I know that autism parents don't generally mix causes related to vaccine safety and medical treatments for vaccine injuried, autistic spectrum, etc. with politics; but I can't resist reminding everyone that it was the New York Times that pushed us into the Iraq War with their hysterical claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And they didn't apologize for two years, until we were already committed to the War.

They also were the ones that published that bogus study that organic produce was no different than the pesticide laced variety--so go enjoy a bowel of pesticide coated blue berries and eat up on those heavily doused apples. At the time of that article I thought there might be something to it for the "general population" because it was the New York Times. Still, I knew that not all kids or adults can handle pesticides and I thought it was irresponsible that they didn't make that clear in the article. It turned out that the study was flawed. I'm not sure the New York Times ever apologized for that boo boo. Probably lots of people are laughing at those silly people who eat organic because the New York Times says there is no difference between organic and non-organice. I hope the editors of the Times are among them, but probably not.

So am I not surprised that the New York Times is promoting vaccines and trashing those who advise parents to exercise caution. Again, just because "some" people can handle vaccines does not mean ALL people can, especially if there are autoimmune diseases in the family or the child has a fragile immune system. But I'm sure that wasn't mentioned in the article. It gives me one more reason to doubt anything written in the New York Times.

This writer seems to have her panties in quite a twist. (Oddly, the piece is decorated with a big, very attractive photo of Jenny McCarthy.) Just why is it that can't we send our kids to school with peanut butter sandwiches all of a sudden? The inventor of the cervical cancer vaccine wants to ban unvaccinated children from daycare? No kidding!:

"The call for unvaccinated children to be excluded from childcare centres and public schools is gaining momentum and has the conditional support of Dr Steve Hambleton, federal president of the Australian Medical Association who is concerned about vaccination rates in pockets of inner-city Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

'We should certainly make it difficult for (unvaccinated) children to get to school,' he said.

It seems absurd that we can't send children to school or childcare with a peanut butter sandwich, but we can send an unvaccinated child who is a real and present danger to others. Our pets are afforded greater protection; you can't leave a cat or dog at a kennel without providing up-to-date vaccination records, but irresponsible parents who fail to immunise their children have no issues gaining a place in childcare centres or public schools.

The inventor of the cervical cancer vaccine, Professor Ian Frazer, has called for childcare centres to have the right to ban unvaccinated children."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/jabs-myth-is-literally-sickening/story-e6frfhqf-1226640615208

Regardless of the issue, ideology, or politics, when one side claims certain topics are off limits for discussion or whines about "false balance" in reporting, it's a sure bet two things are happening:

1) They have no interest in an honest discussion of the facts but seek to impose their will on others

2) They think they are losing the argument

Most people intuitively understand this and become suspicious when when told they are not allowed to think for themselves. These tactics show desperation as those confident in their position don't need to scream that everyone else must be silenced.

Bob Moffitt, thank you for reminding us more than once recently to follow the advice, “See something? Say something.” I have been trying to say something for over 40 years for which the response has remained a stony silence.

The vaccine schedule should have been changed as soon as any doubts were expressed. Hep B at birth in particular should have been stopped, just as the synthetic vitamin K injection had to be stopped.

What is the “predisposition” to vaccine injury? I will continue to try to point out that clamping the umbilical cord immediately after birth (even before the first breath) risks causing a lapse in oxygen delivery, and the resulting selective damage of brainstem auditory centers has been known for more than 50 years now.

This is bad enough, but adding any unnatural substance into the circulation following injury by asphyxia is a recipe for disaster. See conradsimon.org for references and more discussion.

@ John Stone: "unfortunately I was, on the mistaken ground that I didn't believe even a government I didn't like would be quite that blatantly deceitful over the basic information"

Who wants to learn that they live in times where suspicions that seem too cynical and rather threatening in implication are the right guiding impulses?

That's essentially why I accepted HepB for my first child at three days of age and continued on from there for far too long. As with going into Iraq (again), it didn't feel like a certain moral course of action, but I thought at least that they would in no way continue a vaccine if there were any problems.

I assumed someone was looking, obviously, and at the very least above harming tiny newborn infants. I guess I see now a system where most have too much incentive to not look, too much leaving off of responsibility to someone else, sometimes leaving it in the hands of those who aren't "assigned" the needed authority for decisions made, and likely there are some not above what I thought, who weigh in on who is "assigned" authority, and of course feel no responsibility.

It's as painful as seeing how our nation is being used in perpetuating worldwide war.

AnneS

I suppose it doesn't really matter how silly, illogical, self-contradictory it gets providing it helps to perpetuate the aura of spurious shame.

Jeannette

It is an interesting area: of course once you have a state of war you inevitably have control of information - this is why these people have to have a constant state of war and why there was a constant state of war in Orwell's '1984'. Of course, at least in the UK we had an intellectually much more open debate prior to the Iraq War than we are seeing in this territory now, and although it was undoubtedly stolen by lies about half the population weren't taken in (unfortunately I was, on the mistaken ground that I didn't believe even a government I didn't like would be quite that blatantly deceitful over the basic information).

