The Truth Behind the Vaccine Coverup

<<< Back to Vaccines

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

I find it almost incomprehensible that thimerosal, the well-documented, toxic mercury-containing preservative, is still in many vaccines, years after federal agencies have mandated that it be removed from vaccines. Most people, physicians included, don't understand that thimerosal is still used in most vaccines and is likely one of the major contributing factors to vaccine toxicity.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. Injecting it into a child, whose nervous system is rapidly developing, could have terrible consequences. So, before you decide to vaccinate your children, do them a favor and look into the many risks and side effects associated with common childhood vaccines. Doing so could mean the difference between life and death.

When my colleague and regular columnist, Dr. Russell Blaylock, forwarded me his latest manuscript, I was shocked and dismayed to read his review of a secret 2000 meeting between CDC officials and scientists about the use of thimerosal. I believe you will be too which is why I posted his entire manuscript and it will be posted over the upcoming issues. So please be sure and read the entire fascinating story.

---

By Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.

I was asked to write a paper on some of the newer mechanisms of vaccine damage to the nervous system, but, in the interim, I came across an incredible document that should blow the lid off the coverup being engineered by the pharmaceutical companies in conjunction with powerful governmental agencies.

It all started when a friend of mine sent me a copy of a letter from Congressman David Weldon (R-Fla.), M.D. to the director of the CDC, Dr Julie L. Gerberding, in which he alludes to a study by a Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, then representing the CDC, on the connection between infant exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental injury.

In this shocking letter, Weldon refers to Dr. Verstraeten's study which looked at the data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink and found a significant correlation between thimerosal exposure via vaccines and several neurodevelopmental disorders including tics, speech and language delays and possibly to ADD.

Weldon questioned the CDC director as to why, following this meeting, Dr. Verstraeten published his results, almost four years later, in the journal Pediatrics to show just the opposite. That is, there was no correlation to any neurodevelopmental problems related to thimerosal exposure in infants. In his letter, Weldon refers to a report of the minutes of this meeting held in Georgia, which exposes some incredible statements by the "experts" making up this study group.

The group's purpose was to evaluate and discuss Dr. Verstraeten's results and data and make recommendation that would eventually lead to possible alterations in the existing vaccine policy.

Pulling Teeth

I contacted Weldon's legislative assistant and he kindly sent me a complete copy of this report. Now, as usual in these cases, the government did not give up this report willingly. It required a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to pry it loose. Having read the report twice and carefully analyzing it, I can see why they did not want any outsiders to look at it. It is a bombshell, as you shall see.

In this analysis, I will not only describe and discuss this report, but also will frequently quote their words directly and supply the exact page number so others can see for themselves.

The official title of the meeting was the "Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information." This conference, held on June 7-8, 2000 at the Simpsonwood Retreat Center, Norcross, Ga., assembled 51 scientists and physicians of which five represented vaccine manufacturers (Smith Kline Beecham, Merck, Wyeth, North American Vaccine and Aventis Pasteur).

During this conference, these scientists focused on the study of the Datalink material, whose main author was Dr. Thomas Verstraesten who identified himself as working at the National Immunization Program of the CDC.

(It was discovered by Congressman Weldon that Dr. Verstraeten left the CDC shortly after this conference to work for GlaxoSmithKline in Belgium which manufacturers vaccines, a recurring pattern that has been given the name a "revolving door." It is also interesting to note that GlaxoSmithKline was involved in several lawsuits over complications secondary to their vaccines.)

To start off the meeting Dr. Roger Bernier, Associate Director for Science in the National Immunization Program (CDC), related some pertinent history. He stated that congressional action in 1977 required that the FDA review mercury being used in drugs and biologics (vaccines). In meeting this order, the FDA called for information from the manufacturers of vaccines and drugs. He notes that a group of European regulators and manufacturers met on April 1999 and noted the situation but made no recommendations of changes.

In other words, it was all for show.

The Lid Blown Off

At this point, Dr. Bernier made an incredible statement (page 12). He said, "In the United States, there was a growing recognition that cumulative exposure may exceed some of the guidelines." By guidelines, he is referring to those for mercury exposure safety levels set by several regulatory agencies. The three guidelines were set by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), FDA and EPA. The most consistently violated safety guideline was that set by EPA. He further explains that he is referring to children being exposed to thimerosal in vaccines.

