Here is what I shoulder. I shoulder that the CDC has put the research ten years behind. Because the CDC has not been transparent, we’ve missed ten years of research because the CDC is so paralyzed right now by anything related to autism.1
—Dr. William Thompson, CDC senior scientist
You can never really say “MMR doesn’t cause autism,” but frankly when you get in front of the media you better get used to saying it because otherwise people will hear a door being left open when a door shouldn’t be left open.2
—Paul Offit, vaccine developer
Representative Dan Burton, grandfather of a vaccine-injured autistic grandson, was the driving force behind the Mercury in Medicine Report submitted to the House of Representatives in 2003. The report was prepared by the staff of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness, Committee on Government Reform after a three-year investigation initiated in the Committee on Government Reform. It provided historical information about the use of mercury and a specialized mercuric formulation called thimerosal, which had been used as a preservative in vaccines and other biological and drug products since the 1930s. According to the report, “thimerosal is an organic compound made up of equal parts of thiosalicylic acid and ethylmercury. It is 49.6 percent ethylmercury by weight.”3
John and Stephen Oller, coauthors of the book Autism: The Diagnosis, Treatment, & Etiology of the Undeniable Epidemic, provide additional information regarding the origins and intended use of thimerosal:
Research on the effects of ethyl mercury on animals and humans has always shown it to be extremely toxic, especially with respect to the brain, gut, and other vital organs. The form that this compound takes in thimerosal was not so much discovered as invented by Morris Selig Kharasch (1928). Thimerosal was intended to kill microbes (harmful bacteria and fungi) on or inside living plants, animals, and persons. Obviously, thimerosal had to be toxic to achieve its killing purpose. Thus it follows that thimerosal is and always was toxic. This characteristic was known from the work of Smithburn et al. (1930) as well as from Powell and Jamieson (1931) forward.4
Eli Lilly—the thimerosal patent holder—conducted the only safety study ever performed on thimerosal when it contracted with Dr. K.C. Smithburn—referred to by the Ollers in the previous paragraph—to test the concoction on his patients, all of whom had bacterial meningitis. In 1931, researchers H.M. Powell and W.A. Jamieson—Lilly employees—published a study in the American Journal of Hygiene based on Smithburn’s experiment.5, 6
The FDA website cites the Powell and Jamieson report as evidence supporting the safety of thimerosal:
Prior to its introduction in the 1930’s, data were available in several animal species and humans providing evidence for its safety and effectiveness as a preservative (Powell and Jamieson 1931). Since then, thimerosal has been the subject of several studies . . . and has a long record of safe and effective use preventing bacterial and fungal contamination of vaccines, with no ill effects established other than minor local reactions at the site of injection.7
Later, on the same webpage, the FDA provides more details on the Smithburn study:
The earliest published report of thimerosal use in humans was published in 1931 (Powell and Jamieson 1931). In this report, 22 individuals received 1% solution of thimerosal intravenously for unspecified therapeutic reasons. Subjects received up to 26 milligrams thimerosal/kg (1 milligrams equals 1,000 micrograms) with no reported toxic effects, although 2 subjects demonstrated phlebitis or sloughing of skin after local infiltration. Of note, this study was not specifically designed to examine toxicity; 7 of 22 subjects were observed for only one day, the specific clinical assessments were not described, and no laboratory studies were reported.8
The FDA’s rendition of the 1931 report is fairly accurate. The original report, however, is a sham. All 22 of Smithburn’s patients died after receiving thimerosal, seven within the first day and most by the end of the second day.9 The fact that “7 of 22 subjects were observed for only one day” is probably true; it’s hard to observe dead subjects.
The FDA learned the truth about Smithburn’s study at least as early as 2002, when a whistleblower provided lawyers with internal Eli Lilly records documenting the study details.10 That FDA would continue to make the claim that Dr. Smithburn’s dead subjects experienced “no reported toxic effects” is reprehensible, just as reprehensible and just as mathematically irresponsible as St. Paul Offit’s claim that babies can safely receive 100,000 jabs.
