Jenny McCarthy (Gamescore, Flickr)
Celebs Rally for Vaccine Reform
Jim Carrey, Jenny McCarthy Call on Congress for Change Not Supported by Science
By Arthur Allen
06/05/2008
| 61 Comments
I spent a bright and lovely morning doing anthropology among the vaccine skeptics, an angry group who blame the government for their children’s medical and psychiatric conditions. The occasion was Wednesday’s “Green our Vaccines” rally, a march on Washington led by the the actor Jim Carrey and his photogenic girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, the TV personality and mother of an autistic 6-year-old boy named Evan.
McCarthy, Carrey and an untold number of other people -– there were maybe 1,500 at the rally -– believe that something in vaccines causes autism. Science has laid to rest a theory blaming the measles-mumps-rubella shot, and the evidence also points away from the mercury-containing preservative, thimerosal. But Carrey and McCarthy have moved the goalposts. At Wednesday’s rally, the marchers chanted, “Too many, Too soon!” The new theory of the vaccine haters is that "too many" of these disease preventives somehow overwhelm the child's immune system — a thesis there is no evidence to support.
The anger has deep roots, though. About 1 in 150 U.S. children is diagnosed with a form of autism, compared to perhaps 1 in 3,000 two decades ago. The higher diagnoses are mainly due to changes in psychiatric codings and increased educational and therapeutic programs for autistic kids, but there may be other explanations for part of the increase. The parents of these children have difficult lives and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to care for their kids. Feeling ripped off, they blame the government and industry, and say that environmental toxins and vaccines are responsible.
Over the decade I’ve reported on this issue, the believers have grown more and more entrenched in their convictions, to the point that it’s difficult to have a discussion because we’ve obviously been reading different material. Google University has many campuses and I’ve been attending a different one.
Blaming vaccines for autism is a small cottage industry backed by certain lawyers, alternative medicine practitioners and peddlers of dietary supplements that allegedly cure the damage done by vaccines. But whether their kids are getting better with such therapies or not, these parents' convictions are unshaken.
Erika Stone, of Dallas, came to the rally with the righteous anger of a mother dealing with a severely ill child. She carried a sign that said, “We are your scientific evidence.” It had photographs of her 2 ½ year old son, Maxwell, and his mates from a special therapy program. Maxwell began to lose his language skills at 12 months. He’s sickly and mute and entirely dependent on her. “My child can’t say a word. He can’t hold a crayon, he can’t feed himself. If you play loud music next to him, he doesn’t even turn around.”
When Maxwell was about 20 months old, his mom heard about the vaccine theory. While the evidence of a vaccine link to her son’s condition didn’t convince me--regressive autism, of the type she describes, was known to occur long before the vaccine schedule increased -- Stone said, “I believe it in the bottom of my heart – it’s something called mother’s instinct.”
If it wasn’t for the Internet, would you have been led to this conviction? I asked. “Probably not,” she said.
The group walked from its rally point under the Washington Monument, down Independence Ave (stopping to jeer at the Dept. of Health and Human Services) before filing on to the west lawn of Congress. It heard speeches from people like Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind), Boyd Haley, a University of Kentucky chemist, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer who displayed his ignorance of the issue in a sensationalist, error-filled 2005 article in Rolling Stone magazine.
As someone who has been following this hair-tearing controversy for a decade, I try to keep my cool, but I lost it once.
I was talking with a group of people (including a large fellow with “CDC Sucks” stitched on his shirt where the alligator should have been) when I was introduced to Wendy Fournier, an anti-vaccine activist I’ve debated on the radio. “Oh, it’s you,” I said. “I want to talk to someone less full of shit.”
No sooner had “shit” passed my lips than the people around Fournier called the rally monitor, who got on her radio and shouted, “Get a policeman over here!” The cop told me that since this was the Green People’s rally, they had the power to tell me to go away, even if I was a journalist.
I walked over to the little retaining wall around the monument and greeted Dan Olmstead, a former UPI editor who runs Age of Autism, a Website that champions the vaccines-cause-autism line and belittles those who disagree. Despite our profound differences, Dan’s an old journalist like me, and he thought it was wrong they’d sic’d the cops on me. We chatted for a while and then Terri Arranga, a “journalist” for Autism One, another vaccines=autism media outlet, came over, stuck a mike in my face and tried for a while to get me to comment about something I said on her program three years ago.
Then, McCarthy and Carrey appeared. The green-clad crowd went wild. “Jenny! Jenny!” they chanted, as the couple reviewed their troops on the lawn.
