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PBS on Autism: Robert McNeil's Grandson's Severe GI Dysfunction

Johns Hopkins Reports More Children Have Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Bowel From Johns Hopkins University. We know a population that suffers from severe GI problems still mislabeled  "autistic behavior." And we know a few brave doctors trying to help.

March 28, 2011
-Delays in Diagnosis Common

Once a medical rarity in children, inflammatory bowel disease today is increasingly common in kids, but many of them may not be diagnosed in a timely manner, according to experts from the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Johns Hopkins Children’s.

Gastroenterologists there say that many of the hundreds of children they see were referred to them only after months of repeated visits to their primary-care physicians for symptoms mistakenly attributed to common GI ailments like viral gastritis.

“Inflammatory bowel disease is still considered an adult condition and is rarely on pediatricians’ radars,” says Maria Oliva-Hemker, M.D., chief of the Gastroenterology & Nutrition division at Hopkins Children’s and director of the comprehensive IBD center there. “Fifty years ago, IBD was almost exclusively diagnosed in adults. These days, treating children with IBD is business as usual in our clinics.”

The two main forms of IBD are Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). For unknown reasons, Crohn’s disease seems to be rising more rapidly in children than ulcerative colitis, Oliva-Hemker says. Children with CD also tend to be diagnosed later than those with ulcerative colitis because the most common symptom is vague abdominal pain rather than the more suggestive bloody stools seen in ulcerative colitis, she notes.



Delays in treatment can make IBD worse and lead to severe anemia from gastrointestinal bleeding, poor food absorption, malnutrition and stunted growth. In advanced cases, IBD can cause serious damage to the colon and small intestine that requires surgery.

To prevent dangerous delays in diagnosis and treatment,  Oliva-Hemker says the following symptoms — especially if they keep coming back or never fully go away — should prompt a visit to a specialist:

• abdominal pain
• bloody stools
• diarrhea
• nausea and/or vomiting
• poor appetite and weight loss
• poor growth, especially in younger children
• pale skin, rapid heartbeat, fatigue and dizziness, all of which could indicate chronic anemia from GI bleeding
• a family history of IBD —  up to 30 percent of childhood cases have genetic roots

Oliva-Hemker advises pediatricians who suspect IBD to obtain routine blood tests to check for anemia and inflammation markers like elevated sedimentation rate and C-reactive protein. The diagnosis can usually be confirmed with an endoscopy and colonoscopy.

IBD is most commonly diagnosed in school-age children and teens, but Hopkins Children’s gastroenterologists say that they have seen the disease in a growing number of children younger than 5 years of age.

More than 100,000 children in the United States have IBD, according to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. A 2003 study published in The Journal of Pediatrics reported a surprisingly high rate of IBD among children in Wisconsin — the highest in the world at that point — 7.5 cases per 100 000, with a CD rate of 4.56 and a UC rate of 2.14.

Scientists believe that IBD is triggered by an overactive immune system that mistakenly attacks the colon and small intestine. The reasons driving the rise of childhood IBD remain unclear, but genetic and environmental factors are clearly at play, experts say. Because genetic makeup does not change drastically in populations over short periods of time, it is more likely that changing environmental factors are triggering new cases in genetically predisposed children, the researchers say.
 
For more information on the IBD and the IBD Center at Hopkins Children’s: www.hopkinschildrens.org/pediatric-inflammatory-bowel-disease-center.aspx
For information on coping with IBD:
www.amazon.com/Your-Child-Inflammatory-Bowel-Disease/dp/0801895561

Founded in 1912 as the children's hospital of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center offers one of the most comprehensive pediatric medical programs in the country, with more than 92,000 patient visits and nearly 9,000 admissions each year. Hopkins Children’s is consistently ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation. Hopkins Children’s is Maryland's largest children’s hospital and the only state-designated Trauma Service and Burn Unit for pediatric patients. It has recognized Centers of Excellence in dozens of pediatric subspecialties, including allergy, cardiology, cystic fibrosis, gastroenterology, nephrology, neurology, neurosurgery, oncology, pulmonary, and transplant. Hopkins Children's will celebrate its 100th anniversary and move to a new home in 2012. For more information, please visit www.hopkinschildrens.org

 

Comments

tom health

some of the statistics was higher than i thought i did not think that that many children was getting inflammatory bowel disease.

