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TACA E-Newsletter

January 2010 #1

Here is your update on TACA (Talk About Curing Autism). If you are new to our site... WELCOME! This newsletter is produced two to four times each month.

We are an autism education and support group. We want to make this e-newsletter informative for you. As always, contact us your thoughts and/or questions so we can improve it.

We focus on parent information and support, parent mentoring, dietary intervention, the latest in medical research, special education law, reviews of the latest treatments, and many other topics relating to autism. Our main goal is to build our community so we can connect, share and support each other.

Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) provides general information of interest to the autism community. The information comes from a variety of sources and TACA does not independently verify any of it. The views expressed herein are not necessarily TACA’s.

1. Find a TACA Meeting

Come to a TACA Meeting!

TACA holds monthly meetings in many locations throughout the United States that feature educational speakers on important topics and allow family members to connect with one another and stay on top of the latest information in the autism world. Each TACA group maintains a resource library of the latest autism books, CDs and DVDs that can be checked out by members at no charge.

Check out our group listings: each contains information on TACA meetings and special events as well as a contact form.

Are you wondering what happens at a TACA meeting? Watch our video.

2. Join Us for Coffee Talk!

Come and receive some extra support or to chat all topics related to autism and meet other TACA families at these informal, monthly get-togethers.

› Birmingham, AL
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› Burbank, CA
› Long Beach, CA
› Orange County, CA
› Redlands, CA
› Visalia, CA
› Indianapolis, IN
› Glen Burnie, MD
› Gaithersburg, MD
› Hamilton, NJ
› Las Vegas, NV
› Virginia Beach, VA

3. Daily Autism Updates for Families

All news related to autism go to AgeofAutism.com

4. UC Davis Identifies “Autism Clusters” in California

January 6, 2010

Prepared by Rebecca Estepp

A study release today from the M.I.N.D. Institute at the University of California Davis identified ten “Autism Clusters” in the state of California. The report entitled, Geographic Distribution of Autism in California: A Retrospective Birth Cohort Analysis defines an autism cluster as, “A geographic area where some event occurs more often than could be expected alone.” The rate of diagnosis in clusters found in this study was twice of the surrounding areas.  The following Regional Centers had autism clusters reported in their jurisdiction: Golden Gate, San Diego, San Andreas, Central Valley, Orange County, South Central Los Angeles, Harbor, Westside, Valley Mountain, and North Los Angeles County.

How was this study conducted?

The research team matched records from the California state birth registry from birth years 1996-2000 to the administrative data system of the California Department of Developmental Services. The California birth registry contains information on parent’s race, level of education and ages at the time of delivery.

What was common in the “Autism Clusters?”

There were two common factors in “Autism Clusters.” The first commonality was parents that were highly educated, older and white, non-Hispanic. The second common factor was living in close proximity to a major autism treatment center.

Does this data show environmental “hot spots” or harmful exposures in these clusters?

Unfortunately, there is not enough information to draw any meaningful environmental conclusions from this data.  

So what can be determined from these clusters?

It appears that diagnoses of autism are made more often when parents are highly educated and have a higher socioeconomic status. These families are more likely to have health insurance and more access to reliable and consistent health care.  They may be more savvy and able to navigate the complicated Regional Center system better than those parents with a lower education.

Read the full report.

5. Autism Diets: No Evidence They Work or Not, Say Experts

Report on Treating Stomach Issues Finds No Current Proof That Special Diets Help Autism
By LAUREN COX
ABC News Medical Unit

For years parent support networks and celebrity activists have endorsed restrictive diets to combat the so-called "leaky gut" symptoms and behavior problems of children with autism.

Despite a recent report, the actress and activist says autism diets are helpful.

But an expert panel published a report today saying there is currently no evidence proving whether children with autism have more gastrointestinal problems than other children, or any evidence that the common casein-free, gluten-free diets work.

The statement on so-called autism diets was one part of a larger report on how doctors should approach gastrointestinal issues in children with autism.

The report, published today in the journal Pediatrics, echoed some parents' claims that gastrointestinal issues are linked to autism-like behaviors.

The panel of 27 experts agreed that "problem behavior in patients with ASDs (Autism Spectrum Disorders) may be the primary or sole symptom of the underlying medical condition, including some gastrointestinal disorders."

But until studies prove or disprove the merits of casein-free and gluten-free diets, the experts recommended adapting traditional treatments for gastrointestinal problems in children with autism.

Parents Turn to Restrictive Diets for Autism Without Scientific Evidence
"Probably 90 percent of parents of children with autism try dietary intervention," said Dr. Fred Volkmar, Director of the Child Study Center at Yale University.

"The sad reality of it is that with any complementary alternative treatment -- there is no evidence. It's what makes it complimentary alternative treatment," said Volkmar.

Volkmar said his patients try the restrictive diets after hearing anecdotes from other parents, which is not proof enough for scientists and doctors. He also thinks parents are keen to pick up on diets as a form of treatment because a common characteristic in children with autism is finicky eating.

Rebecca Estepp, a mother of a boy with autism and national policy manager for Talk About Curing Autism, said she first started wondering about her son's diet for those very reasons.

"I put my son on this diet nine years ago, and there was no evidence but the evidence of my son's constant diarrhea, constant indigestion," said Estepp. "He also avoided milk. I kept thinking, what two- year-old pushes away the milk cup?"

Estepp said her son's health improved after she put him on a restrictive diet. It didn't cure his autism, but his better health led to better behavior.

"I think a lot of the time these kids are misbehaving because they don't feel well," said Estepp, who said her son and others may be acting out and unable to communicate their pain.

Although studies on the diets are lacking, Estepp said she was "ecstatic" that doctors are making recommendations on how to approach treating stomach problems in children with autism. "That makes all the difference in the world to someone who cannot speak," said Estepp. "I wished this had happened 10 years ago when my child was diagnosed."

But Are the Diets Safe?

If done well, Volkmar said children can live on the diets and stay relatively healthy. The only problem Volkmar sees with the diets is that "occasionally parents get so crazy with the diet that they lose perspective." He has seen parents so focused on diets that they miss other medical problems or neglect behavioral therapies that have been proven effective in rigorous studies.

Focus On Autism Diets Can Sometimes Be Unhealthy

"Sometimes you have parents who pursue a treatment that has not been shown to work, to the detriment of treatments that have been shown to work," he said.

But parents who want hard scientific evidence before trying the casein-free, gluten-free diets may have to wait a while.

"For many researchers this would be a lower priority. The problem is there's limited federal dollars, it's an amazing amount of work to get these [treatment] studies done," said Volkmar.

