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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 8:30 pm
by nashvillebrook
yes! i have odd blood tests from time to time, and easy exercise (not aerobic) seems to help. Long walks. i'll give the pilates machines an honest look. i've injured myself a few times with no-machines stuff b/c anything that builds core strength w/o stressing my lumbar is good -- so, i've given a lot of stuff a try (or three). some stuff i just have to do even if it makes me hurt b/c i can't stop being a human being.

there's a chance the trouble started with sepsis i had as a kid (post-sepsis syndrome), but i was exposed to "mono," in college -- plus i worked in bio-medical research as a test-tube washer on college work-study, and later at the med school as a standardized patient -- the potential that i vectored something in college is somewhat likely. plus, i've lived next to toxic waste situations (my childhood home was built on a waste dump and i lived near a chemical plant, later).

my immune system is like "i've had it with you."


Searcher08 » 15 Feb 2015 21:35 wrote:I salute you for the guts it has taken to go through that medical establishment BS.
I had something similar sounding but only for about 18 months back in the 90s.
It seemed to be precipitated by a bout of sunstroke Within a couple of weeks my energy was haywire. One day I would feel fine (not manic) , be able to go out clubbing. The next day I would not physically lift a blanket of me in bed. People in my physical space was like being burnt out through overload. A visit from a friend where theyt did little more than make a cup of tea, have it and go would be a burn-out level experience. I ended up trying EVERYTHING. TCM, float tanks, massage, hypnosis , acupuncture, group work, diet changes, fasts etc. NOTHING worked. I finally tried something that was neither emotional nor mental nor spiritual, but about exercise. I took up Pilates (the original type that uses Pilates weight machines, not the dreadful ersatz Jane Fonda workout stuff) I went to the studio almost every day for 90 minutes. Within a month ALL of the CFS/ME symptoms were gone. I was super sharp mentally and my body was probably the best I have ever had it, like a really fit dancers.
Strange thing though - years later I was in a relationship with someone who was diagnosed HIV+. I was not, but elected to get detailed bloodwork done. The results indicated that in my distant past, I had had... Hepatitis B. A couple of years later I got tested again and though I was still HIV - , I asked the doc (same hospital test center) about Hep B antibodies. He looked at me as if I as nuts. You have never had that, you have no Hep B antibodies showing. When I told me about the previous test that indicated I HAD been exposed, he said they were idiots. :)
Curiously, my then partner had been tested for HIV in Australia shortly before we met and it indicated she was negative, yet when she presented with AIDS-defining illness (NHL), her test indicated she had been infected many years ago... She herself had had a very bad mono type illness for a couple of years in the 80s


nashvillebrook » Sun Feb 15, 2015 5:12 pm wrote:So, I'm going to lay some shit down that's adjacent to this debate, but germane -- and, MY rigorous intuition is telling me that it's the reason why *any* talk of vaccines is being met with outsized animosity. Bear with me...it's a story worth knowing.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 8:41 pm
by nashvillebrook
something that bothers me -- right up this alley -- why are very young children given HepB vaccines? I was offered a HepB vax when i worked at the medical school b/c it was a stipulation of employment (in 1992). Back then it was only ever given to adults in healthcare settings -- like, if you worked in a lab or hospital or clinic. Are there big outbreaks of HepB now? Or was there an outbreak of HepB that precipitated this? is there herd immunity with HepB...etc etc.

It just bugs the hell out of me...and I actually know someone who died from HepB from a monkey bite in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. She worked for the CDC. Was from my "hometown." But she worked in a lab and was bitten by a monkey. Why are kids being vaxxed with it so young now?

Are we expecting monkeys?

the girl from my hometown was older than me, so maybe the vax had not been distributed for public use yet when she had been bit. tragic.


stickdog99 » 15 Feb 2015 22:11 wrote:It's difficult to think of a single issue about which it is so difficult to have a rational, reasonable conversation with conventional conversational give and take.

Nobody who thinks vaccines are sacrosanct actually engages in any discussion about their safety, necessity or efficacy. Instead, they all read from the same playbook. The playbook was written to shout down and marginalize people who are emotionally antivaccine because they think their kids or the kids of someone they know were hurt by vaccines.

I don't have any kids and I don't personally know anybody who thinks their kid was hurt by vaccines. I just know when something obviously smells rancid (such as needless mercury in multidose flu and monococcal vaccines) and, for some reason, everybody keeps pretending that it smells like roses.

Here are my major issues with and criticisms of vaccines:

1) None of them should come spiked with needless mercury.

2) Testing should be required on the entire schedule rather than just on single vaccines. Note that I fully admit that this testing could potentially exonerate vaccines as a strongly contributing factor for the health issues some anti-vaccination advocate blame on them. But this research needs to be done.

3) New vaccines such as the annual flu vaccine and Gardasil should have to demonstrate that their benefits actually outweigh their costs and risks before they are recommended, much less mandated universally or for large segments of the population.

