CONGRESSMAN BURTON'S DAUGHTER RESPONDS TO WEBMD ARTICLE

This is a response to the WebMD article

Mr. Pines:
My name is Danielle Sarkine and I am Congressman Dan Burtons daughter. I read your article and was very displeased with some of the things you said in it. I will be copying some of your text into this email and then telling you what I found so inaccurate and displeasing:

STATEMENT:
Dan Burton is an angry grandfather. His grandson, Christian, is autistic. That means the boy has language difficulties and engages in repetitive behavior. Remember the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie "Rain Man"? That's what autism is.

RESPONSE:
YOU know nothing about my sons symptoms. You are unable to print accurate information as to what are or are not my sons symptoms of autism. RAINMAN does not define Autism. Autism is a wide spectrum and the character that Dustin Hoffman played only represents one area of the spectrum. My son has no savants like Dustin Hoffman had. My son is only 3 but struggles with language everyday. He does now speak. But it is not articulate or age appropriate. You have no insight into my sons disability and judging from your article you know nothing about Autism. When you write an article you should first research the disorder you will be speaking of so that you don't sound incompetent as so many of us felt you did.

STATEMENT:
Burton is angry because he believes that Christian's autism is related to the vaccination he received for measles, mumps and rubella, known as the MMR vaccine. Burton and his daughter, Christian's mother, say Christian's symptoms began to develop only after he received the vaccination.

RESPONSE:
If you had been at the hearings on April 6th or researched anything about us you would know that my son NOT ONLY received the MMR vaccine but he received a total of 9 vaccines in one day. He had DPaT, MMR, HepB-HiB combo and oral polio. You would have even noticed at one time during the hearings my father called out to the audience to me to have me name all the vaccines that Christian received in one day. But apparently you did not feel the need to review your information before you sent out your article.

STATEMENT:
Burton has become a one-man show in criticizing the safety of vaccinations, and in doing so, he may actually cause harm to other children by discouraging them from being properly vaccinated. He recently held a public hearing and will hold another in May. I am sure that this is a more personal matter to my father then most politicians because he was on the phone with my husband giving CPR instructions to him to relay to me the night my daughter stopped breathing after receiving her second hepB vaccine and I am sure that watching my son change the way he did after receiving 9 vaccines in one day also has made him very devoted to this. But this is not the only reason I can assure you that he got involved.

When you hear from hundreds and hundreds of families all praying that someone will listen to their story of a normal child who after vaccines becomes autistic and one man stands up to listen to the voices of parents whose children are either autistic, dead, damaged, mentally impaired, learning disabled, cancers and many other disorders all from what they feel is vaccine induced then I think we as parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles should stand up and applaud him for having the guts, the heart, and the compassion to investigate something that we have yet to see good science showing us the safety of these vaccines. Where is the science showing safety of combining 9 vaccines in a child at age 14 months in one day?

Where is the science that shows that long term affects will not happen to these children? I almost lost one child to DEATH from a vaccine and I lost my other child to the world of autism that locked him inside himself and I and thousands of other parents whose children have been affected DEMAND ANSWERS!!!

And I and thousands of other parents out there will not sit down and shut up about this. You say this may cause more harm. What about the children harmed from the vaccines. Are they not equally as important? Is their safety from the side effects of the vaccine totally unimportant to you? I have a friend whose daughter died from a vaccine and the coroner told her that was what killed her child. Does her child's life mean nothing to the CDC and the FDA? I have a friend whose child is now so sick and damaged by a vaccine that they have to stay awake every night with this child to ensure that the child is alive, positioned properly, and breathing.

Does this child's vaccine injury and life not matter to the CDC and the FDA? I have hundreds of new friends who know their child's autism is from vaccines. They as parents know their children better then anyone and watched their children slip into the autism world after a vaccine. And no not all of them were MMR vaccines. Some were DTP vaccines. Do these children not matter to the CDC and the FDA? I held my daughter in my arms that night after she had the hepb vaccine and breathed for her praying that she would live and thank God that she did, but does her almost losing her life matter to the FDA or the CDC? And now my baby. MY sweet sweet baby is all locked inside himself and we are trying so hard to break him out of this shell he is in, I know what happened to my son. He has autism from a vaccine. And you know what really is sad is that you claim my father and I are anti vaccine. That isn't true. We want vaccines so badly so that we can protect my children and everyone else's children from preventable diseases. But where are the safety studies? Where are the studies showing that thimerosal isn't dangerous? Where are the studies showing that when you combine vaccines they are safe?

Where are the studies showing that vaccines cannot cause autism or autistic-like behavior? I wanted another child. I won't have one now. The reason: if I have another child I would be terrified to vaccinate them and I would be terrified not to vaccinate them. So I just won't have another child because I am not prepared to take the risk of another of my children being hurt either way.

STATEMENT:
The harm that Burton can cause may be beyond measure. Vaccines are the underpinning of our disease-prevention programs. Imagine a world in which children routinely contracted measles, mumps, and polio, just to name a few diseases that vaccines have virtually eliminated.