1004

Dr. Poling,

Thanks for posting this very helpful information. My gratitude and admiration for all that you and your family have faced, challenged, and accomplished.

Teresa
parent to 15 y.o. redheaded Megan

Hi Dr Poling
Thank you very much for the clarification you posted. It was very helpful.
I understand that you are not going to answer individual comments., Only wanted to post the abstract of this manuscript, very much in line with your thinking
J Autism Dev Disord. 2004 Dec;34(6):615-23.
Relative carnitine deficiency in autism.Filipek PA, Juranek J, Nguyen MT, Cummings C, Gargus JJ.
Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, CA,
A random retrospective chart review was conducted to document serum carnitine levels on 100 children with autism. Concurrently drawn serum pyruvate, lactate, ammonia, and alanine levels were also available in many of these children. Values of free and total carnitine (p < 0.001), and pyruvate (p = 0.006) were significantly reduced while ammonia and alanine levels were considerably elevated (p < 0.001) in our autistic subjects. The relative carnitine deficiency in these patients, accompanied by slight elevations in lactate and significant elevations in alanine and ammonia levels, is suggestive of mild mitochondrial dysfunction. It is hypothesized that a mitochondrial defect may be the origin of the carnitine deficiency in these autistic children.

Thank you very much, again

OPEN LETTER TO DR. STEVEN NOVELLA
IN RESPONSE TO http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php?p=203

Dr. Novella,
Thank you for generating interesting discussion regarding my little girl, Hannah Poling. I would like to give you additional information in order to generate further productive discussions on this matter amongst the neurology community. This information should assist you, Dr. DiMauro, and Dr. Trevethan, who have also commented publicly, to formulate better theories as to the significance of Hannah’s mitochondrial dysfunction in relation to her autism.

1. Mito Dysfunction or Mito Disease? Chicken or Egg?

To begin with, I would like to point out that the spectrum of mitochondrial dysfunction is probably considered more broad and complex than the spectrum of neurobehavioral abnormalities seen with autism. Dysfunction of the mitochondria, specifically dysfunction of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway, most likely contributes, but may not be the cause of many diseases—including Parkinson’s disease, Friedreich’s Ataxia, Alzheimer disease, etc. Thus, it is probably incorrect to refer to mitochondrial dysfunctional and mitochondrial disease interchangeably. Indeed, the role of the dysfunctional mitochondrial are yet to be clarified in these diseases. Thus, I will refer to Hannah’s metabolic condition as a mitochondrial dysfunction, not a mitochondrial disease.

2. Mito Genetic Finding? Mito mtDNA ‘red herring’ ?

ADDITIONAL GENETIC TESTING NOT AVAILABLE IN THE J CHILD NEUROL CASE REPORT: Dr. Shoffner performed genetic testing on both Hannah’s muscle and her mother’s leukocytes subsequent to our case report. Hannah (muscle mtDNA) and her mother (leukocyte mtDNA) were both found to be HOMOPLASMIC for the mtDNA T2387C transition mutation.
Our analysis of this genetic finding in the mtDNA was significantly different than those of other physicians that I’ve seen in scientific blogs or commentary. I suspect it would have been fatal to both Hannah and her mother if this homoplasmic mutation was pathogenic since (as I am sure you are aware) the mutation is on the 16S ribosomal subunit which is highly conserved. Thus, this mutation probably represents a benign polymorphism rather than pathogenic mutation. It is unlikely, but possible, that the mutation is significant to Hannah, but in such a case, it must work in concert with other nuclear genes to cause her mitochondrial dysfunction. To our knowledge, this point mutation has not been reported in cases similar to Hannah’s.

