Midweek Mashup: Yes, Pesticides and Pollution Can Cause Autism – and That Implicates Vaccines
By Dan Olmsted
When it comes to autism causation, the chemicals are coming home to roost. Just on Saturday I reviewed new research suggesting a link between pollution and both schizophrenia and autism. Mice exposed for just a few hours to the kind of pollution caused by traffic had inflammation in their brains; inflammation kills brain cells; dead brain cells cause all kinds of mental mayhem. I pointed out that in our book, The Age of Autism, we proposed for the first time that general pollution – namely, the coal-fired Industrial Revolution that spewed arsenic, lead, and mercury – fueled the amazing rise of schizophrenia in modern times (as well as a number of other inflammatory diseases including autism).
This week has begun with more evidence for our not-so-crackpot theories –another link between pesticides and autism. Reports CBS News: “Pregnant women who live within a mile of spaces where commercial pesticides are applied appear to have an increased risk of having a child with autism, a new study suggests. The risk that a child would develop autism appeared to be highest for women who lived near farms, golf courses and other public spaces that were treated with pesticides during the last three months of their pregnancies.” (As Anne Dachel points out, this is just the latest of several studies linking pesticides and autism -- and ADHD, Parkinson's etc. The media is in perpetual Groundhog Day mode; I don't think anyone covers autism as a news beat, except us, so they don't remember anything past about midday yesterday.)
No doubt the ABV lobby – Anything But Vaccines when it comes to autism causation – will cling for dear life onto this as they have onto the traffic-causes-autism research. After all, they like to point out, we’re talking prenatal exposures here, and autistic regression after vaccination is a key element of the vaccine case. So let’s blame prenatal pollution and pesticides --but not vaccines, period, ever! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
As with pollution, we’ve been down this road before. You can check out the book Mark Blaxill and I wrote, or the 10-minute video on our home page: How Mercury Triggered the Age of Autism. It’s all about how the very first 11 cases reported in the medical literature in 1943 pointed conclusively to a new kind of mercury exposure in the backgrounds of those families. What makes the evidence conclusive is the way that exposure overlaps – new ethyl mercury compounds in pesticides (pesticides!) and in vaccines (vaccines!). And in nothing else. And what did we uncover when we identified those 11 families?
-- A plant pathologist-father who was working with the new ethyl mercury fungicide Ceresan at precisely the moment his son was born – working, in fact, for the U.S. government in its Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, not far from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore where his son was diagnosed as autism’s Case 2 in 1943.
-- A forestry professor-father whose work included exposure to the new ethyl mercury wood preservative Lignasan while he was on the faculty at the University of Idaho. His son was Case 3.
-- A father and mother who built a new house in 1931 in Forest, Miss., near the site where the first experiments on Lignasan were carried out in the years immediately proceeding. Their child, Donald Triplett, is Case 1 and still lives in that house, not that anyone from the NIMH or other body tasked with figuring out the cause of autism has ever shown any interest.
-- And – on the vaccine side – a pediatrician-mother whose public health focus included vaccines and helped pioneer the concept of well-baby visits while she was working at Harvard in the late 1930s, when her son, Case 7, was born. She spoke glowingly of the new ethlymercury-preserved diphtheria vaccine and said it was impossible to vaccinate kids too often.
-- And more medical links to mercury through both mothers (nurse, pathology lab stenographer) and fathers (psychiatrist-neurologists).
Yes, pesticides and vaccines implicate each other, and toxins, and the environment, and point away from genes as the cause of autism. As our friend and fellow AOA contributor Julie Obradovic posted recently:
"Full circle fact: The original pioneer of the ‘well-baby’ visit...no joke, the actual person behind the reason all of us take our kids in for check-ups every month or so to get measured and vaccinated (no one did that before the 1930's)...Dr. Elizabeth Peabody Trevett...a woman who went on record saying a baby can't be vaccinated "early or often enough" with Thimerosal containing Diphtheria Toxoid...was the mother of Case 7 "Herbert B." of Dr. Leo Kanner's original 11 children ever diagnosed with autism. Let the depth of that "coincidence" and tragedy sink in for a moment. And then read the book: Age of Autism by Dan Olmsted and Mark F. Blaxill. The puzzle was solved years ago."
