The Autism-Vaccine Debate: Anything But Over

Memo to those who wanted the autism-vaccine contretemps to just go away: You lost.

Exactly five years ago, I began research for my book Evidence of Harm, which looked into the possible link between mercury, vaccines and the tsunami of autism that now overwhelms our education system.

Along the way, I have encountered many people -- in the government, in medical circles, in the media, on the Internet - who are furious at my attempts to shed light on this controversy, and utterly contemptuous of parents, doctors and anyone else who supports research into the hypothesized link between autism and vaccines.

Many of these people, incredibly, still insist that autism is purely a genetic disorder with no known "cause" and probably no cure. They blithely claim that autism has always been with us, in the same epidemic numbers we see today, (If you're the parent of a young boy in New Jersey, by the way, you now face 1-in-60 odds of a diagnosis), we just never noticed, or else counted those kids as "quirky," or possibly retarded.

Even officials at the CDC, who traced an e-coli outbreak to a single patch of California spinach within months, cannot say if autism is actually on the increase or not.

Some experts, however, are beginning to understand that autism is clearly on the rise and, thus, must have an environmental component, coupled with a genetic underpinning. But they insist that vaccines or their ingredients (ie, mercury, live measles virus, aluminum) have nothing to do with the epidemic.

They really, really want this vexing vaccine chatter to cease. But it won't.

Buried beneath the usual tumultuous headlines of recent days were three tidbits of news that clearly underscore why this raging, sometimes vitriolic debate is not ending any time soon. In fact, all three reveal significant cracks in the federal government's hitherto impenetrable fortress of denial of any vaccine-autism link whatsoever:

1) The CDC granted nearly $6 million for investigators at five major research centers to study 2,700 children over the next five years, in what the Contra Costa Times called "the largest-ever U.S. study aimed at solving one of the most perplexing mysteries of modern times: the cause of autism."

Lisa Croen, the study's principal investigator in California, told the paper that, "What's become very clear is that autism results from a combination of having a genetic predisposition or genetic susceptibility, plus the added extra exposures from environmental factors or other kinds of lifestyle factors."

Among the "factors" to be studied are family history, events during pregnancy, maternal medications, parental occupation, ambient pollution around the house, and "a child's vaccination history," the paper reported.

Oddly, the study will not look at the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. According to the FDA and the Institute of Medicine, the last batches of thimerosal containing vaccines for infants and immune-globulin given to pregnant women expired in late 2003 (except for the flu shot, which is still given to infants and pregnant women).

The new study will only study children born from September 2003 to August, 2005.
But the question remains, and I think it's legitimate: If an association between vaccines and autism has been completely "ruled out," then why are we spending taxpayer dollars to study autistic children's vaccination history?

2) The Department of Health and Human Services announced the formation of a new federal panel, the "Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee," which will help set public and private research priorities into the cause and treatment of autism, as mandated by the recently passed Combating Autism Act.

Among those named to the panel by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt were Lyn Redwood, president of the Coalition for Safe Minds (and chief protagonist in my book), and a leading advocate of the mercury-vaccine-autism connection, and Lee Grossman, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America, another staunch supporter of the hypothesis.

Which again begs the question: If the debate over vaccines and autism is over, then why did the Feds appoint two people to this important new panel who will relentlessly push for more taxpayer dollars going into research of vaccines and autism?

3) Lawyers for the US Justice Department and HHS are conceding an autism case that was to be tried in the so-called federal "Vaccine Court," (officially known as the Autism Omnibus Proceedings of the US Court of Federal Claims), according to papers filed on the court's on-line docket.

Nearly 5,000 autism cases are pending in Vaccine Court, though a small number of "test cases" are being tried, in which attorneys for the families attempt to link the symptoms of autism to thimerosal and/or the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (or MMR, which never contained mercury). It was a pending test case that the government conceded.

According to my source, however, the government is NOT conceding that mercury or vaccines cause autism. "In this case, the DOJ conceded that vaccines significantly aggravated a child's pre-existing autistic symptoms," my source said, "but the autism itself was caused by a congenital mitochondrial disorder that is entirely genetic."

And, the source noted, "By conceding 'significant aggravation,' I think DOJ is trying to avoid ever having this case go to hearing on the underlying causation issue."

In other words, this was likely going to be a slam-dunk, and the Feds knew it. Rather than risk having the case become a "test" for thousands of other claims, it looks like the DOJ opted to fold and pay out damages to the family, without actually admitting that vaccines can cause autism.

This entirely unreported event raises several interesting questions, I think. To begin with, if the federal government has conceded that vaccines can cause "significant aggravation" to the (even preexisting) autism symptoms of even just one child, shouldn't the public be notified?

And if the government has conceded that this child would be better off today had he or she not been vaccinated -- in other words, that vaccines made the symptoms of autism go from bad to worse - couldn't it be possible that vaccines might also, say, make symptoms go from mild to bad?

And if the government concedes that vaccines aggravated the symptoms of autism in at least one child, shouldn't parents of children with the disorder be informed of this, and shouldn't they be allowed to opt out of future vaccinations, on medical grounds, if they wish?

And if the government concedes that vaccines can aggravate the symptoms of autism, then shouldn't that same government also earmark funds to research how and why that occurs?

And of course, why on earth would parents concede that there is "no evidence of an association between vaccines and autism," when the government has just conceded that there was an (albeit not causal) association?

Finally, to all those who are going to post comments about the autism rates in California not coming down, following the removal of thimerosal from most vaccines: You are right. The most likely explanation is that thimerosal was not responsible for the autism epidemic. But that does not mean that it never harmed a single child.

