Thimerosal update

I thought I would link and summarize some other bloggers’ posts and other feedback on Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s ridiculous thimerosal scare piece that I commented on unfavorably last Monday.

My original thread attracted a lot of comment, and much of what follows here is relevant to those comments. For example, one commenter who (sometimes) refers to himself as “Critical Thinker” keeps referring to a paper entitled Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal that has been posted on Kennedy’s website. Apparently this is supposed to be evidence of the dangers of thimerosal, or of a cover up or something, certainly not a dishonest, inaccurate or sensationalist article like his Salon piece, oh no.

Autism Diva

Anyway, Autism Diva points out a rather interesting conclusion (via Michelle Dawson) from this paper. On page 40, Kennedy writes that American children received much higher doses of thimerosal than UK children, and especially, more in one day than UK children, with the conclusion that American children are at a much higher risk of autism than children from the UK (since thimerosal causes autism, you see). Okey dokey, keep that in mind and read on.

Ten pages later, Kennedy approvingly cites a paper by Marc Blaxill entitled, What's going on? The question of time trends in autism. Blaxill states that autism rates in the UK and the US rose by the same amounts, as these graphs show:

 

(Note: the graphs are easier to read at Autism Diva.)

The UK and the US both clearly underwent the same increase in autism at the same time, and both now have the 1 in 166 rate, despite the much lower thimerosal doses in the UK. Autism Diva summarizes:

Kennedy says that there's no comparison between the usage of thimerosal in the U.S. and the U.K., and if the Brits say they can't see thimerosal as a cause of autism it's because they have used so much less of it –

and Blaxill says that the increase of autism has been the same in the two countries.

(Snip)

The conclusion is: thimerosal usage has no effect on autism diagnosis rates.

That conclusion would seem to be entirely consistent with the data, although perhaps any critical thinker(s) reading could explain why this conclusion could be wrong.

(Of course, the conspiracy theorists in the UK blame autism on the MMR shot, since thimerosal is so low in the UK, but that’s another story.)

Majikthise

Moving on, I find that Majikthise has also read the full Simpsonwood transcript (I’m not the only one without a life, apparently). Like me, she concluded Kennedy had been dishonest about the meeting, or as she puts it:

Nothing said at Simpsonwood suggests an attempt to whitewash or cover up anything. The study got some interesting results, which later failed to withstand verification at the third HMO. Vaccine experts said some nasty things about anti-vaccine activists. That was about it.

She also makes some interesting comments on the actual data they were examining, and explains why no firm conclusions could be drawn:

Of course, there are confounds upon confounds. Care-seeking may be related to socioeconomic status, socioeconomic status to maternal mercury intake and breast feeding, and therefore to prenatal and postnatal mercury exposure, and so on. You can generate any number of alternative scenarios.

It is difficult to interpret the Simpsonwood data because the diagnoses of interest are so fuzzy. The study is trying to capture small differences in the relative risk for relatively rare conditions. As we learned from the recent JAMA obesity study, if you're studying a relatively rare phenomenon, like death at age forty (or infantile autism), small numerical differences between groups translate into huge increases in relative risk. Under these circumstances, it's especially important to be mindful of confounds that could account for small differences between the groups, e.g. local variation in diagnosis rates and diagnostic criteria in the case of relatively subtle and fluid diagnoses like "speech delay" or "attention deficit disorder."

As one of the pediatric neurologists at Simpsonwood pointed out, most of the kids in the study were too young to be diagnosed as speech delayed or attention deficit disordered with any degree of rigor. There's just too much overlap between the "normal" and the "pathological" curves at that age. Of course, once someone gets diagnosed with something, it's pretty rare for them to get undiagnosed, especially in the eyes of an administrative database. So, it's unclear how many kids with early diagnoses actually had a pathological problem to begin with.

All in all a very good write-up – worth reading the whole thing.

The Institute of Medicine

You’ll recall Kennedy accused the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of being part of the cover up. There were also some (un-sourced) IOM quotes that I had questioned. The IOM’s President replies:

Mr. Kennedy sought to buttress his misrepresentation of the purpose of the IOM studies by selectively using and fabricating quotations from the transcript of an organizational meeting held by the committee. He took words and phrases out of context, combined them and misrepresented them as direct quotes.

Hum, taking words and phrases out of context, combined them and misrepresented them as direct quotes – yep that sounds like Kennedy. The IOM president goes on to defend the IOM’s integrity, especially with reference to its studies being peer reviewed, unlike the work of many of the thimerosal activists:

Mr. Kennedy's piece does not mention that the IOM's studies on vaccines and autism -- like all IOM studies -- were peer reviewed (the equivalent of fact checking in the scientific community) by a group of outside experts before being approved for publication. The IOM, a branch of the National Academies, also follows stringent policies for reviewing the potential conflicts of interest or biases of individuals who are chosen to serve on its study committees. The members selected for the committee that reviewed vaccine safety issues had no links to the CDC, vaccine manufacturers, vaccine-related litigation or advocacy groups, and they had received no recent funding from the sponsors of the study. They received no remuneration for their work on the committee. The reputation of the National Academies for objectivity, integrity, independence and competence has been earned through numerous studies, and it is one of our most important assets.

Salon allowed Kennedy to reply. Amusingly, Kennedy pouts that the IOM President “offers no evidence of "fabricated" quotes”, as if Kennedy is all about evidence now. Of course, if Kennedy could offer evidence (with cites) of the original quotes (in context) and evidence of the “paid cover-up” that he so scandalously alleged, I might concede that the IOM President should back up his claim; but as I see it, Kennedy is the one unable to back up his claims, not the IOM President. Kennedy continues with more of the “conflict of interest” ad Hominem fallacious reasoning Orac and I have debunked before.

Michael Fumento

Finally, Michael Fumento writes in the Wall Street Journal online:

…Mr. Kennedy isn't to be relied upon for facts. He told Mr. Scarborough in a June 21 interview: "We are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe." Yet four days earlier this correction to his piece appeared: "The article also misstated the level of [mercury that infants have received]." It was "40 percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methyl mercury." Mr. Kennedy not only ignored this correction on Mr. Scarborough's show; he overstated it even further.

(My bold.)

Kennedy being loose with the facts. Wow! And Fumento comments on how Kennedy relies on people who will agree with him, rather than on people with expertise who don’t:

…Mr. Kennedy quotes from vaccine conspirators like Boyd Haley, "one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity." Actually, Mr. Haley has co-authored, since 1993, a total of five mercury-related publications listed on the medical data base Medline--not exactly what you'd expect from a world authority. By contrast, Frank DeStefano, an epidemiologist at the CDC who does not believe that vaccines cause autism, has co-authored 49 vaccine papers.

Finally, Fumento debunks the conspiracy to hide the data:

Mr. Kennedy had claimed that "to thwart the Freedom of Information Act," the government "handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers." But this practice, Dr. DeStefano noted, was required by federal regulations to protect the privacy of autistic children and their parents. It still allowed access by external researchers but not to any Joe Blow with a FOIA application.

Nicely put.

Edited to add:

See the pretty good article in yesterday's New York Times which included this quote from David Kirby, the author of "Evidence of Harm" that premotes the link between thimerosal and autism:

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year

Yes it should, David, if you are right.

Comments

[Daniel Kirchheimer]

I've been corresponding with Salon for several days regarding what I perceived as clear factual errors in the "Deadly Immunity" article based on my reading of the entire Simpsonwood transcript. The editor-in-chief, Joan Walsh, has issed corrections based, I believe, on our correspondence (see http://www.salon.com/letters/corrections/2005/index.html#IOMpanel), though we continue to disagree on my primary point regarding the impression given that Verstraeten presented a thimerosal-autism link at the Simpsonwood conference; Ms. Walsh's position is that the article does not say that the following statement was made at the conference:

"According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism..."

