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I've always thought the diagnosis and drugging of ADD and ADHD kids was an attempt to change males from their Nature, as the people diagnosed with this condition are overwhelmingly male and their symptoms- they don't listen and don't pay attention sounds like most adult males I've known (I know a lot of scientists, mathematicians, and computer people-I figure it's ignoring the mundane that lets them connect to their potential for genius).
Anyway, Dr Douglass' newsletter today had the following:
Gun-hating headshrinkers shoot from the hip - and miss the mark
The medical establishment's war on masculinity continues, along with its war on guns.
According to a recent New York Times article, some new research suggests that the mere handling of firearms triggers aggression in men. A group of psychologists from Knox College in Illinois enrolled 30 male students in a study that these subjects were told was designed to measure taste sensitivity...
These men were divided into two groups and tested via saliva swab to determine baseline testosterone levels. For one group, the first part of the study involved the handling of a firearm. The other group had to lay hands on the Mousetrap board game. Both groups' hormone levels were then rechecked. Needless to say, the "gun" group had elevated testosterone levels compared to the "game" group.
After this, they were asked to rate the taste of a cup of water in which a drop of hot sauce had been added. They were then instructed to prepare a similar drink for the next study subject to taste, with no limit on the amount of hot sauce they could add. Supposedly, this was designed to measure aggressive behavior. And of course, the gun-handlers added three times as much hot sauce on average as the game-boys...
This study is flawed on so many levels I can't even begin to catalog them!
For one thing, the study didn't measure the testosterone response of men who handled, say, a sword or a hockey stick or a power tool or even an erotic photo - only a gun. So where is the comparison between guns and other objects one would assume might spike male hormones?
Second, the study tested only men. If women (who also have testosterone) had exhibited similar spikes in "aggression" after handling guns, the sex factor would be irrelevant. So why focus only on men, if not to somehow target masculinity? Wouldn't the study have been just as valid if it proved that people in general experience heightened hormone responses after handling guns?
Third, how can the researchers be sure that adding more hot sauce to a drink equals aggression? Maybe the testosterone spike desensitized these guys to the taste of hot sauce (which is entirely plausible since testosterone inhibits pain response), and they wanted to make sure the next fellow in line could actually taste enough of the hot stuff to rate it.
The study's findings are due to be published in the journal Psychological Science - and my question is: To what point?
So what if handling a gun caused a spike in male hormones, or even aggression? I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't want anyone - and I'm talking about MEN here - defending my home, community, or country that wasn't somewhat primed for battle by handling weapons. It's a natural response.
Besides, this whole study's clearly got an anti-gun and anti-masculinity agenda. How do I figure this? Because firearms are extreme, purpose-built objects - their aim is to kill, and everyone knows it. Who in their right mind wouldn't be on high fight-or-flight alert (hormones, aggression, and all) in the presence of one?
I'll tell you who wouldn't be: Extremely stupid people, criminals, and psychopaths.
And as far as I'm concerned, the only everyday defense against guns in THEIR hands is guns in our hands - yours and mine. And no pseudo-scientific study from a bunch of agenda-driven Marxist headshrinkers is going to cow me into silence...
Taking aim at the gun-phobes,
William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.
Copyright (c)1997-2006 by www.realhealthnews.com, L.L.C.
In Reply to: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 07:11:06:
ANN:
There is no war on masculinity or femininity (oh, good grief!).
But during these past 20 years, this world has never been so violent, so pro-war, so pro-porn-bimbo as it is now. It's not gun-ownership that needs to be studied, but rather the rampant violence associated with guns. Take a good look at inner city youths and their fondness for violence and butt-crack bearing girls (the new female?).
If males aren't provided with the proper means of discipline and self-control, and the right outlets for their energies, then their aggressions can take the form of needless violence and destructive behavior. IMHO, the martial arts, properly taught, are a great way for males to exercise and control their energies and natural tendencies. It allows them to build protective, not bullying, characters. It's also a great way for females to assert themselves without becoming brutal themselves.
Remember, both males and females have positive and negative attributes to their makeup. Studying what makes us ticks isn't an attack on our respective genders...although some studies under the guise of science are pure bunk:-)
P.S. Just ignore the silly studies. They don't affect you or me, or anyone else, right?
In Reply to: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 07:11:06:
Hi Ann,
"Second, the study tested only men. If women (who also have testosterone) had exhibited similar spikes in "aggression" after handling guns, the sex factor would be irrelevant. So why focus only on men, if not to somehow target masculinity? Wouldn't the study have been just as valid if it proved that people in general experience heightened hormone responses after handling guns?"
The quote from your article above makes me ask more questions which was not addressed...
-What has the military found regarding women and gays in battlefield situation?
-Are they less effective or at more risk of dying due to lack of aggressive response?
-Would a lack of testosterone mean that they would be better suited to the role of negotiators?
-Does the enlisting of these two groups weaken the armed forces and help ensure a poor outcome in a war?
-Does the enemy fear the US forces as much as they should when faced with a less masculine opponent?
Ron
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY (questions) posted by Ron [1013.2318] on June 23, 2006 at 08:27:14:
given the 'don't ask , don't tell' policy of the military, you can't get stats on gays in the military.
A study of females would probably be politically incorrect, their assigned jobs might be different than males, and you have the complicating factor, when small women are allowed into physically demanding jobs, of men's efforts being spread out in their attempt to take up the slack and protect female comrades- a female might be more likely to contribute to others being wounded or killed, by her presense. Kind of like the slow driver who doesn't get in accidents themselves, but is a contributory factor to accidents that the people behind them have.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 08:11:08:
yes, I believe there is. Have you noticed that the US has fallen WAY behind in math and science? There's a reason for that and the reason is the drugging of the people who would grow up to be our scientists and the degrading of the teaching of math and science in this country to try to give more verbal (more women) people an advantage, but which has really dragged everyone down to a mediocre understanding of these subjects.
And, yes, we are all affected by silly and poorly designed studies. Our whole population has been affected by the recommendations in the 70's to eat less eggs, less fish, less fat and meat, more vegetable oil-all from poorly contrived 'science'. The notion that eggs raise cholesterol was accepted by our gov't, and, in turn, by our people, based on a study conducted with POWDERED eggs. Guess what- powdered eggs raise cholesterol- the kind of eggs most of the population was eating do NOT raise cholesterol. Maybe we should've stopped eating cafeteria scrambled eggs, because they might have been powdered, but not the eggs most people used in their homes. Our society is in terrible health thanks to bad studies-they affect everybody. Our newspaper publishes the public school breakfast and lunch menus-not an egg on them- they feed the kids poptarts for breakfast!
