Thirteen years later - MMR vaccine - Autism link is revived in USA "fraud" scandal

A whistle-blower says that a link between the MMR vaccination and autism was discovered by USA government health agency CDC 13 years ago - and that the CDC falsified the data to say there was no link.

The whistle blower is CDC scientist, William Thomas. In August 2014,  he released 10,000 CDC documents to a US congressman. These documents are alleged to show a coverup of a link between autism and MMR vaccination in USA.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/08/senior-government-scientist-breaks-13-years-silence-on-cdcs-vaccine-autism-fraud.html

Activists have accused the media of repressing this story, eg CNN initially withdrew their report. (Here's a link to the CNN report, which was withdrawn and then re-posted - with fascinating key points from the story http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1164794 )

Why I'm interested in this story on side effects of vaccination
I was surprised to stumble on this news story, because the story had so little publicity, especially when you consider the prosecution of Wakefield (who was persecuted following his claims of a link between MMR and Autism).

Readers of this blog will know that I'm interested in the vaccination saga, partly because I prefer natural health where possible, and partly because it seems big business obscures the truth in order to sell more vaccinations. My personal understanding is that there are risks attached to both 'natural acquired immunity' (whereby people get measles as part of normal life, and are then immune for life) and 'vaccine acquired immunity' (whereby people are injected with 'safe' versions of the disease to become immune).

My researches led me to believe that healthy children can contract measles with very low risk of side effects, so long as the fevers are managed naturally, rather than with fever-symptom suppressants such as paracetamol (eg Calpol). Unhealthy children who then contract measles have a higher risk of brain damage or death. Malnourished children (Vitamin B deficiency in particular) are at risk from measles, such as in Africa.

Vaccination may carry lower risk of measles-type side effects, so vaccination is helpful especially when dealing with unhealthy populations with poor diets. But there ARE also particular side effects from vaccination.

What bothers me is that the data on these risks is not easily available - government agencies gloss over the risk of vaccination - possibly because because the public avoids vaccination if they hear of even the slightest chance of risk.

I suppose mass vaccination is necessary in societies where populations are unhealthy. And it does depend on how serious the disease is. So in the case of small pox, the risk of vaccination seemed worthwhile in order to be immunised against the often fatal disease. But my opinion is that measles is one disease where healthy children have low risk when acquiring natural immunity - and that vaccination may carry risks which aren't properly evaluated by health agencies.

Vaccination uptake increases in Brighton and Hove despite safety worries of some

· One in five Brightonians think MMR is not safe
· MMR2 vaccine uptake increases to 68% in 2009
· “Opportunistic” vaccination at A & E wards under consideration in Brighton and Hove

More than one in five (22% of people) do not believe MMR vaccination is safe, according to a Brighton and Hove 2009 Citizen’s Panel survey. Despite the safety worries, uptake rates are increasing in a city that has historically resisted vaccination. The information was published in a report compiled by City Council Public Health Specialist Barbara Hardcastle in April 2010. The report said “opportunistic” vaccination at A&E wards was under consideration in Brighton and Hove.

821 people responded to the survey. Of those, 201 had children aged under 18. Of these, 73% said their children had received all the immunisations offered. 6.5% said they had received none of the immunisations offered. 14% said they had received some of the vaccinations offered.

When asked why some or all of the vaccinations had been missed, 22.2% (22 people out of 201) said they “didn’t believe MMR was safe.”

65% felt they had been given enough information about the risks of immunisation, while 81% felt they had been given enough information about the risks of not immunising their child.

The report said MMR uptake had been badly affected by the negative press associated with the now discredited Wakefield paper published in the Lancet in the 1998.

In addition, the report said: “There is also a strong “natural health” movement in Brighton and Hove which is anti-vaccination in general and anti-MMR in particular. “
(More ... )

Folks who choose natural immunity - Magda Taylor

24 March 2010
 An interview with a mother who decided not to vaccinate her children.

One in four children aren’t fully vaccinated against measles in Brighton and Hove. Last year, the NHS issued warnings of an epidemic. Russell Honeyman asked mother-of-two Magda Taylor why people choose not to vaccinate.

