There are no, or virtually none, autistic people who have not been vaccinated. There has been no work by any independent body (safe from the interference of the medical or pharma community) to examine vaccinated vs unvaccinated outcomes.

My work in collecting some hundreds of data sheets comparing medical interventions in individuals vaccinated vs individuals unvaccinated shows mostly clean sheets for unvaccinated people from the commonplace diseases and conditions that spatter the pages of the vaccinated groups.

Face facts, it is arithmetic not science! It will ultimately break free from the logjam of corporate interests that stifle open debate on these issues.

Tony Bateson

http://www.neurodiversity.com/immunology.html

The problem, given the above, is assuming a monolithic cause or solution. That’s where it gets into trouble, and if a candidate applied that kind of blunt tool (as I feel McCain did), that would lose my vote.

I also posted a link to FOIA docs (emails) that were obtained that show there was some “doctoring” of numbers after the fact to cover-up the original findings:

http://www.nomercury.org/science/documents/FOIA_emails_11-03.pdf

June 21, 2000 and June 22, 2000 – In this two day meeting, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten discussed the Thimerosal/VSD study and some of its findings. However, the more troubling findings of early datasets were not discussed at this two day meeting. It is interesting to note the findings he discussed at this public meeting and the closed door meeting held at Simpsonwood are quite different from the findings in his confidential draft of February 29, 2000. Dr. Verstraeten’s paper of February 29, 2000 showed a 2.48 relative risk increase (a 248 percent increase) of autism in children who had received the mercury laced vaccines (see graph 3 at the top of page 15 ). Even more troubling than the first written, yet unpublished, analysis of February 29, 2000 by Dr. Verstraeten and the CDC is the initial analysis which has been dubbed “Generation Zero” and was apparently never compiled into a formal report. In this analysis, done in November and December of 1999, CDC researchers found a relative risk of 11.35 for autism for those infants with >25 mcg exposure at one month. In other words, children exposed to thimerosal levels as low as those found in the flu vaccine of today were over 11 times more likely to acquire a neurodevelopmental disorder. These results were so disquieting to the CDC they apparently felt the need to revise the data by including younger infants (not yet diagnosed) and pulled in data from a financially faltering Massachusetts HMO that dramatically under reported autism rates (due to a poorly designed database) and used these “new” calculations in the second and third drafts of this report. Internal e-mails from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, obtained by SafeMinds under FOIA, appear to confirm this suspicion. All of these numerical permutations dramatically decreased the relationship of Thimerosal to the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. Unfortunately for millions of children around the world, the published analysis of the VSD (Vaccine Safety Datalink) data had eliminated the risk, never informing others of their initial findings that were of great significance. Sadly, this version would be repeatedly cited by other authors in many medical publications and news stories over the next few years, even today. The various manipulations the dataset went through over the course of 4 years prior to publication is discussed in detail in the science section of the NoMercury website. In the November 5, 2003 issue of Pediatrics, Verstraeten, et al published data based upon the manipulated figures from the VSD study as discussed above. Ironically, even Neal Halsey, M.D., a staunch supporter of the National Immunization Program, and former Chairman of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), raised credibility issues as evidenced in his December 17, 2003 letter to Pediatrics. In February 2004, Geier and Geier published a letter to the editor in Pediatrics which detailed the serious errors in the Verstraeten study. Most telling is the letter from Dr. Verstraeten himself to Pediatrics about the allegation that his study “cleared” thimerosal. Congressman David Weldon, M.D. (R-FL) has also detailed his concerns about the credibility of the these studies and suspected statistical cover-ups in his letter to Judy Gerberding, M.D., Director of the Centers for Disease Control, in his letter to her dated October 31, 2003. Congressman Weldon stated:

“I am very concerned about activities that have taken place in the National Immunization Program (NIP) in the development of this study, and I believe the issues raised need your personal attention.”

“I found a disturbing pattern which merits a thorough, open, timely, and independent review by researchers outside of the CDC, HHS, the vaccine industry, and others with a conflict of interest in vaccine related issues (including many in University settings who may have conflicts).”

“A review of these documents leaves me very concerned that rather than seeking to understand whether or not some children were exposed to harmful levels of mercury in childhood vaccines in the 1990s, there may have been a selective use of the data to make the associations in the earliest study disappear.”

To date, there has been no corrective action taken at the CDC by Dr. Gerberding, in fact, the pattern of behavior continues to be reflected the their ongoing studies and published papers.

I have to conclude that other website is based in China where the free exchange of ideas is seen as dangerous and harmful.

Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor has supplied video which suggests that Obama may not have been referring to himself when he said that “some people” were suspicious about a connection between autism and childhood vaccinations. The video shows the candidate pointing to someone in the audience when he adds the words, “This person included.” Take a look the video below, and decide for yourself.

[video]

I agree that the video casts a somewhat different light on Obama’s remarks. On the other hand, Obama went on to describe the science as “inconclusive,” a statement at odds with several major studies looking at the alleged connection.

Vietor was unable to tell me who in the audience had attracted Obama’s attention. To put the candidate’s remarks into a larger context, Obama was responding to an audience member who mentioned the rising autism rate and then talked about the problems of educating children with special needs. According to Washington Post Staff Writer Paul Kane, who attended yesterday’s event in Blue Bell, Pa., the voter then asked Obama how he was going to fund special education. Here are Kane’s notes of the rest of the exchange:

“My goal is to fully fund special education,” Obama replied, starting off on a dissertation about funding for such children. He noted some statistics about how much the fed government pays for such educational funding.
Then he started talking about “early screening” for children, more medical testing to identify children who will have these special needs. Then Obama turned to autism, saying, “That’s s an area where our basic investment, our basic research has to increase. There are huge opportunities for us to figure out” how diseases occur, calling for more funding for research into the causes and potential cures for autism and other disease.
“We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. This person included. [Points to someone in the audience.] The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it. We can’t afford to junk our vaccine system, we have to figure out what’s happening. If we keep on seeing the increases in the rate we’re seeing, we’re never going to have enough money” to take care of these children.

Oh, isn’t that optimistic!

Yet, it’s so very appealing. But, politicians having to be rather manipulative, protean in opinion, and claiming to some standard of normality, it’d have to be quite a different time.

Politically, I have to admit to being in the “I’m a liberal, but I have many serious issues with both candidates, but they’re better than McCain, and all of them are way better than GW” camp. And, admittedly, I’m not surprised by either Obama or Clinton, though it seems now that Clinton is being most neutral (given her closeness to Autism Speaks at times, I didn’t think this would be true). I’d actually be shocked if a candidate didn’t use the terms of “epidemic”, given their distance from the subject and the common use of the terms. Where we push the boundaries is when asserting the plausibility of a vaccine link, where it has been pretty clear that this isn’t true in mainstream scientific terms.

Then again, that’s not what matters. It’s a popular myth at this point, such to the degree that I doubt that one could get away dismissing environmental factors without being harassed. And that’s not the kind of thing you want to stumble into. But saying that you think they do, or short therein, is still dangerous, because it too would annoy those closer to mainstream scientific views.

Seems that two of the politicians have thought the popular myth more important to play to for votes, and another is playing the issue safe. Be honest, I suspect, given their respective records, Clinton is the only one who has honestly given autism a real thought, despite whatever convincing reactions one might have seen.

Oh, as a final note; access is an interesting and legitimate word here. I think it’s optimistic in its implications of understanding (I highly doubt many really understand the candidates that well, be honest), but who knows? I have seemed to have played the pessimist alot recently in regards to the campaign.

Cliff