Age of Autism Weekly Wrap Up: A Really, Really, Really Bad Idea
A few really bad ideas in the hands of people in a position to carry them out can create one heck of a mess. That is the point of a book by Fred Kaplan, "Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power," published in 2008. It begins like this: "Nearly all of America's blunders in war and peace these past few years stem from a single grand misconception: that the world changed after September 11, when in fact it didn't." It didn't because the need to work with, rather than against, the rest of the world remained as important as ever, in Kaplan's argument.
Kaplan cited a handful of other mistakes, including the idea that America was
uniquely strong after the end of the Cold War, and could impose its will –
including democratic governments – around the world. No, he argues, we needed
alliances more than ever. But the prevailing idea, misbegotten as it was, was
that flexing our muscle big-time would make the world safe for America.
Ultimately, this linked chain of bad ideas fell apart for all to see in Iraq.
My point in quoting this book is not political – you could make a similar
argument against the decade-long war in Afghanistan now being run by the
Democrats – but to suggest that an analogy holds in the autism and vaccine
debate: a few very bad ideas, very strongly held by a relatively few key
players, have caused the rise of the autism epidemic. First among them is that
there is no epidemic. Therefore the disease is genetic. Therefore it could not
possibly have anything to do with vaccines, most especially the MMR and mercury.
Therefore expansion and exportation of America's vaccine schedule is an
unalloyed good for the entire world, kind of like exporting our version of
democracy everywhere.
The ultimate outcome, on the autism front, is that thousands of parental observations,
and a great deal of troubling science and natural history (see our book The Age
of Autism), are completely ignored in favor of bogus epidemiology and studies
concocted by special interests, which sadly in this case include public-health
authorities. We saw that on display last week when the Institute of Medicine
again ratified the CDC vaccine schedule.
Today, we witnessed another consequence of these few but horrifically bad ideas. The World Health Organization and United Nations ignored concerns about mercury in vaccines, exempting it from the mercury-reduction treaty adopted on Saturday. So mercury will continue being injected into nearly 100,000,000 children a year in the most disadvantaged countries.
To my mind, you have to make one or both of two assumptions to come to this conclusion. Either the amount of mercury in vaccines is so small that whatever toxicity it possesses in larger doses is irrelevant, or something about this particular agent protects it from causing the well-known effects of other mercury compounds.
So we hear a great deal about how vaccine mercury is quickly excreted from the body, completely ignoring an entire body of evidence that shows otherwise – that the organic form of mercury gets access to the brain where it comes apart, and the inorganic form is trapped.
The other canard is that such small amounts of mercury simply do no harm. Thus we hear phrases like trace amounts, infinitesimal substances and the like. But the work of many scientists, including Mark Noble at the University of Rochester, clearly point to dangers at what is called the nanomolecular level – parts per billion.
So based on these very bad concepts, a very bad idea has been ratified. It is worth repeating once again the right ideas: Autism is new.
It is an environmental illness. It is increasing in epidemic proportions.
Vaccines and mercury are the most likely environmental causes, and have not been
investigated enough to rule them out, to say the least. Caution is indicated.
First, do no harm.
This is not brain surgery. But the result of ignoring it, and continuing to put
faith in a few very bad ideas, is brain damage on a tragic and epic scale.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
re:
"thousands of parental observations, and a great deal of troubling science and natural history (see our book The Age of Autism), are completely ignored in favor of bogus epidemiology and studies concocted by special interests, which sadly in this case include public-health authorities..."
"Vaccines and mercury are the most likely environmental causes, and have not been investigated enough to rule them out, to say the least."
So well said! Thank you.
Posted by: Twyla | January 26, 2013 at 09:01 PM
@Dan: "...continuing to put faith in a few very bad ideas..."
Maurice Maeterlinck (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1911): "Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past."
Dan - you may feel heavily outnumbered, but you're not out-gunned, and you are in good company. Keep up the great work...
Posted by: Shiny Happy Person | January 25, 2013 at 01:25 PM
This man is a smart man, or he would not have gotten where he is today.
This man joins the ranks of high paid stallers.
Stall, stall, stall.
They have done a great job -- if I recall the 2002 stall lasted a good decade.
Posted by: Benedetta | January 22, 2013 at 01:36 AM
There was a time when geographical barriers protected people from the stupid ideas of others. Unfortunately those days are long gone. Even if in theory vaccination was a good idea, even if it did protect from disease with minimal risk, policy makers need to remember that all humans, including the brightest, most altruistic and most careful among us, are error-prone. That's just part of the human condition that even (and especially) the brightest humans have trouble remembering.
So to inject or administer any man made product to all of the world's population, even one believed to be safe and beneficial (never mind that current vaccine manufacturers have been prosecuted for criminal fraud), is a fundamentally idiotic idea born out of human hubris. As Bill Gates knows all too well, even the most brilliant, meticulously planned and manufactured products can have bugs that don't show up right away. With vaccinating all the world's population, with more and more vaccines being developed and pushed for global distribution, we're looking at no less than the very real possibility of human extinction.
Posted by: Linda | January 21, 2013 at 01:27 PM
John
I appreciate what you're saying. However, as a community, we have negotiated with terrorists and criminals for over 10 years now and the situation has just gotten worse. The time for negotiations is over!
Brian
Posted by: Brian Hooker | January 20, 2013 at 10:40 AM
I acknowledge that Dan's 'bad ideas' are a really, very, very, very serious matter. But I noticed the title of Fred Kaplan's book and thought I'd inject a little levity into the middle of this overwhelming seriousness ...
http://youtu.be/3nmxmJ3Fp0k
... with a blast of the Monkees .... from my daydreaming past. Oh happy days!
