FAN Bulletin #505:

March 1, 2006.

Dear All,

The following commentary from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. challenges the integrity of the CDC in its rejection of an offer by a pharmaceutical company to provide vaccines without the very dangerous preservative thimerosal. According to Kennedy, who quotes a federal health official:

“If CDC were basing its decision on safety alone, it would have taken SmithKline up on its offer. That’s a no-brainer,” said a federal health official who requested anonymity. “So there were other considerations beside safety that were guiding their decision making.”

Among these “other considerations” were CDC’s important concerns for the preservation of the vaccine program, a bureaucratic impulse for self-preservation, and protecting the economic interests of its vaccine industry friends. (my emphasis, PC)

I believe that exactly the same suggestions could be made about CDC’s continued extraordinary -and incredibly unscientific - promotion of water fluoridation, which goes as far stomping on behalf of state mandatory programs in Arkansas, New Jersey and Oregon. With water fluoridation “Some other considerations beside safety (are) guiding its decision making” and maybe it is exercising the same ” bureaucratic impulse for self-preservation” as well as “protecting the economic interests of its fluoridation industry friends” - i.e. the ADA and the dental products industry. Since, these, too, are facing huge economic liabilities if the
CDC or other agencies of the US Public Health Service were ever to admit that fluoride causes harm.

Whether we are concerned about the CDC’s promotion of fluoridation, or with its defence of thimerosal safety, or with the FDA’s approval of aspartame, or with the EPA pesticide division’s approval of Dow’s sulfuryl fluoride as a fumigant on food, along with the highest fluoride tolerances ever on over 600 foodstuffs, or with the NIH’s allowing their professionals to receive huge consultancy fees from the pharmaceutical industry, or with Colgate consultant Professor Chester Douglass’s withholding Bassin’s thesis of the relationship between osteosarcoma and fluoride exposure from the scientific community and his government funders, or with what is beginning to look like Harvard University’s whitewash of this affair…we all have a common
interest in fighting together to get integrity back into our institutions whether they be academic or governmental.

One cannot say it too many times: without truth there is no science and without science there is no public health service worth a dime. I do not want to contemplate what our country will look like if there is a universal public distrust of those agencies charged with protecting our health and our environment.

We all need to throw open our activist windows and shout out at the top of our voices - a la actor Peter Finch - “I am as mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more.”

We have to tell these civil servants, loudly and clearly, “If you want to work for industry, go and work for them. Let them pay your salary - not the taxpayers!”

Certainly, the US Public Health Service could send the clearest message in this matter. The US Surgeon General could restore integrity to his tarnished agencies by renouncing the now totally discredited practice of water fluoridation which the PHS launched on the world in 1950. We can only dare hope that the 12 scientists who have been reviewing the latest science
on fluoride’s toxicology in water, as well as the totally bogus way in which the US established its so-called “safe drinking water standard” in 1985, have the courage to deliver a scientific message untainted by the kind of sordid pressures we have seen operating in the above list of regulatory and academic travesties.

Below I have printed Robert Kennedy’s commentary and the letter sent by SmithKline Beecham to the CDC in 1999.

Paul Connett
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/time-for-cdc-to-come
-clea_b_16550.html

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 03.01.2006
Time for CDC to Come Clean

Correspondence newly obtained under the Freedom of Information Act raises
troubling new questions about CDC’s role in the Thimerosal scandal.
Thimerosal is the mercury-based vaccine preservative that has been linked
to epidemics of neurological disorders, including autism, in American
children born after 1989.

Responding to scientific studies linking dangerous levels of mercury to a
range of health disorders, the CDC in July 1999 recommended that the
nation’s vaccine makers eliminate Thimerosal as a preservative, “as soon as
possible.”

But the newly released documents show that behind the scenes CDC was
quietly discouraging Thimerosal’s removal. In a July 1999 letter, vaccine
producer SmithKline Beecham tells CDC that it is ready to produce
non-Thimerosal DTP (Diptheria/Tetanus/Pertussis) vaccines immediately and
has sufficient inventories to supply the entire U.S. market during the
remainder of 1999 and the first half of 2000, by which time other vaccine
manufacturers would have their Thimerosal-free DTP vaccines on line.

Thimerosal-laden DTP vaccines containing 25 micrograms of mercury apiece
were then being administered to American infants at two months, four months
and six months — far exceeding EPA’s recommended safe level for mercury.
Had CDC accepted SmithKline’s offer, it could have immediately reduced the
mercury exposures to vaccinated six-month-old children by 40%.

However, in November, CDC mysteriously sent a letter back rejecting
SmithKline’s offer. Then, on July 14, 2000 CDC published a deceptive press
release promising to require that all vaccines be Thimerosal-free as soon
as “adequate supplies are available.” This was a full 12 months after the
agency had denied SmithKline’s proposal.

“If CDC were basing its decision on safety alone, it would have taken
SmithKline up on its offer. That’s a no-brainer,” said a federal health
official who requested anonymity. “So there were other considerations
beside safety that were guiding their decision making.”