My position is that given the context of this passage, the clear implication is that this statement represented a finding presented at the conference (which it did not); Ms. Walsh disagrees, though she does agree that "By the time he and his research got to Simpsonwood, you're correct, the association with autism was weaker; Verstraeten found it was not statistically significant." No correction or clarification has been issued on this point.

Salon did encourage me to compose a letter to Robert F. Kenndy Jr. regarding my criticisms of the article, and Ms. Walsh indicated that they would ask Mr. Kennedy to respond. They were true to their word, and my letter and Mr. Kennedy's response have now appeared on the Salon web site at the following address:

http://www.salon.com/news/letters/2005/06/25/thimerosal/index.html

--Daniel Kirchheimer

[Critical Thinker]

"Anyway, Autism Diva points out a rather interesting conclusion (via Michelle Dawson) from this paper. On page 40, Kennedy writes that American children received much higher doses of thimerosal than UK children, and especially, more in one day than UK children, with the conclusion that American children are at a much higher risk of autism than children from the UK (since thimerosal causes autism, you see). Okey dokey, keep that in mind and read on."

It seems to me that you are misinterpreting what Kennedy is saying. This is what Kennedy said:

"The children who were subjects of the U.K. study (another ginned-up study done at the prompting of and in cahoots with the CDC),112 received 75
micrograms of thimerosal during their first 6 months compared to 187.5 micrograms given to U.S. kids during the same period.113"

The key part of Kennedy's quote is that he is referring to the subjects of a particular UK study. He is not making a general statement about ALL of the children in the UK. It sounds to me like these subjects not only received less thimerosal than US kids, but they also received less thmerosal than your average UK kid. If my assumption is correct your conclusions about thimerosal not having any effect on autism is invalid.

____________________________________

The IOM response is great but it doesn't change the facts. Here is a link to the full IOM report http://www.nomercury.org/iom/iom.pdf
Read this document. Then tell me how I can possibly believe that the CDC did not want the IOM to find a link and that the IOM had not already made up their mind BEFORE the study started that they would find no link between thimerosal and autism. Explain to me how these quotes are taken out of context as the IOM president would like us to believe. Here are some specific quotes that I find most concerning:

Page 32:
Dr. Kaback: "We have got a dragon by the tail here. At the end of the line, what we know is -- and I agree -- that the more negative that presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization, and we know what the results of that will be.

We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work out way out of the trap, I think, is the charge."

Page 34: Dr. McCormick
"I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis."

Page 72:
Dr. Stratton: "We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday. The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine, change the schedule.

We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy.

We wouldn't say compensate, we wouldn't say pull the vaccine, we wouldn't say stop the program."

Page 95 Dr. McCormick "What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine - because we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect - is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?"

[Sotek]

Good lord, dishonest much?

Page 34: Dr. McCormick
"I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis."

Yes, he said that.

NOTE WHAT THE DUAL PERSPECTIVE IS.

Safety for the "individual child" AS WELL AS on a population basis.

He's not saying the CDC wants them to fix results, he's saying the CDC wants them to declare safe/unsafe on a POPULATION basis, which is not an individual child basis.

And good god, the Stratton quote is self-evident what it means! He's saying "This is how much we're doing here. We're not going to say Do This, we're going to say Investigate Doing It, if we say anything at all".
Hardly fixing it.

And the page 95 quote ... did you bother reading on?
At all? It's blatantly obvious they could indeed, were there evidence, come to the conclusion that vaccines can sometimes cause autism.

McCormick is pretty clearly saying not that there's no association, but that if there IS an association, it is not the sole cause; again, actually read the context.

[Sotek]

"If my assumption is correct your conclusions about thimerosal not having any effect on autism is invalid."

Of course, the problem is that your assumption is WRONG, as you'd know if you bothered to pay attention.

There is only one thimerosal-containing vaccine in the UK, and they blamed the MMR vaccine, which never contained thimerosal.

It's not hard to see the problem that poses, if you're being honest.

[Michelle Dawson]

The UK study RFKJr cites states clearly that there is (at the time; this vaccine was scrapped in 2004) only one thimerosal-containing vaccine injected into children in the UK. This information can be confirmed from multiple sources (NHS, CDC). The amount of mercury stated by RFKJr in his opus is the maximum amount UK kids receive, assuming they get all their booster shots. It is possible some UK kids will get less, if they do not get their full schedule. But there is no other routine childhood vaccine in the UK that contains thimerosal. This makes it unlikely that UK children (unless they get more booster shots than recommended) routinely get more than the total of 75 micrograms of mercury by 6 months, or more than 25 micrograms on any one day. This has been true for some decades now. The problem of explaining Mr Blaxill's painstaking data remains.

[María Luján]

I am the mom of a child in the ASD spectrum. I have read the Orac comments, the RKJr paper, the DAN! information and a LOT of information about vaccines and epidemiological studies.
We are talking about safety in vaccines, not only thimerosal. As another parent posted, in vaccines there are Al and genetic material of other species. Even more, combination of viruses in MMR and accumulative exposure to the combination of all (Hg, Al, viruses in MMR, Other vaccines before MMR)because of the vaccine schedule contribute in susceptible individuals to develop ASD ( and other illness).I think that not ONLY thimerosal is the problem, but a big contributor. This fact would explain all the supposed problems with Canada and Danmark.
I invite you ORac to read the Edward Yazbak analysis of the Danish situation. Also to read the briefing of David Thrower, updated to 2004, with the analysis of almost all the manuscripts published favoring and against the link Vaccines (in general) Autism. Did you ever read the ARI biomedical options book? The Dr Yasko work? The published data on adverse reaccions to vaccines-www.whale.to/vaccines/damage.html? The Dr Fudenberg work (he is an immunologist with 848 published manuscripts? My son´s situation is only then anecdotic evidence? ( he demonstrated to have high Hg in blood after 6 months of GFCFdiet and a lot of nutritional/biochemical/detox imbalances as DAN! doctors present because of Hg/Al poisoning with no other source than vaccines-also he has problems with IgG levels related to the injected DPT and MMR vaccines and immune impairment).What do you need then, millions of "anecdotic evidences" around the world?
It is very sad to me that from the criticers of all the treatment of DAN! doctors ( an others propose) there are no options for us. Chelation has demonstrated to be effective in 73 % of children (ARI data). Obviously, it must be properly done to be effective , as all the medical procedures. Did you read the scientific foundations of the DAN! protocol from Teresa Binstock?The Jacquelyn Mc Candless book? Have you ever been in a DAN! conference?
IF you are interested Orac I can send to you additional scientific information, supporting my comments. I invite you to read this.
Sincerely María Luján

Sorry Skeptico, I mentioned Orac. Again, I would be honored if you discuss with me the scientific information behind the DAN! protocol and Dr Yasko treatment ( and other informatin I have).Sincerely

[Critical Thinker]

Page 34: Dr. McCormick
"I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis."

[Sotek]
Yes, he said that.

NOTE WHAT THE DUAL PERSPECTIVE IS.

Safety for the "individual child" AS WELL AS on a population basis.

He's not saying the CDC wants them to fix results, he's saying the CDC wants them to declare safe/unsafe on a POPULATION basis, which is not an individual child basis.

[Critical Thinker]

Sotek, Dr. McCormick stated that the CDC wanted the IOM to declare safe on a population basis. Dr. McCormick, who is a she by the way, did not say that the CDC wanted the IOM to declare the vaccines safe OR UNSAFE. You inserted the word "unsafe" in her quote. I agree with you that the IOM SHOULD have the option of finding the vaccines unsafe but Dr. McCormick's statement does NOT say that. Inserting it into her sentence after the fact does not change the meaning.

___________________________________________________

"And good god, the Stratton quote is self-evident what it means! He's saying "This is how much we're doing here. We're not going to say Do This, we're going to say Investigate Doing It, if we say anything at all".
Hardly fixing it."

