Documents disclosed here under US Freedom of Information show the US Centers for Disease Control [CDC] spends US tax dollars in foreign countries on studies to claim the vaccination programmes they promote for US children are safe when they know the results of the studies will produce false and misleading negative results.
Mercury is toxic in parts per billion.What the US public were not told is that the study was certain to be unable to detect any effect. The US CDC internal email exchange disclosed here [see more below] obtained under US Freedom of Information shows that to be able to detect any effect in children with the methods used, the dose applied by the age of 3 months had to be more than50 millionths of a gramme of mercury and more than 100 millionths of a gramme by the age of 6 months.
Table 1 of the paper shows Italian children received by the age of 3 months two thirds of that minimum amount; no more 37.5 millionths of a gramme. By 4 months they had only three quarters of that minimum: 75 millionths of a gramme and the maximum by six months was 100 millionths of a gramme, not enough to hit or exceed the threshold needed.
The 2001 exchange of emails was between Dr Thomas Verstraeten and Dr Robert Chen of the US CDC and Dr Elizabeth Miller of the UK’s Public Health Laboratory Service. This also shows a dose of 75 microgrammes of mercury by the age of four months was insufficient to detect an effect. Chen and Miller were at the time looking into a possible study of British children. Italian infants were in the same category as British infants, receiving 75 microgrammes by the age of 4 months.
Do not be deceived into thinking there are no problems with the lower levels of mercury. Studies like this Italian one and previous internal studies by the US CDC are unable to measure the effects at lower levels. It is an issue of precision – not absence of effect.
Notably, the study only included healthy children in the original vaccine trial so those most at risk were excluded. The authors also missed out large numbers of other children most likely to be at risk. And as an example of how unrepresentative of the Italian child population this study was, 70% of the Italian parents had College Degrees.
Children excluded from the study included:
an unknown number of underweight children who are likely to be more susceptible to injury
the body burden of mercury would be proportionately higher
underweight children are likely to include premature infants – [whose effective age is less and who are underdeveloped by the time they are vaccinated compared to full-term infants]
all unwell children at time of vaccination (susceptible group)
over 30% of children dropped out of the study and the authors acknowledged these may have included those injured, the parents not participating “because their children had cognitive developmental problems“
there was no proper control group to make a comparison
the authors compared children who had mercury containing vaccines not against children who had no vaccines or no mercury but against children who had different vaccines with less mercury
Only one case of autism was identified from medical records out 1,704 (an order of magnitude lower than the UK and the US) which also casts doubts on the value of the study.
Stop Press
Evidence from the new Italian study of child disorders linked to vaccination provides strong evidence that independent impartial unbiased objective research is urgently needed comparing vaccinated against unvaccinated children
The study used tests and methods which are “blunt instruments”, unlikely to distinguish anything other than large differences between the children studied. The number of children was relatively small 1403, 30% of those most likely to have been affected had dropped out between the first study 10 years ago and the present one. so if there was any difference in the groups, this study started off by looking for “a needle in a haystack”. In other words, the study would only be likely to distinguish only a very small proportion of “normal” from “abnormal”. Many kinds of differences like a drop in IQ of 5 to 25 points, or a fall in linguistic ability just less than a speech impediment would be unlikely to be revealed.
So if with such an imprecise study there are any positive results any statistically significant association would demand further enquiry.“Significantly associated” means that statistically the results could not be dismissed as just within the expected error of the study.
Why Is Vax’ed vs Un-Vax’ed Research So Important?
The most likely means of standing any chance of detecting differences would be a very large study of vaccinated children compared to unvaccinated. More sophisticated tests and assessments would be appropriate – not imprecise tests – “finger-tapping” tests or “Boston Naming”.
In addition, comparing vaccinated with vaccinated made it harder still to distinguish differences. Children studied had been vaccinated and compared to some shall we say “a little bit less vaccinated than others”. This meant that it was likely children with impaired ability were being compared with children with slightly less impaired ability. This would narrow the size of any differences in impairment between the groups studied and made the whole exercise more imprecise still.
Is there Evidence of “Author Bias”?
The Italian authors state “only two” of the outcomes were “significantly associated”. Why important? It shows author bias – coupled with the so far undisclosed financial conflicts of interests. “Only two” is like saying you are “only a little bit pregnant”. It is more significant as the study was to be expected to produce no positive results of any kind, as ChildHealthSafety reported on 28th January.
Details of the main Italian author, Tozzi’s so far undeclared financial conflicts of interest have not been published by the US Journal Pediatics, although recently submitted by UK vaccine and health safety advocate, John Stone.
Fooling Third World Governments
The British study the US CDC was involved with with Dr Elizabeth Miller went ahead and also claimed to find no problems. It was used to reassure third world governments that mercury in vaccines was safe. It claimed the UK level of mercury was the same as the amount of thimerosal used by developing countries that follow the World Health Organisation’s expanded immunization schedule. It was not. Disclosed here is information under UK Freedom of Information showing the WHO schedule exposes the less well fed and more susceptible third world infants to 187.5µg of mercury but by 14 weeks, not 6 months. Third world children are at a much higher risk than US children ever were.
The US Centers For Disease Control and Drug Companies
This is not the first time the US CDC has been mired in controversy over mercury in vaccines. On 7-8 June 2000, a confidential private meeting without public scrutiny took place between vaccine manufacturers’ representatives, 51 US scientists, and a representative of the World Health Organization. This was to discuss a study by US Centers for Disease Control expert Dr Thomas Verstraeten of increasing doses of Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Verstraeten used US Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) data, an official US governmental data bank on the children from US health maintenance organizations (HMOs).
Verstraeten’s study showed a dose-response relationship between Thimerosal in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders in children that held up to rigorous statistical analyses. This means Verstraeten’s study showed a causal association between the amount of Thimerosal in vaccines a child received and the extent to which the child developed the symptoms of impaired brain development . These ranged from tics, speech impairment to symptoms of and full autism. The discussions can be read in the transcript of the Simpsonwood Conference obtained by US organisaton SafeMinds under Freedom of Information.
Three years later Dr Thomas Verstraeten, MD, MSc [now working for GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Belgium] published a different paper in the journal Pediatrics: [“Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases“. Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, et al. Pediatrics.2003; 112 :1039 –1048]. The new paper included another set of data from a third HMO, reorganised the criteria for inclusion of children and restructured the patient groupings, and a less than statistically significant link was demonstrated. It was heavily criticised by campaigners and concerned experts. Verstraeten published a vigorous letter in his defence in which he rejected any suggestion of impropriety: [“Thimerosal, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and GlaxoSmithKline“]: PEDIATRICS Vol. 113 No. 4 April 2004, pp. 932.
What can be said about this? When Verstraeten was a public official working for the US CDC there was a serious problem. When Verstraeten was working for GlaxoSmithKline there was no problem.
Vaccine Risks Outweigh Risk of Disease
Autism – A serious problem being ignored
19 Children A Day – 4 in 5 is a Boy
Autism in Britian outstrips all other major disorders affecting British children combined and is substantially more serious than measles. Every day 19 British children develop autism spectrum disorders:
this will be 600,000 British children and adults in the future (birth rate approx 600,000 p.a.)
and horrific prospects for expectant parents
1 in every 54 boys will be on the Autistic Spectrum
In addition to the new MMR vaccine, in 1990 infants were also “hit” with the “accelerated” DTP vaccine schedule – receiving three DTP shots – one each at 2, 3 and 4 months. Prior to this the intervals were 3, 5 and 9 to 12 months of age. The DTP vaccine contained a highly neurotoxic ingredient. The ingredient was an organo-mercury excipient called “Thiomersal” [“Thimerosal” in the USA]. Thiomersal is toxic in parts per billion – in extremely small dilutions. The vaccine was The Wellcome Foundation’s Trivax AD DTP vaccine. The Wellcome Foundation is now GlaxoSmithKline. Thiomersal was first introduced by pharmaceutical company Merck in the 1930s and was not clinically trialled for safety in use in vaccines.
Research shows that children with autism appear to have deficient mechanisms for expelling toxins like mercury and it accumulates in the body.
Revealed by ChildHealthSafety exclusively worldwide for the first time [22/Jan/09] information obtained under the UK’s Freedom of Information confirms the British MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency] has no data on how much Thiomersal was in Trivax AD DTP vaccine. Although the British DoH [Department of Health] claimed publicly to have known, that claim therefore appears incorrect.
Thiomersal is also known to induce allergy. Many children, in particular those with regressive autism, have serious problems with allergies. Some have exceptionally high levels of IgE, [the allergic antibody immunoglobulin E].
The date of the rise can be tracked back to 1990 using publicly available data. This increase has occurred in parallel with significant increases in other disorders like autism, asthma and childhood diabetes.
Thiomersal is a well recognised cause of allergies: [The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products – Medicines Evaluation Unit – Safety Working Party Assessment of the Toxicity of Thiomersal in Relation to Its Use in Medicinal Product SCPMP/SWP/I898/1998 – 8 September 1998].
The use of Thiomersal in other pharmaceuticals [eg. contact len cleaning fluid] has been strictly controlled in Europe: CPMP Position Paper on Thiomersal – Implementation of the Warning Statement Relating to Sensitisation. The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products London, 21 October 1999 CPMP/2612/99]
Thiomersal contains 50% by weight of mercury. There is no safe limit – only a “permitted daily/weekly tolerable” limit. This is measured in parts per million per kilogramme of body weight. Those limits apply when ingested in food]. This neurotoxic organo-mercury compound was injected directly into infants’ bodies at a time their bodies and nervous systems were developing the most rapidly at any time in their lives. The amount of thiomersal claimed to be in Trivax AD DTP vaccine was 50 millionths of a gramme injected directly into the body.
A 4 kilo weight 2 month old baby would have received in one injection 63 times higher than the permitted tolerable daily intake in food set by the US Environmental protection Agency and the UK’s Committee on Toxicity.
To protect infants the PTWI set by the UK Committee on Toxicity for intake of mercury compounds in food for women who are pregnant, or who may become pregnant within the following year, or for breast-feeding mothers is one tenth of a millionth of gramme per kilogramme of body weight per day – for a 9 stone woman [57 kg] that is 5.7 millionths of a gram per day.
Calculation of an infant’s daily and overall body burden of toxic mercury must also include the burden from environmental pollution. [Sources include mercury in the air from power station emissions and in fish as a result of oceanic pollution by anti-fouling applied to ships’ hulls. Mercury is liquid at room temperature and evaporates forming a toxic vapour in the air].
Also revealed worldwide by ChildHealthSafety [22/Jan/09] is that the British Government also had no data on Thiomersal content of many other vaccines around that time and some had more than claimed by the British government was in DTP. Examples are Duncan Flockhart’s DTP vaccine – 130 millionths of a gramme thiomersal per millilitre and Lister Institute Pertussis vaccine – 120 mcg/ml Thiomersal. Accordingly, this brings into question how much was in Trivax AD DTP vaccine.
The British Government also hid this lack of knowledge from Parliament. A further revelation made exclusively worldwide by ChildHealthSafety [22/Jan/09] is that British Health Minister Hazel Blears MP misled the English Parliament in 2001 when she said in a Parliamentary answer that “All childhood vaccines licensed since 1986 which have ever contained thiomersal as an excipient are listed in the table” [to the answer]. [House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 3 Jul 2001 (pt 19)]. The table contained no such details and listed only those vaccines granted a licence in the UK since 1993.
Julie Kirkbride MP had asked for the “vaccines …. licensed since 1986 which contain thiomersal“.
If you are asked have you been licensed to drive your car since 2006, you will answer “yes” even if you have held a licence since 1980. Blears’ answer was in fact the answer to the question of the “vaccines granted a licence since 1986 which contain Thiomersal”.
The British Government claims Thiomersal was phased out of its childhood vaccines in October 2004 [but vaccine stocks may have taken longer to run down and how safe is what has replaced it?].
A previously confidential 1991 internal Merck memorandum published by the USA’s Los Angeles Times shows the UK authorities had then known about the problem and were privately expressing concern to the vaccine manufacturer about the presence of mercury in vaccines. This was along with Sweden, Japan and Switzerland: [‘91 Memo Warned of Mercury in Shots – By Myron Levin – LA Times – February 08, 2005].
So why did they take 13 years to do something about it and why did they and do they continue to tell the British public there is and was no problem when they knew there was and is? And as vaccines also alter the functioning of the immune system, the removal of Thiomersal may well not be the only factor affecting the increases in autism, asthma, allergies and childhood diabetes. [see more below – US Court Decisions and Other Recent Developments].
The IOM committee held closed meetings to discuss the report’s content and before considering the evidence. A transcript of a meeting on 12th January 2001 was disclosed in Court proceedings [US District Court of Texas, Eastern District; Case #5:03-CV-141].
Here are some quotes from the transcript:-
[the Centers for Disease Control] “wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis.” [p33]
“We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday, the point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is to pull the vaccine, change the schedule. We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy. We wouldn’t say compensate, we wouldn’t say pull the vaccine, we wouldn’t say stop the program.” [p74]
“we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect,” [p97]
“Chances are, when all is said and done, we are still going to be in this category. It is just a general feeling that we probably still are not going to be able to make a statement,” [p123]
What You Can Do
If you found this information helpful there are two things you can do about it.
Please share these pages with others
email the links to this page to others
post links to this page
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in comments on relevant websites and blogs
email them to health journalists and journalists from your local newspapers, TV and radio stations – [phone them for details of email addresses or look them up on the internet]
UK Residents – Write To Your Politicians – Do It Now!
Write to your Member of Parliament with the link to this page. If you do not write to your MP, and do not keep on writing them, then don’t complain when politicians do nothing. Write to your Member of Parliament with the link to this page. It is their job to represent you.
Ask your MP to ask the UK’s Secretary of State to explain why the British Government allows officials of the UK’s Department of Health to cause the human rights of children to be violated.
To email your MP, all you need to know is your MP’s name. MP’s email addresses are in the form:-
In the US the official diagnostic definition of what we call “Autism Spectrum Disorders” or ASD are instead called “Pervasive Development Disorders” or PDD for short. That is under the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edn)” or “DSM IV” for short.
“Autistic Spectrum Disorder” is the term applied internationally under the “ICD” or “International Classification of Disease”
Many refer to ASD and PDD as “autism” but “autism” is a subset of the spectrum and is often referred to also as “childhood autism”, “typical autism” and “Kanner autism”. [The common behaviours like hand flapping, loss of eye contact and suchlike in young children are unmistakable, whereas other spectrum disorders like mild Aspergers Syndrome can be more difficult to diagnose.]
Copyright ChildHealthSafety 2009 – The authors hereby assert their moral rights. All rights reserved.
British autism expert Professor Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University does not agree with the USA’s vaccination advocate and rotavirus vaccine patent holder Dr Paul Offit MD that autism is a genetic condition. Here you can see the evidence shows autism is not “genetic”; that Offit is wrong and that Professor Baron Cohen is only partly right.
We demonstrate here that we can consign over 30 years of unscientific medical, psychiatric and psychological papers to the garbage. This brings a scientific approach to the issue since the erroneous genetic myth was first propounded with the publication of Professor Michael Rutter’s paper Infantile autism: A genetic study of 21 twin pairs. J. Child Psychol. Psychiat. 18, 297-321 (1977).
And do vaccines cause autistic conditions? If you read nothing else we strongly recommend you read this: PDF Download – Text of May 5th 2008 email from US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News]. In it the US Health Resources Services Administration [HRSA] state to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkission
We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”
Despite all the lies and deceit by health official worldwide, the question “do vaccines cause autism” was answered after the Hannah Poling story broke in the USA in February 2008 [see CHS article here]. Hannah developed an autistic condition after 9 vaccines administered the same day. Under the media spotlight numerous US health officials and agencies conceded on broadcast US nationwide TV news from CBS and CNN. Full details with links to the original sources can be found in this CHS article: Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines. [Blue Text added 10 April 2011]
Professor Baron Cohen says:-
“We know that autism is not 100% genetic in origin, since in the case of identical twins (who share 100% of their genes), there are instances of one twin having autism and the other not having it. In fact, the likelihood of the co-twin also having autism where one of them has it (in monozygotic (MZ) pairs) is about 60%. This means that there must be some non-genetic (i.e., environmental) factors that are part of the cause of autism.” [SOURCE: Professor Baron Cohen’s reply to critics of a mooted abortion test for autism reported in the UK’s Guardian Newspaper :- Professor Baron Cohen/Stone Correspondence Re: The Guardian New research brings autism screening closer to reality 12/Jan/09]
In other words, it is the 40% of identical twins where only one develops symptoms of autism which tells us autism is not “genetic“. In those cases it must have an environmental [external] cause.
Professor Baron Cohen errs in assuming the 60% of both twins developing autism is evidence autism is ever a genetically “caused” condition. It is not such evidence. The correct medical terminology is whether a condition has an “internal” cause or an “external” one.
Because the twins are genetically identical all we can say for those who both develop autism is their bodies have responded identically to the same set of conditions whether “internal” or “external”. It tells us nothing about whether the cause is internal or external [environmental]. It is neither scientific nor logical to assume the “cause” is internal or external [environmental]. It is wrong to do so and a logical fallacy.
Where both identical twins develop autism, it is more likely than not they have had the same exposure to the same environmental cause. That is more likely than not to happen [60% of the time it seems]. For example, both twins are more likely than not to have their vaccinations at the same time and all other circumstances in their lives at that time are more likely than not to be identical for both.
All human medical conditions whether “internal” or “external” are genetic. Some of us are more susceptible to’ flu than others and some never suffer from it. So it is also logically inappropriate to discuss causes of conditions in terms of being “genetic” because all human conditions are genetic whether the cause is “internal” or “external”. This also demonstrates why it is not wise to rely on medical doctors’ attempts to be scientific. The majority have no formal scientific training or qualifications and frequently make errors of the fundamental kind illustrated here.
We only become ill or develop any condition because we are genetic. Everthing else breaks down. Computers, cars, washing machines and refrigerators breakdown whether for an “internal” cause or an “external” one – they do not and cannot get ‘flu, measles or autism because they are not genetic. If we were not genetic we would not get sick [but we might rust a bit from time-to-time].
There appears to be no scientific evidence autism is any more “genetic” than ‘flu. Feel free to submit a comment if you disagree.
To establish with scientific evidence that any condition has a solely genetic [internal] cause any more than any other illness or disorder requires evidence showing that in some cases there are no possible environmental causes.
The environmental causes have to be eliminated by the collection of evidence in a scientific manner. This has not been done, as the reliance on the twin studies demonstrates.
What we can conclude is that autism is an environmentally [externally] caused condition, with some more susceptible than others, like most other human medical conditions.
What has gone before is non science is because:
identical twin studies show autism has an environmental [external] cause
to demonstrate autism has an [internal] ie. solely genetic cause, it is necessary to show autism occurs where no environmental causes apply
that has never been done
and that is likely because, as the evidence shows, autism is caused by environmental factors, just like most other human medical conditions
What You Can Do
If you found this information helpful there are two things you can do about it.
Please share this page with others
email the links to this page to others
post links to this page
on your website
on your blog
in comments on relevant websites and blogs
email them to health journalists and journalists from your local newspapers, TV and radio stations – [phone them for details of email addresses or look them up on the internet]
UK Residents – Write To Your Politicians – Do It Now!
Write to your Member of Parliament with the link to this page. If you do not write to your MP, and do not keep on writing them, then don’t complain when politicians do nothing. Write to your Member of Parliament with the link to this page. It is their job to represent you.
Ask your MP to ask the UK’s Secretary of State to fund independent unbiased objective research studies comparing autism, asthma, allergies and diabetes rates in large populations of vaccinated and unvaccinated children and clinical studies.
To email your MP, all you need to know is your MP’s name. MP’s email addresses are in the form:-
[Another World Exclusive Below Purple [ 22/Jan/2009]
[World Exclusive – 17 Janred below – New revelations – 15 Jan blue]
[Later Updates in Green including January 2010]
This is the story the UK media have steadfastly not been publishing and of the contrasting unprecedented new developments in the US politically and in the US Federal Court.
The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper reported [13/Jan/09] the British government was refusing the public release under the UK’s Freedom Of Information laws of confidential files on a proven dangerous MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine. A recent legal case has forced the files open: [Confidential MMR vaccine files should be opened in the public interest, watchdog rules – The Daily Mail – Jenny Hope – 13th January 2009]
The British government has prevented its child citizens being compensated and treated. Money and politics override child health safety. 20 years on children continue to be injured. Starting in 1986 Canada, to 1988 Japan and the UK to the present this previously unpublished account is definitive carefully researched and accessible.
Despite all the lies and deceit by health officials worldwide, the question “do vaccines cause autism” was answered when the Hannah Poling story broke in the USA [see CHS article here]. Hannah developed an autistic condition after 9 vaccines administered the same day. Under the media spotlight numerous US health officials and agencies conceded on broadcast US nationwide TV news from CBS and CNN. Full details with links to the original sources can be found in this CHS article: Vaccination Causes Autism – Say US Government & Merck’s Director of Vaccines. [Blue Text added 10 April 2011]
In the US Federal Court children have been compensated after findings they developed autism and other injuries. If you read nothing else we strongly recommend you read this: PDF Download – Text of email from US HRSA to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News]. In it the US Health Resources Services Administration [HRSA] state to CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkission
We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.”
The UK’s Department of Health and others appear to have been reckless as to the safety of British children over the manner in which Glaxo company, Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd’s Pluserix MMR vaccine was introduced and used on British Children in 1988
the problems with Pluserix MMR were known to the supplier, Glaxo company Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd from the experience of its introduction to Canada, in 1986, where Pluserix was marketed under the name “Trivirix”
Trivirix (Pluserix) was withdrawn from use in Canada in 1988 because it was dangerous, causing high levels of adverse reactions in children
the high levels of British adverse reactions to the vaccine were apparent and known about at British Ministerial level in 1990, as shown by ministerial correspondence
Pluserix/Trivirx are the identical vaccine manufactured in the identical Smith Kline factory in Belgium and with the exact same component parts and constituents
despite the Canadian position and contemporaneously with the final withdrawal of Pluserix/Trivirix in Canada the UK signed the contract to purchase Pluserix MMR from Glaxo company, Smith Kline & French Laboratories Limited in July 1988, even though it was known by then to be too dangerous for use on our children
SK&F was provided with a blanket indemnity in that contract by the NHS Procurement Directorate
the contract was signed up by the backdoor through the North East Thames Regional Health Authority as agent for the NHS Procurement Directorate rather than being a contract directly entered into with the NHS Procurement Directorate which negotiated the contract or the NHS Executive of the time
there was no Parliamentary scrutiny of this and it seems to have been effected in a manner Ministerially deniable
similar problems were experienced in Japan with the Japanese MMR vaccine which, in common with Pluserxi/Trivirix, contained the Urabe strain of mumps virus
the Japanese MMR was also withdrawn by 1992 on safety grounds having caused high levels of adverse reactions
the British government continued the licence for Pluserix MMR after 1992, which enabled it to be supplied overseas
even today, because it is cheaper than safer alternatives, organisations like UNICEF continue supplying urabe strain containing MMR vaccine to the more adverse reaction vulnerable and less well nourished third world children
since 1998, statistical papers claiming no evidence of an association between the MMR vaccine and autism have been published in a blaze of publicity, but when all the noise has died down, on subsequent careful examination, each one has been found to be flawed. These are the same kinds of statistical studies [epidemiology] used by the tobacco industry in the 1940’s and 50’s to claim smoking did not cause lung cancer
other than the Royal Free’s paper, no clinical studies of the MMR child litigants were undertaken or published
after being put under financial pressure by the British Government, in 2005 the Oxford based Cochrane Collaboration published a systematic review of all prior papers and its authors claimed to conclude the MMR vaccine was safe:-
it was shown the authors had violated the standards of evidence-based medicine [ref] and
their conclusions were not supported by the body of the review [ref]
and it later was discovered that the British Department of Health had increased the funding for Cochrane’s Oxford administration by £1 million per annum and extended the contracts of its British groups
Legal Aid funded claims by children started as early as 1991 and well before Dr Andrew Wakefield warned the British public about the vaccine. His efforts were met with the full force of the British establishment to discredit him and proceedings before the General Medical Council resumed only yesterday, which have been going on for three years.
The main false accusation levelled in February 2004 was that Wakefield made his disclosures in a medical paper published in The Lancet medical journal because he wanted to make money being an expert witness in Court. But few people know the following [and there is naturally full documentation on this].
Crispin Davis, the Chief Executive of Reed-Elsevier, the owners of “The Lancet”, had a few months earlier in the July [2003] been brought onto the Board of Directors of MMR litigation Defendants’ parent company GlaxoSmithKline.
[Global publishing giant Reed-Elsevier owns 2,460 scientific journals, including the magazine New Scientist and earns substantial funds from the drug industry in advertising revenue. Corruption in medical publishing is rife. Elsevier was paid by drug giant Merck to publish a fake medical journal with articles favourable to Merck’s drugs: [Merck published fake journal – Bob Grant – The Scientist – 30th April 2009]. Drug maker Wyeth flooded medical journals with some 40 ghostwritten articles penned by prominent physicians who sold their name for cash, in an all-out effort to offset the scientific evidence linking its female hormone replacement drug, Prempro, to breast cancer: [Judge orders Wyeth papers unsealed– Associated Press – July 25, 2009]. Reed-Elsevier’s former chairman, Jan Hommen, attended the secretive annual Bilderberg conference in 2007 and 2010. Bilderberg was described to senior British politician Lord Ashdown as ‘fifty people who run the world and twenty hangers on’: The Ashdown Diaries – Volume One 1988-1997; Penguin – 2000 – ISBN 0 14 029775 8 – pp.42-44] [Blue text added 29 May 2011]].
Brian Deer, a freelance journalist was commissioned by The Sunday Times two months later in September 2003 to write the stories attacking Wakefield.
This was about two weeks before the Legal Services Commission final decision was due on withdrawal of Legal Aid from the MMR children’s UK litigation and which did withdraw legal aid.
The person who commissioned Deer was Paul Nuki, Sunday Times’ sometime Head of Newsroom investigations and “Focus” editor. Paul Nuki is son of Professor George Nuki. Professor George Nuki in 1987 sat on the Committee on Safety of Medicines when the CSM was considering Glaxo company Smith Kline & French Laboratories’ Pluserix MMR vaccine for safety approval. The CSM approved Pluserix MMR but it caused very high levels of adverse reactions and was withdrawn by the manufacturers on very little notice in late 1992 leaving the Department of Health in an embarrassing position.
Large numbers of British children were injured and legal aid claims had already started from as early as 1991, five years before Wakefield became involved and contrary to The Sunday Times’claims that this was all a scam set up by Wakefield and solicitor Richard Barr.
Sitting on the CSM with Professor George Nuki was Professor Sir Roy Meadow and Professor Sir David Hull. Professor Sir Roy Meadow is now notorious for his evidence falsely condemning mothers around the world for killing their children. This includes the Sally Clark case where vaccines are directly implicated in the cause of death, as revealed by Neville Hodgkinson in The Spectator, (What killed Sally Clark’s child? | The Spectator 16 May 2007 ) but which were specifically discounted by Professor Meadow in his evidence, despite sitting on the joint CSM/JCVI vaccine safety sub-committee with the UK Department of Health’s Head of Immunisation Professor David Salisbury and others to approve the MMR vaccine.
It was Professor Sir David Hull in 1998 who, as chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, started the attacks on Wakefield’s work. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advises the Department of Health on vaccination issues and the childhood vaccination programme. As Chairman of the JCVI, Professor Sir David Hull could have taken action to deal with the issues over the MMR and protect British children. Despite his attacks on Wakefield’s work, alleging unethical research on children for no clinical benefit, two years later in 2000, it was Professor Sir David Hull who rewrote the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health ethical guidelines to permit research on children where there was no clinical benefit (albeit in The Royal Free’s case all the investigations were clinically justified).
The Sunday Times’ freelancer was assisted in his efforts with free advice and assistance from the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry funded and controlled company Medico Legal Investigations Limited. Medico Legal Investigations Limited speciality was in getting medical doctors on charges before the General Medical Council. So we know that before a single word was published by The Sunday Times, it was already being planned with the involvement of interested parties that Wakefield and colleagues were to be taken before the GMC.
Another free of charge helper to Sunday Times’ journalist Deer was Glaxo Wellcome funded Fellow and active British Medical Association member, Dr Evan Harris MP.Harris has advised and assisted Deer up to the present, including attending the Wakefield GMC hearings with Deer.
The Sunday Times’ freelance journalist was also assisted by The Royal Free’s Strategic Health Authority which in early 2004 passed Deer confidential documents ‘in the spirit of openness’. These included documents relating to the confidential medical treatment of the MMR child litigants. The SHA at first denied providing documents until it was pointed out the fact was disclosed by Dr Evan Harris MP, in Parliament on 15th March 2004.
In 2003 and later the freelance journalist was also being given illegally unofficial access [by a currently unconfirmed source] to confidential internal Royal Free documents. Deer had also by 2003 been provided illegally [by another currently unconfirmed source] with copies of documents from the British MMR litigation including detailed medical notes and histories and expert reports [text added 24/Jan/2010].
On Saturday 21 February 2004, Lancet Editor Richard Horton pre-empted the Sunday Times’ stories. Horton was reported in The Times claiming he would not have published the MMR part of The Royal Free’s Lancet paper had Wakefield’s paid involvement in the MMR litigation been disclosed. The Sunday Times had waited until Sunday 22 February 2004, 5 days before judgment in the MMR child litigants’ High Court challenge to the withdrawal of legal aid, to publish its stories attacking Wakefield. Prime Minister Blair was reported in the press on the issue as was Health Secretary Reid.
As Dr Horton records in his book [“MMR Science and Fiction: Exploring the Vaccine Crisis,“], he was the next day exchanging notes over dinner and liqueurs with a member of the UK’s medical regulatory body, The General Medical Council on possible bases for GMC proceedings against Andrew Wakefield: [“The confusion”: Richard Horton – a remarkably frank passage‘ John Stone BMJ 2 November 2004]. Despite being consulted on the charges to be brought Horton was also later to be called as a witness for the GMC prosecution. [Added 25/1/2010]
After years out of government it was politically important to UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour government to have become and to remain electable to demonstrate it’s new credentials as friendly to UK business and commercial interests and “pro science”. The British drug company and vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline was also significant economically achieving annual worldwide drug sales by 2005 of £18.5 billion. Over one third of sales was for vaccines [£1.4 billion] and respiratory drugs [£5 billion] for treating asthma a chronic allergy condition which vaccines play a large part in causing [see further below onVaccines, Autism and Your Child’s Allergies]. [Added 24/1/2010]
That MMR is solely a political and money issue was given away by journalist Jeremy Laurance’s The Independent’s story of 24th February 2004. Laurance reported there was “delight” in Whitehall as “Ministers temper their triumphalism” and that “joy” was “unconfined at the discrediting of Andrew Wakefield“. [“Ministers temper their triumphalism but delight spreads at Whitehall” The Independent – Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Tuesday, 24 February 2004 ].
This was bizarre if the issue was just which measles vaccine might be given to children. There was an acceptable, cheaper and more effective measles vaccine. This was hardly stuff for Prime Minister Blair to involve himself in but even he jumped in with both feet.
However, in the light of the British government’s financial indemnity to Glaxo, the potential damage to billion pound sterling Glaxo’s financial interests from a scandal over the vaccine and the British government’s liability in negligence to large numbers of children, it starts to make sense. This also puts into clearer perspective why the choice of which measles vaccine children received became a major political issue. It had and has nothing to do with protecting your children from disease or child health safety. [blue text 15/Jan/09]
Legal aid was withdrawn on 27th February 2004 in a secret judgment by High Court Judge Nigel Davis. The reasons remain unpublished today. Evidence given in open court at a different hearing included the allegation from a parent that an official admitted to her that legal aid was withdrawn after government pressure.
It was discovered in 2007 that Judge Sir Nigel Davis is the brother of Lancet owner’s CEO and main Glaxo board member Sir Crispin Davis. When challenged a statement was issued on Judge Davis’ behalf to The Telegraph newspaper’s legal correspondent Joshua Rosenberg and stated “The possibility of any conflict of interest arising from his brother’s position did not occur to him.“
The outcome of an investigation by the Office for Judicial Complaints found no impropriety and resulted in no action taken regarding the relationship between Judge Davis and his brother Crispin Davis’ GlaxoSmithKline board position.
On 15th March 2004 Dr Evan Harris launched an unprecedented and defamatory Parliamentary attack on Wakefield and his Royal Free colleagues and to which not one of Harris’ Liberal Democrat colleagues contributed. This was based on material in documents Sunday Times’ freelancer Deer had obtained and passed to Harris. Harris used the opportunity to raise the allegations The Sunday Times chose not to publish after being dismissed by Lancet Editor Dr Richard Horton. This occurred following a meeting at The Lancet’s offices on 18 February 2004 at which Harris was present with Brian Deer and attended by Andrew Wakefield, John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch. Horton wrote of this in his book “The tension had been heightened…. by the shadowy presence of Evan Harris, a Liberal-Democrat Member of Parliament” and “Evan Harris, the MP who had mysteriously joined Brian Deer at the Lancet’s offices …” [Richard Horton,’MMR: Science and Fiction – Exploring the Vaccine Crisis’ Granta Books 2004, pps 3 & 7] [added 25/1/2010].
Harris later attended with Deer at the subsequent GMC hearings [added 27/Jan/2010].
Crispin Davis was awarded a knighthood June 2004.
Sunday Times’ freelance journalist Brian Deer confirmed numerous times on his website [later removed as reported in The Spectator online by journalist Melanie Phillips] that it was he who had made the submissions to the GMC which led to the present GMC proceedings against Wakefield. Wakefield’s lawyers had reported in November 2004 that Deer had made a statutory complaint to the GMC and freelancer Deer reported in the Sunday Times in December 2004 that the General Medical Council was investigating the complaints against Wakefield. In 2004 The Sunday Times journalist wrote three letters of complaint to the GMC: 25 February, 12 March and 1 July 2004 [added 24/Jan/2010].
Professor Denis McDevitt was due in July 2007 to chair the unprecedented British General Medical Council hearing of the case of Doctors Wakefield, Murch and Professor Walker-Smith. McDevitt and the GMC failed to declare McDevitt’s personal involvement in approving the dangerous Pluserix MMR vaccine in 1988. He only stood down after Jamie Doward of the Observer, Martyn Halle, freelance journalist for the Sunday Express, Andy Wilks of the Mail on Sunday, Jenny Hope of the Daily Mail and Heather Mills of Private Eye challenged the GMC over the matter. [“MMR Conflict of Interest Zone” Private Eye – June 2007]
A British Medical Journal post suggests more troubling conflicts of interest of the current panel Chairman Dr Surendra Kumar. Kumar sits on two committees of the authority which licences the MMR vaccine (MHRA), the Independent Review Panel for Advertising and the Independent Review Panel for Borderline Products. Dr Kumar is also a shareholder in MMR defendants GlaxoSmithKline. “Re: Financial conflicts – shock horror” John Stone – British Medical Journal – 2 October 2008″ [Blue text 15/Jan/09]
Contrary to Lancet Editor Dr Richard Horton’s evidence to the GMC that he did not know of Wakefield’s paid involvement in the MMR litigation, Horton had detailed correspondence in 1997 disclosing that involvement The correspondence was with Richard Barr, the solicitor who was working on the MMR litigation with Wakefield to help all those seriously injured British children. This correspondence was considerably in advance of Horton’s February 1998 publication in The Lancet of the Royal Free’s paper containing the interpretation that MMR vaccine is associated with autism cases involving inflammatory bowel disease.
Notwithstanding this, the alleged non disclosure of the legal aid funding to Lancet Editor, Dr Richard Horton and the publication of the 1998 Royal Free paper was the nub of Deer’s The Sunday Times’ February 2004 attacks on Wakefield where it was claimed:-
“The investigation has found that when [Wakefield] warned parents to avoid MMR, and published research claiming a link with autism, he did not disclose he was being funded through solicitors seeking evidence to use against vaccine manufacturers. “
Now we know from this that Horton’s claims do not stand up and with them, those of The Sunday Times fall as well. But of course, not a word in the UK media.
Another key allegation in The Sunday Times’ journalist’s complaints to the GMC was that The Royal Free’s treatment of seriously ill autistic children with serious bowel disorder reported in the 1998 Lancet paper was simply research carried out without ethical approval. But the journalist was referring to the wrong ethical approval granted in December 1996 reference 172-96 when the applicable ethical approval was granted in 1995 reference 162-95. Ethics approval 162-95 was produced by Professor Walker-Smith’s defence team lawyers in the GMC. The production of this evidence contradicted numerous of the GMC’s allegations of professional misconduct against the doctors. In the 90 pages of GMC charges there are 113 references to 172-96.[added 25/Jan/2010].
It seems had it not been for the complaints by The Sunday Times’ freelance journalist or the claims of Lancet Editor Dr Richard Horton, there may never have been any GMC case brought: [“Wakefield unlikely to be charged over MMR scare” – By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Sunday, 29 February 2004]. [added 25/Jan/2010].
Horton has not returned to the GMC Wakefield hearing this week [13/Jan/09] to clarify his evidence and face cross-examination. It seems only his statement will be read out.
As for the Legal Aid money, for months in 1996 the Royal Free Medical School prevaricated accepting it because “Clearly, this could lead to a case against the Government for damages.” wrote Dean Zuckerman privately to the British Medical Association Secretary on 11th October 1996.
What no one knows and disclosed here publicly exclusively worldwide for the first time is that when The Sunday Times published its allegations against Wakefield in 2004 their journalist already had the documents showing Wakefield – a man accused of doing what he did for the money – was fed up with this and had arranged in May 1997 for all the legal aid monies to be sent back and that he had intended to raise the money himself for the injured children [see copy Freedom of Information memo below – added 17/Jan/09].
It was the Royal Free which instead then reversed its position, decided to accept the money and arranged in July 1997 for it to be paid to special trustees. Wakefield was never going to and never did receive a cent.
Wakefield’s Recent Summary of Sunday Times’ freelance journalist’s Complaints to GMC
Writing recently in the Autism File magazine [July 2009] Andrew Wakefield summarised the position regarding the allegations in The Sunday Times’ journalist’s complaints to the General Medical Council:-
Myths: The Lancet paper
was funded by the Legal Aid Board (LAB)
False – Not one penny of LAB money was spent on The Lancet paper. An LAB grant was provided for a separate viral detection study. This study, completed in 1999, does disclose the source of funding. The Lancet paper had been submitted for publication before the LAB grant was even available to be spent.
my involvement as a medical expert was kept ‘secret’
False – At least one year before publication, my senior co-authors, the Head of Department and the Dean of the Medical School7, and the CEO of the hospital were informed by me. This fact was also reported in the national press months prior to publication.
children were ‘sourced’ by lawyers to sue vaccine manufacturers
False – Children were referred, evaluated, and investigated on the basis of their clinical symptoms alone, following referral from the child’s physician.
children were litigants
False – At the time of their referral to the Royal Free – the time material to their inclusion in The Lancet paper – none of the children were litigants .
I had an undisclosed conflict of interest
False – The Lancet’s disclosure policy at that time was followed to the letter. Documentary evidence confirms that the editorial staff of The Lancet were fully aware that I was working as an expert on MMR litigation well in advance of the paper’s publication.
did not have Ethics Committee (EC) approval
False – The research element of the paper that required such an approval – detailed systematic analysis of children’s intestinal biopsies – was covered by the necessary EC approval.
I ‘fixed’ data and misreported clinical findings
False – There is absolutely no basis in fact for this claim and it has been exposed as false.
findings have not been independently replicated
False – The key findings of LNH and colitis in ASD children have been independently confirmed in 5 different countries.
has been retracted by most of the authors
False – 11 of 13 authors issued a retraction of an interpretation [that MMR vaccine causes autism]. This interpretation is not provided in the paper. While it remains a possibility, a possibility cannot be retracted.
the work is discredited
False – Those attemping to discredit the work have relied upon the myths above. The findings described in the paper are novel and important.
In February 2008, award winning best selling author David Kirby broke the story of the case of Hannah Poling and how the US Department of Health and Human Services secretly conceded [ie. there was no need for a hearing] in a US Federal Court case that Hannah’s symptoms of autism were caused by the nine vaccines [ie. not just MMR] which she received in one day [The Vaccine-Autism Court Document Every American Should Read – David Kirby – Huffington Post – February 26, 2008].
The official HHS position is that they conceded [whether frankly or spin] that vaccines caused Hannah’s autistic symptoms by exacerbating an underlying mitochondrial disorder. The case put the issue high up the US political agenda and continues to receive coast-to-coast media coverage in the USA [but almost total silence in the UK]. CNN lists the autism issue in its top ten US health stories of 2008:-
#2 – Autism – “Debate over the causes of autism continued to rage after a court decided to compensate a family whose daughter developed the disorder after receiving childhood vaccinations” – Autism in CNN’s 2008 top ten US health stories
But Hannah’s case is not isolated and her “underlying” mitochondrial dysfunction appears not to be as rare as the US HHS would like us to think [Explaining Vaccines Autism & Mitochondrial Disorder]. And other cases have been made public [see below for details of another three involving MMR – but we do not know how many cases have been settled quietly, as Hannah’s case was before it became coast-to-coast news in the USA throughout 2008].
US Autism prevalence was put on the US presidential political agenda by all US presidential candidates in 2008:-
US President Barak Obama: “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. …. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.” “Obama Climbs On The Vaccine Bandwagon” – April 22, 2008 – David Kirby, Huffington Post]
“You do not want to bring your children into the world where we go on with the number of children who are born with autism tripling every 20 years, and nobody knows why,” Bill Clintonsaid.
In addition to the Hannah Poling case, the US Court also ruled last year in favour of a little boy Benjamin Zeller, deciding that as a result of the MMR vaccination received on 17 November 2004, Benjamin, suffered persistent, intractable seizures, encephalopathy, and developmental delay [US Court Rules In Favour Of Family In MMR Vaccine Case Ben Zeller J].
the judgement states the US Department of Health and Human Services had no alternative explanation beyond “Unconfirmed speculation by a few treating doctors, as with Dr. Wiznitzer’s hypothesization“
the standard of proof being applied in this US Court is identical to that in the English Court.
just like the English Court, these cases are decided by judge alone sitting without a jury [and that means better decisions on fact and evidence – no decisions from jury sympathy for the claimant]
In Banks v. HHS (Case 02-0738V, 2007 U.S. Claims LEXIS 254, July 20, 2007) MMR vaccine administered in March 2000 and the child was diagnosed with Pervasive Development Disorder [ie. Autistic Spectrum Disorder] secondary to acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). There have also been other reported cases. Michelle Cedillo’s case was one of the first three test cases. Michelle’s was a test case of whether Thiomersal and/or MMR vaccines were the cause of her autism and panapoly of other disorders.
The three test cases were unsucessful with judgements given in early 2009. Michelle Cedillo’s MMR case is under appeal. Just as The Sunday Times Journalist Brian Deer published stories in the UK immediately before the English Court judgment by Judge Davis [brother of Glaxo Director and Lancet CEO Crispin Davis] Deer published again, visiting the USA the week of the US Court decision. He had been also selectively passing documents about the UK litigation to the attorneys for the US defendant the Department of Health and Human Services. [Amended red 18/Jan/10].
The high and rising prevalence of autism brings into stark question the risk-vs-risk ratio of disease-vs-vaccines. In a recent authoritative peer refereed study [January 7, 2009] researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven-to-eight-fold increase in the number of children born with autism in California since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating: [Press release “UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute study shows California’s autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis” – full text of study found here – “The Rise in Autism and the Role of Age at Diagnosis” Epidemiology 20:1 January 2009]. This authoritative new US study shows:-
the substantial increase in autism is real and
must be caused by environmental factors and cannot be genetic
cannot be explained away as better diagnosis and greater awareness
New figures from the US show a doubling of autism in 5 years [ie. 2002-6 – see Table 1]. This represents US government tax dollars paid out.
TABLE 1 – USA SOCIAL SECURITY AUTISM FIGURES 2002-6
SSI RECIPIENTS
COUNTS FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN
RECEIVING BENEFITS
FOR AUTISTIC & OTHER PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENT DISORDERS
AS OF DECEMBER IN 2002 – 2006
As Of December In Year
Children 21 and under
Adults 1/
All Recipients
2002
38,324
7,360
45,684
2003
44,076
9,282
53,358
2004
51,581
11,450
63,031
2005
59,479
13,647
73,126
2006
68,050
16,190
84,240
1/ INCLUDES PERSONS AGE 65 AND OVER WITH CLAIM TYPE = DISABILITY.
The US Inter-Agency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) has voted to recommend earmarking millions of dollars in research funds from the Combating Autism Act of 2006 to study the possible role of vaccines in the causation of autism – [“Top Federal Autism Panel Votes For Millions in Vaccine Research” – David Kirby – The Huffington Post – January 5, 2009].
Further recent news from the USA indicates US President Barak Obama is serious on the vaccines-to-autism issue [“TV’s Gupta Chosen for US Surgeon General” – By Ceci Connolly and Howard Kurtz – Washington Post Staff Writers – Wednesday, January 7, 2009].
And what is the British Department of Health doing about this? It seems nothing whatsoever, even though at the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee 17th June 2008 MPs and Peers heard Cambridge autism expert Professor Simon Baron-Cohen concede to a questioner that more research into the vaccine/autism connection is needed and that a recent study indicates autism costs the UK £28 Billion pa. The £28 billion figure includes hidden costs, like costs of people taken out of the economy, whether those affected or their carers. [LSE “Economic Consequences of Autism in the UK” – Study by team led by Professor Martin Knapp [Executive Summary] [NB. The main defect in the research is the assumption there are 433,000 are adults (aged 18 and over) who have autistic spectrum disorders. We have the research to show there are approximately 107,000 children but there is not such a number of adults, the 433,000 being a projection based on the numbers of children.]
Here are some of the politics and cronyism of Labour’s approach to burying the autism problem. Surprisingly, we do not have any official “body count” of autistic children and adults. All we have is the “first ever” prevalence study commissioned by the DoH in 2008 [announced by Ivan Lewis] but seemingly involving “Tony’s Cronies”. “Department of Health announces adult autism strategy” – Thursday, 8-May-2008.
The study is to find all the adult autistics who should exist [to prove autism has always been this high] and is not due to report until this year. Minister Tessa Jowell’s first husband and New Labour stalwart, Roger Jowell’s old company, NatCen is involved. NatCen (The National Centre for Social Research) is billed as a “not-for-profit” company and works almost exclusively for government and governmental organisations. : [“University of Leicester to lead audit of adults with autism” Eurekalert – 9-May-2008].
To prove autism has always been this high the authors must find approximately 400,000 adult autistics in the UK and their assumed approx 400,000 carers. But there cannot be that many. Office for National Statistics figures show the total number of adults caring for a dependent adult or relative in September 2001 for any reason was 326,000: [Data source: “Census figures Table 1-7 “The economically inactive who look after the family or home“]
Measles Comparison
See here how the risk to children in Western economies from measles is now insignificant for the vast majority MEASLES MORTALITY UK & USA.
In addition to the new MMR vaccine, in 1990 infants were also “hit” with the “accelerated” DTP vaccine schedule – receiving three DTP shots – one each at 2, 3 and 4 months. Prior to this the intervals were 3, 5 and 9 to 12 months of age. The DTP vaccine contained a highly neurotoxic ingredient. The ingredient was an organo-mercury excipient called “Thiomersal” [“Thimerosal” in the USA]. Thiomersal is toxic in parts per billion – in extremely small dilutions. The vaccine was The Wellcome Foundation’s Trivax AD DTP vaccine. The Wellcome Foundation is now GlaxoSmithKline.Thiomersal was first introduced by pharmaceutical company Merck in the 1930s and was not clinically trialled for safety in use in vaccines.
Research shows that children with autism appear to have deficient mechanisms for expelling toxins like mercury and it accumulates in the body.
Revealed here exclusively worldwide for the first time, information obtained under the UK’s Freedom of Information law confirms the British MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency] has no data on how much Thiomersal was in Trivax AD DTP vaccine. Although the British DoH [Department of Health] claimed publicly to have known, that claim therefore appears incorrect.
Video:University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine – How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Degeneration
Thiomersal is also known to induce allergy. Many children, in particular those with regressive autism, have serious problems with allergies. Some have exceptionally high levels of IgE, [the allergic antibody immunoglobulin E].
The date of the rise can be tracked back to 1990 using publicly available data. This increase has occurred in parallel with significant increases in other disorders like autism, asthma and childhood diabetes.
Thiomersal is a well recognised cause of allergies: [The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products – Medicines Evaluation Unit – Safety Working Party Assessment of the Toxicity of Thiomersal in Relation to Its Use in Medicinal Product SCPMP/SWP/I898/1998 – 8 September 1998].
Thiomersal is not the only component of vaccines which causes allergy. Adjuvants are an ingredient in almost all vaccines and cause allergy. US biotech company BioSante’s CEO, Steve Simes said on the launch of their new adjuvant:-
The problem with most adjuvants is that they can cause allergies,” said Simes. “Ours might not be as potent as others, but it is safer.”
And again revealed here exclusively worldwide for the first time is the recent British 2006-7 Parliamentary session House of Lords Science and Technology Committee Report “Allergy” [6th Report of Sesssion] makes no mention whatsoever ofany vaccine or of Thiomersal in vaccines or as being a cause of the exponential rise in childhood allergies which has occurred since 1990 in the UK [Amended 18/Jan/10].
The use of Thiomersal in other pharmaceuticals [eg. contact len cleaning fluid] has been strictly controlled in Europe: CPMP Position Paper on Thiomersal – Implementation of the Warning Statement Relating to Sensitisation. The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products London, 21 October 1999 CPMP/2612/99]
Thiomersal contains 50% by weight of mercury. There is no safe limit – only a “permitted daily/weekly tolerable” limit. This is measured in parts per million per kilogramme of body weight. Those limits apply when ingested in food]. This neurotoxic organo-mercury compound was injected directly into infants’ bodies at a time their bodies and nervous systems were developing the most rapidly at any time in their lives. The amount of thiomersal claimed to be in Trivax AD DTP vaccine was 50 millionths of a gramme injected directly into the body.
