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"It's
all a coincidence?"
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The
average American child receives three dozen doses of vaccines
by age five. |
In
1980, Barbara Loe Fisher's son went into shock and suffered
brain damage within four hours after receiving a vaccine.
In 1982, Fisher co-founded the National Vaccine Information
Center (NVIC). Ever since then, she's agitated for more research
into vaccine safety and the right to informed consent to vaccination.
Though
her son did not subsequently develop autism, Fisher cannot
ignore the chronological coincidences in children who do.
"What
is so compelling is that the pattern is the same, the stories
are all the same," she says. "And, the main defense is 'It's
all a coincidence?' It's illogical, it's unscientific and
it's irresponsible."
Not
only does the condition first seem to manifest soon after
vaccination; the history of the disorder also seems correlated
to the rise of vaccination as a public health tool.
"What is so compelling is that the pattern is the same,
the stories are all the same," she says. "And, the main
defense is 'It's all a coincidence?' It's illogical, it's
unscientific and it's irresponsible."
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Vaccination
programs virtually eliminated small pox, diphtheria and pertussis
as childhood killers in the 1940s- the same decade the first
cases of autism were identified. By the 1970s, children were
also routinely inoculated against measles, mumps, rubella
and polio. By 1999--the year after state public health studies
had documented huge increases in the incidence of autism--the
average American child received almost three dozen doses of
vaccines by age five.
"In
the public health infrastructure, the primary method of disease
control is vaccination," says Fisher. "Because it's the cornerstone,
there is tremendous reluctance to acknowledge that not all
children are the same, that there is biodiversity."
While
Fisher does not discourage immunization, she does insist the
medical establishment should reexamine vaccine safety.
"We
believe there is a certain percentage of the population that
is genetically vulnerable to vaccines," she says. "In 2001,
we have the technology to look at what's going on in the body
on the cellular and molecular level after vaccination. But
we are not taking advantage of it because it would complicate
the one-size-fits-all approach."
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Photos:
American Medical Association
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