By Teresa Conrick

I have a daughter who has a diagnosis of both  AUTISM and AUTOIMMUNITY. They are connected and not just for her but for thousands like her. Megan regressed after receiving a Thimerosal-containing Hib vaccine and the MMR vaccine in 1994 – crying, fever, full body rash, GI distress, losing speech, receptive language, eye contact and skills.  It also began the devastating and ongoing health issues that continue today. The research on the Microbiome seems key to both the regression into autism so many children developed and therefore may be the key for the way out.  Many, like my daughter, are very ill with seizures, gastrointestinal disease, immune and autoimmune disorders, severe allergies and mitochondrial dysfunction. Regression then would appear to be an injury developed from vaccines:

Developmental regression and autism reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.  

We report demographic and clinical characteristics of children reported to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) as having autism or another developmental disorder after vaccination. 

And who can forget what happened to Hannah Poling in 1999: 

…..CHILD received five vaccinations – DTaP, Hib, MMR, Varivax, and IPV…CHILD developed a fever of 102.3 degrees two days after her immunizations and was lethargic, irritable, and cried for long periods of time.…..101-102 degree temperature, a diminished appetite, and small red dots on her chest…less responsive to verbal direction in the previous four months and had lost some language skills…complaints of diarrhea, vomiting, diminished energy, fever, and a rash on her cheek…  she had frequent bouts of otitis media, which doctors treated with multiple antibiotics ….He diagnosed CHILD with “regressive encephalopathy with features consistent with an autistic spectrum disorder, following normal development.”…..an underlying mitochondrial disorder…seizure disorder….

The issue of antibiotics is interesting in the research regarding the Microbiome but it does not seem to be the WHOLE picture. Antibiotic use did not happen until well into the late 1940’s.  Thimerosal and its use since the early 1930’s, was in the direct path of the first eleven children diagnosed:

“Since 1938, there have come to our attention a number of children……….”

By Teresa Conrick

Awakenings  is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks' 1973 memoir of the same title. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer (portrayed by Robin Williams), who, in 1969, discovered beneficial effects of the drug L-Dopa. He administered it to catatonic patients who survived the 1917–28 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe (played by Robert De Niro) and the rest of the patients were awakened after decades of catatonia and have to deal with a new life in a new time.

I have a very ill daughter who is diagnosed with AUTISM.  Megan also has a seizure disorder and an autoimmune diagnosis.  More and more research is pointing to the MICROBIOME as the key to health and disease. Since witnessing Megan regress into autism after vaccination, we have been on a journey to restore health and functioning to her brain and body, thus the similarity to Awakenings. I have gathered much research showing that both MERCURY   and VACCINES  can alter the MICROBIOME and that is a big concern with parents.

The studies on the microbiome are fascinating and may be showing us the potential of vastly IMPROVING symptoms and possibly even a CURE for those diagnosed with Autism. Now some of you may be asking why putting a disgusting thing like feces into someone would help in anything, but especially in Autism. Let’s look at what the research shows.

Altered Bacteria Shows Microbiome is Big Part of Autism

“Gut–brain link grabs neuroscientists - Idea that intestinal bacteria affect mental health gains ground.”

Similarly, a 2013 study from Mazmanian’s lab found that a mouse model with some features of autism had much lower levels of a common gut bacterium called Bacteroides fragilis than did normal mice3. The animals were also stressed, antisocial and had gastrointestinal symptoms often seen in autism. Feeding B. fragilis to the mice reversed the symptoms. The group also found that the mice with these symptoms had higher levels of a bacterial metabolite called 4-ethylphenylsulphate (4EPS) in their blood, and that injecting that chemical into normal mice caused the same behavioural problems.

By Teresa Conrick

WHAT COLOR IS THIS DRESS?, might be all over the internet right now but did you see this lesser known story ?

Widely used food additives promotes colitis, obesity and metabolic syndrome, shows study of emulsifiers  

Date:  February 25, 2015

Source:  Georgia State University

Summary:

Emulsifiers, which are added to most processed foods to aid texture and extend shelf life, can alter the gut microbiota composition and localization to induce intestinal inflammation that promotes the development of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome, new research shows.

Or this-

Is common food additive to blame for rising rates of bowel disease?

The emulsifiers carboxymethylcellulose, often referred to as cellulose gum, and polysorbate 80, also known as Tween 80, add bulk to foods and keep sauces smooth and frozen confections from separating. They plump up fast-food shakes, keep bottled salad dressings creamy, and prevent ice cream from dissolving into an unsightly soup when left out......

.....They're also used extensively in pharmaceuticals, to improve the consistency of gel capsules, to make pills come apart in the stomach, and to keep medication suspended in fluids.

But when fed to rats in volumes that mimic their widespread consumption in humans, both emulsifiers induced low-grade inflammation, increased weight gain and fat deposition, caused worrisome changes in metabolic function, and changed the mix of bacteria that colonized their digestive tracts, the authors reported.

Here is the abstract

and this quote may sum up what I keep reporting about the microbiome and autism:

By Teresa Conrick

I cried Friday.  I don’t often let tears show but they flowed freely many times on that day, her LAST DAY as a student.  I said goodbye to our wonderful bus driver and aide as my daughter, Megan, is twenty-two, today and our school district will have no further responsibility in her education. The bus will no longer pull up each morning to greet my severely affected daughter. Our driver and aide these past two years have been the BEST in all of the eighteen years Meg has taken the bus to school, a 45 minute drive each way.  God bless these two beautiful people who showed care and compassion to my daughter, each and every day. I could go on and on and also compare them to others who showed fear, anger and little patience for Meg, or the other bus company (First Student) who LOST my daughter on a bus numerous times with no radio.  That’s right. The bus got lost and drove around for 3 hours on more than one occasion with my nonverbal child!  It was not the first time that I needed to call and convince sane people that this was an insane situation.

Mary, Megan’s sister, had come in from college to attend the graduation.  Unlike Mary’s high school graduation with fanfare and college plans, Meg’s final days in school have felt FINAL with the future uncertain.  Having an autoimmune diagnosis, seizure disorder, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), specialized food and dietary restrictions, impaired cognitive and communication abilities, and intermittent OCD/agitation/aggression, life for Meg and us has been challenging to say the least. BUT since we are now so very focused on her immune system and her microbiome, things have been slowly improving -- for starters, her graduation was one of the highlights of my life! She was so HAPPY, ATTENTIVE and LOVING to all around her.  The affection that staff and peers had for Meg was shown in a series of slide shows that had us laughing and also in tears.  The spectrum of autism was all around but even more obvious was the powerful force of support and love.

Megan’s dad had met us at her school. Though her dad and I are divorced, we sat as a family, proud and teary for my daughter who has endured a rough life but with faith and trust, a better future. We had roses for Meg and also for the school staff, the most devoted, patient and caring teachers, aides, and therapists.  Megan had joined the school after I had hired an attorney, as there was no autism program in our school district that was APPROPRIATE back in 1996. Megan has attended there ever since!  Over the years as we learned of Meg’s GI issues, parasitic infections,  bacterial infections, high and crazy viral titers, food intolerances, seizures (she had her first grand mal in class), and now autoimmunity, the staff has been so supportive and attentive to my daughter’s needs. I thank God we were lucky enough to be one of the first ten families chosen when the school opened as the epidemic was first taking its captives. 

By Teresa Conrick

In their groundbreaking book and articles, Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted described the very first case of autism:

Case 1 in the landmark 1943 paper that first described autism is Donald Triplett, who we located in 2005; he is now 80 years old and living in Forest, Mississippi. "Donald T.," as he was identified then, came down with a life-threatening case of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis as a young teenager. As we recount in our book, his treatment with gold salts cleared up the JRA and made a vast improvement in his autism symptoms, particularly the characteristic anxiety and lack of sociability….

….In 1930, Donald Triplett's parents built the house he was born in three years later. The comfortable, unpretentious residence set in a large, leafy yard is not far from the lumber mills where the first tests of the ethylmercury wood preservative Lignasan were done at the same time. We suspect off-gassing of ethylmercury from the wood -- a known risk that eventually led to Lignasan's decline -- affected the mother and her infant.

….Problems related to the immune system, then, look like a clue from early days to the nature of autism.

More and more research is connecting those dots, especially the research on the microbiome.  Consider Donald  T, Diagnosed with AUTISM and then RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS:

Tags: Arthritis | arthritis | gut | bacteria | rheumatoid

Arthritis Tied to Gut Bacteria Monday, 12 Jan 2015 05:04 PM

A growing body of research is focusing on a surprising culprit in the cause of rheumatoid arthritis: the bacteria that live in our guts.

By Teresa Conrick

I continue to be mesmerized on the constant research coming out on the MICROBIOME.  My daughter’s gastroesophageal reflux disease, autoimmune disease, seizures and chronic infections seem to resonate in this research.  There are thousands like her and their AUTISM diagnosis is part of that connection.

A recent study caught my interest as it encompasses some of these very issues:

“Disease-Specific Alterations in the Enteric Virome in Inflammatory Bowel Disease”

Some facts from that study:

•  Inflammatory bowel diseases are associated with a decrease in the diversity of bacteria in the gut, but a new study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has linked the same illnesses to an increase in the diversity of viruses.

•  The scientists found that patients with inflammatory bowel diseases had a greater variety of viruses in their digestive systems than healthy volunteers, suggesting viruses likely play a role in the diseases.

•  Scientists only recently started recognizing the role of the microbiome—the bacteria in and on the body, and the bacteria's genes—in illness. For example, changes in the gut microbiome have been linked to obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases.

•  The new research is the first to associate disease with changes in the virome, or the viruses in the human body and their genes. According to the researchers, the results raise the possibility that viruses may have unrecognized roles in obesity and diabetes and the two most common inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

•  "Much of the increased viral diversity in participants with inflammatory bowel diseases was in the form of bacteriophages, which are viruses that infect bacteria and can incorporate themselves into the bacteria's genetic material……

By Teresa Conrick

The Christmas season always warms my heart and gives me hope.  I have a very ill daughter but her condition, called AUTISM, does not reflect the countless abnormalities in her body nor the pain and suffering that she has had to endure.  Life for her though, is slowly but surely improving as we continue to focus on those abnormalities, especially the MICROBIOME. Megan and thousands like her, experienced profound regression in skills, communication and in health after vaccination.  I thought it would be helpful and HOPEFUL to write about treatments being explored for autism and other conditions in which the microbiome is being implicated.

Food and the Microbiome

For all of the parents, researchers and doctors who have relentlessly pushed special diets and then saw improvements -- you were correct as the microbiome is involved:

A link between autism, gastrointestinal problems, and gut microbiota suggests that diet has the potential to impact symptoms, and parents of autistic children have long been exploring the impact of dietary and microbiota manipulations on behavior, for instance commonly using gluten-free and/or casein-free (GF/CF) diets, probiotics, and nutritional supplements. Two randomized controlled trials of the GF/CF diet indicated that it may improve symptoms in some children,37,38 although these trials were small, both in terms of size and duration. Although the GF/CF diet may improve symptoms by inducing changes in the microbiota and/or their metabolites, another mechanism is by increasing gut integrity. Abnormally high intestinal permeability (IPT), or a “leaky gut,” has also been associated with autism, suggesting that autistic individuals may have increased sensitivity to components of our diet and their metabolites, because they can more easily access the bloodstream.56 Autistic individuals on a GF/CF diet had significantly lower intestinal permeability compared with individuals on an unrestricted diet.56

Then there’s fermented foods, beneficial bacteria for the gut and brain:

Modern research is highlighting the potential value of ancestral dietary practices on mental health, and on resiliency against depression in particular. At the same time, there has been tremendous progress toward better understanding of the role played by the low-grade inflammation and the intestinal microbiome in human health and mental well-being [162,163]. Evidence would suggest that the two major themes of these mostly separate highways of research should converge; in other words, the fermented foods so often included in traditional dietary practices have the potential to influence brain health by virtue of the microbial action that has been applied to the food or beverage, and by the ways in which the fermented food or beverage directly influences our own microbiota. This could manifest, behaviorally, via magnified antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity, reduction of intestinal permeability and the detrimental effects of LPS, improved glycemic control, positive influence on nutritional status (and therefore neurotransmission and neuropeptide production), direct production of GABA, and other bioactive chemicals, as well as a direct role in gut-to brain communication via a beneficial shift in the intestinal microbiota itself.

And let’s not forget the FIBER:

Note: This post is part of an on-going series by Teresa Conrick. You can read more about the Microbiome in our "Exclusives" pull down menu.

By Teresa Conrick

On August 29^th, 1931, Vivian Murdock was born in Maryland.  She was to become Case 6, Virginia S. , the eldest diagnosed of those unique childrenas reported by Dr. Leo Kanner in his famous paper from 1943  .  He changed her name and birthday as he knew her father, Dr. Harry Murdock, a fellow psychiatrist, and presumably wanted to keep the family anonymous.



Here is her Social Security death notice:

Vivian Murdock:

SSN: 214-82-4465

Last Residence:  21838  Marion Station, Somerset

Maryland, United States of America

Born:  29 Aug 1931

Died:  Jan 1987

State (Year) SSN issued:  Maryland (1975)

On April 14^th, 2012, I “found” Virginia S. after years of searching.  Her life of institutionalization since 1936 was horrific and compelled me to keep up my search through volumes of documents.  Virginia S. was my Titanic, a monumental and historic tragedy of both mind and body that had clues to MAN as the culprit.  I needed to find her and thought of it as a rescue mission.  I have a daughter, like Virginia S., who has been nonverbal since regression into an autism diagnosis after her vaccinations.  State mental hospitals and institutions were the options for autism in the days of Kanner and since. In present day, we now see that the majority of cases involve REGRESSION,   with increasing numbers of parents reporting VACCINATION as the cause. I have always been intrigued by the fact that Virginia S. was born in Baltimore right when, “The city health department reported in 1931 that 'during the year the Department began the distribution of diphtheria toxoid on a large scale. ’  ” These would have been the first well-baby vaccines containing mercury.  Her family and the other seven discovered so far from those Kanner 11, each had a history of mercury exposure. Both mercury   and vaccination  can alter the microbiome. NOTE: Antibiotics were not yet in use when those first eleven children were identified.

Since 1938, when Kanner first met those children, autism has become an epidemic and a top fear for expecting parents.  Some may try to paint autism as an increasing diagnosed disability, where each individual needs to be treated with dignity.  I agree with that but we need to also add that autism is increasing due to environmental, not genetic factors and that for most, autism is a DISEASE, with true, medical markers.  It is becoming increasingly clear that the social, language and perseverative behaviors of autism are a consequence of a microbiome that is sick and that in turn affects the brain:

A new and growing area of research is finding that the bugs, especially the ones in our guts, play a critical role in human health and the development of our immune system.

Scientists say that a host of health problems, including autism, cancer, obesity, diabetes, malnutrition, Crohn's disease, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, seem to appear when the human microbial community gets out of whack.

