Documents disclosed here under US Freedom of Information show the US Centers for Disease Control [CDC] spends US tax dollars in foreign countries on studies to claim the vaccination programmes they promote for US children are safe when they know the results of the studies will produce false and misleading negative results.
Just such a study recently published from Italy funded by the US CDC claims to show that the known neurotoxic mercury additive in vaccines, Thiomersal, is not harmful to children and the study has received wide-spread publicity ["Neuropsychological Performance 10 Years After Immunization in Infancy With Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines" Tozzi et al, Pediatrics 123:2:475-482].
Mercury is toxic in parts per billion. What the US public were not told is that the study was certain to be unable to detect any effect. The US CDC internal email exchange disclosed here [see more below] obtained under US Freedom of Information shows that to be able to detect any effect in children with the methods used, the dose applied by the age of 3 months had to be more than 50 millionths of a gramme of mercury and more than 100 millionths of a gramme by the age of 6 months.
Table 1 of the paper shows Italian children received by the age of 3 months two thirds of that minimum amount; no more 37.5 millionths of a gramme. By 4 months they had only three quarters of that minimum: 75 millionths of a gramme and the maximum by six months was 100 millionths of a gramme, not enough to hit or exceed the threshold needed.
table-1-neuropsych2
The 2001 exchange of emails was between Dr Thomas Verstraeten and Dr Robert Chen of the US CDC and Dr Elizabeth Miller of the UK’s Public Health Laboratory Service. This also shows a dose of 75 microgrammes of mercury by the age of four months was insufficient to detect an effect. Chen and Miller were at the time looking into a possible study of British children. Italian infants were in the same category as British infants, receiving 75 microgrammes by the age of 4 months.
010627-miller-chen-verstraeten_2
Do not be deceived into thinking there are no problems with the lower levels of mercury. Studies like this Italian one and previous internal studies by the US CDC are unable to measure the effects at lower levels. It is an issue of precision - not absence of effect.
There were many other deficiencies in the Italian study. The Journal, Pediatrics has today published a letter entitled “This study is misleading and was not scientifically worth doing” [John Stone, Pediatrics Online, 27 Jan 2009].
Notably, the study only included healthy children in the original vaccine trial so those most at risk were excluded. The authors also missed out large numbers of other children most likely to be at risk. Children excluded from the study included:
*
an unknown number of underweight children who are likely to be more susceptible to injury
o
the body burden of mercury would be proportionately higher
o
underweight children are likely to include premature infants - [whose effective age is less and who are underdeveloped by the time they are vaccinated compared to full-term infants]
*
all unwell children at time of vaccination (susceptible group)
*
over 30% of children dropped out of the study and the authors acknowledged these may have included those injured, the parents not participating “because their children had cognitive developmental problems“
*
here was no proper control group to make a comparison
o
the authors compared children who had mercury containing vaccines not against children who had no vaccines or no mercury but against children who had different vaccines with less mercury
Only one case of autism was identified from medical records out 1,704 (an order of magnitude lower than the UK and the US) which also casts doubts on the value of the study.
Fooling Third World Governments
The British study the US CDC was involved with with Dr Elizabeth Miller went ahead and also claimed to find no problems. It was used to reassure third world governments that mercury in vaccines was safe. It claimed the UK level of mercury was the same as the amount of thimerosal used by developing countries that follow the World Health Organisation’s expanded immunization schedule. It was not. Disclosed here is information under UK Freedom of Information showing the WHO schedule exposes the less well fed and more susceptible third world infants to 187.5µg of mercury but by 14 weeks, not 6 months. Third world children are at a much higher risk than US children ever were.
who-mercury-burden_11
who-mercury-burden_21
The US Centers For Disease Control and Drug Companies
This is not the first time the US CDC has been mired in controversy over mercury in vaccines. On 7-8 June 2000, a confidential private meeting without public scrutiny took place between vaccine manufacturers’ representatives, 51 US scientists, and a representative of the World Health Organization. This was to discuss a study by US Centers for Disease Control expert Dr Thomas Verstraeten of increasing doses of Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Verstraeten used US Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) data, an official US governmental data bank on the children from US health maintenance organizations (HMOs).
