Parish & Company - Not Copyrighted 5-23-00
Alarming evidence is emerging to suggest that a huge rise in the number of children suffering autism may be linked to vaccines they were given for mumps, measles and rubella.
New figures from Britain and America show there has been dramatic increase in cases of autism since the MMR vaccine was introduced 1988. Many children only developed the brain condition after they were given the jab in their teens, having showed no previous symptoms. The findings are corroborated by scientific research which shows that the measles virus is present in the gut of 24 out of 25 children who developed autism after an apparently healthy infancy.
This work, due to be published later in the year, is being carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in London and Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin. Professor John O'Leary, director of pathology at the Coombe Hospital, said there needed to be a full investigation, and added: "Further urgent research is required." Dr Fiona Scott of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge said: "This rise in cases of autism is disconcerting. Instead of the Government arguing with parents that there is no link they should urgently carry out a decent study"
There are no central records on the number of children with autism. However, figures collated by health campaigner David Thrower show that in many areas of the country cases have risen alarmingly since the vaccine came into widespread use.
In Yorkshire the numbers have spiralled by 22-fold in the last seven years. In the Shetlands and the Western Isles there are no children over 13 with the condition - suggesting a link with the introduction of the vaccine. In Surrey cases of autism among three-year-old boys are now running at one in 69. Official figures say the average should be one in several thousand.
The United States is also recording sharp increases in autism over this period. In New Jersey cases have grown by 876 per cent in the last eight years. In California cases rose 275 per cent from 1993 to 1998, and in Pennsylvania cases rose by 109 per cent from 1993 to 1997. Experts say such huge rises cannot alone be explained by better detection and diagnosis. Last week the Express launched a campaign for justice for children who have suffered brain damage after routine vaccinations. At present the Government provides a one-off, £40,000 payment for parents who can prove their child is over 80% damaged by a vaccine.
The Daily Express is calling for this money to be raised and for the 80 per cent rule to be abolished. However, parents who believe their child has developed autism from an MMR jab have no hope of any payment because, despite the growing evidence, the Government refuses to accept any link. More than 600 parents have now launched legal action to claim compensation. Richard Barr, of Alexander Harris solicitors who are co-ordinating the legal fight, said: "A lot of evidence is coming together and pointing to a link. If there was another explanation for the rise in autism, such as leaded petrol or chemicals, cases would have shot up a long time ago:"
In Japan the MMR vaccine has been banned. And in the UK some doctors are refusing to give it. Last week the Sunday Express carried an article by Dr Richard Halvorsen who wrote: "It may .be safer for healthy children to catch these illnesses rather than run the risk of immunisation."
Day that ruined my son's life
Linda Harris bitterly regrets the day she took her 13-year-old son James for an MMR jab in 1994. Up until then he had been healthy, happy and doing well at school. Afterwards he developed autism. James, now 18, reacted to the vaccine immediately. "He developed a high temperature and became very sick," said Linda, 48, of Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. Soon he displayed mental health problems. "Within a couple of weeks he started having a nervous breakdown," said his mother. James suffered physical illnesses, including a bowel condition and asthma. His behaviour made him difficult to look after. Two years ago doctors diagnosed autism. "For 13 years he had been healthy and happy," said Linda. "That vaccine has irredeemably destroyed my son's life and ours, yet the Government refuses to recognise it." As a GP, I gave kids the MMR jab. Now I wouldn't give it to my own. The triple vaccine routinely given to children to prevent measles, mumps and rubella has been controversially linked to autism-like symptoms. We asked Dr Richard Halvorsen to investigate. (Sunday Express Magazine 21 May 2000) Childhood immunisations, I had always assumed, were safe. The Department of Health (DOH) has repeatedly reassured us that their benefits are far greater than the risks and, as a GP, I have been responsible for the immunisation of many hundreds of children. So, when I was asked by the Sunday Express Magazine to write about the MMR vaccine, I expected to be able to reassure readers that the vaccine was of clear benefit and that side-effects were either not serious or extremely rare. My research unearthed a different story that makes for disturbing reading.
The MMR immunisation was introduced in the UK in 1988 with the first dose aimed at children of 12-15 months, a second at 3-5 years. It is designed to protect against measles, mumps and rubella (German Measles) and works by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies against the viruses without causing harm. It was well received by both parents and doctors so that over 90 per cent of children were being immunised by 1992. Most children received the vaccine with no obvious serious side-effects but it grew increasingly apparent that some became seriously ill within a few weeks. These children began behaving strangely, stopped talking and became socially withdrawn, staring into space for hours on end. Many developed a raging thirst, bizarre eating habits, multiple food allergies, hyperactivity and sleep problems. This was usually accompanied by abdominal pain, bloating and bowel disturbances, and some became incontinent of urine or faeces. They did not simply fail to develop but lost what they already had. Now, we all know coincidences happen, but here are thousands of children who had all developed normally until receiving the vaccine, after which they became very unwell in a remarkably similar pattern. The behaviour these children showed was similar to autism, but differed in that they were previously developing normally and then lost the skills that they had developed, such as speech and play, a condition called "autistic regression".
Most of the parents felt sure that the cause of these devastating changes in their children was the MMR vaccine, but if they mentioned this concern to their doctors it always met with dismissive reassurance that it must have been a coincidence because the MMR was safe. One doctor, instead of dismissing the possibility of a relationship with the MMR vaccine, listened to the worried parents and studied some of the affected children. Dr Andrew Wakefield, from the Royal Free Hospital in north London, published a paper in February 1998 in the medical journal The Lancet suggesting that the MMR vaccine could be the cause of the children's autism and bowel disturbances, which he calls "autistic enterocolitis". Dr Wakefield was vociferously attacked for causing unnecessary worry in parents and the MMR vaccine was vigorously defended as being "highly safe and effective".
The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Kenneth Calman, felt confident enough to say, "I have concluded there is no link between MMR immunisation and autism." Questioned in Parliament in 1997 on the possible link between MMR and autism, then health minister Tessa Jowell reassured MPs that: "No vaccine is issued in the United Kingdom unless it passes the highest standards for quality, and parents should have confidence that the vaccines that are provided are both safe and efficacious." But I was concerned to find that the safety trials on the MMR followed children up for only three weeks. This could not possibly detect side-effects that appeared after three weeks. This is alarming for a vaccine aimed at millions of healthy children.
In 1999, two studies appeared that the Department of Health claims "reinforce the conclusion that there is no link" between MMR and autism. The first, by the Committee on the Safety of Medicines, involved examining questionnaires sent to the parents who had suspected MMR as a cause for their child's autism - 1200 questionnaires were distributed and 126 examined in detail. The study concluded: "It is impossible to prove or refute the suggested associations between MMR vaccine and autism"- hardly convincing reassurance. It is hard to obtain precise figures for the number of children affected with autism because the government does not keep records. But the second study cited by the DOH looked at one area - north London -and found an alarming increase in autism there. The incidence was running steadily at between four and eight of the children born there each year between 1978 and 1985. Then came a dramatic increase to just under 50 of the children born in 1992, the last year studied by Professor Brent Taylor and colleagues at University College London. Curiously, however, they concluded: "Our analyses do not support a causal association between MMR vaccine and autism."
To others, including myself, the research figures actually support the link between MMR and autism. What has not been adequately explained is the recent massive increase in autism. However, the start of this increase can be traced back to children who were born in the mid 1980s in Britain and the 1970s in the United Sates. These were the first children to receive the MMR vaccine. In California the incidence of autism was running at 150-200 a year until 1980, then it took off to reach nearly 600 in 1990.
In the UK some local authorities have measured the rate of autism and have again found very high numbers. However, the Government still has no plans to monitor the number of children with autism. The lack of willingness of the Government and the medical profession to accept that a problem could exist smacks of complacency at best, and negligence at worst. Not all governments hold the same view. In Japan, MMR was withdrawn in 1993 because of an unacceptably high level of side-effects. The evidence against MMR is now mounting. Dr Wakefield has studied more children with "autistic enterocolitis". His research suggests that the MMR vaccine can cause an abnormal immune reaction which, in susceptible children, causes the child's immune system to damage the child's gut, allowing it to absorb chemicals that may attack the brain. This is an auto-immune reaction and it may be no coincidence that some research has linked other auto-immune diseases, such as diabetes, with immunisation.
It is looking more and more likely that recent increases in the numbers of children with autistic regression and other developmental disorders may be triggered, or caused, by the MMR vaccine. The illnesses the vaccine is designed to prevent can themselves cause damage, but the use of MMR in this country may be doing more harm than good. Parents from the UK, mainland Europe, Australia, the US~ Canada or Asia are all telling the same story. The parents of over 2,000 children are planning to take their cases to court. It has been suggested that parents are using the MMR vaccine as a "scapegoat" in a desperate attempt to explain their child's autism. This strikes me as an insensitive and flawed suggestion: the last thing parents want to believe is that their child's devastating problems were caused by something they inflicted on the child themselves. The Government gives the impression of not wanting to know and appears to be more concerned with preserving public confidence than in investigating these children. On 10 April this year Professor Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, sent a letter to every GP in the country in which he repeats that "there is no new evidence that indicates a causal link between MMR vaccine and autism".
The Hippocratic principle is that doctors should "first do
no harm". At the very least parents must be told of the
concerns surrounding the MMR vaccine. Doctors should
obtain "informed consent" when offering any medical
intervention, especially when the "patient" is not ill to
start with. That means discussing the risks as well as the
benefits. If the MMR vaccine were a drug, it would be
suspended until proper trials had been done to examine
its safety. Based on what I now know, I would not give
my children the combined MMR vaccine. I would
consider either using the vaccines singly (not available in
this country but possible in mainland Europe) or not
vaccinating at all. It may be safer for healthy children to
catch these illnesses rather than run the risk of
immunisation. It's important that girls have either had
rubella or are immunised before pregnancy.
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To: Joe Montana, Al B., Cholera Joe, Lady Doc, Askel5
For your information.
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To: rubbertramp
Not the first time a vaccine has been associated with harm.
The Rotavirus Vaccine was recently yanked from the market because it caused bowel intusseception in infants. That's when the bowel folds in on itself. Life threatening and incredibly painful.
Rotavirus is a cause of infant diarrhea. There was a push for 100% vaccination.
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To: rubbertramp
thank you. I was just told the other day that my kids (homeschoolers) were going to have to get a measles shot. I knew we weren't going to do it, but when I file my objection I can include this article.
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To: rubbertramp
Great. My five-year-old just had his second MMR last week.
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To: ContraryMary
Don't be too alarmed. Many children have no reaction at all. There are some who, I believe, are predisposed to have a reaction to this vaccine. It is also implicated in Multiple Sclerosis.
