Tuesday 24 September 2013
Mesmer, Reich and Mechanical-ness
In my recent reading I came across a new compound word. I like 'mechanical-ness' very much as a verb. Sometimes you see a person who is caught up in the system and you can predict their behaviour because they are following a programme. I like the word because it conveys both Mesmer and Reich's ideas on armouring. I also think a description I've heard of a 'computerised' society is very accurate. See here for further articles. This got me thinking about an observation I've made - every successful holistic practitioner appears to share something in common: they do a good deal of meditational work every day. Which is putting them in touch with 'presence', (in Mesmerism) or the 'force' (in Star Wars!) or being 'in contact' (Reich). The Mesmeric idea of presence, or Reich's conception of 'contact' is indeed at the foundation of successful medicine. Perhaps this is why no particular psychotherapy has ever come out on top - because it is the 'contactfulness' of the practitioner that is key rather than their theoretical background perhaps. On that note, I also must remark that sometimes orgone psychotherapists might consider that dearmouring is a continual lifelong process, especially in a society as armoured as our own. So even if a practitioner has done a deep and thorough dearmouring on themselves over the years they might still need to dearmour segments, every day even. This latter issue is something which Yoga emphasises well. Practically speaking there is much in common between yogic movement and breath work and the physical side of orgone psychotherapy. But before any orgonomic purists get upset let me point out that orgonomy emphasises the sexual stuckness and that I am not advocating a fusion of the two practices. Some pictures to illustrate mechanical-ness and the computerised society....
Friday 20 September 2013
Reich and Mesmer - Orgonomy Journal Notes
Been looking through my Reich bibliography and rereading the articles on Mesmer and Reich. As the journals are not that easy to get hold of I thought I would post some notes here...
Numbered Notes from my Reich Biblio on Mesmer and Reich, see here for full Biblio:
35)
Other devices using ORAC (orgone accumulator) type layering:-
·
Atomic
Piles (carbon/uranium)
·
Leydon
Jars (glass/metal)
·
Mesmer's
Baquet (charged water/stones/metal)
See also Demeo's notes on celestial influences upon above devices.
36)
Author notes that Mesmer, who
discovered many aspects of life energy, was
also awareof muscular armouring.
37)
Mesmer’s human dor-buster (healing hand-passes with
one foot in a water-bucket, transforming the healer’s body into an ‘orgone’
conduit similar to Reich’s medical dor-buster). A DOR-buster is a tube device
grounded into flowing water for removing negative orgone from an organism.
38)
Attack on animal magnetism
in France was very similar to that on orgonomy (although that was in a later
century and in the USA).
- There
was a refusal to honestly examine the evidence (Mesmer pleaded for a commission). (The FDA’s examination of
Reich’s work was profoundly dishonest and unscientific).
- Mesmer
himself was excluded from any ‘investigations’. (Reich was also excluded
from the FDA ‘investigations’ and the FDA scientists did not read his work
or try and repeat his experiments).
- Attacks
on Mesmer were initiated by someone posing as a friend. (The attack on
Reich was initiated by a journalist posing as friendly toward orgonomy).
- Quack
official investigation followed which simply pronounced animal magnetism doesn’t exist. (The
FDA simply pronounced orgone doesn’t exist without honest scientific proof
and without repeating his actual experiments).
- Enormous
effort was expended denouncing animal magnetism world-wide (very expensive
printed report circulated widely. (The FDA spent the majority of its budget
for part of the 1950s persecuting one doctor and to destroy just 300
orgone boxes).
1020)
Mesmer's 'bacquet' was a large wooden tub in which bottles fillled
with water or iron fillings were placed. The water had been 'magnetised' or
healed. Attached to the bottles were metallic rods and flexible cords which were held by the persons
surrounding the bacquet. Their free hand would be connected to each other. Thus
the bacquet transmitted energy and connected energy at the same time using metal's ability to transmit life-energy. It has
aspects of both the Medical Dorbuster and the ORAC (ORAC is short for Orgone
Accumulator Cabinet).
Both men began by examining biological functions and
electricity/magnetism but concluded that there was an additional force to
electromagnetism at work in organisms and the environment. Mesmer's work has
the following in common with the orgonomic view -
A
universal fluid can be intensified and it;
Ÿ Fills all
space
Ÿ Penetrates
all matter
Ÿ Can be
stored or conducted
Ÿ Is
associated with the nervous system
Ÿ Mesmer’s
bacquet can be charged with the universal fluid (Reich’s ORAC does the same).
Ÿ A loss of
muscular irritablity (Mesmer) is similar to muscle armouring (Reich)
Ÿ Sudden
release of this muscular holding and energy blockage (irritability/armouring)
leads to profound crisis and then healing (and can need management due to possible
medical crisis).
Ÿ Health is
wholeness.
Ÿ Both
views argue for the unhindered development of children
Some
specific quotes:
‘Emotional
Plague v. Animal Magnetism’, Jerome Eden (1967) Journal of Orgonomy Vol1 Num1&2
pp172)
From pp175:
“Grounded as he was in his postulation of a universal fluid, Mesmer
considered every disease process to be nothing more than a disturbance or disequilibrium of the universal fluid of the body.
In searching for the cause of this disequilibrium, he arrived at the conclusion
that it was always the muscular fibre which, being either chronically
contracted or expanded (or because of its inability to expand or contract at
all), impeded the normal flow of the universal fluid. Mesmer therefore sought
for the means whereby 1) the patient’s universal fluid might be increased
sufficiently so that it could ‘overthrow the cause of the malady,’ or 2) the
impeding muscular fibre might be restored to its normal condition of
elasticity.”
From pp178:
“In order to accommodate the scores of patients who flocked daily to
his clinic, Mesmer invented a simple structure for ‘accumulating’ the universal
fluid and applying it directly to several patients simultaneously. He called
this device a ‘baquet’ or tub. Essentially, it consisted of a large, covered
wooden tub filled with glass bottles. In the ‘wet’ baquet,’ the bottles were
filled with water and iron filings. Small iron rods protruded through the cork
of each bottle. These small iron rods were connected by larger, flexible iron
rods that emerged through holes in the lid of the baquet. The flexible rods
were held by the encircling patients. Also, in the wet baquet, water and iron
filings were added to the tub itself. In the ‘dry baquet,’ sand and iron
filings were used. Individual baquets, or ‘magnetic boxes,’ were constructed for
patients who were not ambulatory.
Those familiar with Wilhelm Reich’s discovery of orgone energy and his
invention of the orgone energy accumulator and the DOR—buster can readily
understand the basic similarities here.”
From pp180:
The quack ‘investigation’ of Mesmer:-
“Twenty thousand copies of this voluminous report were printed and
distributed throughout the world. (This in the days of hand typesetting and
hand press demonstrates the incredible effort employed to obliterate a ‘non-existent’
discovery.) At the same time, however, a secret report was drawn up by the
commission and presented to Louis XVI-its subject; the dangerous moral aspects of animal magnetism.”
‘Mesmer,
Reich and the Living Process’, Marc Shapiro (1965) The Creative Process, Vol4,
Num2.
From
pp64:
‘The great common discovery underlying the work of Mesmer and Reich is
PULSATION. Pulsation is the main action (called intensification and remission
by Mesmer, expansion and contraction by Reich) of what Mesmer called the ‘Universal
Fluid.’ This Universal Fluid, like Reich’s orgone energy, filled all space and
was the agency of all movement.’
From
pp65:
‘This question brings us to the most remarkable and significant
relation of Mesmer’s work to Reich’s, for Mesmer discovered muscular armouring.’
‘This could be seen in breathing which Mesmer called the ‘universal
expression’ of the Fluid.’
‘However, Mesmer not only passed his hands over the body; he actually
pressed the chronically disturbed muscles in order to bring them back to irritability.’
