In doing research on autism and related issues, especially in writing the three books I recently published with colleagues, Dr. Stephen D. Oller, and Dr. Linda C. Badon, on autism (2010), communication disorders and related diseases (2010), and normal child development (2006), it became evident that the vaccine question could not be set aside. It had to be examined critically. For a deep look at the theory and research on the issues at stake, see my intensely peer-reviewed monograph-sized contribution to the special volume of Entropy edited by the distinguished European semiotician, Soren Brier.
From the beginning of the excursion into the toxicology research related to the autism epidemic, it was plain that certain neurotoxins and their interactions must exacerbate all kinds of neurological and communication disorders, including autism. The only question from the beginning of that toxicology work was whether any particular mix could produce autism. Suspects included the ethyl mercury in vaccines (thimerosal, a.k a., thiomersal, a. k. a. Merthiolate) that had been singled out for special public attention at from about 2001, and the measle’s virus which had been implicated much earlier and re-addressed by Dr. Andy Wakefield and colleagues in 1998. No one could deny the upsurge in the autism diagnosis and intelligent independent thinkers everywhere were beginning to wonder what could be causing it. The inevitable fact that it could not be uncaused, was staring us all in the face. The best data, e.g., see the excellent interactive compilations at Thoughtful House, showed that the diagnosis was growing on a smooth exponential curve at least from the 1980s.
That question about possible causation was not easy to answer, but there was no doubt going in that the neurotoxic impact of mercury in almost undetectible quantities could only make neurological conditions worse. It also came out early on that the mercury in the silver dental amalgam is highly unstable and leaks mercury vapors more or less constantly and in an extremely toxic form. What is more this particular offender, is also highly genotoxic. That is to say, it damages germ cells in the male sperm and female egg… Could these variants of mercury be harmless when injected, ingested, or breathed as vapors? Nonsense. It’s harmful all right. That is not in doubt.
The toxicology research findings (though not the public commentaries by certain well-paid pundits, journalists, and spokespersons!) were already overwhelming and unanimous in showing that it had been a really bad idea to inject any amount of a mercury based preservative into mature adults, much less infants or pregnant women, and that it was preposterous (to put it nicely) for the American Dental Association along with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the pharmaceutical industry (not to mention the watchdog agencies of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration) to persist in saying that the mercury which is unsafe to remove from your teeth, or to hold in your hand, or to be exposed to from a broken flourescent light, is safe to put in infants or to wear in your teeth. The research by Lorscheider and colleagues at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, from an article published in Neuroreport in 2001 (also generously provided to us for the DVDs associate with all three of the books mentioned at the top of this blog), and explained in an animated video, shows how mercury damage occurs in living nerve cells.
Given all this, any thinking person will ask (as my students always do when we are working through the toxicology), why hasn’t the CDC, FDA, not to mention the medical community, already put a stop to these dangerous practices? In fact, more to the point, why are they still recommending the continued use of dental amalgam, and arguing that mercury in shots never was harmful and is safe for flu shots even today. For anyone who will look at the actual toxicology findings, such claims are utterly false. There is no rational independent researcher on the face of the earth who can claim that a preservative such as Merthiolate does not have a damaging impact on living cells. The very idea of a disinfectant designed to kill micro-organisms that could be harmless to living organisms is contrary to the very definition. To function, such an agent must have killing power and ethyl mercury, the kind used in many vaccines, has it. Similarly, it has long been known that measle’s virus can cause or exacerbate symptoms of autism and that it is the principal factor in causing what is known as Sub Acute Sclerosing Pan Encephalitis (SSPE)… a fatal neurological condition that looks very much like an extreme form of progressively more and more severe autism. Also, initial research into the Vaccine Safety DataLink published by Chen and colleagues (1997), showed significantly increased seizure risks for multivalent vaccines and combinations of them—210% increased risk of a seizure (the kind that would land the victim in the hospital emergency room) from simultaneous administration of DTP (commonly containing thimerosal) with MMR (containing measles and rubella, both associated with increased risk of autism), and 300% increased risk of seizure (all within a 30-day window) if the MMR preceded the DTP by 8 to 14 days. By careful statistical manipulation, the authors argued they could make the interaction disappear, but all the clinical trial data (see our book examining the research) show increased likelihood of fevers and other symptoms with the multi-threat shots (that is, ones containing multiple disease agents simultaneously). When the multiple threats are presented at the same time or when the recipient is already sick, the chances of injury are greater. The common defense of the advocates for combining many disease agents into just one vaccine is that seizures and subsequent full-blown epilepsy or even death, as in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (or Sudden Unexplained Infant Death Syndrome, a new category that seems to have been invented to diminish deaths in the former) are unrelated to autism. That claim runs afoul of the fact that about 30 percent of persons with the autism diagnosis have full-blown epileptic seizures (the most common cause of death in autism) and at least twice that many have epilepti-form seizures that are detectible only with training or special equipment. However, the idea that seizures are unrelated to the autism epidemic is indefensible and the notion that vaccines cannot cause the latter (autism) seems less and less plausible to folks who are considering the research rather than the propaganda.
