Saturday, April 12, 2008

Dr. Bernadine Healy on Vaccines in US News


From Dan Olmsted on Age of Autism.


More and more mainstream experts are standing up for the vaccine court and Hannah Poling and her parents -- and deserve our thanks and support. The latest is Dr. Bernadine Healy. Her bio from U.S. News & World Report,
(HERE) where the article we're pointing out is appearing in the current issue: "Dr. Bernadine Healy is Health Editor for U.S.News & World Report and writes the On Health column. She is a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and has served as director of the National Institutes of Health and president and CEO of the American Red Cross."


Here's the beauty part from her column: "
Pediatricians were concerned enough about mercury, which is known to cause neurological damage in developing infant and fetal brains, that they mobilized to have thimerosal removed from childhood vaccines by 2002. Their concern was not autism but the lunacy of injecting mercury into little kids through mandated vaccines that together exceeded mercury safety guidelines designed for adults."


So by definition, the former head of the NIH says people like Paul Offit*-- who calls it a mistake to take mercury out -- and organizations like the CDC, the World Health Organization and their ilk who are keeping mercury in flu shots in the U.S. and in standard immunizations around the world ... the former head of the NIH says they're lunatic(s).


That's about as harsh as anything we've ever said, isn't it? -- Dan Olmsted


An error in the US News report is that pediatricians had NOTHING to do with the removal of mercury from most of the childhood vaccine schedule. Mothers like Lyn Redwood and Heidi Roger counted up the mcg in the shots and started to raise holy hell over a decade ago. The AAP was forced to reluctantly came along for the ride and continues to drag its feet when it comes to childhood vaccine research and safety.


* Paul Offit is a doc at Children's of Philadelphia. He co-owns the patent to the newest Rotovirus vaccine called RotoTeq - the AAP just added RotoTeq to the ped schedule - 3 doses before one year of age. Cha-Ching!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would caution anybody to not get too excited about what Dr. Bernadine Healy may have to say and how that may help our kids.

Flashback to the events surrounding 9/11. Dr. Healy had been involved with the ARC for a bit at that time, and those of us that had met her and seen her speak at various public and FDA meetings were excited about how she would be able to turn the ARC's blood collection program around and how she could do a lot of good for the rather tarnished reputation of the ARC and other large bloodbank organizations.

Then 9/11 happened. And there was an enormous outpour from the American public in terms of streaming to bloodbanks and donating blood; I was volunteering at a bloodbank in Boston during that time and we worked pretty much in 24 hour shifts for 4 days straight so we wouldn't have to turn anybody away.

Partially due to gross mismanagement by Dr. Healy herself and other top management officials within the ARC blood banking organization, way too many blood products were collected and woefully inadequate systems were in place to properly process and store all the collected blood products. A ton of products had to be destroyed (a real shame in the face of the fact that the nation's supply for blood products is almost always CRITICAL). Dr. Healy resigned from the ARC shortly after this fiasco.

Now this obviously happened a long time ago. It's possible that things have changed. But I remember Dr. Healy as somebody who is very good at talking a pretty story, but falls short on actually delivering and sticking around when the going gets tough.

Strong words? Perhaps, but her inaction around 9/11 when she really had an opportunity to make a difference has left a very foul taste in my mouth.

Petra

RJeff said...

It has always astonished me that these "new vaccines" need to be implemented immediately to protect our children. I apologize for being dense, but what did we do before the vaccines were available? Kids got sick ... well duh. And the antibodies their bodies produced duing their internal fight to rid themselves of the disease ended up making them stronger, and bettter able to resist disease in the future.

At least that's how I remember it, being a child in the 60's. I could be mistaken, that was a long time ago, after all.

As for Petra's comment on the ability of Dr. Healy to deliver on promises - well, you may have a point. But I'm not sure that the context is applicable in this case. As far as I can tell by Kim's blog entry, Dr. Healy is only suggesting a course of action, and does not have any real power in this case to do anything about it - only to make a recommendation as a member of the PCAST.

So while I agree that she did not do a good job in managing the situation at the ACR after 9/11, her opinion in this particular case does make sense. If it causes the right people to stand up and take notice, then that would still be good news, regardless of the source.

Michelle O'Neil said...

Offit.

Sickening.