"I Am Alone Struggling With My Problem"
By Dan Olmsted
Hey everyone -- Still in search of a member of the American Psychiatric Association to make a request on my behalf; and I'm issuing a call for a virologist out there to contact me (olmsted.dan@gmail.com). I have some embarrassingly basic questions to ask. Meanwhile, my query for help with understanding arsenic -- sometimes a metal, sometimes a metalloid, among other tricky properties -- paid off, as you'll see Saturday.
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Sometimes our comment threads contain tales of such misery that they are hard to read. Like this one:
"I want to say that I have a 20 yr old Autistic son who has started to turn violent these past two years. He does not communicate at all! He used to use the bathroom in his pants, but now I take care of him fulltime as my job and have worked with him to sit and use it. For those who can't get a job because nobody will care for them while you work, in some states you can become a certified provider and get paid by the county to care for your disabled son, daughter, or family member. They need a waiver which can be difficult to get especially if they are under 18.
"I begged, cried, pleaded with the county to please push this waiver through because I was running out of resources and would have to give him up to the state because nobody could watch him while I worked. I have a 10 yr old typical developing daughter I have to support too and couldn't not work. I'm a single mother because I divorced their father three years ago, and he knew it would make my life more difficult by not helping me, hoping I would come back. Now, I believe his violent outbursts are due to him needing to use the bathroom. Maybe constipation, so I started giving him more fiber, and will sit him on the toilet until he has a bowel movement. This seems to calm him down once he has one.
"He has never went after anyone, but gets so upset that he screeches and rocks rapidly back and forth. I have to walk away sometimes for 5-10 min because it gets overwhelming. I hear comments all of the time about how it must be nice to get paid to watch your own son, but you walk a day in my shoes and see if you could handle it. Even for just an hour. I earn every damn penny of it, believe me. Some say he's my meal ticket because of this, but I'm not a lazy ass who lives off of welfare because I don't qualify for it and pay my own bills and go to school. I know I won't always be able to care for him, and need a backup plan. In ohio, the waiting list for a waiver is 2 yrs+.
"I didn't have that time to wait, so after all of the crying I did they put it through as an emergency waiver. Still, it took 6 months for all of the paperwork to go through. I thank God everyday for my mother who helped me. My parents told me they would help as much as they could once I got divorced. I just wanted to vent, and give information to people who has lost hope or almost there. I cry at least 3 days a week because of the stress, but I am strong and will get through this. Love to all parents/family who have a violent child/adult with autism because it takes special people to be able to live with a person with a disability."
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This is the reality for many as their severely affected children get older, even as the image of Asperger-style whiz kids takes root in our society. Here's one that's less horrific but I'm sure wears people down just as much.
"It took me almost 7 months and several conversations with 4 doctors just to get one of them to sign a tax form indicating that my son still has autism. Why? Because he hadn't had an appointment with any of them in quite some time. We would need to schedule one, on a wait list for months. I resigned myself to the fact that I would miss the tax deadline that year (silly me, thinking this exercise would be a 15 minute thing). It took some intervention from my own doctor's office to get this resolved.
"Just a signature on a form from a medical doctor indicating that my son does still indeed have autism. You know, that same condition that the "best science" describes as lifelong and incurable? They had his original diagnosis in his case files. Every one had seen him in the past at some point. Apparently there's some rule out there that they would have to bend. I get it. But this wasn't an ask for meds, or for a diagnosis, or anything like that. It was an ask for a signature on a tax form, based on a known pre-existing condition, for f%@#$'s sake.
"But not one of them would sign without a complete re-evaluation. Can you imagine the horror? They sign, we get a tax break, then suddenly my son is somehow magically cured, the revenue folks find out they've been scammed, and all hell breaks loose. Yeah, could happen, I suppose (sarcasm intended). Doctors will not / cannot step outside the box, not for silly things like authorizing a tax credit, certainly not for allowing any kind of vaccine policy dissension. How can I have an honest discussion with them about anything that has "potentially career-ending" written all over it?
"The more they punish anyone who speaks out, the less I trust any of them."