4) More research is needed before the mercury and aluminum salts in vaccines can be ruled out as contributing factors to neurological problems.

All of these criticisms and concerns are 100% scientific and conservative. But if you bring them up to the "anti-vaxxers are despicable murderers" crowd, you are treated as if you are arguing for eating babies.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:13 pm
by stickdog99
nashvillebrook » 16 Feb 2015 00:41 wrote:something that bothers me -- right up this alley -- why are very young children given HepB vaccines? I was offered a HepB vax when i worked at the medical school b/c it was a stipulation of employment (in 1992). Back then it was only ever given to adults in healthcare settings -- like, if you worked in a lab or hospital or clinic. Are there big outbreaks of HepB now? Or was there an outbreak of HepB that precipitated this? is there herd immunity with HepB...etc etc.

It just bugs the hell out of me...and I actually know someone who died from HepB from a monkey bite in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. She worked for the CDC. Was from my "hometown." But she worked in a lab and was bitten by a monkey. Why are kids being vaxxed with it so young now?


Here's what the Cash for Disease Corporations says about this:

The Hepatitis B Vaccine Dose at Birth

It’s hard to imagine putting your newborn through the pain of a shot. But a little stick early in life is an important first step to protecting your baby against a deadly disease.

All babies should get the first shot of hepatitis B vaccine before they leave the hospital. This shot acts as a safety net, reducing the risk of getting the disease from moms or family members who may not know they are infected with hepatitis B.

...

Infants and young children usually show no symptoms. But, in about 7 out of 10 older children and adults, recent hepatitis B infection causes the following:

Loss of appetite (not wanting to eat)
Fever
Tiredness
Pain in muscles, joints, and stomach
Nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting
Dark urine
Yellow skin and eyes
These symptoms usually appear 3 or 4 months after being exposed to the virus.

...

Hepatitis B virus spreads through blood or other body fluids that contain small amounts of blood from an infected person. People can spread the virus even when they have no symptoms.

Babies and children can get hepatitis B in the following ways:

At birth from their infected mother
Being bitten by an infected person
By touching open cuts or sores of an infected person
Through sharing toothbrushes or other personal items used by an infected person
From food that was chewed (for a baby) by an infected person
The virus can live on objects for 7 days or more. Even if you don’t see any blood, there could be virus on an object.



If you find any of this marketing gibberish persuasive, I really pity you. The only way this would be a good idea is if vaccination of every infant for HepB were 100% harmless. Weird how almost all "justifications" for mandatory vaccination start with this indisputably scientifically flawed assumption.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:34 pm
by slomo
stickdog99 » 15 Feb 2015 19:13 wrote:
nashvillebrook » 16 Feb 2015 00:41 wrote:If you find any of this marketing gibberish persuasive, I really pity you. The only way this would be a good idea is if vaccination of every infant for HepB were 100% harmless. Weird how almost all "justifications" for mandatory vaccination start with this indisputably scientifically flawed assumption.


You know what's weird is how committed to vaccination most people are without thinking about it. In the past, in a graduate class, I have given an exam question where I set up a hypothetical situation in which I straight up tell the students that a certain vaccine is known to have potentially harmful side effects, and they are presented with data that (if the problem is done correctly) seems to show evidence of efficacy but has a flaw that negates the strength of the evidence. When asked whether they themselves as individuals would undergo vaccination, most of them nevertheless choose vaccination with this particular agent, even after correctly noting the weakness of the evidence for efficacy. When asked to justify their position, they write some form of argument along the lines of "because [all] vaccines are effective". The point of this very hypothetical problem is to weigh evidence against consequences. I had one student even write a long, angry rant in response to the question! (I can't remember whether she was a pro or anti-vaxxer, or whether she had otherwise done the problem correctly.) This was long before the latest iteration of spectacle, i.e. before it was such a very loaded question.

I find it very perplexing.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 12:05 am
by BrandonD
I think this is an example of why it is every bit as important to be self-aware as it is to be intelligent. Intelligence without self-awareness can only result in very efficient and unflappable unconsciousness.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:04 am
by nashvillebrook
I forgot to mention this -- on why blood tests sometimes show pathogens and sometimes don't. Depending on the pathogen it can go from living in numbers high enough to show up in blood tests to living in tissue where you need to biopsy that actually tissue to find the bug. The problem here is that you really have to a doc who is willing to "dig" (literally) to go this route.

This is what keeps happening to me. When I'm in a flare I have infection running rampant and my blood tests will *sometimes* (if I'm lucky) confirm pathogens. What we had to do, though, to find the actual bugs (back in 2003), was biopsy tissue all over the place: bone, liver, etc.

