The big news yesterday... "There is no link found between vaccines and autism."
Wow. What a relief that is. We can all get back to our lives.
Don't celebrate too soon.
Here's the link to the article put out all over the place yesterday.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/no-link-found-between-vac_n_715090.html
Here's a link where you can download the full-text article for free:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/peds.2010-0309v1
Here are my comments about this "study" after looking at it for about an hour:
Two problems right off the bat:
1. Lower functioning children were excluded because their problems were so severe that it made it tough to assess them.
2. The participants were pre-selected by virtue of mandatory physician's consent before they could be recruited into the study. Their doctors were the gate-keepers. So, if the doctor didn't want a particular kid in the study, he or she denied consent and that child was never recruited. With doctors not reporting vaccine reactions in the first place, and with the serious objections many physicians have to the mere suggestion that there is a link between vaccines and autism, this is a major design flaw. This is not a random sample.
Of 802 potential cases (children with autism diagnoses), physician's consent was refused in 31 cases (3.87%). With recent autism rates at 1 in 100 children (1%), this certainly raises more suspicion about WHY these physicians automatically refused consent for these families to even be contacted about potentially participating in the study.
Of 777 cases (autism diagnoses) whose physicians gave consent, 103 (13.26%) were deemed ineligible for participation. In the Opposing Views article (http://www.opposingviews.com/i/q-a-with-cristofer-price-thimerosal-autism-study-author) the following information provides insight about why these children were deemed "ineligible":
Question: "As to the paper, I see that the results are the same for autism with and without regression. Are there any other issues of severity which were checked (e.g. level of intellectual disability, seizures) which were also monitored?"
Response: "We did do a sub-analysis where AD cases with low cognitive functioning were excluded (see technical report on Monday for full details and results) Analysis of the subgroup of AD cases where children with low cognitive functioning were excluded was motivated by the following concern. Because children who are non-responsive during the assessment process are more difficult to assess, it can sometimes be difficult to determine whether children with severe developmental delay actually have autistic disorder."
MPT: SO... they eliminated a sizable portion of the cases of children with autism on the basis that they were too severely impaired to participate in the assessment. This would DEFINITELY present at least a POTENTIAL for skewed results by eliminating the population of children with the most severe symptoms of mercury poisoning.
In the final analysis, after all of the physicians’ refusals and elimination of children who were "too severe to be assessed" there were only 49 cases (children with autism) that carried the Regressive Autism diagnosis. This represents 19% of the "Case Group" and 6.11% of the original group of 802 children who were potential "Cases" for the study. Ultimately, the exposures to thimerosal of this group of children (n=49) were compared statistically with the exposures of the "Control" group (children who did not have autism diagnoses; n=652), and "no significant differences" were found between groups.
No Shit.
As anyone who has looked at my previous analysis of the MMR study should know by now... The closer your groups are in number, the more powerful your analysis is. When comparing groups of 49 and 652, there is just a tad of inequality in the number of subjects.
This study is bunk.
Try again, CDC.
Showing posts with label mercury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mercury. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
IT'S MINDBODY, NOT MIND-BODY
Last week I was interviewed by Steve Higgs of The Bloomington Alternative. We met for about three hours and talked about Biomedical Interventions for Autism, and about environmental toxins. Mr. Higgs is especially interested in the role of toxins here in the state of Indiana, and how our unique environment impacts the children in this state (and those beyond our borders).
Last night I couldn't sleep. So I got up and fired off a few emails to Mr. Higgs, including copies of some PowerPoint Presentations I gave in April of this year. Among them was a presentation I put together in which I researched some of the specific toxins we have in abundance, here in Southwestern Indiana.
This morning I received an email from Mr. Higgs, with a few questions. Among them was the question of what to call those who seek out my services. Patients? Clients? and how to refer to their diagnoses: ASD?
The result of that email turned into a lengthy response, which I think makes a good blog post, so here it is:
As far as what to call those who seek my services...clients is more appropriate, I think. I wish I had given you one of my business cards. The tag I use on them (and my "letterhead") is "Family Coaching for Fragile Children." I work with kids (and adults) who have received any number of diagnoses, from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia in adults to autism, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and Learning Disabilities in kids.
I was thinking about this a lot last night/this morning, and feeling so discouraged because there is SO MUCH to do and often feels like only me to do it.
I had another parent email and call yesterday, with questions about how to get her physician to order the labs we need. This is a 17 year-old with chronic GI pain, upper respiratory infections, strep, bronchitis, etc. (immune system dysfunction) since infancy. At 17, he now has pre-cancerous lesions in his gastroinstinal tract and the parents have been told that things will probably not ever get better for him; he'll just have to learn to live with the pain. The primary care physician has seen this kid probably 100 times in the last 12-13 years and has made numerous referrals to other specialists (GI docs, allergists, therapists, etc.). He has also collected many thousands of dollars from the family and their insurance company over that time. I saw this kid and spent more than 50 hours going over his medical records, abstracting them, putting everything in chronological order, researching and documenting everything that had happened to him since conception. I also spent about 5 hours with the family (and drove almost four hours round-trip to do so). When I wrote up the report, I did it in such a way that everything flowed and made sense. It was this kid's life story. The reason I did this was to be sure to make the case for the doctor, so he would understand the rationale behind what I was asking him to do. He had no problem with it. Said he would order the tests. However, he will not take the time to pick up the phone and call (or have his staff call) the labs to request the test kits. I even provided interactive links and telephone numbers at the end of the report, to make things as simple as possible. All it would take is five minutes and unfortunately, that's something he or his staff has to do. I can't order the kits and neither can the parents. (There are some labs - Great Plains, for example, that make this process much easier by allowing parents to order kits and take them to the doctor for his/her signature. Others are not as user-friendly, but the information provided by the labs is worth the effort, in my opinion.)
This is the most frustrating thing for me. Even when they finally begin to see why this makes sense, it's like pulling teeth to get physicians to change the way they do things. I don't think I explained this blatantly in my powerpoint about Biomedical Interventions, but this is why I talked about the two doctors (Marshall & Warren) who discovered H. pylori bacteria and its role in ulcers. They made the discovery in 1982 and it wasn't until 1995 that "Standard Medical Practice" finally changed from the mantra of "stress causes ulcers" to recognizing that if a bacterial infection was the cause, then it makes sense to treat with an antibiotic. As a result of the extremely slow awakening of the medical community, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people suffered with ulcers that could have easily been treated. It took 13 years for them to wake up. How many children will we lose in 13 years? (This may be a good time to read the first post on my blog: AUTISM IS TREATABLE)
When we talk about biomedical interventions for autism and other "spectrum disorders" like ADHD, Learning Disabilities, Asperger's, PDD-NOS, bipolar disorder, etc., we are talking about a "whole-body" affliction. That's the major problem with why the medical community is not "on-board." This is completely the opposite of what medical schools have taught for the last few generations, at least. The medical system has moved almost exclusively to specialty care, where you see one doctor for your feet, another doctor for your gut, another doctor for your ears, another doctor for the fungus under your nails, and another doctor for your "mental" or "cognitive" difficulties. Each one sees only a part of the patient, rather than looking at the entire person. The biomedical approach to autism (and other whole-body afflictions) is a systems approach that emphasizes the fact that there is no such thing as mind-body. It's mindbody. All one child; all one word. There is nothing physicially separating the mind from the rest of the body and we need to stop treating our children as if they have been decapitated. What happens in the body affects the brain and vice-versa. This is another reason why the impact of environmental toxins is so important to consider. Lead, mercury, and other heavy metals negatively impact the entire body by damaging enzymatic processes. They cause disruption everywhere. Until we start assessing and addressing the damage caused by environmental toxins, everything else we do is just bandaids.
Marci
Last night I couldn't sleep. So I got up and fired off a few emails to Mr. Higgs, including copies of some PowerPoint Presentations I gave in April of this year. Among them was a presentation I put together in which I researched some of the specific toxins we have in abundance, here in Southwestern Indiana.
This morning I received an email from Mr. Higgs, with a few questions. Among them was the question of what to call those who seek out my services. Patients? Clients? and how to refer to their diagnoses: ASD?
The result of that email turned into a lengthy response, which I think makes a good blog post, so here it is:
As far as what to call those who seek my services...clients is more appropriate, I think. I wish I had given you one of my business cards. The tag I use on them (and my "letterhead") is "Family Coaching for Fragile Children." I work with kids (and adults) who have received any number of diagnoses, from chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia in adults to autism, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and Learning Disabilities in kids.
I was thinking about this a lot last night/this morning, and feeling so discouraged because there is SO MUCH to do and often feels like only me to do it.
I had another parent email and call yesterday, with questions about how to get her physician to order the labs we need. This is a 17 year-old with chronic GI pain, upper respiratory infections, strep, bronchitis, etc. (immune system dysfunction) since infancy. At 17, he now has pre-cancerous lesions in his gastroinstinal tract and the parents have been told that things will probably not ever get better for him; he'll just have to learn to live with the pain. The primary care physician has seen this kid probably 100 times in the last 12-13 years and has made numerous referrals to other specialists (GI docs, allergists, therapists, etc.). He has also collected many thousands of dollars from the family and their insurance company over that time. I saw this kid and spent more than 50 hours going over his medical records, abstracting them, putting everything in chronological order, researching and documenting everything that had happened to him since conception. I also spent about 5 hours with the family (and drove almost four hours round-trip to do so). When I wrote up the report, I did it in such a way that everything flowed and made sense. It was this kid's life story. The reason I did this was to be sure to make the case for the doctor, so he would understand the rationale behind what I was asking him to do. He had no problem with it. Said he would order the tests. However, he will not take the time to pick up the phone and call (or have his staff call) the labs to request the test kits. I even provided interactive links and telephone numbers at the end of the report, to make things as simple as possible. All it would take is five minutes and unfortunately, that's something he or his staff has to do. I can't order the kits and neither can the parents. (There are some labs - Great Plains, for example, that make this process much easier by allowing parents to order kits and take them to the doctor for his/her signature. Others are not as user-friendly, but the information provided by the labs is worth the effort, in my opinion.)
This is the most frustrating thing for me. Even when they finally begin to see why this makes sense, it's like pulling teeth to get physicians to change the way they do things. I don't think I explained this blatantly in my powerpoint about Biomedical Interventions, but this is why I talked about the two doctors (Marshall & Warren) who discovered H. pylori bacteria and its role in ulcers. They made the discovery in 1982 and it wasn't until 1995 that "Standard Medical Practice" finally changed from the mantra of "stress causes ulcers" to recognizing that if a bacterial infection was the cause, then it makes sense to treat with an antibiotic. As a result of the extremely slow awakening of the medical community, hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people suffered with ulcers that could have easily been treated. It took 13 years for them to wake up. How many children will we lose in 13 years? (This may be a good time to read the first post on my blog: AUTISM IS TREATABLE)
When we talk about biomedical interventions for autism and other "spectrum disorders" like ADHD, Learning Disabilities, Asperger's, PDD-NOS, bipolar disorder, etc., we are talking about a "whole-body" affliction. That's the major problem with why the medical community is not "on-board." This is completely the opposite of what medical schools have taught for the last few generations, at least. The medical system has moved almost exclusively to specialty care, where you see one doctor for your feet, another doctor for your gut, another doctor for your ears, another doctor for the fungus under your nails, and another doctor for your "mental" or "cognitive" difficulties. Each one sees only a part of the patient, rather than looking at the entire person. The biomedical approach to autism (and other whole-body afflictions) is a systems approach that emphasizes the fact that there is no such thing as mind-body. It's mindbody. All one child; all one word. There is nothing physicially separating the mind from the rest of the body and we need to stop treating our children as if they have been decapitated. What happens in the body affects the brain and vice-versa. This is another reason why the impact of environmental toxins is so important to consider. Lead, mercury, and other heavy metals negatively impact the entire body by damaging enzymatic processes. They cause disruption everywhere. Until we start assessing and addressing the damage caused by environmental toxins, everything else we do is just bandaids.
Marci
Friday, August 21, 2009
Vaccines and Autism: Your Child and "The Greater Good"
I have not posted in a while, and I apologize for that.
I am not going to offer anything new today, but instead will repost a very long, detailed article I wrote in May 2009. I am reposting this because I believe it is exceptionally pertinent and needed. If it helps save one child, it is worth it.
There are several links in this post, please take the time to view the videos as they are essential to the message as a whole. After viewing the videos, please click the "back" arrow to return to the post.
Blessings for all of you.
Marci
This article originally posted May 7, 2009:
Yesterday's episode of "The Doctors" was worth watching, if only because it is sure to stir more debate and controversy about the link between vaccines and autism. Hopefully, this will help to keep the vaccine/autism connection from fading away as the AAP and "99.9 % of pediatricians" (according to Dr. Stork) would like. For anyone who did not see the show, let me set the stage.
Jenny McCarthy, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, J.B. Handley, and Stan Kurtz were guests. Probably everyone knows by know that Jenny McCarthy is the mother of Evan, a little boy who was diagnosed with autism and who is now recovered. He no longer has autism. Dr. Jerry Kartzinel is the Defeat Autism Now! Pediatrician who helped Jenny McCarthy and Evan by utilizing the Biomedical Approach to address the underlying medical problems that led to the autism diagnosis. Jenny Documented Evan's recovery in her book, "Louder Than Words." Jenny and Dr. Kartzinel have recently written a book together, "Healing and Preventing Autism: A Complete Guide." J.B. Handley and his wife Lisa founded Generation Rescue, a non-profit organization that provides information and support to families who are working to recover their children from an autism diagnosis.
I don't usually watch "The Doctors" and wouldn't have seen it yesterday if I had not been given a heads' up via email from a friend who is also the parent of a child diagnosed with autism. I don't know anything about "The Doctors" other than the two who were most involved in the debate were Dr. Stork and Dr. Sears.
At the beginning of the show, Dr. Stork introduced the topic by saying, "Some of the theories you’re about to hear we may not agree with, but we know as doctors, this is an important issue to discuss."
As the discussion began, Dr. Lisa Masterson was supportive of Jenny McCarthy's work and gave her kudos for standing up, not only for her own kid but for so many other kids in this country and beyond. However, as the discussion heated up, Dr. Masterson disappeared from the stage and we were left with Dr. Sears and Dr. Stork. Dr. Sears, a pediatrician and member of the AAP, was reasonable and asked thoughtful questions about the science behind the GF/CF diet, specifically questioning, "Why doesn't it work for ALL kids?" Dr. Kartzinel responded that while the GF/CF diet does not work for ALL kids, it DOES work well for a significant percentage, and we CAN test to see if children have allergic reactions to certain foods and we CAN TEST to see if an individual child is making opiates from gluten and casein proteins. This is what medicine is supposed to be about. You base the treatment on the results of laboratory tests.
Dr. Sears then asked Dr. Kartzinel about his opinion with regard to whether or not there is a genetic component to autism. As Dr. Kartzinel responded, we talk about a "genetic predisposition" - something that makes an individual child more vulnerable to having a bad reaction to particular environmental insults - including toxins, and including toxins that are injected into the child's body via vaccinations.
