Watched a good piece on CBS news last night.

The "Open Question" On Vaccines and Autism - Couric & Co.

While the government has been utterly unable to stop it, or even tell us what is causing it, they say they do know one thing: it's not vaccines. But today, in an exclusive interview with CBS News, Dr. Bernadine Healy becomes the most well-known medical voice yet to counter the government on that claim.

Healy's credentials couldn't be more "mainstream." After all, she once was a top government health official as head of the National Institutes of Health. She founded the first school of public health in Ohio, and then headed both the school of public health and the school of medicine at Ohio State University. She's an internist and cardiologist. And she's a member of the Institute of Medicine, the government advisory board that tried to put the vaccine-autism controversy to rest in 2004 by saying a link was not likely.

According to Healy, when she began researching autism and vaccines she found credible published, peer-reviewed scientific studies that support the idea of an association. That seemed to counter what many of her colleagues had been saying for years. She dug a little deeper and was surprised to find that the government has not embarked upon some of the most basic research that could help answer the question of a link.

The more she dug, she says, the more she came to believe the government and medical establishment were intentionally avoiding the question because they were afraid of the answer.

What does it take to get through to people?

The establishment protects it's own.

You can't trust the government, the media, the schools, or the health care industry.

They are all liars. They all protect each other. Luckily, there are a few people in each of these industries who care about the truth. A few brave souls who still care about the American people. This small minority is ridiculed, relentlessly, all because the American people do not wish to have to think for themselves. All they want to do is to be told what to think, so that they don't have to.

Many respected people have tried to tell the people about a link between Autism and vaccines for years, yet most of the American people still get their children vaccinated without even bothering to question the "establishment."

Pathetic little sheep.

Dr. Healy is not remotely suggesting that people not get their children vaccinated, only that extra care be taken in certain patient populations with rare co-morbid factors:

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De duobus malis, minus est semper eligendum

You're right on the $$ here. Warnings about mercury containing vaccines with thimerosol have been out for quite awhile.

The corrupt govt. bodies like the FDA will NEVER give us the truth. Until it's so obvious. THEN they'll have a real nice "cover our ass" story to tell all of us "sheeple."

If you expect "the govt." and "the FDA" to tell you the truth about what is best for you and your health you're a fool. They're RUN by big $$. Big $$ that comes from oil. Big $$ that comes from drug companies. Big $$ that comes from MANY sources.

Sources that aren't interested, and don't care about you and YOUR health. If you care about you and YOUR health, take the initiative and learn about it. Study the subject. It's YOUR health, not "the governments."

I don't think he suggested she was (I watched it too). These vaccines ARE available without the mercury containing compound thimerosol. I know because two or three years ago when MY kids started needing vaccines I told the doctors we wouldn't accept any with that garbage IN it.

Since we don't yet KNOW who or how to TELL who might have these ...individual metabolic, genetic, or immunological variation[S] that might make some children under certain circumstances susceptible to neurological complications after vaccination.

We DO know that mercury is not an element that is safe to introduce into ANYBODY in organic compound form. Which is exactly what we're doing with thimerosol. Sure, our bodies can withstand small doses of MANY dangerous substances. That doesn't make it wise to inject our children with a known dangerous substance in the name a vaccinating them though.

This reminds me of a episode of House in which a couple chooses not to get their child vaccinated. They say that they think they may be dangerous and that they are only a way for the health care industry to make a fortune off people. He then replies that yes it does make a fortune for the health care industry but then again more people like them could be a big boost for the little baby coffin industry.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

No one here has said that it's wise NOT to get your child vaccinated.

We aren't talking about religious fringe groups that will only rely on God for their health and wellness.

No.

We're just talking about the foolishness of relying on "the govt." to give us good advice to follow about health and wellness.

As I said above, these vaccines ARE available without the mercury containing compound thimerosol.

I was just bringing up something that reminded me of it is all. If alternatives are available within reasonable cost then great.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I understand.

I could post a book on vaccine dangers.

The Hepatitis B vaccine is moronic. Too give such a vaccine to newborns goes against reason, common sense and logic.

People should trust the establishment less and do more of their own research.

I will post just ONE SINGLE example from Congressional testimony.........

