First do no harm

This is my response to a blatantly pro-mercury "parent" on Huffington's blog today. In reality, I believe this "parent" is a pharmaceutical exective.
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For the record, my son's head circumference-for-age percentile has always been normal utilizing the CDC growth chart commonly used by pediatricians. His head size is now and always has been normal. Those remarks were not only vicious but patently false.

Ironically, the same cruel remarks and many of the same asinine arguments now being made by the person hiding behind the moniker "concerned parent" were made by someone who calls themselves “the autism diva" on other blogs and this person continually refers to herself in the third person. Although the e-mail reply address of “concerned parent” is arthurstroud@aol.com, I can not help but note the distinct similarities in their posts. Just one of those things that make you go…hmmmmmm.

How easy it is to be cruel and make unsubstantiated remarks when one hides behind the cowardly mask of anonymity. At least, I put my identity and credentials on my posts. I have shown that I have no hidden agenda or financial motive. Can the same be said of the proponents of injecting mercury into children? I think not.

Can one claim I have a bias? Probably, my child was harmed by the mercury in his vaccines. I don’t think any child should suffer as I watched my son suffer. I am prejudice for protecting children over protecting government programs. If the program or a product of the program is flawed; fix it. Denial does not solve problems. Honesty and transparency is imperative for the trust which many parents and medical professionals feel has been betrayed.

For those of you who are not convinced of the connection between Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental damage, in the complete absence of proof of safety, such as toxicology or pharmacokinetics, why insist on waiting until you are convinced of harm before supporting the effort to make these life-saving vaccines without mercury? Why not use the precautionary principle which states, “When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.” It is quite similar to a basic tenet of medicine, Primum non nocere, which is a Latin phrase that means "First, do no harm." In the simplest of terms…better safe than sorry.

As we have seen with lead, tobacco and asbestos, many in government and industry repeatedly denied for years any evidence of harm or culpability. They even produced “scientific” studies (conveniently failing to reveal they paid for those studies) stating the same tired lines now used with Thimerosal; “there is no evidence to accept or reject that tobacco [or lead, asbestos, etc.] has caused harm in humans.” History has proven them false and conflicted. Thimerosal will be the same. But how many children will be harmed before history catches up to their deception?

Some of you are right when you state this comes down to money. To many in this argument, it does. According to the CDC vaccine price list, the retail price difference between a flu vaccine that contains mercury and one that does not is $3.80. I would gladly have paid $4.00 (or even more) to provide my child with a vaccine without mercury. My point is simply that I was never given the choice. I was never informed his vaccines contained mercury. I never gave my consent for my child to be exposed to a substance in his vaccines that I, as a medical professional, know to be harmful to humans.

The question remains, why are the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics and vaccine manufacturer’s fighting so hard to justify the use of mercury in vaccines *now* when they all agreed in 1999 to its removal. The answer perhaps lies in a May 21, 2002 memo of the World Health Organization (WHO) documenting a meeting with vaccine manufacturers and high ranking officials from WHO, CDC, FDA and other regulatory agencies in Europe. Their conclusion was to “develop a strong advocacy campaign to continue the use of thiomersal” for primarily financial reasons. The implementation of that memo is why we are seeing the sudden attempted rehabilitation of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative. In fact, the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices (ACIP), which operates under the auspices of the CDC, added the influenza vaccine containing mercury into the recommended childhood immunization schedule in 2004. In internal e-mails, meeting minutes and transcripts from CDC, WHO and AAP that I have reviewed, the reason is clear. Money.

Have we, as a society, truly placed a greater value on money than the health and safety of our children? Sadly, it would appear so.

The origins of most of these differences of opinions can be summed up quite simply. The government (CDC, FDA, etc.) is fighting to protect the reputation of the National Immunization Program; the pharmaceutical industry is fighting to protect their profits; the medical community (AMA, AAP, etc.) is fighting to protect themselves from malpractice claims and the parents are fighting to protect their children. Ask yourself which is the worthier battle?

It is difficult to fathom any logical reason someone would condone the purposeful exposure of a dangerous neurotoxin to a pregnant woman or child. Attempting to paint those who oppose mercury in vaccines as “anti-vaccine” is a cop-out and nothing more than a smokescreen in a pitiful attempt to dismiss legitimate concerns. I know why my wife and I, along with thousands of other parents and medical professionals, are fighting so diligently to get mercury out of vaccines and make them safer and to protect *your* children. Why are you fighting so hard to keep mercury in vaccines?

The Hits just keep on coming

We've taken some hits from the usual detractors with the fallout from Salon.com's and Rolling Stone's publication of RFK, Jr's "Deadly Immunity" article.
Below is my response to some rather critical words from a surgeon who mans Orac Knows blog.

