Thalidomide/Thimerosal
By Anne Dachel
There is recent news that after 50 years of silence the German
pharmaceutical company, Gruenenthal, has apologized for the horrific damage
caused by thalidomide, the morning sickness drug given to pregnant women in the
late 1950s and early 60s. This got my attention immediately because of the
obvious similarity of the use of mercury in vaccines.
Mainstream news sources gave the thalidomide story significant coverage.
New York Newsday: HERE
“Victims of thalidomide said on Saturday an apology from the German inventor of the drug that caused birth defects in thousands of babies around the world was too little too late.”
“The thalidomide scandal triggered a worldwide overhaul of drug-testing regimes and boosted the reputation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which refused to approve the drug.
“Gruenenthal said it had acted to the best of its knowledge.”
Chicago Tribune: HERE
Los Angeles Times: HERE
Because its tests failed to detect hazards, many women took the medicine without knowing it could harm their babies, he said, and were left with “a heavy burden.” For almost 50 years, Grunenthal had not found a way to reach out to the victims “person to person,” Stock added.
The analogy is undeniable. How different is the mistaken belief that it’s safe to inject toxic mercury into human beings? How can one medical mistake be recognized while another is continually covered up.
The mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal goes back 75 years. It was invented and tested Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company in 1930. The one study done on thimerosal was done by Eli Lilly on 22 adult patients suffering from meningitis. There was no chance for follow-up to observe long-term effects, as the test subjects died. Even if follow-up had been possible, damage to the developing brains of very young children would have remained an unknown.
The media is giving credit to the FDA for not approving thalidomide in this country, yet in the case of thimerosal, it was never tested or approved by the FDA, yet it’s still allowed in vaccines. Eli Lilly said it was safe back in the 1930s and the medical community just accepted it. After the creation of the FDA, its use was simply continued. This unconscionable oversight failure has yet to be recognized.
Several news sites are telling us that the thalidomide disaster led to better testing for drugs. Have these people forgotten about Vioxx and the endless stories about drug recalls? Vioxx was a drug that was originally approved by the FDA.
“Because its tests failed to detect hazards,” the company that made thalidomide claims that they acted in good faith. In the case of thimerosal, no one will ever be able to say that. The evidence is clear that both the company that manufactured thimerosal and the health officials that have allowed its use have been fully aware of the potential for damage from mercury use in vaccines. In the case of thimerosal, we’ll be asking: What did they know, when did they know it, and what did they do to cover it up?
The book, Age of Autism, HERE , by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill, had this to say about the invention of thimeroal. (p. 149)
“Today, a toxic substance like ethylmercury (thimerosal) could not be used in a medical product without rigorous testing. Ensuring it’s safety would entail a process that would start in a test tube and progress to animals; only after passing through several stages could it win approval to be administered to humans. But before 1938, and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, drugmakers were not required to demonstrate the safety of their products in this manner before they were allowed on the market. The act spent most of the decade tied up in Congress, ‘stalled and gutted by the brawny proprietary-medicine lobby…with help from friends in the newspaper industry, which had become addicted to advertising revenue from wonder drugs such as Paw-Paw Pills and Cherry Pectoral.’… Instead, thimerosal was tested only on twenty-two patients in an Indianapolis hospital. They did not appear to show overt or immediate signs of mercury poisoning even though most of the patients subsequently died.”
David Kirby wrote about Eli Lilly in his book, Evidence of Harm, HERE. (p. 207) Kirby described the discovery of 46 boxes of internal Eli Lilly documents. Kirby wrote about “a 70 year old paper trail of evidence that Eli Lilly knew about thimeroal’s dangers and had relied on bogus clinical data to maintain approval for the preservative.”
We’re told the documents “clearly demonstrate that Lilly’s thimerosal product was known as early as April 1930 to be dangerous…”
“The thalidomide scandal triggered a worldwide overhaul of drug-testing regimes and boosted the reputation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which refused to approve the drug….”