This is common in Lyme -- after the active phase, after the bite, many of the tick-borne diseases hide away in tissue. Although, what I have, as far as we know, isn't Lyme.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 11:39 am
by nashvillebrook
Hepatitis was a feature of my systemic collapse in 2003 -- but it wasn't viral. It was autoimmune (or just immune). It went away with "heroic" doses of steroids -- let me tell you, if ever there was a drug that gave the illusion of "superbrain" I'd have to say that'd be mega-doses of plain old prednisone. This experience made all my psycho-naut exploration seem like a stroll down the driveway, and I was finally getting to take the Ferrari out unsupervised.

Reading this I'm reminded that I've seen how HepB is showing up in kids neonatally. So why the hell can't you just test the moms for HepB and offer the vaccine to those who have it and leave the rest alone.

Also, this makes no sense -- when a baby is born with HepB, they *already* have it, the Merck Manual suggests best practice is to vaccinate an infected baby. Does this work for any other disease? Once infected, then vaccinate?

http://www.merckmanuals.com/professiona ... ction.html

You know what this sounds like is that hospitals can't control HepB in their facilities, and so they're vaccinating babies delivered in their dirty rooms to hide the problem and avoid litigation.

stickdog99 » 16 Feb 2015 03:13 wrote:
nashvillebrook » 16 Feb 2015 00:41 wrote:something that bothers me -- right up this alley -- why are very young children given HepB vaccines? I was offered a HepB vax when i worked at the medical school b/c it was a stipulation of employment (in 1992). Back then it was only ever given to adults in healthcare settings -- like, if you worked in a lab or hospital or clinic. Are there big outbreaks of HepB now? Or was there an outbreak of HepB that precipitated this? is there herd immunity with HepB...etc etc.

It just bugs the hell out of me...and I actually know someone who died from HepB from a monkey bite in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. She worked for the CDC. Was from my "hometown." But she worked in a lab and was bitten by a monkey. Why are kids being vaxxed with it so young now?


Here's what the Cash for Disease Corporations says about this:

The Hepatitis B Vaccine Dose at Birth

It’s hard to imagine putting your newborn through the pain of a shot. But a little stick early in life is an important first step to protecting your baby against a deadly disease.

All babies should get the first shot of hepatitis B vaccine before they leave the hospital. This shot acts as a safety net, reducing the risk of getting the disease from moms or family members who may not know they are infected with hepatitis B.

...

Infants and young children usually show no symptoms. But, in about 7 out of 10 older children and adults, recent hepatitis B infection causes the following:

Loss of appetite (not wanting to eat)
Fever
Tiredness
Pain in muscles, joints, and stomach
Nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting
Dark urine
Yellow skin and eyes
These symptoms usually appear 3 or 4 months after being exposed to the virus.

...

Hepatitis B virus spreads through blood or other body fluids that contain small amounts of blood from an infected person. People can spread the virus even when they have no symptoms.

Babies and children can get hepatitis B in the following ways:

At birth from their infected mother
Being bitten by an infected person
By touching open cuts or sores of an infected person
Through sharing toothbrushes or other personal items used by an infected person
From food that was chewed (for a baby) by an infected person
The virus can live on objects for 7 days or more. Even if you don’t see any blood, there could be virus on an object.



If you find any of this marketing gibberish persuasive, I really pity you. The only way this would be a good idea is if vaccination of every infant for HepB were 100% harmless. Weird how almost all "justifications" for mandatory vaccination start with this indisputably scientifically flawed assumption.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:49 pm
by Pele'sDaughter
Does this work for any other disease? Once infected, then vaccinate?


Yes. Rabies definitely comes to mind but I don't know if anyone has been vaccinated after showing symptoms.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:35 pm
by Iamwhomiam
Until a year or so ago the fatality rate for those contracting Rabies was 100% - No survivors, none.

There has been some success (5 out of 30) in treating rabies victims with the Milwaukee Protocol. Before, none would have any chance of survival.

edited to add: Rabies is still the deadliest of all diseases.
And this link: http://www.radiolab.org/story/rodney-versus-death/

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:46 am
by Twyla LaSarc
Here's an odd one I found while doing research into my painful reactions to xanthan gum.

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/636491/

I don't know how widespread the use of Xanthan is in vaccines, but I find it worrisome that scientists would hope to provoke an immune response by means of a common food additive that is practically inescapable.Can sensitization via immune response on this level cause future allergies to the substance?


Xanthan is not supposed to be fed to infants or people with diminished immune systems. Necrotizing colitis is one of the results. Of course that is from ingesting it, but the gums- aside from a crapton of user-reported allergies and adverse reactions on the web-have also been linked to leaky gut and IBS (which in turn, have their own links to autism).

I agree that adjuvants need further research and more oversight.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:06 pm
by nashvillebrook
good one -- thanks!

Pele'sDaughter » 16 Feb 2015 20:49 wrote:
Does this work for any other disease? Once infected, then vaccinate?


