Former NIH director - vaccine autism link "government too quick to dismiss concerns."

[mzmolly]

CBS NEWS
Healy goes on to say public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are “susceptible” to vaccine side effects - afraid the answer will scare the public.

"You're saying that public health officials have turned their back on a viable area of research largely because they're afraid of what might be found?" Attkisson asked.

Healy said: "There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. "First of all," Healy said, "I think the public’s smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don’t think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you’re afraid of what it might show."

I urge everyone to watch this stunning interview at the link above.

"I don't believe the truth ever scares people." ~ Dr. Bernadine Healy

Bravo to this brave and honest woman.

[NNadir]

1. This post sets the record for the worst thinking I have ever seen.

The absence of a hypothesis is not the same as the production of a truth.

The onus is on the ignorance squad - that would be the squad of people who speciously attack the greatest public health triumph of all time, vaccination - to prove an assoication between autism and vaccination, not to claim that the association exists because no one has researched it.

No one has investigated whether or not the moon is made from green cheese. No one would get a grant to do it. These two facts do not establish that the moon is made of green cheese.

There has been lots of public whining about autism and vaccination from a large overly publicized scientifically illiterate mass.

What is claimed is a very dubious accounting of mercury. In fact, the largest source of mercury in human flesh is not vaccination. It's not even close, not even remotely close.

The largest source of mercury in the environment and in flesh is coal fired power plants.

I note that the primary reason that there are so many coal plants is similar scientific illiteracy, expressed by the anti-nuke cults.

Got smallpox?

[mzmolly]

2. Apparently you haven't watched the video

or read the article.

[NNadir]

13. No, I haven't. I perfer to read something called "science."

I get my information from the primary scientific literature, not pop sources.

I need not cite one of these sources though to point out that the thinking of the OP is terrible.

Sometimes I wonder why this country has suffered through 8 years of G.W. Bush, and then I recall the kind of "proof" that says things like "Saddam Hussein is an enemy of the United States. Enemies of the United States attacked the World Trade Center. Therefore Saddam Hussein attacked the World Trade Center."

This is exactly the equivalent of saying. "Autism rates are rising. Vaccination rates are rising. Therefore vaccination causes autism."

In fact, there is considerable evidence that the "increase" in autism rates is an artifact of better diagnosis. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/107/2/411

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/323/7313/633

The evidence for a decrease in the rate of death, from say, Polio is far less ambiguous.

Of course, Polio is easily diagnosed and the cause is definitively known, every single fragment of the molecular biology and epidemiology.

Not so anti-vaccine ignorance.

The fact is that there is NOT ONE ignoramus who opposes vaccination who has the remotest clue of what Polio epidemics are like or what Smallpox epidemics are like.

People used to die in vast numbers from these diseases. There is NOT ONE scientific illiterate who can do even the simplest risk analysis. Even if vaccines caused autism - and there's not a shred of evidence that they do - they might still be extremely advisable.

Some people have severe anaphylactic reactions to pennicillin. Some of these reactions are even fatal. This does not imply that Penicillin was a "pharmaceutical company plot." My grandmother died from a simple bacterial infection. I might have similarly died, except ignorance wasn't acceptable when I was a kid.

[mzmolly]

14. And have people stopped taking penicillin?

I imagine Dr. Healy is interested in "science" as well? Must be why she's calling for well designed lab studies like this one?

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7712/7712.html

As to the tiresome "opposition to vaccination" straw-man ... I'll now consider you anti-penicillin as you noted that some people have a reaction when they are exposed. We'd be better off not knowing that apparently?

[eridani]

16. Refusing to look for possible vulnerable subsets of kids--

--is exactly like refusing to do the elementary testing at birth for PKU. The decision not to do that is not based on science.

[Beregond2]

3. If she thinks the truth

doesn't scare people, she is an idiot.

They don't want to pursue research into an area that they are pretty sure won't turn-up any problems, when to do so might scare people from getting their kids vaccinated, a far more dangerous situation.

I'm sorry, but I think this whole vaccination/autism theory is a crock. I don't think there are any more autistic children now than there have ever been. They are just being diagnosed more accurately.

These crackpot theories always crop up when people get panicked about a "new" health problem. It happened with Polio, with AIDS. Why people want to imagine that the health care establishment is really engaged in mass murder schemes is beyond me.

[mzmolly]

4. Watch the

video please.

[sam sarrha]

5. i have aspergers syndrome, when i was a kid i was essentially nonverbal, couldn't look at faces, i

have to deal with people's attitudes about not looking at their eyes and being nonverbal at 59, i have good verbal skills, i worked hard as a child to increase my vocabulary, i have a functional OCB- a fascination with the parts of things.. really handy in science with Nomenclature. i am somewhat a Savant in science/mechanical/systems analysis.

they ignore so many variables..

http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/tesla/ballsci.txt

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_vNON4/ai_4436770

i was a seeker of "Universal Truth" all my life, i did find it...

"FOR ANY GIVEN EVENT THERE WILL BE VARIABLES, AND THE VARIABLES WILL VARY".
Gary Combs 1973

after i discovered that, i became a Buddhist, Nothing Inherently Exists.

[mzmolly]

9. There are strengths to be found in various "conditions"

depending upon severity of course.

[Warpy]

6. Her field was cardiology and she hasn't practiced that for a long time

having gone into administrative work.

I would still say that the research can still be done. However, there has been absolutely no statistical link between vaccine and autism found in extensive research thus far. Antivaccination zealots shouldn't get their hopes too high over this new wrinkle, either.

What has been demonstrated is that autism is a more complex disease than once thought, that it is tied to several genetic markets, that children of parents with mental disorders are at greater risk, and that children who later developed autism were found to have cord abnormalities at birth.

All that points to a disease that is congenital and quite probably genetic.

Autism is devastating and research will undoubtedly be ongoing into the precise mechanism in the hope of discovering better treatments and quite possibly prevention. It is just a shame that antivaccination zealots continue to divert research dollars to their crusade against life saving vaccines.

[mzmolly]

7. I really would encourage you

to watch the video.

[Orrex]

8. She's wrong--the truth is the primary thing that scares people.

Beyond that, she's saying nothing new, other than "let's look at it some more." Cool. Let's do that. But let's do it as she proposes, in a way designed to quell hysteria rather than foment it, as the anti-vax mob tends to do.

Her claims are somewhat reasonable, and her stance is clearly not anti-vaccine, which is rare and admirable. However, arguments based on some "special succeptibility to mercury" are based on a blind assumption; before we make any policy based on that assumption, we need evidence in support of it.

Also, her argument has little bearing on the "vaccines cause autism" crowd, because I'm sure she's well aware that Thimerosal isn't in pediatric vaccines any longer. If the claim instead is that "mercury causes autism," then let's see the studies in support of this hypothesis.


Thanks for the video, but really it adds little to the discussion that wasn't part of the discussion already.

[mzmolly]

10. Actually,

mercury is still contained in trace amounts in various vaccines, and in larger amounts in some others. Also no one has suggested that vaccines are THE cause of autism. What some have suggested is that they may play a role in some cases (mercury being one of the potential issues.)

"Her claims are somewhat reasonable, and her stance is clearly not anti-vaccine, which is rare and admirable."

Her claims are much like many of us here who have staked out a similar position and are deemed "anti-vax" in spite of also being reasonable.

Thanks for the reply Orrex.

[Orrex]

11. You're welcome

You're right about the "trace amounts," but here are a few a useful snippets:

During the recent controversy over the safety of thimerosal in vaccines, toxicologists have assumed that the toxicity of ethylmercury is equivalent to the toxicity of methylmercury. The primary environmental exposure is through consumption of predator fish. A 6-ounce can of tuna fish contains an average of 17 micrograms of mercury. A pediatric dose of hepatitis B vaccine contains very little more mercury than that.

and

The FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research (CBER) began by adding up the total amount of mercury given to children through vaccines in the U.S. immunization schedule. Thimerosal was present in over 30 licensed vaccines in the U.S. in concentrations of 0.003% to 0.01%. According to the agency's calculations, an infant six months old, receiving all vaccine doses on schedule, would receive:

75 micrograms of mercury from three doses of DTP,
75 micrograms from three doses of Hib, and
37.5 micrograms from three doses of hepatitis B vaccine;

for a total of 187.5 micrograms of mercury.

That second one is important because it refers specifically to vaccines that do contain Thimerosal, and even the amounts of mercury are incredibly small. How much smaller would they be in the Thimerosal-free vaccines commonly in use since 2000?

It should additionally be noted that ethylmercury is not metabolized in the same was as methylmercury, but guidelines about the safety of Thimerosal were based on data pertaining to methylmercury; data for ethylmercury was limited, so for the sake of caution it was assumed that the two forms are metabolized in roughly equivalent ways.

In short, even in the worst case possible, the amount of mercury absorbed from an entire course of vaccines is very small even when compared with other environmental sources of mercury, which in any case isn't the same form of mercury as what comes out of Thimerosal.


Excerpts from www.healing-arts.org

[mzmolly]

12. Did you catch the portion of the video when Dr. Healy

noted primate studies and called for more specific testing?

Here is a sample of what she was referring to:

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7712/7712.html

Recent publications have proposed a direct link between the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines and the significant rise in the number of children being diagnosed with autism, a serious and prevalent developmental disorder (for review, see IOM 2001). Results from an initial IOM review of the safety of vaccines found that there was not sufficient evidence to render an opinion on the relationship between ethylmercury exposure and developmental disorders in children (IOM 2001). The IOM review did, however, note the possibility of such a relationship and recommended further studies be conducted. A recently published second review (IOM 2004) appears to have abandoned the earlier recommendation as well as backed away from the American Academy of Pediatrics goal. This approach is difficult to understand, given our current limited knowledge of the toxicokinetics and developmental neurotoxicity of thimerosal, a compound that has been (and will continue to be) injected in millions of newborns and infants.

The key findings of the present study are the differences in the disposition kinetics and demethylation rates of thimerosal and MeHg. Consequently, MeHg is not a suitable reference for risk assessment from exposure to thimerosal-derived Hg. Knowledge of the biotransformation of thimerosal, the chemical identity of the Hg-containing species in the blood and brain, and the neurotoxic potential of intact thimerosal and its various biotransformation products, including ethylmercury, is urgently needed to afford a meaningful interpretation of the potential developmental effects of immunization with thimerosal-containing vaccines in newborns and infants. This information is critical if we are to respond to public concerns regarding the safety of childhood immunizations.

[chicagomd]

20. At least be honest:

"Also no one has suggested that vaccines are THE cause of autism."

Really? You mean like Generation Rescue?

http://web.archive.org/web/20060814210419/www.generationrescue.org/index2.html
"Generation Rescue believes that childhood neurological disorders such as autism, Asperger's, ADHD/ADD, speech delay, sensory integration disorder, and many other developmental delays are all misdiagnoses for mercury poisoning."


http://web.archive.org/web/20060903221417/www.generationrescue.org/mercury_child.html
"Sources
The sources of mercury poisoning in your child, in likely order of impact, include:
1. Thimerosal From Vaccines"

So, not THE cause of autism. Just the number one source for the cause of autism...right? No. Not anti-vaccine at all.

[cosmik debris]

21. Zing!

:rofl:

[mzmolly]

25. Not really.

Mercury comes in many forms as noted by the M.D. in his own post.

Zang!

[cosmik debris]

27. Your statement was false

Chicagomd proved it.

You got caught.

:rofl:

[mzmolly]

28. My statement was correct. In fact, HERE IT IS AGAIN.

Also no one has suggested that vaccines are THE cause of autism. What some have suggested is that they may play a role in some cases (*mercury being one of the potential issues.)

I stand by my remarks, in context.

[cosmik debris]

29. So, when you say "no one has suggested"

You mean "someone has suggested".

I understand now.

:crazy:

[mzmolly]

30. I meant what I said

and I stand by my assertion.

[cosmik debris]

31. And your assertion was proved false.

This is really funny because I have tried on several occasions to point out that there are many in this forum who lack the ability to distinguish truth from fiction. Just when I get frustrated with that argument, you come along and prove my point.

Thank you so much!

This is almost as rewarding as when 4moronicyears proved that amalgam was not dangerous. But he didn't even know it because he could not tell the difference between truth and fiction.

[mzmolly]

32. You prove once again you lack the ability to comprehend

English.

[cosmik debris]

33. Not as well as chicagomd.

He sure got your number in a hurry!

[mzmolly]

34. He did not negate my point.

But you sure were exicted in spite of that. ;)

[cosmik debris]

35. The longer you defend the indefensible position

The more I enjoy this!

[mzmolly]

36. How on earth did you make it off of my ignore list?

Back to ignore with you and your perpetual, juvenile nonsense.

[cosmik debris]

37. Fascinating! Please continue!

[Celebration]

38. What difference does it make?

I mean, seriously. Who says what about this issue isn't important. What IS important is whether or not the scientific experiments are set up in a way to catch potential problems, or to gloss over them.

Personally, I feel that it is important to clearly identify a potential problem with a medication or vaccine, and put it to the appropriate test. This is what the OP is about and I am not sure why so much attention is being paid to a side issue. If some fringe group wants to attribute all or most autism to mercury in vaccines, that says nothing about the main issue.

Do we want sceintific studies specifically designed to target potential problems? I vote yes, strongly. The public health people should want it too. Do the tests the detractors want. You know what? It could go either way, as far as I am concerned. Do the studies. I want to know. Don't delay. No excuses.

[Celebration]

23. I think she means at DU n/t

[mzmolly]

24. Vaccines are not the only source of mercury as noted in your own post.

However, I don't necessarily agree with the assertion you quote.

And, since we're being "honest" and all. ;)

http://web.archive.org/web/20060618035228/www.generationrescue.org/pdf/news/latimes2.pdf

And here's another bit of candor about vaccine makers and the "science."

http://www.naturalnews.com/023052.html

[Jim__]

15. Public health officials do not build confidence in the public health system by refusing to study ...

... selected issues.

A number of parents are afraid to vaccinate their children. There are too many stories about children being vaccinated and then, almost immediatley, getting autistic symptoms to be ignored. If you've listened to these parents, their claims cannot be dismissed out of hand. By dismissingf these claims out of hand, by refusing to study this issue, public health officials contribute to the fear of vaccines.

[Celebration]

17. Exactly true

The way to get people to drop their fear is to design studies in a way that accounts for all the worries and concerns of the detractors. To do studies "around" the issues only feeds the suspicions.

Now we have evidence that this was done purposefully. In terms of public health policy, this is counter productive, at a bare minimum.

[mzmolly]

18. Agreed, and some of us knew they refused

to seek answers.

We also knew that eventually the parents of these children would make a difference and the truth would come out. This does not make us anti-vaccine, it makes us pro scientific integrity.

[Tumbulu]

39. You are correct

I know many children who do not even have the tetanus vaccine- my biggest fear as it was the cause of children dying in the village I lived in in West Africa. Measle went around, no problem. But tetanus? There is no treatment that I know of, only sure painful death. It can only be prevented with the vaccine.

But these parents are truly scared of all vaccines. I am very frustrated that public health people recommend so many vaccines at such very young ages. Thus scaring many parents into going the no vaccine route altogether which is far more dangerous.

As you said all one has to hear is one story and then a parent becomes terrified.

Another way must be found. If there is a susceptible group, then figure out how to identify those children. For parents who are scared, give the vaccines more slowly to the children, one at a time. But don't scare people away from getting their children vaccinated for tetanus, polio and the other major life threatening contagious diseases.

[DemExpat]

40. Agreed.

And certainly stop bashing parents for their fears of all of these injections at such early age.

DemEx

[cosmik debris]

19. A Republican Political Appointee

After all the crap the republicans have pulled on the scientific community I wonder why people take them so seriously when a republican political appointee wants to talk about science?

Maybe we should also believe what the republican political appointees say about global warming. Or pollution. Or evolution.

I realize that this is not relevant to the facts in this individual case, but I am curious. How do you decide which republican political appointee to believe?

[Celebration]

22. *any* political appointee

Republicans sure seem to be far worse with regard to being unreliable scientifically, but they don't hold a monopoly on it.

I tend to look at motivation. If the person has a motivation to lie, then that raises a red flag. At times even the simplistic "follow the money" works.

Another thing I look at is which side of the fence they are on with regard to the flow of information. As an example, I would not trust anyone's viewpoint that wanted to shut down the EPA library, or anything like that. Open government is my biggest issue, so anyone that doesn't respond to FOIA requests, or blacks too many things out, or otherwise tries to impede the flow of information is not someone to be trusted.

For the above reasons, I do tend to give credence to whistleblower types. Usually there is a disincentive to be a whistleblower. Also, generally, they are releasing information that has been hidden.

And, though I know you said that this is not relevant in this case, my strong instinct is to believe this person in this case. She doesn't appear to have a strong motivation to lie, and it seems she wants more information to be known by doing very particular types of studies on autism and vaccines. Thus it seems to me that she is on the side of the public needing more scientific information of a certain type. That goes right along with "open government," which, again, is my number one issue (along with free speech, etc.)

