From a friend of ours:

Dear Friends,

I recently learned that during the devistating storm in Joplin, the new Ozark Center for Autism was demolished.  I spoke with Jennifer Kirby, and she informed me that they have replacement testing tools ordered and that they are seeing families in a temporary office.  Unfortunately, the office is a long ways  from the original office and families are struggling to afford the gas to get there.  The center was helping 40 patients, and has many waiting for evaluation and/or services. 

Their greatest need right now, however, is gas cards to help the families be able to make it to therapy for their children.  If you would like to donate gas cards for the Ozark Center ASD families, please email [email protected] or go to their FB page, Ozark Center for Autism HERE.. 

Thank you to those who are able to help in this time of need.

Sincerely,

Dayna Busch
Editor / Publisher
Missouri Autism Report
[email protected]
[email protected]

Human Rights Panel Autism One 2011

I loved the book Vaccine Epidemic edited by Louise KuoHabakus, MA and Mary Holland, JD and I was deeply honored to be asked to participate on the Human Rights panel at Autism One this past weekend along with Kim Mack Rosenberg, JD and James Turner, JD.  The following is an excerpt from the talk I gave. 

By Alison MacNeil

            *     *    *

I am the mother of two children, one of whom was severely injured by his vaccines. When I tell people that my son Nick was injured by his vaccines they’ll often say “are you sure?” This really strikes me because if I had been standing on a side walk and Nick had rushed into the street and been badly hit by a car, no one would ever doubt me when I told them. Yet my experience as a witness to his regression after vaccination is frequently discounted.

As well as a mother, I am also a psychotherapist. I have been practicing psychotherapy for 17 years and in that time I have worked extensively with survivors of trauma. There are some striking parallels to the experience of a trauma survivor and that of the family of a vaccine injured child. I am in no way equating a vaccine injury with sexual abuse.  However, in both situations there is the inclination not to believe the victim, or in our case, the parents. They call this Secondary Traumatization. In this situation the survivor is not only having their reality invalidated, but they are essentially also being accused of lying. In situations of rape the evidence is often mishandled, lost, or not collected quickly enough. This bungling of evidence frequently undoes any legal recourse the victim may have, and removes the concrete proof the victim will need to cling to, as they try to make sense of their own muddled memories. There is often an artificial statute of limitations. Finally, there is a sense that the victim should already be over it.
As parents of vaccine injured children, we are not believed, our children do not receive quick, definitive lab work as they are regressing or shortly after an adverse event, and we all know that the statute of limitations on our grief, like that of the vaccine court, is far too short.

When a child has an adverse reaction to a vaccine the parents are the first responders. Yet unlike a crime scene when the detective arrives, or in our case we get the child to medical attention, the doctor most frequently doesn’t believe us. We explain; we took a healthy child in for routine shots, we took them home and perhaps immediately, within days, or within several weeks, which was our case, our child has disintegrated before our eyes…A + B = C. We are told “No, it didn’t happen.” Now because we are being talked out of what we saw with our own eyes, confusion sets in. When we add to this the ‘doctor as God’ complex and the sexism still rampant in medicine today, mothers often feel bullied.This creates the kind of psychic dissonance that is so much a part of trauma. Add to that the exhaustion of caring for the incessantly screaming child, the worry, the grief, the rage… and you feel crazy.

 
Join The Canary Party today. Demand answers from doctors and lawmakers alike.  This is what childhood should sound like:

Not this:

Astounding!  Are you ready to submit your infant to 6 vaccinations in one shot? It's a great way to trick parents into ignoring how many vaccines the pediatrician is giving their baby. I've already named the vaccine, "Hexahell." It's not the testing that is so jarring - every drug needs testing - it's the six in one sleigh of hand played by Merck, Sanofi and the AAP.

The University of Louisville Pediatric Clinical Trials Unit is recruiting about 50 infants for a study of a combination vaccine designed to protect kids against a half-dozen diseases.

The vaccine — developed by Merck and Sanofi Pasteur — is intended to help kids sidestep diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough (pertussis), polio, invasive Haemophilus influenza type b disease and hepatitis B. Read more University of Louisville Seeks Test Subjects YOU CAN COMMENT ON THE ARTICLE AT THEIR SITE.

Managing Editor's Note: On Friday, The Canary Party took flight at Autism One. As chronic illness threatens to undo American childhood completely, parents, teachers, medical practitioners, in short, VOTERS need to demand answers from both sides of the political aisle on why our nation is so unwell - adults included.We should feel shock, dismay and outrage at the state of pediatric health.  A study last week said that over 50% of children now battle some form of chronic illness, including obesity. It's a travesty and one we can no longer accept passively. Join the Canary Party- your political affiliation, Republican, Democrat, Consersative, Progressive, Libertarian does not matter - it's a big, big, well - nest. KS  


By An American Teacher & Parent

(To protect the identity of those mentioned in this article, the author has asked to remain anonymous.)

I’m standing at my desk which faces the door to my classroom listening to the morning announcements. About a minute into them, one of my students on crutches comes hobbling in, much later than usual. I shoot him a look.

“I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault, I swear,” he pleads. I lower my chin. This particular student is quite a jokester.

“No, really,” he says sincerely. “Someone in the hallway is having a terrible asthma attack. The paramedics are working on them right now. I had to go around the other way.”

In this instant, my heart sinks. I teach at a school that is on the smaller side. One of the benefits is that you know almost all of the kids. Chances are good I know this student too.

Seconds later I hear shuffling and rushing, and just like that, a gurney with at least 3 paramedics goes right by. It happens so fast that I can’t see who it is, and it takes all I have in me as a parent and as a teacher to keep it together. I pause and pick up where I leave off.

The next day I hear the news. It’s a former student of mine that I came to know quite well just last year. My heart sinks again, and I am relieved to hear this young person is doing well at the local hospital. Days later when they return they come to see me. Thankfully, they are okay.

A new study just released on the state of American children’s health tells us this is the new reality. American children are sick. Really, really, really sick. And shockingly, no one seems the least bit concerned about why or how that came to be. They’re just confirming what most of us have known for years, only now we have the actual numbers. According to these researchers, approximately 50% of children have a chronic health condition. FIFTY PERCENT. In my own classes, I can attest.

In our state, according to the Board of Education, 2% of all children have a life threatening food allergy. Lunch rooms have to be labeled with peanut free zones and instructions on how to protect one another. At my own children’s school, no one is allowed to bring in any edible food for birthdays or otherwise because of food allergies. This is now the norm.

By Cathy Jameson

Ronan is getting bigger! This may not sound like a newsworthy event, but it is for my son. He was considered failure to thrive for a few years in a row.  I can tell see he’s gone through a growth spurt because Ronan’s pants are shrinking right before my eyes! When picking him up last week, I noted that he’s also a bit rounder and a tad heavier. This is great news because even though Ronan will be eight and a half in a few weeks, he’s as short as his four-year old sister.

I’m also pleased with another accomplishment: Ronan gained some cognitive skills as he grew! That’s encouraging because while Ronan looks mostly normal, he exhibits behaviors and skills that are years younger than his chronological age.  During his toddler-like temper tantrums, or preschool-aged sneaky shenanigans, I see a typical child emerging. After he works out his aggression and frustrations, which include sensory issues, I wonder if all of Ronan will ever catch up to what I envision as the normal little boy I long to see.

The sensory issues that aggravate Ronan, especially his tactile defense when I come over to hug him, are ones that boggle my mind. Being careful how I approach Ronan when he’s had a bad day can make a very loving moment turn into a sour occasion. When I think he needs a fall-into-your-mommy’s-arms hug, I’ve been greeted with a karate-chopping random leg or arm instead. Those sensory problems always flare up at the worst times.  Those incidents happen when we’ve got a very short timeline to get somewhere like school or therapy. These are also the times I’m usually herding all of the kids into the car. Ronan must sense my need to get everyone seat belted quickly so we can get to that somewhere on time. That’s when Ronan opts to do everything except get buckled.  He becomes spider monkey boy waving his arms and legs in front of me to prevent me from getting his seatbelt fastened.  I know that Ronan knows I am trying to help him.  He usually respects that offer of help when we’re not in a rush and when he’s not had a sensory overload. But, the older Ronan gets and the more he’s aware he can push my buttons, the more he’s clued in to when I’ve reached frustration level. I hat that I have to outthink his next sensory defensive move because something so simple has become a burden.  

On those trying days, Ronan sees how much of a struggle it is for me to safely put him in his car seat to buckle him in. He hears how much of a strain it is for me to pick him up to get him from point A to point B. He’s already decided he will not be stepping foot near point B so he ignores my direction, reminders and help. Ronan later senses my sorrow as after we both lose all of our patience and what little energy we have left. Some days he continues the mental or physical struggle while other days he willingly caves to whatever demand has been placed on him. I never want him to completely lose that strong willed sense he has, but I sure do wish it would be easier for the both of us.

One of the hardest days we had was at the end of a neighborhood holiday party last fall.  Ronan decided he was not going to get in the car to return home when it was time to leave. Seeing as we get in and out of the car several times a day and several days a week, Ronan had numerous opportunities to test his new behavior of “let’s not getting into the car when Mommy wants me to.” For this particular outing, I’d brought a friend to help me tote all of the kids to a neighbor’s house. I was grateful she’d come with us. In the beginning, everyone did really well. When it was time to wrap things up, I ushered my typical kids to the car with their goodie bags. The host and hostess, an older couple, walked Ronan and I to the car and then watched me attempt to get Ronan in.  I was mortified that not only was Ronan purposefully doing everything opposite of what I was asking him, but I had a growing audience of “What in the hell is going on?” bystanders.

“Cathy, do you need something? Is he okay? Can I help you? Gosh, are you alright?” As much as I wanted to scream, “No, No, No and NO!” I kept a poker face and mumbled to Ronan, “This isn’t safe and you’re embarrassing me. Get in the car, now!” He refused. His grip on the car door molding tightened. Ronan’s legs locked and there was no bending them. My muscles started to ache. Then, they started to burn. Ronan began to curl his legs around mine never letting go of the car. He was hanging on the car for support with his upper body and half pulling me down to the floor mats with his lower limbs. I was pinned in a very odd and painful position. Since he’d never done this much resisting before, I had to come up with a solution to this bizarre situation before we both got hurt.  Fearing I would fall, and knowing that the older couple continued to watch my hell unfold, I told myself to not cry (yet). Sweat began to bead on my forehead. I just wanted to get us home safely. My friend was already in the car in the passenger seat so I whispered to her, “Get the keys. Take the others home. I’ll meet you there. Please, and now.” 

With lightning speed, I manipulated Ronan’s arms and legs off of the car and off of me. I got him to the ground in a standing position and grabbed his hand. He was stunned. I was mortified. “Go, just go,” I said to my friend as I waved her out the driveway. I started walking away from the bewildered couple who stood speechless and frozen in their spots. They’ve known us prior to Ronan’s vaccine injury problems but they hadn’t seen us in awhile. Ronan clearly was not the quiet, aloof little kid they remembered. Wondering if we’d ever be invited to another shindig, I turned, thanked them again for the treats they gave to my kids. With the fakest smile I could make before the tears exploded through my eyeballs I said, “You know what? I think we’re just going to walk home. Thanks for the treats. We’ll catch up again soon.”  I quickly turned around and lead Ronan down their gravel driveway. The gentleman offered, “But Cathy, you live so far away. I could put you two in the back of the truck…drive you home…” I waved, smiled a painful smile and said, “I think Ronan needs to walk this off. We’re okay.” As soon as my foot hit the street, and I was far enough away from the house, tears streamed down my face.

I looked at Ronan—he was sweaty, red faced, with wild eyes and rumpled hair. Oh, I was so angry. We’d had a pleasant visit. It really wasn’t that long, 30 minutes at the most. Why did the last minute of the get together turn into crazyland? All Ronan had to do was get in the car so he could go back home to his comfort zone. I didn’t understand why getting that had become such a huge demand and why he so adamantly refused to do it.

Ronan and I held hands quietly. It wasn’t so much a peaceful hand hold like you’d see a mother and young son strolling around the neighborhood. It was more of a firm grip to keep Ronan from darting off toward the lake around the bend in the road. Ronan kicked every dirt pile he saw. He tried to run ahead and wiggle free. He didn’t seem to care that I was right there next to him struggling to understand what had just happened. I cried for a few more minutes and then wiped my tears. Crying wasn’t going to solve anything, and clearly I needed to rework how I was approaching the everyday task of getting in the car and into the car seat.

