Sen. Barbara Mikulski listened impassively as Robert Kennedy Jr. made his case. He had to talk over the din in the marbled hallway just outside the Senate chambers, where he was huddled with Mikulski, two of her aides and three allies of his who had come to Washington for this April meeting.

Kennedy, a longtime environmental activist and an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, had thought Mikulski would be receptive to an issue that has consumed him for a decade, even as friends and associates have told him repeatedly that it's a lost cause. But she grew visibly impatient the longer he talked.

A mercury-containing preservative known as thimerosal, once used widely in childhood vaccines, is associated with an array of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, Kennedy told her, summarizing a body of scientific research he and a team of investigators had assembled. Thimerosal, which is an antifungal and antiseptic agent, was taken out of those vaccines in 2001, but it is still used in some flu vaccines. If it was dangerous enough to be removed from pediatric vaccines, Kennedy contended, why was it safe at all? What’s more, he said, the federal government knew of the dangers all along. These were claims he had made in the past, both publicly and in private conversations with other Democrats in Congress, none of whom have taken him seriously.

The Maryland Democrat turned from Kennedy without a word. "I want to hear what you have to say," Mikulski said, looking up at the lean man standing next to her. Mark Hyman, a physician and best-selling author, is Kennedy's chief collaborator on a then-unpublished book titled "Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak," which is scheduled to come out next week. The book argues that ethylmercury — a component of thimerosal — is harmful to human health. (Not so in trace amounts, scientific authorities have concluded.)

“The bottom line,” Hyman said to Mikulski: “We shouldn’t be injecting a neurotoxin into pregnant women and children.” Thimerosal should be taken out of the flu vaccine, Hyman and Kennedy argued.

Mikulski didn’t react, except to suggest they contact Sen. Bernie Sanders, who “cares about brain health” and oversees a related subcommittee.

As the meeting broke up, Mikulski's brusque disposition toward Kennedy softened. "We miss your uncle here every day," she said, referring to Sen. Edward Kennedy, a tenacious public health advocate during his long Senate career. He died of cancer in 2009.

Robert Kennedy Jr. said nothing. He was used to getting the brush-off by now. And he was already thinking ahead to his next move.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Institute of Medicine, no evidence supports a link between thimerosal and any brain disorders, including autism. But parental concerns of such an association in the 1990s spurred vaccine fears. This owed to a confluence of factors: highly publicized warnings of mercury-contaminated fish; rising awareness and diagnoses of autism; and vaccines added to the childhood schedule. The CDC urged vaccine makers to remove thimerosal as a precautionary measure.

Some parents took this as proof of thimerosal’s harm. The controversy, which Kennedy helped fuel in the 2000s with a notorious, widely publicized article, prompted additional vaccine fears that linger to this day.

A 2013 study in the journal Pediatrics found that recent cases of whooping cough occurred in pockets where vaccine resisters were located. Public health experts blame recent measles outbreaks on resisters. Both diseases were almost wiped out in the United States until the vaccine fear struck.

Kennedy, fit at 60, insists he doesn’t want to fan these fears. All six of his children — ages 13 to 29 — have been fully vaccinated, he says. But he disputes the consensus opinion that trace amounts of thimerosal are no cause for concern. Some researchers are sympathetic to this view.

“We know from the biological literature that extremely low doses [of mercury] are harmful,” says Martha Herbert, a pediatric neurologist and autism researcher at Harvard University. “To me, it’s a no-brainer. Why would you put a neurotoxin in vaccines?”

Herbert accompanied Kennedy and Hyman in Washington. The discourse on vaccination is so highly charged that “you can’t say anything without immediately being labeled,” she says. “This is the most delicate issue I’ve ever dealt with in my life.”

Almost immediately after getting rebuffed by Mikulski, Kennedy and his contingent were sitting around a long conference table in the office of Bernie Sanders, pleading their case to the junior senator from Vermont. Sanders had no idea what the impromptu meeting was about.