Dr. Kartzinel: "What thing can we do in medicine to an entire population, and not expect a certain small group not to do well with? There is nothing in medicine that we do…lidocane, anesthesia, certain surgical procedures...Why would we think that we can give every child in the nation not one vaccine, but multiple vaccines and not suspect anything to go wrong with them. So, genetically, whether it be penicillin, or vaccines we have to understand there are going to be some children who will not do well with it…That’s probably one big reason we have a problem with this…we don’t look at the children as individuals…we look at them as a population."
As Dr. Kartzinel pointed out, in medicine, nothing works for everyone, so why would we expect that a universal vaccine schedule would work for ALL kids, without a certain percentage of them having problems as a result? Jenny joined in to say that the message is, there are too many, too soon and that the increase in the number of vaccines from 10 in 1983 to 36 in 2009 is unwarranted and IS related to the increase in autism. This is when things turned ugly. Here is a link to a discussion you may want to see (or see again): http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/procedure_list/269
What I noticed is that when J.B. Handley stated that he is tired of physicians telling parents that vaccines are safe when the physician has not personally looked at the science, Dr. Stork blew a gasket. Dr. Stork began yelling at J.B. Handley and accusing him of "antagonizing me" and "personally attacking me on MY stage." Dr. Stork then switched the topic away from vaccines and started talking about environmental toxins and dietary changes that may be contributing to autism. He was willing to entertain the idea that there are other toxins and seemingly benign things that may be problematic for our kids, but to question vaccines? That is out of bounds. Wait...I thought he wanted to have an open debate...
Here is a link to the next segment of the show: http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/procedure_list/271
Again, let's have an open discussion, but not about vaccines, since we "Know the Truth" that "Vaccines have been studied and scrutinized" so let's stop talking about that. Did anyone else hear Jenny McCarthy, Jerry Kartzinel, and J.B. Handley saying over and over again "They've looked at 2 vaccines and only one ingredient (mercury)." Drs. Sears and Stork continued to talk over their guests as if they could not hear what they were saying. They just continued to tow the party-line, from the AAP and the CDC. During the break, after the above "discussion," Dr. Stork stated that they contacted the AAP and had recieved a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is the official party-line:
Why don't we ask Dr. Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Click here to see what Dr. Healy has to say. Please be patient and wait for the advertisement at the beginning to play through. Dr. Healy's interview is well worth the wait.
According to the former director of NIH, not only has the question NOT been answered, it has not even been addressed. Injured children have not been studied because the government is afraid of what they will find. “The public health officials have been too quick to dismiss…”
Aha! you may say...Dr. Healy is only ONE physician and she is no longer the director of NIH anyway. Why should we believe her?
The problems with mercury have been known for decades, and it's not just mercury. Aluminum does many of the same things that mercury does. If you want to learn more about this read the article by Dr. Russell Blaylock, reporting on the cover-up at the Simpsonwood Conference.
If you have read much about vaccine safety, you may be familiar with Dr. Paul Offit; the biggest proponent of vaccines, and member of the Institute Of Medicine (IOM), which has declared with a great degree of certainty that vaccines are safe. I encourage you to watch this video clip of Dr. Offit, promoting his latest book about the subject.
Dr. Offit is pretty impressive. Unfortunately he doesn't understand neuroscience. If he did, he would realize that his argument about problems with the synapse being the cause of autism, he is actually MAKING the CASE for vaccine injury, since mercury and aluminum (both vaccine additives) are both NEUROTOXINS and damage the ability of one neuron to communicate with another by way of the SYNAPSE.
Dr. Offit makes a big point of the fact that in the last year there has been the largest oubreak of measles in decades. 135 cases of measles, and 10% of those children had serious complications. For clarification: 10% of 135 is 13.5, meaning that when Dr. Offit is cautioning about the impact of measles, he is talking about complications that impacted less than 14 children in the United States in the last year - which was "the largest measles outbreak in years." What Dr. Offit doesn't tell you is that more than 50% of the measles cases he talks about have been determined to be from the vaccine strain of measles, meaning the children who got measles either got them from the vaccine, or from being exposed to someone who was shedding the virus after being vaccinated. This is the same thing that happens with many of the polio cases, but Dr. Offit is not going to tell you that. Why would he want to be...less than honest about these facts? Watch this video clip and draw your own conclusions.
Remember the American Academy of Pediatrics' statement on "The Doctors?" Why would they declare 36 vaccines "safe" when only "a dozen or so" studies have been done and none of them have included children with autism? Follow the money.
Fifty-five doses of vaccines by age six. Wait, you might say...I thought it was 36! Thirty-six vaccinations or shots, but because so many are multi-dose shots (DTaP, MMR) when you add them all up, it's actually 55 doses of vaccines.
Remember, it's not just mercury that is neurotoxic, aluminum is a huge problem that most people haven't even considered at this point. Here is a link to a very informative article about aluminum, and why we should be concerned. This article is written by Dr. Robert Sears. Dr. Robert Sears happens to be the brother of Dr. James (Jim) Sears of "The Doctors." Both are pediatricians, but they apparently have some different views on the issue of vaccine safety. If you saw the episode of "The Doctors," you may have noticed that at one point after being asked by Dr. Jim Sears about "the scientific studies" showing that diet is effective in treating autism, Dr. Kartzinel spoke about how so many doctors are questioning if diet works, but they are not coming to his clinic and actually talking to parents of kids who are improving. He also made reference to Dr. Robert Sears, saying something along the lines of, "Those who are saying there are no studies are not talking to your brother about what he sees at the clinic." My hunch is that the reason Dr. Jim Sears appeared more rational and reasonable than Dr. Stork on the subject of vaccine safety is because he has had this conversation many times within his own family. Unlike Dr. Stork, who seems to be married to his position of "Devil's Advocate." Interesting choice of terminology.
Dr. Stork is okay with talking about ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS as a possible contributing factor in autism, but he adamantly denies that toxins in vaccines (which are injected directly into the bloodstream of a tiny infant) could have anything to do with autism. Let's ask another pediatrician (one of the .1% who disagrees with Dr. Stork, according to his own estimate) about her experience with autism. Dr. Stephanie Cave is a Defeat Autism Now! pediatrician in Louisiana. She is also author of the book, "What Your Pediatrician May Not Tell You About Vaccinations." In an interview with Mothering Magazine, Dr. Cave stated:
To read the interview with Dr. Cave in its entirety, click here.
So, what is the source of the mercury and aluminum? There are many environmental sources of mercury and aluminum, especially here in the midwest. We have a lot of coal-burning power plants, and they put a lot of heavy metals into our environment. When it's in the air, water, and soil, it's hard to avoid it, which is exactly why it is so important to be able to detoxify. If your metallothionein is depleted, that's not going to happen and metals are going to build up in your system. As a side-trip, this might be a good time to mention that when we talk about genetic predisposition and considering which children might be most at risk, we need to consider where the parents live and how many toxins are built up in the mother before she gets pregnant. The message is, "It's all ADDITIVE." It's not JUST the vaccines, but if the mercury and aluminum that is injected into an infant on the first day of his or her life shuts down the baby's ability to detoxify AND that infant lives in an area with a lot of toxins, ENVIRONMENTAL toxins are going to pose more of a problem for that child.
The problem is, Dr. Stork is thinking just like a traditionally trained physician who practices traditional western medicine and is not open to considering any other points of view because that would be inconsistent with the party-line. He does not see the cumulative effect of toxins, but only wants to attribute the effects of poisons to those he is not involved in administering. This is the same kind of thought process behind his statement that there are increases in autoimmune diseases and all kinds of other diseases, and using that argument to establish as "truth" the "fact" that there is no connection between vaccines and autism. As Jenny McCarthy and Jerry Kartzinel pointed out, those other diseases are ALSO related to vaccines.
I found it interesting that nobody on the show brought up aluminum, or the increase in Alzheimer's disease since the administration of yearly flu vaccination (which not only has a lot of aluminum, they also contain mercury). On this subject I encourage you to go to PubMed and search for "aluminum with alzheimer's" - I just did and I got 775 studies.
Do you know anyone with Alzheimer's Disease? or "Alzheimer's type dementia?" If you do, I would ask you to envision that older person as a young child with the same problems: memory problems, communication problems, disturbed sleep and wake cycles, anxiety and irrational fears, behavior problems, etc... Sounds like autism, doesn't it?
Many pediatricians will tell you there is "No mercury in the childhood vaccines" anymore. This is not true. For a list of childhood vaccines that still have mercury (thimerosal) click here. When you are evaluating how much poison is safe for your infant to have injected into his or her body, the following information may be helpful: 12.5 mcg. of ethyl mercury (thimerosal) is 25 times the EPA "safe level" for an adult. When Dr. Cave gave her interview in 2002 she talked about the vaccine schedule at that time, pointing out that at 2 months of age, children were receiving 62.5 micrograms of ethyl mercury from just two vaccinations (Hep B & Hib). 62.5 micrograms in a 10 pound infant is up to 125 times the EPA "safe level." Dr. Cave went on to explain that mercury is a neurotoxin and as such, inhibits brain function. It also suppresses the immune system.
Dr. Cave relates, "When Hepatitis B began to be administered at birth during the 1990s, we started seeing ear infections beginning around two weeks of age, which was almost unheard of before that…they have antibodies to the basic myelin protein in brain tissue. These antibodies disappear after the children are treated and the mercury is eliminated.”
As noted, this interview was given in 2002, and according to the current information from the FDA and AAFP (American Academy of Family Practitioners) there is no longer 62.5 mcg. of ethyl mercury in the Hep B and HiB vaccine combination. However, as you will see if you check the information for yourself, there is still plenty of mercury to damage your child's brain, particularly if you follow the newest "guidelines" and get the flu shot every year, beginning in utero. If 62.5 mcg is 125 times the "safe limit" for a 10 pound infant, I wonder how many times the "safe limit" 25 mcg is to a 1 or 2 pound fetus.
Okay, so you now know that mercury is a neurotoxin and it also damages the immune system. If you watched "The Doctors" show yesterday, you will recall that the first thing Jenny McCarthy and Dr. Kartzinel talked about was dietary changes - specifically the Gluten Free/Casein Free Diet. Jenny stated that when she removed casein from Evan's diet "his eye-contact returned."
I am not going to offer anything new today, but instead will repost a very long, detailed article I wrote in May 2009. I am reposting this because I believe it is exceptionally pertinent and needed. If it helps save one child, it is worth it.
There are several links in this post, please take the time to view the videos as they are essential to the message as a whole. After viewing the videos, please click the "back" arrow to return to the post.
Blessings for all of you.
Marci
This article originally posted May 7, 2009:
Yesterday's episode of "The Doctors" was worth watching, if only because it is sure to stir more debate and controversy about the link between vaccines and autism. Hopefully, this will help to keep the vaccine/autism connection from fading away as the AAP and "99.9 % of pediatricians" (according to Dr. Stork) would like. For anyone who did not see the show, let me set the stage.
Jenny McCarthy, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, J.B. Handley, and Stan Kurtz were guests. Probably everyone knows by know that Jenny McCarthy is the mother of Evan, a little boy who was diagnosed with autism and who is now recovered. He no longer has autism. Dr. Jerry Kartzinel is the Defeat Autism Now! Pediatrician who helped Jenny McCarthy and Evan by utilizing the Biomedical Approach to address the underlying medical problems that led to the autism diagnosis. Jenny Documented Evan's recovery in her book, "Louder Than Words." Jenny and Dr. Kartzinel have recently written a book together, "Healing and Preventing Autism: A Complete Guide." J.B. Handley and his wife Lisa founded Generation Rescue, a non-profit organization that provides information and support to families who are working to recover their children from an autism diagnosis.
I don't usually watch "The Doctors" and wouldn't have seen it yesterday if I had not been given a heads' up via email from a friend who is also the parent of a child diagnosed with autism. I don't know anything about "The Doctors" other than the two who were most involved in the debate were Dr. Stork and Dr. Sears.
At the beginning of the show, Dr. Stork introduced the topic by saying, "Some of the theories you’re about to hear we may not agree with, but we know as doctors, this is an important issue to discuss."
As the discussion began, Dr. Lisa Masterson was supportive of Jenny McCarthy's work and gave her kudos for standing up, not only for her own kid but for so many other kids in this country and beyond. However, as the discussion heated up, Dr. Masterson disappeared from the stage and we were left with Dr. Sears and Dr. Stork. Dr. Sears, a pediatrician and member of the AAP, was reasonable and asked thoughtful questions about the science behind the GF/CF diet, specifically questioning, "Why doesn't it work for ALL kids?" Dr. Kartzinel responded that while the GF/CF diet does not work for ALL kids, it DOES work well for a significant percentage, and we CAN test to see if children have allergic reactions to certain foods and we CAN TEST to see if an individual child is making opiates from gluten and casein proteins. This is what medicine is supposed to be about. You base the treatment on the results of laboratory tests.
Dr. Sears then asked Dr. Kartzinel about his opinion with regard to whether or not there is a genetic component to autism. As Dr. Kartzinel responded, we talk about a "genetic predisposition" - something that makes an individual child more vulnerable to having a bad reaction to particular environmental insults - including toxins, and including toxins that are injected into the child's body via vaccinations.
Dr. Kartzinel: "What thing can we do in medicine to an entire population, and not expect a certain small group not to do well with? There is nothing in medicine that we do…lidocane, anesthesia, certain surgical procedures...Why would we think that we can give every child in the nation not one vaccine, but multiple vaccines and not suspect anything to go wrong with them. So, genetically, whether it be penicillin, or vaccines we have to understand there are going to be some children who will not do well with it…That’s probably one big reason we have a problem with this…we don’t look at the children as individuals…we look at them as a population."
As Dr. Kartzinel pointed out, in medicine, nothing works for everyone, so why would we expect that a universal vaccine schedule would work for ALL kids, without a certain percentage of them having problems as a result? Jenny joined in to say that the message is, there are too many, too soon and that the increase in the number of vaccines from 10 in 1983 to 36 in 2009 is unwarranted and IS related to the increase in autism. This is when things turned ugly. Here is a link to a discussion you may want to see (or see again): http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/procedure_list/269
What I noticed is that when J.B. Handley stated that he is tired of physicians telling parents that vaccines are safe when the physician has not personally looked at the science, Dr. Stork blew a gasket. Dr. Stork began yelling at J.B. Handley and accusing him of "antagonizing me" and "personally attacking me on MY stage." Dr. Stork then switched the topic away from vaccines and started talking about environmental toxins and dietary changes that may be contributing to autism. He was willing to entertain the idea that there are other toxins and seemingly benign things that may be problematic for our kids, but to question vaccines? That is out of bounds. Wait...I thought he wanted to have an open debate...
Here is a link to the next segment of the show: http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/procedure_list/271
Again, let's have an open discussion, but not about vaccines, since we "Know the Truth" that "Vaccines have been studied and scrutinized" so let's stop talking about that. Did anyone else hear Jenny McCarthy, Jerry Kartzinel, and J.B. Handley saying over and over again "They've looked at 2 vaccines and only one ingredient (mercury)." Drs. Sears and Stork continued to talk over their guests as if they could not hear what they were saying. They just continued to tow the party-line, from the AAP and the CDC. During the break, after the above "discussion," Dr. Stork stated that they contacted the AAP and had recieved a statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is the official party-line:
- “It is upsetting for families not to know what caused their child’s autism. While it is likely that there are many environmental factors that influence the development of autism, because of very careful and repeated studies we know that vaccines do not cause autism. We share the concern that additional research is needed to investigate genetic and environmental factors that may affect the developing brain.”
