republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

A medical expert working for the government found a causal
link between vaccines and autism, but federal lawmakers influenced by
the powerful pharmaceutical lobby helped bury that info.
In an episode of award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson’s program Full Measure,
she breaks down how a scientist relied on by the government to debunk
vaccine-autism claims was silenced after reporting there was indeed a
link between the neurological disease and vaccines.
Watch the bombshell episode complete with transcript below (emphasis ours):

Today we investigate one of the biggest medical controversies of
our time: vaccines. There’s little dispute about this much– vaccines
save many lives, and rarely, they injure or kill. A special federal
vaccine court has paid out billions for injuries from brain damage to
death. But not for the form of brain injury we call autism. Now—we have
remarkable new information: a respected pro-vaccine medical expert used
by the federal government to debunk the vaccine-autism link, says
vaccines can cause autism after all. He claims he told that to
government officials long ago, but they kept it secret.
Yates
Hazlehurst was born February 11, 2000. Everything was normal, according
to his medical records, until he suffered a severe reaction to
vaccinations. Rolf Hazlehurst is Yates’ dad.

Rolf Hazlehurst: And at first, I didn’t believe
it. I did not think that, I did not believe that vaccines could cause
autism. I didn’t believe it.

But there’s a hard reality for Yates. The trademark brain
disease, pain and inability to communicate that’s common with severe
autism.

In 2007, Yates’ father sued over his son’s injuries in the
little known Federal Vaccine court. It was one of more than 5000 vaccine
autism claims.

Congress created vaccine court in 1988, in consultation with
the pharmaceutical industry. In the special court, vaccine makers don’t
defend their products—the federal government does it for them, using
lawyers from the Justice Department. Money for victims comes from us,
not the pharmaceutical industry, through patient fees added onto every
vaccine given.

Denise Vowell: Our hearings are all closed to the public. And that’s statutory.

In 2007, Yates’ case and nearly all the other vaccine autism
claims lost. The decision was based largely on the expert opinion of
this man, Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a world-renowned pediatric neurologist
shown here at a lecture.

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 hearings all those years ago, he
privately told government lawyers that vaccines 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.

Hazlehurst: And he has come forward and explained how he told the United States government vaccines can cause autism in a certain subset of children and United States government, the Department of Justice suppressed his true opinions.

Hazlehurst discovered that later when Dr. Zimmerman evaluated
Yates as a teenager. That’s when he partnered with vaccine safety
advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Junior—who has a voice condition.

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

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.

Dr. Zimmerman declined our interview request and referred us
to 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 that he’d discovered “exceptions in
which vaccinations could cause autism.” “I explained that in a subset
of children, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation did cause
regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder.”

Kennedy: This panicked the two DOJ attorneys and they immediately fired Zimmerman.
That was on a Friday and over the weekend they called Zimmerman and
said his services would no longer be needed. They wanted to silence him.

Days after the 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, who told us they don’t “comment on investigations or
potential investigations.”

Meantime, 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: “Based on dozens of
studies and everything I know as a physician and a scientist, there’s no
link between autism and vaccines.”

CDC declined our interview request. 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 PhRMA.

Kennedy: But everybody takes money from PhRMA so they’ve all been corrupted. And it’s almost impossible to get anything done on Capitol Hill.

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 claim they faced pressure, bullying or threats
when they raised vaccine safety questions. Several of them agreed to
appear on camera.

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.

Republican Dan Burton—former Chairman of the House Oversight Committee—has an autistic grandson.

Burton: I am not against vaccinations.

He pursued vaccine investigations in the early 2000s. Beth Clay was one of his staffers.

Clay: There was a lot of pressure from people on the Hill.

When you say people on the hill were exerting pressure, what kind of people? Colleagues?

Clay: Colleagues, there were pharmaceutical
lobbyists. The pharmaceutical lobbyists had, you know, they are the same
people that have been entrenched. They can walk into any office in
Capitol Hill, and they’ll talk to staff, they’ll talk to members and
they’ll encourage them to discourage, our investigation.

Sharyl: At the risk of stating the obvious why did they have that kind of access to members?

Clay: It’s money. And 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.

Former Congressman, Dr. Dave Weldon, a Republican, says he got the message loud and clear.

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, the pharmaceutical
industry

Dave Weldon: They wouldn’t fight you. They’d
kill it. It’s dead. They don’t even want to discuss it. It’s dead on
arrival. If you, if you as an individual member want to take on the
pharmaceutical industries. It’s forget it.

Sharyl: Can you describe an incident or just how it, how that would go?

Weldon: It would typically be in a hallway or the street and people would come up to you and say, “You know, you really need to, you know, back off on this. It could be, it could be bad for the community or bad for the country or bad for you.”

