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This important study on “Do Vaccines Cause Autism” consists of a three series which are slated to be published by Global Research
PART I
Do Vaccines Cause Autism? A History of Institutional Corruption
PART II
Do Vaccines Cause Autism? The Evidence Against Vaccine Safety
PART III
Do Vaccines Cause Autism? Vaccine Safety Continued and Profits Over Health
***
If you actually “follow the science,” Wikipedia’s description of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “anti-vaccine advocacy” might elicit indifference or unequivocal support for Wikipedia’s position.
“Kennedy is the chairman of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group he joined in 2015 formerly known as the World Mercury Project. The group alleges a large proportion of American children are suffering from conditions as diverse as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, food allergies, cancer, and autoimmune diseases due to exposure to certain chemicals and radiation. Children’s Health Defense has blamed and campaigned against vaccines, fluoridation of drinking water, paracetamol (acetaminophen), aluminum, wireless communications, among others.”
Screenshot from Wikipedia
With no sense of irony, the author(s) write as if these things were not demonstrably toxic.[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17] Are the authors and editors of this article just poor, misguided, or biased researchers?
Did they really fail to unearth even one of the thousands of peer-reviewed articles demonstrating a connection between the exposures mentioned and harms to health?
One would hope that it is a scientist or experienced and well-read science journalist who is charged with writing the entry on the highly contentious and consequential vaccine-autism debate appearing in the most widely read “encyclopedia.”
As a scientist or science journalist, you daily read at least the abstracts of scientific studies. Many thousands of these state clearly that indeed a connection has been found between a litany of health problems and these toxins, which people can scarcely avoid in the modern world. So, for such people, the propagandistic drivel appearing on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Wikipedia page would read as so absurd as to be laughable.
Certainly studies are open to interpretation; they may be the subject of debate; they may be subject to the scrutiny of the public and the scientific community; by all means, try to replicate them.
But to write as if there is no debate, as if these studies simply do not exist; as if the association between these exposures and harms to health is some ludicrous and easily refutable “allegation,” this is not scientific. It appears as ignorance at best. It does not represent values of critical thinking, intellectual rigor and a spirit of openness to evidence, all hallmarks of science. Are these descriptions of Kennedy’s stance on vaccines and autism just ignorance or stupidity, or are they something else?
What anyone who reads Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Wikipedia page who is familiar with the science, and who does not have a conflict of interest, is likely to feel next is disquiet.
It is disturbing to read these bald assertions of denial, clearly intended to maim Kennedy’s reputation, and know that the vast majority of Wikipedia’s viewers are not reading the science, and will have no protective mental buffer of skepticism about what they read there. They will instead most likely accept these spurious statements — these bold lies — as truth. Most people are looking to Wikipedia for answers because they do not read the science. Somehow, with no formal debate, Wikipedia has been lofted up as if it were the Archbishop of science, the mouthpiece of official scientific opinion, and all its pronouncements, no matter how patently propagandistic, are accepted as mindlessly accepted as infallible.
Wikipedia has dwarfed the traditional encyclopedias in popularity and readership with 6.1 billion monthly visitors in 2021.[18] But Wikipedia is not a wisp as trustworthy or scholarly. In fact, you do not need to have a degree in the sciences, or a research specialty, or verifiable understanding of the subject on which you write, to participate in editing a page. Anyone can do it.[19] As a writer or editor, you remain nameless and faceless, and may be difficult to trace. Indeed,
Wikipedia’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, told journalist Glenn Greenwald that the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies use “Wikipedia [as] one of many tools… to wage “information warfare.’” He said,
“We do have evidence that, as early as 2008, that CIA and FBI computers were used to edit Wikipedia…. Do you think that they stopped doing that back then?”[20]
Unlike the scientific studies RFK Jr’s Wikipedia page in its strange amnesia has failed to mention, there is no process of formal expert peer review before an article is published or edits approved on Wikipedia. The “open encyclopedia” is thus a perfect tool in the hands of would-be totalitarians, corporate propagandists and social engineers with their inexhaustible ill-gotten funds.
Indeed, you need not look far, in spite of the sophisticated algorithmic maneuvers made by Google to wipe such artifacts from its search results,[21] to find ample evidence that there is precisely what you might call a “question” about whether vaccines are “associated” with autism. This “question,” this rather undeniable association can — and should — be openly debated, live on national television, on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the rest of the legacy media outlets. RFK Jr. might just be willing to participate, unlike some of his opponents.[22]
“Vaccine expert” Peter Hotez’s claim that science isn’t up for debate is empty rhetoric. If there is peer-reviewed science that is being covered up by health authorities, a debate is as good a forum as any to expose both sides to the light of day. A debate is also an accessible forum for the public to observe, unlike jargon-laden peer-reviewed journals and elite science and medical conferences which are the only forums, Hotez claims, in which science is honed. As if science is some hermetically sealed snow-globe in which everyone on the inside agrees with everyone else. Frighteningly, this is what “science,” with people like Hotez at its helm, is becoming. When ordinary people’s lives are now more and more subject to top-down requirements “based on the science,” the public has a right to observe and hear it debated in plain language. This is urgently needed. It is truly a question of life and death.
But just how debatable is the assertion that vaccines cause autism?
