►February 10, 2004 - No link found between autism, vaccine - UPI via The Washington Times

Comment:  This statement is simply false.

►February 10, 2004 - Researchers dispute risk of autism from vaccines - Cox News Service via The Contra Costa Times

Comment:  This is a shocking example of media bias.  Note that although there were almost the same number of researchers who supported the claim that vaccines cause autism as opposed it, there was not even a hint of that fact in this article.  Also note that Mark Geier, a geneticist with both an MD and a PhD, who with his son presented compelling evidence against the vaccines (and who has been thwarted in his efforts by the CDC - see below), was not only NOT called a researcher, but was referred to right after this sentence: "Some people who attended the meeting refused to accept those findings."  "Some people"?  "Refused to accept those findings" when their own research contradicted it?  'Nuff said.

►February 10, 2004 - Federal Panel Hears Testimony on Vaccinations and Autism (requires registration or subscription) - The New York Times - "Medical experts squared off Monday before a federal panel trying to determine whether a mercury-based preservative once common in routine childhood vaccines was behind the rising rates of autism in the United States...Most of the epidemiologists who testified said they doubted that the preservative, thimerosal, was responsible. But a few toxicologists said they had become more and more convinced of a potential link...Representative Dave Weldon, Republican of Florida, accused the Centers for Disease Control of ignoring potential links and said it was blocking access by outside researchers to a vaccine database it maintained with a group of managed-care organizations."

Comment:  This is a particularly good article.

►February 10, 2004 - Experts Weigh Possible Autism, Vaccines Link - Reuters, UK - "But Amy Carson, co-founder of Moms Against Mercury, said the government and others were trying to "shift the blame" from thimerosal to other sources...'I think they want to be able to say those children were already damaged in utero and that it didn't have anything to do with vaccines,' said Carson, whose 7-year-old son has autism."

►February 10, 2004 - Studies Find No Evidence That Vaccines Inflate Risk of Autism - The Washington Post - "Scientists cast new doubt yesterday on suspicions that vaccines increase the risk for autism, saying large studies conducted in Denmark, Britain and the United States have failed to find a link between the childhood shots and the brain disorder...Other researchers, however, questioned the findings and presented evidence they said supported the theory that mercury used as a preservative in some vaccines may increase the risk for autism in at least some children...The conflicting research came at a day-long meeting sponsored by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which is investigating a possible link between vaccines and autism at the request of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta."

Comment:  Given that the research was admittedly conflicting, why the one-sided title?

►February 9, 2004 - Study Links Vaccine to Autism - opinion - by Dr. Martha Collins - Planet Chiropractic - "From the National Post: In tests on human brain cells, researchers found two natural chemicals—one compound that stimulates cell growth and also dopamine, which transmits nerve signals—are key to a process in the brain called methylation. Methylation helps DNA work properly and is crucial to the normal development of the brain. The team found thimerosal, ethanol and mercury all interfere with methylation. What’s more, thimerosal not only did so in amounts typically found after a child is vaccinated, but even at doses 100 times lower than a child would receive after a single shot with a thimerosal-containing vaccine. 'It was by far the most potent,' says investigator Dr. Richard Deth, a professor of pharmacology at Northeastern University in Boston. 'Some would consider (thimerosal) a smoking gun,' he said. 'I think it is.'"

►February 9, 2004 - Scientists suggest mercury-autism link, recommend action - www.timesrecordnews.com - "Vaccines containing mercury may be contributing to the rise in autism even though population studies have not shown a connection between vaccines and the disorder, scientists told the National Academies of Science Monday...Several large population studies in the United States, the United Kingdom and Sweden have found no increased prevalence of autism among children who received vaccines containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosol, scientists told a special panel of the National Academies of Science's Institute of Medicine examining vaccine safety...However, a review of several other studies shows there is strong evidence that children with autism may suffer from an inherited condition that prevents them from efficiently excreting mercury from their bodies, said toxicologist Vasken Aposhian, a professor the University of Arizona and an expert on mercury who was a member of the national academies' mercury panel in 2001."

►February 9, 2004 - Autism and Links to Vaccines Containing Mercury To Be Re-examined by Independent Experts at the Institute of Medicine - Medical Expert Jeff Bradstreet M.D., Presenting His Findings at the Panel Held by the IOM, and Parents of Autistic Children Available to Comment - press release - Autism Recovery Consortium via PRNewsire - "Dr. Bradstreet will introduce new information on possible links between autism (a rapidly rising epidemic among children throughout the United States), the mercury preservative thimerosal, and the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine. Dr. Bradstreet, who is also the father of a child recovering from autism, has the largest patient population of children with ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) in the U.S."

►February 9, 2004 - Vaccine debate simmers - USA Today - "A long-running debate over what role, if any, vaccines play in causing autism or other developmental disorders continued Monday with a series of new studies that did little to settle the question."

►February 9, 2004 - CDC Vaccine Safety Data Leads Scientists To Shocking Discovery - press release - National Autism Association

►February 9, 2004 - CDC Orders Premature IOM Meeting on Vaccine Autism Link - CDC Conflict of Interest Hinders Scientific Research on Autism - press release - Safe Minds via PRNewswire