OT:The CDC Responds: Listening to Dr. Wharton

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The CDC Responds: Listening to Dr. Wharton

Dissident Voice - Santa ,CA*

by Anne Dachel / December 3rd, 2007

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/the-cdc-responds-listening-to-

dr-wharton/

Late Tuesday night a news story came out on the Internet from WXIA

TV in Atlanta called " Autism Controversy: The CDC Responds. " Just

the title was intriguing since I've heard from a number of reporters

that officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

don't do on camera interviews about the vaccine-autism controversy.

They usually just refer members of the press to the CDC website for

answers. There reporters are resoundingly told that exhaustive

studies show no link between the vaccines our children receive and

autism.

The official being interviewed on TV in Atlanta was Dr. Melinda

Wharton, Deputy Director of the CDC's National Center for

Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases. I had to wonder how they

could find anyone at the CDC willing to be taped defending vaccines

in the midst of the massive controversy linking them to autism. Dr.

Wharton staunchly supported the vaccine program with lots of claims,

most of which predictably were some version of the long-time CDC

chant of " studies show no link. "

Even though most of what Dr. Wharton claimed seemed to be an

outrageous distortion of the facts and an insult to the autism

community, I will admit it must have taken courage to go public like

this. I had to consider that she really believes what she tells

people about vaccine safety issues. Maybe it was the military-like

uniform she was wearing. She seemed like a CDC soldier giving us the

official view and she at least will always be able to say that she

was just following her marching orders.

The half hour long interview was done by Jaye , who'd

admittedly talked to lots of parents regarding this issue. Jaye

referred to parents' concerns about vaccines and the claim that

vaccines cause autism throughout the interview. Dr. Wharton

dutifully acknowledged the difficulties involved with raising a

child with autism. That said, she would not concede that there was

any validity to parents' belief that vaccines causes autism.

Dr. Wharton could hardly be expected to say anything else. The CDC

has no choice but to defend the vaccine program as safe. It's just

amazing that we keep on asking them.

Tired parents in the autism community certainly didn't need to once

again hear about the research showing that it's safe to inject

mercury into children and that the CDC is doing even more studies

about this mysterious disorder. It's hard to imagine how officials

at the CDC can even keep track of all the autism studies. And

there's always another one coming along.

Dr. Wharton said that because of the high vaccination rate in the

U.S., it wouldn't be possible to do a comparison study of vaccinated

and unvaccinated children for autism rates. She didn't say anyone at

the CDC had even looked for kids who haven't been vaccinated.

Dr. Wharton admitted nothing. She carefully talked about the " big

increase in RECOGNIZED autism. " It looks like the autism rate could

be one in 10 and CDC officials would still be congratulating doctors

and themselves for " better diagnosing " and " better studies. " Dr.

Wharton would only say that genes played a role in autism. Could

there be other factors? She answered her own question, " I DON'T

KNOW. "

It was hard to sit in my chair and listen to Dr. Wharton's

controlled responses. I would love to have asked about some of the

things I'm always bringing up in my writing.

How can Dr. Wharton defend thimerosal as safe when it was never

tested and approved by the FDA BEFORE it was allowed in our

children's vaccines? All the studies done 75 years after the fact

could hardly make up for this horrendous oversight failure.

How can the CDC expect that their easily manipulated epidemiological

studies will disprove a scientific fact: Mercury is the second

deadliest element on Earth and a known neurotoxin?

Why does Dr. Wharton pretend that it's only parents who challenge

vaccine safety claims and ignore the host of scientists who back

them up?

Dr. Wharton knows mercury is still in unconscionable levels in

ninety percent of the flu vaccines available, still she tells us

it's only in " some " flu vaccines.

The CDC knows that the rate of one in 150 came from studies of eight

year olds, not eighty year olds. We simply don't have the adult

population with an autism rate of anything like one in 150. Eighty

percent of Americans with autism are under the age of 18 and people

at the CDC have to be worried about what's going to happen in the

next few years as more and more children with autism become adults

dependent on the taxpayers for their support and care. When one in

every 150 eighteen year olds isn't going on to college, getting a

job, or entering the military, but is going on disability for life

with autism (including one in every 94 boys) people will demand

answers: Why didn't anyone tell us about this? Why weren't people

doing something about autism, especially the officials who get

billions of dollars to run health care in the U.S.?

I think this will best be described as a tsunami. It will be sudden

and overwhelming. People will stunned by this disaster. I can't

imagine how this will turn out. There's really no precedent for it.

I can't recall another time in history when this has happened.

Epidemics and plagues have always been around and they've devastated

populations. But people in the past died. There weren't large

numbers of survivors to care for. But with autism, for the first

time a society will be left with a disabled generation of young

adults to support for the rest of their long lives. These children

are bankrupting our schools and I doubt that things will be any

better when we have to take over total support and care. No one is

doing anything to prepare for this. It's amazing.

The one thing I hope is that officials like Dr. Wharton will still

be in their positions so we can get them to go back on camera to

explain how the epidemic of autism escaped notice by the CDC. I'll

be interested in Dr Wharton's opinion about how we should provide

for all these disabled adults. I wonder if we'll again hear " I DON'T

KNOW " from her.

Anne McElroy Dachel of Chippewa Falls, WI is a member of A-CHAMP

(Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning) and

the National Autism Association (NAA). She can be reached at:

amdachel@.... Read other articles by Anne, or visit Anne's

website.