LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[October 19th, 2005] BIG QUESTIONS FOR BIG PHARMA

I take exception to the tone and thrust of your Oct. 12 article, "Curing Jamie Handley." Everything from the subtitle "epidemic" being in quotations to the insinuation that desperate parents are being seduced by quack medicine. The tables could have just as easily been turned.

What about examining the medical establishment from the angle that, according to the author's own figures, as high as one in 166 children have autism and yet there is no known cause, treatment or cure? What does the medical establishment offer these parents? So their son's chelation therapy cost $180, how much money did the pharmaceutical companies make selling mercury-laced vaccines? Even if it is not the sole cause of autism, why was mercury allowed in vaccines for so long in the first place? Why was it finally taken out under duress if there were no issues with its use? Why were vaccine manufacturers offered exemption from liability lawsuits stemming from the vaccines they produce?

I don't personally believe that thimerosal is solely responsible for all autism cases, but its use raises some interesting questions that should be examined. That the parents are attempting to remove mercury from their son when they believe it contributed to his autism seems like a rational response. If in the end they are proven wrong, it is not because they didn't think and try to do something to save their beloved son's development. The same can't be said of the medical establishment or of Valdez's article, both of whom choose instead to criticize and marginalize rather than help locate a cause or a cure.

JT Martin
Northeast 10th Avenue

QUACK ADDICTION

How sickening that the Handleys have managed to convince themselves and others that evil Big Pharma is responsible for their son's autism, while predatory naturopaths offer them false hope and sell them expensive, useless therapies ["Curing Jamie Handley," WW, Oct. 12, 2005]. The Handleys, understandably perhaps given their son's condition, subscribe to a pseudoscientific worldview; the evidence supporting a link between thimerosal and autism is nonexistent.

In 10 years' time, it's possible that scientific medicine will have a better idea of the causes behind autism, and that pharmaceutical companies will be producing therapies that actually help. We can be certain that in the meantime, the quacks will still be selling chelation therapy, and the Handleys, along with the other marks, will still be touting the improvements in their children—improvements that, alas, only they can see.

Thomas Kite
Southwest Sarala Street