By Anne Dachel

In my book, The Big Autism Cover-Up , I devoted a whole chapter to journalist Sharyl Attkisson.

In the early 2000s Sharyl did groundbreaking stories on the rise of autism and the link to vaccines. These were on CBS, back when CBS was a legitimate news outlet. She reported on thimerosal use in vaccines, the MMR vaccine, the conflicts of interest of health officials, Brian Hooker’s revelations about a CDC whistleblower and the Hannah Poling decision, where the U.S. government conceded a case involving vaccines and the development of autism.

(See coverage links at the bottom.)

On May 28, 2023, Sharyl published a new piece entitled Prevalence of autism: 1 in 35 eight-year-olds

Here Sharyl is focused on the latest jaw-dropping numbers, something NO ONE in our public health agencies ever is.

According to CDC, one in 35 eight-year-olds in the US had an autism-related brain disorder in 2020...and the true number is even worse today, three years after the data that was analyzed. Even more concerning, the numbers are higher among children under age eight. And autism occurs at a significantly higher rate in American boys than in girls.

In 2000, many experts declared an emergency when the rate had suddenly spiked to one in 150 children. …

The new rate was dismissed once again by health experts as merely being better recognize of a condition that’s always been around. It got almost no coverage in the mainstream press, and no one was publicly talking about why the rate never stops increasing.

Sharyl continued:

CDC concludes the shocking prevalence shows the need to spend more resources identifying and treating autism. Oddly, nothing is said about the need to identify what's causing the epidemic so it can be prevented in the first place.

She went right to the issue officials never stop denying:

Countless studies, government court documents, and medical experts have linked vaccines to autism in children with biologic or genetic susceptibilities. The autism epidemic coincides with the time that the government tripled the childhood vaccine schedule in the 90s. Additionally, during the same time period, other immune-related disorders have also spiked in children. That includes Crohn's disease, POTS, allergies and asthma, skin allergies and rashes, juvenile diabetes, celiac and more.

She made the stunning claim that YES, vaccines do cause autism AND YES, the government knows there is link and has covered it up for decades.

Some government officials have repeatedly stated there is no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism, or that the theory has been "debunked." However, court documents show the government secretly acknowledged such injuries two decades ago, and the government's own top medical expert eventually said he had been wrong and that vaccines do "rarely" cause autism, after all. He signed an affidavit saying the Dept. of Justice fired him as an expert witness when he told them vaccines can cause autism, and covered up his opinion.

WHO was this expert government witness who has been silenced?

Sharyl reported on him FOUR YEARS AGO. This Full Measure coverage featured Robert Kennedy, Jr. among other prominent people in the vaccine-autism debate.

FULL MEASURE: January 6, 2019 - The Vaccination Debate

Dr. Andrew Zimmerman is a world renowned pediatric neurologist. Dr. Zimmerman was the government’s top expert witness and had testified that vaccines didn’t cause autism. The debate was declared over.

But now Dr.Zimmerman has provided remarkable new information.

He claims that during the Vaccine Court hearings, all those years ago, he privately told government lawyers can and did cause autism in some children.

That turnabout from the government’s own chief medical expert stood to change everything about the vaccine autism debate if the public were to find out.

Rolf Hazlehurst, father of a vaccine injured child whose case lost in Vaccine Court:

He has come forward and explained how he told the United States government the vaccines can cause autism in a certain subset of children.

The United States government, the Department of Justice suppressed his true opinions

Sharyl: Hazlehurst discovered that later when Dr. Zimmerman evaluated Yates as a teenager.

That’s when he partnered with vaccine safety advocate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has a voce condition.

Kennedy: This is one of the most consequential frauds, arguably, in human history.

Sharyl: Kennedy was instrumental in convincing Dr. Zimmerman to document his remarkable claim of the government covering up his true expert opinion on vaccines and autism. …

…His sworn affidavit. It says on June 15, 2007, he took aside the Department of Justice or DOJ lawyers he worked for defending vaccines in Vaccine Court.

He told them he discovered exceptions in which vaccines could cause autism.

“I explained that in a subset of children, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation did cause progressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder.”

Kennedy: This panicked DOJ attorneys, and they immediately fired Zimmerman…. They wanted to silence him.

Sharyl: Days after Department of Justice lawyers fired Dr. Zimmerman as their expert witness, he alleges they went on to misrepresent his opinion to continue to debunk autism claims.

Records show that on June 18, 2007, a DOJ attorney Dr. Zimmerman spoke to told Vaccine Court, “We know Dr. Zimmerman’s views on the issue. There is no scientific basis for a connection between vaccines and autism.”

Dr. Zimmerman now calls that highly misleading.

The former DOJ lawyer didn’t return our calls and emails.

Kennedy has filed a fraud complaint with the Justice Department Inspector General…

Meantime, the CDC which promotes vaccines and monitors vaccine safety, never disclosed that the government’s own one-time medical expert concluded, vaccines can cause autism, and to this day, public health officials deny that’s the case. …

(Dr. Anne Schuchat from the CDC is shown denying any link.)

In addition to filing a fraud complaint, Kennedy has delivered Dr. Zimmerman’s affidavit to leaders on Capitol Hill, but there he claims is another key part of this story: roadblocks set up by the pharmaceutical industry or Pharma.

Kennedy: Everybody takes money from Pharma, so they’ve all been corrupted. It’s almost impossible to get anything done on Capitol Hill.

Sharyl: Kennedy, a Democrat, isn’t the only one claiming vaccine industry money rules the day.

We spoke to 11 current and former members of Congress and staff who claimed they faced pressure, bullying or threats when they raised vaccine safety questions.

Several of them agreed to appear on camera.

Former House Oversight Committee Chairman, U.S. Rep. Dan Burton: There’s no question in my mind whatsoever that the pharmaceutical industry had a great influence with people over at the CDC and FDA. There’s no question in my mind.

Sharyl: [Burton] pursued vaccine investigations in the early 2000s. Beth Clay is one of his staffers.

Clay: There was a lot of pressure from people on the Hill. … Colleagues, they were pharmaceutical lobbyists.

The pharmaceutical lobbyists, they’re the same people that have been entrenched. They can walk into any office on Capitol Hill, and they’ll talk to staff, they’ll talk to members and they’ll encourage them to discourage our investigation.

Sharyl asked why they have so much access in Congress.

Clay: It’s money. If you look at the donations over the last 20 years, the pharmaceutical industry and Republican and Democrat—they’re nonpartisan. They put money everywhere.

Sharyl is shown interviewing former U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, M.D.

Sharyl: If you would want to hold a hearing on an issue like vaccines and autism, your own leadership might fight you on that because of the financial influence—

Weldon: No, they wouldn’t fight you, they’d kill it. It’d be dead. They don’t even want to discuss it. It’s dead on arrival.

If you as an individual member want to take on the pharmaceutical industries, it’s, it’s, forget it.

Sharyl asked him to describe how this influence works in Congress.

Weldon: It would typically be in a hallway or on the street. People would come up to you can say, you really need to back off on this. It could be bad for the community, bad for the country or bad for you.

When asked about Dr. Zimmerman’s affidavit, Dr. Weldon said it was “consistent with my opinions. Some children can get an autism spectrum disorder from a vaccine.”

Next was a clip from U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, a Republican.

CONTINUE READING: https://www.ageofautism.com/2023/05/sharyl-attkisson-friend-of-ours.html