SCHAFER AUTISM REPORT "Healing Autism:

No Finer a Cause on the Planet" ________________________________________________________________

Friday, February 06, 2004 Vol. 8 No. 26

THE AUTISM CALENDAR: NOW WITH OVER 300 EVENTS LISTED

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RESEARCH

* Study Suggests Vaccine, Autism Link (another take)

* National Autism Group Urges CNN Coverage of Vaccine Hearing in DC

* MIT Team Discovers Memory Mechanism

* Science Ties Illnesses To Your Month Of Birth

ADVOCACY

* North Carolina Woman Fights Mercury

RECREATION

* Disney Theme Parks Want Able-Bodied Back In Line

RESEARCH

Study Suggests Vaccine, Autism Link

Thimerosal Can Disrupt Neurological Development, Researchers Say

Newly published studies might explain the controversial belief that exposure to the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal can cause childhood neurological disorders like autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Researchers say the findings offer some of the first scientific evidence linking early immunizations to these conditions, but vaccine advocates remain skeptical. They point out that human studies have failed to show a link between childhood vaccinations and the development of neurological problems.

"It would be irresponsible to ignore careful work by careful investigators, and hopefully this will stimulate more research," pediatrics professor Louis Z. Cooper, MD, of the National Network for Immunization Information, tells WebMD. "But there is a giant jump between these (test

tube) studies and the complex clinical syndrome we know as autism."

Tenfold Increase

For more than a decade, anti-vaccine activists have charged that thimerosal in childhood vaccines is to blame for a dramatic worldwide rise in the diagnosis of autism. Cases have increased tenfold in the U.S. over the past three decades.

In an effort to ease parental fears, thimerosal was removed from most vaccines given in the U.S. about three years ago. It is too soon to know if the move has affected autism rates in this country. But a recent study from Denmark, which banned thimerosal more than a decade ago, showed no decline in cases.

"Nothing would please all of us more than to have a large reduction in the frequency of autism in children born and vaccinated after thimerosal was taken out of vaccines, but we have not seen that," Cooper says.

Molecular Evidence In the new study, to be published in the April issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers examined the impact of exposure to a variety of substances that interrupt nerve developmental on a process critical to normal development, known as methylation.

"During the first years of life networks of neurons that represent the matrix for learning are being developed in the brain," says Northeastern University pharmacy professor Richard Deth, PhD, who led the research team. "Methylation and the development of neuronal cells to create these networks are critical during this time. If the process is interrupted, the ability to learn and pay attention would naturally be impaired."

Deth and colleagues suggest that exposure to thimerosal, even in doses as low as those contained in one vaccine, has the ability to disrupt methylation. The theory is that certain children are more at risk than others because they lack the normal ability to excrete metals like thimerosal in the urine.

Different Pathology The researcher says he believes the dramatic rise in autism and ADHD cases over the last few decades can be blamed on mercury poisoning due to vaccine-related thimerosal exposure. He adds that the fact that autism rates have not declined following the banning of thimerosal is not proof of its safety.

"The epidemiological studies are looking at whole populations, and we are trying to determine what it is about an individual kid that might make him more susceptible to this exposure," he tells WebMD.

But Harvard University neurologist Margaret L. Bauman, MD, says the evidence just isn't there to show a link between mercury exposure and autism.

Last March, Bauman and colleague Karin Nelson, MD, published a review of the research. They noted that while mercury poisoning and autism both affect the central nervous system, the specific sites of brain involvement and the brain cell types affected are different in the two disorders. They further noted that mercury injures the nerves and other organs that are not affected in autism.

"The pathology that we see in the brains of people with mercury poisoning just is not consistent with the pathology we see in the autistic brain," Bauman tells WebMD. "It is a total mismatch."

SOURCES: Waly, M. Molecular Psychiatry, advance online publication, Jan. 27, 2004. Richard Deth, PhD, professor of pharmacology, Northeastern University, Boston. Louis Z. Cooper, MD, professor of pediatrics, Columbia University, New York; steering committee, National Network for Immunization Information. Margaret L. Bauman, MD, Childhood Neurology Service, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

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* * *

National Autism Group Urges CNN Coverage of Autism/Vaccine Hearing in D.C.

On Monday, February 9, 2004, the IOM will be holding an Immunization Safety Review meeting on Vaccines and Autism. It looks like there will be a great showing from the autism community and we can t wait to see you all there.

If you can find a few minutes, we really need you to join us in faxing or calling C-Span about covering this very important meeting. Media coverage is crucial to get this issue in the public eye. Let s all bombard their office with our request!

