Okay. I give up.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
Autism is a behavioral diagnosis. In order to receive the diagnosis of "Autism" a child must exhibit a certain number of behaviors over a certain time frame. If he or she does not do so, the diagnosis of "autism" is not warranted.
There is no blood test for "autism."
"Autism" can't be confirmed or "ruled-out" by laboratory analysis. It's strictly a behavioral diagnosis.
Therefore, anything that causes physiological damage cannot directly "cause" autism.
Ergo... vaccines cannot "cause" "autism."
Vaccines cause other stuff.
Vaccines cause encephalitis.
Vaccines cause seizures.
Vaccines cause immune system deficiencies.
Vaccines cause gastrointestinal problems.
Encephalitis causes mood swings.
Encephalitis causes extreme pain.
Encephalitis causes inattention and impulsivity.
Encephalitis causes aggression.
Encephalitis causes balance problems and difficulty relating to one's environment.
Seizures cause mood swings.
Seizures cause inattention and impulsivity.
Seizures cause alterations in conciousness.
Immune system deficiencies cause children to have more frequent bacterial infections, such as ear infections, upper respiratory infections (URIs), sinusutis, and strep infections.
Immune system deficiencies cause children to have more frequent viral infections, such as stomatitis, "fevers of unknown origin," "viral rashes," hives, conjunctivitis, and gastrointestinal viruses that cause vomiting and diarrhea.
Immune system deficiencies cause children to be more vulnerable to "everything that's going around" and to have a tougher time getting over things than their peers.
Gastrointestinal damage from vaccines causes diarrhea.
Gastrointestinal damage from vaccines causes nausea, reflux, vomiting, and the recently discovered "disease" now known as GERD (Gastro-Esophageal Reflux Disease).
Gatrointestinal damage from vaccines causes increased vulnerability to viruses and bacteria, which leads to increased administration of antibiotics, which leads to overgrowth of pathogenic yeast.
Pathogenic yeast overgrowth leads to intestinal hyperpermeability ("leaky gut syndrome").
Pathogenic yeast overgrowth leads to constipation.
Pathogenic yeast overgrowth leads to food allergies.
Pathogenic yeast overgrowth leads to skin eruptions, "drunken, silly behavior," inattention and impulsivity, and cravings for bread, sugar, ice cream, milk, and carbohydrates.
Technically, vaccines do not cause autism because techincally there is no such thing as autism.
Vaccines cause the underlying physical conditions that result in the pain, neurological damage, immune system disorders, gastrointestinal damage, and yeast overgrowth - all of which combine to produce the behavioral symptoms that result in the "autism" diagnosis.
Gastrointestinal damage is the most obvious result of vaccine damage.
When a previously healthy child suddenly starts having multiple episodes of watery and extremely stinky diarrhea every day, and this happens shortly after receiving vaccinations, it is notable as a "vaccine injury." What is not so obvious is that when the child's gut is permanently damaged, he or she is no longer able to absorb nutrients necessary to produce neurotransmitters necessary for proper brain function. So when the child develops mood swings, sleep difficulties, and learning disabilities several months later, these issues are not recognized as being related to the vaccine injury because the initial damage occurred many months earlier.
Please re-read the previous paragraph.
This is why Dr. Andrew Wakefield is such a threat to the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Wakefield NEVER said vaccines cause autism.
Dr. Wakefield is a gastroenterologist. He saw a number of children with gastrointestinal problems who also happened to be diagnosed with autism. Dr. Wakefield reported his observations. He never claimed that the MMR "caused" autism. He merely reported that a number of children he had seen had BOTH gastrointestinal problems AND autism, and according to parental report, these issues developed within a short time of when the children received the MMR vaccine.
Again... Why is Dr. Wakefield such a threat to the pharmaceutical industry?
Hint: Not because vaccines cause autism - they don't.
Vaccines cause gastrointestinal damage.
Gastrointestinal damage causes malabsorption of nutrients necessary for proper brain function.
Malabsorption of essential nutrients causes immune system disorders, seizures, encephalopathy, etc... and THAT's what leads to the ultimate diagnosis of "autism."
If Dr. Wakefield's obervations are correct, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE will eventually draw the connection between vaccines and the domino-effect that leads to the "autism" diagnosis. From the perspective of the pharmaceutical industry, better to "nip it in the bud" now, which means discrediting Dr. Wakefield to the extent that no one will look further into the science.
Has this ploy worked?
Not for me. And not for many of the very intelligent parents I know.
Only time will tell if there are enough of us to make a difference.
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Dear Alisyn Camerota: We ARE the Experts, and We are NOT Going Away.
Dear Alisyn Camerota:
You don't know me.
Hold that thought.
I don't know you. I don't watch Fox "News" or anything else on Fox, except an occasional episode of American Idol. It took me a few years to get to the point where I would watch AI, mainly because I don't have time to waste watching people be insulted and belittled. I did, however, get to the point where I was able to look beyond Simon Cowell's nastiness because I was getting something good from watching some very talented young people as they received recognition and were able to achieve their dreams. That's what's called a cost-benefit analysis. I put up with Simon because the rags-to-riches journey was worth my time. I have always been a singer and if American Idol had been on when I was younger I would have been right there, standing in line.
I have never made the leap to Fox News. I've watched a couple of "News" shows on Fox, and have never felt there was anything there that was worth the time or worth putting up with the theatrics. So... I don't know you. I do know that there are some people who's opinions I value, who have been defending and promoting you over the last several months. They are parents of children diagnosed with "autism" - many of whom have received that diagnosis as a result of vaccine damage. From what I've heard, you have been the one journalist in the mainstream media who has been willing to give a voice to both sides of the vaccine-autism debate.
Your interview with Dr. Andrew Wakefield yesterday has caused quite a stir among the very people who have been singing your praises and increasing your viewership. Some are upset because you were "aggressive" with Dr. Wakefield. I watched a clip of the interview (courtesy of youtube) and I don't have a problem with your grilling of Dr. W. He's a big boy. He's very smart, and he has the truth on his side. Besides, compared to others who have "interviewed" him, you were by far more fair and at least provided him the opportunity to finish a sentence, even if he had to talk over you to do it.
What upset me (and many other parents of "autistic" children) was your attack on us.
YOU DON'T KNOW ME. You don't know my life. You don't know my child. You don't know what I have been through over the last 16 years.
How can you say, "Parents are not the experts?"
Do you know any parents of children who have regressed after vaccination? Have you interviewed any of them on your show? Let me tell you a little bit about our lives.
My daughter was born when I was 34 years old. The pregnancy with her was a miracle, following multiple miscarriages, a nearly fatal blood clot, and two back surgeries. I had been told not to even try to get pregnant because I most likely couldn't carry a child full-term, and I very well might not make it through the pregnancy alive. I wasn't trying to get pregnant but it happened. I won't bore you with all the details, but after many weeks in bed and giving myself heparin injections every 8 hours for months, my beautiful daughter was born.
I was obsessed with her. I took more photographs and videos of her than you can imagine. Every smile was caught on camera and every word was on video. When she started getting ear infections over-and-over-and-over again (something that is common among vaccine-injured children), I was the one who took her to the doctor's office and the emergency room, over-and-over-and-over again. I was the one who held her while she cried for hours in pain. I was the one who set the alarm and got up night-after-night alternating tylenol and motrin trying to get her extremely high fevers ("of unknown origin") to abate. I was the one researching for hours on end trying to figure out what the rashes meant, and why she was stuttering. I was the one who stamped my foot and went up the chain of command at Andrews Air Force Base Primary Care until I finally got the referrals I needed to have her evaluated for seizures and Central Auditory Processing Disorder at Johns Hopkins. I was the one who took her to Walter Reed for the Psychological Evaluation, and to Bethesda for the Developmental Pediatrics Evaluation. Later, I was the one who took her to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis when she was diagnosed with scoliosis - and I was the one who took her to Vanderbilt to be evaluated for Neurofibromatosis. I have also been the one to hold her when she was covered with hives and begging to die. And I have held her while she seized and stopped breathing, 3 hours after receiving a vaccine.
