By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

Let me tell you what I believe to be the long-term strategy of the pharmaceutical industry in regards to vaccinations.  First, they want to establish by law the precedent that a parent cannot refuse a vaccination for their child, or they will face the draconian penalty of that child being forced out of the public school system.  It's the dry run for what they want to try next, the forced vaccination of adults as a precondition of employment.

It really is that simple and that horrible, which is why what's happening in California should both terrify people, as well as have them sitting on the edge of their seat as to what will happen next.

As for the horror, I'm sure that most readers are aware of California Senate Bill 277, which was passed last year and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown which provides that this academic school year, 2016-2017, starting in the lower grades, children in kindergarten and the seventh grade will need to have a certain number of vaccinations in order to attend school.  All religious and philosophical exemptions are gone and only medical exemptions will remain, but you can be sure they'll try to bully physicians into not granting them.  It is REALLY bad.

But what should have you sitting on the edge of your seat is a lawsuit filed by some real legal heavyweights, including a former member of Nader's Raiders, which seeks to stop SB 277.  As an attorney I have to say I am impressed by the filing and believe it has a good chance of success.  During the years I have been in this struggle I've been frustrated as to how little reason has been deployed in the debate.  I credit much of that to the terrible 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which removed vaccines from the traditional civil justice system.  But the pharma minions were not content with that victory and wanted to go even further.  Tyrants usually set themselves up for failure when they try to do too much.  The reason pharma has tried to weasel out of the traditional civil justice system is they don't want to argue the merits of what they are proposing.

Here are some of the arguments our side is making that pharma and which pharma will be forced to respond:

Violation of the California Constitution - Access to public education is a fundamental right under the California constitution, which means that any abridgement of that right must be viewed with great suspicion.  The defendants must show there was an overwhelming need for the abridgment of this right and that the abridgment is narrowly tailored.  Furthermore, this proposed law discriminates on the basis of wealth, as more affluent parents are more able to homeschool their children.  It also discriminates on the basis of English language fluency as California law states that any parent who wants to homeschool their child must be fluent in English.

By Kent Heckenlively, J.D.

About ten months ago I started writing a new book, INOCULATED: How Science Lost Its Soul in Autism, which would utilize the CDC whistleblower story as a way to review the corruption in science regarding vaccines and autism.  I knew Andy Wakefield was working on his documentary, and when I interviewed him for this book he mentioned it, but in my wildest dreams I never imagined VAXXED would explode onto the scene the way it has.  I have been writing furiously to make sure that story is included as well.

In the meantime, I got a powerhouse agent, Johanna Maaghoul of the Waterside Literary Agency, the world's #1 agency for New York Times non-fiction bestsellers.  Johanna has been taking the book around to publishing companies, getting some positive interest, but they are absolutely terrified of the subject.  Publishing companies like to sell books, so that's where you come in.  I want you to read the chapter outline and if this is a book you would like to buy, leave a comment to that effect.  How's that for simple?  That way when my agent is talking to a publisher she can say something like, "Five hundred and seventy two people said they would buy this book immediately!"  Thanks in advance for your comments.

Chapter Outline

Chapter One: The Call – Dr. Brian Hooker, a university biology professor was working in his office when he got a call from a senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist, Dr. William Thompson. The two worked together years earlier when parent groups were clamoring for the CDC to conduct research into vaccines and autism. Thompson reveals that the CDC found such evidence, but covered it up. Thompson had retained these documents and eventually turned them over to Congressman William Posey. The most explosive of these allegations is that earlier administration of the MMR vaccine is causing a 3.36-fold increase in autism among African-American males. With Thompson’s guidance, Hooker publishes this information in the summer of 2014.

Chapter Two: The Insanely Good Soul of Dr. Andrew Wakefield – British researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield first published his findings suggesting the MMR vaccine was linked to autism in The Lancet in 1997, even going so far as to share these results with the CDC prior to publication. In the ensuing years, Wakefield was subjected to unbelievable persecution and his name was vilified throughout the world. Hooker brings the Thompson documents to Wakefield’s attention. Hooker also initiates contact between Thompson and Wakefield, with Thompson apologizing for participating in the cover-up of research that would have vindicated Wakefield’s research. Wakefield accepts Thompson’s apology.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

On Saturday, April 30, the official end of the most amazing Autism Awareness Month in memory, I went to the Opera Plaza Cinemas in San Francisco to watch VAXXED: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, directed by Andy Wakefield, produced by Del Bigtree and Polly Tommey.

Whenever I go to one of these events I have mixed emotions.  More than anything I want the world to know about the cesspool of scientific corruption regarding vaccines and autism at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as revealed by Dr. William Thompson.  On the other hand, what they have done is so horrific, that to be reminded of it so vividly depresses me about human nature.  I know that we have all been horribly abused by the scientific community, the medical profession, and that this has given license to those we hold most dear in our life to doubt what we say about what happened to our children.

And yet the truth endures.  You can not kill it.  And the truth is healing, even if it opens up old wounds.

As I sat in my seat, watching the movie unfold, I felt like I had a front row seat to a boxing match, and I was somebody who knew his way around a ring.  I was familiar with most of the facts, but to see them deployed at strategic places in the film where they would have the greatest impact, like a devastating series of punches, was extremely satisfying.  If you are trying to get friends or family members to go and see the film, I think you should tell them it plays like an extended 60 Minutes story, and that is one of the highest compliments I can give to any documentary.  It is calm, methodical, and powerful.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I really have to hand it to the marketing wizards of the pharmaceutical industry.  In California, the cultural trend-setter of the nation, 97% of the children in our schools were fully-vaccinated, according to the CDC schedule.  But that wasn't enough for you, was it?  You had to try and run the table by jamming SB 277 through the California legislature and threaten to throw the children of thinking parents out of school, didn't you?

It must have gotten under your skin that there was 3% of the market still left on the table.  There was that rebellious 3% that didn't care how many times Dr. Nancy ("Get your damn flu-shot) Snyderman told us from on-high there was no debate about vaccines and autism.  (So sorry Nancy that you lost that cushy NBC job when you decided that Ebola quarantines were for other people!) And we didn't care how much you told us that Dr. Andrew Wakefield was a real-life Dr. Evil, when a much better comparison is Dr. Albert Schweitzer.

And yes, when you got the news media to go to sleep about the fact that even the corrupt "Vaccine Court" had paid out damages to at least 83 children who developed autism after their vaccinations, and $3.1 billion for other vaccine injuries, there were still some of us who knew the truth.  And yes, so far you've been able to keep the news media quiet about CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, but there's at least one Presidential candidate with a big mouth who will probably be spilling the beans on that little issue any day now.  In fact, at my last count, there are at least three Presidential candidates who think we need to ask more questions about vaccines.  

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

A strange thing is happening in California.  From all that I can gather, we have a chance at winning.

And by winning, I mean, getting enough signatures by September 25 to put a referendum on the ballot so that the voters of my home state can decide whether the corporate fascists of pharma can force our kids to follow their vaccination schedule or else throw our children out of school. 

I'm not used to having a chance at winning, but what else can I think when I see on Facebook that people are turning in 7,000 signatures at a time to the leader of our movement, Tim Donnelly?  What can I think when I see posts from groups of people at tables in front of churches who report that hundreds of people are signing the petitions at these events?  Yes, I know we need 365,880 signatures, but it seems like a lot of people are working very hard to make this happen.

I have to start first with the leader of our movement, former assemblyman, Tim Donnelly, who actually ran for governor in California.  Our state has an open primary, which means the two top candidates run against each other, presumably, the democrat against a republican.  Donnelly finished third in the open primary.  I never believed we would get such high-profile support for our cause.

And what about fund-raising?  Last week we tried to raise $100,000 for the effort and hit the goal two days early!  Yes, there are additional challenges to come, but so far, so good.  I'm not used to being in this position.  I'm much more used to losing arguments to family and friends who have no idea of the monstrosity of the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act which created the "Vaccine Court" and although they don't remember any kids with autism when they were young, they engage in some sort of magical thinking which makes them believe these kids were all hidden away in some secret colony that would eventually produce people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

You'll forgive me if I believe that this issue is more important than any other this year.  Yes, I care about ISIS, the economy, and tax-dodging hedge-fund managers, but to me this is the burning house in which we all live.  If we can't put aside our differences to figure out how to stop the fire, none of us are going to have a world remotely resembling one in which we want to live.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

To my beloved brothers and sisters in the Golden State I have a message: You have succeeded in raising a mighty army!  I salute you!

Like our own American Revolution, before it happens victory seems impossible, but when the future looks back on these events, the outcome will appear inevitable.  I am speaking of the effort to repeal SB 277, which would take away a parent's sacred right to alter the vaccine schedule based on philosophical or religious grounds, a right enshrined in both our Constitution and the Nuremberg Code passed in the wake of World War II to ensure that if fascism ever raised its evil head again the civilized nations of the world would fight the threat in all its various disguises.

