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From: Schafer Autism Report <schafer@...>
Subject: Doctors Fight Vaccine-Autism Fear.
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:23:09 +0000


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SAR "Healing Autism:
Schafer Autism Report No Finer a Cause on the Planet"
________________________________________________________________
Friday, November 17, 2006 Vol. 10 No. 198

PUBLIC HEALTH
* Ped Med: Doctors Fight Vaccine-Autism Fear
* Ped Med: Sides Far Apart In Autism Debate

ADVOCACY
* The Other Secret Bush Court?
* A Critical Response to Kirby Posted On The Huffington Post Blog
* Was Your Child Mercury/Vaccine Damaged? How to File

TREATMENT
* Raising Joshua: Parents Bet On An Improbable Cure

EDUCATION
* Boston Univ. Launches 1st-In-Nation Program To Help Aspergers
Students



PUBLIC HEALTH

Ped Med: Doctors Fight Vaccine-Autism Fear

By Lidia Wasowicz http://tinyurl.com/y27lqf

UPI - Many medical practitioners express frustration with what they
see as persistent and problematic autism-related claims circulating
on the Internet that unjustly give vaccines in particular and the
medical establishment in general a black eye.
"What kills me (are people who say) doctors would never tell you the
truth, what they really think about these things, and because of the
economics, they have to immunize," said Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp,
infectious-disease specialist and chairman of pediatrics and
physician-in-chief at The Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital at
Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. "Nothing hurts
worse than that."
And nothing astonishes him more than allegations of massive cover-ups
by
government, drug companies and physicians of vaccines' perceived
risks, he added.
Regulation of immunization in the United States is one of the
strictest in
the world, medical authorities insist.
"The process of vaccine development, testing, licensure and follow-up
is
an extremely complicated process that has probably more checks and
balances than
the government," Stanford University pediatrics professor and chair
Dr. Charles Prober maintained.
So much so the number of vaccine makers has dropped from 26 in 1967,
to 17
in 1980, to just five in 2004, doctors said.
Most recently, the new rotavirus shot, GlaxoSmithKline's Rotarix,
made its
debut in January 2005 in Mexico -- the first time a major drug
company bypassed America and Europe to introduce a vaccine,
physicians said.
Such arguments make little headway with skeptics. They view studies
establishing vaccine safety as flawed and find more convincing
evidence of harm to at least a subset of children genetically or
otherwise predisposed to ill effects from the mercury-based
preservative thimerosal still used in some booster and flu shots;
from combined, albeit weakened, viruses present in some
immunizations, and/or from other vaccine components.
In addition, they are still rattled over a rash of recent revelations
of what they deem to be conduct unbecoming those charged with
providing for and protecting public health.
Among these, there was a report by the Los Angeles Times that drug
maker Merck had continued to provide thimerosal-containing children's
vaccines long after it had made assurances to the contrary.
There was the widely publicized withdrawal of Merck's blockbuster
arthritis drug Vioxx from the market after the painkiller was shown
to raise the risk of heart attacks and stroke.
There was the affixing of the most serious possible "black-box"
alerts on anti-depressant labels warning of potential increased risk
in some adolescent users of the very suicidal behaviors and thoughts
the pills were supposed to subvert.
Vaccines have had a long history of rising and falling in the
public's estimation.
Between 1900 and 1902, for example, an epidemic of smallpox swept
through Boston, sickening 3,187 people, killing 284 and forcing the
Board of Health to threaten fines or jail time for any resident who
refused inoculation.
Nearly half a million Bostonians rolled up their sleeves for a jab --
many less than willingly.
Protesters headed straight for the courts. The case, Jacobson vs.
Massachusetts, was finally settled in a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling that, on a 7-2 vote, sided with community safety over
individual freedom and established a precedent in public-health law
that has lasted more than a century.
Since then, vaccines have taken the heat for a host of maladies that
have