In June, 2000, a closed meeting was held at a remote site in northern Georgia called the Simpsonwood Conference Center. HERE Representatives from the CDC, the FDA, and the pharmaceutical industry held two days of discussion examining the possibility of a link between increased use of toxic mercury in vaccines and rise in neurological problems in children who had received those vaccines. Everything talked about at the meeting was to be kept secret.
Only through the Freedom of Information Act were people able to find out what was said. Simpsonwood transcript: HERE
The meeting wasn’t made public by the government and one of the attendees, Dr. David Johnson from Michigan was quoted saying,
“Forgive this personal comment, but I got called out at eight o’clock for an emergency call and my daughter-in-law delivered a son by c-section. Our first male in the line of the next generation and I do not want that grandson to get a Thimerosal containing vaccine until we know better what is going on. It will probably take a long time. In the meantime, and I know there are probably implications for this internationally, but in the meanwhile I think I want that grandson to only be given Thimerosal-free vaccines.”
Instead of honestly and thoroughly investigating the link between mercury-containing vaccines and neurological damage in our children, our U.S. health officials have produced a number of easily manipulated population studies, all tied to the vaccine makers, and all showing no harm from injecting humans with the second deadliest element on earth.
In February 2005, in an article in the LA Times, reporter Myron Levin wrote this about the use of thimerosal in a piece called, ’91 Memo Warned of Mercury in Shots HERE
“A memo from Merck & Co. shows that, nearly a decade before the first public disclosure, senior executives were concerned that infants were getting an elevated dose of mercury in vaccinations containing a widely used sterilizing agent.
“The March 1991 memo, obtained by The Times, said that 6-month-old children who received their shots on schedule would get a mercury dose up to 87 times higher than guidelines for the maximum daily consumption of mercury from fish.”
There is much more about what officials knew about and chose to ignore. In the end it’ll all come out as this nation wakes up to the disaster we will be living with from here on as the children with autism reach adulthood at the same time more and more kids are being diagnosed. America will have to try and survive with an ever-growing population of the chronically ill and disabled. I can’t imagine a worse future for us. Fifty years from now will there be anyone left to apologize to?
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism. Susubscribe to her site at AnneDachel.com
Thalidomide was in USA from 1956 to 1962 and no one stopped this drug until it was to late the damage was already done Kelsey did not stop this drug many children in USA affected 5 tons of Thalidomide was in USA .
Posted by: John Marshall | April 04, 2019 at 09:35 AM
Jim;
That bronze statue is a piece of junk and not real art. It took me a long while to finally figure what it was.
"sought above all to cause confusion" That is thier mindset?
The picture above on this article is the best and it should be where ever they are keeping this bronze statue -- as a big mural - then there would be no confusion at what they caused by what
Birgit told us that they ingnorred smaller little of mice.
"sought above all to cause confusion"
What a mindset.
Age of reason indeed!
If these men had gone around lopping off children's arms - they would be in prison and loathed.
But do it with a pill of vaccine and they are off the hook.
Posion is the best murder weapon.
"sought above all to cause confusion" what a socialpath!
Posted by: Benedetta | September 09, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Anne:
The LA Times (2012) reports that “An Australian woman won millions of dollars earlier this year in a settlement with a British company that marketed thalidomide in her country, but had not reached agreement with Grunenthal as of last month. ‘Grunenthal likes to say it did nothing wrong in relation to thalidomide, but we challenge Grunenthal to make public its own thalidomide documents and let the public decide for themselves what they think of Grunenthal’s behavior,’ her attorney Michael Magazanik said in July.” http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/08/thalidomide.html
And here is what was written in “Thalidomide and the Power of the Drug Companies” by Sjostrom and Nilsson, p.62. (1972): “After a visit to a university neurological clinic in Cologne to defend Contergan (Thalidomide), Dr. Goeden of Chemie Grunenthal stated in a letter of February 23, 1961 that ‘I declared our standpoint on the problem of polyneuritis and Contergan and sought above all to cause confusion.’”
