Multiple Causes of Autism Spectrum Disorders - Part 1


      Multiple Causes of Autism Spectrum Disorders
      Part One
      International Medical Veritas Associatioin 


      It seems health officials want to talk about every
       imaginable issue affecting children other than autism.

       

          Pointing the finger to mercury's central role in the creation of autism spectrum disorders does not discount other possible causes of autism, or a general theory that includes a multitude of causes, which over the long run weaken children to the point where the toxic overload from chemicals in vaccines is just too much to handle. From a parents perspective, with neurological and learning disorders affecting almost one in five children today, it is safe to say there is nothing more important than opening awareness to all the possible factors that are impacting so strongly to affect so many children in this way. The price of oblivion or medical ignorance is just too high when you think of all the suffering and lost opportunity through lost neurological potential. And with the medical profession so ready to step in and force us to drug and further poison our children if they are not hitting benchmark learning and behavior levels, literally we have an emergency situation that no parent can afford to ignore.

      Autism is upon us because it's the outcome of
       the 50-year experiment of dousing every living being
       with an overload of toxic substances, including vaccines. 
                                                                                          Dr. Gregory Ellis

           The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics[i] disagrees adamantly with Dr. Ellis. In publishing the work of Dr. Eric Fombonne and colleagues of McGill University in Montreal, whose recent research acknowledges no connection between thimerosal vaccines and autism, we see the most current example of doctors' denial of responsibility in the autism epidemic. Because children's brain development is being impaired by some of the more than 70,000 human-made chemicals on the market, says a 2004 report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF),[ii] it is easy for pediatricians to dodge their responsibility and lay blame elsewhere, which they are most desperate to do. 

       

          The report by the WWF, which surveyed current research in the field, charges chemicals with such neurological effects as poor memory, reduced visual recognition and motor skills, and lower IQ, and cites U.S. research that ties 10 percent of all neurobehavioral disorders to chemical exposure. While it singles out some chemicals by name -- particularly brominated flame-retardants, PCBs, and dioxins -- the report laments that there is little to no safety information available on most chemicals floating about in the environment and in households. 

       

           "In effect, we are all living in a global chemical experiment of which we don't know the outcome," said WWF's Helen McDade. Environmental contaminants are suspected to cause cancer, birth defects, immune system defects, reduced IQ, behavioral abnormalities, decreased fertility, altered sex hormone balance, altered metabolism and specific organ dysfunctions. Every day children are exposed to chemicals that have not been tested for safety. 



      Exposure (particularly prenatal exposure) to certain
       endocrine disrupting chemicals (e.g. PCBs) can have
       adverse effects on neurological development,
       behavior patterns and delay in cognitive development.
                                                                  World Health Organization 

              According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 60,000 American children are born every year with neurological problems caused by prenatal exposure to methyl mercury compounds from fossil-fuel and industrial air pollution.[iii] The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that air pollution kills approximately 3 million people annually.[iv] Air pollutants are known to produce arterial constriction and reduce blood flow and oxygen supply to the heart and thus to the brain. Importantly, the chemical pollutants found in the air have no safe level; they damage humans even at very low levels.[v]  

      Power plants put 48 tons of mercury a year into the atmosphere through burning coal. 
      In the U.S. alone, hospitals that burn their wastes put 20
       tons a year into the air and potentially upwards of 200 tons are lost
       into the environment because that is how much Hg is ordered into hospitals 
      to repair sphygmomanometers[vi]. Every plastic manufacture pours 
      it out and every new car is laden with its fumes. And many mothers are 
      leaking mercury vapors from the many dental amalgam in their mouths.

           Children with autism disorders in the San Francisco Bay Area were recently found to be 50% more likely to be born in neighborhoods with high amounts of several toxic air contaminants, particularly mercury, according to a first-of-its-kind study by the California Department of Health Services. The new findings, which surprised the researchers, suggest that a mother's exposure to industrial air pollutants while pregnant might increase her child's risk of autism.[vii] (See IMVA document It Matters Where you Live.[viii])

           "Clearly this suggests that there may be correlations between autism onset and environmental exposures, especially as it relates to metal exposures," said Dr. Isaac Pessah, a toxicologist who heads UC Davis' Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention. Pessah, is a researcher at the university's MIND (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute, which studies autism.

           According to Dr. Garry Gordon, one of the founders of chelation therapy, "There are children getting autism who did not receive injectable mercury." Dr. Raymond Palmer, of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, has studied the contribution of the huge tonnage of mercury being put into the atmosphere and found, in studying school districts in Texas, that "On average, for each 1,000 pounds of environmentally released mercury, there was a 43 percent increase in the rate of special education services and a 61 percent increase in the rate of autism." 

