Posted on 04/25/2015 6:37:22 AM PDT by george76
A new study this week found no link between vaccines and autism. It instantly made headlines on TV news and popular media everywhere. Many billed it as the final word, “once again,” disproving the notion that vaccines could have anything to do with autism.
What you didn’t learn on the news was that the study was from a consulting firm that lists major vaccine makers among its clients: The Lewin Group.
That potential conflict of interest was not disclosed in the paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine; the study authors simply declare “The Lewin Group operates with editorial independence.”
(As an aside, according to OpenSecrets.org, The Lewin Group’s parent company, UnitedHealth Group, is a key government partner in Obamacare. Its subsidiary QSSI was given the contract to build the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website. One of its top executives and his family are top Obama donors.)
Conflicts of interest alone do not invalidate a study. But they serve as important context in the relentless effort by pharmaceutical interests and their government partners to discredit the many scientists and studies that have found possible vaccine-autism links.
...
The supposedly best medical experts in the world who deny vaccines have anything to do with autism remain at an utter loss to explain this generation’s epidemic. To declare the science “settled” and the debate “over” is to defy the plain fact that many scientists worldwide are still sorting through it, and millions of people are still debating it.
The body of evidence on both sides is open to interpretation. People have every right to disbelieve the studies on one side. But it is disingenuous to pretend they do not exist.
(Excerpt) Read more at sharylattkisson.com ...
But I DID read the article, and there was nothing the least bit aggressive, emotional, or ignorant about my comment.
Unlike yours, I might add.
I don’t know what people expect as they put off child-bearing for longer & longer periods; the “zero-birthrate” advocates don’t want it broadcast, but I think women have a smaller window to breed safely than they would want them to believe. As a parent, I just couldn’t imagine doing midnight feedings at 45 (never mind the health risks); children set you back financially, but it is a basic choice young people have to make while the opportunity is there.
No sale
Anyone who cannot comment on the epidemic of autism of boys I’ve seen grow up AND without being insulting and aggressive is being ignorant
Don’t say you read the article. People will think you did
What a maroon
Now this is not along the lines of the discussion of autism, but something happened to me when I was around five or six years old involving a vaccination of DPT. I remember the doctor remarking to my mother that he was going to give me these shots, and he gave one shot in each anterior mid-thigh and one in my arm.
The shots in my legs really hurt, and the needles were long, hence in my very young mind thought “DPT” means DEEP PT!
The next morning...I COULD NOT WALK. They absolutely would not hold my weight they were so weak (and I was a tiny child). My legs were like spaghetti, and they ached terribly. My mother put me into hers and dad’s bed and called the doctor, very angry and upset. She had to tend to me all day, and even carry me to the bathroom.
Whether it was a short-term adverse reaction, I don’t know, but it was fairly serious—enough for me to remember it very distinctly (although I remember things from the age of 2-on).
If a person starts a certain sexual activity early and continues it into adulthood there's a pretty good chance they'll stay that way.
It is common knowledge: As women get older, pregnancy becomes a riskier enterprise. Advanced maternal age is linked to a number of developmental disorders in children, such as Down’s syndrome. Now, a study has confirmed that older mothers are more likely to give birth to a child with autism, too.”
A friend of mine who had her first and only child at 42 was concerned about birth defects. She said she was told that as one ages the eggs get stickier. Due to stickiness, it is easier for extra chromosomes to attach to the egg causing birth defects. Young eggs are slick and things do not attach.
She has a lovely grown daughter now but defects are always likely when the mother is older.
Amen - we do.
US gov’t has awarded 2 Billion dollars from the vaccination injury fund, and holds a very high standard of scrutinized proof before awarding modest compensation.
The US govt child vaccination protocols in use since the 1990’s are recklessly aggressive, requiring 49 doses of 16 vaccines by the time a child turns age six.
Japan and other European countries abandoned that protocol after having experienced alarming amounts of child vaccination injury.
The amount of autism has indeed skyrocketed since the 1990’s, and now has reached 1 in every 60 adult male 3 year old children.
It’s not a matter of simplistic binary judgement name calling parents who want a conservative approach toward vaccinating their children.
US govt vaccine protocol has become too agressive in dosing children with too many vaccines in one visit, which overwhelms some children’s neurological and immune system.
A number of vaccine safety sheets even state severe side affects which include neurological damage, including up to autism-like syndrome.
As for trusting Pharma -
The basic turds knowingly allowed SV40 live virus into polio vaccines in the 50’s - 70’s.
It was expedient to culture the vaccine with Rhesus monkey kidneys and not worry about the Fact that SV40 causes cancer in humans. Researchers have found that the huge uptick in cancers during the 60’s on up were likely caused in part by SV40 polio vaccines.
So much to comment on, I’ll probably split it over several posts.
Sharyl Attkisson is without doubt one of the finest reporters in the country, in the true sense of the word “reporter.” It’s a testimony to the corruption of the mainstream media that she couldn’t find a permanent home in a major “news” (using that word very loosely) outlet, CBS.