Based on this realization that they were violating safety guidelines he says, this then "resulted in a joint statement of the Public Health Service (PHS) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in July of last year (1999), which stated that as a long term goal, it was desirable to remove mercury from vaccines because it was a potentially preventable source of exposure." (Page 12)

As an aside, one has to wonder, where was the Public Health Service and American Academy of Pediatrics during all the years of mercury use in vaccines and why didn't they know that:

• They were exceeding regulatory safety levels.
• Why weren't they aware of the extensive literature showing deleterious effects on the developing nervous system of babies?

As we shall see even these "experts" seem to be cloudy on the mercury literature.

An Earlier Meeting

Dr. Bernier notes that in August 1999, a public workshop was held in Bethesda, Md., at the Lister Auditorium by the National Vaccine Advisory Group and the Interagency Working Group on Vaccines to consider thimerosal risk in vaccine use. And based on what was discussed in that conference, thimerosal was removed from the hepatitis B vaccine (HepB).

It is interesting to note that the media took very little interest in what was learned at that meeting and it may have been a secret meeting as well. As we shall see, there is a reason why they struggle to keep the contents of all these meetings secret from the public.

Bernier then notes, on page 13, that in October 1999, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) "looked this situation over again and did not express a preference for any of the vaccines that were thimerosal free." In this discussion, he further notes the ACIP concluded that the thimerosal-containing vaccines could be used but the "long-term goal is to try to remove thimerosal as soon as possible."

Now, we need to stop and think about what has transpired here. We have an important group here -- the ACIP -- that essentially plays a role in vaccine policy that affects tens of millions of children every year. And, we have evidence from the thimerosal meeting in 1999 that the potential for serious injury to the infant's brain is so serious that a recommendation for removal becomes policy.

In addition, they are all fully aware that tiny babies are receiving mercury doses that exceed even EPA safety limits, yet all they can say is that we must "try to remove thimerosal as soon as possible?" Do they not worry about the tens of millions of babies that will continue receiving thimerosal-containing vaccines until they can get around to stopping the use of thimerosal?

The Obvious Solution

It should also be noted that it is a misnomer to say "removal of thimerosal" since they are not removing anything. They just plan to stop adding it to future vaccines once they use up existing stocks, which entails millions of doses. And, incredibly, the government allows them to do it.

Even more incredibly, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Practice similarly endorse this insane policy. In fact, they specifically state that children should continue to receive the thimerosal-containing vaccines until new thimerosal-free vaccines can be manufactured at the will of the manufacturers. Are they afraid that there will be a sudden diphtheria epidemic in America or tetanus epidemic?

The most obvious solution was to use only single-dose vials, which requires no preservative. So why don't they use them?

Oh, they exclaim, it would add to the cost of the vaccine. Of course, we are only talking about a few dollars per vaccine at most, certainly worth the health of your child's brain and future. They could use some of the hundreds of millions of dollars they waste on vaccine promotion every year to cover these costs for the poor. Then, that would cut into some "fat cat's" budget and we can't have that.

It was disclosed that thimerosal was in all influenza vaccines, DPT (and most DtaP) vaccines and all HepB vaccines.

As they begin to concentrate on the problem at hand we first begin to learn that the greatest problem with the meeting is that, they know virtually nothing about what they are doing. On page 15, for example, they admit that there is very little pharmacokinetic data on ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal. In fact, they say there is no data on excretion and the data on toxicity is sparse. Yet it is recognized to cause hypersensitivity, neurological problems and even death, and it is known to easily pass the blood-brain and placental barriers.

No Research?

Therefore, what they are admitting is that we have a form of mercury that has been used in vaccines since the 1930s and no one has bothered to study its effects on biological systems, especially the brain of infants. Their defense throughout this conference is "We just don't know the effects of ethylmercury." As a solution, they resort to studies on methylmercury, because there are thousands of studies on this form of mercury. The major source of this form is seafood consumption.

It takes them a while to get the two forms of mercury straight, since for several pages of the report they say methylmercury is in thimerosal rather than ethylmercury. They can be forgiven for this. On page 16, Dr. Johnson, an immunologist and pediatrician at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, notes that he would like to see the incorporation of wide margins of safety, that is 3 to 10-fold margins of safety to "account for data uncertainties."