SB 277 is an abomination, taking away a parent's right to choose what medicines, toxins, animal products, and aborted fetal human tissue may be injected into their children's bloodstream in a misguided attempt to ensure health.  Yes, it does sound dramatic when I say it like that, but I challenge anybody to show where I am mistaken.  If you surrender that right and your child's health to the state, what else is left?  The last vestige of freedom will have been extinguished.

And that is why the battle to repeal SB 277, led by former Assemblyman, Tim Donnelly, has been so inspiring.  As a student of the American Revolution, I am aware of how there were repeated insults by the British crown to the American Colonies, and for so long the citizenry failed to respond.  Revolution does not come easily to a people.  I have wondered for several years what it would take to awaken our country to this danger, and have watched in sorrow as many worthy efforts have failed.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

The battle for California is really heating up!  As many of you know, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, has signed into law SB 277, which takes away personal and religious exemptions in California, in defiance of the US Constitution and the Nuremberg Code passed after World War II, which requires  FREE AND INFORMED CONSENT to any medical procedure.

Former Assemblyman Tim Donnelly has courageously volunteered his time and efforts in putting together a referendum so that the voters of California can express their opinion, rather than the paid lobbyists of pharma and their corrupt politicians in Sacramento!

If you live in California, donate, and share the video widely on social media!

Tim Donnelly has created a FUNDME account to raise money to hire professional petition gatherers to make sure this important cause gets on the ballot!  TIME IS SHORT!  HELP WITH ANY AMOUNT YOU CAN!!  $5.00 whether you live in CA or not would add up fast from AofA readers. Your state is next. Let's send a message NOW.

Kent Heckenlively is a Founding Contributing Editor to Age of Autism and author of Plague: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases.   Release date is November 18, 2014.  Visit his website at Plague The Book. You can pre-order the book HERE.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

From Amazon: Vaccine Whistleblower is a gripping account of four legally recorded phone conversations between Dr. Brian Hooker, a scientist investigating autism and vaccine research, and Dr. William Thompson, a senior scientist in the vaccine safety division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Thompson, who is still employed at the CDC under protection of the federal Whistleblower Protection Act, discloses a pattern of data manipulation, fraud, and corruption at the highest levels of the CDC, the federal agency in charge of protecting the health of Americans. Thompson states, “Senior people just do completely unethical, vile things and no one holds them accountable.”

This book nullifies the government’s claims that “vaccines are safe and effective,” and reveals that the government rigged research to cover up the link between vaccines and autism. Scientific truth and the health of American children have been compromised to protect the vaccine program and the pharmaceutical industry.

The financial cost of the CDC’s corruption is staggering. The human cost is incalculable. Vaccine Whistleblower provides context to the implications of Thompson’s revelations and directs the reader to political action.

###

How does a reviewer start to write about a book detailing one of the greatest crimes ever committed against humanity?  How does one begin the narrative of the violation of the public trust by highly-educated scientists whose job is to protect the health of our nation and our children?  This is a shame that will last a thousand years.

When author and attorney, Kevin Barry, confronted these questions in his book, Vaccine Whistleblower: Exposing Autism Research Fraud at the CDC, (scheduled for release on August 25, 2015, but you can probably get it a little earlier if you order on Amazon) he came up with a simple solution, based no doubt on his legal training.  Let the guilty party, Dr. William Thompson, speak for himself.  A great deal of this book is simply a transcript of four conversations recorded by Dr. Brian Hooker in which Dr. Thompson details how CDC scientists systematically buried any evidence of a link between vaccines (like the MMR) and autism.

From the introduction by Dr. Boyd Haley:  Omitting data to cover up an undesirable outcome in order to reach a predetermined result is research fraud.  Dr. Thompson strongly suggests that the CDC staff involved in vaccine safety withheld data to bury a connection between vaccine injury and autism.

If Dr. Thompson is correct, scientific truth was placed second to policy interests.  The health of children was compromised to protect the vaccine program.  The American public has been lied to and children have been unnecessarily injured due to the corruption of the CDC.  The financial cost of the corruption to tax payers is staggering.  The human cost in incalculable. 

By Kent Heckenlively, JD

On March 25, 2015 I received the following e-mail from Kevin O’Malley of the Commonwealth Club of California regarding a scheduled appearance on April 9, 2015 by myself, Dr. Judy Mikovits, and Dr. Brian Hooker for a presentation entitled “American Whistleblowers”.

Kent and Judy,

Unfortunately it seems that Kent's blog two days ago set up a chain reaction that is causing some challenges with the Commonwealth Club, and we have come under a lot of fire from outside the Club directed at us.

Given the timing, and the challenging environment right now, the conversation has become a much different one than our program intended, and not one that will support getting the word out about your book, or any of our positive messages. As such, I am going to have to postpone the program and revisit how to best present this all at a later date.

This is a very tricky issue in a Public Affairs Forum, and it appears the Kent's warning about drawing attention was correct. There is also concern about how we are framing the discussion, and the focus on whistle-blowers seems to have back-fired, and taken us away from our primary intent.

Please let folks know that we are postponing the program -- and PLEASE DO NOT include any editorial comments about this in anything further you make public. Just let them know that we need to postpone due to a scheduling challenge. Any further editorial input around any of this will just make things worse; we need to let any outside attention fade away from what we tried to do here.

Kevin

It’s probably worth backing up a little bit to recount how all of this came to pass.  On February 18, 2015 the wonderful documentary Trace Amounts, detailing the history of mercury in vaccines, was showing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in San Francisco.  I was the master of ceremonies for the event.  Prior to the showing of the movie, I met Christie Dames and her husband, Kevin O’Malley.  Christie was enthusiastic about the book I had just co-written with Dr. Judy Mikovits, PLAGUE: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases. 

Dr. Mikovits is a government scientist of more than twenty years’ experience and was Director of the Lab of Antiviral Drugs Mechanisms at the National Cancer Institute.  Her research indicated a possible retroviral cause to chronic fatigue syndrome and autism, making it similar in many ways to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, although without the fatal consequences.  I am a public school science teacher and an attorney.  Christie wanted to get us to speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. 

Her husband Kevin, is Chairman of the Business and Leadership forum at the Commonwealth Club agreed and we quickly made plans for an appearance.  Christie thought we should broaden the scope from just our book, and include Dr. Brian Hooker, a biology professor from Simpson University, who had recently burst onto the public stage with revelations of a whistleblower for the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. William Thompson.  The allegations of Dr. Thompson were that that public health officials had covered up a link between the MMR vaccine and autism in African-American males.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

Nothing leads evil to its own destruction quicker than its own apparent success.  It's how God leads the wicked to their demise.

Consider the slave-owning South prior to the American Civil War.  A trickle of slaves, perhaps 1,000-5,000 were escaping each year (out of an estimated population of 3,000,000 slaves), beginning their lives in the North, and speaking freely of what they endured under the lash of their slave-masters.

The escaped slaves presented no existential threat to slavery.  For those in the North who didn't quite know what to think about slavery, they were allowed to continue to exist in their state of uncertainty.  Maybe slavery was good, maybe it was bad, but it was something that happened someplace else.  They were not a part of it.

But that wasn't enough for the South.  The escaped slaves drove them crazy.  Just like the 1.5% of California schoolchildren who have a philosophical or religious exemption drive the pro-pharma forces crazy.  You see, most doctors claim that even if you believe in the mythical concept of "herd immunity", it's somewhere around 90-93%.  I'm not a math teacher, but even if you take 1.5% away from 100%, I calculate it at 98.5%.  Check my math to see if I've got it right.

This Monday, the California Senate voted 24-14 in favor of SB 277, which would strip California parents of religious and philosophical exemptions to vaccines in order for their children to attend public school, something so draconian that even China and Russia have no similar laws.  The measure is going to Governor Jerry Brown's desk for his signature.  (As a footnote, Jerry Brown's father, Governor Pat Brown, signed the current parental exemptions into law in 1961.  It's a great shame that yesterday's soulful, civil rights democrats have morphed into today's soul-less corporate democrats.  Somebody needs to lead them back to their historic support of the rights of the individual.)

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

Simpson University biology professor, Dr. Brian Hooker, never imagined he'd find himself on a stage with Robert Kennedy, Jr., a minister for the Nation of Islam, and all of it taking place in a sanctuary of the Church of Scientology Community Center in Los Angeles, CA.  Such are the curious alliances that the fight against SB 277, the proposed law which would remove children from public schools based on their vaccination status, has created.

But perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised.   Things had been moving at a rapid pace in the past few weeks as the fight against SB 277 had gone into battle mode.

Dr. Hooker, Barry Segal, Eric Gladen,  Shiloh Levine, and Robert Kennedy, Jr. had met with Minister Louis Farrakhan in Chicago during the Autism One Conference in late May and talked about the revelations of CDC whistle-blower, William Thompson that senior government scientists had concealed an increased incidence of autism in African-American males from earlier administration of the MMR shot.  Farrakhan was deeply disturbed by the information.