           Sustaining all of this research is a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists. The Harvard study concluded that mercury controls, similar to those the EPA proposed, could save nearly $5 billion a year through reduced neurological and cardiac harm to the general population.[ix] Here we have one of the most reputable medical centers in the world quantifying the damage from mercury in the air. 

      We have just reached the crisis level on mercury. Now, we're finding
       it in our food, our water, our soil, our babies, everywhere.
                                                                                              Marie Steinwachs        
                                                                                           University of Missouri

           The intensities of local levels of air pollution, combined with environmental pollution inside the home, provide the background for other more direct chemical attacks on human biological systems. Biological attacks come in the form of vaccines, amalgam fillings, pharmaceutical drugs, violent birthing practices, fluoride in drinking water, and food supplies laced with neurologically toxic substances like MSG, aspartame, pesticides, hormones, and preservatives. 

           Vaccines are of special concern in pinpointing the cause of autism for their toxic compounds, including mercury and aluminum, are injected directly into the body and some vaccine components pass directly through the blood brain barrier to affect the nervous system, especially the brain's own immune system cells, the microglia. Microglia are the immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS) and they easily turn against the CNS destroying it through excitotoxicity and autotoxicity.[x] This is a very important concept presented by Dr. Russell Blaylock that explains the conditions where we have a non-specific generalized destruction of neurons, neuritis and synaptic connections. The destructive chemistry of the microglia, when over stimulated, shows how a child can get into a state where they are allergic to almost everything touched, breathed or eaten; allergic even to themselves.  

      Chronic inflammation in the brains of autistic patients, resulting from 
      an over-active immune system is a sign of autoimmunity. 
      The inflammation indicates that the brain is responding to a process that is 
      stressing or damaging brain cells, a process which might include oxygen radicals.



           The important subject of thimerosal,[xi] which is a vaccine preservative that is fifty percent mercury by weight, and its clear central role in the rapid rise of autism, is covered separately in the chapter Mercury, Vaccines and Medicine. More than several states have moved to outlaw the use of thimerosal in children's vaccines and the decreasing rate of new cases in autism casts a long shadow on the pediatric profession for directly injecting such a strong neurological poison directly into babies' bodies. 



      According to the EPA, a person must weigh over 500 pounds
       to safely process the amount of mercury still present in 
      certain vaccines, including flu shots. And, yet, these shots
       are recommended for pregnant women and infants.



           An article in the March 10, 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons shows that since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the alarming increase in reported cases of autism and other neurological disorders (NDs) in children not only stopped, but actually dropped sharply - by as much as 35%. The numbers from California show that reported autism cases hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have skyrocketed to more than 1000 by the beginning of 2006. But in fact the number actually went down to only 620, a real decrease of 22%, and a decrease from the projections of 35%.[xii] (In third world countries like Brazil where mercury air pollution is not the factor it is in the United States, what drives the autism epidemic there are vaccines with up to four times the amount of thimerosal in each injection than was used during the 1990's in the US.) 

      Mercury alters biological systems because of its affinity for sulfhydryl
       groups, which are functional parts of most enzymes and hormones.

      It induces a change in cell structure while disrupting critical
       electron transfer reactions leading to cells being perceived as
       foreign by the body's immune defense and repair system. 

                                                                                        Dr. Rashid Buttar



           What stands out in severe cases of autism is its similarity to symptoms found with mercury poisoning. "Thousands of parents have seen the regression of skills in their children following thimerosal-containing vaccines," says Jo Pike, President of the National Autism Association. "Many of these same children are progressing rapidly with biomedical interventions addressing mercury poisoning."[xiii] Dr. Sidney Baker, author of six medical books, treats hundreds of autistic patients each year from around the country. He suspects that about half of the children he sees have been affected by thimerosal from their vaccines.[xiv] 



      The statement indicating "mercury has been phased out of 
      most childhood vaccines" is a gross distortion of the truth.
       The flu vaccine contains mercury and the number of flu
       shots given to children has increased dramatically since 2004.
                                                                                               Dr. David Ayoub

