The Autism News

The Autism News | English

By Alison Rose Levy | Huffington Post

There’s an experiment going on right now–but it isn’t being conducted by scientists. It’s being conducted by parents. In 30 million kitchens across the U.S. that experiment is called “What Can My Child Eat?” In families with children with autism and allergies, the result of that experiment can either be a day of relative calm and comfort, or it can produce anything from brain fog, digestive discomfort, and mood swings, to pain, seizures, skin outbreaks, and severe digestive distress.

While the debate continues as to whether or not laboratory scientists have successfully isolated a single one of the many factors that a growing numnber of doctors say may contribute to autism, families still have to cope and they still have to feed their children. Citing the conservative statistics of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) pediatrician, Dr. Kenneth Bock, reported that one in 100 children (one in 48 boys) have autism–although just two years ago it was one in 150. One in 16 children has ADHD, one in 11 has asthma, and one in four has allergies. A staggering one third of all children are affected Bock told the group gathered for “Food Solutions: Managing Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies,” held at New York’s Urban Zen Center.

Children (and adults) with allergies (and food sensitivities) react to many common foods and food ingredients that other people don’t react to. As doctors like Bock tell it, a child with autism is by definition a child with an overwhelmed immune system, an impaired gut, a higher presence of microbes, candida, and toxins, and many food sensitivities and intolerances. Gut issues are directly linked to issues with attention and focus, so that a child with food sensitivities will also likely be a child who experiences symptoms anywhere from the withdrawal or lack of speech seen in autism to the brain fog, hyperactivity, and/or difficulty in focus seen in children with attention deficit disorder (ADD).

According to Stephen Cowan, MD, a pediatrician in Westchester, N.Y., who also spoke at Food Solutions, “The gut and the brain are not two separate things. They are interconnected.”

Referring to “leaky gut” a condition common in the so-called “spectrum” kids, in which an impaired barrier of cells lining the intestines allow poorly digested food molecules to enter the bloodstream where they can trigger allergic and other reactions. Cowan said that “a leaky gut is like a leaky mind, you can’t digest things and you can’t retain things that you need to retain.”

When parents bring their children into his office for a consultation, Cowan reports that “I can often predict that the child’s favorite foods are pizza and macaroni and cheese”– and these are the same foods that children are most allergic to. According to Bock, gluten, the main protein contained in wheat and other grains, can trigger immune reactions, while casein, a peptide in dairy can break down internally to produce an opioid effect — such that children are literally drugged by food.

That’s why the mainstay of parents trying to nourish their immune-challenged children is the Gluten Free Casein Free Diet (GFCF) as well as the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD).

Glucose, present in high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is yet another no-no since it can feed yeast (which worsens gut issues) and contribute to mood swings due to the abrupt rise and fall of glucose in the bloodstream. Moreover, mercury is used to make HFCS which is present in many processed foods, including sodas, juices, yogurt, and ketchup. While some studies question whether mercury in vaccines is a key trigger for autism, according to Bock, “a range of environmental factors contribute, Studies correlated closer proximity to power plants with mercury emissions with increasing rates of autism.” HFCS is also addictive, and aggressively marketed by food and beverage companies, who according to Cowan, spend $10 billion a year.

In this nationwide lab experiment in which food suppliers push unhealthy food items, while the public naively believes that government regulators protect them, “we’re lab rats,” Cowan points out. “Studies show that when you try HFCS, you can’t get enough of it, you want more and more and more. It releases chemicals, it’s just like you pressed a button.” Yet instead of acting on a national level to curb unhealthy foods, “we blame the victim,” says Cowan.

All too often the victims are children.

Transitioning children from harmful foods to which they’re addicted to healthier ones is a challenge borne by parents. That’s why at Food Solutions, dietician Amanda Archibald and nutritionist Stefanie Sacks introduced a range of healthier options. Although healthy vegetables topped the list, the nutritional team also offered samples of favorite products (rice milk and a dairy and wheat free Mac and Cheese) so parents know what to look for. Simple recipes that participants teamed up to prepare offered easy and nourishing ways to ease food transitions.

The bottom line said Cowan is that force feeding children is counter-productive. “If you want your child to eat more vegetables, let him see you eating them.”

What’s your experience transitioning yourself or your kids to healthier foods?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/autism-and-allergies-what_b_494607.html

Autism Recipes | Free recipes for children and adults on the autism spectrum

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The Autism News | English

By Maria Rodale

In my new book, Organic Manifesto, I show lots of evidence that agricultural chemicals are actually exterminating us, and are a major cause of many of our biggest health problems–cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, obesity, autism, and ADHD. In just the few short months since I wrote the book and sent it off to the printer, a few more major studies have come out that show even more damning (and damaging) evidence. Here are three of them:

1. GMOs cause liver and kidney failure, according to a study published by the International Journal of Biological Sciences. GMOs are genetically modified organisms–in this case, crops that have laboratory-altered genes. What you need to understand is that GMOs have been unleashed into our food system on a massive scale, without ANY long-term health studies–only a few token studies by Monsanto, the maker of GMOs and, of course, the primary beneficiary of the profits they bring. Read the full study here.

2. Chemicals are increasingly implicated in autism. I interviewed the author of this study in the journal Current Opinion in Pediatrics, Dr. Phil Landrigan, for my book, so many of his ideas are already included there. However, this study was not yet published at the time the Organic Manifesto went to press. Now that the vaccine theory has been totally debunked as the cause of autism, we can start looking at the growing evidence of the true causes, data from doctors who have been trying to address this national crisis. One out of every 100 kids born in the U.S. today will be diagnosed as autistic. That is a crime. See the abstract here.

In another study done by Dr. Landrigan’s Mount Sinai colleagues, agricultural chemicals, as well as pthalates–found in nail polish, kids toys, plastics, and fragrances–have been associated with childhood behavioral problems.

3. Infections worse than MRSA are starting to take over. In a recent article in The New York Times, Andrew Pollack reports that antibiotic-resistant infections even more deadly than MRSA are killing thousands of people in hospitals across America, and showing no signs of slowing down. As I write in my book, much of the overuse of antibiotics stems from the horrible conditions that animals are raised in to produce cheap food. And any farmer can buy a 50-pound bag of antibiotics at the local farm store, without a prescription! If you or a loved one is facing a hospital stay, be sure to take precautions against infection.