Not every child who gets this vaccine will get Autism but there seems to be an increase in the cases of Autism that coincide with the development of this vaccine. Parents have been telling their physicians that the child's downturn corresponded with vaccination...perhaps some medical experts will start listening and not label these parents as "in denial".
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To: Siouxz
Here's another...The Autism Explosion
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To: Siouxz
What your doing is trading one risk for another. The risk now of autism, a link not completely made in my opinion. A lot of other things started happening in the 70s and 80s not just the MMR vaccine.
The risk your are taking on by dodging the autism one is the disease itself. Measles as an adult or even older child is no laughing matter. Now what is the risk of contracting measles? Thankfully very low because so many people around you will have been vaccinated and so unable to transmit the disease.
But you can get the disease from children who have just been vaccinated, dangerous to pregnant women and the child they are carrying.
Since you are a home schooler I'll add that when your kids go on to college (so many home schoolers do) they will need the MMR vaccination to get in unless you have a religious objection. Recently read about a measles outbreak in a Missouri college....the disease is still around and still causing serious problems.
Remember you can't protect your children from every risk and you probably take a much bigger risk just letting your children ride a bike or swim in a pool or pond.
You pays your money and you takes your chance.
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To: rubbertramp,joanie-f,Anochka,Boyd,shield,Uncle Bill,jedediah smith,circumbendibus
New figures from Britain and America show there has been dramatic increase in cases of autism since the MMR vaccine was introduced 1988.
. . .
Most children received the vaccine with no obvious serious side-effects but it grew increasingly apparent that some became seriously ill within a few weeks. These children began behaving strangely, stopped talking and became socially withdrawn, staring into space for hours on end. Many developed a raging thirst, bizarre eating habits, multiple food allergies, hyperactivity and sleep problems. This was usually accompanied by abdominal pain, bloating and bowel disturbances, and some became incontinent of urine or faeces. They did not simply fail to develop but lost what they already had. Now, we all know coincidences happen, but here are thousands of children who had all developed normally until receiving the vaccine, after which they became very unwell in a remarkably similar pattern. The behaviour these children showed was similar to autism, but differed in that they were previously developing normally and then lost the skills that they had developed, such as speech and play, a condition called "autistic regression".
.
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To: Joe Montana
bttt
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To: Politically Correct
Remember you can't protect your children from every risk and you probably take a much bigger risk just letting your children ride a bike or swim in a pool or pond.
You pays your money and you takes your chance.
I'm sure that is a very consoling statement for those who get their child vaccinated only to result in autism or some other crippling disease.
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To: rubbertramp
I think it's a shame the government doesn't do the studies necessary to find out and then have the honesty to withdraw the vaccines if the hypothesis bears out. To legally force people to continue putting their children at risk is criminal and not investigating is equally criminal when you are attempting to force parents to have their children vaccinated.
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To: Boyd
bmp
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To: Al B.,donna,Prism,Nov3,parmy,Aloha Ronnie,Reschev,vedicstar,DiScOx,Howlin,bmwcycle,SlightOfTongue
bmp
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To: Joe Montana
I don't believe it. I think, since 1988, more and more children have been left in child care at 6-weeks-old. I think the lack of bonding (during breast feeding) with the mother is causing brain damage. The synapses just are not forming. Researchers will blame it on everything but the real cause because they will lose their funding.
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To: Emily RN
I think it's a shame the government doesn't do the studies necessary to find out and then have the honesty to withdraw the vaccines if the hypothesis bears out. To legally force people to continue putting their children at risk is criminal and not investigating is equally criminal when you are attempting to force parents to have their children vaccinated.
Good point. I think your comments are also valid for a number of other agents that are taken by millions, are toxic to some, and whose long-term effects are virtually unknown....courtesy of our government.
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To: rubbertramp
Thanks for the heads-up.
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To: Al B.
bmp
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To: rubbertramp
This debate has been going on for some time. The measles in MMR is a live virus. (they tried a dead virus back in the 60's and it didn't work well). Regular measles is known to cause encephalitis, and encephalitis in young children is known to cause autism.
Some very good docs think there is a link. HOwever, I worked for years at a retarded institution. Many of these "kids" (adults born in the 1950's and 1960's) had behavior that would now be called "autism". Also, I have seen parents bring in their obviously retarded child, and then I am told he is merely "autistic", not retarded, even though I can see he doesn't fit the criteria for autism, and he's just retarded. You see, there is still shame in retardation, but autism is easier to accept.
So, until they do a good job estimating the autism rate before the 1960's, I'll be a bit suspicious of the problem.
Also, you don't seem to remember that kids DIE of measles: the mortality rate in Africa was 50%, but even in the US kids used to die (1:1000 cases).
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To: LadyDoc
I'll take with a grain of salt any statistic that comes out of Africa, thank you. I would guess that malnutrition has everything to do with mortality down there and the measles thing was thrown in for political reasons.
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To: Emily RN
I'm sure that is a very consoling statement for those who get their child vaccinated only to result in autism or some other crippling disease.
And just as consoling as not getting your child vaccinated and watch them die of measles pneumonia.
The odds are very small either way.
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To: rubbertramp
Dr Richard Halvorsen who wrote: "It may be safer for healthy children to catch these illnesses rather than run the risk of immunisation."
Ditto.
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To: Politically Correct
Since you are a home schooler I'll add that when your kids go on to college (so many home schoolers do) they will need the MMR vaccination to get in unless you have a religious objection.
Objection on the grounds of personal conviction is also valid in most states for public schools.
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To: Osinski
Dr Richard Halvorsen who wrote: "It may be safer for healthy children to catch these illnesses rather than run the risk of immunisation." Ditto.
I don't know who Dr. Richard Halvorsen is but I can bet he's not an epidemiologist.
Healthy children can catch polio and most have no trouble with the virus....you want to risk it?
The vaccine has side effects and there is still the occasional child that actually gets polio from the vaccine.
It's really not much different than measles...but then you probably never visited the old time sanatariums with the living vegatables that were the result of measles.
Most of you aren't old enough to remember.
Want to skip the tetnus booster next time you get a nasty and dirty cut? The tetnus booster has problems too.
Vaccines are not perfect...probably can't be made perfect because people are different and there is always someone with an unexpected immune or lack of immune response.
But compared to the diseases themselves they are a godsend.
However, if you really want to get me on a rant I'll tell you that the Hepatitus B vaccination that they want all newborns to get is about as bogus as you can get. They are giving it to all newborns when the problem is really with the babies of IV drug using mothers in the inner cities. Those babies need the extra protection.
There are problems with the vaccine. But the risk of the disease is much greater than the vaccine for those inner city babies.
But now due to a politically correct decision by a bunch of beurocrats all babies are supposed to be vaccinated.
These kids immune systems are not ready for it and it is causing more morbidity(sickness)and mortality(death) than the virus.
But it is not politically correct to only give it to inner city drug using mothers babies.
We can't discriminate so we have to give it to all babies....even those at no risk of getting the disease!
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To: LadyDoc
In the article The Autism Explosion that I linked to another poster, there is a graph which is pretty compelling. I am amazed that older kids who get vaccinated get Autism. When a mother says that her two-year old lost skills, doctors roll their eyes and think the mother just dreamed that the kid was saying words. Because Autism is diagnosed around two years of age, it is thought of as a childhood disease of some prodomal condition.
Children who don't talk and make eye contact and have other neurological symptoms are usually lumped into the Autism diagnosis. In former times, this was called UPI or unknown prenatal incident. There is now some clue that Autism is caused by some mitochondrial problem at the cellular level. Trust me, no matter what they are calling it, it is increasing.
I used to live in Hawaii and I know the history of Measles devastation when a people have no immunity to it. This vaccination is doing something weird to the immune systems of some children.
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To: Joe Montana
We all have to be immune to the same things in order to fit into the global community.
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To: Joe Montana
We are, I fear, in for a long difficult struggle to awaken the uninformed doubting-Thomases of the general public.
It continually amazes me, with all that's going on pertaining to the moral decline, the illnesses we can't cure, the termoil in and breaking up of many families, the government lying, corruption, drugs, mind control, sexual abuse, judicial miscarriages...I could rave on for hours...just exactly what part of deliberate 'in-your-face' oppression do most people not understand?
How complacent and to what degree are they willing to remain passive on all this? Sheeesh!!!!!!!
Or maybe it's the old "I'd rather not involve myself and my family." That's right. Always let somebody else do the tough stuff in life.
I wonder how involved and important it will be to them after it's too late - when the blue-helmeted army forces are marching into their neighbohoods and setting up the final oppression senario under martial law!
Don't tell me. I can already see the wimpering faces of the spineless, the passivists and the non-believing twits who wouldn't 'involve' themselves.
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To: Emily RN
The "government" has no right to tell us that we must vaccinate our children. Read the 10th Amendment--and I know all the arguments for universal vaccination (my daughter is an RN)--but I still maintain that our "government" has overstepped its bounds as outlined by our constitution.
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To: donna
I think the lack of bonding (during breast feeding) with the mother is causing brain damage. The synapses just are not forming. Researchers will blame it on everything but the real cause because they will lose their funding.
I teach children with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome (High functioning Autism). Currently, I have 4 Autistic boys in my class, ages 6-9, two are brothers, who were all breast fed, stay at home mom's babies and 3 of the 4 still have stay at home moms. That does not fit with your ideas about bonding. Since one of the boys had NO symptoms of abnormal behavior until 14 months (vaccination time) and another seemed fine, talking and everything until 19 months, the MMR theory makes as much sense as anything else.
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To: rubbertramp
Apparently when Japan stopped vaccinating children against anything prior to the age of two, SIDS was completely wiped out.
The pertussis vaccine (oral?) also has dangerous links.
They begin to immunize against Hepatitis-B at two weeks now. 'Cause they can.
Having two friends who lost children to the scapegoat lifestealer "SIDS", both who had had their children vaccinated in the previous 48-hour period, well...
Let's just say I'm not rushing my next one to the pediatrician.
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To: arthurus
An interesting web site is www.autism.org.
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To: AnnaZ
I was brought up to be unquestioning about medicine. I since have met many parents who do not vaccinate their children. The children seem to be healthier and do not get diseases such as whooping cough when those who have been vaccinated get it. Go figure.
Recently, in Maine, a mother went to court per DHS request over not medicating her son for AIDS because her previous son died an agonizing death while on the treatment. The judge decided her son didn't need to be a guinea pig. A follow-up report showed her son happy and healthy with no signs of illness. Are we making children sicker with all these treatments?
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To: rubbertramp
I since have met many parents who do not vaccinate their children. The children seem to be healthier...
Are we making children sicker with all these treatments?
It's a good question.
I stopped vaccinating my son when I realized they had been immunizing him against Hep-B... a three-time deal. I was furious. It's like vaccinating against AIDS... he AIN'T gonna get it! (Unless, as a toddler, he's been self-injecting or "fornicating" behind my back...)
