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COMMENTARY

* Autism Research Takes Wrong Turn, Government Is Throwing Money Away

* A Comprehensive Review Of The Mmr Vaccination/Autism Controversy

Autism Research Takes Wrong Turn, Government Is Throwing Money Away COMMENTARY By Howard Urnovitz, Ph.d

I am having a difficult time reconciling why a US Congressional Committee that goes by the name of "Committee on Government Reform" would think that throwing more taxpayer money at incompetent government agencies -- like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) -- is considered reform. I consider it a betrayal of the public trust.

On April 18, 2002, the parents of autistic children were given the false impression that their government was "here to help you." The Committee on Government Reform announced at its hearings and through the press that it will seek more research funding for autism. In fact, if the Committee gets its way and increases funding to NIH and CDC, it will divert any chance kids might have for true breakthroughs into the mysteries of childhood neurologic disorders, including autism.

The Committee on Government Reform did correctly identify the problem, which is disproportionate spending on health care research issues. According to an April 18 Associated Press (AP) report, "Congressman Urges Autism Research" by Janelle Carter, the incidence of autism in the United States may range from 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000. That means if the American population is currently 287 million, 287,000 to 574,000 persons are affected by autism. This is roughly the same number of persons living with AIDS, which the CDC estimates to be approximately 313,000 persons. According to the AP article, the CDC spends $932 million and the NIH $2.2 billion on AIDS research. Comparatively, CDC spent $11.3 million (1.2% of AIDS spending) and the NIH $56 million (2.5% of AIDS spending) on autism research. Also according to the AP story, "The Autism Society of America wants NIH research funding to increase to $500 million a year." Giving the NIH or CDC any further money is a like giving the fox even more access to the chicken coop.

For those of you who like to make your own decisions based on the facts, follow this lead. The CDC position on autism and possible causative factors is a clear denial of the clues. In fact, the agency has formulated a policy against discovery into some of the mechanisms of autism, particularly that it may develop as an adverse event following vaccination. There is more than a strong indication that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine may be playing a role in autism. However, the CDC continues to deny the validity of this strong indication, as can be seen by the statements published on its web site:

"At a glance: The weight of currently available scientific evidence does not support the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. We recognize there is considerable public interest in this issue, and therefore support additional research regarding this hypothesis. CDC is committed to maintaining the safest, most effective vaccine supply in history." (From

I find this statement misleading, misrepresentative and out-and-out malfeasance. In 1999, the CDC co-published an article (Journal of Virology, Volume 73, pages 5843-5851) confirming the discovery of "junk genes" from chickens in MMR preparations. The CDC acknowledged that, "The attenuated measles and mumps virus vaccines licensed in the United States are produced by a single manufacturer with primary chicken embryonic fibroblasts." The CDC's conclusion in this 1999 publication was that, "The present data do not support transmission of either ALV or EAV [the chicken "junk genes"] to recipients of the U.S.-made vaccine and provide reassurance for current immunization policies." How can such an outrageous statement be made about junk genes? It's simple: the principal authors of this paper are from the HIV and Retrovirology Gang at the CDC. This "old habits die hard" group fails to understand that the confirmed detection of junk genes in MMR vaccines is a very strong warning to look at all the genetic material in these vaccines and not just the "retroviruses."

Here’s why the taxpayer is getting screwed. The CDC is looking at something called structural genes. There are basically two types of genes: structural and regulatory genes. Structural genes code for protein products; they "make" the proteins you're already familiar with, like insulin and hemoglobin. The regulatory genes control the structural genes. Regulatory genes are commonly referred to as "junk genes" because no one is really sure how they work. Because the CDC found no evidence of viral structural genes in either the chicken cell fluids in which the viruses are grown or in 33 children given the MMR vaccine, they gave the thumbs-up to keep putting children at risk. Where are the studies to show that regulatory genes do no harm? Where are the studies to show that there is no regulatory gene activity in these supernatants? How can the CDC conclude that the vaccines do not contain toxic genetic material when they did not test for it? Why does the CDC conclude, based on incomplete testing, that vaccines could not adversely affect childhood neurologic development when clinical data suggest it does?

