New TV Drama Will Explore Autism, Vaccines, and the Law
A new legal drama making its debut this month on ABC is stepping into a subject that is the source of heated debate among some parents — the relationship between autism and childhood vaccines — and seemingly coming down on the side that has been all but dismissed by prominent scientific organizations.The producers of the show say they hope the series will provoke conversation. No doubt they'll be successful in that attempt!The drama, “Eli Stone,” scheduled to be broadcast at 10 p.m. on Jan. 31, centers on a lawyer who begins having visions that cause him to question his life’s work defending large corporations, including a pharmaceutical company that makes vaccines.
The title character of “Eli Stone,” adopting the message of his visions to fight for the little guy, takes his first case: suing his former client on behalf of the mother of an autistic child who believes a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused her son’s autism....
“Is there proof that mercuritol causes autism?,” Eli Stone says to the jury in summing up his lawsuit against the vaccine maker. “Yes,” he says. “Is that proof direct or incontrovertible proof? No. But ask yourself if you’ve ever believed in anything or anyone without absolute proof.”
The script also draws a parallel with research linking smoking and cancer, saying three decades passed between the first lawsuit charging a connection and the first jury award against a tobacco company. After the dramatic courtroom revelation that the chief executive of the vaccine maker did not allow his daughter’s pediatrician to give her the company’s vaccine, the jury in “Eli Stone” awards the mother $5.2 million.
What's your take on this drama? Is it a dramatic tool for bringing a major issue to national attention? Or is it just another way to turn others' misfortune into TV executives' cash? Express your opinion!
Comments
I’m all for it!! I’m the mother of an Autistic child and I’m okay with TV execs making $$$ while bringing this to the forefront.
This show is detrimental to the scientific and autism community. There is no direct evidence linking vaccines with Autism. Furthermore, every scientific endeavor to discover such a link has failed to do so. In fact, evidence shows that while supposedly harmful ingredients in vaccines have been removed, rates of autism continue to climb. I understand that parents need something to blame (as to take away from their own guilt), but the best thing for us all to do is stop looking to the past for rationalizations and start looking to the future for solutions (intensive early behavioral interventions).
Jennifer – you have no idea what you are talking about. Parents of Autistic children do not “blame” themselves. That went out with the “refrigerator mom” theory decades ago. WAKE UP !!! Thimersol is a known toxin. The FDA tells adults not to eat fish with trace amounts of lead/mercury but they allowed this toxin to be used as a preservative in vaccines injected into developing infants. I don’t know if Thimersol causes autism or not (& either do you). Contrary to what you believe the scientific community is NOT in agreement on this issue by any means. What I can tell you for certain is that my son showed no sign of Autism (which is documented on video from his birth to 14mths). He was injected with the MMR vaccine on a Friday at 2:00pm & by Saturday night 10:00pm we were in the emergency room with a 105 Degree fever. He began developing Autistic tendencies shortly thereafter & was diagnosed with Infantile Autism at 23mths. He lost all the language he aquired & is currrently a 10 year old non-verbal boy who struggles each day to connect with the world even w/ “intensive early behavioral interventions”. I appreciate your advocacy for Lovas/Discrete Trial/ABA but please do not discount a connection to vaccines just because of what you read in the paper or see on TV. If you are going to comment you should research the facts & you will see this issue is far from resolved from a scietific standpoint.
Actually, a certain amount of human behavior is to naturally have guilt when there is no answers, plus want and need answers when there are no answers. Blame is also human nature, and felt more strongly by some than other’s.
The other day I seen a Notorious episode that I had first seen on Law And Order. Prime time often base their shows on real day events or situations, and just alter it a tad to make it fiction.
I also think for this episode, to reference vaccines and autism may just be detrimental if they make it more fiction than fact, and also not bringing up other factual area’s related to it, as stating vaccines no longer contain Thimerosal. Many prime time shows have had autism with in it, some of my favorites in fact- but they did not go into cause, and drama’s shouldn’t. One also wonders, since this quite clearly is mimicking the Vaccine court of real life, if this drama is trying to turn the opinions of those involved.
It may result as they want, provoke conversation, however based on what? a TV drama? I’d rather have conversation about a documentary.
Jennifer is partly true, although one may in their hearts feel a vaccine caused autism, you still need that scientific validated proof. As of today, “have you ever believed in anything or anyone without absolute proof?” Yes, Santa Clause but when it come to medical issues, the science and proof must be there, or what is the point? Do we then guess that’s the reason without ever knowing what part of the vaccines were unsafe? It may take years for them to find it, but there is always those concrete answers to be found. To ever believe in anything or anyone without absolute proof only works with Santa and the Tooth Fairy, no offense to anyone. I wont take anything less than concrete reasons on paper, or there’ll never ever be hope for prevention of autism.
