Posted on 08/12/2002 9:52:47 AM PDT by USA21
Why? Devil's advocate here. Wouldn't a first-born be more likely to receive early vaccinations than later children. (I know mine was.)
Not one. Not any. Zero. Nil. What a damming statistic. Read that sentence again and consider it well.
that's right - here we go again - until we finally get it right...
there is enough good research to indicate that there is a connection between MMR and autism...
my question is this - where will the naysayers like Peter Lachmann be if the research proves conclusively that MMR and autism are connected?
will they be willing to stand up and accept responsibilty for all those children whose lives have been irreversibly damaged?
I don't think they will!
Parents - think twice and ask frank questions about this to your pediatrician...
There is? Could you cite it?
And years ago children suffered brain damage and died from measles. You would have people think it is a "mild" disease, but as a recent outbreak in Italy shows, it is anything but:
The three children who died were aged six months, four and 10. There were 981 reported cases of measles in the Campania region of southern Italy between January and May this year. Thirteen developed encephalitis, which can cause brain damage and 63 pneumonia. In Campania, where the largest city is Naples, only 53% of children have been vaccinated against measles by the age of two.
Experts say a measles epidemic in Italy, which has killed three children, is a lesson to parents about the importance of vaccination. It is estimated more than 24,000 people could have been infected with measles.
Vera Schreibner is another one of those supposed quacks - I think time will prove her correct!
Read the list of research that has been done on vaccinations...
SBS - The vaccination LinkVera Schreibner, 1998 Recently there has been quite an "epidemic" of the so-called "shaken baby syndrome". Parents, usually the fathers, or other care-givers such as nannies have increasingly been accused of shaking a baby to the point of causing permanent brain damage and death. Why? Is there an unprecedented increase in the number of people who commit infanticide or have an ambition to seriously hurt babies? Or is there something more sinister at play? Some time ago I started getting requests from lawyers or the accused parents themselves for expert reports. A close study of the history of these cases revealed something distinctly sinister: in every single case, the symptoms appeared shortly after the baby's vaccinations. While investigating the personal medical history of these babies based on the caregivers' diaries and medical records, I quickly established that these babies were given one or more of the series of so-called routine shots - hepatitis B, DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus), polio and HiB (Haemophilus influenzae type B) - shortly before they developed symptoms of illness resulting in serious brain damage or death. The usual scenario is that a baby is born and does well initially. At the usual age of about two months it is administered the first series of vaccines as above. (Sometimes a hepatitis B injection is given shortly after birth while the mother and child are still in hospital. However, a great number of babies now die within days or within two to four weeks of birth after hepatitis B vaccination, as documented by the records of the VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] in the USA.) So, the baby stops progressing, starts deteriorating, and usually develops signs of respiratory tract infection. Then comes the second and third injections, and tragedy strikes: the child may cry intensely and inconsolably, may stop feeding properly, vomit, have difficulty swallowing, become irritable. stop sleeping, and may develop convulsions with accelerating progressive deterioration of its condition and mainly its brain function.
This deterioration may be fast, or may slowly inch in until the parents notice that something is very wrong with their child and then rush it to the doctor or hospital. Interestingly, they are invariably asked when the baby was immunised. On learning that the baby was indeed "immunised". the parents may be reassured that its symptoms will all clear up. They are sent home with the advice. "Give your baby Panadol". If they persist in considering the baby's reaction serious. they may be labeled as anxious parents or trouble-makers. So the parents go home, and the child remains in a serious condition or dies.
Until recently, the vaccine death would have just been labeled "sudden infant death", particularly if the symptoms and pathological findings were minimal. However, nowadays. with an alarmingly increasing frequency. the parents (or at least one of them, usually the father) may be accused of shaking the baby to death. The accused may even "confess" to shaking the baby, giving the reason, for example, that having found the baby lying still and not breathing and/or with a glazed look in its eyes. they shook it gently - as is only natural in their attempt to revive it. Sometimes, ironically, they save the baby's life. only to be accused of causing the internal injuries that made the baby stop breathing in the first place, and which in fact were already present when they shook the baby to revive it.
No matter what the parents say or do, everything is construed against them. If they are crying and emotional, they will be accused of showing signs of guilt. If they manage to remain composed and unemotional, they will be called calculating and controlling - and guilty because of that.
In another scenario the distraught parents try to describe the symptoms to an attending doctor in hospital or a surgery but are totally at a loss to understand what has happened to their baby. To their shock and dismay, they later discover that while they were describing the observed symptoms, the doctor or another staff member was writing three ominous words in the medical record: shaken baby syndrome.
Many of these parents end up indicted and even sentenced to prison for a crime that somebody else committed. Some of these cases have been resolved by acquittal on appeal or have been won based on expert reports demonstrating vaccines as the cause of the observed injuries or death. However, only God and a good lawyer can help those parents or care-givers who happen to be uneducated, or have a criminal record, particularly for violence, or have a previous history of a similar "unexplained" death of a baby in their care, or, worse still, a vaccine-injured baby with a broken arm or fractured skull. More and more often, the unfortunate parents are given the option of a "deal": if they confess and/or plead guilty, they will get only a couple of years in prison: but if they don't, they may end up getting 20 years.
I was told by a social worker in the United States that many foster parents are rotting in US prisons. First, they are forced to vaccinate their charges, and then, when side effects or death occur, they are accused of causing them.
Inevitably the possibility exists that infanticide or child abuse is involved in some of the cases. However, there is no determinable reason why so many parents or other care-givers would suddenly begin to behave like this. It is incredibly insensitive and callous to immediately suspect and accuse the distraught, innocent parents of harming their own baby.
MEDICAL STUDIES
Let's now have a look at medical literature dealing with shaken baby syndrome and child abuse.
Caffey (1972, 1974)[1][2] described the "whiplash shaken infant syndrome" as a result of manual shaking by the extremities with whiplash-induced intracranial and intraocular bleedings, linked with permanent brain damage and mental retardation. He referred to his own paper, published almost 30 years prior to the above quoted papers, which described what he called "the original six battered babies in 1945". The essential elements in this description were subdural haematomas, intraocular bleedings and multiple traction changes in the long bones. These findings became a benchmark of the "evidence" that a child had been shaken before developing these signs.
Reece (1993)[3] analysed fatal child abuse and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and considered the critical diagnostic decisions. He emphasised that distinguishing between an unexpected infant death due to SIDS and one due to child abuse challenges paediatricians, family physicians, pathologists and child protection agencies. On the one hand, they must report instances of suspected child abuse and protect other children in the family; and on the other, all agree that the knowledge in this area is incomplete and ambiguity exists in many cases.
Dubaime et al. (1992)[4] wrote that "patients with intradural haemorrhage and no history of trauma must also have clinical and radiographic findings of blunt impact to the head, unexplained long-bone fractures or other soft tissue inflicted injury, in order to completely eliminate the possibility of spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage such as might rarely occur from a vascular malformation or a bleeding disorder".
While it is not disputed that some parents and care-givers may cause the above injuries by mistreating infants, one must take great care in interpreting similar pathological findings of injury caused by other insults which have nothing to do with mechanic injuries and mistreatments of infants.
I shall never forget the father of a 10-month-old infant, who after being acquitted on appeal of causing shaken baby syndrome said words to the effect, "We still don't know what killed our baby". It did not occur to them and nobody told them that it was the vaccine that killed their baby.
So what else can cause brain swelling, intracranial bleeding ocular retinal haemorrhages, and broken skull and other bones Ever since the mass vaccination of infants began, reports of serious brain, cardiovascular, metabolic and other injuries started filling pages of medical journals.
Indeed, vaccines like the pertussi (whooping cough) vaccine are actually ally used to induce encephalomyelitis (experimental allergy encephalomyelitis) in laboratory animals (Levine and Sowinski, 1973[5]) This is characterised by brain swelling and haemorrhaging of a extent similar to that caused by mechanical injuries (Iwasa et al. 1985[6]).
Munoz et al. (1981)[7] studied biological logical activities of crystalline per tussigen - a toxin produced by Bordetella pertussis, the causative agent in pertussis and an active ingredient in all types of pertussis vaccines whether whole-cell or acellular - in a number of laboratory experiments with mice. They established that minute amounts of pertussigen induce hypersensitivity to bistamine (still detected 84 days after administration), leucocytosis, production of insulin, increased production of IgE and G1 antibodies to hen egg albumin, susceptibility to anaphylactic shock and vascular permeability of striated muscle. A dose of 546 nanograms per mouse killed 50 per cent of mice. Typically, the deaths were delayed. When a dose of five micrograms of pertussigen was administered, most mice did not gain weight and died by day five; the last mouse died on day eight. A one-microgram dose of one preparation killed four out of five mice. They first gained weight from days two to five, but then remained at nearly constant weight until they died. Even the one that survived for 16 days (it was then killed) experienced crises (stopped putting on weight) on the days when the others died. Had that one lived longer. it might have died on day 24. This is another of the critical days - identified by Cotwatch research into babies' breathing - on which babies have flare-ups of stress induced breathing, or die, after vaccination.
Interestingly, when laboratory animals develop symptoms of vaccine damage and then die, it is never considered coincidental; but when children develop the same symptoms and/or die after the administration of the same vaccines, it is considered coincidental or caused by their parents or other carers. When all this fails, then it is considered "mysterious".
Delayed reactions are the norm rather than the exception. This has been explained as a consequence of an immunological intravascular complexing of particulate antigen (whole-cell or acellular pertussis organisms) (Wilkins, 1988[8]). However, vaccinators have great difficulty with this, and as a rule draw largely irrelevant timelines for accepting the causal link between administration of vaccines and onset of reactions - usually 24 hours or up to seven days. However, most reactions to vaccines are delayed, and most cases are then considered unrelated to vaccination.
One only has to peruse a product insert of hepatitis B vaccine to see that besides local reactions, a number of neurological signs may occur, such as paraesthesia and paralysis (including Guillain-Barre syndrome, optic neuritis and multiple sclerosis).