Complicating the problem is the vast spectrum of behaviors and medical issues within autism. Gastrointestinal issues may be more common in some parts of the spectrum but not in others. Doctors say lumping children with autism into one diet study may confuse the results.

"Studying them [patients] in large groups of people who are heterogeneous -- very different from one another -- is not the best way to learn what is going on with these diets," said Dr. Martha Herbert of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "You will wash out any effect in a subgroup by blurring them in with others who have different problems."

Dr. Arthur Beaudet, who contributed to the published statements, said he believes genetic studies may one day lead to better research of gastrointestinal problems in children with autism.

For instance, children with autism symptoms caused by one genetic mutation may be more likely to develop gastrointestinal issues than children who have a different genetic mutation -- or none at all.

Beaudet said current research has already pinpointed subgroups of people with autism who have a specific mutation and distinct behavior, such as the estimated 1 percent of people with autism who have the mutation known as "16p11.2"

"There's a very broad spectrum of autism from very severe handicaps to very mild handicaps… we have to break these down to the smallest extent possible," said Beaudet.

6. America not ready for autism onslaught

GoErie.com

I write this letter as an uncle of a teenager with autism and as a professional who deals with autism daily. A tidal wave called autism is coming and we are not prepared for it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in December that the frequency of autism disorders increased by 57 percent in just four years. By the beginning of 2007, one in 110 U.S. children had an autism disorder diagnosed by age 8: one in 70 boys and one in 315 girls.

This new CDC estimate supports other recent prevalence reports. In the CDC study, the average age of diagnosis was 4 1/2 years. Concerning the cause, the lead author for the study, Catherine Rice, Ph.D. said: "At this point, it is hard to say how much is a true increase and how much is improved identification."

Rice believes no single factor or simple explanation can account for the increase.

No matter what the cause or causes, this dramatic increase supports the dire need for the private and public sectors to further address this issue for both cause and treatment.

Our statistics for Pennsylvania also support this effort. The 2005 Pennsylvania Autism Census Project reported in October 2009:

"Pennsylvania will see a dramatic increase in the number of adults with autism in the near future. In 2005, we counted 1,421 adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders who were 21 years of age or older, just 7.1 percent of the total ASD population in Pennsylvania. We estimate that this number will increase by 179 percent to 3,825 in 2010 and by 621 percent to 10,140 by 2015."

As a community, state and nation, we must deal with this tidal wave of children, adolescents and adults with autism. Our goal must be to improve the lives of people with ASDs and pursue basic research into the cause or causes of this increase.

Don't sit on your hands. Join with your neighbors to ask and if needed demand your elected representatives budget the money to deal with this epidemic.

As a new year begins, reach out and give your time, your energy and share your financial resources with a family touched by autism. You will find that the best way to receive is to give.

Joe Barber, M.D.|pediatrics and child neurology, Erie

7. 'Evidence of Harm' revisited, Part 1

David Kirby: I'm not antivaccine, but ...
by Steven Higgs
January 3, 2010

Photograph by Steven Higgs
Author David Kirby disagrees with those who argue a link between the contaminants found in vaccines, America's vaccination schedule and the autism epidemic has been disproven. In the past two years, a federal Vaccine Court has awarded monetary damages to the families of two children due to vaccine-induced autism.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Two days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its newest data on U.S. autism rates, author David Kirby consented to a two-hour, videotaped interview in his street-level brownstone apartment in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. The government, the former New York Times reporter said, always drops its worst news late on Fridays, assuming the attention-addled mainstream media will forget it by Monday, when people actually pay some attention.

While the release of new autism data on the Friday before Christmas would normally trigger nervous anticipation in the whirlwind of Washington spin, this year's holiday news dump was anticlimactic. The CDC had revealed the gist of its autism findings in October, after a study in the journal Pediatrics said its incidence had reached 1 in every 91 children.

To inoculate the public against the 65 percent increase the Pediatrics study represented over the CDC's last estimate of 1 autistic child in every 150 born in 1994, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius herself intervened the day it came out. In a hastily arranged conference call with the autism community, Sebelius announced that preliminary numbers in the third in a series of CDC studies show the ratio was 1 in 100 for kids born in 1996.

"A 50 percent increase in a birth cohort two years apart is really cause for concern," Kirby said. "We really need to go back and look at what happened in those two years."

'Autism and the Indiana Environment Blog'

Dec. 18 would hold more than one surprise for Kirby, whose best-selling first book, Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy, was published in 2005.

By the time the CDC released the new data that Friday afternoon, the new incidence rate had been adjusted down to 1 in 110, still a 36 percent hike between 1994 and 1996.

"I get angry when people who question vaccine safety, who question the safety of individual ingredients -- like mercury ... -- when we get labeled antivaccine, as if we're trying to wipe out the whole vaccine program."

Also that same day, Kirby conducted a telephone interview with Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "Dr. Insel and the Inter Autism Agency Committee have done just a dismal job," Kirby said 48 hours before their conversation. "They refuse to acknowledge that we have an emergency. They refuse to acknowledge autistic regression exists, that the numbers are going up.

"They are recommending that virtually all money go into genetic research, and they refuse to consider vaccine research, just flat out refuse. Even though Congress, when they passed the bill, the Combating Autism Act that created this money, Congress said, 'We want the NIH to study environmental triggers, and that includes vaccines.'"

On Dec. 21, however, Kirby posted a Huffington Post blog that showed some unexpected progress. "I was pleasantly surprised by Dr. Insel's frankness," he wrote.

Insel told him, "As far as I can tell, the burden of proof is upon anybody who feels that there is not a real increase here in the number of kids affected." And factors such as better ascertainment "don't really explain away this huge increase."

The director continued: "You really have to take this (increase) very seriously. From everything they are looking at, this is not something that can be explained away by methodology, by diagnosis."

He added, "There is no question that there has got to be an environmental component here."

Four months short of Evidence of Harm's fifth anniversary, Kirby remains convinced that mercury and other neurotoxins in childhood vaccines, whose use and toxicity increased precipitously in the 1990s, are among those environmental factors. Not the cause, he insists, perhaps not even the most significant, but a component nonetheless.

"The rise in autism, of reported cases of autism in this country, coincides exactly with the introduction of these new vaccines," he said, "and exactly with the introduction of these new thimerosal-containing vaccines." Thimerosal was a mercury-containing preservative that was commonly used in childhood vaccines until the late '90s and early 2000s.

"In no other realm that I can think of in consumer product safety are people who question the safety of certain products so vilified and so ostracized."

Some newborn infants born during those years were exposed to as much as 125 times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is a "safe" level of mercury for adults to consume in fish, Kirby said. To this day, flu shots administered to six-month olds contain 25 micrograms of mercury, which, according to EPA standards, is more than what a 500-pound person could handle.

