This week the tabloids and "news services" had a field day reporting the opinion of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) that Dr. Andrew Wakefield "misrepresented or altered the medical histories of patients whose cases formed the basis of his 1998 study." Wakefield's study concluded that the MMR vaccine had a role to play in the development of autism in children. The British journal stated Wakefield is responsible for the loss of trust in vaccines and the significant reduction in vaccination rates putting hundreds of thousands of children at risk.

While it is too early to know if the opinions expressed by the BMJ editorial team are valid or simply an effort to silence an internationally recognized researcher who has dared to challenge the claims of childhood vaccine manufacturers, what I know is that the vaccine manufacturers and public health system ought to examine their own role and responsibility for the loss of confidence in the safety and effectiveness of vaccinations.

When my son was neurologically damaged by his first childhood vaccination at five months of age I discovered our medical system had little interest in recognizing and addressing vaccine damage. The doctors at Vancouver's Children Hospital showed no interest in identifying the lot number of the vaccine that damaged my son to determine if other children were similarly affected. No concern was shown that more children might be damaged by a "bad batch." My own family physician expressed reluctance at recording my son's condition as "vaccine damage." He admitted the challenge by the medical system of such a diagnosis wasn't worth the effort, thus confirming the claims that most vaccine damage goes unreported.

As a result of the damage to my son I spent more than 10 years researching the topic of vaccine damage. I read dozens of books, hundreds of research papers and many thousands of pages of articles to better understand what had happened to my son. I investigated the claims of vaccine manufacturers by digging into the research upon which claims of safety and effectiveness were based. After years of reading I came to a shocking conclusion. No vaccine had successfully passed a double blind, long-term study comparing a vaccinated group with an unvaccinated group to prove either safety or effectiveness.

My conclusions and questions to the Centre for Disease Control and local health officials were met with either silence, disdain or claims that "everyone knows vaccines are safe and effective" and therefore to have a study where some children were not given the vaccine would be unethical.

Years ago I taught courses at Douglas College in New Westminster. Each semester students were subjected to a presentation from health professionals encouraging them to consent to being vaccinated for Hep B. Claims were made that the vaccine was "safe and effective". In one of the presentations I asked a few questions of the health professionals. I inquired: "How long has the vaccine been on the market?" I was told about seven years. "What are the long term effects of the vaccine?" "We don't know" was the answer. "What is the long term effectiveness of the vaccine?" "We don't know" was the answer. The health professional, embarrassed and exasperated by my questions, demanded, "What do you want us to say?" I replied, "Just tell the students the truth."

My conclusion is the pharmaceutical industry and our government regulators have done an inadequate job in proving safety or effectiveness and until they do there will continue to be Andrew Wakefields poking holes in their claims and parents reluctant to participate in this uncontrolled experiment.

Ted Kuntz is the author of Peace Begins with Me. He can be reached at tjkuntz@axion.net.

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