Sotek, Dr. Stratton (another she by the way) states clearly that they will NOT pull the vaccine, they will NOT change the schedule, they will NOT compensate children who were damaged by the vaccine. If the IOM has already reached this conclusion, HOW COULD THEY POSSIBLY PUBLISH A REPORT THAT SHOWS THIMEROSAL CAUSES AUTISM? If they found thimerosal to cause autism, WOULDN'T THEY HAVE TO PULL THE VACCINES, CHANGE THE SCHEDULE AND COMPENSATE THE FAMILIES? Of course they would. Since they already determined that they would not make changes to the vaccine schedule or compensate the families they had no choice but to publish a report showing that thimerosal does not cause autism.

___________________________________________________

"McCormick is pretty clearly saying not that there's no association, but that if there IS an association, it is not the sole cause; again, actually read the context."

Sotek, you are once again mistaken. Reread McCormick's quote. She says in clear English that the IOM would never state that autism is a side effect of vaccines. Why is this not clear to you?

Even your flawed interpretation of McCormick's quote is damning to the IOM. You state that McCormick is saying that IF there is an association then it is not the sole cause. Explain to me how McCormick already knows that vaccines are not the sole cause BEFORE the study ever happened!

[Critical Thinker]

Michael Fumento

"Finally, Michael Fumento writes in the Wall Street Journal online:"

"…Mr. Kennedy isn't to be relied upon for facts. He told Mr. Scarborough in a June 21 interview: "We are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe." Yet four days earlier this correction to his piece appeared: "The article also misstated the level of [mercury that infants have received]." It was "40 percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methyl mercury." Mr. Kennedy not only ignored this correction on Mr. Scarborough's show; he overstated it even further."

[Critical Thinker]

This issue needs to be addressed. I don't know where the 400x, 187x or 40% numbers are coming from. Kennedy may have confused the numbers but the fact remains that the exposure was still EXCEEDINGLY HIGH. See for yourself.

At birth, babies received 12.5 mcg of mercury from their Hep B vaccine. This is 35 times over the EPA safety limit for an 8 lb baby and 70 times over the
EPA limit for a 4 lb baby.

At 2 months, babies received 62.5 mcg (12.5 Hep B, 25 HIB, 25 DTaP) of mercury. This is 138 times over
the EPA safety limit for a 10 lb baby.

At 4 months, babies received 50 mcg (25 HIB, 25 DTaP) of mercury. This is 72 times over the EPA safety limit for a 14 lb baby.

At 6 months, babies received 50 mcg (25 HIB, 25 DTaP) of mercury. This is 68 times over the limit for a 16 lb baby.

At 1 year, babies received 50 mcg (25 HIB, 25 DTaP) of mercury. This is 55 times over the limit for a 20 lb baby.

Does anyone think exposing our babies to 212.5 mcg of mercury in the first year of life is safe across 5 bolus doses is safe? This doesn't even take into account the environmental mercury that our babies are exposed to.

[Mitzy Lou]

In the UK, they don't give babies 212.5 mcg of mercury in the first year of life and they still have the same proportional number of autistics. If there has been a real rise in the number of autistics in the UK, not just a rise in the number of diagnoses, that rise has another cause. Thimerosal has been vindicated. Mr. Critical Thinker, you need to look for something else to blame.

The DAN! protocol suggests that people send their kid's urine to possibly corrupt or misleading commercial labs that tell them that their kids' urine is high in whatever, doesn't it? All it takes to be a DAN! doctor is to show up at a DAN! conference and put ones name on a list.

The kids who go on the DAN! protocol or the Buttar protocal may get better, we never get to hear from the parents for whom the stuff doesn't work and was a waste of money and time. So the testimonials all may be coming from people whose kids would have gotten better anyway and who have been misled by the commercial labs into believing that their kid had too much mercury in his urine.

The whole hair analysis thing is bizarre. Lyn Redwood has her name on a paper that says if a baby is not, in fact, excreting any mercury at all, but holding on to it, then a certain amount should show up in the baby's hair. They have graphs done in "excel" to show how much mercury would be in the baby's hair if he wasn't excreting it anywhere but in his hair. Then later on the SAFEMINDS folks jump on the bandwagon that autistic kids have too little mercury in their hair, because they can't excrete it in their hair. But, Will Redwood's first baby haircut hair had high levels of mercury according to the commercial lab his mom sent it off to. this is in the book "Evidence of Harm". They can have it any way they feel like having it, looks like.

One "researcher" who showed that autistic kids have too little mercury in their hair is an engineer with no medical or nutrition training at all. He works or worked for a university in Arizona and has also written on the use of vitamins in treating autistic kids. He said the vitamins helped them have better digestion. His name is JB Adams. He seems to be a huge fan of DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) I don't know if he was able to cure his daughter with chelation, etc.

[Prometheus]

When the Danish thimerosal study was published, I remember thinking, "Well, this puts the final nail in the thimerosal coffin." Little did I realize that this subject was one of the "undead." No matter how many times it is shot, burned up, blown to bits and torn to shreds, it keeps rising from the grave.

I shudder to think how much valuable research time and money has been wasted trying to drive a stake though the heart of the thimerosal-autism "controversy" - imagine how much real progress might have been made if those resources had been directed somewhere (anywhere!) else.

No, the only controvery about the thimerosal-autism issue is how much more time, effort and money we, as a society, are going to waste on it before we "move on."

While I have the greatest compassion for the desperate parents of autstic children, I have nothing but scorn for opportunists like RFK, Jr., Dan Olmsted and Boyd Haley, who are sucking on the sorrow and pain of these families in order to further their own careers.

Prometheus

Dear Prometheus
Would you allow me to discuss with you this Danish study and how Dr Yazbak pointed out a lot of considerations about it and the authors?
I respectfully disagree with you. Dr Haley is a scientist, very compassionate and very trustable in his convictions. Did your read his CV? Did you read his papers?
Do you have time to read the Dr Yazbak considerations and a lot of other information I have about this?
I am the mom of an autistic child (PCCNOS) I am interested in an exchange of opinions about this, If you want.
Please let me know to my e-mail
María Luján

[Sotek]

Critical Nonthinker:
Sotek, Dr. McCormick stated that the CDC wanted the IOM to declare safe on a population basis. Dr. McCormick, who is a she by the way, did not say that the CDC wanted the IOM to declare the vaccines safe OR UNSAFE. You inserted the word "unsafe" in her quote. I agree with you that the IOM SHOULD have the option of finding the vaccines unsafe but Dr. McCormick's statement does NOT say that. Inserting it into her sentence after the fact does not change the meaning.

Me: I didn't say she said that.
And if you look at the actual bloody report, it's blatantly obvious that BASED ON THE EVIDENCE THEY HAD SEEN, they wouldn't be ruling it unsafe on a poulation basis, because such a ruling would be false.

Nonthinker:

Dr. Stratton (another she by the way) states clearly that they will NOT pull the vaccine, they will NOT change the schedule, they will NOT compensate children who were damaged by the vaccine.

Me:

Yes, because they don't have the authority, or did you bother to read the context? You aren't even addressing what I said!

Nonthinker:

Sotek, you are once again mistaken. Reread McCormick's quote. She says in clear English that the IOM would never state that autism is a side effect of vaccines. Why is this not clear to you?

Me:

Because I'm not reading just the quote.
I'm reading the couple pages around it.
Context, you know, it gives meaning to words?

Or can't you be bothered to look for an honest context, when you could instead lie?

Nonthinker:

Even your flawed interpretation of McCormick's quote is damning to the IOM. You state that McCormick is saying that IF there is an association then it is not the sole cause. Explain to me how McCormick already knows that vaccines are not the sole cause BEFORE the study ever happened!