Among these “other considerations” were CDC’s important concerns for the
preservation of the vaccine program, a bureaucratic impulse for
self-preservation, and protecting the economic interests of its vaccine
industry friends.

“Immediate withdrawal would send a strong message; ‘We messed up!’” the
health official told me. “And I don’t think they wanted to send that
message to parents, the public or those considering legal action.”

“There was also concern,” says the federal official, “that an immediate
withdrawal might discredit the international vaccine programs for which CDC
is an important partner.” The World Health Organization has urged CDC
against the banning of Thimerosal in U.S. vaccines since that prohibition
might discredit WHO’s third world inoculation programs. WHO, with U.S.
funding, is now injecting children in developing countries with the same
amounts of Thimerosal we were giving American kids at their highest
exposures, but in a shorter time period. In May 2001, WHO committed to
“develop a strong advocacy campaign to support the ongoing use of
Thimerosal.”

But CDC insiders argue that CDC’s primary concern was the economic impacts
on its pharmaceutical industry partners. “The big consideration was cost,”
says the federal health official. “A lot of CDC’s friends in the vaccine
industry had stockpiled Thimerosal-based vaccines. If they couldn’t sell
them the costs would total in the tens of millions of dollars.”

On July 14, 2000 CDC promised to complete the transition to Thimerosal-free
vaccines for children by first quarter 2001. But, probably for the reasons
stated above, its commitment sometimes seems half-hearted. CDC continues to
promote the use of Thimerosal in vaccines. The agency continues to send its
top spokesman Roger Bernier around the country to testify before state
legislatures to derail state efforts to ban Thimerosal in vaccines. Last
week Bernier was testifying against a proposed Thimerosal ban in Maryland.

CDC continues to exert muscular efforts to derail studies of American
cohorts — the Amish, Christian Scientists, and home-schooled children –
who were not exposed to Thimerosal vaccines. Preliminary studies of these
groups indicate very low levels of the neurological disorders, including
autism, that have been associated with Thimerosal in vaccinated
populations.

It’s time for the CDC to come clean with the American public. Its tactics
of deception and obfuscation are jeopardizing the credibility of the entire
vaccine program, and therefore posing an enormous danger to public health.
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The SmithKline Beecham letter (copied from fax).

SmithKline Beecham
Pharmaceuticals

July 31, 1999

Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, Director
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road, NE
Atlanta, GA 30333
(404)-639-7111 (fax)

Dear Dr. Koplan,

SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (SB) as manufacturer of vaccines has
been involved in discussions recently surrounding thimerosal in vaccines,
and is aware of and sensitive to the related statements issued by the
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the US Surgeon General, the
Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC). As a manufacturer, we agree that, despite the
absence of any scientific data that thimerosal causes adverse effects,
wherever possible ” thimerosal-containing vaccines be removed as soon as
possible” as is recommended in the July 7 Joint Statement of the AAP and
the US Public Health Service (PHS). For this reason we wish to inform you
that SB is in a posiiton to supply Infanrix (Diptheria and Tetanus Toxoids
and Acellular Pertussis Vaccine Adsorbed), the only U.S. licensed DTPa
vaccine that does not use thimerosal as a preservative, in enough
quantities to supply the estimated U.S. market needs for at least the
remainder of 1999 and the first half of 2000. By that time, other
thimerosal Free DTPa products, including SB’s pentavalent DTPa/HB/IPV, will
be likely available, pending FDA approval.

We have significantly increased our inventories of infaris in light of the
fact that DTPa vaccines are currently a major contributer to the amount of
thimerosal which may be given in the pediatric recommended vaccination
schedule. Not only are there five doses of DTPa vaccine administered to
children under 7 years of age, but three of those doses are recommended in
the first 6 months of life. Furthermore, thimerosal - containing DTPa
vaccines have the highest concentration of thimerosal amoung currently
recommended vaccines with 25 mcg mercury per dose, more than twice the
amount of hepatitis B vaccines. Consequently, infants who receive the
first three doses of DTPa vaccines during the first six months of life are
exposed cumulatively to 75 mcg of mercury, nearing the threshold
established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of 80 mcg of
mercury. By contrast, infants receiving infanrix for the primary series
(and a non- thimerosal containing Hib (?fax not clear, PC) vaccine can
receive all other recommended vaccines, irrespective of manufacturer, and
still not exceed the cumulative levels of mercury under EPA reference
guidelines.

Several weeks ago, SmithKline Beecham was approached by the vaccine
contracting department at the CDC inquiring about our ability to supply the
entire U.S. DTPa market with infanrix and the potential for an exclusive
DTPa contract, until other non-thimerosal DTPa vaccines were licensed. In
reviewing our inventory levels, SmithKline Beecham is now in a posiiton to
move forward with such a contract. We believe the exclusive availability of
infanrix DTPa moves the AAP, CDC and PHS much closer to their stated
objectives of thimerosal free vaccines in the U.S. We look forward to
discussing this possibility with you further in the days to come.

Sincerely,

John Inbara, Vice President and Director
Vaccine Business Unit, U.S.

(stamped received Aug 6 1999)