Devin et al. (1996)[9] described retinal haemorrhages which are emphatically being considered the sure sign of child abuse, even though these can be and are caused by vaccines. Goetting and Sowa ( 1990)[10] described retinal haemorrhage which occurred after cardiopulmonary resuscitation in children.
Bulging fontanelle due to brain swelling was described by Jacob and Mannino (1979)[11] as a direct reaction to the DPT vaccine. They described a case of a seven month-old baby who, nine hours after the third DPT vaccination, developed a bulging anterior fontanelle and became febrile and irritable.
Bruising and easy bleeding is one of the characteristic signs of the blood clotting disorder, thrombocytopenia - a recognised side-effect of many vaccines. Its first signs are easy bruising and bleeding and petechial (spotlike) rash. Thrombocytopenia may result in brain and other haemorrhages (Woerner et al., 1981[12]).
The convulsions which follow one in 1,750 doses of the DPT vaccines (Cody et al., 1981[13]) can result in unexplained falls in bigger children who can sit up or stand, which may cause linear cracks of the skull and other fractures. When one considers that babies are supposed to get a minimum of three doses of DPT and OPV (oral polio vaccine), then the risk of developing a convulsion is one in 580, and with five doses the risk rises to one in 350. This means that a great number of babies develop convulsions after vaccination between the ages of two to six months, at about 18 months, and at five to six years. The convulsions often occur when the parent or another carer is not looking, and the child, while standing or sitting on the floor, simply falls backwards or onto its arm.
All these signs can be misdiagnosed as a result of mechanical injuries, particularly so because vaccinators simply refuse to admit that vaccines cause serious injuries, or they only pay lip service to the damage caused by the pernicious routine of up to 18 vaccines with which babies are supposed to be injected within six months of birth.
The court system should therefore be more open to the documented viable and alternative explanations of the observed injuries, and be more wary of the obviously biased statements of the provaccination "experts", that nothing else but vigorous shaking can cause retinal haemorrhages - even though such statements only reflect their ignorance. Such "experts" then go home and continue advising parents to vaccinate, and thus, with impunity, they cause more and more cases of vaccine-injured babies and children.
THE UK MEASLES EPIDEMIC THAT NEVER WAS
The term "Munchausen syndrome per proxy" has been used to identify individuals who kill or otherwise harm a child in order to attract attention to themselves. The term was used in many instances in the 1980s when earlier attempts were fashioned to explain some of the cases of sudden infant death.
According to Meadow (1995)[14], "Munchausen syndrome per proxy" is flamboyant terminology originally used for journalistic reasons. It was a term commonly applied to adults who presented themselves with false illness stories, just like the fictional Baron von Munchausen who travelled on cannon balls. The term is now used to apply to parents of children who present with false illness stories fabricated by a parent or someone else in that position.
While the term may have some validity in describing this special form of child abuse in the documented cases of parents slowly poisoning their child or exposing it to unnecessary and often dangerous and invasive medical treatments, more recently it became a way for some doctors to camouflage the real observed side effects of especially measles (M), measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) and measles-rubella (MR) vaccinations in the UK. Many thousands of British children (up to 15,000 in my considered opinion) developed signs of autism usually associated with bowel symptoms after being given the above vaccines in 1994.
The Bulletin of Medical Ethics published two articles, in 1994 and 1995, dealing with this problem. The October 1994 article ("Is your measles jab really necessary?") stated that during November 1994 the UK Government would be running a mass campaign of measles vaccination with the intention of reaching every child between the ages of five and sixteen.
It claimed that the purpose of this campaign was to prevent an epidemic that would otherwise occur in 1995, with up to 200,000 cases and up to 50 deaths. The article also showed that since 1990 there have been only 8,000 to 10,000 cases of measles each year in England and Wales, and that coincidentally there was an epidemic of only about 5,000 cases in Scotland in the winter of 1993-94. Between May and August 1994 the notification rate in England and Wales dropped sharply, so there was nothing that clearly suggested an imminent epidemic.
The nine-page article in the August 1995 issue of BME stated among other things that on 14 September 1992 the Department of Health (DoH) hastily withdrew two brands of MMR vaccines following a leak to the national press about the risk of children developing mumps meningitis after administration of these vaccines. Both brands contained the Urabe mumps vaccine strain which had been shown to cause mumps meningitis in one in 1,044 vaccinees (Yawata, 1994[15]).
Based on the epidemiology of measles, there: was never going to be a measles epidemic in 1995 and there was certainly no justification for concomitant rubella vaccination. The mass campaign was planned as an experimental alternative to a two-dose schedule of measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. The UK Government knowingly misled parents about the need for the campaign and about the relative risks of measles and measles vaccination. The DoH broke the European Union's law about contracts and tendering to ensure that specific pharmaceutical companies were awarded the contracts to provide the campaign vaccines. All this must have been extremely fortunate for the drug companies in question, since the supplies of measles and rubella vaccines which they'd been left with in 1992 and for which there was virtually no demand were soon to go out of date.
The vaccination campaign achieved very little. Indeed, in 1995 there were twice as many cases of serologically confirmed rubella in England and Wales as in the same period of 1994: 412 cases against 217. Six cases of rubella in pregnant women were reported. The data indicate that more measles cases were notified in the first quarter of 1995 (n=11) than in the first quarter of 1994 (n=9). Despite this, there were several claims from government doctors that measles transmission had stopped among school children. Higson (1995)[16] wrote that two DoH officials tried to justify the success of the measles and rubella vaccination campaign by using data that cannot be used to give year-on-year comparison for measles infections. Indeed, he wrote that the data collected by the public health departments on the measles notifications show no indication of benefit from the highly expensive campaign. The British government spent some £20 million purchasing the near-expiry-date measles and rubella vaccines.
Some 1,500 parents are now participating in a class action over the damage (most often the bowel problems and autism) suffered by their children.
Wakefield et al. (1998)[17] published a paper in the Lancet in which they reported on a consecutive series of children with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder which occurred 1 to 14 days (median, 6.3 days) after M, MMR and MR vaccinations. They also quoted the "opioid excess" theory of autism, that autistic disorders result from the incomplete breakdown and excessive absorption of gut-derived peptides from foods, including barley, rye, oats and milk/dairy product casein, caused by vaccine injury to the bowel. These peptides may exert central-opioid effects, directly or through the formation of ligands with peptidase enzymes required for the breakdown of endogenous central-nervous-system opioids, leading to disruption of normal neuroregulation and brain development by endogenous encephalins and endorphins.
A number of British parents approached me last year and complained that their children had developed behavioural and bowel problems after vaccination (as above), and that instead of getting help from their doctors they were told that they just imagined the symptoms or caused them in order to attract attention to themselves. The term "Munchausen syndrome per proxy" was used. It caused a lot of hardship and marital problems and did nothing for the victims of vaccination. Their stories were horrifying.
EDUCATION ON VACCINE DANGERS
In summary, the trail of vaccine disasters is growing. Not only do vaccinations do nothing to improve the health of children and other recipients, they cause serious health problems and hardship for their families by victimising the victims of vaccines.
Parents of small children of vaccination age should use their own judgement and should educate themselves about the real dangers of this unscientific, useless. harmful and invasive medical procedure. No matter how much vaccines are pushed, vaccination is not compulsory in Australia (though the Liberal Federal Minister for Health has announced his plan to make it so in the near future - which, to me, sounded more like a threat at the time), and parents do not have to vaccinate their children. Those parents who think they are safe when they follow the official propaganda may be in for a rude awakening: they may be accused of causing the harm which resuued from vaccination.
I also urge medical practitioners to use their own judgement and observations and study the trail of disaster created by vaccination. They should listen when their patients and especially the parents of small children report side effects of vaccinations.
The inability to listen and observe the truth has created a breed of medical practitioners who inflict illness rather than healing, who become accusers rather than helpers, and who are ultimately just covering up - whether consciously or unknowingly, but with frighteningly increasing frequency - for the disasters created by their useless and deadly concoctions and sanctimonious ministrations. Maybe the term "Munchausen boomerang" should be introduced to describe those members of the medical profession who victimise the victims of their own harmful interventions (vaccines in particular). I would like to remind those who may still think the risks of vaccine injury are outweighed by the benefits from vaccines, that infectious diseases are beneficial for children by priming and maturing their immune system. These diseases also represent developmental milestones. Having measles not only results in a lifelong specific immunity to measles, but also a non-specific immunity to a host of other, more serious conditions: degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage, certain tumours, skin diseases and immunoreactive diseases (Ronne, 1985[18]). Having mumps has been found to protect against ovarian cancer (West, 1966[19]). So there is no need to try to prevent children from getting infectious diseases.
Moreover, according to orthodox immunological research, vaccines do not immunise, they sensitise: they make the recipients more susceptible to diseases (Craighead, 1975[20]). It is the vaccinated children who suffer chronic ill health (asthma and constant ear infections being two of many vaccine side effects); who develop side effects to diseases like pneumonia or atypical measles (which carries a 12 to 15 per cent mortality risk); or who may have difficulty going through even such innocuous iseases as chicken pox because their immune system has been suppressed by vaccines.
In my closing remark, I urge parents to ask themselves a few questions. Have you noticed how much the vaccines are pushed by threats, coercion, victimisation and monetary punitive measures, with parents then being accused of causing what are clearly side effects of the vaccines? Would you succumb to the same type of pressure if any other product were pushed with the same vengeance? Wouldn't you be suspicious and ask what's wrong with the product if it has to be forced upon consumers? Why do so many informed parents, as well as many informed medical doctors, now refuse vaccination? Shouldn't you be suspicious of a medical system which forces itself upon you, which won't accept responsibility for vaccine injuries and unlawfully tries to take away your constitutional, democratic and legal right to have control over your own and your children's health without being hassled and victimised?
Endnotes
[1] Caffey, J. (1972), 'On the theory and practice of shaking infants', Am. J. Dis. Child 124, August, 1972.
