Autism and AutoImmunity
My daughter, Megan, regressed in her physical, mental and social health after vaccinations. Her life forever changed, I am committed to finding out both cause then cure to improve her quality of life, along with so many like her. As a result, I spend a good amount of time reading research and scientific papers to help clarify any connections. Those connections would include immune issues, autoimmunity, mercury and vaccines. Megan has both an Autism and autoimmune diagnosis. Here are some connections:
"Among patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) evaluated in our clinic, there appears to be a subset that can be clinically distinguished from other ASD children because of frequent infections (usually viral) accompanied by worsening behavioural symptoms and/or loss/decrease in acquired skills. This study assessed whether these clinical features of this ASD subset are associated with atopy, asthma, food allergy (FA), primary immunodeficiency (PID), or innate immune responses important in viral infections..........Clinical features of the ASD test group were not associated with atopy, asthma, FA, or PID in our study but may be associated with altered TLR responses mediating neuro-immune interactions."
The authors' conclusion, that children with regressive Autism may have altered TLR responses, seems important so I went looking to see why that would happen. You can read about Toll-like receptors here but I also found an interesting dissertation that seemed pertinent:
Regulatory roles for natural killer T cells and Toll-like receptors in mercury-induced autoimmunity
"Herein we show that mercury administration results in release of endogenous ligands that activate TLR7, an innate immune receptor implicated in the development of systemic autoimmunity."
Interesting but since it was a short dissertation, I needed to find out more and luckliy, I found that dissertation had become a published research study:
Bacterial, viral, and parasitic infections have been implicated in the development and exacerbation of autoimmune diseases(6) . A number of other studies have shown that exposure to chemicals (drugs or heavy metals) can also trigger or exacerbate autoimmune disease (19,20,49,50). However, the effects of infections and chemicals on autoimmune disease have for the most part been studied separately, whereas human patients are likely to be exposed to both factors. Hence, in this study, we tested the effect of a commonly dispersed chemical and an infectious agent on autoimmunity. NKT cell ligand-bearing bacteria of the Sphingomonas strain are abundant soil microbes, and have been detected in the stools of 25% of healthy individuals (51). Although contact levels vary among individuals, mercury exposure is virtually universal because of its natural release in the environment, abundance as a pollutant, and presence in dental amalgams, cosmetics, preservatives, fumigants, and vaccine preparations (7,52). As previously demonstrated, normally maintained immune tolerance is broken by exposure to mercury. Administration of both mercury and bacteria induced pronounced anti-nucleolar reactivity and exacerbated the heavy metal-induced autoimmunity.
That was the first time I had seen a study describe how both mercury AND "bacteria, viral and parasitic infections" would contribute or exacerbate autoimmune disease. The mention of "vaccine preparations," (Thimerosal) is noteworthy.
Further looking brought me to this press release and its clear message: "LA JOLLA, CA, December 20, 2006—A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has published a study that questions the need for incorporating an ingredient—TLR ligands— in vaccines to increase their effectiveness. Excluding TLR ligands would help keep down manufacturing costs and would avoid this ingredient’s potential side effects, such as inflammation and autoimmune syndromes."
Incredible but true that these TLR's seem to have a history of being used in vaccines:
Emory researchers have developed a vaccine adjuvant using combined TLR4 and TLR7 ligands.
Toll-Like Receptor Agonists: Not Just for Vaccines
Anymore
"The ability to modulate the immune response has been an important feature of vaccine adjuvants—specifically the ability of adjuvants to strengthen a relatively weak immune response to a particular antigen in a vaccine preparation. In recent years, molecular biologists have developed an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the role of toll-like receptors (TLR) on various cells of the immune system and how ligand-binding of these receptors can either enhance or repress the activity of a particular cell type. As a result, various TLR ligands have been used as vaccine adjuvants with increasing frequency in recent years. Indeed, a vaccine containing a TLR4 agonist (Cervarix) has recently been approved in the US and Europe."
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, November 25, 2009 - (BUSINESS WIRE) Idera Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: IDRA - News) today announced that Merck & Co., Inc., through an affiliate, has extended its research collaboration with Idera for a fourth year. In December 2006, the companies entered into an exclusive license and research collaboration agreement to research, develop, and commercialize vaccine products containing the Company’s investigational agonist compounds targeting Toll-like Receptors (TLRs) 7, 8, and 9 in the fields of oncology, infectious diseases, and Alzheimer’s disease. As part of the agreement, the two companies engaged in a two-year research and development collaboration to generate novel agonists targeting TLR7 and TLR8 and incorporating both Merck and Idera chemistry for use in vaccines in the licensed fields, with Merck having the right to extend the collaboration for two additional one-year periods.