nothing to do with them, pediatric cardiologist Dr. Darshak Sanghavi
of the
University of Massachusetts Medical School said in a Dec. 4, 2005,
column in the
Boston Globe. For example, the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis shot has
been blamed
for epilepsy and sudden infant death syndrome; the hepatitis B
inoculation for
SIDS and chronic fatigue syndrome; Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type
b) for type
1 diabetes, and the Lyme vaccine for arthritis.
Even their strongest supporters acknowledge that, like any drug,
vaccines
do come with a range of side effects: from a common red bump or
soreness where
the needle pierced the skin and fever to extremely rare seizures and
even death.
No one keeps an exact tab on such complaints, and the federal Vaccine
Adverse Event Reporting System provides an uncertain estimation at
best.
"We get about 20,000 reports per year," said Dr. Ben Schwartz, the
government's senior science adviser on immunizations.
"These are not all true vaccine reactions; many of them are things
only
linked (in timing) with vaccination. You get the flu vaccine, you get
a cold two
days later, you say, 'I got the flu from the vaccine,'" he
added. "That's
impossible because the injected flu vaccine is not a live virus so
there's no way in the world it can cause the flu.
"On the other side of the coin events that occur, minor reactions,
redness, swelling, fever, even more serious reactions, are not
reported to the
system," Schwartz continued. "So, you can't use it to quantify the
incidence of
reaction. It's used for generating information, for raising a red
flag to see if
there's a need for further study."
That many parents are seeing red flags about immunizing their
children is
a considerable cause for worry among doctors.
"(T)his is a big concern on the part of pediatricians, and it's
taking up
an increasing amount of our time in practice because parents are so
frightened
by the possibility that we have caused autism in their kids by giving
them
immunizations," said pediatrician Dr. Eileen Costello of Boston
University.
"I have a large number of parents in my practice now who are refusing
to
immunize their kids, and that in and of itself has huge public health
implications because now we're starting to see the diseases that we
know we can
immunize against and our kids don't have to be subjected to."
In her practice, she said, she has found autism rates remain constant
among unvaccinated and immunized children.
Stanford's Prober said he, too, has seen "a lot of intelligent
people" stepping away from the inoculation regimen.
He recalled being on ABC's "Good Morning America" Jan. 5, 2000, when
his
fellow guest, model Cindy Crawford, spoke of her struggle over
whether to
vaccinate her firstborn and her ultimate decision against it.
"How do parents sort through all the information?" Prober wondered.
"The advice I give is, 'Presumably as a parent, you have taken due
diligence to find a pediatrician to entrust your child's life to, and
you have some respect for that pediatrician on what they'll do on
behalf of your child,'" he said. "'Why would you not let your
pediatrician wade through all the (literature) that's relevant and
help you make the most informed decision?'"
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reports
while
more than 90 percent of children entering school in 2003-2004 had
their
childhood shots, only 79.4 percent were considered fully vaccinated
with the
so-called 4:3:1:3:3 series. That includes four doses of diphtheria,
tetanus and
pertussis, three doses of polio, one dose of measles-containing
vaccine, three
doses of Hib and three doses of hepatitis B.
The U.S. immunization program's goal is to keep those numbers above 90
percent -- considered the critical "tipping point" at which so-called
herd
immunity kicks in and the probability of getting a disease plunges.
Can minds be changed of the growing number of parents -- most of them
white, married, college educated and making more than $75,000 a year,
according
to a study -- who are just saying, "No!" to vaccines? "It may not be
possible,"
acknowledged Dr. Cheston Berlin Jr., Pennsylvania's pediatrician of
the year for
2003, professor of pediatrics and pharmacology at Pennsylvania State
Children's
Hospital in Hershey, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and
Penn State
College of Medicine and director of the Phenylketonuria Clinic. At
least not until there's a greater meeting of the minds on whether
vaccines had any part in the dawning of the modern age of autism.





