►December 29, 2003 - Statement By Safe Minds On The Wall Street Journal Editorial of 12/29/03, "The Politics of Autism" - www.safeminds.org - "The December 29th editorial from the Wall Street Journal "The Politics of Autism: Lawsuits and emotion vs. science and childhood vaccines" is a misrepresentation of the actual facts surrounding the debate concerning autism and exposure to thimerosal, a mercury preservative used in some but not all infant vaccines. Instead of this being a "story of politics and lawyers trumping science and medicine" as alleged, it would be more accurately described as a story of how the pharmaceutical industry uses the media and politics to accomplish its goals.

►January 4, 2004 - Meningitis group urges child vaccinations - www.2theadvocate.com - "The chances of dying from bacterial meningitis, which has claimed the lives of two area teen-agers in the past month, are about one in a million in Louisiana, health officials said...But such odds, as small as they seem, are still too great for the National Meningitis Foundation."

Comment:  If there were no potential risks from meningitis vaccine, perhaps this would be a no-brainer.  But there are. (There have been 644 adverse meningitis vaccine-associated reactions, representing in all likelihood between 6,440 and 64,400 cases, reported to VAERS so far.)

►September 24, 1998 - International Conference on Harmonisation; Guidance on Viral Safety Evaluation of Biotechnology Products Derived From Cell Lines of Human or Animal Origin; Availability - FDA/HHS - "The risk of viral contamination is a feature common to all biotechnology products derived from cell lines. Such contamination could have serious clinical consequences and can arise from the contamination of the source cell lines themselves (cell substrates) or from adventitious introduction of virus during production. To date, however, biotechnology products derived from cell lines have not been implicated in the transmission of viruses. Nevertheless, it is expected that the safety of these products with regard to viral
contamination can be reasonably assured only by the application of a virus testing program and assessment of virus removal and inactivation achieved by the manufacturing process, as outlined below.

Comment:  Given how long SV40 has been implicated in human cancers, it is hard to understand how such a statement can be made.  For more on the problem of contamination of vaccines, see Scandals: On "mad cows" and sick monkeys: From the people who brought you SV40 in vaccines.....  For more on SV40 and cancer, go to Scandals: The Institute of Medicine Review Of SV40 Contamination of Polio Vaccine and Cancer

►January 2, 2004 - U.S. Army Buys $30 Million in Anthrax Shots - Reuters - "The Defense Department announced on Friday a $29.7 million order for anthrax vaccine based on the assumption that a federal judge's ban on mandatory inoculations will be reversed...Privately held BioPort Corp. of Lansing, Michigan, was awarded the Army order on Wednesday as part of a $245.6 million contract, the Pentagon said."

Comment:  If this isn't arrogance of power and doesn't show contempt for the taxpayer, I don't know what does.

►January 4, 2004 - Future Intranasal Vaccines - Medstar.com via http://rdu.new14.com

►January 4, 2004 - Nasal Flu Vaccine Gets Shot in the Arm - Newsday

►January 4, 2004 - We all have a stake in promoting vaccination - www.timesunion.com - "This year, several thousand people in New York state -- and 60,000 across the nation -- will die from diseases that we can prevent through vaccination. Polio, measles, rubella and diphtheria, once responsible for killing or harming thousands of children and adults, can be controlled through immunization...We have vaccines for more than 20 diseases. Sadly, despite these advances, thousands die every year from preventable diseases."

Comment:  Would that those who are concerned about death from diseases were equally concerned about death from vaccines.

►January 4, 2004 - India News: Andhra Pradesh takes up 'Pulse polio' immunisation - IANS via www.karalanext.com

►January 4, 2004 - India administers vaccine to millions of children to stem polio - AFP via Yahoo!

►January 3, 2004 - Free vaccine attracts few to flu clinic - 1,000 doses of spray available - The Journal Gazette via www.fortwayne.com - "Despite a near panic a month ago over news of a worsening flu epidemic and a national shortage of flu vaccine, Friday's free vaccine attracted few takers...By the end of the three-hour clinic Friday, officials had vaccinated only 176 people, plus some prisoners in the county jail. By contrast, hundreds were turned away from a clinic Dec. 10 when officials used up all 700 doses they had to offer."

►July 2001 - Technical Report: Mercury in the Environment: Implications for Pediatricians - AAP Policy Statement - "Ethylmercury, in the form of thimerosal, was formerly used as a topical antiseptic and has also been used as an effective preservative for killed vaccines and other biological agents for medical therapy. Thimerosal contains 49.6% mercury by weight and is metabolized to ethylmercury and thiosalicylate. Before fall 1999, there was 25 µg of mercury in each 0.5-mL dose of most diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis vaccines as well as some Haemophilus influenzae type b, influenza, meningococcal, pneumococcal, and rabies vaccines. In addition, there was 12.5 µg of mercury in each dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The reference doses* established by federal agencies were between 0.1 and 0.4 µg/kg/d.^6,19 Assuming that the toxicity of ethylmercury is similar to that of methylmercury, the exposure from a single vaccination could potentially exceed federal guidelines for that day and, with routine immunization, a cumulative dose of up to 75 µg of mercury by 3 months of age and 187.5 µg by 6 months of age could have been received."

