Dan Olmsted On Why Progressives Don't Get Autism
Managing Editor's Note: Dan ran this post on Friday - I thought it deserved a Monday morning position too - it's extremely important. KS
By Dan Olmsted
The midterm elections have ushered in a period of reflection and reckoning for the nation’s liberal-left movement that today usually describes itself as “progressive.” As The Huffington Post bluntly put it, “Progressive Heroes Go Down to Defeat.” Especially given health care reform’s big role in the election debate, this reckoning ought to include the biggest health problem facing the next generation and hence the nation: Autism.
But first, progressives have got to come to grips with their abject failure to “get” the autism issue.
Progressivism, the idea that government can and should intervene to improve the lives of its citizens, arose early in the last century in response to the Darwinian excesses of Industrial Revolution, laissez-faire capitalism – child labor, abject poverty in the elderly, untaxed corporate profits that went right back into the pockets of the richest. It peaked during the New Deal, then plummeted during Reagan – “Government is not the solution to the problem, government IS the problem,” he famously said.
While this political philosophy waxes and wanes, as it should, I would argue that the word has a wider meaning now – that our country, great as it is and has been, faces challenges and problems that can be addressed by doing something, by making progress, sometimes but not necessarily led or funded by government. So it’s not so much a left-right issue as one of the static status quo versus the impulse to improve on it.
One key part of the progressive agenda of the last century has been improving health – and especially children’s health – through mass vaccination against deadly diseases. And now come a new group of people, autism parents, who allegedly want to roll back all this progress so long in the making. And how do they want to accomplish this nefarious (and nebulous) goal? By questioning the consensus that genes cause autism, and by claiming that the environment – and plausibly some aspect of the very same mass vaccination campaign -- is implicated in autism’s epidemic rise. Cleverly labeling these concerns “anti-vaccine” and, implicitly, anti-progress, makes it easy to ignore a fundamental truth -- that every ideology including progressivism can go too far, get hijacked by forces that should be its natural enemies, and fail to understand what is required at a particular historical moment.
At THIS moment, what’s required of progressives is a willingness to listen to literally thousands of these parents, and hundreds of scientists and doctors, who are trying to tell the medical industry – trade organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, government public health officials at the FDA, the CDC and NIMH, pharmaceutical companies – that something is badly amiss. The message is pretty simple, really: In creating an undeniable public good, those responsible for taking care of children’s health inadvertently unleashed a monster – epidemic levels of developmental and chronic illnesses in this generation of children.
Not surprisingly, they don’t want to hear it. But while all elements of the medical industry – the medical-industrial complex that develops, regulates, administers and protects the recommended national immunization schedule – are equally accountable, the leadership needs to come from the government. It alone is directly responsive to individuals – citizens, voters – and it alone has the authority to make, not just ask for, changes. Government is not here to make a profit but to protect and serve the citizens who elected it. Its shareholders are the people.
This – a truly progressive response to a national health crisis, a response that can only be mounted by a government responsive to the concerns of citizens -- is what needs to happen now. Government needs to untangle itself from the interests and involvements with private industry and technological development that have tied it down like Gulliver, and take back control of science and policy. It needs to get past the gerberding of government, in which revolving regulators like CDC director Julie Gerberding went from recommending vaccines one day to running the vaccine division at Merck 365 days later.
Mainstream journalism is another example of this abject failure. While not necessarily biased toward big government or liberal candidates, journalism itself is inescapably progressive. None of us got into the business to make sure nothing changes for the better; rather, it’s about comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable and using the extraordinary freedom granted by the First Amendment to look for power gone mad – and get it back under the people’s control. At least, that’s what the Framers intended. Newspapers that print lengthy investigations are elated when they can follow up with reports of government action -- that “federal prosecutors have opened an investigation…” or “congressional leaders vowed to take swift steps against …”
So please, don’t paint me with the anti-science, anti-progress, know-nothing brush that too many progressives love to wield whenever this issue comes ‘round to the undeniable implications of autism’s recency and rapid rise. Mark Blaxill and I have just written a 300-plus page book with 700-plus footnotes, laying out the history of the disorder and its roots in the commercialization of a new mercury compound in the 1930s (“The Age of Autism – Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic”). Just because, starting in the 1930s, unregulated businesses decided to use that toxin in vaccines as well as in agriculture products doesn’t make us anti-vaccine or anti-science, any more than it makes us anti-fungicide. (The government had the good progressive sense to ban mercury in agriculture in the 1970s. It’s still in the flu-shot at your favorite grocery store, though. At least in 1930 they didn’t know any better; today, government abets and enables this disaster.)
It’s doubly disappointing to see traditionally progressive outlets – from Salon to Daily Kos to The Atlantic to National Public Radio and PBS – ignore the evidence presented in our book and so many other places, twist the facts they can’t deny, belittle those who believe otherwise including beleaguered autism parents, and glibly trumpet tired reassurances that the concern over vaccines has been “asked and answered,” that “study after study” has refuted any relation, and that continuing to point out disturbing patterns of evidence to the contrary endangers children and infants.
What really endangers children and infants is sloppy and self-interested thinking by those who should know better, based on second-hand assurances that all is well – that there is no problem, nothing to fix, no need for a progressive response. The implication is that the State and the Corporations will take care of it on their own, no oversight required because, after all, they are “the experts,” the power elites – hardly a point of view that political progressives or serious journalists have adopted in the past. The Obama administration – already responsible for a totally wasted opportunity to implement the Combating Autism Act as Congress intended – went over to the Dark Side when HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius told Reader’s Digest her agency “reached out” to media outlets to discourage them from even giving the other side of the issue.
We’ve seen this Big Brother approach ourselves in real time. When we appeared on The Leonard Lopate Show on public radio in New York City, we were told the New York health department had called the day before to warn them our message –a careful, five-year historical investigation of five centuries of mercury poisoning that suggests mercury is a cause of the autism epidemic – was discredited and dangerous.
The irony could not be richer. In our book, we describe how the first widespread use of mercury in vaccines came in 1931 with the diphtheria vaccination campaign in New York City and state (the first case of autism was born the same year). For the time, that was truly progressive: Universal preventive health care for what was called “childhood’s deadly scourge.” The impulse was exactly right; but the commercial implementation, using a preservative made with ethyl mercury in the form of thimerosal to permit manufacturing and shipment of multi-dose vials, was tragic.
Progressives ought to be able to make this distinction, to tease out the fundamental public good from an inadvertent and ongoing disaster and the long failure to confront and fix it. If for no other reason, they should do this because when public action fails due to mismanagement, it plays into the idea that the public sector can’t run anything as well as private business, and the progressive movement inadvertently validates the conservative critique. Instead, public health officials are now trying ever harder to stifle the debate, preserve the status quo and their own careers and credibility; in doing so, they betray not only the children they are charged with protecting, but the progressive values that led to mass vaccination in the first place.
It’s time for a reset, as the pundits say. The way forward is not complicated: Progressives need to pay attention to their own first principles and to primary sources and patterns of evidence and evasion – parents who describe regression, federal agencies that quietly compensate vaccine-autism cases while denying that’s what they’re doing, media outlets too timid, too tied to Big Pharma and too cozy with Big Government to dig up the truth for themselves. They need to take the side of consumer safety not producer profits. And then they need to act.
One reason they need to do so is simple political expediency – recent polls show very high numbers of Americans concerned about autism, its possible relationship to vaccines, and the need for more vaccine safety research. This genie is way out of the bottle despite the best efforts at suppression.
And the debate will get even louder. As traditional media outlets shrink and become more beholden to dwindling advertisers and less likely to investigate for themselves, the emerging multiplicity of platforms works in our favor. We’ve gotten excellent coverage from The Washington Examiner, which wasn’t around a few years ago to counter the Washington Post’s vacant approach to the issue; from Deirdre Imus at Huffington Post, the leading progressive outlet that will give this issue a fair hearing, and from James Grundvig of The Epoch Times, an internationally circulated print and online outlet that, again, is relatively new. Grundvig captured the progressive point perfectly:
“Where has the government been in all of this? Protecting the vaccine makers, chirping the frivolous claim that ‘autism has always been there, just its definition has broadened.’ If all the skeptics were persuaded to read this book, perhaps they will finally admit that not all forms, practices, and medicines developed by empirical science through the ages have done no harm, when it’s clear that they have left a long, painful debris trail on human history.”
The best major-media reporting recently on this issue has come from conservative Fox News, which has taken to running almost weekly reports. The network seems to have been prompted by the government’s strange concession in Vaccine Court – that autism was not “caused” by vaccines but autistic symptoms “resulted” from the vaccinations – which a reporter called “fishy legal language.”
Is that really what progressives and mainstream journalists want? To watch the most important health problem of our time covered best by the most conservative news outlet in the country? Indeed, the progressive agenda of the past few years – perhaps misspent on bailing out huge financial firms, bottomless funding of giant “defense” contractors (Halliburton, call your Oval Office), and an enormous patchwork healthcare reform bill that almost no one seems to like – may have shifted to the Tea Party, which captures the populist and trust-busting impulses of progressivism.
Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor positioning himself to run for president, said on TV the other day that “there’s a coalition of bigness that needs to be busted up.” That sounds like the iconic progressive himself, Teddy Roosevelt, and it applies 100 percent to what’s wrong with children’s health policy today and how to start fixing it. Progressives could begin grabbing this energy back by embracing autism as an issue in which consumers have been betrayed by an unholy alliance of pharma giants and a captured government doing their bidding. Bust ‘em! Put the people back in charge!
Several million Americans touched by the age of autism would eagerly vote today for anyone willing to do that, whatever their party or philosophy is called.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
I remembered this article after watching the treatment that JB Handley received from Eliot Spitzer last night. Spitzer is exhibit A in the patronizing, defer to the "experts", "we learned elite know what's best for you" attitude that too many people in the progressive movement unfortunately choose to display. To be fair, there are conservatives with their heads in the sand as well. The issue of vaccine safety and informed consent should unite classical liberals (individual freedom, the right to choose what goes in one's body) and conservatives (parental rights) alike.
Posted by: Erik | January 06, 2011 at 11:10 PM
Gary Krasner:
Why don't you write an article on "Age of Autism" about Natural Hygienic theories of inflammatory disease???
Is this the same thing that NVIC wrote a book on???
Thanks
Benedetta
Posted by: Benedetta | November 20, 2010 at 08:57 AM
Gary Krasner couldn't have articulated my views on this subject any better.
I love this...........
"Past is prologue. You will get safer vaccines by demanding freedom. Not by begging for crumbs."
Thank you, Gary Krasner.
Posted by: Autism and Anti-Vaccine Advocate | November 19, 2010 at 06:10 PM
I just wanted to say that it was very gracious of Dan Olmsted to post my pointed critique of his understanding of the founding principles of the US.
Beyond that, I think most will agree with Dan's main thesis that progressives would be expected to have some built-in conflicts on our issue (vaccines), based upon political philosophy. Liberals would generally support proactive public health enforcement more than conservatives, simply because the former desires a bigger role for government in our lives than the latter.
While most people on either side of the political spectrum could cite areas where greater enforcement is fine----such as in the area of sanitary laws----problems arise where the issue is controversial, like vaccination policy. Or water fluoridation. While most conservatives and liberals (wrongly) support both measures based on scientific efficacy, a conservative would more likely be inclined to oppose compulsory vaccination, based on his political bias in favor of parental rights, or religious freedom, or opposition to government intrusion. etc. Conversely, liberals tend to favor certain kinds of intrussion into the family ("it takes a village"; not a family), and it might also be related to their disproportionate representation among the ranks of public school teachers, public health officers, children's services caseworkers, and so forth.
The dynamic becomes interesting on the matter of the utilitarian ethic, where the typical conservative might oppose the rationale of "the common good" where it pertains to compulsory vaccination, but not where it pertains to going to war to defend the US. Then of course there are interesting exceptions on the other side, where you'll find liberals and counter-cultural far leftists involved in holistic health or civil rights or distrust of government (especially blacks), inclined to oppose vaccination.
It's a discussion helpful to advocates for their advocacy. So Dan's perception and consequent concern about these biases is understandable. And I think he agrees with me that making the vaccination issue a partisan one is ill-advised.
One final point: As he and others should know by now, my main thesis over the last 3 years is that we all should distinguish "goal" from "arguments." I favor what Dan is doing with respect to the arguments he mounts. He proffers studies and opinions from authorities to demonstrate that vaccination is not safe. I personally allege that the conventional theory of infectious disease is erroneous. Still others cite constitutional freedoms. There are even those who allege secret, ominous conspiracies.
So I don't care what arguments people feel comfortable using. They're all helpful, because they all ultimately find the audience where they resonate.
And I wouldn't advise Dan and his fellow moderates to be so quick to distance themselves from "anti-vaccinationists." Because history shows that radicals often overtake the agenda and eventually prevail in many movements. There was that radical minority of American colonists who favored total independance from the Crown, and with Constitutional government, those radicals in the minority who wanted to abolish slavery. Moving forward to the 20th century, women's sufferage and civil rights (countervailing federalism) both started as ideas of a radical minority. Today, radical wings in the animal rights movement (i.e. scientific anti-vivisectionists) and the abortion issue (i.e. pro-life Christians) have also been able to move the center. (Granted, abortion is legal, yet only before a certain stage of pregnancy.)
In other words, every movement has a moderate wing, but they don't always succeed without an angry, fire-breathing wing that pushes the envelop. My Natural Hygienic theories of inflammatory disease, for example, does not register immediately with most people, but after 40 years of espousing it, I've seen it plant the seeds of doubt in the average person (i.e. rarely an MD) who is willing to listen, where it grows and eventually blooms to compete and prevail over the flawed orthodox theory and its equally discredited promotion of vaccination.
But we are only talking about ARGUMENTS there. My thesis maintains that while there may be many different arguments employed, everyone unifying behind one GOAL is essential. I explain why. And that goal should not coexist with other negotiating demands. I explain why. And when that goal----freedom to refuse vaccination----is achieved, then normal market forces would be restored that would FORCE a moderation of vaccination policy. I explain why.
Negotiation 101 states that you can't negotiate with success without leverage. Pharma and the medical profession controls the mechanism that governs anything to do with vaccine safety. The only leverage the public can have to moderate the fanaticism of current vaccination policy is a right to refuse vaccines. That leverage is expressed by way of an unassailable, self-executable declaration to refuse school vaccinations. All populist demands to amend vaccination policies derive from that one freedom. We must work to get philosphical exemptions enacted in every state.
Past is prologue. You will get safer vaccines by demanding freedom. Not by begging for crumbs.
Gary Krasner, Director
Coalition For Informed Choice
188-34 87th Drive, Suite 4B
Holliswood, NY 11423
718-479-2939
www.CFIC.us
[email protected]
Posted by: gary krasner | November 19, 2010 at 04:29 PM
I don't see how progressives would understand autism much less than republicans. Reagan and Bush both passed the bills that gave vaccine manufacturers legal protection from anyone they injured or killed. Republicans keep blocking importation of drugs and free market trade of drugs so pharma can keep gouging Americans.
The conservative platform is definitely better, but Republicans don't actually do what they say, they tend to do the exact opposite and that leaves progressives looking slightly better a lot of the times.
Posted by: keith | November 18, 2010 at 11:02 AM
Krasner's essential truth, cannot easily just be moved aside by saying this [autism/vaccines] transcends politics. It is clear, the totality of this situation, has left ordinary citizens without "leverage to compel" any entity we engage, to "play fair or nice." Those cards are no longer in the deck on too many issues which affect the lives of ordinary people. As a democrat, my first clue as to how the cards were stacked, politically, came when I learned (circa 2000) the only two members of congress who were speaking out on this issue were republicans. Boy, did that cause my brain to reboot! The truth is, this multiple institutional failure for us is a success for those who thrive (the sharks) as beneficiaries of those institutions.
Krasner makes a strong case.
Posted by: michael framson | November 17, 2010 at 02:07 PM
introvert - Well stated! I understand the point you are making and it's very well taken.
This year pharma’s strong-arm tactics have not yet revved-up completely. But it’s coming! It won’t be long before the H1N1 pandemic flu “outbreak” and hysteria of 2010 takes place. Shortly thereafter will come the Draconian measures - forced detention, quarantine, and mandated inoculation of the masses, all ostensibly for “the greater good”.
“Iatrogenic Death and Disease via Acute and Chronic Mercury Poisoning A Crisis in Medical & Dental Science”
http://www.toxicteeth.org/Mercury-poisoning-2004.pdf
The International Medical Veritas Association (IMVA) has released this important document, meant to be spread throughout the world. Please send it out.
Posted by: patrons99 | November 17, 2010 at 10:49 AM
Thinking about the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of Autism -- I’ve just finished re-reading “The World According to Garp”, and it seems to me that what we need is an established literary voice that would describe our experiences in such gut-wrenching, vivid clarity that it would be impossible for those who like to think of themselves as “progressives” to avoid it. What it feels like to have your precious, lively child slip ways into silence, blankness and pain. The first time I read John Irving’s books, I loved them, but I didn’t have children. Now I find the ever- present theme of the loss of children makes his work almost too painful to read. We need a book about autism as the “Cider House Rules” was about abortion.
So, anyone best friends with John Irving?:)
Posted by: introvert | November 16, 2010 at 10:10 AM
Thank you for writing this. AND your book. Age of Autism is an amazing human history and medical mystery. I literally couldn't put it down. I was astounded with the way it answered so many questions about the connection between genetics and poisoing, for instance, linking my son's autism to ancestors who were 'off' but not as off. . I had always been confused by that because I knew they weren't as heavily vaccinated. But I knew they were affected by the same thing.
As you point out, even the most liberal types who don't believe anything else the medical industry says without question, still act if I'm crazy-whacko-pathetic when I mention the mercury angle. Well, I might be, but not about this. And anyhow, if my crazy-wacko-pathetic was caused by mercury. . .then go figure!
But seriously--- The truth will out. This book will go viral. So to speak! I know it. It is the Uncle Tom's cabin of autism. It will at some point catch fire. It is just too well written and too fascinating not too. Get it to Rosie O'Donnell. Get it to questioners out there who have media outlets! Get it to Thom Hartmann, Ken Olbernan's staff. . . get it on the nightstand like the Bible at the hotel of the next AMA conference! ! !
