By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

It's a nightmare many autism parents fear.  Not only do you live with the daily challenge of a child with autism, but you wonder what might happen if the government wanted to take your child away.  Would they care for your child as you would?

By all accounts, Derek Hoare is a wonderful father to his two children with autism and a normally developing son.  He is a single father on government assistance in British Columbia.  His ex-wife has written "He has been a loving and dedicated father.  He has had . . . an enormous amount of challenges as a parent, the likes of which most people would not believe."  An article on this case can be found HERE.

The most recent challenge he's had to face started when he momentarily took his eyes of his nine-year-old daughter, Ayn.  Even though his house is surrounded by a six-foot fence, she disappeared.  He ran up and down the street looking for her.  After ten minutes he called the police.  Three hours later she was found safe and sound playing in a neighbor's pool.  Although Derek locks the doors and windows in his house, he believes his daughter escaped by climbing her treehouse and jumping over the fence.

When Ayn was brought back to her father she ran into his arms.

Four days later, though, officials from the Ministry of Children and Family Development came with orders to take Ayn away.  The officials told Derek they were taking this action to "lighten his load."  Due to her need for round-the-clock attention she will be placed in a psychiatric facility.  Derek worries that the staff will hold her down and sedate her in order to make her more compliant.

Derek now has to wait for a July 12 hearing to determine his level of access to his daughter.  He worries about even going to visit her, knowing she'll cry and beg to be taken home.

If you have any suggestions or comments for how the Ministry of Children and Family Development can "lighten the load" of this parent, by much less drastic measures, such as a tracking device for his daughter, or respite care, please feel free to contact them at (604) 870-5880 and share your thoughts.

Kent Heckenlivey is a Contributing Editor to Age of Autism

By John Stone

Order Dirty Medicine: The Handbook Today!

This is Martin Walker at his best:  an indispensible, witty, idiosyncratic guide to the dirty world of the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, and an anatomy of how their tentacles reach into every aspect of public and private life in the UK and beyond. His perspective derives from two decades of observation, research, and deep cynicism about the motives of the powerful. It tells you a lot about contemporary Britain but also the pivotal role it often continues to have in global affairs.

Some of us can remember a time when however disenchanted one might feel with this or that government there was still a certain sense of optimism about being British: some minimal belief in the quality of British institutions. This book meticulously chronicles how things have deteriorated.

Gruesome as the tale is this is a very entertaining book either to read or to dip into, as well as being an invaluable work of reference.

(HERE is a UK pounds to dollars conversion site - and you can use PayPal. A single copy costs about $24 US, a standard book price point.)

By Dr Lorene Amet DEA, DipBiotechnol, D Phil, MEd

Simon Baron-Cohen from Cambridge University has a long-standing interest in demonstrating that Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are more prevalent in populations presenting with high systemizing skills. These are people who like predicting how things function, classifying observations in systems, etc. and who also show less empathy to others. He has focused his work around the issues of male/female brains and has presented autism as being equivalent to an excess maleness. I should clarify for our readers that in fact, this refers to High Functioning Autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) rather than ASC as a whole.  In other words, HFA/AS have a lot more systemizing skills (i.e. some sort of scientific skills) together with a less empathic presentation, and this is essentially what the condition is. He came to this conclusion partly because of how AS/ASF people rate in his Empathy/ Systemizing questionnaire (tests available online, look for Systemizing Quotient and Empathy Quotient). The trouble is that empathy is essentially assessed within a social context and this will confound how AS/HFA people will respond to the questionnaire (and hence be rated). Baron-Cohen elides the quality of empathy with the ability to read, understand, respond to and enjoy social situations, and this a matter of free association rather pure logic or science. For instance, one AS person might empathise very strongly with the frustrations of another for which they have insight, but be oblivious to some other social issues for which they have do not. They do have impairment in socialization, in accordance with their diagnosis, but at no point did Simon Baron-Cohen tease out the empathy from the socialization aspect in his evaluations. AS/HFA people have low empathy quotients because they tend to dislike social settings, not primarily because of their low empathy, i.e. extra maleness according to Simon Baron-Cohen. This means, no accurate conclusion can in fact be drawn on the empathic skills (or excess maleness) of AS/HFA people based on this sort of work.

However, this went on for some years with study after study, digging deeper and deeper into this Autism High Functioning/ Excess maleness question, moving on to molecular /genetic issues and linking this excess maleness to excess testosterone. He went as far as proposing an antenatal screen based on the mother’s testosterone levels, something he later regretted after facing a number of criticisms. High testosterone levels are related to a number of NON-Autistic personality traits, and are not specific or even representative of autism as a whole, something I discussed here. Simon Baron-Cohen also proposed that autism is on the increase because people with high systemizing brains, IT people, scientists are more able to meet nowadays, thanks to the Internet, marry and have children and that as a consequence of these novel mating trends (assorting mating theory), we have the high rates of autism we see today across the western world.

So, it comes as no surprise to see his latest research in the Netherlands, looking at autism rates in three towns of comparable sizes, with one being presented as being the IT hub of the country. The study can be found here.

What are the main findings of this study?

“The prevalence estimates of ASC in Eindhoven [the IT Hub] was 229 per 10,000, significantly higher than in Haarlem (84 per 10,000), and Utrecht (57 per 10,000), whilst the prevalence for the control conditions were similar in all regions.”

This is equivalent to 1 child in 44 in Eindhoven, 1 in 119 in Haarlem and 1 in 175 in Utrecht.

What was the methodology used?

“The schools were asked to provide a count of the total number of children in the school with any of these developmental conditions, specified per diagnostic subtype and by age and gender. The schools were instructed to only include formal diagnoses in their count (i.e. diagnoses made by a clinical professional, e.g. a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist).”

“Since both attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyspraxia are also developmental conditions and have a similar diagnostic process to ASC, the number of cases with a formal diagnosis of ADHD and dyspraxia were also examined as control conditions.”

“Of the 659 schools invited, 369 schools (56.0%) took part, providing diagnostic information on 62,505 children. Response in the Eindhoven region was higher (75.5%) than in the Haarlem (49.8%) and Utrecht regions (45.7%).”

“Negative binomial regression was used to investigate the multivariable effects of region and school type, with an additional model to investigate the differences between boys and girls.”

For clarification, we do not see actual numbers but only estimated numbers.

The conclusions reached by the authors are:

“The aim of this study was to test a prediction from the hyper-systemizing theory (Baron-Cohen 2006, 2008) that ASC are more common among children in areas where individuals who are talented systemizers are attracted to work and raise a family. Eindhoven is a candidate region of this kind being the hub for IT and technology in the Netherlands.”

“As predicted, this estimate of the prevalence of school-aged children with a formal ASC diagnosis was significantly higher in the Eindhoven region, compared to the Haarlem and Utrecht region. This is consistent with the idea that strong systemizing in parents could be a risk factor for having a child with ASC, although there are other factors that could relate to the increased prevalence in the Eindhoven region.”

The authors have listed a few possible confounding factors: Possible higher awareness of ASC in Eindhoven (parents and professionals), over diagnosis services in Eindhoven or under diagnosis in Utrecht. Interestingly, it is stated in the discussion: “If the responding schools are representative of the comparable schools in the region, the difference in response should not have confounded our findings.” If, indeed (see below).

What do you think of this?

Let me tell you what I think of this study.

By Teresa Conrick

This is a continuing look at a hypothesis, using pertinent pieces of evidence-based research, that connects autism and other neurodegenerative disorders to mercury and also to cancer. Read Part 2  and Part 1.  Here is such a study related to mercury and breast cancer:

"Methyl mercury influences growth-related signaling in MCF-7 breast cancer cells" (Pubmed)

"Environmental contaminants have been shown to alter growth-regulating signaling pathways through molecular mechanisms that are mainly unclear. Here we report that within a narrow concentration range (0.5-1 microM) methyl mercury (MeHg) significantly stimulated growth of MCF-7 cells, induced Ca(2+) mobilization, and activated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (1/2) (Erk1/2)."  

Here also was a report on research done in 2005 that linked Thimerosal to the glutamate issues of autism and the other diseases we are examining:
Study implicates thimerosal in glutamate dysfunction  (ARI Newsletter)

"New research links the mercury-laden vaccine preservative thimerosal to dysregulation of the glutamate system. Glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter, is crucial to learning and memory, but when present in excess it can cause widespread neuron damage or death. Glutamate abnormalities are increasingly being implicated as a factor in autism, Fragile X syndrome, and other neurodevelopmental disorders."

Please take a moment to read that entire page as it contain some very interesting information.  Note also the story of the boy with an autism diagnosis who improved on cough drops that contain dextromethorphan, a glutamate antagonist, which correlates to the past mention in Part 1 - (HERE)

Journal of Environmental Health, 2010 Antagonism of Dextromethorphan and Riluzole to Neurotoxicity Induced by Methylmercury in Rats.  I am not endorsing dextromethorphan or any of the medications mentioned here but pointing out the connection from mercury neurotoxin blockers to an increased pharmaceutical cornucopia of using them as medications directed at neurodegenerative diseases, autism and cancer.  There is an irony here that cannot be denied and needs to be examined more closely.

It appears that six years ago, when this ARI newsletter was published, there was a connection to glutamate dysfunction in autism but not yet its connection to ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia or cancer.  Somewhere, it must have become more obvious, which makes it all the more curious as to why Dr. Gorski would not mention that in his blogs, instead of sarcastic hurls targeted towards so many parents looking for answers about their child's regression into an autism diagnosis.

Here is a good synopsis of where we are in Part 3: the pattern - the hypothesis : toxic exposure (mercury) > glutamate dysfunction > altered protein tyrosine kinase - phosphorylation > regression into disease. The following is research showing how each of the diseases has a common denominator of altered or aberrant protein tyrosine kinases and protein tyrosine phosphorylation:

Protein tyrosine kinases in human breast cancer: kinetic properties and evidence for the presence of two forms of native enzyme  (NIH PubMed)

Protein tyrosine kinases in malignant melanoma.  (NIH PubMed)

Altered protein tyrosine phosphorylation in Alzheimer's disease.  (NIH PubMed)

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) in schizophrenia   (NIH PubMed)  (need to add this study for good visual connection : "Role of reactive oxygen species, mitogen-activated protein kinases and signaling cascade in mercury immunotoxicity" (UGA.edu) "This study indicates that mercury suppresses NO synthesis by inhibition of the nuclear factor .B pathway and modulates cytokine expression by p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation"

Protein tyrosine kinase activity in T lymphocytes from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. (NIH PubMed)

Aberrant protein kinases and phosphoproteins in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis  (HERE)  

Inhibition of protein tyrosine/mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphatase activity is associated with D2 dopamine receptor supersensitivity in a rat model of Parkinson's disease. (NIH PubMed)

"Brain Region-Specific Decrease In the Activity of Protein Kinase C, and Increase In Activated MAP ( mitogen-activated protein) Kinases In Regressive Autism" (IMFAR)

As these connections become more clear, one does not have to look far to see how medications shown to "attenuate MeHg-mediated cell death by blocking NMDARs" would then be coming to your local Walgreens for diseases on the rise:

PaidClinicalTrials.org

Riluzole Clinical Trials

"Review of the use of the glutamate antagonist riluzole in psychiatric disorders and a description of recent use in childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Open-label riluzole in fragile X syndrome.

