Immunization

For years, the scientific evidence has been accumulating. The latest, published this week, once again showed that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative long used in childhood vaccines, does not cause the neurological disorders associated with the U.S. autism epidemic. In fact, scientists at the California Department of Public Health demonstrated that in the years since nearly all thimerosal was removed from vaccines in 2001, the rate of autism has continued to rise there.

While the release of the Mitchell Report sparked debates about major league baseball players' Hall of Fame worthiness and tainted record books, the issue of performance-enhancing drugs is much more personal to others. "This is more than about asterisks and cheating; it's about the lives and health of our kids," Don Hooton said Thursday at the Mitchell Report news conference in New York. Hooton's 17-year-old son, Taylor, committed suicide in 2003 after using anabolic steroids. Powered by ME!

MedImmune has been able to double the number of potential products in development to 100 since the Maryland biotech was acquired last spring by drug giant AstraZeneca, David M. Mott, MedImmune's president and chief executive officer, said yesterday. Since AstraZeneca agreed to pay $15.6 billion for MedImmune in April, the Gaithersburg biotech has been put in charge of the British firm's biologics units -- Cambridge Antibody Technology in England and a research facility in Hayward, Calif.

WASHINGTON -- Reflecting the deep divisions within Congress over granting legal immunity to telephone companies for cooperating with the Bush administration's program of wiretapping without warrants, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a new domestic surveillance law yesterday that sidestepped the issue. By a 10-9 vote, the committee approved an overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that dropped a key provision for immunity for telecommunications companies that another committee had already approved.

If the local fire company asked for your help putting out a neighbor's blaze, you would not force the firefighters to justify their request. You would just help, right? That's what the phone companies did when the Bush administration asked them in secret for help with wiretaps to target al-Qaida communications into and out of the country. However, the president's warrantless wiretap program caused a furor when it became public. The administration had circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, raising many doubts about the legality and even constitutionality of its wiretap program.

The dumb promises of immunity must have been the last straw. The State Department capped its astonishing record of mismanagement of private security firms in Iraq in a fairly spectacular way, by making an offer of immunity it didn't have the power to grant, to the Blackwater USA guards who were involved in the notorious shoot-'em-up in Baghdad's Nisour Square. Condoleezza Rice has now given way to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who wants to put diplomats' private guards under military control.

WASHINGTON -- All State Department security convoys in Iraq will now fall under military control, the latest step taken by government officials to bring Blackwater Worldwide and other armed contractors under tighter supervision. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates agreed to the measure at a lunch yesterday after weeks of tension between their two departments over coordination of thousands of gun-carrying contractors operating in the chaos of Iraq.

WASHINGTON -- State Department investigators offered Blackwater USA security guards immunity during an inquiry into last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad, which could complicate efforts to prosecute the company's employees involved in the episode, government officials said yesterday. The State Department investigators from the agency's investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said.

A nasal spray form of the annual flu shot can be given each year to children as young as 2, an advisory vaccine panel said yesterday. That's a change from current government advice, which recommends the FluMist spray only for healthy people ages 5 to 49. Traditional shots are still recommended for children younger than 5, but the nasal vaccine is an option for young children who may dread a shot with a needle. Recent studies have shown FluMist, made by Maryland-based MedImmune, to be safe and effective in kids as young as 2. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its use last month for that age group.

WASHINGTON -- Executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 in political donations to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat, this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for businesses participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping. The surge in contributions came from a who's who of executives at the companies, AT&T and Verizon, starting with the chief executives and including at least 50 executives and lawyers at the two utilities, according to campaign finance reports.