Verstraeten’s study showed a dose-response relationship between Thimerosal in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders in children that held up to rigorous statistical analyses. This means Verstraeten’s study showed a causal association between the amount of Thimerosal in vaccines a child received and the extent to which the child developed the symptoms of impaired brain development . These ranged from tics, speech impairment to symptoms of and full autism. The discussions can be read in the transcript of the Simpsonwood Conference obtained by US organisaton SafeMinds under Freedom of Information.
Three years later Dr Thomas Verstraeten, MD, MSc [now working for GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Belgium] published a different paper in the journal Pediatrics: ["Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases". Verstraeten T, Davis RL, DeStefano F, et al. Pediatrics.2003; 112 :1039 –1048]. The new paper included another set of data from a third HMO, reorganised the criteria for inclusion of children and restructured the patient groupings, and a less than statistically significant link was demonstrated. It was heavily criticised by campaigners and concerned experts. Verstraeten published a vigorous letter in his defence in which he rejected any suggestion of impropriety: ["Thimerosal, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and GlaxoSmithKline"]: PEDIATRICS Vol. 113 No. 4 April 2004, pp. 932.
What can be said about this? When Verstraeten was a public official working for the US CDC there was a serious problem. When Verstraeten was working for GlaxoSmithKline there was no problem.
Vaccine Risks Outweigh Risk of Disease
Autism - A serious problem being ignored
19 Children A Day - 4 in 5 is a Boy
Autism in Britian outstrips all other major disorders affecting British children combined and is substantially more serious than measles. Every day 19 British children develop autism spectrum disorders:
* this will be 600,000 British children and adults in the future (birth rate approx 600,000 p.a.)
* and horrific prospects for expectant parents
o 1 in every 54 boys will be on the Autistic Spectrum
o autism affects 4 times as many boys
o so 1 in 215 girls are affected as well
[* 19 a day and 1 in 54 come from: Baird et Al Prevalence of disorders of the autism spectrum in a population cohort of children in South Thames: the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP); Lancet 2006;368:210 –15. This research revealed 1 in 86 British children are being diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders (116.1 in 10,000).
4/5 x 116.1/5000 = 1 in 54 (4/5ths of the 116.1 are boys and approx 5000 of the 10,000 children affected will be boys)]
Measles Comparison
See here how the risk to children in Western economies from measles is now insignificant for the vast majority Measles - The Official UK Statistics.
For the USA seeUS Measles Data and generally see Risk to Children & Government Scaremongering.
Mercury in British Vaccines, Autism and Your Child’s Allergies
[First Exclusive Worldwide Revelations By ChildHealthSafety 22/Jan/2009]
In addition to the new MMR vaccine, in 1990 infants were also “hit” with the “accelerated” DTP vaccine schedule - receiving three DTP shots - one each at 2, 3 and 4 months. Prior to this the intervals were 3, 5 and 9 to 12 months of age. The DTP vaccine contained a highly neurotoxic ingredient. The ingredient was an organo-mercury excipient called “Thiomersal” ["Thimerosal" in the USA]. Thiomersal is toxic in parts per billion - in extremely small dilutions. The vaccine was The Wellcome Foundation’s Trivax AD DTP vaccine. The Wellcome Foundation is now GlaxoSmithKline. Thiomersal was first introduced by pharmaceutical company Merck in the 1930s and was not clinically trialled for safety in use in vaccines.
Research shows that children with autism appear to have deficient mechanisms for expelling toxins like mercury and it accumulates in the body.
Revealed by ChildHealthSafety exclusively worldwide for the first time [22/Jan/09] information obtained under the UK’s Freedom of Information confirms the British MHRA [Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency] has no data on how much Thiomersal was in Trivax AD DTP vaccine. Although the British DoH [Department of Health] claimed publicly to have known, that claim therefore appears incorrect.
5 February 2009
Chemists Shed Light On Health Benefits Of Garlic
Researchers have widely believed that the organic compound, allicin – which gives garlic its aroma and flavour – acts as the world's most powerful antioxidant. But until now it hasn't been clear how allicin works, or how it stacks up compared to more common antioxidants such as Vitamin E and coenzyme Q10, which stop the damaging effects of radicals.
"We didn't understand how garlic could contain such an efficient antioxidant, since it didn't have a substantial amount of the types of compounds usually responsible for high antioxidant activity in plants, such as the flavanoids found in green tea or grapes," says Chemistry professor Derek Pratt, who led the study. "If allicin was indeed responsible for this activity in garlic, we wanted to find out how it worked."