Congressman Burton’s Mercury in Medicine Report is a scathing indictment of government’s negligence and mismanagement of the use of thimerosal in vaccines. Among other things, the report demonstrated that the amount of thimerosal in vaccines far exceeds government recommendations.
In the course of regulating mercury, different government agencies have established different minimum risk levels for daily exposure to the toxicant. Exposure to less than the minimum risk level is believed to be safe, while exposure that exceeds that level is believed to increase the chances of injury. All of the levels apply specifically to ingested methylmercury.
The EPA established the most conservative level: 0.1 micrograms of mercury per kilogram of body weight per day. Under this standard, an 11-pound baby (roughly 5 kilograms) could be exposed to up to 0.5 micrograms of mercury per day and be considered safe. Yet this exposure standard level is only a tiny fraction of the 25 micrograms of mercury per vaccine that American children received in several vaccines in the 1990s and that children in many developing countries continue to receive.11 By this standard, a baby would have to weigh 550 pounds (250 kilograms) to safely receive one vaccine containing 25 micrograms of thimerosal.
It’s important to note that the EPA’s safe exposure limit for methylmercury is based on adult exposure, not bolus doses (a quantity of fluid or medication given intravenously at a controlled, rapid rate) at birth and early childhood. And “. . . none of the Federal guidelines on mercury exposure have . . . included specific provisions for safe exposure limits for infants and children,” this according to the Mercury in Medicine Report. “It is widely accepted that infants and young children would be five times more sensitive to the toxic effect of mercury or other neurotoxins than adults.”12
Dr. Stephanie Cave’s entire medical practice is the treatment of autistic children. She testified in the Subcommittee on Human Rights and Wellness hearing, stating that
[t]he bile production is minimal in infancy, making it more difficult for metals to be cleared from the body. When added to a vaccine, the metals are even more dangerous because the vaccines trigger immune reactions that increase the permeability of the GI tract and the blood/brain barrier.13
Many people claim that the public has no cause for concern because methylmercury—the kind of mercury about which the public is warned when found in fish—is dangerous, while ethylmercury in vaccines is safe or at least not as dangerous. Scientists may quibble in their laboratories over which poison is more dangerous, but such quibbling is nonsense to parents. Poison is poison. And as stated previously, less poison does not equal safe, it equals less poisonous. Dr. George Lucier, the former director of the Environmental Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health, agrees with parents on this point. In 2001, he explained his position to the Institute of Medicine’s Immunization Safety Review Committee, saying, “Ethylmercury is a neurotoxin. Infants may be more susceptible than adults. Ethylmercury should be considered equipotent to methylmercury as a developmental neurotoxin. This conclusion is clearly public health protective.”14
In a 2002 Congressional hearing, Congressman Dave Weldon asked physician and researcher David Baskin, MD, about the relative toxicity of ethyl-versus methylmercury. Baskin replied,
The cells that I showed you dying in cell culture are dying from ethylmercury. Those are human frontal brain cells. . . . most chemical compounds that are ethyl penetrate into cells better than methyl. . . . ethyl as a chemical compound pierces fat and penetrates fat much better than methyl.15
Boyd Haley, head of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky and outspoken critic of government corruption, said,
You couldn’t even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe. It’s just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage.16
Haley adds his voice to several other researchers who have concluded that exposure to mercury in infancy reduces a child’s intelligence, resulting in life-long diminished functioning as well as exorbitant costs to society.17
Which form of mercury is more toxic ignores the fact that public exposure to all forms of mercury is both toxic and virtually unavoidable. Dr. Jeffrey Bradstreet testified in a 2002 Congressional hearing of his concern over “the almost complete absence of regard for compounding effect of thimerosal on preexisting mercury levels.” Bradstreet added this disturbing statistic: “The NHANES [National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey] Study from the CDC had already established that perhaps one in ten children is born to mothers with elevated mercury burden.”18
