Posted on 06/22/2002 4:57:29 AM PDT by rubbertramp
Nowadays, when I see kids called "autistic" in my office, usually they are merely retarded, and don't really meet the criteria for autism. I suspect it's like a lot of epidemics we see: we lower the criteria for diagnosis, and voila an epidemic.
Too bad a congressman has to be directly affected by an issue like this before light gets shined on it.
I know of several cases of autism where the mothers involved were heavy drug users. Of course, this has never been disclosed to their doctors. Anecdotal information, but, still, it makes me wonder. If the medical establishment is willing to insist HIV causes AIDS, why should we expect them to get anything else straight.
Having these bozos tell me I can't have a smallpox shot when I *know* for a fact there are tons of poorly guarded smallpox stockpiles in Russia is infuriating.
The classical description of autism is a normal child who at the age of 8 months to two years develops a high fever. After the fever, he or she deteriorates and develops social problems, ritualistic behavior, speech abnormalities etc.
No one knows why. We do know that rubella can cause it, which is why they are so worried about MMR. Also, measles used to be associated with a lot of encephalitis, that left people brain damaged. That's why a lot of people are worried about MMR vaccine. There is also a question if the problem was the mercury preservative in the vaccine, since heavy metal poisoning like lead poisoning can cause retardation with social abnormal behavior.
Unlike a lot of the paranoia about medicine etc. this one is believed by a lot of doctors. However, most of us feel that the risk/benefit ration is worth it (kids die of measles, and one in ten thousand get encephalitis).
On line book about autism: AUTISM
For parents and relatives of autistic kids: Autism organization
Can we all say it...
Collective Freeper..."DUHHHH!!!"
Special "Double DUHDUH" to the Clinton Administration officials in FDA and CDC who didn't realize that EPA mercury exposure limits were being violated by the initial ACIP recommendations.
I'm still waiting to see if anyone in organized medicine has enough truth and honesty to request funding for the retrospective analysis on the kids who got Hepatitis B vaccine at birth and one month.
Dr. Thomas Verstraten., an epidemiologist hired by CDC to review data from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, which consisted of approximately 500,000 children from the North California Kaiser cohort. Dr. Verstraten found a "statistically significant connection" between thimerosal and tics, verbal delays and ADHD/ADD and autism.
Autism of the past looks different from the autism of today. There are actual changes in the mitochondria of many children diagnosed with autism today.
By Lorraine Fraser (Filed: 16/06/2002) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/06/16/nmmr16.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/06/16/ixnewstop.html
Scientists have found new evidence to support fears that the MMR vaccine is causing children to develop autism and bowel disease, The Telegraph can reveal today.
Specialists from Trinity College, Dublin, have detected the strain of measles virus used in the MMR jab in tissue samples from the inflamed intestines of 12 children, who each developed autism after receiving the injection.
The results will add further weight to claims that MMR may be responsible for a rapid rise in autism in children over the past decade.
The Department of Health has repeatedly dismissed concerns about its safety, saying epidemiological studies have failed to find a link to autism. It has infuriated worried parents by refusing to allow the alternative of single vaccines to be prescribed on the NHS.
The work was carried out by Prof John O'Leary, a pathologist with a record of important discoveries in the field of virology. Although the finding does not prove that the MRR jab caused autism and bowel disease in the children, it raises urgent questions about the vaccine's role in their condition.
None of the children concerned had shown any sign of disease beforehand. The discovery comes days after the Government seized on a new study to bolster its claims that the MMR vaccine is safe.
The review, from a commercial company which lists the Department of Health as one of its clients, did not, however, consider work published since 1998 by scientists concerned about MMR.
Prof. O'Leary's results have been made public in a précis of a scientific presentation released ahead of a meeting of the Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland next month. It was greeted with alarm by parents last night.
Jackie Fletcher, of the parents' group JABS, said the findings had profound implications and must be taken seriously. "We have parents shouting that these problems are occurring and what do the Government and health chiefs do - they keep their heads buried in old reports not designed to identify these problems," she said. "No one is listening. Why?"
