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March 17, 2009
The Danger of Excessive Vaccination During Brain Development
Very long but really good article.
The Danger of Excessive Vaccination During Brain Development
The Case for a Link to Autism Spectrum Disorders
By Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
In 1976, children received 10 vaccines before attending school. Today they will receive over 36 injections. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control assured parents that it was safe to not only give these vaccines, but that they could be given at one time with complete safety.
Is this true? Or are we being lied to on a grand scale?
The medical establishment has created a set of terms, which they use constantly to boost their egos and firm up their authority as the unique holders of medical wisdom–the mantra is “evidence-based medicine”, as if everything outside their anointing touch is bogus and suspect. A careful examination of many of the accepted treatments reveals that most have little or no scientific “evidence-based” data to support it.
One often repeated study found that almost 80 percent of medical practice had no scientific backing.
This is not to say that medical practice should be purely based on pure and applied science, as understood in the fields of physics and chemistry. Medicine, as pointed out by many of the great men of medicine, is an art. For a discussion on the proper role of medicine I refer the reader to my paper titled –Regimentation in Medicine and the Death of Creativity – on my website (www.russellblaylockmd.com).
The Scientific Double Standards of Vaccine Safety
Most men of medicine recognize that some things are obvious without a placebo controlled, double-blind, randomized study. For example, there has never been such a study to see if smashing your finger with a hammer will be painful, but we accept it without such pristine evidence. The same is true with removing brain tumors or sewing up severe lacerations.
I find it interesting that there exist an incredible double standard when it comes to our evidence versus theirs.
The proponents of vaccination safety can just say they are safe, without any supporting evidence what-so-ever, and it is to be accepted without question. They can announce that mercury is not only safe, but that it seems to actually increase the IQ, and we are to accept it. They can proclaim thimerosal safe to use in vaccines without their having ever been a single study on its safety in over 60 years of use, and we are to accept it.
Yet, let me, or anyone else, suggest that excessive vaccination can increase the risk of not only autism, but also schizophrenia and neurodegenerative diseases, and they will scream like banshees –Where is the evidence? Where is the evidence?
When we produce study after study, they always proclaim them to be insufficient evidence or unacceptable studies. More often than not, they just completely ignore the evidence. This is despite the fact that we produce dozens or even hundreds of studies that not only demonstrate the link clinically and scientifically, but also clearly show the mechanism by which the damage is being done –even on a molecular level. These include cell culture studies, mixed cell cultures, organotypic tissue studies, in vivo animal studies using multiple species and even human studies.
To the defenders of vaccine safety-our evidence is never sufficient and, if we face reality – never will be.
Scientific Nitpicking Costs Lives
When I was in medical school, there was no proof that cigarette smoking cause lung cancer. The connection was as obvious as the layman’s observation that smashing your finger with a hammer would cause pain and even the town drunk knew it was true, but to the medical elite –there was no proof.
No one had ever produced lung cancer in animals by exposing them to cigarette smoke. In fact, my pathology professor, Dr. Jack Strong, had trained monkeys to chain smoke, and after years of smoking none developed lung cancer. Yet, he was convinced that smoking caused lung cancer.
Dr. Alton Oschner, founder of the famed Oschner Clinic in New Orleans, led the charge in proclaiming the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. It took almost another decade before the medical elite was willing to admit that smoking caused most cases of lung cancer.
Almost 30 years passed from the time some iconoclastic men of medicine tried to convince the medical establishment that smoking caused most cases of lung cancer until it was generally accepted.
The question that needs to be asked is – How many people died of lung cancer, the most prevalent cause of cancer death in the United States, during this time?
Data from the National Cancer Institute estimated that in the year 2004, 157,000 people died of lung cancer. If 80 percent were secondary to smoking that would be 125,000 dead. Over a ten-year period that would be over one million dead and over 30 years almost 4 million people who died from a preventable cause of death that at the time was still being hotly debated by the medical purist. Lung cancer death rates were actually higher during that time period.
So we see that questions of medical importance that are nitpicked to death on points of scientific purity can cost a lot of lives –millions of lives.
The Compelling Link Between Autism and the Vaccination Program
There are over one million children and even adults with autism and the numbers continue to grow. This is a medial disaster of monumental proportions.
The link to the vaccine program is scientifically and logically compelling but these same medical elitists refuse to listen. Like smoking and lung cancer, we have enough proof today to call a halt to the present excessive vaccine program and ban any level of mercury in vaccines.
In 1983, before the autism epidemic began, children received 10 vaccinations before attending school and the autism incidence was 1 in 10,000. Today they are receiving 24 vaccines before 1 year and 36 by the time they attend school and the autism rate is now 1 in 150 births.
Medical “experts” have provided no other explanation for this dramatic and sudden rise in autism cases, despite a draconian effort to find one.
They attempted to say it was genetic, but geneticists were quick to respond that genetic disorders do not suddenly increase in such astronomical proportions. They then said it was because of better diagnosis, despite the fact that the diagnosis is obvious in virtually every case and that the criteria officially accepted for diagnosis has become more restrictive not less.
When trapped by a lack of evidence, defenders of a nefarious position resort to their old standby –the epidemiological study.
Statisticians will tell you that the least reliable type of study is an epidemiological study because it is easy to manipulate the data so that the study tells you anything you wish it to.
Every defense offered by vaccine defenders is based on such studies and never the actual science. Then they announce that the issue is settled and no further studies need be done. After the media has been informed that the issue has been settled, those who continue to present the evidence are considered kooks and the great unwashed ignorant.
The Autism Disaster: Is It Man Made?
Today, specialists speak of the autism spectrum disorders (ASD), which include a number of related neurodevelopmental disorders such as classical autism, Rett’s syndrome, Asperger’s syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD) and pervasive developmental disorders not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS).
I have noticed over the years that when specialists know very little about a disorder, they spend an inordinate amount of time naming and sub-classifying it –periodically.
In addition they go to great lengths to define characteristics and symptoms of the disorder that must be present to meet the criteria of classification. Those who fail to meet these criteria are dispensed with into another dimension, that is, they are ignored.
In the early 1980s, the incidence of autism was 1 in 10,000 births. By 2005, the incidence had leaped to 1 in 250 births and today it is 1 in 150 births and still climbing.
One of the strongest links to this terrible set of disorders was a drastic change in the vaccine programs of the United States and many other countries, which included a dramatic increase in the number of vaccines being given at a very early age.
No other explanation has been forthcoming from the medical elite.
In this paper I shall present evidence, some of which has not been adequately discussed, that provides strong evidence for a connection between excessive vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders.
In a paper I wrote in 2003, I stated that removing the mercury from vaccines would help relieve the problem, but it would not eliminate it. This was based on a number of studies in the neuroscience literature that indicated that excessive and especially repeated immune stimulation could result in severe disruption of brain development and even neurodegeneration.
In this paper and a follow-up paper, I attributed the central mechanism to excessive and prolonged microglial activation with an interaction between inflammatory cytokines and glutamate receptor subtypes. The Vargas et al study, published two years later in 2005, strongly supported this hypothesis, with the finding of elevated inflammatory cytokines as well as the presence of extensive, widespread activated microglia and astrocytes in examined autistic brains from age 5 years to 44 years of age.
This indicated that the brain’s immune activation persisted for decades.
Recent research indicates that this phenomenon is not that uncommon and can be reproduced in the laboratory using a variety of immune stimulating agents and neurotoxins, including mercury and aluminum.
Autoimmunity and Vaccinations
A number of studies have suggested a link between autoimmune disorders and autism risk.
Support comes from studies showing an increased risk of ASD in children of mothers with autoimmune disorders.1-3 Yet, not all studies agree, since at least one carefully done study found no strong link.4
Other more carefully done studies provided evidence suggesting some link. For example, in one study serum from a mother with an autistic child was found to bind immunologically with specific brain cells (Purkinje cells).5 When this serum was injected into pregnant mice, their babies demonstrated neurological changes suggestive of autistic behavior, indicating a transfer of the autoantibodies into the developing baby mouse.
A number of studies have found autoantibodies in a significantly higher number of autistic children to various brain structures, such as serotonin receptors, myelin basic protein, neuron axon filament protein, nerve growth factor and cerebellar neurofilaments.6-10
It should be understood that these autoantibodies are not found in all cases and that they may develop as a result of the damage caused by the disease itself, rather than causing the disease. For example, we know that after a stroke or head injury a substantial number of people will develop autoantibodies to brain proteins. Nevertheless, the autoantibodies can worsen the damage and prolong the damaging pathology.
It has also been demonstrated that methylmercury (from fish) and ethylmercury (in thimerosal) are both powerful immunosuppressants and are associated with a high incidence of autoimmunity.11 In this study, researchers found that unlike methylmercury, thimerosal (ethylmercury) initially caused immune suppression and then strong TH2-induced autoimmunity. They attributed this to the higher conversion of ethylmercury to ionic mercury (Hg+) than seen with methylmercury.
In fact, one study found that strains of mice highly susceptible to developing autoimmune diseases were sensitive to the ASD-like behavioral effects upon mercury exposure, whereas mouse strains genetically not susceptible to autoimmunity do not develop ASD behaviors.12
It is obvious from the extremely high incidence of ASD that these autoimmune-related genes are very common, but they remain silent until triggered by vaccines or other environmental toxins.
Immunologists have now concluded that autoimmune disorders are not the result of excessive activation of a normal immune system, but rather activation of a dysfunctional immune system.
The question remains -- what is causing such widespread immune dysfunction among our population?
Immune Dysfunction – The Result of “Bystander Damage”
Studies have shown that the number of autoimmune diseases has increased over the past 30 years, with asthma, type 1 diabetes and eczema rates increasing over two-fold. There is also compelling evidence to indicate that certain vaccinations are associated with these autoimmune-related conditions.13,14
A compelling number of studies have shown an increased incidence of autoimmune reactions in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), especially involving measles antigens, milk antigens and antibodies to gliadin and gluten.15-17 Some of these have been shown to cross-react with brain-derived proteins as well, especially those in the cerebellum, a major structure affected in these disorders.18
Recently, neuroscientists have shown that much of the damage done in cases of autoimmunity is not due to direct immune reactions with brain structures, but rather results from the release of storms of free radicals and lipid peroxidation products during the immune reaction, something I call a “hand grenade in a shopping mall effect”. If you use a hand grenade to target a single person in a crowd you will not only kill and injure the intended target, but all of the bystanders as well.
Neuroscientists P.L. McGeer and E.G. McGeer have named this effect bystander damage.19
The immune attack caused by the autoimmune reaction in the autistic person’s brain damages a number of surrounding structures, especially brain connections called dendrites and synapses. Subsequent studies have confirmed that bystander damage is the most destructive reaction of autoimmunity.
Some studies, as referred to above, have shown that autism is much more common in families with a hereditary tendency for autoimmune diseases, which makes sense because they will have dysfunctional immune systems.
There is also compelling evidence that vaccines themselves can damage the immune system of immature animals, leading to a higher incidence of autoimmunity and abnormal brain development.20-24 Mercury, even in small concentrations, is also known to induce autoimmunity in a high percentage of those exposed.11
Ironically, things that suppress a portion of the immune system, usually cellular type immunity, increase the likelihood of autoimmunity. Immunologists speak about a Th1 to Th2 shift and vice versa. This can occur with exposure to mercury as well as in response to vaccination.25 A great number of autoimmune diseases are associated with a Th2 shift.
How Immune Reactions to Vaccines Differ Depending on Age
The immune system is a very complex system, which at birth is incompletely formed. This means, and has been confirmed in animal and human studies, that immune reactions to vaccinations differ at different ages, so that small babies have a different reaction than adults. This has been shown with the hepatitis B vaccine now given to newborns.
The rate of maturation of the immune system also differs considerably among babies and children, meaning we cannot say what effect will occur in all children. There are a great many variables, including diet.
The immune system’s reaction to infection and immunization can be quite different. Normally the immune system relies on a shifting of T-lymphocyte function to determine which is better for the particular situation.26
The T-helper lymphocytes (Th) can exist as either Th1, Th0, or Th2 forms. When no infection is occurring, the system is in the Th0 mode (an uncommitted phase). If a virus invades, it quickly switches to the Th1 phase, which allows immune cells to secrete a group of cytokines that kill viruses. It also activates immune lymphocytes that kill viruses and bacteria.
At other times, the immune system needs a whole different set of immune signals and cells, which are supplied by the Th2 phase. The Th2 phase favors the production of antibodies, mainly supplied by B-cells, but in general they reduce immune reactions.
Infants are stuck in the Th2 mode during intrauterine life, so as to prevent being immunologically rejected by the mother during pregnancy (much like transplant rejection), since the baby is seen as a foreign body to the mother’s immune system.
Upon birth, the baby remains in a Th2 mode, but has a limited ability to switch to the Th1 defensive mode if the need arises, say from an infection. Months later the baby switches to the adult Th1 mode.
If the baby’s immune system remains in a Th2 mode, it has a high risk of developing an autoimmune disorder, such as eczema, asthma or other allergies.
Presently, vaccine authorities recommend every baby be vaccinated with the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth. But, is this safe?
A recent study looked at the immune reaction in newborn infants up to the age of one year who had received the HepB vaccine to see if their immune reaction differed from adults getting the same vaccine.27 What they found was that the infant, even after age one year, did react differently. Their antibody levels were substantially higher than adults (3-fold higher) and it remained higher throughout the study.
In essence, they found that the babies responded to the vaccine by having an intense Th2 response that persisted long after it should have disappeared, a completely abnormal response.
Autistic Children More Prone to Develop Autoimmune Diseases and Infections
Autistic children have been described as having a Th2 predominance, which would explain their propensity to developing autoimmune diseases and being more susceptible to infections early in life.20,28-30
Elevated proinflammatory cytokines, particularly TNF-alpha, have been described in studies of the cytokine profile in autistic children. As we shall see later, an excess production of B-cell cytokines and suppression of T-lymphocyte TH1 activity, as seen in autism, is associated with a high incidence of neurological damage by excitotoxins.
Several things about these immune responses are important to all parents, including effects of such immune over-stimulation during pregnancy. For example, it has been shown that excess immune stimulation, as occurs with vaccination, can significantly increase the risk of a pregnant woman having a child with autism or schizophrenia later in life, depending on when the vaccine is given.31.32
In addition, persistent Th2 responses caused by the HepB vaccine puts your child at a great risk of developing an autoimmune disorder and impairing your baby’s ability to fight off infections. This means that immediately after birth this vaccine has put your child at a greater risk of all childhood related infections, including H. Influenza meningitis, meningiococcal meningitis, rotavirus, measles, chickenpox, etc.
Not only that, but numerous studies have shown that such immune suppression greatly increases the number of severe complications associated with these infections, which means that should your child be exposed to measles or chickenpox they are more likely to suffer neurological damage, seizures or other systemic disorders.12,33,34
When this occurs, rather than admit that the science indicates that the vaccine program is the cause of the complications and deaths, the vaccine proponents scream that it demonstrates again the need for greater efforts to vaccinate our children.
Immune Suppression by Live Virus Containing Vaccines
It is also known that certain viruses powerfully suppress immunity, such as the measles virus.35
The MMR vaccine contains live measles viruses and recent studies have shown that immune suppression after vaccination with this virus suppresses immunity in a profound way that last as long as six months.36-41 In fact, the CDC recommends separating this vaccine from other live virus vaccines to prevent viral overgrowth (Yet, they combine it with two other live viruses-rubella and mumps viruses).
Yet, they never address the obvious question – wouldn’t this vaccine also make the child more susceptible to other naturally occurring infections such as hemophilus B influenza meningitis, meningococcal meningitis, persistent measles infection, influenza infection and even chickenpox? This has been strongly suggested by a number of studies.42
Not only would they be more susceptible, but severe complications and even death would be more common as well.
When death and severe complications occur due to these infections, pediatricians, the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics use this as a justification for more vaccines, never admitting that the increase incidence of these infections and complications was caused by their previous vaccine recommendations.
This risk is especially high in families with a number of other children in the household or in children in day care centers. With a prolonged suppressed immune system, exposure to other sick children would put this child at a high risk of contracting the infection and of having complications or dying from the infection as stated.
Studies have also shown that vaccines that cover only a few strains of a virus or bacteria that naturally have a great number of strains (some have over a hundred strains), can cause a shift in strain dominance so that the strain not included in the vaccine then becomes the dominant disease causing strain. We see this with the meningiococcal and pneumococcal vaccines.43-45
This is discussed in the scientific literature but the public is never informed. Most pediatricians are completely unaware of this.
When combined with mercury, which is also an immune suppressing substance, the effect is compounded. Fluoroaluminum, formed in fluoridated drinking water, also interferes with immune function, as do many insecticides and herbicides used around the home.46
Often forgotten, is the substantial evidence that omega-6 oils powerfully induce inflammation and immune suppression when consumed in large amounts. Those eating a Western diet are consuming 50-fold higher amounts of this type of oil (called linoleic acid) than needed for health. These oils include corn, safflower, sunflower, canola, peanut and soybean oils. So, we see that the average child is exposed to a number of substances in their food and environment that can also alter immunity, making them not only more susceptible to natural infection, but also to vaccine complications.
In essence, by over-vaccinating our children, public health officials are weakening their immune system, making them more susceptible to a number of infections and less able to combat the infections. This gives them an endless source of “horror stories” to justify even more vaccines.
Remember also that mercury is an immune suppressant, both from vaccines and seafood contamination.
One can see that a pregnant mother having dental amalgam fillings, who eats a diet high in methylmercury-containing seafood, and living in an area with high atmospheric mercury, such as West Texas, would be at a greater risk of having an autistic child than one not exposed to these other sources of mercury.
These differences in environmental mercury exposure are never considered by those insisting all children have the same vaccines, including mercury-containing vaccines such as the flu vaccine.
The Autistic Prone Child
What is becoming obvious is that certain children are at a higher risk of developing autism than others, for a variety of reasons.
It is also obvious that these newborns and small children develop infections at a higher rate than less vulnerable children. This may be because of a developmental immune deficiency, which can affect only a portion of the immune system and so be easily missed by their pediatrician. Indeed, it has been noted that a great number of cases of childhood immune deficiencies are missed by practicing pediatricians, especially the more subtle cases, which may make up the majority of ASD-prone children.
For example, many physicians treating autistic children have noted a high incidence of ear infections. These are treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics, which often lead to a high incidence of Candida overgrowth in the child’s body.
Both infections will prime the microglia in the child’s brain – which is the brain’s specific resident immune cell. This priming effect shifts these normally resting microglia immune cells into overdrive.47 If stimulated again within weeks or even months, they generate extremely high levels of free radicals, lipid peroxidation products, inflammatory cytokines and two excitotoxins glutamate and quinolinic acid.48
Studies have shown that this is the major mechanism for both viral and vaccine-related brain injury.
The high incidence of infection in these children indicates the possibility of preexisting immune system dysfunction. As stated, this also increases the risk of an autoimmune reaction.
The stage is then set for the autism cascade to develop and this can be triggered by early vaccination or a recurrent infection. Remember, the microglia have been primed, either by a natural infection or an earlier vaccination (such as the hepatitis B vaccine given soon after birth).
The vaccine is different from a natural infection in that the vaccine produces brain immune stimulation for very prolonged periods.
It has been proven, in both animal studies and human studies, that systemic infections or immune activation by vaccines, rapidly activate the brain’s microglial system and can, in the case of vaccines, do so for prolonged periods.49-53 Once the primed microglia are reactivated by the subsequent vaccination or infection, the microglia activate fully and pour out their destructive elements as discussed above.
With a natural infection, the immune system quickly clears the infection and then shuts off the immune activation, thus allowing repair of what damage was done. This shutting down of the microglia is very important. There is evidence that with repeated and excessive vaccine-triggered immune stimulation, the microglia do not shut down.47
This is what was found in the Vargas et al study, in which they examined the brains of 11 autistics from age 5 years to 44 years of age dying without active infectious diseases as compared to age matched controls.54 That is, they found widespread activation of inflammatory cells (microglia and astrocytes) in the brains of the autistic patients. This explains the widespread brain damage seen in all autism cases.
This study was one of the most carefully conducted, extensive examinations of the immune reactions in the autistic brain ever done and involved immunocytochemistry, cytokine protein assays and enzyme-linked immunoascorbant assays of the brain tissue. They also performed similar assays of spinal fluid from an additional six living autistic patients, which confirmed the intense immune activation and inflammation.
