Do Better, Government

When your professor mentions two weeks in a row that there’s an important article in a magazine, you check it out, even if that magazine happens to be Rolling Stone. And you learn something.

I learned that if my daughter had been born in 1990, instead of 1987, she would have been at least three times more likely to acquire autism. When she was still quite small she was able to tell me "I busy, mommy," when she didn't want to follow one of my directives. That was much more than some autistic children can say even at an older age. She was fortunate to be born before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended additional immunizations for infants. Incredibly, no one had bothered to add up just how much thimersol, a mercury-based preservative, would be injected, with all those vaccines, into each little body. Statistics show a steep rise in autism beginning in 1989, when the new vaccination schedule was begun, and then dropping away again several years later when mercury was removed from the mix, validating the opinions of scores of parents who associate their children’s autism with their immunizations. Vaccines given now, with a few notable exceptions, no longer contain mercury.

For American children, that is. We’re still exporting our heartache—not just increased rates of autism, but also of other neurological disorders like speech delays and attention-deficit disorder -- to China, India, South America and developing countries, places likely to be less equipped to provide for special needs kids than we are. Of course, there is no way in any part of the world to equip a parent for the news that his child has autism.

Jesus said there wouldn’t be a fate much worse than that of those responsible for hurting children. There are other ways to supply the vaccines, but they cost more. He also said the love of money is the root of all evil.

In the classroom I work in for children with autism, we have to keep our communication simple, so we often find ourselves saying to the children, Do better. Let's tell our state governments, Do better-- outlaw thimersol state by state. Iowa and California have led the way.

Tell the federal government, Do better-- stop hiding information to protect yourselves and the drug companies from accountability. Don't tell us the war on terrorism requires our pharmaceutical resources be used in a way that harms some children. Do admit to other nations what we know, so that their children, too, can be protected from neurological damage.

Tell the World Health Organization, Do better--stop ignoring the studies and stop saying that thimersol in children’s vaccines is safe. It's unnecessary to sacrifice a few children, so that many children can be protected, when all the children can be protected another way.

(For more information check out the article this editorial is based on, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the June/July 2005 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Or go to Salon.com and Nonmercury.org.)