Article A: Special Ed Quota Criticized

State says Chicago schools' testing restrictions violate federal law

By Tracy Dell'Angela and Bonnie Miller Rubin, Tribune staff reporters

Chicago Public Schools has violated federal law by restricting how many students could be referred for special education services at specific schools, state education officials allege.

Teachers, specialists and advocates have long complained of an illegal quota system. They say the city school system tightly controls access to services, denying struggling children extra help because of money constraints.

For one mentally handicapped boy at an Englewood-area school, a school quota forced him to wait almost a year before his disability was diagnosed. One parent waited two years for her daughter to be evaluated before complaining to the state, only to be told by a school caseworker that testing was "closed" for the year.

"It's endemic in the system. Once you're told you're cut off, you can't put a kid on," said Susan Hickey, a city school social worker, who was allowed to refer only five children a year for an evaluation while working at the now-closed Suder Elementary on the Near West Side.

For the full article go to http://tinyurl.com/bxqb4

EDITOR’S NOTE: Many families are looking for the “best school districts” for their special needs child. It is important to note – it seems that these are few and far between and no district can be considered the “best.”

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Article B: IRS Offers Deduction Guidance For Special-Education Expenses

A recent ruling by the Internal Revenue Service may help ease the financial pain of families who shell out large amounts to pay for a child's special education to overcome dyslexia and other learning disabilities. (See text of the ruling.)

The so-called private-letter ruling helps clarify the IRS view on a murky area: when special-education costs, such as tuition, meals and lodging, may qualify as deductible medical expenses. A private-letter ruling applies only to the taxpayers who requested it and isn't supposed to be cited as precedent. Even so, tax advisers say it is a useful illustration of the IRS's thinking -- and could come as a pleasant surprise to some parents.

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The ruling involved payments on behalf of two children diagnosed as having "disabilities caused by medical conditions, including dyslexia," that "handicap their ability to learn." The school offered the children a program of special education designed to help them deal with their "medical handicaps" and move on to study at a "regular school." (As is usual with private-letter rulings, names and further details of the taxpayers, the children and the school -- known only as "School X" -- weren't disclosed.)

The taxpayers had asked the IRS to agree that they could deduct their tuition because the school is a "special school." The IRS replied that isn't the standard under the law. Instead, it said: "Deductibility of tuition depends on exactly what the school provides an individual because a school can have a normal education program for most students, and a special education program for those who need it. Thus, a school can be 'special' for one student but not for another."

The IRS concluded that both children were attending School X "principally to receive medical care in the form of special education" -- and that their tuition was, indeed, deductible as a medical expense.

That is an important nuance, tax specialists say. "The gist is that a school doesn't have to be attended exclusively by children with learning disabilities in order for tuition to be deductible," says Martin Nissenbaum, national director of personal income-tax planning at Ernst & Young. Instead, tuition and other costs may be deductible "for just those learning-disabled children who participate in a special program in a regular school -- as long as participation in that program is their principal reason for attending the school."

The IRS ruling emphasized several other points. For example, a physician or some other "qualified professional" must diagnose a "medical condition requiring special education to correct the condition" in order for the education to be considered medical care. While the school itself doesn't have to employ physicians to provide the special education, it must have "professional staff competent to design and supervise a curriculum providing medical care." Furthermore, conquering the learning disabilities "must be a principal reason for attending the school, and any ordinary education received must be incidental to the special education provided."

The IRS offers general tips in its Publication 502 on medical expenses, but even a close read of the publication could leave parents of special-education children puzzled over how much, if any, of their special-education payments qualify as medical expenses.

Reminder: Medical expenses generally are deductible only to the extent they exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. Even if the expenses don't exceed the limit, you still may be able to pay them with pretax dollars through your employer's flexible-spending account, Mr. Nissenbaum says.

Article A: On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research

By GARDINER HARRIS and ANAHAD O'CONNOR – New York Times

Kristen Ehresmann, a Minnesota Department of Health official, had just told a State Senate hearing that vaccines with microscopic amounts of mercury were safe. Libby Rupp, a mother of a 3-year-old girl with autism, was incredulous.

"How did my daughter get so much mercury in her?" Ms. Rupp asked Ms. Ehresmann after her testimony.

"Fish?" Ms. Ehresmann suggested.

"She never eats it," Ms. Rupp answered.

"Do you drink tap water?"

"It's all filtered."

"Well, do you breathe the air?" Ms. Ehresmann asked, with a resigned smile. Several parents looked angrily at Ms. Ehresmann, who left.

Ms. Rupp remained, shaking with anger. That anyone could defend mercury in vaccines, she said, "makes my blood boil."

Public health officials like Ms. Ehresmann, who herself has a son with autism, have been trying for years to convince parents like Ms. Rupp that there is no link between thimerosal - a mercury-containing preservative once used routinely in vaccines - and autism.

They have failed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Institute of Medicine, the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics have all largely dismissed the notion that thimerosal causes or contributes to autism. Five major studies have found no link.

Yet despite all evidence to the contrary, the number of parents who blame thimerosal for their children's autism has only increased. And in recent months, these parents have used their numbers, their passion and their organizing skills to become a potent national force. The issue has become one of the most fractious and divisive in pediatric medicine.