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• • •

Ped Med: Sides Far Apart In Autism Debate

By Lidia Wasowicz. http://tinyurl.com/yznox6

UPI - Thus far, the opposing mindsets on the question of vaccines'
role in
the rise of autism diagnosis in America's young remain far apart.
Those who believe in such a connection assert:
-- Evidence cited to disprove a link between a mercury-based
preservative
called thimerosal
-- once commonly found in childhood vaccines and still present in some
booster and flu shots -- and neurological disorders comes from flawed
and
manipulated population studies;
-- Studies clearing vaccines have financial or other ties to
pharmaceutical companies or otherwise are marred by conflicts of
interest;
-- The government has been lax about studying the effects of
thimerosal,
which was tested only once, on 22 adult meningitis patients, who died,
eliminating any chance for a follow-up of long-term effects;
-- Even if one accepts those findings, adult results do not
necessarily
apply to immature nervous systems; -- Research shows thimerosal to be
toxic;
-- Studies show children with autism retain more mercury than those
without;
-- Scientists have uncovered certain metabolic deficits that prevent
children from eliminating toxins like mercury;
-- The first documented cases of autism coincide with the
introduction of
thimerosal-containing vaccines;
-- The rate of autism has exploded in the past 20 years, from an
estimated
one in 10,000 to some one in 175 children;
-- At the same time, the number of school-age youngsters diagnosed
with
developmental disorders, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder and
other learning problems, has swelled to one in six;
-- The rise corresponds to the increases in thimerosal-containing
vaccines
in the childhood schedule;
-- The federal health agencies' explanation for these changes
of "better
diagnosing" is inadequate;
-- As predicted, the autism caseloads in special education departments
have started to level off or even decline since the removal of
thimerosal from
most children's vaccines.

For their part, those who see no vaccine-autism link insist:
-- There is no autism epidemic; the numbers cited refer to diagnoses
made,
not actual cases; the definition of autism has been vastly expanded
to include
groups of children who previously would not qualify; understanding
and awareness
of the disorder have improved so that many youngsters who once would
have been
identified as schizophrenic, mentally retarded or learning disabled
are now
categorized as autistic;
-- Correlation is not causation; the increases could just as easily be
attributed to the rise in the use of cell phones, video games or
pesticides;
-- Ethylmercury, the type of mercury found in vaccines, and
methylmercury,
the type present in polluted fish, differ substantially in their
travel through
the body; no studies show thimerosal in the tiny amounts used in
children's
shots is injurious;
-- No research has determined the effect, if any, of ethylmercury in
vaccines on the brain;
-- Studies of hundreds of thousands of children have shown no
causative
link between vaccines and autism or other developmental disorders;
-- In England, the concern is with the MMR shots, which never
contained
thimerosal; in the United States, the uproar is over thimerosal-
containing
vaccines;
-- It is unreasonable to claim some vast conspiracy among major health
organizations, physicians, scientists, geneticists and others,
including some of
the biggest and most respected names in the field;
-- Parents suing vaccine manufacturers for harm to their children,
lawyers
representing them and researchers/scientists and doctors testifying
on their
behalf have a conflict of interest;
-- The study that set off the vaccine scare has been discredited,
never
duplicated, recanted by 10 of 13 of its authors and renounced by the
journal
that published it;
-- Public health agencies are acting in good faith and are so
responsive
to parental concerns, they urged the removal of thimerosal from
childhood
vaccines even in the absence of any evidence of harm, and are
continuing to
pursue this line of research;
-- It's impossible to prove a negative so no amount of studies will
ever
satisfy everyone that vaccines do not cause autism or any other
disorder;
-- Vaccines are life savers that have spared generations of children
from
some of history's deadliest plagues;
-- The vaccine question has had enough scientific attention; money,
time,
effort -- all of which are available in limited quantities -- are
better spent
pursuing more credible causes of the disorder.
Still, federal officials say they remain open to "any and all
hypotheses."

• • •

ADVOCACY

The Other Secret Bush Court?

