'Former Director of US National Institutes of Health Breaks Ranks on Vaccine – Autism Issue'

'Fighting the Autism-Vaccine War' by Bernadine Healy M.D.

U,S, News & World Report, posted April 10, 2008

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/brain-and-behavior/2008/04/10/fighting-the-autism-vaccine-war_print.htm

Dr. 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.

“The rise of this disorder (autism), which shows up before age 3, happens to coincide with the increased number and type of vaccine shots in the first few years of life. So as a trigger, vaccines carry a ring of both historical and biological plausibility.”

“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. But as in all things vaccine, this move too was contentious. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization remain unconvinced that thimerosal puts young children at risk.”

“Medicine has moved ahead only because doctors, researchers, and yes, families, have openly challenged even the most sacred medical dogma. At the risk of incurring the wrath of some of my dearest colleagues, I say thank goodness for the vaccine court”