Autism vs Sweden (ABBA dabba don’t)

By Dr. Ken Stoller

I was first contacted by Magnus’s father in 2007, he is a British national living in Sweden as a translator. His son Magnus lost his speech (bilingual in both English and Swedish) at 2.5 years of age coincident to being weaned off breast milk. He started walking on his tiptoes, stimming, spinning and had a constant high-pitched humming. There was also a total loss of eye contact. His parents did their best to implement suggested biomedical interventions, such as removing dairy and gluten from his diet. In December of 2002, a fever set off his first documented seizure from which he continues to suffer.

This story is all too familiar, but what is unique about Sweden is that insurance plans do not pay for treatment of congenital problems, so in Sweden all the experts believe there is only one type of autism… congenital autism.

On April 7th I testified on behalf of Magnus in a trial in Stockholm as Magnus was taking on the system. I told the three paneled judges that the scientific literature that is now coming to the fore strongly points to environmental triggers of this disorder we have been calling autism and I will continue to call autism , but for reasons of convention only. I told the court that, it was my medical opinion that Magnus has an environmentally triggered encephalopathy. “ I am afraid we have been doing all these affected children a horrible disservice by giving them this label. Autism is a mental disorder and in the DSM IV manual –the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is perhaps the gold standard for what is and isn’t autism, it is made clear that one does not have autism if, and I quote, ’The disturbance is not better accounted for by Rett's Disorder or Childhood Disintegrative Disorder’. Rett Syndrome is caused by mutations in the gene MECP2 located on the X chromosome and has autistic-like symptoms it is almost exclusively found in girls and I do not believe Magnus as this congenital disorder. However, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder is  an ”autistic-like" syndrome that develops after some years of normal development. So, what many are calling regressive autism is, technically speaking using the accepted medical terminology, this other Childhood Disintegrative Disorder and therefore not autism at all.”

Then I told the judges about the results of a study were released in February showing that Swedish children exposed to vinyl flooring had a significantly higher rate of autism . And of the several peer-reviewed findings linking environmental mercury with autism      and studies  describing developmental disabilities linked with thimerosal .

I told the judges to take note of the Cambridge study has the prevalence of autism in British boys now at 1 in 38.  ”Given that there are no congenital epidemics, we have to come to terms quickly that we have a disastrous environmental problem on our hands and whether it is mercury, volatile organic compounds, pesticides, or other poisons, we must stop calling this a congenital disorder that we somehow missed all these years and see it for what it is if the human race plans on surviving this environmental crisis.

I was asked to define regressive autism: “There is no standard definition for regression, and its prevalence would vary depending on the definition that is used, but it is almost identical to what the DSM IV calls Childhood Disintegration Disorder, so  a child appears to develop typically but then starts to lose speech and social skills, typically between the ages of 15 and 30 months, and is subsequently diagnosed with autism, again inappropriately –especially by those who think there is only one type of autism, congenital or classic autism.”

On the basis of a statement by Dr Bo Ericsson, a neurologist the Trygg-Hansa insurance company had found, the court was told it doesn’t matter when you develop autism you have classic congenital autism and that the epilepsy afflicting Magnus Rees is an inherent part of his autism spectrum disorder. I told the judges,  “There is a clear association between what we are calling autism and epilepsy, but I would fundamentally disagree that they are part of the same diagnosis – no medical expert would say that unless they were deliberately trying to mislead.”

…” just because a child has one symptom, it does not follow that they have the condition or causation that all other children with that symptom have. What we are calling epilepsy is not a sine qua non of autism or visa versa. Epilepsy, in other words, is not an essential element of autism even though there is an association. A connection yes, as I have just explained, but a separate and independent diagnosis as well.”

Magnus’s father also has legal insurance and they were unwilling to represent him citing the identical reason…congenital disorders did not qualify. I was asked only one question by the attorney for the insurance company. He asked me if I was not familiar with “the world experts” who testified against Magnus stating he had congenital autism.

I said I had neither heard of those world experts nor their testimony.

…to be continued

Kenneth P. Stoller, MD, is President of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association, a Diplomat of the American Board of Pediatrics, a Diplomat of the American Board of Hyperbaric Medicine, a Fellow of the American College for Hyperbaric Medicine, and a member of the New Mexico Medical Society. He was University of California President's Undergraduate Fellow in the UCLA Medical Center's Department of Anesthesiology, and has almost two decades of clinical experience in pediatric medicine.