Scientists have been aware of the problems associated with thimerosal-containing vaccines for over 75 years. In 2014, Dr. Brian Hooker and Dr. Haley, together with five other researchers, published a paper that slammed the CDC for covering up the fact that thimerosal is toxic. The paper’s abstract reads:
There are over 165 studies that have focused on thimerosal, an organic-mercury (Hg) based compound, used as a preservative in many childhood vaccines, and found it to be harmful. Of these, 16 were conducted to specifically examine the effects of thimerosal on human infants or children with reported outcomes of death; acrodynia; poisoning; allergic reaction; malformations; auto-immune reaction; Well’s syndrome; developmental delay; and neurodevelopmental disorders, including tics, speech delay, language delay, attention deficit disorder, and autism.19
The truth about thimerosal’s toxicity began to emerge in 1935, when the Pitman-Moore Company tested the compound on dogs, leading to the conclusion that Lilly’s safety claims about thimerosal “did not check with ours.” They sent a letter to Lilly telling them that thimerosal “was unsuitable as a preservative in serum intended for use in dogs. . . .”20
Dr. Frank Engley discovered in 1948 that thimerosal is toxic down to “parts per billion.” Decades later he would say,
Apparently the medical profession does not read the safety data sheets provided by Lilly and other chemical manufacturers made available to physicians, pharmacies, hospitals and health departments. It states for thimerosal: toxic, mutagen, allergen, hypersensitivity, alters genetic materials, may cause mild to severe mental retardation, may cause mild to severe motor coordination [impairment], all sounds a lot like autism.21
In 1973, Eli Lilly informed the FDA that thimerosal was nontoxic. Attorney Andy Waters filed papers in Texas alleging that Eli Lilly “lied to the FDA in a bid to avoid regulation.” According to Waters, “[Eli Lilly] cited the fraudulent Jamieson and Powell study of 1930 [on dying meningitis patients] as its supporting scientific evidence. Despite knowledge to the contrary, Lilly continued to use the [study] to supports its conclusions that the product was safe and ‘non-toxic.’”22
Emulating its corporate master, the FDA continues to deceive the American public and the world by citing the same fraudulent study that Eli Lilly cited in 1973 to deceive the FDA.23 Evidently, the EPA doesn’t buy the FDA’s lies. According to the EPA’s Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) standard, many vaccines that are labeled preservative free still contain trace amounts of mercury—less than or equal to 1 microgram/0.5 mL—per dose. Even at this level, such vaccines exceed the TCLP standard; “therefore these vaccines, if deemed unusable, should be managed as hazardous waste as well.”24
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. writes of a 1977 Russian study that “found that the majority of adults who were exposed to much lower concentrations of ethyl mercury than those given to American children in vaccines were still suffering neurological injury and neuropathology several years after the exposure.”25
In what looked like a rare moment of sanity, the FDA made a recommendation in 1982 that thimerosal be banned from topical over-the-counter products.26 But it made no such recommendation for injected thimerosal in vaccines. It failed to finalize the ban on OTC use of thimerosal until 1998, nearly two decades after it had declared the neurotoxin as “not generally recognized as safe.”27
So much for sanity!
In 1986, Congress created the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) to compensate victims of vaccine injury and to shield manufacturers from vaccine-related liability. The act was passed in good faith based on widespread belief in the dogma espoused by the Vaccine religion. Vaccine injury, according to believers, is an unfortunate and unavoidable sacrifice offered on behalf of the greater good. But properly indoctrinated members of the Church who believe propaganda like being injected with up to 100,000 vaccines is safe never could have anticipated the risk in adding half a dozen or so shots to the schedule. In their bamboozled state, in 1988 they added a newly reformulated Hib vaccine to the childhood schedule involving four jabs in the first year starting at two months of age. According to David Kirby, author of the New York Times bestseller Evidence of Harm, “Some, but not all, brands of Hib vaccine contained 25 micrograms of ethylmercury—each.”28
In 1990, the World Health Organization met to discuss the problem of allergic reactions to thimerosal in vaccines. Internet blogger Jon Christian Ryter wrote,
The concern expressed by WHO in 1990 with respect to methylmercury or ethylmercury, the metabolized form of thimerosal, was that there existed no international recommendations on the maximum allowable intake of this chemical in infants and small children.
