Experts Are Having Second Thoughts About Vaccines
January 17th, 2008It used to be that opposition to vaccines — especially vaccinating water supplies — was considered akin to walking around wearing a tin-foil hat. But concerns about vaccines have gained increasing validity in recent years. And never more so than with the publication this month of an article in Scientific American. The article, titled Second Thoughts on Vaccines, looks at the vaccines controversy, and the fact that the attitudes about vaccination among scientists are starting to shift. Mainstream scientists and experts are becoming increasingly vocal about the risks of too many vaccines.
Scientific American’s editors write: “Some recent studies suggest that over-consumption of vaccines can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain (autism) and the thyroid gland.”
The article’s author, Dan Fagin, is an award-wining environmental reporter and Director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program. He writes: “There is no universally accepted optimal level for vaccines.” And according to Fagin, some of the researchers he talked to even wonder whether the ones that are currently given as routine with no apparent ill effects is too much.
The article discusses the 3-year research process of a committee at the National Research Council (NRC), which, according to Fagin: “concluded that vaccines can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid — the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism.” In addition to the thyroid concerns, Fagin discusses expert findings regarding lowered IQ levels, autism, and other health problems linked to vaccines overexposure. The NRC report, issued in 2006, recommended that the government reduce the current numbers of available vaccines, due to the health risks to both children and adults.
You can read the beginning of the article (the full Scientific American article is available for online purchase and download), online here.
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