MMR & Bowel Inflammation & Autis

[Guest guest]

MMR & Bowel Inflammation & Autism

This is a very complicated subject to cover as there has been so much

since the early 1990's when the ideas started to develop.................

I will try to put this in a linear way.

A. The first inkling that MMR may be associated with inflammatory

bowel disease - Crohns, etc.

B. That many autistic children now have inflammatory bowel disease

C. MMR may be implicated as a cause of autism in children also with

inflammatory bowel disease

Wakefield has been in the crosshairs here, especially since

1998, and it has gotten very complicated.

Wakefield is a well respected gastroenterologist who has

become the victim of harrassment and persecutation. When all this

started he was at The Royal Free Hospital in the UK

There is research done by him and his colleagues showing possible

links, but nothing definitive. And there have been all sorts coming

out and using epidemiological studies (using numbers and population)

to 'prove' that MMR is not related to inflammatory bowel disease and

autism. And then there have been the rebuttals showing that those

epidemiological studies prove nothing - you can prove anything you

want with those type of studies. What is needed is indepth

examination of children and adults with inflammatory bowel disease

(and/or autism) - physical examination, laboratory examination, true

research, looking for honest answers. There have been many drug

company funded studies showing no link.

I will try to summarize this all here, but it is a monumental task.

Some of the progression of this is shown on my mmr webpages

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/mmr.htm

starting with further down the page and working up (earliest to latest)

There has been much back and forth and it continues today.

I will share research papers, Dr. Wakefield's website with info and

all info up until to day.

There will be a lot of information

There are a lot of questions, as you know, surrounding autism and its

cause(s). Mercury is one idea, drugs during pregnancy and labor are

others, amalgams in teeth, MMR vaccine and other environmental

toxins, as well as susceptibility of certain children in certain

families with auto-immune history.

Here I will present the possible connections of MMR to autism and why.

Is the problem with MMR and not measles vaccine itself alone - is it

the combination of 3 live vaccines or something else? Is it what

tips the scales after an infant has received mercury-laden

vaccines? We just don't know.

Sheri

Summary of some of the issues with MMR since the early days through

the MMR/Inflammatory Bowel/Austism issue

http://www.909shot.com/Diseases/mmr.htm

excerpt

MMR VACCINE

The most frequent reactions reported to occur following MMR vaccine

include brief burning and stinging at the injection site; fatigue,

sore throat, cough, runny nose, headache, dizziness, fever, rash,

nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, and sore lymph glands. Other reported

reactions include anaphylaxis, convulsions, encephalopathy, otitis

media, conjunctivitis, nerve deafness, thrombocytopenia purpura,

optic neuritis, retinitis, arthritis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, and

subacute sclerosing panencephalitis.

In 1981, the British National Childhood Encephalopathy Study

concluded that there was a statistically significant association

between measles vaccination and the onset of a serious neurological

disorder within 14 days of receiving measles vaccine. The risk for

previously normal children was estimated to be 1 in 87,000 measles

vaccinations.

In 1991, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is compelling

scientific evidence that the rubella vaccine portion of the MMR shot

can cause acute arthritis, with the highest incidence occurring in

adult women who receive rubella vaccine (up to 15 percent) and that

some individuals go on to develop chronic arthritis. Because either

no studies or too few scientific studies have ever been conducted to

investigate rubella vaccine reactions, a determination could not be

made as to whether rubella vaccine causes other serious health

problems which have been reported following rubella vaccination

including thrombocytopenia purpura, radiculoneuritis (spinal nerve

pain) or other neuropathies such as carpal tunnel syndrome.

In 1994, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is compelling

scientific evidence that the measles vaccine can cause anaphylaxis

that can end in death and that the MMR vaccine can cause

thrombocytopenia (a decrease in the number of platelets, the cells

involved in blood clotting) that can end in death. The incidence of

thrombocytopenia was estimated to be 1 case per 30,000 to 40,000

vaccinated children. The IOM also concluded that the measles vaccine

portion of the MMR vaccine can cause vaccine-strain measles virus

infection that can end in death.