Because standards did not exist, WHO was concerned that the accumulated [e]ffect of more than 200 [micrograms] of methylmercury in the system of a fetus or infant could cause moderate to severe brain damage that would result in a rise in learning impaired children.29
In 1991, the FDA showed more regard for pets than for newborn babies when it “considered banning thimerosal from animal vaccines”30 and simultaneously licensed the hepatitis B vaccine, which also contained thimerosal. The schedule called for three jabs in the first year, each containing 12.5 micrograms of mercury, with the first administered at birth.31
The “birth dose” is an important part of the controversy surrounding the commercialization of the hepatitis B vaccine, but it begs the question, Why would the government add a vaccine to the schedule for hepatitis B—a disease predominantly found among intravenous drug users and the sexually promiscuous? When parents posed this question to Dr. Neal Halsey, “one of the architects of US vaccine policy,” he replied, “Because we can.”32
When Halsey says, “Because we can,” it’s important to know who the “we” are. The US House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform provided the answer in 2000 in its “Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making” report:
Dr. Halsey serves on the advisory board to the Immunization Action Coalition, an advocacy group funded by vaccine makers including: Aventis Pasteur, Chiron Corporation, Glaxo Wellcome, Merck & Co., Nabi, North American Vaccine, SmithKline-Beecham, Wyeth-Lederle Vaccines.33
In addition, Halsey is employed at Johns Hopkins University, where he has sought out “start-up funds from most of the vaccine manufacturers for the establishment of an institute for vaccine safety. . . .” On top of that, he has “received $50,000 from Merck and was awaiting funds from Wyeth Lederle. He has received frequent reimbursements for travel expenses and honoraria from companies such as Merck.”34 But wait, there’s more:
Dr. Halsey also participated in the rotavirus working group of the ACIP [CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices]. Also, Dr. Halsey was the Chair of the [AAP] Committee on Infectious Diseases and representative of the American Academy of Pediatrics which, in conjunction with the CDC, sets and advertises the recommendations for schedules and dosages of immunizations.35
Halsey and associates could have also gone to the trouble to add up the total potential thimerosal exposure before turning a generation of children into what would later be called the thimerosal generation (1989–2003), but neither he nor anyone else in the government did so until 1997, and then only after outraged parents spurred Congress “to pass a law called the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Modernization Act. The Act required the FDA to review the use of mercury in pediatric vaccine, foods, and other products.”36
In Kirby’s book Evidence of Harm, the investigative researcher provides the figures that the FDA didn’t bother to add up:
. . . The CDC’s immunization advisory committee, by voting to add four Hib and three hep-B shots to the schedule, had saddled some kids with an additional 137.5 micrograms of ethylmercury during their first, most vulnerable year. Prior to 1988, only the DTP shot had mercury (four shots with 25 micrograms each). In just three years, total potential exposure leapt from 100 micrograms to 237.5 micrograms. And these figures did not account for additional maternal exposures from Rho(D) and the flu shot.37
Halsey told the New York Times in 2002 how he and others felt upon learning how much thimerosal babies had received for over a decade due to his influence in the national vaccine program:
My first reaction was simply disbelief, which was the reaction of almost everybody involved in vaccines. In most vaccine containers, thimerosal is listed as a mercury derivative, a hundredth of a percent. And what I believed, and what everybody else believed, was that it was truly a trace, a biologically-insignificant amount. My honest belief is that if the labels had had the mercury content in micrograms, this would have been uncovered years ago. But the fact is, no one did the calculation.38
Halsey’s admission that the amount of thimerosal used in vaccines was the result of belief—not science—sends a chilling message to the parents who participated in injuring their children due to their belief in the High Priests in the Vaccine religion. But Halsey’s follow-up admission is far more chilling than the first: “My first concern was that it would harm the credibility of the immunization program. But gradually it came home to me that maybe there was some real risk to the children.”