By Katie Wright

I have been poring over every NIH autism grant from 2009. Every single grant, the amount awarded and the investigator is listed and categorized within of the Strategic Plan guidelines. The Strategic Plan recommendations have been really improving over time but the NIH grants have not.

While tallying up categories of NIH autism research I kept coming across giant grants for something called ACE. What is ACE? I had no idea, but apparently it means Autism Centers of Excellence. Excellence is an adjective used very liberally here. If, like me, you interpret the word “excellence” as meaning novel, exciting, innovative research that raises the bar, sets higher standards, you would be wrong.

ACE would more accurately be described as Autism Centers Extracting $ from Taxpayers for Redundant Autism research. ACE-TRAR, for short. Maybe its just me but I think our families want to see some “excellent” research in clinical interventions, medical interventions and environmental science so that we can prevent a % of ASD by identifying triggers. Those 3 areas of research represent huge spending gaps within the NIH. They are high priority areas for families. When was the last time you heard a parent longing for more face processing research?

ACE centers do no research on regression or biomedical science. Neither does ACE invest in any research on the ubiquitous and ignored GI and autoimmune problems endured and rarely treated effectively in children with ASD.

Virtually all ACE centers are doing identical face processing, autism “gene,” mirror neuron (an area of research that has been found to be useless in autism research) and autism diagnosis research. If you actually need more than a diagnosis from one of these centers you are out of luck, buddy. ACE centers also do plenty of MRI studies, the most over funded area of autism research. The research is so redundant, each center is almost interchangeable. ACE does no biomedical research and no novel treatment research whatsoever. No, ACE specializes in the few areas of autism research already saturated w/ $.

ACE eats up over 13 MILLION dollars of our autism research monies. To make matters worse it appears that a high % of that number goes towards administrative costs. There are all kinds of sneaky grants towards “ACE supplementation admin,” or “ACE core supplementation.” Whatever… it equals bureaucracy.

By Dan Olmsted

I've just spent several hours reading what I believe is one of the most important documents ever created about children's health. Just click on followingvaccinations.com and see for yourself.

The simple idea -- on September 18, 2010, Joan Campbell posted the following note to parents of autistic children: "I am compiling a list of children who were adversely affected by any vaccine. Please if you could say in about 4-6 sentences what that vaccine was, how they reacted, how they are today and what city the vaccine was administered."

To date, more than 900 responses have been received. The cumulative effect is simply devastating.

Over the past few months, as we all know, the medical establishment and the mainstream media have taken to calling the concern that vaccines can and do cause autism "discredited" -- a "myth" based on fraudulent science, Internet rumors, hysterical parents looking for something, anything -- someone, anyone -- to blame. These reports tell a very different story -- children vaccinated in good faith, on time and in full by caring parents who then watch, often within hours, the physical and mental collapse of their beloved baby.

in this case, the plural of anecdote is the truth. The truth that we're talking about is much more than autism here -- everything from sudden death to seizures, acute allergies to horrible gut problems, arthritis to ADD. 

One thing that comes through loud and clear, time after time, is the degree to which most doctors are, at best, incompetent to address this issue. They do not recognize, or cannot admit, vaccine injury. Children who react badly to one vaccine react worse to the next, and the next, until finally they succumb. These doctors are not part of the solution.

While the MMR is the most frequently cited trigger, there are children who fall to the atrocious HepB shot on the day of birth. Or to a flu vaccine. Or the DPT or to God knows what combination of shots at 2 or 4 or 6 months, or a year, or 18 months. Some were sick at the time, others were victims of doctors who played "catch-up" or made a mistake and gave a shot too early, or two shots, or ignored or forgot parents' specific instructions. Being careful was too often not enough: Children went down even after the parents split up the MMR, or delayed, or skipped, or spaced out shots.  Some were affected after the magic autism cutoff date of 36 months. Brain damage hasn't read the DSM-IV, apparently.

Reading this sends the unassailable message that the infant vaccination program is irretrievably broken and needs to start over with some sort of zero-based methodology predicated on safety first. And the people who caused it cannot be the people allowed to fix it. They've already "fixed" it.

The glib idea that autism and vaccination just happen to occur at the same time is shown to be ridiculous. Yes, regressive autism and vaccinations do occur around the same time -- because vaccinations cause regressive autism. 

It's not just mercury. It's not just the MMR. And no one ever said it was. It's those things, yes, and the whole crazy out-of-control industry.

The list of people who need to read this is endless -- because everybody should read it. I cannot imagine a conscientious journalist coming away from it spouting the "widely discredited" line, although I suppose it will happen. But the most important audience is anyone forced to grapple with the vexed decision about vaccinating an infant or pregnant woman. That means prospective parents, new parents, parents of minor children, and anyone who cares about them.

These are not children with difficulties in communication, repetitive behavior, restricted interests and speech delay. They are grievously damaged. Some do get better and even get well, often through biomedical approaches these parents turn to in desperation and despite the disapproval of the same doctors who put them there. These children suffered, and many continue to suffer, the tortures of the damned -- today, in enlightened, family-friendly, compassionate 21st century America, England, Europe, Australia, Africa, India, and everywhere else.

Reading these accounts makes me so glad that there are growing efforts to spread the evidence and take back control of our health -- from the new Canary Party to the people who have risked careers and reputations an ridicule to tell the truth, from Jenny McCarthy to Andy Wakefield, to non-profits like Generation Rescue and TACA and SafeMinds and NAA and every single one of the parents listed here. I know some of them, and I also know that more of you will want to tell your stories there.

A final point -- these voices, without saying so, point up the obscenity of the current hand-wringing over measles. Good lord. Let's talk about measles, if we must, AFTER we stop destroying children's lives every single day.

I wasn't going to quote from any of the accounts, because it is their cumulative power that matters. But let me end simply with what is probably the shortest: "High temperature, high pitched scream and then silence."

These voices are silent no more.

--

Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.

By Lin Wessels

8th Grade English "Cause and Effect" Project:

An interview with Mrs. Wessels, Sam's mom,  by BT

• What does autism mean to you?

To me, autism means my life and the path of my life has been forever changed.  For me, the parent of a child with autism, it means that most every idea of what I thought life was to be, isn't.  For our family, autism means extreme controversy, an altered, almost alien lifestyle, isolation, desperation, and a fight like no other.  It means we will from this day forward fight and battle every system from education, to medical assistance, the state and our government, to ensure the very best possible outcome for our child with autism.  For me, autism means being on your A game every moment of every day because autism does not yield.  It never rest.  Autism fights for control; where as, we fight to control autism.  We MUST come together; as a family, as a society, as a community, as a culture.  With autism, it truly does take a village to raise him or her into adulthood and beyond.

• How has autism affected your life?

How much time have you got?  It has affected every single facet of my life and most likely always will.  Autism has given me many priceless gifts, taught me invaluable life lessons, presented me with excruciating anguish, as well as joy beyond measure.  Autism taught me to take nothing for granted, no matter how simple or menial it may have appeared pre-autism.  Respect and responsibility to self and others, diligence, discipline, strength, tenacity, endurance, true unconditional love, acceptance, empathy, compassion, all have been enhanced by having autism in our lives.

Autism has given me cause for pause.  It has demanded I learn to slow down, despite myself, and find another way, no matter the odds.  It has insisted; yes, there is ALWAYS another way, a different path.  FIND IT or else!  So, we look outside the box more than we spend time looking on the inside.

Determination and stamina!!  Oh my goodness.  Autism is stubborn!  I have to be even more stubborn!!  Autism works tirelessly, meticulously, to keep my child from me and the world he was born to.  Autism keeps my child from me and our immediate surroundings.  It captivates him.  We, those who care about him and work with him, must stand at the ready, working diligently to draw him back to us, to reality, to life, to his life, not who autism would have him be.  Autism has claimed my son; however, I refuse to allow it to own him!

Autism is a HUGE financial strain!  Due to the sudden burst in autism diagnosis coupled with lack of funding and appropriate, readily available, services and treatment options, autism has literally driven us to the brink of bankruptcy.  As autism continues to explode all around us; states, schools, medical professionals, our government, and even churches are ill-equipped to address the growing needs of individuals with autism, leaving determined, distressed  families trying to find a means by any way possible.  Autism never rests; therefore, neither can we.  We must press on and march forward.  WE HAVE TO TRY!  How can we not try?  He's my son!

By Cathy Jameson

Summer has officially begun now that all of my children are on school vacation.  If this summer came with a wish,  I'd wish for lazy days and lots of them.  I am not a morning person so having an alarm-clock free start to my day is going to be great.  My oldest already appreciates the end of her homeschooling lessons and has her sights set on hanging out with friends at the pool.  My younger children are excited to have extra LEGO building time as well as more frequent trips to the park.  Because I've got chalk dust in my veins, I'll still provide educational opportunities for my kids and have plans for some fun circle time games and books sometime between a late breakfast and a picnic lunch.  We've all had a really busy year so I happily welcome a break from the intensity of the regular school year.  

Keeping my typical kids active during the summer is not usually a major challenge. I pick a few summer camps, short day trips and plan lots of play dates to keep them busy.   I try to balance their needs with Ronan's time consuming appointments that take no time off despite the summer season. His therapy sessions and medical appointments happen year-round so it's not unusual to find all us squished into waiting rooms or driving the long drive to his far away but necessary specialists.  

My kids are used to scheduling fun their fun after Ronan's must-get-to appointments.  Finding down time for them is essential for their well-being and for my sanity. I am sensitive to how Ronan's sibs manage and express themselves as their brother fills up many of my thoughts and much of my time.  I'm grateful that my typical kids don't complain about this or see him as interruption to their activities. They accept that most of his behaviors are just who Ronan is and readily open their minds to adapt to his needs and sometimes erratic behavior.  I wish I had that level of acceptance because I'm sure it would decrease my stress level greatly.

With what I hope is a more carefree routine ahead of us for the next two months I wonder if I can reduce some of the worry I carry all year long.  I'll be honest, Ronan and his special needs fill up most of every stress I have.  Vacation from school and time off from our very full schedule should lead to a more relaxed attitude but I don't know if I can actually fully relax.  If I could, maybe that would free up some of the over thinking I do about Ronan.  Imagine what I could do for myself with extra time! Maybe I can catch up on some projects I've put off.  Maybe I can get more writing done.  Maybe I have longer than the five minutes of clothes shopping I allow myself to do at the $4 sale racks at those Super Box stores. Maybe I will do nothing extra or unusual during summer vacation because Ronan's issues also no break in our regular routine--keeping him safe and healthy is a 24/7 job; it doesn't matter if it's summertime or not.  

Ronan has gotten himself into a few scary situations even though I am hyper-vigilant about his safety.  Despite the very secure locks and safety precautions I have in place Ronan is a very smart and abled child who is able to manipulate our locks.  I'm not sure why Ronan prefers to be on the other side of the front door, but he does.  He has learned to ignore the door chime alarms.  He has made up his mind that sitting in Daddy's car in the driveway is much more fun than playing with every toy he owns in his bedroom. Ronan's safety is a constant worry of mine.  That constant worry leaves no extra down time and no time to really relax during any season of the year.  Keeping my guard up at all times is my only assurance that Ronan is exactly where he's supposed to be.

