Fwd: Study Disproving Mercury-Autism Link has Financial Ties to Vaccine Manufacturers

[Guest guest]

http://www.newstarget.com/022479.html

Study " Disproving " Mercury-Autism Link Published in Journal with Financial Ties

to Vaccine ManufacturersWednesday, January 09, 2008 by: Mike

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(NewsTarget) While the mainstream press is widely reporting a new study

" disproving " any link between autism and mercury-containing thimerosal in

vaccines, no one has bothered to point out that the study was published in a

medical journal stacked full of ads from the very same drug companies that

manufacture and market vaccines. The Journal, the Archives of General

Psychiatry, is the pro-drug psychiatric arm of the American Medical

Association, a pill-pushing organization tarnished by a history of conspiracy

against alternative medicine and the promotion of toxic substances like

cigarettes with full-page ads in its flagship publication, JAMA.

From the outset, the fact that this study appears in a pro-drug, pro-psychiatry

journal should bring pause to any scientific-minded person. There is obviously

a serious conflict of interest here, especially if this study is to be taken as

" fact " and applied to public health policy. There also need to be a close look

at any financial links between the researchers involved in this study and

various vaccine manufacturers, as virtually all pro-drug " science " (if you can

call it that) being published these days is influenced by Big Pharma money.

The only truly honest, independent, peer-reviewed medical journal operating

today is PLoS Medicine, an open-source journal that takes no money from drug

companies. Notice that the autism/mercury link study did not appear in PLoS

Medicine? No, it had to be published with a home field advantage in a pro-drug

publication that maintains a strong bias in favor of pharmaceuticals and

chemicals.

Junk science and faulty conclusionsAside from these obvious and worrisome

conflicts of interest, the conclusions being made about autism and vaccines in

the mainstream media are simply not supported by the study. The (distorted)

logic we're hearing goes like this:

Yes, vaccines used to contain mercury. And yes, all those little kids were

injected with mercury. And yes, autism rates skyrocketed. But then when the

mercury was taken out of the vaccines, the autism rates didn't come back down.

Therefore, the logic goes, vaccines are safe!

This is such sloppy cause/effect logic that it makes the idiot CNN Health

editors who published a story about " junk foods being good for your waist " look

like sheer geniuses!

What's wrong with the logic? Consider the use of mercury in the vaccines: It

was used as a preservative chemical to prevent vaccine spoilage. When the

mercury was removed, it was replaced with other preservative chemicals that are

also toxic to the human nervous system. Thus, the continuing increase in autism

rates following vaccination may be due to the toxic chemicals that replaced

thimerosal. While mercury injections probably initiated the increase in autism,

the toxic substance has been replaced with other dangerous chemicals that are

continuing to increase the risk of autism.

Here's an example to explain this a bit more:

We all know that sodium nitrite in processed meat causes cancer, right? Well,

let's say that for ten years, somebody feeds all the kids sodium nitrite and

cancer rates skyrocket. Then, they take all the sodium nitrite out of the food

and replace it with a different cancer-causing chemical that they keep feeding

the kids. Guess what? The cancer rates don't come down. Therefore, the logic

goes, sodium nitrite didn't cause cancer in the first place!

Notice that when mercury was removed from vaccines (which is not entirely true,

by the way, bringing into question yet more details about this study), the

rates of autism did not drop? This means the vaccines remain dangerous to

children. Autism continued to climb right alongside vaccination rates,

indicating the possibility that something in the vaccines (or a combination of

various chemicals) may very well be responsible for the increase. Based on the

fact that thimerosal was replaced with other toxic chemicals in the vaccines,

there is absolutely no scientific way to clear thimerosal of any harmful

effects. There are too many variables operating now, and no study can isolate

one variable (thimerosal) out of many and prove it to be harmless.

The truth is that scientists have no idea what's causing autism. They

acknowledge the alarming increase in the rates of autism now being observed in

the population, but with this new study, they claim, " Mercury is safe! "

Let me add this study to the enormous stack of other B.S. studies from modern

medical researchers. Let's see, I have a study here that declares aspartame to

be safe. A second study in my database says that Vioxx is safe. Another study

says Teflon is safe. And yet another study claims that cigarette smoke doesn't

cause lung cancer or heart disease! In fact, for virtually every toxic chemical

created by industry, there's a B.S. study proclaiming its safety! The history

of science is full of such nonsense, all funded or influenced by the

corporations that manufacture and sell these toxic chemicals or drugs.