Jenny McCarthy is the keynote speaker with Byron Katie today at the Autism One Generation Rescue conference in Chicago. Last night Jenny met Rescue Angels at a party in the GR lounge.  Jenny has  new line of affordable, non-toxic baby products called Too Good by Jenny. Keith Schneider of manufacturer Pem-America presented GR with a check for $5,000.And  Jenny kindly allowed everyone to take a photo with her. We'll have more photos to run later. KIM

Jenny and Jade Joseph (left)

Jenny and Abby McKinney

Jenny and Kim Stagliano

Managing Editor's Note: the Canary Party took flight today.  The name is derived from the use of small, fragile canaries, sent into coal mines to determine if the air was deadly or not.  Americans, especially children, are the new canaries in the coalmine. It's time to demand answers from both sides of the aisle.  Visit CanaryParty.org to learn more. From the webiste:

You have probably never heard of any of us.

We are a group of citizens who are disturbed by the increasingly failing health of those in our society.  Among us are those who have been injured by the medical industry, those who have children or loved ones who have been harmed and killed by the medical industry, medical professionals upset with what is happening in their chosen fields and those who endeavor to preserve human health in spite of increasingly corrupt and failing medical establishment.

In 2010, a group of parents of children who were chronically ill with neurological disorders and autoimmune disease who had been active for years in trying to get the medical establishment to address the causes and treatment of their children's poor health, faced the realization that while they had been earnest in their engagement of both the private medical industry and government public health officials, the medical establishment was not working in good faith with them.  They came to the realization that if anything was to be done about the epidemic levels of childhood chronic illness in the US, it would have to be a result of real political pressure to clean up the corruption in the medical establishment that was allowing bad pharmaceuticals, bad medical policy and bad public health policy to assault human health on such a wide scale.

New Australian study shows SEVEN TIMES risk of autism in grandchildren of survivors of Pink Disease (mercury poisoning via teething powders etc.). This is what genetic susceptibility to autism is all about -- sensitivity to mercury, inability to excrete it.

--D.O.--

Recommended Tylenol dose for adults is lowered. Too much of that stuff can be dangerous by damaging liver, which neutralizes toxins. Might be a good idea to look at its effect on kids after vaccination, eh?

--D.O.--

In USA Today interview, NIH Chief Collins touts "universal" flu shot, says Alzheimer's may really be caused by inflammation. C'mon, chief, connect the dots!

--D.O.--

China tells journos: "Do not investigate the cause" of the bullet train crash. That approach sounds familiar -- oh wait, it's the same as Secretary of Health and Human Censorship Kathleen Sebelius.

--D.O.--

New report shows deaths from chickenpox have plunged due to new vaccine. But for the sake of completeness, shouldn't there also be stats on the spike in shingles, which is painful and can kill? (And why doesn't Britain use it?)

--D.O.--

From Michael Belkin's Refusers Newsroom (We love you, man!): "It never occurs to medical morons that the reason so many people have allergies to milk, eggs, peanuts, etc. in the first place is because vaccines contain those trace ingredients – and they get mixed up in the hyper-immune response triggered by adjuvants and antigens in the vaccines. Vaccines are training people to be allergic. This is incredibly obvious, but not to the robo-vaccination crowd. Duh.

"It never ceases to amaze me that health-conscious parents who pore over food ingredient labels would blindly inject vaccines into their kids without having the slightest idea what vaccines are made of, or of the toxic ingredients they contain.

"Food allergies have skyrocketed since the vaccine schedule was tripled several decades ago. So-called experts shrug their shoulders and consider food allergies to be normal. It’s not difficult to be more intelligent and informed about vaccines than your average doctor."

--D.O.--

Tweet-tweet: Let's hear it for the Canary Party!

--D.O.--

Published in written parliamentary questions today: "Bob Stewart (Beckenham): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will assess the adequacy of the police investigation into the activities commissioned by The Sunday Times of the freelance journalist Mr Brian Deer in relation to the acquisition of children's medical records and information from (a) the Royal Free Hospital and (b) other sources between 2003 and 2005."

--D.O.--

Hey, we made the Guardian, which calls us part of the "anti-vaccine brigade" that thinks there's linkage between James Murdoch, his role at GSK, and the way the Wakefield saga was reported. A culture of influence? Crazy, man!

--D.O.--

I get the feeling that "Extremely well in every possible way" -- Rupert Murdoch's description of News Corp.'s hacking-crisis response -- is going to become a catch-phrase for clueless complacency.

--D.O.--

So the cops, hip-deep in the Murdoch scandal, arrest Rebekah Brooks right before her testimony to Parliament. Now she probably can't/won't testify. Who's running the joint? Not the police chief -- HE just quit.

--D.O.--

Reuters: "GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's biggest drugmaker, said James Murdoch continued to serve as a non-executive director, and it would watch investigations into the phone-hacking scandal engulfing his family's newspaper business."

--D.O.--

Pharma-driven Time Rag says: "What drives autism? Environment may be just as important as genes." Nice try hanging onto the old-time paradigm, guys -- but that new study shows Environment holds the key. (Nice vaccine ad too, p. 37)

--D.O.--

Sharing this comment from Gatogorra, a smart contrast to the "many autisms/many causes" convenient reasoning of medical establishment: Autism is too specific a disorder to be caused by "anything/everything" and the central culprits would have to be something rather ubiquitous and things likely to occur together. Occasionally there may be new wrinkles-- autism caused by a rare drug intervention, etc. But the rare wrinkle would logically also turn out to have overlapping toxic mechanisms with the causes responsible for most of the epidemic. Antidepressants are a great case in point, though I believe what the research found was that antidepressants are a "facilitator", much like Tylenol-- probably not the direct cause.

--D.O.--

Former British PM Gordon Brown says London Times hacked, used false identities to get confidential information on his sick child. Where is this all going to end?

--D.O.--

There they go again: Autism Speaks Official Blog says new twin study points to "pre-natal risk factors." No, it doesn't. It suggests pre- or post-natal shared environmental risk before autism onset. Get with it!

--D.O.--

About time, from BBC: "Mr Cameron said ... the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) would be scrapped, adding: 'I believe we need a new system entirely.'" Actually, self-policing would be best.

--

D.O.

--

Mississippi, with tough vaccination rules, is the fattest state, new study shows. Also-tough West Virginia is number 3. Good health and lotsa shots don't necessarily go together. 

--D.O.--

Murdoch shuts down News of the World paper, but only after the truth is dragged out by others. What else is a company that hacks the voice-mail of a missing girl capable of? Just wondering.

--D.O.--

Wise words from our UK Editor John Stone: The genetic model for autism is operating on a very expensive life support machine, with hundreds of completely useless gene scientists and psychiatrists threatened with well deserved loss of income and employment.

--D.O.--

Wikipedia bio: "Though most mainstream experts think autism is a genetic disorder and that reported increases are due to changes in diagnostic practices, Olmsted thinks the increases are due to environmental factors and that the genetics is mostly secondary." Yep.

--D.O.--

Pigs fly at The New York Times: "Autism Study Finds Link to Environment," says the article on Page 11A. Of course, they immediately call attention to "conditions in the womb," including anti-depressants.

--D.O.--

I just have to share this incredible story from one of my favorite new Web sites, fearlessrevolution.com. Scroll down and click on Accept the Invitation. It's about how a guy biking to work starts out by talking to another man on a bike at a red light and ends up a few minutes later sharing the final moments of a dying man as his "last new friend." If that sounds grim, it's not. We are all invited to share each other's lives in meaningful and unexpected ways and what matters is accepting the invitation.

--D.O.--

It's the first Fourth of July for the Canary Party -- independence from the self-dealing medical industry, and justice for all. Proud member since 2011.

--D.O.--

A Nightmare, from WTSP.com: "Largo, Florida - Police called out to a domestic disturbance Thursday say they were forced to shoot and kill an 18-year-old man armed with a knife. ..." He had Asperger's, WTSP reported.

My interview with Jon Rappaport on Progessive Radio Network included a question about the Canary Party. There's a lot of interest out there and a real chance to seize the moment and fight back. Let's do it!

--D.O.--

National Catholic Reporter says "California's Catholic bishops have urged Catholics in their state to contact lawmakers and ask them to vote against a bill removing parental rights to a teen vaccination against sexually transmitted diseases."

--D.O.--

$20 billion a year for air-conditioning in Afghanistan? Less than $1 billion over 5 years for autism? That's enough to make you hot under the collar no matter what the temperature.

--D.O.--

This is an absolute must-read from Joan Campbell: Here is my site which you will find all the vaccine injuries that have been sent to me. ... Please add your voice ... http://www.followingvaccinations.com/

 --D.O.--

Farewell, Columbo. I started writing about Peter Falk's TV detective as a journalistic paragon way back in the 1970s. He taught me to put people in positions where the guilty and innocent act differently. Boy, do they!  

--D.O.--

The Texas Tribune, via OneClick: "Children on Medicaid under the age of three would not be prescribed powerful anti-psychotic drugs without a special authorization," under new state rules. As my mother would say: Oh, joy!

--D.O.--

As the school year ends, I keep hearing reports that each year sees fewer autistic children, less severely affected, in early grades. Let's ask the CDC -- oh, wait, the latest figures we have are kids born in 1998!

--D.O.--

Department of Homeland Security wants to test anthrax vaccine on children. If you think that's a good idea, I have a cache of WMD's from Iraq I'd like to sell you.

-- D.O. --

Gotta share Adriana's Facebook comment re Jake's post: "In fact, tobacco science probably should have been called 'vaccine science' since vax spinmeistering and victim blaming predated it. You have to read this."

--D.O.--

Call me simple-minded, but if I were looking for chemicals that caused autism, I'd start with the ones specially engineered to attack brains. You know, like, pesticides. Rinsing is good, but is it enough?

--D.O.--

USA Today calls vaccine link to autism a "myth" on front page, in big type. Inside, there's huge spread on nightmare of "preventable measles" epidemics. This is the conventional media wisdom now.

--D.O.--

Good for Doctors Without Borders (from cbs.com) for going after Bill Gates' $4 billion vaccine boondoggle: "But the initiative has its doubters. Daniel Berman, a vaccines expert at Doctors Without Borders, said it was exciting so much money had been pledged towards saving lives. But he questioned whether the millions of taxpayer dollars would be spent properly.

"Why are we lining the pockets of big pharma like this?" Berman asked. "That just screams conflict of interest and corporate welfare to us."

A 2009 study published in the journal "The Lancet" showed dozens of developing countries exaggerated figures on vaccination rates, allowing them to get more money from the alliance. Researchers said these countries immunized half as many children as they claimed.

Other experts warned that donating vaccines to countries with broken health systems might mean they just end up sitting in warehouses.

"We need to be mindful of the fact that investment in vaccines is not the magic answer to global health issues such as pneumonia and diarrhea," said Sophie Harman, a public health expert at City University in London. "Without proper funding commitments to health infrastructure...any investment in vaccines will be redundant."

-- D.O. --

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20070997-10391704.html#ixzz1PGA9PVpH

Our friend Barbara Mullarkey from Illinois copied us on this letter to the editor she wrote: Formaldehyde is finally listed as cancer-causing by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in its 12^th Report on Carcinogens which includes 240 listings.

This report neglects to mention 30 vaccines which contain formaldehyde, ranging from DTaP (diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis, DT (diphtheria-tetanus) and influenza (flu) to Hib haemophilus b, HepA&B (hepatitis A & B), IPV (inactivated polio) and meningococcal.   (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-1.pdf)

Is formaldehyde the reason many vaccine package inserts state:

• “no studies on cancer-causing potential;

• no evaluation for cancer-causing potential

• no animal reproduction studies”

Scientific expertise for the Report on Carcinogens came from Centers for Disease Control, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

For our children's sake, could government scientists assess safety of all vaccine ingredients like aluminum, fetal bovine serum, monosodium glutamate (MSG), phenol, sucrose, thimerosal (49.6% mercury) and yeast?

Parents deserve safety research of each vaccine ingredient, singly, combines in one vaccine and cumulatively in nine possible injected vaccines.

Could questionable ingredients, like formaldehyde, be the reason 11,938 (67.36%) Oak Parkers voted for full vaccine ingredient disclosure on November 2, 2010's advisory referendum?

From Barbara Alexander Mullarkey
President Illinois Vaccine Awareness Coalition

--D.O.--

Much-hyped Minnesota measles outbreak is declared over (23 cases, recovered). Much-ignored Minnesota autism epidemic is not. (Just ask the Somalis -- 1 in 28 kids, most disabled for life.)

--D.O.--

Gene-crazed Dr. Manny of Fox News writes: "As you all know, I deliver babies for a living, and also run one of the largest obstetrical units in country, so I get a lot of feedback from families whose children were delivered with autism." None so blind ...