Because either no studies or too few studies have ever been conducted

to investigate MMR vaccine reactions, a determination could not be

made as to whether measles or mumps vaccine causes encephalitis or

encephalopathy (brain disease); sensorineural deafness, or insulin

dependent diabetes mellitus; whether the mumps vaccine causes aseptic

meningitis, orchitis (inflammation of the testis) or sterility; or

whether the measles vaccine causes subacute sclerosing

panencephalitis, residual seizure disorders, optic neuritis,

transverse myelitis, or Guillain-Barre syndrome.

In 1995, a British study concluded that adults who were vaccinated

with measles vaccine as children were at much higher risk of

developing inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn's disease and

ulcerative colitis, as adults. Several researchers are looking into

the possible link between inflammatory bowel disease and measles

vaccine as well as other vaccines.

The vaccine manufacturer's product insert for MMR vaccine states " It

is also not known whether [the vaccine] can cause fetal harm when

administered to pregnant women or can affect reproduction capacity "

and " it is not known whether measles or mumps vaccine virus is

secreted in human milk. Recent studies have shown that lactating

postpartum women immunized with live attenuated rubella vaccine may

secrete the virus in breast milk and transmit it to breast-fed infants. "

An MMR vaccine manufacturer states that in a study of 279 children 11

months to 7 years of age, MMR vaccine was shown to be 95 to 99

percent effective. Protection is estimated to persist for up to 11

years. In a measles outbreak in the U.S. in the late 1980's and early

1990's, it was found that there were a significant number of vaccine

failures in older children, teenagers and adults, when the disease

can be more severe. The government proceeded to recommend that a

second MMR shot be given to boost immunity either before entrance to

kindergarten or before entrance to junior high school.

In the national outbreak of measles during the late 1980's and early

1990's, it also became apparent that children who had been vaccinated

before 15 months of age were also at risk for vaccine failure,

especially if their mothers had recovered naturally from measles

disease as children. An MMR vaccine manufacturer states " Infants who

are less than 15 months of age may fail to respond to the measles

component of the vaccine due to presence in the circulation of

residual measles antibody of maternal origin, the younger the infant,

the lower the likelihood of seroconversion. " The manufacturer goes on

to advise that infants vaccinated at less than 12 months of age will

have to be revaccinated after 15 months of age even though " there is

some evidence to suggest that infants immunized at less than one year

of age may not develop sustained antibody levels when later immunized. "

The measles outbreaks in the late 1980's and early 1990's in the U.S.

also demonstrated that babies, whose young vaccinated mothers had

never naturally recovered from measles infection as children, were

vulnerable to measles infection from birth. The young vaccinated

mothers did not have natural maternal antibodies to transfer to their

newborns to protect them from measles in the first year of life. In

the 1989-91 measles outbreak in the U.S., the largest increase in

measles cases was in infants under one year old.

In 1995, there were 309 cases of measles reported in the U.S. Out of

219 cases where vaccination status was known, 123 (56 percent) had

been vaccinated with at least one dose. Of 285 measles cases where

age was known, 38 percent were under 5 years old and 39% were more

than 20 years old.

In the mid-1990's, reports of an association between autism and

vaccination (specifically suggesting a possible link with MMR

vaccine) were published. Although the U.S. Institute of Medicine

(IOM) acknowledged the hypothesis was biologically plausible, IOM

concluded there was not enough evidence establishing a causal

relationship. Nevertheless, in light of persistent reports by parents

that their children are regressing into autism after MMR vaccination,

there is an on-going scientific investigation by independent

scientific researchers, such as British gastroenterologist

Wakefield, M.D., into clinical and laboratory evidence that MMR

vaccination may cause autism in biologically vulnerable children.