The fact that industry has managed to create yet another study declaring a

toxic substance (thimerosal) to be safe when injected into children is

certainly not surprising. This is an industry that is not bound by the rules of

logic, ethics or common scientific sense. It simply finds ways to influence

researchers, cherry pick studies and distort science to get whatever results it

wants. That's how we're now hearing things like, " Mercury is safe to inject into

children! " -- an idea that's utterly absurd at any dose.

What the mercury / vaccine study actually provesEven if you believe the

results of this study, it only demonstrates that removing mercury from vaccines

does not reduce vaccine toxicity to children. Autism rates are still on the

rise, right along with vaccination rates. Multiple toxic chemicals and

substances are contained in vaccines, and the mercury in thimerosal may have

simply been one factor among many.

The only reasonable, scientifically-minded conclusion we can draw from the

study is that removing mercury from vaccines does not reduce autism in

children. If removing thimerosal from vaccines made them safer, we should have

seen autism rates go down, but we did not! Autism rates continued to climb in

direct correlation to vaccination rates, indicating that mercury is not the

only toxic substance causing neurological problems in children.

Notice, carefully, that this is nothing close to what's being reported in the

mainstream media, where headlines are blaring junk science nonsense like,

" Vaccines pose no risk for autism " (San Mercury News) and " Thimerosal Does

Not Cause Autism " (Slashdot, which should know better). Even WIRED News got it

wrong with: " California Study Finds No Link Between Vaccines, Autism. "

The correct headline should be, " Removal of Mercury From Vaccines Fails to Halt

Rise in Autism. "

Or, " Removing Mercury From Vaccines Does Not Make Them Safer. "

Nobody reported that. Apparently, telling the truth about research involving

vaccines is not a popular option in the mainstream media (MSM). Businessweek,

publishing a HealthDay report by Randy Dotinga, invokes particularly bad logic

with this opening statement, " Adding to a growing body of evidence that

rejects the idea that immunizations boost autism rates, a new study finds no

proof that incidences of the disorder dropped after makers of most childhood

vaccines stopped using a mercury-based preservative in their products. "

Huh? How does a study focused only on mercury " reject the idea that

immunizations boost autism rates? " Did the author of that report not notice

that autism rates continue to increase as vaccination rates go up? Eliminating

one chemical from the causative factors does not in any way clear the safety of

all the other chemicals or ingredients used in vaccines.

The mainstream media, which repeatedly demonstrates astonishing ignorance on

issues of nutrition and health, also seems to have very little ability to

interpret scientific studies and reach reasoned conclusions about what those

studies do or do not prove.

Was the vaccine study another example of corrupt science?Besides, this entire

discussion is based on the idea that we can trust the research in the first

place. If there's one thing we've learned about modern medicine since watching

all the Vioxx scandals, Avandia cover-ups and scientific corruption in research

circles, it's that drug companies can help create whatever research conclusions

they want.

And let's face it: Big Pharma will always produce science that protects its

profits. Gee, Big Tobacco came up with all sorts of research that said tobacco

smoke wasn't harmful and nicotine wasn't addictive. Some of that research

appeared in peer-reviewed medical journals, too. Does that mean the research

was scientifically accurate and " conclusive? " Of course not. It was just plain

old junk science, hijacked by a powerful corporation with a clear profit

motive.

If all that sounds familiar, it's because drug companies are playing the same

game with science today that Big Tobacco played decades ago: Influence the

science, bury the bad news and propagandize the good news. It's the oldest play

in the spin book, and Big Pharma has patterned it perfectly from Big Tobacco.

You see, the relevant question in this discussion is not simply whether

mercury-containing vaccines cause autism. The question at hand is whether we

can even trust the " science " being conducted on this subject. Do the

researchers who conducted this study have any financial ties to the

manufacturers of those vaccines? Have they received any speaking fees? Do they

own stock in those companies? If so, this completely discredits their research

due to obvious conflicts of interest.