According to Department of Health figures, in December 2009, only 76% of Brighton and Hove’s five-year-olds had received the recommended double dose of MMR vaccine. The national average is 82%. This was after the 2008 ‘catch-up’ campaign to get parents to vaccinate their children. Before that only 65% of the city’s five-year-olds had received the double dose of MMR. The NHS warned of a possible measles epidemic. Last year that seemed to be coming true when 69 people were diagnosed with measles. 56 of them were had no record of vaccination, five had one dose of MMR, one had both doses, and the vaccination status of the others was not known. The outbreak didn’t turn into an epidemic. The total of confirmed cases was 69, though the Brighton and Hove PCT estimated that more cases would not have been reported.

Despite the NHS warnings, mother-of-two Magda Taylor questions whether vaccination is an effective way of preventing disease. Magda, 50, lives in Worthing and edits a magazine and website called Informed Parent, which collates information and press reports about vaccination. She has been interested in alternative choices to vaccination since she read a 1991 article, by Andrew Tyler, in the Evening Standard.

Magda grew up on the outskirts of Harrow, in a house that didn’t have medicines in it. “We didn’t even have aspirin,” Magda said. “This was not the result of a belief in a holistic life. My family dealt with illness in a commonsense way.

“With my own children, Ruby and Nancy, I didn’t have any knowledge; I just wanted to be a good mum. I went along with what the doctor told me to do at first, and so my first child had some vaccinations including the first dose of MMR. Then I read the Standard article in 1991 and my second child didn’t get any MMR jabs.

“I don’t think either of them suffered long term complications from the vaccinations they did have, but when I look back on their growth charts, I can see that one stopped thriving after each vaccination. I don’t know if that was related. The other one developed eczema after the early vaccination, although there is no history of eczema in my family.
(more...)

Measles: the epidemic that never happened? Or final warning

What happened to the measles epidemic that the NHS has been warning us about since 2008? We were warned of thousands of cases, because of reduced numbers of vaccinations. An outbreak started. But only 69 cases were confirmed. The outbreak happened just as levels of vaccination were increasing. Surely that's wrong? Shouldn't measles cases go down as vaccination goes up? Probably just coincidence, but I wanted to know what was going on.

Which people developed measles? Does vaccination guarantee immunity? The NHS press office avoided my questons for months, so I made a freedom of information request, and when I got the results, wrote the article below.

I submitted my story to the Argus, hoping we might work together to get comment from NHS and alternate health practitioners, and maybe develop the story into a bigger feature along the lines of "Measles - the epidemic that never happened? Or final warning?" Then the Argus published a related article following the NHS line. I was disappointed that we didn't work together on the story to get alternate views. But I'm now looking at measles outbreaks in other countries where some parts of the population don't vaccinate, such as The Netherlands. More to come!

4-Dec-2009. A child with full MMR vaccination developed measles in the outbreak in Brighton and Hove earlier this year.

Brighton and Hove PCT statistics show the measles outbreak is over, for the time being. Measles was confirmed in 69 cases by end of July, and there have been no further cases since then.

Eighty percent (56 cases) of the 69 measles cases had no record of vaccination. Seven percent had only one of the two recommended vaccination doses, and the vaccination status of the others was not known. Twenty percent of the 69 cases required hospitalisation.

One child who developed measles had received both the recommended two doses of the MMR vaccination by the fifth birthday. A Brighton parent said: “It may not be a surprise to the experts, but if you take your kid to be vaccinated I don't remember anybody saying it might not work.”

The NHS immunisation website says about MMR vaccination: “After the first dose, between 5% and 10% of children are not protected against the diseases. After two doses of MMR, less than 1% are left unprotected.”

In August this year, the Department of Health launched the MMR catch-up campaign, and Brighton health officials said thousands were at risk from a measles epidemic. They said one out of ten cases required hospitalisation, and that one in 5,000 cases could be fatal.

There were no confirmed measles cases in Brighton and Hove in 2008, before this year’s outbreak.

The low take up of MMR vaccine was blamed for the outbreak in measles cases. MMR vaccination cover fell after the MMR-autism link scare of 1998. In 2004-2005, only 56% of children in Brighton and Hove had received the double dose of MMR vaccine by their fifth birthday, compared with 73% nationally. Although the numbers of measles cases remained low, the Department of Health said that an epidemic might occur. By 2007-2008, the number in Brighton and Hove with double dose MMR had risen to 62%. Following the launch last year of the MMR catch-up campaign, the 2008-2009 figures for five year olds with double dose vaccination rose to 69%. This compares with 78% nationally.