Re: Vaccines & Autism A Deadly Manufactroversy

[Guest guest]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/top-us-panel-some-vaccine_b_21\

1843.html

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> http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/09-06-03#feature

>

> Vaccines & Autism

> A Deadly Manufactroversy

> by Harriet Hall, MD, " The SkepDoc "

>

> During a question and answer session after a talk I recently gave, I

was asked for my opinion about the vaccine/autism controversy. That was

easy: my opinion is that there is no controversy. The evidence is in.

The scientific community has reached a clear consensus that vaccines

don't cause autism. There is no controversy.

> There is, however, a manufactroversy — a manufactured controversy

— created by junk science, dishonest researchers, professional

misconduct, outright fraud, lies, misrepresentations, irresponsible

reporting, unfortunate media publicity, poor judgment, celebrities who

think they are wiser than the whole of medical science, and a few

maverick doctors who ought to know better. Thousands of parents have

been frightened into rejecting or delaying immunizations for their

children. The immunization rate has dropped, resulting in the return of

endemic measles in the U.K. and various outbreaks of vaccine-preventable

diseases in the U.S. children have died. Herd immunity has been lost.

The public health consequences are serious and are likely to get worse

before they get better — a load of unscientific nonsense has put us

all at risk.

> The story is appalling. It involves high drama, charismatic

personalities, conspiracy theories, accusations, intimidation, and even

death threats. It would make a good movie. It does make a good book: Dr.

Offit has explained what happened in Autism's False Prophets: Bad

Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.1 I can't tell the

whole story here, but I'll try to cover the highlights as I understand

them. I'll include some new revelations that were not available to Offit

when his book went to press. As I see it, there were 3 main stages to

this fiasco:

> the MMR scare,

> the mercury/thimerosal scare, and

> the vaccines-in-general scare.

> The MMR Scare

> In 1998 a British doctor named Wakefield published an article

in the respected medical journal The Lancet2. He did intestinal biopsies

via colonoscopy on 12 children with intestinal symptoms and

developmental disorders, 10 of whom were autistic, and found a pattern

of intestinal inflammation. The parents of 8 of the autistic children

thought they had developed their autistic symptoms right after they got

the MMR vaccine. The published paper stated clearly: " We did not prove

an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the

syndrome described. Virological studies are underway that may help to

resolve this issue. "

> " Falsehood flies,

> and the truth comes limping after. "

> — Swift

> Despite this disclaimer, Wakefield immediately held a press conference

to say the MMR vaccine probably caused autism and to recommend stopping

MMR injections. Instead, he recommended giving the 3 individual

components separately at intervals of a year or more. The media exploded

with warnings like " Ban Three-in-One Jab, Urge Doctors. " The components

were not available as individual vaccines, so people simply stopped

immunizing. The immunization rate in the U.K. dropped from 93% to 75%

(and to 50% in the London area). Confirmed cases of measles in England

and Wales rose from 56 in 1998 to 1348 in 2008; two children died. In

one small hospital in Ireland, 100 children were admitted for pneumonia

and brain swelling caused by measles and three of them died. So, 14

years after measles had been declared under control in the U.K. it was

declared endemic again in 2008.

> Wakefield's data was later discredited (more about that later) but

even if it had been right, it wouldn't have been good science. To show

that intestinal inflammation is linked to autism, you would have to

compare the rate in autistic children to the rate in non-autistic

children. Wakefield used no controls. To implicate the MMR vaccine, you

would have to show that the rate of autism was greater in children who

got the vaccine and verify that autism developed after the shot.

Wakefield made no attempt to do that.

> His thinking was fanciful and full of assumptions. He hypothesized

that measles virus damaged the intestinal wall, that the bowel then

leaked some unidentified protein, and that said protein went to the

brain and somehow caused autism. There was no good rationale for

separating and delaying the components, because if measles was the

culprit, wouldn't one expect it to cause the same harm when given

individually? As one of his critics pointed out: " Single vaccines,

spaced a year apart, clearly expose children to greater risk of

infection, as well as additional distress and expense, and no evidence

had been produced upon which to adopt such a policy. "

> item of interest…

> & #65532;