Think of the hundreds, no, thousands, of others who’ve wanted to do the sort of honest reporting that Ms. Attkisson routinely does, but who’ve been unable to withstand the daily pressures exerted by their employers and co-workers to conform to the “standards” (again, a word used loosely here) of the major news organizations.
Unfortunately, because most of what she reports goes against the grain of the conformity in the news media, over time she will be viewed by many as just another blogger with an agenda regardless of the details exposed in her excellent reporting. And she’ll inevitably make a few mistakes along the way. Those will be shared widely in the effort to discredit all of her work.
That said, as long as she continues to write, I’ll read what she reports and speak highly to my friends of her abilities. There are few like her today, and we are the worse off for it. In a world ruled by reason, she could report thoroughly on the repression of her work while at CBS and be awarded a Pulitzer for doing so. That, of course, will never, ever, happen.
“She points out that the study that is being touted was done by a company that stands to make lots of money from vaccines and is directly connected to Obamacare”
Almost all studies are financed by a drug company. It is up to the scientific community to determine if the study is valid.
Yes, and as usual, there is money involved. There are many resources available for autism, because it is the hysterical health crisis of the moment. So, some children who are actually retarded or have other problems are labeled autistic, because that’s where the money is.
I watched an online video supposedly showing what signs to look for in your child to determine if he is autistic. It was ridiculous! Everything the child did looked perfectly normal to me and to most of the people who commented after the video. I’m only half joking when I say we need to encourage people to have a bunch of kids so they stop obsessing over their 1 or 2 “designer” children that must conform to the parents’ standards of perfection.
>>The elephant in the corner is that the definition of autism changed right about the same time there was a spike in autism cases....This is hardly rocket science.<<
True, the definition of the condition did change, but why? You should consider the likelihood that a surge in occurrence of a neurological condition would have the medical community examining it more closely. As they did so, they found a spectrum of behavior, not a single pattern of behavior. The third category, besides autism and Asperger’s is labeled PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) but it’s full title is PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified). That is, something is wrong, but it doesn’t fit the diagnosis of either autism or Asperger’s (Not Otherwise Specified.)
That diagnosis has only been around for a couple of decades. It didn’t exist earlier, so obviously those cases, if included in the autism count, bear out your point, which is that autism is increasing because of a change in definition.
But the real issue is, are all such cases, including classic cases of autism, increasing exponentially as is being reported by the CDC.
Simply put, it’s not exactly rocket science to acknowledge that something more than a change in definitions could possibly be at work here.
Or an ex-doctor with his own conflict of interest.
Absolutely. I once worked with a guy who took both of his sons to doctor after doctor until he found one that would label both sons ‘Aspergers’ so he could get money for special schooling. All I could think of was ‘those poor kids’.
Since thimerosal was removed from vaccines for children in 2001, has there been a decrease in diagnosed autism cases?
Americans are spoiled and complacent because of the outstanding immunization programs here. When I was a preteen and teenager, my family spent a lot of time in Haiti. I have been vaccinated for diseases most Americans have only read about (I should be good to go on smallpox if the CDC or some Russian drops the vial, because I was revaccinated EVERY time we went.) And I've seen the consequences of disease in countries where immunization is sporadic or absent. Our extended family has spent a lot of time in 3rd World countries generally (anthropologists, missionaries, Peace Corps - to Central America, Africa, Mexico, Haiti, etc.), we have a specialist in "travel medicine" who advises us, and we take his advice very seriously.
Vaccines are to be used judiciously, under the advice of a competent pediatrician, and proper measures taken when a kid shows sensitivity. I had one child who had a reaction to the 2nd dpT (as it was then) and on doctor's advice spread out her immunizations and she had no further difficulty.
One of the problems with the well-meaning concerned folks is that correlation is not causation. The symptoms of autism begin to appear about the time infants used to get the heavy-duty immunization series. They've moved the schedule, but that doesn't seem to convince. But given the mania against immunizations in CA, we're probably going to get a control group fairly soon.
I'm very familiar with Atkisson and her difficulties with the administration and CBS news. She is a bulldog, and an investigative journalist, and her job is to dig and ask questions. Which is good, because things should be uncovered, but the question is not the answer, and no matter how hard you dig and how hot you are on the trail of a story, sometimes there is no "there" there.
The bigotry is impenetrable
My kids have had all of their vaccines
Just ugh!
It created a fund and a claims process to pay off claims if they are found meritorious. Some are, because vaccines do have side effects and they can sometimes be severe. But nothing like the "epidemic" that's claimed.
The problem is that -- like the "John Doe" raids in WI -- the process is the punishment. A full dress products liability trial will cost upwards of $100,000 in attorney fees and expert witness fees. When plaintiffs' lawyers jump on the bandwagon and, say, a couple of hundred or a thousand plaintiffs sue, it can put a company out of business from the costs alone - even if the company wins the case.
Thanks for the post. Your measured response is refreshing. I’m old enough to remember the “good old” pre-vaccine days, too...not pretty.
Throwing around the word “bigotry” for a policy or factual disagreement is the tactic of a leftist agitator.
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