IACC Deaf on Critical Vaccine Research as Request for Public Comment is Issued
By Theresa Wrangham
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) issued a Request for Information (RFI) as they begin to Update their Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Research, while failing at their recent joint meeting with the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) on July 15th to take on statutorily required autism research.
While the purpose of the RFI is to solicit input from ASD stakeholders to inform the next update of the Strategic Plan, the IACC ignored stakeholders and many autism organizations request to conduct vaccine safety research that was vetted through their own science workshops and strategic planning workgroups as needed in the first iteration of the Strategic Plan issued in January. Public comment will be web-based and responses must be received by August 21st.
The July 15th meeting brought few surprises to those who have followed the IACC Federal Member’s vote blocking strategy stop autism related research identified as critical by the NVAC. The meeting was more or less a tennis match - the ball being volleyed – critical research answering the question how many children have vaccine induced autism? This is a question that never really gets play in a federal agency court – except the vaccine court (Vaccine Injury Compensation Program – VICP) – which has ruled such is the case for a dozen or so kids that we know of. The VICP has been noticeably silent on those decisions, unless backed into a corner, when by contrast they can hardly wait to let the press know when a ruling denying compensation has been handed down. Yet, this is undeniably the question that remains unanswered.
SafeMinds was joined by many autism organizations in requesting that the NVAC make recommendations to the IACC to restore previously vaccine research objectives that, under false pretenses, were removed from the research agenda , as the NVAC report also recommended comparing health outcomes of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated (and alternatively vaccinated) children. This recommendation is essentially the same as the research objective approved in December by the IACC for inclusion in their Strategic Plan for Autism Research, along with a similar objective for studies in animals and represent a fraction of the over $700 million budget currently identified in the IACC’s Strategic Plan.
As Congress statutorily tasked IACC with finding the causes of and treatments for autism, with vaccines specifically singled out in the legislative history, the expectation that NVAC could conduct these studies is erroneous, as they don’t fund or supervise research. Nor do they directly establish the research activities of NIH, CDC, or other federal agencies. The task remains with the IACC, who are deaf to this reality and continue to drag their feet.
While the NVAC report identifies many critical areas of research our community has long acknowledged as necessary to assure vaccine safety, it is disappointing that they acknowledge often cited epidemiological studies as disproving a thimerosal-autism link. The studies cited suffer from various design flaws, over reaching conclusions, confounding factors, populations examine had different levels of exposure compared to American counterpart (apples and oranges comparison) and were often were conducted by investigators with conflicts of interest in that they were employed by vaccine manufacturers . (See SafeMinds research critiques)
However, the gaps identified by the NVAC are substantial and require immediate attention, both by the IACC and other federal agencies in an independent and transparent manner to assure vaccine safety and prevent adverse vaccine reactions. Real vaccine safety will only be accomplished through the promotion of scientific research to understand the biologic mechanisms of adverse events and basic science on vaccines and their components.
SafeMinds encourages the public to voice very loudly the need for vaccine research, as well as other research noted in our previous IACC public comment that will enable increased understanding of autism’s biologic underpinnings.
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