But, back to the war- I've read a lot of the children's books and tried kids computer programs (often edcational) written over the last 25 years-they often show positive traits in females, but not in males and positive female role models, but not males- not sure how one would turn out admirably behaved males when giving them these books to read. I'm thankful for library sales and thrift stores-I buy old children's books from the 50's and 60's plus the occasional good modern children's book, like Animorphs.
Violence doesn't stop when you get rid of guns- when some Japanese person (rarely) goes on a rampage, they stab people. Baseball bats and rocks would be used if that was all that was available. If you are going to be mugged, someone could point a gun at you and give you the option of handling over your wallet without getting hurt, or they could knock you over the head with a baseball bat and take what they want. Which might you recover from sooner?
I recommend Harrison Coulter's book on criminality, autism, and vaccines for one view on the increase in violence- I'll look for the exact title.
In Reply to: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 07:11:06:
Hi ANN,
no comment. ha that's a comment isn't it? War on Masculinity, hmmm. No such thing going on is there? T.V. commercials, television shows, "boys are stupid" buttons.
I'm sure that when I shoot a gun I get a similar rush to what a man might. thought it was adreneline, is it really testosterone?
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 09:04:58:
Autism, Encephalitis, & Vaccination
Tedd Koren, D.C.
Autism, from the Greek word auto (self), was first described in 1943 by psychiatrist Leo Kanner: “This condition differs markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far....” said Kanner. Autistic children are totally self-absorbed and alienated-they are in their own world, detached, unresponsive, unable to relate to others, often mentally retarded, hyperactive and violently aggressive.
“This disorder is difficult to characterize, but a very prominent feature is the inability to relate to or communicate with other human beings in ways that are natural or meaningful,” says Bernard Rimland, Ph.D., director of the Autism Research Institute. Rimland’s 1964 book Infantile Autism—the Syndrome and It’s Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior is credited with demolishing the idea that bad parenting or mental illness caused autism. “Autism is a biological disorder, not an emotional illness. Refuse psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and intensive counseling. These approaches are useless...,” recommends Rimland. (From Autism, Journey Out Of Darkness by Karolyn A. Gazella (Health Counselor Magazine, Vol. 3 No. 6; June/July 1994)
Five out of 10,000 babies are autistic and it’s cause is considered unknown. Although each autistic child is different, in general about 75% have some degree of mental retardation and another 10% are known as autistic savants. (Like the character Dustin Hoffman played in Rain Man). Now that emotional factors have been ruled out, experts are now looking for a brain malfunction caused by physical, chemical, or biological abnormalities. It’s cause is a mystery.
But not to medical researcher and historian Harris Coulter, Ph.D. “The first victims of the medical assualt on the American brain were the austic children,” says Dr. Coulter. “Austistics ordinarily suffer from a multitude disorders–mental retardation, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and others–which are clearly of neurologic origin...autism [is] a neurological disorder....The first cases of autism emerged in the United States at a time when vaccination against whooping cough was becoming increasingly popular.” (Vaccination Social Violence and Criminality, The Medical Assault on the American Brain by Harris Coulter, Ph.D. the following quotes of Coulter are from his book).
How does vaccination cause autism? The answer: encephalitis. Although encephalitis or “brain inflammation” can be caused by severe infection, trauma to the head and severe burns those occur rarely compared with post-vaccinal encephalitis–encephalitis following vaccination.
Autism (and minimal brain damage) while rare before mass vaccination programs began are now widespread disorders. Coulter’s claim that they are the result of post-encephalitic syndrome resulting from childhood vaccination should be disturbing to anyone with a child who has a learning disorder, is hyperactive, dyslexic, suffers from cranial nerve damage, or is, of course, autistic.
“Kanner was mistaken in thinking that autism differed from other diseases,” says Coulter. “He may be excused for his error; he was not a neurologist but a psychiatrist. The symptoms Kenner called autism would have been immediately recognized by a neurologist as post-encephalitic syndrome.”
Encephalitis was well known in the second and third decades of this century. Infectious encephalitis occurred in epidemic numbers–mental institutions and reform schools were the home of many “post encephalitic syndrome” individuals who were left with a wide variety of neurological conditions after the encephalitis ravaged their brains–creating conditions often identical to post-vaccine damage, among them autism.
“In examining the enormous literature on infectious encephalitis, I realized very quickly that the long-term effects of encephalitis is totally congruent with what we see today in the DSM3 of the American Psychological Association as “Disorders usually evident in infancy or childhood” (developmental disabilities). That includes autism, hyperactivity, dyslexia, attention span difficulties and several dozen other conditions.”
“This is, at first glance, a startling omission,” says Coulter. When the neurologic (as opposed to psychological) nature of autism was finally revealed, “mental health professionals should have immediately appreciated the tie with encephalitis. Furthermore, it had long been known that a variety of encephalitis was caused by vaccination. But this is precisely why physicians shied away from the topic! Since no one wanted to impugn the [vaccination] programs, encephalitis was never discussed openly and fully.
“The Vaccine Compensation Bill of 1986 provided for the establishment of a committee under the The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine to review data on vaccine damage. This committee has published two books - one in 1989 and one in 1993 on the damage of various vaccines and they have stated in the first of these books that the evidence supports the existence of a causal relationship between the DPT vaccine and encephalitis. That has changed the whole terms of the debate because now you can talk of vaccine damage in terms of encephalitis–that is a much more solid scientific basis.
“But no biological phenomenon is either all or nothing. Vaccination cannot be considered to either leave a child perfectly normal or have a very severe impact on a child. There’s got to be a range of effects-how about the children in the middle? How about those who are slightly affected by the vaccine? Anybody who knows anything about the biology of medicine knows that this has to be because it would be impossible to stress a large group of people, like two million babies a year in the United States and not have the reactions go along a whole range of effects....Some of the side effects or long term affects make themselves felt not the next week or two weeks later but five or ten years later when the parent realizes that their child is not acting or behaving like other children act and tries to figure out what the reason for that is....”