Sjostrom and Nilsson had it right 40 years ago.
“It seems, in principle, self evident that no free enterprise can expect only to share the profits of their products without also taking responsibility for any damage caused by them.”
Posted by: Jim Thompson | September 09, 2012 at 05:59 AM
Usually when the testing of Thimerosal(Merthiolate in those days 1929) comes up, there is talk about 22 meningitis patients who later died. It usually isn't mentioned that animal tests were also performed to check on the safety of the "drug". They used rabbits if I am not mistaken. The fatal flaw in those tests was that the animals didn't die. They were sacrificed after about one week. Now, anyone who knows anything about mercury, knows that no living thing is killed by mercury in one week. It takes several months even with a lethal dose. This was shown when many people in Iraq died because they were poisoned by seed grain. The story can be looked up by Googling. Also the Karen Wetterhahn story that can be read in the New England Journal of Medicine is an example. She died almost a year after she was poisoned by dimethyl mercury. It would take me a bit to get all the references. As far as the rats are concerned that were used in Thalidomide testing, they had no impaired off-spring. They had much smaller litters, however. Apparently in rats the malformed off-spring is reabsorbed by the mother rat without any affected babies being born. I got that from "Suffer the Children".
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | September 06, 2012 at 02:30 PM
Thanks Birgit Calhoun
That was a very interesting link too. I thank you for giving it to us.
Angus gave us a good link too, that showed me that there is not much difference in the treatment of the thalidomide and those affected by autism - They too have faced the medical crown trying to blame thier genes and effecting the next generation.
YOur link talks about animal studies.
It said at the time this happened there were no such things as saftey test on pregnant animals.
Now that they have gone back and looked at it - rats - still do not show much reaction to thalidomide-- just a low percentage of them. hmmmmm that is like 1 out of 88 kids have autism.
Mulit - species testing is important but even then rabbits, chickens, rainbow trout are not humans. Even with multi-species something could get pass safty test and affect humans.
When they did however, give a whole lot of thalidomide,it - did start showing up in larger percentages. Complaints then are heard that if too much of anything is given it shows problems - even sugar water. True they do - do dosage levels - in all studies for this very reason. --
This article might possibly be glossing over and giving mad sciencetists excuses; in trying to get around a low percentage of animals reacting, or animals reacting to a lot.
Sort of reminds me that a low percentage of kids are getting severe reactions to vaccines. A warning that this is only one type of reaction -- among many other reactions that will end up being the reason for obsesity, diabeties - well you know all that. .
And what did they do after they got their laws of protection passed here in the United States-- they started giving more and more.
Money is in the way of paying attention to low percentage is all I can figure out.
Posted by: Benedetta | September 06, 2012 at 12:24 PM
Question to Terri Lewis : The 2 million you talk about , is that just the US ? I have heard figures mentioned concerning China of 5m there ?
Posted by: Kim No-Vac | September 06, 2012 at 05:14 AM
I blame the fast-tracking drug and vaccine pushers.Instead of doing a proper follow up and testing they find the shortcuts and put dangerous drugs on the market.They have learned nothing from the past.You only need to remember how aggressively they fast-tracked and pushed their toxic Gardasil,this aluminum, borax, polysorbate garbage vaccine on the children
and young adults.They also have blanket immunity,so you are on your own if you or your child has adverse effects.What a great VACCINE business this is with no responsibilities to the customers???!!!!!!
Yes wake up mothers and PROTECT your children.
Posted by: oneVoice | September 06, 2012 at 12:43 AM
The trouble with autism is that the victims often look "normal." It is not a tragedy because we can't SEE anything. When the public schools have more special ed students than typical, maybe that will be the tipping point.
Remember, every drug that was eventually stricken from the market was once approved by the FDA. With a track record like that, why do we believe they are capable of keeping us safe at all?
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | September 06, 2012 at 12:28 AM
Another great read and one more good analogy, Ihope more people read about this stupid apology 50 years later and tune into the reality of what is happening to our children. The choir already sings well.