In fact, though it should be held in public, the debate is over. All the evidence is there; but no one is brave enough to say it, and with reason, as anyone who does is publicly tarred and feathered. The issue is so highly pressurized, anyone with anything to lose is rightly afraid to light the match and say the simple words “Vaccines cause autism,” knowing they’ll watch their reputation and maybe their career burst into flames. Lots of semantic acrobatics are performed that effectively communicate the causal connection without actually stating it in so many words. Really speaking vaccines have been scientifically and legally documented to cause autism. Not just once. Not just twice. Many times.
Here is the evidence. First we will provide some historical context, looking at some of the scandalous revelations made in the last 30 years that reveal a cover-up about the vaccine-autism connection. Then we will report the scientific studies that examine the connection between autism or neurological and developmental injury and vaccines, with a focus on the heavy metals used in vaccine adjuvants. Third, we will cover the history and purpose of the vaccine court, which has paid out billions to injured victims in its thirty-five year lifetime. This court has compensated a number of cases which were described in court proceedings to be autism; disorders classified as autism spectrum disorder; or seizure disorders and neurodevelopmental or encephalopathic injuries which present as similar or identical to autism.
In 1983, the Centers for Disease Control (“CDC”) recommended a total of 10 vaccines for our children up to the age of 5. In 2007, the CDC recommended 36, an increase of 260%, or 3.6x. You can see the slope change at both those dates in the graph. (Source: Steve Kirsch)
Given that vaccines are mandatory for most children in public schools, it makes sense that they should be scientifically proven to be safe. However, in a careful analysis of thousands of articles in the peer-reviewed literature on toxicology and immunology, nowhere can we find evidence for these claims on vaccine safety are based upon a gold standard of clinical research: long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies.
What is glaringly absent is research examining the cumulative toxicological impact of the CDC vaccine schedule over a long period of time. Never has a concise epidemiological study been published that compares the long-term health outcomes of a group of infants and children given the recommended CDC immunization schedule and a cohort of unvaccinated children.
Why? Several smaller studies indicate that neurological disorders are associated with vaccination, when vaccinated children are compared with the unvaccinated.[23, 24, 25, 26] Since such gold-standard research has never been carried out, our medical officials are relying on inconclusive research that is not science-based in order to create public health policy. American parents, meanwhile, are conditioned by our medical officials to bring their children in for regular vaccinations, confusing pure propaganda with scientific proof.
All humans possess a unique biochemistry that makes them more or less susceptible to various types of toxins. Whereas one child may be left with a compromised immune system after exposure to an environmental toxin, another child may experience learning problems or mild brain defects. Vaccine safety is not proved by stating the obvious – that not every child who receives the standard CDC vaccine schedule has autism. As we witness a rapidly increasing number of vaccinated children being afflicted by conditions such as autism, food allergies, encephalitis, type 1 diabetes, ADHD and Crohn’s disease, it’s critical that we investigate further the role played by environmental toxins to better understand their pathology. And when we look into the independent science on the safety of vaccines, it’s readily apparent that many of the ingredients found in vaccines are toxic, even in small amounts, and may contribute to a range of illnesses, including autism.
History and Context: Whistleblowers, Corrupt Health Officials, and Cover-ups
Research indicates that conflicts of interest abound in the vaccine industry, making it difficult to have faith in our health authorities.[27] Worse still, evidence points to pervasive corruption among high profile individuals and institutions in the medical-industrial complex. Here we will look at some of the most alarming examples.
Simpsonwood
In 2003, while researching the controversial link between vaccines and autism – which despite repeated dismissal by all public health authorities continued to persist among parents and in-the-know doctors as autism rates skyrocketed, public health advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stumbled upon a massive coverup that had taken place in June 2000 in Norcross, Georgia. The Simpsonwood conference – officially the Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information – included top scientists and health officials from the FDA, the CDC, the British health ministry, and pharmaceutical industry execs, all gathered to discuss the results of a major study evaluating the negative effects of thimerosal, a commonly-used mercury-based preservative used in vaccines. CDC epidemiologist Dr. Tom Verstraeten presented his findings to the assembled luminaries, concluding, “the screening analysis suggests a possible association between certain neurologic developmental disorders. Namely tics, attention deficit disorder, speech and language disorders and exposure to mercury from Thimerosal containing vaccines before the age of six months.”[28]
The transcript Kennedy unearthed through a Freedom of Information Act request bears witness to the mild panic that set in among the audience after Dr. Verstraeten dropped that bomb – they speak over one another with questions, try to minimize the results, and WHO director John Clements even expresses doubt that the study should have been conducted at all – since “the outcome of it could have, to some extent, been predicted…I know how we handle it from here is extremely problematic.” While the doctors agree the matter merits further investigation, and even admit it raises “some perhaps disquieting possibilities,” they agree to “embargo” the information until a meeting scheduled for later that month – and then never released it at all. Verstraeten’s study wasn’t even published until 2003, after the conclusion had been rewritten from
“This analysis suggests that high exposure to ethyl mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines in the first month of life increases the risk of subsequent development of neurologic development impairment, but not of neurologic degenerative or renal impairment. Further confirmatory studies are needed.”[29]
“No consistent significant associations were found between TCVs and neurodevelopmental outcomes. Conflicting results were found at different HMOs for certain outcomes. For resolving the conflicting findings, studies with uniform neurodevelopmental assessments of children with a range of cumulative thimerosal exposures are needed.”[30]
