CBS News Looks At Kennedy Claims

A Kennedy Fuels Autism Debate

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/14/eveningnews/main709269.shtml

Don't miss the "Video excerpts of interview" link in the written section of the story.

The most interesting thing to me that he mentioned was that he flew autism researchers in to go with him when he met with the editorial boards of some major newspapers, and despite all the evidence they were shown that there could be a thimerosal/autism connection, they still didn't believe it and refused to print his charges.

It seems to be an example of just how much people don't want to believe that this theory might be true.

Cudos to CBS for actually taking a look at it on the evening news.

Update: A post from a woman on something about the web version of the story that I missed.

A Kennedy Fuels Autism Debate

It's interesting to see how CBS's Internet text differs from its broadcast report by Sharyl Atkisson.

For example, here's the Internet intro: "Is there a link between autism and childhood vaccines? Medical experts say no -- resoundingly ..." The next sentence refers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s support as "controversial."

However the Internet version leads with video of Kennedy, stating, "Robert F. Kennedy is lending his famous family name to a new cause."

On the Internet, Dr. Tanja Dr. Popovic says, "Based on what we know right now, we don't think there's an association."

On the broadcast, Atkisson counters, "But that's not saying with 100% certainty that there isn't one." Popvic pauses, then repeats her previous statement. But that telling exchange is missing on from the Internet piece.

On the Internet, Dr. Tanja Dr. Popovic says of the CDC, "We've always been open about all of our activities."

On the broadcast Atkisson comments, "There's widespread disagreement about that." Again, that statement was omitted from the print version.

It's definitely worth your time to listen to the extended 10-minute segment of Atkisson interviewing Kennedy.

Unfortunately right underneath, CBS dredged up Dan Rather's dreadful hatchet job of Barbara Loe Fisher and others regarding a slight rise in pertussis cases (and no mention of how many cases occurred in vaccinated children).

Nancy Hokkanen
Minneapolis

California Quarterly Autism Numbers Out

New Autism Cases Level Off in State, Data Show
Some say the slowdown may be linked to the removal of mercury from infants' vaccines.

By Thomas H. Maugh II
LA Times Staff Writer

July 13, 2005



The number of newly diagnosed cases of autism in California, which had been skyrocketing for more than a decade, has leveled off and may even be declining, according to new data compiled by the state Department of Developmental Services.

Although the total number of autistic children receiving special education services from the state continues to grow ? bringing the current total to 28,046 ? the rate of increase peaked in 2002 and has dropped slightly since then.

The findings are important because California has the best reporting system for autism in the United States and is generally considered a bellwether for the rest of the country.

Experts do not have a good explanation for the slowdown in new cases.

"Perhaps whatever caused [the number of cases] to go up ? environmental insult, or whatever ? is no longer present," said Dr. Robert Hendren, executive director of the UC Davis MIND Institute, which researches neurodevelopmental disorders. "It's all speculation. I wish we had good studies."

Parent activist Rick Rollens of Sacramento, who played a key role in the creation of the MIND Institute, said that the trend roughly corresponds to the removal of mercury preservatives from pediatric vaccines. Many activist groups say that the use of mercury in the vaccines caused the sudden increase in autism cases. Federal scientists, however, have continually said that the evidence does not support such a link.

The state data do not include children under the age of 3. According to the department, about 90% of all autistic children are entered into the system before the age of 6.

That means, Rollens said, that children born since 1999, about the time that mercury was phased out of vaccines, are just now entering the system. The slowdown could thus reflect the change in vaccination practices.

"We can argue till the cows come home about what caused the increase," Rollens said, but the bottom line is that the increase is slowing.

California guarantees access to special education for all children diagnosed with autism and other developmental problems. Thus, the state's data are considered particularly reliable.

According to the state data, 2002 was a record year for new autism diagnoses, with 3,259 cases. In 2003, the number of new cases slipped to 3,125. In 2004, the number was 3,074.

For the first half of 2005, there were 1,470 new cases, compared to 1,518 in the same period in 2004.

"The interesting thing is that, before 2002, every quarterly report had shown an increase over the previous year," Rollens said. "Now, that is no longer the case."

Look at me! I am a real live blogger!

So I have decided to go back home to DC and do a little Protest Blogging.

The National Autism Association is holding a rally on Capitol Hill on July 20 to call attention to the danger of mercury in vaccines. Chandler and I are planning on attending. I may make an attempt at live blogging if there is a connection available.

As I have mentioned before, I don't know yet if Chandler's Hg came from his vaccines. I have ruled out any vaccines that he got after 9 months of age, but I am still waiting on lot numbers from his first doc. He was born in March of 2002 which puts him closer to being in the clear of getting any, but he is close enough to the line of when thimerosal free vaccines became the norm that I can't rule it out.

What I am more worried about are the Rhogam shots that I was given. According to the FDA it contained Thimerosal until some time between 2001 and 2003. I got them during my pregnancies in 2000 and 2001/2002. Rhogam has two competitors, BayRho and WinRho, that did not contain Thimerosal at the time I got the Rh factor shots, so I am hoping that I was given one of those and just told that it was "Rhogam" because that is the well known name, like "Kleneex" and "Q-Tip".

Regardless of where his mercury came from, he has it, just like so many autistic kids. And if you have not read my post on why it is still important for Chandler that mercury stop being used in all vaccines, then let me refer you to a previous post, “Why This Matters”.

Bottom line, I have to agree with Unlocking Autism that “Giving Mercury to Children on Purpose is Stupid” especially when there are safer alternatives.

My Boy Can Talk!

Something has happened this week. He seems to have crossed some sort of line from “boy who has a few words that you have to drag out of him” to “boy who can talk”.

In the last few months his eye contact has improved dramatically and his speech has been getting better and better. A few months ago he said his first spontaneous sentence, which he didn’t repeat much without being directed, but if you prompted him enough and were patient enough, you could get him to do it. Often he inserted a number in the sentence (“I want 5 swing”) and you would have to provide all the words for him several times, but he seemed to know if he gave you some combination of the words you were saying to him, he would get what he wanted.

Last Thursday, the boys were playing in the back yard when Webster ran in the house and yelled, “Mommy! Chandler said, ‘I did it’”! When I looked outside, he was playing on the hopscotch, which usually just meant he would step on the squares and shout out the numbers. Apparently he was so pleased with his performance that he had to tell the world.

That day and the next, he began coming up and holding my hand as he does when he wants something. The usual process is something like this: he pulls on me, I tell him to say “come on, Mommy”, he says, “come on”, he takes me by the hand to the thing that he wants, I try to get him to say the word, if he says the word, then I try to get him to say, “I want ___”, we spend two minutes trying to get the sentence out of him, then another minute trying to get the numbers out of the sentence, he may or may not get it depending on the difficulty of the word, then he finally gets the thing. However this is what happened. He looked me in the eye and said:

“I want swing.”

No dragging, no prompting, no numbers inserted, no waiting for minutes.

It has been a week now and he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

I want banana, I want peanut butter, I want phrazze (puzzle). He is now coming up to me and saying things I can’t understand because they are not words that he has used before and his pronunciation is rough. “I want jalses”. I have no clue what that means, but he says it with all conviction and looks at me intently for my answer. ‘Puzzle’ was one of these words that took me some time to figure out.

My decision to declare that my boy can now talk came yesterday when I was trying to offer him something to eat. I asked him if he wanted a banana and he seemed to be ignoring me and just babbling to himself, so I was only half paying attention to what he is saying. Here is what he said:

“Nanna.” ( he wants a banana). “Apple.” (oh, maybe he wants an apple). Inaudible. (some babbling that I wasn’t paying attention to because he can’t talk, right?) “Cherry on top.” (WHAT THE HELL???) “Uh-ohhh, oh-nooooo” “Kako” “Sorry”.

So as I stand there dumbfounded, I realize that he is reciting a scene from Oobi, one of his favorite shows, where Oobi and his best friend Kako go to the market and pile a bunch of fruit on the fruit scale. Kako puts a cherry on top of the pile of fruit and it all comes crashing down on him. He stands up and says “Sorry”.

My boy can talk.

He is requesting help by saying, “Hep”. Bringing me the flashlight and saying, “Flashlight on”. He is walking around the house saying his brother’s name, “Wester, Wester”. And when Scott comes home from work he is greeted with, “Hi, Darry”.

Chandler is well on his way back to us.

So if you see him on the street, make sure to say hi to him. Who knows what you will get back.

Dan Olmstead Looks at Homeschooled Kids

The Age of Autism: Homeschooled

By DAN OLMSTED   |   June 28, 2005 at 1:14 PM


WASHINGTON, June 28 (UPI) -- Where are the unvaccinated homeschooled children with autism? Nowhere to be found, says a doctor who treats autistic children and is knowledgeable about the homeschooled world.

"It's largely nonexistent," Dr. Jeff Bradstreet told UPI's Age of Autism. "It's an extremely rare event."

Bradstreet treats autistic children at his medical practice in Palm Bay, Fla. He has a son whose autism he attributes to a vaccine reaction at 15 months. His daughter has been homeschooled, he describes himself as a "Christian family physician," and he knows many of the leaders in the homeschool movement.

"There was this whole subculture of folks who went into homeschooling so they would never have to vaccinate their kids," he said. "There's this whole cadre who were never vaccinated for religious reasons."

In that subset, he said, "unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating, I've not had a single case."

Bradstreet said his views do not constitute a persuasive argument that low vaccination rates are associated with low rates of autism, but it is worth studying.

"That's not yet science," he said. "It doesn't rise to the level of a powerful observation. It's a place to say, OK, well that's interesting, what does that tell us?"

About 2 million children are being homeschooled in the United States. The number of those unvaccinated is unclear, but judging by the school opt-out rates in some parts of the country where there is more concern about vaccinations, it could be 3 percent or more. For example, in Oregon's Lane County roughly 2,000 students out of a total of 51,000 have exemptions, about 4 percent.

Applying that ratio to the U.S. homeschooled population would equal 80,000 children. At the current autism rate of one in 166 children, several hundred would be expected to have autism.

Bradstreet said he has tried to persuade epidemiologists to study that subset of the homeschooled population, but they expressed doubts the results would apply to broader groups.

"I said I know I can tap into this community and find you large numbers of unvaccinated homeschooled, and we can do simple prevalence and incidence studies in them, and my gut reaction is that you're going to see no autism in this group."

He said every researcher he contacted refused to investigate, "because it would not have any power to change people's opinion -- you could never apply it to the next population." He said critics could assert that homeschoolers are a unique group and that parents might choose to homeschool a child "because they knew he was different," although neither would explain the lower autism prevalence.

He also said he thinks homeschoolers would be a better population to examine than a genetically and culturally isolated community such as the Amish.

"The purists would say that's too odd of a group," Bradstreet said, and added that he agrees. "You can't draw conclusions from that kind of population."

His comments referred to the series of reports in The Age of Autism on an apparent low prevalence of the condition among the Amish, most of whom are unvaccinated.

Monday, this column reported that a top official of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told parents he will consider whether to launch a study of autism rates among the Amish or other unvaccinated populations. Such a study apparently has never been done.

Bradstreet said he thinks that no matter what unvaccinated population researchers study, "it would be a rare event" to find autism. His views fall into the distinct minority among scientists and medical experts, who say a link between vaccines and autism has been discredited. A panel of the prestigious Institute of Medicine -- part of the National Academy of Sciences -- said last year that research should now go to "promising" areas.

The vaccine theory centers on the hypothesis that a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, used in an increasing number of childhood vaccinations in the 1990s, triggered a huge spike in diagnoses.

Bradstreet's linking of autism to mercury in fish and maternal dental fillings is also rejected by mainstream medical experts. The comments do, however, echo one aspect of UPI's reporting on the Amish.

A doctor in Virginia said he was treating six unvaccinated Amish children, four of whom had high levels of mercury in their bodies that he thinks triggered their autism. He suspects the exposure came from coal-fired power plants, which emit mercury as a byproduct.

Bradstreet said he realizes his views on vaccines, and his own son's autism, expose him to charges he is seeing what he wishes to see, but he argues that government researchers harbor a bigger conflict of interest because the government mandates vaccinations and vouches for their safety.

"The problem for them is even more than the problem for us," he said. "Many of us who are concerned about vaccines and the role they're playing in the immune system and autism are traditionally trained physicians who vaccinated our kids and are only reluctantly being forced, when it was thrown in our face, to say there's got to be something wrong with vaccines if it did this to my kid.

"So in that situation, even though we would be accused of being more biased, we are probably more objective because we were believers."

--

This ongoing series on the roots and rise of autism aims to interact with readers and welcomes comment, criticism and suggestions. E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com

HHS Considers Studying the Amish

Dan Olmstead, who has been looking for the autistic Amish, lets us know that the department of Health and Human Services is considering studying them.

A top U.S. health official is considering whether to launch studies of the Amish -- and perhaps other unvaccinated groups -- in response to United Press International's articles about a low prevalence of autism in that community, according to several people who spoke with him last week.

William F. Raub of the Department of Health and Human Services suggested this possibility at a private meeting at HHS headquarters in Washington, participants said. His comment adds to recent signs that some federal officials monitoring autism research and funding have not ruled out a possible vaccine link.

I am excited to hear this. We seem to have a built in control group in this country I think it is, to be blunt, stupid not to explore it.

The vaccine question is important, but genetics, diet and differences in the habits of pregnant women need to be looked at as well. As I have mentioned before, if I was the head of HHS, Lancaster PA would look like a scene out of Outbreak.

I have posted Dr. Raub’s contact information in case any one wants to let him know that they encourage him move forward with the study.

Dr. William Raub
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science Policy
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Room 434-E
200 Independence Avenue, SW.
Washington, DC 20201
Tel: (202) 401-9456
Fax: (202) 205-8835
Internet: wraub@osaspe.dhhs.gov

Undetected Autism in Women 'May Lead to Anorexia'

Interesting theory coming out of the UK.

The Growing Phenom of Non-Vaccination

This article came up on Saturday and I thought it was a great chance to give follow up commentary on my previous post on what happens when parents stop vaccinating their kids.

In this case more kids got sick, but the article does not say that any children died or suffered life long disability from getting the measles.

Bottom line, parents’ fears are only going to increase the longer the government refuses to take an OPEN look at possibility of the autism/thimerosal connection.

Yesterday I spoke to Lynn Redwood, head of Safe Minds and the mother of a mercury poisoned autistic child, and she told me a story that spoke volumes to me.

She attended an ACIP meeting on Thimerosal. This is the Advisory Committee for Immunization Policy that makes vaccine policy recommendations to the CDC. The CDC always accepts the recommendations of the committee, so it is very powerful.

By law, the meetings are open to the public and the public may ask questions and offer comments. After some discussion, Lynn noted that the CDC and the American Association of Pediatricians has not made a recommendation that pregnant women and children receiving vaccines should get ones with out mercury if it is available. She asked the ACIP to state a preference for Thimerosal free DTaP, HiB and HepB for infants.

The moderator said that they would not be stating a preference between the two. When Lynn asked why not, he said that he was not going to argue with her about it and moved on to the next question.

I will try to get the transcript of the meeting for clarity and confirmation.

Here is my question:

Why, when a conscious parent who attended, what was supposed to be, the open meeting for discussion on U.S. policy regarding mercury in vaccines, asks good question and is then told, by one of the 12 individuals who votes on what the vaccine policy will be, in effect to shut up and sit down, should any parent feel comfortable following their recommendations?

Compare and Contrast

Here are two different articles on the same subject.

On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research

Thimerosal & Autsim - David Kirby's Evidence of Harm

The same information was available to both authors. Why do you think they came out so differently?

Where I Stand on Vaccines

Are you anti-vaccine and should I worry about getting my kids vaccinated?

No I am not anti-vaccine; and Yes I think you should worry about getting your kids vaccinated. A little bit.

We stopped vaccinating our boys after we found about Chandler’s autism so that we could learn everything we could about vaccines and any risk they might pose to our Autistic son and his high risk brother. We have chosen to send our older NT son to a private school next year that requires that all attendees be fully vaccinated so we will be starting up his vaccinations again this year, spacing them out while we make sure to boost his immune system so he can handle them well. I also plan on learning the history and risks of each vaccine before it is administered.

If a vaccine injury were to occur in the future with Webster, I couldn’t forgive myself unless I had educated myself as best I could on everything I was giving him and avoided the injury as wisely as I could.

Chandler is a different problem all together. Has research even been done on vaccinating autistic children? What is the recommendation on vaccinating children with compromised immune systems like HIV? Do recommendations on vaccinating autistic children even take into account the immune problems that they have seeing as mainstream medicine may not even widely recognize that the autistics have immune problems?

I have not even started looking for these answers questions yet. I will you all know when I get there.

In the mean time, when I say be a “little” worried about vaccinations, I mean educate yourself as best you can, talk to your doctor about them and if he is annoyed with answering your questions, talk to another doctor and get reading. Most importantly, make sure your kids are healthy before they are vaccinated and ask to see the box so you can be sure you are not getting one of the few left over mercury vaccines. If it says “Thimerosal” on the box, call it to the attention of your doc and ask for a mercury free vaccine.

If you are really, really worried about vaccines, have a high risk child and are rich; take your child in and get him tested for immunity problems before getting vaccinated. That may sound a bit overboard, but I think it is important to try to vaccinate if you can.

When I have talked to people who are considering not vaccinating at all, here is what I have challenged them with:

Don’t make the decision not to vaccinate your child unless you believe the risk of him contracting a seizure disorder or a developmental disorder outweighs the risk of him dieing from a disease that could have been prevented had he gotten his shots.

The bottom line is that only you and your family are going to have to live with the consequences of the decisions you make, so make the best ones you can and don’t let other people make those decisions for you.

There is no controversy about whether or not vaccine injury exists. All vaccines are a calculated risk. The CDC freely admits that a small percentage of the population will be harmed by them.

The controversy enters into just what disorders are result of vaccine injuries and what ones are not.

When a child gets a shot and immediately starts seizing on the table, it is quite easy to see that a vaccine injury has taken place. But what if the injury is a slow one that takes several days, weeks or months? Causality becomes harder to establish.

In my opinion, the CDC is looking at the mercury problem with a hand over one eye, three fingers over the other eye while squinting. Therefore, their assertion that Thimerosal plays no role in the development of Autism should be questioned.

Not rejected, questioned. Heavily.

So no, I am not anti-vaccine, I think it would be better to describe me as “vaccine resistant”. I want to believe that they are a good bet for my kids, but at this point, you are gonna have to prove it to me.

The CDC’s vaccine policy is based on the principle that the good done for the many outweighs the harm to the few. And that is fine if you are making vaccine policy for 300 million people. But I am not responsible for holding back another Rubella epidemic; I am responsible for two little boys who just may fall into that sliver of the population that the CDC considers an acceptable loss.

None Of The Presidents Men

This week ABC News ran a news story on Robert F. Kennedy’s accusation of malfeasance in the CDC in regard to mercury containing vaccines. Oddly, they took the unusual approach of not even checking into the allegation, but rather just asking the CDC if they did anything wrong, and then taking them at their word.

It is in this spirit that I would like to present my new screen play. It is my interpretation of what Watergate might have been like had Bob Woodward worked for ABC News in the early 70's.


NONE OF THE PRESIDENTS MEN

Open to interior of Oval Office:

Mr. Woodward: Thank you for meeting with me Mr. President. This guy Deep Throat told me that you knew about the break in at the Watergate Building.

Mr. Nixon: Nope. Sorry. Don’t know anything about it. Besides, studies show that Republicans don't commit B&Es.

Mr. Woodward: Ok. Thanks for your time.

Fade Out.

Roll Credits

Why This Matters

If it turns out that Chandler’s mercury is not from vaccines, and they are taking mercury out of vaccines, then why does this matter?

It matters for several reasons. First, it is not out of all vaccines. In California where I live, a law was passed disallowing it for use in vaccines for pregnant women and children under the age of 3, but that law does not go into effect until 2006. From what I understand, some children’s vaccines may still have trace amounts, all flu shots and some tetanus shots still have it at previous levels and the vaccinations that we ship overseas to third world countries still has it at previous levels.

Finding ways to stabilize vaccines for use in remote areas with out using mercury still presents a challenge. Because disease is so prevalent in these countries and vaccines so badly needed, and because thimerosal free vaccines may not last as long and are more expensive, the decision has been made to leave it in for these foreign vaccine programs. It may turn out that this calculated risk fulfills the short term task of keeping children with a much high mortality risk than ours alive, but if mercury is confirmed as a trigger for the disorder, the long term goal of preventing autism in these children may fall by the wayside.

This is certainly a very difficult situation for authorities to deal with, but ignoring research that suggests there is a link the wrong way to approach the problem. As many have noted, if the link is confirmed and the international community finds out that the US was knowingly putting children at higher risk of Autism with out providing informed consent, then the potential for backlash and foreign policy problems could be enormous.

