RhoGam, Mercury, Autism -The Gov't is protecting the pharmaceutical cos.

* A measure that would prevent health care providers from cautioning patients regarding toxic components of FDA-approved medications and vaccines

* Placing restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act regarding access to information on vaccine safety

* Limitations on public access to information regarding vaccine research, production, and regulation

* A preempting of state legislation regarding vaccines and vaccine components such as the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. For example, the recently passed Iowa and California bills to restrict thimerosal use in pediatric vaccines would be null and void. Several other states have similar legislation pending.

* Provisions for defense of pharmaceutical companies against litigation regarding FDA-approved products, i.e. Vioxx lawsuits

* A requirement that the Attorney General and the Secretary of HHS will provide their recommendations on vaccine injury compensation reform and the litigation of vaccine injuries. These important issues need fair, public hearings and do not belong in a Bioterrorism bill.

Conversely, several provisions have been strategically placed in the legislation that nearly all of us would support were they to stand alone, i.e. increasing death benefits to survivors of soldiers killed in Iraq. This clever craftsmanship of including laudable efforts on behalf of our military is designed to hinder legitimate dissent with the true intent behind S. 3: granting carte blanche power over this country’s vaccine program to the pharmaceutical industry. We cannot let this happen.

We invite you to join with us in opposing a bill with dire potential consequences for public health and the civil rights of all Americans. Below is a list of the organizations that formed the Civil Rights and Justice for Vaccine Injury Coalition for the 2003 project. Our mission statement is shown below. Please let us know by email at your earliest convenience if your organization would like to be involved in the Coalition's efforts regarding S. 3.


Sincerely,


Rita Shreffler
National Autism Association

Increased exposure to mercury through thimerosal containing vaccines is one of the most important issues at hand. Thimerosal (also known as Marthiolate) is the common name of a substance known as ethyl mercurithiosalicylic acid. The overburdening knowledge that thimerosal is converted to ethyl mercury (a substance over a thousand times more destructive than inorganic mercury) in less than one minute after being introduced into the body should give great concern to those appointed to protect the public. Yet, it is virtually ignored. Why is this highly toxic substance still allowed to be a constituent of our vaccines used to inoculate our precious children, our own future generations? 


For example, the MSDS on thimerosal from Eli Lilly, documented on their own letter head as far back as July 13, 1991 clearly states that thimerosal is a "product containing a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm". Yet Eli Lilly continues to use thimerosal in the manufacturing process for vaccines. However, the vaccine issue must not overshadow the cumulative mercury exposure experienced by the patient during gestation and early infancy. These additional exposures besides the vaccine history include dietary mercury content, dental amalgam fillings which contribute greatly to the maternal mercury load, Rhogam (immunoglobulin) administration to mother during gestation, exposure to combustion of fossil fuels, water contamination, and mercuric compounds used in skin products. 


Mercury's causes damage by various mechanisms which include: competitive and non-competitive inhibition of enzyme activity by reversibly or irreversibly binding to active sulfur, binding at the sites off and displacing other divalent cations, like magnesium, zinc, copper, and manganese causing a disruption of enzyme systems, disrupting critical electron transfer reactions, and complexing molecules and inducing a change in structure or conformation which causes them to be perceived as foreign by the body's immune defence and repair system (hapten reactions) resulting in hypersensitivity that can potentiate or exacerbate autoimmune reactions. Mercury alters biological systems because of its affinity for sulfhydryl groups which are functional parts of most enzymes and hormones. Tissues with the highest concentrations of sulfhydryl groups include the brain, nerve tissue, spinal ganglia, anterior pituitary, adrenal medulla, liver, kidney, spleen, lungs heart and intestinal lymph glands. 


But most relevant to us for the purposes of this hearing is that mercury has clearly been shown to causes a denudation of the neurofibrils resulting in direct damage to the neuronal cells. In addition, mercury exposure leads to many secondary clinical problems resulting from the aforementioned mechanisms of damage, such as immuno-suppression, allowing for opportunistic infections, allergies, GI dysbiosis, etc. Addressing all other issues in children with Autism is analogous to attempting to put out fires without addressing the cause of the fire itself. The fire will keep re-igniting unless the "spark" is eliminated. It is the elimination of this "spark", i.e. mercury, for which we now have an easy and effective solution. Along with some supportive therapies, Autism and certain other chronic neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's can be fully and permanently reversed if appropriately treated. This is NOT theory. It has already been clinically validated on a repetitive basis. 

Mercury Primer


Mercury, a potent toxic metal that targets the developing brain and nervous system, is challenging lead as the number one environmental health threat to American children. According to the EPA's top mercury scientist, one out of every six children born in the United States is exposed to levels of methyl mercury during pregnancy that exceed what the Agency considers safe (Mahaffey 2004). The principal source of high fetal methyl mercury exposure is maternal consumption of contaminated seafood, primarily canned tuna. Pregnant women who eat significant quantities of large ocean-going fish could expose their babies to amounts of mercury that are well above the government's recommended safe levels.