And mercury is but one of the known neurotoxins that was injected into children's developing systems, from the day of birth through infancy, when the onset of most types of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) appear.

"We also know things like aluminum levels have actually increased, they've been boosted," Kirby said. "We know that the mumps component of the MMR vaccine was quadrupled at one point, right around the time we started to see more autism as well." Drug companies have subsequently cut that in half. "One has to wonder what is Merck up to and why are they doing that," he said, referring to the New Jersey-based drug manufacturer Merck & Co.

At least on the afternoon of Dec. 16, 2009, nothing rankled Kirby more than the allegation that those who question the coincidence of the increased vaccine schedule and the onset of the autism epidemic, or the individual ingredients used in immunizations, are antivaccine. To the contrary, he disagrees with parents who do not vaccinate their children at all.

"I'm not antivaccine," he said, "and I get angry when people who question vaccine safety, who question the safety of individual ingredients -- like mercury, like aluminum, ... like three live viruses at once, in certain children, with certain predispositions -- when we get labeled antivaccine, as if we're trying to wipe out the whole vaccine program. That's just ridiculous."

As ridiculous is the aggressive, one-size-fits-all vaccination schedule that has been imposed on children in the past two decades, Kirby insisted. It's common wisdom some kids just can't handle some things, like aspirin, like Tylenol, like milk, even. But the assumption is that all kids can handle all vaccines.

"My point is that in no other realm that I can think of in consumer product safety are people who question the safety of certain products so vilified and so ostracized, when they're just asking the same questions that we ask about automobiles and airplanes and cough medicines and heart medicines and blood pressure medicines."

The evidence suggests the vast range of ASDs, from conditions that require constant professional care to those that accompany productive, successful lives, is caused by equally complex combinations of factors, environmental and genetic, Kirby said.

"You can't just test one vaccine ingredient, or in this case, one vaccine ingredient and one vaccine, the MMR, and then exonerate all vaccines and vaccine ingredients."

"I believe now, after all these years, that there is no one trigger to autism; there is no one type of autism," he said, just before taking a break to congratulate his two canine roommates for their respectable behavior and to indulge in some New York City tap water. "I believe there are many triggers to autism that interact with genetic predispositions."

That position is anything but fringe. The Insel quotes that Kirby used in his Huffington Post piece indicate even the federal government has reached that same conclusion, at least when officials talk to the autism community. In addition to the Huffington Post, Kirby is a regular contributor to Age of Autism, the "Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic."

"I don't think in those terms, exactly, that it's either genetic or it's environmental," the nation's top autism official told him. "From my perspective, it's almost always going to be both."

When Kirby goes back and looks at what changed between 1994 and 1996, when the number of kids diagnosed with autism jumped 36 percent in just two years, he prefaces his remarks. "Correlation does not equal causation. There are any number of other possibilities and explanations."

But the hepatitis B vaccination, a mercury-containing shot administered at birth, was introduced in 1992. That first year the "uptake level" was very low, about 8 percent, he said. In 1994, it climbed to around 28 percent. By 1996, it had reached something like 86 percent. "They did a very good job of getting more and more kids started on that birth dose of hepatitis B in those two years," Kirby said.

The hepatitis B shot wouldn't account for all autism cases, he stressed. But while the incidence was already high in the 1994 birth cohort, it went through the roof two years later.

"When you look at what changed radically in those two years, there's one thing that should at least be looked at," he said.

Kirby's focus these days is more on confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) than autism. His second book, Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment is due out in March 2010. And while he has no plans to write another book on autism, at least not now, he still writes and speaks publicly about it.
"That child is now receiving money from the government, from us, for his vaccine injury. He is autistic, he goes to an autism school."

In some ways, given the manner in which the mainstream press reports the vaccine issue, it's almost his duty. Like the NIH's performance in recent years, the media's has been abysmal. "What we hear everyday, from the press and the public health people, is that vaccines -- plural -- and autism have been studied thoroughly and any link has been completely debunked," he said.

Well, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program of 1986 established an Office of Special Masters, a.k.a. the Vaccine Court, to rule on allegations of vaccine-induced injury. And in the past two years, it has issued some ground-breaking decisions.

The media was all over the court's February 2009 denial of three families' claims that vaccines caused their children's autism. A Feb. 12 story from the Reuters news service quoted the three-judge panel's decision. "The evidence does not support the general proposition that thimerosal-containing vaccines can damage infants' immune systems."

Largely unnoticed by the media, however, was another ruling that same month in which the court found a child named Bailey Banks regressed into Pervasive Development Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) as a result of his measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination. PDD-NOS, along with Autistic Disorder and Asperger's Disorder, comprise the autism spectrum.

"That child is now receiving money from the government, from us, for his vaccine injury," Kirby said. "He is autistic, he goes to an autism school, he receives ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) therapy, and the judge ruled that the MMR vaccine damaged his myelin, and that that myelin damage caused his autism."

Myelin, he said, is a coating of fatty acids on the brain and the nervous system. "Think if it as the rubber coating on wiring that protects it and insulates it," he explained.
"The rise in autism, of reported cases of autism in this country, coincides exactly with the introduction of these new vaccines."
A year earlier, in March 2008, the government conceded the case of a girl named Hannah Poling, whose parents argued that a vaccine-induced fever caused her autism, Kirby said.

"There is evidence to show that children with mitochondrial dysfunction, between say 1, 2 and 3 years of age, if they encounter a regular, normal, febrile seizure, ... they could very well regress into autism," Kirby explained. "... Hannah Poling will now be receiving money, compensation for a vaccine injury that led to autism."

Mitochondria are energy-producing structures that serve as "little batteries" for brain and muscle cells, he said.

The studies that have been done have not shown a link between autism and vaccines, Kirby said, but neither have they disproven one. In fact, the state of research is poor, largely because "mainstream science is so terrified of researching anything that might possibly, one day, implicate vaccines in even the most tangential way," he said. "... Aluminum has not been tested in regards to autism."

Studies have looked at the MMR vaccine, alone, and at thimerosal, alone, he said. But most of them have been conducted overseas, where the vaccination schedules don't compare to those of the United States.

"You can't just test one vaccine ingredient, or in this case, one vaccine ingredient and one vaccine, the MMR, and then exonerate all vaccines and vaccine ingredients," he said. "The correct thing to say is, 'One vaccine, out of about 11 or 12, has been studied, and one vaccine ingredient out of, I guess about 80, has been studied, and no link to those have been found.'"

