MS Helping Hands - MSHH
Health & Safety Education
Articles Posted On This Page:
NEW
Elaine DeLack - The Prokarin Story
http://www.insidesuccessradio.com/Guests/Elaine-DeLack
May 25, '07
The Cheap, Safe and Effective Treatment for Multiple
Sclerosis That the
Drug Companies are Trying to Keep Secret
LDN
DEADLY IMMUNITY
Aspartame - What you don't know can hurt you!
Why isn't the FDA protecting your health?
DISASTER PROTECTION - SURVIVAL
"ARE YOU PREPARED?
The Triangle of Life - How to survive
WHAT'S IN YOUR WALLET?
CANCER MEDICAL HISTORY
PROKARIN CONFUSION
THEY SAID IT DIDN'T MAKE "CENTS"
- MS -
THE PROKARIN STORY
TAMIFLU
IS THE AVIAN FLU SCARE JUST HYPE ORCHESTRATED
TO INCREASE SALES OF TAMIFLU?
Finally the Facts are Told!
Finally a neuro journal is acknowledging this.
EAE labeled "misleading model of MS"
http://www.bostoncure.org:8080/article.pl?sid=05/12/12/136253
IS MS A CASH COW FOR THE MEDICAL FIELD
"THE ORPHAN DRUG LAW"
'Cholesterol'
Is the Cholesterol Craze Just Hype?
www.9spot.com/mshhvideo/Chlosterol020306.wmv
________________________________________________________________________________________________
LOW DOSE NALTREXONE (LDN)
FOR MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
SammyJo Wilkinson has collected survey data from other MS patients using LDN, to help raise interest in clinical trials. Her success with LDN is being followed with interest by her neurologist at University of Texas Southwestern MS Center.
SammyJo has had MS for 10 years. In February '04 she was at the end of her rope after years of injectable drugs, IV steroids, plus a year of chemo to quell her immune system. She was barely walking with a cane and was just approved for a motorized wheelchair when she found LDN through her own research. She started at 2.0 mg the first month, then 4.5 mg. The first night she knew something was happening because she slept without leg spasms for the first time in years. Six weeks later she put down the cane, and by three months she could stay outside on hot summer days. She is now lifting weights to 100 lbs. She says she is in the best shape of her life and is looking forward to travel & adventure with her wonderful husband, Doug, of 20 years.
This inexpensive medication (around $15/mo) has been amazing for her and thousands of other people with MS. If you are a patient seeking an LDN prescription, take a copy of her survey results to your doctor. If you are a researcher, please help by starting clinical trials so others can learn why and how this medication works.
Once she started to feel better on LDN, she was able to make progress on the big job of rebuilding atrophied muscles, and learning to walk again. Remember, even if you start to feel better from LDN, you still need exercise, healthy foods and anti-oxidants. Refer to her MS Recovery website for further information.
February 2005 Update: It's been one year on LDN. Steady recovery with no set- backs continues. She still does physical therapy twice a week and can now walk a rapid 1/3 mile. October '04 she had an MRI, and when compared to the last one from May '03, there was no new activity.
SammyJo will be on the USERS PANEL at the First Annual LDN Conference June 11, 2005 in NYC.
SammyJo is a recent member of the Sno-King MS Support Group, and is already an active volunteer for MS Helping Hands – MSHH.
FOLLOW-UP ARTICLE AFTER THE FIRST ANNUAL LDN CONFERENCE
I previously reported on the success I’ve had recovering form Multiple Sclerosis using an FDA approved drug called Low Dose Naltrexone, such as escaping the wheelchair I was being measured for, and now able to walk 1 mile.
On June 11th 2005 I attended the First Annual Low Dose Naltrexone Conference at the New York Academy of Sciences in NYC. The conference room was filled with over 80 enthusiastic participants, including five panels of researchers, doctors, pharmacists, and LDN advocates. I was on the panel of LDN advocates, and presented my survey results of over 400 people using LDN for Multiple Sclerosis. These results found a very low relapse rate of 0.2, or 1 in 5 years; 70% reported symptom improvement; 45% said they felt progression had stopped. Detailed slides with these survey results are at http://www.LDNers.org
My survey results were corroborated by a similar survey by Dr. Skip Lenz of Skip’s Pharmacy, in which virtually all of the clients of his compounding pharmacy who have received prescriptions of LDN were surveyed. Of 238 patients, over 90% reported definite improvement or no worsening while using LDN. As Dr. Lenz put it: "These numbers are...beyond just maybe."
