Den of Iniquity

[The following remarks were made by Bernice Healy, MD, former chief of NIH and former member of IOM, to Sharyl Attkisson, a CBS reporter.]

There is a completely expressed concern that they [public health officials] don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. First of all, I think the public's smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But, more importantly, I don't think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you're afraid of what it might show. I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the vaccine-autism hypothesis as irrational.

[When asked about the claim that there is no vaccine-autism link, the late Dr Healy replied] "You can't say that."

Carol Stott (PhD, MSc [Epidemiology], CSci, CPsychol), and Andrew Wakefield (MB, BS, FRCS, FRCPath)