The doctor was in complete agreement with me but said that they do it, as I stated above, because they can.
I'm expecting my second son this month and I am so glad I know now what I didn't know then re: the Japanese stats and the tragic consequences some close to me have suffered.
They're trying to push a chickenpox vaccine now, too. I swear, pharmaceutical corporations are taking over the world.
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To: AnnaZ
yep
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To: rubbertramp
bump
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To: rubbertramp
Which is a greater risk to one's health. . .the Government or the Cigarette industry?
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To: cricket
The Government....I can choose not to smoke.
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To: Lizavetta
I would guess that malnutrition has everything to do with mortality down there and the measles thing was thrown in for political reasons.
Malnutrition is the big reason, of course. But it's not political: 30 percent was the mortality at our hospital, where malnutrition was common, but severe malnutrition was rare. However, some places have a much higher death rate. And since measles vaccine used to cost a dollar each vial, we split it into 3 doses: the kids got measles sometimes, but usually a mild, non fatal case.
However, few severely retarded or autistic kids. I suspect they died of malnutrition, and a true autistic child would be considered bewitched, and given traditional medicine to treat the spell(high doses frequently fatal, although not deliberate murder).
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To: rubbertramp
In Japan the MMR vaccine has been banned. And in the UK some doctors are refusing to give it. Last week the Sunday Express carried an article by Dr Richard Halvorsen who wrote: "It may .be safer for healthy children to catch these illnesses rather than run the risk of immunisation."
This doesnt exactly make one want to rush out to update those immunizations. In the case cited the mother states the government ruined lives, those of her child and the parents. Pardon me...where are the investigative journalists in this country ?
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To: rubbertramp
Are we making children sicker with all these treatments?
You're right, we've been vaccinating against small pox for many years now and look at all the cases out there.
Yep, vaccines don't work.
It's amazing that all you people are exercising your right to not have your children immunized because theres' such a low incidence of those diseases. If these illness were rampant, as they were 30 years ago, you'd be in line with the rest of us. The fact of the matter is that you can get away without the vaccines because the rest of us get them.
If everybody was as paranoid and selfish as you, all these diseases would come roaring back.
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To: AnnaZ
From the scant information I could find in such a short period of time it seems that in Japan in the mid '70s the immunization rate (using numbers for pertussis) dropped from %70 to 20-30%. This led to a jump in pertussis from 393 cases and no deaths in 1974 to 13,000 cases and 41 deaths in 1979.
Since there is no evidence linking vaccines to SIDS, those are alot of sick and dyning kids because parents "chose" not to get them immunized. In addition, as fewer people smoke, and parents are taught to lay thier infants on their sides or back when they sleep, SIDS has dropped rapidly in the past few years, and those same years the total percentage of children immunized is at an all time high,, at least in this country.
BTW, the same thing happened in the mid '70s in Great Britian. "In Great Britain, a drop in pertussis vaccination in 1974 was followed by an epidemic of more than 100,000 cases of pertussis and 36 deaths by 1978". In Sweden, " the annual incidence rate of pertussis per 100,000 children 0-6 years of age increased from 700 cases in 1981 to 3,200 in 1985."
-stats in quotes taken from Quackwatch.com
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To: TomB
"Linda Harris bitterly regrets the day she took her 13-year-old son James for an MMR jab in 1994. Up until then he had been healthy, happy and doing well at school. Afterwards he developed autism. James, now 18, reacted to the vaccine immediately. "He developed a high temperature and became very sick," said Linda, 48, of Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. Soon he displayed mental health problems. "Within a couple of weeks he started having a nervous breakdown," said his mother. James suffered physical illnesses, including a bowel condition and asthma. His behaviour made him difficult to look after. Two years ago doctors diagnosed autism. "For 13 years he had been healthy and happy," said Linda. "That vaccine has irredeemably destroyed my son's life and ours, yet the Government refuses to recognise it." As a GP, I gave kids the MMR jab. Now I wouldn't give it to my own. The triple vaccine routinely given to children to prevent measles, mumps and rubella has been controversially linked to autism-like symptoms. We asked Dr Richard Halvorsen to investigate. (Sunday Express Magazine 21 May 2000) Childhood immunisations, I had always assumed, were safe. The Department of Health (DOH) has repeatedly reassured us that their benefits are far greater than the risks and, as a GP, I have been responsible for the immunisation of many hundreds of children. So, when I was asked by the Sunday Express Magazine to write about the MMR vaccine, I expected to be able to reassure readers that the vaccine was of clear benefit and that side-effects were either not serious or extremely rare. My research unearthed a different story that makes for disturbing reading."
They know there are side effects associated with this and other immunizations. Guess you have to err on the side that you will be one of the majority that will not suffer these side effects. Still can you imagine having a son who was intact until the age of 13 and then devolved in what appears to be autistic and chronically disabled,...?
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To: TomB
In addition, as fewer people smoke, and parents are taught to lay thier infants on their sides or back when they sleep, SIDS has dropped rapidly in the past few years
There was some huge Scandinavian study where they looked at babies who slept on their backs vs. on their stomachs. They found that SIDS decreased significantly by placing infants on their sides or backs. It was published in the early 90's. When my daughter was born in 1990 the norm was to place them on their stomachs, so they wouldn't gag on their own spit up or vomit. By the time my son was born in '95, I was told to place him on his back.
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To: Lady GOP
Your point is? Of all the reading I've done tonite about this, the vast majority points to the safety of the vaccine. But my point was a more general one, because there were a number of people using this story to question the safety of childhood vaccines as a whole, which is ridiculous.
Any child getting sick or dying is a tragedy, but, and the numbers I posted prove, preventing children from getting vaccinations because of hysteria will cause alot more sickness and death. The only thing these parents are saying is that because nearly everyone else gets their children immunized, they can forgo the risk, however small, and have a smaller chance of thier child getting sick from one of these diseases.
Another point I don't think was addressed is that health officials in Great Britian haven't called for the end of immunization for measles, mumps and reubella, only the breaking up of the vaccine into seperate visits.
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To: Lady GOP
Anyway, how can you take a story seriously that has on its home page a UFO?
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To: TomB
In Japan the MMR vaccine has been banned. And in the UK some doctors are refusing to give it.
My point is, there is a growing population of PDD, autistic children in this country and noone seems to know why. This is one theory which definitely warrants further examiniation.
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To: TomB
Yes maybe Dan Rather will update us on the situation.
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To: Lady GOP
Absolutely, study away. But don't stop immunizing children.
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To: TomB
Parents are led like lemmings to vaccination. How informed is the average mom who has just given birth regarding this highly intrusive procedure?
Many "new" diseases are spread by needles and sexual injection, yet no one questions a doctor coming into a nursery and giving a vaccination. People are told to be wary and take precautions in one case...but trust and conform in the other. Why is that TomB? Both procedures are extremely intrusive to an organism's immune system but we are not supposed to question doctors.
If you are not paranoid or selfish about your health, the "B" must stand for boob.
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To: rubbertramp
How informed is the average mom who has just given birth regarding this highly intrusive procedure?
What does it matter? The first immunization isn't given until 2 months after the child is born. Of course, in most instances expectant mothers are given vaccine information BEFORE they deliver.
Many "new" diseases are spread by needles and sexual injection, yet no one questions a doctor coming into a nursery and giving a vaccination.
Since I already established the fact that doctors don't come into a nursery and give vaccinations, just let me ask, what is a "sexual injection" and what does it have to do with immunization? Also, I'm not sure why you wouldn't trust your own doctor to use a sterile needle. You're taking paranoia to new heights here.
People are told to be wary and take precautions in one case...but trust and conform in the other. Why is that TomB? Both procedures are extremely intrusive to an organism's immune system but we are not supposed to question doctors.
I'm afraid you lost me on this one, but as far as the effectivenss of immunizations, one need only look at polio or small pox. Both were prevalent 40 years ago, but unheard of now, thanks to immunization.
f you are not paranoid or selfish about your health, the "B" must stand for boob.
I already proved that, while I'm not paranoid or selfish about my health, I am very smart about it.
Keep that tinfoil hat pulled tight on your head!
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To: Politically Correct
Remember you can't protect your children from every risk and you probably take a much bigger risk just letting your children ride a bike or swim in a pool or pond
Tell that to our 9 y/o with autism. There is no doubt in my mind his autism was "triggered" by immunizations. Add MMR + DPT + hepatitis + rotavirus + oral polio and the list goes on. Andrew Wakefield, M.D. is the physician who did the original work to this link. His research has helped to etablish the role of measles in Crohn's Disease and a link between MMR vaccinations and the onset of developmental regression, usually in the form of autism. I took the hepatitis series, had elevated liver enzymes, but still no antibodies for hepatitis. There is NO substitute for a healthy immune system. Get away from the sugar, aspartame, unfiltered water, and eat right. I also advise against the flu shot. My mother had the shot and got flu 3 times this past winter. I fear for the military personnel who are allowing the anthrax series. I think there is an ulterior motive in the government's pushing of these immunizations/vaccinations, but I won't go into it here. Just do some research before you allow anyone to inject anything into your body.
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To: Siouxz
See if your state allows a religious exemption....please read my other response.
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To: TomB
I am not arguing against vaccination per se, merely that one should be as vigilant about vaccinations as they are about sexual partners. The procedure is as intrusive.
You are mistaken about information being given to mothers. I have seen records of premature babies (25 weeks gestation) who were given Hep B vaccine the day after birth....while mom was still groggy.
At least a tinfoil hat does no harm. A vaccination can be reverse gene therapy.
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To: Lady GOP, rubbertramp, tomb
If you are not paranoid or selfish about your health, the "B" must stand for boob.
LOL...internet access to a few websites makes an uninformed citizen an authority on everything. Do you own stock in a drug company, TomB? We went to a DAN (Defeat Autism Now) conference recently. The physicians there presented their theories on autism. Their proposed causes ranged from an autoimmune disorder to mercury toxicity. But, hands down, there are more physicians leaning toward the immunization/vaccination link. If any of you have a recently diagnosed autistic child, here are a few places to start: Dr. Stephen Edelson in Atlanta, Dr. H.H. Fudenberg in Spartanburg, SC, Dr. Patricia Kane in Millville, NJ, and Dr. Sudhir Gupta in Irvine, CA. Or just write Dr. Bernard Rimland, Ph.D. 4182 Adams Avenue, San Diego, CA 92116 at the Autism Research Institute and ask him for more info plus a list of physicians who have attended the DAN conference.
We have gone through the gambit with our child including diet, secretin, AIT (auditory integration training), chelation, OT, speech, allergy shots. We avoided the immune globulin...we're still researching that one. If you want to avoid immune globulin, Dr. Kane is a good place to start. She gives lectures world-wide, so I don't know if she is still taking patients. She is nothing short of a genius. I work with physicians everyday whose goal is to get the patient in and out (and collect payment) as quickly as possible. There are still a few doctors in the world who have a genuine interest in curing the child, rather than treating symptoms.