By the way, I really like the new blog set up
I think this is a good subject to discuss, I am a Mother of a son age 10 who wasn’t diagnosed until the age of four. We lived in Ohio and expressed to my family doctor I had concerns I knew something wasn’t quite right with him. We moved to WV and were finally able to have someone test him and tell us what was going on with our child. I know there are many children who have Autism it is becoming an epidemic. My son is the middle of three I have a son who is 15 and a daughter who is 8 neither one of them have Autism my son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified), I thought what is that?! Only to find out it is under the “big” “umbrella” of Autism and they lean more towards Asperger’s because he is so high functioning, people who look at him say he looks normal well yeah they all do. There is no physical way to see it. I live in a very small community and we don’t have any support groups or anything I would like to start one here myself not only for Autism but anyone who has a child with a disability,but not real sure where to start, and instead of arguing about whether it was the shots or it wasn’t ( which my Mother seems to think that it could be shots)my step-father had a cousin whose little girl was total normal and when she received her last set of shots at the age of 2 she took a very high fever and became basically a vegetable and is in a wheel chair she has to be diapered and feed, it’s horrible so whose to say it wasn’t the shots?.. these are beautiful children that were sent to each one of us by the Lord. And I am truly blessed to have my son, he amazes me everyday.
I think it’s great that people are really seeing this is a epidemic and maybe a lot more people will be educated about Autism and it’s issues, I overheard while eating lunch one day there were some ladies in a restaurant I was in and they were talking about Autism and saying well that one boy has it because his parents drank and did drugs! Some people think it’s from cigarettes, the fact is they were uneducated Autism has been around for a long long time and as we hope there may be a cure one day or at least what causes this we can’t say for sure how and why it happens we all need to stay focused and stay together to support one another.
This series seems like it will be as misleading as most stories on this issue. There is a tremendous amount of valid research linking vaccines to autism. Thimerosol is a trojan horse. The most-linked vaccine to autism is the MMR which has NEVER contained thimerosol. The CDC and FDS both know there is a link. Pharmaceutical giants keep this information from the public. Dr. Shari Tenpenny who has written books about vaccines and autism got most of her research from the CDC.
Whose agenda is being served? Consider for a moment who controls the media on this, and look at this related story:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7395411/deadly_immunity/
Autism Speaks was founded by who? They are trying to bury this issue.
The amount of money associated this lie is stagering (just in advertising $$)- the most recent CA study must be contrived resurch sellout.
What’s your take on this drama? Is it a dramatic tool for bringing a major issue to national attention? Or is it just another way to turn others’ misfortune into TV executives’ cash?
What about a third choice?
Yes, autism is a major national issue — but the alleged connections between vaccination and autism have been thoroughly disproven. The issues now are (a) how to get effective early diagnosis, intervention and treatment available equitably across the country and (b) how to provide for persons with autism as they enter adulthood.
Sadly, this program will do nothing to raise awareness of either of those issues.
Arthur Allen writes:
A reliable source tells me that the plot for this show originally had “Eli Stone” representing the mom because her insurer wouldn’t pay for her autistic son’s risperidone, an anti-psychotic drug that previously wasn’t FDA-approved to treat autism. But the FDA recently signed off on risperidone to treat some symptoms associated with autism. Did that real-life change have anything to do with the script alteration? I preferred the old script. If Hollywood has to drag someone’s name through the mud, health insurers are a better candidate than the vaccine establishment.
I am disgusted
It is not only autism that is of concern from vaccines. All of our children are affected in some way, physically or cognitively. The sprectrum is much larger than most people realize. Autism is the most severe reaction. Please read the book “A Shocking Discovery, Observations of a Speech/Language Pathologist from 1975-2005, What Have We Done To Our Children?” by Marcia Staggs Abbott, for a comprehensive description and research of what has happened to our children.
Maybe the answer is to stop giving immunizations and see if Autism disappears. Of course the downside would be seeing thousands of children dying from the preventable diseases we saw a few decades ago.
Mark- Please don’t be sarcastic. No one is advocating eliminating vaccines. Just take out the preservative, NOW. It is still in the flu vaccine that is now mandatory for all NJ children. If the vaccines expire & it costs the Phara Co’s a few extra $’s until we thoughly understand the effect so be it. This is truely an epidemic.
I didn’t take Marks posts as sarcastic. It’s actually reality. Vaccines for children do not contain Thimerosal, and for this flu season, 10 million to 12 million doses of Thimerosal-free vaccine were available nation-wide. The state where I live does not have a ban on Thimerosal, and I obtained a Thimerosal vac for my 8 year old. All it takes is phone calls to the clinics and flu shot clinics to see who has those vaccines.
I was not being sarcastic. I am a pediatrician and our clinic has been giving preservative free vaccines for years, but the reported autism rate is still climbing. A good amount of my patients are refusing vaccines for their children and I feel this is putting them at risk.
I have done hummanitrian missions to Africa in areas where 4 out of 5 children die before age 5. A good portion of these deaths are caused by the illness we are vaccinate against in the US. The people there would wait in line for hours to get their vaccines (we gave out 35,000 in 2 weeks.) If they didn’t make it to the front of the line they would walk 5 to 10 miles to the next village to get in line again.
So I do believe we have to make a choice.
