FEAT DAILY NEWSLETTER
Sacramento, California http://www.feat.org
November 14, 2001
News Morgue Search www.feat.org/search/news.asp
·
On PBS: A Dangerous Choice
·
Boy Barred From School Until Vaccination Dispute
Resolved
·
Study: Porcine Secretin Not Effective
·
Brain Imaging In Neurobehavioral Disorders
Autism Related Segments in Series on PBS
Check website for local airing: http://www2.pubtv.net/online/saf/
[PBS - Scientific American. The first segment related to autism in
this series ran yesterday and included a report of a family
doing primarily
ABA therapy with their autistic child. The report described
below has not
run yet. The entire series will be repeated, however. Thanks to Sally
Bernard.]
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1205/features/autism.htm
Their stories are strikingly similar. Parents welcome a
healthy new child into their family. The child begins to develop normally, even
thrive. But in the second year of life,
the child stops progressing, stops babbling and acquiring new words, stops
hugging and making eye contact. Soon after comes the crushing diagnosis:
autism, the mysterious developmental disorder that seems to rob many children
of their emotions.
Stunned and saddened, many parents look for answers.
Noticing that the onset of autism occurs right around the time their children
receive their regularly scheduled childhood vaccines, some parents have begun
to organize and agitate for more research into the possible connection between
vaccines and illness. Could the public health panacea of the 20th
century turn out to be the medical menace of the 21st?
First described in 1943, autism was thought to be a mental
illness, likely caused by bad parenting. By
1964, however, scientists began to search instead for a biological—specifically
neurological—basis for the disease.
Today, autism remains an enigmatic disorder. It is often
accompanied by mild to severe mental retardation, but many autistic individuals
have exceptionally high IQ’s. Each autistic person expresses the disorder uniquely:
there is no definitive diagnostic test and—though it appears to run in families—no
gene has been found.
Although statistics vary widely, the Centers for Disease
Control estimates autism may occur in as many as one out of 1000 children,
making it one of the more common developmental disorders. Some research
indicates autism may even be increasingly common.
A California study found the number of children with
autism increased by 273 percent between 1987 and 1998. Similarly, a Maryland
study found a 513 percent increase between 1993 and 1998. And, the Centers for
Disease Control found an apparent cluster of the disorder in a New Jersey town
where one in 150 children is autistic. What could be the cause of this sudden surge
in the numbers of children diagnosed with the disorder?
In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield of the Royal Free Hospital
in London correlated the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to
gastrointestinal disease and autism. In an article published in the British
science journal The Lancet, Wakefield reported finding measles virus in the
intestines of 11 children—none of whom had actually had measles but all of whom
had developed bowel problems and autistic behavior soon after receiving the MMR
vaccine. Wakefield hypothesized that the measles particles in the vaccine (more
on vaccines) might have had an adverse affect on the bowel, interfering with
the absorption of some vital nutrient, which in turn interfered with normal
brain development.
Although Wakefield’s report made headlines, scientists—including
Wakefield himself—emphasized the study’s limitations. In a follow-up study with
a larger sample size, Wakefield did not find a correlation. Nor did any other
research group looking into the possible connection, which included the Centers
for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. Still, the implications of Wakefield’s
original report were fuel for a long smoldering fire.
In 1980, Barbara Loe Fisher’s son went into shock and
suffered brain damage within four hours after receiving a vaccine. In 1982,
Fisher co-founded the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). Ever since
then, she’s agitated for more research into vaccine safety and the right to informed
consent to vaccination.
Though her son did not subsequently develop autism, Fisher
cannot ignore the chronological coincidences in children who do.
“What is so compelling is that the pattern is the same,
the stories are all the same,” she says. “And, the main defense is ‘It’s all a coincidence?’
It’s illogical, it’s unscientific and it’s irresponsible.”
Not only does the condition first seem to manifest soon
after vaccination; the history of the disorder also seems correlated to the
rise of vaccination as a public health tool.
Vaccination programs virtually eliminated small pox,
diphtheria and pertussis as childhood killers in the 1940s- the same decade the
first cases of autism were identified. By the 1970s, children were also
routinely inoculated against measles, mumps, rubella and polio. By 1999--the
year after state public health studies had documented huge increases in the incidence
of autism—the average American child received almost three dozen doses of
vaccines by age five.
