San Jose Mercury News

"Forkel said many parents remain worried that vaccines will cause autism despite a mountain of medical evidence refuting the idea.

"'There is a lot of press; but I'm not sure everyone has gotten the word yet,' Forkel said.
"Dr. Witt said, 'There is a huge amount of bad information out there. When you search on the Internet you get bad information popping up first. It's hard to refute false anecdotes and accusations.'

"Forkel pointed to a film screened at the Fairfax Women's Club in March as an example of some of the potent misinformation being disseminated. The film was 'The Greater Good,' which purports to document 'personal stories of vaccine tragedies.'"

This is as phony as journalism gets. Not one person on our side is included. He complains about exempting parents, but couldn't manage to even one to interview.

Reporter only gave us the vaccine defenders and trashed Jenny McCarthy, exempting parents and The Greater Good.

I posted 11 comments so readers will get both sides of the story.
 
Utica (NY) Observer-Dispatch

"Yes and no, said Dr. Chris Kjolhede, a pediatrician at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown.
"'We're identifying a lot of chronic health conditions better and we are seeing some more,' he said.
"Over his almost 20 years in a pediatric primary care practice, Kjolhede's patient mix has definitely changed, he said. But a lot of the changes have been good.

"'People don't talk about what we're not seeing. We're not seeing Haemophilus influenzae. We do not see pertussis . We're not seeing rotavirus. There are a lot of things we're not seeing and part of it is, we immunize against them,' he said about previously serious conditions.

"The tradeoff over the decades has been fewer serious acute illnesses that put kids at risk for complications and even death, and more chronic conditions that threaten to compromise their health as adults.

"As for the chronic conditions, some or all of the increases for certain conditions comes from greater awareness and better screening tools, said Dr. Hend Abdelwahab, a family doctor at St. Elizabeth Medical Group's New Hartford office."

"Kjolhede did stress that he knows one thing that's preventing health problems and definitely not causing autism. "It is certainly not MMR (the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine) and it is certainly not thimerisol," he said, pointing out that research has completely disproved those theories."
Again, doctor has no interest in why so many kids are chronically ill, although, he does think "greater awareness and better screening tools" are big factors.  He makes a point at the end to say that studies show no link between autism and the MMR and "thimerisol."  I posted a dozen comments.  I hope the doctor reads them all.
 
New Haven (CT) Register: Programs address needs of New Haven adults with autism
 
"Autism costs the United States about $126 billion between medical and non-medical costs, according to a 2012 Autism Speaks report by Martin Knapp, and David Mandell. That number has more than tripled since a 2006 estimate by Michael Ganz placed the cost at $35 billion.

"The bulk of the cost is acquired during the adult years, Mandell said. While many adults need state-funded assisted living facilities, day programs or group residences, about 90 percent of the population is unemployed and unable to contribute tax revenue....

"With autism now affecting one in 88 children, the question also arises of what will happen when all of today's diagnosed children enter adulthood...."

This piece is a fraud.  They pretend that lots of autistic adults are already out there and they talk about high functioning individuals.  Strangely, at the end they admit that no one knows what's going to happen when today's kids grow up. I posted two comments.

ABC 3 Pensacola, FL

"Will there be a day when more children are not vaccinated? And if do choose to vaccinate your child, are they in danger from those who are not immunized?
"These are questions that come up with the start of every new school year --especially as more parents are opting out of vaccinations. The opt out policy is legal, if you follow the guidelines required by the state of Texas. But it's very controversial because someone else's decision to opt their child out...Might affect your newborn baby when you come into contact with them, at the grocery store.

"Alma Anchondo makes it a point to keep her daughter's vaccinations up to date. And she is surprised that some parents opt out of the required school vaccinations....
"Dr. Kim Connelly Smith, UT health pediatrician said, "We understand when parents are afraid they're trying to do the best for their kids and so are we and there's a lot of scary stuff on the internet, a lot of misinformation."

"Much of that misinformation involves claims made by a British doctor who has since lost his license, that the measles vaccine can cause autism. The claim has since been refuted. But it's contributed to a one percent opt-out rate for philosophical reasons in Texas last year."
 
This is so one-sided, I'm disgusted. No one ever talks about autism with even half the concern they have for vaccinations.
I posted lots of comments.
 
NJ.com

"David Bendich is a pediatrician and president of the Essex Metro Immunization Coalition, an advocacy group promoting vaccination for children in Newark and surrounding cities. "

"What is old is new again. And when it comes to public health, that is not a good thing.

"In May, the New Jersey Department of Health issued a public health advisory after a measles outbreak was reported in Brooklyn among the Orthodox Jewish community. None of those with confirmed cases of measles was vaccinated against the disease.

"In June, DOH identified a person confirmed as having measles who may have exposed others at BJ's Wholesale Club in Watchung. Because measles is highly contagious and easily transmitted, anyone who was not vaccinated against measles and came into contact with the infected person was at risk.