Maurine
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | September 05, 2012 at 09:55 PM
Even though this subject has been a long running case here in Australia, very little has been seen in the news.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/landmark-thalidomide-payout-offers-hope-for-thousands-20120718-22apa.html
Take note that in 2006 - Thalidomide is subsidised by the Australian government as a cancer treatment.
Elizabeth Gillespie
Posted by: AussieMum | September 05, 2012 at 09:45 PM
To get a really good idea what happened in Germany, and other countries, regarding Thalidomide, I recommend reading the book "Suffer the Children: The Story of Thalidomide". It was written by the Insight Team (including journalist Harold Evans) of the Sunday Times before it became a Murdoch paper. In this context I also highly recommend reading his autobiography "My Paper Chase". It will become apparent that Harold Evans was an old-school journalist. In those days they journalists were not as corruptible as they are now. Additionally it might be worthwhile reading the following item I found on the internet: http://www.pnc.com.au/~cafmr/online/research/thalid2.html
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | September 05, 2012 at 04:36 PM
Thank You Angus;
I was wondering about the second generation.
Vivien Kerr: Should tour Dow Chemicals environmental facilitlies. They would gladly lecture her on the importance of testing generations after the first one shows or does not even show damage.
The big bad government agency; EPA -- has rules and procedures all set, on how those generation studies are suppose to be set up.
Common, common, common-- except there is probably not enough money in the world to fix damages from "Bad Drug".
Posted by: Benedetta | September 05, 2012 at 03:36 PM
I nearly forgot this one as well of Thalidomide second generation ..scandal..
http://www.whale.to/drugs/thalidomide.html
A curse on my BABY
Glenn Harrison and his daughter have identical deformities. His claim that thalidomide is to blame has split the drug’s victims and the medical world. Margarette Driscoll reports
nday Times Focus 20 July 1997
Georgina Harrison celebrates her fourth birthday this week. She is a bright, happy little girl who adores her older brothers and is looking forward to starting "big" school in September.
She walks steadily on her artificial feet — her own, severely deformed feet. were amputated just above the ankle soon after birth — and seems supremely confident.
When a boy asked her recently why she had only two fingers on each hand, she shrugged and replied: "It’s just me." Hearing what she , said, her father, Glenn Harrison, felt a mixture of emotions: thankfulness that Georgina had so readily accepted her disabilities, and pain because, one way or another, she had inherited them from him. He feels he is to blame.
Harrison, 36, is one of 458 designated British victims of thalidomide, the anti-sickness drug prescribed to pregnant women between 1958 and 1962 with catastrophic consequences. It caused hideous birth defects, and the plight of the thalidomide children shocked and moved the world.
After a campaign by The Sunday Times, a trust fund was set up by Distillers, the makers of thalidomide (the company has since been taken over by Guinness). It continues to support the original victims, plus a further 24 adults who, after tracing their mothers’ medical records, were able to show that their deformities had been caused by the drug.
There is no provision, however, for the children of thalidomide victims, a situation Harrison is preparing to challenge. He is convinced that just as his sons inherited their facial features from him, his daughter inherited his deformed arms and legs. The question is whether thalidomide is to blame.
THE nightmare prospect of a second generation of thalidomide victims has haunted the families touched by the tragedy for more than a decade, ever since another baby girl was born with deformities identical to her father’s. Thalidomide victims were always told — and had believed that the drug could not possibly harm their children.
Now, among the 380 children born to designated victims, there are 11 with congenital limb defects —two serious and nine mild. This is at least five times the rate among the population at large. Though the deformities are different in each case, they follow a curious pattern. All the boys suffering defects have been born to mothers who were damaged by thalidomide. All the girls have fathers who were affected by the drug.
The medical establishment— and, it must be said, some thalidomide victims — dismiss the idea that the drug’s effects have been passed from one generation to another. Some argue that the high number of children with birth defects suggests the parents’ problems may not have been caused by thalidomide at all, but by a naturally occurring genetic defect that their offspring have inherited. This would mean the parents were wrongly included in the group that received compensation.
