One more tobacco-related post -- in case anyone's interested -- which may be unlikely...

A few years ago there was an article on the front page of the 7/26/05 L.A. Times that caught my attention about Richard Dole, a renowned British epidemiologist who was born in 1912 and had died shortly before the article was written. His research had extended to many areas, "But his name is most indelibly linked to the studies of smoking that he began shortly after World War II. Postwar Britain was in the throes of a massive lung cancer epidemic and no one seemed to know why. Many researchers attributed it to air pollution ... Others thought it might be linked to the tar used on hundreds of miles of British roads." Years later, Doll said his first thought was that perhaps it had to do with cars.

The Medical Research Council, Britain's equivalent of the National Institutes of Health, recruited a medical economist Austin Bradford Hill to study the causes of the epidemic, and Doll, then a young scientist at the council, was enlisted by Hill. The two devised a questionnaire about lifestyle, environmental exposures, etc., which was distributed to patients at London hospitals who had a possible diagnosis of lung cancer.

"At first, the data did not show much. But when Doll went back and checked the patients' final diagnosis, the results were startlingly clear. Virtually all of those patients whose diagnosis was changed from lung cancer to some other, less serious disease were nonsmokers. However, 647 of the 649 who ended up with a final diagnosis of cancer were smokers.

"Doll and Hill prepared a report for publication in 1949, but disbelieving bureaucrats held it up, arguing that perhaps the situation was unique to London. Doll and Hill expanded their survey to more than 5,000 patients in hospitals throughout the country.

"When results from those hospitals began to support their initial findings, the scientists got their report published in late 1950. By then, Americans Ernst Wynder and Morton L. Levin had published similar conclusions in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., albeit on smaller study groups...

"Altogether, five papers establishing the link were published that year, but they fell largely on deaf ears. 'It didn't create any impression at all, really,' Doll recalled later. "Tobacco companies rejected the findings out of hand and government officials ignored them, arguing that publicizing the results would unduly scare the nearly 80% of men who smoked."

Further research was done, and "By 1957, the evidence was overwhelming, and the Ministry of Health called a major press conference to release the findings. Ironically, Doll noted, 'the minister who announced it was smoking a cigarette at the same time.'"

In 1964, 15 years after Hill and Doll's initial findings, the U.S. Surgeon General's report on smoking was issued. Even though smoking is purely recreational and not alleged to provide any health benefits such as protection from communicable diseases, and was never mandated by government officials or programs, it took 15 years for this research to result in government action. Why? Vested interests, political influence, close mindedness, inertia, and tobacco science. Even after the surgeon general’s report, obfuscation continued (see prior comments below).

In the case of vaccines, where government agencies have so much invested, there is even more reason for the government to resist admitting causation of serious health problems including autism.

Interesting that Doll’s initial data was not significant, until the inclusion criteria were changed to include only those whose final diagnosis was in fact lung cancer. So many factors can impact the results of an epidemiological study. In the case of autism, we do not have a way to identify subtypes. Autism is a broad spectrum which is defined by behaviors rather than etiology, and may have multiple causes. Is it any wonder that, as Dr. Bernadine Healy said, it is difficult for large epidemiological studies to “tease out” information on subgroups? Especially, of course, when deliberately designed to not tease out that info, but even when that is not the case, if you have a heterogeneous group with multiple causes statistics may be hard to read.

There is a better parallel cover-up than tobacco. Pesticides. Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring back in the early 1960s. She was viciously attacked.

The cover-up of pesticide hazards, especially to agricultural workers and the general environment has continued to this day.

Although some pesticides were banned in the U.S. they have continued to be used in other countries and are sometimes manufactured here and then exported, just like thimerosal containing vaccines.

Chemical farming has been government supported and promoted from the very beginning. It is even justified as life-saving: people would be starving without the heavy use of pesticides.

I think this is really the best parallel, especially as the cover-up of problems has been largely successful over a period of close to 50 years.

Josh Harris -
Per the N.Y. Times "Corporate financing can have subtle effects on research and lead to unconscious bias. Studies have shown that sponsored research tends to reach conclusions that favor the sponsor, which is why disclosure is encouraged. The tobacco industry has a long history of underwriting research — sometimes through independent-sounding foundations — to make cigarettes seem less dangerous."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/health/research/26lung.html
(Gardiner Harris wrote that story. Funny, he doesn't seem to have a problem with those with vested interests doing vaccine studies.)

Also see http://www.healthline.com/blogs/smoking_cessation/2008/03/lung-cancer-spiral-ct-and-tobacco.html
"Within the medical research community there is wide acceptance of pharmaceutical company funding for research and educational purposes. While we are all aware of cases of unethical behavior by pharmaceutical companies, their overall mission is to improve health and is entirely consistent with that of academic medical researchers. The tobacco industry, on the other hand, has a long history of trying to misuse research to sell more cigarettes: virtually the only legal consumer product that is lethal to the user when used as intended."

Also see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0114-04.htm
"Even after tobacco companies had pledged to become more responsible about the public health effects of cigarettes, industry executives were attempting to undermine a landmark 1996 scientific study showing a direct genetic link between smoking and lung cancer, a new report concludes.

"The report by UCSF researchers found that tobacco companies funded research designed to cast doubt on the study -- and then used their ties with the editor of a peer-reviewed scientific journal to have the articles published, without disclosing the authors' or editor's connections to the tobacco industry.

"Both studies were published in the journal Mutagenesis, owned by Oxford University Press. Its then-editor in chief, James Parry, received tobacco industry funding from 1986 until at least 2001, including 600 British pounds in 1993 for consulting work from British American Tobacco, the UCSF report says...

"The UCSF report is based on once-secret tobacco industry documents that were preserved as a result of a 1998 federal court tobacco lawsuit settlement and archived by anti-smoking activist Stanton Glantz, a UCSF professor of medicine. Glantz is the lead author of the report being published today in The Lancet, a British medical journal.

"'The tobacco companies have been running corporate responsibility campaigns. They claim they have repudiated their past,' Glantz said in an interview. 'This shows that's just a lie. It's exactly the same kind of thing they did in the past, and it's happening now.'

"The UCSF researchers looked at the tobacco industry's response to a landmark 1996 study that demonstrated a direct genetic link between smoking and lung cancer.

"Scientists at the Beckman Research Institute in Duarte (Los Angeles County) found in lab experiments that a component of tobacco smoke, called benzoapyrene, causes mutations in a gene known as p53. The damage to the p53 gene precisely mirrored the damage seen in the genetic tissue of smokers who had died from lung cancer.

"P53 is a so-called tumor suppressor gene that helps prevent cancerous growths. When the p53 gene is damaged, it can lead to uncontrolled cell growth. Mutations in the p53 gene are implicated in more than 50 percent of all human cancers and 60 percent of lung cancers.

"Even before the study was published, tobacco company executives had taken a keen interest in p53. For years, the companies had argued in product liability lawsuits and elsewhere that the link between smoking and lung cancer was just a statistical association that had never been proven directly.

"The 1996 study was the first to prove the actual molecular mechanism by which cigarette smoke caused cells to grow into tumors. The finding offered a powerful tool that could be used in litigation and regulation of tobacco use, to connect a patient's disease to its specific cause. The industry would be left with little defense...

"tobacco industry executives tried to downplay the significance of the 1996 study on smoking and p53, the UCSF report found, and also launched studies designed to contradict its findings. The UCSF report focuses on two studies whose results were published and their author's ties to industry not disclosed.

"In one, David Cooper, a geneticist at the University of Wales medical school, published a critique of the 1996 paper arguing that the California researchers lacked sufficient comparisons to nonsmokers with lung cancer. He charged that their conclusions were nothing more than unsubstantiated conjecture.

"Cooper had received research funding from the British American Tobacco company as early as 1993, the UCSF researchers found. His industry ties were not disclosed as part of his critique, published in the July 1998 issue of Mutagenesis.

"Another study was conducted by Thilo Paschke, an employee of a private institute managed by the German Association of Cigarette Manufacturers. He argued that among smokers and nonsmokers who had died of lung cancer, there was no statistically significant difference in the types of p53 mutations.

"His article was published in the November 2000 issue of Mutagenesis, which did not disclose his employment by the German tobacco industry.

"Perhaps the most serious finding in the UCSF report was the tobacco industry ties of James Parry, Mutagenesis' founding editor, the journal's principal gatekeeper. In addition to hiding his industry ties from the journal's readers, the UCSF researchers found that Parry had suggested strategies to the tobacco industry for discrediting the p53 study."