The numbers of damaged children we are dealing with appear to be very high. Although medical authorities may claim that perhaps “one child in hundreds of thousands of children are in any way affected by vaccination ” that may be a pathetic underestimation.
For example, in the first book to seriously attack the medical myth of vaccine safety, DPT: A Shot In The Dark Coulter and Fisher estimate that 12,000-15,000 cases of severe neurological damage are caused by childhood vaccines each year. However those numbers pale beside Coulter’s statement that “one child in five or six is affected to some degree by the vaccination...about 20% of the population.... “
When some researchers investigate this information they are led to state, as does Viera Scheibner Ph.D. in her incredible book, Vaccination: The Medical Assault on the Immune System, (one of the greatest anti-vaccination books written to date): “Vaccination is the epitome of ignorance and the unscientific approach to illness....Immunizations, including those practiced on babies, not only did not prevent any infectious diseases, they caused more suffering and more deaths than has any other human activity in the entire history of medical intervention. It will be decades before the mopping-up after the disasters caused by childhood vaccination will be completed. All vaccination should cease forthwith and all victims of their side-effects should be appropriately compensated.”
Let us close with Dr. Coulter, who reminds us that this subject is difficult to discuss, in spite of the evidence: “Awareness of the relationship between these neurological disabilities and the post-encephalitic syndrome has been blocked...by reluctance to admit that the childhood vaccination program is the only possible cause of a mass epidemic of clinical and sub-clinical encephalitis.”
What will you think the next time you see a deaf child signing, a child in a wheel chair or a hyperactive child? Bad luck, bad genes or bad vaccines?
For more information on these topics the above mentioned books: Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality ($14.95) by Harris Coulter, Ph.D. A Shot in the Dark ($9.95) by Fisher and Coulter and Vaccination, The Medical Assault on the Immune System ($30.00) by Viera Scheibner, Ph.D. are available from Koren Publications, 777-K Schwab Road, Hatfield, PA 19440, 1-800-537-3001. Please add $4.50 shipping and handling per total order.
“I came to the logical conclusion that if vaccination causes encephalitis, and if a lot of people suffer from what looks like the consequences of encephalitis, therefore vaccination causes these particular consequences.
Quote from Upledger, the Crystal skulls-locked cranium. Most severe health problems have one or two cranial bones fixated, Upledger found it difficult to find one bone unfixated. Children always wanted to be outdoors-barometric pressure changes, a physiological problem. Hitting head to get it to loosen up.
The above mentioned books: Vaccination, The Medical Assault on the Immune System ($26.00) by Viera Scheibner, Ph.D. Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality ($14.95) by Harris Coulter, Ph.D. and A Shot in the Dark ($9.95) by Fisher and Coulter are available from Koren Publications, 2026 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103, 1-800-537-3001. Please add $4.50 shipping and handling per total order.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 09:05:22:
paper targets never give me much of a chemical response-maybe I need a real bad guy to shoot at?
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 09:04:58:
ANN:
The food and nutrition wars are not so much the result of poorly conducted studies, as they are the result of pressure put upon scientists by the pharmaceutical/chemical industries to produce pre-planned, desired outcomes. Some scientists claim that they have lost their jobs due to their reporting the truth about their findings regarding harmful chemicals. So, in this instance there is no attack on masculinity, but an attack on the truth, all brought on by greed.
What books have you seen that were a direct attack on masculinity? What are the titles? I'd like to take a look.
If anything, I would think that some music is an attack on masculinity. The violent lyrics are an attempt to dehumanize men and turn them into violent killers by making brutality and misogyny look cool.
I agree that vaccines can wreak havoc on some children. The daughter of an acquaintance was rendered severely autistic after undergoing vaccination. She was perfectly healthy pre-vaccination.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 09:14:37:
Well I shoot at things that explode on impact, slightly more thrilling.
But who the hell would be thrilled by a mousetrap game? I don't think that thrilled me too much when I was a kid lol.
I'm sure fast cars and power tools would have an effect on men that were into those sorts of things. I think "flawed" is a generous description of the study being described.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 09:49:51:
yeah, mousetrap seldom worked the way it was supposed to- you'd finally get it built, turn the crank, and it often stuck somewhere in the process and you'd have to nudge it along- looked good on tv, but it real life?-yawn!
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 09:43:21:
it tends to be subtle- read through the Berenstain Bears books. Try the Cluefinders programs.
I believe we have a brain-damaged population, especially the younger people, who have been subjected to so many more vaccines than we have. Parents Magazine, Feb 1990, had an article on how autistic symptoms disappeared when families took their autistic kids off wheat and dairy, so I think there's a combined effect with vaccines and diet, I don't know if the food products currently on the market are the same ones we grew up with either- I understand, from biodiversity literature, that the variety of a product like, wheat, for example, is much more limited in modern farming-more farms all growing one variety-so do we have more people reactive to wheat than 40 years ago, or do we have a more problematic form of wheat on the market or some of each of those? I don't know.
I've seen the effect of wheat on my own two type O family members- they are more rational off wheat, so I wonder about the affect of wheat on thinking and impulsive behavior like violence (my own type O's haven't eaten dairy, so that could be something else affecting some people). We have a problem with racial diaparity- half of some indian tribes have diabetes and the tribes' kids are getting type 2 in childhood (type 1 is a mostly white disease (believed to be viral, not lifestyle)).
Indian tribes have a lot of problem with alcoholism and domestic abuse. I wonder about the affect of diet on these type O's. Our prisons have disproportionate racial makeups. Africans, Amerindians, and Vikings all tend toward type O blood-is there a dietary brain fog causing more type O's to commit crimes, and, since whites are spread out over the four blood types, they are proportionately less of the prison population? Would be interesting to see prison rates broken down by both the crime and the blood type.
Japanese tend to be type B. Chinese are mostly A and B. Askenazic Jews (those Americans are used to) are mostly type B. That these groups excel academically, don't have much alcoholism, and don't get in trouble much has been ascribed to family values-could some of it be that their blood type makes them less damaged mentally by the ameican diet?
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 09:43:21:
Hi PL,
I won't go into a great big spiel about why it is obvious that men are being attacked (obvious to me anyways).
How often do you hear the term "deadbeat mom" or even "deadbeat parent"?
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 11:55:29:
Just one more thing. When my bf was denied food stamps because his gross income was too high despite the fact that he has to pay back child support for children he has custody of and should be getting assistance so he can raise them do you know what he was told? He should get another job.
