Thimerosal: Let The Science Speak By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. & Drs. Martha Herbert and Mark Hyman Debuts August 4
By Anne Dachel
Many of us in the autism community have been eagerly awaiting the release of Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s new book, THIMEROSAL: LET THE SCIENCE SPEAK:
I am hopeful about the book--hopeful that there can be an honest look into the use of one of the deadliest ingredients possible in vaccines, namely mercury. (And seriously, the tired claim that it was removed from most children's vaccines over a decade ago, except for SOME flu shots, doesn't settle anything. It's still in unconscionable levels in the flu vaccine and this vaccine is recommended for pregnant women at all stages of pregnancy. Imagine the impact of an adult dose of 25 mcg of mercury on the brain of a developing fetus. AND A POINT THAT IS NEVER EXPLORED: The vaccine makers still sell vaccines to Third World Countries loaded with high levels of toxic thimeorsal. We may be protecting the children of the U.S., but the poorest of the poor in the world have no choice for their kids--they get mercury.)
Of course it also matters how the media reacts to Kennedy's book. If reporters present this as one man's baseless opinion in the face of an army of experts, it'll be easy to discount his work as simply "anti-vaccine."
(Most of the time, the press tackles this subject as if there were no debate. Whoever contends the vaccines have serious side effects has to be wrong.)
If it's honestly covered with due consideration given to "THE SCIENCE" that Kennedy cites, then this book could lead a real improvement in health care for children.
I have my own problems with how willing members of the press are when it comes to challenging the medical establishment. It's so much easier and safer to just go to the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or ask a top expert in the mainstream medical community for their opinion on the safety of injecting mercury into humans. According to officials, all the science is in: studies show no link to things like autism and other neuro-developmental disorders.
I have yet to see a reporter ask anyone from the CDC how they can justify allowing mercury in vaccines when the only test on thimerosal was done eighty-five years ago by the vaccine maker, Eli Lilly. That ridiculous study was conducted on a couple dozen patients who all died from meningitis by the end of the research. STILL--Eli Lilly said it was safe and after the creation of the FDA, its use was grandfathered in.
And please, those population studies, done decades after the fact where the results could easily be flawed or manipulated, don't count. News people love to cite the "no link" studies, but I've yet to see a single one of them ask, "Who funded the study?" or "Were there any conflicts on the part of the researchers?"
In 2006, David Kirby's book, Evidence of Harm--Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, was published.
In 2011, Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill gave us The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Manmade Epidemic.
Both of these books were filled with the experts and the science on mercury in vaccines; they didn't have just the opinions of these three writers. I marveled at the fact that reporters don't ever seem to read the books that are out there. If they actually did, they would have a lot to ask health officials about.
Of course the one really important question that never comes up is a simple one: "Who will be held responsible if it's clearly shown that an unchecked, unsafe vaccine schedule is behind the explosion in brain disorders in our children?" And even though it's not openly talked about, it's always there in the minds of those defending the safety of vaccines.
So what can we expect from reporters writing about Kennedy's new book?
The first mention of Thimerosal--Let the Science Speak that I've seen so far was on July 16 in the Washington Post: Robert Kennedy Jr.'s belief in autism-vaccine connection, and its political peril, by Keith Kloor.
First of all, that's a rather disingenuous title. Kennedy's subject is the use of MERCURY in vaccines. To reduce that to simply a "vaccine connection" leaves out the essence of the book. If a reader just looks at the title, it's pretty clear where this article is headed. We're told it's Kennedy's belief--there's no mention of all the scientists backing what he says. And incredibly, Kloor writes about what this means "politically," not morally or socially.
Kloor began the article with a description of Kennedy's efforts in Washington to convince Senator Barbara Mikulski that thimeorsal should be removed from vaccines.
Kloor said this about what Kennedy believes and how he's been received:
"A mercury-containing preservative known as thimerosal, once used widely in childhood vaccines, is associated with an array of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, Kennedy told her, summarizing a body of scientific research he and a team of investigators had assembled. Thimerosal, which is an antifungal and antiseptic agent, was taken out of those vaccines in 2001, but it is still used in some flu vaccines. If it was dangerous enough to be removed from pediatric vaccines, Kennedy contended, why was it safe at all? What's more, he said, the federal government knew of the dangers all along. These were claims he had made in the past, both publicly and in private conversations with other Democrats in Congress, none of whom have taken him seriously."