Me:

Because, maybe, McCormick knows that autism predates thimerosal?
Because McCormick knows that autism is found in countries that don't use thimerosal?
Because even if McCormick thought mercury was the sole cause of autism, vaccines are not the only source thereof?

There's any number of possibilities, none of which require pretending something said at a conference for 'experts' needs no context whatsoever.

[Critical Thinker]

"In the UK, they don't give babies 212.5 mcg of mercury in the first year of life and they still have the same proportional number of autistics. If there has been a real rise in the number of autistics in the UK, not just a rise in the number of diagnoses, that rise has another cause. Thimerosal has been vindicated. Mr. Critical Thinker, you need to look for something else to blame."

Vindicated? I think not. In 1990, the UK changed their DPT practices, moving the schedule from a 3, 4.5 and 8-11 month recommendation to a 2/3/4 month schedule. This dramatically increased EARLY exposure to thimerosal and cannot be discounted as a potential cause of autism in the UK.

To truly vindicate thimerosal as a cause or even as a partial contributor to autism there needs to be some serious biological studies. Teams of doctors should be studying these children to understand why they get sick so often, why they have so many food allergies, why they have stomach disorders (colitis, inflammation), why they have chronic yeast overgrowth, why they have low muscle town and why they have heavy metals pouring out of their bodies when they undergo chelation. Whether or not you agree that autism has increased tremendously over the past 20 years I think we all agree that it is quite common today. Ridicule DAN doctors all you want but at least they have been brave enough to think out of the box and give real medical care to our children.

[Critical Thinker]

Sotek,

You're welcome to call me "Nonthinker" but there is really no need for name calling. You are getting frustrated because you are fighting a losing battle. There is no defense for those IOM quotes. Those quotes are taken BEFORE the IOM analyzed any data. They should not already have formed an opinion on the outcome. You say:

"And if you look at the actual bloody report, it's blatantly obvious that BASED ON THE EVIDENCE THEY HAD SEEN, they wouldn't be ruling it unsafe on a poulation basis, because such a ruling would be false."

I don't know what report you're referring to but you once again miss the point. Even if this report you refer to contained evidence to rule thimerosal safe (hypothetically speaking of course because we all know that there are no reports proving thimerosal safe) the problem still exists. The IOM should not have made up their mind already about what they would or would not recommend as policy.

__________________________________________________

Critical thinker:

Dr. Stratton (another she by the way) states clearly that they will NOT pull the vaccine, they will NOT change the schedule, they will NOT compensate children who were damaged by the vaccine.

Sotek:

"Yes, because they don't have the authority, or did you bother to read the context? You aren't even addressing what I said!"

They don't have the authority? The IOM makes recommendations. If their opinion meant nothing then why were they asked to look at the issue in the first place? The IOM report that said thimerosal does not cause autism and that no more research on the topic should be done carried A LOT of weight.
__________________________________________________

I never thought I would say this but I miss Skeptico.

[Sotek]

You linked to the report your own damn self.

If you can't be bothered to read it, then shame on you.

And if you think that the UK incidence, which is following *exactly* the same pattern as the US incidence, doesn't have an identical cause, you're ... well ... creative.

And if you think that Thimerosal can qualify as an identical cause, I'd like you to tell me what the precise dosages recieved of it in the USA and the UK are.

Oh, and if you think I'm fighting a losing battle, well... you may be right, because it's impossible to convince someone who won't look at their own evidence before trying to use.
But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Sotek, Please post the exact text that shows that the IOM was trying to say that they didn't have the "authority" to adjust the vaccine schedule as opposed to having already made up their mind.

I already posted the precise dosages in the US. In the UK, starting in 1990 children received 25 mcg of mercury at 2 months, 25 mcg at 3 months & 25 mcg at 4 months.

[Michelle Dawson]

If I have this right, the argument from "Critical Thinker" (linked variously to Safe Minds, Generation Rescue, etc) is that RFKJr is totally wrong, and that there is no significant and/or clinically meaningful difference in the amount or concentration of thimerosal which was concurrently injected into US and UK children.

In that case, you have to accept the conclusions of Andrews et al, 2004, that there is no relationship between thimerosal and autism. RFKJr's total argument against Andrews et al (2004) is that US children were exposed to significantly greater and more concentrated amounts of mercury by age 6 months, due to differences in the concurrent US and UK vaccination schedules. RFKJr reports the UK schedule timing as it was between 1990 and up to 2004 (otherwise, he could not report 75 micrograms before 6 months); that is, he reports the schedules which existed in the two countries during the same time period. The amount of mercury in the UK schedule had not changed for several decades prior to 2004, unlike the US amount.

Also, so far as I can tell, it is now being argued that the exact same mercury-caused autism epidemic will happen regardless of the dose and concentration of mercury injected into children. If you hold to this argument, then you should be able to prove a threshold effect. That is, after you reach a certain amount of mercury (let's say, 75 micrograms in 6 months, with no more than 25 micrograms on any one day), more mercury (e.g., more than 112 micrograms more, before 6 months) as well as greater concentrations of mercury (the "giant" 62.5 microgram one-day dose) are irrelevant, and do not result in more autistic children.

Now, if I've read this right, RFKJr's position has completely been abandoned, and it is supposed to be the schedule timing, which, very precisely, is enough to trigger all the autism epidemics seen everywhere (recalling that autism prevalence is consistent among Canada, the US, the UK--except of course Canada removed thimerosal in 1994). Schedules in other countries should be checked (and just out of curiosity, the timing of the US vaccinations before 1988 should be checked), to look for this dramatic threshold effect.

That threshold effect should work in reverse also; Canada's autism prevalence should have plummeted after 1994, as below-threshold amounts were rapidly achieved. If it is impossible to hide autistic people in society (the "hidden hordes" argument) it must equally be impossible to overlook our near eradication.

If this kind of threshold effect is what Safe Minds, Generation Rescue, etc, are now proposing, they should be more precise in presenting their theory, which is (apparently, if we go by Critical Thinker) that the autism/mercury connection is very precise and specific. Three doses of 25 micrograms of mercury causes an autism explosion *if* these doses are at 2, 3, and 4 months. If these doses are marginally later and more dispersed, there is very little autism. Conversely, if you add *any* injected mercury to this precise threshold amount/timing, even a whole lot of mercury, or further compress the schedule (for example, by injecting a mercury-containing vaccine near the time of birth; or by injecting 62.5 micrograms on one day), there is *no* effect, no increase at all in the prevalence of autism.

And... so far as I can tell, it has now been argued that children in the UK didn't get the same amount of mercury as the children reported in Andrews et al (2004), and that they did. It has been argued that amount and concentration of mercury is very important, and that it is irrelevant. Etc. And these totally contradictory arguments have all been forwarded as supporting the mercury=autism theory.

I've written the above while attempting to do many other things simultaneously. So my (distracted) logic is open to challenge. And I'm guessing, as I have to, about what exactly is now being proposed by the mercury/autism theorists.

[Skeptico]

Critical Thinker:

I have now read the first 100 pages of those IOM minutes and I have to tell you that the quotes you posted from it don’t mean anything like what you think they mean. Honestly, I can only assume you must have decided that there is a cover-up going on before you even read it and have only looked for quotes that back up that decision of yours. There is really no other rational explanation – I assume you don’t realize you’re doing it.

I will read the other 99 pages of this document tomorrow and will try to make my detailed reply on this subject tomorrow night. Seriously though, I ask you to try to read that whole .pdf, and with an open mind. There is no cover-up going on. In fact, it is clear they want to get at the truth.

[Skeptico]

Michelle:

Your logic, distracted or not, seems flawless to me.

[Sotek]

Skeptico: I don't think he's even looked at the Minutes, since those are the same quotes RFK, jr is using.

