Posted on 08/22/2002 4:07:17 AM PDT by Bad~Rodeo
On April 3, 2002 a class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on behalf of three groups against the manufacturer of Thimerosal, a preservative containing mercury, and against the vaccine manufacturers that use or used Thimerosal in the manufacture and/or distribution of childhood vaccines.
Thimerosal is a preservative that was used in childhood vaccines that is approximately 50 percent mercury by weight. Mercury is one of the most toxic elements on earth and its exposure by humans has been linked to neurological, motor, sensory and autoimmune disorders, as well as behavioral dysfunction. Before the FDA recommended that Thimerosal be removed from all vaccines, American children had received 237 micrograms of mercury through vaccines alone by age two. This far exceeds current EPA safe levels for mercury which are (one tenth) 0.1 mcg/kg. per day. On the date of birth children received 12 mcg's of mercury from the Thimerosal content in the hepatitis B vaccine which is over 30 times the safe level. The DTaP and HiB vaccines contained over 50 mcg of mercury, which is 60 times greater than the safe level. At six months the second Hep B and Polio vaccines are given, containing 62.5 mcg of mercury which is 78 times greater than safe level.
The class action is seeking compensation for three groups of plaintiffs. Plaintiffs and Plaintiff Class defined as Sub-Class One have been diagnosed with autism or neurological disorders, as well as other severe and permanent health consequences claimed to be the result of exposure to high levels of mercury contained in Thimerosal; Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff Class defined in Subclass Two claim an increased risk of developing autism, other serious neurological disorders, or other severe and permanent health consequences as a result of exposure to high levels of mercury contained in Thimerosal; Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff Class are defined in Subclass Three have claims based upon the injuries to their children as well as claims for medical monitoring of their children who have not yet developed an injury, but who must be continuously monitored due to their exposure to the high levels of mercury contained in childhood vaccines.
You're then GUARANTEEING every single company making vaccines is either bankrupt or stops making vaccines. Then you've got no vaccines, and tens of thousands of children dying horrible, painful deaths from diseases people have completely forgotten about.
The latest research, from mri and autopsies of autistic children shows that one part of the brain of severely autistic kids is well overgrown, leaving another section undersized, with no space to grow. Theories are that this is what is doing the damage. There is no proof of why this happens though.
turn it over, the coin always has a flip side.
When I was in grade school (about 35 years ago), there was a population of partially deaf children that had this condition because their mother had contracted rubella (German measles?) while pregnant. I haven't heard of this being a problem for decades, but I remember magazine ads about it at the time. That's probably due to the rubella vaccination program. Now, it's arguable which is worse, autism or partial/complete deafness, but the reduction in partially deaf kids is a result of the vaccination program.
The Web page above indicates that there were only 77 cases of CRS in 1970, and 2 in 1996. I was in grade school in the mid-60's, so I expect the number of cases was higher then.
This Web page also notes that the partially deaf children were the "lucky" CRS victims. It can be much worse. I think we forget how dangerous a place the world was before the advent of vaccination programs.
This Web page shows the marked reduction of rubella cases in Canada coinciding with the vaccination program. I was right; the vaccination program got going when I was 12, so there has been a marked reduction in the number of children with CRS.
I see it all the time. Some people are afraid to approach him so they just ignore him. But he really responds to people who include him and treat him like a human being rather than nonexistant.
When my brother was diagnosed as autistic, the doctors advised my parents to institutionalize him because they said that he'd never know them. What utter bull that turned out to be.
One of the reasons that we see autism more often today than we used to is that there was a time, not so long ago, that most of these children were hidden away in institutions and never seen or heard from again. I thank God that my brother didn't suffer such a fate.
Also, I think that autism is probably over diagnosed. I think that it's what doctors refer to as a wastebasket diagnosis, which means that they don't know what the problem is but they have to call it something, so they'll call it autism. That is not to say that autism doesn't exist; it does. I think though that some people who get labeled as autistic may not be. I will admit that that is just my opinion.
My niece's son has a had a large number of these symptoms since his first set of vaccines. My younger sister has a daughter the same age and these children are like night and day. I understand when they were vaccinated, my niece recieved only a small number of injections, but my nephew recieved several individual injections -- thus more opportunity for mercury exposure. I ran across the link between thimersol and autism while trying to look up information on autism, and warned them to ask for thimersol-free vaccinations. They are available.
What I have learned: Four and a half decades as a parent and researcher
Bernard Rimland, Ph.D. Autism Research Institute 4182 Adams Avenue San Diego, CA 92116
Keynote address by Bernard Rimland, founder of the Autism Society of America (ASA), at the 36th annual conference of ASA, San Diego, California, July 19, 2001.
I am a researcher. I have been a full-time professional research scientist my entire adult life.
Lets do a quick research study right now: If you are the parent of an autistic child 10 years old or younger, please stand up. If your child was normal at birth, had eye contact, was developing speech, and was normal in other ways, for a year or more, then began to regress after a vaccination, and you believe the vaccination probably caused the autism, please raise your hand.
Now look around. Ive asked that question of a dozen or more audiences in the past few years, and the results are always the same. As you can see, the vast majority of you suspect the vaccines.
My son Mark was born in 1956. It was obvious from birth that this perfectly normal looking infant had something drastically wrong with him. I had earned my Ph.D. in experimental psychology three years earlier, and had never encountered the word autism. Our pediatrician, with 35 years of experience, had never heard of autism either. Autism was extremely rare then-it is extremely common now.