Is it progress that Ronan has figured out gizmos and gadgets? Is it a higher level of thinking that will allow him to be later mainstreamed with his typical peers?  Is it  a step forward to know that hide and seek is a new game of Ronan's even though the seeker (me) is ready to call 9-1-1 to ask for assistance to find a child who doesn't understand he's headed to grave danger?  Or, is it a sense of adventure that typical little boys crave and act on?  That would be neat if it was just typical behavior because I do know there is some typical in Ronan--I see it, I hear it and I sense it on his really good days that don't include my constant monitoring and worrying.  

A Look Inside The Immunization Dilemma By Jaclyn Gallucci on June 23rd, 2011 Read the full story by Jaclyn Galluci at Long Island Press.

The 1952 polio epidemic was one of the largest and most frightening public health crises in the United States, with outbreaks in all 50 states. Of the nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left paralyzed. Until 1955, when New York City’s Dr. Jonas Salk introduced his vaccine, polio was a constant terror. When asked in a televised interview who owned the patent for the vaccine, Salk replied, “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Well, times have changed. Now pharmaceutical companies are highly protective of their assets, because vaccines are not just medical breakthroughs, they are also big business. In fact, Salk’s vaccine went on to raise manufacturer Eli Lilly’s profit by 90 percent in 1956, bringing in a total of $13.7 million in revenue for the company, in addition to the millions it made other manufacturers of the time. Today, companies like Merck bring in billions by manufacturing vaccines for everything from chicken pox to the flu.

Parents, faced with a barrage of polarizing opinions and a handful of conflicting studies, remain in a constant search for definitive answers. But right now, there aren’t any.

A recent University of Michigan study found that 76 percent of parents rely on their pediatricians to make the decision.

Vaccine proponents and the medical community at large argue that vaccination is safe and that illnesses including pertussis (whooping cough), rubella and diphtheria—epidemics that once killed thousands every year—are now prevented by vaccination and the enforcement of government mandates requiring children to have certain vaccinations before they are allowed to attend school.

“Thanks to immunizations, diseases like polio that were once common, are now only distant memories for most Americans,” says the New York State Department of Health. “Today there are few visible reminders of the suffering, injuries and deaths caused by diseases that are now prevented with vaccines.”

Vaccine opponents, namely parent activists and a very small minority of doctors and scientists, argue that infant immune systems are too weak to handle these shots, and that the possible side effects of vaccination, including seizures, paralysis and death, are overlooked by pharmaceutical companies and are not worth the risk. These critics say vaccines can trigger developmental problems like autism.

“Selling vaccines is extremely profitable and the process of mandating vaccines is fraught with conflicts of interest,” Michael Belkin, father of a child who died post-vaccination, told health officials. “The business model of having the government mandate [that] everyone must buy your product is a monopolist’s delight.”

The vaccine argument has reached a stalemate, leaving the general public wondering whom they should believe. Meanwhile, parents across Long Island and the nation are faced with their first vaccination decision within hours of their infants’ birth—and, one way or the other, they need to make a choice....

Anne Dachel has this comment  in response to Ms. Galluci's article in the Long Island Press:

Jaclyn Gallucci is the exception among reporters. She's actually done more than just accept the denials and claims of health officials. We almost never see this from the media. Parents in the autism community are used to news stories dismissing us as "anti-vaccine fanatics." We couldn't possibly be right when we say vaccines injured our children; all the studies disprove any causal link.

No one ever talks about the overriding power and influence of the vaccine makers whose motivation is profit. No one talks about how protected the industry is, nor do we hear about the lack of testing on vaccine ingredients. Gallucci's work should be a wakeup call for members of the press.

By John Stone

An Open Letter to the National Institutes of Health (Dr Marina Volkov answering on behalf of Director Francis Collins): 54% of American Children Suffer from Chronic Health Problems .

Dear Dr Volkov,

I acknowledge receipt of your e-letter of June 20 in response to my letter to Dr Collins (‘An Open Letter to National Institutes of Health's Dr Francis Collins: 54% of American Children Suffer from Chronic Health Problems, 1 in 6 has a developmental disorder’ reproduced below). I have to admit that I am less disappointed that Dr Collins has not answered in person than that you have insultingly not bothered to address any of the issues I raised in my letter, contenting yourself with a recital of NIH expenditure on autism research, some of which may be directed to looking at environmental causes. 

On reflection, it strikes me that you may not be remotely competent to answer, but this does not reflect well on the NIH in any case. With the nation’s health in meltdown the refusal to address the fundamental problems that Dr Collins himself first raised to Congress 5 years ago is astonishing. Let me give a single example – nothing to do with autism  - from Dr Collins’s NIH budget request for 2012 which indicates the inadequacy of the position (HERE) .

Dr Collins writes:

"We face a similar economic threat from diabetes. If current trends continue, by 2050 as many as one in three U.S. adults will be diagnosed with diabetes. Total costs of diabetes, including medical care, disability, and premature death, reached an estimated $174 billion in the United States in 2007...According to analysis from the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization, more than 50 percent of Americans could have diabetes or pre-diabetes by 2020...Furthermore, the center’s analysis predicts diabetes and pre-diabetes will account for an estimated 10 percent of total health care spending by the end of this decade, at an annual cost of almost $500 billion.

"But I can offer some hope. NIH spearheaded a landmark clinical trial on type 2 diabetes prevention that showed that people at high-risk for diabetes can dramatically reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes through modest exercise and dietary changes that achieve modest weight loss. Called the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), the clinical trial included 3,234 adults at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes, including those with a family history of diabetes, as well as other risk factors. One-third of these individuals participated in a lifestyle program that included exercise training and dietary change implemented under the guidance of lifestyle coaches. The DPP research team found that this approach lowered risk of diabetes by 58%..."

The UnitedHealth Centre report (HERE) projects 15m US citizens with diabetes by 2020 (>5%) and 52% with diabetes or pre-diabetes, but Dr Collins tells us we can only perhaps avert 58% of this by identifiable life-style changes, leaving some unidentified underlying cause of the phenomenon and still more than 1 in 5 Americans with pre-diabetes or diabetes by 2020, according to these figures.

In this regard it is not so unreasonable to ask not what we can do to treat these problems, but a very much more fundamental question of what is causing them in the first place. In a recent study the cost of autism in the UK was calculated at £28b a year (with an undoubted over-projection in the adult population) but leaving a net cost of £50k ($80k) a head (including issues like loss of employment and productivity). If you have just 3m Americans with autism you have an annual cost of $240b on these figures. Frankly, this is unsustainable. 5 years ago Dr Collins stated that the rise of autism was real and could not be genetic, so we have to ask why the present indifference to our concerns?

With regard to the substance of your letter, it has been pointed out to me that (disgracefully) the CHARGE project which you described in your 3^rd paragraph will shut next month, funding having been withdrawn by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency, as will the Center for Child Environmental Health, University of California, Davis. Katie Wright has pointed out to me $13m spent on completely useless projects to do with MRI scans and face recognition (Autism Centers of Excellence). But all this money is chicken-feed beside the scope of the catastrophe facing us – and the pharmaceutical is not going to fix this.

Having said which, what I actually believe is that already there is almost enough science published to pinpoint the environmental triggers and processes of autism, it is just being arrogantly sidelined.

Please, what are you going to do? Presently, the ship is going down while the captain salutes the flag.

John Stone

An Open Letter to National Institutes of Health's Dr. Francis Collins: 54% of American Children Suffer from Chronic Health Problems

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 (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/05/19/peds.2010-2989.abstract ), 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.

Bearing in mind that in 2006 you held a brief for gene research I cannot help thinking that your request to Congress for funding was nevertheless putting the cart before the horse. The real imperative can only be to stop the great industrial experiment on our children by reducing and eliminating toxic exposures whether through food or pharmaceuticals. Investigating which random gene combinations might indicate greater susceptibility to those toxic harms will be barely productive in the face of what is becoming a slow but inexorable genocide of children, many of whom will not outlive their parents, not have children of their own, and be further prey to the pharmaceutical industry (HERE), at the same time as placing an ever more impossible social, medical and financial burden on the shrinking pool of the fit and able.

In 2006 you at least spoke plain about the general causes of the chronic sickness phenomenon. The new reports are far more evasive, and years have been wasted. Immense resources and effort have been put by government agencies and industrial lobby groups into denouncing and abusing people who are simply stating the obvious: that it cannot go on any longer. It is long passed time that the public dance of lies, misinformation and evasion came to an end. I believe you know truth and it is time to speak out so that your nation and the world finally hears.

John Stone

UK Editor, Age of Autism

Response from Marina Volkov, Acting Director, Office of Science Policy, Planning and Communications, National Institute of Mental Health, June 20, 2011 (Subject: Your recent email to Dr Collins)

Dear Mr. Stone:

Thank you for your May 24 e-mail to Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Dr. Collins’ office asked that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) respond to your inquiry.  We would like to address your concerns regarding the role of genetics research in addressing autism, and the interplay between NIH’s genetics research programs and environmental research programs.  There has been considerable research and progress related to autism in the last several years, particularly in the last two years, thanks to funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).  In addition, your concerns are echoed and reflected in the 2011 strategic plan of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), which identifies priorities for autism research across the Federal Government and provides a basis for partnerships between Federal agencies and private organizations to further biomedical and services research efforts.

By Katie Wright

Over the past weeks we have heard genetic researchers hailing the discovery of the latest (I have lost count) autism “gene.” We have heard how “exciting” this discovery is, what a “breakthrough” this is.  All their hard work is paying off, and so on and so on…

I am sorry to say I am not excited in the least. These “breakthroughs” seem to appear with great regularity yet make no impact on the lives of anyone actually living and suffering with autism.  Neither do these “breakthroughs” elucidate the cause of autism or treatment options. They merely describe the genes involved in a tiny population of ASD people with a chromosomal abnormality. This minuscule group has almost nothing in common with comparably huge population of those affected with severe regressive autism. 

Here is a video of a California family struggling to care for a severely autistic 17-year-old boy.

CD Foakley Autism Broken Nights and Lost Days

 I challenge anyone to live through this. I have seen and experienced many of the worst aspects of autism but this family truly humbles me. They are heroes in every sense of the word. The Mom introduces the family by stating it is Sunday and they have been up since 4:55 AM. This 17-year-old boy is in pajamas, a diaper and is wearing protective headgear. The boy repeatedly trying to strike himself and the Mom is attempting to hold his hands by his sides. She has the resigned, heartbroken voice of a parent who has been through too much and lives in constant emotional pain. The Dad is behind the camera.

The Mom describes how her son suffers from “savage self abuse” and has badly damaged his ear. The boy is walking in circles attempting, over and over again, trying to strike his head. The Mom reels off a laundry list of the medications they have tried, all of which have failed to help her son. In a desperate attempt to stop the self abuse she ties the boys hands behind his back. Over and over again this Mom says, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”

The boy is clearly ill, probably chronically so. He is emaciated. His Mom describes how he has suffered from impacted bowels. This is an extremely painful, yet common problem among the regressive autism population. Little to no research monies have been invested by the NIH towards uncovering the cause of bowel disease in these children.

 In 2009 the NIH invested $6,059,000.00 in face processing, eye gazing research. 

Please mark the TACA blog in your favorites. Here's a post from Lisa Ackerman. To Lisa Ackerman.  What would your letter look like? KS

Dear Lisa of 1999,
 
It’s been one year since Jeff was diagnosed and you are still really frustrated. So far several doctors have told you to place Jeff in an institution.  Jeff is only three years old.  You know he has a ton of issues and is really sick, but an institution?!  It feels like your world is crumbling around you.  You are upset and can’t sleep because you are so very scared of the future.
 