Next year, a "Special Master" in an obscure Federal court known only
to a
few Americans will preside over a highly sensitive judicial matter of
urgent
national importance. The Bush Administration wants to hold the
hearings in a
sealed courtroom, off limits to the press and public, with
stiff "sanctions" for
any outsider who attempts to gain unauthorized access to the secretive
proceedings within.
Terror trials in faraway Gitmo? Good guess. But these are vaccine
trials
on New York Avenue, in downtown Washington, at the U.S. Court of
Federal Claims.
You may not know it, but there is an official federal "vaccine court,"
where some 4,750 autism-related cases have been pending for years.
Claimants believe the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal,
and/or the MMR vaccine, contributed to their children's autism, and
they are
seeking compensation from a special vaccine injury fund administered
by the
federal government.
The long-awaited autism vaccine trial will commence on June 11 in the
courtroom of Special Master George Hastings. The plaintiffs and their
attorneys
have asked for complete transparency in every aspect of the tribunal,
including
public disclosure of all evidence and unhindered media access to the
hearings.
The few autism families whose medical records will be scrutinized as
legal
examples are waiving their right to privacy and confidentiality, so
that their
stories may finally be told in an open court of law.
But the DOJ (technically, the "defense") has other plans. On November
3,
the Department wrote to Hastings saying it "would oppose public
access to the
courtroom and public broadcast of the trial," because such an
arrangement "would
pose security and privacy concerns" for those in attendance.
Exactly whose privacy are they trying to protect? It can't be the
parents,
because they don't want privacy. The only party fretting about
privacy is the
DOJ itself, and presumably, the vaccine makers. (As for "security"
concerns,
isn't that why we have court officers?).
The government may call this privacy, but I call it secrecy. In fact,
there has been a long and unseemly history of secrecy when it comes
to federal
data on thimerosal and autism.
And let's face it: People don't hide something unless they have
something to hide.
Back in 2002, Health and Human Services lawyers quietly slipped into
vaccine court to file a protection order to permanently seal all
thimerosal-related documents. They proposed sanctions for any lawyer
who shared
the secret government information with autism families, the public or
the press.
All thimerosal data would be banned from use in future civil cases,
and any
materials already given to plaintiffs would be rounded up by federal
agents and
destroyed. The motion was withdrawn after appropriate public outcry.
Many of those federal documents pertained to an off-limits database
called
the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), which tracks the medical records
of hundreds
of thousands of American children. Lawyers for the families have
tried to gain
access to the VSD for years, including a 2004 "Motion to Compel" that
went nowhere.
In 2005, the Institute of Medicine issued a report slamming the
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, which manages the VSD, for
a "lack of
transparency" in handling the data. Even more alarming, CDC officials
testified
that the original datasets they examined had "not been archived in a
standard
fashion," meaning they were either lost, or destroyed. Take your pick.
If the disappearance of these datasets was intentional, that would be
a
clear violation of the federal Data Quality Act. No wonder the IOM
urged vaccine
officials to "seek legal advice" on the status of the missing records.
But those missing datasets could well have been a bonanza to
attorneys for
the autism parents. Now they are gone.
And, without access to any of the raw data to which government
lawyers are
privy, the families' cases are woefully, and unconstitutionally,
disadvantaged.
In what other American court of law are defendants allowed access to
evidence
that is kept secret from plaintiffs?
Meanwhile, family lawyers have received 216,000 pages of discovery
materials, sourced from federal agencies and private companies alike.
They might well paint an incriminating portrait of thimerosal's role
in
autism, and that may be why individuals face a $250,000 penalty for
any paper that is leaked.
But some documents have already been leaked, including one published
in
the Los Angeles Times showing that Merck officials knew of the
cumulative and
alarmingly high levels of mercury in vaccines way back in 1991, but
said nothing
about it to anyone.
Are there other incriminating memos from Merck (or Lilly or Glaxo,
etc.)?
My sources indicate that there are, but we may never get to see them.
And now,
by barring public access to the trial, we may never get to hear them,
either.
If the DOJ has its way, only claimants and their attorneys will be
allowed
to sit in the courtroom, or receive password-enabled access to a live
audio
webcast of the trial. The media will be barred, and so will everyone
else. And
though there will be an official written transcript, such documents
are
sometimes redacted, or even sealed, after the trial.
As a journalist, I will be subject to "sanctions" if I sit in on a
webcast
without authorization from the court. In fact, unauthorized access to
the
proceedings, according to the DOJ proposal, might lead
to "termination of the
webcast and closing of the courtroom."
What remains unclear is whether journalists will be prosecuted for
interviewing families who have access to the webcast, or who attend
the trial in person. But if I get arrested for hanging around outside
the court with my pen and notepad, don't blame me for trying.
Curiously, a final reason cited for barring reporters and others from
vaccine court is that "opening the courtroom to the general public
would make it more difficult for claimants themselves to attend." I
know plenty of parents who would gladly give up their seat for, say,
Wolf Blitzer or Brian Williams, but the DOJ apparently hasn't asked
them.
I think it's safe to say that the Bush Administration does not want
this
trial publicized. That seems curious to me. The entire thimerosal
question will
likely be left up to just one man: Special Master Hastings. Whether
he decides
for the parents, or for the DOJ, his ruling will forever be
considered within a
vacuum, subject to intense criticism from either side, unless he
agrees that all
thimerosal evidence should at long last be made public.
I hope he rules that his courtroom is not Guantanamo. These parents,
and
the public at large, deserve no less.