Kloor did note the presence of Dr. Mark Hyman in Washington with Kennedy, but at the same time Kloor dismissed the thesis of Kennedy's book, namely that mercury in vaccine is harmful. "The book argues that ethylmercury - a component of thimerosal - is harmful to human health. (Not so in trace amounts, scientific authorities have concluded.)"
Kloor cited the claims of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the agency that runs the vaccine program) and the Institute of Medicine attesting to the fact that "no evidence supports a link between thimerosal and any brain disorders, including autism."
The Post story went on to describe Kennedy's meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, where Kennedy told Sanders that he didn't want to have to publish the book on thimerosal and he showed officials the manuscript saying that he wouldn't publish it and possibly alarm the public if they would remove all mercury from vaccines.
Kloor wrote that Sanders "was polite but noncommittal" and quoted him saying, 'I don't know anything about the issue.' (Personally, I find it troubling that the chairman of a committee on health would be totally ignorant of one of the most heated debates in pediatric medicine.)
Also mentioned was a meeting this past January where Kennedy told Kloor, 'There are 500 studies that we've collected here and footnoted and not a single one of them shows that thimerosal is safe. Every single one of them, except for the six studies funded by CDC and the vaccine industry. And that are fraudulent. And we explain how they created the fraud.'
It seems that Kloor couldn't believe that was possible. "I said I had a hard time believing that something this blatant would be ignored by the entire science establishment." If all the information Kennedy had was really true, "Why weren't the public health and environmental communities and big research centers seizing on his book as a call to action?"
I'm amazed that Kloor would even have to ask this question. Any thinking person can understand the implications here. This would constitute the biggest mistake in medical history. I can't imagine anyone active in public health who would want to announce what they'd allowed to happen to the children of the world.
Kloor portrayed Kennedy as a zealot with an implausible theory who couldn't get anyone in our health care agencies to support him, despite meeting with officials from the CDC, FDA, and NIH.
As for his book, Kloor said Kennedy had made changes. "Some of the most controversial sections - the chapters connecting autism to thimerosal - Kennedy took out at the last minute, though there are still references to a link to autism. Hyman convinced him that such claims were too combustible and would distract from the book's core argument, that 'the evidence suggesting a link between thimerosal and a large percentage of neurodevelopment disorders .... mandates action.'"
Kloor ended the piece describing Kennedy's persistence in pursuing his claim in the face of all this opposition.
Personally, I noticed a number of defects in what Kloor said about Kennedy. First of all, Kloor cited Dr. Martha Herbert from Harvard, Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of California's Mind Institute in Davis, and Dr. Mark Hyman as agreeing with Kennedy on the need to remove mercury from vaccines. What about the fact that each chapter of Kennedy's book contains research that can't be easily dismissed. What about the names of dozens of experts included in those studies? Kennedy also wrote about the validity of "the studies" we're always hearing about from health officials--the ones that supposedly prove thimerosal is safe, including the famous 2004 IOM Report. In addition, he included a strong critique of the media's role in "suppressing debate about the safety of Thimerosal."
Incredibly, Kloor made a single reference to "rising awareness and diagnoses of autism" in one place and he cited the current autism, one in every 68 children, in another. That was all the attention given to what autism is doing to our children. It's the same in most stories about the controversy over vaccines and autism. Regardless of the latest leap in the autism rate, reporters are never alarmed about a disorder that was practically unknown 25 years ago and today is so common that everyone knows someone with an autistic child. Furthermore, the press isn't concerned that officials never know for sure if there's been a true increase in the rate or just more "better diagnosing" of a disorder that's always been around. They report that while the CDC can't tell us the cause, cure or prevention for autism, it's never a crisis to health officials.
As long as autism doesn't matter in America, then finding the cause isn't really important either. No one at the Washington Post has ever thoroughly investigated and reported on the autism epidemic and the link to vaccines. It's that simple. Kloor doesn't bring up the fact that in 2008, it was revealed that medical experts at HHS had quietly conceded the vaccine injury case of Hannah Poling that involved autism as a side effect. Despite getting widespread coverage in the media, the story quickly died. (It should be noted that Hannah received nine vaccines in a single doctor's visit and two of those vaccines contained high levels of mercury.)