Maybe it shouldn't have surprised Dr. Hooker to find himself at a United Methodist Church in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 17, 2015 listening to Minister Louis Farrakhan preach to an inter-faith audience of approximately 1,400 people.  Near the end of his speech, Farrakhan called on the group to oppose SB 277 and urged them to call their Congressional representatives and demand that Dr. William Thompson be subpoeaned to appear before the American people and tell the truth about what had been done.  Minister Farrakhan pledged to support this effort.  On October 10, 2015 there will be a large march in Washington D. C. to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.  Two weeks later, on October 24, 2015, the Nation of Islam will lead a protest at the CDC demanding that Dr. Thompson appear before Congress.

Later that night, Minister Farrakhan hosted a gathering for about 100 leading black entertainment figures at a private home in Tarzana and repeated his call for them to oppose SB 277 and demand that Dr. William Thompson be subpoeaned to appear before Congress.  Dr. Hooker was impressed by Minister Farrakhan's command of the science.  As a scientist, Dr. Hooker finds most people mess up the science when they try to talk about it, but it was clear to Hooker that Farrakhan had listened closely. 

Dr. Hooker had initially been wary of becoming close to such a controversial figure as Minister Farrakhan, but in all his interactions he has found the man to be warm, welcoming, and inclusive.  Few other public figures have shown such curiosity and commitment to getting to the bottom of the autism epidemic.  I think God delights in using such unexpected vessels of grace to further His work.  Many in the community may feel we need to wait for other, more prominent, less controversial figures, but I for one have been waiting more than twelve years for such a person or group to step forward.  If others feel differently and want to continue to wait, that is certainly their right.

By Kent Heckenlively, JD

I love the wild conspiracy of hope that is Autism One, the annual convention in Chicago in May which brings together the latest theories and potential treatments for autism.  I was happy to have along with me Dr. Judy Mikovits the co-author of our book, PLAGUE: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism and Other Diseases, as well as to make the acquaintance of many people I'd only known on-line.

It was a thrill for me to meet Jeff Hayes, the producer of the wonderful documentary, BOUGHT, as well as to hear from Dr. Brian Hooker about the CDC whistleblower, William Thompson, and to meet and thank Barry Segal, of Focus for Health, a sponsor of the event.  I got to speak with the courageous Dr. Toni Bark, and listened to a lecture about the possible use of cannabis oil in autism, how EMFs (electro-magnetic fields) can be contributing to autism, and why exposure to multiple viruses might cause an overproduction of mucus in the intestinal lining leading to gastro-intestinal impairment and an overgrowth of parasites and abnormal bacteria.  I am intrigued by all of these possibilities.

I take the approach to these theories about autism that Ben Franklin did to religion.  If somebody invited Franklin to attend a religious service he always accepted the invitation and made a donation to the group.  Franklin was known as a friend to the synagogue, the Catholic church, and all of the various protestant denominations.  Franklin  reasoned that until God revealed Himself to be of one particular faith, it was the better part of prudence to make sure all his bases were covered.  I feel much the same way about autism.  Until somebody comes up with a cure for my daughter's autism, I will listen to anyone. 

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

As a writer I’ve always held to a simple standard of whether somebody has written a great book.  Ask people who’ve read the story what they think.  Everything else is just marketing.  By that measure, the book I co-wrote with Dr. Judy Mikovits, PLAGUE: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases is the best book written about viruses in the past twenty years.

Looking at the top books similar to PLAGUE in the virology section of Amazon and having at least 10 customer reviews these are the rankings based on a system of 5 stars.  I think you'll be surprised at how well PLAGUE does against some popular books and authors.

 PLAGUE – By Kent Heckenlively and Judy Mikovits (2014) – 69 reviews – 4.9 stars

THE HOT ZONE – By Richard Preston (1995) – 1,704 reviews – 4.6 stars

EBOLA – By David Quammen (2014) – 68 reviews – 4.3 stars

THE PANIC VIRUS – By Seth Mnookin (2011) – 135 reviews – 4.2 stars

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

SB277 passes Education Committee 7-2:

"Your politicians are a lot more dishonest than our politicians," a friend from Oregon told me the other night, comparing the fight against vaccine mandates in his state to California.  "But then again, we pay our politicians forty thousand dollars a year and they work only six months.  Yours can make a living at it."  Yes, and somebody has to pay for all those ads in the upcoming election cycle.

So how corrupt are the politicians in California, you might ask?  They are so corrupt that when about 750 of their fellow citizens showed up to testify against SB 277, and only about 50 showed up to testify in favor, they decided they couldn't hold the vote that day.  They had concerns that the bill would expel children from California schools (a right guaranteed under the state constitution) and didn't this seem oh so much like segregation and those racial laws in Nazi Germany which led to "you know what?"

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

In this epic fight for the future of the human race I find nothing so refreshing as a little sarcasm.  Please enjoy this video sent to me by a dear reader.  It was produced by Mike Adams, known to many of you as "The Health Ranger" at Natural News.  http://www.naturalnews.com/

I can't claim to know much about Mr. Adams, but if this is representative of his other work, I think I've found my new best friend.  (Used with permission.)

 
Kent Heckenlively is a Founding Contributing Editor to Age of Autism and author of Plague: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases.  Visit his website at Plague The Book. You can order the book HERE.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I'm tired and exhausted from the day and I'm not sure if all of this is going to make sense, but I'm going to write about it anyway.

Senate Bill 277, sponsored by State Senator Richard Pan would take away religious and personal belief exemptions in California and force those children to be home-schooled.  Do you get the overtones of segregated schools in the South, or, Heaven forbid, those racial laws in Germany before World War II which led to you-know-what? 

I happened to be at the Capitol a few years ago to hear Senator Pan promise that the bill which he sponsored at the time, (requiring that parents claiming an exemption on behalf of their child thoroughly discuss the decision  with their doctor and get a signed note to that effect), he would NEVER try to take away religious and personal belief exemptions.  What a difference pharmaceutical dollars can make on your conscience!

What an amazing turnout!!!  I'm guessing that somewhere around eleven hundred of my fellow Californians showed up to take the microphone and express their personal opposition to this bill at the meeting of the Senate Education Committee.  Our group of parents representing their vaccine-injured children were joined by chiropractors, members of religious organizations, as well as great representation from the Weston Price Foundation.  Thank you all!!

Even with that great show of support, I wasn't that hopeful.  Would these politicians listen?  Why should they listen when so many in our society are closed to our message, despite the record number of children with neurological problems?  The committee was supposed to give an up or down vote on the measure at the end of the day.

Then came the questions from the committee members for Senator Pan.  Four of the members grilled him on what he was going to do about the children who would be thrown out of school and what he planned to do with them.  Pan didn't have an answer!

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

On Thursday, April 9, 2015 I had the pleasure of appearing on the Tom Roten Morning Show out of Huntington, West Virginia to talk about the CDC Whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, the establishment of the Vaccine Court, the experience of my children with vaccines, and how I came to co-author PLAGUE: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases, with Dr. Judy Mikovits.

I am appreciative of Tom for asking insightful questions and then letting me give complete answers to his questions.  The interview is just about fifteen minutes long.  Please send a brief thank you to Tom for letting me appear on his show and his interest in this topic.

Listen Here.

Kent Heckenlively is a Founding Contributing Editor to Age of Autism and author of Plague: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases.    Visit his website at Plague The Book. You can order the book HERE.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

The ticket I purchased for the event, "Robert Kennedy, Jr: Thimerosal - Let the Science Speak" had on it the following words and promise: "You're on your way to an event at the nation's leading public affairs forum, The Commonwealth Club."

I knew the venue well, having been a member for several years when I lived in San Francisco.  And the Club had recently extended a speaking invitation to me, my co-author, Dr. Judy Mikovits, and Dr. Brian Hooker, for an event entitled "American Whistleblowers" which for the moment remains "postponed."  I have always supported the stated mission of the Commonwealth Club to be "the leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of public issues important to the membership, community, and nation."  As I have stated before, I believe the question of the epidemic of immune and neurological problems such as autism presents a watershed moment in our country's history.  We will either redeem the promise of an America where we are free to discuss important issues or we will enter an age of darkness for which our children and grandchildren will curse us.

Kennedy began his talk to a crowded room of about 250 people by thanking the Commonwealth Club for being the first place in the country to allow him to have an open discussion about the question of mercury, vaccines, and autism.  He stated that no network or newspaper in this country will allow him to engage in this debate.  Kennedy pointed out that there were rare, honest journalists willing to take on this issue, like our own Dan Olmsted, formerly of UPI, Sharyl Attkisson, formerly of CBS, and Alison Camerotta, formerly of Fox News and just hanging on by her fingers at CNN.  But they get shut down by their editorial bosses.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I have to admit that being compared to whistle blowers like Edward Snowden who revealed the creation of a vast surveillance state in our country, or Daniel Ellsberg, whose revelation of how the United States was waging a tragically flawed war in Vietnam and led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, has left me a little overwhelmed.  But that's exactly how I'm being described in the advertising for a panel discussion in which I'm participating in on April 9, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.