So we know we are putting our lives at risk by overusing antibiotics. But then I read this study just a few weeks ago in the Abstract of Environmental Science and Technology, and discovered that when wastewater that includes antibiotics (from urine and such) is applied in the lab to aquatic plants, it actually interferes with their photosynthesis and significantly stunts the plants’ growth. So not only are we killing ourselves, but we are killing plants. Without plants, we don’t get oxygen to breathe…

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/growing-evidence-that-che_b_483987.html

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The Autism News | English

By Jeff Witzeman | Huffington Post

It seemed like an innocent enough request: “Dad can you take my friends and I to Chinatown this Friday when we have the day off?” “Sure,” I said. After all it would be good to get out and do something. As I thought about things more and more though, something didn’t add up. Why Chinatown? My 14-year-old Asperger’s son and his friends clearly didn’t have an interest in Chinese culture. I heard the word “knuckles” in one of their phone conversations and deduced brass knuckles as being on of the things they wanted to buy. “Fine,” I thought. The boys weren’t the fighting kind and though brass knuckles are illegal, what’s the harm?

In the car on the way, one of my son’s friends who I’ll call Drew said, “Are you just going to drop us off and we’ll meet you in a couple hours?” “No, I’ll be with you the entire time,” to which Drew tried a few other tactics to try and keep me away.

At this point I’ve got to interrupt the story to express what every Asperger’s parent I know feels, which is gratitude that my son actually has friends he can be with, that like him. Because of some of their awkwardness around social situations it makes it hard for a lot of kids with this form of autism to have friendships. Would my sentimentality become a liability? That remained to be seen.

So we get to Chinatown and I stay about 20 feet from the guys just to know what they’re doing. They go into a back room that says, “Employees Only” at one point. I’m guessing they’re buying fireworks and brass knuckles … and I was right. They get some Airsoft BB guns and we all go home happy. I’m a little uncomfortable with the illegal items on the ride home, but I think, “What’s the big deal, they’re just boys being boys.”

We get home, they go to the park, I make sure they all have safety glasses and I retire to catch up on some business at home. I get a call an hour later, and they want to come back to our house. Again, I’m just happy to provide a place for my son to learn social interaction. Within a half hour of being at home, I hear some loud noises in the back yard, and when I go outside I start feeling really crazy. All the boys except my son are shooting Airsoft guns with no safety glasses and firing off bottlerockets. My son’s off to the side watching the chaos. “That’s it! Everybody in the car, I’m taking you home,” followed by some terse phone calls to the parents about the boys breaking the clearly stated house rules.

At the time I was really upset and feeling nuts. Was this all my fault? Did I do something to create this mess? Did I just get “played?”

The part that was particularly vexing to me was the ringleader, Drew, who I affectionately call “an addict in training.” He had all the behaviors without the actual substance to be an addict. The manipulation, lies, covering his tracks, all were things I had been uncomfortable with, but now I could see where they lead.

“Do you see how Drew continually puts other people’s lives at risk, with the things he does?” I asked my son. It actually turned into what I thought was a valuable learning experience. Not being able to recognize social cues, it’s very hard to understand when people are lying or taking advantage of the Asperger’s kid. Our son began putting two and two together. “It may not be a huge problem now, but two years from now when Drew gets behind the wheel of a car, it could mean your life. He’ll say, ‘I’m fine, I’ve only had a couple drinks,’ and the next thing you know he’s driving you into an accident.” My son had some sober looks as he contemplated the possibilities.

It’s been a month since the crazy day. My son still plays with the same group of guys at times, but he expanded his friends at our behest to include other boys. Though I’m not comfortable with him being with the Drew’s of the world, for now I’m limiting my influence to what goes on at home and being in communication with our son about what goes on outside. I try to exert as little direct control on him as possible so as to let him learn things for himself.

The lesson from all this was where the weaknesses in our Asperger’s son lie and what we can do to shore it up. Recognizing people that are harmful to him requires help and discussion. Some of the mildly troubled kids seem to be attracted to him because he’s so level … he balances out their wild side. He’s going to form relationships with these folks. How to defend himself and stay away from their wake is going to have to be learned behavior.

We’ve been pleasantly surprised so far as to how much can actually be learned by Asperger’s kids and how willing they are to learn. It’s like a math problem … person not able to be honest with you + your complete trust = problems. Friends + healthy filters on your trust = self-preservation. This is an ongoing issue, but I think the initial boundary setting had a very positive affect on all the boys.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-witzeman/parenting-a-child-with-as_b_468349.html

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The Autism News | English

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

By  Press Release

SALT LAKE CITY – Three University of Utah Department of Psychiatry researchers are part of an international team of scientists that has identified a novel region of the human genome that may confer susceptibility to autism.

Using genome information from more than 1,000 families with multiple affected individuals, including more than 150 Utah families, the researchers discovered a region on chromosome 5 that was significantly associated with autism. Their finding highlights the importance of genetic variation in the development of autism, according to a study published Oct. 8, 2009, in Nature.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that leads to impaired social interaction, challenges with communication, repetitive behaviors, and restricted interests. Although autism is a heritable disorder with more than 90 percent heritability by twin and family studies, attempts to identify genes that increase susceptibility to autism have met with limited success.

“Autism and other autism spectrum disorders are complex diseases,” says William M. McMahon, M.D., professor and chairman of psychiatry at the University of Utah School of Medicine and a contributor to the study. “While previous research and familial studies have suggested that there are strong genetic components that predispose to autism, this study adds to accumulating evidence that multiple rare mutations, rather than a single mutation, contribute to autistic susceptibility.”

The scientists first studied 1,031 families, with a total of 1,553 children affected with autism, from the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange and U.S. National Institutes of Mental Health repositories. They discovered that variations in a region on chromosome 5 near a gene called semaphorin 5A ( SEMA5A ) were linked to the development of autism. SEMA5A is a gene that is thought to be involved in axonal guidance, the process by which nerve cells send out fibers to conduct electrical impulses.