Investigating only part of the problem has become the hallmark of NIH and CDC sponsored research, and is the reason that research is incompetent. Now, with the Burton Committee money on its way, CDC and NIH will have the resources to put even more children at risk. Then what? The Atlanta

Declaration: viruses cause everything and if you don’t find any viruses then it's OK to push poorly characterized fluids from chicken and monkey cells into children, and anyone who questions this should be thrown in jail?

When a government agency creates a policy stating that it is permissible to use biological fluids containing uncharacterized foreign genetic material as vaccines, the government has simultaneously created a sanction against discovery of non-viral toxic genetic material. In other words, if non-viral foreign genetic material -- whether from monkeys, chickens, or humans -- is considered by the government to be so harmless that it can be injected into children as part of a vaccine, then the government is not going to fund research into the possible toxicity of that non-viral genetic material. And in this age of "big science," if a field of research is not government-funded, it is nearly impossible to pursue -- therefore, the government has created a sanction against that particular field of research. And, therefore, it will never be proved whether the monkey or chicken non-viral genetic material in vaccines is or is not contributing to autism.

Let me tell you how the new autism research money will be spent. Predictably, some of it will be spent, as is some AIDS research money, on defaming researchers who can show that vaccines or industrial chemicals or both can lead to disease. In AIDS research, the NIH and CDC lead the way in making sure the public doesn't figure out that researchers don't have a clue what causes AIDS. In autism research, the CDC and NIH will attack anyone who finds any culpable data that implicate public health policies such as mandatory vaccinations. Look what happened to the gifted medical researcher, Dr. Andrew Wakefield of the UK, who is the subject of attack on the CDC website. This is cooperative research? This is how we are protecting children?

It's time for the Committee on Government Reform to do its job: reform government. The problem is that the committee lacks the leadership of a Thomas Jefferson to go in and shake things up. If you are unfamiliar with Jefferson’s position on government reform, stroll over to his marvelous monument and read the writing on the wall just above his statue:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitution, but laws and institutions go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind…We might as well require a man to wear the same coat that fitted him when he was a boy."

My point is that the human mind has progressed on the topic of poisoning children with biologics like vaccines. Progressive thinkers now know that the polio vaccine was a damage control scam, the anthrax vaccine does not work, the smallpox vaccine has serious side effects and the MMR is strongly implicated in the rise of autism. It’s a pity that all human minds have not progressed at the same time and that it took a tragic event, such as the Reform Committee Chairman’s grandchildren suffering adverse effects from vaccines to give the Congress a wake-up call. I seriously doubt that Jefferson’s quote should be interpreted to mean that grandpa should simply throw more money at the very agencies that support poisoning his own grandchildren.

It is necessary for Congress to commit itself to doing its job of investigating gross violations of medical ethics and to changing the way that health care research is done in America. Centralized government research has failed. It’s time now to create a plan containing a variety of tactics that promote the spirit of discovery and punish those who promote sanctions against it.

Here’s the last of the bad news. History has told you that there is only one way to shake things up and that is to organize a march on Washington. The US government should be held accountable for not punishing unethical doctors and giving American parents a raw deal by not providing research systems that get answers.

[Dr. Urnovitz has worked in the biotechnology industry for over 2 decades. His area of expertise is in the field of genomics and chronic disease. Dr. Urnovitz was the first scientist to show that genetic material circulating in plasma and serum, often believed to be foreign viruses, in fact originates from the host genome. The circulating host genetic material isapparently coming from areas of the genome referred to as "junk genes."]

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* * *

MMR SPECIAL: A Comprehensive Review Of The Mmr Vaccination/Autism Controversy Part – 1

"Vaccination is one of the wonders of modern medicine. But a huge rise in autism has put one vaccine under the spotlight as never before…"

"While the government and the drug companies insist MMR is safe, thousands of parents who believe their children were irreparably damaged by the triple vaccine say it isn’t."

"This Private Eye Special looks at the evidence and reports on the intransigence of the government and the pharmaceutical companies when faced with it…" Private Eye

INTRODUCTION

Vaccination is one of the wonders of modern medicine. It has saved millions of lives in the wealthy industrialised world; and it would save millions more If poorer nations could afford to invest in child immunisation programmes.

