http://www.theadvocate.com/enter/story.asp?storyID=5494
Magazine
Silent Epidemic: Autism
BR doctor blames immunizations for dramatic
increase in autism cases
By TED
GRIGGS
Advocate features writer
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Advocate staff photo by
Patrick Dennis |
Shelley Reynolds' son Liam was perfectly normal from birth.
He rolled over, he crawled, he walked, he talked, all on schedule. At 13
months, Liam learned the "Hokey Pokey." He knew the words to
"The Itsy Bitsy Spider."
Every morning on the way to daycare, he and Shelley sang "Old MacDonald
Had A Farm." Liam's part was the animal sounds. At daycare, he practically
lived in the sandbox.
And then virtually overnight, Liam's personality changed. He stoppd making
eye contact. His words twisted and turned around on themselves. When he tried
to say "fish" it came out "sheee."
Liam stopped singing. He stopped talking. He stopped sleeping. The touch of
certain fabrics or textures tormented him. He ripped off his clothes as soon as
his parents dressed him.
When the Reynolds took him to the beach that summer, Liam screamed bloody
murder every time his feet touched the sand.
Eventually, Liam was diagnosed with autism. It's a life sentence. There is
no cure.
Now Shelley Reynolds, like thousands of other moms with autistic children,
lives with a nauseating possibility: that the shots Liam got, the regularly
scheduled vaccinations designed to protect his health, may have caused his
disability.
Reynolds is one of many who believe childhood vaccinations and autism
spectrum disorder are linked. Jeana Smith of Walker is another. Smith has
identical twin sons. One is autistic.
"Everybody thinks that if they ignore it, somehow it's going to go
away, or this is going to stop happening, and that is simply not the
case," Smith said.
The numbers of autistic children are rising. U.S. Department of Education
records show the number of autistic students increased nationwide by more than
11,000 from the 1998-99 to the 1999-2000 school year. A similar increase was
reported between 1997-98 to 1998-99. Recent studies in New Jersey and Sweden
showed prevalence rates for autism spectrum disorder as high as 1 in 150 to 170
children.
"There's enough people for this to be a national emergency," Smith
said. And it's going to be expensive. Education costs for autistic children can
run $40,000 a year or more.
For now, the vaccine-autism link remains a controversial and scientifically
unproved theory. And the Baton Rouge area continues to be the home of some of
the theory's fiercest defenders. Local doctor Stephanie Cave's success in
treating autistic children is probably the reason.
Her clinic cares for more than 1,000 autistic children. Parents swear by her
treatment plan, which removes toxic metals from her patients and balances their
body chemistry.
Smith and Reynolds credit Cave's treatment regimen for their sons' recovery.
Cave has written a book that lays out some of the possible connections
between childhood immunizations and increased rates of autism, asthma, diabetes
and learning disabilities. In What Your Doctor May Not Be Telling You About
Children's Vaccinations, Cave attempts to answer parents' questions about
vaccine safety and immunization schedules. The book also spells out steps
families can take to ensure their children's safety.
Cave and others say the rise in autism coincided with an increase in the
number of required childhood vaccines. The recommended childhood immunizations
tripled in the 1980s and '90s. Many of the vaccines contained high levels of
mercury.
The premise's backers believe it's no coincidence that behaviors common
among autistic children closely resemble the symptoms of mercury poisoning.
The theory goes something like this:
Until recently, many childhood vaccines contained thimerosal, a preservative
that's 50 percent mercury. Mercury is highly toxic. An infant less than 4-6
months old can't get rid of it. The poison builds up in his body, unleashing a
host of complications.
Mercury lodges in, and damages, the exact areas of the brain affected by
autism: the cerebellum, amygdala and hippocampus. These areas affect
coordination, emotions and memory.
Mercury also alters a child's immune and digestive systems. In these
children's damaged bodies, something as simple as an ice cream cone or a bowl
of spaghetti can produce the same effect another person would get by injecting
morphine.
Some researchers also believe that injecting the measles-mumps-rubella
vaccine into a child with a weakened immune system causes more digestive
problems, and may even trigger autism.
An alternative, scientifically proven view
Health care's heaviest hitters -- the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Medicine, the
Food and Drug Administration, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American
Academy of Family Physicians, and pharmaceutical manufacturers -- disagree.
All say the same thing: Vaccines are safe.
And public health agencies continue to support this view.
Last month, the Institute of Medicine's Immunization Safety Review Committee
concluded that the current evidence neither proves nor disproves a link between
thimerosal and autism spectrum disorder.
However, the committee also concluded that the hypothesis that mercury in
vaccines may be related to autism is "biologically plausible." And
the committee recommended the use of thimerosal-free DTaP, hepatitis B and Hib
vaccines, despite the fact that supplies of thimerosal-containing vaccines are
still available.
Backers of the vaccine-autism link see this as a crack in the bureaucratic
dam. They say the vaccine committee report strengthens their position.
But Committee chair Dr. Marie McCormick said the recommendation follows an
established public health policy to reduce cumulative mercury exposures.