The normally voluble, white-haired senator was convivial, then, as Kennedy got going, fell silent. “We don’t want to publish this book,” Kennedy told him, holding up a copy of his manuscript. “We are very pro-vaccine.” He motioned to Hyman across the table. “Vaccines save lives. We don’t want to alarm the public by showing them the science. We have a publisher lined up, ready to publish it. But we said no.”

Kennedy had told me the same thing last summer — that they would publish only to prod federal officials into action. This is when I learned that he was sending the manuscript to political allies, university health experts and CDC officials.

Sanders was polite but noncommittal. “I don’t know anything about the issue,” he told Kennedy. “I can’t promise you anything.”

Robert Kennedy Jr. belongs to a storied political family whose tragedies are woven into the American fabric. The third of Robert and Ethel's 11 children, he was 9 when Lee Harvey Oswald killed his Uncle John, the 35th president. He was 14 when Sirhan Sirhan killed his father, who was running for president.

After his father’s death, the teenaged Kennedy experimented with drugs, like many of that generation’s youth. A reckless period spiraled into addiction and led to his arrest for heroin possession in 1983. He cleaned up, then embarked on a successful career as an environmental lawyer. He is also a professor at Pace University in White Plains, N.Y., where he runs a law clinic.

He travels the country, giving 200 speeches a year, many on renewable energy. He sits on the boards of several green tech companies and is heavily involved in solar and wind power construction projects, with business that takes him to Europe, China and the Mideast.

His private life, befitting a Kennedy, has been fodder for the gossip pages. He had two children with his first wife, Emily Black. Three weeks after their divorce in 1994, he married Mary Richardson. They had four children, then Kennedy filed for divorce in 2010 and took up with Cheryl Hines, the actress who played Larry David’s wife on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” They plan to marry in August at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass. Mary took her own life in 2012. A year later, embarrassing 10-year-old entries from Kennedy’s private journals made tabloid headlines.

Kennedy has taken on unpopular causes before. In 2002, his cousin Michael Skakel, 53, was convicted of murdering Martha Moxley, when both were teenagers and next-door neighbors in an affluent Connecticut suburb. After examining the evidence, Kennedy became convinced his cousin was railroaded by frenzied, one-sided media coverage and a deeply flawed court case. Kennedy laid out his defense in a long articlefor the Atlantic magazine, published in 2003.

Last year, after more than a decade in jail, Skakel was released on bail after a judge determined that he did not receive adequate legal representation. He will be retried. (Kennedy is writing a book about the case.)

In the early 2000s, women started coming up to Kennedy at his talks on how mercury emissions from coal-fired plants contaminate the air and water. The women argued that “the real mercury was in vaccines,” and it was being ignored, Kennedy recalls.

At first he didn’t pay any attention, either, until one of his brothers introduced him to a clinical psychologist whose young son was autistic. She blamed thimerosal. “I said to her, ‘I’ll look into the science,’ ” he says. Kennedy threw himself into a debate just starting to percolate. Some would say he got lost in a rabbit hole.

In 2005, he published an explosive story for Rolling Stone magazine and Salon called "Deadly Immunity." Kennedy wrote that he had uncovered evidence showing "how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public." At first, he was feted like a prizewinning muckraker. On "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart praised him. On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough fawned: "Let's get you running for a public office."

Then came the backlash. Critics charged Kennedy with quoting material out of context. Rolling Stone had to make corrections. Enough doubts were raised that Salon eventually retracted the story. Unbowed, Kennedy stands by the piece and admits to only a few inconsequential errors.

As the applause turned to denunciation, Kennedy simply doubled down.

The more Kennedy talked on the subject, the

more his rhetoric became hyperbolic. During one 2011 segment on his Air America radio show, he accused government scientists of being "involved in a massive fraud." He said they skewed studies to demonstrate the safety of thimerosal. "I can see that this fraud is doing extraordinary damage to the brains of American children," he said.

Last year, he gave the keynote speech at an anti-vaccine gathering in Chicago. There, he said of a scientist who is a vocal proponent of vaccines and already the object of much hate mail from anti-vaccine activists that this scientist and others like him, “should be in jail, and the key should be thrown away.”

