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By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Oct. 24, 2005 at 8:35 PM

Throughout the 1920s a scientist named Morris Kharasch filed a blizzard of applications with the U.S. Patent Office.

In 1924: “The present invention relates to the production of water soluble organo-metallic compounds … including mercury. … This invention is of particular importance in connection with the organic compounds having germicidal or therapeutic value.”

In 1926: “This invention relates to the treatment of infections of soil, and more particularly to the use of mercury and other compounds in conjunction with a fertilizer and its application to the infected soil.”

Kharasch, who died in 1957, is widely known for work reflected in that 1924 patent: the creation of thimerosal, the ethyl-mercury-based preservative used in a wide range of medical products including vaccines. It allowed for multidose vials and mass vaccination.

Less recognized is his invention of similar ethyl-mercury applications for fungicides, reflected in that 1926 patent for “the treatment of infections of soil.”

Until now, a possible link between ethyl mercury and autism has focused on vaccines. But what about fungicides? In the last column we outlined a new theory by Mark Blaxill, research chair of the advocacy group SafeMinds.

Blaxill’s theory is simple: The possibility of fungicide exposure connects some of the first 11 cases diagnosed by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner. The most striking: Case 2, the son of a plant pathologist, and Case 3, the son of a forestry professor at a southern university.

Case 1, Donald T., grew up in a small Mississippi town surrounded by land that was being heavily planted with tree seedlings by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The idea that ethyl mercury — in vaccines or anything else — causes autism is hotly debated. The notion has been firmly rejected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Science. (In 1999 manufacturers were asked to phase out thimerosal in routine childhood vaccines; fungicides no longer use mercury.)

No one doubts, however, that ethyl mercury is a potent neurotoxin especially dangerous to the developing brains of infants. The question: Did “domesticating” it inadvertently trigger the age of autism?

“What’s fascinating is if you look at the natural history of autism and ethyl mercury, there’s a pretty interesting coincidence in time and place,” said SafeMinds’ Blaxill.

— A trademark for “Merthiolate,” the brand name for thimerosal, was filed in 1928. Kharasch was the inventor. Innovations included water solubility, compound stability and effectiveness.

— A trademark for “Ceresan,” an ethyl-mercury-based fungicide, was filed in 1929. Kharasch and Max Engelmann were the inventors. Innovations included organic mercury usage, methods of delivery and compound stability.

— The oldest child diagnosed with autism was Virginia S., born in 1931. That is the first year records refer to thimerosal in vaccines.

— In Europe, the first child that pediatrician Hans Asperger diagnosed with a similar disorder was Fritz V., born in 1933. His mother talked of trips to her “beloved mountains.”

— A German company manufactured a brand of ethyl-mercury fungicide.

Blaxill notes that Kharasch’s work had enormous impact. He was a founder of the Journal of Organic Chemistry and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Kharasch came to Chicago from the Ukraine at the age of 13, and spent most of his professional career at the University of Chicago,” according to the Web site of the University of Michigan Chemistry Department. “Kharasch brought free radicals, previously considered esoteric species, into the mainstream of organic chemistry.

“Kharasch made pioneering studies on organomercurials important in agriculture (as seed disinfectants) and medicine (the antiseptic merthiolate).”

We asked Boyd Haley, a professor and former chair of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky, to look at the early ethyl mercury fungicide and thimerosal patents.

“You’re on to something,” said Haley, who is controversial for his belief that mercury is behind a range of neurological disorders including autism.

“The whole problem — and if you read these patents, it just jumps out at you — is that ethyl mercury was not water-soluble. You had no delivery. All Kharasch did was really very simple straightforward chemistry. He coupled ethyl mercury to an organic acid to make it water-soluble.”

Haley speculated that if ethyl-mercury-based fungicides caused some of the early cases, it might have been because the fathers got it on their clothes, sprayed it on their gardens or used it in their labs to control fungus.

“If they ever took any home or got it on their hands, they could end up with big problems,” Haley said.

Next, we’ll look at other countries’ use of fungicides for more possible dots to connect.

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Oct. 17, 2005 at 6:08 PM

Until now, the debate over a possible link between ethyl mercury and autism has focused on its use in vaccines beginning in the 1930s, when the first children diagnosed with the disorder were born.

But medicines were not the only commercial products to harness this highly toxic form of mercury. Starting about the same time, ethyl-mercury-based fungicides appeared on the market.

In fungicides as well as vaccines, ethyl mercury did the same job — it killed micro-organisms including fungi and bacteria. Fungicides, in fact, appear to have been a much more common application of ethyl mercury than vaccinations in their first decades of use.

Now Mark Blaxill, whose group SafeMinds opposes the use of mercury in medicines, is putting forward a new hypothesis: Fungicide exposure might help connect the dots in the very first reported cases of autism. His theory sprang from a discussion with Age of Autism about the natural history of the disorder, the focus of this ongoing series.

Many experts — including child psychiatrist Leo Kanner, who first diagnosed autism as a separate disorder in 1943 — have puzzled over the demographic of the first families of autistic children: The parents were notably well-educated and accomplished. Many had advanced degrees and were doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, professors.

That common bond led some researchers to conclude brainy, “geeky” parents might be prone to having autistic children. Others believe that such families — affluent, medically sophisticated and well-educated — were the likeliest to vaccinate their children at a time when that was not routine.

Just about everyone thinks it’s a clue, and Blaxill’s hypothesis is a new way of interpreting that clue. But is there anything to suggest an association between exposure to fungicide and those early autism cases? Consider two of the first 11 cases described by child psychiatrist Kanner in his landmark 1943 paper:

— Case 2, Frederick W., born in 1936, was the son of “a university graduate and a plant pathologist” who “traveled a great deal in connection with his work,” Kanner wrote.

“A plant pathologist is a professional who specializes in plant health much as a physician specializes in human health,” according to the American Phytopathological Society. “Keeping plants healthy requires an understanding of the organisms and agents that cause disease as well as an understanding of how plants grow and are affected by disease. … Plant diseases are caused by a variety of living organisms (called pathogens) such as fungi … “

— Case 3, Richard M., born in 1937, was the son of “a professor of forestry in a southern university. He is very much immersed in his work, almost entirely to the exclusion of social contacts.”

Playing out this scenario, it might be pertinent that Richard’s father worked in the south; fungus is a big problem in that hot, humid climate.

Another child — Case 1, Donald T. — was also from the south, making that the only geographic link cited in Kanner’s original study.

Donald’s Mississippi home — at age 72, he still lives in the small town he grew up in — is surrounded by land that was clear-cut before the Depression. By the early 1930s the area was being planted with thousands of seedlings by workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps. Donald was born there in 1933.