At that time, officials explained that Hannah had a pre-existing condition that made her susceptible to vaccine injury resulting in her autism. The head of the CDC promised to look into the case and see how many other children this might involve, but nothing more was done. The medical community and the media quickly returned to the claim that there was no connection between vaccines and autism.
Then in 2011, it was revealed that for the past two decades, the federal government had been quietly settling vaccine injury cases where the claimant developed autism as a side effect. Eighty-three such cases had been found and more were suspected to be hidden in government files. Other than Fox News, no major news outlet reported this story.
Few members of the media are willing to incur the wrath of their advertisers, the medical community, and federal health officials by covering this topic in a fair and balanced manner. Kloor did quote something important from Dr. Herbert. He wrote, "The discourse on vaccination is so highly charged that 'you can't say anything without immediately being labeled,' she says. 'This is the most delicate issue I've ever dealt with in my life.'"
The truth is, the press, like our health officials, have their talking points from which they never deviate. Both groups have spent so many years in denial that it's way too late to suddenly announce, "Oops, we were wrong about vaccines. Due to complete oversight failure, a generation of children has been exposed to a known neurotoxin with possibly devastating results."
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which goes on sale this Fall from Skyhorse Publishing.
"Keith Kloor is a freelance journalist and an adjunct journalism faculty member at New York University who has written for Nature, Science Insider, Slate and dozens of articles for Discover Magazine promoting genetically engineered foods and attacking critics of the agrichemical industry, while also assisting industry allies behind the scenes.
Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know, posted in the UCSF Chemical Industry Documents Library, reveal instances in which Kloor coached and edited his sources, obscured the industry ties of a source, and selectively reported on information in ways that bolstered industry narratives...."
https://usrtk.org/our-investigations/keith-kloor-the-agrichemical-industrys-favorite-writer/
Posted by: Carol | November 03, 2018 at 06:14 PM
When my two sons were in high school around 2008 I took them for a pediatric check up & the doctor asked me to step out while he examined the boys personally & I did because they were in there together with the doctor, so nothing bad could happen.
I quickly stepped out into the hallway as I was asked, & I saw the office nurse by the counter about 12 feet away, listening to two people talking to her. They were very nicely dressed from a pharmaceutical company--one was a man & one was a black woman.
The man was telling the nurse that if 'your patients ask you if Thimerosol is in the immunizations you can honestly tell them no because we have slightly changed the chemical formula so that it is technically no longer able to be called Thimerosol".
I blurted out real loud, "WHAT!"
They looked at me & then looked back to her & said if she had any questions to call them & then they had to pass right by me to leave.
When they got near, & said to each one as they passed me, "That's despicable"
So, please--they need to question these Big Pharma reps on what they are told to say about Thimerosol & also nurses in doctors' offices!
If Thimerosol is a patented name--then one slight chemical change WOULD make it--technically--no longer "Thimerosol" & so it could still be in the immunizations that they claim "Thimerosol" is no longer in!
Because if they removed all the Thimerosol from the immunizations--& the autism rate dropped suddenly--it would PROVE, in a court of law--that it WAS the Thimerosol that caused it.
This way, they can say--SEE, the Thimerosol is gone but kids are still becoming autistic--to try to prove to the public that it was not their Thimerosol.
How devious & cynical & monstrous can they get??
This happened in Taylorville, Illinois.
I would testify in court about what I heard too if they needed it or I'd take a lie detector test.
Posted by: Charlene Cheek | August 23, 2014 at 02:35 AM
I can ask for nickel-free earrings to avoid a rash but it I ask for mercury free vaccines damage I am a nut?
Posted by: Annie Donnelly | July 31, 2014 at 02:57 PM
Try metametrix
Posted by: Billie Joe | July 24, 2014 at 12:54 PM
@ Billie joe. Exactly what test for heavy metals did you use? It is not clear to me what test for mercury toxicity is trustworthy.