McCarthy agreed to what she called a “sound bite,” and a guy from “Access Hollywood” started to spoonfeed her questions. I was surprised -- OK, disappointed: I love the actor Jim Carrey! -- to note that Carrey did a lot of the talking. He offered many theories: evil drug companies, conspiratorial government scientists, etc. “How dumb does the CDC think we are?” (An intemperate question from a guy who, as Orac says, presumably doesn’t want us to think that "Dumb and Dumber" is a documentary.) Kids can’t assimilate all the vaccines, he said. We need more research that isn’t paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. “We don’t call that research, we call it propaganda.”
After asking his questions, the Access Hollywood guy suddenly became a promoter. “Jim and Jenny," he said, "I’m proud to announce that you’ve been named Access Hollywood’s green couple of the week!”
At which point I saw my opportunity and after checking for rally monitors, asked, “How many vaccines, exactly, is too many?”
“In 1983," McCarthy said, "our kids only got 10 vaccines. Now it’s 36” (actually, it's 28, max, by age 2). I asked, “So should they only be getting 10? Which ones shouldn’t they get?” I saw McCarthy turning and asking someone, “Who is this guy?” Carrey responded, gamely. “Kids aren’t a bottomless pit you can pour toxins into, there has to be a limit,” he said.
“So what’s a vaccine they shouldn’t get?” I asked. “A lot of parents of autistic children would have opted not to get the tetanus shot,” he said.
Tetanus? Do they realize what it’s like to live in a pre-tetanus shot society, in villages where unvaccinated kids get tetanus --also called lockjaw. It causes your spine to arch as you writhe in agony for days and then die unless you are fortunate enough to get antitoxin. But then, Carrey and McCarthy haven't been studying microbiology for the past 20 years.
The organizers were telling everyone to get off the grass, so I fell into step with McCarthy’s pediatrician, Dr. Jay Gordon, who’s a celebrated, or notorious, I guess, Santa Monica doctor because of his outspoken vaccine skepticism. Gordon has been an tiny thorn in the side of the pediatrics profession since 1979, and he takes obvious pride in going against the grain. I can see the appeal to going that way, too, but I don’t quite get his logic.
For example: “I think it’s good for you to get measles,” he told me. “It’s good for the immune system.”
He thinks all kids should get the measles?
“Yes, I do. The measles vaccine might be doing more harm than good.” This although, he tells me, “I know all the numbers.” (In the pre-vaccine era, measles killed 500 American children every year, caused 5,000 cases of permanent brain damage and innumerable hospitalizations. It still kills about 500,000 people each year in the Third World.)
The unvaccinated children in his practice are healthier, Gordon said. Not that he’s indiscriminately opposed to vacination. “Nobody wants a whooping cough epidemic." He gives the DTP -- diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (whooping cough) -- vaccine, but he delays the shots until the babies are a year old.
One way to tell that preconceived belief, rather than rationality, is guiding someone’s actions is by determining whether a change in the evidence affects their outlook. Two plausible theories for autism were weighed by science and found wanting. But those who remain convinced of the link have a way of rationalizing their belief, almost extemporaneously.
Like most of the people I met at the rally, Gordon wasn’t impressed by the epidemiological studies showing that mercury in vaccines hadn’t caused an upswing in autism. But like a lot of the vaccine skeptics, he’s moved on to a new culprit, another element present in tiny amounts in vaccines, where it is used as an adjuvant to boost the immune response: Aluminum.
Comments:
Posted 06/05/2008 06:36pm with
This is so sad. Instead of a rally for and about autism, it is all about vaccines. Some real good could have come from this.
Instead, they can’t seem to put forth a single story. Is it the “toxins” in the vaccines or is it “too many” vaccines? Where is any science to back up the idea that the current 28 by 24 months is “too much”? They make it sound like the vaccine schedule was put together by people like themselves: People who think looking up websites is “medical research”.
It isn’t the same at all. There are probably thousands of highly skilled man-years that went into the vaccine schedule.
They just embarassed the entire autism community with their ignorance.
Posted 06/05/2008 06:45pm with
Arthur,
Oh my. I am left wondering from where YOUR anger is derived? It’s pretty obvious that you don’t have a child affected by an ASD, so I’m wondering why you’ve taken the interest. There is no stronger love or emotion invoked in a person than that of love for a child, so it only seems natural that these parents would be so impassioned regarding their cause. On the other hand, it’s seems very childish (not to mention unprofessional) for you to attack and try to belittle them. One other thing: instead of saying that these “irrational” parents are “looking angrily for someone to blame,” you might consider that at least some of these parents planned on bringing other children into this world, which would be the reason that they are so desperate for answers. What the world should REALLY fear are all of those quiet parents who have done the research for themselves and are silently not vaccinating. And unfortunately, the governmental agencies will have no one to blame but themselves for the reemerging epidemics of vaccine preventable diseases. Remember, EVERY ONE OF THE CHILDREN REPRESENTED AT THE JUNE 4 RALLY HAD BEEN VACCINATED. Break trust once, shame on you. Break it twice, shame on me. Oh, and very quickly, you should check out today’s FDA bulletin about mercury-containing amalgams. Yikes. If mercury-filled amalgams are toxic to the body, how about mainlining it? Unfortunately, your goal of giving reassurance to your readers that vaccines STILL have no link to autism was unsuccessful. Too much damage has been done, and to quote Ms. McCarthy, “you can’t hold back the ocean.”