PS: My last post predicted that most autism parents would be voting
Democratic this November, without giving proper credit to two members
of the
House GOP. Dan Burton (R-IN) and Dave Weldon (R-FL) are among the
most open
minded members when it comes to the mercury-autism hypothesis, and I
apologize
for the omission. Meanwhile, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has been
hostile, at best,
to the theory. I congratulate Rep. Waxman on his ascendancy to the
House
Government Reform Committee Chairmanship, and respectfully ask him to
read
"Evidence of Harm," and, if possible, offer a response on the
Huffington Post.

You can read David Kirby here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-
kirby/

• • •

A Critical Response to Kirby Posted On The Huffington Post Blog

Perhaps there's a less sinister, and more practical reason, that DOJ
opposes "public access to the courtroom and public broadcast of the
trial."
Maybe that reason is called "the law." Perhaps what you refer to
as "secret
government information" is "protected health information" under
HIPPAA Privacy
Rules. Just maybe.
The 2005 IOM report "Vaccine Safety Research, Data Access and Public
Trust" is hardly a "slam" of the CDC--unless you want it to be. In
this report,
the committee recommended that, "The CDC, which oversees the VSD,
should create
a new, independent committee to review researchers' proposals to use
VSD data,
monitor adherence to protocols, and advise the agency and its
partners on when
and how to release preliminary findings based on the data." You call
this a
slam. I call it oversight and peer review.
You conveniently (?) forgot to mention that other IOM report,
"Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism."
"This eighth and final report of the Immunization Safety Review
Committee
examines the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the measles-mumps-
rubella
(MMR) vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines, are causally
associated with
autism.
The committee reviewed the published and unpublished epidemiological
studies regarding causality and studies of potential biologic
mechanisms by
which these immunizations might cause autism.
The committee concludes that the body of epidemiological evidence
favors
rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and
autism. The
committee also concludes that the body of epidemiological evidence
favors
rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing
vaccines and
autism.
The committee does not recommend a policy review of the current
schedule
and recommendations for the administration of either the MMR vaccine
or
thimerosal-containing vaccines."
The actual report is here-->
http://www.iom.edu/CMS/3793/4705/20155.aspx...
Here's the latest scientific literature on vaccines and autism-->
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/674...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?
cmd=Retrieve&db=pubme...
If all else fails, just blame television--->
http://www.slate.com/id/2151538...
- By: Rationale

• • •

Fue Tu Hijo Dañado por la Vacuna de Mercurio? Como demandar.
llenando una Corta Forma de Petición de Autismo sin un Abogado

¿Sí tienes un hijo con autismo y consideras que el autismo fue
causado por vacunas que el niño recibió?, puedes pasar una Petición
en formato corto con el Programa de remuneración Nacional
compensación por daño de lesión vaccíneo "National Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program." (Enlace aquí para ver la Opinión del Jefe
Maestro Especial "Chief Special Master" referente a este
procedimiento..
http://tinyurl.com/ynyfgg ) Mientras nosotros recomendamos que
retenga los servicios de un abogado que lo represente, si usted no
puede encontrar un abogado, puedes llenar la petición tú mismo
siguiendo las siguientes instrucciones. Hay tres formas a descargar.
Para mayor información visite este sitio Web:
http://www.attorneyaccess.net/ProSe.cfm

Pase por favor esta información a otros padres que se puedan
beneficiar. Entre mas gente entre petición, mayor presión pondrá esto
sobre el gobierno para venir con algunas respuesta a la epidemia del
autismo..





