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SCHAFER AUTISM REPORT "Healing Autism:
No Finer a Cause
on the Planet"
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MEDIA
* Vaccines: A Hidden Danger?: WXYZ-TV News,
Investigation: Autism and Informed
Inoculation
PARTS 1, 2 & 3
COMMENTARY
* A History of Surgical Hubris and Modern Pediatrogenic Medicine
ADVOCACY - More From the Autism Summit
Conference
* Rapid Spread Of
Autism Baffling
* Science Gives Hope To
Families Facing Autism
* Governor Announces Appointments To The
Vaccines: A Hidden Danger?: WXYZ-TV News,
Watch The
Entire Three-Part Investigation http://real.scripps.com:8480/ramgen/archive/wxyz/2003/thimerosal.rm
PART 1
Investigation: Autism and
Informed Inoculation
[Reported by Steve
Wilson. Web produced by Jennifer DiDomenico.]
Watch Investigation http://real.scripps.com:8480/ramgen/archive/wxyz/2003/thimerosal1.rm
Starting just hours after birth with an
inoculation for Hepatitis B, followed with more week after week, a healthy
infant gets at least 20 shots in its first 6 months of life.
If you've adhered to today's government
recommendations your child has received more than 30 vaccinations, many more
than health officials recommended just a dozen years ago.
"Mainstream medicine recommends
first and foremost, people get vaccinated and so I got vaccinated, I hope
you'll get vaccinated this flu season to protect against the flu," Dr.
David Johnson, Dep. Dir. of Michigan Dept. of Community Health advises.
"We all feel comfortable that the
benefits of the vaccination program far outweigh any potential risks,"
asserts Dr. Benjamin Schwartz at
"My husband is a physician. I'm a
nurse practitioner. We're a medical family," mother Lynn Redwood tells
Action News. "I've preached vaccines for years. I've administered
vaccines. I'm not advocating not vaccinating the children. What I'm asking for
is for safer vaccines," she adds.
Lynn and a growing number of others are
worried about something called Thimerosal, a substance that has been added to
vaccines for years as a preservative or sterilizing agent. Thimerosal is half mercury, similar to what's
in blood pressure devices. Next to
uranium, mercury is the most toxic substance known to man.
But according to Dr. Schwartz, concerns
over mercury do not need to interfere with the vaccinations recommended today
for you and your children. "We worked with the vaccine manufacturers to
get Thimerosal completely out of the childhood vaccination schedule," Dr.
Schwartz says.
Dr. Gary Freed, MD, the U-M Chief of
Pediatrics, agrees. "In this country, we've removed Thimerosal from the
vaccines that are given to children," Freed also advises.
Others find fault with these statements.
"It is not out of the vaccines," researcher David Geier
told Action News. "It is clearly in many of the vaccines given to children
and it's not one or two. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of children
that are receiving the full amount of Thimerosal from some of the vaccines
today." The "full amount"
refers to the levels injected into American children for many years, until
Congress demanded that the FDA look at just how much mercury was adding up from
shot after shot. Although vaccine makers
were encouraged but not ordered to remove Thimerosal four years ago, many vaccines
doctors recommend do still contain it. The parents we talked to point to
persuasive lines of evidence that suggest a link between learning disabilities
as serious as autism and repeated injection of vaccines that contain mercury.
Parent Lynn Redwood suspects that mercury
may be responsible for her son's autism. "My son was born completely
normal, walking, talking, meeting all his developmental landmarks,"
"It was a very subtle, slow sort of
decline down a slippery slope into autism,"
allowable exposure to
mercury." Put another way, a
patient would have to
weigh 284 pounds to safely ingest
that much mercury and not exceed EPA safety guidelines. Little Will weighed
only 11 pounds.
Right here in
"Loss of communication skills,
affection skills, everything he had known prior to the onset was gone,"
Ken recalls. "His verbal communication was completely gone. His eye
contact was no longer there. He isolated
himself from everything and
everyone." "He was perfectly
healthy until we
a day when we took him in for
numerous vaccines. A perfectly healthy child. I mean
he could be the Gerber baby," Carolyn Gammacca
says of her son Nicholas.
Carolyn concedes her son may well have
had some genetic predisposition to autism when he got four vaccinations in one
day at age two 10 years ago. "But we believe that one day is when we lost
our child," Carolyn says.
"After that, he wasn't
the same." To Dr. Boyd Haley, the
Chief of the
Chemistry Department at the
"You know, you never have an
absolute answer but I'm sitting here saying, 'look, you're injecting these kids
with one of the most neurotoxic compounds that we
have available to ourselves and the rate of autism went up with the increased
number of injections of this material into a child'," Dr. Haley
contends. So why are so many medical
associations and health professionals, even at the best medical facilities in
America, soft-pedaling concerns and sometimes providing inaccurate or
misleading information, as they did when our producer called and spoke to a registered
nurse? She was told by one RN that regardless of which shot she gets, there
won't be mercury in the shot. That is not true.
In fact, when mercury-free vaccines are
available-as they are with the flu shots now being pushed for you and your
children- you're frequently not even told you have a choice.
"It is a policy that we make those
vaccines, both the Thimerosal-containing and the Thimerosal-free, available to
our patients," Dr. Freed argues. He is the same doctor who earlier claimed
that Thimerasol has been removed from childhood
vaccines, but now admits you can avoid it if you know enough to ask.
"The biggest danger is that people
won't vaccinate their children, whether it be because of mercury or for any
other purpose, because once people stop vaccinating their children, they place
their children at risk of severe, life-threatening, preventable diseases,"
Dr. Freed says, in response to our argument that a policy does not exist to let
parents know that both types of vaccine are available. Many vaccines still contain Thimerosal.
Levels of the substance have been removed or dramatically reduced in some, but
not all, cases. If it's a risk you want to avoid, it is apparently up to you to
ask for mercury-free vaccines. Here is an important point to
remember: Action News found nothing
to support a conclusion that all vaccines should be avoided. Our point is that
your healthcare provider may not be telling you all you need to know to decide
exactly which inoculations are right for you and your children.
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* *
PART 2
Investigation: Autism and
Informed Inoculation
Watch this report: http://real.scripps.com:8480/ramgen/archive/wxyz/2003/thimerosal2.rm
Starting just hours after birth with an
inoculation for Hepatitis B, followed with more week after week, a healthy
infant gets at least 20 shots in its first 6 months of life.
If you've adhered to today's government
recommendations your child has received more than 30 vaccinations, many more
than health officials recommended just a dozen years ago.
"Mainstream medicine recommends
first and foremost, people get vaccinated and so I got vaccinated, I hope
you'll get vaccinated this flu season to protect against the flu," Dr.
David Johnson, Dep. Dir. of Michigan Dept. of Community Health advises.
"We all feel comfortable that the
benefits of the vaccination program far outweigh any potential risks,"
asserts Dr. Benjamin Schwartz at
"My husband is a physician. I'm a
nurse practitioner. We're a medical family," mother Lynn Redwood tells
Action News. "I've preached vaccines for years. I've administered
vaccines. I'm not advocating not vaccinating the children. What I'm asking for
is for safer vaccines," she adds.
Lynn and a growing number of others are
worried about something called Thimerosal, a substance that has been added to
vaccines for years as a preservative or sterilizing agent. Thimerosal is half mercury, similar to what's
in blood pressure devices. Next to
uranium, mercury is the most toxic substance known to man.
But according to Dr. Schwartz, concerns
over mercury do not need to interfere with the vaccinations recommended today
for you and your children. "We worked with the vaccine manufacturers to
get Thimerosal completely out of the childhood vaccination schedule," Dr.
Schwartz says.