And this one:

Similarly, a 2013 study from Mazmanian’s lab found that a mouse model with some features of autism had much lower levels of a common gut bacterium called Bacteroides fragilis than did normal mice3. The animals were also stressed, antisocial and had gastrointestinal symptoms often seen in autism. Feeding B. fragilis to the mice reversed the symptoms. The group also found that the mice with these symptoms had higher levels of a bacterial metabolite called 4-ethylphenylsulphate (4EPS) in their blood, and that injecting that chemical into normal mice caused the same behavioural problems..

…. 4-ethylphenylsulfate, was 46 times as abundant in the mice with autism symptoms as in normal mice  .

Or this:

ASD is a collection of neurodevelopmental changes in children where they exhibit complex behavioral changes in their abilities in social interaction and communication, as well as presence of behaviors similar to obsessive–compulsive disorder, including repetitive and narrow interests. While the disease impacts the brain, gastrointestinal symptoms are commonly described in children with ASD (234, 235), and studies have identified the presence of inflammatory infiltrate and histopathology in biopsies of children with ASD, including increased numbers of cytotoxic T cells, CD19+ B-cells, and increased enteric IgG1/4 (236, 237). Possibly related to these GIT immune changes and dysfunction, some studies have demonstrated an altered composition of intestinal microbiota in young children with ASD compared to healthy control children with typical neurological function (238–242)……

….. When identifying a role for the microbiota in ASD, rather than making predictions based on taxonomic sequence data, recent studies have been studying the metabolite secretions of gut microbes and the impact of these microbiotas on host serum metabolites. A potential mechanism behind ASD symptoms could be neuro-active metabolites mediated by or produced by the microbiota, which could disseminate systemically and penetrate the blood–brain barrier.

So, we see more and more research implicating the microbiome in autism and the clues keep also hinting towards vaccines.  Here we read “infections” yet those “first days, months, and years of life” are inundated with vaccinations.

Note: We're sharing this series throughout the month. All roads lead to... the gut, which could explain how a certain  British GI doctor became part of  the autism causation maelstrom.

By Teresa Conrick

It’s a hot topic, the MICROBIOME, defined as: "the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space." I keep reading more and more research connecting the microbiome and autism.

It goes something like this, according to the research below- Mercury exposure, both environmental and via flu vaccination in a pregnant woman, can cause negative ramifications in her baby’s microbiome. The same is true for postnatal infants exposed to Thimerosal. The landscape of that microbiome loses helpful bacteria and instead we see more pathogens. The downstream effects - chronic infections, altered development of the nervous system, molecular mimicry, neuropsychiatric symptoms (tics, obsessive compulsive behaviors, perseveration and repetitive behaviors), and neurologic inflammation. Mitochondrial dysfunction, a more prevalent condition in many diagnosed with autism, seems to be part of this picture as well. Vaccines and their effect on the microbiome are also examined. Each of these studies is a puzzle piece, connecting these facts. The picture is becoming clearer:

An Immune Dysfunction of the Body Affecting the Brain

• Although the study suggested that gut bacteria could affect neurologic inflammation, how that might happen remains unclear. For the most part, Mazmanian says, the microorganisms that colonize the human gut don’t leave the intestine, but the immune cells that contact them do. He explains that, although 70% of the immune cells in the body at any one time can be found in the intestine, they circulate throughout the body, and the microbiota of the gut environment help determine how immune cells will behave elsewhere ……..Other researchers have suggested a link between the gut–brain axis and neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, depression, and eating disorders. The gut contains microorganisms that share a structural similarity with the neuropeptides involved in regulating behavior, mood, and emotion—a phenomenon known as molecular mimicry. The body can’t tell the difference between the structure of these mimics and its own cells, so antibodies could end up attacking both, potentially altering the physiology of the gut–brain axis.12

• The human gut harbors a complex community of microbes that profoundly influence many aspects of growth and development, including development of the nervous system. Advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing methods have led to rapidly expanding knowledge about this gut microbiome.

Note: We have a rich treasure trove of posts from all of our contributing editors, published over the last seven years. During the month of December, we'll be sharing an assortment of posts and series, starting with Teresa Conrick's Microbioeme series. We invite you to use the pull down menus to read material that's new to you, but previously publishesd.  Happy reading.

By Teresa Conrick

Since 1938, autism has moved from a blip on the radar screen to a full-force tsunami today.  Those first eleven children identified by psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Kanner, all exhibited the now infamous triad of behaviors:

1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction
2. Qualitative impairments in communication
3. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities

Sadly, there is not enough reporting of the  MEDICAL patterns that Kanner briefly described. Dan Olmsted was the trailblazer on the connection of toxic exposure in those families, with his UPI series posted on our homepage.  Then he and Mark Blaxill went back and forth in history to seal the deal on specifically, MERCURY and its insidious relationship with autism.  Andrew Wakefield has been researching and publishing for over ten years on the gut-brain connection in autism.    My gratitude to each of them for their continual investigations.

Leo Kanner wrote these descriptions of those first-ever, diagnosed children but he did not see the obvious:

•  "Eating," the report said, "has always been a problem with him.”

•    large and ragged tonsils.

•    Following smallpox vaccination at 12 months, he had an attack of diarrhea and fever

•    Large tonsils and adenoids

•    He vomited a great deal during his first year,

•    She quit taking any kind of nourishment at 3 months. She was tube-fed five times daily up to 1       year of age.

•    He vomited all food from birth through the third month.

•    His tonsils were removed when he was 3 years old.

•    He vomited all food from birth through the third month.

•    He suffered from repeated colds and otitis media, which necessitated bilateral myringotomy

•    Because of a febrile illness at 13 months, her increasing difficulties were interpreted as possible

      postencephalitic behavior disorder.    

•    He had been kept in bed often because of colds, bronchitis, chickenpox, streptococcus infection, impetigo

Kanner missed the pattern of GI issues and INFECTION.  These two medical problems have continued to be prevalent in many if not most of the children being diagnosed today. Instead, he did the Freudian spin:

Food is the earliest intrusion that is brought to the child from the outside. David Levy observed that affect-hungry children, when placed in foster homes where they are well treated, at first demand excessive quantities of food. Hilde Bruch, in her studies of obese children, found that overeating often resulted when affectionate offerings from the parents were lacking or considered unsatisfactory.

Our patients, reversely, anxious to keep the outside world away, indicated this by the refusal of food. Donald, Paul ("vomited a great deal during the first year"), Barbara ("had to be tube-fed until 1 year of age"), Herbert, Alfred, and John presented severe feeding difficulty from the beginning of life.

The children also seemed to have illnesses that may point to Streptococcus, as evidenced by infection of their tonsils, adenoids and ears. That seems to be the pattern still today, if not more.

By Teresa Conrick

My daughter, Megan, has both a diagnosis of autism and an autoimmune disease.  She entered the world a healthy neonate but began to have illness and regression of skills after her infant vaccines. Her health and behavior forever changed after each one, but was especially noticeable after her MMR vaccine, when she broke out in a full rash, developed fever and stopped eating and talking.  Diarrhea and constipation then became a daily nightmare. She received a diagnosis of AUTISM based on observation and not ONE medical test, lab or immune workup.

As the years have gone by, Megan rarely gets a “normal” illness.  No fever. No colds, no drippy nose, and rarely a cough.  What she does get, is autoimmune, neuropsychiatric symptoms. Tics, physical and vocal. Obsessive and compulsive behaviors that disrupt her life from the moment she awakes until she is able to relax and fall asleep. Strep for her is not lying on the couch, under a blanket feeling ill.  It is hourly urinary incontinence, vocal tics, anxiety, irritability, self-injurious behavior and often not being able to eat for days. PANDAS and PANS symptoms describe her well.

And she has no voice, no ability to speak words or communicate at this time.  She is unable to tell of her plight.  There is pain, trust me.  Much pain. Can vaccines do this? Why yes, they can.  

As I read medical literature, I always see lines of research that go back to autism and to Megan.  This is a good example of that and should alarm us all:

…..since the early investigations of Koch, Metchnikoff, Pasteur, Von Leeuwenhoek, and others  on the microbial basis of pathogenicity and disease transmission, Westernized societies have very successfully reduced the incidence of microbial-borne infectious disease, while an environment of autoimmune, cardiovascular, metabolic, and neuroinflammatory diseases continues to flourish.

Beware Of What Lies Ahead

Dr. Paul Offit plays many roles in the world of vaccines.  To the average American, he is the guy who comes on your TV every once in awhile to remind us all how vaccines have kept us all alive and to thank God for them.  In reality, Dr. Offit is a vaccine patent holder, a multi-millionaire, a spokesperson for Merck and the Chief of Infectious Disease at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It has always interested me that he made this comment:

“Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Vaccines Cause Allergic or Autoimmune Diseases?” PEDIATRICS Vol. 111 No. 3 March 2003 :

Autoimmune diseases might occur after immunization because proteins on microbial pathogens are similar to human proteins (“molecular mimicry”) and could induce immune responses that damage human cells.

We were happy to see that HealthImpactNews.com picked up Teresa Conrick's latest post Broccoli, Autism and The Microbiome.  You can read all of her posts on The Microbiome here.  

By Teresa Conrick

A recent study hit the news about a supplement derived from broccoli sprouts, called Sulforaphane, showing that negative Autism behaviors were eliminated quite a bit by many who ingested it.  Since my daughter has an autoimmune diagnosis as well as severe symptoms of regressive autism, I, like thousands of other families, are dedicated to searching and reading research to help  this increasing population of affected children and young adults:

….In a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trial, young men (aged 13–27) with moderate to severe ASD received the phytochemical sulforaphane (n = 29)—derived from broccoli sprout extracts—or indistinguishable placebo (n = 15)…a significantly greater number of participants receiving sulforaphane had improvement in social interaction, abnormal behavior, and verbal communication (P = 0.015–0.007). Upon discontinuation of sulforaphane, total scores on all scales rose toward pretreatment levels. Dietary sulforaphane, of recognized low toxicity, was selected for its capacity to reverse abnormalities that have been associated with ASD, including oxidative stress and lower antioxidant capacity, depressed glutathione synthesis, reduced mitochondrial function and oxidative phosphorylation, increased lipid peroxidation, and neuroinflammmation.

 Tick-Tock Toxins

Many of us in the trenches of autism, with very sick children, are well aware of these terms -- “oxidative stress, lower antioxidant capacity, depressed glutathione synthesis, reduced mitochondrial function and oxidative phosphorylation, increased lipid peroxidation, and neuroinflammmation” as we have seen them in our children and in increasing studies over the years, like this one :

Exposure to oxidative stress via the sulfhydryl reagent thimerosal resulted in a greater decrease in the GSH/GSSG ratio and increase in free radical generation in autism compared to control cells. Acute exposure to physiological levels of nitric oxide decreased mitochondrial membrane potential to a greater extent in the autism LCLs, although GSH/GSSG and ATP concentrations were similarly decreased in both cell lines. These results suggest that the autism LCLs exhibit a reduced glutathione reserve capacity in both cytosol and mitochondria that may compromise antioxidant defense and detoxification capacity under prooxidant conditions.

And this one :

One of the harmful effects of mercury action during its accumulation in a body in a region contaminated by mercury is the excessive release of reactive oxygen species and increased lipid peroxidation in the cells.

Some other caveats to share from the Sulforaphane research study:

•   The authors seem to imply genetics, more so than environmental insult, as the predetermined road to autism -- “a variety of small molecules including sulforaphane can ameliorate a number of unrelated genetic disorders by activating the “stress proteome,” which regulates many of the aforementioned damaging processes.”

•   One of the authors, Andrew W. Zimmerman, M.D., Pediatric Neurologist, is well known for his involvement in both the Hannah Poling case of regressive autism after vaccination and as an expert witness for the U.S. Government (HHS) in the Autism Omnibus cases:

By Teresa Conrick

Since 1989, the first 50 cases of PANDAS  have multiplied across the United States.  Like Autism, PANDAS has received the  "special treatment"  --irrelevant, genetic studies, doctor skepticism and not enough pertinent research.  At a recent Microbiome Conference, I listened as both Autism and PANDAS/PANS were described as diagnoses that appear to be manifested behaviors that may originate in the bacterial and viral stew we each harbor in our guts.  Those with an Autism diagnosis have an altered microbiome -- but why?  And how does that relate to PANDAS/PANS?

What is happening to so many children?  Will PANDAS/PANS cases start to be counted and will the familiar mantras of denial --- "BETTER DIAGNOSIS", "HAS ALWAYS BEEN AROUND BUT CALLED SOMETHING ELSE" squash the help so many families need -- PREVENTION and TREATMENT?

As the years have passed, PANDAS has also become PANS since it has been observed by parents, researchers and learned doctors that STREP is not the only microbial infection that can trigger the dreadful symptoms.  Parents of so many affected children and teens have risen up to do what those in the Autism community have done for years now - reach out to their local politicians, the media, plus friends and family, to draw attention to this increasing disorder.  On the map above, from the hugely favorite PandasNetwork.org, you can see the many states in which each governor declared October 9^th as National PANDAS/PANS Awareness Day.  Here are some of us, Illinois mothers, celebrating when Illinois Governor Quinn signed the decree last year. Wendy Nawara and Michele Kleczkowsky next to me and holding the declaration, have both been wonderful advocates for our kids and integral in spreading the word about October 9th PANDAS/PANS Day.  Wendy runs a great FB group for IL, like other parents around the country do in their states, while also reaching out to local politicians and media.  October 9^th is the day that all of these states will collectively shout out that too many children are ill with PANDAS/PANS and some are being misdiagnosed and ending up in psychiatric hospitals, not getting the proper immune  treatments that they need.  Some of those children may also have an Autism diagnosis and the overlap of symptoms may indicate a very sick immune system and a very dysfunctional microbiome.

By Teresa Conrick

It is a fundamental fact that vaccines have become a topic of monumental concern.  Those of us who have witnessed a decline in health and functioning, a frightening regression of skills after our children were vaccinated, are a driving force in THE TRUTH.  AUTISM, is what it was then called when repetitive behaviors, tics and loss of typical language emerged. We now have Dr. William Thompson, a senior CDC researcher who has gone public on regression and the MMR vaccine:

….There has been a lot of controversy surrounding MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations and whether or not they are linked to autism. While the CDC assured the public that there was nothing to worry about with the vaccination, senior scientist Dr. William Thompson claims the CDC has been lying for years, according to The Examiner.  Dr. Brian Hooker was doing research for the Focus Autism Foundation and requested some information via the Freedom of Information Act about a 2004 study that claimed MMR vaccinations were perfectly safe. According to Thompson, those results were false. The Examiner reported that Thompson, who has been with the CDC for more than a decade, admitted to Hooker that he and several other authors behind the study manipulated and hid data that proved Black babies were more than three times more likely to develop regressive autism if they were given the vaccine before the age of 3.

Dr. Thompson also has implicated Thimerosal, the mercury preservative, used since the 1930’s in millions of doses of vaccines and still today in most flu vaccines, and how research shows it produces tics: 

"There is biological plausibility to say right now that thimerosal causes autism-like features."

