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January 23, 2002 News Morgue Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp
· Childhood Immunizations Mandates: Politics vs. Public Health
· Institute of Medicine: Immunization Safety Review
· Network Of Brain Regions Linked To Imitating Others
Childhood Immunizations Mandates: Politics vs. Public Health
Rollens Testimony on Mandatory Vaccines
Last spring, two bills were defeated, in large part by testimony and lobbying efforts by myself and Dawn Winkler before the California State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. One of the bills would have added two doses of Hepatitis A vaccine to the mandatory childhood immunization schedule, the other bill would have added four doses of Prevnar.
Together, passage of these bills would have added an additional six shots to an already overburdened childhood immunization schedule. The defeat of these bills was the first time in California’s history that the Legislature said no to new vaccine mandates. The Committee called for a hearing on the subject of mandated vaccine policy. Below is the testimony autism research advocate Rick Rollens presented to the Committee at the hearing this week.
Also testifying is Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Project.
Testimony Russell’s story, one child every three hours, the ultimate
betrayal by Rick Rollens
California State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services
Senator Deborah Ortiz, Chair
“Childhood Immunizations Mandates: Politics vs. Public Health”
Madame Chair and Members: My name is Rick Rollens. As many of you know, I recently worked right here in this building for over two decades for the Senate serving in various capacities including chief of staff to a Senator, chief consultant to the Senate Rules Committee, Director and creator of the Office of Senate Floor Analyses, and as Secretary of the Senate. My 23 year tenure with the Senate came to an end in 1996 when I resigned my position as Secretary of the Senate in order to further dedicate myself to the pursuit of effective treatments and a cure for my beloved son, Russell. I am here today to share with you the story of my son’s case of vaccine induced autism, the exploding autism epidemic in California, and the politics of vaccination/public health policy.
Russell began his life as a normal, healthy, and robust child, meeting all his age appropriate milestones. At seven months old, after receiving a series of vaccines including his third DPT and first HIB vaccine, Russell began the slow and insidious process of slipping into the world of autism. Within hours of those shots, Russell began a nonstop 10 day period of high pitch screaming, fevers and listlessness...conditions that his pediatrician nor anyone else in the medical practice ever recognized as an adverse vaccine reaction.
After seven short months of normal development in this world, Russell’s life had changed forever, as well as the lives of all who know and love him. Even today nearly 10 years later, the physical pain and suffering that Russell experienced after those shots continues to be part of his daily life. Physical pain is something that all children with vaccine induced autism suffer from. Within days after his first MMR vaccination Russell began his final journey into the abyss of regressive autism - losing most of his remaining skills, developing severe sleep disruptions, chronic gastrointestinal problems, autoimmune problems, a worsening of his already disturbing behaviors, and suffering pain exhibited by harrowing days of endless crying. Within months, Russell was officially diagnosed with autism.
After months of medical investigation of Russell’s condition, including state-of-the-art brain scans, hundreds of tests and immunological and neurological work-ups, we consulted a noted pediatric neurologist who thoroughly examined Russell and reviewed all of Russell’s medical history. He advised us that in part, Russell’s brain dysfunction had very likely occurred as a result of some form of encephalitis resulting in bilateral hypometabolism in the temporal lobes of his brain.
Based on years of extensive medical investigation that had been done on my son, along with the strong temporal relationship between the timing of the vaccinations he received, the reactions to the vaccines, and the onset of the symptoms of his condition, as well as the scientifically based knowledge that one of the many serious adverse effects of certain vaccines is brain swelling and encephalitis… I believe that Russell is a victim of vaccine induced autism. My story is not unique. I would challenge each of you to talk to many of your own constituents who are the rapidly growing number of parents of children with autism. I can assure you that you will hear first hand accounts from a disturbing number of these parents of a normally developing child, the introduction and reaction to a vaccine or multiple vaccines, the timing of their children’s regression and vaccination, and the onset of the multitude of other medical conditions and complications that accompany this acquired autistic condition.
Since 1980, the number of new cases of autism in California has and continues to increase at an alarming rate. Throughout the past 22 years, California has experienced an increasing epidemic of autism, precisely during the same time period that we aggressively added 14 additional doses of vaccines to the mandated childhood immunization schedule and increased the frequency of vaccines given at a younger and younger age.
Over 80% (8 out of 10) persons in the entire system with autism were born after 1980...the same year as California law mandated for the first time that all children provide proof of immunizations before entering school, therefore requiring for the first time that all California children entering school receive the full complement of the then 23 mandated doses of vaccines in 1980. The Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine was also added to the mandated childhood immunization schedule in 1979-1980 as well.
According to data from the Department of Developmental Services (DDS), autism is now the number one disability entering California’s developmental services system. 2001 brought yet another in a series of annual 20% increases over the previous year. As documented in a Report to the Legislature in 1999 by DDS, autism increased 273% over a recent 11 year period while the population of California grew by only 19% and other disabilities including mental retardation experienced predictable, population adjusted increases. Over the three year period since the release of the Report in 1999, California has added an additional 6,600 new cases of fully diagnosed autism.
In a system that DDS estimates will cost taxpayers well over $2 million for each new child with autism, 2 out of 3 persons with autism in California’s system today are young children between the ages of 3 and 13 years old. California’s developmental services system is currently adding, on average, 8 new children with autism a day, 7 days a week, or one new child every three hours.
Vaccines contain numerous potent and neuro toxic agents such as live viruses cultured in animal tissues, genetically engineered bacterial agents, preservatives, and extremely toxic chemicals including aluminum, formaldehyde, and mercury. As you heard in testimony here today, our children are exposed to 37 doses of these concoctions beginning HOURS after birth, with the majority of exposure to these potent toxic agents administered during the first year of life in multiple doses - all of this happening at the worst possible time, as it is the most critical time of brain, neurological, and immune system development.
It should provide no level of comfort for parents of children yet to be born that over 300 new vaccines are currently in development. It should also be noted, that autism was never even described in the medical literature until AFTER the introduction of the mercury containing whole cell DPT vaccine. Adding insult to injury is the fact that there has never been a single safety study on the short term or long term effects of the interaction of these potent cocktails of numerous multiple active agents on the developing brain and immune systems of our children.
I know for a fact that these studies DO NOT exist, because even when the Institutes of Medicine (IOM) recently went looking for them they could not find them, and even with a Congressional subpoena served to U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher in 1999 before a Congressional committee to produce the studies he says are there, he has yet to produce a thing. Even the so-called safety studies of individual vaccines, which range from a few days to a couple of weeks of passive surveillance, are woefully inadequate. When single vaccine studies are conducted they are paid for by the vaccine manufacturers themselves, and performed by researchers who receive direct and or indirect funding from those same vaccine manufacturers. It is an insidious situation that I compare to having a tobacco company pay for a study produced by persons who receive funding from the tobacco company, then report that the tobacco product that has been studied is safe and causes no harm. The entire system is riddled with conflicts of interest, and driven by profits and medical arrogance. The system is a sham. When it comes to examining the question of the link between autism and vaccines, this same conflict ridden group continues to produce junk science; studies produced not to seek the truth, but to contain damage control over the growing concern that vaccines may in fact be causing autism. Even our own Department of Health Services, Immunization Branch is guilty of this deception.
The science on the safety of vaccines and their relationship to the cause or contribution to the development of autism is simply not there. Not until independent science, free from the influence of the powerful vaccine machine, that is currently underway at places like the M.I.N.D. Institute that examines the biological mechanisms of how vaccines are causing autism in genetically susceptible children is completed will we discover the truth about autism and vaccines. Thousands of us have suffered the ultimate betrayal of trust by blindly allowing our precious children to be injected with dozens of vaccines....trusting that those responsible for vaccine safety have made sure that my child and thousands of others like him could not develop autism after exposure to a vaccine or vaccines. Thank you.
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[From owner-imm-safety@nas.edu.]
Institute of Medicine’s Immunization Safety Review Committee will be held on March 11, 2002 at The Foundry Building, 1055 Thomas Jefferson St. NW, Room 2004, Washington, DC.
The topic of this meeting will be on the possible association between hepatitis B vaccine and neurological disorders. The meeting will be part of the information gathering process of the committee. A draft agenda will be posted on our website at www.iom.edu/imsafety by February 25, 2002.
The space provided for the meeting is very limited, so please RSVP early and no later than February 25. You may RSVP by calling (202) 334-1342 or emailing us at imsafety@nas.edu. Please provide your name and contact information (organization name, phone number, fax number, and email address). You will receive a confirmation of your reservation.
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Network Of Brain Regions Linked To Imitating Others
[From the Daily University Science News.]
http://unisci.com/stories/20021/0123025.htm
In a pair of pioneering studies, a French and American team of social-cognitive neuroscientists have identified a network of brain regions involved in human imitation and specific brain areas that enable a person to distinguish the self from others.