The average child receiving all of the recommended vaccines will have some 24 inoculations by age one year and 36 by the time they enter school.
Most of these will be spaced within one month of each other, which means the priming and activation cycle of the microglia will be continuous. In addition, the dose of immune stimulants is excessive. At birth they receive 1 vaccine, at two months of age they receive 6 additional vaccines, at four months of age 5 vaccines, at age six months 7 vaccines and at age one year, 5 vaccines.
In addition, should they follow the new CDC recommendation, they will receive the flu vaccine every year starting at age 6 month through age 18 years. These vaccines contain a full dose of thimerosal mercury.
In addition, we must consider the effect of the measles and rubella portions of the MMR vaccine, which begins at age 1 year. The profound immune suppression, which last up to 6 months after it is given, will not only increase the risk of developing other infections, but will increase the risk of an autoimmune reaction and measles virus persistence in the brain.
Cytomegalovirus is also a powerful immune suppressing virus that commonly infects newborns and small children, especially if they are immune suppressed.
So, we see that giving a live, immunosuppressant vaccine early in life can dramatically increase the risk of autoimmune disorders, increase microglial brain injury as well as increase the risk of infection by other immune-suppressing viruses and pathogenic organisms. And, it dramatically increases the risk of your child developing one of the autism spectrum disorders.
It should also be appreciated that the Candida infections in these children trigger a prolonged systemic immune reaction, which means a prolonged brain immune response as well and a worsening of any autoimmune disorder it may have produced.
Seizures and Autism
It is estimated that 30 percent to as high as 82 percent of autistic children develop seizures, depending on the sensitivity of the examination.55-56
Growing evidence indicates that there is a close correlation between brain inflammation (by microglial released inflammatory cytokines and glutamate) and seizures, just as we see with excessive brain immune stimulation with vaccines. Using lipopolysacchride as a vaccine-based immune stimulant, scientists have induced seizures in experimental animals of various species.57,58
A considerable amount of evidence links excitotoxicity and seizures.
In addition, a number of the newer anti-seizure medications work by blocking glutamate receptors or preventing glutamate release. One of the central mechanisms linking excessive immune stimulation with seizures, as with vaccines, is the induced release of the excitotoxin glutamate and quinolinic acid from immune stimulated microglia and astrocytes.59-61
In many cases these seizures are clinically silent or manifest as behavioral problems, often not recognized by pediatricians as seizures. Yet, they can alter brain function and eventually result in abnormal brain development.
Even the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes that infants and children with a history of seizure should not be vaccinated.
It is also known that autistic children who regress, that is begin to show a sudden worsening of mental development, have a significantly higher incidence of seizures, both clinical and subclinical, than those who do not regress.
Interestingly, studies have shown that during early brain development after birth the number of glutamate receptors (that trigger the seizures) increase steadily until the age of two when it peaks.62 Thereafter they decline in number. This means that the immature brain is significantly more susceptible to seizures than the more mature brain and this is when your child is being given 24 vaccine inoculations, many of which are associated with a high incidence of seizure.
Let just use the case of the 1 year-old child who is taken by his mother for his vaccines and the pediatrician convinces the mother to allow him/her to give all five vaccines recommended for that age group at that one office visit. After all, both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics assures mothers and fathers that it is completely safe to give them all at once. This not only means that the child’s immune system will be assaulted by 7 different antigens (viruses, three of which are alive) but by five full doses of immune adjuvant – a powerful mix of immune stimulating chemicals.
This intense immune stimulation not only results in a red, swollen and painful site where the shots were given, but a hyperintense activation of the brain’s immune system.
Mothers and fathers are familiar with the high-pitched crying their babies have after such a series of vaccines. Often, this high pitched crying, lethargy and poor feeding last weeks to months. This is not due to the pain of the injection, as the pediatrician will assure you, rather it is secondary to brain inflammation – what we call an encephalitic cry.63
Combination Vaccines Cause More Seizures
Recently, information was released that the combination vaccine by Merck, ProQuid resulted in twice as many seizures as giving the vaccines separately.
This vaccine contains the MMR antigens as well as chickenpox viral antigen (in a dose 5x that of the single vaccine). The study was conducted by comparing 43,000 kids getting the ProQuid vaccine versus those getting the shots separately. While they attributed the increased seizures to fever caused by the vaccine, this is only part of the story.
I have seen a number of febrile seizures during my neurosurgical practice and my research indicates that the reason some kids are susceptible to febrile seizures and not others is that the susceptible ones are deficient in neuroprotective nutrients and are often exposed to neurotoxic substances, such as mercury and aluminum, that increase sensitivity to seizures. Consistently found in the studies of febrile seizures is the presence of low blood sodium levels (called hyponatremia).64
It is known in neurology that very low sodium blood levels can trigger seizures, even in normal people. It can also result in rapid coma and death, especially in a child.
In the presence of brain inflammation, the incidence of hyponatremic seizures is much higher. One of the major causes of hyponatremia in infants and small children is the doctor giving IV fluids that contain little or no sodium chloride (salt). During my practice I constantly tried to convince pediatricians to stop using D5W (5% dextrose and water) as an IV solution in sick children, because it induced seizures. I am convinced that a significant number of children who died following a meningitis infection actually died of hyponatremia induced by a combination of the infection and the pediatrician giving hypotonic IV fluids (D5W) during treatment.
I will always remember the case of a little girl who developed H. Influenza meningitis and was in a deep coma. The pediatricians consulted me, suspecting a brain abscess. This was quickly ruled out. I noted the child was getting D5W as an IV solution. A simple blood test demonstrated she had severe hyponatremia. Because she was comatose, the pediatricians wanted me to let her die. I refused. They even went so far as to approach my partners to have them take me off the case. Fortunately, they refused to intervene. I corrected her sodium deficiency and she made a good recovery and had no further seizures.
Studies have also shown that glutamate, as MSG, given to small animals with immature nervous systems, also increase the likelihood of seizures from other causes, such as fever.65,66 Excess vaccination, increases brain levels of glutamate.
Keep in mind that the child by age one will already have had 24 vaccine inoculations, each spaced no more than one or two months apart. This means the brain microglia are maintained in a constant primed state. Each vaccine increases dramatically the damage done by the previous vaccine series. One is not surprised that so many vaccinated children develop seizures, often repetitive seizures, or that we have such a high incidence of autism. And I can assure the elite of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC that over one million autistic children far exceeds the danger measles, mumps, diphtheria, chickenpox, tetanus, rotavirus, HiB meningitis and hepatitis pose to our youth.
Also, keep in mind that for every fully autistic child there are ten times that many with lesser degrees of impairment.
Compelling evidence indicates that the death rates from the childhood vaccines fell dramatically in developed countries prior to the mass vaccination programs, as documented in Neil Z. Miller’s book, Vaccines: Are They Really Safe and Effective?.67
Objective studies attribute the fall in death rates to better nutrition and improved public sanitation. So, when you hear health authorities warn that stopping the present vaccine program will mean a return of millions of children dead from childhood diseases, they are lying and know they are lying.
Human Brain Development is Different
The human being has an unusual brain development in that there is a prolonged period of maturation and neuroanatomical pathway development occurring years after birth. The most rapid brain development occurs during the last trimester of intrauterine life and two years after birth – what is referred to as the brain growth spurt. It is the areas regulating higher brain functions, such as emotions, emotional control, thinking, complex memory and language function that is last to develop.
Recent studies using functional MRI scans (fMRI) and PET scanning have shown that brain development continues until about age 26 or 27. Using such brain mapping techniques as volumetric parcellations that give a 3-D view of the brain, researchers examined the brains of 13 children followed for 10 years with scans being done every 2 years.68 What they found is that there was an overdevelopment of synaptic connections after birth that was slowly removed (called pruning) in developmental cycles during early childhood and even adolescence.
For example, around age 4 to 8 years there was a thinning of the cortex in the language areas of the brain (parietal lobes) that spread to the temporal lobes and finally to the frontal lobes. This thinning moved the brain into a more functional state of development, that is, it got rid of unnecessary pathways and connections-sort of a final correction.
Further, they found that the language areas of the brain matured around age 11 to 13 years and the brain areas controlling higher brain function, the prefrontal cortex, matured in the mid twenties.69,70
What this means is that during the first two years of life, the child’s brain is undergoing rapid and very critical development and that the more advanced cognitive portions of the brain continued their development even later – much later.
There is compelling evidence that the pruning of these excess synapses is essential. Otherwise the brain would be inundated with an enormous array of competing signals – that is a lot of static and misinterpreted messages. This pruning process, as well as the growth, maturation and migration of neurons, is carried out by a combination of signals, which include carefully controlled fluctuating glutamate brain levels and appearance of specific microglia-released cytokines in a timed sequence.63,71-75
This is all very exacting and easily disturbed by a number of toxins, such as mercury and aluminum. It is also critically dependent on the presence of thyroid hormone.
Anything that alters these fluctuating glutamate and cytokine levels can affect, sometimes in drastic ways, the development of the brain, which as we have seen continues far into young adulthood.76-79
Pathological studies of autistic brains demonstrate three areas that are especially affected –the cerebellum, the limbic brain and the prefrontal area.80-83
There exist intimate connections between the cerebellum and the prefrontal cortex and between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system – in particular the amygdalar nuclei. These are also areas frequently affected by inflammatory cytokines during immune stimulation, such as with vaccinations.84 In the Vargas et al study, the most intense microglial activation was in the cerebellum.54
In low concentrations, both the cytokines and glutamate act to protect developing brain cells and promote brain development (neurotrophic function), but in higher concentrations they can be very destructive, especially in combination. Of particular importance are the inflammatory cytokines interleukin 1a and 1ß (IL-1a and IL-ß), IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha).85-89
Evidence that alteration in these cytokines can cause developmental brain problems comes in part from studies of schizophrenia, a disorder that can be produced by stimulating inflammatory cytokine surges during pregnancy.90-92
Avoid the Flu Vaccine During Pregnancy
It is known, for example, that women who are infected with the flu during pregnancy are significantly more likely to give birth to an autistic child or a child with schizophrenia, depending on when the infection occurs.
At first, they assumed this was due to the virus being passed to the fetus, but subsequent studies found that it was not the virus, but the mother’s immune reaction that cause the problem – that is, it was the immune cytokines (IL-1, IL-2, Il-8, IL-6 and TNF-alpha) that was causing the injury to the baby’s developing brain.
The insane policy of having every pregnant woman vaccinated with the flu vaccine flies in the face of what we know concerning the neurotoxic effect of excessive immune stimulation during pregnancy. Even if the vaccine prevented the flu (studies show it reduces it only in a select few), instead of a small percentage of pregnant women being at risk, they would make sure every woman was at risk.
Keep in mind these pregnant women will have been receiving the flu shot (containing mercury) every year since age 6 months (according to present CDC recommendations), meaning they will have accumulated a significant amount of mercury and will, as a result, have a hyperintense cytokine response to the flu vaccine during their pregnancy. In addition, they will have accumulated a significant amount of neurotoxic mercury.
It is also important to keep in mind that immune activation with vaccination differs from natural immunity, in that it persist much longer – even for years following a vaccination. This does not allow the brain time to repair itself either in the mother or in the unborn child. In addition, the way the immune system reacts differs with vaccination, especially in the very young, as we have seen.
A new study from the Weizmann Institute in Israel by Hadas Schori and co-workers found that with a normally functioning immune system, the T-lymphocytes actually protected neurons from glutamate excitotoxicity, but if the immune system was dysfunctional, as seen in most of the ASD children, the opposite happened.93 That is, stimulating the immune system was significantly destructive of the brain’s cells. Their study found that under conditions of immune dysfunction, B-cells predominated in invading the brain and this dramatically increased the destructive effect of excess glutamate.
Another study also found that mercury toxicity was greatest in mice prone to develop autoimmune diseases, thus confirming the above study.12 Further, the Schori study indicates that even in animals without an autoimmune-prone genetic makeup, suppression of T-lymphocyte function increased excitotoxic damage.
Both the measles and cytomegalovirus inhibit T-cell function, as does mercury and the hepatitis B vaccine.11,27,35,41,
The Vargas et al study also demonstrated that T-lymphocytes failed to infiltrate the autistic brains examined, meaning that protective T-lymphocyte protection was not in evidence.54 Under these conditions, systemic immune activation, as seen with multiple and sequential vaccinations, would increase the excitotoxic damage caused by the microglial and astrocytic activation.
When all the evidence is taken together, these studies provide powerful evidence that sequential, multiple vaccinations in newborns and small children maximizes the inflammation of the brain and as a consequence dramatically enhances the excitotoxic pathology, and does so for prolonged periods (decades).
The more vaccines that are added to the vaccine schedule, the more frequently this devastating effect will be seen and in worse forms.
What About the Adjuvants Used in Vaccines?
While mercury has gotten all the attention, aluminum (found in most vaccines) is also a major culprit in this shocking saga.
Added to most vaccine are a number of substances either used during manufacturing or designed as an immune booster (adjuvant). These include albumin, aluminum (either as aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate or alum also known as aluminum potassium sulfate), various amino acids, DNA residues, egg protein, gelatin, monosodium glutamate (MSG), MRC-5 cellular protein and various antibiotics.
Not listed on official lists are bacterial and viral contaminants, which can include their particulate, fragmented matter.94-99
The purpose of the aluminum compounds is to dramatically boost the immune reaction to the vaccine and make it prolonged, since some of the aluminum remains in the site of injection for years.
Aluminum was first added to vaccines in 1926. Many of the other components added to the vaccines also boost immunity, especially that of undesirable components of the immune system, such as the B-cells.
Because these vaccine adjuvants are designed to produce a prolonged immune stimulation, they pose a particular hazard to the developing nervous system. Studies have shown that immune activation can last as long as two years after vaccination. This means that the brain’s microglial cells are also primed for the same length of time, and possibly longer.
A new emerging syndrome called macrophagic myofasciitis has been attributed to the aluminum adjuvant in vaccines and is especially associated with the hepatitis B vaccine and the tetanus vaccine.100 Victims of this syndrome suffer severe muscle and joint pains and severe weakness. Subsequent studies, since the syndrome was first described in France, indicate widespread, severe brain injury as well, as confirmed by MRI scanning.101,102 This brain syndrome has been described in American children as well.
It is known that aluminum accumulates in the brain and results in neurodegeneration. The evidence for a link between aluminum neurotoxicity and Alzheimer’s disease continues to grow stronger. Aluminum, like mercury, activates microglia leading to chronic brain inflammation, which is a major event in both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.103-110
Flarend and co-workers studied the fate of vaccine injected aluminum in the dose approved by the FDA (0.85 mg per dose) using radiolabeled aluminum adjuvant –either aluminum hydroxide or aluminum phosphate, the two approved forms of adjuvants used in vaccines.111
They found that the aluminum was rapidly absorbed into the blood from both forms of aluminum, but that the aluminum phosphate was absorbed faster and produced tissue levels 2.9x higher than aluminum hydroxide. Blood levels of aluminum remained elevated for 28 days with both adjuvants. Elevated aluminum levels were found in the kidney, spleen, liver, heart, lymph nodes and brain.
This indicates that aluminum from vaccines is redistributed to numerous organs including brain, where it accumulates. Each vaccine adds to this tissue level of aluminum. If we calculate the aluminum dose from 36 vaccines, we see that the total dose is 30.6 mg and not the 0.85 mg considered safe by the FDA. Of course not all this aluminum ends up in the tissues, but they will accumulate substantial amounts, especially when added to the amount from foods and drinking water. When a number of aluminum-containing vaccines are given during a single office visit, aluminum blood levels rise rapidly and to much higher levels and this elevation persist for over a month, all the time infiltrating the tissues, including the brain with aluminum.
It is also known that aluminum enhances the toxicity of mercury and that aluminum, even from other sources, increases inflammation in the body.106
The question no one seems to be asking is -- does the aluminum act as a constant source of brain inflammation? Research, especially that showing aluminum-triggered microglial activation, seems to indicate it does.112
Dr. Anna, Strunecka, a professor of physiology, found that aluminum readily binds with fluoride to form fluoroaluminum and that this compound can active G-protein receptors, which controls a number of neurotransmitters, including glutamate receptors.46
Giving multiple aluminum-containing vaccines at once would raise blood and tissue levels much higher than when give separately, thus increasing brain levels as well. Fluoride in drinking water, foods and dental treatments would react with the brain aluminum, creating the neurotoxic fluoroaluminum combination. Studies have shown that fluoride also accumulates in the brain.
The Role of Mercury in Developmental Brain Damage
Mercury also activates microglia and does so in concentrations below 0.5 microgram (3 to 5 nanograms).113 This is well below the concentration seen with giving mercury-containing vaccines to children.
Ethylmercury, like its cousin methylmercury, enters the brain very easily but once within the brain it is de-ethylated, forming ionic mercury (Hg+).114
There is evidence that ionic mercury is significantly more neurotoxic than organic mercury. Once it is converted, the mercury is difficult, if not impossible, to remove. Studies using monkeys demonstrated that ionic mercury is redistributed in the brain.115
This same series of studies also demonstrated that there was extensive microglial activation in the monkey’s brain and it persisted over 6 months after the mercury dosing was stopped, indicating that even when the plasma mercury disappears the brain mercury remains.116
This is important to remember when you hear from the vaccine safety promoters that new studies have shown that ethylmercury (in thimerosal) disappears from the blood within several days. Actually, the mercury leaves the plasma and enters the brain, where it is de-ethylated and remains for a lifetime.
What they fail to mention is that recent studies have shown that only 7 percent of methylmercury is converted to ionic mercury, whereas 34 percent of ethylmercury is converted within a short time.117 This means that more of the most destructive form of mercury is retained in the brain following mercury-containing vaccine exposure than exposure to mercury from fish.
They also fail to mention that the vaccine-based mercury that was removed from the blood enters the stool in high concentrations, where it recirculates repetitively, meaning that with each cycle the mercury has access to the brain.
Mercury has another link to this immune/excitotoxic reaction. A number of studies have shown that mercury, in submicromolar concentrations, interferes with the removal of glutamate from the extracellular space, where it causes excitotoxicity.118-120
This removal system is very important, not only in protecting the brain but also in preventing abnormal alterations in brain formation.121 As you will recall, it is the carefully programmed rise and fall in glutamate levels in the brain that allow the brain’s pathways to develop and for proper development of its connections (called synaptogenesis).
Another way mercury damages the brain is by interfering with its energy production.
The mitochondria of the neuron (the energy factory) accumulate more mercury than any other part of the cell. It is known that when you interfere with the neuron’s ability to produce energy, you greatly magnify its sensitivity to excitotoxicity, so much so that even physiological concentrations of glutamate can become excitotoxic.122-125
One of the destructive reactions of both excitotoxicity and mercury toxicity is the generation of storms of free radicals and lipid peroxidation products. Essential to the protection of brain cells is the antioxidant enzymes (catalase, glutathione peroxidase and SOD). Mercury poisons these protective enzymes.
One of the most important protective systems is the glutathione molecule, which is present in every cell in the body. Mercury dramatically lowers glutathione levels by a number of mechanisms. (See Dr. Boyd Haley’s work for more information).126 So, we see that mercury can greatly aggravate this entire destructive mechanism.
It is important to appreciate that as important as mercury is, it is not the lone essential element in this process. Rather, essential to this process is a combination of pre-existing or vaccine-induced immune dysfunction and excess immune stimulation by a crowded vaccine schedule.
This is why autism will not go away, even when mercury is completely removed from all vaccines.
It also important to appreciate that mercury can never be removed from the picture because of the numerous sources of mercury in our environment, such as contaminated seafood, atmospheric mercury and dental amalgam.
Why Males Are Affected More Often
One of the enigmas of autism is why it occurs in males more often than females.
Actually there are a number of toxins that have this gender selectivity. Studies have shown, for example, that both mercury and monosodium glutamate (MSG) have greater neurotoxicity in males than females.127
The reason appears to be the enhancing effect of testosterone on both substances’ toxicity.128,129
Glutamate is the most abundant neurotransmitter in the brain and operates through a very complex series of receptors (3 major inotropic receptors- NMDA, AMPA and kainate receptors, and 8 metabotropic receptors). As stated, the presence of glutamate outside brain neurons, even in very small concentrations, is brain cell toxic. Because of this, the brain is equipped with a very elaborate series of mechanisms to remove glutamate quickly, primarily by utilizing glutamate uptake proteins (EAAT1-5).
