Government concedes some vaccines cause autism.

[vhx]

I hadn't heard this anywhere else, but maybe it'll be something to look out for.

http://www.mercury-freedrugs.o...accnsCauseAutism_b.pdf

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency that oversees the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recently conceded the first vaccine-autism case. This case was filed in the no-fault National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as part of the Autism Omnibus proceedings in the U.S. Federal Court of Claims. It was one of the first three cases chosen that alleged Thimerosal in childhood vaccines significantly contributed to a child developing autism.

...

The facts are that the Vaccine Compensation Act has already compensated over 2,000 individuals who proved that they were harmed by vaccines, resulting in settlements of nearly two billion dollars.

Additionally, hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific/medical articles from some the world?s best universities have long implicated Thimerosal in vaccines as a causal factor in neurodevelopmental disorders including autism. Furthermore, in 2003, the U.S. House of Representatives? Government Reform Committee, after a 3.5-year investigation, concluded that Thimerosal caused the autism epidemic and that the FDA and health authorities were guilty of ?institutional malfeasance? in covering it up.
Evidence supporting the connection between mercury and autism include:
1. Published studies from the US and France showing that urinary porphyrins, a biomarker for body-burden of mercury, are elevated in patients diagnosed with autistic disorders (http://www.mercury-freedrugs.org).
2. A published study by researchers at Harvard University that found twice as much mercury and oxidative stress in the brains of those with an autism diagnosis as found in the brains of those who were normal.
3. A study from the US showing a significant relationship between increasing blood mercury levels and an increased risk of a diagnosis of an autistic disorder.
4. Numerous papers by independent researchers showing a link between increasing mercury exposure from childhood vaccines and the risk of a child developing an autistic disorder.
5. Several papers showing that adding low levels of Thimerosal to certain blood, brain, eye, immune, liver and/or muscle cells poisons their cellular mitochondrial pathways and can induce cell death.
Today, despite being banned in Europe and restricted in 7 U.S. states, Thimerosal-containing flu vaccines are still recommended for routine administration to pregnant women and infants, with little or no warning of the presence of this known poison in these and other vaccines.
...

There is a little more but that is the most of it.

Thoughts?

 

[StageLeft]

That sucks. Some are so afraid of vaccines they'd not get innoculated if there was a smallpox outbreak, but in some cases the concerns can be valid. It always has to be a weighing of the benefits of the vaccine vs the inevitable side effects. Everything has an effect, medically, and often they are not known right away or ever.

 

[PottedMeat]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/h...-vaccines-autism_N.htm

U.S. officials have not said vaccines caused the girl's autism-like symptoms. Instead, officials said the shots exacerbated the girl's underlying medical condition, an extremely rare disorder of the mitochondria, which are energy-producing structures inside the cell.

 

[techs]

Imus was right.

 

[jonks]

Screw vaccines. Bring back polio.

 

[tw1164]

OP, fix the topic title

 

[dphantom]

Well, it was on national media a couple days ago. And that site is a bit inaccurate. What the case said was that in the case of a particular child who had a known, rare genetic condition, the administration of several vaccines at one time MAY have contributed to her later development of autism.

So there was an award for damages, but the case neither proves nor disproves vaccines cause autism. All it says it a vaccine or combination of vaccines might have. And the ruling is open to appeal so later evidence may have the case overturned, or not.

You might want to find an impartial source of information like reading the court findings instead of that biased site.

 

[Brainonska511]

I'd like to see a peer reviewed journal article looking at both sides before I take something at face value from a site called "Mercury-Free Drugs".

Edit:
I believe that there is the possibility that certain vaccines could cause autism, but I feel like vaccines are being used as a scape goat for a deeper problem. Wasn't there also a study with done in Denmark in the 90's that took a look at autism rates between individuals receiving mercury-preserved vaccines vs. those children that received vaccines without mercury in them? IIRC, the group that received the non-mercury vaccines had a higher rate of autism.

For all anyone knows, it could all be caused by some faulty gene(s) that could vary in expressivity of the same phenotype from individual to individual.

Edit again:
Here's an article about the continued rise in autism rates before, during, and after thimerasol was used in vaccines.
http://pediatrics.aappublicati...ent/abstract/112/3/604
and a review article of several studies:
http://pediatrics.aappublicati...ent/abstract/114/3/793

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: PottedMeat
http://www.usatoday.com/news/h...-vaccines-autism_N.htm

U.S. officials have not said vaccines caused the girl's autism-like symptoms. Instead, officials said the shots exacerbated the girl's underlying medical condition, an extremely rare disorder of the mitochondria, which are energy-producing structures inside the cell.

So the thread title and the OP's linked story are lying, good to know.

2003, the U.S. House of Representatives? Government Reform Committee, after a 3.5-year investigation, concluded that Thimerosal caused the autism epidemic

I get all my science and medical news from congress. Terry Schiavo's brain was just restin' or pinin' for the fjords.

