"Millions of American children have been brain damaged by a mercury preservative added to vaccines. With the backing of several U.S.
Congressmen, Dr. Mark Geier is the only independent scientist to have gotten access to the CDC Vaccine Safety Datalink, a database of adverse reactions to vaccines. He found a very strong association between the dosage of mercury and the incidence of neuro-development disorders, speech difficulties, ADD, and autism in children. The increase in the number of infant vaccines in 1991 trippled the exposure of infants to the mercury preservative. Thimerosal is 50% ethyl mercury by weight." [Radio interview at: http://www.policestateplanning.com/dr_geier_on_thimerosal.htm]

Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines 20 years ago, the Scandinavian countries followed suit in the 1990s and Great Britain in 2004.

By contrast, "Top Republicans -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill-- recently sold the future of our children to Big Pharma for a paltry $4 bucks a pop."  Where are the protests?

The deafening silence of the American citizenry contrast sharply with the vigorous protest rallies by illegal immigrants who took to the streets when their welfare was threatened by Congressional yahoos--as is legitimate in a democracy.

The link between thimerosal (Mecury) and neurological impairment has been at the center of decades of a contentious debate: the two sides can be characterized as the powerful, industry-funded, therefore biased contingency of scientists and government officials on one side and independent scientists who, armed with evidence have taken up the battle on behalf of beleaguered families whose children have suffered neurological damage.

Indeed, the evidence has convinced many US states to either ban (as Iowa has), or are in the process of banning thimerosal: California, Missouri, Nebraska, and New York, among many others.  Vaccine manufacturers were especially worried about a bipartisan national bill introduced in the US House of Representatives (Weldon/Maloney bill) to ban thimerosal nationally.

An OPINION piece in the San Francisco Chronicle (below) reveals how the Senate doctor and his buddy in the House secretly intervened to protect Big Pharma: "It's worth considering why the drug companies feel they need such treatment. Is it because they have known for decades that their product is harmful? As we learned with Big Tobacco, denial is the first defense."
 
With millions in campaign contributions from the drug industry, the Senate doctor and his buddy in the House, shamelessly legitimized a ruthless
crime-the crime of knowingly poisoning babies-while simultaneously depriving the victims of mercury poisoning of their legal rights. "There were no public hearings on the immunity provision, no debate, no disclosure of the proceedings of the committee. Press coverage was virtually nonexistent."

Though the legislation will ultimately be challenged as unconstitutional, the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA), signed by the President, "removes the right to due process and judicial review for persons injured by vaccines, thus granting a virtual license to kill. Under the new law, companies making vaccines can be grossly negligent and act with wanton recklessness and still escape liability as long as they can show that their misconduct wasn't "willful." It is impossible to conceive of a lower standard for the drug companies or a higher burden of proof for injured parties."

But where are the citizens who should be rallying on behalf of infants and children?

Below, a letter published in the journal, Pediatrics, April, 2005, by Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D.,challenges the authors of a 2004 report in Pediatrics claiming no association between thimerosal and neurological damage. 

See also, excellent overview by Robert Kennedy, Jr,  "Deadly Immunity" Salon.com June 16, 2005:  http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-31.htm
"when a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data --and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic."

See extensive vaccine safety information at National Vaccine Information Center at: http://www.909shot.com/Issues/HgCalculator.htm and THE NATIONAL HEALTH FEDERATION : http://www.thenhf.com/about_us.html 

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/10
San Francisco Chronicle
POISONING OUR CHILDREN
OPEN FORUM
Lewis Seiler, Dan Hamburg
 
Top Republicans -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., -- recently sold the future of our children to Big Pharma for a paltry $4 bucks a pop.  
 That's the additional cost to produce a safe vaccine, a vaccine minus the  mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Mercury is a deadly neurotoxin that has long been known to cause serious learning disabilities and death, and is strongly suspected in contributing to autism. According to the California Public Schools Autism Prevalence Report for the School Years 1992-2003, the
increase in autism prevalence is systemic across the entire United States "and should be an urgent public-health concern ...

The disease frequency of autism now surpasses that of all types of cancer combined." The report notes a 1,086 percent cumulative growth rate of autism over the period, with a 23 percent average annual growth rate.
 
A recent study published in the spring 2006 volume of the peer-reviewed Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons shows that the rate of
neurodevelopmental disorders in children has decreased following the removal of thimerosal from most American childhood vaccines. However, only about one-third of the 11 million children vaccinated for influenza this year will receive mercury-free vaccines.
 
At the end of last year, President Bush signed the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA), granting blanket immunity to
pharmaceutical companies for vaccine-induced injuries. The measure is a carte blanche for industry, allowing it even to reintroduce mercury in
vaccines that are clean, and under the behest of the World Health Organization, to continue shipping tainted vaccine to the "developing
world."
 The federal government has known enough to stop the use of mercury in vaccines for more than a decade. Industry has known of the dangers of thimerosal since at least 1991.
But using the preservative made the sale of vaccines more profitable. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has at times seemed just as concerned about these profits as the companies themselves. Cynics have noted the "revolving door" between industry and government that seems to alter the perspective of both. In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended "the elimination of thimerosal as soon as possible." In 2002, the CDC stated in a press release "all vaccines will be thimerosal-free as soon as adequate supplies are available." Yet, last year the CDC refused to live up to its own policy by claiming "no preference for thimerosal-free vaccines."
 
Laden with millions in campaign contributions from the industry, some members of Congress are eager to plead that Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, and Eli Lilly might have to close up shop if they were forced to take responsibility for injuries caused by their products. These companies hardly need the help. Pharmaceuticals, despite their whining about risk and R&D costs, are some of the most profitable businesses in the country with the median profit margin of the top 10 companies more than five times that of all other industries on the Fortune 500 list.
 
In order to secure passage of the PREPA, Sens. Frist and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, joined by Speaker Hastert, assured their colleagues in the
House-Senate conference committee that immunity for the drug companies would not go forward as a tack-on to the 2006 defense appropriations bill. There were no public hearings on the immunity provision, no debate, no disclosure of the proceedings of the committee. Press coverage was virtually nonexistent. According to one prominent member of the committee, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., "That legislation was unilaterally and arrogantly inserted into the bill after the conference was over in a blatantly abusive power play by two of the most powerful men in Congress." Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., called the legislation "a blank check for the industry." Sen. Robert Byrd, D- W. Va., dean of Senate rules, opined: "There should be no dispute. The processes leading to passage of this bill [was] an absolute travesty."
 
The PREPA is unconstitutional. It removes the right to due process and judicial review for persons injured by vaccines, thus granting a virtual
license to kill. Under the new law, companies making vaccines can be grossly negligent and act with wanton recklessness and still escape liability as long as they can show that their misconduct wasn't "willful." It is impossible to conceive of a lower standard for the drug companies or a higher burden of proof for injured parties.
 
 The refusal of the drug companies to take responsibility for the products they produce, and the complicity of the highest levels of government in their refusal, will diminish public confidence in the entire U.S. vaccination program. Already, thousands of mothers, including our own
daughters, are fearful of having their infants and toddlers vaccinated. The PREPA also pre-empts the laws of states, including California, which
have passed legislation outlawing mercury in childhood vaccinations.
Meanwhile, the CDC continues to send its officials into state legislatures around the country in attempts to abort measures banning mercury.
 
It's worth considering why the drug companies feel they need such treatment. Is it because they have known for decades that their product is harmful? As we learned with Big Tobacco, denial is the first defense. Eventually, the truth will come out about mercury and the depravity of injecting a neurotoxin into the bodies of infants and toddlers.
 
 Lewis Seiler is president of Voice of the Environment. Dan Hamburg, a former U.S. representative, is executive director.
 
 Page B - 7

C2006 San Francisco Chronicle
<http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/info/copyright/> 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/eletters/114/3/584
THIMEROSAL DOES NOT BELONG IN VACCINES,  PEDIATRICS, 
8 September 2004
Letter to the editor:  Mark R. Geier,MD, Ph.D., geneticist/vaccinologist
THE GENETIC CENTERS OF AMERICA,

Re: THIMEROSAL DOES NOT BELONG IN VACCINES

The authors of the Andrew et al. study failed to disclose their significant
conflicts of interests to the readership of Pediatrics: Elizabeth Miller
disclosed in her 2001 publication (1) and in 2002 to the Committee on the
Safety of Medicines previously disclosed that she has received funding to
study vaccines from Aventis Pasteur, Wyeth Vaccines, SmithKline Beecham,
Baxter Health Care, North American Vaccine, Wyeth- Lederle Vaccine, and
Chiron Biocine; and Nick Andrews, Julia Stowe, and Brent Taylor all
disclosed in 2001 that they received funding to study vaccines from Wyeth
Vaccines and SmithKline Beecham (1). These companies all are or were makers
of thimerosal-containing vaccines.

This study seems disingenuous, since the British Government has announced
the removal of thimerosal from their routine childhood vaccines effective
the end of September 2004. The BBC wrote on 7 August 2004, "Vaccine scrapped
over autism fear. A vaccine containing mercury given to babies when they are
eight weeks old is to be scrapped amid fears of a link with autism. The move
follows recent research in America that suggests a connection between
mercury used to preserve whooping cough vaccine, and autism." Health
Minister John Hutton confirmed the changes stating, 'Childhood immunization
has been extremely effective in protecting children from serious-life
threatening diseases, We are continually looking at ways to improve this
program as new, more effective products become available.' We congratulate
the British Government for doing the right thing, and predict that the new
vaccine will soon result in a concomitant drop in the currently devastating
rate of neurodevelopmental disorders in England as has already potentially
been seen in California which has reported a three-consecutive quarter
decrease in the number of new cases of autism for the first time in
approximately 20 years among children receiving childhood vaccines with
reduced thimerosal content.

Unfortunately, thimerosal continues to remain in many vaccines in the US.
Influenza vaccine has been added to the routine childhood immunization
schedule, and the CDC has refused to state a preference for children to
receive thimerosal-free influenza vaccine despite their position of
encouraging the removal of thimerosal from childhood vaccines,

The current study was extremely underpowered in its ability to discern the
effects of thimerosal on neurodevelopmental disorders because it only
examined a maximum exposure of 75 micrograms of mercury in the first year of
life and further limited potential thimerosal exposure differences by
excluding children that had not received 75 micrograms of mercury from
childhood vaccines by age one. The study did contain analyses for tics based
upon exposure at 3, 4, and all mercury exposure, when using a reference
group of children not receiving any mercury from thimerosal-containing
childhood vaccines during the first year of life. The results of these
analyses showed that there were statistically significantly increased hazard
ratios for tics at 3 months. By comparison, there was no statistically
significant correlation between mercury exposure from thimerosal-containing
vaccines and tics by excluding children not receiving thimerosal-containing
vaccines during the first year of life. The authors provide no other
complete data for any other outcomes when employing children receiving no
mercury during the first year of life as the reference population. The tic
result in the Andrews et al. study is similar to a previous study, from the
Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database (2), indicating an apparent causal
relationship between mercury containing childhood vaccines and the
development of tics.

This study has virtually no applicability to the US experience with
thimerosal. Despite incorrect statements to the contrary by Andrews et al.,
by 4 months of age US children received approximately 2-fold higher doses of
mercury from vaccines (125 micrograms) compared to those England (75
micrograms). This study contains significant biases because sicker children
were the ones that tended to have vaccinations delayed resulting in an
apparent preventive effective for mercury on the risks of neurodevelopmental
disorders.