Carol

"Just as there are a few major blood types that divide up the world, so too, a study has found, there are just three types of gut-microbe populations. The result could help to pinpoint the causes of obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, and to personalize medicine."

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/news.2011.249.html

Carol

I took a look at VAERS to see which vaccines were linked to Crohn's and the one, two or three cases reported per year were sometimes linked to MMR and sometimes to other vaccines. But the number of cases soared, relatively speaking, to 8, 7 and 5 cases for 2007, 2008 and 2009. The vaccine cited was HPV. Overwhelmingly.

STOP AUTISM NOW

I remember 6 years ago when our private GI raised an eyebrow: "IBD is a term from decades ago when the cause wasn't considered. I'm gonna run viral and bacterial tests that mainstream medicine doesn't consider."
And yes, my entire family is now in remission.

Nudge, nudge.

AussieMum

Australia

@Taximom My sentiments exactly!

Talk about all the "time-wasters" out there, continually pushing the "Psychological disorder" as opposed to a "Medical condition," whilst our children continue to suffer.

I long for the day when we parents (more knowledgeable than some experts) can say " I told you so!"

Benedetta

OH! AT LAST!
A report that says there are things happening like; high Sed rates, high C- reactive proteins.

But wait, this is only one of thousands such reports that have been discovered and written about over the last 30 yeas and it has meant nothing to the CDC, NIH, drug companies that makes vaccines.

Well just put this is a pile with the rest of the other reports and forget it for another, five, ten or if lucky 20 years CDC, NIH. Meanwhile: Federal employees of big tax sucking agencies-- can continue in hiring and retiring and having fruitful careers (meaning personal finacial gain not any real scientific epihanies). Although they are imginative bunch! Yes, I will give them that; how else do they take tax money, and cherity money from Autism Speaks and hire scientists with the understanding before hand that the studies and research will show vaccines have no connection to anything and esp not autism!

Oh when I was younger I thought they understood, I talked to some people high up in the NIH. And after talking to them I wanted pillory, earnailing, flogging, transportation to places like the south pole.

Then I got over it and would have settled for a lot of people being fired from these goverment agencies. Because they lacked imagination and a true understanding about biology.

Now I want them to be fired as well as pillory.

But they understand alright

Taximom

My first reaction (er, "gut reaction") on seeing your headline, "Johns Hopkins Reports More Children Have Inflammatory Bowel Disease:"

No $h_t.

veritas

At the world congress of vaccine manufacturers in Washington DC, which just ended, the vaccine establishment discussed “new exciting ways” of making billions on innocent babies. Because infants have immature immune system and do not produce cytokines as efficiently as vaccine manufacturers would desire, they now came with a revolutionary idea of creating the cytokine storm in infant bodies by using novel vaccine adjuvants. The most “promising” among them are agonists of TLR receptors, especially TLR8. It has been known for several years now that the role of these receptors on the brain is to suppress neurite growth and kill neurons by apoptosis. This is what the industry is now cooking now for world children. One can imagine vast brain destruction in newborns infants, who will receive vaccines with mercury, aluminum and these new adjuvants. It is also interesting to read the titles of presentations at this congress. They all evolve pretty much around making more money, creating new markets for non-existing needs and making vaccines mandatory all around the world.

http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/world-vaccine-congress-washington/conference-congress-day-one-monday-11th-april-2011.stm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110413171319.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18000403


Twyla

Jack - exactly!! How much longer are they going to ignore the elephant in the room?!?

Maria Oliva-Hemker, M.D., chief of the Gastroenterology & Nutrition division at Hopkins Children’s and director of their IBD center, says “Fifty years ago, IBD was almost exclusively diagnosed in adults. These days, treating children with IBD is business as usual in our clinics.”

Better diagnosis? Heightened awareness? Children used to be more stoic? Gosh, I don't think anything's changed that could be overstimulating children's immune systems -- surely not the huge increase in infant and childhood vaccines? Um, those don't stimulate the immune system, do they? That's not the purpose of adjuvants, is it? Oh, right, that's the whole point of vaccines -- to stimulate a response from the immune system. Still, completely irrelevant. The cause of IBD remains a mystery, just like the cause of autism. Life is so mysterious.