Possibly relevant: The father of Case 8, Alfred L., was a chemist-lawyer at the U.S. Patent Office, perhaps involved with new chemical compounds. Another — the father of Paul G., Case 4 — was a mining engineer, which could have exposed him to toxins including heavy metals like mercury.

This approach puts the focus not on the advanced education of the fathers of the first autistic children, but on what they did with that education. It fits with a view this column expressed earlier this year: “What really connects these first families is more precise and less bizarre than an ‘intellect’ effect: It is a college education, defining the parents of these early autistic children by what they did (go to college) instead of who they were (brainiacs).”

But we noted this “raises an unpleasant prospect: Some outside factor, unique to that remarkably homogeneous group at that time, could have triggered autism in their children — and then spread.”

There is no question that commercial use of ethyl mercury began spreading widely in the 1930s — in vaccines as the preservative thimerosal, allowing for multi-dose vials and mass vaccination; and in fungicides as the active ingredient, protecting nascent plants, crops and trees.

— “A History of Plant Pathology in Virginia” quotes from a 1937 edition of the magazine Southern Planter. An ethyl-mercury fungicide “was recommended for cabbage, peas, and watermelon … (and) cotton seed treatment … for control of damping-off and seed rot.”

— The Northwest Monthly of the University of Minnesota Agriculture School reported in 1936 that seed wheat should be treated with a “new improved” ethyl-mercury-based fungicide “at the rate of 1/2 oz. per bushel of seed. At present this treatment is recommended since it controls covered smut and other seedborne diseases and may increase the emergence of seedlings considerably.”

In the 1920s the same scientist who invented thimerosal also patented the technique for making ethyl-mercury-based fungicides. He appeared to be working on both applications simultaneously, and he succeeded by solving the same problem: Making ethyl mercury water-soluble, harnessing it for commercial use.

“Ethyl mercury does something unexpected,” SafeMinds’ Blaxill said in explaining how environmental exposure might trigger autism. “It delivers the toxic form of mercury to an infant brain more efficiently than any other common mercury compound.”

Once there, he said, it is turned into inorganic mercury that “has no way back out of the brain and into the body.” And inorganic mercury, Blaxill said, is the pathway by which “sub-clinical exposures have damaging effects on brain tissue.”

We’ll pursue this possible pathway from environment to infant in upcoming columns.

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Health Editor   |   Oct. 12, 2005 at 1:42 PM

This column receives a welcome avalanche of correspondence, but our recent discussion of autism as a “whole-body illness” has generated more e-mail and faster than any other topic we’ve considered.

The mail comes mostly in three varieties — parents telling their own tales of battling multiple illnesses and disorders in their autistic children; describing what they believe to be significant improvement through biomedical approaches; and venting anger at pediatricians for failing to see the disorder the way they do.

Matt Mester of Morganville, N.J., neatly summed up those aspects: “My child is toxic and needs to be detoxified.” Here is his letter.

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As a father of a 5 1/2-year-old boy diagnosed with autism at age 2, I have followed your series very closely.

My son also exhibits a series of biomedical problems that are completely out of the ordinary compared to my other 2 children (both neuro-typical), not to mention my wife and myself. Jack is virtually non-verbal and would be classified as severe, although thankfully Jack is not self-destructive and he is a happy boy.

He cannot tolerate dairy or soy, has had chronic constipation since infancy, and has terrible seasonal allergies. Like too many other children, Jack has regressive autism, which became apparent at approximately 18 months of age when he lost his language as well as his interest in the world.

Thankfully, the medical science field has progressed since he was first diagnosed 3 years ago, and we are seeing our first bit of significant improvement in Jack since we started Methyl B-12 shots and glutathione treatments this past summer.

In addition, a very recent blood test has revealed an underlying metabolic problem that will apparently need to be addressed — we are still awaiting detailed results of a series of tests to lead us in the right medical direction.

I’d like to specifically comment on a statement published in your most recent article, quoting a parent: “Autism is a disease that affects the immune, GI and central nervous system.” I honestly disagree with this opinion and offer the opposite conclusion.

In my humble opinion, there is no such thing as autism. Autism is a series of symptoms caused by one of a number of underlying medical issues — most highly related to metabolic or detoxification problems. These problems are more than likely genetic, yet triggered by an environmental cause.

I believe that each child needs to be individually diagnosed and tested, as autism is a very personal disease, therefore studying and revealing as many possible treatment paths is the right thing to do. There is no cure-all, rather there are a number of paths that must be followed until you find the right one. And unfortunately, all of the paths have yet to be identified.

While I’m not certain that thimerosal (a mercury-based vaccine preservative) or mercury caused my son’s symptoms to appear, I’m becoming more and more certain that my child is, for lack of a better word, toxic, and needs to be detoxified. His improvement with B-12 and glutathione is proving it to me once and for all.

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Here is another representative letter, from Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Haite of Kingston, Mass.

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We are certain there are medical issues at the forefront of our ten-year-old son’s autism. Sadly, they were missed by mainstream doctors for most of his early years. When we received his diagnosis there were no blood tests, screenings or medical work-ups. Most simply advised therapeutic services which in turn had to be obtained through adversarial means with our school district.

As we watched our son physically decline and had our concerns dismissed time and time again, my husband and I often thought of just driving to the emergency room of a major hospital in Boston and refusing to leave until we had answers.

Instead in 2001, I wrote the exact same letter to my son’s physician, his neurologist and a doctor whom I had never met, but heard was having success treating children on the spectrum. The letter outlined all our concerns regarding ear infections, frequent antibiotic use, a multiple-vaccination schedule, suspected food intolerances, eczema-type skin rashes, pale skin coloring, the inability to tan or burn, imbalance of bowel ecology, poor protein digestion, chronic diarrhea followed by episodes of constipation, and malabsorption issues.

Further, our son presented with no protective antibody to Hepatitis B and elevated titers to measles. He also had nutritional and metabolic deficiencies as well as elevated HHV-6 and heavy metal toxicity. We did not receive any response from the aforementioned pediatrician and neurologist.

Thankfully, the physician we never met, Dr. Jacquelyn McCandless, responded to our request. She reviewed his entire medical history from birth and validated most if not all of our concerns. She recommended further testing and proposed treatment protocols that was the first real medical attention our son ever received. Improvements followed and we continue to address these issues today.

We parents have every reason to be angry with the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), but frankly we don’t have time for that, because of the intense commitment to help our son. It is a double tragedy … not only in what we believe to be the root cause of our son’s autism (thimerosal/vaccine additive connection) but the way we were treated along the way.