The research is part of a larger effort to find the neurological basis of social interaction, particularly empathy, a basic part of human nature that allows most, but not all, people to care about others.
The team is headed by neuroscientist Jean Decety of France’s Institut de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale and a visiting scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for Mind, Brain & Learning, and developmental psychologist Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of the center.
“This work is important because imitation is a natural procedure. We don’t learn to imitate. It is part of our biological nature and we are born to imitate,” said Decety.
“A 3-year-old feels empathy and will pat another child on the shoulder or comfort his mom when she’s crying,” added Meltzoff. “We believe empathy has roots early in life. It may be linked to imitation, which we know babies do from a very early age.”
In the two studies, which are being published in the January and February issues of the journal NeuroImage, the researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) to explore the neural mechanisms of imitation by measuring increases in blood flow in the brain.
In the first study, the researchers look at imitation from the point of view of a teacher (the person demonstrating a task) versus the point of view of a student (the person learning the task).
Eighteen right-handed male subjects were asked to perform five tasks involving small, different colored objects. Their heads were held stationary while the PET scans made images of their brains, but they could move their right hands and watch a demonstrator’s hands reflected in a mirror.
Subjects were first asked to watch the demonstrator move the objects and then imitate the action with their hand. In the second task, they were told to move the objects first and watch the demonstrator copy them.
The other three tasks were control experiments in which subjects were allowed to freely manipulate the objects any way they wanted to, just watch the demonstrator move the objects, and move the objects and then watch the other person perform different movements.
The researchers discovered a consistent pattern of increased brain activity involving the superior temporal gyrus, as well as differential activity in the two hemispheres within the inferior parietal cortex when imitation was involved.
The left inferior parietal cortex showed increased activity when the subjects were imitating another person. When the subjects were being imitated by the other person, however, the right inferior parietal cortex was more activated.
Decety and Meltzoff believe the inferior parietal cortex may play a key role in whether a person attributes an action to the self or to another person.
“By imitation we may feel what another person felt, which is the very definition of human empathy,” said Decety.
“Imitation also is nature’s way of conveying culture,” said Meltzoff. “It naturally occurs in a variety of settings, such as learning to play music and sports, or when a mother teaches her daughter how to tie her shoelaces. The mother ties a shoelace and the child follows, trying to imitate the action. We would expect the same kind of lateralized brain activity in learning to tie shoelaces as there was in our experimental task.”
The second study, which involved 10 right-handed subjects, employed a physical setup similar to the one used in the first study. This time, however, subjects were shown video clips of another person choosing, grasping and moving a Lego block into a new position and then leaving the Lego in the new position.
In the first of six tasks, subjects had to duplicate the entire manipulation. Next they were only shown part of a video clip that showed the other person’s hand leaving the Lego in its final position and the subjects had to manipulate the block to achieve that “goal.” Subjects also viewed a clip that only showed “means,” or the manipulations of a block, and had to duplicate the movements they observed.
Three control tasks also were performed. Subjects again watched the clips showing the entire manipulation, as well as just the goal and the means, and were asked to freely move their Lego in any way they chose.
This paper is unique because it is believed to be the first neuroimaging study to show that imitation can be split into two complementary components, the goal of an action and the means to achieve it.
Decety said the researchers found that not only can the components of imitation (the goal and the means) be separated, but each involves specific brain regions. Increased brain activity was detected in the medial prefrontal cortex during imitation of the means, while increased activity in the left premotor cortex was associated with imitation of the goal.
“This supports the idea that when observing someone’s action, the underlying intention is equally or perhaps more important than the surface behavior itself,” the authors write.
These findings have widespread potential application in typical and atypical child development, educational practice and artificial intelligence.
“In child development, reading others’ goals or intentions from their actions is necessary for human interaction. If you are just literal, you will not have deep understanding of other people,” said Meltzoff. “It is also important to know what brain regions control actions and intentions. They may not develop at the same time in humans.”
“Educators sometimes pay too much attention to the means without the goal or to the goal without giving children the means, or the steps, to accomplish something,” Decety said.
The two studies were supported by funding from the French Ministry of Education and the UW’s Center for Mind Brain & Learning (CMBL). Co-authors of the papers were Thierry Chaminade and Julie Grezes, doctoral students in France.
CMBL is an interdisciplinary research center where behavioral scientists and neuroscientists are collaborating to study the links between behavior and the brain. The center is funded primarily by the Talaris Research Institute, founded by a gift from the Apex Foundation, the private family foundation created by Bruce and Jolene McCaw.
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