           The officials from every Pediatric organization in the world deny such a link; in fact they try to deny gravity and go as far as saying that injected mercury could be good for children. The September 2004 issue of Pediatrics stated that immunizing infants with vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal may actually be associated with improved behavior and mental performance.[xv] British doctors making such claims are mirrored again in Canada with Dr. Fombonne's recent findings even though there is no evidence anywhere in the world of science to suggest mercury is not neurotoxic. Careful analysis of the work of these researchers in Canada easily leads to the conclusion that they have projected deep conflicts of interest into their research. Their conclusion that increases in pervasive developmental disorders was significantly higher among those children who received thimerosal-free vaccines suggesting that thimerosal was neuro-protective as opposed to neuro-toxic is absurd.[xvi] Fombonne, a thimerosal litigation expert witness on behalf of various pharmaceutical companies, is the perfect person to represent such scientific absurdity.[xvii]



      Mercury (Hg) is pervasive and persistent in the environment,
       released from a large variety of natural and anthropogenic 
      sources. The serious health impacts of high-level
       exposures have long been recognized.[xviii]

                                                                         National Academy of Science


           Mercury seems to have a special affinity in causing CNS immune cells to overreact causing a cascade of chemical effects around enzymes, glutamate transport, secretion of acids, release of cytokines, and a whole series of domino type effects that combine to provoke general neurodegeneration no matter how the mercury gets into the system. Mercury though is not the only toxin that provokes the microglia. Live viruses found in the MMR vaccine have also been seen to create problems for the brain's immune cells.[xix] 

       

           Scientists are confirming the controversial link between MMR and autism but again not a pediatrician can be found to agree. The most recent research corroborates observations by Dr. Andrew Wakefield who was discredited by the Department of Health for suggesting the combined measles, mumps and rubella jab may have contributed to rises in autism spectrum disorders. The new study, led by Dr Arthur Krigsman, a child gastroenterologist from New York University School of Medicine, has led to renewed calls for an overhaul of Britain's child vaccination program. 

       

           The research was presented at the International Conference for Autism Research in Montreal in June of 2006 before the study was even completed because of the overwhelming significance of the early findings. The study, which covers 275 children and  is being carried out at different medical centers in America, found serious  intestinal inflammation in autistic children identical to that described by  Dr Wakefield and his colleagues eight years ago. Gut biopsy tissue from 82 of these children reveals that 85 per cent have evidence of the measles virus in their inflamed intestines. Fourteen have so far been confirmed by more stringent DNA tests. The news is a huge embarrassment for the Department of Health in England which rubbished Dr. Wakefield's research on the grounds it was uncorroborated "bad science".  Dr. Steve Walker, assistant professor at Wake Forest University Medical Centre, North Carolina, who analyzed the gut samples, said the work mirrored Dr. Wakefield's study.

       

      The parents of two healthy toddlers who died ten days after being 
      given the controversial MMR jabs have warned the Government 
      that they will not allow the cause of their deaths to be 'covered up'.[xx]

       

           Dr Wakefield has clinically seen nearly 200 previously normal youngsters who apparently developed the combined behavior and digestive problems after receiving the MMR injection. But in the crazy world we live in such clinical experience is simply trashed by health officials who have huge vested interests in protecting the childhood immunization program. When it comes to autism we have to face the reality that there are very strong forces of denial affecting both parents and medical officials alike. 

       

           The discovery of the causes of autism can be very threatening because doctors do not want to admit any self-responsibility that can provoke guilt. The walls of denial can be quite thick and it is most astonishing to meet up with the mind set that cannot deal with the fact that the principal thing chemical poisons do is poison children. There is no doubt today that our children are being exposed to vastly increased levels of hostile chemicals. They are being hit from all sides and for many of them the process of poisoning begins even before birth. The medical industrial complex is guilty of hiding the ever present dangers of the thousands of chemicals used by industry because it itself is an industry that uses toxic chemicals in the form of drugs.   



          Recently Greenpeace conducted a study in India and found "Neurological effects of pesticides including effects on memory, concentration, motor skills, judgment and analysis. The study found a remarkable difference between groups of children, with statistically consistent trends. With all other possible confounders controlled for, the only significantly accountable reason for the disturbing findings is the children's exposure to pesticides."[xxi] Though not stated by Greenpeace, a common background factor to 90 to 95 percent of children around the world is the mercury injected into their systems through vaccines. What they are probably reporting on is the synergistic effect of pesticides added to the ever constant toxic load from mercury bearing vaccines



      I can state that the certainty of the science supporting mercury as a major cause of autism is probably more overpowering than the science behind
       any other disease process that I studied dating back to medical school. 
                                                                                              Dr. David Ayoub



           Dr. Rimland says, "It is ludicrous to claim that the link between many causes of autism and vaccination is just coincidental. As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and chagrined by the medical establishment's ongoing efforts to trivialize the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are the root cause of the epidemic. There are many consistent lines of evidence implicating vaccines, and no even marginally plausible alternative hypotheses."[xxii] It is interesting to note here that no one speaks about thimerosal being put in nose sprays and the consequence of parents unwittingly administering large amounts of these over the counter products to very young children when they have a cold, flu or allergies.



