USAAA: Q&A with Dr. Boyd Haley

US Autism & Asperger Association: Q&A with Dr. Boyd Haley

USAAA: How do you respond to professionals and parents who disregard any Thimerasol theory when they point out that children who were not immunized and are still diagnosed with autism, thus refuting the Thimerasol controversy? We hear this quite a bit from parents who have children who are much older that didn't receive the heavy schedule of immunizations that kids received in the 1990's or who just were not immunized?

Dr. Boyd Haley: Vaccines are not the only exposure to mercury or thimerosal. Remember merthiolate, or methyl mercury from fish? In the 1970s and early 1980s there was a high level of fungicides use in products like paint that children could be exposed to. Also, it appears to be a mercury toxicity issue if one follows the porphyrin profile data. Therefore, any mercury exposure could be the cause, or perhaps any combination of heavy metals, and most mothers had dental amalgams and many had them placed or worked on during their gestation period. In the UK, a large group of parents of autisitic children screened their members and found only 2 who did not vaccinate their child, and one of these two had amalgams placed in her first trimester of pregnancy. The bottom line, I wouldn't claim that vaccinations from the mandated vaccination program was the cause of all autism as it did exist at low levels before the 1990s. However, it was in my opinion the cause for the increases we observed in the late 1990s. What I really believe is that autism (and AD, Parkinsons, MS, ALS) are neurological diseases indicating a weakness in certain individuals for response to certain toxins. Exposure of these individuals to mercury from any source increases their risk. We now have scientific reports that certain individuals do not excrete mercury effectively, and certain have enzymes that are specifically sensitive to mercury or other heavy metals. How do these parents explain the Amish observations, or the fact that in England they could not find near the expected number of children with autism that were not vaccinated?
USAAA: Is there an organization that lists specialized dentists for the removal of amalgams, similar to the list that DAN creates for physicians.
Dr. Haley: Yes, go to www.iaomt.org.

Dr. Haley presented "The Effects of Synergistic Toxicities and Genetic Susceptibilities on the Toxic Effects of Inorganic and Organic Mercury Compounds: The Relationship to Autism and Related Disorders," at the USAAA 2006 International Conference in Park City, Utah. To preview his presentation, click here

Taiwan Halts Flu Vaccine After Four Deaths

Taiwan halts flu vaccine after four Israelis die
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Monday October 23, 2006

Taipei- Taiwan on Monday ordered a halt to the use of a flu vaccine imported from France following reports that four Israeli people died after receiving the vaccine, officials said. "Before we have clear information over the safety on the use of the vaccine made by Sanofi-Aventis, we are halting the use of the vaccine effectively immediately," said Chou Chih-hua, deputy director of the Centre for Disease Control (CDC).

He said no more shots of Sanofi-Aventis vaccine would be given, even though there have been no local reports of illness or fatality from some 300,000 people who have received the vaccine free since last month.

CDC has imported 1.13 million does of the flu vaccine in question this year. News reports said four people in the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat, aged from 56 to 72, died of heart problems in the past week. Health authorities in Israel are investigating if the vaccine has anything to do with their death, the reports said.

Chou said the CDC has been trying to contact the French pharmaceutical company and the CDC's overseas offices since learning of the deaths in Israel.

© 2006 dpa German Press Agency

CAA: Santorum v. Barton on CNN

The piece is in 3 parts:

Unlocking Autism: Autism Dad Escourted from Barton's Office

Just when you think it can't get any worse, apparently it can....

After months of seeking an appointment with his Congressman regarding the Combating Autism Act, Mike, father of a 3.5 year old son with autism who lives in Texas, is escorted on this video (web address below) from Congressman Joe Barton's district office with a police escort.

Not only is Joe Barton hell bent on being the one man to hold up a bill that the majority fo Congress would like to see passed, but he and his staff apparently are tired, and better yet...are actually fearful, of talking to the autism community to the point that even if they are constituents, they will be treated as uninvited guests.

Mike arrived at the office on October 25, 2006, without an appointment at the same time that Congressman Joe Barton was in the conference room meeting with other parents and constituents regarding the Combating Autism Act.

In this clip, Mike is told repeatedly that there is absolutely no room for him to attend the meeting or be included because the room is so so small. No door can be opened. He cannot stand in the door frame of that room. There is just no room at the inn.

Additionally, the staff makes it clear to Mike that members of the autism community are the most vile and frightening people with whom they have ever spoken.

Regardless of the number of times Mike simply requests to speak with his Congressman, his requests are denied. A staffer calls 911 to have Mike removed.

While Mike is firm in expressing his concerns and wishes, he is in no way vile or threatening.

I am sending this to you not to spark a flood of angry calls to Congressman Barton's office, but to employ another tactic. In the past, grass roots activity has been very strong in this community.

What would happen if our community viewed this video over and over and over again?

Would it make the top of the YouTube list? Can we do that? Over this weekend? We get an extra hour after all on Saturday night....

250,000 hits gets you make to the front page of their website. Send this link to anyone and everyone you know far and wide. Cousins, co-workers, aunts, neighbors, teachers, friends of friends...pass it on.

Pop popcorn, grab a coke, a smile and have a party....

Because there really is nothing more interesting to me as a citizen of the United States of America than to see a constituent who takes the time to express his concerns to his own Congressman, in person, then be escorted out of the office by police. What has our society regressed to? I would bet Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are rolling over in their graves....

Barton is there to serve Mike whether he wants to serve Mike or not. Mike may or may not have voted for Barton, but regardless Barton opted when he took office to represent his constituency and to do that he has an obligation to listen to Mike's concerns. With that choice, comes responsibility.

The fact that he is clearly present in the office participating in a meeting two rooms over on the very subject Mike wants to discuss but prefers to have Mike escorted from the office by the police rather than open the door to the room is unfathomable to me.

If the opportunity for Americans to visit with their Congressmen is fading, that should be of grave concern to every single American....all 300 Million of us.
Here is the link...happy YouTubing!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa2-bFlASpo
Shelley Reynolds
Unlocking Autism
www.unlockingautism.org

Bond Set for Evil T-ball Coach

Bond set for T-ball coach who hired player to hit teammate

Friday, October 27, 2006

A Fayette County Common Pleas judge yesterday set bail for a T-ball coach who hired an 8-year-old to hurl baseballs at an autistic teammate.

If former coach Mark R. Downs Jr. posts bail, he will be freed from jail pending an appeal of his conviction.

Judge Ralph C. Warman yesterday set bail at $30,000.

The judge also ordered Mr. Downs, who had requested the bail hearing, to comply with normal conditions of his bond, including restrictions on traveling outside the state without permission of the court.

Mr. Downs, 29, of Dunbar, was convicted last month for offering his star pitcher $25 to hurl two baseballs at Harry Bowers Jr., 11, an autistic and mildly retarded teammate. Witnesses had testified that Mr. Downs was only concerned about winning a playoff game and that he believed that Harry was a liability.

Mr. Downs was convicted of conspiracy to commit simple assault and corruption of minors. He was sentenced to one to six years in prison for ordering the assault. Following the sentencing hearing Oct. 12, Judge Warman had revoked Mr. Downs' bond, which had allowed him to remain free during the trial.

The Age of Autism: None So Blind

The Age of Autism: None so blind
By DAN OLMSTED
UPI Senior Editor

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- How long have we known -- or should have known -- that medical treatment might help thousands of autistic kids? A half century, it now appears.

I recently came across a 1955 study titled "The Autistic Child in Adolescence," by Dr. Leon Eisenberg of The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Eisenberg was a colleague of Leo Kanner, the child psychiatrist who first identified autism as a distinct disorder in 11 children in 1943.

By 1955 there were 80 such cases in the Hopkins files; researchers managed to locate 63 of them. The results were not encouraging: Eisenberg wrote that only three "can be said to have achieved a good adjustment."

Here's where it gets interesting: One of those three was the very first patient diagnosed at Hopkins by Leo Kanner -- "Case 1: Donald T." As readers of this column know, I located Donald T. and, in 2004, went to his Mississippi hometown in search of more information.

Donald didn't respond to my requests for an interview; I have never met him. But I talked to his brother, a lawyer in the same town where the family has lived for generations.

The brother told an amazing story: At Kanner's suggestion, Donald was living with a nearby farm couple when, in early adolescence, he was stricken with a baffling illness. Even the Mayo Clinic couldn't diagnose it.

Donald's joints swelled up; he had high fevers; he couldn't eat. His father told a family doctor in a nearby town: "It looks like Don's getting ready to die." Sight unseen, the doctor offered a possible diagnosis: A rare case of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA).

His parents took Donald to the Campbell Clinic in Memphis, where he got a series of gold salts injections, the standard remedy of the day.

The treatment was a spectacular success, his brother said. And to my astonishment, he wasn't just talking about the arthritis symptoms, which cleared up except for one fused knuckle.

"When he was finally released, the nervous condition he was formerly afflicted with was gone," the brother said. "The proclivity toward excitability and extreme nervousness had all but cleared up." Donald was able to attend high school, graduate from college, work at a bank, live on his own.

A "good adjustment," indeed. Or, as his brother put it, "a miraculous response to the medicine."

When I came across Leon Eisenberg's 1955 paper recently on the Web site www.neurodiversity.com -- which hosts a superb collection of early autism research -- I was stunned to find that he mentioned the gold treatment. The description -- though not the emphasis -- exactly matched the brother's account, starting with Donald's placement with "a warm and unsophisticated farm couple without intellectual pretensions." It's worth quoting at length:

"Donald remained in this rural setting for 3 years; moderate improvement was noted, though while on vacation with his parents during this period, his mother reported that his chief interest on the trip was to record carefully the mileage between towns.

"The board arrangement had to be terminated when Donald, at 14, developed an undiagnosed illness manifested by fever, chills, and joint pains. He became bedridden and developed joint contractures. On the basis of a tentative diagnosis of Still's disease (a form of JRA), he was placed empirically on gold therapy with marked improvement.

"After 18 months he was once again ambulatory. He emerged with little residual deficit from a second episode of arthritis a year later. The clinical improvement in his behavior, first observed during his rural placement, was accelerated during and after his illness and convalescence at home. He was able to enter and graduate from high school. At present he is doing well in his studies at a Junior College, where he was elected a class officer."

Notice that while Eisenberg mentions gold therapy, he doesn't connect it to Donald's "accelerated" progress at the same time. Why not? Well, consider this: Two years later, in 1957, Eisenberg wrote an article titled "The Fathers of Autistic Children."

"They tend to be obsessive, detached and humorless individuals," he said, repeating the now-discredited orthodoxy of the day. "Such interest as they have in the children is in their capacity of performing automata. ... They are no less inadequate as husbands than they are as fathers. Work takes precedence over family life. Marriage seems mostly a convenient arrangement for meals and laundry."

And: "An unusually large number have college degrees, as do their wives."

Aha! Why are we not surprised that "a warm and unsophisticated farm couple without intellectual pretensions" gets credit for Donald's progress, while a "miraculous response" to medical treatment is missed?

Not for the last time, a family noticed something significant while the experts prattled on about their pet theories. When Leo Kanner looked back at those first cases in a 1972 paper, "Followup Study of Eleven Autistic Children Originally Reported in 1943," he never even mentioned gold salts. Kanner credited Donald's rare success -- remember, only three out of 63 had good outcomes -- to the farm environment that, not coincidentally, he had recommended.

He wrote that Donald, "because of the intuitive wisdom of a tenant farm couple, who knew how to make him utilize his futile preoccupations for practical purposes and at the same time helped him to maintain contact with his family, is a regularly employed bank teller; while living at home, he takes part in a variety of community activities and has the respect of his fellow townspeople."

What a touching agrarian idyll. What a bunch of hooey.

Until now, I thought Kanner and the rest of the medical establishment simply weren't aware of Donald's improvement following the gold salts treatment; otherwise, they would have followed up this very promising and obvious lead from the very first case.

Now I don't know what to think.

Government Rejects Vaccine Petition

AP: Government Rejects Vaccine Petition
Oct 24, 7:10 PM (ET)
By ANDREW BRIDGES

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal health officials won't put new restrictions on the use of a mercury-based preservative in vaccines and other medicines, denying a petition that sought the limits because of health concerns.

A group called the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs petitioned the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 seeking the restrictions on thimerosal, citing concerns that the preservative is linked to autism. In a reply dated Sept. 26 but made public only Tuesday, the FDA rejected the petition.

"Only a small number of licensed and approved products still contain thimerosal, and the available evidence supports FDA's conclusion that all currently licensed vaccines and other pharmaceutical drug products containing thimerosal are safe," Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, the FDA's assistant commissioner for policy, wrote in denying the petition.

"We're not accepting that answer," said Dr. Mark Geier, one of the petitioners. The group now plans to seek a court order that would force the FDA to withdraw thimerosal from all vaccines and medicines unless the agency can show the preservative is safe, Geier said.

Thimerosal, about 50 percent mercury by weight, has been used since the 1930s to kill microbes in vaccines. There have been suspicions that thimerosal causes autism. However, studies that tracked thousands of children consistently have found no association between the brain disorder and the mercury-based preservative. Critics contend the studies are flawed.

