Friday, January 17, 2003

By Anita Srikameswaran, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The British gastroenterologist who courted controversy when he linked autism with bowel inflammation and childhood measles vaccination will speak tomorrow at the first annual conference sponsored by Pittsburgh Biomed, a fledging parent-run organization.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who was forced out of London’s Royal Free Hospital over a year ago and is now director of research for the year-old Florida-based International Child Development Resource Center, will discuss his autism research, including work he published in 1998 in the British journal The Lancet.

That report was about 12 children with autism and bowel inflammation. Since then, he has linked the inflammation to measles virus and the vaccine against mumps, measles and rubella, known as MMR. The bowel problem, he proposed, allowed toxins to enter the bloodstream, enter the brain and cause the disease in some patients.

He has stuck to his conclusions and continued his research despite criticism from researchers and clinicians and despite other, larger studies that didn’t find a connection between MMR vaccine and autism.

In research, “you’re putting together pieces of a complex jigsaw,” Wakefield said. “We’ve got to see this through. If the work exonerates the vaccine, that’s fine. If it doesn’t, then we need to think again.”

Other speakers will discuss the rise in autism cases, nutritional supplements and other topics, said Laura Hewitson, program director and founder of Pittsburgh Biomed.

Hewitson, who has a doctorate in reproductive biology, has a 3-year-old son with autism. His symptoms improved with changes to his diet, nutritional supplementation and intensive behavior therapy. Pittsburgh Biomed was created to provide a resource for “complementary approaches to go alongside behavioral approaches,” Hewitson said.

About 350 people have signed up for tomorrow’s conference.

The conference is 8:30 to 5 p.m. tomorrow at Northway Christian Community Church, 12121 Perry Highway, Wexford. Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. The cost is $100 for parents and $130 for medical professionals. Proceeds will be donated to the Autism Research Institute and Medical Interventions for Autism. More information is available at www.pittbiomed.com/events.

The Autism Society of America will be holding its annual 5-day conference here in July. To learn more, go to www.autism-society.org.

Anita Srikameswaran can be reached at anitas@post-gazette.com or 412-263-3858.