As history teaches us, it is not the crime, but the cover up, that tears at society.

In addition, ignoring the link between mercury and autism has serious implications for autism treatment.

The history of autism treatment, like many mental health problems, is a sad one.

In the 60’s the highly lauded godfather of autism treatment was Dr. Bruno Bettleheim. He was a Freudian psychologist who had survived the Nazi death camps. He likened the withdrawal of children with autism to the emotional withdrawal that victims of holocaust displayed in the concentration camps. He reasoned that since the withdrawal of the Jewish inmates was in response to the hatred that their Nazi captors had for them, then the withdrawal of autistic children must be in response to the hatred that their mothers had for them. He labeled these women “Refrigerator Mothers” and blamed them for their children’s illness. When mothers tried to claim that they did really love their children, they were told that they were in denial of their real feelings, but that the children sensed their mothers’ true contempt for them and responded the only way they knew how, by withdrawing into themselves.

The recommended treatment was the removal of the child from the family into a Bettleheim approved institution, and years of psychotherapy and analysis for these mothers who were in such deep denial of their hatred of their own children.

The result, as you can imagine, was destroyed families and destroyed lives. Recently a documentary on this heartbreaking episode in history was released. “Refrigerator Mothers” airs occasionally on PBS. You can find more information on it at: http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/refrigeratormothers/

This remained the conventional wisdom in the medical community until a doctor by the name of Bernard Rimland dispensed with the idea that his son’s autism was caused by lack of love, and challenged openly Bettleheim’s theory.

He eventually gathered together a group of doctors who felt the same way. In the early 80’s they decided to ignore what the rest of the field had to say about the sources of autism and start over. What they began to find was that these children had clusters of medical symptoms and when these individual medical symptoms were addressed, their autistic symptoms decreased with some children making a full recovery from autism.

As more parents and doctors (usually with a loved one who had autism) discovered the work being done by Dr. Rimland and his partners, the Defeat Autism Now! Movement got under way as parents began to demand their children’s medical illness of Autism be treated with, of all crazy things, Medical Treatment.

This seems like a no brainer, yes?

But, as odd as it seems, the mainstream medical community resisted it. Doctors who treat autism medically were considered to be selling nothing but false hope to the families they treated. In effect snake oil salesmen.

Even more strangely, decades later, not much has changed in the mainstream medical community.

Where as 40 years ago the conventional wisdom was:

“The child has autism because the parents didn’t love him. You can put him in an institution, but it probably won’t do much good.”

Now the conventional wisdom seems to be:

“The child has autism because his parents gave him bad genes. You can give him speech and ABA therapy. It might work, but it might not.”

Local pediatricians are still not trained to screen for digestive problems, metal poisoning and metabolism problems and most do not refer the child to a doctor who treats autism. They do refer families to speech language pathologists, neurologists or developmental pediatricians, who in turn still may not refer to a doctor that treats the biological symptoms associated with autism.

Referral to all these sources is good and appropriate, but it is incomplete. Parents should have the option to fight the source of their child’s illness, not just the option of mitigating the symptoms of it with speech and behavioral therapy.

Still, all too often, the referral instead comes from another mom on the playground who notices that your little boy doesn’t talk and tells you not to believe your doctor when he said, “he may not get any better”. Then she introduces you to her son who says ‘hello’, and ‘mom can I have a juice box?’. Then she tells you that her little boy used to be just like yours and to find a DAN! Doctor.

So you do, and one day, for the first time in a long, long time, he looks at you right in the eye, gives you a big smile and calls you “Mommy”. And you cry, and you thank God for that mom on the playground and you become one of those moms yourself.

This is the typical experience of the parent of an autistic child in 2005.

So the big question is:

If tens of thousands of autistic kids are getting better, why is mainstream medicine so freakin’ slow to notice and jump on board with the new discoveries that are being made???

I believe the answer is Mercury.

Because one of the common things found in the screening that DAN! doctors do is mercury poisoning, and because there is mercury in vaccines, and because the establishment of a link between the two would be so devastating in so many ways, the entire DAN! Protocol is dismissed. Pediatricians don’t often refer patients to it and insurance companies almost never cover it. Even though it works. Even though even the most difficult cases show improvement

In ignoring the medical treatments for autism, the mainstream medical community is throwing my baby out with the bathwater.

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.