Since 2001, all vaccines given to children 6 and younger have been either thimerosal-free or contained only trace amounts of the preservative. Thimerosal has been phased out of some, but not all, adult vaccines as well.

Most doses of the flu vaccine still contain thimerosal, though manufacturers produce versions free of the preservative for use in children. The FDA said it was in discussions with those manufacturers to increase the supply of thimerosal-free flu vaccine.

There also are minute amounts of mercury, as thimerosal or phenylmercuric acetate, in roughly 45 eye ointments, nasal sprays and nasal solutions, the FDA said. Various antivenoms for black widow and snake bites also contain thimerosal.

UPDATE: Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs Response

Today CoMeD responded by filing a petition to stay the FDA's decision
because the FDA & HHS failed to:

A. Address the key issues raised in the CoMeD citizen petition or
B. Provide publisdhed peer-reviewed science (or references thereto)
to support most of the assertions they made, and
C. Did NOT address issues associated with their failure to:
1. Comply with, among other things, the 1987 statute mandating they reduce the adverse reactions in childhood vaccines,
2. Enforce the legally binding 1973 regulation requiring manufacturers of biological products, including vaccines, to prove that any compound the used was "sufficiently nontoxic" before using it or continuing to use it in a product formulation for the compound Thimerosal, and
3. Act in a manner that complied with a unanimous 1988 Supreme Court case that mandated that drugs, including vaccines must meet all legally
binding requirements (clearly set forth in official policies, laws (including binding regulations), and statutes BEFORE the government may use its administrative discretion in deciding to license/approve a drug or its labeling.

In a day or two, the CoMeD petition for a stay should be listed in the dockets as they acknowledged, by email, having received it and, when the full response is linked electronically, I will post the specific link to this filing.

Factually, the FDA did NOT address the key petition issues and the reporter seemed to have only read the FDA's response to CoMeD and NOT the 2004 petition BECAUSE, as the 2004 petition noted, Congress and NOT CoMeD raised the issue about the probable link between Thimerosal and "autism" in the Houses' 2003 "Mercury in Medicine" report.

Factually, the 2004 CoMeD petition (Docket: 2004P-0349) focused on the failure of the government and the drug manufacturers to:
a) prove Thimerosal was safe so that it was "sufficiently nontoxic" in appropriate toxicology studies as required by law since 1973, b) the government's ongoing failure to comply with a 1987 statutory mandate to reduce adverse events in childhood vaccines, and c) the government's failure to comply with a unanimous 1988 US Supreme Court case (Berkovitz, a polio vaccine case) limiting the government's administrative discretion to decisions made AFTER the requirements of all applicable policies, laws and statutes have been proven to have been met.

Hopefully, faced with this response and other actions, the FDA and the HHS will address the issues raised by CoMeD in its original petition as requested -- in a manner that fully complies with all applicable binding policies, laws (including regulations) and statutes governing the FDA's actions and the permissible conduct of drug manufacturers including vaccines.

Respectfully,

Dr. King,
http://www.dr-king.com
CoMeD Science Advisor
http://www.mercury-freedrugs.org

PS: When the petition documents are linked, CoMeD will post this new filing under 21 CFR 10.35 in:

http://www.mercury-freedrugs.org/docs/

along with the documents list with pointers to the articles that have already been posted in the CoMeD website's documents page as Appendices "A" and "B" as well as posting Appendix "C" to the site's documents page.

Flu Shot Info on Imus via ImusBlog.com

Dr. Larry Rosen and Deirdre Imus were guests in the studio today. Dr. Rosen talked about flu vaccines and children. He said there is a shortage of Thimerosal free vaccines, as about 90% of all flu vaccines contain Thimerosal. On the issue of whether Thimerosal (mercury) is safe in vaccines. A check of a recent study that said it was safe revealed 9 of 19 authors had financial ties to vaccine companies. Dr. Rosen urges parents to have their child vaccinated with a Thimerosal free vaccine. You can listen to the comments here:

A Walk on Water

I met Pat in the summer of 2005 in the lobby of the Health and Human Services building in DC. He was there filming another silly "no link" press confrence by the CDC. He started out to make a film about the ocean and ended up making one about our mercury toxic kids. He is a good man. Can't wait to see the finished product.


http://www.awalkonwater.com

Autism Group Voices Concern Over Risperdal

Autism Group Voices Concern Over J&J Drug

23rd October 2006
By Victoria Harrison

The National Autism Association has said it has concerns over the FDA's approval of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal earlier this month for use among children diagnosed with autism.