[Sotek]

self-proclaimed "critical thinker" said:

Sotek, Please post the exact text that shows that the IOM was trying to say that they didn't have the "authority" to adjust the vaccine schedule as opposed to having already made up their mind.

Me:
Okay.

Let's look at page 74, the one with the quote you cited.

Let's look at the question that PROMPTED the quote you cited.

"Dr Goodman: Just to go back to the point that we are not being asked to make public health policy, when you say action, how are you defining action? How far down the line are you defining actions?"

"We are not being asked to make public health policy".
How much more explict can you get?

Regarding the UK study. SafeMinds believes it to be flawed but has not yet responded to it. I say this knowing you will all have fun with that response. But since the Danish studies are so blatantly flawed it's not that hard for me to think there could be similar issues with the UK studies. My post explaining why the Danish studies are flawed can be found here http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/06/robert_f_kenned.html

The main flaw is that at the start of the study they only included children who were diagnosed as an inpatient in a hospital. Midway thru (at the same time that thimerosal was removed) they started counting outpatient children which represented the majority of the cases. They also included children diagnosed in the busiest clinic midway thru the study - again at the same time thimerosal was removed. These are such obvious flaws that I have to question the motives of those that published the study. For this same reason I won't trust the UK study until SafeMinds has had an opportunity to respond to it.

Regarding the IOM quotes. Sotek, here is a quote from Dr. McCormick on page 15:

"I think, at least if I am understanding the extremes, we could potentially come up with, there isn't evidence for this one way or another, keep going full court press, or there is so much evidence to support this adverse reaction, pull the vaccine."

Then on page 95
Dr. McCormick "What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine - because we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect - is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?"

So it seems like Dr. McCormick believed she had the authority, given the evidence, to have the vaccine pulled and later states that the committee would never come down that autism is a true side effect of vaccines.

Skeptico, your question to me is very funny about me beliefs prior to reading the transcript. Are you implying that you read it with an open mind?

Interpreting these documents is not easy and depending on where you focus you can easily find something to support a different view. The bottom line is that there have been too many questionable behaviors throughout the history of this controversy. If Kennedy is successful in helping to launch an investigation so that we finally get answers that will be a very good thing. Getting access to the VSD data will help to end this debate. There is talk about an Amish study and that is also positive and a result of pressure applied by parents & open minded journalists.

And I still stand by my earlier comments that I want to see the autistic children evaluated for the strange medical conditions that are common to them. A parent posted a response asking you to take a look at Dr. Deth's papers describing mercury's impact on methylation and how methyl B12 is helping. I'm curious to hear your interpretation of that paper. Perhaps environmental methyl mercury is also at fault. Did you read the study in Texas showing an increase in autism rates in children living closest to coal burning (mercury emitting) plants?

[Sotek]

"So it seems like Dr. McCormick believed she had the authority, given the evidence, to have the vaccine pulled and later states that the committee would never come down that autism is a true side effect of vaccines."

Which would be why someone there told her otherwise, yes?

Or do you think everyone who went there knew everything that was going to be discussed perfectly?

[Critical Thinker]

"Which would be why someone there told her otherwise, yes?"

Sotek, Who told her otherwise?

And what about her later comment that they would not come down that autism is a true side effect of vaccines? That statement has nothing to do with policy. Do you agree? Do you agree that the IOM was authorized to state whether or not autism is a true side effect of vaccines?

Dr. McCormick was not the only one who felt this way.

Dr. Goodman questions the category that would state that the committee “favors” an association between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders—Dr. Stratton responds emphatically:

Page 130
Dr. Goodman: “Just the phrase favors is, again, open to
misinterpretation the same way that association is. Then we have to discuss do we want to use the word establish, which is a very high bar.”

Dr. Stratton: “We will never have it here. I think that actually you don’t have to agonize over it. Not to prejudge your decisions over the next three years, but I will bet you a hundred bucks you will never come up with a category five. It won’t even cross your mind.”

[Skeptico]

C.T.

And you claim you read this with an open mind? You really are trying to fit things to your belief. I'll show what I mean. This:

Not to prejudge your decisions over the next three years

...was the operative phrase. NOT to prejudge your decisions. He was just guessing that he thought it unlikely a certain for sure causative link could be found. A reasonable guess, but in no way evidence that they had decided to whitewash a link. That’s a ridiculous thing to think – “NOT to prejudge your decisions” – how much clearer could that be?

I’m going to try to find time to write my post on this whole ridiculous transcript. I’ll try to do it tonight but I’m pretty busy right now. It will get posted soon, though.

[Critical Thinker]

"We will never have it here."

That is a pretty strong statement that preceded the one you chose to comment on. The guess that you refer to still indicates that these scientists went into this study with a preconceived notion regarding the outcome.

You ask if I read this study with an open mind. I read this study already suspicious of the way the entire vaccine issue has been handled. I'm not sitting here saying that the IOM spent the entire meeting plotting to figure out how they could declare no link before the study ever started. But if some of these scientists went about this study half-heartedly because they "knew" there couldn't possibly be a connection then the IOM deserves the scrutiny it is now facing.

There are several passages where the scientists talk about biological case studies they should look at. To my knowledge, they did not study the autistic children. They relied solely on flawed Danish epidemiological studies and a CDC study declared neutral by the author. The CDC US study took about 5 years yet somehow the Danish authors, working with the CDC, managed to bang out 3 Danish studies within a year. Is this proof that the CDC orchestrated 3 rapid Danish studies that showed no link knowing that the IOM would use it as input? No, not exactly but seeing the obvious flaws in those Danish studies I can't dismiss it as a possibility.

Was the IOM trying to avoid looking at evidence that would favor a cause when they refused to push back the timetable at Dave Weldon's request to allow biological studies to be included in their review? I can't make that statement but I do question why they refused to make that accomodation.

When you view all of these questionable behaviors a strong case can certainly be made that some have acted inappropriately. And in their minds I'm sure they can validate their actions by thinking it is more important to save the reputation of the vaccine program than risk the spread of infectious disease because a small percentage of the population has suffered vaccine injury.

Would you care to tell the class if you read the report with an open mind? And please make sure you address ALL of the quotes I have included.

[Skeptico]

"We will never have it here."

That is a pretty strong statement that preceded the one you chose to comment on. The guess that you refer to still indicates that these scientists went into this study with a preconceived notion regarding the outcome.

Another quote just taken completely out of context. Stratton is making an educated guess. None of the discussions indicate a group of people with closed minds already made up. Not even close. You are just being ridiculous.

You ask if I read this study with an open mind. I read this study already suspicious of the way the entire vaccine issue has been handled. I'm not sitting here saying that the IOM spent the entire meeting plotting to figure out how they could declare no link before the study ever started.

RFKJr. did say that exact thing. You are being disingenuous .

But if some of these scientists went about this study half-heartedly because they "knew" there couldn't possibly be a connection then the IOM deserves the scrutiny it is now facing.

Then please show evidence they “went about this study half-heartedly”. This is just ridiculous.

When you view all of these questionable behaviors a strong case can certainly be made that some have acted inappropriately.

You have yet to demonstrate “questionable behaviors”. Just quote mining - pathetic

Would you care to tell the class if you read the report with an open mind? And please make sure you address ALL of the quotes I have included.

Yes I did. And I will answer the four quotes you originally quoted, no more. Even though you have now apparently actually read the transcript, I am not going to justify every quote you find.

None of the discussions indicate a group of people with closed minds already made up. Not even close. You are just being ridiculous.

Dr. McCormick states that they will never come down that autism is a side effect of vaccines.

Dr. McCormick also states that the CDC wants the IOM to declare vaccines safe on a population basis.

Sure seems to me like some minds are made up.

Then please show evidence they “went about this study half-heartedly”. This is just ridiculous.

