Photo Credit: Monica Almeida/The New York Times

The original story below was written in 2008 in response to the alarming rate of families who were refusing to vaccinate their children. As we confront the H1N1 flu virus in 2009, we see a similar (and irrational) anti-vaccination rebellion across the nation.

[Update 6.11.10] Researchers unveil detailed look at genetic causes of autism
An international team of researchers unveiled the most detailed picture yet of the genetic causes of autism, identifying specific genes and pathways that play a role in the complex disorder, and that can now be targeted by drug companies hoping to provide treatment for millions worldwide. Source: Daily Me

[Update 3.13.10] 'Vaccines court' rejects mercury-autism link in 3 test cases
The finding supports a broad scientific consensus that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal does not cause autism ... The court had ruled 13 months ago that a combination of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, commonly known as the MMR vaccine, and thimerosal does not cause the disorder, so the new ruling may finally close the bulk of litigation on the matter.

Special Master George L. Hastings wrote: "This case . . . is not a close case. The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners' causation theories."

Largely because of parental fears, thimerosal was removed from all childhood vaccines by 2001, except for multidose vials of influenza vaccine. Despite that action, the prevalence of autism has continued to grow, and it is now thought to affect as many as one in every 100 children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Source: LA Times

Michael Spector, writing in The New Yorker, had this to say:

The new H1N1 virus is similar to seasonal flu in its severity. In the United States, influenza regularly ranks among the ten leading causes of death, infecting up to twenty per cent of the population. It kills roughly thirty-five thousand Americans every year and sends hundreds of thousands to the hospital. Even relatively mild pandemics, like those of 1957 and 1968, have been health-care disasters: the first killed two million people and the second a million...

Meanwhile, the virus has now appeared in a hundred and ninety-one countries. It has killed almost four thousand people and infected millions of others. The risks are clear and so are the facts. But, while scientists and public-health officials have dealt effectively with the disease, they increasingly confront a different kind of contagion: the spurious alarms spread by those who would make us fear vaccines more than the illnesses they prevent. Source: October 12, 2009

Get accurate information: CDC H1N1 Flu: Questions and Answers

One quarter of Americans sick enough to be hospitalized with H1N1 flu last spring wound up needing intensive care and 7 percent of them died, the first such study of the early months of the global epidemic suggests.

That's a little higher than with ordinary seasonal flu, several experts said.

What is striking and unusual is that children and teens accounted for nearly half of these cases, including many who were previously healthy. Source: Associated Press

Linda Palmer, photo above left, Julie Chiariello and Sybil Carlson do not care about America; they do not care about you. These women, modern 30ish-aged mothers, echo the sentiments of millions of Americans today. They have little concern for their community. They are products of the ME-Generation and their lives are all about "Me, me, me and my family."

Sybil Carlson recently told reporters, "I refuse to sacrifice my children for the greater good." The topic was childhood vaccinations, yet she could have been referring to other issues of public service, such as sending her son to fight against radical extremists who want to fly planes into American buildings. Duty, honor, country ... no longer in America. These values have been forgotten in middle and upper class neighborhoods in places like San Diego where these women live.

It is easy to get these people talking about their disdain for gays, liberals and unions -- what they consider to be threats to their society. They may even consider themselves "cultural warriors" who boycott department stores that greet customers with "Happy Holidays" around Christmas.

These women believe childhood vaccines are dangerous. Ironically, it is likely all three were vaccinated as children -- as you likely were as well. They are not medical professionals or experts in public health.

Parents like Sybil Carlson appear to be influenced by misinformation obtained from websites that oppose vaccination. Carlson believes she knows more than leading scientists and apparently holds a cynical and distrusting view of public health experts.

Yet anyone who has watched their child struggle through a vaccine-preventable illness understands the reasons we vaccinate our children. Worldwide, 242,000 children a year die from measles, down from nearly a million. The deaths have dropped because of vaccinations -- a 68 percent decrease from 2000 to 2006.

Sybil Carlson is well-educated and affluent, yet claims she understands what is at stake. Her failure to vaccinate her child threatens all of us. Carlson's response, "I cannot deny that my child can put someone else at risk" -- but she is going to do it anyway.

Others will drink and drive, run red lights, refuse to conserve energy or water, yet bitch and moan when gas prices near $4/gallon. They are anti-tax and support deficit spending policies that pass costs to those yet unborn. This is the MOST SELFISH generation and America and Americans are not their concern.
Source Material: Public Health Risk Seen as Parents Reject Vaccines 3.21.08

I simply cannot believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can’t. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don’t like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are -- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people’s windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.
Source: John Cole 10.10.07

Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman, slams President Bush and today's Republicans, while calling Bill Clinton one of "the smartest presidents" he worked with.

He says the GOP deserved the stomping it took in the November 2006 congressional elections -- a ballot that saw both houses of Congress wrested from Republican control -- because the party "swapped principle for power."

In Greenspan's book, released 9.17.07, he writes that Bush essentially left an unbridled GOP Congress to spend money however it saw fit, and by not vetoing a single bill in six years, George W. Bush deprived the nation of checks and balances.

"The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."
Source: CNN.com. 9.16.07

The two leaders shared a border for six years, but former Mexico President Vicente Fox gives a tough assessment on President Bush in a new book out next month. In "Revolution of Hope," set to hit book stores October 4, Fox calls Bush "the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life," and is sharply critical of the president's Iraq policy and his immigration stance.

Though he describes warm relations with Bush, Fox in the book also calls the president's Spanish skills "grade-school" level and says, "I can't honestly say that I had ever seen George W. Bush getting to the White House." Yes, Vicente, we can't understand it either...
Source: CNN.com. 9.17.07

Four years ago this week -- on July 2, 2003, George W. Bush was asked about the rising casualty rates in Iraq. His response:

...anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case.

Let me finish. There are some who feel like -- that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring it on.

Since that childish schoolboy taunt, Usama bin Laden remains at large directing al Qaida attacks; 3,372 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq and over 34,650 have been wounded; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died; terrorism is increasing worldwide because of our presence in Iraq, not to mention that our moral standing across the globe is in the toilet. Mission accomplished, Mr. President???

Operation Iraqi Liberation -- O.I.L.
Alan Greenspan, in his book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, echoed many critics who say that a key motivation for the war is to maintain US access to the rich oil supplies in Iraq.

"I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil."

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...

These words are adapted from the Declaration of Independence, drafted July 4th, 1776. Fifty-six individuals, all White males, signed this liberal document of freedom. Our young nation, founded on the principles of liberty from tyranny and justice for all, represented a revolutionary liberal movement in the course of human history.

In 1776 this nation was far from perfect. Only men signed this document, no women were invited, and these were all men of landed wealth. At the time, while declaring "all men were created equal," the founding representatives tolerated the slavery of Africans. It would be another 70 years before a liberal leader, Abraham Lincoln, would demand the end to the tyranny of man over man.
America was founded on principles of liberalism. These include, but are not limited to, political equality and justice for all men and women, government based on the consent of the governed, militia regulated by civilian leaders, separation of Church and State, a free press, taxation only by consent of the people, trial by a jury of peers and full due process of law.

Too many Americans apathetically neglect their duties and responsibilities that are associated with liberal government. This website serves as an open forum for informed discussion.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the American people; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their current Systems of Government. The history of the George W. Bush regime is a history of repeated injuries, usurpations and distortions of truth, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the people. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world.