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To: Ozark Patriot
To start off with:
But, hands down, there are more physicians leaning toward the immunization/vaccination link.
I want PROOF of that statement.
You accuse me of being an "instant expert" because of access to a few websites, anything I learned about immunizations came from "real" doctors and professors teaching me in dental school. I resent the fact that you assume I'm stupid because I don't subscribe to your "theories".
As far as the conclusive research you quote:
SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE REGARDING VACCINES AND AUTISM
Currently available scientific evidence does not support a link between vaccination and autism or any other behavior disorder. This statement is based on the following synopsis of published data:
An initial observation linking autism and MMR vaccine was reported by Dr. Andrew Wakefield and colleagues, who had first attempted to link measles disease and vaccination to inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s Disease. Dr. Wakefield suggested that measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccination led to intestinal abnormalities, resulting in impaired intestinal function and developmental regression within 24 hours to a few weeks of vaccination. This hypothesis, which suggested that children developed autism shortly after receipt of MMR vaccine, was based on a case-series (a collection of patients with limited comparison or control groups) reporting data from 12 children.
The Working Party on MMR vaccine of the British Committee on Safety of Medicines conducted a systematic review of reports of autism, gastrointestinal disease and similar disorders after receipt of MMR or measles/rubella (MR) vaccine. In 1999, the Working Party concluded that the information available "...did not support the suggested causal association or give cause for concern about the safety of MMR or MR vaccines."
A study published in 1999 in The Lancet by Dr. Brent Taylor and colleagues provides population-based evidence that overcomes a number of limitations that the Working Party and the Wakefield group experienced. The authors identified all 498 known cases of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children living in certain districts of London who were born in 1979 or later and correlated the cases to an independent vaccination registry. The results of this study were:
1. The first diagnosis of autism or initial signs of behavioral regression were not more likely to occur within time periods following MMR vaccination than during other time periods.
2. Despite an increase in the number of diagnosed ASD cases since 1979, no jump occurred after the introduction of the MMR vaccine in 1988. Such a jump would have been expected if MMR was causing a substantial increase in autism causes, but this was not the case.
3. Children who were vaccinated before 18 months of age were diagnosed with autism at ages similar to children who were vaccinated after 18 months of age, indicating that the vaccination did not result in earlier expression of ASD characteristics. If MMR were causing many autism cases, it would have been expected that children vaccinated at a younger age would develop autism at a younger age than children vaccinated at older ages, but this was not the case.
4. At age two, the MMR vaccination coverage rates among ASD cases were nearly identical to vaccination coverage rates of children in the same age group in the whole region, providing evidence of a lack of overall association between ASD and the MMR vaccination. If MMR was a major cause of autism, then it would have been expected that cases of autism would be more likely to be vaccinated than the general population, but this was not the case.
Another study, conducted by Dr. Christopher Gillberg and Dr. Harald Heijbel, also showed no evidence of association between the MMR vaccine and autism. The study compared autism prevalence rates in populations of children from two communities in Sweden. The results indicated no difference in autism prevalence between children born after the introduction of the MMR vaccine in Sweden and those born before the vaccine was used. The study was published in the journal Autism in 1998. At this time, the weight of scientific evidence does not support an association between MMR and autism.
If you would like to get into a cut-and-paste contest here I'll gladly oblige. I can post quotes from the AMA, NIH, CDC, WHO, Amer. Acad. of Pediatrics, and on and on.
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To: all, Ozark Patriot
LOL...internet access to a few websites makes an uninformed citizen an authority on everything.
Just thought I'd post some more stories from the homepage where this "story" came from:
-Former Iberia Airline Pilot Reveals Amazing UFO Encounter
-Shirley MacLaine Opens Website To Tell Of Her UFO Encounters
-Beef & Poultry With Cancer, Pus, Lesions, & Disease Approved For You To Eat!
-The CAFRs And Reading Between Alien Lines
-Did Time Speed Up 35 Years Ago? - 1972 Article By Brad Steiger
-Stunning Kansas Chemtrail Photos
-The Chemtrail Conspiracy
-US Navy Sprayed BioWarfare CHEMTRAILS On Its Own Ships And Men
-Chemtrails Over Kansas City
-Suppression Of ET Knowledge & Translation Of The Bible Conspiracy -Research Team Spiritedly Pursues The Paranormal
-North Dakota UFO Buzzes B-52 And Missiles In 1968
-Week's UFO Sightings - Many Reports Of Strange Lights, Some Craft Seen
-Senator Richard Lugar's Statement On Chemtrails
-Seth Shostak On UFOs And SETI
After a couple hours on that website, you'd be an expert on EVERYTHING!
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To: all, Ozark Patriot
Almost forgot! I wanted to post the graphics from the homepage of the website where this "story" came from:
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To: TomB
I have seen close-up how the medical model is affecting children. I am not in some pharmacuetical think tank. I have seen articles like this at other websites...autism.org, actually. I have listened to many parents with similiar suspicions.
It is a pity that only websites like Mr. Rense's have the guts to come forward with this. Maybe when you quit your job as pharmacuetical hack some day, this will sink in and you can do some research in this direction.
Everyone has a different cellular makeup when they come to this earth as a baby. A one size fits all approach to immunization is ill advised. Why can't someone be allergic to a vaccine...resulting in neurologic problems? The Hawaiians were allergic to measles and it wiped out many of them. They had a different immune system from the white man. Similiarly, there can be groups of children allergic to the MMR vaccine.
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To: rubbertramp
Here is the conclusion from the follow-up to your vaunted study from Great Britian. From the Medicines Control Agency website (http://www.open.gov.uk/mca/mmr5.htm)
5. CONCLUSIONS OF THE WORKING PARTY
Based on their review of information described above, the Working Party reached the following conclusions :
5.1 The exercise undertaken in respect of cases of children with adverse effects attributed by parents to MMR or MR vaccines and reported to a firm of solicitors has yielded a considerable volume of medical information which was extremely variable in quality and completeness.
5.2 The information evaluated has important intrinsic limitations as regards assessing whether the vaccines are, or are not, causally associated with the attributed adverse effects. Notably these are bias in the selection of cases for which it would be impossible to compensate, and the lack of any control (unimmunised) group with which the frequency and characteristics of the attributed illnesses could be compared. Also there was frequent divergence between parents and doctors regarding specific details of the illnesses.
5.3 Detailed evaluation of 92 cases with autism/PDD and all 15 cases with confirmed Crohn's disease revealed no extraordinary features which suggested a novel syndrome, nor did it support causal associations with MMR or MR vaccines. In particular, no case of autism/PDD developed following an acute unexpected and/or unexplained neurological event in the post-vaccination period.
5.4 For only eight cases of the 92 with autism and four of the 15 with Crohn's disease was satisfactory evidence available to infer (i) medical confirmation of the diagnosis (ii) a close temporal association between administration of the vaccine and onset of the illness (iii) no relevant prior history and (iv) absence of an alternative cause. The numbers of such cases identified was therefore small. Furthermore these factors alone are insufficient to prove causation, particularly as the onset of autism is frequently recognised around the time MMR vaccine is given. The pattern of the illnesses reported for the 8 cases with autism and 4 with Crohn's disease cited above did not appear to differ from that of other children with these disorders. There was no evidence to suggest that administration of MMR or MR vaccine was associated with particular variants of pervasive developmental disorder or inflammatory bowel disease.
5.5 It was impossible to prove or refute the suggested associations between MMR vaccine and autism/PDD or inflammatory bowel disease because of the nature of the information, the self-selection of cases and the lack of comparators. Nevertheless, the Working Party found that the information available did not support the suggested causal associations or give cause for concern about the safety of MMR or MR vaccines.
endIt is unconscionable that you would attempt to scare people into not immunizing their children on the basis of some rantings from a fringe website. Immunizing children is the single best thing you can do to assure the health of your children. The fact that countries with the highest rates of immunization are also the countries with the longest life span bear that out.
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To: TomB
The fact that countries with the highest rates of immunization are also the countries with the longest life span bear that out.
You mean countries like Japan, where they don't use MMR's?
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To: Ozark Patriot
When my daughter was the typical age for vaccination, I unquestioning took her in for her vaccinations--the first two of them. She became violently ill the first time but got over it. The second time she became even more violently ill. To see a tiny, healthy three month old child in this condition immediately after a visit to the doctor was shattering. I did a little motherly thinking and made my decision. She never received another "vaccination." I realized NOTHING GOOD could come from such horrific results. As a parent, eveyone must make their own decision. I KNOW, WITHOUT ANY DOUBT, that what they were injecting my chid with was harmful. To blindly, in the face of compelling evidence that you have seen with your own eyes, continue to do something that harms your child, is beyond my comprehension. I made my decision and it was the right one.
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To: Concentrate
First of all, I was referring to ALL immunizations, as the overall idea being put forth on this thread was that you should not vaccinate your children, which is a preposterous idea.
Second, in 1993 the Japanese government temporarily suspended the use of the MMR vaccine, opting instead to use seperate vaccinations for the three diseases. Your implication that Japan doesn't immunize children is wrong.
Third, why Japan? After all, there are many more countries that use the MMR vaccine than don't. But my point remanins, if a country wants to suspend MMR, fine, but the idea that children shouldn't be immunized is crazy and not supported by any MAINSTREAM medical organization anywhere.
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To: rubbertramp
A very timely post for me. Thanks so much for posting it!
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To: WillaJohns
What will you tell your daugher when she gets pregnant and contracts measles?
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To: TomB
What will you tell your daugher when she gets pregnant and contracts measles?
I reject your question and its implications. It is unkind and assumes facts not in evidence. Please rethink your approach. Negative thinking is harmful, to you and others.
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To: WillaJohns
It is unkind and assumes facts not in evidence
If there are facts not in evidence that is your problem, not mine.
You are saying how badly it bothered you to watch your child suffer after receiving a vaccination, so you didn't continue to immunize your child. What I am saying is that because of that you are putting not only your child in danger, but others as well. If you though your child suffered then, go see a child who is suffering from one of the diseases that are immunized against.
Please rethink your approach. Negative thinking is harmful, to you and others.
That is a rather odd statement seeing as how you are advocating not immunizing children, a very harmful thing to do. No, whenever I see the kind of obtuse thinking I'm seeing here, I have an obligation to at least try to correct it.
