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Autism One Radio

Panel discussion - Dan Olmsted: The Age of Autism, and David Kirby: The Mercury-Autism Controversy - A One Year Update

 

Dan Olmsted is a senior editor at UPI and a journalist with 30 years experience. He oversees investigations and special projects at UPI, including an ongoing investigation of mental health problems associated with the anti-malaria drug Lariam. UPI first reported that mounting evidence suggests Lariam can lead to suicide; a year later the FDA ordered that everyone prescribed the drug be told in writing about that possibility. The stories appeared in New York Newsday and were the basis for a segment on 60 Minutes II.

As Washington bureau chief, he helped coordinate coverage of the 2000 election and its aftermath, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the anthrax attacks that followed and other major breaking news stories.

Olmsted began his journalistic career in high school, working part-time for The Danville (Ill.) Commercial-News. After graduating from Yale, he returned to the paper, where he won the state AP Public Service reporting prize. He was an original staff member of USA TODAY, where he served as an assistant national editor, and was senior editor of USA WEEKEND magazine. He joined UPI in 1999 and, after a brief stint at a dot-com startup, returned to the wire service in 2000

David Kirby is an investigative journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, and was formerly a regular contributor to the New York Times since 1998, he is author of the 2005 book Evidence of Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy.

Kirby has written for many national magazines, including Glamour, Redbook, Self, and Mademoiselle. From 1986 to 1990, Kirby was a foreign correspondent for UPI, and Newsday (among others) in Latin America, covering wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and covered politics, corruption and natural disasters in Mexico.

From 1990 to 1993, Kirby was director of public information at the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), worked for New York City Council President Carol Bellamy, and was a senior staff adviser to David Dinkins' successful 1989 run for mayor of New York City.

Since May, 2005, Kirby has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.