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And this:
"I am too is suffering ! My daughter is autistic she's 17 years old and she is abusive to me when she don't get what she wants and when she wants something it will be "right now " and then she hits me and she is big girl she's 170 lbs and I am 100 lbs . I already decided to put her in a group home I did talked to her case manager and it's getting more people involve and nothing is getting done I'm so tired if meeting after meeting
"I am a widowed for ten years now and I'm doing it alone . My son who is 23 years old is moving out cuz they have a baby and we can't trust her being around with my autistic kids . There's an incidence that when my granddaughter was two months old my autistic daughter was pulling her arms and I'm pulling her arm back so I screamed for help for my son and his gf so after fighting we finally got my graddaughter free from her so since then we kinda distance the baby from my autistics daughter I'm begging for them to put her in a group home but it's not going anywhere it's just all meeting and meeting and meeting/
"I don't know what to do right .I don't know where to start , who to ask for help . Her doctor told me to call the CPS cuz she saw her for several occasions when we go to her clinic that my daughter was so mad and hitting me and yelling at me .But I'm afraid to call CPS cuz I do t know what will be the worse scenario . I take care of her for 17 years I still want to be able to be part of her life that's why I think group home is best for her and me but I have no clue who can help me . I am so tired plus when she was young I take care of her dying Dad for 5 years .i used to say there's always light at the end of the tunnel but now it seems to me my tunnel is too long , and there's no light . I am alone struggling with my problem with my daughter although I got respite and hab thru DDD/
"I am so emotionally depress in everything .At this point it seems I'm so done but can't be done cuz no one listen to me that I need to put her in a group home . At first her psychiatrist said to me you can put her now and next thing I know that hope is gone . And her DDD liason said in a meeting that "we are not here to judge you but if u decide to put her in a group home let us know " and that's what I did I let them know next thing I know that hope is gone . It's like they are just giving me hope and then. Turn me down and that is most depressing . She sleeps good at night but she wakes up early and when she wakes up she is loud so I do what she wants so the rest in the house can sleep but there are times that I'm so tired and it's too early so she gets mad and pull my arm and if don't open my eyes she is poking my eyeballs .im 55 years old now and I'm wanting to have peace of life/
"I really don't know what to do ...if someone knew or could help me who is the right people to contact to start the paper work for her so I can put her in a group home please help me"
'--
Finally: "I would like to ask for your advice. My son is 21 and on the spectrum. He has suffered abuse (including sexual) and neglect in the school system. I want to do what I can to raise awareness and to fight the system. It has been very hard to go through the things we've experienced. I am willing to do whatever it takes to contribute to help make things better. I became an expert in autism because I had to learn about it so that I could help my son.
"Thank you for any guidance you can provide."
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We try to reach out to people who appear to be in need of more help, often referring them to biomed or advocacy groups we trust. But the need is great and the resources about what you'd expect for a catastrophe that can't be acknowledged. it's terrible to know people are hurting so much, especially given society's lack of understanding, genuine empathy, and commitment to face the truth and help sick kids.
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Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
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Cia,
People usually aren't tested for polio when they go to the doctor. We have no idea if polio circulates now without causing serious disease and paralysis. Also, Roosevelt is thought to have had Guillian Barre, not polio. I never knew anyone that had polio, but I have known several people who had Guillian Barre, some that recovered and others that ended up on mechanical ventilators, the next generation iron lung.
Wondering how many people live on mechanical ventilation now, I found this article (http://rc.rcjournal.com/content/57/6/921.full)
about the use of mechanical ventilation in the home. The authors lament, "It is unfortunate that there is no national registry for home ventilation patients in the United States,24 making it impossible to know the exact number of patients requiring home ventilation." Kind of like we have no national registry for autism, or diseases that the CDC doesn't really want to keep track of. But the authors do try to back into the numbers by examining other indicators and also by looking at European numbers (Europeans do have registries). From the article:
"Patients requiring prolonged mechanical ventilation are rapidly increasing in number. Improved ICU care has resulted in many patients surviving acute respiratory failure to require prolonged mechanical ventilation during convalescence. Also, mechanical ventilation is increasingly used as a therapeutic option for patients with symptomatic chronic hypoventilation, with an increased effort to predict nocturnal hypoventilation to initiate ventilation earlier....
Mechanical ventilation in the home is not a new idea. Patients with poliomyelitis benefited from home mechanical ventilation by iron lung during the years before the 1950s. With the development of positive pressure ventilators, home use of these devices with tracheostomies emerged as a viable technology. In 1977, the LP3 portable volume ventilator was approved by the FDA for use outside the hospital.1 The initial target population for home mechanical ventilation was ventilator dependent pediatric patients. This effort was led by Dr Allen Goldberg, who learned of this approach in France and returned to Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania to begin the first home ventilator program there (personal communication, Allen Goldberg, 2012)."
Re the US supply of in hospital mechanical ventilators, found this article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21149215
Interesting, the authors estimate that there are 62,188 "full feature" mechanical ventilators owned by US acute care hospitals. "The median number of full-feature mechanical ventilators per 100,000 population for individual states is 19.7 (interquartile ratio 17.2-23.1), ranging from 11.9 to 77.6. The median number of pediatric-capable device full-feature mechanical ventilators per 100,000 population younger than 14 years old is 52.3 (interquartile ratio 43.1-63.9) and the range across states is 22.1 to 206.2. In addition, respondent hospitals reported owning 82,755 ventilators other than full-feature mechanical ventilators; we estimate that there are 98,738 devices other than full-feature ventilators at all of the US acute care hospitals."
I just find that interesting. Maybe that's enough equipment to take care of the population in a pandemic. I don't know. But it seems like they could take some of those millions and billions spent on eye gazing studies and Zika-like research funding extravaganzas and instead put aside some equipment that would be needed to keep people alive in a true emergency.
Another article - this one from Medicine.net. Just interesting. Was this "acute flaccid myelitis" affecting patients in the 1940s and being diagnosed as polio?
'Polio-like illness
In 2014 in California, an outbreak of an illness that resembled polio was identified which retrospectively dated back to 2012. It is now called acute flaccid myelitis. All of the affected children (about 59 through July 2015) developed a rapid onset of paralysis in one or more limbs and MRI findings were consistent with injury to the central spinal cord. All of the children had been vaccinated against polio. Some of the children were positive for enterovirus-68, a virus known to be associated with limb paralysis and breathing difficulties. The CDC and researchers are currently trying to definitively determine the cause of this illness although they agree it is not polio.