Should a physician advise against a mandated vaccine, he faces increased legal liability should the patient acquire the disease. Moreover, he may risk his very livelihood if he is dependent upon income from “health plans” that use vaccine compliance as a measure of “quality.”

It is perhaps not surprising, although still reprehensible, that physicians sometimes behave in a very callous manner toward parents who question the need for certain vaccines.

Federal policy of mandating vaccines marks a profound change in the concept of public health. Traditionally, public health authorities restricted the liberties of individuals only in case of a clear and present danger to public health. For example, individuals infected with a transmissible disease were quarantined. Today, a child may be prevented from attending school or associating with others simply because of being unimmunized. If there is not an outbreak of disease and if the child is uninfected, his or her unimmunized state is not a threat to anyone. An abridgement of civil rights in such cases cannot be justified.

With hepatitis B vaccine, the case for mandatory immunization with few exemptions is far less persuasive than with smallpox or polio vaccines, which protected against highly lethal or disabling, relatively common, and easily transmissible diseases. An intelligent and conscientious physician might well recommend AGAINST hepatitis B vaccine, especially in newborns, unless a baby is at unusual risk because of an infected mother or household contact or membership in a population in which disease is common.

AAPS awaits the release of full information concerning the licensure of hepatitis B vaccine and the mandate for newborn immunizations, as requested under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Vaccine Information Center. It is imperative that independent scientists have the opportunity to review the raw data. In the meantime, all coercive means for increasing the immunization rate should be immediately discontinued. Fully informed consent should be sought before vaccine is administered. This requires full and honest disclosure of the risks and uncertainties of the vaccine, in comparison with the risks of the disease.

Information given to parents about this vaccine often does not meet the requirement for full disclosure. For example, it may state that “getting the disease is far more likely to cause serious illness than getting the vaccine.” This may be literally true, but it is seriously misleading if the risk of getting the disease is nearly zero (as is true for most American newborns). It may also be legalistically true that “no serious reactions have been known to occur due to the hepatitis B recombinant vaccine.” However, relevant studies have not been done to investigate whether the temporal association of vaccine with serious side effects is purely coincidental or not.

An independent review of the VAERS data; publications by governmental, pro-vaccine, and anti-vaccine groups; and a sample of the medical literature leads to the following conclusions:

* For most children, the risk of a serious vaccine reaction may be 100 times greater than the risk of hepatitis B.

Hepatitis B Vaccine Statement to Congress 6/14/99

You couldn't possibly be more correct.

Trusting the establishment can kill you. It's killed many ALREADY.

Hey, if we're not interested enough in our own health and wellness to take the time too do what needs done we really have ourselves to blame if we die because we're dumb enough to trust "the establishment," FDA etc.

Thanks Captain.

While the jury is still out concerning Autism and vaccines, it is not wise to allow others to tell you what to think, especially concerning our health.

How can parents just allow themselves to be coerced into vaccinating their children without questioning the safety?

Congressman Dan Burton has 2 grandchildren and BOTH had bad reactions to vaccines. If this had not happened to a US congressman, we wouldn't have a lot of the information we currently have to study.

Some resources..........

Evidence of Harm

Dan Burton's story........

Thousands of parents have described injuries in their kids that they believe are linked to shots. But the research community maintains the claims have no scientific merit.

The safety and efficacy of the 12 million doses of vaccines approved by the federal government, mandated in states and administered to American children every year will receive unrelenting scrutiny in Washington as long as Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana has anything to say about it. “I stated at the Aug. 3 hearing [published as Vaccines — Finding the Balance Between Public Safety and Personal Choice] that as long as I remain chairman of the Government Reform Committee, we are going to continue looking into vaccine issues, and I will keep my word,” Burton tells Insight.
On Dec. 9, 1993, the congressman’s daughter, Danielle Burton Sarkine, took her 5-week-old daughter, Alex, to her pediatrician for a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The infant responded to the shot with high-pitched screams and was inconsolable. She still was crying hours later when her parents put her into her crib for the night. Checking on her when the cries at last subsided, they found a parent’s worst nightmare: Alex had stopped breathing. Danielle began CPR immediately and the baby gasped her first breath just as paramedics arrived. Alex spent an intense three-and-a-half weeks in the hospital but went home with a clean bill of health.
Not so for her little brother, Christian. On June 1, 1998, this happy 14-month-old received nine vaccines in one day. His mother says his entire disposition changed overnight. By the next day, he was screaming. Within a week and a half the baby had begun slamming his head on the floor, slapping himself and banging his head against a wall. Soon he was diagnosed with mild to moderate autism, a condition that is manageable but chronic. Since his immunizations, Christian’s life has been a series of therapy sessions for speech and developmental disorders.

When Vaccines Do Harm to Kids

Lot of LINKS...

Vaccination Liberation Information

Vaccination Information Internet Resources

Less than one percent of school-age children in each state have exemption from vaccines, but the numbers are going up. The rates of opt out requests have nearly doubled in many school districts across the country. This means more and more kids are in school and are not vaccinated. This has the medical community concerned for general public health.

Skipping Vaccines: Parents Opting Out - WPTV NewsChannel 5

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Now, call me crazy, but I just don't understand why the family of Hannah Poling was awarded a settlement, if there is NO EVIDENCE that vaccines are related to Autism.

Why would the government pay this family, if there is NO EVIDENCE? Sure seems strange to me.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has set aside $2.5 billion to compensate children suffering from autism and a number of other illnesses if it can be demonstrated that their condition is caused by vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella, usually administered between ages 1 and 2. The fund is financed through a 75 percent tax on vaccine doses. In November, the court agreed to compensate a 9-year-old Georgia girl, Hannah Poling, after concluding her underlying illness may have been aggravated by the vaccines, predisposing her to autism-like symptoms.

Whatever the outcome of the court case, the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion is that there is no proven link between autism and the vaccines, which include a preservative known as thimerosal that contains mercury. Edwin Trevathan, a senior CDC official, told reporters in March that the Poling case did not demonstrate any link between vaccines and autism.

What the Autism Studies Show Isn't Reflected in What the Candidates Say - washingtonpost.com

For more on Hannah POling see..........

Vaccine case draws new attention to autism debate - CNN.com

The problem being that vaccine recommendations are a form of herd health, and are based on what practices will benefit the overall population the most. This is small consolation to the relatively rare individual who is harmed by them, but the overall death and disability withinthe population would be higher if we dispensed of them. If there is some way to identify children who are at elevated risk for an adverse reaction that would be good (and is done, in the case of known allergies to vaccine components), but right now parents who *don't* vaccinate are really counting on the fact that their suseptable children are surrounded by enough immunised ones that they will never be exposed to things like pertussis, polio or measles. If enough kids *aren't* vaccinated, we'll see outbreaks again.

We have a similar aituation with the feline leukemia and rabies vaccines; they have a higher rate of adverse reactions, in the form of vaccine associated sarcomas, than (human) childhood vaccines do. Rabies isn't really optional because of human health concerns, but if a cat is indoor-only then few veterinarians reccommend the leukemia vaccine. However, if the cat does go outside, it's risk of feline leukemia is grater than the risk from the vaccine. Which again, is small consolation to the ones who end up with a tumor. At the individual level the statistcal rationale breaks down, but it remains the best basis for policy we have. Evidence guided medicine is not perfect, but it's a sight better than crossing one's fingers and wearing a posey.

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please click and help the eggs hatch!

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love"
-Anias Nin

As with any medication, there are risk factors involved. One must decide if the risks are worth it and in the case of vaccinations, I believe they are. Take polio, for instance, prior to Salk's and Sabin's vaccines, thousands of children were crippled for life after contracting this highly contagious disease. Today, polio in the US is basically unheard of. Smallpox was considered eradicated in the late 70's, IIRC, due to the widespread use of vaccines. If enough people opt to not have their children vaccinated, we'll see a return of these diseases and that's just not a risk I'm willing to take.

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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"

No one here has advocated the elimination of all vaccines. In my opinion, every vaccine should be re-evaluated, every effort made to make sure they are as safe as is possible. After all, it is little comfort to know that only 1 in a million kids is permanently harmed by a vaccine, when it is your child that was injured.