Sarcasm aside, it's tragic that so many children are now suffering from these conditions. And I've read that childhood MS has increased too (along with asthma, allergies, diabetes, etc.)

Teresa Conrick

"IBD is most commonly diagnosed in school-age children and teens, but Hopkins Children’s gastroenterologists say that they have seen the disease in a growing number of children younger than 5 years of age."

Again, the increase of GI disease and autism point to the environment, the direct line of fire of toxins, including mercury, viruses and bacteria (VACCINES). How ironic that again, Johns Hopkins, ground zero for Kanner's "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact", is telling us about the disease but NOT the cause.

Frigging awesome

Frigging awesome. And to add to the wave...

New Trailblazer awardee answers questions about GI and autism
http://blog.autismspeaks.org/2011/04/14/new-trailblazer-awardee-answers-questions-about-gi-and-autism/

Jenny Allan

During the 1980s Dr Andrew Wakefield and his research team at the Royal Free Hospital, London, (now part of UCL), were undertaking research into possible links between Crohn's disease and the monovalent measles vaccine, then routinely administered to UK children at the age of 18 months. In Dr Wakefield's book 'Callous Disregard' he states:-

"From the late 1980s, my team at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group, published extensively on possible causes and mechanisms on inflammatory bowel disease, (e.g. Crohn's disease)"

My two daughters received the single measles vaccine in 1968 and 1969 respectively, as did their year group friends and peers. Two friends subsequently developed bowel problems and were eventually diagnosed with Crohn's disease in Scotland. At that time Crohn's disease was so rare that none of us had even heard of it!! One friend, a boy, was part of Dr Wakefield's research. He eventually required an operation to remove part of his bowel. Neither of these persons, now in their 40s developed autism.

Dr Wakefield in his book, also points out the pressure which was brought to bear on Professor Zuckerman, Dean of the Faculty, by the then UK Chief Medical Officer, Sir Kenneth Calman, who was "very concerned about the unwelcome controversy surrounding the work on Crohn's disease which is carried out at this School by Dr Andrew Wakefield and his group."

It seems that Dr Wakefield's research was being 'targeted' long before THAT Lancet article was published. Fiona Godlee, stated publicly in her BMJ Editorial, 'Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent', and more recently on the BBC Radio 4 'Science Betrayed' programme that Dr Wakefield's 'fraudulent' behaviour, all commissioned and manufactured by the BMJ via Brian Deer, should mean that ALL of Dr Wakefield's research papers should be discredited!!

Godlee herself, on the programme, admitted that the GMC DID NOT find any of the Wakefield et al Lancet paper observations or hypotheses 'fraudulent', that was 'uncovered' by Brian Deer's 'investigations' which she said 'helped' the GMC!! Laughably, (or not -this is not a funny manner), Deer, on the programme, inadvertently rubbished his own assertion about the researchers altering GP records, when he stated that "only an incompetent doctor uses baby books (developmental records or red books). He, (Dr Wakefield) SHOULD have used the GP records!!"

So there we have it! A Deer admission that Dr Wakefield did not see the GP records, so could not have altered them!! In fact it was the Royal Free clinicians, led by Professor Walker Smith who compiled the children's medical histories. Dr Wakefield and his team were all based in the laboratories and had no clinical contact with any of the Lancet 12 children.

I now challenge Dr Godlee to state her position on the disgraced Poul Thorsen's Danish 'epidemiological studies', in particular those that 'debunked' any MMR and autism links. This was REAL scientific fraud and worse, it involved both US taxpayer's money and Autism Speaks charity cash!!

No amount of statistical juggling or shuffling can alter the inescapable fact that autism has increased exponentially since the MMR vaccine was introduced. In the UK 1 child in 62 now has ASD. It seems that a corresponding increase in child inflammatory bowel diseases is also now being admitted to in medical circles.

Jack

"Scientists believe that IBD is triggered by an overactive immune system that mistakenly attacks the colon and small intestine."

Seriously, how could any reasonable person read that line and not at least wonder if giving kids 40+ vaccines might be worth some rethinking.

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