The State of Vaccine-Autism Research: The Bloomington Alternative
Please click HERE to read and comment at the full post and to read part 1 at The Bloomington Alternative blog.
J.B. Handley: Tobacco science in its early phase
Part 2: The state of vaccine-autism research
By Steven Higgs
April 18, 2010
J.B. Handley and his wife Lisa co-founded Generation Rescue after their son was diagnosed with autism. He says mainstream science has failed to adequately study the connection between autism and vaccines, and by insisting it has, public health officials have misled the public and unnecessarily endangered children.
J.B. Handley concluded long ago that mercury is but one component in childhood vaccines that could be contributing to the epidemics of autism and developmental disabilities in American children. And after following two decades of ferocious debate and misdirected, inadequate study, he finds the topic a bit outmoded, the question a non sequitur. He answers it with a series of questions.
"Do I know that it and it alone is why we have all these kids with autism?" the co-founder of Generation Rescue said of mercury, a neurotoxin used for decades in childhood vaccines. "... How am I supposed to know whether it was the (mercury-laden) thimerosal, the aluminum, the antigen, the timing of the shot, the combination of the shots or all of the above? How in the world could I divine that?"
The studies that have been done on these questions were conducted for the wrong reasons, Handley said. And the children whose regression into autism corresponded with their vaccinations have not been studied at all. In fact, they have been deliberately avoided.
While mainstream science is coming to the view that autism is linked to environmental toxins, the issue is vast and vexing, he said. Mercury through vaccines is but one of dozens of toxic exposures children experience before and after birth, while their social, behavioral and intellectual systems are forming.
But the one commonality nearly all kids diagnosed with autism since the early 1990s share is that their parents followed a vaccination schedule that demands 25 injections by their first birthdays.
"When you really know what's been studied and what's not been studied, you'd have to be a moron to not put vaccines in your top three of possible toxins," Handley said. "You have to be a moron..."
I just hope the truth comes out during MY lifetime for the sake of all our children, tiny babies and future generations!!!!!
Posted by: Elaine Hickey | April 21, 2010 at 09:14 PM
A year or 2 ago there was an incident where over 1 million vaccines were recalled without any real explanation or followup yet Toyota had to pay Millions in fines after they had a late recall!!!!!!! When a defective car is given more attention than a defective money making product being injected into the bodies of tiny babies then many are getting bribed to look the other way.
Posted by: Richard | April 20, 2010 at 09:23 AM
Trying to tease out causality is extremely complex for all of the reasons that JB has stated. I don't want to add to the complexity of the issue, but I have often thought that vaccine damage is probably multi-generational and possibly cumulative. That might explain why autoimmune disorders run in families and why those families are at higher risk of having an autistic child. It might also help to explain the cases of autism where there is no readily apparent vaccine connection. I would submit that the autoimmunity issues are an indicator that vaccine damage has already occurred and the damage occurs on a continuum until we see full blown damage (autism)? Again, individual differences come into play in this scenario, because autism is just one of the syndromes that may be caused by vaccines. I believe there are many.
Posted by: CT teacher | April 20, 2010 at 07:35 AM
J.B. We all know that our government will NEVER fund the research that is needed on vaccines. I've worked for the past 3 years on trying to organize a grassroots effort to fund that research. I'm must bewildered why more folks won't get involved. Why don't all of the national autism organizations come together to make this happen? If everyone who knows and cares about someone with autism would donate one dollar, we could easily build the Million Dollar Puzzle for Autism Research. This is an all volunteer effort and every penny of every dollar goes to the Autism Research Institute who has promised to fund exactly the research you talk about. Information about the Puzzle Pieces Project is available on their web site. So far we have forwarded a little over $90,000 to ARI. Together we CAN make this happen.
Posted by: Lynda Huggins | April 19, 2010 at 11:01 PM
AnaB, I agree -- "moving the goalpost" is in this case a self-serving pejorative slant on what simply amounts to widening the investigation based on data received.
