Multiple Causes of Autism
Spectrum Disorders

International Medical Veritas Association

      It seems health officials want to talk about every
 imaginable issue affecting children other than autism.

    Pointing the finger to mercury’s central role in the creation of autism spectrum disorders does not discount other possible causes of autism, or a general theory that includes a multitude of causes, which over the long run weaken children to the point where the toxic overload from chemicals in vaccines is just too much to handle. From a parents perspective, with neurological and learning disorders affecting almost one in five children today, it is safe to say there is nothing more important than opening awareness to all the possible factors that are impacting so strongly to affect so many children in this way. The price of oblivion or medical ignorance is just too high when you think of all the suffering and lost opportunity through lost neurological potential. And with the medical profession so ready to step in and force us to drug and further poison our children if they are not hitting benchmark learning and behavior levels, literally we have an emergency situation that no parent can afford to ignore.

Autism is upon us because it’s the outcome of
 the 50-year experiment of dousing every living being
 with an overload of toxic substances, including vaccines.
                                                      Dr. Gregory Ellis

     The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics[1] disagrees adamantly with Dr. Ellis. In publishing the work of Dr. Eric Fombonne and colleagues of McGill University in Montreal, whose recent research acknowledges no connection between thimerosal vaccines and autism, we see the most current example of doctors’ denial of responsibility in the autism epidemic. Because children's brain development is being impaired by some of the more than 70,000 human-made chemicals on the market, says a 2004 report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF),[2] it is easy for pediatricians to dodge their responsibility and lay blame elsewhere, which they are most desperate to do.

    The report by the WWF, which surveyed current research in the field, charges chemicals with such neurological effects as poor memory, reduced visual recognition and motor skills, and lower IQ, and cites U.S. research that ties 10 percent of all neurobehavioral disorders to chemical exposure. While it singles out some chemicals by name -- particularly brominated flame-retardants, PCBs, and dioxins -- the report laments that there is little to no safety information available on most chemicals floating about in the environment and in households.

     "In effect, we are all living in a global chemical experiment of which we don't know the outcome," said WWF's Helen McDade. Environmental contaminants are suspected to cause cancer, birth defects, immune system defects, reduced IQ, behavioral abnormalities, decreased fertility, altered sex hormone balance, altered metabolism and specific organ dysfunctions. Every day children are exposed to chemicals that have not been tested for safety.

Exposure (particularly prenatal exposure) to certain
 endocrine disrupting chemicals (e.g. PCBs) can have
 adverse effects on neurological development,
 behavior patterns and delay in cognitive development.
                                       World Health Organization 

        According to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), 60,000 American children are born every year with neurological problems caused by prenatal exposure to methyl mercury compounds from fossil-fuel and industrial air pollution.[3] The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that air pollution kills approximately 3 million people annually.[4] Air pollutants are known to produce arterial constriction and reduce blood flow and oxygen supply to the heart and thus to the brain. Importantly, the chemical pollutants found in the air have no safe level; they damage humans even at very low levels.[5] 

Power plants put 48 tons of mercury a year into the atmosphere through burning coal. In the U.S. alone, hospitals that burn their wastes put 20
 tons a year into the air and potentially upwards of 200 tons are lost
 into the environment because that is how much Hg is ordered into hospitals to repair sphygmomanometers[6]. Every plastic manufacture pours
it out and every new car is laden with its fumes. And many mothers are leaking mercury vapors from the many dental amalgam in their mouths.

     Children with autism disorders in the San Francisco Bay Area were recently found to be 50% more likely to be born in neighborhoods with high amounts of several toxic air contaminants, particularly mercury, according to a first-of-its-kind study by the California Department of Health Services.
The new findings, which surprised the researchers, suggest that a mother's exposure to industrial air pollutants while pregnant might increase her child's risk of autism.[7] (See IMVA document It Matters Where you Live.[8])

     "Clearly this suggests that there may be correlations between autism onset and environmental exposures, especially as it relates to metal exposures," said Dr. Isaac Pessah, a toxicologist who heads UC Davis' Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention. Pessah, is a researcher at the university's MIND (Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders) Institute, which studies autism.

     According to Dr. Garry Gordon, one of the founders of chelation therapy, “There are children getting autism who did not receive injectable mercury.” Dr. Raymond Palmer, of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, has studied the contribution of the huge tonnage of mercury being put into the atmosphere and found, in studying school districts in Texas, that “On average, for each 1,000 pounds of environmentally released mercury, there was a 43 percent increase in the rate of special education services and a 61 percent increase in the rate of autism."