Posted by: CarolynC Kylesmom | November 16, 2010 at 04:02 AM
Well said, david burd. Vaccine “madness” transcends politics. A person’s political persuasion is irrelevant on this issue. It will require moral strength, character, humility, and prayer, in large measure. We desperately need an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing medical freedom in this Country.
“In the mean time, you may wish to avoid being injected with viral material taken from African Green Monkeys (unless you're some sort of sicko).” – Mike Adams, August 6, 2009.
http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/diseased-african-monkeys-used-to-make-swine-flu-vaccines-reports-mike-adams/
Amen to that! The phrases “vaccine purity” and “vaccine quality” are really terms of art, not science.
“What Is Coming Through That Needle? The Problem of Pathogenic Vaccine Contamination” by Benjamin McRearden
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/vaccine_contamination_mcrearden.pdf
We really ought to set up our own privately-financed analytical laboratories and do our own research, as was recently suggested by WILLIE in another recent AoA thread. WILLIE has always been right, when he reminds us regularly that
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Autism is the prototype for vaccine-induced brain injury. There are several vaccine-induced brain injuries. There are several vaccine-induced systemic autoimmune diseases. As has been amply and beautifully documented in The Age of Autism by Olmsted and Blaxill, there is a man-made epidemic of vaccine-induced diseases.
Posted by: patrons99 | November 15, 2010 at 09:46 PM
As the mother of a vaccine-damaged (I refuse to say autistic) child one of the most important things I have learned is that political labels, religious labels mean nothing. What matters is the ability to think for oneself, intellectual honesty, willingness to question life-long beliefs, and just plain decency. I don't think Mr Olmstead's intent is to bash conservatives but to point out that progressives, according to their own self-image, are the ones who should "get" the autism epidemic. Progressives are supposed to champion the downtrodden and challenge authority, and the Progressive/liberal response to this epidemic has revealed them to be a total SHAM. Craven power-worshippers, in fact.
I used to be an avid reader of NYT, Harper's, New Yorker etc. No more. They all make me f-ing sick. So I guess I'm not a card-carrying liberal anymore. I'm not a conservative or libertarian either. I'm just a citizen who's been badly burned and no longer takes anything at face value.
I read on Natural News today that there has been and unprecedented 4% drop in the number of privately-insured parents who are vaccinating. So, the cat is out of the bag and she's not going back in. It's going to take time, and it's gonna get uglier, but they've lost.
Posted by: julie | November 15, 2010 at 08:26 PM
Dan, After hearing from all quarters it seems political/personal attitudes self-described as either "progressive" or "conservative" create a fog over the whole issue of vaccination carnage.
Stand back folks, it's not a political issue per se.
Autism and many other terrible afflictions were NEVER on health radar, but have arisen out of nowhere with the advent vaccine jabs that have ever multiplied.
Posted by: david burd | November 15, 2010 at 07:21 PM
Dear Dan,
Let me be clear about 3 things right up front-
1. I believe vaccines played a significant in my son's regressive autism.
2. I LOVE Age of Autism - the website and the book.
3. I LOVE Ronald Reagan and am a staunch conservative, "to the right of Atila the Hun" as they say.
The one thing that kept irritating me throughout the AoA book were the gratuitous shots at Bush (e.g. the stem cell research moratorium) and to the "evils" of coal and in the first chapter discussing global warming. The lefties always fight against nuclear pwr, which is the clear answer to coal in power generation. But why pick that fight? It just drives a wedge within our community. We are UNITED on two things -- vaccines may play a big role in the pathogenesis of autism, and good honest well-designed and funded research is needed to figure that out!
But here's the deal -- Autism is not a left or right issue, it's not conservative or liberal. Frankly, it demonstrates the folly on both sides.
In the case of vaccines, government clearly IS the problem. I will also admit that it might also be part of the solution.
The progressives within the Democratic and Republican parties have grown the CDC, FDA, and NIH into the monsters they now have become. They stop at nothing to cover up the role of vaccines in Autism, while doing next to nothing to explore environmental causes.
The government also has the data - and the ability to collect data -- necessary to nail down the epidemiology of autism, and to identify environmental toxins, pathogens, etc. that cause it. We have to get big pharma out of government.
This goes back to a very CONSERVATIVE view of the role of government. What we have is not "capitalism" it is "crony capitalism". It's all about helping get your guy elected so he (or she) can pass some law to give a competitive advantage to a particular industry or company within an industry.
That is not a left or right issue. It is a corruption issue. Let's stay unified -- whichever side of the political aisle we are on.
Let's work together as autism parents to pressure our politicians on both sides of the aisle to do REAL research on vaccines and on other environmental causes of Autism.
Dan, AoA is a great book - i really enjoyed it. Extremely well-researched and written in a very readable and enjoyable style.
But please try to keep politics out of this discussion as much as possible -- we are all united on this issue, i promise you! You have tons of conservative fans, like me, out here!!!
Best regards,
-Bob
Posted by: Bob | November 15, 2010 at 05:27 PM
@ Sarah... I think your comment (and your sentiments) point to the fact that "progressive" and "liberal" don't overlap entirely. Maybe they overlap partially, but the items you cited (gay marriage, sovereignty over one's body) are definitely not best defined by "progressive," and maybe not even by "liberal." "Libertarian," perhaps--but certainly not by today's Democratic party.
For example, list the number of Democrat politicians who have actually done anything to facilitate gay marriage... Pretty short list, isn't it? And think back to the 2004 election debates--I'm pretty sure I heard every candidate say that he was not in support of gay marriage. A Progressive favors government intervention; a libertarian doesn't want government intervention. Support for gay marriage would largely mean getting the government out of the business of granting marriage licenses--why is the government involved, anyway?
So I don't think Dan is endorsing the Republican party at all, although some registered Republican Americans (like me) are libertarian at heart, and oppose government mandates of health interventions, thus putting them in agreement with Dan on this point (or even more government-should-get-its-hands-off than Dan, as the posts from Mr. Krasner and Dr. Schacter show).
Posted by: Theresa O | November 15, 2010 at 01:39 PM
As soon as I read some ignorant opinion along the lines of "science has shown, vaccines don't cause autism" I lose interest in whatever the author has to say about any other topic, because I now know they are morons. Even if I might find their reporting on other topics insightful. Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post is an example. As soon as I read his name, I turn away. Why would I waste my time on such an opinionated igoramus.
Posted by: ReRe | November 15, 2010 at 10:48 AM
Maybe the progressive's are starting to wake up!
Here's the link to Appendix I Derived From: ProgressiveConvergence.com's Anecdotal Instances of Miscarriages, Still Births, Premature Births, and Other Health Problems Reported by Women After Their Influenza-Vaccine Inoculations(s) as of 5 February 2010.
http://www.progressiveconvergence.com/miscarriage-cases.htm
Posted by: patrons99 | November 15, 2010 at 08:11 AM
When _Callous Disregard_ came out, I emailed Rachel Maddow and asked her to have Andrew Wakefield on her show. She could ask him the hardest of hard questions. If he's such a charlatan, she'd be able to expose him, right?
At the time I actually thought she might do it.
I don't watch her much anymore.
Posted by: Carol | November 14, 2010 at 09:23 PM
This nightmarish man-made epidemic of vaccine-induced diseases was not of our choosing. We are forced into the position of having to address the crisis. It’s become a public health catastrophe. If we are afraid to even articulate the proper question, we are in serious trouble.
We MUST know the answer to the following questions:
Are the vaccine schedules and mandated vaccinations a blessing or a curse?
Are orthodox medicine’s vaccine schedules a precious gift to humanity or a highly effective eugenics vehicle, a portal for spreading diseases and death, that the Gates and Rockefellers have not been the least bit shy about implementing?
They have made their intent perfectly clear.
“Vaccinate the World: Gates, Rockefeller Seek Global Population Reduction” by Daniel Taylor on September 4, 2010.
http://oldthinkernews.com/Articles/oldthinker%20news/vaccinate_the_world.htm
“Three Articles for Mass-Distribution: Rockefeller Depopulation Plans Exposed” by Jurriaan Maessen on August 31, 2010.
http://www.infowars.com/three-articles-for-mass-distribution-rockefeller-depopulation-plans-exposed/print/
“Flu Vaccine Caused 3587 US Miscarriages & Stillbirths” on September 22, 2010.
http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/flu-vaccine-caused-3587-us-miscarriages-%C2%A0stillbirths/
Posted by: patrons99 | November 14, 2010 at 03:20 PM
@ Dr Michael B. Schachter - I agree with nearly everything in your comment. Thank you for bringing Dr Gary Krasner’s article (“Gary Krasner On Why Dan Olmsted Still Doesn’t Get it” on November 13, 2010) to our attention. I had a little trouble finding a link to the article that worked, probably due to the size of the PDF file.
“WE NEED TO STOP MANDATED VACCINES!!! Anyone who wants one should be allowed to get it.” – Michael B Schachter MD, CNS
I am in complete agreement with you, Dr Schachter, on this point: This carnage must stop. The time is at hand for the people to DEMAND a new Amendment to the Constitution along the lines proposed by Dr. Benjamin Rush. We MUST put medical freedom into the Constitution.
I don’t know of many who are willing to think, much less express, the unthinkable, that the vaccinated herd is spreading disease. Yet, the evidence is growing that even the completely unvaccinated are susceptible to vaccine-induced diseases, by exposure to vaccinated human vectors. We should not be afraid to discuss this question in public fora, because it goes to the heart of global vaccine policy.
Those of us who don't vaccinate don't want to force our views on anyone - we just want to be left alone without being accused of spreading disease or FORCED to receive vaccinations.
But what if the vaccinated population is making the unvaccinated population more suseptible to diseases? Is it then sufficient to just want to be left alone? What if the vaccinated population is speading disease?
Look at the 4 pie charts on pages 18-21 of Dr Obomsawin’s compilation of vaccine graphs.
http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/vaccines/Immunization%20Graphs%20PPT%20-%20RO%202009.pdf
The burden of proof should lie with vaccine proponents to show that the vaccine schedules are not causing vaccine-induced susceptibility to diseases, in both the vaccinated and unvaccinated population. They never met their burden on proof. The public should demand proof.
Posted by: patrons99 | November 14, 2010 at 02:24 PM
Wow! Just a few minutes ago, FNC ran a short Autism Speaks clip citing the 1 in 110 statistic, if I heard it correctly. I don't see how the ALL the news outlets can't NOW pick up on the undeniable epidemic of vaccine-induced diseases. Perhaps I should start watching the liberal news media to see if they've got the story yet. I had best not disclose who picks the news station in our family. :>)
Posted by: patrons99 | November 14, 2010 at 02:04 PM
An excellent article by Gary Krasner and all I can say is that I agree totally with what he says in this article. He is spot on............
Gary Krasner On Why Dan Olmsted Still Doesn't Get it
By Gary Krasner
Nov. 13, 2010
http://cfic.us/articles/Progressives-Nov2010.pdf
My far more moderate brother on the vaccination issue had just posted what appears to be baby steps towards realizing progressives have been far too supportive of vaccination than he. But only baby steps. For while Dan is a moderate on vaccination (i.e. critical of it, but supports the theory), he's also politically progressive himself, and therefore trips over this realization while carrying a heavy load of liberal misconceptions, particularly about our Constitution. I will lend him a hand and try to lead him out of the darkness with the following enlightened commentary.
This essay addresses Dan Olmsted's remarks on his blog, ageofautism.com. He posted it on November 12, 2010, and titled it, "Dan Olmsted On Why Progressives Don't Get Autism", at:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/11/dan-olmsted-on-why-progressives-dont-get-autism.html
Dan is correct on one point: progressives do not "get" it. But he doesn't understand why. It's based on their political philosophy and misconceptions, as Dan himself exhibited here and there throughout his post. But before I discuss vaccination, I need to draw some broad political strokes.
Progressives (i.e. liberals) believe, for example, in positive liberties---"that government can and should intervene to improve the lives of its citizens", as Dan opined. By contrast, our Framers included solely negative liberties in the Constitution---that we are guaranteed the PURSUIT of happiness. They expressly did not think government was responsible for actually furnishing the end result----happiness. Indeed, they felt our freedoms were guaranteed when government was absent in our lives. In defining our liberties, the Constitution specifies only what the government SHALL NOT DO. Which is why there is no "right" to healthcare. Indeed, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Dr. Josiah Bartlett wanted to include in the First Amendment a right to freedom from the healthcare professions----coercive and oppressive as they were even then.
Progressives believe in the inherent benevolence of government. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they think public policy is in the hands of elected officials, and elected officials are accountable to the public. What they don't accept is that the public is not of one view---let alone shares their views. Even institutions like Exxon, Merck and the Sierra Club have legitimate views that can be expressed and lobbied. Progressives also seem oblivious to the fact that agencies of government ultimately control the mechanics of how policy is implemented----something that Barbara Loe Fisher did not appreciate 25 years ago when she thought the CDC would make vaccines safer, as it had promised her. She gave away a liberty---the right to refuse a product---by giving government more control in what had previously been free commerce.
Yes, progressivism can "go too far", as Dan admits. That's true for conservatism too. Anti trust, anti monopoly laws are neutral rules of the game, sufficient to prevent powerful private interests from circumventing free market forces. (e.g. leveraging their legitimate success in one market to unfairly eliminate competition in another market.) But taxing corporations is futile, Dan. Corporations just raise their prices or go out of business or relocate to places where they aren't taxed. Or they just decide it's not profitable any longer to invest or grow their business, as Obama is learning now.
This short animated play explains economics to progressives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsZpWej8pF4
Granted, government can improve people's lives. But the reason that was not made a "right" in the Constitution was because government can only achieve that goal by taking wealth from one citizen and giving it to another. Our Framers didn't support confiscatory government. They felt that the accumulation of wealth by people was not inherently evil. They felt it was a function (i.e. reward) of ones sweat and talent. They believed that anything government can limit----through legislation and appropriation of funds---cannot, by definition, be an unassailable "right." Be it food, shelter, healthcare, or otherwise. These are 'moral obligations' of any civil society, to be sure. But they are not "Constitutional rights." The Framers didn't even think that being 'thy brother's keeper' should be a function of government. But that's a settled debate today. (The Framers lost.)
Progressives think that if government can improve people's lives, then government health agencies can improve people's health. But government functions only through coercion: Mandates and taxing. Both take from you a measure of freedom and burdens you with a good dose of paternalism. I think even Dan----who seems to believe in the general efficacy of vaccination----might admit that the practice of vaccination has received too much of an imprimatur of safety (if not efficacy), merely by way of it's "truly progressive" character of being an operation and arm of government. (Or as he calls it, "universal preventive healthcare"). Dan described his inability to persuade an evil or misguided monolithic power (no, not pharma, but progressives in government health agencies) that a known poison is poisonous.
Allopathic medicine gained hegemony over its competitors in the healing arts by the early part of the 20th century, and made its greatest inroads into government by taking over the schools of public health. Political progressives championed allopathy's public health function as an essential role for government, and was instrumental in promoting it's medical myths----that vaccination eradicated diseases, and that this "progress so long in the making" (as Dan noted) could be undone by anti vaccination advocates. (NOTE - go here regarding those myths: http://www.vaclib.org/basic/gk/)
Allopathic medicine is dominant today, just as vaccination is: Through government fiat, and fueled by the utilitarian ethic which revokes freedom of the individual, in favor of the common good of society. Just look at the justifications for single-payer, and mandates in Obamacare legislation. Then look at the justifications for school vaccination mandates. Both use the "common good" as justifications. Show me where the difference is? The Framers didn't believe that the common good of society meant a leveling of wealth. They felt that creating wealth by exploiting ones talents and energies would itself, advance the common good----by keeping that wealth in the hands of the many thousands of private individuals, and not by turning it over to empower a centralized entity with the power to coerce---that is, government. The latter only makes government powerful. I know. I negotiate and litigate everyday with the likes of school administrators like these: http://commack.patch.com/articles/district-pays-former-super-more-than-600000
Growing older and wiser (and more conservative), one accepts the natural human tendency to take what is available for the taking. Both individuals and corporations alike seek out what they can take from government, and they take it. Because it increases ones wealth and power (duhh). Public assistance, tax exemptions and subsidies of all kinds. Government takes from one place and enriches another, of its choosing. Progressives don't like it when the wrong people play the game too well. Progressives want to blame profit-making corporations for leveraging government power. But that would be like blaming the shark for eating the baby. The baby, like government, is there for the taking. The shark is only doing what nature bred into it. Corporations too have but one function---to make profits for its shareholders, who may be ordinary people. Profits are more than an incentive towards excellence. They're also an index for a business to know whether or not its supplying what the public wants. Profits are not evil. They're the most essential element of our society.
Indeed, wealth creation makes government itself possible. Government itself creates no wealth. Government merely scoops water from the deep end of the pool and pours it into the shallow end. It takes a cut from the wealth-producing classes to finance this redistribution of wealth. But where there's no profits, there's no economic growth. Where there's no economic growth, there's government deficit spending, and ultimately insolvency or inflation. (Look at Europe.) How's this for irony: The vast majority of public employee unions are political progressives (i.e. virtually all their contributions go to Democrats). That includes the phalanx of employees at the NYS Departments of Health and Education, and their local cousins, with whom I battle each day to help parents exempt their children from vaccination. Thousands of progressives owing their very existence to the profitable success of pharma! Dan, smell the coffee.
By simple logic, if one does not like what government inherently does (redistribute wealth and power through mandates and taxes), then plainly government should not be the solution you seek. Government is, as Ronald Reagan said and Dan noted, most often the problem. Put another way, (progressive) parents should not complain about baby-eating sharks. The parents should observe that laws of nature and not place their babies in shark-infested waters. Likewise, if you wish to make responsible medical decisions for your own children, you should not be in favor of growing government. Rather, you would want to reduce its size. Progressives (i.e. "liberals") railed incessantly against "lobbyists" in recent years. Yet they operate in perfect ignorance of the fact that the larger the government becomes, the larger is the government largesse, and the more lucrative and extravagant will be the lobbying efforts to plunder all that booty.