Inevitably, the question that must come up, and it is one that undergraduate students who are new to the field invariably ask, is, “Why do the proponents of vaccines continue to churn out all the false claims about safety, for instance, saying that the mercury in shots never did any harm? Why, for instance, invent a new category called SUID (Sudden Unexpected Infant Death) to compete with SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome); see this discussion on this compliments of M. Fowlkes and Clint Andrus in our autism book? Given that the research (see Braun & Ellenberg, 1997) shows that 92% of deaths reported under the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) that involve death occur within 2 weeks of a vaccination? Similarly, how come about half those reported deaths occur on the day of the vaccination? Is this just a statistical coincidence as argued by Paul Offit in his interview with Sanjay Gupta? Offit says, “Statistically it has to happen. Some children will get a vaccine, they will have been fine. They get the vaccine, then they’re not fine anymore.”
If Paul Offit’s argument were sound, there should also be reports of cases, where the child was really sick, went in for a vaccine, and came out completely well. We do have evidence that children often get vaccines when illness, fever, or a runny nose ought to preclude the event. But the research shows that pediatricians and clinicians administering the shots often do so when the shots are contraindicated (should not be given at all). So, Offit’s argument should entail that statistically some kids ought to come in not fine, and go out fine. The statistical argument sounds persuasive in his voice and yet makes about as much sense upon a moment’s thought as saying that burns are only statistically related to fires and that flood damage is only statistically related to hurricanes.
If the killing agent thimerosal did not kill anything would it have been in so many of the shots to keep them from being infected by microbes? If the disease agents in the vaccines presented no challenge whatsoever to the immune systems of humans, why not just skip the shots? His entire argument is poorly conceived and yet his is called on to appear in defense of vaccines all over the world. In our book on autism (especially pages 17ff) we document a death we believe was caused by vaccines in which a four month old child, Vance Walker, received 20 disease agents and a multitude of toxins along with them in one “well-baby” visit. Within 56 hours he died bleeding and frothing from the mouth, nose, and eyes. After weeks of waiting, the autopsy report said it was SIDS, and a representative from the CDC said the vaccines had nothing to do with Vance’s death. Within two weeks of that event, two other similar deaths occurred in the same clinic in a small town in Idaho. One of the vaccines administered to Vance was Rotateq which along with other rotavirus vaccines that have been in the news much of late. We now have strong evidence that Rotateq, though protected by the CDC, and the basis for about a $29 million pay off a short while back to none other than Paul Offit, contains a pig virus that causes “wasting disease” and that is even more harmful than the virus that resulted in the recent withdrawal of Rotarix just a few months ago.
It is not doubtful that vaccines are implicated in the causation of a lot of problems including autism. Independent research shows that no other conclusion is even plausible. So, again, why all the controversy.
The controversy is being ginned up by vested interests seeking to avoid discussion of the significant, positive, replicated, and ubiquitous evidence that toxins, disease agents, and their interactions are causing neurological disorders including autism. It is also evident to thinking researchers that some of the same toxins implicated in causing autism and related disorders are also causing the genetic damage that causes “genetic” tendencies in successive generations. As noted in an earlier post, genetic explanations of any disorder come up short of a complete ride on account of the fact that something has to cause the genetic problems before they are passed on to later generations. The idea that autism has always existed in its present form and at its present rate of incidence, is a nonstarter. Again, see the earlier post, “Is the autism epidemic an illusion?”
Much of the foregoing is discoverable by any independent and intelligent person with access to published works in libraries, on the internet, and especially in our vast scientific databases. But to save yourself the trouble, read the autism book.