Here is a description of TLR agonists:
Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists are potent activators of innate immune responses, activating dendritic cell (DC) maturation and inflammatory cytokine secretion by innate immune cells and as a consequence they promote adaptive immune response when coadministered with foreign antigens.
Alarming to think that Man, tinkering with the immune system, could cause immune and autoimmune consequences but there is mounting evidence to that fact:
......rapid progress in the development of therapeutic agonists for the TLRs, there is accompanying attention to the theoretical possibility that such therapy may induce autoimmunity or autoimmune diseases.
It appears that mercury, "abundance as a pollutant,
and presence in dental amalgams, cosmetics, preservatives, fumigants, and
vaccine preparations " can cause immune and autoimmune disease via
Toll Like Receptors (TLR) activation and then
additionally, Man-made, Toll Like Receptors could also have their own
influence on immune issues, and very possibly autoimmunity. We here at Age of
Autism will continue to sound the alarm.
Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.
IMO there is absolutely no doubt that "vaccination" can and does cause autoimmune disease.
Vaccination can be Deadly for Auto-Immune Problems
“Tissue origin vaccines contain extraneous protein in addition to the [rabies] antigen that can lead to autoimmune disease,” Insert from Pfizer’s Rabies vaccine, Note this is true for ALL vaccines
"The physical invasion of the human body by foreign genetic material may have the immediate effect of permanently weakening the immune system, setting in motion a new era of autoimmune diseases." Doctor H.E.Buttram MD, Health Consciousness magazine 1990, 'Live Virus Vaccines and Genetic Mutation'
“Avoid flu vaccinations as most contain both mercury and aluminum, as well as egg proteins (e.g. myelin basic protein), which the body may produce antibodies against and that cross-react with the myelin coating your nerves, in effect causing your immune system to attack your nervous system!” How Fitness Protects Aging Brains Note here we see the myelin sheath being autoimmune attacked as a result of growing "vaccinations" in a egg medium. Beware folks beware.
However Vitamin D seems to HELP with autoimmune problems. Please get those "vaccinated' kids out in the SUN! Better yet DO NOT "vaccinate" and get EVERYONE out in the SUN.
"A geographic association with northern latitudes has been observed for rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and Crohn's disease, other autoimmune diseases that may be mediated by reduced vitamin D from decreased solar exposure and the immune effects of vitamin D deficiency.” Lower rheumatoid arthritis rates linked to vitamin D
"A new model of environment/gene interaction: studies of MS show that vitamin D interacts directly with genes to control autoimmune reactions and disease in a way not anticipated by previous ideas about action of genes or vitamins or of nature versus nurture." Good Vitamin D Treatise
"These findings suggest that there is a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in patients with autoimmune interstitial lung disease, particularly those with connective tissue disease. Therefore, vitamin D may have a role in the development of connective tissue disease-related ILD and patients' worsening lung function.” Vitamin D insufficiency linked to autoimmune lung disease
“Having optimized Vit D levels enables our immune system to function correctly, both in it’s ability to ward off disease and to effectively modulate itself so as not to create autoimmune conditions.” Proactive Steps to a Cancer Free Life: Vitamin D
“The big push now is in autoimmune diseases … there is more and more researchers now that think that vitamin D will have a significant impact on these diseases. It is a very exciting time in vitamin D.” Doctor John Cannell MD
In MS patients who started supplementing with adequate amounts of vitamin D after two years a 75% reduction in MS exacerbations was observed. If you have a serious autoimmune disease make sure you get your vitamin D levels up to 50 ng/ml or higher.” Doctor John Cannell MD
http://healthyprotocols.com/3_autoimmune.htm
Posted by: Lou | December 12, 2012 at 02:15 PM
Dear Elizabeth Gillespie,
Our primary doctor (and Eric's primary doctor when he was home, not his pediatrician who gave him the shots) believes us. Sadly even with the video, we couldn't really go far with it, certainly not in a court of law since the Federal statute of limitations screws us due to the 1986 law.
We gave a copy of it to a person in NY who was going to make an independent movie (using our case and other families) but it never happened.
In the scheme of things it is like we never had this video because it doesn't help Eric or anybody else.
Regards,
Ray
Posted by: Raymond Gallup | December 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Teresa:
Thank you for sounding the alarm!
It would be important to hear what Dr. Wakefield has to say about this study which looks at autoimmunity caused by injections of inorganic mercury.
As John Stone mentioned, the 2004 Burbacher work demonstrated that Thimerosal (organic mercury) converts into inorganic mercury in organ tissues of infant monkeys injected with vaccines with Thimerosal.
Dr. Wakefield’s web site Callous Disregard lists five papers related to the subjects of autoimmunity and autism. See http://www.callous-disregard.com/research.htm
Posted by: Jim Thompson | December 12, 2012 at 05:10 AM
I agree Farmer Geddon, this is no coincidence and our children are not the only victims. See this YouTube video and you decide. I, for one, believe each and every rabbit hole discussed when it comes to the medical debacles created by greed from many industries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13QiSV_lrDQ
For my part what ever "they" tell me to do, I'm going to do the opposite.