My cats, for example, never eat more than they need to eat from their bowls. Whereas I say again, we humans always take what is available for the taking. "Need" has nothing to do with it. It is not the fault of people or corporations to take from government wealth they hadn't created or earned. It's the fault of government for making it available. The bigger the government, the greater the theft. Similarly, the bigger the government, the greater the booty to be plundered by interest groups, and the greater are the financial stakes to lobby policymakers and gatekeepers in government agencies to fashion regulations that will enrich them in regular commerce. So Dan, I don't want to hear you and other progressives complain about corporations bribing supposedly unbiased, pure-as-the-driven-snow, government health agencies. Because the only reason we have big government in the first place, along with big government science, and it's big thumb resting on the scales that decides the winners and losers in the economy, is progressives who want to grow government.
Thanks to progressives, we have powerful federal and state government today. That means more mandates (coercion). I've spent most of my life doing battle against government mandates, such as vaccination and fluoridation. Thus I've been a lobbyist myself----BY NECESSITY, NOT CHOICE----because the bigger the government, the more mandates there are, and bureaucrats to enforce them. So instead of devoting my life towards creative and productive undertakings----pursing my own dreams and interests----I'm compelled to spend most of my time assisting parents to free themselves from government vaccine mandates. GOVERNMENT mandates. Not corporate mandates. In free societies and free markets, business must compete to meet the demands----and otherwise satisfy the desires----of free people, by supplying products and services that THE PUBLIC (not government) deems are safe and efficacious, through independent scientific inquiry.
That is why your following statement is so ironic, and of course, progressive:
QUOTE
But while all elements of the medical industry----the medical-industrial complex that develops, regulates, administers and protects the recommended national immunization schedule----are equally accountable, the leadership needs to come from the government.
UNQUOTE
Because it has been government involvement ("leadership") to date which has rendered those private commercial agencies UNACCOUNTABLE! Just ask Barbara Loe Fisher----today, not when she was naive enough to trust government. And there's no political "leadership" (i.e. elected representative) brave enough and medically savvy enough that can go toe-to-toe in debate with CDC doctors on the safety vaccines, let alone the efficacy of vaccination and the theory that supports it. You believe as Barbara Loe Fisher does, that "engagement" with medical bureaucrats----who have future jobs lined up in the private sector of pharma and medicine----will lead to WHAT EXACTLY? Your goal is the removal of thimerasol? A reduction in the recommended vaccines or doses? The inclusion of safety standards? Expanding the list of medical contraindications? Which vaccines specifically? What standards? What contraindications? What chemicals might be next? What other vaccines or reactions may arise? Ultimately, it will never matter. The insiders are doctors who owe their careers to the myth of vaccination, and THEY will define the standards and outcomes of everything on your "engagement" list. Not you, nor the heroes you imagine exist in government who will come forward to aid you. Again, just ask Barbara Loe Fisher.
It's taken you over a decade of engagement to force government doctors' attention merely on thimerasol. And you lost in court. (You, being "engagers.") Certainly the results were spun as equivocal, with the general public disinterested in the details (Oh, what a surprise!). How many lifetimes and children's lives can you afford to debate this. I realize that as a progressive, you can only accept one truth and one interpretation of the facts and one theory to test those facts. But trust me, here as in other endeavors, there are countervailing arguments and interests to contend with. And lawyers will ensure they're heard. We lose by attrition because the status quo remains in place, while you engage with the technocrats. Meanwhile, there are parents in most states today who cannot refuse vaccination. If we can concentrate on winning freedom of choice, then all that remains is persuading parents about vaccination. Not doctors. Certainly those parents that already believe vaccines are not for their kids would be able to act on those beliefs. And that, in turn, may lead to enough leverage, though the return of normal market forces (i.e. restoring ones right to refuse a product), to successfully negotiate those aspects of vaccination you seem to think are possible----safer vaccines for those who want them.
I'll make it simple, Dan. When government forces you to take vaccines you deem are unsafe, the first thing you DON'T do is present studies to prove your point. Because government can crank out just as many studies pro as you can find that are con. Just talk to anti fluoridation activists who have produced study after study showing its toxicity. (At least 10 times more toxic than lead, dose for dose, yet EPA's MCL for lead is 100 times lower!) We are now in decade six in which government pours that crap in our drinking water. And you certainly don't call for more government studies Dan! That helps the pro vaccinators run out the clock while children are being destroyed. No Dan, the first thing you do is demand your freedom. Let those who believe in vaccination bang their heads against the wall, while those who know better can at least protect their own kids. Darwinian selection, natural or not, amounts to the same result.
Again, Dan provides more irony:
QUOTE
This----a truly progressive response to a national health crisis, a response that can only be mounted by a government responsive to the concerns of citizens----is what needs to happen now. Government needs to untangle itself from the interests and involvements with private industry and technological development that have tied it down like Gulliver, and take back control of science and policy.
UNQUOTE
The Framers intentionally devised our government to be slow and ponderous. For good reason. They didn't want government to efficiently get involved in our personal lives. Health policy does that more intimately and comprehensively than any. Again, look to nations in Europe, whose population is beholden to government in all manner of issues, based on it's control over their healthcare. US citizens still have some control over government. In Europe, government controls its citizens. And "private industry" is run by people. When you progressives constantly invite government into our lives, you can't control which "people" government gets into bed with. The Supreme Court just decided that speech by groups (like labor unions), and profit-making corporations, is protected under the First Amendment. And your faith in government science is breathtaking. This most recent example, concerning the supposed administration that was going to remove politics from science:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/11/report_on_offshore_oil_drillin.html
Progressives (i.e. Liberals) confuse the ideal with reality. They think utopia has arrived. They think there is solely one truth on any given matter and people will act appropriately and with benevolence once that truth is revealed to them. That there exists no conflicting interests (such as the interest of the unborn, perhaps?) on matters of public policy. Disagree with a liberal and you must be evil. That's about as analytical a response you're liable to get. Liberals appropriately dislike evil and greed and war, and because of that dislike, they fail to prepare for such unpleasantness when they're ultimately confronted with those realities.
But I'm a conservative. I'm 58. I spent 30 years of that as a liberal and the remainder recovering from that pretense, conceit and illusion. I learned, for example, that people do not arrive at the same conclusions, given the "right" facts. Either they reject the facts, or they filter it through different theories. And when you add to that the multitude of conflicting interests in a free society, the one thing you do not want is a centralized leviathan picking all the "truths" that all of us must obey. That puts you on a path towards socialism and/or totalitarianism. Yet that is the sole function of government: To make laws that everyone must follow.
Dan still does not realize that the reason his fellow progressives in the government health bureaucracies will not accept his science is because they don't have to. They have a law that says you must vaccinate your children. Thus, they don't have to be convinced of anything he presents to them. The law is the law. His "truth" is incidental to that. When Barbara Loe Fisher traded away our freedom to refuse vaccinations, with a government promise to make them "safe", we lost the leverage we used to have to ensure vaccine safety. (Proof that vaccines are inherently unsafe is the fact that pharma had to obtain government indemnification for vaccines, as no commercial insurer would underwrite them.)
The mechanism that insures product safety was circumvented 30 years ago solely for one product----vaccines. Progressives' love for every egalitarian public health measure was exploited in this instance. But government can't inspect everything being sold for safety. That's why we have tort law. And that is why most corporations----both good or evil ones----try to make safe products.
Dan will argue that pharma buys its government influence. Granted, money influences people. But it always will in a free society (another one of those unacknowledged realities for progressives). That still doesn't explain most of the true believers in the CDC who vaccinate their own children. And besides that, government would not be worth influencing in the first place, if government was not so influential in our lives.
POSTSCRIPT:
As a conservative, I'm fascinated why Dan would express disappointment that "conservative" Fox News has produced favorable coverage for us. And a little giddy over it too. He didn't use the prefix, "conservative" to describe The Washington Examiner though. I wonder if he's aware they're to the right of Fox News?
2010 Gary Krasner
Gary Krasner, Director
Coalition For Informed Choice
Holliswood, NY 11423
www.CFIC.us
[email protected]
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Posted by: Autism and Anti-Vaccine Advocate | November 14, 2010 at 12:20 PM
This debate transcends politics. It affects us all. It is the single most important issue in public health today.
The genie is coming out of the bottle...it’s hit the MSM. This video ran on television this morning on FNC.
“1 in 88 military children have autism.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQEkGYJQjw
For those who would like to marginalize us, we’re not crazy. Wake up!
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Posted by: patrons99 | November 14, 2010 at 11:22 AM
A progressive value might be to provide equal access to services/resources, including vaccines, but is it an inherent progressive value to mandate use of these services? This country isn't progressive enough to imagine a health care system that's not profit driven like nearly every other established country, yet new jersey has the most vaccine mandates and the highest autism prevalence anywhere, b/c pharamaceutical companies own the state.
I'd like to know the circumstances that led to the legislation requiring vaccinations for access to schools and whether other countries are doing this as well. I'm sure like everything else in this country, it was a profit driven decision, not b/c of a value system that is grounded in selflessly taking care of people.
For so many of us, the decision to vaccinate was driven by the ped reminder that you can't access school without them, so why wait? Is this going on in other countries where pharmaceutical companies aren't driving health care?
I think being progressive is facilitating equal access, not the bastardization of this value like we saw with this country's attempt at health care "reform" where we are mandating people to participate in the existing pharamecutical controlled for profit system. Both parties are bought and sold by big pharma as we all know. There is no room for any kind of humanitarian values in this game.
