December 9, 2003 - Childhood Vaccines Are Safe - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Comment:  Among those propounding this sanguine view of thimerosal/ethylmercury is Dr. Paul Offit, "director of the Vaccine Education Center and chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia", and the "expert" cited in this article.  What this article fails to disclose, however, is that not only does Offit hold "a patent on a rotavirus vaccine and receives grant money from Merck to develop this vaccine.  He also disclosed that he is paid by the pharmaceutical industry to travel around the country and teach doctors that vaccines are safe.  Dr. Offit is a member of the CDC’s advisory committee and voted on three rotavirus issues – including making the recommendation of adding the rotavirus vaccine to the Vaccines for Children’s program." (From the Opening Statement by Chairman Dan Burton, Committee on Government Reform titled: “FACA: Conflicts of Interest and Vaccine Development: Preserving the Integrity of the Process”, Thursday, June 15, 2000) Might these clear conflicts of interest be the real reason Offit holds this benign view of mercury in vaccines?

Statins For Children - This Is Madness - by RFD Columnist, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick - www.redflagsdaily.com  - "The first thing that I have to point out here is that, in primary prevention trials, statins have never been found to reduce the risk of death. I don’t care if they have been found to reduce the rate of heart disease. Does it really matter if someone is saved from dying of heart disease, only to die of something else?"

December 9, 2003 - Glaxo sees red over 'clanger' - www.thisismoney.com - "GlaxoSmithKline went on the warpath over accusations that one of its top scientists made a gaffe in admitting that most prescription drugs do not always work."

December 10, 2003 - Trends in Pertussis Among Infants in the United States, 1980-1999 - journal article (JAMA) - "Context:  Reported cases of pertussis among adolescents and adults have increased since the 1980s, despite increasingly high rates of vaccination among infants and children. However, severe pertussis morbidity and mortality occur primarily among infants.^"

December 9, 2003 - CDC vaccines study slammed as cover-up - Data linking mercury exposure, neurodevelopment said 'manipulated' - Insight Magazine via www.worldnetdaily.com - "Redwood says with a sigh, 'On a scale of one to 10, I give the CDC study a big fat zero. I think it started out good, but when they saw the early numbers it scared the hell out of them. I don't have any faith in the CDC doing a decent study of this matter. It's like having the tobacco industry monitor cigarettes for safety. From a parent's perspective and from a health-care professional's perspective it's maddening that we can't get products that are safe, and yet we're forced by law to use them. They need to just get the thimerosal out. It's barbaric.'"

Comment:  Because yesterday's must-read, exceptional Insight Magazine article by Kelly O'Meara, has been re-published today on WorldNetDaily.com, it is also being re-posted on this website.

December 9, 2003 - Nevada congressman loses hearing in ear due to virus, aide says - AP via Las Vegas Sun - "Brooke van Soest, Proter's deputy chief of staff, said Porter was being treated for an unspecified virus in his right ear that could have been contracted on a hunting trip or that might have been a side effect of a flu shot."

December 8, 2003 - The children of middle Australia are in crisis - There seems to be something wrong with the way our young are brought up. - The Age - "There is a growing body of evidence that children from the "mainstream" of suburban Australia are displaying serious physical, intellectual and emotional problems...Last month a report was published that added to that body of evidence. It indicates that many more Australian children than previously thought might be at risk of not being able to fulfil(sic) their educational potential...The results revealed that 26 per cent were vulnerable to not being able to achieve their educational potential, and 13 per cent were at high risk, particularly in the cognitive and linguistic skills area."

Comment: For more on this, go to Survey finds 1 in 4 five-year-olds have developmental problems

November 28, 2003 - Virus Proves too Wily for Scientists - Financial Times  via www.immunizationinfo.org - "Recent failures of experimental AIDS vaccines in early human trials have underlined the difficulty facing researchers in developing a vaccine to fight HIV, with a viable vaccine no closer than five years away, and probably much further. Part of the problem is that people do not develop an immunity against HIV after contracting the disease--like they do for many other illnesses such as measles, smallpox, and mumps--so a vaccine probably cannot confer immunity just by showing the immune system the virus."

Comment:  According to some, there is reason to question whether any vaccine is able to confer immunity in that way.

Comment:  And what if, as some believe, HIV has nothing to do with AIDS?

