your view on vaccinations?

[ranirani]

your view on vaccinations ? what are those? any prons and cons?

absoloutely
as soon as autism is mentioned it seems to allow the NHs to 'mormalise' physical symptoms as if they are just part of a broad aurism diagnosis.
When my GP said 'lots of children with ASD have gut problems' I asked why about 50 times and never got an answer beyond 'they just seem to'
Which he seemed to regard as a good reason not to investigate

Amber could you expand on what you mean by saying the "brain rewires itself"?

Many thanks.

Beachcomber, I can try. I've been following the science of this for some time, but forgive me if I try to make it more 'visual' in the way I describe it. Latest set of observations is that when we're born, there's a blueprint for how the brain is supposed to be wired in. Equal wiring between the social bits, technical bits, eyes, ears, skin, etc.

The brain has its own 'engineering/rewiring crew' that does it, they've discovered to their astonishment - somehow there's cells that move bits of the brain wiring around.

In autism, for some reason, the blueprint changes from one where there's equal wiring to everything, to one where there's extreme specialisation and speed to some bits, and some bits get no wiring at all/the equivalent of communicating with a yoghurt pot and string.

Eventually we overcome most of it by using other wiring to do the same job, so we gradually learn skills that aren't natural to us. It's at a cost, though, because those wires aren't designed for the big workloads and they get very worn out very fast (a bit like getting an electrical shock, in a way), hence the meltdowns/shutdowns.

But it explains why those with an ASD often (certainly not always) have a 'splinter talent' or extreme sensory sensitivities. Those are the bits that got the superfast broadband wiring on the new design.

Simon Baron-Cohen and his team are doing a lot of work on this type of thing at the moment, and has shown that there are often strong links to mathematical and scientific excellence in families with autism. If the rewiring goes well, you have a maths genius etc. A bit too much rewiring, and it seems you have autism.

So, what's causing the brain blueprint to change? As yet, no-one has a proper scientific clue. But my theory is that if there's a leaky gut, maybe there's also a leaky membrane to the brain, and maybe the rewiring crew in the brain is spending their time bailing out the overflow instead of building all the wiring in the right place.

Er, does that help?

That seems to make sense Amber.

A few eyars back I did Psych as the joint bit of my degree (everybody has to choose a joint in year one). My subject was looking at braina reas and what culd explain ds1 if ytou tooka way the dx and looed at his rpesentation instead- it seemed the areas identified in semaqntic pragmatics (a big problem of his) are lcoated close to areas responsible for agression (in post brain trauma studies). I do wonder if ds1 has a parially leakty membrane and ds1 a totally leaky one? Both have had casein intol since birth, as do I indeed. DS1 has ongoing gut issues but these ahvd been written off as stress related IBS by the medics. However DH does have sevre IBS so it may be right.

The other factor imo is that ds3 was prescribed a lactose free milk for 3 years instead of the casein free he required; ds1 however was kept very strictly on soya throughout infancy after being advised due to my eczma. It could well be as simple as that, over exposure to toxins.

or indeed ds1's could be triggerd by his bad birth and ds3's by a fall at a year..... who knows?

could be telling you stuff here that you already know but what the heck, it might be useful to someone.

The leaky gut thing allows larger protein particles to pass into the bloodstream. Some of these have apparent psychoactive properties, especially the opioids - the caseomorphines and the gliadomorphines (from dairy and wheat respectively). These opioids have receptors in the brain and therefore can affect behaviour, mood etc.

Fixing the leaky gut can help prevent the absorption of these larger protein particles and therefore reduce the tripping of these brain receptors.

There is so much stuff I could write about this but it would be far too large for here, so i shall consider doing it for my blog at some point.

Thank you very much amber.

Do you have links to anything on this? I would be interested to take a look at any science that addresses this.

I would prefer it if they weren't links to anything by Baron-Cohen if possible as I think he is a waste of space generally. I can't for the life of me understand how he has become a revered expert on autism despite his continuing lack of interest in the physical suffering of autistic people with gut issues. I don't like the rather obvious conclusion of his current research which could lead to prenatal testing for autistic markers. He seems to spend much of his time studying and celebrating the neurodiversity of high functioning autistic people whilst ignoring and neglecting the immense pain and suffering of much of the autistic population.

