By Dr Viera Scheibner and Bronwyn Hancock BSc.
Vaccination Information Service

Part 1 of 2 (Part 2)

There has been a fair degree of publicity recently, more in some parts of the world than others, in relation to the research that has linked the MMR vaccine to autism.

What is the most publicized is that UK researcher DR Andrew Wakefield and his group of researchers studied children who developed Crohn's disease and autism and linked them to the MMR vaccine that they had been administered (Lancet 1998).

It is good that this is being brought to light, but since parents have been repeatedly reassured by many doctors that the vaccine is safe, which they now can see is not true, it is important for them to logically reason that they cannot trust ANYTHING they are told by doctors, particularly about vaccination, and see that they need to research the whole vaccination issue. Sadly, when this is done, it is realized that this MMR/autism link is only the tip of iceberg.

There are various relevant very important issues which are not addressed by this publicity, and which I will cover here. It will then be recognized that this is a much wider problem, and only after understanding this can parents make an informed decision about what to do. The issues are as follows:

1. Is the MMR triple vaccine the only cause of autism?

2. Is the administration of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines individually a solution to the problem of autism?

3. Are gastrointestinal problems the only mechanism causing brain dysfunction characterized by the diagnosis of autism?

4. What constitutes the evidence of causality?

5. What IS the solution to the problem?

The answer to the first three questions, which we will address first, is a resounding NO!

The fourth and fifth questions are addressed subsequently.

1. Is the MMR triple vaccine the only cause of autism?

There is not only a documented link of autism to the MMR vaccine, but also to the other vaccines, such as the DPT and polio. We also know of a case of a child developing autism after the Hepatitis A vaccine and others after the Hepatitis B vaccine.

2. Are gastrointestinal problems the only mechanism causing brain dysfunction characterized by the diagnosis of autism?

Even though it is evident and proven that the MMR causes bowel problems which result in malabsorption and malelimination of waste product of digestion, which results in brain dysfunction called autism, autism as a diagnosis was defined for the first time by Kanner (1943 and 1944).

This was the time when the measles, mumps and rubella (and the MMR) vaccines did not exist. However, it WAS the time of intensified diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) and tetanus vaccination. The recipients of these vaccines developed encephalitis (or encephalomyelitis) and the mechanism of behavioral problems described by Kanner as autism was soon described by others as postencephalitic syndrome.

This is another, in fact the original, explanation for the observed behavioral problems often alternatively described as post -- vaccinal encephalitic syndrome and caused by ANY vaccine. This is amply described in a book written by Harris I. Coulter: "Vaccination: Social Violence and Criminality, the Assault on the American Brain."

3. Is the administration of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines individually a solution to the problem of autism?

The researchers above and parents, particularly in the United Kingdom, are calling for the three vaccines (measles, mumps and rubella) to be administered individually as if this were the solution to the problem.

However it is not just the combined vaccines, such as MMR or DPT that cause autism, and therefore the separate administration of the vaccines will NOT resolve the problem.

In fact we know of cases of autism occurring after the individual vaccines. Indeed, the risk may, to the contrary, be even increased.

DR Wakefield has not referred to ANY research that has looked into the relative risk of developing autism after the separate vaccines as opposed to the combined MMR (and we are not aware of any), so there is no basis for such a recommendation.

It appears to be purely based on speculation, and even that speculation can be said to be founded on a poor amount of study of the available published refereed research, which shows in more detail what the cause of the problem actually is. Much of this research is covered in "Behavioral Problems in Childhood - The Link to Vaccination", by DR Viera Scheibner.

It is important to understand that ANY of the vaccines - any type and given either singly or combined, can disturb the balance in the body and cause autism.

In fact it has even very rarely developed after an immunological assault that was NOT vaccination (we know of 2 such cases), but it does NOT develop otherwise in unvaccinated children. Notably, we know of NO cases of autism in which there was no clearly identifiable immunological assault preceding its development.

4. What constitutes the evidence of causality?

Let us start by not relying on the words of medical "authorities" in western countries.

A clear illustration of how truly authoritative their assertions are can be seen from looking at what has happened in other countries.

For example, Sugiura & Yamada (Pediatr Infect Dis J, 1991;Vol 10(3):209-13) describe what happened in Japan. Very briefly, when the MMR triple vaccine was shown to cause meningitis in 1 in 2026 recipients, not only did the Japanese health authorities recognize the causal link to this vaccine, they also discontinued its use (and also significantly, no unusually large epidemic of any of these infections followed).