To Harrison, such views compound the hurt. "Everyone says, ‘It’s genetic, it’s genetic,’ but if that is the case, how come we passed the medical tests for thalidomide in the first place?" he asks.
He is strongly supported by Bill McBride, an Australian doctor who first alerted the world to the thalidomide scandal and has researched the drug for more than 30 years. Last week McBride published a study concluding that thalidomide could affect DNA, the genetic blueprint, and could therefore replicate its effects in future generations. He is "certain" Georgina’s deformities were caused by thalidomide.
Harrison, a haulage contractor from Peterborough, has requested reports on his daughter’s condition from McBride and Dr Claus Newman, a retired consultant paediatrician who served on a panel set up to assess the original victims.
Harrison intends to present the findings to lawyers acting for Guinness in the hope that they will consider Georgina for compensation. About £50,000 could be at stake, but Harrison’s wife Debbie says the money is irrelevant. "What matters is the truth."
ASSESSING children presented as thalidomide-damaged was always fraught with difficulty. There was no "trademark" deformity that linked every case. Medical records were scant and some had disappeared. The fact that a woman had been prescribed thalidomide did not necessarily mean she had taken it at the critical stage of gestation.
"The evidence varied in every case," said Newman. "Most of it was circumstantial." The lack of clarity meant that children were given the benefit of the doubt. Thalidomide produced some deformities that were known to occur naturally. "We always knew it was possible that we would include some cases which had not been caused by thalidomide. The only way of telling would be when they reproduced."
McBride, however, insists there is no doubt that Glenn and Georgina Harrison were affected by thalidomide. He believes the medical establishment does not want to believe the effect could be passed on.
McBride discovered the link between thalidomide and birth defects in 1961, when three malformed babies were born within six weeks at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Sydney, where he worked as an obstetrician. For years he, too, believed the drug would not affect future generations, but on a visit to Britain in 1993 he was asked to visit the Harrisons.
He was horrified. "We only had 35 victims in Australia but I had told them all that they could have children without fear." He wrote to the British Medical Journal saying he believed Georgina and another child were second-generation thalidomide victims. The claim sparked off a controversy that has culminated in the Harrisons fight to win compensation.
Alas for those who want to believe McBride, his credibility is diminished by a chequered career. Four years ago he was struck off the Australian medical register for falsifying the results of an experiment on another drug he suspected was dangerous. McBnde says he was "very foolish" but was "afraid of another thalidomide".
His new research, revealed in the American journal Teratogenesis, Carcinogenesis and Mutagenesis, suggests that thalidomide causes DNA to mutate in rats. But it is published alongside a hefty rebuttal by a German scientist, and Newman is sceptical.
"It is nothing new," he said. "McBride is always claiming to be about to publish something that will change the face of scientific knowledge. I hope he gets the Nobel prize if he does."
THE uncertainty has a human cost, evident in the anguish of the man who fathered the first "second generation" child with deformities. To protect her from prying eyes, he prefers to remain anonymous.
This man was born with shortened arms and three fingers on his left hand, four on the right. His mother’s GP remembered prescribing thalidomide for her and there was no reason to believe the deformity stemmed from any other cause.-
When his daughter was born 12 years ago, there was a profound, double shock. First, her birth defects were even worse than his: her hands were attached to her shoulders, with three fingers on each. Then, a geneticist told him he could not have been a thalidomide victim.
He was thrown into confusion. Central to accepting his own disabilities had been the knowledge that there was a concrete explanation for them.
Suddenly that was taken away. "I didn’t know what to think," he said. "But with the passage of the years, I accepted it. Then I heard about Glenn’s little girl and everything was turned upside down again. It just seemed too much of a coincidence that it had happened to us both."
Nobody, back in the 1960s, predicted that the thalidomide tragedy would linger so long. The victims were not expected to live past 20,..let alone produce children of their own. Now the first grandchild of a thalidomide victim is about to be born.