My personal goal was to dig to the bottom of various questions about the role of various forms of mercury, its interactions with other bodily chemicals, and so forth. I was also interested in the role of disease agents such as the measle’s virus(es) as well as others that might do damage to the immune systems, mitochondria, DNA and so on. It came out immediately that mercury in various forms is extremely reactive with bodily biochemicals, especially in nerve tissues, and that a particular form of it had been used in disinfectants even ones placed in the bodily tissues and bloodstreams of millions of persons. Examining the theory underlying this practice led to a series of additional discoveries about germ theory, the role of sanitation, the desirability of keeping disease agents outside the body if possible and killing them before they can invade and cause infectious disease, etc. It also led to a question that thoughtful medical practitioners have been asking intermittently since the study of disease agents began to make scientific headway just about the time of Louis Pasteur’s famous experiments.
However, in doing the work I came upon a connection, a sinister one that I never would have thought of. It has to do with bioweapons and was the underlying reason that David Kirby wrote his book, Evidence of Harm. For him it all started in a midnight effort in Congress to attach a protective rider to the Homeland Security Act in 2002 that would have protected vaccine manufacturers from any legal actions owing to harm produced by thimerosal in particular. Why were they doing that secretly in the middle of the night? We tell more of the story that unfolded in our own book, but the point I want to make here is that there was a hidden connection between the vaccine research and the dark world of bioweapons research.
Here is a brief segment from the book Autism: The Diagnosis, Treatment, and Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic about the Russian, Kantjan Alibekov [Alibek] and his supposed defection and public revelations to the west:
“Alibekov allegedly defected to the United States in 1992. We say “allegedly” because Alibekov’s secret background began to be presented to the public through an appearance before a congressional committee in 1998 and then through a series of interviews with the press. In view of his remarkable account—a sort of spy legend still being critically examined—he is a former enemy of civilization who helped to develop some of the most insanely criminal devices on the face of the earth” (Autism, p. 200).
Is this intriguing? Important? I hope to tell you that it is both. You gotta read our book and get into the connected literature that is being produced by independent researchers. A key fact to be born in mind, one that invariably comes out in the research, is that the so-called “peaceful” research on vaccines, as Alibekov has pointed out to the American Congress and public, and as any thinking researcher will easily confirm, is impossible to fully distinguish from the destructive purposes of individuals and regimes intending to create chemical and biological weapons.
Thus far, from the fizzled attempt in 2001 to spread weaponized anthrax spores through the mail resulting in the death of 5 persons, and the touted “outbreak” of Soviet weapon-grade smallpox in 1971 reported by Alibekov and documented by Tucker and Zilinskas (2002, p.4)—a supposedly earth shattering event that actually killed a grand total of 3 individuals, one thing seems clear: The weaponized biological agents appear to have been remarkably easy to contain with sanitation and clean up. Flush your hands, eyes, nose and exposed areas with soap and water…. If these dreaded bioweapons were effective, why did they not spread as in the movies, e.g., as in Dr. Dustin Hoffman’s fictional Outbreak world?
Does the history of pronouncements by authorities including our U. S. Presidents about swine flu, ebola, bird flu, and H1N1 ring any bells? Evidently, the propaganda is failing in spite of all the money being spent to promote the vaccines that supposedly can prevent the fictional epidemics. Last year over half the world and about 2/3 of U. S. citizens said, “No thanks,” to the H1N1 shot and lots of people who got it regretted doing so. For one case, see the story on Desiree Jennings and its sequelae.
Meantime, the U. S. Congress and the Centers for Disease Control are spending hundreds of millions and requiring taxpayers to spend billions on nonexistent epidemics and the threat of a weaponized smallpox variant that killed 3 people back in 1971. All the while, as they secretly protect us from huge disasters, they inadvertently are undoubtedly helping to produce the real epidemic of autism and related disease conditions.
Even the CDC admits that autism is now affecting more than 1% of the babies being born this year, but they deny vehemently that the ongoing upsurge has anything to do with the toxins, disease agents, and interactions that they are injecting into the bodily tissues and bloodstreams of neonates, tiny infants, toddlers, and so forth. Their advocacy of increasing the load of vaccinations on younger and younger and less and less mature immune systems actually makes about as much logical sense as supposing that putting live coals on newborns will protect them from burns later in life.
The germ theory of disease is not false, but sensible persons who read the research will conclude that it is better to keep germs on the outside our tissues. If we need to kill them to keep them out, let’s do it before they get into us.
That is why God gave us the multi-layered barriers of skin, mucous membranes, excretory systems, and so on. We should kill germs and viruses before they get inside our bodies. Sanitation, not vaccination, is the key to prevention of infectious diseases. And, unsurprisingly that is what the research shows, and the subject for my next post in this series.
Got a question or a reaction? Comments are welcome. All kinds, stripes, and varieties. But, I do agree with my former student, Dr. Stephen D. Krashen, who said, “If it is praise, I need it now.” Nevertheless, objections and questions are welcome too!