“Earlier studies have shown that the expression of SEMA5A is lower in the peripheral blood of individuals with autism,” says Hilary Coon, Ph.D., also a co-author on the study and U of U professor of psychiatry. “It is reasonable to think that disruptions in genes involved in how axons in the brain find their correct targets might contribute to autism susceptibility, and this study provides additional evidence implicating SEMA5A.”
To confirm their findings, the researchers performed replication studies using data from the Autism Consortium, Autism Genome Project, and other autism family samples from around the world and Utah. They also compared brain bank tissue from 20 persons with autism to tissue from controls and found that expression of the SEMA5A gene was significantly lower in the brains of those with autism.

“It is worth noting that the genomewide significance of this region on chromosome 5 was only found when the results from the initial large set of families and the replication families were pooled in a meta-analysis,” says Coon. “Nevertheless, SEMA5A is an interesting candidate gene for autism susceptibility because it codes for a protein that is both attractive and inhibitory for developing neurons.”

The study authors also suggest that, based on their findings, there are likely to be multiple rare mutations leading to autism susceptibility and, even when the same gene may be involved in susceptibility across multiple people, there are likely to be differences in the exact mutations from one person to the next. In fact, additional evidence from this study suggests that common genetic variation with moderate to strong effects on the clinical manifestations of autism is unlikely to be found.

“This study really highlights the complexity of the genetics underlying autism,” says Coon. “We are grateful for the enormous effort given by thousands of autism families from around the world, and particularly for the continued involvement of our local families here in Utah. These international collaborations may provide the keys to unlocking the secrets of complex diseases such as autism.”

Judith S. Miller, Ph.D., U of U associate professor of psychiatry, also was a co-author on the study, which was funded in part by Autism Speaks. Additional support for the University of Utah Autism Research Project comes from the Utah Autism Foundation and from the National Institutes of Health.

Source: Media-Newswire.com

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The Autism News | English

By David Kirby | Author/Journalist | The Huffington Post

It amazes me to see that the Obama Administration and mainstream media have been rather nonchalant about the startling news that 1-in-100 American children – and perhaps around 1-in-60 boys – have an autism spectrum disorder.

On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told listeners on a conference call about an upcoming CDC study showing that the estimated rate of autism increased by about 50% among children living in study locations who were born in 1994, compared with those born in 1996.

Among children studied in select areas around the country, the CDC found an average ASD rate of 66-per-10,000 (1-in-150) in the 1994 cohort, but this jumped to somewhere “around one percent,” or 100-per-10,000 (1-in-100), in children born just two years later. (Keep in mind that the 1996 data pertain to 13-year-olds today; officials say they cannot tell us the rate among children younger than that).

Males are four times more likely to have an ASD. So extrapolating from the CDC data, among 15-year-old boys, the estiimated US rate is 102-per-10,000 (1-in-98), but among 13-year-old boys, it would appear to be somewhere around 167-per-10,000, or 1-in-60.

Sebelius said the government does not know if the actual rate has gone up, “and we are hoping to unlock these mysteries.”

Meanwhile, some experts seemingly want to brush this increase off as a mere artifact of better reporting, wider diagnostic criteria, greater awareness and early intervention programs among younger children. They don’t seem to feel that rising levels of environmental toxic exposures in genetically susecptible children might also be at play here. Some have called it “good news” that doctors are now so proficient at diagnosing the milder forms of ASD.

But these children were diagnosed, on average, in 1999 and 2001, respectively – which was quite a bit after the ASD classification was expanded (in the public schools and in the DSM-IV) to include Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder – not otherwise specified, or PDD-NOS.

Moreover, these boys were 8 years old when they were studied, so early intervention might not be a major reason for the increase. And while greater awareness and better reporting and record keeping have undoubtedly boosted the numbers, it is hard to see how this could explain the entire increase over the years.

We must wait until the final study is published, of course. Unfortunately, the CDC has not always tracked the exact same sites every study cycle. But among the six sites that were included in the 1992 and 1994 cohorts, the reported rate increased by 10 percent. It bears watching to see what happened in those same six sites among the 1996 cohort.

In order to accept that actual ASD rates have not gone up at all, one must also now acknowledge that the ASD rate among US males has always been at or around 167-per-10,000, and that all lower estimates were mistaken and all of those missing people went undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

But how is it possible that tens of thousands of parents – not to mention relatives, teachers, schools, nurses, counselors, clinicians and pediatricians – could miss so many of the 15-year-old boys with ASD in their midst, but can detect ASD in more 13-year olds? It is hard to understand why more parents of the 2004 cohort would fail to get autism services for their children, compared with parents of children born just two years later.

In my opinion, to shrug and treat this story as if things have probably always been this way is, frankly, wishful thinking and unsettling.

Officlals who say the numbers have not gone up are, in effect, telling pregnant women that if they are having a boy, there is a 1-in-60 chance he will have ASD – but not to worry, because it has probably always been this way, we just never noticed. Autism is very common; it is just part of the human condition.

Many will call me an alarmist, but I believe that 1-in-60 boys with an autism spectrum disorder is a national crisis – and not just a reassuring confirmation of how things have always been.

So, if you believe that autism rates are not increasing, then you must also believe that roughly 1-in-60 American males – of all ages — have an ASD.

Do you really believe that 1 in 60 American men are autistic?

That would mean some 2.55 million American males with autism, which is roughly the size of Nevada.

I have lived in many different cities, worked at nine different jobs, and met thousands of men and women throughout my years. I cannot recall people who showed the characteristics of high-functioning autism, though I must have met some along the way, at least in passing. But there were not 1-in-60 boys with ASD in my schools and there are not 1-in-60 men with ASD in my area. I think I would have noticed them by now.

I also spend time speaking with teachers and special education administrators who have been in the business for decades. One of them said she had surveyed every single long-term teacher she had worked with (those with 20, 30, or even 40 years on the job), “and every single one of them said that these kids just weren’t there in anywhere near these numbers when they started teaching – under any diagnosis.”

And Anne Dachel, a Wisconsin mother of an autistic son, a national advocate, and a teacher who works extensively with ASD students, said it was “an insult to thousands of teachers and counselors and doctors – who apparently ’stupidly’ ignored these kids in the past. If they were always here, but we just called them something else, then what did we do with them? We would have had to provide services even if the kids weren’t called ‘autistic.’ So why are there waiting lists for services and more and more of a demand for special education teachers?”

Anne also frets that the new ASD numbers are “being presented as good news,” in some media, she said. “Autism hasn’t increased–we just never realized how common it really is. No official ever calls autism a crisis, no matter how bad the numbers get.”

