Does any Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD news report strike a chord within you? Are you feeling prompted to open the news link and read it in hope there is finally an answer or even the beginning of one? Or do you just avoid it fearing that you will emerge a lot more frustrated and confused than you were the last time you read about ASD? When I read about ASD, whether it is a – sad – story, a new research study, a governmental agency’s report (…) my first thoughts go to these hundred of thousands of children who have been diagnosed with ASD or other biochemical and psychological disorders, to their families that endure the heart breaking journey of raising and caring for these kids with special needs, feeling hopeless 9 days out of 10. I know almost certainly that this piece of news will make mention of a probable correlation between some vaccines and ASD and the most anticipated reality will strike again … “we do not know what is causing it” … is it so?

So here are the news for you … we are helpless, we simply don’t know. And people, be sure we are taking every measure we feel appropriate to understand the phenomenon and find appropriate measures (appropriate has always made me feel uncomfortable). Because you see people, this administration has declared autism an urgent public health challenge. This was the message US s Secretary Kathleen Sebelius shared with experts last Friday over a conference call that lasted according to David Kirby (who raises some very important points) 39 minutes and 2 questions … So what’s new on the war on autism? Apparently we are still at a stage of laying out the specifications that will help us define autism, or rather which syndrome qualifies as an autism spectrum disorder. Asperger’s syndrome and pervasive development disorder (PDD) included in the picture, an estimated 673,000 children are believed to be affected by this disorder. I said are believed because no one knows for sure, and even if the CDC feels very strongly about these findings, we are looking at a disorder of which symptoms can vary from being unperceivable to being unmanageable – from a parents’ perspective, which is important since we are the ultimate decision makers when it comes to taking our child to be evaluated. So whether the CDC asked directly parents over the telephone whether one or more of the children living in their household had been diagnosed with autism or whether researchers have actually looked at children’s behavior in selected cities and determined whether the children meet the diagnosis, the outcome is simply staggering: at least and please let me emphasis on this quantifier: at least 1 child out of 100 is believed to be affected by ASD. Which figure makes you jump? 673,000 or 1 out of 100? What if you were told that after monitoring different age groups of children – born in 1992, 1994 and 1996 – the proportion of children diagnosed with ASD were respectively 67 for 10,000; 74 for 10,000 and 100 for 10,000, does this rise in confirmed ASD cases – 50% between the 1992 and the 1996 birth cohorts – make you ask why the US Government is not doing EVERYTHING – and not just what is or should be appropriate – in its power to better understand and fight this epidemic of biochemical and psychological disorders?

The 50% increase might be explained in part – but only in part – by a broader definition of ASD (although it seems Asperger and PDD were already included as ASDs since the early 90s). Scientists also point out that because they better understand this phenomenon they are better equipped to diagnose children with these symptoms that they were a few years ago. The same logic is used to explain the staggering increase in cancer cases. Not surprisingly, governmental agencies involved in these studies are discarding the link vaccines-autism, but none has provided a satisfactory reasoning behind this decision. To add to the controversy, the US Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees never conducted the comparative study between HepB vaccinated and non-vaccinated populations its own committee recommended. Moreover, every time a vaccine receives clearance from the appropriate regulator, it is merely impossible to declare it safe based on the current state of approved testing methodologies: not enough patients and very short term follow up. In short, they are not adequately tested.

It is so easy to categorize someone as an anti-vaccine activist on the ground that no-one should question the vaccine policy put in place by our government and supported by the WHO. Very few people deny the vast improvement vaccination has made to public health (take Polio and Diphtheria), but it would be simply foolish to believe all vaccines are safe. And it would be even more foolish to vaccinate everyone against every deadly pathogen known to men. As for any disease, vaccine preventable or not, the population that is the most at risk of developing it is usually definable, not based on its origins but based on its settings and its current health at the moment it contracts the disease. “Pushing” a vaccine because 100 to 1,000 people die of one or two particular strain of bacteria or virus every year is similar to enacting higher flame retardant standard because 400 people die each year of fire hazard in their home with little to no consideration to the human health and environmental impact of the flame retardant chemicals used to slow down the ignition of furniture. When you learn that 75% of these fire deaths occur in settings where a) the fire alarm system was not working, b) the occupant was at least 65 year old (should we assume medicated?), and/ or c) was a smoker, you wonder why everyone should be exposed to toxic flame retardants. In other words, these fire deaths were preventable. When emptied of its substance, every scientific based recommendation that is used today to promote or enact a policy, a standard or a regulation is inaccurate or incomplete and therefore is misleading. Most of the death-threatening disease outbreaks affecting American children aged 6 to 48 months have occurred either because they were immune compromised or lived in crowded, substandard living conditions. This is true for Hib, influenza, TB and so on … Take the two most controversial vaccines in today’s news: the one against HPV (a virus associated with cervical cancer in women), and the one against Hepatitis B (a blood borne virus affecting the liver). What have been the premises for vaccinating teenage girls and babies against these two pathogens?
- HPV might lead to cervical cancer in case of chronic infection
- Hepatitis B might lead to liver disease or cancer.
Both can only be transmitted through fluid, through sexual intercourse and HepB though body fluids exchange (blood in the case of needle exchange, transfusion, and rarely through an infected blade). Now, we know that survival for women with pre-invasive cervical cancer lesions is nearly 100% with early diagnosis and appropriate treatment. As for hepatitis B, there is a 90%-95% chance all cases recover completely after 3 to 4 weeks of nausea, fatigue, headache, arthritis, jaundice and tender liver. Now, as for any STD, condoms and/or faithfulness are your best bets to live a healthy life (and oh yes, I forgot … abstinence). As for drug use … well, it only confirms my point that most vaccines should be used appropriately and accordingly to the risk level of any targeted population.

Another possible contributor to ASD or any biochemical and psychological disorder largely overlooked is the exposure to invasive toxic chemicals. I mentioned earlier flame retardants, namely brominated and chlorinated hydrocarbons (halogen family), we can add pesticides (present in food and in air), Bisphenol A and PVC in plastics, aluminium and triclosan in personal care products, just to name a few. All, and I mean ALL these chemicals are carcinogens and neurotoxins, most can cause neurological and reproductive impairments; cancer; attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder; infertility; reduced sperm count and endocrine disruption; cryptorchidism (undescended testicles); and hypospadias (a penile deformity), asthma, dermatitis, birth defect, diabetes among other health disorders. All of them without exception will bio-accumulate in your body, your system being completely defenseless in front of these foreign substances. They will affect the breast milk and the placentas of pregnant women and directly affect the fetus to the point that a newborn has already a body burden of nearly 300 foreign synthetic chemicals … before receiving his/her load of vaccines.

In the middle of the health care reform debate and the vaccination campaign to counter a possible flu pandemic, I come to wonder … have we lost our mind? How did we get to the point that our quest for convenience and safety has outweighed our basic common senses? Are we so shortsighted that we can’t even recognize when a system is broken? So being in the dark as to figuring out what exactly trigger autism spectrum disorder, but knowing for a fact that biochemical and psychological disorder cases have increased dramatically, shouldn’t we start phasing out the unnecessary toxins that plague our bodies and environment? Now, if they were phased out, would that fix ASD? Maybe, maybe not, since we don’t know … but we would definitely feel more confident and stronger about our regulatory agencies and our future, wouldn’t we?

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