Posted 06/05/2008 07:42pm with
Autism might well have environmental causes. If so, it’s obviously very important to identity them. The only way to do that is through epidemiological studies, most of which will eliminate candidates as possible causes, narrowing down the remaining possibilities. Why, for God’s sake, are these parents fixated on vaccines when the epidemiology doesn’t support their claims? Do they seriously think that “a mother’s instinct” or their “passion” can reveal the causes of autism to them?
Posted 06/05/2008 07:44pm with
Mr Allen speaks quite well for this parent of a young autistic child.
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“EVERY ONE OF THE CHILDREN REPRESENTED AT THE JUNE 4 RALLY HAD BEEN VACCINATED.” Odd. I thought Ms.Stagliano was there representing her children. Aren’t two of them unvaccinated (and autistic)?
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“What the world should REALLY fear are all of those quiet parents who have done the research for themselves and are silently not vaccinating. ” Precisely. Absolutely. The parents who have done “research” on the web and chosen to not vaccinate. You bet that I fear them. Perhaps if organizations like the ones that Ms. McCarthy fronts would stop putting out nonsense posing as “research” we would all have less to fear.
Posted 06/05/2008 08:33pm with
What makes you think that the research being done by parents of ASD children is limited to what can be found online? Since you have identified yourself as having a child affected by autism, I will ask you if you limited your research as such? My guess is not. I would further surmise that many parents of ASD children have done real research – you know; read REAL studies and reports (written by physicians and scientists) as well as books on the subject. Here’s the other point – just because you believe that your child wasn’t vaccine injured doesn’t make it “so” for everyone else. If you have a child on the spectrum, then you know that no two ASD kids are alike. Should their causes be absolutely similar? I might consider myself lucky to not be part of the vaccine injured club, if I were you, instead of spouting ugliness and anger at everyone else because of their commonality that conflicts with the herd mentality you’ve been raised upon. Here’s a question for all of you – what do you have to say about Bernadine Healy’s very recent interview with CBS where she came right out and said that the vaccine-autism link has been too readily dismissed? She’s got credentials far reaching than any of us blogging on this site. Why is it that we aren’t at least keeping an open mind here, gentlemen? And one last thing – you might chat with the parents of the (at least) three babies who were killed by intussussception of the bowels from administration of the “new and improved” Rotateq vaccine just this year. Certainly, their deaths don’t affect you or your families. But if it was your child, it would mean the world.
Posted 06/06/2008 02:42am with
Mr Allen also speaks very well for *this* parent of a severely autistic child.
A parent who is tired of seeing research monies disappear down this bottomless pit of ever-changing aetiology. Its MMR, no its mercury, no its both, no wait its everything, no, no its too many too soon. The simple sad truth is that its not any. For over ten years no this vaccine related debacle has been played out in the US and UK and in that time not one piece of decent, peer reviewed journal published science has come close to finding a causative link between vaccines, their constituent parts, the schedule they’re on or any other ramification and autism.
And in the meantime, both the UK and US have ever increasing outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases resulting in hospitalisation.
No one is claiming that having a vaccine is risk free – no medical process is risk free – but one thing is sure. Vaccines do not cause autism.
And to adrienne – well since you raised Dr Bernadine Healy, do you really feel comfortable taking medical advice from a doctor who (Used to be? Still is) a member of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition? If you’re not sure who they are, they are a front group for the pro-smoking lobby and dedicated to advancing ‘science’ that claims passive smoking is not bad for anyone:
“Initially, the primary focus of TASSC was an attempt to discredit research on Environmental Tobacco Smoke [passive smoking] as a long-term cause of increased cancer and heart problem rates in the community—especially among office workers and children living with smoking parents.”
Posted 06/06/2008 08:15am with
Perhaps the writer has never heard of the case of Hannah Poling where indeed the government and the Pharmaceutical companies conceded that vaccinations caused her autism. Hannah was said to have a “rare” mitochondrial disorder and that along with the vaccines caused her autism. The only reason this mitochondrial disorder is rare is because it has not been tested for when a child has autism. There are many parents of autistic children that will now have their child tested for this disorder.