So here I am , in the future, writing to tell you it will be ok.  These particular specialists are wrong, they can’t predict Jeff’s future.  They c ould not have got it more wrong!
 
In your fear, you have forgotten some of the advice mom and dad taught you.  Please stay focused, and try to remember these things:
 
1)  You cannot do it all at once.  Remember two checklists:  the long one that has everything you need to do on it and the short list with 1-3 things you can accomplish each week.  PLEASE don’t look at the long list more than once a week – It will tease and taunt you. Keep that short list going and be realistic. That long list will slowly disappear.  You will get a lot done. Trust me.
 
2)  Surround yourself with positive people (and stay away from the Debbie Downers).  You cannot change these folks.  Focus on where you have the power to drive positive change.
 
3)  The worthless emotions of fear and anger need to be banished as soon as possible.  You have already wasted a year with these emotions. Stop it.  Know that they still crop up but then squash them quickly with a positive attitude.
 
4)  I like how you celebrated every victory (no matter how small.) Continue to do that and smile as much as possible.  Know that good days are around the corner.
 
5)  Don’t be afraid to go ask questions –  talk to a speaker at the conference, or a doctor whom you have just met.  Bring Jeff’s medical binder and ask for guidance, direction and referrals.  They don’t bite. They are there to help. Take advantage of that. Be sure to bring them a snack or something to drink as a thank you.
 
6)  Don’t be afraid to travel to someone you think can help.  Miracle Flights is a blessing and might even fly you there.  You can make anything happen for Jeff.
 
7)  If something doesn’t sound right or feel correct, it probably isn’t.  Trust your instincts.
 
 Stay consistent.  Stay on target.  Utilize the lab results and behavior data as your guide.  Trust these measurements.

Our good friends Harry and Gina Tembenis of the Elias Tembenis Sixth Planet Foundation, founded in memory of their young son Elias, invite you to come laissez les bontemps roulez at Paulie's NOLA Jazz and Blues festival in Worcester Mass, this weekend. Click  HERE for details.

John & Son's Urban Fairgrounds - 226 Chandler Street - Worcester, MA. 01609
Friday 6/24: 7:00 pm - 12:00 am - festival gates open @ 5:30 pm
Saturday 6/25: 12:00 PM - 12:00 am - festival gates open @ 11:30 am

By Anne Dachel

As frustrating as it is to look at the news stories on autism each day, many of us keep on doing it.  It seems the false and misleading information the public is continually fed will never stop.  As long as someone is from a big name hospital or has an official title, what they say is never questioned.  It always amazes me that neither reporters nor the experts they cite are never really concerned about what happening to our children. They're satisfied to leave autism as a perpetual mystery, regardless of the fact that they have no answers.

I'm just one of many parents out there monitoring the news and for a number of years I wrote to reporters daily about what they were saying about autism. 

That’s changed since most Google news stories now have a comment section.  We have an opportunity to challenge all the phony claims and reach a wider audience and we're doing it.  It's one thing for a reporter to cover a story and have it published online and quite another for that story to be attacked in writing in the comments posted at the bottom of the piece.  Thousands of parents search daily for information on autism and on the controversial link to vaccinations.  What we’re doing makes this issue one of the hottest ones in the news.  Reporters have told me how surprised they were that there were more comments on their autism story than on anything they've written.  Parents need to continue to hold reporters responsible for covering autism issues from all sides.  A huge percentage of parents are a lot more knowledgeable about autism than most reporters will ever be.  We need to use our knowledge to expose the truth. 

I also know that many parents living with the unimaginable demands of raising a child with autism don't have the time to keep up with the latest stories on autism.  I hope I have a way to help. Thanks to my good friend Nick Haas, I now have a daily blog where I report on AUTISM AND THE MEDIA.  I try to focus on important autism stories, especially from major news sources.  It's free and it's easy to subscribe to by just entering your email address on the site, http://annedachel.com/.  Once a day you'll get an email from annedachel.com with several of the important autism stories that were published online that day.  The comments I post on a story are also there.  If someone wants, they can go on the story and add their own comment.  My aim is to have a way to alert members of our community to the latest news.  Autism is one of the most popular topics out there so there's always something coming out.  I hope a lot of you will sign up.

Anne Dachel is media editor for Age of Autism.

American children see the pediatrician at 2 weeks, 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 9 months, twelve months, eighteen months, twenty four months and thirty six months for well visits.   Why is food now life threatening to so many children? From Pediatrics

The Prevalence, Severity, and Distribution of Childhood Food Allergy in the United States

The goal of this study was to better estimate the prevalence and severity of childhood food allergy in the United States.

Abstract

By Elizabeth Gillespie

When does a “Bad Law” affect the welfare of our Autistic children?

On the 6^th May 2011, I (the Applicant) attended a Tribunal and took the local council (1^st Respondents) and my neighbours (2^nd Respondents) to court. The matter was over the neighbours riding their motor bikes close to my boundary and impacting on my son’s well-being.  I lost my case!

What is a Tribunal:

A tribunal is known as –  VCAT  (Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Australia), it is where minor cases of disputes are heard and where they encourage you to represent yourself for efficiency as well as being cost effective.  VCAT usually comes into play when your complaints go unheard by neighbours and/or local councils- as in my case. Some cases may take 15 minutes to resolve, while others may take all day. In many instances a decision made by the member (the individual sitting on the bench before you) can resolve a matter on the same day, whereas some more complicated decisions can take two weeks. It took the member two weeks to make her decision to rule against me.

How the neighbours impacted on me:

My dispute with the neighbours had been ongoing since 5^th December 2009 when I first moved into my home and three motorbikes on the adjoining property rode alongside my boundary. 

The excessive noise from constant revving, the high speed acceleration to execute jumps, the dust created and the fumes from the bikes spilled over to my property. What is worst is the impact it had on my Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Global Develop Delay, Autistic Disorder, non-verbal and vaccine injured son; Callan.  

On one occasion I found Callan cowering under my dining room table to hide from the noise. There were three bike riders constantly riding up and down the boundary completely oblivious to how their actions were impacting on my family.

Another concern of mine was the speed in which they were travelling. The speed was necessary for them to execute their man-made jumps that were mounds of dirt made by an earthmoving machine. The mounds of dirt rose to about 2 metres (6.5ft) high and a crude aluminium ramp was placed in front of the mound to provide the height for the jumps. The riders could execute jumps 4.5 metres (15ft) high.

What was my motivation to attend VCAT:

Since December 2009 we have suffered from dust, fumes and excessive noise from the bikes which not only impacts on Callan, it also has an adverse affect on the whole family. It is the whole family who has to console an inconsolable child, especially one that does not understand and is overwhelmed by the noise.

One day Callan escaped from the property and I found him wondering aimlessly across the motor bike track, luckily the bikes were not being ridden on this particular day.

By Stacy Maillet

If only for a moment, I felt helpful and not helpless..

On January 31st, 2011, my 2-year-old son Nicholas was diagnosed with Autism. 

I left a 15-year career to stay at home with my Son Nicholas. Recently I started to do some work from home for an Automotive dealership I had previously worked for. On occasion, I get to go into the Dealership to do some work onsite. I look forward to going in, it allows me to forget about Autism for a few hours, and interact with adults.

I went into work one Saturday, and while I was in the service department working with some of the staff, I overheard a few people talking about a woman in the waiting room. I was curious to see what was going on, so I walked over to the glass partition to take a peak around the corner. I could not believe what I saw!

 There, in a waiting room full of people, was a mother trying to calm her young son! And to those who did not know any better, you would have thought she had given birth to the devil himself. But I did know better! I knew that behavior so well it was like watching my own son! I had been in this same situation not to long ago. Still to this day, I have not fully recovered from the embarrassment, people we just watching me struggle with my 2-year-old son on the floor. This is a behavior that I have become very accustom to, but it still makes me feel so helpless.

I felt this woman’s pain, I wanted to break down and cry. I hurried to check with the mechanic working on her car, only to find out it was at least 45 minutes away from being finished. People in the waiting room, as well as some of my staff, were starting to get pretty annoyed with this mother and her child. It took everything I had not to scream at every last one of them. I could see the tantrum was escalating. Then it hit me! I could help! EI had taught me several ways to calm my son down, the one he responds to the best is swinging in a sheet, or a hammock.

 I ran to my car to grab the sheet I had purposely left in there, just in case my own child had an uncontrollable tantrum. Then off to the waiting room I went with my sheet in hand, having no idea how this woman was going to react to me interfering. I knew this could go very wrong, I hoped I would not bring her any more embarrassment then she was already feeling, But I had to try and help. I would want someone to try and help me, and if the sheet was unsuccessful, I would stay with her until her car is finished, I was not just going to stand by and watch!

Our good friend autism SuperSibling Zack Gonzalez turned 18 last week.Zack is an author, a comedian, a radio show host and more - all for his brother Ethan, whom he calls "Deets." His newest book is called "Charity Bites" and we had a copy to give away.

Melivia Mutch is our winner!

Visit his site HERE.5, 2011:

Snowman's Land

Season 1 Episode 8

Aired date: Oct 28, 2000

Plot: After a huge snowfall, everyone is having fun but a disappointed Becky, who has the measles and won't be able to make her annual snowman from the first snowfall. George decides to make one for her, but risks being lost in a terrible blizzard.

You know him as the Twitter/Social Media King @TannersDad. He wrote this post for us last year - and we thought it was a good day to bring it to you again. Happy Father's Day.

By Tim Welsh

I never seem to go for the popularity vote. I know that there are many "bad" Fathers in the world. On Father's Day, I thought it would be appropriate to submit my very first post to Age of Autism. I want write about the way Dads are hard wired, dealing with Warrior Mothers and the path of Autism Recovery.
    
On a special day in June men are given a day to rest, relax, play, eat, watch sports, take a nap, and be king of the castle. Other than making love (For women) & Crazy Sex (guys words), that sums up the simple mind of the human male. One thing at one time.  If the list becomes more than three go back to the beginning and start over.  In life and business there are only two paths. You are either growing and improving or stagnant, declining, and dying. The world stops for nothing or no one. The status quo is only a way of viewing the world through rose colored glasses as it passes you by.
    
We all must invest more into our marriage, family, friends, and life. The battle is all we have. As has been said many times before life is not a dress rehearsal? We are on stage now and the curtain has risen. Small victories are huge victories and gifts from God. The Random "Hi Daddy", peeing or pooping in the right place, a hug, a kiss, or his wonderful smile.
    
It has taken years to learn these lessons from my son. Men in families must admit we not as strong as a mother fighting for her child. We do not have all the answers. We cannot fix many things when it comes to Autism.

Jane Williams, Trish Rogers and Evelyn are our winners! I've sent each of you an email. KS

We gave 3 corkscrews to readers from our friends at The Puzzling Piece. What a great teacher gift too! Listed at $25 in the catalog, you can select where to send $5 of the proceeds, and our sponsor TACA is a choice we highly recommend! Leave a comment to enter.