Posted by: Truth is hard to come by | July 24, 2014 at 06:54 AM
The Supreme Court ruling says the following:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-152.pdf
In it it talks about "unavoidably unsafe". The message is pretty clear. I have said all I am going to say about the subject at the moment. I am as always interested in anyone's comments. It is bothersome that the Bruesewitz ruling took away the ability to litigate against design defects in vaccines, and it made one more avenue inaccessible.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | July 23, 2014 at 11:01 AM
What everyone must do.... 1. Pay for heavy metal tests from a good lab. 2. Take the tests to doctors. 3. Demand treatment. 4. When they say no. Tell them you will sue for negligence. 5. They will have to prove that your child doesn't have mercury poisoning and order their own tests. 6. When the tests come to be positive.... twice in our case... they have to cover you. BTDT. :)
Our child was language delayed with health issues...Not autism. We were lucky. Let it be known that how we chose to proceed was greatly spearheaded by RFKs article about thimerosal years ago. He talked about language delay. We are grateful to him. You rock RFK!
Posted by: Billie Joe | July 22, 2014 at 11:16 PM
@Birgit
I believe that I've mentioned this before, but the Supreme Court majority rejected this in the Bruesewitz decision. It is unclear to me why the family raised the issue. The adoption of "comment k" varies by state, and there is a secondary issue of whether it means that strict liability is barred or whether it demands case-by-case review. The family originally sued in Pennsylvania.
Posted by: Godfrey Wyl | July 22, 2014 at 10:03 PM
Birgit,
I think you're right and that must be why Kennedy is attacked so hysterically.
Taking mercury out of at least the vaccines taken by children and pregnant women is logical. Leaving it in is indefensible.
Posted by: Carol | July 22, 2014 at 07:16 PM
One would think that just investigating the dangers of mercury in vaccines would be a good start and by no means unreasonable. I think the reason why there is such resistance to looking for another better preservative is that they are expecting a whole can of worms in the process. Just the very suggestion of changing the preservative from mercury to something else would make people suspect that there was a good reason to change to a less toxic substance. People certainly would ask questions. So, even though that would be a middle-of-the-road way of looking at it, it is possibly not just a can of worms but instead a Pandora's box.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | July 22, 2014 at 06:01 PM
I'll tell you, the thing that surprised me about the Kloor article is how pro-vaccine Kennedy is. Kennedy seems to think that if the mercury was taken out (of flu vaccines, for instance), all that would be left is the juice of a few flowers.
If mercury shouldn't be in pediatric vaccines, then it shouldn't be in any vaccines taken by children or pregnant women. Isn't that a reasonable, middle-of-the-road position?
Posted by: Carol | July 22, 2014 at 03:04 PM
I don't know why they use aluminum in particular. I just know that for some reason they need to add it in order to provoke a stronger immune response. I suspect this response has not been properly investigated. It may have something to do with the synergistic effect with mercury. For all I know thye whole thing is an artifact. I know that mercury impairs the immune response. But that is not to say that that's why they are putting in aluminum.
The one thing I don't get is the fact that first something is attenuated and then whatever is attenuated is then being treated to make it less attenuated.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | July 22, 2014 at 01:38 PM
Birgit,
I've wondered about that. Can the aluminum be taken out? I thought the vaccine would be very weak and only last a very short time without it. And be a lot more expensive: the aluminum means they can use a tiny amount of vaccine serum and the aluminum sort of extends it. Not that I care about their problems, but is it viable to get rid of it?