To date, the children, ranging ages 2 to young adults, have not responded to steroid or immunoglobin treatments, with only 16% gradually improving over time. This new outbreak of polio-like illness is being intensely investigated."
Posted by: Linda1 | June 17, 2016 at 10:37 AM
Whyser,
There are a lot of questions we need more information on. I think it has been exaggerated saying that many cases of polio were misdiagnosed as aseptic meningitis or Guillian-Barré syndrome. I think that a lot of people want to downplay the seriousness of polio in order to say that the vaccine was worse than the disease. I don't think it's true. Even accepting the deaths and disability caused in the Cutter incident, all the cancer possible/probably caused by the SV-40 contaminant, I just don't think it's true that the vaccine did other than end the polio epidemics in the US, essentially halting the death and disability caused by the virus. I think it's very likely that DDT played a role in potentiating the formerly innocuous virus, but we shouldn't feel safe now that we don't use DDT. Two years ago pesticides used in California now seemed to be causing the EV-68 virus to cause crippling polio-lookalike. I think there are many pesticides/insecticides that could potentiate enteroviruses. I don't know how to stop their use, and I don't know if it's dose dependent or if there are individual factors which increase susceptibility. I think it would be hard to tell if any individual has had a dangerous level of exposure or not, the chemicals are so common now.
I'm just saying that we shouldn't forget how horrifying the polio epidemics were, how many children they unexpectedly and suddenly crippled, sometimes killed. There is no easy answer. We shouldn't say that because we don't use DDT any more, we're safe. It's not true that just as much polio is occurring now as before. We just don't have the thousands of children a year dying or being crippled by a polio-like disease, no epidemics sweeping in and crippling thousands. Although it's also true that statistically only a small percentage of the whole was affected, how should you act to protect YOUR child? How could you predict if he'd be crippled or not if polio came to town?
I've read of some severe adverse reactions to the polio vaccine which caused disability or death, but they seem to be much less frequent than with most other vaccines. I wouldn't recommend that anyone get it at this time, just for fear of adverse reactions, no matter how safe I think it usually is. The vaccines are screened now for things like SV40. There may be other, yet unknown contaminants. And, as I say, I wouldn't recommend it at this time. But if polio came back here, and seemed to be spreading quickly, then I would recommend the vaccine as being in most cases the lesser of two evils. But I would also mention that homeopathic lathyrus sativus was very likely an effective preventive and treatment as well. I can't say at this time which of those two alternatives I'd choose for me and my child. I had seven doses of polio vaccine in my life, but the last was when I was about seven, so probably the protection has worn off.
Posted by: cia parker | June 17, 2016 at 12:47 AM
Whyser,
I got a lot of hits just now when I googled India Pulse polio vaccine program. This is one of them.
India started the ‘Pulse Polio’ campaign way back in the mid-1990s, taking advantage of the ease of use and the community protection offered by the OPV. The logistics and the numbers are staggering. Over 2 million vaccinators, regulated by some 150,000 supervisors, immunise 170 million children under five twice every year. Every neighbourhood landmark and – these days – large apartment complexes see these heroic volunteers giving polio drops. Many medics ensure coverage by door-to-door vaccination for a few days following the big ‘Polio Sunday’ (#poliosunday). And we do claim 100% coverage. This is a herculean achievement given the socio-economic background of much of our citizenry. From thousands of recorded cases of paralytic polio every year in the mid-1990s to double digits in 2010 to zero since January 2011, we have come a long way.
http://thewire.in/22484/let-us-celebrate-the-success-of-pulse-polio/
Posted by: cia parker | June 17, 2016 at 12:25 AM
Dan, I'm humbled and almost ashamed my comments got mashed in with those parents who are struggling with violent kids. We go crazy with bureaucracy and logistics, finances, emotions, systemic discrimination, amidst the pain of watching a 19 year old stuck at 3, but if there is one (sanity) saving grace here, it is that my kids is generally well behaved (for those parents in harm's way, please take note of the comments around diet and supplementation). My heart is breaking for those in such dire straights. There is a kind of cruel irony for us - my kid's "passive" nature sometimes relegates him to the back of the line, so to speak, when it comes to already scarce services and resources. It drives us nuts, but we know there are others queued up before us for help who are hurting so much more and probably already much closer to the edge, because of the violent circumstances. The courage and devotion of these parents is incredible.
Posted by: RT | June 17, 2016 at 12:10 AM
I suppose on reflection the Jones quote is still semi-rubbish, because it is a theory that everything is still determined by genes, only the models are too complicated - environment is not acknowledged.
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2016 at 05:35 PM
Grace
That's quite a riddle but Jones knows quite well that for most illnesses gene studies are a dead end. Here is an article I had forgotten I had written:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/10/the-farce-of-hyping-gene-studies.html
Jones wrote in 2009 in the Daily Telegraph:
“It's not done to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, nor to bite the hand that feeds you – nor, in my own profession, to criticise the research programme of the Wellcome Trust, an enormously rich charity that paid much of the bill to read the message written in human DNA. Not done, perhaps, but a pack of renegade biologists has turned on that source of nutrition to claim that what it is doing is welcome, but plain wrong.....
