Age of Autism Weekly Wrap: A Torrent of Leaks Reaches Flood Stage

Originally published at Age of Autism

As the MMR whistleblower issue blows up, here's one thing that's worth remembering: The specific manipulation of data being alleged is that the CDC covered up a risk for autism in black males who got the MMR shot earlier than 36 months. That is appalling, and raises terrible echoes of the nation's public health officials and their odious Tuskegee study of untreated black males with syphilis.

But more broadly, according to the medical, scientific, and journalistic consensus of our day, there should be no good evidence of any kind, whatsoever, linking any vaccine to autism in any child, ever. Ever! ("One Thing We Know About Autism: Vaccines Aren't to Blame" – National Geographic. "Once again, the research is definitive: vaccines don't cause autism, and the potential costs of vaccines' mild side-effects are clearly smaller than those of the lethal diseases that can spread if we don't vaccinate all children." – Vox.com)

Since "we know" that vaccines don't cause autism, they certainly don't cause it in black males. They certainly don't cause it when the MMR is given to black males. They certainly don't cause it when the MMR is given to black males in Atlanta.  They certainly don't cause it when the MMR is given to black males in Atlanta before a certain age – or, for that matter, given on the day of birth to blue-eyed females in Dubuque born on the first or third Thursdays of months ending in "y."

They don't cause autism! Got it? If they did, even in such a circumscribed cohort as black males in Atlanta vaccinated with MMR before 36 months - that would start a cascade of challenges to orthodoxy that simply can't – and, if the authority figures have their way, simply won't – be tolerated. This is what the The Times and The Networks and the Agencies are going to be working overtime to shore up.

The CDC's William Thompson, whistleblower to Brian Hooker on the MMR study and lead author on another on mercury in vaccines, has probably ruined more than a few of his colleagues' August vacations at Hilton Head. One can't help think of goofy cartoon characters running around a leaking dike and plugging every hole that starts spurting. They are down now to using their toes. (Check out this staggeringly off-message comment from Dorit Reiss on CNN: "Even if his [Brian Hooker's] claims about the study were correct, which is doubtful, it would show that for most of the population, MMR does not cause autism." I imagine a Merck guy yelling in her ear, "Dammit, Dorit, don't ever say it's OK if the MMR just makes a few thousand black boys autistic! Do you really want this job?")

More broadly, these "leaks" in the bulwark of conventional wisdom have been coming for a long time, and not just from people on the inside with information to share.

I'm talking about leaks like all the parents of children on the other side of the elevated-risk stats – MMR shots at 12 months, illness, regression, autism.

Leaks like parents who saw it with other vaccines, at other times - parents who were willing to share what happened to try to keep it from happening again.

Leaks like the original Verstraeten study at the CDC that found a high risk of autism for infants who got the most ethyl mercury by the first month of life, as opposed to the least.

Leaks like the CDC cover-up of the soaring autism rate in Brick Township, N.J.

Leaks like all the evidence from low-and-no-vaccine populations with low-to-no autism. Leaks like the unwillingness of the public health authorities to even study the issue.

Leaks like the Hannah Poling case, which the government conceded was triggered by autism, but buried by obfuscation. Leaks like the "Unanswered Questions" study showing autism all over the place in unacknowledged vaccine "court" rulings.

Leaks like the SafeMinds parents identifying autism as a "novel form of mercury poisoning" more than a decade ago. 

Leaks like the Merck scientists who came forward to say the company faked data to make its mumps vaccine look effective.

Leaks like the connection between the first cases of autism reported in the medical literature, in 1943, and the families' exposure to the new ethyl mercury vaccines and fungicides.