1. They relied on flawed Danish studies
2. They relied on a flawed US study that no one has been allowed to replicate. The CDC American study was repeated 5 times with the relative risk of autism decreasing from 12 in the first version (aka Generation 0) down to 0. Over this time they included children who were just born and obviously too young to be diagnosed.
3. The IOM refused to wait for key biological studies to be published before announcing their decision.
4. The IOM did not pursue the research described in the IOM report we are all reading.
5. Unrelated to this report, the FDA intentionally downplayed the mercury overexposure they allowed to happen by dividing the mercury children were exposed to in the 1st 6 months of life by 180 days instead of correctly representing the exposure as large bolus doses.

There are certainly others but this is what I have off the top of my head.

[Skeptico]

I have answered your points in">http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/06/lies_damn_lies_.html">in this thread. You are being absurd – the committee had not made their minds up, and there was no conspiracy to “whitewash” as Kennedy alleges.

[Sotek]

I love, by the way, how our ever-so-critical but-maybe-not-thinker here claims that the rise everywhere BUT the US is because of changed diagnostics ...
... even though the US made the same changes at the same times.

[Guy Wise]

If you were choosing vaccines for your newborn, and you had a choice between vaccines with thimerosal and vaccines with a non-mercury-based alternative, which would you choose?

The government and big pharma would NEVER put profits before safety. [What planet do you morons live on?]

[HN]

That depends on where you live. What exactly are the levels of thimerosal PRESENTLY in childhood vaccines in the US, UK, Canada and other first level economies?

What about the possibity of measles? The MMR vaccine has NEVER contained thimerosal... but there are many who claim. Then there are the fools who believed a "study" by Wakefield whose results were paid for by a lawyer... and now there is a mumps epidemic in the UK. Measles still kills almost half a million people a year:
http://www.measlesinitiative.org/index3.asp

What are the conditions for storing vaccines where many of these diseases are still rampant? If you were in Thailand or Indonesia after a tsunami what would you worry about more... the very real possibility of tetanus or the microscopic amount of thimerosal in the dT vaccine... or if the vaccine had been contaminated? We are on this planet where ALL sorts of factors have to be accounted for... See in:
http://www.who.int/biologicals/publications/trs/areas/vaccines/thiomersal/thiomersal.pdf
.. this quote:

"Should a national health authority or a manufacturer decide to eliminate,
reduce, remove or replace thiomersal in vaccines, then the strategy chosen
may affect not only the subsequent ability of microbial contaminants to grow
in vaccine preparations, but also vaccine quality, safety and efficacy. The
question therefore arises as to what evidence is needed to ensure that a
vaccine where the thiomersal content has been altered will be as safe and
efficacious as the already licensed product. "

and further down:

"Making changes to the thiomersal content of vaccines already licensed with
this preservative is a complex issue that requires careful consideration. It
should be borne in mind that any change in the formulation may have an
important impact on the quality, safety and efficacy of vaccines. Experience
shows that eliminating or reducing thiomersal from an existing product can
have some unexpected effects on vaccine quality, safety and efficacy.
Effects on vaccine stability might also be expected. "

[hornig mouse]

Honestly, the more I see of studies the more I wish I had a baby to prove the point that thimerosal is not deadly.

I would allow a baby of mine (and I have had 2) to be injected with the highest amount that the US governement had allowed and even higher (say someone made a mistake and the child was vaccinated a few extra times with a thimerosal containing vaccine) . There is no reason to think that Thimerosal is heinoulsy toxic. Aspiring is heinously deadly to some people at a regular dose and to all people at a high enough dose.
There was a time when folks in Europe thought that tomatoes were deadly, so I've heard.

That's the kind of fear that is happening hear with thimerosal. Of course, I would gladly take 10 times the amount of thimerosal in one dose that I got in my flu shot this last year.

No problem. -- The mercury mob wouldn't be impressed with that though since I'm an adult and their point is that it destroys the brains of certain babies.

All I can say is then, that I love puppies almost as much as I love human babies and I would gladly allow a puppy of mine to be injected with thimerosal at more than the rate that babies got on the highest day of dosage.

I haven't done the math, but I guess I'd go for a dose 10 times that of what is recommended by whoever and not tremble, maybe 50 times higher, because I believe that the fears are so disgustingly exaggerated.

The rate where doctors start to worry is 1 mcg per milliliter of blood volume, I think. That's from the Magos study in 2001. I don't know how that works out to mcgs in an injection.

I'd do it on national tv, gladly. And no, I'm not putting my real name here because of the reputation of the antivaxers and anti-Hg zealots as being kooks and even law breakers.

One of them recently put the phone number- of a woman who wrote a letter to an editor contradicting the mercury hype- on the internet with a recommendation that the phone number be spread to all other mercury/autism groups and that people should call this woman at home to tell her what they thought. The list that got that message had about 800 people on it. I don't know if anyone, including the man that put her phone number on the web, has called the woman.

[Michael Syintsakos]

All I've got to say is thanks. I read the article in RS last night and I wanted to puke. I've got a 21/2 yr old boy that's bright and "so far" autism free. I did all the on-line research and scoured the virt-world for info to make sure that my wife and I did what was right for our child regarding vaccines (as with all things - we try). So far so good, balance the scare literature/anecdotes with common sense and reasoned review of the facts.

Now RFKjr and RS are trying to forge another front in battle for the hearts and mind of mindless america. I refuse to fall prey to that...

Thanks for doing the research and reporting what confirms my skepticism - I'm going to download the report and check it out myself too.

[@#@#@#@#]

ANYONE WANT TO EAT CROW NOW? THE AUTISM NUMBERS ARE FINALLY DOWN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS. JUST AS MANY PEOPLE PREDICTED SINCE THEY STARTED TO REMOVE A MAJORITY OF THIMEROSAL FROM VACCINATIONS. MOST OF US WITH COMMON SENCE KEPTED SAYING THAT ABOUT 3 YEARS AFTER THEY REMOVE MOST OF THE MERCURY WE SHOULD SEE A DECLINE BECAUSE VACCINES HAVE A 3 YEAR SHELF LIFE SO IT TOOK UNTILL THIS YEAR FOR MOST OF THE SHOTS WITH THIMERSAL TO BE USED UP! OK, YOU CAN EAT YOUR CROW NOW.

[Skeptico]

Oooh we are an angry little person, aren’t we. Turn the caps lock off - writing in all caps doesn’t make your case any better.

And you are jumping the gun. The fact that you jump on the first bit of data you see that you think supports your case shows your naiveté wrt scientific information. Please read " ... it is inaccurate to represent the change in the numbers reported from one quarter to the next as 'new intakes" and try to grow up.

Profanity ridden comment deleted by Skeptico

Mr "[email protected]": I don't object to people who disagree but I will not put up with contentless swearing. Do not post anything like that again. Oh and grow up.

- Skeptico

[C. Ollo]

I haven't read the entire blog, so I don't know if this was discussed. An interesting question has been why don't all children vaccinated have autism? A reason may be the glutathione link (you can google it)which may indicate why thimersol effected some children, but not all. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Thinking people will take a closer look.

C. Ollo; scientist, psychologist and mother of an autistic son

I believe that mercury may play a part in the increase in autism, but I'd bet that environmental mercury will turn out to play a larger part than thimerosal. A recent study in Texas found that for every 1000 lbs of mercury in the environment there was a 61% increase in autism. California, where autism rates have skyrocketed, also happens to have the largest environmental mercury load. An article on the study can be found here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2002210097_autism17.html

An interesting article analyzing the health risks of mercury by Dr. Clarkson of the Department of Environmental Medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine can be found on the NIH site: ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2002/ suppl-1/11-23clarkson/EHP110s1p11PDF.pdf

From the above:
"In attempts to estimate health risks from thimerosal in vaccines, a key gap in our knowledge on the human toxicology of mercury has become apparent. Little is known about the tissue disposition and toxicity of mercury in human infants, or in animals for that matter."