LISTA DE DISCUSION SOBRE EVIDENCIAS DE LESION SE CALIENTA A
MEDIDA QUE LA CONEXION MERCURIO CON AUTISMO SE EXPANDE

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Was Your Child Mercury/Vaccine Damaged? How to File.
Filing a Short Form Autism Petition without an attorney

If you have a child with autism and you feel that the autism was
caused by
vaccinations that the child received, you may be able to file a Short
Form
Petition with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. (Link
here to
see Opinion of the Chief Special Master concerning this procedure.
http://tinyurl.com/ynyfgg ) While we recommend that you find an
attorney to
represent you, if you cannot find an attorney, you can file the
Petition
yourself by following these instructions. There are three forms to
download.
For more information, go to this website:
http://www.attorneyaccess.net/ProSe.cfm

Please pass along this information to other parents who may benefit.
The
more people who file, the more pressure it will put on the government
to come up
with some answers to the autism epidemic.





EVIDENCE OF HARM DISCUSSION LIST HEATS UP
AS MERCURY LINK TO AUTISM QUESTION SPREADS

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An Evidence of Harm email discussion list has been created in
response to the growing interest in the book and the issues it
chronicles. Now over 1,450 subscribers. Here is how to subscribe (no
cost): EOHarm-subscribe@yahoogroups.com


• • •

TREATMENT

Raising Joshua: Parents Bet On An Improbable Cure.

