THEORIES AND HYPOTHESES ABOUT AUTISM

(NOTE: Dr. Schaffner may have to "reconsider" his words after Dr. Bernadine Healy stated today that doctors have purposefully ignored and disparaged research that points a causal finger at vaccines. Anne Dachel provides proof here.)

By Anne Dachel

On May 12, 2008 ABC News put out the story, Court to Hear Families on Vaccine-Autism Link by Dan Childs.  In it we hear (click here to listen) that it's only a theory that thimerosal or the MMR vaccine cause autism and that these theories are opposed by mainstream medicine. 

Dr. Boyd Haley from the University of Kentucky is cited by Childs and described as "a vocal proponent of a vaccine-autism link" who thinks that "the current studies are flawed."  Dr. Haley tells us that these cases being heard in the special court "are indeed the result of an underlying genetic vulnerability being triggered by the mercury."

Dr. William Schaffner, professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., challenges Dr. Haley and refers to his claim as "one of many hypotheses behind the development of autism in some children.  Some of these hypotheses. . . are being investigated. But none so far. . .  have the weight of scientific proof. "

"The theory, that there may be underlying genetic defect that results in or can be somehow activated by some environmental process or insult, and that this in turn leads by some biological mechanism to autism is a valid theory, and it is a theory being pursued by the autism research community," says Schaffner.   However,  he cautions, "But any subset of this theory is a hypothesis, and you don't draw conclusions from a hypothesis." 

I asked Dr. Haley about the charge that parents and scientists like him have only theories and hypotheses to back them up and that these aren't scientific proof of anything.  Here is his response:

Everything is a hypothesis until the data become overwhelming.  In this article what is left unsaid is that the huge preponderance of autistic children are suffering from oxidative stress (Dr. Jill James’ research) by having glutathione levels that are about ½ of neurotypical children.  Therefore, they cannot as effectively excrete mercury and other toxicants as glutathione is the natural carrier of many toxicants out of the body.  So we know that autistic children retain more mercury than neurotypical children, their birth hair is proof that they are poor excretors of mercury, and they suffer from oxidative stress.  Now, there is no rational way that a pure genetic problem could cause an epidemic---I learned this in high school and confirmed it in college.  So an environmental toxic exposure has to be involved and it had to occur in all 50 states at the same time----this eliminates many of the usual suspects and points the finger at the CDCs mandated vaccine program which did occur in all 50 states at the same time and correlates with the increase in autism spectrum disorders.  Add to this the observation that non-vaccinated children (the Amish by Olmstead of the UPI) seem not to get autism or asthma, and the report from a Mannitoba Health Center on adolescent children that changing the first vaccine from 2 months to 4 months of age changed the asthma rate from about 16% to 5%, respectively, then we see a direct tie-in that implies quite strongly that the younger the infant the more toxic the exposure to vaccines can become. 

Bottom line, there is no substitute for an active intellect when trying to resolve a medical or scientific conundrum.  Absolute proof is hard to come by, but the medical associations refusal to push for a comparative study between vaccinated and non-vaccinated children is symptomatic of a group fear that their profession was involved in causation and is not open minded about resolving the autism causation issue.  One needs to be impressed with the fact that it was parents of autistic children who brought the autism epidemic to light, not any group of physicians or the responsible government agencies who should have been the first to announce a concern about our nations children epidemic of autism.  The last person I would believe regarding the resolution of the autism epidemic would be one who should be ashamed of overlooking the damage a poorly designed vaccination policy did to our nation.

Boyd Haley, PhD

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Comments

[Mark]

What does Dr. Haley mean by birth hair in this statement?

"their birth hair is proof that they are poor excretors of mercury, and they suffer from oxidative stress."

[Mark]

Craig, I live in Missouri and from I found is that they don't have a conscientios objection. To be honest I don't object to all vaccinations but I do have some serious concerns about some of them as well as the amount of injections in one visit and how early on they start. Right now my wife and I have been gathering as much information as we can process on what the vaccines are, how they work, and what they're composed of. Unfortunately for me science wasn't my favorite subject in school so it can be a bit daunting.

On a side note our pediatrician is meeting with my wife and I Friday morning to discuss vaccinations. I'm not entirely sure how it will go because when we interviewed him awhile ago he was for giving vaccinations because the benefits outweighed the risks - in his opinion. However at least he's willing to meet with us to discuss our concerns and fears. Ultimately my wife and I would like to go on more of a delayed vaccination schedule and possible removing most of the live virus vaccinations if possible.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. We have a week and half until our little girl is due and we're so excited for her arrival!

[Craig Willoughby]

Mark, if you don't mind me asking, what state do you live in? Most states do have some type of conscientious objection laws when it comes to Vaccinations. I've lived in almost every state in the U.S., so I can give you some pointers. Let me know.

[Religious exemption]

"my state only has a medical and religious exemptions and unfortunately I don't think my religion (Lutheranism) qualifies?"