Yes. Rabies definitely comes to mind but I don't know if anyone has been vaccinated after showing symptoms.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:23 pm
by nashvillebrook
here's a really good introduction to the Mikovits story...explains it way better than i did. this is written by the co-author of her book, Plague. while it might seem that it's an extraordinary claim that retroviruses, me/cfs and autism are connected AND provide the scientific story of the century, it seems to me that if we find out anything about the mysteries of me/cfs and/or autism it actually would be the scientific story of the century, by definition. what they're suggesting with the unintended consequences of retroviral research is astonishing...and it could all be bullshit. but, it's worth considering given that all other roads have provided dead-ends, something something, eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth...

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/plague-book-america-must-read


Could the connection between retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or Autism be the scientific story of the century?

Do you know what it feels like to stumble into the scientific story of the century? It is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a science teacher, an attorney, and an autism dad. My daughter's autism has made me an advocate, and I've written lots of articles for the blog, "Age of Autism," trying to find out what hope science can offer my daughter, both as a treatment, and an explanation for what happened to her.

In 2009, I stumbled across an interview Dr. Judy Mikovits had given in a television show in Nevada called "Nevada Newsmakers." Mikovits was talking about the publication of her article in the journal Science which showed that a recently discovered retrovirus, XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus related virus) had been found in 67% of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients and at 3.75% in healthy patients.

If these findings help up, it meant that these patients who had been shunned by the medical community for decades with diagnoses such as "yuppie flu" or "hysterical type A women" who one day fell apart, it meant that they were suffering from something very similar to HIV/AIDS. And that 3.75% number meant that somewhere around ten million Americans were harboring a retrovirus of unknown pathogenic potential.

Then she started talking about a potential link to autism, as they had done some early research into the question.

Here is what she said on that television show:

"There's always the hypothesis that my child was fine, then they got sick, and then they got autism. Interestingly, on that note, if I might speculate a little bit. This might explain why vaccines lead to autism in some children because these viruses live and divide in the lymphocytes, the immune response cells, the B and T cells. So when you give a vaccine you send your B and T cells into overdrive. That's its job."


Well, if you're harboring one virus, and you replicate it a whole bunch, you've now broken the balance between the immune response and the virus. So you could have had the underlying virus and them amplified it with the vaccine and then set off the disease, such that your immune system could no longer control the infection and create an immune deficiency.

That got my attention. Being a curious person and wanting to find out if any of this made sense, I put in a call to the Pediatric AIDS Unit at the University of San Francisco. I got their press person, and brought up the idea of a retrovirus in autism and whether there might be tests available, and what thoughts were on an anti-retroviral regimen if a retrovirus could be found.

But that isn't where the UCSF employee's attention went. He immediately said something like, "Well, that might explain why a vaccine could lead to autism."

If I was a cartoon character, this would have been the moment my head exploded. But instead, I stayed calm and asked, "Could you explain that?"

He said it was similar to what they knew and practiced in HIV/AIDS treatment. If a child is born to an HIV-infected mother, the child is put on anti-retrovirals prior to immunization. He told me I could find the information on their web-site.

This is what I found on the University of California at San Francisco web page on HIV and immunization:

"Activation of the cellular immune system is important in the pathogenesis of HIV disease, and that fact has given rise to concerns that the activation of the immune system through vaccinations might accelerate the progression of HIV disease ... These observations suggest that activation of the immune system through vaccinations could accelerate the progression of HIV disease through enhanced replication ... If feasible, it is preferable to have patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) prior to receipt of vaccination ..."


Again, if I was a cartoon character, this is the moment my head would have exploded. But instead, I realized I was onto the scientific story of the century. This was an explanation for the explosion of not just autism, but also chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Mikovits was a scientist with a first-rate reputation, having studied HIV/AIDS when it was the deadliest plague on our planet, and spending more than twenty years as a scientist at the National Cancer Institute, collaborating with Dr. Frank Ruscetti, one of the founding fathers of human retrovirology.

I called up Dr. Mikovits and asked if she would talk to me for an interview. She did and we struck up a friendship. I would come to know her over many years, finding in her a scientist with a fierce dedication to helping patients, and a rock-solid integrity.

But I immediately realized that when you are suggesting a reasonable explanation for the illness of millions, and those explanations involved common medical practices, both in vaccinations, and as I would later find, recombinant viral research, you were likely to make some very powerful enemies.

And she did.

But the job of a scientist is to discover truth and make the life of humanity a better place, not to avoid arousing the wrath of very powerful interests. I would come to find that Mikovits believed scientists who would shade the truth in order to make their own lives easier did not deserve to be called scientists. I find it difficult to disagree with her conclusion.

Mikovits endured years of torment. Some groups found the retrovirus, as well as a larger family of retroviruses in patient populations, and others did not. One of these groups that found a retrovirus in high numbers in patients with this disease was headed by Dr. Harvey Alter of the FDA, a winner of the Lasker Award (often referred to as the American Nobel Prize for medical research) for his discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Their sequences showed greater diversity than the Mikovits group, but they also found a higher rate of infection in the healthy population, about 6.6%, or around 20 million Americans.

