Re: lat: Study challenges drug's role in autism

[Guest guest]

Rollens Responds to Report

Clearing Mercury

Vaccines

????? Statement by Rick

Rollens, parent of a 17 year old son with autism, co-founder U. C.

M.I.N.D. Institute and member California Legislative Blue

Ribbon Commission on Autism.

??????

Although this study by California's vaccine establishment clearly

sustains the fact that California is in the midst of a growing

autism epidemic and that California's system of reporting

professionally diagnosed cases of full syndrome autism is the gold

standard in the country, the conclusions are flawed and premature,

and does nothing to exonerate vaccines, particularly mercury

containing vaccines, as a cause of California's autism

epidemic.

????? Although the mercury

burden in vaccines has been reduced over the years, we know that

even very small amounts of mercury can cause serious, life altering

neurological damage. California's ban on mercury containing vaccines

for pregnant women and children under three did not take effect

until December 2006.

????? Today, those

children born after the ban took effect are between 4 months old and

one year of age. California's developmental services reporting

system DOES NOT include children under the age of three years

old.

????? It will not be clear what

impact California's law banning mercury in vaccines has had on the

rate of new cases of autism until at least 2009-2010 and later.

Historically, the majority of children with autism enter

California's developmental services system between the ages of 3+

and 9 years old.

????? If by 2009-2010

there has not been ANY change in the rate of increase of new cases

of autism entering California's developmental services system, then

we can scratch mercury in vaccines off our list of agents contained

in vaccines as a cause, and; then begin concentrating on the

numerous other poisons and toxic agents in vaccines such as

aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, live viruses, etc., and most

importantly, the interaction of these and other toxic agents

contained in the 34 doses of vaccines children receive from birth to

two years old today.

lat: Study challenges drug's role in autism

I find interesting that although Schechter word's reject finding

thimerosal as a major cause of autism, those words do not reject

thimerosal as a contributing factor or as one cause among several (eg,

pesticides and environmentally airborne toxins; D'Amelio et al; Palmer

RF et al; Windham et al 2006). The CDC's pre-altered 1999 findings did

not seem to suggest thimerosal caused ALL cases of autism. A question

remains for data analysts: what percentage of cases in the autism

increase can be attributed solely or primarily to thimerosal injections?

- - - -

Study challenges drug's role in autism

By Jia-Rui Chong

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

January 8, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-autism8jan08,1,800256.story

The prevalence of autism in California children continued to rise after

many vaccine manufacturers started to remove the mercury-based

preservative thimerosal in 1999, suggesting that the chemical was not a

primary cause of the disorder, according to a study released Monday.

The analysis found that from 2004 to 2007, when exposure to thimerosal

dropped significantly for 3- to 5-year-olds, the rate continued to

increase in that group from 3.0 to 4.1 per 1,000 children.

" If mercury exposure in vaccines was a major cause of autism, then the

number of ... affected kids should have diminished once they were no

longer exposed to thimerosal, " said Dr. Schechter, lead author of

the study and a medical officer at the state Department of Public

Health. " That is not what we found. "

The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, is the

latest in a series that has investigated the connection between

thimerosal and autism. The majority have found no association.

But the latest findings failed to convince some parents and advocacy

groups that have long blamed mercury, a neurotoxin, for the disorder.

" This study presents a greatly over-simplified explanation of a very

complex problem, " said Bothwell, chairwoman of the board at the

National Autism Association, which works on behalf of families with

autism. " Rising numbers do not confirm that thimerosal never had a role. "

Autism is a severe developmental disorder in which children seem

isolated from the world around them. There is a broad spectrum of

symptoms, marked by poor language skills and an inability to handle

social relations.

Over the past two decades, the number of cases has boomed for

still-unexplained reasons. Psychiatrists estimated that 20 years ago

there were 0.2 to 0.5 cases for every 1,000 children. In 2007, the

national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there

were 6.6 cases per 1,000 schoolchildren, based on a study of 8-year-olds.

The latest study was based on data from the California Department of

Developmental Services, which provides services to about 36,000 people

with autism and has one of the country's best reporting systems.

The researchers looked at all reported cases in the state starting with

children born in 1989. They found the number of cases per 1,000 children

has been steadily increasing from that point to March 2007, the end

point of the study.

In a commentary accompanying the study in the journal Archives of

General Psychiatry, Dr. Fombonne called the data " a clear and

unambiguous test. "

" Parents of autistic children should be reassured that autism in their

child did not occur through immunizations, " wrote Fombonne, a

psychiatrist at Montreal Children's Hospital who was not involved in

this study.

Fombonne has provided advice to vaccine manufacturers in the past but

has received no research funding from them, he said.

Steve M. Edelson, an experimental psychologist who is director of the

Autism Research Institute, a nonprofit organization in San Diego, said

the study, along with evidence from previous research, argued against

thimerosal as the major culprit in autism.

But, he added, it still does not rule out all blame. Edelson said such

large-scale analysis could overlook smaller groups of children, who for

whatever reasons have a particular vulnerability to mercury. He said

more solid evidence can only come from laboratory studies, such as

postmortem analyses of the brains of autistic children.

The National Autism Association criticized the study, saying that some

children still might be exposed to mercury through either flu shots or

trace amounts in other vaccines. The group also said that some vaccines

containing thimerosal had expiration dates as late as 2005 and might

have been used up to that point.

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