J.B. Handley: "It’s maddening for them to put out a statement like that…scientific dishonesty."
Who are you supposed to believe?
To boost The Doctors' position that vaccines have been proven safe, Dr. Stork showed a clip from a previous episode where the expert, Harvey Karp, M.D. declared: "A dozen or so large studies that have shown zero association between vaccines and autism."
That might be pretty convincing, IF any of those studies had included children with autism as part of the subject pool. But wait...this "expert" is declaring that 36 vaccines have been "proven" safe and to have "zero association" with autism, and ALL of that information has been gleaned from "A dozen or so" studies. In order for that to be true, each study would have had to cover 3 different vaccines, since "a dozen" goes into 36 (the number of childhood vaccines) 3 times. I would like to see those studies because I've looked at PubMed and they aren't there.
Why don't we ask Dr. Bernadine Healy, former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Click here to see what Dr. Healy has to say. Please be patient and wait for the advertisement at the beginning to play through. Dr. Healy's interview is well worth the wait.
According to the former director of NIH, not only has the question NOT been answered, it has not even been addressed. Injured children have not been studied because the government is afraid of what they will find. “The public health officials have been too quick to dismiss…”
Aha! you may say...Dr. Healy is only ONE physician and she is no longer the director of NIH anyway. Why should we believe her?
The problems with mercury have been known for decades, and it's not just mercury. Aluminum does many of the same things that mercury does. If you want to learn more about this read the article by Dr. Russell Blaylock, reporting on the cover-up at the Simpsonwood Conference.
If you have read much about vaccine safety, you may be familiar with Dr. Paul Offit; the biggest proponent of vaccines, and member of the Institute Of Medicine (IOM), which has declared with a great degree of certainty that vaccines are safe. I encourage you to watch this video clip of Dr. Offit, promoting his latest book about the subject.
Dr. Offit is pretty impressive. Unfortunately he doesn't understand neuroscience. If he did, he would realize that his argument about problems with the synapse being the cause of autism, he is actually MAKING the CASE for vaccine injury, since mercury and aluminum (both vaccine additives) are both NEUROTOXINS and damage the ability of one neuron to communicate with another by way of the SYNAPSE.
Dr. Offit makes a big point of the fact that in the last year there has been the largest oubreak of measles in decades. 135 cases of measles, and 10% of those children had serious complications. For clarification: 10% of 135 is 13.5, meaning that when Dr. Offit is cautioning about the impact of measles, he is talking about complications that impacted less than 14 children in the United States in the last year - which was "the largest measles outbreak in years." What Dr. Offit doesn't tell you is that more than 50% of the measles cases he talks about have been determined to be from the vaccine strain of measles, meaning the children who got measles either got them from the vaccine, or from being exposed to someone who was shedding the virus after being vaccinated. This is the same thing that happens with many of the polio cases, but Dr. Offit is not going to tell you that. Why would he want to be...less than honest about these facts? Watch this video clip and draw your own conclusions.
Remember the American Academy of Pediatrics' statement on "The Doctors?" Why would they declare 36 vaccines "safe" when only "a dozen or so" studies have been done and none of them have included children with autism? Follow the money.
Fifty-five doses of vaccines by age six. Wait, you might say...I thought it was 36! Thirty-six vaccinations or shots, but because so many are multi-dose shots (DTaP, MMR) when you add them all up, it's actually 55 doses of vaccines.
Remember, it's not just mercury that is neurotoxic, aluminum is a huge problem that most people haven't even considered at this point. Here is a link to a very informative article about aluminum, and why we should be concerned. This article is written by Dr. Robert Sears. Dr. Robert Sears happens to be the brother of Dr. James (Jim) Sears of "The Doctors." Both are pediatricians, but they apparently have some different views on the issue of vaccine safety. If you saw the episode of "The Doctors," you may have noticed that at one point after being asked by Dr. Jim Sears about "the scientific studies" showing that diet is effective in treating autism, Dr. Kartzinel spoke about how so many doctors are questioning if diet works, but they are not coming to his clinic and actually talking to parents of kids who are improving. He also made reference to Dr. Robert Sears, saying something along the lines of, "Those who are saying there are no studies are not talking to your brother about what he sees at the clinic." My hunch is that the reason Dr. Jim Sears appeared more rational and reasonable than Dr. Stork on the subject of vaccine safety is because he has had this conversation many times within his own family. Unlike Dr. Stork, who seems to be married to his position of "Devil's Advocate." Interesting choice of terminology.
Dr. Stork is okay with talking about ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS as a possible contributing factor in autism, but he adamantly denies that toxins in vaccines (which are injected directly into the bloodstream of a tiny infant) could have anything to do with autism. Let's ask another pediatrician (one of the .1% who disagrees with Dr. Stork, according to his own estimate) about her experience with autism. Dr. Stephanie Cave is a Defeat Autism Now! pediatrician in Louisiana. She is also author of the book, "What Your Pediatrician May Not Tell You About Vaccinations." In an interview with Mothering Magazine, Dr. Cave stated:
- We started testing hair, urine and blood samples…we found low levels of mercury in the hair and high levels of several other metals like aluminum, antimony, arsenic, and tin in the blood and urine. These children retain mercury, which is toxic to them.
…these children don’t have to be around a high exposure to metal – they just have to be around metal, per se, because they do not have the biochemistry to aid them in the removal of metals. I believe that’s because we have overloaded them with metal through the vaccines. We give them so much metal early in life, specifically through the hepatitis B vaccine given at birth, that their bodies keep producing metallothionein, which is what helps us to remove metals from the body. After their biochemistry is depleted, they end up with an inability to handle any metal at all.
Biochemist Bill Walsh of the Pfeiffer Treatment Center tested 503 autistic children…91% had deficiency of metallothionein. Neurotypical children did not.
To read the interview with Dr. Cave in its entirety, click here.
So, what is the source of the mercury and aluminum? There are many environmental sources of mercury and aluminum, especially here in the midwest. We have a lot of coal-burning power plants, and they put a lot of heavy metals into our environment. When it's in the air, water, and soil, it's hard to avoid it, which is exactly why it is so important to be able to detoxify. If your metallothionein is depleted, that's not going to happen and metals are going to build up in your system. As a side-trip, this might be a good time to mention that when we talk about genetic predisposition and considering which children might be most at risk, we need to consider where the parents live and how many toxins are built up in the mother before she gets pregnant. The message is, "It's all ADDITIVE." It's not JUST the vaccines, but if the mercury and aluminum that is injected into an infant on the first day of his or her life shuts down the baby's ability to detoxify AND that infant lives in an area with a lot of toxins, ENVIRONMENTAL toxins are going to pose more of a problem for that child.
The problem is, Dr. Stork is thinking just like a traditionally trained physician who practices traditional western medicine and is not open to considering any other points of view because that would be inconsistent with the party-line. He does not see the cumulative effect of toxins, but only wants to attribute the effects of poisons to those he is not involved in administering. This is the same kind of thought process behind his statement that there are increases in autoimmune diseases and all kinds of other diseases, and using that argument to establish as "truth" the "fact" that there is no connection between vaccines and autism. As Jenny McCarthy and Jerry Kartzinel pointed out, those other diseases are ALSO related to vaccines.
I found it interesting that nobody on the show brought up aluminum, or the increase in Alzheimer's disease since the administration of yearly flu vaccination (which not only has a lot of aluminum, they also contain mercury). On this subject I encourage you to go to PubMed and search for "aluminum with alzheimer's" - I just did and I got 775 studies.
Do you know anyone with Alzheimer's Disease? or "Alzheimer's type dementia?" If you do, I would ask you to envision that older person as a young child with the same problems: memory problems, communication problems, disturbed sleep and wake cycles, anxiety and irrational fears, behavior problems, etc... Sounds like autism, doesn't it?
Many pediatricians will tell you there is "No mercury in the childhood vaccines" anymore. This is not true. For a list of childhood vaccines that still have mercury (thimerosal) click here. When you are evaluating how much poison is safe for your infant to have injected into his or her body, the following information may be helpful: 12.5 mcg. of ethyl mercury (thimerosal) is 25 times the EPA "safe level" for an adult. When Dr. Cave gave her interview in 2002 she talked about the vaccine schedule at that time, pointing out that at 2 months of age, children were receiving 62.5 micrograms of ethyl mercury from just two vaccinations (Hep B & Hib). 62.5 micrograms in a 10 pound infant is up to 125 times the EPA "safe level." Dr. Cave went on to explain that mercury is a neurotoxin and as such, inhibits brain function. It also suppresses the immune system.
Dr. Cave relates, "When Hepatitis B began to be administered at birth during the 1990s, we started seeing ear infections beginning around two weeks of age, which was almost unheard of before that…they have antibodies to the basic myelin protein in brain tissue. These antibodies disappear after the children are treated and the mercury is eliminated.”
As noted, this interview was given in 2002, and according to the current information from the FDA and AAFP (American Academy of Family Practitioners) there is no longer 62.5 mcg. of ethyl mercury in the Hep B and HiB vaccine combination. However, as you will see if you check the information for yourself, there is still plenty of mercury to damage your child's brain, particularly if you follow the newest "guidelines" and get the flu shot every year, beginning in utero. If 62.5 mcg is 125 times the "safe limit" for a 10 pound infant, I wonder how many times the "safe limit" 25 mcg is to a 1 or 2 pound fetus.
Okay, so you now know that mercury is a neurotoxin and it also damages the immune system. If you watched "The Doctors" show yesterday, you will recall that the first thing Jenny McCarthy and Dr. Kartzinel talked about was dietary changes - specifically the Gluten Free/Casein Free Diet. Jenny stated that when she removed casein from Evan's diet "his eye-contact returned."
You also heard Dr. Kartzinel talk about how some children produce opiates from certain foods (gluten and casein) and how removing those foods from their diet often leads to improvement in the "symptoms" associated with autism. Here is an explanation of how all of this is related to mercury:
- Mercury and other heavy metals deactivate DPPIV
- DPPIV is an enzyme that breaks down gliadomorphin and casomorphin peptides in the body.
- Casomorphin comes from casein, the protein in milk and dairy products.
- Gliadomorphin comes from gluten, the protein in wheat, oats, barley, and rye
- Casomorphin & gliadomorphin are endogenous opiates – morphines – that make children spacy & irritable
- Children with autism are spacy & irritable
This is why the GF/CF diet works. It is also why it is necessary. Mercury and other heavy metals deactivate the enzyme that breaks down the peptides that are formed from gluten and casein. When they are not broken down, the kid is making his or her own opiates and is therefore spaced out and irritable - just like any other drug addict. This is also why so many kids on "the spectrum" are such picky eaters - they will often ONLY eat things that contain gluten and casein (bread, pizza, pasta, cheese, milk, ice cream, etc.). The reason is because they are not seeking food for nourishment, they are drug-seeking. Just like any other drug addict, they are not interested in eating, they are only interested in obtaining their fix - and they get it from foods that supply gluten and casein. BUT, the important thing to remember, in this conversation, is that mercury inactivates the enzyme that breaks down those two proteins, so if it weren't for the mercury, would these kids be addicted in the first place? Probably not.
The explosion of autism cases coincided with the doubling and then tripling of the number of childhood vaccines during the 1990s. Mercury was finally removed from the "childhood" vaccine schedule in 2002-2004, although there were still stockpiles of vaccines in doctors' offices after that time. The only way to know if your child was given vaccines containing mercury is to review the vaccine insert information. But, remember, if you are giving the "recommended" annual flu vaccine, your child is still getting 25 mcg. of mercury each year, unless you specifically request a mercury-free vaccine. And there is still mercury in a number of other vaccines, but you have to really look to find it. The language has been changed. Sometimes it is referred to as "a trace" amount that is used in the manufacturing process, but NOT as a preservative. What does that mean? It's still there - it's just not labeled as a preservative. So, get the vaccine insert and read it BEFORE you allow anyone to inject anything into your child.
Back to aluminum:
Remember Dr. Offit said that delaying or altering the vaccine schedule would expose more infants to disease...Of particular concern is the Hepatitis B vaccine given at birth. This has whopping amounts of aluminum, which hyperstimulates the immune system and shifts the balance from TH1 to TH2 - towards hyper-responsiveness (allergies, asthma, RSV, ear infections, and autoimmunity). One primary way to avoid this is by not giving the Hepatitis B vaccines unless Mom is positive for Hep B.
But you just heard on "The Doctors" that delaying vaccinations during the first year will expose millions of babies to diseases that are preventable by vaccines. What to do????!!!!
What to do is research for yourself and not buy into the hysteria promoted by those who have so much to gain, monetarily, from vaccinating your children.
Remember, mercury and other metals (including aluminum) damage the immune system and impair the body's ability to detoxify, making it more vulnerable to damage from environmental toxins and viral and bacterial infections.
The Hepatitis B vaccine is recommended for ALL children on the FIRST day of life. Does your child REALLY NEED to be vaccinated against Hepatitis B as an infant? If you (mother or father) are positive for Hepatitis B, then the answer is "Yes." If someone in your immediate family, or someone who will be caring for your child on a consistent basis and from whom your child might be exposed to infected blood, then the answer is "possibly - your child is at increased risk." Otherwise, the answer is "No."
INFANTS ARE NOT AT RISK FOR HEPATITIS B! In 1991, there were 18,003 cases of hepatitis B reported in the U.S. out of a total U.S. population of 248 million. According to the October 31, 1997 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published by the CDC, in 1996 there were 10,637 cases of hepatitis B reported in the U.S. with 279 cases reported in children under the age of 14 and the CDC stated that "Hepatitis B continues to decline in most states, primarily because of a decrease in the number of cases among injecting drug users and, to a lesser extent, among both homosexuals and heterosexuals of both sexes."
But Dr. Offit wants ALL babies vaccinated for Hepatitis B, not once but three times. I wonder if that's because if they are going in for their Hep. B shots, they are also more likely to receive the Rotavirus Vaccine, for which HE developed the patent, which sold for 182 MILLION dollars. Hmmmnnn....
If you think babies should be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease at birth, with a vaccine that contains up to 125 times the "safe" limit of aluminum (according to the EPA regulations), watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNy5VmeaGNw
and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78b1rFJgyXI
Wow! That's some scary stuff. It must be the media exaggerating things, right? Yes. And No.
Remember when Dr. Kartzinel talked about how there is nothing in medicine that can be utilized universally without some percent of the population having problems? This is an example of what he was talking about. Aluminum is a neurotoxin and it damages the immune system.
So just how much aluminum is in vaccines that are "recommended" for ALL infants living in the United States? And what is the "safe level" of aluminum?
According to the FDA, the "safe level" of aluminum for full-term babies with healthy kidneys is 5 micrograms per kilogram per day. As Dr. Robert Sears points out, using this "safe level" determined by the FDA, a 12 pound, 2 month-old infant should be able to handle "at least" 30 mcg. of aluminum in one day. A 22 pound one year-old infant should be able to handle "at least" 50 mcg. of aluminum in one day. As Dr. Robert Sears states, the FDA "safe level" was determined from studies of premature infants with immature kidneys, so full-term infants with healthy kidneys should theoretically be able to handle more than the "safe level." However, we don't know because there haven't been any studies done - at least none Dr. Sears (or I) could find.
