Posted on 06/23/2002 6:16:27 AM PDT by joesnuffy
US experts back MMR doctor's findings (Filed: 23/06/2002)
The man whose research first raised concern over the vaccine's safety is winning support. Lorraine Fraser reports from an influential Congressional hearing.
Scientists in America have reported the first independent corroboration of the research findings of Dr Andrew Wakefield, the specialist who has questioned the safety of the childhood MMR vaccine.
Dr Arthur Krigsman, from New York University School of Medicine, has observed serious intestinal inflammation in autistic children identical to that described by the controversial British doctor and his colleagues in a research paper four years ago.
Dr Krigsman's discovery is significant because it independently supports Dr Wakefield's conclusion that a previously unidentified and devastating combination of bowel and brain disease is afflicting young children - a claim that the Department of Health has dismissed as "bad science".
Dr Wakefield has seen nearly 200 previously normal youngsters who apparently developed the combined behaviour and digestive problems after receiving the three-in-one measles, mumps and rubella jab - a vaccination given routinely to babies and pre-school children in Britain and the United States.
Pathologists at Trinity College, Dublin, have since identified measles virus in bowel tissue samples from 75 of these children and, as reported in The Telegraph last week, now claim to have evidence that the virus comes from MMR.
The Department of Health refuses to accept that such results cast doubt on MMR's safety. A principal criticism levelled at Dr Wakefield and his colleagues is that no part of their research has been replicated by scientists elsewhere.
Last Wednesday, however, Dr Krigsman reported that he had seen the same pattern of illness in 43 American children.
At a hearing of the Government Reform Committee of the United States Congress on the safety of MMR and other vaccines, he said that - like the British children - his patients had all inexplicably deteriorated, losing language and other skills, at around 12 to 18 months of age.
All the children had a definite diagnosis of autism and had come to him because they had symptoms of serious digestive problems, such as pain, constipation and diarrhoea, for which no explanation could be found.
"Our findings, which are independent of Dr Wakefield's findings, completely support his explanation and his observations of the abnormalities in the bowels of these children," he said.
The intestines of the children were "not normal", he added. One 13-year-old autistic boy, who had become so violent that his parents had wanted to institutionalise him, had the "worst case" of inflammation of the colon the doctor had ever seen through a fibre-optic scope.
Dr Krigsman, an experienced consultant paediatric gastroenterologist and an assistant professor at the university, told the committee that he did not know whether his patients' illnesses were linked to MMR. However, he now plans to have the biopsies he took during the examinations tested independently to check for evidence of measles virus infection.
The results will be awaited anxiously by parents and public health officials in Britain, where the debate over the safety of MMR began with the report from Dr Wakefield and other doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in north London in 1998.
Dr Krigsman's research was among presentations described as "significant findings" by Dan Burton, an Indiana congressman chairing the Congressional committee.
Doctors in Britain and America are recognising more autistic children than ever. The US National Institute of Health estimates that one American child in 250 is affected, compared with one in 10,000 a decade ago. A recent survey by the National Autistic Society in England suggested that one in 86 primary school pupils may have the condition.
Health officials in both countries insist, however, that there is no evidence to link this apparent increase with the use of MMR or any other vaccine, and say there is no reason for parents to worry. In Britain, the Department of Health has rejected calls to allow single measles vaccines on the NHS as an alternative, claiming that numerous statistical studies have concluded that MMR is safe.
The Congressional committee heard evidence from other specialists suggesting that MMR and the mercury-based preservative, Thimerosal, may both harm susceptible children, possibly by altering their immune system. Thimerosal is not used in MMR, but is contained in other childhood jabs such as DTP - the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping-cough vaccine.
Dr Jeff Bradstreet, the medical director of the International Child Development Resource Centre in Florida, disclosed that tests on his eight-year-old autistic son Matthew - who received vaccines containing mercury and the MMR jab - have found particles of measles virus in the fluid that bathes his brain and spine as well as in his intestines.
Two other boys with autism who, like Matthew, have recently started to suffer seizures, also have measles virus in their cerebrospinal fluid.
While the significance of this is not yet clear, Dr Bradstreet said he was broadening his research in this area.
16 June 2002: Revealed: more evidence to challenge the safety of MMR
8 June 2002: Vaccines rise but children still at risk
17 May 2002: MMR jabs increase as debate cools off
2 December 2001: Anti-MMR doctor is forced out
7 February 2002: Consultant's theory sparked the debate over separate jabs
Related reports
health.telegraph
External links
Testimony.. by Arthur Krigsman MD [19 Jun '02] - House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform
MMR vaccine - Department of Health
National Institutes of Health
National Autistic Society
Thimerosal [links] - Immunization Action Coalition
Jabs
MMR - Vaccine Awareness Network
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Please post any documentation you have support that this is propaganda, or political manipulation. Thank you
It doesn't make sense that the cause is genetic since the parents are usually very healthy and have gotten to the stage of adulthood and reproduction. Plus, there is the rapid increase in the occurrence of this cognitive disease.
If this were happening to the frog population, some think tank would be studying it. Instead, this is being covered up big-time.
As the article on the other thread on this subject talked about, the CDC VSD database could yield valuable info on this. The gov't needs to make this data available to independent researchers. I hope Dan Burton follows up on this.
Last time someone peeked into a proprietary gov't medical database (FDA clinical trial data on antidepressants), we found out that antidepressants were no better than placebo for efficacy and are basically a scam.
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