[2] Caffey, J. (1974), 'The whiplash shaken infant syndrome: manual shaking by the extremities with whiplash-induced intracramal and intraocular bleeding, linked with residual permanent brain damage and mental retardation', Pediatrics 54(4):396-403.
[3] Reece, R. M. (1993), 'Fatal child abuse and sudden infant death syndrome', Pediatrics 91 :423-429.
[4] Duhaime, A. C., Alario, A.J., Lewander, W. J. et al. (1992), 'Head injury in very young children mechanisms, injury types and opthalmologic findings in 100 hospitalized patients younger than two years of age', Pediatrics 90(2):179-185.
[5] Levine, S. and Sowinski, R. (1973), 'Hyperacute allergic encephalomyelitis', Am. J. Pathol. 73:247-260.
[6] Iwasa, A., Ishida, S., Akama, K. (1985), 'Swelling of the brain caused by pertussis vaccine: its quantitative determination and the responsible factors in the vaccine', Japan J. Med. Sci. Biol. 38:53-65.
[7] Munoz, J.J., Aral, H., Bergman, R. K. and Sadowski, P. (1981), 'Biological activities of crystalline pertussigen from Bordetella pertussis', Infection and Immunity, September 1981 , pp. 820-826.
[8] Wilkins, J. (1988),'What is 'significant' and DTP readions' (letter), Pediatrics 81(6):912-913.
[9] Devin, F., Roques, G., Disdier, P., Rodor, F. and Weiller, P. J. (1996), 'Occlusion of central retinal vein after hepatitis B vaccination', Lancet 347:1626, 8 June 1996.
[10] Goetting, M. G. and Sowa, B. (1990), 'Retinal haemorrhage after cardiopulmonary resuscitation in children: an etiologic evaluation', Pediatrics 85(4):585-588.
[11] Jacob, J. and Mannino, F. (1979), 'Increased intracranial pressure after diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis immunization', Am. J. Dis. Child 133:217-218.
[12] Woerner, S. J., Abildgaard, C. F. and French, B. N (1981), 'Intracranial haemorrhage in children with ideopathic thombocytopenic purpura', Pediatrics 67(4):453-460.
[13] Cody, C. L., Baraff, L. J., Cherry, J. D., Marcy, S. C. and Manclark (1981 ), 'Nature and rates of adverse reactions associated with DTP and DT immunizations in infants and children', Pediatrics 68(5):650-660.
[14] Meadow, R. (1995), 'What is and what is not 'Munchausen syndrome per proxy'?', Arch. Dis. Child 72:534-538.
[15] Yawata, Makoto (1994), 'Japan's troubles with measles-mumps-rubella vaccine', Lancet 343:105-106, 8 January 1994.
[16] Higson, N. (1995),'Evaluating the measles immunisation campaign', British Medical Journal 311 :62.
[17] WakeField, A. J., Murch, S. H., Anthony, A., Linnell, J. et al. (1998), 'Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis and pervasive developmental disorder in children', Lancet 351:637-641, 28 February 1998.
[18]. Ronne, T. (1985),'Measles virus infection without rash in childhood is related to disease in adult Life', Lancet, 5 January 1985, pp. 1-5.
[19] West, R. O. (1966),'Epidemiologic studies of malignancies of the ovaries', Cancer, July 1966, pp. 1001-07.
[20] Craighead, J. E. (1975), 'Report of a workshop: disease accentuation after immunisation with inactivated microbial vaccines', J. Infect. Dis. 1312(6):749-754.
It doesn't matter that some are Palestinians, Israelis, Iraqis or Americans. It doesn't matter that some are soldiers or civilians. All are ordinary people who want to live their lives in peace. All are held hostage by "leaders" Bush, Sharon, Arafat-- who are puppets of a sinister force that uses war to murder and enslave mankind. All wars are against humanity. For example, almost 60 million people died in the Second World War. The "leaders" on both sides were groomed and armed by the same sinister force. This force consists of the shareholders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Banks, dynastic families that include the Warburgs, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Loebs, Lehmans, Morgans, Schiffs, Schroders, Harrimans and members of the European aristocracy. (The queen just knighted Allan Greenspan.) These people control much of the world's wealth but they want it all.
People are dying in the Middle East. Thousands more will die before the year is out.
He has his own clinic...(his son has autism, brought on by the MMR vaccine, his dad believes)...
...this clinic treats autistic children & has good results.
So research on Shaken Baby syndrome is research on vaccines? Looking at the references, I don't see many vaccine safety studies.
Do you REALLY want to get into a numbers war with studies on vaccine safety?
Vera Schreibner is another one of those supposed quacks - I think time will prove her correct!
She's already been proven wrong over and over.
Viera Scheibner
The 1997 winner of the Australian Skeptics Bent Spoon Award, presented annually to the Australian "perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of pseudoscientific piffle", was announced at the convention. The unanimous choice of the judges was Dr Viera Scheibner for her high profile anti-immunisation campaign which, by promoting new age and conspiracy mythology and by owing little to scientific methodologies or research, poses a serious threat to the health of Australian children. Unlike most previous recipients, Dr Scheibner responded to her award with a demand that she be allowed space to present her case. As the Skeptic does not seek to silence its critics, we have offered her space in the next issue.
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In 1993 Ms. Scheibner published a book "100 Years of Orthodox Research Shows that vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System." The most famous of her claims is that SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) supposedly disappeared in Japan following a change in the pertussis immunization schedule.
Ms. Scheibner's credentials are ambiguous. As Viera Scheibnerovà she was an assistant professor in the Dept. of Geology at Comenius University in Bratislava until 1969.
She then immigrated to Australia and was a member of the Geological Survey of New South Wales until her retirement in the mid 1980's.
A medline search of the indexed peer reviewed literature covering some 3,600 health-related journals reveals that Ms. Scheibner has never published a single study on human health.
While Ms. Scheibner apparently has training in paleontology, her training in the health sciences and her experience in human health research is NON-EXISTENT!
Ms. Scheibner claims to have researched "60,000 studies" (up from 30,000!). However, in Australia Ms.Scheibner was the 1997 recipient of the Bent Spoon Award for her role as the "perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudo-scientific piffle."
A further review of her book is also available.
Also, an examination of Ms. Scheibner's claims of a disappearance of SIDS in Japan following a change in the pertussis immunization schedule is shown to be completely erroneous.
Ms. Scheibner has also claimed that Japan discontinued measles and pertussis immuniztion. An examination of relevant current data reveals her claim to be erroneous. According to the World Health Organization Japan has high levels of pertussis immunization coverage(over 80%).
Ms. Scheibner's lack of training in the health sciences has led her into other blunders. One of many examples: at one point in her book she claims the cause of Legionnaire's Disease is the flu vaccine (disease is actually caused by the organism Legionella pneumophilia and related strains.)
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And here you can see what Schreibner's ideas eventually lead to. Support for a child abuser.
Who says? The male part of your statement is undeniable and explained by Dr. Mary Megson's research -- but first born?
I read recently, not sure where, that some are speculating that autism is caused by an over development in the brain in utero.
I certainly don't have any ideas or guesses. My oldest son has been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. He got all his shots. His dad and I like to think we are *very intelligent :)
Dr. Steve Basser
(Vol 17, No 1)
Over the last few years immunisation rates in Australia have fallen. As a result there have been outbreaks of the infectious diseases immunisation is designed to combat. Earlier this year there was a significant outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) with at least three children dying from this preventable disease.
There has been a lot of media attention focused on the immunisation issue, and in an attempt at ?balanced? reporting the views of individuals and groups who oppose immunisation have been given plenty of coverage. The most well known example of this was the ABC TV Quantum two part series aired on September 26 and October 3, 1996.
The Australian Skeptics have been critical of the media in the past when they have unquestioningly given coverage to issues such as alien abductions or astrology. Can we now have our cake and eat it too? Is it reasonable to expect the media to only present the ?immunisation is good? message? Are there really two sides to the immunisation ?debate?? This is the question the sceptical scientist should be asking.
Perhaps the answer lies in the distinction between scientific evidence and individual opinion. There will be a number of different opinions, or beliefs, about immunisation but, as the Australian Skeptics have so often observed, believing something to be so does not necessarily make it so.
There is no scientific doubt about the efficacy of immunisation, and my concern about some of the media coverage is that this has not always been made clear.
This has not entirely been the fault of the media, though. Part of the responsibility must lie with so-called mainstream scientists, who have at times been unwilling to appear alongside immunisation opponents. The latter are often more media savvy, and are always willing to accept airtime or print space to state their views. Whilst I can well understand the reticence felt when faced with an invitation to respond to an anti-immunisation spokesperson armed mostly with anecdotes, I believe more attention should be paid to combating their misinformation.
Initially it was my intention to write an article that reviewed the scientific evidence for and against immunisation, but I have decided, instead, to review the quality of the science of one particular, very public, opponent of immunisation - Dr Viera Scheibner.
Dr Viera Scheibner describes herself as a retired principal research scientist. She has a PhD in micropaleontology and in 1993 published a book - Vaccination 100 Years of Orthodox Research shows that Vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System.
I decided to review Dr Scheibner?s work because she is highly regarded within anti-immunisation circles. She has given lectures both here and overseas, and more importantly she was the sole expert witness called to oppose immunisation in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission hearing regarding the right of Maroochy Shire Council to exclude unvaccinated children from their child care centre.1
Dr Scheibner is staunchly anti-immunisation and she claims that she has come to this view as a result of collecting "just about every publication written on the subject of the effectiveness and dangers of vaccines".2(pxv) Lest there be any confusion I will allow Dr Scheibner to make her own position quite clear:
...there is no evidence whatsoever that vaccines of any kind - but especially those against childhood diseases - are effective in preventing the infectious diseases they are supposed to prevent. 2 (pxv) [emphasis added]
Before I go on to examine Dr Scheibner?s claims, and the objectivity of her research, in more detail it is important to make the following points unambiguously clear:
It is not my intention to argue the first two points, and I am prepared to agree that, like any medical procedure, there are occasional individuals who suffer a seriously adverse reaction to immunisation. This reality, though, is not an argument for cessation of all immunisation, just as the occasional tragic outcome from coronary bypass graft surgery is not a valid argument for stopping all such surgery.
