The modern skeptics' primary target is a mercury-based vaccine stabilizer called thimerosal, which critics charge has caused a sharp increase in autism in America. Between 1992 and 2002, the skeptics note, doctors in the United States diagnosed 10 times more cases of the syndrome. But anti-vaccine critics fail to note that between 1987 and 2004, the American Psychiatric Association's official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders revised its definition of autism twice; each time that resulted in an immediate surge in the number of children identified as autistic. Further, when the definitions of autism were standardized, it turned out that Denmark (where no thimerosal was used in vaccines) and Minnesota had the same per capita incidence of autism. Finally, studies show that boys are at least four times more likely than girls to suffer from functional autism, but boys and girls are equally likely to be vaccinated.
Because Allen does not often reflect on the ways that contemporary battles may mirror those described in his earlier historical treatise, the two halves of his book are not well-linked. For example, he offers a concise analysis of the early days of the development of a vaccine for polio, when the pioneering Hilary Koprowski tried out an innovative oral vaccine on thousands of youngsters in Congo. In passing, Allen notes that during the 1990s, a British journalist named Edward Hooper falsely claimed that Koprowski's experiments spawned the AIDS pandemic. But Allen misses the next chapter in that sorry saga: Having read Hooper's claims, a cluster of imams in northern Nigeria announced that Muslims should refuse to have their children vaccinated against polio. Overnight, the global fight against polio shifted; the disease, which had been on the brink of complete eradication, again spread throughout the Muslim world and parts of India. The rest of the write up: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020802510.html?sub=AR _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