Posted by: Son in Recovery | December 11, 2012 at 11:51 PM
Hey that is right - ain't organic mercury more healthier for you than non or in organic mercury! Darn those dangerous mercury/gold/coal mines when we could be gett'n the more heatlhier organic mercury from tuna and vaccines.
What is all this about organic and in organic!
Everyone knows the most dangerous type of mercury is suppose to be organic mercury -- If you put a carbon or carbons on a mercury it easily is taken into the body were as inorganic most times (hopefully) will pass on through if eaten - I have no idea if it is breathed in or shot up in a needle.
Big man Fowler said at one of those big meetings that Health and Human Resources holds down in Puerto Rico on aluminium way back in 2000 during his presentation on mixing metals That: There is type 3 metallothionine in the brain ------- methyl mercury or ethyl mercury (Thimerosal) both called alkyl mercury are demethylated to release inorganic mercury. That inorganic mercury is going to wind up preominantly bound to metallathionine.
Question is metallathionine anything like gluthioine?
Oh, at the end of that meeting one presenter said that the aluminum conference felt like deja vu' of the mercury conference they had held the year before.
But they were not changing anything because vaccines had saved millions and millions of lives and we are only talking about 30 or 40 kids..
That is what one guy said -- I am not sure who it was. There is no fighting with an attitude like that??? So few - so few and yet it strikes a Senator's grandson and many others.
Posted by: Benedetta | December 11, 2012 at 11:40 PM
Re: Post by barbara j
Last year I was handing out vaccine info flyers at the neighborhood garage sale event, and a woman approached me and said that her 5 year old daughter had all of the vaccines, never had a reaction, and then just prior to kindergarten she got another round of shots, and then quickly "disappeared and changed into a different person" with all kinds of behavioral and learning problems. She was crying and very upset, there was a big crowd, and all I could think of saying to her was that the vaccines are like "Russian Roulette" since you don't know what is going to happen and that the toxic overload accumulates over time. I wanted to share therapy solutions with her, but she left. Thankfully other people overheard her statements so that although she left, they stayed and I was able to share more information with them. I feel that if her child was a boy, he would have never made it as far as age 5 before the "bullet fired from the gun." The saddest part of her story is that it is the same as everyone elses, in that no one suspected anything until it was too late.
"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" so we need to keep sharing this information with anyone and everyone that we possibly can. People often tell me that they have "heard about the vaccines, but their child got them all and is just fine" so they don't stop vaccinating since they think that they are in the clear, or they delay the vaccines believing that everything will be OK that way.
My grandson's half-sister's mother stopped vaccinating her when we told her what happened to us right at the beginning, five years ago. Then she allowed the vaccines again right before she entered first grade, well of course she had missed alot of them, so they whammed her with everything at once, and she developed serious bowel problems, horrible constipation and pain. She now gets strept throat and other sickness very often, whereas before she was quite healthy. She also changed from a calm happy girl into a child having angry outbursts, aggression and emotional meltdowns at times. Although she was not nearly as seriously injured as my grandson, this is very disheartening to us because all of this could have been PREVENTED, if only her mother would have listened to our warnings. We feel that she could have been more severely damaged if she was a boy, so we are thankful that she is not worse off than she is, but we know that it can get worse if she keeps getting more vaccines.
And that is just the point, WE KNOW, but we all got here the hard way, and the majority of parents are still in the dark.
Posted by: AutismGrandma | December 11, 2012 at 09:28 PM
Did you all see this today? http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20121206/generic-drug-autism-children. What do you think?
Posted by: healthforchildren | December 11, 2012 at 07:01 PM
Hi Alain,
Not quite sure what you are saying but the Burbacher study suggested back 2004 that Thimerosal broke down into inorganic mercury much more swiftly than methyl mercury. By chance I quoted a passage in my article just yesterday:
““There was a much higher proportion of inorganic Hg in the brain of thimerosal monkeys than in the brains of MeHg monkeys (up to 71% vs. 10%). Absolute inorganic Hg concentrations in the brains of the thimerosal-exposed monkeys were approximately twice that of the MeHg monkeys. Interestingly, the inorganic fraction in the kidneys of the same cohort of monkeys was also significantly higher after im thimerosal than after oral MeHg exposure (0.71 ± 0.04 vs. 0.40 ± 0.03). This suggests that the dealkylation of ethylmercury is much more extensive than that of MeHg.”
John
Posted by: John Stone | December 11, 2012 at 06:14 PM
I checked the publication and they used inorganic mercury, not thimerosal which is organic. It's surprising that the reviewers didn't ask for clarification of that.