This was Verstraeten’s fourth attempt to conduct the study to produce the desired data after the first three had stubbornly showed the correlation he was trying to disprove. After firing off a despairing email to a colleague (“I do not wish to be the advocate of the anti-vaccine lobby and sound like being convinced that thimerosal is or was harmful, but at least I feel we should use sound scientific argumentation and not let our standards be dictated by our desire to disprove an unpleasant theory”), Verstraeten was able to tweak the results by adding patient data from an HMO with younger patients, different diagnosis codes, and dubious record-keeping thanks to a recent state takeover. It was enough to obfuscate the damning results of the first three “phases” and render the original study meaningless (and therefore publication-worthy). Problem solved! If only it weren’t for that meddling Kennedy…[31]
It’s worth noting that Dr. Johnson expresses reservations at having his newborn grandson vaccinated with a thimerosal-containing vaccine, but has no such concern for the rest of the country, whose children were injected with toxic mercury for a full two years after he learned of the connection between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders. Worse, while the drug companies that manufactured the thimerosal-containing vaccines offered to remove the offending substance in September 1999, the CDC declined their offer,[32] instead waiting until all thimerosal-containing vaccine lots expired in 2002 to officially end its use – lest they lose a few dollars by having to throw away already-purchased doses.[33]
Gerberding: The Vaccine Insider
Image: Julie Gerberding (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
There is a revolving door between the vaccine manufacturers and those in government who are responsible for overseeing these manufacturers. A prime example is former CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding, who left the agency in 2010 to take a position with pharmaceutical giant Merck as the President of the company’s vaccine division. Gerberding stated in an interview that she is “very bullish on vaccines.”[34] Her admission is especially disconcerting given her long history of siding with vaccine makers. While in her position at the CDC, the organization was found to be massively exaggerating the threat of the H1N1 swine flu, and pushing largely unproven vaccines on the American public with dangerous side effects.[35]
Despite her clear alliance with Big Pharma, Dr. Julie Gerberding strongly implied a vaccine-autism link during a 2008 interview with CNN’s Sanjay Gupta while serving as the CDC’s director. Gerberding stated:
“Well, you know, I don’t have all the facts because I still haven’t been able to review the case files myself. But my understanding is that the child has a — what we think is a rare mitochondrial disorder. And children that have this disease, anything that stresses them creates a situation where their cells just can’t make enough energy to keep their brains functioning normally. Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you’re predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.”[36]
Thorsen: A Case of Corruption
A prime example of the corruption within the CDC around vaccine safety is the case of Dr. Poul Thorsen, a Danish researcher who coauthored 36 CDC studies, two of which are widely cited studies claiming to disprove an autism-vaccine link. From 2004 to 2010 Thorsen allegedly laundered more than $1 million in grant money allocated for research and used the funds to make personal purchases, including a home in Atlanta.[37] Thorsen is currently in Denmark awaiting extradition to the United States.
In a recent editorial, Robert F. Kennedy called into question the slow nature of US authorities in apprehending Thorsen stating that:
“The fact that he is roaming free and is easy to find, despite the US Federal indictment, does not imply Thorsen’s innocence… Rather it suggests a lack of enthusiasm by HHS and CDC to press for his capture and extradition. The agency undoubtedly fears that a public trial would expose the pervasive corruption throughout CDC’s vaccine division and the fragility of the science supporting CDC’s claims about Thimerosal safety.”[38]
The two autism-vaccine studies undertaken by Thorsen and his team have been decried by critics as scientific fraud. According to leaked CDC documents, the data from one of the studies, which monitored rates of autism in Denmark after a country-wide phase out of Thimerosal, were heavily manipulated to make it appear that autism rates increased after its removal from vaccines, when in fact rates decreased. The research’s methodology was so unscientific that journals such as The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association rejected publishing the study, and it wasn’t until a CDC director wrote a strongly-worded letter to staff at the journal Pediatrics, that the research was actually published.[39]
The other autism-vaccine study coauthored by Thorsen, which seemingly debunked an autism link to the MMR vaccine was published in 2002. In his aforementioned editorial, Robert Kennedy Jr. wrote about the study’s questionable methodology:
“That study employed CDC’s trademark ruse of including many children who were too young to receive the autism diagnosis, which at that point usually occurred at age four. CDC epidemiologists have consistently used this ploy in their phony autism studies to dampen the autism signal and exonerate the vaccine.The 2002 Madsen et al. MMR study also included a substantial number of unvaccinated children and employed a suite of other statistical gimmicks to mask the association with the MMR vaccine.”[40]
The Thompson Revelation
Thanks to the widely-seen film Vaxxed, the most well-known (and perhaps controversial) whistleblower remains Dr. William Thompson.
In 2014, a senior scientist at the CDC, Dr. William Thompson, went public with claims that he and his colleagues willfully omitted data from a study that supported a link between vaccines and autism. After discovering a connection between the MMR vaccine and an increased risk of autism among African American males under 36 months of age, Thompson claims that he and his fellow authors chose to exclude these data and effectively perpetrated scientific fraud by publishing research which contradicted their actual research conclusions.[41] Commenting on how he and his colleagues misrepresented their findings, Thompson stated that:
…we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all documents in my office and I retained all associated computer files. I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper.[42]
Thompson leaked thousands of pages of internal documents to Rep. Bill Posey suggesting that the agency lied about links between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders and links between the MMR vaccine and autism – particularly in black males. The latter link – discovered in November 2001 – was memory-holed, according to a conversation between Thompson and researcher Brian Hooker, with evidential data destroyed the following year, facts Thompson confirmed via affidavit to Posey.