“In other words, our chances of being born with a predisposition to a common illness such as diabetes or heart disease are not represented by the roll of a single die, but a gamble involving huge numbers of cards. Some people are dealt a poor mix and suffer as a result. Rather than drawing one fatal error, they lose life's poker game in complicated and unpredictable ways. So many small cards can be shuffled that everyone fails in their own private fashion. Most individual genes say very little about the real risk of illness. As a result, the thousands of people who are paying for tests for susceptibility to particular diseases are wasting their money.”
Mind you, Paul Shattock told me that 12 years before in 1997 and Francis Collins admitted as much to Congress in 2006, but the goose just goes on laying.
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2016 at 05:22 PM
John, thank you for pointing me to your 2011 article re. Steve Jones. I'm really surprised to find this out about him as I've usually found him to be very informative. I have previously quoted him as saying, "If everyone smoked lung cancer would be a genetic disease", which I took to be a rebuttal of the genetic theory of autism. So many "scientists" seem to pick and choose what they believe.
Posted by: Grace Green | June 16, 2016 at 04:37 PM
Susan
I am very uncomfortable with the BBC today: there was a a time when it employed real investigative journalists but now you just have to ask all the time why you are being told something. The coordinated attack on Wakefield came only a month or so after the Hutton report (the government stitch up over the death of Dr Kelly and the WMD) and the resignation of the chairman and director general, but the institution had been changed irrevocably. When I was writing to the head of BBC news in February 2004 he kept on referring me to a Today programme jounalist who was also affiliated to the industry lobby organisation SenseAbout Science, who just blanked me. There are now no news organisations of the face of the earth that are what the BBC once was. In the aftermath of Hutton the BBC would ony report news stories adverse to the government only several days after other news sources - it was painful to observe.
So, in the Hutton report the BBC jounalist who was telling the truth was found to be lying on technical grounds, and the government which was lying was found to be telling the truth on technical grounds - and we are paying a terrible price for this inversion of reality. Of course, this it exactly what the Jones report was doing yet again: just making sure that powerful edifice of lies could never be challlenged.
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2016 at 02:54 PM
@whyser
Nice to have you here, I appreciate your comments and links!
There is an excellent chapter on polio in Dr Humphry's book,
Dissolving Illusions
, online at http://jeffreydachmd.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Suzanne_humphries_dissolving_illusions_disappearance_polio.pdf -- well worth reading, as is the whole book.Re environmental triggers for polio-caused paralysis, some fascinating stuff:
Sandler (http://whale.to/a/sandler_b.html) showed that low-blood-glucose (hypoglycemia) dramatically increases the risk of paralysis from polio infection.
(1) Low blood glucose can be caused by intense exercise, and it is well-accepted that this increases the risk of paralysis when there is active infection. "Dr. Levinson found that monkeys forced to swim to the point of exhaustion in cold water developed more severe paralysis than did either those that remained in cages or those that were immersed in water at body temperature and protected from exercise and chilling.” Shades of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
(2) Hypoglycemia following a bolus of starch or sugar would also increase the risk. Sandler did experiments with rabbits, infecting them with polio and then giving them insulin to cause low blood-glucose, and this increased the risk of paralysis: "The next step was to lower the blood sugar of the rabbit to subnormal values with insulin injections, and then inoculate the rabbit with polio virus. This was done and it was found that the rabbits became infected and developed the disease."
What Sandler didn’t know at the time is that cane sugar can be contaminated with deoxysugars, and that deoxysugars cause effective hypoglycemia. With deoxyglucose, for example, cells preferentially take up deoxyglucose, but can’t use it for energy — so cane sugar contaminated with enough deoxyglucose would increase the risk of paralysis from polio infections. (This idea comes from van Meer’s paper, http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/diet-and-polio-Van-Meer-science.pdf.) The paper "THE EFFECT OF 2-DEOXY-D-GLUCOSE INFUSIONS ON LIPID AND CARBOHYDRATE METABOLISM IN MAN” says “In the presenceof 2-DG [the deoxysugar deoxyglucose], although the measured plasma level of glucose is high, if cellular utilization of glucose cannot occur the organism can be considered to be functionally hypoglycemic.”
van Meer (http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/diet-and-polio-Van-Meer-science.pdf) also notes that DDT affects blood sugar, and that this effect could cause increased risk of polio with concurrent DDT exposure. I haven’t been able to find definitive evidence that DDT triggers hypoglycemia or effective hypoglycemia in humans, but this paper in mice is suggestive: http://thirdworld.nl/the-inhibitoty-effect-of-ddt-on-insulin-secretion-in-mice It says "In fact, a slight hypoglycemia was observed at both the 5- and ?-hr intervals. Interestingly, at these time periods the DDT-treated mice were exhibiting marked tremors.” So they found some hypoglycemia, and tremors can be a symptom of hypoglycemia (although they can have other causes). They also found reduced insulin production, and insulin is needed for cells to take in glucose, so low insulin would cause effective hypoglycemia. So it is certainly plausible that DDT causes increased polio paralysis risk due to hypoglycemic effects.
The funny thing is that Sandler didn’t know about deoxysugar causing effective hypoglycemia, and van Meer didn’t know about Sandler’s work showing that hypoglycemia increases polio paralysis risk, but they both could see a relationship between paralysis risk and blood sugar. Sandler thought the risk was from hypoglycemia in response to a bolus dose of starch/sugar (which does happen in some people), but actually deoxyglucose contamination is a more likely trigger. van Meer thought increased risk was due to high blood glucose, because that’s what deoxysugars trigger — when cells have effective hypoglycemia, there is a counter-regulatory response to raise blood glucose to try to resolve the apparent low blood-glucose state.
