Dr. Bernadine Healy is a physician, educator, and health administrator who was the first woman to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as its Director from 1991 to 1993. Known for her outspoken, innovative policymaking, Dr. Healy has been particularly effective in addressing medical policy and research pertaining to women. Healy studied at Vassar College where she graduated summa cum laude, earned her M.D. at Harvard Medical School, and completed her training in internal medicine and cardiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she rose to the rank of Professor of Medicine.While she was at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Healy undertook a number of initiatives. She established an award program to keep talented scientists working within the grant system during funding lapses, oversaw the development of a major intramural genetics laboratory and an Institute for Nursing Research, and launched the $625 million Women's Health Initiative (a long-term health study involving 150,000 women). In the interest of better understanding the different ways disease and treatment affect men and women, she also established a policy whereby the National Institutes of Health would fund only those clinical trials that included both men and women when the condition being studied affected both genders.
Currently, Dr. Bernadine Healy is Health Editor for U.S.News & World Report and writes the On Health column. She is a member of thePresident's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and also served as president and CEO of the American Red Cross. In addition to her various administrative positions, Dr. Healy has continued to treat patients during much of her career. An author as well as a policymaker and manager, Dr. Healy has written or co-authored more than 220 peer-reviewed manuscripts on cardiovascular research and health and science policy. Dr. Healy also has been a Medical Contributor for CBS News, and published a book entitled, A New Prescription for Women's Health.
On May12, 2008, in an exclusive interview, former NIH Director Dr. Bernadine Healy told CBS News' Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson that the question of a link between vaccines and autism is still open for debate. She expressed dismay at the latest Institute of Medicine (IOM) Immunization Safety Review Committee's Report: Vaccines and Autism, that stated that the weight of the body of scientific evidence does not show a causal link between vaccines and autism, and that more research on the vaccine question is counterproductive. Healy also said public health officials have intentionally avoided researching whether subsets of children are "susceptible" to vaccine side effects—afraid of what they might find and afraid the answer will scare the public into not getting their children vaccinated, and have intentionally avoided the kinds of scientific research studies that might show causality.
In the sections below, we are posting the video and transcript excerpts of the CBS Interview with Dr. Healy, Dr. Healy's own article -Fighting the Autism-Vaccine War, additional information from CBS News' Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson, the transcript of the Don Imus interview with reporter Sharyl Attkisson on her story about Dr. Healy and vaccines, documents about the recent Vaccine Injury Compensation Program Trust Fund1 award to Hannah Poling, a case study of developmental regression and mitochondrial dysfunction in a child with autism by Jon Pauling, court medical papers on thimerosal exposure and the causation of regresive autism used in the Hannah Poling Case, the transcript of the 2008 meeting of the Vaccine Safety Working Group of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) and opinions by CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy author David Kirby.
Other information concerning a possible link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the increase in autism spectrum disorders in children, including testimony from Congressional hearings, independent research studies, newly released transcripts of a secret meeting in 2001 between CDC and FDA officials that acknowledge the government's awareness of a thimerosal-vaccine-autism link from research studies, can be found on our website page: Is Thimerosal in Vaccines for Children Related to a Possible Causal Link Between Mercury Exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorders?
Dr. Bernadine Healy, NIH Director, on Link Between Vaccines and Autism: CBS Interview
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