December 8, 2003 - Health Officials Say Flu Shots Should Go to Most Vulnerable - Wall Street Journal via www.immunizationinfo.org - "They do not face an easy decision, however; pediatricians, for example, are unsure whether to give the vaccine to first-time recipients, who then need a booster shot after 30 days, or to vaccinate children who have already received a flu vaccine in the past and therefore only require one shot. Meanwhile, the CDC is trying to figure out how much vaccine is really left, with estimates as low as a two-week supply and 200,000 doses left out of 83 million distributed nationwide."

December 8, 2003 - Study Proves Vaccine Safety - Courier Mail (AU) via www.immunizationinfo.org - "The meningococcal C vaccine is being distributed in Australia this year via a mass vaccination program, and there have been 21 serious reactions and no deaths reported, according to the Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee."

Comment:  Just curious how many received the meningococcal C vaccine (pre-and post-marketing) and how their results (including long and short-term adverse reactions and disease incidence) compare to a never vaccinated group.

December 8, 2003 - The Lack of Vaccines Goes Beyond Flu Inoculations - Wall Street Journal via www.immunizationinfo.org - "On Friday, the two suppliers of influenza vaccine to the United States reported that because of the unusual early and severe flu season, they are running low of vaccine doses, in the eighth major shortage of vaccines for preventable diseases since 2000. Flu vaccines have been in short supply for three years out of the past four..."

Comment:  Wasn't last year a mild year for the flu and one of the years with a severe flu vaccine shortage?  Is this merely a coincidence, or might the shortage of flu vaccine have been at least partly responsible for the mild season?

December 9, 2003 - Merck Talks Up New Drugs To Address Research Doubts (requires subscription) - Wall Street Journal - "In the shorter term, Merck's strongest area is vaccines. It said it plans to submit an application to the Food and Drug Administration in the second half of 2005 for a vaccine against the human papilloma virus, which research chief Peter Kim called "the predominant cause of cervical cancer death" in women. Other vaccines that Merck expects to market in the next few years would prevent shingles, a painful viral infection of the nerve roots, and infection with rotavirus, which is a serious problem especially in less-developed countries."

December 9, 2003 - Targeted Genetics targets AIDS: Testing under way on single-shot vaccine - "AIDS kills 300 people an hour, but in the past two decades, only one biotech company has come close to developing a preventive vaccine...But another biotech — Seattle-based Targeted Genetics — plus an academic research center and a nonprofit institution backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are announcing today they are trying another technique."

December 8, 2003 - CDC to Monitor Children's Flu Complications - Drug-Resistant Staph a New Wrinkle - AP via ABC News

December 9, 2003 - Why did my son suffer? - The Scotsman - "Watching her son walk through the school gates, Kathleen Yazbak is haunted by a moment in her past. Some days the feeling catches her more than others, as children greet each other; hugging, chatting or racing around before the bell rings. This stab to the heart comes from the fleeting memory of a fateful decision that changed her life for ever when, six years ago, Kathleen let her four-year-old son have his MMR booster."

December 9, 2003 - Records of Payments to NIH Staff Sought Two congressmen ask health institutes' leader to detail researchers' links to drug companies. (requires registration) - The Los Angeles Times - "Two congressional leaders on Monday called upon the director of the National Institutes of Health to account for all payments that drug companies have made to researchers at the federal agency over the past four years...The leaders — Reps. W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) and James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.) — said that their letter was in response to articles in Sunday editions of the Los Angeles Times detailing millions of dollars in consulting fees and stock options paid by companies to NIH employees."

Comment:  This is the follow-up to the December 7, 2003 landmark article Stealth Merger: Drug Companies and Government Medical Research.
 

March 1998 - Give us this day our daily germs (Volume 19)- journal article (Immunology Today) - "Modern vaccinations, fear of germs and obsession with hygiene are depriving the immune system of the information input upon which it is dependent. This fails to maintain the correct cytokine balance and fine-tune T-cell regulation, and may lead to increased incidences of allergies and autoimmune diseases. If humans continue to deprive their immune systems of the input to which evolution has adapted it, it may be necessary to devise ways of replacing it artificially."

Comment:  This just about says it all.  I would imagine, however, that the drug companies are chomping at the bit to "devise ways of replacing it artificially".  What say we instead stop this madness before it gets any worse?

Comment:  I am reposting this because the original link did not work.  You can now access it via PubMed, and/or the March 1998 issue of Volume 19.

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