Hmmm, Freebies Galore, wasn't she a 007 bad girl? You'll be stirred, not shaken, at the tremendous value for your budget at the NAA conference this November 10 - 13, 2011.  (Register HERE) by July 3rd to win a free iPad! The NAA conference is a single track program, so you can hear every speaker, and it's held at the family friendly and affordable Tradewinds Resort on St. Pete Beach in Florida. NAA provides breakfast and lunch each day during scheduled breaks in the exhibitors wing. The entire is conference like a warm family reunion (with family you really like) at a resort with trained staff ready to cater to your and your child's needs. It's Yin to the Yang of Autism One - equally important as we work to plan for the best possible future for our kids. I'll see you on the beach!!  Last one in the Gulf is a rotten egg! KIM

Relaxing, informative, hopeful, casual, laid-back, rejuvenating, affordable, tropical, FUN...are we talking about a conference?  Absolutely!

If you're an autism parent, this conference is for YOU!  The NAC features the world's leading experts on autism in a relaxed, environmentally-friendly tropical resort setting.  The schedule is designed to keep you from running frantically from one presentation to another - take some time to dip your toes in the pool or do some shopping in the exhibit hall.  Sleep in! - There's nothing on your agenda before 9 am!  The on-site spa will give you a chance to pamper yourself - can you even remember what that's like?  The intimate atmosphere allows opportunities to network with speakers, community leaders, fellow parents and friends.  FREE food items and beverages will be available in our exhibit hall throughout the conference to help keep your expenses down.  Use the money you save to get a massage, or have cocktails by the pool!  This is YOUR conference, don't miss it!

NAA Members - Bring a friend and save! 
When you register to attend the full conference, you can choose to purchase a companion pass for just $100!  Bring your spouse, your Mom, your best friend, your child's therapist - you get the picture!  And be sure to tell them to pack their flip-flops!

5:50 seconds into this clip Arthur's Dad says, "It's chicken pox." and reassures his son - "No it's just a normal childhood illness. I had it. Mom had it." Then Mom decides to call Grandma Thora to come take care of Arthur. DW is terribly jealous of the attention and TLC her big brother recieies while sick. There's no panic, no Defcon 99 germ bomb, no shame, no calling child services for lack of proper medical care.  So what has changed in the last decade where American parents have been taught to fear and loathe chicken pox - and now adults face shingles regularly because tots are not shedding "varicalla boosters" via routine chicken pox?  Meantime, the rate of chronic, lifelong, debilitating sickness has skyrocketed with nary a care in the mainstream media and doctor's offices around the nation. "Just get the damn shot!" to paraphrase a certain TV doc.

Should selective abortion of children be considered part of an autism prevention strategy?

By Kevin Barry

Advances in medical science and technology sometimes come with a heavy moral price. Traditional pre-natal genetic tests have involved invasive analysis of the mother's amniotic fluid.  Now, less invasive blood tests are available.  (See Science Daily HERE ).  A new simple blood test is now on the market which can be used for genetic counseling about potential risks for developing autism.  Information presented to expecting parents could easily lead to selective abortion of supposedly "at-risk" fetuses. 

Universal Family Church is a multi-faith church which highly respects the individual's right to make health choices.  Most of our members do not support selective abortion of children.  As a society, we have legalized abortion, but drawn a line banning the use of taxpayer money to perform this procedure.  Universal Family Church believes that society should go a step further and ban the use of taxpayer money for new genetic research which could lead to selective abortions.  We believe that selective abortions - of babies otherwise wanted and hoped for - are especially tragic.  

Presently, a very high percentage of fetuses which test positive prenatally for Down's Syndrome are aborted. ( See Nature HERE)  Is Government-funded research leading to a similar future for infants who may simply have a very slightly increased risk of developing autism?

Should selective abortion of children be considered part of an autism prevention strategy? 

Lineagen, a biotech company based in Utah, is now marketing a blood test which identifies "new genetic variants associated with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders)" . (See Lineagen HERE)  At this time, Lineagen positions its product as a post natal early intervention tool - not as a prenatal test.  However, with autism rates conservatively affecting one in every 70 boys born today, expecting couples are rightfully concerned about autism.  FirstStepDX is an easy, single draw blood test that could be added to routine prenatal OB/GYN appointments.  

Lineagen's website explains this simple process of their FirstStepDx blood test:

What does the testing process include?

Lineagen’s FirstStepDx combines two state-of-the-art genetic tests: whole genome chromosome microarray analysis (CMA) and fragile X testing. 

Two blood samples are taken from the person undergoing testing and are obtained during a single blood draw.  From these samples DNA is extracted, which is then used for genetic testing.

The FirstStepDx test comprises a comprehensive service that includes pre- and post-test genetic counseling and a detailed report delivered in an easy-to-read format, suitable for both physicians and families. Lineagen Our Services HERE

The Lineagen site also describes the test's use of new genetic variants:   

"Aw don't worry Fred, Measles don't hurt." "They sure do, in the pocketbook!" 1:40 into this clip. MMR sure has helped someone's pocketbook. Why the fear of childhood illness in 2011 versus the "Stone Age" known as 1961?  Thanks to commenter Shawn Seigel for sharing this clip.

Yesterday the AAP and CDC had a TweetChat about measles. I Tweeted only once: My daughter w/ autism sleeps w/ doll from 1961 that has MEASLES - a child's toy - Irony 101 #measleschat

In other news yesterday, a child died following Polio drops, a MRSA vaccine trial was halted due to serious reactions (death and organ failure) and a Seattle reporter took Michael Belkin and many other folks you know (including yours truly) to task for being ""anti-vaccine refusers."."

By Kim Stagliano

Let's take a trip back to Christmas, 1962. A little girl named Michele had a Christmas wish for Santa. Michele wanted to play Mommy. Mommies used to take care of sick children. It was part of their job description. Sniffles and sneezes, spotty rashes and wheezes. That was childhood, after all. Get sick, build an immune system, grow up.  Michele got a wonderful new doll from Santa that year. Her name was Hedda.

Hedda slept through the night like a dream.

 

Hedda smiled at her Mommy

 

Hedda had one more face. In 1962, it was a face that every Mommy recognized and knew how to care for and love. So did doctors. In 2009, this face would instill fear, panic, disdain, loathing and angry cries that Michele was a very, very bad Mommy to Hedda.

 

Hedda had the measles!  See the little hole in her mouth for the thermometer?

Yes, in 1962, measles were a common childhood illness. And little girls played with dollies that had the measles, and made them all better. So did doctors for children who got the measles. The full name of the doll was "Hedda Get Better."  Michele is my big sister. She found a Hedda doll on ebay this Fall and sent her to me. Perhaps I'll invite Hedda to Autism One, if she's feeling up to it.

How about your child? Is there a magic button you can twist so that he/she gets better? I wish there were. For each of us.

Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism. Her book from Skyhorse Publishing, All I Can Handle I'm No Mother Teresa; A Life Raising Three Daughters with Autism is available now. Visit her website at Kim Stagliano.

As recently as 2000, chicken pox was not considered the plague, as evidenced by this Mattel doll. Children were not routinely vaccinated against the disease, instead they caught it as tots and then kissed it goodbye. Moms, and little girls playing Mommy, helped make the chicken pox disappear.
  

By Teresa Conrick

In  Part 1, I discussed some connections between melanin, autism and cancer. I started on this research road as my red-haired, teen daughter, who regressed after vaccines,  is brutally affected with health issues, behaviors of autism and now with extraordinary estrogen dominance and seizures.  Those factors kept me challenged into pursuing causation and treatments.  I kept coming across more research that connected so many of her health issues  -- for example --    (HERE)
"The presence of GluRs in the follicles and the corpus luteum in the ovary of rats and monkeys suggests a possible female sex steroid-GluRs interaction. It is possible that the glutaminergic excitation system may play a role in the up- or down-regulation of estrogen and progesterone."  

So I had to keep looking and saw that the metabotropic glutamate receptors are not only involved in autism but also cancer.  Looking deeper into their mechanism of action brings us to a closer, more magnified look.  What seems to be a pattern is something called protein kinase and phosphorylation.  A cell's ability to respond to its extracellular environment involves a complex and highly organized series of events referred to as cellular signalling. "Signalling processes regulate fundamental cellular responses and abrogation of these processes can lead to the development of various human diseases.  Tyrosine kinases are important mediators of the signaling cascade, determining key roles in diverse biological processes like growth, differentiation, metabolism and apoptosis in response to external and internal stimuli. Recent advances have implicated the role of tyrosine kinases in the pathophysiology of cancer."  Tyrosine kinase – Role and significance in Cancer   (HERE)

Now lets take a look at Riluzole at this new magnification.  We saw from Part 1 that it is being used for ALS and also now in Clinical Trials via NIH and NCI for breast cancer: David H. Gorski, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute/Wayne State University, Detroit MI(HERE)  : 

Ten years ago, this study was done about Riluzole and its effect on tyrosine phosphorylation which seems very pertinent in this exploration.    2001 Jun - "Effects of riluzole on N-methyl-D-aspartate-induced tyrosine phosphorylation in the rat hippocampus".

"Since increased tyrosine phosphorylation has been observed in response to brain ischemia, we investigated whether riluzole (an inhibitor of glutamate neurotransmission with neuroprotective properties) affects tyrosine phosphorylation stimulated by N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) in rat hippocampal slices. Riluzole produced an extremely potent concentration-related inhibition of NMDA (1 mM)-stimulated protein tyrosine phosphorylation....These results suggest that inhibition of tyrosine phosphorylation may contribute to the neuroprotective effects of riluzole against excitotoxic injury."

This could then be a key into more observations.  First a closer look at how mercury is involved in this cellular signaling:

"Low and Nontoxic Inorganic Mercury Burdens Attenuate BCR-Mediated Signal Transduction" HERE 2007 Department of Immunology and Microbiology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI Department of Pharmacology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI

"The ubiquitous environmental heavy metal contaminant mercury (Hg) is a potent immunomodulator that has been implicated as a factor contributing to autoimmune disease. However, the mechanism(s) whereby Hg initiates or perpetuates autoimmune responses, especially at the biochemical/molecular level, remain poorly understood. inorganic mercury (Hg+2) interfered with BCR-mediated growth control, suggesting that BCR signal strength was impaired by Hg+2. Extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 1,2 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) is responsible for the activation of several transcription factors in B cells. Phosphorylation of ERK serves as an essential node of signal integration Hg+2 does not seem to act directly on ERK-MAPK but rather on an upstream element or elements of the BCR signal transduction pathway, above the level of the key protein tyrosine kinase Syk. Our data suggest that the site of action of Hg+2 may very well be localized on the plasma membrane. These findings support a connection between Hg+2 and attenuated BCR signal strength in the etiology of autoimmune disease."

In 1999, another related study:  "Low and nontoxic levels of ionic mercury interfere with the regulation of cell growth in the WEHI-231 B-cell lymphoma" - Institute of Chemical Toxicology, Wayne State University, Detroit, USA  "These data suggest that low levels of mercury, which are not toxic, may still contribute to immune dysfunction by interfering with antigen-receptor-mediated and protein-kinase-dependent signal transduction in lymphocytes"

and more evidence:

"Mercuric chloride activates the Src-family protein tyrosine kinase, Hck in myelomonocytic cells"  2000 HERE

Hck is a member of the Src-family of protein tyrosine kinases that appears to function in mature leukocytes to communicate a number of extracellular signals including various cytokines. In this study we show that the thiolreactive heavy metal, mercuric chloride (HgCl2) induces rapid and robust activation of tyrosine phosphorylation within human myelomonocytic cells. ... The ability of HgCl2 to activate Src-family kinases such as Hck in hematopoietic cells may help explain why exposure to the heavy metal is associated with immune system dysfunction in rodents as well as humans. Keywords: autoimmune disease; Src-family kinases; Syk; tyrosine phosphorylation

We have three corkscrews to offer our readers from our friends at The Puzzling Piece. What a great teacher gift too! Listed at $25 in the catalog, you can select where to send $5 of the proceeds, and our sponsor TACA is a choice we highly recommend! Leave a comment to enter.