--D.O.--

The other day I was watching the ABC evening news. They set up the lead story, about a tornado in Worcester, Mass., by asking whether tornadoes were suddenly attacking big cities, and whether they could even take down a skyscraper. It was a scary question -- asked relentlessly in the build-up to the show -- and watching that incredible video of the tornado sucking up river water and heading downtown, after a spring of violent outbreaks nationwide, it certainly seemed worth asking.

The answer, though, was a pretty quick no, and no. Tornadoes were not suddenly attacking cities -- if anything, urban sprawl was encroaching more and more into tornado territory, simply offering more land mass to be attacked (though this had nothing to do with an old central city like Worcester.) And no, a tornado wouldn't take down a skyscraper. It would break a lot of glass, but that would be it.

This is what journalism does a lot of these days -- ask a question that turns out not to be very interesting but goes well with spectacular video and a one-minute segment. The most dispiriting words on TV news these days are "We've been looking into this story all day," as if a whole day is a spectacular amount of time to devote to a topic and can be expected to deliver the truth.

To take a more serious case: Back when I was writing about how a malaria drug was causing soldiers to kill themselves and their wives, I remember Peter Jennings did the story on the Fort Bragg murder-suicides on the ABC evening news by posing the question: Is there something about the new War on Terror that was causing highly trained soldiers to become violent? Well, no, in fact, there wasn't -- Afghanistan happened to be a malarial country, and the drug the Army invented and rushed sloppily to market happened to create homicidal rage and suicidal ideation. The military and the CDC "investigated" (a/k/a covered up their own malfeasance), and the media bought their B.S. and never asked the really interesting question. They asked the obvious and wrong one, and then dropped it for the Next Big Thing.

There IS a really big and scary question that the media is failing to ask: Is there a new kind of tornado of chronic and developmental illness attacking America's children? (Shorter version: Why are so many children sick?) And, is this epidemic widespread and serious enough to damage an entire generation -- to, in effect, knock down a skyscraper?

The answer to these questions is yes, and yes -- in other words, it's a real a story. And a really scary one. Let's hope for some Film at 11.

--D.O.--

An obvious point (you would think!) about autism is that such a wide-spectrum disorder is unlikely to be solely genetic. A new study makes that point beautifully: "It cannot be disputed that genetics is likely to play an important role in the development of autism. However, it also appears unlikely that genetic features will take the form of common variants with large and independent main effects. And, in fact, among the genome-wide scans published to date, very few loci have reached genome-wide significance (and none has been replicated). Failed replication likely reflects a complex polygenetic and poly-environment web that contributes various traits to the autism spectrum, not necessarily through one sequential pathway." Thanks to Laurette Janak for pointing out the article, "On the Complex Relationship Between Genes and Environment in the Etiology of Autism," by Stephanie M. Engel and Julie L. Daniels, in the July issue of Epidemiology.

 "It's an explosive story and we're covering it from every angle," Chris Matthews said of Weinergate. (Bulletin: 1 in 535 Congressmen misbehaves!) How about MSNBC covering autism from every angle, too?

--D.O.--

It is now 30 years since AIDS was first described, in a CDC weekly report. The commonalities with the autism epidemic are worth noting. This is not my idea but one expressed to me several years ago by a leading biomed doctor. She said autism was, at least in many of her patients, an acquired immune dysregulation syndrome, and she was concerned that, for some of them, it looked progressive and potentially fatal.

That is not a cheerful thought, and much can be done, has been done, and increasingly will be done to change that outlook, but horrendous GI disease, seizures, and "comorbid" autoimmune problems like asthma, diabetes, and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis are extremely dangerous and debilitating. On our book tour, I stayed with a family whose autistic child had an asthma attack and had to lay on the floor of the bathroom while his mother gave him medicine. He wheezed terribly in his sleep. One of the 11 children in Leo Kanner's original case series suffered severe seizures and died at 29 in his sleep. Another, Case 1, had a near-fatal attack of JRA when he was "going on 14." So nearly 20 percent of the first cases had life-threatening conditions before the age of 30. Others had feeding problems in infancy that amounted to failure-to-thrive and could have killed them.

This does not even get to the issues of wandering, drowning because of an affinity for water, etc. Also, like AIDS, autism is defined as a syndrome, and its spectrum of manifestations have obscured its common roots for far too long, allowed idiotic and harmful theories of causation to proliferate, and brought out the worst in government leaders and medical bureaucracies.  Both epidemics have been perpetuated when they could and should have been contained.

And despite specious arguments to the contrary, both had a beginning in recent history; the eldest child in Kanner's series, Virginia S., was born in 1931 (the first year mercury was used in vaccines, not coincidentally). That effectively makes 2011 the 80th year of the age of autism, the span of just one lifetime. As with AIDS, that is quite recent -- and far too long. 

--D.O.--

Weird: In E. coli outbreak, symptoms include neurological problems like seizures, coma and confusion. Yet it's an intestinal bug. A mind-gut connection? That's vaguely familiar ...

--D.O.--

Nice to wave buh-BYE to biased, retrograde NY Times mercury booster Bill Keller. On autism's cause, maybe Jill Abramson will be better (like Sotomayor and Ginsburg in Bruesewitz).

-- D.O. --

Oh, never mind: "Pneumonia jabs for the over-65s are to be scrapped by the Government because they do not save lives," Britain's Daily Mail reports. (Thanks to One Click.)

--D.O.--

I'm in Chicago till Tuesday. This morning's Sun-Times has a letter to the editor on mercury exposure: "If the hundreds of people who turned out to a recent public hearing in Chicago was any indication, Illinoisians are very well aware of the threats posed by mercury, and they support the Environmental Protection agency taking action to correct the problem.

"Right now, coal-fired power plants are the singled largest source of mercury, arsenic and acid gases in the United States -- spewing thousands of pounds of mercury and other toxic air pollution every year.  ...

"Fortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a clean-air standard to drastically cut mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants.

"This rule will protect Illinois' kids -- and all Illinoisians -- from toxic mercury pollution from power plants. 

"As Illinoisians, we should stand up for Illinois kids and support EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Rule."

Catherine Krasner, field organizer, Environment Illinois.

--D.O.--

It's great to see so many friends at Autism One.

We've Moved to JUNIOR BALLROOM A/B - just PAST C on the right.

One is livestreaming the conference, as you surely know. So join us as we launch a political action plan for health at 1:30pm central daylight time (2:30 Eastern). We'll be in the Junior Ballroom for those of you at the conference. Livestreaming for the Junior Ballroom C  is HERE.

By Norm Roberts

My wife Lynne and I were in Florida this past weekend visiting our youngest grandson and his parents, Chris and Jenna. Weston is nine now and we hadn’t seen him in over a year. He has grown of course, is less verbal, speaks in a whisper if at all, and if anything is more affectionate than ever. When asked for a hug he will process that for a moment, then come over, stand sideways, and allow himself to be hugged. When least expected he would sit next to me, grasp my hand, and squeeze. He will make eye contact but only briefly. He can have his meltdowns but we didn’t see any of that in five days. He is a pleasant child, plays mostly by himself, and loves being outside where he can pace back and forth exploring the same small space over and over again. Wherever we went we set boundaries for him and he respected them. He must always be watched though. One thing he will not do is look out for traffic. Weston has classic autism.

Since before he was two Weston has received intense behavioral therapy from psychologists specializing in autism. As best we can tell it has been effective if far from a cure. He can speak but it is hard for him and he avoids it whenever he can. When he was younger he would practice echolalia, incessantly repeating a phrase he had heard, or the last thing said to him. Once he came home from school and out of the blue began reciting Hey Diddle Diddle. That seems to have stopped. He is toilet trained but has to be accompanied. In a disaster drill at school the children were herded into a bathroom and the lights went out. It was traumatic.

Jenna has decided it’s time to take some pressure off and allow Weston to develop at his own pace, so she has begun home schooling. It’s difficult. If he is interested he learns quickly and well. If not it won’t hold his attention. His worst subject may be arithmetic. He just doesn’t see the point in adding three oranges to four bananas to get seven fruit. His best subject is music. Even as a toddler he would sit at a keyboard and pick out distinct notes rather than banging in the way most little ones do. He has an enviable sense of rhythm. One of his therapies was in music. That was an exercise that wasn’t really work for him. His parents don’t allow music on his iPad though. He wouldn’t do anything else.

  Professor may be tried over scientific report

Friday, May 20, 2011
ISTANBUL
(HERE)

Research showing that mother’s milk and babies’ excrement contain traces of heavy metals, leading to increased risk of cancer, has put experts against officials in the northwestern province of Kocaeli. While both district and city mayors file a complaint against the professor leading the study, the professor claims that the officials are trying to prevent scientific research. ‘People will protect the values of Dilovası, as the awareness has been created,” professor says.

A complaint has been filed over a report published by an expert saying a high amount of heavy metals, including mercury and arsenic, were detected in mother’s milk and babies’ excrement in Turkey’s northwestern Kocaeli province. The professor is accused of threatening to incite fear and panic among the population.

Mothers’ milk and babies’ excrement samples from residents in the Dilovası district were found to contain high amounts of mercury and arsenic, according to an eye-opening report released Jan. 8 by Onur Hamzaoğlu, head of the Public Health Department at Kocaeli University.

Both the Kocaeli mayor and the Dilovası mayor have filed a complaint against Hamzaoğlu and the court case files have been sent to the university’s rector’s office, daily Milliyet reported Friday.

If the university decides it does not have jurisdiction, then the prosecutor’s office will launch an investigation against Hamzaoğlu, who may face two to four years in prison.

Hamzaoğlu told the Hürriyet Daily News it was hard to discuss the situation. “We are scientists who are working hard for the good of society, not for money or fame,” he said, adding that even with the case brought against him, he has not lost hope.

By Katie Wright

It was good to see Mike Strautmanis at April’s IACC meeting. It was very nice to hear Mike say that President Obama follows IACC’s work and sees our families. I would like the White House to be able to see more IACC members in their seats so the president could better know our dedication to this cause, but that is another story.

Dr. Ananud Parekh from the HHS spoke about the $122 million his agency has spent on ASD research with the stimulus money. Dr. Parekh spoke at length about screening, early intervention and adult services. That is all very nice but these priorities leave out 80% of the ASD population. When are these guys going to understand that there are almost a million children with autism living NOW. HHS autism research cannot = here is your diagnosis, get early interventions and can call it a day.

The HHS needs to understand they have got to focus on helping children older than 3 and younger than 21! That is the bulk of the ASD population Dr. Parekh! We need environmental causation research and ASD medical research now- desperately, not the millionth screening campaign. We cannot screen and diagnose our way out of autism!

I remember hearing 2 politicians arguing about how to recover from the recession. One politician was advocating concentrating on building up lower level service jobs. The other guy said sure more jobs, any jobs, are a good thing but we cannot expect to build a world class economy flipping each others’ burgers and doing each other’s laundry. That is how I feel about the HHS’ myopic obsession with “awareness,” and “learn the signs.” The federal government can walk and chew gum at the same time!  Screening and early intervention yes, but that is step 1 of 10. Let’s move! Let’s raise the bar!

This brings me to Dr. Joseph Piven’s presentation and the Grand Canyon gulf between NIH monies spent and the actual research priorities of families living with autism. One can only imagine the tens of millions of our precious research dollars spent this bloated, unneeded project.

If you ask the average autism Mom and Dad what their research priorities are I am pretty sure they would answer, more intervention research, biomedical treatments, environmental research, prevention/ causation research. Not coincidentally these are grossly underfunded areas of ASD research. Let’s take a look at the numbers of published studies on various ASD research subjects according to PubMed.

1) Autism and Brain Imaging    953

2) Autism and Genetics     3, 277

3) Autism and the Genome         844

4) Autism and Fragile X     566 – 2% of ASD have Fragile X

The EBCALA Law and Advocacy center invites you to hear John Elder Robison author of the New York Times best seller Look Me In The Eye and his latest book titled, "Be Different."   John is today's keynote speaker at 1pm central time,  and the topic is critically important: Protecting our Children from Legal Prosecutions Because of Manifestations of ASD.  If you can not attend, watch the livestream HERE.

I've read Be Different - if you have a son or daughter with Asperger's you need to read this book. Although my girls have autism, I was still able to gain valuable nuggets of "how to" by gaining insight into how they think and where their strengths lie.  John will be signing both of his books at AO too.

KIM

HERE is the full schedule for Autism One.  The conference runs on "Tracks" (leave it to an autism org to use a train reference!)  The tracks include critical topics such as LEGAL, ADVOCACY, TECHNOLOGY, BIOMEDICAL and more. The table below might be a bit wonky - so use the link if you need to. Visit Autism One for on the spot news and interviews. As you may know, our friends at Generation Rescue made the conference FREE to attendees and the entire conference will be available on Livestreaming (http://www.ustream.tv/user/autismone), because our community believes every family should have access to hope.   Join us in thanking the entire Autism One Generation Rescue team for their tireless work.