Initially, we completely stepped up to our parental roles and did not wallow in “How did this happen?” but rather “How do we help?” The AAP did not. Ironically, it was only until we did the work to understand “how this happened” that we could truly help our son.

We struggle daily to work with and celebrate gains made … but perhaps our son’s treatment and outcome potential would be far less challenging had our concerns not been dismissed early on.

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Last, here is a letter that suggests why a sense of urgency and openness is so desperately needed in dealing with a disorder that the CDC says afflicts 1 in 166 American kids. We withheld the name.

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My son is 7 years old and I’m concerned about his future as an autistic adult. A little at a time I’m beginning to realize that his autistic behaviors are not changing that much, and that as he grows, he’s becoming a larger body with the same behaviors.

I saw (ABC TV’s) “Nightline” the other night and, for the first time, saw an autistic adult. There is no information out there on the subjects of teen years and adult years, and what to expect for elderly years for autistic children. I cannot bear the thought of my son in a mental institution just to have a place to live when he grows old.

For now, we’ve started a trust fund for him so that maybe when he becomes old enough, he’ll have money to have someone take care of him when we’re gone. Is this the right thing to do? What else do I need to do?

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Oct. 10, 2005 at 1:03 PM

In our last column, “A whole-body illness,” we wrote: “Something is medically wrong with many, many autistic children. To be more precise, many things are wrong with them. Yet autism is defined by the health authorities as a mental disorder, diagnosed solely by observation.”

That prompted lots of e-mails from parents describing all kinds of ailments that, taken together, suggest a pattern of pervasive illness in some people who have autism.

With the American Academy of Pediatrics now holding its annual convention in Washington, we decided to share some excerpts and ask two questions they might want to address: What is wrong with these kids, and why are so many parents so angry at so many of you?

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My 14-year-old son with Asperger’s Syndrome has several things in common with other parents that I know with kids in the Autistic Spectrum.

1. Abnormal Immune System. He has asthma and is allergic to dust, animals, pollen, and mold. He has gotten allergy shots since he was six and must have them bimonthly.

2. Abnormal Gastrointestinal System. He has recurrent bouts of diarrhea with fever and stomach aches, and occasional vomiting. All tests come back negative. Has very large amounts of gas.

3. Red ears. His ears become beet red and are very hot to the touch for no apparent reason.

All these main symptoms are common in the AS children that I know.

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I would just like to add that my 13-year-old son, newly diagnosed as high-functioning autistic, has had immune problems his whole life. He had a huge history of ear infections (tubes inserted by 11 months old), inexplicable high fevers (105 plus) with no other symptoms, a histiocytoma (tumor in his femur, immune system related) and most recently a halo nevus (immune system attacking a mole on his back).

He has a large list of learning disabilities, but I’ve had trouble finding a doctor that can add all of this up. I think each thing adds up to the whole of him being autistic, but the doctors only see each individual problem for what it is.

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I just wanted to add my testimony to those whom you quoted. Our son is 4.5 and was diagnosed with autism two years ago immediately following a series of ear infections, the most severe of which left enough fluid in his ears to cause moderate hearing loss. I had always suspected that his autism was caused by something physical, some illness in his body, but none of the professionals we consulted took my suspicions seriously.

Then about 10 months ago we had our first consultation with a DAN doctor (Defeat Autism Now doctors use biomedical treatments for autism symptoms).

We went through many tests to determine our child’s physical state, and we took him off casein and gluten and began vitamin therapy.

Within three weeks after changing his diet, he began to speak in full sentences, and actually look at us and respond to us when we asked him questions. We are continuing with biomedical treatments and he is continuing to improve.

No one can tell me that his abrupt, dramatic turnaround was simply coincidental with starting this biomedical treatment. I know that my little guy, like many other children diagnosed with autism, has some serious health issues that are impairing his ability to communicate and interact. Thank you for bringing these issues into the mainstream.

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My son also shows allergies by both blood and skin tests to every food he eats, has ever eaten, and many he has never tried. When two years old, an Ig panel was run for an unrelated condition (pneumonia) — IgE levels 10,000 times above normal.

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“Autism is a disease that affects the immune, GI and central nervous system” — This is our experience absolutely.

Our son is now adult, 22 years old. We continue to try to find things to help him. He was in and out of hospitals and doctors’ offices for the first few years of his life. We’ve just about given up on regular medicine at this point as our son is allergic to most drugs anyway.

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I would agree that autism has some form of physical symptoms as well. My son who is sixteen has had chronic ear infections up to about seven or eight. He was on so many antibiotics that I got tired of filling the prescriptions and stopped at one point. The ear infections seemed to clear up on their own.

He has had many rashes due to drugs he has been given such as codeine for tonsillitis, and penicillin. He has food allergies. He has learned what foods agree with him and ones that do not. All trial and error on his own.

Sometimes he does not appear to be as “autistic” as other times. He is not retarded but he struggles socially.

We don’t go to doctors anymore. I don’t like being bullied and made to feel stupid. I would only go to a doctor for accident-related events.

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My nine-year-old grandson had numerous ear infections when he was about 15 months old and a two-week-long bout of diarrhea as well. He has only said a word or two since then, so he can’t tell us how he feels. He puts his fingers in his ears a lot, so he must be supersensitive to sound (I’ve seen a few other autistic children do this as well).

His ears and sometimes his face also turn red a number of times during the day (but my 88-year-old mother apparently has had that symptom although she has always been incredibly healthy). He has good days when he seems “more normal” to us and lifts our spirits, but on other days I know he is not feeling well because he is more short-tempered about everything.

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I have a 20 year old autistic daughter. I cannot believe the lack of understanding associated with this condition! I thought I was the only one to notice all these other “trends.” I am not a doctor but after 20 years of this I feel like I could take a test and get my degree within the week.

Doctors and scientists obviously are NOT listening to parents.

My daughter has always had bowel issues, swallowing problems, allergies, ear infections and, though youthful genes run in my family, she looks 12 at the age of 20. Now as she is becoming a young woman, it has become painfully obvious to me that hormones are wreaking havoc on my precious daughter. The one “expert” I spoke with about this subject knew nothing.

I will not, and cannot afford to, put my daughter through the insanity of the medical system, trying to find a doctor that knows what they are doing. We deal with her autism and its adverse symptoms with a holistic agenda. We control her diet and use supplements, and maintain a very open and honest line of communication.

