Strep theory of autism?

[Guest guest]

I want to raise for discussion on this list the work of an

Australian doctor, Dr Robyn Cosford, who has a unique view of the

cause of autism. While it does not involve heavy metals, it may

well be that heavy metals play a role which she is not aware of. I

was hoping that list members like Andy might offer some views on her

theory.

While a number of factors are present in ASD kids, Dr Cosford

focuses on an overgrowth of pathogenic streptococcus bacteria in the

gut as the cause of autism. I think the way this is supposed to

impact on the brain is directly through the release of toxins from

such pathogens into the brain (like yeast and clostridia) and

indirectly by these toxins disrupting the immune system and causing

an auto-immune reaction in the brain. Strep bacteria have been

found to cause an auto-immune reaction in the brain in the

paediatric brain disorder called PANDAS. However, this condition is

usually diagnosed later than autism and I recall can be fairly

successfully treated and suppressed with antibiotics. There are

also apparently other neurological conditions where strep bacteria

is active. A brief account of Dr Cosford's theory is at

http://www.ahmf.org/01cosford.html.

Dr C has also found autistic children present with test results also

observed in adult patients with CFS. In particular, both show

evidence of an undefined " occult " or mystery infection.

Dr Cosford presented at the recent world autism congress in

Melbourne. Slides from her presentation are available at this URL -

http://www.autismcongress.com/chat/Cosford,%20Robyn_pres.pdf.

These slides don't offer a lot by way of an explanatory theory

but

they do present the results of her study. As it happens, my child

was tested by Dr Cosford and his results, such as high strep in the

gut, largely conform to those presented by Dr Cosford.

It also happens that I believe my child to be both Pb and Hg

poisoned. I have done a host of tests and am pretty convinced that

heavy metal poisoning is evident – eg when presented with my

son's

hair test results, Andy Cutler commented that Pb poisoning was clear

and Hg poisoning was probably also likely.

Thus, the question for me is to establish why my son exhibits

results consistent with Dr Cosford's thesis and yet also exhibits

test results consistent with heavy metal poisoning. Can one infer

that heavy metals cause gut disturbances of the kind observed by Dr

Cosford?

Dr C's explanation of the presence of excessive strep seems to be

overuse of antibiotics which Dr Bill Shaw first made known i.e. the

normal gut flora is destroyed by antibiotics and pathogens move in.

My boy had a number of ear infection and was probably over-treated

with antibiotics. He also had candida which we managed to eliminate

with Nizoral and other supplements but it seems strep numbers

flourished after we ceased the anti-fungal treatment.

I wonder whether Hg or heavy metal poisoning can explain gut

dysbiosis of the kind found by Dr Cosford?

To my mind, I am more comfortable with a theory that Hg and Pb can

cause a brain to function autistically than Dr Cosford's theory.

The effect of Hg and Pb on causing the brain to function

autistically is fairly well established whereas Dr Cosford is

proposing a totally new theory to explain the development of an

autistic brain – a PANDAS-type disorder.

While Dr Cosford's theory seems fairly undeveloped and not as

plausible as the heavy metal theory, she does have test results

which need explaining. How do these disturbances otherwise arise?

Can heavy metal poisoning explain the following:

• Excessive strep;

• Occult infection also observed in adult CFS patients (I

suspect Hg has been used to explain CFS. Is this the case?)

• fatty acid disturbances – I think Hg disrupting fatty acids

in cell membranes has been established

I suppose it is conceivable that a child can be both heavy metal and

strep toxic and that one needs to treat both conditions. Perhaps

successful chelation will better allow the gut flora to normalise

and assist the immune system to function normally.

Would anyone like to comment or know more about this?

In terms of treatment of my child, we have seen gains with chelation

when we did not see a lot of improvement when we tried to target and

restore gut bacteria to a better balance with Dr Cosford. However,

we did not test to see if gut bacteria had normalised with Dr

Cosford's nutritional therapy as I decided to switch to

chelation.

However, as progress has been slow with chelation, I am wondering if

Dr Cosford is onto something new about autism.