Weldon says he’s generally pro-vaccine, depending on the
patient and the shot—and gives flu shots to adults. We asked him to
review Dr. Zimmerman’s new affidavit.

Weldon: I found his affidavit and testimony through that affidavit to be consistent with my opinions. That some children can get an autism spectrum disorder from a vaccine.

Republican Bill Posey is a current member of Congress.

Rep. Bill Posey: I don’t have to tell you
that industry is a very, very powerful industry. Matter of fact, I don’t
know of anyone more powerful than that industry.

Posey says his own party leaders twice promised to hold hearings on the topic, only to scuttle them in the end.

Hazlehurst – who happens to be a criminal prosecutor– was
scheduled to be a witness at one such Congressional hearing. Two weeks
before the hearing in 2013, he briefed Congressional staff.

Hazlehurst: I presented at that
Congressional briefing and I explained in that hearing, if I did to a
criminal in a court of law what the United States Department of Justice
did to vaccine injured children, I would be disbarred and I would be
facing criminal charges. I think that scared the hell out of them.

The hearing was abruptly cancelled. Meantime, Dr. Zimmerman – the one-time expert used to debunk vaccine autism claims—now says several of his own patients got autism from vaccines. They include Yates Hazlehurst.

Today, with intensive treatment, Yates is doing better. His
dad hopes the new testimony from a most unlikely source will get new
attention.

Hazlehurst: A child that was unnecessarily sacrificed and hopefully some good, will come from his suffering.

The lobby group representing the pharmaceutical industry
wouldn’t agree to an interview but told us they’re working with Congress
and other stakeholders on the importance and safety of vaccines to
support the health and safety of individuals and communities.

In case YouTube bans this video watch on the Full Measure website below:
http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/the-vaccination-debate
________________________________________________________

 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

A Jan. 6, 2018 news report produced
by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson for Sinclair Broadcast
Group revealed that retired congressmen Dan Burton (R-IN) and Dr. Dave
Weldon (R-FL) and current Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) were pressured by
colleagues or threatened by PhRMA lobbyists to back away from examining
vaccine safety issues, including the reported link between vaccines and
autism.1
The report also revealed that, in 2007, federal government officials
suppressed and then misrepresented the expert opinion of pediatric
neurologist Dr. Andrew Zimmerman that vaccines can cause autism during
U.S. Federal Court of Claims hearings evaluating vaccine-related autism
claims filed in the federal vaccine injury compensation program (VICP).2

“You really need to… back off on this”

The “Vaccination Debate” report was
featured on “Full Measure,” Sinclair’s investigative news show anchored
by Attkisson, who said, “We spoke to 11 current and former members of
Congress and staff who claim they faced pressure, bullying or threats
when they raised vaccine safety questions.” Physician and former Rep.
Dave Weldon commented, “It would typically be in a hallway or the street
and people would come up to you and say, “You know, you really need to,
you know, back off on this. It could be, it could be bad for the
community or bad for the country or bad for you.”

Attkisson also interviewed Rolf
Hazelhurst, whose now 18-year old son, Yates, suffered severe vaccine
reactions as a child and regressed into chronic poor health that was
eventually diagnosed as autism. Hazelhurst, a criminal prosecuting
attorney, said, “And at first, I didn’t believe it. I did not think
that, I did not believe that vaccines could cause autism. I didn’t
believe it.”

US Government Suppresses Pediatric Neurologist’s Expert Opinion on Autism-Vaccine Link

After Rolf Hazelhurst learned that
Dr. Zimmerman’s expert opinion was discounted and misrepresented by
federal government officials for the purpose of denying federal vaccine
injury compensation to his son3 and thousands of other children with vaccine related autism,4
Hazelhurst told congressional staffers at a 2013 briefing, “If I did to
a criminal in a court of law what the United States Department of
Justice did to vaccine injured children, I would be disbarred and I
would be facing criminal charges.” He and environmental activist
attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have filed a fraud complaint with the
Justice Department Inspector General about the withholding of
Zimmerman’s expert opinion on vaccine-induced autism in the U.S. Court
of Federal Claims proceedings.

