. . . One reason was that study after study showed that these concerns were ill-founded. Another was that the famous 1998 report claiming to show a link between vaccinations and autism was retracted by The Lancet, the medical journal that had published it. The study was not only spectacularly wrong, as more than a dozen studies have shown, but also fraudulent. The author, British surgeon Andrew Wakefield, has since been stripped of his medical license.

But the damage was done. Countless parents became afraid of vaccines. As a consequence, many parents now choose to delay, withhold, separate or space out vaccines. Some don't vaccinate their children at all. A 2006 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that between 1991 and 2004, the percentage of children whose parents had chosen to opt out of vaccines increased by 6% a year, resulting in a more than twofold increase.

Today the media are covering the next part of this story, the inevitable outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, mostly among children who have not been vaccinated. Some of the parents who chose not to vaccinate were influenced by the original, inaccurate media coverage.

. . . Who is choosing not to vaccinate? The answer is surprising. The area with the most cases of whooping cough in California is Los Angeles County, and no group within that county has lower immunization rates than residents living between Malibu and Marina Del Ray, home to some of the wealthiest and most exclusive suburbs in the country. At the Kabbalah Children's Academy in Beverly Hills, 57% of children are unvaccinated. At the Waldorf Early Childhood Center in Santa Monica, it's 68%, according to the Hollywood Reporter's analysis of public-health data.

...But parents in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica see vaccines as unnatural-something that conflicts with their healthy lifestyle. And they have no problem finding fringe pediatricians willing to cater to their irrational beliefs.

These parents are almost uniformly highly educated, but they are making an uneducated choice. It's also a dangerous choice: Children not vaccinated against whooping cough are 24 times more likely to catch the disease. Furthermore, about 500,000 people in the U.S. can't be vaccinated, either because they are receiving chemotherapy for cancer or immune-suppressive therapies for chronic diseases, or because they are too young. They depend on those around them to be vaccinated. Otherwise, they are often the first to suffer. And because no vaccine is 100% effective, everyone, even those who are vaccinated, is at some risk.

DEAR WALL STREET JOURNAL...when will you practice journalism?

I'm sick of the Wall Street Journal.  I'm sick of the media in America--both broadcast and print. 

I'm sick of all the dismissive coverage of the topic of autism, of non-vaccinating parents and I'm sick of the coverage of the HUGE controversy over vaccines and autism.

Do you people know that we're in an epidemic of SICK, SICK CHILDREN? 

Many can't speak. 

Many can't learn. 

Many have serious health issues like seizure disorder, bowel disease, and sleep disorders. 

Many are still in diapers as teenagers.  

We call this disaster "autism."

Does it bother you at all that these same kids started out as normally developing babies and toddlers?

Reporters at the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, do you ever investigate this for yourselves?

OR do you just take the word of health officials, people with a vast web of ties--like Offit--to the vaccine industry?

Why does Paul Offit, a doctor who has a vested interest in covering up a link between vaccines and autism, get immediate coverage in the Wall Street Journal like this? 

Why does the Wall Street Journal tell us that Offit  "is a professor of pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases and director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia," without bothering to tell us that he made millions from his work on a vaccine for rota virus?

The jig is up!  We know who Offit really is.  We know that the health officials who tell us vaccines are safe, vaccines save lives, have vast money ties to the vaccine makers.

WALL STREET JOURNAL:

Do you know that a TOP VACCINE EXPERT AT THE MAYO CLINIC SAYS THAT MEASLES VACCINE IMMUNITY WEARS OFF?  Check out the work of Dr. Greg Poland.  He says outbreaks of measles are because of the failure of the vaccine. 

The same is true of the whooping cough vaccine.

BY THE WAY...The truth is...Dr. Andrew Wakefield is a gastroenterologist.  Offit neatly leaves that fact out of his article.  Parents came to Wakefield, as a specialist in bowel disease, because their children develop severe bowel problems along with autism after the MMR vaccine.  Offit doesn't mention that the British government indemnified the maker of the MMR vaccine, so they're ultimately responsible for the epidemic of damaged children and have a huge incentive to try and discredit him, 

What does it tell us that "uniformly highly educated" parents are choosing NOT TO VACCINATE?  It's not the uneducated, uninformed parents choosing not to vaccinate.  Parents who really looked into this, parents who read the studies and have seen the science are scared of what vaccines can do to children and THEY'RE NOT VACCINATING.

WSJ, we know you're only giving us the pro-pharma side of the vaccine debate. We know that you're covering up the reality of vaccine side effects. 

The end result is ...WE DON'T TRUST YOU TO TELL US THE TRUTH.

That's an "F" in journalism for you at the Wall Street Journal.  You have no credibility.


The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and their OurKidsASD brand.  Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy is one of the largest and most respected compounding pharmacies in the country. They use only the finest quality chemicals and equipment to prepare our patients’ compounded medications and nutritional supplements. Customizing medication and nutritional supplements for our customers allows them to achieve their unique health goals.

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.