Why Don’t Children Regress Before They Turn One? by F. Yazbak, MD, FAAP

[Guest guest]

Excellent, thank you Fou

Sheri

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/20110110AutisticRegressionYazbakFE

Why Don’t Children Regress Before They Turn One? by F.

Yazbak, MD, FAAP

Bernard Rimland PhD was a remarkable researcher and a national

& international expert on autism. His interest in the subject started

very abruptly, three years after he obtained his Doctorate Degree in

Experimental Psychology, when his son Mark was diagnosed with “Early

Infantile Autism”, at a time when autism was rare.

Bernie’s passion about autism, its causes and its treatment never waned

and he remained a fierce campaigner for affected children and their

families until his last breath.

We had many long and interesting discussions over the years, in person

and by phone and I learned a lot from him. One day, I asked him about

“Regressive Autism” and its recent relative increase. He beamed, looked

at me over his glasses and started searching among the many papers he

usually carried in his brief case. He appeared relieved when he found a

graph he had hand-drawn and that was based on thousands of records he had

personally reviewed and tabulated for the Autism Research Institute huge

database.

That very simple graph was remarkable. It showed two intersecting lines:

A dotted line representing the Regressive Autism cases, with onset

of symptoms at 18 months, running for years below the Early

Onset Autism solid line and suddenly taking off in the late

seventies / early eighties and steadily rising until it intersected the

solid line by the mid eighties. By the late nineties, the dotted line was

much higher than the other line and Regressive Autism cases

represented around 80% of the ARI’s total case-load.

Bernie, clearly very pleased with his graph added: “You are a

pediatrician so I don’t need to tell you when the MMR vaccine became

widely used in the United States.”

On another occasion, Dr. Rimland

discussing his favorite subject again stated:

“As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a

researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and

chagrined by the medical establishment’s ongoing efforts to trivialize

the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are

the root cause of the epidemic. There are many consistent lines of

evidence implicating vaccines, and no even marginally plausible

alternative hypotheses.”

" As the number of childhood vaccines has increased 700%, from 3 in

the 70s to 22 in 2000, the prevalence of autism has also showed a

parallel increase of 700%.”

" Late onset autism, (starting in the 2nd year), was almost unheard

of in the 50s, 60s, and 70s; today such cases outnumber early onset cases

5 to 1, the increase paralleling the increase in required

vaccines.”

" Thousands of parents report and demonstrate with home videos – that

their children were normal and responsive until suffering an adverse

vaccine reaction.”

On April 6, 2000, I was seated just two rows behind Dr. Rimland when he

testified in front of the United States Congress House Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform

[ii] and stated: “Let me dispel several myths promoted by those who

deny the autism-vaccine connection:

1. They claim the vaccines are safe,

but physicians are indoctrinated to disbelieve claims of harm …

2. They say that the suspected

linkage between the MMR vaccination and autism has been disproved by a

study conducted by Brent and his colleagues in London, and

published last year in The Lancet. The study is seriously flawed

in many ways…

3. They say that autism has a large

genetic component, and therefore vaccines must play a minimal, if any,

role in the causation of autism…However, genes do not begin to account

for the huge increase in the incidence of autism, ranging from 250% to

500% in various places…

4. They claim that autism naturally

occurs at about 18 months, when the MMR is routinely given, so the

association is merely coincidental and not causal. But the onset of

autism at 18 months is a recent development. Autism starting

at 18 months rose very sharply in the mid-1980s, when the MMR vaccine

came into wide use. A coincidence?

Hardly! See the graph below…”

*****

Researchers outside the United States also reported that Regressive

Autism was being diagnosed in increasing numbers. In a 1998 study

from Italy, De Giacomo and Fombonne examined data of 82

consecutive children referred for evaluation and diagnosed with a

pervasive developmental disorder and reported that the mean age of

children was 19.1 months when the parents first became concerned

about their speech and development.

[iii]

Two years later, Baird et al published the results of their testing of

16,235 children in London

[iv] and reported that four out of five children subsequently

diagnosed as having an autistic disorder appeared normal at 18 months,

exhibiting good eye contact, fantasy play and pointing.

*****

Early on, the first dose of MMR vaccine was administered at the 15-month

check-up, usually alone.