The “Vaccine Court” and the Class Action Omnibus Autism Proceeding

The Secretary of Health and Human
Services is legally represented by Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys
in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (“Vaccine Court”) when federal
health officials contest vaccine injury compensation claims filed under
the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, a law that was passed by
Congress in 1986 and substantively altered by congressional amendments
between 1987 and 2016.5 The
1986 Act gave partial liability protection to vaccine manufacturers but
protected a vaccine injured person’s right to file a vaccine injury
lawsuit in civil court if federal compensation was denied or was
inadequate to provide for lifetime needs or if it could be proven that
the vaccine manufacturer could have made a vaccine safer (design
defect). In a split decision in 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively
barred all vaccine injury lawsuits, including for manufacturer design
defect.6 7

Under the 1986 Act, special masters
are appointed by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to adjudicate federal
vaccine injury compensation claims. The “Vaccine Court” oversaw a
seven-year class action type Omnibus Autism proceeding that concluded in
2009 and threw out more than 5,500 vaccine injury claims for children
with vaccine-related autism.8
The Court rejected the argument made by plaintiff’s lawyers that
vaccine-related autism is caused by mercury preservatives in vaccines
and/or MMR vaccine or a combination of both.9

The gutting of the 1986 Act’s safety
and compensation provisions by congressional amendments, the Department
of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Supreme Court has been
strongly criticized by the National Vaccine Information Center for many
years.10 11 12 The
Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report in 2014
analyzing the VICP’s operation and was critical of how long it took for
compensation claims to be resolved, primarily because most vaccine
injury claims are contested by DHHS.13

Sharyl Attkisson: The Reporter Who Goes Where No One Else Will

A CBS correspondent for more
than 20 years, Sharyl Attkisson is a five-time Emmy Award winner and
recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting and Pillar Human Rights Journalism Award for “Fearless Reporting in the Face of Government Retaliation.” From 1996-2001, she hosted a half-hour weekly medical news magazine on PBS entitled “Health Week.” She is the best-selling author of the books Stonewalled (2014) and The Smear (2017). After leaving CBS in 2014, Attkisson joined Sinclair to head up the investigative journalism team staffing “Full Measure” to explore government waste, national security and whistleblower reports on government and corporate abuse.14
For more than a decade, Attkisson has authored and produced reports on a number of vaccine safety issues, including these:

• Vaccine Case: An Exception or A Precedent? Mar. 6, 2008
• How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders? July 25, 2008 and Orange County Register Correction Apr. 18, 2011
• Leading Dr:  Vaccines-Autism Worth Study July 28, 2008
• Court Links Hepatitis B Vaccine to A Death May 12, 2009
• Swine Flu Cases Overestimated? Oct. 27, 2009.
• CDC: “Possibility” That Vaccines Rarely Trigger Autism Sept. 2, 2014 (republished Dec. 10, 2018)
• Fact Check: Anne Schuchat’s Claim That Vaccines Can’t Cause Brain Damage Feb. 24, 2015.

She presented a Ted Talk on “Is Fake News Real?” in February 2018.15
Currently, she has a lawsuit pending against the DOJ and FBI based on
First and Fourth Amendment rights alleging improper government
surveillance of a private citizen journalist, including electronic
surveillance of her computer, cyber stalking and cyber attacks.16

View the “Full Measure” report on The Vaccination Debate here

References:
 1 Attkisson S. The Vaccination Debate. “Full Measure” Sinclair Broadcast Group Jan. 6, 2019.
2 Attkisson S. Dr.Andrew Zimmerman’s full Affadavit on alleged link between vaccines and autism that U.S. government covered up. SharylAttkisson.com Jan. 6. 2019.
3 U.S. Court of Claims. Hazelhurst v. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Decision: Feb. 12, 2009.
4 U.S. Court of Claims. Docket of Autism Omnibus Proceeding. Jan. 12, 2011.
5 National Vaccine Information Center. National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
6 Supreme Court of the United States. Bruesewitz v. Wyeth No. 09-152. Justice Sotomayor with whom Justice Ginsberg joins, dissenting Feb. 22, 2011.
7 National Vaccine Information Center. National
Vaccine Information Center Cites “Betrayal” of Consumers by U.S.
Supreme Court Giving Total Liability Shield to Big Pharma. NVIC Press Release Feb. 23, 2011.
8 U.S. Court of Claims. Docket of Autism Omnibus Proceeding. Jan. 12, 2011.
9 Hitt M. Vaccine Court Rejects Autism Claims. WebMD Feb. 12, 2009.
10 Fisher BL. Compensating Vaccine Injuries: Are Reforms Needed? U.S. House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Sept. 28, 1999.
11 Fisher BL, Williams K, Wrangham TK. Statement for Government Accountability Office (GAO) Inquiry on the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) Operation. National Vaccine Information Center July 11, 2014.
12 Fisher BL. End Pharma Liability Shield Endangering Public Health and Human Rights. National Vaccine Information Center Nov. 8, 2016.
13 Government Accountability Office. Vaccine Injury Compensation: Most Claims Took Multiple Years and Many Were Settled through Negotiation. Nov. 21, 2014.
14 Attkisson S. Bio.
15 Attkisson S. Is Fake News Real? Ted Talk Feb. 13, 2018.
16 Attkisson S. Counting down to oral arguments in government computer intrusions. SharylAttkisson.com Jan. 5, 2019.