Swine Flu Vaccine and Autism: Some Disturbing Reporting by Megan Fitzpatrick

UPDATE The original full unedited version of the article is now online again and the 2 cropped versions removed

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted the following blog the article I checked on line and found that the original report from yesterday had been reposted by Megan Fitzpatrick and CANWEST.

The article was modified to omit my comments and those of Dr. Derrick McFabe. The result was to recast the debate as one beween parents and the health care community. For that reason I modified my blog comment title from "refreshingly balanced reporting" to "disturbing reporting". See my next post on this subject for more.

Harold Doherty

I was pleased to see the balanced reporting by Megan Fitzpatrick of CANWEST NEWS SERVICE in her report on the H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine and a possible autism connection in Flu vaccine rekindles debate over connection to autism. I was interviewed for that article and Ms Fitzpatrick placed me accurately, and fairly, as being in the middle on vaccine autism issues. I no longer accept without questioning the official opinion that vaccines play no role in causing or triggering autism, and I do not believe that parents' observations of their child's development should be dismissed. I believe that more research needs to be done, a belief inspired by several prominent professionals including Dr. Bernadine Healy, Dr. Jon Poling and Dr. Julie Gerberding.

The article reported comments from Dr David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, whose voice has been everywhere during this alleged swine flu pandemic. The public positions of Jenny McCarthy are reviewed along with some comments from autism researcher Dr. Derrick McFabe of the University of Western Ontario who stated that parents who believe that their children's autism resulted from vaccinations must be heard.

There have been a string of one sided media reports since the New York Times public relations style interview with Dr Paul Offit. It appears that many journalists have abandoned any pretense of old fashioned objectivity and have chosen to enlist fully in Offit's Army. They repeat ad nauseum his simplistic assertions that the research is "done" and that "science" has conclusively determined that there is no vaccine autism connection. In reading Ms. Fitzpatrick's article it was refreshing to see an honest attempt to convey all sides of the issues from multiple sources.

One omission from my interview that I wish Ms Fitzpatrick had included in her article is that I informed her that my belief that an observational study comparing autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations should be done is not my original idea. My belief is based on the statements of Dr. Bernadine Healy, Dr. Julie Gerberding, Dr. Jon Poling and other respected professionals who do see a need to conduct further research on possible vaccine autism issues .... and other possible environmental factors causing or triggering autism disorders. Media narratives invariably portray the vaccine debate as one pitting parents against doctors and professionals without mentioning that some credible health care professionals are of the view that the science is not "done" or concluded on these issues, that more research needs to be conducted.

What might be original in my comments is the notion that we may in fact be undergoing an unintended experiment on some vaccine autism issues with the public health authorities response to the current alleged swine flu pandemic. Not everyone agrees that we are in fact facing such a pandemic. Not everyone will be taking the swine flu vaccine. Those who are targeted - pregnant women and young children, will in some cases be receiving shots which include thimerosal and an adjuvant known as squalene which caused serious harm to Gulf War soldiers. If the young children receiving the shots, and the new born children of women who received the shot while pregnant have significantly higher autism rates than those who do not receive the shots will Offit, health authorities, and most of the mainstream media just ignore that information? Will they continue to decree in very unscientific like manner that the science is closed on these issues?

We will only know the answers if the data is recorded and made known. At this time we do not know if that will be done. We do not know if public health authorities will begin to take autism spectrum disorders, and the parents of children with autism, seriously.

We can only hope.

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Swine Flu Pandemic? Swine Flu Cases Falling Across the UK

"Across the UK the number of new cases of swine-flu are falling. Department of Health figures show that in the past week there were 5,000 infections in England - compared to over 100,000 at the start of the month."

BBC News, Friday, 28 August 2009 06:54 UK

Is this what the WHO and the CDC mean by a pandemic?

I am not trying to be glib about swine flu, or any influenza. I understand that the flu, swine, avian, or whatever variety of flu I contracted many times over the course of my life in Canada, can kill some people. Flu complications may bring my brief visit to this planet to an end some day but I have difficulty seeing why people around the world have been whipped into a panic over this specific flu, billions of dollars invested, testing of the safety and efficacy of vaccines rushed ... and possibly compromised ... based on available rate of infection and death information to date. And their previous track record at pandemic prediction ... the 1976 swine flu "pandemic" for example ... is not that great.