There are a whole lot of parallels between the above story and the influence of pharma companies on journals, academic institutions, gov't agencies, and funding research.

I'm sure there are more articles out there as well as the studies themselves, but I'm out of time right now.

"Tobacco science" is real; we're not making it up.

"I don't think anyone on this site has said that the government promoted smoking."

Actually Theresa, one of the dirty little secrets of government policy towards smoking is that governments profit from it and has done far less to reduce smoking than it could have. If governments really want to stop smoking, the main policy response would be to ban smoking (or to restrict consumption). Although smoking restrictions have increased with time, for years the main government "anti-smoking" policy has been taxation. The effect on consumption is modest (smoking demand is price inelastic); the effect on the tobacco companies is generally positive (they get to raise prices); and the government gets a huge revenue boost (which is a net profit over the remaining health care costs, since lung cancer is not a big health insurance problem; victims die fast).

It's pretty clear, the government has been a financial partner of the tobacco business for a long time.

"I’ve heard conspiracy theories that it’s the government covering up the real numbers"

Josh, Nobody is saying the government is covering up numbers. The Government (CDC) is just using data on autism prevalence from the start of the decade and has not updated it. That's not technically a coverup, although it acheives the same goal. If you actually believe that the autism rate is still 1 in 150 you need to get in line for that Beooklyn Bridge sale.

The rest of you post is besed on the CDC playbook. Hey, if it works for you to think diganostic substitution or the combining of Asperger's and autism cases accounts for the majority of the increase in overall autism cases, well, good for you. The MIND institute in California may diasagree with you though. It may be a good idea to check out some of their work instead of just challenging people to read papers and summarize them for you.

Josh,
Did a bit of research on tobacco's history; only secondary and tertiary sources sadly.However it appears that when tobacco first appeared doctors promoted its health giving properties. In 1944 the American Cancer Association first warned against smoking, but said that no definitve proof existed linking lung cancer to smoking..
WHO only came into being at a time when public opinion on smoking was already changing.
Everyone has known that vaccines carried the risk of side effects. However people comforted themselves with the idea that they were vanishingly rare, and that they were helping protect all children against horrible diseases.
And then the side effects rate started to climb.Hard to acknowledge that you are damaging the people you are trying to protect.
So much easier for those who have promoted vaccines to ignore the damaged children, or try and say that neurological damage is an okay side effect.Or to pretend that really autism isn't that bad.
And for some high functioning aspergers kids, life may be fine.
Others, non verbal, self mutilating, are trapped in a living hell.
For those who acknowledge and care about theses forgotten children, we read the studies. You see the truth matters more than anything else, more than some intellectual exercise, more than needing to be right.
Because the only way we can fix things is by working out what went wrong.Who is at risk. What others things as well as vaccines put them at risk.
As the numbers continue to climb and large amounts of autistic adults needing services are coming onto the horizon, it is going to being harder and harder for those in autism denial to remain that way.

Josh,
You're heading real fast for the spam file if you start accusing this group of not reading the studies. To Kim's point, we have all kinds here, including varying degrees of hostility to the current vaccine policy. As for me, I'm pro-childhood health and looking at the sickest generation of children in a long time. There's a big fat problem here and lots of people making excuses. Very often, it's the people writing text in studies that report results that reveal different findings if you actually look at the DATA.

Sorry for jumping the gun and labeling you.

@ Charles Dalton

You shouldn't rely on websites like that to give you reliable info. All the references I checked out from that cite and the ones you quoted either don’t exist (they cited them wrong) or the quotes are completely taken out of context (proper way to cite people: Journal Title, Year, Volume, page. What the hell Lancet 21/9/91 means?) Did you actually READ these articles, or are you taking that websites word for it? I love it when anti-vax people come to a conclusion on an article that the author does not! All of those references are also outdated-over 15 years ago or more and were published by mainstream medicine and the vaccines in questione have changed. Now, even though were getting more vaccines, were getting LESS antigens-way less than we were 15 years ago.

The anti-vax movement does make some good correlations between autism and vaccines; however, you guys often cherry pick articles and CITE THEM WORNG!! God, read a damn journal before you post stuff about it. Of course, DO NOT TAKE MY WORD, everyone can read the abstracts of almost every medical journal. Just go to pudmed to find an article, and then go the Journal’s website. The abstract often includes the background, experimental, results, and conclusion.

Still waiting for the Big Tobacco science (see my last post) papers. Anybody? Dr. Sears, maybe you can set the record straight. Dr.’s might have came out and promoted smoking, but the WHO, AMA, AHA, IOM, Surgeon General never supported it like they do vaccines.

-J

Dr. Sears,

Your folks are friends with my one of my midwifery mentors, Barbara. I have to comment on this...

"I am very careful in families with autoimmune histories and discuss that risk to some extent in the book (although I will expand on that section in the next edition)."

Herein lies the problem. You could have a situation like my own family. My mom has many indicators of auto-immune issues, but this was not known until she was in her 40's, and my kids were already born and vaccinated. Now, years later, my husband and I both have autoimmune disorders. Fortunate for us... we didn't vaccinate ANY of our four kids according to the schedule at the time. Our youngest is completely unvaccinated and the healthiest of them all.

As I've already said too many times; we have a perfect case study here in the Warner home :)

So my question is - what do you do in this situation? I don't think you can leave it to that... there may not be a history until the child has already been vaccinated.

All the genetic studies they're doing??? I pray to God they're looking at that particular piece, because if not and they're not able to come up with a screening after birth for that; we're going to vaccinate humanity into extinction.

We're talking epigenetics here, and what's to say that all this autoimmune set-up was not caused by vaccination in the first place?

I'm not trying to be a smart alec or be in your face Dr. Sears, but these are questions I believe the community would like some answers to, and no one seems able to answer. It's incredibly frustrating for us, and at times honestly, angering.

Thanks again AoA for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you Dr. Bob for any thoughts or insight you may be able to provide.
Angela Warner

Using epidemiology to prove an unsafe product is safe. Sounds familiar?

Dr. Sears, when you say . . .

"I tell every single one of my patients with autism NOT to vaccinate their next kids"

. . . do you mean any children who are born later, or do you mean siblings who already exist? That is, if you have a five year old with autism and a neurotypical ten year old, you would advise that the neurotypical child NOT get any further vaccines?

@ Anne Dachel
And all who state that vaccine science is like Tabacco science-Please show me one case in a major peer reviewed journal that said smoking was NOT harmful. Everyone keeps saying that this happened, yet I cannot find one reference. I did not find one epidemiological comparing smoker to non-smokers. In fact, the AMA has always spoke out against smoking along w/ the surgeon general. Doctors appearing in adds saying " I smoke, its good for you" does not translate to smoking was healthy. Go ahead AofA readers, find me a journal that said it was not harmful. I mean you all keep saying the sciences are the same. There are over 30 papers not linking vaccines to autism (and there are some papers that do link it, but whether vaccines cause autism right now in my opinion is not proven nor disproven-there are many factors). Can you find me 30 papers that used to say smoking was not harmful? If you can't actually show any papers (full references please), then you all should quit saying vaccines science=tabacco science.

again-no references to blogs, just actualy studies please. Thanks.

Oh, and Dan, your monkey study was run by Andrew Wakefields wife was it not, talk about conflict of interest. tsk tsk

interestingly, the commenter on the flat feet and hypoxia...very interesting...I think this is the result of an in utero infection like lyme, which could cause low muscle tone and flat feet. Many kids with autism also are harboring the lyme pathogen, as well as their family members (aka, it is a placental exchange bacteria too)...

Dr. Sears,

In response to Unknown Parent you replied:
Unknown Parent - hmmmm. Baby formula. I haven't delved into that aspect yet. I'm not sure anyone has demonstrated higher rates of autism in formula-fed infants vs. breastfed? Have they? Yes, there are some ingredients in formula, but I don't know that we can conclude anything on that yet."

I had some deep thoughts on this typed up in a comment yesterday and then got busy doing other things. The issue goes much deeper than just autism in breast fed versus formula fed babies. And partly has to do with my thoughts on rotavirus as well.

When my younger son was diagnosed back in 2005 I was applying to midwifery school. I had to withdrawl my application because the life of a midwife is not a good match with autism. My point is this...

You've got a formula fed baby receiving vaccines and they are not truly being nourished (their guts especially) as mother nature intended.

