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number of vaccines required for school at- avowing that “the large risks of not vaccinating A school
tendance, including thimerosal-containing children far outweigh the unknown and probably
vaccines. By 1999, the expanded vaccine much smaller risk, if any, of cumulative exposure nurse testified
schedule called for children to receive nineteen to thimerosal-containing vaccines over the first before
vaccine injections by age two, eleven of which 6 months of life.” 15 Congress,
contained thimerosal. Children born in the
1990s could be injected, therefore, with up to THE SIMPSONWOOD CABAL “I have never
237.5 micrograms of mercury by their second A year later (June 7-8, 2000), the CDC seen so many
birthday, and as much as 62.5 micrograms at a convened a secret scientific review panel of over damaged,
single doctor’s visit. fifty experts who began backpedaling from the
In my book, Thimerosal: Let the Science AAP-USPHS pronouncement. The group that sick kids.
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Speak, I quote school nurse Patti White, who met at the Simpsonwood Retreat Center near Something
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noticed, early on, the vaccine-induced mercury Atlanta included high-ranking CDC and FDA very, very
overload in young children. In 1999, White representatives, state and international public
testified before Congress about the thimerosal- health officials, vaccine company representatives wrong is
containing hepatitis B vaccine administered to and others. At the outset, the meeting’s chair, happening to
newborns: immunologist Richard Johnston, expressed our children.”
regret that the group had not met to consider
The elementary grades are overwhelmed the data sooner, “in advance of…the public
with children who have symptoms of health decisions [to phase out thimerosal] that
neurological and/or immune system dam- were made last summer.” Further betraying his
age: epilepsy, seizure disorders, various preconceptions, Johnston stated that there was
kinds of palsies, autism, mental retarda- “no evidence of a problem, only a theoretical
tion, learning disabilities, juvenile-onset concern that young infants’ developing brains
diabetes, asthma, vision/hearing loss, were being exposed to an organomercurial.”
and a multitude of new conduct/behavior The group then heard a presentation by
disorders. We [school nurses] have come Thomas Verstraeten, a research fellow at CDC
to believe the hepatitis B vaccine is an who subsequently went on to a decade-long ca-
assault on a newborn’s developing neu- reer at GlaxoSmithKline. Verstraeten had been
rological and immune system. Vaccines working up a study using data from the Vaccine
are supposed to be making us healthier. Safety Datalink (established by the CDC in 1990
However, in twenty-five years of nurs- to study rare and serious vaccine adverse events),
ing I have never seen so many damaged, scrutinizing data from roughly one hundred and
sick kids. Something very, very wrong ten thousand children born between 1992 and
is happening to our children. 1997 and enrolled at U.S. health maintenance
organizations. The study sought to assess the re-
School nurses were not the only ones to call lationship between thimerosal exposure (at one,
attention to the mounting evidence that thimero- two, three and six months of age) and neurologi-
sal-containing vaccines were having neurotoxic cal damage. After the initial findings showed a
effects. In response to pressure from Congress possible causal link, Verstraeten reworked the
and the public, the FDA conducted a review in the study design and analyses several times prior to
late 1990s that found that the amount of mercury Simpsonwood. Despite these apparent attempts
in the childhood vaccine schedule surpassed to make the association “go away,” Verstraeten
some federal safety guidelines. Accordingly, was obligated to present the troublesome finding
the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) and the of linear and statistically significant dose-related
American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a relationships between thimerosal exposure and
lukewarm statement in 1999 about thimerosal’s neurodevelopmental disorders to the group as-
potential risks. The statement’s authors called sembled at Simpsonwood.
for the phase-out of thimerosal-containing vac- Although differing viewpoints emerged,
cines “as expeditiously as possible,“ while still many of the Simpsonwood attendees were less

SPRING 2018 Wise Traditions 31