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How long has mercury been used in teeth fillings?
How long is mercury potent in dental fillings?
How long may side effects be detected/caused?
My child and I both received the H1N1 vaccine last year and are both current on all of our vaccinations. Should I still be worried about side effects due to the shot(s)?
Where may I find validated RESEARCH on mercury and vaccinations?
Good questions Crystal. You are not the only one who has them, I am sure. Thanks for writing. Re the fillings, I recommend you read materials you can find at the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. Check out especially the Smoking Teeth video on their front page. It is an eye opener. There is also an official summary of the IAOMT review of research on your question about silver/mercury fillings. Download if from . There are thousands of relevant research papers on the WebofKnowledge. If we input the following search “dental amalgam OR ethyl mercury OR thimerosal OR thiomersal” I get 3,802 hits. These are peer-reviewed articles, mostly research papers, that mention at least one of these terms. Folks who say there is no relevant toxicology research are terribly mistaken or something worse. There is lots of research. When it is examined closely, it supports precisely the conclusions given by IAOMT.
Also, you might want to consult some of the references in that Smoking Teeth video presentation at IAOMT. There is plenty of current research also linked and/or included in the bibliography to the textbooks: Cases 2010 and Autism 2010.
As for the H1N1, there is also lots of research on the national and international levels. Dr. Joseph Mercola’s web site is probably the best point of entry.
You can easily find lots of CDC/FDA/ACIP etc. materials saying that all vaccines, especially H1N1, and all the flu series are perfectly safe (minimal to no risk of injury). Along that line, see the video linked here from a 60 minutes program that has gone into the archives almost never to be heard of again. But it ought to be examined. It includes some amazing details about the predicted flu epidemic of 1976 and the injuries that were linked to the vaccine.
This past year, we must wonder why more than half of the Americans offered the H1N1 shot said, No thanks. In fact, the vaccine’s own maker, according to a BBC report viewed by more than 3/4 of a million people refused the vaccine. An even more widely viewed report on Fox News claimed the vaccine was far worse in its effects than the Swine Flu itself.
The government predicted 90,000,000 cases of swine flu. Did the less than 1/3 of the population who got the shot stop the predicted epidemic? Recall the bird flu scare, and multiple others in the recent past…. What do you think? It is interesting that the CDC is now starting another round of public pressure for the “flu” threat this year….
According to the Wallace program, 60 minutes that aired only once never to be heard from again, there were 300 deaths linked to the vaccine of 1976 and about 4000 injuries reported to the CDC.
Why is there such a reaction against these vaccines? Have a look at the research and think it through. Also, there is the sinister side of vaccine research that is coming to light since about 1998. I think your questions are important and that many people will want to consider them and to think through the implications. You may notice that only about 10,000 people have seen the Wallace video on the 1976 “epidemic” scare… one that resulted in a lot of vaccine injuries but no flu epidemic ever occurred …. while many more, nearing a million, have viewed the BBC item also linked above.
When communications go wrong at any level between our genetic inheritance and higher levels all the way up to our cognitive, social, and even legal/political connections, problems result. When these things occur in our biochemistry, interesting disorders such as autism, ADD/ADHD, auto-immunity, and so forth, follow… Genetic explanations, as I have shown (see the Entropy paper), are generally incomplete. Genetic problems also must be explained. They, like other disease conditions, are not uncaused.
Can dental mercury cause genetic disorders in offspring? The research shows that it certainly can. Mercury vapors are highly genotoxic.
Therefore, the toxicology is clear: many of the toxins, esp. mercury and various other metals and disease agents, can cause genetic damage leading to disorders.
Best protections? The research shows that we need to avoid unnecessary toxic exposures, drink lots of clean water, eat organic (non contaminated) foods rich in antioxidants, as much as possible, get lots of good rest, and plenty of regular healthful exercise. All of these good practices help to clear toxins and keep our immune systems functioning at peak efficiency in handling any disease agents to which we may be exposed. As for the germ theory of disease, sanitation appears to be the more sensible alternative as contrasted with the strange but waning popularity of the probably false view that injecting disease agents and toxins can help your immune systems along…. At any rate, the latter theory is certain to come under much closer scrutiny as we consider a deeper theory of the sign hierarchy that connects our genetics to our cognitive/social/communal capabilities and that makes us uniquely human. Fouling up the connections is generally a bad idea…. No surprise there, eh?
Keep the questions and comments coming! Thank you!
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