The group has specifically raised issue with the drug's side effects. The National Autism Association issued a warning letter in 2004 to Janssen, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson and the manufacturer of the drug. The warning said that the company had omitted information in product literature regarding hypoglycemia and diabetes, and had made misleading claims that Risperdal is safer than other drugs in the same category. The organization says there are documented potential side effects of the drug including lactation both in girls and boys, weight gain, and development of the often irreversible movement disorder tardive dyskinesia.
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"Parents are faced with extremely tough decisions when it comes to medicating their children, and extra caution should be used with Risperdal in particular given what we know about it." said National Autism Association executive director Rita Shreffler

Johnson & Johnson's expanded approval of Risperdal has been approved to treat only irritability symptoms of autism in children. Side effects of Risperdal are included in the prescribing information provided with the drug. Johnson & Johnson has said that the safety and effectiveness of Risperdal in pediatric patients with autistic disorder less than five years of age have not been established.

Risperdal sales figures were over $3 billion in 2005.

White Matter Differences in Autistic Brains

New Imaging Technique Discovers Differences In Brains Of People With Autism
Science Daily
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
October 24, 2006

Using a new form of brain imaging known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), researchers in the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that the so-called white matter in the brains of people with autism has lower structural integrity than in the brains of normal individuals. This provides further evidence that the anatomical differences characterizing the brains of people with autism are related to the way those brains process information.

The results of this latest study were published in the journal NeuroReport. The scientists used DTI — which tracks the movement of water through brain tissue — to measure the structural integrity of the white matter that acts as cables to wire the parts of the brain together. Normally, water molecules move, or diffuse, in a direction parallel to the orientation of the nerve fibers of the white matter. They're aided by the coherent structure of the fibers and a process called myelination, in which a sheath is formed around the fibers that speeds nerve impulses. The movement of water is more dispersed if the structural integrity of the tissue is low — i.e., if the fibers are less dense, less coherently organized, or less myelinated — as it was with the participants with autism in the Carnegie Mellon study. Researchers found this dispersed pattern particularly in areas in and around the corpus callosum, the large band of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.

"These reductions in white matter integrity may underlie the behavioral pattern observed in autism of narrowly focused thought and weak coherence of different streams of thought," said Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging and a co-author of the latest study. "The new findings also provide supporting evidence for a new theory of autism that attributes the disorder to underconnectivity among brain regions," Just said.

In 2004, Just and his colleagues proposed the underconnectivity theory based on a groundbreaking study in which they discovered abnormalities in the white matter that suggested a lack of coordination among brain areas in people with autism. This theory helps explain a paradox of autism: Some people with autism have normal or even superior skills in some areas, while many other types of thinking are disordered.

Last summer, Just led a team of researchers that found for the first time that the abnormality in synchronization among brain areas is related to the abnormality in the white matter. They discovered that key portions of the corpus callosum seem to play a role in the limitation on synchronization. In people with autism, anatomical connectivity — based on the size of the white matter — was found to be positively correlated with functional connectivity, which is the synchronization of the active brain regions. They also found that the functional connectivity was lower in those participants in whom the autism was more severe.

These studies, along with the latest paper, are providing a comprehensive picture of the autistic brain, whose components operate with less coordination than is normally the case, and which is less reliant on frontal components and more reliant on posterior components. The latest DTI finding shows that some of the frontal-posterior communication fiber tracts are abnormal, consistent with the lower degree of frontal-posterior coordination.

"The brain components in autism function more like a jam session and less like a symphony," Just said.

The latest study was co-authored by Rajesh K. Kana and Timothy A. Keller of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging. This research was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

A Word From David Kirby from Halifax

Hello all, the fall speaking season is here again, and I have a few appearances coming up, beginning this weekend in Halifax, NS. Please feel free to share this info with anyone you know in eastern Canada, or post it online where you see fit. Autism Today has extended the early bird registration and is also offering a bring-a-friend deal for an additional $49.00 (the cost to cover meals).

More info is available here: http://www.autismtoday.com/keyhalifax2006.htm

Other appearances in Nashville and Long Island will be posted soon at www.evidenceofharm.com

Also, I hope to begin writing more about autism again (ie, Huffington Post) after all the election noise is over. Right now, I think things just get lost in the mix.

Finally, look for an interesting article (not by me) coming up in Newsweek, RE: The CAA and other political issues. It should run in the next few weeks

All best to everyone!

DK

Mercury, Seafood and You - Oceana.org