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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8243264/

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Six out of every 1,000 kids has autism, and nobody knows exactly why. But guest Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said in an interview on the 'Scarborough Country' program on Tuesday that part of the blame needs to fall on the government. It has to do with a drug called Thimerosal.

Kennedy Jr., a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, and author of "Deadly Immunity," an article about the investigation into a possible connection between Thimerosal and Autism in the current issue of "Rolling Stone," talked with Joe about his findings.

To read an excerpt of their interview, continue to the text below. To watch the interview, click on the video link above.


SCARBOROUGH: Let's talk about Thimerosal. ... There are a lot of people, a lot of Americans very concerned about the impact of this drug, which is found in vaccines, and how it causes autism. Talk about that.

KENNEDY: That's right. Thimerosal is a preservative that was put in vaccines back in the 1930s. Almost immediately after it was put in, autism cases began to appear. Autism had never been known before. It was unknown to science. Then the vaccines were increased in 1989 by the CDC and by a couple of other government agencies.

SCARBOROUGH: OK, let me stop you there. That's an important date. And I will tell you why.

My son, born in 1991, has a slight form of autism called Asperger`s. And it seems -- but, again, when I was practicing law and also when I was in Congress, parents would constantly come to me and they would bring me videotapes of their children, and they were all around the age of my son or younger. So, something happened in 1989.

KENNEDY: Exactly. What happened was the vaccine schedule was increased. We went up from receiving about 10 vaccines in our generation to these kids receive 24 vaccines. And they all had this Thimerosal in them, this mercury. And nobody bothered to do an analysis of what the cumulative impact of all that mercury was doing to kids.

As it turns out, we are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe. A child on his first day that he is born is injected with a Hepatitis B shot. Under EPA guidelines, he would have to be 275 pounds to safely absorb that shot.

SCARBOROUGH: And yet, we are just constantly pumping our kids with these vaccines. Where is the federal government in all of this?

KENNEDY: What happened was that, in 1988, one in every 2,500 American children had autism. Today, one in every 166 children has autism. And, plus, one in six have other kinds of learning disorders, other kinds of neurological disorders, speech delay, language disorders, ADD, hyperactivity, that all seem to be connected, that are all connected, the science shows are all connected to autism -- to Thimerosal.

SCARBOROUGH: You know, Bobby, what we've always found, you and could debate 1,000 different issues, whether it's Terri Schiavo or the environment. I think we would agree on the environment. But, in this case, you have got the federal government coming in saying, well, there's no really -- there's no good science. And, of course, in politics, science always gets diluted. Why hasn't the federal government stepped up and worked more, because listen, Bobby, I can't prove it tonight. You can't prove it, but, intuitively, you look at the spike. You look at what happened with Thimerosal. There's no doubt in my mind -- maybe it's two years from now. Maybe it's five years from now. Maybe it's 10 years from now. We are going to find out Thimerosal causes, in my opinion, autism.

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Last edited by T on 06-22-2005 at 06:01 PM

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Originally posted by T


I wonder if there is a way to reverse the effects? A shot or something?

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Of course we could avoid vaccination and go back to dying of smallpox.

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Originally posted by ignatz mouse
I'm guessing you're not serious, but no.

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I was as serious as a heart attack.

Sammy has been medically evaluated and has Dyspraxia, Developmental Coordination Disorder*motor skills of a 3 yo* and Apraxia *severe speech problem*.
It's like an off branch to autism,

aspergers syndrome + social skills =dyspraxia.

I didn't know if there was a way to help him still, but rereading the article I see the damage is done.

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Originally posted by Azrael
Of course we could avoid vaccination and go back to dying of smallpox.

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dyspraxia looks like primarily a motor skills disorder. if sammy doesn't have the social features that are the hallmark of autism, thank your lucky stars. what makes you think dyspraxia is related to autism? motor skills issues are not a feature of asperger's, so why would you write that asperger's + social skills = dyspraxia?

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fda says it has mostly been removed from vaccines intended for those under 6. i looked it up to see what it was supposed to do, but this is better i guess.
plus, it's a preservative. haha! haha in a terrible way, i mean. you'd think there were better ways to prevent contamination than a hefty dose of mercury, but you know, hindsight is 20/20.

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My understanding is that most vaccinations given right now do not contain thimerosal, but I could certainly be wrong. It only needs to be used in multi-dose vaccine bottles, and I think there are fewer of those being used today.

I am also very skeptical about Kennedy's claim that autism was unknown to science before 1930. Psychology and neuroscience were very primitive back then, and I find it much easier to believe that it existed, but was not diagnosed as such. Again, though, I fully acknowledge my ignorance of this literature.

Incidentally, T, there is conflicting lietrature on whether children with autism treated for mercury poisoning show improvement.