The same full circle includes pesticides -- co-creator of the autism epidemic with vaccines, present now as the epidemic soldiers on unchallenged. It is not the fault of vaccine critics that both direct and supporting evidence (including pesticides) implicates vaccination as the driver of the autism epidemic. The truth is when you put neurological toxins in infants and the unborn – in the 1930s at Harvard, or in Idaho, or in Beltsville, or in Forest; or at a well-baby visit this very morning in Des Moines or Danville -- you get brain damage.
We’ve done everything we can to bring this crucial information to the attention of people in a position to do something about it, from Congress to the federal bureaucracy – I personally handed copies of the information to Tom Insel and HHS’s science adviser in 2007. We wrote a book. We made a video. We publish this blog. We’re writing more books. We are not withholding our firepower to some future date when we think the moment might be better or the audience bigger. We all really, really want to stop the mayhem. Now.
Of course, those who want to turn autism away from its origins in toxic damage and into a treacly story about how much we all "care" (see U.S. Congress) or how all the fantastic gene discoveries are just around the corner (Autism Speaks) or how everybody in Forest was so nice to Don Triplett that, durn it, he recovered (ABC and the Atlantic) -- those people are not going to go for this version of events, no matter how clearly it is spelled out for them. That's why they need to go, period.
It is getting to be criminal that our public health and pediatric establishment, cheered on by a lazy and intellectually incurious and basically dying media, keeps shoving mercury-containing flu shots into infants in this country, and even more shots into babies around the world, when evidence this obvious – evidence as old as the first 11 cases and as new as yesterday morning -- is staring them in the face.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
pyrethroids, mentioned in the "pesticides cause autism" paper.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22918067..deplete glutathione ,as well. All of these papers are right!! Yet they haven't added the smoke to the gun until they vaccinated the children.
Posted by: barbaraj | June 27, 2014 at 03:32 PM
Of course I'm off and running,finding info that you probably already know. A chemical in linoleum flooring depletes glutathione, tylenol depletes gutathione, pesticides deplete glutathione, and more. The trigger for autism is giving a vaccine after the glutathione has been depleted, and possibly the reason these studies are right to that point. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18445737
Posted by: barbaraj | June 27, 2014 at 03:23 PM
Can anyone explain the effect of having low glutathione, would this set a child up to become more affected by exposures to both vaccines , and pesticides? These studies could show that living in close proximity to pesticides could perhaps cause children to be more vulnerable to vaccines simply because they can't detoxify the way a healthy not exposed child could? The set up for the trigger of vaccines?..an already toxic environment. It seems there was some research where tylenol did similar, depleted gluathione and left the child more likely to become autistic after receiving vaccines.
Posted by: barbaraj | June 27, 2014 at 01:06 PM
Benedetta, of course it's the vaccines, and yes, there is a long road between nt and autism. The classes of pesticides they point toward have been around a mighty long time, I remember clearing out my grandfather's house and finding "sevin"..that he would sprinkle on the tomatoes and the dogs, and dursban that he would use to treat termites, these are just two in the class of carbamate and organophosphate noted in the article. They said pesticides, then named only three classes of insecticides, insecticides that aren't persistent in the evironment beyond a short period of months. These are not the mercury fungicides, the ddt's, the arsenicals,and they are not new to the environment. Insecticides are dangerous, no doubt, and they can cause a multitude of neuro damage, but it's been well documented and it isn't autism. What is new! New , is the ever growing vaccine schedule, the rise in autism coincided with the giving of hep b at birth, in a setting already chemical laden, a hospital. No I won't suggest that a child who is already taxed with any chemical exposure could not be at more risk, the immune system taxed may make a child more vulnerable to the toxins in vaccine. The most serious problem with getting to the root of autism is the mindset of those that say, "it could be anything but we know it's not vaccines".
