Government Investigation Finds Autism Vaccine Related 

According to the most recent CDC estimates, one in 166 children in the US suffers from an autistic disorder. Twenty years ago, autism only affected one in 10,000 children. 

For years now, studies have shown that exposure to mercury in childhood vaccines, not only causes autism but can also result in immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions similar to traits associated with autism.

On May 21, 2003, after a three year investigation, "The Mercury in Medicine Report" was released by the House Committee on Government Reform, and stated in part:

"Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is directly related to the autism epidemic. This epidemic in all probability may have been prevented or curtailed had the FDA not been asleep at the switch regarding a lack of safety data regarding injected thimerosal and the sharper eyes of infant exposure to this known neurotoxin. The public health agencies' failure to act is indicative of institutional malfeasance for self protection and misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."

The Congressional report also said that the CDC, due to its "biases against theories regarding vaccine-induced autism," had chosen to fund researchers "who also worked for vaccine manufacturers to conduct population-based immunologic studies. . ." and stated:

"The CDC in general and the National Immunization Program are particularly conflicted in their duty to monitor the safety of vaccines, while also charged with the responsibility of purchasing vaccines for resale as well as promoting increased immunization rates."

The autism epidemic cannot be denied. On February 15, 2005, the GAO, released a Report titled, "Special Education Children With Autism," that revealed the number of children ages 6 through 21 diagnosed with autism receiving special education services has increased more than 500% over the past 10 years.

In a transcript obtained under the FOIA, of a secret meeting attended by officials of the FDA and CDC in 2000, Pediatrician Bill Weil, acknowledged the epidemic, "There are just a host of neurodevelopmental data that would suggest that we've got a serious problem.… The number of kids getting help in special education is growing nationally and state by state at a rate we have not seen before." 

Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative that was developed in the 1930s by Eli Lilly, and has been used regularly in vaccines ever since basically to boost vaccine maker profits by allowing drug companies to package vaccines in large containers instead of a single dose.  

However, years ago children only received a small number of vaccines that were injected with period of time in between and one dose at a time. Since 1988, the number of vaccines given to children before the age two has tripled.

Lisa Blakemore-Brown, a psychologist in the UK, has been investigating the vaccine-autism link for years and says the reason the epidemic in autism did not occur sooner is because before the 1990s children "were given single vaccines with single amounts of mercury." 

"But with the introduction of triple vaccines," she explain, "the amount of mercury contained within the preservative was multiplied and the cumulative effects are only just now being discovered by the public."

Once the cumulative amount of thimerosal that children were receiving through injections of 30-some odd vaccines was finally measured in 1999, the FDA discovered that children were receiving more than 100 times the EPA's safe limit for mercury by 18 months.

Internal documents from the FDA and CDC show public health officials knew about the increased mercy children were receiving at least since 1999.  A June 29, 1999, email from FDA scientist, Peter Patriarca to the head of the CDC office on vaccine safety, warned that the FDA was going to be criticized for being "'asleep at the switch' for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products." 

Mr Patriarca also pointed out that calculating the cumulative dose of mercury in vaccines was not "rocket science" and involved only ninth-grade math. He also noted the questions that agency officials would likely be asked as: 

"What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?"

An internal company memo that surfaced in a lawsuit against vaccine maker, Merck, proves the company knew infants were being injected with unsafe amounts of thimerosal back in 1991.  

The memo says a 6-month-old baby receiving shots on schedule would receive mercury 87 times higher than established safety guidelines:

"If eight doses of Thimerosal-containing vaccine was given in the first six months of life (3 DTP, 2 HIB, and 3 Hepatitis B) the 200 micrograms of mercury given, say to an average size of 12 pounds, would be about 87 times the Swedish daily allowance of 2.3 micrograms for a baby of that size."

On September 8, 2004, Dr William Egan, then acting Director of the FDA's Office of Vaccines Research and Review, told the House Government Reform Committee that prior to the mercury reduction initiative in vaccines, children may have received 187.5 micrograms of mercury by 6 month's age through routine childhood vaccinations. 

People often ask why some children become autistic when so many do not. As a neurotoxin, thimerosal, has been linked to the depletion of the protective anti-oxidant, glutathione, which helps rid the body of mercury.  People with autism seem to be more susceptible to this effect and most have low levels of glutathione. Therefore, their bodies have difficulty excreting mercury.

A December 2004 report by the independent Environmental Working Group determined that autistic children have less glutathione than normal children. The study, led by Dr Jill James, a professor of biochemistry and pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said a glutathione deficit "may contribute to the development and clinical manifestation of autism."

In 1999, many drug companies claimed they were reducing the amount of thimerosal in vaccines.  Some even provided product inserts that claimed that only a trace amount of mercury still existed in the final product. Others even claimed to be producing vaccines that were completely mercury-free.