By David Kirby
The vaccine-autism debate is far from over. If anything, it is just getting started.
As the following comments, funding decisions, research priorites and published papers suggest, the US government and many scientists will be researching and discussing this topic for years to come. Here are some reasons why:
I) FEDERAL HEALTH AGENCIES ENDORSE MORE RESEARCH
The federal government’s four leading health entitites dealing with vaccines and/or autism have all reached consensus: More vaccine safety research is required to fill gaps in knowledge, especially in the context of susceptible subpopulations, mitochondrial impairment, long-tern effects of vaccine-induced fever, seizures and brain injury, and other factors. Millions of dollars will be spent investigating these factors, and not because health officials somehow caved to parental pressure. Mercury in vaccines, for example, was designated as one of the CDC’s “high priority” vaccine safety issues, following an “extensive review of the literature, based on how strongly they seemed to be associated with ASD.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office of Immunization Saftey
The CDC will study autism “as a possible clinical outcome of immunization” as part of its 5-year research plan. It will also study mitochondrial dysfunction and the risk for “post-vaccine neurological deterioration,” and will convene an expert panel on the feasibility of studying health outcomes, including autism, among vaccinated and unvaccinated children.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Study to Explore Early Development – NOTE – THIS WEBPAGE WAS RECENTLY ALTERED BY CDC TO REMOVE ALL REFERENCES TO VACCINES AND MERCURY – HERE IS THE ARCHIVED PAGE:
http://replay.web.archive.org/20080308214934/http:/www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dd/documents/SEEDfaqs.pdf
The CDC is currently looking at environmental, genetic and socioeconomic risk factors for ASD, including vaccines and mercury.
We chose to look at vaccines and other types of medical procedures that may have mercury exposure,” the CDC says. The agency “designated these factors as high priority” following “an extensive review of the literature, based on how strongly they seemed to be associated with ASD.”
Selected mercury exposures include
vaccines that the mom received during pregnancy, the child’s vaccine exposures after birth and specific other factors such as RhoGAM treatment in pregnancy if the mom has developed an immune response against the fetus that can harm it.”
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