New Vaccines But What About The Old Ones?

As the truth continues to emerge on the role of vaccines and autism, I wanted to point out that there may continue to be areas that need to have a light shown upon them.  A growing idea is PERSONALIZED VACCINES and the concept of “VACCINOMICS and ADVERSOMICS": 

Vaccines as we know them are on the way out. On the way in are personalized, precision vaccines, created through a new discipline called vaccinomics that promises to protect a higher proportion of the population at far lower cost and without the real and potential harms that mass vaccination programs inflict on some people.

“The old paradigm isn’t working anymore,” Dr. Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group explains matter-of-factly…

….. Vaccinomics — vaccinology informed by genomics — turns the traditional vaccine model on its head by making the individual the starting point, rather than the end point, in the vaccine creation process. Vaccines work — or don’t — on the basis of cumulative interactions in our bodies driven by a host of immune response genes and other factors.

For reasons such as this, the vaccine research team at Mayo Clinic — one of the world’s largest, most respected and most prolific — promotes the growing discipline of “adversomics,” which aims to understand the adverse effects that can come of vaccines. The science here is daunting, since the variables that could cause a vaccine to do harm involve “a complex interaction of past exposures and infections, current physical and emotional health, and the individual’s genome and microbiome,” or the countless microorganisms that reside in our bodies.

Vaccine Expert But Could There Be Conflicts?

Dr. Gregory Poland is quite an expert on vaccines and has an extensive history of involvement:

1.  Dr. Poland is no vaccine denier. Not only is he among the harshest and most outspoken critics of the “irrationality of the antivaccinationists,”  he is also one of the strongest proponents for vaccines and the good that they can do. As Professor of Medicine and founder and leader of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, one of the world’s largest vaccine research organizations; as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Vaccine; as recipient of numerous awards; as chair of vaccine data monitoring committees for pharmaceutical giant Merck; as patent holder in various vaccines processes; as someone who enjoys special employee status with the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Defense and as someone who has sat on every federal committee that has dealt with vaccines, no one can accuse him of seeing vaccines from a narrow perspective.

Note: Teresa Conrick has written a series of articles on the Microbiome.  You can read them here in our AofA Exclusives.

By Teresa Conrick

Vaccines.  The idea of them seems so good.  Inject a recipe of chemicals into human beings and animals, and they are then protected from microbial-causing diseases. The reality though for many families is something went wrong, either immediately after vaccination - seizures, death, or from that point forward, profound changes in health and development - REGRESSION.

My daughter, Megan, had subtle, regressive episodes after each vaccination but devastatingly so after her MMR vaccine. Immediately, Megan began with a fever for days, then a full body rash starting on the 10^th day, diarrhea, constipation, then undigested food in her stool, then Giardia and Blastocystis Hominis infections, gluten and casein intolerance developed, nonstop ear infections (otitis media), concurrent Candida infections, Clostridium infections, Streptococcus infections, seizures when puberty hit and most recently, an autoimmune diagnosis. An autism diagnosis was placed on her before age three, based on the behaviors -- that in hindsight -- most likely manifested from all of these infections and a dysfunctional immune system. This has been the pattern and research is pointing to the microbiome as quite possibly, the epicenter of autism: NEJM, January 28, 2014, “More Evidence Links Gut Microbiome to Autism:”

If this mouse model of autism truly reflects pathology similar to autism in humans, these researchers might have identified yet another major human illness that is linked to the gut microbiome. Moreover, the identification of two specific metabolites that induce autistic behavior could provide molecular targets for therapy. Finally — although it seems too good to be true — the suggestion that probiotic therapy might cure autism surely would be a remarkable event if it proves to be valid.

I continue to investigate research on the microbiome as there are patterns that seem connected to autism and other increasing diseases that share a dysfunctional microbiome.  While investigating the microbiome, it’s important to look back into history and see that the birth of autism in the 1930’s, happened exactly when ethyl mercury vaccines and ethyl mercury pesticides/fungicides were debuting. The family history of eight found families of those first eleven reveals a toxic connection, especially mercury, and significantly the newly commercialized, ethyl mercury. Those factors  remain the most important clues for us today.

Reading about the microbiome has shown some connections that may be influencing it in a negative manner. Antibiotics used in our food supply; mercury in the environment, food and medicines; pesticides; and vaccination, all seem capable of causing insidious changes in the microbiome. Research Is showing some vaccines seem capable of causing an unintended development. I wrote about some of this before but think it’s important to include old information with new to make it more evident.

By Teresa Conrick

I have been reading and writing about the microbiome quite a lot so it was inspiring to be able to hear Dr. Andrew Wakefield discuss vaccine safety issues, autism and the microbiome here in Chicago earlier this year.  Dr. Wakefield was presenting along with Dr. Ashly Ochsner, BS, DC, a popular, local Chiropractor, whose practice, Health From Within, treats many patients with an autism diagnosis. Marcella Piper-Terry, parent, activist, FB friend to many, and the heart and soul of VaxTruth, was also a presenter, discussing her own personal journey and the many parents along the way who have had children injured by vaccines.

We listened about the epidemic numbers of kids receiving an autism diagnosis and other chronic diseases.  We cried when Dr. Wakefield showed a photo of a boy, bloody and bruised by his own self-injurious behavior (SIB), who had the most severe case of autism that Dr.Wakefield had ever seen.  He described how the boy received a GI scope and lesions were seen everywhere.  The amount of pain would have had us all on the floor screaming for help, Dr. Wakefield described, but the boy was nonverbal and he could not tell of his plight.  His SIB was not some kind of psychotic display but his reaction to pain -- “the amount of pain probably had this boy almost suicidal.”  He then explained how the boy was put on a special diet and received medical treatments and medications to stop the inflammation and pain.  He was getting better but then the local doctors stopped it.  We have heard this scenario before.  An autism diagnosis often means psychotropic drugs and for a child like this, often restraints. The word, AUTISM, historically has meant a BRAIN issue, thus PSYCHIATRIC only and that’s what happened to this boy.  They stopped his medical care, and his pain and SIB returned.  The insanity of that is just too horrific. 

Dr Wakefield also described how for years parents were told that there was NO CONNECTION to GI issues and autism.  Many were treated as if they were crazy or had munchausen syndrome by proxy,  the most bizarre excuse that psychiatry ever invented.  Yet here we are now, with study after study showing that there is MUCH EVIDENCE of GI issues and autism:

Autism Gastro Problems May Be Linked To Gut Bacteria  

Gastrointestinal issues in autism spectrum disorder.

Autism Linked To Digestive Problems 

By Teresa Conrick

It’s happening again.  The onslaught of studies and articles to try and persuade you, dear citizen of the USA, that AUTISM is a genetic ONLY disorder.  Why, you may ask?  Well, it could be that the back-to school flu vaccines are right around the corner, and your money and your health are about to be bamboozled, but my bet is that a book on the SCIENCE of Thimerosal, that darn mercury preservative in vaccines (especially flu shots), is coming out in 12 days.  Did I mention that Robert F. Kennedy is the author and it’s all about the science and the studies, showing how toxic Thimerosal is and the damage it can cause, even in small doses?  He is the same passionate Kennedy that is fighting for many other environmental causes.  His involvement appears to come with a price as the media (and those who are paying them) are trying to dismiss his research on the dangers, as well as try to paint him as a mercury betrayer.  He won’t budge (good for him!), which leads us to their Plan A, unfolding as the days go by, to try and annihilate his book and the research.

The article I want to share about a new gene study has these bizarre quotes:

The source of autism in children is in majority the result of the desire of parents with defective genes to have children. The study included the contribution of environmental causes of autism and found that genetics trumps any environmental cause for autism. The study was based on the genetic analysis of over 1.6 million Swedish families and compared 3,000 people with autism with a group that did not have autism that was the same size.

As you keep reading in disbelief on how ridiculous it sounds, you then see the glowing, neon message:

This discovery that included the National Institutes of Health in the United States and several experts from U. S. universities brings into serious doubt previous claims that vaccinations or any environmental source caused autism. The 2010 U. S. Court ruling that the use of thimerosal in vaccines was a cause of autism is now suspect of being invalid. Likewise the books  that claim vaccinations caused autism are now considered to be less than factual…..In light of the facts produced by this new research, one must seriously consider how flagrantly greedy or desperately needy people that have autistic children may have been.

“SERIOUS DOUBT?….that vaccinations or ANY environmental source?….U.S. Court ruling invalid on thimerosal causing autism?....BOOKS that claim that vaccinations caused autism are now less than factual?..... flagrantly greedy?

What a crock! Where the heck did this come from?

There are many, many studies showing that TOXINS are involved in autism.  Whether they come in a pesticide:

“Pesticides linked to autistic disorders” Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:33:00 EST

The main findings of the study were that living near (within about 1.25km distance) to where pesticides were used at any point during pregnancy (compared to no exposure) was associated with a 60% higher risk of the child having ASD.

Or in a vaccine (with Thimerosal):

“Hepatitis B vaccination of male neonates and autism diagnosis, NHIS 1997-2002.”

Boys vaccinated as neonates had threefold greater odds for autism diagnosis compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life.

You can read all of Teresa's posts on The Microbiome and our other series reports in our EXCLUSIVES category. 

• The Microbiome: Could It Be The Epicenter Of Autism?
• Autism: Does Mercury Modulate The Microbiome?
• The Microbiome In Regressive Autism
• The Microbiome: Could It Be The Epicenter Of Autism?
• The Human Microbiome​: Evolution of Vaccine Exposure
• Autism And The Microbiome: Knock-Knock-Knock Penny And The Increasing Observations Of OCD
• Autism and the Microbiome:1st International Symposium and an Odyssey

By Teresa Conrick

I continue to read and piece together facts about the microbiome because it seems very much involved in my daughter’s regression into the abyss of autism.  Megan is twenty-one and has both an autism and autoimmune diagnosis.  She regressed in her second year of life. Antibiotics, called both good and evil if you read on the internet these days, are being named a connected culprit in the damage being seen in the microbiome:

Scientist Martin Blaser argues  that we are suffering from new wave of 'modern plagues' such as obesity and asthma because we have destroyed the naturally occurring bacteria in our bodies….Over the past 150 years, most countries have been getting healthier. Chalk it up to improved sanitation, rat control, clean drinking water, pasteurised milk, childhood vaccinations, modern medical procedures and, of course, 70 years of antibiotics….Yet recently, just within the past few decades, amid all of these medical advances, something has gone terribly wrong. In many ways, we appear to be getting sicker. You can see the headlines every day. We are suffering from an array of what I call "modern plagues": obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma, hay fever, food allergies, oesophageal reflux and cancer, coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, autism, eczema. In all likelihood, you or someone in your family or someone you know is afflicted. Unlike most lethal plagues of the past that struck relatively fast and hard, these are chronic conditions that diminish and degrade their victims' quality of life for decades…These disorders suggest that our children are experiencing levels of immune dysfunction never seen before. And then there's autism – a much discussed and debated modern plague that is a focus of my laboratory…..

….we need to look closely at the micro-organisms that make a living in and on our bodies – massive assemblages of competing and co-operating microbes known collectively as the microbiome….The microbes that constitute your microbiome are generally acquired early in life; surprisingly, by the age of three, the populations within resemble those of adults. Together, they play a critical role in your immunity and ability to combat disease. In short, your microbiome keeps you healthy….And parts of it are disappearing.

The reasons are all around us, including overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals, caesarean sections, and the widespread use of sanitisers and antiseptics, to name just a few…..In the presence of antibiotics, the resistant organisms are the ones more fit; it is the pressure of intensive antibiotic use that is increasing the presence of these resistant organisms.…….

If that is true, should we not worry about MERCURY as well?

The following scientific studies tell the story and a history that should be included as we look at the microbiome:

“Is exposure to mercury a driving force for the carriage of antibiotic resistance genes?” 

…we analysed mercury resistance in collections of strains from various populations with different levels of mercury exposure and various levels of antibiotic resistance. The first population lived in France and had no known mercury exposure. The second lived in French Guyana and included a group of Wayampi Amerindians with a known high exposure to mercury. Carriage rates of mercury resistance were assessed by measuring the MIC and by detecting the merA gene. Mercury-resistant E. coli was found significantly more frequently in the populations that had the highest carriage rates of antibiotic-resistant E. coli and in parallel antibiotic resistance was higher in the population living in an environment with a high exposure to mercury, suggesting a possible co-selection. Exposure to mercury might be a specific driving force for the acquisition and maintenance of mobile antibiotic resistance gene carriage in the absence of antibiotic selective pressure….This confirmed the well established link between mercury and antibiotic resistance (Edlund et al., 1996; Liebert et al., 1997; Pike et al., 2002, 2003; Ready et al., 2003, 2007; Summers et al., 1993; Wireman et al., 1997).

“Antibiotic Resistance Pattern Among Gram Negative Mercury Resistant Bacteria Isolated From Contaminated Environments”

Note: Read Teresa Conrick's full series on the Microbiome in our AofA Exclusives category.

By Teresa Conrick

Research on the microbiome is booming.  I recently read that smartphones could be used as a sensor for personal mirobiome analysis demonstrating that the microbiome is becoming a mainstream concept.   “Our cell phones actually reflect the personal microbial world of their owners, with potential implications for their use as bacterial and environmental sensors, according to new research….University of Oregon researchers sequenced microbes from the dominant-hand index fingers and thumbs of 17 subjects…The study found smartphones closely resembled the microbiome sampled from their owner's finger, with 82 percent of the most common bacteria on participants' fingers also found on their phones.”

I continue to read and write about the relationship between the microbiome and autism for some very important reasons.  First, I have a very ill daughter, called autistic yet affected by infections and now, an autoimmune diagnosis.  In addition, there are thousands like her around the world.  The significance of the microbiome and this first symposium is tremendous. Whether you have a child who has a diagnosis of AUTISM, PANDAS, PANS, IMMUNE DYSFUNCTION, or a combination of these, the studies of the microbiome are showing how the puzzle pieces may fit. I want to thank John Rodakis and N of One for organizing this first symposium on autism and the microbiome.

For me, leaving town is not an easy feat.  Like many of you who live with a child who is chronically ill, a departure from their care can be difficult.   I told Meg, who has had GI issues since regression at age two, nonverbal since that regression, seizures starting at age sixteen and then positive for antinuclear antibodies at eighteen, that I was going to go on this trip to learn how to get her feeling better.  She smiled and smelled my hand, giving me a tiny kiss as she ran off to her favorite swing. That day was a good one for her but there are too many not good.  She deserves a pain-free life where GI pain, vocal tics, OCD and self-injurious behavior disappear. Leaving gluten, casein and soy-free meals plus 3 days of medications and supplements, I left Chicago for Little Rock.  I decided to drive as I wanted to stop in Missouri after the conference and visit the cemetery where my parents are buried, along with my maternal grandmother.  My parents had bought land in the Ozarks years and years ago as a serene goal for retirement.  My father died in 1993, the year Megan was born and my mother died in 1996, the year Megan was diagnosed with autism. Not an easy time for me. I had not been to the cemetery since then, as Megan’s many medical and behavioral issues made life challenging. There were some connections in my family history that the microbiome research may help answer, including Meg’s autism, which seemed to be infections and behaviors that trapped her. More about that connection on the return trip.  