Dr. Gary Freed, MD, the U-M Chief of
Pediatrics, agrees. "In this country, we've removed Thimerosal from the
vaccines that are given to children," Freed also advises.
Others find fault with these statements.
"It is not out of the vaccines," researcher David Geier
told Action News. "It is clearly in many of the vaccines given to children
and it's not one or two. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of children
that are receiving the full amount of Thimerosal from some of the vaccines
today." The "full amount"
refers to the levels injected into American children for many years, until
Congress demanded that the FDA look at just how much mercury was adding up from
shot after shot. Although vaccine makers
were encouraged but not ordered to remove Thimerosal four years ago, many
vaccines doctors recommend do still contain it. The parents we talked to point
to persuasive lines of evidence that suggest a link between learning
disabilities as serious as autism and repeated injection of vaccines that
contain mercury.
Parent Lynn Redwood suspects that mercury
may be responsible for her son's autism. "My son was born completely
normal, walking, talking, meeting all his developmental landmarks,"
"It was a very subtle, slow sort of
decline down a slippery slope into autism,"
allowable exposure to
mercury." Put another way, a
patient would have to
weigh 284 pounds to safely ingest
that much mercury and not exceed EPA safety guidelines. Little Will weighed
only 11 pounds.
Right here in
"Loss of communication skills,
affection skills, everything he had known prior to the onset was gone,"
Ken recalls. "His verbal communication was completely gone. His eye
contact was no longer there. He isolated
himself from everything and
everyone." "He was perfectly
healthy until we
a day when we took him in for
numerous vaccines. A perfectly healthy child. I mean
he could be the Gerber baby," Carolyn Gammacca
says of her son Nicholas.
Carolyn concedes her son may well have
had some genetic predisposition to autism when he got four vaccinations in one
day at age two 10 years ago. "But we believe that one day is when we lost
our child," Carolyn says.
"After that, he wasn't
the same." To Dr. Boyd Haley, the
Chief of the
Chemistry Department at the
"You know, you never have an
absolute answer but I'm sitting here saying, 'look, you're injecting these kids
with one of the most neurotoxic compounds that we
have available to ourselves and the rate of autism went up with the increased
number of injections of this material into a child'," Dr. Haley
contends. So why are so many medical
associations and health professionals, even at the best medical facilities in
America, soft-pedaling concerns and sometimes providing inaccurate or
misleading information, as they did when our producer called and spoke to a
registered nurse? She was told by one RN that regardless of which shot she
gets, there won't be mercury in the shot. That is not true.
In fact, when mercury-free vaccines are
available-as they are with the flu shots now being pushed for you and your
children- you're frequently not even told you have a choice.
"It is a policy that we make those
vaccines, both the Thimerosal-containing and the Thimerosal-free, available to
our patients," Dr. Freed argues. He is the same doctor who earlier claimed
that Thimerasol has been removed from childhood
vaccines, but now admits you can avoid it if you know enough to ask.
"The biggest danger is that people
won't vaccinate their children, whether it be because of mercury or for any
other purpose, because once people stop vaccinating their children, they place
their children at risk of severe, life-threatening, preventable diseases,"
Dr. Freed says, in response to our argument that a policy does not exist to let
parents know that both types of vaccine are available. Many vaccines still contain Thimerosal.
Levels of the substance have been removed or dramatically reduced in some, but
not all, cases. If it's a risk you want to avoid, it is apparently up to you to
ask for mercury-free vaccines. Here is an important point to
remember: Action News found nothing
to support a conclusion that all vaccines should be avoided. Our point is that
your healthcare provider may not be telling you all you need to know to decide
exactly which inoculations are right for you and your children.
Thimerosal: it has been added to
vaccines as a preservative so they can be made in non-sterile environments
since the early 30's. But as health officials have recommended more and more
inoculations for children, it was discovered just a few years ago that the
cumulative effect of all those shots resulted in children getting up to more
than 100 times the amount of mercury the EPA considers safe. Learn More Part 3: Autism
and Informed Inoculation Watch
Investigation There are a few things on which everyone agrees, like the
dangerous toxicity of mercury. Yet, for years, it has been injected into
children and adults, as an additive that preserves and sterilizes vaccines.