The other big news for those using LDN for MS is that Dr. Myra Gironi, MD, PhD, a neurological researcher from the University of Milan, Italy, spoke about her published findings of low endorphins in people with MS. She revealed that she is planning a clinical trial of LDN in the treatment of MS. When I spoke with her, she said my compilation of anecdotal information into statistically useful data had directed her attention to the effect LDN may have on low endorphins, and hence MS, since as an opiate blocker it tends to make these levels rise. I hope she will have success in unraveling this medical mystery. Meanwhile, I’m just glad it works for me, and so many others.
LDN is turning out to be effective for much more than MS, and is receiving research attention for conditions as varied as autism and Crohn’s Disease. Dr. Jill Smith, Professor of Gastroenterology at Penn State's Hershey Medical Center, recently completed an open-label, pilot feasibility study using low-dose naltrexone in Crohn's disease, beginning in November 2003. With her permission, it was reported at the conference that she was very pleased with the results of the study, and has submitted an application to the NIH to conduct a larger placebo-controlled trial. This would be the first scientific clinical trial using LDN to be accomplished at a US medical center.
This news from Penn State, and all the overwhelming information from MS patients, has inspired myself and a small group of organizers to launch a funding effort for a similar pilot study to be conducted at a major academic center in the US, investigating LDN for MS, which could lead to an NIH study should significance be established. Even though a trial is planned in Italy, it is always important for research to be conducted in multiple centers, so the results can be compared as further corroboration. Details on this can be found on http://LDNinfo.org
Articles submitted by SammyJo Wilkinson
Click on the following site to see a list of doctors who prescribe LDN
Shortcut to: http://ldn.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=doctors&action=display&thread=1079158856
Join the Resistance
We've long known that resistance training (weight lifting) increases muscle strength and bone density and improves balance and coordination in people with unimpaired movement and no disabilities. Now, a study from the University of Florida tells us that resistance training also can help those whose muscles have been weakened by multiple sclerosis walk better and reduce fatigue.
About the Study
In the study, eight patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) ages 25 to 55 participated in a program that focused on exercising the legs, the lower back and the abdomen. Sessions lasted for 30 minutes, two times a week, and there was at least a 48-hour rest between exercise sessions. Conventional weight machines, typical of those found in any gym, were used. Subjects were supervised by trained exercise physiologists during all sessions.
There were no negative outcomes to weight training and no MS flair-ups were reported during the study. At the end of the eight weeks, patients had significantly stronger leg muscles, as evaluated by a machine called the isokinetic dynamometer. All patients were able to walk better, walk longer and reported less fatigue. More than half of the participants continued weight training after the study, Lesley White, PhD, lead researcher, reported.
The good news is that it appears from this study that MS patients are capable of making positive improvements in muscle strength through exercise, just as non-impaired persons are. To substantiate these findings, a four-month strength-training study is under way.
I asked Dr. White how our readers with MS could get themselves on a weight-training protocol. She suggested that patients first consult with both their neurologist and primary health care physician to talk about weight training and get physician clearance to participate in a weight-training program. Dr. White says that not every MS patient is able to participate in weight training because he/she may have additional medical conditions that prevent it or worsen with weight-bearing exercise -- but, it is certainly worth a conversation about the pros and cons with your doctor. Patients can refer their physicians to the original research, "Resistance training improves strength and functional capacity in persons with multiple sclerosis," published in volume 10 of the journal Multiple Sclerosis (2004).
If the MS patient is a good candidate, the neurologist can refer him to a physical therapist or exercise physiologist who is specifically trained to work with MS subjects and who can custom design a program and supervise sessions.
Be well,
Carole Jackson Bottom Line's
Daily Health
News
DEADLY IMMUNITY
The author provides a quote that states this
particular situation is bigger than the
asbestos or the tobacco cover-up. He could be
correct—unknown until 1943; now 500,000 children diagnosed in the
United States
with 40,000 more added each year.
Quote from below:
"The damage caused by vaccine exposure is
massive. It's bigger than asbestos, bigger
than tobacco
bigger than anything you've ever seen." It's
hard to calculate the damage to our
country-and to the international efforts to
eradicate epidemic diseases-if Third World
nations come to believe that America's most
heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning
their children.
When a study revealed that
mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused
autism in thousands of kids, the government
rushed to conceal the data - and to prevent
parents from suing drug companies for their
role in the epidemic.
