Vaccine-Autism Link Comes Under Public Scanner Once Again

Hannah Polling developed symptoms of autism in 2000 just after she was administered nine routine childhood vaccines, which were given in July 2000 under a program for children with disabilities where she participated as a peer.

Hannah's mother Terry Polling said that less than 2 days after receiving these vaccines, Hannah began behaving abnormally and shunned food and had bouts of screaming and fever. Hannah's condition deteriorated and she began to exhibit all symptoms of autism including staring at lights and fans.

In 2002, Hannah's parents filed a suit in vaccine court alleging that vaccines containing mercury had played a pivotal role in causing autism in their daughter. Hannah's father Dr Jon Poling is a neurologist in private practice in Baltimore. He gave up his position at Johns Hopkins University to spend more time with his family.

Cliff Shoemaker, the Pollings' attorney said Hannah's case was being considered as a test case last year, but then the federal government conceded that vaccines may have exacerbated Hannah's symptoms and turned them into full-fledged autism.

"What we are all in favor of is safe vaccines," Shoemaker said. “If there is any question or doubt, then it should not be there."

Autism is a complex developmental disorder that severely impairs a child's ability to communicate and interact with other people. Although the precise cause of autism is unclear, a plethora of theories have been suggested.

Many studies have said that mercury used in vaccines may be the cause of autism. Thimerosal is a preservative in vaccines that contains 49 percent ethyl mercury. Mercury is a known neurotoxin or in other words is a chemical that causes untold harm to the brain, especially a child's developing brain.

Scientists thought that autism might be one such toxic manifestation of mercury in vaccines. In 2002, thimerosal was phased out of childhood immunizations mainly because the Public Health Service and the American Academy of Pediatrics advocated it.

Autism-vaccine links emerged in the late 1990s when the State of California released a report suggesting a 273 percent increase in the number of persons with autism between 1987 and 1998.

In 2004, the Institute of Medicine examined data on links between vaccines containing mercury and the incidence of autism and found no evidence linking thimerosal to autism. The Institute of Medicine's panel based its conclusions on five large studies conducted in United States, Denmark, Sweden and Britain in 2001. These studies examined thousands of children, but failed to find any link between autism and thimerosal.

The IOM report said it was an undisputed fact that high doses of mercury did cause substantial neurological damage. However no symptoms resembled that of autism, the report suggested. It added that genetics was the main causative factor as many studies had noted that autism started prenatally.

A review by the Environmental Working Group suggested that autistic children had a biomarker that rendered them susceptible to mercury and heightened their risk of developing the neurological disorder. The report cited a study by Dr. Jill James of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, which found that children with regressive autism had high levels of oxidative stress, which made it hard for their bodies to get rid of mercury.

The study cited the following factors as well (as available on www.ewg.com)
* The indisputable toxicity of mercury to the brain, particularly the developing brain (Limke 2004, Clarkson 2002, Mahaffey 1999).
* Peer-reviewed reports showing that autistic children are extremely poor at ridding their bodies of mercury as measured by mercury hair levels (Holmes 2003).
* The recent finding that autism-like symptoms are triggered by thimerosal in mice with a predisposition to autoimmunity (Hornig 2004).
* The fact that the prevalence of autism in boys is four times that in girls, and that boys have elevated incidence of damage from mercury exposure in epidemiologic studies (Vahter 2002).

The study said that it did not find a credible link between mercury in vaccines and autism, but there was sufficient evident to suggest mercury played some role.

This theory was reinforced by a study in 2006 which showed that autism cases declined when mercury was banned from vaccines. Using data from CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS), lead authors David A. Geier, B.A. and Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D found that autism rates hit a high of 800 in May 2003, but dropped to 620 in 2006.

The authors suggested that the 22 percent decline in autism cases was mainly due to the restriction of mercury in vaccines.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in every 150 children has autism and that 560,000 people aged till 21 in the United States have autism.

Experts have tried to dispute the vaccine-autism link by suggesting that children are naturally distressed by shots and that this is the age when autism is first diagnosed leading parents to believe that the vaccines cause it.

Therefore experts like Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said that there is still no evidence of vaccines causing autism. "This does not represent anything other than a very specific situation and a very sad situation as far as the family of the affected child," she told reporters.

Nevertheless the sad case of Hannah Polling does give a pointer to the fact that mercury-laced vaccines may trigger autism if not cause the condition.