ACTION:

Contact C-Span and ask them to please cover this very important meeting being held at:

The National Academy of Sciences, Auditorium

2100 C Street NW,

Washington, DC 20418

PHONE: 202-737-3220

FAX: 202-737-6226

Attn: Assignment Desk

SAMPLE FAX:

To: C-Span

FAX: 202-737-6226

Attn: Assignment Desk

On Monday, February 9, 2004, the IOM will be holding an Immunization Safety Review meeting on Vaccines and Autism.

Respectfully,

Your Signature

* * *

MIT Team Discovers Memory Mechanism

Cambridge, Mass. -- MIT neuroscientists have discovered a new brain mechanism controlling the formation of lasting memories. This mechanism explains how signals between neurons stimulate production of the protein building blocks needed for long-term memory storage.

The study, which will appear in the Feb. 6 issue of the journal Cell, has broad implications for our understanding of how learning and memory normally occur, and how these abilities may be undermined in psychiatric and neurologic diseases.

Long-lasting memories are stored in the brain through strengthening of the connections, or synapses, between neurons. Researchers have known for many years that neurons must turn on the synthesis of new proteins for long-term memory storage and synaptic strengthening to occur, but the mechanisms by which neurons accomplish these tasks have remained elusive.

The MIT research team, led by Nobel laureate Susumu Tonegawa, director of the Picower Center for Learning and Memory, has now identified a crucial molecular pathway that allows neurons to boost their production of new proteins rapidly during long-term memory formation and synaptic strengthening.

"What we have discovered that hasn't been established before is that there is a direct activational signal from the synapse to the protein synthesis machinery," said Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience MIT's Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biology. The central component of this pathway, an enzyme called "mitogen-activated protein kinase" (MAPK), effectively provides a molecular switch that triggers long-term memory storage by mobilizing the protein synthesis machinery.

Acting on a hunch that MAPK might be an important part of such a "memory switch," Ray Kelleher, a postdoctoral fellow in Tonegawa's laboratory and lead author of the study, created mutant mice in which the function of MAPK was selectively inactivated in the adult brain. Intriguingly, he found that these mutant mice were deficient in long-term memory storage. In contrast to normal mice's ability to remember a behavioral task for weeks, the mutant mice could remember the task for only a few hours. Similarly, the researchers found that synaptic strengthening was also much more short-lived in neurons from the mutant mice than in neurons from normal mice.

Realizing that the pattern of impairments in mutant mice suggested a problem with the production of new proteins, the researchers then performed an elegant series of experiments that revealed precisely how MAPK translates synaptic stimulation into increased protein synthesis. Based on molecular comparisons of neurons from normal and mutant mice, they found that synaptic stimulation normally activates MAPK, and the activated form of MAPK in turn activates several key components of the protein synthesis machinery. This direct regulation of the protein synthesis machinery helps explain the observation that activation of MAPK enhanced the production of a broad range of neuronal proteins.

"Many people had thought that long-term memory formation involved only boosting the synthesis of a very limited set of proteins," said Tonegawa. "But to our surprise, this process involves 'up-regulating' the synthesis of a very large number of proteins."

An immediate question that Tonegawa and colleagues are pursuing is how neurons target the newly synthesized proteins to the specific synapses participating in memory formation while not modifying other synapses.

In addition to Tonegawa and Kelleher, the study's other authors (all in Tonegawa's lab) are graduate student Arvind Govindarajan and postdoctoral fellows Hae-Yoon Jung and Hyejin Kang.

Potential clinical impact About the potential clinical impact of the study, Tonegawa observed, "As we continue to map out the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cognitive function, we will better understand the basis of disorders of memory impairment. Improved understanding makes it far more likely that we can develop drugs for specific molecular targets."

Defects in the strengthening and growth of synaptic connections are associated with a variety of psychiatric and neurologic conditions affecting the developing and adult brain, raising the possibility that disturbances in the mechanism identified in this study may contribute to these disorders, said Tonegawa. The next step will be to determine whether abnormalities in the regulation of protein synthesis can be identified in the affected brain regions in specific neuropsychiatric disorders.

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the RIKEN Brain Science Institute.

* * *

Science Ties Illnesses To Your Month Of Birth

March is the cruellest month, with a long list of diseases

150

If you were born in April, a host of recent medical surveys says you have a slightly greater-than-average risk of suffering from dyslexia, leukemia, Parkinson's disease or epilepsy.

Born in October? Look out for asthma, but you have slightly less risk of schizophrenia than average.

Recent surveys have begun to track health records and compare them with their owners' birth months, discovering that when you were born appears to make you more prone, just slightly, to certain illnesses.

Maybe it's because babies are sensitive to environmental factors, researchers say, though they can't be too sure. For instance, a baby born in flu season comes into a world with flu bugs all around; one born in summer gets an early dose of pollen.

Even more important may be the mother's exposure to different seasonal viruses, bacteria, moulds and so on during certain points in her pregnancy. The most fundamental development of all life's stages happens in the fetus. And if drugs and alcohol can damage a fetus, perhaps nature's environmental factors have an effect too.