Why? So vaccine makers can save what we're told may be a dollar a dose
by not having to produce the vaccines in sterile conditions, and to extend
shelf life. Yet, this additive called Thimerosal could be leading to lasting
harm.
* *
PART 3
Autism and Informed
Inoculation
Watch Investigation: http://real.scripps.com:8480/ramgen/archive/wxyz/2003/thimerosal3.rm
Is a toxic
additive in vaccines responsible for autism and other neurological damage in
our children and also a hazard to any of us getting a flu shot this season?
There is now more science that's far from settled.
There are a few things on which everyone
agrees, like the dangerous toxicity of mercury. Yet, for years, it has been
injected into children and adults, as an additive that preserves and sterilizes
vaccines.
Why? So vaccine makers can save what
we're told may be a dollar a dose by not having to produce the vaccines in
sterile conditions, and to extend shelf life. Yet, this additive called
Thimerosal could be leading to lasting harm.
Dr. Benjamin Schwartz, from the Centers for Disease Control, maintains,
"There are no good scientific data that support any association whatsoever
between Thimerosal and autism.”
This is what government health officers
say when they put on their uniforms and talk to reporters… But what they say
when they take an oath to tell the truth to Congress is a different story.
"We can neither accept nor reject a
causal relationship. We don't know one way or the other…”
Studies have shown that a small amount of
mercury can destroy or damage living brain neurons in less than 30 minutes,
leaving only what scientists call denuded neurofibrils. But even with these studies, the government
has only recommended, not ordered, the removal of mercury, and it remains in
many serums.
Rep. Dan Burton, of
So why do doctors still recommend
vaccines containing Thimerosal? A large part is because information provided to
physicians by vaccine makers, groups like the
Mark Blaxill,
of SAFE MINDS, told investigators, "…there's conflict of interest. The
data is wrong. The methods are flawed and the studies are inconsistent from one
to the other.”
Mark Blaxill is
no scientist, but his Ivy League education has helped him scrutinize the recent
studies like the latest one. He has come to agree with another
For starters, there was an undisclosed
conflict of interest. The author of the study that found no link between
Thimerosal and autism now works for a major vaccine maker and lives in
And at a conference center in the
Blaxill said,
"The transcript [of that debate] says the primary investigator gets up
there and says, 'I think it's true. It's Thimerosal.' And then the rest of the
people in the meeting are saying, 'Boy, I don't, we don't want this to come
out,' or someone will say 'Geeze, I've seen enough
that I don't want my grandson to get the Thimerosal vaccine but I don't want to
tell the public that they shouldn't take their child,' so there's a double
standard inside these private, secret meetings.”
Obtained under the federal Freedom of
Information act, the transcript of that debate essentially confirms Blaxill's description.
Another scientist at the meeting said, "You can play with this
(data) all you want. They are statistically significant.”
An email obtained by Action News from the
researcher Dr. Thomas Verstraten to colleagues
shortly after the meeting stated, "…I feel we should use sound scientific
argumentation and not let our standards be dictated by our desire to disprove
an unpleasant theory.”
Yet when these meetings drew to a close,
and the scientists left the conference center in
Dr. Mark Geier
told investigators, "Do you know what else? They lied about it. They used
an absolute trick and I'll tell you what the trick was and I can show you the
data." A researcher whose work
suggests there is a link between Thimerosal in vaccines and neurological disorders
says they cooked the books in the latest study. He claims after they confirmed
the link in the first two groups they studied in the west, they went east to
Dr. Schwartz said, "…there was an
extremely important and well done study from
Yet, this other "study" has
been scrutinized, too. According to Mark Blaxill,
"There's something rotten in
Blaxill says
the study the CDC likes to cite has been published in three different forms,
and a big concern with all of them is that, "They are funded or authored
or resourced and influenced by a Danish vaccine manufacturer that makes all of
its money on its exports of vaccines.”