There it is in print in the New York Times: Halsey’s first concern was harming the credibility of the immunization program. Harming millions of American children with toxic levels of thimerosal was a mere afterthought—an afterthought that the vaccine cartel could not allow to stand.
Four days after Halsey’s statement hit the press, his employer, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, issued a retraction on behalf of Halsey. The title of the press release included the recitation of the one of the most important doctrines in The Vaccinology Church: “Neal Halsey Reaffirms Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.” The press release spoke of Halsey in the third person. “Neal Halsey, MD, . . . does not and has not supported the belief that thimerosal or vaccines themselves cause autism in children, saying scientific evidence does not suggest any causal association between any vaccine and autism.”39
Johns Hopkins stated that the New York Times misrepresented Halsey and called for a correction. The Times obliged the following day:
An article and a subheading in The Times Magazine on Sunday about the possibility of a link between brain development in children and thimerosal, a preservative formerly used in vaccines, misstated the views of Dr. Neal Halsey, a Johns Hopkins researcher. Dr. Halsey says that when he described thimerosal injury as a possibility that “must be addressed,” he was referring to developmental delay, not to autism. Thus the subheading—under the title “The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory” — erred in saying of a possible autism link that Dr. Halsey “thinks it’s an issue worth investigating.”40
Halsey undoubtedly learned from his masters that honest statements to the press would not be tolerated. And the public—the vaccine informed public, that is—learned the same thing. They also learned that behind naïve vaccine believers are vaccine sociopaths whose primary interest is the health of the vaccine program, not the health of the public. Representative Burton’s Mercury in Medicine Report summarized as much by declaring:
It is clear that the guiding principal for FDA policymakers has been to avoid shaking the public’s confidence in the safety of vaccines. For this reason, many FDA officials have stubbornly denied that thimerosal may cause adverse reactions. Ironically, the FDA’s unwillingness to address this issue more forcefully, and remove thimerosal from vaccines earlier, may have done more long-term damage to the public’s trust in vaccines than confronting the problem head-on. Given the serious concerns about the safety of thimerosal, the FDA should have acted years earlier to remove this preservative from vaccines and other medicines.41
In summary, government scientists have known for decades that thimerosal is a potent neurotoxin and claims to the contrary are motivated by the mandate “to avoid shaking the public’s confidence in the safety of vaccines.” That mandate continues today as evidenced by the following lies on a CDC webpage titled “Frequently Asked Questions about thimerosal”:
Yes. thimerosal has been used safely in vaccines for a long time (since the 1930s).
Scientists have been studying the use of thimerosal in vaccines for many years. They haven’t found any evidence that thimerosal causes harm.
Is thimerosal still used in vaccines for children?
No. Thimerosal hasn’t been used in vaccines for children since 2001.
However, thimerosal is still used in some flu vaccines. Yearly flu vaccines are recommended for all children. If you are worried about thimerosal, you can ask for a flu vaccine without it.
Does thimerosal cause autism?
No. Research does not show any link between thimerosal and autism.42
The webpage would be been more accurately titled, “Phony Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Thimerosal,” but apparently the CDC is allergic to accuracy.
Many European countries banned the use of thimerosal in the early 1990s. In 2009, the US Congress failed to implement even a partial ban when it “considered, but did not pass, legislation (H.R. 2617) that would have banned the administration of mercury containing vaccines to pregnant women and children under age six with certain exceptions.”43
That didn’t stop six states—California, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New York, and Washington—from issuing their own bans on thimerosal in vaccines for use on pregnant women and children. The details vary from state to state. At first glance, they appear to protect their citizens from thimerosal-containing vaccines, but if public health officials declare that they’re short on thimerosal-free vaccines, they can petition the appropriate authority, receive permission, and inject children and pregnant women with thimerosal-containing vaccines just as they did before the laws were passed.44
This scenario played out in California in the fall of 2015 when Kris E. Calvin, executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics-CA, Susan Hogeland, the CAE executive vice president of the California Academy of Family Physicians, and Erika Jenssen, MPH, the president of the California Immunization Coalition, sent a letter to Diana Dooley, the secretary of Health and Human Services Agency in California, requesting a “temporary exemption for use of thimerosal-containing vaccine.”45
The letter addressed the shortage and included a dramatic plea that might have made vaccine believers cry and the vaccine informed vomit:
Physicians across California are reporting that delays of preservative-free flu vaccine are resulting in significant missed opportunities for vaccination and protection of vulnerable members of our community—hundreds of parents who desire the flu vaccine for their infants and toddlers are being turned away. Many young children and pregnant women may be at risk for serious disease and even death if providers are legally prohibited from administering flu vaccine that contains thimerosal, which is safe and effective for these groups.46
Of course, Ms. Dooley granted her approval with attendant pomp and drama. State laws banning the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines provide citizens with only the illusion of protection against thimerosal and governmental collusion with industry, yet they provide vaccine sociopaths with the means to profit from the poisoning of America’s most vulnerable citizens.47
With thimerosal levels far above EPA safety guidelines, it is no surprise that the autism epidemic exploded in the 1990s. Ever-increasing numbers of American parents watched their children “regress” after routine childhood vaccinations. “They were fine until they got their shots, and then they just faded away” became a story heard again and again across the country. Paul Thomas, MD, author of the 2016 book The Vaccine Friendly Plan, described the story from his perspective as a pediatrician:
I saw it once a year from 2004 to 2008 where a one-year-old was totally normal at one, good eye contact, starting to talk, starting to walk, and then after their one-year-old vaccines which included the MMR, either immediately or within weeks, sometimes a few times within months they lost all eye contact, all speech, and to look into the eyes of a little one who’s gone blank, it’s heartbreaking.48
Parents of vaccine-injured children eventually connected with one another and connected the dots: no matter what their doctors or the CDC told them, they knew it was the vaccines, and many believed that thimerosal was to blame. Needless to say, they were outraged. They had trusted their government. They had vaccinated their children to protect them, not to destroy their minds and their lives. It was at this stage that many parents first discovered that the government had taken away their right to sue vaccine manufacturers and had left them with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program or “Vaccine Court” as it is commonly called.
Originally designed to be a salve to a few unfortunate victims of vaccine injury, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program morphed into yet another jab from the government that had betrayed its citizenry. Attorney Robert Krakow described that betrayal in a 2010 Chicago gathering:
[The Department of Justice] will deny your reality. They’ll deny your word. They’ll say you’re lying. They’ll say you made it up. They’ll say you’re mistaken. They’ll say you’re very well-educated so you know how to game the system. And then you’ll come up against the full weight of their authority—expert witnesses with unlimited funds who will say that your child’s injury is genetic, genetic, genetic. You’ll find obstruction in the Department of Justice. You’ll find resistance. You’ll find scorn.49
In 1996, the problems with the Vaccine Court gained increased public attention when Money Magazine published an article written by Andrea Rock titled “The Lethal Dangers of the Billion-Dollar Vaccine Business.” According to Rock:
A 1986 law promoted by the drug industry dramatically limits vaccine manufacturers’ legal liability in cases where their products cause injury or death. . . . the reform effectively removed one of the drug industry’s most compelling incentives to ensure that its products are as safe as possible. . . . the damages awarded are not paid by drug companies; they are paid by you—in the form of a user tax tacked onto the price of each vaccination.50