Mercury, aluminum, free radicals, lipid peroxidation products and inflammatory cytokines can easily damage these. 130,131
One of the important ways glutamate regulates neuron function is by allowing calcium to enter the cell and by the release of calcium within cell storage depots. When calcium (glutamate operated) channels are opened, the calcium flows in as a wave of concentrated calcium. These are referred to a calcium waves or oscillations. They regulate a number of neuron functions, one of which plays a vital role in brain development.
During brain development, the future neurons are lined up along membranes within the core of the undeveloped brain. These cells must migrate outwardly to reach their final destination and they do so by guided chemical signals mainly released by microglia and astrocytes. These trillions of connections also develop during a process called synaptogeneis, and use many of the same signals.
Studies have shown that the calcium waves cause developing brain cells to migrate, which is essential for development of the brain (it forms the architectonic structures and functional columns of the brain).132
Interestingly, testosterone also affects embryonic brain cell migration by regulating calcium waves, and mercury, probably by stimulating glutamate release, does the same thing.133 Estrogen reduces calcium oscillations and stops the migration. Other chemical signals in the brain also play a role (reelin).
If calcium oscillations are not properly regulated, that is -- there are too many calcium oscillations, the brain develops abnormally.
Testosterone and glutamate have an additive effect on these calcium waves. In this way, testosterone enhances the damaging effect of excessive glutamate and mercury.
Studies have shown that higher doses of MSG during brain formation can cause abnormalities of brain development that closely resemble mercury poisoning and the toxic effects of high levels of inflammatory cytokines.76 Interestingly, vaccination has been shown to significantly increase the toxicity of several other neurotoxins, so much so that they can trigger brain cell destruction or synaptic loss even when subtoxic concentrations of the toxicants are used. Testosterone aggravates this toxicity as well.
Studies of autistic children show an elevated level of androgens in most, even in female autistic children.134 In general, androgens, such as testosterone, enhance neurological injury and estrogens tend to be protective of the brain.135
The Role of the Leaky Gut Phenomenon and Food Intolerances
Wakefield and his co-workers demonstrated a connection between the MMR vaccines and abnormal gut function in a landmark article appearing in the journal Lancet in 1998.136
In this carefully conducted study they biopsied the lining of the intestines of autistic children having GI symptoms and demonstrated lymphocytic infiltration as well as elevated levels of inflammatory antibodies and cytokines. TNF-alpha release was particularly high from these gut-based immune cells. The entire GI tract, from the stomach to the colon, was infiltrated by these immune cells.
Subsequent studies have shown a high incidence of abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation in children with ASD.138,139 A number of other studies have shown problems with digestive enzymes, defective detoxification, and an overgrowth of a number of pathogenic bacteria and fungi in the colon and intestine of ASD children.140,141
Not surprisingly, a few studies have shown significant improvement in behavior when ASD children are placed on diets devoid of identified food allergens.142-144 Antibodies to food components, such as casein, gliadin and gluten have also been described as well as cross-reactions between food antigens and brain components.145
One disease that closely resembles the case of ASD in terms of brain injury associated with food allergins is celiac disease, in which there is an immune sensitivity to the food components gliadin and gluten. Approximately 6 percent of such patients will demonstrate neurological damage, most frequently cerebellar ataxia.146 Other studies have also found seizures, cranial nerve damage, dementia and impaired frontal lobe function.147-151
Autopsy studies indicate that the most commonly found neurological damage occurs in the cerebellum, as we see in autism. Other studies have shown an immunologic cross-reactivity between gluten antibiodies and Purkinje cells in the cerebellum.144
Like the celiac cases, in autism the most intense microglia activation and neuronal loss occurred in the cerebellum. In many of the cases of autistic brains examined, virtually all of the Purkinje cells were lost.54
Studies looking for the incidence of GI symptoms in autistic children indicate that from 20 percent to 84 percent will have complaints. It is interesting to note that in the studies on celiac-related neurological problems, only 13 percent complained of GI symptoms, so ASD children can have gut-related brain effects without obvious GI symptoms.151
Some feel that the gliadin, casein and gluten can be converted to opioid-like substances, such as gliadomorphin and casomorphin that can produce a morphine response in the brain, leading to abnormal behavior.152,153 These opioids also suppress immunity and increase excitotoxicity.154
While the opioid effect exists, I feel it is the recurrent immune stimulation of primed microglia that is causing most of the damage seen in autism.155
Studies have also found frequent dysbiosis in autistic children, that is, an overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria and fungi and a loss of beneficial probiotics organisms.138
It has been demonstrated that Candida organisms can penetrate the gut wall and enter the blood stream, were they can be distributed to all tissues and organs, including the brain.156 The same is true for pathogenic bacteria and bacterial toxins. These brain implanted organisms act as continuous sources of immune stimulation, which is especially damaging to the brain because of vaccine-triggered microglia priming and/or activation occurring before the gut problem presents itself, with repeated vaccination aggravating the injury.
With each subsequent vaccination, the microglia response is enhanced because of the recurrent immune activation by food antigens and microbiological antigens. It is interesting to note that trials of antibiotic vancomycin, which is not absorbed from the gut, objectively improved the cognitive function of a number of autistic children.157 We also know that with children having celiac disease even a very small amount of the offending food can have devastating neurological effects.
CONCLUSION
I have presented a considerable amount of evidence for a connection between the present vaccine schedule and the development of autism spectrum disorders, yet even this paper is only a brief review of what we know.
A more in-depth discussion of the immune/excitotoxic will appear in my paper-- Interaction of activated microglia, excitotoxicity, reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, lipid peroxidation products and elevated androgens in autism spectrum disorders. Anna Strunecka and I are also working on another paper discussing this vaccine-triggered mechanism, which will appear in an upcoming special autism issue of the journal Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.
Much of this information is being totally ignored by the medical elite and especially the media.
The Simsonwood conference proceedings, in which over 50 scientists, vaccine pharmaceutical company representatives and representatives from the World Health Organization met secretly in Norcross, Georgia, disclosed that the safety of your children is not their primary interest – their only interest is selling vaccines to the public.
A friend of mine, while speaking to an audience of scientists and public health officials in Italy, was rudely told by a public health official that (paraphrased) – We all know that vaccines can cause neurological damage, but we must keep this from the public because it might endanger the vaccine program.
It is also important to understand that most practicing pediatricians have never heard what I have disclosed to you. Most have very little understanding of immune function and have no idea of the pathological effect on the brain of giving multiple vaccines on a large scale. These effects are widely discussed in the neuroscience literature, but few practicing physicians, especially pediatricians, ever read such articles.
Immunology, like nutrition, gets only scant attention in medical school and even less in residency training of physicians. Older doctors have no concept of the newer discoveries in immunology, especially neuroimmunology.
The human immune system is one of the most complex systems in physiology and our studies indicate an even greater complexity is to be found. Despite a renewed interest in the immune system’s function in neonates and small children, much remains unknown concerning the immune effects of exposing infants and small children to such a barrage of vaccine early in life. Yet, what we do know is that they react quite differently than adults and it can have devastating consequences on brain development and function.
Vaccinating millions of children with the hepatitis B vaccine at birth can only be described as dangerous idiocy.
The vast majority of infants, children and adolescents are in no danger from this infection -- even the medical authorities agree on that. It is also known that the effectiveness of the vaccine in children last no more than two years and has little or no effectiveness in the immune suppressed child.
The nefarious plan by these vaccine geniuses is to force vaccines all babies, since they would have difficulty convincing adults, that is, the one at any danger, to get the vaccine.
The problem with this “plan” is that the vaccine is ineffective by the time the child reaches the age of risk. Now that they have discovered this, they are recommending that all children have a booster vaccine every two years.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC, the forces behind this vaccine mania, assure parents that giving all of the required vaccines at once is perfectly safe. As we have seen, the scientific “evidence” does not support this policy. To do so exposes the child to a high concentration of immune-stimulating adjuvants that will intensely activate the brain’s immune system (microglia) during the brain’s most active growth period, that is, during the first 2 to 6 years of life.
The maturation and development of the brain continues to a large degree throughout adolescence. As we have seen, excessive vaccination can result in brain inflammation and brain swelling that can be prolonged, even lasting years, if not decades (as we have seen in the Vargas et al study). This can result in seizures, high pitched crying, severe lethargy, weakness and behavioral problems, such as agitation, depression, anger and other autistic behaviors.
In addition, giving the vaccines all at once exposes the brain to higher levels of neurotoxic aluminum as proven by the radiolabeled aluminum study quoted above.
If a person were to follow recommended vaccine guidelines they would receive over 100 vaccines in a lifetime.
Because of the way the vaccines are given, this would not allow the brain’s microglial cells to shut down, which is essential.
One of the effects of chronic microglial activation, other than brain inflammation, is an elevation in brain glutamate levels. Studies have shown this can lead to chronic neurodegeneration and is suspected as a common mechanism associated with neuropathic viruses, such as the measles and borna viruses.158-160 In fact, blocking certain of the glutamate receptors can prevent brain damage by the measles virus, as well as other viruses.158
We also know that the prognosis of spinal meningitis can be determined by the spinal fluid glutamate levels, with high levels having the worst prognosis.161 Studies of autistic children have also shown elevated glutamate levels in their blood and spinal fluid.
Foods and Supplements For the Autistic Child
Because excitotoxicity plays such an important role in autism, parents of autistic children should avoid feeding their children foods containing excitotoxic additives, such as MSG, hydrolyzed protein, vegetable protein extracts, soy protein or soy protein isolate, natural flavoring, yeast enzymes, etc.
There are many disguised names for high glutamate food additives. A recent study has also shown that there is an interaction between certain food dyes and glutamate and aspartame that enhances neurotoxicity significantly.
They should also avoid immune suppressing oils, such as the omega-6 oils (corn, soybean, peanut, safflower, sunflower and peanut oils). As stated, people in this country eat 50-times the amount of this immune suppressing oil than they need for health.
While omega-3 oils are healthy, the EPA component is significantly immune suppressing and as a result, high intakes should be avoided. Studies have shown suppressed lymphocyte function (NK cells) with high intake of EPA.162 It is the DHA component that has most of the beneficial effects, especially as regards brain repair and inflammation reduction.163 DHA also inhibits excitotoxicity. Because the autistic child has intense brain inflammation, a combination of EPA and DHA is preferable, with a lower content of EPA (no more than 250 mg).
Milk and milk products should be avoided and foods containing gliadin and gluten should also be avoided.
Soy foods are also responsible for a significant number of food allergies as well as being very high in glutamate, fluoride and manganese.
Fluoride should be avoided, especially in drinking water. Water is also a significant source of aluminum in the diet (it is added as a clarifying agent) and in fluoridated water the fluoride complexes with aluminum to form the highly neurotoxic fluoroaluminum compound.
The greatest dietary source of aluminum is biscuits, pancakes, black tea and baked goods made with aluminum-containing baking powder.
Low magnesium intake, which is common in the United States, is associated with higher degrees of inflammation in the body and lower glutathione levels. It also enhances excitotoxicity, since magnesium is a natural modulator of the NMDA glutamate receptor. Low intakes of magnesium greatly enhance glutamate receptor sensitivity, worsening excitotoxicity. Low magnesium also lowers brain glutathione levels, which increases brain sensitivity to mercury toxicity.
Increasing magnesium levels, reduces inflammation, raises glutathione levels and reduces excitotoxic sensitivity.
A number of flavonoids are neuroprotective, especially against inflammation and excitotoxicity. These include curcumin, quercetin, ellagic acid, natural vitamin E (mixed trocopherol), epigallocatechin gallate (from white tea), theanine, DHEA and hesperidin. All are available as supplements and most have a high safety profile.
Other Live Vaccine Dangers
The live virus vaccines, such as chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella, pose a special danger in the immunosuppressed child, because some of these viruses can take up permanent residence in the body, including the brain.
In one study, which examined the tissues of elderly dying of non-infectious causes, researchers found live measles virus in 45 percent of the bodies examined and 20 percent of their brains.164,165 These measles viruses were highly mutated, meaning they could result in a number of diseases not normally suspected with measles infection.
I have omitted discussions about vaccine contamination, which is a major problem. Several studies found a high incidence of microorganism contamination in vaccines made by a number of major pharmaceutical companies, with figures as high a 60 percent of the vaccines being contaminated.94-99
Bacterial and viral fragments have also been found in a number of vaccines.
While vaccine promoters were quick to assure us that these viral fragments should cause no problem, research says otherwise. In fact, a non-viable viral fragment implanted in microglia and astrocytes in the brain causes the devastating dementia associated with the HIV virus.167,168
The virus does not infect the brain neurons themselves. The mechanism proposed is an immunological/excitotoxic-induced toxicity, just as we see with repeated vaccination. The same mechanism is seen with a number of viruses, including measles viruses, borna virus and the herpes virus.168-172
When brain glial cells or neurons are chronically infected with these viruses (called a persistent viral infection) the smoldering immune/excitotoxic reaction slowly destroys the brain cell connections because the immune system is attempting to destroy the infectious microorganism. Since it can never kill the organism, the destruction (and intense microglial activation) continues for decades, as we saw in the autistic brain.54
The same effect can occur with viral fragments, the Lyme disease organism, aluminum and mercury that accumulates in the brain from either contaminated vaccines or from vaccine additives. And because excessive vaccination, especially with immune-suppressive viruses, can depress proper immune function, the child is at a greater risk of developing such a persistent viral infection.
Likewise, they are at a greater risk of developing deadly invasive bacterial infections, such as H. Influenza meningitis, pneumococcal and meningiococcal meningitis.
When it occurs, the vaccine promoters scream that we need more vaccines to protect the children, never admitting that it was the vaccine program itself that destroyed the lives of these children.
“Universal Health Care” May Increase Vaccine Danger
While a number of people and even physicians, think they desire a universal health care system (a euphemism for socialized medicine), here is something to consider. The government will use access to health care as a way to mandate vaccinations for all Americans. Those who refuse any of the mandated vaccines will be denied access to health care, meaning you will not be able to see a doctor or enter a hospital or clinic.
All federal programs will have completion of vaccine mandates as a requirement. This could be linked to social security, food stamps, housing subsidy programs and other such federal programs. Remember, they use such tactics now for access to schools and daycare centers. One may even have to prove that they have had all their required vaccinations before they can use public transportation, such as busses, trains and airplanes.
Another thing to consider is that the communist Chinese are gradually taking over vaccine manufacturing. In fact, communist China is now the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world. They have over 400 biopharmaceutical companies busy making vaccines and poor quality drugs for the world.
The FDA admits that it inspects only 1.8 percent of the 714 drug firms in China and that, according to a GAO study, FDA inspections may be done 13 years apart (it is spaced 2 years apart in the United States).
Even more frightening is that the inspectors must depend on Chinese translators and US companies purchasing these vaccines and pharmaceuticals must, by agreement, have a Chinese communist official serve as its legal representative.
According to the Phyllis Schafly Report, one CEO was quoted as saying “every piece of information you get (from the Chinese) is suspect.”
With thousands of people dying and getting sick, not only in China, but in hundreds of nations receiving their tainted pharmaceutical products, this means future vaccines will be an even greater danger.
The risk of millions of Americans and others living in the West receiving contaminated vaccines is extremely high. It could even be done on purpose, since the Chinese communist have declared their intention to defeat the United States.
Infecting over a hundred million Americans with contaminated vaccines would be an easy way to defeat us. The irony would be that our public officials would have aided them in our destruction.
Parents must appreciate that those in positions of authority are lying to them.
Most pediatricians think they are doing what is right, because they too are victims of years of propaganda by elite members in the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics. Most truly believe what they are telling parents. They should wake up and joint the fight to bring some sense to this insane policy.
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March 15, 2009
PROBIOTICS FOR AUTISM
http://www.autism-nutrition.com/probiotics-for-autism.html
PROBIOTICS FOR AUTISM
Medical study proved `too effective'
A medical study on probiotics for autism has proven so successful that the study `failed', according to a New Scientist report on September 9, 2006.
The study, by Prof Glenn Gibson at Reading University, UK, found that autistic children vastly improved their concentration and behaviour when given probiotics, or `friendly bacteria'.
It involved 40 autistic children, aged 4 to 8, half of whom were given the probioctic bacteria L. Plantanum while the other half received a dummy `probiotic'.
It was supposed to have been a blind study, where the participants were not told who were taking the actual probiotcs and who were taking placebos or dummy medicine. As part of this probiotics for autism study, parents were asked to record their children's mood and behaviour in a diary.
The results were too obvious. Parents whose autistic children were taking the actual probiotics saw such great improvements in their children's behaviour that they knew their children were taking the real thing.
Thus, problems arose during the `crossover' point of this probiotics for autism study, where the two groups were supposed to switch medicines. Many of the parents whose children were taking the actual probiotics refused to make the switch as they wanted their autistic children to continue their improvemenT.
One parent said it was "heartbreaking" to have to stop their child taking it.
"It was really challenging for us and the parents," said Prof Gibson. "The trial ultimately failed because of the large number of drop-outs."
Due to the high drop-out rate, Prof Gibson was not able to draw any firm, `scientific' conclusion from his probiotics for autism study. Prof Gibson noted, however, that autistic children often suffer bowel conditions and a previous study had found high levels of a "bad" bacteria called clostridia in their gut.
The probiotics for autism study was designed to reduce the levels of clostridia and promote "friendly" bacteria instead, to see what effect this would have. Prof Gibson said the children appeared to show fewer signs of autistic behaviour when taking the probiotics supplement, which was given in a powder once a day.
Very subjectively, we asked the parents to fill in diaries about the mood of the children. We got very positive feedback generally," he said.
Prof Gibson said that certain kinds of clostridia produced neuro-toxins, which potentially could be the cause of autism or a contributory factor.
However, he said this was speculation. The apparent improvement which the parents observed could also simply be because the children had felt better.
"If your gut is not behaving yourself, you feel rough," Prof Gibson said.
The first bacteria in the gut is received from the mother during birth. Later, more bacteria comes from the outside environment, especially from the diet.
By the time a person reaches adulthood, he or she would have about 100 trillion, or 100,000,000,000,000 bacteria in the intestimes – which is more than 10 times the number of human cells in the body.
Most of the bacteria in the guts are probiotics or "friendly" bacteria but when a person develops an infection, the proportion of harmful bacteria increases.
The use of antibiotics destroys both friendly and harmful bacteria. It often causes more harm than good by creating an `empty' environment whereby harmful bacteria, as well as yeast, can multiply more quickly and easily.
In recent years, there has been growing interest in the use of probiotics as a natural way to restore the balance of friendly bacteria in the guts.
This has many benefits including enhanced immunity, but also positive effects on mood and behaviour.
Many parents of autistic children have reported vast improvements in their chidren's behaviour with the use of probiotic supplements. The Autism Clinic recommends a special, ultra-high potency probiotics supplement specially formulated for children with autism.
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March 14, 2009
Abstract: Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial.
Daniel A Rossignol email, Lanier W Rossignol email, Scott Smith email, Cindy Schneider email, Sally Logerquist email, Anju Usman email, Jim Neubrander email, Eric M Madren email, Gregg Hintz email, Barry Grushkin email and Elizabeth A Mumper
BMC Pediatrics 2009, 9:21doi:10.1186/1471-2431-9-21 Published: 13 March 2009
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Several uncontrolled studies of hyperbaric treatment in children with autism have reported clinical improvements; however, this treatment has not been evaluated to date with a controlled study. We performed a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial to assess the efficacy of hyperbaric treatment in children with autism.
Methods
62 children with autism recruited from 6 centers, ages 2-7 years (mean 4.92+/-1.21), were randomly assigned to 40 hourly treatments of either hyperbaric treatment at 1.3 atmosphere (atm) and 24% oxygen ("treatment group", n=33) or slightly pressurized room air at 1.03 atm and 21% oxygen ("control group", n=29). Outcome measures included Clinical Global Impression (CGI) scale, Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC), and Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC).
Results
After 40 sessions, mean physician CGI scores significantly improved in the treatment group compared to controls in overall functioning (p=0.0008), receptive language (p<0.0001), social interaction (p=0.0473), and eye contact (p=0.0102); 9/30 children (30%) in the treatment group were rated as "very much improved" or "much improved" compared to 2/26 (8%) of controls (p=0.0471); 24/30 (80%) in the treatment group improved compared to 10/26 (38%) of controls (p=0.0024).