Posted by: ginnie | November 14, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Amen. BTW -We have never received public benefits for our son. Autism Waivers have wait lists several years long. And the public system of education has failed to provide a fit for him that would challenge his intellectual mind, but support his needs developmentally. So we homeschool and do private practice therapies that are covered a little by insurance. And we're drained, financially, mentally, physically at times. And we have breakthroughs. So bottom line, I don't think progressives or conservatives will be involved in this. And although that sounds very resentful, I feel I have provided the answers for my son through my own individual efforts. My only concern is that our facist government (one that is in aligned with corporate interests) continues to force vaccination via school entry on families and continue to add to the creation of many many chronic diseases and learning disorders. So they really are the problem. And so I really appreciate your comments on the gerberding phenomena that breeds this continued saga for many generations to come.
Posted by: Sunshine | November 14, 2010 at 09:13 AM
I am in the middle of Dan and Mark's book: Age of Autism and find it to be excellent. I believe it should be read by everyone. As I started to compose this post, I received an E-mail critical of Dan's position on the progressive movement and big government's control of our lives. In this article, the emphasis is on freedom and the need for the elimination of vaccine mandates. Then the educational process involves only the people who will make decisions about vaccines and not the Govt, medical establishment, the pharmaceutical companies or the media. The article is available at:
http://cfic.us/articles/Progressives-Nov2010.pdf
WE NEED TO STOP MANDATED VACCINES!!! Anyone who wants one should be allowed to get it.
Michael B Schachter MD, CNS
Posted by: Michael B Schachter MD, CNS | November 13, 2010 at 10:03 PM
Ummm, what the hell is this shit!? I am definitely a liberal and I definately "get" the autism issue. Don't be an asshole. I also believe FULLY in natural medicine and am ENTIRELY against psych meds of any kind, like many other liberals I know. I also think women should decide for themselves what they want to do medically about their reproductive choices and I think gays should get married all over the place. They should do it now, and they should go on to adopt many children, especially those with special needs so they can treat them better than the foster system would. I am not now nor have I ever been one of "these people", nor is my child, nor, I would imagine, are your children. Special needs parents don't know better by now than to make broad sweeping statements about a group of people? Your maturity level continues to disappoint.
Liberals think insurance, if you have it, should cover ABA while you republicans bring us the likes of Sharron Angle and Michael Savage. Oh, that's what this is about, it's face-saving time in light of the anti-autism republican public figures?
Posted by: Sarah | November 13, 2010 at 09:54 PM
My daughter who works in one of the Red Cross testing labs was told today that they are possibly going to start testing for XMRV. She commented to me on how what was considered fringe thinking is now being accepted as a possible threat to the health of main stream America
Liberal or Conservative Autism has no distinction. Good causes do not come from the halls of government and they are certainly not going to be solved by government without the will of the people pushing our officials.
For years, we have all heard that people suffering from CFS were all depressed or mentally unstable. Now that perception is changing and XMRV is being seriously looked at as the culprit. The perceptions related to autism and vaccines are bound to change also. Unfortunately, it takes way too much time
Posted by: Nora | November 13, 2010 at 06:25 PM
Tara Marshall
The center would be nice.
Not too far left to ruin our Republic,
Not too far right to ruin our Republic.
Besides ???? Under President Bush "No child left behind"??????
I am not saying everything was wonderful for my son in school during Clinton and Bush Administrations, but it was not the lack of money poured into education, or dedicated school teachers.
Posted by: Benedetta | November 13, 2010 at 05:09 PM
Amen, brother...Amen.
Posted by: Nicole | November 13, 2010 at 02:37 PM
If you think "Progressives" don't get Autism, wait until the Conservatives get all they want in power.
Goodbye, free inclusive public education. Goodbye, state funded healthcare for many children with disabilities. You wanted children, you got DISABLED children, now you had better make the money to pay for what those children need.
If you never listened to the screeds from the Right, they want to be rid of the entire Dept. of Education, not to mention Medicare/Medicaid. It's hard enough to raise an Autistic child without having access to the BENEFITS many of us are using (courtesy of these much-hated liberals once in our government) without having to come up with money to cover even more shortfalls in the care.
So, if you want to go down that primrose path blindly, I wish you good luck. Good luck trying to find any school placement for your children that doesn't cost your entire paycheck. Enjoy trying to get "free market health insurance" to cover your Autistic child, that's if you can afford the coverage after you cover the school bill.
Posted by: Tara Marshall | November 13, 2010 at 10:40 AM
Dan, all we can say is "Thank You" to you and all who have been at the front lines of our battle! You have been the voice for all of us who haven't been able to find the time or energy as we are home fighting to recover our damaged children/grandchildren!
With your permission, I would ask that everyone sends a copy of your article to your local paper. Most everyone who scans the local papers will read the letters to the editor section. "We're singing to the choir", lets get the message out, and you can all help! This carnage has gone on for too long! May God help us all!
Posted by: Susan Fritz | November 13, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Birgit
Just to recall the article by Adriana Gamondes earlier this year in which she pointed out that even in ancient times people believed the earth was round, but the Phoenicians spread a rumour that it was flat in order to defend their commercial interests.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/02/the-phoenicians-autism-recovery-denial-drug-profits-and-the-medias-flat-earth.html
John
Posted by: John Stone | November 13, 2010 at 09:46 AM
I wonder how much longer we will beat our heads against brick walls with seemingly so little effect. There's a perfect storm of financial interest, close mindedness, institutional defensiveness, and as Tony Bateson said "extraordinary collective deafness". Great article, Dan.
Posted by: Twyla | November 13, 2010 at 12:42 AM
Government is not the solution to the problem that THEY created. The more I get involved with government- from the post office to the public schools- I think the whole thing is a racket. Why must people inject pharmaceuticals into their kids so that they can go to public school? And we want these people to run our health care? Any thinking person can see that they will withhold health care until people get the proper "preventative care". The government has never really *fixed* anything. Giving them more power just puts us more firmly under the thumb of their conflicted (read: bought) policies. Personally I'd rather give up my son's medicaid waiver, give up public schools before I'd ever be forced into a medical procedure again.
Posted by: kristine | November 13, 2010 at 12:36 AM
Dan, Phenomenal essay........no further words necessary. oops
Posted by: michael framson | November 13, 2010 at 12:15 AM
I am reading your book currently. It's a great read, and it should be read by everyone. Something in your book reminds me of the time when everybody thought the earth was flat and what it took to convince the people in power then to contemplate that maybe the earth is round. How much propaganda it must have taken to stay with the status quo to keep people from seeing their world view, i.e. being the center of the universe, collapse.
I have to believe that the tipping point will come. I hope it comes before it is too late. History has shown that heavy metals both in old Rome and in the Spain of the Middle Ages caused adverse events in these countries. As Alfred Stock (a well-known German chemist of the 1920s) said "Quem Mercurius perdere vult dementat prius." Let's hope it doesn't happen here.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | November 12, 2010 at 11:31 PM
I have to agree with Mary. Both are on the same team. How can republicans say they are against big government when the corporations they are in bed with are the ones funding dictating with their money what laws are passed and what aren't? The democrats want to take care of all, but they don't seem to realize that the corporations are in control and dictate our healthcare choices. Ugh! So frustrating that I didn't even bother to vote this time around. I'll work from my phone and internet to push the change that I want for my daughters.
Posted by: Julie Leonardo | November 12, 2010 at 10:54 PM
Obviously the BIG Picture regarding the unregulated out of control medical industry is horrendous all the way around. Vaccines are just one tragedy among millions of deaths and diseases CAUSED by manmade toxins, both drugs and vaccines. The pharmaceutical industry spends $100 million per year in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses to protect its profits.
Everything good about American democracy is being wiped out by the lobby system whereby any big industry with enough money can buy anything that they want. They make legal "campaign contributions" to whichever candidates and congressmen who will get them what they want. They provide industry positions to government officials or under the table deals to keep powerful people under their financial control. What the American public wants is totally disregarded except in campaign promises which gets the politicians elected, but it's the M-O-N-E-Y that they get from Big Business which controls how they vote. Our entire government system is controlled by Big Money bribery and influence, and until THIS system is changed by law it will continue to go from bad to worse. Therefore the only hope for change is to expose to the truth to the people so that finally the facts will force the issues into public awareness. And that is exactly what Age of Autism (the book) and Age of Autism (the website) does.
Posted by: Autism Grandma | November 12, 2010 at 09:09 PM
I believe you are completely right, and I think that you could continue this article in a series for just about any other ideological classification in the U.S.
If a non-partisan group of elected and unelected "leaders" would only stand (publicly shoulder to shoulder or glaring across the aisles--I don't care which) and say something to the effect of, "Look, we didn't want to accept this, but we really blew it, on all sides. Not only that, but we let this go on for two decades. We let individuals who were less than objective tell us what to believe, and we let personal interests influence what we believed, but it would be adding further insult to significant injury to not learn the lessons that are spelled out in plain sight in our children's health and make reforms to prevent this and reverse this." If they did this I might begin to have some degree of faith that this country was not moving steadily in an "us verses them" direction, and I might begin to have some faith that mankind is not heading down a course of self-destruction.