By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
June 16, 2005
In June 2000, a group of top government
scientists and health officials gathered for a
meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference
center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat
center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the
Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete
secrecy. The agency had issued no public
announcement of the session-only private
invitations to 52 attendees.
There were high-level officials from the CDC
and the Food and Drug Administration, the top
vaccine specialist from the World Health
Organization in Geneva, and representatives of
every major vaccine manufacturer, including
GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis
Pasteur. All of the scientific data under
discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded
the participants, was strictly "embargoed."
There would be no making photocopies of
documents, no taking papers with them when
they left.
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." But instead of taking immediate steps to
alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of
thimerosal, the officials and executives at
Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days
discussing how to cover up the damaging data.
According to transcripts obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act, many at the
meeting were concerned about how the damaging
revelations about thimerosal would affect the
vaccine industry's bottom line.
"We are in a bad position from the standpoint
of defending any lawsuits," said Dr. Robert
Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont
Hospital for Children in Delaware. "This will
be a resource to our very busy plaintiff
attorneys in this country." Dr. Bob Chen, head
of vaccine safety for the CDC, expressed
relief that "given the sensitivity of the
information, we have been able to keep it out
of the hands of, let's say, less responsible
hands." Dr. John Clements, vaccines advisor at
the World Health Organization, declared flatly
that the study "should not have been done at
all" and warned that the results "will be
taken by others and will be used in ways
beyond the control of this group. The research
results have to be handled."
In fact, the government has proved to be far
more adept at handling the damage than at
protecting children's health. The CDC paid the
Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study
to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering
researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link
to autism. It withheld Verstraeten's findings,
even though they had been slated for immediate
publication, and told other scientists that
his original data had been "lost" and could
not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom
of Information Act, it handed its giant
database of vaccine records over to a private
company, declaring it off-limits to
researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally
published his study in 2003, he had gone to
work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data
to bury the link between thimerosal and
autism.
Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to
phase thimerosal out of injections given to
American infants-but they continued to sell
off their mercury-based supplies of vaccines
until last year. The CDC and FDA gave them a
hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for
export to developing countries and allowing
drug companies to continue using the
preservative in some American
vaccines-including several pediatric flu shots
as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to
11-year-olds.
The drug companies are also getting help from
powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received
$873,000 in contributions from the
pharmaceutical industry, has been working to
immunize vaccine makers from liability in
4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the
parents of injured children. On five separate
occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the
government's vaccine-related documents
including the Simpsonwood transcripts-and
shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal,
from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist
quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli
Lilly Protection Act" into a homeland security
bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his
campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book
on bioterrorism. Congress repealed the measure
in 2003 -- but earlier this year, Frist
slipped another provision into an
anti-terrorism bill that would deny
compensation to children suffering from
vaccine-related brain disorders. "The lawsuits
are of such magnitude that they could put
vaccine producers out of business and limit
our capacity to deal with a biological attack
by terrorists," says Andy Olsen, a legislative
assistant to Frist.
Even many conservatives are shocked by the
government's effort to cover up the dangers of
thimerosal. Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican from
Indiana, oversaw a three-year investigation of
thimerosal after his grandson was diagnosed
with autism. "Thimerosal used as a
preservative in vaccines is directly related
to the autism epidemic," his House Government
Reform Committee concluded in its final
report. "This epidemic in all probability may
have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA
not been asleep at the switch regarding a lack
of safety data regarding injected thimerosal,
a known neurotoxin." The FDA and other
public-health agencies failed to act, the
committee added, out of "institutional
malfeasance for self protection" and
"misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical
industry."
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.
What is most striking is the lengths to which
many of the leading detectives have gone to
ignore-and cover up-the evidence against
thimerosal. From the very beginning, the
scientific case against the mercury additive
has been overwhelming. The preservative, which
is used to stem fungi and bacterial growth in
vaccines, contains ethylmercury, a potent
neurotoxin. Truckloads of studies have shown
that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains
of primates and other animals after they are
injected with vaccines-and that the developing
brains of infants are particularly
susceptible. In 1977, a Russian study found
that adults exposed to much lower
concentrations of ethylmercury than those
given to American children still suffered
brain damage years later. Russia banned
thimerosal from children's vaccines 20 years
ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great
Britain and all the Scandinavian countries
have since followed suit.
