Green our vaccines and administer them with greater care

Thank you for the editorial on parents asking for vaccine choice in New Jersey. Many times the press fails to present the real issue here. Most of the parents who came to Trenton were there because they've seen first-hand the damage done by vaccines.

We need to examine the claim that vaccines are having dangerous side effects. There were many disturbing things reported by countless thousands of parents everywhere.

What if through complete oversight failure, a generation of children has been exposed to unsafe vaccines with devastating results?

This ad ran in USA Today on Feb 12 and Feb. 29, "Green our vaccines. And administer them with greater care." It shows what happened to the vaccine schedule since 1983 and it lists the toxic ingredients like mercury, aluminum, MSG, ether, formaldehyde, and antifreeze commonly found in vaccines. The soaring increase in autism directly coincided with the dramatic escalation of the number of vaccines.

It's important to note that there has never been a study done on the cumulative effect of so many vaccines with toxic ingredients so soon on the health of a baby. This is also the time period in which autism went from one in 10,000 children to one in every 150 on average in the U.S.

What if it's true that the pharmaceutical industry has overriding influence on the agencies and organization that are supposed to be conflict free? Hundreds of individuals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have conflict of interest waivers because of their direct financial ties to the vaccine makers.

What if the studies that are constantly used as proof that vaccines are safe are not real science? Former head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Bernadine Healy, was interviewed on CBS Evening News on May 12. She challenged the credibility of the CDC and admonished officials for refusing to investigate a susceptible subgroup of children who are unable to eliminate the toxins in vaccines. This admission that there hasn't been enough research and that epidemiological studies are not proof is a major step toward public recognition about what's happened to our children.

Healy said that officials have been too quick to dismiss a link between vaccines and autism without ever studying the group that got sick. There never have been studies done on the kids that developed symptoms of autism within a few weeks of being vaccinated. She furthermore pointed out that the Institute of Medicine, which produced the cumulative study on vaccines and autism in 2004, refused to "pursue susceptibility groups." In other words, they didn't want to find any evidence that linked vaccines to autism. She leaves us with the haunting statement, "The question has not been answered."

What if the toxins used in vaccines were never tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)? The mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal goes back 75 years. It was invented and tested by Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company in 1930. The one study done on thimerosal was done by Eli Lilly on 22 adult patients suffering from meningitis. There was no chance for follow up to observe long-term effects, as all of the patients died. Even if followup had been possible, damage to the developing brains of very young children would have remained an unknown. Eli Lilly said it was safe and the medical community just accepted it. After the creation of the FDA, its use was simply continued. This unconscionable oversight failure should call any safety claim into question.

In his book, Evidence of Harm, journalist David Kirby points out that " ... many researchers had sent the company documents dating back to the 1930s, each raising a red flag about thimerosal." Kirby chronologically lists over 70 years of scientific research on the damaging and deadly effects of thimerosal that was willfully ignored by Eli Lilly. Our CDC and FDA should be utterly embarrassed to make safety claims based on such a pathetic history of oversight. In addition, back in 1991, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the top vaccinologists in the world, wrote a memo to the president of Merck Pharmaceutical Co. warning about the high mercury levels children were receiving in their vaccines. That warning was ignored and mercury exposure was only increased with additional vaccines.

The report "Farewell to a Truth- Teller" tells about Dr. Frank Engley, a national expert on vaccines who served on the boards of the FDA, CDC, and EPA back in the '70s and '80s. He tried to warn these agencies of the dangers of exposing children to mercury in vaccines.

What if the mercury-containing flu shot had no proof of safety? The flu vaccine is also recommended for pregnant women at all stages of pregnancy. The massive mercury assault easily passes the placental barrier and enters the developing fetus whose tiny brain is just forming. Incredibly, the manufacturers of the flu vaccine state in their published information that accompanies the vaccine that it's never been tested on pregnant women.

Aluminum, another neurotoxin commonly used in vaccines, has the same shocking lack of any research to prove it's safe. See my story, "Is aluminum the new mercury?"

This is a very complex issue and the public deserves to hear the background. Please continue your thorough coverage.
Anne McElroy Dachel
Board Member
The Autism Action Coalition
Media Editor
Age of Autism
Chippewa Falls, Wis.