Invitation to Join Study on Microbiome and Autism from Stanford School of Medicine and Second Genome
By Teresa Conrick
Autism Parents and Friends of AoA,
We were asked to see if any parents out there might like to join a study on the MICROBIOME and AUTISM :
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine and the South San Francisco pharmaceutical company Second Genome Inc. have jointly received a $2.1 million grant to recruit subjects for a study exploring potential links between bacteria in the gut — known as the microbiome — and autism, the company announced Tuesday.
Researchers have long suspected, based on anecdotal evidence, that there may be a link between the microbiome and the severity of an autism diagnosis. There is limited data demonstrating the link in humans, but some studies indicate it may exist in lab mice.
Many children with autism have food allergies or gut conditions such as inflammatory bowel diseases, leading researchers to hypothesize that activity in the gut has a relationship to autism, said Dennis Wall, an associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford who is co-leading the study. With the new grant from the National Institutes of Health, the researchers will attempt to test that theory, so doctors can better diagnose and design therapies for people on the autism spectrum.
Here are the details - (uploading a video is optional)
We are looking for 100 families with two or more children, where:
- One child has a medical diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and is between 2-7 years old,
- And another child without an autism diagnosis, who is no more than two years apart in age of the first child.
The study procedures include responding to an online behavioral and dietary survey, uploading a 3-minute home video, and collecting stool and saliva samples at home for each child. Everything is completed either online or in the home.
Would you be willing to send out this study information to your email listserv and/or post on your social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc)? We only need 40 more families to participate and we are so excited to start analyzing the data!
Please see our most recent press release on SF Chronicle here, a KQED press release, our recruitment flyer attached, and our study website to sign up now! If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Kindly,
The M3 Team
From Teresa:
I just want to add that Stanford is also making progress on PANDAS and PANS, in fact they do research on that as well and actually have a team of experts and immune therapies . But when you look at the AUTISM clinic there , it is dismal and archaic and has very little to do with the immune system, although we know that for many autism patients with moderate to severe symptoms, the immune system is key, as we see in this study, Pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS), developmental regression and autism.
Let¨s not forget these connections as well:
Figuring out whether PANS patients make antibodies against their own brains is perhaps the most important key to the disease’s mysteries. The research bears similarities to the discovery of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, and the path to that breakthrough may provide a road map of sorts for PANS researchers.
Much research shows the AUTISM connection to ANTI-NMDA RECEPTOR Encephalitis, too:
NMDA receptor dysfunction in autism spectrum disorders.
N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antibodies encephalitis mimicking an autistic regression
Anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis presenting with catatonia and neuroleptic malignant syndrome in patients with intellectual disability and autism
Late onset autism and anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis
SO, parents, please let them know the paradigm for autism needs to change by joining in the research on the MICROBIOME.
Thank you.
Teresa Conrick is Science Editor for Age of Autism.
Let me compare the Stanford Study with our own. We here at the non-profit Therapeutics Research Institute (TRI) are more than two years into a grassroots Study that provides a single over-the-counter safe food supplement as used in a Hopkins-related clinical trial reported out in 2014. We give it away free, nothing sold, and simply collect and disseminate the long-term ongoing data. Our 14 week's data were about the same as the trial in 2014 reported. Since this is NOT a research trail, but directed to help families, our Study will continue, collecting ever-longer term data. We just published [in a peer-reviewed medical journal] the 12 month data showing on average practically a 60% reversal of each participant's moderately serious or severe attributes. For those using the second intervention we provided [no cost, nothing sold, no financial tie-ins now or ever], the combination strategy reversal rate was just about an utterly remarkable 90% for the one year data so far. This self-funded Study continues and continues to solicit enrollment [we are looking to solicit some benefactor to help support an exponential growth in the Study's participant size since we have no external funding or sources of revenue at this time]. An articulation of this effort is provided in our Study web-site ControlAutismNow.org [woefully out-of-date but soon to be updated]. As Senior Research Scientist for TRI, I offer this brief description since it may contrast with a Stanford/Monsanto approach showing how an actual "public charity" [we are a 501(c)(3) Public Charity under the IRS code] approaches the swamp. I hope this site allows this commentary.