You couldn't even construct a study that shows
thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the
chemistry department at the University of
Kentucky. "It's just too darn toxic. If you
inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain
will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue,
the cells die. If you put it in a Petri dish,
the culture dies. Knowing these things, it
would be shocking if one could inject it into
an infant without causing damage."
Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly,
which first developed thimerosal, knew from
the start that its product could cause
damage-and even death-in both animals and
humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal
by administering it to 22 patients with
terminal meningitis, all of who died within
weeks of being injected-a fact Lilly didn't
bother to report in its study declaring
thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at
another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore,
warned Lilly that its claims about
thimerosal's safety "did not check with ours."
Half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal-based
vaccines became sick, leading researchers
there to declare the preservative
"unsatisfactory as a serum intended for use on
dogs." In the decades that followed, the
evidence against thimerosal continued to
mount. During the Second World War, when the
Department of Defense used the preservative in
vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to
label it "poison." In 1967, a study in Applied
Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice
when added to injected vaccines. Four years
later, Lilly's own studies discerned that
thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in
concentrations as low as one part per million
-- 100 times weaker than the concentration in
a typical vaccine. Even so, the company
continued to promote thimerosal as "nontoxic"
and also incorporated it into topical
disinfectants. In 1977, 10 babies at a Toronto
hospital died when an antiseptic preserved
with thimerosal was dabbed onto their
umbilical cords.
In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on
over-the-counter products that contained
thimerosal, and in 1991 the agency considered
banning it from animal vaccines. But
tragically, that same year, the CDC
recommended that infants be injected with a
series of mercury-laced vaccines. Newborns
would be vaccinated for hepatitis B within 24
hours of birth, and 2-month-old infants would
be immunized for homophiles influenzae B and
diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis. The drug
industry knew the additional vaccines posed a
danger. The same year that the CDC approved
the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of
the fathers of Merck's vaccine programs,
warned the company that 6-month-olds who were
administered the shots would suffer dangerous
exposure to mercury. He recommended that
thimerosal be discontinued, "especially when
used on infants and children," noting that the
industry knew of nontoxic alternatives. "The
best way to go," he added, "is to switch to
dispensing the actual vaccines without adding
preservatives."
For Merck and other drug companies, however,
the obstacle was money. Thimerosal enables the
pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines in
vials that contain multiple doses, which
require additional protection because they are
more easily contaminated by multiple needle
entries.
The larger vials cost half as much to produce
as smaller, single-dose vials, making it
cheaper for international agencies to
distribute them to impoverished regions at
risk of epidemics. Faced with this "cost
consideration," Merck ignored Hilleman's
warnings, and government officials continued
to push more and more thimerosal-based
vaccines for children. Before 1989, American
preschoolers received 11 vaccinations-for
polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and
measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks
to federal recommendations, children were
receiving a total of 22 immunizations by the
time they reached first grade. As the number
of vaccines increased, the rate of autism
among children exploded. During the 1990s, 40
million children were injected with thimerosal-based
vaccines, receiving unprecedented levels of
mercury during a period critical for brain
development. Despite the well-documented
dangers of thimerosal, it appears that no one
bothered to add up the cumulative dose of
mercury that children would receive from the
mandated vaccines. "What took the FDA so long
to do the calculations?" Peter Patriarca,
director of viral products for the agency,
asked in an e-mail to the CDC in 1999. "Why
didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these
calculations when they rapidly expanded the
childhood immunizationschedule?"
But by that time, the damage
was done. Infants who received all their
vaccines, plus boosters, by the age of six
months were being injected with a total of 187
micrograms of ethylmercury-a level 40 percent
greater than the EPA's limit for daily
exposure to methylmercury, a related
neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry
insists that ethylmercury poses little danger
because it breaks down rapidly and is removed
by the body, several studies-including one
published in April by the National Institutes
of Health-suggest that ethylmercury is
actually more toxic to developing brains and
stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.
Under the expanded schedule of vaccinations,
multiple shots were often administered on a
single day: At two months, when the infant
brain is still at a critical stage of
development, children routinely received three
innoculations that delivered 99 times the
approved limit of mercury. Officials
responsible for childhood immunizations insist
that the additional vaccines were necessary to
protect infants from disease and that
thimerosal is still essential in developing
nations, which, they often claim, cannot
afford the single-dose vials that don't
require a preservative. Dr. Paul Offit, one of
CDC's top vaccine advisors, told me, "I think
if we really have an influenza pandemic-and
certainly we will in the next 20 years,
because we always do-there's no way on God's
earth that we immunize 280 million people with
single-dose vials. There has to be multidose
vials."