"This is like nothing I've ever seen before," Dr. Melinda Wharton, deputy director of the National Immunization Program, told a gathering of immunization officials in Washington in March. "It's an era where it appears that science isn't enough."

Parents have filed more than 4,800 lawsuits - 200 from February to April alone - pushed for state and federal legislation banning thimerosal and taken out full-page advertisements in major newspapers. They have also gained the support of politicians, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, and Representatives Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, and Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an article in the June 16 issue of Rolling Stone magazine arguing that most studies of the issue are flawed and that public health officials are conspiring with drug makers to cover up the damage caused by thimerosal.

"We're not looking like a fringe group anymore," said Becky Lourey, a Minnesota state senator and a sponsor of a proposed thimerosal ban. Such a ban passed the New York State Legislature this week.

But scientists and public health officials say they are alarmed by the surge of attention to an idea without scientific merit. The anti-thimerosal campaign, they say, is causing some parents to stay away from vaccines, placing their children at risk for illnesses like measles and polio.

"It's really terrifying, the scientific illiteracy that supports these suspicions," said Dr. Marie McCormick, chairwoman of an Institute of Medicine panel that examined the controversy in February 2004.

Experts say they are also concerned about a raft of unproven, costly and potentially harmful treatments - including strict diets, supplements and a detoxifying technique called chelation - that are being sold for tens of thousands of dollars to desperate parents of autistic children as a cure for "mercury poisoning."

In one case, a doctor forced children to sit in a 160-degree sauna, swallow 60 to 70 supplements a day and have so much blood drawn that one child passed out.

Hundreds of doctors list their names on a Web site endorsing chelation to treat autism, even though experts say that no evidence supports its use with that disorder. The treatment carries risks of liver and kidney damage, skin rashes and nutritional deficiencies, they say.

In recent months, the fight over thimerosal has become even more bitter. In response to a barrage of threatening letters and phone calls, the centers for disease control has increased security and instructed employees on safety issues, including how to respond if pies are thrown in their faces. One vaccine expert at the centers wrote in an internal e-mail message that she felt safer working at a malaria field station in Kenya than she did at the agency's offices in Atlanta.

An Alarm Is Sounded

Thimerosal was for decades the favored preservative for use in vaccines. By weight, it is about 50 percent ethyl mercury, a form of mercury most scientists consider to be less toxic than methyl mercury, the type found in fish. The amount of ethyl mercury included in each childhood vaccine was once roughly equal to the amount of methyl mercury found in the average tuna sandwich.

In 1999, a Food and Drug Administration scientist added up all the mercury that American infants got with a full immunization schedule and concluded that the amount exceeded a government guideline. Some health authorities counseled no action, because there was no evidence that thimerosal at the doses given was harmful and removing it might cause alarm. Others were not so certain that thimerosal was harmless.

In July 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service released a joint statement urging vaccine makers to remove thimerosal as quickly as possible. By 2001, no vaccine routinely administered to children in the United States had more than half of a microgram of mercury - about what is found in an infant's daily supply of breast milk.

Despite the change, government agencies say that vaccines with thimerosal are just as safe as those without, and adult flu vaccines still contain the preservative.

But the 1999 advisory alarmed many parents whose children suffered from autism, a lifelong disorder marked by repetitive, sometimes self-destructive behaviors and an inability to form social relationships. In 10 to 25 percent of cases, autism seems to descend on young children seemingly overnight, sometime between their first and second birthdays.

Diagnoses of autism have risen sharply in recent years, from roughly 1 case for every 10,000 births in the 1980's to 1 in 166 births in 2003.

Most scientists believe that the illness is influenced strongly by genetics but that some unknown environmental factor may also play a role.

Dr. Tom Insel, director of the National Institute for Mental Health, said: "Is it cell phones? Ultrasound? Diet sodas? Every parent has a theory. At this point, we just don't know."

In 2000, a group of parents joined together to found SafeMinds, one of several organizations that argue that thimerosal is that environmental culprit. Their cause has been championed by politicians like Mr. Burton.

"My grandson received nine shots in one day, seven of which contained thimerosal, which is 50 percent mercury as you know, and he became autistic a short time later," he said in an interview.

In a series of House hearings held from 2000 through 2004, Mr. Burton called the leading experts who assert that vaccines cause autism to testify. They included a chemistry professor at the University of Kentucky who says that dental fillings cause or exacerbate autism and other diseases and a doctor from Baton Rouge, La., who says that God spoke to her through an 87-year-old priest and told her that vaccines caused autism.

Also testifying were Dr. Mark Geier and his son, David Geier, the experts whose work is most frequently cited by parents.

Trying to Build a Case

Dr. Geier has called the use of thimerosal in vaccines the world's "greatest catastrophe that's ever happened, regardless of cause."

He and his son live and work in a two-story house in suburban Maryland. Past the kitchen and down the stairs is a room with cast-off, unplugged laboratory equipment, wall-to-wall carpeting and faux wood paneling that Dr. Geier calls "a world-class lab - every bit as good as anything at N.I.H."

Dr. Geier has been examining issues of vaccine safety since at least 1971, when he was a lab assistant at the National Institutes of Health, or N.I.H. His résumé lists scores of publications, many of which suggest that vaccines cause injury or disease.