Alain
Posted by: Alain | December 11, 2012 at 06:02 PM
Raymond Gallup,
If you were to show your doctor the video evidence of your son progressing then regressing into Autism, I wonder what type of a reaction you would evoke?
We parents are put under enormous pressure dealing with the day-to-day tasks of Autism.
We parents also have to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that our children have been damaged by these vaccines, whilst the administers of vaccines don't need to prove that it wasn't the vaccines.
Remember the challenge for Paul Offit to receive 10,000 vaccines at one given time. That challenge is still active!
Regards
Elizabeth Gillespie
Posted by: AussieMum | December 11, 2012 at 05:53 PM
Our son, Eric was born normal but regressed into autism after receiving the MMR vaccine and other vaccines (Eric had a high fever after getting the DPT vaccine). The MMR came right after that. Eric had blood tests that indicated he had elevated measles titer antibodies and tested positive for myelin basic protein antibodies. A videotape showed after birth and just before the MMR vaccine, his speech was coming on and then after the MMR vaccine, he regressed into autism with no speech.
Stories from the Autism Epidemic
http://www.vaclib.org/sites/vap/erics-story.htm
Posted by: Raymond Gallup | December 11, 2012 at 03:20 PM
BarbaraJ - its a tragedy - its a crime . We on here are all in the same situation .
I'd love to tell you it was an awful accident but I just dont believe that anymore ......my research leads me to believe it to be deliberate .You cant have a 25 year mistake of this proportion , its not possible .
boycott all vaccines and damage vaccine reputation every where you go , every day of your life .
Lastly encourage all medical people to fully vaccinate themselves and their families . They are as guilty of this as anyone . And yes I'm talking about the lowly nurses who continue to aid this debacle by their silence , these damn vaccine lies , all the way up to the chief surgeon.
Posted by: Farmer Geddon | December 11, 2012 at 11:00 AM
Very interesting Teresa and they call us all uncaring parents ..for caring to look whats in the vaccines..shame on them
Posted by: ANGUS FILES | December 11, 2012 at 09:51 AM
After my son lost his verbal skills, developed gastro disease, went from early toilet training to diaper changing all night long to keep his little bottom from acid burns, then horrific meltdowns, that continue to this day, I promised I would NOT let this happen to another of my children, I KNEW it was related directly to his last round of vaccine.My next son, was developing normally, and "this is important to the understanding" IMO! He had one bad cold with a small amount of wheezing, his articulation was developing age appropriate, his speech was ahead of the curve, he was a calm and resourceful child.I believed he was ready for three yr old preschool. I took him in to the doc , one month shy of his third birthday, at which time he received his first "round" of vaccines. He changed over night! He became a sick child, asthma with medication, he slipped from the growth charts to underweight and underheight from once robust,his personality changed and his speech development STOPPED in it's tracks. With years of speech therapy, he at age eight continues to suffer from articulation issues. DELAYING VACCINES in "some unknown subset of children" will NOT dodge the bullet! When his brother recovered language, he recovered minus all consonant sounds, only the letter "d", this was a child who agoo'd using the letter G at six weeks, a child who could put words together, "good boy", yet at five struggled to say dood doy. No one can tell me these vaccines do not brain damage, they DO! The reason we believe it occurs around a certain age is only because MOST are vaccinated at that age, few waited ,as I did, leaving this small group as a head scratching "what happened"? Nothing different than what happened to his brother, just milder because of age and size. My youngest, soon to be five, has never had a vaccine, I've been told by his school that he will not be allowed to attend if he has symptoms of "anything". So far his class has shared pneumonia, bronchitis, strep throats, ear infections, and he's the only one that hasn't missed a day. His teachers commented that I must spend a great deal of time on target lessons....I have six children, two with serious issues, I did not teach him to read , I did not teach him math, I do not dress him, I'm too busy dressing an eight and twelve year old that are screaming and kicking. Will SOMEONE just GET IT! Yes normal four year old children can dress themselves, they can tie their shoes, they can read street signs and love to show off developing spelling skills, they can div'y up cookies and snacks, divide by six in their heads after enough practice , they are just like "we were".
Posted by: barbara j | December 11, 2012 at 09:40 AM
Teresa
As usual this is fascinating - another trail through the scientific record once again showing how reckless and irresponsible official medical science is: the dangers exposed they just bash on regardless. As I pointed out yesterday the difference between "avoidably unsafe" and "unavoidably unsafe" may be purely subjective. This simply shows that the products are unsafe whatever lame excuses are made for them, and they don't care.
John
Posted by: John Stone | December 11, 2012 at 09:33 AM
You never cease to amaze me. How much we know about our kids. How little we know. Thanks, Teresa.
Maurine
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | December 11, 2012 at 08:26 AM