[Jim__]

26. Well, in this case, she gives a very specific reference.

The Institute of Medicine 2004 Report. Only selected pages of the report are available online, but the whole report can be purchased.

I believe pages 9 through 12 of the report are sufficient to support her claims:

...

Rodent models suggest that reactions to some infectious agents (e.g., bornavirus and group A streptococcus) lead to somewhat specific neuronal cell death and evidence of autoimmune reactions in the developing and adult brains of rodents. The animals also exhibit abnormal behaviors. These immunological and behavioral findings are similar to those seen in some humans after infection: the behavior in children with PANDAS or in the animal models resembles the behavior constellations in children with autism. A similar set of comparisons can be made with mercury exposures (Bernard et al., 2001), although autism has never been documented as a consequence of high-dose mercury exposure, including acrodynia. While analogies are useful for hypothesis generation, they do not substitute for direct evidence.

Other evidence offered for the vaccine-autism hypothesis includes analogies between rodent behavior and human behavior as well as clinical observations of metabolic or immunologic differences between individuals with autism and normal subjects or subjects with other conditions. In the clinical studies, it is not clear to what extent the abnormalities are antecedents or are comorbid disease expressions, rather than causal factors. That is, it is possible that some people with autism, perhaps even a subgroup that could be identified at some time in the future by genetic markers, also have abnormal immune reactions and abnormal mercury metabolism but that vaccination does not cause these abnormalities, nor do they cause autism.

The committee notes several factors that limit acceptance at this time of the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. The evidence offered for the hypothesis includes data from in vitro experimental systems, analogies between rodent behavior, and human behavior and clinical observations that are at least as well explained as being comorbid disease expressions than as causal factors. That is, it is possible that some people with autism, perhaps even a subgroup that could eventually be identified by genetic markers, have abnormal immune reactions and abnormal mercury metabolism, but that vaccination of these individuals does not cause these abnormalities or autism itself. However, the experiments showing effects of thimerosal on biochemical pathways in cell culture systems and showing abnormalities in the immune system or metal metabolism in people with autism are provocative; the autism research community should consider the appropriate composition of the autism research portfolio with some of these new findings in mind. However, these experiments do not provide evidence of a relationship between vaccines or thimerosal and autism.

In the absence of experimental or human evidence that vaccination (either the MMR vaccine or the preservative thimerosal) affects metabolic, developmental, immune, or other physiological or molecular mechanisms that are causally related to the development of autism, the committee concludes that the hypotheses generated to date are theoretical only.

...

There are many examples in medicine of disorders defined by a constellation of symptoms that have multiple etiologies, and autism is likely to be among them. Determining a specific cause in the individual is impossible unless the etiology is known and there is a biological marker. Determining causality with population-based methods such as epidemiological analyses requires either a well-defined at-risk population or a large effect in the general population. Absent biomarkers, well-defined risk factors, or large effect sizes, the committee cannot rule out, based on the epidemiological evidence, the possibility that vaccines contribute to autism in some small subset or very unusual circumstances. However, there is currently no evidence to support this hypothesis either.

The committee concludes that much more research must be conducted on autism. However, research should be directed towards those lines of inquiry most supported by the current state of knowledge. The vaccine hypotheses are not currently supported by the evidence. Much remains unknown about the etiology or etiologies of autism. Furthermore, there have not been many studies on treatments for autism. Research should be directed towards better understanding the etiology or etiologies of autism and on treatments for autism.

While the committee strongly supports targeted research that focuses on better understanding the disease of autism, from a public health perspective the committee does not consider a significant investment in studies of the theoretical vaccine-autism connection to be useful at this time. The nature of the debate about vaccine safety now includes the theory by some that genetic susceptibility makes vaccinations risky for some people, which calls into question the appropriateness of a public health, or universal, vaccination strategy. However, the benefits of vaccination are proven and the hypothesis of susceptible populations is presently speculative. Using an unsubstantiated hypothesis to question the safety of vaccination and the ethical behavior of those governmental agencies and scientists who advocate for vaccination could lead to widespread rejection of vaccines and inevitable increases in incidences of serious infectious diseases like measles, whooping cough, and Hib bacterial meningitis.

The committee encourages that research on autism focus more broadly on the disorders’ causes of and treatments for it. Thus, the committee recommends a public health response that fully supports an array of vaccine safety activities. In addition the committee recommends that available funding for autism research be channeled to the most promising areas.

...