Last summer I reported on these inflammatory comments for the Discover magazine Web site, where I have a blog. (I write often about contentious issues in science.) I concluded that Kennedy "has done as much as anyone to spread unwarranted fear and crazy conspiracy theories about vaccines."

A few days later, Kennedy called. “I’m trying to figure out whether you are a shill for Big Pharma,” he said straight away. He then talked without pause, reprising the claims made in his Rolling Stone article, which I learned he had expanded into a book manuscript.

After talking nonstop for nearly an hour, Kennedy asked if I would be willing to look at the manuscript. I said yes. But I told him that I was extremely dubious. I wasn’t the only skeptical one. When he sent his manuscript to friends and colleagues, asking in a cover letter “for your advice and support,” the silence was crushing.

Most of those who did respond were dismissive. Philip Landrigan, a leading public health advocate and physician who heads the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, offered a reply that stung. “We were buddies,” Kennedy said. “I got a curt note back from him, saying, ‘This isn’t worthwhile, and this is an effort you should immediately abandon.’ ”

Kennedy remained defiant. “The only way I can stop this is if someone shows me I’m wrong on the science.”

He kept me apprised of his efforts. In September he got a “terse” letter from the National Vaccine Program Office, acknowledging that this is a complex issue but that there was no evidence that thimerosal in vaccines is harmful.

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of California’s Mind Institute in Davis, was one of the few scientists willing to read Kennedy’s manuscript. “It’s a mixed bag,” she said to me over the phone. She believed that Kennedy had stacked the book with too many problematic studies that he cites as evidence of thimerosal’s contribution to neurodevelopmental disorders. “But it is not true that there is a body of scientific evidence that has put this question to rest, as the CDC asserts.” In fact, on a possible connection between autism and thimerosal, she said, “I think the question still remains to be answered.”

In November, Kennedy texted me about “the incredible conversation I just had with [then-Health and Human Services Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius,” who would green-light an upcoming meeting between him and CDC officials.

He had reason, it seemed, to be hopeful.

In January, I met Kennedy at his Westchester home, where history stares out from every wall. In the living room, where we settled in, there is a black-and-white photo of Bobby Jr. in the Oval Office, the day he talked to his uncle about the environment. "He arranged for me to meet Rachel Carson and Stewart Udall," Kennedy recalled. Carson had recently written "Silent Spring," now a classic book about the dangers of pesticides; Udall was President Kennedy's secretary of the interior.

Kennedy invokes Carson as an inspiration, because her character was viciously attacked after the publication of "Silent Spring" in 1962. I pointed out to him that the villain in that case was the chemical industry, whereas he is accusing the federal government, primarily the CDC. He contends that it commissioned "fraudulent" studies to exculpate thimerosal so public confidence in the vaccine program wouldn't be undermined.

“Meanwhile, there are 500 studies that we’ve collected here and footnoted” — he pointed to the manuscript on the coffee table — “and not a single one of them shows that thimerosal is safe. Every single one of them, except for the six studies funded by CDC and the vaccine industry. And that are fraudulent. And we explain how they created the fraud.”

I said I had a hard time believing that something this blatant would be ignored by the entire science establishment. He said I had to distinguish between the research scientists, who have expressed concerns about thimerosal, and government scientists, who protect a bureaucracy.

If that were true, I argued, why weren’t the public health and environmental communities and big research centers seizing on his book as a call to action?

“Nobody wants to read this,” he said, tapping the manuscript. “Their advice is, ‘Don’t wreck your career; don’t destroy your credibility. You are going to destroy yourself.’ ”

Months later, Kennedy called me in despair. He was under tremendous pressure from associates to drop the book — and the issue. “They want me to cease and desist,” he says. Landrigan had stopped returning his calls, and his colleagues at NRDC were turning a deaf ear.

“I’m completely f------ alone on this,” he said.

In April, several weeks after meeting with Mikulski and Sanders, Kennedy and Hyman met with CDC officials and scientists from the FDA and National Institutes of Health. Hyman left encouraged. "I think it was a big success," he said. Kennedy was not as jubilant, though he did note with an air of satisfaction: "Nobody challenged our science."

A tape of the proceeding reveals that CDC officials did, indeed, let Kennedy’s and Hyman’s assertions about thimersol’s toxicity stand mostly unchallenged. The regulators focused on the efficacy of the vaccine preservative (which is still used widely in the developing world) and cited a 2012 World Health Organization declaration that thimerosal is safe.

Near the end of the hour-long meeting, Jeremy Sharp, the science and public health counselor to the secretary of health and human services, said, “We just had new CDC data that came out that shows another increase with kids with autism.” (One in 68 U.S. children has been identified with autism, 30 percent higher than what was estimated in 2012.) Sharp then reminded Kennedy and Hyman that thimerosal was taken out of pediatric vaccines nearly 15 years ago. The implication: Autism is not linked to thimerosal.

Hyman tried to deflect this. “Yes, there’s been an increase in autism, even as we take out thimerosal,” he acknowledged. “But the issue isn’t whether thimerosal is causing these problems.” Rather, the larger issue, he said, was whether it was toxic and a potential contributor to neurodevelopmental disorders.

The CDC officials agreed to take a fresh look at the evidence presented by Kennedy and Hyman and pledged to keep communicating with them.

Was Kennedy’s persistence finally paying off?

He wanted more than vague goodwill gestures, though. When the CDC officials stopped answering his follow-up calls, Kennedy got antsy. Whatever concerns he once had about alarming the public soon gave way to concerns about foot-dragging federal bureaucrats.

He decided to publish the book. A boutique imprint, Skyhorse Publishing, has rushed it into print. Some of the most controversial sections — the chapters connecting autism to thimerosal — Kennedy took out at the last minute, though there are still references to a link to autism. Hyman convinced him that such claims were too combustible and would distract from the book’s core argument, that “the evidence suggesting a link between thimerosal and a large percentage of neurodevelopment disorders … mandates action.”

They were soft-pedaling for a better reception, but Kennedy made it clear to me his convictions hadn’t changed.

In May, Kennedy was the keynote speaker at the River Rally conference, which took place in a Pittsburgh ballroom and was packed with hundreds of environmentalists. He spoke of humanity's "apocalyptic battle" with Earth's despoilers. There were moral overtones, a call to find a higher, sacred meaning in nature, particularly wilderness. The adoring crowd hooted and whistled in appreciation. "I am going to be here fighting with you," he exhorted, in closing. Everyone rose, cheering and clapping.

The day after his Pittsburgh speech, I met with Kennedy in his hotel room. He reflected somewhat bitterly on the difficulties of his other crusades. He told me he undertook his cousin’s case because “nobody would touch it.” In his 2003 Atlantic piece, Kennedy wrote: “At its best, every profession — law, science, medicine, journalism — is a search for the truth. But personal bias can distort and pervert that mission.”

Has Kennedy lost his way on the vaccine issue, too biased to judge the truth? Kennedy doesn’t think so, though he acknowledges that he has made himself “radioactive” by staying with it.

“Look at all the people I’m fighting,” he said, referring to officials and scientists at the CDC and other federal agencies. “These are people who care about children and public health. So many of them have said to me, ‘I got into this because I was inspired by your father to give my life to public service.’ It’s hard to go against those people.”

Still, he says he can’t — and won’t — walk away from the issue.

In case I didn’t get that message, a few seconds after we said goodbye, he popped out of his hotel room and called out to me down the hallway. He caught up with me. “One thing that keeps me buoyant about this, because otherwise, I’d be depressed,” he said. “I know I’m gonna win this one. I have the ability to push this over the finish line. I know I do. The truth will prevail.”

Keith Kloor is a writer living in New York.

Environmental activist Robert Kennedy Jr. will be at Atlantic Station Regal Cinema Thursday at 7:30 p.m. to screen a controversial film "Trace Amounts" that ties a vaccine preservative Thimerosal to the sharp rise in autism cases over the last two decades.

Why is this controversial? Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thimerosal does not cause neurological diseases, citing multiple medical studies. This is after the agency first recommended in 1999 that pharmaceutical companies take the mercury-based preservative out of child-based vaccines as a precaution. The CDC has also has publicly that since most childhood vaccines no longer have Thimerosal in them, why are autism cases still rising?

Eric Gladen, an engineer who suffered from mercury poisoning after a tetanus shot in 2004, embarked on a multi-year journey to find out what happened and why, sifting through dozens of medical studies that go back decades. This led to the movie, which has been years in the making. "My primary objective with this film is to elevate the perception of mercury as a neurotoxin," he said, that's far worse than lead.

You can buy tickets here to see the film. You'll also get a copy of Kennedy's book "Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak." In the book, Kennedy says ethyl mercury — a component of thimerosal — is dangerous, even in small doses, something which the CDC denies. "There is no safe level of mercury," Kennedy says.

Gladen said he isn't anti-vaccine, something he notes up front in the film. He just wants Thimerosal out of all vaccines. He said in 2003, inexplicably, the CDC began recommending a flu vaccine with Thimerosal in it not only to infants but also to pregnant woman. "Thimerosal is hitting those least able to excrete it," he said. He said this is causing autism rates to rise although most vaccines are safe.

His conclusion: "This turned from gross negligence to a crime against humanity. This is not a conspiracy. This is real. I looked at the emails, the closed-door meeting transcripts... The CDC needs to be on the hot seat. They need to answer to this."

Kennedy, in a separate interview, expressed his concerns in even more grandiose terms: "The CDC is a captive agency. The vaccine agency has become a subsidiary of big pharma. Vaccines are a $30 billion industry, an increasing profit center. They have been able to compromise all checks and balances that once protected children."

He has used his Kennedy name and his reputation as an environmental vanguard to try to convince politicians to act. According to a Washington Post story last year, he's had a tough time gaining traction. But he's not giving up.

"Show me a single study showing Thimerasol is safe. I will publicly apologize. I will cease advocacy on the issue," he said.

Why would pharmaceutical companies use Thimerasol if it even has a whiff of problems? "It's cheaper," he said. "And for these companies, there are no consequences."

One argument about autism: it's merely going up because it's getting diagnosed as such. Kennedy counters: "How many 30 year olds do you know have autism?" he said. "Where are they? Wouldn't they have been diagnosed, too?" He said one study in Stanford said diagnosis may have only 20 percent to do with the increase.

He thinks the mass media has not given this subject a fair hearing, noting that pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year advertising online, TV, radio and print.

"I think this film will make a difference," Kennedy said. A highlight in his mind: Bill Thompson, a former CDC scientist in the vaccine safety research division, in the film admitting to changing data to fit a storyline that the CDC wanted.

The CDC responded to this story after I posted with emailed answers from Dr. Frank Destefano, Director of the Immunization Safety Office. Here they are verbatim:

• How do you respond to allegations in the film that the CDC went out of its way to create studies that say Thimerasol does not create autism when some experts say that isn't the case?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) places a high priority on vaccine safety. CDC’s Immunization Safety Office focuses on monitoring the safety of vaccines licensed and approved for use in the United States.

CDC has conducted and supported extensive research to evaluate vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The findings of that research do not support a causal association between thimerosal and ASD. For a summary of CDC's research on vaccine safety and ASD, please visit:  www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/00_pdf/CDCStudiesonVaccinesandAutism.pdf.

In addition to CDC’s research on vaccines and ASD, other researchers around the world have studied the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines. The scientific community is in agreement: vaccines do not cause ASD.

• After recommending that vaccines for children have Thimerasol taken out in 1999 as a precaution, why did you allow to bring it back years later in a flu vaccine given to kids?