"These are just two local, high-profile incidents of a disturbing national trend: the resurgence of a multitude of vaccine-preventable diseases. Though these diseases have not been eradicated, they had been largely silent. Until recently.....

"When I was training as a pediatrician in the South Bronx in the mid-1970s, pertussis (commonly known as whooping cough) was essentially unheard of. The few cases I saw were enough, though, to instill great concern and fear in the doctors and nurses with whom I worked. Watching babies with pertussis choke and turn red and purple during a minute-long coughing spell, from which they may actually stop breathing, is frightening....

"So what happened between 1975, when I was a resident, and 2012?

"The answer: people are not getting immunized. Fear is a primary culprit, and all of the fear is unfounded. In 1998, a British physician named Andrew Wakefield significantly altered the course of immunizations with the publication of a paper in which he linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism in children. He was later discredited, and his medical license was revoked. But the fear he instilled lives on. "

Dr. Bendich, show us the vaxed/unvaxed study!  If not, go away!  I posted 15 comments.

OregonLive.com:

"What if a mother decided not to vaccinate her daughter for measles, based on rumors that the vaccine causes autism, and her daughter gets the disease at the age of 4 and passes it to a 1-year-old, who is too young for the vaccine, at her day care center. And what if that baby dies? ...
"As you'd expect, the growing anti-vaccination movement responded in fury. After Caplan wrote a related post for the Harvard Law Blog, angry comments poured in. 'This article is industry propaganda at its worst,' one commenter declared. Another wrote: 'Caplan would have familiar company in fascist Germany.' The blog eventually shut down the comments for violations of the site's policies against "abusive and defamatory language" and the sharing of personal information.
"Here's why the anti-vaxxers are wrong and Caplan and his co-authors are right to raise the idea of suing or criminally charging them: Parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids for reasons of personal belief pose a serious danger to the public. ...

"Unvaccinated children threaten the herd. Take the San Diego measles outbreak of 2008. After unknowingly contracting the disease on a trip to Switzerland, an unvaccinated 7-year-old boy infected 11 other unvaccinated kids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ..."
 
Dorit Rubinstein Reiss supports bioethicist Arthur Caplan. So ethical is it to indemnify the vaccine makers while holding parents liable for the spread of diseases?.
 

US News

 "Children with autism and average IQs consistently did better on math tests than non-autistic children in the same IQ range, according to a small new study.

"The superiority in math skills among children with autism was tied to patterns of activation in a particular area of the brain, an area normally associated with recognizing faces and visual objects.
"'There appears to be a unique pattern of brain organization that underlies superior problem-solving abilities in children with autism,' study senior author Vinod Menon, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, said in a university news release.
"The study included 18 children with autism, aged 7 to 12, and a control group of 18 children without autism. All participants showed normal verbal and reading skills on standardized tests, but the children with autism outperformed their peers without autism on standardized math tests."
I posted two comments. It's outrageous that in the face of a nightmare of sick children, a Stanford prof wastes time on this and U.S. News reports it.

Jerusalem Post

"Wild polio virus was identified this past spring during routine tests for the wild polio virus in sewage treatment plants in the south. There are an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 healthy carriers of polio. So far, not a single person has been infected with the paralytic disease. The wild polio virus, according to the ministry, apparently arrived via someone arriving from Egypt.

"The Jerusalem Municipality said that it has 130,000 children aged two months to 9 years and eight months who are targeted for OPV, including children of  foreign workers. The OPV will be given at eight well-baby centers in western Jerusalem and three in eastern Jerusalem between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Yeshiva World News

"On Sunday, 12 Elul 5773 the Health Ministry is expected to announce it is extending the southern Israel polio booster vaccination program nationwide. The ministry plans to give the booster to all Israeli children under the age of nine. However, as the operation goes nationwide, those parents opposed to vaccinating their children plan to turn to the High Court of Justice against the booster vaccine.

"The law office of Dan Ashkenazi and Associates is presenting the Izun Chozer organization and parents opposed to the vaccine. The organization plans to petition the High Court of Justice against Health Minister Yael German and ministry Director-General Prof. Roni Shai Gamzu, demanding the vaccination program halted until the ministry adequately informs the public to the risks of taking the oral polio vaccine. The petitioner is also seeking ministry data regarding one's risk and exposure to polio to permit families to make an educated decision regarding giving their children the booster.

"After the virus was found in southern and Sharon regional sewage during recent months, the ministry decided to move ahead with the oral polio booster vaccine in the southern area. This is also the result of testing 1,400 individuals in the hope of determining how many Israelis carry the illness. Lab results document over 1,000 of the test subjects carry polio, prompting the decision for the vaccination program."

Notice that no one has actually come down with polio.  They found it in sewage treatment plants last spring.  I posted comments on both stories.