Over the last 16 years, my daugher and her health have been the most important focus in my life. I know her better than anyone. I also know more about vaccine injury, immune system damage, viruses, bacteria, autoimmune disease, yeast, parasites, food-allergies, eczema, seizures, visual and auditory processing disorders, ADHD, anxiety, frustration, and pain than any pediatrician on the planet. And I am not alone. I am just one parent. My daughter is just ONE child. If that were the end of the story, you could say it was anecdotal. But it's not the end of the story.
We are strong. We are intelligent. We are motivated, and we are connected. We talk, we share, we support each other, and we have become a force to be reckoned with. YOU may believe we are not the experts, but we know better. And so do the pharmaceutical companies. And THAT is precisely why mainstream media has consistently pursued Dr. Wakefield as its sacrificial lamb. This is not about Dr. Wakefield. It's about scrambling to discredit the entire autism-vaccine argument before the other half of American parents finally wake up and realize what's happening to our children.
This is not just about autism. It's not just about the MMR. And it's not just about Dr. Wakefield.
There are many of us, and our numbers are growing. And guess what?
We are not going away.
You don't know me.
Hold that thought.
I don't know you. I don't watch Fox "News" or anything else on Fox, except an occasional episode of American Idol. It took me a few years to get to the point where I would watch AI, mainly because I don't have time to waste watching people be insulted and belittled. I did, however, get to the point where I was able to look beyond Simon Cowell's nastiness because I was getting something good from watching some very talented young people as they received recognition and were able to achieve their dreams. That's what's called a cost-benefit analysis. I put up with Simon because the rags-to-riches journey was worth my time. I have always been a singer and if American Idol had been on when I was younger I would have been right there, standing in line.
I have never made the leap to Fox News. I've watched a couple of "News" shows on Fox, and have never felt there was anything there that was worth the time or worth putting up with the theatrics. So... I don't know you. I do know that there are some people who's opinions I value, who have been defending and promoting you over the last several months. They are parents of children diagnosed with "autism" - many of whom have received that diagnosis as a result of vaccine damage. From what I've heard, you have been the one journalist in the mainstream media who has been willing to give a voice to both sides of the vaccine-autism debate.
Your interview with Dr. Andrew Wakefield yesterday has caused quite a stir among the very people who have been singing your praises and increasing your viewership. Some are upset because you were "aggressive" with Dr. Wakefield. I watched a clip of the interview (courtesy of youtube) and I don't have a problem with your grilling of Dr. W. He's a big boy. He's very smart, and he has the truth on his side. Besides, compared to others who have "interviewed" him, you were by far more fair and at least provided him the opportunity to finish a sentence, even if he had to talk over you to do it.
What upset me (and many other parents of "autistic" children) was your attack on us.
YOU DON'T KNOW ME. You don't know my life. You don't know my child. You don't know what I have been through over the last 16 years.
How can you say, "Parents are not the experts?"
Do you know any parents of children who have regressed after vaccination? Have you interviewed any of them on your show? Let me tell you a little bit about our lives.
My daughter was born when I was 34 years old. The pregnancy with her was a miracle, following multiple miscarriages, a nearly fatal blood clot, and two back surgeries. I had been told not to even try to get pregnant because I most likely couldn't carry a child full-term, and I very well might not make it through the pregnancy alive. I wasn't trying to get pregnant but it happened. I won't bore you with all the details, but after many weeks in bed and giving myself heparin injections every 8 hours for months, my beautiful daughter was born.
I was obsessed with her. I took more photographs and videos of her than you can imagine. Every smile was caught on camera and every word was on video. When she started getting ear infections over-and-over-and-over again (something that is common among vaccine-injured children), I was the one who took her to the doctor's office and the emergency room, over-and-over-and-over again. I was the one who held her while she cried for hours in pain. I was the one who set the alarm and got up night-after-night alternating tylenol and motrin trying to get her extremely high fevers ("of unknown origin") to abate. I was the one researching for hours on end trying to figure out what the rashes meant, and why she was stuttering. I was the one who stamped my foot and went up the chain of command at Andrews Air Force Base Primary Care until I finally got the referrals I needed to have her evaluated for seizures and Central Auditory Processing Disorder at Johns Hopkins. I was the one who took her to Walter Reed for the Psychological Evaluation, and to Bethesda for the Developmental Pediatrics Evaluation. Later, I was the one who took her to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis when she was diagnosed with scoliosis - and I was the one who took her to Vanderbilt to be evaluated for Neurofibromatosis. I have also been the one to hold her when she was covered with hives and begging to die. And I have held her while she seized and stopped breathing, 3 hours after receiving a vaccine.
Over the last 16 years, my daugher and her health have been the most important focus in my life. I know her better than anyone. I also know more about vaccine injury, immune system damage, viruses, bacteria, autoimmune disease, yeast, parasites, food-allergies, eczema, seizures, visual and auditory processing disorders, ADHD, anxiety, frustration, and pain than any pediatrician on the planet. And I am not alone. I am just one parent. My daughter is just ONE child. If that were the end of the story, you could say it was anecdotal. But it's not the end of the story.
We are strong. We are intelligent. We are motivated, and we are connected. We talk, we share, we support each other, and we have become a force to be reckoned with. YOU may believe we are not the experts, but we know better. And so do the pharmaceutical companies. And THAT is precisely why mainstream media has consistently pursued Dr. Wakefield as its sacrificial lamb. This is not about Dr. Wakefield. It's about scrambling to discredit the entire autism-vaccine argument before the other half of American parents finally wake up and realize what's happening to our children.
This is not just about autism. It's not just about the MMR. And it's not just about Dr. Wakefield.
There are many of us, and our numbers are growing. And guess what?
We are not going away.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Plea to the Media: PLEASE Provide Information About Vaccine Exemptions!
On Tuesday night (October 19, 2010) I sent an email to News25 (Evansville, IN) reporter Kimberly Barbour after watching her reporting of all the kids sent home from EVSC because they don't have up-to-date vaccinations.
Here is my original message:
From: Marci Terry Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 10:29 PM
To: Kimberly Barbour
Subject: EVSC and vaccines
I just saw the story on the 10:00 news about students in the EVSC not being allowed to attend school unless they have received the "recommended" vaccinations.
Are you aware that "recommendations" are not the same as "Law?"
Indiana DOES provide parents with the option of exemptions. You are incorrectly telling parents that their children must receive vaccinations, which puts you in the position of assuming the role of a medical professional.
You may be held liable if children have adverse affects - including death - as a result of being vaccinated when they already have established immunity.
You may want to retract this story.
Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S.
Yesterday afternoon I received the following email response from Ms. Barbour:
Subject: RE: EVSC and vaccines Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:50:23 -0500
From: kbarbour@news25.us
To: marcellaterry@hotmail.com
Ms. Piper-Terry,
Thank you for your response. It is state law for schools to have shot records for all students. Indiana, thankfully, is a state that allows medical exemptions, but there still has to be documentation provided for them to include in their shot records. I have explained the state law in several previous stories on this topic. The schools have also explained this in their many notices to parents.
Kimberly Barbour
Reporter
WEHT-TV News 25
(812)483-3841
Here is my reply to Ms. Barbour's email:
Ms. Barbour:
Thank-you for your email.
Indiana does provide for medical exemption, as do ALL states in the U.S.
Forty-eight states, including Indiana, also provide for Religious exemptions; Mississippi and West Virginia are the only two states that do not allow this exemption.
Many people realize that they do have a religious exemption to vaccinations when they understand how the vaccines are made and how they do or do not work. Most people do not realize that vaccines contain mercury and aluminum, and that there have never been safety studies to examine the effects of vaccinating children with multiple antigens and additives simultaneously.
I have religious exemptions for myself and my children, based on my belief that God made our bodies perfectly and His design ensured that we were able to fight off illnesses if our immune system is allowed to rally itself naturally in the face of diseases such as the flu or chicken pox. Because I believe God made our bodies perfectly, I believe it is against His will for me to allow anyone to inject viruses, bacteria, mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, neomyacin, or anything that has been cultured in non-human DNA or aborted fetal tissue into their bodies - or mine.
