While the mainstream press is widely reporting a new
study "disproving" any link between autism and mercury-containing
thimerosal in vaccines, no one has bothered to point out
that the study was published in a medical journal stacked
full of ads from the very same drug companies that manufacture
and market vaccines.
The Journal, the Archives of General Psychiatry,
is the pro-drug psychiatric arm of the American Medical
Association, a pill-pushing organization tarnished
by a history of conspiracy against alternative medicine
and the promotion of toxic substances like cigarettes
with full-page ads in its flagship publication, JAMA.
From the outset, the fact that this study appears in a
pro-drug, pro-psychiatry journal should bring pause to
any scientific-minded person. There is obviously a serious
conflict of interest here, especially if this study is
to be taken as "fact" and applied to public health policy.
There also needs to be a closer look at any financial
links between the researchers involved in this study and
various vaccine manufacturers, as virtually all pro-drug
"science" being published these days is influenced by
Big
Pharma money.
The only truly honest, independent, peer-reviewed medical
journal operating today is PLoS
Medicine, an open-source journal that takes no money
from drug
companies. Notice that the autism/mercury link study
did not appear in PLoS Medicine? No, it had to be published
with a home field advantage in a pro-drug publication
that maintains a strong bias in favor of pharmaceuticals
and chemicals.
Junk Science And Faulty Conclusions
Aside from these obvious and worrisome conflicts
of interest, the conclusions being made about autism
and vaccines in the mainstream
media are simply not supported by the study. The (distorted)
logic we're hearing goes like this:
Yes, vaccines
used to contain mercury.
And yes, all those little kids were injected with mercury.
And yes, autism rates skyrocketed. But then when the mercury
was taken out of the vaccines, the autism rates didn't
come back down. Therefore, the logic goes, vaccines are
safe!
What's wrong with the logic? Consider the use of mercury
in the vaccines: It was used as a preservative chemical
to prevent vaccine spoilage. When the mercury was removed,
it was replaced with other preservative chemicals
that are also toxic to the human nervous system. Thus,
the continuing increase in autism rates following vaccination
may be due to the toxic
chemicals that replaced thimerosal. While mercury
injections probably initiated the increase in autism,
the toxic substance has been replaced with other dangerous
chemicals that are continuing to increase the risk of
autism.
Here's an example to explain this a bit more:
We all know that sodium
nitrite in processed meat causes cancer,
right? Well, let's say that for ten years, somebody feeds
all the kids sodium nitrite and cancer
rates skyrocket. Then, they take all the sodium nitrite
out of the food and replace it with a different cancer-causing
chemical that they keep feeding the kids. Guess what?
The cancer rates don't come down. Therefore, the logic
goes, sodium nitrite didn't cause cancer in the first
place!
Notice that when mercury was removed from vaccines (which
is not entirely true, by the way, bringing into question
yet more details about this study), the rates of autism
did not drop? This means the vaccines remain dangerous
to children. Autism continued to climb right alongside
vaccination rates, indicating the possibility that something
in the vaccines (or a combination of various chemicals)
may very well be responsible for the increase. Based on
the fact that thimerosal
was replaced with other toxic chemicals in the vaccines,
there is absolutely no scientific way to clear thimerosal
of any harmful effects. There are too many variables operating
now, and no study can isolate one variable (thimerosal)
out of many and prove it to be harmless.
The truth is that scientists have no idea what's causing
autism. They acknowledge the alarming increase in
the rates of autism now being observed in the population,
but with this new study, they claim, "Mercury is safe!"
How many erroneous studies will it take from modern medical
researchers before we wake up to the concept of prevention.
How many studies declared aspartame, teflon, vioxx and
second-hand smoke to be safe? For virtually every toxic
chemical created by industry, there's a study proclaiming
its safety! The history of science is full of such nonsense,
all funded or influenced by the corporations that manufacture
and sell these toxic chemicals or drugs.
The fact that industry has managed to create yet another
study declaring a toxic substance (thimerosal) to be safe
when injected into children is certainly not surprising.
This is an industry that is not bound by the rules of
logic, ethics or common scientific sense. It simply finds
ways to influence researchers, cherry pick studies and
distort science to get whatever results it wants. That's
how we're now hearing things like, "Mercury is safe to
inject into children!" -- an idea that's utterly absurd
at any dose.
What The Mercury / Vaccine Study
Actually Proves
Even if you believe the results of this study, it only
demonstrates that removing mercury from vaccines does
not reduce vaccine toxicity to children. Autism rates
are still on the rise, right along with vaccination rates.
Multiple toxic chemicals and substances are contained
in vaccines, and the mercury in thimerosal may have simply
been one factor among many.
The only reasonable, scientifically-minded conclusion
we can draw from the study is that removing mercury
from vaccines does not reduce autism in children.
If removing thimerosal from vaccines made them safer,
we should have seen autism rates go down, but we did not!
Autism rates continued to climb in direct correlation
to vaccination rates, indicating that mercury is not the
only toxic substance causing neurological problems in
children.
