ARNews December 2002 - Happy Holidays!

[Guest guest]

-----Original Message-----From: Holly Bortfeld

If you have missed any back issues, you can read them on our website at www.geocities.com/arnfl/newsletter.html

December 2002

ARNews

Upcoming Events

Autism One Conference, May 2 – 4, 2003, Loyola University ChicagoThe Most Comprehensive Conference on Autism Ever Assembled

Autism One, the most comprehensive conference on autism ever assembled, will be held May 2 – 4, 2003, at Loyola University Chicago. It is a conference for parents and professionals for the care, treatment, and recovery of children with autism. http://AutismOne.org The conference organizers are themselves parents of children with autism. Parents are, and must remain, the driving force of this community. The issues are too sacred and the stakes too high to delegate to outside interests. Meet Officials from the NIH and CDCHigh-ranking officials from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will present, answer questions and explain the government's present and future projects for fighting autism. Meet Dr. Steve Foote from the NIH and Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp from the CDC. Register your concerns and make your voice heard.More than 60 Presentations – The World's Leading Authorities Autism One features many of the world's leading researchers, educators, and practitioners. Featuring over 60 presentations including experts such as Dr. Boyd Haley, Dr. Cave, Dr. Walsh, Binstock, and Dr. Shaw, among others. Learn about the latest treatments to help our children, your rights when dealing with school districts, the best ways to handle insurance companies, how to petition government agencies, along with a host of other pressing issues. In addition, leading parent-advocates and autism organizations will be on hand to present and inform. Questions And Answers Do Not Stop at the Boundary of a Discipline. Autism is a multivariate disease. As parents we know questions and answers do not stop at the boundary of a discipline. Autism One offers four tracks to help parents and professionals make the most informed choices and decisions. The tracks include: 1. Biomedical Treatments2. Behavior / Communication / Education Therapies3. Alternative / Complimentary Medicine 4. Government / Legal / Personal Issues1. Biomedical Treatments (some of the topics by track include) Autoimmune factors / treatmentsBiochemistry of autismCasein- gluten-free dietsChelationDental careDiagnosisEnzymesEssential fatty acidsFood / nutrition / diet / vitamins / minerals / glandular / organic foodsEnvironmental medicine / toxinsIVIG, secretin, chelation, transfer factors, IV glutathioneNeurological testing, findings, treatmentsPhenol sulfur transferase deficiencyOngoing researchUnderstanding food labelsUnderstanding medical test resultsVaccinations2. Behavior / Communication / Education TherapiesApplied Behavior AnalysisAuditory IntegrationComputers as learning toolsGreenspan / Floor timeHome schoolingMusic therapyOccupational TherapyPuberty and beyondSensory IntegrationVerbal TherapyVision TherapyTEACCH3. Complementary / Alternative MedicineAyurveda MedicineChiropracticHomeopathyNaturopathic MedicineNeuro FeedbackNeural organization techniqueOrthomolecular MedicineTraditional Chinese Medicine4. Government / Legal / Personal IssuesAutism the law and youCenters for Disease Control (CDC) findings, funding, and future directionsCounseling - coping and communication for parentsDealing with insurance companiesIndividualized Education ProgramsNational Institutes of Health (NIH) findings, funding, and future directionsObtaining government servicesVaccines the law and youA partial list of speakers Dr. B. , Ph.D. (CME), Dr. Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp, M.D., Margaret Ayers, Binstock, Liz Birt, Cheryl Blackwell, Bruce Boyer, Dr. Brazdziunas, Dr. Buie, M.D, Dr. Cantor, DDS, Jane Casey, Dr. Cave, Dr. Andy Cutler, Dr. Joan Fallon, Dr. Steve Foote, Gallup, Garrett, Georgianne M. Gerber, LCSW, BCD, Dr. Boyd Haley, Dr. Hicks, Higinbotham, Sonja Hintz R.N., B.S.N, Carolyn Keatinge, Lang, Willis Langford, Joe Lillard, Mehl-Madrona, M.D. Ph.D., Jackie Marquette, Marohn, ph Morrow, Ph.D, April Oakes, Owens, Dr. Isaac Pessah, Morana Petrofski, Betsy Prohaska, Tim Ray, Rick Rollens, Amy Rothenberg ND, Adrienne Rousseau, Ravi Roy, Dr. Carola M. Lage-Roy, Dr. André Saine, Mark Schauss, Jeff Sell, Dr. Shaw, Dr. Tinus Smits, Dr. Aristo Vojdani, Dr. Wakefield, Walsh, Ph.D, , Weizman, Dr. Wikoff

Edmund Arranga earranga@... http://AutismOne.org

Autism Awareness Day Rally in Tallahassee Mark your calendars for April 9th, 2003 for Autism Awareness Day at the Florida Capitol. 10am to 2pm. We'll be in the Courtyard for a rally, lunch, and then hopefully, we'll be able to schedule meetings with our legislators to let them hear our concerns. If you have ideas for speakers, or would like to set up a display table for your group, please email Ashe Ocampo at ashley@...

The ARN on TalkAutism.org

Holly Bortfeld of the Autism Recovery Network will be doing a live online chat January 7th, 2003 at 9:00 EST entitled Dietary Interventions: GFCF and Beyond. Go to http://www.talkautism.org/forRon/VS.asp to register. See you there!

Miscellaneous

Here is a list of websites which offer toys, games and other gift items that are appropriate for Developmentally Disabled children.

Adapt Net www.adaptnet-tech.netAuti Toys www.users.skynet.be/autitoys/Come Play With Me www.comeplaytoys.comDragonfly Toys (US) www.dftoys.com Enabling Devices www.enablingdevices.comHoney the Signing Bear www.quietbear.comTFH (US) Limited www.tfhusa.comThe Center for Creative Play www.center4creativeplay.org the Tank Engine www.thomasthetankengine.com

Toys ‘r’ Us www.toysrus.com

S.T.A.R. Group: Social Training for Affective Relationships

ABLE, INC. and THERAPEUTIC INTEGRATION SERVICES, INC. announce the development of a five-week social skills group targeting children ages 4-7, to begin in January of 2003. Social skills training will occur in the community, group member’s homes and in other recreation/leisure settings. If you are interested in participating, please contact ABLE, Inc at or Therapeutic Integration Services at . TIS, Inc. 10911 Bonita Beach Road, Suite 1071 Bonita Springs, FL 34135

The ASA of Broward sells the metal color autism lapel pins for $10 each. Please send inquiries to ASABroward@....