Posted by: Steven Evans | October 23, 2017 at 09:19 PM
Lots more to be involved in why not sounds a hoot!And when it goes wrong were off!
https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/recruiting-studies
Pharma for Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | October 23, 2017 at 02:12 PM
I'm not necessarily saying boycott it, but those who choose to be research participants should maybe investigate and publicize any rights regarding the information that will be gleaned from their participation, and get a feel for whether there is transparency and informed consent involved. I'm sure that there are plenty of families out there struggling so hard to survive that they would be fine if the solution came from a devil playing hero for the day to assuage some guilt, as long as it is an effective, non harmful solution. Flip side? If vaccines do damage, but a pharmaceutically designed probiotic can rectify the damage, does that shore up the vaccine program and allow it to continue to operate. Is fixing it better than preventing it? One thing is sure - the pharmaceutical companies will make money on both ends of the problem. Create the disease and then mediate the disease.
Posted by: Jenny | October 23, 2017 at 01:52 PM
I don't know much about Stanford, but if you go to the Second Genome site you see venture cap funding from Pfizer, and Roche, and the seats filled by their folks, another guy that actually advises the state of California and their congress on medical issues (hmm, what did he have to say about SB277), all sorts of money people connected to the company whose claim to fame are not making people healthy but who have "grown" companies from startups until they have gone public or been purchased by bigger corporations so that money was made, and importantly, collaboration with Monsato:
"Under the agreement, Second Genome will apply its novel bioinformatics platform to predict and analyze the efficacy of beneficial proteins from the microbiome for agricultural use. The companies anticipate that the research will increase the discovery of proteins that could provide an insect-control benefit in agriculture. The multi-year agreement provides Monsanto with the option to pursue commercial opportunities resulting from insect-control research in agriculture, and Second Genome retains the right to apply discoveries in healthcare and other industries. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed."
Anyone else wonder what the undisclosed terms are? 1. Like, will Monsanto have access to your child's DNA and microbe info, and if so, why? 2. if it is found that glyphosate on food or in vaccines changes microbial secretions in such a way as to result in metabolites and proteins that cause autism-like physical symptoms and central nervous system disorders will that information ever see the light of day? 2. If it shows that autism in humans is like colony collapse disorder in bees will the information be made public? 3. What if it is found that roundup acts on microbes the same way that heavy metals like lead, arsenic, and mercury do?
And since Second Genome states on their site that its clients are medical and pharmaceutical companies (not nutritional supplement companies) are they talking about genetically modifying bacteria to turn it into medicine or create a synthetic version of already existing natural components - or are they bringing together physically beneficial natural microbes in ways and number that haven't been done before. Obviously something here has to be patent-able to bring in the start up bucks. Or are they getting a patent on a process that changes a microbe's secretions from inflammatory to anti-inflammatory?
I imagine how appalling it would be if Monsanto, which is rumored to have created quite a bit of damage environmentally and on the health of humans, gets access to all the participants info or is trying to further capitalize on the people who may already be suffering the results of the products that are currently on the market. As in, what if the microbial byproducts in a damaged human gut are used for the design of their next big pesticide? Or conversely, what if the microbes in the gut of a non-autistic "healthy" sibling are ones that have adapted to glyphosate and your child's poo ends up keeping Monsanto financially viable by becoming the "spray" that farmers use on their fields instead of or after roundup has been applied? By being involved in a company like Second Genome, are they looking to "control the message?" Second Genome has their own proprietary platform. Is it significantly different from other more open source groups and can Monsanto use it to publicly contradict what other labs are investigating about commercial agricultural field microbiomics?
I don't know - I wholly recognize the huge importance implied here - that major major players are recognizing the importance of the microbiome and are looking for ways to capitalize on that. I know that there are real solutions in the field. But this particular partnership seems less than ideal, especially if there are other groups, without the obvious conflicts of interest, doing the same work.
Posted by: Jenny | October 23, 2017 at 01:38 PM
I think all the above comments are great!! People should boycott the study!! We want a vaxxed unvaxxed study!! We want policy to follow the results of this kind of study! I watched Del Bigtree on youtube this weekend when I had a little time. I think the vaxxed team is winning!! They are getting the message out. I wish I could help them. I struggle to get through every day as I have for 22 years.