Blaxill also
says that he's carefully tracked all the authors of those Danish studies and
found they're all somehow connected and knee-deep in conflicts of interest.
Others have raised additional questions
about the registry, which is the Danish database on which the study relied. Lyn
Redwood, the parent of an autistic child, told investigative reporters,
"…and the older children in that registry were lost. They lost something
like 25% of the children['s records] a year out of
that registry… [the children are] no longer in it and you can look at the
documents that, the analysis of that data, whereas the older kids,
and those were the ones that had the Thimerosal exposure, they mysteriously are
missing now out of that database.”
But the bottom line for Congressman Dan
Burton, whose own grandson is autistic as a result of mercury in vaccines,
believes that whether or not there is a study to prove a link, they shouldn't
continue lacing vaccines with an inadequately tested toxin.
There are vaccines without Thimerosal, or
just a trace. Using these, according to the
We appreciate your comments, compliments,
and questions.
Click here to e-mail us.
talkback@wxyztv.com
All material © 2001
WXYZ-TV Scripps Howard Broadcasting Company.
* * *
COMMENTARY
By Robert Meyer
A History of Surgical Hubris
and Modern Pediatrogenic Medicine
When we scratch our heads and wonder why
the medical establishment has added the thimerosal-containing flu vaccine to
the infant / toddler schedule amongst the concerns of US Congress (since 1999)
and many scientists and doctors we can look to history for some of the answer.
I read about this fascinating doctor, Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis,
M.D. in Bob Barefoot's Book "Death by
Diet." I then found two pages on
him in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. (Also see:
http://www.temple.edu/epiworks/washhands/profile.htm)
After he encouraged hand washing before surgery in
Reluctance to Change
That is what continued to kill woman
having babies delivered in the hospitals by the doctors. The midwifery wing of
the same hospital did not have the severity of the problem nor did those who
were delivering at home.
So, what was the
History has many answers.
So, when you leave the hospital or
doctors office with your autistic child, think of Dr. Semmelweis,
and the lives he saved by standing up for scientific cause and effect medicine,
now considered common sense. The DAN
protocol, procedures for treating children with autism with experimental
detoxifications, supplements and diets, has been written by the Dr. Semmelweis' of our day.
These hold some measure of relief for our suffering children. Get the
protocol and read, and don't stop there.
Your child is where your responsibility is at. The Defeat Autism Now! protocol can be found at The Autism Research Institute, http://www.autism.com/ari/ .
Dr. Semmelwies
is said to have gone insane as a result of his inability to understand why
physician’s "pride" and "reluctance to change" took
precedence over the health of their patients.
So be careful, don't expect things to
change overnight. A generation will have
to die off prior to science here taking hold again. Until then, consider it common sense.
Doctors and Congressional Concern
Highlighted Below:
(1) http://www.house.gov/weldon/issues/autism.pdf
(2) http://momsonamissionforautism.org/Autism_Central/Dr_Weldon_Responds.shtml
(3) http://momsonamissionforautism.org/Autism_Central/CDC_Scandal_Emerges.shtml
[The opinions expressed in COMMENTARIES
are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions and
FEELINGS of those who contribute to the creation of the Schafer Autism Report.]
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* * *
ADVOCACY - More From the
Autism Summit Conference
Rapid Spread Of Autism Baffling
Increase creates a big
financial burden for state, summit is told.
[By David Whitney of
the
Rick Rollens,
co-founder of the UC Davis MIND Institute for research into autism, told the
first-ever Autism Summit Conference that since January the state has been
adding an average of 11 a day to its list of severely autistic children
qualifying for state-financed services.
At an average lifetime cost of $4
million each, Rollens said the growth rate represents
$44 million a day in long-term state liability.
