Personal Injury Law

CDC Documents Forecast Fight Over Vaccines

By Jane Akre

Internal Documents

Internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) media talking points offer a peak behind the curtain of the struggle ahead in convincing the public about the need for vaccines to fight swine flu.

The three-page draft called, 'Vaccine Safety Communication/Media Strategy' was created as a guide to 'effective health communication' to be used by CDC staff and public health employees as they address concerns by parents worried about the vaccine-autism link.

But they may well forecast the attitude of the federal agency as it prepares to launch an aggressive public relations campaign this fall encouraging Americans to be vaccinated against swine flu, H1N1.

Like vaccines used on children, and some flu shot used today, thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative, may be present in some versions of the swine flu vaccine and additives such as aluminum, suspected in the link to the debilitating cognitive/ social disorder.

The draft was made available on the Web site, Age of Autism by attorney James Moody, a consultant on the federal vaccine court and on the board of both the parent group, SafeMinds, and the National Autism Association.

Critics

The draft characterizes parents and nonprofits concerned about vaccine safety as 'anti-vaccine' 'detractors', 'fringe groups', and 'Hostile parents and non-professionals' and 'anti-government activists,' who envision vaccines as more harmful to individual children than good or believe in conspiracy theories related to vaccination programs.'

Then in an apparent contradiction that supports the above parents, the draft concedes, 'Last year in the United States, the number of reported adverse events associated with vaccination was greater than the number of reported cases of vaccine-preventable disease'

Although it doesn't give numbers, childhood diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella have been decreasing, while vaccine-associated autism reports, in as many as one in 150 children, are called the "the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States."

It goes on to say under the 'Weaknesses' category - ‘Some claims against vaccine cannot be disproved' - in an apparent direct contradiction to the standard assurances from the federal government about vaccine safety.

Your Tax Dollars

Moody tells IB News, 'It's your tax dollars at work'.

'Marginalizing parents as 'hostile' and 'non-professionals' my jaw hit the floor, I was shocked. It's entirely appropriate to be a responsible critic and a concerned parent worried about vaccine safety. Bernadine Healy (former head of the National Institutes of Health), is an example without being labeled a ‘hostile parent'. Parents have a common interest in healthy children. It's insulting.'

General agreement is that until long-term double blind placebo controlled trials are undertaken to compare vaccinated children with unvaccinated children, the cause of autism will remain a mystery. Vaccine additives such as thimerosal (preservative), and aluminum, the use of live viruses in the shot, and the scheduling of vaccines close together have on children are all suspected.

What is the CDC doing to track the epidemic cases of autism? The 'CDC does not have complete adverse events surveillance data on which to base health messages' the draft says.

'Until you've done the study health of unvaccinated children you can't make any claim,' says Moody.

The attorney points out that public doubt is growing over government safety assurances of all vaccines. As federal assurances continue to downplay a link between childhood vaccines and autism, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) has been quietly paying vaccine injury claims for several years.

'They used to say vaccines are safe, now they say vaccines save lives' Moody says.

'The definitive studies of vaccinated versus non-vaccinated children have never been done, and data comparing the two groups has not been collected. Instead, a 'safety first' program of sound science has been replaced with an aggressive public relations approach" he says. #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on August 06, 2009 (boomark / email).