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Archive | July, 2007
Nancy Snyderman and the NAA
7 JulNancy Snyderman is a TV Doctor (for the Today Show apparently) who recently got the collective knickers of the mercury militia in a twist when she told her audience the truth about the vaccine/autism connection – that there isn’t one. What particularly galled them was being confronted with the truth of their own behaviour. When asked what she thought the motivating factor was for parents to be taking vaccine makers to court she replied with one word: ‘money’.
Several anti vaccine/autism groups published a group response, which you can find on the home page of our old friends and routine liars, the National Autism Association.
Let’s go through the main points of the letter.
Dr. Snyderman’s ties to Johnson & Johnson, defendants in vaccine injury litigation, are obviously dictating the agenda in her appearances on your network at the risk of the safety of our children.
Right. So is it OK to pay people or not? Or is it only OK if you’re the parent group of autistic kids? As I talked about recently, its clear that both the NAA and SafeMinds have financial interests of their own that need explaining. Either its bad for everyone to do it, or no one. Which is it?
NBC’s viewers were exposed to a blatant falsehood yesterday as Dr. Snyderman claimed that vaccines no longer contain mercury. This is not the case, and this misinformation has unfortunately given America’s parents a false sense of security that vaccines are now mercury-free. This false claim puts all of America’s children and the unborn at risk of great harm.
Before I start, I want to say I’m referencing the audio Bob Krakow of A-CHAMP helpfully provides.
In respect of the above quote, Snyderman says:
(thiomersal)…was taken out years ago and yet the rates of autism have increased….
So, NAA et al say this is a blatant falsehood and….
Mercury is still in most flu, tetanus, and diphtheria/tetanus vaccines–and an array of vaccines still contain “trace” amounts. (The term “trace” must be used loosely as this aspect of vaccine production is not being regulated and there is some variation on what constitutes a trace amount. As children often receive multiple “trace” amounts of mercury in one sitting, cumulative amounts and potential adverse effects are as yet unknown.)
This is a blatant falsehood. Thiomersal is _not_ in ‘most flu, tetanus and diptheria/tetanus vaccines’. It exists in one brand (out of three) of DTaP at a trace amount. The NAA and other alarmists may be interested in a blog post I made quite awhile ago about ‘trace’ amounts of ingredients. In it, I discuss how my bottled water has to list all ingredients including fat which exists at ‘trace’ levels.
In other words, the chances of you being overdosed on thiomersal from these vaccines are about the same as you getting fat from drinking spring water. Further, Snyderman is correct. There is no thiomersal _in_ these vaccines (which is what she was asked). These trace amounts occur from the use of thiomersal in the manufacturing process. Its extremely likely that there really is _no_ thiomersal in this one vaccine.
Now, Snyderman was asked about childhood vaccines in the context of the omnibus hearings. Here’s the anchor:
…as a result of getting vaccines when their children were babies….
So Snyderman’s answer of ‘none’ is absolutely correct. Flu vaccines, some of which still have thiomersal _in_ them are not specific to children and are not given to babies as part of the schedule.
As a physician representing NBC, Dr. Snyderman has failed to tell the truth about mercury-containing vaccines and the known dangers associated with them. There is simply no excuse for such careless and false reporting while this country is in the throes of a childhood epidemic of neurological disorders.
Woah…..neurological disorders again? Not autism? This is bullshit intended to allow one to say whatever they want. Hey – National *Autism* Association – how about sticking to autism. Is it because you are well aware that there is in fact no epidemic of autism? We all know what you think about that. You slandered the author of a study who performed science that disagreed with you and set your pack of parent harpies on him right? This was the result:
After Mr. Shattuck’s paper last year, he received “a half-dozen phone messages on my answering machine that were either vaguely or specifically physically threatening,” he said.
One person said, “Don’t be surprised if you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night and I’ll be there.” Another message said it was easy in the age of the Internet to find out where people live.
Anyway, back to the National Autism Association et al. the next part of their letter states:
During Monday’s NBC Nightly News Dr. Snyderman stated, “there really is no science†behind the autism/mercury link. Vaccines and the mercury-based preservative thimerosal have not been ruled out as a cause of autism. To the contrary, there are literally thousands of scientific, peer-reviewed studies supporting the extreme neurotoxicity of mercury and the relationship between mercury exposure and neurological injury
Hey look! There’s that ‘neurological injury’ thing again. What happened to _autism_ ? You are attacking Snyderman for answering a question that you don’t even tackle in your response. She was asked about _autism_ . Her answer was also totally correct. There _is_ no science behind the autism/vaccine belief system. Your response that there are thousands of peer reviewed articles about the toxicity of mercury and the link to neurological injury is utterly irrelevant and nothing more than a very transparent strawman.
In her most recent NBC appearance, Dr. Snyderman was asked why parents were filing claims on behalf of their vaccine-injured children, to which she answered matter-of-factly, “money.†This cavalier statement alone goes far beyond contempt and displays an appalling ignorance of the emotional and financial devastation faced by families of vaccine-injured children. This must be addressed by an immediate apology from NBC to all the parents of children suffering from vaccine-induced illnesses.
I urge Dr Snyderman _not_ to apologise or retract her statement as it 100% correct. It is the only possible outcome from these hearings. If they win, the petitioners get money. That’s why the court was set up. Its a ‘no fault’ system. Do you need it explaining again?
