Medicine, Money, Morality ...
And The Health Of Our Children

In the book, "Age Wave", author Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., provides some fascinating statistics that illustrate how modern medicine and technology is helping us live longer than our ancestors ever dreamed possible. 

Consider the following statistics:

In 1776, a child born in America could expect to live, on average, to the age of 35. A century later, that average had increased only 5 years to the age of 40.

But in the decades since 1900, we have nearly doubled the average life expectancy.  A child born in 1990 is expected to live until at least 75, and the Census Bureau projects that the average age will increase to 90 by the year 2040 (probably much sooner).

In the developed world, the last 100 years has brought breakthroughs in health care to eliminate many of the diseases that previously killed us at a young age.

Smallpox is gone. Cholera, typhoid and diphtheria are almost nonexistent. Tuberculosis was the leading cause of premature death a century ago, but has now been reduced by over 99.9 percent. Measles and streptococcal infections are now annoyances rather than childhood killers.

Even AIDS, which is estimated to have killed nearly 2 million people worldwide, is but a fraction of the 20 million Europeans killed in the 14^th century by the bubonic plague (one out of every three people); or similarly, the 20 million lives claimed by the influenza epidemic between 1917 and 1919.

And yet, for all the miracles that modern medicine has created, and all the good that doctors have done to prolong life, other forces are proving equally strong in destroying the quality of our lives even as we have more time to live.

"Deadly Immunity"

This is the title of an article written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that was published last month as part of a joint investigation by Salon and Rolling Stone magazines.

The article presents a disturbing story that reveals how the pharmaceutical industry has used our belief in the benefits of vaccines to make choices that are destroying the lives of thousands (perhaps millions) of people around the world.

Kennedy explains how the mercury that is used in childhood vaccinations may have caused autism in thousands of kids, and how the government (under pressure from drug company lobbyists), has rushed to conceal the data (in an effort to prevent parents from bringing suit against drug manufacturers for their role in the cover-up).

Following, are excerpts from the investigation which was summarized in the Boston Globe on July 1, 2005 (to read the original article click here, or visit: www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/print.html).

Mounting evidence suggests that Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative in children's vaccines, may be responsible for the exponential growth of autism, attention deficit disorder, speech delays, and other childhood neurological disorders now epidemic in the United States.

Prior to 1989, American infants generally received three vaccinations (polio, measles-mumps-rubella, and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis).

In the early 1990s, public health officials dramatically increased the number of Thimerosal-containing vaccinations without considering the cumulative impact of the mercury load on young, developing brains.

In 1991, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, a key scientist in Merck's vaccination programs, warned his bosses that 6-month-old children who received the shots on schedule would suffer mercury exposures 87 times the government safety standards.

He recommended that Thimerosal be discontinued and complained that the US  Food and Drug Administration (which has a notoriously close relationship with the pharmaceutical industry), could not be counted on to take appropriate action (as had the European counterparts of the FDA).

Merck ignored Hilleman's warning, and over the next eight years, government officials added seven more shots for children that contained Thimerosal.

Mercury is a known brain poison, and autism rates began rising dramatically in children who were administered the new vaccine regimens throughout the 1990's.

A decade ago the American Academy of Pediatrics estimated the autism rate among American children to be 1 in 2,500. Today, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) places the rate at 1 in 166, or fifteen times greater in only ten years. Additionally, 1 in 6 children is now diagnosed with a related neurological problem (such as Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD).

In 2000, the CDC met with pharmaceutical companies and the FDA to review its findings linking Thimerosal (a neurotoxin) with a dramatic rise in neurological illnesses. According to transcripts, participants were alarmed about the undeniable links between Thimerosal and widespread brain damage in children.

Dr. Bill Weil told the group, ''You can play with [the results] all you want. They are statistically significant". Another attendee, Dr. Richard Johnston, admitted that he feared for his own grandchild getting a vaccine containing Thimerosal.

But the group was most concerned with the intimidating pressure they were put under to keep the findings secret. ''Consider this embargoed information", said Dr. Roger Bernier, a senior director at the National Immunization Program, when the meeting was about to end.

The CDC now says it has ''lost" the data that supported the crucial study, and it has persistently defied congressional requests (and federal law) requiring it to open up the national Vaccine Safety Database to scientists and the public.

Government health agencies who approved Thimerosal have turned a blind eye to hundreds of studies linking the neurotoxin to a range of neurological disorders; and instead, have joined the pharmaceutical industry in manipulating a series of flawed European studies to exonerate Thimerosal (studies in which the children were exposed to a tiny fraction of the Thimerosal given to American kids).

Even as the federal government has worked to prevent scientists from studying the potentially detrimental impact of vaccines on children, others have stepped in to explore the specific link to autism. UPI Reporter Dan Olmsted undertook one of the more interesting studies by searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury in vaccines -- the kind of population that scientists typically use as a "control" in experiments. Olmsted focused his research on an Amish community in Pennsylvania who generally refuse to immunize their infants.

Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He found only four. One had been exposed to high levels of mercury from a power plant. The other three had received vaccines.

At the state level, many officials have also conducted in-depth reviews of Thimerosal. For example, while the Institute of Medicine was busy whitewashing the risks, the Iowa Legislature was carefully combing through all of the available scientific and biological data.

"After three years of review, I became convinced there was sufficient credible research to show a link between mercury and the increased incidences in autism," said Senator Ken Veenstra, a Republican who oversaw the investigation. Last year, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury in vaccines, followed by California. Similar bans are now under consideration in 32 other states.

Instead of following the states lead, the FDA continues to allow manufacturers to include Thimerosal in over-the-counter medications as well as steroids, injected collagen, flu shots, and tetanus boosters. Even more alarming, the government continues to ship vaccines preserved with Thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates.

In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of Thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate that there are now more than 1.8 million autistics.

Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using Thimerosal-laced vaccines.

"The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence," says Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization concerned about mercury in medicines. "The damage caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It's bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than anything you've ever seen."

It's hard to calculate the damage to our country (and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases) if Third World nations conclude that America's most heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning their children. It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted by America's enemies abroad.

Government officials who continue to champion Thimerosal should recognize that this is not just a theoretical exercise in bureaucratic face-saving. Their wrong-headed defense of Thimerosal safety in the face of overwhelming science discourages testing of promising alternatives which may be effective.

They also cannot escape responsibility for their failure to warn international health agencies and governments who, based upon American assurances, are now injecting the developing world's children with this brain-killing chemical.

It would be a shame to forget the value of vaccines in helping to eradicate deadly disease and prolong the life expectancy of human beings around the world.  But it would be a great crime to allow the greed of corporations to exert such powerful influence over governmental regulatory agencies that we risk the lives of millions of children around the world for the sake of shareholder profits.

There are alternatives to Thimerosal. They cost more to develop and distribute.  But the long-term cost in human life, family disruption, emotional turmoil, and taxpayer dollars that are needed to care for the sick, is far greater than the dividends and executive bonuses that keep the truth hidden from public view.

The lawyers and lobbyist who protect these corporations from full disclosure and legal liability must have their power curtailed and controlled if we are to have the kind of world that we say we want to live in.