Posted by: barbaraj | June 26, 2014 at 06:09 PM
Laughing at False Scientists;
It is not the pesticides -- it the vaccines. as the title implicates.
Implicates is a great word. Thanks Dan.
If we can get them to study the environment -- North of the Mason Dixon line common sense is going to start pointing to the vaccines.
We have long come out of the forest and we will never be with out pesticides - the whole population is aware of them -- they are mentioned in school books -- we will always have to be wary for now on.
But the populations have no idea about the vaccines -- they really don't --- they don't know why their kid took drugs and ended up in prison
Cause all they are hearing right now is vaccine cause autism
and it is so much more.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 26, 2014 at 03:56 PM
This may shed some light, I think it may have appeared somewhere in the middle between the "linoleum causes autism" and "living nearby highways" tic http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/publish/news/newsroom/5250
Posted by: barbaraj | June 26, 2014 at 01:58 PM
Barbaraj,
The chemicals persist in the environment, including ending up in the water. There is also the question of how long an individual retains the chemicals internally once ingested. As with Teflon, which is found in a very high percentage of the population's blood (but not to worry, Teflon is being phased out over several years - have to give the manufacturers time to come up with something else - don't want to hurt profits even if it means poisoning the world's population).
Posted by: Linda1 | June 26, 2014 at 12:29 PM
I'm sorry, I have so many questions. The pesticides mentioned in this report are all insecticides. There is a documented synergy between deet (off) and pyrethrims, if I recall from reading. That would suggest one should never put "off" on then party in a "fogged" yard. Getting back to the insecticides, north of the mason dixon line there would be no insecticide rural spraying in november, december, january, february."If" this exposure is to only affect the fetus in the last three months of pregnancy, no autistic children should have birthdays in february or march. This doesn't seem to be a fact.
Posted by: barbaraj | June 26, 2014 at 12:00 PM
Of course the idiots at Scienceblogs are arguing that there are less pollutants now than say 30 years ago- does that mean there could still have been no impact for offspring or subsequent generations? No.
Posted by: False scientists make me laugh | June 26, 2014 at 11:48 AM
Hi Angie,
I agree with free enterprise only as long as it doesn't involve poisoning people, even with informing the public. There are so many people in this country who can't even read or who work two and three jobs and just don't have the time to read up on every potential hazard and then there are the intellectually challenged who live in the community but who don't have the capacity to understand. Even if one doesn't live near a golf course, plenty of people have to walk or drive by in order to get to where they're going, including pregnant women and children, maybe several times a day...If poisons are necessary to maintain a golf course (and I don't think they are) then golf courses should be outlawed. I'm pretty sure in parts of Canada, using pesticides and herbicides for lawns and gardens like this is against the law. As far as agricultural use goes too, it's been long known that farmers have a higher rate of Parkinsons which is of course a neurological disease - linked to the chemicals they use.
Posted by: Linda1 | June 26, 2014 at 11:04 AM
"The truth is when you put neurological toxins in infants and the unborn – in the 1930s at Harvard, or in Idaho, or in Beltsville, or in Forest; or at a well-baby visit this very morning in Des Moines or Danville -- you get brain damage."
This is the basic simple truth. As a father of two boys with "autism" it isn't easy to say that what my children suffered an encephalopathy. The cold, hard truth is that autism is a behavioral indicator of brain damage.
Keep kids away from things that cause brain damage and the autism rate will go down.
Posted by: Louis Conte | June 26, 2014 at 09:19 AM
@S Ilflay...,
While we're both being distracted by such unpleasant sentiments, and not likely thoroughly acquainted with Mr. Olmsted's arguments here, I have to ask a rather off topic question or two (though I have read the book, Age of Autism, and I'm pretty sure we do not share the same impression of the research and observations presented therein).
When vaccine producers use rabbit organs in the production process, do you think they make sure no Hraka gets in the final product?