Which is almost an oxymoron. That communication consists of me digging and dragging bits and pieces of information out of her and putting it together like a puzzle. I maintain a constant vigil of reading and listening to all the latest research and information. The most accurate and effective information I have ever attained is the experience of other parents.

Why can’t medical science see the obvious?

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Health Editor   |   Oct. 4, 2005 at 4:29 PM

One advantage of writing an ongoing column is trends become evident as readers respond over time — trends that might not emerge in a single installment, no matter how detailed.

Here’s one of those trends: Something is medically wrong with many, many autistic children.

To be more precise, many things are wrong with them. Yet autism is defined by the health authorities as a mental disorder, diagnosed solely by observation. Here is what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its Developmental Disabilities Web site:

“Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are defined as a constellation of behaviors indicating social, communicative, and behavioral impairment or abnormalities. The essential features of ASD are (a) impaired reciprocal social interactions, (b) delayed or unusual communication styles, and (c) restricted or repetitive behavior patterns.”

After hearing from so many parents, however, our sense is medical disorders accompany autism so frequently that not mentioning them as possible symptoms may be an omission. Here is a sampling of recent e-mail messages to Age of Autism:

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He turned (after regressing into autism) from a healthy happy baby into a sick and unhappy child. He did not sleep much, he cried, he screamed. He developed allergies and went through many ear and chest infections. He had chronic diarrhea.

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Among other things, our son had gut parasites, ulcer bacteria, zinc deficiency and cysteine deficiency. Any doctor who took the time to order the necessary tests could have detected most of these. No doctor had ever bothered. Once we began treating our son for these conditions, his health improved dramatically.

He had chronic rashes and recurrent infections in his skin and genitals, and constant diarrhea. We went on an odyssey of doctor appointments trying to unlock the source of these ongoing maladies. Nobody had any answers. At one appointment I was simply informed, “All the kids on the (autism) spectrum have the diarrhea. It’s just the autism.”

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Adam has a combination of pituitary dysfunction, endocrine dysfunction, hypothyroidism, hyperlipidemia, hyperinsulinemia, low growth hormone and unspecified metabolism disorder …

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My son has severe autoimmune (colitis or ileal nodular hyperplasia, thyroid autoimmunity, myelin basic protein autoimmunity, et al.), gastrointestinal (intense gut pain, malabsorption), endocrine (gh deficiency) and metabolic (methylation deficiency, low levels of insulin-like growth factor, extremely low levels of glutathione) problems.

He only was “fixed” with the label of “autism” by a neurologist who failed to test or note his medical conditions, and whose business is to determine whether children fit some of the criteria listed in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

But “autism” completely fails to describe my son’s condition and, lamentably, fails in any way to address his needs or to help him get better.

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To date, (our doctor) has treated only a handful of children with autism, but of the 50 children she has treated, two have had pituitary tumors and a condition called empty sella syndrome. My son is one of those two.

In her preliminary evaluations, our doctor has found that the majority of her patients with autism are deficient in growth hormone — a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland. She has theorized that, although most of these children are not short in stature, they do, for some reason, appear to produce insufficient levels of growth hormone.

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What we see in Carmen is a strange blood disorder that has no explanation. She has macrocytosis, and was diagnosed as such when her white blood cell count kept falling. Again, it goes back to her immune panel and the irregular levels of IGg subclasses.

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I have a child with signs of arthritis, swallowing problems, eye problems, gastro problems, psychological problems … and the worst, epilepsy. My son has serious medical conditions and very few doctors to help treat him.

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I believe there is a high correlation of food allergies with autism, not to mention that allergies like peanut are increasing significantly among our children. I am always wondering why this has not been pointed out (that I have seen) in the media. No one knows why the increase in food allergies either, but what we do know is that they result from an overactive immune system.

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I am the parent of a 30 year old autistic male who currently suffers from severe arthritis in his hands and arm joints, so much so that he refuses to let go of his right arm that he holds with his left.

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All these ailments are repeated over and over in the e-mails we have received. Even the earliest recorded cases — from the 1930s — display an unusual set of health problems. Leo Kanner, the preeminent child psychiatrist of his day, took medical histories on each patient at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. One reader points out that of the 11 initial cases:

“Donald T. (the first patient Kanner saw, in 1938) had a deadly attack of juvenile arthritis, another child had otitis media (ear) infections, another child tonsilitis — all immune problems.

“Unfortunately, a graphic and complete medical history isn’t available. Of course all of these problems described above were not considered part of the disorder; only recently (last 15 years) has the biology of autism been looked into. I wish we had the ability to see that important clinical information.”

Actually, we do: The Hopkins archives presumably contain more detailed records of not only these first 11 children, but also the more than 150 Kanner eventually diagnosed over the next several decades. Our request to review those records was denied by the Hopkins privacy board on grounds of privacy and practicality.

Perhaps Hopkins, which has received millions of dollars to investigate possible causes of autism, might consider conducting such a study on its own initiative — particularly now that we have reported Donald T.’s autism improved significantly after his juvenile arthritis was treated with gold salts.

That fact — related to us in August by Donald’s brother in the Mississippi town where they both still live — does not appear to have made it into public accounts of those early cases. Yet it might mean medical and mental problems went hand-in-hand beginning with the very first case.

It might mean, in short, the evidence was there from the start that in many cases autism is a whole-body illness, which might have implications for both causes and cures.

The 30-year-old autistic man who today is in so much pain from arthritis that he won’t stop holding his right arm with his left — is he the medical heir of Donald T., suffering with juvenile arthritis in 1947? Is it possible the same kind of treatment might help?

Here is the start of an e-mail message that arrived this week from Michael F. Wagnitz, a senior chemist at the University of Wisconsin: “Autism is a term used to describe a condition which affects the immune, gastrointestinal and central nervous system.”

Based on our limited, unscientific, anecdotal experience, that makes a lot of sense as a description of many cases of autism.

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Oct. 3, 2005

In recent columns, we have explored reports by parents linking the onset of their child’s autism to vaccinations. These parents strongly suspect a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines — and in some cases, the vaccines themselves — were responsible.

That theory has been dismissed by most mainstream medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies of Science.

Several readers have taken us to task for continuing to highlight what they consider unsupported beliefs that might scare parents away from life-saving vaccinations for their children. They also note the mercury preservative, called thimerosal, was phased out of childhood immunizations in the Unites States starting in 1999.

Here are comments that summarize that viewpoint. One of the letters cites earlier columns about the mostly unvaccinated Amish, among whom we could find little anecdotal evidence of autism. The letter also mentions chelation, a controversial treatment based on the idea that autism is mercury poisoning by another name; in chelation, drugs are administered to pull mercury from an autistic child’s body.

