"We assume that the FDA would protect our children from exposure to any level of mercury through drugs. But that hasn’t been the case. Thimerosal was first marketed in 1930 and has become the most widely used preservative in vaccines. It is present in over 50 licensed vaccines."
"The FDA recently acknowledged that in the first six months of life, children get more mercury than is considered safe by the EPA," Burton noted. "The truth is that sometimes kids go to their doctor’s office and get four or five vaccines at the same time," he added.
"My grandson received vaccines for nine different diseases in one day," Burton said. "He may have been exposed to 62.5 micrograms of mercury in one day through his vaccines."
"According to his weight, the maximum safe level of mercury he should be exposed to in one day is 1.51 micrograms," Burton advised. "This is forty-one times the amount at which harm can be caused," he added.
In his opening remarks at a June 19, 2002, hearing, Burton described the devastation of witnessing the correlation between vaccines and autism.
"My only grandson became autistic right before my eyes – shortly after receiving his federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines. Without a full explanation of what was in the shots being given, my talkative, playful, outgoing, healthy, grandson Christian was subjected to very high levels of mercury through his vaccines. He also received the MMR vaccine. Within a few days he was showing signs of autism."
People often wonder why regulatory officials would protect drug makers. In large part, because the CDC and FDA policy decisions are made through advisory panels whose members have financial relationships with the same companies they are charged to regulate.
The decisions of the 300 experts who sit on the FDA's 18 advisory committees affect billions of dollars in sales. The panel members play a crucial role in determining what drugs will be approved and participate in just about every major decision related to industry regulation.
When it comes to vaccines, the large population in the USA transforms into a lucrative customer base when our government makes vaccines mandatory and keeps adding more and more to the list. Between 2003 and 2006, it was predicted that the annual global market for vaccines would rise from $6 billion to $10 billion, by Mark Benjamin for United Press International on July 21, 2003.
Investors follow the decisions made by the advisory panels closely. A favorable vote by a committee can add hundreds of millions of dollars to a company's stock value which also means the potential for corruption in the panels is enormous.
In a July 18, 2000 hearing, Burton mentioned the problem. "We have a lot of doctors who serve on Federal advisory committees who have serious conflicts-of-interest problems. They’re allowed to vote on vaccines made by companies that they get money from."
An analysis conducted by USA Today, of 159 FDA advisory committee meetings that took place between January 1, 1998, and June 30, 2000, revealed conflicts of interest were wide-spread:
At 92% of the meetings, at least one member had a financial conflict of interest.
At least one committee member had a financial stake in the topic under review at 146 of 159 advisory committee meetings.
At 55% of meetings, half or more of the FDA advisers had conflicts of interest.
At the 102 meetings dealing with the fate of a specific drug, 33% of the experts had a financial conflict.
When my 10-month old twins' doctor told us that their IS NO thimerosal in this years flu shot, I asked for the product insert literature. Paragraph 2 of the fine-print clearly states that the mercury-based perservative is indeed present in this year's vaccine --but it also says that it is NOT used in the single-dose syringes of the flu-shot. In other words, if you comply with vaccinations for your kids, you should distinguish between shots filled from a bottle, and pre-measured, individual-dose packages. You CAN get mercury-free vaccines for your kids --IF you know to ask. That knowledge is WAAAY better than choosing between mercury and no vaccines at all.
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Clay Roach (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Monday, November 28, 2005 at 1:55:59 PM