Posted by: cia parker | July 21, 2014 at 11:39 PM
Cia! That's not my point. I know what you are saying. My point is that the Supreme Court made it look as if the unavoidability is only one thing, i.e the immune response. They naively used that phrase "unavoidably unsafe" because they either didn't want to think beyond their nose or chose not to. There are many reasons why vaccines are not safe. But there are among those reasons some that are avoidable. Thimerosal for one thing is avoidable, and so is aluminum and other adjuvants that are added in order for the attenuated (weakened) response to be enhanced. The Supreme Court did not consider that there is a synergistic effect when both mercury and aluminum come together. That effect is totally avoidable and possibly the most avoidable unsafe practice of all. Another unsafe practice comes in the accuracy of how much of an adjuvant is added. I know from personal experience that the measuring devices are not that well calibrated. I worked at a place where we made buffer solutions and we added preservatives. We checked every tenth bottle of what we made. There often was a ten to thirty percent difference in what was actually put in. There can be wide fluctuations between batches.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | July 21, 2014 at 06:59 PM
Birgit,
The really big reason is that vaccines are supposed to challenge the immune system with a perceived threat to make it produce antibodies. Many people's immune system for whatever reason responds too enthusiastically and damages its own systems, whether by going beyond the necessary level of inflammation (but is there any safe level?) and causing encephalitis, or by sensitizing the immune system to future appearances of the same or similar antigens in the future, and every ingredient in any vaccine can be interpreted by the body as an antigen (provoking an allergic response), not just the weakened or killed disease pathogens, but also the chemicals (preservatives, adjuvants) and foreign proteins from the cell culture media. There can be no safe vaccine, only usually apparently safe in most (or maybe not, maybe all sorts of future conditions had their roots in the vaccine reaction).
Posted by: cia parker | July 21, 2014 at 06:08 PM
Thimerosal was still being "phased out" around 2006. I asked around and the mothers who checked the insert said to me that their children still got Thimerosal at that time. Thimerosal was never recalled. Even now most physicians are dispensing Thimerosal-containing flu vaccines even though they are not recommended for people over a certain age per Kaiser fact sheet. When my husband got a DPT vaccine not long ago, he called the doctor on that. He was told they only carried DPT with Thimerosal.
Another thing that is rarely mentioned is that Thimerosal used to be called Merthiolate. It was a liquid used topically until the '70s on newborn infants. It's the same substance used as a preservative in vaccines. Around ten babies at one hospital died because the liquid had been applied to the navel chord area. It was not injected, it was dabbed on the skin. This substance is not available over the counter any longer whereas the preservative is still in vaccines.
The question is: Why did they change the name, and why is it no longer available if it is so harmless? Whenever I raise the question of vaccines and Thimerosal I get eyes rolling.
A much more pertinent question is: why are vaccines unavoidably unsafe? Is it the liquid? Is it the formaldehyde? Is it the single dose? Is it the trivalent vaccine? Is it the preservative? Is it the antibiotics they use in the manufacturing process? Isn't it an awfully general way of putting it? Didn't the Supreme Court paint with a ridiculously broad brush?
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | July 21, 2014 at 04:40 PM
Cia, I don't see any reason why they couldn't eliminate all of it, on their own. There simply isn't any reason to use it anywhere in the process. Necessity is the mother of invention. If the supply was no longer available or affordable from suppliers, pharma would naturally, and maybe even happily, have to accommodate that, and they would, without having to wait for a gov't blessing which will never come. They do it all the time.
I'm not saying to stop at making vaccines just toxin free, personally I think it's a failed hypothesis all around. I'm saying that doing it could provide a roadmap, could pave the way to freeing the pharmaceutical companies from the failed approach corner they backed themselves into, maybe eventually making vaccines obsolete, and eventually erasing the autism epidemic, leading to real compensation. For some reason, pharma got pigeonholed into thinking that effective meds and safety are mutually exclusive and they continue to work within that paradigm, but it's not true.
Certain groups (maybe pharma) are always floating the idea that pharmas only want to produce patented drugs, in order to be able to charge enough money to recoup research investment funds & FDA fees (which we know is false since they spend more on advertising than research) and that other natural or synthetic immune boosting alternatives to preventing and handling illness would not be financially attractive to big pharma. I don't buy it. Nobody has told pharma they can't charge exhorbitant prices for their own natural products, some consultant somewhere probably told them people won't pay for them. But if they upcharge for their drugs & people buy them, they could certainly do it with their own lines of natural prescriptives.
I suspect due to their relationship with doctors & insurance companies that at the drop of a hint, the insurance companies would be happy to cover the cost of a natural "prescription" if it was written by a doctor.
