From the April 2003 Idaho Observer:

Frist do us no harm

While the Congress, the Bush administration, public health officials and organized medicine respond to manufactured WNV and SARS epidemics as if they are real, they play political games with a real epidemic: Autism. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 years ago one in 10,000 children developed autism; today the number has exploded to one in 150.

by Vaccination Liberation

Senator Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a thoracic surgeon when he worked for a living, is creating a legacy for himself as a notorious shill for the pharmaceutical companies. “Last year [he] introduced a bill to protect drug companies like Eli Lilly [the company that developed Thimerosal] from litigation pertaining to Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative found in childhood vaccines that has been linked to neurodevelopmental disorders,” reported the Boston Globe April 7, 2003.

Frist's bill died in the Senate, but the tenacious MD from Tennessee snuck it into the Homeland Security bill. Though Homeland Security was passed, the Eli Lilly provision was removed after it was discovered.

Undaunted, Frist attempted to sneak his pro-Lilly legislation into the BioShield bill last month but was once again rebuffed by a growing numbers of parents groups who waged a well-funded advertising campaign in D.C. newspapers and on D.C. radio.

But rather than take no or the possibility of political suicide as an answer, Frist introduced a standalone bill to amend the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Plan (NVICP) which was passed in 1986. The NVICP of 1986 was itself a masterstroke of legislation as it removed the burden of vaccine damage liability from the shoulders of vaccine manufacturers and placed it on the taxpayers.

Frist's amendments would make it even more difficult for children and families to be compensated for vaccine damage. Activists have coordinated a national effort to saturate congressional offices with phone calls, FAXes and emails. “Not one member of Congress can claim ignorance of the relationship between mercury and autism,” commented Autism Autoimmunity Project President April Oakes.

Vaccination is increasingly coming under attack as autoimmune diseases and autism become more and more solidly linked to vaccines. Another report just published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons by Drs. Mark and David Geier analyzed mercury doses children received from Thimerosal in routine childhood vaccines as compared to federal safety guidelines for mercury exposure. “A causal relationship between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders appears to be confirmed,” the doctors concluded.

The Autism Autoimmunity Project, a grassroots organization comprised of parents of vaccine damaged children, physicians, researchers and concerned citizens, is quickly assuming leadership status in the campaign to spare children and families from a lifetime of broken hearts and vaccine damaged minds and bodies.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee is currently debating Frist's latest bill. “Many parents believe it is a simple choice -- either the HELP Committee is for mercury poisoning and drug companies, or they are for vaccine-injured children and justice,” said Laura Bono, the mother of a son with vaccine-induced autism.

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