He has also testified in more than 90 vaccine cases, he said, although a judge in a vaccine case in 2003 ruled that Dr. Geier was "a professional witness in areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience."

In other cases, judges have called Dr. Geier's testimony "intellectually dishonest," "not reliable" and "wholly unqualified."

The six published studies by Dr. Geier and David Geier on the relationship between autism and thimerosal are largely based on complaints sent to the disease control centers by people who suspect that their children were harmed by vaccines.

In the first study, the Geiers compared the number of complaints associated with a thimerosal-containing vaccine, given from 1992 to 2000, with the complaints that resulted from a thimerosal-free version given from 1997 to 2000. The more thimerosal a child received, they concluded, the more likely an autism complaint was filed. Four other studies used similar methods and came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Geier said in an interview that the link between thimerosal and autism was clear.

Public health officials, he said, are " just trying to cover it up."

Assessing the Studies

Scientists say that the Geiers' studies are tainted by faulty methodology.

"The problem with the Geiers' research is that they start with the answers and work backwards," said Dr. Steven Black, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, Calif. "They are doing voodoo science."

Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the director of the disease control centers, said the agency was not withholding information about any potentially damaging effects of thimerosal.

"There's certainly not a conspiracy here," she said. "And we would never consider not acknowledging information or evidence that would have a bearing on children's health."

In 2003, spurred by parents' demands, the C.D.C. asked the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the nation's most prestigious medical advisory group, to review the evidence on thimerosal and autism.

In a report last year, a panel convened by the institute dismissed the Geiers' work as having such serious flaws that their studies were "uninterpretable." Some of the Geiers' mathematical formulas, the committee found, "provided no information," and the Geiers used basic scientific terms like "attributable risk" incorrectly.

In contrast, the committee found five studies that examined hundreds of thousands of health records of children in the United States, Britain, Denmark and Sweden to be persuasive.

A study by the World Health Organization, for example, examined the health records of 109,863 children born in Britain from 1988 to 1997 and found that children who had received the most thimerosal in vaccines had the lowest incidence of developmental problems like autism.

Another study examined the records of 467,450 Danish children born from 1990 to 1996. It found that after 1992, when the country's only thimerosal-containing vaccine was replaced by one free of the preservative, autism rates rose rather than fell.

In one of the most comprehensive studies, a 2003 report by C.D.C. scientists examined the medical records of more than 125,000 children born in the United States from 1991 to 1999. It found no difference in autism rates among children exposed to various amounts of thimerosal.

Parent groups, led by SafeMinds, replied that documents obtained from the disease control centers showed that early versions of the study had found a link between thimerosal and autism.

But C.D.C. researchers said that it was not unusual for studies to evolve as more data and controls were added. The early versions of the study, they said, failed to control for factors like low birth weight, which increases the risk of developmental delays.

The Institute of Medicine said that it saw "nothing inherently troubling" with the C.D.C.'s adjustments and concluded that thimerosal did not cause autism. Further studies, the institute said, would not be "useful."

Threats and Conspiracy Talk

Since the report's release, scientists and health officials have been bombarded with hostile e-mail messages and phone calls. Dr. McCormick, the chairwoman of the institute's panel, said she had received threatening mail claiming that she was part of a conspiracy. Harvard University has increased security at her office, she said.

An e-mail message to the C.D.C. on Nov. 28 stated, "Forgiveness is between them and God. It is my job to arrange a meeting," according to records obtained by The New York Times after the filing of an open records request.

Another e-mail message, sent to the C.D.C. on Aug. 20, said, "I'd like to know how you people sleep straight in bed at night knowing all the lies you tell & the lives you know full well you destroy with the poisons you push & protect with your lies." Lynn Redwood of SafeMinds said that such e-mail messages did not represent her organization or other advocacy groups.

In response to the threats, C.D.C. officials have contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and heightened security at the disease control centers. Some officials said that the threats had led them to look for other jobs.

In "Evidence of Harm," a book published earlier this year that is sympathetic to the notion that thimerosal causes autism, the author, David Kirby, wrote that the thimerosal theory would stand or fall within the next year or two.

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year, he said.

No such decline followed thimerosal's removal from vaccines during the 1990's in Denmark, Sweden or Canada, researchers say.

But the debate over autism and vaccines is not likely to end soon.

"It doesn't seem to matter what the studies and the data show," said Ms. Ehresmann, the Minnesota immunization official. "And that's really scary for us because if science doesn't count, how do we make decisions? How do we communicate with parents?"

Safe Minds Response to NY Times Article

Safe Minds Action Alert on New York Times Thimerosal-Autism Article

The June 25 th publication of the New York Times contained a front page article titled "On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research" by Gardiner Harris and Anahad O’Connor. The article includes several references to SafeMinds.

Although directors of SafeMinds were interviewed for the story, information we presented to the reporters, such as peer-reviewed research papers on the harmful effects of thimerosal, was not included in the published article.  In addition, the article contains numerous disturbing errors of fact, omissions of fact, and a consistent bias which call into question the credibility and motivation of the authors. 

The primary responsibility of the media in gathering and distributing news and opinion is to serve the general welfare of the public by providing accurate information which enables the public to make informed judgments on issues that impact their lives.  The Times authors acknowledge the critical importance of the thimerosal issue to public health. The requirement for a balanced portrayal of the issue is not trivial.