If possibly not, do you believe a bacteriostat that appears to be more destructive to neural cells (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loj5CaueA_E) than unwanted bacteria (http://www.evidenceofharm.com/fluvaccine.htm) makes the final product A-OK?
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | June 25, 2014 at 11:18 PM
Thank you for the words below and more importantly for your myriad actions behind them. I can imagine the frustration to research as you have, to find irrefutable evidence as you have linkng cesaran and thimerosal with the earliest cases of autism, and then to dutifully report on it, write a book about it and continue to do your best to get the message to those in power.
And then to feel as if no one cares or is listening. Well I care. And I've been listening and I just told my pediatrician about your book. If I had a million, I'd buy copies for all the pediatricians in my state!
Thank you, Dan and everyone at AoA for all you do.
"We’ve done everything we can to bring this crucial information to the attention of people in a position to do something about it, from Congress to the federal bureaucracy – I personally handed copies of the information to Tom Insel and HHS’s science adviser in 2007. We wrote a book. We made a video. We publish this blog. We’re writing more books. We are not withholding our firepower to some future date when we think the moment might be better or the audience bigger. We all really, really want to stop the mayhem. Now."
Posted by: Beth | June 25, 2014 at 10:08 PM
The pesticides mentioned.carbamates, pyrethroids, organophosphates have been used for decades, alone they are not likely to be responsible for this epidemic. In synergy with pharmaceuticals the possibility seems to exist, with combinations possibly exponentially raising the toxicity of another. There are ,as well, certain pathogens that become more virulent in the presence of chemicals, with hep b being one, epstein barre being another. This SHOULD be a great topic for research What in the increased vaccine schedule is perhaps being intensified by time tested pesticides.Hard to not notice mercury as an almost oversight, yet the most ubiquitous of all, glyphosate was not mentioned.Then again, this same effect of synergistic chemical mixtures, or chemicals affecting viruses may be going on within the vial and pesticides may be the wrong path.
Posted by: barbaraj | June 25, 2014 at 09:46 PM
@Linda1....I agree. I have always said that I support free enterprise. Do what you want, but inform people. If people in a community agree to a toxic golfcourse, spray and swing away. Be honest about the chemicals. We need to know. Two years ago my family was in a large amusement park. My son dropped something, and a maintence man whispered to me not to let him touch anything on the ground.He told me about all of the chemicals used in these places and he said “look around do you see any birds,flies, or other insects“ I never noticed that before. I thanked him kindly and we cleaned our shoes that night when we got back. That day, I stopped a lady from giving her son a pacifier that fell to the ground. People are never told these things....
Posted by: angie | June 25, 2014 at 08:46 PM
Silfray whatever (the name that means eat shit in urban slang), I think it may be you who needs to grow some dendrites. Sorry if it bothers you so much that autism is very likely environmentally caused; and vaccines not off the table in terms of these.
Posted by: jen | June 25, 2014 at 07:57 PM
Everything implies vaccines in your microscopic monosynaptic mind, Olmstead.
Grow a few dendrites, jerk.
Posted by: S Ilflay-Hraka | June 25, 2014 at 07:39 PM
I found one, I'm pretty sure many of you have seen it, but it's new to me. http://www.weedtechnics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Environmental-Agents-Pharmaceuticals-and-Mitochondrial-Dysfunction.pdf
No one seemed to have autism in the 80's when the chemical lawn industry carelessly began saturating suburbia or when scotts weed and feed was on every lawn.If you expose to a pesticide during a time a child has exposure to vaccine pharmaceutical chemicals, could the single effect be exponentially increased , considering as example the toxic effects of mercury would be far greater than as a single ingredient without this synergistic effect? http://www.beyondpesticides.org/infoservices/pesticidesandyou/Winter%2003-04/Synergy.pdf
Posted by: barbaraj | June 25, 2014 at 06:33 PM
Can anyone explain the uncoupling of ATP and mitochondrial energy with exposure to 2,4 D? Can glyphosate and others cause mitochondrial dysfunction. If vaccines can cause autism in children with inborn mitochondrial disease, there must be an acquired mitochondrial disease caused by this category of pesticide leaving the opening for similar vaccine triggered autism. ?
