News a research challenged and cognitive impaired media is likely to ignore.......
Physician Congressman Criticizes Institute of Medicine Report
Rep. Dave Weldon, M.D. (FL) issued the following statement following release
of the Institute of Medicine Report yesterday on autism and vaccines. In the
report, the Immunization Safety Review Committee appointed by the IOM
concluded that vaccines do not cause autism and called for an end to
research into vaccine-associated autism.
"Today's report is premature, perhaps perilously reliant on epidemiology,
based on preliminary incomplete information, and may ultimately be
repudiated. This report will not deter me from my commitment to seeing that
this is fully investigated, nor will it put to rest the concerns of parents
who believe their children were harmed by mercury-containing vaccines or the
MMR vaccine.
Unfortunately, this report will lead many clinicians to believe that
thimerosal is safe and there is no problem with the MMR; however, it will do
nothing to allay the concerns of thousands of parents of autistic children.
It will only drag the IOM under the cloud of controversy that has currently
engulfed CDC. This concern is what lead me earlier this year to request
that Dr. Julie Gerberding delay this meeting and report.
In 2001 the IOM stated that it is "unclear whether ethylmercury [from
vaccines] passes readily through the blood-brain barrier." The IOM
recommended several biological and clinical studies to answer this question
and whether this mercury could cause developmental problems. These studies
were in large part never done. Yet IOM chose to ignore the need for this
research and instead has focused its analysis on the data available today,
most of which is statistical, but there is much more research that needs to
be done before it can definitively be said that thimerosal does not
contribute to NDDs. Even today, the IOM cannot tell you with any degree of
certainty what happens to ethylmercury once injected into an infant. Does
it go to the brain? Does is cause developmental problems?
The IOM's scope of investigation was severely narrowed for this review. In
2001 the IOM considered thimerosal's relationship with nuerodevelopmental
disorders as a whole, but here they only consider Autism. This raises
suspicions that this IOM exercise might be more about drawing pre-designed
conclusions aimed at restoring public confidence in vaccines rather than
conducting a complete and thorough inquiry into whether or not thimerosal
might cause neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, the
author of one of the studies upon which the IOM relies, recently stated in
an April 2004 letter to Pediatrics: "The bottom line is and has always been
the same: an association between thimerosal and neurological outcomes could
neither be confirmed nor refuted, and therefore, more study is required."
It was after this study was published that the IOM scope was narrowed.
Unfortunately, the epidemiology studies that the IOM bases its findings on
are not immune from conflicts or controversy. Many of the authors have
conflicts of interest including funding from vaccine manufactures,
employment by manufacturers, or conflicts in that they implemented vaccine
policies that are now being investigated. Furthermore, the studies were
designed to examine entire populations and would miss subgroups of
genetically susceptible populations. Much like the infamous 1989 study by
The National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD) which missed
the link between folic acid deficiencies and neural tube defects, the
epidemiology studies reviewed by the IOM in drawing today's findings, could
easily have missed a link between thimerosal and NDDs. The IOM report is
based on studies examining populations in the United Kingdom, Denmark,
Sweden and the United States - all of whom have different vaccines, vaccine
policies, and mercury exposures. Study results are only as reliable as the
design of such studies. Relying on these studies to draw conclusions is
shaky ground.
The IOM is not immune to error and has been forced to reverse itself before,
most recently reversing a long-standing finding that chronic lymphocytic
leukemia (CLL) was not due to Agent Orange exposures. A similar reversal
is a very real possibility here.
With regard to the MMR vaccine, the IOM review of this matter is totally
premature; the NIH is only now attempting to duplicate the work of Dr.
Andrew Wakefield. Half of Dr. Wakefield's work has been demonstrated to be
correct. Attempting to draw "conclusions" at this time is
counterproductive. Statistical studies of this matter are of little
benefit, only a clinical pathological study will lay this issue to rest.
Lastly, I am also troubled by the lack of liability or accountability by
these decision-makers should they be proved wrong. I want more than just a
"sorry" from them should their conclusions be found erroneous a few years
down the road. Too many lives are at stake."
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