Finally, if you can explain away an increase in autism, you can also ignore the mounting evidence and growing belief among some scientists that autism likely has an environmental component, and that certain environmental exposores have been on the increase in recent years. You can also ignore the growing clinical, animal and epidemiological evidence to suggest that mercury, other heavy metals and other environmental toxins might increase the risk of ASD in genetically susceptible subpopulations.

Consider mercury. Rising levels have been documented in rivers, lakes and waterways nationwide, and rising levels in humans is now a sad and terrifying fact as well. A new study has shown that inorganic mercury was detected in the blood of 30 percent of US women in the CDC’s most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). That figure was 1,500 percent higher than what was reported in the 1999-2000 survey, when only 2% of women had inorganic mercury in their blood. And though these figures post-date the 1996 birth cohort, they do indicate steadily rising levels of background mercury over the years.

Other studies have shown an association between exposures to heavy metals and other toxins and autism risk. A paper published this year in Neurotoxocology showed a higher rate of ASD in schools located near Minnesota superfund sites, which typically contain high levels of “lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and arsenic.”

Another CDC-funded study found that children born in the most polluted tracts of the San Francisco Bay Area were 50% more likely to have an ASD. “The individual compounds that contributed most to these associations included mercury, cadmium, nickel, trichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride,” the study concluded.

Mercury has been shown to cause immune disorders, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuro-inflammation and other physical problems. These symptoms can also be found in at least some children with autism. And research on the brains of people with autism show markers that are associated with heavy metal exposure.

I personally believe that toxins like mercury can trigger ASD in children. These toxic exposures are on the rise, and so is the incidence of ASD.

An estimated 1-in-60 13-year-old boys has an ASD, but I don’t believe the same is true for 43-year-old men. It is time to stop pretending that the autism crisis is not happening.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/do-you-believe-that-one-i_b_310378.html

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The Autism News | English

By Dr. James P. Blumenthal | Physician, Defeat Autism Now! | The Huffington Post

Even as controversy swirls around vaccines and autism, a set of lab tests can now identify many of the children who are most at risk for the kinds of toxic neurological injuries that can cause autism, Asperger’s, attention deficits, and the rest of the pervasive developmental delays. Knowledge is power and when parents know what their children’s risks are, they can then make more rational, evidence-based choices in collaboration with their pediatrician.

We and our kids live in this increasingly toxic soup of a world. Not exactly the post-Apocalyptic set of a Kurt Russell movie, but a lot more toxic than the world our grandparents, our parents, or even we grew up in.

In the United States, the EPA, FDA, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration each regulate various chemicals that we are exposed to. The Environmental Protection Agency alone currently tracks more than 83,000 toxic industrial chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act. These chemicals make their way into our air, food, and water, and even into the umbilical cord blood of infants according to a 2005 study by the Environmental Working Group.

As the world we live in is becoming more toxic, the challenges to our natural detoxification systems and to the genetic programming that creates and maintains those systems is under increasing attack. Some kids are already showing genetic impairment from several generations of increasing exposure to environmental poisons. The bad news is that these kids are more at-risk for adverse effects from further toxic exposure than other kids. If there is good news, it is that are now tools to help parents and doctors identify which kids are more at-risk and which ones are not.

In order to stay alive and healthy, we have to be able to clean impurities out of our body. Fortunately, we are designed to be able to do just that. At least, up to a point. Today there is a whole body of books and publications, like Detox Box by Mark Hyman, MD and Our Toxic World: A Wake Up Call by Doris Rapp, MD, telling us how to keep those processes working. If they function properly, we can get rid of most toxins and wastes pretty well. This is vitally important, which is why we have not one but several different detox systems in our body designed to protect us from toxic chemicals from the outside world and from the toxic by-products of running our inner systems. When someone drinks too much and winds up “praying at the porcelain altar” or they eat something they shouldn’t and experience “Montezuma’s Revenge”, we see evidence of our first line of defense: getting rid of what’s noxious as fast as possible. If we can’t simply get rid of the poison out of one end or the other (yes Mrs. Reidy, I know that’s Hardly Dinner Table Conversation), then our liver has to break it down or “metabolize” it into something that’s safe for our kidneys and other organs of elimination to process and excrete. If we can’t simply ‘get rid of it’ or ‘metabolize’ it, then we hold on to the toxin until our body figures out what to do with it. Most of this storage takes place in our liver, kidneys, brain, ‘adipose’ or fat tissues, and mitochondria, the energy factories in each of our cells. And that is where most of the trouble starts.

The machinery that runs these clean-up systems is programmed to exist in us, to keep itself running smoothly, and to be able to protect us from a certain amount of internal and external junk. But just as cargo ships and supertankers that are built to withstand the usual storms at sea can be sunk by 100 foot high superwaves, our detox systems can be overcome by either too many or too-strong toxins. And if we are exposed to enough pollutants over time, then even our genetic programming starts to break down and the genes we pass along to the next generation start showing problems. Think of Rob Schneider’s comedy Multiplicity. As he cloned himself and then cloned the clones, each successive clone became a little dimmer and less perfect than the one before it, kind of like copying copies on a Xerox machine.

Our kids’ detox pathways are facing two kinds of challenges. One is that the genetic or “genomic” messages that tell their bodies what and how to detoxify are getting disrupted as they are being passed from one increasingly toxic generation to the next and so some of the machinery may not be running exactly the way it should. The other problem is that the machinery that may be running not-quite-right already is being asked to detoxify a larger quantity of more-toxic ’stuff’ than ever before. Combine this with a child’s tender and rapidly growing systems that depend on getting clear genetic messages on how to develop and we have the background for the current epidemic of autistic spectrum and attention deficit disorders that is filling our schools and the news.

And it’s not just our kids who are taking the hit. It is happening to us, too. The same toxic patterns of exposure that are showing up in children are also causing all sorts of auto-immune problems in increasingly younger adults. Cancers that only used to show up in 60 and 70 year olds are frequently showing up in 40 and 50 year olds3. Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, MS, ALS, lupus, and the rest of the auto-immune disorders are at an all-time high even with more research and money being thrown at them than at any other time in history.4

Now, before you throw the towel in, there IS something you can do about this. Remember that we started this article by stating that “knowledge is power”. One of the best places to start is by doing the genomic testing that can tell you how intact your child’s (or your own) detox systems are and the functional testing that can tell you how well they are working. These have become surprisingly affordable in the past few years with good quality genomic testing being available for under $450 and liver detoxification function testing being available for less than $100.