Posted by: JenB | November 12, 2010 at 08:58 PM
Dan,
I hope you will find the enclosed link interesting. It is an article in Public Health Reports from an interview with Herbert Needleman, MD, who you mention in your book. As you know, his research in the 1970's on the harmful effects of lead exposure on children was ground breaking and a game changer for the lead, paint and gasoline industries as he ultimately was instrumental in getting lead removed from paint and gasoline. While there are obvious scientific parallels to conclusions that can be found in The Age Of Autism with regard to your findings about mercury, I find it most interesting and take heart in the fact that Dr. Needleman faced great personal and professional obstacles, including attempts to have him discredited by the powers that be, but in the end he triumphed.
If the link doesn't work, google "standing up to the lead industry" for access to the article.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1497712/pdf/16134577.pdf
Posted by: Paul Campadonico | November 12, 2010 at 08:35 PM
I have gotten into so many debates with fellow Dems on liberal websites and it angers me no end. These people will rail against big busines and how they will do absolutely anything for the almighty dollar, even if that means polluting, killing, poisoning, coups, you name it. No care or concern for human life, the environment, as long as they can report profits to the shareholders.
They will rant and rave about pharmaceuticals right along with the human rights abusers, and environment destroyers, when it comes to Avandia or Accutane, Meridia, Ortho-Evra, black box warnings etc. They make no distinctions, until you bring up vaccines. Suddenly, you may as well have said Mother Theresa was a woman of ill repute, or "there is no Jesus" with the reaction you get from these people. They have a serious disconect and they cannot see it.
Thank you for putting it so much more clearly and eloquently than I have been able to for the last couple of years, but I will continue to fight the fight. Really, they believe pharma will kill, mame, cover-up, falsify data, anything for a profit even if it kills people, until it comes to vaccines. That kind of ignorance in the same sentence with "progessive" just doesn't sit well with me. But I know all too well that is exactly where too many of them stand.
Posted by: Kendra Pettengill | November 12, 2010 at 07:44 PM
I speak as a parent of a special needs child (not autism however) and a case manager for a Regional Center in California who works with dozens of families with a child on the spectrum. A clear example of progressives not getting this came as I have been posting facts about vaccination on my facebook page and a progressive friend of mine responded "wasn't all the mercury taken out of vaccines already" and "I know there have been a number of European studies showing no link between neurological problems and vaccines". This is a true govenment sceptic who neither sites any actual studies or bothers to research it herself but just accepts the status quo. This is what you get when the powers that be are able to keep the American public in the dark as the crisis looms.
Posted by: Rebecca St. James | November 12, 2010 at 07:39 PM
@ Carrie ..
"It has been maddening waiting for one political party to take this issue and make it their own ..."
My friend .. you are wasting your time "waiting for one political party to take this issue and make it their own"
Why do I say that?
Because the political power of BOTH parties is transitional .. subject to the "elective process".
"Industries" are not stupid .. if they KNOW political power is "transitional" .. they also KNOW the real power rests within the permanent federal bureaucracies .. such as .. the CDC, FDA, IOM, etc.
So .. I have a really hard time believing INDUSTRY .. paying MILLIONS in campaign contributions .. to BOTH parties .. does not expect to DICTATE who THEY want to serve as Directors of the CDC or FDA.
In my humble opinion .. our problem is not "progressive or conservative" politicians who are "elected" .. it is the industry leaders who BUY the right to DECIDE WHO WILL BE APPOINTED .. AS PAYBACK FOR LUCRATIVE CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS .. TO THE PERMANENT BUREAUCRACY.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | November 12, 2010 at 07:16 PM
T:
Fox reports the news and this is what the CDC said.
Notice the article also says:
"Some, but not all, flu shots contain a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal. Despite concerns about a proposed link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, numerous studies have found no association
It is mentioned that there are concerns, and it sure is an improvement what has been done in the past!
It also talks about VAERS!
Could it be that as the article discusses flu shots that it is also conveying other information as well.
I love the fact that information is given to how report to VAERS. Because other wise it seems to be a very well kept secret.
Posted by: Benedetta | November 12, 2010 at 06:59 PM
Thanks Dan for this excellent article and all the great comments it has provoked. My sense is that progressives always seem to end up hurting the very groups they seek to help. They simply lack the intellectual honesty and integrity to face issues squarely. When dispassionate observers follow the money to see who really benefits from progressive social and health policies, one finds that it's the interest groups whose nest is feathered. These groups want power and money, the people be damned. Conservatives oftentimes do the same with their own interest groups, but they tend to commit acts of omission rather than comission, reasoning that the market will take care of things. When they are wrong, they are thrown out of power much more quickly than progressives who are more adept at saying one thing while doing another. At least with conservatives, you know where they're coming from, or at least it's easier to discover who's benefiting from their policies. Perhaps it is time to leave labels at the door and find ways for the right and left to work in a bipartisan fashion to solve this Nation's problems and to give autism its rightful place as the Nation's most serious public health problem.
Posted by: Barry Stern | November 12, 2010 at 06:35 PM
Fox New ain't all that great...
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/11/12/flu-shots-safe-pregnant-women-study-finds/
Posted by: TJ | November 12, 2010 at 06:00 PM
It has been maddening waiting for one political party to take this issue and make it their own- I think they both know that it is more politically expedient to ignore it altogether, as taking either side in the debate withh earn them scorn and ridicule from a large voter block. I was hoping that the recent Fox reporting would create a groundswell on the conservative side that would make it impossible for the politicians to ignore, but apparently we are not there yet. What it will take, I am sorry to say, is more affected kids, with parents who are important and influential people who will shout from the rooftops and join Jenny...and us.
Posted by: Carrie Elsass | November 12, 2010 at 04:55 PM
Dan:
I think this is one of the best pieces of journalism I've read on the problem of getting progressives to understand autism. One would think that progressives would be our natural allies. But autism is nothing less than a perfect storm, allowing progressives to discount us because of their support of public health efforts, and the conservative blindness to the corporate/government alliance which prefers to ignore inconvenient problems.
All the best,
Kent Heckenlively
Posted by: Kent Heckenlively | November 12, 2010 at 12:58 PM
There is an extraordinary collective deafness present in the US halls of power and in those of Britain where the experiences of millions of parents of autistic people count for nothing. Instead the corrupt practices of multinational pharmaceuticals driven by huge amounts of dollars coerce medics and researchers dependent upon grant funding to toe the line. How is it possible that intelligent doctors can fail to see that the common factors of every autistic person are vaccines. There is no other cause, to talk of genetic epidemics is institutional sleight of hand. The genetic bit is simply that of being vulnerable to the poison used in vaccines. It is the world's first shelf life disaster - plain and simple.
Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.
Posted by: tony bateson | November 12, 2010 at 12:37 PM
Perhaps some historical analysis would help? The Progressive Movement in the U.S. had largely beat infectious illness before the vaccines were commonly used. They improved garbage collection, housing, sewage management, water quality, food quality, for which they should be celebrated everywhere.
Vaccines were, to a large extent, an afterthought and an attempt by the medical profession and the drug companies to seize the credit for the accomplishments of the do-gooders.
Unfortunately, repeat a lie enough times and everyone will believe it.
The one seeming exception is the polio vaccine because polio seemed to increase as modernization advanced. For more on the strange story of polio: http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress and search on polio (we are up to five or six articles on the subject and not done yet).
Posted by: MinorityView | November 12, 2010 at 12:35 PM
I think both sides are in the pocket of corporations.
I think the "conservative/right" is only on "our side" when they are not in power.
And, who are we kidding? How many members of senate/congress from the republican party are really on our side?
Also, the supreme court is VERY right wing and is VERY pro-corporation rights (treating them as individuals).
In brush strokes painted VERY BROAD... on one side, you have people who want to fix everything. On the other side, you have people who want de-regulation and to get rich and who cares how many streams/forests they mess up (and kids).
On both sides, you have their followers who have NO CLUE what is going on and follow their party without thinking (and do not do their own research).
We are in the ultimate trap/Catch 22.
Posted by: Henderson | November 12, 2010 at 12:20 PM
Very well said, Dan - especially the part about our willingness to vote for anyone who will put the people back in charge.
I also believe Patron 99's comment nails the root cause of the progressives' lack of progress as regards autism.
There's a more crass way of saying it: limousine liberals, bought by pharma.
Posted by: Pharmwatch | November 12, 2010 at 12:07 PM
It doesn't matter how many you give them, they are all safe!
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/05/paul-offits-10000-vaccines-and-the-milgram-experiment.html
Posted by: Population Control | November 12, 2010 at 12:03 PM
OMG! "consanguinal government". The analogy is perfect. It's as if the Dark Lord of the vaccine industry has "biten" our elected officials and "turned" them into blood suckers. They'd likely catch fire in the sunlight.
What will they say to their Creator at the Pearly Gates to justify their role in this man-made holocaust of vaccine-induced diseases?
Posted by: patrons99 | November 12, 2010 at 11:45 AM
"Government is not here to make a profit but to protect and serve the citizens who elected it. Its shareholders are the people."
Yet the irony and insanity:
"(The government had the good progressive sense to ban mercury in agriculture in the 1970s. It’s still in the flu-shot at your favorite grocery store, though. At least in 1930 they didn’t know any better; today, government abets and enables this disaster.)"
For that ban to become law required people to make it happen. Could be that the fungicide business was a poor profit business, thus, not many government people had a personal piggy bank attached to it. Vaccines on the other hand, and pharmaceuticals in general are a different situation. It is an unholy alliance that needs to stop.