In 2015, Representative Bill Posey entered a statement by Thompson about the cover-up into the Congressional record.[43]
In an interview last year, Congressman Posey commented on the “intentionally evasive” behavior of CDC spokesperson on vaccines and autism, Dr. Colleen Boyle while he questioned saying:
I asked her a very direct question. ‘Have you done a study comparing autism rates in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children?…’ She started telling us about everything she’s done …After she wasted three minutes, I cut her off and I demanded that she answer the question. And then, only then, did she admit that the federal government has never done that very simple, fundamental, basic study.[44]
In light of the growing evidence of corruption and fraud within the CDC, Representative Bill Posey has called for an investigation of the CDC on the issue of vaccine science.[45]
When Thompson tried to alert then-CDC director Dr. Julie Geberding of the unpublished findings in 2004, he was replaced with Dr. Frank DeStefano and threatened with termination for “insubordination.” When he tried to leave before they could fire him, they instead paid him a “retention bonus,” which he saw as an attempt to purchase his silence. Two papers Thompson subsequently published connecting thimerosal in vaccines to “tics” in boys were eviscerated before publication, with a 2012 study withheld from publication until he removed the tic data – even though that was the study’s only conclusive result.[46] His conversation with Hooker has been attacked by pharmaceutical advocates who claim he didn’t actually expose any wrongdoing but fail to explain why he would have felt it necessary to leak thousands of pages of documents to a sympathetic congressman if he was just discussing business as usual at the CDC.
DeStefano himself acknowledged the possibility that vaccines might play a role in triggering some children’s autism in 2014, choosing his words very carefully in an interview with Sharyl Attkisson. “It’s hard to predict who those children might be, but certainly, individual cases can be studied…” he said, the absence of a blanket denial speaking volumes.[47] To conduct such a study would be professional suicide, of course, which is probably why none have been attempted,
Sharyl Attkisson Digs for the Truth
In the ongoing debate over the link between vaccines and autism, pediatric neurologist Andrew Zimmerman is a pro-vaccine figure who publicly defected, allowing the release of 12-year-old court proceedings in which he testified that vaccines can, in fact, cause autism. In the sworn affidavit, Zimmerman told Department of Justice lawyers with whom he was working to defend vaccines against thousands of claims that he’d “discovered exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.”
Citing his own experiences with vaccine-damaged and autistic patients, as well as “scientific advances,” Zimmerman told the court that “in a subset of children, vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation did cause regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder.”
His timing couldn’t have been more disastrous for the vaccine-industrial complex. Not only did it throw a monkeywrench into the case in which he was serving as an expert witness – cases, to be more accurate, as a cluster of 5,000 vaccine-autism cases were being heard in the Autism Omnibus proceedings of the vaccine court, discussed in detail later in this article, on June 15, 2007 – but as the CDC’s expert witness, his word carried serious gravity and would have opened a Pandora’s box of legal action.
It’s not surprising, then, that Zimmerman’s testimony was covered up for almost 12 years, finally released in 2019. He was promptly fired, and DoJ attorneys spoke for him in court, describing his position in terms he calls “highly misleading” by claiming there was zero evidence of a link between vaccines and autism.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. certainly thought it was more than misleading, calling the substitution “one of the most consequential frauds, arguably in human history” and filing a fraud complaint with the DoJ’s Inspector General against the attorneys who covered up his explosive admission.[48] But the DoJ attorney who lied to the court is no longer with the department, and to look at the CDC’s website, Zimmerman may as well not have existed – nor anyone like him, or like the children he has studied. His testimony and work have been memory holed, and the CDC categorically denies any and all allegations that vaccines could influence or contribute to – let alone trigger or cause – the development of autism.
Had investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson not surfaced his testimony in her powerful report on the “vaccine debate” published in The HIll in 2019, weaving another scrap of evidence into what has become a very convincing tapestry, perhaps no one would have heard of it at all. Attkisson has doggedly pursued the vaccine-autism story for over a decade, speaking to whistleblowers, activists, parents, and others affected by the autism epidemic and refusing to shy away from the topic despite personal repercussions that would dissuade many lesser reporters. Hacked by the government, smeared on Wikipedia, and demonized in anti-“antivaxxer” blogs, she persists in illuminating the dark corners of power.
It is almost a truism at this point to say that the pharmaceutical lobby has Congress and the CDC in its pockets, but congressional lawmakers and their staffers interviewed on the program agree. Rep. Dan Burton, who attempted to investigate vaccines in the early 2000s, and his staffers told Attkisson about the coordinated bullying and intimidation they faced by pharmaceutical lobbyists who “put money everywhere” to ensure no obstacles stood in their profit path, while former Rep. Dr. Dave Weldon confirms that “if you as an individual member [of Congress] want to take on the pharmaceutical industry, it’s ‘forget it.’” The institutional stonewalling has not shaken his faith in the need for an investigation into vaccine safety, and he is certain that “some children can get an autism spectrum disorder from a vaccine.”