> This is a special issue on medical controversies including: the

vaccine-autism myth; the trouble with psychiatry; animals and medicine,

and a Harriet Hall article on reading medical research with a skeptical

eye. ORDER the back issue

> Wakefield had been involved in questionable research before. He

published a study in 1993 where he allegedly found measles RNA in

intestinal biopsies from patients with Crohn's disease (an inflammatory

bowel disease)3. He claimed that natural measles infections and measles

vaccines were the cause of that disease. Others tried to replicate his

findings and couldn't. No one else could find measles RNA in Crohn's

patients; they determined that Crohn's patients were no more likely to

have had measles than other patients, and people who had had MMR

vaccines were no more likely to develop Crohn's. Wakefield had to admit

he was wrong, and in 1998 he published another paper entitled " Measles

RNA Is Not Detected in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. " 4 In a related

incident, at a national meeting he stated that Crohn's patients had

higher levels of measles antibody in their blood. An audience member

said that was not true — he knew because he was the one who had

personally done the blood tests Wakefield was referring to. Wakefield

was forced to back down.

> In 2002, Wakefield published another paper showing that measles RNA

had been detected in intestinal biopsies of patients with bowel disease

and developmental disorders.5 The tests were done at Unigenetics lab.

Actually, Wakefield's own lab had looked for measles RNA in the patients

in the 1998 study. His research assistant, Chadwick, later

testified that he had been present in the operating room when intestinal

biopsies and spinal fluid samples were obtained and had personally

tested all the samples for RNA with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)

test. The results were all negative, and he testified that Wakefield

knew the results were negative when he submitted his paper to The

Lancet. Chadwick had asked that his name be taken off the paper. So the

statement in the paper that " virologic studies were underway " was

misleading. Virologic studies had already been done in Wakefield's own

lab and were negative. Wakefield was dissatisfied with those results and

went to Unigenetics hoping for a different answer.

> Soon Wakefield's credibility started to dissolve. The Lancet retracted

his paper. Horton, editor of The Lancet, described the original

paper as " fatally flawed " and apologized for publishing it. Of

Wakefield's 12 co-authors, 10 issued a retraction:

> We wish to make it clear that in this paper no causal link was

established between (the) vaccine and autism, as the data were

insufficient. However the possibility of such a link was raised, and

consequent events have had major implications for public health. In view

of this, we consider now is the appropriate time that we should together

formally retract the interpretation placed upon these findings in the

paper, according to precedent.

> Attempts to replicate Wakefield's study all failed. Other studies

showed that the detection of measles virus was no greater in autistics,

that the rate of intestinal disease was no greater in autistics, that

there was no correlation between MMR and autism onset, and that there

was no correlation between MMR and autism, period.

> In 2001 the Royal Free Hospital asked Wakefield to resign. In 2003,

Deer began an extensive investigation6 leading to an exposé in

the The Sunday Times and on British television. In 2005 the General

Medical Council (the British equivalent of state medical licensing

boards in the U.S.) charged Wakefield with several counts of

professional misconduct.

> One disturbing revelation followed another. They discovered that two

years before his study was published, Wakefield had been approached by a

lawyer representing several families with autistic children. The lawyer

specifically hired Wakefield to do research to find justification for a

class action suit against MMR manufacturers. The children of the

lawyer's clients were referred to Wakefield for the study, and 11 of his

12 subjects were eventually litigants. Wakefield failed to disclose this

conflict of interest. He also failed to disclose how the subjects were

recruited for his study.

> Wakefield was paid a total of nearly half a million pounds plus

expenses by the lawyer. The payments were billed through a company of

Wakefield's wife. He never declared his source of funding until it was

revealed by Deer. Originally he had denied being paid at all. Even

after he admitted it, he lied about the amount he was paid. Before the

study was published, Wakefield had filed patents for his own separate

measles vaccine, as well as other autism-related products. He failed to

disclose this significant conflict of interest. Human research must be

approved by the hospital's ethics committee. Wakefield's study was not

approved. When confronted, Wakefield first claimed that it was approved,

then claimed he didn't need approval. Wakefield bought blood samples for

his research from children (as young as 4) attending his son's birthday

party. He callously joked in public about them crying, fainting and

vomiting. He paid the kids £5 each.

> item of interest…

> & #65532;

> Oprah Debunked

> by Newsweek

> This is quite possibly the best exposé of Oprah and her propensity

to promote nonsense ever published, and in one of the most respected

news sources in the world today. READ the article

> WATCH a short video clip

> The General Medical Council accused him of ordering invasive and

potentially harmful studies (colonoscopies and spinal taps) without

proper approval and contrary to the children's clinical interests, when

these diagnostic tests were not indicated by the children's symptoms or

medical history. One child suffered multiple bowel perforations during

the colonoscopy. Several had problems with the anesthetic. Children were

subjected to sedation for other non-indicated tests like MRIs.