**********

http://www.909shot.com/Diseases/autismsp.htm

excerpt

Measles, MMR, The Gut and Autism

Considering the mounting scientific evidence that viral and

bacterial infections and the vaccines used to prevent them are

capable of producing a wide range of immune and neurological

dysfunction, it is somewhat strange from a scientific (although not a

political) standpoint that a young British gastroenterologist would

have been subjected to personal attacks by the medical community when

he and 13 colleagues at Royal Free Hospital in London presented

evidence in 1998 (The Lancet, Feb. 27, http://www.thelancet.com )

that measles infection and measles vaccine may be linked to the

development of inflammatory bowel disease and autism in previously

healthy, normally developing children.

Wakefield, M.D. and his team had inadvertently stumbled

upon the connection while studying Crohn's disease and other

inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in children. The mother of one of

Wakefield's young patients, Rosemary Kessick, urged him to look for

the biological mechanism for simultaneous development of IBD and

autistic behavior in previously normal children. The Wakefield report

reviewed the medical factors common to eight out of 12 previously

normal children who simultaneously developed severe intestinal

disorders and autistic behaviors. Previously, five of those eight

children had reacted adversely to vaccinations. All reported onset of

symptoms of IBD and autism after MMR vaccination.

In their discussion of the interaction between the immune, nervous

and gastrointestinal systems of the body, Wakefield and his

associates remarked that Asperger in 1961 had observed that there was

a high rate of gastrointestinal (celiac) disease in those suffering

with autism. (In 1944, Asperger had identified a subgroup of high

functioning " borderline " autistics.) The authors hypothesized that

persistent viral infection, either from natural disease or live virus

vaccines, can cause chronic inflammation of the bowel and damage to

the central nervous system development in some children.

They pointed to the " opioid excess " theory of autism, first

suggested by Panksepp in 1979 and then by Shattock (1991) and

Reichelt (1993) that autistic disorders result from the incomplete

breakdown and excessive absorption of gut-derived peptides from

foods, including barley, rye, oats and casein from milk and dairy

products leading to disruption of normal brain functioning and

development. As these gut-derived peptides get into the blood and

cross the blood brain barrier, where they are not supposed to be,

they negatively affect the ability of the body to maintain

appropriate endorphin, serotonin and dopamine levels in the brain.

Science Meets Politics

The study authors emphasized that they had not proved a cause and

effect relationship and simply called for more studies to explore the

hypothesis. Their report was immediately met with charges by CDC

officials that " vaccine safety concerns such as that reported by

Wakefield and colleagues may snowball " when the public and the media

" confuse association with causality and shun immunization. " A Reuters

newswire story quoted Neal Halsey, M.D., of 's Hopkins and chair

of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious

Diseases, as saying it was " highly inappropriate " for Wakefield and

his colleagues to discuss a possible connection between the

children's health problems and measles or MMR vaccines. British

government health officials were also displeased and, in 1999,

published a small retrospective cases series analysis ( et al,

The Lancet) that they said proved MMR vaccine is not associated with

regressive autism but British and U.S. parent groups and independent

physicians have criticized the study as methodologically flawed.

(http://www.909shot/autismto.htm)

Digging In and Speaking Out

However, Wakefield and his associates have pressed on, continuing

research into several hundred cases of normal children who suddenly

develop gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression. At the

First International Public Conference on Vaccination sponsored by the

National Vaccine Information Center in September, 1997, Wakefield

spoke about his concerns that most of the original studies in the

1960's and 1970's evaluating the safety of live measles and MMR

vaccines only included a three week follow-up.

And at the Second International Autism Conference sponsored by

Allergy in Autism (AIA) in London in March, 1999, Wakefield commented

that children with a pre-existing immune abnormality may be

predisposed to sequestering the measles virus in the gut and the MMR

vaccine prompts them to develop autoimmunity leading to immune

mediated CNS damage. One of the most compelling regressive autism

cases he had recently reviewed in his practice was reminiscent of the

days when autism was thought to be " early-onset " schizophrenia: it

was that of a normal, healthy 14 year old boy who got an MMR shot

and, within one week, developed bizarre behavior that was diagnosed

as schizophrenia.