My primary concern is as follows: Are parents who base their decision not to immunise their child on reading Dr Scheibner?s book making a truly informed choice? Has Dr Scheibner presented her material in a scientifically balanced way? Is she telling the whole story?
Immunisation is the process of artificially inducing immunity or protection from disease.19 This may be done either by stimulating the body?s immune system with a vaccine or toxoid to produce antibodies, or through the use of an externally produced antibody.
A vaccine is a suspension of live or killed organisms (bacteria or virus), or parts of organisms. A toxoid is a modified bacterial toxin that has been rendered non-toxic but is still able to stimulate anti-toxin production.19 Immunising agents usually also contain a suspending fluid, preservatives, stabilizers and adjuvants. The most commonly used adjuvants are aluminium salts, and are used to enhance the immune response.19 The aim of an immunisation program is to reduce the incidence of, or to eliminate a particular disease. Immunisation has both a direct and an indirect effect.20 The direct effect is the protection induced in the individual receiving the immunising agent. The indirect effect is the reduction of the incidence of the disease in others - so called ?herd immunity?.21
Deciding whether a particular immunisation program is successful depends upon a comparison of the number of cases of disease prevented with the range, severity, and incidence of adverse effects. That is, a comparison of the risks and the benefits.
The paradox of a successful immunisation program is that the more widespread immunisation becomes the more attention will be given to vaccine related illness. When immunisation rates are low, and the incidence of infectious diseases such as whooping cough are high, the risk from the disease is clearly far greater than the risk of harm from the vaccine.20
As immunisation rates increase, though, the disease becomes scarcer and eventually a point will be reached at which the risk from the vaccine approximates the risk of contracting the disease.20 It is important, if high immunisation rates are to be obtained, for this ?conflict? between the individual (risk of immunisation) and society (benefit of herd immunity) to be acknowledged.
This imperfect match between the individual and society is one important reason why, when one reviews the history of immunisation research, so much effort has gone (and is continuing to go) into the development of safer and more efficacious vaccines.
Pertussis (also known as whooping cough) is a highly contagious respiratory infection caused by the organism Bordatella pertussis.22 Pertussis causes violent episodic coughing which can make it hard for a child to eat, drink, and in some cases, breathe. Children under six months of age and children born prematurely, or with congenital abnormalities are particularly susceptible to complications, and suffer higher fatality rates.
Because of the decrease in the incidence of this disease over the course of the twentieth century it is difficult to fully appreciate how serious a condition it can be. At the end of the nineteenth century in the UK one child in every thousand under the age of fifteen died from the disease.4 In the US in the early 1940s it caused more deaths in children under two years-of-age than any other acute infection besides pneumonia and diarrhoeas.24
The pertussis vaccine is usually given in combination with those for tetanus and diphtheria. This immunising agent is commonly referred to as DTP, or Triple Antigen. In Australia it is routinely given at two, four, six, and 18 months of age. A booster may also be given at age four to five years, prior to school entry.
Dr Scheibner asserts that DTP immunisation is ineffective and unsafe. More than this, though, she specifically claims that DTP immunisation is an important cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
In reviewing the development of the pertussis vaccine earlier this century Dr Scheibner mentions two studies reporting on epidemics that affected the Faeroe Islands, and reports that:
In both epidemics six patients of the 3,926 vaccinated died and 26 among the 1,073 unvaccinated cases died.2(p15)
This result appears to support a contention that is anathema to Dr Scheibner - namely that immunisation is effective - but she is not about to be discouraged, going on to say:
So the vaccine seemed to provide some degree of protection; however, the numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated are so different that any comparison is scientifically invalid.2(p15) [emphasis added]
Any first year statistics student will be able to tell Dr Scheibner that this is incorrect. In performing a statistical analysis between two populations such as this (vaccinated vs unvaccinated) the samples do not have to be the same size, or even similar, as long as each separate sample is large enough.24
In this case the sample sizes are more than adequate and when the analysis is done on the figures provided by Dr Scheibner the difference between the populations is highly significant, with a p value of <0.0001.
It is difficult to understand how a "principal research scientist" could make such a fundamental error, and does not instill great confidence in Dr Scheibner?s ability to critically and objectively analyse the literature.
Dr Scheibner goes on to discuss the trials conducted in the UK in the 1940s under the auspices of the Whooping-cough Immunisation Committee of the Medical Research Council. She particularly refers to the trials conducted between 1946 and 1950, reported in the BMJ in 1951.25
There were approximately equal numbers of children (3,358 vs 3,352) in two study groups. The ?vaccinated? group were immunised with pertussis vaccine, whilst the ?unvaccinated? group were given a vaccine containing no pertussis organisms. This ?anticatarrhal? vaccine contained killed suspensions of Staphylococcus aureus, Stretococcus pneumoniae, Corynebacterium hofmanii, and Neisseria catarrhalis.
For all the trials there were 149 cases of pertussis diagnosed in the vaccinated group, and 687 in the unvaccinated. The average attack rate in the ?home exposures? group (children exposed in their own homes to infection in one or more siblings) was 18.2% for the vaccinated and 87.3% for the unvaccinated.25
This time Dr Scheibner cannot attempt to dismiss the result based on sample size difference, so she tries a different approach:
This difference in attack rates cannot be attributed solely to a protective effect of the pertussis vaccines because the so-called unvaccinated group who served as a ?control? were in fact given the anti-catarrhal vaccine like the pertussis vaccine, this anti-catarrhal vaccine contained a number of foreign proteins (antigens) and had the ability to lower the resistance of the recipients. For this reason alone, the above trial cannot be considered valid. 2(p16)
Because a truly inert placebo, such as water or normal saline, was not used in these trials it is theoretically possible that the control vaccine had an effect such as Dr Scheibner proposes. Unfortunately for Dr Scheibner the attack rate in the ?unvaccinated? group was compared to the rate in the general population, and over the whole period of the trials there was no difference noted.
If, as Dr Scheibner suggests, the anti-catarrhal vaccine was making children more susceptible to pertussis, why was the disease incidence in this group no different to the general population that did not receive the vaccine?
Once again one can only speculate as to why Dr Scheibner would choose to exclude this important information.
One can also ask why Dr Scheibner chose to exclude the final report of this Committee, published in 1959.26 Perhaps the answer lies in the report?s general conclusion:
The results of the trials clearly showed that it was possible by vaccination to produce a high degree of protection against the disease. 26(p1000)
Dr Scheibner proceeds to discuss a number of reports from the 1940s and 50s that comment on adverse effects from the pertussis vaccine. As noted earlier it is not my intention to try and prove that vaccines are 100% safe. There is no doubt that these early versions of the pertussis vaccine were associated with a number of adverse effects, and it is not unreasonable to comment on this in a historical review of the development of the vaccine.
What is unreasonable is to imply, as Dr Scheibner does, that the safety profile of the pertussis vaccine in the 1930s and 1940s should be a determining factor in deciding whether to use it today.
Dr Scheibner?s apparent lack of objectivity is again on display when she mentions a 1976 paper by Noah27:
Although there was a lower incidence of whooping cough in fully immunised children compared with those partly immunised, the fact remains that the incidence in both groups was quite high. If the pertussis vaccine were effective, no immunised child should have contracted the disease. 2(p20) [emphasis added]
This assertion by Dr Scheibner is, not surprisingly, unreferenced, and she would be hard pressed to find any immunologist, or immunology text, who would support it. Such a statement appears to demonstrate a poor understanding of the basis of immunisation, and the epidemiology of disease.
One important demonstration of the efficacy of immunisation, including pertussis immunisation, is the observed increase in incidence of diseases that occurs when there is a decline in immunisation rates in a previously well-immunised population. Dr Scheibner discusses two of these ?natural experiments? that took place in the UK and Japan respectively. There is, once again, no confusion regarding her opinion:
Reports of increased epidemics shortly after a fall in vaccination are quite untrue and, at best, exaggerated. 2(p29)
In the UK during the 1970s concern about the efficacy of the pertussis vaccine led to a decline in immunisation rates. There followed two epidemics in 1977-79 and 1981-82.28 Dr Scheibner is keen to find a reason other than reduced immunisation for these epidemics, and so she concentrates on a letter written by Professor Gordon Stewart29 that offers her some support.
Professor Stewart enumerates a number of criticisms of the conclusions that had been reached in an article by Miller et al reviewing the risks and benefits of pertussis immunisation Dr Scheibner carefully documents Professor Stewart?s criticisms, but chooses to ignore the reply to Stewart that immediately follows his letter, and addresses these criticisms.30
If Dr Scheibner is attempting to provide balanced information to allow parents to make up their own mind then this would not seem to be the way to achieve this.
In Japan in 1974-5 two children died following DTP immunisation.31 The Ministry of Health and Welfare temporarily halted the DTP immunisation program, and though this only lasted a couple of months public confidence had been eroded. The DTP immunisation rate, which had reached 85% by 1972 fell to 13.6% in 1976.31
Before looking at what happened to the incidence of pertussis during this period it might be useful to remember that Dr Scheibner states there is no evidence "whatsoever" that vaccines are effective.
Dr Scheibner discusses an article on the history of pertussis immunisation in Japan by Kanai31, but once again she appears to have kept from her readers information that fails to accord with her views.
The following are the figures for the cases of pertussis, and deaths from the disease, for the years just prior to the decline in DTP immunisation (1974-5) and for the years following.
|
Year |
Cases |
Deaths |
|
1970 |
655 |
5 |
|
1971 |
206 |
4 |
|
1972 |
269 |
2 |
|
1973 |
364 |
4 |
|
1974 |
393 |
0 |
|
1975 |
1,084 |
5 |
|
1976 |
2,508 |
20 |
|
1977 |
5,450 |
20 |
|
1978 |
9,626 |
32 |
|
1979 |
13,092 |
41 |
Table 1.