But while public-health officials may have
been well intentioned, many of those on the
CDC advisory committee who backed the
additional vaccines ha close ties to the
industry. Dr. Sam Katz, the committee's chair,
was a paid consultant for most of the major
vaccine makers and shares a patent on a
measles vaccine with Merck, which also
manufactures the hepatitis B vaccine. Dr. Neal
Halsey, another committee member, worked as a
researcher for the vaccine companies and
received honoraria from Abbott Labs for his
research on the hepatitis B vaccine.
Indeed, in the tight circle of scientists who
work on vaccines, such conflicts of interest
are common. Rep. Burton says that the CDC
"routinely allows scientists with blatant
conflicts of interest to serve on intellectual
advisory committees that make recommendations
on new vaccines," even though they have
"interests in the products and companies for
which they are supposed to be providing
unbiased oversight." The House Government
Reform Committee discovered that four of the
eight CDC advisors who approved guidelines for
a rotavirus vaccine "had financial ties to the
pharmaceutical companies that were developing
different versions of the vaccine."
Offit, who shares a patent on one of the
vaccines, acknowledged to me that he "would
make money" if his vote eventually leads to a
marketable product. But he dismissed my
suggestion that a scientist's direct financial
stake in CDC approval might bias his judgment.
"It provides no conflict for me," he insists.
"I have simply been informed by the process,
not corrupted by it. When I sat around that
table, my sole intent was trying to make
recommendations that best benefited the
children in this country. It's offensive to
say that physicians and public-health people
are in the pocket of industry and thus are
making decisions that they know are unsafe for
children. It's just not the way it works."
Other vaccine scientists and regulators gave
me similar assurances. Like Offit, they view
themselves as enlightened guardians of
children's health, proud of their
"partnerships" with pharmaceutical companies,
immune to the seductions of personal profit,
besieged by irrational activists whose
anti-vaccine campaigns are endangering
children's health. They are often resentful of
questioning. "Science," says Offit, "is best
left to scientists."
Still, some government officials were alarmed
by the apparent conflicts of interest. In his
e-mail to CDC administrators in 1999, Paul
Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal
regulators for failing to adequately
scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby
vaccines. "I'm not sure there will be an easy
way out of the potential perception that the
FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies may
have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal
until now," Patriarca wrote. The close ties
between regulatory officials and the
pharmaceutical industry, he added, "will also
raisequestions about various advisory bodies
regarding aggressive recommendations for use"
of thimerosal in child vaccines.
If federal regulators and government
scientists failed to grasp the potential risks
of thimerosal over the years, no one could
claim ignorance after the secret meeting at
Simpsonwood.
But rather than conduct more studies to test
the link to autism and other forms of brain
damage, the CDC placed politics over science.
The agency turned its database on childhood
vaccines-which had been developed largely at
taxpayer expense-over to a private agency,
America's Health Insurance Plans, ensuring
that it could not be used for additional
research. It also instructed the Institute of
Medicine, an advisory organization that is
part of the National Academy of Sciences, to
produce a study debunking the link between
thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC "wants
us to declare, well, that these things are
pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired
the IOM's Immunization Safety Review
Committee, told her fellow researchers when
they first met in January 2001. "We are not
ever going to come down that [autism] is a
true side effect" of thimerosal exposure.
According to transcripts of the meeting the
committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton,
predicted that the IO would conclude that the
evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a
causal relation" between thimerosal and
autism.
That, she added, was the result "Walt wants"-a
reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of
the National Immunization Program for the CDC.
For those who had devoted their lives to
promoting vaccination, the revelations about
thimerosal threatened to undermine everything
they had
worked for. "We've got a dragon by the tail
here," said Dr. Michael Kaback, another
committee member. "The more negative that
[our] presentation is, the less likely people
are to use vaccination, immunization-and we
know what the results of that will be. We are
kind of caught in a trap. How we work our way
out of the trap, I think is the charge." Even
in public, federal officials made it clear
that their primary goal in studying thimerosal
was to dispel doubts about vaccines. "Four
current studies are taking place to rule out
the proposed link between autism and
thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director
of strategic planning for vaccine research at
the National Institutes of Health, assured a
Princeton University gathering in May 2001.
"In order to undo the harmful effects of
research claiming to link the [measles]
vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need
to conduct and publicize additional studies to
assure parents of safety."