Must Schools Provide Casein and Gluten-free Foods if Parents Request It?by Donna Rosinski A few weeks ago, a mom left a message on my answering machine asking me that question. She had attended our conference on alternative biomedical treatments last fall, and had decided to try the casein and gluten free diet with her child. She felt that her child was responding well, and wanted to make sure that the school was following through. This child was in an early childhood program where lunch was provided for all students. When she requested casein and gluten free food for her child, the school told her that it was not their responsibility to do that, and that if she wanted him to follow a special diet, she would have to pack a lunch for him every day. What I found out, after doing some research, is that what this mom was told was wrong. School districts must provide substitute foods at no extra charge to the family if a child is considered handicapped under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. There are certain conditions that must be met, though. First, the nutrition goals must be written into the IEP, which then allows special education funds to cover the costs. Also, the request must be supported by a statement signed by a licensed physician. This statement must identify the child's handicap and explain why the handicap restricts the child's diet. It also has to specify the major life activity affected by the handicap ( it helps to relate the diet to the educational goals in the IEP). Finally, the statement must specify the food or foods to be omitted from the child's diet, and the other foods that must be substituted. There is a copy of a medical statement form that parents may copy and use in this newsletter. [Note: form is available from the Madison Chapter or ASW] For most families, the hardest part of all of this may be to get their physician to sign the statement. Many doctors are skeptical about the value of dietary changes in treating autism. It may help to point out that you are not asking the physician to sign a statement saying that the casein and gluten free diet cures autism; you are just asking him to verify that your child has food sensitivities. Parents can point to physical changes that come from following the diet, such as the elimination of chronic diarrhea, which then allow the child to be potty-trained. It is recommended that you avoid using the word "allergies," because traditional allergy testing does not show this type of food sensitivity. It will also be helpful if you are able to document behavioral changes. This means charting your child's behaviors both before you started the diet and after. If you can tell your doctor that your child had six tantrums per day before starting the diet and he now only has two, it will be pretty persuasive. The next hardest part will be convincing the school district that they are required to do this. The facts that I have presented here do not seem to be generally known by parents, school personnel, or physicians. In fact, when the mom that I spoke about at the beginning of this story talked to the educators at her child's early childhood program, they laughed at her and dismissed the notion that they were responsible for providing casein and gluten free food choices. But after they called the Department of Public Instruction and checked, they stopped laughing. When you are writing your child's IEP, you can not only ask that casein and gluten free foods be provided, but you can also ask for the child to be taught to make appropriate food choices as part of the nutrition goals. And the law applies to older children as well. If the child participates in the school lunch program and has satisfied the conditions mentioned in the second paragraph of this story, the child must be provided casein and gluten free foods at no additional cost, although, admittedly, it is more difficult to control the food choices of older children. Although this mom persuaded the early childhood program to provide the casein and gluten free food, they then asked her to do the food purchasing (and instructed her not to go to Whole Foods Market!) and asked her to submit the bills for reimbursement. Parents should feel free to refuse such requests. Every school district has food service personnel who are hired to do those things. Since parents of children without disabilities are not required to purchase their children's food, we should not be required to either.

Dental care for individuals with special needs is the answer to a long-standing medical need. By virtue of their special needs, many children cannot receive traditional dental services. Dentists with specialized training are needed to care for these children. http://www.scgrotto.com/index.htm

In 1970 the Humanitarian Foundation, Grottoes of North America, started on a path to help special needs children with their dental treatment. Dental Care for Children with Special Needs Program began a unique partnership with qualified dentists throughout the United States and Canada. The program was designed to help these children with the best dental care possible. Since its inception, children have been treated at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, in Chicago, IL, Medical College of Ohio, in Toledo, OH and Children's Medical Center in Dallas, as National Treatment Centers. Through the extension program, a child can be treated in his/her community by a local dentist and/or hospital. The Parents select the dentist of their choice and our program works directly with the dental office to process the claim and issue payment.

The services are rendered free of charge to any child under the age of 18 without regard to faith, race, creed or color. Each child is sponsored by a local Grotto. The program covers children afflicted with the following:

Cerebral Palsy

Muscular Dystrophy

Dental Treatment for Organ Transplant Children

Mentally Challenged *(*Mentally challenged covers from profound to two years, overall, developmentally delayed)

Our program is always the secondary carrier when insurance is involved and does not cover those children under Medicaid/Medical Card. It also does not cover any type of orthodontic or re-constructive jaw surgeries. With the exception of the initial visit, all treatment must be pre-authorized.

If you have or know of a child that needs our help, or if you have questions about our program, please email your inquiry to the Humanitarian Foundation office. Please send your name and address, so we can connect you with the Grotto Representative in your area. Send your email to: Humanitarian Foundation The Grotto Representative will be notified, he will contact you and will supply you with a parent form and a dental form to be completed by you and the Dentist for pre-authorization of the needed treatment.

ATC Learning now publishes The Sensible Pencil, a handwriting program that is used by schools and a few parents. It has been referenced in several publications as a valuable handwriting resource for children diagnosed with Autism and Down Syndrome. For more information, a 24-page Sensible Pencil sampler file is available on our Web site. www.atclearning.com

We are Nicola Quilliam and Michele Shapter, two moms of kids with autism who have benefited from following the gluten and casein free diet, in conjunction with other therapies such as ABA. We have recently published a cookbook called A Piece of the Puzzle - A Gluten and Dairy Free Cookbook. This book has many recipes for all meals, all done with pictures (line drawing style, much like the Boardmaker symbols). There are lots of references for different therapies and sources of information contained in the book, mainly for eastern Canada. We hope to do a couple more cookbooks in the future, each targeting different areas. This book was produced for two main reasons: the first to raise autism awareness, and the second to raise funds for autism resource supports. If you are interested in purchasing this book, we would be happy to hear from you. It is $22.95 CAD or $20 USD plus shipping (estimated at $5 Canadian) and tax at 7% (in Canada). quillsha@...

There is a great magazine that I wanted to share with you all. I have been subscribing to it for a few years and it's a really good quality journal. They have a website at http://www.latitudes.org/ with disscussion boards and an e-newsletter too. They are always hurting for money so donations are gladly accepted. They do autism, seizures, tics, tourettes, ADD/ADHD and other learning disabilities and they cover everything from vaccines and medications to biofeedback and homeopathy and they always have the latest research and interviews with some biggies in the field.

Click here: Social Security Online - Benefit Eligibility Screening Tool (BEST) http://best.ssa.gov/

Florida News

To follow is the synopsis of what's going on with medwaiver for the near future (from Dickerson, head of DS at the December 7th FCC District 7 seminar)...

**Between now and June 2002 1542 waiting list kids will go on the waiver (that includes emergency kids and is a statewide number)

**DS is asking the legislature for $70 million to fund 3,000 (1/3 of the 10,000 kid waiting list) kids starting in July 2003. they are only asking, not guaranteed that they'll get it.

**In July 2003, the system redesign will begin and will mean those on medwaiver will get some more flexibility than they have now.

**Those on CDC will continue on their cost plans until they end.

**the uniform rate structure will be decided upon by the end of December 2002 so that providers will be paid the same statewide. No new providers will be accepted until these rates are set.

**we will have direct provider billing under the new system redesign

**the FSTS (Florida status tracking survey) will be replaced by a new assessment tool that will be conducted by your medwaiver support coordinator.

**Children prior to age 3 will be able to apply for DS though they will not officially hit the waiting list until their 3rd birthday but that means less of a delay to become a client when the time comes.

**If you move from one district in the state to another, you can take your cost plan with you by having your district's head coordinator email the new district's head coordinator to let them know you are coming.

Now the bad news. for those on the waiting list, it may be many years before you get on. many many years at this rate. Parents are going to have to do one of three things. Get to tallahassee in record numbers and bombard the legislators and demand they FULLY fund this program, sue the state again to force that they do their job like they promised, or do nothing and get nothing.

Legislative Report

Goldstein

December, 2002

It’s the old “good news and bad news” cliché this issue. The good news is that there are many fresh new faces in the legislature due to reapportionment and term limits. Hopefully, that means new legislators taking office that are eager to learn, unbiased, and willing to give our issues fair and favorable consideration. In addition, Governor Bush has kept his promises and continues to make developmental services a priority, striving to complete the redesign of the service delivery system, offering more consumer control, and slowly chipping away at the waiting list for the Medicaid Waiver.