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | June 16, 2016 at 02:25 PM
John Stone - you are the fount of all wisdom! (Have just read the 2011 article re the stitch up by BBC)
Angus Files - I love - and concur with - your comments.
More people are aware now, so hopefully if/when the BBC distort the truth again, there will be a bigger backlash. In a very tiny way, I respond every time they 'big up' vaccines and report measles scares.
Posted by: susan | June 16, 2016 at 02:00 PM
Thank you, Grace and John for throwing some light on why Adam Rutherford is so unpleasant re Vaxxed and Dr Wakefield. Although I do love BBC radio programmes, I am aware how very pro-vaccination they are. If the BBC ever have to acknowledge vaccine injury, we'll know we've won. Can't wait for that day - and seeing the egg on A Rs face!
Posted by: susan | June 16, 2016 at 01:28 PM
Grace
Yes, it looks like Cooper's programme, Material World, was replace by Rutherford's, Inside Science - but obviously Rutherford's vicious and defamatory attack on Wakefield in 2011 was the dress rehearsal. I note that Rutherford also seems to be the protege of the obnoxious Steve Jones who fixed the BBC's policy on science reporting:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/07/scientific-totalitarianism-at-the-bbc.html
There seems to be no explanation why Material World was pulled (no rumours circulating on the web) but according to Wiki for some reason the last edition was not introduced by Cooper.
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2016 at 11:33 AM
Susan, I think I can shed some light on Adam Rutherford. BBC Radio 4 runs a weekly science magazine programme called Inside Science. Afew years ago the very popular presenter, Quentin Cooper, was ousted amid much bad feeling - he told delightful puns whenever they occurred to him! - and replaced by Adam Rutherford. Those of us who have some knowledge of the BBC suspected this was part of their agenda to put people in position who could be told what to say by the government. The BBC is definitely not editorially independent. I haven't heard anything by Quentin Cooper since then. I suppose he must have said something he shouldn't.
Posted by: Grace Green | June 16, 2016 at 09:45 AM
Susan
I think he is just a super-troll with an agenda, like Goldacre. There are people who repeat things because they don't know any better and there are others who repeat things in spite of the fact that they do.
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2016 at 07:07 AM
John (Stone). Thanks so much for info on Dr Adam Rutherford. I had checked him out this morning, and found out that he is scientist. Maybe you can enlighten me as to why he is behaving like a troll on Twitter re Vaxxed Agree with you he should 'shut his trap', but don't understand why he is contributing to vaccine injury by tweeting such nonsense. Any info would be helpful as I am extremely perplexed. Many thanks.
Posted by: susan | June 16, 2016 at 05:03 AM
cia parker,
I'm not sure where you get the idea that India did 1 or 2 doses of polio a year.
If you look at Dr Jacob Puliyel's data,it shows that, within the last 3 years, there are a couple of regions that got close to 30 doses!! That's almost one dose a month!
Dr Puliyel's data here: http://jacob.puliyel.com/download.php?id=248
As well, back in the 1940's and 1950's, I don't think polio surveillance was well established. I thought that back in those days, any form of acute flaccid paralysis was thought to be caused by polio, whether it actually was or not. It wasn't until after the introduction of the vaccine in 1955 did their surveillance efforts began to determine whether it was paralytic polio, or non-paralytic acute flaccid paralysis. That's how they got the paralytic polio numbers to go down immediately after the introduction of the vaccine.
I'm not too researched into this topic either, but wasn't DDT and other toxins also high in usage during the 1940-50's? It looks like Tim Lundeen has mentioned it in his comment.
Posted by: whyser | June 15, 2016 at 11:44 PM
Sanitation did play a big role in the elimination of polio, but it can also be spread by the respiratory route, like all the kids who got EV-68 two years ago. Nearly all the children in the Western world who got polio in the epidemics in the '40s and '50s were from cities and homes which had modern sanitation systems, and were well-nourished, from clean homes. Most of them did not catch polio by the fecal/oral route. It may be why many had severe cases of polio, no longer having the opportunity as infants to catch a mild case of polio in the outhouse and get permanent immunity. Civilization has its pros and cons.
Many of the children in India were subjected to twice-yearly oral polio vaccine doses, so that many of them had had ten or more doses by the age of five. It is very likely that that played a role in their getting acute flaccid paralysis. As far as I know, there have been so similar situations in other countries.
Posted by: cia parker | June 15, 2016 at 07:13 PM
It's interesting that all through the years people have not come up with a better word than "vaccine". It comes from "cow". http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vaccination
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | June 15, 2016 at 06:55 PM
For years I have been told that it was the same three polio viruses that had always been around that suddenly started causing polio.
But I really - really - did not believe them. I always really thought they were some kind of mutant - almost alike to make them think it was the same old three strains of polio.
That has been a blind spot I have, and I would not doubt a blind spot for the vast majority of people; that it is not just a microbe but the immune system. I guess that is a great big blind spot.
