Childhood Vaccinations – Necessary or Overkill? Sequal Thread

In Boston, Jim Adams, a chemical engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe who has an autistic daughter and believes that mercury causes many cases of autism, presented results supporting Holmes's theory. He found that children with autism have up to three times as much mercury as normal in their baby teeth, yet lower levels in their hair.

It also appears that some children are born with a susceptibility to autism, but researchers have not yet identified a single "trigger" that causes autism to develop.

There could be a whole host of chemicals that wreak havoc on the brains of genetically susceptible individuals, team member Isaac Pessah of the University of California, Davis, told the meeting. He points out that according to the US National Toxicology Report, between 60 and 80 per cent of the chemicals we are exposed to through pesticides, cosmetics and foods have not undergone adequate risk assessment.

Researchers now believe that autism can be caused by genes in combination with environmental triggers. The question is, what are those triggers?By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff | August 13, 2007

Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines
Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Volume 11 Number 1 Spring 2006

Medical Journal: Autism Rates Decline as Mercury Removed from Childhood Vaccines
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Inc. - March 2, 2006

Up until about 1989 pre-school children got only 3 vaccines (polio, DPT, MMR). By 1999 the CDC recommended a total of 22 vaccines to be given before children reach the 1st grade, including Hepatitis B, which is given to newborns within the first 24 hours of birth. Many of these vaccines contained mercury.

As more and more vaccines were added to the mandatory schedule of vaccines for children, the dose of the mercury-based preservative thimerosal rose, so that the cumulative dose injected into babies exceeded the toxic threshold set by many government agencies. Mercury is known to damage nerve cells in very low concentrations.

In Boston, Jim Adams, a chemical engineer at Arizona State University in Tempe who has an autistic daughter and believes that mercury causes many cases of autism, presented results supporting Holmes's theory. He found that children with autism have up to three times as much mercury as normal in their baby teeth, yet lower levels in their hair.

A study published in 2002 of infants who were 6 months of age or younger compared the levels of mercury in the blood, hair, urine, and stool of 40 who received vaccines containing thimerosal and 20 who received vaccines without thimerosal. The study found:Mercury levels in blood and urine were low in all infants studied and in many cases too small to measure. There was no observed dose-dependent relationship between the level of thimerosal received through vaccination and the level of mercury in the body.Mercury levels in blood did not exceed, at any time, the blood levels that correspond to Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for exposure.Mercury levels in the stool of infants receiving vaccines containing thimerosal were relatively high compared to mercury levels in the stool of infants who were not exposed to thimerosal, providing evidence that mercury from thimerosal is eliminated in the stool of infants.The researchers concluded that, "Administration of vaccines containing thiomersal does not seem to raise blood concentrations of mercury above safe values in infants."

KAISER FOUNDATION
RESEARCH INSTITUTE
1800 Harrison Street
Oakland, CA 94162February 25, 2004Mark Geier, MD
Principal Investigator
The Genetic Centers of America
14 Redgate Court
Silver Springs, MD 20905Re: A Series of Studies to Analyze the Vaccine Safety DatabaseDear Dr. Geier:On February 19, 2004, the Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) Institutional Review Board (IRB) suspended your research project pending the following:* Submission of a response from you to the attached letter, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently sent to the IRB notifying it of reports received from the technical monitors who accompanied you on visits to the CDC Research Data Center (RDC)Please note: The ITB views with great concern the reported attempt to breach confidentiality and your attempts to merge data and conduct analyses which were not in accord with CDC procedures.Also note: as a result of this suspension, you and your co-investigator are prohibited, until notified otherwise, from accessing VSD data derived from Colorado Kaiser Permanente and Northern California Kaiser Permanente institutional officials.Federal regulations and KPNC/IRB policy prohibit conduct of research that has been suspended by the IRB. The IRB is required to report, and will proceed to report, the suspension of this study to the CDC and Kaiser Permanente institutional officials.The following actions are required:* You must immediately cease all activities which involve Kaiser Permanente data, as it is required by federal regulations and KPNC IRB policy.
* You must inform the IRB of any research-related activity continued beyond this notification of study suspension, providing the reason(s) for continuation.
* You must provide written notification of study suspension and the required cessation of all research activities to the co- and sub- investigators, if any, participating in this research within five business days of receiving this notification.The IRB requires that you provide your response to the CDC's letter to KFRI via e-mail to KPNC IRB on Lotus Notes, or KPNC.IRB@kp.org, or by U.S. Mail by noon on March 8, 2004, for review at the March 18, 2004 IRM meeting.SincerelyLeigh Pruneau, PhD, RN
KPNC/IRB Administrator

Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D., is president of Genetic Centers of America. He has been a consultant and expert witness in many cases presented to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and in civil litigation. In publications and testimony, he suggests that the thimerosal in vaccines is a cause of autism. His son David A. Geier is president of MedCon, a medical-legal consulting firm that helps vaccine injury claimants to try to obtain funds from both the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and through civil litigation.In 2003, a special master who presided over a case of alleged vaccine injury issued a report that severely criticized Dr. Geier's analysis of a case. The ruling is especially noteworthy because the special master referred to him as "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise, and experience" and listed nine other cases in which Geier's expert testimony was given "no weight."

