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DISCLAIMER – The Autism Resource Foundation provides general information to the autism community. The information comes from a variety of sources, and the Autism Resource Foundation does not independently verify any of it, nor does it necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of the Autism Resource Foundation. Nothing on this website should be construed as medical advice. Always consult your doctor regarding the needs of your family.
Excerpt from Autism Facts.com
January 1993
Weeks after Bill Clinton took office, Donna Shalala, a close friend of Hillary Clinton who was appointed Secretary with the Department of Health and Human Services, announced Clinton's "Immunization Initiative".
Hillary Clinton planned to create a Unique Health Care Identifier Number to record and track every person's vaccination record and personal health information in a government operated database. Public opposition to this plan was evident.
Secretary Donna Shalala, began to move toward and has since fought every claim submitted to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund using help with lawyers at the Department of Justice.
April 1, 1993
Democratic Senators Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, Don Riegle of Michigan, and Henry Waxman of California introduced a Bill, "The Comprehensive Child Immunization Act." The Bill would establish a national tracking system on the immunization status of all children. It would also force vaccine manufacturers to sell vaccines to the government at a lower price so children could be vaccinated for free.
Serious opposition to the Bill was heard by a coalition formed by the Free Press Foundation, Eagle Forum, Family Resource Council, National Center for Home Education, National Vaccine Information Center, American Civil Liberties Union, Concerned Women for America, Traditional Values Coalition, Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Association of Christian Schools.
Fall 1993
There is strong opposition to "The Comprehensive Child Immunization Act" by Republicans, privacy advocates and the pharmaceutical industry along with the coalition of organizations that were already protesting. The vaccine tracking system was eliminated but $417 million was authorized to Donna Shalala, Secretary with the Department of Health and Human Services, to establish a national state registry system to monitor vaccinations of all children.
The law allowed Shalala to reward states between $50 to $100 per fully immunized child with the dollar amount of the reward determined by the percentage of children who are fully vaccinated in each state.
These rewards by the Department of Health and Human Services, the government agency in which the Centers for Disease Control is a part of and who creates the Recommended Childhood Vaccine Schedule, gives states a financial incentive to add every recommended vaccine to the mandatory requirements of immunization for each child entering public school.
The tracking system is used today to deny children the right to go to public school and to deny them health insurance if not fully vaccinated with all government recommended vaccines.
1994
The FDA issues its fifth Notice of Proposed Rules regarding Thimerosal in over-the-counter products. No individuals sought to appear before the advisory committee in defense of mercury-containing products and there was no opposition to this action, but still no ban is issued.
The Department of Health and Human Services publishes the "National Vaccine Plan" stating that the United States is a co-sponsor of the "Children's Vaccine Initiative". Funding for the program is provided by the vaccine manufacturers, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, UNICEF, and the United Nations Children's Fund. The purpose of the program is to vaccinate all children in the world with vaccines that are already existing as well as all future vaccines that are developed by vaccine manufacturers.
Dr. Vera Stejskal, Associate Professor of Immunology in the Department of Clinical Chemistry at Danderyd Hospital and Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, published a paper titled, "MELISA - An In Vitro Tool For The Study Of Metal Allergy." She describes how to diagnose allergy to various mercury compounds such as Thimerosal, phenyl mercury and inorganic mercury. Using MELISA, a blood test she developed, one can not only determine the existence of mercury allergy, but also the source of sensitization. She further stated:
September 1994
The FDA issued an advisory entitled, "Mercury in Fish: Cause for Concern?" in which they stated:
1995
The FDA issues its sixth Notice of Proposed Rules regarding Thimerosal in over-the-counter products, but still no ban is issued. No individuals sought to appear before the advisory committee in defense of mercury-containing products and there was no opposition to this action.
The Varicella vaccine for Chicken Pox is licensed.
The Hepatitis A vaccine is licensed.
March 1995
Donna Shalala, Secretary with the Department of Health and Human Services, publishes a notice in the Federal Register permitting the Social Security Administration to disclose the SSN of newborns to state health departments for health programs including establishing immunization registries. It also allows Health and Human Services to disclose information about an individual without their consent for administering a public health program or for conducting medical research.
1996
Thimerosal is removed from BayRho.
The HIPAA Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, brought back the "Unique Health Care Identifier Number" with government operated electronic surveillance and tracking every American citizens medical records. Officials with the National Immunization Program and Health and Human Services stated:
The HIPAA Act stated that if Congress did not enact legislation to protect individually identifiable health information in medical records by August 21, 1999, then Secretary Shalala of Health and Human Services would establish rules as to how much information the government and other parties can take from people's medical records by February 21, 2000.
All of the privacy Bills introduced allowed for government officials, researchers and law enforcement the right to access and use an individuals private medical records and enroll citizens without their consent as research subjects in medical experiments if the study is said to contribute to public health.