Flip the coin... you've got breast fed babies being injected with vaccines that the baby is most likely receiving anti-bodies from the mom. Double whammy and competitors, if you will.

How can either of these be efficient?

No I presume you were in medical training at the height of formula feeding, and when you say you saw so many cases of rotavirus. The gut is not being properly nourished, and on top of that I think that doctors have come to see so much chronic diarrhea that anytime a parent states their child has diarrhea no one really pays attention. Diarrhea is not a normal condition and is a serious indication that something is wrong. Most likely the reason so many of those babies ended up in the hospital partly relates to this thought, and the parents were in essence brushed off... Just a thought, and I doubt anyone has a solid answer.

We need a system in this country like that in Europe where employed mothers are given extended and PAID leave. We need our babies to be breastfed for at least a year, and we need to not be vaccinating until breastfeeding has ended and then only after titers are checked. If this were all the case and in full practice I know without a doubt we would see a dramatic decrease in the number of children who develop autism within a short period of time.

I've not read your book, I can't afford to buy any more books. I recommend Dr. Cave's supplementation protocol to ALL parents considering vaccination. I'd be happy to read yours if someone sends me a copy. I've read alot of your parents books for obvious reasons.

Last, no child (in my opinion) should receive ANY vaccine until they are a minimum of four months old. It's quite stupid. An infants immune system is not fully capable of generating a response until around that time. Thus the need for breastmilk and mothers immunities.

Thank you for being open to frank dialouge. While I completely disagree with you about the rotavirus vx, it is refreshing to have not only a doctor willing to talk with the "common parent", but one who will also reflect on opposing views.

Kind Regards,
Angela Warner

It's amazing how much intensity was drawn to the 2 Dr. Sears posts in this last year. I know it's drawn more of my energy and triggered my only postings although I read and enjoy A of A and the comments of my community on a daily basis.

It seems some chose to focus on the fact that Dr. Sears is a pediatrician and compare him to his peers and comment accordingly, and others (myself included) that mostly compared him to DAN! doctors and judged accordingly. Although I would love to have Dr. Sears as my injured son's pediatrician, I can't help but wonder, again, what is the motivation of this post? With all of the deeply challenging struggles we encounter on a daily basis, Dr. Sears felt the need to save us from any hopes of triggering a vaccine schedule change?

It concerns me that we have a DAN! doctor who seems to be presenting a delayed schedule as a compromising response to parent demand with some acknowledgement of potential risks (possibly not even autism), when every other DAN! doctor who offers a delayed schedule seems to be responding to the parents who insist on vaxing despite the known possible risks and only supporting it's use if parents insist. Most DAN! docs focus on educating others on the risks of vaxing and Dr. Sears is focusing on drumming up fear of the vaccine-targeted diseases to the parents who have already been burned and repeatedly express that we would risk all of these to have a day without autism.

Yes, it's wonderful that there is a member of the AAP acknowledging the benefits of delaying and spacing vaccines, but has there been an acknowledgement that there is a connection with autism and other autoimmune disorders? Is that listed in the possible side effects discussion? I really don't think we as a community should be so concerned about being too opinionated on this topic with Dr. Sears as he is most likely not advocating for a revised schedule because he wants to be nice to the community that has suffered the most. For if he was, we wouldn't have our time wasted with irrelevant monologues about the doom of returning vaccine-targeted childhood diseases and the futility in hoping for a vaccine schedule change. And certainly, if we can't convince a DAN! doctor to grasp the comparative damage that vaccines has done and is doing, then we don't have much to lose.

"genetic and autoimmune susceptibility to vaccine chemicals and germ ingredients" - I totally think you're on to something here.

I do have a son with PKU (The Unknown Parent - I don't think you are that far off). His disorder makes me firmly believe in the immune system vs. outside forces causing autism, etc. There's just so much that goes on between the brain and ingestion.

PKU is genetic, so just a roll of the dice there, but my first son does have borderline asthma, lots of allergies (environment as well as peanut, whey, egg whites). He was sick from day one, RSV at 2 months old, ear infection after ear infection. I didn't even know that flat feet might be an issue, but sure enough, he has those as well. Even at 6, he's currently taking an antibiotic for a lingering respiratory infection (tubes and adenoids out last year). Breathing treatments, allergy meds, waiting it out, just doesn't work.

He's quirky in his own ways. His newest thing is having to have his fingers curled in a ball. My husband thinks it's anxiety related, but that mother instinct is just nagging at me. He has no issues in schools, handles social situations just fine, etc. But in my heart I know that we just dodged a bullet. Will something down the road push him over the edge? Who knows. But it spurred me to put PKU son on a delayed shot schedule, which my ped enthusiastically embraced. Thank the Lord.

The immune system is so delicate and mysterious (my husband has R.A. - an autoimmune disorder as well), how can professionals NOT think that there is a link to bombarding a newborn's system and autism?

Dr. Sears,

Although I feel that your vaccination schedule is still a little bit too aggressive I want to express my profound admiration for what you have done to help parents learn and get to know the “two sides of the coin”.

Going against the mainstream medical field must not be easy for you and yet you are standing there, strong and all, for us parents.

History will have a very special place for you.

I must add that I felt hopeless when I finish reading your article but you presented a very realistic point. I think it’s going to take a whole new generation to learn to undo what we sadly have done up to now.

In the past Autism One conference in Chicago, my husband and I attended to Fourteen Studies presentation that the wonderful Julie Obradovic did. It was a sad but wonderful experience to be able to see and fully understand to the best of our ability what those so-called studies are really about. After the presentation, there was an animated conversation among some of the attendees and somebody asked, “What is it going to take for people to understand what we are doing here?” “Who is going to change this in the medical field?” and Julie Obradovic responded something that made a deep impact on me. She said: “We do not know… but maybe the siblings of the affected kids. Some of them might become doctors and say ‘we need to change this because I got to experience what really vaccine injury is all about’ ”.

I think she is so right!

We parents are planting the seeds but our kids might very well be the ones that will take the torch and say, “enough is enough!”
To sad that it might take a generation for this to happen, but the thought of our kids literally changing the world of medicine is really empowering.

We, as parents, will make sure to let our kids know that you, Dr. Sears, were a pioneer in the fight they will be fighting.

Terri, exactly!!!! Dr. Sears and all peds/doctors should go to the schools to get a real read on what is happening out there. In their clinical setting they EXPECT to see many children with autism, aspergers, ADHD, and learning disabilities (not to mention asthma and seizure disorders). BUT, if they would (and they SHOULD) visit the schools they would see a frightening picture and they would maybe then understand why parents are so alarmed. Are vaccines the only cause? Probably not but they sure as heck are the most likely to be causing most of the problems.

"I just wonder if our (former, may i add) ped would have taken our concerns to heart, and said "hey maybe there is some connection here, lets step back and look at all the info as whole". I wonder if.."

My experience with pediatricians as a whole is that they are not critical thinkers, certainly not when it comes to this issue. They do what the AAP and the CDC recommend and that's that. They are trained and paid to do, not think, and busy they are with all of the chronically sick children these days.

To Josh Day- My son reacted to the DPT shot, stopped walking for a couple of months even. A few years later the peditrician commented that he was flat footed. I visited autism meetings in the 90's and they all commented on their children's flat feet. My son also walks with a very wide gait, and has hypoxia (very loose muscle tone).The day the peditrician laughed and said he was flat footed I was surprised because my son also walked fast on his tip toes.
To Ann Dachel all that you said is right, and gives me some hope,but by the time it happens there may not be any civilization left! Look at Britain it is 1 out of 60 --or 1 out of 58 and still ------

I appreciate your willingness to give parents a choice. I have several friends that are using your alt. schedule with their babies. Their peds give them an extremely hard time, one even said "if you trust Dr. Sears more than me, why don't you take your baby to HIM" I told her to run in the other direction. Anyone who thinks they have all the answers- well, they are not on my team anymore.
My husband is a ped in training and we get all of the AAP communications/journals etc. It disgusts me. Reading what Dr. Tayloe and others have said about autism has caused me to completely lose faith in the medical community. My child is SICK. He is SICK. Why pediatricians are not completely freaking out about autism (and related disorders) is beyond me. WHERE are you AAP?!! They are so busy protecting their precious vaccines *sponsors* that they seemed to have missed the fact that the kids in this country are sicker than they have ever been before.
Keep up the good work. Treatment=hope

I find this article really stupid because its predicated on the fact that the only "medicine" available to man is mainstream medicine, and the only way to prevent disease is through vaccines. What is this - the Dark Ages?