The bottom line is we just don't know. Certainly it needs more study. But while we're waiting for the results shouldn't we get rid of the thimerosal just in case there is a chance it IS causing our children harm ?

Oh, and maybe we should take a closer look at the effects of environmental mercury too.

[Myra Lowrie,MA]

The CDC, AAP, FDA, to name a few will never consider any of the research offering plausible explanations for the link between thimerosal and neurobehavioral disorders as being valid research. If the number of vaccine injured children and adults is already being grossly under reported as stated by a former FDA Commissioner then why should we expect any factual information about thimerosal?

[HCN]

Myra Lowrie, MA wrote: "The CDC, AAP, FDA, to name a few will never consider any of the research offering plausible explanations for the link between thimerosal and neurobehavioral disorders as being valid research. "

I believe they would if presented in a well conducted study by qualified individuals. Can you name a study done by a toxicologist? Or by a qualified biochemist?

Really, the only ones I have seen are by the Geiers (not qualified, and they totally flubbed the data, plus they own a company paid by lawyers for "expert testimony"), by the folks at Safeminds (a nurse, a financial analysist, a business major, a person with an UNDERgraduate degree in math and a chemical engineer). Comments on the studies and the "researchers" can be found here:
http://photoninthedarkness.blogspot.com/2005/07/mercury-nostalgia.html ... also what is interesting that one person who should have the proper qualifications also owns a company dedicated to "screening for toxins" and then "detoxifying", www.altcorp.com (something smells fishy there!)

Plus the MMR study was by a gastroenterologist who was paid by a lawyer to get specific results (see http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm )

Anyway here is one study that might interest you:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16009427&query_hl=1

[Myra Lowrie,MA]

Molecular Psychiatry (2004) 9, 358-370
Toxicology 195 (2004) 77-84
H. Vasken Aposhian, Ph.D
Professor of Molecular & Cellular Biology, Professor of Pharmacology The University of Arizona IOM Meeting 02/09/2004
Here some abstracts I plan on looking at:
Iatrogenic exposure to mercury after hepatitis B vaccination in preterm infants. Stajich GV, Lopez GP, Harry SW, Sexson WR. J Pediatr (2000) May; 136(5):679-81. (10802503)
Vaccines without thimersal: why so necessary, why so long coming? van't Veen AJ. Drugs (2001); 61(5):565-72. (11368282)
Predicted mercury concentrations in hair from infant immunizations: cause for concern. Redwood L, Bernard S, Brown D. Neurotoxicology (2001) Oct; 22(5):691-7. (11770890)
Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning. Bernard S, Enayati A, Redwood L, Roger H, Binstock T. Med Hypotheses (2001) Apr; 56(4):462-71. (11339848)
Pratt RD. Drug Saf (2001); 24(8):567-74. (11480489)
Review on the toxicity of ethylmercury, including its presence as a preservative in biological and pharmaceutical products. Magos L. J Appl Toxicol (2001). Jan-Feb; 21(1):1-5. (11180274)
The three modern faces of mercury. Clarkson TW. Environ Health Perspect (2002). Feb; 110 Suppl 1:11-23. (11834460)
Route of decomposition of thiomersal (thimerosal). Tan M, Parkin JE. Int J Pharm (2000). Nov 4; 208(1-2):23-34. (11064208)
Report finds no link between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders. Frankish H. Lancet (2001). Oct 6; 358 (9288):1163. (11597681)
Impact of the Joint Statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics/US Public Health Service on thimerosal in vaccines on hospital infant hepatitis B vaccination practices. Hurie MB, Saari TN, Davis JP. Pediatrics (2001). Apr; 107(4):755-8. (11335754)
Summary of the joint statement on thimerosal in vaccines. American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Public Health Service. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep (2000). Jul 14; 49(27):622, 631. (10914930)
An assessment of thimerosal use in childhood vaccines. Ball LK, Ball R, Pratt RD. Pediatrics (2001). May; 107(5):1147-54. (11331700)
Effect of thimerosal recommendations on hospitals' neonatal hepatitis B vaccination policies. Brayden RM, Pearson KA, Jones JS, Renfrew BL, Berman S. J Pediatr (2001). May; 138(5):752-5. (11343056)
Preservative-free influenza vaccine. Banzhoff A, Schwenke C, Febbraro S. Immunol Lett (2000) Feb 1; 71(2):91-6. (10714435)
Thiomersal in gammaglobulins for pregnant travelers may not be safe for the fetus. van Ken WG. Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd (1999). Sep 18; 143(38):1934-5. (10526626)
Thiomersal in gammaglobulin for pregnant travellers may not be safe for the fetus. National Coordination Center for Travel Advisory. Schilthuis HJ, van Wijnen JH. Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd (1999). Jul 31; 143(31):1622. (10488375)

[HCN]

Yawn... Do you have a point?

Just a note on the hodge-podge of papers (which seems to be from plugging in search terms into www.pubmed.gov):

1) Read http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm and tell us exactly which vaccine we should be worried about.

2) Disregard anything published in "Medical Hypothesis", especially since the most competent person on the author list is a chemical engineer -- not a biochemist (the rest include a nurse, a person with a bachelor's in Math, etc), and absolutely NONE of them have seen a real case of mercury poisoning. Just like Blaxill, who is a financial analyst.

3) For the paper on "Hair Analysis" read:
http://photoninthedarkness.blogspot.com/2005/07/pefect-example-of-how-not-to-do-study.html and
http://photoninthedarkness.blogspot.com/2005/07/perfect-example-of-how-not-to-do-study.html (note that it is a more recent paper than the one you listed, the one you listed has some of the same players).

4) Also add to your reading list:
http://www.who.int/biologicals/publications/trs/areas/vaccines/thiomersal/thiomersal.pdf

When you are done with your research please come back and answer this question:

Which vaccine in the present pediatric schedule is more dangerous than the disease itself? Please include all references.

[Myra Lowrie]

In the case of my grand daughter the DTaP was more dangerous than the disease. Reference her MRI which documented permanent brain damage from the brain swelling and seizures which started just hours after the injection. Her neurologist stated the next vaccine may kill her. I yawn allot from lack of sleep worrying about her future.

[HCN]

That would have been such an unusual occurance it would have been documented. Can you tell were it is referenced in www.pubmed.gov? Or where it is listed in VAERS?

Or did you just make it up?

[Myra Lowrie,MA]

There was a VAERS report filed which only mentions the abnormal gait she had once walking again. There is lawsuit in progress so I cannot discuss anymore. If this is so rare why then did the neurologist (who use to be an expert witness for drug companies) immediately suspect what happened and ordered a MRI?
What amazes me is that the first thing I learned in nursing school pharmacology is that no drug is 100% safe, 100% of the time for 100% of the population so why should we think vaccines which are drugs should be any different? Back to your question, no I did not make this up and I would give my life to go back in time and stop the pedi from taking our bright and developmental normal grandbaby away from us.
Just a note of interest, I contacted the CDC about this adverse vaccine reaction event in hopes of learning more. I was told "despite what the MRI showed and the doctor said" there was no vaccine reaction. Since denial takes away credibility, I have now lost confidence in the CDC.
Thank you for your time. Have a wonderful holiday season.

[BronzeDog]

I do remember hearing about measles vaccines potentially causing encephalitis or something like that, but measles is much, much more likely to cause it, so it's a net reduction in risk. Think I saw it on ratbags.com.

Bear in mind that you might be the one in a million. The odds of a particular person winning the lottery are very small, yet it still happens.

[HCN]

Here is a side by side comparison of the diseases versus the vaccines:
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immunization/compare.htm

Whenever I get into a discussion of my son's disability, someone brings up vaccines. I tell them that he had seizures when he was two days old, and that had a better chance of being the cause of his neurological damage.

