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proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 04:41 PM Dec 2014

Huge U.S. Child Health Study Canceled After $1.3 Billion

Source: By Alex Wayne at Bloomberg.com

Dec 15, 2014 8:47 AM PT

The U.S. government canceled one of its most ambitious health research projects, an effort to follow 100,000 children from before birth through adolescence, after spending about $1.3 billion since 2007 without it ever really getting off the ground.

Run by the National Institutes of Health, the study was to collect data on child health and development in the hope of discovering insights into autism and other maladies.

Administrative difficulties and the project’s spiraling costs alarmed NIH Director Francis Collins, who ordered an evaluation of the study after the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns in a June 16 report.

The project was authorized by Congress in 2000 yet never got past a small pilot study to test research methods. The study “as currently designed is not feasible,” Collins said in a Dec. 12 statement on the NIH’s website.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-15/huge-u-s-child-health-study-canceled-after-1-3-billion.html

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proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
2. NIH cancels massive U.S. children’s study
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 04:45 PM
Dec 2014
http://news.sciencemag.org/funding/2014/12/nih-cancels-massive-u-s-children-s-study



NIH cancels massive U.S. children’s study

By Jocelyn Kaiser
12 December 2014, 5:00 pm


Federal officials are pulling the plug on an ambitious plan hatched 14 years ago to follow the health of 100,000 U.S. children from before birth to age 21. The National Children’s Study (NCS), which has struggled to get off the ground and has already cost more than $1.2 billion, has too many flaws to be carried out in a tight budget environment, advisers today told National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins. He announced he is dismantling the study immediately.

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AAAS article published online Friday at 5pm, apparently. NIH announcement here: http://nih.gov/about/director/12122014_statement_ACD.htm
Article link from: http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/12/nih-cancels-massive-childrens-health-study.html
 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
6. Interesting letter at that last link...
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 05:53 PM
Dec 2014

...
The calamity that we face today is that in 5 years barely a single child has been saved from environmental harm by any government initiative, and new studies report that no less than 54% of US children suffer from the chronic diseases (HERE ) and from the CDC itself that 1 in 6 has a developmental disability (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/05/19/peds.2010-2989.abstract ), all of which you indicated all that time ago are due to environmental changes. These new studies come in the same week as one which shows that in an investigation of pregnant Canadian women 93% tested positive for the presence a GM insecticide Cry1Ab (HERE ). It comes as the pharmaceutical industry and its scientists plot to further exploit vaccination mandates and their newly established prosecution immunity ever more widely (HERE ), with US children already expected to receive over one hundred vaccines in combination by the time they become adult (HERE ) – and without any studies which investigate their cumulative impact on a child’s immune system (HERE ), even if they were individually adequately tested (which they are not HERE ).
...

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
7. Vaccinations save lives. There is no arguing about it.
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 07:43 PM
Dec 2014

Be careful. The life you lose by failing to vaccinate yourself or your children could be that of one of your own children or grandchildren.

 

jtuck004

(15,882 posts)
11. I think everyone should be getting vaccinated and have fluoride in their water.
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 08:17 PM
Dec 2014

What caught my eye was the thing about Canadian women and the testing.

But it is worth thinking about the synergistic effects of all this - especially since we know that drugs are developed by pirates. And being required by a government that has left over 10 million people in poverty to keep the wealthy from losing, as if it were just a branch of Goldman Sachs.



proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
14. That's it? You might be interested in reading this information.
Tue Dec 16, 2014, 03:09 PM
Dec 2014

Last edited Wed Dec 17, 2014, 12:27 AM - Edit history (2)

NOTE: Ginger Taylor's work is meticulously sourced. See corroborating links provided in her essay and from the comments (below).

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/12/did-pharma-financial-interests-influence-decision-pull-plug-national-childrens-study.html

Did Pharma Financial Interests Contribute to Decision to Pull Plug on National Children's Study?
By Ginger Taylor
December 16, 2014

LINKS TO PRIMARY SOURCES (stripped from commentary):

Posted by: Twyla | December 16, 2014 at 11:51 AM:

IIV Working Group: National Children’s Study Proposed Core Hypothesis
Altered timing of early childhood immunizations will lead to no increased rate or severity of disease later in life
FINAL: https://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/about/organization/advisorycommittee/2003Sep/Pages/vaccines-document-4.pdf

IIV Working Group: National Children’s Study Proposed Core Hypothesis
The receipt of childhood routine vaccination is not linked to Autism or other developmental disabilities identified during childhood and adolescence
DRAFT: https://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/about/organization/advisorycommittee/2003Sep/Pages/vaccines-document-7.pdf

Autoimmunity Hypotheses for The National Children’s Study
https://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/about/organization/advisorycommittee/2003Sep/Pages/vaccines-1.pdf

Presentation on the need for collecting accurate vaccine histories
http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/meetings/pastmeetings/salmon_0609.pdf

Dr. Bernadine Healy (2008): http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-open-question-on-vaccines-and-autism/

KT2000

(20,544 posts)
8. Industries have fought this
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 07:44 PM
Dec 2014

from the get-go. They were going to include environmental exposures - profitable products for industry.