Therefore, SafeMinds is asking the New York Times to immediately publish corrections to and investigate the journalistic process surrounding this article in an effort to fulfill their service obligation to the American public and adhere to their historically high journalistic standards.

The New York Times has a clear channel through which readers can express their dissatisfaction with the reporting process and editorial choices made by the current staff. This is the office of the Public Editor.  The Public Editor has three obligations:

• Making sure the concerns of readers and the public about the paper are heard -- and heeded when they are valid.

• Monitoring The Time’s journalistic integrity -- which  ...  means accuracy and fairness in both reality and perception.

• Publicly assessing the newsroom's performance in these areas to enhance readers' understanding of the journalistic process and to remind editors and reporters to do their best.

SafeMinds asks those of you who have concerns about the Times article to email The Public Editor, Byron Calame, at public@nytimes.com . Communications are taken more seriously if they are short and factual.

SafeMinds will be issuing a letter to the editor of the Times listing the factual errors in the article and the corrections needed.  SafeMinds will also be sending the Public Editor a letter on concerns over the journalistic process, and we will issue this publicly once it is sent.

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Article B: Immune to Reason

From the Wall Street Journal

By MICHAEL FUMENTO

Other than UFOs, there may be no hotter topic for conspiracy theorists than the claim that childhood vaccines cause autism. There are more than 150 Web sites devoted to fingering various vaccines for the severe neurological disorder. Many blame a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, used in some vaccines, while others blame the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, although it never used thimerosal. The only commonality is that autism appears shortly after the period during which childhood vaccinations are given. The theorists take this "post hoc" fallacy, add suggestive quotations (often taken out of context), toss in a few "experts" and claim cover-up -- so far, unconvincingly.

Journalist David Kirby got the formula down pat in "Evidence of Harm," a recent book. Now so has Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Counsel (the group that brought us the Alar scare). His "Deadly Immunity," an article co-published by Rolling Stone and Salon, has won praise from both left and right. The American Prospect hailed it as a "blockbuster piece." Joe Scarborough, on his TV show, said that "there's no doubt in my mind that thimerosal causes, in my opinion, autism." In the article Mr. Kennedy claims that a metabolite product of thimerosal, ethyl mercury, is "a potent neurotoxin" injected into children with vaccines.

But Mr. Kennedy isn't to be relied upon for facts. He told Mr. Scarborough in a June 21 interview: "We are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe." Yet four days earlier this correction to his piece appeared: "The article also misstated the level of [mercury that infants have received]." It was "40 percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methyl mercury." Mr. Kennedy not only ignored this correction on Mr. Scarborough's show; he overstated it even further. More important, the mercury associated with thimerosal isn't methyl mercury (the bad actor that accumulates in fish) but ethyl mercury, which, according to the National Institutes of Health, appears to be more benign.

Throughout Mr. Kennedy's article he confuses the two mercury forms. More important, he avoids the mass of refereed epidemiological studies and reviews of those studies except for his swift dismissal of the Institute of Medicine 214-page report from May 2004, which concluded: "The evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism."

The most recent review of the published work appeared in the September 2004 issue of Pediatrics. It concluded that "studies do not demonstrate a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and Autistic Spectrum Disorders." It also said the way the body absorbs and disposes of ethyl mercury "make such an association less likely" and epidemiological studies "that support a link demonstrated significant design flaws that invalidate their conclusions."

Instead, Mr. Kennedy quotes from vaccine conspirators like Boyd Haley, "one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity." Actually, Mr. Haley has co-authored, since 1993, a total of five mercury-related publications listed on the medical data base Medline -- not exactly what you'd expect from a world authority. By contrast, Frank DeStefano, an epidemiologist at the CDC who does not believe that vaccines cause autism, has co-authored 49 vaccine papers.

Mr. Kennedy also relies on publications from the father-son team of Mark and David Geier, who make their living as expert witnesses and consultants for lawyers making claims under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Yet health professionals dismiss their work, with the American Academy of Pediatrics condemning Geier publications for containing "numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements."

The most arresting part of Mr. Kennedy's article, though, was his allegation of a conspiracy. In June 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a conference at the Simpsonwood Conference Center in Norcross, Ga. The doctors and scientists gathered there discussed a preliminary study that indeed found a statistically significant link between thimerosal-preserved childhood vaccines and autism. From material obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, Mr. Kennedy selected quotes that seemed to leave no doubt that the meeting's purpose, ultimately, was to (as Mr. Kennedy puts it) "whitewash the risks of thimerosal, ordering researchers to 'rule out' the chemical's link to autism."

Tom Verstraeten, a CDC epidemiologist who was at the conference and played a part in the study, explained in a letter to the April 2004 Pediatrics that the Simpsonwood research was in fact "perceived at first as a positive study" -- meaning a study that showed a harmful correlation. He himself was quite impressed by the findings. But it "was foreseen from the very start that any positive outcome would lead to a second phase" because "the validity of the first-phase results needed urgent validation in view of the large potential public health impact," he wrote. That seems logical unless you believe that thimerosal is inherently evil, as Mr. Kennedy perhaps does. He thinks the CDC should have taken "immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal."

