Dear IACC members, Secretary Daschle, Senators and Representatives,

We were shocked to hear the actions of members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) in retracting vaccine-autism studies at their January 14th meeting. Specifically, I am referring to;

Duane Alexander, M.D. - Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at NIH;

James Battey, M.D. - Director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at NIH;

Ellen Blackwell, MSW - Division of Community and Institutional Services for the Disabled and Elderly Health Programs Group, Center for Medicaid and State Operations at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services]

Margaret Giannini, M.D. - Director of the Office on Disability at HHS;

Gail Houle, Ph.D., Associate Division Director, Research-to-Practice Division, Early Childhood Programs, Office of Special Education Programs, U.S. Department of Education;

Larke Huang, Ph.D., Senior Advisor on Children at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services;

Story Landis, Ph.D., Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at NIH;

Cindy Lawler, Ph.D., Scientific Program Director, Cellular, Organs and Systems Pathobiology Branch at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at NIH;

Patricia A. Morrissey, Ph.D., Commissioner of the Administration on Developmental Disabilities at the Administration for Children and Families;

Edwin Trevathan, M.D., MPH, Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the CDC;

Peter van Dyck, M.D., MPH, Associate Administrator of Maternal and Child Health at the Health Resources and Services Administration;

AND Elias Zerhouni, M.D., the Director of the National Institutes of Health (who absolutely needs to be held accountable!)

We hear from the majority of parents of autistic children the same story - their child regressed into autism after a battery of vaccines. You should be ashamed of yourself - do you have no conscience? We find it absolutely disgusting the protection you offer the pharmaceutical industry and their minions over the people whose tax dollars are allegedly paying your salary. We are simply asking for the immediate implementation of the Combating Autism Act that reflects the needs and views of the the taxpayer and the autism community at large. We strongly oppose the manipulation of committee procedures to block research on the link between vaccines and autism. We are demanding reinstatement by the IACC of the vaccine studies that were already approved for the IACC’s Autism Research Strategic Plan, and simply ask that YOU make sure to restore the funding already allocated to this critical research.

As reaffirmed by the vote count on January 14th, the NIH, CDC and other HHS agencies have inherent conflicts of interest in conducting research on vaccine efficacy and safety. Research initiatives must be coordinated by an independent committee that includes significant numbers of representatives from the autism-vaccine injured community and conducted by independent entities who have no ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

In the Spirit of Truth,

XXX