(My note: this is the same process as in the physical side of orgone
psychotherapy: pressing on the stuck muscle whilst breathing).
From
pp66:
‘The muscular spasms, the strange sensations of movement within the
organism, the trembling and the convulsive movements are all typical effects
observed within orgone therapy. It goes without saying that this is not all of
what happens in orgone therapy – but neither, I believe, does it fully describe
Mesmer’s treatment. Mesmer describes people sitting around the famous bacquet
having sudden outbreaks of laughter, anger or weeping. From the descriptions of
Mesmer by his contempories, from his writings and from his general attitude
toward life as shown in these writings, I feel he had a strong sense of contact
with the patients he was treating, a sense of his own moving energy mingling
with theirs.’
From pp67:
‘Mesmer and Reich both believed that the functions of the living
organism were the expression of a cosmic process. Mesmer stated what amounts to
an early view of self-regulation.’ (My note: Reich believed that healthy
children were not truly known in our armoured, sick society but that we should
attempt to study what health in childhood constitutes and that children should
be free to express themselves safely without undue interference from adults,
apart from loving care. Mesmer believed children should be ‘unimpeded’ and
would naturally find his own ‘development and instruction’ if given freedom to
express movement. Like Reich he believed children should be surrounded by
children of their own age without overt adult interference and that infants
should be immersed in the contact of their mothers. Both believed education
should follow natural principles and follow the child. Mesmer believed children
should not be taught words till later in childhood (6 or 7) according to this
article.
Article also notes that both men believed that the true perception of
the universal force was often hidden within distortions of mysticism and
religion but not that these things are in themselves untrue. Reich would say
that ‘everyone is right in some way’.
From pp69:
Table of Correspondences
Mesmer –
1. Universal
Fluid, (Intensification and Remission, Fills All Space, Penetrates All
Matter, Carried by Nerves, Can Be Stored, Conducted)
2. Baquet,
(Becomes charged with universal energy, employed therapeutically).
3. Loss
of Muscular Irritability
4. Health
is Wholeness
5. Unhindered
Development of Children
Reich –
1. Orgone
Energy, (Expansion and Contraction, Fills All Space, Penetrates All Matter,
Carried by Nerves, Can Be Stored, Conducted).
2. Orgone
Energy Accumulator, (Becomes charged with universal energy,
employed therapeutically).
3. Armouring
4. Health
is Wholeness
5. Self-regulation
An extra note that has just reminded itself to me is the following: both Mesmer and Reich used iron or iron-based metal to attract the 'force' and water to 'ground' it. Also Oriental medicine uses iron-based metal (steel needles) to attract or disperse qi. It is not a coincidence because it is simply the same 'force' functioning in similar ways...
An extra note that has just reminded itself to me is the following: both Mesmer and Reich used iron or iron-based metal to attract the 'force' and water to 'ground' it. Also Oriental medicine uses iron-based metal (steel needles) to attract or disperse qi. It is not a coincidence because it is simply the same 'force' functioning in similar ways...
One of Mesmer's Original Baquets
A Medical DOR-Buster
(tubes grounded into moving water)
An Orgone Accumulator Cabinet
My Orgone Cabinet
Saturday 14 September 2013
Micro-chloridians (or microchloridians) and Bions...in search of the 'real thing'
I have talked about Star Wars and George Lucas having inside information and the connections between Reich, Mesmer, actual life-force and what George Lucas says. I was just watching Lego Star wars and found the proper name of the biological entity in Star Wars - midi-chlorians - they are exactly the same thing as Reich's bions only they have been given a 'mass consciousness' in the film, which is quite possible in my view. Reich discovered orgone through watching and measuring the life-force field given off by bions. They are about 2-8 microns in size, usually a blue spherical shape and have a strong force-field unless there is illness. They are the link between non-life and life. Here is a link from 'wookiepedia' and then a link for the 'real' thing, the first picture is from Star Wars, the second is the 'real' bion....http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Midi-chlorian
real thing... http://www.orgonelab.org/DeMeoBionsColor.pdf
real thing... http://www.orgonelab.org/DeMeoBionsColor.pdf
Monday 9 September 2013
Darwinism, Another Fairy-Tale?
Darwin said, ‘Natura non facit saltum’ : nature takes no
leaps. Except it does….
Problems with Darwinism and gradual evolution:
1. Primordial
Soup: The actual
chemical content of the ‘primordial soup’ as currently considered could not
have given birth even to amino acids (contrary to earlier experiments which
used the wrong chemicals apparently) let alone a fully-fledged cell, which is a
bit like a Concorde happening by accident. To randomly produce a protein
molecule or the gene to produce it would be a probabilistic impossibility (one
chance in 10 with a 125 zeros after it).
2. Cambrian
Explosion: we had jellyfish, sponges and worms for billions of years
and then ‘boom’ virtually all the ‘families’ of animals (phyla) appeared
suddenly in the fossil record fully formed. Darwin admitted that the Cambrian
explosion went against his theory but felt confident future discoveries would vindicate
him. They haven’t. Darwin remains unvindicated yet this does not bother the
mainstream. This situation alone is enough to disprove gradual evolution
according to Darwin himself. There is also no experimental evidence to support
the view that there were gradual changes within the genetics structure which
took place but then expressed themselves suddenly – why would natural selection
or gradual evolution affect a process in the DNA that had no visible effects
for billions of years? The hidden genetics hypothesis is completely
unsubstantiated experimentally. Clutching at straws comes to mind.
3. Embryology: Darwin
claimed that because early embryo’s look similar this is evidence of common
ancestry. However the early embryo diagrams by Haeckel were doctored (this was
known in 1860 yet the diagrams were still being used in 1990s!). Most embryos are not similar in their early
stages.
4. Homology: similar
features in different animals. The developmental pathway theory of evolution
(tree of life) and common gene pathways theory have both failed experimentally
(for example genes for the eyes can be
swapped between frogs and flies yet still the right eye for each animal
develops). Developmental pathway and gene pathway theories cannot therefore be
used to validate Darwinism. Homology itself is not proof of Darwinism as it can
also be used to argue for Intelligent Design.
5. ‘Gills’ in non-fish
mammal embryos: could be just neck creases in the womb.
6. Missing
Links: The
archeopertyx is simply an extinct bird, it is not a missing link as it was from
the wrong era to link reptiles and birds. There are little or no ‘missing
links’. We are supposed to accept on faith that birds descended from dinosaurs
but this is not proved. If Darwinism was correct the fossil record should be
jammed packed with ‘missing links’ and intermediate forms. It is not. Therefore
gradual evolution from species to species is not supported (macro-evolution).
Micro-evolution, (changes within a species), is generally agreed as we can all
see it happen. (Update - I recently read about how the gradualism of our own evolution does not stack up either. Our nearest hominid pre-human, is dozens of 'missing links' away from us. What are described as 'pre-human' are essentially upright apes. The difference between them and modern man is an immense leap of massive changes in bone density, skeleton and skull shape. Gradualism does not explain this process. The changes between Neanderthal and modern human are equally massive and sudden. Our matriarchal DNA also indicates we are a very young species - the exact opposite of what Darwin's theories would predict if we 'gradually' emerged).
7. Java Man:
Half-ape/half-man from 1891 was a ‘skullcap, a femur, three teeth and a lot of
imagination’.
8. Irreducibly
Complex Systems: there are many biological systems such as bacterial
flagella (complex tail propellers with ingenious super-powered micro-engines)
which cannot be reduced to simpler systems. If you take one part away from the
complex whole it no longer functions. Most scientists are at a loss to describe
how gradual selection can create irreducibly complex systems, of which there
are many.
9. The cell itself is so
complex that many leading biologists have all but given up the ‘chance’
hypothesis. Many scientists now side with intelligent design, often changing
their position from a previously held view of gradualist evolution as such a
view is not compatible with the evidence.