Mean parental CGI scores significantly improved in the treatment group compared to controls in overall functioning (p=0.0336), receptive language (p=0.0168), and eye contact (p=0.0322). On the ABC, significant improvements were observed in the treatment group in total score, irritability, stereotypy, hyperactivity, and speech (p<0.03 for each), but not in the control group. In the treatment group compared to the control group, mean changes on the ABC total score and subscales were similar except a greater number of children improved in irritability (p=0.0311).
On the ATEC, sensory/cognitive awareness significantly improved (p=0.0367) in the treatment group compared to the control group. Post-hoc analysis indicated that children over age 5 and children with lower initial autism severity had the most robust improvements. Hyperbaric treatment was safe and well-tolerated.
Conclusions
Children with autism who received hyperbaric treatment at 1.3 atm and 24% oxygen for 40 hourly sessions had significant improvements in overall functioning, receptive language, social interaction, eye contact, and sensory/cognitive awareness compared to children who received slightly pressurized room air. Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov NCT00335790
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March 14, 2009
Hyperbaric Therapy Called Effective Against Autism
By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
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Autistic children showed significant symptom improvement following hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a sham-controlled trial, researchers here said.
Clinical Global Impression scores by investigators improved by 1.13 points in 30 children who received 40 one-hour sessions of hyperbaric therapy over a four-week period, compared with a 0.38-point improvement in 26 sham-treated children (P<0.001), reported Daniel A. Rossignol, M.D., of the International Child Development Resource Center, and colleagues online in BMC Pediatrics.
Smaller but still significant improvements were seen in the treated children compared with the control group in parental Clinical Global Impression scores (1.30 compared with 0.83 points, P<0.05), the researchers said.
Scores on the irritability subscale of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist -- but not on four other subscales or the total score -- also favored the treatment.
And the treated children showed nonsignificant trends toward more improvement in scores on all subscales of the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist, except for sensory function, on which the difference did reach significance (16.6% improvement versus 5.4% in control children, P<0.05).
"Hyperbaric treatment appears to be a promising treatment for children with autism," Dr. Rossignol and colleagues wrote.
But physicians not involved in the study said they remained skeptical.
Paul Offit, M.D., a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia [who is not an expert on autism –L.S.], said he was concerned that Dr. Rossignol and the other study investigators were all practitioners in private autism or hyperbaric treatment clinics.
He also noted that the study was funded by the International Hyperbarics Association, a trade group of private hyperbaric therapy centers.
"I'd like to see [the study] reproduced in an academic medical center that doesn't have the financial incentives," said Dr. Offit, who has been active in debunking the purported link between autism and MMR vaccines.
Kevin O'Toole, M.D., director of the hyperbaric medicine center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), echoed that view.
"I'm not going to treat patients [with autism] on the basis of this study," he said. "I'm not convinced that this is going to be the way to go."
Dr. Rossignol and colleagues said their study was the first randomized, sham-controlled trial of hyperbaric oxygen therapy for autism, but a series of earlier open-label studies had found similar results.
In the study, treatment consisted of two daily one-hour hyperbaric sessions at 1.3 atm and 24% oxygen, five days a week, for four weeks. Evaluations were conducted at baseline and immediately after the last treatment.
In the control group, oxygen level was set at 21%. Initial pressure was 1.1 atm for a few minutes in an attempt to maintain patient blinding, then reduced to 1.03 atm.
A parent or other adult caretaker accompanied each child in the hyperbaric chamber to minimize the children's fearfulness.
Evaluators were blinded as to the treatment condition.
Ostensibly, so were the parents, but Dr. Offit questioned whether that was the case. He said it was possible that at least some parents could tell whether the treatment was active or not, leading to possible observer bias that was not controlled in the study.
But Dr. Rossignol and colleagues pointed out that 73% of parents of children in the control group reported some clinical improvement, which was similar to the active-treatment group although the mean degree of reported improvement was not as large.
This, the researchers said, "suggests that the blinding procedure was adequate, because if parents thought that their child was in the control group, they probably would have been less likely to rate an improvement after treatment."
Other limitations of the study included a lack of follow-up after treatment ended and the high placebo response.
The idea for hyperbaric therapy was born in the early 1990s with a report that autistic adults showed low levels of cerebral blood perfusion.
Several subsequent studies found similar results, in children as well as in adults.
Nevertheless, cerebral hypoperfusion remains out of the mainstream of scientific thought on the source of autism, which is now focused on variant genes and environmental factors that combine to impair development in early childhood.
But parents and some physicians have been touting hyperbaric therapy for years as a godsend for at least some autistic children.
The Internet is now awash in advertisements from clinics offering the therapy and even vendors of portable hyperbaric chambers.
Hyperbaric therapy also gets relatively high marks from an online rating system maintained by the private Autism Research Institute in which parents report results from alternative therapies.
With a total of 134 reports, 60% said their children "got better," 5% "got worse," and 34% had no effect, according to the site.
Parents frequently call medical-center hyperbaric therapy facilities seeking treatment for their children.
"We get calls on a weekly basis," said Dr. O'Toole, adding that this also includes inquiries about hyperbaric treatment of cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, and other conditions for which such treatment is not standard.
He said he limits use of the UPMC facility to indications sanctioned by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society, such as carbon monoxide poisoning and "the bends."
Dr. Rossignol and colleagues said there were no major adverse effects, such as barotrauma or seizures, in the trial. One child in the active-treatment group developed asthma exacerbation and was removed from the study. Another child withdrew because of anxiety during the first session.
"Given the positive findings of this study, and the shortage of proven treatments for individuals with autism, parents who pursue hyperbaric treatment for their child with autism can be assured that it is a safe treatment modality at the pressure used in this study (1.3 atm), and that it may improve certain autistic behaviors," Dr. Rossignol and colleagues wrote.
Dr. Offit said hyperbaric therapy is not the worst alternative treatment that parents sometimes seek for their autistic children. "It's not nearly as dangerous as chelation," he said.
But he said it wasn't totally benign either. "It's expensive and it can be frightening to children," h said.
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Friday, March 13, 2009
Blinders won’t reduce autism
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2009/03/13/polinged_0313.html
By JON POLING
For the million plus American families touched by autism, like mine, there is real urgency to find scientific answers to help loved ones and prevent future victims. Unfortunately, some doctors still fail to even accept the increasing autism rate as real, rather than their own better diagnosis.
The collateral damage of “better diagnosis,” the idea that we are simply better at detecting autism, is the abandonment of families coping with autism by the medical establishment, government and private insurance companies.
Beyond the high emotional toll autism takes on a family, many have been financially ruined. Public school systems are drowning in the red ink of educating increasing numbers of special-needs students.
Fortunately, the ‘better diagnosis’ myth has been soundly debunked. In the 2009 issue of Epidemiology, two authors analyzed 1990 through 2006 California Department of Developmental Services and U.S. Census data documenting an astronomical 700 to 800 percent rise in the disorder.
These scientists concluded that only a smaller percentage of this staggering rise can be explained by means other than a true increase.
Because purely genetic diseases do not rise precipitously, the corollary to a true autism increase is clear — genes only load the gun and it is the environment that pulls the trigger. Autism is best redefined as an environmental disease with genetic susceptibilities.
We should be investing our research dollars into discovering environmental factors that we can change, not more poorly targeted genetic studies that offer no hope of early intervention. Pesticides, mercury, aluminum, several drugs, dietary factors, infectious agents and yes — vaccines — are all in the research agenda.
An inspiring new text, “Autism-Current Theories and Evidence,” has successfully navigated the minefield of autism science without touching the “third rail,” as Dr. Sanjay Gupta aptly describes the vaccine-autism debate.
Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, who has studied autism for decades, prophetically writes, “The clinical heterogeneity of this disorder, together with the inherent dynamic changes during children’s growth and development, confound static, linear models and simplistic, unilateral approaches.”
Zimmerman’s book is dense with cutting-edge science on cell biology, metabolism, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, auto-immunity and brain pathology. That’s right — autism isn’t simply a genetic program for brain development gone awry. Dr. Martha Herbert, of Harvard Medical School, writes the final chapter defining autism in the larger framework of a multiple organ system disease with potentially reversible impairments.
As an affected parent, I am left with a sense of hope that these professionals will produce results to stem the tide of new autism cases and ameliorate symptoms of those currently suffering.
On the other hand, Dr. Paul Offit, the vaccine inventor whose Rotateq royalty interests recently sold for a reported $182 million, has written a novel of perceived good and evil called “Autism’s False Prophets.”
The tome is largely a dramatic account of why Offit, who self-admittedly is not an autism expert, feels vaccines should be exonerated in the autism epidemic. In the story, Offit takes no prisoners, smearing characters in the vaccine-autism controversy as effortlessly as a rich cream cheese.
“False Prophets” has curiously garnered support from several senior physicians in respected medical journals.
After Offit’s drama is complete, these cheerleaders fail to realize they have traveled the road labeled “Dead End — No Through Traffic.” In his epilogue, Offit credits autism parents who have likewise gone down the dead end path to autism acceptance, without search for cause or cure.
As both parent and doctor, I cannot fathom turning my back on a child nor science, in order to avoid inconvenient questions about vaccine safety or any other reasonable environmental factor.
President Obama has recognized that “we’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate” and plans to appoint an “autism czar” to coordinate his policy efforts. Science is moving forward to connect the three dots of environment, genes and plasticity of a developing child’s brain circuitry. In the end, logic and reason will prevail over politics and profits.
• Dr. Jon Poling, an Athens neurologist, is an assistant professor at the Medical College of Georgia. His daughter, Hannah Poling, has been a successful petitioner in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
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March 9, 2009
Autism and Vaccines
I am a physician of 50 years of experience. As a child I had Pertussis, almost fatally, I am told, for we moved to the country at doctor's orders. I survived healthy-am 92- and thus I have a question.
I received 4 basic vaccines-tetanus, diphtheria, measles, and smallpox. This seems to have been quite enough. As I read I realize that up to 1980, the incidence of autism was acceptable. So what happened to skyrocket things? All I can find is a sudden immense increase in the number and variety of vaccines, and simultaneously, an immense increase in autism.
Here in the Napa Valley about that time phylloxera appeared, and started its ravages. The experts at Davis tried to blame a new strain.
Some of us more basic guys didn't need that crutch, for the " critical mass effect" of a susceptible strain of rootstock allowed for a breakpoint in sheer numbers of phylloxera already in place to multiply encouraged by the AxR rootstocks which had the French "Aramon " as the susceptable culprit, allowing for a mass effect by sheer numbers. This is now regarded to have been the case, as the new strain has not been identified.
How is this different from the possibility that the sheer number of vaccines overwhelmed the immune system in many cases, having nothing to do with the vaccines themselves? The same might be said for other ingredients in the vaccines and exerting the critical mass effect.
I have been a problem recognizer and solver in my field. In this cases, because the only common denominator if the massive increase in numbers of vaccinations, I would simply return to the basic four vaccines and get on with things. Protecting everyone from everything of course is impossible, so a return to common sense might in itself be life saving, and I am particularly referring to the parents of the damaged kids. The pharmaceutical companies will fight back with a vengeance. Just get ready for it by educating pediatricians on the facts, hoping they too will be willing to make a little less taking joy in the greater good.
-Richards Lyon MD.
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February 25, 2009
MMR/Autism Cases Win In US Vaccine Court
Vaccine Court: Autism Debate Continues
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on huffingtonpost.com. is.gd/kQkp
On February 12, the federal "Vaccine Court" in Washington issued a sweeping ruling in three highly touted "test cases" against families who claimed that their childrens' autism had been caused by vaccines. The Special Masters in those three cases found that Petitioners failed to establish causation between MMR vaccines, the mercury-laced vaccine preservative thimerosal, and autism (the court decision, which is under appeal, deferred any finding on a thimerosal-only theory of causation). The rulings could have a significant precedential impact on some 5,000 families who opted to bring their cases in the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP) hoping that the vaccine court would officially hold that the MMR vaccine or thimerosal had caused autism in their children.
The New York Times joined the government Health Agency (HRSA) and its big pharma allies hailing the decisions as proof that the scientific doubts about vaccine safety had finally been "demolished." The US Department of Health and Human services said the rulings should "help reassure parents that vaccines do not cause autism." The Times, which has made itself a blind mouthpiece for HRSA and a leading defender of vaccine safety, joined crowing government and vaccine industry flacks applauding the decisions like giddy cheerleaders, rooting for the same court that many of these same voices viscously derided just one year ago, after Hannah Poling won compensation for her vaccine induced autism.
But last week, the parents of yet another child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were awarded a lump sum of more than $810,000 (plus an estimated $30-40,000 per year for autism services and care) in compensation by the Court, which ruled that the measels-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine had caused acute brain damage that led to his autism spectrum disorder.
The family of 10-year-old Bailey Banks won their case quietly and without fanfare in June of 2007, but the ruling has only now come to public attention. In the remarkably clear and eloquent decision, Special Master Richard Abell ruled that the Banks had successfully demonstrated that "the MMR vaccine at issue actually caused the conditions from which Bailey suffered and continues to suffer."
Bailey's diagnosis is Pervasive Developmental Disorder -- Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) which has been recognized as an autism spectrum disorder by CDC, HRSA and the other federal health agencies since at least the 1990s.
In his conclusion, Special Master Abell ruled that Petitioners had proven that the MMR had directly caused a brain inflammation illness called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) which, in turn, had caused the autism spectrum disorder PDD-NOS in the child: The Court found that Bailey's ADEM was both caused-in-fact and proximately caused by his vaccination. It is well-understood that the vaccination at issue can cause ADEM, and the Court found, based upon a full reading and hearing of the pertinent facts in this case, that it did actually cause the ADEM. Furthermore, Bailey's ADEM was severe enough to cause lasting, residual damage, and retarded his developmental progress, which fits under the generalized heading of Pervasive Developmental Delay, or PDD [an autism spectrum disorder]. The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine, and that this chain of causation was... a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to Pervasive Developmental Delay.
The Bailey decision is not an isolated ruling. We now know of at least two other successful ADEM cases argued in Vaccine Court. More significantly, an explosive investigation by CBS News has found that since 1988, the vaccine court has awarded money judgments, often in the millions of dollars, to thirteen hundred and twenty two families whose children suffered brain damage from vaccines. In many of these cases, the government paid out awards following a judicial finding that vaccine injury lead to the child's autism spectrum disorder. In each of these cases, the plaintiffs' attorneys made the same tactical decision made by Bailey Bank's lawyer, electing to opt out of the highly charged Omnibus Autism Proceedings and argue their autism cases in the regular vaccine court. In many other successful cases, attorneys elected to steer clear of the hot button autism issue altogether and seek recovery instead for the underlying brain damage that caused their client's autism.
Medical records associated with these proceedings clearly tell the tale. In perhaps hundreds of these cases, the children have all the classic symptoms of regressive autism; following vaccination a perfectly healthy child experiences high fever, seizures, and other illnesses, then gradually, over about three months, loses language, the ability to make eye contact, becomes "over-focused" and engages in stereotypical head banging and screaming and then suffers developmental delays characteristic of autism. Many of these children had received the autism diagnosis. Yet the radioactive word "autism" appears nowhere in the decision.
Instead the vaccine court Special Masters rest their judgments on their finding that the vaccines caused some generalized brain injury, mainly Encephalopathy/encephalitis (brain inflammation) or "seizure disorders" -- conditions known to cause autism-like symptoms. A large number of the children who have won these judgments have been separately diagnosed with autism. HRSA acknowledged this fact in a recent letter, but told us it does not keep data on how many of these children were autistic.
The Vaccine Court, in other words, seems quite willing to award millions of dollars in taxpayer funded compensation to vaccine-injured autistic children, so long as they don't have to call the injury by the loaded term "autism." That hazard is particularly acute for vaccine victims who appear before the Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP). Since that body's decisions are closely watched, published and accorded the weight of precedent, many lawyers consider the burden of proof for petitioners to be impossibly high before the OAP Panel. It was for this reason that Bailey's attorney, Mark McLaren, elected to opt out of the OAP and try his case separately, even though Bailey has been receiving autism-related services in his home state and was eligible to file a case in the Court's Omnibus Autism Proceedings (OAP).
McLaren told us he wanted to avoid the added burden facing petitioners under the media glare and precedential weight attending OAP panel trials. "We considered [the OAP route] because [Bailey] is on the autistic spectrum of disorders, but we thought we could try it separately and apart from the Omnibus, and not as a test case," explained McLaren. "We thought we'd have a better chance if we tried to on its own merit, away from the spotlights and the precedent setting pressures that attend these OAP test cases - and it worked."
Bob Krakow, a leading attorney for vaccine damaged children told that many lawyers are now convinced that filing a claim in the OAP is a losing proposition. "There's a growing conviction that if you have a autistic client who has also been diagnosed with encephalopathy/encephalitis or seizure disorder, you are better off not mentioning the word "autism" if you want to win the case." He recommended instead filing a non autism claim like "mental retardation with seizure disorder" for an autistic client.
Although the vaccine court is mandated to fairly serve the victims of vaccine injuries, their primary purpose and raison d'etre is to protect the vaccine program and vaccine makers. Damages are doled out from a 75-cent tax on every vaccine sold and not from the vaccine makers. "You can understand why special masters, burdened with their duty to protect vaccine programs, might be unwilling to make the direct causal link between autism and vaccines," Krakow observed. "If you ask the big question and answer it in the affirmative, there is a sense that it will damage the vaccine program irreparably."
Vaccine Court judges are equipped with a draconian armory of weapons deployable against plaintiffs intent on proving the causal connection between vaccines and autism. Jury trials are prohibited. Damages are capped; awards for pain and suffering are strictly limited and punitive damages banned altogether. Vaccine defenders have an army of Department of Justice attorneys with virtually unlimited resources for expert witnesses and other litigation costs. Plaintiffs, in contrast, must fund the up front costs for experts on their own. In a cultural choice that clearly favors defendants, vaccine court gives overwhelming weight to written medical records which are often inaccurate -- over all other forms of testimony and evidence. Observations by parents and other caretakers are given little weight.
Worst of all -- plaintiffs have no right to discovery either against the pharmaceutical industry or the government. Since autism is a behavioral affliction rather than a precisely defined biological injury -- epidemiological studies are critical to establishing its causation. But the greatest source of epidemiological data is the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) -- the government maintained medical records of hundreds of thousands of vaccinated children -- which HHS has gone to great lengths to keep out of the hands of plaintiffs' attorneys and independent scientists. Unfortunately the vaccine court has judicially anointed this corrupt concealment by consistently denying every motion by petitioners to view the VSD. The raw data collected in the VSD would undoubtedly provide the epidemiological evidence needed to understand the relationship between vaccines and autism. The absence of such studies makes it easy for judges to say to plaintiffs they have not met their burden of proving causation.
Meanwhile, CDC has actively, openly and systematically suppressed and defunded epidemiological studies that might establish a causal link. CDC has ignored repeated pleadings that it fund peer reviewed studies of unvaccinated American cohorts like the Amish and home-schooled children. At the same time the agency has worked overtime ginning up a series of fatally-flawed European studies purporting to dispute the link. Even a cursory critical examination reveals that the oft-cited Danish, English, and Italian studies are rank tobacco science. Many of them were funded by CDC, a badly compromised agency, performed by vaccine industry scientists, and published in miserably conflicted journals.
Needless to say, the existence of these phony studies, combined with the deliberate dearth of epidemiological evidence makes it easy for the special masters to dodge a politically explosive finding by holding that there is "insufficient evidence."
And, speaking of tobacco, it's worth recalling that for sixty years the tobacco industry successfully defended a product that was killing one out of every five of its customers against thousands of legal actions brought by its victims and their families. Tobacco lawyers protected the cigarette companies by arguing that there was no proven link between tobacco and lung cancer. Bob Krakow sees many parallels. Big tobacco uses the same tactic of manufacturing research that seems to dispute the connection to exploit the burdens on plaintiffs to prove causation. Big tobacco prevailed for six decades even without the help of supportive government agencies deliberately suppressing real science and research. In that sense vaccine victims must leap a much higher hurdle.
Despite the perilous odds stacked against them in vaccine court, the evidence of a vaccine/autism link is so strong that vaccine court judges and government agencies have now recognized at least two theories of how vaccines cause autism: the Vaccine-to-ADEM-to-ASD link in Bailey Banks' case, and vaccine-induced aggravation of an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction that caused full-blown autism in the Hannah Poling case. Both theories are different from those rejected in the three cases last week.