In March, 2004, the Food and Drug Administration revised their mercury seafood advisory to include a specific warning about consumption of canned albacore tuna. Pregnant women and children are advised to eat no more than one six ounce can of albacore tuna per week. The advisory, however, provides no consumption advice for a number of fish where high mercury levels are a concern, including tuna steaks, sea bass, halibut, and many others. The Environmental Working Group has filed a legal challenge to the FDA mercury seafood advisory, charging that it is not based on the best available science on seafood contamination and mercury risk levels to the developing fetus.


But contaminated seafood is not the only source of mercury exposure for the developing fetus or infant. Mercury amalgam dental fillings are a potentially significant source of fetal mercury exposure, although precise amounts are not well characterized. And from 1988 through about 2002, children were exposed to significant doses of mercury from birth through six months of age in the form of a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, used in routine childhood immunizations. Children born to Rh negative mothers were also exposed to mercury in-utero when their mothers received a mercury-containing RhoGAM shot. The flu shot is another source of fetal and infant mercury exposure. The health impact of mercury exposure through vaccinations has been the source of intense debate because of significant changes in the vaccination regimen from 1988 through 1991 that increased neonatal and infant exposure to mercury.


In 1988, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended important new additions to the nation's infant immunization program, including three Hepatitis B immunizations (one injected at birth), and three Haemophilis B shots—all delivered by six months of age. Drug companies responded with vaccinations supplied in multiple dose containers preserved with the mercury-based antibacterial thimerosal. Neither the CDC, nor the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which monitors the safety of vaccinations, expressed concerns at that time about the relatively high doses of mercury that newborn babies and infants would be exposed to through these shots. <more>

Drug companies were similarly silent on the matter, although internal company documents show that they were aware of the potent neurotoxic effects of mercury as early as the 1940s. Notably, the FDA banned the sale of topically applied thimerosal antibiotics in the 1980s due to severe, even crippling, adverse skin reactions in sensitive individuals.

The amount of mercury in the standard battery of childhood immunizations more than doubled between 1988 and 1991 when these additional shots were added to the early childhood vaccination regimen. Throughout the 1990s, children received nine mercury-containing vaccinations within their first six months of life, including the unprecedented injection of a mercury-containing vaccine at birth, and up to three shots given in a single day at 2-, 4-, and 6-months. The average two-month old baby vaccinated with thimerosal-containing shots in the 1990s received a single day dose of mercury that was between 100 and 125 times the government's long-term safe exposure level.

Drug companies used thimerosal as a vaccine preservative to allow multiple injections to be shipped and stored in single containers. Thimerosal is 49 percent ethyl mercury, a widely recognized and potent neurotoxin. After more than a decade of nationwide, high childhood exposures, it was removed from childhood vaccinations between 1999 and 2002, at the urging of the Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics, but is still present in most flu vaccines. California and Iowa have banned mercury-containing thimerosal from all vaccinations, and Missouri and Nebraska have legislation in progress.

On Feb 9, 2004, the National Autism Association issued a press release that reported on one of the larger studies under review based on the Center for Disease Control's own Vaccine Safety Datalink. The released reported that under independent investigation, CDC's data concludes children are 27-times more likely to develop autism after exposure to three thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs), than those who receive thimerosal-free versions.

Think about it, twenty-seven times more likely to develop autism. Then consider this, our government had this data for years, but deliberately kept it hidden. This conduct was not due to negligence or laziness, it was a deliberate cover-up. All those involved should be criminally charge, prosecuted and punished.

<snip>

However, the focus did not zero in on Thimerosal until 1997, when Congress passed the FDA Modernization Act, which required the FDA to investigate all drugs that contained mercury to determine their adverse effects on humans.

Within one year, the FDA called for the removal of all over-the-counter products that contained Thimerosal. However, the preservative was still included in more than 50 vaccines, until the Public Health Service (which includes the FDA, CDC and NIH), and the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in July 1999 “urging” vaccine manufacturers to reduce or remove Thimerosal because of “theoretical potential for neurotoxicity.”

So we know by the action taken by the FDA in1999, that our government definitely knew about the dangers related to the preservative. But we also know this because the staff for Rep Dan Burton (R-Ill) obtained an incriminating FDA internal e-mail written on June 29, 1999, by former FDA scientist Peter Patriarca, that offered a “pros and cons” assessment of the Thimerosal statement about to be issued at that time, and listed the questions and issues that would be raised upon its release:

(1) FDA being ‘asleep at the switch’ for decades, by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products.

(2) various advisory bodies aggressive recommendations for use.

(3) the dose of ethyl mercury was not generated by ‘rocket science’: conversion of the % of thimerosal to actual ug of mercury involves 9th grade algebra.

(4) What took the FDA so long to do the calculations?

(5) Why didn’t CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations while rapidly expanding the childhood immunization schedule?
<snip>

I have the answer. The turn of events can easily be explained by the fact that there had been a changing of the guard under Bush since 1999. Keep in mind that the stakes were high for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, a long time friend of the Bush gang, but also the company that invented Thimerosal.

