The Cold, Hard Facts
The accepted wisdom now is that vaccines are a panacea. Health care providers start injecting them in infants on the day of birth, and government officials seek to have them made mandatory for all Americans. But some little-discussed facts belie their value.
Deaths from diphtheria, for example, declined 90 percent from 1900-30, due to better sanitation and nutrition, before there was a vaccine for this disease. Likewise, the death rate for measles declined 95 percent (13.3 to 0.03 deaths per 100,000 population) between 1915-58, before the vaccine for measles vaccine was introduced in 1963. Viewed from a risk/benefit perspective, providers and government officials downplay the deleterious effects that vaccines can have on one's health and inflate their benefits.
The top medical textbook on the subject is Vaccines, edited by Drs. Plotkin and Orenstein. In the 1999 third edition that I reviewed (a slightly longer fourth edition was published last year), its authors confine their discussion of mercury in vaccines to two short paragraphs in this 1,230-page book.
They do not address concerns that have been raised about its neurotoxicity.
Vaccine manufacturers have started removing thimerosal from vaccines. And for the first time since the state began keeping records on this disease, California has had a decrease of 6 percent in the annual number of children over the age of 3 who have been diagnosed with autism.
This occurred in children born in 2000, when the phase-out of thimerosal in vaccines began. Iowa has passed a law banning thimerosal in that state, and California has done the same thing for pregnant women and children under 3 (the bill awaits the governor's signature). But pharmaceutical companies still add thimerosal to their flu vaccines, and pediatricians are vaccinating children with their remaining supplies of thimerosal-containing vaccines, which the FDA has chosen not to recall.
Taking mercury out of vaccines would substantially reduce the incidence of autism, but this alone will not eliminate the disease. Giving too many vaccines over too short a time to infants whose nervous system is not yet fully developed can also trigger autism and its spectrum of disorders.
As Dr. Russell Blaylock has shown (see Recommended Reading below), multiple vaccines given close together over-stimulate the brain's immune system and, via the mechanism of "bystander injury," destroy brain cells.
Spending More on Cows than People?
Much more research needs to be done on the neurotoxicity of mercury and excessive vaccination. Dr. Haley terms autism as Mad Child Disease. Finding one cow in the United States with Mad Cow Disease from Canada, prompted the federal government to spend millions of dollars examining other cows to see if they had contracted it. With regard to Mad Child Disease, however, the government spends $59 in research for every case of autism diagnosed in this country.
Avoiding flu shots that contain thimerosal, and having dentists stop implanting mercury amalgams in people's mouths would lower the incidence of Alzheimer's disease. If you have amalgam fillings, particularly if there is a family history of Alzheimer's disease, you might consider having them removed. Be sure to have a dentist who follows the protocol established by The International Academy of Oral Medicine & Toxicology for safely removing them.
For the third source of mercury, follow the CDC's advice and don't eat mercury-contaminated fish, especially if you are pregnant because mercury in your bloodstream crosses the placenta and is concentrated in the fetus' brain.
Recommended Reading in addition to the online links I've provided
An excellent review of thimerosal and autism, titled Mercury in Medicine -- Taking Unnecessary Risks, is to be found, of all places, in the Congressional Record. Prepared by its Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness, this report was presented to the Committee on Government Reform, chaired by Congressman Dan Burton (who has an autistic grandson). Congressional Record, May 21, 2003, E1011 -- E1030.
SafeMinds president, Lyn Redwood, presented testimony at a Congressional hearing held on September 8, 2004 that exposes malfeasance by the CDC and FDA related to thimerosal. It is titled Truth Revealed: New Scientific Discoveries Regarding Mercury in Medicine and Autism and is posted on the safeminds.org Web site.
Also, read this organization's 84-page Report to Congress titled, A Brief Analysis of Recent Efforts in Medical Mercury Induced Neurological and Autism Spectrum Disorders (September 8, 2004).
"The Three Modern Faces of Mercury" -- in fish, vaccines, and dental amalgams -- by Thomas Clarkson in Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 110 | Supplement 1 | February 2002 | pages 11 -- 23. This study provides a current-day perspective on mercury exposure, post Calomel, Merthiolate and Mad Hatters.
If your dentist parrots the American Dental Association stance on this subject and says that "silver" -- i.e., mercury -- amalgams are perfectly safe, insist that he or she read Dr. Boyd Haley's response to the president of the ADA on his defense of dental amalgams. It is posted on this website. I sent it to my dentist who I had been going to for a number of years. When he chose to ignore it, I changed dentists -- to a mercury-free one and had him remove all my amalgam fillings.
"Mercury: the Silent Killer," Chapter 3 in Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life by Russell L. Blaylock, M.D. As a board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr. Blaylock, like me, is a member of the medical establishment. He now, however, studies and writes about wellness and complementary/alternative medicine on a full-time basis.
The 78-page book, Are Vaccines Safe and Effective? by Neil Z. Miller (2002), is well worth reading, especially if you have children or if you are being pressured to get a flu shot.
For a comprehensive review, with 167 scientific references, on how vaccines damage infants' and soldiers' brains (Gulf War Syndrome) when given too close together, see Dr. Blaylock's "Interaction of Cytokines, Excitotoxins, Reactive Nitrogen and Oxygen Species in Autism Spectrum Disorders" in the Journal of the American Nutraceutical Association (JANA 2003;6[4]:21 -- 35).
Also read his study, Chronic Microglial Activation and Excitotoxicity Secondary to Excessive Immune Stimulation: Possible Factors in GulfWar Syndrome and Autism, in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JAPS 2004;9[2]:46 -- 52). Dr. Blaylock has written a simplified version of these studies for the general public, titled Vaccines: the Hidden Dangers, in his Blaylock Wellness Report (Vol. 1, No. 1), which is published monthly and can be purchased online.
Donald Miller is a cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle and a member of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness and writes articles on a variety of subjects for LewRockwell.com, including bioterrorism. His web site is www.donaldmiller.com, and you can contact him at dwm@u.washington.edu.
Related Articles:
Mercury Pollutes Nation's Rivers, Lakes
Flu Vaccines for Children Still Contain Mercury
Mercury In Your Fish
Mercury Contributes To Alzheimer's Disease!
Autism and Mercury