Our good friend autism SuperSibling Zack Gonzalez turns 18 today. Join us in wishing him a very happy birthday! Zack is an author, a comedian, a radio show host and more - all for his brother Ethan, whom he calls "Deets." His newest book is called "Charity Bites" and we have a copy to give away. Leave a comment wishing Zack a very happy 18th to win!

He's donating $1 from every purchase on his site today to Generation Rescue.  Visit his site HERE.5, 2011:

Call to listen. You are a stakeholder!

June 14-15, 2011

Hubert H. Humphrey Building
200 Independence Avenue, S.W. Room 800, Washington, DC 20201

Participant Call-In: 1-800-857-5054 Passcode: 2529191
Toll Number: 1-517-308-9324

By John Stone

Adding to the tangle of undisclosed conflicts in the BBC’s radio documentary ‘Science Betrayed’ in March, which re-cycled the allegations of Brian Deer and the British Medical Journal against Andrew Wakefield, it appears that one of the producers of the show, Alexandra Feachem, is the daughter of a leading professional beneficiary of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Sir Richard Feacham. Sir Richard in a letter to BMJ in 2009  - in which he argued for public private partnerships in global health – disclosed the following relationship HERE

“RF leads the Global Health Group, an action tank at the University of California San Francisco, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and ExxonMobil. The Global Health Group is in part dedicated to the understanding and development of the role of the private sector in health systems strengthening.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a high profile role in the promotion of the global vaccine industry and schedule. In an interview in February Mr Gates told Sanjay Gupta of CNN (HERE ):

“Well, Dr. Wakefield has been shown to use absolutely fraudulent data. He had a financial interest in some lawsuits. He created a fake paper. The journal allowed it to run.”

This is in line with the allegations of the programme and the BMJ but well exceed the findings of the General Medical Council against Andrew Wakefield and colleagues, which remain under appeal before the High Court by Prof John Walker-Smith. The BBC’s rules on disclosure state (HERE ):

"It is important that the personal, commercial, business, financial and other outside interests of BBC staff do not compromise their BBC role. The onus is on the journalist, content producer or on-air talent to let the BBC know if they (or in certain circumstances their family or close personal contacts) have any outside interests which could be perceived as a conflict of interest."

It is evident that if Ms Feachem divulged this conflict to her employers, neither she nor they thought to tell listeners.

As reported in Age of Autism previously, the programme failed to disclose conflicts of other contributers:

- Prof Mark Pepys and University College London, who are in business partnership MMR manufacturers (and former defendants GlaxoSmithKline) (HERE ).

-Dr Fiona Godlee and BMJ, who are in business partnership with MMR manufacturer (and former defefendants) Merck, through its information division Univadis, and who are sponsored by both Merck and GSK in their annual awards (HERE ).

-Brian Deer, himself, who had a confidential arrangement with the GMC prosecutors not to name him as complainant against Wakefield and colleagues enabling him to continue reporting on the story as an independent journalist (HERE ).

As extensively reported in Age of Autism and Child Health Safety (HERE ) the allegations against Wakefield of fraud were without foundation: the 12 co-authors of the Lancet paper have never dissociated themselves from data in the paper, which was not drawn from the GP notes raked over by Deer (HERE ). Nor have any of Deer’s interpretations of data from the GMC transcripts proved to be well-founded (HERE and HERE ).

By Katie Wright

Autism, for at least half of the children, is a medical disease. Dr. Landa has received millions of dollars to essentially replicate the same early behavioral intervention work on moderately to high functioning kids. Landa recently completed a very expensive study on whether pivotal response training, another form of behavioral therapy, was a more effective than the traditional form of behavioral intervention, ABA. Not really.

In 2005 I was desperate. Christian had regressed into severe autism in a matter of months. I dreaded going to sleep at night because Christian would know fewer words the next day. He was beginning to fail to recognize family members. Christian was in a high quality behavioral early intervention for months but was only getting worse. No one prepares families for this. We knew he was so sick but almost no one believed us or took our concerns seriously.

My mom had a connection to Kennedy Krieger. She had heard Dr. Rebecca Landa would be in town soon and asked if Dr. Landa would visit Christian for a consult. Dr. Landa graciously agreed.

So Dr. Landa arrived on our doorstep with a video machine, tapes and a sheaf of published studies under her arms. She was very friendly. I introduced Landa to Christian who by now was terrified of all strangers, had horrible dark circles under his eyes, a red rash all over his face and had loose bowel movements about every hour. No, I never said it was a pretty picture and yes, Landa was very kind to come to our home. However, looking back it could not have been more obvious, even in 2005 that Christian had every single symptom of  PANDAS, severe allergies and GI disease, hallmarks of regressive autism, and desperately needed biomedical, not just behavioral, interventions.  No sick child makes progress in early behavioral intervention without adequately and comprehensively addressing their medical issues first.

I had just read Karyn Seruossi’s book on the subject and tried to engage Landa in these issues relevant to Christian. Landa was unfamiliar with this work. Then I told her about all the great ABA therapy we were doing with Christian. I was sitting through about 30 hours a week of therapy so I could learn how to engage Christian every waking moment of the day. We practiced ABA, speech therapy exercises, RDI and floortime. My husband and I did it all with Christian every minute he was not with a therapist. But still Christian was losing words, screaming all night…

Dr. Landa was sympathetic but offered almost no insight or advice.

June 13-15 Meetings in D.C. Examine Vaccine Safety System

On June 13-15, 2011, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) will meet in Washington, D.C. to discuss recommendations and options for improving the nation's vaccine safety system. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) has written and submitted comments HERE supporting independent vaccine safety oversight and is represented on an Advocacy Panel discussion during a June 13 Vaccine Stakeholder meeting.

The public can listen to the three days of open meetings via teleconference and offer comments during public comment time June 14-15.

Monday: Stakeholders Meet in Washington to Discuss Vaccine Safety System Design

DRAFT AGENDA AS OF JUNE 6, 2011

June 13, 2011
Participant Call-In: 1-800-857-5054 Passcode: 2529191
Toll Number: 1-517-308-9324

9:00 a.m. Welcome, introductions, meeting purpose, agenda review, and ground rules

NVAC Chair - Guthrie Birkhead
9:30 a.m. Overview VSWG Charge 2 work to date
VSWG Co-Chairs - Tawny Buck, Marie McCormick and Andy Pavia
10:00 a.m. Break
10:15 a.m. Medical Association panel and discussion
Moderated by: VSWG Co-Chair Tawny Buck
Dr. Kathryn Edwards American Academy of Pediatrics
TBD
Dr. Bernard Gonik American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Dr. Bonnie Ward Infectious Disease Society of America
11:15 a.m. Advocacy panel and discussion
Moderated by: VSWG Co-Chair Dr. Marie McCormick
Richard Greenaway Every Child By Two
Barbara Loe Fisher National Vaccine Information Center
Dr. Deborah Wexler Immunization Action Coalition
Sallie Bernard Safeminds

Managing Editor's Note: Please welcome our newest Contributing Editor, LJ Goes.

By LJ Goes

I published The Normalization of Autismization, found HERE,  as a note on facebook early last month. In 3 short days it was picked up by blogs that boast international readership, and featured on the radio talk show, Linderman Live! By day 5? Translated into Hebrew. Who knew a note fired off in the heat of battle with the bugs infesting my son's intestines could have touched the hearts and lives of so many people?

I have received over 100 emails and notes detailing the experiences of others coping with the devastation of chronic illness, immune dysfunction, and bowel disease that go hand and hand with autism. Sentence after sentence about the harrowing and often life-threatening components of this illness that our children deal with filled my inbox and facebook page. They are still pouring in. Here are some paraphrased examples of what I have been reading over the course of this week.

"My 16 year old son is still in diapers, this is my life."

"Why did this happen to my son, what could he have done to deserve a life like this?"

"It's like you were a fly on the wall in my house. How could you know?"

"I've lost my faith, but thanks for writing your story just the same."

One mom, who will forever remain etched in my mind's eye had a child near recovery only to have her ex step back into the picture, vaccinate him, and leave again once the autism symptoms returned. She lost her job, has no place to stay, oh and, a neurotypical child to raise, too.

This is the reality of autism. Not "feel good" walks. Not big parties with celebrities. No loners who go on to become multi-bazillionaires. Unless of course, you are Bill Gates. The reality of autism is physical illness, depleted bank accounts, nervous siblings, and exhausted parents. "I lost my faith..." she said. This one I can't shake and I pray for this mom daily. I could not get out of bed without mine.

A week later (with only one additional and minimal poop smearing incident) here is a status update on all things Goes:

Liam had a breakdown. I know 3 year olds tantrum and lose their cool, but Liam had a torrential breakdown over the idea that Noah might steal his favorite dinner, a hastily prepared, organic pb and j. It was not on gluten free bread and he knew it, because upon presentation he said, "Ohhhh, yummy bread!" He does not have a gluten sensitivity and organic spelt is cheaper than GF bread so we serve it up when we can. Despite his joy over his favorite lunch (with the added bonus of it coming at dinnertime no less) some sort of emotional breakdown occurred as he sat down to eat. Through his tears he kept repeating "Noah get sick! Noah get sick, No momma, no food, Noah get sick." I tried to explain that I would make sure Noah did not get his food, and if he sat at the table and ate it, with me by his side, he had nothing to worry about. He cried for an hour and twenty minutes. He could not calm down enough to eat. Know any three year olds that in tune to their older brother's issues that they boycott a meal for fear the elder may fall ill? It did not help that Noah circled the table the entire time, shouting "BREAD! BREAD!" At the top of his lungs. Mads held it together for quite some time before she snapped and screamed at them both, "BE QUIET!" Her eyes were huge, she was shaking and pointing at them in her vehemence. Liam went to bed with rice milk and 3 apple slices in his belly.

What is happening in your state? Here's an NY action alert.

Action Alert: Please Oppose the Flawed NY State Tax Cap Legislation

Special Education in School Districts will be on the “Butcher’s Block”

Local Governments are being bullied by Albany!!

Dear Concerned Parents of Special Needs Children in New York State:

As you are aware the Assembly recently introduced its version of the Tax Cap legislation (A.7916), similar to the Senate’s (S.2706) that was passed back in January. Democrats in the Assembly are being promised by the Governor that if they pass the 2% Tax Cap in the Assembly, then the Republican Senate will reinstate “Rent Control” legislation as it is set to expire by June 15^th.  This is another Albany deal at the expense of NY residents. If this legislation passes, the quality of special education for our children will decline significantly.