Many years ago the Pharmaceuticals made single dose vaccines which required no mercury or any other preservatives. Today because they want to make vaccines cheaper(and make more money) they make a multi-dose vial which requires preservatives. Frankly I and many others would pay more to get a single dose vial.
Mercury is still in the stockpiled vaccines and will be used till it is all gone. To say that mercury is not in the vaccines today does not mean that children are not receiving mercury in the vaccines. Thimersol was NEVER tested prior to its use in vaccines.
There are children that die after receiving vaccines and those numbers are never reported in the vaccine debate.
There are two populations that should be compared and tested in the vaccine debate one is the Amish where autism is unheard of and the other is a clinic in Chicago that has a different inoculation protocol and has never encountered an autistic child that has received vaccines in their clinc. Tens of thousands of children have passed through the clinics’ doors. The CDC does has refused to research these populations and compare them to the general population and the rates of autism.
I am 48 years old and when in grade school never encountered an autistic child. There were Special Ed. children but they all had Down’s Syndrome.
Posted 06/06/2008 08:54am with
Dear kev,
First of all, might we have a discussion that isn’t so hostile?... It seems both you and giantrobot are in the exact same steadfast position on vaccines-don’t-cause-autism as the parents who claim their autistic children were vaccine injured. Your heels are dug in and your mind will not be changed. I wonder what evidence would change your mind – or mine? What if CDC came right out and stated that vaccines cause autism tomorrow? Being that FDA announced in a statement that mercury amalgams are now “toxic to the bodies of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses” and, *surprisingly* are not addressing the fact that they stated year after year that “there is no credible evidence” that mercury amalgams are toxic to the body, one might stop and think, “well, if they were wrong once, what about now?” Again, just because you do not believe that your child was vaccine injured does not make it so for everyone else. And your statement of “No one is claiming that having a vaccine is risk free – no medical process is risk free” – is true. The simple fact – and it IS a fact – is that too many children have been injured by vaccines and now the American public has stopped trusting the governmental agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and physicians holding patents on vaccines who tell them these are ALL safe, effective, and necessary. That’s not my opinion – it’s what’s happening. What’s unfortunate is that those who knew about the ever-growing adverse effects of the “too many, too soon” schedule didn’t do what was necessary to prevent all of this when they had the chance. So now we will see incredible numbers of children struggling to recover from autism, and also, I’m afraid, the presence of vaccine-preventable diseases reemerging in large numbers because parents have no choice but to pick and choose which vaccines to give to their children because of fear of the adverse effects.
Posted 06/06/2008 10:07am with
Adrienne is not being very fair to Arthur. She calls for an open mind. Does she recall an article that he wrote a few years ago, before David Kirby’s book on the subject, that was sympathetic to the idea that thimerosal in vaccines was contributing to autism? Arthur kept an open mind on that one and when more research caused him to doubt the hypothesis he was not afraid to publish his change his mind.
I, as a parent was sympathetic to the idea that MMR might cause autism. Here in the UK thimerosal or, as we know it, thiomersal was never an issue because we only ever had very slight exposure – 75 micrograms from the DTwP. I defended Wakefield in public and called for more research. Now we have the research. There is no credible evidence to support Wakefield’s original hypothesis.
I thought Arthur was spot on. The science has moved on. The vaccine skeptics have not. Instead they have moved sideways to embrace any sugestion that will continue to implicate vaccines. The anti vaccine slogans in evidence in Washington indicate to me that the closed minds are on the other side of the debate.
Posted 06/06/2008 11:20am with
There are valid questions about the safety of the ingredients of the vaccines and their effects on some children. What is widely known by researchers studying autism and schizophrenia is that both highly related disorders are caused in a great number of non-familial cases by higher Paternal age or older age of the mother’s father at her birth.http://autism-prevention.blogspot.com/
Posted 06/06/2008 12:42pm with
Well, I thank you for staying with the “you must be angry” ploy, rather than the “you must be a paid pharma person” ploy.
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“just because you believe that your child wasn’t vaccine injured doesn’t make it “so” for everyone else.”
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Just because you *believe* that autism is caused by vaccines doesn’t make so for anyone.
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Are parents doing vaccine research?!? Can you point me to “research”, real reasarch, done by parents that shows that vaccines cause autism? There was one parent who presented some research at IMFAR this year on vaccines and monkeys, but it didn’t show a link to autism.
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This discussion is not hostile—pleas stop throwing labels like that around, it doesn’t help produce a good discussion. If you consider people posting views that disagree with you as hostile, we are at an impass.
Posted 06/06/2008 12:50pm with
Hey Arthur…..Why dont you get your facts straight before reporting such falsified trash? Maybe take another course in good journalism, its obvious you didnt pay any attention to the first one.