10. Molecules: How
can gradual evolution work at the molecular level where there is no organism to
be affected by natural selection? Darwinism fails to explain how non-life can
organise to produce life.
11. DNA: There
is no known chemical or physical process which would bring the first DNA or RNA
sequence together into formation. The power to do so would need to come from
outside the molecule itself. (Life-force may be capable of doing this but
life-force is not known to most scientists of either intelligent design,
evolutionist or creationist persuasions).
12. Self-organising
processes known to mainstream science produce mechanical order, such as
repetitive sequences of crystals but life itself is a different kind of order (an
irregular complexity capable of producing new information). However life-force
sciences observe that irregular complexity does spontaneously arise in the form
of the life-vesicle termed the bion by Reich or other pre-cellular forms
discovered by others. The proto-cellular form bions can be created by cooking
organic matter at high temperature. They display life-like characteristics
though they are much less complex than a cell. Here are bions emerging from a
super-sterile, autoclaved hay infusion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXickkE3aDU
Here are some quotes from molecular biologists such as Dr
Wells:
‘Darwinism is merely materialist philosophy masquerading as
science'
‘Darwinian evolution is bankrupt.’
The above notes were taken from or were inspired by Lee Stroebel's book 'Case for a Creator', the chapter on Darwinism, a very enjoyable account of a journalist's investigation of the mainstream scientific evidence for a creator. My own views differ quite a bit from Strobel's because he is not aware of life-force, which changes the ball game once again. A good book too which pulls apart the 'religion' of modern blind science is this by the scientist who has worked on the 'morphic field' theory, Dr Sheldrake, The Science Delusion
The above notes were taken from or were inspired by Lee Stroebel's book 'Case for a Creator', the chapter on Darwinism, a very enjoyable account of a journalist's investigation of the mainstream scientific evidence for a creator. My own views differ quite a bit from Strobel's because he is not aware of life-force, which changes the ball game once again. A good book too which pulls apart the 'religion' of modern blind science is this by the scientist who has worked on the 'morphic field' theory, Dr Sheldrake, The Science Delusion
Also, in politics it should be remembered, Darwinism is absolutely fascist. No single theory has done more to philosophically support fascism in both economics and sociology than Charlie's contribution. Think Eugenics, think Rockefellers, think Nazism, think mechanical biology - all rely on Darwin's theories as background support and validation. The strong crush the weak, there is no spiritual higher powers, everything has a mechanical cause, there is only mechanics and anything approaching a God or a spiritual perspective is redundant.
Sunday 1 September 2013
Creationism, Mainstream science and the Big Bang - Religion in Disguise!
What unites radical right wing religious fundamentalists and left wing ideological atheists? both believe that the universe was created out of nothing and that the universe has no background life-force, is essentially empty and mechanical, apart from 'mind' or 'God'....but the science the religious right and the left atheists both claim is wrong...there is a dynamic aether that the Victorians believed in, there is a life-force as Mesmer and Reich stated and the Big Bang (creationism in disguise) is not actually supported by the evidence...or at least there would be a big debate if all the info were acknowledged. This astrophysicist was banned from using American telescopes...they didn't like what he was finding, so he had to go to Germany..in a nutshell, the red shift is the way light changes as objects move away, it is used to argue that the universe is expanding after a Big Bang...but...the red shift is misinterpreted and uneven, young and old galaxies are next to each other and giving birth to each other, also the background noise of the universe could be from dark matter/orgone not the leftover from the Big Bang..anyhow see below...I've also been reading about how science can be argued to support the theistic viewpoint. Much of it I agree with but if you include the life-force you get a very different picture than the one many subscribe to, closer to the Native people's views. Anyway a short synopsis of the critique on darwinism, a theory in total disarray, to follow from that reading before too long...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Red-Redshifts-Cosmology-Academic/dp/0968368905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378073520&sr=8-1&keywords=halton+arp
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Red-Redshifts-Cosmology-Academic/dp/0968368905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378073520&sr=8-1&keywords=halton+arp
Just to add another thought - the other argument for the Big Bang and a created universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics - that the universe's entropy (disorder) is always increasing. That matter is 'unwinding' toward a heat death (and that therefore, working backwards, the universe had a beginning at a finite point). This law is overturned by the existence of the orgone accumulator - it is negatively entropic, creating heat, energy without any observed input (what it is called the thermal anomaly or TO-T in orgonomy).
Saturday 27 July 2013
Star Wars, Reich and Mesmer
Just been rewatching the Star Wars series and was struck by how similar the Jedi concepts are to both Orgonomy and Mesmerism
Firstly, the life-force science of orgonomy -
"The force is an energy field created by all living things, it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together" - Obi-Wan to Luke
Orgone (or life force) fills all space and is everywhere
* it's mass free and is the primordial, cosmic energy
* it penetrates matter, but at different speeds
* it pulsates and is observable and measurable
* it has a strong affinity and attraction to/by water
* it is accumulated naturally in the living organism by ingesting foods, breathing, and through the skin (definition lifted from orgonics.com).
Also in Star Wars the Jedi can hypnotise someone against their will (not usually possible with modern 'pasteurised' hypnotism but very possible with the more powerful Mesmerism). Mesmer also spoke of a life force, a universal 'fluid' which had a biological 'magnetism'.
Science has been pulling the wool over people's eyes since the 1700s by doing everything in its power to persuade people the 'force' does not exist (mostly by lying). The evidence against Mesmer's fluid for instance is a crock of sh*t by the way yet many take it as gospel that Mesmer was soundly disproved. One of Mesmer's students used non-verbal, non-suggestion, magnetic mesemerism to perform literally hundreds of operations in India without analgesia with no problems (Dr Esdaile). Also animals and children are quite open to it so its effects cannot easily be put down to mere suggestion. The original experiments against Mesmer were pretty dodgy and didn't even involve Mesmer himself.
Icke says of George Lucas that he has much insider information, that seems probable to me. Lucas knows too much to be guessing. Star Wars also mentions tiny vesicles in the blood of the Jedi called cloridians? that help give them their power. Reich discovered a tiny vesicle called the bion which carries life-force charge throughout the body. That's some coincidence isn't it? Also the way the writing at the beginning of each film (A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away), is that a way of misleading people? The Vedas mention wars between 'sky peoples' in the past, right here. Also i think I had a crush on Princess Leia :-)
PS here is a very good rebuttal of the slanders against Wilhelm Reich (my study is quoted I was pleased to see though they got the date wrong, never mind).
http://www.waterjournal.org/volume-4/demeo-2
Firstly, the life-force science of orgonomy -
"The force is an energy field created by all living things, it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together" - Obi-Wan to Luke
Orgone (or life force) fills all space and is everywhere
* it's mass free and is the primordial, cosmic energy
* it penetrates matter, but at different speeds
* it pulsates and is observable and measurable
* it has a strong affinity and attraction to/by water
* it is accumulated naturally in the living organism by ingesting foods, breathing, and through the skin (definition lifted from orgonics.com).
Also in Star Wars the Jedi can hypnotise someone against their will (not usually possible with modern 'pasteurised' hypnotism but very possible with the more powerful Mesmerism). Mesmer also spoke of a life force, a universal 'fluid' which had a biological 'magnetism'.
Science has been pulling the wool over people's eyes since the 1700s by doing everything in its power to persuade people the 'force' does not exist (mostly by lying). The evidence against Mesmer's fluid for instance is a crock of sh*t by the way yet many take it as gospel that Mesmer was soundly disproved. One of Mesmer's students used non-verbal, non-suggestion, magnetic mesemerism to perform literally hundreds of operations in India without analgesia with no problems (Dr Esdaile). Also animals and children are quite open to it so its effects cannot easily be put down to mere suggestion. The original experiments against Mesmer were pretty dodgy and didn't even involve Mesmer himself.