We find this legislation flawed on many levels such as:

• Creates an undemocratic environment -- a 60% school budget vote will be required to override the 2% cap, giving "no" votes more weight than a normal, democratic majority
• Does not allow for the current formulation of a contingency budget and states that a 0% increase will occur if voted down by the local districts
• Does not offer any mandate relief to lower the blow of blunt legislation
• Only includes partial exclusions for pension fund costs -- no exclusions for health care costs, enrollment increases or payments related to assessment reductions

With pension and health costs already scheduled to rise substantially, local school districts will have no choice, but to cut essential programs and teaching positions to adhere with this 2% Tax Cap.  We urgently need you to join us in taking the below ACTION:

How You Can Help:

1. Immediately Sign the online petition to Oppose the NY State Tax Cap Legislation by clicking here Albany Press Conference this Monday, June 13^th at 2pm outside the Senate Chambers to deliver this petition.

By Cathy Jameson with contributions from her best friend

I am taking another break from all things vaccine injury, mito and autism this week. I should be so lucky to walk away from my family and a household full of responsibility twice in two weeks!  Even though I just returned from a wonderful weekend away to the Generation Rescue AutismOne conference, I felt the need to leave home again. I'm not running away from my over-stressed life; I'm running toward a glimmer of hope.

Hope wasn't my first thought several weeks ago when I wrote a story about my best friend and her newly adopted daughter. (HERE).  Her baby was given a very grim diagnosis of severe congenital heart defects and was in congestive heart failure at seven days old.  The baby was admitted to the ER and within 36 hours of being admitted, the baby was life flighted from the local children's hospital to a more specialized medical facility.  Surgery was necessary as was getting her seen by a well-known and respected pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.  If the baby were to live, she needed intensive medical treatment quickly. 

As I imagined the many wires, blood draws, heart monitoring tests and invasive exams being ordered, hope was the last thing on my mind. Being several hundred miles away didn't lessen the anxiety I felt about this unexpected situation. All I wanted to do was be with my friend to carry her through this.  It was nearly impossible to plan a trip because of my very busy schedule and my family’s needs. Plus, while the baby was in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) visitors were limited to shorter lengths of stay due to the constant monitoring and testing being done.  Though I couldn't be in the room to hold my friend's hand, I could help by being the point of contact for immediate family and close friends, reporting on the baby's tests and future treatment options. Intellectually I know I was a help by keeping everyone updated, but emotionally I still felt a little helpless.  I was so far away and wanted desperately to be there to hold my friend up.

For weeks, more cardiac problems, delays, and an inconvenient blood infection drew out the scheduling of the surgery. The baby had now logged a lengthy hospital stay with no discharge date in sight.  I was full of grief and despair thinking about the baby as she waited for her life-saving heart surgery. I'm normally a positive person, but this child was up against some very serious odds, odds which just brought me down.  Despite my own reservations, though, my friend stayed spiritually strong in her faith.  She believes so completely in God and His will for her life and that of her baby, and she has always taught me to stay faithful throughout my own personal struggles.  But what a test of faith this was!

By Donna Pessin

“The answer to autism lies in the gut,” say many scientists, researchers, and well-respected health care practitioners. But is it really that simple, and how, exactly, do you heal your child’s gut?

For the last 18 years I have been studying gut, or bowel health. My entire nutritional practice has focused on healing the body by healing the bowel. I’ve been on “this bandwagon” for a very long time, and I have acquired an enormous amount of information and experience about how to heal the bowel, heal the body, and heal disease. The results have been remarkable.

My experience with children with autism is that they indeed have very unhealthy bacterial environments in their bowel. As it relates to autism, for example, a healthy bowel increases vitamin B-12 levels, as the bacteria in the bowel play a key role in the absorption and creation of this nutrient. Vitamin B-12 is needed for neurotransmitter production and neurological function. Additionally, there is a growing sense among autism researchers that infectious exposures may be a major contributing factor to autism and its related disorders. A healthy bowel prevents yeast, parasites, fungal infections, and bacterial infections, like staph, strep, Lyme’s. etc., from invading the body and creating toxic, nerve-damaging side-effects. A healthy bowel digests lactose, gluten, and other foods without allergic reactions. A healthy bowel eliminates acids (which hereby also refers to toxins/heavy metals/pesticides/chemicals, etc) from your child’s body so they are not re-absorbed, where they trigger damage to his or her nervous system/brain, and create numerous symptoms.

A healthy bacterial environment can be created in your child, but my experience is that due to many misunderstandings, current protocols are failing to accomplish this. 

Some select and keys concepts that I have uncovered that will help you attain success in healing your child’s bowel are:

• Probiotics, which are recommended for improving bowel health, cannot quickly heal your child’s bowel. It takes time—usually two to three years—to create a healthy bacterial environment in the bowel. And this only occurs if very large amounts are administered (in my practice, we routinely use upwards to 900 billion or more organisms/day.)
• Probiotics do not immediately improve symptoms of autism. Rather, they are a healing agent that eventually eliminates these symptoms. My autistic clients are given “crutches,” like very large amounts of methyl vitamin B-12 and colloidal silver (a natural antibiotic/anti-fungal) to “lean on,” as these can improve neurological function while they heal. Many programs rely solely on these crutches, and failure is very high with this approach. Additionally, I routinely advise very large, and therefore effective, yet extremely safe, amounts of crutches. I find this is a necessity for results.
• Your child’s stools should never be soft, mushy, loose, skinny, green, yellow, less than 1x/day, or worse, more than 2x/day. Many of you have observed chronic intestinal problems and/or diarrhea in your children. Some experts suggest that autism causes diarrhea, but I insist that it is just the opposite; that diarrhea (i.e. an unhealthy bowel) causes autism.

My experience, as well as that of researchers, is that children with autism have very high levels of acidity, stored both in their organs, and free-floating in their blood. Un-eliminated acids are dangerous, and your child’s body reacts to protect him or her from these. One example of a reaction to these acids is the utilization of oxygen to buffer them. When oxygen is used to protect your child from the imminent danger of an overly acidic bloodstream, the resultant lowered levels of oxygen deprive their brains this necessary element for proper function and development. Some studies have found that over 85% of children with autism have low blood oxygen levels. Another response to un-eliminated acids is the release of inflammatory chemicals. These too buffer these acids and reduce the imminent danger of their presence. A neurologist at John’s Hopkins found neurological inflammation in 100% of the patients he tested with autism.

By Teresa Conrick

Having a daughter who regressed into autism compels me to research medical journals because she began having health complications after vaccinations.  I have an insatiable hunger for knowledge about mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammatory responses (brain and gut), oxidative stress, immune abnormalities, and hormonal dysfunction causing seizures.  Cancer was really not on my radar too much but it has crept up more as Megan's estrogen levels now make her a prime candidate for it, especially breast cancer.  You can read about her horrific hormone levels as a causative factor in her catamenial epilepsy HERE.  Cancer can be considered a "regression" in healthy cells, most likely due to an environmental cause, yet we don't always hear that.

In a related search last year, I began to examine and write about melanin, and my thoughts about its involvement in autism.  It seemed to me that there was a peculiar propensity for an autism diagnosis in those who had red hair, light eyes or just more of a fair complexion, ie - less melanin.  Tyrosine, an amino acid needed to make melanin, seemed somehow tied up but I wasn't sure how.  Much research backed up the idea that having less melanin did make one more vulnerable to other "neuroregressive" disorders such as ALS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Schizophrenia, but also Melanoma.  Add Melanoma as another Megan health concern I have because she is just so fair, and seems to contain the recipe for these environmental attacks.  What brought me closer to these concerns is that by looking at the similarities of these diseases, one can see the pattern emerge.  I saw that as I began to look not only at the symptoms but also at the pharmaceutical management - ie - medications being used or contemplated.  The first clue was that there seemd to be some pigmentary disorders in children who also happen to have an autism diagnosis.  Is that a coincidence or is that showing a mechanism of what may be happening behind the scenes of this historically misunderstood disorder? I hope I can unfold this pattern here so that it can be looked at for further research.  It seems that medicine too often develops a pill to treat a symptom while not searching for the roots to the actual diseases and illnesses.  Since autism has become a disorder that is increasing at alarming numbers, and with much physical and emotional suffering, it is our duty as a moral and ethical nation to find both cause and cure.

Recently, as I was reading about each - melanin, autism and cancer - certain websites and words kept reappearing - the puzzle pieces were emerging. One of those pieces that I kept running into was medication, initially FDA approved for neurodegenerative conditions, yet interestingly, one was now being considered for use in breast cancer. Since the two seem completely unrelated as diseases, I was intrigued. Now what makes that more compelling is that the same pharmaceutical medication is now being looked at for autism.  The key factor that the drugs are working on for each of these diseases are the mGluR, Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors. I wrote about them HERE as many were racing to find a cure with drugs targeting these receptors but hardly any of them seemed to care about the causation or WHY they were implicated.  Now cancer is another race for the cure with these glutamate receptors but how is it related to autism?  Here was a study that could answer that question:

"Methylmercury Increases N-Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptors On Human SH-SY 5Y Neuroblastoma Cells Leading To Neurotoxicity" 2008  (HERE)

"Methylmercury (MeHg) is a known neurotoxin, yet the mechanism for low dose chronic toxicity is still not clear. While N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) were found to be induced after exposure to MeHg in a mink model, its role on neurotoxicity is not known. The aims of this study were to investigate the expression and the functional roles of NMDARs on the induction of cell death in the human SH-SY 5Y neuroblastoma cell line after exposure to MeHg. We found a significant increase in NMDARs followed by increased caspase-3 activity after 4 h of exposure to MeHg (0.25-1 microM). Necrotic cell death was found after 4 and 24 h of exposure to MeHg (0.25-5 microM). The NMDAR antagonists dizocilpine ((+)-5-methyl-10,11-dihydro-5H-dibenzo[a,d] cyclohepten-5,10-iminemaleate [(+)-MK801]) and Memantine (1-amino-3,5-dimethyl-adamantane) (10 microM) completely attenuated MeHg-mediated cell death by blocking NMDARs, thus demonstrating the importance of NMDARs in mercury neurotoxicity.

Two things of importance from that study:  1- From Wikipedia -  "Metabotropic glutamate receptors are known to act as modulators of (affect the activity of) other receptors. For example, group I mGluRs are known to increase the activity of N-Methyl-d-Aspartate Receptors (NMDARs), a type of ion channel-linked receptor that is central in a neurotoxic process called excititoxicity."---- meaning that mercury is shown here to be CAUSATIVE to the " (NMDARs) were found to be induced after exposure to MeHg" and 2- Memantine is one of these drugs being used for neurological, regressive diseases and also being investigated for Autism: OSU Medical Center

That seems pertinent on many levels.  Some caveats: A significant increase in NMDAR's after exposure to mercury.  Memantine weakened that effect by blocking the NMDAR's. The NMDAR's are important in mercury neurotoxicity.

Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV)

The ACCV advises and makes recommendations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services on issues relating to the operation of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). There are nine voting members who provide oversight of the VICP and recommend ways to improve the VICP.

June 9 & 10, 2011 Meeting Information

• Call-in Information: 1-800-369-3104
• Leader's Name: Dr. Geoffrey Evans
• Passcode: ACCV
•  AGENDA

The Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) will hold its 79th Quarterly Meeting on Thursday, June 9th, from 1:00pm – 5:00pm (EDT) and Friday, June 10th from 9:00am – 11:00am (EDT). The meeting, which will be held via teleconference call only, is open to the public. Those interested can join the meeting by dialing 1-800-369-3104 and providing the following information:

Leader’s Name: Dr. Geoffrey Evans
Passcode: ACCV

Persons who desire to make an oral statement may announce it at the time of the public comment period.