Throughout the afternoon, David Kirby's dispassionate demeanor predominated. With dark-rimmed glasses and a somewhat disheveled appearance he apologized for (he had made an unscheduled trip to Washington to get clearance to travel to the Mideast after Christmas), the professional journalist spoke directly to the camera. Chuckles, sighs and pauses were occasional, but rare.

But Kirby, the educated citizen, was happy to expound when asked about his opinions.

"I don't believe autism is genetics," he said. "I wish we could just get past that argument and accept the fact that these kids have been hit with some environmental trigger of some sort, or sorts, combined with these genetic predispositions ... and get on with it."

"I don't believe autism is genetics. ... I believe there are many triggers to autism that interact with genetic predispositions."

These kids are physically sick, he said, and autism is a medical issue that can be prevented, can be treated, and in some cases, can be reversed.

After one of the longer pauses of the afternoon, Kirby offered his opinions on vaccines.

"I personally, personally, don't believe all these vaccines are necessary," he said. "That's my personal view, and I'm not a scientist, I'm not a public health expert. The public health people tell us that they are all necessary."

Kirby has no children, but his opinion is that vaccination should be a personal choice. It is a medical procedure, and informed consent should be the rule for medical procedures in the United States, he believes.

As one who has felt the wrath of those disagree with his work, Kirby knows the decision is difficult and emotional.

"I live in Brooklyn, it's a city of immigrants, it's a borough of immigrants," he said. "We have JFK down the road. There are people arriving here every minute from all over the world. If I had a newborn baby, and I was out in a restaurant or in the subway or in the park, and my kid was completely unvaccinated, I would be a nervous wreck."

But neither nervousness nor fear should cloud judgment. Is exposure to neurotoxins in vaccines, say, worth the reduced risk from exposure to chicken pox? Is inoculation on the day of birth against the possibility that the newborn's mother may have contracted hepatitis B in the last three months of her pregnancy worth the risk?

"I would look at the risks and benefits of some of the shots, " Kirby said.

Steven Higgs is author of the "Autism and the Indiana Environment Blog" and editor of The Bloomington Alternative. He can be reached at editor@BloomingtonAlternative.com.

8. Rising Autism Numbers – Leading Federal Official Says “No Question” that Environmental Exposures Are a Factor

9. New CDC estimate: 1 in 110 children has autism

Theresa Gutierrez, ABC7chicago.com

December 18, 2009 (WLS) -- Updated government estimates on the impact of autism in the United States have been released. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in every 110 children has some form of autism.

That statistic is a small change from numbers first released in October. However, it does show a marked increase from previous years in the number of children with the illness.

Until recently, the CDC has used a statistic indicating that autism occurs in one in 150 children.

The increase may be due to better diagnosis of autism and changes in how well records of it are kept.

The newly released study shows a startling 50 percent jump in cases in just two years.

Autism is a brain disorder that interferes with communication and social skills. Some say the study indicates it is past time for the CDC to treat the autism epidemic with the national emergency status it deserves and act with crisis-level response.

Oak Park resident Christine Blakey is the mother of three boys, one of which is 10-year-old Charlie, who is autistic. Blakey says, years ago, the illness was far less common.

"The CDC is now saying what parents, doctors, and teachers have been saying for years, which is that we are in the midst of an autism explosion," said Christine Blakey

Dr. Peter J. Smith, assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Chicago, specializes in the treatment of autism.

"I wouldn't call it an epidemic. I would say there's a definite increase in the number of children who are reported as having autism, and the differences, in terms of numbers reported, vary a great deal across different states and in different ways," Smith said.

The study found that autism cases were four to five times higher among boys than girls.

There is no cure for autism. However, the study revealed that intensive early treatment can help many children with the disorder.

Blakey discovered her child was autistic when he was 3-years-old.

The study revealed that treatment costs an average of $50,000 each year. Blakey says that figure is low.

"The window never closes. So, it's never too late to get help for your child. Early intervention is crucial," Blakey said.

"Services for the child and services for the family, most studies would suggest that that improves the child's overall self-fulfillment," said Smith.

The study also indicated that the cause of autism is still not known. Researchers are looking at genetic differences and possible environmental triggers.

Despite, research showing vaccines do not cause autism, Blakey has believed for years that the content of mercury in infant vaccines may be a culprit.

"It is not just genetic, and we need to be spending a lot of resources looking for the cause or causes of the disorder," she said. "Clearly, we have to be looking at vaccines more closely."

"We don't know enough about autism. It's likely there are different kinds of things to cause autism. And, historically here at the University of Chicago, there were people who thought parents were causing it, and one thing we know is that that is not the case," said Dr. Smith.

Blakey believes diet, food, vaccinations and environment need to be looked at closely when examining the rise in autism.

Both mothers and doctors believe more research needs to be done, more money needs to go for autism, and more help is needed for families facing this problem.

The study said the vast majority of children with autism showed symptoms before age 3, but identification is often not made until later.

10. CDC: 1 Percent of 8-Year-Olds in U.S. Have Form of Autism

Friday , December 18, 2009
By Marrecca Fiore

Close to 1 percent or an average of 1 out of every 110 8-year-olds in the U.S. has an autism spectrum disorder, according to a study released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Friday.

The results of the 2006 study, reported in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, represent a 57 percent increase in the number of children identified with some form of autism since a similar study was conducted in 2002.

It’s estimated that 40,000 new cases of autism were diagnosed in this year alone. Catherine Rice, a behavioral health scientist with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, called the problem “an urgent health concern,” during a CDC media briefing Friday.

Rice said the rate of increase of autism disorders in children is 4 to 5 percent higher in boys than it is in girls.

She said the CDC is currently studying risk factors both during the mother’s pregnancy and the first few years of a child’s life. Rice added that there are multiple causes of autism spectrum disorders and that a single cause will not be identified. She also said that some of the increase is due to better diagnosing of the disorder.

“A simple explanation is not apparant," she said. "We know that there are multiple complex genetic and environmental factors that cause autism.”

The study was conducted on more than 2,750 8-year-olds in 10 communities across the U.S. It used only 8-year-olds in the study because previous research has indicated that most children with autism spectrum disorders, which include both autism and other forms of the disease such as Asperger’s syndrome, have been identified and are receiving services by this age.

Specifically, autism spectrum disorders are a group of developmental disabilities characterized by atypical development in socialization, communication, and behavior

The study, which included a review of health and education records, found sharp variations in a number of children with ASD in the communities surveyed. Researchers found that in Florida, for example, 4.2 out of every 1,000 children had an autism spectrum disorder, but in Arizona and Missouri as many as 12.1 out of 1,000 children were diagnosed with some form of autism.