     Sustaining all of this research is a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists. The Harvard study concluded that mercury controls, similar to those the EPA proposed, could save nearly $5 billion a year through reduced neurological and cardiac harm to the general population.[9] Here we have one of the most reputable medical centers in the world quantifying the damage from mercury in the air.

We have just reached the crisis level on mercury. Now, we're finding
 it in our food, our water, our soil, our babies, everywhere.
                                    Marie Steinwachs       
                          University of Missouri

     The intensities of local levels of air pollution, combined with environmental pollution inside the home, provide the background for other more direct chemical attacks on human biological systems. Biological attacks come in the form of vaccines, amalgam fillings, pharmaceutical drugs, violent birthing practices, fluoride in drinking water, and food supplies laced with neurologically toxic substances like MSG, aspartame, pesticides, hormones, and preservatives.

     Vaccines are of special concern in pinpointing the cause of autism for their toxic compounds, including mercury and aluminum, are injected directly into the body and some vaccine components pass directly through the blood brain barrier to affect the nervous system, especially the brain’s own immune system cells, the microglia. Microglia are the immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS) and they easily turn against the CNS destroying it through excitotoxicity and autotoxicity.[10] This is a very important concept presented by Dr. Russell Blaylock that explains the conditions where we have a non-specific generalized destruction of neurons, neuritis and synaptic connections. The destructive chemistry of the microglia, when over stimulated, shows how a child can get into a state where they are allergic to almost everything touched, breathed or eaten; allergic even to themselves. 

Chronic inflammation in the brains of autistic patients, resulting from an over-active immune system is a sign of autoimmunity. The inflammation indicates that the brain is responding to a process that is stressing or damaging brain cells, a process which might include oxygen radicals.

     The important subject of thimerosal,[11] which is a vaccine preservative that is fifty percent mercury by weight, and its clear central role in the rapid rise of autism, is covered separately in the chapter Mercury, Vaccines and Medicine. More than several states have moved to outlaw the use of thimerosal in children’s vaccines and the decreasing rate of new cases in autism casts a long shadow on the pediatric profession for directly injecting such a strong neurological poison directly into babies’ bodies.

According to the EPA, a person must weigh over 500 pounds
 to safely process the amount of mercury still present in
certain vaccines, including flu shots. And, yet, these shots
 are recommended for pregnant women and infants.

     An article in the March 10, 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons shows that since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the alarming increase in reported cases of autism and other neurological disorders (NDs) in children not only stopped, but actually dropped sharply - by as much as 35%. The numbers from California show that reported autism cases hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have skyrocketed to more than 1000 by the beginning of 2006. But in fact the number actually went down to only 620, a real decrease of 22%, and a decrease from the projections of 35%.[12] (In third world countries like Brazil where mercury air pollution is not the factor it is in the United States, what drives the autism epidemic there are vaccines with up to four times the amount of thimerosal in each injection than was used during the 1990’s in the US.)

Mercury alters biological systems because of its affinity for sulfhydryl
 groups, which are functional parts of most enzymes and hormones.

It induces a change in cell structure while disrupting critical
 electron transfer reactions leading to cells being perceived as
 foreign by the body’s immune defense and repair system.                                                       Dr. Rashid Buttar

     What stands out in severe cases of autism is its similarity to symptoms found with mercury poisoning. "Thousands of parents have seen the regression of skills in their children following thimerosal-containing vaccines," says Jo Pike, President of the National Autism Association. "Many of these same children are progressing rapidly with biomedical interventions addressing mercury poisoning.”[13] Dr. Sidney Baker, author of six medical books, treats hundreds of autistic patients each year from around the country. He suspects that about half of the children he sees have been affected by thimerosal from their vaccines.[14]

The statement indicating "mercury has been phased out of
most childhood vaccines" is a gross distortion of the truth.
 The flu vaccine contains mercury and the number of flu
 shots given to children has increased dramatically since 2004.
                                        Dr. David Ayoub

     The officials from every Pediatric organization in the world deny such a link; in fact they try to deny gravity and go as far as saying that injected mercury could be good for children. The September 2004 issue of Pediatrics stated that immunizing infants with vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal may actually be associated with improved behavior and mental performance.[15] British doctors making such claims are mirrored again in Canada with Dr. Fombonne’s recent findings even though there is no evidence anywhere in the world of science to suggest mercury is not neurotoxic. Careful analysis of the work of these researchers in Canada easily leads to the conclusion that they have projected deep conflicts of interest into their research. Their conclusion that increases in pervasive developmental disorders was significantly higher among those children who received thimerosal-free vaccines suggesting that thimerosal was neuro-protective as opposed to neuro-toxic is absurd.[16] Fombonne, a thimerosal litigation expert witness on behalf of various pharmaceutical companies, is the perfect person to represent such scientific absurdity.[17]