The bad news is that there is still a waiting list of 10,000 people and the Department of Children and Families continues to wallow in turmoil. New deficits, in addition to those carried over from last year totaling over $16 million, overworked staff and under funded budgets continue to prevail. A rapidly increasing autism population and a steady stream of program providers facing financial failure compound these problems. While it remains unclear how and why the deficit continues to climb in epic proportion, the troubling measures recommended by the Deputy Secretary to DCF administrators instructing them to eliminate that deficit and manage those budgets, may ultimately prove harmful and dangerous to our children and families!

Lucy Hadi, Deputy Secretary of DCF writes in a 12/3/02 memo to District Administrators:

‘It is imperative that you and your Developmental Disabilities Program adhere to the following strategies in order to ensure your district remains within budget allocations and service expectations:” She provides 8 ‘strategies’ including, “Implement denial, reductions or terminations of services…”, “…re-negotiate rates as needed…If current providers will not accept a re-negotiated rate, the district will need to recruit new providers that will provide services in accordance with these district rates.”, and here is the clincher, “Serve the individuals in your district from the waiting list according to the schedule identified in the attached chart.”

I have never seen a situation more appropriately defined as ‘robbing to pay .’

Sadly, these suggestions come after many families that have waited for years and years, have just begun to receive services. Since 9/11, corporations have had scores of claims and tremendous portfolio losses. There has been a 30-40% increase in insurance costs, malpractice insurance among health care professionals is exorbitant and workmen’s compensation policies have had 35-50% premium increases, that’s if they will even provide a quote. This does not bode well for providers or DD consumers in 2003-2004.

Implementing denials, terminating services and cutting rates, as Deputy Hadi suggests, will not only create additional burdens for families, forcing them to appeal and plead for services, it will compromise quality, and very likely put a few of the remaining providers out of business. The health and safety of our children and adults with developmental disabilities should be our first priority and in no way should it be jeopardized by inadequate rates and fractional services.

A little more bad news, Florida voters passed the mandatory preschool and the classroom cap that will require an enormous investment of funds. Additionally, the general economy and stock market has left many people with considerable losses. This has significantly reduced donations to charitable organizations and eliminated entirely many contributions from annual foundation grants.

Make no mistake; this is going to be a very, very difficult year for the state budget and funding of programs in both the health and human services and the education areas. Your presence, correspondence and voices will be needed in Tallahassee more now than ever before!!

Make your voice heard!!! Contact DCF Secretary Regier and share your individual situations and concerns.

Phone: Email: Jerry.Regier@...

Call or e-mail Lucy Hadi to express your concerns regarding the impact her directives will have on your children and family! Phone: Email: lucy_hadi@....

Call Senator Geller and thank him for sponsoring the Autism Insurance Bill again this year.

R.A.C.E. -- Reaching Autistic Children Early Our Mission: To help provide Instructional Strategies and Support for Parents and Professionals / Our Focus: To emphasize early diagnosis, early intervention, and encourage parental involvement. Meeting times: Every 4th Thursday of the Month 6 - 8 p.m. *Exceptions: November 2002 & March 2003 - Moved up one week due to holidays Place: Central Florida Speech and Hearing Center/ACE Charter School 710 E. Bella Vista - Lakeland, Florida For More Information: le Hailey - ESE Teacher Polk County Schools Phone: 816-0410 Email: dhailey16@... Karla Dickson - Parent of child with autism Phone: 859-1477 ext. 328 Email: karlajoy@...

New Florida State Code for vaccination policies for the 2002 Florida Statutes (see the newly added 6a and .

See our website at www.geocities.com/arnfl.vaccines.html for the full code.

1003.22 School-entry health examinations; immunization against communicable diseases; exemptions; duties of Department of Health.-- (5) The provisions of this section shall not apply if: (a) The parent of the child objects in writing that the administration of immunizing agents conflicts with his or her religious tenets or practices; ( A physician licensed under the provisions of chapter 458 or chapter 459 certifies in writing, on a form approved and provided by the Department of Health, that the child should be permanently exempt from the required immunization for medical reasons stated in writing, based upon valid clinical reasoning or evidence, demonstrating the need for the permanent exemption; <b>(6)(a) No person licensed by this state as a physician or nurse shall be liable for any injury caused by his or her action or failure to act in the administration of a vaccine or other immunizing agent pursuant to the provisions of this section if the person acts as a reasonably prudent person with similar professional training would have acted under the same or similar circumstances. ( No member of a district school board, or any of its employees, or member of a governing board of a private school, or any of its employees, shall be liable for any injury caused by the administration of a vaccine to any student who is required to be so immunized or for a failure to diagnose scoliosis pursuant to the provisions of this section. </b>

New Resource: Divorce and Custody Lawyer

I am L. Hirsch, an attorney licensed to practice law in Fl, GA, & Al. My practice for the last 27 years has been primarily Domestic and child custody. My practice, based in Ft. Lauderdale, is directed toward addressing the divorce and custody issues involving the parents of special needs children. My experience ranges from a client who is a five-year-old child who is sight, hearing and breathing impaired to many who are ADD/ADDHD. I also have limited experience with autistic children issues. I would love to hear from you about litigation issues of which you may be familiar. My focus would be on how, as an attorney, I can better serve a mother/father of a challenged child with special needs regardless if he/she is muscular or sensory impaired, autistic, LD, ADD/ADDHD child, in a divorce/custody matter. If any of you have time please jot down for me the details of what, in your experience, lawyers fail to do to specifically addressing your subscriber's special needs issues, custody dispute issues if any and what you think I would need to know to prepare a model for psychologist/psychiatrists/neurologists/MD/s etc. to testify to before the Circuit Court Judges in any special needs case i.e. costs, now and future, assistance now and future, visitation issues, now and future, custody limitations, now and future and restrictions on the non residential custodian parent i.e. girlfriends, driving, removing from the house, overnights, baby sitters, medication issues (administration and purchasing) medical decision control, short term vs. long term or both, education issues decision making and funding, controlled access by third parties i.e., girlfriends or grandparents or non disclosed MD's /Psych people. and finally, any tips on how to hold down costs while at the same time thoroughly addressing the issues outlined above. Thanks for your response. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely, L. Hirsch Cell ; office

Research

Oxytocin Infusion Reduces Repetitive Behaviors in Adults with Autistic and Asperger's Disorders.Hollander E, Novotny S, Hanratty M, Yaffe R, DeCaria CM, Aronowitz BR, Mosovich S.Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by dysfunction in three core behavioral domains: repetitive behaviors, social deficits, and language abnormalities. There is evidence that abnormalities exist in peptide systems, particularly the oxytocin system, in autism spectrum patients. Furthermore, oxytocin and the closely related peptide vasopressin are known to play a role in social and repetitive behaviors. This study examined the impact of oxytocin on repetitive behaviors in 15 adults with autism or Asperger's disorder via randomized double-blind oxytocin and placebo challenges. The primary outcome measure was an instrument rating six repetitive behaviors: need to know, repeating, ordering, need to tell/ask, self-injury, and touching. Patients with autism spectrum disorders showed a significant reduction in repetitive behaviors following oxytocin infusion in comparison to placebo infusion. Repetitive behavior in autism spectrum disorders may be related to abnormalities in the oxytocin system, and may be partially ameliorated by synthetic oxytocin infusion.Neuropsychopharmacology (2003) 28, 193-198. doi:10.1038/sj.npp.1300021

Vaccines Need a Closer Look

Harold Buttram is an author and physician at the Woodlands Healing Research Center in Quakertown

This article is an attempt to express a minority view and position that is contrary to current government, public and majority medical opinion on the subject. However, whatever position on the vaccination decision one chooses to adopt, we feel the most important point is parental choice. Therefore, we ardently believe the best approach to this very controversial subject is to present both the pro and con, good and bad, known and unknown about immunizations and then help guide the patient or parents to choose what is best for them or their children. This is termed "informed consent" and should be the basis of every medical test or treatment; vaccinations being no exception.