Sure, there will be people out there that will always walk into a health store or try to handle things themselves or see an alternative provider, and they should have that right forever, but its a RESPONSE to a failed portion of the western medical system. Meanwhile, the rest- I'd say the overwhelming majority- of Americans do not have time or desire to put into solving their own health problems and will ALWAYS want to consult with doctors. To each his own. People want and need their MDs, especially for complicated cases. And people are so accustomed to the need to use doctors, regardless of what treatment options are recommeded, that I doubt the perception of those people will ever change, so there will never be any shortage of office visit charges or prescriptions. If they see a commercial on TV that tells them "Ask your doctor about Vitamin C," into the office they will march to ask about vitamin C, just as much as if they were told to get their flu shot or ask about Cialis. If a doctor said "come in for your yearly detox" as opposed to "your yearly flu shot" in they would go for their detox, and it would probably earn the medical establishment a hell of a lot more money than a lousy flu shot. Heck, I'd be happy to go to an MD on my on volition rather than just when I get sick, if I knew they would offer me more than synthetic drugs. Pharma may not be able to patent natural products themselves, but they can patent new production processes AND can certainly have doctors write prescriptions for which pharma themselves have set the price for, or negotiated with the government for. And if there was a reduction in chronic disease/autism numbers, with a few more healthy people around, pharma could charge higher prices on naturals to compensate for the drop in patient numbers, probably with government's blessing because then there would be enough healthy people to offset the costs. It would be a wash. 6 of one 1/2 dozen of the other.
And with the true freedom of options for either approach, and the trust that would foster, you would think that pharma co.s would recognize how much money they could save by not having to pay for all the lobbying, back room dealing, and marketing, shilling, trolling, and competition-squashing thinktanks and "charitible" organizations. My God, they could probably fire half the folks they pay to develop these synthetic replacements to nature's goodness and just focus on extraction processes, and just from that put so much money back in their pockets that it's mind boggling. Frankly, I can't believe that their investors haven't called for it by now.
And heck, if naturals became to way to go for pharmas, they'd be incented to preserve what remains of the natural environment because that is where their next money makers would be coming from, not just to copy from. Environmental diversity would mean a pluthra of new lines of meds. What if the need to preserve those future resources drove them to incent their energy company buddies to get on the ball with their wind and solar efforts because dirty energy was destroying their medical economics? Nice little side effect - a good one instead of a bad one.
It all could be done, and everyone would get want they want, just not in the beginning.
Posted by: Jenny | July 21, 2014 at 04:30 PM
In 2005 Kennedy had a telephone conversation with Kathleen Stratton, the study director of the 2004 IOM report:
"When co-author Kennedy asked Stratton why the 2004 committee had focused on autism rather than neurodevelopmental disorders generally as the Verstraeten study had done, she claimed that pending autism lawsuits were the committee's driving motivation....When Kennedy asked about the voluminous literature suggestive of Thimerosal's toxicity, and [said] how he would be shocked if it were not injurious to infants, Stratton said: 'Clearly, mercury is very toxic. Clearly, ethylmercury is neurotoxic. Clearly, ethylmercury affects cell systems – animals, human cells – all those sorts of things, and clearly, when it was injected into newborn mice they had weird behaviors . . . the point is, mercury is not good for you. Granted. Thimerosal probably, you know, I mean it can't be good for you, right? And certainly at some doses it's extremely bad for you. The question [we were charged with answering] is whether any of those animal or in-vitro studies make a connection to autism.'"
Ethylmercury is neurotoxic? Maybe they should let somebody know.
Posted by: Carol | July 21, 2014 at 02:30 PM
Jenny,
They could take it out of the flu vaccine and use only single dose vials, but could they eliminate even the trace amounts left over from the manufacturing process that remain in many vaccines, amounts which add up? Even the trace amounts are still over the hazardous waste limit. Is part of this fight because they know that what we're really looking at is a post-vaccine world? There is NO vaccine-preventable disease that is so severe, would be so common in the absence of vaccine programs, as to override the considerable risk of severe vaccine damage caused by it. Of course the shills try madly to rewrite history, but the fact is that pertussis was no longer a big killer even in the '30s, before the vaccine. Dr. Spock said in the '50s that it was only dangerous to newborns, as is still the case. Smallpox stopped being dangerous after 1897, according to Dr. Humphries, and the smallpox vaccine was always more dangerous than helpful. I'll give them polio, IF the disease came back here. Diphtheria had stopped being a big killer BEFORE the vaccine. We did not need the MMR, and deliberately giving all school girls rubella if they didn't have immunity would be a better strategy than the vaccine. We did not have the MMR when I was a child in the '60s, and no one expressed a wish for it.