►January 3, 2004 - Guardsman who refused vaccine to be deployed - AP via www.newarkadvocate.com - "An Ohio National Guard member convicted of disobeying a direct order by refusing to be vaccinated against anthrax is expected to be deployed next week with his unit, the guard said Friday."

►January 3, 2004 - Leading With The Jab To Beat Killers - This Is Staffordshire - "North Staffordshire babies receive the most protection in Britain against three potential killer diseases. The area has come top of a national league table recording the proportion of each district's population volunteering their infants to have the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine."

►January 3, 2004 - MMR vaccine take-up rate will cost lives - The Ham & High Network - "A Top Royal Free doctor has warned that many children will die because of the poor take-up of rate of the MMR vaccine."

Autism-related, developmental/behavioral issues

►January 4, 2004 - Mercury labeling expected to have national impact - The Times Argus Online - "Manufacturers have started labeling fluorescent lamps to be sold in Vermont as containing mercury to abide by Vermont's first-in-the-nation mercury labeling law...The move is expected to have a national impact."

Comment: But don't fret about injecting (large doses of) mercury into the bodies of infants and children!  It's a harmless neurotoxin that is used in vaccines!

►January 3, 2004 - Glossary - Glossary Some of the more common mental illnesses found in children: - Rocky Mountain News

►January 3, 2004 - Program offers dental care for disabled -A grant to the UOP School of Dentistry helps link practitioners with those who need the services. - The Sacramento Bee

►January 3, 2004 - Information for clinicians: General questions and answers about the 2003-2004 influenza season - General Questions and Answers - CDC via www.vidyya.com

►January 3, 2004 - Shakes, Aches, and Chills - Flu Symptoms on the Rise in Florida, Polk - State has widespread levels of illness, health department officials say. - The Ledger

►January 3, 2004 - Flu may be cause of eight deaths of children in Georgia - AP via Ledger-Enquirer

►January 4, 2004 - Beating cancer nature's way - In a week that's seen the deaths of Bob Monkhouse, Alan Bates and Dinsdale Landen, all victims of cancer, here is a story of one man's successful - if unorthodox - struggle against the disease - The Guardian, UK

►January 3, 2004 - Clinical guidance on the identification and evaluation of possible SARS-CoV disease among persons presenting with community-acquired illness - CDC via www.vidyya.com

►January 3, 2004 - Persistently abnormal liver function tests: Marker of occult hepatitis C? - The Journal of Infectious Diseases via www.vidyya.com

►January 3, 2004 - East meets West with a traditional herbal cure for jaundice - Journal of Clinical Investigation via www.vidyya.com

►January 4, 2004 - Colorado State funded for bioterrorism data - The Boston Globe

►January 4, 2004 - Seattle Research On Herpes Drug Could Help Combat Aids - Seattle Post-Intelligencer via www.pharmacytimes.com

►January 4, 2004 - Is It Safe? - New beef rules aim to stop mad cow disease. But they may not be enough--and there's too much we don't know - www.usnews.com

►January 2, 2004 - Virus Seen in Muscle from Chronic Fatigue Patients - Journal of Medical Virology via Reuters Health - "A persistent enterovirus infection in muscles may be to blame for some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome (sometimes called fibromyalgia) and others with chronic inflammatory muscle disease, a French team reports...They detected genetic material (specifically RNA) from enteroviruses in 20 percent of muscle biopsies from patients with chronic inflammatory muscle diseases and 13 percent of patients with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue syndrome, but not from healthy volunteers...The findings favor a persistent infection involving defective viral replication as a cause of these conditions."

►January 3, 2004 - Mad cow testing questioned by disease experts - AP via Billings Gazette

►January 3, 2004 - Local cattleman, state officials watch mad cow disease reaction - News-Bulletin

►January 4, 2004 - Food culprits that dwarf mad-cow toll - Knight Ridder via The Seattle Times - "In the days since mad-cow disease was announced in the United States, more than 1 million Americans were sickened by food they ate. About 6,000 became so ill they were hospitalized and nearly 100 died, according to federal health estimates...But mad-cow disease wasn't the culprit. Indeed, not a single American is known to have contracted the human form of the disease from eating food in this country...Instead, salmonella, E. coli, listeria and other dangerous bacteria routinely take a huge toll on public health, yet receive little of the attention now focused on the beef from one Washington state Holstein found infected with mad-cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE."

►January 4, 2004 - The new you - How to feel well, look better and improve your life this year - www.sunspot.net - "Get eight hours of sleep a night. The National Sleep Foundation estimates a 10 to 35 percent drop in antibodies and immune cells when you're sleep-deprived...Stop using anti-bacterial hand and dish soaps; they may be strengthening germs and weakening our immune systems."

►January 3, 2004 - Local group to host neuropathy experts - Houston Chronicle

*Note:  Starting December 10, 2003 news will be posted in the "daily news" pages based on when it was posted on this website, not by publication date.