Religious exemption is a very easy thing to do, and it is the legal right of parents to choose this if it is consistent with their beliefs.
All a parent has to do is write down on a piece of paper that they are not vaccinating because it is against their religious beliefs, sign it, and give it to the school nurse.
People need to know that this in an option and it is their legal right.
People need to know that there are many conditions that are contraindicated for vaccination. For example, if a child has had a previous reaction to vaccines, such as having a seizure or running a high fever, it is contraindicated for them to be vaccinated again with that vaccine. It is also a contraindication for many vaccines if a FAMILY member has a seizure disorder or has had a reaction to vaccines.
If you think I'm making this up, you need to look at the vaccine inserts that contain the information directly from the manufacturers.
Here is a link from Johns Hopkins that will take you to a table where you can look at the vaccine inserts for yourself.
People also need to know that there are many children who should NOT receive vaccinations because they have underlying mitochondrial disorders that make them exponentially more vulnerable to vaccine damage. Children in Evansville are more likely to have mitochondrial disorders because of the very high rates of heavy metals here from the coal burning power plants. The amount of manganese in this area has gone up by more than 1 million pounds per year over the last four years, and manganese CAUSES mitochondrial disorders. These are alterations in DNA that damage the body's energy system, including the ability to produce and utilize ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate). This changes the way the immune system responds to challenge and results in systemic damage rather than the child responding with increased immunity.
Here is a link where you can get information about mitochondrial disorder and what people should look for when considering if they may want to get their child tested for this before getting vaccinated:
Please note that mitochondrial disorder is passed from mother to child - OR - can happen at any time during the lifespan as a result of exposure to toxic levels of certain substances, among them manganese, lead, mercury, arsenic and antimony - all of which are extremely high in the Evansville area because of the amount of coal that is burned here. This is one reason why we have such high rates of diabetes, thyroid disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and autism. ANYONE who has these issues needs to be tested for mitochondrial disorder before being vaccinated, and any Mother who has these issues needs to know that her child is at increased risk of vaccine injury if he or she has an underlying mitochondrial disorder that has not been diagnosed. This was the case for Hannah Poling, whose family was awarded millions of dollars (correction: $1.5 Million) recently in vaccine court for her vaccine injuries - not because she has autism, but because she regressed into autism after vaccination DUE TO underlying mitochondrial disorder. To hear more about Hannah Poling's story and her parents' research into what happened to their daughter, click this link.
(Note: Please understand that thimerosal has not been removed from childhood vaccines. It is still present in flu shots which are being given routinely to pregnant women, so infants are actually now receiving mercury at an even more vulnerable stage of brain development. For more on thimerosal in flu vaccinations and the overall issues related to giving flu shots to pregnant women and children, click this link.
You should also understand that even in the absence of thimerosal altogether, infants and children are receiving toxic levels of aluminum, etc. in vaccines. For more on aluminum in vaccines, please review the article written by Dr. Bob Sears: "Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?"
Back to my email to Ms. Barbour:
It is not too much to ask for people to be told the truth about the risks they are taking. The consequences of vaccine injury are lifelong.
Please help to set the record straight by informing parents of "the rest of the story."
Thanks so much,
Marcella Piper-Terry
Additional note: People also need to know that if an infant or child was fed soy formula there is increased risk of mitochondrial disorder because of high levels of manganese in the formula. These children should be checked to see if they have mitochondrial disorder before even considering vaccinating as the risk for vaccine injury increases to 1 in 50 for those with mito d/o.
Here are a couple of links for information about issues related to soy formula, mitochondrial damage, and manganese from environmental exposures (power plants):
Journal of NeuroToxicology
Journal of the American College of Nutrion
Soy Formula and Manganese Studies from the Violence Research Foundation
Toxicology information on Manganese. See section 11.
Scholarly articles on Manganese and Mitochondrial Damage
Environmental Health Article, Manganese, Particulate Matter, and Mitochondrial Damage
Here is my original message:
From: Marci Terry Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 10:29 PM
To: Kimberly Barbour
Subject: EVSC and vaccines
I just saw the story on the 10:00 news about students in the EVSC not being allowed to attend school unless they have received the "recommended" vaccinations.
Are you aware that "recommendations" are not the same as "Law?"
Indiana DOES provide parents with the option of exemptions. You are incorrectly telling parents that their children must receive vaccinations, which puts you in the position of assuming the role of a medical professional.
You may be held liable if children have adverse affects - including death - as a result of being vaccinated when they already have established immunity.
You may want to retract this story.
Marcella Piper-Terry, M.S.
Yesterday afternoon I received the following email response from Ms. Barbour:
Subject: RE: EVSC and vaccines Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:50:23 -0500
From: kbarbour@news25.us
To: marcellaterry@hotmail.com
Ms. Piper-Terry,
Thank you for your response. It is state law for schools to have shot records for all students. Indiana, thankfully, is a state that allows medical exemptions, but there still has to be documentation provided for them to include in their shot records. I have explained the state law in several previous stories on this topic. The schools have also explained this in their many notices to parents.
Kimberly Barbour
Reporter
WEHT-TV News 25
(812)483-3841
Here is my reply to Ms. Barbour's email:
Ms. Barbour:
Thank-you for your email.
Indiana does provide for medical exemption, as do ALL states in the U.S.
Forty-eight states, including Indiana, also provide for Religious exemptions; Mississippi and West Virginia are the only two states that do not allow this exemption.
Many people realize that they do have a religious exemption to vaccinations when they understand how the vaccines are made and how they do or do not work. Most people do not realize that vaccines contain mercury and aluminum, and that there have never been safety studies to examine the effects of vaccinating children with multiple antigens and additives simultaneously.
I have religious exemptions for myself and my children, based on my belief that God made our bodies perfectly and His design ensured that we were able to fight off illnesses if our immune system is allowed to rally itself naturally in the face of diseases such as the flu or chicken pox. Because I believe God made our bodies perfectly, I believe it is against His will for me to allow anyone to inject viruses, bacteria, mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, neomyacin, or anything that has been cultured in non-human DNA or aborted fetal tissue into their bodies - or mine.
Religious exemption is a very easy thing to do, and it is the legal right of parents to choose this if it is consistent with their beliefs.
All a parent has to do is write down on a piece of paper that they are not vaccinating because it is against their religious beliefs, sign it, and give it to the school nurse.
People need to know that this in an option and it is their legal right.
People need to know that there are many conditions that are contraindicated for vaccination. For example, if a child has had a previous reaction to vaccines, such as having a seizure or running a high fever, it is contraindicated for them to be vaccinated again with that vaccine. It is also a contraindication for many vaccines if a FAMILY member has a seizure disorder or has had a reaction to vaccines.
If you think I'm making this up, you need to look at the vaccine inserts that contain the information directly from the manufacturers.
Here is a link from Johns Hopkins that will take you to a table where you can look at the vaccine inserts for yourself.
People also need to know that there are many children who should NOT receive vaccinations because they have underlying mitochondrial disorders that make them exponentially more vulnerable to vaccine damage. Children in Evansville are more likely to have mitochondrial disorders because of the very high rates of heavy metals here from the coal burning power plants. The amount of manganese in this area has gone up by more than 1 million pounds per year over the last four years, and manganese CAUSES mitochondrial disorders. These are alterations in DNA that damage the body's energy system, including the ability to produce and utilize ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate). This changes the way the immune system responds to challenge and results in systemic damage rather than the child responding with increased immunity.
Here is a link where you can get information about mitochondrial disorder and what people should look for when considering if they may want to get their child tested for this before getting vaccinated:
Please note that mitochondrial disorder is passed from mother to child - OR - can happen at any time during the lifespan as a result of exposure to toxic levels of certain substances, among them manganese, lead, mercury, arsenic and antimony - all of which are extremely high in the Evansville area because of the amount of coal that is burned here. This is one reason why we have such high rates of diabetes, thyroid disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and autism. ANYONE who has these issues needs to be tested for mitochondrial disorder before being vaccinated, and any Mother who has these issues needs to know that her child is at increased risk of vaccine injury if he or she has an underlying mitochondrial disorder that has not been diagnosed. This was the case for Hannah Poling, whose family was awarded millions of dollars (correction: $1.5 Million) recently in vaccine court for her vaccine injuries - not because she has autism, but because she regressed into autism after vaccination DUE TO underlying mitochondrial disorder. To hear more about Hannah Poling's story and her parents' research into what happened to their daughter, click this link.
