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In the following excerpt from VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?, we discuss Alzheimer’s disease, autism and aluminum.

“Memory is all we are. Moments and feelings, captured in amber, strung on filaments of reason. Take a man’s memories and you take all of him. Chip away a memory at a time and you destroy him as surely as if you hammered nail after nail through his skull.” -Mark Lawrence (King of Thorns)

 

We would also like to touch on the subject of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) even though this does not affect children. We do believe it has some correlation to childhood diseases. The common denominator appears to be aluminum (Al) and other metals.

As you may recall, aluminum can be much more toxic once it’s injected into the body. But as with so much else, we have to count on research that does not involve injections. Instead, we have to keep in mind the fact that being injected may potentially have greater adverse effects than what was observed in the studies.

Authors of one such study published in 2009 explain that we are exposed to aluminum “through air, food and water.” They connect damage by free radicals and changes in neurological behavior to the impact aluminum has on the brain.

The authors also explain:

“However, there is no known physiological role for aluminium within the body and hence this metal may produce adverse physiological effects. Chronic exposure of animals to aluminium is associated with behavioural, neuropathological and neurochemical changes. Among them, deficits of learning and behavioural functions are most evident.”

Authors of a paper published in 2014, explain:

“[…] Alzheimer’s disease is a manifestation of chronic Al neurotoxicity in humans. Because Al is similar to iron, it gains access to iron-dependent cells involved in memory.”

The authors continue by explaining that:

“[…] Al in human beings implicates Al toxicants as causally involved in Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease and autism spectrum disorders.”

This sparked a question in our minds: Is Alzheimer’s disease (AD) the same as autism?

It appears to us that the difference between the two is with autism, everything happens a lot faster, while AD is a slower process and therefore occurs later in life. We are not so naïve as to believe this is the only difference. We are just curious whether there could be something to it.

Brain struggles

The incidence of autism around the globe is exploding. In 2014, an estimated 1% of the world’s population had autism. That means more than 70,000,000 human beings were, and many no doubt still are, struggling to function with a damaged brain as a consequence of this disease.

The reports in from individual countries indicate the alarming scope of the problem.

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) an announcement posted April 2017 on its website states: “[i]t is estimated that worldwide 1 in 160 children has an ASD.” Our concern with gathering worldwide data into one statistic is the fact that we don’t know the various methodologies used for each country. In US alone, there are three different survey methods used (mentioned below) and they all derive data differently.

That being said, we would still like to see what the ASD prevalence data is in countries other than the US. The website Focus for Health has posted autism diagnosis for 18 different countries, including US with data from 2015, which shows one in 45 children with autism.

The website derived their data from each individual country and they link references to each. The most recent data is from Germany, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore from 2016 and 2017. Here it shows Germany with one in 263 children with autism diagnoses, Singapore with one in 149, Ireland with one in 65 and Hong Kong with one in 27.

In November 2015 the National Health Statistics Reports released by the US Department of Health and Human Services published a questionnaire to assess whether the autism spike was a true incidence spike. They have been conducting National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) since 1997, which include:

“[…] questions to determine the prevalence of children ever diagnosed with the developmental disabilities of ASD, intellectual disability (ID), and any other developmental delay (other DD).”

This questionnaire remained unchanged until 2014 when NHIS made some adjustment by adding more detailed analysis of ASD. In their report they show two other survey systems: Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM), and National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH). The researchers feel strongly about the NHIS’s approach being the best of the three:

“NHIS represents the most in-depth health survey, with more than 12,000 sample-child interviews completed annually about health conditions, functional limitations, and health care access and utilizations. In-person interviews and strong response rates make NHIS the principal source of information on health of the noninstitutionalized population of the United States.”

It’s difficult to compare the three systems as they vary so much in the way they collect data. As described in the above quote, the NHIS surveys more than 12,000 children age three to 17 annually. The survey published in 2015 showed that “22.4 per 1,000 children” were diagnosed with ASD. That’s 2.4% of all children in US age three to 17.

This may not seem like a high percentage, but let’s say you have 5,000 children in your school district, 112 of them would have autism.

The reports show that in 2014 the autism rate nearly doubled from what it was from 2011-2013. As mentioned above, they contributed this to the more detailed description of ASD (i.e. inclusion of Asperger’s disorder). Nonetheless, it doesn’t explain the worldwide statistics.

The Survey shown for ADDM is from 2010 and covers 360,000 eight-year-old children. The data was collected by “[e]xpert clinicians review medical and education records and apply surveillance case definition” . This survey showed an ASD prevalence of “14.7 per 1,000 children”. The difference here is the data was collected from health professionals and therefore included children not officially diagnosed with ASD (~20% of survey subjects). Both NHIS and ADDM were funded by the CDC.