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To: TomB, all
Seems I hit a nerve. Are you sure you don't own stock in a drug company? You sure want folks to vaccinate their kids pretty bad. As far as the www.rense.com website, I didn't post the article. But I do agree with some of the content, no matter where it was posted. If you had an autistic child, you might be more enlightened. Some of us can speak from experience. I am well aware of Dr. Wakefield's research and have talked to him personally. We have also talked to Dr. Edelson, Dr. Gupta, Dr. Kane, and at least 5 other specialists who think there is a link. I am a mere family practitioner (can provide name, DEA#, and place of practice by Email). I tell moms (and dads) my personal opinion and then let them make their own decision. I also make them aware of the religious exemption in Missouri.
"I want PROOF of that statement."
Simply attend a DAN (Defeat Autism Now) conference and listen to the physicians speak. It might enlighten you.
"You accuse me of being an "instant expert" because of access to a few websites, anything I learned about immunizations came from "real" doctors and professors teaching me in dental school."
You dentists have always amused me. I personally know doctors who teach in dental as well as medical school. I respect them for earning their degree, but the majority have seen little or no practice. A dentist is not really a physician...they get degrees and then go through repetitive mechanical movements the rest of their careers...something like a car mechanic. Curious. Do you still use amalgam in your patients? I have sent off blood to test mercury levels on some of my patients. I usually test the ones who think they have chronic fatigue, especially if they have a mouth full of amalgam (50% mercury) fillings. If the mercury level comes back outrageously high, I refer them to a dentist who will replace the amalgam and then to a MD who will do followup and possibly treat with DMPS or EDTA. OSHA considers mercury a hazardous material before it is placed in a patients mouth and after it is removed from a patients mouth. But mercury is NOT considered hazardous when it is INSIDE you body. Go figure. When will dentists learn?
Back on the subject, I guess I will sink to your level and enter a posting war. For my sources are as numerous as yours (plus I have some actual experience in this matter...not just a webserver and a mouse).
Autism Research Review International (Volume 10, No.4) "As this issue of the ARRI was about to go to press, we received an alarming 36-page faxed document from the Dawbarns law firm in England concerning an extraordinary upsurge in autism which may be linked to the introduction of the MMR vaccine in England in October 1988." "Dawbarns criticizes studies on vaccination safety, noting that most are conducted on only a few subjects, over a short period of time."
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (Vol.25 No.2) "Stealth Virus Isolated From an Autistic Child--"...novel class of cytopathic viruses termed 'stealth viruses'. These viruses appear to have been derived from herpesviruses (and possibly other viruses), by a process of deletion of genes coding viral components..."
Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology (Vol.89 No.1) "New evidence reported by Vijendra Singh and colleagues suggests that viruses, or the immunizations against them, play a role in causing autism. Singh et al. studied 48 autistic children and 34 non-disabled control subjects. Serum samples from all subjects were analyzed for antibodies to measles and to human herpesvirus-6. The presence of these antibodies is evidence of exposure to these viruses: however, in the case of measles, antibodies can also indicate exposure to the measles vaccine. [NOTE]In this study, almost all subjects had been given measles immunizations, and none had any history of infection with measles."
To make a point about vaccines in general:
Vaccines: Are they really safe and effective? by Neil Z. Miller "Scientists do not know how long immunity from the measles vaccine lasts. According to a study conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO), chances are about 14 times greater that measles will be contracted by those vaccinated against the disease than by those who are left alone. According to Dr. Atkinson of the CDC, 'measles transmission has been clearly documented among vaccinated persons. In some large outbreaks...over 95 percent of cases have a history of vaccination... Of all reported cases of measles in the U.S. in 1984, more than 58 percent of the school-age children were 'adequately' vaccinated. And in 1985, the federal government reported 1,984 non-preventable cases of measles. But 80 percent of these so-called 'non-preventable' cases occurred in people who had been properly vaccinated. More recent outbreaks continue to occur throughout the country, sometimes among 100 percent vaccinated populations."
Same source: "A study by the Institute of Medicine found that recipients of the plasma-derived hepatitis B vaccine may have received shots contaminated with HIV, a precursor to AIDS. Two thirds of doctors eligible for the hepatitis vaccine refused to take it, and 87 percent do not believe it is needed by their newborn patients. In France, hundreds of people suffered from autoimmune and neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis, following hepatitis B vaccines. As a result, in October 1998 France ended the mandatory hepatitis B vaccine program for all school children."
"Polio is virtually non-existent in the United States today: however, there is no credible scientific evidence that the vaccine caused polio to disappear. From 1923 to 1953, BEFORE the Salk killed-virus vaccine was introduced, the polio death rate in the U.S. and England had already declined on its own by 47 percent and 55 percent, respectively. Statistics show a similar decline in other European countries as well. And when the vaccine did become available , many European countries questioned its effectiveness and refused to systematically inoculate their citizens. Yet, polio epidemics also ended in these countries."
I literally have a stack of journals and articles about autism at least a foot think. Before any of you believe Tommy the Tooth and rush out and get your child vaccinated, bear in mind that we are in a learning and transition period. "Doctors" of the old days also once used leeches to treat a variety of ailments...did the simple fact that they used these leeches make it a proper treatment? More information is being exposed yearly regarding vaccinations. Why do you think so many of our military servicemen are refusing the Anthrax series of 6 inoculations? And remember that the bulk of diseases for which kids are now vaccinated, are very rarely fatal (excluding hepatitis and tetanus, if untreated). Rubella is harmful to the baby of a pregnant woman, provided the woman gets the disease in the first trimester. I recently saw a segment on C-span. It seems that a Senator (I forgot his name) has a grandson who "became" autistic. He is heading a committee to investigate vaccinations. When autism begins to affect the rich and powerful, the information will unfold much quicker. And remember that not all physicians are pro-vaccination. Some (such as myself) have been touched by autism and think there is a better way. Take care and God Bless.
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To: WillaJohns
I hope your daughter is going to be OK. You were wise to stop when you did. We were pretty uninformed at the time and not so lucky. Hopefully, your daughter is young enough to reverse any harm that was done. Take care.
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To: TomB
So, as a dentist, what DO you think about using mercury amalgam? Could you please repond to this question?
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To: TomB
"BTW, the same thing happened in the mid '70s in Great Britian. "In Great Britain, a drop in pertussis vaccination in 1974 was followed by an epidemic of more than 100,000 cases of pertussis and 36 deaths by 1978". In Sweden, " the annual incidence rate of pertussis per 100,000 children 0-6 years of age increased from 700 cases in 1981 to 3,200 in 1985."
From previous source: "The incidence and severity of whooping cough (pertussis) had begun to decline long before the pertussis vaccine was introduced. From 1900 to 1935, in the United States and England, before the pertussis vaccine was introduced, the death rate from pertussis had already declined by 79 percent and 82 percent, respectively. Some studies indicate that the pertussis vaccine may be only 40 to 45% effective. Further evidence suggests that immunity is not sustained. Susceptibility to pertussis 12 years after full vaccination may be as high as 95 percent."
You must weigh the risks of adverse reactions caused by vaccinations versus the very questionable effectiveness of said vaccination. And please don't tell me there are no adverse reactions. Anyone can consult their pediatrician about a vaccination. His nurse can give you the lot# of the vaccination(s) your child received. You can then contact the National Vaccine Information Center to see how many children had seizures, deaths (if any), and any other adverse effect which was reported with that particular lot.
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To: rubbertramp
I appreciate your post. Wasn't aware of some of this info.
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To: Ozark Patriot
Thank you. Yes, my daughter is fine. I used the religious exemption to placate the schools. She's now a fine, healthy young lady of 27. She had maybe two illnesses her entire growing up years.
I'm impressed with your openness. Most doctors (if not all) that I've come in contact with (LadyDoc here for example), are very rigid in their thinking. If it's not prescribed by a pharmaceutical company, it's not worth a second thought and is to be scoffed at.
Here's one for you: I've had a skin condition most of my life that had been driving me crazy for the last several years. On this very forum, someone mentioned using epsom's salts and said how good it was for their skin. I decided to try it for my condition, at the same time I made an appointment with a dermatologist. The epsom salt routine worked wonders but I kept the appointment anyway, just in case. The doctor (very smart lady by the way) told me to discontinue the epsom salts and use a certain cortosteroid cream, among other things. She said epsom salts was very drying and should be discontinued. I did as she suggested for several months and found myself right back where I started before the epsom salts routine. I finally put some thought into the situation. I went back to the epsom salts. Now, three days later, Voila! Almost normal again.
Bottom line: Think for yourself. There are always going to be people blindly doing what the doctors (and government) tell them to do. But when faced with irrefutable evidence that it's wrong or harmful, it's inexcusable and plain stupid to keep doing the same thing. The problem with government is that by its very nature it can never say it's wrong. Consider what would happen if the government came out and admitted that certain vaccinations they mandate for entry into school caused scoliosis in 2-9 percent of children and they were discontinuing mandating that particular vaccination. All hell would break loose, parents would be outraged that they had placed their children in that situation. Heads would roll, congresspeople would lose their jobs. So nothing changes and the status quo rules.
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To: Ozark Patriot
You sound ALOT like a doctor here in town......someone I know quite well & respect, who, like you, has personal knowledge of autism, and is actively campaigning--(so to speak)--against MMR.
He has worked with others to develop a treatment for autism, and parents---nationwide---come here with their children ... for amazing results.
I also heartily disapprove of the HepB push!!----They were really PUSHING that a few years ago in the pediatricians office, and I kept refusing & refusing.----It supposedly was optional at the time, but NOW it's mandatory for school entrance.
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To: OzarkPatriot
Re #73----I was 'refusing' HepB for my children.---Didn't make that clear.
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To: Ozark Patriot, LadyDoc
We have also talked to Dr. Edelson, Dr. Gupta, Dr. Kane, and at least 5 other specialists who think there is a link
I can find that many guys with "Dr." in front of their names that will swear that we are being visited by extraterrestials. As a matter of fact, it seems the same few names come up every time you present your "evidence". Why is that? Is every other researcher on the subject stupid or dishonest, it has to be one or the other because the link between autism and MMR has been studied in depth the past few years.
"I want PROOF of that statement."
Simply attend a DAN (Defeat Autism Now) conference and listen to the physicians speak. It might enlighten you.
Excuse me, doctor, but that does not constitute proof. You made the statement the most physicians believe that MMR is a causal factor in autism. If someone who doesn't know any better should read this thread (God forbid), they might think that statement were true, when it isn't.
You dentists have always amused me.
Your condescension proves the bankruptcy of your position. Are you THAT afraid of the points I'm making that you have to put me down as "just" a dentist, and "not really a doctor"? As far a amalgam is concerned, since 95% of dentists still use amalgam, and its safety has been proven for OVER 100 YEARS, I have nothing to apologize for. However, you should be advised that replacing silver fillings just for the excuse of removing mercury from your system is illegal in most, if not all, states. And no, a note from your doctor doesn't make a difference.