Mark, no religion in the world would agree to putting a susceptible child out to slaughter. Your religious belief is your personal faith and available to your own personal interpretation of it. Nobody has the right to interpret your religious beliefs for you. The very fact that you are out here asking questions, is something your child will thank you for later in life. You are already being a great dad. Smarter than the rest of us anyway!

[Mark]

Hello,
I have another question that I would like to hear everyone's advice on. I've been reading a lot of the websites suggested in here, however I'm becoming more and more dismayed. My question is what am I supposed to do if I want to either decrease the amount of vaccines that my child would get, or go on delayed vaccacination schedule, but can't because we were planning on sending our child to daycare. In a perfect world either my wife our I would be able to afford to have one of us stay home to watch our child but we can't. Unfortunately unless I prove that my baby is getting her vaccinations then she wont be allowed into daycare, and, down the road into public school. Am I stuck? is there any recourse that I have? my state only has a medical and religious exemptions and unfortunately I don't think my religion (Lutheranism) qualifies?

Any advice on what other's have done or what I can do? if feels as if my hand is being forced on me.

Thank you all again!
Mark

[Mark]

Everyone,

Thank you for your help and for all the links. It looks like I'm going to be busy for awhile now doing some good research.

Thank you again and I wish all the best to you and your families.

Mark

[Terri Lewis]

Mark,

One more link, and this may be more appealing and quicker to get through. It's written by a woman with a son who's about 13 or 14 months old right now.

She started to wake up to the dangers of our current vaccination practices, and even though she started out vaccinating her son the way she was "supposed to," she's stopped--at least for now.

She's been researching and reporting like crazy for about two months, just to help other parents who are making their decisions right now. So her information is very current.

http://vaccinesandmychild.blogspot.com

You might even want to further the discussion there a bit, since you aren't the only one out there struggling with this.

Terri Lewis

[To vaccinate or not?]

"No my concern is at which stage should they get vaccinated? should we wait till 4 months instead of two for the first??? no that Mercury isn't involved does it matter anymore? I don't know."

Mark, since I happen to be the parent of a child who was susceptible to vaccines, my advice for any parent out there would be to wait till the child turns 3 years old before you make any vaccination decision. I would expect that the public officials in the next 3 years might see fit to release data about susceptibility to vaccines in populations, and you could then decide if you are at risk or not. You don't want your child to end up as a statistic, believe me this is a tough life to lead and not for the faint of heart.

If you still really really want to vaccinate before then, you can look up Dr. Miller's vaccination schedule (and the rationale behind it) on the Generation Rescue website at www.generationrescue.org. Also never never ever put any live viruses into your child - vaccines such as the MMR are very dangerous. Also no chicken pox shot ever, its much better to have your child contract the disease and build lifelong immunity to it. Having the varicella sitting in your child's body is a huge mistake. Just in the last 2 days families have said that their child got autism from the varicella vaccine, maybe they gave it too close to the MMR.

Bottomline, the ped is NOT watching out for your child, you are and you are the only one ultimately accountable to your child. IF your child gets autism the ped will just throw up his hands and ask you to go get speech and behavioral therapies. These therapies do not get viruses and bacteria and heavy metals out of a child's body. On the heavy metals, mercury is still used in the manufacturing of vaccines after which the manufacturer chelates them out - or so they say. Boyd Haley has said that its is impossible to entirely remove the mercury from the vaccines. They say there are only trace amounts but nobody knows for sure, since nobody is looking. Finally on the aluminum which has supposedly replaced mercury, parents are finding more lead and aluminum coming out of their kids bodies even after the mercury has peaked and dropped!!

I have come to the conclusion that no vaccine is safe. I disagree with Healy that they can find safer vaccines for susceptible populations - I find that concept hard to believe. Nobody but nobody is ever going to come near my child with a needle or a virus/ bacteria ever again. Enough is enough.

Actually if you can find a midwife for the birth I would encourage you to do so. They even clamp the cord too soon after birth. Basically mainstream medicine today is your worst nightmare, stay as far away from it as possible. Assuming you want to end up with good health and a decent chance at life as we used to know it. Good luck, here's wishing your family a beautiful and healthy baby.

[Terri Lewis]

Mark,

The risks of following the current vaccination schedule aren't small, and they aren't theoretical. Common sense alone tells you that any drug will have unintended side effects in a part of the population. That vaccines are presented as being as safe as bread is a lie.

First, some motivation for you, then some links.

There *have* been studies showing thimerosal is related to autism. What a surprise--if you inject hundreds of times the "safe" amount of a known neurotoxin into a baby's bloodstream, you might see some brain damage. Damage the brain during prenatal development or during the first 3 years of life (or so) and it looks like autism.

If you follow the current "schedule" faithfully, your child takes the following risks (the risks are considerably less for unvaccinated kids, or even kids who are *less* vaccinated):

1% to 2% chance of full-blown autism;
10% chance of lesser brain damage, which will be labeled PDD-NOS, Asperger's syndrome, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, etc.
10% chance of asthma, maybe life-threatening

Additional (and significant) chances of juvenile diabetes, seizure disorder, allergies (including life-threatening food allergies), death (especially, but not exclusively, following multiple vaccination).