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also i think the discovery of aspergers is a huge part of the leap in diagnoses. 50 years ago people with aspergers were just "weird".
which is not to downplay the science, just that the 1 in 166 thing isn't to say that there are 1.8 million american rain men.

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211 characters in that last post. Definitely, 211.

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quote:

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Originally posted by T
I wonder if there is a way to reverse the effects? A shot or something?

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Originally posted by ignatz mouse
dyspraxia looks like primarily a motor skills disorder. if sammy doesn't have the social features that are the hallmark of autism, thank your lucky stars. what makes you think dyspraxia is related to autism? motor skills issues are not a feature of asperger's, so why would you write that asperger's + social skills = dyspraxia?

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Originally posted by T
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8243264/





fuck.


I wonder if there is a way to reverse the effects? A shot or something?

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Originally posted by Talarohk


Incidentally, T, there is conflicting lietrature on whether children with autism treated for mercury poisoning show improvement.

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There's also conflicting evidence on whether the link between vaccination and autism is a solid one.

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Yes, quite a bit of controversy. My impression is that no relationship has been unequivocally demonstrated.

I don't have many links, T, as I was quoting from Wikipedia. This article is from the side that treatment (chelation therapy, designed to remove heavy metals like mercury from the body) is not actually effective.

I hope that Sammy gets whatever treatment will help. I don't know much about dyspraxia and apraxia, what little I do know suggests that treatment outcome probably depends on the underlying disorder. Keep us informed as to how it's going.

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My son has aspergers syndrome.
I personally think the connection to Immunizations is a load of crap.
I also think that a large portion of what passes for off-branches of autism(aspergers included) are mostly just personality traits that psychologists have deemed "undesirable". Sure, there are some real problems associated with those syndromes that need to be dealt with... but a lot of what they want to "fix" is personality related.
I think if people were more patient with their kids and allowed them(and their personality) to develop naturally, with necessary things like speech therapy used as the only intervention, that things would resolve themselves to a perfectly acceptable degree.
True, pure autism is something completely different.. and definitely needs more than a bit of speech therapy and guidance. For the most part, though, the off-branches are just kids that are a little different than what people are used to.
They used to call them the "weird" kids in school .. now we slap labels like "ADHD" and "Asperger's Syndrome" and fuck all else on every kid that deviates slightly from the norm.
THAT is the only difference I see between then and now.. More labels instead of allowing for personality quirks.
I know for a fact that if I were my son's age, I would get the same label he has... Asperger's Syndrome. I turned out fine, and I have every indication that he will, too. I am grateful that the label he has allows him more individualized attention at school(He was in 1st grade, techinically... going to all 2nd grade academic classes... met with a speech therapist once a week, and also met with a group of "Talented and Gifted" kids once a week); but I think the idea of "fixing" these children or relating it to immunizations is pure crap.

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Originally posted by Talarohk
Yes, quite a bit of controversy. My impression is that no relationship has been unequivocally demonstrated.

I don't have many links, T, as I was quoting from Wikipedia. This article is from the side that treatment (chelation therapy, designed to remove heavy metals like mercury from the body) is not actually effective.

I hope that Sammy gets whatever treatment will help. I don't know much about dyspraxia and apraxia, what little I do know suggests that treatment outcome probably depends on the underlying disorder. Keep us informed as to how it's going.

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I agree with a lot of what you said, karen. My wife jokes with me about some of my behaviors, which are somewhat Asperger's-like. I certainly don't have clinical Asperger's, but I am certainly one of the weird kids and do show some of the behaviors associated with the syndrome. I feel as though I turned out OK.

This is not to say, T, that Sammy shouldn't receive therapy to help with what problems he has, not at all. If he has delays in speech and motor coordination, then those can be addressed. I am, however, disturbed at the increasing use of psychoactive medications in children for things that, as karen points out, might just be called minor devations from the "norm".

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Originally posted by karen
. . .

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Originally posted by Talarohk
I agree with a lot of what you said, karen. My wife jokes with me about some of my behaviors, which are somewhat Asperger's-like. I certainly don't have clinical Asperger's, but I am certainly one of the weird kids and do show some of the behaviors associated with the syndrome. I feel as though I turned out OK.

This is not to say, T, that Sammy shouldn't receive therapy to help with what problems he has, not at all. If he has delays in speech and motor coordination, then those can be addressed. I am, however, disturbed at the increasing use of psychoactive medications in children for things that, as karen points out, might just be called minor devations from the "norm".

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Last edited by karen on 06-22-2005 at 07:48 PM

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catch-22 karen. genetics and environment are interrelated -- could just as easily be genetically predisposed but environmentally nurtured (or, not genetic at all).

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I acknowledge and agree with that, as well. Either way, in my mind, it doesn't point to immunizations.

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