OSHA considers mercury a hazardous material before it is placed in a patients mouth and after it is removed from a patients mouth. But mercury is NOT considered hazardous when it is INSIDE you body. Go figure. When will dentists learn?
Plutonium is the most toxic substance on earth when inhaled, however if ingested, it passes harmlessly through you body. Didn't they teach you this stuff in Med school?
To the "research":
Autism Research Review International
Listed on its web page as the quarterly newsletter of Autism Research Institute. Funny, I didn't realize lawfirms did research on immunization, and can you peer review a 36 page fax? BTW, ARI is listed at Quackwatch.com as a "questionable organization".
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
and
Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology
Since both of these articles are (conveniently) not available on the web, I can't comment. But while your posting, why don't you post something from a mainstream site to support you view. To the best of my knowledge the only study in a peer reviewed journal which discussed the MMR-autism link was the Lancet. However, an editorial published in the same issue discussed concerns about the validity of the study.
The rest of your post comes from Miller's book, and I was unable to find any corroboration for any of the facts asserted. I have seen them mentioned before, and I, as most people, find them laughable. A search of the CDC website did bring up this information:
The last case of wild poliovirus infection in the Western Hemisphere occurred in Peru in 1991. However, thousands of poliovirus infections still occur in other parts of the world. The majority of cases are now reported from the Indian subcontinent, Asia, and Africa.
I though polio was disappearing from the earth before immunization started? If that was the case, there's been more than enough time for it to disappear.
Another point, I see you mention the CDC when you think there's a tidbit of information to help your argument. But you gloss over the fact that the CDC as well as the AMA, NIH, WHO, and most other heath organizations arould the world supports full immunization for children.
So here I am, poor, stupid little Tommy Tooth, sitting at my computer without a clue. Yet I have EVERY major health organization in the world on my side. Do you tell your patients that you are going against ALL conventional wisdom?
I may be a mere dentist, but you are a QUACK!
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To: Concentrate
Yes, moron, and until you can come up with ONE study that goes against 100 years of evidence of safety, I going to continue to use it.
As of last count, over 95% of dentist still use amalgam.
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To: Politically Correct
Frankly, I find this MMR/Autism link difficult to believe. Autism is a condition that a child is born with. I have never heard of it developing later, in a perfectly normal child. There are all degrees of autism. It includes a neurological condition which prevents the child from relating normally to others. No one has ever figured out the the whole thing but for some reason there are a higher percentage of autistic kids born to very intelligent engineer types. (This is not expert information, just what I have gleaned from two friends with autistic kids.)
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To: TomB
As of last count, over 95% of dentist still use amalgam.
My dentist doesn't...practicing now over 25 years...says amalgam is rapidly on the way out.
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To: Eva
My friend is a doctor, and his son developed autism at age 2, immediately after receiving his MMR.----Before MMR, he was perfectly healthy.
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To: Guenevere
Do you mean that he stopped communicating with others (inferring that he did communicate before his innocualtion) and showed other indications of brain damage? Did the kid run an abnormally high fever following the injection? How severe is the autism? Mild autism could possibly go undiagnosed (even by a physician) prior to two years old because there is no reason to expect verbal communication.
I am not trying to talk you into innoculations. I postponed most of my kids innoculations until they were older because my middle child experienced a soaring temperature of 105 measured under her arm, and was bearly conscious, following a DPT. But you won't be able to avoid them forever. Most colleges will not even allow a kid to register if they can't show proof of a second MMR.
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To: Ozark Patriot
"Polio is virtually non-existent in the United States today: however, there is no credible scientific evidence that the vaccine caused polio to disappear. From 1923 to 1953, BEFORE the Salk killed-virus vaccine was introduced, the polio death rate in the U.S. and England had already declined on its own by 47 percent and 55 percent, respectively. Statistics show a similar decline in other European countries as well. And when the vaccine did become available , many European countries questioned its effectiveness and refused to systematically inoculate their citizens. Yet, polio epidemics also ended in these countries."
This was the only information I was able to find on short notice, but it proves the statement above, and probably the rest of the book is fantasy. As can be seen, the greatest outbreak occurred in the early 50's. And, once the vaccine became available, there were no more outbreaks.
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To: Eva
Eva, he was apparently a healthy child, until he took a series of MMR, Viravax (chicken pox) & OPV innoculations.
Shortly after, he started exhibiting extreme behavior & health problems.
His father has a detailed account of this including all the tests subsequently given to determine what happened.
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To: TomB
Read what I said. Be very wary of vaccines. They are not vitamins. It is a very intrusive thing to put a disease strain into the arm of a child when they are at the peak of their immune strength. There are many diseases which have an immunology basis. Diseases which make the body attack itself.
When a body senses that this is "not part of my body", the healthy body attacks the intruder. That is the basis of immunology. Wealthy countries also have a high degree of cancer.
I used to believe in vaccinating children until I saw the lie in the process. Last year there was an epidemic of whooping cough here. The children who were vaccinated against whooping cough got it...several families who don't believe in vaccinations, sailed through it.
The study you posted was extremely flawed. It was not longitudinal which it should be if talking about developmental delays. When you are talking about retardation in a child, people delay making that assessment as long as possible (and ethically should)...so of course, that would be under-reported.
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To: rubbertramp
Read what I said. Be very wary of vaccines.
Why? Because you, and some fringe doctors say so? Please tell me why EVERY major health organization in the world supports vaccinations for your child.
The study you posted was extremely flawed.
You didn't mention which study. But if you are referring to the graph, it wasn't a study. It is merely a graphical representation of eidemiological data, i.e., how many new cases of polio were diagnosed in a year. No mathematical calisthenics can change the fact that the highest year for new polio cases occurred just prior to the introduction of the vaccine. The puts the lie to the author Ozark quoted.
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To: Eva
Frankly, I find this MMR/Autism link difficult to believe. Autism is a condition that a child is born with. I have never heard of it developing later, in a perfectly normal child. There are all degrees of autism. It includes a neurological condition which prevents the child from relating normally to others. No one has ever figured out the the whole thing but for some reason there are a higher percentage of autistic kids born to very intelligent engineer types. (This is not expert information, just what I have gleaned from two friends with autistic kids.)
I never claimed that there was a link...no I'm not being defensive. I only made the point that even if there is a link the risk is low and the danger of these infectious diseases is not insignificant.
Autism is a broad term that probably covers several different brain abnormalities with several causes. We are only beginning to unravel some of these.
My bet is that most will be discovered to be caused by viruses that we have yet to identify.
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To: Politically Correct
The problem with trying to make any kind of link between in Autism and MMR vaccine is that it not only provides an excuse for people to avoid innocualtion but it also muddies the search for clear explanation of Autism.
As a matter of fact, autism is seldom if ever diagnosed at birth because it involves coginitive abilities that are not expected of infants. No one expects an infant to give back any positive response. The only sign might be that the infant is not soothed or comforted by the sound of the mother's voice.
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To: Eva
The problem with trying to make any kind of link between in Autism and MMR vaccine is that it not only provides an excuse for people to avoid innocualtion but it also muddies the search for clear explanation of Autism.
That's a very good point, with the finite amount of funding out there its a shame a portion of that money has to go chasing phantoms. I went to the website of The Autism Society of America and, to their credit, the MMR controversy is not even mentioned.
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To: TomB
You posted a study to me and I responded. It seems you are losing your argument because now you have switched to polio. Guess what...polio is a different disease. If you want to discuss polio, post another thread.
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To: Guenevere
I have known other apparently healthy children who began exhibiting autistic behavior about two years old. One child was thought to be emotionally disturbed to the birh of a sibling and the death of her mother, it turned out that was not the case. It just so happens that autism doesn't display itself until the child is at an age where interaction is expected.
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To: rubbertramp
Sigh.
First of all I was referring to Ozark's mention of polio. If you would read your thread you would have easily seen that Ozark brought up polio and I merele responded. But it is a legitimate topic because this thread was getting very anti-immunization in a general way.
Once again you aren't being specific. What study did I post that you responded to?
I don't see how I am losing this argument because every point I bring up is supported by numerous organizations. You, on the other hand have one study and a handful of fringe doctors supporting your side. Face it, the Wakefield study has been disproved as per post #59. That conclusion is from the FOLLOW-UP study that is discussed in the original article.
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To: Guenevere
Have a friend who is a primary level teacher of Autistic children. Earlier this year she was talking about how now the doctors think that immunizations are causing this sudden increase in the number of cases of PDD children. When did this become available..at some time in the 1970's..?
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To: TomB
"But if you are referring to the graph, it wasn't a study. It is merely a graphical representation of eidemiological data, i.e., how many new cases of polio were diagnosed in a year. No mathematical calisthenics can change the fact that the highest year for new polio cases occurred just prior to the introduction of the vaccine. The puts the lie to the author Ozark quoted."
You didn't "put the lie" to anything other than your own intelligence. My source quoted statistics for the U.S. and England and you give me a graph for Canada. Is that the best you can come up with? Study your geography, but Canada is not part of the U.S. or England. And it is not illegal for a dentist to remove an amalgam filling to replace it. Dentists replace fillings routinely. Insurance may not pay, but it is not illegal. Please give me any law or statute proving that it is illegal. You are showing ignorance of your own profession.
As for my posting of documentation, it is not for your benefit. You are a closed-minded, lost cause. It is for the benefit of anyone who is pondering whether or not to vaccinate their kids. As I said, I can quote just as many sources as you. Regarding mercury, what is your hypothesis for people who have mercury fillings and have very toxic serum mercury levels? As far as the bulk of organizations supporting vaccinations, almost everyone in the 15th century thought the world was flat. You would have been one of these people, had you been alive at the time. Did this make the world flat? The benefit of conversing with other physicians and parents is that they can speak from experience...not simply dig up a source. Many physicians I speak to are simply not sure about the link...but they remain open minded. Some have seen children come back into the office a week after a vaccination, with some illness. It is sometimes simply an ear infection, unexplained muscle cramps, or an unexplained febrile condition. I will seek the truth myself, rather than wait until someone creates a law to change something such as vaccination use or amalgam use.
So remain closed-minded and content with the status quo, and I will keep seeking the truth.
By the way, if you think replacing mercury fillings is illegal, I know 3 dentists (just in my area) that do it routinely. One did my fillings, another did my wifes, and a third did my mother-in-laws. All three are still practicing and are not in jail. One of the dentists has had his own amalgam fillings removed and has been treated with DMPS. By the way, plutonium is not the same as mercury. Illegal for a dentist to replace fillings...indeed...are you sure you are a dentist?
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To: Guenevere
My grandson has what I term "aquired autism"---not "congenital"--He was completely NORMAL--ie:speech,playful,and displayed NO manifestation of Autism.
After MMR &/or DPT he gradually regressed to NO more speech and certain repetitive movements and was diagnosed as Autistic.