3. Encephalitis? Metabolic Encephalopathy? Or “Regressive Encephalopathy with Features of Autism Spectrum Disorder”

The other interesting term you used was encephalitis rather than encephalopathy. We are not sure that she had an “-itis” but we did clearly document a regressive encephalopathy based on not only our parental reporting, but also based on the pediatrician’s documents, affidavits from other family members, and the growth curve measurements (injury pattern). Early on in the regression we did note back arching (opisthotonus), fever, and disrupted sleep. Although fever occurred a lumbar puncture was not performed.
An interesting developing story in autism research is the immune/inflammatory connection. In her senior resident thesis, Dr. Anne Comi, a former JHU colleague, along with Dr. Andy Zimmerman, reported, the increased prevalence of autoimmune disease in families of autistic offspring. Interesting, Hannah also has a maternal family history of autoimmune disease. Dr. Carlos Pardo, another one of my former chief residents, along with Andy and Dr. Vargas, published a beautiful study in the Archives of Neurology, demonstrating neuroinflammation on autopsy of brain samples and inflammation cytokine markers in the CSF of individuals with Autism. The interesting thing was that inflammation was demonstrated in autopsy specimens from adults as old as 44 years of age. The conclusion was that further research would be required to determine if inflammation was a primary disorder in autism or; alternatively, if inflammation and microglial activation was secondary to neurodegeneration. Dr. Sudhir Gupta at UC Irvine has a nice model of how the two pathways of neuroinflammation and mito dysfunction may not be mutually exclusive. This remains to be seen; however, study of mitochondrial dysfunction and neuroinflammation hold the promise of treatment development. The two avenues of research deserve funding at the highest levels.

4. How many Hannah Polings are out there?

The short answer is that nobody knows. However, there is emerging data to suggest that she is not alone.
Dr. Shoffner will be presenting his experience with 37 patients with combined autism and mitochondrial dysfunction at the AAN meeting in Chicago this April. 65% of his referrals are positive for mitochondrial dysfunction. Of course, his yield is subject to referral bias as a mito expert, so the prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in Autism is surely less than 65%
The best estimate to date of the prevalence of mitochondrial dysfunction in autistic patients comes from Oliviera et al. in a population of 120, 5 of 69 (or 7.2%) showed mitochondrial dysfunction. If this is generalized to the US estimate of 1 million patients with ASDs, then the number of kids like Hannah could be 72,000! Isn’t this worth further study?
Dr. Shoffner furthermore advocates, along with us, that vaccination is important even for kids with mitochondrial dysfunction. I would argue that you should not give nine at one time and that none of them should contain Thimerosal (mercury).

5. Thimerosal—On or Off the Table?

I don’t want to dwell on mercury, as this theory is not why HHS conceded Hannah’s case (imo). Dr. DiContanzo just wrote an interesting blog about how his opinion of mercury in vaccines has changed (http://drugs.about.com/b/2008/03/08/mercury-in-vaccines-and-autism-the-burden-of-proof-may-shift.htm).
My opinion is that mercury is a potent neurotoxin. Therefore, don’t inject it into kids! Interestingly, basic research studies have shown that Thimerosal toxicity occurs through mitochondrial pathways. Officials point to the large epidemiology studies as proof that there is no link between thimerosal and autism. However, these studies are not powered to disprove the null hypothesis when considering that the mitochondrial autistic population may be just a small percent of the case totals. Remember that while the CDC sponsored Verstraten study is hyped as a negative study, it DID find a statistically significant increase in childhood tics in those exposed to higher doses of thimerosal.

6. Hannah was destined to regress? Or was she?

Some experts have already stated that ‘mitochondrial disease’ is degenerative so the vaccine reaction was just the start of an inevitable decline. This was neither the opinion of Dr. Richard Kelley at KKI nor Dr. John Shoffner. In fact, the markers that led us down the mitochondrial trail (inc AST but not ALT, low serum bicarbonate, and slight increased CK, increase in the alanine to lysine ratio on PAA) are no longer present. Furthermore, in our pilot study (unpublished but mentioned in the J child neurol paper), Dr. Frye (the statistician for our study and also a child neurologist) found a non-significant trend that AST decreased toward normal with increasing age. With further studies we hoped to examine the hypothesis that this abnormality may be representative of a developing/immature biochemical pathway present in some children.

7. Triple Hit Hypothesis—#1Underlying genetic susceptibility #2Insult must occur during specific developmental period #3 A certain vaccination or combination thereof is the environmental trigger (?vaccine component like thimerosal ?direct immune stim/fever reaction ?live virus reaction?)

The implication is that Hannah’s type of autism requires a genetic susceptibility and properly timed insult to manifest disease. We have not subjected Hannah to another muscle biopsy or re-examined ox phos functional assays that were published in the paper. I can inform your readers though that the serum biochemical markers have resolved, growth resumed and continues along a normal trajectory, and there have been no other episodes of regression since 2000. We are however left with autism and later in 2006, epilepsy.
It is recommended that studies be initiated immediately to screen siblings of cases to identify biochemical markers so as to identify potential screening tests.

I agree with the mainstream that my daughter’s case has raised many intelligent discussions and questions. I’m very proud of her for starting this discussion. Our hope is that further research into this case and others like it, we will be also to find screening tests to prevent what happened to my daughter from happening to anybody else.