Okay, so how much aluminum is really in the childhood vaccines?
- DTaP (for Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis): 170-625 mcg, depending on manufacturer
- Hepatitis A: 250 mcg
- Hepatitis B: 250 mcg
- HIB (for meningitis; PedVaxHib brand only): 225 mcg
- HPV: 225 mcg
- Pediarix (DTaP/Hepatitis B/Polio combination): 850 mcg
- Pentacel (DTaP/HIB/Polio combination): 1500 mcg
- Pneumococcus: 125 mcg
The above information is from Dr. Robert Sears' article, "Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?"
So what does this mean for your child, living in the United States and complying with the "recommended" childhood vaccine schedule?
Dr. Robert Sears does the math:
- Newborn gets Hepatitis B injection on day one of life would get 250 micrograms of aluminum.
- Repeated at one month of age with the next Hep B shot.
- When a baby gets the first big round of shots at 2 months, the total dose of aluminum can vary from 295 micrograms (if a non-aluminum HIB and the lowest aluminum brand of DTaP is used) to a whopping 1225 micrograms if the highest aluminum brands are used and Hep B vaccine is also given.
- These doses are repeated at 4 and 6 months.
- A child would continue to get some aluminum throughout the first 2 years with most rounds of shots.
Okay, so going back to the issue of metals depleting metallothionein, and basically shutting down the body's ability to detoxify other environmental toxins, you may want to ask yourself, is the Hepatitis B vaccine really something my child needs, if I do not have Hepatitis B?
Is your child really at risk for Hepatitis B? And is the risk worth the consequences of injecting aluminum (a neurotoxin and immunotoxin) into your child at levels that are exponentially higher than the "safe level" determined by the FDA?
Question: Is your child really at risk for Hepatitis B?
Hepatitis B
- Is not common in childhood and is not highly contagious.
- Is primarily an adult disease transmitted through infected body fluids, most frequently infected blood
- Is prevalent in high risk populations such as: needle using drug addicts; sexually promiscuous heterosexual and homosexual adults; residents and staff of custodial institutions such as prisons; health care workers exposed to blood; persons who require repeated blood transfusions; babies born to infected mothers.
According to the CDC Guide to Action publication on Hepatitis B (1997):
"the sources of [hepatitis B] infection for most cases include intravenous drug use (28%), heterosexual contact with infected persons or multiple partners (22%) and homosexual activity (9%).”
Although CDC officials have made statements that hepatitis B is easy to catch through sharing toothbrushes or razors, Eric Mast, M.D., Chief of the Surveillance Section, Hepatitis Branch of the CDC, stated in a 1997 public hearing that: " although [the hepatitis B virus] is present in moderate concentrations in saliva, it's not transmitted commonly by casual contact." (National Vaccine Information Center)
Once again, you as a parent are faced with a difficult question: "Who am I supposed to believe?"
Another question you need to ask yourself is "Just how serious is Hepatitis B?" You need to ask this question in order to make an informed decision about whether the risks associated with vaccination outweigh the risks of actually contracting the disease. The following information comes from the National Vaccine Information Center.
Hepatitis B is not a killer disease for most people.
Symptoms of Hepatitis B infection include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, low grade fever, pain and swelling in joints, headache and cough that may occur one to two weeks before the onset of jaundice (yellowing of the skin) and enlargement and tenderness of the liver, which can last for three to four weeks. (YUCK)
Fatigue can last up to a year. (Again, YUCK)
Translation: You will feel REALLY YUCKY for 6-8 weeks, and it may take you a year to recover your energy level to pre-illness status.
According to Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine (1994): in cases of acute hepatitis B most patients do not require hospital care; 95 percent of patients have a favorable course and recover completely; case-fatality ratio is “very low (approximately 0.1 percent).” (1/10th of 1% or 1 out of 1,000); and Those (95%) who recover completely from hepatitis B infection acquire life-long immunity (this is a good thing).
According to Robbins Pathological Basis of Disease (a medical textbook published in 1994), of those who do not recover completely, fewer than 5 percent become chronic carriers of the virus with just one quarter of these in danger of developing life threatening liver disease later in life.
Translation: Of the 5% of people who do not recover completely from hepatitis B infection, 5% will become chronic carriers and ¼ of them will eventually die from Hep B related liver disease.
What does this mean? It depends on which statistics you look at. Let's take the worst-case scenario and go with the "200,000 new cases yearly" cited in the 1999 video from ABC's 20/20 show.
- 200,000 x .95 = 190,000 will recover completely (95% will recover completely)
Of the 5% of people who do not recover completely from hepatitis B infection, 5% will become chronic carriers and ¼ of them will eventually die from Hep B related liver disease.
- 10,000 will not recover completely
- 10,000 x .05 = 500 will become chronic carriers
- 500 x .25 = 125 will die in later life due to liver disease
Are we over-reacting and over-vaccinating as a result? Remember, it's not just the Hepatitis B we have to worry about, it's the aluminum. We, as parents, have to weigh the actual threat of disease against the cost of "protection." Given the amount of Aluminum contained in Hepatitis B vaccinations, AND the very low risk of young children becoming infected (if Mom is not infected), this particular vaccine does not seem worth the risk.
If Hepatitis B is not worth the risks associated with injecting aluminum directly into the bloodstream, AND if those who adamantly state that by delaying the Hepatitis B vaccines we, as parents are putting our children's health at risk, maybe we should start questioning further the advise we are getting from those who rigidly follow the party-line put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Despite the declarations of the AAP and the CDC that the huge amount of money they recieve from the vaccine manufacturers does not influence the advice they give to parents, delving further into the facts about Hepatitis B (one vaccine out of MANY the AAP and CDC have declared as "safe") leads me to believe that these sources may not be completely vested in the best interest of my child - or yours.
PLEASE - do not follow blindly everything you are told by your pediatrician or family physician. Ask first if he or she has actually looked at the science, or if your trusted health advisor is simply following the party-line. And remember - ultimately you, as the parents, are the ones who are responsible (and who will live with the consequences) for the decisions you make about your child's health. The pediatrician may order the shots, but he or she is not the one who will be raising your child for the rest of his or her life.
Educate before you vaccinate.
Marci
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A Tale of Autistic Blood - Article from Age of Autism, by Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
There is a very interesting article on the Age of Autism website, entitled "A Tale of Autistic Blood." The article contains a link to a fascinating video and slide show that compares the blood of six autistic children. I highly recommend you watch this and read the article (Click the title to go to the Age of Autism site and read the entire article). My comments about the article and video are posted below.
A Tale of Autistic Blood
By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
This may be the most important article about autism I’ve ever written. But first I need you to do a little work. I need you to go to this site (HERE) and watch the approximately five minute long video comparing the blood of six autistic children put together by Mark Squibb.
Marci's Response:
IMO, I believe this is another physiological marker of the multiple factors involved in autism and pretty much all of the comments posted are on track.
Stress will cause aggregation in preparation for clotting in case of injury. Think "fight or flight" - when you are preparing for battle or to run away, there is a significant chance you may get hurt. When the the balance of stress hormones is disrupted (shifted) due to high anxiety or panic, the body doesn't differentiate between real or perceived danger and prepares to clot. So thats ONE factor at work.
Heavy metals like lead and mercury (and aluminum which is not technically a "heavy" metal) also damage the circulatory system and lead to problems like Raynaud's Syndrome, atherosclerosis, hypertension, stroke, and aneurysm.
Metals and other toxins have something else in common - a single valence electron in their outermost ring. This makes them very attractive to each other - they don't like to be alone but like to travel in pairs so they will "hook up" with other toxins. This is one reason (along with impaired detoxification due to depletion of metallothionein) why our kids, once shot up (pun intended) with aluminum or thimerosal (flu vaccine, rhogam, etc.) become like magnets for other toxins. It's also why when chelating, mercury does not come out until after aluminum, antimony, and lead. The magnets (our children) hold onto the metals because their electrical charges have been altered. This was for me, probably the most fascinating thing about the video by Mark Squibb - he actually points out the alteration in electrical fields in the blood patterns of autistic children.
The comment about babesia (a bacteria associated with Lyme disease) is also correct, which is why adults with chronic Lyme exhibit many of the same behavioral and neurological issues as do children with "autism."
Infections in the blood (from systemic yeast, viruses, strep, staph, etc) will also cause clumping, as what is left of the immune system tries to kick in and fight off the infection. Remember that one of the first things the immune system does is to send extra blood (and oxygen) to the sight of injury or infection. This is part of the healing process and is why we get the swelling, heat, and itching when we get a minor cut or scrape. That's the body's attempt to heal.
The problem is, in our children there are so many different things to fight that their bodies become confused and shift over into autoimmunity. The analogy I use is like the old Space Invaders game where you start of shooting at one bad guy and it's relatively easy, but as things speed up, there are too many bad guys to shoot at accurately and you end up crashing and burning.
Finally, the genetic link is (again, IMO) often associated with metals (especially lead) that is passed from mother to child. In the family histories of my patients I frequently see higher than expected occurrance of things like stroke, blood clots, hypertension, bipolar disorder, heart-valve problems, and heavy bleeding/clotting with menses. All of these things, (and autoimmune thyroiditis) are associated with lead poisoning. When I check further, these parents and grandparents grew up with coal-burning stoves, lived near or worked in coal mines, or in some cases owned gas stations (before gasoline was unleaded.)
Very interesting article and video - thanks so much to the folks at Age of Autism for your wonderful work, and to my friend Lori for bringing this article to my attention!
Marci
A Tale of Autistic Blood
By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
This may be the most important article about autism I’ve ever written. But first I need you to do a little work. I need you to go to this site (HERE) and watch the approximately five minute long video comparing the blood of six autistic children put together by Mark Squibb.
Marci's Response:
IMO, I believe this is another physiological marker of the multiple factors involved in autism and pretty much all of the comments posted are on track.
Stress will cause aggregation in preparation for clotting in case of injury. Think "fight or flight" - when you are preparing for battle or to run away, there is a significant chance you may get hurt. When the the balance of stress hormones is disrupted (shifted) due to high anxiety or panic, the body doesn't differentiate between real or perceived danger and prepares to clot. So thats ONE factor at work.
Heavy metals like lead and mercury (and aluminum which is not technically a "heavy" metal) also damage the circulatory system and lead to problems like Raynaud's Syndrome, atherosclerosis, hypertension, stroke, and aneurysm.
Metals and other toxins have something else in common - a single valence electron in their outermost ring. This makes them very attractive to each other - they don't like to be alone but like to travel in pairs so they will "hook up" with other toxins. This is one reason (along with impaired detoxification due to depletion of metallothionein) why our kids, once shot up (pun intended) with aluminum or thimerosal (flu vaccine, rhogam, etc.) become like magnets for other toxins. It's also why when chelating, mercury does not come out until after aluminum, antimony, and lead. The magnets (our children) hold onto the metals because their electrical charges have been altered. This was for me, probably the most fascinating thing about the video by Mark Squibb - he actually points out the alteration in electrical fields in the blood patterns of autistic children.
The comment about babesia (a bacteria associated with Lyme disease) is also correct, which is why adults with chronic Lyme exhibit many of the same behavioral and neurological issues as do children with "autism."
Infections in the blood (from systemic yeast, viruses, strep, staph, etc) will also cause clumping, as what is left of the immune system tries to kick in and fight off the infection. Remember that one of the first things the immune system does is to send extra blood (and oxygen) to the sight of injury or infection. This is part of the healing process and is why we get the swelling, heat, and itching when we get a minor cut or scrape. That's the body's attempt to heal.
The problem is, in our children there are so many different things to fight that their bodies become confused and shift over into autoimmunity. The analogy I use is like the old Space Invaders game where you start of shooting at one bad guy and it's relatively easy, but as things speed up, there are too many bad guys to shoot at accurately and you end up crashing and burning.
Finally, the genetic link is (again, IMO) often associated with metals (especially lead) that is passed from mother to child. In the family histories of my patients I frequently see higher than expected occurrance of things like stroke, blood clots, hypertension, bipolar disorder, heart-valve problems, and heavy bleeding/clotting with menses. All of these things, (and autoimmune thyroiditis) are associated with lead poisoning. When I check further, these parents and grandparents grew up with coal-burning stoves, lived near or worked in coal mines, or in some cases owned gas stations (before gasoline was unleaded.)
Very interesting article and video - thanks so much to the folks at Age of Autism for your wonderful work, and to my friend Lori for bringing this article to my attention!
Marci
Friday, March 6, 2009
Preparing Your Body for Pregnancy; Preparing Your Child for Vaccination
If you have read much about biomedical interventions and recovery from autism, you may be familiar with the analogy of being hit by a bus. As Stan Kurtz writes, “You cannot be cured of being hit by a bus, but you can recover from it. You might even be able to recover enough that you do not need to park in special parking spaces when you go shopping. If you are fortunate enough you might recover well enough that you gain back so much of your functioning such that no one would know you were ever in an accident.” This is a great analogy, especially for those children who have already received a diagnosis of autism. In many cases, while we may not be able to “cure” the autism, if we address the underlying conditions through appropriated testing and treatment, we may be able to recover the child to the point where he or she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria for autism. In many cases, no one would ever guess the child had been “hit by the bus” in the first place.
But wait…
What if we could prevent your child from being hit by the bus in the first place?
Let’s think about pregnancy. When a fetus is growing in the womb, it is incubating. We have been told for some time now that pregnant women should not smoke and should not drink alcohol, because these behaviors are known to be damaging to a developing fetus. The peer-reviewed medical literature is bursting at the seams with paper after paper, documenting the research findings about the teratologic effects of tobacco and alcohol.
Teratologic: the scientific study of visible conditions caused by the interruption or alteration of normal development
Marci’s note: Teratological effects may well include effects that are not “visible” and which may not become known for a long time after the exposure that caused the damage. Examples:
But wait…
What if we could prevent your child from being hit by the bus in the first place?
Let’s think about pregnancy. When a fetus is growing in the womb, it is incubating. We have been told for some time now that pregnant women should not smoke and should not drink alcohol, because these behaviors are known to be damaging to a developing fetus. The peer-reviewed medical literature is bursting at the seams with paper after paper, documenting the research findings about the teratologic effects of tobacco and alcohol.
Teratologic: the scientific study of visible conditions caused by the interruption or alteration of normal development
Marci’s note: Teratological effects may well include effects that are not “visible” and which may not become known for a long time after the exposure that caused the damage. Examples:
- Babies who were fed soy formula. Soy is a source of estrogen. When fed as the sole source of nutrition, the amount of estrogen taken in can disrupt the balance between hormones, and may contribute to the early onset of puberty in girls, and delayed onset of puberty in boys.
- Terbutaline administration. Terbutaline is a medication given to women to stop preterm labor. It has been linked to later onset of learning disabilities and social deficits in children whose mothers took the drug during pregnancy.
By now, everyone has heard that there is an epidemic of autism in this country. There are some people who still want to deny this fact, but the evidence is overwhelming, and it is real. It’s not just because of more inclusive diagnostic criteria. It’s also not purely genetic. There is no such thing as a genetic epidemic. So what’s going on? And why can’t the researchers figure out the cause of autism?