Dan Burton(R)had a House Committee conduct and inquiry which further convinced me we NEED more research into this matter.
You will NEVER convince me that there is not a relationship and I pray the Pharmaceutical firms will conduct some in-depth studies--FOR THE CHILDREN!
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To: WillaJohns
Status quo will continue. There's too much money available to drug companies and physicians. I also have thoughts about tainted vaccinations being part of the population control agenda of the globalists, but this is purely speculation. I strongly advise staying away from aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet).
As far as your skin condition, this usually points to some kind of liver problems. My wife (a herbalist) said that milk thistle might also help. If your skin condition is psoriasis, it could be at least partially die to Candida (yeast) overgrowth. Taking acidophilus or eating yogurt may help. Also, if you can find an allergy doctor or environmental physician that gives nystatin plus allergy shots for Candida, that would be an option.
As far as the Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate), that is the first time I have heard of that for a skin condition. I will see what I can find out. We let our son soak in Epsom salts baths. There is a theory that autistic kids can't detox due to a sulfation problem. I guess using it for a skin condition could follow the same principle. It could be helping you remove toxins. As my wife gets more DMPS infusions (to remove mercury...she has very high mercury levels), the severe psoriasis she has on her scalp is getting better and better. Hope that helps. Stay open-minded and keep the faith.
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To: oldglory
I'm so sorry to hear about your grandson.
Look for FR mail in about 5 minutes.
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To: Ozark Patriot
Thank you for the reply. Interesting stuff and I'm going to check out the milk thistle first thing. "Thank you" to you and your wife. What a wonderful thread this is! I know many who've read it have started to THINK FOR THEMSELVES.
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To: Ozark Patriot
My source quoted statistics for the U.S. and England and you give me a graph for Canada. Is that the best you can come up with? Study your geography, but Canada is not part of the U.S. or England.
So somehow the U.S. is going to have a polio incidence related to England, separated by an entire ocean, but it will not have any with Canada, with which it shares the largest undefended border in the world. The vast majority of the population of Canada (<90%) lives within 50 miles or so of the border. Is it really your contention that the polio rates in Canada would be completely different from the U.S.?
Here is your previous quote:
Polio is virtually non-existent in the United States today: however, there is no credible scientific evidence that the vaccine caused polio to disappear.
So, looking at the chart for Canada above, what DID cause the polio incidence in Canada to essentially disappear?
And it is not illegal for a dentist to remove an amalgam filling to replace it.
DUH! Of course it isn't illegal to replace silver with composite. But you CAN lose your license if you remove fillings to treat "Mercury toxicity". I use posterior composites in many cases, when indicated, but by replacing all the amalgams in a persons mouth to treat some kind of diease, a dentist can lose his license. If those dentists you refer to are just replacing amalgams for those reasons, maybe you can freepmail me their names and the state in which they practice, their state board might be interested in knowing.
From the ADA website:
"The ADA's ethics policy clearly states that 'no dentist shall remove an otherwise serviceable amalgam filling for the sole purpose of curing a systemic disorder."
From a 1997 ruling by Colorado administrative law judge Nancy Connick recommending the revocation of the Dental license of Dr. Hal Huggins:
"Patients thus can not consent to the removal of their amalgams based on concerns about mercury toxicity. Generally accepted standards of dental practice do allow a dentist to remove fillings for a number of reasons, including aesthetics, but not to eliminate mercury from a patient's mouth."
It might be nice if you forward this information to your dentist friends.
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To: rubbertramp
This is the most alarming thing I ever read. Did you tell anyone in League City?
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To: BellStar
There is currently a breakthrough in Autism. Doctors have been able to reverse the symptoms of Autism through antibiotics for a brief period of time. It seems that there is a link to infection. (With vaccination, you deliberately infect.)
Why am I talking to you. You are not serious? I hope you never have a child with Autism.
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To: rubbertramp
Why am I talking to you........... DOH!!
I wondered what happened to you.
However, you failed to address my post 59 in which I posted the conclusion to the follow-up study of the same group that did the initial study. It totally refuted your initial post.
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To: rubbertramp
I did. My son Jay died at age 26. He had an immunization at 14 mos. he started seizing that afternoon
and he never said another word until he was six years old. Behavior problems and poor speech and seizers that never could be controlled were his life long trial until he went home to be with the Lord.
He was fine and very normal until that d#@%*d immunization
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To: BellStar
When I was in work, I came across a study that linked germs that upset the flora in the child's brain to subsequent Autism. It is a new theory and very interesting. I will post it for you. God bless your son.
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To: TomB
I did post a refutation at post 83. You missed it.
That must have been during the period that you were abducted by flying saucers and started posting to yourself.
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To: rubbertramp
Here is the search return (35 papers, abstracts available) for MMR AND autism from PubMed. If there is anything in the world of science that is definitive or authoritative it will be found here (unless you're actually in some of the labs and reading papers not yet submitted for review). Sightings is a weak reed.
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To: Lizavetta
I'll take with a grain of salt any statistic that comes out of Africa, thank you. I would guess that
malnutrition has everything to do with mortality down there and the measles thing was thrown in
for political reasons.
No, not everything is done for political reasons, Lizavetta. There are still places in the world that are pretty much in pre-20th century medical conditions. You cavil at measles but accept malnutrition. You may as well just say that the malnutrition is all made-up stuff as well. Actually, though, malnutrition makes one much more susceptible to just about everything.
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To: rubbertramp
Sorry, many of these papers do not have an abstract available. If you're near a university campus, many of them have electronic subscriptions to these journals which can be accessed through library computers.
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To: rubbertramp,Joe Montana, Al B., Cholera Joe, Lady Doc, Askel5
Here we go. The HTML links won't work because the routing must go through the university's link to Lancet.
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| The Lancet | ||
| Volume 355, Issue 9213 | SummaryPlus | |
| 22 April 2000 |
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Article |
| Page 1379 | Journal Format-PDF (27 K) |
PII: S0140-6736(00)02129-2
Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Editorial
Measles, MMR, and autism: the confusion continues
The Lancet
Available online 3 May 2000.
The WHO estimated the number of measles cases for 1998 as 30 million worldwide with 888000 measles-related deaths. In developing countries about 10% of all deaths in children under 5 years are measles related. Sad figures considering that measles has been a vaccine-preventable disease for more than three decades. In 1990, the World Summit for Children adopted a goal of vaccinating 90% of children by 2000; despite this undertaking, global coverage actually declined from 79% in 1997 to 72% in 1998. Vaccine coverage varies widely, and 16 countries reported coverage below 50% in 1998. One such country is Afghanistan, where a measles epidemic is now raging with many deaths (see p 1439).
In more-developed countries, measles is often regarded, erroneously, as a mild disease¯¯a view belied by the fact that in the USA, in a measles outbreak of about 55000 cases from 1989 to 1991, over 120 people died. Complications include bronchopneumonia, diarrhoea, encephalitis, and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), which leads to death and occurs in 1 out of 8000 children who become infected with measles before their second birthday. SSPE cases have fallen dramatically since the introduction of measles vaccine.
A huge blow to the efforts of measles eradication was dealt when 2 years ago, at a press conference, Andrew Wakefield from the Royal Free Hospital, UK, argued that because of uncertainty about its safety, the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine should be withdrawn and the components given separately. He made this claim¯¯not shared by his co-investigators¯¯on the grounds that there was an association between autism and intestinal abnormalities in 12 children and a possible relation¯¯as recalled by some parents¯¯with MMR vaccination (Lancet 1998; 351: 637-41). Well-founded criticisms of both the study and its interpretation by Wakefield followed, and a different research group from the same institution published epidemiological evidence contradicting this alleged association (Lancet 1999; 353: 2026-29). On April 3, a report from a subgroup of the British Medical Research Council, led by Alan McGregor of King's College London, concluded that "between March, 1998, and September, 1999, there had been no new evidence to suggest a causal link between MMR and inflammatory bowel disease/autism".
In a new twist, Wakefield's crusade fuelled further anxiety among parents when he and John O'Leary, director of pathology at Coombe Women's Hospital, Dublin, Ireland, presented unpublished data to the US Senate's congressional oversight committee in Washington on April 6. The hearing was called by the chairman, Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican, whose grandson has autism and visited the Royal Free Hospital in November last year. At the hearing, six parents of children with autism gave moving testimonies of their children's illness. Scientific evidence was presented by six chosen "experts". According to Wakefield's testimony, he has now studied more than 150 children with "autistic enterocolitis"¯¯an unproven association had become a disease¯¯and a detailed analysis of the first 60 cases is to be published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology later this year.
Wakefield presented uninterpretable fragments of results only and concentrated on refuting studies that had contradicted his findings. His conclusions were surprisingly non-committal: "the virological data indicate that this may be measles virus in some children"; he added that it would be imprudent to interpret the temporal relationship with MMR as a chance finding, in the absence of thorough investigation. O'Leary explained that gut-biopsy material from 24 of 25 children with autism was positive for measles virus compared with one of 15 controls, and that this material was presented to him by Wakefield using "blinded protocols". Since the controls are not further described and the details of these findings remain unpublished, this evidence raises far more questions than it answers.
Autism is a poorly understood neurodevelopmental-disease spectrum with a heart-breaking personal story behind every case. But parents of such children have not been served well by these latest claims made well beyond the publically available evidence. A congressional hearing, like a press conference, is no place to make controversial scientific assessments. And if scientists question the safety of vaccines without making their evidence fully transparent, harm will be done to many more children than they purport to protect.
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To: rubbertramp
So you say the study, done by the same people who did the study that you initially posted, is flawed?
Doesn't that essentially invalidte the first study?
And that really isn't a refutation, just opinion. How about references.
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To: Politically Correct
Since you are a home schooler I'll add that when your kids go on to college (so many home schoolers do) they will need the
MMR vaccination to get in unless you have a religious objection. Recently read about a measles outbreak in a Missouri
college....the disease is still around and still causing serious problems. >>>>>>>>>>
I was told the same by a doctor trying to force the DPT on my son. He said 'you can't get into school unless you get vaccinated' , he then said there was a pertussis outbreak at one of the schools...?
Well if you can't even get in unless vaccinated, then how can there be an outbreak there? Either the outbreaks are caused totally by religious objectors (very few in MA) or the vaccination doesn't work very well, and probably not worth the risk.
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To: Hal
...oh yeah, I was later called by aforementioned doctor and told if I don't vaccinate my child, I'd have to leave the practice!(which I did)
Very fascist-like medical system.
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To: rubbertramp
bmp
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To: aruanan
This is an op-ed piece. Do you agree with its conclusions in the last paragraph?
A congressional hearing, like a press conference, is no place to make controversial scientific assessments.