For those of you not familiar with the Commonwealth Club, it's the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum, sponsoring more than 400 annual events on subjects ranging across the economy, politics, culture, and society.  Previous speakers have included Teddy Roosevelt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.  Another illustrious name must now be added to this prestigious list, Kent Heckenlively.  The Commonwealth Club has as its mission to be "the leading national forum open to all for the impartial discussion of public issues."  Doesn't that sound great?  For those of us who have watched as our voices of concern about vaccines and other common medical practices have been silenced for decades, isn't this what America is supposed to be about?

One of my two fellow speakers is Dr. Judy Mikovits, the former director of the Antiviral Drug Mechanisms Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute and co-author with me of our book, "PLAGUE: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS, Autism, and Other Diseases."  The other is Dr. Brian Hooker, an associate Professor of Biology and Chair of the Science and Mathematics Division at Simpson University, and probably best known to this community as the man who revealed the shocking information about CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson.  Thompson is the CDC scientist who claims the CDC has concealed vital information about the link between vaccines and autism and who has turned over thousands of documents to Congress regarding this massive cover-up.  I am honored to be in their company.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

Has there ever been a book more needed than "Vaccine Injuries: Documented Adverse Reactions to Vaccines -2014-2015 Edition" by Louis Conte and Tony Lyons?  If so, I don't recall it.

For those of us who have witnessed vaccine injury in our children and then researched the medical literature and the so-called "Vaccine Court" it's clear that the government and the pharmaceutical industry is concealing a massive amount of information from the public.  With the health of the human race at risk from these vaccines is it too much to ask for our scientists and policy-makers to read this brisk 274 page account of the important issues in this debate.  I don't think so.

If people want to find the "facts" about this issue they could do no better than starting with this book.  The book opens with a brief history of vaccination, the legal justification for "mandatory" vaccination (or at least having to pay a fine if you refuse) as well as the early immunization campaigns which often involved contaminated products that injured many individuals.

The authors then move to more recent history, beginning with the hopes which were embodied in the National Childhood Vaccine Safety Act passed in 1986 which was supposed to deal with those rare, but often devastating vaccine reactions and get financial help to the afflicted families as soon as possible.  "Vaccine Injuries" raises the question of whether the promise of this program was betrayed by the pharmaceutical industry which used the program as a shield to move more vaccines onto the pediatric schedule.

From that point the authors move onto the Omnibus Autism Proceedings and actual settled claims in the vaccine program.  From 1989 until 2014 that program has paid out more than $2.8 billion dollars.  That's right, $2.8 billion dollars.  And the inevitable question which gets raised is what's the true number for vaccine damage?  Are only 10% of worthwhile vaccine cases compensated?  That's a $28 billion dollar hit to our economy, not to mention the damaged lives.  Is it 1%?  That's $280 billion dollars.  Or is it closer to 0.1%, which would mean somewhere around $2.8 trillion dollars.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I couldn't help but read in the recent assassination of Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov (a former first deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin), a chilling glimpse of what might come to pass in our own country.

I'm a voracious reader of history and it's long struck me that the more you read of the past, you realize the same patterns tend to repeat themselves.  For example, in the run-up to the American Revolutionary War, the British could not fathom the idea that the Founding Fathers could negotiate with them on an equal basis.  It seems that even in the eighteenth century there were those who believed that to recognize both sides of an issue was an example of "false balance."

In much the same way, the white minority in South Africa, labeled Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" for many years until they finally listened to the better angels of their nature and started to negotiate a peaceful transition of power.  Today the Chinese level similar accusations against the Dalai Lama and his struggle for Tibetan rights.  Am I the only one to see in these situations the creation of an "enemy" who cannot be allowed to peacefully state their case?

If there's something unique about the American character it's our tolerance and even welcoming of dissenting views.  Our Founding Fathers realized that simply because people disagreed, it did not make them an enemy.  Indeed, I have long been impressed how even though John Adams disagreed on many important philosophical points with Thomas Jefferson, he still wanted Jefferson in his cabinet because he was impressed with Jefferson's intelligence and character.  If the thinkers of the Enlightenment gave anything to the American Revolution it was the idea that as human beings alive on this planet none of us has divine understanding or wisdom.  We do the best we can with our limited knowledge.  No man is God.  In as much as possible of human life there must be a space for people to make their own decisions, no matter how much we may disagree with them.

By Kent Heckenlively

I've made this offer several times in the past.  I'm making it again.  I am willing to accept the surrender of those who have perverted science, harmed a generation of children, and even as of this late date are willing to harm more children so as to not to upset the balance of their lives.

It must be truly troubling for those who continue to fuel the epidemic of autism and other chronic diseases that even though you still maintain the trust of those in the media, the scientific community, and most of the people in politics, an amazing 39% of the population in a recent Fox News poll believe parents need to have the right to decide how and whether their children can be vaccinated.

You see, I've interviewed enough scientists that I understand the world in which you operate.  Although you tremble in fear when you confront the dark questions at the heart of why so many children and adults suffer with chronic diseases, you feel quite comfortable making others cower as has been done to you.  It must really annoy you when you fulminate against us as if we were some extremist group, that somehow you can't get the rest of the population to fully buy it.

By Kent Heckenlively

On Wednesday, February 18 at 7:30 p.m. in San Francisco, CA at the Opera Plaza Cinemas there will be a showing of one of the most important documentaries on the question of vaccines, mercury, and autism.  We have often lamented that many of our children never got to have a voice, but what if you had a voice, developed normally until your twenties, then developed autism as an adult?  How could people deny what you had experienced?

During the past 20 years, the frequency of autism occurring in children has skyrocketed from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68, and the scientific community is no closer to determining a cause. Trace Amounts is the true story of Eric Gladen’s painful journey through mercury poisoning that he believes resulted from a thimerosal-loaded tetanus shot. His discoveries led him on a quest for the scientific truth about the role of mercury poisoning in the Autism epidemic.

By Kent Heckenlively

Dear Senator Paul and Governor Christie:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the first step in starting a long overdue conversation about vaccines and the epidemic of chronic diseases in our children INCLUDING autism.  I salute your bravery in speaking about what you have heard from your fellow citizens as leaders in a democracy are supposed to do.

Others will not applaud you.  Indeed, you should be prepared for a firestorm that will amaze you.  I hope the anger of these people will not cause you to back down from what you believe to be very reasonable positions to take.  As somebody who is half-Sicilian on my mother's side, like Governor Christie is, I understand the fire and thirst for justice which animates the Jersey Boy.  As somebody who shares many of Senator Paul's libertarian beliefs that each individual is the best judge of what they need, I think my fellow libertarian is up for the fight.

I've been reading the fine book, "Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence" by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Joseph Ellis and think it may have a few lessons for the both of you as you begin to venture down this road.  When our Founding Fathers declared on July 4, 1776 that all men were created equal it was certainly the most radical statement ever uttered by those who would seek to form a government.

By Kent Heckenlively

Yes, I'm here again urging you to do something!

If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area I am encouraging you to go and see the amazing new documentary, "Trace Amounts," the true story of Eric Gladen's painful journey through mercury poisoning that he blames on a thimerosal loaded tetanus shot.

While his mercury poisoning led him to the edge of despair, after his recovery he was on a mission to understand why he had become so sick.  He quit his job, moved into an RV, and traveled the country interviewing experts and piecing together thousands of studies and leaked documents.  It is difficult to overstate the courage of this man.

I know that so many of us feel isolated and wonder when people are going to rise up and demand action.  Well, Eric Gladen has answered that clarion call and it is our job to support him.  Gladen draws a line from the Mad Hatter syndrome of the late 1800s, to Pink Disease in the 1950s, the Iraqi Grain incident of the early 1970s and the usage of Thimerosal in childhood vaccines.

I understand it can be so painful to revisit these issues when our lives are overwhelmed with the needs of our children, but we must reach out to each other in those rare instances when we can not only share our solidarity with each other, but move a project forward.  The documentary will be shown on February 18, at 7:30 p.m. in the lovely Opera Plaza Cinemas and I will be helping to introduce the film.

I would like to see the theater filled with our warrior mothers and fathers.  You can order your tickets on the link.

Kent Heckenlively is a Founding Contributing Editor to Age of Autism and co-author with Dr. Judy Mikovits of Plague: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases.  Visit his website at Plague The Book. You can order the book HERE.

By Kent Heckenlively

There are winners and there are losers.  And I am in the fight.  I'd like you to join me in creating a victory.

In one corner is "The Panic Virus" by Seth Mnookin, which I consider to be an unfair attack on our community and our concerns.  The very title itself suggests that there is nothing much to worry about.  As Franklin Roosevelt might have said, "The only thing we need to panic about is panic itself."

And yet, when even conservative estimates proclaim that 1 in 50 children have autism (oh for those simpler times when it was only 1 in 150!), and researchers like Dr. Stephanie Seneff of MIT proclaim that if current increases continue than 1 in 2 children will have autism by 2025, it seems like there is definitely something to panic about.

Which is where my book, "PLAGUE: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism and Other Diseases" comes in.  Because you see, I do think there is something to panic about.  I am the boy crying wolf as the wolf rampages through the town.

By Kent Heckenlively

I have a BIG challenge for the readers of Age of Autism.