Do you think anyone told his ex-wife to get a job to stay off welfare? NO and it would never happen, not even under the same conditions he was told that.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 12:02:58:
you might like Tim Allen's book, Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man.
I have one theory about why women would be more prone to psych disorders- low fat diet- women are more likely to cut back on fat and the brain needs fat. The colon also needs fat, to empty right, so low fat diets cause constipation, which can lead to toxins messing with the brain as they seep into the system.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 12:02:58:
I should say especially under the conditions he was told that. It's true that there are now regulations that require some effort in getting employment when you are on welfare, but they don't require people (at least not women...) to hold two jobs. I'm sure that wouldn't have been said to a woman.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 12:16:07:
I'd probably like the book. I liked "no shirt, no shoes no problem" really funny book.
I've seen a lot of fat people with psych. disorders, so don't know about that theory :-)
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 12:50:06:
fat doesn't CAUSE fat- carbohydrates cause fat. Note that I didn't say skinny people, I said people on low fat diets- there IS a difference.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 09:43:21:
the fathers role in sitcoms, or movies are a good example of attacking the male role. However I think popular music and MTV are more an attack on us women. (everything is so sexual)As for the guns, well any mom will tell you since their little boys are old enough to hold their sister's Barbie dolls, all you have to do is bend them over and they make a great weapon! boom!
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by Amy [3201.1351] on June 23, 2006 at 14:03:11:
the guy on Designing Women said all his older cousins were girls, so he got female toy hand-me-downs , but he found Barbie dolls made great interballistic missiles.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 11:45:21:
ANN:
I will check out the Bears books.
A study of blood types among prison inmates would be a brilliant idea. But what's in it for the pharmaceutical companies? I'm afraid that the ones with enough money to conduct those studies wouldn't be interested if it meant that the solution is in the proper food and not in peddling another drug.
Maybe there is a way..I don't know.
There was a TV program once about Native Americans and their diets. Seems that deep fried bread has replaced their corn. No wonder they're diabetics. They were all mostly overweight and no longer the slim, muscular figures seen in early American photographs.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 11:55:29:
Lissa:
Stop watching those crappy TV shows:-)
Both men and women are important. There is no need for one to dominate and abuse the other in order to feel important about himself/herself. Men aren't being attacked. None of my male friends and relatives feel attacked. Maybe they're not paranoid, or maybe they're secured enough in their masculinity that they don't have to feel threatened by strong intelligent women.
Hey maybe women are under attack! Did you ever think about that? Women have to look like stick-thin fashion models, or look like porn bimbos to be considered attractive. But that's all nonsense really. Think of all the female politicians who are ridiculed for not looking and acting like brainless idiots. They won't let that stop them, will they? This "poor me" pity-party works both ways, when you think about it and it is NOT HEALTHY for anyone. War on masculinity...My foot!!
P.S. They're called deadbeat dads because they don't support their children. Women who do the same are called deadbeat moms. Yes, they exist too.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 14:51:10:
Hi Phillylady:
I assure you the following is a fact: childrens' advocates don't care beans about children and defamation and oppression of men is their game.
I would bet my life that if my bf was a woman, there would be people who would bend over backwards to assist him in getting child support from "deadbeat dad" but since "deadbeat" is mom, and he a man, it will not happen, and the best they can come up with is "get a second job" not "get support from mom".
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 15:12:44:
Lissa:
From what you've said in the past, your boyfriend has not been treated fairly by the judicial system. He (not you) should try to get the proper relief from his deadbeat ex by getting the right attorney. Yes, it will cost money. But in the end, it will be to his benefit and his children's benefit.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by Amy [3201.1351] on June 23, 2006 at 14:03:11:
Hey Amy:
Ok then, we're all being attacked and misrepresented in the movies. Let's all start watching more PBS series and quit whining:-)
My older brothers never played with guns. But they sure built a lot of model boats, airplanes, and Vikings and knights.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 15:40:39:
Hi PL,
He and I have tried. Fortunately their mother recently moved into our state, so it should be a little easier to get resolved because we have jurisdiction since she moved out of California.
I seriously do think that things are slanted against men though.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 14:27:55:
type O's often do well on lots of exercise, meat and fat, no gluten, and some greens and berries. Moving to the reservations took all that away- they gave them wheat and sugar instead and small amounts of beef-no buffalo, deer, or elk.
An experiment was done in Australia with the aboriginal people who have a big problem with type 2 diabetes. Some were moved back to a natural lifestyle and diet. Their diabetes disappeared.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 15:48:17:
the knights were probably slaying people with swords. Wonder if they were pretending to be crusaders and running jews and muslims through for refusing to convert? Ask them.
So your bros went through the 50's without playing at being cowboys? You sure about that? Ask them.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 13:46:51:
I thought you meant "dieting" people. I get ya now.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 18:17:53:
ANN:
My brothers were not, and are not, violent. I recall that the model planes and knights were carefully painted and put on display. They did wrestle with each other (and me sometimes). They climbed trees, rode bikes, and swam. They played guitar, and read books. They weren't into sports, though (except wrestling on TV). And no, they didn't pretend to be crusaders. What do you think we were, self-righteous Catholics? We weren't any good at religion, and still aren't, and we don't care:-)
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 18:57:00:
do you think most of the kids who played cowboys and indians grew up to be violent or racist?
People with imaginations (I'm sure your bros weren;t zombies) act out scenes with their toys. And what did they read? Max Brand? Zane Grey? ouis Lamur? (wonderful writers, all).
Your idealized memories are comfortable, but might not be accurate. Do you remember a time when boys acted differently among other boys than they did around girls? No, of course not, never happened.
But, hey, ASK them.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 19:03:53:
ANN:
You have no way of retrieving my personal childhood memories. You did not live my life. Therefore, your assessment of my "idealized memories" is completely inaccurate. Not all boys play cowboys and Indians. That's just the way it is. That doesn't mean they're zombies. It simply means they play other games. Why can't you accept the fact that in some families cowboys and Indians aren't part of playtime? What did you play at as a child?
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 19:44:47:
wawawawa wawawawa (that's the indian). Yep. I think you'd remember that. lol
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [2051.1599] on June 23, 2006 at 19:44:47:
rebels and yankees.
retrieving YOUR memories isn't the point- it's your bros memories that are relevant here. Ever see Rashaman (probably spelled wrong, think that Japanese director, Akira something did a version of it).