In order to do either of these tests, you simply need to have your doctor request that the laboratory send them the supplies (called a “test kit” ). If they don’t or won’t do this type of testing, we can also order the tests for you and help you or your doctor with the interpretation.

For the genomic testing, they will draw and process a small vial of blood and send it off to the lab that runs the test. It takes a couple of weeks for the tests to be processed and then the results will come back to your doctor. You make an appointment with them as usual, and they can explain the lab results to you so that you will know what your child’s or your own genetic challenges are with detoxification. Because the detox systems are genetically ‘wired for’ but not really developed in infants and very young children, this is a particularly good test to run for them. We’ve used this panel with kids as young as 12 months old whose parents wanted information before giving them some of the multiple vaccines. No lab test is infallible, but it can give you a big head-start on understanding what your child’s risks are and knowing how to take care of them and protect their health.

The functional detoxification panel uses saliva and urine and is probably better for school aged and older kids through adults because they need to participate a little more to make the test work. They take a No-Doz tablet and then collect saliva 2 and 8 hours later to test the first part of their liver detox system. Then, they take a couple of aspirin and tylenol and collect urine overnight and first thing in the morning to test the second part of liver detox. The saliva and urine are sent off to the lab and, like the genomic profile, it takes about two weeks to get results back. This is less invasive but a little more complex than the genomic test and it is a better test to use for older kids and adults because their detoxifying systems are developed fully enough for the test to be able to measure them and make sense.

Knowledge is power and these lab tests can give you the power to make wiser, safer choices about your children’s and your own health.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-james-p-blumenthal/how-to-tell-if-your-kids_b_265517.html

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The Autism News | English

By David Kirby | The Huffington Post

A pair of federally funded studies on autism rates is about to make news — big news — and it isn’t good: It would appear that somewhere around one percent of all US children currently have an autism spectrum disorder. The rate is even higher among six to 11 year olds and among boys, according to data from at least one of the new studies.

If you are an expectant parent, or planning to have a child soon, you might want to sit down before absorbing these staggering statistics, recently released by the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), which is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

According to data from the 2007 telephone survey of parents of nearly 82,000 US children, the odds of a child receiving an ASD diagnosis are one in 63. If it is a boy, the chances climb to a science fiction-like level of one in 38, or 2.6% of all male children in America.

But there was also some surprisingly good news. Enormous numbers of children originally diagnosed with ASD went on to shed their diagnosis as they got older, parents reported.

Among all children aged two to 17, according to respondents, one in 100 (100-per-10,000) currently have an ASD diagnosis, which is considerably higher than the previously (CDC) estimated rate of 1-in-150, (or 66-per-10,000).

But researchers were also told by parents that 60-per-10,000 children “had autism, Asperger’s Disorder etc. at some point, but not currently.”

This suggests two rather remarkable things:

1. At some point in their lives, 1-in-63 US children (160-per-10,000) will have an ASD diagnosis and;

2. Out of every 160 children diagnosed with ASD, 60 of them (37.5%) will somehow go on to lose that diagnosis.

Among boys, for every 260-per-10,000 male children originally diagnosed with ASD, 90 of them (34.6%) reportedly do not have the diagnosis now. This still leaves a monumentally high rate of one in 58 boys with ASD today, or 1.7 percent (170-per-10,000).

The percentage of girls who apparently lost their original diagnosis was 44.5%.

There was a big difference among age groups as well. Among those children who still have the diagnosis, the rate of ASD was 40% higher in 6-11 year olds (140-per-10,000, or 1-in-71) than the current rate of 12-17 year olds (100-per-10,000, or 1-in-100).

Interestingly, among the youngest children, two to five years old, the rate was only half that of their six- to 11-year-old siblings, (70-per-10,000 vs.140-per-10,000). Much of that is likely due to the average age of diagnosis, which is below five years, though it does bear watching to see if these younger kids go on to double their rates and “catch up” with the older ones.

Overall, the 2007 NSCH survey revealed a 100% increase in parent-reported ASD rates compared to the 2003 NSCH survey (which showed a 50-per-10,000 reported rate).

The survey was conducted by the Data Resource Center of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) at the Oregon Health & Science University. And though the survey used what is considered to be sound methodology for estimating ASD prevalence, most observers are still anxiously awaiting the release of even more new statistics — expected soon from the CDC.

This second autism study, culled from data in the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring network (ADDM), has been eagerly anticipated for quite some time.

ADDM researchers examine the education and (when possible) medical records of all eight-year-old children in selected US cities and states. They look only at eight-year-old cohorts to allow time for all diagnoses to be made, reported and counted.

So far, ADDM has published data from just two birth cohorts: children born in 1992 (eight-year-olds in 2000) and those born in 1994 (eight-year-olds in 2002). The 1992 cohort revealed an estimated ASD rate of one in 166, or 60-per-10,000.

For the 1994 cohort, the estimate was revised upward to one in 150, or 10% higher, at 66-per-10,000.

CDC officials have been analyzing the 1996 birth cohort (2004 data on 8-year-olds) for years. I asked the agency a few months ago about the slow progress in releasing the numbers and was told that the data were currently “under review.” No response was given to written questions about data collected from the 1998 or 2000 cohorts (in 2006 and 2008, respectively).

I also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the CDC for the raw data it had collected to date. That request is still pending.

But just the other day, the Adventures in Autism blog reported that CDC was about to release its 1996 birth cohort data, and that those data would also show ASD prevalence rates along the lines of 100-per-10,000, or a whopping one percent of US children.

The blogger, Ginger Taylor, reported that the CDC’s new one in 100 figure had been mentioned at a recent national meeting of the Autism Society of America. So I called ASA President and CEO Lee Grossman to ask him about it.

It was Grossman himself who brought up the new studies, while introducing the keynote panel at the ASA meeting in St Charles, IL the week of July 20.