Notice, carefully, that this is nothing close to what's
being reported in the mainstream media, where headlines
are blaring junk science nonsense like, "Vaccines pose
no risk for autism" (San Jose Mercury News) and "Thimerosal
Does Not Cause Autism" (Slashdot). Even WIRED News got
it wrong with: "California Study Finds No Link Between
Vaccines, Autism."
The correct headline should be, "Removal of Mercury
From Vaccines Fails to Halt Rise in Autism."
Or, "Removing Mercury From Vaccines Does Not Make Them
Safer."
Nobody reported that. Apparently, telling the truth about
research involving vaccines is not a popular option in
the mainstream media (MSM). Businessweek, publishing a
HealthDay report by Randy Dotinga, invokes particularly
bad logic with this opening statement, "Adding to a growing
body of evidence that rejects the idea that immunizations
boost autism rates, a new study finds no proof that incidences
of the disorder dropped after makers of most childhood
vaccines stopped using a mercury-based preservative in
their products."
How does a study focused only on mercury "reject the idea
that immunizations boost autism rates?" Did the author
of that report not notice that autism rates continue to
increase as vaccination rates go up? Eliminating one chemical
from the causative factors does not in any way clear the
safety of all the other chemicals or ingredients used
in vaccines.
The mainstream media, which repeatedly demonstrates astonishing
ignorance on issues of nutrition and health, also seems
to have very little ability to interpret scientific
studies and reach reasoned conclusions about what
those studies do or do not prove.
Was The Vaccine Study Another Example Of Corrupt Science?
Besides, this entire discussion is based on the idea that
we can trust the research in the first place. If there's
one thing we've learned about modern medicine since watching
all the Vioxx scandals, Avandia cover-ups and scientific
corruption in research circles, it's that drug companies
can help create whatever research conclusions they want.
And let's face it: Big Pharma will always produce science
that protects its profits. Big Tobacco came up with all
sorts of research that said tobacco smoke wasn't harmful
and nicotine wasn't addictive. Some of that research appeared
in peer-reviewed medical journals, too. Does that mean
the research was scientifically accurate and "conclusive?"
Of course not. It was just plain old junk science, hijacked
by a powerful corporation with a clear profit motive.
If all that sounds familiar, it's because drug companies
are playing the same game with science today that Big
Tobacco played decades ago: Influence the science, bury
the bad news and propagandize the good news. It's the
oldest play in the spin book, and Big Pharma has patterned
it perfectly from Big Tobacco.
You see, the relevant question in this discussion is not
simply whether mercury-containing vaccines cause autism.
The question at hand is whether we can even trust the
"science" being conducted on this subject. Do the researchers
who conducted this study have any financial
ties to the manufacturers of those vaccines? Have
they received any speaking fees? Do they own stock in
those companies? If so, this completely discredits their
research due to obvious conflicts of interest.
Now, there is no direct evidence that the researchers
in this particular mercury vaccine study were corrupted
or influenced by Big Pharma, but as an honest, independent
thinker who knows the truth about drug companies, the
mainstream media and the profit motive behind much of
the science appearing in the press today it is wise to
maintain a default position of skepticism when
it comes to reading these studies.
By default, it is in the best interest of the public to
distrust the drug companies and any so-called "research"
that claims injecting mercury into the bodies of children
is harmless. That should be the default position held
by any rational person who understands basic human biochemistry.
Toxic chemicals and heavy metals must be distrusted from
the outset.
The drug and chemical industries, notably, take precisely
the opposite approach. To them, all chemicals and drugs
are safe until proven dangerous. This is how dangerous
drugs get released into the marketplace and only recalled
after tens of millions of prescriptions have been written
and many thousands of people have died. The drug companies
routinely treat the population as drug testing guinea
pigs, and the used of vaccines on children is no different.
With this whole charade about a study "disproving" any
link between mercury and vaccines, the modern medical
industry has once again shown its infantile intellect
and its utter lack or scientific integrity or clear-headed
skepticism. Is this study really the best they can come
up with? A study that shows absolutely no drop in autism
rates when ingredients are reformulated in vaccines? A
study that didn't even attempt to take into account the
other toxic ingredients in vaccines?
This is the new standard of "conclusive" science in medicine
today?
The only thing that can be conclusively derived from observing
all this is that mainstream media journalists continue
to function at a very low level of scientific literacy,
lacking any skills of mental reason by which scientific
studies might be assessed. There is no thought that has
gone into the media's reporting of this story; only bandwagon
parroting of each other's bad conclusions of a study that,
in reality, proves nothing. It's yet another hilarious
mainstream media circle jerk, and the fact that so many
people keep buying this dim-witted reporting just proves
that the public remains woefully deficient in basic science
education.
One point worth mentioning here is that there is absolutely
no requirement to have any real understanding of science,
medicine, chemistry or physics to graduate from a top-notch
journalism school. And when journalists have no idea what
they're talking about, they go the default route and simply
rewrite whatever was e-mailed to them in the corporate
press release! Thus, modern skills of journalism do not
require any independent thought whatsoever. They only
require the ability to rephrase something already told
to them by the spinmeisters at Corporation X.