The final comments are from an article by Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Offit, a staunch advocate of the safety and importance of childhood immunizations, was responding to the recent death of a 5-year-old autistic child undergoing chelation in Pennsylvania.

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As an employee of a Global Immunization Program, I feel compelled to respond to your series of dramatic vignettes, which evoke understandable sympathy, but fail to convey the drastic overall public health improvement that vaccines have given us.

When reading these comments made by the parents of autistic children, I am saddened to learn about the strife that vaccines have caused them. However, would they not be as saddened if their child had come down with an equally devastating (if not more so) case of measles, mumps, rubella, or polio?

When confronting the issue of vaccines and their very weak correlation with autism, it is important to keep an objective mindframe, and not allow emotion to override the immense public health benefit vaccines have bestowed all over the world.

Respectfully, Drew Callison

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I am the parent of a son with autism, and we have corresponded before. I am concerned that your series, The Age of Autism, focusing as it does on the alleged mercury-autism vaccination connection, is doing considerable harm to the autistic community by spreading erroneous implications.

The continuing pursuit of this dead issue is not inquiry, it is persuasion; it is not based on any desire to develop scientific information useful to those on the spectrum, but on hopes of obtaining large junk-science awards for hopeful litigants, their “expert” witnesses, and their lawyers.

Massive epidemiological studies on three continents repeatedly have not shown any thimerosal-autism connection. Moreover, the ethyl-mercury-based preservative thimerosal, which had been in vaccines for 60 years, has no longer been used for several years (a decision based not on science but on public relations).

Every dollar being thrown away on this dead issue is a dollar that would be better used for research that could help people like my son.

You cite Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sen. Joe Lieberman, Rep. Dave Weldon, and the organization SafeMinds, a sorry lot scientifically. Kennedy’s notorious article, recently circulated by Salon.com, ignores the mass research consensus and focuses on paranoia (secrecy, conspiracy theory). SafeMinds has an agenda that supersedes reliable information, and the cited officials were not elected for their scientific sophistication.

About the Amish: Eccentric sects rarely publicize information about themselves. Instances have been uncovered where such sects have hidden their disabled individuals from public inspection. Information about vaccination and the incidence of diseases prevented by vaccination may not be reliable.

A study of the Amish would be difficult to accurately accomplish, and why bother? Many reliable studies have already been done on entire populations, and all with the same result.

Finally, any initiative that results, without reason, in a lower vaccination rate is socially irresponsible: It will weaken society’s herd immunity and put us all at risk of epidemics of diseases that haven’t been factors for years. Sorry to say, there are indications that this is beginning to happen.

Sincerely, Dr. Marvin J. Schissel

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You probably know now that on the day your most recent column ran, it was announced that Arizona State University is indeed launching research into both nutritional supplements and chelation for children with autism. The latter study is being run by a pediatrician who’s a chelation skeptic. Apparently he didn’t get the memo that he’s supposed to be suppressing this stuff.

I’m looking forward to hearing the results of these studies — and while I’m a skeptic, too, I absolutely hope they find that the biomed treatments are effective. It would give a lot of fresh hope and direction to a lot of families, mine included.

I also hope that whatever the results, people on all sides of this issue will be willing to accept them. Based on the rancor I’ve seen over the past year or so, though, I’m not terribly optimistic.

(Name withheld by request)

—

Epidemiologic studies performed in three continents by four separate groups had found that vaccines don’t cause autism.

The findings were clear, consistent and reproducible. Also, the signs and symptoms of mercury poisoning are different from those of autism. If mercury in vaccines didn’t cause autism, then why did more than 10,000 autistic children this year receive the same chelation therapy (that caused the 5-year-old’s death)?

One answer is the media concentration on scare stories linking thimerosal to autism.

The notion that vaccines might cause autism contains all of the elements of a great story: greedy pharmaceutical companies, government cover-up, uncaring doctors, and parents fighting against all odds for their children. But it isn’t easy to promote this story.

On the one hand, you have every major medical organization including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Institute of Medicine stating that there was no link. On the other, you had a few marginal scientists and clinicians who, in the absence of any solid, reproducible data said that it did.

(From an article by Dr. Paul Offit. The entire article is available at sgvtribune.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=3043584)

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Sept. 27, 2005 at 3:03 PM

Regression, regression, regression.

That’s the theme of much of the e-mail this column has received, sparked by two recent installments. The first reported confirmation by a University of Washington study that parents are right when they say they have watched their children lose language and social skills and become autistic. The study reviewed first-birthday videos, which documented that regression had come afterward.

The other article reviewed 83 reports filed during the 1990s in which doctors or parents suspected a link between vaccinations and the onset of autism.

Monday’s column featured a parent who filed such a report — to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System — in 1996. That was well before a possible link became a matter of public debate later in the decade.

In 1998 a British doctor published a study that suggested a possible link between the MMR — measles, mumps, rubella — vaccine and autism. The next year the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics urged that a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal be phased out of childhood vaccines as soon as possible.

Health authorities — including the CDC and AAP — dismiss any link between vaccines and autism. Some as-yet-unidentified environmental factor might play a role, they say, but vaccines are not that factor.

Here are some e-mail comments by parents to Age of Autism. Two of the correspondents agreed to be identified by name.

—

The cases sound so familiar to my granddaughter’s. On Jan. 20, 1997, my granddaughter received a DPT-Hib shot (diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus and haemophilus influenzae type B); her leg swelled and got very red for about five hours and she cried a high pitch scream. Would not sleep.

My grandchild’s skills started to disappear and then she started having seizures. She was diagnosed with autism. Now at the age of 9 she does not talk; has seizures; every day she wears diapers, cannot feed herself. I know it was the shot because everything changed about her as soon as the shot was given.

She was put on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System not long after she was damaged.

—

After I read that column (about first-birthday videos documenting subsequent regression), I got the courage to view one of my family’s home videos, taken on Easter in 2002 when my sons were 1 and 4.

While I knew that my son Matthew had regressed (he had lost about 50 words so that was hard to miss), I wasn’t certain about other developmental milestones — after all, I wasn’t looking for autism. I have listened to and read the work of many experts who state that autism is present from birth and that parents probably miss the earlier signs.

So, I just wasn’t sure. Had Matthew once had normal eye contact? Normal engagement? Had he answered to his name? Had he pointed to show us things, brought us things? Had he done all those normal things or had the absence been subtle and I hadn’t noticed?

What I saw on the video, Easter 2002, when Matthew is 16 months old, simply stunned me. In the 20-minute tape he does all the developmental milestones listed above, as well as more.