Given the bought and paid-for nature of current medical research -- especially American research -- and the co-opted nature of institutions like the FDA, NIMH, and the American media, that may be the BEST AVAILABLE place to make controversial scientific assessments.
I don't know who's right in the MMR/autism debate ,'cause I haven't studied it. But I give the Brits a lot of credit for at least being willing to debate this openly. You rarely see that sort of thing over here anymore.
One of these days we're actually gonna get some honesty about the toxicity of some of the stuff we're taking.
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To: Al B., Lady Doc
Given the bought and paid-for nature of current medical research -- especially American research -- and the co-opted nature of institutions like the
FDA, NIMH, and the American media, that may be the BEST AVAILABLE place to make controversial scientific assessments.
Given what I know about medical research from the inside, I'd have to say that you're operating under some very heavy misconceptions if you're saying that all these organizations/agencies are merely the tools of evil industry that doesn't care for the health and safety of the end users of its products but only for how much money can be wrung out of them. If so, why should an industry burden itself with regulatory agencies that add billions of dollars to its development costs? Your use of "bought and paid-for" seems to imply widespread fraud. That's simply absurd. It would be saying that an industry goes to a scientist and says, "Hey, conduct this research ostensibly for this purpose, but here is the result I want you to get. Now you just set things up so you'll get that result and make the results look so convincing that independent reviewers at whatever journal you happen to decide to send it to will be fooled--oh, wait, I forgot! We've already been in touch with all these thousands of journals and all the tens of thousands of reviewers and have paid them all off to say just what we want them to say so that we can point to something and say, see it says such and such!" Well, again, why bother with all the stuff in the middle? It's a waste of time, money, and it exposes you to criminal liability. Oh, I guess they have all the judges and juries bought and paid for, too. Well, then, again, why bother with all the stuff in the middle?
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To: LadyDoc
You see, there is still shame in
retardation, but autism is easier to accept.
The "He's not fat, it's his glands" approach? Also, since the MMR is a live vaccine and the possibility exists that someone could develop encephalitis which could, in some cases, lead to autism, doesn't it follow that having no vaccine at all and risking widespread measles/mumps (which can also result in encephalitis)/rubella outbreaks--and such was regularly the case before the advent of the vaccines--would subject even more children to the possibility of developing encephalitis and, thus, the possibility of autism? In other words, any risk posed by a reaction to the vaccine is merely a subset of a greater risk, but of the same nature, posed by not using it.
You mentioned that kids die of measles. But kids can also be brain-damaged by measles. Many people nowadays do not remember the very large institutions for the retarded/feeble minded--dare we say autistic--that used to exist forty or fifty years ago. People then look at the exceptions to the relative scarcity of complications arising from these diseases due to their being controlled by immunization and conclude that something really bad is going on when in reality, without immunization, the situation would be so much worse. They assume their own experience of an historic paucity of disease is The Way It Always Was and conclude there is something terribly wrong at present and fail to see how bad it really used to be.
It's the same thing that, I believe, Bobby Rush is doing with "children's" death by guns. He said that it was the leading cause of death--more than all childhood illnesses combined. Well, okay, even if it is, this doesn't mean that the landscape is drenched in blood, just that the nation's children are now generally so healthy that so relatively few of them die of disease that gunshot deaths among 14 to 24 year-olds can be a greater number.
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To: WillaJohns, OzarkPatriot, TomB
People seem to assume that if they can get their unimmunized children into adulthood that they will then have dodged the bullet of so-called childhood illnesses. That's not the case at all. In fact, if you have refrained from having your child vaccinated against certain diseases because of the risk of complications from the vaccine, you have consigned your child to a lifetime risk of catching those diseases, many of which have far, far graver consequences when one is an adult.
To those who say, yes, but the vaccine must be 100% safe: get out of your NASA mentality. There is no such thing as 100% safety, not even for NASA. There is only relative risk. If an attenuated virus* is the only way to confer immunity, then there is always the risk that some individuals will develop a more severe reaction to it--ie., a more rather than less full-blown case of the disease with the attendent consequences. The vaccine risk is avoidable only if they're not immunized at all, in which case they run the greater risk of coming down with the full-strength version of the disease.
*You basically get a very light case of the disease, usually not enough to damage you, but enough to provoke an antibody response and so become immunized against getting it again.
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To: aruanan
Your use of "bought and paid-for" seems to imply widespread fraud. That's simply absurd.
The use of the word fraud is yours, not mine.
Maybe I should have said, "bought and paid-for by drug companies," because that's what I meant. Drug companies routinely pay huge sums of money DIRECTLY to researchers in the form of consulting fees, honoraria, direct grants, fees for sitting on advisory boards, etc. But few in the media tell us about this, and that the work product of these researchers is not independent.
As an example, when a widely publicized study such as the 1998 NIMH "landmark" study on depression comes out trumpeting the value of SSRI's, I think the public should have been told that the lead "researcher," Martin Keller, received over $500,000 from SSRI makers THAT VERY SAME YEAR. Don't you? For further review, see:
Is Academic Medicine For Sale?
Prozac Pushing Stooge "Researcher" Paid Half a Million Under the Table by Drug Manufacturers
Here's a thread about the cozy relationship between the FDA and drug manufacturers.
The bottom line is the destruction of objectivity that comes with this baggage. I can't knowledgeably speak about all of medical science, but in intensively studying the psychiatric drug question, I've seen enough crummy study design, shoddy or fudged statistics, and shading of results to conclude that something's very wrong. I've also been told by others that the problem is common to most disciplines in medicine.
It would be saying that an industry goes to a scientist and says, "Hey, conduct this research ostensibly for this purpose, but here is the result I want you to get.
In some cases, buying results is exactly what happens. Heck, in the case of animal research on patented drugs, researchers sign contracts that allow the drug companies to VETO publication of the results!
Other research is typically funded by review boards, staffed by people
with the kinds of money ties as outlined above. This stifles controversial
research such as that covered in this thread as well as other badly needed
research (e.g. - the need for understanding the long-term impact on the
brain of neurotoxic drugs).
If you want to defend these practices and assert the independence of American medical science, be my guest.
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To: Joe Montana,rubbertramp
Bump
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To: WillaJohns
Putting poison directly in the blood stream. No wonder she got sick.
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To: aruanan
Sightings is a weak reed.
That's silly. Does it truly matter where the article is posted? I'll be glad to put it on my website, but I don't think it will change the content of the article either way. Read my earlier posts if you want stats.
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To: BellStar
Here is an interesting tidbit. It has a copyright so, I will post the link....Possible Short-Term Benefit In Treating Autism With Antibiotics
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To: rubbertramp, concentrate, Tomb
Tom,
If you don't think mercury has potential for toxicity, please check out:
http://www.mercuryfree.com/mercury.htm
See what one of your fellow dentists (who replaces these fillings) has to say. You might also check out http://www.nofluoride.com/ to see the 11 major organizations which have dropped endorsement of the American Dental Association.
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To: Ozark Patriot
Wow, a website!
If its on the web, well, it MUST be true.
I'd still like the names of those dentists, if you please.
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To: JPJones
I was told the same by a doctor trying to force the DPT on my son. He said 'you can't get into school unless you get vaccinated' , he then said there was a pertussis outbreak at one of the schools...?
Well if you can't even get in unless vaccinated, then how can there be an outbreak there?
Either the outbreaks are caused totally by religious objectors (very few in MA) or the vaccination doesn't work very well, and probably not worth the risk.
No it's because there were so many unvaccinated kids there.
For years Public Health ignored their job and didn't require vaccination for kids to go to school.
Next thing you know there were outbreaks again.
Admittedly the outbreaks will become very rare because so many are getting vaccinated again and Public Health officials are serious about their jobs.
So your kid will be protected by the "herd immunity" of all the other kids whose parents aren't so risk aversive.
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To: TomB
Yes, moron, and until you can come up with ONE study that goes against 100 years of evidence of safety, I going to continue to use it.
What evidence? Please provide some.
As of last count, over 95% of dentist still use amalgam.
I suppose this proves that it is safe?Answer me.
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To: TomB
Ever know anyone with MS? Every God-Da*&%$ed one of them has a mouth full of amalgam. Ask around. Open your ears!
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To: Concentrate
What evidence? Please provide some.
If you point you browser at the ADA, CDC, NIH, AMA, or other webistes such as those, then type in the word a-m-a-l-g-a-m, you'll find hundreds of published, peer-reviewed studies. Otherwise, if you use some common sense, and realize that amalgam has been used many millions of times for well over 100 years, yet no physical ailment has been reported in all those years of study, you would realize that the burden of proof is on YOU, not me.
However, I did some of you work for you, this qoute is from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society webpage (http://www.nmss.org/msinfo/infosearchfrm.html):
There have been some claims that mercury leaking from amalgam dental fillings damages the immune system and causes a broad range of diseases, including MS, by contributing to the demyelinating of nerves. Demyelination—the destruction of myelin, the fatty sheath that surrounds and insulates nerve fibers in the central nervous system—causes nerve impulses to be slowed or halted and produces the symptoms of MS. There is no scientific evidence to connect the development of MS or other neurological diseases with dental fillings containing mercury.
Now, if you noticed I went to the largest, most prestigious organization dealing with MS that I could find. So please don't start posting that fringe crap from those UFO websites.
I suppose this proves that it is safe?Answer me.
Getting a little demanding, aren't we?
In a word, yes. The other option is for me to walk into my practice Monday and say, "I have no concrete evidence, but a couple guys on Free Republic told me I shouldn't use amalgam, so I'm stopping". Doesn't make alot of sense, does it?
And before you continue to accuse me of all kinds of nasty things, consider this. I could GREATLY increase my income if I stopped doing amalgams and only went with composties, seeing as how they are much more expensive. So I have no incentive to continue to use amalgam other than consideration of my patients.
Ever know anyone with MS? Every God-Da*&%$ed one of them has a mouth full of amalgam. Ask around. Open your ears!
Actually I do, and she doesn't have a single filling in her mouth. But seeing as how silver fillings are essentially ubiquitous, the chances of someone having MS AND fillings are pretty good.
However, I'm a little confused how I'm supposed to see all those MS patients with amalgams if I open my ears.
Nice chatting with you.
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To: TomB
Well, I hope you're right. I've got a mouthful of crumbling amalgams and no money for the dentist.
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To: Concentrate
Well, if you are ever in western PA, let me know. I'll be happy to take care of you. Special Freeper discount!
But while there are reasons to worry about crumbling fillings, none are as severe as mercury toxicity or systemic disease.
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To: rubbertramp
bmp
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To: rubbertramp
uttt
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To: rubbertramp
Can anybody help with this? If there's an alleged link between the MMR and Autism, and overall Autism has increased substantially over the last 20 years or so, has anybody done any research on levels of Autism in countries where the MMR isn't available? e.g. Japan prior and post their suspension of MMR use.
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