Emotions are high on this one 61 comments and climbing!

Dr. Sears attitude would have saved my son. Never underestimate having people like him on our side.

If my son had Dr. Sears our lives could have been so different so much better.

I took my son in to his peditrician's office-not to get his shot but to talk to his peditrician about his reaction to his last DPT shot. The peditrician was in a hurry and hardly gave me a second to get a word in edge wise. I told him my son had passed out with a very high fever, and seemed to have a hard time breathing. The peditrician hardly listen to me but instead said my son was behind in his shots and needed to get them done TODAY. I said no, wait, listen - but the ped out talked me and started to explain to me that the goverment subsidized these vaccines and that their office was getting a pretty good finacial return on these shots. After his speech (which I had heard three times -once from his partner) He stood back smuggly waiting for me to say, okay. I said no. It made him mad and he as he started to leave said. "Well it has to be done today get it done here or at the health department. I don't care which". He had his hand on the door knob and I yelled out "Can we separate those shots, because his temperature is just too high?" He glanced over his shouder as he opened the door and said, "No, they only come together in one shot. Get that shot done today." He left, I went home, prayed, gave my son a highest dose of Tylenol that was allowed and like a fool I went to the health department - I should have sought a second opinion, but I was a fool and did not. That was in 1987.

I remember the older mothers of autistic children telling me how lucky I was - I was not accused of being a Refrigerator Mom. I heard Babarba Fischer head of NVIC recently tell young mothers they are so lucky they can communicate by the computer immediately. You are not lucky, nor was I, nor was the refrigerator moms of the past.

Dr Sears is a precious gem, and let us hope we can add more doctors like him to our ranks.

Dr. Sears says that "---- such a ruling would renew anger and demand accountilbility" No it won't renew anger because the anger does not go away to be renewed. As for accountibility, yeah I would love to see these educators in medicine, who writes so coldly about herd immunity, the heads of the CDC, NHI, or what ever else - higher up in the medical field, even the low ranks of peditircians to have to account for their uncaring stupidity. BUT like Dr. Sears said --- It is not going to happen.

Dear Dr. Sears,

Thank you for taking this heroic stand. I know it can't be easy to be in such a controversial position on vaccinations.
I can only say, hang in there--times are changing.

Unlike most of mainstream medicine, you call autism an epidemic. That's an undeniable reality that most of the doctors
out there pretend isn't happening. Like faithful little minions, MD's in news stories love to tell us about how they used to
miss all the kids with autism and call them something else. Today finally, they're all to be congratulated for their wonderful
"better diagnosing" that's responsible for the explosion in autism.

You describe the "uphill battle" for those trying to prove that vaccines cause autism. The mantra of the medical community is "vaccines are safe, vaccines save lives" and nothing is going to change that. Doctors have collectively closed their eyes to the damage all around them.

The one thing I do disagree with you on is the statement: "If any parents are hoping for the day when the government admits that vaccines do cause autism...I don't think it'll ever come."

You further said , even if a link were proven to an "occasional case of autism," doctors would be willing to accept it because of the greater good vaccines do.

What isn't a factor here is the cost of autism.

We simply cannot continue to survive as a nation with hundreds of thousands of children in ever-increasing numbers disabled and dependent for life. I taught history for enough years to know that we're not prepared for this disaster. Epidemics have come and gone for the thousands of years of human existence. There have been countless millions of victims of plagues over the generations, but they either survived or they died. The polio epidemic of recent memory is a good example. One in 3,000 Americans came down with polio at the height of the epidemic in the 1950s. An aunt of mine and a cousin were ones who got polio. They both recovered and went on to lead productive lives. They had jobs, married, and had children.

The victims of autism won't be doing that. They will cost us millions each for the rest of their long lives. I can't imagine where the money will come from. I can't imagine how the public will react when they realize autism really is an epidemic and that all these disabled Americans are looking to them to cover the cost of their care and support.

When this happens, everyone will want to know what went wrong. They'll be asking where these people came from and how are we going to pay for them. California recently announced that they've had a 1200 percent increase in autism over the last 20 years. Those are real numbers. How long can that state continue with a population of disabled people like this?

All the denials over autism and vaccine reminds me so much of the charade over smoking and lung cancer. For at least a decade studies showing the damaging effects of smoking were published in obscure medical journals and ignored. The tobacco industry funded research that showed no harmful side effects from smoking. Doctors appeared in ads promoting cigarettes that claimed, "More doctors smoke Camels." What exposed the truth was the toll smoking was taking. Finally, when smoking related deaths in the U.S. reached 400,000 a year, it was undeniable. Likewise, when tens of thousands of eighteen year olds in the U.S. aren't going on to school, getting jobs, or going in the military, but instead are going on Social Security Disability for life with autism, we'll all take notice.

The public will be outraged if the medical community is still oblivious to this nightmare, still in denial that it's happening and still claiming that there's no known cause.

Anne Dachel
Media editor

I don't understand why docs don't want to regonize the connection and at least slow down the vacs. We fought with our ped for 6 months because the practice would not acknowledge that a 18 month old with lost speech is a problem or a sign of a delay. They didn't hesitate to pump our child up with vacs and flu shots in the meantime. Almost a year later our child is diagnosed with PDD. IF they even took time to review the medical records it may have been apparent what was going on.. breaking out in hives 9 days after vacs/flu shot, fevers in a child whom had never been sick and a bad rash that was linked to developing allergies that the child did not have prior to initial outbreak, and then only gaining 4 oz in the year following the outbreak. I hate to even think it or say it but I just don't feel that many docs care about the children they see come through their office. You would think that your love and concern for children might be the reason for a person to enter the field of med and specify in pediatrics but i guess it all come down to the almighty $$$$. Get the kids in and out, don't listen to the parents or address our concerns and move on to the victim.

Okay I know that not all docs feel this way (i have worked with a few great, loving, caring and highly knowledgable docs..God bless them, we need more of you) and any reading this should be insulted but any more it seem like so many docs follow the fast track policy with patients.

I just wonder if our (former, may i add) ped would have taken our concerns to heart, and said "hey maybe there is some connection here, lets step back and look at all the info as whole". I wonder if..

As to the children who get autism without vaccines, very possible. A couple of scenarios. Amalgams in mothers, viruses, fungi and bacterial infection in utero (lyme, syphlis, HHV6, EBV, Chylamida P, even the freaking flu virus (especially with antipyretics www.rollingdigital.com/autism ). A child injured by Immediate Cord clamping (www.cordclamping.com and or www.lotusbirth.com ), and or a child with HIGH IRON (hemachromatosis genetics), or HIGH COPPER, or LOW ZINC, HIGH GLUTAMATE diet again...these may be very overt, or underreported and underappreciated as lead ups to autism. In those kids with the underappreciated problems, then when vaccinated, whala, autism. But of course, ANY INFECTION, ANY METABOLIC CRISIS, AND TOXIN, is perfectly able to cause autism. So, if there are many triggers, including what our kids are subjected to in utero and out, then, we have to ask, what is triggering the NUMBER of children with autism now? To me, that speaks loudly of vaccines. But it also speaks of our toxic world, which has been increasingly more toxic in the span of five decades-aka THE PERFECT STORM, situations which arise when all things come to a center with concecular power. Submit children to this schedule, or any vaccine, then we are going to have a genetic epidemic...in other words, if you have some blip on your immune function, then yes, let's say, no, to vaccines. Some infection while mom was carrying baby, no vaccines again. Autoimmunity in the family no vaccines (notice I say, NO VACCINE, not some). Therein lies the difference between my view of Dr Sears protocol, and common sense...one more straw is not what our kids need, and I mean, ONE MORE STRAW, minutia that could tip it over..

Thank you Dr. Sears for taking the time for writing this post as well as answering so many of the questions asked in the comment section. If every Doctor was this respectful of the parents and their rights we would all be better off.

The lost art in mainstream medicine seems to rest entirely on the lack of respect for parental or patient observations and symptoms. I'm not quite sure how every patient or parent was put into the category of uneducated and unable to record relavant symptoms. In fact a large number of these parents are very well educated and even many in the medical field, but most parents, no matter their education, are far better at recording their own children's ills than any onlooker with a pediatric medical degree seeing the child for 15 minutes a year.