Mark Blaxill, a director with SafeMinds, a nonprofit organization that funds research on a possible connection between autism and mercury exposure from vaccines and environmental factors such as power plants, called the release of the CDC data on the Friday before Christmas shameful.

“I’d offer that the CDC is doing a terrible job on autism,” Blaxill told FoxNews.com Friday. “They’re doing the best they can to bury this. I would say that releasing something the Friday before Christmas is about as deep as you can bury something.”

Blaxill said the CDC and National Institutes of Health need to develop a plan of action and work harder to find out why autism spectrum disorders are increasing at such a rapid rate.

"Autism was first identified in the 1940s," said Blaxill, who has a 14-year-old daughter with autism. "Back then, 1 in 10,000 children were believed to have it and now 1 percent of our children have autism. And it's not only improvements in the way we diagnose autism. ... We're outraged and we want more research."

Blaxill said stronger studies on environmental and genetic causes of autism are needed.

“We’re not anti-vaccination,” Blaxill said. “I support vaccines. ... But we see what’s happened with the concern over Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and the overuse of antibiotics. One thing that’s changed dramatically over the years is the number of vaccinations we’re pumping into our kids. What we’re saying is, let’s investigate our vaccine program. Let’s evaluate safety.”

11. Mark Blaxill: Lies, Damned Lies and CDC Autism Statistics

By Mark Blaxill

It’s official now, real autism rates have exploded to 1 in 100 American children. We’re facing a national public health emergency of historic proportions. Bigger than swine flu. Bigger than polio. Bigger than almost anything one can imagine except AIDS. No matter how hard some may try, it’s impossible to escape the inexorable upward march of the numbers.  Even Tom Insel, head of autism research at NIH and not exactly the autism world’s greatest forward thinker, has conceded the obvious: “There is no question that there has got to be an environmental component here.”

Following last week’s release of the latest CDC autism surveillance report, no amount of methodological obfuscation (“autism prevalence has clearly gone up but there are no real incidence studies”), epidemiological nihilism (“we simply can’t know without large scale, well-controlled, prospective studies”) or social deconstructionist nonsense (“autism is an intolerant invention of modern society”) should escape scorn . Anyone with brain, a conscience and an ounce of integrity must acknowledge that we face a crisis. Meanwhile, those who would accuse the autism parent community of “denialism”, unscientific reasoning and irresponsible irrationality need to explain how their own theories, so dependent on the evidence-free suggestion that rates are rising because of “better diagnosing”, deserve to be considered respectable scientific speech. There is no more unscientific position in public health today than the fiction that rising autism rates come from better diagnosing. Let’s be clear, the only evidence for better diagnosing is wishful thinking. Our public health institutions deserve no credit for a job done better; quite the contrary, they deserve an investigation into their negligence.

Nowhere is the institutional pattern of negligence, deception and propaganda surrounding autism more apparent than in the work of the Autism Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) network. The design of the ADDM, a project of the CDC and its parent agency the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), reveals in sharp relief how determined CDC is to evade its autism responsibilities. And while there is no evidence of fraud in the preparation of the ADDM data, that’s about the only good thing you can say about the work. To be blunt, every ADDM publication so far has betrayed a fundamental dishonesty, reporting analysis that has been twisted for bureaucratic purposes to mask and suppress the magnitude of the autism problem. It’s a disturbing display of the triumph of public relations over professionalism, propaganda masquerading as science.

In their latest exercise in spin management, the CDC released a new ADDM publication last week: at noon on the Friday before Christmas. The timing of this release-- a transparent attempt to bury the surveillance news as deeply as possible-- was an indication of the seriousness with which the CDC treats the autism problem. In case anyone missed it, the leadership of the DHHS in the Obama administration has clearly selected influenza as their priority health policy concern; but their autism policy position has been less clear and this release of the ADDM findings marked the first major autism position statement of the new administration.

It was a sad day. For those of us who held out hope that a change in administration might create an occasion for change in autism policy, it’s time to declare the honeymoon over. With this release and the despicable way it was handled, the new administration has now taken ownership for the failure of America’s autism policy. They’ve even managed to take data suppression to a new, post-Verstraeten level. Blame Secretary Sebelius, blame Tom Insel, blame CDC Director Tom Frieden, or blame Obama himself. But make no mistake; the policies of the Obama administration are looking like a disaster for the autism community.

That might sound a bit harsh to the disinterested observer. After all, didn’t the CDC just come out and admit that the rates have gone up and are basically 1 in 100? One might think it would be unfair to criticize the new administration for publishing numbers that essentially confirm what the autism community has been arguing for years. How exactly, one might reasonably ask, could one argue that CDC has twisted the surveillance from ADDM to obscure the autism epidemic?

Ah, the joys of deconstructing CDC statistics. How do they lie to us? Let me count the ways.

1. Start the history of autism in 1992

CDC surely understands that a huge part of the controversy over rising autism rates is defining when the increases started so we can better locate the environmental roots behind autism’s recent rise. They also understand that the criticism over CDC’s own role in this controversy begins with the escalation in the childhood immunization program that started with the introduction of new vaccines for Haemophilus influenza B (Hib) and hepatitis B in 1990 and 91, respectively. And they certainly understand that an honest investigation of the effect of their own policies must include a comparison of autism rates for children born in 1989 or earlier with those born in 1991 or later.

So what has the CDC done with ADDM? They left the investigation of children born in the 1980s out of the ADDM entirely! According to ADDM, the history of autism surveillance starts with children born in 1992. Anything before that becomes ancient history as far as CDC is concerned.

But what makes this omission even more dishonest is that the CDC began its own autism survey work with data that did include children born in the 1980s. In fact, they led one of the more thorough autism survey analyses ever conducted, one in which CDC-paid clinicians personally conducted diagnostic interviews for every suspected case of autism in a target population in Brick Township, New Jersey born between 1988 and 1995. They can even compare this NJ data with their own data from four NJ counties in ADDM (which included Ocean County and Brick Township).

And what did CDC find when they did this thorough analysis?

• That among children born 1988 or 1989, there were exactly ZERO cases of full syndrome autism; yet by the 1993 birth year the full syndrome rate had soared to 1 in 128.
• That cases of all autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) went from a rate of 1 in 225 among children born between 1988 and 1991 (the most precise data breakdown received from CDC) to over 1 in 80 for children born in 1992.
• And that the rates of ASD found in its ADDM analysis of children born in NJ in 1992 and 1994, far away the highest rates in the ADDM network, may have actually understated the autism rates in some parts of NJ.