(Dr. Poling acknowledges the editorial comments and insightful suggestions of Dr. Richard E. Frye. He also would like to declare his conflicts of interest. First of all, he is the father of Hannah Poling. Dr. Poling has also accepted consultancy or speakers honoraria from Pfizer, Eisai, Ortho-McNeil, Biogen, Teva, Immunex (now Amgen), and Allergan.)
PS While I thought it useful to clarify some of the neurological issues raised by the government's concession of my daughter's case, please understand that I will not be able to respond to individual comments posted. Thank-you. Jon

The link to this was posted below by AnneS, in the comments for "A Scandal Just Like Any Other"

http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?12522S

Government Requests Vaccine Records Be Sealed
Posted by Todd Zwillich on Thursday, March 6th at 7:00 AM

Feb 29, 2008 1:46 PM
US Government Asks Court to Seal Vaccine Records
thanks to The Reiki Matrix

By Todd Zwillich

WASHINGTON - Attorneys for the Bush Administration asked a federal court on Monday to order that documents on hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by childhood vaccines be kept from the public.

Department of Justice lawyers asked a special master in the US Court of Federal Claims to seal the documents, arguing that allowing their automatic disclosure would take away the right of federal agencies to decide when and how the material should be released.

Attorneys for the families of hundreds of autistic children charged that the government was trying to keep the information out of civil courts, where juries might be convinced to award large judgments against vaccine manufacturers.

The court is currently hearing approximately 1,000 claims brought by the families of autistic children. The suits charge that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, which until recently included a mercury-containing preservative known as thimerosal, can cause neurological damage leading to autism.

Federal law requires suits against vaccine makers to go before a special federal "vaccine court" before any civil lawsuit is allowed. The court was set up by Congress to speed compensation claims and to help protect vaccine makers from having to pay large punitive awards decided by juries in state civil courts. Plaintiffs are free to take their cases to state courts if they lose in the federal vaccine court or if they don't accept the court's judgment.

The current 1,000 or so autism cases are unusual for the court. Because it received so many claims, much of the fact-finding and evidence-gathering is going on for all of the cases as a block.

Monday's request by the Bush Administration would prevent plaintiffs who later go to civil court from using some relevant evidence generated during the required vaccine court proceedings.

Plaintiffs' attorneys said that the order amounted to punishment of the families of injured children because it would require them to incur the time and expense of regenerating evidence for a civil suit.

"Wouldn't it be a shame if at the end of the day our policy would be to compensate lawyers," said Jeff Kim, an attorney with Gallagher Boland Meiburger & Brosnan. The firm represents about 400 families of autistic children who received the MMR vaccine.

Kim accused the government of trying to lower "a shroud of secrecy over these documents" in order to protect vaccine manufacturers, who he said were "the only entities" that would benefit if the documents are sealed.

While federal law clearly seals most documents generated in individual vaccine cases, it has never been applied to a block proceeding like the one generating evidence in the autism cases.

Administration lawyers told Special Master George Hastings that they requested the seal in order to preserve the legal right of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to decide when vaccine evidence can be released to the public.

Justice Department attorney Vincent Matanoski argued that to let plaintiffs use the vaccine court evidence in a later civil suit would confer an advantage on plaintiffs who chose to forgo federal compensation.

"There is no secret here. What the petitioners are arguing for are enhanced rights in a subsequent civil action," Matanoski said of the plaintiffs. "They're still going to have unfettered use within the proceedings."

Hastings would not say when he would issue a ruling on whether to seal the court documents, but did say that his decision would be "very prompt."

I haven't heard back from Julie Gerberding yet. She isn't returning my phone calls, and she isn't answering my e-mails.

Has anyone actually talked to her?

To the president? To a Senator or someone in the House?

Any news of progress in getting Gerberding to step aside?

I'm done for today, but unless I hear news of her resignation tonight (or tomorrow morning), I start dialing again at 9:00 a.m.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080214/lath058.html?.v=101

this company is testing a new delivery system for vaccines that do not need any preservatives.

Chicken Pox and measles were once thought of as normal childhood illnesses that strengthened the immune system now they portray them like terrorists trying to kill our children. Lock step. It's a Holocaust against children. When will someone break ranks?

The New York Times needs to be reminded that 1 in 150 have autism. 1 in 150 was never the number of children experiencing death or neurological deterioration after a vaccine preventable diseases. T

Yesterday, I called the White House to get Julie Gerberding out of the CDC. Today, I'm calling the New York Times to get her out of there too.