Countless families are rocked by the combination of autism and seizures.  More research is welcome indeed. What has been your experience with anti-epileptic drugs for your child's seizures? Click HERE to  read the full document.

Traditional and non-traditional treatments for autism spectrum disorder with seizures: an on-line survey. Richard E Frye Swapna Sreenivasula< James B Adams BMC Pediatrics 2011,37doi:10.1186/1471-2431-11-37

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Despite the high prevalence of seizure, epilepsy and abnormal electroencephalograms in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is little information regarding the relative effectiveness of treatments for seizures in the ASD population. In order to determine the effectiveness of traditional and non-traditional treatments for improving seizures and influencing other clinical factor relevant to ASD, we developed a comprehensive on-line seizure survey.

Methods

Announcements (by email and websites) by ASD support groups asked parents of children with ASD to complete the on-line surveys. Survey responders choose one of two surveys to complete: a survey about treatments for individuals with ASD and clinical or subclinical seizures or abnormal electroencephalograms, or a control survey for individuals with ASD without clinical or subclinical seizures or abnormal electroencephalograms. Survey responders rated the perceived effect of traditional antiepileptic drug (AED), non-AED seizure treatments and non-traditional ASD treatments on seizures and other clinical factors (sleep, communication, behavior, attention and mood), and listed up to three treatment side effects.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE] This article was written before I saw Robert Krakow's response on behalf of EBCALA to Robert Lowes of Medscape (HERE) to which I presume no answer has been forthcoming. I also posted similar comments in BMJ Rapid Responses (HERE ) and Seth Mnookin's blog (HERE). Mnookin responded by closing the blog and removing the link from his homepage, and embarrassed silence has so far reigned on BMJ as well.

By John Stone

In an initial response to the EBCALA study documenting autistic spectrum disorders in 83 vaccine injury award cases  leading vaccine programme advocate, Paul Offit, has admitted that vaccines give rise to autistic spectrum conditions. Robert Lowes of Medscape News reported:

“Dr. Offit said the study authors reach erroneous conclusions due to an erroneous definition of autism. A child with measles encephalopathy, he said, may have severe cognitive deficits that fall into the autism spectrum, but such symptoms themselves do not necessarily translate into a diagnosis of autism.”

It really looks as if the person who is confused here is Prof Offit, who does not seem to understand that autism is in most cases a non-specific diagnosis based on behavioural symptoms. Not only has he made a distinction without a difference he has also used the term “autistic spectrum” in relation to vaccine damage cases. It does not however look as if Offit is the only person who is confused. Lowes went on to record:

“A spokesperson for HRSA mounted the same defense — shared symptoms do not make 2 different conditions identical — in an email to Medscape Medical News. The spokesperson affirmed that while the US Court of Federal Claims has granted awards for encephalopathy, it has never granted awards for autism per se.”

By Alli Edwards

At 4.40pm yesterday I stood up   in front of Earl Howe, continence industry and room full of Health select  committee bods, dropped my skirt to reveal me wearing one of my son Jon's nappies! I   delivered my whole speech like that - and had drinks afterwards and beautifully cut cakes and sandwiches! They were a tad gobsmacked there on the   terrace pavilion! "Good Lord" said Earl Howe as he sped off to the Lords to do a drugs speech at 5pm.

Coping with a severely autistic, doubly incontinent 14 year old son is the most important thing in the world to me, fighting for nappies, having a supply limited -dignity goes out of the window-  not funny - but who cares, this isn't a topic many will engage in, yet it directly affects thousands up and down the country - and there is to be little or no future investment in continence services. We HAVE to change that - and I will do whatever it takes to let people know what I live with.

My speech was hard hitting - but they heard it all before - I doubt they'll forget being told by someone wearing one of the products!

This champagne tea event was the launch of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Continence Care, APPG report "Cost-Effective Commissioning for Continence Care (see photo of me delivering, attached), hosted by Rosie Cooper MP next to me in the picture. The organisers were at an absolute loss to decide what photo to put on the front cover of the document, so they used hands. All the brochure printing in the world won't soup up the mess I have to deal with, there really ought to be a more efficient way of spending a small continence budget, other than brochures when patients are crying out for products - however, I am informed, this is the way it's done!

No-one knows what to do about this subject, the topic is so sensitive yet very important to those affected. It most certainly needs upping on the political agenda - problem is how to get that across.One of the country's top continence professionals who helped on my nappy legal case, despite having an OBE for her work, has lost her post due to cuts.

So many there in that room were behind me (so to speak!!!)

Carers 'on the outside' are at breaking point. The House of Commons Health Select Committee have to ask - what would drive a mum to do this? The story of my jaunt to London is going into my local paper tomorrow with this pic.

Alli Edwards is with www.cryshame.org and a tireless advocate for her son. You might recall this post she wrote titled, The Unvarnished Truth About Autism."

An Open Letter to the Director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins: 54% of American Children Suffer from Chronic Health Problems, 1 in 6 has a developmental disorder.

Dear Dr Collins,

I am writing to you about the health catastrophe currently engulfing US children, but not only US children. Just five years ago you gave testimony to Congress as director of the Human Genome Research Institute (HERE):

‘But genes alone do not tell the whole story. Recent increases in chronic diseases like diabetes, childhood asthma, obesity or autism cannot be due to major shifts in the human gene pool as those changes take much more time to occur. They must be due to changes in the environment, including diet and physical activity, which may produce disease in genetically predisposed persons. Therefore, GEI [Genes and Environment Initiative] will also invest in innovative new technologies/sensors to measure environmental toxins, dietary intake and physical activity, and using new tools of genomics, proteomics, and understanding metabolism rates to determine an individual's biological response to those influences.’

The calamity that we face today is that in 5 years barely a single child has been saved from environmental harm by any government initiative, and new studies report that no less than 54% of US children suffer from the chronic diseases (HERE ) and from the CDC itself that 1 in 6 has a developmental disability (HERE ), all of which you indicated  all that time ago are due to environmental changes.  These new studies come in the same week as one which shows that in an investigation of pregnant Canadian women 93% tested positive for the presence a GM insecticide Cry1Ab (HERE ). It comes as the pharmaceutical industry and its scientists plot to further exploit vaccination mandates and their newly established prosecution immunity ever more widely (HERE ), with US children already expected to receive over one hundred vaccines in combination by the time they become adult (HERE ) – and without any studies which investigate their cumulative impact on a child’s immune system (HERE ), even if they were individually adequately tested (which they are not HERE ). I do not know when it was scientifically established that it was safe to modify a child’s immune system in this way, even before we consider all the adjuvants and excipients that are a concomitant exposure of the programme: substances which enter a child’s body through their muscles and blood stream, and not through their digestive tract. It comes with the Food and Drug Administration displaying ever greater pusillanimity over the toxic substances to which adults and children are daily exposed.

Managing Editor's Note: We've run an updated version of this post by Adriana as a reminder of the current state of children's healthcare in America. Dismal. First, there was a new hire by Autism Speaks of a Pfizer Executive, which remains to be seen as either a godsend to deliver a new market to pharma or a route to real treatment for the myriad conditions associated with autism from behavior to GI problems to seizures.  I'm holding positive thoughts for the latter. Second there was this study, which says American Children are chronically obese and/or ill at a rate of over 50%. And third, a new movement is about to be introduced that calls for answers and action regarding the shabby state of childhood health in this country.

By Adriana Gamondes

What if the pharmaceutical industry had a formula for projected drug profits from a massive rise in autism? A formula such as:  P_Y=P×Y
 
And what if the same industry simultaneously rewarded scientists, media companies and organizations which disseminate the concept that there is no autism epidemic, that the rise is “false”, that the numbers have always been with us, but that there’s just increased diagnosis due to increased clinical and public recognition of autism? And what if this industry went on a massive campaign to proselytize the dangers of any treatment method—or any scientific authority— which threatened P_Y=P×Y?

Profiting from something while claiming it doesn’t exist isn’t anything new. According to some historians, the myth of the flat earth was perpetuated by the Phoenicians to prevent maritime trade rivals from voyaging to England to mine tin. Tin, which seems to have been scarce in ancient Canaan, was an essential ingredient to bronze; bronze was the essence of military power and trade at the time. Advantage in the tin trade gave the Phoenicians untold power.  As long as the lie held, Phoenician fleets regularly made mining expeditions north, trading freely with the natives of the British Isles—while neighboring states feared plummeting off the edge of the world if they dared to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar.

For the analogy, imagine the existence of the epidemic as “England”; autism recovery treatments as the “Straits of Gibraltar”; and maybe psychopharmaceutical drug profits as “tin”.

The epidemic-based profit formula actually exists. It was published in a 2003 study for Eli Lilly by researchers Robert and Julia Gerlai (HERE). From the study: Autism: a large unmet medical need and complex research problem

The question whether the epidemic status of ASD is due to true increase of incidence of the disease or simply its better detection and diagnosis is debated. Nevertheless, according to a most recent report to the legislature on the principal findings from the epidemiology of autism in California, the M.I.N.D. institute has confirmed that the increase of incidence is real and cannot be attributed to changes in diagnostic criteria or misclassification. Autism was estimated to have a frequency of more than 1 in 500 children, while more recent studies found its prevalence as high as 1 in 150 (for examples, see; also see CDC website  HERE). Researchers, private (e.g., Alliance for Autism Research), and government (e.g., National Institutes of Health, USA) agencies have recognized the enormous need. As a result, funding for research has significantly increased. Surprisingly, however, autism is still not among the neurological or neuropsychiatric diseases onto which large pharmaceutical research companies traditionally focus. This is unfortunate as ASD represents a significant unmet medical need with an enormous market size. Consider the following: ASD may be diagnosed as early as 2–3 years of age. Some even argue that successful diagnosis may be made at 8-12 months HERE) Autistic persons can live a normal life span. The market size can thus be calculated as follows: 

 P_Y=P×Y

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

They call us "warriors."

I'm speaking about the chronic fatigue syndrome/ME community and the way they view the autism parents.  When I hear them speak this way I'm proud to belong to our group.

For those who are most severely affected by chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, often needing to lay in bed for most of the day with the curtains drawn, they refer to themselves as "the unburied dead."

My desire to assist this community is borne of simple human compassion, but also by the prospect that in their suffering they hold clues to what is going on with our own children.

Generation Rescue, Talk About Curing Autism, and the National Autism Association are all asking their members to support this effort to aid the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disorders in the Chase Community Giving Program. 

Voting ends at midnight, EST, May 25, 2011.  This is the last day to vote.

I know how strongly at least two of the autism groups feel because I set up the meeting with Dr. Judy Mikovits to go over her research into the XMRV retrovirus, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, and yes, autism.  The discussion lasted more than three and a half hours.   Many questions were asked, but the feeling in the room was almost electric.  We might be on the trail of an answer which explains what happened to our children, and also why so many mothers seem to have a myriad of health concerns.  A retrovirus can explain many (if not all) observations reagrding autism, from co-infection by other pathogens, oxidative stress, mitochondrial problems, vaccines acting as a catalyst for the virus to replicate out of control, and mysterious ailments of the autism mothers.

Dr. Amy Yasko, whom I consider to be one of the brightest minds in autism, is excited about this research because it dovetails with many of her long-term observations and suspicions.  The same can be said of Dr. Jeff Bradstreet.

It's time for the legions of the chronically ill, such as the autism, chronic fatigue syndrome/ME, Gulf War illness patients, and the hundreds of thousands of children with potentially life-threatenting allergies and their parents to band together in a single forum to raise our voices.  Let this be a small step in that direction.

I know everybody is tired.  I know there are so many battles to be fought, most concerning how to just get through the day with our sick children.  My own daughter just came home a few days ago after spending nine days in the hospital with uncontrolled seizures.  But for one  last time I ask you to elevate your gaze and take a few moments to vote for the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disorders.

Here's how to do it:

1. From your Facebook page, go to Chase Community Giving:
http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving

CONGRATS TO CAFFDEINATEDAUTISMMOM who has won the book.  CAM - I'll send you an email. CONTEST IS CLOSED.

If you've read my book, you know that our middle daughter, who goes by Miss G., had a two year love affair with a book called The Way I Feel by Janan Cain. The "excited" page just stuck with her. She carried the book, slept with the book, and even dressed as "excited" for Halloween for two years. I made that costume for her, and I'm no Besty Ross, trust me.

In a preposterously small world, one of our contributing editors KNOWS Ms. Cain, if you can believe that. So.... the nice folks at Parenting Press gave me a copy of the new book titled, The Way I Act by Steve Metzger and Janan Cain.  And we of course are giving it to you! 

