First do no harm, or at least conceal it

I've long thought the folks asserting a link between autism and thimerosal-laced vaccines were barking up the wrong tree. As Anita says today in her post on the article below, there really didn't seem to be the research to support it. Only there was. It was just hidden by our government to protect vaccine makers and control costs.

If you've got kids born between 1989 and 2003, you might want to read today's Salon piece by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., reporting on a secret CDC/WHO/Big Pharma meeting five years ago and unearthed by FOIA request. (You can also find the article at Common Dreams.)

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children...

Even for scientists and doctors accustomed to confronting issues of life and death, the findings were frightening...

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data...

And who is helping them 'handle' this little public-health disaster? "Doctor" Bill Frist, the same guy who said that blind Terri Schiavo was responding to visual stimuli:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has received $873,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, has been working to immunize vaccine makers from liability in 4,200 lawsuits that have been filed by the parents of injured children. On five separate occasions, Frist has tried to seal all of the government's vaccine-related documents... "The lawsuits are of such magnitude that they could put vaccine producers out of business and limit our capacity to deal with a biological attack by terrorists," says Andy Olsen, a legislative assistant to Frist.

But with a federal response like that, who needs terrorists? Not that this issue won't create more enemies abroad for us:

[T]he government continues to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates.

Why is this happening? Why was it allowed to begin at all? Because the powers that be are pennywise and pound-foolish:

Thimerosal enables the pharmaceutical industry to package vaccines in vials that contain multiple doses, which require additional protection because they are more easily contaminated by multiple needle entries. The larger vials cost half as much to produce as smaller, single-dose vials, making it cheaper for international agencies to distribute them to impoverished regions at risk of epidemics.

Ah, sweet logic. So these cash-strapped nations can afford to treat and care for the neurological fallout from these vaccines? Yes, vaccinations have spared many children from polio, meningitis and other horrid diseases. But to say that it's worth poisoning millions of babies and children to achieve these results on the cheap is the coldest, most morally vacant calculus I've encountered.

We're the United States. If we can't figure out a cost-effective way to vaccinate children without poisoning them, then we might as well turn in our superpower cape and call it a day.