Do you have a loved one with Autism? If not, your opinion does not matter-
Posted 06/06/2008 01:23pm with
A mother of a boy in my son’s class—-my son, and all the children in his class, are autistic—-noted that it’s important for autistic children to get tetanus shots. Her son puts a lot of non-edible things into his mouth; my own son has a tendency to run outside without shoes and is not good at telling me when he might be in pain.
It was a rally about vaccines, not autism, as your report and those of others (“Age of Autism”) have indicated. Perhaps one day parents might rally round the need for more schools and school placements for autistic kids and housing and jobs for autistic adults——but we may be too busy taking care of the day-to-day to go to a rally.
Someone left this comment on my blog regarding the internet and the spread of medical (mis)information:
“The internet has become in retrospect the best and worst thing to happen to medicine in the past quarter century. This, along with the inflated self-esteem of the general public (educated by anti-authority 60’s public school teachers and academics) has led to an astounding number of individuals who know everything.”
Thanks for the report.
Kristina Chew
autismvox.com
Posted 06/06/2008 02:09pm with
Thank you for the coverage of this event. I agree that vaccines are an important issue right now. Dr. Jay Gordon is a great advocate of this issue especially since he looks at both sides, the pros and the cons of vaccinating. He has a great blog called vaccinatingyourbaby.com where he discusses his viewpoints. Thanks!
Posted 06/06/2008 03:19pm with
Arthur Allen are you paid by the pharma companies? Were you even at the same rally that I was? Not just watching little snip-its on TV, I mean actually there? I WAS THERE!
I am a mother of two children, none of which have autism. I think you went to the Rally and wanted to write a really good story, but may have gotten offended when one of the speakers told the rally supporters to be angry with the media. Because the media is to blame for most of the “mis-informed” press (like your article written above) who don’t read the studies themselves only to report what the CDC wants the report to say. **There were THOUSANDS (@ 8,000 to be exact) at the rally – Obviously math isn’t your strong point, since your article said there were only about 1,500. (You and the CDC wish there were only about 1,500 – If there were only 1,500 people the DC police wouldn’t have closed down a section of Independence Ave to march on.) They would’ve made us march only on the sidewalk – true story.
I love the part in your article where you say the most shots given “max” by age 2 is 28 (TOO MANY TOO SOON!) But there are 37 shots recommended by the CDC by age 6. (Here is the CDC schedule for your viewing pleasure: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/chil…) **This # includes the newly recommended flu shots.
—BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE
By the time your child is 17 the # of recommended shots is 53 for girls (HPV – cervical cancer vaccine) or 50 for a boy. Here is the link for this information: (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/chil…) **This # includes the newly recommended flu shots.
You are nothing more than a pompous jackass who probably wishes he was writing for the New York Times or possibly even Playboy. But instead your boss made you cover the “Green Our Vaccines” rally and that made you mad. Hey, it’s not our fault your bitter.
I challenge you to read through an entire PRO-VACCINE book. It’s called The Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears. I am a mother who DELAYS vaccination and due so BECAUSE of this PRO-VACCINE book. I have done my homework and do not feel like my child should get so many vaccines to protect the entire population of the US. Which brings me to my next question for you Arthur: Have you had your booster shots lately? If not, it appears that by the CDC’s recommendation you are in of 14 shots – of course this # doesn’t include the annual flu shot. (I looked you up online and you appear to be @ 60 years old; an unattractive 60, but still 60.) Oh and by the way, here is the link for your viewing pleasure: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/adul….
**Anyone who reads this article – Your best source for the correct information would be to see it for yourself on YouTube.
Sincerely,
Chantele
Posted 06/06/2008 03:43pm with
“Do they realize what it’s like to live in a pre-tetanus shot society” Um, yeah, it’s called your family tree. How the heck did you get here if people were dying by the millions of tetanus? And where are all the dead Amish kids who run around their farms shoeless in the muck? Living in a tetanus-shot-free world means making sure you have a strong immune system and exercise proper wound care. There is SOOOOOOO much more to beating illness than injecting toxins into our bodies. We need to eat properly (not the crap you can buy in most American grocery stores, but real, whole foods with real, nature-made nutrients). I don’t understand where the “pro” vaccine people get their hostility – if you are so sure vaccines are the answer and will save you from the evil bacteria and viruses out there, then by all means, vaccinate yourself! Freedom of choice. We are free to choose the ways in which we want to live.
Posted 06/06/2008 04:12pm with
“Arthur Allen are you paid by the pharma companies?”
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I knew it couldn’t last. Sooner or later, someone had to pull the “pharma shill” card. The funny thing is that people go right past that and ask ” don’t understand where the “pro” vaccine people get their hostility”.