Perhaps, these new disclosures will prompt The Times, with all its influence, to actually make prudent journalistic inquiries into the phony science CDC uses to defend its claims of "vaccine safety." If it does, the paper will realize it has once again been ill used by government agencies in a tragic campaign of public deceit. The Times should make the reasonable demand that the government health agencies finally release the Vaccine Safety Datalink for independent scientific research and that CDC and HRSA lift their opposition to genuine epidemiological studies that might finally provide real scientific answers to this debate.
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February 24, 2009
The government has conceded that vaccines cause autism.
The News!
The government has conceded that vaccines cause autism.
Read the latest stories in the Huffington Post written by David Kirby and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. featuring the Banks family who recently won a landmark case against the government.
Take Action and Support David Kirby and RFK Jr.
Lets make this the most read article on the Huffington Post. Please read the article and offer David and Robert your words of praise and pass this information to everyone you know. Age of Autism should have the article up as well.
USA Today
To help spread the word of this tremendous victory, Generation Rescue has placed a powerfully written full-page ad in The USA Today, which hits the stands today, Wednesday, February 25th. Please purchase the paper and hang the ad proudly.
Generation Rescue - Press Release
Below is the press release that was issued to the media this morning. If you have any media contacts, please feel free to forward this to them with encouragement to tell this story.
Thank you for your support and efforts on this important day.
---
Government Again Concedes Vaccines Cause Autism
Mysterious Vaccine Court created in 1986 by the pharmaceutical industry, with the support of Congress, rules in favor of Bailey Banks against HHS.
Los Angeles - February 24, 2009 - Generation Rescue, Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey's Los Angeles-based non-profit autism organization, today announced that the United States Government has once again conceded that vaccines cause autism. The announcement comes on the heels of the recently unsealed court case of Bailey Banks vs. HHS. The ruling states, "The Court found that Bailey would not have suffered this delay but for the administration of the MMR vaccine...a proximate sequence of cause and effect leading inexorably from vaccination to PDD [Autism]."
In a curious and hypocritical method of operation, the mysterious Vaccine Court not only protects vaccine makers from liability but supports a policy that has tripled the number of vaccines given to U.S. children - all after being made aware of the fact that these vaccines do, in fact, cause autism and repeatedly ruling in favor of families with children hurt by their vaccines.
"It was heartbreaking to hear about Bailey's story, but through this ruling we are gaining the proof we need to open the eyes of the world to the fact that vaccines do, in fact, cause autism," said Jenny McCarthy, Hollywood actress, autism activist, best-selling author and Generation Rescue board member. "Bailey Banks' regression into autism after vaccination is the same story I went through with my own son and the same story I have heard from thousands of mothers and fathers around the country. Our hope is that this ruling will influence decision and policy-makers to help the hundreds of thousands of children and families affected by this terrible condition."
Banks vs. HHS is the second known case where the Vaccine Court could not deny the overwhelming evidence showing vaccines caused a child's autism. The first was the case of Hannah Poling in March of 2008, where the court found in her favor and awarded her family compensation.
Jim Carrey, Hollywood legend and Generation Rescue board member, reacted to the news, "It seems the U.S. government is sending mixed messages by telling the world that vaccines don't cause autism, while, at the same time, they are quietly managing a separate 'vaccine court' that is ruling in favor of affected families and finding that vaccines, in fact, were the cause. For most of the autism community the question is no longer whether vaccines caused of their child's autism. The question is why is their government only promoting the rulings that are in favor of the vaccine companies."
Why is a secret court, which no one knows about or understands, quietly paying these families for vaccine injuries and autism? Deirdre Imus, Generation Rescue board member and founder of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology says, "Over the past 20 years, the vaccine court has dispensed close to $2 billion in compensation to families whose children were injured or killed by a vaccine. I am not against vaccines and my own child has been vaccinated. But, I share the growing concerns of many parents questioning the number of vaccines given to children today, some of the toxic ingredients in vaccines, and whether we know enough about the combination risks associated with the multiple vaccines given to children during critical developmental windows."
To help spread the word of the Banks ruling, Generation Rescue also bought a full-page ad that will run in the USA Today on 02/25/2009, which has a daily circulation of 2,272,815.
Generation Rescue seeks to answer these questions and many more on a daily basis as they fight for the truth and to recover children with autism around the world. To learn more please visit www.generationrescue.org, write to media@generationrescue.com
About Generation Rescue
Generation Rescue is an international movement of scientists, physicians and parent-volunteers researching the causes and treatments for autism and helping thousands of children begin biomedical treatment.
Contact:
Peter Nilsson, President, Performance Public Relations for Generation Rescue
858.880.5466 x227 and peter@performpr.com
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February 12,2009
On Vaccinations: Consider the Source and Follow the Money
On Vaccinations: Consider the Source and Follow the Money
From: btobin (btobin1759@rogers.com)
Sent: February 12, 2009 1:10:26 PM
To: Lisa Goodman (goodyy80@hotmail.com); Shawna Feldman (mommytotwo@rogers.com); Josee Therrien Schamer (jschamer@videotron.ca); Dianne MacEwen (diannediiorio@yahoo.com); Zarine Mani (zarinemani@yahoo.com); Christina Szenasi (tinaszenasi@hotmail.com); Hugh Lawsen (bigh1887@aol.com); Val (valeskacanoletti@hotmail.com); Jan-Marie Chrzanowski (jan_chrz@yahoo.ca); Cynthia Stark (starkcynthia@gmail.com); kimandglen.quinn (kimandglen.quinn@rogers.com); Kim Cascone (kcascone@mail1.scdsb.on.ca); Nancy Morrison (nancymorrison@rogers.com); Natalie (fatnat45@hotmail.com); Michelle (michelle2@rogers.com); Caroline Maple (carolinemaple@aol.com); Sophia (drsophialoren@hotmail.com); Mom & Earl (escott32@tampabay.rr.com)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deirdre-imus/on-vaccinations-consider_b_165347.html
Deirdre Imus
Posted February 11, 2009 | 10:39 AM (EST)
On Vaccinations: Consider the Source and Follow the Money
Last month, Dr. Paul Offit, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the vaccine industry's most outspoken activist, warned Huffington Post readers not to "risk going unvaccinated."
When presented with conflicting information on a critically important health issue I generally follow two simple rules...educate myself on the issue and "follow the money." When it came to Dr. Paul Offit, and the credibility of this advice, this was an easy assignment.
I normally wouldn't waste my time responding to Dr. Offit. After all, he is entitled to his opinion. However, this man's relentless campaign that includes attacking concerned parents and the dissemination of false information needs to be exposed for what it is.
Dr. Offit has been on a very aggressive crusade in defense of vaccines for years. With what appears to be unlimited resources, Offit is routinely granted ample unchallenged opportunities to mount his campaign in newspapers around the country.
In recent years, Offit has become the "go-to guy" on all things related to vaccines. While other physicians, civic leaders and even members of congress are denied the opportunity to share their views on this issue, Offit is frequently provided with generous op-ed space to promote his views on the safety of vaccines, the need to take away vaccine exemptions, and the need to protect vaccine manufacturers from any liability. In short, if the word vaccine or autism appears in the article, so does Dr. Offit.
In his recent Huffington editorial, Offit continues his attack on worried parents who choose not to vaccinate their children, or even just spread them out a little, which the CDC says is okay to do. He blames them for the relatively small outbreaks of childhood diseases. In this case, last year's 135 cases of measles.
...the reason that some parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children is based on the mistaken notion that vaccines cause autism; or that vaccines cause diabetes or multiple sclerosis or asthma or allergies; or that vaccines weaken or overwhelm the immune system; or that vaccines have not been adequately tested. Many studies have addressed these concerns and should have reassured parents. But there appears to be a rift between studies that exonerate vaccines and the public's knowledge
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February 12, 2009
Aluminum In Our Vaccines: Is It Safe?
Aluminum In Our Vaccines: Is It Safe?
From: btobin (btobin1759@rogers.com)
Sent: February 12, 2009 12:59:27 PM
To: Lisa Goodman (goodyy80@hotmail.com); Shawna Feldman (mommytotwo@rogers.com); Josee Therrien Schamer (jschamer@videotron.ca); Dianne MacEwen (diannediiorio@yahoo.com); Zarine Mani (zarinemani@yahoo.com); Christina Szenasi (tinaszenasi@hotmail.com); Hugh Lawsen (bigh1887@aol.com); Val (valeskacanoletti@hotmail.com); Jan-Marie Chrzanowski (jan_chrz@yahoo.ca); Cynthia Stark (starkcynthia@gmail.com); kimandglen.quinn (kimandglen.quinn@rogers.com); Kim Cascone (kcascone@mail1.scdsb.on.ca); Nancy Morrison (nancymorrison@rogers.com); Natalie (fatnat45@hotmail.com); Michelle (michelle2@rogers.com); Caroline Maple (carolinemaple@aol.com); Sophia (drsophialoren@hotmail.com)
Aluminum In Our Vaccines: Is It Safe?
Michael Wagnitz in madison.com. is.gd/jeHZ
With the vaccines available in the U.S. today, parents can avoid vaccines preserved with thimerosal (50% mercury) for their newborns and infants. This is not the case with aluminum, which has been linked to impaired neurological development in children.
Aluminum has not replaced thimerosal as a vaccine preservative; it has always been used in vaccines.
Its purpose is to generate an immune response, thus providing a person the ability to produce adequate levels of antibodies to the vaccine being administered. Unlike thimerosal, if aluminum is removed, the vaccine will not work.
In the recent past, most kids got exposed to both thimerosal and aluminum simultaneously with the hepatitis B, Hib, DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) and pneumococcal vaccines. Combining mercury with aluminum increases the likelihood that the mercury will damage human tissue.
While aluminum is in the food we eat at much higher levels, it is not absorbed well through the gastrointestinal tract. When this protective gastrointestinal mechanism is bypassed, aluminum toxicity can cause serious problems.
There are currently eight childhood vaccines that contain aluminum ranging from 125 to 850 micrograms (mcg). These vaccines are administered 17 times in the first 18 months of life, an almost six-fold increase compared to the vaccine schedule of the 1980s.
According to the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, based on IV feeding solutions, a child should not exceed a maximum daily dose of 5 mcg of aluminum per kilogram of weight per day. That means if a child weighs 11 pounds, the child should not exceed 25 mcg in a day. This level was determined to be the maximum safety limit based on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Aluminum Neurotoxicity in Preterm Infants Receiving Intravenous Feeding Solutions."
The hepatitis B vaccine, administered at birth, contains 250 mcg.
In a 1996 policy statement, "Aluminum Toxicity in Infants and Children," the American Academy of Pediatrics states, "Aluminum can cause neurological harm. People with kidney disease who build up bloodstream levels of aluminum greater than 100 mcg per liter are at risk of toxicity. The toxic threshold of aluminum in the bloodstream may be lower than 100 mcg per liter."
So let's say an infant receives 1,250 micrograms at 2 months of age (three vaccines). Assuming a child's body contains a half liter of blood, this would put the blood level 25 times higher than the above mentioned levels.
Now people will argue whether an intramuscular injection (such as vaccines) would introduce aluminum into the bloodstream at the same level as an IV feeding solution. Unfortunately, the purpose of direct intramuscular injection is to provide rapid access to the bloodstream. This provides direct access to all target organs such as the brain.
The real eye-opener is a recently published paper where the authors investigated Gulf War syndrome based on the fact that soldiers were getting sick without deployment to the Persian Gulf region. They eventually focused on aluminum used in the anthrax vaccine. Injecting mice with aluminum at levels equal to what the soldiers received induced motor neuron death. The dose, per body weight, given to children easily exceeds what the soldiers received.
One must question whether exposing newborns to aluminum is worth the risk to protect them against a sexually transmitted disease (hepatitis B). If aluminum can cause injury to an adult, combat-ready soldier, what is it doing to newborns?
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February 10, 2009
Potential Harmful Effects
New Study of Splenda Reveals Shocking Information About Potential Harmful Effects
James Turner, the chairman of the national consumer education group Citizens for Health, has expressed shock and outrage after reading a new report from scientists outlining the dangers of the artificial sweetener Splenda (sucralose).
In animals examined for the study, Splenda reduced the amount of good bacteria in the intestines by 50 percent, increased the pH level in the intestines, contributed to increases in body weight and affected P-glycoprotein (P-gp) levels in such a way that crucial health-related drugs could be rejected.
The P-gp effect could result in medications used in chemotherapy, AIDS treatment and treatments for heart conditions being shunted back into the intestines, rather than being absorbed by the body.
According to Turner, "The report makes it clear that the artificial sweetener Splenda and its key component sucralose pose a threat to the people who consume the product. Hundreds of consumers have complained to us about side effects from using Splenda and this study ... confirms that the chemicals in the little yellow package should carry a big red warning label."
Sources:
Globe Newswire September 28, 2008
Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Part A 2008;71(21):1415-29
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February 6, 2009
Vaccine Mercury Video
From Teresa Binstock.
"This is a 45 minute video with highlights from the vaccine/mercury discussion that I presented at. There are also presentations from Mark and David Geier and Boyd Haley. It was edited by Dr. Gary Kompothecras, Task Force member and father of an affected child, who is leading the effort to change the vaccine laws. It will be used as part of the presentation to legislators to help explain the need for the legislation."
www.jdeclanflynn.com/uploads/autismweb/index.html
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February 04,2009.
What Really Causes Autism?
CDC Vaccine / Autism Misinformation Corrected by Autism Treatment Research Center in Texas
Response to Dr. Ari Brown and the Immunization Action Coalition
The CDC, through one of its funded organizations, the Immunization Action Coalition, according to Dr Andrew Wakefield, is spreading significant misinformation about autism and vaccinations, subjects of recent high controversy. Because public health requires that individuals make informed consent, Wakefield and the Thoughtful House Center for Children has written corrections to CDC information. – editor.
Informed consent is a crucial element of the foundation upon which ethical medical practice rests. An essential foundation of ethical medical practice is informed consent. Providing patients, parents, or guardians with an honest assessment of the risks and benefits of any medical procedure not only requires the healthcare provider to be, to the best of his or her ability, “informed” of all of the risks and benefits but also requires said provider to neutrally convey all of the risks and benefits to the patients, parents, or guardians.
This document is produced by Thoughtful House Center for Children in response to one written by Dr. Ari Brown entitled “Clear Answers and Smart Advice About Your Baby's Shots,” which attempts to deal with the vaccine-autism controversy. Brown is an official spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Her document [1], is endorsed and published by the Immunization Action Coalition (IAC), a US organization funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the vaccine manufacturers. In short, it is the public relations arm of those who are legally and ethically responsible for vaccine safety. Given this background, any reasonable person might expect a comprehensive, well researched, and persuasive overview. Since the topic of vaccination is so important and because we have major concerns about the accuracy of much of what this document says, we are providing a point-by-point response. (Note: Dr. Brown’s comments are italicized.)
“I’ve heard autism is on the rise. Why?”
Brown begins by addressing the rise in autism diagnoses. The question of whether the rise is real or not is an important one that has profound political and policy implications. It matters because if the increase is real, there must be an environmental contribution to the cause. There’s no such thing as a purely “genetic” epidemic. If there’s an environmental cause(s), then it, or they, can be found and eliminated, thereby preventing many new cases of autism. The search for an environmental cause might also inform treatment strategies for existing cases. Denial of the epidemic takes resources away from looking for an environmental cause.
Brown proposes alternative explanations for the rising number of cases: “Displacing one diagnosis for another: In previous generations, many children were diagnosed with mental retardation, schizophrenia or some other psychiatric disorder. Today many of these same kids are diagnosed with severe autism.”
Brown’s position is not supported by the scientific evidence. In 2002 a study of California children, born 1987–1994, examined the degree to which improvements in detection of autism and changes in diagnostic guidelines have contributed to the observed increase in autism prevalence [2]. The study also evaluated any change in prevalence of mental retardation (MR) without autism over the same period. The authors reported that autism prevalence increased by 9.1 per 10,000, while during the same period the prevalence of mental retardation without autism decreased by a similar amount. They initially concluded that diagnostic substitution (displacing one diagnosis for another) accounted for the observed increase in autism. The authors’ conclusions were amended, however, after Blaxill, et al. pointed to several fundamental analytic errors, including the failure to account for age-related ascertainment biases in the mental retardation category [3].
+ Read more: www.sarnet.org/lib/AJW.doc
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January 27, 2009
What Really Causes Autism?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/autism-vaccines-and-the-c_b_161395.html
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Kirby
Posted January 27, 2009 | 04:05 PM (EST)
Autism, Vaccines and the CDC: The Wrong Side of History
Even as the evidence connecting America's autism epidemic to vaccines mounts, dead-enders at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) -- many of whom promoted the current vaccine schedule and others with strong ties to the vaccine industry -- are trying to delay the day of reckoning by creating questionable studies designed to discredit any potential vaccine-autism link and by derailing authentic studies.
On January 12, a cadre of mid-level health bureaucrats left over from the Bush administration ignored Federal requirements for advance notice in order to vote to quietly strip vaccine research studies from funding allocated by Congress in the Combating Autism Act (CAA) of 2006. Members of Congress had said that this money should be used to study the vaccine-autism connection.
These rogue bureaucrats -- members of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee -- held an unannounced vote to remove previously approved vaccine studies from funding under the CAA. Nearly all of the "Federal" members of the panel voted to remove the two studies, whose estimated cost was $16 million - or 1.6% of the billion dollars authorized by Congress for autism. The panel's civilian members, in contrast, voted nearly unanimously to retain the funding.
IACC's action to halt vaccine-autism research flies in the face of congressional intent. The bill's authors clearly stated that vaccine research should be funded. Even the esteemed Institute of Medicine has condemned CDC's methods. In 2005, an IOM panel condemned CDC for its "lack of transparency" in vaccine-autism research.
The bureaucrats responsible for this scandal are on the wrong side of history and it's hard to not attribute an obstructionist motive to their act since vaccine-autism research has already entered the realm of mainstream science. Serious scientists (except those tied to the vaccine industry) no longer debate whether vaccine-autism research should be done, but rather how it should be done, and by whom.
And Congress concurs: "I want to be clear that ... no research avenue should be eliminated, including biomedical research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components, and autism,pronounced Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Chairman of the H.E.L.P. Committee at the bill's passage. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) said the bill should fund "environmental research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components and autism. And last week, Dodd called the potentially illegal maneuver to shut down vaccine research, "contrary to the spirit of the bill."
These days, being opposed to vaccine-autism research puts one outside of the "mainstream" (and let's be clear, supporting such research in no way makes one "anti-vaccine" -- that charge is a tired, diversionary charade -- an ugly lie perpetrated by vaccine industry allies and their blind supporters.)
Recognizing this fact, the vaccine industry and its CDC allies have continued to fund a series of deceptive and badly flawed studies designed to dispute the connection between vaccines and the epidemic of pediatric neurological disorders. The latest of these is the controversial Italian study released this week intended to allow Thimerosal's defenders to argue that the preservative is safe. The study comparing two groups of Italian children, who received a moderate level of Thimerosal vs. a moderately higher level, is so poorly designed it could only find one child in 1400 who tested with autism. The researchers did not include in the study the records of children who received no Thimerosal. For years, a cadre of vaccine officials at CDC has vigorously opposed funding for epidemiological studies that include both vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts that might give us useful information about causation.
The evidence of a potential link between vaccines and autism is now so compelling that every national autism organization firmly supports research into vaccination as a possible trigger for the disorder, including Autism Speaks, the world's largest, most well funded, well connected mainstream group.
Autism Speaks was co-founded by Bob Wright, former CEO of NBC-Universal, former Vice Chairman of General Electric. Autism Speaks, a staunchly pro-vaccine group, supports vaccine research. Its statement on the issue is right down the middle.
Why has vaccine-autism research gone mainstream? The reasons are many:
The Hannah Poling Case - A year ago, medical personnel at HHS determined that this girl's autism was caused by, "vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic reserves." Hannah had low cellular energy related to her underlying and mild mitochondrial dysfunction. Many children with autism claims in Vaccine Court have almost identical mitochondrial dysfunction.
Mitochondrial disorders are not rare in autism -- Research suggests that dysfunction may affect 10-to-30% of all kids with autism -- perhaps more among "regressive" cases.