Worried about vaccination being blamed for Regressive Autism, the health

authorities and vaccine promoters quickly circulated the idea that

autism, supposedly a purely “genetic disorder”, manifested itself between

18 and 24 months of age. In time, that somewhat preposterous idea became

an accepted scientific fact, even though the syndrome was originally

called “Infantile Autism” or “Kanner’s Infantile Autism” and an infant

is, by definition, a child under the age of 12 months.

The CDC recommendation was later changed and the first dose of MMR

vaccine was administered, most often alone, at age 12 months. As time

went by, other vaccines were added. Presently, a 1-year-old boy may

receive his first dose of MMR vaccine plus vaccines for Varicella, HIB,

PCV, IPV and Hepatitis A.

[v]

Not to be outdone, the UK Chief Medical Officer

[vi] recently recommended to NHS that Hib/MenC, MMR and the

pneumococcal vaccines be administered at the 12-month visit starting

January 1, 2011. A DOH spokesman promptly reassured the nation by stating

that " Independent scientific research has shown that providing these

vaccines at the same time is safe, effective and more convenient for

parents. "

*****

Of the many parents I have personally interviewed over the last few

years, the majority describe the changes in their children very much the

same way: The baby who is normal at birth achieves expected milestones

until his first birthday. When prompted to try hard to recall, some

parents report minor deviations from the norm in some tasks. Sometime

after his 12 or 15-month visit (depending on the vaccination schedule),

the busy toddler stops acquiring new words and doing new things, either

abruptly or gradually. He (or she) then starts losing words he knew and

is unable to do things he did well, just a month or two earlier. The

change is particularly noticeable to relatives and friends who do not see

him every day.

Many if not most of the children who regress also have reactions to their

vaccination: High fever, febrile seizures, irritability, a rash or

diarrhea. A large number of children develop intercurrent

infections such as persistent colds and ear infections, as their immune

system is affected.

Parents often also describe the child as being “out of it” a week or so

after vaccination.

The acute reaction phase is usually followed by behavioral changes:

Constant crying, head banging, rocking and toe-walking. Within two or

three or four months, the regression is severe and another family is

devastated.

In a recent Canadian study (2009), Meilleur and Fombonne

[vii] compared children with “an apparently normal early development,

followed by a loss of verbal and/or non-verbal skills prior to 2 years of

age” with other children on the autistic spectrum. They reported that

children who regressed “spoke at a significantly earlier age” and had a

“more severe autistic symptomatology profile.”

When one hears the same story twice or three times, it is permissible to

attribute it to a coincidence; when one hears it 50 or a 100 times, it is

less likely to be a coincidence; and when hundreds and thousands of

reliable people report the same events time after time, one cannot say

they are all wrong and the whole thing is nothing but a

coincidence.

It is both cruel and insulting to insist that hundreds and thousands of

parents do not know what they are talking about because they do not have

letters behind their names. It is also unacceptable, inhuman and

outrageous to maintain, for years and years, that all of them are wrong.

In any case… a huge question remains:

WHY DON’T ALL THOSE MISTAKEN PARENTS EVER REPORT THAT THEIR CHILDREN

STARTED REGRESSING AT 11 or 10 ½ MONTHS?

*****

Most babies born in the United States presently receive a hepatitis B

vaccine in the nursery (God only knows why). They then receive several

vaccines at age 2, 4 and 6 months of age and then … they get a break

until they are one.

Babies do not all achieve developmental milestones at the same time. Some

are precocious and already walking at ten or eleven months and some only

walk at 15 months or later. Some “talk” constantly and some, silently,

just look at their moms with bright eyes. In general, many if not all 9

to 12 month-old children listen when spoken to, know their names,

understand “no”, recognize the meaning of gestures, react to voice

inflections, babble, say few words, use and repeat sounds, “pet” the dog

like their parents do and clearly “communicate”. They walk around their

playpen or the living room, some get up by themselves and they all keep

their parents busy.

So why don’t any of those little ones ever regress - really, really

regress - at 11 months of age and why do they all wait and regress all

together, just after their first birthday and their “one-year”

check-up whether they are in the United States, the United Kingdom,

Israel, Egypt or Australia?

Why don’t we ever, ever hear of babies regressing into autism during the

vaccine break period, between 6 and 12 months of age or more specifically

between age 9 and 12 months, when they are doing all those wonderful

exciting things we need to call the neighbors, friends and family to

witness or quickly find the movie camera to record?

WHY, WHY, WHY

DON’T BABIES REGRESS BEFORE THEIR ONE-YEAR CHECK-UP?