“I told people we were about to get hit by two separate studies that will be published in the near future,” he said. The National Survey of Children’s Health data will be published in September and the CDC’s 1996 birth cohort data will also appear in print — in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report — “probably before the end of summer, although that is not yet official,” he told me.

Grossman said his sources were “good people” that he trusts, working within the CDC’s ADDM network, which he termed the “gold standard” of US autism epidemiology.

According to his sources, the 1996 birth cohort will reveal ASD prevalence rates that are “consistent with other national large-scale study figures, and I assume that includes a study from the UK,” Grossman said. That study put the UK rate at 1-in-83.

The CDC researchers also told Grossman that there were “some similarities” to what was found in the NSCH survey, even though NSCH and ADDM are “two extremely different instruments.”

Assuming that the new CDC figures show a significant increase in diagnoses between the 1994 and 1996 cohorts, the overarching question, of course, will be, “why?”

“Did the numbers really go up, or is it better data collection? I don’t know the answer,” Grossman told me. “Are we monitoring it better and finding more kids? I suspect we are, though it is hard to say.” He added that ASA was working with a few school districts that provide statistics on ASD rates, “and their numbers are closing in on one in 100 as well.”

One possible explanation for at least some of the increase is that ADDM researchers became more proficient at obtaining the necessary records across their analyses of the 1992, 1994 and 1996 birth cohorts. For example, in the 1994 cohort, the ASD rate in New Jersey (where access to both medical and school records was possible) was 93-per-10,000, while in Alabama (where access to medical records was not available) the rate was about one-third of that, at just 33-per-10,000.

Is it possible that CDC researchers somehow gained access to medical records for, say, Alabama children born in 1996 that they did not have for kids born there in 1994, thus driving up the numbers? Of course it is, though we must wait for the published report to find out.

Another plausible explanation for some, if not all of the increase, is the expansion of the ASD classification within the public schools to include not only full-blown autism, but also milder forms of ASD such as Pervasive Developmental Disorder — Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) and Asperger’s Syndrome.

This has long been the argument of those who do not believe that the real number of ASD cases has increased — they insist that the rise is simply an artifact of wider diagnostic criteria, greater awareness and/or more ASD services on offer.

I am certain that the expansion of ASD criteria in the early 1990’s contributed to the increase in reported diagnoses during that time, though I am not personally convinced that this can account for the entire growth of cases.

And I do not believe that autism rates have always been one in 100, or one in 71, as currently reported by parents of six- to 11-year-olds in the NCHS study.

So, what else could help explain at least part of the ASD increase? I believe that environmental factors are at play. And rising levels of toxic exposures among pregnant women, unborn children and young infants must be fully examined.

Which leads us to vaccines: Could they be responsible, at least in part, for contributing to the rising ASD numbers?

“A person with an autism spectrum disorder has a number of underlying and seemingly unnoticed immunological, inflammatory or mitochondrial issues happening, and there could be any number of factors that trigger this,” Lee Grossman told me, reflecting a growing consensus among autism groups and researchers. “And it is certainly plausible that vaccines are one of those triggers.”

The whole debate over why the numbers are going up, Grossman added, “is sad.” He lamented the fact that “people are trying to limit the debate and the science. But until we know what is going on, we should treat everything as a plausible factor, and study it to the point where we have a much better understanding. For example, why do some people have a severe reaction to vaccines and why do some not have that reaction? To me, it is appalling that those studies have not happened.”

If there is an environmental component to autism, hopefully scientists will want to know which exposures might have increased between, say, 1992 and 1996.

One possible answer is the Hepatitis B vaccine, (which also contained 25 micrograms of mercury containing thimerosal).

Introduced in 1991, it was the first vaccine ever given on a population basis to newborn babies (within the first three hours after delivery) in human history.

But according to the CDC’s National Immunization Survey (which also includes parental telephone interviews), only 8% of infant children received the Hep B vaccine in 1992, when that birth cohort showed an ASD rate of 60-per-10,000.

By 1994, the number of children receiving Hep B vaccine had reached just 27% — and the cohort showed an ASD rate of 66-per-10,000.

By 1996, the Hep B coverage rate had risen to 82%, when that cohort’s ASD rate exploded to around 100-per-10,000.

Correlation, obviously, does not equal causation. And no one is suggesting that Hepatitis B vaccine is the singular “cause” of autism. But the uptake rate of that particular immunization is at least one environmental factor that did demonstrably change during the period in question.

In addition, some of recent studies and Vaccine Court decisions have supported the contention that Hepatitis B vaccine can damage myelin — the nervous system’s main insulating component — at least in certain genetically susceptible adults and infants.

A study published last October in the journal Neurology found that children who received the Hepatitis B vaccine series were 50% more likely to develop “central nervous system inflammatory demyelination” than children who did not receive the vaccine.

Most of this increase was due to the Engerix B brand of the vaccine, manufactured by the UK’s GlaxoSmithKline. That brand increased the risk of demyelination by 74%, and patients with confirmed multiple sclerosis were nearly three times more likely to develop the disorder.

“Hepatitis B vaccination does not generally increase the risk of CNS inflammatory demyelination in childhood,” the authors concluded. “However, the Engerix B vaccine appears to increase this risk, particularly for confirmed multiple sclerosis, in the longer term. Our results require confirmation in future studies.”

In another Vaccine Court Case, Banks v HHS, the Special Master ruled that a young boy named Bailey Banks suffered from a similary demyelinating disease called “acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) following the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, which “led inexorably” to his development of PDD-NOS, an autism spectrum disorder.

In Bailey’s case, the myelin repaired itself, but the CNS damage was permanent. Most children with ASD do not show current signs of myelin damage, though many of them test positive for antibodies to myelin basic protein, suggesting that demyelination may have played a role at one point, as it did in the Bailey Banks case.

Another item that will surely spark fiery debate is the reason why so many previously diagnosed children with ASD are currently not holding that diagnosis.

There are three main possible explanations:

1) Many children never had an ASD to begin with, and were simply “misdiagnosed.”

2) Some children naturally “recovered” from ASD on their own without treatment, (though Lee Grossman and many others told me they have never seen this happen).

3) Interventions including behavioral therapy, dietary changes and biomedical treatments actually work, and it is possible to recover a child from the grips of ASD.