Summertime is here for many of us. (Don't hate me, but my kids are in school until June 23rd.) What does your summer programming look like for your child on the spectrum?  Do you have ESY, craft a custom program, have a favorite camp? My girls have ESY from July 5 - August 11. Monday - Thursday from 8am to 1pm. Tell us how you make the livin' a little bit "easy" in the summertime.

Autism Speaks Co-Founders Suzanne and Bob Wright to Receive Honorary Degrees from the University of Massachusetts Medical School  An honorary degree is a nod of approval for philanthropic efforts, and  is feather in the Wright's caps, to add to the numerous magazine covers, international accolades and other kudos they have received.

We'd  like to take this opportunity to confer an honorary degree from Age of Autism to the parents we met last month at Autism One. They won't get a fancy ceremony and a tasseled mortarboard, but they did gain usable medical knowledge for their children with autism by atttending sessions like:

Overview of Physiological Issues Underlying an Autism Spectrum Diagnosis - CME Program

Physiological research and observations are increasingly contradicting the conventional view that autism is a purely genetic and hardwired set of deficits. Systemic and brain metabolic and immune changes, regression, transient and persistent improvement, and remarkable brilliance even in some who can't talk, all suggest that "autism" may arise from an interacting web of physiological problems that create obstruction of function or obstruction of expression rather than deficient capability.


Metabolic Roles of Redox Regulation and Methylation: Part I: General Principles - CME Program

The ability to resist oxidation and to adapt to environmental stressors is fundamental to homeostasis, and sulfur metabolism provides the foundation for these abilities. Signaling molecules with the ability to change the redox state can exert a broad influence over cellular metabolism, including methylation-mediated epigenetic effects on gene transcription that can persist across the lifespan and even across generations. Conversely, environmental factors which interfere with redox signaling can disrupt its regulatory role, contributing to a number of disorders affecting almost every aspect of physiological function. This lecture will provide an overview of the metabolic and biochemical relationships that control the redox state of cells, including tissue-specific differences.
 
Richard C. Deth, PhD

Immune Dysregulation in Autism - CME Program

The immune system is intricately involved in brain development and its functional regulation. The brain’s intrinsic immune system modulates synaptic communication, and is equally important to defense from free radical damage and excitotoxicity. The GALT is 70% of the peripheral immune system and complex dysregulation of the gut immune system is well documented in a distinct autism subgroup. Additional evidence supports autoimmunity in pathogenesis of autism. This autoimmune process appears to overlap with streptococcal related cross-reactivity with basal ganglia (PANDAS). Autoantibodies are also noted to interfere with cerebral folate metabolism. These immunological aberrations will be defined. Appropriate diagnostic testing will be discussed with the intent of aiding the clinician in the workup and treatment.

James Jeffrey Bradstreet, MD, MD(H), FAAFP

What Do We Know About Gastrointestinal Disease in ASD's? Which Candidate Pharmaceuticals hold greatest promise for Future Research? - CME Program DVD

Gastrointestinal pathology is an exceedingly common comorbid condition in ASD's. This presentation will review the body of medical literature that addresses ASD's and GI disease with emphasis on the overlap between ASD associated inflammatory bowel disease and other IBD's.
 
Arthur Krigsman, MD

Neurological Abnormalities in Autism -- CME Program

Children with autism have been found to have many neurological abnormalities include differences in brain function, structure and connectivity, neurotransmitter and metabolic abnormalities and electrical disturbances in the brain including seizures. This talk will review some of the important aspects of these neurological abnormalities and their treatments.

Richard E. Frye, MD, PhD

Current State of Autism Biomedical Research

This presentation will summarize some of the recent advances in the biochemical understanding of autism and biomedical treatments for it. Topics include sulfation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial function, intestinal permeability, and more.

James B. Adams, PhD

Managing Editor's Note: I saw Cody at Autism One last month. We're running a series of "Best of" posts and this one came to mind from last August.

By Cody Jordan

October 20, 2004 was the day my son came into my life.  Holding him in the parkade of the hospital, I vowed to give him the life he deserves and to teach him what he needs to know to make this happen.  Little did I know at the time, he would teach me more about life, love, and compassion than I could ever have hoped to teach him.  All this in the five short years he’s been in my life.

His development was normal at first; he met all his markers.  The only thing was that he often got low-grade fevers that intensified and grew longer in duration as he got older.  He was at the end of another cold and feverish spell when I took him in for his 12-month well visit.  His pediatrician assured us that despite his illness, it was still okay to give him his MMR, Hib, Varicella, and his first flu shot.  A few weeks later, he got his flu shot booster.  A few weeks after this (Christmas Eve) his fever spiked to over 103, but the on-call pediatrician told us to monitor his temperature for at least another 24 hours.  On Christmas Day, he was so sick, flushed, and hot that we rushed him to the emergency room, where his temperature was between 105 and 106.  A chest x-ray revealed a very severe case of pneumonia.  The ER doctor said that if we would have waited much longer, his chances to make it would not have been so good.

After his pneumonia is what I call “the big switch.”  His development came to a screeching halt, and he lost most of the vocabulary he once had.  At one year of age, he had about 10 words, and when he was evaluated at age two, he had regressed to two words, used infrequently at best.  He quit showing interest in his peers and, more importantly, me and my wife.  Looking back on video footage, this was when he started toe walking, hand flapping, and he became increasingly repetitive in everything he did.

This post ran in January. We'll be bringing back "best of posts" throughout the summer.

By Dan Olmsted

Consider this description: “She complained that she could not recognize people; that she used to be able to recognize faces without having to think about it and work at it. Now she was obliged to do laborious ‘recognizing work’ and had to say to herself ‘this person’s nose is such-and-such, his hair is such-and-such, so he must be so and so.’ All the people she saw seemed like wax figures without any connection with her.”

Now this one: “Although I myself may be unable to recognize a particular face, I can recognize various things about a face: that there is a large nose, a pointed chin, tufted eyebrows, or protruding ears. Such features become the identifying markers by which I recognize people. … I think that a significant part of what is variously called my ‘shyness,’ my ‘reclusiveness,’ my ‘social ineptitude,’ my ‘eccentricity,’ even my ‘Asperger’s syndrome,’ is a consequence and a misinterpretation of my difficulty recognizing faces.”

And, finally, this: A child with an autism diagnosis displayed very little functional language in his young life, but soon after undergoing a new treatment he told his mother, “I want to see you.” Taken aback – both because he rarely spoke meaningfully and because she knew there was nothing wrong with his eyesight -- she replied, “Don’t you see me?” Her son’s response: “In pieces.”

These three descriptions come from very different times and places: The first is Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer’s account of Anna O., the initial case study in their 1895 book “Studies on Hysteria,” which launched the psychoanalytic movement and the modern age of psychiatry. The second is from a recent New Yorker article by Oliver Sacks, the esteemed neurologist and writer, describing his own condition. And the third is a mother telling me about her son at the National Autism Association conference in Tampa in November.

Differences aside, I believe they are all describing an underlying phenomenon that goes by the intimidating name of prosopagnosia – more familiarly, face-blindness. It is a fascinating disorder and one that may be much more common than we recognize – 2.5 percent of the population, or almost 8 million people, affected to some extent, Sacks believes.

As so often happens with such conditions, the focus of interest on face-blindness remains mostly on the exotic features themselves, with little interest in why such a strange deficit, one so central to functioning as a social human being, would occur, why it has come to prominence relatively recently, and why it may now affect so many people. When etiology is considered at all, it is usually passed off, without much evidence, as a genetic or organic condition to which some people, and indeed some families, are heir, or as the obvious result of head trauma or illness.

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

I received the following e-mail a few weeks back from the National Institute of Health concerning my inquiry into XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus related virus) infection and children with autism.  Here is the reply:

Dear Mr. Heckenlively:

Thank you for writing to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) concerning the presence of the XMRV retrovirus in children with autism.  As the Acting Director, Office of Science Policy, Planning, and Communications, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), I have been asked to respond on behalf of Dr. Francis Collins, NIH Director.

 NIH is dedicated to addressing the growing public health challenge that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present.  In FY 2010, NIH invested $160 million from its annual appropriation in research on autism and another $58 million in funding provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  In addition, NIH issued several funding opportunity announcements to encourage research designed to elucidate the etiology, epidemiology, diagnosis, treatment, and optimal means of service delivery related to ASD.

 As you may be aware, NIH intramural researchers are examining the XMRV retrovirus in samples from approximately 100 children in an autism subtyping study:  Neuroimmunologic Investigations of Autism Spectrum Disorders.  You can access further information on the study via the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools at http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm.  Since final analyses of the study are not complete and have not been published, we do not yet have any results to provide.  The researchers will share the results in the future after completion of the data analysis.

 Thank you again for your interest in research on autism. 

 Marina Volkov, Ph.D.                                                                                                                                            Acting Director                                                                                                                                                               NIMH Office of Science Policy, Planning, and Communications

I responded on June 2, 2011, asking three questions, based on a series of e-mails provided to me by another autism parent who had made a similar inquiry.

1.  What was the testing initially used by the NIH which showed a high rate of XMRV infection in children with autism?

2.  What were the subsequent tests used by the CDC which did not show a high rate of XMRV infection in children with autism?

3.  Is the NIH following the established protocols for blood storage, preparation of the sample, and tests utilized, as detailed by the initial study group of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute, the Cleveland Clinic, and the National Cancer Institute as detailed in their October 2009 article in the journal Science?

When I receive an answer to these questions I will share them with the readers of Age of Autism.

Kent Heckenlively is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism

Managing Editor's Note: Please visit Beyond Conformity to read the full post. Thank you to Hilary Butler for permission to link.

Hilary Butler - Monday, May 23, 2011

By Anne Dachel

Recently I came across the story, "Being different: The marvels of the autistic world," by Gerry Loughran.  (HERE)

I thought immediately about the countless parents I know in the autism community.  Autism has destroyed their dreams, bankrupted their savings, and shattered their lives.  Who would dare to trivialize their suffering with a title like that?  Evidently Gerry Loughran would.

From his photo, Loughran looks like a man at least in his sixties and in this piece he reflected on the children he knew growing up.  And guess what?  He now thinks that some of them probably had high functioning autism.  Loughran described the funny quirks and obsessive behaviors that made them stand out from the other kids.  He brought up the recent big news out of Britain: A survey found that one percent of British adults have autism--the same as the rate for children in the U.S.  These were adults who gave certain answers in response to questions about social habits, so they’re clearly higher functioning. 

This of course, is good news.  We can all relax.  For those who might be concerned because it seems like a lot of kids today are labeled autistic, it's more proof that autism is nothing new.  If we just think about it, any of us can pick out the kids who might have been autistic, albeit undiagnosed, back when we were in school. 

Loughran and all the rest of the people promoting this deception have one goal: Make autism go away.  I always go back to the REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM--that there's been no real increase.  If that's true, then autism is nothing to worry about.  Medical science just gets better and better.  Aren't we lucky to be living in the 21st Century? 

There is a concerted effort by medical organizations and health officials to make all the sick kids the NEW NORMAL.  I work in a number of schools in my area and it's obvious that the idea is catching on.  Kids with medical conditions like asthma, severe allergies, seizure disorders, and diabetes are common.  Kids with learning problems and developmental disorders are standard in schools today. 

And autism is more of the same.  The question for schools today isn't, do any kids have autism?  Instead, it's, which kids have autism?

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