Attack on Mothers--Does this Tactic Sound Familiar?

[Guest guest]

The article below was written by F. Kennedy, Jr. and was

posted at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/attack-

on-mothers_b_52894.html

The poisonous public attacks on this week--for revealing

that her autistic son Christian (grandson of NBC Chair Bob ),

has recovered significant function after chelation treatments to

remove mercury -- surprised many observers unfamiliar with the

acrimonious debate over the mercury-based vaccine preservative

Thimerosal. But the patronizing attacks on the mothers of autistic

children who have organized to oppose this brain-killing poison is

one of the most persistent tactics employed by those defending

Thimerosal against the barrage of scientific evidence linking it to

the epidemic of pediatric neurological disorders, including autism.

Mothers of autistics are routinely dismissed as irrational,

hysterical, or as a newspaper editor told me last week, " desperate to

find the reason for their children's illnesses, " and therefore,

overwrought and disconnected.

But my experience with these women is inconsistent with those

patronizing assessments. Over the past two years I've met or

communicated with several hundred of these women. Instead of a

desperate mob of irrational hysterics, I've found the anti-Thimerosal

activists for the most part to be calm, grounded and extraordinarily

patient. As a group, they are highly educated. Many of them are

doctors, nurses, schoolteachers, pharmacists, psychologists, Ph.D.s

and other professionals. Many of them approached the link skeptically

and only through dispassionate and diligent investigation became

convinced that Thimerosal-laced vaccines destroyed their children's

brains. As a group they have sat through hundreds of meetings and

scientific conferences, and studied research papers and medical

tests. They have networked with each other at meetings and on the

Web. Along the way they have stoically endured the abuse routinely

heaped upon them by the vaccine industry and public health

authorities and casual dismissal by reporters and editors too lazy to

do their jobs.

Many of these women tell a story virtually identical to

's -- I have now heard or seen this grim chronology recounted

hundreds of times in conversations, e-mails and letters from mothers:

At 2-1/2 years old, Christian exceeded all milestones. He had

1,000 words, was toilet-trained, and enjoyed excellent social

relations with his brother and others. Then his pediatrician gave him

Thimerosal-laced vaccines. He cried all night, developed a fever and,

over the coming months, this smart, healthy child disappeared.

Christian lost the ability to speak, to interact with family members,

to make eye contact or to point a finger. He is no longer toilet

trained. He engaged in stereotypical behavior--screaming, head-

banging, biting and uncontrolled aggression, and suffers continuously

the agonizing pain of gastrointestinal inflammation.

After hearing that story a couple dozen times, a rational person

might do some more investigation. That's when one encounters the

overwhelming science -- hundreds of research studies from dozens of

countries showing the undeniable connection between mercury and

Thimerosal and a wide range of neurological illnesses. In response to

the overwhelming science, CDC and the pharmaceutical industry ginned

up four European studies designed to disguise the link between autism

and Thimerosal. Their purpose was to provide plausible deniability

for the consequences of their awful decision to allow brain-killing

mercury to be injected into our youngest children. Those deliberately

deceptive and fatally flawed studies were authored by vaccine

industry consultants and paid for by Thimerosal producers and

published largely in compromised journals that neglected to disclose

the myriad conflicts of their authors in violation of standard peer-

review ethics. As I've shown elsewhere [see

www.robertfkennedyjr.com], these studies were borderline fraud, using

statistical deceptions to mislead the public and regulatory community.

The CDC and IOM base their defense of Thimerosal on these flimsy

studies, their own formidable reputations, and their faith that

journalists won't take the time to critically read the science. The

bureaucrats are simultaneously using their influence, energies and

clout to derail, defund and suppress any scientific study that may

verify the link between Thimerosal and brain disorders. (These would

include epidemiological studies comparing the records of vaccinated

children with those of unvaccinated populations like the Amish or

home-schooled kids who appear to enjoy dramatically reduced levels of

autism and other neurological disorders.) The federal agencies have

refused to release the massive public health information accumulated

in their Vaccine Safety Database (VSD) apparently to keep independent

scientists from reviewing evidence that could prove the link. They

are also muzzling or blackballing scientists who want to conduct such

studies.

Ironically, it is the same voices that once blamed autism on " bad

parenting, " and " uninvolved " moms that are now faulting these mothers

for being too involved.

Due to this campaign of obfuscation and public deception, Thimerosal-

based vaccines continue to sicken millions of children around the

world and potential treatments -- like the chelation that benefited

Christian -- are kept out of the hands of the mainstream

doctors now treating autistic kids with less effective tools. Like

thousands of other mothers of autistic children, knows

what sickened her child. Her efforts to spare other families this

catastrophe, deployed with a cool head and calm demeanor, are truly

heroic. Maybe it's time we all started listening. Maybe it's time to

start respecting and honoring the maternal instincts and hard work of

and her fellow mothers by aggressively funding the studies that

might verify or dispute them.