Any medical therapy must balance the "effectiveness" versus the "safety" of its actions on the human body. For instance, aspirin therapy is effective in preventing a second heart attack after having a first heart attack and it is quite safe, only having a very small incidence of stomach or intestinal bleeding as a potential long-term side effect. As you read the following, please keep these key points in mind in terms of "effectiveness" versus the "safety" of vaccinations:

Scientific evidence does support the effectiveness of immunizations. They do prevent infectious diseases; some better than others, but this point is not disputed. Scientific evidence does not support the safety of immunizations. Safety studies on vaccinations are limited to short time periods only: several days to several weeks. There are no long-term (months to years) safety studies on any vaccination or immunization. There is small but increasing scientific evidence of long-term side effects from immunizations that need much more study.

Inadequate Proof of Benefit of Vaccines

It is true that there may be situations where extreme measures may be justified to preserve life and health. The basic question, therefore, is whether the benefits of current childhood vaccines outweigh the harm, or whether the reverse is true. As to the benefits of vaccines, polio has been eliminated from the Western Hemisphere, and smallpox may have been eliminated worldwide. [For information on history of smallpox eradication, the nature of the disease, and the side-effects of the vaccine, see the article "Don't Fear a Smallpox Outbreak" by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny.]

Vaccine proponents would have us believe that vaccines have been largely responsible for controlling virtually all of the former epidemics of killer diseases in the U.S.. With the exceptions cited above, the facts do not bear this out. According to the records of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, from 1911 to l935 the four leading causes of childhood deaths from infectious diseases in the U.S.. were diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), scarlet fever, and measles. However, by l945 the combined death rates from these causes had declined by 95 percent, before the implementation of mass immunization programs. By far the greatest factors in this decline were sanitation through public health measures, improved nutrition, better housing with less crowded conditions and the introduction of antibiotics. Also, the virulence of microorganisms tends to become weakened or attenuated with the passage of time and serial passages through human hosts, one example of which is whooping cough (pertussis) which is clearly a much milder disease today in Western nations than it was l00 or so years ago.

Safety Not Proven

It should be pointed out that today's children receive 22 or more vaccines before school age, whereas today's senior citizens received only one, the smallpox vaccine. Some of these vaccines contain potentially toxic mercury (though mercury-free types have recently been produced in response to safety concerns). With growing public concerns about potential adverse reactions on the immature immune systems of children, it is reasonable to ask ourselves what is already known about such reactions.

There is a school of thought that the so-called "minor childhood illnesses" of former times, including measles, mumps, rubella (German measles) and chicken pox, which entered the body through the mucous membranes, served a necessary and positive purpose in challenging and strengthening the immune system of these membranes. In contrast, so the theory goes, the respective vaccines of these diseases are injected by needle directly into the system of the child, thereby bypassing the mucosal immune system. As a result, mucosal immunity remains relatively weak and stunted in many children, complications of which may be the rapid increase in asthma and eczema now being seen, both in terms of frequency and severity.

This concept tends to be confirmed by four controlled studies, widely separated geographically, in which vaccinated children were found to have significantly more atopic disorders than controls. In commenting on the increased incidence of asthma and other atopic disorders in the United Kingdom in the article, "Measles and atopy in Guinea-Bissau," the authors made the following comment:

"The rise of allergic disease among children in the UK over the past 30 years remains unexplained. One hypothesis is that infections in early childhood prevent allergic sensitization, and that successive generations of children have lost this protection as their exposure to infectious disease in early life has declined. Consequently the prevalence of atopy and concomitant allergic disease has risen."

It is true that in former times there were occasional serious complications from these childhood diseases, but this is an area in which nutritional approaches and homeopathy traditionally have been at their best. If these approaches were made widely available, it is probable that most of these complications could be eliminated. No one wants to see serious complications in our children, but the vaccine route may in time prove to be the worst possible choice that could have been made, as concerns the minor childhood diseases.

Threat of Brain Damage

Perhaps the greatest concern with vaccines today rests with their possible causal relation to the growing epidemic of childhood autism, developmental delay and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Regarding the latter, a recent news item stated that ADHD has increased from 900,000 in l99l to nearly 5 million today. Statistics may be open to question, but one cannot question the observations of veteran elementary school teachers who, in our experience, unanimously and emphatically report a marked increase in this disorder in recent years. Regarding autism, a recent survey mandated by the California state legislature found an increase of 273 percent in California in the past 11 years.

At present primary suspicion for this epidemic of neurobehavioral disorders rests with the MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine. Although scientific evidence has not yet reached the standards of scientific proof, one pioneer researcher in this area, Dr. Vijendra Singh with the Department of Pharmacology, University of Michigan, has published the report of a study in which he found that a large majority of autistic children tested had antibodies to brain tissue in the form of antibodies to myelin basic protein, a protein strongly correlated to measles antibodies (almost all of the children had been immunized with the MMR vaccine, and none had had these diseases).

This study tends to confirm the results of a similar study published in The Lancet in l998 by Dr. Wakefield and coworkers of the Royal Free Hospital in London, indicating a possible link between MMR vaccination, Crohn's disease of the bowel, and autism.

If the MMR vaccine were causing an autoimmune reaction involving the brains of autistic children, what would be the mechanism? Although research in this area is in its infancy, we do know some things. Both the measles and mumps fractions of the MMR vaccine are cultured in chick embryo tissue. As purely genetic material, viruses are highly susceptible to the process of "jumping genes," in which they may incorporate genetic material from tissue in which they are cultured. Furthermore, protein sequences in the measles virus have been found to have similarities to those found in brain tissues. As a result, once this foreign genetic material is introduced into the child by a vaccine, it may set in motion an immunologic attack on brain tissues, a process which the work of Dr. Singh would tend to confirm.

Stealth Virus

A similar process may have taken place with the oral (Sabin) polio vaccine, which is cultured in monkey kidney tissue. Years ago Dr. , then serving as director of the viral oncology branch within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, found foreign DNA in contemporary polio vaccines. He later learned that a simian (monkey) cytomegalic virus had been found in all of the 11 African green monkeys imported for production of the polio vaccine.

After leaving the FDA Dr. took a position as professor of pathology with the University of Southern California. There he tested blood samples from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, autism, and other nervous system disorders. This work led to his discovery of unique cell-destroying viruses that were not recognized by the immune system. Termed "stealth viruses," some of which he thought had clearly originated from the simian cytomegalic virus, these viruses were missing specific genes which ordinarily would induce immune responses from the host. It should be admitted that this work is preliminary. No definitive conclusions can be drawn from it, but the need for further intensive investigation should be apparent.

Overdue in the opinion of many, on June l7, l999, U.S. government officials voted to withdraw their recommendation for the use of the live oral polio vaccine and to recommend exclusive use of the inactive (Salk) polio vaccine, because the former vaccine has been the only remaining source of polio cases in the U.S.A since l979.

Damage May Yet Escalate

As another concept, it is highly pertinent that many of today's children are second-generation vaccinees; that is, they are born to mothers previously vaccinated with the measles, mumps, and/or rubella vaccines. It is possible that the reaction rates in the second-generation vaccines may be happening on a much large scale due to previous sensitization of mothers from their vaccines, this sensitization being transmitted in turn to the fetus during pregnancy. If this process is taking place, something we cannot know until appropriate research is done, there predictably will be additional increases in autism beyond that already taking place, should the process be continued into a third generation.