Mandy Masters, 35, who was born without arms, is to become a grandmother in five weeks when her daughter. Nicola, is due to give birth.
Nicola was born healthy and as far as they know, her baby is fine. Masters was beset by fears she barely dared mention until she accompanied her daughter to her 20-week scan. "The first thing I wanted to know was whether the baby had arms. At that very moment the baby shot its arms up and waved as if to say, ‘Here they are.’ I was so relieved I could have cried."
But David Mason, an art dealer who led the original parents’ campaign after his daughter, Louise, was born without arms and legs, feels that such fears are increased, not alleviated, by the current focus of attention on the second generation.
He warns that some thalidomide victims may end up losing public sympathy by making claims about the drug that may prove unsubstantiated. "1 was assured and I believed it could not be passed on," said Mason "Nothing in the meantime has changed my view."
Posted by: Angus Files | September 05, 2012 at 01:24 PM
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/health/thalidomide-scottish-apology-slammed-1296922
Scotland's local paper above..and below Thalidomide second generation..oh!!and it looks like the UK Thalidomide group got the shut up money...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/952982.stm
Monday, 2 October, 2000, 11:48 GMT 12:48 UK
'Second generation' Thalidomide claims
Hundreds of children were born with defects
A group representing victims of the 1970s Thalidomide scandal says it has evidence that deformities can be passed on to their children.
But their claims have been greeted with some scepticism by another Thalidomide charity.
There are just over 400 people in the UK who were born with defects including shortened or missing limbs.
The defects were caused when their mothers took the drug Thalidomide during pregnancy to ease morning sickness.
The Diageo group, which bought responsibility for Thalidomide compensation along with the Guinness group, has already provided a multi-million pound trust fund for victims.
This was recently increased following evidence that it would not cover the living expenses of those affected in this country.
More money call
However, the claims that the defects can be passed on, if proven, would add strength to Thalidomide UK's repeated calls for the size of the fund to be boosted.
Freddie Astbury, who chairs the pressure group, said: "The main thing we are pushing for is for the likes of Guinness to fund research."
Thalidomide patient Nick Holness and his 15-year-old daughter Rebecca are being presented by the group as evidence of "second generation" Thalidomide link.
Ms Astbury said: "Rebecca was born with small arms and three fingers on the end of each hand - typical Thalidomide damage."
Thalidomide UK says that tests at a top London hospital have ruled out the possibility that the deformity was the result of some unrelated genetic disorder.
It says that there are 10 cases it knows in which second generation deformities have emerged.
However, Vivien Kerr, co-ordinator for the UK Thalidomide Society, said that she had yet to be convinced that it was possible for the drug's effects to be felt in the children of original victims.
She said: "I have not seen this latest research, but as far as I know, there isn't anything which shows that problems caused by Thalidomide can be passed on in this way."
Posted by: Angus Files | September 05, 2012 at 01:19 PM
I have lost count of the number of vaccines that children are now required to receive, because now they have to get additional boosters for whooping cough and MMR plus 1 or 2 annual flu shots. It boggles the mind that anyone would think that this is not harmful. What will these children be like as adults? Will they reach adulthood? Will they be riddled with chronic illnesses? Will their behavior be abnormal? Are the authorities in charge of this train wreck insane?
I watch the parents of my grandson's peers dutifully take their children to the ped for the injected doses of poison. They think that they are being responsible parents and don't question.
The schools, next to the hospitals, are the unhealthiest places around. School nurses, instead of worrying about kids being up to date on their shots, should be teaching kids proper hygiene. Schools should be stressing proper and frequent handwashing and teachers should make an effort to air out classrooms daily and wipe down desks and tables daily. Water fountains should be closed down. Each classroom should have a bubbler. Schools should teach and demonstrate good nutrition. School science programs could grow and maintain organic gardens. No pesticides etc. etc. should be used around schools. ( CT passed a law banning the use of pesticides on school and daycare lawns). Maybe if we used common sense and changed our behavior, we wouldn't think we needed vaccines to be healthy, AND we wouldn't put all of our education dollars into standardized testing, which is a HUGE waste of precious resources. Schools should be healthy places to grow and learn, I worry about kids shedding viruses etc from all of those vaccines. Yuck!