Fear over the ending or altering of the vaccination schedule has caused discrimination toward the parent of the patient. Discrimination that is causing devistating numbers of children with autism to amass without looking for any answers to stop it. Until the discrimination is dealt with and the fear changed to reason, no progress will be made. We are fortunate to have access to DAN doctors and scientists like yourself who have not lost the art of listening and believing in your patient. We can only hope more will follow but unfortuantely it will take much time and be at the cost too many children falling to the fate of autism and other neurological disorders. Time is very costly for these kids, it's criminal so much of it is wasted in fear and discrimination.

Dr. Sears,

I read this at 5:30 this morning and could not post as I did not have all of my thoughts together. I did walk away feeling -- not good. I couldn't put my finger on why but in reading the comments I see that I am not the only one.

It is with appreciation that I tell you that I am glad that you are aware of the adverse effects of vaccines, as a doctor and as a man of science. What I did not appreciate was the message(S) that this seemed to imply.

First, as a parent to a child with severe autism -- severe health issues and in need of 24/7 care, your message had no hope for any of us. Your message further, at least for me, took me down a road where my child's health and the true question of causation and future treatments (they are related - ie -- mercury - mitochondria -
l-carnitine ) were insignificant, and even laughed at by doctors who have lost touch with humanity...

Knowing science or avoiding science in this autism epidemic is a huge issue. You have shown that you "get it" but others may not, or willingly choose not. Both are riding a fence that envelopes moral disregard. To endorse their ignorant thoughts AND feelings should be questioned and not supported.

To say that even if vaccines are found to cause autism,that children will contine to be harmed as it is *impolite* to research and stop the harm as it steps on the toes of Offit and Pharma is giving power to a dark and sinister ideal.

That doctors, because they are so unable to understand the science, or choose not to understand, cling to the mantra that "vacines are safe"-- will then switch to "OK vaccines may harm a few but they are too important to stop or change or investigate". So children will be injured some more and our children are left without care, legal recourse, or fundamentally: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Laughing doctors, financial gain, and injustice in a court, which is a sole island in the land of questionable legal and ethical decisions will win over lives?

I, like Stealing sheep, will keep my "eye on the unwatered-down goal and maintaining that fire in the gut."

Dr. Bob -

I would like to know how long you have been using your alternative schedule with your patients, and what the rate of autism is among those patients who have chosen to follow it?

I'm guessing the autism rate is lower than the general population - and that the rate directly corresponds to the number of vaccines the child recieved, and at what age they were administered.

If you really want the truth to be known about the dangers of our current vaccine schedule, rally your mainstream doctor friends to support a study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children. If they aren't hiding the truth, they will support such a study - even if it's for no other reason than to shut us up!

There's an even better example than sickle cell anemia. Carriage of pneumococcus prevents colonization, infection and disease by Staphylococcus aureus. Children who are vaccinated against pneumococcus have increased rates of Staph infection.

That's why when efficacy claims are made about Prevnar, they talk only in terms of disease burden by the serotypes included in the vaccine. Sure it decreases carriage and sometimes disease by those seven serotypes. But there are more than a hundred serotypes out there. They want you to not worry your pretty little minds about the more virulent serotypes that are filling the niche vacated by the vaccine strains. And they definitely don't want you to consider total disease burden and the replacement of pneumococcal infections with Staphylococcus infections.

Same with HPV... all you ever hear about is the efficacy of the vaccine against the four serotypes included in the vaccine. What about the other HPV serotypes? The clinical data cited as proof of effectiveness in the package insert shows that the highest grade cervical lesions caused by the other HPV types increased in the vaccinated group (compared to the "placebo" group). And in most trials, the rate of high grade lesions by non-vaccine HPV types more than cancelled out the small benefit against the vaccine HPV types. Total disease burden went up. Oops, you're not supposed to think about that.

Viruses co-evolve with their hosts and evolution favors milder virulence (milder pathogens leave their hosts less incapacitated and more capable of spreading disease; they outcompete the more virulent strains which have a super tough time spreading when they've killed their host). It's simply a by-product of evolution: the most common serotypes are most often less virulent. The CDC will spout that a certain serotype causes most of the disease, but that's usually only because it's the most common. Go ahead and eliminate that serotype with vaccination and watch disease rates climb as the more virulent strains become the common strains. It's already happened with Prevnar (which is why they're adding more serotypes to the vaccine), and has shown some ugly potential in the HPV licensing data.

Wow, that was longer than I intended. Sorry.

Dr. Bob, is that your brother that is on The Doctors? Strange for him to have such a different perspective. I guess my sister has a different perspective than me, too, tho.
I bet that is frustrating.

Dr Sears, Thank you for posting this with us and responding to the many comments. I do think I disagree with your fundamental premise -- that if vaccines are shown to cause autism, the vaccine schedule would still not change much. The medical profession might PREFER that even if vaccines demonstrably cause autism, the vaccine schedule not change much, but fortunately doctors, as you point out, are not the "deciders." Let's remember that if vaccines do cause lots of autism (they do, and I sense you well know it and are tipping your hand as far as you can without getting yourself tossed out of the mainstream), they very probably are also behind the 10 percent rate of ashthma in kids, the far-spectrum cousins of autism like ADD and ADHD, the juvenile diabetes rise, many cases of SIDS -- that is, death -- and the fortyfold increase in bipolar disorder, which may just be another name for the problems with emotional regulation that beset children with autism. Do we really think that if the current schedule is deleterious enough to render 1 in 150 children so neurologically damaged that they are what we have decided to call "autistic," that is the extent of it? More likely, that is just the start. Given the momentum already under way to adapt the CDC schedule -- a role in which you, commendably, have a played a part -- it's hard for me to believe that conclusive evidence of a vaccine-autism link would not create a virtual panic away from vaccination. If the current vaccine schedule is destroying a generation of children, why would we confine ourselves to a discussion of autism-vs.-infectious disease once the autism link has been stipulated? Of course, panic is not good, but the failure to be honest and open as the evidence has mounted is the kind of thing that creates panic when the truth finally emerges. At that point, we would need to start over, vaccinating as late as possible for as few illnesses as possible, with as many exceptions as necesssary, while the research that should have been done to fix the vaccine safety issue is frantically carried out -- hopefully without the involvement of the CDC, the Culpable Disorder Causers. Also, I think the Hewitt study out of Pittsburgh on vaccinated/unvaccinated monkeys is about as close to proof as I could imagine that the total vaccine load, never tested, is dangerous and triggers autism, or whatever we want to call it. again, thank you for posting this and you are always welcome at AOA. I know this may sound extreme, but simply taking a "middle ground" in an extreme situation is not particularly suited to the task. Best, Dan

Dr. Sears,

I really appreciate your candor and I'm very glad that you so thoughtfully took the points that many have offered. I do understand your points in turn. My uncle, before he died, gave my husband and I "Art of War".

Some of us in the movement are straddling a kind of fence on the issue of vaccines-- and not just as a pose for the opposition. While I don't totally believe in herd immunity, I don't think that the concept of vaccination is without any value to the individual. And I'm really angry that my kids can never again get any benefit from vaccines-- even if they're cleaned up-- because they were injured by hypervaccination.

Here's a really euphemized analogy for it which you're free to share with the "other side of the fence" if it helps: it's as if someone jammed peanut butter sandwiches (Skippy on Wonderbread no less) down the throats of my day old twins. Now and for the rest of their lives, my kids face risks of anaphylaxis from re-exposure, not to mention the fact that they'll never be able to eat a peanut butter sandwich, have peanut butter icecream, etc. Bummer.

Had the peanut butter incident been put off until an appropriate age, had the stuff been organic, maybe a smaller portion-- and not followed by a chaser of vodka, skittles and arsenic lollypops (just to expand the junkfood analogy of vaccine "quality"), the outcome might have been different. But as it is, even if-- in a better world with greener vaccines-- we'd have liked to be able to get our kids a HiB booster for when their excessive immune response wears off-- we could never again risk it. If there was any value at all to the idea of herd immunity, vaccine industry greed just blew it, at least concerning our kids and thousands of already injured kids. And if other families don't "love" our pain and don't want to join our ranks, they'll be cautious.

Where's the spirit of the "free market" when it comes to vaccines? Why must parents who choose vaccines be limited to the vaccine equivalents of McDonalds or Burger King brand vaxes? What's with the monopoly? Why aren't independent green biotech companies trying to find something safer? I think that's a fence that a lot of families on both sides of the argument could at least come to together, even if they won't agree on every point.

Let the dinosaur pediatricians laugh all they want. It's gallows humor and, secretly, their neckties are feeling a little too tight lately.