The last survey mentioned is the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) conducted by phone in 2011-2012. It highlighted “[p]aren’t-reported survey responses about current autism spectrum disorder diagnosis”. NSCH reached over 95,000 children aged six to 17 throughout the US. According to their data set, the autism prevalence in this age group was “20,0 per 1,000 children.” This survey was funded by Human Resources & Services Administration (HRSA).

More recent data from NSCH was published in the journal Pediatrics in November 2018. Using the same methods as described above, this study reached the carers of 43,283 children aged between three and 17. It showed by 2016 there was an ASD prevalence of “2.50 per 100 children” This means that an “estimated prevalence of US children with parent-reported ASD diagnosis is now 1 in 40” .

According to the CDC’s website, ADDM data revealed one in 59 children had been diagnosed with autism by 2014. With the steady increase in autism each year, NSCH’s new data showing one in 40 children are being diagnosed with autism today doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Regardless, it’s safe to say that ASD is on the rise and becoming more prevalent than ever before.

Another disease that perhaps not many have heard of is Pink Acrodonia, often referred to as the Pink disease. Caused by mercury in teething powder, this disease seems to have disappeared after the 1950s. The reason we mention Pink Acrodonia is because it has all the hallmarks and behaviors of an autistic child from head banging to a disconnect with other people.

A study was done on the grandchildren of those who survived pink disease to see if there were genetic factors involved. They found that one out 22 pink disease survivors had grandchildren with ASD, while one out 160 from the general population had grandchildren with ASD.

Other than autism

We also found a paper that looks at the causal effect between vaccines, the immune system and brain development. The authors of that study appear to feel vaccines are important and do not seem to support the link between MMR and autism. They state directly that “this association has been convincingly disproven.”

Even so, they feel there are other disorders worth a second look. These include obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD, anorexia nervosa (AN), “tic disorder, anxiety disorder, ADHD, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder”.

The study looks at correlation between these disorders and various vaccines. Among these vaccines were vaccines for “tetanus and diphtheria (TD), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis, and varicella”.

At the end of paper, they state:

“[…] preliminary epidemiologic evidence that the onset of some pediatric-onset neuropsychiatric disorders, including AN, OCD, anxiety disorders, and tic disorders, may be temporally related to prior vaccinations.”

The authors also stress that this is not proof of causal relationship. Whether they and others of the same viewpoint are right or wrong, the results from the study done on grandchildren of pink disease victims could hold the underlying answer.

Our body has an innate ability to edit its DNA codes. This also means that when it is exposed to toxins, the editing process can be distorted and cause errors which become imbedded into the DNA. These errors are then passed on to offspring and render them more susceptible to toxic injuries or other disadvantages the errors may cause.

The connection between the pink disease and autism brings to the fore something that has been brewing in the back of our minds for a while. It’s something we haven’t addressed yet, but feel strongly it deserves at least a passing mention before we end this book.

We refer to the topic covered in the next and our last chapter: DNA epigenetics.

 

References for Chapter 45: Alzheimer’s and aluminum:

Kumar, V. and Gill, K.D. (2009). Aluminium neurotoxicity: neurobehavioural and oxidative aspects. Arch Toxicol, 83(11), 965-978.

Shaw, C., Seneff, S., Kette, S.D., Tomljenovic, L., Oller Jr. J.W., and Davidson, R.M. (2014). Aluminum-Induced Entropy in Biological Systems: Implications for Neurological Disease. Journal of Toxicology, 2014, 491316

Ibid.

World Health Organization. (2017, April 4). Autism spectrum disorders. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-…

Focus for Health (2017, August 28). Autism Rates across the Developed World. Retrieved from https://www.focusforhealth.org/autism…

Zablotsky, B., Black, L.I, Maenner, M.J., Schieve, L.A., and Blumberg, S.J. (2015). Estimated Prevalence of Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities Following Questionnaire Changes in the 2014 National Health Interview Survey. National Health Statistics Report, 87, 1-20

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Kogan, M.D., Vladutiu, C.J., Schieve, L.A., Ghandour, R.M., Blumberg, S.J., Zablotsky, B., … Lu, M.C. (2018). The Prevalence of Parent-Reported Autism Spectrum Disorder Among US Children. Pediatrics, 142(6)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018, November 15). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ACD). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/dat…

Shandley, K., & Austin, D. W. (2011). Ancestry of pink disease (infantile acrodynia) identified as a risk factor for autism spectrum disorders. Journal of toxicology and environmental health. Part A, 74(18), 1185-1194.

Leslie, D. L., Kobre, R. A., Richmand, B. J., Aktan Guloksuz, S., & Leckman, J. F. (2017). Temporal Association of Certain Neuropsychiatric Disorders Following Vaccination of Children and Adolescents: A Pilot Case-Control Study. Frontiers in psychiatry, 8, 3. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00003

Ibid.

 

You have been reading an excerpt from VACCINE SCIENCE REVISITED: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MQTN3CG/

 

 

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