Mercury (Hg) is pervasive and persistent in the environment,
 released from a large variety of natural and anthropogenic
sources. The serious health impacts of high-level
 exposures have long been recognized.[18]
                      National Academy of Science

     Mercury seems to have a special affinity in causing CNS immune cells to overreact causing a cascade of chemical effects around enzymes, glutamate transport, secretion of acids, release of cytokines, and a whole series of domino type effects that combine to provoke general neurodegeneration no matter how the mercury gets into the system. Mercury though is not the only toxin that provokes the microglia. Live viruses found in the MMR vaccine have also been seen to create problems for the brain’s immune cells.[19]

     Scientists are confirming the controversial link between MMR and autism but again not a pediatrician can be found to agree. The most recent research corroborates observations by Dr. Andrew Wakefield who was discredited by the Department of Health for suggesting the combined measles, mumps and rubella jab may have contributed to rises in autism spectrum disorders. The new study, led by Dr Arthur Krigsman, a child gastroenterologist from New York University School of Medicine, has led to renewed calls for an overhaul of Britain's child vaccination program.

     The research was presented at the International Conference for Autism Research in Montreal in June of 2006 before the study was even completed because of the overwhelming significance of the early findings. The study, which covers 275 children and  is being carried out at different medical centers in America, found serious  intestinal inflammation in autistic children identical to that described by  Dr Wakefield and his colleagues eight years ago. Gut biopsy tissue from 82 of these children reveals that 85 per cent have evidence of the measles virus in their inflamed intestines. Fourteen have so far been confirmed by more stringent DNA tests.
The news is a huge embarrassment for the Department of Health in England which rubbished Dr. Wakefield's research on the grounds it was uncorroborated "bad science".  Dr. Steve Walker, assistant professor at Wake Forest University Medical Centre, North Carolina, who analyzed the gut samples, said the work mirrored Dr. Wakefield's study.

The parents of two healthy toddlers who died ten days after being
given the controversial MMR jabs have warned the Government
that they will not allow the cause of their deaths to be 'covered up'.[20]

     Dr Wakefield has clinically seen nearly 200 previously normal youngsters who apparently developed the combined behavior and digestive problems after receiving the MMR injection. But in the crazy world we live in such clinical experience is simply trashed by health officials who have huge vested interests in protecting the childhood immunization program. When it comes to autism we have to face the reality that there are very strong forces of denial affecting both parents and medical officials alike.

     The discovery of the causes of autism can be very threatening because doctors do not want to admit any self-responsibility that can provoke guilt. The walls of denial can be quite thick and it is most astonishing to meet up with the mind set that cannot deal with the fact that the principal thing chemical poisons do is poison children. There is no doubt today that our children are being exposed to vastly increased levels of hostile chemicals. They are being hit from all sides and for many of them the process of poisoning begins even before birth. The medical industrial complex is guilty of hiding the ever present dangers of the thousands of chemicals used by industry because it itself is an industry that uses toxic chemicals in the form of drugs.  

    Recently Greenpeace conducted a study in India and found “Neurological effects of pesticides including effects on memory, concentration, motor skills, judgment and analysis. The study found a remarkable difference between groups of children, with statistically consistent trends. With all other possible confounders controlled for, the only significantly accountable reason for the disturbing findings is the children’s exposure to pesticides.”[21] Though not stated by Greenpeace, a common background factor to 90 to 95 percent of children around the world is the mercury injected into their systems through vaccines. What they are probably reporting on is the synergistic effect of pesticides added to the ever constant toxic load from mercury bearing vaccines

I can state that the certainty of the science supporting mercury as a major cause of autism is probably more overpowering than the science behind
 any other disease process that I studied dating back to medical school.
                                                                Dr. David Ayoub

     Dr. Rimland says, “It is ludicrous to claim that the link between many causes of autism and vaccination is just coincidental. 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.”[22] It is interesting to note here that no one speaks about thimerosal being put in nose sprays and the consequence of parents unwittingly administering large amounts of these over the counter products to very young children when they have a cold, flu or allergies.

     The dismissals and denials from health officials that neither the MMR nor thimerosal bearing vaccines could cause autism are highly suspect for they are defending the cornerstones of the childhood immunization schedule. To admit error would sink the Titanic of the precious jewel at the center of allopathic medical world. Dr. Rimland has pointed out that before MMR most autism cases occurred at birth. But after the MMR vaccine was introduced, most new cases were occurring around age 15 months when the vaccine was usually given. During the 1990’s when pediatricians vastly increased the exposure of children to mercury via their vaccines the autism epidemic simply exploded. It’s unfortunate for our kids that at the same time, and continuing into the present moment, mercury in the environment has also exploded and the projections are for huge increases through the years to come.