(Note: Please understand that thimerosal has not been removed from childhood vaccines. It is still present in flu shots which are being given routinely to pregnant women, so infants are actually now receiving mercury at an even more vulnerable stage of brain development. For more on thimerosal in flu vaccinations and the overall issues related to giving flu shots to pregnant women and children, click this link.
You should also understand that even in the absence of thimerosal altogether, infants and children are receiving toxic levels of aluminum, etc. in vaccines. For more on aluminum in vaccines, please review the article written by Dr. Bob Sears: "Is Aluminum the New Thimerosal?"
Back to my email to Ms. Barbour:
It is not too much to ask for people to be told the truth about the risks they are taking. The consequences of vaccine injury are lifelong.
Please help to set the record straight by informing parents of "the rest of the story."
Thanks so much,
Marcella Piper-Terry
Additional note: People also need to know that if an infant or child was fed soy formula there is increased risk of mitochondrial disorder because of high levels of manganese in the formula. These children should be checked to see if they have mitochondrial disorder before even considering vaccinating as the risk for vaccine injury increases to 1 in 50 for those with mito d/o.
Here are a couple of links for information about issues related to soy formula, mitochondrial damage, and manganese from environmental exposures (power plants):
Journal of NeuroToxicology
Journal of the American College of Nutrion
Soy Formula and Manganese Studies from the Violence Research Foundation
Toxicology information on Manganese. See section 11.
Scholarly articles on Manganese and Mitochondrial Damage
Environmental Health Article, Manganese, Particulate Matter, and Mitochondrial Damage
Thursday, September 30, 2010
NANCY SNYDERMAN IS CONCERNED ABOUT CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN RESEARCH STUDIES
Dr. Nancy Snyderman is concerned about conflict of interest and possible bias in study outcomes. She has finally admitted that "Science is a moving target." She came out this morning on the Today Show and announced, "Critics are saying that this is in fact a flawed study." Yes! Nancy Snyderman is questioning the validity of published, peer-reviewed medical research! Finally!
She talks about the difference in groups of subjects who are diagnosed with the same illness but have variations of the disease, saying, "We can't throw them all in the same waste basket." Yes, Nancy! Children who are ill from birth are DIFFERENT from children who regressed after vaccination!
Dr. Snyderman goes on... "The American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Radiology have both come out in support of this study. I caution people there is a conflict of interest for both of those organizations. There's big money behind mammography."
What? The American Cancer Society? The American Academy of Radiology? Shit. I thought she was talking about autism. I thought she was talking about the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, and the big money in vaccinations. Silly me. What was I thinking?
Here is the link to this morning's segment.
Dr. Snyderman continues, "That means 21,800,000 women have to be screened every year to find the (2,000) tumors. Mammography is not without its consequences. It means the chest is getting radiated every year and the cumulative effects we don't know for years. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause and remember medicine is individualized. And for those women who don't have risk factors perhaps you don't need to start at 40...I wouldn't undo what our task force said last year based on this study... [the task force] said, "Remember to individualize and talk to your doctor because so much of this screening comes down to individual risk factors, your own concern, and frankly, the need not to overdiagnose, and not to overtreat in society today."
Amazing.
Let me edit the above paragraph and see how it sounds...
"That means 21,000,000 children (U.S. census data, 2008: 21 million children under age five) have to be vaccinated every year against seasonal flu in order to prevent somewhere between five and 200 deaths in this population. (source: CDC data) (Note: I was not immediately able to find the exact number of children under the age of five who died from the flu last year. If someone has that information handy, I will be glad to amend this post with that number. The CDC link provided is an average of flu deaths per year and the numbers given are for children and adolescents under age 19. The number of children under five who die from the flu would be expected to be much lower than 200.) This means children, beginning at six months of age, are receiving 25 micrograms of thimerosal (mercury) every year, and the cumulative effects we don't know for years. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause, and remember medicine is individualized."
Or, how about this...
"That means 4,317,119 infants (U.S. Census data, 2007) have to be vaccinated on the first day of life against the sexually transmitted disease, Hepatitis B, in order to prevent the approximately 300 cases of Hepatitis B (infection, not deaths in children under 14 years of age, CDC MMWR, October 31, 1997). Vaccination against Hepatitis B is not without risk. Click here to view a package insert from the vaccine manufacturer. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause and remember medicine is individualized. And for those infants who don't have risk factors perhaps you don't need to be vaccinated within 24 hours of birth. For example, if you are not sneaking out of your bassinet to have sex with the kid next to you in the nursery, and you are not using IV drugs, and your mother is not infected with Hepatitis B (or you are not going to be cared for by someone who is infected) then you can probably safely skip this vaccination. Remember to individualize and talk to your doctor because so much of this screening comes down to individual risk factors, your own concern, and frankly, the need not to overdiagnose, and not to overtreat in society today."
Or, one more...
"That means 21,000,000 children under the age of five have to receive a second dose of the MMR vaccine in order to catch to 5-10% of children who do not establish immunity after the first dose. MMR vaccination is not without its consequences. Click this link to view the package insert from the MMR vaccine manufacturer. Click this link to read about the severe consequences for one family. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause and remember medicine is individualized. Remember to individualize and talk to your doctor because so much of this screening comes down to individual risk factors, your own concern, and frankly, the need not to overdiagnose, and not to overtreat in society today."
Come on, Nancy. That's not so hard, is it?
Why the double-standard? Why exercise so much caution when it comes to women and not with children? Is it because you have breasts? Or is the reason because of your own conflicts of interest and biases? Where do your loyalties lie? With your "colleague," Paul Offit?
Your fawning praise of Dr. Offit in this Today Show segment would certainly suggest this may be the case.
Why argue for caution and advise people to question results of studies where there are conflicts of interest when it comes to mammograms, but not when it comes to vaccinations and your "colleagues?"
In case you don't know what I'm talking about, let me enlighten you, or rather, let Sheryl Atkisson enlighten you with her article, "How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?"
Dr. Snyderman, you have lost all credibility. I suggest you shut the #$@% up and do not open your mouth further regarding the safety of vaccines, unless it is to offer a retraction and an apology to those parents whose children have been harmed because they followed your "advice."
She talks about the difference in groups of subjects who are diagnosed with the same illness but have variations of the disease, saying, "We can't throw them all in the same waste basket." Yes, Nancy! Children who are ill from birth are DIFFERENT from children who regressed after vaccination!
Dr. Snyderman goes on... "The American Cancer Society and the American Academy of Radiology have both come out in support of this study. I caution people there is a conflict of interest for both of those organizations. There's big money behind mammography."
What? The American Cancer Society? The American Academy of Radiology? Shit. I thought she was talking about autism. I thought she was talking about the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, and the big money in vaccinations. Silly me. What was I thinking?
Here is the link to this morning's segment.
Dr. Snyderman continues, "That means 21,800,000 women have to be screened every year to find the (2,000) tumors. Mammography is not without its consequences. It means the chest is getting radiated every year and the cumulative effects we don't know for years. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause and remember medicine is individualized. And for those women who don't have risk factors perhaps you don't need to start at 40...I wouldn't undo what our task force said last year based on this study... [the task force] said, "Remember to individualize and talk to your doctor because so much of this screening comes down to individual risk factors, your own concern, and frankly, the need not to overdiagnose, and not to overtreat in society today."
Amazing.
Let me edit the above paragraph and see how it sounds...
"That means 21,000,000 children (U.S. census data, 2008: 21 million children under age five) have to be vaccinated every year against seasonal flu in order to prevent somewhere between five and 200 deaths in this population. (source: CDC data) (Note: I was not immediately able to find the exact number of children under the age of five who died from the flu last year. If someone has that information handy, I will be glad to amend this post with that number. The CDC link provided is an average of flu deaths per year and the numbers given are for children and adolescents under age 19. The number of children under five who die from the flu would be expected to be much lower than 200.) This means children, beginning at six months of age, are receiving 25 micrograms of thimerosal (mercury) every year, and the cumulative effects we don't know for years. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause, and remember medicine is individualized."