Posted by: barbaraj | June 25, 2014 at 05:39 PM
And guess what! Another new study implicates the birthplace of the mother in the likelihood that the child will develop autism. CNN reported on both studies and has an expert reminding parents that these are just associations---they don't mean that we're any closer to finding the cause. (And of course no one is speculating on what all those vaccines a woman gets coming into the U.S. might do to her future children.)
CNN: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/24/pesticide-exposure-during-pregnancy-may-increase-autism-risk/
"Another study published in Pediatrics this week found a link between race and autism spectrum disorders.
"'It can be very scary for parents when they hear such high degree of association, but they should also keep in mind that this research is only showing some association and not cause,' William Sharp, director of the Marcus Autism Center and assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine, wrote in an email. Sharp was not involved with either study.
''Not all pregnant women exposed to pesticides or all immigrants from Central (and) South America go on to have children with autism.'"
So relax, these are just THIS WEEK'S AUTISM GUESSES. They mean nothing in the long run. (And remember this---the medical community is solidly behind the claim that all the autism is nothing new--it's all the result of THEIR BETTER DIAGNOSING.)
And Dan, you're absolutely right! The media faithfully reports every new study on autism, seemingly unaware that we've had study after study after study after....and AUTISM STILL REMAINS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL MYSTERY TO EXPERTS---except for the fact that they're sure that vaccines don't cause it---you can take that tenet of faith to the bank.
But, as Dan points out, if toxic pesticides are ever shown to be a real cause of autism, it opens the door to all the other toxic exposures...including the poisons in vaccines. I'm guessing that we're going to be inundated with new science on autism, linking it a dozen different possibilities---having nothing to do with toxic exposures.
I wrote this open letter to Dr. Hertz-Picciotto, lead author of the pesticide study at UC-Davis, telling her why no one will really pay attention to her findings.
http://annedachel.com/2014/06/23/dear-dr-hertz-picciotto-im-sorry-but-nobody-cares/
Posted by: Anne Dachel | June 25, 2014 at 04:39 PM
Based on hard evidence (toxicity studies), outcomes and biologic plausibility, vaccination is and has been a criminal and violent act PERIOD. Let's take the only stand possible--a solid one...no more equivocating, please.
As one expert on vaccination science, history and policy has repeatedly said, and I'm paraphrasing..."this is about the survival of the correctly informed.." (Dr. Tim O'Shea, "Vaccination Is Not Immunization, The Sanctity Of Human Blood")
Posted by: Stand Up! | June 25, 2014 at 03:15 PM
It is almost comical that someone in skeptic community mentioned "even non- skeptical people smelling a rat when they find other of these associations like pesticides with autism." Well in a sense, she's right.
What seems to be the real truth of it, though, is that people seem to know that it is something environmental (not genetic) and that the question of vaccines has not been asked and answered properly. The public is not stupid.
Posted by: Interestingtimes | June 25, 2014 at 02:41 PM
And guess what! Another new study implicates the birthplace of the mother in the likelihood that the child will develop autism. CNN reported on both studies and has an expert reminding parents that these are just associations---they don't mean that we're any closer to finding the cause. (And of course no one is speculating on what all those vaccines a woman gets coming into the U.S. might do to her future children.)
CNN: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/24/pesticide-exposure-during-pregnancy-may-increase-autism-risk/
"Another study published in Pediatrics this week found a link between race and autism spectrum disorders.
"'It can be very scary for parents when they hear such high degree of association, but they should also keep in mind that this research is only showing some association and not cause,' William Sharp, director of the Marcus Autism Center and assistant professor at Emory University School of Medicine, wrote in an email. Sharp was not involved with either study.
''Not all pregnant women exposed to pesticides or all immigrants from Central (and) South America go on to have children with autism.'"
So relax, these are just THIS WEEK'S AUTISM GUESSES. They mean nothing in the long run. (And remember this---the medical community is solidly behind the claim that all the autism is nothing new--it's all the result of THEIR BETTER DIAGNOSING.)