Icke says of George Lucas that he has much insider information, that seems probable to me. Lucas knows too much to be guessing. Star Wars also mentions tiny vesicles in the blood of the Jedi called cloridians? that help give them their power. Reich discovered a tiny vesicle called the bion which carries life-force charge throughout the body. That's some coincidence isn't it? Also the way the writing at the beginning of each film (A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away), is that a way of misleading people? The Vedas mention wars between 'sky peoples' in the past, right here. Also i think I had a crush on Princess Leia :-)
PS here is a very good rebuttal of the slanders against Wilhelm Reich (my study is quoted I was pleased to see though they got the date wrong, never mind).
http://www.waterjournal.org/volume-4/demeo-2
Sunday 2 June 2013
Orwell's 1984, What Has Come True?
The only thing Orwell got wrong was the date? Wrong!
Just reread my mother's copy of 1984...here's some things George predicted (he had insider contacts through his friend Huxley according to some)..the date 1984 was actually a provisional one in the book, Orwell never stated that was the real date, Winston isn't sure of the actual year, the only date Orwell says for sure is 2050...it will take this long for Newspeak to make Thoughtcrime impossible by changing the language we think with...Winston used the 9th edition of Newspeak and the 11th was used by Brian the insider and Winston's eventual torturer...a reference to 9/11 changing how we think? Anyway that's tenuous. Here are some of the things George predicted..
What he predicted- Newspeak - What we got - dumbing down, text speak, political correctness.
War is Peace - We got continual warfare.
Metal TV's that Watch You, 3D images - We got face recognition flat screen TV's with 3D
Government of Oceania attacking population itself - We got false flag terrorism
Fossilised Science - We got no true advance in mainstream science
Common sense as heresy - We got people who believe the media theories rather than their own senses
Anti-sex league coupled with porn - We got removal of love from sexuality
Triumph of Lottery style enetertainent
Demise of the pint and Imperial - We got EU metrification.
Music composed by Versificator - We got Machine-like music and manipulation of the charts by big biz.
Terrorist groups as a front for government (The Brotherhood)
Just reread my mother's copy of 1984...here's some things George predicted (he had insider contacts through his friend Huxley according to some)..the date 1984 was actually a provisional one in the book, Orwell never stated that was the real date, Winston isn't sure of the actual year, the only date Orwell says for sure is 2050...it will take this long for Newspeak to make Thoughtcrime impossible by changing the language we think with...Winston used the 9th edition of Newspeak and the 11th was used by Brian the insider and Winston's eventual torturer...a reference to 9/11 changing how we think? Anyway that's tenuous. Here are some of the things George predicted..
What he predicted- Newspeak - What we got - dumbing down, text speak, political correctness.
War is Peace - We got continual warfare.
Metal TV's that Watch You, 3D images - We got face recognition flat screen TV's with 3D
Government of Oceania attacking population itself - We got false flag terrorism
Fossilised Science - We got no true advance in mainstream science
Common sense as heresy - We got people who believe the media theories rather than their own senses
Anti-sex league coupled with porn - We got removal of love from sexuality
Triumph of Lottery style enetertainent
Demise of the pint and Imperial - We got EU metrification.
Music composed by Versificator - We got Machine-like music and manipulation of the charts by big biz.
Terrorist groups as a front for government (The Brotherhood)
Monday 1 April 2013
Friday 29 March 2013
Some info from wddty.com on MMR and Dr Wakefield. please go wddty.com and sign up for much more info...this is reposted content, I hope which promotes wddty, pelase let me know by email if there is any issues and I will remove it, thank-you, Leon
Story from WDDTY:
http://www.wddty.com/monkey-business-why-the-mmr-autism-debate-won-t-go-away_1.html
Published: 29/11/2010 13:51:25 GMT
© WDDTY MMVI
WDDTY
Monkey business: Why the MMR-autism debate won't go away
Health agencies and doctors had hoped that the debate would have ended
with the public vilification of Dr Andrew Wakefield, the
gastro-enterologist whose published report in 1998 sparked the whole
contro-versy. Last January, Wakefield and two former colleagues from the
Royal Free Hospital in London were found guilty of misconduct by the
General Medical Council (GMC), the UK’s medical disciplinary body. The
GMC described the three men as being “dishonest, irresponsible and
[show-ing] callous disregard for the distress and pain of children”.
The charges were related to the methods employed by Dr Wakefield in obtaining their research data, includ-ing the use of “high-risk” methods such as lumbar punctures, and paying £5 to children attending a party for samples of their blood. All three doctors are expected to have their licenses to practise medicine taken away within the next few months.
But the hypothesis that the MMR vaccine could cause autism was not on trial at the GMC’s 20-month hearing, the longest in its history. In his 1998 paper, Wakefield found that 12 autistic children—examined at the request of their parents—had persistent entero-colitis and inflammation of the colon, among other intestinal abnormalities. He later discovered that eight of the 12 had been given the measles vaccine, which led him to consider the possibility that the vaccine might be a cause (Lancet, 1998; 351: 637–41).
Despite the furore that followed, Wakefield has never been any more emphatic than that as to any possible link between the vaccine and the gastrointestinal conditions. Indeed, at a press conference following the public-ation of the paper, he confirmed that his research had not proven any association between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Yet, bizarrely, journalists at the press conference appeared to infer from that statement that Wakefield and his team were suggesting a causal link between the vaccine and autism—and this became the story that has since spread far and wide over the past 12 years, during which time, the MMR take-up rates in the UK fell to around 80 per cent (Thompson G. Measles and MMR Statistics, 2008. London: House of Commons Library). Worryingly, for an already cash-strapped UK government, any further decline in take-up would have triggered automatic compensation payments to the vaccine manufacturers.
But all that ended with the GMC’s verdict. Finally, the journalists, doctors and scientists alike were able to disassociate the MMR vaccine from autism once and for all—that is, until new evidence came to light, gleaned from tests on 14 monkeys.
Hear no evil, speak no evil . . .
The primates had been tested by Wakefield and other researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in Pennsylvania, to look for any early developmental problems when given vaccines according to the numbers and scheduling order that is followed by the vaccination programme in the US. Ten of the monkeys were given a hepatitis B vaccine—the first jab in the long, comprehensive vaccine programme required for American children—and, almost immediately, all the monkeys lost the reflexes that are critical for survival. They also suffered brain-stem damage.
These results were part of the second phase of a study that had been started in 2002 as a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and the Thoughtful House Center, the autism research unit set up in Austin, TX, by Dr Wakefield. He resigned from the centre after the GMC verdict.
Led by Dr Laura Hewitson from the university, the study claimed to be one of the first to investigate the synergistic effects of the entire American vaccination programme, as well as its impact on neurological development, and on the immune and gastrointestinal systems.
Dr Hewitson presented the study’s initial findings at a conference on autism in London in 2008. In her talk, she announced that the “vaccinated animals exhibited progressively severe chronic active inflammation in gastro-intestinal tissue whereas unexposed animals did not. We have found many significant differences in the GI tissue gene expression profiles between vac-cinated and unvaccinated animals.”
In fact, the results virtually replicated the findings made by Wakefield and his colleagues in 1998, when they examined those 12 autistic children at the Royal Free Hospital in London. All had displayed a new form of GI inflammatory infection.
. . . and see no evil
In October of last year, the prestigious journal Neurotoxicology accepted for publication the paper from Wakefield et al., entitled ‘Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine”. The paper had been duly peer-reviewed, it had been approved by the journal’s editor Joan Cranmer, and it was available to be read on the journal’s website before being published in the journal.
However, on February 12—two weeks after the GMC verdict on Wakefield and his British colleagues—the report mysteriously disappeared from the Neurotoxicology website. In fact, Cranmer had been under pressure to remove the paper as early as November of last year, but had rebutted the complainant with the response that Wakefield’s paper had been “subjected to rigorous independent peer review according to our journal standards”, according to Age of Autism on 2 March 2010 (see www.ageofautism.com).
