[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 6118-6119]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 AUTISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, a few minutes ago, the majority 
and the minority leaders of the House, or the minority whip and the 
majority leader of the House, discussed the Amber Alert System and how 
important it was that we do everything we can to protect our American 
children. This lectern, or this stand, holds the faces of about 55 or 
60 children who have been damaged, their parents believe, by vaccines 
that contain mercury and they have become autistic. One of those is my 
grandson.
  It is very interesting, Madam Speaker, that today we found out that 
there is a just-published report in the ``Journal of the American 
Association of Physicians and Surgeons'' that involves a research study 
on autism. The research, conducted by Drs. Mark Geier and David Geier, 
analyzed mercury doses children received from thimerosal, which 
contains mercury in childhood vaccines in comparison to Federal

[[Page 6119]]

safety guidelines. The doctors concluded that mercury from thimerosal 
did exceed Federal safety guidelines and that the study provides strong 
epidemiological evidence for a link between increasing mercury from 
thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines and neurodevelopmental 
disorders such as autism which has reached epidemic proportions. The 
authors stated, ``A causal relationship between thimerosal-containing 
childhood vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders appears to be 
confirmed.''
  The Geier research confirms the findings of an unreleased CDC study, 
Centers for Disease Control, obtained through the Freedom of 
Information Act, which found a relative risk of 2.48 between thimerosal 
exposures and autism. Courts of law have generally held that a relative 
risk of 2.0 or higher is sufficient to substantiate that a given 
exposure causes diseases.
  So there is no doubt, no doubt, that the mercury that has been 
injected into our children is a cause, a contributing cause at the very 
least, but a cause, of the autism that these children are suffering. I 
have asked the parents of these children from across the country to 
write to me, to give me information on how their child became autistic 
and how close it was to when the child was vaccinated with vaccines 
containing mercury.
  We had a big problem in the last session. Right at the end in the 
homeland security bill, there was an amendment stuck in at the 11th 
hour which took away any liability that the pharmaceutical companies 
might incur because of mercury-related damage done to children. We were 
able to get that out early this session. But now in the other body they 
are trying to put that back in in a bill that was introduced today by 
the majority leader. That is something that is intolerable. It is 
something that cannot be tolerated by this body or the other body.
  I want to tell you why real quickly. Here is one example, a letter 
from a lady named Sue McManus from Kennesaw, Georgia. She says:
  ``Eight years ago, in 1994, I adopted a lovely daughter, Jessica, 
from Paraguay at age 5 months. Jessica was not identified as a special 
needs child at the time of adoption and was in fact seen by 
pediatricians in Paraguay who were U.S. trained as well as in this 
country and given a clean bill of health. Being a responsible parent 
and following directions from my doctors, I had her vaccinated within a 
few weeks of bringing her home. On 11/15/94, she received OPV, DPT, HIB 
and hepatitis B. On January 17, 1995, she received her second series of 
shots. Within 4 hours of the second series of shots, she reacted with 
severe infantile spasm seizures and she became autistic. She had three 
seizures that week and had never had any form of seizure prior to the 
second shot. Per medical recommendation, she received several shots 
that day. I don't have any doubt that my daughter reacted severely and 
directly as a result of this DPT shot or combination of shots.''
  She goes on to say that ``she has not developed normally, she has 
become autistic, she stares at the walls, she flaps her arms like my 
grandson does and she has chronic diarrhea or constipation and it is a 
problem that will not go away.'' If you saw the movie ``Rain Man,'' you 
know how bad autism can be. If we do not deal with this problem now, we 
are going to deal with it in 15 to 20 years when these people all 
become dependent on society.
  Let me just say to my colleagues, this is something this House is 
going to have to address. It is not a partisan issue. Both Democrats 
and Republicans have said they want to protect America's children. The 
President said he does not want to leave any children behind. These 
kids are being left behind and their parents are being saddled with 
$50,000, $100,000, $200,000 bills. They are selling their homes, they 
are going bankrupt to take care of their children, and the people who 
are responsible for the damage to them, the pharmaceutical companies, 
are being left high and dry with no damage whatsoever being attributed 
to them. There is a responsibility here for this government to make 
sure these children are treated properly.
  In the next few weeks I am going to be reading every night letters 
from these parents talking about how their child was damaged and in 
what proximity it was to the shots they received containing mercury. We 
can no longer turn our backs on this. We went from one in 10,000 
children who are autistic to one in 150 right now. It is an absolute 
epidemic. We cannot sweep it under the rug.

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