Now, I don't have any direct evidence that the researchers in this particular

mercury vaccine study were corrupted or influenced by Big Pharma, but as an

honest, independent think who knows the truth about drug companies, the

mainstream media and the profit motive behind much of the science appearing in

the press today, I maintain a default position of skepticism when it comes to

reading these studies.

By default, I distrust the drug companies and any so-called " research " that

claims injecting mercury into the bodies of children is harmless. That should

be the default position held by any rational person who understands basic human

biochemistry. Toxic chemicals and heavy metals must be distrusted from the

outset.

The drug and chemical industries, notably, take precisely the opposite

approach. To them, all chemicals and drugs are safe until proven dangerous.

This is how dangerous drugs get released into the marketplace and only recalled

after tens of millions of prescriptions have been written and many thousands

of people have died. The drug companies routinely treat the population as drug

testing guinea pigs, and the used of vaccines on children is no different.

I find it interesting that genuine scientific skepticism seems to vanish when

the topic shifts to pharmaceuticals. Sure, all the skeptics and quack critics

will go to town on topics like acupuncture, mind-body medicine or even the

efficacy of botanical medicines, but when the discussion turns to things like

mercury in vaccines or amphetamine drugs for kids with ADHD, all such

skepticism immediately vanishes. They accept the safety and efficacy of such

treatments without question. Rational thought is rapidly discarded. Vaccines

simply must be safe. Why? Because everybody else in the medical industry says

so!

Were the journalists injected with mercury, too?With this whole charade about

a study " disproving " any link between mercury and vaccines, the modern medical

industry has once again shown its infantile intellect and its utter lack or

scientific integrity or clear-headed skepticism. Is this study really the best

they can come up with? A study that shows absolutely no drop in autism rates

when ingredients are reformulated in vaccines? A study that didn't even attempt

to take into account the other toxic ingredients in vaccines?

This is the new standard of " conclusive " science in medicine today?

Give me a break. The only thing that can be conclusively derived from observing

all this is that mainstream media journalists continue to function at a very

low level of scientific literacy, lacking any skills of mental reason by which

scientific studies might be assessed. There is no thought that has gone into

the media's reporting of this story; only bandwagon parroting of each other's

bad conclusions of a study that, in reality, proves nothing. It's yet another

hilarious mainstream media circle jerk, and the fact that so many people keep

buying this dim-witted reporting just proves that this nation remains woefully

deficient in basic science education.

One point worth mentioning here is that there is absolutely no requirement to

have any real understanding of science, medicine, chemistry or physics to

graduate from a top-notch journalism school. And when journalists have no idea

what they're talking about, they go the default route and simply rewrite

whatever was e-mailed to them in the corporate press release! Thus, modern

skills of journalism do not require any independent thought whatsoever. They

only require the ability to rephrase something already told to them by the

spinmeisters at Corporation X.

Correct me if I'm wrong: Is there a single mainstream reporter -- even one? --

that reported the correct conclusion from this vaccine research?

I challenge you to find one. I've looked. There isn't one.

The dumbing down of the mainstream media is now complete. I can't wait to see

what headlines will come next:

" Prescription Drugs That Killed Patients Found Innocent Since Patients Did Not

Come Back to Life After the Drugs Were Removed "

Or:

" Radiation From Mammograms Found Harmless Because Death Rates Continued to

Climb Even After Mammography was Halted "

Or my favorite: " Ephedra Herb Banned After Ten Deaths; Drugs Are Safer Because

They Only Kill 100,000 Americans a Year "

I'm beginning to wonder if all the journalists have been injected with

mercury.

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About the author: Mike is a consumer health advocate with a mission to

teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored and published

thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like

health and the environment, impacting the lives of millions of readers around

the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his

articles. is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or

commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he

promotes. In 2007, launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED

lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He's also a successful software

entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose

technology currently powers the NewsTarget email newsletters. also serves

as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit

consumer protection group, and enjoys outdoor

activities, nature photography, Pilates and adult gymnastics. Known as the

'Health Ranger,' ' personal health statistics and mission statements are

located at www.HealthRanger.org

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