And Dan, you're absolutely right! The media faithfully reports every new study on autism, seemingly unaware that we've had study after study after study after....and AUTISM STILL REMAINS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL MYSTERY TO EXPERTS---except for the fact that they're sure that vaccines don't cause it---you can take that tenet of faith to the bank.
But, as Dan points out, if toxic pesticides are ever shown to be a real cause of autism, it opens the door to all the other toxic exposures...including the poisons in vaccines. I'm guessing that we're going to be inundated with new science on autism, linking it a dozen different possibilities---having nothing to do with toxic exposures.
I wrote this open letter to Dr. Hertz-Picciotto, lead author of the pesticide study at UC-Davis, telling her why no one will really pay attention to her findings.
http://annedachel.com/2014/06/23/dear-dr-hertz-picciotto-im-sorry-but-nobody-cares/
Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism
Posted by: Anne Dachel | June 25, 2014 at 11:40 AM
In 1989, Meryl Streep and Wendy Gordon Rockefeller (part of the last generation's Thinking Moms, formed Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet. They put out a periodic newsletter with information about pesticides and how to protect children from dangerous cleansers, etc. I think I remember that Philip Landrigan was involved too. I learned from them all those decades ago, that golf courses apply more pesticides and herbicides than agricultural farms. I was warned then by them not to situate my home within so many miles of a golf course. None of what is in the press now about pesticides and autism is new. This is very old information. The real story here is why this is allowed to go on. Why the press gets away with reporting old news as new, why public health authorities spend all their time and resources pushing vaccines while ignoring and not informing the public about the dangers of, for instance, living near a golf course, why absolutely nothing is done to stop the public's immersion in poisonous chemicals.
Posted by: Linda1 | June 25, 2014 at 11:35 AM
Yes and is it any wonder, with world health org sanctioning mercury laden vaccines for other countries that the rate of severe autism is higher in other countries. I just saw that on Autism Speaks the other day.
Posted by: jen | June 25, 2014 at 11:34 AM
“Pregnant women who live within a mile of spaces where commercial pesticides are applied appear to have an increased risk of having a child with autism"
Farmers have been using pesticides for decades so why the sudden increase in autistic children prior to the increase in the number of injections that a child receives in 1980's onward? Where are the autistic adults from decades ago? This is just another bait & switch theory to distract from the obvious. The public should expect a new theory weekly, a new attack of people who oppose vaccines from Russell Saunders at the Daily Beast and a whole slew of celebrity talking heads who are prominently featured in MSM articles and TV interviews. So far autism is linked to older moms, older dads, diet of the moms, genetics, living too close to a freeway so carbon emissions, eating produce that was from a farm that was too close to a freeway, moms drinking, dads drinking, medication, getting vaccines while pregnant, not getting vaccines while pregnant and the list goes on. Why don't the CDC/Vaccine industry just make a blanket statement declaring a woman becoming pregnant causes autism. This has gone beyond the absurd.
Posted by: Danchi | June 25, 2014 at 09:12 AM
"It is getting to be criminal that our public health and pediatric establishment, cheered on by a lazy and intellectually incurious and basically dying media, keeps shoving mercury-containing flu shots into infants in this country, and even more shots into babies around the world, when evidence this obvious .."
In my humble opinion .. we are long past "getting to be criminal" .. as these people have been committing a crime against humanity for a long time. The criminals are well organized and well funded .. making it all but impossible to bring them to justice.
Unfortunately .. David Lewis, PhD describes just how bad things are in his book "Science for Sale .. how the government uses powerful corporations and leading universities to support government policies.. silence top scientists, jeopardize our health .. and .. protect corporate profits".
David writes: "The greatest threat of all is the purposeful corruption of the scientific enterprise by institutions themselves. The science they create is often only an illusion, designed to deceive; and the scientists they destroy to protect that ullusion are often the best"
Dr. Wakefield immediately comes to mind.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | June 25, 2014 at 06:32 AM