Posted by: Loraine Fishel | October 23, 2017 at 12:41 PM
Comments from a longtime friend and colleague of mine after hearing about this, posted with permission:
"Oh boy...Stanford couldn’t even get something like the organic food research right. Said the nutrition is the same but NEVER said that the GMO had MANY ingredients that are NOT nutrition.
There is definitely an agenda directed by powerful, private interests that is using the prestige of a major west coast university to thwart the integrity of scientific investigation. The research is so transparent and sloppy that it is harming their mission and the students who attend."
Posted by: Laura Hayes | October 23, 2017 at 11:59 AM
Ditto what Jan Fletcher said.
I would advise parents to put their time and efforts elsewhere.
As a Stanford alum, I have reached out to my alma mater on more than one occasion in the past with regard to vaccines, "autism", and other vaccine-induced disabilities, illnesses, and deaths, to no avail.
Stanford Magazine refused to interview Stanford alum, Louise Habakus, or feature her book, Vaccine Epidemic, when I inquired. They refused my invitation to come hear Louise and Mary Holland speak when I hosted them in N CA, and to schedule them to speak on campus at Stanford when I suggested that. I contacted a researcher at Stanford who was featured in the Stanford Magazine years ago, who wrote about autism being genetic. That communication also went nowhere. A fellow colleague often tells the story of a mother who delivered her baby at Stanford Hospital, refused the Hepatitis B vaccine, and was then surrounded by a bunch of white coats in her room trying to coerce/force her to poison her newborn with that vaccine.
Stanford, like its peers, shows no signs of acknowledging or speaking out against the elephant in the room...you know, the one that DESTROYED so many of our children's lives, and which continues to destroy lives of all ages every minute of every day. Stanford, like its peers, has refused to listen to and act on the firsthand accounts of parents, most importantly, those at the beginning of the Autism Tsunami. Think of the millions of lives, and multiply that by the lives of impacted family members, that could have been spared vaccine-induced autism, and so many other new childhood epidemics, if Stanford and its peers had listened, cared, researched, and spoken out.
And by the way, where was Stanford when AB2109 and SB277 were before the CA legislature? Did they speak out against this medical fascism, this stripping of parental rights, this trampling of religious freedom? No, they most certainly did not.
Just say no to Stanford, and any other place that wants access to your children and your precious time...until they are willing to acknowledge...and eliminate...the elephant in the room. And until they will publicly speak out against tyrannical laws like SB277.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | October 23, 2017 at 11:13 AM
Well, I want to be excited about this study, but unfortunately I think the study design is flawed. They really need a third group, comprising siblings who were NOT vaccinated. We know this because we know that vaccines are the primary cause of autism today. So, we need to see what the microbiome of the unvaccinated siblings looks like, more than we need to see what the microbiome of the the non-autistic sibling looks like. It may be, in fact, that the researchers will find little difference in the microbiomes of the autistic and non-autistic siblings, because they were ALL vaccinated. But, it may be that the blood brain barrier of the autistic children is damaged, which allows what is going on in the gut to more directly impact the brain. Unfortunately, this study will not show that. And if it shows that the microbiome of both groups of vaccinated siblings is the same, it may conclude erroneously that the microbiome has nothing to do with autism. So, flawed design from the get-go. Please, tell them to add a third group -- unvaxxed siblings -- before you help them recruit for this study.
Posted by: Lisa | October 23, 2017 at 11:07 AM
It would save a lot of time to simply go to the writings of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, who has spoken and written about gut bacteria causing autism and related diseases. She treats these problems with corrections to the gut contents. See her site:
http://www.doctor-natasha.com/
This problem has also ben spoken and written about by Dr. Andrew Wakefield who was 'defrocked' by the English after the drug companies got after him for supposedly maligning them. He has since proven his case by up to 30 researchers duplicating his work.
Posted by: Chris Houghton | October 23, 2017 at 10:03 AM
Re: "... and is between 2-7 years old," -- how strict is this range? I know of two boys in Canada the older (diagnosed) is 10.5-yo and the brother 9-yo. The older was actually born in Australia but moved with his family to Canada at about 1-y.o.
Posted by: Russell | October 23, 2017 at 08:44 AM
A study by a "pharmaceutical company" and Stanford Univ. researchers ? I recognize that kind of combination.
Posted by: jan fletcher | October 23, 2017 at 08:16 AM