Pat Sullivan Blog

This made me cry. Mom and Autistic son recovers.

I am not one to cry easily.  But I just read this letter.  This is why I started Jigsaw Health. Her son was autistic.

Dear Mr. Sullivan,
 
Many years ago, in the middle of the night, I e-mailed you regarding my son’s autism. You responded by telling me that although you couldn’t help my son, you might very well be able to help me. And good to your word, you did.

Jigsaw Health Foundation covered the expense of restoring my teeth, removing nearly a dozen amalgam fillings. The first thing I noticed was the ‘metal’ taste was gone.
 Headaches….gone.
Depression…gone.
My overall health has improved significantly since that time.
 
And so has something else…
I found a doctor who was willing to help my son. Long story short, a Urinary porphyrin profile along with blood work proved he was heavy metal toxic and glutathione deficient. Over the next 10 months, he received 300 mg. of DMSA, 3 times a day, 3 days on, the 4 days off. The sheer amount of metal in his body was astounding.

 About 2 months into treatment the director of Lab Corp in Louisville called to ask me if he had ‘an ongoing occupational exposure to arsenic’ I answered ‘well, he’s in the second grade, does that count’???

There was a measured silence on the line before he was able to stammer….’you’re kidding, right’?? ‘Ah, nope, second grader, look at his age’….
The poor man was so uncomfortable that it could be palpated from 200 miles away.
Cadmium, arsenic, nickel, mercury, tons of lead, though we never lived in a house with lead paint…so I have no idea there…. the arsenic was from chicken, shell fish, and I suspect our deck which was pressure treated lumber.
 
His transformation was nothing short of phenomenal. He went from performing single requested tasks to 4 and 5 step tasks practically overnight. He began to sleep, (thank you GOD), to eat, to play, to be…a kid.
 His receptive language skills improved in leaps and bounds, though he still has an expressive speech delay, most people don’t even notice.
He is now a happy, well adjusted 13 year old 8th grader.
 
 To think, 10 years ago we were told he’d never speak, this fall he met an adorable, green eyed girl, on the first day of school and 3 weeks later asked her to the county fair. I sat and watched them on the Ferris wheel, gazing into each others eyes, bashful smiles, the blush of youth in their cheeks, and I though back to you….you gave me hope at 2 am, in a bleak world filled with sleepless nights and endless days of longing….searching for the precocious blue eyed boy whom I’d watched regress into a tortuous world beyond my reach.
 
I sat at the county fair and cried, remembering how you reached out to me, in a time of desperation. You offered hope in a world where there was none, caring words in a life on the edge. You didn’t know it at the time, but the life line you tossed me all those years ago was the only thread I held to in a tenuous state of exhaustion and mental collapse.
 
In that moment of elation, watching my son, blond hair floating on a late summer breeze and puppy love etched in eyes, I knew I had to tell you ‘the rest of the story’…..
And to say ‘thank you’…. for being there, all those years ago…..
 
Name and address withheld on purpose.
Savannah Tn. 38372

Tide turning regarding possible links between Vaccines and Autism??

Two blog posts you should read both involving David Kirby, author of the book "Evidence of Harm".

Huffington Post and here.   More and more "real" scientists are reporting research and their own doubts about the mainstream "consensus" science that defends the vaccine industry etc.  The threat to the vaccine industry is very real if it is ever proven that there is a link to autism.  The lawsuits would be HUGE.  So if you were the vaccine industry, would you not be fighting the idea tooth and nail?  Well they are.  Follow the money...

Mercury Dental Amalgam is toxic to the brain. Duh!!

I ran across this summary of the work of Dr. Boyd Haley regarding mercury and ties to Alzheimer's disease.  It is rather technical but if you can wade through it, you will find pretty convincing evidence that we should NEVER put mercury in our mouth!!  And if you have it there you should consider getting it out. 