Poison - is just so sneaky and horrible. Lots of murderers and doctors have gotten away with killing people if they use poison.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 15, 2016 at 04:55 PM
Lot of talk about paralytic polio in the comments... does anyone have any idea what today's "iron lung" looks like?
http://www.hayekmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/man-using-rtx-cropped.jpg
http://www.hayekmedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kids-using-rtx.jpg
That's called a negative pressure ventilator in the form of a cuirass.
Just look at the photo, the patients are SMILING (okay, it is a marketing photo, but still). Doesn't look as scary as the iron lung of yesteryear.
I'm surprised that no one is talking about how sanitation was a big part of the elimination of polio, since polio is spread through the fecal -> oral route.
I'm also surprised that no one is talking about India's huge rate of non polio acute flaccid paralysis, despite their "elimination" of polio. They traded approximately 3,000 cases of paralytic polio for about 60,000 cases of non-polio acute flaccid paralysis, where the highest incident rates are occurring in the regions that are the most vaccinated for it, and where the non-polio version is twice as deadly (as discovered by Dr Jacob Puliyel)
Polio programme: let us declare victory and move on
http://www.issuesinmedicalethics.org/index.php/ijme/article/view/110/1065
Posted by: whyser | June 15, 2016 at 04:22 PM
Rutherford still alive ,crap. I thought he had pegged it and gone off to his hot spot that's being kept warm for him...Hell waits.
Dr Wakefield is still a Doctor as nobody can take his UK Degrees away from him entitling him to be a "Dr".
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | June 15, 2016 at 04:10 PM
(1) Disease paralysis is still with us, only now it is called "non-polio acute flaccid paralysis" NPAFP. Some stats at http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2010/06/02/polio-and-acute-flaccid-paralysis/
(2) Polio appears to be 100% treatable/curable, and I assume this applies to NPAFP as well, when it is caused by enteroviruses in the same family as the "official" polio viruses. If we treated it correctly, we would have far, far fewer cases of permanent paralysis. http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/194x/klenner-fr-southern_med_surg-1949-v111-n7-p209.htm
(3) Polio cases in the 1950s were triggered by massive DDT usage. Polio cases peaked before the vaccine, and were declining before the vaccine. The vaccines were dangerous, and actually caused many cases. See http://www.thevaccinereaction.org/2015/07/ddt-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-polio/
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | June 15, 2016 at 03:43 PM
Hi Susan
To clarify your comments, Rutherford is not a medical doctor but he was the narrator of BBC Radio Four's twisted "Science Betrayed" documentary in 2011 - he's right, though ,they did betray science and ordinary human decency, and they gave a patform for Brian Deer to spout even more nonsense than usual. Presumably, Rutherford is in favour of the CDC fixing its studies. The UCL investigation into the "Wakefield Affair" which was supposed to be headed by Prof Pepys, which was announced in the programme, had to be abandoned because of absense of evidence. Meanwhile, the allegations were taken apart in Rutherford's own journal, Nature, by their reporter Eugenie Samuel Reich.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/12/bbc-trustees-stand-by-groundless-insinuations-against-andrew-wakefield-in-.html
If Rutherford had an ounce of decency he would shut his trap.
Posted by: John Stone | June 15, 2016 at 03:20 PM
Anony,
I don't think being rich or poor made any difference to outcome. Sister Kenny's treatment often produced good results, but she was sort of blacklisted in the US. The US has always hated natural treatments for anything. There really was no way to restore movement by allopathic treatment once a limb was paralyzed. Sometimes it recovered naturally, sometimes not, but it wasn't because of treatment. I had my left arm and leg paralyzed in an MS attack once, was hospitalized for almost a month, and they didn't think they were going to recover. They did, but naturally, with no treatment. Allopathy has nothing for paralysis.
Posted by: cia parker | June 15, 2016 at 03:11 PM
The UK appears to be in complete denial about vaccine injury. Today, on Twitter, a BBC doctor (Adam Rutherford) completely 'dished' Vaxxed. There was a dreadful post likening it to a fairy tale and Dr (can you really call him that?) Rutherford retweeted with a dreadful remark about Dr Wakefield. This is the extent of the BBC bias.
The complete and utter lies that are told is making me both depressed and, luckily, even more determined to get the truth out there.
When you have 'establishment' doctors, both Dr Phil Hammond and Dr A R spouting their lies, it makes you wonder whether they haven't kept up with research or, maybe, they have shares in Merck.
Posted by: susan | June 15, 2016 at 02:56 PM
Anony,
It's always a case of attempting to weigh the risks and the benefits. Yes, a huge number of polio vaccine doses for many years were contaminated with SV-40 virus, and it undoubtedly caused a lot of cases of cancer. But if you were in a situation in which, depending on the size of your city, hundreds to thousands of children were being paralyzed or killed every year by polio, you'd remember the time when almost everyone vaxxed for it and no one was paralyzed by polio, and it would seem like the better choice. I also only knew one person crippled by polio, from not having gotten the vaccine, because I was born after the polio epidemics which terrified everyone in the country. I never knew any young person with cancer, out of thousands I met or knew of at school or the university, still haven't ever personally met one or known of one. Later, I knew several relatives or friends of my parents who died of cancer, but never a large number, most people I knew died of heart disease or strokes. I don't know if those who died of cancer did so because of the contaminant in the polio vaccine or contaminants from another source.