The research team questioned the ability of allicin to trap damaging radicals so effectively, and considered the possibility that a decomposition product of allicin may instead be responsible. Through experiments with synthetically-produced allicin, they found that an acid produced when the compound decomposes rapidly reacts with radicals.
Their findings are published in the January 2009 issue of the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.
"Basically the allicin compound has to decompose in order to generate a potent antioxidant," explains Dr. Pratt, who is Canada Research Chair in Free Radical Chemistry. "The reaction between the sulfenic acid and radicals is as fast as it can get, limited only by the time it takes for the two molecules to come into contact. No one has ever seen compounds, natural or synthetic, react this quickly as antioxidants."
The researcher is confident that a link exists between the reactivity of the sulfenic acid and the medicinal benefits of garlic. "While garlic has been used as a herbal medicine for centuries and there are many garlic supplements on the market, until now there has been no convincing explanation as to why garlic is beneficial," says Dr. Pratt. "I think we have taken the first step in uncovering a fundamental chemical mechanism which may explain garlic's medicinal benefits."
Along with onions, leeks and shallots, garlic is a species in the family Alliaceae. All of these other plants contain a compound that is very similar to allicin, but they do not have the same medicinal properties. Dr. Pratt and his colleagues believe that this is due to a slower rate of decomposition of the allicin analogs in the onions, leaks and shallots, which leads to a lower level of sulfenic acid available to react as antioxidants with radicals.
The study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Ontario Ministry of Innovation. Other members of the research team are Queen's Chemistry post-doctoral researcher Vipraja Vaidya and Keith Ingold, from the National Research Council of Canada.
Adapted from materials provided by Queen's University.
"We didn't understand how garlic could contain such an efficient antioxidant, since it didn't have a substantial amount of the types of compounds usually responsible for high antioxidant activity in plants, such as the flavanoids found in green tea or grapes," says Chemistry professor Derek Pratt, who led the study. "If allicin was indeed responsible for this activity in garlic, we wanted to find out how it worked."
The research team questioned the ability of allicin to trap damaging radicals so effectively, and considered the possibility that a decomposition product of allicin may instead be responsible. Through experiments with synthetically-produced allicin, they found that an acid produced when the compound decomposes rapidly reacts with radicals.
Their findings are published in the January 2009 issue of the international chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.
"Basically the allicin compound has to decompose in order to generate a potent antioxidant," explains Dr. Pratt, who is Canada Research Chair in Free Radical Chemistry. "The reaction between the sulfenic acid and radicals is as fast as it can get, limited only by the time it takes for the two molecules to come into contact. No one has ever seen compounds, natural or synthetic, react this quickly as antioxidants."
The researcher is confident that a link exists between the reactivity of the sulfenic acid and the medicinal benefits of garlic. "While garlic has been used as a herbal medicine for centuries and there are many garlic supplements on the market, until now there has been no convincing explanation as to why garlic is beneficial," says Dr. Pratt. "I think we have taken the first step in uncovering a fundamental chemical mechanism which may explain garlic's medicinal benefits."
Along with onions, leeks and shallots, garlic is a species in the family Alliaceae. All of these other plants contain a compound that is very similar to allicin, but they do not have the same medicinal properties. Dr. Pratt and his colleagues believe that this is due to a slower rate of decomposition of the allicin analogs in the onions, leaks and shallots, which leads to a lower level of sulfenic acid available to react as antioxidants with radicals.
The study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Ontario Ministry of Innovation. Other members of the research team are Queen's Chemistry post-doctoral researcher Vipraja Vaidya and Keith Ingold, from the National Research Council of Canada.
Adapted from materials provided by Queen's University.
Children Who Take Vitamins Often Don’t Need Them
Most children who take vitamins don’t really need them, and kids who eat poorly and are most likely to benefit from nutritional supplements rarely get them, a new study reports.
The results surprised researchers, said lead author Dr. Ulfat Shaikh, a pediatrician at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine who treats children with nutritional problems.
“We hypothesized that people who use minerals and vitamin supplements might be using them to cushion the effects of poor nutrition,” she said. “We actually found the opposite.”