However, by February of this year, her position—along with that of the journal—appears to have changed dramatically. The journal’s publisher, Elizabeth Perill, told Lyn Redwood of SafeMinds—a non-profit pressure group that is working to have thimero-sal removed from vaccines and which partly funded the monkey study—that the research was “not suitable” for publication. The decision mirrors the response of The Lancet journal, which retracted Wakefield’s original 1998 paper immediately following the GMC verdict. The word ‘Retracted’ is now plastered in large red capital letters over each page of the study, making it impossible to read.
Changing the story
Censorship and the manipulation of data appear to be the modus operandi of health authorities and most researchers when attempting to disprove any causal link between vaccines and autism whereas, all along, what parents have wanted was merely an open-minded debate, and to be given the known facts concerning the safety of the MMR and other vaccines that their children are required to have.
Every health authority stands by the claim that numerous studies have conclusively established that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. The US Institute of Medicine is one of the many authoritative bodies to make these reassuring claims to parents, and has relied on several published papers as supportive evidence. One report, prepared by Eric Fombonne and his colleagues at the Children’s Hospital in Montreal in Quebec, Canada, demonstrated that pervasive develop-mental disorders, such as autism, continued to increase in Montreal between 1987 and 1998, during a period that MMR vaccine coverage had decreased (Pediatrics, 2006; 118: e139–50). In passing, Fombonne mentioned that the vaccine data had been obtained from five-year-olds attending kinder-garten during 1993 to 2004 in Quebec City.
However, as Dr F. Edward Yazbak, a researcher for the TL Autism Research in Falmouth, MA, has pointed out, Quebec City is around 160 miles (265 kilometres) from Montreal. “The rates of autism in Montreal have as much to do with MMR vaccination rates in Quebec City as pollution in Los Angeles has with diesel buses in Chicago,” he says. However, data on vaccination rates in the city of Montreal itself is available, and the statistics demonstrate that they have been increasing in line with the rise in cases of pervasive developmental disorders: MMR rates rose from 85.1 per cent in 1983 to 88.8 per cent in 1996, and to 96 per cent in 2003.
Fombonne had attempted to disprove Wakefield in an earlier paper, which was also published in the journal Pediatrics. In that report, he stated that there was “no evidence for a new variant of measles–mumps–rubella-induced autism” (Pediatrics, 2001; 108: e58). However, this paper was eventual-ly discredited by the prestigious and independent Cochrane Collaboration in a review that found that “the numbers and possible impact of biases in this study are so high that interpretation of the results is impossible” (Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 2005; 4: CD004407).
One of the most significant papers on the subject was prepared by researchers from the Danish Epidem-iology Science Centre at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and is now referred to as ‘the Danish study’. This retrospective study, which tracked the numbers of autism cases recorded by the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register from 1971 to 2000, and all outpatients cases seen by psychiatric departments since 1995, demonstrated that thimerosal could not have been a cause of autism because the preservative had been removed from vaccines in Denmark in 1992 and, yet, the rates of autism continued to rise during the years thereafter (Pediatrics, 2003; 112: 604–6).
However, critics of the report were quick to point out that the Central Research Register added data from outpatients clinics only from 1995 onwards and, yet, that is where 93 per cent of Danish children with autism go to have their diagnosis confirmed. Thus, for 14 of the 29 years of the study period, the principal source of autism data was excluded—and adding it so late in the study would obviously demonstrate a sudden increase.
In addition, it was also not revealed at the time that the Danish Centre had been hired by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “to prepare a series of studies that would exonerate thimerosal . . . and the MMR vaccine from any role in causing autism” (The Copenhagen Post, 11 February 2010).
The media massages
Concerned parents cannot obtain clarity from their newspapers and newscasters either. One reassuring voice has been American paediatrician Ari Brown, whose pronouncements are published by the Immunization Action Coalition, which is funded by the CDC and by the vaccine manufacturers. According to the Immunization Action Committee, in her 2008 report entitled ‘Clear Answers and Smart Advice About Your Baby’s Shots’, Brown leans heavily on studies prepared by the CDC that demonstrate that thimerosal “had no significant effect on either intelligence or developmental delays in kids aged seven to 10”. In particular, one CDC study put 1047 children through a series of 42 neuropsychological tests that showed that they had not been developmentally impaired by vaccines (N Engl J Med, 2007; 357: 1281–92).
Nevertheless, the researchers’ conclusion is not supported by the evidence. Many of the boys had developed facial tics, one sign of neuro-psychological disturbance, and the reading skills of some of the girls was well below normal. The study group was also self-selecting, as only 30 per cent of the families invited to participate actually did so. But most concerning of all, the researchers were not looking for autism in the first place. In fact, these limitations were revealed by one of the study’s own panel members, who disassociated herself from the findings the following year (N Engl J Med, 2008; 358: 93–4).
What’s more, the CDC itself doesn’t always follow its own official ‘party line’. Its former director, Julie Gerberding, who resigned in January 2009 after the election of President Obama, told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta that the MMR vaccine could cause autism in children born with mitochondrial disease, a condition in which cells fail to properly convert food and oxygen into energy. She reckoned this could happen in one in 50 children—or 2 per cent—so it wasn’t a rare condition. Yet, despite this departure from the party line, Gerberding is now heading up Merck’s vaccine division.
However, Gerderding’s calculations are wrong. Around 20 per cent (or one in five) of all autistic children have mitochondrial disorders (Dev Med Child Neurol, 2007; 49: 726–33), and around half of the 4800 cases of post-MMR autism filed for possible compensation claims in the US include some degree of mito-chondrial dysfunction (Medical Veritas, 2009; 6: 1907–24).
In the UK, the anti-Wakefield faction has been spearheaded by investigative journalist Brian Deer, whose articles in The Sunday Times sparked the GMC hearing. Since its conclusion, Deer has revealed that he was instructed by the newspaper in 2003 to “find something big” on the MMR controversy. By then, vaccine rates had fallen away in the UK as parents were concerned over the safety of the MMR and other childhood vaccines and, especially, by the possible link with autism. In 2007, Deer’s immediate superior left the newspaper to take up a lucrative post as head of the UK’s National Health Service website and, in 2009, James Murdoch, who has been heading up the UK and European division of News Corpora-tion, which publishes The Sunday Times, became a board member of the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which manufactures the MMR vaccine (www.ageofautism.com, 3 March 2010).
The Sunday Times newspaper has not been alone in discrediting any doubts over the safety of the MMR vaccine. Many publications and TV channels have also done so, and it’s virtually been open season on Wakefield since the GMC hearing began. But, according to a House of Commons select committee report, this is only to be expected. In its report, the health committee reveals that “considerable resources are invested [by the pharmaceutical industry] into building long-term, sustainable relationships with stakeholders and key opinion leaders and journalists. These relationships are used to promote the use of certain brands and counter concerns relating to safety. Efforts to undermine critical voices in particular were identified, under terms of issue management” (House of Commons Health Committee. The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, Fourth Report of Session 2004–05, 2005; section 221, page 60).
Such a conclusion resonates with that of Dr Peter Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the UK Depart-ment of Health, who declared that if it is ever proven that the MMR vaccine causes autism, then “the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history”.
He also said, in the Mail on Sunday (22 March 2006), that he has seen a “steady accumulation of evidence” that the vaccine is causing brain damage in certain children, but added: “There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and else-where who have staked their reputa-tions and careers on the safety of MMR, and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves”.