The Way I Feel was about emotions - and a great way to describe feelings to any child, and that includes a child on the spectrum.

The Way I Act does the very same for actions - often so hard to teach our kids. The illustrations are FAR more fun and interactive than plain old PECS.

Leave a comment to enter the contest. Good luck! Kim

A recent study (below) states that 54% of American children currently suffer from chronic illness. WHY? When did school nurses become pharmaceutical specialists? When did reading and writing require an Epi-pen? Why does a jar of Skippy need a skull and crossbones for so many kids?  When was Romper Room replaced by Early Intervention? And when did the gee-whiz days of youth come to mean G-tubes for feeding? Our kids are sick.  Pediatrics has failed them miserably despite dozens of "well" visits before school age. What the hell has gone so wrong? We need to demand answers. This report concludes we need more specialists and healthcare access. But what if that's the actual problem?  We need a yellow alert... Come to our Age of Autism presentation on Friday at 1:30 at Autism One to learn more. And stay tuned. You're about to be called into action.

By Laurette Janak

On May 18^th an article appeared in the Irish Echo Online titled: “The troubling rise in Autism” by Larry Kirwan (HERE). Larry relays his story of having a sister with Down syndrome stating that at least they knew the reason for her having this disorder; genetics. The article then goes on to question the rise in autism. Knowing that children with Down syndrome have a vastly increased occurrence of autism, I thought I might be able to contribute some insight into  “The troubling rise in Autism”.  Thus, I took the time to compose a comment and one day later on May 19^th at 8:56 AM EST, I submitted my comment. Today is May 23rd and my comment is still awaiting moderation. I certainly see the need to moderate comments to eliminate blatantly incorrect information, rudeness or superfluous information that adds nothing to the topic of discussion, however; my facts are derived directly from published medical literature and I definitely was not being rude.

I looked up the author, Larry Kirwan, to see what association he might have that brings him to the topic of autism in the first place. All I could find was that he appeared to have been an entertainer for an Autism Speaks fundraiser. So what reason could Larry have for not posting my comment? I hate to feel like I wasted my time composing comments that I actually thought might be helpful when investigating one of the possible contributors to “The troubling rise in Autism”.  Maybe the audience he writes for is not interested in such clues?

So for those of you who are genuinely interested in “The troubling rise in Autism” here is what I posted to Larry. You have my permission to share this far and wide with anyone interested in shedding light on autism from a different perspective.

      Laurette Janak Your comment is awaiting moderation.

      May 19, 2011 at 8:56 am

      
Larry,

              Thank you for your article on the troubling rise in autism. You state that, “it’s time we faced up to the fact that we may share responsibility for this upsurge in autism”. I couldn’t agree more and would like to add a few pieces to your mention of Down syndrome (DS) that supports your “shared responsibility” notion. A current study by DiGuiseppi et a. 2010 has put the comorbidity of DS and ASD at an alarming 18.2%. Brain MRIs of children with DS were performed by Carter et al. 2008 and it was determined that the MRIs could distinguish between those children with just DS and those that had a comorbid autism diagnosis. Thus, it is not just a case of the symptoms of

By Cathy Jameson

I go through a few awakenings several times of year. My first is usually during the September Back-to-School sales when I smell fresh crayons, ogle reams of loose leaf paper and run my fingers over Number 2 pencils stacked so neatly on the stores shelves. As a former elementary school teacher, I consider the beginning of a school year more like my own personal New Year’s celebration. I loved setting up my classroom and envisioning all sorts of learning moments for my students. I made resolutions to have a productive, successful and enjoyable year full of creativity. Just a few years into teaching, I “retired” to raise a family of my own.  I miss those days of new books, new students, and year-long learning and teaching I was custom to.

In preparing to teach I took early and elementary education classes throughout college. I stayed up-to-date with teaching trends when I was a full-time educator while reading journals and going to conferences.  Being a general education teacher who only knew typically developing, I tiptoed around special education classes but never fully immersed myself in them. I knew the very basics (i.e., special ed existed), and that’s all I really cared to know. I used to tell my classmates who did venture into special education, “Thank God for people like you because I don’t think I could teach it!” 

I did take a few courses offered specifically for special education, but I either took those classes because it was required for my degree or because I needed to fill credits with electives. I didn’t want to waste an elective with something useless so I opted to challenge myself with topics in special education. I thought that in the off chance I had one or two students in my classroom over the 20 year teaching career I was expecting, knowing some of the special ed terms could prove useful.

I taught at various schools over time and never saw more than just a few special education students at one campus. I also never saw the autism we have crowding special ed classes today. I ended up leaving the teaching field two years before Ronan was born—it felt like an eternity at that point because diapers, naps and Playskool toys ruled my day with my firstborn. I had long packed up my teacher books, math manipulatives and formal training away to enjoy all things baby at that point. Because I had great experience with typically developing and a small smattering of special needs, I recognized that Ronan’s development was slowing down. I panicked but knew to call the early intervention team right away. I was praying what I saw in Ronan was “just because he was a boy and boys developed slower than girls.”  I froze when the county assessment team ran their many tests on Ronan discovering he was indeed losing skills. This happened after his early days through most of toddlerhood--Ronan had fit many of the textbook milestones of a typical baby but something had started to change after his well-baby visits. Those typical skills Ronan had at one point were fresh in my mind as his older sister had just accomplished many of them with lightning speed and accuracy.  But, Ronan started to slip away right in front of me and with it my confidence as his parent.

Even though I wanted to cry my eyes out, I put on a brave face and listened to the early intervention (EI) team rattle off not just the one concern we had (Ronan wasn’t walking at the time), but a list of other issues and delays.  When we got the final report of global developmentally delayed, I was forced to reach into the very depths of my brain to remember everything I had learned about delays in child development. I had to wake up part of me that I hadn’t thought about in years. I tried to remember everything I learned in one summer course about special education. It was as elective class and one of the most inspiring of my college career. I remembered studying public law, educational supports, related services, specific diagnoses, finding resources and knowing what options educators had when working with the special needs population. I needed that information now! I adored my professor who challenged each one of us and saw us as individuals and continued to draw upon my past to help my son’s future.  I thought I might try to find Dr. E to ask some questions but I quickly found my old textbook and notebook and started the learning process over again. 

I pored over every word in those books. I took new notes alongside my old notes since I feared I knew nothing of what was to come for Ronan and his great needs.  I read that textbook for days recalling that laws were enacted to protect my child. I knew timelines were in place once children were flagged as delayed. I discovered our EI team was already out of compliance with their timeline obligations. I rediscovered specific therapies that could help certain problems Ronan had. Over those intense days I’ve never felt a time crunch as severe as when I first walked into finding Ronan’s special education support. 

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
 
Generation Rescue, Talk About Curing Autism, and the National Autism Association are teaming up to ask their members to vote for the Whittemore-Peterson Institutue for Neuro-Immune Diseases/University of Nevada-Reno in the Chase Community Giving Project, which ends on May 25.
 
In the first round, the Whittemore-Peterson Institute finished fifth in overall voting.  This won them $25,000.  The difference between fifth and first place was three thousand votes.  In the second round the first place winner will receive $500,000.
 
Readers of this website know I've written many times about the work of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute and their work with XMRV retrovirus and autism.  It's no secret I consider this to be one of the more promising areas of inquiry.  Chronic fatigue syndrome/ME and autism share a number of immune system abnormalities.
 
However, the fact that Generation Rescue, Talk About Curing Autism, and the National Autism Association have agreed to help with this effort shows that this opinion is not held by me alone.  I was also heartened to receive an e-mail the other day from Dr. Amy Yasko, letting me know she was also going to vote for the Whittemore-Peterson Institutue. 
 
Let me tell you why I think that this vote is good for our community.  We have long needed a world class facility dedicated to studying the problems of our children, staffed by scientists who are not afraid to ask challenging questions.  I believe that describes the Whittemore-Peterson Institutue and the people who work in it.  For those who believe this to be a worthwhile cause I strongly encourage people to get friends and relatives to vote as well.  I have set a personal goal of gathering 100 votes from family and friends.  I am currently at 10% of my goal.
 
After you vote for the Whittemore-Peterson Institute you will have four other votes to share among other charities you desire.  Here is how you can vote.
STEP-BY-STEP Instructions:
 
1. From your Facebook page, go to Chase Giving Community:
http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving
 
2. "Like" the Chase Giving Community by clicking on the "Like" button.
 
3. Now search for Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease.
 
4. Cast your vote by clicking the "Vote Now!" button.
 
5. Search other organizations for whom you want to vote, up to 5 per Facebook account.
Voting for round two is May 19 – May 25

Kent Heckenlively is a Contributing Editor to Age of Autism

 

For full details on the May 21st 5K run/walk for C.A.D.E. click Autism5K HERE.

By John Stone

Just eight days after the Supreme Court of the United States ruling granting vaccine manufacturers virtual immunity over prosecution ( Bruesewitz v. Wyeth) , scientists and company representatives met at a congress in Baltimore to  “Understand the Changes in the National Vaccine Plan to Maximize Government Sponsored Funding and Avoid FDA Scrutiny”.  The “workshop” which took place on 2 March 2011 was the first event in a Vaccine Business Congress  held under the auspices of the Institute for International Research USA . Amongst the many participants  at the congress were representatives of Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur, Roche,  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,  the Wellcome Trust, and the National Cancer Institute (NIH) (IIRUSA Welcome ,  IIRUSA Agenda ).

Despite frequent bleating from industry apologists that vaccine manufacturers do not make money the pre publicity for the event showed the industry in rampant mood. The on-line brochure states:

“VACCINES are the continuing success story, earning over $27 billion in 2009 alone, despite difficult economic times for the pharmaceutical industry.  By 2012, vaccines are expected to bring in more than $35 billion in revenue.”

The brochure demonstrates the utter negligence of  the US Congress, administration and courts in leaving its citizenry subjected and exposed to an industry, forced to inject its products by mandate into their children, forced to pay for them through taxation and finally to do so without any sanction against manufacturers should damage occur. Is it any surprise then that instead of regarding the manufacture of safe and effective products as a solemn ethical duty, they just turn round and brazenly discuss how to milk the contemptible system to the uttermost?  Please send this article to your Congressmen and women, and ask them what they intend to do about it.

With thanks to Hilary Butler  and others.

John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.

Reprinted with permission from the Gaia Health Blog. And that's a real crapisode in the photo. Take a look at normal...  and now read about the truth for countless families. KS

By Lisa Joyce Goes

Today is Sunday, May 15th. My husband Dave took our daughter Mads to the museum in Springfield with my in-laws. I stayed home to potty train my 4 year old son with Autism, Noah, and my 3 year old neurotypical son, Liam.

It's grey and miserably cold for May in Chicago so our frequent trips for breaks outside are not an option. I set out to take them both to the bathroom every half hour. This is a huge battle since our son Liam, while entirely capable of using the toilet, chooses not to because his big brother Noah, "not go". So both scream, have a fit and cry, everytime I take them to the commode.

Liam sees Noah behaving this way, and while he is completely verbal and actually says, "Poop yuck. Change me," he conforms his behavior to that of his older brother. I am thankful he was not with me in therapy last week when Noah humped an 11 year old girl while I tried to talk to his speech pathologist, or when he open-hand slapped my lovely neighbor across the face, who was guilty only of trying to keep him from running into the street.

Between potty breaks, I tried to get a jump on dinner for this evening. This was when Noah decided he had to use the bathroom. He went into the toliet area to take off his diaper and stripped off his clothes. (Putting his diaper and clothing back on after he has removed them is something we do up to 37 times a day.)

He then headed for my daughter's room, where he promptly defecated all over her bed. He has been on an organic gluten-free/casein-free diet for a month, so his stools are strange, frequent, and always the consistency of liquid or oatmeal. This one was the latter and could have filled a quart-sized jar—a shocking quanitity, since he'd had three previous bowel movements already this morning. He took this foul smelling detritous and threw it on the ceiling, smeared it all over his face, the walls, and her shag carpeting.

He then ran into our room, with a lump of it on his leg, and rolled around in our white sheets and all over the bedspread. He dragged his poop-smeared hands along the walls and finished his tour-de-shit by smearing the last turds on his toy chest and books.

Noah then ran down the stairs and tackled his little brother Liam in a fit of laughter. This entire episode took less that 2 minutes, the time my PTS autism mom mind allows me to go before I shout throughout our 5,000 square foot, shit smeared house, "Where is Noah?"

2 minutes.

PARENT’S GUIDE ASKS ‘SHOULDN’T SCHOOL BE SAFE?’

TASH releases resource to inform parents and protect against
restraint and seclusion abuses in schools

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 12, 2011) – TASH, a nonprofit advocate for inclusion and human rights of persons with significant disabilities, has released Shouldn’t School Be Safe?, a parent’s guide to keeping children safe from restraint, seclusion and other aversive practices in schools.