You can read Teresa Conrick's series on the Microbiome at our Age of Autism Exclusives.

By Teresa Conrick

In addition to more OCD on popular television shows, I discovered that there are many famous people who report having OCD:

Lena Dunham from Girls has her own personal history with OCD along with Howard Stern     as well as all of these folks: Megan Fox, Justin Timberlake, Jessica Alba, Julianne Moore, and Charlize Theron.   Cameron Diaz, Donald Trump, Leonardo DiCaprio, Howie Mandel, David Beckham, and Billy Bob Thornton have also shared that they too, have OCD .  I bring them up as I think it shows how people can deal with OCD and still have careers and obviously be in the spotlight.  These celebrities may be very interested in this information about the microbiome and its key to OCD as current treatments are not very effective.  This from Harvard research:

- “Only about 10% of patients recover completely, but 50% improve with treatment.”

- “Generally 40% to 60% of patients with OCD will experience at least a partial reduction in symptoms after treatment with an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). However, many continue to have residual symptoms.”

- “The most common side effects of SSRIs are gastrointestinal distress, restlessness, insomnia, and sexual dysfunction (such as reduced libido, erectile dysfunction, and inability to reach orgasm).”

Some of their reported OCD issues 

DiCaprio:  Titanic and Shutter Island star Leonardo DiCaprio was obsessed with sidewalks as a child, often going back over his walking routes to repeatedly step on cracks or gum stains. Doorways also triggered his OCD.

Diaz:  Cameron Diaz, star of such films as The Mask and There's Something About Mary, admitted in a 1997 article that she suffered from a phobia of germs that caused her to clean the doorknobs in her house so many times that she faded their paint.

Dunham: Girl-of-the-moment Lena Dunham talks candidly about her battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety in the Feb. 28 issue of Rolling Stone.  In the cover story, the 26-year-old creator and star of HBO's "Girls" says she took antidepressants in high school, and was obsessed with the number eight.

Mandel: Howie Mandel won't shake hands with people because of a fear of dirt and germs. He even keeps his head shaved in order to "feel more clean." Mandel details his struggles with both OCD and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in his book Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me, published in 2009.

Beckham:  International soccer star David Beckham's OCD expresses itself by an obsession with pairing items and organizing them by color or type. According to his wife Victoria, Beckham has purchased three refrigerators so that he can have one for drinks, one for salads, and one for other foods. The items must be in even numbers, as well. "If there's three cans of Diet Coke, he'd throw one away instead of having three--because it has to be an even number."

Gene Research - What Is It Good For?

If you have been following the autism-gene search, the OCD genes are about the same --“candidate” genes and “vulnerability” genes but basically -- much is still “unknown.”  The ENVIRONMENT seems to be more the factor:

By Teresa Conrick

My daughter, Megan, is twenty-one and has a diagnosis of both autism and autoimmunity. One of the main behavioral symptoms that Megan began to exhibit nineteen years ago was obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).  It is not an easy life by any means as OCD can dominate too many of her days. Meg regressed after each vaccine as a toddler but had a profound change in health and behaviors after her MMR vaccine. She developed a full body rash, fever, stopped eating, had numerous, daily episodes of green diarrhea, lost eye contact, became isolative,--- and then obsessed with holding a magnetic letter in each hand 24/7.  More medical issues developed for example, chronic constipation, Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and seizures over these past years. Megan has been nonverbal since that regression.  Many with an autism diagnosis have OCD and similar health issues.  The immune system continues to be unraveled more as the big player in an autism diagnosis yet some still habitually describe autism as a genetic misfit.  OCD is a factor in much of this.  There seem to be patterns that need to be examined:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) occurs worldwide, with common features across diverse ethnic groups and cultures. It affects approximately 2% of the population and is associated with substantial social, personal, and work impairment.1,2……Moreover, a number of other psychiatric and neurologic disorders have similar phenomenological features, can be comorbid with OCD, or are sometimes even conceptualized as uncommon presentations of OCD. These include the obsessive preoccupations and repetitive behaviors found in body dysmorphic disorder, hypochondriasis, Tourette syndrome, Parkinson's disease, catatonia, autism, and in some individuals with eating disorders (eg, anorexia nervosa).4-1……three to five symptom dimensions,19 with the most commonly identified solution including four factors: (i) contamination obsessions and cleaning compulsions; (ii) aggressive, sexual, religious, and somatic obsessions with checking-related compulsions; (iii) obsessions regarding symmetry, exactness, and the need for things to be "just right" paired with compulsions relating to ordering, arranging, and counting, and (iv) hoarding obsessions and compulsions.

Kanner Unfortunately Missed the Immune Dysfunction

Dr. Leo Kanner met those first eleven children, born in the 1930’s , that he would then diagnose in his 1943 paper, AUTISTIC DISTURBANCES OF AFFECTIVE CONTACT . Being a psychiatrist may have clouded his ability to recognize any of the medical issues that those children had vs the psychiatric issues that he loved to study.  We here at Age of Autism continue to point out those health issues as we believe they lead both to causation and cures.    Kanner did not see the connections that are so clear today but instead used Freudian logic to blame the parents.  It is important to get the clues that Kanner missed in his own writings about those first eleven, such as these, describing obsessions and compulsions:

• Usually he winds up with an obsessed interest in the things he was afraid of.

• Most of his actions were repetitions carried out in exactly the same way in which they had been performed originally.

• There were also innumerable verbal rituals recurring all day long.

• He immediately proceeded to turn the lights on and off.

• At 4 years, 11 months, his first move in entering the office (or any other room) was to turn the lights on and off.

• His boarding mother reported a number of observations that indicated compulsive behavior.

• All these and many other things were not only repetitions but recurred day after day with almost photographic sameness.
  
  
• Repetitious as a baby, and obsessive now: holds things in hands, takes things to bed with her, repeats phrases, gets stuck on an idea, game, etc., and rides it hard.

By Teresa Conrick

I doubt very much that Edward Jenner, in the late 1790’s, gave much thought to the microbiome of those first patients he inoculated with his “cowpox” vaccine.  Fast forward to 2014 and the same may be true of the billion dollar companies making vaccines today.  How is that possible?  What is the microbiome? -- “A microbiome is "the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space."[1][2] This term was originally coined by Joshua Lederberg, who argued the importance of microorganisms inhabiting the human body in health and disease. Many scientific articles distinguish "microbiome" and "microbiota" to describe either the collective genomes of the microorganisms that reside in an environmental niche or the microorganisms themselves, respectively.[3][4][5] However by the original definitions these terms are largely synonymous.”

It is becoming one of the most important pieces to health in our modern society though much is still unknown, yet more and more research is showing the microbiome to be a litmus test in health, for example:

Microbiome changed by gluten increases incidences of type 1 diabetes

Date: November 13, 2013

Source: Mayo Clinic

Summary: Research has shown that the intestinal microbiome plays a large role in the development of type 1 diabetes……….These researchers demonstrated that mice fed a gluten-free diet had a dramatically reduced incidence of Type 1 diabetes. These mice were non-obese diabetic mice, or mice that grow to develop Type 1 diabetes. The gluten-free diet worked to protect the mice against Type 1 diabetes. When the researchers added gluten back into the diets of mice it reversed the protective effect the gluten free diet had provided. There also was a measurable impact of the gluten on the bacterial flora of the mice that might be one way in which gluten could affect the risk for diabetes.

Very interesting and shows how important the gut and bacterial flora are in maintaining health. Gluten is an important factor in autism and many children just can’t eat it as painful symptoms and negative behaviors begin.

We are seeing epidemic numbers of immune and autoimmune diseases.  Autism is one of them and I will add in that PANDAS, Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections and PANS, Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome, are also climbing these past years.  They share characteristics and many families have both autism and PANDAS/PANS, diagnosed children. Some of those children have both diagnoses, like my daughter, Megan. Why?

In the definition above, "microbiome" and "microbiota" are “largely synonymous”, so let me introduce a recent study that reflects how the microbiome and microbiota can be involved in vaccination.

This study is on the CDC website:

Volume 20, Number 2—February 2014

Research

Seven-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine and Nasopharyngeal Microbiota in Healthy Children

Abstract

Seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) is effective against vaccine serotype disease and carriage. Nevertheless, shifts in colonization and disease toward nonvaccine serotypes and other potential pathogens have been described. To understand the extent of these shifts, we analyzed nasopharyngeal microbial profiles of 97 PCV-7–vaccinated infants and 103 control infants participating in a randomized controlled trial in the Netherlands. PCV-7 immunization resulted in a temporary shift in microbial community composition and increased bacterial diversity. Immunization also resulted in decreased presence of the pneumococcal vaccine serotype and an increase in the relative abundance and presence of nonpneumococcal streptococci and anaerobic bacteria. Furthermore, the abundance of Haemophilus and Staphylococcus bacteria in vaccinees was increased over that in controls. This study illustrates the much broader effect of vaccination with PCV-7 on the microbial community than currently assumed, and highlights the need for careful monitoring when implementing vaccines directed against common colonizers.

Let’s look at that more closely.  First off, it is a study of 97 vaccinated (PCV-7) and 103 unvaccinated (No PCV-7) children.  The study does not mention it but the name of the vaccine is Prevnar-7/Prevenar .  What the authors do mention, in quite a bit of detail, is that those children vaccinated had a shift in their microbiota. Here’s what the authors shared in the meat of this study:

By Teresa Conrick

Since 1938, autism has moved from a blip on the radar screen to a full-force tsunami today.  Those first eleven children identified by psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Kanner, all exhibited the now infamous triad of behaviors:

1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction
2. Qualitative impairments in communication
3. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities

Sadly, there is not enough reporting of the  MEDICAL patterns that Kanner briefly described. Dan Olmsted was the trailblazer on the connection of toxic exposure in those families, with his UPI series posted on our homepage.  Then he and Mark Blaxill went back and forth in history to seal the deal on specifically, MERCURY and its insidious relationship with autism.  Andrew Wakefield has been researching and publishing for over ten years on the gut-brain connection in autism.    My gratitude to each of them for their continual investigations.

Leo Kanner wrote these descriptions of those first-ever, diagnosed children but he did not see the obvious:

•  "Eating," the report said, "has always been a problem with him.”

•    large and ragged tonsils.

•    Following smallpox vaccination at 12 months, he had an attack of diarrhea and fever

•    Large tonsils and adenoids

•    He vomited a great deal during his first year,

•    She quit taking any kind of nourishment at 3 months. She was tube-fed five times daily up to 1       year of age.

•    He vomited all food from birth through the third month.

•    His tonsils were removed when he was 3 years old.

•    He vomited all food from birth through the third month.

•    He suffered from repeated colds and otitis media, which necessitated bilateral myringotomy

•    Because of a febrile illness at 13 months, her increasing difficulties were interpreted as possible

      postencephalitic behavior disorder.    

•    He had been kept in bed often because of colds, bronchitis, chickenpox, streptococcus infection, impetigo

Kanner missed the pattern of GI issues and INFECTION.  These two medical problems have continued to be prevalent in many if not most of the children being diagnosed today. Instead, he did the Freudian spin:

Food is the earliest intrusion that is brought to the child from the outside. David Levy observed that affect-hungry children, when placed in foster homes where they are well treated, at first demand excessive quantities of food. Hilde Bruch, in her studies of obese children, found that overeating often resulted when affectionate offerings from the parents were lacking or considered unsatisfactory.

Our patients, reversely, anxious to keep the outside world away, indicated this by the refusal of food. Donald, Paul ("vomited a great deal during the first year"), Barbara ("had to be tube-fed until 1 year of age"), Herbert, Alfred, and John presented severe feeding difficulty from the beginning of life.

The children also seemed to have illnesses that may point to Streptococcus, as evidenced by infection of their tonsils, adenoids and ears. That seems to be the pattern still today, if not more.

By Teresa Conrick

I continue to explore many types of research to see what might be helpful for so many of our children affected by the insidious symptoms of neuroimmune disease, that many call AUTISM.  Much research is pointing to the gut-brain axis, the microbiome and those effects on development.  This is not a new concept  but one that needs much more attention.

I recently saw this medical article in the news:

Cancer drugs block dementia-linked brain inflammation, study finds 

Date: April 16, 2014

Source: University of California - Irvine

Summary:

A class of drugs developed to treat immune-related conditions and cancer -- including one currently in clinical trials for glioblastoma and other tumors -- eliminates neural inflammation associated with dementia-linked diseases and brain injuries, according to researchers. In their study, the researchers discovered that the drugs, which can be delivered orally, eradicated microglia, the primary immune cells of the brain. These cells exacerbate many neural diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, as well as brain injury.

This summary from the abstract of the actual study - Colony-Stimulating Factor 1 Receptor Signaling Is Necessary for Microglia Viability, Unmasking a Microglia Progenitor Cell in the Adult Brain 

The colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF1R) is a key regulator of myeloid lineage cells. Genetic loss of the CSF1R blocks the normal population of resident microglia in the brain that originates from the yolk sac during early development. However, the role of CSF1R signaling in microglial homeostasis in the adult brain is largely unknown. To this end, we tested the effects of selective CSF1R inhibitors on microglia in adult mice. Surprisingly, extensive treatment results in elimination of ∼99% of all microglia brain-wide, showing that microglia in the adult brain are physiologically dependent upon CSF1R signaling. Mice depleted of microglia show no behavioral or cognitive abnormalities, revealing that microglia are not necessary for these tasks. Finally, we discovered that the microglia-depleted brain completely repopulates with new microglia within 1 week of inhibitor cessation. Microglial repopulation throughout the CNS occurs through proliferation of nestin-positive cells that then differentiate into microglia.

Since microglia are heavily involved in autism, I am curious if this research would apply to autism and have benefits to the thousands of individuals, mostly kids, affected?

Microglial activation in young adults with autism spectrum disorder. 

Brain imaging study points to microglia as autism biomarker 

Microglia in the Cerebral Cortex in Autism 

Brain's immune cells show intriguing links to autism 

From one of the study authors:

"Because microglia are implicated in most brain disorders, we feel we've found a novel and broadly applicable therapeutic approach," Green said. "This study presents a new way to not just modulate inflammation in the brain but eliminate it completely, making this a breakthrough option for a range of neuroinflammatory diseases."

I have to point out that because the gut and the immune system are also implicated in autism, will eliminating microglia solve the biggest issue of autism?

Would love to hear opinions on this so please leave a comment.

Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.

By Teresa Conrick

It’s a hot topic, the MICROBIOME, defined as: "the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space." I keep reading more and more research connecting the microbiome and autism.