What I saw was a completely normal toddler, joyfully opening his Easter basket with his older brother, fully engaged with what was going on around him. He answers questions, brings my husband things from his basket, points to show us something, responds to his name — and is alive, aware and happy in a different way than he is now.

Honestly, I cried hysterically while viewing the video, and when I called my husband he thought someone must have gotten in a car accident.

I think my husband was equally surprised at all of the normal development Matthew displayed on the video. Time really plays with your memory and the last couple of years have been a blur to us. Although my husband was not nearly as emotional as myself(!), he did and does feel anger.

My older son Jay, who just turned 8, also viewed the video. His viewing was punctuated with such comments as “Wow, did you see Matthew do that?” and “Wow, you only had to say Matthew’s name ONCE and he turned” (unlike now where we must say it several times to gain attention).

As you can imagine, Jay is wise beyond his years and turned to me after and said, “Have you figured out what happened to Matthew or are you still working on it?”

Knowing Matthew was so normal up to that point leaves me feeling a huge “what if.” I am more determined than ever to do everything in my power to restore my son back to the child he was meant to be.

– Jeannie Meijer, Acton, Mass.

—

Our daughter was born in August 1995. I may have my dates off … but she was given the MMR in or around Oct 1996. She was progressing nicely in language skills at that time. A few weeks after the shot, we traveled from New Jersey to Florida on vacation. While there, she got sick, a cold, and was given an antibiotic.

Not being attuned to autism, we didn’t immediately focus on the reversal of her language skills, and the sudden temperamental behavior from what had been an easygoing girl. Eventually, she was diagnosed with a language deficit and was diagnosed as autistic. With some wonderful work at the JFK You and Me Program in Edison, N.J., she is now an almost completely normal fifth grader, in a mainstream school, without an aide.

When we got the diagnosis of autism for our daughter, we were in the seventh month of pregnancy for our third child. We immediately read everything we could find. By 1999, the vaccination/MMR story was out there, and we presented it to our pediatrician. He agreed to postpone the immunizations as long as possible, and then give them one at a time.

One theory was that after the mumps, measles and rubella shots were lumped into one (MMR), the observed rate of autistic children rose dramatically. Too much vaccination, often given to a too small child. Our son might have been approaching 50 pounds when he got the first shot … as we faced the medical requirements of entering preschool … it didn’t work. He was diagnosed at 4, although he had better communication skills than our daughter did at that age.

Even today, it is apparent that the nature of his issues are different than those that affected my daughter.

—

I, too, am a parent who is convinced my child was adversely affected by the MMR vaccine. Over the years he slowly regressed into a high-functioning form of autism.

We took him to a DAN (Defeat Autism Now!) doctor some months ago and he was found to have no significant levels of any toxic metals, but his immune system was totally out of kilter.

He showed no immunity at all to measles (despite two MMR injections) combined with an ultra-high immunity to rubella. In addition he had score of 24 on the myelin basic protein autoantibodies test when the norm is under 5. This indicates his autoimmune system is attacking the myelin shield in the brain. We are now considering ways to treat this.

I have taken a little time to research vaccinations on the Internet and found some fascinating information. Israel is a medically advanced country where the life expectancy is in fact higher than in the U.S., while cases of autism occurring there are considerably lower.

What I learned is that in Israel, which has an extensive vaccination program, they do not give them MMR. Rather they vaccinate young children for measles only and vaccinate them for mumps and rubella only when they are older. Their reasoning seems to be that since mumps and rubella are not known to occur in very young children, why vaccinate them for something they cannot catch?

This makes a great deal of sense to me in that if you are vaccinating children for a disease to which by nature they are not susceptible, this could indeed harm the autoimmune system.

– Harry Eisenberg, Glen Rock, N.J.

—

My son, now 14, was harmed by thimerosal. I would be happy to provide all of his medical records, my own medical records from labor and delivery onward … anything to help this cause.

I also can show documentation by video of the days after the vaccination that sent his world into darkness. It is eerie to know how and when it happened. Heartbreaking.

At 14 my son understands that he has autism and why. He is livid with the “people who did this to him.” Every day he says he wants to go to the hospital to get the shot to get rid of autism. Every day.

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Sept. 26, 2005 at 12:54 PM

Mary Jo Silva was reading last week’s column about reports from the 1990s linking autism and immunizations when she came to this paragraph about a vaccine reaction in August 1994:

“Low fever, much discomfort. Patient laid in bed and cried and moaned; three-four days post-vaccination, rash traveled over patient’s body and lasted at least one week. Within six weeks of vaccination patient was observed as losing previously gained language and social skills; diagnosed autistic.”

The patient so clinically summarized in that report, Silva realized with a start, was her 1-year-old daughter Carmen, who fell ill the same day she got the MMR — measles-mumps-rubella — and Hepatitis B vaccinations at age 1.

Convinced the shots triggered Carmen’s illness and subsequent slide into autism, Silva filed a report with the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System on Aug. 5, 1996, and soon after Carmen was formally diagnosed with autism. Her case was given VAERS ID Number 88924.

Silva’s report linking vaccinations and autism is one of 83 filed between June 1991 and June 1999 that have been reviewed by Age of Autism. In July 1999 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta urged manufacturers to phase out a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal used in many childhood vaccines as soon as possible.

A year-and-a-half earlier, concerns about a possible link between autism and the MMR vaccine — which does not contain thimerosal — had been raised in a scientific paper written by a British doctor, Andrew Wakefield.

Neither of those issues was on the radar when Silva’s report and most of the others were filed, making them a unique window into a time when a growing number of parents and medical professionals first became concerned — based on their own observations — about a possible link.

That doesn’t mean they were right, but the timing adds a certain independence to their observations: It cannot be said they were swayed by activist parents or maverick doctors or lawyers looking to cash in.

Today, the CDC and other medical experts dismiss concerns linking autism to thimerosal or to individual vaccines such as MMR. They — and the prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences — have concluded that well-controlled studies have ruled out vaccinations as the culprit in a huge rise in autism diagnoses in the 1990s.

Silva said her eyewitness experience convinces her otherwise.

“It was quite emotional for me to read Carmen’s report in this article,” Silva wrote in an e-mail message. “Over the years many people have told me that I am wrong, and on some occasions I have even doubted myself. But, when I see that it has been 9 years since I filed a complaint and the debate is still in the early stages, I become enraged over all the innocent little kids who have had their bodies assaulted by this government-regulated child abuse.”

Silva now lives in the Cayman Islands with her husband, Roberto, and their daughters Anna, who is 9, and Carmen, now 12. She is convinced Carmen’s autism resulted from an autoimmune reaction to which she — and also Anna, whom the Silvas chose not to vaccinate — are predisposed.