The process of finding help when a child is abused is not always clear, and many parents are discouraged or overwhelmed by the patchwork of  laws and regulations handling restraint and seclusion in schools. Shouldn’t School Be Safe? is a free resource developed by parents for parents that offers insight and advice to respond to and prevent restraint and seclusion.

(Note: That's Jawara Henry's family. He was killed as staff tried to give him medicine. They "restrained" him to death while trying to dispense meds. HERE.)

Reminder: Joint Meeting of Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) Subcommittee on Safety and IACC Services Subcommittee

Please join us for a in-person joint meeting of the IACC Subcommittee on Safety and the IACC Services Subcommittee to discuss issues related to seclusion and restraint and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).  The meeting will take place on Thursday, May 19, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.  The meeting will also be available for public access by conference call and live webcast.

Conference Call Access
USA/Canada Phone Number: 888-577-8995
Access code: 1991506

Webcast:  http://videocast.nih.gov

By J.B. Handley

“Dr. Gorski’s village called, they want their idiot back.”

- Anonymous

There I go again, another inflammatory, ad hominem headline, serving no useful purpose except alienating doctors and scientists who might otherwise be helping our kids. And, I follow it up with a senseless quote, degrading the debate further.

Whatever.

For those of you who don’t know, Dr. David Gorski is a Doctor and a blogger who posts under the pseudonym “Orac.” In only 23 years as a doctor, he’s already made it to the heights of “Assistant” Professor at Wayne State University, a school that no one has ever heard of and that I had to Google to make sure actually existed (it’s in “the heart of Detroit’s cultural center”—I think there’s an oxy-moron in there somewhere…). Yet, in the blogosphere, perhaps with the added courage that only a keyboard can provide, Dr. Gorski seems to think he’s omniscient, as his writing about me (and many others) reflects--here’s one of many examples:

“Before I dive in, let me just point out right here and right now that J.B. Handley wouldn't be able to recognize good science if it bit him on the posterior. The same is true of bad science, because Mr. Handley simply does not have an understanding of the scientific method or the methodology involved that would allow him to distinguish good from bad science, anymore than I have an understanding of investment banking that would allow me to differentiate between various financial instruments. No, on second thought, strike that. I'm quite sure that I know more about investment banking than J.B. Handley knows about science…In any case, thanks to its arrogance of ignorance, Generation Rescue thinks it can judge the quality of complicated epidemiology and basic science, but such pronouncements are about as valid as Joe the Plumber holding forth on quantum physics. That's why Mr. Handley's claim that he recognized these studies to be bad science by reading them led me to chuckle heartily. After all, Mr. Handley's proven time and time again that he doesn't understand science, the scientific method, or epidemiology…To him, it's not about the science, but winning the P.R. war.”

Man, that really hurts. A childless (more on that later) Assistant Professor from Detroit’s “cultural center”, who used to blog as a girl (“SoCalGal”), says I don’t understand science. (By the way, Dr. Gorski, I have never been nor am I currently an “investment banker”, so you may well know more about investment banking than I do, nice try…)

Managing Editor's Note: New Autism Speak's tagline? "Don't Be a Mizer, Walk Til You Drop for Pfizer." Or perhaps "You don't know jack, trust us - use Prozac." Or maybe this gem,
"Side Effects May Include Death - Hey! Can We Call Ourselves Cure Autism Now Again?" Numbers continue to rise since AS morphed from NAAR to NAAR/CAN! and now NAAR/CANZER. Break 'em, make 'em and bake 'em. The circle of.... life for our loved ones?

By John Stone

Though it remains unclear why US charity Autism Speaks thought it important to commission a small study into the incidence of autism in the South Korean city of Goyang, the implications of publicising the results – in which a rate of autism incidence of 1 in 38 was apparently detected -  as a new global norm for autism prevalence has disturbing implications. Instead of posing the significant question of what might be causing autism to proliferate in Goyang City - the study, which drew in the participation of such notable figures as Eric Fombonne, Roy Grinker and Bennett Leventhal – has been trumpeted as a new triumph of autism awareness, with the psychiatric profession patting itself on the back at its extraordinary ability to identify ever more autistic people.

While most people will have been stunned at the announcement of such a rate, the rhetoric of the publicity was bizarrely different. Time magazine reported of the lead author, Dr Young Shin Kim:

 “Kim stresses that the results of her study shouldn't alarm parents into thinking that autism has suddenly exploded in schools. "It doesn't mean there is an increase in new cases," she says. "We just didn't know how to find them and diagnose them. Now we know there are kids with social problems who are not being treated, and we know how to help them."”

Troublingly, this came in the same week as Autism Speaks announced a new appointment (HERE):

“The former head of Pfizer Inc.'s autism unit in Groton has landed a new job at Autism Speaks, the nation's leading advocacy group for people with the neurological disorder.

“Robert H. Ring, previously a Pfizer senior director, will join Autism Speaks in Princeton, N.J., on June 1 in the newly created position of vice president of translational research. His focus will be on helping move drug experimentation from laboratories to clinical trials, "with the goal of improving outcomes for individuals with autism spectrum disorders," according to the nonprofit organization.”

Of course, it is evident that if you can detect an autistic spectrum disorder in 1 in 38 children the commercial prospects for the pharmaceutical industry aided by Autism Speaks are almost limitless.

The tie-in becomes abundantly clear in Time magazine’s report (HERE):

“The researchers say they would expect to see similarly high rates of autism emerge in the U.S. and elsewhere if the same data collection strategy were used. "The kids picked up in Korea, many had never been recognized in medical records as having autism," says Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for Autism Speaks. "That's what needs to be done, that kind of broad screening."”

No one from the media had the presence of mind or the intellectual spirit to ask back why they failed to find these cases before. Would not, after all, the medical profession have been deeply negligent and incompetent to have routinely missed most of the cases?

Deftly, Dawson – whose University is heavily bank-rolled by GlaxoSmithKline (HERE ) - and Autism Speaks have moved the goal posts, and without saying anything directly. From now on, the media will simply accept that 1 in 38 is quite normal. Never mind about 1 in 166 or 150 or 110, now it is 3 times the lowest number and everyone is beaming. It also puts in context Dawson’s appearance at the UN last month (HERE): without a bat of an eye-lid it now suits Autism Speaks’ purpose to put it about that the number is three times greater than previously believed.

And yet it is not at all clear that there is any basis for projecting this figure onto the global population. If, indeed, there is broad agreement that environmental triggers are implicated in the incidence of autism (HERE ), why would you necessarily expect a notably high figure in one Korean City to be reflected anywhere, let alone everywhere else? This sounds less like solid science than cynical kite-flying. With remarkable sleight of hand Autism Speaks have transformed ultra-high rates of autism into good news, and a wonderful commercial prospect for the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time detecting any agents of causation would certainly interfere with the plan of making obscene amounts of money from medicating ever further the child population of the United States and the world via Autism Speaks’ new screening programmes. And medicating them without any apparent reference to the causes of the condition, which they still protest are unidentified.

John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.

By Anne Dachel

Since my life is a collection of endless little tasks and responsibilities, it can take me weeks to get simple things done and a lot of projects get lost in the process.  However, I do want to talk about a book that I originally read several months ago.  The title is, Special Needs Kids Go Pharm-Free, by Judy Converse, MPH, RD, LD.  I carried this book around everywhere in my purse, taking spare minutes to read it.  I learned so much about how our bodies respond to the things we eat and what we need to do to make our children healthy.

Eventually, I interviewed Judy about what parents can do to improve their children’s health.  Here’s what was said:

Me: Your book gives dire statistics right at the beginning about the state of the health of American children. What has happened to children in this country during the last 25 years?

Judy: Two major changes happened in the 1990s in the US, making American children born since then extremely vulnerable: One, the FDA permitted, with no safety review, the introduction of genetically modified (GMO) foods – including soy and corn, which both go into infant formulas and most processed foods. Two, we upped the vaccine schedule dramatically for infants and children. Both have shown potential to injure the human immune system, brain, gut or other organs‘ development and function, from birth onward. We’re just beginning to understand how detrimental this is for triggering asthma, allergies, inflammation, seizure disorders, autism, or gut/brain injuries that may mean poor outcomes like Crohn’s disease, eosinophilic esophagitis, learning disabilities and conduct disorders – all of which have risen dramatically in children since 1990.

Synergistic effects of GMO foods in pregnancy, in utero, in infancy – plus all the vaccines now recommended – are entirely unknown. For example: The gene inserted into GMO soy makes soy produce its own insecticide. It was found in gut bacteria of human volunteers eating GMO soy – meaning, the gene transcribed to the bacteria in the gut, and “taught” the volunteers’ gut bacteria to make insecticide. I believe this may be why some children with autism and GI problems are so treatment resistant, when it comes to correcting their bowel microflora. Do they have genes operating in there that make antibiotics and probiotics less effective? Nobody knows.
GMO crops are banned in most European countries. The approach there in the ’90s was that no data existed to show these foods were safe, so it was an unacceptable risk. The US approach was the opposite: The FDA said there no proof this is unsafe, so they allowed these highly profitable crops into the food supply. These can trigger allergies more often than their naturally occuring counterparts; other findings of detrimental effects on animals eating GMO feed crops are very disconcerting, from increased miscarriages and organ failures to death. Consumers are just beginning to understand this issue. Eating food that’s genetically modified to produce its own pesticide is something we wouldn’t want to do if given the choice, but Americans were not given the choice. Interestingly, the UK is also a GMO friendly nation, and has an even a higher rate of autism than the US.

Me: Why aren’t doctors expressing alarm over what they’re seeing?

Judy: Doctors are at a disadvantage for two reasons. One, they don’t study nutrition to a meaningful degree, and have a limited exposure to it. They are inundated with pharmaceutical information during their education and in practice, at the expense of valid information about nutrition or special diets. So, they don’t know how to assess kids for nutrition problems beyond the most obvious, and they don’t know how to provide nutrition care. This leaves children unscreened and untreated; doctors may not even know there is potential for treatment here.

Two, they have no accountability for the injuries that may be caused by vaccines, due to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program set up in the 1980s and the recent Supreme Court ruling that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe”. Doctors have zero liability and zero accountability for vaccine injuries. If a child is injured by a vaccine, the doctor never gets sued; they suffer no penalty whatsoever. If a nurse goofs and gives a baby the wrong vaccine at the wrong time, and an injury occurs, there is no recourse at all other than to file a government claim and wait. My own family waited nine years for my son’s case to reach the docket, only to have it thrown out. I think this – along with how lucrative it is to vaccinate children in a pediatric practice – has kept doctors easy for industry to manipulate. This also leaves physicians free of any accountability to treatments for the injured – if they are brainwashed that these injuries aren’t happening, then there is nothing to treat. This leaves families scurrying for help elsewhere.

Me: Your book is about nutritional needs… What’s wrong with what we’re feeding our children?

By Katie Wright

You know who Dr. Schreibman reminds me of? Helen Thomas. You know the elderly White House reporter who finally retired last year? I believe Ms. Thomas is about 90 yrs old. As a courtesy for her many decades of years of service, the White House held Ms. Thomas a press briefing room seat, far, far beyond the time she was a journalist of consequence. Dr. Schreibman also reminds me of Ross Perot, in his later crazy years. It is so very difficult for many professionals, leaders in their field, to step off the stage. Oftentimes what propels these people to the top of their professions is a strong sense of self, a healthy ego and sometimes, yes, narcissism.  However, leaders can both grow and change over time or they can become calcified, zealously guarding their corner of the world, fighting change as if their life depended on it.

I was so disappointed to learn that Dr. Schreibman was leading the treatment part of the IMFAR conference. Guess who she lined up to educate parents about treatment interventions? A psychiatrist, a psychologist and a geneticist! So good luck to all you parents out there with sick kids, kids with GI problems, kids with nightmarish allergies, kids suffering from immune or mitochondrial or metabolic dysfunction. You were on your own before and now you are still on your own….But haven’t you heard the good news? Autism is a genetic disorder of the brain! Who knows if all those pesky “medical” problems even exist?

OK, I thought Dr. Nancy Minshew was the world’s angriest autism researcher. I was wrong, way wrong. Sorry Dr. Minshew, the title has now been passed to Dr. Laura Schreibman. Schreibman is hands down, no contest, the world’s angriest, most hostile, furious autism researcher.

Get ready for something special. Take a look at this video! Wow! Dr. Laura addresses the crowd as if they owe her money, stole her car and then toilet papered her house! Dr. Laura is absolutely furious. Beyond furious! Schreibman states that she has gotten to a place in her career were she feels “safe” to come out with her true beliefs about autism. So there is the threat to her ego, the field is changing, that scares Screibman, hence the need to batten down the hatches and lash out at those with new, different and more advanced theories.