Eventually, a group headed by Ian Lipkin of Columbia University came to the conclusion in 2012 that there was no association between XMRV and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). But there were problems with the patient group selected by the Lipkin study. They excluded patients with the following conditions: 1. HIV virus, 2. Hepatits B or C virus, 3. Treponema pallidium (tapeworm), 4. B. burgdorfieri (Lyme disease spirochete), 5. Medical or psychiatric illness that might be associated with fatigue, 6. Abnormal serum characteristics, and 7. Abnormal thyroid functions.

A couple of these exclusions were puzzling to one of the early researchers into this condition, Dr. Paul Cheney. Cheney told me that somewhere around 85% of the patients had abnormal thyroid readings. The exclusion of the borellia spirochete was puzzling as it was likely to be found in these patients, especially as they were immune-suppressed. And a "medical or psychiatric condition that might be associated with fatigue?" Cheney said, "Well, this is a medical condition associated with fatigue, so they're trying to exclude the very disease they're supposed to be looking for."

Patient advocate Gerwyn Morris, a micro-biologist, was much more blunt. Morris said it was like "looking for HIV, but excluding homosexual males, IV drug users, and those who'd received a blood transfusion."

So the Ian Lipkin of 2012 was saying there was no correlation between the XMRV retrovirus and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). This also meant that there would be no follow-up on the findings by the Mikovits team of the retrovirus in children with autism and whether, like with HIV, a vaccine could stimulate replication of the retrovirus leading to autism.

But the Ian Lipkin of 2013 would sing a much different tune. Using a patient group collected by Dr. Jose Montoya of Stanford University (a researcher who Mikovits told me did an excellent job of selecting patients likely to have the disease), the findings were remarkably different.

After first reporting an abnormal pattern of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (the very clue Mikovits had found that put her on the hunt for a retrovirus), Lipkin said in a public conference call with CDC on September 10, 2013: We found retroviruses in 85 percent of the sample pools. Again, it is very difficult at this point to know whether or not this is clinically significant or not, and given the previous experience with retroviruses in chronic fatigue, I am going to be very clear in telling you, although I am reporting this at present in Professor Montoya's samples, neither he, nor we have concluded that there is a relationship to disease.

I happened to be at Stanford University a few months after that and heard Dr. Lipkin say that even with such findings he didn't want to go down the retroviral road again.

Like me, you may be a little confused. The Ian Lipkin of 2012 says that he cannot replicate the Mikovits' team finding of a retrovirus in 67% chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients. The Ian Lipkin of 2013 says he finds evidence of a retrovirus in 85% of a different group of chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) patients, but can't even begin to comment as to whether this might be what even a graduate student would commonly refer to as a "clue."

I am a science teacher and to the very marrow of my bones I believe in the scientific process. I teach my students to be methodical, to check their data, and to draw conclusions based on their evidence. I teach them about the courage of scientists like Galileo and Darwin who fought the prejudices of their time with facts. Most of all, I teach them not to be afraid. Let the truth be told, though the heavens fall.

And yet in my investigation of this story I found that fear was the predominant motivator rather than truth. I recall interviewing one prominent Ivy League scientist who reported positive results, only to later retract them. I asked her why she had retracted them. She told me her samples had been contaminated. I asked how. She said the reagents had been contaminated. I asked if she had identified the reagent which had been contaminated. She said no. I then asked, if she didn't know which reagent had been contaminated, how could she claim her original results had been the result of contamination?

Her response was that others had said it was due to contamination, and so she was saying the same thing.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I would not let one of my sixth grade students get away with using such faulty logic and here it was being asserted by an Ivy League professor. I almost wanted to ask if all her fellow scientists jumped off a bridge, would she follow them?

Now with all due respect to Darwin and Galileo, the lives of millions of people did not immediately depend on the answer to their questions. Yes, the field of genetics would show our close affinity to the rest of the animal kingdom, and Galileo's work would allow us to venture out into our own solar system, but it didn't have the potential to restore millions of people to good health.

If a retrovirus lies at the heart of diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) or autism, scientists bear a heavy duty of responsibility to their fellow man to tell the truth and share that information as rapidly as possible to ease the suffering of millions. I consider anything less to be a crime against humanity.

Mine is an ancient lament. Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? the Roman poet Juvenal asked more than fifteen hundred years ago. Who guards the guardians? I'm not really sure these people are being watched. They seem to have become a law unto themselves, which is why I wrote this book with Dr. Judy Mikovits. I invite you to read the story and listen to these people, often in their own words, or in government documents. Decide for yourself if you think the guardians are doing their job.


Kent Heckenlively is a Founding Contributing Editor to Age of Autism and author of Plague: One Scientist's Intrepid Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Other Diseases.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:53 pm
by Searcher08
I was horrified to read the opening sentence of this article.
Restrictions on transportation due to vaccination status??!!

