Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Jenny McCarthy, Vaccine-Autism and the TRUTH

When you know how "Mississippi" is spelled and you tell your grade-school genius child for her homework, and she says, "I don't think that's right," what goes through your mind? The good news is, she's thinking about it. The other "news" is that there are certain rock solid truths in this universe, and the above correct spelling of that certain southern state is one of them.


Therefore when Jenny McCarthy appears on TV and claims her son became autistic from vaccine injury, I know this is a fact as much as I know how to spell a lot of different things. What is striking is the coincidence of McCarthy's book publishing and talk-show tour, with a new study featured as the number-one story currently on MSNBC. The very seriously-authoritative and scientific study done by the CDC (Center for Disease Control)--a federal entity designed to pretty much smooth over our consumer concerns that a drug approved for marketing is not dangerous after all (at least that's what I think their basic purpose is)--shows that thimerosol, the mercury preservative widely used until a few years ago to lengthen the shelf-life of vaccines, was not actually harmful to children who received the shots.

The key ingredient to the story is that the vaccine-autism connection was not part of this study, and not an issue. I don't consider mercury a culprit in the vaccine-autism cause and effect anyway. It is the toxin, or germ, contained in the shot itself that causes the adverse affects on the immune system.
Dead-virus, or live-virus vaccine etc...who cares? The cultures for polio vaccines are grown in the kidney tissue of dead monkeys in third-world countries with little or no controls and the virulent pustule toxin is put in vaccines to be shot into you little kid's arm. I wouldn't go into a room where that putrid stuff is, let alone inject it into my blood stream! Would you?

The coincidence remains, however--there is this very visible, known, and attractive, entertainment personality who can get headlines with a story about her child and autism, which is happening right now--and this study comes out today. And Jenny is on Larry King Live tonight!

When Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center wrote her email newsletter commending Oprah Winfrey for finally having a show dedicated to the vaccine issue, and for Jenny McCarthy for talking about it, she gave credit where credit is due to another mother years ago who found the problem, and the answer, and started a movement of parents to take a stand:


Jenny McCarthy gave a star turn on Oprah when she clearly, simply and passionately described what happened to her son after vaccination and how she was empowered by information she found on the Internet to find ways to cure his vaccine-associated regressive autism. She listened to her mother's instinct and pursued a course of treatment that involved nutrition and other alternative therapies. It is a story of a mother's love and determination to heal her son after he was given the diagnosis of autism, a neuroimmune disorder that so many pediatricians are taught is untreatable.


In the early 1990's, a mother in California, Cindy Goldenberg, was the first Mom to cure her son of regressive autism by listening to her mother's instincts and doing her own research into vaccine-induced neuroimmune dysfunction. Her son experienced regressive autism after receiving MMR vaccine. Cindy sought out IVIG therapy as well as nutritional and probiotic therapies that she said "healed his gut." Her son was soon in a regular classroom and this year he graduated from high school.


Two years ago, at the last Defeat Autism Now (DAN) conference attended by the late amazing Dr. Bernard Rimland, founder of the Autism Research Society, Jennie met this young man who addressed an audience of 1,000 attendees and press, and who indeed defeated autism because of his mother, Bernie, and the truth.
Inspiration and hope are undefeatable, even by the CDC and big pharma vaccine-makers who can't spell "Mississippi."

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Circumcision is Painful

I'm not as pissed as much as I'm amazed: there is more interest in OJ Simpson's latest court predicament, and Dan Rather suing CBS for money he doesn't need and with which they don't wanna part, than what's really important tome, to my family, and to you.

For instance, if a young white girl were held down and her clitoris were cut off, it would probably make big news in this great country of ours. Yet this very event takes place all the time with little girls in Africa because of some cultural tradition that has more to do with sadism than religion. I am more up in arms about this calamity for children in a foreign country than I am about any "problem" of traffic congestion or weather inaccuracies which flood our local media. Somehow, their plight, the epidemic of AIDS in Africans, and the problems of genocide etc, seem more immediate to me than what appears as headlines to me every day.