Pertussis cases and deaths in Japan 1970-79.
Immunisation suspended in early 1975.
Data taken from Kanai31
In addition, it was reported that 90% of the 1975+ cases were in unvaccinated children.31 These figures were thought to clearly demonstrate "the importance and effectiveness of pertussis vaccine"32(p123), and also served to provide "convincing evidence that pertussis is still a fatal disease of babies...".31(p114)
On the basis of these figures no other conclusion is scientifically valid, and this is probably the reason why Dr Scheibner ignored the results.
Dr Scheibner?s review of the Japanese situation provides further support for the contention that her research methods are somewhat sloppy. For example, she mentions the two Japanese deaths and claims that following these "doctors in the Okayama Prefecture boycotted the vaccine."2(p46)
The two deaths in Japan occurred in December 1974 and January 1975. In the Okayama Prefecture doctors had not been using DPT vaccine since April 1973, because of concerns over adverse effects. This Prefecture experienced an epidemic in 1974 and in 1977 was considered a pertussis prevalent area.31 One can only wonder at the irony of Dr Scheibner?s comments later in her book:
Proponents of vaccination are so enmeshed in their belief in the efficacy of vaccines that they appear totally oblivious to evidence to the contrary."2(p53)
It would not be stretching things too far to suggest that this is the proverbial pot calling the kettle black!
Another of Dr Scheibner?s key points is the situation in Sweden, where immunisation against pertussis was suspended in 1979 in response to concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine then in use.33 It seems that we are supposed to conclude that because a country like Sweden stopped immunising their children all other countries should follow suit.
What Dr Scheibner may not want her readers to know, though, is that following suspension of immunisation there was an increase in reported cases of pertussis in Sweden.28 She also omits to explain why Sweden, if it is a country opposed to immunisation, has been so involved in research into newer pertussis vaccines?33 Why waste the time and money if they believe immunisation is ineffective?
Dr Scheibner apparently repeated her claims about Sweden when she appeared before the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission in July 1996.1 It is difficult to understand how Dr Scheibner could appear as an expert witness on immunisation, and not be aware that in many areas of Sweden general immunisation against whooping cough was recommenced in 1995. This decision was based upon the results of trials of newer acellular vaccines, such as the one reported by Gustafsson et al.33
It is also difficult to understand how such an expert witness, who has "collected just about every publication written on the subject", could not be aware of Sweden?s experience with other immunisation programs.
For example, combined measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) immunisation was commenced in Sweden in 1982.34 Table 2 shows the resulting change in the number of hospitalized cases of measles and the number of cases of measles encephalitis.
If immunisation was not responsible for the post 1982 decline then what was?
|
Year |
Cases |
Encephalitis |
|
1981 |
372 |
15 |
|
1982 |
388 |
15 |
|
1983 |
248 |
8 |
|
1984 |
81 |
1 |
|
1985 |
9 |
0 |
|
1986 |
11 |
0 |
|
1987 |
10 |
0 |
Table 2.
Hospitalised measles cases, and encephalitis cases in Sweden.
MMR immunisation commenced in 1982.
>From Christenson.34
Another example is Hib vaccine, which was introduced in Sweden in 1992, and was accompanied by a rapid decline in the incidence of H. influenzae meningitis and bacteraemia.35 In the pre-vaccination period of 1987-91 the average annual incidence of these conditions was 34.4 per 100,000 children aged 0-4. By 1994 the incidence in this age group had fallen to 3.5 per 100, 000.35
Did Dr Scheibner mention these results when she appeared before the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission?
One of the more important concerns regarding immunisation, particularly with the DTP, is a possible link with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).36 This is a matter of great concern to parents and health care workers alike, and it is important to carefully examine the available evidence?
The peak time for SIDS is between two and four months of age, which is also the recommended time for the first two doses of DTP. We would therefore expect many cases of SIDS to occur in close time proximity to immunisation merely by chance.
Particularly in those cases where autopsy is unable to identify a cause of death such a close temporal relationship, and the understandable need by grieving parents to understand why this happened to their child, are easily exploited by anti-immunisation advocates.
I will let readers of the Skeptic decide for themselves whether Dr Scheibner?s research in this area qualifies her for the title ?expert witness?.
Dr Scheibner notes a 1982 report of four unexplained deaths that occurred in Tennessee in the late 1970s.37 She first attempts to draw a link between these deaths and immunisation:
All four deaths were classified as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and all had received their first vaccination of diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-pertussis (DTP) vaccine and oral polio vaccine2(p59)
She is forced, however, to concede that the author of the paper found "no evidence to support a causal relationship."37(p421) In her discussion of this study she fails to mention that the author of the paper concluded:
The findings of our study combined with the NIH results provide no support for reducing efforts to immunise infants with DTP.37(p421)
Dr Scheibner then mentions the preliminary results of a study demonstrating a possible association between DTP and SIDS presented at a meeting in 1982.38 Though the final results of this study had not been published at the time of the publication of Dr Scheibner?s book (nor published since) she seems to be prepared to accept these preliminary results as sound science because they support her beliefs.
Dr Scheibner devotes nearly a whole page to this ?study? and only one sentence to formally published studies that found no link between SIDS and DPT.39,40 She also manages, in her discussion of SIDS, to ignore completely the Institute of Medicine Report discussing the DPT vaccine.36 This found no link between SIDS and DTP immunisation.
One of Dr Scheibner?s trump cards is her claim that in Japan, following the shift in age of immunisation to two years, the SIDS rate declined. She makes much of this in her book:
In 1975 Japan raised the minimum vaccination age to two years; this was followed by the virtual disappearance of cot death and infantile convulsions.2(pxix)
When Japan moved the vaccination age to two years, the entity of cot death in that country disappeared 2(p43)
The most important lesson from the Japanese experience is that when the vaccination age was moved to two years, the entity of cot death disappeared. 2(p49)
The seeming and widely perpetuated dilemma: ?is there or is there not a causal relationship between DPT injections and cot death? has, quite adequately and indeed without a shadow of a doubt, been resolved by the Japanese experience with cot death. 2(p62-3)
This claim of Dr Scheibner?s has been unquestioningly repeated in other anti-immunisation material.41-43
Dr Scheibner?s claim rests upon her analysis of two papers, one by Noble et al44 and the other by Cherry et al.28 After reviewing both these papers it is clear that Dr Scheibner?s analysis of them is at best sloppy, and at worst blatantly dishonest.
In Japan during the period concerned there was in place a Vaccine Compensation System, and the data presented by Noble and Cherry relate to claims made through this system.28,44 Compensation was commonly awarded for events considered possibly due to immunisation, unless there was clear evidence that this was not the case. Approximately two thirds of claims submitted were accepted.
Noble and Cherry both report that when the minimum immunisation age was moved from three months to two years there were no claims made through the compensation system for vaccine related sudden death.28,44 They do not claim, as Dr Scheibner suggests, that there were no deaths from SIDS in Japan following the change in immunisation age.
Claims for vaccine related sudden death stopped, not because children were no longer dying, but because their deaths no longer occurred during a period when they were also receiving immunisation. How can you claim for a vaccine-related death if no vaccine was given?
If Dr Scheibner is really claiming that no children in Japan died from SIDS once the DTP immunisation age was changed she provides no evidence to support this claim, and I do not believe she can.
The drop in compensation claims suggests that the purported reactions in infants were in large part unrelated developmental events expected commonly in that age group but attributed to vaccine because they were time related analysis of cases with paid claims in the Japanese national compensation system indicates many of the putative cases to be related to other medical conditions. 28(p973)
Additionally, if immunisation is ineffective, as Dr Scheibner claims, then the change in the minimum age of DTP immunisation from three months to two years should not have been associated with any change in the incidence of the disease.
On the other hand, if Dr Scheibner is wrong, and DTP immunisation protects children from pertussis, we would expect that a shift in minimum age to two years would result in an increase in the incidence of pertussis in children under the age of two. This is exactly what happened.
During the period 1970-74, when DTP immunisation was begun at three months the incidence of pertussis in children aged under one was approximately four per 100,000. In 1975 the minimum immunisation age was moved to two years, and by 1984 the incidence of pertussis in children aged under one was over 20 per 100,000.44
These figures, which demonstrate well the expected change in pertussis epidemiology following shift in immunisation age, are particularly damaging to Dr Scheibner?s case, so it comes as no surprise to see her not mention them.
If DTP immunisation caused SIDS, as Dr Scheibner claims, we would expect to observe the SIDS rate rise as immunisation rates increase. As noted earlier, in the UK during the mid 1970s pertussis immunisation rates fell.
Following the pertussis epidemics of 1977-79 and 1981-82 there were intensive efforts to improve immunisation rates. These efforts were successful and by 1992 pertussis immunisation rates were higher than they had ever been.45
Over the same period SIDS deaths in the UK were falling, and by 1992 the number of deaths was lower than it had ever been.46 If DTP is an important cause of SIDS then how is this explained? Isn?t this the exact opposite of what would be expected according to Dr Scheibner?
Finally, in reviewing the DTP/SIDS literature Dr Scheibner found a study by Baraff et al47 that described a possible link between SIDS and DTP, but she managed to miss the criticism of this paper (no account taken of the age distribution of SIDS cases) by Mortimer.48 She also failed to find the work of Bouvier-Colle et al49, and Taylor and Emory50, both of which offer no support for her belief.
Table 3 lists the number of cases of measles and reported deaths from measles for the years 1960-69 in the USA. 51
|
Year |
Cases |
Deaths |
|
1960 |
441,703 |
380 |
|
1961 |
423,919 |
434 |
|
1962 |
481,530 |
408 |
|
1963 |
385,156 |
364 |
|
1964 |
458,083 |
421 |
|
1965 |
261,904 |
276 |
|
1966 |
204,136 |
261 |
|
1967 |
62,705 |
81 |
|
1968 |
22,231 |
24 |
|
1969 |
25,826 |
41 |
Table 3.