“In the public health infrastructure, the primary method
of disease control is vaccination,” says Fisher. “Because it’s the cornerstone, there is tremendous reluctance to
acknowledge that not all children are the same, that there is biodiversity.”
While Fisher does not discourage immunization, she does
insist the medical establishment should reexamine vaccine safety.
“We believe there is a certain percentage of the
population that is genetically vulnerable to vaccines,” she says. “In 2001, we
have the technology to look at what’s going on in the body on the cellular and molecular
level after vaccination. But we are not taking advantage of it because it would
complicate the one-size-fits-all approach.”
Public health officials disagree. Agencies in the United
States and Britain have been conducting research into the possible connection
between vaccines and autism. In April 2000, the Institute of Medicine (IOM)--a private,
non-profit research arm of the National Academy of Sciences—issued a report
concluding that the MMR vaccine was in fact safe and effective and not
correlated to autism.
In October 2001, the IOM released another report into the
possible connection between autism and Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative
used in some vaccines since the 1930’s. Mercury is a known neurotoxin, but the compound
had been proven safe in the small doses received via vaccine. But as more
vaccines became routine, some wondered if too much mercury was accumulating in
children’s systems.
The IOM concluded that while they could not find a causal
relationship between Thimerosal and autism, they could not rule one out,
either. The IOM recommended that only Thimerosal-free vaccines be given to
infants and children. However, the IOM also noted that vaccines containing the preservative
should be administered rather than foregoing immunization where Thimerosal-free
doses were not available. Infectious disease, the committee reasoned, poses a
much greater risk than does autism.
“The committee recommended further work, and the National
Institutes of Health has the initiative,” says Dr. Marie McCormick, Chair of
the Department of Maternal and Child Health at Harvard’s School of Public
Health in Boston and a member of the panel. “People are dealing with it responsibly,
although there still are questions to be resolved.”
Despite these unanswered questions, McCormick believes the
science belies what some parents’ eyes tell them.
“The timing association makes it seem causal,” says
McCormick “The second year of life is when children are vaccinated and also the
time when autism becomes most obvious. But if you look at videos from even
earlier, you can often see early signs of autism there.”
Moreover, according to McCormick, new research on autism
suggests there may be chemical abnormalities associated with autism that are
present at birth. Detecting the disorder so early would resolve the question of
whether vaccines can induce autism in otherwise perfectly healthy children once
and for all. But the problem public health officials face today is how little
is understood about autism.
That very murkiness could have a lot to do with the
seeming increase in rates of autism. According to McCormick, the diagnostic
guidelines for autism have changed four times in the last 30 years. The current
guidelines include Aperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism that may have gone
undiagnosed in the past. Additionally, increased awareness of autism likely led
to more diagnoses. McCormick also sites changes in special education and institutionalization
that may have had an impact on research into the disorder’s prevalence.
“In short,” concludes McCormick, “there is no good
evidence [that rates of autism have
increased] one way or the other.”
In the aftermath of the Wakefield study, British parents increasingly
chose not to vaccinate their children. But in evading one danger, these parents
were putting their children—and others’ children—at increased risk for
potentially lethal illnesses.
“When people are not immunized, the wild-type diseases come
back,” says McCormick. “It varies by disease, but measles returns when fewer
than 90% of the population is vaccinated.”
In the summer of 2000, a measles outbreak claimed the
lives of three children in Dublin, Ireland. In January 2001, Britain’s Public
Health Laboratory Service warned that more deadly outbreaks were imminent,
given that just 88% of the population had been immunized, falling as low as 75%
in some regions.
Today, most U.S. public schools, most private schools and
colleges, as well as many camps and programs require vaccinations. But some
groups advocate changing these requirements. They could be inadvertently
putting American children at risk of diseases not seen for several generations. According to McCormick, that’s part of the
problem.
“Today’s parents have never seen these diseases.
Diphtheria, pertussis were killers before the 1930’s. Measles had fatal
complications,” she says. “These are
not good diseases.”
“Given the relative risk is hypothetical versus the very
real risk of disease, I’d say the risk benefit analysis comes down on the side
of being vaccinated,” says McCormick.
_
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* * *
[By Associated Press.] http://www.boston.com/dailynews/318/region/Boy_temporarily_barred_from_sc:.s
html <-- address ends here.
Morristown, N.J. (AP) An 11-year-old Sparta boy will
continue to be barred from attending classes until his parents and school
officials resolve a dispute over the child’s lack of a Hepatitis B vaccination.