Mitochondrial disorders are probably not rare in the general population -- Such disorders were thought to affect 1-in-5,000 people. But new research suggests that genetic mutations that might confer mitochondrial dysfunction might be found in 1-in-400 to 1-in-50. A study by the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF) found mitochondrial DNA mutations that might cause disease in up to 1-in-200 people.
Children with mitochondrial disorders are at greater risk of autistic regression -- A new study by researchers at Cleveland Clinic and elsewhere found that a trigger for autistic regression in kids with mito disorders could possibly come from a vaccine reaction. "There might be no difference between the inflammatory or catabolic stress of vaccinations and that of common childhood diseases," they wrote.
Children with mitochondrial disorders are at greater risk of vaccine injury -- This according to Dr. Douglas Wallace, Professor of Molecular Medicine and Director of the Center for Molecular and Mitochondrial Medicine in Genetics at UC Irvine. A member of the UMDF's scientific board, he stated, "We advocate spreading vaccines out as much as possible -- each time you vaccinate, you're creating a challenge for the system, and if a child has an impaired system that could in fact trigger further clinical problems."
The National CADDRE Study -- This 5-year project of the CDC's Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology (CADDRE) Network will "help identify what might put children at risk for autism," the CDC says. Among those risk factors: "specific mercury exposures, including any vaccine use by the mother during pregnancy and the child's vaccine exposures after birth."
The Kennedy Krieger Institute -- The nation's premiere autism research outfit is sponsor of the Interactive Autism Network (IAN). Its new questionnaire deals with autism and vaccines. Thousands of families are describing their experiences with autistic regression following vaccination. Top scientists will then use this information, "to conduct additional vaccine-focused studies."
The Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network -- CISA is a CDC-sponsored group that brings together leading autism research institutions and America's health insurance companies. Last April, the CDC proposed this research question: "Is immunization associated with increased risk for neurological deterioration in children with mitochondrial dysfunction?" To find out, "CISA has formed a working group to study methods related to mitochondrial disorders and immunization," the CDC said.
Autism Speaks -- Autism Speaks recently authorized three studies on thimerosal, vaccines and autism, and the foundation is considering funding a lot more highly significant research into the possible links between vaccines and autism.
The National Children's Study -- This is not a vaccine-autism study. But the HHS-EPA joint effort will investigate "the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of more than 100,000 children across the United States," including autism. As part of their work researchers will track medical records, which include vaccinations.
CDC's Immunization Safety Office -- As part of its draft research agenda for vaccine safety, this agency last April proposed looking at several clinical outcomes from childhood vaccinations, including "Autoimmune diseases; central nervous system demyelinating disorders; encephalitis/ encephalopathy; and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism."
Former CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding -- who told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: "If a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines, and if you're predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage (and) symptoms that have characteristics of autism. We have to have an open mind."
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases -- who told US News, "If we can show that individuals of a certain genetic profile have a greater propensity for developing adverse events, we may want to screen everyone prior to vaccination (for) undetectable diseases like a subclinical mitochrondrial disorder."
Drs. Richard I. Kelley, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Margaret L. Bauman, Massachusetts General Hospital, Marvin R. Natowicz, Cleveland Clinic, etc -- "Large, population-based studies will be needed to identify a possible relationship of vaccination with autistic regression in persons with mitochondrial cytopathies."
California Department of Health Services/ Kaiser Permanente -- This CDC- funded, NIH-published study showed that kids born in the most polluted tracts of the SF Bay Area (mercury was a significant factor) were more likely to develop autism: "Our results suggest a potential association between autism and estimated metal concentrations."
Many scientists are exploring other environmental factors, including heavy metals:
UC Davis MIND Institute -- Authors of this new study say that genetics alone cannot explain the rise in autism in California. "We're looking at the possible effects of metals, pesticides and infectious agents on neurodevelopment," said Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a co-author and professor at UC Davis.
The University of Texas -- Two studies led Ray Palmer, Ph.D., associate professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center show increased risks for autism among kids living closest to mercury-emitting sources, such as coal-fired power plants.
Scientists at UC San Diego -- They wrote in the journal Autism that children given Tylenol after the MMR shot were several times more likely to develop autism. Tylenol can reduce levels of glutathione - a powerful antioxidant and detoxifier. "Tylenol and MMR was significantly associated with autistic disorder," the authors wrote. "More research needs to be completed to confirm the results of this preliminary study."
The new administration of President Barack Obama also seems to recognize the need for independent studies. HHS Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle said in 2002 that, "Mercury-based vaccine preservatives actually have caused autism in children." And President Obama said on the campaign trail last year, that: "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it."
We could not agree more. The government must study the genetic and environmental factors that cause autistic symptoms such as neuro-inflammation and rapid brain growth, immune dysregulation, oxidative stress, glutathione depletion and microglial activation.
Hard science is increasingly pointing to vaccines and heavy metals -- among other environmental triggers -- as suspects in the epidemic.
After eight years of secrecy and subterfuge by the Bush Administration, it is time to shed light on the government's abuse and mismanagement of autism research in this country - especially when it comes to investigating evidence of a link to vaccines.
Health
Autism
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January 29, 2009
What Really Causes Autism?
From Dr. Mercola's website newsletter:
California's sevenfold increase in autism is most likely due to environmental exposures, according to scientists. A new study advocates a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on environmental factors such as pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products.
Throughout the U.S., the numbers of autistic children have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. More than 3,000 new cases of autism were reported in California in 2006, compared with 205 in 1990.
Many medical officials argued that the rise was due to changes in diagnoses or migration patterns rather than a real rise in the disorder. But the new study concludes that those factors cannot explain most of the increase in autism.
Researchers analyzed 17 years of state data that tracks developmental disabilities. Migration to the state had no effect, and changes in how and when doctors diagnose the disorder can explain less than half of the increase.
It is possible that a pregnant woman's exposure to chemical pollutants, particularly metals and pesticides, could be altering a developing baby's brain structure, triggering autism. Many parent groups also believe that childhood vaccines could be responsible.
Sources:
Scientific American January 9, 2009
Epidemiology January 2009, Volume 20(1) pp 84-90
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
For many this information is not brand new information but I thought it was a good sign to find this type of data being published in one of the most prestigious science journals, Scientific American.
In 1990, 6.2 of every 10,000 children born in California were diagnosed with autism by the age of 5. By 2001, that had risen to 42.5 in 10,000, and the numbers are still rising. I remember 25 years ago, the incidence of autism in the United States was only one in 100,000!
Today some experts believe that the incidence of all the Autism Spectrum Disorders could be as high as one in 10 children.
To suggest this massive increase could be due to changes in diagnosis or migration seems to be grasping at straws, and fortunately this new study can put the debate to rest. The researchers found that doctors’ diagnoses explained less than half of the 600 to 700 percent increase in diagnosed autism cases.
So what is the explanation then?
Conventional medicine likes to point the finger at genetics, but science shows that only 1 percent of autism cases are likely due to a genetic mutation. Despite this, funding for studying the genetic causes of autism is 10 to 20 times higher than funding for environmental causes, according to Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiology professor at University of California, Davis who led the above study.
It’s time “modern” medicine caught up with the times on this issue, as the picture is becoming much clearer as to the real underlying causes of autism.
The Top Contributors to Autism
I’ve recently conducted an extensive interview with Dr. Klinghardt, one of my primary mentors and a pioneer in natural medicine, about the toxic origins of autism. You can watch a snippet of it here, or join my Inner Circle to get access to the entire interview, but one topic that’s discussed is the commonality among most people with autism that their pathways of detoxification have become overwhelmed by both man-made and microbial toxins.
The toxins that are at the top of this list are:
1. Mercury and other metals, such as aluminum. The major route of exposure here is from vaccines, and also from eating contaminated seafood.
2. Viruses and microbes, such as mold. Children with autism not only have overwhelmed detoxification pathways and often heavy metal toxicity, but, according to Dr. Kllinghardt, they also have a silent, daily toxin production in their body caused by toxic microbes.
3. Electromagnetic Fields (EMF). These come not only from cell phones and cordless phones, but also from electrical outlets and WI-FI. Dr. Klinghardt considers EMF “synergistically causal," partly because it potentiates the production of toxic microbes and endotoxins.
A fourth major contributor that has recently been discovered is also one of the easiest to remedy: vitamin D.
There is a link between rampant vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women and the proportionate jump in autism, which has recently been highlighted by Dr. John Cannell. The vitamin D receptor appears in a wide variety of brain tissue early in the fetal development, and activated vitamin D receptors increase nerve growth in your brain.
It is my personal belief that this may be the single largest contributing factor to autism and that it is a deficiency of sun exposure to the pregnant mom, and subsequently to the fetus, that puts the child at a massively increased risk of developing autism.
So one of THE MOST IMPORTANT changes that could radically reduce autism is to make certain ALL pregnant women have their vitamin D levels normalized to 50-60 ng/ml.
The First 10 Steps to Take if You Have a Child With Autism
I have been inspired to collaborate with some of the leading experts in autism, including Dr. Klinghardt, and participate in the THRiiiVE think tank that will provide basic resources for those afflicted with autism.
During the most recent THRiiiVE summit in October 2008 we created the Top 10 Prioritized To Do List for people with autism. I have detailed the entire list in this past article, so please take a few minutes to review it.
As part of the program, Dr. Klinghardt recommends the following three steps that should be urgently addressed in children with autism:
1. Lower microbial burden: Make your child’s body less of an optimal habitat for microbial overgrowth through dietary changes (less starch & sugar at minimum) and lowering overall stress. Also, consider testing for mold (in the house) & Lyme (in the body) but only after “provocation treatment.”
2. Lower incoming toxic burden: Do whatever you can to establish a mold, dust, toxin & smell-free environment for your whole family & THEN establish a detoxification program. Please remember hidden toxins like fluoride and look carefully at ALL your cleaning products.
3. Lower EMF burden in your child’s home and bedroom: Your child’s health will be optimized with daily sun exposure (healthy EMF) and nightly avoidance of man-made (harmful) EMF.
Please stay tuned as one of the challenges of seeking alternative strategies for autism, or any disease for that matter, is there is quite a bit of material to sort through. So this information will be reviewed and updated regularly.
If you are interested in receiving updates directly from THRiiiVE, you can sign up for the Autism e-Alert by sending an email to Autism@THRiiiVE.com.
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January 28, 2009
Much High Fructose Corn Syrup Contaminated With Mercury
http://www.healthobservatory.org/library.cfm?refID=105026
This is the link for the full report. Page 14 of the above link has the table of what was tested and how much was found in the tested foods.
Much High Fructose Corn Syrup Contaminated With Mercury
New Study Finds Brand-Name Food Products
Also Discovered to Contain Mercury
The U.S. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy issued a report this week entitled "Not So Sweet: Missing Mecury and High Fructose Corn Syrup."
Mercury was found in nearly 50 percent of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), according to a new article published this week in the scientific journal, Environmental Health. A separate study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brand- name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient-including products by Quaker, Hershey's, Kraft and Smucker's.
HFCS use has skyrocketed in recent decades as the sweetener has replaced sugar in many processed foods. HFCS is found in sweetened beverages, breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS. Consumption by teenagers and other high consumers can be up to 80 percent above average levels.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms," said IATP's David Wallinga, M.D., and a co-author in both studies. "Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children,
it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered.
We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply."
In the Environmental Health article, Dufault et al. found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. Dufault was working at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when the tests were done in 2005. She and co-authors conclude that possible mercury contamination of food chemicals like HFCS was not common knowledge within the food industry that frequently uses the sweetener. While the FDA had evidence that commercial HFCS was contaminated with mercury four years ago, the agency did not inform consumers, help change industry practice or conduct additional testing.
For its report "Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup," IATP sent 55 brand-name foods and beverages containing HFCS as the first or second ingredient to a commercial laboratory to be tested for total mercury. Nearly one in three products tested contained detectable mercury. Mercury was most prevalent in HFCS-containing dairy products, followed by dressings and condiments. Attached is the summary list of the 55 products and their total mercury content.
In making HFCS, caustic soda is used, among other things, to separate corn starch from the corn kernel. For decades, HFCS has been made using mercury-grade caustic soda produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants. The use of mercury cells to produce caustic soda can contaminate caustic soda, and ultimately HFCS, with mercury.
"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury," said Dr. Wallinga. "The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist.
Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients."
While most chlorine plants around the world have switched to newer, cleaner technologies, many still rely on the use of mercury cells. In 2005, 90 percent of chlorine production was mercury-free, but just 40 percent of European production was mercury-free. Four U.S. chlor-alkali plants still rely on mercury cell technology.
In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama introduced legislation to force the remaining chlor-alkali plants to phase out mercury cell technology by 2012.
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January 23, 2009
Shots In The Dark
announce a new film from award-winning senior documentary filmmaker Lina Moreco of Canada. Lina's work includes Medicine Under the Influence, 2007 Winner of the Gemeaux Award for Best Documentary: Nature & Sciences.
According to Teri Arranga, U.S. consultant to the film, "Lina Moreco's track record for thought-provoking documentaries is evident in Shots in the Dark. From laboratories in Canada to homes in Paris to medical practices in the United States, and through talking to researchers, clinicians, and survivors, Shots in the Dark's examination of possible side effects of vaccine ingredients -- spanning three countries and examining various health conditions -- illuminates this vital area in a compelling way that cannot be ignored."
Please visit: www3.nfb.ca/webextension/shots-in-the-dark/
The English language film will be available for on-line purchase at approximately the end of January 2009.
Projected U.S. Premiere - The English language film is projected to be available for first viewing in public in the U.S. at the Autism One 2009 Conference, Chicago, IL. (Screening of the film will be free; copies of DVD will be available for purchase).
For information about viewing in Canada please see website.
Film Summary:
Following the increase in cases of autism and other immune disorders among some particularly vulnerable people, several recognized specialists are questioning the safety of large scale vaccination.
Despite the serious side effects, pharmaceutical companies, the medical profession, and government authorities continue to bury their heads in the sand, refusing to see a serious problem. In Canada, the United States, and France, as in most industrialized countries, victims are almost without recourse despite the high toxicity of substances such as mercury and aluminum contained in vaccines. With this hard-hitting documentary, Lina B. Moreco highlights a very worrying public health problem.
Additional Background Information:
Since they were introduced in the early 20th century, vaccines have been regarded as a tremendous medical and scientific success. Today, perceived as a necessity, they are so familiar to us that their potential risks are rarely mentioned.
However, the stakes are significant. Based on recommendations of health agencies, North American children receive about 48 doses of 14 different vaccines before the age of 6—double the amount prescribed 25 years earlier. Despite this extraordinary increase, few studies independent of the pharmaceutical industry have been conducted into their long-term side effects. This is a disturbing situation given the numerous toxins, including mercury and aluminum, contained in some commonly administered vaccines.
Several worried pediatricians and scientists are sounding the alarm.
+ Read more: tiny.pl/vcwc
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January 13, 2009
Olmsted on Autism: Autism Explosion Followed Big Change in MMR Shot
By Dan Olmsted
In 1990, Merck & Co., manufacturer of the mumps-measles-rubella vaccine known as the MMR, made a significant but little-noticed change: It quadrupled the amount of mumps virus in the combination shot, from 5,000 to 20,000 units. Then in 2007 it reversed course, reducing the amount to 12,500 units. Neither the measles nor the rubella (German measles) component of the MMR was changed at all -- each remained at 1,000 units throughout.
Merck also makes the single-component mumps shot, and in 1990 it also increased the potency of that shot by the same amount, from 5,000 to 20,000 units. But unlike the MMR shot, the standalone mumps shot’s potency was not scaled back in 2007. It remains at 20,000 units.
These changes were mentioned in passing recently during an informal conversation with a Merck scientist. I started looking for an explanation for the sequence of events, but Merck did not respond to a detailed written request for comment.
Absent such an explanation, simple logic dictates the reduction had something to do with the MMR in particular rather than the mumps vaccine in isolation. But what? And what about the timing -- the increase in 1990 and the decrease in 2007?
The huge rise in autism cases began about the time the mumps component in the MMR was raised in 1990. One theory, dismissed by Merck and federal public health officials, is that viral interference between the components in the MMR could create a persistent sub-clinical measles infection in a subset of vulnerable children; and because the measles virus can cause brain damage, that could lead to autism.
A study released last week by the M.I.N.D. Institute at UC Davis reported that most of the fivefold increase in full-syndrome autism -- from 9 in 10,000 children in 1990 to 44 in 10,000 children in 2000-- is real and cannot be accounted for by broader categories or diagnostic substitution. And from 1990 to 2007, the mumps portion of the MMR was higher by roughly the same amount -- quadruple.
Merck’s decision to cut back on the increase in the mumps vaccine also is surrounded by interesting timing. The cutback, in 2007, came at the same time Merck announced it was suspending its recently introduced, much-hyped four-in-one shot, ProQuad -- the MMR with the chickenpox vaccine added to it. In suspending ProQuad, Merck cited a shortage of chickenpox vaccine; subsequently, a study showed ProQuad caused twice as many fever-induced seizures as separate MMR and chickenpox shots given at the same time, and a CDC advisory committee withdrew its preferential recommendation of the vaccine. Merck won't say when ProQuad will return to the market.
An investigation I conducted while at UPI in 2006 found two cases of regressive autism in one small city -- Olympia, Wash. -- in clinical trials leading up to approval of the vaccine. Merck said the parents originally failed to report those cases to it (though the pediatricians paid to conduct the studies for Merck certainly knew about them and would have been expected to report them); the company alerted the FDA only after my inquiry.
The Merck scientist I spoke with recently also acknowledged that viral interference can affect the potency of individual MMR ingredients; that explains why the company added a whopping dose of chickenpox vaccine to the ProQuad shot, several times more than the standalone chickenpox vaccine contains. Using the same amount of chickenpox vaccine in the MMR shot as the standalone vaccine simply wouldn’t have protected children against the disease, because more virus was needed to offset the interference from the other components.
A significant number of parents of children with regressive autism cite the MMR as the proximate cause -- they say their child was developing normally until the shot, then in many cases had a serious physical reaction within a short period of time and began losing developmental milestone and showing typical signs of the disorder. Some also developed severe gastrointestinal problems, an ailment first described in cases of regressive autism following the MMR shot by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in Britain in 1998; he named it autistic enterocolitis and found measles RNA in the children's GI tract, suggesting persistent infection.
In looking at whether the increase in mumps potency in 1990 could buttress this theory of the autism epidemic, two questions arise: Is there evidence that increasing the mumps portion of the MMR could have any impact on measles infectivity or create symptoms consistent with those described by Wakefield and parents? And, could ProQuad's higher rate of measles rash and fever-induced seizures be a warning sign that something is amiss with the MMR itself, especially beginning in 1990 when Merck tinkered with the proportions of the components?
The answers seem to be, yes and yes.
In the real world, children rarely get two viral illnesses at once -- for instance, chickenpox and rubella. But when they do, viruses tend to interact -- or interfere -- with each other in unpredictable and synergistic ways. One example: Studies in the UK and Iceland showed that when mumps AND measles epidemics hit these populations in the same year, the risk of inflammatory bowel disease spiked. That's an epidemiological argument for immune interference, and a striking fit with the observations by Wakefield, and thousand of parents, that a similar condition occurs in many children with regressive autism after they get the measles-mumps-rubella shot.
A related finding comes from a study funded by Merck. In 2005, the study reported that the four-in-one ProQuad shot -- the MMR and chickenpox -- was "generally well tolerated" and had a safety profile similar to the MMR and the chickenpox shot (also made by Merck and called Varivax) when given separately.
But there were a couple of interesting differences. First, "Measles-like rash and fever during days 5-12 were more common after the first dose of MMRV [ProQuad]" than after the MMR and Varivax given separately. The difference was substantial -- 5.9 percent who got the MMRV had the rash and 27.7 percent had fever, compared to 1.9 percent with rash and 18.7 fever after getting separate shots. While that did not alarm the researchers, it could be a foreshadowing of the doubled rate of fever-induced seizures that was spotted after ProQuad was approved.
Second, even though the new element in ProQuad was the chickenpox portion, something new and unexpected was also going on with the mumps and measles components. "Geometric mean titers to measles and mumps were significantly higher after 1 dose of MMRV than after administration" of MMR and Varivax separately, according to the study's summary. Later, the authors state: "This suggests that the measles and mumps virus replication is greater after MMRV than it is" after the MMR and Varivax given separately.