Misuse of DataThe data in this study are supplied by the CDDS. This relies on the change between quarterly reports to calculate new cases. Unfortunately the CDDS has a document that states the changes between quarters can not be counted as new cases (DDS, 2005). The persons may have already been in the CDDS and receiving services under a different category or their paper work may have taken a while to collect and process, even though they were already receiving services. When such uncontrolled data are employed they contain errors of random and systematic error (Friis & Sellers, 2004).

I did find it interesting that the number of vaccinations have increased for children.

Here is a recent letter written by Congressman Dave Weldon, MD, to Julie Gerberding, Director of the CDC, regarding a fraudulent CDC-sponsored study purporting to show no link between mercury-laced vaccines and autism:

PurpleDawn, you might be interested in checking out the work of Dr Russell Blaylock.

Two Japanese studies showed a positive association between induced abortion and breast cancer: a 1957 study reported a statistically significant relative risk of 2.61, and a 1968 study found a relative risk of 1.51.

wiki writes:The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative association of physicians, medical professionals and students, patients and others,[1] founded in 1943.

The group had approximately 4,000 members in 2005.

Currently, the organization opposes mandatory vaccination,[8] universal health care[9] and government intervention in healthcare.[10] ... AAPS opposes abortion[16] and over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.[17]

In 2006 the group called attention to (AAPS') sham peer review.[23]

Articles published in the journal have argued that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are unconstitutional,[27] that "humanists" have conspired to replace the "creation religion of Jehovah" with evolution, [28] that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not caused global warming, [29] that HIV does not cause AIDS,[30] and that the "gay male lifestyle" shortens life expectancy by 20 years.[31] A series of articles by pro-life authors also claimed a link between abortion and breast cancer;[32][33] such a link has been rejected by the National Cancer Institute.[34]

The journal is not listed in the major literature databases of MEDLINE/PubMed[35] nor the Web of Science.[36]

Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the "house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group [AAPS]" and "is barely credible as an independent forum."[39]

Didn't or don't currently?

Yep, it’s the same Jim Adams who’s working on the chelation study (that I thought we’d have seen by now). Although he’s an ASU professor, the chelation study (went) through the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, after being rejected by ASU’s IRB.

The full-text of the “baby teeth” article contains statements that should have raised red flags for anyone with expertise in this field, in my opinion. Additionally, although it’s fine that Adams et al. cites what appears to be outdated science, the authors should have equally cited more recent works, which, in many cases, throughly refute the older publications. Was the full spectrum of the published literature cited? If not, why not? Let’s have a look at some of the statements and older science.A thorough review by Bernard et al. (2001) reported that all of the major symptoms reported in the literature for autism were also reported for cases of infantile mercury poisoning, including especially language/communication problems and social withdrawal. A thorough refutation of this paper was published in Pediatrics in 2003, and concluded in part, with the following:“Nonspecific symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and irrational fears may occur both in mercury poisoning and in children with autism, but overall the clinical picture of mercurism”from any known form, dose, duration, or age of exposure”does not mimic that of autism”

Adams et al. states the following about oral antibiotic usage among ASD children:Further, two studies (Konstantareas & Homatidis, 1987; Adams et al., 2003) found that children with autism had much higher usage of oral antibiotics, which (in rats) resulted in a near-total loss of the ability to excrete mercury (Rowland et al., 1980, 1984).So one small study (42 children) from 20 years ago claims a higher rate of infection based on parental reports (I’m not sure what it says or can say about actual oral antibiotic usage). And, another is not a “study” at all, but appears to cite a DAN! Conference. That’s right if you read the references in the paper, you’ll see the the Adams et al., 2003 refers to a DAN! conference. But what really is the credibility of a small 20 year old study based on parental reports and a DAN! Conference report, compared to newer and better science that is now available?In fact, a much larger study (more than 400 autistic children) published in Pediatrics earlier this year included the following:“Children with subsequent diagnoses of autism do not have more overall infections in the first 2 years of life than children without autism.”“Contrary to what we expected, these data suggest that children with ASD may have slightly lower rates of ear infections and URIs in the first 2 years of life than children without ASD. “Adams et al. also states:A decreased ability to excrete mercury is consistent with a recent study by Holmes et al. (2003), which found that children with autism had only one-eighth the normal amount of mercury in their baby hair (assuming that the level in hair is indicative of the level of ability to excrete mercury).Firstly, the Adams et al. baby teeth paper appears to have seen what it wanted to with respect to the mercury found in the first baby haircuts of autistic children (Holmes et al.). The autistic children did not have one-eighth the “normal” amount of mercury in their baby hair. They had .47 (+/- .28) g/g which is higher than the children in the NHANES study average (which included 838 children ages 1-5) who had .22 (+/- .04) g/g. It was the “typical” children that had huge excesses of mercury in their hair samples in Holmes et al.

I am not aware of his level of participation in the society...

I haven't seen any evidence that he's written anything about right-wing nuttery or that he supports it.