*****

It would have been very easy to destroy Wakefield’s suggestion

that more research was required and justified, in order to investigate

and rule out an MMR-Autism connection (or in fact, any “vaccine-autism

connection.”)

All that Wakefield’s critics and enemies had to do in order to prove him

wrong was to document that children profoundly regressed into autism

during the “vaccine-break period”, between 6 and 12 months of age and not

only in the second year of life.

They would have saved a lot of money and they would have saved a lot of

effort.

But they did not, because they could not:

SEVERE AUTISTIC REGRESSION ONLY HAPPENS

IN THE SECOND YEAR OF LIFE

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

Dedication:

To Dr. Bernard Rimland who has done so much for so many children with

autism!

Acknowledgement:

The help offered by a researcher who prefers anonymity is deeply

appreciated

References:

http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/AUTISM_EPIDEMIC_IS_REAL.asp?cat=1

Accessed 01/06/11

[ii]

http://www.whale.to/v/rimland.html Accessed 01/07/11

[iii] De Giacomo A, Fombonne E.

Parental recognition

of developmental abnormalities in autism. Eur Child

Adolesc Psychiatry. 1998 Sep;7(3):131-6. Accessed

01/07/11

[iv] Baird G, Charman T, Baron-Cohen S, A,

Swettenham J, Wheelwright S, Drew A.

A screening

instrument for autism at 18 months of age: a 6-year follow-up study.

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2000

Jun;39(6):694-702

[v]

http://www.aap.org/immunization/IZSchedule.html Accessed

01/07/11

[vi]

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/Statements/DH_122026 Accessed

01/08/11

[vii] Meilleur AA, Fombonne E.

Regression of

language and non-language skills in pervasive developmental

disorders. J Intellect Disabil Res. 2009

Feb;53(2):115-24. Accessed 01/07/11

F. Yazbak, MD, FAAP

Falmouth, Massachusetts

Date:

January 10, 2011

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines -

http://vaccinationdangers.wordpress.com/ Homeopathy

http://homeopathycures.wordpress.com

Vaccine Dangers, Childhood Disease Classes & Homeopathy

Online/email courses - next classes start September 9

[Guest guest]

Excellent, thank you Fou

Sheri

http://www.vaccinationnews.com/20110110AutisticRegressionYazbakFE

Why Don’t Children Regress Before They Turn One? by F.

Yazbak, MD, FAAP

Bernard Rimland PhD was a remarkable researcher and a national

& international expert on autism. His interest in the subject started

very abruptly, three years after he obtained his Doctorate Degree in

Experimental Psychology, when his son Mark was diagnosed with “Early

Infantile Autism”, at a time when autism was rare.

Bernie’s passion about autism, its causes and its treatment never waned

and he remained a fierce campaigner for affected children and their

families until his last breath.

We had many long and interesting discussions over the years, in person

and by phone and I learned a lot from him. One day, I asked him about

“Regressive Autism” and its recent relative increase. He beamed, looked

at me over his glasses and started searching among the many papers he

usually carried in his brief case. He appeared relieved when he found a

graph he had hand-drawn and that was based on thousands of records he had

personally reviewed and tabulated for the Autism Research Institute huge

database.

That very simple graph was remarkable. It showed two intersecting lines:

A dotted line representing the Regressive Autism cases, with onset

of symptoms at 18 months, running for years below the Early

Onset Autism solid line and suddenly taking off in the late

seventies / early eighties and steadily rising until it intersected the

solid line by the mid eighties. By the late nineties, the dotted line was

much higher than the other line and Regressive Autism cases

represented around 80% of the ARI’s total case-load.

Bernie, clearly very pleased with his graph added: “You are a

pediatrician so I don’t need to tell you when the MMR vaccine became

widely used in the United States.”

On another occasion, Dr. Rimland

discussing his favorite subject again stated:

“As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a

researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and

chagrined by the medical establishment’s ongoing efforts to trivialize

the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are

the root cause of the epidemic. There are many consistent lines of

evidence implicating vaccines, and no even marginally plausible

alternative hypotheses.”

" As the number of childhood vaccines has increased 700%, from 3 in

the 70s to 22 in 2000, the prevalence of autism has also showed a

parallel increase of 700%.”