In non-scientific language, it looks like the addition of another live virus -- chickenpox -- potentiated the measles and mumps components: It kicked both viruses into higher gear and they replicated at rates higher than in the MMR. At the same time, the researchers observed a greater incidence of measles-like rash, and fever, in those who got ProQuad. Were the increased measles and mumps viruses interacting in some unexpected and potentially dangerous way?
Then, for whatever reason, sometime between February and December of last year Merck reduced the mumps component of the MMR from 20,000 units to 12,500 while leaving the standalone mumps shot as it was. During that same period, it decided to suspend production of ProQuad. In April 2007, it announced the suspension, and said no more would be available after July. Then in early 2008, Merck’s study showing the doubled risk of seizures in ProQuad was unveiled and the CDC withdrew its recommendation.
And just last month, Merck said it would stop making the individual MMR component shots including, of course, the mumps shot. That leaves the MMR as the only vaccine in town, and it means there will no longer be a mumps vaccine formulation on the market with the dose the MMR contained from 1990 to 2007.
None of this might matter if not for the fact that measles is capable of causing cause catastrophic brain damage and death; that's an argument for the measles vaccine. In medical parlance, it’s a neurotoxic virus.
"The invasion of the CNS [central nervous system] by MV [measles virus] is apparently not an uncommon event, as reflected by the finding of genomic sequences in normal autopsy cases and the widespread distribution of MV in in neurons, glial cells and vascular endothelial cells of the diseased brain," according to "Measles Virus Infections of the Central Nervous System" by Uwe G. Liebert of the University of Leipzeig, Germany, published in Intervirology in 1997. "The susceptibility of the host as well as his age and immune status at the time of infection constitutes significant factors for disease progression."
Merck acknowledges the three viruses can indeed interact to affect a child’s immune system, although in ways it says are not harmful.
A Merck scientist publicly discussed the interference issue at a CDC meeting in 2004, the year before ProQuad was approved, according to agency minutes. Dr. Florian Schodel "confirmed the possibility that the chickenpox virus component of ProQuad was causing a local immune suppression and an increase in measles virus replication. ... The current hypothesis is that the varicella and measles virus are co-infecting the same or proximate areas of the body and engaging in a specific interaction, but how that works is as yet unknown.
"He said the interference appeared to involve only the chickenpox and measles viruses – 'there is no such effect for the mumps or rubella vaccines administered locally at the same time.'"
Yet based on Merck's own 2005 study cited above, ProQuad triggers an increase in mumps virus replication, too. Live viruses in ProQuad seem to be behaving in ways "as yet unknown" that cause immune suppression, co-infection, interaction and increased replication. Even without ProQuad on the market, interaction between the MMR components and the chickenpox virus remains a possibility. The CDC started recommending the chickenpox shot in the mid-1990s at the same 12-month well-baby visit as the MMR.
That suggests the pattern highlighted by ProQuad could be at work through the increased mumps component of the MMR and the addition of chickenpox to the childhood immunization schedule in the mid-1990s. The lesson could be that combining live viruses, and then increasing them or adding new ones, is inherently dangerous, especially when invasion of the brain by one of them “is not an uncommon event.”
As Andy Wakefield told me when I was working on the series in Olympia describing the children in the ProQuad clinical trials who became ill after the vaccination and subsequently regressed into autism: "It's actually heartbreaking, listening to these parents, for more than just the immediate reasons their child has met this fate. It's that you're staring into an abyss," Wakefield said. "You're listening to stories which reflect the fundamental misconception of vaccine manufacturers of what viruses are and what they do."
Two additional points worth noting: After the increase in 1990 and decrease in 2007, there is still more than twice as much mumps virus in the MMR as there was in 1990.
The changes in the mumps virus component of the MMR serves as a potent reminder of something else: MMR is not one thing but three different exposures. And over the period 1980-2009 the MMR has changed significantly at least twice, making epidemiological studies even more difficult to interpret.
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Jan 12/2009
New National Children's Study Seeks Environmental Causes of Autism, Asthma, ADHD
From US News and World Report. tiny.pl/vm4n
Starting this week, pregnant women in Duplin County, N.C., and Queens, N.Y., will be getting letters and phone calls asking them to be part of the National Children's Study. This first-ever effort, 10 years in the making, will follow thousands of children from the womb to age 20, with the goal of finding the causes of major health problems like asthma, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, low birth weight, birth defects, and premature birth. In the months and years to come, 103 more areas of the country will be included in this first large-scale, long-term study to investigate environmental factors like pollution and pesticides as possible causes.
"We'll be able to amass information on the environmental causes of these diseases within three to five years," says Philip Landrigan, a principal investigator for the study, based at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He pioneered research on the health effects of air pollution on children, proving in the 1970s that children could suffer IQ loss and other serious damage from exposure to low levels of lead previously thought safe.
Environmental factors clearly play a role in asthma and are suspected in autism. This month, researchers at the University of California-Davis reported in Epidemiology that autism rates in California have increased from 6.2 of every 10,000 children born in 1990 to 42.5 in 2001, an increase that couldn't be explained by better diagnosis or by migration. In the past few years, scientists have focused largely on finding genetic causes of autism, but genes don't change that much in 11 years. The National Children's Study could finally shed some light on the environmental causes of autism.
+ Read more: tiny.pl/vm4n
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January 11, 2009
Best of A of A: What Did the CDC Know and When Did They Know It?
Managing Editor's Note: In light of the resignation of CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, we decided to re-run this post from Mark Blaxill. Part 2 runs tomorrow.
(Part 1 of 2)
By MARK BLAXILL
With the recent announcement of the "largest ever" study to investigate the causes of autism, run through Kaiser Permanente (the HMO that lost vaccine safety data implicating thimerosal in harming children) and led by Lisa Croen (the epidemiologist who first attempted to deny the autism epidemic with faulty data), sometimes you just want to shake your head and wonder, what on earth is going on down in Atlanta?
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was once a proud and prestigious agency, staffed by the most elite corps of disease fighters on the planet, manning the front lines of the most threatening health problems facing mankind. Today, riven by dissension and ridiculed by many, the CDC has made a mockery of itself in failing to get to the roots of the most critical public health challenges of the day, including, but not limited to, autism. The consequences of its failures are profound. Morale has deteriorated and Congress has been investigating the agency for months.
Reflecting their loss of trust in the CDC's objectivity, autism advocacy groups have actively lobbied to reduce (and even zero out) CDC funding in the Combating Autism Act. The CDC has dual responsibility for monitoring vaccine safety and promoting the vaccine schedule; at the same time it's also responsible for surveillance on diseases like autism. In light of widespread concern over the link between autism and vaccines in the autism parent community, when the CDC announces that it's launching a new effort to find the cause of autism, it's hard not to think of OJ Simpson offering a reward for finding his wife's killer.
It was not always so. Indeed, in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, it was the CDC that took the lead—often against the intransigence and conservatism of NIH researchers—in tracking down the causes of the AIDS epidemic and taking steps to reduce its toll on society. For many years, CDC was held up to the world as a model government agency. Yet in autism, we have truly seen the downward spiral of the agency reaching its nadir: defensive, secretive and non-responsive to a health crisis in full flower. There are undoubtedly larger forces affecting the agency and its leadership. But if (as I believe to be the case) there are turning points in the lives of large institutions, critical crossroads at which difficult choices are made, then the CDC's handling of the autism epidemic is certainly one such turning point. Poor choices at crucial moments can lead, not only to negative consequence on a specific issue, like autism, it can cause the institution to lose its way. In a way, autism has been both a strategic and a moral problem for the CDC. For it's in the autism epidemic, I would suggest, that the CDC has truly sold its soul.
All of which leads me to ask the question, when did the CDC make this choice? What was the point in the history of autism when CDC leaders had the chance to honor its long history and raise the alarm over the autism crisis? Some would point to the infamous Simpsonwood meeting in the summer of 2000, where evidence of thimerosal's neurotoxicity, already tampered with in ways unknown to the meeting participants, was swept aside. I have certainly been in the forefront of the critics of the CDC work on vaccine safety issues, but I believe the CDC was already well past the turning point by Simpsonwood. I would suggest we need to look a bit earlier to find the CDC's crossroads in autism. For that, we need to look couple of years before the summer of 2000 and a bit further north.
The CDC lost its way on autism in Brick Township, NJ.
Three years ago, I attended a presentation outside of Boston given by Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, the CDC's lead autism epidemiologist. In the course of a lengthy party-line talk about autism ("we simply don't know if autism rates are going up or if it’s just better diagnosis"), she said something that surprised me. "About ten years ago, we began to hear concerns from around the country that people were seeing more cases of autism", she said. I raised my hand from the audience and suggested that maybe ten years was enough time to move beyond the stage of ignorance on something this important. She snapped at me, a revealing moment in itself, and plowed through the rest of her 200 page presentation without pausing for a breath (or another question). But her comment got me thinking. Certainly, the CDC, the agency on the front line of all emerging public health problems from HIV to SARS to e. coli in a bad crop of California spinach, would have had at least some idea that there was an autism problem far before any of the rest of us did. And that leads me to my question for the day.
What did the CDC know about the autism epidemic and when did they know it?
It's a crucial question. For it is in the specific decisions that the CDC made-- when they proceeded from uncertainty, to confusion, to (perhaps if we're charitable) error and then to a policy commitment--that we might find that fateful moment of moral choice: the moment when CDC chose to put its own bureaucratic agenda ahead of our children. And from Yeargin-Alsopp's intriguing comment, I now knew that CDC was at least beginning to hear reports of rising autism rates around the year my own daughter was born, in 1995.
I know little about the CDC's activities in the years up to 1997, and there are few signs of a broader recognition of an autism problem that one can find before then. But in the fall of 1997, at a parent support group in eastern New Jersey, a few people started commenting about how many new autism cases seemed to be cropping up in Brick Township, and how there seemed to be an unusual number of 3-4 year old children with a new autism diagnosis. One of the attendees at the support group, a mother named Bobbi Gallagher who had two young children with autism, was struck by this coincidence. Living in New Jersey (although Brick is on the Jersey Shore, not the polluted stretch of highway along the New Jersey Turnpike that makes a mockery of New Jersey’s nickname, “The Garden State”), the thought of environmental contamination came naturally to mind and she wondered if there might not be a cluster of autism cases in Brick. Perhaps, she thought, there was something in the water. So she resolved to do something about it. She decided to send around a survey to see if she could count the autism cases in all of Brick, a town of some 70,000 people.
So as the new 1997 school year was starting, Bobbi Gallagher distributed her survey form everywhere she could think of in town. And in a few short weeks, she got a surprising result. Based on the responses to her impromptu survey, she counted over 40 autistic children in Brick Township alone and over 30 who were just three or four years old. Armed with these results, Gallagher formed a group called the Brick POSSE (Parents of Special Services and Education) and organized a meeting at the local library a couple of months later. They contacted Eric London at the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) who in turn invited a number of academic epidemiologists. To a full house at the library meeting, Bobbi Gallagher shared her findings. One of the epidemiologists present, Craig Newschaffer, decided the numbers were disturbing enough to contact the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, who in turn contacted the CDC. In the meantime, the Brick POSSE arranged a meeting with their congressman, Rep. Chris Smith, who invited them to a meeting in his office in Washington.
Within weeks, a more organized response took shape. Bobbie Gallagher received an invitation to another meeting in Washington, this time in New Jersey Senator Robert Toricelli's office. Gallagher remembers the date for this meeting vividly, April Fool's Day, 1998. And when she walked into the room she was astonished at how quickly plans had emerged. She had expected again to play the role of supplicant, pleading with the government officials to take action. Instead, she found a prompt and aggressive action plan being put on the table. In the room that day were representatives from multiple departments within the CDC who had come to the Senator's office equipped with a multi-part plan, the first part of which was a prevalence study for Brick Township, an in-depth survey of the town's autistic population that would pick up where Gallagher's survey left off. CDC had identified a core team of staffers to lead the effort, including Jacquelyn Bertrand and Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp from the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) and Frank Bove from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR). Their proposal: to diagnose every child with autism in Brick Township between the ages of three and ten years old. They would start canvassing for cases and conducting interviews beginning with the start of the 1998 school year in September. And they planned to move quickly (at lightning speed really), to have their initial results ready by the end of the year.
They were true to their word. Two diagnosticians, Dr. Bertrand and Dr. Audrey Mars from the nearby Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, spent several days a week diagnosing children in the fall of 1998. And by January 12, 1999, the CDC had confirmed the findings of Gallagher's initial survey. Out of an initial estimated Brick population of 6,000 children from 3-10 years old, they had found over 40 cases of autism, giving a preliminary rate that was 12 times the estimated prevalence in the rest of the country. "I think there is a cluster here. I don't know why," lead investigator Bertrand said in an article by the Associated Press the next week. "If [we find] it's something that can be taken out of the community, that will be done," she said. According to AP she also added another intriguing tidbit: that "the researchers are eager to solve the puzzle here because of escalating calls the last few years about possible, but less credible, clusters elsewhere in the nation."
It all seemed to Gallagher like a dream: the cavalry had arrived and somehow they were going to get to the bottom of the issue. But then, something strange happened. Suddenly, the lines of communication with the CDC team went dark. After several months of intensive planning, intensive collaboration and rapid response, the CDC team told Gallagher that they were not at liberty to discuss the results with the parents any longer. According to Gallagher, one of the CDC staffers informed her that the mere mention of the word "cluster" had provoked a reaction from the higher ups within the CDC. Apparently, there was now even a debate as to whether they could use the word "elevated" when describing the prevalence rates. So from January 1999, until the release of the final study in April of 2000, there was no more interaction with the CDC. Not a single word.
Perhaps it was concern about the legal questions raised if there was indeed something in the water (class action attorneys had begun recruiting local families). Perhaps the Brick results weren't a cluster after all but part of a larger pattern that caused a more generalized concern within CDC (maybe it wasn't the water after all, since in February of 1998 the Lancet has published Andy Wakefield's controversial study implicating vaccines in autism). But there was no doubt about the silence coming from Atlanta. Something had changed the behavior of the CDC team. And it raises an interesting question. What did the CDC learn about autism rates in Brick Township and what did they do with their newfound data?
--
In Part 2: a discussion of the specific numbers in CDC's Brick Township report and what they should have told the world about the autism cases that they found in Brick.
--
Mark Blaxill is editor-at-large of Age of Autism and Vice President of SafeMinds. He has authored or co-authored a number of peer-reviewed studies on autism as well as numerous SafeMinds commentaries. He lives in Cambridge MA with his wife and two children, one of whom was diagnosed with autism and has since made great strides towards a full recovery. In addition to his autism activities, he has had a distinguished business career.
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January 16, 2009
New book offers cure for symptoms of autism, ADHD
New book offers cure for symptoms of autism, ADHD
by Debora Yost, NY Nutrition Examiner
January 8, 10:21 AM
It sounds too good to be true, but it’s not. A Long Island doctor has developed a non-drug, non-medical therapy that can reverse the behavior and academic problems associated with autism and ADHD.
The groundbreaking therapy is called Brain Balance and is the brainchild of Dr. Robert Melillo, who has used it successfully to date on more than 1,000 children. The program and how it works is detailed in the new book, Disconnected Kids: The Groundbreaking Brain Balance Program for Children with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Disorders, that hit bookstores Jan 6. The book is a self-help program designed so parents can achieve similar results at home.
The program consists of a series of easy-to-follow physical and academic exercises plus a somewhat rigid diet and nutrition regimen aimed at correcting an imbalance created by a glitch in the developing brain.
“Neurological conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, compulsive disorder and the like are all the result of the same thing – the two sides of the brain are not developing at the same rate,” Dr. Melillo said in an interview. “One side of the brain is growing too fast or too slow. As a result, the brain gets out of sync – it’s a disconnect -- and it manifests itself as the behavior and academic problems we are seeing today. The symptoms vary according to which side of the brain and what area of the brain are affected.”
The symptoms of autism and ADHD, for example, are the sign of a right-brain deficiency. The symptoms of dyslexia signal a left-brain deficiency. Different symptoms, one cause. There is even a name for it – Functional Disconnection Syndrome.
Functional Disconnection Syndrome is nothing new; it has been part of the medical literature for more than 50 years. What is new is the way Dr. Melillo treats it.
“The common approach that everyone uses is to work on the strong side of the brain,” says Dr. Melillo, “but that only makes the problem worse. My program works on the weak side of the brain without stimulating the strong side. It allows the weak side to strengthen, grow and catch up to the other side. When this happens the two sides of the brain communicate normally and symptoms go away.”
According to the book, there is no other program like it in the world.
In the book, Dr. Melillo offers a number of questionnaires that lead parents to identify their child’s brain deficiency and the exercises that will correct it. Movement, of course, is essential because it is important to healthy brain development, explains Dr. Melillo. However, most of the exercises are designed to correct sensitivities to such things as light and sound. He also helps parents identify food sensitivities that exacerbate the symptoms and a nutritional program to correct it. Dr. Melillo says that parents who follow the program properly, including identifying and correcting dietary issues, will see results within 12 weeks.
Dr. Melillo’s book is filled with stories of children he has treated. There’s Allan, once a friendless, wildly erratic and disruptive 8-year-old who now socializes normally and has plenty of buddies. There’s Lori, diagnosed as profoundly autistic, whose symptoms completely disappeared. And there’s Laura, an Asperger’s child who today is a typical teen-ager. The book also contains testimonials from parents who have had a child successfully complete the program.
With more than 30 million parents dealing with the challenges of having a child with autism, ADHD or other neurological disorder, Dr. Melillo’s book is bound to attract a lot of attention and perhaps even some controversy. But he’s armed with the proof and says he’s ready to take on any skeptics.
Dr. Melillo spent more than 20 years studying childhood neurological diseases and working on Brain Balance. He has published many of his findings in scientific journals and has written a medical textbook on his findings and theories. The majority of his success stories come from his Brain Balance Centers in Rockville Centre and Ronkonkoma, N.Y. During the past few years he has opened up centers in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago area and Louisianna. He plans to open more in the future.
“My goal is to make Brain Balance accessible to every parent with a child who can benefit from the program,” says Dr. Melillo.
Dr. Melillo's book is available at all major book stores and www.Amazon.com
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Jan 09/2009
Study Shows Increase Is Real, Not Just Due to Changes in Diagnosis Criteria
By Daniel J. DeNoon, WebMD Health News, Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
tiny.pl/vhtg
Environmental factors may be partly behind California's eightfold rise in new cases, a new study implies.
Many researchers have believed that the continuous increase in autism cases over the last decade -- particularly the huge increase seen in California -- isn't real, but can be explained by "artifacts."
Among these artifacts are the recent broadening of the diagnostic criteria for autism and greatly increased diagnosis of autism at younger ages. Both these factors could make it seem like there are more autism cases than there were before.
These artifacts do explain part of the rise in autism cases, shows a rigorous study by Irva Hertz-Picciotto, PhD, MPH, chief of the division of environmental and occupational health at the University of California, Davis.
But even taken together, they don't explain even half of the huge increase in cases.
"When you put it all together, this doesn't come close to explaining the increases in the last 10 years," Hertz-Picciotto tells WebMD. "The more you whittle away at this increase, the more you have to say that what is left over is real. ... Given that autism cases keep going up, and can't be fully explained by artifacts, environmental factors deserve serious consideration."
Hertz-Picciotto notes that her study does not account for one potentially huge artifact: The fact that today's parents are vastly more aware of autism than they were a decade ago.
Autism can't be diagnosed unless you're looking for it -- so parent awareness has a huge potential effect on the rise of autism, says Gary W. Goldstein, president and CEO of the Kennedy Krieger Institute and professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University.
"There is an enormous increase in awareness. Everybody knows about autism now, and they didn't 16 years ago," Goldstein tells WebMD.
"The awareness thing is very hard to quantify," Hertz-Picciotto says. "But at some point, as more and more parents became aware of autism, the increase should have leveled off. Instead we see a continued increase in autism."
Hertz-Picciotto notes that the lion's share of autism funding is going to genetic studies. She argues that it's high time more effort was put into looking for environmental factors that cause autism in genetically susceptible individuals.
"Time is passing and science has a lot to do to find the real causes of autism," she says. "A lot has changed in the environment over the last 10 to 15 years. And I paint with a broad brush when I say environment: These changes include things like medications people take and assisted reproduction technology as well as what is in soaps and pet shampoos and toothpaste and so forth."