It has become apparent from recently emerging clinical, animal model, and
molecular evidence that thimerosal is indeed responsible for
neurodevelopmental disorders in a substantial number of children, regardless
of the findings of large population-based epidemiological studies.
Independent investigators have shown children with autistic spectrum
disorders have significantly higher body-burdens of mercury than those of
neurotypical children (3-5), a genetically susceptible mouse strain develops
autistic features, including: growth delay, reduced locomotion, exaggerated
response to novelty, increased brain size, decreased numbers of Purkinje
cells, significant abnormalities in brain architecture, affecting areas
sub-serving emotion and cognition, and densely packed hyperchromic
hippocampal neurons with altered glutamate receptors and transporters
following administration of thimerosal mimicking the US childhood
immunization schedule (6), and molecular studies in vitro have demonstrated
that acute thimerosal exposure at extremely low concentrations (i.e. at
parts-per-million or lower) (7-9), that are comparable to the expected body
distribution of mercury resulting from thimerosal-containing vaccines that
were administered in the US, can kill or significantly adversely effect
neuronal growth and development. Pharmacokinetic studies on infant primates
exposed to solutions containing similar concentrations of thimerosal, as
thimerosal-containing vaccine childhood vaccines, have shown that the
half-life of mercury in the brain of the infant primates was approximately
28 days (10). Male mice were at considerably more sensitive than females to
the neurotoxic effects of low dose alkyl mercury exposure (11). These
results were consistent with some human fetal/infant population exposures to
low doses of alkyl mercury where it has been observed that males were more
sensitive than females to psychomotor retardation. Autistic spectrum
disorders, of course, are significantly more prevalent in males than females
(12).

In conclusion, we are, and always have been, strong supporters of the US
vaccine program and of pediatricians that administer vaccines, but given the
fact that many US states now have either banned (Iowa), or are in the
process of banning thimerosal, (California, Missouri, Nebraska, and New
York, among many others) and given that fact that there is now a bipartisan
national bill introduced in the US House of Representatives (Weldon/Maloney
bill) to ban it nationally, we now strongly suggest that the United States
pediatricians should insist on giving only thimerosal- free vaccines, lest
they become involved in the terrible morass of lawsuits that are already
beginning on this issue.

References

1. Miller E, Waight P, Farrington CP, Andrews N, Stowe J, Taylor B.
Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and MMR vaccine. Arch Dis Child
2001;84:227-9.

2. Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, Lieu TA, Rhodes PH, Black SB,
Shinefield H, Chen RT; Vaccine Safety Datalink Team. Safety of
thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health
maintenance organization databases. Pediatrics 2003;112:1039-48.

3. Bradstreet J, Geier DA, Kartzinel JJ, Adams JB, Geier MR. A case- control
study of mercury body-burden in children with autistic spectrum disorders. J
Am Phys Surg 2003;8:76-9.

4. Holmes AS, Blaxill MF, Haley BE. Reduced levels of mercury in first baby
haircuts of autistic children. Int J Toxicol 2003;22:277-85.

5. Hu LW, Bernard JA, Che J. Neutron activation analysis of hair samples for
the identification of autism. Trans Am Nucl Soc 2003;89.

6. Hornig M, Chian D, Lipkin WI. Neurotoxic effects of postnatal thimerosal
are mouse strain dependent. Mol Psychiatry 2004;9:833-45.

7. Baskin DS, Ngo H, Didenko VV. Thimerosal induces DNA breaks, caspase-3
activation, membrane damage, and cell death in cultured human neurons and
fibroblasts. Toxicol Sci 2003;74:361-8.

8. Waly M, Olteanu H, Banerjee R, Choi SW, Mason JB, Parker BS et al.
Activation of methionine synthase by insulin-like growth factor-1 and
dopamine: a target for neurodevelopmental toxins and thimerosal. Mol
Psychiatry 2004;9:358-70.

9. Brunner M, Albertini S, Wurgler FE. Effects of 10 known or suspected
spindle poisons in the in vitro porcine brain tubulin assembly assay.
Mutagenesis 1991;6:65-70.

10. Institute of Medicine (US). Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and
Autism. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2004.

11. Clarkson TW, Nordberg FJ, Sager PR. Reproductive and developmental
toxicity of metals. Scand J Work Environ Health 1985;11:145- 54.

12. Bertrand J, Mars A, Boyle C, Bove F, Yeargin-Allsopp M, Decoufle P.
Prevalence of autism in a United States population: the Brick Township, New
Jersey, investigation. Pediatrics 2001;108:1155-61.

Dr. Mark R. Geier has been a consultant and expert witness in cases
involving vaccines before the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
and in civil litigation. David A. Geier has been a consultant in cases
involving vaccines before the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
and in civil litigation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of which
has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such
material is made available for educational purposes, to advance
understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and
social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair
use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C.
section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without
profit.
AC