Or, how about this...
"That means 4,317,119 infants (U.S. Census data, 2007) have to be vaccinated on the first day of life against the sexually transmitted disease, Hepatitis B, in order to prevent the approximately 300 cases of Hepatitis B (infection, not deaths in children under 14 years of age, CDC MMWR, October 31, 1997). Vaccination against Hepatitis B is not without risk. Click here to view a package insert from the vaccine manufacturer. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause and remember medicine is individualized. And for those infants who don't have risk factors perhaps you don't need to be vaccinated within 24 hours of birth. For example, if you are not sneaking out of your bassinet to have sex with the kid next to you in the nursery, and you are not using IV drugs, and your mother is not infected with Hepatitis B (or you are not going to be cared for by someone who is infected) then you can probably safely skip this vaccination. Remember to individualize and talk to your doctor because so much of this screening comes down to individual risk factors, your own concern, and frankly, the need not to overdiagnose, and not to overtreat in society today."
Or, one more...
"That means 21,000,000 children under the age of five have to receive a second dose of the MMR vaccine in order to catch to 5-10% of children who do not establish immunity after the first dose. MMR vaccination is not without its consequences. Click this link to view the package insert from the MMR vaccine manufacturer. Click this link to read about the severe consequences for one family. I would ask everyone to stand back and pause and remember medicine is individualized. Remember to individualize and talk to your doctor because so much of this screening comes down to individual risk factors, your own concern, and frankly, the need not to overdiagnose, and not to overtreat in society today."
Come on, Nancy. That's not so hard, is it?
Why the double-standard? Why exercise so much caution when it comes to women and not with children? Is it because you have breasts? Or is the reason because of your own conflicts of interest and biases? Where do your loyalties lie? With your "colleague," Paul Offit?
Your fawning praise of Dr. Offit in this Today Show segment would certainly suggest this may be the case.
Why argue for caution and advise people to question results of studies where there are conflicts of interest when it comes to mammograms, but not when it comes to vaccinations and your "colleagues?"
In case you don't know what I'm talking about, let me enlighten you, or rather, let Sheryl Atkisson enlighten you with her article, "How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?"
Dr. Snyderman, you have lost all credibility. I suggest you shut the #$@% up and do not open your mouth further regarding the safety of vaccines, unless it is to offer a retraction and an apology to those parents whose children have been harmed because they followed your "advice."
Friday, September 17, 2010
Follow-up to My Critique of Pediatric Article Proclaiming No Link Between Thimerosal and Autism
I have been asked to respond to a critique of my comments regarding the study published in the journal Pediatrics, which was used earlier this week to proclaim (once again) that there is no link between thimerosal and autism. I do not know the identity of the person who responded to my comments, so I do not have a name or title to use to help delineate my responses from his or her responses. The person did self-identify as a one of the "shills," so I will use that term to indicate his/her statements, and MPT (my initials) to indicate mine.
If you haven't read my comments from which this discussion stems, here is a link to the previous blog post: http://4allofyou.blogspot.com/2010/09/cdcs-latest-study-finds-no-link-between.html
SHILL: Let's look at Ms. Piper-Terry's complaints:
"1. Lower functioning children were excluded because their problems were so severe that it made it tough to assess them."
She makes this complaint based on an interview that the author did:
http://www.wellsphere.com/autism-autism-spectrum-article/questions-and-answers-with-the-thimerosal-autism-study-author/1220904
She manages to quote the author's explanation as to why they did a subgroup analysis excluding the more serious cases, but, like any good quote miner, she managed to leave out a key quote from Dr. Price:
Therefore, an outcome category for AD with low cognitive functioning excluded was created and its relationship to exposure was estimated. The results for this subgroup were very similar to those for the overall analysis"
The reason the low-functioning children were excluded was because there was the concern that it could mask a true association. She also seemed to miss the point that the results for this subgroup are no different than the overall analysis (i.e. that thimerosal was not associated with development of autism even in this severe group). This data can all be found in the technical reports that are publically available, but I doubt she or T4TN has read them.
MPT RESPONSE:
It is true that I took the quote from an interview of one of the authors. It is also true that I did not include the entire explanation and omitted the information about the establishment of an "outcome category for AD with low cognitive functioning excluded..." My reason for leaving out this information is simple. I do not know how to quantify or interpret the author's statements that "exposure was estimated" or "results for this subgroup were very similar..." There is no statistical information provided in the article to either back up this statement, or to assist in further analysis of the author's assertion. Apparently, we are just supposed to take his word for it.
As for the exclusion of children with low cognitive functioning "because there was the concern that it could mask a true association," I would like to know more about the specific concerns that led to this exclusion criteria. Since it appears from the article that the researchers employed the ADOS as their sole method of criteria in their direct assessment of case-children, the possibility for over-inclusion could be considered a valid concern for children who were higher-functioning and whose scores may be closer to the neurotypical range of functioning on the domains this instrument adresses. For that reason, Best Practices dictates that assessment of children suspected of having an autism diagnosis must also include review of the developmental history, interview with parents (and teachers, if applicable), and review of previous medical history, including pre-existing diagnoses. The ADOS itself has demonstrated high reliability and validity in the standardization process, including demonstrating very high inter-relator reliability coefficients. At the risk of being accused of "quote-mining" the following may provide further clarification:
"The authors reported good inter-rater reliability estimates on the Communication, Reciprocal Social Interaction, Total, and Stereotyped Behaviors and Restricted Interests domains, with intraclass correlations ranging from .82 to .93 (Lord,
Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2001). Test-retest reliability was also good, with intraclass correlations ranging from .73 to .82 on the Communication and Reciprocal Social Interaction domains, and .59 to .86 on the Stereotyped Behaviors and restricted Interests domain. Published validity studies also suggest good predictive validity, with sensitivities ranging from 90% to 97%, and specificities ranging from
87% to 94% for autism/ASD versus other clinical diagnoses" (Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2001).
For additional information about the ADOS, follow this link: http://www.casrc.org/People/Internal_Investigators/Akshoomoff%20CASP%202.pdf
I have not read the technical report. When I looked at the study and wrote out my observations, it was not yet available for review. Whether or not I will take the time to read them remains to be seen. I really don't know what they could possible reveal that would change my mind about the validity of the study. If there is something in the technical report that is significant enough to negate the impact of the design flaws in the published article, then the authors should have included that information in the article.
SHILL: The technical reports are located here:
http://abtassociates.com/reports/Aut_Tech_Report_Vol1_090310.pdf http://abtassociates.com/reports/Aut_Tech_Report_Vol2_090310.pdf
They also include some other interesting information as well including:
1. Mother's who took prenatal vitamins with folic acid had an approximately 2-fold higher risk (p value 0.0176) of having an autistic child. So, a possible non-vaccine related environmental factor right there it would seem.
MPT RESPONSE: First of all... (and this is a pet-peeve of mine), it is difficult for me to take seriously the comments of someone who is attempting to debate such a highly technical and complex issue as thimerosal and autism, when that person does not understand the basic rules of punctuation. For future reference, "Mothers" is a plural word, indicating that there is more than one "Mother" involved. "Mother's" is the possessive term, to be properly used when you are referring to an object or possibly a trait that belongs to a single (1) "Mother."