The problem with American perceptions of what's important and what needs attention is the dropping-of-the-ball of the so-called "4th estate," -- the press, the media, TV news etc. Now that the "powers-that-be" conglomerates really own the mode of us citizens getting the true news--the "emmes," as my Jewish elder friends would call it--there is no end to the comforting lies we can be told. Orwell pictured a Big Brother society that only doled out what the "party" wanted the people to know. He would have laughed to know that the people are the ones who are content to only hear the party line.

And here we are--wake me up when you want to talk about the real issues.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Bad Ads; Iraqi Dead; OJ in Trouble

There are 3 headlines which all caught my eye today--right up there with the latest earthquake in Indonesia. Let's sort out the priorities:

1. Betray-Us = Petraeus. Moveon.org, of which I am a member, has used this clever and cute play on words to indicate that we, the people, are being played like a fiddle when it comes to the truth of what is happening in Iraq.

I, happily, am not a ploy to this volleyball, because of my inside track with my closest friend, Christopher Dickey. He is the resident terrorist expert at Newsweek Magazine, as well as Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East correspondent. He's been to Baghdad and knows the players more than I can count, or want to. This whole Iraq occupation from day 1 was bad news, per Chris.

2. Los Angeles Times article says that death toll could be 1 million Iraqis since US incursion began:


According to the ORB poll, a survey of 1,461 adults suggested that the
total number slain during more than four years of war was more than 1.2 million.
This number is not hard to believe because the loss of life is always higher among civilians than military in an occupied situation.

3. OJ Simpson is accused of "stealing" back his old memorabilia in an armed robbery in Las Vegas. This story was up there with the previous two headlines.

How are we, the people, supposed to be taken seriously when we apeal to our elected representatives to concoct legislation to make our lives better, if we equate 1 million dead people with a politically provocative advertisement and a long-gone celebrity whose only claim to fame is that he got away with murder?

Seems like we deserve what we get. Here's some advice for those of us who crave a more appropriate priority list:

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.


I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

--Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) Irish orator, philosopher, & politician

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Bush is addressing the nation on Rosh Hashanah. I can't watch him speak, but I've read he is assuring his fellow Americans of withdrawing some US troops from Iraq at some point as long as we put up with the current "surge:"

"The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."

Ya gotta hand it to him--he's proof that nuts can run a nuthouse.

Not surprising when I am surrounded by news and issues that are more and more outlandish, yet they are more and more being accepted by an acquiescent and overwhelmed public.

For instance, my wife had a routine yearly mammogram in April which is one of the only few items covered and paid for up front by our Blue Cross policy. We are privileged to pay $715 per month for a "preferred provider" plan which means we can go to any M.D. contracted with Blue Cross, and we pay $5,000 deductible out of pocket before dollar-1 is paid by Blue Cross.--Except for yearly pap smears, mammograms, and office visits and a couple of other items. Drugs have a $750 deductible per year per person.

Anyway, Cindy briefly mentioned a twenty-year-old long-term issue to our Dr., who put it on his orders for the "routine" mammogram, so Blue Cross would not pay the "routine" payment, and instead applied $600+ to our deductible--in other words, we have to pay $600 for a procedure for which we normally pay $50.

I'm not done--after MONTHS of communications with a VERY compassionate credit lady at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, CA, and some not-so-successful attempts to reach the physician regarding his "coding" of the mammogram order--which by the way was not needed since Cindy was due for a "routine" yearly mammogram anyway--the Dr. FINALLY changed his coding for the procedure order as "ROUTINE!"

Then the compassionate lady in credit at Mission Hospital phoned me to explain that Blue Cross no longer covers ANY mammograms at Mission Hospital as "routine" because of some red-tape story that I can't even remember to repeat here -- and I'm pretty good at repeating details. Something to do with the hospital taking over the imaging facility and without an "office visit" charge the facility can't be considered "routine." etc and whatever.

So now that we won--the Dr. changed the order to satisfy Blue Cross--we're still gonna owe $600 for a $50 mammogram. And if I miss one monthly payment I'll be sent to collections.