I am currently at 29 reviews on Amazon for the book I co-authored with Dr. Judy Mikovits, PLAGUE - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth About Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases.

The book by Seth Mnookin, entitled, The Panic Virus, which savages our community is at 114 reviews on Amazon.

I know the number of unique readers we have each week at Age of Autism. With our numbers, are we really going to let Seth Mnookin hold the floor with 114 reviews?

I understand the complaints.  Dealing with our children who have autism is difficult.  We are emotionally and financially drained.  When we have free time we don't want to think about autism. It's just going to depress me anyway.  I hear these complaints from my wife all the time.  And I'll let you in on a little secret.  Sometimes I feel exactly the same way.

Which is why I co-wrote PLAGUE.  Because I don't want to feel depressed.  I wanted to find the story of a scientist who inspired me with her intelligence and her courage.  I wanted to drill down into the corruption of our scientific and medical research establishment so that I could figure out what could be done about it.  And the fact of the matter is, besides the thousands of hours it took me to write and polish the story so it reads like a fast-paced detective story, it's going to take YOU READING THE STORY and WRITING REVIEWS about it to change things.

Think about it.  Seth Mnookin gets away with trashing our community and he's got just 114 customer reviews on Amazon.  If just 1% of you joined the PLAGUE challenge we could crush him.  I want that victory over Seth Mnookin by March 1, 2015.

By Kent Heckenlively

The autism community owes a great debt to Wayne Rohde for his brisk, easy-to-read book "The Vaccine Court: The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program."

For many of us, the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 which established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), otherwise known as the "Vaccine Court" has been an unmitigated disaster for the health of America's children.  It is since the passage of this act that the rate of autism, allergies, and other auto-immune disorders has skyrocketed among our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

Rohde does an admirable job of leading the reader through an easy to understand explanation of how this program which was supposed to give a quick resolution to those victims of vaccine injury morphed into a monster which benefits only the pharmaceutical companies. 

The heart-breaking stories of many of the parents of vaccine-injured children are included in this book, as well as the nightmare of going through the vaccine injury compensation program.  As difficult as it is to read many of these stories, knowing they are just a fraction of those in our country today, it is nothing less than a sacred obligation that we know them.  In our pain is our strength.

By Kent Heckenlively

The first known outbreak of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) took place during 1934-1935 at the Los Angeles County Hospital and affected 198 doctors and nurses during a polio outbreak.

300 doctors and nurses at the Los Angeles County Hospital were given an early polio vaccine developed by Dr. Maurice Brodie, as well as approximately 7,000 children.  (Active Immunization Against Poliomyeleitis, American Journal of Public Health, February 1936)  The vaccine was passaged multiple times through mouse brain tissue.  (Attempts to Produce Poliomyelitis in Refractory Laboratory Animals, March 1, 1935, doi: 10.3181/00379727-32-7876)

In addition to the polio vaccine, the doctors and nurses were also given an accompanying "immune serum" to boost their response to the vaccine.  This immune serum contained "merthiolate", otherwise known as thimerosal, as a preservative. (Use of Serum and the Routine and Experimental Laboratory Findings in the 1934 Poliomyelitis Epidemic, American Journal of Public Health, First read on September 3, 1934)

It was during this time period that the first children who would go onto develop autism were born.  These children were born to parents who worked primarily in the medical and scientific fields.  Do you think these were the parents who would have been first in line to get a polio vaccine for their children?  I do.

By Kent Heckenlively

(WARNING!! - To my deeply valued atheist readers, you might want to skip this article and come back to me next week where I will once again be deeply involved in the questions of this world.  Thank you for your understanding.)

I've been thinking a lot about how we make progress with various advocacy groups against powerful enemies.  I think of my heroes, people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela.  These are my spiritual guides and I want to deploy the same weapons they used.

Chief among them is prayer.  As a Christian I'm called to pray for my enemies, my real enemies, not just those people who kind of annoy me.  Yes, I'm talking about the major bad guys who if I had my lawyer hat on I'd be calling for their prosecution for crimes against humanity.

I've always liked the formulation of Nelson Mandela (also a lawyer), calling for satyagraha, which means you speak the absolute truth, and ahisma, meaning you wish no harm on your enemies, and you actually want them to come to the fullness of understanding.  It is a hard balance to find, but it is worth our time.

So, in the spirit of the season I am asking for prayers for our enemies, or as Gandhi might have said, "Those who are not yet my friends."  Some of these people are not necessarily the big bad guys, but those who lack courage to fight for the truth.  I have heard accounts and personally witnessed some of the people on this list saying things privately, that if they said them publicly, would be of enormous assistance to our cause.  Let all of these people fulfill the dreams of helping humanity they had when they started their careers.  My athiest friends act as if articles like this are easy for me to write, but I assure you, this is one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  

By Louis Conte

“A large-scale scientific calamity had been brought to light and most of them looked wary of blinking. Finally, a scientist broke the dead air, standing up to ask a question that prompted a barrage of questions directed at Mikovits, as well as animated whispering among the other scientists.

Frank Ruscetti later told Mikovits that at that moment, Coffin leaned over to Dr. Vineet Kewal Ramani, also of the HIV Drug Resistance Program, and said, “Oh, my God, you mean all those sequences we saw in the 1980s were real?”

Plague

At some point in reading Plague, the reader realizes that while the notion of a retrovirus infecting millions of people is scary, the corruption of science is downright terrifying.

Dr. Judy Mikovits emerges from Plague as a champion of true science, confronting a system gone off the rails due to political forces, the personal ambitions and a public health establishment that sees what it wants to see and does what it wants for its own purposes. Plague has the feel of a true crime suspense novel as Mikovits pursues the truth about XMRV through the intrigue of the public health establishment and the Nevada research center where she ran her experiments.

Kent Heckenlively’ s riveting descriptions of Mikovits’ arrest and incarceration – she was actually jailed for her work and her principles – renders Mikovits a modern Dr. Stockmann from Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. The skilled telling of the drama that unfolded around Mikovits work on the XMRV retrovirus leaves the reader unable to put the damn book down.

Judy Mikovits took on the autism-vaccine controversy in her 2009 Nevada Public Television interview with host Sam Shad:

“Shad said the news had tremendous potential for parents looking for treatments or cures for their autistic children. Mikovits replied by saying that XMRV: “might be linked to a number of neuro-immune diseases, including autism…“There’s always the hypothesis that my child was fine, then they got sick, and then they got autism. Interestingly, on that note, if I might speculate a little bit. This might explain why vaccines lead to autism in some children because these viruses live and divide and grow in the lymphocytes, the immune response cells, the B and T cells. So when you give a vaccine you send your B and T cells into overdrive. That’s its job…Well, if you’re harboring one virus, and you replicate it a whole bunch, you’ve now broken the balance between the immune response and the virus. So you could have had the underlying virus and then amplified it with the vaccine and then set off the disease, such that your immune system could no longer control the infections and create an immune deficiency.”

In just over thirty seconds, Judy Mikovits pissed off the planet. Heckenlively states “Trying to find answers for the millions of children with autism apparently “rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.” Given the lack of interest, and even outright hostility expressed by those at the Cleveland Clinic conference on XMRV, it’s difficult to understand what part of the “public health” these scientists were interested in protecting.”

By Kent Heckenlively

A retrovirus in autism?  You mean, like HIV?  That autism might be a non-fatal form of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)?

Let me explain how I came to co-author the book, PLAGUE: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases, with Dr. Judy Mikvoits.

On October 8, 2009 Dr. Mikovits appeared on a show called Nevada Newsmakers to talk about her recent publication in the journal Science showing an association between a recently discovered retrovirus, XMRV, and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (more accurately myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME/CFS).  In the interview she also talked about the possible implications for autism, as they had been finding evidence of the retrovirus in these children as well. 

Mikovits said, There's always the hypothesis that my child was fine, then they got sick, and then they got autism.  Interestingly, on that note, if I might speculate a little bit.  This might explain why vaccines lead to autism in some children because these viruses live and divide and grow in the lyphocytes, the immune response cells, the B and T cells.  So when you give a vaccine you send your B and T cells into overdrive.  That's it's job.

Well, if you're harboring one virus, and you replicate it a whole bunch, you've now broken the balance between the immune response and the virus.  So you could have had the underlying virus and them amplified it with the vaccine and then set off the disease, such that your immune system could no longer control the infections and create an immune deficiency.

Okay, that got my attention.

I didn't know much about retroviruses at the time so I called the UCSF Pediatric AIDS unit and got their press representative.  I sketched out the basic idea of the theory, that kids with autism might have an HIV-like retrovirus and that explained their autism.  I didn't even mention the "V" word.

But the press representative did. 

By Kent Heckenlively

I spent last weekend reading Sharyl Attkisson's wonderful new book, Stonewalled - My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harrassment in Obama's Washington and I couldn't help but hear echoes of the plight of Dr. Judy Mikovits that we detailed in our book, PLAGUE.

