"Were your kids vaccinated? What happened?" 17,000 people reply (Update 2)

(Posted on 6-2-07 by Patrick Sullivan Jr., bumped on 6-29)

JB and the GenerationRescue crew are ready to throw another log on the fire. 

"We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys." -Generation Rescue, June 26, 2007

Some local news coverage (transcript, video).

Btw, this line from that coverage is mundane when you read it, but it's dripping with sarcasm and arrogance when you hear the soundbite: 

But Dr. Mark Sawyer, a professor of pediatrics, says a similar study was done by scientists in Denmark and it found no link between autism and vaccines.

You mean this study?  (Starting at the 11th paragraph.)  Yeah, no reasonable person could learn that and have any complaints about the Denmark study.

UPDATE: In my inbox from Clifford Miller, a (non-vaccine) lawyer in the UK, who regular readers may remember from the post On Evidence...

To clarify how serious the implications of the new information from the Generation Rescue study California-Oregon Unvaccinated Survey - Generation Rescue - June 26, 2007 is, this study shows we are killing and injuring vastly more with vaccines than without.

The implications with figures are spelt out below.  The Generation Rescue study also showed more than twice as many vaccinated children have asthma.  This is in addition to the relative risk for autism being more than double. 

If you raise this with your political representatives, you should point out this is not like a voter's exit poll telling us there is a 3% "swing" from one party to another.  If we had results like this in an election the party in government would be facing extinction. These figures show relative risks higher than 2 - that is greater than a 100% "swing".

By way of comparison I attach logarithmically plotted graphs of measles mortality in the UK and in the USA showing today without vaccine UK measles mortality would be less than 1 in 55 million and the position is similar in the USA. Graph 1 (pdf), Graph 2 (pdf)  And here are the Asthma Death And Injury Figures (Word doc)

When I first entered this "is autism caused by mercury" debate over two years ago, I would not have considered myself to be an anti-vaxer.  In fact, I regularly recommended the article, A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule to my friends.  But it's things like these scare prospective parents such as myself.  I'm no genius, but I'm informed enough not to sheepishly comply with any and all vaccinations for my future kids.

UPDATE 2: Another update from Cliff...and this is a good one!

Generation Rescue's very impressive advertisment "Are We Over Vaccinating Our Kids" appeared in the US politician's newspaper "Roll Call" in Washington DC.

Generation Rescue has mounted a high profile campaign in the US.

Roll Call newspaper is considered the leading publication for Congressional news and information. Published Monday through Thursday while Congress is in session, Roll Call sets out to provide US national politicians with up-to-the-minute news of the legislative and political manoeuvres that happen every day on Capitol Hill.

Honestly, you have to take 45 seconds and read the ad.

Comments

[MaryAnna]

I'm excited to find your blog. I'm a mother with a vaccine injured child and I knew we were harming more with vaccines than without but it's hard to get the sheeple to listen -- even with hard facts. They have been programmed to respond one way, and some people are so good at it, they refuse to change.

This is one mother who is changing many things about the lives of my children.

What really scares me is that my mother died of ALS, and I have a mouth full of fillings -- there has been a very loose tie between the two, but enough of a tie to scare me!

[Judy]

The original Verstraten "generation 0" study, that remains unpublished, to this day, revealed a 2.48 relative risk (a 248 percent increase) of autism in children who had received the mercury laced vaccines.

Now generation rescue's study finds a 2.5.
It looks like Verstraten got it right the first time.

[Laura Patterson Branan]

I applaud Generation Rescue for smartly getting to Congress directly with an ad in Roll Call about the explosive increase in vaccinating children! As a mother with a son, 5, with autism, I'm anxiously awaiting for more independent research regarding autism and the link to vaccines. If you read "Evidence of Harm" by former NY Times journalist David Kirby, you won't be able to sleep at night... Three cheers for Roll Call for publishing that message!

[david]

Bush Set to Veto HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill Due to Provision to Remove Mercury From Infant Vaccines

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-19-2007/0004628856&EDATE=

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=46105

Bush Set to Veto HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill Due to Provision to Remove Mercury From Infant Vaccines

SafeMinds and autism community call the White House declaration
'irresponsible and dangerous'

WASHINGTON, July 18/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- According to the
Congressional Quarterly, the White House stated on Tuesday that President
Bush would veto the HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill because of the
cost and "objectionable provisions" such as a measure to ban the use of
childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based
preservative.

Autism advocacy groups are outraged because President Bush stated in a
questionnaire during his 2004 campaign: "I support the removal of
Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood national vaccine schedule. During
a second term as President, I will continue to support increased funding to
support a wide variety of research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive
causes and/or triggers of autism. It is important to note that while there
are many possible theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one
material has been definitely included or excluded."

But since 2005, President Bush has steadfastly refused to issue an
Executive Order banning high amounts of mercury in vaccines that would
protect children and pregnant women despite repeated requests from the
autism community that he uphold his campaign promise. Under his current
administration, mercury has been and will continue to be knowingly injected
into the youngest of American citizens. The controversial
mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been linked by thousands of
parents as being the cause of their children's mercury poisoning and
autism.

The flu vaccine which continues to be manufactured with mercury is
recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact
that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of
exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines.
According to the EPA, one in every six women of childbearing age already
has blood levels of mercury high enough to cause neurological damage to
their unborn children due to environmental exposures alone. "Injecting even
more mercury into the bodies of pregnant women, infants and children when
it is not a necessary component of vaccines is just bad medicine," said Lyn
Redwood, president of SafeMinds and parent of a mercury-injured child. "It
defies logic that a flu vaccine must be disposed of as a hazardous waste if
it is not used, but somehow injecting the same mercury-containing vaccine
into a baby is safe."

SOURCE SAFE MINDS

[Pat Sullivan]

David,

There are lots of reasons to be disappointed with Bush, this being one of them.

Pat