It goes something like this, according to the research below- Mercury exposure, both environmental and via flu vaccination in a pregnant woman, can cause negative ramifications in her baby’s microbiome. The same is true for postnatal infants exposed to Thimerosal. The landscape of that microbiome loses helpful bacteria and instead we see more pathogens. The downstream effects - chronic infections, altered development of the nervous system, molecular mimicry, neuropsychiatric symptoms (tics, obsessive compulsive behaviors, perseveration and repetitive behaviors), and neurologic inflammation. Mitochondrial dysfunction, a more prevalent condition in many diagnosed with autism, seems to be part of this picture as well. Vaccines and their effect on the microbiome are also examined. Each of these studies is a puzzle piece, connecting these facts. The picture is becoming clearer:

An Immune Dysfunction of the Body Affecting the Brain

• Although the study suggested that gut bacteria could affect neurologic inflammation, how that might happen remains unclear. For the most part, Mazmanian says, the microorganisms that colonize the human gut don’t leave the intestine, but the immune cells that contact them do. He explains that, although 70% of the immune cells in the body at any one time can be found in the intestine, they circulate throughout the body, and the microbiota of the gut environment help determine how immune cells will behave elsewhere ……..Other researchers have suggested a link between the gut–brain axis and neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, depression, and eating disorders. The gut contains microorganisms that share a structural similarity with the neuropeptides involved in regulating behavior, mood, and emotion—a phenomenon known as molecular mimicry. The body can’t tell the difference between the structure of these mimics and its own cells, so antibodies could end up attacking both, potentially altering the physiology of the gut–brain axis.12

• The human gut harbors a complex community of microbes that profoundly influence many aspects of growth and development, including development of the nervous system. Advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing methods have led to rapidly expanding knowledge about this gut microbiome.

By Teresa Conrick

The microbiome  keeps coming up daily in the world of science and health.  How is it involved in regressive autism?  What is regressive autism?

Children with an ASD who lose skills (e.g., social interaction and communication) have become known as a subgroup called regressive autism or late onset. Regressive autism usually refers to a child where parents report an early history of normal development for 12-24 months which is followed by a loss of previously acquired skills. Individuals with ASD often suffer from gastrointestinal (GI) disorders (e.g., diarrhea, constipation, bloating and gastro-esophageal reflux) [2,3]. Fecal Microbiota and Metabolome of Children with Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified

”By 1985 the incidence of regressive autism had equalled that from birth. By 1997 both types had increased although the regressive form was now >75% of the total occurrence. This suggests that an acquired condition was overtaking birth defects or purely genetic conditions……In the vast majority of cases, the emergence of autistic indications appears to happen in children who had developed normally[10,13,14], and before three years[15,16.]”  What is regressive autism and why does it occur? Is it the consequence of multi-systemic dysfunction affecting the elimination of heavy metals and the ability to regulate neural temperature?

“About one in three children with autism abruptly lose language, social or other developmental skills in their second year of life…..The results come from the synthesis of 85 studies published between 1980 and 2010 that examined regression, and include nearly 30,000 participants diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.”  SFARI: Regression may mark one-third of autism cases

By Mary Conrick

The anticipation of seeing my family after two months was finally hitting me. My phone had broken over the weekend and I was in an unfamiliar train station. All I wanted was for spring break to start and to have wireless connection again. On my long train ride home, I was reminded of this unfortunate event, the incapability to communicate with the outside world and how much I missed my family. Emails were not available either because the train didn’t have Wi-Fi. I felt kind of lost and alone and longed to be home once again, not an outsider without a cell phone, Wi-Fi and a family. To distract myself, I planned my homecoming. I thought about receiving a new phone from AT&T and grabbing an Italian beef with my dad, hugging my mom, updating her about my traveling experiences, and taking snapchats and selfies with my sister Megan. I always miss Megan the most because even with a working phone and Wi-Fi capabilities, I still am not able to communicate with her unless I return to sweet home Chicago.

When my train arrived, after circling the city then going backwards into the station (half an hour process I might add), I was beyond ready to go home. I departed from the train, used a payphone for the first time in my life, and got through to my dad after the 3^rd try with dropping numerous quarters on the ground. I found my dad in the middle of Union Station and held my arms wide open. His demeanor changed from distressed to fully content. One family member down, three more to go I noted in my head. I still was longing to see my mom, Megan, and my dog. After attaining a new phone, grabbing a bite to eat, and running a few errands, I finally made it home. Everything was going according to plan. My mother was still at work but Megan was home. Her personal support worker was there at the time and I asked her if Megan was doing well. She said she has started to feel slightly better but it has been a rough morning. From the 1^st floor, I can hear Megan’s vocal tics, which means she is not feeling well and should be left alone. I ignored her comment and the vocal noises and sprinted upstairs with hope that whatever mood Megan was in, she would feel elated to see me. I had this unrealistic hope that somehow I can change her sickness, her mood, and her autism just this once. Somehow through, I thought by Megan and I reuniting, that everything would be different for a brief moment. That was all I thought about on the train coming home to her.

I slammed Megan’s bedroom door wide open to find Megan on the end of her bed sitting upward. Her eyes were half- open and she did not have an excited expression on her face.  She didn’t even flinch when I came in. “Hi Megan. I’m Home!!!!!” I gave her a bear hug, then paused to look her in the eyes. She barely glanced at me. We made eye contact but it wasn’t welcoming one bit. She looked irritated, infuriated, and unpleased. The green in her eyes was not calming, but alarming. They turned a dark shade of green like the deep depths of the ocean, a place no one wants to envision. Her brow was furrowed and she pushed me away from her. I was naïve and I tried to tickle her, started dancing goofy and laughed in a manly way that usually makes her chuckle at least, but again, the same response. 

By Teresa Conrick

From 1984 until 2003, I worked in two, private, for-profit, psychiatric hospitals.  During those years, I witnessed situations that were indelibly sad and some that made me excruciatingly angry.  I stayed on year after year, as I always felt that I was making a difference, that my relationship with the teens that I helped in a school setting was both positive and influential in their journey towards discharge.  I must say that too many of the doctors and staff treated the families and the patients poorly.  There was the one psychiatrist who called some of his child patients, “FLK,” ( Funny Looking Kids), and then the staffings,  where parents were bombarded with off-label medications to be trialed on their child, and of course the never-ending talk behind the families, of blame, dysfunction and other Freudian musings. I could take it no longer, especially as AUTISM began to appear on more charts beginning about 2001. My own daughter, who regressed into an autism diagnosis by age three, was vividly on my mind.  The many medical symptoms, labs, GI issues, allergies and immune symptom abnormalities that she was experiencing were never discussed in any of the charts of those psychiatric, hospitalized patients.  I had to get out of that environment as it was so wrong on so many levels.

It is worth repeating, and I will continue to do so to sound the alarm that in 1943, over seventy years ago, Dr. Leo Kanner, the psychiatrist that first started seeing these new and unique SYMPTOMS in children, had this to say   --

“SINCE 1938, there have come to our attention a number of children whose condition differs so markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far, that each case merits - and, I hope, will eventually receive - a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities”

What happened after that is unfortunate and heartbreaking.  The “fascinating peculiarities” that Kanner described, the SYMPTOMS that the children exhibited, became the focus, and because they were “peculiar”, psychiatry dissected and savored them for years -- including present day.  What also was ignored? :

•   The timing of 1938  --  Why then? 

•   The MANY gastrointestinal issues and immune red flags of those first eleven children

The Use of Psychiatric Hospitalization for Symptoms In Autism?

 “Engaging in self-injurious behavior (OR = 2.14), aggressive behavior (OR = 4.83), and being diagnosed with depression (OR = 2.48) or obsessive compulsive disorder (OR = 2.35) increased the odds of hospitalization.”  

 •  “As seen in Fig. 3, aggression and self-injurious behavior were the most common chief complaints.”  

  • “Medication is commonly used to control aggression in children and adolescents in inpatient units….The use of atypical antipsychotics has expanded to treat a broad range of psychiatric diagnoses for children and adolescents despite the limited empirical evidence supporting their efficacy.”  

  • “Restraint methods have been associated with a significant number of client deaths in the United States. Some behavioural interventions have incorporated restraint as a consequence for aggression.” 

  These OXYMORON quotes are from actual research papers:

  • “As with normal individuals, proper medical intervention will probably lead to the improvement of behavioral symptoms caused by acute or chronic medical conditions in individuals with ASD” 

 • “The unique needs of the ASD/ID population require specialized psychiatric programs that involve assessment of the “root causes” of the patient’s symptoms.”   

 • “No single biological or environmental cause of aggressive behaviour in people with autism or intellectual disability has been identified”http://www.wpanet.org/uploads/Education/Educational_Resources/autism-part4.pdf

Are There Biological or Environmental Causes of Aggressive Behavior Associated With an Autism Diagnosis?

There is MUCH research showing that the roots of aggression in autism are associated with PAIN and also immune dysfunction.  Let’s look more closely at Gastrointestinal Issues - Immune Dysfunction - Chronic Infections:

By Mary Conrick

The year I was born, 1995, was a happy but hard time for my family. It was happy because they had a new child in their life, but difficult because their older child began to show symptoms of  Autism. My name is Mary and I have a sister, Megan, with severe autism. I have not really been open about discussing my sister and autism, but now I am beginning to open the doors that were shut for a very long time. I was ashamed, not of my sister, but of her disability. I was ashamed that she gave my parents extra worries and responsibilities, how the kids would laugh at her, and how I am not able to hear her voice and able to talk to her. It’s frustrating all the things that come with autism, so I just would kind of hide it. I hated small talk. The first question that would come up was “do you have any siblings”. I used to change the topic or answer it vaguely. Then, I would ask the person about their life. I would keep asking them questions pertaining to them, not me, until the topic was changed to something totally irrelevant like SpongeBob. I didn’t want anyone to know because I thought they wouldn’t understand. I didn’t want to explain her condition because it was difficult for me emotionally and mentally to talk about it. I would get flustered or cry. The worst part is if I decided to tell them, they would say “I’m sorry”. That doesn’t really help because they didn’t cause her autism and I felt like they were taking pity on my family. Later on, I realized that people don’t really know what to say because what can one say when someone tells you that. It is awful hearing about someone’s struggles and you can’t say “I hope she recovers from her autism soon,” because not everyone is that lucky. When I wouldn’t reveal details about my sister, people would say the wrong things that would hurt more. “Can’t your sister drive you over here?” “Maybe you can be maid of honor at your sister’s wedding. Comments like that hurt more than telling someone about my sister’s condition. Sometimes I secretly wished she could drive me places and I could stand next to her at her wedding. 

It is also difficult to have friends over because you never know what can happen. Autism is spontaneous. Megan could be running around naked, start having a violent tantrum, or have a grand mal seizure. Even though I live with my sister, I still can’t handle these situations fully. When she would become violent or have a seizure, my mom would tell me to go somewhere else. That place would either be in my room with headphones on, a friends’ house, or a sidewalk without a destination. I would sob constantly because not only is she hurting my mother, she is hurting herself. She is violent because of pain she can’t control in her body. She bites her arm until it sheds blood and bangs her head on the wall until there’s bumps. It breaks my heart every time. I wanted to help but, I still ran away because it was the easiest thing to do. There were a handful of times where I had to help with my sister’s violent episodes because my mother wasn’t home. One of her caretaker’s would be at my bedroom door knocking to get my attention. I was terrified to face my sister when she was violent, but I wasn’t scared because looking past the violence, I saw my sister in pain and I just wanted her to feel better and smile again.

By Teresa Conrick

My daughter, Megan, born in 1993, has had a diagnosis of autism since 1995.  Throughout the years, Megan has suffered from perpetual infections. As a young child, she had chronic ear infections.  She was put on antibiotics but never probiotics and back then, I was not aware of that very important connection.  She also was bedridden numerous times, for days with mysterious viral infections and fevers, rashes, and also gastrointestinal distress.  Diarrhea and constipation then took over with blowout enuretic episodes.  In 2000, her behavior began to escalate. Biting, screaming, breaking glass on the hard floors and pouring liquids out on any carpet she could find.  Odd, perseverative and destructive behaviors became the norm. Doctors constantly told me, “it was her autism” causing the behaviors but they were wrong. Stool testing, done by a doctor who was seeing other children then with similar issues and an autism diagnosis, revealed that Meg had a painful, protozoan parasite, Giardia lamblia, which colonizes and reproduces in the small intestine.  She also had another persistent parasite, Blatocystis hominis, as well as chronic fungal infections from Candida albicans.  It was also discovered that Meg tested intolerant to gluten and casein.

It took eighteen months to clear these infections – and those behaviors. Tears, prayers and hope were my sanity as I watched often helplessly as Meg led a life of suffering. I even remember getting a call from the Department of Public Health, inquiring how and when Meg began to have symptoms of this long-lasting Giardia, as if I had somehow ignored her plight. She was on prescriptions -Nystatin for the yeast and Flagyl (Metronidazole) for months to kill those microbial infections. I put her on a gluten and casein free diet, too.  As the years marched by, we would be revisiting Flagyl for her numerous Clostridium infections.  As soon as one infection seemed to be finally dissipating, another would take its place.

In 2007, Megan began to flush all kinds of things down the toilet – toothbrushes, shampoo caps, toys – whatever would make its way into that curious hole.  Calling the plumber and doling out cash seemed to be happening more and more, the worst being for a small rubber ball that perfectly made its way through the toilet odyssey only to be lodged in the pipe in the hallway wall.  The plumbers took mercy on me by finally introducing me to my very own “snake” thereby saving me hundreds of precious dollars that were needed more for biomedical treatments. Yes, this behavior was also related to infections.  It seemed that each time Meg would begin this ritual of obsessive flushing, she would test positive for Streptococcus infection.  Then began the odd, body tics; dilated pupils; urinary accidents; vocal tics and not wanting to walk through the doorway of her bedroom.  Eating became less and less and she wanted to wear sunglasses all day and night.  What stopped this – antibiotics AND probiotics– but, permanent removal of these devilish bugs and parasites would prove to be the journey we continue to travel. As puberty hit, hormones began to ramp up these behaviors and then grand mal seizures began. 

Since first writing about Megan and PANDAS, I have had so many parents contact me about their children.  Example, a good friend who cares for her grandson, also with an autism diagnosis, began to see new and increasing behaviors that were concerning.  Some of those behaviors were beginning to happen at school and in places where people do not understand the connections between microbial infections and negative behaviors.  Obsessive questioning about rabbis; church bells; long rages; dilated pupils; some talk of “what if” harm to others; wandering behaviors and frequent body tics in his sleep. Armed with a list of labs that I emailed to her, she was able to get some testing done and the evidence was clear – infections were running rampant in this teen:

By Teresa Conrick

In 1933, Autism was in its infancy -- literally, as the first eleven children, later to be identified by Dr. Leo Kanner, were toddlers or not yet even born.  Vivian Murdock, the eldest, born in 1931, was most likely showing signs of the then, rare and bizarre “psychiatric” condition.    I call it psychiatric because Kanner, a psychiatrist, declared it a condition brought on by cold-hearted parents, “a frosty atmosphere, with two inapproachable strangers.”   He was so wrong. The common denominator for the eight children “found” thus far from those original eleven is mercury and vaccines.  Thimerosal, the vaccine mercury, was making its debut in different locations around the United States as a preservative in Diphtheria shots.  By age six, Vivian was gone from home and sent to a State Training School for the Feebleminded.  She died in a state-run home in 1987, at age 56.  Born in Baltimore, she would have been one of the initial six-month-olds to receive infant vaccinations with Thimerosal.  For seventy years, we have been witnesses to ever-increasing numbers of children succumbing to the DSM diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. 

