Larry king Live Blog: Autism is Preventable and Reversible

[Guest guest]

http://larrykinglive.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/03/lkl-blog-exclusive-autism-is-preve\

ntable-and-reversible/

 

CNN’s longest-running interview program now has its own blog! It’s your

chance to be a part of Larry King Live! We want to hear from you during our

show. What do you think about what’s being said right now? You can chat, ask

questions, interact with guests, producers, even Larry! And who knows, your

thoughts might even end up in the broadcast!

 

LKL Blog Exclusive: Autism is Preventable and Reversible

Posted: 09:10 AM ET

LKL Blog Exclusive by J.B. Handley, founder of Generation Rescue. J.B. will be

our guest tonight on LKL, in addition to McCarthy and Jim Carrey.

The thoughts and comments expressed by J.B. Handley in this LKL Blog exclusive

commentary are his own.

McCarthy’s son Evan no longer has autism. This is a very hard concept

for most people to grasp, because the popular understanding of autism is that

it’s lifelong. Quietly, a revolution of tens of thousands of parents around

the world are standing firmly behind and using the same treatments to heal

their children that she used to heal Evan. Not a day goes by where I don’t

hear a story from a parent of their child’s dramatic improvement or complete

recovery from autism using what we call “biomedical intervention.â€

In the 1940s, Autism was supposed to be a placeholder diagnosis, used until we

had a better understanding of the actual physical issues that would define

autism as a disease. Yet even today, a child is diagnosed based entirely on

behavioral observation - there is no blood test or other way to test for it.

Unfortunately, this has led to a level of inertia and acceptance amongst the

mainstream medical community that many parents find unhelpful, if not

unacceptable. “Autism is something you can’t really change, just learn to

accept it†- that’s the message so many of us hear from our medical

authorities.

Imagine for a second being that parent of a child with autism and told that your

child may never speak and that a lifetime of care is likely. You start to do

your own research, and you happen upon our community, filled with hope, examples

of recovery, and specific actions you can take to heal your child. What would

you do?

The vaccine issue has made autism one of the most polarizing topics on earth,

which is too bad, because it keeps different communities within the autism world

from working for the benefit of the only group that matters: our kids.

 

The number of children diagnosed with autism today is deeply alarming. The 1 in

150 number often used here in the U.S. is actually from 7 years ago, and we’re

hearing more recent numbers well below 1 in 100 in states like Minnesota, New

Jersey, and Oregon, to name just a few. Published studies in the 1970s showed an

autism rate of 1 in 10,000, so autism has grown 100-fold, or 10,000%, numbers

that are nearly impossible to imagine.

With autism cases growing this quickly, something in the environment has to be

causing the rise. A “spontaneous genetic epidemic†is a scientific

impossibility. It’s also likely that something relatively straightforward has

to be behind the epidemic - it’s very unlikely that 100 different things all

showed up sometime in the early 1990s and triggered the autism epidemic.

That’s where vaccines come in, and I think the case for them as a primary

trigger is, unfortunately, very compelling. Firstly, the number of vaccines

given to U.S. kids has expanded dramatically. Up until 1989, our kids received

10 total shots by their 5th birthday. Today, they receive 36. At their 2 month

old appointment alone, most American children receive 6 separate vaccines in

less than 15 minutes. Few other things on the planet that nearly all children

receive have grown so dramatically during the exact time period when autism

cases have exploded.

Secondly, and this is something most parents don’t realize, vaccines are known

to cause brain injury in some kids. In fact, the US government has paid out over

$1.8 billion in compensation for vaccine injury, most of it to children and much

of that for brain injury. How exactly do vaccines cause brain injury? No one

knows for sure, but if you check out the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program on

the website of the Department of Health and Human Services, you can see for

yourself that brain injury is a primary side effect (sometimes called

“encephalopathyâ€) of many of our vaccines.

Finally, we have tens of thousands of case reports of parents reporting that

their child developmentally regressed, stopped talking, and was later diagnosed

with autism after a vaccine appointment. The number of vaccines have risen along

with autism rates, vaccines are known to cause brain damage, and parents report

regression and later autism after getting them. Is it really so hard to believe

we think vaccines are a trigger?

Few parents appreciate that American kids are the most vaccinated on the planet.

Generation Rescue just released a study called “Autism and Vaccines Around the

World†which will surprise many. We looked at the vaccine schedules of 30

other first world countries to compare how many doses of vaccines children

receive. What did we find? Compared to our 36, the average for the rest of the

first world is 18, or half of the U.S. schedule. Perhaps more shocking, we

looked at countries with the lowest rates of mortality for children under 5 (the

U.S. ranks a disappointing 34th, behind Cuba and Slovenia). How many vaccines do

the 5 countries with the lowest under 5 mortality rates give? Well, Iceland,

Sweden, Singapore, Japan, and Norway give 11, 11, 13, 11, and 13 vaccines

respectively - all less than 1/3 the number of vaccines the U.S. mandates!

How do autism rates compare in some of these other countries? Iceland’s rate

is 1 in 1,000, Finland’s 1 in 700, and Sweden’s 1 in 800. These countries

give 1/3 the vaccines we do and have autism rates that are as little as

one-tenth of ours? Something isn’t right.

Parents just want a simple answer: “What do I do for my child? I want to give

vaccines, but I don’t want autism.†There is no perfect answer as our kids

are so different. But, perhaps you could start by considering the US vaccine

schedule in 1989, which is a schedule many countries still use today. In 1989,

we gave the following vaccines (and doses): DTP (5), Polio (4), MMR (1). For

reference, today we give the following vaccines and doses: DTP (5), Polio (4),

MMR (2), Hepatitis B (3), Hib (4), Varicella (2), Rotavirus (3), PCV (4), Flu

(7), Hepatitis A (2).

Prevent deadly disease while preventing autism, why can’t the two co-exist?

To date, our health authorities have been unwilling to meet us halfway on

vaccines. There appears to be no room for moderation, and we hear the American

Academy of Pediatrics state that American children should simply get all their

shots. Yet, looking at 30 other first world countries, we found that only 3

others had added Varicella to their schedules, and only 2 others had added

Rotavirus to their schedules, as two examples of low rates of adoption by other

countries, despite the fact that both of these vaccines have now been on the

market for over a decade. What do these other countries know that we don’t?

Would it surprise you to learn that the patent holder for Rotavirus sat on the

government panel that adds vaccines to our schedule?

Our health authorities are also quick to assert that “the science shows

vaccines don’t cause autism.†It’s disappointing to hear false statements

like this from people many of us inherently trust. Having read every study these

experts put forward, I can tell you with conviction that any doctor making this

claim is either lying or has never read the studies for themselves. In fact, we

were so frustrated by this mantra about “the science†that we created a

website to analyze all the studies, which you can now find at

FourteenStudies.org and see for yourself. In a nutshell, if you never look at

unvaccinated kids and if you only ever study one vaccine (the MMR) which

accounts for 2 of the 36 vaccines our kids get, its easy to craft studies to get

the answers you want.

The debate over the causes of autism will not end anytime soon. Parents trying

to do the right thing for their children are being put in the middle. I’m

grateful for people like McCarthy who are willing to share their own

stories and help as many parents as possible prevent and reverse autism. Through

her courage alone, thousands of kids today are facing a far brighter future.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Love, Gabby. :0)

http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/

 

" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport