by 1 tal » Wed Oct 25, 2006 4:50 am
<br><br><br> <br>TV, AUTISM & THE ELITE – TODAY'S HIGH ALERT<br><br>Monday, October 23, 2006<br><br>Reports of a link between childhood disability and mercury are increasingly well known, thanks to the Internet. But now comes word, from CBS news among many other outlets, that television may be responsible for autism!<br><br>“Over the past few decades, there's been an amazing increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism. Some experts think this is due to broader diagnostic criteria for autism. Some point to vastly increased services for autistic children. Others think that something in the environment is triggering an autism epidemic. … It occurred to Cornell University management professor Michael Waldman, Ph.D., that the increase in autism cases came at the same time as increased opportunities for very young children to watch TV. Could it be, he wondered, that the explosion in children's TV programming, DVDs, VCRs, and video/computer games is behind the explosion in autism.”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/19/health/webmd/main2108841.shtml?source=RSSattr=Health_2108841">www.cbsnews.com/stories/2...th_2108841</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Is the above a parady? Not at all. A number of responsible people wish it were, however – and are disgusted with what they see as the sloppy science behind the reporting. Here are some reactions – first from an article entitled Autism’s bizarre TV Study, in Time Magazine, then one from Oped.com, TV As The Cause of Autism Study.<br><br>“Strange things happen when you apply the statistical methods of economics to medical science. You might say you get dismal science, but that's a bit glib. You certainly get some strange claims — like the contention of three economists that autism may be caused by watching too much television at a tender age. It gets stranger still when you look at the data upon which this argument is based. The as yet unpublished Cornell University study, which will be presented Friday at a health economics conference in Cambridge, Mass., is constructed from an analysis of reported autism cases, cable TV subscription data and weather reports. Yes, weather reports. And yet, it all makes some kind of sense in the realm of statistics. And it makes sense to author Gregg Easterbrook, who stirred the blogosphere this week with an article about the study on Slate, provocatively (and perhaps irresponsibly) titled ‘TV Really Might Cause Autism.’”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1548682,00.html">www.time.com/time/health/...82,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>“Message to the authors of the study at Cornell University. First and foremost this is a perfect example of what happens when economists that know nothing of a medical condition try to find some statistical relationship between their beloved data and a condition. … The fact that this study went beyond a water-cooler joke and actually consumed the time, energy, and money required of such a study is beyond irresponsible, it is a slap in the face to the families devastated by this disease and the children who will suffer from it for their lifetime. The fact it was given any relevance and actually reported by someone in the media, as well as being officially announced by the University is reprehensible. … Anyone that seriously looks at the current Autism epidemic must be mindful and cautious of how they approach such a study. After all, this is the disorder once associated with cold and unloving "refrigerator Mothers". Beyond the accusation, many of these families had their children ripped from their arms and the mothers were forced into psychiatric treatment, including electro-shock therapy. The accusations, speculations, and stabs at families have not stopped, even after Dr. Bernard Rimland's clarification that this is a biological illness. Many still believe it results from 'bad parenting'. … We have recently seen other speculative research pointing at 'old dads' and now the most obnoxious and almost light-hearted approach to a serious life-altering ailment, watching television as a cause of autism. This study supports the idiots out there telling us if we would just play with our children and be a parent our kids wouldn't have this problem. So, now those of us with Autistic children it is to be believed, simply stuck our "infants" in front of a TV, again being cold, uncaring, bad parents. It wasn't said, but the insinuations are there all the same…. But rather than the deal with this uncomfortable – tragic – fact, big pharmaceutical companies and their allies have launched a no-holds barred counter-campaign.”<br><br>The TV-autism link is not the only one in which reality seems to masquerade as parody. How about reports that mercury is actually helpful to infants. I covered that joke in a column this way (“Great News! Mercury Vaccines Help Children - Today's High Alert) back in August of 2005:<br><br>“British researchers have announced in the prestigious journal Pediatrics that thimerosal-containing DTP vaccines are an aid not a menace to infants. One research team followed 12,956 children born in 1991 and 1992 who had received thimerosal-containing DTP vaccines given between 3 and 6 months and actually saw improved ‘fine motor skills, speech, tics and special education needs.’ Bloggingbaby reports the researchers also saw ‘less hyperactivity and conduct problems at 47 months, better motor development at 6 months and at 30 months, and reduced difficulty with sounds and need for speech therapy.’ Reuters reported on the above study and another study as well by Dr. Nick Andrews of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Center, London, and colleagues who ‘conducted a look-back study involving 107,152 children born between 1988 and 1997.’ Conclusion: ‘There appeared to be protective effects from thimerosal-containing vaccine exposure for general developmental disorders, attention-deficit disorder, and unspecified developmental delay.’”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/134/2176/August-30-2005.asp?wid=134&nid=2176">www.freemarketnews.com/An...4&nid=2176</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>And now the news about TV! It makes one believe that Big Pharma will do almost anything to blame autism on “the other guy.” In another column, I charted the agonized wriggling of Big Pharma as it sought legislative relief to ensure that what happened to Big Tobacco would never occur to Big Pharma.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.mail-archive.com/libertarian@yahoogroups.com/msg01295.html">www.mail-archive.com/libe...01295.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I wasn’t the only one following Big Pharma’s legislative relief efforts. TomPaine.com carried a fairly comprehensive article on the subjec, Shielding Big Pharma, January 2006, excerpt as follows:<br><br>“Republicans tried to pass legislation to shield Big Pharma from litigation. But with so much angst roiling voters over soaring drug costs, it proved too hot a potato. So the Bush administration turned to the courts, hoping they would rule in favor of federal preemption in drug liability cases. But those attempts failed as well. With only three more years left in Bush's tenure, time was running out. That’s why anti-regulation Bush administration officials decided to go the regulatory route. By employing executive branch regulatory authority, the administration was able to spare Republicans in Congress from having to fight for such an explosive pro-industry measure during an election year while still rewarding Big Pharma for the generous support—roughly $84 million— for Republican candidates over the past decade. It was a win/win situation. … You could almost hear the sighs of relief from drug company executives last week when the FDA finally went public with its federal preemption rule. It came not a second too soon for them. Tweedledee-Big Pharma had just been rescued by its federal friends from the fate that befell Tweedledum-Big Tobacco. … The rule change is timely because law firms—some the same firms who took Big Tobacco to the cleaners a few years ago—now have Big Pharma firmly in the crosshairs. It would be so easy. All those law firms would have to do is white out the old defendants—from Brown and Williamson and Phillip Morris— and type the names of drug makers like Merck and Pfizer. After all, the causes of action were the same.”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/01/25/shielding_big_pharma.php">www.tompaine.com/articles...pharma.php</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Does Big Pharma have a collective guilty conscience? It would seem so. Yet the story is, when Big Pharma decided thimerosal ought to be done away with in vaccines, the mercury laden jabs were redirected to the third world as the Western world’s supply was winnowed. And now TV! Let us see what the Internet tell us about the linkage of those who would blame TV for autism. First let us find out the background of the lead Cornell researcher on the study, one Michael Waldman. The Cornell “researcher” who makes the reported link between autism and television is a man by the name of Michael Waldman who, his bio relates, “received a Bachelor of Science in Economics from MIT in 1977 and a Ph.D. from the Economics Department at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982. … In 1991 he moved to the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University as a Full Professor of Economics. He was given the Charles H. Dyson Chair in Management in 1997.”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/Waldman/">www.johnson.cornell.edu/f...s/Waldman/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Who is the Charles H. Dyson for which the chair is named? Here is a notice in the New York Times at the time of his death in 1997.<br><br>DYSON-Charles H. Financier and philanthropist, died March 14, 1997, at the age of 87. Mr. Dyson lived in Millbrook, NY, and Barbados. At the time of his death, Charles H. Dyson was chairman emeritus of The Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation, a private company that he founded in 1954, which became one of the largest privately held companies in the country. … He later worked for the Department of the Treasury and after helping to organize the International Monetary Fund, he represented Treasury Department at the First IMF conference at Bretton Woods. Commissioned as a colonel in the Air Force, he was decorated with a Distinguished Service Medal and was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his wartime service. … After the war, Mr. Dyson worked for several national corporations before beginning his own company in 1954. That year he bought his first company with $10,000 of his own money and $5 million borrowed from a bank.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E2DC1238F934A25750C0A961958260">query.nytimes.com/gst/ful...A961958260</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Here, in memoriam, is a statement from Rockefeller University upon his death.<br><br>DYSON-Charles H. The Rockefeller University community deeply mourns the loss of our beloved friend, Charles H. Dyson, an esteemed member of The Rockefeller University Council for over twenty years. His generosity touched a broad spectrum of University initiatives, from research on neonatal jaundice, to the creation of a childcare facility for the Rockefeller community, to-most recently-the establishment of a training program for graduate students at the interface of biology, chemistry and physics. He was also a strong advocate for and supporter of the University's Field Research Center in Millbrook, New York. A knowledgeable and generous benefactor in the area of biomedical research and education, he will be greatly missed. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife, June, and to his children, John, Robert, Anne, Peter. Torsten N. Wiesel, President Richard M. Furlaud, Chairman Board of Trustees, and David Rockefeller, Honorary Chairman and Life Trustee, Board of Trustees<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E05E2DC1238F934A25750C0A961958260">query.nytimes.com/gst/ful...A961958260</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Why is the Rockefeller connection important? Simply type into the Google search bar the phrase “Rockefeller, pharmaceutical” or “Big Pharma Rockefeller” and you will come up with a plentiful supply of links. Pages of them. Here is a lengthy excerpt that describes as well as any single other excerpt the linkages between the Rockefellers and Big Pharma:<br><br>“THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG EMPIRE The Drug Story: By Hans Ruesch … In the 30's, Morris A. Bealle, a former city editor of the old Washington Times and Herald … used his professional experience to do some deep digging into the freedom-of-the-press situation and came up with two shattering exposes – ‘The Drug Story,’ and ‘The House of Rockefeller.’ The fact that in spite of his familiarity with the editorial world and many important personal contacts he couldn't get his revelations into print until he founded his own company, The Columbia Publishing House, Washington D.C., in 1949, was just a prime example of the silent but adamant censorship in force in ‘the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.’ … It is therefore not surprising that the House of Rockefeller has had its own ‘nominees’ planted in all Federal agencies that have to do with health. So the stage was set for the ‘education’ of the American public, with a view to turning it into a population of drug and medico dependents, with the early help of the parents and the schools, then with direct advertising and, last but not least, the influence the advertising revenues had on the media-makers. … A compilation of the magazine Advertising Age showed that as far back as 1948 the larger companies in America spent for advertising the sum total of $1,104,224,374, when the dollar was still worth a dollar and not half a zloty. Of this staggering sum the interlocking Rockefeller-Morgan interests (gone over entirely to Rockefeller after Morgan' s death) controlled about 80 percent, and utilized it to manipulate public information on health and drug matters - then and even more recklessly now. …<br><br>“In fact in the '50s the Drug Trust had one of its directors on the directorate of the Associated Press. He was no less than Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times and as such one of the most powerful Associated Press directors. It was thus easy for the Rockefeller Trust to persuade the Associated Press Science Editor to adopt a policy which would not permit any medical news to clear that is not approved by the Drug Trust ‘expert’, and this censor is not going to approve any item that can in any way hurt the sale of drugs. This accounts to this day for the many fake stories of serums and medical cures and just-around-the-corner breakthrough victories over cancer, AIDS, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, which go out brazenly over the wires to all daily newspapers in America and abroad. Emanuel M. Josephson, M.D., whom the Drug Trust has been unable to intimidate despite many attempts, pointed out that the National Association of Science Writers was ‘persuaded’ to adopt as part of its code of ethics the following chestnut: ‘Science editors are incapable of judging the facts of phenomena involved in medical and scientific discovery. Therefore, they only report 'discoveries' approved by medical authorities, or those presented before a body of scientific peers.’”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://think-aboutit.com/conspiracy/THETRUTHABOUTTHEROCKEFELLERDRUGEMPIRE.htm">think-aboutit.com/conspir...EMPIRE.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>What is an economist doing focusing on TV and autism? Let us examine a further excerpt of Mr. Waldman’s biography.<br><br>“His main research area is applied microeconomic theory, where his main fields of interest are industrial organization and organizational economics. In these areas he is best known for his work on learning and signaling in labor markets, the operation of durable goods markets, and the strategic use of tying and bundling in product markets. In addition to his work in these two main areas, Professor Waldman has also conducted research on a diverse set of topics including the role of expectational shocks in business cycle fluctuations, the role of tied transfers in family and government decision making, how the theory of natural selection can explain systematic errors in decision making, the ramifications of limitedly rational behavior for market outcomes, and whether early childhood television viewing is a trigger for autism.”<br><br>Is it just me or does everything about the bio above make sense except the last topic? All of the others are connected by some sort of business or economic tissue. But suddenly, Mr. Waldman has developed an interest, somehow, in autism. Could it have anything to do with the Dyson chair he holds at Cornell – and the esteemed, departed Mr. Dyson’s ties to the Rockefeller business empire?<br><br>Read Dyson’s bio again, above and several points leap out – especially those having to do with Dyson’s central role in the IMF (brainchild of banking impresario David Rockefeller) and subsequent borrowing of $5 million from an unnamed bank. (We can guess which bank that was – or at least the pressure that likely was brought on a bank by such a worthy, even, as David Rockefeller himself on behalf of Dyson.) Obviously Dyson had a substantive relationship with Rockefeller. (True enough, that does not mean that Waldman does, even though he occupies the Dyson chair.)<br><br>OK, is the above too speculative? Let’s move on, to the writer who first alerted – several weeks ago – the world to the theory that television causes autism. This person, according to Time (see citation above) is “author Gregg Easterbrook, who stirred the blogosphere this week with an article about the study on Slate, provocatively (and perhaps irresponsibly) titled ‘TV Really Might Cause Autism.’” Here is a brief bio:<br><br>“Gregg Easterbrook is an American writer who is a senior editor of The New Republic. His articles have appeared in Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Wired, and Beliefnet. In addition, he is a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank. During the National Football League season, Easterbrook writes a column called Tuesday Morning Quarterback, currently on ESPN.com.”<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Easterbrook">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Easterbrook</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>To get a better bearings on Easterbrook’s politics and ties, let us examine the Brookings Institution – where Easterbrook apparently hangs his hat.<br><br>The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions. For more than 90 years, Brookings has analyzed current and emerging issues and produced new ideas that matter—for the nation and the world.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.brook.edu/index/about.htm">www.brook.edu/index/about.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Now let us look at some of the officers and trustees of the Brookings Institution.<br><br>TRUSTEES<br>John L. Thornton<br>Chair of the Board<br>The Brookings Institution<br><br>Strobe Talbott<br>President<br>The Brookings Institution<br><br>Alan R. Batkin<br>Vice Chairman<br>Kissinger Associates, Inc.<br><br>Mario Draghi<br>Governor<br>Bank of Italy<br><br>Teresa Heinz<br>Chairman<br>Heinz Family Philanthropies<br><br>Suzanne Nora Johnson<br>Vice Chairman<br>The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.<br><br>Steven Rattner<br>Managing Principal<br>Quadrangle Group LLC<br><br>Andrew H. Tisch<br>Co-Chairman of the Board<br>Loews Corporation<br><br>Laura D’Andrea Tyson<br>Dean<br>London Business School<br><br>The monetary and power elite is obviously at home at Brookings Institution. Some “Honorary Trustees” follow:<br><br>A. W. Clausen<br>Retired Chairman and CEO<br>Bank of America Corporation<br>Former President<br>The World Bank<br><br>Henry Louis Gates Jr., Ph.D.<br>Director<br>W.E.B. Du Bois Institute<br>Harvard University<br><br>Lee H. Hamilton<br>President and Director<br>The Woodrow Wilson<br>International Center for Scholars<br><br>Vernon E. Jordan Jr.<br>Senior Managing Director<br>Lazard Frères & Co. LLC<br>Of Counsel<br>Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP<br><br>Jessica Tuchman Mathews<br>President<br>Carnegie Endowment for<br>International Peace<br><br>David O. Maxwell<br>Retired Chairman and CEO<br>Fannie Mae<br><br>Robert S. McNamara<br>Former President<br>The World Bank<br><br>Mary Patterson McPherson<br>Vice President<br>The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation<br><br>Judith Rodin Ph.D.<br>President<br>The Rockefeller Foundation<br>Warren B. Rudman<br>Of Counsel<br>Paul, Weiss, Rifkind,<br>Wharton & Garrison<br><br>James D. Wolfensohn<br>Chairman<br>Wolfensohn & Company, LLC<br>Former President<br>The World Bank<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.brook.edu/index/about.htm">www.brook.edu/index/about.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>The monetary elite, especially the Rockefellers, are obviously bound up in Big Pharma’s prospects and profits. And it is odd, is it not, that one of the main players in the autism/TV contovery is a man who occupies a prestigious chair at Cornell - named after a close friend and business associate of the Rockefellers); while the other is a writer who posted an article on Slate about it – and who hangs his hat at the Rockefeller-dominated Brookings Institution.