Time may prove that vaccine programs went awry when they deviated from the most basic of all medical ethics, the right of parents to accept or reject vaccines for their children. Freedom of choice provides a system of checks and balances now lacking. At the very least, this would provide the parents the power to compel better safety screening of vaccines.

Today we have a system in which vaccine production by the pharmaceutical companies is largely self-regulated. Naturally these companies are interested in profits from their products which, in itself, is not wrong. However, when arbitrary decisions in the mandating of vaccines are made by government bureaucracies, who are highly partisan to the pharmaceutical companies, with no recourse open to parents, we have all the potential ingredients for a tragedy of historical proportions.

In closing, it may be appropriate to cite an item which, though seemingly small in itself, may be indicative of the problems with which we are faced. In January l993 a scientific journal published the results of a study of 89 children with adverse clinical reactions following administrations of various combinations of vaccines. Detailed case histories were taken and blood tests were done to examine various parameters of cellular and humoral immunity. It was found that children with adverse reactions had marked increases in abnormal blood parameters as compared with children who had had no reactions.

The first study of its kind as far as we are aware, perhaps the most striking and significant feature of the report is not the results of the tests, which might have been anticipated, so much as the fact that it was published in a foreign publication, Czechoslovakia Pediatrics. American science has been foremost in the development and promotion of vaccines. That it should be laggard in basic safety testing, of which this study may represent one of the modest beginnings, is a sad reflection on the American scientific community. Do we not have a right to expect better?

http://santafenewmexican.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6458748 & BRD=2144 & PAG=461 & dept_id=367954 & rfi=6

New Collection of Biological Autism Research Studies

This list should be a great resource for parents who are enlisting the support of their physicians. It will also be extremely helpful as a reference and resource for supportive physicians who are trying to get an overview of the science done to date. http://www.autismndi.com/studies.htm

Study will explore digestive ills of autistic children

11/15/02 ANDY DWORKIN and JULIE SULLIVAN http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1037365155235880.xml

Many parents of autistic children suspect that their children and others with autism are prone to diarrhea, stomach pains and other digestive problems.

Several Boston doctors are launching a study to investigate that belief, with funding largely arranged by the Northwest Autism Foundation in Oregon City.

The doctors, from Massachusetts General Hospital, and Oregonians who work with autism, will announce the project this morning at Willamette Falls Hospital, where the foundation has its headquarters.

The doctors plan to study the kinds and frequency of gastrointestinal problems autistic children develop. They also want to study the best ways to treat those problems, said Dr. Harland Winter, a Harvard University associate professor of pediatrics who is one of the researchers.

"We plan to study and understand better what complaints they have, what type of therapies are effective, how to evaluate children with autism," Winter said.

Some autistic children might not normally have stomach troubles evaluated by their doctors because of language issues or other concerns, he said.

Autism is a disorder that strikes when children are toddlers. It causes problems with social interaction, language and often intelligence. No one knows its cause or cure. Some, although not all, studies of autistic children have reported that they are more likely to have digestive problems.

Dr. Buie, one of the Boston researchers, has studied hundreds of autistic children with gastrointestinal problems in his practice, said Joe , executive director of the Northwest Autism Foundation. Buie hopes the new study will let him see many more patients.

So far, Massachusetts General is the only hospital involved, said, but organizers hope to add West Coast sites and perhaps study some children outside the United States.

Buie and the foundation had been discussing the research for about 18 months, after he spoke at one of the educational foundation's conferences, said. Buie proposed more research, and the foundation found several donors who helped get the project started, said.

Although that is the main Oregon connection to the research, it's not the only one, he said. "In the world of autism, Oregon is known as very progressive, ahead of what's going on in most states."

Food Additives Linked To Hyperactivity: Studyhttp://cbc.ca/storyview/CBC/2002/10/25/Consumers/additives_021025 Additives in a lot of snacks can cause hyperactivity and even tantrums in young children, according to a British study. The Asthma & Allergy Research Centre on the Isle of Wight analyzed the effects of different additives on 277 three-year-olds. The additives are found in potato chips, candy and pop The additives were: tartrazine (E102)food coloring sunset yellow (E110) carmoisine (E122) coloring ponceau 4R (E124) coloring sodium benzoate (E211) preservative The additives were given to the children in a single drink. Doses were similar to ones found incommon foods. For two weeks, the children drank fruit juice dosed with 20 mg in total of artificial colorings and 45 mg of the preservative. For the other two weeks, children drank fruit juice identical in appearance but without the additives. Parents then filled reports assessing behavior such as "fiddling with objects," "disturbing others," "difficulty settling down to sleep," "concentration" and "temper tantrums." Researchers said "significant changes in children's hyperactive behavior could be produced by the removal of colorings and additives from their diet." The Food Commission, an independent watchdog, says hundreds of children's foods and drinks contain at least one of the additives used in the study. "Colorings are used to make products look especially appealing to children," said Annie Seeley, a nutritionist with the commission. "Nearly 40 per cent of children's foods and drinks contain additives." The commission is demanding the additives tested be removed from children's foods and drinks. Other experts in nutrition say the findings are sketchy. The British Nutrition Foundation says "it is difficult to define hyperactivity in children." It also stated: "All additives go through rigorous testing in terms of safety."