And sure enough, evidence that Bush came through surfaced when the pharmaceutical industry was granted protection (albeit short-lived) from lawsuits from parents of children who developed autism after being vaccinated, by a provision sneakily tucked into the Homeland Security Act, at the very last minute, by Republicans who no doubt were acting under Bush's direction. <more>

Friday March 18th

State's southern border deemed a hot spot for mercury

More than 50 scientists analyzed new data from thousands of locations and discovered mercury in some unexpected places. They determined that mercury loading is higher than previously reported and identified a major biological hotspot of mercury on the New Hampshire/ Massachusetts border. For the first time, they also found mercury in mountain-dwelling songbirds.


The research was coordinated by the BioDiversity Research Institute (BRI) in Gorham, Maine. The findings will be published in 21 papers on mercury in a special double edition of the journal Ecotoxicology. A new BRI report, Mercury Connections, was recently released - distilling the papers for non-scientists.


According to Dr. David Evers, executive director of BRI, author of Mercury Connections and co-editor of the special issue of Ecotoxicology, "We expected mercury to be widespread, but we were surprised to discover just how high the mercury levels are in animals like mink." These high levels are documented in a new map of biological mercury hotspots that represent large areas where mercury is high in several animals. The "bio-hotspot" in New Hampshire/ Massachusetts is located in the Lower Merrimack River watershed, spanning the border of the two states.


In fact, the study found that wildlife in New Hampshire had among the highest levels of mercury in the northeast states. Specifically, elevated mercury was measured in fish, loons, otter and mink.

Act quickly on reducing mercury

March 18, 2005
 
Our position is: State officials should consider ordering a faster cleanup of mercury pollution.

Federal regulations announced this week may not lead to significant reductions of mercury pollution for decades. That's a serious problem in a state where fish caught in most local waterways are unsafe to eat, especially for children and pregnant women. And where coal-fired power plants each year spew out 2.5 tons of mercury. Indiana ranks fourth in the nation in mercury emissions.

For those reasons, the Indiana Air Pollution Control Board should study the feasibility of ordering a faster cleanup. Six states already have imposed tougher limits. Others, including Illinois, are considering such steps.

Mercury builds up in the environment, harming the cardiovascular and immune systems of adults and impairing the neurological development of fetuses and newborns.

Although the new rule announced by the Bush administration will cut mercury emissions in half by 2020, even the General Accounting Office, the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general and an EPA advisory group say the regulations don't move fast enough or go far enough.

Friday, March 18, 2005

If the new director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management is casting about for a challenge, he can stop looking: There's one waiting for him in Washington County, in the tiny town of McIntosh, where lab tests show unusually high levels of mercury in the soil.

Onis "Trey" Glenn, who in February took the reins at ADEM, can demonstrate that he plans to aggressively protect Alabama's environment -- and, indeed, Alabamians themselves -- by ordering an investigation of the contamination and then coordinating a plan of action.

Mercury poisoning can cause severe health problems in humans, including neurological damage, heart attacks and birth defects. In light of tests sponsored by the Register that showed dangerous levels of mercury along dirt roads and around schools, parks, churches and businesses, residents of McIntosh deserve to know the risks they are facing.

The facts may be grim indeed. Toxicologists and other scientists have told Register reporters that ordinary dust may be carrying mercury contamination throughout the community. They urged McIntosh residents to wash their hands often, dust and mop frequently, and take their shoes off outside their houses. <more>

Posted on Fri, Mar. 18, 2005

Power plants and mercury

Rule change puts babies in the womb at risk

MICHELLE BIRCH SINN AND JEROME A. PAULSON


There is growing concern that babies in the womb are very susceptible to harm from exposure to mercury. Children who are born to women with high mercury levels face an increased risk of cognitive and developmental damage.

In the United States, coal-burning power plants are the largest man-made source of mercury to our air. Mercury enters the food chain when it falls back to earth with rain and is converted to toxic methyl mercury by natural processes in our waterways. There fish ingest the toxic methyl mercury and it makes its way onto the dinner table. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration now recommend women of childbearing age, pregnant women, breastfeeding women and children under 15 not consume many types of fish due to their high mercury content. Such limits greatly undermine efforts to fight obesity and cardiovascular disease.

In 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention performed a study that looked at blood samples from more than 2,000 women aged 16 to 49. It found that 8 percent of the women had mercury blood levels exceeding the level the EPA deemed safe for unborn children. More recent research concluded that unborn children have much higher levels of mercury in their blood than their mothers do.

New evidence shows air pollution can also cause genetic damage to unborn children. A groundbreaking study found babies in the womb can potentially be harmed by exposure to air pollution from power plants, motor vehicles and other sources. Babies whose mothers were exposed to higher levels of air pollution were found susceptible to the kind of genetic damage other studies have linked to cancer.<more>