And what did further research show? The second-phase study, the results of which appeared in the November 2003 issue of Pediatrics, concluded: "We found no consistent significant associations between thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes." Nevertheless, it declared that more research was needed. Mr. Kennedy's explanation for the shift in outcomes is that Mr. Verstraeten, who oversaw the second-phase research, "had gone to work for [vaccine maker] GlaxoSmithKline and reworked his data to bury the link between thimerosal and autism."

Aha! But this is pure surmise, assuming a level of corporate skullduggery that beggars belief. In any case, consider: If you were part of a government-Big Pharma conspiracy, would you call for more research, as Mr. Verstraeten did? Dr. DeStefano, the epidemiologist at the CDC, has noted that, in addition to extensive CDC internal review, the second-phase research was reviewed "by external experts, by an Institute of Medicine committee, and by peer reviewers for Pediatrics."

Dr. DeStefano explained something else. Mr. Kennedy had claimed that "to thwart the Freedom of Information Act," the government "handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers." But this practice, Dr. DeStefano noted, was required by federal regulations to protect the privacy of autistic children and their parents. It still allowed access by external researchers but not to any Joe Blow with a FOIA application.

Repeatedly Mr. Kennedy's conspiracy claims vanish like a vampire exposed to sunlight. Which might be amusing were it not so serious. The conspiracy-mongers have scared parents into not protecting their children. "Sadly, as exemptions proliferate, disease 'hot spots' are cropping up across the United States," observed an article in the Winter 2004 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform. "Outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, mumps, rubella and diphtheria are reoccurring, costing hundreds of lives and hospitalizing thousands more."

Mr. Fumento, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, is a health and science columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service.

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Article C: Autism + Vaccines = Tax Dollars

By Evelyn Pringle

We are on the verge of a welfare disaster in this country ( USA). Eighty percent of autistic children are under the age of 17. In a few short years, the states are going to be forced to provide support for an overwhelming number of disabled autistic adults. “The costs will be in the trillions,” according to Ann Dachel.

Ann should know, she is a special education teacher, a member of the National Autism Association, and the mother of a boy with autism and a daughter who developed epilepsy after receiving a Hepatitis B vaccine.

Thimerosal is a mercury based preservative that for many years was added to childhood vaccines to boost drug company profits. In the 1990's the CDC added more and more Thimerosal containing vaccines to the mandatory vaccine schedule without adding up the cumulative amounts of mercury that children were receiving from the vaccines.

Finally, in 1999, after watching the dramatic autism and other neurological disorders, officials at the CDC and FDA realized that a fully vaccinated infant was receiving up to 125 times what the EPA considered safe for mercury exposure.

Because half the officials involved were on payrolls of the drug companies they were charged to regulate, they have never ordered the pharmaceutical industry to stop using Thimerosal. In fact, the product is still used in some vaccines. Last year's flu vaccine had a mercury content eight times the EPA safe limit and it was recommended for six-month-old babies and pregnant women.

The generation of children poisoned by vaccines during the 1990s is now reaching puberty and if the Bush administration is successful in blocking lawsuits against the vaccine makers that caused this epidemic of neurological disorders, tax payers will be left holding the bag and a heavy bag it will be.

The theory of mercury toxicity and autism is not promoted by parents only. Its been verified by such esteemed biochemists as Andrew Hall Cutler, PhD and Boyd Haley, the chemistry department chair at the University of Kentucky. A study by Bernard et al titled "Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning" documents about 100 matching symptoms.

The transcript of a closed meeting in 1999 that was leaked to the press, attended by officials from drug companies and the CDC and FDA, reveals how the 52 vaccine policymakers at the meeting discussed ways to deal with statistics showing that children given mercury in vaccines had a much higher rate of autism, attention deficit and other disorders.

On August 18, 2003, Dr Leonard G Horowitz, warned members of the congressional committee at a Government Reform Hearing on Vaccines as a Risk Factor For Autism, "the great and grave likelihood that disease prevention through vaccinations is violently backfiring-dramatically increasing mortality and morbidity especially among America's youngest citizens."

Horowitz cited the dangers of our nation's "most established, generally accepted, public health practice of vaccination, and its links to skyrocketing rates of autism and brain damage in children."

This public health professional by training, and independent investigator with expertise in medical sociology and infectious disease research, told Congress, "I have unfortunately, over the past two decades, grown accustomed to instances of poor decision-making, gross negligence, and downright cover-ups in safety oversight and pharmaceutical industry control in the vaccine arena," Horowitz said.

In 2002, the research team of David and Mark Geier, released a study based on tens of millions of doses of vaccines given to children in the US during the 1990s, that presented the first epidemiologic evidence that associated the increase in thimerosal from vaccines with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Professor Lynn Adams, of Radford University, a speech-language pathologist who specializes in autism, says a 1999 study determined that the average child received 33 doses of 10 different vaccines by the age 5. She claims the multiple shots could "flip a genetic switch" in children predisposed to autism.

Lisa Blakemore-Brown, a Psychologist in the UK, also maintains that Thimerosal is the cause of autism, and suspects it is also the culprit involved in a wide variety of other health problems showing up in children these days.

According to Blakemore, the current autism epidemic did not occur earlier because children "were given single vaccines with single amounts of mercury,” she says, “but with the introduction of triple vaccines the amount of mercury contained within the preservative was multiplied and the cumulative effects are only just now being discovered by the public," she adds.