Dr. Stoller is a founding board member of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association, and was also a founding board member of the Humane Farming Association, He was Science Editor of the Animals' Voice Magazine where he was nominated for a Maggie. His Op-Ed pieces have appeared in several. newspapers and periodicals from The Atlanta Constitution, Los Angeles Times, Abq Tribune to The Scientist. He has served on both the Injury Prevention Committee and the Environmental Hazards Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Stoller is medical director of the Hyperbaric Medical Center of New Mexico; the Hyperbaric Oxygen Clinic of Sacramento; the Hyperbaric Recovery Center (Rohnert Park) and the California Integrative Hyperbaric Center (Irvine).

1. Associations between indoor environmental factors and parental-reported autistic spectrum disorders in children 6–8 years of age. Malin Larsson et al. Neurotoxicology, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 10 February 2009 http://tinyurl.com/cfmyvd
 

2. Environmental mercury release, special education rates, and autism disorder: an ecological study of Texas.
Palmer RF et al.  Health Place. 2006 Jun;12(2):203-9.  

 3. Autism spectrum disorders in relation to distribution of hazardous air pollutants in the San Francisco bay area.
Windham GC et al.  Environ Health Perspect. 2006 Sep;114(9):1438-44.
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2006/9120/9120.html
 
4. Proximity to point sources of environmental mercury release as a predictor of autism prevalence.
Palmer RF, Blanchard S, Wood R.  Health Place. 2009 Mar;15(1):18-24.
 
5. Biomarkers of environmental toxicity and susceptibility in autism.
Geier DA et al. J Neurol Sci. 2008 Sep 24.

 

Comments

[Autism Grandma]

"Sweden's autism rate is noted to be 1 in 10,000, which is 60 times lower than the U.S."

http://fourteenstudies.com/HG_5_details.html

Sweden is also a country which utilizes a vaccine schedule similiar to the previous U.S. schedule that existed prior to the autism epidemic. No wonder the Swedish statistics are the same as the 1970's U.S. statistics. Therefore, they have much less experience with the direct association with vaccines that has been witnessed here in the last 20 years. Just further evidence that the increased U.S. vaccine schedule is responsible for the dramatic increase in autism.

There are many flaws with the Swedish study that is being used by the vaccine industry to support the "no thimerisol link to autism" BS. [See above link]

[Stagmom]

Johanna, thanks for your terrific perspective. Do you think that the lack of experience is that there simply were not as many children with autism in the past?

Kim

[Johanna Contino]

Hi,
being a Swedish national living in the US, I believe that Sweden’s biggest problem is their inexperience with autism. My son is 3 ½ with autism, he is only mildly affected, but clearly autistic. We spend a lot of time in Sweden, and have visited a few doctors , therapists and other professionals. Everyone I have come across have told me that they disagree with the diagnose my son has. I believe it is because he does not fit into the classic “autism-mold.” He is non-verbal, but does not have a lot of classic autism symptoms as far as walking on toes, repeated body movements, flapping, starring into space ect. He is obsessed with letters and has a photographic memory, but does not really have any types of stims, he is very affectionate and seeks people’s attention, but struggles with how to interact appropriately with kids or adults. Like I wrote, he is clearly autistic, but with Sweden’s lower rate of autism, I do not think they got hit with this new set of autistic kiddoes that we have here, at least not as hard as we’ve been hit here. I have meet a lot of autistic kids and their mothers in Sweden and it is my opinion that they have been mostly more severely affected kids, have not really met many PDD kids or high functioning kids. My mother has been a kindergarten teacher for 30 years and have never come across a child with the set of symptoms my son has, the same goes for my older sister, a 4th grade teacher. Both have seen autistic children of course, but only “classic autism.”
The mothers I have meet with have all been happy with the services that their children have recieved, but I guess that might just been a coincidence. As far as I know, if your child is autistic in Sweden he will be provided with an aid in school, and be pulled out for services such as speech and OT. But I have not lived in Sweden since my son was born, this is just what I have been told by mothers I've meet.
Sweden clearly needs to find a way to deal with autism, in a way that is appropriate for autism in 2009, not 1980.

As a side-note, Sweden does have rising numbers of Asperger kids, but they are not considered autistic and are not grouped with autistic kids as far as services and interventions.