     Dr. Gary Goldman, Editor-in-Chief of Medical Veritas medical journal and Dr. F. Edward Yazbak, an eminent retired pediatrician, in reviewing the statistics from Denmark used by the CDC to proclaim MMR safe, see statistical evidence to proclaim its guilt and place in the list of strong provokers of autism.[23] They found a statistically significant increase in autism following the introduction of the MMR vaccine prior to Denmark's change in enrollments and change in the definition or classification used for autism diagnoses.

The day that autism is included in the long list of possible side effects of childhood immunization is the day the Earth will stand still in modern medicine for it is the day that health officials will be proven horribly wrong in leading an entire generation into the nightmare of neurological dysfunction. It is highly doubtful that modern medicine could stand such an apocalypse of its arrogant thought and practice.

The identification of a cause of a disease or syndrome
 is a key step in defining appropriate treatment paths.

Special Note: Dr. Fombonne’s and his associates would have parents believe there is no reason to detoxify and chelate their children of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals, saying, “There is no evidence for an epidemiological association between ethylmercury and autism and no scientific basis for using chelation therapies, which can be dangerous."[24] Again and again we see pediatric researchers preaching their medical religion as opposed to solid medical science that acknowledges the vast toxic buildup in both the environment and children’s bodies. Detoxification and chelation are essential medical approaches in the age of toxicity that our children must survive through. Yes it must be acknowledged that chelation approaches that use toxic drugs as opposed to natural chelation and detoxification agents would be dangerous and doctors who are using chelation on their young patients would be well served to reevaluate the use of synthetic chelators.

     Real scientists (without the biased unfounded and illogical conclusions present in Fombonne’s research group) are now solidifying the medical reality that chemical pollution is directly connected with the rising tide of illness and serious diseases that are threatening modern civilization. The University of Southern California studied almost 800 people in the Los Angeles area and found that pollution there was causing peoples bodies to produce oxidants, which in turn trigger inflammatory reactions in both the respiratory tract and blood vessels, triggering artery damage. The researchers found that for every 10ug/m3 increase in pollution, the thickness of the lining of the neck artery increased by between 3.9% and 4.3% when adjusted for other factors. Study author Professor Nino Kuenzli said the public health implications of the findings "could be immense,” and "we knew that people in more polluted areas die earlier from cardiovascular disease. Our study found that air pollution may contribute to cardiovascular problems at a very early stage of the disease, similar to smoking, and enhances atherosclerosis, which is the underlying disease process of cardiovascular diseases."[25] Dr Ted Schletter of the Boston Medical Center said, "The human body is in constant conversation with this chemical milieu and some substances have turned out to be important contributors to disease."

    To even think that such negative effects would be less when chemicals like thimerosal are actually injected directly into biological systems is typical of doctors who have literally sold their minds and souls to the pharmaceutical companies. They are not only destroyers of medical science and logical thought processes they are terrorists who would continue to poison children and expectant mothers with mercury.

Autism and Birth

       There are many things about pregnancy and birth that need to be factored into the autism equation. There is, for instance, information associating autistic disorders with the use of an artificial hormone (Pitocin) which is given to pregnant women to induce or speed up labor.[26] Pitocin is a synthetic exogenous source of the natural hormone oxytocin which stimulates the gravid uterus to contract. It was developed as a drug by the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company in 1953 and put into general use in 1955. It comes from the pituitary glands of cattle and includes acetic acid for pH adjustment and .5 percent chloretone as a preservative. Dr Eric Hollander of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, a physician who specializes in treating autistic kids, reported noticing that 60% of the autistic patients in his clinic had been exposed to this drug as a fetus.[27] Yet doctors like Ellen Grant find progesterones and oestrogens even more dangerous than Pitocin.

It is clear that the preponderance of available evidence
suggests the importance of multiple biologic factors acting through
one or more mechanisms to produce the autistic syndrome.
                         Dr. Donald J. Cohen & Fred Volkmar

     Pitocin is not the only drug received by women whose labors are being induced or augmented. The use of Pitocin requires that the mother also be given IV fluids, have continuous electric fetal monitoring in place and remain sedentary in her hospital bed while connected to this equipment. Pitocin-induced uterine contractions and enforced maternal immobility makes labor more painful, so much so that under these circumstances most laboring women also receive narcotic pain relievers and/or epidural anesthesia.

Drugs used on pregnant women have never been tested to determine
 if they are safe for fetuses and neonates. Not a single one.
 No one has a clue about the long-term consequences.
                                                  California College of Midwives

     Most labors today are induced at some point primarily because obstetricians are closing the birth canals of women by placing the expectant mothers in bed, keeping them on their backs and sacrum. “Being forced to immobilize her sacrum in a dorsal position, the laboring woman closes her birth canal up to 30% - a terrible mistake that is only aggravated when the OB chemically whips the uterus to contract violently with either Pitocin or Cytotec", writes Dr. Todd Gastaldo, a chiropractor who deals with the realities of the spine and the sacrum.

     Most midwives understand the basic physics of birth where as obstetricians seem to want to defy the laws of gravity, deliberately making birth much more difficult than it has to be. Dr. Gastaldo warns us that pressures from a closed birth canal can distort the brain case causing brain bleeds and asphyxiation (prolonging delivery of the baby) of brain tissue. This compression leads to a series of complications forcing interventions - episiotomies, c-sections and drugging of the mother, which of course means the babies are drugged.

Just a two-minute delay in clamping a baby's umbilical cord
can boost the child's iron reserves and prevent anemia for months.[28]
                                            University of California, Davis.

     Most umbilical cords are clamped and cut[29] before all the blood from the placenta is allowed back into the baby, meaning they start out with as much as a 40% decrease in blood volume.[30] Birth in itself is a shock to one degree or another. Babies need time to adjust, to light, to sound, to the simple act of breathing. But they are not given the time they need. As soon as they are born, antibiotic drops or ointment is put in their eyes and they are given a vitamin K shot. Trouble is the shot contains nasty chemicals like benzyl alcohol, phenol (carbolic acid), propylene glycol (antifreeze), acetic acid and hydrochloric acid.[31]

    Over 200 years ago Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather) was writing about early cord clamping and said, “Another thing very injurious to the child, is the tying and  cutting of the navel string too soon; which should always be left till the child has not only repeatedly breathed but till all pulsation in the cord ceases. As otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a portion of the blood being left in the placenta, which ought to have been in the child.”

     An informal survey among midwives failed to identify babies born at home who have since been diagnosed with autistic disorders. It could be supposed that the people who gravitate to natural home births represent a sizable part of the small percentage of people who go against the lock step of society and do not vaccinate their children. Or the lack of aggressive medical interventions during birth can be seen as a key determinant in that it is absent when midwives are attending the birth. Dan Olmstead, doing investigative reporting for UPI, had a very difficult time finding any cases of autism in the Amish community. The Amish, with their belief in avoiding as much modern technology as possible, tend to mirror the experience of midwives meaning they gravitate to home births and away from childhood vaccinations.

     The structural and functional integrity of the human brain is dependent on a continuous oxygen supply; lack of oxygen causes permanent brain damage. Midwives are much more likely to be gentle and surrendered to natural processes then hospital staffs and will let the baby adjust fully before clamping the umbilical cord. At birth, during the natural third stage of labor, placental oxygenation continues until pulmonary oxygenation is well established and until an adequate blood volume is achieved to circulate oxygen. Cutting this flow is an absolute and totally unnecessary threat to the child.

     The current obstetrical practice of immediate and routine premature cord clamping jeopardizes the newborn's brain and other organs by interrupting placental oxygenation and placental transfusion, during the transition from "fetus" to "newborn".[32] The newborn needs this blood to expand its lungs, so that they can take over the function of oxygenation from the placenta. Speaking about the rise of autism Dr. George Malcolm Morley and Eileen Nicole Simon PhD. say, “We propose that increased incidence of autism, infant anemia, childhood mental disorders and hypoxic ischemic brain damage, all originate at birth from immediate umbilical cord clamping. The influence of new environmental exposures, such as iatrogenic birth traumas, such as interruption of placental transfusion at birth, cannot be discounted.”[33] 

     When we add the Hep B vaccine a few hours later, with its aluminum hydroxide, thimerosal (in some countries) and modified genetic material one can only wonder about pediatricians and what they are thinking. In the September 14th issue of Neurology (2004; 63:838-42) a Harvard group published their findings confirming our worst fears about the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine and its role in increasing the chance of recipients contracting multiple sclerosis (MS).  Researchers from Harvard estimate that it increases the risk by over three times. This is highly significant to our multiple causes of autism model because, as suspected by Dr. Blaylock, this vaccine is creating problems in the brain’s immune system leading to serious auto-immune diseases. According to Blaylock, autism spectrum disorders are basically auto-immune disorders.