I guess when we get the adults who as children have grown up having autism and other neurological conditions combined with the elderly with dementia it is going to be fun for all!

muriel_volestrangler

(101,154 posts)
12. $13,000 per child for a study of 100,000, and it 'didn't get off the ground'?
Mon Dec 15, 2014, 08:23 PM
Dec 2014

It could have paid for most of their healthcare for the 7 years (at most) they were in it.

hughee99

(16,113 posts)
15. So it only took them 14 years and 1.3 billion dollars to determine that the study
Tue Dec 16, 2014, 03:18 PM
Dec 2014

"as currently designed is not feasible"... and it sounds like they came to this determination only when they had to justify the money for the study. If no one started asking questions, they'd still be doing it.

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
16. Scathing Op-Ed by Katie Wright: Guttmacher's Billion Dollar NIH Child Health Boondoggle
Thu Dec 18, 2014, 04:01 PM
Dec 2014
http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/12/guttmachers-billion-dollar-nih-child-health-boondoggle.html

December 18, 2014

Guttmacher's Billion Dollar NIH Child Health Boondoggle
By Katie Wright


In what universe do you blow over a billion dollars on an unworkable, irresponsible project yet be able to keep your job and receive praise, by your boss Dr. Francis Collins, for such work?

At the NIH, of course!

Dr. Alan Guttmacher, the head of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of the NIH, has been the figurehead of the National Children’s Health Study Project (NCHS) for 12 years. Guttmacher led almost all meetings and a major media spokesperson for the project.

We all know Dr. Guttmacher has sat on IACC- well for an endless amount for yrs- talking a great game but accomplishing nothing. It is quite a feat to sit through probably 100 hrs of autism meetings yet still remain in the dark on autism science.

Almost 2 yrs ago Dr. Guttmacher was asked to testify in front of the Congressional Office of Government Accountability. Congresspersons asked Guttmacher to give examples of treatment progress resulting from the last 10 yrs of NIH funded autism research. Conservatively the NIH has spent almost $500 million dollars on autism research. One would think that such an enormous amount of money would translate into at least 1 treatment intervention.

Well not in Dr. Guttmacher’s world! Guttmacher asserts that progress has been elusive due to lack of funding! Please, Dr. Guttmacher could have $10 billion for autism research and still manage to achieve nothing and possibly even, move the science backwards. Seriously I think if we pasted all autism grant applications on a giant wall and chose them by throwing darts, blindfolded, we would choose better projects to fund and achieve more progress than Dr. Guttmacher.

<>

But let me take a different tack. For the sake of the argument let’s hypothesize that pharma really does want to tackle the causes of the horrendous state of health among American children. Let’s argue that pharma really wants to make good products, safe products that help kids. OK, if you felt strongly about the safety and importance of your products wouldn’t you want them to be studied? Wouldn’t you welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that your products have little to no ill side effects?

Ok so why was the elimination of the collection of adverse vaccination reaction data one of the first cuts to the study? Surely, within that $336,000,000, ten million or so could be spared to ask moms a few simple questions and add immunization records to the data. I mean, Guttmacher wanted the perinatal genotyping! All sorts of wildly impractical and excessively expensive elements of the study were funded, but not adverse vaccine responses.

The National Children’s Health Study is an unmitigated disaster. My cat could spend money more responsibly.

The very least, the very, very least, taxpayers and stakeholders have a right to expect is accountability and transparency into this NIH catastrophe. Dr. Guttmacher should resign immediately and a congressional committee should be created to ensure that such an ill-considered vanity research project never happens again.

Katie Wright is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.

Katie Wright's parents interviewed recently here:



Wrights Discuss Vatican Conference on Andrea Mitchell
Published on Nov 20, 2014

Autism Speaks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017228239
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014947170

proverbialwisdom

(4,959 posts)
17. Andrea Mitchell (above): "Autism affects 70 million people worldwide." Is this new study the source?
Fri Dec 19, 2014, 03:20 PM
Dec 2014

Link from comments to Wright essay (above). Autism not mentioned in WSJ overview article.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/global-life-expectancy-increases-by-about-six-years-1418861100

Global Life Expectancy Increases by About Six Years
Study in Lancet Says Rise Is Result of Dramatic Health-Care Advances

By GAUTAM NAIK
Updated Dec. 18, 2014 3:29 p.m. ET


Global life expectancy for men and women has increased by about six years over the past two decades, according to one of the most comprehensive studies of global health done so far.

<>

But there are worrying signs, too. While global deaths from infectious disease dropped by about 25% over the past two decades, the number of deaths linked to noncommunicable diseases has jumped by about 40%. Noncommunicable maladies, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes tend to be chronic in nature and often more expensive to treat.

“That’s a very profound shift and it will affect how countries deal with” the future health of their populations, said Christopher Murray, lead author of the study and director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, or IHME, at the University of Washington, which oversaw the analysis.

The study was published Wednesday in the journal Lancet. It is part of an exhaustive analysis known as the Global Burden of Disease Study done by an international team of more than 700 researchers led by the institute. It was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The study analyzes yearly deaths from 240 different causes in 188 countries from 1990 to 2013. The last such report was published in 2010. Governments use the data to make policy decisions; scientists use the data to decide what areas of medical research to pursue; and donors use the data to decide which areas of global health they should support.

The Lancet study “is based on an unprecedented amount of information that has been crunched using very sophisticated tools,” said Igor Rudan, global health expert at the University of Edinburgh, who wasn’t involved in the Lancet study. “In an information-based world, whoever controls the information controls the agenda.”

<>

RELATED: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014947170
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