" Late onset autism, (starting in the 2nd year), was almost unheard

of in the 50s, 60s, and 70s; today such cases outnumber early onset cases

5 to 1, the increase paralleling the increase in required

vaccines.”

" Thousands of parents report and demonstrate with home videos – that

their children were normal and responsive until suffering an adverse

vaccine reaction.”

On April 6, 2000, I was seated just two rows behind Dr. Rimland when he

testified in front of the United States Congress House Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform

[ii] and stated: “Let me dispel several myths promoted by those who

deny the autism-vaccine connection:

1. They claim the vaccines are safe,

but physicians are indoctrinated to disbelieve claims of harm …

2. They say that the suspected

linkage between the MMR vaccination and autism has been disproved by a

study conducted by Brent and his colleagues in London, and

published last year in The Lancet. The study is seriously flawed

in many ways…

3. They say that autism has a large

genetic component, and therefore vaccines must play a minimal, if any,

role in the causation of autism…However, genes do not begin to account

for the huge increase in the incidence of autism, ranging from 250% to

500% in various places…

4. They claim that autism naturally

occurs at about 18 months, when the MMR is routinely given, so the

association is merely coincidental and not causal. But the onset of

autism at 18 months is a recent development. Autism starting

at 18 months rose very sharply in the mid-1980s, when the MMR vaccine

came into wide use. A coincidence?

Hardly! See the graph below…”

*****

Researchers outside the United States also reported that Regressive

Autism was being diagnosed in increasing numbers. In a 1998 study

from Italy, De Giacomo and Fombonne examined data of 82

consecutive children referred for evaluation and diagnosed with a

pervasive developmental disorder and reported that the mean age of

children was 19.1 months when the parents first became concerned

about their speech and development.

[iii]

Two years later, Baird et al published the results of their testing of

16,235 children in London

[iv] and reported that four out of five children subsequently

diagnosed as having an autistic disorder appeared normal at 18 months,

exhibiting good eye contact, fantasy play and pointing.

*****

Early on, the first dose of MMR vaccine was administered at the 15-month

check-up, usually alone.

Worried about vaccination being blamed for Regressive Autism, the health

authorities and vaccine promoters quickly circulated the idea that

autism, supposedly a purely “genetic disorder”, manifested itself between

18 and 24 months of age. In time, that somewhat preposterous idea became

an accepted scientific fact, even though the syndrome was originally

called “Infantile Autism” or “Kanner’s Infantile Autism” and an infant

is, by definition, a child under the age of 12 months.

The CDC recommendation was later changed and the first dose of MMR

vaccine was administered, most often alone, at age 12 months. As time

went by, other vaccines were added. Presently, a 1-year-old boy may

receive his first dose of MMR vaccine plus vaccines for Varicella, HIB,

PCV, IPV and Hepatitis A.

[v]

Not to be outdone, the UK Chief Medical Officer

[vi] recently recommended to NHS that Hib/MenC, MMR and the

pneumococcal vaccines be administered at the 12-month visit starting

January 1, 2011. A DOH spokesman promptly reassured the nation by stating

that " Independent scientific research has shown that providing these

vaccines at the same time is safe, effective and more convenient for

parents. "

*****

Of the many parents I have personally interviewed over the last few

years, the majority describe the changes in their children very much the

same way: The baby who is normal at birth achieves expected milestones

until his first birthday. When prompted to try hard to recall, some

parents report minor deviations from the norm in some tasks. Sometime

after his 12 or 15-month visit (depending on the vaccination schedule),

the busy toddler stops acquiring new words and doing new things, either

abruptly or gradually. He (or she) then starts losing words he knew and

is unable to do things he did well, just a month or two earlier. The

change is particularly noticeable to relatives and friends who do not see

him every day.

Many if not most of the children who regress also have reactions to their

vaccination: High fever, febrile seizures, irritability, a rash or

diarrhea. A large number of children develop intercurrent

infections such as persistent colds and ear infections, as their immune

system is affected.

Parents often also describe the child as being “out of it” a week or so

after vaccination.

The acute reaction phase is usually followed by behavioral changes:

Constant crying, head banging, rocking and toe-walking. Within two or

three or four months, the regression is severe and another family is

devastated.

In a recent Canadian study (2009), Meilleur and Fombonne

[vii] compared children with “an apparently normal early development,

followed by a loss of verbal and/or non-verbal skills prior to 2 years of

age” with other children on the autistic spectrum. They reported that

children who regressed “spoke at a significantly earlier age” and had a

“more severe autistic symptomatology profile.”