Now that that is out of the way... The finding that mothers who took prenatal vitamins with folic acid had a higher risk of having an autistic child is very interesting. Without knowing anything further about this, I would hypothesize that it is possible that these women may have had deficiencies of other B-vitamins (folic acid is one of the family of B-vitamins, which work together in concert), and if they were given folic acid without assessing the levels of B-12 and B-6, in particular, they may have problems in their methylation pathways. They methylation pathway is one of two major detoxification pathways in the body (the other being the sulfation pathway). The methylation pathway is responsible for detoxifying heavy metals, including thimerosal from the body. If the methlyation pathway is not working, thimerosal will not clear from the body as it is supposed to, and as vaccine-makers insist it does. When it does not clear the body because the pathways are not working properly (for example, because of a B-12 or B-6 deficiency), thimerosal deposits in soft tissues, including the kidneys and brain. Thimerosal has an especially strong affinity for the brain because it is very attracted to lipids, and the brain is the most lipid-dense organ in the human body. With regard to the folic acid, it is possible that by elevating folic acid in a group of women who have unknown deficiencies of the other nutrients necessary for methylation to take place, the tendency of the body to increase retention of thimersosal was facilitated. This is, of course, all hypthetical, as I am sure none of these women had their B-12 or B-6 levels checked during their pregnancies. This is, however a very important area of future research, that should not be overlooked as a possible contributor to the increase in autism, especially since oral contraceptives, antibiotics, and steroids ALL deplete B-6. Perhaps we could start looking at WHICH subgroups of women might be more prone to have infants that are at an increased risk of autism from thimerosal and other toxins in vaccines, rather than assuming that if it doesn't happen to everyone, it couldn't possibly happen to some.
SHILL: 2. There were COMPLETELY unvaccinated children both in the ASD group and the control group. That would seem to blow the "unvaccinated children can't get autism" hypothesis out of the water, now wouldn't it?
MPT RESPONSE: If this is a reference to my critique of the article, it is out of place. I never said unvaccinated children cannot get autism. (This tactic is called a "red herring" and is often used to steer a discussion off-topic.)
SHILL: 3. They examine the ASD prevalence as a function of HMO and year of birth.
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ABT-prevalence.png
What they find is that the rate of autism per 1000 is pretty flat and quite near the current estimated CDC values (~1.1%). That would certainly argue against any massive increase in overall incidence or an "autism epidemic".
MPT RESPONSE: No, that wouldn't argue against anything, since the explosion of the autism epidemic began in the 1980s and increased exponentially with the addition of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, all of which happened prior to the time frame that included the birth dates of the subjects in the study (1994-1999).
SHILL: Ms. Piper-Terry's other complaint is rather perplexing:
"2. The participants were pre-selected by virtue of mandatory physician's consent before they could be recruited into the study."
Yes, the evils of requiring consent. Only a very small number of potential subjects were removed via this mechanism (3.9%). Hardly suspicious of anything, except to the conspiratorial. I find it interesting though that Ms. Piper-Terry failed to castigate all of the parents who refused participation. This was a far larger proportion (32%) and some survey results are included as to why they refused to participate. Where is the conspiracy suggesting that those parents are involved in covering up the "truth"? But why expect consistency, right?
MPT RESPONSE: My criticism is regarding the mandate that the child's PHYSICIAN had to give consent for the family to be contacted about potentially participating in the study. This is very different from the absolutely necessary practice of obtaining informed consent from study participants, and in the case of children and vulnerable populations, obtaining consent from parents or guardians. There is NO established precident in research supporting the mandate that the physician pick and choose which parents of his patients deserve the right to participate in research. There may well be some reason as to WHY phsyicians were given this power to censor who participates and who doesn't, but the article does not elaborate, and as noted above, the technical report was not available when I wrote out my comments. I would still like to know what the rationale was, and may actually have to invest the time to go through the technical reports after-all. At any rate, the fact that physicians were given the power to pre-select which patients were allowed to consider whether or not to participate presents a HUGE problem with the study design because it means that the cases who were contacted and given the opportunity to participate do not represent a random sample. That fact alone is enough to invalidate the study results.
SHILL: Ms. Piper-Terry also complains about some children not meeting the requirements for the study. The authors are quite clear as to why those children were removed. Eligibility required that a child lived with it's mother since birth, the family spoke fluent English, and that the child did not already have a condition to which autism has been causally linked (in order to reduce the signal to noise ratio and provide a clearly observable signal).
MPT RESPONSE: Actually, the authors are quite clear about the fact that many of the issues raised in the above paragraph were considered before the children were classified as cases. I have no problem with the exclusion criteria listed here. Similarly, I was quite clear in my objections about children who were excluded, either by virtue of low-cognitive functioning or by the denial of access to them at all, by virtue of their physicians' denial of consent to even contact the families. The exclusion of children by either of these means is problematic because in doing so integrity of the study design is compromised, resulting in a lack of validity regarding any results reported.
SHILL: And last, thank goodness
Her final criticism:
"When comparing groups of 49 and 652, there is just a tad of inequality in the number of subjects."
Perhaps Ms. Piper-Terry should stick to being a biomedical consultant since her knowledge of statistical analysis is quite poor. One does not need the number of subjects in two groups to be equal in order to define a statstical difference in the analysis.
MPT RESPONSE: It is true that one does not need the number of subjects in two groups to be equal. However, the closer the groups are to being equal in number, the more power there is in the analysis. Inequality of subject groups influences which statistical analysis can be performed, for example when considering whether to use parametric or non-parametric analysis for comparing differences between groups. This is not a small issue and goes directly to the question of whether or not your results will reveal significance. I'm sure the researchers know this, even if "Shill" does not.
SHILL: Overall, Ms. Piper-Terry's arguments show some good quote mining, poor understanding of statistics, and overall lack of understanding in complex study design. I highly doubt she has read the 400 pages of technical reports detailing the intricacies of the study yet feels confident to comment on all of the details involved. Somehow I think the general acceptance of this study will not be much affected by Ms. Piper-Terry's rather poor commentary.
There you go Time4TruthNow. I guess one of the shills wasn't quite stumped, now was I?
MPT RESPONSE: I don't know this person (who self-identifies as a "shill") and I do not know the extent of his or her education, qualifications, experience, or associations. I am not going to comment on his or her personal strengths or weaknesses. The fact that he or she felt it necessary to attack me personally rather than confining his/her comments to the study design is another tactic often employed as a method of distracting readers from the issue at hand. It's called Ad Hominem and it is the practice of attempting to discredit the message by attacking the messenger. Watch out for this. It's a tactic frequently employed by those who know their arguments cannot withstand the scrutiny of close inspection by unbiased observers.
If you haven't read my comments from which this discussion stems, here is a link to the previous blog post: http://4allofyou.blogspot.com/2010/09/cdcs-latest-study-finds-no-link-between.html
SHILL: Let's look at Ms. Piper-Terry's complaints:
"1. Lower functioning children were excluded because their problems were so severe that it made it tough to assess them."
She makes this complaint based on an interview that the author did:
http://www.wellsphere.com/autism-autism-spectrum-article/questions-and-answers-with-the-thimerosal-autism-study-author/1220904
She manages to quote the author's explanation as to why they did a subgroup analysis excluding the more serious cases, but, like any good quote miner, she managed to leave out a key quote from Dr. Price:
Therefore, an outcome category for AD with low cognitive functioning excluded was created and its relationship to exposure was estimated. The results for this subgroup were very similar to those for the overall analysis"
The reason the low-functioning children were excluded was because there was the concern that it could mask a true association. She also seemed to miss the point that the results for this subgroup are no different than the overall analysis (i.e. that thimerosal was not associated with development of autism even in this severe group). This data can all be found in the technical reports that are publically available, but I doubt she or T4TN has read them.
MPT RESPONSE:
It is true that I took the quote from an interview of one of the authors. It is also true that I did not include the entire explanation and omitted the information about the establishment of an "outcome category for AD with low cognitive functioning excluded..." My reason for leaving out this information is simple. I do not know how to quantify or interpret the author's statements that "exposure was estimated" or "results for this subgroup were very similar..." There is no statistical information provided in the article to either back up this statement, or to assist in further analysis of the author's assertion. Apparently, we are just supposed to take his word for it.