<br><br>What is perhaps interesting above all about these connections is not so much that they exist, but that the Internet provides them so readily and reveals the relationships, if not the causality, so clearly. For this reason, as much as any other, Donald Rumsfeld likely has declared war on the Internet. And for this reason, as much as any other, those who decry the fortunes of the Internet, or believe that in the long run it will not make a difference, are quite possibly over-pessimistic. How much scrutiny, in fact, can a tightly-wrapped and secretive global monetary elite stand?<br><br>Economic Perspective<br><br>The business cycle: With lawsuits extending in every direction, one might conclude that the business cycle – so kind to Big Pharma during the early days of the 1990s – is the least of Big Pharma’s problems now. Of more import is the rise of the Internet and the exposure of the Big Pharma business model. It is perhaps increasingly dysfunctional in a society that can share information quickly and has grown more skeptical, generally, of Western medicine – at least as it evolved in the 20th century.<br><br>Dominant social theme: Western medicine is a jewel of western science and the pharmaceutical industry represents the best of that science. Not so fast,. Here is an alternative description of what is going on, medically speaking. It begins after the American civil war when the “surgical” – mechanical – model of medicine was aggressively pushed forward by its practitioners, at the expense of homeopathy and alternative disciplines. Gradually, by co-opting the government bureaucracy - more recently the Federal Food and Drug Administration - the surgical/mechanical approach was pushed forward by rules and regulations that marginalized other, traditional treatments. Not surprisingly, this model works “hand-in-glove” with Big Pharma’s product-and-service methodology. Big Pharma seeks to find natural remedies which it then turns into drugs which can be patented and distributed to doctors. Most of these drugs, if not all, have side effects. And as it turns out, Big Pharma’s medical justification for such drugs is often shaky at best – based on double-blind tests that are produced in isolation of other factors .This can be seen not only when it comes to autism, but also as regards substances such as cholesterol - first held to be deadly to heart health but later seen as two substances (good and bad). Today, evidence is emerging that cholesterol, far from being a destructive element in the blood, is entirely necessary to normal health and that heart attacks are caused by an overabundance of sugar interacting with pulmonary arteries. Thus we see that an entire generation raised on the notion that cholesterol is “bad” – and treated with powerful drugs to reduce it– may have been misled in part or whole. Multiply such misinformation a thousand-fold and the true state of the medical/mechanical model is revealed as one which has little efficacy and less substance. It does not truly partake of the scientific method at all – merely apes its outward form. Vaccines are an especially troublesome issue; the efficacy of this one-size-fits-all anodyne is severely reduced by increasingly evident side effects that those in charge of vaccine “money machine” are determined not to notice. This approach may have worked pre-Internet, but it is a highly questionable one now.<br><br>Free-markets analysis: The Western medical model is suffering from a loss of credibility as illustrated by the autism controversy. Those who run the industry created a great 20th century money machine, but that contraption is breaking down. Pieces of it are flying everywhere. Meanwhile, as the Internet increasingly illustrates, there are plenty of other health approaches that ought not to be ignored - involving nutrition, vitamin therapy, and support of emotional health. The idea for instance that cancer can be cured only via hacking it away and then bombarding the affected area with radiation or powerful drugs is bound to be looked on with horror in the coming decades and centuries. Even now various forms of vitamin therapy are coming to the fore and gaining credibility. Of course, powerful families running drug monopolies such as the Rockefellers are fighting back with more restrictive laws such as those surrounding the “Codex” currently being considered in the United Nations. The Codex rules would basically criminalize alternative nutrition and health care and reinforce the state sanctioning of the current medical model. Interestingly, Codex has not yet been voted on at the United Nations – a state of affairs which may lead to the presumption that those who back Codex do not believe they have the ability to enforce such Draconian legislation, at least not in the United States.<br><br>Conclusion: Once again, the Internet is a key force in a revolution in thinking within society generally. The current model is dysfunctional and growing moreso. Its defenders increasingly find themselves on the defensive. The old rules do not hold, and this must have an effect on investing as well. Big Pharma, hitherto a reliable source of profits, may eventually face the same kind of litigation as Big Tobacco. The monetary elite that derives a good deal of revenue from the current “iron pill box” model may soon have to face a new reality. And the regulatory republic spawned and cultivated by the monetary elite may prove to be Big Pharma’s undoing. If this is the case, those companies whose focus is on nutrition and alternative approaches to health care may begin to look more tempting from an investment standpoint. –By Anthony Wile<br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/134/6224/EMA-TEMPLATE.asp?nid=6224&wid=134&pv=1">link</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