Measles cases and related deaths in the USA, 1960-69.
What these figures demonstrate is a period of no significant change in cases or deaths (1960-64) followed by a period of marked decline (1965-69). Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of epidemiology would look at these figures and hypothesize that something occurred around about 1963-64 that resulted in a marked decline in the number of cases and deaths from measles.
What happened at this time? Measles immunisation was introduced in the USA in 1963-64. Dr Scheibner, not surprisingly, does not report these figures, but she does claim that:
...vaccination against measles is totally ineffective
and
measles occurs irrespective of and despite vaccination. 2(p82) [emphasis added]
If measles immunisation is "totally ineffective" then I would be interested in her explanation for the above figures, and for the experience in Finland, where a nationwide immunisation program resulted in a 99% decrease in the incidence of measles.52
Dr Scheibner?s preferred approach in the case of measles is to ignore evidence such as this and instead she tries to portray measles as a disease that it is not worth immunising against. She quotes in a supportive manner from a paper expressing the view that measles is "a mild disease with rare serious complications..."2(p83)
The facts yet again tell a different story.
Measles is regarded as the most common vaccine- preventable cause of death among children in the world.53 In 1989 it was estimated that across the globe 1.5 million children per year died from measles and its complications. Up to 10% of children who get measles suffer middle ear infection and nearly as many suffer bronchopneumonia, which is the commonest cause of death. Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) occurs in approximately one in every 1-2,000 cases. Approximately 15% of patients who suffer encephalitis will die, and 25-35% will suffer permanent brain damage.53
A rare degenerative disorder of the neurological system ? Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE) - occurs in roughly one in every 100,000 patients with measles, and is characterized by progressive deterioration in neurological functioning with death occurring over a period of months or years. The use of measles vaccine has resulted in the virtual disappearance of SSPE from the USA.54
So much for a mild disease!
I do not believe that Dr Viera Scheibner?s claims regarding DTP and measles immunisation are supported by the available scientific evidence. On the contrary, the evidence strongly supports the view that the benefit of these significantly outweighs the risks.36
In addition I believe that the gaps in her research in this area call into question her objectivity and cast doubts on her ability to speak as an expert witness. It should be a matter of great concern that material such as Dr Scheibner?s is being promoted by groups who ostensibly argue for the right of parents to make up their own minds. How can parents be expected to do this when they are being denied access to so much information?
Dr Scheibner?s claims regarding immunisation are of the ?all swans are white? variety. Her scientific credibility is dependent upon her being able to defend the claim that there is "no evidence whatsoever" that vaccines are effective (all swans are white). Such a claim is easily disproven with just a single example of unequivocal vaccine efficacy (That is, by finding just one non-white swan).
In conclusion, therefore, I offer the following additional swans for colour coding:
Though I have been unable in the space available to address Dr Scheibner?s comments on other immunisations, such as Hepatitis B, Rubella, Hib, and Polio, I am happy to do so at a later time.
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38. Torch WC. Diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DTP) Immunisation: A Potential Cause of the Sudden Infant death Syndrome (SIDS) Neurology 1982; 32: A169-70 Abstract.
39. Hoffman HJ et al. Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Immunisation and Sudden Infant Death: Results of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Cooperative Epidemiological Study of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Risk factors. Pediatrics 1987; 79(4): 598-611.
40. Griffin MR et al. Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome after Immunisation with the Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis Vaccine. New Eng Med Journal 1988; 319: 618-23.
41. Brisbane Vaccination Awareness Group. Red Nose Disgrace 1995
42. Philips A. Dispelling Vaccination Myths. Vaccination Awareness Network Newsletter April 1996
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44. Noble GR et al. Acellular and Whole-Cell Pertussis Vaccines in Japan Report of a Visit by US Scientists Journal Amer Med Assoc 1987; 257(10): 1351-6.
45. Feery BJ, Boughton CR. The Evidence in Favour of Immunisation ? A World without Smallpox - A World without Polio. Med J Aust 1994; 160: 459-60.
46. News in Brief. Sudden Infant Deaths. The Lancet 1993; 342: 858.
47. Baraff L et al. Possible Temporal Association between Diphtheria-Tetanus Toxoid-Pertussis Vaccination and SIDS. Pediatric Infect Dis 1983; 2: 7-11.
48. Mortimer E et al. DTP and SIDS. Pediatric Infect Dis 1983; 2: 492-3.
49. Bouvier-Colle et al. Sudden Infant Death and Immunisation An Extensive Epidemiological Approach to the Problem in France - Winter 1986. Int J Epidemiol 1989; 18: 121-26.
50. Taylor EM, Emery JL. Immunisation and Cot Deaths (letter). The Lancet 1982; 1: 721.
51. MMWR. Summary of Notifiable Diseases MMWR 1991 Vol 41 No 55.
52. Peltola H et al. The Elimination of Indigenous Measles, Mumps, and Rubella from Finland by a 12 Year, Two-Dose Vaccination Program. New Eng Med J 1994; 331: 1397-402.
53. Markowitz LE, Orenstein WA. Measles Vaccines. Pediatric Clin Nth America 1990; 37(3): 603-25.
54. Modlin JF et al. Epidemiologic Studies of Measles, Measles Vaccine, and Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis. Pediatrics 1977; 59: 505-12.
55. Bierring WL. Preventive Medicine - Its Changing Concepts, 1859-1959. J Amer Med Assoc 1959; 171: 2190-94.
56. GPV. The State of the World's Vaccines and Immunisation. World Health Organisation 1996.
57. Alho OP et al. Acute Epiglottitis and Infant Conjugate Haemophilus influenzae Type b Vaccination in Northern Finland. Arch Otolarng Head Neck Surgery 1995; 121: 898-902.
58. Hoke CH et al. Protection against Japanese Encephalitis by Inactivated Vaccines. New Eng Med J 1988; 319: 608-14.
59. Hennessy S et al. Effectiveness of live-attenuated Japanese Encephalitis Vaccine (SA14-14-2): A Case Control Study. The Lancet 1996; 347: 1583-6.
60. Oostvogel PM et al. Poliomyelitis Outbreak in an Unvaccinated Community in the Netherlands, 1992-93. The Lancet 1994; 344: 665-70.
When you put it like that it almost sounds like a good award. I really wish American English had kept the word piffle, it's a great word.
What ignorance. There are separate vaccines that do the job. The current product is what is causing the problem. No cause can be established, because doctors are clueless on what causes autism. Their ignorance maintains their bliss.
READ below at those who will be reasearching this vaccine/autism link in the coming years...
You are steadfastly saying that there is nothing wrong with vaccinations...
Do these increases in autism just appear overnight and without vaccination cause?
you are out on a limb and time will prove you wrong I am sure...
remember the rotavirus vaccine and intussusception?
why not go tell Rep. Dan Burton that his grandchildren didn't get hurt by vaccination...
Opening StatementChairman Dan Burton
June 19, 2002
In April the Committee conducted a hearing reviewing the epidemic of autism and the Department of Health and Human Service’s (HHS) response. Ten years ago, autism was thought to affect 1 in 10,000 individuals in the United States. When the Committee began its oversight investigation in 1999, autism was thought to affect 1 in 500 children. Today, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that autism affects 1 in 250 children.
In April we looked at the investment our Government has made into autism as compared to other epidemics. We showed in that hearing that the CDC and NIH have not provided adequate funding to address the issues in the manner that our Public Health Service agencies have used to address other epidemics.
After our hearing, I joined with my colleagues on the Coalition on Autism Research and Education to request from our appropriators that at least 120 million dollars be made available in FY 2003 for autism research across the NIH and at that an additional $8 million be added to the CDC’s budget for autism research.
Giving more money to research is not the only answer though. Oversight is needed to make sure that research that is funded will sufficiently answer the questions regarding the epidemic, how to treat autism, and how to prevent the next ten years from seeing the statistic of 1 in 250 from becoming 1 in 25 children.
High quality clinical and laboratory research is needed now, not five or ten years from now. Independent analysis of previous epidemiological and case control studies is needed as well.
We have learned that a majority of parents whose children have late-onset or acquired autism believe it is vaccine-related. They deserve answers. We have also learned that the parents have been our best investigators in looking for both causes of autism and for treatments.
It has been parents who have formed non-profit organizations to raise research dollars to conduct the research that the CDC, the FDA, and the NIH have neglected to do. We have heard from many of these parents in the past, Elizabeth Birt, Rick Rollens, Shelley Reynolds, and Jeanna Smith, to name just a few. Each of these parents had healthy babies who became autistic after vaccination.
I might have been like many of the officials within the public health community – denying a connection - had I not witnessed this tragedy in my own family. I might not have believed the reports from parents like Scott and Laura Bono, Jeff Sell, Jeff and Shelly Segal, and Ginger Brown, who came to me with pictures, videos and medical records. I might have been like so many pediatricians who discounted the correlation between vaccination and the onset of fever, crying, and behavioral changes. Because both of my grandchildren suffered adverse reactions to vaccines, I could not ignore the parent’s plea for help. I could not ignore their evidence.
My only grandson became autistic right before my eyes – shortly after receiving his federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines. Without a full explanation of what was in the shots being given, my talkative, playful, outgoing healthy grandson Christian was subjected to very high levels of mercury through his vaccines. He also received the MMR vaccine. Within a few days he was showing signs of autism.
As part of our investigation, the Committee has reviewed ongoing concerns about vaccine safety, vaccine adverse events tracking, the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project, and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. I have joined with Congressman Weldon, Congressman Waxman and 32 other members of Congress in introducing HR 3741, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Improvement Act of 2002 to realign the compensation program with Congressional Intent.