Deer was able to access the medical records of Wakefield's subjects. He

found that several of them had evidence of autistic symptoms documented

in their medical records before they got the MMR vaccine. The intestinal

biopsies were originally reported as normal by hospital pathologists.

They were reviewed, re-interpreted, and reported as abnormal in

Wakefield's paper.

> All the reports of measles RNA in intestinal biopsies came from one

lab, Unigenetics. Other labs tried to replicate their results and

failed. An investigation revealed that:

> Unigenetics found measles RNA with a test that should only detect DNA.

> They failed to use proper controls.

> The lab was contaminated with DNA from an adjoining Plasmid Room.

> Duplicate samples that disagreed were reported as positive.

> Positive controls were occasionally negative and negative ones

positive.

> The lab was never accredited.

> It refused to take part in a quality control program.

> When tested by an outside investigator, it failed to identify which

coded samples contained measles virus.

> The investigator said " I do not believe that there is any measles

virus in any of the cases they have looked at. "

> The lab is no longer in business.

> So both Wakefield and his study have been completely discredited. He

moved to the U.S. and is now working in an autism clinic. He has many

followers who still believe he was right.

> The Mercury/Thimerosal Scare

> In 1998, U.S. legislation mandated measuring mercury in foods and

drugs. The data came in slowly, and by 1999 the FDA had learned that

infants could get as much as 187.5 mcg of mercury from the thimerosal in

all their vaccines. They were concerned because mercury is toxic.

Mercury poisoning caused the Minamata disaster in Japan; however, that

was methylmercury and the mercury in vaccines was ethylmercury. The

amount of mercury in vaccines was within recommended guidelines. EPA

guidelines for permissible mercury exposure were based on methylmercury

and were conservative — they were keyed to protect the most

vulnerable patients, fetuses. There were no EPA guidelines for

ethylmercury, but it was considered to be far less dangerous because it

is eliminated more rapidly from the body.

> Two mothers of autistic children published their own " research " saying

that the symptoms of autism were identical to those of mercury

poisoning.7 I don't agree. You can look up the descriptions of mercury

poisoning and autism and draw your own conclusions. I don't see how

anyone could confuse the two — their presentations are entirely

different, with only a few symptoms that could be interpreted as

similar.

> Thimerosal is a preservative that allows vaccines to be sold in

multi-dose vials. It contains ethylmercury. It was tested and found to

be safe before it was added to vaccines. Animal studies showed no

adverse effects. In 1929 in Indiana it was tested as a treatment in a

meningitis outbreak — adults injected with 2 million mcg (10,000

times the total amount in all children's vaccines) didn't develop

symptoms of mercury poisoning.

> A study from the Seychelles showed that children getting high doses of

methylmercury from fish did not develop neurologic symptoms. A study of

children in the Faroes who were exposed in utero to whale meat highly

contaminated with methylmercury showed subtle neurologic abnormalities

(not autism), but a causal connection was not clear because the fish

there were also contaminated with PCBs. The World Health Organization

concluded:

> The theoretical risk from exposure to thimerosal has to be balanced

against the known high risk of having no preservative in vaccines.

Therefore, WHO, UNICEF, the European Agency for Evaluation of Medicinal

Products (EMEA), and other key agencies continue to recommend the use of

vaccines containing this preservative because of the proven benefit of

vaccines in preventing death and disease and the lack of data indicating

harm.

> In 1999 the U.S. removed thimerosal from vaccines. Why? The decision

was not based on evidence but on one person's opinion. Neal Halsey

railroaded the committee and threatened to hold his own press conference

if they didn't do what he wanted. He meant well. His passion convinced

the other committee members to invoke the precautionary principle —

essentially bending over backwards to prevent any possible harm from a

high total body burden of mercury from a combination of diet,

environmental and vaccine sources. He didn't even consider autism: he

was only concerned about possible subtle neurologic damage.

> They announced their decision in words guaranteed to confuse the

public and create suspicion: " current levels of thimerosal will not hurt

children, but reducing those levels will make safe vaccines even safer. "

A 2007 editorial8 in The New England Journal of Medicine stated:

> Although the precautionary principle assumes that there is no harm in

exercising caution, the alarm caused by the removal of thimerosal from

vaccines has been quite harmful. For instance, after the July 1999

announcement by the CDC and AAP, about 10 percent of hospitals suspended

use of the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, regardless of their

level of risk. [because a thimerosal-free hepatitis B vaccine was not

available.] One 3-month-old child born to a Michigan mother infected

with hepatitis B virus died of overwhelming infection.

