And the numbers are the same all across the nation. The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services estimates that in 2006, about 25,000 Kentuckians have autism spectrum disorders, an increase from about 1,500 in 1990.
The US Department of Education all total spends about $53 billion a year on grades K-12 education. If the government provides $60,000 per year to educate the currently identified school-age autistics, the tab will run about $7 billion a year, or 13% of its entire budget. And each year the costs will rise as the number of autistics entering the system increases.
On December 10, 2002, Dr David Baskin, a neurosurgeon and Professor of Neurosurgery and Anesthesiology at the Baylor College of Medicine, testified at a Congressional Hearing and told the panel that most autistic children will grow up and require lifelong care because they cannot live independently. He described what he referred to as a "horrible" fact and said:
According to Dr David Ayoub, author of the report, "Pregnancy and the Myth of Influenza Vaccination-Is it safe, is it effective, is it necessary?" government officials and vaccine makers are working hard to keep the truth about vaccines and autism hidden because if they admit guilt, it would mean they "have taken part in the largest iatrogenic epidemic known to man."
"The fallout over admission of causality would be unprecedented," Dr Ayoub said.
Dr Mark Geier is probably the most credentialed expert on vaccines in the US. When he was 23, he corrected a genetic disorder in a tissue culture, gaining distinction as one of the founders of genetic engineering, and earning him front-page articles in the New York Times and London Times, and a call from President Richard Nixon.
He holds an MD and a PhD in genetics from George Washington University and spent ten years at the National Institutes of Health. After several more years as a professor at Johns Hopkins University, he opened the genetic laboratory and clinical practice that he co-owns today. He is also a court-certified expert on vaccines. Based on his years of research on autism he makes a statement similar to Dr Ayoub's.
"The current epidemic of autism may well be the greatest iatrogenic epidemic in history. The damage already done to our society is already in the trillions of dollars. The damage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and that of the AIDS epidemic pale when compared to the current epidemic of autism."
Eighty percent of autistics are under the age of 17. Soon states will be forced to provide support for an enormous number of disabled adults. Many autistics can not be left alone and must be looked after non-stop. If the vaccine makers are not forced to pay for the damage they caused, tax payers will be left to cover the entire expense of daily care and housing as well as life-long medical treatment for this generation of injured children.
As for the other reasons why officials within the FDA and CDC keep denying the link between vaccines and autism, according to Congressman Dave Weldon, "If it is eventually determined that an entire generation of kids was essentially poisoned, a class-action suit against the federal government could be on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, and so there's very good reason for them to try to cover this up."
"And then when they appear as though they are covering it up," he says, "it makes you suspicious that it's all true."
In the book, Evidence of Harm, award-winning author, David Kirby, explains that "the stakes could not be higher. Perhaps billions of dollars in litigation is pending against drug companies involved in vaccine production. The deep pocketed pharmaceutical industry has extended its financial largesse to politicians and scientists around the country, in open pursuit of indemnity against lawsuits and, some charge, in a darker effort to suppress evidence of thimerosal's toxicity."
"The jury is still out on thimerosal, but deliberations are well under way," Mr Kirby writes. "One side will emerge vindicated, and the other will earn eternal scorn in the medical history books."
Evelyn Pringle
evelyn.pringle@sbcglobal.net
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