We know all this not because the CDC actually published these numbers honestly on its own (their published report on the Brick Township survey actually denied that there was an upward trend!), but because SafeMinds founder Sallie Bernard had questions about the findings, asked CDC employees for unpublished data and received some partial responses. Left to its own devices, however, the CDC chose to launch its official history of autism rates starting with children born in 1992. The only conclusion one can draw is that they don’t really want the world to know what autism rates were before 1990.

The sharp rise in NJ autism rates for children born between 1988 and 1994 is displayed in Figure 1. (Click to enlarge)

 


2. Hide behind diagnostic changes and then don’t control for their effect

The solitary argument supporting the denial of the autism crisis is the notion that autism rates have risen due to “better diagnosing” and a broadening of the diagnostic criteria for autism. The fragile factual foundation of the “better diagnosing” argument lies in the adoption of a revised set of criteria for an autism diagnosis in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). DSM IV was published in 1994 around the time the autism epidemic was first becoming visible.

There was nothing special about the 1994 revision of the DSM. First published in 1952, the DSM, the bible of the psychiatric profession, was first revised in 1967 (DSM II). “Infantile autism” was slotted within the broader category of pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs) and first formally included in the third edition, which was published in 1980. Seven years later, the revised third edition was published and with it an update of the DSM criteria for autism (renamed “autistic disorder”) and the PDDs. Then, seven years after the revised third edition came the fourth edition, with another refinement of the criteria for the PDDs and “autistic disorder.”

The key point to remember is that the DSM criteria for all “mental disorders” are revised regularly and autism is just one part of this ongoing process. If you read the literature surrounding the autism revisions, you will see that the DSM IV was never intended to radically expand the definition of autism. Quite the contrary, these revisions are mostly technical publications designed to aid practicing psychiatrists in making consistent diagnoses. But since the timing of this new volume coincided conveniently with the upsurge in autism cases, history has been rewritten. Because as the first children of the Age of Autism were born in 1991 and went in to receive their first diagnosis of autism at the average age of four or five,  the DSM IV criteria had, quite naturally, just been introduced.

Very little about autism or the PDDs changed in DSM IV. There was a bit of tightening in the checklists. The “age at onset of symptoms” threshold (implicit in Kanner’s phrase “infantile autism” but jettisoned in the revised third edition) was reintroduced and set at 36 months (DSM III had it at 30 months). The overall intention was described explicitly in 1997 by some of its designers: “The change from DSM III to DSM III-R [revised] is an example of the broadening of the concept of autism; from DSM III-R to DSM IV, a corrective narrowing occurred.” [emphasis added] 

But there was one material change in DSM IV. For the first time, Asperger’s syndrome was included as part of the PDDs. That should have been neither radical nor confusing. After all, Asperger’s syndrome, by definition, doesn’t involve the language deficits of full syndrome autism. Because of that difference (quite obvious and not confusing for parents, but seemingly the confusion at the root of the epidemic for others) the age of diagnosis usually comes much later: typically eight years of age for Asperger’s vs. three to five years of age for autism.

There’s nothing wrong with including Asperger’s syndrome in the PDDs. Indeed, formally recognizing the disability of those with only the social and behavioral deficits of the PDDs was a step forward. But that small bit of progress should never have been allowed to confuse the issue of time trends in autism. The arithmetic involved isn’t very hard.  It’s like avoiding confusion between pandemic swine flu and other upper respiratory infections like the common cold (hmm, maybe there’s a pattern HERE). If you want to control for the impact on autism surveillance data of the DSM IV inclusion of Asperger’s syndrome you can do one simple thing.

Separate diagnoses of “autistic disorder” cases from cases diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

And for that matter do the same thing with PDD-NOS, which with one label or another (as “other infantile psychoses”, “infantile autism, residual state”, “atypical PDD”, or just as PDD “not otherwise specified”) has always been included in the PDDs.

But what approach did ADDM adopt? They did exactly the opposite. CDC dumped all PDD diagnoses together in one big lump, therefore specifically choosing NOT to measure the effect of the diagnostic revision they intimate has changed the rates.

Why on earth would CDC not require more precision in the gold standard of autism surveillance? They certainly know how to conduct a more detailed analysis. They did it in Brick, where they measured both the rate of all autism spectrum disorders and full syndrome autism. You can see the results in Figure 1, which shows how ASD rates in 6 year old children born in Brick Township in 1992 (1 in 82) compared with children born the same year (and surveyed two years later) in a four county sample that included Brick, (1 in 99 had ASDs). And while Brick ASD rates in the 1992 birth year are a bit higher than the ADDM rates, they show a consistent trend before (rising sharply) and after (leveling off) even though they were diagnosing children earlier (and possibly missing some milder Asperger’s cases).

The NJ data don’t give you any reason to believe the changing diagnostic criteria have anything at all to do with the rising rates. They simply show that the ADDM methods are designed only to perpetuate the confusion over what’s going on with autism.

3. If the sample doesn’t suit, change it

One of the oddities of the ADDM network is how unstable it is. The “2000” report (actually 1992 births diagnosed by 2000) lists 6 states as part of the network, a list that grew to 14 in the “2002” report (1994 births diagnosed by 2002). Given ADDM’s biennial reporting cycle, most of us who were waiting for the “2004” report last week were surprised to find the main emphasis on the “2006” numbers. This latest version included 11 states, strangely eliminating 2 of the 6 states in the 2000 group and 4 of 14 in the 2002 group (meanwhile, the numbers for “2004” were buried in an appendix; more on this below). What could possibly explain this revolving door of ADDM states? Why wouldn’t CDC simply choose a representative sample of states and counties and follow them in consistent fashion?

Well for starters, the ADDM sample is almost certainly not representative. The Department of Education (DOE) provides data on special education enrollments via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (see Fighting Autism). Based on the IDEA standard, CDC has consistently excluded from ADDM the states with the high autism prevalence rates; at no point have the top 5 states in the IDEA rankings, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut, been included. New Jersey, by far the state with the highest rates ever surveyed by CDC barely makes the IDEA top 10. ADDM has also excluded states with their own surveillance activities. California (15th in the IDEA rankings), the state that launched the earliest alarm over rising autism rates is also not part of ADDM. Neither is Minnesota, a top 5 state that has also been the site of prior autism surveys.

In addition to excluding states with high rates and prior independent surveillance, ADDM has also manipulated the network. They have had four reporting cycles and have modified the states in each cycle, moving old states out and new ones in. There is no apparent scientific reason for these changes, nor has CDC given any explanation for the changes in the ADDM network.

So one can only assess the effect of these changes by judging the impact of their actions on the ADDM results as the network evolved over the four reporting cycles. These actions suggest that the CDC’s changes to the ADDM network have systematically reduced the ADDM reported rates and lowered their reported rate of increase.

Specifically:

• CDC has removed states with high and/or rising rates. Following the 2002 report, NJ, Utah (UT), West Virginia (WV), and Arkansas (AR) were all removed from ADDM (an action that was not visible to the public until last week). These 4 states were ranked #1, #3, #5 and #6, respectively out of the 14 states reporting results from 2002. This systematic purging of high prevalence state is visible in Figure 2 below. (Click to enlarge)

• This purge not only excluded states with high rates in 2002, it also excluded 2 of the three states with the largest rates of increase between 2000 and 2002: WV with a 39% increase in just 2 years, and NJ with a 7% increase. Only the CDC’s self-managed program in GA, with an autism growth rate of 17%, remained in ADDM.

• In 2002, CDC added Alabama (AL) to the ADDM. AL is one of the bottom 10 states in the IDEA rankings, and at the time it entered had the lowest rate in the ADDM network. CDC retained AL in the network for all subsequent reports. Most recently CDC added Florida (FL) to the ADDM in 2006. FL (which is close to the median in IDEA) entered ADDM with the lowest reported autism level of any state.

• Pennsylvania (PA) and Colorado (CO) were both removed in 2004 (or provided no records) and then reinstated in 2006. CO is another bottom 10 state in IDEA. And although the full state of Pennsylvania is in the top 10 of the IDEA ranking, Philadelphia County (the ADDM site) has autism rates well below the statewide average. Both PA and CO autism rates were among the lowest in the latest ADDM report. (Click to enlarge)


In case anyone is missing the point, these are not neutral shifts. It doesn’t take a degree in statistics to figure out that if you remove the states with the highest rates in the sample, the average rates will go down; similarly, if you add in states with low autism rates, the average will fall even further.

And if you try to compare these averages while the sample is shifting, you will report misleading trends. The ADDM network estimates for 1992 birth year (2000 report) are not comparable to the latest estimates for the 1998 birth year (2006 report). Only 4 of the 6 original sites remained in 2006; and only 10 of the 14 sites reporting in 2002 remained in 2006. The exclusions and additions skewed the data in critical ways.

Even so, the ADDM rates went up anyway. Figure 2 shows that rates within each state rose consistently (every line on the chart goes up) despite the biased shifts of the overall sample. Maryland (MD), North Carolina (NC) and Missouri (MO) rates rose consistently throughout the period. Rates in South Carolina (SC) went down through 2004 and then shot up in 2006. Rates in Arizona (AZ) started out among the lowest in the ADDM, but as of 2006 are the highest in the network. Only Wisconsin (WI) shows a mixed recent trend, with a declining rate between the 2004 and 2006 reports.

In short, last week’s high autism rates would have been significantly worse had the CDC not manipulated the ADDM network to keep the rates low. As a result, some observers even called the ADDM report good news because the average rate of 1 in 110 was lower than an earlier report of 1 in 91. But that’s simply an artifact of CDC’s monkeying around with the sample: there’s little doubt that the “official” rate of 1 in 110 would have risen to over 1 in 100 with the inclusion of higher recent rates in NJ and the elimination of FL.

4. Spinning the numbers down

If states moving in and out of the ADDM network were the only evidence of manipulation, one might argue these changes were innocent coincidences, driven by a handful of unavoidable local funding problems. But the CDC’s statistical sleight of hand runs far deeper than that and is revealed most clearly in the packaging of trend information in each ADDM report release.

Trend reporting requires comparing data from different time periods. And when it comes to trend analysis, it doesn’t take a degree in statistics to know you should always compare “apples and apples” between one time period and the next. This ought to be an easy thing to accomplish in a highly organized effort like the ADDM project. But CDC has consistently twisted its reporting to suppress the evidence supporting increases in the autism rate.

Two ways this suppression has been demonstrated are revealed below in Figure 3, where the red markers and lines show what CDC reported and the black lines show what an honest, “apples to apples” comparison would have shown instead. 

1. Apples and oranges. In 2007, CDC released results simultaneously from its 2000 and 2002 reports. The initial 2000 ADDM survey contained six sites and the 2002 network was expanded to 14. When releasing the two reports on February 9, 2007, CDC’s accompanying press release noted that ASD prevalence for children born in 1992 was 6.7 per 1,000 (the “apples”), while the prevalence for children born in 1994 was 6.6 per 1,000 (the “oranges”), implying that the rate was the same (or might have even gone down) over the 2-year time period (these two numbers are represented by the two red markers in Figure 3 for 2000 and 2002). But these were not comparable numbers. A true “apples to apples” comparison of the sites included in both studies would have shown a 10% increase in those 6 sites over the two year period (the black line labeled “fixed 6 state set” in Figure 3). (Click to enlarge)
 
2. Oops, we forgot to mention 2004. But this increased rate was lower than many of us would have expected. So for nearly three years we have been waiting for the release of the 2004 numbers. It had taken six years to release the 2000 numbers and four years to release the 2002 data. But despite the natural expectation that the process might go faster, nearly five years later, the 2004 data had still not been released. To the surprise of knowledgeable observers, when the next ADDM report was issued last week, there was almost no mention at all of the 2004 findings. Instead, the entire focus was on the 2006 results. The extended delay occurred because CDC failed to issue the 2004 numbers at all! Why might they do this? One clue is revealed in Figure 3, which shows the second “apples to apples” comparison of states included in both the 2002 and 2004 surveys (the black line labeled “fixed 8 state set”). Based on an honest comparison, between 2002 and 2004, the autism rate rose by 31%. Why CDC failed to report the 2004 numbers entirely is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they hoped the numbers would flatten out in 2006. But as the red line from 2002 to 2006 shows, the upward trend simply continued and so ADDM was forced to report a 57% increase in autism last week. This time, and to their credit, the CDC’s report (the dotted red line) was a true reflection of an “apples to apples” trend. (Click image to enlarge)

As autism rates have converged toward 1 in 100, CDC now seems to have abandoned its enthusiasm for suppressing the real autism data. Instead, it simply announced the ADDM results the week before Christmas on a Friday afternoon, hoping no one would notice they don’t have a plan to do anything about it and went back to work on the swine flu.

But it’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on a few numbers in the latest release. Any average rate, of course, includes a mix of groups with both higher and lower risk. We all know that autism rates are higher in boys, but it’s still mind-boggling to think about the toll autism is taking in some demographic groups. The rates in the most seriously affected clusters now are over 2%. By my calculation, the autism rate among white males born in Missouri in 1998 is 1 in 45. In Arizona, it’s even higher, at 1 in 42. I know it’s not fashionable to worry these days about white male American boys. Maybe it’s time to start.