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Sorry, but if people don’t even recognize the hostility in the “pharma shill” comment, this discussion is hopeless.
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But, on a more important note, if people want to ignore the efficacy and need for a tetanus shot, there are some very misinformed people out there.
Posted 06/06/2008 04:12pm with
The CDC and heads of the major drug comapnies (who produce the vaccines sold in the US) actually met in 1999 at the Simpsonwood Center in Norcross GA. The topic of the meeting….the absolute link between mercury preserved vaccines and autism. In the transcripts of the meeting the link was called undeniable. Please do your homework before writing an article like this. The CDC has known about the autism/vaccine link since 1999. Their response to the crisis…take the tainted vaccines and ship them overseas….don’t do a recall as that may alarm the public. Consequently the tainted vaccines remained on the shelves of US doctors offices as late as 2003 or 2004. What happened to the populations who received the excess tainted vaccines? Autism was virtually non-existant in China, but after 1999 the number of cases reported skyrocked to 1.8 million.
Amish aren’t vaccinated. There should be 130 autistic people in Lancaster county according to the national autism rates. There are only 4. Three of these children were adopted and received vaccines prior to arriving at the amish family. One autistic amish lived down wind of a powerplant which discharged mercury into the air.
Mercury in vaccines is not the only cause of autism. It is a large trigger accompanied by genetic and environmental factors. The science is real….read the studies by Richard Deth, Boyd Hayley, and the CDC among others.
As a side note. I have a child who was autistic, then underwent years of chelation therapy to remove the mercury from the vaccines from his body. He is now recovered, healthy and living an autism free life.
Posted 06/06/2008 04:36pm with
Will the idea that the Amish don’t vaccinate ever go away? They do. There are more PDD kids that Mr. Olmsted found (which is the number that Jennifer is repeating).
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Read the science in the Omnibus transcripts when they come out. Deth’s theories on oxydative stress make no sense (according to the world experts on it). Boyd Haley’s ideas on mecury (which he couldn’t present because he isn’t an expert) make no sense. The real experts on mercury and autism spoke and it isn’t even like there is a question.
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As to Simpsonwood, geez, will that ever go away? Even a U.S. Senate investigation showed nothing wrong there. What do you think Mr. Allen was referring to in his discussion of RFK Jr’s incredibly flawed story in Rolling Stone?
Posted 06/06/2008 04:38pm with
So you were the guy completely thrown out by the SWAT team at the rally!!!! You were causing a lot of trouble and NOT just asking a few minor questions. So what does it feel like to be completely manhandled? No wonder your article is for sh*t.
*Piece of advice you need a haircut and some new clothes. Yes, I am allowed to judge you.
Posted 06/06/2008 04:42pm with
Hey giantrobot – I bet you wish your robot were giant…
Have you had your boosters lately??
Posted 06/06/2008 06:07pm with
Well, I suppose the remaining question is this: If the governmental agencies are “certain” that there is no vaccine-autism link, then why on earth are there still CDC funded research studies continuing today? P.S. giantrobot, you’re partially correct. The Amish are vaccinating more today than in the past. And their ASD numbers are also on the rise. what’s really scary is that when they take their kids to ERs, the docs try to “catch them up.” A recipe for disaster. Jennifer, one of my boys is also recovering from vaccine-induced autism. congrats to you and yours for your victory!!!
Posted 06/06/2008 07:09pm with
The CDC says the vaccine has never been studied for efficacy:
Page 7 of this pdf states:
Efficacy of the toxoid has never been studied in a vaccine
trial. It can be inferred from protective antitoxin levels that
a complete tetanus toxoid series has a clinical efficacy of
virtually 100%; cases of tetanus occurring in fully immunized
persons whose last dose was within the last 10 years are
extremely rare.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/tetan…
When was your last booster? Mine was in 1987. I’m not dead yet. No lock jaw. No really serious wounds, but I clean them when they occur. Not a worry of mine. I did have a nice, painful lump in my arm for about six months after the shot. It oozed pus for a while after that. Still have a scar. Small reaction, but I’d rather not risk a bigger one.
Posted 06/06/2008 07:12pm with
And yes, some Amish I know vaccinate, but others don’t. You are right. Some do. They also eat CRAP (the ones that vaccinate.) Horrible food. Smoke too. The ones I know that don’t vaccinate, live on a farm and live mostly like you would sort of expect the Amish to live.
Posted 06/06/2008 07:31pm with
My son will be starting school this august. I have not vaccinated him because of all the awareness about the links to autism and other sickness. I am afraid this is a double edge sword. I am all for not vaccinated for the unnecessary. My fear is God forbid it be my son who catches something and its my fault. I feel that now that he is older and unlike a newborn he has and has built a strong immune system. I am thinking about getting him some vaccines before school. I am reaching out for knowledge on what vaccines people feel are safe and necessary ?? i am reaching out to those like Jenny McCarthy who have done homework and are truly knowledgeable about vaccines. Please if anyone has any words of wisdom?