The children who used supplements the most were those who already drank a lot of milk, ate a lot of fiber and didn’t consume much fat or cholesterol, Dr. Shaikh said. They were healthier overall and tended to be white, have health insurance and come from upper-income families. They also tended to get a lot of exercise, weren’t overweight, considered themselves in good health and didn’t watch too much television or spend a lot of time playing video games.
The study was published in today’s issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Researchers derived the information from an analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey results from 1999 to 2004. They found that about one-third of American children ages 2 to 17 had used a vitamin or mineral supplement within the previous month, but that most of them did not need to supplement their diet.
On the other hand, children who used vitamins the least tended to be at greatest risk for nutritional deficits. They did not eat as well as the children who were taking supplements, lived in low-income families that were short of food and had less access to health care, the study found.
“Poverty seems to be the overriding factor,” Dr. Shaikh said. Although supplements may not seem expensive to a middle-class family, the cost may be onerous for a low-income family, she said. “Parents who were poor were perhaps unable to afford supplements.”
Generally speaking, children who eat a varied diet do not need to take vitamins or other supplements, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend supplement use for children over a year who eat a healthy diet. Vitamins may be recommended for children with chronic illnesses or eating disorders and for obese children trying to lose weight.
The results surprised researchers, said lead author Dr. Ulfat Shaikh, a pediatrician at the University of California, Davis School of Medicine who treats children with nutritional problems.
“We hypothesized that people who use minerals and vitamin supplements might be using them to cushion the effects of poor nutrition,” she said. “We actually found the opposite.”
The children who used supplements the most were those who already drank a lot of milk, ate a lot of fiber and didn’t consume much fat or cholesterol, Dr. Shaikh said. They were healthier overall and tended to be white, have health insurance and come from upper-income families. They also tended to get a lot of exercise, weren’t overweight, considered themselves in good health and didn’t watch too much television or spend a lot of time playing video games.
The study was published in today’s issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
Researchers derived the information from an analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey results from 1999 to 2004. They found that about one-third of American children ages 2 to 17 had used a vitamin or mineral supplement within the previous month, but that most of them did not need to supplement their diet.
On the other hand, children who used vitamins the least tended to be at greatest risk for nutritional deficits. They did not eat as well as the children who were taking supplements, lived in low-income families that were short of food and had less access to health care, the study found.
“Poverty seems to be the overriding factor,” Dr. Shaikh said. Although supplements may not seem expensive to a middle-class family, the cost may be onerous for a low-income family, she said. “Parents who were poor were perhaps unable to afford supplements.”
Generally speaking, children who eat a varied diet do not need to take vitamins or other supplements, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend supplement use for children over a year who eat a healthy diet. Vitamins may be recommended for children with chronic illnesses or eating disorders and for obese children trying to lose weight.
What's A Little Mold? Why Consumers Have Different Freshness Standards At Home
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2009) — Why is it acceptable for someone who would never purchase "expired" milk at the store to pour "expired" milk into a cup of coffee at breakfast? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research explores the reasons consumers are more likely to consume products that are past their expiration dates if they are in their refrigerators than if they are in a store.
Authors Sankar Sen and Lauren G. Block (both Baruch College/CUNY) explored a phenomenon termed the "endowment effect," meaning that owning a product increases a consumer's valuation of it. The endowment effect has been studied before, but not in regard to perishable products.
"Few people would knowingly purchase products past their freshness dates; in fact, shoppers often leave supermarket shelves in disarray after combing the display for, say, the carton of milk stamped with the freshness date furthest away," the authors write. While there are many possible reasons consumers may want to consume "expired" food in their refrigerators, including "getting their money's worth," the authors found that even when they controlled for costs and motivations, consumers were still more likely to eat or drink expired products that were already in their possession.
"In this research, we show that merely owning a product past its freshness date provides enough reason for people to be willing to consume such expired products...Importantly, this increase in a person's willingness to consume an expired product is accompanied by lower estimates of the perceived risk of getting sick from consuming it," the authors explain.
In three studies, the researchers compared whether people wanted to consume yogurt smoothies that were past or not past their freshness dates. The authors believe that "ownership" of the smoothie shifted the default hypothesis from "shouldn't consume because expired" to "okay to consume."
"If you caught a glimpse of moldy cheese being served at a function you were attending, you wouldn't eat it, thinking it likely that you could get sick from old cheese," write the authors. "However, if that same moldy cheese is in your refrigerator, hey, what's a little mold?"