Not surprisingly, the incidence of vaccine-caused (and overall) meningitis plummeted (the minority who were hell-bent on getting the vaccine could still get it). So, there is a precedent of a whole major country abandoning the offending vaccine and of recognition of the causal link between the offending vaccines and the observed reactions.

Yet despite this, medical "authorities" in other countries, such as Australia, the UK and the US, continue to ignore (or not read?) the research in published, refereed medical journals, and claim that there is only a temporal and coincidental association.

It is important to note that the only studies that have claimed to discount the link of the MMR vaccine to autism have been funded by vaccine manufacturers (the most recent being Merck, which makes MMR, and reported in January 2001 in The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal).

This is a case of history repeating itself - how many times have tobacco companies published research "demonstrating" that cigarettes do not cause cancer or heart disease, etc?

Looking at the arguments in relation to the causal link.

It is unfortunate that rather than simply caring to take the scientific approach of searching for and studying the published literature revealing the mechanisms for how vaccines cause the development of autism, vaccine promoters will simply follow the politician's approach of making weak claims and reasoning to discount the link. They even deny such literature exists, presumably because they have never searched for it.

An example of this is that Dr. Eric Fombonne, from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, UK claims in a letter in Pediatrics (Pediatrics 2001;107:411-413) that the rise in the number of reported cases of autism over the past 30 years was caused by doctors adopting a broader definition of the disease and using better diagnostic tools.

While doctors may be more aware of autism now and as a result look for it more, the reason they are more aware of it is because it is more evident - it is now occurring at a much higher rate.

Autism is not just a label.

Autistic children are placed into special schools, or special extensions of existing schools, because it is so obvious, and always would have been, that their needs cannot be met in a normal classroom.

Special schools for autistic children are now overflowing and greatly increasing in number. Further, it is well documented that there has been a rise in the numbers of children who are diagnosed with a host of developmental, speech and learning disorders, regardless of what you choose to call their problem. These facts should put an end to any debate over diagnostic criteria changes.

Dr. Luke Tsai, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, said that if the disease was caused by a vaccine, "we would see hundreds of thousands of kids with autism.

And we don't." Well, if DR Tsai has studied so much medicine and yet has still no concept of variations in susceptibility from one individual to another (let alone all the other factors that vary from one administration to the next), one really has to wonder what they DO learn in medical school, apart from pharmacology (i.e. which toxic concoctions interfere with which efforts of the body to defend or heal itself).

Apart from that though, with autism occurring at the rate it does, there ARE at least two or three hundred thousand children in our developed countries around the world with autism!

What planet does he live on?

Vaccine promoters also commit another politically motivated lapse in logic:

they admit that the REACTIONS to all vaccines do occur, but say that they are only TEMPORAL and COINCIDENTAL.

To our dismay, many of them seem to actually believe this nonsense which represents an insult to basic intelligence. This is because firstly, the word "reaction" itself is a word that directly implies causality.

Secondly, establishing a TEMPORAL relationship is the first precondition of causality.

Thirdly, why do they not even consider the significant fact that these REACTIONS never occur BEFORE and always AFTER vaccination? The magnitude of this "coincidence" is impossibility in the realm of probability calculus.

It is actually considered prudent medical practice that if a medical procedure is administered and symptoms occur afterwards, that procedure must be considered as the cause. However further to this there is plenty of information available that enables one to piece together not just that there IS a link, but how the damage occurs.

Suppose you are a parent who has never even picked up any medical literature at all on vaccination or autism.

To start with you might know only that vaccines do SOMETHING to the immune system. Then you observe that after a vaccination your child develops a condition that clearly involves an immune disorder - you can see this because when the child eats certain foods his behavior goes particularly abnormal.

Then you communicate with other parents of autistic children and lo and behold, they have observed the same temporal link. A statistical probability then forms. If you read that more than one in 175 of all children in the UK ("Telegraph", 18 Feb, 2000), and similar in other "developed" countries with high vaccination compliance, suffer autism, but not in developing countries, which have low vaccination compliance, you see a statistical link on a larger scale.

(Notably, a similar pattern of confinement to developed countries occurs with cancer, leukemia, asthma and other modern scourges of children.)

