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NVIC Vaccine E-Newsletter
January 30, 2008
U.S. Doctors Club ABC-TV Show on
Autism & Vaccines by Barbara Loe Fisher
I sighed with recognition when I learned
that the leadership of the American
Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) had written
a letter and issued a press release on
Jan. 25 calling on ABC-TV to cancel
tomorrow's premiere episode of a
fictional drama about a family whose
child regresses into autism after
vaccination. On the same day, the
American Medical Association (AMA)
called on ABC to "mitigate the harm this
episode may do" such as re-writing the
script.
The CDC-funded Immunization Action
Coalition (IAC) also piled on ABC-TV,
urging doctors to put pressure on the
network to cancel the broadcast while
seven former directors of the CDC
maintained in a Jan. 29 March of Dimes
press release that "The implication that
vaccinations cause autism is
irresponsible and counter productive."
This latest coordinated attempt by
physician leaders of America's medical
establishment to muzzle the media's
exploration of vaccine risk issues that
have been making headlines for nearly
three decades is reminiscent of the
coordinated denials of vaccine risks by
these same physician leaders in April
1982 when NBC-TV broadcast the
documentary "DPT: Vaccine Roulette." It
was a landmark documentary which earned
television journalist Lea Thompson an
Emmy and initiated a public dialogue
that would change the course of medical
history.
In 1982, when the NBC-TV documentary
exposed the dangers of DPT vaccine,
physician leaders in the AAP, AMA, CDC
and other medical organizations joined
together to discredit Thompson and
everyone associated with the broadcast.
An article in the July 1982 Journal of
the American Medical Association (JAMA)
labeled the NBC-TV documentary "biased,
histrionic and inaccurate" and even
"amoral and psychopathic."
William Foege, M.D., then director of
the CDC and one of the seven former CDC
directors who endorsed the March of
Dimes press release now criticizing
ABC-TV for airing a fictional episode
about vaccines and autism, in 1982
declared that the NBC- TV report about
DPT vaccine risks was "an unbalanced
view - bias, in my view, and
inaccuracies to carry its destructive
message.....not an example of
responsible journalism."
In 1983, a year after the documentary
aired, reporter Thompson explained "The
AAP put out the word the day we did our
story that the story was inaccurate and
not to worry. When a reporter calls a
local doctor or hospital or medical
center, he speaks to doctors who have
been told by the AAP and AMA not to
worry. To my knowledge, pediatricians in
this country have heard absolutely
nothing from the AAP on DPT since then."
(quoted in DPT: A Shot in the Dark)
Three years later, the U.S. Congress
would acknowledge the reality of DPT and
other vaccine brain injury and death by
passing the National Childhood Vaccine
Injury Act of 1986. This societal
acknowledgement was followed by the
publishing, in 1991 and 1994, of four
reports by the Institute of Medicine
that DPT vaccine can cause brain
inflammation and permanent brain damage
and that other childhood vaccines can
cause varying degrees of brain and
immune system dysfunction, as well as
death. In 1996, after parents of vaccine
injured children had lobbied industry
and government for 14 years, the FDA
licensed a purified DTaP vaccine for
babies.
To the credit of the owners and
management of ABC-TV, the network has so
far refused to cancel the premiere
episode of Eli Stone that features a
family struggling with issues familiar
to parents whose children regress into
autism after vaccination. Since 1982,
Americans have depended on members of
the Fourth Estate to illuminate for the
public the scientific, medical,
economic, political, social and ethical
issues involved in the vaccine safety
and informed consent debate. Hopefully,
ABC-TV and all print and broadcast media
outlets will hold the line against this
latest threat to freedom of thought and
expression by a medical community
determined to silence people crying out
for recognition and help for their
vaccine injured children.
Parents deserve more from the
pediatricians and doctors, who they
entrust with their children's lives,
than denials, hostility and disrespect.
They deserve to have their questions
about vaccination answered honestly;
their concerns about vaccine risks taken
seriously; and their children treated
with the same compassion that doctors
would treat their own children. They
expect that, when their children regress
after vaccination into poor health,
pediatricians will leave no stone
unturned, including exploring the
possibility that vaccine(s) played a
role in their child's development of
autism, learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD,
epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, arthritis,
intestinal bowel disorders and many
other kinds of brain and immune system
dysfunction.