Can you tell I don't like him .

www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726451.900-how-the-immune-system-finetunes-the-brain.html

is one article that might be of use.

Yes, I think I can guess you're not a Simon Baron-Cohen fan

Thanks for the link amber. I'll have a look later when I have time to read it properly.

I'm also kind of put off Baron-Cohen by the fact that he accepts funding from the Wellcome Trust which of course has every interest in keeping any vaccine link well and truly buried.

This lady pretty much sums up how I feel about him and his ilk.

I'm not 100% sure of B-C either bt some of thsoe comments on that link were awful- suggesting people with ASD are more valid than those with DS as they may have a talent? Sheer feckery!
Valid because they are people!.

I don't like the leaning towards the HFA side either, the constant lack of acknowledgement of kids like ds1 who might be technically HFA but actually no are not a genius or maths whizz, just a normal kid with ASD.

And the funding sounds very very dodgy indeed.

Nearly every main charity in the country gets a large part of its funding from the government these days, in one form or other. And the government will generally only give them the funding if they behave themselves and do what the government wants. The National Autistic Society accepted around £1.2 million from government sources in the last accounts, it says. No doubt all supporting good work, but if they spoke out actively against the government in some way, what would happen to their applications for funding, I wonder? Same for any charity...it's a difficult thing.

Maybe he puts himself across badly but the implication in the idea that it would be a bad idea to terminate babies who carried some sort of autism marker in case any maths type genuises got lost is that it would be ok to terminate the non genuis types. Scary eugenics stuff.

Doesn't he also maintain that MMR is 100% AOK in his book. Interesting position for a so called autism expert to try to hold up now that children are being compensated in the US for developing autism as a result of vaccination. Mind you he seemed to successfully maintain for quite some time that there was no real increase in autism incidence despite all the glaring evidence to the contrary.

I didn't realise that the Wellcome Trust and GlaxoSmithKline were 'government' quite yet.

It's true though that funding issues are hugely problematical when it comes to researching something that is going to make those holding the purse strings look bad.

hello girls
interesting stuff
do you think one will ever be able to say -- I told you so? tired musing

There is a theory that introducing solids too early i.e. at 3 -4 months could be a factor in leaky gut and hence one of the reasons no longer recommended. This practice was very common a while back so wondering if this (in conjunction with the gradual increase in number of vaccines over the years) could be another factor in the increase in autism?? Typically what was done was crumbling rusks into bottles of formula... wheat... refined sugar... dairy... the usual suspects.

I understand that in simplistic terms breast milk 'lines' the gut and provides protection against this permeability that small babies' digestive systems can have. Wonder if there is any correlation also between breast fed and formula fed and autism.

I guess this could all sit under the banner of 'environmental' damage/influence since formula is a highly processed food, and is of course mixed into tap water with for example fluoride added in some areas. Another well known toxin. Where do you start and where does it end!

Then there's the toxic ingredients in vaccines such as mercury, now gone in the UK apart from the flu jab, but worryingly the aluminium levels in the current regime are huge.

One book that goes into the detail of the aluminium issue, amongst much more, is Dr Richard Halvorsen's "The Truth About Vaccines - How We Are Used As Guinea Pigs Without Knowing It". It's well worth a read and is fully referenced. Should really be handed out to every expectant mum at the first midwife appointment!

The wellcome trust no longer has strong links to the pharmaceutical industry.

On the Baron-Cohen issue. In fairness it is often the way that things are reported that tends to lead the media line. The kind of research he does is not all very applied and this is the worst sort of research to get the media excited about. They are only interested in a gene story if it is a diagnostic tool or a gene therapy target. They don't care or understand that knowledge for it's own sake or as a platform is very important. The media also love a rain man type story as this is the kind of autism they "understand".

Also just because he doesn't research certain aspects of autism is more than likely because he is not qualified to do so.

No I don't know him, or work in the field, but I do know quite a lot about research and whenever anything I'm peripherally involved in hits the media, my blood boils at the banal way it comes across and the stupid soundbites that accompany it.

Simon Baron-Cohen's research centre can be found here:

www.autismresearchcentre.com/arc/default.asp

and lists some 30 pages of research papers he has done, many of them to do with classic autism.