One thing is certain however: No matter what the explanations for the increase — and for the extraordinary “recovery” rate of children diagnosed with ASD — the current US ASD level is still somewhere around 1% — and 1.4% (140-per-10,000) among kids aged six to 11, if the NCHS study is to be believed.

Let’s assume that the 140-per-10,000 rate is the most accurate: This would make the “autism is genetic and has always been with us at these levels” crowd appear to be pathetic, if not downright laughable.

Why? Because reputable studies from the 1980s showed that the actual rate of autism was about two per 10,000 children, not 140 per 10,000. If those studies were wrong, and if the rate was the same then as it is now (as many scientists contend), that would mean that doctors, educators and statisticians are now 7,000 percent more proficient at diagnosing and counting autism than they were before.

According to this logic, out of every 140 children who had an ASD in the 1980s, 138 of them went (and continue to go) undiagnosed, uncounted and untreated by medical and educational professionals.

If I were a medical or public health professional, that is a fact that I would not be keen on broadcasting.

And if the actual rate of autism in America is truly 1%- or 1.4% – then as ASA’s Grossman said: “People ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“Everyone is going to cover this story, and the reality is that nobody is doing anything about the increase in autism,” Grossman commented. “But when you get to a figure of 1% of the population, hopefully you’ll get attention, and have people begin to act to help those with autism today with funding of services and support, and to get a better handle on how to spend research money.”

Grossman said it was “terrible” that research into the causes of autism has been so heavily weighted towards genetics, at the expense of studying environmental factors.

“But now, many people believe that autism is associated with environmental triggers,” he told me. “And my message is: ‘Wake up.’ But if this doesn’t wake people up, then I don’t know what will.”

I, for one, concur with Lee Grossman.

“I’m hopeful that this unfortunate statistic, and the terrible growth in autism, will finally get people to act to do something about autism,” he said. “And by that, I mean the fine folks in government who are not responding in the ways that they should.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/autism-rate-now-at-one-pe_b_256141.html

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The Autism News | English

By Dan Agin | Author/Neuroscientist | The Huffington Post

In a few weeks a research report will appear in the prestigious journal Pediatrics on the effects of air pollution during fetal development on the IQ of New York City children at five years of age. In response to an early release of the report, the media have already started reporting on it. It’s an important study, and maybe when the report finally appears in print in August it will be a wake-up call, a reminder that public health is not an abstraction, that it affects every one of us, including the fetus. The fetus, in fact, is estimated to be about 100 times more vulnerable to environmental toxic chemicals than children and adults. The mother’s body acts as a filter to protect the fetus against the outside environment, but no filter is perfect, and for some toxic chemicals the mother is no filter at all.

This study involved polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) These chemicals are released into the air during incomplete or complete burning of fossil fuel, tobacco, and other organic material. In this study, children of women living in New York City were monitored from in utero to 5 years of age, with determination of prenatal PAH exposure through personal air monitoring for the mothers during pregnancy. At 5 years of age, intelligence was assessed for 249 children using standard IQ tests.

The journal Pediatrics is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The report is by a seven-member research team at Columbia University, the lead author Dr. Frederica Perera. This is apparently the first study in the medical literature to report an association between prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and IQ.

The authors of the study conclude: “These results provide evidence that environmental PAHs at levels encountered in New York City air can affect children’s IQ adversely.”

This is not the first study to associate prenatal exposure to environmental toxins with childhood IQ. There’s much evidence already in the literature about lead, mercury, ethanol, arsenic, PCBs, and various pesticides and other chemicals. It’s not clear that all “associations” involve cause-effect relations, but there’s enough science now to make a great many people worried. And it’s not only childhood IQ that may be involved, but also autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, and various physical illnesses–all of it apparently related to chemical impacts on the fetus during development.

I’m using the term “environmental toxin” here to include any environmental toxic chemical–not only chemicals derived from biological sources.

This is a vast subject that has many facets, scientific, social, political, and economic. Too many people avoid any reality that makes them uncomfortable until it’s too late to fix a problem. If environmental toxins are harming children before they even get born, we need to know about it, and do something about it, and stop pretending that all environmental effects occur after birth and none before birth.

The idea of fetal vulnerability is certainly disturbing, but the reality is the fetus is extremely vulnerable. It’s estimated that sixty percent of all conceptions never make it to full term, most embryos perishing during the first few days of pregnancy without the mother even knowing about.

The fetus (or embryo, if it’s the first 10 weeks of gestation) is extremely vulnerable to toxic chemicals for three primary reasons:

1) The early fetus (the embryo) is very small, only about two inches long at ten weeks, and of course much smaller earlier than that. The consequence is that any chemical that gets into the early embryonic environment rapidly spreads throughout the entire embryo by simple diffusion–quickly getting into cells or getting to the surfaces of cells.

2) A “cascade” of events is a series of events in which one event acts as a trigger for the next event. Fetal development involves an enormous number of parallel biochemical cascades that result in cell differentiation and tissue organization. If any cascade is impacted by a toxic chemical at any particular point, the cascade may be seriously altered or even abolished–with sharp effects on fetal development. The same paradigm applies to early progenitor cells–an impact on an early progenitor cell can affect the entire lineage from that cell.

3) Everything in fetal development is happening at an extremely rapid pace. My favorite analogy is that fetal development is like turning a small lump of metal into the space shuttle. We start with a dot (the fertilized egg cell) about the size of the period at the end of this sentence, and we finish nine months later with an infant screaming at you to give it food and attention. If you want to know how fast human development occurs in the womb, consider that about halfway through the process the fetus is producing in its growing brain about 250,000 new nerve cells each minute. Any environmental chemical that changes the rate of any biochemical cascade in the developing fetal nervous system can have a serious impact on behavior and intelligence.