Here are more comments from her e-mail messages:

—

Carmen’s files are full of immunological tests that show an autoimmune profile. This is what is significant to Carmen’s regression several weeks after her vaccinations. I think there (is) a large group of kids that react immediately to the mercury. I know many parents who swear chelation (giving children drugs to pull mercury from their body) has been the answer, and removing the mercury has given them great result. But, I do believe that Carmen regressed as a result of an autoimmune reaction to her vaccines — not as a result of mercury toxicity to her system. It is possible the assault of mercury to her body at the same time as the MMR could have set this up. Therefore, an autoimmune reaction would not be immediate, but instead would develop over a period of weeks.

It is true that Carmen is a healthy child. Especially since we moved here. She does not have many of the health issues seen in autism. She did have some allergies, but nothing severe. What we see in Carmen is a strange blood disorder that has no explanation. She has macrocytosis, and was diagnosed as such when her WBC (white blood count) kept falling. Again, it goes back to her immune panel.

So, she does have some of those issues, but she has remained healthy. We hold our breath though. She has also been on depakote (a medication used to treat bipolar disorder) since she was 5 for an abnormal EEG with spikes in her temporal lobe in her third stage of sleep. She is not one of these kids that is always suffering from intestinal problems or experiencing chronic pain. But, she also can’t tell us what hurts.

She also has hypothyroidism that was diagnosed when she was 10. She had all the classic signs of that, like poor circulation and loss of hair. But, her health improved tremendously once that was treated.

We did the gluten-free/casein-free diet for a couple of years. When we took her off gluten her self-injurious behaviors completely disappeared, and she had been biting herself over 30 times a day. We have kept her milk free for about 10 years, but she still enjoys an occasional piece of cheese or some sour cream. Milk definitely makes her crazy.

So, those are a few things that are consistent with the autism diagnosis. Her immune panels match those of what the autism docs see in autism. We traveled all over the United States seeing docs that offered so many different things. It seems she got healthier, but it never did anything to alleviate the autism.

When you look at a graph of the explosion of autism since the 1970s, you will see an increase around 1978. This was when First Lady Roslyn Carter started the “Every Child By Two” vaccination campaign. I believe that removing the mercury will result in significant decline in the cases of autism as we are seeing them today, but I also believe there are other assaults on the immune system from vaccination — non-mercury related — that can cause autoimmune reactions leading to autism. The statisticians will have a real debate on their hands. But, as a mom I know what I know.

I filed the VAERS report myself. To give you just a bit of history, when my second daughter was born in 1996 I took Carmen to an allergist. I told him I was not going to vaccinate my newborn because I had reason to believe that Carmen had been affected by her vaccinations.

He supported my position and told me that I should file a report with the CDC. He felt that someday there may be a connection made between vaccinations and brain injury and if I had a report on file before the initial allegation was made it would make my case even stronger — that no one would be able to accuse me of jumping on the most recent bandwagon.

An interesting story here: I have a friend who about four years ago had a little girl suffer a drop seizure and then have a few additional seizures after that. It was very mysterious, and no one knew why they were happening.

I asked her if she had any vaccinations, and my friend said she had a few at the doctor’s office about 10 days before the first seizure. I told her to mention this to the doctor and see if he thought there was a connection. She did, and he didn’t. But, while she was in the waiting room she read the insert from the MMR vaccine that clearly stated that seizures can occur around 10 days post-vaccine. He wouldn’t file the report with VAERS. I think most docs don’t want to see a connection. They don’t want to admit that this is not as safe as they have been assuring people.

I heard from VAERS for the first two years. They sent follow-up cards to see if the injury was still there. The first reply said that Carmen was mentally retarded. I had them change that to autistic. After that I never heard anything.

I filed with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, too. I never expected it to go anywhere, but I wanted it documented. I was past the statute of limitations for the MMR, but since she had the Hep B on the same day I filed under the Hep B. It was dismissed because all the documents I submitted pointed to the MMR.

Again, it comes down to … kids are normal … kids get sick after shots … kids regress into autism. That shouldn’t be happening.

My husband asked me to tell you that Carmen is a very lovely young girl. Cayman has been fabulous for her. She loves the Caribbean Sea and snorkels in it almost every day. The sea has been just as good for her as any sensory integration, occupational or physical therapy she has ever had. She attends a wonderful government school here where she has lovely and dedicated teachers. She loves to draw pictures, and she is a wonderful cook.

I just want to put a little person into that VAERS report you read.

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor   |   Sept. 21, 2005 at 12:59 PM

Years before the alarm sounded nationwide about a possible link between vaccines and autism, some doctors were making that connection themselves.

The evidence: 83 reports filed with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System associating the onset of autism with childhood immunizations. The reports, compiled and catalogued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, were analyzed by Age of Autism.

A report from 1992 listed Feb. 21 as both “vaccination date” and “adverse event date” for a 1-year-old boy: “Patient received MMR vaccination (measles-mumps-rubella) and experienced fever, autistic behaviors, encephalitic condition, began to tune out; sound sensitivity, hand-flapping, wheel-spinning, nighttime sweats, appetite increase.”

The child’s diagnoses included autism, encephalopathy (brain swelling), mental retardation, personality disorder and speech disorder.

Another report: Two days after being vaccinated in August 1994 a 1-year-old girl experienced “low fever, much discomfort. Patient laid in bed and cried and moaned; three-four days post-vaccination, rash traveled over patient’s body and lasted at least one week. Within six weeks of vaccination patient was observed as losing previously gained language and social skills; diagnosed autistic.”

The reports do not prove that any of the autism cases resulted from vaccination. Rather, their potential significance is that a number of qualified observers — primarily doctors and other health professionals — suspected a connection and made the effort to report it well before the issue was on the national radar.

In July 1999 the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that manufacturers begin phasing out a mercury-based preservative that was in several childhood vaccines. The concern: As the number of required vaccinations expanded around 1990, children inadvertently got too much mercury, a known neurotoxin.

Since then federal health officials, along with a panel of the Institute of Medicine, have dismissed the concern as unfounded. But some scientists and parent groups continue to assert that childhood immunizations are behind a major rise in autism diagnoses.

The adverse-event reports examined by Age of Autism were sent to VAERS between June 1991 and June 1999 — the month before the CDC recommendation to phase out thimerosal.