> It went on to point out:

> The notion that thimerosal caused autism has given rise to a cottage

industry of charlatans offering false hope, partly in the form of

mercury-chelating agents. In August 2005, a 5-year-old autistic boy in

suburban Pittsburgh died from an arrhythmia caused by the injection of

the chelating agent EDTA. Although the notion that thimerosal causes

autism has now been disproved by several excellent epidemiologic

studies, about 10,000 autistic children in the United States receive

mercury-chelating agents every year.

> item of interest…

> & #65532;

> According to Randi, How to Think About Weird Things is " the most

powerful, comprehensive, and readable collection of examples,

explanations and caveats that I could have ever hoped for. " A must-have!

ORDER the book

> A further insanity has been perpetrated by the father-and-son team of

Mark and Geier. They claimed that autistics have premature puberty

and high testosterone levels (there is no evidence that this is true).

They hypothesized that testosterone forms sheet-like complexes with

mercury in the brain (there is no evidence that this is true),

preventing mercury's removal by chelation. Their solution? They

administered the drug Lupron to lower testosterone levels to supposedly

facilitate mercury excretion. The treatment amounts to chemical

castration.

> Lupron is sometimes ordered by the courts to chemically castrate sex

offenders, and it is used to treat precocious puberty and certain other

medical conditions. It is not a benign drug. It can interfere with

normal development and puberty and can put children's heart and bones

and their future fertility at risk. The treatment involves painful daily

injections and costs $5000 to $6000 a month. The Geiers use 10 times the

recommended dose. The company that makes Lupron does not support its use

for this purpose.

> Like Wakefield, the Geiers have been accused of professional

misconduct. They built their own lab in their basement and formed their

own institute to conduct Lupron studies. Then they formed their own

Institutional Review Board (IRB) to approve studies. IRBs are required

by law and must follow strict guidelines to ensure that studies are

ethical and to protect the rights of subjects. The IRB they formed was

illegal. They packed the board with friends and relatives: every single

member of this IRB was either one of the Geiers, an anti-thimerosal

activist, a Geier associate, or a lawyer suing on behalf of

" vaccine-injured " clients. One was the mother of a child who was a

subject in the research. Even worse, they let the principal investigator

sit as the chair of the IRB overseeing his own research protocols. Oh,

and the IRB wasn't even registered until 2 years after the research was

done.

> Mark Geier has made a career of testifying as an expert witness in

autism cases. He has not impressed the judges. Here are a few of the

judge's comments:

> " Seriously intellectually dishonest "

> " … not reliable or grounded in scientific methodology and

procedure … his testimony is subjective belief and unsupported

speculation. "

> " I cannot give his opinion any credence. "

> " … a professional witness in areas for which he has no training,

expertise, and experience. "

> When thimerosal was removed from vaccines, there were no studies

showing that it was harmful. After its removal, study after study showed

that it was not harmful. But activist groups didn't let the new evidence

interfere with their beliefs.

> Anti-vaccine groups have viciously attacked medical doctors and

researchers for simply stating what the current scientific evidence

shows. They accuse them of being shills for " Big Pharma " or covering up

for government agencies, and they call them offensive names; but they

don't stop there. They threaten people who write about the scientific

evidence, and they threaten their children. Dr. Offit, the author of

Autism's False Prophets, received a direct death threat that got the FBI

involved. He had to use a bodyguard and cancel a book tour. One

threatening phone call ominously demonstrated that the caller knew

Offit's children's names, ages, and where they went to school. Another

scientist who received threats was so afraid for her children's safety

that she vowed never to write anything about autism again. One

anti-vaccine activist had the bad grace to accuse science blogger Orac

of lying when he said he was mourning his mother-in-law's death from

cancer. She refused to believe he could be sorry his mother-in-law died

because he's not sorry about supporting vaccines that kill children.

> There was no thimerosal in any vaccine except the flu vaccine after

2002. The " mercury militia " expected autism rates to drop, thereby

proving the mercury connection. Autism rates rose. Instead of

relinquishing their belief, they made implausible attempts to implicate

new sources of atmospheric mercury, from cremations of bodies with

mercury amalgam fillings or from pollution wafted across the Pacific

from China.

