Wood Goblin wrote:
This is incredibly ill-informed nonsense. The long-term safety of vaccines has been well established.Seriously, nearly every sentence of your post is flat-out wrong.

Wood Goblin wrote:If your kids don't get sick, it's because they're being protected by the herd immunity offered by my son.

wood goblin wrote: It's incredibly selfish of people like you to reap the benefit of my son's vaccination without sharing any of the risk.

I cannot begin to descibe how angry this makes me.

clocker bob wrote:The long term safety of vaccines has not been established.

only a couple of years have passed since new vaccines without mercury have been used. You totally lie about how long it takes to measure the effects of removing mercury from vaccines.

What a Bizarro World statement. And a really vicious insinuation, too. You are unable to accept that individual parents have the right to research vaccines and to decide for themselves whether they will risk them for their kids. You think you deserve to present yourself as some kind of hero for being a robot who says 'Yes, Master' to every needle pointed at your kid?? It's sick for you to lash out at others with open minds, even insinuating that *your* kid's vaccination is what is keeping their kids safe. You psycho. You are so angry that other kids may follow a different vaccine schedule that you think your kid's vaccination deserves the credit for their health?! Maybe the fucking different vaccine schedule might deserve some credit for those other kids' good health!

What a psycho. In Wood Goblin world, the way to deal with the risk from vaccines is not to figure out what ingredient in vaccines might be risky- on, no- we should deal with it by making sure that no parents are permitted to rescue their kids from the risk! Lash out at the non-believers! Crucify! Who dares to question Big Brother? Drag them into the public square and throw rocks at them!

You're a bigoted angry twat, and you lie about the available research on Thimerosal. You tried to lie about the research on the anthrax vaccine, too.

OBJECTIVE: It has been suggested that thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines, is a risk factor for the development of autism. We examined whether discontinuing the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines in Denmark led to a decrease in the incidence of autism. DESIGN: Analysis of data from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register recording all psychiatric admissions since 1971, and all outpatient contacts in psychiatric departments in Denmark since 1995. PATIENTS: All children between 2 and 10 years old who were diagnosed with autism during the period from 1971-2000. OUTCOME MEASURES: Annual and age-specific incidence for first day of first recorded admission with a diagnosis of autism in children between 2 and 10 years old. RESULTS: A total of 956 children with a male-to-female ratio of 3.5:1 had been diagnosed with autism during the period from 1971-2000. There was no trend toward an increase in the incidence of autism during that period when thimerosal was used in Denmark, up through 1990. From 1991 until 2000 the incidence increased and continued to rise after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, including increases among children born after the discontinuation of thimerosal. CONCLUSIONS: The discontinuation of thimerosal-containing vaccines in Denmark in 1992 was followed by an increase in the incidence of autism. Our ecological data do not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the incidence of autism.

CONTEXT: Mercuric compounds are nephrotoxic and neurotoxic at high doses. Thimerosal, a preservative used widely in vaccine formulations, contains ethylmercury. Thus it has been suggested that childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccine could be causally related to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether vaccination with a thimerosal-containing vaccine is associated with development of autism. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Population-based cohort study of all children born in Denmark from January 1, 1990, until December 31, 1996 (N = 467 450) comparing children vaccinated with a thimerosal-containing vaccine with children vaccinated with a thimerosal-free formulation of the same vaccine. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Rate ratio (RR) for autism and other autistic-spectrum disorders, including trend with dose of ethylmercury. RESULTS: During 2 986 654 person-years, we identified 440 autism cases and 787 cases of other autistic-spectrum disorders. The risk of autism and other autistic-spectrum disorders did not differ significantly between children vaccinated with thimerosal-containing vaccine and children vaccinated with thimerosal-free vaccine (RR, 0.85 [95% confidence interval [CI], 0.60-1.20] for autism; RR, 1.12 [95% CI, 0.88-1.43] for other autistic-spectrum disorders). Furthermore, we found no evidence of a dose-response association (increase in RR per 25 microg of ethylmercury, 0.98 [95% CI, 0.90-1.06] for autism and 1.03 [95% CI, 0.98-1.09] for other autistic-spectrum disorders). CONCLUSION: The results do not support a causal relationship between childhood vaccination with thimerosal-containing vaccines and development of autistic-spectrum disorders.

