E-NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER

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    UNITED WAY/COMBINED FEDERAL CAMPAIGN

                 #9119

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“Protecting the health and informed consent rights of children since 1982.”

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The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a critique of the Geiers'

paper on thimerosal. It can be accessed at

http://www.cispimmunize.org/pro/pdf/Geiersummary.pdf .

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Safe Minds Commentary on AAP Critique of Geier & Geier Thimerosal Paper

The American Academy of Pediatrics negative response to the Geier &

Geier article linking thimerosal in DTPs to autism and speech disorders

(http://www.cispimmunize.org/pro/pdf/Geiersummary.pdf) is not surprising

given the AAP's central role in promoting childhood immunizations.  In

an effort to clear thimerosal in vaccines of any role in

neurodevelopmental disorders when studies establishing thimerosal's

safety do not exist, the AAP relies on a number of distortions and

inaccuracies. Many points made in the response would need to be answered

by Drs. Geier & Geier, but several should be addressed immediately.

(a) The AAP paper asserts that the VAERS data base is only valid for

hypothesis generation. If so, then at the very least the Geiers' paper

should be viewed by the AAP as advancing a strong hypothesis. If they

were truly unbiased, the AAP should be asking for follow up controlled

trials to be initiated immediately to see if the hypothesis is true

rather than dismissing it out of hand.  Moreover, it is the AAP's own

members who do such a poor job of reporting adverse events to VAERS. If

the AAP were sincerely interested in vaccine safety investigations, they

could improve the quality of VAERS dramatically by requiring their

members to report.

(b) The AAP paper says “(Note: neither the original preliminary VSD

study of thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders nor any of the

follow-up expanded studies identified a “signal” indicating any

association between thimerosal and autism.)” This is simply not true.

The first VSD analysis gave a relative risk for autism of 2.48. The VSD

thimerosal study protocol, written by the authors before results were

in, clearly states that a RR higher than 2.0, even if not statistically

significant, constitutes a signal which should be investigated in a

phase II study that would confirm or not confirm the association. This

phase II study has never been initiated by CDC. In fact, there are no

“expanded” VSD studies - the CDC merely divided up the data sets from

the HMOs studied, which resulted in insufficient numbers of cases to

reach statistical significance for any given HMO.

(c) The AAP says: “Research to date involving refined, controlled

studies in large populations of patients has failed to demonstrate any

association between vaccines that may have used thimerosal as a

preservative and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism.” Again,

this statement is false. There are no large controlled studies which

have investigated thimerosal and developmental disorders. (The VSD

analysis was a retrospective cohort study.)

(d) The AAP critique explains that any study on this topic “must be

published in respected and widely read journals because of the great

general interest today in vaccine safety.” Yet they go on to cite the

recently published review by Nelson and Bauman in their own newsletter

which they assert “casts doubt on the biologic plausibility of symptom

similarities between mercury poisoning and autism.” The Nelson and

Bauman commentary was an invited article and was not subjected to peer

review.

(e) In what appears to be a Freudian slip, the AAP says “the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Pediatrics, National

Institutes of Health, and US Public Health Service have continued to

investigate this issue to put theoretic concerns about this

mercury-containing compound to rest.” It is hoped that these agencies

would be investigating this issue to find out the truth, not to lay the

issue to rest. The fact that these agencies have every reason to conduct

research with a hidden agenda is the reason why investigations of

thimerosal and vaccine safety need to be conducted by unbiased

researchers with no conflicts of interest.

(f) The AAP does admit that “Comparing the occurrence of late onset,

chronic conditions like autism by using acute vaccine reactions like

fever, pain, and vomiting...as controls makes no sense as a measure of

relative adverse event rates.” Given that late onset, chronic conditions

are very different from immediate, acute ones, perhaps the AAP could

voice support for requiring vaccine safety trials by manufacturers to

extend beyond the current practice of 60 days and to include monitoring

of chronic conditions. Then parents might have more confidence in the

never-ending assurances by the public health authorities that vaccines

are indeed safe.

Sallie Bernard

Safe Minds

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