In Reply to: sorry, HARRIS Coulter-Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 09:13:06:
Thanks, Ann.
Harris Coulter is one of my heroes!
Walt
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 24, 2006 at 06:38:15:
ANN:
I grew up with my brothers (you didn't). Cowboys & Indians were not part of our urban upbringing. They were part of YOUR upbringing, which explains why you persist on projecting this memory onto others. Accept it and stop trying to rewrite history to suit your idealized image of my brothers' lives. That being said, let's move on to other topics and stop this obsession, ok?:-)
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [1327.1599] on June 24, 2006 at 10:44:07:
I didn't play cowboys and indians- I played yankees and rebels. What is this obsession you have with cowboys and indians? Just because tv was full of Bonanza, the Rifleman, roy Rogers, Bat Masterson, and such doesn't mean any of us WATCHED them. I was watching Bugs Bunny Tuesday nights at 7:30-Elmer Fudd kept shooting him, but he never got hurt. And Wiley Coyote never got hurt when things exploded in his face- guess that's why I didn't grow up violent- I could see how ineffective guns and explosives (and heavy safes falling on canines) were.
Overture
hit the lights
this is it
the night of nights
no more rehearsing
and nursing our parts
we know every part by heart
that song will be stuck in my brain forever -wonder if Mitchell (the kid I always watched the show with) still has it stuck in his brain?Think I'll try googling him. Wonder if he's dead yet? Ah-cheerful thoughts. Childhood-so idyllic
Kurasawa-that's the name I was trying to think of
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 24, 2006 at 11:02:28:
ANN:
"...What is this obsession you have with cowboys and indians"
No, dear, YOU were the one that first brought them up, not I. Hence, your obsession:-) Please re-read your words.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by PhillyLady [1327.1599] on June 24, 2006 at 11:13:19:
bringing something up is an obsession?- Must be one of those bg pharma redefinitions to sell more meds.
There are a bunch of people on google wit mitchell's last name-a couple of lawyers (one graduated from law school in 1996- probably not him) and a udge and a district attorney and a guy pushing fluoride (NO, Mitchell, tell me that ain't you!)
Wonder if his folks still live in that house? Naw, they're probably dead.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by lissa [2032.8] on June 23, 2006 at 17:11:07:
not to dredge this up again but the point of legal aid and legal advocates is to assist people who can't afford an attorney and there is no legal aid available for him, not in California, not here "no resourses" or "must be resident of county", don't matter if jurisdiction is in that stupid county, you have to live there too. but of course he is going to hire an attorney now, he shouldn't really have to have done so, I don't think a woman would have had to either.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 12:16:07:
ANN
do you think that a high fat diet could reverse Post natal dep.???
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 13:46:51:
How about fats WITH carbs causing overweight people????
do u think that say, butter on bread will make you more fat, than say, just bread on its own??? or is it healthier to have the butter on the bread, rather than just dry bread, if one wants to shed kilos???
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 23, 2006 at 18:14:37:
the aboriginals out here ahve a terrrible problem with alcohol addiction, and also sniffing petrol fumes.
up north, they can be seen very frequently (mostly the young kids) walking around with a can and cloth over the nose and mouth as they inhale the petrol fumes.it's just awful!
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by M.Bliss [4.1623] on June 25, 2006 at 03:26:14:
I don't know. I DO know that low carb diets help sinus problems in some people- probably because those people have a previously undiscovered sensitivity to grain or gluten or wheat, but those diets are higher in fat, too, so could be contributory. Way to find out is to experiment on yourt own body.
When it comes to kids, my husband and I try everything on both of ourselves first before trying it on the kids.
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY:p.s. posted by M.Bliss [4.1623] on June 25, 2006 at 03:27:42:
here in the US we'd shed kilos by not meeting up with our drug supplier (illicit drugs are about the only things measured in kiloshere).
Anyway, given the stuff in the Glucose Revolution (I believe written by Australian researchers), the glycemic effect of foods is reduced by fat and acid. So, actually, adding butter to your bread would cause the bread to make less of a blood sugar spike, so it would be healthier from that perspective. Other than that, the question might be how much fat you get besides the butter on the bread. If it's very little, then the butter on the bread might be essential to your health. If you drowned everything in butter, then the butter on the bread might be excessive- it's all perspective and individual situations.
Of course, bread, in general, isn't one of your healthier foods- put the butter on brown rice , spinach, or a baked otato instead of the bread. I know bread is neater for a little one to eat, but consider feeding the kid brown rice and oatmeal more than you do bread-it would probably be better for him in the long run. You can also make a hot brown rice cereal- just buzz the brown rice in a blender or seed grinder to crack it and make some into powder, then cook it right away. You can powder sesame seeds and cook it with the cracked brown rice for a nice flavor variation. Then put butter in the hot cereal. Since oats have gluten, brown rice cereal may be superior for some people.
People often blame fast food like McDonalds for obesity and then blame meat for obesity, but, when you look at a McDonald's meal, the hamburgers have a 1.6 oz pre-cooked weight burger (two on the Big Mac). The rest of the meal is carbs- bread, french fries, milkshake, soda (42 ounze) , cookies, ice cream cones- so, sure, in that context, fat with carbs is gonna contribute to weight. Americans are often big meat eaters, but I think it's all the thigs eaten WITH the meat that are packing on pounds. A few decades ago, growing up in a meat and potatoes household, where were at meat 21 meals a week plus eggs at 7 meals WITH meat, people didn't tend to the kind of obesity we are seeing in the US now-doesn't you country have an obesity and diabetes problem?
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by M.Bliss [4.1623] on June 25, 2006 at 03:30:46:
haven't heard of apetrol (gas) fumes problem here- what effect are they supposed to get? Gas stations here have posted that the fumes are carcinogenic. We have some problem with teens sniffing freon (refrigerant), glue, and the propellants in aerosol cans (you have to be over 18 to purchase these things), but, of course, many people have them around the house (not freon, but the others). Kids break into places with comercial refrigeration to use or steal freon. I've even heard of people sniffing magic markers-their scent bothers me some when I'm working on making posters, but I don't notice any GOOD effect- I don't much like fragrances in general. For white boards, one is able to buy low odor dry erase markers which are wonderful.