In July 1999, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure. Since 2001, no new vaccine licensed by FDA for use in children has contained thimerosal as a preservative except for multidose vial preparations of influenza vaccine. There are also other types of flu vaccines available which do not contain thimerosal. For more information about thimerosal, please visit: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Concerns/thimerosal

• There has been a huge increase in autism cases over the past 20-25 years. Has the CDC found a cause? And is mercury a contributing factor?

Estimates released in 2014 from CDC's Autism Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network found that about 1 in 68 children born in 2002 have an ASD. This is higher than estimates from the early 1990s. It is unclear how much of this increase over time is due to a broader definition of ASD and better efforts in diagnosis. However, a true increase in the number of people with ASD cannot be ruled out. The increase in ASD is likely due to a combination of these factors.

We do not know all of the causes of ASD. However, we have learned that there are likely many causes for multiple types of ASD. There may be many different factors that make a child more likely to have an ASD, including environmental, biologic and genetic factors.

Many studies have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and ASD. Research continues to show that vaccines are not associated with ASD.

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative used in some vaccines and other products since the 1930's. There is no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.

Thimerosal has been out of nearly all routinely recommended childhood vaccines (except some flu vaccines), but the prevalence of ASD has continued to increase.  This provides strong evidence that thimerosal does not cause ASD.

• Is ethyl mercury (in Thimerasol) safer than methyl mercury?

Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound and has been used for decades in the United States and other countries. It has been used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes.

It is important to understand the difference between two different compounds that contain mercury: ethylmercury and methylmercury. They are totally different materials.

Methylmercury is formed in the environment when mercury metal is present. If this material is found in the body, it is usually the result of eating some types of fish or other food. High amounts of methylmercury can harm the nervous system. This has been found in studies of some populations that have long-term exposure to methylmercury in foods at levels that are far higher than the U.S. population. In the United States, federal guidelines keep as much methylmercury as possible out of the environment and food, but over a lifetime, everyone is exposed to some methylmercury.

Ethylmercury is formed when the body breaks down thimerosal. The body uses ethylmercury differently than methylmercury; ethylmercury is broken down and clears out of the blood more quickly.  Low-level ethylmercury exposures from vaccines are very different from long-term methylmercury exposures, since the ethylmercury does not stay in the body.

• Robert Kennedy believes the CDC is in bed with the big pharmaceutical companies to ensure their vaccines are used for big profits. How do you respond to that?

CDC’s mission and commitment is to protect the health and safety of the American people.

LISO VIEJO, Calif., July 31, 2015 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — On Thursday, August 6, Liberty Lives and Council for Vaccine Safety will co-sponsor a film screening of the powerful, eye-opening documentary “Trace Amounts.” An expert Q&A panel will directly follow the film and include “Trace Amounts” producers [Eric Wayne Gladen (born 1975)] and Shiloh Levine, well-known local pediatrician Dr. Bob Sears, investigative journalist Lori Martin Gregory, civil rights lawyer George Fatheree and former Merck representative [Brandy Renee Vaughan (born 1976)], founder of Council for Vaccine Safety.

The film is free for all media. A pre-movie mixer, including appetizers, offers the rare opportunity to speak with panelists and others in the community before the film.

• WHEN AND WHERE:
  • • Thursday, August 6, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
    • Edwards Aliso Viejo Stadium 20 and IMAX.
    • 26701 Aliso Viejo Creek Rd, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656. 
    • Pre-movie mixer next door to theater: 6 p.m. at Stadium Brewing Company. Q&A panel discussion directly following film.

“Trace Amounts” follows Eric Gladen as he searches for the truth after suffering a severe reaction to a tetanus vaccine at age 29. He finds that these reactions are far more common than most realize and have wreaked havoc on the health of Americans. Eric discovers a myriad of deceptions within the U.S. healthcare industry and the government, that prove our vaccine program is more about profit than public health.