Thanks again.

I think one of the major problems is that people don't understand the true cost of autism. The quirky HFA child they see at school is only there because Mom & Dad spent tens of thousands of dollars on therapies and supplements. They don't know he's actually not fully potty trained yet, and he's got serious painful medical problems. They don't see the severely autistic children at home rolling on the carpet and pooping and throwing up all day. They don't see the child who is so out of control his Mom hasn't left the house in a week and hasn't slept either. They don't see the hours, and hours, and hours, spent tolling the internet looking for the next magic answer. I think that to them, the parent of that 1 in 150 quirky kid should just be grateful he didn't die of a childhood illness. They don't get that he could have been saved of that childhood illness AND not had autism, would they only have listened to us 15 years ago and took the poisons out of the vaccines. . . .

Cindy - good question. I have wondered and agonized over this too. It does bother me. As a doctor, I do try to take steps to prevent these issues by avoiding (or limiting) antibiotics, using natural treatments whenever possible, focusing on nutrition and allergy prevention, limiting and spreading out vaccines (or not doing any at all according to the parent's decision). I don't know how to get to the bottom of it. I like Kenneth Bock's book on this issue.

Kathy - the funny thing here is that I AGREE with you for the most part. Every parent should have a choice. If you don't feel safe about vaccinating, you shouldn't do it. You point out many of the problems and concerns about vaccines - concerns that should be more thoroughly researched. No one should assume these are completely safe.

Where you and I would part ways is that because there is SOME disease risk, some parents would choose to vaccinate to avoid that risk. For those parents, I show them how to spread the vaccines out, how to be careful, how to avoid or at least limit aluminum, and which vaccines to delay because your child doesn't need them.

Bob Moffit - good point - scarlet fever is much less common (it's kind of an allergic reaction to strep throat) now due to antibiotic treatment of strep throat. BUt actually the disease that leads to scarlet fever (strep) isn't any lower now than before. In the old days many people who had strep went on to have scarlet fever, but it's really the same disease.

Mark Blaxil - ya, Tuberculosis. You are right - that's decreased due to better awareness, screening, and prevention, NOT due to any vaccine. But I wouldn't say it's decreased to "irrelevance". There were about 2500 reported cases in 2007.
Bubonic Plague? What's that?

Mark - I do like your comment on distinguishing between SERIOUS diseases that cause fatalities and pose a big risk to a child's health versus diseases (like Chickenpox) that it doesn't seem like we should be trying to prevent - maybe those are just money makers for manufacturers. A particular vaccine that I really DO think that applies to is Hepatitis B - but don't get me started!!!!
Good point about Mumps too.

As for Rotavirus, this disease has been around forever, and my own experience in my hospital training (where the hallways were overflowing with rota babies) makes it seem to me like it really is a serious as the vaccine manufacturers make it out to be. I think that over the past few decades the public didn't really know the name Rotavirus, but the disease has been there. It sounds like you are just as much as fan as Dr. Offit as I am (which means, just to be clear in case someone didn't notice the humor, NOT a fan at all). I classify Rotavirus as risky because it does cause so many hospitalizations and some yearly fatalities. BUT any parent should have to right to not get that, or any other vaccine, if they choose to.

Ack, I hate being politically accomodating. Nice of you to point that out to me. Makes me want to tell my self to stop.

Any DAN doctor seeing this holocaust everyday, and is still "I am not anti vaccine", is fired from me. Maybe that is why I don't go to any doctors. I can do all the research myself and do biomeds on my own, thanks for that...and thanks to that, my kids are getting better, far better than any doctor did for me.

I do believe that vaccine have no worth, nor value. I think they CAUSE diseases. Dr Mouldin believes that ALL PARTS of the vaccine are unsafe...the bodies reaction to them by sludging blood and fibrin, especially in the brain causing microvscular strokes is RIGHT ON. In autism families with so much predisposition to injury, from low Metallothionein, Immune Paramaters are off (C4B anulle, autoimmunity, high cytokines, already dealing with infections in utero etc), Mitochondrial problems, Tendency to Gut problems, G Alpha Protein problems, etc, a vaccine represents an assault on the system. Therfore, the russian rouleete game, the "green vaccine" game, and "mercury is the cause" game, is not something I am willing to play with for my children. My grandchildren are totally unvaccinated (ALL BOYS) and have no signs of autism, NOTHING, NADA. If autism is SOOO genetic...???

Sears, your commercial interests in writing books are very heartwarming...but I am not heartwarmed by your position. Polio vaccines have caused polio, and some polio cases were actually documented to be poisonings (see WHALE TO) and or the victim, mostly in the summers mind you were infected by tick lyme disease. Ticks can cause paralysis...their active season....

This, I am wanting a slow approach, still introduces contaminants in the body, retroviruses, and toxins, that heretofore, have never been studied, the combinations never studied, and the unvaccinated and vaccinated studies have never proven points of safety or not. In that environment, I don't drive around on Firestone Tires to appease the economy. Or the politically correct message. I would rather die, than to vaccinate with these poisons. My life is full of examples that doing things the ALL NATURAL way, works. A kid who gets the measles with mega doses of CLO, will sail through it. High D, And Selenium also. So give me a freaking break...your white coaters are scared shitless that parents are on to you.

VACCA, COW, HERD. I am not a herd, I am an individual, and our individual healing capitals are not taken into account, per the ethics or use of biomedical interventions. The chattle, the cattle, and the sheeples, believe in Dr Sears and the like who are too afraid to be politically incorrect. I however, am brave enough, in the face of my children's injuries which ruined their chances of normality for life, will never cower to easy solutions. The only solution is to BAN vaccines, (By your own desicions or exemptions), and give people CHOICE. Choice to refuse or partake, That's your right. Let the damaged chidlren accumulate on slower schedules, and see how incest parents will really become...then slowly, every so slowly, their will be an anti vaccine movement, finally, in the autism population, as it should be.

Bob,
I think there are quite a few diseases that have faded into irrelevance without much current help from vaccines, you just need to take a longer perspective: bubonic plague and tuberculosis come to mind.

Also, one criticism I would offer of your schedule is its uncritical acceptance of some interventions that actually make diseases more dangerous rather than less. Your numbers on varicella deaths look higher than others I've seen, which were generally vanishingly low. But the introduction of varicella vaccination program is fueling a resurgence of shingles, a much more dangerous form of the same infection, in adults. A close friend of mine died from shingles, so I take this one quite personally. There is a similar situation in mumps, where the adult form of the illness is coming back and is far more dangerous than the benign childhood form.

It's important to parse those vaccination programs that are necessary for prevention of truly deadly disease and those that exist to offer financial opportunities for the manufacturers. Both MMR II and Varivax have been highly profitable products for Merck, and very expensive vaccines for society, yet their net benefits are likely negative with all unintended consequences factored in.

The financial motivation is on most prominent display in the case of the rotavirus vaccine, which you also support. This infection was barely even recognized before the vaccine for it was developed. Diarhhea should kill no child in advanced country who is treated with reasonable care, yet Merck, CHOP and Paul Offit have made millions from its acceptance on the standard schedule.

I must say I appreciate your attempts to find a more rational policy position here. However, your approach to this effort, one of "building bridges", necessarily forces you into a position of political accomodation. Because of that, I submit that you are less critical of several of these programs than a strictly apolitical analyst would be.

bensmyson said...looking at three needles and THINKING/ASSUMING it's three vaccines instead of eight is not protection. It's negligence.
AMEN
Yes, this is what happened to my son. I was looking at 3 needles thinking that it was 3 shots. I found out later that my son had 11. Yes, 11. MMR, Verivax and Prevnar 7. All at one time, all within 3 minutes. When I called the doctor later that evening I was told....#1 It's normal for a child to have a fever after "a" vaccine and to give him Tylenol. I tried to explain, "No, doctor he's not acting right." To which I was told bring him into the office on Monday and I'll take a look at him. By Monday Riley is covered from head to toe in a rash. Later determined by the doctor to be measles and YELLED at me for exposing the other children in his office to measles. #2 While at the office I precided to tell the doctor that Riley was "spacing out" and getting stiff. He looked at me and said..."And? What do you want a neuro consult?" I wasn't even sure what I was seeing and if the doctor didn't think it was a big deal then I guess neither did I. I later found out some info on this same doctor that makes me leary of every other doctor. Not just MD's but our own DAN. I don't trust doctors, I don't trust vaccines in any shape, form or slow down schedule. I trust those primal instincts of being a mother. When my youngest started bleeding from her bowels everytime she was vaccinated by this same doctor...mommy instinct kicked in and we haven't vaccinated since. That was 3 yrs ago.
Dr. Sears,
I realize you have a very hard job. I don't envy you at all. I appreciate that you write and try to explain things better but I still don't understand how you could possibly give any child a vaccine then play the wait and see game. It's not worth it doc because once it's IN it can't be taken OUT. Then it is too late.