Mothers and fathers expect that -
whether or not mercury preservatives in
vaccines have or have not been "proven"
to be the cause of the autism epidemic -
that pediatricians and all doctors would
instinctively adhere to the "First do no
harm" precautionary principle and
support the immediate removal of a known
neurotoxin from vaccines they inject
into babies. Parents do not expect
doctors to collectively stick their
heads in the sand and turn away from
their responsibility to find out why the
biggest epidemic of chronic disease and
disability among children in the history
of our nation is associated with the
more than doubling of the numbers of
vaccines doctors give to them in the
first few years of life.
In 1983, when pediatrician leaders of
the AAP Redbook Committee met with
co-founders of the National Vaccine
Information Center to discuss DPT
vaccine brain injuries, I begged them to
take seriously the reports by parents
that their children were regressing
physically, mentally and emotionally
after vaccination so that steps could be
taken to minimize the risks. I warned
them that "a system that will not bend
will break."
In 2008, after 26 years of waiting for
pediatricians to open their eyes and
realize that leaders in the AAP, AMA,
and CDC have betrayed their trust by
denying the truth about vaccine risks,
parents are taking matters into their
own hands. If the mass vaccination
system breaks, the blame can be put
squarely at the feet of doctors who have
waited too long to stand up and say "The
lie stops here and now with me."
ABC-TV CONTACT
INFORMATION:
Nicole Nichols
Senior Vice President of Entertainment
Communications for "Eli Stone"
Email:
Nicole.Nichols@abc.com
Phone: (818) 460-5267
Charissa Gilmore
Vice President of Media Relations for
"Eli Stone"
Email:
Charissa.Gilmore@abc.com
Phone: (818) 460-7950
"ABC said on Monday it would include a
disclaimer about the plot line of the
debut episode of the drama "Eli Stone,"
which links childhood vaccines to
autism, and direct viewers to a
government Web site that discredits such
a link. The decision follows a call by
the American Academy of Pediatrics for
ABC to cancel the opening episode of
"Eli Stone," which is scheduled to be
broadcast at 10 p.m. Thursday." - Edward
Wyatt, New York Times (January 29, 2008)
ABC Show Will Go on,
Over Protest by Doctors
New York Times
January 29, 2008
by Edward Wyatt
Source:
Click Here for
URL:
ABC said on Monday it would include a
disclaimer about the plot line of the
debut episode of the drama "Eli Stone,"
which links childhood vaccines to
autism, and direct viewers to a
government Web site that discredits such
a link.
ABC's decision follows a call by the
American Academy of Pediatrics for ABC
to cancel the opening episode of "Eli
Stone," which is scheduled to be
broadcast at 10 p.m. Thursday.
In a letter to ABC executives on Friday,
Dr. Renee R. Jenkins, the president of
the pediatrics academy, warned that the
episode "could lead to a tragic decline
in immunization rates." The first
episode portrays a lawyer who wins a
case against a drug company on behalf of
a mother who believes that a
preservative in a vaccine caused her
child's autism.
The link between a vaccine preservative
called thimerosal and autism has been
debated for much of the last decade, but
many scientific studies have failed to
show any causal link between the two.
The letter from the pediatrics group
followed an article in The New York
Times last week highlighting the
episode. Greg Berlanti, a co-creator and
executive producer of the series, said
that executives at neither ABC nor its
ABC Studios production unit had any
qualms about the episode, which he said
he believed showed both sides of the
argument.
Most public health organizations believe
there is only one side, however. The
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the Food and Drug
Administration, the Institute of
Medicine and the World Health
Organization are among the organizations
that have studied and rejected possible
links between autism and the
preservative in vaccines.
"Many people trust
the health information presented on
fictional television shows, which
influences their decisions about health
care," Dr. Jenkins wrote. Her letter
said that beginning in 1998 in Britain,
"erroneous reports linking the measles
vaccine to autism prompted a decline in
vaccination and the worst outbreak of
measles in two decades, including the
deaths of several children."
ABC will present a written notice and
voice-over saying: "The following story
is fictional and does not portray any
actual persons, companies, products or
events." A second card will direct
viewers to the Center for Disease
Control's autism Web site,
http://www.cdc.gov/autism .
National Vaccine Information Center
NVIC E-News is a free service of the
National Vaccine Information Center and
is supported through donations.
NVIC is funded through the financial
support of its members and does not
receive any government subsidies.
Barbara Loe Fisher, President and Co-
founder.
Learn more about vaccines, diseases and
how to protect your informed consent
rights
http://www.nvic.org
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