The figures below are taken from the Public Health Agency of Canada web site and indicate the number of people that have died from Swine Flu (H1N1) across Canada:

Every death is a tragedy for that person and those that know and love them. But the figures above, for an estimated population of 33,760,560 according to Statistics Canada's daily estimate, and like the UK information from the BBC above, are not what I think of when I think of a pandemic. The flu does kill significant numbers of people every year. In New Brunswick where I live we have been exposed to the Swine Flu already. A number of cadets visiting nearby Base Gagetown this summer contracted Swine Flu. They all survived. And New Brunswick has not, to date, recorded a single death, (yes, thankfully), but this humble, ignorant, non medical person has a hard time seeing the information to date as justifying the panic, the billions of dollars spent around the planet on vaccines, and their rush into production, with possible compromises to the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

But what do I know. I am just a humble parent. And they are intelligent, well informed public health authorities who know better. If the WHO, the CDC and the Public Health Agency of Canada say there is a Swine Flu pandemic then I guess there must be a Swine Flu pandemic.

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Is Swine Flu Panic Petering Out at the CDC?

The CDC is starting to sound as though it is not sure that the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic will actually occur. It is now talking about the swine flu being like any other flu, serious stuff which can and does kill people each year, but no more than normal. As reported by the AP:

WASHINGTON — Government health officials are urging people not to panic over estimates of 90,000 people dying from swine flu this fall.

"Everything we've seen in the U.S. and everything we've seen around the world suggests we won't see that kind of number if the virus doesn't change," Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a C-SPAN interview taped Wednesday.

While the swine flu seems quite easy to catch, it so far hasn't been more deadly than the flu strains seen every fall and winter — many people have only mild illness. And close genetic tracking of the new virus as it circled the globe over the last five months so far has shown no sign that it's mutating to become more virulent.

.......

What is likely: A busy flu season that starts earlier than usual.."

Governments have invested billions of dollars and lifetimes of credibility promoting the speculation that the world would be hit by a pandemic. In the US swine flu vaccine manufacturers have been given immunity from suit. It now remains to be seen whether pregnant women will be given vaccines with thimerosal and adjuvants. It remains to be seen whether the vaccine program will be rolled out in full force in most countries. It remains to be seen whether a possible autism baby boom will be created by a panic driven vaccination program.

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Swine Flu: Pandemic or Panic? Will We See An Autism Baby Boom?

Influenza kills people every year. To date the numbers of deaths from the Swine Flu, H1N1, virus have not been reported as being exceptionally outside the norm. The fear, as I understood official reports, was that a second wave of Swine Flu was coming, one in which the virus will have mutated and become far more deadly. So far at least, according to a new realease from the CDC that hasn't happened, the Swine Flu virus has not mutated as it makes its way through the southern hemisphere.

As reported in USA Today:

"The H1N1 flu strain doesn't appear to be mutating as it makes its way through the Southern Hemisphere, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today in a briefing.

One of the biggest fears has been that the virus, which first appeared in April in the U.S. and Mexico and which people don't have any built-up immunity to, might mutate into an even more dangerous form. Health officials have been keeping a close watch on the Southern Hemisphere, which is in its winter season now, to see what form of the virus is likely to travel north as fall comes to the U.S. and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.

Flu viruses are unpredictable, so the fact that this one hasn't mutated is "somewhat reassuring" said Jay Butler, director of CDC's H1N1 Vaccine Task Force."

The failure of the Swine Flu to mutate .. to date .. will not stop the roll out of the massive Swine Flu vaccine buys by most western nations. The health authorities have invested much of their credibility in predicting a swine flu pandemic which does not yet appear to have materialized. Massive amounts of public monies have been invested. The vaccines will be given.

With young children and pregnant women near the top of the priority list for receipt of swine flu vaccines, and with the vaccines still containing thimerosal and adjuvants we will experience an unplanned observational study of whether vaccines are causally related to autism. The IACC pulled an observational study of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations off the table in January and IACC head Dr. Thomas Insel spent much of his credibility in opposing the need or the ethics of such a study. Despite the comments of medical and health professionals like Dr. Bernadine Healy, Dr. Julie Gerberding and Neurologist, professor and successful parental autism vaccine litigant Dr. Jon Poling, and despite the direct observations and cries of thousands of parents the IACC will NOT do a study which might confirm a vaccine autism connection. The Swine Flu vaccination program targeting young children and pregnant women might in fact save many lives as the health authorities continue to maintain. The same program might, unfortunately, provide evidence of a vaccine autism connection.

If another upswing in autism diagnoses occurs in 2011-13 remember the Swine Flu Vaccine program of 2009-10.

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