Alan Phillips, an attorney who represents parents of vaccine injured children, summed up the entire vaccine program as a racket:
The federal government subsidizes vaccine research and development to the tune of billions of dollars each year. The federal government passed laws removing the vaccine manufacturers liability from the death and disability caused by their products. State and federal governments mandate vaccines. State and federal governments purchase vaccines, and the federal government compensates those who manage to successfully get through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. This is the biggest racket anywhere on the planet.51
Barbara Loe Fisher, director of the National Vaccine Information Center, played a part in the creation of the Vaccine Court, and she was hopeful that it would fulfill its intended purpose. According to the testimony Fisher shared before the California State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services in 2002, it did nothing of the kind:
I worked with Congress in the early 1980s on that [vaccine compensation] law and watched it be turned into a cruel joke as 2 out of 3 vaccine injured children are denied federal compensation for their often catastrophic vaccine injuries because HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] and the Department of Justice officials fight every claim, viewing every award to a vaccine injured child as admission that vaccines can and do cause harm.52
Many parents, however, won their cases in the adversarial “court” proceedings, including dozens of parents whose children regressed into autism after receiving their shots. The Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law & Advocacy (EBCALA) ferreted out such cases by interviewing parents who had filed claims with the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The report, published in a peer-reviewed law journal, examined “claims that the VICP compensated for vaccine-induced encephalopathy and seizure disorder.” EBCALA posted an article on its website describing the findings in their report:
This study found 83 cases of acknowledged vaccine-induced brain damage that include autism, a disorder that affects speech, social communication and behavior. In 21 published cases of the Court of Federal Claims, which administers the VICP, the Court stated that the petitioners had autism or described autism unambiguously. In 62 remaining cases, the authors identified settlement agreements where Health and Human Services (HHS) compensated children with vaccine-induced brain damage, who also have autism or an autism spectrum disorder.53
Members of the medical cartel, mainstream media, and astroturf bloggers specialize in confusing the public with word games regarding vaccine-induced autism. Here is one of many examples:
Ryan [a boy whose parents received compensation from the NVIC] did not have autism. He had encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) which caused brain injury. This can cause symptoms which superficially might resemble autism (to a non-expert), but it’s not autism.54
Investigative reporter Jon Rappoport has little tolerance with the games adults play to obfuscate the reality of vaccine-induced injury including autism:
Whether you call vaccine damage autism or encephalopathy or developmental delay or some other cooked-up name, the central event is the same: a child was vaccinated; the child was severely injured. The child’s brain and nervous system took a heavy, heavy blow.
There are no mitigating circumstances or clever terms to cover up the fact.
The children and the parents are the living evidence of harm.
Don’t let this go. Don’t let the truth slip away.55
It’s important to note that autism is only one of many disorders linked to thimerosal. Reverend Lisa K. Sykes, a proponent for safer vaccines, writes,
Published studies have shown that thimerosal and its mercury breakdown product contribute to: Alzheimer’s, Cancer, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Attention Deficit Disorders, Bipolar Disorder, Asthma, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Arthritis, Food Allergies, Premature Puberty, and Infertility.56
In addition, vaccines are associated with over 200 known medical issues, symptoms, conditions, and diseases, but autism is the condition that strikes the greatest fear in most parents. Therefore, autism is the condition that most scares the vaccine industry. When parents started beating on the doors of the Vaccine Court in the 1990s, the industry and the government knew it had a crisis on their hands, not the crisis of angry parents or vaccine-injured children, but the crisis of an increasingly savvy and informed public—a public that couldn’t be allowed to abandon the sacred cow of public health and kill the cash cow of vaccine industry profiteers. But thimerosal was just the beginning. The Church of Vaccinology was about to run head-on into a doctor who would soon threaten the entire vaccine paradigm. The threat originated in the unorthodox and dangerous behavior the physician exhibited with parents of vaccine injured children: he listened to them.