What he means: There are so many things we do not know about this toxin that we had better use very wide margins of safety. For most substances, the FDA uses a 100-fold margin of safety.

The reason for this, which they do not mention, is that in a society of hundreds of millions of people, there are groups of people who are much more sensitive to the toxin than others. For instance:

1. The elderly
2. Chronically ill
3. Nutritionally deficient
4. Small babies
5. Premature babies
6. People on certain medications
7. Inborn defects in detoxification

In fact, in this study they excluded premature babies and low birth weight babies from the main study, some of which had the highest mercury levels, because they would be hard to study and because they had the most developmental problems related to the mercury.

Who Are You?

On page 16, Dr. Johnson makes an incredible statement, one that defines the problem we have in this country with the promoters of these vaccines. "As an aside, we found a cultural difference between vaccinologist and environmental health people in that many of us in the vaccine arena have never thought about uncertainty factors before. We tend to be relatively concrete in our thinking."

Then he says, "One of the big cultural events in that meeting -- was when Dr. Clarkson repetitively pointed out to us that we just didn't get it about uncertainty, and he was actually quite right."

This is an incredible admission. First, what is a vaccinologist? Do you go to school to learn to be one? How many years of residency training are required to be a vaccinologist? Are there board exams?

It's a stupid term used to describe people who are obsessed with vaccines, not that they actually study the effects of the vaccines, as we shall see throughout this meeting.

Most important is the admission by Dr. Johnson that he and his fellow "vaccinologists" are so blinded by their obsession with forcing vaccines on society that they never even considered that there might be factors involved that could greatly affect human health, the so-called "uncertainties."

Further, he and his fellow "vaccinologists" like to think in concrete terms. That is, they are very narrow in their thinking and wear blinders that prevent them from seeing the numerous problems occurring with large numbers of vaccination in infants and children. Their goal in life is to vaccinate as many people as possible with an ever-growing number of vaccines.

On page 17, his "concrete thinking" once again takes over. He refers to the Bethesda meeting on thimerosal safety issues and says, "There was no evidence of a problem, only a theoretical concern that young infants' developing brains were being exposed to an organomercurial." Of course, as I shall point out later, it is a lot more than a "theoretical concern."

He then continues by saying, "We agree that while there was no evidence of a problem the increasing number of vaccine injections given to infants was increasing the theoretical mercury exposure risk."

The Ultimate Irony

It's hard to conceive of a true scientist not seeing the incredible irony of these statements.

Medical literature is abound with studies on the deleterious effects of mercury on numerous enzymes, mitochondrial energy production, synaptic function, dendritic retraction, neurotubule dissolution and excitotoxicity. Yet, he sees only a "theoretical risk" associated with an ever increasing addition of thimerosal-containing vaccines.

It is also important to note that these geniuses never even saw a problem in the first place. It was pressure from outside scientists, parents of affected children and groups representing them that pointed out the problem. They were, in essence, reacting to pressure from outside the "vaccinologist club" and not discovering internally that a problem "might" exist.

In fact, if these outside groups had not become involved, these "vaccinologists" would have continued to add more and more mercury-containing vaccines to the list of required vaccines. Only when the problem became so obvious -- that is of epidemic proportion (close to that now) and the legal profession became involved -- would they have even noticed there was a problem. This is a recurring theme in the government's regulatory agencies, as witnessed with fluoride, aspartame, MSG, dioxin and pesticides issues.

It is also interesting that Dr. Johnson did admit that the greatest risk was among low birth weight infants and premature infants. Now why would that be if there existed such a large margin of safety with mercury used in vaccines? Could just a few pounds of body weight make such a dramatic difference?

In fact, it does but it also means that normal birth weight children, especially those near the low range of normal birth weight, are also in greater danger. It also would mean that children receiving doses of mercury higher than the 72 ug in this study would be at high risk as well because their dose, based on body weight, would be comparable to that of the low birth weight child receiving the lower dose.

This was never even considered by these "vaccinologist experts" who decide policy for your children.

Stay tuned for Part II in our next eHealthy News You Can Use!

Back to top of Document