OBJECTIVE: After concerns about the possible toxicity of thimerosal-containing vaccines in the United States, this study was designed to investigate whether there is a relationship between the amount of thimerosal that an infant receives via diphtheria-tetanus-whole-cell pertussis (DTP) or diphtheria-tetanus (DT) vaccination at a young age and subsequent neurodevelopmental disorders. METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed using 109 863 children who were born from 1988 to 1997 and were registered in general practices in the United Kingdom that contributed to a research database. The disorders investigated were general developmental disorders, language or speech delay, tics, attention-deficit disorder, autism, unspecified developmental delays, behavior problems, encopresis, and enuresis. Exposure was defined according to the number of DTP/DT doses received by 3 and 4 months of age and also the cumulative age-specific DTP/DT exposure by 6 months. Each DTP/DT dose of vaccine contains 50 microg of thimerosal (25 microg of ethyl mercury). Hazard ratios (HRs) for the disorders were calculated per dose of DTP/DT vaccine or per unit of cumulative DTP/DT exposure. RESULTS: Only in 1 analysis for tics was there some evidence of a higher risk with increasing doses (Cox's HR: 1.50 per dose at 4 months; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02-2.20). Statistically significant negative associations with increasing doses at 4 months were found for general developmental disorders (HR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.81-0.93), unspecified developmental delay (HR: 0.80; 95% CI: 0.69-0.92), and attention-deficit disorder (HR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.64-0.98). For the other disorders, there was no evidence of an association with thimerosal exposure. CONCLUSIONS: With the possible exception of tics, there was no evidence that thimerosal exposure via DTP/DT vaccines causes neurodevelopmental disorders.

wood goblin wrote:And as far as parents determining an acceptable level of risk: what do you think about the global effort to eliminate polio, as we did with smallpox several decades ago? We are damn close to eliminiating this debilitating disease. Do you know where it still exists? It exits in the pockets of the world that either lack access to vaccines or have refused them.

wood goblin wrote: When their research consists of blogs written by D&D players and the Mercola website

In June 2005 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. published his article "Deadly Immunity", investigating what he characterized as a government cover-up of the thimerosal/autism scandal and how vaccine producers were protected from compensation claims.

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. "You can play with this all you want," Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results "are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting's first day, was even more alarmed. "My gut feeling?" he said. "Forgive this personal comment -- I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on."

Of the 10 epidemiologic studies, 7 included cohort data (Table 1). Three of these articles reported an association between autism and thimerosal exposure. All 3 are by the same authors, and the data sets are overlapping.29–31 The first of these to be published is a retrospective cohort study that used the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database.29 The authors analyzed information from the VAERS database on adverse events (AEs) reported after use of thimerosal-containing diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccines from 1992 to 2000 (n = 6575) and after use of thimerosal-free DTaP vaccines from a different time period, 1997–2000 (n = 1516). The authors then defined a cohort that included 88 children who were reported as having autism, mental retardation, or speech disorders. Of these children, 81 were in the thimerosal group (18 with autism) and 7 were in the thimerosal-free group (1 with autism). Gender, age, and onset in days after vaccination were extracted. Risk ratios were calculated on the basis of relative incidence of each diagnosis for the thimerosal-containing compared with the thimerosal-free group: autism, 6.0; mental retardation, 6.1; and speech disorders, 2.2. No confidence intervals (CIs) were provided. The authors concluded that there is a significant (P < .002 to P < .05) increase in these disorders after receipt of thimerosal-containing vaccines and that children who receive an additional 75 to 100 µg of thimerosal may have an associated increase in NDDs. Furthermore, the authors stated that reactions tended to occur in older children and speculated that this may be explained by the toxic buildup of mercury from successive doses of thimerosal-containing DTaP vaccines.