Some supposed experts will tell you that the increase reflects only a greater awareness. That is nonsense. Any experienced pediatrician, teacher, or school official will confirm what the studies tell us: there is a real increase in autism, and the numbers are huge, and growing. The epidemic is serious and worldwide.
In the past 10 years, the number of required vaccines prior to age 2 has risen from 8 to 22. A coincidence? I dont think so.
Soon after my book Infantile Autism: The syndrome and its implications for a neural theory of behavior was published in 1964, I began to hear from other parents. Many told me their children were normal until getting a triple vaccine-the DPT shot. In 1965, I began systematically collecting data on the symptoms and causes of autism. In 1967-34 years ago-I began querying the parents about the childs response to the DPT shot. Many reported marked deterioration. Being aware of the problem with mercury, I also asked about dental work during the pregnancy.
During the past few years the Autism Research Institute has been flooded with an upsurge of pleas for help from parents throughout the world, from wherever the World Health Organization Vaccine Guidelines are followed.
Despite the very obvious and extremely severe epidemic of autism, mainstream medicine continues to insist that there really is no epidemic at all, that its merely an illusion that we parents have succumbed to because of greater awareness of autism, and if there were an epidemic, it couldnt possibly be caused by the vaccines, despite the fact that many contain grossly excessive amounts of mercury, one of the most poisonous substances on earth.
Mainstream medicines totally inappropriate response to the epidemic of autism we are now experiencing is typical of mainstream medicines response to the problem of autism, and is very characteristic of what has been going on for the nearly five decades I have been involved with autism.
Let me make it very clear that I am certainly not condemning all physicians. There are many truly outstanding and well-informed physicians who really care about autistic children and their families. Later today there will be a panel of such physicians, who are also parents of autistic children, speaking on the methods they use to bring about remarkable improvement in the children in their families and in their practices.
Nevertheless, mainstream medicine, by which I mean such groups as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Psychiatric Association, and similar organizations, have harmed rather than helped autistic children and their families from Day One:
They supported the scientifically invalid psychoanalytically-based theories which held the mother responsible for causing autism through her supposedly hostile attitude toward the child.
They ridiculed the use of behavior modification, the most uniformly beneficial treatment for autism, claiming that it neglected the deep-seated emotional blocks that were supposedly at the root of autism.
They ignored and continue to ignore the long series of studies conducted both in the U.S. and Europe showing that the elimination of foods containing gluten and casein from the diet brings about marked improvement in many autistic children.
They have consistently ignored the series of 18 consecutive studies, conducted by researchers in 6 countries, which show that almost half of all autistic children and adults respond favorably to high doses of vitamin B6 and magnesium, with no adverse effects reported. Eleven of these studies were double-blind, placebo-crossover experiments. (There is no drug which comes close to B6/magnesium in terms of safety, efficacy, and positive research findings.)
They routinely prescribe harmful, sometimes deadly drugs such as fenfluramine and Ritalin, which are far more dangerous, less effective and less rational than the nutritional supplements and special diets that well-informed parents and physicians employ.
They have spent tens of millions of dollars on non-productive lines of research, while virtually no money at all has been for research on the methods of alternative medicine, which are far more promising in terms of both safety and efficacy. (What they call alternative medicine I call intelligent medicine.) And now they have done it again! In May, 2001 the American Academy of Pediatrics issued its guidelines on Diagnosis and Management of Autism. The AAP guidelines are a very patronizing document, the publication of which might have made sense if standard, mainstream pediatricians had achieved even a modicum of success in the treatment of autism. Approaches which have been demonstrated to work on thousands of children, and which are very thoroughly documented in the research literature, are dismissed by the AAP in a few pages of distorted and inaccurate condescending prose.
We parents have never been able to count on mainstream medicine to protect our children from autism, nor to employ effective means for diagnosing and treating autistic children. Mainstream medicine in fact promotes the very programs of excessive vaccinations which are in all likelihood the primary cause of the present epidemic of autism.
The Autism Research Institute responded by launching, in 1995, its Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!) project, which left the futile efforts of conventional medicine in the dust and pursued a breathtakingly imaginative new concept: Do what works! The results have been extremely gratifying. The seven subsequent DAN! Conferences have been attended by thousands of parents and many hundreds of physicians. We hear daily of children who have left autism behind.
This afternoon you will hear a special panel of four DAN! doctors who have achieved remarkable success in treating hundreds of autistic children, including three doctors who have successfully treated their own children. (Copies of the 2-hour, 56-minute videotape of the DAN! Doctors Panel are available from ARI at $20; California residents include $1.50 tax.)
Vaccines are themselves variable - and the diseases they prevent variable. If we could talk openly about the fact that the pertussis vaccine was changed because it was dangerous, that polio is a whole different kettle of fish from chickenpox in terms of the public health interest in eradicating it, that at-birth hepatitis vaccination seems to be more driven by the need to do it while the parents aren't prepared to object so as to pave the way for more vaccines, that while the FDA said "mercury is bad in vaccines" they took no steps to require elimination, that the anthrax vaccine has an unacceptable rate of side effects, and a whole host of other "that's" we would get a great deal further.
But to do so requires sources, science, and trust which the vaccine debate frequently lacks.
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