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PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:

February 24, 2003
 

Angry Parents and Advocacy Groups Demand that the EPA Release the Original Children's Health Report Delayed Nine Months by White House.

WALL STREET JOURNAL AND NEW YORK TIMES SAY REPORT GIVES NEW INFORMATION ON HOW MERCURY CAUSES NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS IN CHILDREN.

Washington, DC - Sources say the not-yet-released Children's Health Report conducted by the EPA is actually a revised second draft. Parents, already upset by the report's nine-month delay from the White House, are now fuming over the apparent watered-down version set to hit the public this afternoon.

Last Friday, an article in the Wall Street Journal stated the EPA report warns that emissions of mercury by coal-fired power plants and other sources poses an increasing health danger to children. In a similar article, the New York Times said that the EPA report, the federal government's second comprehensive assessment on children's health that weighs environmental and biological factors, was delayed nine months at the request of the White House.

The EPA report is said to be a "benchmark for the government to deal with the hazards of mercury, which scientists have linked to developmental I.Q. deficits and motor skill dysfunction, and which is suspected to play a role in attention deficit disorder and autism." Sources say it was the mercury portion of the report that caused the most dispute and subsequent delay, and that the OMB, headed up by former Eli Lilly executive Mitch Daniels, and the OSTP made "numerous changes" to the already-edited second draft of the report.

Last October, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) urged the Bush Administration to release the EPA report. A press release from Senator Boxer's office states, "OMB requested the document from EPA in June even though it contains no policy, regulatory, or spending recommendations, and it has yet to be released."  In her letters to OMB Director Mitch Daniels and EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, Senator Boxer said, "I question whether it is appropriate for a scientific document on children's health to be singled out by OMB for review by non-scientists. If the review results in major changes to the scientific findings, it will set a dangerous precedent that will have a chilling effect on legitimate scientific inquiries and policy analyses not just at EPA, but across all federal agencies."

Senator Boxer asked the report be released publicly by November 15 which never happened. It is believed that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had the same request last month.

Parents of children who developed neurological problems after receiving the vaccine preservative ethyl mercury Thimerosal feel this is just another shameless tactic by the White House to suppress evidence linking mercury-containing vaccines to autism. Just this month congress repealed a provision quietly slipped into the Homeland Security Bill that granted legal protection to vaccine-makers from Thimerosal litigation. Lori McIlwain, mother of a child with autism, says, "Senator Frist, Mitch Daniels and the Bush Administration are going to do whatever it takes to make this problem go away---even if it means children will go another nine months without relief from the effects of mercury."

Parents are demanding the original report be released immediately.

To learn more about the evidence supporting a connection between mercury and autism, visit www.momsonamissionforautism.org, www.safeminds.org, www.altcorp.com, and www.autismautoimmunityproject.org.

For more information contact:

Lori McIlwain

lmcilwain@msn.com

919-468-6455

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ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.