Parents Struggle With The Burden

Laura Bono is the mother of an autistic child and she wants the public to consider the latest research pointing to the mercury-vaccine link. For instance, researcher, Mady Hornig, recently announced the results of a study where mice were given Thimerosal at the level of the childhood immunization schedule and began exhibiting autistic behavior.

Laura cites a study where toxicologist, Dr Jill James, a former FDA researcher, found a problem with autistic children's methylation which made it difficult for their bodies to rid themselves of mercury. Laura notes the findings of Dr Richard Deth, that once in the body, Thimerosal shuts down the detoxifying methylation process.

Laura reveals how her son Jackson experienced a four month regression beginning days after receiving shots. He received HiB (with 25 mcg. of mercury), DT (with 25 mcg. of mercury), Oral Polio, and Measles-Mumps-Rubella. All totaled, he received 50 mcg. of mercury, three dead viruses and four live viruses. The 50 mcg. of mercury was on top of the 75 mcg. of mercury he had already received in his first year of life through one DPT and two other DT shots. The 50 mcg. of mercury he received in one day was 44 times the EPA exposure limit. He would need to weigh 550 lbs. on that day to process that much mercury. He weighed just 25 lbs. The total amount of mercury from 2 months old to 16 months was 139 times the recommended EPA exposure levels.

My outgoing, social, verbal child was a shell of his old self, Laura said, Jackson’s body was still here. But his personality – what made Jackson his smart, loving self – was gone. The sick body replaced the well one. The sleeping child was replaced by one who would awake startled after a few hours and not go back to sleep all night. The one who had a healthy appetite was replaced by one who became picky and whittled his foods down to one or two. The happy child was replaced by an unhappy one. The child who at one time didn’t miss a thing and was the life of the room became distant and preferred to be alone. The one who was developmentally ahead of the crowd began making strange noises and exhibiting odd behaviors. The child God gave us was gone, Laura said.

Andrian Prokofiew of New Jersey, has a son who was developing normally until he acquired autism at 17 months after receiving 20 some vaccines containing Thimerosal. Within weeks of the last three vaccinations given in the same visit, "he lost all speech for 3 years, did not even look at me or know who I was. He screamed for two weeks, his ears turned red, his eyes dilated and he began to spin, flap his hands and bang his head," she said.

It took more than 3 years to find out what happened to him medically and Andrian says she was horrified to find out the pharmaceutical companies gave bonus dollars for each vaccine given.

"Words alone cannot express how devastating this disorder is for the family and child, emotionally as well as financially," she said.

Dr Allen Clark, a licensed physician for 30 years, has a son who developed severe neurodevelopmental symptoms (diagnosed as Asperger’s an autism spectrum disorder) at age 7½ after receiving a routine influenza vaccine containing 25 micrograms of Thimerosal, a dose which the EPA would calculate that would be safe only for a 550 pound adult. The doctor's son weighed only 50 pounds at the time he was vaccinated. Nancy and Tim Hokkanen are parents of Andy Hokkanen, age 6. Andy was exposed to mercury before birth from his mother's tooth fillings, which are 50% mercury, and from RhoGam shots for Rh factor incompatibility. After birth Andy also received Thimerosal from the mandated childhood vaccinations.

Tim's health insurance has covered much the cost of behavioral therapy for Andy but for about 9 months they were on Medical Assistance, which picked up many co-pays. They estimate that their insurance was billed about $100,000 for therapy so far.

Linda Weinmaster has a 13 year old son who also met with mercury poisoning before birth in the form the a mercury-containing RhoGAM shot that Linda received during her 28th week of pregnancy along with his childhood vaccines. He now suffers from a host of medical problems that require care.

Linda tell how her son's medications cost over $6,500 per month. Right now, insurance covers his meds less deductible but not his vitamins which run about $300 per month.

Kendra Pettengill is a single widowed mother of a child with Autism, and Veteran of the United States Air Force.

Kendra is annoyed that anyone would believe that there is not an epidemic in autism and claim that it previously went undiagnosed. “The claim is better diagnosis,” she says, “as if parents, teachers, and doctors 10 or 20 years ago wouldn’t have noticed our spinning, rocking, flapping, head banging, self-biting, children who can’t speak and live in their own little worlds.”

“It is an insult, a slap in the face to parents to claim it is only better diagnostics that recognized our children,” Kendra notes, “A parent 10 years ago would have been just as terror stricken by their child’s condition as I was and would have demanded a reason just as I did.”

Kendra’s insurance company will not pay for her daughter’s medical therapy, the diet, or ABA therapy. In fact, once Autism is diagnosed they can refuse to pay for a doctors visit for the flu if your doctor checks the little Autism box on your insurance sheet, Kendra says.

“Every organization I contacted denied me assistance as they say my $30,000 a year income is too much to qualify,” Kendra said, “A good solid ABA program can cost more than that, per year,” she added.

“I have sold my house, spent my retirement, lost my medical insurance,” Kendra says, “all to save my child from a life of hopelessness.”

According to Kendra, her entire family is affected by her daughter‘s autism, “my parents even sold their house and moved by us to help out,” she said.

Bob Ashburn and his wife Jamie are from Ohio and they have two children with autism spectrum disorder.