Throughout his two-year journey into the depths of the U.S. vaccine program, Eric interviews many healthcare experts including doctors, researchers and health officials as well as families with children that suffer from the same reaction as Eric did – mercury poisoning from vaccines. He uncovers the many lies portrayed as truth to the American public. He questions why pharmaceutical companies are allowed to continue putting mercury – and other known heavy metals and toxins – into vaccines that are then passed off as safe, when there is clear scientific evidence that shows these additives are linked with neurological disabilities, autoimmune diseases and even cancer.

“Trace Amounts” is an extremely important film as mandatory vaccination laws are being proposed throughout the country. One of the strictest vaccination laws in the country, SB277, was signed into law by Governor Brown in June, eliminating all personal belief and religious exemptions. It requires a full 35 vaccine doses, including vaccines for non-communicable diseases like tetanus, before children are allowed to enter public or private school. Also under SB277, children will not be allowed to attend preschool or daycare without being up-to-date on the full schedule of vaccinations – selective or delayed vaccination will not be allowed.

With the passage of SB277, California joins two other states – Mississippi and West Virginia – that enforce the strictest vaccination laws in the country. These two states also have some of the highest rates of infant mortality as well as other childhood diseases and disabilities including SIDs, allergies, autoimmune issues, autism, speech delays, ADHD, type-1 diabetes, leukemia and asthma. SB277 puts Californian children at risk of following suit as the childhood vaccine schedule continually increases and as more toxins are used within the vaccines as adjuvants and preservatives.

With 53 recommended vaccines doses by kindergarten, the U.S. already leads the world with the most intensive vaccination schedule, giving 2-3 times more vaccines to its children than other developed countries. The U.S. gives 26 vaccine doses before age one, yet has the highest infant mortality in the developed world (despite spending more on healthcare per capita than any other country).

Currently under California law, children who actually carry diseases such as Hepatitis and HIV are allowed in public and private school and cannot be discriminated based on their health conditions. Yet children who are healthy, and do not carry these diseases will not be allowed in either public or private school. This infringes on the rights of Californian children to free public education without discrimination, as per the California Constitution. Discrimination includes discrimination based on health status.

Vaccines have never been studied for safety in combination, yet 6-9 doses are routinely given during childhood doctor visits. Many vaccine additives, such as aluminum, MSG and formaldehyde, have been repeatedly linked to neurotoxicity, auto-immune diseases and cancer. Currently in the U.S., vaccines are the only product that has complete liability protection, meaning if you or your child is injured or killed by a vaccine, you cannot sue the vaccine maker.

While SB277 targets children and their fundamental right to a free public education, lawmakers are also planning mandatory vaccination laws that will apply to college students, hospital workers, school staff and, eventually, the entire adult population.

• Notes: 
  • • The film is free for all media. To purchase additional tickets, please visit: http://gathr.us/screening/12527.
    • Council for Vaccine Safety, founded by a former pharmaceutical representative, is a non-profit organization focused on education and public awareness of vaccine risks while advocating for safer vaccines and medical freedom, a fundamental right. More information: http://councilforvaccinesafety.org/.
    • Liberty Lives is a group of like-minded individuals that are standing up to continue and regain our natural-born liberties under the premise that all are created equal. We believe in freedom of health, the right to education and individual liberties for all.
    • News issued by: Council for Vaccine Safety
    • Original Keywords: Liberty Lives, Eric Gladen and Shiloh Levine, pediatrician Dr. Bob Sears, Brandy Vaughan, vaccination law SB277 Council for Vaccine Safety Aliso Viejo California ALISO VIEJO, Calif.
    • Alternate Headline: Calif. Film Screening of ‘Trace Amounts’ includes Filmmakers, Health and Legal Practitioners Discussing Vaccination Law
    • NEWS ARCHIVE NOTE: this archival news content, issued by the news source via Send2Press Newswire, was originally located in the Send2Press® 2004-2015 2.0 news platform and has been permanently converted/moved (and redirected) into our 3.0 platform. Also note the story “reads” counter (bottom of page) does not include any data prior to Oct. 30, 2016. This press release was originally published/issued: Fri, 31 Jul 2015 12:02:11 +0000