And keep in mind that, of the record 1000+ additional autism cases recorded in California last quarter, some 75% of them were children who were six years of age or older, and thus born well within the "thimerosal generation." There is evidence that many factors could conceivably be keeping the California numbers higher than the national average, including aggressive early intervention and outreach to low-income families, increased immigration from countries that still use thimerosal (and immigrant children who are routinely re-immunized upon arrival) and migration of families from less progressive U.S. states eager for California's relative public largesse.

And remember that the CDC, wisely, does not conduct autism prevalence studies on children until they reach the age of 8, to account for any late stragglers entering the database. If thimerosal did not come out of vaccines entirely until 2003, then it won't be until 2011 before kids in that birth cohort are studied by the CDC, so vindicating thimerosal entirely might still be a tad premature.

All that said, thimerosal may well not be a factor in a single case of autism. But what if one day, we discovered it had caused, say, one percent of all cases? With estimates of autism as high as 1.5 million in the country, that would mean 15,000 Americans who were ravaged by thimerosal (not to mention everyone overseas).

But if thimerosal is vindicated, or shown to be a very minor player, then what about other vaccine ingredients? And what about the rather crowded vaccine schedule we now impose upon families of young children? And what about reports of unvaccinated children in Illinois, California and Oregon who appear to have significantly lower rates of autism? Shouldn't we throw some research dollars into studying them?

You can answer that, no, we shouldn't, because the vaccine-autism debate is over.

But I am willing to wager that it has only just begun.

Comments

[carolh]

For an interview about the autism /diet link I did in October with Joyce Riley of The Power Hour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5EjDOXH9xA&feature=related

[doxyluv13]

Any thought that the autism/vaccine debate is over is just Mr. Kirby setting up a straw man to knock down.

Tthings have happened recently that make the likelihood that vaccination is a significant cause of autism much less:

1. There has not been a decrease in autism since thimerosol was removed from children's vaccines. This is epidemiologically a huge nail in the coffin of the "mercury hypothesis".

2. Outreach and screening programs are identifying kids with autism earlier when they've had fewer vaccinations.

3. 90% of autistic people have close genetic relatives with the disorder, pointing to predominately genetic cause.

[carolh]

The genes found to cause autism code for glutamate synapse formation. Glutamate in the form of free glutamic acid is in the vaccines in question. Glutamic acid in excess reduces the ability of the body to handle the sulfur amino acid cysteine. Cysteine is used to make glutathione - the substance the body makes to remove mercury. Consequently, glutamic acid is a BAD THING to put into a vaccine for a child with any of the autism genes, let alone their food. If mercury is ALSO present, you are poisoning the child with mercury AND preventing him from getting rid of that mercury.
Why is NOBODY bringing up what the genes for autism actually CODE FOR?? Glutamate is high in wheat and dairy. The vaccine AND wheat dairy links make perfect sense when the actual job of the genes that code for autism are considered.
If the truth comes out, warnings may be needed not only on vaccines, but food items high in glutamic acid, as well as childrens chewable medicines and vitamins that have aspartame in them (half of which the body converts to glutamate). THAT is what the agribusiness and pharmaceutical companies are in a tizzy about. They are raking in millions on vaccines as well as an American diet centered on glutamic acid containing milk, soy, corn and wheat based products. The truth will cost them literally MILLIONS.
They will have to:
1) REMOVE glutamic acid from vaccines
2) Space out vaccines and provide antihistamines with them to reduce inflammation
3) LIMIT glutamic acid and aspartic acid in the diet for children below the age of 7 who test positive for the autism genes.(like they do for kids with PKU)
4) LIMIT glutamic acid, MSG and aspartame in the diet of ANYONE with the autism genes.
5) REMOVE aspartame (half of which the body converts to glutamate) from ALL children's medicines and vitamins.
My opinion as a former food process engineer is that doctors have absolutely no clue about food and food additives - or vaccine additives for that matter. It is high time they learn.

[schwinnrider]

Okay, let's do some serious research. I get it. Is there a conspiracy to hide evidence of a link between vaccines and autism? Maybe.

But the claim that including proponents of the vaccine link hypothesis on panels is evidence of anything in and of itself is really dumb. If they had NOT included these people, your viewpoint would be even more strident. It's a lose/lose situation for science and objectivity.

[nhokkanen]

Many "autistic" children's lab tests point to vaccines as a source of injury. Vaccine-strain measles in lesions lining the gastrointestinal mucosa. High mercury levels following provocation with DMSA. Viral and autoimmune disorders.

Why aren't more researchers helping these children find testing and treatment?

In Minnesota, the state's most traveled bridge collapsed. No one is accepting blame. Victims had to beg the Legislature for help with their medical bills.

What level of disaster and human tragedy must be reached before the U.S. bureaucracies, state and federal, respond to the pain of children unnecessarily written off as collateral damage in the war on disease?

[usna73]

Your analysis is spot on. As a family we were plantiffs since 2002 in U.S. District Court, whose case is now pending in Vaccine Court. I too noted that the concession of one of the test cases designated to be heard by the Federal Court of Claims will certainly trigger the avalanche of discovery of pre-existing circumstances that Thimerosal (mercury poisoning) is most certain to create a child with full blown autism.

I remain convinced that kids who are immuno surpressed, perhaps genetically pre-disposed in similar fashion demonstrated by the studies of Dr. Hornig at Columbia, will be the most at-risk group. All those similarities of children with chronic ear infections, severe allergies and asthma cannot simply be coincicental in their commonality as underlying conditions where children who received significant multi-dose vaccinations, who then present with profound autism.

Since my son is in the group I mention above, you can be certain that we will never give up in our fight to obtain justice by seeking the truth. We will make the parties who are negligent of their duty make reparations to all childen similarly situated.

P.S. Watch the Mead case with special care. This is also an excellent example of the group I cite.