Perhaps weighed down by troubled consciences, or merely encouraged by the rising tide of similar revelations, many formerly pro-vaccine insiders have gone on the record to admit that decades of parental suspicions have been justified. Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former director of the National Institutes of Health who died in 2011, admitted in 2008 that she thought the government was “too quick” to dismiss the concerns of the families of vaccine-injured children “without sufficient studies of causation.” Healy told Attkisson about a 2004 Institute of Medicine report that “basically said, ‘Do not pursue susceptibility groups, don’t look for those patients whose children who may be vulnerable.” Confirming the suspicions of every vaccine choice advocate, Healy admitted “the reason why they didn’t want to look for those susceptibility groups is because they are afraid is that if they found them, however big or small they were, that that would scare the public away.” As for the link between vaccines and autism, she said, “the question has not been answered.”[49]
Vaccine Court
A discussion of the special, separate, jury-free, no fault “vaccine court” will be discussed more in depth later in this article. But it is important to mention, in looking at the history of corruption and cover-up, that the records of the vaccine court itself has paid over $4.4 billion[50] since its launch in 1988 to indemnify vaccine producers against the inevitable lawsuits from parents whose kids went to the doctor healthy and came home irreversibly damaged.[51] These speak for themselves. Using the less-radioactive term “encephalopathy,” vaccine court records show some children whose autism onset immediately followed vaccination had preexisting conditions that could render them susceptible to negative effects, including mitochondrial disorders and Tuberous Sclerosis, and the connection between vaccines, these conditions, and autism has been officially referred to in multiple cases.
When the government settled the historic case of Hannah Poling in 2010, paying out $1.5 million plus yearly payments that could amount to $20 million over the course of her life after Poling became autistic following a nine-shot vaccination visit, they qualified their seeming admission of guilt by stating that Poling had an underlying mitochondrial disorder that made her vulnerable to vaccine damage and “resulted” in her autism. Hers was the first courtroom admission of any vaccine role in the development of autism, and opened the door to the 4,800 autism cases then awaiting deposition in vaccine court.[52] So – of course – they sealed the case. It leaked out anyway, complete with diagnosis of vaccine-related “autistic encephalopathy,” and complete with Zimmerman’s opinion: he had “personally witnessed [Poling’s] developmental regression” after “vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation.” They may not have “caused” her autism – he wouldn’t go that far – but they certainly “triggered” it.[53]
It wasn’t the first financial award to the family of an autistic child that admitted some culpability – that was paid out in the first year of the vaccine court’s existence. In 1986, the court ruled a child’s seizures – a result of Tuberous Sclerosis – were triggered by the DPT vaccine, resulting in his mental retardation and autism. They did not admit the vaccine was entirely to blame, but acknowledged that it was a triggering factor in worsening his prognosis, since the age of seizure onset is directly related to quality of life for individuals with TS.[54] These cases have quietly piled up among the millions, many likely saddled with gag orders that prevent parents from speaking up about their experience.
Even Pharma Admits
Image: The hexavalent vaccine Infanrix hexa, which protects against hepatitis B in addition to diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, poliomyelitis and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
One damning case of government-industry knowledge about a vaccine-autism connection is a leaked December 16, 2011 document from GlaxoSmithKline, one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers. The text admits the corporation has been aware of the autism risk associated with its Infanrix vaccine, which combines diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, hepatitis B, inactivated polio and haemophilus influenza viruses. The report details adverse effects associated with autism, including encephalitis, developmental delays, altered states of consciousness, speech delays and other adverse reactions.[55]
While these revelations might be considered criminal cover-ups that directly threaten public health, they have had little effect on changing national policy over vaccine safety. Rather, the official denial of any possible association between vaccines and autism has hardened into an absolute dogma. And to date, there is not a single gold standard publication to refute with any certainty a vaccine-autism connection. Indeed, research from around the world proving a relationship increases, but almost none of it is coming from within American medical institutions.
Unlike the US, the UK and Australia, the majority of the governmental health ministries in the modern industrialized world do not take an official national stance on the vaccine-autism controversy and other serious vaccine-related injuries. Only nineteen countries, including the US, have no-fault policies regarding the pharmaceutical industry for vaccine injury compensation programs. This is partially due to the American and British health agencies being heavily compromised by private vaccine business interests. The revolving doors and conflict of interests between these federal agencies and the pharmaceutical industry have been well documented. In the US, members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory community are deep in the pockets of pharmaceutical firms.
The vaccine market is one of the most toxic cash cow scams in operation. In 2016, Market Watch reported that the technological advisory firm Technavio released its Global Human Vaccines Market 2016-2020 analysis estimating that the vaccine market would reach $61 billion by 2020. At the start of 2016, it was worth $24 billion. The enormous projection increase is due to global initiatives to push vaccination compliance upon other nations and over 270 new vaccines, for both old and new indications, in development. The report also predicted that American pharmaceutical companies, notably Merck, Pfizer and Abbott, have the most to gain. The industry also benefits from the $10 billion pledged by Bill and Melinda Gates to increase vaccination rates and compliance worldwide.[56]
Unlike the US and UK, in most nations independent and scientific integrity rules, and compensation for vaccine adverse events is the norm. In 2014, French authorities ruled there was a direct relationship between the Hepatitis B vaccine and a sudden rise in multiple sclerosis.[57] In 2012, after a long investigative trial, an Italian court ruled that the MMR vaccine caused brain injury leading to autism in the case of Valentino Bocca.[58] This ruling was intentionally blacked out by the American media.