In today’s hearing, we will receive a research update from several previous witnesses as well as new research findings that further support a connection between autism and vaccine adverse events. We will learn more about both the possible link between the use of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal in vaccines and autism, as well as autistic entercolitis resulting from the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Through a Congressional mandate to review thimerosal content in medicines, the FDA learned that childhood vaccines, when given according to the CDC’s recommendations exposed over 8,000 children a day in the United States to levels of mercury that exceeded Federal guidelines. Is there a connection between this toxic exposure to mercury and the autism epidemic? We will hear from Dr. James Bradstreet and Dr. Vera Stejskal on this issue.
We have twice received testimony from Dr. Andrew Wakefield regarding his clinical research into autistic entercolitis. We will learn today that not only has he continued to conduct clinical research, but that this research is confirming the presence of vaccine-related measles RNA in the biopsies from autistic children. Dr. Wakefield - like many scientists who blaze new trails - has been attacked by his own profession. He has been forced out of his position at the Royal Free Hospital in England. He and his colleagues have fought an uphill battle to continue the research that has been a lone ray of hope for parents whose children have autistic entercolitis. Dr. Arthur Krigsman is joining us as well today to discuss his clinical findings of inflammatory bowel disorder in autistic children. He will share with us his initial findings as well as discuss his research plans currently with his Institutional Review Board for approval.
Do the epidemiological and case control studies, which the CDC has attempted to use to refute Dr. Wakefield’s laboratory results, answer the autism-vaccine questions honestly? Epidemiologist Dr. Walter Spitzer is back today to answer this question. What else is needed to prove or disprove a connection?
Unfortunately, rather than considering the preliminary clinical findings of Dr. Wakefield as a newly documented adverse reaction to a vaccine, the CDC attempted to refute these clinical findings through an epidemiological review. While epidemiological research is very important, it cannot be used to disprove laboratory and clinical findings. Valuable time was lost in replicating this research and determining whether the hypothesis was accurate.
Officials at HHS have aggressively denied any possible connection between vaccines and autism. They have waged an information campaign endorsing one conclusion on an issue where the science is still out. This has significantly undermined public confidence in the career public service professionals who are charged with balancing the dual roles of assuring the safety of vaccines and increasing immunization rates. Increasingly, parents come to us with concerns that integrity and an honest public health response to a crisis have been left by the wayside in lieu of protecting the public health agenda to fully immunize children. Parents are increasingly concerned that the Department may be inherently conflicted in its multiple roles of promoting immunization, regulating manufacturers, looking for adverse events, managing the vaccine injury compensation program, and developing new vaccines. Families share my concern that vaccine manufacturers have too much influence as well. How will HHS restore the public’s trust?
Access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) One of the primary topics to be discussed at this hearing is access to the Vaccine Safety Datalink. (VSD). To help fill scientific gaps, the CDC formed partnerships with eight large health maintenance organizations through an agreement with the American Association of Health Plans to continually evaluate vaccine safety. This project is known as the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) and includes medical records on millions of children and adults. Up until this year, access to data from the VSD has been limited to researchers affiliated with the CDC and a few of their handpicked friends. This ‘good old boy’s network” practice has predictably led to questions about the objectivity of the research and the fairness of the results.
The VSD data should be made available to all legitimate scientific researchers so that independent studies can be conducted and results verified. This database contains a wealth of data involving millions of patients over a ten-year period. If properly utilized, it can help researchers study vitally important questions about the safety of vaccines, the effects of mercury-based preservatives in childhood vaccines, and many other questions.
The Committee first raised this issue with the CDC two years ago. For two years the CDC delayed. Six months ago, we were informed that the CDC was developing a plan to expand access to the database. Finally, in February of this year, after a great deal of prompting from the Committee, Dr. Robert Chen, Chief of Vaccine Safety and Development at the National Immunization Program, informed Committee staff that the CDC had finalized its plan and that it was poised to put it into effect. Under this plan, any legitimate scientist could submit a proposal to the CDC to conduct research using VSD data and access to the data would be provided along with some basic safeguards.
In preparation for today’s hearing, Committee staff asked the CDC why the plan described to us in February had not yet been put into effect. The staff was informed that the plan had been put into effect. However, there had been no public announcement. How are researchers supposed to know about the availability of the data if there is no announcement? It took two years of prodding by this Committee to get the CDC to open up access to the database. For four months it appears that the CDC didn’t inform anybody but this Committee of the data’s availability.
That doesn’t make it appear that the CDC is making a good faith effort to open up this database. It looks to me like the CDC is trying to do the bare minimum that they have to do to get us off their backs. That’s not acceptable. That’s why I insisted that Dr. Chen be here today. I just want to ask him why they didn’t tell anyone about the database being available. I’d like to know how he expects researchers to use this data if nobody tells them it’s available.
Dr. Roger Bernier is here from the CDC to testify about these issues. He is accompanied by both Dr. Chen, the creator of the VSD Project and Dr. Frank DeStefano, the CDC official who is also a co-author of the MMR – IBD study. They are here to address our questions on the VSD project and the vaccine-autism research. The CDC employees are accompanied by Dr. Stephen Foote of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. William Egan of the Food and Drug Administration.
As representatives of the people, we have a responsibility to ensure that our public health officials are adequately and honestly addressing this epidemic and its possible links to vaccine injury.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. Our hearing record will remain open until July 3.
I now recognize the ranking minority member, Mr. Waxman for his opening statement.
NAAR Approves Record $3 Million Research Budget for 2001! NAAR is thrilled to announce this year's recipients of the NAAR 2001 Autism Research Awards and Fellowships. Twenty-eight scientists from throughout the United States as well as Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, and Israel have received grants of up to $100,000. NAAR's distinguished Scientific Advisory Board reviewed over 75 research proposals seeking funding from NAAR and, following a four-week review period and a full day of deliberations, recommended these 28 proposals for their scientific excellence and promise.
Thanks to the extraordinary support of volunteers and donors from all over the U.S., NAAR's Board of Trustees approved a research budget of $3 million this year--doubling that of last year! $2.5 million of the $3 million will be allocated to the research projects recommended by NAAR's Scientific Advisory Board. An additional $700,000 has been approved for collaborative program projects and a series of cutting edge scientific workshops and conferences for research scientists.
Among the diverse research projects that NAAR will be funding are several projects investigating language and communication abnormalities in autism, the MMR vaccine and autism, and several genetic studies investigating new susceptibility genes. The Fall/Winter issue of NAARRATIVE will include descriptions of all of the 2001 Awards as well as news regarding the exciting collaborative research projects being funded and an update on the impact of the Autism Tissue Program. (See the NAARBulletin below for an advance look!)
In just five years, NAAR has committed over $6 million to fund autism research all over the world. In addition, it has funded the Autism Tissue Program and sponsored or co-sponsored numerous scientific conferences that have helped advance the autism research agenda. We express our profound gratitude to all our supporters for making this significantly increased commitment to autism research possible!
NAARBulletin October 2001:
In-depth descriptions of these research awards. The “Baby Sibs” Project: NAAR Funds Innovative Collaboration of Researchers NAAR and NLM Family Foundation Support International Autism Genetics Collaboration
Autism Research Awards and Fellowships 2001
lLoisa Bennetto, Ph.D., University of Rochester: “The Influence of HOX Genes and Cranial Nerve Abnormalities on Impaired Facial and Vocal Expression in Autism.” Award Amount: $47,358 (one year)
lDana Boatman, Ph.D. and Barry Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., John Hopkins School of Medicine: “Evaluation of Auditory Processing in Low Functioning Children with Autism.” Award Amount: $85,606 First-Year Research Partner:The Doug Flutie, Jr. Foundation for Autism, Inc.
lLinda Brzustowicz, M.D. and Christopher Barlett, B.S., Rutgers University: “Localization of Genes Negatively Influencing Language Acquisition.” Award Amount: $89,606 First-Year Research Partner: The Sidgmore Family Foundation
lEdwin Cook, M.D., The University of Chicago: “Linkage Disequilibrium Fine Mapping of 15q11-q13 in Autism.” Award Amount: $99,605 First-Year Research Partner: Solving the Mystery of Autism Foundation, Inc.