But only get it out if it is done properly by someone who knows what they are doing otherwise you could make matters FAR worse by getting a very large dose of mercury in the removal of your amalgams. 
'
I had mine out in 1987 and am glad I did.  I will never know how my health would be today if they were still there but based on the data, it is likely that my health would be worse and not better.

How can anyone support the idea that permanently placing the most neurotoxic metal known to man in your mouth where it is proven it leaches into the brain and body, not be bad for you in some way?  Well duh!!

New Chapter in Austism-Mercury Connection

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

In my inbox from Ginger Taylor:

Dear Friends,

Last spring I wrote to you and told you to be on the look out for the story of Hannah Poling, who was the first child with autism to be paid from the vaccine injury compensation fund. In the months following the Poling story, we found that she was actually at least the tenth child with autism compensated for her vaccine injuries by the government, but only the first to go public. Her case caused a profound shift in the public recognition of vaccination as one of the causes of autism.

I am writing to you today to let you know that tomorrow another story of equally profound weight will be breaking.

Specifically that the Department of Defense now holds the position that autism is one of the adverse reactions to the DTaP vaccine. In addition, The US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology holds that thimerosal is likely a cause of autism and recommends methyl B12 and chelation as the course of treatment for this mercury exposure. (Both DTaP and thimerosal were at play in my son Chandler's autistic regression, and his health and functioning has dramatically improved via both of these treatments, as well as related medical interventions.)

The article breaking the story will likely be appearing in the Huffington Post and and may be the subject on tomorrows Anderson Cooper 360. Cooper blogged about the piece that is the lead up to tomorrow's revelation here

.

I encourage you to follow this story closely and to bring it to the attention of parents, physicians, politicians, educators and media with in your sphere of influence. And I will hope you will join me in advocating for reform in the vaccine program in this country so that we can prevent needless vaccine injuries.

Thank you,

Ginger Taylor, M.S.

http://www.AdventuresInAutism.com

Feel free to contact me for more information on how to vaccinate your child more safely or to find out how you can get involved in reforming the vaccine program to make it more safer for all our children.

Holy Sh*t.

Green Our Vaccines with Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey on June 4

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Sitting in my Inbox from Jenny McCarthy:

A Call To Action and Invitation From Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey

"WE ARE HERE, WE ARE HERE, WE ARE HERE....AND WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY!"

Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey invite all organizations (in the autism community AND others) who support the removal of unnecessary toxins in vaccines to join them at the Green Our Vaccines Rally in Washington, DC, on June 4th. This invitation is open to the autism community at large along with health organizations, environmental organizations, and other organizations who support our mission of greening vaccines and reducing the aggressive vaccine schedule for children.

For complete details & information on this rally, please go to: www.tacanow.org
Date:  June 4, 2008
Location: Washington DC
Time:  9am to 12:30pm
If your organization would like to be listed as a supporting organization for this rally, please send an email to: lisa@tacanow.org

I thought it was great news when Jenny McCarthy (yes, that Jenny McCarthy) appeared on Oprah last year talking about autism and how a few mumbo-jumbo biomedical treatments cured her son.  And now she's using her celebrity in such a positive way!

Maybe she can jump on the anti-amalgam bandwagon as well?  Consumers for Dental Choice sure would love the help pointing out that mom's of autistic kids are 4,976 times more likely to have mercury amalgams than mother's of non-autisitics.

Ok, I completely fabricated that last stat, but mercury amalgams (aka. "silver fillings") in mommy's mouth HAS to add to the toxic load of Junior since we know that cord blood levels of mercury are elevated in moms with amalgams compared to moms without.

Additional: Video of Jenny McCartney talking about Autism on Wade Rankin's blog. 

Autism Update: Jenny Mcarthy on Oprah, CDC says no connection, and Chandler is improving! (UPDATED)

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

I haven't been following autism news much lately, but my mom just sent me an email link to an MSN Health story: Kids' Vaccine Ingredient Not Likely Linked to Neurological Problems, reporting on a new study from CDC published in NEJM. 

As I read it, I was thinking, "Well, ok so we have a NEW reliable study (ie. not the roundly rejected Verstraten study) that proves a link between autism and thimerasol doesn't exist.  At least we finally have some new relevant data to argue over."

"Our study does not support a causal association between early exposure to mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines and immune globulins and deficits in neuropsychological functioning at the age of 7 to 10 years," concluded the study's authors.

Then I read the next paragraph:

That conclusion, however, seems to contradict some of the study's findings.

Ok, so what the heck does that mean? 

The second half of the article goes on with some gibberish from Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and Dr. Paul Offit (aka. Darth Offit) about how this contradiction is mere statistical randomness.  Great.  Are you reassured?  I am.  (Care to explain them in human terms RandomJohn?)

So I hop over to Ginger Taylor's Adventures in Autism blog figuring there will be some sort of rebuttal, and I scan this post of A-CHAMP's eight-point rebuttal.  Ginger summarizes it thusly:

Exclusion of low birth weight babies, 70% participant drop out rate, focusing on blood mercury levels and ignoring brain mercury, conclusions not backed up by the data, conflicts of interests with all the researchers and on and on...

It is like a greatest hits of all the bad research done in the last decade wrapped up in one convenient package.

Unbelievable!!

"Were your kids vaccinated? What happened?" 17,000 people reply (Update 2)

(Posted on 6-2-07 by Patrick Sullivan Jr., bumped on 6-29)

JB and the GenerationRescue crew are ready to throw another log on the fire. 

"We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys." -Generation Rescue, June 26, 2007

Some local news coverage (transcript, video).

Btw, this line from that coverage is mundane when you read it, but it's dripping with sarcasm and arrogance when you hear the soundbite: 

But Dr. Mark Sawyer, a professor of pediatrics, says a similar study was done by scientists in Denmark and it found no link between autism and vaccines.

You mean this study?  (Starting at the 11th paragraph.)  Yeah, no reasonable person could learn that and have any complaints about the Denmark study.

UPDATE: In my inbox from Clifford Miller, a (non-vaccine) lawyer in the UK, who regular readers may remember from the post On Evidence...

To clarify how serious the implications of the new information from the Generation Rescue study California-Oregon Unvaccinated Survey - Generation Rescue - June 26, 2007 is, this study shows we are killing and injuring vastly more with vaccines than without.

The implications with figures are spelt out below.  The Generation Rescue study also showed more than twice as many vaccinated children have asthma.  This is in addition to the relative risk for autism being more than double. 

If you raise this with your political representatives, you should point out this is not like a voter's exit poll telling us there is a 3% "swing" from one party to another.  If we had results like this in an election the party in government would be facing extinction. These figures show relative risks higher than 2 - that is greater than a 100% "swing".

By way of comparison I attach logarithmically plotted graphs of measles mortality in the UK and in the USA showing today without vaccine UK measles mortality would be less than 1 in 55 million and the position is similar in the USA. Graph 1 (pdf), Graph 2 (pdf)  And here are the Asthma Death And Injury Figures (Word doc)

When I first entered this "is autism caused by mercury" debate over two years ago, I would not have considered myself to be an anti-vaxer.  In fact, I regularly recommended the article, A User-Friendly Vaccination Schedule to my friends.  But it's things like these scare prospective parents such as myself.  I'm no genius, but I'm informed enough not to sheepishly comply with any and all vaccinations for my future kids.

UPDATE 2: Another update from Cliff...and this is a good one!

Generation Rescue's very impressive advertisment "Are We Over Vaccinating Our Kids" appeared in the US politician's newspaper "Roll Call" in Washington DC.

Generation Rescue has mounted a high profile campaign in the US.

Roll Call newspaper is considered the leading publication for Congressional news and information. Published Monday through Thursday while Congress is in session, Roll Call sets out to provide US national politicians with up-to-the-minute news of the legislative and political manoeuvres that happen every day on Capitol Hill.

Honestly, you have to take 45 seconds and read the ad.

Scott Shoemaker and his son are in the news again

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

Regular readers know that Scott Shoemaker and his son are one of the autism chelation success stories.  Having watched the story, the TV stuff, and the interviews progress over the past two years (two years?! wow!) it's really great to see Joshua doing so well.

The latest video starts with coverage of the Vaccine trial, then jumps to the story about the Shoemakers.

Autism Debate Rages On

This is absolutely the best summary of the things we have tried to say here on this blog regarding the possible link between Autism and Vaccines. In an article entitled "Autism:Why the Debate Rages" written by Sharyl Attkisson, CBS does one of the most fair and balanced treatments of the autism debate that I have ever seen. It answers why, after all the so-called experts have repeatedly said there is no link, parents of children with autism, and other scientists simply refuse to accept what they say.

I believe the massive fund created to compensate people damaged by vaccines, which sits relatively unused, should now be used to help parents pay the enormous costs of raising and hopefully recovering the children damaged (mostly since 1991 when the number of vaccines dramatically increased) by vaccines.

Web poll of mothers with autistics: Only 8% never had a single mercury amalgam (aka. silver filling)

(Posted by Patrick Sullivan Jr.)

On March 22, 2007 I started a poll on the EOHarm Yahoo! group.  There were 112 respondents, presumably all mothers of autistic children.  Only 10 (8%) had never had a single mercury amalgam.

I went googling for a few minutes to try and find the rate at which the population has amalgams.  I think I remember reading that it's 70%.  But I couldn't find what I was looking for.  Anyone care to do my homework for me? ;-)

I did stumble on this relevant pieces from page 7 of Scientific Case Against Mercury Amalgams (pdf):

Does amalgam use in dentistry really provide the unborn with a prenatal body burden of mercury?

Two more experiments by Vimy, Lorscheider and associates at the University of Calgary Medical School, supported by the IAOMT, provide some insight into the issue of amalgam–derived mercury exposure to the fetus and infant.

In the first, five pregnant ewes, at about 112 days of gestation, were fit with indwelling catheters that allowed the researchers to collect serial samples of maternal and fetal blood, amniotic fluid, plus maternal feces and urine. Each sheep received twelve occlusal amalgam fillings labeled with radioactive 203Hg, as did the sheep in the original study.

The various body fluid samples were collected for sixteen days, after which the sheep were sacrificed at intervals and tissue samples were analyzed for radioactive mercury. They found that the amalgam–derived mercury appeared in maternal and fetal fluids within two days of amalgam placement. Radioactive mercury was found in all post-mortem tissues studied. Tissue concentrations achieved steady state levels after about a month, levels that were maintained throughout the 140 day course of the experiment.

The fact that tissue concentrations did not decline with time, as they would have with an acute, one time dose, implies that there was an ongoing exposure from the radioactive amalgam fillings. As before, the mothers concentrated the most mercury in the kidneys and liver, while the fetuses concentrated it in the liver and pituitary gland. Mercury concentration in the fetal blood was actually higher than in the maternal blood.

In the second study, pregnant ewes received radioactive amalgams as before, and then nursed either their own lambs or foster lambs that had not been exposed to radioactive mercury in the womb. In the womb, the fetal lambs accumulated more mercury in the liver, while after birth the kidneys became the primary site of accumulation. Measurable quantities of radioactive mercury appeared in the tissues of both amalgam–bred lambs and those only nursed by amalgam–bearing ewes.

These studies are consistent with the work of other groups. For example, previous animal studies have shown that when the mother is exposed to Hg0, the form of mercury that is emitted from amalgam, fetal tissues take up more mercury than when the mother is exposed to Hg2+. Drasch, et. al. studied autopsy samples from human still births and early post natal deaths. They found that the mercury concentration in the infants’ kidneys, liver and cerebral cortex correlated significantly with the mother’s amalgam scores. Two labs also found that mercury concentration in human breast milk correlated significantly with the mothers’ amalgam scores.

Mercury amalgams don't get near as much press as thimerosal, but they should.