Ironically, in 1933, some other doctors of psychiatry made this enlightening connection :

“(1933), wherein neuropathologist Armando Ferraro and clinical psychiatrist Joseph E. Kilman of the New York Psychiatric Institute wrote the following in Psychiatric Quarterly journal [1]:

‘It is far from our mind to conceive that all mental conditions have the same etiological factor, but we feel justified in recognizing the existence of cases of mental disorders which have as a basic etiological factor a toxic condition arising in the gastrointestinal tract.'

A toxic condition arising in the gastrointestinal tract?  That sounds more like the true “atmosphere” of autism.

My own daughter, Megan, diagnosed in 1995 as the epidemic really began its ascent, has had seizures, starting in her teens and then an autoimmune diagnosis a year later.  Her autism symptoms began not at birth but gradually appeared after each vaccination, most markedly after her MMR vaccine, when she broke out with a full body rash, fever, lost eye contact and then her words stopped.  This is called Regressive Autism but -- what is it?  Let’s look at evidence describing it and in doing so, let me share a quote:

“.....we sewed together separate lines of emerging research from multiple branches of medicine.”

And that is what we need to see with autism – so let’s take a look:

Regression

”By 1985 the incidence of regressive autism had equalled that from birth. By 1997 both types had increased although the regressive form was now >75% of the total occurrence. This suggests that an acquired condition was overtaking birth defects or purely genetic conditions……In the vast majority of cases, the emergence of autistic indications appears to happen in children who had developed normally[10,13,14], and before three years[15,16.]” 

“About one in three children with autism abruptly lose language, social or other developmental skills in their second year of life…..The results come from the synthesis of 85 studies published between 1980 and 2010 that examined regression, and include nearly 30,000 participants diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.”  

“In the largest study of brain development in preschoolers with autism to date, a study by UC Davis MIND Institute researchers has found that 3-year-old boys with regressive autism, but not early onset autism, have larger brains than their healthy counterparts…..The study found that accelerated head growth and brain enlargement was consistently observed only in the subset of children diagnosed with regressive autism.” 

On Thursday, November 14th, I was a lucky member of an intimate audience, marveling, crying and cheering during the world premiere of Joint Attention the first play  ever to tackle the issue of vaccines causing autism.  Not an easy topic in real life, I wondered how it would ever do as a play, while I skeptically drove from suburban Chicago to Sheridan Road on the cold, lake front. 

My best friend since age 7, Sue, a witness to the devastating health effects my daughter Megan has endured since vaccinations and regressive autism, accompanied me.  We both thought there was no way any play could capture how “a young couple struggles with their son’s autism diagnosis.”  It turns out, we were so wrong.  

Pat Curtis, the author of this play, “Joint Attention,” did an exquisite job showing us the effects of

an autism diagnosis while the actors, music and directing were brilliant, bringing it to life.  But Pat did more than simply show what it looks like on the outside.  She took us into the home of Claire and David, whose precious son had begun to regress.  He had stopped having joint attention, lost eye contact, begun to scream, had diarrhea, was barely eating, developed rashes and - stopped talking -  the regression that is increasingly part of an autism diagnosis.  We are to hear from David that it was after vaccines, “many” in one day at fifteen months that his son changed and became ill.

 Thimerosal, the vaccine mercury, a known neurotoxin and immune system monster, was a prime culprit. It was then that I realized I had forgotten to bring tissues. This familiar and horrific event happened to my own daughter eighteen years ago and it keeps happening still.  Life and fiction, both strange yet real.

Pat then takes us into the hope and fear.  David has hope.  He reads on the internet about biomedical treatments and even finds a doctor who medically treats children with an autism diagnosis.  He and Claire start the usual early interventions like, Speech and OT but it is the ABA and biomed, the diet, the vitamins and supplements, the probiotics, the hyperbaric oxygen, the detoxing and glutathione that brings back the eye contact, and begins to heal their child.  Claire though, is fearful and her fear erupts into doubt, doubt about biomedical treatments and an allegiance to her pediatrician who denies the vaccine connection and subsequent success with biomed treatments.  For those of us in the trenches of ill children diagnosed with DSM autism, this is our lives.

 

By Teresa Conrick

With 1 in 3 seniors dying with Alzheimer’s and 1 in 50 children now being diagnosed with autism, studying these patients should be crucial in both preventing new cases and helping millions of people afflicted now.

There are parallels in much of the research being published about both autism and Alzheimer’s.  We are told the former is “neurodevelopmental” while the latter is “neurodegenerative,” but increasing studies show that both are medical consequences of some type of assault on the immune system.

The Microglia in Both Autism and Alzheimer’s

 Microglia, the immune cells of the brain, are activated in both autism and Alzheimer’s -- “There, they engulf debris as well as unwanted and dying cells. At the same time, they contribute to brain inflammation by releasing immune proteins called cytokines and other proteins that may be toxic to the brain.” 

“Studies from several laboratories have demonstrated the ability of microglia to sense and respond to a wide variety of pathogens capable of colonizing the CNS including bacterial, viral, and fungal species.”

Microglia also have another function:

“The human brain is an organ of staggering complexity, with hundreds of billions of neurons and glial cells forming something like a quadrillion connections, or synapses …Redundant connections are then removed in a process called pruning.

We now know that pruning occurs well into adulthood but exactly how the brain disposes of its unwanted connections was unclear. A team of Italian researchers now reveals the surprising mechanism by which pruning occurs – it is carried out by cells called microglia, which patrol the developing brain and engulf unwanted synapses as if they were invading microbes…

…Thus, the developing brain treats unwanted synapses as if they were unwanted invaders. It dispatches microglial cells to survey the state of synapses in their surroundings and to dispose of the ones that are wired incorrectly or superfluous. Abnormal neural connectivity has been implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, so deficiencies in microglial surveillance may contribute to such conditions.”

Beta-amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) in Both Alzheimer’s and Autism

The Alzheimer's disease-associated amyloid beta-protein is an antimicrobial peptide:

 

The Many Faces of Autism

Consider these scenarios:
 
1-    The teen is taking a Chemistry test, smiling and talking to himself.  He repeats the teacher’s directions over and over out loud. He has an autism diagnosis.
 
2-    The parents have been in the ER for 8 hours trying to get help for their teen son.  He is biting himself, raging, spitting and is restrained. He is non-verbal. He has an autism diagnosis.
 
3-    The girl keeps running back and forth, touching all of the pillows in a certain order. She has no speech.  She has an autism diagnosis.
 
4-    The toddler has rashes, ear infections, constipation or diarrhea and has temper tantrums daily. He has not used any new words in months. He has an autism diagnosis.
 
5-    The young man is fascinated with trains, repeating all facts, schedules, and histories of the enormous collection he owns. If one is out of place or missing, he will scream and rage. He has an autism diagnosis.

All of these children show signs of “autism” based on behaviors that define it.  Can one really “have” autism or can one be “autistic” based on these defined behaviors?

I have been writing about my experiences with Megan, my daughter, who was diagnosed in 1995 with autism.  That diagnosis was based solely on behaviors.  Since then, Megan has developed seizures and an autoimmune diagnosis.  She, like thousands of others, really has what is known as “regressive autism.”  They were developing normally and then after vaccination or illness, they became either acutely dysfunctional, or a gradual and insidious loss of language, connection to the world around them, and an increasing demand for obsessions and compulsions.  Megan’s regression was subtle after each vaccination then, accelerated after her MMR vaccine.  She developed a full body rash, fever and stopped talking. Vomiting, diarrhea, and reflux then began.  Her life has never been the same.  She was then to be diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder.

"Different” Autism - Different Microbial Populations and Locations?

Regressive autism was described well here, and it’s my springboard into the background of Meg’s autism diagnosis – her regression:

“Some cases of late-onset (regressive) autism may involve abnormal flora….Fecal flora of children with regressive autism was compared with that of control children, and clostridial counts were higher. The number of clostridial species found in the stools of children with autism was greater than in the stools of control children. Children with autism had 9 species of Clostridium not found in controls, whereas controls yielded only 3 species not found in children with autism. In all, there were 25 different clostridial species found….different types of autism and/or different degrees of severity of the process may be different in terms of whether there is an abnormal flora either in the colon (reflected in the feces) or in the small bowel, and perhaps these factors may even be associated with different specific flora and/or sites or degrees of abnormal colonization.”

Autism, the “brain” disorder, has a multitude of research showing exactly this – abnormal gut pathogens. The degree of severity of the behaviors in autism may be compared to what and where it is, in the GI and thus how it affects the brain:

Gut Reaction: Environmental Effects on the Human Microbiota

“Living with each of us—on our skin, in our mucosa, and in our gastrointestinal (GI) tract—are microorganisms whose numbers dwarf the number of our own cells and genes. Although some of these microbes are pathogens, most are harmless or even beneficial. The body’s assortment of microorganisms, collectively called the microbiota, is similar to an organ in that it performs functions essential for our survival. Some microbes produce vitamins and other essential nutrients. Many metabolize food that we can’t digest on our own. They also break down drugs and toxins, and regulate many aspects of innate and acquired immunity, protecting the host from infections and chronic inflammation, as well as possibly many immune-based disorders. And just as with the heart or the lungs, when an environmental agent alters the function of the microbiota, the result can be disease…..

 

Some research suggests the microbiota may also be implicated in neurologic conditions. There are multiple interfaces where the microbiota could impact our nervous system…The microbiota also produces metabolites that are absorbed into the bloodstream, and some of these metabolites can cross the blood–brain barrier…..research has suggested that ASDs may be related to an altered microbiota”

Autism and PANS

A good description of what seems to be happening in those who have an autism diagnosis and infections related to brain behaviors. Here is more:

Impact of innate immunity in a subset of children with autism spectrum disorders: a case control study 

By Teresa Conrick

CDC has a new page  freshly out on Friday the 13th.  In it, CDC tries to make the case that, “Among the most vulnerable for influenza-related conditions are children with neurologic conditions,” said Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC.”  Disability Scoop picked that up and posted it on their website:

“Despite an increased risk for complications from the flu, many children with intellectual disability, cerebral palsy and other disorders are not vaccinated to protect against the virus.” Though they call themselves, “The Premier Source for Developmental Disability News,” it does not seem that they included any other sources for this important  topic .

Another website also picked up this CDC “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR),” -- Autism Speaks:

 “Only half of children with neurologic or neurodevelopmental conditions received flu shots in 2011 and 2012, according to a study published this week in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.  The finding is of particular concern because these children are at high risk for flu-related complications. Among the most vulnerable are children with epilepsy, which frequently co-occurs with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).....“This is a serious issue,” says developmental pediatrician Dan Coury, medical director of Autism Speaks Autism Treatment Center. “Many families think of the flu as a nuisance illness. But it can lead to more severe complications, hospitalization and even death. Because of this, we began offering flu vaccine to our patients with ASD at our center four years ago......"

There seems to be a lot of information yet we are not told some very important facts that need to be included:

MITOCHONDRIAL DYSFUNCTION

Much research has shown autism to be related to mitochondrial dysfunction.  Vaccination can, for many of these vulnerable children, cause regression:

•         Redox metabolism abnormalities in autistic children associated with mitochondrial disease  

“….This study suggests that different subgroups of children with ASD have different redox abnormalities, which may arise from different sources. A better understanding of the relationship between mitochondrial dysfunction in ASD and oxidative stress, along with other factors that may contribute to oxidative stress, will be critical to understanding how to guide treatment and management of ASD children. This study also suggests that it is important to identify ASD/MD children as they may respond differently to specific treatments because of their specific metabolic profile…. Several reports have documented that inflammatory processes, especially involving fever, that are triggered by illnesses or vaccines, can result in neurodevelopmental regression, including regression into ASD, in children with underlying MD,73 even if MD was not diagnosed before the illness.74 Inflammation and inflammatory mediators can inhibit mitochondrial function30, 31, 32 and increased oxidative stress associated with inflammation may cause further mitochondrial dysfunction,33, 34 potentially leading to long-term mitochondrial damage.

By Teresa Conrick

“SINCE 1938, there have come to our attention a number of children whose condition differs so markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far that each case merits—and, I hope will eventually receive—a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities...."

That famous sentence from Dr. Leo Kanner has been ignored for far too long.  We, here at Age of Autism, believe that it is the first clue  in solving the epidemic cases of autism today. 

Kanner's terminology -- "fascinating peculiarities" -- has been the main focus of autism for seven decades.  Because he was a psychiatrist, autism was categorized as a mental disorder.  Since then, autism has become the focus of study after study, most about as far away from its true origin as possible.  I dare say that we are now – finally -- seeing the paradigm turning a bit faster. 
It was just last year that I reported  French doctors using antibiotics to treat autism, with some being cured of their symptoms: 

“…successive antibiotic treatments with accompanying medications induced in 60% of cases a significant improvement -- sometimes even a complete resolution of symptoms.  These children can now lead a normal school and family life."

Autism is creeping out of Psychiatry and instead, on its way to its correct destination – a NeuroImmune disease. Its “fascinating peculiarities,” are actually turning out to be a domino effect of a dysfunctional immune system.  The triad of symptoms that have historically described autism are actually the end result of an abnormal immune system, not an abnormal child:

-          difficulty with social interactions.

-          difficulty with language and other forms of communication, like gesturing or using facial expressions.

-          unusual, restricted or repetitive behaviors (also called “stereotyped” behaviors or stereotypies), which can involve either interests or actions.
 
 For the many thousands of parents, like myself, who have witnessed their child regress into autism, this is helpful and hopeful.  Many saw dramatic changes after vaccinations: rashes, gastrointestinal distress, vomiting, chronic sore throats, ear infections, and fevers.  Subtle or acute behaviors then emerged and those behaviors unfortunately became the focus.  That is beginning to change.

Autism Speaks seems to now be funding a study on immunotherapies and autism. This is a direct focus on the idea of immune dysfunction and autism - Anti-Neuronal Autoantibodies in PANDAS and Autism Spectrum Disorders

“Pediatric neuropsychiatric and movement disorders affect millions of children each year with devastating consequences on families. Work done over the past 12+ years has focused on understanding how infections and autoantibody responses affect the brain. The investigators have found that neuropsychiatric and movement disorders such as pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococci (PANDAS) are associated with a group of autoantibodies which may be elevated during disease symptoms and may signal neuronal cells in the brain. This project explores the hypothesis that autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated in some instances with PANDAS symptoms where the two diseases may be co-morbid…….This research has the potential to identify patients with autism who would benefit from immunotherapies or other PANDAS treatments.”