lLouise Gallagher, MB MRC Psych, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland): “The Molecular Genetics of Autism: Linkage Disequilibrium Screen in the Irish Population.” Award Amount: $99,101 First-Year Research Partner: The Autism Coalition for Research and Education
lJeremy Goldberg, M.D., McMaster University (Canada): “Investigating Serotonin Receptor Function and Brain Structure as Potential Endophenotypes of Autism.” Award Amount: $89,368
lAndrew Grayson, Ph.D, C. Psychol. The Open University (The United Kingdom): “Facilitated Communication: A Systematic Observational Research Project Involving Fine-Grained Video Analysis and Eye Tracking.” Two-Year Award: $93, 532. First-Year Research Partner: The Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation
lKarl Herrup, Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University: “CNS Pattern Formulation and the Etiology of Autism.” Award Amount: $99,000
lChristine Hohmann, Ph.D., Morgan State University: “Serotonin as Regulator of Cortical Development and Function.” Award Amount: $90,702 First-Year Research Partner: The Autism Coalition for Research and Education
lChi-ming, Huang, Ph.D., University of Missouri, Kansas City: “Synaptic and Cellular Abnormalities in the Maturing Autistic Cerebellum.” Award Amount: $99,880 First-Year Research Partner: Autism Society of America Foundation
lHutsler, Jeffrey, Ph.D., University of Michigan: “Cortical Organization and Synaptic Culling in Individuals with Autism.” Award Amount: $99,902
lAmi Klin, Ph.D. and Jocelyne Bachevalier, Ph.D., Yale University Child Study Center: “Studies of Social Visual Pursuit in Non-Human Primates with Mesiofrontal-limbic Lesions Previously Shown to Offer a Successful Animal Model of Autism.” Award Amount: $91,730
lJennifer Levitt, M.D., UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute: “Cortical Complexity and 1H MRS Studies of Communication in Autism.” Award Amount: $97,044
lElena Maestrini, Ph.D., University of Bologna (Italy): “Search for an Autism Susceptibility Gene on Chromosome 2q.” Award Amount: $80,340 First-Year Research Partner: Autism Society of America Foundation
lHenry Markram, Ph.D., Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel): “Altered Inhibitory Microcircuits in Autism.” Award Amount: $96,800 First-Year Research Partner: The Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation
lDaniel McIntosh, Ph.D., University of Denver: “Core Affective Processes in Autism.” Award Amount: $99,237
lLisa Monteggia, Ph.D., Utah Southwestern Medical Center: “Analysis of the Role of the Methyl-CG Binding Protein in the Pervasive Development Disorder, Rett’s Syndrome, Using Genetically Modified Mice.” Award Amount: $100,000
lStewart Mostofsky, M.D., Kennedy Krieger Institute, “Examination of a Deficit in Procedural Learning in Autism.” Award Amount: $88,968 First-Year Research Partner: The Autism Coalition for Research and Education
lRhea Paul, Ph.D., Southern Connecticut State University and Yale University Child Study Center: “The Development of Prosody in Young Children with Autism and Related Conditions.” Award Amount: $97,024
lMargaret A. Pericak-Vance, Ph.D., Duke University: “Web-based Genetic Educational Efforts for Autism and Related Disorders.” Award Amount: $41,912 (one year)
lJudith Innes Piggot, MRCGP, MRCP, Stanford University School of Medicine: Roland Ciaranello, M.D. Memorial Fellowship in Basic Research. Fellowship Amount: $100,000
lSamuel Pleasure, M.D., Ph.D., University of California at San Francisco: “The Role of WNTS in Hippocampal Ventricular Zone Development.” Award Amount: $92,384
lTimothy P.L. Roberts, Ph.D., University of California at San Francisco: “Neural Correlates of Phonological Processing in Autism: An MEG Investigation.” Award Amount: $96,273 First-Year Research Partner: Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation
lNeil Smalheiser, M.D., Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago: “Circulating Reelin in Autism Spectrum Disorders.” Award Amount: $89,320
lKathleen Sulik, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “CNS Dysmorphogenesis in a Mouse Knockout Model for an Autism Syndrome.” Award Amount: $100,000
lPaul Thorsen, M.D., Ph.D., Danish Epidemiology Sciences Centre at Aarhus University and Odense University Hospital (Denmark): “Risk Factors for Neurodevelopmental Disorders: MMR Vaccine and Childhood Autism.” Award Amount:: $25,000 (one year) Research Partner: CIBC World Markets
lSteven Zalkman, Ph.D., UMDMJ - New Jersey Medical School: “Cytokines, Monoamines and Stereotypical Motor Activity.” Award Amount: $96,170
lLonnie Zwaigenbaum, M.D., Susan Bryson, Ph.D., Peter Szatmari, M.D., FRCPC, Wendy Roberts, M.D., FRCPC, McMaster University (Canada): “Identifying Early Markers of Autism: a Longitudinal Study of Infant Siblings.” Award Amount: $99,993
Hmm, where to start?
Autism is not "stupidity" - It's not even retardation, although it has, in some cases, been confused with both. I know some autistic people who are probably more intelligent than a lot of so-called "normal" people.
Autism is a real, physiological problem that affects the way people interact with their environment. It does run in families, but does not correlate to the parent's IQ, education, or income. There has been an increase over the last few years in numbers of autistic children, but, while a number of theories exist, nobody has yet produced compelling proof of the origins of autism.
Autism has nothing to do with stupid people reproducing, although I certainly believe that stupid people reproducing probably plays a role in a number of social problems. If we were to allow "stupid people to kill themselves in spectacularly stupid ways" it might reduce a number of social pathologies, but would have no impact on autism.
So it's a conspiracy? You obvioulsy didn't read the informtion becuase most of the studies were done by the British government, as well as other countries. Are you saying that the cover up includes ALL of those countries AND other pharmaceutical companies who could make lots of money if the current vaccines is found to be unsafe? And since the alternative to MMR is three separate sticks, it makes sense that the drug companies and doctors would make MORE money that way.
You are steadfastly saying that there is nothing wrong with vaccinations...
Of course! Every child should be immunized.
Do these increases in autism just appear overnight and without vaccination cause?
The current increase in autism started in the early '80s, but the MMR vaccine wasn't introduced in Britain until 1988. How did the rates go up before the vaccines started? And in the US, the autism rates continue to go up, but the percentage of kids getting the vaccines has remained steady for years. If there was a correlation, you would have to see the MMR vaccination rates go up as the autism rates go up?
you are out on a limb and time will prove you wrong I am sure...
I'm out on a limb? Every mainstream researcher says there is no link between the two and you say I'm out on a limb?
remember the rotavirus vaccine and intussusception?
Why? How about the stunning success of the Hib vaccine?
why not go tell Rep. Dan Burton that his grandchildren didn't get hurt by vaccination...
Great. To support your allegation you quote a Congressman.
says who?
vaccinate yours - leave ours alone!
So it's a conspiracy?
Scandal of scientists who take money for papers ghostwritten by drug companies
Doctors named as authors may not have seen raw data
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Thursday February 7, 2002
The Guardian
Scientists are accepting large sums of money from drug companies to put their names to articles endorsing new medicines that they have not written - a growing practice that some fear is putting scientific integrity in jeopardy. Ghostwriting has become widespread in such areas of medicine as cardiology and psychiatry, where drugs play a major role in treatment. Senior doctors, inevitably very busy, have become willing to "author" papers written for them by ghostwriters paid by drug companies.
Originally, ghostwriting was confined to medical journal supplements sponsored by the industry, but it can now be found in all the major journals in relevant fields. In some cases, it is alleged, the scientists named as authors will not have seen the raw data they are writing about - just tables compiled by company employees.
The doctors, who may also give a talk based on the paper to an audience of other doctors at a drug company-sponsored symposium, receive substantial sums of money. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Foundation Research Programmes in Bethesda, Maryland, found in a survey that British psychiatrists were being paid around $2,000 (£1,400) a time for symposium talks, plus airfares and hotel accommodation, while Americans got about $3,000. Some payments ran as high as $5,000 or $10,000.
"Some of us believe that the present system is approaching a high-class form of professional prostitution," he said.
Robin Murray, head of the division of psychological medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, is one of those who has become increasingly concerned. "It is clear that we have a situation where, when an audience is listening to a well-known British psychiatrist, you recognise the stage where the audience is uncertain as to whether the psychiatrist really believes this or is saying it because they them selves or their department is getting some financial reward," he said.
"I can think of a well-known British psychiatrist I met and I said, 'How are you?' He said, 'What day is it? I'm just working out what drug I'm supporting today.'"
Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote a year ago that when she ran a paper on antidepressant drug treatment, the authors' financial ties to the manufacturers - which the journal requires all contributors to declare - were so extensive that she had to run them on the website. She decided to commission an editorial about it and spoke to research psychiatrists, but "we found very few who did not have financial ties to drug companies that make antidepressants."
She wrote: "Researchers serve as consultants to companies whose products they are studying, join advisory boards and speakers' bureaus, enter into patent and royalty arrangements, agree to be the listed authors of articles ghostwritten by interested companies, promote drugs and devices at company-sponsored symposiums, and allow themselves to be plied with expensive gifts and trips to luxurious settings. Many also have equity interest in the companies."
In September her journal joined the Lancet and 11 others in denouncing the drug companies for imposing restrictions on the data to which scientists are given access in the clinical trials they fund. Some of the journals propose to demand a signed declaration that the papers scientists submit are their own.
The success of Prozac, the antidepressant which became a cult "happy" drug in the 1990s, substantially raised the stakes in psychiatry. Its promotion coincided with the decline of state funding for research, leaving scientists in all areas of medicine dependent on pharmaceutical companies to fund or commission their work. That in turn gave the industry unprecedented control over data and ended with research papers increasingly being drafted by company employees or commercial agencies.
The responsibility of scientists for the content of their papers takes on serious significance in the context of court cases in the US, where relatives of people who killed themselves and murdered others while on SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) - the class of drug to which Prozac belongs - claimed the drugs were responsible. According to David Healy, a north Wales-based psychopharmacologist who has given evidence for the families, the companies have relied on articles apparently authored by scientists who may in fact have not seen the raw data.
Dr Healy, who had unprecedented access to the data that the companies keep in their archives, said: "It may well be that 50% of the articles on drugs in the major journals across all areas of medicine are not written in a way that the average person in the street expects them to be authored."
He cites the case brought last year against the former SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) by relatives of Donald Schell. The court found that the company's best-selling antidepressant, an SSRI called Seroxat, had caused Schell to murder his wife, daughter and granddaughter and commit suicide.
The company's defence was based on scientific papers which analysed the results of trials comparing Seroxat with a placebo and found there was no increased risk of suicide for depressed people on Seroxat. But the raw data probably does not support that, argues Dr Healy. Some of the placebo suicides took place while patients were withdrawing from an older drug. When the figures are readjusted without these, he says, they show there is substantially increased risk of suicide on Seroxat.
This raises the question of whether the eminent scientists whose names were on the papers ever saw the raw data from the trials - or saw only tables compiled by company employees, he says. David Dunner, a professor at the University of Washington, who co-authored one of the papers in 1995, admits he did not see the raw data. "I don't know who saw it. I did not," he said. "My role in the paper was that the data were presented to us and we analysed it and wrote it up and wrote references."
His co-author Stuart Montgomery, then of St Mary's hospital medical school in London, declined to answer calls and emails from the Guardian. The third name on the paper is that of Geoff Dunbar, a company employee.
The World Health Organisation has expressed concern about the ties between industry and researchers. Jonathan Quick, director of essential drugs and medicines policy, wrote in the latest WHO Bulletin: "If clinical trials become a commercial venture in which self-interest overrules public interest and desire overrules science, then the social contract which allows research on human subjects in return for medical advances is broken."
YEAH it just might be!
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