I had a typo- my son had a Thimerosal flu vac.
Other countries are a good point- and something to remember when those who choose not to vaccinate and immigrants (legal and illegal). Africa for many years have been reporting high rates of Polio, as well as their death rates. It’s quite sad and reality these childhood contracted diseases are not abolished into oblivion nor can your immune system fight them off on it’s own. If a child is exposed to them and not protected by a vaccine, it could have devastating results.
Thimerosal has been out of vaccines in this country and rates are still rising. Denmark removed Thimerosal before the USA did and their rates are still rising. In almost all countries, the rates are rising, not dropping. CA’s reporting and their recent study also leaves out many age groups of kids that are younger (zero to 3) so at any given time that states aytism rate reportings are not accurate to the real count.
My youngest is severely autistic, and were it shown that Thimerosal or anything else deliberately given to children was the cause of his autism, they wouldn’t have to invent a court-room drama, they’d be showing a documentary.
The fact is that all such vaccine-related theories have been shown to be wrong, and the cause of autism remains a very sad mystery. Keeping that in mind, not giving children and adults vaccines is criminal, and I fail to see why such no-brain options are continually put forward by some.
Why is this even a topic of debate? Just diverts attention from where it is truly needed.
Find the real cause of autism, then come up with the cure. In the meantime, fund autism treatment, and get your children and yourself vaccinated.
My son now 31 has survived! The last vacine he got made him so ill, and I do believe parents should ne notified it caused him great harm and incresed his seizures as well as gave him less palmer control..This is 100& true!
People like Mark move through life with a false understanding of what’s real and what’s not real. Mark, you believe in a “false meme”. Much like a gene, a meme is an evolution of thought. The “thought” does not need to be true or false, but simply “beleived to be true by the majority”. In this case, a vast majority of our medical community has been successfully manipulated by the AMA and the pharmco industy to believe vaccines make a positive impact on our health when the exact opposite is true. You are being controlled to think this way by greedy, evil people.
Unfortunately, your industry has built itself up in the eyes of society to be the expert resource of such issues when, in truth, you are merely doing their dirty work for them. Open your eyes and think for yourself. Quit leading the lambs to slaughter.
My wife and I are raising a perfectly healthy two year old who is building natural immunity through superior nutrition.
are you suggesting superior nutrition will build immunity against the flu? Polio? RSV? does that work for the common cold as well? how about strep? are you suggesting any where within history, that’s all that was needed to avoid contracting these diseases?
history tells us and so does present day, much more was needed to prevent deaths from childhood contracted diseases.
Yep, that’s exactly what she’s suggesting. But of course, instead of doing research yourself on the benefits of super-nutrition, and the real dangers of vaccine, you can choose to believe the information your doctors are regurgitating to you about these subjects. They are just spewing the “facts” as they know them to be true, after fed that information from a few biased sources (skewed studies in journal articles, the CDC and text books), instead of going out to do the real research for themselves. After all, it’s much easier to push pills and vaccines and refrain from advising you on good nutrition if they truly believe what they are doing is for someone’s benefit… if they *really* knew what they’re pushing was detrimental in any way, they’d have to think twice about it, and that would affect the $$$ going into their pockets. Money is the biggest voice of reason in our society, unfortunately, and it’s our children and our families that are paying the ultimate price for global greed..
I meant “he”. Sorry John! :/
Follow up case:
Fully immunized adult (you know, the stuff they stop giving in high school?) gets a wicked case of something vaccine preventable from a kid who’s parents believe vaccines are Dah Ebil and superior nutrition cures everything.
Said adult sues source child’s family, doctors, and everyone else who decided this was a great idea.
Said adult wins much money, because your right to get sick ends where everyone else’s right NOT to begins.
Never said nutrition cures everything, but it DOES build immunity, naturally.
this is interesting. while mainstream media is always a little melodramatic, it is also one of the best ways of reaching huge segments of the public and begin to put some ideas out for discussion. years ago i was watching soap operas at work and realized that so many people have no access to new ideas other than these programs.
one of the best movies that i have seen dealing with health is a meryl streep film on lifetime movies called “First, do no Harm.” it deals with epilepsy and but does a bang up job presenting the medical industry’s increasing damage to this little boy with increasingly toxic drugs, ending up wanting to take his skull apart (quite literally). the working class mom is going nuts watching her vibrant son retreat into a state of retarded dimentia. when she begins to do her own research and discovers a medically established diet to deal with the problem, the hospital patronizes her and tries to intimidate her. but she holds her ground, finds a way to do an end run around their requirements, and gets the kid to john hopkins hospital where her recovers from a change in diet (the ketogenic diet, for any interested). what i liked about that film is that is was based on an actual case and did a good job presenting the fallacies of the medical industry with its biases and bullying tactics, even in the face of their dismal failure. btw, the health insurance game comes up for a big hit, too.
as for vaccines and autism: 1:155 children today become autistic, retrogressively. this number has increased from 1:10,000 in the early 1990’s. the number of enforced vaccines has risen astronimically, being given at earlier ages of infants and in multiple doses. no research has EVER been done on the effects of cumulative vaccines.