In Reply to: sorry, HARRIS Coulter-Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality Archive posted by Walt Stoll [93.1889] on June 24, 2006 at 07:21:59:
Coulter's sometime co-author, Barbara Fisher runs a good vaccine info site at www.909shot.com
on that site, I just learned that RFK JR has written on the vaccine/mercury issue. His article was published in Rolling Stone in June 2005
From the article, sounds like Bill Frist is in the vaccine makers' camp, but Rep Dan Burton, another republican has a grandson with autism and is involved in the vaccine issue. Wonder if RFK Jr has educated his uncle Ted on this issue? Haven't heard the old guy address the isuue.
Deadly Immunity
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. investigates the government cover-up of a mercury/autism scandal In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Georgia. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session -- only private invitations to fifty-two attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly "embargoed." There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.
The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.
Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening. "You can play with this all you want," Dr. Bill Weil, a consultant for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the group. The results "are statistically significant." Dr. Richard Johnston, an immunologist and pediatrician from the University of Colorado whose grandson had been born early on the morning of the meeting's first day, was even more alarmed. "My gut feeling?" he said. "Forgive this personal comment -- I do not want my grandson to get a thimerosal-containing vaccine until we know better what is going on."
But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line. "We are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits," said Dr. Robert Brent, a pediatrician at the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware. "This will be a resource to our very busy plaintiff attorneys in this country." Dr. Bob Chen, head of vaccine safety for the CDC, expressed relief that "given the sensitivity of the information, we have been able to keep it out of the hands of, let's say, less responsible hands." Dr. John Clements, vaccines advisor at the World Health Organization, declared that "perhaps this study should not have been done at all." He added that "the research results have to be handled," warning that the study "will be taken by others and will be used in other ways beyond the control of this group."
In fact, the government has proved to be far more adept at handling the damage than at protecting children's health. The CDC paid the Institute of Medicine to conduct a new study to whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to "rule out" the chemical's link to autism. It withheld Verstraeten's findings, even though they had been slated for immediate publication, and told other scientists that his original data had been "lost" and could not be replicated. And to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, it handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers. By the time Verstraeten finally published his study in 2003, he had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data to bury the link between thimerosal and autism.
Vaccine manufacturers had already begun to phase thimerosal out of injections given to American infants -- but they continued to sell off their mercury-based supplies of vaccines until last year. The CDC and FDA gave them a hand, buying up the tainted vaccines for export to developing countries and allowing drug companies to continue using the preservative in some American vaccines -- including several pediatric flu shots as well as tetanus boosters routinely given to eleven-year-olds.
The drug companies are also getting help from powerful lawmakers in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government's vaccine-related documents -- including the Simpsonwood transcripts -- and shield Eli Lilly, the developer of thimerosal, from subpoenas. In 2002, the day after Frist quietly slipped a rider known as the "Eli Lilly Protection Act" into a homeland security bill, the company contributed $10,000 to his campaign and bought 5,000 copies of his book on bioterrorism. The measure was repealed by Congress in 2003 -- but earlier this year, Frist slipped another provision into an anti-terrorism bill that would deny compensation to children suffering from vaccine-related brain disorders. "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists," says Dean Rosen, health policy adviser to Frist.
Even many conservatives are shocked by the government's effort to cover up the dangers of thimerosal. Rep. Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana, oversaw a three-year investigation of thimerosal after his grandson was diagnosed with autism. "Thimerosal used as a preservative in vaccines is directly related to the autism epidemic," his House Government Reform Committee concluded in its final report. "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, a known neurotoxin." The FDA and other public-health agencies failed to act, the committee added, out of "institutional malfeasance for self protection" and "misplaced protectionism of the pharmaceutical industry."
The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.
I doubted that autism could be blamed on a single source, and I certainly understood the government's need to reassure parents that vaccinations are safe; the eradication of deadly childhood diseases depends on it. I tended to agree with skeptics like Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, who criticized his colleagues on the House Government Reform Committee for leaping to conclusions about autism and vaccinations. "Why should we scare people about immunization," Waxman pointed out at one hearing, "until we know the facts?"
It was only after reading the Simpsonwood transcripts, studying the leading scientific research and talking with many of the nation's pre-eminent authorities on mercury that I became convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real. Five of my own children are members of the Thimerosal Generation -- those born between 1989 and 2003 -- who received heavy doses of mercury from vaccines. "The elementary grades are overwhelmed with children who have symptoms of neurological or immune-system damage," Patti White, a school nurse, told the House Government Reform Committee in 1999. "Vaccines are supposed to be making us healthier; however, in twenty-five years of nursing I have never seen so many damaged, sick kids. Something very, very wrong is happening to our children."
More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. The disease was unknown until 1943, when it was identified and diagnosed among eleven children born in the months after thimerosal was first added to baby vaccines in 1931.
Some skeptics dispute that the rise in autism is caused by thimerosal-tainted vaccinations. They argue that the increase is a result of better diagnosis -- a theory that seems questionable at best, given that most of the new cases of autism are clustered within a single generation of children. "If the epidemic is truly an artifact of poor diagnosis," scoffs Dr. Boyd Haley, one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity, "then where are all the twenty-year-old autistics?" Other researchers point out that Americans are exposed to a greater cumulative "load" of mercury than ever before, from contaminated fish to dental fillings, and suggest that thimerosal in vaccines may be only part of a much larger problem. It's a concern that certainly deserves far more attention than it has received -- but it overlooks the fact that the mercury concentrations in vaccines dwarf other sources of exposure to our children.
What is most striking is the lengths to which many of the leading detectives have gone to ignore -- and cover up -- the evidence against thimerosal. From the very beginning, the scientific case against the mercury additive has been overwhelming. The preservative, which is used to stem fungi and bacterial growth in vaccines, contains ethylmercury, a potent neurotoxin. Truckloads of studies have shown that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with vaccines -- and that the developing brains of infants are particularly susceptible. In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American children still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines twenty years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.
"You couldn't even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe," says Haley, who heads the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky. "It's just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage."
Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed thimerosal, knew from the start that its product could cause damage -- and even death -- in both animals and humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it to twenty-two patients with terminal meningitis, all of whom died within weeks of being injected -- a fact Lilly didn't bother to report in its study declaring thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims about thimerosal's safety "did not check with ours." Half the dogs Pittman injected with thimerosal-based vaccines became sick, leading researchers there to declare the preservative "unsatisfactory as a serum intended for use on dogs."
