Vienna, Virginia http://www.909shot.com
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
#9119
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Protecting the health and informed consent rights of
children since 1982.”
London - Britain’s Department of Health said on Tuesday
that a new study showing that the measles virus is present in children with a
new variant inflammatory bowel disease does not mean that the disease is linked
to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
As controversy over the safety of MMR continues to rage in
the UK, a Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters Health: “We will consider this
research as we always do. But it does not show a link with MMR vaccine.”
The latest research was posted in full on the Internet at http://www.molpath.com
after some findings were broadcast during a BBC television investigation of MMR
on Sunday. The study will be published in the April issue of Molecular
Pathology.
The authors include Andrew J. Wakefield, whose work at
London’s Royal Free Hospital in 1998 first raised fears that MMR vaccination
may trigger bowel disorders and autism in susceptible children.
The study was set up to investigate the presence of
persistent measles virus in children with ileocolonic lymphonodular
hyperplasia, which has been described in a cohort of children with
developmental disorder.
The results showed that 75 of 91 patients with a confirmed
diagnosis of ileocolonic lymphonodular hyperplasia and enterocolitis were
positive for measles virus in their intestinal tissue compared with only 5 of
70 control patients.
“The data confirm an association between the presence of
measles virus and gut pathology in children with developmental disorder,”
Professor John J. O’Leary of Coombe Women’s Hospital in Dublin and associates
conclude. The authors suggest that the virus may act as an immunological
trigger.
In a statement, Prof. O’Leary stressed that the research
did not set out to investigate the role of MMR in the development of either
bowel disease or developmental disorder, and “no conclusions about such a role could,
or should be, drawn from our findings.”
An accompanying editorial also advises against jumping to
any hasty conclusions about MMR.
“We are all aware of the public unease about a potential
link between vaccination with the triple vaccine MMR...and autism or bowel
inflammatory conditions, with some hundreds of parents of afflicted children
undertaking legal action against the manufacturers,” Drs. A. Morris and D.
Aldulaimi of the University of Warwick write.
But they add that it would be “entirely wrong” to jump to
the conclusion that the measles component of MMR causes the colitis or development
disorder. “Most if not all diseases are multifactorial in nature, and the data
here could equally be interpreted as indicating that the colitis or
developmental disorder ‘cause’ the persistence of the measles.”
The editors of Molecular Pathology, Professor John Crocker
and Dr. David Burnett, said that the
research was an important piece of work that draws conclusions entirely
consistent with the data, but that any link with MMR is not justified.
J Clin Pathol: Mol Pathol 2002:55;0-6.
The new Wakefield article can be viewed at:
http://jcp.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/55/1/DC1
COMMENTARY BY LENNY SHAFER OF FEAT (Families for Early
Autsim Treatment)
Going into the third day since medical researcher Andrew
Wakefield dropped a news concussion bomb with the publishing of his latest
findings of measles virus in 83% of autistic children, there has been virtually
a news black out in the US. With a
singular expectation, there has been no news in the press about the latest
development of an issue in the UK that has drawn in the government, the Prime
Minister, his infant son, and at least 2000 families with late onset autism,
the hyperbolic British press and the national health maintenance system into a
raging public Health debate.
The single report that we were able to find outside Europe
and the rest of the world, is a Reuter’s piece directed to professionals and
not consumers. The article leaves
autism out of the copy nearly altogether.
The article, with its curious spin is provided here below for the reader’s
aghast.
Also included below is a commentary from the medical
science journal where Wakefield has published his new research, which urges the
public not to hysterically leap to conclusions and read too much into this
latest information. The message is that
Wakefield’s work does not, they repeat, does not prove that MMR vaccines cause
autism, a point Wakefield did not even attempt to make in this research,
however.
“It doesn’t prove causation” agrees Barbara Loe Fisher of
the National Vaccine Information Center, “but it does go a long way to show an association.” In other word, we arguably have a smoking
gun.
The defenders can continue to argue that there is no solid
proof of a connection between vaccines and autism. However, there is enough evidence for a serious hypothesis. Given this latest addition to the puzzle of autism’s
etiology, it is now time for our public health officials to finally shift their
focus from spending the public’s money on research designed only to defend
vaccines, to research designed to get at the at the cause of autism.
The time is over for increasingly silly dismissals of the
autism epidemic. The time is over to
utterly ignore the eyewitness experiences of hundreds to thousands of parents
who have seen the children slip away only after the injections. The time is over for simply insisting that
there is no proof of a connection between certain vaccines and autism. This is not enough, for there is indeed
plenty of evidence to suggest there might be.
For public health officials to remain complacent in the face of this
growing evidence is simply not acceptable.
If our hypothesis about the causes of autism prove to be
wrong as the defenders insist, for us it will be back to the drawing board, for
we cannot join them in their complacency.
But if they prove to be wrong one cannot imagine the consequences. For after we find the cause, treatment and
cure for autism, there will be some matters of justice that wait.
* * *
Center and is supported through membership donations. Learn more about vaccines, diseases and how
to protect your informed
consent rights http://www.909shot.com
To unsubscribe from this list, send an email to news-request@909shot.com
and type UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the email.
NVIC is funded through individual membership donations and
does not receive government funding. Barbara Loe Fisher, President and
Co-founder.
NOTE: This is not an interactive e-mail list. Please do
not respond to messages.