           The dismissals and denials from health officials that neither the MMR nor thimerosal bearing vaccines could cause autism are highly suspect for they are defending the cornerstones of the childhood immunization schedule. To admit error would sink the Titanic of the precious jewel at the center of allopathic medical world. Dr. Rimland has pointed out that before MMR most autism cases occurred at birth. But after the MMR vaccine was introduced, most new cases were occurring around age 15 months when the vaccine was usually given. During the 1990's when pediatricians vastly increased the exposure of children to mercury via their vaccines the autism epidemic simply exploded. It's unfortunate for our kids that at the same time, and continuing into the present moment, mercury in the environment has also exploded and the projections are for huge increases through the years to come.



           Dr. Gary Goldman, Editor-in-Chief of Medical Veritas medical journal and Dr. F. Edward Yazbak, an eminent retired pediatrician, in reviewing the statistics from Denmark used by the CDC to proclaim MMR safe, see statistical evidence to proclaim its guilt and place in the list of strong provokers of autism.[xxiii] They found a statistically significant increase in autism following the introduction of the MMR vaccine prior to Denmark's change in enrollments and change in the definition or classification used for autism diagnoses.



           The day that autism is included in the long list of possible side effects of childhood immunization is the day the Earth will stand still in modern medicine for it is the day that health officials will be proven horribly wrong in leading an entire generation into the nightmare of neurological dysfunction. It is highly doubtful that modern medicine could stand such an apocalypse of its arrogant thought and practice.

      The identification of a cause of a disease or syndrome
       is a key step in defining appropriate treatment paths.



      Special Note: Dr. Fombonne's and his associates would have parents believe there is no reason to detoxify and chelate their children of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals, saying, "There is no evidence for an epidemiological association between ethylmercury and autism and no scientific basis for using chelation therapies, which can be dangerous."[xxiv] Again and again we see pediatric researchers preaching their medical religion as opposed to solid medical science that acknowledges the vast toxic buildup in both the environment and children's bodies. Detoxification and chelation are essential medical approaches in the age of toxicity that our children must survive through. Yes it must be acknowledged that chelation approaches that use toxic drugs as opposed to natural chelation and detoxification agents would be dangerous and doctors who are using chelation on their young patients would be well served to reevaluate the use of synthetic chelators. 

           Real scientists (without the biased unfounded and illogical conclusions present in Fombonne's research group) are now solidifying the medical reality that chemical pollution is directly connected with the rising tide of illness and serious diseases that are threatening modern civilization. The University of Southern California studied almost 800 people in the Los Angeles area and found that pollution there was causing peoples bodies to produce oxidants, which in turn trigger inflammatory reactions in both the respiratory tract and blood vessels, triggering artery damage. The researchers found that for every 10ug/m3 increase in pollution, the thickness of the lining of the neck artery increased by between 3.9% and 4.3% when adjusted for other factors. Study author Professor Nino Kuenzli said the public health implications of the findings "could be immense," and "we knew that people in more polluted areas die earlier from cardiovascular disease. Our study found that air pollution may contribute to cardiovascular problems at a very early stage of the disease, similar to smoking, and enhances atherosclerosis, which is the underlying disease process of cardiovascular diseases."[xxv] Dr Ted Schletter of the Boston Medical Center said, "The human body is in constant conversation with this chemical milieu and some substances have turned out to be important contributors to disease." 

          To even think that such negative effects would be less when chemicals like thimerosal are actually injected directly into biological systems is typical of doctors who have literally sold their minds and souls to the pharmaceutical companies. They are not only destroyers of medical science and logical thought processes they are terrorists who would continue to poison children and expectant mothers with mercury. 

