Fwd: Part 2 - REGRESSIVE AUTISM AND MMR VACCINATION

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REGRESSIVE AUTISM AND MMR VACCINATION

 

By RFD Columnist, F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP.

 

TL Autism Research

Falmouth, Massachusetts

 

E-mail: tlautstudy

 

The California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) regularly reports the

number of NEW cases accessing services in the State. (5)

 

 

In 1994, there were 633 new cases of DSM IV autism in California, less than two

cases a day. By 1999, the number of new cases had tripled to 1,944. Earlier this

year, DDS reported that 3,577 cases had accessed services in the State in 2002

or 10 new cases a day, every day. New cases increased by 97% in the last 4 years

and by 31% in the last year, the largest yearly increase ever recorded. Children

with autism under age 3 and those with PDD-NOS and Asperger’s Syndrome were not

included.

 

The Education Boards in all states have reported increases in their autism

rates. The increases in New England in the last ten years are shown in Table

III.

 

Table III Ten Year Increase in Autism in New England Schools, Ages 6-21

 

State

 

1992-1993

 

2002-2003

 

% Increase

 

Connecticut

 

164

 

1,754

 

969

 

Maine

 

37

 

675

 

1,724

 

Massachusetts

 

493

 

3,193

 

548

 

New Hampshire

 

0

 

491

 

Infinite

 

Rhode Island

 

19

 

471

 

2,379

 

Vermont

 

6

 

247

 

4,017

 

Source: U.S. DOE, Office of Special Education Programs, Data

Analysis System

 

According to the New Jersey Department of Education, there were 514 6-year old

students with autism in the state schools in the 2001-2002 school year compared

to 14 students aged 21. This suggests an accelerating increase in autism with a

larger number of affected younger children starting school each subsequent year.

 

Across the Atlantic, in the English Channel Island of Jersey, the situation is

relatively worse. As of October 25, 2003, there were 64 children, mostly boys,

with a diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder in the Island’s schools. Five

were older than 16.

 

The Island’s population is around 87,000. The population of New Jersey is around

8.5 million and there are now 4,180 students with autism ages 6-21 in the state.

 

In 1999 in Wakefield, England, the Local Education Authority reported that the

number of children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) had increased from 5

to 111 in 7 years. In Scotland, according to the Scottish Education Office, the

number of children with ASD attending school, increased by 18% between 1998 and

1999 and by 31% between 1999 and 2000.

 

A study of pre-school children from two areas of the West Midlands (UK) by the

Department of Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Birmingham,

revealed that cases of childhood autism increased by about 18% yearly between

1991 and 1996 and that cases of autistic spectrum disorders increased even

faster.

 

The Autism Research Unit at Sunderland University reported a ten-fold increase

in autism in the UK between 1983 and 1999. Kaye also reported a 7-fold increase

in childhood autism between 1988 and 1999 in a study published in the British

Medical Journal. (See below).

 

According to a May 2002 report from the National Autistic Society, 1 child out

of 82 in elementary schools in England carries a diagnosis of autism.

 

The impact of autism on school systems in Canada was also significant. In

September 2000, 1,391 students with autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders

(PDD) were registered in the Province of Quebec schools. By September 2002, the

number of registered affected children had reached 2,302, a 65.5% increase in

two years, the highest ever recorded.

 

The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in Saudi Arabia stated in an interview

with Arab News that there were 42,500 confirmed cases of autism in the Kingdom

in 2002 and that “there remained many undiagnosed cases”. The estimated

population of Saudi Arabia was 22,757,092 in July 2001, giving an autism-

prevalence rate of 1:500 in the total population. Keeping in mind that the group

of children under 10 is in all probability the most affected and that boys

usually outnumber girls 4 to 1, the prevalence of autism in boys under the age

of 10 in Saudi Arabia is probably one of the highest in the world.

 

* * *

 

It was the mother of an English boy who developed regressive autism and

gastro-intestinal difficulties after receiving his MMR vaccination who first

decided that there might be a link between the vaccine, the regression and the

gut problems. She investigated further and found out that an adult

gastro-enterologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London named Andrew Wakefield

had researched the possible link between viruses and gastro-intestinal diseases.

After much insistence, this mother was able to convince Dr. Wakefield to

evaluate her son. To everyone’s surprise, Wakefield included, unusual findings

in the child’s intestines were noted. More parents with similarly affected

children decided to consult Dr. Wakefield and again, the same rather distinctive

pathology was identified.

 

In February 1998, Wakefield published his now well-known study of 12 children

with regressive autism and similar gut findings in The Lancet:

Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive

developmental disorder in children. He ended his publication by stating: “We

have identified a chronic enterocolitis in children that may be related to

neuropsychiatric dysfunction. In most cases, onset of symptoms was after

measles, mumps, and rubella immunisation. Further investigations are needed to

examine this syndrome and its possible relation to this vaccine”. (6)

 

Dr. Wakefield also added that between the time his paper was submitted for

publication and the time that it was actually published, 40 more patients had

been evaluated of whom 39 had similar intestinal findings.

 

Dr. Wakefield never said that the MMR vaccine caused autism but only advised

that others investigate the possible suggested link between the triple vaccine

and this recent form of autism. He also advocated the use of single vaccines,

safely spaced so as not to burden the child’s immune system, until the question

of the MMR is settled once and for all. Dr. Wakefield was never anti-vaccine and

has always stressed the importance of measles vaccination of toddlers. His

argument is that such vaccination is actually more needed now because the

immunity that today’s infants get from their mothers is weaker and of shorter

duration because the mothers’ immunity followed vaccination rather than disease.

[That is actually the reason why the administration of the measles (MMR) vaccine

was advanced from 15 to 12 months of age.]

 

The vaccine authorities in the United Kingdom, afraid that any agreement with

Wakefield’s stand may be construed as less “faith” in their triple vaccine

decided to play a sinister game of Russian Roulette and refused to provide the

monovalent vaccines. The result is that fewer children are being immunized

against measles in a country where the risk to infants and children may be

increased because of the arrival and transit of thousands of foreign travelers

from every continent daily. The fact is that the single antigens should have

never been excluded because as clearly stated in “Immunization against

Infectious Disease” [Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation 1988”] “

For children whose parents refuse MMR vaccine, single antigen measles will be

available.”

 

Many parents are so desirous to protect their children that they are traveling

to France, Belgium and Holland or paying substantial fees in clinics in England

to obtain the single vaccines. The authorities’ argument that these convinced

and concerned parents will not return for subsequent jabs is offensive. Anyway,

it is the measles vaccine that is eminently important at the age of 12 to 15

months. Rubella immunity of females is needed during the childbearing years to

prevent Congenital Rubella Syndrome and mumps immunity is important in males as

they near puberty. Those two diseases are mild in children and the cellular

immunity from disease is stronger and longer lasting.

 

The statement by Dr. David Salisbury who is in charge of the vaccination program

in the UK that the MMR vaccine offers better protection against the individual

diseases than the single antigen vaccines is not supported by evidence, as shown

above...

 

Dr. Brent Taylor, head of the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the

Royal Free and University College Medical School and possibly Dr. Wakefield’s

most rabid critic, stated in the Sunday Herald of January 14, 2001 that:

“Separate vaccines do not provide good protection for children.” This statement

is not correct either.

 

The rigid stand of the vaccine authorities in the UK that it must be “the MMR or

Nothing” will lead to measles outbreaks in a country where thousands of

travelers arrive or transit daily. For the parents who remain concerned about

the MMR vaccine, but cannot afford the fees charged by private clinics, the

choice will unfortunately be “nothing”. The authorities should not try to blame

Andrew Wakefield; He only advocated that the single vaccines be made available

alongside the MMR.

 

“Nothing” was never one of his options.

 

Dr. Simon Murch should have noted that in his October 31, 2003 letter to the

Lancet.

 

The reaction to Dr. Wakefield’s publication was immediate and relentless. Almost

five years later, not a day passes without someone somewhere repeating that

Wakefield’s study cannot possibly be relevant because it only included 12

patients and it was never duplicated. No one obviously cares to mention that Leo

Kanner, only reported on 11 cases when he described a new disease he called

infantile autism 60 years ago. As for duplicating Wakefield’s work, after

witnessing what has happened to him, rare are the physicians willing to

sacrifice their careers in order to investigate this particular aspect of the

disease. Arthur Krigsman, MD an American pediatric gastro-enterologist had the

courage to do just that. He examined some 200 children with regressive autism

and gastro-intestinal symptoms and described the same histo-pathological

findings that Wakefield had reported. Unfortunately, his hospital would not

allow him to proceed further and test the biopsies for the presence of measles.

David Weldon, MD, U.S. Representative to Congress from Florida’s District 15,

and a member of the House Committee on Government Reform, discussed the

situation at a meeting of the Committee on December 10, 2002. He also requested

from Dr. Stephen Foote, of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to research

the matter and to find a way to test the specimens, adding that this could

finally prove or disprove the Wakefield hypothesis. Foote said he would do that.

As yet, nothing has been reported.

 

In September 2000, Wakefield published a follow-up study of 60 more patients

with “autistic entero-colitis” in the American Journal of Gastro-enterology (7)

This study is almost never mentioned by the vaccine authorities and lobby,

neither is the editorial by Eamonn, Quigley and Hurley in the same issue, (8)

which ended with the statement:

 

“Wakefield et al. are to be congratulated on opening yet another window onto the

ever-broadening spectrum of gut-brain interactions. Their findings raise many

challenging questions that should provoke further much-needed research in this

area, research that may provide true grounds for optimism for affected patients

and their families”

 

Dr,.Wakefield has now fully investigated many more cases and has authored or

co-authored 32 peer-reviewed publications in distinguished journals on related

subjects. They are rarely if ever mentioned by his critics. Neither are the 35

studies he published before 1998, and which earlier had been very well received.

 

Two of his recent studies (2002) have explored other aspects of regressive

autism.

 

In an original research paper published in Molecular Psychiatry (9) he reported

that specific intestinal findings suggesting an autoimmune etiology were found

in 23 of 25 children with autism, but not in the controls: 11 children with

celiac disease, 5 with cerebral palsy and mental retardation, and 18 normal

children.

 

“ A novel form of enteropathy” is now occurring in children with autism”.

 

In another review article (10), Dr. Wakefield described in depth how the

inflamed intestine of children with regressive autism might lead to damage to

the developing brain. He compared the process with another well-known gut-brain

interaction, hepatic encephalopathy, in which confusion, coma and death occur

when the failing liver is unable to remove toxins derived from food and bacteria

in the intestines. In the summary, Wakefield adds: “For many years it has been

suggested that morphine-like peptides & shy;fragments of partially digested

protein derived from cow’s milk and cereals - are toxins that play a role in the

development of autism. Similar “opioid” molecules appear to play an important

role in the toxicity associated with severe liver damage. Thus the parallels

between these two conditions, including the treatment approaches for both -

relief of constipation, dietary restriction, de-contamination of the intestinal

system, and nutritional supplementation & shy; indicate

strongly that some forms of autism and intestinal disease are linked.”

 

Clearly, understanding the gut-brain interaction in children with regressive

autism will help solve the mystery surrounding it, prevent further damage to

affected children and make caring for them much easier.

 

Dr. Andrew Wakefield testified on June 19, 2002 at a special meeting of the

House Committee On Government Reform, Representative Daniel Burton of Indiana,

Chairman. He stated:

 

“The sum of the research by my group and our collaborators, taken together with

additional work by independent physicians and scientists in the United States,

has now confirmed the following facts:

 

Children with regressive autism and intestinal symptoms have a novel and

characteristic inflammatory disease of their intestine.

 

This disease is not found in developmentally normal control children.

 

This disease is entirely consistent with a viral cause.

 

This disease may be the source of toxic damage to the brain.

 

Measles virus has been identified in the diseased intestine in the majority of

children with regressive autism studied, precisely where it would be expected if

it were the cause of the intestinal disease.

 

These children, who suffer the same pattern of regressive autism and intestinal

inflammation, come from many countries, including the US and Ireland, where they

have been investigated and biopsied independently.

 

Measles virus has been found in only a small minority of developmentally normal

children.

 

The measles virus in the diseased intestine of autistic children is from the

vaccine.

 

Children with regressive autism appear to have an abnormal immune response to

measles virus

 

These findings are entirely consistent with parental reports that their normally

developing child regressed into autism following exposure to MMR vaccine.”

 

Dr. John O’Leary, Professor of Pathology at Trinity College, Dublin and

Associates, an independent group of researchers, devised and carried out

extensive and meticulous research in order to identify any viral etiology for

the pathology described in the Wakefield studies.

 

In 2002, the group reported in the Journal of Molecular Pathology (11) that:

 

· Measles virus genomic RNA was present in 82% of 91 children with autism

compared to only 7% of the 70 developmentally normal controls and

 

· That over 95% of positive children had received MMR as the only

documented exposure to measles.

 

The authors concluded that measles virus may be an important immunological

trigger in the pathogenesis of lymphoid hyperplasia and entero-colitis

 

In a commentary in the same issue of the Journal of Molecular Pathology (12),

Morris & Aldulaimi stated in part that:

 

“Epidemiology is a pretty blunt tool and the studies done do not rule out the

possibility that there may be risk groups where a real link between MMR and

autism/bowel inflammatory conditions exists” and “There is evidence that

developmental disorders are associated with a functional disturbance of the

brain-gut axis.”

 

On June 16, 2002, Dr. John O’Leary, announced that 12 children with autism from

his original study group had been confirmed as having a vaccine strain measles

virus, in their gut. They all had received the MMR vaccine. O’Leary’s results

confirm the earlier findings by Kawashima and constitute further evidence of a

relationship between MMR vaccination and regressive autism.

 

H. Kawashima and Associates, a group of Tokyo University researchers, 14

investigated the presence of measles genomic RNA in peripheral mononuclear cells

in 8 patients with Crohn’s disease, 3 with Ulcerative Colitis and 9 with

Autistic Entero-colitis. For controls, they examined healthy children and

patients with Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis (SSPE), Systemic Lupus

Erythematosus (SLE), Human Immunodeficiency Virus 1 (HIV-1) a total of eight

cases.

 

Using elaborate and critically accurate identification techniques, the Tokyo

researchers reported that: “One of eight patients with Crohn’s disease, one of

three patients with ulcerative colitis, and three of nine children with autism,

were positive. Controls were all negative. The sequences obtained from the

patients with Crohn's disease shared the characteristics with wild-strain virus.

The sequences obtained from the patients with ulcerative colitis and children

with autism were consistent with being vaccine strains. The results were

concordant with the exposure history of the patients.”

 

As a side note: Following MMR vaccination, the presence of measles virus from

vaccine was confirmed in the brain of a child in Canada (14), in the throat of a

child in France (15) and in the urine of a child in Australia (16).

 

While this was happening abroad, V. K. Singh Ph.D. now at the Biotechnology

Center, Utah State University, was busy researching in depth the

neuro-immuno-pathogenesis of autism by investigating measles, MMR and

anti-neuronal antibody titers in children with the disease. On April 6, 2000, at

a US House of Representatives Government Reform Committee meeting, Dr. Singh

described his findings and stated: “This was probably the first laboratory-based

evidence to link measles virus and/or MMR vaccine to autoimmunity in children

with autism … autism may be caused by a measles & shy;or MMR vaccine- induced

autoimmune response”. Dr. Singh concluded “In summary, the rapidly accumulating

evidence strongly implicates autoimmunity in autism, which in many may result

from a vaccine injury… the evidence also suggests a MMR vaccine infection …The

onset of autism (or autistic regression) post-immunization should no longer be

regarded as merely a coincidence with the timing of the vaccinations, as our

federal health officials continue to do.”

 

Dr. Singh’s has also reported:

 

1. Elevated Myelin Basic Protein (MBP) auto-antibody titers in 28 of 32

children with autism who had elevated measles antibodies and in none (0) of the

controls.

 

2. Elevated MMR antibody titers in 59% (16/27) children with Autism Spectral

Disorders (ASD) compared to only 10% (2/ 20) of controls.

 

3. The presence of MBP auto-antibodies in 81% (13/16) of the children with

ASD and in none (0) of the controls.

 

Dr. Singh concluded: “Children with ASD were positive for MMR antibodies

compared to none (0/92) of the developmentally normal children tested

(Controls). “Over 90% of MMR antibody-positive autistic sera were also positive

for MBP auto-antibody “suggesting a causal association between MMR and brain

auto-immunity in autism”.

 

Drs. Singh, Jensen and Bradstreet presented results of yet another study on

“Serological Detection of Measles Virus in Relation to Autoimmunity in Autism”

at the 102nd General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology [salt Lake

City, Utah May 19-23, 2002].

 

§ A significant number of children with autism had antibodies to Myelin

Basic Protein (MBP) (up to 88% positive) and also antibodies to MMR (up to 65%

positive).

 

§ Normal children did not harbor these antibodies.

 

§ The analysis of paired samples (serum and cerebrospinal fluid) from

children with autism revealed a high degree of serological association and

correlation between MMR and MBP antibodies.

 

The authors concluded by stating: “In light of the new evidence presented here,

we suggest that the MMR vaccine in some cases of autism might cause autoimmunity

and it might do so by bringing on an atypical measles infection that does not

produce a typical measles rash but manifests neurological symptoms upon

immunization”.

 

Last year, Dr. Singh was awarded the 2002 O. Spurgeon English Humanitarian

Award. The award honors “leading physicians and scientists who have made major

humanitarian contributions to human welfare”.

 

Not surprisingly, funding for Dr. Singh’s research has become scarce lately.

 

Dr. Robin Hansen, of the MIND [Medical Investigation of Neuro-developmental

Disorders] Institute at the University of California, Davies has tested “newborn

blood spots” of 15 normal children and 15 children with autism for the presence

of MBP antibodies. All 30 specimens were negative.

 

Dr. Tina Zecca et al., New Jersey Medical Center (NJMS), Children’s Hospital of

NJ, (19) has reported a 3-fold increase in measles titers in 16 children with

autism compared to normal controls and added: “Subjectively, parents have stated

that their children's developmental milestones deteriorated following MMR

vaccination. Neurological sequelae following MMR are widely reported. MMR

therefore may play a role in the pathogenesis of autism. The elevated titers of

anti-measles antibodies in autistic children may signify a chronic activation of

the immune system against this neurotropic virus.”

 

The above studies involved both actual patients and controls. All viral,

endoscopic and serological investigations were carefully carried out and all

results have always been available for review.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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