Several anti-Vax friends have sent this and I think the issues about personal choice and freedom (not to mention ACTUAL REAL-LIFE scary-ass fascism) are being swamped with a megaphone blasting out "SCIENCE!!!!!!!"

For the 18 - 30 year old women here, science indicates that your generation are not to be allowed to breed. The science is very clear on what is needed to combat climate change.
etc etc


http://www.x-rx.net/blog/2015/02/the-myth-of-vaccine-safety.html




The Myth Of Vaccine Safety
Posted on February 9, 2015


A few days ago, The Washington Post published an op-ed piece by a medical ethicist who thinks that all doctors who have concerns about vaccines should lose their licenses. Last week, it was parents who don’t vaccinate their children should be jailed or sued. There are case reports where not vaccinating has been used as proof of neglect for CPS to remove children and terminate parental rights. Whatever you think about vaccination, think hard before you endorse the idea that the government should be able to mandate a profitable but invasive medical procedure without informed consent. This is a very dangerous precedent to set and one you may not be happy about when vaccines are mandated for adults to protect our “herd immunity”. It is not about the measles. It is about your freedom to choose what goes into your body and your child’s body.

Although we keep hearing from the media and the medical establishment that vaccines are unquestionably safe, the supreme court has deemed them “unavoidably unsafe” as recently as 2011. Pharmaceutical companies are indemnified by the government against liability and pediatricians also cannot be sued for vaccine injury. Rather, there is a special vaccine court that compensates the very few patients who can prove their injury beyond a shadow of a doubt. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out over 3 billion dollars to date.

We keep hearing about the overwhelming proof that vaccines and the MMR in particular is safe. Anyone who questions this is being ridiculed. Concerned parents are stupid and concerned doctors don’t understand the science. Well, here is the science, from the most recent Cochrane Review of the entire literature on the subject. Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews and meta-analyses which interpret the research and are generally recognised as the highest standard in evidence-based health care.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2012 Feb 15;2:CD004407. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub3.
Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children.

Demicheli V1, Rivetti A, Debalini MG, Di Pietrantonj C.

Partial Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) are serious diseases that can lead to potentially fatal illness, disability and death. However, public debate over the safety of the trivalent MMR vaccine and the resultant drop in vaccination coverage in several countries persists, despite its almost universal use and accepted effectiveness.
OBJECTIVES:

To assess the effectiveness and adverse effects associated with the MMR vaccine in children up to 15 years of age.
SEARCH METHODS:

For this update we searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2011, Issue 2), which includes the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections Group’s Specialised Register, PubMed (July 2004 to May week 2, 2011) and Embase.com (July 2004 to May 2011).
AUTHORS’ CONCLUSIONS:

The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate. The evidence of adverse events following immunisation with the MMR vaccine cannot be separated from its role in preventing the target diseases.

The full paper is behind a paywall, but I’ve read it in its entirety. The authors screened approximately 5000 papers, found 139 possible for inclusion and ended up with 31 papers that met their criteria. They rated 26 of 31 as having high or moderate risk of bias, most commonly selection bias. They concluded that there was no data to support efficacy, “We were disappointed by our inability to identify effectiveness studies with population or clinical outcomes. Given the existence of documented elimination of targeted diseases in large population by means of mass immunisation campaigns however, we have no reason to doubt the effectiveness of MMR.” So we believe it, because we all saw it happen, not because there is a study which shows it to be true.

They state that there is no evidence for an association between MMR and autism, but the only included study which could possibly answer the question, comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children, is Madsen 2002. One of the co-authors of that paper is Poul Thorsen, on the OIG’s most wanted list for fraud. Thorsen is a co-author of 22 papers on autism and 5 papers on vaccine safety that still stand and are widely referenced by other authors. Even if including a paper co-authored by Thorsen doesn’t bother you, their note on the Madsen study concludes: “The follow up of diagnostic records ends one year (31 Dec 1999) after the last day of admission to the cohort. Because of the length of time from birth to diagnosis, it becomes increasingly unlikely that those born later in the cohort could have a diagnosis.” They noted the general absence of studies with unvaccinated controls. The reason given is that it would be unethical to have unvaccinated controls.

DeStefano 2004 is also included. One of the authors of that paper was reportedly granted official whistleblower status and immunity, alleging that the authors manipulated data to cover an association between the vaccine and autism in African American males vaccinated before the age of 36 months. Those authors are collectively responsible for a lot of the “indisputable” science we are hearing so much about. From a few months ago: The Fox Guarding The Henhouse.

Here is a compilation of abstracts, 86 Research Papers Supporting the Vaccine/Autism Link, but the media keeps telling us there is no evidence that vaccines can cause autism.

Why has there never been a well designed study comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children? Rumor has it that Amish children don’t get autism. Why isn’t the CDC doing everything it can to figure out if that’s true and, if so, why? The NIH just canceled the National Children’s Study after wasting over 1.2 billion dollars.