Then you learn what is in vaccines

- .01-.025% each of formaldehyde, mercury (or substitute #6-pheno-oxyethanol, a protoplasmic poison), aluminum, paint thinner, coolant, antifreeze, dye, detergent phenols, solvent, borax, disinfectant, MSG, glycerol, sulfite & phosphate compounds, polysorbate 80/20, sorbitol, polyribosylribitol, betapropiolactone, Amphotericin B and other chemicals, plus hydrolyzed gelatin, casein, dead animal tissue and blood (e.g. cow, chick embryo, monkey, sheep, pig, dog, etc), aborted human fetus cells, mutated (more virulent) human viruses, contaminant animal viruses (e.g. SV40, which causes cancer in humans), bacteria, bacterial endotoxins, antibiotics, yeast & animal, bacterial and viral DNA (which when injected can be incorporated into the recipient DNA).

You reasonably conclude that perhaps it is not enormously healthy for your child to be injected with this big mixture of poisons, and it just MIGHT cause some damage to the immune system?

Then you might go further and look at what these poisons are documented to do. You might start with the first one on the list - formaldehyde. You ask Poisons Information or the National Research Council what its potential effects are and they give you this list:

Eye; nasal; throat and pulmonary irritation; acidosis; acute sense of smell; alters tissue proteins; anemia; antibodies formation; apathy; blindness; blood in urine; blurred vision; body aches; bronchial spasms; bronchitis; burns nasal and throat; cardiac impairment; palpitations and arrhythmias; central nervous system depression; changes in higher cognitive functions; chemical sensitivity; chest pains and tightness; chronic vaginitis; colds; coma; conjunctivitis; constipation; convulsions; corneal erosion; cough; death; destruction of red blood cells; depression; dermatitis; diarrhea; difficulty concentrating; disorientation; dizziness; ear aches; eczema; emotional upsets; ethmoid polyps; fatigue; fecula bleeding; fetal asphyxiation (and they say they don't know what could cause SIDS?)

flu-like or cold like illness; frequent urination with pain; gastritis; gastrointestinal inflammation; headaches; hemolytic anemia; hemolytic haematuria; hoarseness; hyperactive airway disease; hyperactivity; hypomenstrual syndrome; immune system sensitiser; impaired (short) attention span; impaired capacity to attain attention; inability or difficulty swallowing; inability to recall words and names; inconsistent IQ profiles; inflammatory diseases of the reproductive organs; intestinal pain; intrinsic asthma; irritability; jaundice; joint pain; aches and swelling; kidney pain; laryngeal spasm; loss of memory; loss of sense of smell; loss of taste; malaise; menstrual and testicular pain; menstrual irregularities; metallic taste; muscle spasms and cramps; nasal congestions; crusting and mucosae inflammation; nausea; nosebleeds; numbness and tingling of the forearms and finger tips; pale, clammy skin; partial laryngeal paralysis; pneumonia; post nasal drip; pulmonary edema; reduced body temperature; retarded speech pattern; ringing or tingling in the ear; schizophrenic-type symptoms; sensitivity to sound; shock; short term memory loss; shortness of breath; skin lesions; sneezing; sore throat; spacey feeling; speaking difficulty; sterility; swollen glands; tearing; thirst; tracheitis; tracheobronchitis; vertigo; vomiting blood; vomiting; wheezing.

Then you investigate mercury?

Aphthous, stomatitis, catarrhal gingivitis, nausea, liquid stools, pain, liver disorder, injury to the cardiovascular system and hematopoietic system, deafness, ataxia, headache, paresthesia of the tongue, lips, fingers and toes, other nonspecific dysfunctions, metallic taste, slight gastrointestinal disturbances, excessive flatus, diarrhea, chorea, athetosis, tremors, convulsions, pain and numbness in the extremities, nephritis, salivation, loosening of the teeth, blue line on the gums, anxiety, mental depression, insomnia, hallucinations or central nervous system effects.

Exposure may also cause irritation of the eyes, mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract. Acute poisoning may cause gastrointestinal irritation, renal failure, fine tremors of extended hands, loss of side vision, slight loss of coordination in the eyes, speech, writing and gait, inability to stand or carry out voluntary movements, occasional muscle atrophy and flexure contractures, generalized myoclonic movements, difficulty understanding ordinary speech, irritability and bad temper progressing to mania, stupor, coma, mental retardation in children, skin irritation, blisters or dermatitis. Exposure may be fatal.

Well how about that?

These ingredients cause exactly the type of damage that your child is suffering.

Be sure to read Part 2 of this article.