This website is brought to you by the Coalition for SafeMinds.
SafeMinds was founded to raise awareness, support research, change policy and focus national attention on the growing evidence that environmental triggers contribute to neurological disorders such as autism, attention deficit disorder, language delay and learning difficulties. Our mission is to restore health and protect future generations by eradicating the devastation of autism and associated health disorders that are induced by environmental triggers. A portion of SafeMinds' focus is on the role that vaccines might play in environmentally-induced autism, and SafeMinds members have participated in various governmental vaccine-policy and autism research committees to encourage research in this area. It has become apparent to SafeMinds that there is a reluctance amongst some government officials to pursue the rigorous science necessary to get the answers.
SafeMinds is providing this SmartVax website to provide a quantitative analysis indicating that currently vaccine-injury risk is greater than disease-risk (even if there were no vaccination program) in order to educate the public on the vaccine-injury epidemic and the need to press the government to fund the science to find the answers. SafeMinds recognizes that vaccination is an important public health tool, and we advocate for a "SmartVax" approach to vaccination that will lead to vaccines being both safer and more effective. As part of a SmartVax approach, SafeMinds provides information and tools in this website to empower the parents as consumers to weigh the risks and make their own choices regarding vaccination for their children. It is our goal that educated and empowered consumers will create the positive climate in which the necessary science is pursued and answers are attained.
SafeMinds was initially formed in 2000 to focus on the link between mercury in vaccines and Autism Spectrum Disorders. In April of 2000, SafeMinds founders put forth the first definitive work on that link, with a scientific publication demonstrating that symptoms of mercury toxicity mirror symptoms of autism. This research was key to propelling the issue into the awareness of the public and government officials. The resulting report, "Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning" (Bernard, Enayati, Redwood, Roger, Binstock) was and remains recognized as a cornerstone document to the discourse on medical mercury exposure and toxicity and its effects on health. Since this historical report, SafeMinds has sponsored almost one million dollars in research related specifically to mercury and adverse neurological outcomes. This level of financial commitment establishes SafeMinds as the largest non-profit organization funding mercury and autism-related research. The early work of SafeMinds’ parent-advocate founders is documented David Kirby’s 2005 book "Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy". The SafeMinds website provides information on the extensive scientific research indicating that the mercury-based vaccine-preservative called thimerosal is dangerous and should not be included in vaccines, and it is SafeMinds' view that the epidemiological research on thimerosal funded or supported by the CDC had serious flaws that have left the question unanswered as to what role mercury-containing vaccines have filled in the autism epidemic.
In recent years, SafeMinds has expanded its focus to include the link between mercury from all environmental sources and Autism Spectrum Disorders. SafeMinds is active in international efforts to reduce environmental mercury from coal-fired power plants, cement plants, dental amalgams ("silver fillings" are actually mercury fillings), and other sources. In 2010 SafeMinds board member Mark Blaxill co-authored the book "The Age of Autism", which documents the adverse effects of using mercury in modern medicine from its ill-advised use as a treatment for syphilis through its modern use as a preservative in some vaccines.
As part of our focus on the link between mercury-containing vaccines and autism, SafeMinds has recognized this link is just part of the over-reaching scientific questions:
Vaccines contain a number of components that have been linked to vaccine-injury, including aluminum adjuvants, mercury, antigens, and endotoxins. Research indicates that combining multiple vaccines into a combination vaccine can increase adverse reactions from vaccines, and also that adminstration of vaccines at an earlier age can increase risk of vaccine-injury. Research has not been performed on most vaccines in vaccinated vs unvaccinated children to determine whether there are links to the autism, ADHD, and allergy epidemics; research on asthma indicates that there is a link to vaccines. The entire USA vaccination schedule, which has approximately tripled since the 1986 law which protects manufacturers from vaccine lawsuits, needs to be studied and analyzed with an unbiased approach to find scientific answers. Similarly, there is a dearth of research on "Environmental X Factors" that contribute to these epidemics.
SafeMinds will continue to focus on funding research in the areas of mercury-containing vaccines and environmental mercury as an "Environmental X Factor" contributing to autism, but much more research is needed across all of these chronic childhood health conditions and across the various combinations of causality amongst vaccines and other potential environmental triggers. The public needs to advocate that the government and scientific community step up and perform the necessary research.