And I wonder why we the people put up with Bush's nonsense??

At least he could have waited until after the first day of Rosh Hashanah to try to save his legacy again...Yom Kippur is the "Day of Atonement."

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

In 6 9/11's We've Learned Nothing

Nostalgic media reports today on the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the dissections and recollections are too numbing to intake. What have we Americans learned in six years since 9/11? Exactly nothing new.

1. The US government--the President, congress, and by extrapolation, American voters--continue military occupation of Iraq with a huge force of soldiers and ongoing murder and mayhem of those soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians.

2. Non-Muslim Americans are increasingly bigoted and suspicious of their fellow Americans--Muslims--because of the irrational association of their ethnic and religious backgrounds with the 19 killers who caused the deaths on 9/11/07.

3. Americans are afraid of terrorist attacks--this fear is pandered to by the media, and exploited for the sake of civil-liberty-restrictive laws by the government.

These three items prove that the education of the public based on events and their aftermath, with respect to 9/11/07, is non-existent and perhaps wilfully so on the part of both the media and the government.

1. Very simply, the invasion and occupation of Iraq as a means to quash events such as 9/11 was and is a complete waste of money and lives. Repeatedly we Americans have been assured by all facets and factions of the media and government that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with, and was not responsible, for events caused by the Bin-Laden headed group of Al Qaeda.

US presence in Iraq is a throwback to the colonial ambitions of the British Empire of the 19th century, which if it were effective, would have brought cheap gas to the US voter--which has not happened. Instead, US military presence in Iraq has brought ruination on the effectiveness of American foreign policy through diplomacy world wide, as well as untold injury and death to thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

2. Americans enjoy a bigoted society. NIMBY, the acronym for "Not in my back yard," has become so well known it is part of a George Carlin joke. Its meaning runs on several levels--I like [whatever ethnic-religious group] but I don't want one of that [whatever ethnic-religious group] living in my neighborhood.

There is nothing new about this bigotry--since the events of 9/11 and the association of the perpetrators with the religion of Islam, the old Joe McCarthy red-baiting cry of fear of communism and "guilt by association" has made the understanding of Muslim Americans totally murky.

19 hooligans, associated with Islam, hijacking planes and killing thousands of people in New York--those were 19 of a larger group of maybe a few hundred in a world of over 1 billion people who follow the religion of Islam. Yet the word I hear on the street from the average American is the same knee-jerk reaction as from a white guy running into an black guy on a dark street corner at night--fear and danger--regardless of the black guy's character, background or intent. Prejudice runs in the blood, not the brain.

The lesson of 9/11 should be one of tolerance and understanding--why are so many people in the world upset with American presence and policy? Instead, Americans learned that not only are African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics a problem, now so are Middle-Eastern-looking people. And you don't have to be white to be prejudiced: there's a stereotype for any group. And if you're not a member of that group, chances are you put the label on them anyway--Mexicans are lazy, African Americans are criminals, and Asians don't know how to drive. And Jews are cheap.

3. Everyone's afraid of being killed by a terrorist act. I am really happy to close with this non-lesson-learned from 9/11, because it really is the envelop for the other two items.

It doesn't take much to disabuse the reader of this irrational attitude--statistics can be "bent" to serve a purpose, but in this case the facts are overwhelming: [from Sixwise.com]

A poll in Conde Nast Traveler in February 2003 found that one-third of respondents feared a terrorist attack. What are your real odds of dying this way? Historically speaking, it's a one in 9.3 million chance--which is a slightly greater risk than you have of dying in an avalanche.



Media efforts to "sell newspapers," or get TV ratings, or just to keep a presence in your face, are what shapes our societal point of view, and therefore how we react to situations, even how we vote and who winds up in charge of our government.

So in the case of us all remaining ignorant, pliant, and sheep to be led by any kind of tyrannical despot with delusions of personal glory and grandeur--or cash for that matter--beyond our wildest dreams of public service and representation, we're keeping our part of the agreement.

Trouble is, we really need to get off our asses and cry "foul!" That is the lesson learned from 9/11!