We identified multiple methodologic concerns regarding this article. The key outcome measure, calculation and comparison of AE incidence for thimerosal-exposed and unexposed infants, requires accurate and unbiased assessment of the numerator (children with defined AEs) and denominator (exposure/no exposure to thimerosal-containing DTaP) for the 2 groups. Several factors contribute to substantial inaccuracy in the numerator of AEs. VAERS is a passive reporting system that is monitored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA and to which anyone—health care provider, vaccinee, or parent—may report an AE after vaccination.44 Although the authors postulated complete reporting of AEs by stating that "all adverse reactions are to be reported to the VAERS database as required by US law," in fact, reporting is mandated only for events included in the "injury table" of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program; ASDs and NDDs potentially associated with diphtheria, tetanus, whole-cell pertussis (DTP)/DTaP or thimerosal exposure are not mandated. Moreover, for these and other adverse reactions, substantial underreporting occurs.44–46 Underreporting is particularly common for events that are not in the compensation program, for events that are not defined by a specific diagnostic test, or when the temporal relationship with vaccination is not well defined, both of which apply to the conditions evaluated in this study. In addition, events in VAERS are classified on the basis of a reported diagnosis or a coder's interpretation of symptoms/signs included in a comment field. Diagnoses are not validated. The authors do not report which diagnosis or symptom terms they abstracted from the VAERS database or how they dealt with diagnostic overlap or incomplete records. This is particularly troubling because the disorders reported have a long differential diagnosis and because the mean age reported for children with autism (1.7 ± 1.1 year) is below the age at which a reliable diagnosis of that disorder is made.47,48 Demonstrating the statistical fragility of analysis of this database, if only 1 child who has autism and did not receive thimerosal-containing DTaP were misclassified into the thimerosal group or if 1 such child were not reported to the VAERS system, then the reported risk ratio would be reduced by half and the P value would be >.05.

In addition, several biases may have led to differential reporting of events in children who received DTaP vaccines that did or did not contain thimerosal as a preservative affecting the ability to compare relative reporting rates. In a setting of incomplete reporting, if parents or providers, either of whom can report to VAERS, are aware of a possible link between thimerosal exposure and NDDs, then reporting by either group may be greater among those who have been exposed ("reporting bias"). This bias also may have affected description of symptoms and had an impact on how events were coded. "Diagnostic bias," with providers more likely to diagnose autism or other NDDs among children who were exposed to thimerosal, also may have occurred. Because of FDA concern and subsequent recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service for precautionary thimerosal removal in July 1999, with associated media interest, there was a substantial risk that these biases occurred in a study that includes AEs reported through 2000. VAERS data show markedly increased reporting of autism during the second half of 1999 and 2000, consistent with reporting bias.

An additional problem affecting numerator data is the inability to define accurately total thimerosal exposure in children with reported AEs. VAERS reports include only the vaccine type and manufacturers for the visit associated with the AE and within 4 weeks before that date. It is not possible to define whether a child received thimerosal-containing or -free DTaP vaccine at previous visits or other vaccines that may or may not have included this preservative. As NDD risk was hypothesized by the authors to be related to the total thimerosal exposure rather than only thimerosal in DTaP, the inability to define that exposure represents a significant limitation.

Substantial questions regarding the accuracy of the denominator data for the incidence calculation also exist. The denominator requires the total number of children in the United States who received thimerosal-containing DTaP (exposed) and the total number who received thimerosal-free DTaP (unexposed). The authors indicated the source of these data as the "Biological Surveillance Summaries of the CDC." However, CDC reports only aggregate doses distributed for DTaP and other vaccines and provides no manufacturer-specific data.49 It is unclear how the authors estimated manufacturer-specific data because, on the basis of agreements with manufacturers, CDC does not release these data. No source is cited in the publication. The authors provided no details on how total DTaP doses distributed were translated into number of children vaccinated with specific thimerosal-containing or thimerosal-free vaccines, which is particularly problematic for a vaccine administered in a 5-dose schedule over a 4- to 5-year period.