for that matter, there is NO EVIDENCE that vaccines work at all. every vaccine that has claimed success has been introduced after the offending disease was on the wane in the culture. what has been effective is public health; ie, cleaner water, better sewage, improved housing and nutrition.
the fear of smallpox is ridicuous, too. it is usually side effects of the disease that would get people, but these conditions are easily controllable with the modern care. this is true with most illnesses.
and lastly, i would note that children NEED to get sick. that is how the immune system is developed, creating the antibodies to the disease, usually for life. vaccines work by creating a low level of chronic illness in the person, are often highly toxic to the brain and neurology and work on destroying the natural immune processes of the body.
i think getting the ideas of vaccine toxicity into the public is a good idea. lets hope they have the guts to carry through.
I have a question.
Several commenters are saying to one another, in essence, “do your research, and you’ll see I’m right.”
In fact, each is saying “read and believe in the accuracy of the research I believe is accurate, and discount the research that you’re citing.”
There’s no doubt that credentialed doctors and researchers have conducted studies and written papers on all sides of the vaccines, immunity and nutrition issues as they relate to autism – and that anyone who searches can find quite a few studies that are in direct conflict with one another.
So here’s my question:
How do you (as an individual, I mean) determine which sets of materials to believe in? Do you go by the institution that funded the study? The reputation of the researcher? The size and quality of the study? Or do you look for studies that support a perspective you already have (eg, vaccines do or do not cause autism)?
I’m not at ALL trying to be cute with this question! As the About.com Guide to Autism, it’s my job to help people make sense of the research, and I honestly want to understand how readers select the research they use as the basis for their actions.
Thanks so much,
Lisa (About.com Guide to Autism)
You read more than one source, you investigate history and what they were doing at the time, and what was in their environment at the time, as well as genetic dispositions and finally, you do not read all sources of information from the net or fictional movies. No matter if a movie is based on a true story, it’s Hollywoodised and not completely factual. Also, never assume where someone gained their research facts from, or think they didn’t already know a thing or two before one assumes they know nothing. You read it every where you turn: it’s all about money right? Money and faked studies.
There is evidence vaccines work. The idea effective of public health; cleaner water, better sewage, improved housing and nutrition is an idea only of no proof, except for the Plague in the UK (1665 was the year) and was not the case in the Polio outbreaks, smallpox or anything else. When children contracted childhood diseases, they didn’t get just a little sick and build up immunities, they became deadly ill and many died. When you’re exposed to these diseases, you’re generally not just a little exposed. You’re deadly exposed.
On a final note, epilepsy can one day cause a deadly seizure if untreated. This was not a case of medical industry but certain doctors of course are not well informed about treatment. And besides that, one should also note that epilepsy can happen in different area’s of the brain and finding the right medication is trial and error. Seizures also cause brain damage.
And one last thought: smallpox is a worry of bio warfare. It’s the world’s most feared viral diseases. It’s also been around for a very long long time. A vaccine was created in the 1800’s for it. in 1950 the world cases of it was 332,224. If you did survive, you did build an immunity but flip a coin of who was going to live or die. Some consider the fear ridiculous, easily controllable with the modern care. Maybe tell that to the countries out there so they can give up that bio warfare idea.
John,
How do you know my beliefs are a “false truth” and yours are not? Why have I been falsly manipulated by what have read and you have not been falsely manipulated by your research? You may very well be moving through life with a false understanding of what’s real and what’s not real. You may very well believe in a “false meme”.
I have done plenty of research on this issue (especially since I have to answer the question every day a t work.) I have spent hours looking at both sides of the story comparing information from tne AMA, CDC and orginaztion such DAN (Defeat Autism Now.) I have unfortunately not found any definitive facts about autism and it’s cause.
I have found plenty of evidence vaccines work. There are numerous cases of outbreaks of diseases such as measles and pertussis in communities where immunizations were stopped.
A have lived most of my life in the US, but had the opportunity to live in Europe for 3 years and visit over 30 countries. I have spoke to physicians in many different societies and discussed many medical practices other than western medicine. I still believe in vaccines.
I glad you child is healthy and I agree good nutrition helps your immune system, but I don’t belive for a minute that eating well is the answer. What do you do about the chldren in out country who do not or cannot have a healthy diet? By your theory, they would have a poor immunity and be suseptible to these diseases. I believe your child benifits from the herd immunity of those around you who have had vacines. I have five healthy children who have recieved all of their vaccines. I have taken care of thousands of healthy children who have recieved vaccines. I do not believe vaccines are the sole cause.
They are starting to find a genetic predisposition to autism and I believe this will be a large part of the answer (the same as in cancers.) But what is the trigger? Is it vaccines or a virus or environmental exposures or even TV exposure as one study suggested?
We are back to my original statement. The only way to truely find out may be to stop all vaccines and see if autism disappears and also see if disease rates climb again.
“We are back to my original statement. The only way to truly find out may be to stop all vaccines and see if autism disappears and also see if disease rates climb again.”
let’s not and say we did. I’m not old enough to remember what these diseases were like, but my mom is and she’s still alive to retell it. She also grew up in a modern city with running water and sewers, and also suffered from one of these nasty diseases and had long term effects of it.
I’d rather have a child with autism than a child who dies from contracting a childhood disease. Or worse yet, a child with autism who dies from contracting a childhood disease.
In response to Lisa and her question about how one personally chooses which research to believe:
Mine came from personal experiences (please notice the “s” on that… plural).
1. When I was a child, I went in for a round of boosters (I believe I was eight years old). I don’t know WHAT boosters I was given, but it was several of them. Within minutes of receiving the injections, I went in to anaphylaxis. I remember thinking, even as a child, that something was wrong with the shots, as the reaction was almost immediate, and very violent. I was subsequently diagnosed with chronic asthma, after not having a single respiratory problem in my life prior to those boosters.
2. Seven year ago, a friend of mine took her two-year-old, very energetic, loving, lively son in for his routine checkup, where they gave him his “shots” on-schedule. MMR was one of the many shots given that day. Within 12 hours, her son was having seizures, for which she called the doctor. The doctor said this was a “normal” reaction, and told her to give him Tylenol to help him “sleep it off”. Her son, as we all knew him, never came back to her after that day. He’s trapped, to this day, in a body damaged by the very vaccines that were supposed to protect him.
3. Four years ago my best friend’s seven-year-old daughter went in for her routine checkup, wherein she was given a round of vaccines. I’m not sure of everything she was given, except I know the chicken pox vaccine was in the mix, as her father had never had the chicken pox and was being forced to stay away from her for 21 days. I was several immunizations all at once, though. That night, she developed a severe (105) fever. When the doctor was called (they always tell you to call, not come in, if a reaction occurs… WHY?? I’m guessing it’s because they know a reaction is probable and don’t want their practice swarmed by parents seeking more help for the children they just poisoned, but who really knows.), his response was, again, that this is a normal reaction, and told Mom to give her Tylenol to bring down the fever and help her “sleep it off”. She progressively got worse over the next 24 hours, until Mom finally took her to Urgent Care, where she started seizing and then went into coma. An ambulance was called, and she was transported to the ER. She was diagnosed with Type I diabetes… in essence, the vaccines had attacked and killed her pancreas. The doctor said this is a “rare side effect” to vaccine, but it DOES happen. I watched alongside my best friend as that little girl lay in a coma for four days, helpless and near death, because of the very vaccine that was designed to protect her. Today that eleven-year-old girl has to inject herself with insulin five times a day…
4. A couple of months before my first son was born, another friend of mine took her healthy two-month-old in for his recommended shots, to keep him on schedule. He was injected, sent home, and within a few hours developed a severe fever. Again, Mom was told to give him Tylenol. Within a couple of hours of onset of fever, he started seizing. Doc was called again, and again told Mom this is a “normal reaction” to the shots, and to just put him to bed and let him “sleep it off”. Within 12 hours after receiving the vaccination, 9-1-1 was called; their son was dead when the paramedics got there. Not just harmed… DEAD. Diagnosis? SIDS
ALL of these incidents either happened to me personally or to someone I was very close with personally. It happened over a wide spread number of years, and it made me go “hmm… what’s wrong with this picture?” If incidents like these was so prevalent among the few people I actually knew on a very personal level at the time, they just how wide spread are these types of things? So before my son (now two) was born, I decided to investigate the rate of vaccine reaction myself, and was astonished. I am still amazed that BigPharma is allowed to continue to use our children as guinea pigs, injecting them with toxin after toxin, after toxin.
I was shocked to find out just what is in the vaccines used today. Which, by the way, Thimerisol is not the only (nor the even the biggest) culprit in our vaccines. Vaccines are LOADED with chemicals and heavy metals. There is a great article this month in Mothering Magazine that discusses this very issue, and aluminum, in particular. The chemicals in our vaccines are 100 times more toxic than lead, but you don’t see doctors running round anxious to inject our children with lead!
There are also other issues (i.e. ethical) at stake, besides just whether a vaccine is safe….for instance, a fact many do not know is that in order to grow harvest vaccines, tissue that was once living has to be used. Some vaccines are harvested on pig tissue, cow tissue and some are even harvested on ABORTED HUMAN FETUSES. So, the Catholic Church, a HUGE supporter of the vaccine movement, is actually CONDONING ABORTION by condoning the wide-spread use of vaccines.
Do I think blanket “no-vax” across the board is the right thing? No. But I also don’t think that a blanket one-size-fits-all immunization schedule is right either. It should be left up to the parents and individuals, after given ALL the facts, to decide if any of the vaccines are right for them or their children.
The whole topic can get so out of topic. Yes, there are many things in vaccines. For many years insulin came from pigs. Medical science for eon’s of centuries collided with the Catholic Church, an on topics far less evasie as this topic. As if they have anything to say about ‘vaccine movement’ would mean anything to me.
On the lines of abortion, you might as well add in there organ donors to the list, it’s pretty much the same concept; a part of another dead person is being used for another living human being. Might as well add stem cells in there too, regardless of what medical science can prevent and cure with it, or maybe even add cord blood banking which also saves lives.
Every persons biology is made up of many different things, and many things can trigger medical things. It could be the vaccines were the first trigger to get there, but the outcome may still had been inevitable had there been no vaccines but exposed to a trigger. It also could be that those grandparents exposed to Agent Orange affected those offspring, making triggers down the bloodline more predisposed to triggers.
It could be anything.
Right now, there is no concrete evidence.
On a side note, I have a cousin who’d match to a T one of the stores of No-vax mommy. There is no medical evidence as to why my cousin recovered with no lasting ill affects and why others did not.
By citing the use of aborted human fetuses in the production of vaccines, I was trying to prove point that people don’t really reasearch these things for themselves… most only rely on what their doctor spews at them.
And of course organs for people who CHOOSE TO DONANTE their organs is entirely different from the aborted human fetuses who weren’t given a choice… but, that is a topic for another blog, so that is the last I will comment on that here.
Parents choose to donate organs of their children all the time- as I’m sure the ones who decide to abort do as well. I don’t believe in abotion however I’m not that person, either.
I’m not sure why parents wouldn’t research content of anything prior to the use of it, or the side effects. The information has always been there, but then I see all over the place the blame is laid on the shoulders of the medical field.
As a physician I try not to spew at my patients but rather give them my educated opinion. Some people act as if the pediatricians are the enemy. I became a pediatrician to help children, not get rich. I practiced for 12 years as a pediatrician in the Air Force and never made a penny off the immunizations I gave. I truely belive I was preventing illness.
But, you bring up a good point; many patient are afraid to ask questions. This includes of their doctors and of the media. Many people will not question what they see in this “Eli Stone” episode and believe all vaccines still have thimerisol in them and avoid all vaccines. Poeple see Jenny McCarthy on Oprah and Larry King and without question believe the MMR vaccine caused her child’s autism (althouhg in her book she states she saw signs of problems at an age well before this vaccine was give to him.) People will also read this blog and now think vaccines are made from aborted fetuses. People ned to ask questions and read information on both sides of the issue.
It is unfortunate that you know so many people who have had severe reactions to vaccines. In my 15 years of practice I have not see a single seizure after a vaccine (although the reported incidence is 6 to 9 out of 100,000 for DTP and 25 to 34 otu of 100,00 for MMR.) I seen far more unimmunized children hospitalized, become handicapped or die from the diseases we are trying to prevent. I have also seen more anaphylactic reactions from antibiotics (unfortunately I even have seen a child die after a reaction) but parents still come in demanding antibiotics for their their childs colds.
Ask qustions but make decisions based on facts not TV dramas, talk shows or anecdotes.
The CDC and FDA take their orders from big business and Codex Alimentarious. They are not on the side of health and wellness. If you fall into believing what they have to say you’ll never see things for what they really are.
Falsus I uno, falsus in omnibus.
Untrue in one thing, untrue in everything. This sums up my faith in the pharmco industry. From SV40 to mercury they have done nothing but poison our population while manipulating the masses into believing they are saving lives. This isn’t just an autism issue, such intervention opens the door for any number of autoimmune responses and who knows what else? Including cancer.
I’m not saying it’s the only cause of cancer, let’s not forget processed sugar. Johannes Fibiger won the Nobel Peace Prize for Medicine in 1926 based on his experiments showing a direct link between the intake of processed sugar and the onset of cancer of any kind. I’d be curious to know if anyone on this blog ever heard of this…I know they aren’t teaching this at medical school.
I believe that our doctors are highly intelligent people who truly care for their patients and hold strong values deep down inside. That said, I wonder how many parents Mark has had to recommend giving Tylenol as a response to receiving a vaccine? I imagine the answer is zero, or at least that’s what he’ll share with this forum. The standard response is to deny, deny, deny. The doctor is doing what they’re told and the pharmco industry is bullet-proof. You are left to your own misery should your child be one of the unlucky.
Thoughts, Breathing, Drinking, Eating, Exercise and Sleep are the six factors affecting change. You will maintain health if you give your body the opportunity to stay in balance. If you get sick, the same six factors, along with a functioning immune system, will bring you back to health. In addition, stop flooding your system with chemicals like fabric softener and aluminum filled deoderant (and the list could go on and on)…these are poisons that the chemical industry is profiting from at the expense of your health.
The medical community should stick to saving lives in the event of trauma and stop attempting to play God. The modern day doctor is nothing more than an elixir saleman for the pharmco industry.
The only thing I want to see is for people to start taking resonsibility for their own health and stop grazing with the sheep.
John
Holistic Lifestyle Coach
Exercise Kineseologist
John,
I actually recommend Tylenol or Motrin for all the kids I give vaccines to. I also gave them to my own children after their shots.
People wrongly assume I get rich from pharmI spend more time trying to talk parents out of antibiotics and cold medicine and get complaints if I do not give them out. The US is a culture of quick fixes yet you blame the doctors. When I lived in Italy, they were amazed at the all the preserved food we had i our kitchen. They all rode to the market each day to buy their foods and had gardens in their back yards. Their antibiotic usages ws far below ours.
But you cannot deny that the infant morality and death rate was much higher before alot of the medications we use now were invented. Also the life expectancy continues to go up, in spite of our polluted environment and diets. I tyhink you would be hard pressed to find evidence that reaction to mergencies saves more lives than prevention.
Mark,
I’m glad to hear your stance on antibiotics. For years you’ve done your best to limit the usage of antibiotics and your patients walk into your office determined to consume them. Why? Can we call this a false meme? They believe they need them based on what they have come to consider the truth, when in fact, the antibiotic is doing much more harm than good.
“Life” isn’t as hard as it once was 100 years ago. Infant death rate and life expectancy are impacted most from central heating / air conditioning than maybe anything else. The very young and the very old don’t find their thermal capacity challenged as in days gone by. I imagine this string of sub-zero tempts we’ve seen the last 30 days would have been the final straw for a number of people should they had to depend on an iron stove filled with wood. There are other factors as well, but I would put this at the top of the list.
However, I do agree that pharmco/medical intervention has managed to extend the lives of many who would have died otherwise. That said, the survivor tends to merely “survive” the balance of their life, rather than “thrive” in the enjoyment of LIVING. Such practices have created a population that is vertically dead and dependant on pharmco/medical intervention the rest of their days.
The sad truth is the survivor inevitably dies from the mixture of pharmco drugs they were dependant on for the last 3 months to 40 years of their life. In the end, the pharmco industry gets wealthier as the population increases their dependancy on the quick fix.
Well, for my money, I think this show is a wonderful idea. Already look at what it has sparked: A debate into what is truly the cause of autism. While I have no desire to have my daughter immunized I can understand the comfort of “knowing” she is safe from these horrible diseases. Believe me, I agonized over this decision! But the fact of the matter is that no one really knows if or if not. We as parents don’t know what exactly is included in each vaccine our children receive or the effects on them. It is NOT irresponsible for a parent to want to know what is being injected into their children. It is also NOT irresponsible to question the majority (remember at one time the medical community believed Thalidomide was safe too). And above all it is NOT irresponsible to make the pharmaceutical companies PROVE that their vaccines are absolutely safe in the doses they proscribe or in the schedule they recommend. Please don’t think that all parents think of Dr’s as the enemy or that all parents who choose to not immunize are closet conspiracy theorists. In the end we are just a bunch of people trying to figure out what is best for our children. If this show is a tool to root out the answer (either way) then I say more power to it!
Because no one really jumps to volunteer for studies, and because everyone’s biological make up is different and ethnic groups, there will always be recalls, there will never be such a thing as a completely safe medication for all. It’s true, Thalidomide was thought to be safe and science is not perfect nor does all things show up with side affects pronto for the same reasons I listed above. Plus, the issue was use while pregnant and actually given to reduce morning sickness, and infants born with deformities. Of course during the studies prior to it’s release, no pregnant woman jumped to volunteer. The fact is they need to find out why, as they did for Thalidomide. However, Thalidomide is still used medically and is approved for some things like leprosy. With the use of Thimerosal, the potential of side effects weren’t as apparent as Thalidomide.
All anyone needs to do is look over to the UK and the decline of the MMR vaccines, their rate of these diseases and rates of death as a result. And for those children who do survive, what they went through was miserable, and preventable. Vaccines are not for everyone, however that is a choice each makes for themselves, and when you’re exposed to the virus, chances are just like in the UK, you’ll get sick.
This fictional show did not spark up a debate, it’s been an on going debate for years. I also think it’s ironic and a plot due to the fact that the verdict of the Real Vaccine Court has not been released as of yet. And there’s already a big hype about this fictional show also including a disclaimer prior to airing.
As for the comment “the survivor tends to merely “survive” the balance of their life, rather than “thrive” in the enjoyment of LIVING.” I beg to differ. Life is what you make of it. There is no Holistic medicine- way of life that can replace some needed medicine, and to suggest otherwise leads to deaths. The medical health issues were there to begin with, and without medical science who helped extend and made life worth living, these people including my sister would be dead.
Lisa Jo – your question about who to believe is spot on.
The answer is that you should not believe a person, or a group. You should follow the science.
Genuine science takes on a very particular form.
1) It is published in a respected journal (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ contains an online searchable abstract archive of the worlds respected journals).
2) It is subject to peer review. The system of peer review, whilst far from perfect, is the best tool we have to ensure that a study meets the criteria of science. All decent journals have peer reviewers who are not necessarily affiliated to any one body or nation.
3) It is replicated. In other words, other scientists have used the same methodology and got the same or similar results.
