AAP Spokesperson Dr. Karp Speaks of World Wide Rise in Autism

By Anne Dachel

Huffington Post is running two major autism stories today.  Plesae comment on both over at HuffPo, links are below.

First is David Kirby's article "Tidal Wave" of Young Adults with Autism about to Flood Cash-strapped California" (HERE) about the looming generation of adults with autism and it points to the undeniable truth...

A once rare disorder has impacted hundreds of thousands of our children who are rapidly reaching adulthood.  As adults, they will be dependent on the U.S. taxpayers for their support and care.  For years, as the autism numbers exploded, our federal health agencies pretended that nothing was wrong.  Organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics congratulated doctors for "better diagnosing" to account for the children everywhere with autism.  No matter how bad the numbers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has adamantly refused to admit that there has been any real increase. 

In the second piece, Cracking the Autism Riddle: Toxic Chemicals, a Serious Suspect in the Autism Outbreak, (CLICK HERE TO COMMENT AT HUFFPO) assistant professor of pediatrics, UCLA, Dr. Harvey Karp, here billed as, "America's most read pediatrician," makes a stunning break from the official denials.  Karp publicly admits that there has been a "WORLDWIDE RISE IN AUTISM."  

This has got to be sending shock waves through the medical community.  Karp is a regular speaker at AAP events around the U.S. and I have to wonder what their reaction is going to be.  If "America's most read pediatrician" admits a real increase, the pretense about autism being a solely genetic disorder, can't be true.   Lots of people in high places have gone on the record holding fast to the claim that we've always had so many autistic kids everywhere, we just didn't call it autism.  

When the CDC finally got around to releasing the update on the autism rate to one in every 150 children/one in every 94 boys in Feb. 2007 (based on outdated study numbers from 2000 and 2002), they did so still denying any real increase.

Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, chief of the CDC's developmental-disabilities program at the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities said at the time that the increase in the rate from one in 166 to one in 150 didn't really mean 'the rates of autism have gone up, just that now we have some more definitive data.'
 
Former head of the CDC, Dr. Julie Gerberding, agreed that autism isn't more common, it's just that 'our estimates are becoming better and more consistent.'
 
Dr. Paul Offit, America's most often cited expert on the autism-vaccine controversy explained that the increase in autism is due to the fact that 'people that we once called quirky or geeky or nerdy are now called autistic.'
 
In the New York Times article, Study Puts Rate of Autism at 1 in 150 U.S. Children, Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, from Yale University School of Medicine was quoted as saying, 'It appears that the rates are unchanged over the past 20 years or so.'
 
On Larry King Live, Dr. Max Wiznitzer recently attributed any supposed increase in autism to a "loosening of the diagnostic criteria."
 
All those in the know seemed solidly behind the no real increase mantra.  Now to suddenly have Karp acknowledge that more children are autistic means that there must be an environmental trigger.  This is a major happening.  Karp is pointing to endocrine disrupting chemicals (HERE) (EDCs) as the culprits causing so many kids to be autistic.  Karp wrote on Huffington, "In recent years, research has mounted against a virtual police lineup of EDCs, like BPA (in food cans, hard plastic water bottles), phthlates (in soft plastics, cosmetics) and fire retardants (in sofas, computers, flame-resistant clothing). "
 
It seems all the toxins in the environment are possibly at fault here---except of course the poisons regularly injected into babies and small children in their mandated vaccination schedule.  Teflon, plastics, and formaldehyde should be worrying everyone, not the mercury and aluminum in vaccines.  
 
Maybe the real story here is that health experts realize that David Kirby's article is a wake-up call.  They can't continue to ignore the explosion in autism.  "Better diagnosing" simply won't work when these young adults are lined up at every Social Security Office in the country applying for benefits when they turn eighteen.  Actually, the people who watched autism become an epidemic and said nothing are going to have a lot of explaining to do.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
 
 
 
 

Comments

[hera]

Interesting that the doctor states that vaccine reactions could not be sex linked.
Peer reviewed article "Gender Differences in the disposition and toxicity of metals" by Marie Vahter et al, ( easily found on google) states "recent data indicates that boys are more susceptible to neurotoxic effects of lead and methylmercury following exposure early in life"..and the rate of autism is approximately 4:1 boys:girls.
If autism is in fact in part a reaction to toxic metals in vaccines, you would expect more boys than girls to be effected.As is indeed the case.

[Dr. Brett J. Blitzstein]

"The environment" also includes toxic substances like formaldehyde and propylene glycol injected directly into the bloodstream of the just-developing-immune systems of infants, bypassing many primary and secondary natural defenses.

[Steve]

In most cases we are talking regression. This is not the same thing as failure to develop in the first place. This is brain damage, sudden and profound. You might be able to convince me that some of the things on the Karp toxin list might cause delays in developing; I find it much more logical that something as potent as a vaccine packs enough of a wallop to knock the brain on its ass. I've never heard anyone claim to regress following a drink from a Nalgene bottle or eating an egg fried in a Silverstone skillet.