Just my opinion as a Swedish-American mother

[Stagmom]

Neither does our free market healthcare system in the US. It's the classification of autism that's in the way, not the insurance system. And we have a tougher road here, convincing the Aetna's and UHealthcares of the world to pay for treatment for millions of sick kids. That's going to go over like a fart in Church, which is why most Insurance Plans in play at the State Level are bandaids of ABA (maybe) speech and OT - rather than full medical treatment.

Get Autism out of DSM and into real medicine.

[suess]

It is interesting to note that Sweden is considered a "Welfare State". Government payed childcare,healthcare....

I guess their "free" healthcare does not include paying for regressive autism.

[Theresa Cedillo]

Thank you Dr. Stoller for this excellent piece. After reading it, I remembered that a neurologist we took Michelle to, after reviewing her medical history, asked us if she had ever been diagnosed with any type of childhood degenerative disorder.

Thank you for always being a sound and reasonable voice for our children.

[Heidi N]

The Swedish autism-vaccine study is the most prominent one referred to when U.S. practitioners want to state there is no connection between vaccines and autism. Since reading that Sweden will not accept autism as a medical issue, this makes sense why U.S. agencies use Sweden to do research to defend vaccines. The more I learn, the more I am sick about all the deceit in the name of greed. This world needs to wake up; we can NOT survive as a species unless the epidemic is stopped.

[Lindy Schultz]

My son, who is now 18 is severely disabled with "Autism". He became "Autistic" within days of his 18 month vaccines, diagnosed at 22 months. He lost what speech he had left at age 3 after a tetanus shot. He spent the next few months wandering around making strange high pitched howling sounds. He has spoken on 3 occasions since, at age 5 in his sleep while running a fever, at age 11 and at age 15. He has spoken a total of 11 words in the past 15 years....NO ONE can tell me that vaccinations had nothing to do with my son's condition. I am on my own as a single mom....makes one tough!

[Kathy Blanco]

I think there are many children with vaccine injury who DO have congenital autism, but let me explain why I think so. I do believe there are set ups to autism. It starts with mothers and fathers, whom unknowingly pass on pathogens, infections, toxins to their babies. Mothers invariably who have funky thyroid glands, causes IQ loss, creatinisms, even in three days of transient thyroid function loss (especialy by purkinje cell damage). This is the first hit. SEcond hit, is the load of things floating in the placenta, mercury, you name it. Third hit is the unnatural way we bare our babies, medicalized, immediate cord clamping, pitocines, demirols, clamps and vacuums. Fourth hit, the foods we feed them (also MSG mom is eating), getting into baby at vulnerable times, fluoride in the water, vitamins with sky high iron in them, formula with melamine, sky high iron and MSG, and last but not least, a child ripe for autism, who had multiple vaccines, exposed to damaging mitochondrial killers like antibiotics, fever medicines while vaccine reacting, ill while being vaccinated, or even had lyme disease in utero, or exposed otherwise. BINGO BUNGO, you have a kids ripe for autism post vaccine. So can we truly say, that autism is not congenital, me thinks not...else, every child would have autism by their shots...so let's carefully couch this right...our kids had loaded guns..

[Beta]

"what is unique about Sweden is that insurance plans do not pay for treatment of congenital problems, so in Sweden all the experts believe there is only one type of autism… congenital autism."

Again, this is the same as what happens with
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

I recall an ME doctor (maybe it was Byron Hyde, but I wouldn't swear to it) telling us about the insurance companies doctors.

If someone got sick with ME, and their insurance company paid out for physical illnesses, but not for psychiatric illnesses, then they would be diagnosed with a psychiatric illness. But if the insurance company paid out the same regardless of whether it was a physical or a mental illness, then they would be diagnosed with a physical illness.

So the factor that determined whether or not your diagnosis was physical or mental, was the pay out policy of the insurance company, and not the medical facts.

http://www.investinme.org/Documents/PDFdocuments/Byron%20Hyde%20Little%20Red%20Book%20for%20www.investinme.org.pdf

[GrammaKnows]

Dr Stoller ROCKS!

[nhokkanen]

Sweden should understand mercury toxicity. On June 1 its mercury ban takes effect, though for some strange reason it doesn't cover Thimerosal.

I eagerly look forward to Dr. Stoller's next installment.

[Gatogorra]

Thank you, Dr. Stoller. *You're* a world expert-- probably the only one that court has encountered on this question.

I would also like to see the word "autism" become an anacronism.