I truly feel bad to all parents and families this has happened to. Some vaccines just don't make a lot of sense, like the Hepatitis B vaccine.

I don't believe this vaccine is necessary to be given to infants. Unless the mother, father, or other member of the Household has Hepatitis B, this vaccine seems like an unnecessary risk.

I, like many others, do not want to do away with vaccines, but personally I would like all aspects of vaccination policy re-evaluated. I don't think it is fair to coerce parents into vaccinating their children without them being told ALL the risks. I would especially like to see the schedules for vaccines examined.

The recommended vaccinations (these start at birth and go on usually until the child is 2 years old) are for:

* Diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (4 doses),
* Polio (3 doses),
*
* Measles, mumps and rubella (1 or more doses),
*
* Haemophilus influenzae type b, (Hib, 3 doses),
* Hepatitis B (3 doses), and
* Varicella (chickenpox, 1 or more doses).


More American Children Being Vaccinated Each Year

If any of these vaccines affect the immune system, which is pretty likely, this is a lot to put a young body through of infants to toddlers.

Let's examine the entire policy, not just the vaccines themselves.

Very true. It is also little comfort to know that (commercial) planes are statistically safer than driving, if teh one your loved one was in crashes. Vaccines *are* re-evaluated on an ongoing basis, and a considerable amount of money goes into this, However, if people insist on making them completely non-profitable for the companies that produce them we will not have them anymore. They aren't, on the whole, a huge money-maker for the pharmaceutical industry as it stands, and they are not cheap or easy to develop.

There is no requirement to receive any vaccine (except possibly for those enrolled in the military...I'm not certain on that point). I don't personally know the rationale for recommending teh Hep B vaccine for infants; but if I had one I'd be reading up on it.

They *are* evaluated on an ongoing basis, whcih is why they sometimes change (for example, the varacella vaccine was available for several years before being added to the recommended list, and some adjuvants and preservatives, like thimerosol, have been removed from many vaccines).

It is a lot to go through; the first year of life is a lot to go through, including the sudden exposure to all kinds of organisms. I'm glad that for my son, measles, polio, and pertussus at least were not among the ones he had to fight off.
If vaccines *didn't* affect the immune system, they wouldn't work. That is kind of the point, yes? The difficult truth is that nothing is ever completely risk-free, and there are no guarantees in medicene. We've gotten such good results, and accomplished such amazing things that people have begun thinking that doctors are wizards who can accomplish anything, but it isn't true. We can do amazing things, which will occasionally go amazingly and terribly wrong because each body is a complex and unique system. You can't expect to know for certian the outcome of everything; we just have to collect the data, and play the odds as best we can with the available information; that's evidence based medicine. It's a sight better than bleeding and purging, or choosing herbs according to what organ they most resemble, but it will never be perfect.

The real question becomes; how much resposibilty do we have to evaluate the safety of any new treatment', whcih is inseperable from deciding who bears the cost of that, and how much risk we're willing to allow in the deinition of 'safe'? The more stringent out standards are, the longer it takes to make a new treatment available, so we try to balance this against the severity of what we're treating (cancer drugs can be considerably less 'safe' than childhood vaccienes).
But IMO, FDA regulation does not exempt each person from educating themselves, and coming to their own decision; it's *all* out there now, with the internet.

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please click and help the eggs hatch!

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love"
-Anias Nin

Otter,

Parents are coerced into vaccinating their children. If any parent questions any vaccine they are often scolded by their doctor, or asked "Don't you care about your child"?

Kids are not allowed to attend public schools in most states without their vaccinations. Some states, like Florida, make it rather easy to opt out of the vaccines. Other states, like New York, make it very difficult to opt out.

May I ask you how many hours you have spent researching vaccines?

How much Congressional testimony have you read?

Do you know anything about the problems with VAERS?

Do you know what percentage of adverse reactions are reported?

Have you ever read the testimony of Barbara Loe Fisher?

From her testimony........

Today, the bitter truth is that, although more than one billion dollars has been paid out to some 1,000 families whose loved ones have been harmed by vaccines, three out of four vaccine victims are turned away. Although parents pay a surcharge on each vaccine their child gets and the money from that surcharge is put into the vaccine injury trust fund, there is more than one bill