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Recently it was brought to my attention that my soon to be 2 yo son might be autistic. He had been seeing a speech therapist for about 5 or 6 months and she felt he could be autistic. This started a downward spiral for us and in one afternoon, all of our hopes and dreams for our little boy were shattered. We started doing our own research on autism, and came across a lot of articles connecting autism and the MMR vaccine preservative mercury. I finally bit the bullet and asked the pediatrician about it. He told me that there was no way our son was autistic first of all, and secondly, if he were, he didn't get it from the vaccine. He said for the past 15 years or so, his office has bought sterile vaccines that do not contain any preservatives. He also said that to his knowledge, most medical practices stopped using vaccines with mercury preservatives years ago (like 10-15 years ago) because no one knew what affect mercury would have on small children. So why has autism increased by over 400% in the last few years? Because the spectrum has broadened that is used to "diagnose" it. Blue Cross has a billboard on a highway that I travel frequently: "Every 20 seconds a child is diagnosed with autism." Really? That seems a bit odd and extreme to me. It seems that eventually every child in the world will have some form of autism if that were to hold true. The ped told me that a lot of people link the vaccine and autism together because the age when a child gets the MMR, around 15 mos, is also about the age that developmental delays can become apparent. In our case, the speech therapist insisted our son was autistic, despite him passing the initial evaluation for autism TWICE, and despite two medical opinions stating basically "no way". She continued to insist that our son was autistic, but she would also say she isn't qualified to diagnose him. She insisted we enroll him into the Kennedy Kreiger Inst. in Baltimore to begin treatment immediately. All this because my son doesn't speak...that is his only symptom. Sorry to vent, I'm still a little bitter about all of this, it is still very recent to us. But to answer your question, I would say the claim linking the 2 is baseless. I trust my pediatrician and I have no reason to believe he would lie to me about their office buying sterile vaccines vs. mercury preserved ones.
Tricia
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PermalinkI'm sorry to hear that your son might have Autism but what you
should know is that even if he does have autism, there is a lot of hope
for recovery with new treatments these days. I know because my
son was diagnosed with autism at age 2yrs 7months at which time he was
nonverbal and tested as having an "IQ" of 50. Now two years later
he is no longer thought by professionals to have autism and he is
testing in the normal range with receptive language at 96 and
expressive language not far behind that.
Your pediatrician is
grossly misinformed about the thimerosal issue as is true of many
pediatricians. Thimerosal(which is 50% mercury by weight) is a
preservative that has been used in many childhood vaccines until as
recently as 2005--at least for all of the DTaP shots at our fomer
pediatricians office--they mut have been using up stockpiles that
expired in 2003. Also MOST FLU SHOTS STILL CONTAIN THIMEROSAL and are
currently recommended for pregnant women and children 6 mos and
older. You can find out if your child was exposed to thimerosal
by checking lot numbers. I would think if your child is only two
that any mecurry exposure might be from a flu shot. The MMR shot
is also thought by some doctors to contribute to autism possibly
independently of thimerosal (the mecurcury in thimerosal is believed to
make it hard for the body to clear itself of viruses and there is
evidence that the measles virsu can remain in the body possibly leading
to CNS damage in a subset of the population).
A
precedent-setting special "Vaccine Court" is currently convening to
begin hearing the claims of 4,800 families and thier doctors who
believe that their child's autism was caused by thimerosal and/or the
MMR vaccine. You can read transcripts or join the live hearing by
Googling "Vaccine court " and going to their homepage. The first
day of testimony involves renowned toxicologist, Aposhian who talks
about the dangers of mecury and thimerosal.
If your son does turn out to have autism, there are many resources and I will probably put my son's remarkable story on a blog.
By
the way the CDC says the current estimate of autism is 1out of
150 children (for boys who are 4-5xmore likely to develop autism the
statistic is 1out of 94) and these are based on children born in
1998-99 when thimerosal was still routinely used in MOST childhood
shots.
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PermalinkDo you feel that your son may be autistic? If his only symptom is the lack of speech he could just be taking his time and learning his words. Remember not all kids develop at the same rate, if you are concerned (which it sounds like you are) get another opinion;keep getting them until you are satisfied. Obviously he is in speech therapy for a reason has he been progressing?