Posted 06/06/2008 10:31pm with
Jess18, which illnesses scare you? I recommend that you look at each vaccine and then each illness – which ones scare you? Research those (the illnesses and the vaccines) and weigh the risks of both. I have read more close to twenty books and have been in several online communities as well as a wonderful community in real life and through all of that, my fears are gone. A wonderful place to start is a book by Aviva Jill Romm called Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parents Guide. She goes over each illness and corresponding vaccine, but she also goes over how to recognize each illness, how to treat them and when to seek medical attention.
Our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and many of us ourselves did not recieve these vaccines and we have made it this far. Scare tactics work wonders at getting us to react. Feed your child well, teach him to take care of himself (wash hands, etc) and trust in his immune system!
NVIC is a good resource as is the CDC Pink Pages, check VAERS for vaccine adverse events reports, do your research! You can always vaccinate later, but you cannot undo them once they are in your child.
Posted 06/07/2008 12:12am with
Our grandparents and great grandparents survived when their siblings died as babies and children. That’s why if you go to old cemetaries you can see so many cute little gravestones with little baby angels on them. Our grandparents and great-grandparents had siblings who were sterile from mumps infections they got in their teen years. Our grandparents lost babies to fetal rubella infections or gave birth to handicapped babies because of it. I realize that many people would like to return to those days, but I would not.
Also, our great grandparents and parents and people of my generation (baby boomer) had lots of mercury exposure from all kinds of stuff, including stuff easily and frequently purchased without a prescription. People used to use calomel at huge doses for different things, it wasn’t just a “teething powder”. I can’t even guess how many bottles of merthiolate and mercurochrome my mother must have purchased in her lifetime (my mom is past 80 and shows no signs of mercury toxicity from all that handling of thimerosal in merthiolate).
The whacked out mercury moms and dads and the whacked out antivax squad are going to be tossed aside as useless by the new generation of parents of autistic kids, some of whom will, no doubt, be suing wi-fi device manufacturers and pesticide manufacturers and I expect that they’ll sue “evolution” for inventing Lyme disease, if they can figure out how to do that.
Posted 06/07/2008 01:04am with
Jess18 – please also look into Homeopathic medicine – its a gentle way to treat your child without vaccines and avoid harmful drugs.
Don’t let some people fool you about when our grandparents lost little children/infants. There was no sewer system and lots of times no clean water. When you have these basic’s you don’t have all the disease’s.
Most of the vaccines today, are preventing normal childhood illness’s,
like Chickenpox, Mumps, measles.
Google ingredients of each vaccine, and you can even go to the CDC website and see the list of toxins.
There is a better way.
The worst thing to happen to your child is a weak immune system, a poor diet, and poor digestive system. Vaccines weaken the bodies
ablitity to stay healthy.
Posted 06/07/2008 01:12am with
The link between vaccination and autism is not just demonstrated from plenty of research, but it is common sense. Inject highly toxic substances, including known immune system SENSITISERS such as mercury, aluminium, formaldehyde and phenols, plus viral RNA etc directly past important outer levels of defence in the body and hey presto you get damage on a deep level, and of course a SENSITISED immune system. Only the degree and manifestation varies among individuals.
All comments to the contrary to that are quoting (not the data, but) conclusions and judgments where the vested interests are easily traceable. I don’t know why people cannot see that when it is so transparent. Even the CDC in 2000 had medical research demonstrating the link, but surprise, surprise, requested it be kept confidential. See http://www.vaccination.inoz.com/autism.html
It doesn’t matter whether people change their theories as to the main mechanism(s) through which vaccines cause the autism. All that matters is the observation from epidemiological evidence and parents’ first hand experiences that it does. In many children it is obvious – fine one moment, then comes the vaccine, and immediately they’re gone. In science observation comes first, working out how, particularly in detail, comes second.
And BTW the effect of vaccines, SENSITISATION, means the opposite of immunisation – vaccines do not even work. They do the opposite, including causing serious forms of the diseases such as atypical measles (occurs ONLY in the vaccinated). I see a lot of false assumptions to the contrary posted here. Vaccines came after the disease mortality declines.
Posted 06/07/2008 07:24am with
Concernedparent, there are lots of reasons babies died – they could not all have died of supposedly vaccine-preventable illnesses!! Times were a LOT harder back then. If you know anything about vaccines, “immunity” comes after the danger period of infancy has passed (MMR isn’t given until at least 12 months, or now at 18 months, I believe).