Regarding reporting on Iraq, I'm seeing too many parallels with "disease prevention" and war-making (can't feel too surprised or brilliant--they do constantly talk about the "war on disease"). False-flagging seems to be more the norm than the exception in war once all things come out in history, so I've been lately wondering what would CDC et al do without non-compliant members of society to blame outbreaks and problems on. Create them themselves I guess? Like seemingly happened with that poor guy that was left to believe he could take an airplane trip, then suddenly became a MAJOR transmission risk...

It hit me in the middle of the night how far Brainard's conclusion twists things, as he expresses concern that balanced coverage of a "bogus" vaccine problem will lead to others in the media avoid covering "real" vaccine safety issues, effectively saying your coverage of safety problems, not the character assassination and much more he and others engage in, will be blamed for future media negligence? Or something like that. I'm having a really hard time here putting this suggestion into a concise wording... "Look, the next time vaccine makers get away with hurting someone, it's will be your fault because you tried to prevent it this time...?" Is that what he's actually saying? Or, "As the public figures out we're not really covering vaccine problems, we're blaming you, vaccine-autism reporters...?" (That one might actually make some sense, but I don't think public will view it in the way he implies.)

Denying vaccine injury bestows multiple rewards:
(1) falsely simplifies the issue by polarizing it as yes/no, wrong/right;
(2) reduces workload -- one needn't investigate, write, treat, prevent;
(3) self-anoints one as intellectually superior and possessed of the moral high ground;
(4) reinforces "science" as the new religion -- facts can be, and are, changed far more easily than belief;
etc. ad nauseam.

"Weaseling out" sums it up colloquially.

And the truth is that the lowest infant mortality is in western EU countries, where a minority of parents vaccinates, and if they do, they choose only w few vaccines. This truth is prohibited in the US and UK. It must be smashed at all costs by pharma-medical establishment, responsible for biological destruction of Americans and other nations.

Dear Mr. Olmsted-

Hate to burst your bubble, but you are not the only "media type" to get ink this week vis a vis "the vaccines cause brain damage" story. There is a difference- you are apparently a journalist, who in the past has posted contra viewpoints to your own. The other media type is "Dr."Nancy "Just Get your Damn Flu Shot" Synderman.

"As concern surged this January over a worse than usual influenza season, members of the media seemed unsure whether the CDC’s announcement that “vaccine effectiveness (VE) was 62%”7 represented good versus disappointing news.8

NBC anchor Brian Williams: “I worry about this number. I woke up to reports of this number. It can disincentivize people to go get that flu shot which all of you are saying is still so important.”

Chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman: “And I had the same concern when you see 62%, because I’m afraid people will say ‘well, it’s half and half.’ But remember, if you have a 62% less chance of getting of getting the flu, it means less chance of being on antibiotics, less chance of ending up in an intensive care unit, and as we’ve seen from this uptick in numbers, 62% less chance of dying.”9

http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3037

This article calls out the CDC as liars. It exposes Synderman as uninformed at best, a paid propagandist more likely. It discusses the 1/110 febrile seizure rate in kids who got flu shot. It exposes the lack of evidence and the systemic corruption underlying all CDC supported vaccine policy, not just the flu shot.

CJR is on the wrong side of history. With the knowledge that MMR was reported to cause meningitis and ASD as early as 1988, Dr. Wakefield is proven to have been too early for his own good in reporting his team's findings. Additional support for Wakefield comes from Journal Pediatrics November 2012 Supplement ASD and Gut Disease, and Wake Forest University last month publishing that ASD is associated with a unique form of IBD.

CJR got the story exactly backwards. Snyderman, Brian "Those Children Don't Have Bowel Disease" Deer, Seth Mnookin- these are the flacks for a collusion between government policy and corporate interests. They enable the injury of children by not using their media megaphones to decry the contract of medical fascism that we are finally starting to see more clearly.

Note to CJR: the story won't get out of the news because every family in the United States knows someone who has been brain damaged by the vaccine schedule. The truth is finally starting to out, the BMJ article posted in this comment clearly describes the CDC as nothing more than incompetent, bought off corporate hacks who are demonstrably lying to the American public about the safety and efficacy of vaccines,

"It reminds me of the time after 9/11. If you criticized the invasion of Iraq, the terrorist win. If you didn't go shopping, the terrorists win."

Nowadays .. following the terrorist bombing at the Boston marathon .. we are told it is our duty if "we see something, we say something".

Apparently, the Columbia Journal Review would prefer to attack AoA for following that very same .. sound advice .. regarding vaccines and the policies by which those vaccines are recommended, approved and administered.

Instead, the CJR demands AoA .. KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT .. and let the carnage continue unabated .. because .. THEY SAY SO.