Edit2: found some coverage of this in a Rolling Stone piece here -- Dan Burton's committee had an ax to grind and congressmen are not scientists, but who knows?

 

[superstition]

The bottom line is that people shouldn't be injecting mercury into their bodies. Heavy metals have an greater negative effect on developing children/babies because they interfere with development.

 

[getbush]

Here is an abstract from one article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 2003 Oct 1;290(13):1763-6.

CONTEXT: Mercuric compounds are nephrotoxic and neurotoxic at high doses. Thimerosal, a preservative used widely in vaccine formulations, contains ethylmercury. Thus it has been suggested that childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccine could be causally related to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether vaccination with a thimerosal-containing vaccine is associated with development of autism. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Population-based cohort study of all children born in Denmark from January 1, 1990, until December 31, 1996 (N = 467 450) comparing children vaccinated with a thimerosal-containing vaccine with children vaccinated with a thimerosal-free formulation of the same vaccine. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Rate ratio (RR) for autism and other autistic-spectrum disorders, including trend with dose of ethylmercury. RESULTS: During 2 986 654 person-years, we identified 440 autism cases and 787 cases of other autistic-spectrum disorders. The risk of autism and other autistic-spectrum disorders did not differ significantly between children vaccinated with thimerosal-containing vaccine and children vaccinated with thimerosal-free vaccine (RR, 0.85 [95% confidence interval [CI], 0.60-1.20] for autism; RR, 1.12 [95% CI, 0.88-1.43] for other autistic-spectrum disorders). Furthermore, we found no evidence of a dose-response association (increase in RR per 25 microg of ethylmercury, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.90-1.06] for autism and 1.03 [95% CI, 0.98-1.09] for other autistic-spectrum disorders). CONCLUSION: The results do not support a causal relationship between childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccines and development of autistic-spectrum disorders.

I bolded the important part for people who don't have training in reading studies/abstracts of this nature. That's not a knock, it takes me 15 minutes to connect to a wireless network sometimes.
I had to inject something because health misinformation drives me nuts to the point that I have to shut my brain off sometimes. Let people decide for themselves, but if you're going to make these kinds of decisions on your own get educated on the topic. -and that doesn't mean watching Dateline NBC or whatever other crap is in the mainstream. I try to remain blissfully out of the loop in that area.

oh and also: skip everything but the bolded unless your really interested - it's from here fda site


The Safety Review of Thimerosal-containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Conducted by the Institute of Medicine

In 2001, the Institute of Medicine convened a committee (the Immunization Safety Review Committee) to review selected issues related to immunization safety. [For more information regarding this committee, their charge, and their reports, see the IOM web site.] The IOM has, to date, completed reviews in two areas. The first review by this committee focused on a potential link between autism and the combined mumps, measles, and rubella vaccine. The second review focused on a potential relationship between thimerosal use in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders (IOM 2001). This latter issue was brought to the fore primarily as the result of the hypothesis, formulated by S. Bernard and others from Cure Autism Now, that autism is a novel form of mercury poisoning (Bernard et al. 2001); this hypothesis, linking autism to mercury, was based on a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on mercury toxicity.

In its report of October 1, 2001, the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee concluded that the evidence was inadequate to either accept or reject a causal relationship between thimerosal exposure from childhood vaccines and the neurodevelopmental disorders of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and speech or language delay. Additional studies were needed to establish or reject a causal relationship. The Committee did conclude that the hypothesis that exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines could be associated with neurodevelopmental disorders was biologically plausible.

The Committee believed that the effort to remove thimerosal from vaccines was "a prudent measure in support of the public health goal to reduce mercury exposure of infants and children as much as possible." Furthermore, in this regard, the Committee urged that "full consideration be given to removing thimerosal from any biological product to which infants, children, and pregnant women are exposed."

In 2004, the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee issued its final report, examining the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccines and thimerosal containing vaccines, are causally associated with autism. In this report, the committee incorporated new epidemiological evidence from the U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and studies of biologic mechanisms related to vaccines and autism since its report in 2001. The committee concluded that this body of evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, and that hypotheses generated to date concerning a biological mechanism for such causality are theoretical only. Further, the committee stated that the benefits of vaccination are proven and the hypothesis of susceptible populations is presently speculative, and that widespread rejection of vaccines would lead to increases in incidences of serious infectious diseases like measles, whooping cough and Hib bacterial meningitis.

The FDA is continuing its efforts to reduce the exposure of infants, children, and pregnant women to mercury from various sources. Discussions with the manufacturers of influenza virus vaccines (which are now routinely recommended for pregnant women and children 6-23 months of age) regarding their capacity to potentially increase the supply of thimerosal-reduced and thimerosal-free presentations are ongoing. Discussions are also underway with regard to other vaccines. Of note, all hepatitis B vaccines for the U.S., including for adults, are now available only as thimerosal-free or trace-thimerosal-containing formulatons. In addition, all immune globulin preparations including hepatitis B immune globulin, and Rho(D) immune globulin preparations are manufactured without thimerosal.