This would mean that any person could be unknowingly enrolled in a study for medical research experiments. A patient would not know if their doctor was urging the use of a new medication or vaccine, or a combination of medications and vaccines, because it was actually beneficial to the patient or because their doctor enrolled his patients in a government-endorsed medical experiment.
A study published in "Neurotoxicology" titled, "Changes in the Number of Astrocytes and Microglia in the Thalmus of the Monkey Macaca Fascicularis Following Long-term Subclinical Methylmercury Exposure", showed that in adult monkeys, inorganic mercury is deposited in microglial and astroglial cells more than other cells and that inorganic mercury becomes trapped in the brain. The estimated half-life is over 70 days and inorganic mercury is the toxic agent responsible for pathological changes in these cells.
Dr. R. Pfab reported in "Clinical Toxicology" a paper titled, "Clinical course of severe poisoning with thimerosal" in which he describes a case of an attempted suicide from drinking a solution of thimerosal, resulting in severe poisoning.
The DTaP vaccine is added to the schedule for infants over the age of 15 months.
The Varicella vaccine is added to the schedule for infants between 12 and 18 months. Any child between 11 and 12 years of age not previously infected with the chicken pox is recommended to get the vaccine.
1997
Congress passes a Bill called the "Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act". Among other things, the Bill orders the FDA to review mercury content in food and drugs.
Pollard and Hultman conduct a study that shows that mice genetically susceptible to autoimmune disease develop a mercury-induced autoimmune disease after treatment with inorganic mercury.
Late 1997
A citizen's group in Brick Township, New Jersey, contacted the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services after noticing an apparently larger than expected number of children with autism in their community. The New Jersey DHSS, U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, and U.S. Representative Christopher Smith contacted the CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) for assistance. In response, the CDC conducted an extensive prevalence investigation.
1998
The CDC reported that the rate of autism among children in Brick Township was 4 per 1,000 (1 in 250) children aged 3 through 10 years. That number reflected the more classic form of autism. The prevalence of the more broadly defined autism spectrum disorder, including Asperger's and PDDNOS was 6.7 per 1,000 (1 in 150) children.
Even though the families of Brick Township requested that the CDC include an evaluation of a possible link between autism and their children's immunizations, the CDC chose not to do so. Their evaluation of the cluster of autism in Brick Township was deemed inconclusive.
The CDC's Atlanta study confirmed the dramatic results of the Brick Township study. The CDC found that 1,987 of the 289,456 children aged 3 to 10 years in metropolitan Atlanta in 1996 were autistic (1 in 146). These numbers were ten times higher than studies conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield and colleagues published a paper in the Lancet titled, "Ileal-Lymphoid-Nodular Hyperplasia, Non-Specific Colitis, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder in Children." The paper stated that the MMR vaccine caused intestinal inflammation, loss of intestinal barrier function, entrance into the bloodstream of encephalopathic proteins and a consequential development of autism. He described 12 children with developmental delays, 8 of whom had autism, who had gastrointestinal complaints and developed autism within 1 month of receiving the MMR.
Criticisms of this study were that vaccinated and unvaccinated children were not studied, that the symptoms of autism were present before the gastrointestinal problems were observed and that children claimed to have low levels of immunoglobulin A were within normal ranges.
The Rotavirus vaccine is licensed.
April 22, 1998
The FDA finally completes its proposed ban on the over-the-counter use of Thimerosal, based on a report from their advisory committee submitted 18 years earlier in 1980. The FDA bans Thimerosal and ethylmercury from topical ointments and skin creams. The industry, with 20 over-the-counter products containing mercury being marketed by eight different manufacturers, chose not to challenge the findings of the panel regarding the toxicity in over-the-counter products. In fact, the industry never challenged this in the 18 years it was alerted to the proposed banning.
August 1998
An FDA internal "point paper" was prepared for the Maternal Immunization Working Group from Marion F. Gruber, Ph.D. at the FDA to Drs. Hardegree and Baylor:
September 1998
Dr. Gregory V. Stajich, a pharmacologist at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia, presented a study at the North American Congress of Toxicology titled, "Iatrogenic Exposure to Mercury After Hepatitis B Vaccination in Preterm Infants." The study showed that post-vaccination mercury levels were significantly higher in preterm infants compared to term infants who received their Hep B vaccine at birth. His study was eventually published in "Journal of Pediatrics" in May 2000.
September 8, 1998
The Safety Working Party for the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products issued its working paper, "Assessment of the Toxicity of Thimerosal in Relation to Its Use in Medicinal Products".
October 15, 1998
The task of analyzing the amount of mercury in vaccines and its ramifications had been assigned to Dr. Leslie Ball, a pediatrician employed at the FDA and her husband and colleague Dr. Robert Ball, a medical officer at FDA's CBER. Dr. Marion Gruber of the Office of Vaccine Research and Review forwarded an internal FDA memo to Dr. Ball, which concluded that:
Dr. Ball's response the same day in e-mail to Dr. Hastings conclusion stated: