Top Mitochondria Researcher: Spread immunizations out as much as possible

[Guest guest]

Top Mitochondria Researcher: “We

have always advocated spreading the immunizations out as much as

possible.”

By

Kirby

www.ageofautism.com – July 24, 2008

I recently

noticed that the minutes from the April 11, 2008 meeting of the Vaccine Safety Working

Group of HHS’s National Vaccine Advisory Committee were published online HERE.

I will be

commenting more soon on the extraordinary meeting, and on the CDC’s draft

vaccine safety research agenda, which was the topic of this meeting, held on

the top floor of HHS headquarters in Washington. But I wanted to highlight the

remarks of one of the public speakers – Dr. Wallace, a leading

mitochondrial researcher in the country.

Dr.

Wallace is Professor of Molecular Medicine at the University

of California, Irvine

and director of its Center for Molecular and Mitochondrial Medicine in

Genetics. (Read his bio HERE.)

He has worked on mitochondria and their role in human disease for nearly 40

years. His lab helped define the original genetics of mitochondria and demonstrated

maternal inheritance to mitochondrial DNA. It was also first to identify

mitochondrial DNA disease.

Dr. Wallace is a parent of two children, as well, including a 23-year-old son

with autism. His wife, with two Masters Degrees, “has spent her entire

life taking care of this child who will never live independently,” he

told the committee. “So we certainly appreciate the complexities of

having a disabled child and the lifelong burden that such a challenge will have

for a family.”

Dr.

Wallace, speaking on behalf of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation,

where he sits on the Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, flew to Washington

to attend the meeting along with Chuck Mohan, CEO of the foundation.

I spoke with both men that day, and they were kind, respectful and, it seemed

to me, supportive of my work. Mostly, they were tremendously grateful

that the word “mitochondria” was being uttered in the halls of

public health. Some of the world’s leading vaccine safety experts were

present.

“When

it became clear that there was a question about vaccines, mitochondria and

autism, which was so ably enunciated by Ms. Poling (Hannah’s mother

Terry, who had just testified), the Scientific Medical Advisory Board has had a

lot of discussions about what position the UMDF should take on vaccines in

relation to people that suffer from known mitochondrial disease,” he

testified before an attentive committee.

“I think it's fair to say that the Scientific and Medical Advisory Board

strongly advocates continued vaccination of children,” he said.

“However, I think it's also fair to say, and this is true for my

practice, that we have always advocated spreading the immunizations out as much

as possible because every time you vaccinate, you are creating a challenge for

the system. If a child has an impaired system, that could in fact trigger

further clinical problems.”

“Unfortunately,”

Dr. Wallace conceded, “we don't have any data to support any of our

discussions on this area. We do not know what is safe. We do not know what is

not safe. We do not know the actual risk of a person with light mitochondrial

disease has and being challenged either by vaccination or by a latent - by a

severe infection.”

Dr.

Wallace said UMDF believes that a severe infection would cause “far more

stress” than a vaccination, but added, “We can control the

vaccinations; we can't control the infections. So I think we need a much more

careful consideration about how to use the vaccinations to the maximum benefit

of the patient, even a patient with mitochondrial disease.”

The

question, then, becomes, “is there a relationship between mitochondrial

disease and vaccination and mitochondrial disease and autism?” Dr.

Wallace told the committee. “Would a vaccination or infection initiate an

incipient mitochondrial disease, as has been suggested?”

There is

no way to prove this yet, he said. But he did bring up a disease called

Leigh’s syndrome, the best known pediatric disease associated with

mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation defects. Children with Leigh’s

are normal at birth and the first several years of life (in contrast, Hannah

began regressing at 19 months), “then invariably they're reported by the

parent to have a transient increase in temperature that is B febrile, and then

progressively lose intellectual and motor milestones, the baso ganglia dies

out, and they die.”

Hannah

Poling, of course, did not have Leigh’s syndrome, nor did she have any

classic form of mitochondrial “disease.” She had a much milder form

of mitochondrial “dysfunction,” which was possibly acquired.

Dr.

Wallace also said that mitochondrial diseases are not rare. They may, “in

fact be the most common cause of pathophysiology that is known.”

Why

don’t we know for sure? Modern medicine, says Dr. Wallace:

“Medicine

traditionally has been organized around anatomy and, therefore, there are

specialists in all the different organ systems, and so in fact it is very

difficult for an organ specific specialist to understand a systemic disease,

but in fact life is related to both structure and energy and energy is systemic

even though structure is organ specific,” he testified.

“So

we've spent most of our care health-care dollars looking about at structure and

organ specific symptoms and not thinking about systemic disease, and systemic disease

is about energy, and energy is about the mitochondria because mitochondria

provide 98% of the energy.”

If

science can be poetry, Dr. Wallace comes awfully close.

The sad

lack of data on mitochondria and vaccines makes it difficult to know what to

recommend vis-à-vis childhood immunizations, Dr. Wallace said. That’s

because “that whole area, the energy biology of health and disease is

essentially unexplored.”

The UMDF,

“really has tried to champion redressing this lack of information so that

we can provide parents with the right answers and actually formulate the right

questions,” he added.

In the

meantime, this leading expert on mitochondria and human health told this

stellar committee of vaccine experts: “I really hope you will take the

initiative to give us the facts so that we can either make the right decisions

-- or reassure the public.”

But for

now, he said, “I stand as someone who sees patients regularly and runs a

diagnostics lab, and when they ask me about vaccinations, I have a hard time

giving them a straightforward answer.”