Vaccines, allergies & asthma.

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http://news.monstersandcritics.com/lifestyle/consumerhealth/article_1148985.

php/The_Age_of_Autism_Allergic_responses Monsters and Critics.com, UK The

Age of Autism: Allergic responses By Dan Olmsted Mar 21, 2006, 20:27 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- A plausible link is emerging between

widely used childhood medicines and the risk of developing allergies and

especially asthma. But you`d never know it from listening to federal health

authorities or reading the mainstream press. The latest case in point: USA

Today this week is

tackling the roots of allergies and examining new treatments based on the idea

that children may be getting too little -- not too much -- exposure to

allergens. 'To head off allergies, expose your kids to pets and dirt early.

Really.' That was the headline on the front-and-center page 1 story Monday by

Steve Steinberg. 'The new approach to allergy prevention and treatment

arises from a paradox,' Steinberg writes. 'Known as the hygiene hypothesis, it

suggests that growing up in cities and suburbs, away from fields and farm

animals, leaves people more susceptible to a host of immune disorders,

including allergies and asthma.' The article goes on to ask: 'What about

urban life is triggering a rash of allergies and autoimmune diseases? It`s a

good question, and not an easy one to answer.' (Disclosure: I was an editor

at USA Today in the 1980s.) While the hygiene hypothesis may help explain the

huge rise in allergies and asthma, particularly among

children, since 1980, there could be more going on here than an absence of

cows and cornfields. Just last week researchers reported a possible link

between antibiotics and asthma -- 'A new study has found that infants younger

than 12 months who have had antibiotics may be more likely to develop asthma

when they get older,' the Salt Lake Tribune reported. This was not some

flaky anti-antibiotic study -- it was done by researchers at the University

of British Columbia and published in CHEST, the journal of the American

College of Chest Physicians. The researchers reviewed seven studies that

compared kids who got antibiotics before age one with kids who didn`t get

any, and they were careful to report only an 'association,' not proof of a

cause-and-effect relationship. In fact, antibiotic use may simply be a marker

for kids who tend to have more infections -- that could be the real link to

developing asthma. But if you`re going to ask why 'a host

of immune disorders, including allergies and asthma,' are rising, you really

cannot overlook the iatrogenic hypothesis -- the idea that medicine might be

at least partly responsible for a problem medicine is trying to solve. A

related possibility -- warning, here comes the third rail of American public

health policy -- is that vaccines may play a role, and for a similar reason.

If the immune system gets stimulated too early and too often but never by the

real thing -- say, by the chicken pox vaccination rather than by chicken pox

itself -- it could get stuck in battle mode and start attacking its own

tissues. That might lead to allergies, asthma and a host of other autoimmune

disorders like juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, skin disorders, juvenile diabetes

-- and, conceivably, autism, if autism reflects the outcome of an autoimmune

inflammatory process in the brain. No question, mainstream medical

authorities call this idea junk science. But

independent researchers keep saying the darnedest things. The latest case in

point: A study in January showing that European kids who follow the so-called

anthroposophic lifestyle -- which severely restricts use of such medicines as

antibiotics and fever reducers -- have a lower risk of developing allergies.

Again, it`s just a study, but then again, the study was in the Journal of

Allergy and Clinical Immunology, the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the

American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. The overlooked last

sentence of the researchers` press release reads: 'Early use of antibiotics

and fever reducers, along with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination

were also associated with increased risks of several allergic symptoms and

doctor`s diagnoses.' There you have it -- a responsible report of a possible

allergy risk not just from antibiotics and fever reducers but from the MMR

vaccine, which every child in America is

supposed to get. Coincidence of not, the MMR came into wide use around 1980,

and in the mid-1990s, the CDC moved the recommended age forward to 12 to 15

months, from 15 to 18 months. This study fits with something we reported last

fall from Homefirst, a medical practice in Chicago that follows a similar

philosophy and has thousands of never-vaccinated children. The group`s medical

director, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, said he couldn`t think of a single case of

autism in children who had never been vaccinated. Ditto asthma. The asthma

rate among Homefirst patients is so low it was noticed by the Blue Cross

group with which Homefirst is affiliated, according to Eisenstein. 'In the

alternative-medicine network which Homefirst is part of, there are virtually

no cases of childhood asthma, in contrast to the overall Blue Cross rate of

childhood asthma which is approximately 10 percent,' he said. 'At first I

thought it was because they (Homefirst`s children) were

breast-fed, but even among the breast-fed we`ve had asthma. We have virtually

no asthma if you`re breast-fed and not vaccinated.' Several studies have

suggested a link between vaccines and asthma while others -- notably one

conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- do not. The CDC

study, as we`ve noted before, eliminated never-vaccinated kids from

consideration, allegedly because their medical records were inherently

unreliable. But note: The study above that found an association between

antibiotics and asthma used control groups of kids who never, ever got any

antibiotics. That`s the kind of comparison federal health authorities seem to

be assiduously avoiding when it comes to studying possible autoimmune risks

of all kinds from vaccines. When that happens, it`s up to the press to dig

deeper than pets and dirt. Really. E-mail: dolmsted

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