The clue is in the previous question. As long as researchers are looking for “the cause” of autism, they are not going to find it. Why? Because multiple factors working together synergistically is the source of the epidemic. There is no single “smoking gun.” If you are not familiar with the concept of synergism, you need to understand this key concept. Here is the definition:
Synergism: the phenomenon in which the combined action of two things such as drugs or muscles is greater than the sum of their effects individually. In the case of drugs, the result may be dangerous to the patient.
Marci’s note: in the case of toxins (heavy metals, toxic chemicals, pesticides, organophosphates, food additives), the combined action of two (or more) things is greater than the sum of their effects individually. The result may be dangerous to the patient. Alternatively, the synergistic effect of a genetic predisposition and an environmental exposure (to metals, pesticides, medications, etc…) will be more damaging than the effects of either situation (genetic or environmental) alone. The result may be dangerous to the patient. (Remember that in this case, the patient is the infant in the incubator.)
Synergy is an extremely important concept when it comes to autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities. The concept of synergy is precisely why families who have sought relief through “The Vaccine Court” have not been successful in establishing that their children’s regressive autism was caused by the combination of thimerosal (mercury) and the MMR vaccine. (Note: the basic premise of the argument is that the child’s immune system is compromised by mercury (a heavy metal, which damages multiple systems in the body, including the enzymatic processes, and detoxification pathways), predisposing the child to be more vulnerable to the effects of the MMR vaccine (a vaccination which simultaneously injects three separate viruses into the blood stream, bypassing the body’s primary immune defense mechanisms (gastrointestinal and respiratory), ultimately resulting in a situation which overwhelms the body’s defenses and leads to chronic illness (fever, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, ear infections, respiratory infections, chronic tonsillitis, strep, bronchitis, allergies, asthma, & seizures), which later results in the behavioral and cognitive symptoms that lead to an “autism spectrum disorder” diagnosis.
Please remember that the fever, diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, seizures, etc… tend to occur prior to the behaviors that lead, ultimately, to the “autism” diagnosis. This is an important piece of information, especially since most parents I have spoken with report that the “experts” who diagnosed their children with “autism” often state (with considerable authority) that the physical symptoms (diarrhea, constipation, vomiting) the parents are reporting are “just part of autism.” The physical symptoms are therefore ignored. This is PRECISELY why professionals who do not look further than the obvious behavioral and cognitive presentations, can and do state (with considerable authority), that “Autism is a lifelong condition and there is nothing you can do about it.” From where I sit, it looks like the authorities have it backwards. The physical symptoms happen first and the behavioral and cognitive symptoms happen as a result of the physical symptoms. Therefore, the lack of eye-contact, reduced awareness of the environment, inattention, aggression, and poor social skills are “just part of the gastro-intestinal disease” and if we do something to fix the GI problems, the symptoms associated with the child’s “autism” diagnosis will improve. If this sounds like voodoo science to you, let me phrase it differently.
Consider, for a moment, symptoms that you yourself might have had. Have you ever had a migraine? Have you ever had a “stomach virus” with nausea, pain in your gut, diarrhea, constipation, achy joints, headache and ‘brain-fog?’ If you have, please try to recall at this moment what it felt like. Now, imagine you are in a room full of four year-olds – a preschool environment. Do you feel “social?” Can you concentrate? Are you likely to learn and “achieve on par with your potential?”
If you only consider “autism” – which is a behavioral and cognitive-based diagnosis – and do not look further, the professionals who tell you with so much authority, “There is nothing you can do” are probably correct. If you don’t look beyond the behaviors and the label, it is likely that you are facing a lifelong diagnosis, for which you will not see significant improvement. In other words, your child will most likely never get married or have children, will probably not be able to live independently, will most likely not be able to support himself or herself, and will require full-time support from you until the day you die – which will probably happen prematurely due to all the stress you will endure in the interim. And your marriage? Statistics indicate that the divorce rate among couples with autistic children is 85%. Is this a good time to talk about the economy and the difficulties of single parents raising a child with autism?
I realize I am being brutal. I apologize for that, but not for the need to be honest. Grab a tissue, have a good cry, and suck it up because this discussion is relevant to your life. It is especially relevant if you are considering having children in the future.
“Current Events” time!
On February 12, 2009, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (Vaccine Court) Special Masters ruled against three families of autistic children, whose histories were chosen as “test cases” in the plaintiffs’ efforts to legally establish causality between thimerosal, MMR, and the children’s regression into autistic symptoms, which happened to occur shortly after receiving the vaccinations.
It was reported that one factor which helped sway the decision against the families is that they claimed their children were “developing normally” prior to the administration of the MMR vaccine. The Masters, upon review of photographs, videos, and medical records of the children in question, concluded that the parents’ claim that their children were “developing normally” was untrue. As I recall, the opinion of the special masters cited things like videos and photographs showing inconsistent eye-contact prior to the MMR administration. This concept of “normal development” hit me like a ton of bricks when I read it.
What does this statement mean, “Developing Normally?”
When I think about this question, the first thing that comes to mind is how shocked I have been and continue to be, when I ask parents the following question, “Did your child have a lot of ear infections during the first four years of life?”
The answer I frequently receive is, “Not a lot. No more than any other children.”
My response: “How many ear infections does your child typically have in a year?”
Typical response: “Three or four.”
What is important about the conversation, as reported above, is that most parents I interview report that their child is having three or four ear infections per year (which are treated with antibiotics) and the parents are also reporting that their child is no different from other children who are “developing normally.”
This is a problem.
Another area where I see a problem involves constipation. My developmental history form specifically asks about constipation and the majority of children I see have had significant problems with the frequency of bowel movements. Several have had to go to the hospital multiple times because their bowels have become impacted. Many parents have told me that they have expressed concerns to their pediatricians or family doctors, regarding their children’s infrequent bowel movements (often once a week or less), only to be told by their trusted physician, “In some children, that’s normal.”
Bowel movements are the body’s way of clearing toxins. (The body also clears toxins through urination and sweating.) Some toxins will ONLY clear the body through bowel movements. If you have toxins building up in the body and the half-life of that toxin is, let’s say 3 days, and the child in question is only having a bowel movement every 7 days, then if that toxin is taken into the body (perhaps through vaccination) and the child does not have a bowel movement for four or five days after taking the toxin it, where do you suppose the toxin goes? It gets stored in the body. Some of it goes into the soft tissues like kidneys and bone marrow. Some of it goes into the brain. Once it’s stored, it’s hard to get it out.
The gist of this is that our children are NOT developing normally if they are having chronic constipation (or diarrhea), or if they are having chronic bacterial and viral infections, upper respiratory infections, bronchitis, tonsillitis, strep, allergies, and asthma. We have an entire generation of children who are more prone to illness than children who are truly “developing normally.” The problem is, we have become so accustomed to this that we now accept this situation as “normal.” This needs to change. (Note: The generation of children who are so prone to infections and gastrointestinal problems coincides with the administration of the Hepatitis B vaccination at birth. For more on this topic, please read the post Vaccines and Autism - Your Child vs. The Greater Good.)
So, going back to the concept of teratology – things that disrupt normal development … In order to prevent more children from being “hit by the bus,” we need to pay closer attention to the things that may disrupt “normal development,” starting before conception even occurs. We need to prepare the incubator. For those children who are already here, we need to assess the status of their overall health and development BEFORE we inject them with multiple viruses simultaneously, and BEFORE we allow anyone to inject them with substances (thimerosal, aluminum, formaldehyde, etc.) that are KNOWN to have teratologic effects. Remember, the first rule of vaccinations is “do not vaccinate a sick child.” The problem is that when we view children with chronic conditions (viruses, bacterial infections, etc.) as “normal,” our perception of what constitutes “a sick child” has been skewed. Those are the children who are being “thrown in front of the bus.” My point: If we identify (accurately) those children who ARE sick, and get them healthy BEFORE administering vaccinations, we are likely to decrease the numbers of children who subsequently regress and end up receiving an autism diagnosis.
Back to the main question at hand – what do you need to do to increase your chances of having a healthy baby – one who stays healthy and does not become part of the estimated 1 in 67 American children with an autism spectrum disorder?
- Don’t wait until you are pregnant to start preparing your body. Remember, you are the incubator. Imagine for a moment that you have just delivered a baby that was born premature, and had to be placed in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) of the hospital. When your precious infant is taken from your womb and placed in the incubator in the NICU, you expect that the incubator will be a healthy environment for your fragile infant. By healthy, I mean, you expect that the incubator is free from bacteria (strep, staph, clostridia), viruses (Herpes, Measles, Varicella [Chickenpox], Human Papilloma Virus, Epstein-Barr, Cytomegalovirus), yeast (candida albicans and others), and parasites. You also expect that the incubator your infant is placed in will not be contaminated with heavy metals (lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum [not technically a ‘heavy metal’]), and that the incubator will not be sprayed with pesticides or contaminated with organophosphates. In essence, what you expect, is that your precious baby will be placed in a pristine environment, in which he or she will be able to develop, to his or her full potential.
If you expect strangers to care for your baby this way, shouldn’t you do everything you can to care for your future child with the same concern?
This entire thought process should start at least one to two years before you become pregnant.
If you live in the Tri-state (Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois), you should know that you live in the coal-burning power plant capitol of the world. If you have lived here for any length of time, you have been exposed to heavy metals (from coal-burning power plants), pesticides and organophosphates (from farming). If you get annual flu shots and have not specified that you want thimerosal-free flu shots, you have had a yearly dose of mercury injected directly into your bloodstream.
If you live in an area where you are regularly exposed to heavy metals and other environmental toxins, you owe it to your future children to find out what toxins have built up in your system, before you make it an incubator for your future child. You would not want your child to be placed in a hospital incubator contaminated with bacteria, viruses, and toxins (metals, pesticides, organophosphates), so why would you allow your child to spend the most important growing stage in just such an environment. If you do not pursue primary intervention that assesses your own body stores of these toxins, that is exactly what you are doing. The incubator is contaminated.
Clean it up before you trust it with the future of your precious baby.
2. If you are the parent of a young child and you are concerned about whether or not to vaccinate him or her, you need to become informed about your options as a parent. One of those options I would encourage is to have your child evaluated first to determine if there are physical problems that should be addressed, prior to vaccination. This may be especially important if your child has gastrointestinal problems, or recurrent viral and/or bacterial infections.
To learn more about assessment for genetic vulnerability and toxic exposures before you get pregnant, or before vaccinating your child, contact Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S.; Biomedical Consultant; marcellaterry@hotmail.com
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Rappoport Raises Important Questions About Vaccines
First, let me say that prior to today, I have never heard of Jon Rappoport.
I have been catching up on emails, which have been sorely neglected during the Christmas break. This evening I clicked on a post from one of the groups I shadow, and followed the link to this, which is said to be an interview of a former vaccine researcher, who does not want to use his own identity because of the consequences of doing so. (If this is true, his decision is completely understandable.)
If this is not true, I still believe it is worth posting, as there are many questions that need to be asked, which may come from more interested people having access to the dialogue (scripted or not).
I encourage parents to research the vaccine issue and make informed decisions before injecting anything into their child's body. Make your own decisions.
Marci
http://avropa.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5F6877002CEECEB3!1964.entry
I have been catching up on emails, which have been sorely neglected during the Christmas break. This evening I clicked on a post from one of the groups I shadow, and followed the link to this, which is said to be an interview of a former vaccine researcher, who does not want to use his own identity because of the consequences of doing so. (If this is true, his decision is completely understandable.)
If this is not true, I still believe it is worth posting, as there are many questions that need to be asked, which may come from more interested people having access to the dialogue (scripted or not).
I encourage parents to research the vaccine issue and make informed decisions before injecting anything into their child's body. Make your own decisions.
Marci
http://avropa.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5F6877002CEECEB3!1964.entry
Monday, December 15, 2008
O'Bama: Please Change Government Stance on Autism!
Hello All:
There is currently a forum on Change.org - which will allow you to submit or vote for ideas that you believe President-elect O'Bama needs to address for change when his administration is ushered into power. Please go to the following link and vote for change for our children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism:
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/bodies_in_rebellion
And visit the Bodies in Rebellion site to learn more:
http://www.bodiesinrebellion.com/
Here is one of the latests posts on the Change. org site: (Lots of information well worth your time to investigate.)
Blessings.
Marci
For all those that want to understand the realtionship between mercury and autism read the article "Blood Levels of Mercury Are Related to Diagnosis of Autism: A Reanalysis of an Important Data Set.
http://bodiesinrebellion.com/BloodLevelsofMercuryRelatedtoAutism1.pdf
The symptoms of mercury toxicity and autism are almost identical: Thimerosal and autism? A plausible hypothesis that should not be dismissed . Medical Hypotheses , Volume 62 , Issue 5 , Pages 788 - 794 M .
Blaxillhttp://www.nomercury.org/science/documents/Med_Hypoth_Blaxill_Redwood_Bernard.pdfFor
Those that do not understand how serious a problem autism is... just read all these comments parents and relatives are making. Do a search for Dr. Boyd Haley, University of Kentucky, Dr. Mady Hornig, Columbia University, Dr. Thomas Burbacher, University of Washington; Dr. Mark Geier, President of The Genetic Centers of America and David Geier, Vice President of The Institute of Chronic Illnesses, and Dr. Jill James, University of Arkansas. They're just a few of the independent scientists whose findings link unsafe vaccines to neurological damage in our children. Research on vaccines can also be found on this link:
http://www.generationrescue.org/studies.html
The National Autism Association has said that while officials continue to claim that there is no science linking vaccines to autism, many peer-reviewed published studies confirm the connection between vaccinations and neurological injuries.
http://www.national%20autismassociatio%20n.org/library.%20php
Look at what the former head of the NIH has to say:
CBS News Exclusive: Former Head Of NIH Says Government Too Quick To Dismiss Possible LinkSEE VIDEO
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
Healy said that officials have been too quick to dismiss a link between vaccines and autism without ever studying the group that got sick. There never have been studies done on the kids that developed symptoms of autism within a few weeks of being vaccinated. She furthermore pointed out that the Institute of Medicine which produced the cumulative study on vaccines and autism in 2004 refused to 'pursue susceptibility groups.' In other words, they didn't want to find any evidence that linked vaccines to autism. She left us with the haunting statement: 'The question has not been answered.'
In the current issue of U.S. News and World Report, A Government Call for Vaccine Research, Dr. Healy again calls for more research into vaccine safety. This ad ran in USA Today on Feb 12 and 29: Green our vaccines. And administer them with greater care.
http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/080212.pdf .
It shows what happened to the vaccine schedule since 1983 and it lists the toxic ingredients like mercury, aluminum, MSG, ether, formaldehyde, and anti-freeze commonly found in vaccines. The soaring increase in autism directly coincided with the dramatic escalation of the number of vaccines. It's important to note that there has never been a study done on the cumulative effect of so many vaccines with toxic ingredients so soon on the health of a baby. This is also the time period in which autism went from one in 10,000 children to one in every 150 on average in the U.S. The official autism rate is one in 150 children. In the 1970s, the rate was one in every 10,000 kids. The CDC gave us the figure of one in 150 in Feb. 2007, but it was based on studies of eight year olds done back in 2002 and 2000. Those children are now 14 and 16 years old. This can hardly be considered a true picture of the autism disaster. In Minnesota, the recognized rate is one in every 81 kids. Others put the national average rate at one in every 67 children. Among the Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, the autism rate for American-born Somali children is one in every 28 kids. And these children are ones with classic autism. They could hardly have been misdiagnosed. One in every six schoolchildren now has a diagnosis of a learning disability.
Autism, once a rare disorder, is now so common that everyone knows someone with an autistic child and no one can reasonability tell us why. When we read about autism, it's always about kids with autism. Where are the 30, 50, and 70 year olds with autism like we see in our children? We should all be worried about what will happen when hundreds of thousands of children with autism age out into the welfare system. They'll become the responsibility of the taxpayers. We do not currently have a significant adult population with autism, but that will soon be changing and the cost of their support and care will be massive. Findings by Michael Ganz at Harvard make a chilling prediction of the future cost to our society. Ganz projects that it will cost about $3.2 million to take care of ONE autistic person over his or her lifetime. His findings are felt by others to be a gross underestimate of the eventual autism price tag.
Autism Has High Costs to U.S. Society, press release of Tuesday ...
The words of Laura Bono of the National Autism Association are a grim forecast for the future: "As those children reach adulthood, the U.S. is ill-equipped to care for them. Not only do we not have enough services for adults now, the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. Frankly, we don't know what we're going to do."
Click the link below to view this discussion.
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/bodies_in_rebellion
There is currently a forum on Change.org - which will allow you to submit or vote for ideas that you believe President-elect O'Bama needs to address for change when his administration is ushered into power. Please go to the following link and vote for change for our children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism:
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/bodies_in_rebellion
And visit the Bodies in Rebellion site to learn more:
http://www.bodiesinrebellion.com/
Here is one of the latests posts on the Change. org site: (Lots of information well worth your time to investigate.)
Blessings.
Marci
For all those that want to understand the realtionship between mercury and autism read the article "Blood Levels of Mercury Are Related to Diagnosis of Autism: A Reanalysis of an Important Data Set.
http://bodiesinrebellion.com/BloodLevelsofMercuryRelatedtoAutism1.pdf
The symptoms of mercury toxicity and autism are almost identical: Thimerosal and autism? A plausible hypothesis that should not be dismissed . Medical Hypotheses , Volume 62 , Issue 5 , Pages 788 - 794 M .
Blaxillhttp://www.nomercury.org/science/documents/Med_Hypoth_Blaxill_Redwood_Bernard.pdfFor
Those that do not understand how serious a problem autism is... just read all these comments parents and relatives are making. Do a search for Dr. Boyd Haley, University of Kentucky, Dr. Mady Hornig, Columbia University, Dr. Thomas Burbacher, University of Washington; Dr. Mark Geier, President of The Genetic Centers of America and David Geier, Vice President of The Institute of Chronic Illnesses, and Dr. Jill James, University of Arkansas. They're just a few of the independent scientists whose findings link unsafe vaccines to neurological damage in our children. Research on vaccines can also be found on this link:
http://www.generationrescue.org/studies.html
The National Autism Association has said that while officials continue to claim that there is no science linking vaccines to autism, many peer-reviewed published studies confirm the connection between vaccinations and neurological injuries.
http://www.national%20autismassociatio%20n.org/library.%20php
Look at what the former head of the NIH has to say:
CBS News Exclusive: Former Head Of NIH Says Government Too Quick To Dismiss Possible LinkSEE VIDEO
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
Healy said that officials have been too quick to dismiss a link between vaccines and autism without ever studying the group that got sick. There never have been studies done on the kids that developed symptoms of autism within a few weeks of being vaccinated. She furthermore pointed out that the Institute of Medicine which produced the cumulative study on vaccines and autism in 2004 refused to 'pursue susceptibility groups.' In other words, they didn't want to find any evidence that linked vaccines to autism. She left us with the haunting statement: 'The question has not been answered.'
In the current issue of U.S. News and World Report, A Government Call for Vaccine Research, Dr. Healy again calls for more research into vaccine safety. This ad ran in USA Today on Feb 12 and 29: Green our vaccines. And administer them with greater care.
http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/080212.pdf .
It shows what happened to the vaccine schedule since 1983 and it lists the toxic ingredients like mercury, aluminum, MSG, ether, formaldehyde, and anti-freeze commonly found in vaccines. The soaring increase in autism directly coincided with the dramatic escalation of the number of vaccines. It's important to note that there has never been a study done on the cumulative effect of so many vaccines with toxic ingredients so soon on the health of a baby. This is also the time period in which autism went from one in 10,000 children to one in every 150 on average in the U.S. The official autism rate is one in 150 children. In the 1970s, the rate was one in every 10,000 kids. The CDC gave us the figure of one in 150 in Feb. 2007, but it was based on studies of eight year olds done back in 2002 and 2000. Those children are now 14 and 16 years old. This can hardly be considered a true picture of the autism disaster. In Minnesota, the recognized rate is one in every 81 kids. Others put the national average rate at one in every 67 children. Among the Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, the autism rate for American-born Somali children is one in every 28 kids. And these children are ones with classic autism. They could hardly have been misdiagnosed. One in every six schoolchildren now has a diagnosis of a learning disability.
Autism, once a rare disorder, is now so common that everyone knows someone with an autistic child and no one can reasonability tell us why. When we read about autism, it's always about kids with autism. Where are the 30, 50, and 70 year olds with autism like we see in our children? We should all be worried about what will happen when hundreds of thousands of children with autism age out into the welfare system. They'll become the responsibility of the taxpayers. We do not currently have a significant adult population with autism, but that will soon be changing and the cost of their support and care will be massive. Findings by Michael Ganz at Harvard make a chilling prediction of the future cost to our society. Ganz projects that it will cost about $3.2 million to take care of ONE autistic person over his or her lifetime. His findings are felt by others to be a gross underestimate of the eventual autism price tag.
Autism Has High Costs to U.S. Society, press release of Tuesday ...
The words of Laura Bono of the National Autism Association are a grim forecast for the future: "As those children reach adulthood, the U.S. is ill-equipped to care for them. Not only do we not have enough services for adults now, the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. Frankly, we don't know what we're going to do."
Click the link below to view this discussion.
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/bodies_in_rebellion
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Flu Vaccine - Is It Worth It? A Cost-Benefit Analysis
A few weeks ago I posted an article on this blog entitled, "Is There Thimerosal in the Flu Vaccine." At that time, it had just been announced in the media that the CDC was stepping up efforts this year "like never before" to ensure that every man, woman, and child (including babies and the as-yet unborn) receive the flu vaccine. As I wrote then, this is extremely concerning, especially when it comes to vaccinating pregnant women in the second trimester, and vaccinating babies and children with something that contains mercury. I cannot understand why, after the CDC finally agreed to remove thimerosal from the childhood vaccine schedule, they would now recommend vaccinations for babies and children that still contain this extremely toxic heavy metal.
I know this is a topic I already covered, but it is one that is so important it's worth expanding on.
Today was one of those rare days when, having attended the Health Fair at USI, I found myself at home with my feet up when the news came on. One of the stories covered by Ann Komas, anchor for WFIE News, reported on a "Drive-In Flu Clinic" that took place today in Indianapolis. People are lining up in their cars, simultaneously rolling down their windows and rolling up their sleeves to get the flu vaccines they have been so fervently advised to receive.
I wonder how many of them know about the thimerosal.
As my 8 year-old watched the news report she screwed up her face and said, "EEEWWWW! Gross!!!" I was very relieved to be able to tell her that she didn't have to worry about that because she is not getting a flu shot.
The government has GREATLY over-stated both the severity of the threat to healthy individuals from the flu, and the efficacy of the flu vaccine in preventing flu-related deaths. If you would like to read a fascinating article, written by research-physicians that will help you to make an informed decision about whether or not to submit to the government's push, click here.
If you don't care to read the entire article, here are some things to consider:
This information is taken directly from the article, "A Shot of Fear," written by By Steven Woloshin, Lisa M. Schwartz and H. Gilbert Welch, published in 2005 in The Washington Post.
I know this is a topic I already covered, but it is one that is so important it's worth expanding on.
Today was one of those rare days when, having attended the Health Fair at USI, I found myself at home with my feet up when the news came on. One of the stories covered by Ann Komas, anchor for WFIE News, reported on a "Drive-In Flu Clinic" that took place today in Indianapolis. People are lining up in their cars, simultaneously rolling down their windows and rolling up their sleeves to get the flu vaccines they have been so fervently advised to receive.
I wonder how many of them know about the thimerosal.
As my 8 year-old watched the news report she screwed up her face and said, "EEEWWWW! Gross!!!" I was very relieved to be able to tell her that she didn't have to worry about that because she is not getting a flu shot.
The government has GREATLY over-stated both the severity of the threat to healthy individuals from the flu, and the efficacy of the flu vaccine in preventing flu-related deaths. If you would like to read a fascinating article, written by research-physicians that will help you to make an informed decision about whether or not to submit to the government's push, click here.
If you don't care to read the entire article, here are some things to consider:
This information is taken directly from the article, "A Shot of Fear," written by By Steven Woloshin, Lisa M. Schwartz and H. Gilbert Welch, published in 2005 in The Washington Post.
- According to the CDC, 90 percent of flu-related deaths occur among people age 65 years and older. Based on this information and the age distribution of the population, the chance of a flu-related death for people in that age group is about one in 1,000. Another way of saying this is that the chance of not dying from flu for those 65 and older is about 999 out of 1,000. (For context, the chance of a flu-related death is slightly lower than the chance of dying from a fall or other accident.)
- For people younger than 65 (including children), the chance of a flu-related death is much smaller -- about one in 100,000.
The authors of the above-reference article point out that the wording of papers published in some highly-regarded, peer-reviewed, medical journals is misleading and overstates the effectiveness of the flu vaccination.
- For example, a 2003 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine observed that the flu vaccine was associated with a 50 percent reduction in the overall death rate (that is, death from heart disease, stroke, cancer and all other causes combined). To attribute an effect of this magnitude solely to the flu vaccine is ludicrous: Flu-related deaths make up less than 2 percent of all deaths. If the claim were accurate, the vaccine's power would dwarf that of any other medical intervention.
The authors go on to point out that for some, it is not necessarily the concern of death from the flu that drives them (now, literally) to get the vaccination. Many Americans roll up their sleeves and hold their screaming children down to receive the flu shot because they don't want to be sick and don't want to miss work or school.
- The authors write, "Many may get flu shots simply to avoid getting sick. The Cochrane Collaboration identified more than 20 randomized trials addressing this question. The overall chance of developing "clinical" flu was 19 percent in those chosen, again by chance, to receive the recommended flu vaccine vs. 23 percent in the control groups."
If I'm interpreting this correctly, having received the flu vaccine conferred a 4% advantage when it came to actually getting sick, when compared to those who did not receive the flu vaccine.
Read on:
- Studies have also measured another outcome: how vaccination affects days lost from work. On average, there are about 0.16 fewer days lost from work per person vaccinated. Another way of saying this is that about 5 percent of those vaccinated avoid missing about three days of work because of the flu. (That is, 0.16 days divided by the 5 percent who benefited from vaccination equals 3.2 days.) The other 95 percent vaccinated got no benefit.
For anyone who is concerned about injecting mercury into yourself or your child, PLEASE ask yourself, "Is it worth it?" before obediently and blindly rolling up your sleeves. For pregnant women and parents of small children, PLEASE, JUST SAY "NO."
Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
An Open Letter to Governor Mitch Daniels Regarding Thimerosal and Environmental Mercury
AN OPEN LETTER TO MITCH DANIELS, GOVERNOR OF INDIANA:
Governor Daniels:
I have lived in the state of Indiana for seven years. There are a few questions I, as one of your constituents, would like for you to address.
First, I would like to know why Indiana, and particularly Southwestern Indiana, needs more coal burning power plants, and please do not tell me it's because it's good for our economy.
- With the majority of counties in SW Indiana out-of-compliance with the EPA's Clean Air Act our economy and infrastructure is no doubt on the losing end due to loss of federal funding.
- The cost of lost work days by our citizens who are too sick to work, due to the effects of heavy metal poisoning and cardiopulmonary damage from particulate matter surely cannot be good for our economy.
- The increase in the incidence of autism, which has been shown to be related to the proximity to coal-burning power plants, cannot be good for our economy, especially when you consider that there are no daycare facilities who will accept children with "behavioral problems." Mothers of sick children frequently have no other option but to withdraw from the workforce and stay at home to care for their child. Statistics reveal an 85% divorce rate in families of children with autism - they succumb to the unrelenting stress, which encompasses EVERY aspect of EVERY hour of EVERY DAY. There are no state provisions for respite care, and no state funded programs for adolescents and adults with autism who age out of the system at eighteen. Families are left holding the bag and footing the bill. Surely this is not good for our economy in the state of Indiana.
And, speaking of sick children, I for one do not think it is coincidental that the top five agricultural crops grown in Indiana (and exported all over the world) are the same top five foods that have been demonstrated to cause intestinal problems, including colic, chronic constipation, and diarrhea in children with autism. It is also not coincidental that when these five foods (wheat, dairy, corn, soy, and eggs) are removed from the diets of children with autism, more than 65% of those children improve significantly, some to the point where they actually LOSE their autism diagnosis. Do you really believe this is a coincidence? What is going to happen to the economy in Indiana when the rest of the world realizes that it may not just be the food that's making them sick, but the poisons that are in the food? SURELY THAT'S NOT GOING TO BE GOOD FOR OUR ECONOMY!
As I am sure you know, the heavy metals that go into our air and water also go into our soil and from there, into the food we grow. As the photographs above clearly show, there has been no effort in this state to ensure that our food supply is spared from the toxic plumes being spewed from the coal-burning power plants. There has also apparently been no concern about locating power plants within spitting distance of elementary schools where our children are required by state law to spend a certain amount of time outdoors, running, playing and practicing sports and other activities. Isn't this inconsistent with your push for Healthy Hoosiers?
With the ever-increasing frequency of Ozone and PPM days, during which "sensitive groups," including children, are advised to stay indoors, it's no wonder Indiana ranks at the top of the charts for citizens who qualify as morbidly obese. With the serious health problems associated with that condition, I can't fathom how this outcome could contribute to a strong economy for the state.
With the neurological damage caused by heavy metals, including the loss of IQ points associated with even minute exposure to lead, we are spending increasing amounts of our tax dollars on special education programs, to remediate the damage done by the power-plants and their toxins. How is that good for our economy?
In Vanderburgh County, we are currently on target to surpass last year's suicide rate, and once again reclaim our title as the county with the highest suicide rate in the nation. Two years ago, the rate was four times the national average - AND the rate in Vanderburgh County was four times the rate of the state of Indiana. Of course, many of those people who killed themselves may have been on the public assistance roles, due to physical and mental health problems, so I guess their deaths could conceivably be good for the economy on some level, but I sincerely hope this is not one of the areas you would consider a "positive" outcome of increased coal production.
A related issue is the extreme amount of Vanadium introduced into our environment as a result of coal production. With excess vanadium resulting in the depletion of lithium, this is a very likely contributor to the suicide rate, as depletion of lithium is associated with bipolar disorder. Of course, you may not be aware, or may have forgotten the outcries for more psychiatric facilities after the suicide death of 10 year-old DeTwain Barnett in May 2007. Unfortunately, until the environmental poisoning is decreased, the suicide rate is not likely to decrease, nor is the shortage of mental health providers in this area.
A second question I have is related to your former position as Senior Vice President of Marketing Strategy for Eli Lily, and your subsequent position as Budget Director for the Bush White House. In my attempt to understand the Lily Rider, which was sneaked into the Homeland Security Act, I did find a newspaper article that printed your adamant denial regarding any knowledge or responsibility for this rider, which was meant to deny families of children poisoned by thimerosal (mercury) in vaccines their right to due process in a Court of Law. My understanding of this rider is that it is called "The Lily Rider" because Eli Lily was the developer of thimerosal and so by denying families their day in court, the rider protected the pharmaceutical giant, which just happened to be your former employer.
Two questions:
1. If not you, then who?
2. Do you own stock in Eli Lily?
One final question I'm pondering is this: Given the obvious health problems and associated economic costs to a state from being the "coal-burning power plant capital of the world," and, given the documented association between mercury and coal-burning power plants AND autism, WHY WOULD THE GOVERNOR OF ANY STATE WANT TO INCREASE MERCURY IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF HIS OR HER CONSTITUENTS?
Of course, I could understand why, if the governor in question had reason to confound the evidence regarding whether or not thimerosal (mercury) in vaccines had anything to do with the epidemic of autism in America's children.
If not you, then who?
Looking forward to your assistance in sorting out this confusion.Sincerely yours,
Marcella Piper-Terry
Thursday, August 14, 2008
IT'S IN THE AIR IN SOUTHWESTERN INDIANA
The emissions of heavy metals and other toxins from coal-burning power plants in Southwestern Indiana have increased exponentially since Mitch Daniels took office as governor. Things are not getting better, they are getting worse, and people are dying as a result.
I'm reposting this because it is so important. Please help me to bring attention to this issue.
God bless you.
Original post:
Today is August 14, 2008. The air today is unhealthy for sensitive individuals to breathe due to high levels of particulate matter. The forecast indicates we will have another PPM alert tomorrow, too. Unlike forecasting the weather, predicting the air quality here is no challenge. If it’s hot enough, don’t go outside if you are “sensitive.” This includes children, the elderly, and anyone who has asthma, allergies, or cardiopulmonary problems.
A major component of our particulate matter is sulfur-dioxide. It has been my belief for the last few years, that the high level of SO2 plays a major part in the incidence of learning disabilities, ADHD, and Autism in the children of the tri-state. In April 2007 I attended my second DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) conference, which was held in Washington D.C. One of the questions I asked was if anyone is doing research to determine if SO2 is a contributing factor in the increase of autism and other developmental disabilities. Dr. John Pangborn, who is a brilliant man and has contributed SO much in the way of research, especially regarding the role of mercury in autism, responded to my question by stating, "Sulfur-dioxide is a noxious, toxic, poison. You can see it in the air, you can smell it, and you can taste it... If you believe sulfur-dioxide is contributing to your child's problems, my suggestion to you is MOVE!"
I was so taken aback by Dr. Pangborn's response that I spent most of that night writing a letter to him. That letter is the bulk of today's post.
Having had time to reflect on this situation, I must now thank Dr. Pangborn for his candor. The message we must internalize is this:
There is no cavalry coming to save us. We, the citizens of Indiana, have to do this ourselves.
LETTER TO DR. JOHN PANGBORN
FROM: MARCELLA PIPER-TERRY, M.S.
DATE: APRIL 23, 2007
Dear Dr. Pangborn:
My heart sank when you advised me to move. Then I got angry. Then I felt sick to my stomach and the tears came.
I know sulfur-dioxide is part of why there are so many sick children (and adults) in Indiana. My daughter is not the only one. Your statement, “…I suggest you move,” cut me to my soul. It’s the very same thing I have been fighting the urge to do since realizing, three years ago, that if I didn’t, I would be continuing to put my daughter’s health in peril – as well as my own – and that of my grand-daughter/adopted daughter.
My husband spent 24 years in the United States’ Air Force and now works managing the prototype Doppler Radar – which he has worked to build – from the ground-up, in a cornfield in rural Gibson County, Indiana. In November 2005, our community of Evansville lost 23 of our neighbors when a tornado hit at 2:00 a.m. We are still recovering and counting our blessings that thanks to the Doppler Radar, many thousands were able to prepare because we were informed and could take action against the threat. If not for the data provided by the radar, many more lives may well have been lost.
Before our move to Indiana my husband and our family lived here in Washington, D.C. Steve was the “Senior Non-Commissioned Officer In-Charge” of the “Ground Radar Maintenance Shop” at Andrews Air Force Base, and traveled worldwide to maintain the Air Force Radar Systems. I stayed at home, raising our daughter and working 3 days-a- week doing neuropsychological evaluations of children with ADHD, LD, ASD, and PDD.
In 2000, I was preparing to enter the doctoral program in Social/Health Psychology at George Washington University, where I had been offered full funding and a teaching assistantship. My studies and assistantship duties were set to begin in September 2000. In May 2000, I learned that the five month-old daughter of my 18 year-old bipolar/ADHD and (I now know) severely gluten/casein allergic son had been exposed to multiple toxins in utero through her 20 year-old mother’s drug and alcohol abuse. My grand-daughter was in an environment of ongoing and worsening neglect, which I could not ignore. She was floppy, exhibited tremors, screamed suddenly and for no reason, and had very poor eye-contact. Her mother was involved in an abusive relationship and her drug use was ongoing. (My son was also using drugs heavily and had been out of the picture since before the birth.)
When information came to light about the baby’s current situation, I could not sit by. I went to the Prince George’s County Courthouse (sans attorney), filed an ex-parte (had no idea what it was) and somehow was able to obtain emergency custody of my granddaughter. One week later the ex-parte was extended for one year. At that point it dawned on me that I needed a clone because there was no way I would be able to raise this baby and do full-time doctoral psychology load and teach and raise my five year-old.
With my husband’s retirement zooming at us in two years’ time and no job lined up for him, he agreed to embark on this commitment with me (after an initial, “You DID WHAT???!!!!”). I think I forgot to mention that he was TDY (Temporary Duty assignment) to Germany and Italy for 30 days when I got the emergency custody order. Anyway, I promised Steve that if he would do this with me, I would go wherever he needed to go, and do whatever I had to do, but I could not turn my back on Leah. The Ph.D. could wait. She couldn’t. It wasn’t even hard to walk into the psych department at George Washington University and tell Dr. Paul Poppen that I was not going to be working with him after-all. It would have been much more difficult if I had not had Rachel by the hand and Leah in my arms, but I knew without a doubt, that I was doing the right thing and I have never regretted it.
We got permanent custody of Leah in August 2001 after her mother deserted her and moved to Utah with the abusive boyfriend. We haven’t heard from her since and formally adopted Leah in May 2005.
On September 11, 2001 I took Rachel to school at Francis T. Evans Elementary, just outside the the gate and then dropped Leah off at the babysitter’s at 9:00 a.m. I heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center when I got back in my car and turned on NPR. When I pulled into the gas station on Andrews’, I heard about the second plane. As I was leaving the base, thinking, “This is NOT good…We’re next…” I saw the military guards with M-16s running toward the gate, beginning to close off the base – as I was driving through – leaving my children and getting onto the beltway to drive to Silver Springs, where I worked. Within minutes, I could see smoke downtown, and my brain just kept playing, over and over, “This is not good…This Is NOT Good…This is NOT GOOD…”
I am thankful to God and all the guardian angels in the cosmos that NPR did not announce, “The Pentagon has been hit” until I had pulled to the curb in front of my office – 45 minutes from Andrews Air Force Base. I don’t know how long I sat – holding my breath – with my hands covering my mouth – trying to keep the first giant sob from coming out. I think it must have been at least 30 minutes before I finally was able to turn off the car and stumble to the door. I don’t remember walking – only falling to my knees as soon as I got inside. Then the shaking started – and the real tears – as it hit me that I didn’t know if Steve was on Base that Tuesday – or if he was at the Pentagon. – My Girls – Leah is on base --- Rachel is at school just outside the gate – and BUSH’s Plane – THE TARGET – is on its way back to Andrews’…
It was four hours before I knew if my husband was alive, and it was 7:30 that night before I could get home because the beltway was gridlocked and people were panicking and running over each other. We were told, “If you’re safe, stay put!”
When I finally got back to the base, it took nearly 3 hours to drive and get through security – every car had to be searched. There were dogs to detect explosives and after that, I drove through what seemed like an endless gauntlet of soldiers lining both sides of the single-lane path, each with his or her M-16 at the shoulder.
Sadly, we got used to the searches and guns every time we took our daughter to school or brought her home – or left the base and returned for other reasons.
Shortly after 9/11, Rachel developed tic behaviors. She was always spacey and “zoned out” but things got a lot worse. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, after ruling out seizures and Central Auditory Processing Disorder at Johns’ Hopkins – I don’t mess around – I insisted Rachel be seen by John Freeman at Johns’ Hopkins Neurology and by Dana Boatman at JHU Cognitive Neurology for Central Auditory Processing testing. Then I took her to Walter Reed where she was evaluated by Stacey Williams, Chief of Behavioral Psychology. Rachel saw Dr. Lowry Shropshire, Head of Developmental Pediatrics at Bethesda – and after he put her on Dexedrine we saw a little improvement in attention – but worsening of tics and emotionality --- and so it goes.
Meanwhile, Leah continues to grow and with daily interventions (e.g., music, reading, pictures, touch, smell, etc…) her Developmental Quotients went from 100 (receptive) and 80 (expressive) at 11 months to 132 (expressive) and 134 (receptive) at 17 months – what can be done with neuronal plasticity!!! Behavior and fears were still issues, but she was (and is) doing great!
In October of 2002, we were preparing for our move to Indiana. I was still working in Silver Springs 3 days/week and was on my way to work on October 3rd – the first day of the Sniper Shootings. For the next 3 weeks I, along with everyone else in this area, lived in a CONSTANT state of Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Hyper-arousal as we waited to see who was going to be killed next and where it would happen.
My family and I finally left for Indiana on October 25, 2002 – the day after “John Allen Muhammed” and “Lee Boyd Malvo” were arrested. Since moving to Indiana we have had a lot of adjustments, but life has definitely been quieter – in some respects. I have built a practice through networking and word of mouth. I am now attending my second Defeat Autism Now! conference, with plans to further educate and collaborate with physicians and families in our region so we can help our children heal. I live in Evansville and the closest Defeat Autism Now! practitioner that I know of is four hours away.
The incidence of Autism, ADHD, and PDD in our area is staggering – just as it is in Texas, or California, or New Jersey. My child is not the only one. Rachel has definitely gotten worse with each successive assault on her immune system – Trauma, Viral Infections, and Toxic Overload are hurting MY CHILD – and thousands of other children in the mid-west. (Note: At last night’s wonderful dinner and tribute to Bernie Rimland, whom I was fortunate enough to hear speak in Long Beach, the Mid-West Contingent consisted of ONE TABLE. My friend and I – traveling together – were the only two people from Indiana – and neither of us is an M. D.)
There have been MANY times in the last three years when I have told myself – and my husband, “We HAVE TO MOVE away from Indiana! This place is a toxic pit! It’s a cancer cell and the kids here are being poisoned! We are ALL being poisoned!”
My question to you is WHERE SHOULD WE GO?
I spent the first 12 years of my life in Orange, California, where the playground of my elementary school was located on a hill directly adjacent to the 55 freeway – before gasoline was unleaded and before catalytic converters. This was the source of a significant body burden of lead which no doubt contributed to my son’s extreme ADHD and bipolar diagnosis.
In 1972, my parents moved us to Mississippi, where they bought a big white house with pillars, azaleas, a veranda, and a one-acre pecan orchard. The “Big-House” was built in 1875 and my mother absolutely LOVED it. After it was nearly destroyed by fire several years later, my well-meaning but very uninformed sisters and brothers-in-law tried to save my mother some money by doing much of the repairs and renovations themselves. The paint-sanding went on for months, intermittently. None of them wore masks. My mother, who was still living in the house, got sicker and sicker and nobody knew why. She finally got over the “blow-out diarrhea” and constant “stomach virus that just won’t go away,” but she almost never felt well enough to get out of bed for more than a couple of hours at a time.
My mother was a classical pianist. At age 64 she obtained her Master’s Degree in Piano Performance. She was hoping to get her doctorate and conduct. Six months after she got her masters’ degree, she fell and broke her hand when she put it out to catch herself. After several months of rehabilitation therapy, she was finally able to move her fingers well enough to start playing again. That’s when she discovered she could no longer sight-read – something she had been doing since she was five years-old. I will never forget the pain in her voice when I stopped by to see her one afternoon and found her sitting at the piano, fingers on the keyboard, just sitting there – staring at the music. I asked what was wrong and she looked at me and said, “I can’t make my hands do what my eyes see.” (This was the first observable manifestation of the lead that flooded her body once again when she broke her hand, releasing it from bone marrow where it had been stored since shortly after the initial exposure.)
Less than a year later my mother’s thyroid disease was progressing so rapidly she was told she had to drink radio-active iodine. (Lead destroys the thyroid.) The next year, her heart stopped during a cardiac catheterization and she was taken by ambulance to University of Alabama at Birmingham where she underwent emergency open-heart surgery. After they cracked and spread her ribs, the neurological deterioration was very rapid. She could no longer speak and look at me simultaneously because what she saw interfered with her ability to formulate expressive language. When she spoke, it didn’t make sense.
The worst thing was, she was still able to realize that she wasn’t making sense. The last complete sentence my mother ever said to me was excruciatingly difficult for her to get out – and for me to hear. I can still see her face – eyes squeezed shut tightly, forehead and brows furrowed and wrinkled, and her teeth clenched so hard I thought they would break… “I wish…I could…finish…one…thought.”
There was no doubt in my mind that my mother was disintegrating because of lead poisoning. NOBODY would listen. They said her cognitive decline was due to the effects of oxygen deprivation during her surgery, and would get better with time. It wasn't, and it didn't.
“The Big House” is still standing and another family lives there now. Many houses in the Mississippi Gulf Coast town where my husband and I bought after our daughter was born did not survive hurricane Katrina. To our knowledge, no one we knew personally was killed in the storm or as a result of the aftermath. I have not been able to bring myself to visit the Gulf Coast yet. It still feels too raw…like my history has been erased.
My mother died three years ago, at the age of seventy-one. She got her Masters’ Degree at 64. She broke her hand at 65. She had her ribs cracked and spread for 2 open-heart surgeries at 66 and 67. The last word she ever spoke to me was “Dignity” – which she was finally able to say after several minutes of struggling to get it out. I knew what she was asking but I couldn’t help her. She was pleading with me to help her die. That was seven months before she finally stopped suffering.
I begged for someone to please listen to me. No one ever did.
My mother had arranged years prior to donate her body to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, in hopes that from the study of her system, others would benefit. I asked the doctors, when the final arrangements were made, if they would PLEASE test her lead levels and let me know the results. Even that request was denied. We are still waiting for her ashes to be returned to us.
My question about sulfur-dioxide is based on clinical observation and objective data. Over the last four years I have evaluated more than 60 children in Indiana. Between 1999 and 2002 I assisted Dr. Susan Van Ost in evaluating hundreds of children here in the D.C. area. The children are different.