PS. RIP Davy Jones from Manchester, arguably the greatest Monkee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Jones_(musician)
Posted by: Mark Struthers | January 20, 2013 at 09:12 AM
Of course, it is deeply repulsive when it has been deemed more or less unacceptable to do this in "wealthy countries" to go and do it in poor ones.
My mother once told me an anecdote from the 'This England' column of the New Statesman (this would have been 50-60 years ago) which had struck her, in which the British government had intervened to stop some particularly toxic sweets being sold, and the director of the company distressed at the rejection of their products, lamented in the press that they wouldn't even allow them to give them to poor children. Well, this is precisely what is being done now, and it is sick. These people have no moral credibility and they should be the laughing stock of the world.
Posted by: John Stone | January 20, 2013 at 04:39 AM
Hi Brian,
I have never been party to this argument but can see it both ways. On the one hand if they are poisoning children (and I believe there is overwhelming evidence that they are) then the only thing to do is stop. On the other hand ever since this scam was discovered (now nearly 14 years ago) the CDC, the WHO and their cronies in the UK and Denmark, have been dribbling the ball up the field to avoid even negotiating a phase out (as there has been in the US, UK and Denmark but with it being sneaked back in through the flu shots). Well, they might have begun phasing it out 14 years ago but clearly they are just heaping bureaucratic deception on bureaucratic deception to do nothing, and it does not really matter which way you come at it. There is nothing wrong with saying "at least phase it out, it's better than nothing".
John
Posted by: John Stone | January 20, 2013 at 04:08 AM
Thank God for CoMeD (including Dr. Mark and David Geier, Rev. Lisa Sykes and Dr. Paul King) who have led an uncompromising charge to ban thimerosal worldwide. Supporting anything less than a full, immediate ban on thimerosal is an approval of more "collateral damage" in the war on infectious disease and is inexcusable.
Posted by: Brian Hooker | January 19, 2013 at 08:49 PM
@Greg,
Exactly Greg, no-one has a "Blueprint of your DNA" therefore how can they treat you the same i.e the concept of the "Herd immunity" is absurd.
Elizabeth Gillespie
Posted by: AussieMum | January 19, 2013 at 07:00 PM
IMO there are three main cards in the vaccine game. 1) Clearly a bad idea, which doses not stand the scrutiny of honest science, 2) greed extraordinaire of big pharma and their government cronies, who want to make billions by poisoning healthy children and turning them to chronically sick, and 3) global program of depopulation lead by global oligarchs. The people, who are foolish enough to get vaccinated, will be exterminated from the gene pol.
These three factors working in concert make winning with the genocidal vaccine programs so difficult. Nonetheless, we must do it by informing as many parents as we can about the dangers of vaccines. These parents should collectively fight the evil of toxic vaccinations.
Posted by: concerned citizen | January 19, 2013 at 06:27 PM
Ditto what Greg says!
Posted by: Laura Hayes | January 19, 2013 at 05:51 PM
When I think of the two years after the mmr where we went though one box of wipes every time my son had to poop because it was unformed and he was not toilet trained i think of the third world countries with no hot water and the disease that will be spread by this exploding poops. I have been on my hands and knees cleaning this toxic stuff up. Even after we learned he had c difficle it didn't stop. Gfcf helped other things but not this. Going to thoughtful house plane rides away began the journey back.
So what is a mother going to do in the third world when her baby's gut starts exploding daily. What's going to happen to the sanitation of her group, her home, her family.
How are they going to feel about America? They will believe what they see with their own eyes. They won't have hypnotized well meaning doctors to tell them this has always existed no one noticed it before.
All preventable. If they just would have listened to us and gotten Sandusky/
Mercury away from children the first time we warned them then we could have had our football program/vaccine program AND kept vulnerable children safe.
Now they are exporting Sandusky/mercury all over the world. It is evil not to see when the signs and victims are all telling you the same thing.
Posted by: Carolyn kylesmom | January 19, 2013 at 01:46 PM
Another big week of pushing to sell the last 7 million doses of flu vaccine. That would leave about "two-thirds of the herd" unvaccinated. It is difficult to believe that there is now a shortage of flu vaccine.
Research has shown that if you fill an empty multi-dose flu vaccine vial with saline, and use an old needle, it is still 6.2% effective.
Posted by: cmo | January 19, 2013 at 12:25 PM
Only the most dangerous of diseases should be vaccinated againest
I think that is Dr. Wakefield's stance.
There is no way to stop them - is their?
I do not understand this. We have so many parents telling them that they witnessed a vaccime reaction that caused encephalopathy and these parents are totally ignored.
Why?
1)Idealism of ridding the world of all diseases?
2.) Greed?
3.) Criminal charges might be againest the officials behind the schedule (there is so many now, I think that is impossible)
4.)Just plain ol'e dogma?
5.) They really are trying to depopulate the world of people?
Posted by: Benedetta | January 19, 2013 at 10:36 AM
Dan, excellent argument about a few bad ideas wreaking havoc. In regards to vaccines, I would take the point one step further and say the very premise of vaccines is a bad idea. This theory that a highly evolved, intricately complex human immune system can be made better on a whim by 'genius' scientists throwing toxins at it is nothing short of absurdity.
Posted by: Greg | January 19, 2013 at 08:05 AM