You have a completely wrong idea of even simple illnesses like mumps!! If our grandfathers were all sterile, how the heck would we even be here?! The risk for mumps is that if children do not get it when they are CHILDREN and instead get it past puberty, there is a SLIGHT chance it could go into the testicles and an even SLIGHTER chance that it could cause sterility in A testicle (which is very, very rare and even rarer – much rarer – that it could cause sterility in both). Please do some research – it will help you with your fears.
I still don’t understand why the pro-vax people are so worried about what the rest of us are doing! If you are fearful of illness, take care of yourselves! You can’t rely on government or the pharmaceutical companies to take care of you – they are in this for profits, not altruistic concerns for the health of the world.
By the way, we are ALL concerned parents. That is why we are doing what we think is best for our children. Just like you.
Posted 06/07/2008 07:27am with
One more thing – way back in our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ time there was this thing called BREAST FEEDING. You may have heard of it. Because the mothers likely had all these illnesses, breastmilk passed antibodies to infants to help them through outbreaks of illnesses. They DEFINITELY did not all die of VPDs!!
Posted 06/07/2008 11:22am with
Mr Allen,
Exactly how many vaccines have you received? If you have not received the recommended 36 than according to your recommendations to parents YOU are a threat to society and might spread the scourge of diseases…Practice what you preach, my friend.
SHAME on you for attacking a kind mother of a child who was FULLY Vaccinated who suffers daily, and has yet to utter a word since vaccination.
Perhaps in the future you might try and act decent, “professional” and have some compassion while in the company of 8,500 parents (police estimate) who struggle with the daily heartbreak and care of their brain damaged children, what ever you believe the cause may be.
Leslie,
Mother of a FULLY vaccinated child (now 10)
*Who quickly regressed afterward…
*Was told to put her in an institution…
*Has a diagnosis of heavy metal poisoning…
*Has a rare auto-immune disease…
*Requires round the clock constant care…
*Has yet to utter a word since 18 months…
*Is in recovery due to Bio-medical intervention and numerous therapies.
Maybe you should investigate the chidldren themselves, and open your mind and your eyes.
Posted 06/07/2008 11:30am with
I don’t understand why its such a leap to contemplate that we may have crossed the line in terms of vaccine dosage. Its generally accepted that any drug or substance will cause toxicity and damage if given in too great a quantity. Why such flat denial that some kids are receiving vaccine overdoses? Its not about ‘which vaccines would you do without’ – its about cumulative effect. Do the study – a real study with a CLEAN control group of never-vaccinated and see if a significant subset of the population is susceptible to vaccine-damage. If the study reveals this – then go through the schedule and get rid of any vaccine that is not necessary. Not everything on the schedule guards against life-threatening epidemics. Saving every life is a noble cause, but if we are decimating the neurological function of an entire generation – the balance of risks and benefits must be restored.
Posted 06/07/2008 12:49pm with
Kristina Chew writes:
“Perhaps one day parents might rally round the need for more schools and school placements for autistic kids and housing and jobs for autistic adults——but we may be too busy taking care of the day-to-day to go to a rally.”
I’m wondering why parents of children with autism (especially those who do not believe in the vaccine-autism link) haven’t done this yet? I read Kristina’s remarks to mean that they don’t have the time to hold a rally due to their responsibilities as parents of children with autism, yet there are quite a few that seem to have an inordinate amount of time to blog/rail against the vaccine/autism link. It seems to me that many do have the time and energy however they just choose to focus on what others that they disagree with are doing. How will spending any time railing against those that believe a vaccine/autism link or those that have the passion to hold a rally for their beliefs accomplish your wish for more schools, jobs and housing for people with autism?
Posted 06/07/2008 03:10pm with
The original article by Arthur Allen is clearly respectful towards the parents’ situation while being in total disagreement with their point of view that vaccines are responsible for their children being autistic. For this he is ridiculed for his appearance, reviled by some as a pharma shill and subject to ferocious rebukes because he states what I and many other parents of autistic think. Vaccines did not cause my child’s autism and I see no reason to believe in a vaccine induced epidemic.
It would be nice to be able to respond to the scientific objections to the position I share with Arthur without all this personal antipathy.
Posted 06/07/2008 04:50pm with
But mikestanton, can’t autism still be linked to vaccines for SOME people?? Just because you don’t believe YOUR child was affected by vaccines, MOST parents of autistic children can pinpoint when their child(ren) started failing – and that usually coincides with when they recieved their vaccines. Does it have to be black and white? Can autism have more than one cause?? I don’t understand the rift between the two sets of parents. (For the record, my child is not autistic, although I only know parents of children who know their child’s autism was caused by the vaccine.)