All we can do is make the best choice possible under current circumstances. Taking homeopathic lathyrus sativus seemed to do a good job at preventing polio in San Francisco and Argentina, and, if it really works as well as it appears, that would be the better option.
Posted by: cia parker | June 15, 2016 at 02:46 PM
You people at AoA are the true heroes of this earth!
Thank you for all you do!!!
Posted by: annie | June 15, 2016 at 02:22 PM
The only time each day when I am not alone with my problem is when each morning I curl up with coffee and read Age of Autism!
My 25 year old adopted son is high functioning. Too high functioning for SSDI and others programs. I spend 80percent of my time and emotional energy supporting him so that much of the time he appears normal. I'm 74 and my retirement resources are draining. And I wish I could connect with some of you more productively to contribute to our cause in the 20 percent time I have left over. (Dan, I've seen all the forensic files) . Thank you all for the work you do, for providing sanity on this terrible epidemic, and for a place where I am not alone.
Posted by: Anna Quandt | June 15, 2016 at 02:22 PM
I also remember polio well, being a child in the school system during its peak years. It was a dreaded scourge, but - in its most severe forms at least - more talked about than seen. In my 18 years of school (K-12), I knew one student who was left with the kind of severe disabilities we associate with polio; one who walked with a limp; and several, including my cousin, who made complete recoveries. No doubt having access to middle class resources enhanced that recovery rate and the poorer would not fare as well, but, according to what I've heard, the polio rate had already begun to ebb before the vaccines came out.
What's indisputable is that the polio vaccine is associated with a simian cancer virus that crept in with the use of kidney tissue from infected animals to create the cell lines used for the vax. Investigative journalist Ed Haslam tells this extraordinary story in his book "Dr. Mary"s Monkey" and I recommend it to everyone interested in vaccines.
Posted by: Anony | June 15, 2016 at 01:30 PM
Hard to read definitely. Prayers for all in these or similar circumstances.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | June 15, 2016 at 01:29 PM
We had to give up our son for a number of years because we needed money. My husband was on disability. I had to work. The state provided money for a caregiver. You couldn't be a paid caregiver and a parent at the same time. That kind of reasoning never made sense to me. We were fortunate to get a caring couple to take care of Erik. But when the husband died things fell apart. We had to look for someone new, and we found someone who was not nearly as loving. The new people were all business. Things changed drastically. One thing that was good, though, was the fact that California now allows parents to be paid caregivers. It is unfortunate that we could never take advantage of that.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | June 15, 2016 at 12:27 PM
But the iron lungs were for real. Sometimes the polio virus paralyzed not just the legs and/or arms, but also the lungs, and the patient died if he were not kept in an iron lung which forced him to breathe. Often the paralysis ended and the patient recovered, sometimes it didn't. It was eventually determined by doing it that a patient could live for as long as ten years in an iron lung, but obviously it wasn't much of a life. They couldn't even read, having their arms encased in the metal cylinder, even if they had the use of them. OK, maybe it was just several thousand a year, but how horrifying for those thousands, as well as for those who just lost the use of their limbs. I have compared it to autism in the past, saying that my daughter with autism is in a worse position than my roommate crippled by polio, since she could get around on crutches with braces on her legs or in a wheelchair, and was cheerful, happy, talkative, and had many friends. We need more information. I haven't ever heard of the polio vaccine causing autism. Maybe it does, but I've never heard of it. I think we'll need to inform parents to the best of our ability and let them make the choice. When I was in college, no one had ever heard of autism, no one had it, and we had all gotten many doses of polio vaccine. And no one except my roommate who had not had the vaccine had had polio. Some had asthma and allergies, but no autism. Very little, that is, three in 10,000, but we had never heard of it.
There is no easy answer. There are great dangers on both sides. Giving large numbers of doses of vaccines has obviously greatly increased the rate of autism, etc. Homeopathic prophylaxis might be the answer, but we'd need to study it to know how effective it would be for universal use. But vaccines usually do what they are supposed to. If only a few were given, vaccine damage wouldn't be eliminated, but it would be greatly reduced. Parent's choice. We'll just have to wait and see what happens if large numbers of people stop vaxxing. If polio doesn't come back, great. If it does, most people are going to want to vax for it, including me.
Posted by: cia parker | June 15, 2016 at 12:26 PM
Polio-I am older than you Dan and I remember it well. The fear in Minneapolis where I grew up-the summers of not being allowed to go swimming and one summer of being shuffled off to relatives in Wisconsin for the entire summer vacation. I also had polio albeit a mild case where I was hospitalized for a short time and experienced no lasting side effects.
PS I don't know if this is possible but I would be willing to help those 2 people with kids with aggressive behaviors. I experienced this for many years with my grandson. he is so much better now, but on occasion still has ma major meltdown with aggressive behavior. If you can put them in touch with me if possible.