Using this criteria we can easily see where the weight of evidence of a hypothesis lies. In the question of vaccines and autism, it is clear that there is no scientific evidence of any kind to support a causative connection between any vaccine ingredient and autism.
The first port of call is epidemiology – is there a statistical correlation between the two things?
In the case of thiomersal, the answer is no. A CDC study noted that by Feb 2002, only 1.9% of vaccines on the shelves still contained thiomersal. Aside from trace amounts in the flu vaccine, no thiomersal exists in any vaccine in the US or UK. Using existing data sources such as CDDS, we can see that autism continues to not only increase, the rate of increase is not slowing down (although common sense says that it will at some point).
How about the MMR? In the UK, MMR uptake dropped by over 10% in a decade. In that same decade, the autism prevalence figure was scientifically established to rise to 0.9 in 100.
So, the two big vaccine culprits clearly have no epidemiological connection to autism. that alone should be enough to kill these two hyotheses.
Beyond that, the clinical science shows that ASD and mercury poisoning do not even resemble each other.
Is it right that mercury is no longer in vaccines? Speaking personally, I think it is. Does mercury cause autism? This is a scientific question and the answer provided to us by science is no.
Its time to move on. Our autistic kids need educational and adult supports. We need to stop throwing research money down this blind alley.
But, Kev – if you go to PubMed and look for peer reviewed research, you have no problem at all in finding publications by the Geiers, for example, who have published at least 11 studies associating mercury with autism.
And while I know the epidemiological evidence points away from vaccines, many people – I believe legitimately – say that epidemiology is great for making policy decisions, but not always helpful when trying to pinpoint the cause of a rare disorder.
In short, I think we have a case here of dueling science. And while the majority of folks believe, as you do, that the evidence falls heavily on one side – I can certainly understand why many people question those findings.
After all, Rimland, the Geiers, and several other researchers fit the basic “credibility” criteria perfectly. They’re serious researchers. Their work has been peer reviewed and published. Their findings have, for the most part, been replicated. They’re not in the pay of corporations that have the ability to pay them massive sums of money. And since most of us are not professional biological researchers, we’re really not in a position to judge the relative quality of any given study protocol.
Interestingly, BTW, in conversations with mainstream researchers I’ve learned that in-depth single-case studies are considered to be meaningful research.
Best,
Lisa (autism guide)
No ma’am – the Geier’s etc do not meeet the standard of scientific credibility. The criteria I outlined above is merely the start of the process of fact checking science.
The Geier’s work is unreplicated. It is self-referring in that their main references are other works by themselves that are not journal published. Or are published in journals like ‘Medical Hypotheses‘ who’s stock in trade is just that – hypothesis.
Science is hard. The process of peer review, journal publishing should not be considered the end of fact checking but the start. It merely assures the criteria of the journal was met. In other words, its a good start.
In the vacuum created between the difficulties with understanding hard science and the knowledge of what the lay person can follow flows what some of your commenters are evidencing above – sciency sounding conspiracy theories.
Take the whole ‘aborted fetus” in vaccines silliness. Dr Jim Laidler wrote:
“The question of vaccines being made from “…aborted fetuses…” is both simple and complex to answer. A few vaccines (rabies, hepatitis A and rubella come to mind) are made in human diploid cell cultures using cell lines MRC-5 and WI-38 (and FRhL-2 recently for rabies). The MRC-5 and WI-38 cell lines derive from two aborted fetuses, one aborted in the 1960’s (WI-38) and one in the 1970’s (MRC-5). The newer cell line for the rabies vaccine, FRhL-2, is derived from a rhesus monkey fetus.
So, while it’s true that the cells used are the descendants of cells taken from an aborted fetus, a continuous supply of aborted fetuses is not needed (or used) – the cells reproduce themselves. Interestingly, some of the websites also insist that polio vaccine is grown on fetal cells. There was, I recall, a short trial of human diploid cell culture for the polio vaccine, but the vaccine is (and was) grown on green monkey kidney cells (Vero cells).
Finally, the idea of fetal tissue being in vaccines is ridiculous. The
vaccine manufacturing process include steps to remove cells. In addition, the cell culture could hardly be called “fetal tissue” at this stage – these are cells that are thousands (if not millions, by now) of generations removed from the original fetal tissue their so-distant ancestors were removed from.”
This is sort of ridiculous hyperbole is how urban legend designed to serve a personal agenda can replace actual science. We need to treat it with the disdain it deserves.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/01/mom-calls-out-a.html
If anyone has read the CDC study released in Feb. of 2007 which states that autism is now 1 in 150 should take a closer look. The study was done in 2002 on children that were 8 years old…this makes the findings out of date by 13 years. Recent research and statistics from the Dept. of Education make the figure closer to 1 in 67. Genetics does not explain an 800% increase.
Would someone please point me to statistics on the percentage of immunized vs. unimmunized children diagnosed with autism? So many people here willing to spew out how science has discredited the link between autism and vaccines. How about simply look at autistic kids and just CHECK what percentage of them were vaccinated. If there really is no link, it should be even…I’D LOVE TO SEE THAT.