See the original letter at the EBCALA website HERE.

To: [email protected], Medscape

From: Robert J. Krakow and Coauthors of “Unanswered Questions…”, Pace Environmental Law Review ([email protected])

Re Corrections to Your Article: "Anti-Vaccine Proponents Claim Court Paid for Autism Cases",

May 11, 2011, http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742471 Date: May 11, 2011

Dear Mr. Lowes:

Thank you for your article titled "Anti-Vaccine Proponents Claim Court Paid for Autism Cases" published at http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/742471 on May 10, 2011. I am a coauthor of the paper that was published on May 10, 2011 in the Pace Environmental Law Review. I am writing on behalf of the authors.

As one of my coauthors may already have communicated to you, we take exception to the title of your piece, with specific reference to your use of the word "anti-vaccine." There is no statement in our paper that communicates any "anti-vaccine" view, whatsoever. Public statements made by the authors and some parents who were included in the case analysis contained in the paper have never evidenced an "anti-vaccine" view. To the contrary, many of the participants have clearly stated their support for vaccines and the government program that promotes vaccination.

Would you characterize citizens who bring to light automobile defects, such as the recent reports about brake failure in certain automobiles, as "anti-automobile"? I am sure not. Nor would you criticize airline safety critics as anti-airplane, nor even critics of certain drugs like, for instance, Vioxx, as "anti-drug."

Our focus in the paper is the history and functioning of the legal process. We have pursued a serious consideration of whether the purposes of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act are being realized and whether justice is being achieved for aggrieved families and children. This focus, while undoubtedly inviting controversy in itself, is distinct from the vitriolic and sometimes ill-conceived debate that induces some to invoke rhetoric that utilizes the words "anti-vaccine" and other empty slogans.

Since there is absolutely no basis to justify the use of the characterization "anti-vaccine" in your news report we respectfully request a retraction and clarification.

Other areas of your report require attention.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I received an interesting series of e-mail exchanges from the mother of a seven-year-old boy with autism and officials from the Centers for Disease Control.  The e-mails concerned her request for information from the CDC about testing for the presence of the XMRV retrovirus in children with autism.  The mother also suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome/ME. 

The e-mail exchange was prompted by the publication of an article by David Kirby in The Huffington Post in December of 2009 in which Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health mentioned that his intramural group at the NIH had been looking into the presence of the XMRV retrovirus in children with autism since August of 2009. HERE

The series of e-mail exchanges which took place in November of 2010 are interesting for what is said, and what is not.  Dr. Insel provided a note from Dr. Swedo in respone to the inquiry from this mother.

Dr. Mike Iadorola is now ready to run the XMRV assays on samples from our children with autism (approx 100), typical development (60) and developmental delay (30).  We did send him a batch of approximately 100 samples last summer (from the three groups), almost immediately after the initial report of the positive results in autism.  However, that assay proved to be quite unreliable, yielding positive results in individuals who were known to be negative by more extensive testing.

The mother was confused by the response so sent back the following inquiry.

I am puzzled by the statement "yielding positive results in individuals who were known to be negative by more extensive testing" - as the testing for XMRV in humans is still not standardized, how can one test be considered "more extensive" than another one?  What tests were used to give the original positive results?  Were the samples taken and handled in the same way for these tests that gave the negative results?  How were those initial positive results explained away - contamination?  Cross-reactivity?

I would appreciate if you could share with me what assays were used for negative/retest findings and who developed them?

In response Dr. Mike Iadorola sent back a reply noting that the assay used was called luciferas immunoprecepitation systems and suggested she look at the results from  a recent publication in the journal Molecular Autism by Satterfield/Cooperative Diagnostics.

 By J.B. Handley

My apologies to the 99.9% of AoA readers who have grown tired of this silly issue, albeit one I helped create. As some know, I wrote a post accusing a blogger named “Sullivan” of being Bonnie Offit, who is the wife of a well-known vaccine inventor.

It turned out I was wrong. Frankly, I couldn’t believe that the parent of a child with autism—which is what Sullivan claimed to be—would spend their time defending a denialist, profiteer, Merck-funded blowhard--it simply seemed inconceivable to me (and still does), but Matt Carey, Ph.D., aka Sullivan, proved me wrong.

I admitted as such and agreed to stop writing about the profiteer and make sure a website, www.pauloffit.com, ended up in the profiteer’s hands.

Here’s what’s transpired since.

Matt Carey wrote me a note on 4/29, it said this:

Mr. Handley,

A few people have forwarded your piece to me today.  I appreciate what you have said and I have offered a public apology on LeftBrainRightBrain for questioning your integrity in honoring your commitments.

As far as the domain pauloffit.com, you can transfer that directly to the Offits. I believe you have his contact information.  If not, it can be found on his website: http://www.paul-offit.com/

Matt Carey

20 minutes later, I responded:

By John Stone

Age of Autism readers may recall reading of the tragic death of Harry Horne-Roberts in December 2009  (HERE) age only 20, after the administration of an anti-psychotic drug behind the backs of his devoted parents. For Jennifer Horne-Roberts (a lawyer) and Keith Roberts (an architect) this was a hideous symmetrical tragedy with the one near the beginning of his life when a routine dose of MMR vaccine propelled him into the world of autism. In between these two events Harry nevertheless led a life which was often inspiring, while his parents also fought a unique and heroic battle for justice, which continues until this day.

Now, Keith and Jennie have published on-line a book to commemorate Harry’s life and their decades of struggle (Harry Horne-Roberts Book HERE) on his behalf, and of all our children.

I first encountered Harry early in 1997 on a visit to the school which our own son was eventually to attend, and it was already apparent that he was pretty special.  Though memory plays tricks I have this image in my head of Harry with amused look on his face filling sheet of paper after sheet of paper with his drawings. I think this image is true, that what we see in Harry’s work - numerous examples of which are found in the book - is a small genius for amusement: a young man entertaining himself and then us. It is also an art that develops in an unnerving way: in his later drawings, many of which are large in scale, the apparent childishness of technique is in tension with an astonishing skill in capturing the feel and character of people and things. The book records that he had much tuition in developing this skill. Nevertheless, it leaves you wondering which bits of the social comedy, if any, as an autistic person he did not understand.

Harry’s pictures tell one slightly mysterious story. The text is a compilation of reminiscences and documents (medical and legal), which also give a strong impression of time and place, and of the heart-breaking issues which confront so many families touched by disability and particularly autism. I have scarcely ever encountered a book in which the human and geographical landscape is so familiar: it will tell you what it was like to have had an autistic child in North London in these last two decades, and  not least  about the bureaucratic and legal constraints on people’s lives. As a barrister (a lawyer who works in the British  court system)  Jennie relentlessly (and belligerently) attempts to challenge the surrounding web of intrigue and entrenched interests through the British and European courts ( as well as an advisor in the US omnibus hearing), only to keep on encountering the same authoritarian hand deciding things only one way.

But, of course, nothing prepared Keith and Jennie for the final cruel twist, and now they find themselves campaigners on the indiscriminate prescription of psychotropic drugs as means of social control over the mentally disabled, and in so many cases a means to their premature death. All of these issues are represented.  We have become a land fit only for pharmaceutical companies to exploit.

John Stone is UK Editor for Age of Autism.

Our sponsor SafeMinds announces their new SafeMinds Affinity Card HERE.  Each purchase will help support research for the health and well-being of our loved ones.

 

By Cathy Jameson

I’ve been wandering around my house very distracted. I can’t think straight. I can’t stop moving. I haven’t been able to get anything done. I have so many thoughts spinning through my head right now—all of them surrounding the news reports that aired Tuesday afternoon. Those reports stated that the government acknowledged (and kept quiet about) several vaccine injury claims.   Not only were vaccine injuries acknowledged, but they were also awarded lumps of money. The recipients were children damaged by their vaccines many years ago. The story was so big that even the regular media even aired it.

As I watched the live report mid-day (the recording of it is HERE), I thought, “Woweee! Finally, the truth is coming out. All the work we warrior parents have been doing for so long is finally being recognized.  Maybe we can soon be done with all the energy and fight we put into telling our own children’s stories. Maybe our kids will also finally get the help they all need.”  I felt so confident watching the news unfold. I was truly excited that the truth was being told because surely justice would prevail, and life would return to the normal it was supposed to be. Why did I think that as soon as the news coverage was over that my son Ronan would be magically healed and returned to typical?

After the news ended, I had mixed thoughts that turned into angry thoughts. Of course kids have been harmed by their vaccines—I see it in my son every day! Of course some of that harm has been caused, errr, resulted in autism. Of course this news wasn’t really new news as I have already heard of families being awarded very large lumps of money because of vaccine injury (i.e., Hanah Polling and Baily Banks). Of course I knew the government had to have known that vaccines weren’t entirely 100% safe for everyone. Of course I knew the officials must have known someone was eventually going to get hurt. Of course I knew all of this. But, why am I in such utter shock at today’s news?

The shock I felt turned to disgust. I had to force myself to sift through several negative thoughts because slowly my Tuesday afternoon became a useless waste of time. I couldn’t find anything constructive to do. I couldn’t focus at all. All I could do was wander around my house from room to room. I felt lost—lost because of all the “what could have beens” for so many families. Then, I felt anger. While I bumbled through the anger—anger at why did it take so damn long for the truth to be revealed—I felt even more time lost. Too much time is gone for the thousands of kids who haven’t and won’t receive payouts for vaccine injuries. Not only is that time lost, but it’s probably long been forgotten by the people who should have cared about it in the first place.

Why did it have to be the children to suffer such horrible and life-long problems? Why did it have to be children turned into scapegoats for the greater good?  Who is this greater good, and why is it ruining so many children’s lives?  It’s all happened right in front of us and it feels like no one is doing anything about it!

In the midst of my mind-racing thoughts, I turned to cleaning. I hate to clean but I needed a distraction. I started to clean out a cabinet that stores educational games and my teaching supplies. I pulled out a pile of word games, colorful toys and some typical kid fun activities. The pile sat on my counter while I rearranged other items in the cabinet. I stared at the pile, and then I glared at it. The word games—I got those for my eight-year old son. Ronan isn’t ready for all the games I want him to play because he’s a vaccine injured kid. The pile of colorful toys is age appropriate for him, but he’s not developmentally ready for them yet. Try as he might, it’s still way over his head to enjoy.  The pile of fun stared back at me, and I felt mocked by its presence.

I desperately want Ronan to want to play with the toys and games I’ve gotten him. I want him to feel excited to learn with me. I want him to feel the ease of learning through play that my other children experience. But, it’s all hard work for him, and it’s hard work for me. It’s a cycle of hard work, try, try, try, fail, more hard work and then some success while we try, try, try again. Almost everything Ronan does takes lots of work. The worst part of it is it didn’t have to be like this.

As I soaked in more of the news conference later in the afternoon, I followed some postings on blogs and other sites of well-known autism advocates, I kept seeing a number: 83.  The news stories included eighty-three financial payouts that have been awarded to families of vaccine injured children. Eighty-three known cases. Eighty-three multi-dollar awards.  Eighty-three children. Eighty-three families. Some of the vaccine injuries were documented back in the 1980s. That was last century! You’d think there would have been a memo about this—to end the dramatic and devastating reactions children were having from their vaccines. That memo should have gone round the world and back again. It needed to be read and shared to protect future children. But, for some reason, that news wasn’t shared.

  The "Your Healing Retreat" conference is this June 3-5 at the Kanuga Conference center in Henderson, NC.  

Carve out a few days for yourself and spend time with Elizabeth Mumper MD, Julie Buckley MD, FAAP, Maureen McDonnell RN, Nancy O'Hara MD and Stephanie Cave MD, MS, FAAFP, true leaders  of the autism treatment community. This is a unique conference designed with treating Mom and Dad to a gentle retreat that will also help your child.

Visit Your Healing Retreat today to learn more. 

Your Healing Retreat:
June 3rd – June 5th 2011
Sponsored by Hopewell Pharmacy and Compounding Center

By Maureen McDonnell RN

Parents Can’t Keep Going Without Hitting the “REFRESH” Button

Parents of children with autism are on a constant quest to discover all they can to improve the behavior, speech, cognitive function and general health of their children.  However in the midst of their ever-escalating activities and pursuits, they need to stop once in a while and take care of themselves. 

When I joined four of the top medical experts in the biomedical field (Drs Stephanie Cave, Liz Mumper, Nancy O’Hara and Julie Buckley)  for a weekend last year after Julie Buckley (a pediatrician and mother of a child with autism)  developed breast cancer, it wasn’t to compare power points or fill each other in on the latest research, it was to stop and acknowledge that with Julie’s diagnosis and surgery,  the early passing of Jo Pike and the general high level of stress and illness in the autism community,  something needed to shift.    