To hear Attkisson tell it, there has been a gradual erosion, not just of our civil liberties, but of the media appetite to challenge powerful entities.  These entities could be a rich corporate sponsor who pays for advertising on the station or a federal government which seems to grow not just more powerful, but also more unaccountable.  It makes me think that those of us in the autism and ME/CFS communities are simply a part of a much larger story, and that our efforts should be centered around finding similar groups which have been marginalized because it served certain corporate or governmental interests.

I want to quote from a section near the end of Attkisson's book and a conversation she had with one of her long-time friends in journalism, David Kirby (author of Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy) about what has been happening over the past several years.

"I couldn't wait," says Kirby, speaking of Obama being elected president in 2008.

A "new era" was being ushered in.  At last the GOP was out, and a new era of transparency was about to begin.  He was the real deal, a Constitutional scholar who understood the fundamental importance of basic freedoms - the right to information and accountability, for example - to our democracy and its vaunted promise of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Then I tried to get information out of this new gang.

The first six months of 2009 was a daily lesson in rejection, frustration, and anger.  I could not get any information out of anyone - not the USDA, not the EPA, and certainly not the White House.  FOIA requests, the few that were actually fulfilled, came back with up to 90% of the text "redacted," blacked out like an angry child had taken an extra-wide Sharpie to the pages.

Attkisson goes onto report Kirby's disillusionment with trying to investigate important stories, which eventually caused him to realize he needed to write his own book about the subject.

The most shocking thing I found in researching Dr. Mikovits' story was the violation of the most basic standards of science and open investigation by forces that were opposed to her work.  It was just like Kirby getting a document from the government that had 90% of the text "redacted."  How is that transparency?  And in the way Dr. Mikovits was treated by many of the most powerful people in research I found myself asking, how is this science?

By Kent Heckenlively

This last Saturday was my coming out party.

No, I'm not talking about any deep, dark secrets, but this was the first time I would appear at a scheduled event in a bookstore to talk about and sign copies of the book I co-wrote with Dr. Judy Mikovits, PLAGUE - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases.

The first bookstore, Rakestraw Books in Danville, CA, had more of a planned feel to it.  My in-laws went to college with the owner, and it was the type of prestige bookstore that I'd set my sights on long ago.  The owner told me that a Saturday afternoon wasn't likely to draw a large crowd, but when I walked into the place and saw twenty stacked copies of my book I gasped.  I'm supposed to sell that many books!

The group was composed of some family members, long-time friends, and a few people that I didn't know, but were familiar with the story told in the book.  I'd spent the last week developing "the talk" I was going to use in front of general public audiences and I'm pleased to say it went over quite well.

I began by talking about the writers who had influenced me, like Tom Wolfe, who had written The Right Stuff and The Bonfire of the Vanities, or the works of Dominic Dunne, whose work usually focued on crimes committed among the very wealthy.  I told the audience that what I liked so much about those stories is that they were about something crucial; flying into outer space, a crime with racial or class issues at stake, but they also let you to the inner workings of a hidden world.  I taked about how one of my favorite lines in The Right Stuff was when a character called the fraternity of test-pilots who put themselves at risk, "a weird mad monk squadron."

I told the audience that when I learned about Dr. Judy Mikovits and the other scientists in and out of government who were trying to find answers to these diseases I felt like I'd found my own "mad monk squadron."

Managing Editors Note:  I've heard of some very popular boy band called "One Direction." I couldn't  hum a single bar of their music. No idea what they look like. But I like their name because it reminds me of the Age of Autism team. We move in ONE DIRECTION. Forward. While many around us dwell in negatives, in the past, in what's "wrong" with our community and pontificate on and write some seriously nasty gaaaaah-bage as my Mom would say in Boston, our team has been "busy, busy, busy" writing books.  Actual books that can never be rescinded, removed or retracted. Old school. BOOKS. The volume of volumes is dare I say? Voluminous!  (Humor me, it's the end of a long weekend.....) 

Special congrats to our Editor Dan Olmsted and Editor at Large Mark Blaxill on the February debut of Vaccines 2.0: The Careful Parents' Guide to Making Safe Vaccination Choices for Your Family. 

We hope that you will buy one or two, perhaps more, of these books. Yes, money is tight. But I can promise you that each and every book will help you as you work with your  loved ones with autism, as you discuss the needs of our community with medical providers and politicians and will give you hope that we will all move in ONE DIRECTION. Forward. Like a train.

Vaccines 2.0: by Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted The Careful Parent's Guide to Making Safe Vaccination Choices for Your Family


Plague by Kent Heckenlively and Dr. Judy Mikovits - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases

The Big Autism Cover Up by Anne Dachel -  How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public

Vaccine Injuries by Louis Conte and Tony Lyons - Reveals the truth behind the controversial issue of vaccine-related injuries.

The Autism War - a Novel by Louis Conte - Tony Colletti, a good suburban cop and father of a child with autism, finds himself drawn into the controversy over the apparent but rarely acknowledged connection between childhood vaccines and autism. His quest to uncover the truth forces him to risk all he holds dear while confronting corrupt government officials, the powerful pharmaceutical industry, and disturbing elements of his own past.

The Vaccine Court by Wayne Rohde - The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Finding Lina by Helena Hjalmarsson - A Mother's Journey from Autism to Hope

Saving Ben: by Dan Burns A Father's Story of Autism

The Thinking Moms'  Revolution - Autism beyond the Spectrum: Inspiring True Stories from Parents Fighting to Rescue Their Children

By Kent Heckenlively

This Tuesday, November 18, 2014 is the official publication date for PLAGUE: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases.  It's the day you will supposedly be able to walk into just about any bookstore in the United States and plunk down your money on the counter and get the story of Dr. Judy Mikovits and her investigation into XMRV.

A sampling from just a few of the reviews currently on Amazon!  (And I swear I didn't write them!  And we've also got reviews from England and Germany!)

From JT, "Amazing book!  Many people and patients have followed Dr. Judy Mikovits since her historic publication in Science in 2009.  We followed the saga and witnessed many of the events discussed in this book live via the web.  This is not fiction . . . I encourage everyone to read this book.  The authors have made tremendous effort to make this book understandable to most people.  Anyone interested in chronic diseases (auto-immune, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, gulf war syndrome, autism), vaccines, bio-pharmaceuticals, and how academic/government and government agencies handle these topics will be enlightened."

From Dr. Carol Fisch, a retired professor of microbiology and stealth pathogen researcher, "I have waited for this book for well over a year.  I read it in three days as I couldn't put it down!  So many need to thank Judy Mikovits, PhD. for risking her career to fight as a scientist should, to tell the truth . . . The book explores autism and what may very well be the beginning of this disorder.  For anyone wanting to learn how science can work for us or against us, this is a must read!"

An anonymous reviewer wrote, "Just finished Plague this morning.  It was riveting and hard to put down.  It's a very well written book and I enjoyed reading it.  The authors did an excellent job of breaking down the science and keeping it very simple . . . The authors strongly lay out the case for their continued belief in the involvement of retroviruses in neuro-immune illnesses.  Both Mikovits and Ruscetti (Dr. Frank Ruscetti) stood tall against the onslaught of attacks and continue to fight for what they believe in and this book further validates that effort."

Kent Heckenlively, Anne Dachel , Louis Conte and Wayne Rohde have been as busy as Santa's elves in 2014 writing and editing their books. It's no easy feat to publish a book. A special thank you to Tony Lyons of Skyhorse Publishing who took a risk on a kooky woman (Kim here) with three daughters with autism and published her pink book. And who from there built the very best, most informative and innfluential catalog of titles about autism.   Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted have another book coming out as well. Stay tuned.

Whether you've been naughty or nice, hang a stocking, spin a dreidel or celebrate Festivus (since we have Seinfeld on our minds), we can all welcome the New Year with a stack of books. 

Plague by Kent Heckenlively - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases

The Big Autism Cover Up by Anne Dachel -  How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public

The Autism War - a Novel by Louis Conte - Tony Colletti, a good suburban cop and father of a child with autism, finds himself drawn into the controversy over the apparent but rarely acknowledged connection between childhood vaccines and autism. His quest to uncover the truth forces him to risk all he holds dear while confronting corrupt government officials, the powerful pharmaceutical industry, and disturbing elements of his own past.

The Vaccine Court by Wayne Rohde - The Dark Truth of America's Vaccine Injury Compensation Program

Finding Lina by Helena Hjalmarsson - A Mother's Journey from Autism to Hope

The Thinking Moms'  Revolution - Autism beyond the Spectrum: Inspiring True Stories from Parents Fighting to Rescue Their Children

By Kent Heckenlively

Last Thursday I received copies of the book I co-wrote with Dr. Judy Mikovits, PLAGUE - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases.

To say I'd been worried about what the final product would look like and how it would read is something of an understatement.  The day before it arrived I had a splitting headache, felt faint all through the teaching of my science classes, and was just generally grumpy to everybody around me.

But I didn't have to worry.

PLAGUE is everything I'd hoped it would be.  It is a smart, compassionate account of various disease communities and Dr. Mikovits fighting for answers to chronic diseases like ME/CFS and autism.  I can't help but think there are a confluence of forces, such as Sharyl Attkisson's recent book, STONEWALLED, which are supporting some of the core issues at the heart of PLAGUE.