So: educate yourself, or play Russian Roulette with your baby.

www.generationrescue.org
www.adventuresinautism.blogspot.com

Follow the links; take some time with it. Really take some time with it until you know what you have to know. Or take your chances of joining us (might want to look at the archives here, too).

Good luck.

Terri Lewis

[doodle]

Mark,

Do yourself a favor and research Stephen Milloy, the person who runs junkscience.com. He is probably the most notorious industry shill around, so anything he says is industry PR. You can believe what he says if you want but don't come around here using him as a reference for anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milloy

If you think DDT and smoking are great and global warming is just a fad, this is your man. You can guess how he feels about autism and vaccines.

[Mark]

Hi Thank you for article and for the research and information on your website. As a soon to be parent (my wife is due with our first baby in about 2 1/2 weeks) I've been doing a lot of research on vaccinations and the potential link to Autism.

While doing this research it's easy to become confused with all the differing and argumentitive information out there. It's hard to know what to beleive. Personally what I beleive is that the increase in Autism over the years is definitely enviromentially caused, however I don't know if the vaccines are the cause of it. Isn't is fair to assume that the Amish that Dr. Haley mentions might not be based on their seclusion be exposed to certain environmental agents whether it's toxicity in the air, processed food diet, etc that could be the potential cause just as much as the MMR's vaccines?

I did read an interesting article on junkscience.com that illustrated an article from the Archives of General Psychiatry (Jan. 2008) that talked about a study the St. of California did on what happened when the vaccine makers voluntarily removed Thimerosal from their products in 1999. I'll copy part of the article from junkscience.com here that better illustrastes the findings than I could do.

------------
Despite an absence of intriguing, let alone compelling, evidence that mercury-containing Thimerosal was associated with autism, vaccine makers voluntarily began removing Thimerosal from their products in 1999 -- providing a perfect opportunity to study whether the removal (and, therefore, Thimerosal) had any effect on autism rates.

So using data reported to the California Department of Development Services from 1995 to 2007, researchers from the California Department of Health compared the prevalence of autism with exposure to Thimerosal. Their results were published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry (Jan. 2008).

The data showed that the prevalence of autism for children at each year from 3 to 12 years increased throughout the study period -- even after 2000 when Thimerosal began disappearing from vaccines. From 1999 to 2004, average exposure to Thimerosal among infants and 2-year olds was reduced by more than 90 percent and 84 percent, respectively – yet reported cases of autism continued to increase in unabated fashion.

A classic test in epidemiological study is to observe what happens to the rate of disease when the suspected agent is removed. When Thimerosal was removed, the rate of disease was unaffected.

Ironically, it has taken the removal of Thimerosal to vindicate it.
This result is not unexpected since there has never been any reason to believe that Thimerosal was a causal factor in autism spectrum disorders, which have reportedly increased in recent decades.

Use of Thimerosal began in the 1930s in response to tragedies such as the January 1928 deaths of 11 of 21 children given a diphtheria vaccine inadvertently contaminated with staphylococci.

Thimerosal was then used without incident for more than 65 years before the panic began in 1998 with the publication of a paper in British medical journal The Lancet reporting autistic regression and diarrhea among a small number of patients following administration of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination.

As retold in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health, the Internet enabled the controversial report to cross the Atlantic and spawn a coalition comprised of parents of autistic children and groups opposed to compulsory vaccination. Political muscle was soon added when Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), whose grandchild had been diagnosed with autism, began a series of congressional hearings.

But despite the emergence of the anti-Thimerosal movement as a cause celebre, there has never been a single credible study implicating Thimerosal in any way with autism. The new California Department of Health study should be the end of the controversy.
-------------

So, as you can see from my comment that there is a lot of info out there and to be honest with you I don't know what I should do. I do know that my doctor had his kids vaccinated which to me says a lot about the importance of vaccinations. No my concern is at which stage should they get vaccinated? should we wait till 4 months instead of two for the first??? no that Mercury isn't involved does it matter anymore? I don't know.

Thank you for letting me post my comment. Any advice is appreciated.

[How would you explain this?]

"One needs to be impressed with the fact that it was parents of autistic children who brought the autism epidemic to light, not any group of physicians or the responsible government agencies who should have been the first to announce a concern about our nations children epidemic of autism."

Well said Dr. Haley.

I am a parent, and in layman terms this is what happened to my son - mercury went in and wiped out sulphur, setting the stage for the bacteria from the DTaP etc. to take hold. In that weakened immune system with low sulphur, the viruses from the MMR came in and flourished, *causing* autism. Whenever I give my son adequate sulphur, the viruses are quietened. However its not until I can go in and eradicate the bacteria from the immune system and get my son's body in a better state to maintain adequate sulphur, does he begin to improve. Only when the body is in a better state of balance (sulphur chemistry-wise) will it begin to give up its heavy metals, especially mercury. Then both the body and the brain need to be repaired. Usually this is the stage where behavioral and cognitive therapies might work best.

Offit, do you understand this? Okay forget it - sorry I asked YOU. This is my parental observation, I will leave it to the *doctors* to figure out the details.