Innate Immunity Associated with Inflammatory Responses and Cytokine

Production against Common Dietary Proteins in Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The attached citation from Jyonouchi is an incredibly important new piece of scientific evidence. For the first time, we have scientific validation for the dietary interventions so many parents have found useful. Most important,this validation is based not on an opioid excess theory, but on an immune model. For all of you who have run into resistance from doctors, spouses, schools and relatives, this is the first bit of concrete evidence you canshow them that demonstrates a rigorous basis for elimination diets in autism. You can buy the full text at the publisher's web-site for $30. The link is attached. http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowFulltext & ProduktNr=224082 & Ausgabe=228633 & ArtikelNr=65416 & ContentOnly=falseI have read through it and would offer the following five summary points.1. The authors demonstrate conclusively that there is an abnormal immune response to cow's milk protein (CMP), wheat protein (gliadin) and soy in ASD children. This is compared to a control group. The abnormal response issimilar, though not identical, to the response of a group of children with "dietary protein intolerance" (DPI). Siblings of the ASD kids showed sensitivity to milk (CMP) but not to gliadin or soy. The ASD results were strongest for milk, followed by gliadin and then soy. All were statistically significant.2. The authors tested the immune response by exposing white blood cells (more specifically, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, or PBMCs) to these proteins and observing the resulting production of three cytokines:TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma and IL-5. TNF-alpha production was the highest, followed by IFN-gamma. IL-5 production did not increase. Interestingly, this is a Th-1 response to these food proteins, NOT consistent with a Th2 shiftas we so often hear. The authors suggest that the higher level of TNF-alpha is consistent with a Th1 response characterized by T cell activation of monocytes and macrophages that in turn also produce TNF-a.3. The specific protein sensitivity in milk (CMP) was highest in beta-lactoglobulin and also significant in casein and alpha-lactoalbumin, though less so. This suggests that milk proteins in general are the issue, not just casein. So the "casein-free" label is a bit misleading. The real issue is milk protein more broadly.4. Virtually all of the ASD subjects (61 of 63) who tried an elimination diet (63 of 72 tried a gf/cf/sf diet) reported improvements in GI symptoms and some autistic behaviors. 54 of these 61 had cytokine response more thantwo standard deviations above the control averages. This was not a blinded assessment, obviously, but provides strong scientific support for what many of us have seen from elimination diets. What is interesting is that the dietmodel is NOT THE SAME as the opioid model, but is based on a variable immune response in which: not every child will show sensitivity to every food; milk elimination will be the most useful step; and soy may be more important than wheat in some kids. This is very consistent with what parents report.5. One of the more intriguing findings is the possible connection to the gut flora. The authors suggest that the root cause of the food protein sensitivity may be an underlying sensitivity to endotoxin (or lipopolysaccharides, aka LPS). LPS comes from surfaces of gram-negative bacteria in the gut flora (bordetella pertussis is also a gram-negative bacteria). In the ASD kids, but less so in the DPI kids, the cytokine responses to milk and wheat were highly correlated with the cytokine response to LPS. This suggests that the ASD immune responses to LPS"predispose these children to sensitization to dietary proteins." This is a consistent with a model of abnormal gut flora development that promotes immune response to gut bacteria: i.e., ASD kids may develop a kind ofauto-immune response to their own gut flora! This, in turn, may be helped along by the early mercury and anti-biotic exposures. (Mark Blaxill)Neuropsychobiology 2002;46(2):76-84Innate Immunity Associated with Inflammatory Responses and CytokineProduction against Common Dietary Proteins in Patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder.Jyonouchi H, Sun S, Itokazu N. Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn., USA.Objectives: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently reveal various gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms that may resolve with an elimination diet along with apparent improvement of some of the behavioral symptoms. Evidence suggests that ASD may be accompanied by aberrant (inflammatory) innate immune responses. This may predispose ASD children to sensitization to common dietary proteins (DP), leading to GI inflammation and aggravation of some behavioral symptoms. Methods: We measured IFN-gamma, IL-5, and TNF-alpha production against representative DPs [gliadin, cow's milk protein (CMP), and soy] by peripheralblood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from ASD and control children [those with DP intolerance (DPI), ASD siblings, and healthy unrelated children]. We evaluated the results in association with proinflammatory and counter-regulatory cytokine production with endotoxin (LPS), a microbial product of intestinal flora and a surrogate stimulant for innate immune responses. Results: ASD PBMCs produced elevated IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha, but not IL-5 with common DPs at high frequency as observed in DPI PBMCs. ASD PBMCs revealed increased proinflammatory cytokine responses with LPS at high frequency with positive correlation between proinflammatory cytokine production with LPS and IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha production against DPs. Such correlation was less evident in DPI PBMCs.Conclusion: Immune reactivity to DPs may be associated with apparent DPI and GI inflammation in ASD children that may be partly associated with aberrant innate immune response against endotoxin, a product of the gut bacteria. Copyright 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel PMID: 12378124 [PubMed - in process]

Medscape Medical News

New Screening Recommendations for Celiac Disease

Laurie Barclay, MD

Dec. 6, 2002 — It may be time to change the way we screen for celiac disease (CD), according to the results of a population-based study reported in the November issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Testing for tissue transglutaminase (tTG) antibodies first may obviate the need to screen with antigliadin IgA. The editorialist agrees and makes suggestions for incorporating this into clinical practice.

"Our data showed that a new screening protocol using [anti-tTG] as first line followed by endomysial antibodies is a cost-effective screening and yielded more realistic figures of prevalence for CD in a community setting than the classic three-level sequential evaluation using antigliadin antibodies," write C. Gomez, MD, and colleagues from San Hospital in La Plata, Argentina.

Using a community-based population, the investigators screened 1,000 consecutive subjects who had blood drawn at a centralized laboratory for mandatory prenuptial testing. Age range was 16 to 71 years, and there were 497 women. Serum samples from all subjects were screened with two different protocols. Three-level classic screening consisted of parallel use of IgG and IgA antigliadin antibodies, followed by endomysial antibodies (EmA) and total serum IgA in positive patients, and finally intestinal biopsy of patients with positive EmA. The study screening protocol consisted of the parallel use of a commercial guinea pig anti-tTG antibody and total serum IgA as first line, with EmA (type IgA and/or IgG) for positive patients, and finally, intestinal biopsy.

With the classic screening protocol, five subjects were eligible for intestinal biopsy, which confirmed the presence of CD in all (prevalence, 5.0 x 1,000; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.6 - 11.6). The study screening protocol detected the five patients identified by the first protocol as well as two additional patients with positive IgG antigliadin antibodies and normal total serum IgA (prevalence, 7.0 x 1,000; 95% CI, 2.8 - 14.4). Both of these patients were positive for EmA.

Comparative analysis revealed that the classic approach cost $4,687 per new patient detected, compared with $3,006 for the proposed screening algorithm.

"Although we still did not perform intestinal biopsy on all those subjects with positive anti-tTG tests but negative EmA, current evidence appears to suggest that the addition of EmA to the seropositive anti-tTG patients might have a key role in the simplified screening avoiding unnecessary biopsies," the authors write.

In an accompanying editorial, Karoly Horvath, MD, PhD, from the University of land School of Medicine in Baltimore, and Ivor D. Hill, MD, from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, note that early diagnosis and treatment of CD is useful both in symptomatic and in asymptomatic patients. Delayed diagnosis may increase the risk of other autoimmune conditions, of cancer, and of death.

"Determination of anti-tTG is not without problems," they write, noting greater sensitivity and specificity of EmA than of current anti-tTG tests, and variations in sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values, emphasizing the need for international standardization. "Until such time, confirmation of all anti-tTG tests with EmA before recommending a biopsy is required."

They recommend including a serum IgA level as part of the initial screening for CD to identify individuals with IgA deficiency. Those with IgA deficiency and positivity for antigliadin IgG antibodies should then undergo small intestinal biopsy. Although an alternative approach could be to determine IgG antibodies to tTG as part of the initial screen, the IgG-based anti-tTG tests to date have produced many false-positive results. Preliminary results using IgG1 subgroup antibodies are promising in screening patients with selective IgA deficiency, but additional studies are needed to determine whether anti-tTG IgG1 is preferable to antigliadin IgG tests for this purpose.

"We recommend using the anti-tTG as the initial test in both population screening studies and for individual cases suspected of having CD on the basis of symptoms or conditions associated with the condition," they write. "Those with positive results should be tested for EmA as a second step in the screening process and, if positive, should undergo an intestinal biopsy for confirmation of the diagnosis."