Fetal vulnerability is a reality. The presence of toxic chemicals in our environment is also a reality. It’s estimated that 50,000 industrial toxic chemicals are already in our environment–with only a hundred or so investigated for their fetal effects. It’s our environment, our society, and the unborn children exposed to toxic chemicals are our children. With so much talk about “saving the unborn” it’s a pity some of that social energy isn’t applied to the problem of pollution of the fetal environment. It’s a problem that needs public attention.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-agin/a-new-warning-air-polluti_b_242140.html

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The Autism News | English

By Jim Carrey – The Huffington Post

Recently, I was amazed to hear a commentary by CNN’s Campbell Brown on the controversial vaccine issue. After a ruling by the ’special vaccine court’ saying the Measles, Mumps, Rubella shot wasn’t found to be responsible for the plaintiffs’ autism, she and others in the media began making assertions that the judgment was in, and vaccines had been proven safe. No one would be more relieved than Jenny and I if that were true. But with all due respect to Ms. Brown, a ruling against causation in three cases out of more than 5000 hardly proves that other children won’t be adversely affected by the MMR, let alone that all vaccines are safe. This is a huge leap of logic by anyone’s standards. Not everyone gets cancer from smoking, but cigarettes do cause cancer. After 100 years and many rulings in favor of the tobacco companies, we finally figured that out.

The truth is that no one without a vested interest in the profitability of vaccines has studied all 36 of them in depth. There are more than 100 vaccines in development, and no tests for cumulative effect or vaccine interaction of all 36 vaccines in the current schedule have ever been done. If I’m mistaken, I challenge those who are making such grand pronouncements about vaccine safety to produce those studies.

If we are to believe that the ruling of the ‘vaccine court’ in these cases mean that all vaccines are safe, then we must also consider the rulings of that same court in the Hannah Polling and Bailey Banks cases, which ruled vaccines wereall vaccines are unsafe. Clearly both are irresponsible assumptions, and neither option is prudent. the cause of autism and therefore assume that

In this growing crisis, we cannot afford to blindly trumpet the agenda of the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) or vaccine makers. Now more than ever, we must resist the urge to close this book before it’s been written. The anecdotal evidence of millions of parents who’ve seen their totally normal kids regress into sickness and mental isolation after a trip to the pediatrician’s office must be seriously considered. The legitimate concern they and many in the scientific community have that environmental toxins, including those found in vaccines, may be causing autism and other disorders (Aspergers, ADD, ADHD), cannot be dissuaded by a show of sympathy and a friendly invitation to look for the ‘real’ cause of autism anywhere but within the lucrative vaccine program.

With vaccines being the fastest growing division of the pharmaceutical industry, isn’t it possible that profits may play a part in the decision-making? That the vaccine program is becoming more of a profit engine than a means of prevention? In a world left reeling from the catastrophic effects of greed, mismanagement and corporate insensitivity, is it so absurd for us to wonder why American children are being given twice as many vaccines on average, compared to the top 30 first world countries?

Paul Offit, the vaccine advocate and profiteer, who helped invent a Rotavirus vaccine is said to have paved the way for his own multi-million dollar windfall while serving on the very council that eventually voted his Rotavirus vaccine onto our children’s schedule. On August 21, 2000 a congressional investigation’s report titled, “Conflicts in Vaccine Policy,” stated:

It has become clear over the course of this investigation that the VRBPAC and the ACIP [the two main advisory boards that determine the vaccine schedule] are dominated by individuals with close working relationships with the vaccine producers. This was never the intent of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that a diversity of views be represented on advisory committees.

Isn’t that enough to raise questions about the process of choosing the vaccine schedule?

With many states like Minnesota now reporting the number at 1 in 80 children affected with autism, can we afford to trust those who serve two masters or their logic that tells us “one size fits all” when it comes to vaccines? Can we afford to ignore vaccines as a possible cause of these rising numbers when they are one of the fastest growing elements in our children’s environment? With all the doubt that’s left hanging on this topic, how can anyone in the media or medical profession, boldly demand that all parents march out and give their kids 36 of these shots, six at a time in dosage levels equal to that given a 200 pound man? This is a bias of the most dangerous kind.

I’ve also heard it said that no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism has ever been found. That statement is only true for the CDC, the AAP and the vaccine makers who’ve been ignoring mountains of scientific information and testimony. There’s no evidence of the Lincoln Memorial if you look the other way and refuse to turn around. But if you care to look, it’s really quite impressive. For a sample of vaccine injury evidence go to www.generationrescue.org/lincolnmemorial.html.

We have never argued that people shouldn’t be immunized for the most serious threats including measles and polio, but surely there’s a limit as to how many viruses and toxins can be introduced into the body of a small child. Veterinarians found out years ago that in many cases they were over-immunizing our pets, a syndrome they call Vaccinosis. It overwhelmed the immune system of the animals, causing myriad physical and neurological disorders. Sound familiar? If you can over-immunize a dog, is it so far out to assume that you can over-immunize a child? These forward thinking vets also decided to remove thimerosal from animal vaccines in 1992, and yet this substance, which is 49% mercury, is still in human vaccines. Don’t our children deserve as much consideration as our pets?

I think I’d rather listen to the more sensible voice of Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the National Institute of Health, who says:

Listen to the patients and the patients will teach…I think there is an inexcusable issue, and that’s the lack of research that’s been done here…A parent can legitimately question giving a one-day old baby, or a two-day old baby [the] Hepatitis B vaccine that has no risk for it [and] the mother has no risk for it. That’s a heavy-duty vaccine given on day two [of life]. I think those are legitimate questions.

Dr. Healy is also calling for a long overdue study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Dr. Frank Engly, a researcher and microbiologist who served on the boards of the CDC, FDA and EPA during the 70s and 80s, warned:

The CDC cannot afford to admit thimerosal is toxic because they have been promoting it for several years…If they would have followed through with our 1982 report, vaccines would have been freed of thimerosal and all this autism as they tell me would not have occurred. But as it is, it all occurred.

In all likelihood the truth about vaccines is that they are both good and bad. While ingredients like aluminum, mercury, ether, formaldehyde and anti-freeze may help preserve and enhance vaccines, they can be toxic as well. The assortment of viruses delivered by multiple immunizations may also be a hazard. I agree with the growing number of voices within the medical and scientific community who believe that vaccines, like every other drug, have risks as well as benefits and that for the sake of profit, American children are being given too many, too soon. One thing is certain. We don’t know enough to announce that all vaccines are safe!

If the CDC, the AAP and Ms. Brown insist that our children take twice as many shots as the rest of the western world, we need more independent vaccine research not done by the drug companies selling the vaccines or by organizations under their influence. Studies that cannot be internally suppressed. Answers parents can trust. Perhaps this is what Campbell Brown should be demanding and how the power of the press could better serve the public in the future.

– Jim Carrey

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-carrey/the-judgment-on-vaccines_b_189777.html

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