"Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so."
-Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society p50, 1953
As a pediatrician, who has been a fellow of the AAP for two decades, I find the AAP’s approach to the autism epidemic to be deeply disturbing.
Not only have they allowed the myth of better diagnosing (as the reason for all the notice given to affected children) to be perpetuated, but when they were put on notice at the CDC’s Simpsonwood meeting in 2000, that the mercury in the preservative Thimerosal was causing speech delays and learning disabilities, they obfuscated and hid that information. They never made good on their 1999 pledge to have Thimerosal eliminated from vaccines and almost a decade later joined in the protest against a fictitious TV show (Eli Stone) because it was critical of mercury being in vaccine. Out of 132 million doses of the worthless1 flu vaccine for the 2007-08 flu season, 8 million doses are Thimerosal free. That means 94% contain the full amount of Thimerosal.
If a pregnant woman got a flu shot in 2001 and her child followed the flu shot recommendations, the baby/fetus would have received six flu shots with the full amount of Thimerosal by the year 2005.
Today, flu vaccine for those under 3 year of age supposedly do not contain Thimerosal, but with no government agency testing vaccines for mercury, the only ones who know whether these Thimerosal free vaccine (flu or otherwise) actually are mercury free are the manufacturers themselves.
Vaccines with "trace" amounts of Thimerosal are supposed to contain less than 1 microgram of mercury per 0.5 ml dose (1 microgram (ug) Hg per 0.5 ml is the same as 2 ug Hg per ml which is the same as 2000 ug/liter. Micrograms per liter is parts per billion [ppb] [2])
0.5 parts per billion (ppb) mercury = Kills human neuroblastoma cells (Parran et al., Toxicol Sci 2005; 86: 132-140).
2ppb mercury = U.S. EPA limit for drinking water (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.html#mcls).
20 ppb mercury = Neurite membrane structure destroyed (Leong et al., Neuroreport 2001; 12: 733-37).
200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste (http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/mercury/regs.htm#hazwaste)
25,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose, Hepatitis B vaccine vials, administered at birth from 1991-2001 in the U.S.
50,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose DTP and Haemophilus B vaccine vials, administered 8 times in the 1990's to children at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age. Current "preservative" level mercury in multi-dose flu, meningococcal and tetanus (7 and older) vaccines.
For years the Infectious Disease division at the CDC (and others) have said the reason for the dramatic increase in autism is due to "better diagnosing" and "greater awareness." They have encouraged those like the AAP to manufacture uncertainty by publishing articles that were less than truthful. The AAP shamefully played along, perhaps encouraged by the largesse of vaccine manufacturers who significantly contribute to the AAP’s yearly budget.
There is another budget to consider for eighty percent of autistic Americans under the age of 18, and we will soon begin to see a dramatic impact on Social Security in coming years as these children become dependent adults. There are no studies that have found the previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed autistic individuals among older Americans. They simply aren't there. So what is coming will significantly impact on society.
As there are no genetic epidemics that leaves an epidemic linked to some sort of exposure. Now, the increase of autism has been linked to the increase in mercury exposure through fish and industrial sources, amalgam and additionally, through increased parenteral exposure to Thimerosal - no controlled, randomized study regarding the safety of amalgam or Thimerosal exists.
A recently released Scientific Consensus Statement on Environmental Agents Associated with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (by the Collaborative on Health and the Environment’s Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative) concludes that environmental contaminants are an important cause of learning and developmental disabilities.
Delayed detoxification of mercury severely impairs methylation reactions (required for the correct expression of DNA, RNA, and neurotransmitters), which further adversely affects growth factor derived development of the brain and attention abilities. Phospholipid methylation, which is crucial for attention, is impaired in autistic and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders.
In a first analysis of the VSD datasets, Verstraeten (et al) had described a 7.6 to 11.4 fold increase of autism risk in children at one month, with the highest mercury exposure levels compared to children with no exposure. In four subsequent separate generations of the analysis, which involve the exclusion of children with no Thimerosal exposure and less than two polio vaccines, the statistical significance disappeared. This is what was published by the AAP even though they knew the truth. How did they know the truth?
Again, they were present at the Simpsonwood meeting in June 2000, a meeting that was illegal to hold. No Federal agency is allowed to call a meeting together with representatives of private industry (all the vaccine manufacturers were represented at this meeting) without opening the meeting to the public.
Thimerosal was tested only once, by Eli Lilly on 22 adult patients suffering from meningitis. There was no chance for follow- up to observe long-term effects, as all of the patients in this "study" died. Even if follow-up had been possible, damage to the developing brains of very young children would have remained an unknown. Eli Lilly said it was safe and the medical community accepted it. After the creation of the FDA, its use was simply continued. The federal government has never tested the type of mercury in vaccines for toxicity. This is an unconscionable oversight failure at best, at worse it is an example that we have left consensus reality to be created by the liars, thieves, cheats, killers, and the junk scientists they employ.
How it came to pass the AAP joined these rogues and became an active participant in this skullduggery is beyond reason – is even beyond greed. They have remained silent as mercury laden vaccine continue to be exported and used in all third world and second world countries.
We are living in a time where an incredible overplay and lies and self-aggrandizing behavior and non-science is the norm. We have tolerated the junk science that has covered up the true cause of this epidemic at a considerable cost to science, the public, and our very way of life in this country. Is it stretch to realize that by putting our collective heads in the sand about the autism epidemic we have made it possible for the destruction of our very civilization?
Not something easy to contemplate? Then ask why haven’t pediatricians come forward to demand the end of the use of Thimerosal once and for all, and to advocate for the treatment of these children before it is too late? Why are they not at the front of the line protesting the amounts of mercury allowed to come out of coal-fired power plants? Why aren’t they leading the charge to stop the use of mercury amalgam dental fillings that are placed in the mouths of young children and pregnant women?
The very Federal agencies that should have been sounding the alarm bell about environmental pollution creating future generations of mentally disabled citizens did less than remain silent because they have become arms of the very corporations that profit from selling and distributing poisons. Just look who sits on the FDA's Scientific Advisory Boards – the conflicts of interest are so glaring as to suggest that the FDA has become a trade arm of Big Pharma.
Nevertheless, the hand writing is on the wall as the US
The AAP should be bringing in risk management specialists and be proactive towards how this could affect pediatricians in civil litigation for following the CDC recommendations on vaccinations after a diagnosis of any type of neurodevelopmental delay in a child. This is what they are afraid of and this is what the law of attraction will bring in upon the AAP and the minions of those that just followed the recommendations and drank the Kool-Aid that Big Pharma wanted them to drink.
For all the above reasons, I will no longer enable the AAP to be party to the damage that is being done to the world’s children by sending in my dues for a third decade. It is a token protest, but it has to begin with someone.
1 BMJ 2006;333:912-915 (28 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.38995.531701.80
2 http://www.ajph.org/cgi/eletters/AJPH.2007.113159v1
3 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/government-concedes-vacci_b_88323.html
K. Paul Stoller , MD