Just posting this so i can come back here later and add my opinion.

Theochris the Wellcome Trust regularly works in partnership with GlaxoSmithKline to fund projects. The Trust recently awared a 4 million pound grant to GSK.

Considering that GSK absorbed the Wellcome drug company and that the Wellcome Trust only sold its shares in GSK back to GSK fairly recently it seems obvious that the two are linked even though they are independant operations. I'm not saying that there is anything intrinsically wrong with this and no doubt the two fund many worthwhile projects but they most certainly have a cosy relationship. Given their history this is hardly surprising.

Examples of GSK and Wellcome partnerships;

www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2007/WTX037132.htm
www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/about/pgclinical/wellcometrustclinicalphdprogramme/wellcomegsk_tmt_prog ramme/
www.gsk.ca/english/html/media-centre/news-releases-20030403.html
www.epilepsynse.org.uk/Press/Pressreleaselibrary/WellcomeTrustfundingbringshopeforpeoplewithepilepsy

I accept that Baron-Cohen may stay away from certain aspects of autism research due to lack of qualification. However if that is the case how can he be considered to be an expert in autism if he is not qualified in some of the main areas of the condition such as gut problems and environmental triggers?

Also if he is not qualified in such areas perhaps he should refrain from commenting on them. He clearly states that there is no link between MMR and autism when current science and the evidence of families shows this to be not true. He is yet another so called expert who is happy to ignore the eye witness accounts of thousands of parents and yet he claims to be trying to find out what the causes of autism are. Even he admits that genetics only play a part so why is so lacking in curiousity about what the other factors may be?

Baron-Cohen has done lots of research into testosterone levels and autism yet seems oddly unwilling to consider evidence that shows that testosterone not only enhances the toxicity of mercury but that mercury increases testosterone levels and decreases glutathione levels. Glutathione is needed to eliminate mercury. Pretty neat huh? Even better is that when these issues are biomedically addressed in relevant children improvement in their condition is seen. Why isn't Baron-Cohen interested in this? Why isn't the Wellcome Trust interested in this?

www.ageofautism.com/2008/04/mercury-testost.html

More crucially why isn't the government interested in this?

The joint funding isn't itself a big issue, and the sums discussed in some of those studies are not hugely significant. Wellcome will be exposed to the whole pharma industry on a much bigger scale by virtue of there large stock market investments.

He is considered an expert in Autism because he is one, it's just that he is not a medical doctor in the usual sense and would therefore not be qualified/allowed to work on children's gut problems. This is just reading wiki BTW, he does not seem to have a medical degree.

Perhaps he should refrain from commenting on things outside his direct sphere of experience. However this is not how things work, he is a bit of a rent a gob for studies that are high profile and the media want a comment. This would very much suit the department and centre that he works for as they want a high profile and good scores in the public understanding of science. Most scientists do not like media work and they may have problems finding someone else that will 'talk'.

On studies he has worked on directly it is telling where his name would appear in the author list which should give some indication as to his involvement. In some medical papers authors can be included for merely providing a pointer to the patients involved in the study (this is not how my field works though).

As to why the government isn't interested I can't answer that. It is a rare thing though in science to have a Government funded very specific targeted response to a particular condition. They would have a general call for funding say projects relating to neurological conditions but unlikely to target a specific condition, like say a particular aspect of MS (the charities themselves lobby and take up this role usually).

As I said I have no involvement in this work and I don't set myself up as his apologist. However I have been involved in media releases and it's a nightmare, they are not interested in the shades of grey that science usually produces and it is easy to look like a total arse by oversimplification of a topic, particularly if the interpretation involves any kind of stats. More than likely he will have been interviewed at least the day before for 30 mins and then they sample/quote from this on the today programme for about 2 mins.

Obviously I meant their in the first para.

Need a bit of light relief, I'm off to lurk on Sleb twaddle

I have 2 ds's,
ds1 is 10
ds2 is 16m.

DS1 had the MMR when he was 4 1/2 yrs old and while he is not autistic his behaviour changed drastically after having it. He went from being a good sleeper and well behaved child to not sleeping but being tired all the time, constant ear and throat infections, constantly misbehaving. I can pin point the changes in him and even though i took him to the dr's many times after the mmr I was told there was no connection. I know this is what changed him.He also then became diagnosed with a condition called Reflex anoxic seizures or RAS.....I still wonder if there is a connection there??