> The Vaccines-In-General Scare

> If the MMR scare can be attributed to Wakefield and the mercury

scare to Neal Halsey, the next stage of hysteria is epitomized by

McCarthy, actress and anti-vaccine activist extraordinaire.

> 's son Evan is autistic. At first she subscribed to the fanciful

notion that she was an Indigo mother and Evan was a Crystal child.

Indigos are " difficult " children who are alleged to possess special

traits or abilities such as telepathy, empathy, and creativity, and are

said to represent the next stage in human evolution. Many of them fit

the diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Crystal children represent an even more advanced evolutionary step. They

are " so sensitive, so vulnerable to the world around them, that they go

inward, disconnect as best they can from even humans and do their best

to survive in a world where they really don't yet fit. " They are often

diagnosed as autistic.

> After a while McCarthy gave up on that fantasy and accepted that Evan

was autistic. She became convinced that vaccines had caused his autism.

She treated him with unproven dietary restrictions, anti-yeast

treatments, and supplements, and claims to have cured him. She thinks

her " Mommy instincts " are more valid than science. She says " My science

is Evan, and he's at home. That's my science. " She realizes that

withholding vaccines will lead to the deaths of children. As quoted by

Time magazine:

> I do believe sadly it's going to take some diseases coming back to

realize that we need to change and develop vaccines that are safe. If

the vaccine companies are not listening to us, it's their f___ing fault

that the diseases are coming back. They're making a product that's s___.

If you give us a safe vaccine, we'll use it. It shouldn't be polio

versus autism.

> She and her partner Jim Carrey have spoken out at every opportunity on

talk shows, on the Internet, and through books and public appearances.

When someone questions 's beliefs her usual tactic is to try to

shout them down. She is supported by maverick doctor Jay Gordon, who

values listening to parents over science and who supports a delayed

vaccine schedule not because of any evidence but just because he thinks

it's a good idea. On one talk show, a pregnant mother with several

autistic children tried to tell Gordon that her child who had the worst

autism was the one who had not been vaccinated. He not only refused to

listen to what she was saying but tried to drown her out, loudly

insisting she mustn't vaccinate the new baby.

> A member of Quackwatch's " Healthfraud " online discussion list reported

sitting next to Evan's paternal grandmother at a dinner. Grandma said

Evan's symptoms of autism were evident before he was vaccinated, and he

is not doing as well as says. Grandma is writing her own book

— I look forward to its revelations.

> and her cohorts claim they are not anti-vaccine, but they are

certainly a good facsimile thereof. The goalposts keep moving. First it

was the MMR vaccine, then it was thimerosal, then it was mercury from

all sources, then it was other vaccine ingredients, then it was too many

vaccines, then it was giving vaccines too early. They will not be

satisfied until science can offer a 100% safe and a 100% effective

vaccine proven to have no side effects of any kind even in a rare

susceptible individual. That's not going to happen in this universe.

> The other vaccine ingredients that have been questioned include

formaldehyde, aluminum, ether, anti-freeze, and human aborted fetal

tissue. Scientists have explained over and over that these ingredients

are either not present in vaccines or are harmless, but activists ignore

the facts and keep making the same false claims. Formaldehyde is

harmless in small amounts and is even produced naturally in the human

body. Aluminum is an adjuvant used to increase the efficacy of vaccines,

and is not harmful. Ether might be used in the manufacturing process but

is not present in the vaccines. There is no ethylene glycol or even

diethylene glycol in vaccines. (Anti-freeze is ethylene glycol.) And to

obtain enough virus to make a vaccine, the virus must be grown in tissue

cultures that were originally derived from monkey, chicken, or sometimes

human fetal cells; but there is no human or animal tissue of any kind

present in the vaccine itself. Apple trees grow in soil, but there is no

soil in applesauce.

> Some anti-vaccine websites perpetuate the myth that infectious

diseases were already disappearing and that the vaccines had nothing to

do with it. Those myths are easily dispelled by historical data. Vaccine

critics ignore the large body of evidence from incidents around the

world where as the vaccination rate dropped, the rate of disease rose;

and when the vaccination rate rose again, the disease rate dropped. No

one can seriously deny the effectiveness of vaccines. They are the most

impressive accomplishment of modern medicine.