There is no proof that the thimerosal in vaccines is dangerous, McCormick
said. If thimerosal-free vaccines are not available, thimerosal-containing
vaccines should be used.
The idea that thimerosal may be linked to autism is "very, very
hypothetical" at best, and some basic assumptions of the theory appear
flawed, McCormick said.
The vaccine-autism model assumes that an infant doesn't metabolize any
mercury for six months, McCormick said. "That's hard to believe."
One of the standard texts in neonatology states that bile secretion, which
helps metabolize most mercury, begins at 12 weeks of gestation.
Information presented to the committee also runs counter to the idea that
babies' bodies can't shed mercury, she said. Preliminary data from the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases indicates that 2-month-olds
promptly eliminate mercury after immunization.
McCormick is chair of the Department of Maternal and Child Health in Harvard
School of Public Health. She and many other health officials worry about what
will happen if parents grow too frightened to vaccinate their children.
The threat posed by diseases remains very real, McCormick said, as do the
consequences of ignoring immunization recommendations. People will become ill
and some will die if they are not vaccinated.
Public health officials also discount the jump in the numbers of children
with autistic spectrum disorder and more vaccines.
The diagnosis for autism has changed drastically during the last 30 years,
McCormick said. Federal laws have made educating children with special needs
more important.
People are much better informed today about disabilities, and they do a
better job of identifying children with autism spectrum disorder.
The idea that autism is increasing because of better diagnoses strikes Cave
as ridiculous and possibly disingenuous.
"If you had a child that was developing normally for 15-18 months who
lost eye contact, speech and started mutilating himself, who wouldn't sleep,
wouldn't eat and had chronic diarrhea, do you think the child would go
undiagnosed?"
My son is not an anecdote
The issue is pitting parents against pediatricians. Part of the problem is
the way scientists present their findings. The language is as precise as
possible, spelling out in detail what is known and not known.
Guessing isn't a widely admired technique in the research community.
Scientists don't base their reputations, their very credibility, not to mention
their funding, on word of mouth, on unproved anecdotal evidence (even if the
number of these anecdotes/autistic children has doubled or tripled in the last
decade and anecdotes are piling up at record pace). Dozens and dozens of
factors must be considered, tested, and accounted for, and other researchers
must be able to reproduce these results.
But a mother who divides her day by therapies -- speech, physical,
occupational, behavior modification, and all the time she puts into repeating
those lessons on her own -- a mother who may have slept only two or three hours
a night for the last two years because that's all her baby sleeps, a mother
whose child shrieks if his bare feet touch sand because he can't stand the
texture, a mother who has seen the "Hokey Pokey," "Old
MacDonald," "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and finally even her name,
Mama, all the milestones that marked her child's growth, every memory she holds
dear wiped away, evaporated, just gone, this woman doesn't want her experience,
her child's disability (which she more than likely believes was preventable),
casually dismissed by a researcher as an anecdote. A tale told by idiots. A
sound and fury signifying nothing.
"What's worst is when they sit there and try to pacify you and say,
'I'm really, really sorry for what happened to you, but vaccines don't cause
autism,'" Smith said. "Don't patronize me. Don't tell me that I'm
crazy. É I sat there and watched my kid slip away right underneath me."
Some things never leave you
Smith and Reynolds say will never get over the damage they believe vaccines
did to their sons.
Reminders of what her son has lost surface from time to time, Smith said.
The ball game Jacob can't attend because it's too much stimulation. Missing the
family get-together at Christmas for the same reason.
Maybe Jacob's twin Jesse came home excited about the new sports team he's
going to join, other kids in his class and their birthday parties.
"You think, 'Gosh, I wonder if Jacob even really has someone that's his
best friend,'" Smith said. "I wonder if they're picking on him at
recess, or do they make fun of him?"
You learn to cope, she said, because there's no other choice.
So the women channel their anger and their energy into Unlocking Autism, a
national nonprofit they started to raise awareness about autism.
The duo has gathered nearly 6,000 pictures of autistic children. Ultimately,
they hope to round up 58,000 portraits, the equivalent of one-tenth of the
United States' autistic residents.
Reynolds said they hope more publicity about autism will translate into more
research dollars and more favorable laws.
Still, Smith and Reynolds consider themselves lucky.
Jacob began making eye contact and speaking in three-word sentences just
days after Cave began treating him. Jacob is now in the first grade and doing
pretty well. He eats lunch in the cafeteria with all the other kids. He goes to
P.E. and music classes. He wants to be a zookeeper.
Liam is in a class for autistic children. He is a little behind his
classmates in speech skills. But Liam talks and asks questions. It's hard to
pick him out of a crowd. And the milestones are again piling up.
A few weeks ago, Liam and his mom went to the Mall of Louisiana to watch the
circus. Liam asked for permission to sit up front, with all the other kids.
When a clown asked audience members who wanted to come out and dance in the
center of the ring, Liam volunteered.
And then Liam did something Shelley hadn't seen in four years: the Hokey
Pokey.
That's what it's all about.
ALL
INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR
GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE
KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED
AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO
VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU
ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.