“In the first nine months of 2003, over
$1 billion in taxpayer liability has been added,” said Rollens,
the former secretary of the California Senate who now is a leading national
advocate for the autistic, including his 13-year-old son, Russell.
Autism typically affects a person's
ability to communicate, form relationships and respond appropriately to the
external world. It has a wide range of symptoms, sometimes so mild as to allow
a child to function in a regular classroom with special services and at other
times so severe that a child cannot speak and is institutionalized. It is three
times more prevalent in males.
Four years ago, Rollens
shocked Congress in reporting on a state study that found the incidence of the
disorder was up 300 percent in a decade. Its spread has more than doubled since
then, he reported Thursday.
Rollens spoke
at the national summit on autism that drew people from around the country.
Among the speakers were Education Secretary Rod Paige and Health and Human
Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.
But in sessions dealing with the grim
details of the worldwide epidemic, researchers said they were no closer to
knowing why so many more children are being afflicted with the disorder now
than a decade ago, a year ago and even a few months ago.
Rollens'
figures from
Judith Grether,
a
But she said there is no scientific
certainty behind any of the numbers because there is no single source for the
data.
The MIND Institute in
A leading suspect is preservatives in serums
used in inoculations against childhood diseases, but Rollens
said the evidence for that is mostly coincidental because the rapid increase in
autism began about the time the state began requiring proof of inoculations
before children could enter public schools.
The cause also could be linked to
household chemicals or chemicals that make their way into common foods. And
although there is agreement that the earliest intervention by behavioral
psychologists can make a dramatic difference in a child's prognosis and future
care needs, in some children the first evidence of the disorder doesn't appear
until age 4 or 5.
“We have to develop tests that can be
given at birth that tell us to start treatment now,” said Kathleen Berry of Elk
Grove, an advocate for Families of Early Autism Treatment with two autistic
children of her own.
* * *
Science Gives Hope To Families Facing Autism
[By Clara Sturak,
Associate editor,
Today and tomorrow, November 19 and 20, an historic meeting of heath professionals, scientists,
elected officials, bureaucrats, parents and autistic individuals will take
place in
Autism is a brain disorder that begins in
early childhood and persists throughout adulthood. It affects three crucial
areas of development: communication, social interaction, and creative or
imaginative play. For individuals and families facing the disorder, it’s much
more than the sum of its parts.
You may have read the frightening new
statistics: incidences of autism spectrum disorders in the
A little late in coming for autistic
folks and their families who, for the last 50 years, have lived in a
no-man’s-land — surviving with a disability virtually ignored by science,
living with the most “mysterious” of conditions, isolated from friends and
neighbors, and shunned by society – but incredibly hopeful for all members of
the ever-expanding autism community.
One of the most frustrating things to
scientists and families alike is just how complex autism seems to be. There is
no one answer for what causes autism, nor one method
proven to best “manage” it, and there is no known cure. In fact, during the
“Journey to Solutions” conference in Pasadena last weekend, more than one
researcher stated that autism is likely not even one disorder, but rather a set
of symptoms that could be caused by any number of things. (The head spins…)
But, today, for the first time,
scientists aren’t letting that intimidate them, nor are they allowing the
infighting and competition that has been science’s MO keep them from
collaborating.
The final day of the conference focused
on new research, and representatives from three organizations founded by
parents of autistic children – the National Alliance for Autism Research, Cure
Autism Now and the M.I.N.D. Institute — shared the work their scientists are
engaging in.
+ Article continues:
http://www.smmirror.com/volume5/issue23/science_gives_hope.asp
* * *
Governor Announces
Appointments To The
http://www.state.oh.us/gov/releases/112103autismappts.htm
The Ohio Autism Task Force is a
newly-created task force to study and make recommendations regarding the
growing incidence of autism in
_________________________________________________________________
Lenny Schafer, Editor mailto:edit@doitnow.com
Edward Decelie
Debbie Hosseini Richard Miles Ron Sleith
Kay Stammers
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