In the decades that followed, the evidence against thimerosal continued to mount. During the Second World War, when the Department of Defense used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to label it "poison." In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned that thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine. Even so, the company continued to promote thimerosal as "nontoxic" and also incorporated it into topical disinfectants. In 1977, ten babies at a Toronto hospital died when an antiseptic preserved with thimerosal was dabbed onto their umbilical cords.
In 1982, the FDA proposed a ban on over-the-counter products that contained thimerosal, and in 1991 the agency considered banning it from animal vaccines. But tragically, that same year, the CDC recommended that infants be injected with a series of mercury-laced vaccines. Newborns would be vaccinated for hepatitis B within twenty-four hours of birth, and two-month-old infants would be immunized for haemophilus influenzae B and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis.
The drug industry knew the additional vaccines posed a danger. The same year that the CDC approved the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's vaccine programs, warned the company that six-month-olds who were administered the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to mercury. He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued, "especially when used on infants and children," noting that the industry knew of nontoxic alternatives. "The best way to go," he added, "is to switch to dispensing the actual vaccines without adding preservatives."
For Merck and other drug companies, however, the obstacle was money. Thimerosal enables the pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines in vials that contain multiple doses, which require additional protection because they are more easily contaminated by multiple needle entries. The larger vials cost half as much to produce as smaller, single-dose vials, making it cheaper for international agencies to distribute them to impoverished regions at risk of epidemics. Faced with this "cost consideration," Merck ignored Hilleman's warnings, and government officials continued to push more and more thimerosal-based vaccines for children. Before 1989, American preschoolers received eleven vaccinations -- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.
As the number of vaccines increased, the rate of autism among children exploded. During the 1990s, 40 million children were injected with thimerosal-based vaccines, receiving unprecedented levels of mercury during a period critical for brain development. Despite the well-documented dangers of thimerosal, it appears that no one bothered to add up the cumulative dose of mercury that children would receive from the mandated vaccines. "What took the FDA so long to do the calculations?" Peter Patriarca, director of viral products for the agency, asked in an e-mail to the CDC in 1999. "Why didn't CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations when they rapidly expanded the childhood immunization schedule?"
But by that time, the damage was done. At two months, when the infant brain is still at a critical stage of development, infants routinely received three inoculations that contained a total of 62.5 micrograms of ethylmercury -- a level 99 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.
Officials responsible for childhood immunizations insist that the additional vaccines were necessary to protect infants from disease and that thimerosal is still essential in developing nations, which, they often claim, cannot afford the single-dose vials that don't require a preservative. Dr. Paul Offit, one of CDC's top vaccine advisers, told me, "I think if we really have an influenza pandemic -- and certainly we will in the next twenty years, because we always do -- there's no way on God's earth that we immunize 280 million people with single-dose vials. There has to be multidose vials."
But while public-health officials may have been well-intentioned, many of those on the CDC advisory committee who backed the additional vaccines had close ties to the industry. Dr. Sam Katz, the committee's chair, was a paid consultant for most of the major vaccine makers and was part of a team that developed the measles vaccine and brought it to licensure in 1963. Dr. Neal Halsey, another committee member, worked as a researcher for the vaccine companies and received honoraria from Abbott Labs for his research on the hepatitis B vaccine.
Indeed, in the tight circle of scientists who work on vaccines, such conflicts of interest are common. Rep. Burton says that the CDC "routinely allows scientists with blatant conflicts of interest to serve on intellectual advisory committees that make recommendations on new vaccines," even though they have "interests in the products and companies for which they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight." The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who approved guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine "had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."
Offit, who shares a patent on one of the vaccines, acknowledged to me that he "would make money" if his vote eventually leads to a marketable product. But he dismissed my suggestion that a scientist's direct financial stake in CDC approval might bias his judgment. "It provides no conflict for me," he insists. "I have simply been informed by the process, not corrupted by it. When I sat around that table, my sole intent was trying to make recommendations that best benefited the children in this country. It's offensive to say that physicians and public-health people are in the pocket of industry and thus are making decisions that they know are unsafe for children. It's just not the way it works."
Other vaccine scientists and regulators gave me similar assurances. Like Offit, they view themselves as enlightened guardians of children's health, proud of their "partnerships" with pharmaceutical companies, immune to the seductions of personal profit, besieged by irrational activists whose anti-vaccine campaigns are endangering children's health. They are often resentful of questioning. "Science," says Offit, "is best left to scientists."
Still, some government officials were alarmed by the apparent conflicts of interest. In his e-mail to CDC administrators in 1999, Paul Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal regulators for failing to adequately scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby vaccines. "I'm not sure there will be an easy way out of the potential perception that the FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies may have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal until now," Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory officials and the pharmaceutical industry, he added, "will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use" of thimerosal in child vaccines.
If federal regulators and government scientists failed to grasp the potential risks of thimerosal over the years, no one could claim ignorance after the secret meeting at Simpsonwood. But rather than conduct more studies to test the link to autism and other forms of brain damage, the CDC placed politics over science. The agency turned its database on childhood vaccines -- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense -- over to a private agency, America's Health Insurance Plans, ensuring that it could not be used for additional research. It also instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC "wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001. "We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect" of thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.
For those who had devoted their lives to promoting vaccination, the revelations about thimerosal threatened to undermine everything they had worked for. "We've got a dragon by the tail here," said Dr. Michael Kaback, another committee member. "The more negative that [our] presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization -- and we know what the results of that will be. We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work our way out of the trap, I think is the charge."
Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary goal in studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines. "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001. "In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety." Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks.
In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final report. Its conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal in vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature describing the toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on four disastrously flawed epidemiological studies examining European countries, where children received much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids. It also cited a new version of the Verstraeten study, published in the journal Pediatrics, that had been reworked to reduce the link between thimerosal and autism. The new study included children too young to have been diagnosed with autism and overlooked others who showed signs of the disease. The IOM declared the case closed and -- in a startling position for a scientific body -- recommended that no further research be conducted.
The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep. David Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida who serves on the House Government Reform Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine, saying it relied on a handful of studies that were "fatally flawed" by "poor design" and failed to represent "all the available scientific and medical research." CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth, Weldon told me, because "an association between vaccines and autism would force them to admit that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of children. Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves?"