I have a 2yr old who when you ask her to say something will tell you "I don't know" if she can't say what it is you are asking her to say. But watch out when she is ready to say something she does and with gusto!
Keep working with him, love him and trust your instincts.
The link between vaccines and autism is a controversial subject many people believe there is a link and others believe that the two have nothing in common.
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PermalinkTo be honest, we really weren't that concerned about him not speaking, because he was still communicating his needs to us through non-verbal methods. He would point to what he needed, or attempt to get it himself. Everyone else around us kept pressuring us to second guess ourselves and kept assuring us that the speech therapy would never cause any harm to our son, it would only help him. Well, we spent 6 months in that limbo, and every week had to deal with our toddler who would kick and scream and totally hate his therapy sessions and his therapist. He did not want her in his house, he did not want her to mess with his toys, he did not want her near me or his baby brother. He would not cooperate and they just seemed to butt heads the whole time. Children learn through play, but she would never let him initiate the play, and insisted that he play only by her rules and only in the way she expected of him. He hated it from the beginning.
Her unqualified-to-diagnose opinions included, he must be autistic because he is 19 months old and doesn't understand that it is my turn to play the game I just now introduced to him...he is autistic because he did not respond to me when I called his name...he is autsitic because he gets upset when I come over...he is autsitic because he does not pretend to play tea party with me, and therefore does not know how to role play...he is autistic because he does not repeat the words I have been teaching him all these months (up, top, and again were the words she felt he needed most in his vocab). When I asked her point blankly if an autistic child would walk over to his crying infant brother and hold him and caress his hair to try and soothe him, she had no answer for me. I asked her if an autistic child would initiate play with his cats and affectionately love on them or even show interest in them, she had no answer for me. When I asked her why not cooperating to play tea party made my son autistic, she said it was because he clearly could not role play or pretend. So I asked her if him wearing his dad's shoes and belt was considered role play, she had no answer for me. I also asked her if him wearing a play hard hat and tool belt and hammering pretend nails into a tool bench was considered role play and pretend, she had no answer for me. She said because my son is quiet and reserved, he probably doesn't interact with other children, but he had never been around her where an opportunity for him to be around other children was available anyhow, so how could she make that assessment?
To my husband and I, we felt that she wanted to insist that our son was difficult and autistic and she needed to label him to account for her inability to get through to him in the way she sought to do. Our gut feeling is that our son is not autistic, but that he is just not interested in speaking yet. He uses sign language and other non-verbal communication to us, he makes wonderful eye contact and is very affectionate to everyone in his daily life. And since cancelling his therapy sessions, he has started to say a handful of words, "up," "top," and "again" are not among them; but more useful words in our household, daddy, momma, baby, cat, dog, more...
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PermalinkI responded to your initial post before I had read all of it because I
was concerned about your pediatricians incorrect information about
thimerosal. In reading your post about your son it does not sound
to me like he has autism. Many boys are "late talkers" and
everything you said in you post suggests to me that he in
"nuerotypical" (the pc word for normal). Good luck and I expect
he will do just fine.
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PermalinkI'm worried, it appears that there is at least one valid study showing a link between autism and vaccines ( sort of)
Here is an artilce wtitten by Dr. Marv Ackerman about the issue, worth reading
http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.com/doctor/autistism-immunization.html
Geraldine Jensen, Editor Families Online Magazine http://www.familiesonlinemagazine.co...
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PermalinkIn my research on the subject, I have found a number of credible and
peer-reviewed medical journal articles on the link between vaccines and
autism--most of these studies have to do with a preservative called
thimerosal that has been routinely used in childrens vaccines until
recently and is STILL used in most flu shots and some DTP shots.
Also there are a number of studies that link the MMR to autism.
Fortunately some doctors have come up with alternative vaccination
schedules that may be safer in protecting chidren forom autism.
One is by Dr. Liz Mumper at www.advocates4children.com and another is
available by googling "A User Friendly Vaccination schedule" by
Harvard-educated surgeon, Donald Miller, MD.
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PermalinkThis site has some great info on mercury in vaccines.
http://safeminds.org/
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