State Superior Court Judge Kenneth C. MacKenzie denied a
request Tuesday by Richard and Donna Shaftan to let their son, Zachary, return
to his sixth-grade class at the Sparta Middle School.
The couple is challenging a recent state ruling that
requires some students to be vaccinated for Hepatitis B. They believe the
requirement is unnecessary, unrelated to education and invasive.
“I’m not against vaccines, but Hepatitis B is a junkies’
disease,” Richard Shaftan told The Daily Record of Parsippany for Wednesday’s editions.
“This is really about making money for pharmaceutical companies out there
selling their products.”
The ruling, which took effect in September, requires
vaccinations for all children who were born on or after Jan. 1, 1990 and are
entering sixth grade or a comparable special education unassigned grade.
The boy has been kept out of school since Nov. 1,
which was the
deadline for him to receive the first in a series of three
inoculations
MacKenzie ruled that the school is bound by the regulations,
that the Shaftans arguments were invalid, and that they cited no authority to
show the vaccinations are medically unnecessary.
However, he scheduled a Dec. 11 hearing where the couple
will be allowed to present further arguments on their claims. In the meantime,
their attorney, Michael Patrick Carroll, plans to ask a state appellate court
to order the boy’s return.
The Hepatitis B virus is transmitted through blood
products, bodily fluids and needle pricks, and can lead to chronic liver
disease, cirrhosis and liver cancer.
* * *
Study: Porcine Secretin Not Effective
Multisite, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Porcine
Secretin In
Autism
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_ui
ds=11699803&dopt=Abstract <-- address ends here.
1: J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2001 Nov;40(11):1293-9
Owley T, McMahon W, Cook EH, Laulhere T, South M, Mays LZ,
Shernoff ES,
Lainhart J, Modahl CB, Corsello C, Ozonoff S, Risi S, Lord
C, Leventhal BL,
Filipek PA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
OBJECTIVE: To examine the efficacy of intravenous porcine
secretin for the treatment of autistic disorder.
METHOD: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled,
crossover design. Fifty-six subjects with autistic disorder received either a
secretin or placebo infusion at baseline and the other substance at week 4.
Subjects were given the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and other
pertinent developmental measures at baseline and at weeks 4 and 8 to assess drug
effects.
RESULTS: For the primary efficacy analysis, change of ADOS
social-communication total score from week 0 to week 4, no statistically significant
difference was obtained between placebo (-0.8 +/- 2.9) and secretin groups
(-0.6 +/- 1.4; t54 = 0.346, p < .73). The other measures showed no treatment
effect for secretin compared with placebo.
CONCLUSION: There was no evidence for efficacy of secretin
in this randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial.
PMID: 11699803 [PubMed - in process]
* * *
Brain Imaging In Neurobehavioral Disorders http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_ui
ds=11704396&dopt=Abstract <-- address ends here.
Frank Y, Pavlakis SG. Child Study Center; Bronx Lebanon
Hospital Center;,
Bronx, New York, USA
Neuroimaging studies of neurobehavioral disorders are
using new imaging modalities. In dyslexia, anatomic imaging studies demonstrate
an abnormal symmetry of the planum temporale. Functional imaging supports the hypothesis
that developmental dyslexia is frequently the result of deficits in phonologic
processing and that normal reading requires a patent network organization of a
number of anterior and posterior brain areas.
In autism, anatomic imaging studies are conflicting.
Functional imaging demonstrates temporal lobe abnormalities and abnormal
interaction between frontal and parietal brain areas. In
attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder, imaging studies suggest an
abnormality in the prefrontal and striatal regions.
Neuroimaging studies are often contradictory, but trends,
especially with functional imaging analysis, are evolving. Because
neurobehavioral disorders seem to be a result of a dysfunction in brain
circuits, no one region will be abnormal in all patients studied. Further
studies with well-defined patient populations and appropriate activation paradigms
will better elucidate the pathophysiology of these conditions.
PMID: 11704396 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
* * *
Sociodemographic Risk Factors Among Children With Autism
In Metropolitan
Atlanta, 1996
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_ui
ds=11703700&dopt=Abstract <-- address ends here.
Gonzaga P, Karapurkar T, Murphy C, Schendel D.
(Developmental Disabilities Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Atlanta, GA, USA).
PMID: 11703726 [PubMed - in process]
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