Autism expert Michael L. Cuccaro, PhD, associate professor of human genetics at the University of Miami, praises Hertz-Picciotto's systematic study of the rise in autism cases. He agrees with her that it's time to consider environmental factors as part of the cause of autism.
"I don't think it is premature to look for environmental risks," Cuccaro tells WebMD. "There are environmental risk factors that give rise to a wide range of developmental conditions, and there's no reason to think autism isn't one of them. And papers like this are critical to get to this point. Because you have to convince people it is not explained by all these other factors."
Environmental studies are already under way -- and research organizations are eager to fund them, Goldstein says. But the difficulty goes far beyond funding.
"We only have 20,000 to 25,000 genes. But we have a hundred thousand environmental exposures. How do you control for that?" he says. "And your genes stay the same, while environmental exposures may have come and gone. It is difficult to do these studies -- the problem is not that it isn't thought to be important."
The Hertz-Picciotto study appears in the January issue of Epidemiology. The study is co-authored by Lora Delwiche.
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8-Jan-2009
Study shows California's autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis
Public release date: 8-Jan-2009
Contact: Phyllis Brown
phyllis.brown@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
916-734-9023
University of California - Davis - Health System
Study shows California's autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) - A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted - and the trend shows no sign of abating.
Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California's children.
"It's time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California," said UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher.
Hertz-Picciotto said that many researchers, state officials and advocacy organizations have viewed the rise in autism's incidence in California with skepticism.
The incidence of autism by age six in California has increased from fewer than nine in 10,000 for children born in 1990 to more than 44 in 10,000 for children born in 2000. Some have argued that this change could have been due to migration into California of families with autistic children, inclusion of children with milder forms of autism in the counting and earlier ages of diagnosis as consequences of improved surveillance or greater awareness.
Hertz-Picciotto and her co-author, Lora Delwiche of the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences, initiated the study to address these beliefs, analyzing data collected by the state of California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) from 1990 to 2006, as well as the United States Census Bureau and state of California Department of Public Health Office of Vital Records, which compiles and maintains birth statistics.
Hertz-Picciotto and Delwiche correlated the number of cases of autism reported between 1990 and 2006 with birth records and excluded children not born in California. They used Census Bureau data to calculate the rate of incidence in the population over time and examined the age at diagnosis of all children ages two to 10 years old.
The methodology eliminated migration as a potential cause of the increase in the number of autism cases. It also revealed that no more than 56 percent of the estimated 600-to-700 percent increase, that is, less than one-tenth of the increased number of reported autism cases, could be attributed to the inclusion of milder cases of autism. Only 24 percent of the increase could be attributed to earlier age at diagnosis.
"These are fairly small percentages compared to the size of the increase that we've seen in the state," Hertz-Picciotto said.
Hertz-Picciotto said that the study is a clarion call to researchers and policy makers who have focused attention and money on understanding the genetic components of autism. She said that the rise in cases of autism in California cannot be attributed to the state's increasingly diverse population because the disorder affects ethnic groups at fairly similar rates.
"Right now, about 10 to 20 times more research dollars are spent on studies of the genetic causes of autism than on environmental ones. We need to even out the funding," Hertz-Picciotto said.
The study results are also a harbinger of things to come for public-health officials, who should prepare to offer services to the increasing number of children diagnosed with autism in the last decade who are now entering their late teen years, Hertz-Picciotto said.
"These children are now moving toward adulthood, and a sizeable percentage of them have not developed the life skills that would allow them to live independently," she said.
The question for the state of California, Hertz-Picciotto said, will become: 'What happens to them when their parents cannot take care of them?'
"These questions are not going to go away and they are only going to loom larger in the future. Until we know the causes and can eliminate them, we as a society need to provide those treatments and interventions that do seem to help these children adapt. We as scientists need to improve available therapies and create new ones," Hertz-Picciotto said.
Hertz-Picciotto and her colleagues at the M.I.N.D Institute are currently conducting two large studies aimed at discovering the causes of autism. Hertz-Picciotto is the principal investigator on the CHARGE (Childhood Autism Risk from Genetics and the Environment) and MARBLES (Markers of Autism Risk in Babies-Learning Early Signs) studies.
CHARGE is the largest epidemiologic study of reliably confirmed cases of autism to date, and the first major investigation of environmental factors and gene-environment interactions in the disorder. MARBLES is a prospective investigation that follows women who already have had one child with autism, beginning early in or even before a subsequent pregnancy, to search for early markers that predict autism in the younger sibling.
"We're looking at the possible effects of metals, pesticides and infectious agents on neurodevelopment," Hertz-Picciotto said. "If we're going to stop the rise in autism in California, we need to keep these studies going and expand them to the extent possible."
The study was funded by grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and by the M.I.N.D. Institute.
In 1998, dedicated families concerned about autism helped found the UC Davis M.I.N.D. (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute. Their vision? Experts from every discipline related to the brain working together toward a common goal: curing neurodevelopmental disorders. Since that time, collaborative research teams at the M.I.N.D. Institute have turned that initial inspiration into significant contributions to the science of autism, fragile X syndrome, Tourette's syndrome, learning disabilities and other neurodevelopmental disorders that can limit a child's lifelong potential.
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January 7, 2009
Beware of fake StatsCan calls, agency says
Beware of fake StatsCan calls, agency says
Last Updated: Wednesday, January 7, 2009 | 4:12 PM ET Comments0Recommend11
The Canadian Press
Statistics Canada is warning the public to beware of callers claiming to work for the federal agency and asking for social insurance numbers, credit card numbers or bank account information.
Statistics Canada conducts regular surveys but it says it does not collect personal financial information.
It's warning people such callers, who refer to StatsCan surveys or the census, do not work for Statistics Canada and their requests are not legitimate.
The agency says the public should not provide the information the callers are asking for.
Statistics Canada is asking people who receive such calls to contact the agency toll-free at 1-800-263-1136.
It's also advising people to contact local police if they've already provided their SIN, credit card number or bank account information under suspicious circumstances over the phone.
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Posted January 5, 2009
Top Federal Autism Panel Votes For Millions in Vaccine Research
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/top-federal-autism-panel_b_155293.html
David Kirby
Posted January 5, 2009 | 12:28 PM (EST)
Top Federal Autism Panel Votes For Millions in Vaccine Research
The Inter-Agency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) has voted to recommend earmarking millions of dollars in research funds from the Combating Autism Act of 2006 to study the possible role of vaccines in the causation of autism.
The panel also proposed spending an additional $75 million to study a wide variety of other environmental factors in autism, possibly including parental age, infections, heavy metals, neurotoxins, occupational exposures and "other biological agents."
The decision, made last month, received little or no attention in the media. The vaccine research provisions are now included in the official IACC Draft Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Research.
The IACC has 12 members from various health-related branches of the Federal Government, plus six "Public Members," including representatives from Autism Speaks, the Autism Society of America and the Coalition for Safe Minds, as well as Stephen Shore, an adult on the autism spectrum.
Section III of the Strategic Plan is titled, "WHAT CAUSED THIS TO HAPPEN AND CAN THIS BE PREVENTED?" The section is divided into various parts, including short- and long-term research objectives. Much of the section is devoted to studying the interactions of genetic susceptibilities with potential environmental triggers, including vaccines.
In fact, two vaccine-autism studies have been approved by the IACC, which has proposed spending $16 million to:
1) "Study the effect of vaccines, vaccine components, and multiple vaccine administration in autism causation and severity through a variety of approaches, including cell and animal studies, and understand whether and how certain subpopulations in humans may be more susceptible to adverse effects of vaccines by 2011. Proposed costs: $6,000,000
2) Determine the feasibility and design an epidemiological study to determine if the health outcomes, including ASD, among various populations with vaccinated, unvaccinated, and alternatively vaccinated groups by 2011. Proposed costs: $10,000,000
Additionally, under "Research Opportunities," the panel also endorsed this objective:
"Monitor the scientific literature regarding possible associations of vaccines and other environmental factors (e.g., ultrasound, pesticides, pollutants) with ASD to identify emerging opportunities for research and indicated studies."
For proponents of vaccine-autism research, this is a resounding victory. It covers much of what these advocates have been supporting for a number of years. It is also sure to enrage those who are opposed to such research.
But for now, it has been recommended that the US Federal Government spend millions of dollars to study not just thimerosal, (a mercury based vaccine preservative), not just the triple live virus MMR vaccine, but vaccines in general, all ingredients that go into vaccines and, most surprisingly, the effect of "multiple vaccine administration" in the causation of autism.
This document also marks the closest we have come, perhaps, to conducting a study of health outcomes among vaccinated vs. unvaccinated children in the United States. With a price tag of $10 million just to study its feasibility and to design a study, such a project would indeed be costly and cumbersome. But, as CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding has said, this is a study that "should and could be done." (There is a bill pending in Congress right now that would provide funding for a vaccinated-unvaccinated study).
But vaccines, of course, are not the only candidates for study in the etiology of autism. There is a growing consensus now that most autism cases arise from an unknown combination of environmental agents, probably interacting with certain genetic predispositions.
The IACC Strategic Plan contains an impressive array of objectives and ideas on studying possible environmental factors. Not surprisingly, there was significant dissention on whether vaccines should still be considered among the list. On this thorny subject, the Strategic Plan says the following:
"Research on environmental risk factors is also underway. An Institute of Medicine workshop held in 2007 summarized what is known and what is needed in this field (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2007). Numerous epidemiological studies have found no relationship between ASD and vaccines containing the mercury based preservative, thimerosal (Immunization Safety Review Committee, 2004). These data, as well as subsequent research, indicate that the link between autism and vaccines is unsupported by the research literature. Some do not agree and remain concerned that ASD is linked or caused by vaccination through exposure to Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR), imposing challenges to a weakened immune system, or possibly due to mitochondrial disorder.
Public comment to the Committee reflected opposing views on vaccines as a potential environmental cause. Some contend that cumulative research on this topic indicates no role of vaccines in autism. Others contend that definitive research has not been done. A third view argues that the persistent focus on vaccines and other possible causes is misplaced.
In addition, a number of other environmental agents are being explored through research that are known or suspected to influence early development of the brain and nervous system. Recent studies suggest factors such as parental age, exposure to infections, toxins, and other biological agents may confer environmental risk. These findings require further investigation and testing."
Meanwhile, on the critical subject of interactions between genes and the environment, the panel says this:
"Although most scientists believe that risk factors for ASD are both genetic and environmental, there is considerable debate about whether potential environmental causes, genetic precursors, or interactions between genes and environmental factors should be the highest priority for research aimed at identifying the causes of ASD.
To date, few studies have ruled in or ruled out specific environmental factors. While there are reports of associations of ASD with exposure to medications or toxicants prenatally, and to infections after birth, it is still not known whether any specific factor is necessary or sufficient to cause ASD. Similar to other disease areas, advancing research on the potential role of environmental factors requires resources and the attraction of scientific expertise. Bringing this to bear on autism will help focus the environmental factors to study, as well as the best approach for staging studies to examine environmental factors, interaction between factors, and between individual susceptibility and various environmental factors."
The panel also weighed in on the possibility that "de novo," or spontaneous changes in gene structure - perhaps triggered by environmental factors - may be a factor in the causation of autism:
"(Recent) findings have contributed to new hypotheses about the inheritance of ASD. In families with just one affected member, spontaneous deletions and duplications may be causal factors of ASD. However, what causes these spontaneous deletions and duplications is not clear and possibly could be due to environmental exposures."
It also voted to recommend the following studies of environmental factors in autism, for which it proposed a budget of more than $75 million:
1) "Initiate efforts to expand existing large case-control and other studies to enhance capabilities for targeted gene - environment research by 2011."
2) "Initiate studies on at least five environmental factors identified in the recommendations from the 2007 IOM report "Autism and the Environment: Challenges and Opportunities for Research" as potential causes of ASD by 2010."
3) "Determine the effect of at least five environmental factors on the risk for subtypes of ASD in the pre- and early postnatal period of development by 2015."
4) "Conduct a multi-site study of the subsequent pregnancies of 1000 women with a child with ASD to assess the impact of environmental factors in a period most relevant to the progression of ASD by 2014."
5) "Support ancillary studies within one or more large-scale, population-based surveillance and epidemiological studies, including U.S. populations, to collect nested, case-control data on environmental factors during preconception, and during prenatal and early postnatal development, as well as genetic data, that could be pooled (as needed), to analyze targets for potential gene/environment interactions by 2015.
Some people may object to even this moderate sum of federal research money going into possible environmental factors. After all, the 2007 IOM Report from which the "five environmental factors" to study will be chosen, includes the following suggested areas of inquiry:
Heavy metals and cosmetics
RhoGAM exposure (Rho-D immune-globulin, which contained thimerosal until 2003)
"Major priority" pollutants
Toxins from industrial disasters
Prenatal exposures to infectious diseases
Occupational exposures
People who would object to studying these factors, it should be noted, are a tiny minority and a dying breed.
Far more controversial will be the inclusion of any vaccine wording within the research matrix, even though Members of Congress made it clear in the Colloquy* and Report Language of the Combating Autism Act that vaccines and other environmental factors should be studied. But the dissenting voices are coming through loud and clear in the following proposed (but not yet finalized) passage:
"Those who are convinced by current data that vaccines do not play a causal role in autism argue against using a large proportion of limited autism research funding toward vaccine studies when many other scientific avenues remain to be explored. At the same time, those who believe that prior studies of the possible role of vaccines in ASD have been insufficient argue that investigation of a possible vaccine/ASD link should be a high priority for research (e.g., a large-scale study comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated groups). A third view urges shifting focus away from vaccines and onto much-needed attention toward the development of effective treatments, services and supports for those with ASD."
Of course, it remains to be seen if these vaccine studies survive into the final version of the IACC Strategic Plan. And even if they do, that does not guarantee they will be fully implemented.
But one thing seems pretty clear, as we head into the last year of the century's first decade: Much to the chagrin of many, the vaccine-autism debate is anything but over.
*NOTE: In the Senate Colloquy, Sen. Mike Enzi, who was Chairman of the Committee (H.E.L.P.) that developed the bill, said this: "I want to be clear that, for the purposes of biomedical research, no research avenue should be eliminated, including biomedical research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components, and autism spectrum disorder. Thus, I hope that the National Institutes of Health will consider broad research avenues into this critical area. No stone should remain unturned in trying to learn more about this baffling disorder, especially given how little we know.
Meanwhile, Co-Sponsors Santorum and Kennedy agreed with Enzi's statement, and Senator Chris Dodd added this: Through the Combating Autism Act, all biomedical research opportunities on ASD can be pursued, and they include environmental research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components and ASD."
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January 06, 2009
What is Paul Offit's Problem?
By Anne Dachel
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/01/what-is-paul-offits-problem.html
I had to ask myself why Dr. Paul Offit, nationally-known vaccine expert, would consider The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Robert Sears to be so dangerous that he'd put out a whole piece about it in the January 2009 issue of Pediatrics. It's especially curious, since Sears' book came out well over a year ago.
Offit's article, The Problem With Dr Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule, (HERE) led to a response from Dr. Sears (HERE) that is running on his website. I hope readers will take the time to read both pieces to understand first-hand what was said by each of the doctors.
Offit's overall message is that Sears is fueling fears over vaccine safety by allowing parents to choose alternative vaccine schedules for their children. Offit wrote, "Sears' book is unique. Unlike typical antivaccine books, he offers a middle ground, allowing parents to act on their fears without completely abandoning vaccines. Unfortunately, Sears sounds many anti-vaccine messages." Offit devoted the Pediatrics article to describing the ways in which Sears' book is undermining the vaccine program and endangering children's health.
In his response, Sears stated, "I believe that Dr. Offit has misconstrued the book's overall message by selectively extracting various phrases and sentences that discuss anti-vaccine ideas and worries parents have and portraying those ideas as my own." In another place he said, "I believe that Dr. Offit has greatly misrepresented the overall message of the book as being 'anti-vaccine."
I read through many of the things Sears has written and looked hard for his "anti-vaccine messages." I have to agree with him when he says he's clearly not attacking the vaccine program. Sears stated, "It is my belief that many families go unvaccinated simply because they aren't offered a more gradual option." Sears doesn't enter the controversy siding with parents. For example, he cited the studies that debunk a link between the MMR and autism, and added that "My initial worries about the MMR and intestinal inflammation are probably unfounded."
Sears has called for studies on the effects of aluminum, noting, "I've been searching and searching for human infant studies that determine what a safe level of injected aluminum is, including looking at all the studies used in the article quoted by Dr. Offit, and I can't find a single one."
Sears avoids the argument over mercury in vaccines and autism by saying, "It has been removed from virtually all vaccines, so you really don't have to spend hours researching whether or not it is harmful."
I couldn't find big issues of controversy in what Dr. Sears has written about vaccines. He said in his response, "If my book had been portrayed correctly , we would find very little to debate about." Sears is not criticizing the CDC or vaccines in general. He's simply asking for flexibility in dealing with parents who are worried about vaccine side effects. He's definitely pro vaccine.
According to Offit, even a little break from rigid adherence to the mandated schedule is dangerous. It gives parents the idea that there might be serious side effects that could be avoided by changing the schedule. And, judging by the tens of thousands of copies of Sears' book that have been sold, lots of parents are having second thoughts about blindly accepting the one-size-fits-all-kids vaccine schedule.
Two things in Sears' response to Offit Pediatrics article got my immediate attention. Sears noted that lots of parents worry about the cozy relationship between the vaccine makers and the medical community, especially those in charge of safety. Sears wrote, "In medical school we are taught to at least briefly raise an eyebrow at research funded by a pharmaceutical company, instead of simply taking it for granted."
A bit later, Sears said, "As for the issue regarding parents' trust in the vaccine manufacturers, that trust was severely shaken when it was revealed in the Los Angeles Times on February 8, 2005, that way back in 1991 a researcher at Merck sent a memo to the president of Merck's vaccine division stating that they had just realized that the cumulative amount of mercury in vaccines given to infants by six months of age was about 87 times the safety limits set by the FDA. And that information was not revealed to the public until 8 years later." Sears said he continues to put his faith in the vaccine makers but he added that "I find it surprising that any doctors can fault a parent for not completely trusting Merck after that, or the FDA and CDC departments that were supposed to be overseeing this type of issue."
Offit doesn't worry about conflicts of interest however. In his new book, Autism False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, the fact that Eli Lilly tested thimerosal on 22 adult patients who had meningitis is noted. Offit wrote, "Lilly scientists gave thimerosal to doctors to treat the infection. It didn't work." The deaths of the patients from meningitis also prevented any possibility of studying the long term side effects and it meant there was no way to determine how safe thimerosal would be for babies and children. The fact is that the manufacturer's testing was the only recorded study on thimerosal before it was used regularly in vaccines that I've ever heard about. Offit wrote, "Although thimerosal didn't treat meningitis, doctors found that it was safe. Adults injected with 2 million micrograms of thimerosal didn't suffer symptoms of mercury poisoning; the amount was 10,000 times greater than the FDA later found babies had received in vaccines." (p. 63 Autism's False Prophets)
Simpsonwood, the meeting of scientists, federal health officials, and pharmaceutical company representatives in 2000 at the Methodist Retreat Center in Norcross, GA was also talked about in Offit's book. The initial findings by Dr. Thomas Verstraeten showed a relationship between the increase in mercury-containing vaccines and developmental problems. Offit wrote, "With the exception of autism, children who had received mercury in vaccines were more likely to have a variety of neurological problems." (p. 91 AFP)
Offit continued, "Tom Verstraeten presented his data. He started with autism, concluding that the relationship between the amount of mercury in vaccines and and the risk of developing the disorder was 'not statistically significant.' ...He showed that children who had received mercury in vaccines were more likely to have tics, attention deficit disorder, and speech and language delays. ...If Verstraeten's preliminary data were right, vaccine makers public health officials, and doctors had inadvertently poisoned a generation of children." (p. 92 AFP)
Not to worry, according to Offit. By 2003, "Verstraeten had gone back to the medical records to verify the computer diagnoses,... Verstraeten found that his preliminary data had been misleading: mercury in vaccines did not cause harm. He concluded, 'No consistent significant associations were found between thimerosal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes.' " (p. 93 AFP)
Offit noted that many charges have been leveled against Verstraeten for his about-face over mercury's side effects, plus there's the fact that by 2003, Verstraeten had gone to work for GlaxoSmithKine. I