> item of interest…

> & #65532;

> Learn to recognize faulty thinking and develop the necessary skills to

become a more effective problem solver. Kida provides examples that

demonstrate how easily we can be fooled into believing things that are

not true and how easy it is to unconsciously accept false ideas. ORDER

the book

> Giving up the known benefits of vaccines because of a vague

hypothetical possibility of risk is a poor trade-off. We were able to

eradicate smallpox, and we ought to be able to eradicate all the

diseases that are spread solely by human-to-human contact. Once enough

people have been vaccinated to eradicate the disease, no one will ever

have to be vaccinated for that disease again. Smallpox is long gone;

polio and measles are next on the list. Polio had been reduced to only 3

countries a few years ago. Then Nigeria stopped vaccinating due to

rumors that the vaccines were an American plot to sterilize their

children or give them AIDS. The polio rate soared and the disease broke

out to several other countries, as far away as Malaysia.

> When the rate of immunization reaches a certain level, the population

is protected by what we call herd immunity. It means there are not

enough susceptible people for the disease to keep spreading through a

community. In many places the herd immunity has already been lost. It is

only a matter of time before diseases break out again. One traveler from

a country with polio could reintroduce the disease into the U.S. Lowered

vaccination rates endanger even those who have been vaccinated, because

the protection is not 100%. People who are immunosuppressed, chronically

ill, or too young to have been vaccinated are also put at risk. Parents

who choose to delay vaccination are prolonging their children's period

of risk. And they are endangering everyone else's public health.

> Scientists had been urged to " listen to the parents. " They did listen

to the parents and then conducted research to test the parents'

hypotheses. There were various kinds of studies in different countries

by different research groups. The results were consistent:

> 10 studies showed MMR doesn't cause autism

> 6 studies showed thimerosal doesn't cause autism

> 3 studies showed thimerosal doesn't cause subtle neurological problems

> Now it's the parents who won't listen to the scientists.

> Autistic children and their parents are being misled and victimized

with useless, untested, disproven, expensive, time-consuming, and even

dangerous treatments. Despite the evidence that mercury doesn't cause

autism, children are still being treated with IV chelation to remove

mercury — at least one child has died as a result. Along with Lupron

injections for chemical castration, children are being treated with

secretin, restricted diets, supplements of all kinds, intravenous

hydrogen peroxide, DAN (Defeat Autism Now) protocols, cranial

manipulation, facilitated communication, and other nonsense. One family

was strongly urged to take out a second mortgage on their home so they

could buy a home hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

> The real tragedy is that all this hoopla is diverting attention from

research into effective treatments (usually behavioral) and into the

real causes of autism (almost certainly genetic, with environmental

triggers not ruled out).

> An anti-anti-vaccine backlash is now afoot. Outbreaks of

vaccine-preventable diseases are being reported. Scientists are speaking

out. Blogs like Respectful Insolence and Science-Based Medicine have

covered the subject in depth. The Chicago Tribune published an exposé

of the Geiers.9 Even Reader's Digest has contradicted . They said

that vaccines save lives and do not cause autism and they stressed that

the science is not on 's side. Let us hope that sanity will prevail

before too many more children die from vaccine-preventable diseases.

They are dying now. The McCarthy Body Count webpage is keeping

track of the numbers.

> References

> ^ Offit, . 2008. Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky

Medicine, and the Search for a Cure. Columbia University Press.

> ^ Wakefield A.J., et al. 1998. " Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia,

Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children. "

Lancet 351: 637:41.

> ^ Wakefield A.J., et al. 1993. " Evidence of Persistent Measles Virus

Infection in Crohn's Disease. " Journal of Medical Virology, 39:

345–53.

> ^Chadwick N., et al. 1998. " Measles Virus RNA is Not Detected in

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Using Hybrid Capture and Reverse

Transcription Followed by the Polymerase Chain Reaction. " J Med Virol.,

55(4):305–11.

> ^ Uhlmann V., et al. 2002. " Potential Viral Pathogenic Mechanism for

New Variant Inflammatory Bowel Disease. " Mol Pathol, 55(2):84–90.

> ^ Details can be found on Deer's website:

http://briandeer.com/wakefield-deer.htm

> ^ Bernard S., et al. 2001. " Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury

Poisoning. " Med Hypotheses 56:462–71.

> ^ Offit, . 2007. " Thimerosal and Vaccines: A Cautionary Tale. "

NEJM 357:1278-9, Sept. 27.

> ^ Tsouderos, Trine. 2009. " `Miracle Drug' Called Junk Science. " The

Chicaco Tribune, May 21. Available online at

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-autism-lupron-may21,0,242705.st\

ory?page=1

>