Posted on 01/28/2008 11:54:13 PM PST by bd476
ABC Show Will Go on, Over Protest by Doctors
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: January 29, 2008
ABC said on Monday it would include a disclaimer about the plot line of the debut episode of the drama “Eli Stone,” which links childhood vaccines to autism, and direct viewers to a government Web site that discredits such a link.
ABC’s decision follows a call by the American Academy of Pediatrics for ABC to cancel the opening episode of “Eli Stone,” which is scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. Thursday.
In a letter to ABC executives on Friday, Dr. Renee R. Jenkins, the president of the pediatrics academy, warned that the episode “could lead to a tragic decline in immunization rates.” The first episode portrays a lawyer who wins a case against a drug company on behalf of a mother who believes that a preservative in a vaccine caused her child’s autism.
The link between a vaccine preservative called thimerosal and autism has been debated for much of the last decade, but many scientific studies have failed to show any causal link between the two.
The letter from the pediatrics group followed an article in The New York Times last week highlighting..."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And this hazard for superconcentrations of mercury was well known even at the time I cited. Today, we seem to be on the alert for the tiniest concentrations of every substance.
I have taken a glaucoma eyedrop for most of my life. Until the recent scare, this contained thimerosal as a preservative. There has been no effect on my overall health during the years of thimerosal and the time without it.
Isn't there also formaldyhyde in some of these vaccines, as well?
“If mercury was the cause, then how did so many of my (older) generation get these shots without any problems? Why is autism on the rise as thimerosal use decreasing?”
One possibility - your (my?) generation received far fewer vaccinations, generally at an older age.
“What about in the days when mercury was used indiscriminately in industry? Many people were exposed to mercury and had symptoms and some died from it, but where is the documentation of autistic like symptoms in children widespread throughout the population in those days?”
Different forms of mercury have different modes of toxicity. Pure (elemental) mercury is relatively safe compared to the organic forms (e.g. methylmercury). The mode of entry is also a factor, people used to drink mercury with few side effects unless the exposure was frequent and long term. On the other hand, inhaling mercury vapor has much quicker effects (mad hatter’s disease). Finally, direct injection of small amounts of organic mercury compounds can be deadly, even in small amounts. Also, as noted earlier, each person has a different ability to metabolize (and ultimately excrete) mercury. Some people who are lucky enough to quickly rid themselves of mercury have few or no problems, while others who retain mercury quickly develop symptoms.
And nobody is reporting this to the AMA or state medical licensing board?
Funny how you can misread things
At first glance, I thought it said, “(Episode claims immigration causes autism)”
...which seemed kind of harsh....
My thoughts on autism:
Have any of you had any experience with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
One of the functions of the test is to answer the question ‘what energizes you, how do you re-charge, do you prefer interaction with external, or are you more inner-working and prefer mental activity?’
Those who are more inner-working and recharge through mental activity score as Introverts. Typically, Introverted personalities need less interaction with people, need less physical activity, need less noise, less external stimuli. Too much of any of that wears them out, and they need to be alone for a while, in quiet, to get their energy level back up. You can be highly introverted, or just a little on the introverted side.
To me, I see autism as extreme introversion, introversion gone amock, where the individual can’t handle external stimuli—they are totally inner working, and they simply don’t respond to external stimuli, hence the lack of verbal and social skills, covering their ears when around noise.
Now contrast with the exact opposite (extraversion) gone amock, and you get a person who needs stimulation all the time, needs to be constantly a doing, can’t stay focused, talks and talks and goes and goes. To the extreme, this looks like hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder.
Those who score on the Introverted side recharge
Due date is Feb 6th and there haven't been any signs that they are in a hurry to make their entrance to the world.
A right to which ever increasing numbers of people seem to be availing themselves.
Oy! Does this mean you can go snowboarding with us tomorrow?
That’s the plan... as long as I don’t wreck my car again tonight. Maybe I’ll skip the Mill Place on the way home...
So, then what? Someone disagrees with a doctor’s diagnosis and who’s going to be believed? The medical professional who is AMA certified, or the mom who thinks he’s wrong because she says her kids never show any symptoms?
Since the diagnosis doesn’t require any medical follow up, most parents just roll their eyes and go on living as they had, not using the Rx’s they were given that they see no need for.
Good call. :)
I read about a parent whose son was autistic, no contact, lived in his own world. The professional she went to said that these kids are too good at collecting information from the world around them, and can’t handle what is to them, the extreme input. They just can’t process the huge amount of information they’re getting so they shut most of it out.
They took her son into a dimly lit, quite, uncluttered room and just sat there quietly. Within a few moments, her son turned around and looked her in the eye, something he hadn’t done in months. He was finally able to handle the input level.
I don’t recall how the whole thing turned out, but I just remember thinking how happy that mother was to have some sort of normal contact with her child again. That’s why the story stuck with me.
Makes sense.
First of all, the docs don't make money on giving immunizations.
Pediatricians are among the lowest paid of the medical practices
I think that you should have a choice and not get your kids immunized, but live with the consequences of your choice.
In other words when your kid gets polio, tetanus, hepatitis, measles or rabies or whatever.... don't sit there and whine about your kid dying, brain damaged or needing a transplant. If a pregnant woman comes in contact with your kid that is a relative, don't whine about the birth defects....
Some of the people on this board are old enough to remember our parents getting nervous in the summer about who was going to get polio.
Didn’t certain companies prove that tobacco cannot cause cancer?
I think that the number of vaccinations and the schedule is a lot of the problem. What they load little 2 month old babies with is ridiculous, and then again at 4 and 6 months. It could be that there may be some connection between the shear number of vaccinations and not the components.
Nowhere in nature do you see a child coming down with several diseases at once and at such a young age. When diseases run their course, they happen one at a time and are spaced apart. I think this vaccination schedule is overloading an immature immune system. Plus, they apparently aren’t particularly effective until two when the final set is administered; until they are teens, that is, and they need them again.
That being said, I also think some of the vaccinations are unnecessary, chicken pox in particular. I would never pass on tetanus or polio. Rabies is not given unless there’s need to but one would have to be a fool to pass on that one.
Other diseases, like measles, rubella, and mumps, and chickenpox, IMO, are better to have gotten in childhood. If someone doesn’t, then the vaccinations are in order, especially for someone planning on becoming pregnant or someone who didn’t get the childhood disease as a child. I think they should be a back up, not a first line of defense. Having the disease almost always confers lifelong immunity, something vaccinations don’t do; they need to be repeated, if they are effective in the first place, and often a percentage of them aren’t. Not very safe for those who think they’re OK.
I know that there can be complications from some of these, but with the medical advances with anti-biotics and anti-inflammatories, complications like meningitis can be treated or prevented. And people who don’t have the immunity they think they do can be in danger from those things anyway.
You know fully well that correlation is NOT CAUSATION !!!
That there may be a perceived correlation between childhood vaccinations, and Autism there is no way to show a direct causation.
Secondly, why should I and or my children suffer from your misguided fear and contract diseases from your iun-immunized children? your irrational fears cause me and my family real harm...
Should I be able to sue you for damages cause by your delusional choices? You think not, and I say see you in court.
It was a joke. She has credited her knowledge with intuitiion.
It only serves to show how strange the issue has become that my post wasn’t recgnized as a joke.
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