It's been said lately that there is a great political divide in America between conservatives and liberals, but I think there's a growing unity of belief that many of the important issues of the day are being "brought" to us by special interests.  Whether your political bogeyman is big government or big business, we can all agree that having the two of these join forces is bad for everybody. 

As a science teacher and an attorney, I have always believed in evidence and reason, regardless of what the noisy crowd might proclaim.  In both science and law we have always admired those who fought the powerful voices of their day in the search for truth.  Sometimes that truth is about the guilt or innocence of a single person, or about humanity's true place in the cosmos.

By Kent Heckenlively

There's a Civil War being fought in science over diseases like autism and chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and a lot of people inside the field know about it.

But before I go too far into my argument, I'd like to dispel a misconception spread by our enemies that there is some monolithic entity known as "science."  From what I've been able to determine, science is better imagined as a collection of "silos", separate from each other, and with messages often going back and forth between them, but no sustained contact with the other silos.  Those who live in the silos trust the messages received from the other silos and do not question the messages they receive too deeply.

There is a problem, however.  You see, in order to gain access to your particular silo, each member had to endure a rigorous course of intellectual study, which included the skills necessary for the aggressive questioning of received wisdom.  Once having gained access to the silo, though, they're not supposed to use those same skills on their superiors, or the pronouncements of the superiors of the other silos.

But nobody tells them that directly.

It's only when one of them makes the mistake of asking a forbidden question that they understand the rules have changed.

For many who make that first mistake of asking a forbidden question, there is the all-too-human element of not wanting to upset people you like and respect, as well as to put your position at risk.  Most of those who make the mistake of asking a forbidden question will quickly fall into line and not make that error again.

By Kent Heckenlively

I want you to look to the left of this article and you will see a link to a YouTube video which reads, "CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHORS OF PLAGUE."  Click on it now and watch all two minutes and fifty-three seconds of it.

Really.  Do it now.  I'll just check my e-mail while you're doing that.  (Imagine sound of me whistling and a computer keyboard tapping.)

Finished?  Good.  Let's talk.

I know that many of us are having very difficult lives and can't imagine that anybody else can fully understand our suffering.  You're wrong.  There are others who suffer.  Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) live very difficult lives as do the few brave scientists like Dr. Judy Mikovits who have struggled to solve the mysteries of that condition, as well as autism.

And you know what they've gotten for it?  The patients have been called crazy, and Dr. Mikovits has endured character assassination, unlawful incarceration, financial ruin, and professional exile for fighting for the truth.  We are all victims of the same oppressor.

But I'm not writing this just to tell you how terrible things are in today's world.  You know that.  What I'm giving all of us is a way to fight.  The book, "PLAGUE - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS, Autism and Other Diseases" is nothing less than a guided missile of truth streaking towards the very heart of an arrogant CDC and NIH and the scientific journals controlled by them.  It's also a helluva read which will attract people outside of our advocacy communities.

Did you hear what I said?  It will attract people OUTSIDE OF OUR COMMUNITIES!  It is a behind the scenes story of out-of-control agencies and journals who believe their misdeeds will never be revealed.  In writing it I often felt like I was some secret agent going behind the Iron Curtain of the scientific community to talk to leading researchers who would tell me what was really going on.

By Kent Heckenlively, JD

Dr. Brian Hooker, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, and attorney James Moody announced today they have  sent a complaint  by Federal Express to Dr. Harold Jaffe, Associate Director for Science at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as Dr. Don Wright, Acting Director of the Office of Research Integrity at the Department of Health and Human Services, claiming research misconduct in the 2004 paper, "Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children with Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta," which was subsequently published in the journal, Pediatrics.

The allegations are horrifying, not just for the millions of families who deal with autism on a daily basis, but for the picture it paints of a government agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), devoid of any shred of scientific integrity or what we once used to call "honor" in this country.

If these claims are shown to be true, we will be looking at nothing less than the greatest crime committed in the history of our republic, and a dark page in science which will be remembered for centuries to come.

In 2001, a group at the CDC, headed by Dr. Frank DeStefano, and including Dr. William Thompson, Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, Dr. Tanya Karapurkar Bhasin, and Dr. Coleen Boyle planned to test the hypothesis that the earlier administration of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) shot was linked to an increase in autism rates.  This research was prompted by the work of Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues, suggesting a link between autism and MMR shots, and his call for additional research to answer the question.  The CDC scientists came up with that plan and recorded it in a document dated September 5, 2001, but did not follow it because of troubling findings among certain groups.

When scientists set out to test a hypothesis they come up with a research plan.  That plan is supposed to be followed, and if for some reason it is not, there must be an explanation of why not.  It is one of the basic tenets in science.  You show EVERYTHING.  You do not CONCEAL DATA.  If there is a hell for scientists, this is the sin which sends you to the very lowest regions.

By Kent Heckenlively

In every great conflict there is an event which fundamentally alters the balance of forces between the two sides.

As England struggled in the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill wondered how he could get the industrial might and manpower of  the United States to stand with him against Nazi Germany.  The Japanese obliged him by bombing Pearl Harbor, then as America wondered if they should also join the fight against Germany, Hitler made the decision easy by declaring war on the United States.  England and America would stand together through that long and bitter conflict.

It was with this idea in mind that I co-wrote, PLAGUE, a book which has the potential to unite the communities of those who suffer with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), autism, Lyme disease, and prostate cancer.  In the person of Dr. Judy Mikovits I found a fearless and compassionate scientist who would not rest while so many suffered.

PLAGUE does speak not with an "inside voice."  PLAGUE kicks down doors, tosses in a few flash grenades, and rushes in with a SWAT team.  It's important to catch the bad guys in the act.  When there are millions who suffer every day with these diseases, and our public health authorities offer nothing, anything less than a full-out effort is a crime.

And when our mandarins of public health tell us to be patient, allowing them time to figure out how they can change the parameters of a study already in progress, (because it will reveal inconvenient truths) we the people, must not let them get away with it.  You see, those who work in "public health" work for us, the public.

By Kent Heckenlively

WOW! WOW!  WOW!  That's my first reaction after seeing the wonderful new film BOUGHT by director Bobby Sheehan and producer Jeff Hays. (Full disclosure - I donated to the making of the film and am delighted by the results!)

The documentary covers three important and inter-locking stories, the effects of vaccines on children's health, the criminal activities of pharmaceutical companies in the marketing of drugs as well as the billions of dollars in fines they are often given by the government agencies, but which for them are little more than the cost of doing business, and the unknown effects of genetically-modified foods on humans and nature.

As somebody who grew up during a time when true investigative journalism was very much alive and well, I can't help but be nostalgic for the kind of stories 60 MINUTES used to do.  There was no screaming and yelling, just tough questions being asked, while the camera stayed focused on the person being asked the question.  If somebody made an assertion which was at odds with that very quaint concept we once used to call "truth", a document would appear on the screen to show the lie.

It's a sad state of affairs when there has been such a collaboration between BIG business and BIG government that it seems we've lost that revolutionary, inquiring spirit which defines so much of what I once thought was the American character.  I used to trust the reporters in the media to not only shape my view of the world, but also to occasionally challenge what I thought I knew.

By Kent Heckenlively

I want to talk about the new book I've written with Dr. Judy Mikovits, "PLAGUE - One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Autism, and Other Diseases."

It is unlike anything you have ever read before.  This is not just a book.  It is the start of a movement.  Even those of you who think you have seen everything when it comes to the corruption of research into these diseases will find fresh cause for outrage.  Now you may think I'm just saying that because I co-wrote it, but it lives up to the hype.

Sayer Ji, the founder and director of GreenMedinfo writes, "PLAGUE is a must read book so revolutionary in its implications that its author courageously faced character assasination and unlawful incarceration to keep her findings from being relegated to the dustbin of medical history.  Riveting, if not at times paradigm shifting, this book reveals a dark side to modern medicine that no one knows exists, but that everyone should."

Many of you will know of Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker, the mold doctor and author of many books on the subject.  He wrote, "For anyone who is too busy to read, but wants to know the inside story on the state of American science, find the time, now, and read PLAGUE."

Several years ago I was in a writing class and received some advice I've long remembered.  The instructor said that if you want to be a great writer, you need to find a great story.  PLAGUE is that story.

In addition to an amazing story, I found a great central character, Dr. Judy Mikovits, one of the smartest and most courageous people I have ever known.  She is fearless in pursuit of the truth and in serving the patients who suffer from diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), autism, and cancer.  Only scientists like Dr. Mikovits have the courage to change the system which has so completely abandoned millions.  It's been an absolute privilege to be associated with her and help her tell her story.

As an attorney I'm sure you understand how I have an instinctive inclination to help those who have been terribly wronged.  Indeed, there is no greater challenge for an attorney than to take an unfairly accused and despised individual and show that an enormous injustice has been done. There are so many ways in which injustice has been perpetrated against Dr. Mikovits in the past several years that I needed an entire book to detail them all.  I know the members of this community can fully appreciate what it means to have the power of the state and corporate interests turn against you.