But no vaccine is 100 percent safe; and administering a vaccine is as much to protect society as a whole as it is for the benefit of the individual child. Thus giving healthy child a jab against a disease he or she may never contact is an act of faith: that the vaccine manufacturer, and the government of the day, have ensured the risks are minimal.

In Britain, for the past four years the triple measles, mumps and rubella vaccine MMR has been at the centre of claims that it con trigger an atypical kind of autism and gut disease (along with a number of other serious side effects) in some children who receive it. This has happened in such numbers the public no longer perceives the risk to be negligible. Indeed, parents are now rejecting MMR, and in some areas its uptake has fallen to less than 80 percent — well below what is needed to ensure “herd” immunity.

Many parents would opt for single vaccines if they were made available. But the government has refused, maintaining that MMR is the safest way to protect your child. Moreover "new Labour" has gone on the offensive, accusing anyone who dares to question the safety of MMR of "scare mongering’ and “playing Russian roulette with children’s lives”.

The condemnation extends even to the thousands of parents who are convinced their children have been catastrophically damaged by the vaccine. Such so-called “scare-mongers" are coping, often with no financial and very limited physical help with the enormous strain of caring for sick children. They have the added worry of knowing their children will, as far as they can tell, outlive them and spend perhaps decades alone and bewildered and dependent on the state.

As for Dr Andrew Wakefield, the gastro-enterologist who first questioned whether the vaccine could in some way have caused these children’ s conditions, health chiefs and politicians have been scathing about him to the point of libel. In a fierce attack on academic freedom, he has been soundly derided and driven from his research post at the Royal Free Hospital in north London. This is to the further despair of the families of those young and seriously disabled patients whose symptoms were fast recognised, treated and eased by Dr Wakefield and his team, Britain has been in similar scientific confusion before. In the 1970s, a small but determined group of parents eventually proved that their children had suffered irreversible brain damage from whooping cough vaccine. Their action led to a change in the law governing payments to vaccine-damaged children.

Later, when it was claimed that mad cow disease might pose a threat to human health, the warning was rubbished. This was not what the then Tory government or the powerful farming and food industry wanted to hear. So the former agriculture secretary John Gummer fed his four-year-old daughter Cordelia a beef burger in front of the cameras.

Then, the government said that not all scientists bore "equal authority." But 90 deaths later, and following the Phillips inquiry into the BSE scandal, the link once derided, was established.

“New” Labour seems to have learned nothing from these debacles. It too has decided to shoot the “off message’ messenger. Bather than look at the disturbing new evidence raised by Wakefield and his team, it has steadfastly refused to examine the hundreds of children at the centre of the claims against MMR. Instead it has relied mainly on epidemiological studies — some funded by vaccine manufacturers — to say that no link between MMB and autism or gut disease is possible.

Such studies, even when they are well directed, are too blunt an instrument to reveal the small but significant cases of vaccine damage that are being claimed.

Dr Wakefield's work meanwhile all peer reviewed and published in medical journals — has been subjected to minute scrutiny and criticism that lesser papers would never have attracted.

The debate is now so polarised that parents are bewildered and worried. With congressional hearings in the United States, and 3,000 families already taking legal action over MMR here in Britain, the question of whether the risk associated with the jab is negligible is not going to go away which is why at the risk of also being accused of “scare-mongering’. Private Eye makes no excuse for following the example set by the Wakefield team in listening to the parents and looking at the young, walking bodies of evidence. We leave it to the government to criticise Wakefield’s science and we report its criticisms. What we explore is whether the scientific work the government is relying on stands up to the same scrutiny: and whether it resolves the dilemma raised by Wakefield and now faced by parents.

In deciding to tell the MMR story, we posed two questions. What if Wakefield is proven wrong? Would we be adding to the genera] “irresponsibility” by undermining confidence in childhood immunisation? But really the question we should all be asking is: what if Wakefield is right?

If he is, the ‘new” Labour government of Tony Blair, father of young Leo, is presiding over a continuing catastrophe that could dwarf even the BSE scandal.

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