Ann Hewitt, whose son Thomas, eight, has severe autism and bowel problems, learned earlier this year that Dr O'Leary had found measles virus in the boy's gut. She and scores of others who received the same news now want to know what is going on.
The new results follow a study by Prof O'Leary and his colleagues, reported in February, in which they found measles virus of unknown origin in gut biopsies from 75 of 91 autistic children with bowel problems.
Measles virus was found in only five of 70 normal youngsters. The team now claims that the new study corroborates their earlier work linking measles virus with the condition and "indicates the origins of the virus to be vaccine strain".
Last night Visceral, a charity set up to fund research into autism and bowel disease, called for MMR to be suspended until studies establish just what the vaccine-strain virus is doing. MMR, which contains live measles mumps and rubella virus, was launched in the UK in 1988 and is given to infants at 12-15 months and four years.
The samples tested in Dublin were from some of nearly 200 youngsters diagnosed with developmental disorder and "new variant inflammatory bowel disease" by doctors at the Royal Free Hospital, in London, where Dr Andrew Wakefield worked until he was ousted last December.
The controversy over MMR and autism began four years ago when Dr Wakefield and his colleagues reported in The Lancet on 12 children with autistic problems and bowel disease and revealed that the parents of eight of them had said their children regressed developmentally after receiving the MMR jab.
While the genetic code of the strain of measles virus used in MMR differs only minutely from that of the virus responsible for natural infections, Prof. O'Leary and his colleagues were able to use a commercially produced molecular probe to distinguish the two.
The probe was designed to detect a single difference in the genetic code of the viruses and to give off a fluorescent signal when it does so. The MMR row became so heated this year that Tony Blair, the Prime Minister - who has refused to say whether his two-year-old son Leo has had the MMR jab - accused Dr Wakefield and the media of "scaremongering" on the issue.
The chief medical officer, Professor Liam Donaldson, has indicated he would rather resign than abandon official policy on the three-in-one vaccine.
Dr Wakefield said last night: "Prof. O'Leary and colleagues have now provided what may prove to be the most important piece of evidence to date in the case against the MMR vaccine. Parents must at the very least be given a choice of single vaccines.
"Not to do so in the face of these data and all the other evidence we have now published would be negligent in the extreme. It is not acceptable to assume that this vaccine virus is an innocent bystander if your concern is for the safety of the children."
The Department of Health said that it had no plans to review the use of MMR. "This study, if true, does not prove that MMR causes the condition of autism just because the virus is present in the gut. Critical will be independent testing of the teams' samples, which has long been awaited," said a spokesman.
Autism is rising at an epidemic rate in this country. Remember all that "for the children" stuff with the Clintons. Remember Rob Reiner talking about the wonders of a baby's brain. Meanwhile, early intervention...0-3 programs in this country have been savaged. Many parents who seek answers about their child's disability are shut down by managed care gatekeepers.
Recently talking to a young mother, she was informed by her doc that mercury had been taken out of the vaccines.....yeah...I doubt it. But that is probably what the doc had been told...and everyone trusts the doctor.
Most parents that I see that have autistic children are pillars of the community who follow doctor's regimen to the letter.
You would think so. But when it comes to potentially neurotoxic agents as a by-product of something that is perceived as "good," people take a "see no evil" approach to the issue.
This is especially true of LEGAL psychiatric drugs. The profession only looks into neurotoxicity questions when forced into it, and long after much damage has been done. Even then, they acknowledge the problems and do nothing about it.
A perfect example is neuroleptics (antipsychotics). It took them 2 decades to begin to acknowledge the neurological wreckage these drugs cause. But even then, they simply put the appropriate warnings in the PDR and kept on truckin'. Now in the last few years, we're beginning to hear the first whiffs of potential neurotoxicity problems with SSRIs.
Thanks for continuing to highlight this issue. We need to know a lot more on this as well as progress on related issues such as the role of neurotoxic agents in Parkinsons and Alzheimer's. When the U.S., with 5% of the world's population, produces 25% of the Alzheimer's patients, something is wrong.
The increase in reported Autism isn't due to increased screening...If anything. There is less screening going on. Teachers are tripping over these kids in schools. The only ones not recognizing this increase in autism stats are you bone-headed doctors.
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