The case for autism
So, what is the evidence to which Dr Fletcher alludes? It’s now established that many children with autism or autism-spectrum disorders (ASD) also have chronic gut inflammation, as Wakefield noted in 1998. Scores of studies have since witnessed the phenomenon, and one from the New York School of Medicine, which studied 143 autistic and ASD children, is only the latest to confirm these findings (Autism Insights, 2010; 2: 1–11).
But where’s the evidence that the MMR vaccine—and especially thimer-osal—may have triggered such inflammation? One important study from Vijendra Singh at Utah State University found antibodies in blood samples from 75 of the 125 autistic children tested that indicated an abnormal reaction to the measles component of the MMR vaccine. These antibodies attack myelin, the insula-ting tissue sheath that protects nerve fibres, thereby preventing the nerves from developing properly which, in turn, can affect brain function. Singh concluded that an abnormal immune response to the vaccine could be the cause of many cases of autism (J Biomed Sci, 2002; 9: 359–64).
In a later study, Singh confirmed that the measles element of the MMR vaccine was associated with increased antibodies in children with autism. He concluded that “autistic children have a hyperimmune response to measles virus, which, in the absence of a wild type of measles infection, might be a sign of an abnormal immune reaction to the vaccine strain or virus reactivation” (Pediatr Neurol, 2003; 28: 292–4).
Researchers at Tokyo Medical University made similar discoveries when they examined children with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis or autism, and found that some had signs of the measles virus in their gastro-intestinal system. In the cases of autism and ulcerative colitis, the virus had to have come from vaccines on the basis of genomic RNA studies of the viruses (Dig Dis Sci, 2000; 45: 723–9).
Other earlier evidence of a possible link—or a coincidental association—between MMR and autism also came out of Japan, which stopped using the vaccine combination in 1993. The data showed a rise in autism cases with the introduction of the triple vaccine that was followed by a decline as it was replaced by single shots (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2005; 46: 572–9).
Parents know best
Perhaps the most compelling evidence so far is from the parents themselves, who have witnessed the sudden, and catastrophic, decline in the development of their child immediately following an MMR vaccination. Typically, they report sudden fits and seizures, high fevers, gastrointestinal problems, and the loss of motor and verbal skills; their previously happy and outgoing child often becomes withdrawn and starts behaving strangely.
A survey of around 9000 parents in California and Oregon found a strong association between the vaccination and a range of neurological disorders such as ADHD (attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder) and autism. According to a telephone survey that targeted the families of both vaccinated and unvaccinated boys, those who had been vaccinated were, on average, two-and-a-half times more likely to have some neurological disorder compared with the boys who had not been vaccinated; also, they were 224-per-cent more likely to have ADHD, and 61-per-cent more likely to be diagnosed as autistic (Generation Rescue, 25 September 2007; www. generationrescue.org/studies.html).
It had also been the parents who, suspecting that the MMR vaccine had caused autism in their children, approached Dr Wakefield at the Royal Free Hospital in 1998 to investigate.
It was no coincidence that they chose Dr Wakefield, as he had already expressed concerns over the MMR vaccination by writing to Dr David Salisbury, head of the UK’s vaccination and immunology unit, as early as in 1993. He had noticed a number of adverse reactions to the vaccine in children who came to his surgery at the Royal Free, and he feared that there could be a public-health crisis.
Paying up
The official line remains that vaccines in general, and the MMR in particular, don’t cause autism. Yet, despite this widely held view, the US National Vaccine Injury Compensation Scheme has made 925 compensation payments to parents between 1998 and 2008 for claims that a vaccine was the cause of their child’s autism. Some of the more public examples include the cases of Bailey Banks, whose parents, in 2007, were compensated after he developed autism following a vaccination, and Hannah Poling, whose parents were compensated after she developed autism after the MMR vaccine. However, in the latter case, doctors have argued that Hannah was susceptible to autism because she had the preexisting condition of mitochondrial disorder. Her mother has the same condition, but with no ill effects. Writing in The New York Times in 2008, her father pointed out: “Our daughter, Hannah, developed normally until receiving nine vaccines at once. She immediately developed a fever and encephalopathy, deteriorating into autism”.
Despite this public acceptance of culpability in the US, the UK’s own compensation scheme, the Vaccine Damage Payments Unit, continues to refuse to pay out on any autism cases, as it continues to maintain that a causal link has not been proven.
But what does it mean to be proven? In an authoritative report, Donald Miller, a professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Clifford Miller, a commercial lawyer, together argue that the evidence from parents should be enough to establish proof. America’s drugs regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is willing to accept the evidence from just one case that a drug causes a specific adverse effect as long as it is well documented and, yet, similar cases concerning the MMR vaccine are ignored. Instead, doctors want clinical evidence, which they regard as being ‘scientific’, but even this evidence can be biased, partial and manipulated, and can be as far away from being ‘scientific’ as an individual case study (J Am Phys Surg, 2005; 10: 70–5).
Summing up
Pity the parent who is trying to get to the simple truth about the MMR vaccine and autism. Following the GMC’s verdict on the Wakefield case, the media was, as a chorus line, crowing that the autism argument was dead. In fact, the autism hypothesis was never on trial, and the principal defendant had never claimed it in the first place.
Worse, governments have been deliberately concealing evidence, scientists have been manipulating data and everyone seems to be trying to mislead the parents—all of which adds up to suspicious activity that suggests that there may well be something to the MMR–autism hypothesis after all.
It’s true that the evidence suggests a link, but it has not yet been established beyond reasonable doubt. The respected autism researcher Bernard Rimland says that “substantial data demonstrate immunity abnormality in many autistic children consistent with impaired resistance to infection, activation of inflammatory response, and auto-immunity”. But he then sums up by saying: “We are far from certain that vaccines help trigger autism, but we are farther still from certain they do not” (Lab Med, 2002; 33: 708–17).
However, one thing is certain: demonizing Andrew Wakefield isn’t helpful, and doesn’t bring us any closer to the truth that we all have the right to hear.
Bryan Hubbard
WDDTY VOL 21 NO 1
The charges were related to the methods employed by Dr Wakefield in obtaining their research data, includ-ing the use of “high-risk” methods such as lumbar punctures, and paying £5 to children attending a party for samples of their blood. All three doctors are expected to have their licenses to practise medicine taken away within the next few months.
But the hypothesis that the MMR vaccine could cause autism was not on trial at the GMC’s 20-month hearing, the longest in its history. In his 1998 paper, Wakefield found that 12 autistic children—examined at the request of their parents—had persistent entero-colitis and inflammation of the colon, among other intestinal abnormalities. He later discovered that eight of the 12 had been given the measles vaccine, which led him to consider the possibility that the vaccine might be a cause (Lancet, 1998; 351: 637–41).
Despite the furore that followed, Wakefield has never been any more emphatic than that as to any possible link between the vaccine and the gastrointestinal conditions. Indeed, at a press conference following the public-ation of the paper, he confirmed that his research had not proven any association between the MMR vaccine and autism.
Yet, bizarrely, journalists at the press conference appeared to infer from that statement that Wakefield and his team were suggesting a causal link between the vaccine and autism—and this became the story that has since spread far and wide over the past 12 years, during which time, the MMR take-up rates in the UK fell to around 80 per cent (Thompson G. Measles and MMR Statistics, 2008. London: House of Commons Library). Worryingly, for an already cash-strapped UK government, any further decline in take-up would have triggered automatic compensation payments to the vaccine manufacturers.
But all that ended with the GMC’s verdict. Finally, the journalists, doctors and scientists alike were able to disassociate the MMR vaccine from autism once and for all—that is, until new evidence came to light, gleaned from tests on 14 monkeys.
Hear no evil, speak no evil . . .
The primates had been tested by Wakefield and other researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in Pennsylvania, to look for any early developmental problems when given vaccines according to the numbers and scheduling order that is followed by the vaccination programme in the US. Ten of the monkeys were given a hepatitis B vaccine—the first jab in the long, comprehensive vaccine programme required for American children—and, almost immediately, all the monkeys lost the reflexes that are critical for survival. They also suffered brain-stem damage.