It’s night in Jungleland

The reason these male demographics stand out is because autism rates are three to four times higher, of course, in boys. They’re often (but not always) higher in white, non-Hispanic populations. They also seem to be higher in states, like NJ, with serious pollution concerns and/or aggressive vaccination policies. These two environmental factors, leading suspects in the autism epidemic, are front and center in NJ, the state with the oxymoronic nickname, “The Garden State.”

Every visitor to the Garden State who flies into Manhattan or Newark spends some time driving down the massive refinery strip on the NJ Turnpike. Bruce Springsteen, NJ’s unofficial poet laureate, wrote songs about this scar in the middle of the state’s main commercial corridor, the inescapable stigma of any New Jersey native, trying to defend their state to outside visitors. Springsteen wrote about going “New Jersey Turnpike ridin' on a wet night 'neath the refinery's glow, out where the great black rivers flow.”

Not far away from the great black rivers, in the sprawl that defines the greater New York metropolitan area lies the heart of the American pharmaceutical industry. Merck’s headquarters are in Whitehouse Station, NJ. Johnson & Johnson is headquartered in New Brunswick. Major headquarters for Warner Lambert, Squibb, Wyeth and Schering-Plough were all NJ-based prior to their acquisition by larger companies and retain extensive operations all through the state. Their outsized political influence has led to unusually aggressive childhood vaccination policies.

When it comes to demographics like this, things can get personal and they do for me. I’m a white, non Hispanic male. I was born and raised in New Jersey. My father, who commuted to Manhattan his whole career, took on the chairmanship of a local autism charity when he was dying of cancer during the 1980s. One of his partners at Morgan Stanley had an autistic son, who was the only child with autism I knew who lived in my hometown. I don’t know what the autism rate was back then, no one ever did a formal survey, but it wasn’t very high. Everyone knew autism was rare.

But I was born in 1958. Just over thirty-five years later, my calculations from the ADDM report for 2004 suggest that 1 in 50 white males born in NJ in 1994 were autistic. That was the highest rate ever reported in the US until Arizona and Missouri overtook it in last week’s report. If I had been born a few decades later, I would have fallen into that demographic. Maybe my own life would have been dramatically different. That’s enough to make you pause.

As a teenager growing up in NJ, I grew up listening to Bruce Springsteen’s music: I danced with pretty girls to Rosalita, played fake saxophone riffs along with Clarence Clemons and drank beer with my high school buddies singing along with Born to Run that “we got to get out while we’re young.” So I found myself wondering this weekend, what would The Boss think about all this? I surfed the internet reading through some of his song lyrics and found a small bit of inspiration in the lines below. I thought of changing a few words to fit the current situation, but you don’t mess with The Boss.

Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz
Between flesh and what's fantasy and the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be
And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand but they wind up wounded, not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland

1 in 100 children. 1 in 50 boys like me. No one sounding the alarm. What is our world coming to?

Mark Blaxill is Editor-at-Large for Age of Autism and a Director of SafeMinds. To read this post in .pdf format click HERE.

12. MedImmune recalls H1N1 nasal vaccine due to loss of potency

The Los Angeles Times (12/23, Maugh) reports, "Vaccine-maker MedImmune has voluntarily recalled 13 lots of vaccine against the pandemic H1N1 influenza because the lots have lost some potency since they were manufactured." Norman Baylor, director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review at the Food and Drug Administration, said, "This is not a safety issue. ... There has just been a slight decrease in potency." Baylor added, "It is not abnormal to see a vaccine decrease in potency over time." Those who have "already received a vaccine from [the] lots," he explained, "should be fully protected and there is no need for them to be revaccinated."

The AP (12/23) reports, "The FDA says the vast majority of the doses have already been distributed and used. Agency officials say the vaccine met potency specifications when it was distributed in October and November."

 Reuters (12/23, Steenhuysen) reports that Mr. Baylor and company spokesman Tor Constantino said that when the vaccines were distributed they were at full strength. They explained that the purpose of the recall was to notify physicians who might have vaccine doses. The New York Times (12/23, A23, Grady) and Bloomberg News (12/23, Randall) also cover the story.

Survey shows many still wary of H1N1 vaccine. The Washington Post (12/23, Brown) reports, "Pandemic influenza vaccine is getting much easier to find but more than half of American adults say they still don't want it, and one-third of parents say they don't want their children to get it either," according to surveys conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health and the CDC. The Post also reports that Dr. Schuchat "urged people to get vaccinated even though the flu outbreak is waning in many places."

The AP (12/23, Marchione) reports that a Harvard survey found that "concern about swine flu has waned along with the number of new cases being reported. Only 40 percent of people in last week's survey say they are concerned that they or a family member will get sick from swine flu during the next year," down from 52 percent in September. Reuters (12/23) also reports on the Harvard survey results.

Officials urge H1N1 vaccination as supplies grow. Bloomberg News (12/23, Randall) reported that Dr. Schuchat said, "This is the time to act. ... Just because people are taking time off for the holidays doesn't mean this virus will." Bloomberg also reports that "the US ordered 251 million doses of swine flu vaccine, and most states now offer the vaccine to people of all ages."

CQ HealthBeat (12/23, Norman) also cites Dr. Schuchat saying that "about 110 million doses of the vaccine now have been made available for distribution," according to Dr. Schuchat. She added that "it's very important not to be complacent right now about the risk of H1N1 influenza."

MSNBC (12/23, Aleccia) reports that there are "about 111 million doses available now in places as varied as doctors offices, shopping malls and retail pharmacies." Dr. Schuchat said, "That's a lot of vaccine and that's really good news."

The Wall Street Journal (12/23, A5, McKay) reports that the vaccine is readily available and officials are urging people to take advantage of the additional supply. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, "We have a chance to lessen the impact or even prevent a third wave, and we need to seize that opportunity right now." HHS spokeswoman Jenny Backus concurred, saying, "We are going to be pushing very hard over the next eight weeks or so to really move this message out."

Other flu-like viruses more common this year. Reuters (12/23) reports that other flu-like viruses have been more common this year than usual, but, according to the CDC nearly all influenza active in the US is H1N1. Reuters cites a survey by ViraCor that shows the most common virus is rhinovirus. Others much less common viruses include metapneumovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza virus, and adenovirus.

13. Merck Appoints Former CDC Chief As Head Of Vaccines

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Merck & Co. (MRK) named former public-health authority Julie Gerberding as the head of the company's $5 billion vaccines business, starting Jan. 25. Gerberding was the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through most of President George W. Bush's administration, from 2002 until earlier this year.

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