If the central nervous system becomes infected at a
 critical time, either before or after birth, Autism may result.
                                                           Prof. Uta Frith

     Mercury exposure is a factor from conception onwards and starts early in pregnancy with the fully loaded mercury containing Rhogam shot for some women, the tetanus and flu shots - all of which still contain thimerosal. Then there is exposure to mother’s dental fillings leaking vaporous mercury, the mercury that mom consumes through eating too much fish, then the vaccines that are injected right from birth also containing mercury, besides the background mercury pollution in the air and water. The Rising Tide of Mercury, a new book soon to be published by the International Medical Veritas Association, describes a nightmare that is increasing with each passing year. Simply put, we live in a mercury polluted world and that pollution gets worse each and every day. Clearly mercury is neurotoxic thus our children, who are the most vulnerable to toxic influences, will increasingly be put in harms way.

    Most recently research is giving us one more reason to favor natural birth over Caesarean section that has implications for later development of neurological problems. A natural birth provides a baby with better protection against diseases and allergies than if it is born by Caesarean section, according to researchers at Glasgow University, who discovered that the gut of babies who had been delivered normally contained higher levels of "friendly" bacteria, such as bifidobacteria. These are particularly important, as they are the first bacteria to enter a child's digestive system and play a crucial role in developing the immune system.[34]

     Professor Christine Edwards said, "If you are Caesarean delivered, you have to pick up bacteria from the environment around you - you are not getting exposure to your mother's bacteria. If you are born vaginally, you are getting bacteria from around that area, but if you are born by Caesarean you are in a very sterile environment when you are actually born." Edwards indicated that this first exposure to bacteria was significant for the child. "There are no bacteria in that baby at all. It's been living in an environment without any bacteria, and so the first ones that get in have a huge advantage over the competition. Your immune system is being taught by the bacteria starting to colonize your gut. Without bacteria in your gut, your immune system never develops properly." With many indications that autism and immune system weakness are related, we have every reason in the world to favor natural birth.

 Autism and Nutrition

     Many who love nutritional medicine feel that addressing diet and removing wheat and giving common nutrients like omega 3 oils and key minerals will go a long way to curing a child of neurological dysfunction.     Research shows that children with autism and other developmental issues suffer from bowel disease and nutrition problems more frequently than their typical peers. When these children are treated nutritionally, many show dramatic improvement. This is especially true for minerals because our plants and soils are so nutrient depleted, even if we eat the healthiest foods, we are not getting all the minerals we need. All the weaknesses that predispose a child to neurodegeneration and those that prevent healing can be addressed powerfully with proper mineral supplementation.

Signs that diet intervention may benefit a child include: pallor, gray circles under the eyes, excessive drooling, eczema, diffuse dot rash on shoulders or limbs, white dots on nails, cracked or peeling nails, gray coated tongue, bright pink/red glossy tongue, red ears, cracks or rash at lips, anal itching, frequent illness, constant constipation and or unformed wet stools, reflux, hiccups, rigidity in food choices, poor picky appetite, colic, tantrums or poor sleep.

      Dr. Jill James of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine has documented a unique metabolic profile in 95 autistic children with regressive autism.[35] Regressive autism is a form of the disease in which children develop normally for a certain period before losing previously acquired language or behaviors and being diagnosed with autism. The metabolic profile in the James study children manifests as a severe imbalance in the ratio of active to inactive glutathione in autistic children, compared to a group of healthy control children. Glutathione, a potent antioxidant, is the body's most important tool for detoxifying and excreting metals and its production in the body is dependent on good nutrition.

     The James study shows that children with regressive autism have consistently elevated levels of oxidative stress as compared to normal healthy children. Individuals with reduced glutathione antioxidant capacity will be under chronic oxidative stress and will be more vulnerable to toxic compounds that act primarily through oxidative damage, including mercury

     Yet it seems like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) lives on a different planet. To them “Autism is not a specific disease, but rather a collection of disorders of brain development with a strong genetic basis, although its exact cause is not entirely known.”[36] Yet most doctors know, "It is impossible to have a sudden epidemic of a genetic disease. The genetic factor or other predisposing weakening factor is there but it needed the environmental trigger to make it surface. That's why we think the genetic inability to excrete mercury e.g. Apo-E4 and/or a metallothionine abnormality underlies those that crash after being exposed to mercury injections," says Dr. Michael Godfrey.[37] Dr. James and coworkers showed that there were abnormalities in several of the substances involved with the methionine cycle (also called the methylation cycle) and the transsulfuration pathway in children with autism. These are important in the synthesis of glutathione, which was found to be about 80% depleted in children with autism.