Journal reference:
1. Sen et al. “Why My Mother Never Threw Anything Out”: The Effect of Product Freshness on Consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, June 2009 Print Edition: 081205114707043 DOI: 10.1086/596027
Authors Sankar Sen and Lauren G. Block (both Baruch College/CUNY) explored a phenomenon termed the "endowment effect," meaning that owning a product increases a consumer's valuation of it. The endowment effect has been studied before, but not in regard to perishable products.
"Few people would knowingly purchase products past their freshness dates; in fact, shoppers often leave supermarket shelves in disarray after combing the display for, say, the carton of milk stamped with the freshness date furthest away," the authors write. While there are many possible reasons consumers may want to consume "expired" food in their refrigerators, including "getting their money's worth," the authors found that even when they controlled for costs and motivations, consumers were still more likely to eat or drink expired products that were already in their possession.
"In this research, we show that merely owning a product past its freshness date provides enough reason for people to be willing to consume such expired products...Importantly, this increase in a person's willingness to consume an expired product is accompanied by lower estimates of the perceived risk of getting sick from consuming it," the authors explain.
In three studies, the researchers compared whether people wanted to consume yogurt smoothies that were past or not past their freshness dates. The authors believe that "ownership" of the smoothie shifted the default hypothesis from "shouldn't consume because expired" to "okay to consume."
"If you caught a glimpse of moldy cheese being served at a function you were attending, you wouldn't eat it, thinking it likely that you could get sick from old cheese," write the authors. "However, if that same moldy cheese is in your refrigerator, hey, what's a little mold?"
Journal reference:
1. Sen et al. “Why My Mother Never Threw Anything Out”: The Effect of Product Freshness on Consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, June 2009 Print Edition: 081205114707043 DOI: 10.1086/596027
Exercise improves leg pain caused by arterial disease
OAK BROOK, Ill. – Patients with leg pain caused by arterial disease may be able to forego treatment of the affected artery by participating in hospital-supervised exercise, according to a new study published in the February issue of Radiology.
Intermittent claudication is a painful leg condition affecting some patients with peripheral arterial disease. Various treatments are available, including drug therapy or endovascular revascularization, a minimally invasive technique that widens and restores blood flow to the affected artery.
"The results from our clinical trial demonstrate that after six and 12 months, patients with intermittent claudication benefited equally from either revascularization or supervised exercise," said the study's lead author, Sandra Spronk, Ph.D., researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Radiology at Erasmus MC, University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands. "However, improvement is more immediate following revascularization."
For the study, 151 patients with intermittent claudication were randomly assigned to undergo revascularization or hospital-supervised exercise. Supervised exercise consisted of 30-minute, semi-weekly sessions of walking on a treadmill. Follow-up was performed after six and 12 months.
The patients who had undergone revascularization showed more immediate improvement. However, no significant differences were observed between the two groups after six months or 12 months with functional capacity and quality of life scores increasing for all patients.
"Revascularization is increasingly being performed as a first line of treatment," Dr. Spronk said. "This study emphasizes that all patients with intermittent claudication should initially be treated with exercise training, and that invasive procedures should be considered only if symptoms fail to improve."
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Intermittent claudication is a painful leg condition affecting some patients with peripheral arterial disease. Various treatments are available, including drug therapy or endovascular revascularization, a minimally invasive technique that widens and restores blood flow to the affected artery.
"The results from our clinical trial demonstrate that after six and 12 months, patients with intermittent claudication benefited equally from either revascularization or supervised exercise," said the study's lead author, Sandra Spronk, Ph.D., researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Radiology at Erasmus MC, University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands. "However, improvement is more immediate following revascularization."
For the study, 151 patients with intermittent claudication were randomly assigned to undergo revascularization or hospital-supervised exercise. Supervised exercise consisted of 30-minute, semi-weekly sessions of walking on a treadmill. Follow-up was performed after six and 12 months.
The patients who had undergone revascularization showed more immediate improvement. However, no significant differences were observed between the two groups after six months or 12 months with functional capacity and quality of life scores increasing for all patients.
"Revascularization is increasingly being performed as a first line of treatment," Dr. Spronk said. "This study emphasizes that all patients with intermittent claudication should initially be treated with exercise training, and that invasive procedures should be considered only if symptoms fail to improve."
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