Lyn Redwood’s son Will was a healthy, happy baby who met all the normal developmental standards—he was walking and talking by one year. About three months later, however, he began to regress, losing speech, avoiding eye contact and appearing miserable. “He didn’t seem happy anymore,” Redwood said in a recent interview. “He just wanted to sit in his infant seat and watch videos over and over again.”
Doctors initially blamed hearing problems for Will’s decline. Neurologists told the parents that their son had global and receptive speech delay. At age 5, the boy was diagnosed as autistic by his school.
Seeking answers to her son’s condition, Redwood turned to the Internet in 1999 and began a search that led to startling discoveries about thimerosal. This vaccine preservative is composed of nearly 50 percent mercury, which is a known neurotoxin especially harmful to fetuses, infants and children. What’s more, it has been linked to a range of symptoms collectively known as Autism Spectrum Disorders. At one end is severe autism, in which children are socially withdrawn, do not speak and exhibit bizarre, repetitive, sometimes aggressive behaviors. At the other end are Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Thimerosal was widely used since the ’40s in over-the-counter medicines until that use was banned in 1998. It’s still found in some vaccines for adults and infants. Its medical, political, economic and international implications represent a chilling chapter in the history of public health, in which regulatory agencies were negligent, if not guilty, in covering up health hazards, by failing to act quickly to protect millions of children. Said Redwood, a nurse practitioner and a board of health member in her Georgia county, where vaccination is a major public health program: “If someone had told me prior to 1999 that vaccines were responsible for my son’s disabilities, I would have thought they were crazy.”
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Doctors initially blamed hearing problems for Will’s decline. Neurologists told the parents that their son had global and receptive speech delay. At age 5, the boy was diagnosed as autistic by his school.
Seeking answers to her son’s condition, Redwood turned to the Internet in 1999 and began a search that led to startling discoveries about thimerosal. This vaccine preservative is composed of nearly 50 percent mercury, which is a known neurotoxin especially harmful to fetuses, infants and children. What’s more, it has been linked to a range of symptoms collectively known as Autism Spectrum Disorders. At one end is severe autism, in which children are socially withdrawn, do not speak and exhibit bizarre, repetitive, sometimes aggressive behaviors. At the other end are Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Thimerosal was widely used since the ’40s in over-the-counter medicines until that use was banned in 1998. It’s still found in some vaccines for adults and infants. Its medical, political, economic and international implications represent a chilling chapter in the history of public health, in which regulatory agencies were negligent, if not guilty, in covering up health hazards, by failing to act quickly to protect millions of children. Said Redwood, a nurse practitioner and a board of health member in her Georgia county, where vaccination is a major public health program: “If someone had told me prior to 1999 that vaccines were responsible for my son’s disabilities, I would have thought they were crazy.”
http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=434_0_1_0_M