1. 08-03-2008 02:37

American Journal of Biochemistry and Biotechnology 4 (2): 208-217, 2008
ISSN 1553-3468
© 2008 Science Publications
Evidence of Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Autism and Implications for Treatment
Daniel A. Rossignol, J. Jeffrey Bradstreet
International Child Development Resource Center
Abstract: Classical mitochondrial diseases occur in a subset of individuals with autism and are usually caused by genetic anomalies or mitochondrial respiratory pathway deficits. However, in many cases of autism, there is evidence of mitochondrial dysfunction without the classic features associated with mitochondrial disease. ..appears to be more common in autism and presents with less severe signs and symptoms. It is not associated with discernable mitochondrial pathology in muscle biopsy specimens despite objective evidence of lowered mitochondrial functioning. Exposure to environmental toxins is the likely etiology in autism....However, within a significant subset of ASD, studies reveal evidence of mitochondrial dysfunction (MtD) without the classic features associated with mitochondrial disease[9, 16, 19, 20].

Dr. Julie Gerberding,… your slip is showing.

2. 10-03-2008 22:44

To those who insist that vaccines have not, are not and will no be linked in any way to ASD. That hundreds upon hundreds of stories about children regressing into autism, or developing other autoinmune disorders shortly after a round of vaccination are just the product of fertile imaginations. That thimerosal was taken out of the vaccines in 2001. That the CDC, AAP and FDA have no other interest than the health of our kids. That they are and always will be transparent. That they are not financially supported by vaccine makers. That they have no ties whatsoever with the pharmaceutical industry. That every study ever published discrediting the link between thimerosal or the MMR jab with autism has been unbiased, not manipulated, flawless, definitive, and that the researchers and authors of these studies never had or have any special interests, never received any funding or had any link with the CDC or pharmaceutical companies, and that they were never related in any way shape or form with the pharmaceutical industry.
To those who think that the media is fair and balanced in reporting both sides of the story. That they do their homework before they report anything, and that they do not respond to any special interests. That every parent who tries to do “unproven” alternative therapies is an irresponsible whacko even if the kids get better, and If they do so is because that is just the natural progression of their autism, or the alternative. that they were never in the spectrum in the first place. That every parent should only try ST, OT or ABA with their kids as if these therapies were free, affordable, or even accesible to everyone.
I cannot force everyone to be objective and really do their homework, as I’m sure I don’t have the time to do it for them.
As Kim Staglano puts it “you cannot expect 100% of the vaccines to be 100% safe, 100% of the time to 100% of the children” Yet the CDC thinks so.
My son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS last a year ago, and he is the only peer reviewed double blind placebo controlled study that I need.
No developmental pediatrician, neurologist, psychologist or therapists have been able to explain to me why his metabolism is so messed up, or why he suffers frequent episodes of unexplained diarrhea, or why he has yeast and atypical bacteria overgrowth in his GI tract, or why he suffers from colitis, or why he is proven mercury and lead toxic. Furthermore, they have not been able to explain why so many kids in the spectrum have similar clinical problems as my son does, or why my son’s behaviors and symptoms have markedly improved with “voodoo” therapies, and treating his clinical issues.
If thimerosal was removed in 2001, then why in feb. 2007 we found thimerosal in 3 out of 4 vaccines that my then 4 months old daughter was going to receive just to have her ears pierced (I still have the vaccine inserts, and by the way this happened in Houston, TX and not in Uganda or wherever).
I read somewhere that you “don’t need a study to know that sh.. stinks”, I guess if enough people can agree on that, then thousands of anecdotal stories cannot or should not be ignored and considered worthless.
Also, I don’t want to say that the CDC or the AAP are corrupted and are profoundly interested in protecting their contributors and sources of funding (If I’m just making this up, just go their web pages and find out for yourselves), yet no one who has in all honesty reviewed the famous Denmark studies (form the statistical flaws to the researchers involved, as well as to the funding sources and vested interests), or the manipulation given to the original Verstraten data presented at Simpsonwood could in their right mind say that institutions like the above mentioned are transparent, and that they only have our children best interests in mind. The IOM, and the FDA are also just eating from the same plate.
The ignorance, or better said, lack of information that the mainstream medical community has is due in large part to their trust of the official federal institutions mentioned. Your son/daughter's pediatrician cannot be directly blamed for not knowing, but for not researching.
A study is published today (reputable or not)that allegedly destroys the thimerosal or MMR theories as causes of autism, and for the next three weeks you will find it on the web, in newspapers, television news, radio, magazines, and every form of media ever created. If such study (reputable or not) supported the idea that thimerosal or the MMR is related to autism causation you will be lucky if you get to read about it in the classifieds section of a God forsaken newspaper.
The scientific evidence that supports a connection is vast. For starters it is universally known that if I was mass murderer I would inject my victims with mercury. It wouldn’t take much to kill them, and only very minimal dosis would cause serious neurological damage. It is toxic and that is just a fact.
Apparently everybody has an agenda, and the parents are left to find answers on their own. Unfortunatelly the answers that thousands of parents have found on their own are against everything that is oficially being fed to the masses. Therefore, we can only swim against the current, and work relentlessly with our kids and to see them improve day in and day out with forbidden therapies and traditional therapies as well. In some cases these kids even recover. And parents do it all on their own.