Magnesium deficiency measured in 95% of 116 Polish children with ADHD: 78% low hair, 59% low RBC's, 34% low serum.[38]

     A case can easily be made that substitutes what allopathic medicine considers background genetic disposition for nutritional deficiencies.      According to Dr. Ellen Grant, nearly all the autistic children tested at Biolab had zinc, copper, SODase and magnesium deficiencies. We know that mercury displaces essential elements like magnesium, zinc and copper from cells causing disruptions of enzyme systems in the process. So we can expect, when we correct nutritional deficiencies, that we will see a reversal in symptoms. So for instance a double-blind administration of 200 mg elemental magnesium per day to 25 children produced measurable decrease in hyperactivity over 6 months compared to control.[39]

Impaired antioxidant production provides a common rationale
for many disparate features of autistic disorders.

     Serious vitamin and mineral deficiencies weaken the immune system and lead to developmental problems independently of other factors. This is a crucial point that was made after the deaths from encephalopathy of two Israeli infants who were exclusively fed a soya formula made in Germany that lacked vitamin B1 (thiamin).[40] A recent documentary on these children show the most seriously disabled staring into space and barely able to move. While some babies being treated are improving, others seem to be irreversibly damaged with several of them feeling no pain and never able to cry. Complete nutrition is crucial for neurological development and function and any kind of nutritional deficiency will weaken children leaving them more vulnerable to diseases of all kinds.

     Naturally some children would be better mercury eliminators than others, and some kids just can stand higher levels of toxicity without falling apart. Most of medicine and science is geared to examining toxic influences and not deficiency disorders. Deficiencies in basic minerals like magnesium and selenium can make all the difference between health and disease, between being able to withstand chemical attack and not. Constant low level mercury stress in the body will diminish selenium because of the high affinity between these two elements and this is a big problem because of diminished glutathione production when selenium is not available.

     One deficiency that is never thought of, especially in pediatrics unless a child is acutely ill is dehydration – water deficiency. Unintentional dehydration is more common than anyone acknowledges and is an easy condition to fall into for child or adult. Many of the soft drinks we give children actually dehydrate the body and much of the water we do drink is actually poisoned with chemicals either deliberately put there (fluoride, chloride, chloramines) or leached into the ground water from a myriad of pollution sources, and even neurotoxic lead is still present because it is still in pipe fixtures. It might come as a shock that something as simple and basic as water can be a cause of neurological disorders in children but just imagine the difference and the vast complications that ensue in the body when it is dehydrated; when it’s plum-like and juicy cells become transformed into prune-like and drying cells because of insufficient water. [41] Dehydrated cells don’t do anything as well as hydrated ones and that includes dealing with toxic insults.

Water is the most basic of all nutrients.

     It should be noted that no matter what a child’s genetic background and strength is, or what deficiency that is present in the body, there is a certain level of thimerosal or general mercury poisoning that will kill them; that will begin to destroy their nervous system leading to general autistic decline. The exact amount just happens to vary widely from child to child. Autism is not a genetic disease; there is no proof to indicate it is. It is only the handiest theory for pediatricians to explain what they do not want to understand.

Measles virus exhausts the immune system, leading to increased susceptibility to subsequent microbial infections. This scenario is more likely in the malnourished child, especially with vitamin A deficiency.[42]
                                              Dr. Russell Blaylock

     Nutrition is a vast subject with a large impact for neurologically dysfunctional children. It also opens the door to detoxification and chelation protocols that can also be driven through nutritional principles and supplementation.

Where Physiology and Psychology Meet

    The hours, days and months following birth are undoubtedly the most critical phases in the life of human beings. It is a sad reality of modern life that has infants routinely disturbed physiologically and psychologically by medical interventions administered from the first moments of life. Doctors have decade-by-decade intensified their interference with natural childhood development sequences without regard to serious deleterious outcomes or effects.

    The recent explosion in autism does run parallel with the increases in injections,[43] but no one has been paying attention to the possible emotional collateral effects to what is being done to infants. Most physicians can hardly believe that emotions matter in health or disease at all or that they might contribute significantly to disorders like cancer and heart disease and even fewer would think that stabbing infants with poison would bother them.

Emotions physiologically are chemicals raging through
 the blood stream, products of endocrine function.

     In psychology there is a syndrome called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which has been studied thoroughly on biological and emotional levels. Daniel Golemen in his book Emotional Intelligence tells us, “Any traumatizing event can implant such trigger memories in the amygdale.” Dr. Dennis Charney, a psychiatrist and director of clinical neuroscience at the National Center at Yale University tells us that, “It does not matter if it was the incessant terror of combat, torture, or repeated abuse in childhood, or a one-time experience. All uncontrollable stress can have the same biological impact.”[1] The operative word here is uncontrollable. The key psychological aspect of PTSD is helplessness, the feeling that you are being threatened or your life is in danger and there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid it.[44] Dr. Charney said, “Victims of devastating trauma may never be the same biologically.” And Dr. John Krystal, director of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychopharmacology, says, “It’s the feeling that your life is in danger and there is nothing you can do to escape it – that’s the moment the brain change begins.”

