McCandless Retracts Offer (#3)

Below is the reply, to my previous e-mail, as received from J McCandless. She responded to me, within a couple of hours, by posting her apology and retraction (as contained in her second e-mail to BusinessWeek Online) and then forwarded that on to me without further comment.

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From: "JMcCandless"
To: "[blogger's e-mail address]"
Subject: Fw: Respond to a story in BusinessWeek Magazine
(John Carey's article about vaccines/Lilly)
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 00:52:48


----- Original Message -----
From: "BusinessWeek Online Letters Auto-response"
To: ; "M.D."
Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2003 12:21 AM
Subject: Respond to a story in BusinessWeek Magazine
(John Carey's article about vaccines/Lilly)

Dear Reader:

Thank you for your interest in BusinessWeek and BusinessWeek Online.
Your comments have been sent to the appropriate department and will
be reviewed as soon as possible.

BusinessWeek Online

This is an automatic response. Please do not reply to this email.
The original online form submission was completed on Wednesday,
January 8, 2003 at 03:21:45,
subject: John Carey's article about vaccines/Lilly
from: Jaquelyn McCandless, M.D. (JMcCandless@...).
address: 21800 Marylee St. #48
city: Woodland Hills
state: California
postal code: 91367
country: USA
phone: 818-716-0565
do not print my email address: checkbox = ON
comment_type: Respond to a story in BusinessWeek Magazine
comments:

Dear Editor:

I responded (by letter to editor on Jan. 4) in anger to Mr. Carey's
article indicating why he thought the rider to deny parents the right
to sue Lilly for thimerosal injuries was a good thing.

Though I stand by all my article up to the p.s. part, I want to retract
the statement that I (or certainly any other physician) would happily
inject him with a weight-equivalent amount of thimerosal that our newborns have
received. Since I do know that thimerosal is a severe neurotoxin (with
delayed but permanent effects), I as a physician would never knowingly
inject it into any living creature. I daily see the devastation this
has caused in the lives of my patients.

Please forgive me for my hasty and sensational reply, though I would
be very surprized and pleased if you actually had the courage to print it.
However, I would hope you would be willing to consider writing a fair article
on the vaccine controversy from the point of view of the thousands of
parents who are struggling with the disorder of autism in their
children, and not just from a point of view of protecting Big Pharma.

It is deplorable that profits take precedence over the health of our
children, and there is no doubt that the "thimerosal" decade will go
down as a black period in the history of American medicine.

Actually what we need more than blame is enlightenment and clinics
where these children can be treated; the longer the denial is supported
the longer it will take for proper diagnostic and treatment facilities to be
made available to these children.

Jaquelyn McCandless, M.D.

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