Douglas formerly served as president of
vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored
warnings about thimerosal's risks In May of
last year; the Institute of Medicine issued
its final report. Its conclusion: There is no
proven link between autism and thimerosal in
vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body
of literature describing the toxicity of
thimerosal, the report relied on four
disastrously flawed epidemiological studies
examining European countries, where children
received much smaller doses of thimerosal than
American kids. It also cited a new version of
the Verstraeten study, published in the
journal Pediatrics that had been reworked to
reduce the link between thimerosal and autism.
The new study included children too young to
have been diagnosed with autism and overlooked
others who showed signs of the disease. The
IOM declared the case closed and-in a
startling position for a scientific
body-recommended that no further research be
conducted. The report may have satisfied the
CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep. David
Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida
who serves on the House Government Reform
Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine,
saying it relied on a handful of studies that
were "fatally flawed" by "poor design” and
failed to represent "all the available
scientific and medical research." CDC
officials are not interested in an honest
search for the
truth, Weldon told me, because "an association
between vaccines and autism would force them
to admit that their policies irreparably
damaged thousands of children. Who would want
to make that conclusion about themselves?"
Under pressure from Congress, parents and a
few of its own panel members, the Institute of
Medicine reluctantly convened a second panel
to review the findings of the first. In
February, the new panel, composed of different
scientists, criticized the earlier panel for
its lack of transparency and urged the CDC to
make its vaccine database available to the
public.
So far, though, only two scientists have
managed to gain access. Dr. Mark Geier,
president of the Genetics Center of America,
and his son, David, spent a year battling to
obtain the medical records from the CDC. Since
August 2002, when members of Congress
pressured the agency to turn over the data,
the Geiers have completed six studies that
demonstrate a powerful correlation between
thimerosal and neurological damage in
children. One study, which compares the
cumulative dose of mercury received by
children born between 1981 and 1985 with those
born between 1990 and 1996, found a "very
significant relationship" between autism and
vaccines. Another study of educational
performance found that kids who received
higher doses of thimerosal in vaccines were
nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed
with autism and more than three times as
likely to suffer from speech disorders and
mental retardation. Another
soon-to-be-published study shows that autism
rates are in decline following the recent
elimination of thimerosal from most vaccines.
As the federal government worked to prevent
scientists from studying vaccines, others have
stepped in to study the link to autism. In
April, reporter Dan Olmsted of UPI undertook
one of the more interesting studies himself.
Searching for children who had not been
exposed to mercury in vaccines-the kind of
population that scientists typically use as a
"control" in experiments--Olmsted scoured the
Amish of Lancaster County, Penn., who refuse
to immunize their infants. Given the national
rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there
should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He
found only four. One had been exposed to high
levels of mercury from a power plant. The
other three-including one child adopted from
outside the Amish community-had received their
vaccines.
At the state level, many officials have also
conducted in-depth reviews of thimerosal.
While the Institute of Medicine was busy
whitewashing the risks, the Iowa Legislature
was carefully combing through all of the
available scientific and biological data.
"After three years of review, I became
convinced there was sufficient credible
research to show a link between mercury and
the increased incidences in autism," says
state Sen. Ken Veenstra, a Republican who
oversaw the investigation. "The fact that
Iowa's 700 percent increase in autism began in
the 1990s, right after more and more vaccines
were added to the children's vaccine
schedules, is solid evidence alone." Last
year, Iowa became the first state to ban
mercury in vaccines, followed by California.
Similar bans are now under consideration in 32
other states. But instead of following suit,
the FDA continues to allow manufacturers to
include thimerosal in scores of
over-the-counter medications as well as
steroids and injected collagen. Even more
alarming, the government continues to ship
vaccines preserved with thimerosal to
developing countries-some of which are now
experiencing a sudden explosion in autism
rates. In China, where the disease was
virtually unknown prior to the introduction of
thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999,
news reports indicate that there are now more
than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable
numbers are hard to come by, autistic
disorders also appear to be soaring in India,
Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing
countries that are now using thimerosal-laced
vaccines. The World Health Organization
continues to insist thimerosal is safe, but it
promises to keep the possibility that it is
linked to neurological disorders "under
review." I devoted time to study this issue
because I believe that this is a moral crisis
that must be addressed. If, as the evidence
suggests, our public-health authorities
knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry
to poison an entire generation of American
children, their actions arguably constitute
one of the biggest scandals in the annals of
American medicine. "The CDC is guilty of
incompetence and gross negligence," says Mark
Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a
nonprofit organization concerned about the
role of mercury in medicines. "The damage
caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It's
bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco,
bigger than anything you've ever seen." It's
hard to calculate the damage to our
country-and to the international efforts to
eradicate epidemic diseases-if Third World
nations come to believe that America's most
heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning
their children. It's not difficult to predict
how this scenario will be interpreted by
America's enemies abroad. The scientists and
researchers-many of them sincere, even
idealistic-who are participating in efforts to
hide the science on thimerosal claim that they
are trying to advance the lofty goal of
protecting children in developing nations from
disease pandemics. They are badly misguided.