The concept that was born out of the five of us coming together for that weekend was not only our name (sisters in science, spirit and spunk), but a new model of education, hope and rejuvenation we call Your Healing Retreat.   Yes, all four of these docs (and I) realized that in addition to fulfilling our mutual  desire  to teach physicians and parents methods for improving the children’s health and behavior, we also  wanted to address the  very real needs of the caregivers.   

So, instead of doing what we had always done and renting a hotel where we would breathe re circulated air, eat processed food and ask every researcher and clinician we knew to present, we decided to do something more in alignment with our new vision.  We searched for a serene, resort-type setting and found such a place in North Carolina.  The Kanuga Conference Center has hiking trails, a beautiful lake, 100 year old cottages with fireplaces and to add some proverbial icing on the cake, we will be serving all local and organic food.   

Yes, there will be lectures on mitochondrial dysfunction, immune dysregulation, and GI distress as well as talks for parents and primary care providers on practical solutions for reversing and repairing these conditions.  But there will also be a lakeside wine reception,  massage, yoga and dance sessions in the morning,  whole food cooking classes,  workshops on toxin-free dentistry and ways to create a healthy home or office,  sessions on stress management, healing relationships and meditation as well as a chance to sample  low pressure hyperbarics.  

Will parents and clinicians who attend learn cutting edge treatment strategies to help their children heal?  Absolutely!  But in addition, those who come to the healing retreat will leave feeling rejuvenated by both new perspectives on, and practical tools for, achieving healthier more balanced lifestyles.   

Spring is a time of renewal and Your Healing Retreat is an opportunity to experience this new model for learning and healing….. Press that REFRESH button and register today!

Register at a discounted rate for the month of April at www.YourHealingRetreat.com

The sisters will not let finances get in the way of parents and clinicians attending.   Any questions call or email Maureen McDonnell, RN at [email protected] or call 609-240-1315 and we will assist you.

Before you go bashing me (Kim) for claiming other forms of autism are not real, you know darn well that's not my intention.This video captures the intense fear, lack of training for police who are just trying to do their job, safety issues, parental stress,wandering problem  and more.  Can you watch this without your heart breaking? It's ugly. It's frightening. It's real. And for thousands of families, it's autism.  Tomorrow could it be your child?

From Tom Wait at  WXYZ in Michigan, check out the comments (some quite nasty)  and add your own, HERE.

LIVONIA, Mich. (WXYZ) - A Livonia mother is lashing out at police, criticizing them for the way they treated her severely autistic 11-year-old son. Julia, who asked that we not use her last name, showed Action News police dashcam video of her son, Victor, in a patrol car May 2nd. The 11-year-old was taken into custody after running away from Riley Middle School. The video shows the 11-year-old handcuffed in the back seat of the squad car hysterical – screaming and banging his head against the window. Over the course of several minutes police ignore Victor, but then come back to the car and put a seatbelt on him to stop him from smashing his head against the glass.

Livonia Police would not go on camera with us but said off camera that officers did what they were trained to do when they have custody of someone with a mental disability. For example, the officers say they repeatedly told Victor that they were trying to find his mother in the hopes that a “familiar” would calm him down. And as for why he was handcuffed, according to the police report Victor was kicking as officers tried to restrain him. They say he almost ran into traffic on 5 Mile near his school. Victor’s mother says police treated her son like a criminal. “I was so traumatized when I saw the video. I don’t believe they had the proper training to deal with severe autism,” Julia said. Julia says her son ran away from school last week because of sensory overload, a symptom of his condition. In the police report school officials questioned whether Julia was properly medicating her son. Julia told Action News she has not made any major changes to his treatment.

By Teresa Conrick

If you have a preteen or teen daughter(s) with autism - Please Read!

A group of parents who have daughters with an autism diagnosis are networking to form a group for researching the similar health issues our precious girls are having to endure.  We want to see the common patterns or differences so that we can gather data to help pinpoint valuable information.  A website for this has been developed, a treatment tracking system for autism called ChARMtracker (check it out at http://www.charmtracker.com). It is free to families and there are over 2,000 users worldwide now, all tracking histories, interventions, diets, medications, supplements etc. of their children. The pre-teen/teen girls would be done in a similar fashion but kept together as a group for data and specific age/sex similarities.  This is parent-driven and has no connections to any government or pharmaceutical companies.  We will be in communication with each other and the researchers as we journey.  This will not take the place of a doctor or a medical plan but will hopefully aid in determining any correlations in our girls thus, guide treatment planning.

As I had discussed with my own daughter, Megan, just recently (Autism Estrogen and Seizures)  about hormones and seizures, there seems to be some unique and challenging issues that may affect females diagnosed with autism.  We would like to explore these ideas by using innovative data-gathering and parental involvement.  What better way to the answers than looking at the affected children?

It is our hope that by systematic gathering of testing, data collection and a good source of researchers, we can find the missing answers to health issues that many of our daughters and loved ones suffer with so that treatments can be matched and health outcomes changed for the positive. As seizures seem to represent a very scary reality for our teen girls, we will also be reaching out to parents of girls injured by the Gardasil vaccine http://truthaboutgardasil.org/ to join us in our quest.  Please wish us luck as we start on this innovative and trailblazing journey.

Please email me if you are interested:

[email protected]

The treatment category is sponsored by Lee Silsby, the leader in quality compounded medications for autism.

Click  the Detail Swine Flu Vaccine Linked to Death to read and watch video on a powerful report on vaccine injury in the UK.  You may recall that last year Ms. Jackie Fletcher won compensation for her son's MMR vaccine injury (HERE) in the UK. She is featured in this report.

By Kathryn Torney, May 2011

A person has died in Northern Ireland after being given their swine flu vaccination, The Detail can reveal.

The death was reported as a suspected adverse reaction to the H1N1 vaccine sometime between January 1st, 2010 and February 8th, 2011. The report was among hundreds submitted from Northern Ireland to the central government agency responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe.

A wide range of side effects suspected to be linked to the swine flu and cervical cancer vaccinations – given to teenage girls – were reported by healthcare professionals, patients, parents and carers in Northern Ireland to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) during 2009, 2010 and the early weeks of 2011.

The MHRA’s Yellow Card Adverse Reaction (ADR) scheme allows health professionals and patients to report suspected adverse drug/vaccine reactions on a voluntary basis and was introduced in 1964 after the Thalidomide tragedy highlighted the urgent need for routine monitoring of medicines. It receives more than 20,000 reports of possible side effects across the UK each year.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has confirmed that almost £2m has been paid out in compensation to 25 people in Northern Ireland severely disabled by vaccines since 1979.

The MHRA said that it could give no further details on the recent Northern Ireland death including the age of the person or when the death occurred.

Surprisingly, the Department of Health in Northern Ireland claims to hold no information on the fatality and it also confirmed in response to a Freedom of Information request from The Detail that it is “not routinely provided” with information on adverse reaction reports originating from the province.

the Detail Swine Flu Vaccine Linked to Death

Thank you to Heather McLennand and Dr. Richard Deth for this appearance on Fox.

http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/morning/vaccine-autism-link-new-investigation-20110511

Deth: "The CDC has an agenda and the agenda of the CDC is to vaccinate. And the kind of studies that they typically run are epidemiological data base studies. They aren't the same as studying individual kids with autism and seeing what's wrong with them. The CDC has a supposed motivation for a cover-up in a certain way, but in fact, they're missing the boat when it comes to really understanding what causes autism at the individual child level."

"We need to admit what the real causes are before we know what to test for. Hopefully we'll get to that point and hopefully the government will come clean on this and will understand the risks of vaccination and deal with that." .

 By Martin Hewitt

In April AoA published the first part of a series revisiting Brian Deer’s claim in the British Medical Journal on 5 January 2011 [HERE] that the findings in the Wakefield et al paper 'Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia' (Lancet, 1998; vol. 351, p.637) were fixed. It focused on the first claim that three of the nine children reported with regressive autism did not have an autism diagnosis [HERE].

Part two examines Deer‘s second claim that “Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were “previously normal,” five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns”. This is done by examining the published UK General Medical Council transcripts of the fitness to practice hearing against Dr Andrew Wakefield and Professors John Walker-Smith and Simon Murch. We can then judge the accuracy, selectivity and interpretive license he applies to his evidence against Wakefield.

Deer identifies children 4, 8, 1 and 5 as examples of developmental concerns raised before MMR. The fifth child is child 11, a US citizen whose case was not examined by the GMC and therefore cannot be verified. We will examine statements he makes about each of the four children and then visit the transcript evidence to see if it supports his claims. Readers can see Deer's bullet-point claims in the BMJ paper. Each of Deer's quotes, including the endnotes, is given in italics. The validity of the claims is then tested against evidence from the GMC. All emphases below are added to the original.

CHILD 4 (born March 1987; measles vaccination April 1988; MMR February 1991)

Quote 1: “child 4...had developmental delays, and also facial dysmorphisms, noted before MMR vaccination...Wakefield played down problems, suggesting that early issues had resolved. ‘Child four was kept under review for the first year of life because of wide bridging of the nose,’ he reported in the paper. ‘He was discharged from follow-up as developmentally normal at age 1 year.’ But medical records, presented by the GMC, give a different picture for this child. Reports from his pre-MMR years were peppered with “concerns over his head and appearance,” “recurrent” diarrhoea, “developmental delay,” “general delay,” and restricted vocabulary. 

(Managing Editor's Note: this report is available in .pdf (Vaccines and Autism Epidemiology HERE)

“We have 16 studies already that clearly state that vaccines do not cause autism.”

-- Amy Pisani, Executive Director, Every Child By Two

“16 studies have shown no causal association between vaccines and autism, and these studies carry weight in the scientific industry.”

-- Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC Today Show Medical Editor

“The science is largely complete. Ten epidemiological studies have shown MMR vaccine doesn’t cause autism; six have shown thimerosal doesn’t cause autism.”

-- Dr. Paul Offit, “Autism’s False Prophets”

----------------------------

A NOTE FROM SAFEMINDS:

There are 16 epidemiological studies here on MMR vaccines, thimerosal and autism. These studies represent the most often cited papers by scientists, public health officials and members of the media when trying to refute any evidence of an association between vaccinations and autism.

There are serious methodological limitations, design flaws, conflicts of interest or other problems related to each of these 16 studies. These flaws have been pointed out by government officials, other researchers, medical review panels and even the authors of the studies themselves. Taken together, the limitations of these studies make it impossible to conclude that thimerosal and MMR vaccines are not associated with autism.

SafeMinds would like to acknowledge the previous work in this regard gathered by the “Fourteen Studies” project at Generation Rescue: http://www.14studies.org/about.html

One additional study on autism and thimerosal was published in September 2010 while this paper was in completed draft form. This study’s methods produced a result that demonstrated that thimerosal exposure was protective against autism. Further analysis of this study is forthcoming but not included here.

PART 1

MAJOR GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE

Conventional wisdom holds that the autism-vaccine question has been “asked and answered,” and that at least 16 large, epidemiological studies have thoroughly addressed and debunked any hypothesis that childhood vaccination is associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder.

But there are numerous critical flaws in such an oversimplified generalization, and they are rarely given close examination by public health experts or members of the media.

It is particularly discouraging that members of the scientific community are so willing to dismiss a hypothesis that has yet to be fully tested. Overconfident pronouncements such as those found in the quotes above do nothing to advance either the cause of science or our understanding of the complex issues involved. They are, instead, the product of misunderstanding and wishful thinking, brought about by the overzealous drive to ‘disprove’ an unpopular and possibly disquieting theory.

Dear AofA reader, please invite your Congressperson and Senator (see search links below) to attend  The Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy (EBCALA)  breakfast briefing on Thursday, May 12, Rayburn B-339 at 8:30 to discuss the article Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury.

Action Alert EZ Email Version

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.house.gov/representatives/

The authors of the article, “Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury, ” published in the peer-reviewed Pace Environmental Law Review, vol. 28, no. 2, will discuss their findings that associate vaccine injury and autism. 

The article, released on Tuesday, May 10, is a first-of-its-kind investigation, providing critical information for legislators and staff on the Congressionally-created Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). 

The authors will also be prepared to discuss the impact of the Supreme Court’s recent Bruesewitz v. Wyeth decision, which preempts all vaccine injury claims associated with vaccine design defect from civil court.

RSVP to [email protected]  or text/call:  202-498-4461

To view the full Pace Environmental Law Review paper online, please click Article Title Unanswered Questions from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program: A Review of Compensated Cases of Vaccine-Induced Brain Injury