Am J Gastroenterol. 2002;97(11):2702-2704, 2785-2790

Reviewed by D. Vogin, MD

Autism in the News

The Not-So-Crackpot Autism TheoryBy ARTHUR ALLEN http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/magazine/10AUTISM.htmlNeal Halsey's life was dedicated to promoting vaccination. In June 1999, the s Hopkins pediatrician and scholar had completed a decade of service on the influential committees that decide which inoculations will be jabbed into the arms and thighs and buttocks of eight million American children each year. At the urging of Halsey and others, the number of vaccines mandated for children under 2 in the 90's soared to 20, from 8. Kids were healthier for it, according to him. These simple, safe injections against hepatitis B and germs like haemophilus bacteria would help thousands grow up free of diseases like meningitis and liver cancer.Halsey's view, however, was not shared by a small but vocal faction of parents who questioned whether all these shots did more harm than good. While many of the childhood infections that vaccines were designed to prevent -- among them diphtheria, mumps, chickenpox and polio – seemed to be either antique or innocuous, serious chronic diseases like asthma, juvenile diabetes and autism were on the rise. And on the Internet, especially, a growing number of self-styled health activists blamed vaccines for these increases.Like all medical interventions, vaccines sometimes cause adverse reactions. But unlike pills, vaccines come packaged with high expectations, which make them particularly vulnerable to public criticism. Vaccines don't cure people, and they are administered to healthy children, which gives them few opportunities for good press. When they work, nothing happens. When vaccinated children become ill, their parents are grief-stricken and often enraged, even if vaccines aren't proved to be at fault. All of this puts public-health advocates like Halsey on the defensive. Most attacks on vaccines, they say, are based on hysteria, bad science and dubious politics.Halsey, 57, has green eyes, a white beard that makes him look like a ship's captain and an air of careful authority. As chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases from 1995 through June 1999, he often appeared in the media administering calm reassurance. ''Many of the allegations against vaccines,'' Halsey said in one interview, ''are based on unproven hypotheses and causal associations with little evidence.''And then suddenly in June 1999, during a visit to the Food and Drug Administration, a squall appeared on the horizon of Halsey's confidence. Halsey attended a meeting to discuss thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that at the time was being used in several vaccines -- including the hepatitis B shot that Halsey had fought so hard to have administered to American babies. By the time the dust kicked up in that meeting had settled, Halsey would be forced to reckon with the hypothesis that thimerosal had damaged the brains of immunized infants and may have contributed to the unexplained explosion in the number of cases of autism being diagnosed in children.That Halsey was willing even to entertain this possibility enraged some of his fellow vaccinologists, who couldn't fathom how a doctor who had spent so much energy dismantling the arguments of people who attacked vaccines could now be changing sides. But to Halsey's mind, his actions were perfectly consistent: he was simply working from the data. And the numbers deeply troubled him. ''From the beginning, I saw thimerosal as something different,'' he says. ''It was the first strong evidence of a causal association with neurological impairment. I was very concerned.''The investigation into mercury vaccines was instigated in 1997 by Representative Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat whose district includes a string of shore towns where mercury in fish is one of many environmental concerns. Pallone, who had been pressing the government to re-evaluate its overall guidelines on mercury toxicity, attached an amendment to an F.D.A. bill requiring the agency to inventory all mercury contained in licensed drugs and vaccines.The job of adding up the amount of mercury in vaccines and assessing its risk fell to Ball, an F.D.A. scientist, and two F.D.A. pediatricians, Ball, 's wife, and R. Pratt. Thimerosal, which is 50 percent ethyl mercury by weight, had been used as a vaccine preservative since the 1930's in the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis shot, known as D.T.P., and it was later added to some vaccines for hepatitis B and haemophilus bacteria, which by the early 1990's had become routine immunizations for infants.The F.D.A. team's conclusions were frightening. Vaccines added under Halsey's watch had tripled the dose of mercury that infants got in their first few months of life. As many as 30 million American children may have been exposed to mercury in excess of Environmental Protection Agency guidelines -- levels of mercury that, in theory, could have killed enough brain cells to scramble thinking or hex behavior. ''My first reaction was simply disbelief, which was the reaction of almost everybody involved in vaccines,'' Halsey says. ''In most vaccine containers, thimerosal is listed as a mercury derivative, a hundredth of a percent. And what I believed, and what everybody else believed, was that it was truly a trace, a biologically insignificant amount. My honest belief is that if the labels had had the mercury content in micrograms, this would have been uncovered years ago. But the fact is, no one did the calculation.''Making matters worse, the latest science on mercury damage suggested that even small amounts of organic mercury could do harm to the fetal brain. Some of the federal safety guidelines on mercury were relaxed inthe 90's, even as the amount of mercury that children received in vaccines increased. The more Halsey learned about these mercury studies, the more he worried.''My first concern was that it would harm the credibility of the immunization program,'' he says. ''But gradually it came home to me that maybe there was some real risk to the children.'' Mercury was turning out to be like lead, which had been studied extensively in the homes of the Baltimore poor during Halsey's tenure at Hopkins. ''As they got more sophisticated at testing for lead, the safe level marched down and down, and they continued to find subtle neurological impairment,'' Halsey says. ''And that's almost exactly what happened with mercury.''Halsey was beginning to think that it would be prudent to limit thimerosal-containing vaccines and urge pediatricians to use thimerosal-free shots when possible. But his decision inflamed some of his peers. After all, although the thimerosal data was worrisome to Halsey, the available science offered no clear proof that the preservative posed a genuine danger to children when given in parts per million. Moreover, it wasn't clear that there were enough thimerosal-free vaccines available for diseases like pertussis and hepatitis B. Should an unproven fear justify the cessation of a procedure that protected children from proven dangers?Halsey looked into the matter further and found only complexity. In the medical literature, most cases of acute mercury poisoning result from doses hundreds or thousands of times higher than what infants received with thimerosal-laden vaccines. And although the thimerosal levels in vaccines exceeded the E.P.A.'s guidelines for methyl mercury, thimerosal contained ethyl mercury, a compound that behaves somewhat differently in the body. The E.P.A. based its guidelines on a series of studies of 917 children born in 1987 in the Faeroe Islands, a windswept North Atlantic archipelago, to women who ate methyl-mercury-tainted whale meat. The Faeroes children, whose umbilical cord blood averaged four times the E.P.A.'s daily ''safe'' dose -- which was 0.1 micrograms per kilo -- exhibited small but measurable neurological deficits seven years later. They had slower reaction times and diminished attention spans and their word choice and memorization were less keen than those of their classmates who had been exposed to less mercury, according to Philippe Grandjean, a Danish researcher who leads the continuing Faeroes study and teaches at Boston University.During most of the 90's, many American 6-month-olds received a total of 187.5 micrograms of ethyl mercury through vaccination. While the Faeroes children were exposed to mercury as developing fetuses, and therefore were more vulnerable than the vaccinated American infants, the American babies included about 60,000 each year who had already been exposed to high mercury levels because their mothers had eaten a lot of contaminated fish. What's more, hundreds of thousands of Rh-negative pregnant women and their unborn Rh-positive babies received additional thimerosal each year through injections designed to keep the mothers'immune systems from attacking the fetuses.The Faeroes studies, though they dealt with methyl mercury, unnerved Halsey. Other researchers were troubled, too. Lucier, a toxicologist who led a 1998 White House review of mercury's dangers, went so far as to say it was ''very likely'' that thimerosal had damaged some children. There was precious little data to back up that precise suspicion -- and little to dismiss it -- because of the lack of toxicology research on ethyl mercury.On July 7, 1999, at Halsey's urging, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service released a statement urging vaccine manufacturers to remove thimerosal as quickly as possible and advising pediatricians to postpone giving most newborns the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The decision, which helped to create vaccine shortages and led some babies to become infected with hepatitis B, outraged some senior vaccine experts. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would charge that the rush to remove thimerosal-containing vaccines was ''precipitous.'' Stanley Plotkin, a renowned vaccine developer, said that it was fruitless to try to soothe vaccination critics. ''If antivaccinationists did not have mercury, they would have another issue,'' he said at one meeting. ''One cannot prevent them from making hay regardless of whether the sun is shining or not.''