Maurine
Posted by: Maurine Meleck | June 15, 2016 at 12:06 PM
And about the boy with severe constipation: four years ago when I decided to put Cecily on the GFCF diet (later went to grain-free Paleo), I worried about the fiber that would be missing. She was eating a breakfast cereal that had 70% of the daily fiber requirement, plus lots of whole-grain, fruits, veggies, water, and also Miralax, Natural Calm magnesium drink, Dulcolax, aloe vera juice, Smooth Move tea, and several other things, which caused diarrhea, but could never come to a happy medium. But within two days of starting the GFCF diet, her constipation was completely gone! Even without high-fiber anything! Here are two links I'd like the woman who wrote the comment to have, from TACA: the Poop Page, with many suggestions, and their section on menus and shopping to provide the GFCF diet on food stamps. I'd also recommend the site Pecanbread.com, on the grain-free diet for kids with GI problems. Also Elana Amsterdam and Kelly Brozyna (The Spunky Coconut). Kelly and also her autistic daughter had severe problems with constipation, which were fixed with her diet, which is Paleo, and found in her cookbooks and webpage.
http://www.tacanow.org/family-resources/the-poop-page/
http://www.tacanow.org/family-resources/gfcfsf-diet-on-food-stamps/
Posted by: cia parker | June 15, 2016 at 11:32 AM
Dan,
I also understand poliophobia, and continue to believe that if a lot of people didn't vax for it, it might very well come back. My parents went overboard with the polio vaccinations for me, I had five of the injected polio vaccines before the oral Sabin one came out in 1962, and had one of those plus a booster several years later. I don't know if seven doses damaged me or not, but it is unlikely now that a child would be given more than the recommended four, counting the kindergarten booster. My roommate Tina when I was a freshman in college had been crippled by polio because her parents were afraid of the vaccine and didn't get it for her. And she was completely unable to use her legs, for life: I still communicate with her, and now she's confined to a wheelchair. I think that both vaccines were usually safe and effective, and I think their use was completely justified at that time. And if polio were to appear again in the US, and seemed likely to spread and cause a lot of crippling, some deaths, I think it would be completely justified to get the series for your child, even though it is just a small percentage who ever even develops the flu-like symptoms, much less the crippling.
Posted by: cia parker | June 15, 2016 at 11:23 AM
That is the power of the media.
We had the media back then showing iron lungs and wheel chairs and "Lassie" running to get the local black smith to make an iron lung for a sweet little girl that could no longer breath and they could not get her to the hospital cause the bridge was washed out. Having a president that had polio - helped too.
Think we will have a president that has a smidgen of autism?
Still the night my son had his most severe reaction I had vision of a wheel chair, drooling chin, hyper - not what we ended up with hypo toned muscles, and a helmet.
The eyes of my son that night; when the black takes over the whole eye color - if that could be shown on TV I am sure that would be just maybe as scary as an iron lung.
But I am just one - that saw it.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 15, 2016 at 10:52 AM
VAXXED showing the Tomey (SIC?) family's daily experience .. indeed struggle .. to raise and lovingly care for their now .. fully mature .. twenty-something .. physically powerful .. occasionally aggressive son .. really hit home with me .. as my precious sixteen year old .. non-verbal grandson .. stands at the threshold of maturing into a physically powerful young man.
Thank God our loveable grandchild is .. at present .. a seemingly happy child .. absent any tendencies for overly aggressive behaviors .. for which I have no one but GOD to be thankful for.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | June 15, 2016 at 08:52 AM
I certainly remember polio. Fear of cancer can't begin to compare. My younger sister had a mild case of polio, thankfully with no lasting effects. One of my uncles was left with a lifelong limp, and thankfully no paralysis. We were not allowed to go to public swimming pools, or drink from water fountains.
Autism is now a much worse epidemic, visible wherever you go, and totally neglected as a serious focus of medical research.
Stress among middle-aged people caring for elderly parents with Alzheimer's is widely recognized, but not of elders caring for middle-aged children with autism.
Posted by: Patience (Eileen Nicole) Simon | June 15, 2016 at 08:23 AM
an important point -- i was born in 1952, the peak year of the epidemic, but have no memories of polio. one reason i consider it still relevant is exactly what you say and i will address that in upcoming columns. -- dan
Posted by: Dan Olmsted | June 15, 2016 at 08:07 AM
I remember the vaccine causing polio My seatmate Andrew Goodman got it. And we all knew about the wonderful work Sister Kenney was doing in Canada healing those with polio
Posted by: Sun~Rose | June 15, 2016 at 08:06 AM
I would certainly tell the lady with the constipated son to get him on 800 mg or more of magnesium in divided doses every day. She could experiment with citrate and if that works too well, use glycinate. In fact he should be taking several grams of C in divided doses, 50 mg of Zinc and 1000 iu of E, also. This all does not cost very much and may help a great deal.
All of the parents should consider joining the "Fight Autsim and Win, Detoxing Kids" or if the kids are really big, "Andy Culter Chelation Think Tank" Facebook groups. At the very least they will get some good advice about what to do to help with these behaviors.
Posted by: Rebecca Lee | June 15, 2016 at 08:04 AM
Peel back the layers of vaccine injury denial, and you'll find, in my experience, fear that polio will return. As a child I lost my best friend to polio. It's our national nightmare. Those photos from 1952-'53 of crippled children in iron lungs sparked fear in me right up there with the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Will your series address poliophobia? It’s top of my list why I and my generation vaccinated our kids.
Posted by: Dan Burns | June 15, 2016 at 07:47 AM
Know the feeling Dan I think pharma has gone into shut down mode and instructed all government's not to take any more complaints from anyone.Such as it is over here in the UK at the moment nobody replying at Governmental level to hardly anything...well I, will just have to try harder, and submit even more complaints and requests, following through as I write..
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | June 15, 2016 at 07:20 AM