We urge you to speak with the growing number of scientists who have published research supporting a causal link between mercury in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, and can provide you contact information for these researchers.
No one needs to do that. The science should speak for itself. If thiomersal causes autism, the peer reviewed literature will show that. Guess what? It doesn’t. Peer review does not include quack journals like Medical Veritas or JPANDS.
Reporting false information is a disservice to the American people.
I find it absolutely unbelievable that this statement is on the NAA website, the source for the false information about Paul Shattuck that led to his being hounded and threatened.
There is a choice selection of the more extreme antivax groups and individuals who are cosigners of this letter (although no SafeMinds I note – wonder why…).
These groups need to start looking at their behaviour. It is appalling. They have already led one researcher to being threatened over his phone because his _science_ didn’t agree with their _beliefs_ – what will happen to Nancy Snyderman? Maybe here is a telling sign. I got this from (you guessed it) the Evidence of Harm Yahoo group:
From: andrea52521991
Date: Apr 5, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject: [EOHarm] Re: Oprah, Autism Speaks, etc…
To: EOHarm@yahoogroups.com……..
I’d like to meet Dr.Nancy Snyderman in a dark alley someday and shove a 100 HPV vaccines right up her smug ass!
………
The truth is that these groups have an ugly, ugly problem with violence and an unhealthy fixation on committing acts of violence towards people who don’t agree with them. They have recently introduced what seems to be a new policy of referring to ‘neurological disorders’ when responding to points about ‘autism’ and need to have a long, hard look at both the accuracy of their public statements and their methods of what seem to be little more than inciting violence towards people they don’t like.
Safe Minds and David Kirby
5 JulSuspicions have been circling for a long time that there was more than just coincidence to the timing of writing and publication of Kirby’s Evidence of Harm. Those suspicions were enhanced for me when it became clear that a lot of Kirby’s associations with certain autism/anti-vaccine groups such as the National Autism Association were on a financial footing.
The ‘official’ story regarding the writing of Evidence of Harm, as reported by Kirby himself, was that Kirby was casting about for something to write about of book length and had been approached by several autism parents who wanted to share their beliefs that vaccines had made their kids autistic. According to Kirby, he was skeptical and unsure about whether to proceed with it or not. What made up his mind apparently was seeing a news report that a politician had managed to attach a no fault rider to a bill passing through Congress, absolving vaccine makers of any legal responsibility.
However, I don’t believe him. Up until recently, that belief was simply a belief. Rumours circulated that Sallie Bernard of Safe Minds was listed as the domain controller (i.e. she’d bought and paid for) the domain evidenceofharm.com. I emailed her to ask her one way or the other. She refused to answer that question. Kathleen Seidel has asked David Kirby that question. He refused to answer.
Why does it matter? Because Kirby claims to be impartial in this debate. His reviewers claim he ‘walks the middle line’ in his book. that his account is ‘even handed’. I would like to know how someone who has an established financial relationship to one major autism/anti-vax group can possibly be impartial. Would the NAA continue to fund Kirby’s website if he said he didn’t think thiomersal caused autism? I doubt it.
Turning our attention to Safe Minds, we can look at their records – records they must supply be law as they’re a non-profit organisation – and see exactly what they have financed. You can access these records via the orgs IRS Form 990:
Form 990 is an annual reporting return that certain federally tax-exempt organizations must file with the IRS. It provides information on the filing organization’s mission, programs, and finances.
Attached is Safe Minds 990 for 2005. It has some interesting details in it.
If we look at line 43, it has a listing amount of $99,196 for ‘Professional Fees’ expenses placed under the ‘Program Services’ Category.
This means that they paid people they considered professionals almost $100k to provide services to their programs. On page 15 of this same document they go into detail about what these services are.
…..THE BOOK “EVIDENCE OF HARM, MERCURY IN VACCINES AND THE AUSTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY” WAS RELEASED IN 2004 AND SAFEMINDS PRESIDENT, LYN REDWOOD, WAS FEATURED ON THE MONTEL WILLIAMS SHOW ALONG WITH AUTHOR, DAVID KIRBY. THIS IMPORTANT BOOK EXAMINES BOTH THE PERSONAL STORIES OF FAMILIES AND THE UNFOLDING DRAMA IN THE COURTS AND HALLS OF CONGRESS.
This is listed as a ‘Program Service Accomplishment’.
So what can we conclude? To me, this is pretty damning evidence that David Kirby was paid by Safe Minds to write Evidence of Harm. It certainly ties in with Kirby’s other financial benefits from the NAA. So much for impartiality.
I have some questions for Safe Minds and David Kirby.
1) Did David Kirby receive any kind of financial incentive from Safe Minds or NAA or any of their boards prior to writing Evidence of Harm?
2) If so, how much?
3) If not, please explain the 990 form from 2005 above and tell us exactly what the information in it means.
New Design
3 JulNo you haven’t gone mad or landed somewhere else ;o)
I’m taking a new design approach – a bit more minimalist accessible.
This is not the final thing. This is a ‘standard’ template designed by someone else. I#ll be building on this design to make it more mine but it won’t all happen at once. What design bloggers call a ‘live redesign’ in that it is redesigned right before your very eyes!!!!
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