No rest for family warning of vaccine-autism tie - Report

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No rest for family warning of vaccine-autism tie

TYSON TRISH / DAILY RECORD

and Helen Gallup, along with their daughter , center, hold up a

photo of their 21-year-old son . believes that contracted

autism from a vaccine he received as a child and is fighting to get his

viewpoint out to the general public. 0 )

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Father believes son, now 21, developed condition after getting inoculation

BY COLLEEN O'DEA

DAILY RECORD PARSIPPANY -- For Gallup, second to the incomprehensible

pain of having a son who is autistic is the frustration of trying to educate the

public about his beliefs that a childhood vaccine was responsible for 's

autism. The boy's story is getting a wider audience in an Australian magazine

on the stands now and in a book about speech disorders due out later this year.

" It's been very frustrating, " said Gallup of trying to get his son's story

publicized. " There's a lot more activity in the U.K. Over here, they totally

ignore it. " Now 21, Gallup was a typical child from birth until age 15

months. Gallup says that after his son received the

measles-mumps-rubella MMR vaccine, he lapsed into autism. " Looking

back at home video-tapes, I could see what happened before and after the MMR

vaccine was given to , " wrote Gallup in the piece in the current

issue of Informed Voice magazine. " His speech was progressing and then after,

nothing. " Gallup founded The Autism Autoimmunity Project in 1998 to raise

money for research and to spread the word about a possible link between

vaccination and autism. Its Web site, www.taap.info includes information and

research about autism. Autism includes a spectrum of developmental disorders

affecting social interaction, communication, behavior and other brain functions.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in

166 children have autism. It is more prevalent in boys than in girls.

Incidence on rise The incidence of autism in the United States has risen

exponentially in the last decade. According to the U.S. Department of Education,

22,664 children age 6-21 in special education programs had autism in 1994. By

2004, that number had soared to 166,424. The CDC states that because autism

was only added as a special education category in the early 1990s, " it is

unclear how much of this increase is due to changes in how we identify and

classify ASDs in people, or whether this is due to a true increase in

prevalence. " Although its actual cause isn't known, genetic and environmental

factors may play a role in autism. In his article, Gallup disputes such

assertions: " I know that the autism epidemic can't be genetic in nature. There

never has been, nor never will be, a genetic epidemic. Like many parents who

know their children, I know that vaccines are responsible for my son's autism

disorder. " A study by British doctors led by Wakefield published in the

British medical journal The Lancet in 1998 first brought worldwide attention to

the issue. That study found a correlation, but not necessarily a causal

relation, between the MMR and autism. But some of the doctors involved in that

study have since disavowed that. But the CDC states that most evidence shows

no link between vaccines and autism. It has done two studies, one looking at the

MMR and another at thimerosal, a mercury preservative commonly used in

vaccines, and found no link. The CDC plans additional research on the topic.

The national Institute of Medicine's Immunization Safety Review Committee

released its final report on the question of vaccines and autism in 2004 and

found that the majority of evidence " favors rejection of a causal relationship "

and recommended that " available funding for autism research be channeled to the

most promising areas. " " I fail to understand how in heaven's name, faced with

the data, they could have come to that conclusion, " countered Wakefield, a

gastroenterologist who is now based at Thoughtful House in Texas, during a

presentation at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh last November. Gallup

said few doctors in the United States are doing research on the topic and those

who are, including Wakefield, have difficulty getting funding. He has sought

funding before the National Institutes of Health three times over the last

decade and was denied. But he has reason to seek additional

studies: Two doctors, including Oleske, the famous pediatric immunologist

specializing in AIDS, found extremely high measles antibody titers in 's

blood in 1995. Statistical association The research of Wakefield and other

doctors has found evidence of the measles virus in a much higher percentage of

the intestines of children with autism and bowel inflammation, compared with

children without autism. " Again, this is not a causal association, but a

statistical association, " Wakefield told the audience. " There is a convergence

of biological evidence toward causation. We may not be there yet, but this is

most certainly not the time to stop looking. " Statistics seem to show the

increase in the incidence of autism beginning around the same time period as the

MMR vaccine. If MMR is a factor in autism, it could be that the vaccine, which

contains live viruses, may only cause harm in children whose immune systems are

compromised at the time they receive the vaccine,

Wakefield said. While Wakefield and his research had been widely criticized

for years in England, The Daily Mail of London earlier this month reported that

a former British government medical officer responsible for deciding whether

medicines are safe believes that evidence of a connection between the MMR

vaccine and autism is mounting and governmental officials are ignoring it. " It

is the steady accumulation of evidence, from a number of respected universities,

teaching hospitals and laboratories around the world, that matters here. There's

far too much to ignore. Yet government health authorities are, it seems, more

than happy to do so, " Fletcher told the Mail. Profound questions The new

book in which is mentioned and which may feature him on its cover,

" Milestones: Normal Speech and Language Development " by W. Oller,

D. Oller and C. Badon, does not take a stand on the question of whether

vaccines may cause autism. The authors' only mention to the

cause of autism is that " profound questions remain about the extent of the

genetic factors in the autism spectrum, and in other pervasive developmental

disorders ... and their potential interaction with environmental factors. " But

Gallup says any exposure has the potential to bring his cause to light.

" This is a way we can get more publicity, if we can get into an educator's

book, " he said. " I hope this will add some clout to the message we've been

trying to get out. " The book, aimed at speech professionals, highlights 's

case to demonstrate the expense of caring for an autistic person. In it,

Gallup estimates the annual cost of caring for today at between $50,000 and

$100,000. Today, is living at a residential school in Delaware because he

had become increasingly violent over the last few years. " In 2002,

started to develop aggressions where he would bite, head-butt, kick, scratch and

pull hair, " wrote Gallup, who is now four

inches shorter than his son. " In February 2003, broke my left index finger

with his teeth almost amputating it off. " Affected sister 's sister

Gallup, a student at the Visual and Performing Arts Academy in Denville,

wrote about how her brother's actions affected her. " As soon as we saw he was

getting agitated, we'd run into a room and lock the door behind us, " she wrote

on Red Flags, an independent Web site on health issues. " I couldn't get over the

fact that I was actually afraid of my brother. I knew he was in pain and had no

other way to show it. The police were at our house frequently. was

transferred from hospital to hospital, but no place was right for him. I know it

broke my parents' hearts, and mine too, but it was nearly impossible to give him

24-hour care. " Two years ago, after numerous incidents had to be

hospitalized. He spent time at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital but staff

there told the Gallups that it was not the best place for

him. He's been at the residential school for the last 18 months and while his

behavior has improved, he is on strong anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety

medicines. Because his school is more than two hours away, the Gallups are able

to visit only every other weekend. They hope some day to be able to get him

placed in a group home in New Jersey. " I worry about constantly, "

Gallup wrote. " I wonder what his and our lives would be like if he wasn't

damaged by the MMR vaccine. "

---------------------------------

Colleen O'Dea can be reached at or codea@....

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