In Halsey's view, however, thimerosal wasn't simply a bone for rabid vaccine opponents to gnaw on. In the middle of that hectic summer he took a vacation in Maine. Canoeing on a lake, he came across posters that advised fishermen to ''protect your children -- release your catch.'' Halsey took that message to heart. If the government was warning people against eating fish with mercury, he asked his colleagues, ''does it make sense to allow it to be injected into infants?''Although other vaccinologists criticized Halsey, many of his colleagues rallied around him. ''Neal put kids ahead of the vaccination program, which was gutsy,'' says Lynn Goldman, a former E.P.A. official who has been on the Hopkins faculty since 1999 and worked with Halsey on thimerosal. ''It would have been easier for him to line up on the other side.''Few scientists believe that the spike in autism could have been caused solely by the thimerosal in vaccines, but in October 2001, a vaccine-safety committee at the starchy Institute of Medicine confirmed that it was ''biologically plausible'' -- though by no means proved -- that thimerosal could be related to neurodevelopmental delays in some children. The committee recommended that thimerosal be removed from vaccines and called for extensive research to determine any damage it had caused.Halsey's fellow researchers were right about one thing. Antivaccine advocates immediately seized upon the thimerosal theory, and Halsey became something of an unwilling hero to the vaccine-safety advocates with whom he had so often sparred. In fact, thousands of parents with autistic children have responded to the Institute of Medicine report by filing lawsuits. , who has won millions in toxic tort settlements from pharmaceutical companies, was among the first lawyers to sue vaccine manufacturers, on behalf of Mead, a 4-year-old Portland, Ore., boy with autism. also filed a separate class-action lawsuit with 's healthy older sister, Eleanor, as lead plaintiff, demanding that vaccine makers also pay for studies todetermine thimerosal's effects on millions of children who might have lower I.Q.'s or other less obvious signs of mercury poisoning. Past studies have shown that mercury's effects vary tremendously from person to person, presumably because of genetic differences in the body's capacity to protect delicate organs from it.''In order to win the Eleanor lawsuit you need to establish liability, but I don't think that is going to be that hard,'' said in a recent chat in his Portland office. ''Organic mercury is a very serious neurotoxin.'' embodies the vaccine establishment's worst fear about Halsey's course of action -- which is that taking the precautionary step of eliminating thimerosal would be read as an admission of fault. ''The agenda was set by the lawyers and the antivaccine activists,'' a source close to a number of manufacturers complained to me. ''The scientists responded to it scientifically, and that put them behind the eight ball right away. You had Neal Halsey running around saying: 'We've got to do something! We've got to show we're concerned!''' Offit, a vaccinologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, takes it a step further. ''In some instances I think full disclosure can be harmful,'' he says. ''Is it safe to say there is zero risk with thimerosal, when it is remotely possible that one child would get sick? Well, since we say that mercury is a neurotoxin, we have to do everything we can to get rid of it. But I would argue that removing thimerosal didn't make vaccines safer -- it only made them perceptibly safer.''For Halsey, thimerosal injury is a possibility that must be addressed -- but by science, not by the courts. The scientific agenda, however, is already deeply politicized. >From the start, the C.D.C.'s efforts to examine the possibility of thimerosal damage became snarled in acrimony. Critics of the vaccination system don't trust the C.D.C., which monitors evidence of adverse reactions to vaccines through the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a computerized set of 7.5 million medical records. Safe Minds, an advocacy group of parents who believe that their autistic children were damaged by thimerosal, has used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents showing that as early as December 1999 the C.D.C. had reason to believe that thimerosal caused developmental delays in some children. It was far from conclusive evidence, but vaccine critics charged that the C.D.C. tried to play it down. One of those critics was Dan Burton, a Republican congressman from Indiana, who says he firmly believes that his grandson's autism is a result of vaccines. ''I'm so ticked off about my grandson, and to think that the public-health people have been circling the wagons to cover up the facts!'' Burton fumed at a June hearing. ''Why, it just makes me want to vomit!''What comes through in an examination of the documents uncovered by Safe Minds is less a coverup than an impression of scientists anxiously watching over their shoulders as they work. One document, for example, records comments made by Brent, a Philadelphia pediatrician who served as a consultant for the thimerosal study. ''The medical-legal findings in this study, causal or not, are horrendous,'' Brent said. ''If an allegation was made that a child's neurobehavioral findings were caused by thimerosal-containing vaccines, you could readily find a junk scientist who would support the claim with a reasonable degree of certainty. But you will not find a scientist with any integrity who would say the reverse with the data that is available. . . . So we arein a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits if they were initiated.''More research is in the works. The C.D.C. is setting up a study of neurodevelopmental effects based in part on the Faeroe Islands model. The N.I.H. is financing studies of thimerosal metabolism in animals and children. (An early University of Rochester study was reassuring: it indicated that children eliminate thimerosal much more quickly than expected.)Clearly, a lot is riding on this research, and pressure is being brought to bear on both sides. Can the vaccine authorities accept a positive answer? Can the vaccine opponents accept a negative one? ''No one wants to think that harm might have been done,'' Halsey says. ''I don't want to think harm might have been done.''American children still receive up to 20 vaccines in the first two years of life. The first symptoms of autism often appear between the ages of 12 and 24 months. Most autism experts say that the two facts are coincidental, but as a major California study recently confirmed, autism is being diagnosed in numbers far higher than ever before, suggesting that a nongenetic cause may be partly to blame. In some children, the behavioral traits of autism present themselves along with physical problems like sensory dysfunction and motor disorders that have rough correlates in the mercury-poisoning literature. For some parents, thimerosal provides a grand unifying theory that squarely points the finger at the government and vaccine makers.During much of the 20th-century, children suffered from an ailment called pink disease, which caused peeling skin on the extremities as well as regressive behavior. In 1948, a keen-eyed Cincinnati pediatrician named f Warkany noticed a common risk factor in these children: they had all been given teething powders containing calomel, a mercury derivative. Only about 1 in 500 children whose parents gave them calomel got pink disease -- suggesting that a constitutional vulnerability to mercury was part of the clinical picture. Soon after the powders were taken off the market, pink disease disappeared.Autism is a global phenomenon that was first reported in America in 1943, long before the potential dangers of thimerosal vaccines were raised. Removing the preservative won't -- even in the best case -- eliminate the illness. But scientists estimate that the current rate of autism in its various forms might be as high as 1 in 500. If the autism trend begins to recede now that thimerosal has been removed, it could certainly suggest a cause. If it does decline, we might have Neal Halsey to thank. If it doesn't, his colleagues in the vaccine establishment may blame him for stoking an irrational protest from the public. Halsey, who still heads the Hopkins Institute for Vaccine Safety, which he was a founder of in 1997, is on the fence. ''I don't believe the evidence is convincing now that there has definitely been harm done by thimerosal,'' he says, absently stroking his balding head. But to keep the vaccine program on a steady keel, Halsey says, the public-health authorities simply must follow through with the studies and face the consequences without flinching. If there is damage, he says, ''there should be some kind of compensation, though I don't know how.'' He pauses, and sighs. ''I empathize with families of children with these disorders. How are you going to put dollar values on that?''Arthur lives in Washington and is working on a history of vaccination.

Check out some of the articles/authors in the recent issue (Issue 115, November/December 2002) of Mothering Magazine. http://www.mothering.com/1-0-0/1-0-0.shtml

Poison In Our Vaccines: Investigating Mercury, Thimerosal And Neurodevelopmental DelayLyn RedwoodParents and researchers alike are becoming increasingly convinced that exposure to the vaccine preservative Thimerosal can lead to Autism. Searching For Reasons Why: A Mother's Report On AutismLyn RedwoodAfter he turned one, the author's son began withdrawing from the world. What happened? Fighting For : A Parent's ActivismLiz BirtHow one mother took political action for her son. Toxic Overload: Assessing The Role Of Mercury In AutismBoyd E. HaleyA University of Kentucky chemistry professor explains his research on the deleterious effects of mercury. Balancing Biochemistry: An Interview With CaveAmy onAn MD discusses how treating metal toxicity can help heal children within the autism spectrum.

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