By Lisa Rab
http://www.clevescene.com/Issues/2006-11-15/news/feature_full.html

Joshua was the second son, ushered into the world with all the hope
and
promise of the first. He would be the middle child, just like his
dad. Destined
to play football with his big brother, protect his little sister.
But almost immediately, there were signs of trouble. He had constant
diarrhea and rashes all over. He was allergic to corn, tomatoes, and
seemingly
everything in his mother's milk. At six months, he was spinning
himself at high
speeds in his baby saucer. By the time he was a year old, he was
walking on
tiptoes and flapping his hands like a pigeon with broken wings.
A year later, he still wasn't talking. He wouldn't say Mommy or turn
around even when his dad shouted his name. Instead, he stared off
into space or
laughed at nothing, as if he were amused by ghosts. Each month was
more
discouraging than the last. Instead of growing up, he seemed to be
standing
still. At three, he couldn't drink from a cup or hold a fork or catch
a ball. He
could neither point nor wave.
"It was devastating," remembers his dad, Scott Shoemaker. "He was
getting
to the point where he was just kind of dropping out of our world
completely."
It was not a calamity Scott and his wife, Angela, were willing to
swallow.
They are a power duo -- blond, driven, relentlessly polite, as if the
prom queen
had married her favorite football player. Their three children were
born exactly
two and a half years apart, each christened with names that start
with "J."
Having a toddler who vomited more than he talked wasn't part of the
plan.
So even when they heard the doctors' words, they weren't inclined to
believe. "I almost chuckled," Shoemaker says of the day his son was
diagnosed
with autism.
Joshua's only shot at improvement, the doctors said, was behavioral
therapy that costs upward of $60,000 a year -- and the waiting list
was a year long. Even if Joshua made it through, there was no
guarantee he would ever be normal.
Until his son got sick, Scott Shoemaker's knowledge of autism was
limited
to Rain Man. But when he and his wife sought guidance in cyberspace,
they
discovered a dizzying new world.
The conventional medical websites -- the Centers for Disease Control
and
the Cleveland Clinic -- say that autism is a confounding disability.
The
disorder affects the brain, making it harder for children to learn,
grow, play,
and communicate. Each case is different, but for some kids, even
using the
bathroom or giving a hug comes with a struggle.
Some, like renowned animal scientist Temple Grandin, have hidden
talents,
while others will be lucky to get a job at the mall. Many will rely on
government checks for the rest of their lives, and the most severe
cases end up
in group homes. There is no cure, and the disorder's causes are still
largely a
mystery. Everything from genes to environmental toxins has been
blamed for the
condition, which is estimated to affect 1 in every 166 children.
But surf a little more, and you'll find an entirely different
explanation.
In recent years, a small army of parents and doctors have latched
onto the
theory that autism is caused by mercury poisoning -- specifically,
the mercury
preservative found in some childhood vaccines. In small kids, mercury
can cause
many of the same symptoms that autism is known for: extreme shyness,
tantrums,
attention problems, poor language skills.
Mainstream studies have dismissed this claim, yet its supporters are
convinced that the feds and the drug companies are covering up the
poisoning of children. Like the holistic crowd, they distrust the
words of Big Pharma and the health-care industry, believing that
greed supersedes devotion to what's right.
If the government admitted that vaccines were hurting babies, public-
health
campaigns around the world would be turned upside down, the cost of
lawsuits
insurmountable.
So the mercury crowd has developed its own science, testimonials, and
damning paper trail to back its claims.
It's not hard to see why parents believe. When your child suffers,
you're
eager to find someone to blame. Mercury poisoning is a much easier
explanation
to swallow than a mysterious disability arising from the netherworld
of the gene pool.
Besides, if a boy's brain has been altered by chemicals rather than
by genes, he can be cured.
Dr. Phillip DeMio knows this desperation well. His only child was
a "beautiful, healthy baby" until he received his 18-month vaccines,
which included Hepatitis B. Suddenly, the boy was constipated and had
trouble paying attention. He stopped talking, would eat only half a
Pop-Tart a day, and screamed through the night. DeMio, an ER doctor
who had treated scores of sick babies, could do nothing to help him.
One of autism's cruel tricks is that it strikes boys more often than
girls. In this way, it attacks something deep and vulnerable in a
father's soul: his chance to raise a son. Even when DeMio discusses
the dry elements of science -- biology, chemistry, the reasoning of
cells and blood -- his anguish blankets everything. He leans forward,
lips twisting, body tense with outrage.
"They murder the family," he says of the disorders. "They murder the
finances of the family." And it's all caused by the mercury in common
childhood vaccines, he believes.
Other doctors didn't see it that way. They told DeMio that his son
had a
mental disorder and that he would just have to cope. But DeMio knew
better. He
had worked with metal-poisoned patients. He knew what mercury could
do to a
kid's brain.
So he took matters into his own hands. Four years ago, he left the
safety
of Cleveland's hospitals and dedicated himself to the crusade. From
his tiny
office in Seven Hills, he now prescribes the creams and pills that
have become
the Holy Grail for his son, as well as Joshua Shoemaker and hundreds
of other patients.
As he talks, he takes out a syringe and squeezes a sulfur-scented
cream
onto his wrists, rubbing vigorously. A few minutes later, he reports
that he can
taste the medicine working.
For decades, a process called chelation has been used by hospitals to
treat kids with lead poisoning. Through pills or an IV, it pulls
heavy metals
out of the body to reduce the long-term damage to the child. DeMio's
cream is
supposed to do the same, but more slowly. It's absorbed through the
skin, just
as nicotine enters a smoker's body through a patch. Once the mercury
and other
heavy metals come out, the theory goes, autistic kids should improve.
Joshua Shoemaker, his parents say, stopped his compulsive spinning as
soon
as he started treatment. In a few days, he hugged and kissed his
sister. Within
five months, he was pointing and talking to the camera on a home
video. After a
year, he could speak in complete sentences, answer questions, and
attend preschool.
His parents began to taste the impossible: a cure.
Though conspiracy theories are usually associated with gullible
minds, the
Shoemakers have some powerful allies.
Congressman Dan Burton (R-Indiana) recently completed a congressional
investigation that supported the link between autism and mercury.
Last year, New
York Times reporter David Kirby published Evidence of Harm, a book
that pushed
the CDC into a suspiciously cautious defense of its actions.
Months later, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. detailed the government's alleged
coverup in Rolling Stone. He described a secret meeting in which top
scientists
and health officials discussed a study linking the increase in
childhood
vaccines to the explosive rise in autism in the last 15 years.
Kennedy alleged
that Dr. Tom Verstraeten, the CDC scientist who carried out the
study, later
changed his findings. The government claimed that the original data
had been
lost.
This is one of the reasons DeMio is angry: He says that Verstraeten
should
be "prosecuted for atrocities against humanity." + Read more:
http://www.clevescene.com/Issues/2006-11-15/news/feature_full.html