Steeling sheep:

Your comments are very well taken. You are right, in my writing I tend to be a "concerned outsider one step removed."

Now PERSONALLY, if you were to have a one-on-one conversation with me, you would probably get a whole different picture.

I do have some very strong personal feelings about vaccines, and I openly discuss those with patients and friends.

What does that say about me, if I'm holding back on some of my personal feelings on this in my writing? Maybe I should just come right out and write what is really on my mind? Am I not brave enough to do that?

I guess it ultimately comes down to wanted to remain influential on BOTH sides of this issue. Most people take sides on this, and when they do, they are no longer influential or effective in reaching the other side. I see myself as more of a moderator - someone who is trying to openly educate BOTH sides.

I like your comments about my misinterpretation of those families in the anti-vaccine autism movement. In reality, though, I don't think you (they) are a bunch of crazies. I think that in reality and on a personal level I view parents in the way that you think I should. But I know it just doesn't come across that way in my writing. But talk to me in person? You'll get the right impression. I appreciate you pointing this out though.

Doctors are uninformed if they assume that the benefits of vaccines at this point in time outweigh the risks. Generational mass vaccination is a big experiment. We have to honest about how much we don't know, such as changes in immune gene expressions from vaccines. Even without autism, ADHD, allergies, and asthma in the admitted mix of vaccine reactions, there are plenty of documented serious consequences of vaccines.

Here's what one mom found out when she did her research. She was swayed by...guess what--the statistics!:

"No matter how many books I read they just always left me with the feeling of "this is just the other side of the story", the truth must be in the middle, both sides are going to the extreme.
Then I started taking each vaccine one by one and I started with the DTap because that's the one I thought was the most important. So I went on the manufacterer's webiste (several of them) and printed out the list of ingredients and briefly read throught the side effects. Then I started reading online about each one of the ingredients, not necessarilly in a anti-vax context, but from a chemical and biological perspective...

But in the end, I think what convinced me not to vaccinate at all was the statistics. I went on the Vaers website (which we all know is not exhaustive) and created my own calculations in excel using pivot tables, then I went on the US morbidity website and calculated the number of deaths from each disease in the same period. I showed the results to my husband, we were both amazed and that is the day I decided I will stop reading about all this because it has consumed ten months of my energy and I was about to drive myself crazy at some points.

Yes, the risks of not vaccinating might change if some of the diseases come back, but let's take measles for example--even when it was epidemic in the US, there were very few deaths from it.

We can't keep sacrificing the minds of tens of thousands of our children for a never-substantiated and highly unresearched vaccine program.

Dr. Sears,

I didn't mean for this comment to be longer than the article you wrote, but it's a response to more than one post that you've made in a similar vein and I hope you'll hear the points that many of us are making here.

I appreciate the carefully thought out "roadmap for success" in trying to bring concerns of vaccine injury risks into public acceptance and your overall great commitment to the side of truth-- but here's my own "but".

What's a little unsettling about what you write are some assumptions about your "insider" audience that you've sometimes seemed to make. First off, the vast majority of parents in the movement are demanding that vaccines be cleaned up and cut down to necessity. Like a town whose water supply was tainted with borax by some nasty gunslingers and whose citizens have turned to drinking cactus juice, we're being accused of being "anti-water" when we're really just anti-poisoned-water. And those who feel that vaccines are never safe or necessary should have the right to decide for themselves. We all know these issues.

I urge you to get to know your insider audience a little better and to make a better study of the prevailing mentality in the movement instead of reading back the perceptions forged-- often very disingenuously and with the help of PR machines-- by financially driven "vaccine injury deniers". The perceptions being that of wild, angry, unreasonable parents suffering from-- for lack of a better expression-- some sort of adult anal retentiveness, wherein expressions of our precious inner feelings and the need to, ahem, "smear them around" so to speak have become more important than the facts, the science and the truth. But though this may describe a few in the movement, it's just not the truth of the movement, doesn't even come close to representing the majority. Pretending that anyone "out there" whose really in the know isn't aware of this is to buy into the PR b.s.

I do think that you mean to consider strategic stance, but what's blurred in your message is the difference between the "face" the movement must present to the public (call it "personality") to make us tephlon/bulletproof in putting forth our arguments and to win hearts and minds, and what we actually *think, perceive and feel* (call it the "character" of the movement) deep down and how we communicate the problem amongst ourselves. And there's just a huge divide between personality and character; one might grease the rails but means nothing on its own, is not indicative of endurance or ethics, the other sustains, has meaning, is the core truth to an individual and what keeps them going.

You've told us what we might seem like to "them". So please consider that, to many parents, your understanding seems (again, it may not actually be so but it seems so) to be that of a one-step-removed but not totally unsympathetic outsider-- like the many uneffected parents that vaccine-injury parents often encounter who do not necessarily have a bone-deep personal stake in the matter, who might also have a somewhat deeper sympathy for those they know in the status quo, who often request that effected parents "tone it down" a bit. They don't mean "tone it down" in terms of just the slightly wild-eyed look that some of us get in private while talking about the injustice done to our children or the way hands start gesticulating when discussing the junk journalism and crap science we're having to endure in the mainstream press. They mean tone down the goals of the movement, tone down the facts, let some sleeping dogs and corrupt paradigms lie. And the bystanders don't mean this purely as a helpful suggestion of strategy-- they're asking that this luke-warming of aspirations and perceptions be internalized *regardless of whether this compromises the success of the movement or not*. They're asking that we not make them uncomfortable, as if comfort were a moral value-- which it sort of is to the uninitiated.

In your turn, I don't think that the outrage in the movement and the overall goal of demanding accountability for vaccines necessarily makes you uncomfortable personally-- but that you're more easily able to put yourself into the shoes of those whom this *does* make uncomfortable. This perspective has value, certainly, in playing the role of devil's advocate and, again, forming strategy, but I think that if you're going to touch the issue of advising an activist stance or goals that you be quite clear that you mean strategy, not actual mindset. Because here's how it works "on the inside" of this, at least for some of us (not all): when it was your kids who were injured (or it was your father lynched by a racist mob, or your brother tied to a fence by homophobes, etc., etc.) there's only a few ways to proceed towards justice because you're caught between two almost equal forces.

It's a balancing act. You can understand the nature of the forces all you want, but like someone strapped to a gurney with an anesthesia IV in their arm, that doesn't mean the forces won't overtake you. You face a wave of discouragement, meaninglessness, actual obstruction and despair on one side and the burning need for justice on the other. The need for justice is just physics: every action has an equal and opposite, but real justice seeks to make the return action as pervasively positive as possible. We as humans can't defy the basic principle though.

That "fire in the belly" of the need for justice has to be whipped up sufficiently to overcome the wet-blanketing effect of actual obstruction as well as emotional risks-- which includes the tendency to internalize the perceptions of the uninitiated. Whip the flames too high and you risk stampeding the rights and concerns of other fellow human beings-- not high enough and you're doused like a spluttering little campfire.

What uncomfortable-but-not-totally-unsympathetic bystanders fail to understand is that the movement will go on as it has or it will not go on at all. We can adapt, be strategic, put on the proper face to make the important presentation-- but we will do so on the advice of those with experience at keeping their eye on the unwatered-down goal and maintaining that fire in the gut. And when we almost reach that goal and the typical disappointing concessions are made, we'll go on still maintaining the big picture of what real justice should have been and what it looks like, all the better to get just that much closer to it with each pass.