Based on a 1994 report by a California physician, 10 of the 83 cases are unknown children “who received vaccination and (were) diagnosed with autism and encephalopathy.” That doctor reported “there are currently 10 cases of autism in children who received DPT/OPV/MMR at 15-18 months.” (The reference is to the diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus, polio and MMR vaccines.)

That report also cites a statement from an unidentified vaccine manufacturer: “Dr. … is not treating physician and does not possess any original records; unclear whether reporter is suggesting possible causal association.”

The following excerpts start with the date the report was received by VAERS and the age of the child when vaccinated. The type of vaccine is not always clear and is indicated here only when specified in the event narrative. Medical abbreviations are spelled out for clarity.

—

— June 5, 1991, age 1.5. Four days post-vaccination developed running fever. To emergency room, temperature 104 and very lethargic. Several tests for various things and couldn’t find anything wrong; given antibiotics as a precaution; then lost speech and was diagnosed with autism.

— July 7, 1995, age 1.9. Patient developed localized swelling with redness in injection site following vaccination. Also had high temperature, loss of balance, limping followed with high-pitched screaming and loss of speech. Diagnosed pervasive personality disorder/autistic.

— May 29, 1996, age 1.3. Patient received vaccination, experienced a fever of 104.6 which lasted for approximately three to four days. Patient was very lethargic and appeared changed in temperament and abilities; symptoms of autism such as head banging were noticed.

— April 3, 1997, age 1.2. Evening of vaccination, patient developed temperature of 104.2 and cried all night with high pitched screaming. (Next day) patient wouldn’t eat and was listless; patient went off all solid foods; within next three months patient lost all speech abilities; diagnosed with autism.

— April 15, 1997, age 1.3. Patient received vaccination and developed a big change in mental status that was described as an atypical infantile autistic state with mild seizures; at the age of one or two the patient started sleeping all the time.

— Aug. 4, 1997, age 6 months. Patient received vaccination and immediately experienced a fever of 104 and developed a quarter-size lump at the injection site; 30 to 60 days post-vaccination patient developed autism; the quarter-size lump persisted for approximately six weeks.

— March 2, 1999, age 1.3. Loss of all developmental milestones immediately post-vaccination; patient has autism; communication disorder, auditory processing disorder, asthma, food allergies, chronic diarrhea, digestive problems.

— April 21, 1999, age 1.5. Patient received vaccination; (three days later) after midnight patient woke up screaming unconsolably with hysteria. Later in morning, patient could not talk and could not comprehend anything. Extensive testing done; diagnosis: autism. Continues in this state today.

— May 27, 1999, age 1.3. Fever immediately post-vaccination — diarrhea, ulcers on diaper area; chronic digestive problems, loss of speech; stimming behavior; autism, seizure disorder. The patient’s ulcerative colitis and gastritis are currently under the care of a physician.

—

Since 1999, the federal government’s vaccine databases have come under scrutiny from critics who charge they have been manipulated to show no connection between vaccines and autism. They also say the CDC has a built-in conflict of interest because it sets the universal childhood immunization schedule that is then adopted by the states.

The agency vigorously defends its research and denies that its role in vaccination policy compromises its objectivity.

Last week Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said he plans to seek funding for an independent review of another CDC vaccine database.

“Part of what I’m going to require in this amendment we’re going to put up is that the independent studies not only look at the data, but actually talk to some of the — examine some of the kids and families to go over family histories,” Lieberman said.

By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Health Editor   |   Sept. 19, 2005 at 5:26 PM

As public funding all but dries up for research into a possible link between vaccines and autism, advocates are trying to tap new sources, but it’s too early to tell if they will find any.

“It’s just appalling,” said Jim Moody, counsel to SafeMinds, a group that backs research into a possible link between autism and a mercury preservative called thimerosal that was used in childhood vaccines. He said a number of scientists — including researchers at Columbia University, the University of Washington and the University of Arkansas — have been turned down for federal grants to follow up on such studies.

“They’re doing cutting-edge work that is being published in nationally significant journals on important issues of national health policy,” Moody said, suggesting the projects are being denied for reasons other than merit.

Moody and others said the shutdown stems largely from a recommendation last year by the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences. The study found no link between vaccines and autism and suggested that money should go to more “promising” areas of autism research.

“It’s not surprising it’s happened,” Moody said of the difficulty finding grant money. “They (the IOM) said it should happen.”

Last month on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Tim Russert asked IOM President Harvey Fineberg, “You’re absolutely convinced there’s no connection between thimerosal and autism?”

To which Fineberg responded: “I’m convinced that the best evidence all points to the lack of an association. These studies can never prove to the point of absolute certainty an absence of an association, but I would say this: Other avenues of research looking at other possible causes today are much more promising ways to spend our precious resources.”

A number of other studies and funding sources are being explored by advocates who say the vaccines-mercury issue deserves more scrutiny. Among them:

— Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who last week discussed launching an independent study of vaccination records at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Kennedy volunteered his clout as a fundraiser and said he could make lawyers available to go after the federal government if it denied access to the database.

Kennedy also discussed using a never-vaccinated group, probably the Amish, as a “control” to assess relative autism rates. United Press International reported earlier this year that autism seems significantly less prevalent in that community, based on anecdotal information and the assessment of doctors who treat the Amish.

— Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who said last week he plans to ask Congress to fund an independent review of the thimerosal issue and of the statistical analyses performed by the CDC.

Lieberman has become a vocal advocate of continued investigation of a possible link between thimerosal and autism. Some critics argue the CDC has an inherent conflict of interest in examining the issue, because the CDC recommends the childhood immunization schedule that is adopted by the states.

— Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., who told Age of Autism he wants to fund a study of autism rates among the Amish compared with surrounding communities. Weldon, a medical doctor, is a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

–William Raub, a top official of the Department of Health and Human Services who told parents this summer that a study of the Amish or similar group was an interesting idea and could be done via the National Institutes of Health.

Last month a group of scientists and advocates met with officials of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences — a unit of the NIH — to outline research into possible environmental causes of autism. Raub attended part of the meeting.

Called Environmental Factors in Neurodevelopmental Disorders, the two-day seminar tackled a wide range of possible research topics, including mercury toxicity. Participants are now formulating a research roadmap to present to the NIH and Congress.

The seminar was held in Bethesda, Md., and was sponsored by the National Autism Association and SafeMinds with a grant from NIEHS.

Such developments persuade SafeMinds counsel Moody the funding dearth is “a temporary glitch. I’m fairly sure we’ll get this fixed,” but Moody said the lack of interest in such research — in fact, the interest in discouraging it — is suspicious.

“If I wasn’t convinced of the connection between mercury and developmental disorders,” he told Age of Autism, “what would convince me is the inaction.”