                Part Two: 
                Autism and Birth
                Autism and Nutrition
                Where Physiology and Psychology Meet
                Conclusion

       

      Mark Sircus Ac., OMD
      Director International Medical Veritas Association 
      http://www.imva.info

      http://www.magnesimforlife.com

      +55-83-3252-2195
      www.skype.com ID: marksircus

        


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      [i] PEDIATRICS Vol. 118 No. 1 July 2006, pp. e139-e150 (doi:10.1542/peds.2005-2993)

      [ii]  WWF Children's brain development affected by chemicals Wednesday 2 June 2004http://www.elc.org.uk/pages/news_wwf_report.htm 

      [iii] Andersen, Glen. Finding the Causes of Childhood Diseases. June 2001 State Legislatures magazine

      [iv] World Health Organization. Air pollution kills an estimated 2.7 million to 3.0 million people every year--about 6% of all deaths annuallyhttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0856/is_3_28/ai_69434544 

      [v] Public Health and Economic Consequences of Methyl Mercury Toxicity to the Developing Brain Leonardo Trasande; Philip J. Landrigan; Clyde Schechter;  Environ Health Perspect.  2005; 113 (5): 590-596.  ?2005 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/504642_1   

      [vi] Colquitt, Phillip J. Labelling all sphygmomanometers. Using the reported 9 Kg/year of Hg ordered in to repair sphygmomanometers in one large Australian hospital without evidence of Hg spill retrieval[16], together with the estimated 24,000 hospitals in the USA reported in Goldberg et al[11], potentially upwards of 200 tons of Hg are being ordered into hospitals to repair sphygmomanometers in USA each year. If used hospital Hg is unaccounted for, as is reported to be the case in Quebec hospitals[17], then the unaccounted for Hg may be assumed to have polluted the immediate hospital environment, thence to pollute the greater environment. 

      http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/eletters/168/1/78#221

      [vii] http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me- autism23jun23,1,4038233.story?coll=la-health-medicine&ctrack=1&cset=true

      [viii] http://www.imva.info/essay_where_you_live.shtml 

      [ix] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55268-2005Mar21.html 

      [x] Blaylock, Russell. The Central Role of Excitotoxicity in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Vol 6. No1 JANA

      [xi] UC Davis Study With Mice Links Thimerosal With Immune System Dysfunction;24 Mar 2006http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=40052  A team of cell biologists, toxicologists and molecular bioscientists at UC Davis has recently published a study connecting thimerosal with disruptions in antigen-presenting cells known as dendritic cells obtained from mice. The study provides the first evidence that dendritic cells show unprecedented sensitivity to thimerosal, resulting in fundamental changes in the immune system's ability to respond to external factors. Chemists like Dr. Boyd Haley have been reminding us for a long time of the hard reality that "Thimerosal exposure results in toxic biochemical effects that fit very well with the biochemical observations seen in autistics.  These are: (1) truncated neurons (ethylmercury inhibition of tubulin polymerization) in brain tissue and (2) inability to make methyl-B12 and (3) the subsequent decrease in methylation of cellular constitutents that require methylation to operate properly."

      [xii] http://www.jpands.org/vol11no1/geier.pdf   

      [xiii] National Autistic Association news bulletin in response to Institute of Medicine Report Spring 2004  http://www.nationalautismassociation.org

      [xiv] Williams, Valeri. Vaccine preservative's effects may have been known.http://www.laleva.cc/choice/vaccine_preservative.html 

      [xv] Vol. 114 No. 3  pp. 793-804 (doi:10.1542/peds.2004-0434)

      [xvi] http://www.medpagetoday.com/tbindex2.cfm?tbid=3669 

      [xvii] National Autism Society published a press release on July 9th 2006 stating Fombonne's work was riddled with inaccuracies. 

      [xviii] The National Academies Press. Toxicological Effects of Methylmercury (2000) Commission on Life Sciences 

      [xix] Blaylock, Russell. Interaction of Cytokines, Excitotoxins, and Reative Nitrogen and Oxygen Species in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Jana - Volume 6, No 4, 2003

      [xx] Doctors say they cannot explain why George Fisher and Anna Duncan, both aged 17 months, died in their sleep. George and Anna had been healthy toddlers when they died. Cot death has been ruled out because both children were more than a year old and blood found on Anna's lips suggested she had an epileptic-type seizure just before death which does not occur in sudden infant death syndrome. The only indications of ill-health before the children died were that both showed reactions to their MMR jabs. Medical officials are loath to lay responsibility for children's deaths on vaccine but the fact of life is that there are always vaccine fatalities. Children do die and these deaths are officially recorded in government databases. 

      [xxi] http://greenpeaceindia.org/uploaded/documents/document_106.doc 

      [xxii] National Vaccine Information Center.http://www.909shot.com/PressReleases/pr030398autism.htm 

      [xxiii] Goldman, Gary. Yazbak, Edward. September, 2004 Medical Journal of AAPS

      [xxiv] http://www.medpagetoday.com/tbindex2.cfm?tbid=3669 

      [xxv] BBC News Air pollution caused by traffic and factories may cause heart disease, a US study suggests. Monday, 8 November, 2004, 10:05 GMT