Posted by: CT teacher | September 05, 2012 at 01:13 PM
cmo,
To clear up the record for anyone relatively new here: Autism is not just "nearly a million children and counting."
It is nearly two million children, teens, and young adults--almost all under the age of 26.
"Autism" in older people is rare, not counting, perhaps, very mild cases of Asperger's syndrome (whether these were recognized as such, or not).
The very youngest with autism today have been affected by maternal mercury and aluminum (very high in the current 20-somethings and 30-somethings), mercury and aluminum in infant vaccines, and airborne mercury.
Posted by: Terri Lewis | September 05, 2012 at 11:01 AM
Thalidomide - Did not a one of those injuried- I do wonder just think this is who they were meant to be?
They are just the physcially diverse?
That it really was not this drug that did it?
Did government agencies in the other countries spend lots of money on genetic research for this puzzle?
Posted by: Benedetta | September 05, 2012 at 09:45 AM
I believe, mass poisoning od American and world children is a deliberate policy of international pharmaceutical mafia, which has its roots in Nazi chemical factories (they produced poisons to mass murder people in deaths camps during WWII). The tragedy is that most American governments happily participate in this well planned holocaust of Americans. Political "pecunia non olet". We should not legitimize any politician, who does not reject vaccine terrorism in the US.
Posted by: no vac | September 05, 2012 at 09:43 AM
Brazil had a resurgence of deformed Thalidomide babies in the 1990s; the drug was used in leprosy treatment and got into the wrong hands.
Note the wide variances in children's affects -- some with full legs, some with stumps, some with no limbs at all. Like vaccine-induced autism, the range of damage runs on a spectrum depending on genetic makeup.
The neurotoxin Thimerosal continues to be defended by its distributors, rather than controlled or eliminated. Why on earth should public health policymakers who mandate mercury injections be taken seriously?
Posted by: nhokkanen | September 05, 2012 at 09:01 AM
"Wake up mothers , Wake up everyone , refuse their concoctions en masse"
That bears repeating. And while you're refusing these concoctions en masse, also support and advocate for the basic human right to decline any and all medical interventions on philosophical and/or religious grounds.
Posted by: Beth | September 05, 2012 at 08:37 AM
“Victims of thalidomide said on Saturday an apology from the German inventor of the drug that caused birth defects in thousands of babies around the world was too little too late.”
No doubt the apology was "too little too late" for the victims .. but .. when you stop and think about it .. the belated apology is well-timed for the company .. being a much preferred substitute for the criminal charges that should have been prosecuted against those high level drug company individuals who marketed and enjoyed the profits from such a dangerous product in the first place.
I hesitate to suggest it .. but .. whether the company meant it to be or not .. the "delay, deny and hope they die" strategy worked out pretty well for them.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | September 05, 2012 at 07:19 AM
The cause of the Autism epidemic will always be simple to locate. With billions in wasted research, sadly has to simply look in the area where they refuse to study/ vaccines.
Thalidomide damaged about 10,000 children before it was removed from the market.
Autism is now nearly a million children and counting.
Posted by: cmo | September 05, 2012 at 06:50 AM
Such a tragic photographic , makes me quite upset , and no-one was ever held to account , no-one was ever prosecuted for the Thalidomide Outrage , and therein lies our problem .
Thalidomide was legalised attempted murder of 10,000 and there were very likely a few key individuals behind it , and they quietly crept off into the night un-noticed . It kind of set the precedent for everything that has come to pass. There is no retribution . There is no justice .
Wake up mothers , Wake up everyone , refuse their concoctions en masse .
Posted by: Justin Young | September 05, 2012 at 05:54 AM