Under pressure from Congress and parents, the Institute of Medicine convened another panel to address continuing concerns about the Vaccine Safety Datalink Data Sharing program. In February, the new panel, composed of different scientists, criticized the way the VSD had been used in the Verstraeten study, and urged the CDC to make its vaccine database available to the public.
So far, though, only two scientists have managed to gain access. Dr. Mark Geier, president of the Genetics Center of America, and his son, David, spent a year battling to obtain the medical records from the CDC. Since August 2002, when members of Congress pressured the agency to turn over the data, the Geiers have completed six studies that demonstrate a powerful correlation between thimerosal and neurological damage in children. One study, which compares the cumulative dose of mercury received by children born between 1981 and 1985 with those born between 1990 and 1996, found a "very significant relationship" between autism and vaccines. Another study of educational performance found that kids who received higher doses of thimerosal in vaccines were nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with autism and more than three times as likely to suffer from speech disorders and mental retardation. Another soon-to-be published study shows that autism rates are in decline following the recent elimination of thimerosal from most vaccines.
As the federal government worked to prevent scientists from studying vaccines, others have stepped in to study the link to autism. In April, reporter Dan Olmsted of UPI undertook one of the more interesting studies himself. Searching for children who had not been exposed to mercury in vaccines -- the kind of population that scientists typically use as a "control" in experiments -- Olmsted scoured the Amish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who refuse to immunize their infants. Given the national rate of autism, Olmsted calculated that there should be 130 autistics among the Amish. He found only four. One had been exposed to high levels of mercury from a power plant. The other three -- including one child adopted from outside the Amish community -- had received their vaccines.
At the state level, many officials have also conducted in-depth reviews of thimerosal. While the Institute of Medicine was busy whitewashing the risks, the Iowa legislature was carefully combing through all of the available scientific and biological data. "After three years of review, I became convinced there was sufficient credible research to show a link between mercury and the increased incidences in autism," says state Sen. Ken Veenstra, a Republican who oversaw the investigation. "The fact that Iowa's 700 percent increase in autism began in the 1990s, right after more and more vaccines were added to the children's vaccine schedules, is solid evidence alone." Last year, Iowa became the first state to ban mercury in vaccines, followed by California. Similar bans are now under consideration in thirty-two other states.
But instead of following suit, the FDA continues to allow manufacturers to include thimerosal in scores of over-the-counter medications as well as steroids and injected collagen. Even more alarming, the government continues to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates. In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate that there are now more than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using thimerosal-laced vaccines. The World Health Organization continues to insist thimerosal is safe, but it promises to keep the possibility that it is linked to neurological disorders "under review."
I devoted time to study this issue because I believe that this is a moral crisis that must be addressed. If, as the evidence suggests, our public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children, their actions arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of American medicine. "The CDC is guilty of incompetence and gross negligence," says Mark Blaxill, vice president of Safe Minds, a nonprofit organization concerned about the role of mercury in medicines. "The damage caused by vaccine exposure is massive. It's bigger than asbestos, bigger than tobacco, bigger than anything you've ever seen."
It's hard to calculate the damage to our country -- and to the international efforts to eradicate epidemic diseases -- if Third World nations come to believe that America's most heralded foreign-aid initiative is poisoning their children. It's not difficult to predict how this scenario will be interpreted by America's enemies abroad. The scientists and researchers -- many of them sincere, even idealistic -- who are participating in efforts to hide the science on thimerosal claim that they are trying to advance the lofty goal of protecting children in developing nations from disease pandemics. They are badly misguided. Their failure to come clean on thimerosal will come back horribly to haunt our country and the world's poorest populations.
NOTE: This story has been updated to correct several inaccuracies in the original, published version. As originally reported, American preschoolers received only three vaccinations before 1989, but the article failed to note that they were innoculated a total of eleven times with those vaccines, including boosters. The article also misstated the level of ethylmercury received by infants injected with all their shots by the age of six months. It was 187 micrograms - an amount forty percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury. Finally, because of an editing error, the article misstated the contents of the rotavirus vaccine approved by the CDC. It did not contain thimerosal. Salon and Rolling Stone regret the errors.
An earlier version of this story stated that the Institute of Medicine convened a second panel to review the work of the Immunization Safety Review Committee that had found no evidence of a link between thimerosal and autism. In fact, the IOM convened the second panel to address continuing concerns about the Vaccine Safety Datalink Data Sharing program, including those raised by critics of the IOM's earlier work. But the panel was not charged with reviewing the committee's findings. The story also inadvertently omitted a word and transposed two sentences in a quote by Dr. John Clements, and incorrectly stated that Dr. Sam Katz held a patent with Merck on the measles vaccine. In fact, Dr. Katz was part of a team that developed the vaccine and brought it to licensure, but he never held the patent. Salon and Rolling Stone regret the errors.
CLARIFICATION: After publication of this story, Salon and Rolling Stone corrected an error that misstated the level of ethylmercury received by infants injected with all their shots by the age of six months. It was 187 micrograms ? an amount forty percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury. At the time of the correction, we were aware that the comparison itself was flawed, but as journalists we considered it more appropriate to state the correct figure rather than replace it with another number entirely.
Since that earlier correction, however, it has become clear from responses to the article that the forty-percent number, while accurate, is misleading. It measures the total mercury load an infant received from vaccines during the first six months, calculates the daily average received based on average body weight, and then compares that number to the EPA daily limit. But infants did not receive the vaccines as a ?daily average? ? they received massive doses on a single day, through multiple shots. As the story states, these single-day doses exceeded the EPA limit by as much as 99 times. Based on the misunderstanding, and to avoid further confusion, we have amended the story to eliminate the forty-percent figure.
Correction: The story misattributed a quote to Andy Olson, former legislative counsel to Senator Bill Frist. The comment was made by Dean Rosen, health policy adviser to the senator. Rolling Stone and Salon.com regret the error.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.
posted Jun 20, 2005 12:00 AM
In Reply to: Re: WAR ON MASCULINITY posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 25, 2006 at 07:36:53:
Hi ANN,
supposed to have the same (or similar effects) of the other inhalents you mention. I've heard it's similar to being drunk (don't know how it could be though...) like you I've had no "good" effects from fumes only ill feelings. though I like the way gasoline smells (in the short run) I think I'd get sick if I really inhaled it.
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