The amazing thing is that so many people believe there were raging killer epidemics that were only stopped by the vaccine programs. The raging killer epidemic stopped everywhere in the First World nearly a hundred years ago, BEFORE the vaccines.
Posted by: cia parker | July 21, 2014 at 01:54 PM
Bob,
I agree with you, but why did Kennedy write the book at all? There was no way to avoid offending his patrons. Taking out the chapter on thimerosal causing autism was unconscionable, apparently a way to look like a reformer without actually offending the perpetrators.
Posted by: cia parker | July 21, 2014 at 01:44 PM
Barbara J,
A shill a few weeks ago told me that my daughter could not have received a mercury-containing hep-B vaccine given without permission at birth because vaccine companies agree to take it out in 1999, at the end of the congressional safety hearing on it. I told her that the companies continued to market and sell it until the expiration date of the vaccines they had already produced, probably at a bargain rate, including to the hospital that gave it to my baby. Lots and lots of criminal liability to go around for everyone once all this blows to the heavens.
Posted by: cia parker | July 21, 2014 at 01:41 PM
If the CDC and the rest of the government won't mandate taking mercury and other known toxins out of vaccines, then its up to the pharmaceutical companies to do it on their own. They know they can do it and still have adequate supply on the market. The CDC won't ever again recommend a preference for people to take the non-thimerosal versions due to safety issues because that would be tantamount to admitting government guilt from a legal perspective. But since the media is so under control of the pharmaceutical and government censorship already, actually now would be the perfect time for pharmaceutical companies to phase out the toxic ingredients for other reasons; for instance, cost. If was too expensive to supply and transport mercury because of EPA or hazardous transport costly constraints, it would simply be of economical interest to the suppliers not to supply it anymore. Or if no pharmaceutical companies wanted to pay for it anymore because other antibacterials suddenly were much cheaper to use, there would be no reason for pharma to continue using it. It would just fall by the wayside due to the availability of cheaper alternatives, and no one in the media except for the investors saving money would have anything to talk about. It would be a tiny blurb in the back of the wall street journal and millions of people would be better off for it.
Or they could do it due to lack of supply. What would happen if mercury simply became unavailable in large enough quantities to supply something as widespread as vaccines? The pharma developers would have to adjust their formulas.
If we got to the point with non-toxic energy and non-toxic food and non-toxic vaccines on the market and autism numbers drop, at that point the NIH would start to fund "cures" for autism without all the attached controversy and non-vaccine treatment of infectious diseases and other more non-invasive treatments for infectious diseases because they would no longer be on the gallows along w/the CDC and FDA and govt for continued increasing rates of autism.
By the time the next generation of child bearers came along in 30 years we could be done with all this. We could go from 1. increasing numbers, controversy, no cure and minimal compensation, to 2. decreasing numbers, less controversy, no cure and minimal compensation, to 3. next to no additional diagnosis, no controversy, and more cures to 4. no more autism, hindsight recognition of controversy, multiple treatment options, and finally 5. no more autism, hindsight recognition of mistakes made, multiple treatment options covered by insurance because the autism numbers drop so low due to cures, AND compensation for those individuals remaining on the spectrum because there would be concrete declining numbers which could be managed economically.
If we start now, people struggling now, today, financially and medically might just catch some benefits on the tail end of things in 15 years or so, once we got about halfway through the process.
Posted by: Jenny | July 21, 2014 at 10:56 AM
Is there any place on the CDC or FDA sites that make the claim that thimerosal DOES NOT cause autism. I wish I would have copied and pasted over the years the way in which they word their assurances..today I find the FDA explaining methymercury within their vaccine site..yet not knowing the differences...assuming either similar to,or less toxic than..without study ..yet mentioning cerebral palsy as an effect of pre natal exposure..
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228#guid
and then there's this?http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/Thimerosal/QA_Pediatrics-thimerosal-autism.html
a thousand kids..twenty five percent have autism..the rest don't.they were all vaccinated..so therefore thimerosal doesn't cause autism? I must be missing something.
From what I can gather at both the cdc and the fda they are claiming that for today with the studies they are pumping out , thimerosal as safe is winning..but stay tuned.
The nasty belief that when the licensing of individual products moved to thimerosal free around 2001 ..that
it was removed at that moment. The kids that received it in 2002 were counted as thimerosal free.
Now what is this about the book? Kennedy removed all association between thimerosal and autism? What?
Posted by: barbaraj | July 21, 2014 at 10:19 AM
How would it be possible to pull the wool over almost everybody's eyes? Think Iraq and WMD. It wasn't that long ago.
Posted by: Carol | July 21, 2014 at 10:13 AM
Over the last few years I've read many different blogs on the dangers of vaccines. Many Doctors comment on these blogs, identifying themselves as Doctors but remaining anonymous and they all say the same thing:they know vaccines are harmful, they know children are being damaged but to go against the medical community that supports and pushes vaccines is something they can't do because they don't want to be Wakefielded.
Posted by: Danchi | July 21, 2014 at 09:55 AM
In regards to letting the science speak, it is not just the metals, although there is no doubt that they are extremely toxic, and this has long been known. We never hear of the research that demonstrates how multiple vaccines destroy our immune system, even without even taking into account such toxic additions as mercury and aluminum. It is the very action which vaccines are designed to do - provoke our immune system to react to an antigen, any antigen - that does the damage. Vaccines are a faulty and dangerous approach to disease prevention, period. As tragic as autism is, and it is one of the most tragic preventable events I can think of, the sad truth is that everyone is harmed by vaccines, the damage increasing in relation to number of vaccines received. It is likely that those who experience the most severe reactions to vaccines, like autism, have other toxicity or immune system issues that increase their susceptibility. This is the issue that autism is often used to disguise - vaccines are dangerous to everyone, not just those who suffer the most severe and obvious damages! The longer we prolong this 'discussion' the more the population at large is damaged by vaccines, reducing the number of healthy individuals who could actually serve as genuine control groups. Isn't that the agenda?
The person in search of truth has to go looking for it, because there are so many agendas at work against it.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008382
Posted by: truthseeker | July 21, 2014 at 09:31 AM
The longer they leave the problem the bigger the lie gets..and when the Mercury bubble bursts (soon) the ones involved in the cover up are just as guilty as the money makers...Is it a crime not to report a crime especially one against humanity??
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | July 21, 2014 at 07:12 AM
Anne writes about Forbes Kloor piece:
"We're told it's Kennedy's belief, there's no mention of all the scientists backing what he says. And incredibly, Kloor writes about this means "politically," not morally or socially. "
Kloor's mention of the "politics" involved is very revealing .. albeit unintentionally .. on his part.
Kloor said:
"I had a hard time believing that something this blatant would be ignored by the entire science establishment .. if all the information Kennedy had was really true .. why weren't the public health and environmental communities and big research centers seizing on his book as a call to action?"
The reason "why" every bureaucracy that Kloor mentions .. "public health .. environmental communities .. big research centers" .. ignore the subject of thimerosal is because all of them are subservient .. relying heavily .. on the enormously lucrative financial support of the pharmaceutical industry.
In other words .. it is "politically advantageous" for them to remain "ignorant" on the subject of Thimerosal.
As a further prime example of "politics" .. consider Senator Sander's ludicrous claim he "knows nothing about the issue".
I think it safe to assume that Senator Sanders was one of the 50 Senators who signed a petition demanding the Washington Redskins change their name because they believe it to be "insensitive" to a minority of the American Indian population.
Why would the Senator feel free to express his opinion on the Redskins .. and .. claim to know nothing about Thimerosal?
BECAUSE .. THE SENATOR RISKS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING "POLITICALLY" BY EXPRESSING HIS STRONG OPINION ON THE REDSKINS .. BUT .. THE SENATOR'S POLITICAL CAMPAIGN FUND WOULD BE AT GREAT RISK WERE HE TO ADMIT "KNOWING SOMETHING ABOUT THE ISSUE OF THIMEROSAL".
AS I SAID .. MONEY DRIVES POLITICS.
Posted by: BoB Moffitt | July 21, 2014 at 07:00 AM