DS2 will not be vaccinated with the MMR, he will have the single measles jab but thats all and not until he is older either.

That sounds grim TheLadyEvenstar. I have heard of RAS being associated with DTP vaccination and seizures in general and epilepsy being linked to MMR and other vaccines. Sleep disruption and ENT infections are also commonly associated with vaccine damage. My daughter had terrible sleep problems after her vaccine reaction.

I'm so sorry to hear of what has happened to your son.

This situation is just so unacceptable. I can't count the number of stories of vaccine damage that I have come across since getting interested in the subject after my DD1 was damaged. And yet the government and much of the medical community continue to repeat their propaganda that vaccines are safe and it is our social duty to inflict them on our babies.

Amber I read the article that you linked to. Most interesting. The content fits in exactly with research done into how immune disruption through vaccination can activate central nervous and brain system microgila and astrocytes which results in them releasing neurotoxic compounds and excitotoxins. If this happens during a period of synape pruning or pathway formation the result is neurological damage resulting in neurodevelopmental disorders. The timing of all this is a major factor in how the damage manifests itself. We know that the human brain goes through an enormous amount of development during the first 24 months of life and is therefore very vulnerable to damage of this nature. We also know that the blood brain barrier is not complete yet and therefore is unable to protect the brain in the manner of an older human from damaging molecules and compounds circulating in the bloodstream. We also know that aluminium and mercury can cross the BBB and that the synergy between them increases their toxicity to the brain (and other organs and systems including the digestive tract). Some research has been able to identify the areas of the brain that are most affected by this damage (depending on the timing, intensity and duration of the assault) and much of this work fits in with the manifestation of damage in autism.

All this is yet another reason why it is very odd that your man Baron-Cohen hasn't taken his work a step further on and consulted with the people who are examining these mechanisms and their relationship to vaccines and natural infection. He appears to be hobbling along behind everybody else when it comes to this particular area of research. Strange how I can read this stuff on the net and yet a prominent professor and renowned expert on autism appears to be in the dark about it. Perhaps it is his background in psychology and links to the Institute of Psychiatry that make him so lacking in curiosity about these hugely important revelations about a condition he claims to be an expert in?

For anybody who is a little more curious that Baron-Cohen this paper in an interesting (and very accessible) read (can't link directly so you have to follow below link then click on "published papers" the one I am refering to is number 8 "Vaccines and Autism". Paper number 2 "Microgila, Cytokines, Excitotoxin is very interesting too. You have to scroll down to page 22 once you have opened the link. It starts out pretty technical but gets more general further on.)

follow this link then click on "published papers"

This morning on Radio 4 there was a fairly long "interview" with the Head of Immunisation, who is touting his MMR campaign once again in the light of the current "epidemic" of cases of measles in England.

He called parents who decline MMR "irrational" and said there had been "too many" studies done now to disprove the autism and gut link. Very sad to hear this on mainstream media but what's new... He refused point blank to accept the link.

From what I gather 80% of those with measles in one latest survey hadn't been vaccinated. But that means 20% had!!! This point was ignored of course. I can't quote the stats as not had time to find them, but this is surely worthy of note in itself.

There is no doubt in my mind that the govt/health dept has taken the decision to ignore vaccine damage and also the fundamental issue that the stats show they often do not work. 1 in 5 getting infected despite vaccination is a HUGE number. These are also the figures that are officially admitted to... cynic that I am I suspect the real figures may be a bit different!

It is a real worry and extremely frustrating that vcaccine damaged children are not properly acknowledged.

I'm a doctor and my son has just had his MMR.

At the moment - for me - the evidence suggests that vaccination is less risky than not vaccinating. That's not the same thing as risk-free and I'm open minded to the possibility that future research may suggest otherwise. As a doctor and a parent I've made the best decision I can make based on current evidence.

Weeelll. I am going to run for cover in a mo, and I haven't read the whole thread. The only person who rang me when dc had meningitis to see if it was infectious was the one person in my circle who hasn't vaccinated.