Roxanne Dewyer's column "Responsible remedy" (SN 6/13), cannot discuss the issue of vaccine safety fairly without speaking to researchers and physicians who hold the opposite opinion.

The vaccine program in the U.S. is one of the most corruptly influenced health care programs in existence. Using scare tactics of widespread death, industry-influenced agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics mandate vaccines to "save lives" while drug companies make billions in profits. The influenza vaccine, for example, is about 5 percent effective in preventing flu-like illness and this is only theoretical.

Deaths among children and pregnant women are virtually unheard of, yet public health programs scare citizens into getting the flu vaccine because of 36,000 annual flu deaths - a figure that is hyperinflated by adding all pneumonia deaths (which is common, especially in cancer patients, etc.) to influenza deaths. More than 90 percent of flu vaccines still contain ethylmercury, and children following the CDC's recommendation can receive more than half the mercury dose prior to the time it was taken out of other childhood vaccines.

Few journalists and physicians are aware there has never been safety testing on Thimerosal - it is such an ineffective preservative that in 2004, the U.S. lost more than half of its flu supply because bacteria grew in Chiron's flu vaccine, in spite of Thimerosal's presence. Why do health officials still insist on using this if it doesn't work?

The link to vaccines and autism is undeniable, and the studies that refuted the link are sponsored by liable drug companies and health care agencies like the CDC who are responsible for oversight failure. Dewyer should have presented the other side of the story. This used to be called "balanced journalism" - today it is just one-sided propaganda.

David Ayoub, M.D.
Springfield, Ill., resident