 I have been writing about both autism and PANDAS  as my own daughter, diagnosed with autism in 1995, is affected with chronic infections and now an autoimmune diagnosis.  I keep meeting more and more families who have children with autism, PANDAS or both.

By Teresa Conrick

It's in the news again.  Yet another study that shows a supposed cause to a future diagnosis of autism.  This time -- Induction and Augmentation -- I actually looked them both up to clarify what that meant:
 
".... When labor does not naturally start on its own and vaginal delivery needs to happen soon, labor may be started artificially (induced).....

Even though inducing labor is a fairly common practice, childbirth educators encourage women to learn about it and about the medicine for stimulating a stalled labor (augmentation) so that the women can help decide what is right for them.....

Oxytocin (Pitocin) can be given through a vein (intravenously) in small amounts to ripen the cervix. But it usually is given after the cervix softens, to cause the uterus to contract. Labor that is induced by oxytocin usually starts off harder and progresses faster than labor that starts on its own, especially in first-time mothers. If oxytocin does not induce labor or if the baby's heart rate indicates distress, a cesarean delivery (C-section) may be needed."

Interesting.  So here are some of the key parts about an alleged connection to autism that we are seeing from the mainstream media:

"Induced labor may increase risk of autism in offspring"

"Having labor that is induced or augmented may lead to a greater chance of having a child with autism, new research reveals.....Researchers looked at data from the North Carolina Detailed Birth Record and Education Research databases, which included 625,042 live births linked with school records. Of the group, 5,500 children had been diagnosed with autism.....Overall, the researchers estimated two out of every 1,000 autism cases in boys could potentially be prevented by not inducing or augmenting labor....C-sections did not affect the rate of autism. "

That's all over the news. 

Here's the actual pieces of the abstract : Association of Autism With Induced or Augmented Childbirth in North Carolina Birth Record (1990-1998) and Education Research (1997-2007) Databases 

"One in 88 children in the United States is diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder. Significant interest centers on understanding the environmental factors that may contribute to autism risk.....Compared with children born to mothers who received neither labor induction nor augmentation, children born to mothers who were induced and augmented, induced only, or augmented only experienced increased odds of autism....Our work suggests that induction/augmentation during childbirth is associated with increased odds of autism diagnosis in childhood. While these results are interesting, further investigation is needed to differentiate among potential explanations....."

By Teresa Conrick

It's been 70 years since Dr. Leo Kanner first diagnosed those original eleven children as having inborn autistic disturbance of affective contact.

"We must, then, assume that these children have come into the world with innate inability to form the usual, biologically provided affective contact with people, just as other children come into the world with innate physical or intellectual handcaps"
 
As the calendar pages fall, like a montage in a film, autism is now being seen as a whole-body medical illness, affecting the gastrointestinal system, the immune system and the brain.  Kanner was correct in his gathering of clues but so, so wrong on the true origin of autism's inception. The trigger for many children who regressed into autism has been reported to be vaccines, the mercury in them, mercury in the environment  and/or an immune response that is dysfunctional .  There is overlap as it is shown that mercury/thimerosal as well as bacteria and viruses, components in vaccines, can trigger immune and autoimmune issues.

Now read this recent conclusion  from Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology in the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Cambridge:

"Traditionally, anorexia has been viewed purely as an eating disorder. This is quite reasonable, since the girl’s dangerously low weight, and their risk of malnutrition or even death has to be the highest priority. But this new research is suggesting that underlying the surface behaviour, the mind of a person with anorexia may share a lot with the mind of a person with autism."
There is something similar here between Kanner and Baron-Cohen.  Psychiatry, a field of the mind, often with a focus on Freud or theory of mind...theories, continues to look at the clues of autism and mangle the hell out of them. The children and often times, the families, have been evaluated solely on behavior. That is wrong. Much research is showing that these disorders often times are immune-mediated.

In a nut shell, his study:

"The team led by Prof Simon Baron-Cohen tested 66 teenage girls with anorexia and found they had a higher than average number of autistic traits, a lower than typical empathy score and an above average interest in systems. This profile is parallel to that visible in autistic people but is less pronounced.....They were also less empathetic and had a higher interest in repeating patterns and predictable rule-based systems than the typical teenagers to whom they were compared."
But why does psychiatry not dig deeper?  Could there be connections here -- medical symptoms -- that need attention?  I did dig a bit and for starters, this whole autism and anorexia research seems to be years old -- and not originating from Baron-Cohen:

Anorexia could be linked to autism  25 April, 2009 | By Tulasi Sivapatham 

"In a study, published online in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, Janet Treasure and her colleagues found that there were significantly more people with eating disorders who have trouble modifying their behaviour in response to changing goals, something which is seen in ASDs.
In treating people with anorexia to not only see the fine details but also the bigger picture, mental health professionals hope patients will be less likely to obsess over body weight.

By Teresa Conrick

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Megan regressed into illness and then received an Autism diagnosis 18 years ago this coming September.  The memories of her infancy, vaccines, chronic infections, and then the DSM Autism diagnosis, play over and over in my mind ---- and in my heart.  Back then, I was mostly alone.  A marriage teetering and hidden family.  Nobody had a clue on how to help or what was really happening.  It was hell.  I didn't know all that I know now.
 
Things are quite different today as Autism is epidemic, yet still many people don't know how to help. I thought of that while driving recently on a 7 hour trip to Wisconsin and back in one day. More on that trip another time but nothing like blue skies, puffy white clouds and meandering cows to relax me.  But then there it was!  A black SUV with the bumper sticker - "AUTISM AWARENESS."  I began driving directly behind it for miles and kept thinking how the heck could no one be aware?  I decided to pass that SUV and let them see my bumper stickers -- "Think Autism, Think Cure",  "Age of Autism.com Supporter," "Callous Disregard-I Support Dr. Wakefield," and "The Canary Party." -- hoping for a toot or a friendly wave.  All I saw was a man and woman-- tired and barely talking.  There was no toot and it made me sad that they maybe were just starting this journey, with little knowledge and maybe little hope.  They exited off the highway, on to a different destination than me.
 
I am astonished that parents are still looking for AWARENESS and ACCEPTANCE when they could be looking for HOPE and TREATMENTS.  My solution -- I try to educate them, their families, friends, neighbors, at the store, at the park, through a mutual friend, etc. and especially here, at Age of Autism.  The truth is, I have been having a fantasy about this for awhile, that I need to share.  Maybe many of you have had it?  I want to win the lottery and I mean BIG!  Actually I need to win the lottery and here's why.
 
I need to win millions of dollars.  It's not for me, no,no-- though I would use it for the care of my daughters.  The fantasy is, I would quit my job for starters so I could take this money and really make an impact on this epidemic.
 
I would open hospitals, MEDICAL hospitals, not mental, to treat Autism and also PANDAS/PANS, as they are so related. Immune treatments, diet, pain management, etc. Too many of those diagnosed live daily in pain.  Meg has been one and I so empathize with other parents.  Our kids are very ill. 
 
Next, adult housing, for ALL symptoms and levels of functioning.  No more just for those who are able to work, in a city environment.  How about beautiful, in the country condos too, with organic farming and stores?  Post- age 21 classes on all different courses - all abilities. Day programs and residential communities that are safe havens and where parents can retire as well?  If you are ill in bed with arthritis pain or mitochondrial  exhaustion and seizures, you are cared for and not dumped because you are not working up to capacity.  No fear.  No abuse.

By Teresa Conrick

The research on maternal antibodies as a cause of some cases of autism continues to grow. From TIME this week: "Mother’s Antibodies May Explain a Quarter of Autism Cases"

In a study published in Translational Psychiatry, researchers report that 23% of all cases of autism may result from the presence of maternal antibodies that interfere with fetal brain development during pregnancy. The work builds on a 2008 study from the same scientists that first described the group of antibodies in mothers-to-be.

This is interesting and important work as we continue to see autism as a disorder with roots to the immune system. It did make me wonder if it was possible that the maternal immune activation discussed here as a cause in 23% of the cases could correlate to immune activation created artifically by influenza vaccination. It seemed a valid point and one worth investigating especially when I saw this, also in that TIME article:

The antibodies belong to a class of compounds called autoantibodies, which are immune cells that the body makes to target — often mistakenly — its own cells. Scientists do not know why or when the mothers produce these antibodies, which appear to monkey with normal nerve development in the fetal brain by interfering with their growth, migration and genetic replication. It is possible that infections during pregnancy — a known risk factor for autism —can prompt the immune system to produce them. Exposure to toxic chemicals can also cause immune defenders to mistake healthy cells for invaders, Van de Water notes.


Note the last two sentences - the first related to infection in pregnancy and the second to toxic chemicals.

Can infection in pregnancy cause autism? I wondered about that and did some background reading and wrote this article in January, "Can Influenza Vaccines Cause Maternal Immune Activation Linked To Autism?

Mothers who get the flu while pregnant could risk affecting their baby's brain, which might lead to 'infantile autism' in their child.

A Danish study shows that children were slightly more likely to be diagnosed with the condition before the age of three if their mother had the flu.

Researchers claim that when the mother's immune system is triggered - for example, when they have an influenza virus - it is possible that the foetus' developing brain could be affected.
But they have clarified that pregnant women and mothers should not be concerned by the findings, as only a tiny portion of those who had influenza gave birth to children with 'infantile autism' and that the research was so limited and early that no concrete findings had been discovered."

Interesting.  So why is it then that in 1918, the Great Influenza Epidemic swept the world, but yet autism was not identified nor described until Dr. Leo Kanner diagnosed it with those first eleven children born in the 1930's?:

“Since 1938 , there have come to our attention a number of children whose condition differs so markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far that each case merits—and, I hope will eventually receive—a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities...."

So let's look at the mechanism described:

"..the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6, which is known to induce placental inflammatory processes46 and has been shown to mediate the neurodevelopmental effects of gestational inflammation.47 It is possible that such inflammatory processes could be related to the production of maternal antibodies that recognize fetal antigens through maternal-fetal cross talk48 or that maternal antibody to antigen interactions may precipitate inflammation-induced neurodevelopmental alterations similarly to bacterial or viral challenge."

On July 14, 2003, Dr. Bernard Rimland, the man who changed the paradigm of autism, from the archaic and psychiatric, refrigerator families to instead children, who regressed into a medically treatable neurobehavioral illness -- wrote these words:

July 14, 2003

STATEMENT BY BERNARD RIMLAND, PH.D.
Director, Autism Research Institute
Editor, Autism Research Review International
Founder, Autism Society of America

THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC IS REAL, AND EXCESSIVE VACCINATIONS ARE THE CAUSE

The vaccine manufacturers, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA, and the various medical associations have failed miserably in their duty to protect our children. Rather than acknowledge their role in  creating the immense, catastrophic rise in autism, these organizations have resorted to denial and obfuscation. They stand to lose their credibility, and billions of dollars in liability suits will soon reach the courts.

As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and chagrined by the medical establishment's ongoing efforts to trivialize the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are the root cause of the epidemic. There are many consistent  lines of evidence implicating vaccines, and no even marginally plausible alternative hypotheses.

As the number of childhood vaccines has increased 700%, from 3 in the `70s to 22 in 2000, the prevalence of autism has also showed a parallel increase of 700%.

 Late onset autism, (starting in the 2nd year), was almost unheard of  in the `50s, `60s, and `70s; today such cases outnumber early onset cases 5 to 1, the increase paralleling the increase in required vaccines.

Thousands of parents report - and demonstrate with home videos -- that their children were normal and responsive until suffering an adverse vaccine reaction. (The Autism Research Institute has been tracking such autism-related vaccination reactions since 1967.)

Mercury, one of the most toxic substances known, is used as a preservative in many vaccines. Some infants have had 125 times the maximum allowable limit of mercury injected directly into their bloodstreams, in one day, in vaccines. (People vary enormously in their sensitivity to mercury, because certain genes predispose to mercury sensitivity. The highly-touted New
England Journal of Medicine  Danish study failed to mention the very convenient fact that none of the Danish children had prior exposure to mercury, since Denmark, unlike the U.S. had, banned mercury from childhood vaccines in 1992, the year before the birth year of the children in the study.)

There are numerous scientific studies showing large differences in clinical laboratory measures of blood, urine and biopsies which compare autistic children with normal controls. Such findings, pointing directly to vaccines as the cause of the group differences, are conveniently overlooked by those attempting to conceal the strong connection between the autism epidemic and excessive use of unsafe vaccines.

The truth must - and will - emerge. It is long overdue.

Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.
Director, Autism Research Institute
Editor, Autism Research Review International
Founder, Autism Society of America

I received that statement in an email from Dr. Rimland.  I had never met him personally but he had read a post from me as many of us, parents, were in yahoo groups back in the late 90's and into the new millennium. We were searching for answers on how to help our very sick kids who had been diagnosed with the DSM word – AUTISM.  I had shared how my daughter, Megan, born in 1993, had begun to speak and then gradually stopped before her 2nd birthday.  She also had many illnesses and behavioral changes: throwing up, diarrhea, rashes, fevers, banging her head, no eye contact, appeared deaf, happy to sad, outgoing to shy, began obsessive behaviors and then  -- was gone – but to the doctors - it was simply an autism diagnosis.

By Teresa Conrick

"SINCE 1938 there have come to our attention", is becoming a famous introductory description about autism. Written by psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Kanner, it began the narrative that described those first eleven children, all born in the 1930's, that he diagnosed as having "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact."  Kanner made it clear that autism was new and very different, and he offered this suggestion:

"..each case merits---and, I hope will eventually receive a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities."

Here at Age of Autism, we are kind of doing that.  In searching and finding  eight so far of those Kanner 11, we have seen mercury, especially the then-new ethyl mercury of the 1930's, in lumber treatments, fungicides and vaccines, show up as a common denominator in those families. Fascinating and telling as we look back in history.  Kanner had no idea but we do today.

Looking now, as he suggested, more closely at children with an autism diagnosis, can we see signs of this ethyl mercury connection today?  Let's see what the research shows:

Mitochondrial dysfunction has become a viable research avenue in autism especially as it was shown to cause regression into autism:

Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism

"Within 48 hours after immunizations to diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis; Haemophilus influenzae B; measles, mumps, and rubella; polio; and varicella (Varivax), the patient developed a fever to 38.9°C, inconsolable crying, irritability, and lethargy and refused to walk. Four days later, the patient was waking up multiple times in the night, having episodes of opistho-tonus, and could no longer normally climb stairs. Instead, she crawled up and down the stairs. Low-grade intermittent fever was noted for the next 12 days. Ten days following immunization, the patient developed a generalized erythematous macular rash beginning in the abdomen. The patient’s pediatrician diagnosed this as due to varicella vaccination. For 3 months, the patient was irritable and increasingly less responsive verbally, after which the patient’s family noted clear autistic behaviors, such as spinning, gaze avoidance, disrupted sleep/wake cycle, and perseveration on specific television programs. All expressive language was lost by 22 months."