Two other publications by Geier and Geier reported essentially the same data with minor differences and thus are discussed together.30,31 The articles have 3 components: first, data from the VAERS database again were presented but analyzed on the basis of different levels of thimerosal exposure (cohort data); second, a comparison between the FDA and EPA exposure limits was made with the dose received in routine vaccination; and third, the US Department of Education report on numbers of children with neurologic disorders was compared with mercury exposure in vaccinations over time (ecological data). The ecological data are discussed in the section on ecological studies.

The cohort data in 1 article31 evaluated reports of autism, personality disorders, and mental retardation for children who were exposed to thimerosal-containing and thimerosal-free DTaP vaccines using VAERS reports between 1997 and 2001, and the other30 assessed autism, speech disorders, and heart arrest on the basis of VAERS reports of children who were exposed to thimerosal-containing DTP and DTaP vaccines from 1992 to 2000 compared with thimerosal-free DTaP vaccines from 1997 to 2000. DTaP vaccines were not licensed in the United States for use beginning at 2 months of age until 1996. The analytic strategy comparing incidence rates in these 2 articles is the same as in their first publication. However, the authors stated that in each of these analyses, they compared children who received an average of 37.5 µg of ethylmercury with children who received an average of 87.5 µg. The overall conclusion of both publications is that there is an association of heart arrest and neurologic disabilities with thimerosal.

As in the first Geier and Geier article, completeness in reporting, diagnostic specificity and validation, and potential diagnostic and reporting bias cannot be evaluated properly in these 2 studies,30,31 particularly for the study that included data through 2001.31 In addition, the authors did not present methods on how the ethylmercury exposure estimates of 37.5 µg and 87.5 µg were determined. Because VAERS reports do not include a child's entire immunization history and because vaccines that are reported to have been received before an AE are not verified by medical record review, estimated ethylmercury exposure from the reported vaccination visit may be inaccurate and total previous exposure would not be possible to estimate.

clocker bob wrote: I, being of an open mind, will not take Thimerosal off the list of suspected causes of autism for a good 25 years and maybe not 50. It will take that long to compile the statistics that I need to make up my mind.

Wood Goblin wrote: And with that, I'm finished with this thread for good.

The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical. I doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source, and I certainly understood the government's need to reassure parents that vaccinations are safe; the eradication of deadly childhood diseases depends on it. I tended to agree with skeptics like Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, who criticized his colleagues on the House Government Reform Committee for leaping to conclusions about autism and vaccinations. "Why should we scare people about immunization," Waxman pointed out at one hearing, "until we know the facts?"

It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts, studying the leading scientific research and talking with many of the nation's preeminent authorities on mercury that I became convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real. Five of my own children are members of the Thimerosal Generation -- those born between 1989 and 2003 -- who received heavy doses of mercury from vaccines. "The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage," Patti White, a school nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. "Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in 25 years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children." More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. The disease was unknown until 1943, when it was identified and diagnosed among 11 children born in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.

Some skeptics dispute that the rise in autism is caused by thimerosal-tainted vaccinations. They argue that the increase is a result of better diagnosis -- a theory that seems questionable at best, given that most of the new cases of autism are clustered within a single generation of children. "If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis," scoffs Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity, "then where are all the 20-year-old autistics?" Other researchers point out that Americans are exposed to a greater cumulative "load" of mercury than ever before, from contaminated fish to dental fillings, and suggest that thimerosal in vaccines may be only part of a much larger problem. It's a concern that certainly deserves far more attention than it has received -- but it overlooks the fact that the mercury concentrations in vaccines dwarf other sources of exposure to our children.

clocker bob wrote:

wood goblin wrote:And as far as parents determining an acceptable level of risk: what do you think about the global effort to eliminate polio, as we did with smallpox several decades ago? We are damn close to eliminiating this debilitating disease. Do you know where it still exists? It exits in the pockets of the world that either lack access to vaccines or have refused them.

The history of the polio vaccine does not prove or disprove the safety of Thimerosal in vaccines. Typical ploy by you. It's like using the victory at Normandy to say that the Iraq War is noble and just.

Mark Hansen wrote:Why does Wood Goblin's familiarity with and knowledge of the literature and studies involving vaccines count against him?

Are you saying someone with no background in any of this stuff is a better judge of the findings than someone who has no such background?

Answer me these questions three.