The incidence of visual processing disorders is MUCH higher in Indiana. I believe the Sulfur-dioxide in the air is at least partly to blame and I believe it is also interfering with the sulfation pathway and contributing to the presentation of autism in OUR children. We can’t just move. We have to figure out how to fix it. If we ignore it and run away, who is going to help all the other children? And even if I COULD “just move” – Where do you suggest I GO?
PLEASE LISTEN.
Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S.
Final note: There is no real "safe place." In order to survive, we must assess the situation, do what we can to improve our ability to survive, and work together to begin addressing the things we cannot immediately control. Our children with autism and other biologically based “developmental disabilities” are the canaries in the coalmines. If we don’t learn from them, we will all pay the price.
P.S.: Dear Mom:
Today, August 14, 2008 is the five-year anniversary of your death. I miss you terribly but I feel you with me. I love you always.
Marci
I'm reposting this because it is so important. Please help me to bring attention to this issue.
God bless you.
Original post:
Today is August 14, 2008. The air today is unhealthy for sensitive individuals to breathe due to high levels of particulate matter. The forecast indicates we will have another PPM alert tomorrow, too. Unlike forecasting the weather, predicting the air quality here is no challenge. If it’s hot enough, don’t go outside if you are “sensitive.” This includes children, the elderly, and anyone who has asthma, allergies, or cardiopulmonary problems.
A major component of our particulate matter is sulfur-dioxide. It has been my belief for the last few years, that the high level of SO2 plays a major part in the incidence of learning disabilities, ADHD, and Autism in the children of the tri-state. In April 2007 I attended my second DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) conference, which was held in Washington D.C. One of the questions I asked was if anyone is doing research to determine if SO2 is a contributing factor in the increase of autism and other developmental disabilities. Dr. John Pangborn, who is a brilliant man and has contributed SO much in the way of research, especially regarding the role of mercury in autism, responded to my question by stating, "Sulfur-dioxide is a noxious, toxic, poison. You can see it in the air, you can smell it, and you can taste it... If you believe sulfur-dioxide is contributing to your child's problems, my suggestion to you is MOVE!"
I was so taken aback by Dr. Pangborn's response that I spent most of that night writing a letter to him. That letter is the bulk of today's post.
Having had time to reflect on this situation, I must now thank Dr. Pangborn for his candor. The message we must internalize is this:
There is no cavalry coming to save us. We, the citizens of Indiana, have to do this ourselves.
LETTER TO DR. JOHN PANGBORN
FROM: MARCELLA PIPER-TERRY, M.S.
DATE: APRIL 23, 2007
Dear Dr. Pangborn:
My heart sank when you advised me to move. Then I got angry. Then I felt sick to my stomach and the tears came.
I know sulfur-dioxide is part of why there are so many sick children (and adults) in Indiana. My daughter is not the only one. Your statement, “…I suggest you move,” cut me to my soul. It’s the very same thing I have been fighting the urge to do since realizing, three years ago, that if I didn’t, I would be continuing to put my daughter’s health in peril – as well as my own – and that of my grand-daughter/adopted daughter.
My husband spent 24 years in the United States’ Air Force and now works managing the prototype Doppler Radar – which he has worked to build – from the ground-up, in a cornfield in rural Gibson County, Indiana. In November 2005, our community of Evansville lost 23 of our neighbors when a tornado hit at 2:00 a.m. We are still recovering and counting our blessings that thanks to the Doppler Radar, many thousands were able to prepare because we were informed and could take action against the threat. If not for the data provided by the radar, many more lives may well have been lost.
Before our move to Indiana my husband and our family lived here in Washington, D.C. Steve was the “Senior Non-Commissioned Officer In-Charge” of the “Ground Radar Maintenance Shop” at Andrews Air Force Base, and traveled worldwide to maintain the Air Force Radar Systems. I stayed at home, raising our daughter and working 3 days-a- week doing neuropsychological evaluations of children with ADHD, LD, ASD, and PDD.
In 2000, I was preparing to enter the doctoral program in Social/Health Psychology at George Washington University, where I had been offered full funding and a teaching assistantship. My studies and assistantship duties were set to begin in September 2000. In May 2000, I learned that the five month-old daughter of my 18 year-old bipolar/ADHD and (I now know) severely gluten/casein allergic son had been exposed to multiple toxins in utero through her 20 year-old mother’s drug and alcohol abuse. My grand-daughter was in an environment of ongoing and worsening neglect, which I could not ignore. She was floppy, exhibited tremors, screamed suddenly and for no reason, and had very poor eye-contact. Her mother was involved in an abusive relationship and her drug use was ongoing. (My son was also using drugs heavily and had been out of the picture since before the birth.)
When information came to light about the baby’s current situation, I could not sit by. I went to the Prince George’s County Courthouse (sans attorney), filed an ex-parte (had no idea what it was) and somehow was able to obtain emergency custody of my granddaughter. One week later the ex-parte was extended for one year. At that point it dawned on me that I needed a clone because there was no way I would be able to raise this baby and do full-time doctoral psychology load and teach and raise my five year-old.
With my husband’s retirement zooming at us in two years’ time and no job lined up for him, he agreed to embark on this commitment with me (after an initial, “You DID WHAT???!!!!”). I think I forgot to mention that he was TDY (Temporary Duty assignment) to Germany and Italy for 30 days when I got the emergency custody order. Anyway, I promised Steve that if he would do this with me, I would go wherever he needed to go, and do whatever I had to do, but I could not turn my back on Leah. The Ph.D. could wait. She couldn’t. It wasn’t even hard to walk into the psych department at George Washington University and tell Dr. Paul Poppen that I was not going to be working with him after-all. It would have been much more difficult if I had not had Rachel by the hand and Leah in my arms, but I knew without a doubt, that I was doing the right thing and I have never regretted it.
We got permanent custody of Leah in August 2001 after her mother deserted her and moved to Utah with the abusive boyfriend. We haven’t heard from her since and formally adopted Leah in May 2005.
On September 11, 2001 I took Rachel to school at Francis T. Evans Elementary, just outside the the gate and then dropped Leah off at the babysitter’s at 9:00 a.m. I heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center when I got back in my car and turned on NPR. When I pulled into the gas station on Andrews’, I heard about the second plane. As I was leaving the base, thinking, “This is NOT good…We’re next…” I saw the military guards with M-16s running toward the gate, beginning to close off the base – as I was driving through – leaving my children and getting onto the beltway to drive to Silver Springs, where I worked. Within minutes, I could see smoke downtown, and my brain just kept playing, over and over, “This is not good…This Is NOT Good…This is NOT GOOD…”
I am thankful to God and all the guardian angels in the cosmos that NPR did not announce, “The Pentagon has been hit” until I had pulled to the curb in front of my office – 45 minutes from Andrews Air Force Base. I don’t know how long I sat – holding my breath – with my hands covering my mouth – trying to keep the first giant sob from coming out. I think it must have been at least 30 minutes before I finally was able to turn off the car and stumble to the door. I don’t remember walking – only falling to my knees as soon as I got inside. Then the shaking started – and the real tears – as it hit me that I didn’t know if Steve was on Base that Tuesday – or if he was at the Pentagon. – My Girls – Leah is on base --- Rachel is at school just outside the gate – and BUSH’s Plane – THE TARGET – is on its way back to Andrews’…
It was four hours before I knew if my husband was alive, and it was 7:30 that night before I could get home because the beltway was gridlocked and people were panicking and running over each other. We were told, “If you’re safe, stay put!”
When I finally got back to the base, it took nearly 3 hours to drive and get through security – every car had to be searched. There were dogs to detect explosives and after that, I drove through what seemed like an endless gauntlet of soldiers lining both sides of the single-lane path, each with his or her M-16 at the shoulder.
Sadly, we got used to the searches and guns every time we took our daughter to school or brought her home – or left the base and returned for other reasons.
Shortly after 9/11, Rachel developed tic behaviors. She was always spacey and “zoned out” but things got a lot worse. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, after ruling out seizures and Central Auditory Processing Disorder at Johns’ Hopkins – I don’t mess around – I insisted Rachel be seen by John Freeman at Johns’ Hopkins Neurology and by Dana Boatman at JHU Cognitive Neurology for Central Auditory Processing testing. Then I took her to Walter Reed where she was evaluated by Stacey Williams, Chief of Behavioral Psychology. Rachel saw Dr. Lowry Shropshire, Head of Developmental Pediatrics at Bethesda – and after he put her on Dexedrine we saw a little improvement in attention – but worsening of tics and emotionality --- and so it goes.
Meanwhile, Leah continues to grow and with daily interventions (e.g., music, reading, pictures, touch, smell, etc…) her Developmental Quotients went from 100 (receptive) and 80 (expressive) at 11 months to 132 (expressive) and 134 (receptive) at 17 months – what can be done with neuronal plasticity!!! Behavior and fears were still issues, but she was (and is) doing great!
In October of 2002, we were preparing for our move to Indiana. I was still working in Silver Springs 3 days/week and was on my way to work on October 3rd – the first day of the Sniper Shootings. For the next 3 weeks I, along with everyone else in this area, lived in a CONSTANT state of Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Hyper-arousal as we waited to see who was going to be killed next and where it would happen.
My family and I finally left for Indiana on October 25, 2002 – the day after “John Allen Muhammed” and “Lee Boyd Malvo” were arrested. Since moving to Indiana we have had a lot of adjustments, but life has definitely been quieter – in some respects. I have built a practice through networking and word of mouth. I am now attending my second Defeat Autism Now! conference, with plans to further educate and collaborate with physicians and families in our region so we can help our children heal. I live in Evansville and the closest Defeat Autism Now! practitioner that I know of is four hours away.
The incidence of Autism, ADHD, and PDD in our area is staggering – just as it is in Texas, or California, or New Jersey. My child is not the only one. Rachel has definitely gotten worse with each successive assault on her immune system – Trauma, Viral Infections, and Toxic Overload are hurting MY CHILD – and thousands of other children in the mid-west. (Note: At last night’s wonderful dinner and tribute to Bernie Rimland, whom I was fortunate enough to hear speak in Long Beach, the Mid-West Contingent consisted of ONE TABLE. My friend and I – traveling together – were the only two people from Indiana – and neither of us is an M. D.)
There have been MANY times in the last three years when I have told myself – and my husband, “We HAVE TO MOVE away from Indiana! This place is a toxic pit! It’s a cancer cell and the kids here are being poisoned! We are ALL being poisoned!”
My question to you is WHERE SHOULD WE GO?
I spent the first 12 years of my life in Orange, California, where the playground of my elementary school was located on a hill directly adjacent to the 55 freeway – before gasoline was unleaded and before catalytic converters. This was the source of a significant body burden of lead which no doubt contributed to my son’s extreme ADHD and bipolar diagnosis.
In 1972, my parents moved us to Mississippi, where they bought a big white house with pillars, azaleas, a veranda, and a one-acre pecan orchard. The “Big-House” was built in 1875 and my mother absolutely LOVED it. After it was nearly destroyed by fire several years later, my well-meaning but very uninformed sisters and brothers-in-law tried to save my mother some money by doing much of the repairs and renovations themselves. The paint-sanding went on for months, intermittently. None of them wore masks. My mother, who was still living in the house, got sicker and sicker and nobody knew why. She finally got over the “blow-out diarrhea” and constant “stomach virus that just won’t go away,” but she almost never felt well enough to get out of bed for more than a couple of hours at a time.
My mother was a classical pianist. At age 64 she obtained her Master’s Degree in Piano Performance. She was hoping to get her doctorate and conduct. Six months after she got her masters’ degree, she fell and broke her hand when she put it out to catch herself. After several months of rehabilitation therapy, she was finally able to move her fingers well enough to start playing again. That’s when she discovered she could no longer sight-read – something she had been doing since she was five years-old. I will never forget the pain in her voice when I stopped by to see her one afternoon and found her sitting at the piano, fingers on the keyboard, just sitting there – staring at the music. I asked what was wrong and she looked at me and said, “I can’t make my hands do what my eyes see.” (This was the first observable manifestation of the lead that flooded her body once again when she broke her hand, releasing it from bone marrow where it had been stored since shortly after the initial exposure.)
Less than a year later my mother’s thyroid disease was progressing so rapidly she was told she had to drink radio-active iodine. (Lead destroys the thyroid.) The next year, her heart stopped during a cardiac catheterization and she was taken by ambulance to University of Alabama at Birmingham where she underwent emergency open-heart surgery. After they cracked and spread her ribs, the neurological deterioration was very rapid. She could no longer speak and look at me simultaneously because what she saw interfered with her ability to formulate expressive language. When she spoke, it didn’t make sense.
The worst thing was, she was still able to realize that she wasn’t making sense. The last complete sentence my mother ever said to me was excruciatingly difficult for her to get out – and for me to hear. I can still see her face – eyes squeezed shut tightly, forehead and brows furrowed and wrinkled, and her teeth clenched so hard I thought they would break… “I wish…I could…finish…one…thought.”
There was no doubt in my mind that my mother was disintegrating because of lead poisoning. NOBODY would listen. They said her cognitive decline was due to the effects of oxygen deprivation during her surgery, and would get better with time. It wasn't, and it didn't.
“The Big House” is still standing and another family lives there now. Many houses in the Mississippi Gulf Coast town where my husband and I bought after our daughter was born did not survive hurricane Katrina. To our knowledge, no one we knew personally was killed in the storm or as a result of the aftermath. I have not been able to bring myself to visit the Gulf Coast yet. It still feels too raw…like my history has been erased.
My mother died three years ago, at the age of seventy-one. She got her Masters’ Degree at 64. She broke her hand at 65. She had her ribs cracked and spread for 2 open-heart surgeries at 66 and 67. The last word she ever spoke to me was “Dignity” – which she was finally able to say after several minutes of struggling to get it out. I knew what she was asking but I couldn’t help her. She was pleading with me to help her die. That was seven months before she finally stopped suffering.
I begged for someone to please listen to me. No one ever did.
My mother had arranged years prior to donate her body to the University of Mississippi Medical Center, in hopes that from the study of her system, others would benefit. I asked the doctors, when the final arrangements were made, if they would PLEASE test her lead levels and let me know the results. Even that request was denied. We are still waiting for her ashes to be returned to us.
My question about sulfur-dioxide is based on clinical observation and objective data. Over the last four years I have evaluated more than 60 children in Indiana. Between 1999 and 2002 I assisted Dr. Susan Van Ost in evaluating hundreds of children here in the D.C. area. The children are different.
The incidence of visual processing disorders is MUCH higher in Indiana. I believe the Sulfur-dioxide in the air is at least partly to blame and I believe it is also interfering with the sulfation pathway and contributing to the presentation of autism in OUR children. We can’t just move. We have to figure out how to fix it. If we ignore it and run away, who is going to help all the other children? And even if I COULD “just move” – Where do you suggest I GO?
PLEASE LISTEN.
Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S.
Final note: There is no real "safe place." In order to survive, we must assess the situation, do what we can to improve our ability to survive, and work together to begin addressing the things we cannot immediately control. Our children with autism and other biologically based “developmental disabilities” are the canaries in the coalmines. If we don’t learn from them, we will all pay the price.
P.S.: Dear Mom:
Today, August 14, 2008 is the five-year anniversary of your death. I miss you terribly but I feel you with me. I love you always.
Marci
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