Their son, Kyle, who is now 9, was the first to be diagnosed with autism. In many respects they say he was the perfect baby because he was so easy to get along with and yet there was something strange about him that they couldn’t pinpoint. They originally thought that Kyle might be deaf.

When he was about 15 months old, the family was eating at McDonalds when an alarm went off. Everyone in the place reacted to the noise except Kyle, he just kept sat there eating his French Fries. At first the Ashburns thought their daughter Kris, was just shy, and had strange habits, like regular hand washing and needing everything to be consistent. For instance, she needs to sit in the same seat in the car and needs to sleep with her same stuffed animals each night.

Kris is now 14 years old and is very artistically talented and has a great reading level. She can handle regular school but she really needs to have time to herself when she gets home and usually hides in either the bathroom or her bedroom for about an hour reading before she can face the world again.

The Ashburns worry about what kind of future their children will have, especially Kyle who has very few social skills and so many post-reactions to any interactions of a negative sort with people that they don’t know how he can live in society.

When Kyle and Kris get upset they become violent and hit their parents, so the Ashburns have had to change their entire lifestyles so that everything is as consistent as possible and that transitions are made with lots of preparation.

Nothing, not even a quick shopping trip for a carton of milk, they say, can be done on the spur of the moment without some sort of violent reaction from either one or both of the children.

Jennifer Thompson tells how for a period of time, her autistic Zack developed OCD type behaviors about his clothing. "He would only wear certain clothes. No long sleeved shirts, only long pants, and they had to be tucked in!. He would only wear shirts that had buttons. This was an obsession. You did not dare think you could make him do otherwise or he would go into an extreme meltdown. And I know most parents out there understand what a ‘meltdown’ is."

According to Lauro Bono, "What is measurable is the financial toll that this medical crisis takes on families. After the vaccines at 16 months old, Jackson’s medical and therapy needs began taking every bit of money we had saved or ever would have saved."

"The total we have paid for Jackson’s medical, nutritional and private therapy expenses so far," she says, "is roughly $685,000 since August 1990. That is approximately $53,000 per year."

In addition to medical costs, most autistic children can not be left alone and must be looked after and cared for non-stop every day of the year. Unless these kids and their families get the financial help that they deserve from the vaccine makers, the entire burden will eventually fall to the tax payers and the cost will reportedly exceed $2 million dollars per child.

Maybe that will make people wake up and listen.

Evelyn Pringle epringle05@yahoo.com

6. TACA MOM IN GREAT NEED:

UPDATED JUNE 2005: You have read about Ruthie Daniel in the past 6 months worth of TACA newsletters. The bad news has come: HER CANCER IS NOT GONE AFTER SIX VERY HARD MONTHS OF CHEMOTHERAPY.

We need to help this very special, single mother of two boys – one with autism. She has a lot of treatment choices – radiation and others -- to consider. She really needs help.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1. GFCF Food for her kids
2. Typical groceries for her family
3. ONE-ON-ONE babysitting for her autistic son after 3pm.
4. Prayers for her

Ruthie’s contact information:
Phone: 949-347-8532
Address: 25574 Via Cresta, Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

FOOD ALLEGIES: NO gluten, casein, yeast, dyes, apples or cotton seed oil.

FOOD Suggestions:

• Nature’s Highlights brown rice pizza crust & organic tomato sauce
• Diesel meat patties
• Shelton ’s Chicken hot dogs
• Pear juice
• Cashew butter & low sugar, natural jams
• Ener-G white rice YEAST FREE loaf
• Potato Stix
• Fruits: pears, white peaches, green grapes
• Yeast free GFCF Pretzels
• Old Fashion Cake & Cookie mix - GFCF
• Blueberry Muffin Mix – GFCF
• Trader Joe’s GFCF Banana Waffles
• Veggies: Carrots, cauliflower, peas
• Trader Joe’s Soy Yogurt
• Trader Joe’s Vegetable Chips (ROUND ONES)
• Trader Joe’s Mini White Round Corn Chips
• Organic Chicken Breasts
• Trader Joe’s Frozen Mangos
• Organic Ketchup
• Pacific Rice Milk
• Trader Joe’s Lime Popsicles
• BOTTLED DISTILLED WATER (SHE GOES THRU A LOT OF WATER DUE TO HER TREATMENT. THERE IS A GREAT NEED FOR THIS.)

9. Upcoming Fee-based Conferences & Seminars
      in Southern California

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Frank’s Low Carb Market Place Gluten-Free / Casein Free Market - GRAND OPENING -
Saturday, July 2nd 12-5 pm

Celebrate the 4 th of July at FRANK’S during the Grand Opening of our Gluten Free / Casein Free
SPECIALITY FOOD SECTIONS - FREE GLUTEN FREE /CASEIN FREE SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM
Hundreds of Samples from ALL THE LEADING GFCF Manufacturers INCLUDING:
Enjoy Life Foods, Gluten-Free Pantry, Kinnikinnick, Orgran, Glutino, Dr. Schar, Glutano, and many, many more…
FREE BALLOONS FOR THE KIDS FREE GIFT BASKETS Three lucky shoppers will win $50 GIFT CERTIFICATES AT FRANK’S!
Address: 27001 Moulton Parkway , Laguna Hills 92656 / Phone 949-831-3663