Japan discontinued the MMR vaccine in 1993, four years after imposing it on its citizens on a mandatory basis. The rate of adverse events – including meningitis, limb loss, and death – was 2,000 times higher than expected, and the shot was pulled after doctors confirmed it had entered at least one child’s nervous system and probably at least three. Japan, not coincidentally, has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.[59]
Meanwhile, in the US, California has now mandated child vaccination, and several other states have proposed similar compulsory-vaccination laws while their constituents are bombarded with news stories playing up every measles case as the new bubonic plague. The Idaho Department of Health public information officer Tom Shanahan expressed his regret that his state was unlikely to pass such a measure, complaining to Reuters that in Idaho, “there’s a pretty strong culture of individual rights.”[60]
Research
If good quality science exists that could discredit the pro-vaccine argument that there is no connection to autism, it is completely understandable that the media and the government and industry and scientists for hire continue their unrelenting attack on independent scientists, physicians, and most importantly, upon the victims themselves. To acknowledge that the entire vaccine program is unsupported by gold standard science would mean massive lawsuits, congressional investigations and discrediting the CDC, the FDA, US public health services and pharmaceutical companies. In effect, this could be the largest public health scandal in American history, and the public would be very unforgiving. Let’s now take a look at more damning evidence linking vaccines with autism and neurodevelopmental disease and the systemic suppression of this evidence.
The vaccine-autism debate has been limited mainly to two issues: the MMR vaccine, following the controversies over Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s findings in the 1990s, and the toxicology of thimerosal. Studies have pointed to the role of other vaccines than MMR in autism as well. Doctors at Stony Brook University’s Medical Center determined that male infants vaccinated with the Hepatitis B vaccine prior to 1999 have a three-fold higher autism rate than their non-vaccinated peers. The risk was greater among non-white boys.[61]
Concerns over thimersosal are waning because it has been removed from all vaccines except for the influenza shot, and even the flu vaccine cannot account for the rising autism rate. Since 2001, autism has steadily continued to rise. In 2000, it was 1 in 250 children. As of March 2023, the CDC’s reported rate has dropped to a shocking 1 in 36; just a few years prior, in 2018, the rate was 1 in 44.[62] This rate has been found to be even higher by the authors of a JAMA Pediatrics Research Letter published in 2020: they found autism was occurring in 3.49 percent of children and adolescents age 3 to 17. That’s 1 in 30.[63] The CDC argues that this proves thimerosal is not the culprit. It ignores a 2012 Australian study published in the journal Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry that there is a direct maternal transfer of ethylmercury from pregnant mothers to the embryo/fetus.[64] It remains American federal health policy for pregnant women to receive the flu shot, which may contain 25 micrograms of mercury.
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Helen Buyniski is a journalist and photographer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on RT, Global Research, Ghion Journal, Progressive Radio Network, and Veterans Today. Helen has a BA in Journalism from New School University and also studied at Columbia University and New York University. Find more of her work at http://helenofdestroy.com and http://medium.com/@helen.buyniski or follow her on Twitter at @velocirapture23.
Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.
Dr. Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including his recent Last Call to Tomorrow.
They are regular contributors to Global Research.
Notes
1 View the Evidence: 1348 Abstracts with Vaccination: All Research. Anti-therapeutic Action: Vaccinations: All. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/vaccination-all
2 View the Evidence: 325 Abstracts with Vaccine Adjuvants Research. Toxic Ingredient: Vaccine Adjuvants. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/vaccine-adjuvants
3 View the Evidence: 226 Abstracts with Cell Phone Exposure Research: Toxic Ingredient: Cell phone exposure. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/cell-phone-exposure
4 View the Evidence: 986 Abstracts with Electromagnetic Radiation Research: Anti-therapeutic Action: Electromagnetic Radiation. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/electromagnetic-radiation
5 View the Evidence: 1005 Abstracts with Electromagnetic Field Harms Research: Anti-therapeutic Action: Electromagnetic Field Harms. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/electromagnetic-field-harms
6 View the Evidence: 423 Abstracts with Mobile Phone Radiation Research: Anti-therapeutic Action: Mobile Phone Radiation. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/mobile-phone-radiation
7 View the Evidence: 229 Abstracts with Microwave Radiation Research. Anti-therapeutic Action: Microwave Radiation. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/anti-therapeutic-action/microwave-radiation
8 View the Evidence: 321 Abstracts with Aluminum Research: Toxic Ingredient: Aluminum. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/aluminum
9 View the Evidence: 175 Abstracts with Fluoride Research: Toxic Ingredient: Fluoride. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/fluoride
10 View the Evidence: 273 Abstracts with Paracetamol Research: Toxic Ingredient: Paracetamol. GreenMedInfo. Accessed August 14, 2023. https://greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/paracetamol (see also: https://greenmedinfo.com/toxic-ingredient/tylenol)
11 Sage C, Burgio E. Electromagnetic Fields, Pulsed Radiofrequency Radiation, and Epigenetics: How Wireless Technologies May Affect Childhood Development. Child Dev. 2018 Jan;89(1):129-136. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12824. Epub 2017 May 15. PMID: 28504324.
12 Carter CJ, Blizard RA. Autism genes are selectively targeted by environmental pollutants including pesticides, heavy metals, bisphenol A, phthalates and many others in food, cosmetics or household products. Neurochem Int. 2016 Oct 27:S0197-0186(16)30197-8. doi: 10.1016/j.neuint.2016.10.011. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 27984170.
13 Braun MM, Ellenberg SS. Descriptive epidemiology of adverse events after immunization: reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), 1991-1994. J Pediatr. 1997 Oct;131(4):529-35. doi: 10.1016/s0022-3476(97)70056-8. PMID: 9386653.
14 Andrade C. Use of acetaminophen (paracetamol) during pregnancy and the risk of autism spectrum disorder in the offspring. J Clin Psychiatry. 2016 Feb;77(2):e152-4. doi: 10.4088/JCP.16f10637. PMID: 26930528.
15 Blaylock RL, Strunecka A. Immune-glutamatergic dysfunction as a central mechanism of the autism spectrum disorders. Curr Med Chem. 2009;16(2):157-70. doi: 10.2174/092986709787002745. PMID: 19149568.
16 Good P. Evidence the U.S. autism epidemic initiated by acetaminophen (Tylenol) is aggravated by oral antibiotic amoxicillin/clavulanate (Augmentin) and now exponentially by herbicide glyphosate (Roundup). Clin Nutr ESPEN. 2018 Feb;23:171-183. doi: 10.1016/j.clnesp.2017.10.005. Epub 2017 Dec 1. PMID: 29460795.
17 Good P. Did acetaminophen provoke the autism epidemic? Altern Med Rev. 2009 Dec;14(4):364-72. PMID: 20030462.
18 Dorothy Neufeld. The 50 Most Visited Websites in the World. January 27, 2021. Visual Capital. Accessed August 16, 2023. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-50-most-visited-websites-in-the-world/
19 How to edit a page. Wikimedia. Page last edited April 19, 2023. Accessed August 16, 2023. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/How_to_edit_a_page
20 CIA moderating Wikipedia – former editor. 2 Aug, 2023. https://www.farsnews.ir/en/news/14020512000277/Frmer-Edir-CIA-Mderaing-Wikipedia
21 Kirsten Grind, Sam Schechner, Robert McMillan and John West. How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search-algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753
22 Dr. Peter Hotez on the anti-science movement and declining Joe Rogan’s debate challenge. JUL 13, 2023. American Medical Association Accessed August 17, 2023. https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/dr-peter-hotez-anti-science-movement-and-declining-joe-rogan-s-debate
23 Mawson, Anthony & Bhuiyan, Azad & Jacob, Binu & Ray, Brian. (2017). Preterm birth, vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders: a cross-sectional study of 6-to 12-year-old vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Journal of Translational Science. 3. 1-8. 10.15761/JTS.1000187. https://www.oatext.com/Preterm-birth-vaccination-and-neurodevelopmental-disorders-a-cross-sectional-study-of-6-to-12-year-old-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-children.php#Article
24 Mawson, Anthony & Ray, Brian & Bhuiyan, Azad & Jacob, Binu. (2017). Pilot comparative study on the health of vaccinated and unvaccinated 6-to 12-year-old U.S. children. Journal of Translational Science. 3. 1-12. 10.15761/JTS.1000186. https://howdovaccinescauseautism.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Mawson-2017.pdf
25 Gallagher, Carolyn & Goodman, Melody. (2008). Hepatitis B triple series vaccine and developmental disability in US children aged 1–9 years. Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry. 90. 997-1008. 10.1080/02772240701806501. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02772240701806501#.Ue8MEY1wqSo
26 Unvaccinated. How Do Vaccines Cause Autism? Accessed August 16, 2023. https://howdovaccinescauseautism.org/category/unvaccinated/
27 Delong, G. “Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Safety Research.” Accountability in Research 19, no. 2 (2012): 65-88. Accessed November 14, 2015. doi:10.1080/08989621.2012.660073.
28 Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information (transcript). 7-8 Jun 2000. http://thinktwice.com/simpsonwood.pdf Retrieved 18 Jan 2019
29 Verstraeten, TM et.al. “Increased risk of developmental neurologic impairment after high exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccine in first month of life.” (original abstract submission). 1999. http://mercury-freedrugs.org/docs/00mmdd_EISAbstractSubmission_IncreasedRiskOfDevelopmentalNeurologicImpairmentAfterHighExposureToThimerosal-containingVaccine_.pdf Retrieved 18 Jan 2019.
30 Verstraeten, TM et.al. “Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases.” Pediatrics. 2003 Nov;112(5):1039-48. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14595043
31 Hooker, Brian et.al. “Methodological Issues and Evidence of Malfeasance in Research Purporting to Show Thimerosal in Vaccines Is Safe.” BioMed Research International. 2014; Article ID 247218. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2014/247218/
32 Chapter II: 1999-2000: Simpsonwood. Put Children First. http://putchildrenfirst.org/chapter2.html Retrieved 18 Jan 2019.
33 Hurley, AM et.al. “Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Autism: A Review of Recent Epidemiologic Studies.” Journal of Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 2010 Jul-Sep; 15(3):173-181. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018252/
34 Luke Timmerman. Merck’s Julie Gerberding, Former CDC Director, on the Future of Vaccines. Xconomy. June 24, 2011. Accessed archive August 16, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20110627073713/www.xconomy.com/national/2011/06/24/mercks-julie-gerberding-former-cdc-director-on-the-future-of-vaccines/
36 Sanjay Gupta MD. Rush Transcript: Unraveling the Mystery of Autism; Talking With the CDC Director; Stories of Children with Autism; Aging with Autism. CNN Transcripts. Aired March 29, 2008. Accessed August 16, 2023. https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/hcsg/date/2008-03-29/segment/01
37 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Forbes Magazine & CDC’s Rogue Scientist. August 22, 2015. Archived from robertfkennedyjr.com. Archive accessed August 16, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20151113040130/http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/articles/forbes.082215.html
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 August 27, 2014 Press Release, “Statement of William W. Thompson, Ph.D., Regarding the 2004 Article Examining the Possibility of a Relationship Between MMR Vaccine and Autism.” Morgan Verkamp LLC. Archive accessed August 16, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20151025025144/http://www.morganverkamp.com/august-27-2014-press-release-statement-of-william-w-thompson-ph-d-regarding-the-2004-article-examining-the-possibility-of-a-relationship-between-mmr-vaccine-and-autism/
42 Brian Shilhavy. Will CDC Whistleblower on Vaccines Testify Before Congress? August 13, 2015. Health Impact News. Accessed August 16, 2023. http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/will-cdc-whistleblower-on-vaccines-testify-before-congress/
43 Ibid.
44 Congressman Posey Accuses CDC Over Corruption. Posted April 16, 2014. Age of Autism. Accessed August 16, 2023. http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/04/congressman-posey-accuses-cdc-over-corruption-.html
45 Ibid.
46 Hooker, Brian. “Dr. Brian Hooker’s official statement regarding William Thompson.” Focus for Health. 26 Apr 2016. https://www.focusforhealth.org/dr-brian-hooker-statement-william-thompson/
47 Attkisson, Sharyl. “CDC: ‘Possibility’ that vaccines rarely trigger autism.” Sharyl Attkisson (blog). 10 Dec 2018. https://sharylattkisson.com/2018/12/10/cdc-possibility-that-vaccines-rarely-trigger-autism/
48 Attkisson, Sharyl. “How a pro-vaccine doctor reopened debate about link to autism.” The Hill. 13 Jan 2019. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/425061-how-a-pro-vaccine-doctor-reopened-debate-about-link-to-autism
49 “NIH Director Dr Bernadine Healy speaks to Sharyl Attkisson about autism susceptibility.” (video) Children’s Health Defense (YouTube). 27 Apr 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZFPpHBNp2M
50 Petitions Filed, Compensated and Dismissed, by Alleged Vaccine, Since the Beginning of VICP, 10/01/1988 through 08/01/2023. (Vaccine Injury Compensation Data: Most Recent Data Report). Updated 08/01/2023. Health Resources and Services Administration. Accessed August 8, 2023. https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/hrsa/vicp/vicp-stats-08-01-23.pdf
51 Wolfe, Eli. “Federal Vaccine Court Quietly Pays Billions.” Fair Warning. 12 Dec 2018. https://www.fairwarning.org/2018/12/vaccine-court-pays-billions/
52 Attkisson, Sharyl. “Family to Receive $1.5M+ in First-Ever Vaccine-Autism Court Award.” CBS News. 10 Dec 2010. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-to-receive-15m-plus-in-first-ever-vaccine-autism-court-award/
53 Zimmerman, Andrew. “RE: Hannah Poling (DOB: 12/27/98); Report of the Office of Special Masters, United States Court of Federal Claims, November 9, 2007.” (letter). 30 Nov 2007. https://www.rescuepost.com/files/rh-4.pdf Retrieved 19 Jan 2019.
54 Attkisson, Sharyl. “Learning from a Previous Vaccine-Autism Case?” CBS News. 8 Aug 2008. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/learning-from-a-previous-vaccine-autism-case/
55 Biological Clinical Safety and Pharmacovigilance: GlaxoSmithKline Research and Development Combined Diptheria, Tetanus and Acellular Pertussis, Hepatitis B enhanced Inactivated Poliomyelitis and Haemophilus Influenzae type B vaccine: Infanrix hexa Summary Bridging Report. 16 December 2011. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-jYsdHZuRhCVXZUbFFlUzdfNGM/edit?pli=1
56 Big Pharma and Big Profits: The Multibillion Dollar Vaccine Market By Timothy Alexander Guzman Silent Crow News 26 January 2016 https://www.globalresearch.ca/big-pharma-and-big-profits-the-multibillion-dollar-vaccine-market/5503945
58 https://www.undergroundhealth.com/courts-quietly-confirm-mmr-vaccine-causes-autism/
59 Hope, Jenny. “Why Japan banned the MMR vaccine.” Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-17509/Why-Japan-banned-MMR-vaccine.html Retrieved 18 Jan 2019.
60 Abutaleb, Yasmeen. “Tougher laws a likely legacy of the Disneyland measles outbreak.” Reuters. 3 Mar 2015. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-measles-vaccines-insight/tougher-laws-a-likely-legacy-of-the-disneyland-measles-outbreak-idUSKBN0LZ15Q20150303
61 J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2010;73(24):1665-77. doi: 10.1080/15287394.2010.519317.
62 Autism Prevalence Higher, According to Data from 11 ADDM Communities. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last Reviewed: March 22, 2023. Accessed May 22, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/p0323-autism.html
63 Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.1 in 30 U.S. Kids Diagnosed With Autism in 2020 — What’s Behind the Surge? The Defender. July 14, 2022. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/kids-diagnosed-autism-spectrum-disorder-jama-pediatrics/
64 Gallagher CM, Goodman MS. Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002. Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry. Volume 94, Issue 8, 2012