Over the last 30 years increasing evidence has been found
 for the existence of complex links between the immune system,
the central nervous system and the endocrine system on
 the one hand, and psychological phenomena on the other.
                                          Van Gent, et al.[45]                                         

     Dr. Boyd Haley has already shown in his laboratory at the University of Kentucky how even relatively benign substances like Tylenol and endocrine hormones like testosterone increase mercury’s toxicity, which explains at least partially why more boys succumb to autism than girls. But perhaps part of the sex difference is from the effects of PTSD in the boys from the medical circumcisions they endure. Some people think that routine infant circumcision is the cruelest and most barbaric, sadistic, and senseless child abuse and torture ever invented. Some mothers feel that the trauma of circumcision interferes with breastfeeding, thus it also interferes during an important time of bonding between mother and child.

Allopathic medicine has a very difficult time relating to children
as sensitive beings who have feelings that matter clinically.

     Modern man tends to belittle the feelings and emotions of young children. Adults who have lost the ability to be vulnerable with their own inner feelings have little or no capacity to empathize with little boys who might be reacting in far stronger ways than anyone imagines to medical circumcision. Medical circumcision cannot be considered the same as the spiritual and religious rituals carried out with the utmost of care.  

     Children without doubt find vaccination a traumatic experience though it seems as if most would get over it quickly. Today though they are given up to four shots at a time and this significantly amplifies the trauma. It is important to remember the key to Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is helplessness. It should not be too difficult to see the possibility that bringing in a child for multiple dangerous injections could provoke a change in internal brain chemistry, when they are dragged against their will, into a danger that could kill them. Or as the VAERS system clearly shows, all too easily send them to the hospital because of convulsions and exceptionally high fever.

      It is just a fact that for some children vaccines are lethal injections and for others it brings on severe enough consequences to hospitalize them. Any psychologist involved with PTSD would probably agree that this could qualify for an uncontrollable stress event that can result in some kind of biological impact. 

     Many doctors would laugh thinking how could children know, think or feel that they are in danger when the doctors themselves think they are doing no harm but only good in administering the vaccines. But veterinarians are well aware of the capacity of animals to intuit danger. Young children have this same basic capacity to sense danger and no doubt their crying and screaming as they are dragged into receive their needles is a good indication of this.

    “When I brought my son in for his Hep B inoculation, he went screaming and flailing like a banshee Indian, and it took 5 people just to hold him down, totally against his will.  It took me a long time to regain his trust,” wrote Claudia French RN. Maureen Fontaine, remembering back to age two said,  “I lost trust for my mother on that day she brought me in for my shots and I never ever did completely recover that trust with her.”[46]

Babies scream without end when they are violated and hurt
 in a way that challenges their capacity to endure.

     It does not take a great stretch of the imagination to see that we might have a very special case when PTSD psychological and biological changes come together with heavy toxic loading from vaccines combining to form a special matrix of changes in both immune and brain chemistry. Any in-depth theory of autism spectrum disorders has to include some analysis of why some kids fall in neurological dysfunction and others not. Both emotional and nutritional factors are important in differentiating one child from another. Nutritional deficiencies also have a great bearing on the emotional life of children and their strength to withstand both emotional and chemical shocks. 

Conclusion

     We are only now waking up to the full dimension of the nightmare and to a form of medical insanity that has been increasing decade by decade. Newborns and young children are being subjected to increasingly aggressive interventions and they are not standing up well to the assault. The conclusion of course is devastating. Autism is primarily an iatrogenic disease. It is caused mostly by obstetricians, pediatricians, their nurses who inject toxic chemicals into the babies, and even by dentists who expose mothers to mercury through their dental fillings. But coming up fast as a primary cause are environmental hazards especially mercury, which we find increasingly in our air, water and food.

     The causes of autism are known, it just so happens that many people do not want to face the truth of the causes and this is in and of itself a further crime of the medical establishment, especially the branch of pediatrics. Denial only continues the horror and the suffering by blocking appropriate treatments and removal of the insulting causes. The medical establishment has completely abandoned its responsibilities of protecting the young from harm and is not even warning parents about the environmental hazards from mercury. Health and governmental organizations should be the first ones fighting for the conditions that will insure the health of our children but instead we find them in bed with the pharmaceutical companies and other industries that are just exposing them to more and more mercury and other poisons.