"We're not trying to do your horoscope," says Allan Smith, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles.

"The point of this knowledge is to understand what causes these diseases in the first place," he says. "Right now we don't know what makes some people develop diabetes, for example. Some of the reason is in your genes, but not all. The seasons seem to play some role, too. So there's an association. And if we ever want to cure (diabetes), or just treat it better, we have to know what goes wrong."

But the usefulness of this information may not be very high.

"Maybe it's a factor, but there are so many more factors [in disease] that are so much more important," said Dr. Marvin Bittner, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Veterans' Administration. In terms of influences on the developing fetus "the issue of drugs and pregnancy is much more important," he said.

The links between disease and birth month have evolved slowly, often one disease at a time.

? A 30-year study of Swedish babies, published in 1999, found the risk of diabetes is highest in those born in August and lowest in the babies of October.

? Summer babies have long been known to have a greater-than-average chance of developing celiac disease, a digestive disorder. The actual cause of that problem, however, is unknown.

? Babies born in January, February or March are from six to eight per cent more likely than others to develop schizophrenia. Again, there's no known reason. And it doesn't mean a summer child will not become schizophrenic.

March babies, as it happens, have one of the longest lists of illnesses linked to their birthdays: Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, narcolepsy, epilepsy, bipolar disorder, autism, Hodgkin's disease and multiple sclerosis.

December babies have only one: a nasty lung infection called respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, common in young children.

Learning disabilities, meanwhile, are more common in kids with birthdays in summer. The summer birth appears to increase their risk by about eight percentage points.

Fall babies (October and November)are more likely to develop asthma and eczema.

And a February birthday may make you prone to bipolar disorder, epilepsy, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease.

Don't read the list too literally, the doctors caution. The differences from month to month are slight, and are not a basis for diagnosing anything in individual people.

- - -

BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN? Some months portend a greater risk of illness

January: Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, respiratory syncytial virus February: Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy March: Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, autism, narcolepsy, Hodgkin's disease, multiple sclerosis, bipolar disorder, epilepsy April: leukemia, dyslexia, learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) May: dyslexia, learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), Parkinson's disease June: anorexia, diabetes, dyslexia, learning disabilities, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), Parkinson's disease, celiac disease July: diabetes, celiac disease, dyslexia, learning disabilities August: diabetes, celiac disease, autism, Crohn's disease

September: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), asthma October: asthma, atopic dermatitis November: asthma, atopic dermatitis, respiratory syncytial virus December: respiratory syncytial virus

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ADVOCACY

North Carolina Woman Fights Mercury

Kelli Ann Davis remembers the moment doctors diagnosed her son, Miles, with Autism.

"It was just devastating," remembers Davis. "All of the dreams you have for your child...growing up...getting married...having kids.....It was gone and he couldn't even talk to us."

It’s a diagnosis Davis believes another parent can be spared. She says she knows why Miles is mildly Autistic. He developed normally until a series of childhood vaccines.

"These kids have been mercury poisoned by the mercury in vaccines and they have neurological problems because of it," said Davis.

Some vaccines use a mercury-based preservative. Mercury-poisoning and Autism exhibit nearly identical behaviors. The American Academy of Pediatrics has asked manufacturers to move towards mercury-free vaccines, as has the FDA. The Centers for Disease Control says most childhood vaccines either no longer use the mercury based preservative, or they only have trace amounts.

It’s why Davis brings in researchers like the Geiers to Fayetteville - to educate parents and caregivers.

"And what they found out was there was a striking connection between 100 mercury symptoms and the 100 signs and symptoms of autism," said David Geier.

Davis wants them all to unite in getting North Carolina to pass a law mandating mercury-free vaccines.

"We don't want people to be afraid of vaccines," said Davis. "We want the vaccines to be safe."

A safety she says will only come if people come together and speak out.

In the 1990s - the number of recommended childhood vaccines increased. And that's when many researchers say the number of Autism cases jumped.

Some children have more difficulty in flushing mercury from their system.

Researchers and medical organizations began looking into the link around 2001 and began asking manufacturers to remove it from vaccines.

* * *

RECREATION

Disney Theme Parks Want Able-Bodied Back In Line

Anaheim, Calif. KRT - The front of the line just got a lot less crowded at the Disneyland Resort.

And some people are fuming.

After years of freely issuing passes to people who said they couldn't stand in the regular lines because of an ailment or disability, Disney is asking a lot more questions now before allowing anyone to head to the front of the line.

The change, intended to limit the service to those who need it and stop bottlenecks at boarding areas, has satisfied some and enraged others.