These results were part of the second phase of a study that had been started in 2002 as a collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and the Thoughtful House Center, the autism research unit set up in Austin, TX, by Dr Wakefield. He resigned from the centre after the GMC verdict.
Led by Dr Laura Hewitson from the university, the study claimed to be one of the first to investigate the synergistic effects of the entire American vaccination programme, as well as its impact on neurological development, and on the immune and gastrointestinal systems.
Dr Hewitson presented the study’s initial findings at a conference on autism in London in 2008. In her talk, she announced that the “vaccinated animals exhibited progressively severe chronic active inflammation in gastro-intestinal tissue whereas unexposed animals did not. We have found many significant differences in the GI tissue gene expression profiles between vac-cinated and unvaccinated animals.”
In fact, the results virtually replicated the findings made by Wakefield and his colleagues in 1998, when they examined those 12 autistic children at the Royal Free Hospital in London. All had displayed a new form of GI inflammatory infection.
. . . and see no evil
In October of last year, the prestigious journal Neurotoxicology accepted for publication the paper from Wakefield et al., entitled ‘Delayed acquisition of neonatal reflexes in newborn primates receiving a thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine”. The paper had been duly peer-reviewed, it had been approved by the journal’s editor Joan Cranmer, and it was available to be read on the journal’s website before being published in the journal.
However, on February 12—two weeks after the GMC verdict on Wakefield and his British colleagues—the report mysteriously disappeared from the Neurotoxicology website. In fact, Cranmer had been under pressure to remove the paper as early as November of last year, but had rebutted the complainant with the response that Wakefield’s paper had been “subjected to rigorous independent peer review according to our journal standards”, according to Age of Autism on 2 March 2010 (see www.ageofautism.com).
However, by February of this year, her position—along with that of the journal—appears to have changed dramatically. The journal’s publisher, Elizabeth Perill, told Lyn Redwood of SafeMinds—a non-profit pressure group that is working to have thimero-sal removed from vaccines and which partly funded the monkey study—that the research was “not suitable” for publication. The decision mirrors the response of The Lancet journal, which retracted Wakefield’s original 1998 paper immediately following the GMC verdict. The word ‘Retracted’ is now plastered in large red capital letters over each page of the study, making it impossible to read.
Changing the story
Censorship and the manipulation of data appear to be the modus operandi of health authorities and most researchers when attempting to disprove any causal link between vaccines and autism whereas, all along, what parents have wanted was merely an open-minded debate, and to be given the known facts concerning the safety of the MMR and other vaccines that their children are required to have.
Every health authority stands by the claim that numerous studies have conclusively established that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism. The US Institute of Medicine is one of the many authoritative bodies to make these reassuring claims to parents, and has relied on several published papers as supportive evidence. One report, prepared by Eric Fombonne and his colleagues at the Children’s Hospital in Montreal in Quebec, Canada, demonstrated that pervasive develop-mental disorders, such as autism, continued to increase in Montreal between 1987 and 1998, during a period that MMR vaccine coverage had decreased (Pediatrics, 2006; 118: e139–50). In passing, Fombonne mentioned that the vaccine data had been obtained from five-year-olds attending kinder-garten during 1993 to 2004 in Quebec City.
However, as Dr F. Edward Yazbak, a researcher for the TL Autism Research in Falmouth, MA, has pointed out, Quebec City is around 160 miles (265 kilometres) from Montreal. “The rates of autism in Montreal have as much to do with MMR vaccination rates in Quebec City as pollution in Los Angeles has with diesel buses in Chicago,” he says. However, data on vaccination rates in the city of Montreal itself is available, and the statistics demonstrate that they have been increasing in line with the rise in cases of pervasive developmental disorders: MMR rates rose from 85.1 per cent in 1983 to 88.8 per cent in 1996, and to 96 per cent in 2003.
Fombonne had attempted to disprove Wakefield in an earlier paper, which was also published in the journal Pediatrics. In that report, he stated that there was “no evidence for a new variant of measles–mumps–rubella-induced autism” (Pediatrics, 2001; 108: e58). However, this paper was eventual-ly discredited by the prestigious and independent Cochrane Collaboration in a review that found that “the numbers and possible impact of biases in this study are so high that interpretation of the results is impossible” (Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 2005; 4: CD004407).
One of the most significant papers on the subject was prepared by researchers from the Danish Epidem-iology Science Centre at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and is now referred to as ‘the Danish study’. This retrospective study, which tracked the numbers of autism cases recorded by the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register from 1971 to 2000, and all outpatients cases seen by psychiatric departments since 1995, demonstrated that thimerosal could not have been a cause of autism because the preservative had been removed from vaccines in Denmark in 1992 and, yet, the rates of autism continued to rise during the years thereafter (Pediatrics, 2003; 112: 604–6).
However, critics of the report were quick to point out that the Central Research Register added data from outpatients clinics only from 1995 onwards and, yet, that is where 93 per cent of Danish children with autism go to have their diagnosis confirmed. Thus, for 14 of the 29 years of the study period, the principal source of autism data was excluded—and adding it so late in the study would obviously demonstrate a sudden increase.
In addition, it was also not revealed at the time that the Danish Centre had been hired by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “to prepare a series of studies that would exonerate thimerosal . . . and the MMR vaccine from any role in causing autism” (The Copenhagen Post, 11 February 2010).
The media massages
Concerned parents cannot obtain clarity from their newspapers and newscasters either. One reassuring voice has been American paediatrician Ari Brown, whose pronouncements are published by the Immunization Action Coalition, which is funded by the CDC and by the vaccine manufacturers. According to the Immunization Action Committee, in her 2008 report entitled ‘Clear Answers and Smart Advice About Your Baby’s Shots’, Brown leans heavily on studies prepared by the CDC that demonstrate that thimerosal “had no significant effect on either intelligence or developmental delays in kids aged seven to 10”. In particular, one CDC study put 1047 children through a series of 42 neuropsychological tests that showed that they had not been developmentally impaired by vaccines (N Engl J Med, 2007; 357: 1281–92).
Nevertheless, the researchers’ conclusion is not supported by the evidence. Many of the boys had developed facial tics, one sign of neuro-psychological disturbance, and the reading skills of some of the girls was well below normal. The study group was also self-selecting, as only 30 per cent of the families invited to participate actually did so. But most concerning of all, the researchers were not looking for autism in the first place. In fact, these limitations were revealed by one of the study’s own panel members, who disassociated herself from the findings the following year (N Engl J Med, 2008; 358: 93–4).
What’s more, the CDC itself doesn’t always follow its own official ‘party line’. Its former director, Julie Gerberding, who resigned in January 2009 after the election of President Obama, told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta that the MMR vaccine could cause autism in children born with mitochondrial disease, a condition in which cells fail to properly convert food and oxygen into energy. She reckoned this could happen in one in 50 children—or 2 per cent—so it wasn’t a rare condition. Yet, despite this departure from the party line, Gerberding is now heading up Merck’s vaccine division.
However, Gerderding’s calculations are wrong. Around 20 per cent (or one in five) of all autistic children have mitochondrial disorders (Dev Med Child Neurol, 2007; 49: 726–33), and around half of the 4800 cases of post-MMR autism filed for possible compensation claims in the US include some degree of mito-chondrial dysfunction (Medical Veritas, 2009; 6: 1907–24).