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CHALLENGE * REGULATE * INTERACT * MOTIVATE * STRUCTURE * OBSERVE * NURTURE
Karyn Lewis Searcy, M.A. CCC, Director
9606 Tierra Grande Suite #107 Phone (858) 695-9415
San Diego, CA  92126 Fax (858) 695-9412
www.crimsoncenter.com

Summer 2005 FREE Family Workshops
at Crimson Center for Speech & Language In Miramar/Scripps

RSVP at 858 695 9415 to confirm dates and times

Wednesday July 13, 2005 from 6:30-8:00 P.M.
Thinking Outside of the Box: AAC Innovations Without Boundaries
Dani Mohn
Dani Mohn is the Southern California Regional Consultant for Assistive Technology, Inc. (ATI), premier developer of hardware and software solutions for people with physical, cognitive, and speech disabilities.  Prior to joining the team at ATI, Dani was the Augmentative and Alternative Communication Program Coordinator for the United Cerebral Palsy San Diego Assistive Technology Center.  She has also worked as a Speech/Language Pathologist in the public schools in the Midwest where she helped develop speech programs in rural areas. 

Friday July 15, 2005 from 9:30-11:00 A.M.
Augmentative/Alternative Communication
Susan Berkowitz, M.S., M. Ed., CCC-SLP
Susan worked with students with autism and other developmental disabilities for over 30 years.  As a speech-language pathologist, she has been implementing the technology of augmentative communication since its infancy.  Susan was previously the Director of the Communication Dept. at the New England Center of Autism, in addition to working with public school programs and serving as Director of Education for a private special education school.  She has presented at the Association for Applied Behavior Analysis and American Speech-Language Hearing Association conferences and published articles in professional journals.  She is currently in private practice in San Diego, and administers augmentative communication assessments for the San Diego Assistive Technology Center.

Rescheduled for August 2005-information to follow
The IEP Process
Erin Dyer Ring, Ph.D.
Developmental Psychology
Educational Specialist

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On July11th, l2th and l3th, HALO (Helping Autism through Learning and Outreach) will hold a conference in Manhattan Beach on Using the Rapid Prompting Method (RPM) to Teach Persons with Autism. On the evening of July l11th, Soma Mukhopadhyay will lecture at Raleigh Movie Studios on the science behind RPM, and its practical applications in teaching children with autism academics and communication. On the l2th and l3th, Soma will work with l4 children on an individual basis. Those registered for the conference will be able to observe these sessions by remote video feed.

Soma and her son Tito (who is nonverbal and a published author and poet) were brought to the US by Cure Autism Now to see if the method that Soma had developed would work with children here. Soma and Tito have been featured on "60 Minutes," "Good Morning America," "National Geographic," "Good Morning America," "Scientific American," and countless other media. Soma and HALO have helped hundred of children around the country.

For more information on registration, please go to the HALO website at halo-soma.org, or e-mail Sharon at pdsnluv@adelphia.net.

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The SURFERS HEALING SURFCAMP dates are posted on our website www.surfershealing.org . Please fill out application and e-mail it to jennifer@surfershealing.org or fax it to 949-728-1200. Thanks and we can't wait for summer.

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SOCIAL SKILLS CAMP FOR KIDDOS : The Speech & Language Connection, Inc., is offering a one week social skills camp from August 22nd-26th, from 10:30am -1:30pm each day.  The camp is designed to teach pre-social skills to preschoolers and kindergarteners with autism as well as typically developing children.  Staffing ratios are 2:1 and staff includes behavioral specialists and speech therapists.  Enrollment required by July 15th.  For more information, or to enroll your child, please contact the office at 714.965.2324.        

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DEFEAT AUTISM NOW! : October 2005 Long Beach –OR- Los Angeles conferences. The web conference also includes the Recovered Autistic Children event.  To learn more about the DAN! web conference and to subscribe, visit: www.ARIWebConference.com or www.danconference.com

There has been a lot of activity with Dr. Jerry Kartzinel and Dr. Andrew Wakefield this past week. The good news -- we will see both of these amazing “rock star” doctors back in Southern California regularly. I consider this – goal achieved. (It would be nicer if they LIVED here…hint, hint!)

These past two weeks have been a flurry of activities. I was involved in 7 autism related events in 10 days and also the celebration of Lauren graduating from college. I should post a McDonalds-like sign on “how many folks were served” in all these events! Needless to say/write – it has been a busy June! Thankfully – I am still married and still considered a loved mom of two! (I had to check last night to be sure.)

I want to thank Eric & Eve Lowey family, her staff at Chameleon, Vicki Carney, Cindy Yorks, Steph & Pat McIlvain, Julie Landon, Jackie McIntyre, Diane Gallant, Elizabeth Kilpatrick, and the many other volunteers for their desire and willingness to help during these amazing efforts. A big thanks goes to husband Glen, daughter Lauren and bubba Jeff for missing mom during these events. A special thanks go to all the amazing and generous donors to make these great events happen so efforts for TACA families continue to grow on and on. For the next TACA e-news, I will completely summarize the exciting events and happenings from June! Until then – Take care of you and yours!

Hugs, thanks, and be SAFE,
Lisa A Jeff's mom

And Editor: Kim Palmer (thanks Kim!)