We know this is a fight for the future.  I do not intend to go gently into the gathering darkness which threatens the next generation.  I aim to misbehave.  I hope you will follow me.

Kent Heckenlively is a Founding Contributing Editor to Age of Autism and author of Plague: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases.   Release date is November 18, 2014.  Visit his website at Plague The Book. You can pre-order the book HERE.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Discuss Vaccine Mercury
Controversy at Minnesota Book Symposium Nov. 1

Eight authors to speak on corruption & censorship in health science

BLOOMINGTON, MN – Scientists, attorneys and journalists will gather in Minnesota to discuss medical injuries which may have been caused by over zealous public health policies and procedures  at the Health Choice/Skyhorse Publishing Book Symposium Saturday, November 1. The event runs from 10 am to 6 pm at the Radisson Blu Mall of America, 2100 Killebrew Drive in Bloomington.  

Register before 10/20 and you receive all 8 books for just $99.00.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the attorney, radio host, Riverkeeper and author, will read from his book Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak – The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercury – a Known Neurotoxin – from Vaccines. Kennedy has appeared on various TV and radio programs explaining how government is suppressing evidence showing how the ethylmercury-based vaccine preservative damages and kills cells at extremely low doses.

Other book presentations on the intersection of science and politics include:

•    Science for Sale: How the U.S. Government Uses Powerful Corporations and Leading Universities to Support Government Policies, Silence Top Scientists, Jeopardize Our Health, and Protect Corporate Profits by Dr. David Lewis, a former EPA microbiologist now with the National Whistleblowers Center;

•    Plague: One Scientist’s Intrepid Search for the Truth about Retroviruses, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases by Kent Heckenlively, J.D. & Dr. Judy Mikovits;

•    Vaccines 2.0: The Careful Parent's Guide to Making Safe Vaccination Choices for Your Family by Mark Blaxill & Dan Olmsted, a former UPI investigative reporter;

By Kent Heckenlively

You all know the set-up: An unlikely group of heroes unite to fight evil and save the universe.  From the Avengers, Star Wars, to Lord of the Rings, and even the latest Marvel outing, Guardians of the Galaxy, featuring a hero named Star Lord, a walking tree, and a talking racoon with some serious military hardware, we've all seen the story of how characters from different backgrounds band together to fight a common enemy.

And sometimes real life can mirror the best of fiction, as shown by the collaboration between Skyhorse Publishing and HealthChoice.org to create the Minneapolis Book Symposium on November 1, 2014 at the Raddison Blu Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota to highlight some of the great authors and books which are trying to get our message out to the public.  To register, go to: Skyhorse HealthChoice Symposium.

Leading the lineup is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who will be discussing his book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, and informing us no doubt of the disgraceful campaign against him and the science of mercury toxicity.

Dr. David Lewis, one of a very select group of government scientist to have articles published in BOTH Science and Nature, will be discussing his book, Science for Sale, which details the collusion between government science and industry.

Wayne Rohde will be talking about his book, The Vaccine Court, a topic that many believe to lie at the heart of the autism epidemic.

Lou Conte will be talking about his wonderful and thilling fictional story, The Autism War, which reads like the truth, thinly veiled.

By Kent Heckenlively

It's an absolute pleasure to be able to highly recommend the new book, "I Know You're in There: Winning Our War Against Autism" by Marcia Hinds.

Whenever I'm asked to review a personal story of a family's experiences with autism I always think of the potential pitfalls.  The entire experience of autism is so overwhelming that it's easy to get caught up in your own feelings, and not think about what the reading public would find engaging.

There are no such problems in this story.  The book is crisp and cleanly written and I think even those who are not struggling with autism will find many things to interest them.  One of the unique parts of this book is the conviction by Hinds that for some reason her son seemed different from birth, although she is certain that his vaccinations and many rounds of anti-biotics didn't help.

There are many parts of this story which will be familiar to the members of the autism community, such as the casein free diet and ABA therapy, but I found the sections on Dr. Michael Goldberg and his belief that autism is best understood as a neuro-immune disorder to be the most interesting.  Marcia is quite honest about the contentious relationship she had with Dr. Goldberg, but despite that she still believes his central message to be very compelling.  He first came up with the immune connection when he discovered that the labs for his wife, who was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, were similar to his autism patients.

The book is broken up into easy to read sections although from my experience I think people will be racing through the book.  The book is further enlivened by contributions from their son, Ryan, who is now a systems engineer at a major aerospace company AND he has lots of friends.  It made me laugh out loud when Ryan admitted that he had mixed emotions about being the subject of the book, and that he didn't "want any future employers or prospective girlfriends to know I was once considered autistic."

By Kent Heckenlively

This article is addressed to those members of the Centers for Disease Control or other branches of our government's research programs who have knowledge of the vaccine-autism connection.

It's time to cross the line and come over to the side of the angels.  With the defection of CDC scientist, William Thompson, and his reported cache of 100,000 documents relating to the health effects of vaccines, your time is growing short.  Thompson has also handed this information over to Congressman William Posey and I would assume, many others.  It's clear to me that blood is in the water.  I mean, this guy has already retained a whistleblower attorney, for God's sake!  Turning documents over to a Congressman and retaining a lawyer, hmm, I wonder what comes next?

It's only a matter of time before the predators arrive, and who knows what they will do to you?  Don't you want to be one of those supporting Thompson's story, rather than those who are facing the angry wrath of congessional investigators, as well as the national news reporters who have finally woken up and are taking their job seriously, as well as the lawyers who will inevitably jump into this issue?

If you don't have it handy, the phone number for Congressman Posey's Washington, D. C. office is (202) 225-3671.  I'm sure there will be somebody who will take down your information as well as any documents you want to provide to them.

Maybe this will all come as a relief to some of you.  It can't be good for your health to hold such information inside of you, knowing how much you are harming this current generation of children.  I don't care what justifications you gave yourself over the years, what lies others told you, but that time is over.

By Kent Heckenlively

It's said that moral challenges bring out the worst and the best in people.

It's difficult to find a situation more appalling than the news revealed by CDC whistleblower, William Thompson that for more than a decade the CDC has concealed information that lowering the age at which African-American males received the MMR shot resulted in a 340% increase in autism.  It's a state of affairs which turns my stomach, even though it is confirmation of what many of us have believed for years.  These researchers may have a doctorate in science, but they lack even a high school diploma in courage.

And yet on the other side of the ledger is Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who has been the most visible public face of our cause.  Wakefield has said on many occasions that this controversy has cost him his job, his career, and his country.  He has not broken under the strain and we are forever grateful to him.

Then comes the news as reported in The Truth Barrier of two text message from William Thompson.  The first was to Dr. Wakefield's wife, Carmel, and read, "I do believe your husbands career was unjustly damaged and this study would have supported his scientific opinion.  Hopefully I can help repair it."

The next was actually a series of text messages between Thompson and Dr. Wakefield.  Dr. Wakefield begins the exchange by asking, "Is this press release real?"

Thompson replies, "Yes!"

Wakefield writes back, "Thank you.  This was the right and honorable thing to do.  Andy."

Thompson says, "I agree.  I apologize again for the price you have paid for my dishonesty."

Wakefield writes, "I forgive you completely and without any bitterness."

Thompson responds, "I know you mean it and I am grateful to know you more personally."

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I'm having a lot of trouble trying to write an article about MMR/Autism whistleblower, William Thompson.

On the one hand I don't want to waste this opportunity to show the scientific community that our concerns our real, and yet at the same time I don't want to let this guy off for concealing important evidence for more than a decade.

At the outset I have to say I'm really not a punishing kind of guy.  In law school I worked for the US Attorney's office in San Francisco, assembling wiretap evidence in a large Oakland drug case.  That meant I spent a lot of time listening to tapes of these guys talking.

And I found them not to be the threatening kind of all-powerful criminals you see in police thrillers, but discovered they were really leading pathetic, miserable lives.  I also couldn't escape the realization that somebody like me, the top 10% of society, would be prosecuting the bottom 10% of society to make sure that the 80% in the middle remained relatively safe.

It's probably no surprise I ended up in teaching, trying to help students be interested in and excited by science, and also to be individuals who valued honesty.  I wanted to help people be good, not punish them when they go bad.  I've often thought that the best of science and the best of law share a common aim, as when a person stands to present testimony in a courtroom they swear an oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."   The same expectation applies to scientists who work at government institutions when they publish scientific research in major journals.

It's with this in mind I have to detail some of my troubles with Dr. William Thompson.

From an e-mail Dr. Thompson allegedly wrote on October 18, 2002 to Melinda Wharton.  "I am writing you once more regarding the recent Department of Justice (DOJ) request for a broad range of documents associated with MMR, thimerosal, and autism.  I first spoke with you on September 3rd of 2002 regarding the sensitive results we have been struggling with in the MADDSP MMR/Autism study."  I may not be a CDC scientist, but I've been both a lawyer and a science teacher and it seems to me that the phrase "sensitive results" is one probably never uttered by Galileo, Darwin, or Einstein.