In the UK, the anti-Wakefield faction has been spearheaded by investigative journalist Brian Deer, whose articles in The Sunday Times sparked the GMC hearing. Since its conclusion, Deer has revealed that he was instructed by the newspaper in 2003 to “find something big” on the MMR controversy. By then, vaccine rates had fallen away in the UK as parents were concerned over the safety of the MMR and other childhood vaccines and, especially, by the possible link with autism. In 2007, Deer’s immediate superior left the newspaper to take up a lucrative post as head of the UK’s National Health Service website and, in 2009, James Murdoch, who has been heading up the UK and European division of News Corpora-tion, which publishes The Sunday Times, became a board member of the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which manufactures the MMR vaccine (www.ageofautism.com, 3 March 2010).
The Sunday Times newspaper has not been alone in discrediting any doubts over the safety of the MMR vaccine. Many publications and TV channels have also done so, and it’s virtually been open season on Wakefield since the GMC hearing began. But, according to a House of Commons select committee report, this is only to be expected. In its report, the health committee reveals that “considerable resources are invested [by the pharmaceutical industry] into building long-term, sustainable relationships with stakeholders and key opinion leaders and journalists. These relationships are used to promote the use of certain brands and counter concerns relating to safety. Efforts to undermine critical voices in particular were identified, under terms of issue management” (House of Commons Health Committee. The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry, Fourth Report of Session 2004–05, 2005; section 221, page 60).
Such a conclusion resonates with that of Dr Peter Fletcher, former Chief Scientific Officer at the UK Depart-ment of Health, who declared that if it is ever proven that the MMR vaccine causes autism, then “the refusal by governments to evaluate the risks properly will make this one of the greatest scandals in medical history”.
He also said, in the Mail on Sunday (22 March 2006), that he has seen a “steady accumulation of evidence” that the vaccine is causing brain damage in certain children, but added: “There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and else-where who have staked their reputa-tions and careers on the safety of MMR, and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves”.
The case for autism
So, what is the evidence to which Dr Fletcher alludes? It’s now established that many children with autism or autism-spectrum disorders (ASD) also have chronic gut inflammation, as Wakefield noted in 1998. Scores of studies have since witnessed the phenomenon, and one from the New York School of Medicine, which studied 143 autistic and ASD children, is only the latest to confirm these findings (Autism Insights, 2010; 2: 1–11).
But where’s the evidence that the MMR vaccine—and especially thimer-osal—may have triggered such inflammation? One important study from Vijendra Singh at Utah State University found antibodies in blood samples from 75 of the 125 autistic children tested that indicated an abnormal reaction to the measles component of the MMR vaccine. These antibodies attack myelin, the insula-ting tissue sheath that protects nerve fibres, thereby preventing the nerves from developing properly which, in turn, can affect brain function. Singh concluded that an abnormal immune response to the vaccine could be the cause of many cases of autism (J Biomed Sci, 2002; 9: 359–64).
In a later study, Singh confirmed that the measles element of the MMR vaccine was associated with increased antibodies in children with autism. He concluded that “autistic children have a hyperimmune response to measles virus, which, in the absence of a wild type of measles infection, might be a sign of an abnormal immune reaction to the vaccine strain or virus reactivation” (Pediatr Neurol, 2003; 28: 292–4).
Researchers at Tokyo Medical University made similar discoveries when they examined children with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis or autism, and found that some had signs of the measles virus in their gastro-intestinal system. In the cases of autism and ulcerative colitis, the virus had to have come from vaccines on the basis of genomic RNA studies of the viruses (Dig Dis Sci, 2000; 45: 723–9).
Other earlier evidence of a possible link—or a coincidental association—between MMR and autism also came out of Japan, which stopped using the vaccine combination in 1993. The data showed a rise in autism cases with the introduction of the triple vaccine that was followed by a decline as it was replaced by single shots (J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 2005; 46: 572–9).
Parents know best
Perhaps the most compelling evidence so far is from the parents themselves, who have witnessed the sudden, and catastrophic, decline in the development of their child immediately following an MMR vaccination. Typically, they report sudden fits and seizures, high fevers, gastrointestinal problems, and the loss of motor and verbal skills; their previously happy and outgoing child often becomes withdrawn and starts behaving strangely.
A survey of around 9000 parents in California and Oregon found a strong association between the vaccination and a range of neurological disorders such as ADHD (attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder) and autism. According to a telephone survey that targeted the families of both vaccinated and unvaccinated boys, those who had been vaccinated were, on average, two-and-a-half times more likely to have some neurological disorder compared with the boys who had not been vaccinated; also, they were 224-per-cent more likely to have ADHD, and 61-per-cent more likely to be diagnosed as autistic (Generation Rescue, 25 September 2007; www. generationrescue.org/studies.html).
It had also been the parents who, suspecting that the MMR vaccine had caused autism in their children, approached Dr Wakefield at the Royal Free Hospital in 1998 to investigate.
It was no coincidence that they chose Dr Wakefield, as he had already expressed concerns over the MMR vaccination by writing to Dr David Salisbury, head of the UK’s vaccination and immunology unit, as early as in 1993. He had noticed a number of adverse reactions to the vaccine in children who came to his surgery at the Royal Free, and he feared that there could be a public-health crisis.
Paying up
The official line remains that vaccines in general, and the MMR in particular, don’t cause autism. Yet, despite this widely held view, the US National Vaccine Injury Compensation Scheme has made 925 compensation payments to parents between 1998 and 2008 for claims that a vaccine was the cause of their child’s autism. Some of the more public examples include the cases of Bailey Banks, whose parents, in 2007, were compensated after he developed autism following a vaccination, and Hannah Poling, whose parents were compensated after she developed autism after the MMR vaccine. However, in the latter case, doctors have argued that Hannah was susceptible to autism because she had the preexisting condition of mitochondrial disorder. Her mother has the same condition, but with no ill effects. Writing in The New York Times in 2008, her father pointed out: “Our daughter, Hannah, developed normally until receiving nine vaccines at once. She immediately developed a fever and encephalopathy, deteriorating into autism”.
Despite this public acceptance of culpability in the US, the UK’s own compensation scheme, the Vaccine Damage Payments Unit, continues to refuse to pay out on any autism cases, as it continues to maintain that a causal link has not been proven.
But what does it mean to be proven? In an authoritative report, Donald Miller, a professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Clifford Miller, a commercial lawyer, together argue that the evidence from parents should be enough to establish proof. America’s drugs regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is willing to accept the evidence from just one case that a drug causes a specific adverse effect as long as it is well documented and, yet, similar cases concerning the MMR vaccine are ignored. Instead, doctors want clinical evidence, which they regard as being ‘scientific’, but even this evidence can be biased, partial and manipulated, and can be as far away from being ‘scientific’ as an individual case study (J Am Phys Surg, 2005; 10: 70–5).
Summing up
Pity the parent who is trying to get to the simple truth about the MMR vaccine and autism. Following the GMC’s verdict on the Wakefield case, the media was, as a chorus line, crowing that the autism argument was dead. In fact, the autism hypothesis was never on trial, and the principal defendant had never claimed it in the first place.
Worse, governments have been deliberately concealing evidence, scientists have been manipulating data and everyone seems to be trying to mislead the parents—all of which adds up to suspicious activity that suggests that there may well be something to the MMR–autism hypothesis after all.
It’s true that the evidence suggests a link, but it has not yet been established beyond reasonable doubt. The respected autism researcher Bernard Rimland says that “substantial data demonstrate immunity abnormality in many autistic children consistent with impaired resistance to infection, activation of inflammatory response, and auto-immunity”. But he then sums up by saying: “We are far from certain that vaccines help trigger autism, but we are farther still from certain they do not” (Lab Med, 2002; 33: 708–17).
However, one thing is certain: demonizing Andrew Wakefield isn’t helpful, and doesn’t bring us any closer to the truth that we all have the right to hear.
Bryan Hubbard
WDDTY VOL 21 NO 1
http://www.wddty.com/monkey-business-why-the-mmr-autism-debate-won-t-go-away_1.html
Published: 29/11/2010 13:51:25 GMT
© WDDTY MMVI
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