This is just another desperate attempt to divert attention from vaccines.

[michael framson]

While I applaud any attention that chemically-induced health problems receive, I still see Dr Karp speaking the same old vaccine Krap.

Its seems pretty clear there is a concerted movement (within the media, government, pharma,etc.) to shift all attention off vaccines to Barren-Cohen's thesis and the plethora of environmental chemicals that likely are creating unquantified health problems.

It's all very deliberate and planed no different than a typical bait and switch scam.

Fortunately, we're not buying.

[Pamela]

There is one substance Dr. Karp failed to include on his list of endocrine disrupters...." Title: The endocrine effects of mercury in humans and wildlife. PubMed published this year by the highly respected EPA scientist Kathryn Maheffey "US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Science Coordination and Policy, Washington, DC 20460, USAhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19280433

Dr. Mahaffey recently passed. Read about her at the Environmental Working Group Website, http://www.ewg.org/Dr-Kate-Mahaffey

[Marie]

Let's say he is right, and it is the teflon and plastics, etc. in our environment. Then we have to ask this question. "If our children are damaged by this stuff, is it a good idea to put more chemicals and toxins into their bloodstream with vaccines?"

It is almost like, if someone has cancer, is it a good idea for them to take up smoking?

[CM]

Aluminium and Mercury (as well as antimony, arsenite, barium, cadmium, chromium (Cr(II)), cobalt, copper, lead, nickel, selenite, tin and vanadate) are metalloestrogens.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16489580

And according to this article, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/460393
metalloestrogens are one type of endocrine disrupter:

"Endocrine disruptors such as the metalloestrogens and xenoestrogens present a challenging risk assessment problem for regulatory agencies, as normal healthy diets contain high levels of phytochemicals that also activate multiple endocrine pathways[7]."

[Lisa @ TACA]

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Karp at Larry King in 2008. He was very interesting.

I find the comments in his part three series astounding versus the comments made on Larry King. His comments were - in summary - to put down the notion that autism has/was/did increase.

I wonder what changed his mind?

[rileysmom]

Karp makes me gag. End of statement.

[AL]

I'm getting sick of the vaccine denial, really. It's great, Krap is coming out and saying that it's not due to better diagnosis. He's saying that we should be focusing more on our environment. Blah blah, blabbety blah.

The truth is there are unvaccinated populations all over the world. Many don't vaccinate for religious reasons. They eat the same crap the rest of do, and are exposed to the same environment.

How come nobody wants to launch a credible study of unvaccinated populations?

Y'know, I came up with the idea of looking at the Amish some years ago. When I went searching, I had found that a strapping young journalist named Dan Olmsted had already done the work.

Here's an obvious question. Why the hell did it take a journalist to look at unvaccinated populations? Why is this such a strange idea? A large group of people claim to be injured from vaccines. Logic dictates that you should study another large group that has had no vaccines, and compare statistics. So why did it take a journalist to look at this? Why not, oh, I don't know, a SCIENTIST or DOCTOR?

Let's face it, even though things have come a long way, those who look to vaccines as the culprit for autism are looked at as nutballs. Crazed zealots looking for someone to blame, right? Big pharm has done a great job at getting us painted that way.

Now, what doctor or scientist in their right mind is going to want to commit career suicide by coming out with the results of a study that condemns vaccines?

This is why I think nobody has taken this step. The most obvious way to exonerate vaccines is to compare to an unvaccinated population and get the same results. Why then does nobody want to do it?

I'll tell you why. Vaccines are the new "don't ask, don't tell". Don't question their safety, and don't tell anyone you think there's something wrong. Otherwise, you'll end up like Wakefield.

Great job Anne.

-AL

[Angela]

Yea they will blame the environment, but not vaccines. That's what Dr. Karp said in his blog anyway. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-karp/cracking-the-autism-riddl_b_213730.html

Then Dr. Jay Gordon responded with a good one... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-gordon/autism-and-toxins_b_215461.html

[Dawn]

It is not the chemicals found in vaccines so much that we have to worry about. It is the animal DNA. Scientists call it Chromosome Fusion. Because they used monkeys/chimps in vaccine manufacturing, they actually altered our DNA and it became Autism and other genetic disorders as we know it. Yes, I do believe Autism is in the genes, but it is due to using animals for vaccine manufacturing. The only way to prove this is to take an untouched wild human tribe that has never seen vaccines and study their DNA. I'm sure that they are not suffering from Chromosome Fusion. So, while the theory of Evolution was a theory years ago, science has made it happen.

http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)

What do you know? Chromosome 2 abnormalities have Mitochondrial Disorders listed as possible Disease too.

[Benedetta Stilwell]

They will blame it on everything but the vaccines. Meanwhile good companies ran by decent people will either have to shut down spend millions of dollars on changing technology, as well as equipment. People will lose their jobs and still they will say it is not the vaccines.