The more that parents investigate, the more parents they find whose children are similarly affected. Similarly, but not exactly. "Autism" is an enormous umbrella of psych symptoms, rather than medical.
Given the complications of teasing out causality, one needn't wonder long why mainstream medicine turns its back on these time-consuming and expensive investigations into autism's origins and related vaccine safety concerns.
At least those who move the goal posts are in the game, rather than jeering from the sidelines. Those affected by autism and vaccine injury haven't had the luxury of waiting for the people who contributed to the problem to start cleaning it up.
Posted by: nhokkanen | April 19, 2010 at 07:14 PM
“Tobacco industry reports on their (health) research are magnificent works of fiction … When we put money in for research we put the research in straightjackets so that the people were limited how far they looked — and if they came beyond a certain point which would reflect badly on the tobacco industry, it came to an end.”
– Tony Van den Bergh
Former Tobacco executive, Godfrey Phillips Tobacco Company (Britain)
Time to loosen the straightjackets of Autism Research!
Posted by: Tracy McDermott | April 19, 2010 at 03:51 PM
Very well done. Thank you.
Posted by: 4Bobby | April 19, 2010 at 03:06 PM
Did they pull the article? The link does not work, and a search of "autism" on the Bloomington Alternative website brings up Part I, but not Part II.
Posted by: ASusan | April 19, 2010 at 01:32 PM
Hopefully this link works:
http://www.bloomingtonalternative.com/articles/2010/04/18/10373
Posted by: JenB | April 19, 2010 at 11:56 AM
Exactly - the guys that sucker punch us from behind are taunting us that we can't pick out which guy threw the the worst punch in a police line-up! "na-na-na-na-naaah, you can't prove it!" they tell us. When did it become the consumers job to prove what part of a product did damage?
All parts deserve scrutiny. Vaccines have so many components that can trigger adverse events. Trying to isolate one or two ingredients in an effort to give them all an aliby is B.S. They know it, and we know it. But it is all about how it is spun in the press to the masses. The majority of the public is too busy watching American Idol to want to research the issue themselves. They WANT to hear those silly little sound bites that say all vaccines are safe for all people all of the time. Even though deep down inside they KNOW that is impossible. They just want one less thing to have to be responsible for.
But unfortunetly, in such a lucrative market as the vaccine business, putting your trust in that logic is extremely dangerous.
Posted by: Sylvia | April 19, 2010 at 10:33 AM
Love the statement;
"How can I divine that?"
That is the perfect statement of how I have felt for the last thirty years.
That is also Barbara Fischer (founder of the national vaccine information Center) in the book "A Shot in the Dark"
That is each and every one of us?
Just lay people,just parents; all asking, why our child - and watching in horror as the numbers increase.
Just us parents.
Not the FDA inspectors as they descend upon vaccine manufacturing plants with their raptor like gazes. Inspectors taking in everything with a glance impowered with superman eyes, that can see through mercury, aluminuium and lots of other stuff.
Not the CDC macho men in their bee-keeping outfits looking for epidemics, and finding not 1% of the population with autism, but even less of the population effected with mostly sporadic cases of disease spread by mice feces or reporting a son-in-law that has TB on his airplane, honeymoon, trip.
Not the really, really, super duper smart medically trained people of the NIH, HHS that sit hidden behind their desk by tons of medical literature stacked a mile high, as they glare intently at the really, super duper fast, big memory muscled computers.
Just parents trying to divine!
Posted by: Benedetta | April 19, 2010 at 09:49 AM
I love it when some people accuse us of "always moving the goal post"- is it Thimerosal, viruses, the schedule, etc? Well, duh.....if we are going to inject these things into our children to the tune of 25 by their first birthday shouldn't we EXPECT that they be studied for safety from every aspect? They've studied Thimerosal and MMR. Well, my son never had a Thimerosal containing shot and the MMR was NOT the vaccine after he regressed, it was a different one all together. So how do these studies explain away what I saw with my own eyes? They don't even address it!
Posted by: AnaB | April 19, 2010 at 08:28 AM