Maybe that's a key. Maybe those in government can only hold a job in government IF they have no conflicts (stock, patents, etc) -- and a complete BAN to be employed by them. It has become an incestuous relationship -- let's call it Consanguineal Government.
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | November 12, 2010 at 11:28 AM
The Progressives were done in by that ol' debbil Unintended Consequences. The government agencies they created are the partners of the corporations they regulate rather than their overseers. No good will ever come from this nefarious marriage.
Posted by: Theodore Van Oosbree | November 12, 2010 at 10:50 AM
As long as Pharma continues to pay millions of dollars for campaigns for "both sides" so "their side" will always win, it will be difficult to gain much ground in Congress.
It will take the present generation of mothers to become properly informed and "just say no" to the endless CDC vaccine bullshit.
Posted by: cmo | November 12, 2010 at 10:39 AM
Governments should GET THE HELL OUT of healthcare. All they really do right now, is endorse pharma, the vaccine industrialists, and the GMO giants. Government endorsement empowers pharma to continue in their criminal extortion of the people and concerted actions for corporate financial gain, under color of official right. The public's health has been abandoned. We are up that proverbial creek without a paddle. We need a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees medical freedom in this Country. This should be the litmus test for election to all public office.
Posted by: patrons99 | November 12, 2010 at 10:31 AM
End of second paragraph in my last post should read (of course):-
"(although on average this is highly unlikely)."
Posted by: John Stone | November 12, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Thanks, Dan, for your eloquent call to action for progressives. And Ginger, your comment really nailed it. People hard-wired as do-gooders cannot accept the ironic paradox that their revered health care programs are perversely causing health damage. So they lash out with armchair explanations rather than face-on investigations.
Calling vaccinating parents "anti-vaccine" seems such a transparent bureaucratic PR defense strategy, but it fits the wishful internal filters of those with a fixer mentality.
It's almost as if progressives in denial need to be handed a mental road map showing how to psychologically process these alien concepts. That paradigm shift shouldn't have to come only from the personal experience of watching one's child regress into autism shortly after a round of vaccines.
Yes, Dan, a reset is needed now -- if America can demand recalls of malfunctioning cars, why can't we get reevaluation of vaccine policies and examinations and treatment of sick children on the autism spectrum?
A caveat: Don't place too much faith in conservative Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, either. He is well aware of the Thimerosal issue. His Department of Health boasts possibly the highest vaccination rate in the country -- along with one of the highest autism rates.
Posted by: nhokkanen | November 12, 2010 at 10:26 AM
The truth of this matter is not that there are no benefits to vaccines, but irrespective of any benefits they are a racket. It may be important to get mercury out of the flu shot if we are going to have the flu shot, but an equally big scandal is the flu shot itself: it is an ineffective intervention against a very low risk of death. Late on Christmas Eve, last, the UK's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, posted in BMJ the true statistics about annual flu mortality - which over the previous 4 years had averaged just 33, or perhaps one death in 20,000 (and let's face it, everyone dies in the end).
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/01/sir-liams-skeleton-the-uk-department-of-health-fabricates-flu-deaths-to-boost-vaccination.html
Nor it is not clear that any of these deaths could have been averted by vaccines, partly because we don't know how many of the deaths were unvaccinated, and partly because Sir Liam didn't specifiy whether the deaths were vaccine strain or not (although one average this is highly unlikely).
And it isn't just me who is saying this, it is being said by the Cochrane Collaboration:
"Authors of this review assessed all trials that compared vaccinated people with unvaccinated people. The combined results of these trials showed that under ideal conditions (vaccine completely matching circulating viral configuration) 33 healthy adults need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. In average conditions (partially matching vaccine) 100 people need to be vaccinated to avoid one set of influenza symptoms. Vaccine use did not affect the number of people hospitalised or working days lost but caused one case of Guillian-Barré syndrome (a major neurological condition leading to paralysis) for every one million vaccinations. Fifteen of the 36 trials were funded by vaccine companies and four had no funding declaration. Our results may be an optimistic estimate because company-sponsored influenza vaccines trials tend to produce results favorable to their products and some of the evidence comes from trials carried out in ideal viral circulation and matching conditions and because the harms evidence base is limited."
http://www.cochranejournalclub.com/vaccines-for-preventing-influenza-clinical/pdf/CD001269_abstract.pdf
But absolutely nothing can be done to stop the annual fear-mongering juggernaut, a syphon on the public purse with infinitessimal medical benefits and unmonitored risks. All we know is that droves of professionals don't want to have it.
The reality is an outrageous distortion of public policy for corporate benefit. Flu vaccine is just one example. Time the world woke. Vaccines are a racket!
Posted by: John Stone | November 12, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Dan:
Always a thought provoking writer. Best compliment a writer can have!
Left- Center - Right: Is not a striaght line.
It is a circle, and on the opposite side of the circle were left and right again meets is like Ginger Taylor said - either way it is a road to hell.
The Medical community has had it all, extreme left - progressive - herd immunity, we are all the same.
Extreme right - captilism run amuck, if you don't have good health insurance they will force you to bankruptecy or sell your home to pay them.
By the way Fox News in centered. This country has watched the other news so much - as it slowly drifted so far left -that no one noticed.
Posted by: Benedetta | November 12, 2010 at 10:05 AM
I have a difficult time reading huffpo or kos specifically because of the vaccine at all costs crowd. It's unfortunate. On one hand you have the people who insist vaccines are as safe as the pure driven snow. On the other, that unfortunate circumstances (their words) like my children are acceptable in order to maintain herd immunity.
I've all but stopped reading progressive blogs as well because there's just no telling where this sort of argument will turn up. It's just too depressing. Especially from the people who should KNOW better about corporate corruption.
Posted by: HFAmomto3HFAgirls | November 12, 2010 at 09:57 AM
Progressives don't get autism because they've likely cut their own backroom "deals" with pharma. When the "other" party regains power, I doubt anything will really change. It takes people of conscience and a kind-hearted spirit. Potomac Fever makes ALL politicians delirious. I seriously doubt that the new Potomac Fever vaccine in the pharma pipeline will save them. It certainly won't give them herd immunity. It will just make them susceptible to "dis"-eases of all kinds. Here's the common susceptibility factor to this malady they seem to all share...their love for power and $$$.
Posted by: patrons99 | November 12, 2010 at 09:48 AM
I don't buy into this progressive/conservative stuff. I think they all are on the same team, but have different positions on the team.
I don't trust the public health department they have a shady past built on eugenics, sterlization, Tuskogee, fluoride, vaccinations. Nothing of any value. I say eliminate them to balance the budget.
Medicine LOVES mercury because it gives everyone a differnt disease. If they didn't have mercury to harm us, their offices would be pratically empty. They will not give it up, just keep changing the ways they get it into us.
Posted by: Mary | November 12, 2010 at 09:36 AM
Fantastic. You nailed it, Dan. Applause from Illinois!
Posted by: Donna L. | November 12, 2010 at 09:27 AM
Progressiveism is the mother of unintended consequences, the living embodiment of the idea that the 'road to hell is paved with good intentions'.
It is so tempting to make a plan to FIX EVERYTHING, but few plans plan for the statistical outliers, or cover those one one end of the bell curve but not the other.
The founders had it right when they created a system of checks and balances, of dynamic tension, where no one gets what they really want. It restrains both the evil of man and the dangerous good intentions of man.
The unrestrained vaccine program is the clearest example of good intentions run amok that I know of. One size fits all medicine is going to save us if it has to kill us to do it.
Posted by: Ginger Taylor | November 12, 2010 at 08:55 AM
You're spot on, Dan. Many folks on Kos or HuffPo seem all too willing (even on the sensible issue of developing a robust, truly independent and effective vaccine safety construct) to put their fingers in their ears and say "nah,nah,nah". It's more than a bit depressing that these same folks inveigh mightily about corporate influence in public policy in every other area of our lives. They just seem to turn a blind eye to the revolving door between business and government when it comes to the public health arena. Perhaps many of us got too brainwashed in our youths based on the very real dangers of polio and basically checked out on the issue. I really don't know but it's certainly a head scratcher for me.
Posted by: Dadvocate | November 12, 2010 at 08:52 AM
The missle off Califonia is a "case closed" con-trail from an airplane per the Pentagon. No one that I've talked to believes them.
Let's keep talking to people. Gotta push the "medical freedom of choice" and "safe medicine, including vaccines" agenda on the ground. I've talked to my state representative and she grew cold in the conversation. Probably because she's a lawyer first, re-election second, common sense third person. :(
Posted by: Deb in IL | November 12, 2010 at 08:19 AM
Fantastic post. It drives me crazy that the people who should be most concerned about our kids' health (medical community and government) are so willing to look the other way. Thank you and Mark for being willing to keep putting the truth out there in front of them.
Posted by: MelissaD | November 12, 2010 at 07:56 AM
Excellent article. I think it really shows, without demeaning either the left or right, how good intentions can be hijacked by the interests of big business. Who would have thought that progressives would be defending the interests of the most profitable businesses in the world and that those interests would be questioned by Fox news?
Posted by: Trevor de Koekkoek | November 12, 2010 at 07:48 AM