Was Chandler's Autism Triggered by Thimerosal?

Chandler is autistic and has mercury poisoning, but I don't know yet if the mercury he got came from his vaccines.

Merck and GlaxoSmithKlein had removed thimerosal from the vaccines that they produced by March of 2000, but still sold and distributed the thimerosal containing shots that they had already made. Those carried expiration dates until at least 2002 and there are still reports of parents finding them at their pediatricians’ offices as recently as two months ago. Chandler was born in March of 2002, so there is a chance he may gotten one of those shots.

The pediatrician that my boys see currently does not use mercury containing vaccines, but he has not been under his care for his whole life, so I can't be sure of what he got or what he didn't get. I have asked for all the lot numbers so I can look into all this.

One of the things that I am looking to see is if he may have gotten a "hot lot". It is rare, as vaccine manufacturing has gotten better and better, but manufacturing problems still occur on occasion. When a bad batch is distributed, unfortunately many times no one knows until all the shots are given, the damage is done and reports start rolling into the government and the manufacturers. It is for exactly this type of event that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund was established. Which leads me to the next question:

If it turns out he did get the mercury from his vaccines, are we going to sue the government, the pharmaceutical companies or our doctors?

No.

A year ago when I began investigating this and found that there was evidence to suggest that their may be a link between the mercury containing vaccines and autism, that was being down played or outright ignored by those who set the vaccine policy in this country, I got angry and sick. Even though at that point, I didn't even know if he had mercury poisoning or not, or if had gotten the vaccines in question. I remember sitting at my computer in complete distress and wanting these people who had been entrusted with making vaccines and setting policy for my child to be punished. After a few minutes of having that much anger rushing through me, I feel like God stepped in and made me begin to see how easily that kind of anger could turn into real hate.

Autism is a long haul. I realized if I was going to hate the people that may have done this to him (even if it turned out to be a worst case scenario where they knew for sure that it was the one and only direct cause of Autism, took bribes to cover it up, and spent the money on cocaine and hookers) then I was going to be hating them for a long time. That state of mind is a cancer, and I just don't want to be that person.

I decided to take some time and not even look into this for a while so that I would not be burring my grief at Chandler's diagnosis into the anger that someone may have been able to prevent it and didn't.

Two months later we had a battery of tests on Chandler to see what was going on in his body. They found mercury poisoning along with lead poisoning, intestinal yeast, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, food allergies and other metabolic problems.

As an aside, among the clinicians that are researching and providing medical treatment for autism, the working theory on its source is that there are a subset of children born with a genetic predisposition for it, and that it is triggered by environmental factors. These children have unusual immune systems that lack the ability to fight off toxins that damage the brain, and that their metabolic problems prevent their bodies from providing proper nutrition to the brain.

The most interesting research that has come out this year is a study that showed that 90% of the kids with autism that they tested had low or insignificant levels of glutathione, which is an antioxidant that helps the body process out metals and other toxins. The proposed scenario is that my two sons can get the same amount of mercury (from vaccines, the environment, amalgam fillings, tuna, etc...) and Webster's body can fight it off, but Chandler's can't and it ends up in his brain and does damage.

The most exciting thing about this discovery is that it may lead to a blood test for Autism! Babies could be tested at birth and if it was found that they lacked glutathione, it could be supplemented and neurological damage and autistic symptoms may never develop. It is still only a piece of the puzzle, but it is exciting. I will keep you posted on this.

When I found out that Chandler did have the mercury in his little body, I again took some time to let that digest before I took the next step in looking into this for him. A few months later I decided to tackle this issue and take a look at video tapes to see when exactly the lights started going out and then take a look at his shot record to see if there seemed to be any correlation. I didn't want to bias myself, so I watched the tapes first with out looking at the dates or shots on his record. After watching video tapes all night I found that he had stopped making eye contact sometime between Webster's birthday party and Halloween 2003. Halloween that year was the first time I noticed that something was wrong. The full story can be found on my blog at:

An Introduction to Chandler: Birth to Diagnosis

After I had established that, I got out his shot record and found out that he had received a round of vaccinations on September 18th, around 6 weeks before Halloween.

This is the experience of many parents and it is why so many are pushing so hard to see if there is a link between shots and autism.

That night I had to make that decision all over again. Even if it turned out that that specific shot combined with all this others was entirely responsible for his illness, trying to get my pound of flesh from the government would be choosing to go backward and to live in a very dark place. I decided to work on letting go of my anger over the possibility of injury, and forgiving anyone might have been involved in it no matter how good or how bad their intentions.

Why if that is my attitude and I posting articles accusing the CDC of malfeasance? Because the government needs to be held accountable; and because parents and doctors need to know the truth so that autistic children can be treated with the appropriate medical care.

Very specifically, some one asked me if I was planning suing any of Chandler’s doctors if it turned out he got a mercury vaccine from them. I had not even considered this before.

I think the vast majority of pediatricians go into their field because they care about kids and want to keep them safe and healthy. The fact that they spend all day dealing with drool and snot another unpleasant things to take care of our kids is evidence of their good motives.

Good Pediatricians work according to the best practices of their profession and follow the guidance of state and federal law, their professional associations, CDC, NIH, IOM and the information published in respected medical journals. If these institutions are unwilling to take a critical look at the issue (or as in the case of the Verstraten study, burry evidence of a link when they find it) then how would local pediatricians be liable for such a vaccine injury? They see plenty of cases of children who get sick with vaccine preventable diseases and want to make the best use of the tools they have to prevent that in their patients.

To my way of thinking, if it turns out that Thimerosal is a trigger for autism, and the powers that these pediatricians look to for professional guidance are confirmed hiding evidence to that effect, then what they have done to these doctors is almost as horrible as what they have done to the children.

I think that the only thing more painful than being a parent who knows they allowed their child to be injected with the substance that triggered their autism, would be what a doctor would experience knowing that there is even a chance that he could have caused harm to these little ones whom he has dedicated his life to protecting.

So as of yet it remains to be seen if Chandler is a case of Thimerosal poisoning. I will keep you apprised as we find out more about what he was given.

Tomorrow: Why this disucssion even matters.