A 4 kilo weight 2 month old baby would have received in one injection 63 times higher than the permitted tolerable daily intake in food set by the US Environmental protection Agency and the UK’s Committee on Toxicity.
To protect infants the PTWI set by the UK Committee on Toxicity for intake of mercury compounds in food for women who are pregnant, or who may become pregnant within the following year, or for breast-feeding mothers is one tenth of a millionth of gramme per kilogramme of body weight per day – for a 9 stone woman [57 kg] that is 5.7 millionths of a gram per day.
Calculation of an infant’s daily and overall body burden of toxic mercury must also include the burden from environmental pollution. [Sources include mercury in the air from power station emissions and in fish as a result of oceanic pollution by anti-fouling applied to ships’ hulls. Mercury is liquid at room temperature and evaporates forming a toxic vapour in the air].
Also revealed here worldwide for the first time under Freedom of Information is that the British Government also had no data on Thiomersal content of many other vaccines around that time and some had more than claimed by the British government was in DTP. Examples are Duncan Flockhart’s DTP vaccine – 130 millionths of a gramme thiomersal per millilitre and Lister Institute Pertussis vaccine – 120 mcg/ml Thiomersal. Accordingly, this brings into question how much was in Trivax AD DTP vaccine.
The British Government also hid this lack of knowledge from Parliament. A further revelation made here exclusively worldwide for the first timeis that British Health Minister Hazel Blears MP misled the English Parliament in 2001 when she said in a Parliamentary answer that“All childhood vaccines licensed since 1986 which have ever contained thiomersal as an excipient are listed in the table” [to the answer]. [House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 3 Jul 2001 (pt 19)]. The table contained no such details and listed only those vaccines granted a licence in the UK since 1993.
Julie Kirkbride MP had asked for the “vaccines …. licensed since 1986 which contain thiomersal“.
If you are asked have you been licensed to drive your car since 2006, you will answer “yes” even if you have held a licence since 1980. Blears’ answer was in fact the answer to the question of the “vaccines granted a licence since 1986 which contain Thiomersal”.
The British Government claims Thiomersal was phased out of its childhood vaccines in October 2004 [but vaccine stocks may have taken longer to run down and how safe is what has replaced it?].
A previously confidential 1991 internal Merck memorandum published by the USA’s Los Angeles Times shows the UK authorities had then known about the problem and were privately expressing concern to the vaccine manufacturer about the presence of mercury in vaccines. This was along with Sweden, Japan and Switzerland: [‘91 Memo Warned of Mercury in Shots – By Myron Levin – LA Times – February 08, 2005].
So why did they take 13 years to do something about it and why did they and do they continue to tell the British public there is and was no problem when they knew there was and is? And as vaccines also alter the functioning of the immune system, the removal of Thiomersal may well not be the only factor affecting the increases in autism, asthma, allergies and childhood diabetes. [see above – US Court Decisions and Other Recent Developments].
On 7-8 June 2000, a confidential private meeting without public scrutiny took place between vaccine manufacturers’ representatives, 51 US scientists, and a representative of the World Health Organization. This was to discuss a study by US Centers for Disease Control expert Dr Thomas Verstraeten of increasing doses of Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Verstraeten used US Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) data, an official US governmental data bank on the children from US health maintenance organizations (HMOs).
Verstraeten’s study showed a dose-response relationship between Thimerosal in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders in children that held up to rigorous statistical analyses. This means Verstraeten’s study showed a causal association between the amount of Thimerosal in vaccines a child received and the extent to which the child developed the symptoms of impaired brain development . These ranged from tics, speech impairment to symptoms of and full autism. The discussions can be read in the transcript of the Simpsonwood Conference obtained by US organisaton SafeMinds under Freedom of Information.
Three years later Dr Thomas Verstraeten, MD, MSc [now working for GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Belgium] published a different paper in the journal Pediatrics: [“Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases“. Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, et al. Pediatrics.2003; 112 :1039 –1048]. The new paper included another set of data from a third HMO, reorganised the criteria for inclusion of children and restructured the patient groupings, and a less than statistically significant link was demonstrated. It was heavily criticised by campaigners and concerned experts. Verstraeten published a vigorous letter in his defence in which he rejected any suggestion of impropriety: [“Thimerosal, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and GlaxoSmithKline“]: PEDIATRICS Vol. 113 No. 4 April 2004, pp. 932.
What can be said about this? When Verstraeten was a public official working for the US CDC there was a serious problem. When Verstraeten was working for GlaxoSmithKline there was no problem.
The IOM committee held closed meetings to discuss the report’s content and before considering the evidence. A transcript of a meeting on 12th January 2001 was disclosed in Court proceedings [US District Court of Texas, Eastern District; Case #5:03-CV-141].
Here are some quotes from the transcript:-
[the Centers for Disease Control] “wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis.” [p33]
“We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday, the point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is to pull the vaccine, change the schedule. We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy. We wouldn’t say compensate, we wouldn’t say pull the vaccine, we wouldn’t say stop the program.” [p74]
“we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect,” [p97]
“Chances are, when all is said and done, we are still going to be in this category. It is just a general feeling that we probably still are not going to be able to make a statement,” [p123]
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In the US the official diagnostic definition of what we call “Autism Spectrum Disorders” or ASD are instead called “Pervasive Development Disorders” or PDD for short. That is under the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edn)” or “DSM IV” for short.
“Autistic Spectrum Disorder” is the term applied internationally under the “ICD” or “International Classification of Disease”
Many refer to ASD and PDD as “autism” but “autism” is a subset of the spectrum and is often referred to also as “childhood autism”, “typical autism” and “Kanner autism”. [The common behaviours like hand flapping, loss of eye contact and suchlike in young children are unmistakable, whereas other spectrum disorders like mild Aspergers Syndrome can be more difficult to diagnose.]
Copyright ChildHealthSafety 2009 – The authors hereby assert their moral rights. All rights reserved.
There seems to be nothing like the numbers of adult autistics compared to children in the USA – see the graphs below.
In 2005, even with claimed “better diagnosing and greater awareness” comparative numbers [ie. not total figures for the USA]:-
5800 children age 3 to 5 – [ie. only a 3 year age gap]
275 adults aged 52 to 61 – [ie. over 10 year age gap]
63 adults aged 62 to 99 – [ie. over 38 year age gap]
If children older than 3-5 were included so that the age ranges were comparable with the adults, the increases would be greater still.
Children Aged 3 – 5
Graph 1
Autistic children aged 3 to 5 in CDDS Data for period 1992 – 2005
ADULTS
If autism had always been at the levels seen in children, you would expect the numbers in adults to climb to similar levels as in children or even faster if no one was looking at anyone of these older ages much before 1992. But the figures are much lower for adults.
Graph 2
Autistic Adults aged 52 – 61 in CDDS Data for period 1992 – 2005
Graph 3
Autistic Adults aged 62-99 in CDDS Data for period 1992 – 2005
Dr Sanjay Gupta has just been nominated as US Surgeon General by President Obama. Gupta has been open about the problem of vaccines causing autism. So Obama seems to mean business on this issue.
So what does this all mean? We will have to wait and see.
Gupta’s credentials in other areas are open to question, such as his drug industry potential conflicts of interests over SSRI (antidepressants) and his enthusiasm for Gardasil vaccine.
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