Their failure to come clean on thimerosal will
come back horribly to haunt our country and
the world's poorest populations.
About the writer
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is senior attorney for
the Natural Resources Defense
Council, chief prosecuting attorney for
Riverkeeper and president of
Waterkeeper Alliance. He is the co-author of
"The Riverkeepers."
Helen
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Aspartame - What you don't know can hurt you -
Why isn't the FDA protecting your health?
"Aspartame was the most studied additive ever approved by the Food and Drug Administration," argues Martha Stone, Nutrition Advisor and professor at Colorado State University. Stone, an advocate for aspartame, claims that "aspartame wouldn't have gotten to the market if it caused problems in humans" (qtd. In Castrone 12D). Does "most studied" imply safe for human consumption? More importantly, what were the results of these studies and how was aspartame approved? An in depth look at the history of aspartame approval reveals a trail of suspicious methods and possible collusion between the FDA and the G. D. Searle company, manufacturer of aspartame.
Aspartame was discovered in 1965 by a chemist from the Searle company (Farber 53). After researching their product to determine its safety, Searle submitted tests to the FDA for the approval of aspartame. According to The Deadly Deception, compiled by the Aspartame Consumer Safety Network, the FDA approved aspartame in 1974 for limited use based on the tests selected by Searle. After the approval, the FDA learned that some of Searle's other products had serious side effects. Also, a study done by Dr. John Olney, research psychiatrist from the Washington School of Medicine, revealed that holes in the brains of mice appeared after the consumption of aspartic acid, a major ingredient in aspartame. This study was submitted to the FDA after they had already approved aspartame for limited use. This new evidence prompted the FDA to organize an internal Task Force to investigate Searle's original research (7-8).
In their investigation, the FDA 1975 Task Force reviewed a study done for Searle in 1969 by Dr. Harry Waisman, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin. The study involved feeding aspartame mixed with milk to seven infant monkeys. After 300 days, five monkeys had gran mal seizures and one died. Dr. Waisman died before all of his studies were completed. The Task Force uncovered that when Searle had submitted the Waisman study to the FDA, all the negative data had been omitted (The Deadly Deception 6-7).
The Task Force also discovered that questionable lab practices had been performed by researchers from Searle. In a summary of their investigation, the Task Force concluded:
We have uncovered serious deficiencies in Searle's integrity in conducting high quality animal research to accurately determine or characterize the toxic potential of its products. . . . The cumulative findings of problems within and across the studies we investigated reveal a pattern of conduct which compromises the scientific integrity of the studies. (Qtd. in The Deadly Deception 8-9).
This investigation revealed that Searle researchers had cut out tumors in animals that had been fed aspartame and neglected to report all of them or check for cancer. Also, animals that were "reported as dead, were later reported alive again" (The Deadly Deception 9).
Other findings of the Task Force included "falsified data" from another Searle product, the Copper 7-IUD, a birth control device. This product had to be pulled off the shelves due to a $9,000,000 lawsuit. Searle lost even though they claimed the IUD was safe (The Deadly Deception 8).
As a result of the findings of the 1975 Task Force, a smaller Task Force was assigned in 1977 to investigate Searle's original research even further. This investigation uncovered that Searle had again falsified data by submitting inaccurate blood tests. Apparently, they had substituted unrelated animal tests because of instrument problems. In another study, a closer look revealed that uterine tumors had developed in some test animals. Searle "admitted" that these tumors were related to the ingestion of a breakdown product of aspartame, Diketopiperazine (The Deadly Deception 10).