Vaccines have not been a cause célèbre for me. My interest grew from the realization that vaccines grown in murine and avian cells contain infectious animal retroviruses that are supposed to be unable to cross the species barrier, but the evidence that they can’t is rather flimsy. Here are blogs I wrote about vaccines and biologicals in early 2011 when I was considering the risks of attenuating viruses in animal cells and realizing the temporal relationship between the first yellow fever vaccine in 1932 and the first ME/CFS cluster in 1934, as well as the first cases of autism described by Leo Kanner in 1935.

Cover-up and contamination theories
Vaccinations and Frankencells
Science fiction or fact?

This led to thinking about how vaccines are made, what exactly is in them, the evidence for safety/efficacy and their possible impact upon various immune profiles. The furthest I have ever gone as a doctor is to say that I don’t think that ME/CFS patients or their offspring should be vaccinated. I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly said publicly that autistic children shouldn’t be vaccinated, but I will now, as it seems a no brainer to me, even if you don’t believe that vaccines can cause autism. Neuroimmune disease patients are in a state of persistent immune activation which needs to be reduced with anti-inflammatory strategies. Vaccines do the opposite, on purpose. In addition, they are less likely to be effective in the presence of a preexisting inflammatory state.

The argument goes, thimerosal was removed from vaccines 10 years ago (except for the multi-dose vial flu shot), but the rate of autism has continued to climb, so vaccines are safe. This is scientific sleight of hand, not science. It is the type of argument used commonly by our so called experts to brainwash people into concluding that vaccines are all safe and any number of vaccines can be given with impunity. We ruled out one thing, so it’s all fine. Data by country shows a strong correlation between more vaccines before the age of 1 year and higher infant mortality. The US is 34th in the world and gives the most vaccinations: Infant mortality rates regressed against number of vaccine doses routinely given: Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?

The US childhood immunization schedule requires 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year, the most in the world, yet 33 nations have better IMRs. Using linear regression, the immunization schedules of these 34 nations were examined and a correlation coefficient of 0.70 (p < 0.0001) was found between IMRs and the number of vaccine doses routinely given to infants. When nations were grouped into five different vaccine dose ranges (12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, and 24–26), 98.3% of the total variance in IMR was explained by the unweighted linear regression model. These findings demonstrate a counter-intuitive relationship: nations that require more vaccine doses tend to have higher infant mortality rates.

Here’s something not being discussed in the measles/vaccine debate. Take a look at the current table of vaccine excipients: Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary. Notice how many contain aluminum, a known neurotoxin, implicated in ASIA (autoimmune syndrome induced by adjuvants). Here is a PubMed search which brings up 75 papers since 2008, specifically on this subject. There are a few hundred on aluminum and neurotoxicity. Here are two papers about ASIA and CFS/fibromyalgia, one suggesting a link with autism and a recent review paper about aluminum adjuvant biopersistence and delayed neurotoxicity:

Chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia following immunization with the hepatitis B vaccine: another angle of the ‘autoimmune (auto-inflammatory) syndrome induced by adjuvants’ (ASIA).
The common immunogenic etiology of chronic fatigue syndrome: from infections to vaccines via adjuvants to the ASIA syndrome.
Do aluminum vaccine adjuvants contribute to the rising prevalence of autism
Biopersistence and brain translocation of aluminum adjuvants of vaccines

The FDA says that the amount of aluminum in vaccines is GRAS (generally recognized as safe). The argument goes that since children are exposed to aluminum in the environment anyway, giving them a little more in their vaccines is safe. Then there is MSG, formaldehyde, animal and human cells, adventitious viruses, the list goes on and on, each deserving of concern in its own right. The GRAS designation should be another blog entirely…

From the CDC website: “In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 4,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.” That’s roughly a 0.1% risk of encephalitis and there is a great deal of literature showing that high dose vitamin A at the onset of illness mitigates that risk significantly. The most recent numbers show that the current risk of autism, aka encephalitis/encephalopathy, is 20 times that, higher in some places. We are faced with an epidemic of allergic, neuroimmune and autoimmune disorders. The prevalence of chronic illness in our children is greater than 50% (2011). 16% have a developmental disability (2008). 11% have ADHD (2011). 2% have autism (2013). It is an emergency. Measles is not. I am not saying that vaccines are the only cause of this disaster, but there are many reasons to think they are contributory. Instead of mandating more vaccines, we should be trying to understand which children are at risk: Personalized vaccines: the emerging field of vaccinomics.

Being concerned about vaccines is not the same as discounting the dangers of infectious diseases. Not trusting the CDC and the pharmaceutical companies is not anti-science, but prudent, since they have earned our mistrust in spades. They have lied and been wrong so many times. Why believe them now? The drug companies regularly pay out billion dollar settlements for fraud convictions. Merck is currently embroiled in lawsuits brought by whistleblowers: Massive Fraud In Merck MMR Vaccine Testing. The incestuous relationship between the CDC and the vaccine manufacturers is epitomized by Julie Gerberding, former director of the CDC, now head of vaccine safety at Merck.