As for the exclusion of children with low cognitive functioning "because there was the concern that it could mask a true association," I would like to know more about the specific concerns that led to this exclusion criteria. Since it appears from the article that the researchers employed the ADOS as their sole method of criteria in their direct assessment of case-children, the possibility for over-inclusion could be considered a valid concern for children who were higher-functioning and whose scores may be closer to the neurotypical range of functioning on the domains this instrument adresses. For that reason, Best Practices dictates that assessment of children suspected of having an autism diagnosis must also include review of the developmental history, interview with parents (and teachers, if applicable), and review of previous medical history, including pre-existing diagnoses. The ADOS itself has demonstrated high reliability and validity in the standardization process, including demonstrating very high inter-relator reliability coefficients. At the risk of being accused of "quote-mining" the following may provide further clarification:
"The authors reported good inter-rater reliability estimates on the Communication, Reciprocal Social Interaction, Total, and Stereotyped Behaviors and Restricted Interests domains, with intraclass correlations ranging from .82 to .93 (Lord,
Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2001). Test-retest reliability was also good, with intraclass correlations ranging from .73 to .82 on the Communication and Reciprocal Social Interaction domains, and .59 to .86 on the Stereotyped Behaviors and restricted Interests domain. Published validity studies also suggest good predictive validity, with sensitivities ranging from 90% to 97%, and specificities ranging from
87% to 94% for autism/ASD versus other clinical diagnoses" (Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2001).
For additional information about the ADOS, follow this link: http://www.casrc.org/People/Internal_Investigators/Akshoomoff%20CASP%202.pdf
I have not read the technical report. When I looked at the study and wrote out my observations, it was not yet available for review. Whether or not I will take the time to read them remains to be seen. I really don't know what they could possible reveal that would change my mind about the validity of the study. If there is something in the technical report that is significant enough to negate the impact of the design flaws in the published article, then the authors should have included that information in the article.
SHILL: The technical reports are located here:
http://abtassociates.com/reports/Aut_Tech_Report_Vol1_090310.pdf http://abtassociates.com/reports/Aut_Tech_Report_Vol2_090310.pdf
They also include some other interesting information as well including:
1. Mother's who took prenatal vitamins with folic acid had an approximately 2-fold higher risk (p value 0.0176) of having an autistic child. So, a possible non-vaccine related environmental factor right there it would seem.
MPT RESPONSE: First of all... (and this is a pet-peeve of mine), it is difficult for me to take seriously the comments of someone who is attempting to debate such a highly technical and complex issue as thimerosal and autism, when that person does not understand the basic rules of punctuation. For future reference, "Mothers" is a plural word, indicating that there is more than one "Mother" involved. "Mother's" is the possessive term, to be properly used when you are referring to an object or possibly a trait that belongs to a single (1) "Mother."
Now that that is out of the way... The finding that mothers who took prenatal vitamins with folic acid had a higher risk of having an autistic child is very interesting. Without knowing anything further about this, I would hypothesize that it is possible that these women may have had deficiencies of other B-vitamins (folic acid is one of the family of B-vitamins, which work together in concert), and if they were given folic acid without assessing the levels of B-12 and B-6, in particular, they may have problems in their methylation pathways. They methylation pathway is one of two major detoxification pathways in the body (the other being the sulfation pathway). The methylation pathway is responsible for detoxifying heavy metals, including thimerosal from the body. If the methlyation pathway is not working, thimerosal will not clear from the body as it is supposed to, and as vaccine-makers insist it does. When it does not clear the body because the pathways are not working properly (for example, because of a B-12 or B-6 deficiency), thimerosal deposits in soft tissues, including the kidneys and brain. Thimerosal has an especially strong affinity for the brain because it is very attracted to lipids, and the brain is the most lipid-dense organ in the human body. With regard to the folic acid, it is possible that by elevating folic acid in a group of women who have unknown deficiencies of the other nutrients necessary for methylation to take place, the tendency of the body to increase retention of thimersosal was facilitated. This is, of course, all hypthetical, as I am sure none of these women had their B-12 or B-6 levels checked during their pregnancies. This is, however a very important area of future research, that should not be overlooked as a possible contributor to the increase in autism, especially since oral contraceptives, antibiotics, and steroids ALL deplete B-6. Perhaps we could start looking at WHICH subgroups of women might be more prone to have infants that are at an increased risk of autism from thimerosal and other toxins in vaccines, rather than assuming that if it doesn't happen to everyone, it couldn't possibly happen to some.
SHILL: 2. There were COMPLETELY unvaccinated children both in the ASD group and the control group. That would seem to blow the "unvaccinated children can't get autism" hypothesis out of the water, now wouldn't it?
MPT RESPONSE: If this is a reference to my critique of the article, it is out of place. I never said unvaccinated children cannot get autism. (This tactic is called a "red herring" and is often used to steer a discussion off-topic.)
SHILL: 3. They examine the ASD prevalence as a function of HMO and year of birth.
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ABT-prevalence.png
What they find is that the rate of autism per 1000 is pretty flat and quite near the current estimated CDC values (~1.1%). That would certainly argue against any massive increase in overall incidence or an "autism epidemic".
MPT RESPONSE: No, that wouldn't argue against anything, since the explosion of the autism epidemic began in the 1980s and increased exponentially with the addition of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, all of which happened prior to the time frame that included the birth dates of the subjects in the study (1994-1999).
SHILL: Ms. Piper-Terry's other complaint is rather perplexing:
"2. The participants were pre-selected by virtue of mandatory physician's consent before they could be recruited into the study."
Yes, the evils of requiring consent. Only a very small number of potential subjects were removed via this mechanism (3.9%). Hardly suspicious of anything, except to the conspiratorial. I find it interesting though that Ms. Piper-Terry failed to castigate all of the parents who refused participation. This was a far larger proportion (32%) and some survey results are included as to why they refused to participate. Where is the conspiracy suggesting that those parents are involved in covering up the "truth"? But why expect consistency, right?
MPT RESPONSE: My criticism is regarding the mandate that the child's PHYSICIAN had to give consent for the family to be contacted about potentially participating in the study. This is very different from the absolutely necessary practice of obtaining informed consent from study participants, and in the case of children and vulnerable populations, obtaining consent from parents or guardians. There is NO established precident in research supporting the mandate that the physician pick and choose which parents of his patients deserve the right to participate in research. There may well be some reason as to WHY phsyicians were given this power to censor who participates and who doesn't, but the article does not elaborate, and as noted above, the technical report was not available when I wrote out my comments. I would still like to know what the rationale was, and may actually have to invest the time to go through the technical reports after-all. At any rate, the fact that physicians were given the power to pre-select which patients were allowed to consider whether or not to participate presents a HUGE problem with the study design because it means that the cases who were contacted and given the opportunity to participate do not represent a random sample. That fact alone is enough to invalidate the study results.
SHILL: Ms. Piper-Terry also complains about some children not meeting the requirements for the study. The authors are quite clear as to why those children were removed. Eligibility required that a child lived with it's mother since birth, the family spoke fluent English, and that the child did not already have a condition to which autism has been causally linked (in order to reduce the signal to noise ratio and provide a clearly observable signal).
MPT RESPONSE: Actually, the authors are quite clear about the fact that many of the issues raised in the above paragraph were considered before the children were classified as cases. I have no problem with the exclusion criteria listed here. Similarly, I was quite clear in my objections about children who were excluded, either by virtue of low-cognitive functioning or by the denial of access to them at all, by virtue of their physicians' denial of consent to even contact the families. The exclusion of children by either of these means is problematic because in doing so integrity of the study design is compromised, resulting in a lack of validity regarding any results reported.
SHILL: And last, thank goodness
Her final criticism:
"When comparing groups of 49 and 652, there is just a tad of inequality in the number of subjects."
Perhaps Ms. Piper-Terry should stick to being a biomedical consultant since her knowledge of statistical analysis is quite poor. One does not need the number of subjects in two groups to be equal in order to define a statstical difference in the analysis.
MPT RESPONSE: It is true that one does not need the number of subjects in two groups to be equal. However, the closer the groups are to being equal in number, the more power there is in the analysis. Inequality of subject groups influences which statistical analysis can be performed, for example when considering whether to use parametric or non-parametric analysis for comparing differences between groups. This is not a small issue and goes directly to the question of whether or not your results will reveal significance. I'm sure the researchers know this, even if "Shill" does not.
SHILL: Overall, Ms. Piper-Terry's arguments show some good quote mining, poor understanding of statistics, and overall lack of understanding in complex study design. I highly doubt she has read the 400 pages of technical reports detailing the intricacies of the study yet feels confident to comment on all of the details involved. Somehow I think the general acceptance of this study will not be much affected by Ms. Piper-Terry's rather poor commentary.
There you go Time4TruthNow. I guess one of the shills wasn't quite stumped, now was I?
MPT RESPONSE: I don't know this person (who self-identifies as a "shill") and I do not know the extent of his or her education, qualifications, experience, or associations. I am not going to comment on his or her personal strengths or weaknesses. The fact that he or she felt it necessary to attack me personally rather than confining his/her comments to the study design is another tactic often employed as a method of distracting readers from the issue at hand. It's called Ad Hominem and it is the practice of attempting to discredit the message by attacking the messenger. Watch out for this. It's a tactic frequently employed by those who know their arguments cannot withstand the scrutiny of close inspection by unbiased observers.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
CDC's Latest Study Finds No Link Between Vaccines and Autism! What a Relief! (What a bunch of crap!)
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
IT'S IN THE AIR IN SOUTHWESTERN INDIANA, reposted from 2008
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 dinner and tribute to Bernie Rimland, the Midwest 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 dinner and tribute to Bernie Rimland, the Midwest 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
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
Monday, August 31, 2009
Dateline NBC: A Dose of Controversy and a Dash of Conflict of Interest
For those of you who took the time to watch last night's Dateline NBC program (as I did), you may have come away from the show (as I did) saying to yourself, "That seemed one-sided."
You may be asking yourself the following questions:
1. Did they present the whole story?
2. Was important information edited out?
The answers to these questions are (1) NO. and (2) YES.
My own impressions of the show were that it was grossly biased in favor of Brian Deem and Paul Offit. For example, Brian Deem has made a big point of accusing Dr. Wakefield of being guilty of "conflict of interest" because he was paid "a quarter of a million dollars" for his work as a paid expert in a court case. Mr. Deem said nothing of his own conflicts of interest or those of his employer on behalf of Glaxo Smith-Kline (Big Pharma).
As for Dr. Offit (a.k.a. "Dr. Profit"), while Matt Lauer did mention that Dr. Offit was involved in vaccine development, nothing was said about the $182 Million dollars that was paid in royalties for the Rotavirus Vaccine, of which Dr. Offit received "an undisclosed amount." I'm just speculating, but I'm sure it was more than "a quarter of a million dollars."
There was also no mention of the fact that while Dr. Offit was developing and selling vaccines, he was also sitting on the board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) - the very same group that was charged with "reviewing the research" on vaccine safety, and ultimately pronounced there was No Connection between vaccines and autism. I think that's a conflict of interest that bears mentioning.
To learn more about Dr. Offit and his conflict of interest issues, as well as COI issues involving the American Academy of Pediatrics, click the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Hw-Q23S_s
To learn more about Dr. Offit and the licensing of his Rotavirus Vaccine, click the following link:
http://www.nvic.org/nvic-archives/pressrelease/licensingpolicy.aspx
It is also worth mentioning that the increased incidence of measles infection in the last few years consists of a majority (more than 50%) of cases that developed in children as a result of vaccination. (This was part of the increase in "vaccine-preventable illnesses" Dr. Offit spoke about during last night's program - he just failed to mention that most of the measles infections were BECAUSE the kids were vaccinated, or came into contact with a child who had been vaccinated within five days and was shedding the virus.)
As far as the voice of reason, NBC did a hatchet job on their interview with Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former Head of the National Institutes of Health. To their credit, NBC has posted more of the interview with Dr. Healy on their website. I urge you to watch it by clicking the following link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32584905#32584905
After watching what Dr. Healy REALLY said to NBC in preparation for last night's program, PLEASE go to the following link and listen to what the former Director of NIH had to say on this subject in May 2008: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
Thoughtful House has posted their response to last night's program. You can read it here:
http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/newsletters/2009-08a.pdf
Here is Dr. Wakefield's response to the program: http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/newsletters/2009-08b.pdf
Finally, regarding the link between autism and gastrointestinal disease: Dr. Wakefield is not the first, nor is he the only researcher to observe this association. While I would never presume to count myself as worthy of keeping company with a researcher of his caliber, in April 2009 I put together and delivered several PowerPoint presentations about Autism. One of those presentations was entitled, "Gastrointestinal Illness in Autism" and involved my own literature review and observations from the last several years of working with families of children with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD, Learning Disabilities, and other Developmental Disabilities. If you would like a copy of the presentation, email me at marcellaterry@hotmail.com and I'll send you a copy.
In closing, I hope you watched the show last night. It was an excellent lesson in whether or not to believe everything we see or read from the media. I also hope you will take the time to check out the links in this post and educate yourself and those you care about.
The truth is out there, we just have to work a bit harder to find it. We cannot rely on clicking the remote to give us the information we need.
Blessings 4 all of you!
Marci Terry
You may be asking yourself the following questions:
1. Did they present the whole story?
2. Was important information edited out?
The answers to these questions are (1) NO. and (2) YES.
My own impressions of the show were that it was grossly biased in favor of Brian Deem and Paul Offit. For example, Brian Deem has made a big point of accusing Dr. Wakefield of being guilty of "conflict of interest" because he was paid "a quarter of a million dollars" for his work as a paid expert in a court case. Mr. Deem said nothing of his own conflicts of interest or those of his employer on behalf of Glaxo Smith-Kline (Big Pharma).
As for Dr. Offit (a.k.a. "Dr. Profit"), while Matt Lauer did mention that Dr. Offit was involved in vaccine development, nothing was said about the $182 Million dollars that was paid in royalties for the Rotavirus Vaccine, of which Dr. Offit received "an undisclosed amount." I'm just speculating, but I'm sure it was more than "a quarter of a million dollars."
There was also no mention of the fact that while Dr. Offit was developing and selling vaccines, he was also sitting on the board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) - the very same group that was charged with "reviewing the research" on vaccine safety, and ultimately pronounced there was No Connection between vaccines and autism. I think that's a conflict of interest that bears mentioning.
To learn more about Dr. Offit and his conflict of interest issues, as well as COI issues involving the American Academy of Pediatrics, click the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Hw-Q23S_s
To learn more about Dr. Offit and the licensing of his Rotavirus Vaccine, click the following link:
http://www.nvic.org/nvic-archives/pressrelease/licensingpolicy.aspx
It is also worth mentioning that the increased incidence of measles infection in the last few years consists of a majority (more than 50%) of cases that developed in children as a result of vaccination. (This was part of the increase in "vaccine-preventable illnesses" Dr. Offit spoke about during last night's program - he just failed to mention that most of the measles infections were BECAUSE the kids were vaccinated, or came into contact with a child who had been vaccinated within five days and was shedding the virus.)
As far as the voice of reason, NBC did a hatchet job on their interview with Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former Head of the National Institutes of Health. To their credit, NBC has posted more of the interview with Dr. Healy on their website. I urge you to watch it by clicking the following link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32584905#32584905
After watching what Dr. Healy REALLY said to NBC in preparation for last night's program, PLEASE go to the following link and listen to what the former Director of NIH had to say on this subject in May 2008: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml
Thoughtful House has posted their response to last night's program. You can read it here:
http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/newsletters/2009-08a.pdf
Here is Dr. Wakefield's response to the program: http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/newsletters/2009-08b.pdf
Finally, regarding the link between autism and gastrointestinal disease: Dr. Wakefield is not the first, nor is he the only researcher to observe this association. While I would never presume to count myself as worthy of keeping company with a researcher of his caliber, in April 2009 I put together and delivered several PowerPoint presentations about Autism. One of those presentations was entitled, "Gastrointestinal Illness in Autism" and involved my own literature review and observations from the last several years of working with families of children with Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD, Learning Disabilities, and other Developmental Disabilities. If you would like a copy of the presentation, email me at marcellaterry@hotmail.com and I'll send you a copy.
In closing, I hope you watched the show last night. It was an excellent lesson in whether or not to believe everything we see or read from the media. I also hope you will take the time to check out the links in this post and educate yourself and those you care about.
The truth is out there, we just have to work a bit harder to find it. We cannot rely on clicking the remote to give us the information we need.
Blessings 4 all of you!
Marci Terry
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
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