When one hears the same story twice or three times, it is permissible to

attribute it to a coincidence; when one hears it 50 or a 100 times, it is

less likely to be a coincidence; and when hundreds and thousands of

reliable people report the same events time after time, one cannot say

they are all wrong and the whole thing is nothing but a

coincidence.

It is both cruel and insulting to insist that hundreds and thousands of

parents do not know what they are talking about because they do not have

letters behind their names. It is also unacceptable, inhuman and

outrageous to maintain, for years and years, that all of them are wrong.

In any case… a huge question remains:

WHY DON’T ALL THOSE MISTAKEN PARENTS EVER REPORT THAT THEIR CHILDREN

STARTED REGRESSING AT 11 or 10 ½ MONTHS?

*****

Most babies born in the United States presently receive a hepatitis B

vaccine in the nursery (God only knows why). They then receive several

vaccines at age 2, 4 and 6 months of age and then … they get a break

until they are one.

Babies do not all achieve developmental milestones at the same time. Some

are precocious and already walking at ten or eleven months and some only

walk at 15 months or later. Some “talk” constantly and some, silently,

just look at their moms with bright eyes. In general, many if not all 9

to 12 month-old children listen when spoken to, know their names,

understand “no”, recognize the meaning of gestures, react to voice

inflections, babble, say few words, use and repeat sounds, “pet” the dog

like their parents do and clearly “communicate”. They walk around their

playpen or the living room, some get up by themselves and they all keep

their parents busy.

So why don’t any of those little ones ever regress - really, really

regress - at 11 months of age and why do they all wait and regress all

together, just after their first birthday and their “one-year”

check-up whether they are in the United States, the United Kingdom,

Israel, Egypt or Australia?

Why don’t we ever, ever hear of babies regressing into autism during the

vaccine break period, between 6 and 12 months of age or more specifically

between age 9 and 12 months, when they are doing all those wonderful

exciting things we need to call the neighbors, friends and family to

witness or quickly find the movie camera to record?

WHY, WHY, WHY

DON’T BABIES REGRESS BEFORE THEIR ONE-YEAR CHECK-UP?

*****

It would have been very easy to destroy Wakefield’s suggestion

that more research was required and justified, in order to investigate

and rule out an MMR-Autism connection (or in fact, any “vaccine-autism

connection.”)

All that Wakefield’s critics and enemies had to do in order to prove him

wrong was to document that children profoundly regressed into autism

during the “vaccine-break period”, between 6 and 12 months of age and not

only in the second year of life.

They would have saved a lot of money and they would have saved a lot of

effort.

But they did not, because they could not:

SEVERE AUTISTIC REGRESSION ONLY HAPPENS

IN THE SECOND YEAR OF LIFE

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

Dedication:

To Dr. Bernard Rimland who has done so much for so many children with

autism!

Acknowledgement:

The help offered by a researcher who prefers anonymity is deeply

appreciated

References:

http://www.autismtoday.com/articles/AUTISM_EPIDEMIC_IS_REAL.asp?cat=1

Accessed 01/06/11

[ii]

http://www.whale.to/v/rimland.html Accessed 01/07/11

[iii] De Giacomo A, Fombonne E.

Parental recognition

of developmental abnormalities in autism. Eur Child

Adolesc Psychiatry. 1998 Sep;7(3):131-6. Accessed

01/07/11

[iv] Baird G, Charman T, Baron-Cohen S, A,

Swettenham J, Wheelwright S, Drew A.

A screening

instrument for autism at 18 months of age: a 6-year follow-up study.

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2000

Jun;39(6):694-702

[v]

http://www.aap.org/immunization/IZSchedule.html Accessed

01/07/11

[vi]

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/MediaCentre/Statements/DH_122026 Accessed

01/08/11

[vii] Meilleur AA, Fombonne E.

Regression of

language and non-language skills in pervasive developmental

disorders. J Intellect Disabil Res. 2009

Feb;53(2):115-24. Accessed 01/07/11

F. Yazbak, MD, FAAP

Falmouth, Massachusetts

Date:

January 10, 2011

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

Vaccines -

http://vaccinationdangers.wordpress.com/ Homeopathy

http://homeopathycures.wordpress.com

Vaccine Dangers, Childhood Disease Classes & Homeopathy

Online/email courses - next classes start September 9