The CDC, Vaccines and Autism
Did I miss something, has this leopard changed its spots?
All herald the CDC! That at least seems to be the message in a recent article in CHD’s Defender online magazine.
I am at the front of the queue lauding the arrival of RFK Jr as the new Secretary of State for Health and Human Services but, has anything yet changed at the CDC? Certainly I am not aware of any overt changes that would give me confidence that the CDC can be trusted with, well, anything, never mind a new study to establish if vaccines have a role to play in autism. If the CDC is not wholly corrupt then it is certainly the case that its practices and processes are corrupt, indeed corrupted, and until Secretary Kennedy changes this the CDC cannot be trusted with any scientific investigation never mind one so important as vaccines and autism.
Let us just assume that Secretary Kennedy has asked my opinion on how any such study should be carried out. This is what I would tell him.
First, do not be hoodwinked into believing that 1 in 36 children in the US has autism. As a scientist if you are looking to prove the null hypothesis (no effect), in this case that there is no link between vaccination and autism, you should make the primary outcome as vague, even ambiguous, as possible. I think my friends at Age of Autism will confirm that 1 in every 36 children upon achieving adolescence and early adulthood is not still wearing nappies (diapers). I am quite fed up with newspaper headlines where an adult celebrates a recent diagnosis of autism as a life-changing moment. We need to distinguish between infants that have been brain damaged either in utero or shortly after receiving a vaccination and the rest. The latter may have suffered a form of mild brain damage but in the main they are just different, they reflect the myriad phenotypes of cognisant humans.
Second, I would put my scientific credibility on the line (as I always have) in advising him that the brain damage in infants leading to autism is, in the main, caused by aluminium. Until, sound peer-reviewed science proves otherwise, aluminium is the number one culprit in autism. What this means is that any investigation into vaccines and autism must be targeted. We need a definition for autism that only includes individuals where there is clear evidence of brain damage, often an encephalopathy. These are the unnecessary cases of what is now called autism. These are the cases of autism that can and should be prevented. All other current diagnoses of autism are not brain damage, they cannot and should not be prevented and, indeed they ought to be celebrated as the diversity that is humankind. If these individuals are included in any future study of vaccines and autism they will simply help to prove the null hypothesis. Hence why organisations such as the CDC are not against publishing and supporting data purporting that 1 in 36 infants in the US is autistic.
Third, while vaccines represent an unique exposure of mothers and infants to aluminium they are unlikely to be acting alone, at least in the most severe cases of the disease. We are all exposed to aluminium in our everyday lives. In infants, formula feeding is a serious and significant route of exposure to aluminium (I have written about this in a previous substack) and must be taken into account when determinations are made of how and when infants are exposed to aluminium. Infants receiving the full vaccination schedule that are also fed on infant formulas are almost certain to have a much higher body burden of aluminium than breast-fed infants. Other significant sources of aluminium to infants are medications including pain killers and antacids. Again, see previous substacks covering these subjects. These exposures must be included in any analysis of vaccines and autism.
Finally, we know from our research on Alzheimer's Disease that our genes play a significant role in how some people handle systemic aluminium. In familial Alzheimer’s disease genetic differences result in a higher brain burden of aluminium at a much earlier age. Something akin to this must make some infants more vulnerable to aluminium in vaccines. Admittedly this remains an unknown in autism though clues may be sought from an infants general health including susceptibility to autoimmune conditions.
I am confident that any study looking to investigate a link between vaccination and all forms of autism will, unfortunately, prove the null hypothesis (and the CDC/Pharma know this). Perhaps, at best, it will reveal a weak association, something easily ignored, something that will support the status quo and be used ad nauseum to prevent future studies.
It is imperative that the new Secretary and new head of the NIH do not let this happen. RFK Jr, the Government, must not be directly behind any study into vaccination and autism but he should use his power to make all available data freely and transparently accessible while Bhattacharya should invite interested scientists to apply for NIH grants to undertake this epoch defining study.
Wake up CHD Defender magazine, the fox must not be put in charge of the chicken coop!
Why are we allowing the CDC to look into side effects when they have lied to us for decades? They tried to murder the masses and we are going to trust anything they find?
"We need to distinguish between infants that have been brain damaged either in utero or shortly after receiving a vaccination and the rest. The latter may have suffered a form of mild brain damage but in the main they are just different, they reflect the myriad phenotypes of cognisant humans."
I agree that distinguishing between severe and less severe cases of autism is important. But I don't know why we wouldn't want to measure the medium-cases of autism too, especially if it's the difference between encephalopathy and slow poisoning. That's like caring only about Alzheimers patients, but not elderly who are starting to get dementia. And if your theory about Aluminum is correct, it's entirely possible it's only causing the slow poisoning, not the encephalopathy.
I had a kid who was in the medium category of autism (no case of regression btw). He was a nightmare to get to sleep, would hit us, didn't seem to hear us, and would run into streets and in parking lots behind cars that were trying to pull out. He would try to leave the house to follow my husband to work. Autistic kids can also be very disruptive in classrooms, though mine was not but he was uncoachable in sports. No joke, we're lucky this kid is still alive.
Somewhere around 11-12yo, I read your article about Aluminum and autism, and gave him some Fiji water for about a month (some, not even solely Fiji water). We also were on a gluten-free diet to see if my older son's skin rash would clear up (it didn't). Within a couple months after doing those, my autistic kid started to crack jokes and become more personable. I would say 2-3 years later, he was no longer obviously autistic (to me - there was a woman who ran a support group who noticed lack of eye contact), and the last vestiges - the lack of eye contact and shyness with adults - is gone now.
The biggest difference for us is his ability to recognize what adults want from him. I knew he'd turned a corner when he wrote an essay advocating for something that he'd never advocate for and I asked "Do you really believe this?" and he said "No, but that's what I have to write to get an A." I was floored that he both was able to read the teacher that well and that he even cared because he never did before. This is a game changer because it means he'll do well working with others, and he'll be able to understand that what the customer wants is more important than what he thinks is right. That's huge when it comes to employability.
I think the biggest tragedy is an adult realizing they have autism and embracing it as special instead of seeking to heal from it. It creates friction in the workplace when you can't read another person and figure out how to negotiate social situations.