Due to the 1977 Task Force findings, FDA ordered a grand jury investigation of Searle's aspartame studies. Assistant U.S. Attorney, William Conlon, and U.S. Attorney, Thomas Sullivan, failed to start any legal action against Searle concerning aspartame testing. Consequently, time ran out and the grand jury investigation terminated. Conlon was then hired by the law firm that represented Searle. It is interesting to note that this was not the first time Searle had been involved in a grand jury investigation. They had been accused of unreported tumors in the testing of their two drugs, Flagyl and Aldactone (The Deadly Deception 10-11).
According to an article in Technology Review, aspartame came up for approval again in 1980. This time the FDA recommended that a Public Board of Inquiry be created to determine aspartame's safety. The Board was composed of three scientists. They "recommended keeping aspartame off the market until further animal tests could show that it did not cause tumors" (Farber 53).
The disapproval of aspartame by the Public Board of Inquiry wasn't enough. The Deadly Deception states that a five member Commissioner's Team of Scientists was then formed to look at the results of the Public Board of Inquiry conclusions. Three scientists voted against approval and two scientists voted for approval. Inexplicably, a sixth member joined the team with a vote of "yes" to the approval of aspartame creating a deadlock. Dr. Goyan, the FDA Commissioner, decided not to approve aspartame at this time (13, 16).
In April of 1981, Dr. Arthur Hayes became the new Commissioner. Searle applied again for approval of aspartame. A few months later, Dr. Hayes approved aspartame for use in dry foods. In 1983, he approved aspartame for use in diet soft drinks (The Deadly Deception 14-15). One month later, Dr. Hayes left the FDA and within three months he was working for Searle's advertising agency, Burson-Marsteller (Farber 53).
Aspartame's history of approval speaks for itself. The Searle company, whose sales were 700 million in 1992 (Therrien 42), had much to gain from the approval of aspartame. After researching their own product, Searle selectively chose the tests and then submitted them to the FDA. How can Searle, the company who stands to profit, determine which reports are to be given to the FDA? An instant bias is created when this is allowed to happen. Even when independent researchers, such as Olney and Waisman, were approached by Searle to conduct safety tests, Searle withheld important information that these researchers had discovered. The Searle company's effort to produce a clear picture on the safety of aspartame is at best a weak attempt. Falsified data, unscientific lab practices, and a history of problems with some of their other products makes it hard to believe that Searle's concern for the public's health takes precedence over financial gains.
The FDA should be the objective source to verify if Searle's research is valid. The FDA has the final approval and the public depends on them to determine the safety of a product. In this particular case, the repeated reviewing of aspartame studies by forming two task forces, a Public Board of Inquiry, and two teams of scientists seems redundant if not suspicious. The research indicating tumors and falsifying of data resurfaced every time. It appears that all of these attempts were to ultimately get aspartame approved, not to determine it's safety. If the FDA had been really concerned, they should have insisted on reviewing all of the original research before it was approved for limited use in 1974. Even if the FDA's repeated attempts to investigate aspartame's safety were legitimate, ultimately, it was Commissioner Hayes' responsibility to determine if this product should enter the market. When he approved aspartame, it was more than questionable if his intentions were sincere. His employment with FDA was just long enough to get aspartame approved and then he conveniently quit and was hired by a Searle related company! How can we rely on the FDA to make the right decisions concerning aspartame approval if we are suspicious of their motives?
How does all this relate to the safety of aspartame? First we must explore what safe means. The FDA defines safe as a "reasonable certainty of no harm" (Farber 48). Searle's evaluation of aspartame's safety was compromised when they withheld negative data and supplied inaccurate test results. Without valid research, "reasonable certainty of no harm" is difficult to determine. How can aspartame be on the market if the FDA and Searle failed to determine whether it was safe or not?
Brain tumors and seizures in aspartame-fed animals indicate a possible risk to humans. The dictionary definition of safe means "not presenting or involving any danger or risk" (Webster's 877). Does this mean aspartame is not safe? The answer lies in the hands of the public. Although aspartame was not tested on humans before its approval, it now has been tested on the public by default. Over 200 million Americans consume aspartame products (Weininger 1/ZZ1). We have been the guinea pigs in the testing of aspartame without even knowing it. A look at aspartame's ingredients and its devastating effects on human beings provide the evidence for avoiding all aspartame products.
©Copyright 2005 Dr. Joseph Mercola. All Rights Reserved.
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Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.
(MSHH comments: You can now buy many of the popular soft drinks using Splenda instead of Aspartame.)
ARE YOU PREPARED?
The tragic after affects of the Hurricane that hit the Gulf States has caused many of us to ask