• • •

EDUCATION

Boston Univ. Launches 1st-In-Nation Program To Help Aspergers Students

By Rebecca McNamara for the Daily Free Press.
http://tinyurl.com/yhy6ql

Twenty-five years after launching one of the nation's first disability
support offices, Boston University has launched a pilot program to
examine
options for students with Asperger's Syndrome, an Autism spectrum
disorder
commonly overlooked on college campuses.
ASDs can impair students' verbal and non-verbal communication, social
skills and some behaviors, according to Sargent College of Health and
Rehabilitation Sciences professor Gael Orsmond. Patients with
Asperger's
Syndrome experience ASD symptoms but have an average IQ and no
history of
language development problems. Patients also may experience feeling
shy and
socially alienated from peers in addition to having obsessive
compulsive tendencies.
Despite the difference between Asperger's and other ASDs, Orsmond
said the
distinction is irrelevant when helping students to succeed in classes
or with
social interactions.
"The interventions and what [the students] need are going to be the
same,"
she said. "We still have to look at the person and what their
difficulties are."
The program, developed by BU Disability Services Clinical Director
Lorraine Wolf in collaboration with the University of Minnesota and
the
University of Connecticut School of Law, will evaluate ways students
with
Aspergers can treat its symptoms
"We want to find out what are the best interventions," she
said. "Personal
support seems like one of the most important things -- just having
someone to
check in with on a regular basis."
Asperger's Syndrome was first described in 1944 but was not
classified as
a psychiatric disorder until 1994, according to the Asperger's
Association of
New England website. Since then, colleges, especially more
competitive schools,
have seen an increase in students with the disorder, Wolf said.
But AANE Executive Director Dania Jekel said the increase is more
likely
due to a higher rate of diagnosis, not a rise in the number of
students with
Asperger's.
"We know that the number of identified students has certainly
increased,"
she said. "Before, a lot of folks had a different diagnosis or no
diagnosis."
But many students still do not report symptoms, making it difficult to
track the prevalence of Asperger's on college campuses, Wolf and
Jekel said.
"It could be a unique challenge [for the students] to advocate for
themselves," Wolf said, because asking for help is a common social
impairment.
"Students are often brought in by parents. It is rare for them to
bring themselves in."
Jekel said she hopes more schools will focus on locating students with
Asperger's so they can receive the help that will let them succeed in
college.
"A lot of schools have disability offices, but it's really very often
that
people with Asperger's Syndrome are confused or have trouble taking
the
initiative," she said. "That's a problem. There has to be somebody
out there who
has to be on top of what's going on and has to be proactive."
Wolf said she hopes the pilot program, along with a book she co-
authored,
set to be released in early 2007, will help bring more insight about
the
disorder to other universities' disability services programs.
"[Students with Asperger's] often have different needs than resource
disability people are used to dealing with," she said.
Jekel said college students with Asperger's without a support system
can
turn to AANE, which hosts discussion and social groups for young
adults.
Wolf said students with Asperger's may need extra time for test-
taking,
reduced course loads, special housing accommodations, including
single rooms or
quiet floors, or someone to occasionally check in with.
Jekel said colleges should also consider developing a special
orientation
for students with Asperger's.
"[The orientation would be] to sort of go over with students what are
they
going to disclose and who are they going to disclose it to and how,"
she said.
Orsmond, who is studying patients with autism and their families, said
students with Asperger's need personal support to succeed in college.
She said
she suggests students try to connect with a professor who may be more
understanding of the disorder.
Jekel said Asperger's students also find support groups helpful.
"What we see is that people with Asperger's Syndrome generally feel
very
comfortable in groups with other people with Asperger's Syndrome,"
she said. "I
think it's important to have those available."




Public Service Announcement to the Reader:

AUTISM IS TREATABLE. Consult these sources:

. Autism Research Institute http://tinyurl.com/ccxco

. Generation Rescue http://www.generationrescue.org

. UK - Big Biomedical Conf. http://www.treatingautism.com

. UK - Autism Treatment Trust http://www.autismtrust.org.uk


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