January 27, 2009

Feeding the Hungry Lie, Italian Style

Evil eye By J.B. Handley
 http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/01/feeding-the-hungry-lie-italian-style.htm
Well, you won't be able to miss it because it's all over the news: another "study" published in Pediatrics proving that vaccines don't cause autism.
 
In case you wonder how the media feels about the whole thing, consider this opening line from the Associated Press article today:
 
"A new study from Italy adds to a mountain of evidence that a mercury-based preservative once used in many vaccines doesn't hurt children, offering more reassurance to parents."
 
Mountain of evidence?
 
Herewith, my guide to reading this new study:
 
1. Re-read my original post, Feeding the Hungry Lie HERE.
 
2. Open the new study from Pediatrics, titled: 
 
Neuropsychological Performance 10 Years After Immunization in Infancy With Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines
 
3. Prepare for Nausea.

 
4. Read the details regarding the two groups that the Italians analyzed:
 
"Therefore, in the first 12 months of life, the cumulative intake of ethylmercury, the mercury metabolite of thimerosal, was 137.5 mcg for the children who were assigned randomly to receive the DTaP vaccine that contained thimerosal ("higher intake group") and 62.5 mcg for those who received the thimerosal-free DTaP vaccine ("lower intake group")."
 
5. Realize that this study is only comparing kids who got 62.5mcgs of Thimerosal to kids who got 137.5mcgs of Thimerosal. They have all been vaccinated, and they've all been vaccinated with mercury-containing vaccines.
 
6. Vomit.
 
7. Read about their sample size of children and prevalence of autism:
 
"We detected, through the telephone interviews with parents and reviews of medical charts, 1 case of autism among the 856 children in the lower thimerosal intake group and no cases among the 848 children in the higher thimerosal intake group."
 
8. Realize that in their sample, the rate of autism of the children analyzed was 1 in 1,704, 15-20 times lower than the US average.
 
9. Vomit.
 
10. Read the acknowledgements section:
 
"The study was supported in part by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, through contract 2002-N-00448 with the Istituto Superiore di Sanita."
 
11. Vomit.
 
12.  Read the AP's headline today: Study adds to evidence of vaccine safety

13.  Vomit.
 
14.  Read that the Editor-In-Chief of Pediatrics, Dr. Lewis First, wrote today on his blog  HERE:
 
"Finally, we get to the heart of the immunization controversy with a study by Tozzi et al. on whether or not thimerosal can influence neuropsychological performance ten years after immunization in infancy (475-482). You'll be reassured that the results show essentially no differences between groups who did or did not get thimerosal in their vaccines—and you'll want to know this information when talking with parents of your patients about the safety and benefits of vaccines."
 
15. Realize that the Editor-In-Chief of Pediatrics is either grossly misinformed or lying because you read the Italian study and know every child considered received Thimerosal.
 
16. Vomit one last time.
 
17. Pray that this study, like many of the others that have come and gone, doesn't falsely reassure a family with a young child about how best to approach vaccines.

J.B. Handley is co-founder of Generation Rescue and a contributor to Age of Autism.

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Comments

Diane, that's silly. The reason infections are taking over our bodies and killing us is in part due to our having changed our immune systems and strengthened the bugs with antibiotic overuse. There's no parallel to vaccines.

No one would die in car crashes if we all walked.

KIM

Is it a coincidence that the "epidemic" outbreak of Hib, the release of Offit's book and now the Italian study have all been dumped into the herd's lap all at the same time?

BTW, based on that study, are they saying that because only one out of 1,403 became autistic Thimerosal is actual a cure?

There are so many other flaws with this study.
Why did they wait 5 or 6 years to put this study out now?
How did they select this 1,000 or so children to test from the thousands that did the study. Did they call and ask them if they wanted to be in the study. If you had an autistic child, would you let them be tested?
Where are the bio-markers they tested?
How was the amount of thimerosal given at any one time accounted for? Did some have multiple shots;others not. Why not a vaccinted vs unvaccinated study?
Some of it seems to be intelligence testing. There are so many other factors involved in intelligence testing .
I cannot wait to see this study in its entirety and have it dissected.
Maurine
 
Wanna vomit again?

Check out this comment on the HuffPost from an article about the Miss World finalist who dies after what started as a urinary tract infection:

This is so sad. It's scary to think how quickly an infection can kill.

Just a reminder to get your kids vaccinated.

(Came from this article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/24/mariana-bridi-dies-miss-w_n_160551.html )

That being said, I would like to share that I had a very cool experience recently at the hospital when I had to take my son to the UrgiCenter. The attending doctor was a young woman and asked if his vaccinations were up to date. I explained that we stopped vaccinating after his twin was diagnosed at 2.5 years. The doctor totally got it! There was a nod of recognition and no further questions asked. A breath of fresh air in the medical profession? I think so.