When Bernadine Healy first made her public argument that the question of vaccine safety has not been "asked and answered", she took a very strategic, call it "centrist" stance on the matter, making concessions to each side-- and the movement applauded her. We all understood precisely what she was doing. Unlike Dr. Stork on "The Doctors", she was not admonishing parents of injured children to make concessions or tone it down as a way to "get through" to people like him who didn't want to be gotten through to-- she was *modeling* how to do this without taking the bite or the higher goals out of the argument.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Healy is not a virgin to bloody, frought activist battles. This may not have characterized her entire career, but it seems to have characterized *her*. In her incomplete term as head of the NIH, she faced a brutal environment of institutionalized sexism within the agency so extreme that one head of a division proudly displayed a poster on his wall of a medic holding a giant syringe while a half-clad nurse bent over performing a curious sexual act on him. Only a woman who's worked in an arena like this knows how much such an open display of a certain mindset is emblematic of the kind of career and aspiration flaying she's going to encounter personally, and worse-- what this means as far as the policies the agency will generate concerning the lives of women citizens. Only the uninitiated would have said, "It's just a silly poster. Just talk to the guy"-- as if someone like this could actually be reached on equal grounds.

So Dr. Healy did something effective about it, changing the shape of how things were done. I'm sure poster-boy didn't love her for it. Aw well. She didn't have time to fix it completely but she did what she could. The politic-ing in her approach was where it belonged-- on the surface. But from her actions within the agency, it was quite clear that she was properly, pragmatically outraged. This history shows in her approach to the issue of vaccine safety and it's one reason why so many parents in the movement don't find her presumptive-- and why she scares the crap out of the other side while simultaneously rendering them unable to stop her. That's some trick-- but that's the balance I'm trying to describe. I don't mind that someone demonstrates to me how to be pragmatic or to arrange things for presentation to hostile onlookers: I mind if they ask me to lie on the inside in order to do it.

You also oversimplify and underestimate the outcome of seeing justice done regarding the eventual concession of vaccine causation and again, this sounds/seems like the view of a once-removed outsider. Some children are going to die without justice. Think of Heather Edward's Auschwitz-thin son with the colostomy bag hanging from his stomach. Think of the children suffering near-fatal grand mals on a regular basis and how research into the issue of toxically-induced seizures has been effectively stymied within the field of neurology because those studies would threaten industry. And then think of the huge advances in lung cancer research once cigarettes were shown to be causal. And that's the crux. This doesn't even get into the issue of basic compensation to recover those children who have a slim chance and to care for those children who, despite all efforts, will never be independent.

I know that you know all this and I know that you're on the right side in your heart. But try to understand that we know all of what you're saying as well. I just don't think it needs to be said or it needs to be said from a somewhat different vantage point than you're offering. There's just something beyond pragmatic in what you're proposing here, verging on ideological fence straddling. I've seen it before, but won't try to figure out what it is. I will point out that the movement is beyond ideology. It's about science. The studies declaring vaccines as "not causal" in autism are just not good studies. Evidence based science is now nothing more than a brand and a trademark-- not an actual rigorous standard, if it ever was. Double blind studies have many loopholes for cheating, epidemiology has too much elbow room to massage the numbers. It's just not all that. What we need-- and the larger and very worthy goal that the movement is aspiring to-- is reality based science and medicine.

And lastly, there's the issue of "cui bono". The market for antipsychotics and other psychotropes has had an unprecedented boom since the onset of the epidemic. To pretend that the discussion can be done reasonably on both sides is to ignore that the epidemic has made the industry as powerful as the arms industry in some ways. But then, if you see the success of another pretty uncompromising parellel movement has had-- the reform psychiatry movement-- in exposing drug research corruption, leading to Grassley's investigations, this seems like a sound model to follow. Those criticizing the drugs stuck to the guns of their "minority" science, which is gradually becoming less "minority". The industry will not concede quietly and, in some senses, we might as well stick to our own guns and be hung as sheep. Those who stole lambs have gotten nothing back so far but dead lambs.

And the people who are made uncomfortable by this will just have to pardon us as we ensure more safety for their future generations. We can make concessions though-- I guess we can try to look breezy and reasonable as we do it.

Dr. Sears, I think things have a way of balancing themselves out. I do believe that people are starting to and will continue to selectively vaccinate (even opting out of Pediatric care, if necessary). Common sense would tell anyone that giving 6 vaccines at one visit is ridiculous. Many will simply opt out of the bogus vaccinations such as hep b for babies or chicken pox (I still haven't given hep b and will never to my 11 year old and 15 year old. I have done the research and feel its not worth the risks. My dad-he's 80, was given the 3 shots for a trip abroad and has been tired ever since. Why would his Dr. have done this is beyond me). Anyways, anyone who has ever been inside a school will tell you that something is SERIOUSLY wrong with what is happening for our children. It may be quite a different thing for a Dr. in a clinic setting to see so many children with autism etc. but they can always dismiss the high numbers in the sense that they are in a "clinical" setting. Go out to the schools!!!!! There you will truly see a scary prevalence of ADHD, aspergers, autism, learning disabilities in the broader community. Most countries vaccinate far more minimally than the U.S. with less attendant problems. The medical community will eventually be forced to addressed the issues in a more honest, scientific way.

33,000 cases of autism to save how many lives???? Makes me sick. Who can trust the CDC or AAP again? My son is part of this collateral damage and greed and it pisses me off I was so trusting and ignorant and his life is altered forever ... I cringe talking to new moms who are as trusting with their babies lives as I was ... it's like it takes autism to slam you before belief and logic set in. Remember, 33K is just autism, what about asthma, allergies, diabetes ... we have a never had more sick children ever in America ...

And kids die at the hands of their providers. We'll see more of this as the onslaught of children become adults and have to enter institutions wholly unprepared for them. And they'll die in jail as they are incarcerated for their behavior - like Sky Walker, who allegedy beat his mother to death (another damn good reason to find a cure and prevent more autism) and sat in a county jail for 2 months. Non verbal. Alone. At the mercy of the system, which fortunately in Ohio, treated him quite well. Others will not be so lucky. An unruly autistic man is not cute or cuddly and will be severely punished for his behaviors. The mere thought inspires terror.

I'd rather my girls get chicken pox, measles, mumps, and every other formerly accepted childhood disease than face rape and abuse as adults with autism. End of my story.

Kids die from autism, too.
Seizures, drowning, running into streets, wandering away from home/family, compromised immune systems causing their own suscepability to life-threatening illnesses.

Has anyone compared the death from seizures/accidents against death from measles/mumps/chicken pox/flu etc?

Dr. Sears asks rhetorically, "If there is a connection to vaccines, is that simply an unavoidable risk that every parent has to take?"

"Safe" means "without risk" -- so here, risk implies a gamble. Currently parents are being asked to take the vaccine gamble, and then chided when we phrase it that way.

And we're vilified when we refuse to again take that gamble with our children's health -- which is logical, especially after one has witnessed regressions firsthand. And caution is sensible when parents have family histories of Parkinson's, clinical depression, MS, or other similar disease clusters.

Why isn't the CDC investigating these genetic susceptibilities? The effect of such professional and moral abrogation is unscientific crazymaking as institutionalized public policy, rather than primum non nocere.

Tragically the vaccine/autism theory can't gain traction because too many doctors and public health administrators have already made peace with themselves regarding iatrogenic damage. No incentive, no desire to improve the vaccination odds for all. That's inhumane, and it's horrifying. But why are public health officials perpetually surprised by that reasonable consumer response?

The doctor's office is where one should cease being part of the CDC's herd and be treated as an individual, with a unique physiology and biochemical makeup. It is utterly demoralizing to find doctors resistant to medical possibilities, indeed realities, such as vaccine injury. It's so stressful for families to change primary care clinics, and hard on the children, but essential when a one-size-fits-all treatment frame is being forced.

After reading studies and FOIA documents you quickly find that some CDC "research" is designed to provide conclusions convenient to vaccine promoters. Welll, "research" may not have proved a vaccine/autism link yet, but reality has. (Though you won't soon see honest investigations from financially-strapped and mismanaged newspapers.)

Good intentions are no excuse for letting the public health juggernaut run amok. All that remains to reduce the human toll is for healthcare professionals to place value on all human life, and not deify statistical tallies that fit their ethical paradigm.

I too am a "DAN" doctor, a pediatrician, but I will come right out and say I am anti-vaccine and will continue to be so, because vaccines are developed for greed, the policy that promotes them does not take safety issues into account and there is an unholy alliance between the CDC and vaccine manufacturers.

The so called "proof" was discussed at the Simpsonwood meeting - an illegally held secret meeting between the CDC and private vaccine manufacturers http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/HG%20IN%20VACCINES%20-%20Simpsonwood%20-%20Internet%20File.pdf

So... everything else has been subterfuge to hide the truth from the public and the world.

There is so much wrong with vaccine... all egg based vaccine are contaminated with retrovirus and reverse transcriptase. The FDA knows this and they don't care... this is why I am antivaccine.