The argument that there is no (valid) research showing a causative relationship between vaccines and autism is an invalid one. Government research to find a causative relationship was defunded in 2009 because of potential conflicts of interest due to pending legal action. On December 12, 2008, the IACC voted to recommend research into the study of the link between autism and vaccines {estimated budget: $6,000,000}. But in a surprise move during the next IACC meeting on January 14, 2009, Tom Insel (chair of IACC and the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, a component of NIH) singled out this vaccine safetyresearch provision from the overall strategic research plan and put it back up for a revote. In a surprising moment of candor, Dr. Insel cited HHS conflicts of interests on vaccine-autism research due to the over 5,000 autism lawsuits pending against HHS. In other words: if the NIH investigated a vaccine-autism link, it might place the HRSA at risk of losing cases in VICP which would indicate that the CDC’s aggressive expansion of the vaccination schedule has contributed to the autism epidemic. HHS members, a majority of the committee, voted down this provision in the revote. (smartvax/index.php?view=article&id=68%3Agovernment-suppression-of-vaccine-autism-resarch-due-to-its-conflict-of-interest&format=pdf&option=com_content) Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. iacc.hhs.gov/index.shtml National Institutes of Health. nih.gov/ U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services. hhs.gov/ If no one is looking for the connection, it is not going to be found. Why would this research be suppressed? Because there is a huge financial liability for the government if the connection is established. Why are vaccine manufacturers probably not liable? Because liability has been pinned by the courts to the duty to inform the consumer of possible problems. If the consumer has been warned, the consumer accepts the liability for injuries. In federal immunization programs, the duty to inform has been pinned on the federal government by the manufacturers. In part because of what happened under the swine flu program, vaccine manufacturers now require as a condition of supplying vaccines for use in public immunization programs that the Federal Government assume responsibility for the duty to warn. Currently, therefore, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) is assuming the duty to warn obligation from vaccine manufacturers in Government vaccine purchase contracts. ( princeton.edu/~ota/disk3/1979/7915/791507.PDF) In my opinion, a direct causative link may never be acknowledged. The diagnosis of autism covers a wide range of behavioral manifestations, and therein lies the difficulty in finding direct causative links. There is not, to my knowledge, a laboratory test that is a definitive diagnosis for autism. This means there is not a consistent electrophysiological disorder that shows up as abnormal values in the evaluation of the patient that defines autism. By definition, autism is definitively diagnosed by observation of behavior. What is autism? Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior. How is autism diagnosed? ASD varies widely in severity and symptoms and may go unrecognized, especially in mildly affected children or when it is masked by more debilitating handicaps. Very early indicators that require evaluation by an expert include: • no babbling or pointing by age 1 • no single words by 16 months or two-word phrases by age 2 • no response to name • loss of language or social skills • poor eye contact • excessive lining up of toys or objects • no smiling or social responsiveness. Later indicators include: • impaired ability to make friends with peers • impaired ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others • absence or impairment of imaginative and social play • stereotyped, repetitive, or unusual use of language • restricted patterns of interest that are abnormal in intensity or focus • preoccupation with certain objects or subjects • inflexible adherence to specific routines or rituals. ( ninds.nih.gov/disorders/autism/detail_autism.htm) In addition, there may be a wide range of multiple causative links that trigger autism in a wide range of individuals, but every cause may not have triggered autism in every individual. It may be a varying perfect storm of conditions that is specific to the case. To try to prove that one specific trigger applies in every case may only obscure the relevance of that trigger to those case in which it does apply when it is proven to be inconsistently present. To rule out vaccines as a contributor to developing autism because Thimerosal has not been shown to be causitive is a flawed conclusion that cannot be supported by anyone considering themselves a scientist. Thimerosal is approximately half mercury according to the FDA (fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228). Mercury has been shown to be a risk factor in the development of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Similarly, Windham et al [65] examined possible associations between ASD and environmental exposures in 284 children with ASD and 657 controls, born in 1994 in the San Francisco Bay area. They found that the individual compounds that contributed most to these associations included mercury, cadmium, nickel, trichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride, with the single largest risk factor being mercury. Kern et al. Translational Neurodegeneration 2013, 2:17 translationalneurodegeneration/content/2/1/17 By the reasoning used to dismiss Thimerosol as a causative agent, mercury is an environmental risk factor unless it is injected directly into the body within a vaccine. The causative factors in vaccines may have to do with their toxic properties, but potential causation also lies in the inflammatory reaction in the nervous system caused by their presence. The infant vaccine schedule recommended by the American Medical Association is a plan for repetitive introduction of agents that have the potential to induce brain inflammation. Numerous recent studies provide evidence that individuals diagnosed with an ASD suffer from an ongoing neuroinflammatory process in different regions of the brain involving microglial activation. Activated microglia can release a number of potentially neurotoxic substances, such as reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide, and various proinflammatory cytokines, and evidence implicates neuroinflammation and overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines as a contributor to pathophysiology of chronic neurodegenerative disorders. ...the World Health Organization states that ASD cannot be associated with toxic exposure because there is no evidence of neurodegeneration in ASD. However, the research examined in this critical review provide compelling evidence for neurodegeneration as the underlying mechanism for the loss of neurological function in individuals diagnosed with an ASD who have regressed and lost previously acquired skills and abilities. Kern et al. Translational Neurodegeneration 2013, 2:17 translationalneurodegeneration/content/2/1/17 For those with interests to protect, science will be used to defend their position. True science has no agenda, no preconceptions, no prejudices. It is a tool of discovery. I have herein established evidence of a causative link between vaccines and autism. Those so attached to their paradigm that they cannot jeopardize it with reality will continue to parrot the institutional interests, clinging to their science. How many decades did science tell us that cigarette smoking was not harmful when we could see loved ones dying before our eyes? Follow the money. When it comes down to it, I will choose common sense over propaganda disguised as science every time. To reject out-of-hand that vaccines cause autism is not only transparent, it is self-imposed ignorance. In light of Kern et al, unbiased research on the subject should continue, for the issue is by no means settled.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:57:18 +0000
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