There are a few egregious examples that make it clear how little the vaccine program is worrying about the health of children.

1. Giving newborns who have no risk of infection a hepatitis B shot is insane. The series often wears off by the time the child is at risk. Here is a paper showing evidence of an association between the hepatitis B series and autism: Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.

Findings suggest that U.S. male neonates vaccinated with the hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 (from vaccination record) had a threefold higher risk for parental report of autism diagnosis compared to boys not vaccinated as neonates during that same time period. Nonwhite boys bore a greater risk.

2. Chicken pox was a benign illness when contracted in childhood. This vaccine is another example of setting people up for waning immunity when they are older. Also shingles used to be prevented by being around infected children, but now a zoster vaccine is needed for older adults to keep the virus in check, even if they had the natural infection. The attenuated virus can cause shingles just like the wild type. The incidence of shingles has risen since the vaccine was introduced, in children and adults, though there is data suggesting this trend was already in effect from reduced immune competence in the general population prior to introduction of the vaccine. Decreased varicella and increased herpes zoster incidence at a sentinel medical deputising service in a setting of increasing varicella vaccine coverage in Victoria, Australia, 1998 to 2012. Here is a paper stating that the Varicella vaccination program is a failure. Review of the United States universal varicella vaccination program: Herpes zoster incidence rates, cost-effectiveness, and vaccine efficacy based primarily on the Antelope Valley Varicella Active Surveillance Project data. Safety data for the Varicella vaccine is even thinner than for the MMR and the excipients are particularly noxious. if we are going to decrease the number of vaccines we give to our children, this one might be a good place to start. Every adult who was vaccinated will need boosters for life, but if we let the wild type disease come back in children, we might also get rid of the need for the zoster vaccine.

3. Your government wants you to have a flu shot, even though it admits that this year’s shot doesn’t work. The current CDC recommendation is “Everyone 6 months of age and older should get a flu vaccine every season.” Pregnant women, sick people, no matter the health status of the patient. Only people allergic to the shot or one of its components shouldn’t get it. Even this year, everybody should get it, because gosh, so much money was spent making all those millions of shots and who knows, they might help a little. And they are perfectly safe, except that they can cause wheezing, Guillain Barré Syndrome and have not been studied in immunocompromised persons. There are several choices for the flu shot, but here’s an example of the safety data. The FluMist package insert: “Data on safety and shedding of vaccine virus after administration of FluMist in immunocompromised persons are limited to 173 persons with HIV infection and 10 mild to moderately immunocompromised children and adolescents with cancer.” 10 immunocompromised children. How many doses went up the noses of children with preexisting conditions? And then there is this: Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine Enhances Colonization of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staphylococcus aureus in Mice.

The people making these decisions don’t care about your children. They are lying to you about the quality or even the existence of safety data.

I am the last one to say that the question of whether to vaccinate or not is a simple one. I delayed vaccinating my children until they were 3 months old and I didn’t give them hepatitis B shots until later. They had the chicken pox at 5 years and 6 months old, so my son may not be immune. I allowed them to be given hepatitis B shots at school when my daughter was 9 and my son was 4. He got very sick after the first dose, missed school for 2 months and I never allowed him to be vaccinated again. He lived in a dorm at college for 2 years and not a day went by that I didn’t worry about the decision to forgo the meningococcal vaccine. He is now doing research in Okinawa for a semester and I worry about Japanese encephalitis, for which there is a vaccine. But he has a mother and a sister with ME/CFS, a father with POTS and other things in his risk profile that worry me with respect to vaccines. Without a crystal ball, you can never know what is the safest thing to do. If you guess wrong, either way, it is 100%.

Resource: National Vaccine Information Center

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2015 3:29 am
by slomo
Searcher08 » 17 Feb 2015 13:53 wrote:Whatever you think about vaccination, think hard before you endorse the idea that the government should be able to mandate a profitable but invasive medical procedure without informed consent.


This is the money quote.

I am speechless in response to so many of my "progressive" friends jumping on the vaccine bandwagon without stopping to think about the implications. I can hardly believe it, even after I have long since abandoned the idea that the labels "progressive" and "liberal" mean anything.

Re: Vaccine - Autism link

PostPosted: Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:35 am
by BrandonD
slomo » Wed Feb 18, 2015 2:29 am wrote:
Searcher08 » 17 Feb 2015 13:53 wrote:Whatever you think about vaccination, think hard before you endorse the idea that the government should be able to mandate a profitable but invasive medical procedure without informed consent.


This is the money quote.

I am speechless in response to so many of my "progressive" friends jumping on the vaccine bandwagon without stopping to think about the implications. I can hardly believe it, even after I have long since abandoned the idea that the labels "progressive" and "liberal" mean anything.


It really should say "profitable AND invasive" as both are legitimate causes for concern.