The studies on "autism and mitochondrial" currently number 158 via Pubmed.

Can mercury or Thimerosal be involved in mitochondrial issues?

According to Pubmed, 344 studies are available to investigate.

Here's one:

"Mercury induces mitochondrial dysfunction with reduction in adenosine triphosphate, depletion of glutathione, and increased lipid peroxidation. Increased oxidative stress and reduced oxidative defense are common." 

Many children with an autism diagnosis also have those exact biological markers:
Increased excretion of a lipid peroxidation biomarker in autism.

Children With Autism Have Mitochondrial Dysfunction, Study Finds

"less capability to produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate)"..."Giulivi and her colleagues found that hydrogen peroxide levels in autistic children were twice as high as in normal children. As a result, the cells of children with autism were exposed to higher oxidative stress."

By Teresa Conrick

Dr. Mercola recently had an article about Round Up   and its many effects on the body, specifically gut bacteria:
 
" Your gut bacteria are a key component of glyphosate’s mechanism of harm, as microbes have the pathway used by glyphosate to kill weeds

•  Glyphosate causes extreme disruption of microbes’ functions and lifecycles. What’s worse, glyphosate preferentially affects beneficial bacteria, allowing pathogens to overgrow."
 
Pathogens to overgrow.  For many of the children with an autism diagnosis, pathogens and infections are a constant battle.  In recent years, children are also receiving diagnoses of PANDAS or PANS, both with and without autism.  Connections?  Causation? A new lab has opened   to actually test for these microbes:
 
" This perplexing neurologic condition is believed to be associated with an autoimmune response triggered by commonly occurring infections which result in a patient’s antibodies targeting neurologic receptors in the body.."
 
Interesting and makes sense based on much of what is being learned about infections and how they can cause neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases.  But is that the entire equation?  Quite possibly not:
 
June 5, 2013  -- "Gut Bacteria Play Key Role In Vaccination" 
 
"The bacteria that live in the human gut may play an important role in immune response to vaccines and infection by wild-type enteric organisms, according to two recent studies resulting from a collaborative effort between the University of Maryland School of Medicine Institute for Genome Sciences and the Center for Vaccine Development.....This research provides a window into how vaccines and resistance to enteric pathogens work. It also helps scientists understand more about how the "good" bacteria in the body affect human health, a growing area of research known as the human microbiome.....The scientists found that more diversity in the gut microbiota may enable more robust immune responses to the vaccine....."These studies were performed to evaluate the hypothesis that the gut microbiota composition may impact the response to vaccination or exposure to enteric pathogens in humans and non-human primates."

By Teresa Conrick

In 2012 at Autism One, I met Nicholas Glenski, a young man who said he hoped to "go the distance" and one day, cure himself of autism. He was so enthusiastic and inspired by so many speakers last year that now one year later, he, himself was a speaker at Autism One -- and he did a beautiful job!

I have to confess, when Nicholas called me one evening during the winter months and told me that he was giving a talk on autism and his road to recovery, I was nervous for him as I thought how could he talk about so many issues regarding treatments? Well, being the tenacious teen that he is, Nicholas simply decided to pick up the phone and call researchers, reach out to moms on FB who were treating their own children, and seek out help by reading all he could.

His dad, Richard, told me that this journey first started three years ago in St. Louis when he took Nicholas to an autism conference and they heard Temple Grandin speak. That set off a spark in Nicholas and then a profound desire to learn more, especially when he met a biochemist there who talked about biomedical treatments for autism. One of Temple's books was bought that night, and Nicholas was later reading it voraciously when he accidentally left it in his dad's car between visits. His dad saw it and decided to read it as well. He too felt more inspired, and when he heard that Temple herself was coming to St. Louis for a presentation, Richard surprised Nicholas by taking him there. Nicholas has since told me that Jenny's McCarthy's focus on her son's journey to recovery has made Nicholas a huge fan and also an avid believer in biomedical treatments for autism. Nicholas then began researching for himself because as he stated:

"I was trapped in my body.  I could not get out."

By Teresa Conrick

 

By Teresa Conrick

It was a very warm September night in 2008 when I first met with Dan Olmsted. I had first seen Dan in a large auditorium at an autism conference a few years earlier. He had been up on the stage in a plaid shirt, talking about mercury, seeds, and Ceresan. With glasses and a laid back way about him, he seemed like Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper in Jaws, ready, willing, and able to take on Autism's menacing monster -- MERCURY.

 I didn't understand why this "lumberjack guy" was talking to all of us parents about trees, Lignasan, and ethylmercury. My daughter became sickly and regressed in skills after vaccines -- many with the vaccine mercury called thimerosal. Bacterial and viral infections were then to be constant unwanted parasites in her life as her immune system took a direct hit. Meg was diagnosed with autism shortly after and just recently has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. Dan seemed to me to be on the wrong trail. It took me a while to connect the research and see that these clues Dan, along with Mark Blaxill, had been discussing and writing about for quite some time were the first "puzzle" pieces to autism.

So on that September night, I was grateful and excited to finally meet with Dan. He had contacted me as he was coming into town to visit his sister, and wanted to know if I could meet them for dinner. I had become entranced with those children of the 1930s, those first canaries in the debut of mercury-containing vaccines, who were subsequently declared to have "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact". I had e-mailed Dan and Mark over the years as they researched their book, The Age of Autism -- Mercury, Medicine and a Man-made Epidemic. My father had been an ophthalmologist and surgeon from the 1940s until the 1980s, and thimerosal, the ethylmercury preservative, was a heavily used medical product in that field, too, and in his own office. 

Over dinner, after we shared stories and tears about my daughter's descent into illness after vaccines and the ultimate reality of severe autism, Dan pulled out a crisply, folded copy from his jacket pocket of Leo Kanner's 1971 paper, "Follow-up Study of Eleven Autistic Children Originally Reported in 1943" . Dan and his sister, Rosie, were both so encouraging as he invited me to make history and help trace the roots of autism. It was an easy answer for me, "Yes!" Dan and Mark had already found some of the "original 11," so I knew it could be done and I was ready for the challenge.

Finding the clues to how autism first appeared was like trying to hit a bullseye; slowly, we got closer and closer. To find the cause, we had to go back -- back to the start.

--

Dan also shared about GPI, General Paralysis of the Insane, a horrific neurodegenerative disease that had quite an interesting story. GPI historically was seen as the end result of the sexually transmitted disease syphilis, a sly spirochete bacteria very similar to the spirochete of Lyme bacteria today, sickening the brain and rendering its victim slowly insane, finally losing the ability to talk, walk or recognize anyone. Yet Dan and Mark's research showed that GPI only seemed to occur in syphilis patients who had been treated with mercury, a standard of care for centuries up to the era of antibiotics that arrived with penicillin in the 1940s. Like acrodynia in childhood, a disease connected to mercury  in teething powders, GPI began to disappear when antibiotics took over as the treatment of choice. It seemed to be a possible interaction between the microbe of syphilis and mercury  that sparked GPI. State mental institutions around the country had thousands of GPI patients, often for years, as their insanity whittled them down to a shell of their former selves.

By Teresa Conrick, Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill
 
We found her.
 
Eight years after setting out to identify the 11 children in the first medical report of autism, we have found “Virginia S.”, the eldest child in that landmark paper -- and thus the first-born child of the Age of Autism.

Her real name: Vivian Ann Murdock. Born in 1931, Vivian was placed in a Maryland institution at age 6 and died in a state-run home in 1987, age 56. She was the daughter of a prominent Baltimore psychiatrist, Harry M. Murdock, and his wife, Margaret.

The key to finding her real name was the recent online publication of the 1940 U.S. Census – allowing one of us (Teresa) to test her hunch about the institution to which"Virginia" had been committed as a child: The Rosewood School in Owings Mills. The hunch was correct; the Census listed an "Inmate" there named Vivian Murdock, age 8 in 1940, who we conclusively identified as "Virginia S."

In Dan and Mark's The Age of Autism – Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic, published in 2010, we described the seven children we'd identified to that point, and wrote of “Virginia”: “We continue to search for this eldest child of the Age of Autism and whatever clues her identity may hold.”
 
Now, having spoken with family members, and pored over countless records and archives, we believe her identity does offer important clues, ones remarkably consistent with the other cases in that first report -- exposure to new mercury compounds in their families. 
 
Vivian was directly in the path of at least three mercury vectors:

-- the first use of mercury-preserved vaccines in Baltimore -- a drive to vaccinate every infant with those shots began the month she was born;

-- her parents' avocation of orchid growing and breeding, which required intensive application of chemicals including mercury;

-- and her father’s psychiatric career, which brought him – and probably his family through second-hand exposure – in contact with mercury treatments for a common form of insanity.

Mercury is no longer used in agriculture or mental health treatment. But each year, 100 million children worldwide get vaccines containing thimerosal, the ethylmercury preservative first used in those shots in Baltimore. In the United States, flu shots, most of which contain mercury, are recommended for pregnant women and for infants beginning at 6 months of age.

Our research on Vivian and the other first cases of autism suggests that is a very bad idea. 

Vivian’s identity also offers insight into how the damaging idea of “refrigerator parents” – supposedly cold and neglectful mothers and fathers responsible for causing their children's disorder -- got its start. We will explain these clues and conclusions in detail, but first the basics about the discovery of Vivian Murdock.

--

Seventy years ago this month, in April 1943, a psychiatry journal called The Nervous Child published an article titled “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact.” Written by Leo Kanner, a Johns Hopkins child psychiatrist who is widely considered the founder of the field, it begins:
 
“SINCE 1938, there have come to our attention a number of children whose condition differs so markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far, that each case merits -- and, I hope, will eventually receive -- a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities.” Elsewhere, he called it "a behavior pattern not known to me or anyone else theretofore."
 
The three of us have always found those words remarkable, coming as they did from an acknowledged authority who eight years earlier had catalogued every known childhood mental disability in his landmark 500-page book  “Child Psychiatry.” Those pages contained not a whisper of autism, or anything that in retrospect looks similar.
 
Our own research convinced us the autism rate before 1930 was effectively zero (it is now 1 in 50). A handful of cases over several centuries might conceivably qualify, but there was nothing approaching the cluster of children whose worried parents brought them to see Leo Kanner in the years between 1938 and 1943.
 
Curious whether the family backgrounds of those first 11 cases might point to common environmental exposures, we began trying to identify them in 2005. The eight boys and three girls were described in the paper only by a first name and last initial. But because Kanner gave birth years for each child, we knew that “Virginia S.” was the oldest; her birthday was listed as September 13, 1931. Even as the number of autistic children seen by Kanner rose in later years, none appears to have been born earlier. (In a 1955 update, Kanner revisited his first 42 cases. The oldest autistic person at that point was 24 -- born in 1931 and presumably Virginia S.)

 We began our hunt with Kanner’s original 1943 "Autistic Disturbances" report and a follow-up paper he wrote in 1971. (In the latter paper, he slipped once and referred to “Virginia S.” by what we now know is her real first name, Vivian.) In “Autistic Disturbances,” he quoted a psychologist noting that Virginia “could respond to sounds, the calling of her name, and the command, ‘Look!’

 “She pays no attention to what is said to her,” the psychologist said, “but quickly comprehends whatever is expected. Her performance reflects discrimination, care, and precision. … She is quiet, solemn, composed. Not once have I seen her smile. She retires within herself, segregating herself from others. She seems to be in a world of her own …”

By Teresa Conrick

It's official.  According to a press release, today April 22nd, Moleculera Lab's website will be live, to start sharing information about testing for Pandas/Pans. I have been writing about PANDAS and PANS for the past few years as they seem related to Autism, and for many of our children, much suffering.

From their website - What is PANDAS and PANS, and now--- CANS?:

"PANDAS is an acronym for "Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococci". PANDAS was first reported over a decade ago by Dr. Susan Swedo at the NIH, and affects children abruptly after streptococcal infections.  Childhood Acute Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (CANS) and Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS) are proposed as a new, broader classification that would expand both the etiological infectious agents and the clinical manifestations, to the current description of PANDAS^. This is an important development since there are reported cases of patients fulfilling the clinical criteria of PANDAS but laboratory studies are negative for a recent group A streptococcal infection. Published reports have postulated that stress  as well as other types of infections can result in neuropsychiatric conditions, which include Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease), Mycoplasma pneumonia, herpes simplex, common cold and varicella viruses^."

How will testing help PANDAS/PANS/CANS and many childen also with an AUTISM diagnosis?

"Moleculera Labs provides personalized clinical testing services for individuals suspected of suffering from PANDAS/PANS, which are treatable neurologic conditions that may be associated with motor tics, obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD) and sometimes Autism Spectrum Disorders. This perplexing neurologic condition is believed to be associated with an autoimmune response triggered by commonly occurring infections which result in a patient’s antibodies targeting neurologic receptors in the body.."

This is very good news, and I am very thankful to Dr. Cunningham and her lab. Since Megan has an Autism diagnosis, an autoimmune diagnosis, and has had symptoms of PANDAS/PANS over the years, it is significant to finally be able to connect the many children and young adults who have tics, ocd, issues with eating, food and GI pain, rashes, agitation, aggression, sleep issues, enuresis, anxiety, hallucinations, regression in behaviors, regression in academics, and the gut wrenching effect of all of this on the families. Real medical treatments are essential.

By Teresa Conrick

The damage that mercury can cause to a body, continues to grow.  This recent study, Mercury Exposure in Young Adulthood and Incidence of Diabetes Later in Life: The CARDIA trace element study,  shows us the insidious nature of this poisonous toxin. Mercury compounds are known for their acute effects but less has been studied on long term effects.  This study did just that and the results are alarming, yet not surprising to those of us who have been sounding our own alarm about mercury's danger here, at Age of Autism.

Some caveats from the abstract:

-   Laboratory studies suggest that exposure to methylmercury at a level similar to those found in fish may induce pancreatic islet β-cell dysfunction.

-   We examined whether toenail mercury levels are associated with incidence of diabetes in a large prospective cohort.

-    A prospective cohort of 3,875 American young adults, aged 20-32 years, free of diabetes in 1987 (baseline), were enrolled and followed six times until 2005.

-    A total of 288 incident cases of diabetes occurred over 18 years of follow-up.

-    ....toenail mercury levels were positively associated with the incidence of diabetes.

The full study is only available with a subscription/purchase so I was able to read that for more information.  The authors do describe how mercury is a toxin with widespread effects in both the organic and inorganic form.  They also commented that it is fish consumption and amalgam fillings that are the major sources of exposure.  They further elaborated that the mercury in fish consumption are at levels that can induce oxidative stress.  That seems very significant and they do say that is the reason for the pancreatic islet b-cell dysfunction. They actually showed in a mouse that even low levels of mercury can cause pancreatic islet b-cell dysfunction.  This should be national news as the devastating health effects have been shown.