"The fact that they're making it harder to get help only means that the people it was designed for in the first place are going to use it," said John Kennerknecht of Fontana, Calif., whose son has cerebral palsy. "Honestly, I'd rather stand in a two-hour line with a totally healthy son, but it's irritating when you see people abusing the system."

But people with disabilities that aren't visibly apparent say the guidelines seem so vague that they may quit visiting Disney parks.

Angela Valles of Garden Grove, Calif., can't stand for long periods because of multiple sclerosis. She said Disney officials insisted she use a wheelchair, but Valles didn't want to spend an extra $7 for something she would hardly use.

"I want my (annual) pass refunded if they're not going to change the system," said Valles, who bought a pass last month. "They've completely ignored my class of disability. I went Sunday night, and it sucked all the fun out of it."

So many visitors used the "special assistance passes" for so long that a sense of entitlement developed, and several angry scenes erupted when Disney began refusing requests for them in late December. Even Kennerknecht said he had to appeal after first being denied a pass for his son, 5, who uses a stroller-type wheelchair to get around.

The new system officially rolls out in March. Meanwhile, Disney is directing visitors with special needs to waiting areas, which gives them access to the ride but not necessarily expedited boarding. Under the old system, anyone with a pass or in a wheelchair could go to the front of the line with up to six people and quickly board an attraction.

"We want to provide a magical experience for all of our guests," Disney spokeswoman Sondra Haley said. "We work to accommodate their needs in a variety of ways, including those with special needs."

The system could face more resistance as it closes the door on years of abuse.

Gone are the days when groups of teenagers would flip a coin to see who would rent a wheelchair that day - and then use the chair to get a pass to the front of every line for a group of six.

Gone are the days when a person could say "I have a bad back" or "I have a handicapped parking placard" and receive a pass that allowed them to go through the exit line to quickly board a ride.

The system - intended to accommodate legitimate disabilities - became so abused that special assistance lines sometimes became 30 or 40 minutes long. As those lines converged with the regular line and the fast-pass line, bottlenecks backed up the boarding system, and visitors from all three lines complained.

Disney acknowledges that the old program was too lenient, creating days when up to 20 percent of visitors had special passes. But even now it will not issue a written policy because that could open loopholes that again might be exploited. Also, Disney views it as an optional service, something that goes beyond its obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Disney officials pointed out that the ADA requires them to provide equal access, but not "superior access." They still will assist people with special needs, but Disney will "tailor solutions" on a case-by-case basis for anyone not in a wheelchair, officials said.

Instead of issuing one pass that fits all - from a broken arm to mental retardation - new cards with up to eight stamps will offer various levels of assistance. The "guest assistance card" will be similar to the one used at Walt Disney World in Florida.

"They have a challenge," said Crystal Fernando of San Marcos, Calif. She said her autistic son might begin screaming or pinching people in a crowded line because claustrophobic conditions can trigger anxiety. She's reluctant to drive to Anaheim "on the 50-50 chance that we might be refused the opportunity of our son having a magical experience."

Disney consulted with several disability advocacy groups for guidance on the new system. Disney also consulted the Department of Justice, and attorneys advised the resort to stop accepting documentation of a disability. Instead of addressing the disability, Disney officials want to focus on the person's needs at the parks.

Representatives of the Dayle McIntosh Center in Anaheim, a nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities, praised Disney's new system. The center also provides services without asking for proof of disability.

"I'm sure there will be some hiccups until they get it just right," said Rebekah McIlhenny, the center's community relations director. "But (without limitations) it would be like passing out a handicapped sticker to anyone who says they are disabled. The abuse would be extreme."

Other theme parks offer a variety of assistance, with most providing special boarding to visitors in wheelchairs. Knott's Berry Farm, which does accept documentation, allows people in wheelchairs to wait at the front while their party goes through the line.

Disney plans extensive training for employees who will issue guest assistance cards, officials said. Those employees will be instructed to suggest use of the fast-pass system to reserve boarding times for those who can't stand for long periods.

Several critics said the program will work only if the training works. Fernando said she and her autistic son have had no problems getting assistance at other parks, like Legoland and the San Diego Zoo.

"(Disney) needs to have people with more knowledge of what the disabilities are and not look down their nose at a child and say, `You don't look disabled to me,'" she said.

Sulynn Means of Orange, Calif., has similar concerns and advised others to show their equipment to Disney employees when explaining their special needs. Her visually impaired daughter uses a long white cane as a guide.

Means said she asked for a pass three different times before a Disney employee recognized that the cane presented safety issues if her daughter used it in the regular lines.

"I didn't just want a shorter line," Sulynn said. "My concerns were that somebody might get hurt.

"But I saw the old policy being abused, too, and it drove me nuts. If your policy is not to ask anything, then anybody can get one, and that makes it bad for those who really need it."

--- © 2004, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).

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