Then someone would "Oh, it was the HepB vaccine!"... to which I have to reply is that it was over 17 years ago, long before there WAS an HepB vaccine given routinely to newborns (and before there was an Hib vaccine, I know of kids who got the actual disease... one is dead, the other has the same disability as my son, he had his seizures while suffering with meningitis from Hib and almost died).

Then one time someone tried to blaim my son's seizures on drinking milk. I reminded him that as a newborn he was only on breastmilk. Then the less than helpful person tried to blame it on the milk I was drinking!

Just a reminder: The MMR vaccine has been in use in the USA since 1971, and has never contained thimerosal.

Also, pertussis is in a severe upswing. It has killed more infants in the past few years than any vaccine. Here are some of the stories:
http://www.pertussis.com/share.html

About other diseases:
http://www.pkids.org/family_letters.htm

[David N. Andrews BA-status, PgCertSpEd (pending)]

From the previous page linking to this one:

"Re: Biological studies show thimerosal causes autism in mice.

Please cite the study. (This should be good – how do you tell if a mouse is autistic?)"

Well.... you can't.

Being autistic is strictly speaking (under a Lewinian paradigm) a *human* psychological state. Makes fuck all sense to say it of animals.

Rainmouse, my arse! LoL

[HCN, BSAA]

Something is now on public record:
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/Unpublished%20Decisions/Sweeney.Lowrie.pdf

I doubt she who appends her name with the "MA" will come back... but I will state this... which will make sense if you read Finding #20:

When my son was 15 months old he had seizures. It was about a week after he had his MMR. He also had a horrible gastrointestinal bug, that we took him to our family doctor about. Since he was a happy cheerful child, the doctor said he was on the mend. The next evening my son had a seizure.

We did not call the doctor's office... WE CALLED 911 !!!!! He was transported by ambulance to the hospital. Where he was treated and released. Whew!

The next day his doctor called US! That was because the emergency room notified him. The next week he had an appointment with a neurologist.

(by the way, the BSAA means I only have a Bachelor's of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics)

[Skeptico]

HCN:

I’m not 100% sure of the point you’re making. Could you summarize the .pdf and your point for us?

[HCN]

Sorry... The pdf is the 34 page trial document referred to Myra Lowrie, one of her last notes is that she cannot discuss details because of a lawsuit (though her name is all over Google with this!). It is about their lawsuit, with all the testimony. Note how she blaims the vaccinations for her granddaughter's illness... yet the testimony and the records from the doctor's office show that they did NOT contact the doctor when the child had seizures. Basically what I am saying is that there are other reasons for illnesses than vaccines (I forgot to mention that I had the same gastrointestinal bug), and that they should have contacted the doctor about the seizures IMMEDIATELY.

[Myra Lowrie]

I would like to briefly address some issues. First, yes I was discussing my granddaughter's vaccine reaction until the attorney told me not to discuss an "on going case." So until this is resolved I will reframe from discussing the event. I have since declined opportunities for an interview with a newspaper reporter of a major newspaper as well as a chance to appear on a national news program. The opinion referenced above does not allow you the opportunity to know all the events. Without saying much, despite what a legal document stated I assure you my granddaughter was not walking at 4 months. Mistakes in charting and reporting events happen. That is human. Anyway, I do not hide behind initials, or a pen name, or a nick name like the people who have called me with threatening comments. I just want answers about what happened to our smart developmentally normal grandchild. I do not accept the GOK explanation. By the way, I was informed that there are individuals that have been engaged to monitor activity about anyone who says or does something negative about vaccines and then they are to discredit them. That about says it all for me.

[BronzeDog]

Anyway, I do not hide behind initials, or a pen name, or a nick name like the people who have called me with threatening comments.

Logical Fallacy/Propaganda Tactic: Genetic fallacy: Our anonymity is irrelevant to the issue. The only purpose for mentioning an arguer's anonymity, at least in this case, is to distract people from the content of the arguments.

Logical Fallacy/Propaganda Tactic: Appeal to Pity: The "threatening" comments are irrelevant to the issue. The only purpose for mentioning them is to distract people from the issue.

I just want answers about what happened to our smart developmentally normal grandchild.

So do we all.

I do not accept the GOK explanation.

Why not?

By the way, I was informed that there are individuals that have been engaged to monitor activity about anyone who says or does something negative about vaccines and then they are to discredit them. That about says it all for me.

Propaganda Tactic: Loaded language. They could just as easily be champions of truth exposing the falsehoods of those who lie for profit.

Logical Fallacy/Propaganda Tactic: Genetic Fallacy, Appeal to Motivation: These arguers and their motivations are irrelevant to the issue. Only their arguments are relevent. The only purpose for mentioning these arguers is to distract people from the content of their arguments.

[HCN]

Sometimes bad things happen at about the same time as the vaccine. This does not mean it is the vaccines fault. Take for instance this analysis of the deaths originally attributed to the HepB vaccine that were reported to VAERS. Read the table very carefully:
http://sids-network.org/experts/poa9078.pdf

A couple had heart defects, another had an infection from something else... but more than one was a victim of co-sleeping (including one who was found on the floor next to the sofa!).

Despite the vast improvement in child health due to vaccine, especially with the drop of Haemophilils Influenza B (HiB) which was killing kids when my oldest was a baby (even when my son had neonatal seizures and several bouts with croup, that was one of the first suspected diseases, the vaccine did not come out until his little brother was born)... there are still many other bugs out there that cause fevers, meningitis and encephalitis.

When my son got his MMR, he got very sick with a terrible gastrointestinal bug a couple of weeks afterwards. He had a horrible seizure, one that knocked him out for several minutes. Should I blame the vaccine... NO! Because I had the exact same stomach bug!

It was after we called 911 (and the first time got a busy signal), had him transported to the emergency room, and then taken care of that I realized I had not needed to run to the loo like had been doing all day.

By the way, my doctor called US the next day. He was notified by the hospital.

It does no good to blame the vaccines. That is wasting your energy. You need to get services for your granddaughter. She should be getting educational services through IDEA (Individual with Disabilities Education Act), plus be seeing a neurologist and getting OT/PT and speech therapy services. There are several organizations that provide the therapy serviced beyond what is provided by the school system. It varies by area, but they are often listed at the "Services" portion in the front of phonebook (my son got three years of speech therapy from these guys:
http://www.srmason-sj.org/council/temple/booklet/cldp.htm ).

Stop playing the blame game. It serves no purpose but to put money in the pockets of lawyers... and often that is public money that could be better spent providing services to special education.

By the way, the initials I choose to use have a significance to certain alt-health folks (think of apricot seeds). It distinguishes me here, on Usenet and on JREF... especially since my name is so common I get over 45000 google hits.

[Susan R]

Devolution in the health care system is required.

[HCN]

What is interesting is that a vaccine for what may have been the reason for my son's gastrointestinal bug is now in the pediatric vaccine schedule.

While many think that the rotavirus vaccine will mostly help third-world countries... If my son could have been spared the dehydration that caused his last very serious seizure, we may not have had to endure 10 years of speech/language therapy... and the horrible test scores he gets now with any kind of writing.

He has spent the last two days taking tests for vocational education programs. While he does score okay with math (basic high school algebra), he scores very low in written language.

I am now wondering if this could have been prevented if he would had never had that horrible diarrhea that eventually caused the dehydration... and the screwing up of his electrolytes which may have caused the last very horrible seizure. We will never know if the neurological damage was caused then, and that perhaps his report would have been similar to his younger brother --- which was marked as "Honor Student".

sigh...

I hate this humility. I hated spending nights with him while he was hospitalized. I hated the ten years of taking this kid to speech therapy. I hate IEP meetings... and I really hated taking him to the educational psychologist. I hate that I wish he was more like his over-achieving siblings.

But what I really know... it was not due to vaccines.