“Everyone knows the truth, in spite of those powerful special interests who twist the facts to suit their own agenda.” Over the years, this mantra has been chanted by those who know that the Apollo moon landings were clandestinely staged here on earth, and that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Bush administration, and that melting glaciers have nothing to do with temperature rise, and that the Air Force has consistently suppressed the truth about UFOs, and the list goes on and on. The latest chorus to sing this song is the autism advocacy organization, SafeMinds, which is an acronym for Sensible Action for Ending Mercury Induced Neurological Disorders. Unfortunately for those parents who have autistic children, SafeMinds has nothing going for it but the catchy acronym.
Last Friday, March 12, 2010, an autism-related lawsuit brought against the Department of Health and Human Services was dismissed in Federal court, and SafeMinds spokesperson, Laura Bono, is crying “foul” because much of the science disproving the autism-mercury linkage has been supplied by the CDC and the NIH— both of which are HHS agencies. If this was all there was to the story, Ms. Bono might have a case, but she and her organization, SafeMinds, are choosing to ignore the vast reservoir of scientific work that has been done on autism by other investigators such as Columbia University (summer 2008) and Italian researchers who reported in the journal, Pediatrics, in January of 2009. Added to this is the empirical fact that, when vaccine manufacturers took the mercury preservative out of childhood vaccines almost two decades ago, the rate of autism continued to climb. Moreover, as an increasing number of parents choose to not vaccinate their children at all, we are seeing that the autism rate for these unvaccinated children is identical to the rate in those who get vaccine.
The story about SafeMinds and this lawsuit is not a story about autism. It’s a story about belief versus knowledge and wisdom, and it’s a story as old as humanity. As everyone knows who watches the evolution-versus-creation circus, some people follow belief and some people follow logic. That’s always been the case and it always will be the case. What makes the autism controversy so unfortunate is that innocent children get caught in the middle.
See also: Vaccine and Autism 7/2/2008, The Truth About Autism 9/6/2008, and More Truth About Autism and Childhood Vaccine 1/28/2009
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