Regressive autism

Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children.

Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, Linnell J, Casson DM, Malik M, Berelowitz M, Dhillon AP, Thomson MA, Harvey P, Valentine A, Davies SE, Walker-Smith JA.

Lancet 1998 Feb 28;351(9103):637-41

Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group, University Department of Medicine, Royal Free Hospital and School of Medicine, London, UK.

BACKGROUND: We investigated a consecutive series of children with chronic enterocolitis and regressive developmental disorder. METHODS: 12 children (mean age 6 years [range 3-10], 11 boys) were referred to a paediatric gastroenterology unit with a history of normal development followed by loss of acquired skills, including language, together with diarrhoea and abdominal pain. Children underwent gastroenterological, neurological, and developmental assessment and review of developmental records. Ileocolonoscopy and biopsy sampling, magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and lumbar puncture were done under sedation. Barium follow-through radiography was done where possible. Biochemical, haematological, and immunological profiles were examined. FINDINGS: Onset of behavioural symptoms was associated, by the parents, with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in eight of the 12 children, with measles infection in one child, and otitis media in another. All 12 children had intestinal abnormalities, ranging from lymphoid nodular hyperplasia to aphthoid ulceration. Histology showed patchy chronic inflammation in the colon in 11 children and reactive ileal lymphoid hyperplasia in seven, but no granulomas. Behavioural disorders included autism (nine), disintegrative psychosis (one), and possible postviral or vaccinal encephalitis (two). There were no focal neurological abnormalities and MRI and EEG tests were normal. Abnormal laboratory results were significantly raised urinary methylmalonic acid compared with age-matched controls (p=0.003), low haemoglobin in four children, and a low serum IgA in four children. INTERPRETATION: We identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group of previously normal children, which was generally associated in time with possible environmental triggers.

Autism, MMR and 60 Minutes: Another Pediatrician’s Perspective  

Thousands of parents believe that the MMR vaccine has contributed to their children’s autism.  They have pictures and videos to prove the ‘before ’ and ‘after.’  They speak of the MMR being the only new event in their child’s life in that period between normal development and autistic regression.  They point out their children’s marked immune system dysfunction, something with which they were not born.

These parents certainly did not acquire their conviction from reading about the twelve cases reported in Dr. Wakefield’s first paper.  Nor would they simply be looking for a scapegoat. 

Autism & Vaccines: A New Look At An Old Story .2 - National Vaccine Information Center

After founding the Autism Society of America (ASA) in 1965 and establishing the Autism Research Institute (ARI) in 1967, Rimland began distributing a questionnaire to parents of autistic children. Some 33 years later, his databank includes information on more than 30,000 cases of autism from around the world. In analyzing the data for age of onset of autism, he discovered that before the early 1980’s, most of the parents reported their children first showed signs of abnormal behavior at birth or in the first year of life. But after the mid-1980’s, there was a reversal of this pattern. The numbers of parents reporting that their children developed normally in the first year and a half of life and then, suddenly, became autistic, doubled. Today, said Rimland, “the onset-at-18 months children outnumber the onset-at-birth children by 2 to 1.” (http://www.autism.com/ari).

Testimony to the House Government Reform Committee by Mary Megson, M.D.

The segment of children with "regressive autism," the form where children develop normally for a period of time then lose skills and sink into autism most commonly at 18-24 months of age, is increasing at a phenomenal rate.

Autism ‘linked to mercury vaccine’

The MMR first dose is given between 12 and 15 months, with diphtheria and tetanus and the second dose of MMR at three to five years.  Like tens of thousands of other children, Melissa Wickens, 10, underwent a full course of inoculations. When she was just 14 months, after she had received her MMR jab, her life changed.

From being an alert, normal child, her behaviour became erratic. Typically, when she arrives home from school she throws down her fluffy red school bag and pulls everything out of it. In the kitchen she snatches a box of breakfast cereal and crams flakes into her mouth. Later she smears strawberries over herself and her bedroom upstairs.

She has already broken several television sets and throws chairs around the sitting room and pulls down shelves. Melissa, who was given the MMR vaccine in 1992, has severely regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease.  “On the same day as the MMR she started a high-pitched screaming,” said her mother Marion Wickens, from Brighton. “Over the next few weeks she cried inconsolably, started to bite herself and to pull out her hair, resulting in bald patches on her head.

“She used to have a lovely sparkle in her eyes but they went blank. She couldn’t understand ‘Where’s mummy?’ any more. It no longer registered.” She concluded: “Melissa wasn’t born autistic, she regressed.”