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As one physician to another, please take a few moments and review this information. This is your blog and your right to freedom of speech and self realized ideas are important. Please indulge my “quote mining”, but In your information section about your blog you wrote: “…I hope to base my opinions and ramblings on facts, but to remain respectful of other viewpoints.”

You stated in a recent blog regarding the Robert Kennedy, Jr. article in Salon.com: “…the preparation of the article was heavily influenced by an antivaccination activist. Gee, why am I not surprised to learn this? Why didn't Salon.com just let Lujene Clark write the article?”

I believe your goal here is to have the correct facts. After all, “a statement of fact cannot be insolent” (unless the fact is incorrect and appears to be ad hominem).

I am familiar with *the facts* since Lujene Clark is my wife. Firstly, she is not an “antivaccination activist”. She does promote safer vaccines. Putting a known neurotoxin in a vaccine could be construed by some as an unsafe practice. Others will have different opinions.

Secondly, she did not write anything for RFK, Jr. or Salon.com. She was asked to fact check some information contained in the article and she requested that Salon.com double check her “checks.” That’s a nice touch often missing in journalism these days. My wife abhors writing anything (but she could if she wanted to).

Nor did she ask to be interviewed for the magazine. They called her while we were traveling by car to New York City to help set up therapy for friends with a severely mercury damaged child – a precious boy who had lost all speech and language at age 3 after a mercury containing flu shot.

I suspect many physicians, like you and I, might be in denial at the thought of inadvertently poisoning an entire generation of children. It’s not our fault. We were misled and we did what we thought was best for our patients.

We aren’t advocates for money (we accept no funds). Nor have we filed any lawsuits. Our efforts are really a labor of love and we have tried hard to remain in the anonymous background unless telling our story serves to educate or inspire others.

As a physician and a physician educator for 30 years, please allow me to tell my story.

Our son was 7 1/2 years old when he reached his “toxic tipping point” with mercury after he received two doses of Thimerosal-containing influenza vaccine in November 2002 and December 2002 (approximately 30 days apart per the ACIP/CDC guidelines). Within a matter of weeks he experienced dramatic changes...he suffered severe neurodevelopmental changes, neurobehavioral symptoms, exacerbated allergies, asthma, eczema, etc.

Within 10 months, he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. Only when we identified mercury as the culprit and started to remove the heavy metal from his system, did he begin to recover.

As a "mainstream" physician all these years, this seemed to go against all my "conventional" training and was outside the realm of my previous standard of practice. I sought additional training with heavy emphasis on environmental medicine and spent many hours speaking with researchers and clinicians familiar with mercury toxicity and its biomedical symptoms. I shared this knowledge and research with my son's health care team (pediatrician and endocrinologist) and we implemented these new modalities into his treatment protocol. As I stated previously, only then did my son begin to improve.

If it was not mercury causing his problems then what would explain his dramatic improvement when we addressed the mercury issue. Do not make the mistake of thinking there is “no credible scientific evidence” of how and why this is true. There is a plethora of peer-reviewed scientific studies published over the last 50 years that mercury and specifically, Thimerosal (49.6% ethyl mercury by weight) is genotoxic (damages DNA), nephrotoxic (damages kidneys), immunotoxic (damages the immune system), cytotoxic (causes cell death), cardiotoxic (damages the heart), thyrotoxic (damages the thyroid) and neurotoxic (damages the neurological system).

Many of the biological mechanisms for the damage caused by Thimerosal have been identified. Thanks to numerous studies published within the last few years, we have a better understanding of why some children are more susceptible than others. Thanks to several studies published in the last two years we can better understand why and how these new treatment protocols help many of these children achieve dramatic improvements, for example the use of methylcobalamin injections (also known as methyl B12). This is no longer a scientific debate…just check Pub Med. The studies are there much to the dismay of public health officials and vaccine manufacturers. They continue to hope that denial will make this public relations nightmare go away.

Until October 2003, I, too, was “blissfully ignorant” of the acute toxicity of Thimerosal much like most other physicians. We were never told our son’s vaccines contained mercury, a known neurotoxin, in levels that exceeded EPA safety guidelines. It never occurred to us to ask. Because of my medical background, I thought physicians could trust the CDC, the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry. I must hope that no one else should reach this epiphany at so high a price.

Please take a few minutes an carefully review the full text scientific publications available at http://www.NoMercury.org/science.htm.


Alan Clark, M.D.

"When a man who is honestly mistaken, hears the truth, he will either cease being mistaken or cease being honest." Anon