The widely disseminated comments of many organizations and authorities would lead one to believe that any possible linkage between vaccination and autism has been entirely disproven.  That is not so.  The theory that there might be a connection is biologically plausible.  One of the most consistent biological abnormalities among children with autism is their limited ability to detoxify heavy metals. It would be a real possibility then that repeated doses of a heavy metal like the mercury preservative, which had been used in nearly all vaccines, would lead to autism in some individuals.  However, a theoretical possibility means just a hair more than nothing.  A newly published study supports the view that there may well be a connection between vaccinations and autism.

The authors of this study analyzed nationwide data to investigate the connection between total vaccination exposure, autism and speech or language impairment (SLI).  Other studies have typically looked for associations between autism and some specific immunization.  When the intent of an investigation is to test the theory that some component, present in many vaccines, might be an autism-causing factor, the design of this study, utilizing the sum of vaccination exposure, makes much more sense.

These researchers took into account the potential confusion created by the timing of vaccine and diagnosis of autism or SLI.  Autism begins before age 2 but is typically diagnosed years later. If vaccinations were causative, those first two years are when the child would have received them.  So, these researchers used total vaccination exposures up to two years of age.  Accounting for the delay in diagnosis, they used the rates of autism and SLI at age 8 for their analysis.  Because the effect would become evident in individuals 6 years after their exposure, researchers compared rates of vaccinations in 1999 with autism/SLI rates 6 years later (2005). They then analyzed these data, controlling for known and suspected autism risk factors.  They also performed statistical tests for potentially confounding health conditions and access to medical care (which might lead to higher rates of diagnosis), finding that these factors did not influence the rates of autism and SLI.

These researchers identified what we call a linear dose-response.  For every 1% increase in vaccination rates there was a 1.7% increase in the number of children having either autism or speech/language impairment.  This study does not prove that childhood vaccinations cause autism.  It does prove that the issue is unresolved and that caution about all vaccinations is warranted.

Thimerosol, the standard mercury preservative formerly used in childhood immunizations, is the preservative in flu shots.  As the institutional authorities of conventional medicine push childhood vaccination for flu, despite little research support of effectiveness, these findings suggest that we might be perpetuating a problem.  Dropping thimerosol from vaccines was an excellent idea.  Why would it be okay to give it to our children in a different shot?

Those of you who have seen me for treatment of seasonal allergies, as well as others who have been reading my newsletter for awhile, will remember my comments about and advocacy of oral allergy desensitization. I like developing and providing uncommon but effective treatments, because people need help and there are many underappreciated means of helping.  It is still surprising to me how slowly anything outside the spotlight of orthodox attention catches on.

After studies showed that peanut allergy, the most deadly food allergy in the US, could be safely cured in 75% of children through oral desensitization, I thought the dam would finally burst.  Wrong.

Two large scale trials of treating ragweed allergy by oral desensitization were recently published, with similar results.  Maybe this time?  I believe so, and here is why:

Clinical trials typically show that conventional prescription drugs for allergies reduce symptoms by roughly 20-25%.  Oral desensitization, using small doses of ragweed pollen, led to a 25-27% reduction in symptoms and medication use. Approximately half of the participants experienced itching in their throats or ears for several days, early in the four month treatment period.

I am not at all surprised by these findings.  The product I developed, made from local bee pollen in a tightly controlled dilution dosage, has been effective, and usually more effective than prescription medication.  Merck is now developing an oral ragweed allergy product for the American market.  I hope this approach, which has been used informally in a number of ways in the past, will be more extensively applied.  When a major pharmaceutical company finally becomes interested, the odds are now strongly favoring this approach, long ignored in the US, becoming widespread.

Honey – sigh!  What to say?  Honey has long been the earthy, natural, sorta healthy counterpart to evil high fructose corn syrup, or just-not-so-good refined sugar.   Pure like the golden sun, it is produced from flowers in sunny meadows by bees. Unfortunately, even this iconic “hippie-food” has been corrupted.

One of the reasons honey has been thought to better than many other sweeteners is its complexity, in particular the pollens it contains collected by bees.  Pollens are also a honey fingerprint, in that analyzing the pollens reveals the source of the honey.  The process of ultrafiltration removes the pollen from honey.  As the pollens are collected by the bees flying around the area where the the honey is made, those pollens are like fingerprints, specifically identifying the source of the honey.  Removal of the pollens then also erases all evidence of the honey’s origin.  This is a concern because Chinese honey producers have been dumping honey, contaminated with heavy metals and antibiotics, on the world market. Without testing it is impossible to source the honey and stop the problem.  The US FDA (the same folks who allow pizza to count as a vegetable in school lunches) says that honey without pollen is not honey.

The recent analysis of honey sold in the US by Food Safety News was shocking. http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/ All samples of honey from fast food stores and pharmacy chains were entirely pollen-free, as were 76% of honey samples sold in grocery stores. Nearly 30% of honey labeled as organic at major chain grocery stores contained absolutely no pollen whatsoever. The only honey that consistently contained pollen was purchased at local farmer’s markets and, perhaps surprisingly given their use of Chinese imports, Trader Joe’s.

Once again, this is a reminder that supporting your local farmer and local economy is healthy for many reasons.

The list of answers and possible explanations is quite long.  With no blood test to diagnose ADHD, and many reasons why overworked teachers, stressed parents and hurried doctors would want easy fixes, stamping a child with the ADHD label and starting that child on medication is an appealingly quick shovel-it-under-the-carpet response.  Anyone with the most superficial experience of the challenges posed by these children will be sympathetic.

One reasons for over-diagnosis is uncertainty about what really is normal.  Kids who are creative and unusually smart, need challenges or they will often create them for those around them.  Kids who learn well but need a lot of physical activity also draw negative attention.  Sadly, a child who sits quietly underachieving is often neglected.  We live in a culture where driving a two ton metal projectile hurtling down the road, inches away from dozens or even hundreds of other vehicles, is boring.  So we crank it up by talking on the phone, messing with CDs, running videos in the car and TEXTING!  Driving has become our most popular extreme sport.  Our culture is ADHD.  We create children in our own image.

Cultural elements have a huge impact.  So does diet.  As I’ve discussed before, many in the medical community have decades-long experience of the ADHD-reducing effects of a diet limited in additives, preservatives and sugar.  Even the British government is on board with this idea, after they funded a study expecting to discredit the theory.  Prenatal care is vital, as is getting enough of the right nutrients, physical activity, positive parenting and teaching.  Besides avoiding food additives, more and more research is linking unwanted “environmental additives” (ie, toxins) to ADHD.

The latest is a newly released Harvard study of nearly 250 pregnant women.  Researchers tested their urine for BPA, finding it in over 97% of the women, and compared those BPA levels to mothers’ reports of ADHD behaviors in their children at age 3.  With each 10 fold rise in BPA levels, there was a significant rise in mothers’ reports of their daughters’ emotional instability, anxiety and depression.  Although ADHD is much more common in boys, there was no correlation between BPA levels and the behaviors of boys in this sample.

For decades now, we have known that the poisons we dump into our world poison our brains, causing ADHD and other problems.  In the early 1970’s Harvard researcher Herbert Needleman discovered a very close correlation between blood lead levels and IQ.  Since then the list of bad actors grows year by year.  Organophosphates, developed for chemical warfare and present now in herbicides, pesticides and other chemicals, cause severe neurologic damage, as originally intended.  Studies by UC Berkeley on the young children of agricultural workers in California’s Central Valley, by Harvard on preteen and early teens and by Columbia have all found links between even barely detectable levels of organophosphates and ADHD. In 2008, 20-30% of US samples of foods such as celery, strawberries and blueberries found contamination with one or more organophosphates.  Korean studies have discovered strong links between phthalates and ADHD in school-aged children.  Government research shows that nearly every American man, woman and child now has detectable levels of phthalates in our bodies.

What to do?  Follow the essential health habits.  Drink enough water.  Exercise.  Eat a healthy diet.  Take a moderate amount of vitamin and mineral supplementation. Develop and maintain a positive attitude and social interactions. Avoid the stuff that makes us sick.  That covers a broad range.  Avoid food additives, including preservatives and flavoring agents.  Select foods least likely to expose you to unwanted chemicals (review the list below and favor organic and local).  Make your water as clean as possible. Create a stable, calm and pleasant environment.  Use music and physical activity to help your child move in the rhythm that suits him or her.

Most contaminated

Fruits – peaches, apples, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, imported grapes, pears

Vegetables – bell peppers, celery, kale, lettuce, carrots

Least contaminated

Fruit – pineapples, mangoes, kiwis, papayas, watermelons

Vegetables – onions, avocados, sweet corn, asparagus, sweet peas, cabbages, eggplants, broccoli, tomatoes, sweet potatoes

Immunizations have been all over the news lately, even entering the political debates.  A couple of the discoveries have confirmed clinical impressions, including some I shared with you before.

As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, the current whooping cough (pertusis) epidemic has been remarkable to me because, while I have had patients with whooping cough almost every year for the last 25 years, I have not had a single patient with whopping cough during what is supposedly a revolutionary epidemic.  Why is that?

Data now show that at least 80% of the children developing whooping cough in the current epidemic have been immunized as officially recommended.  A brand new study of this outbreak, conducted in Marin, found that immunity is lasting only 3 years after completing the full 5 shot DTaP immunization series.  Older, previously vaccinated children are now the most vulnerable to the disease.  One public health response has been a call to vaccinate an even higher percentage of the population, because those who are not vaccinated must be spreading the disease, overwhelming the vaccination.

I would think that the correct conclusion would instead be to reconsider the relationship between the vaccine and the disease. Maybe the disease is evolving to outrun the vaccine?  Might there even be MORE vulnerability to whooping cough among those immunized, at least after a few years, than the rest of us? Clearly the vaccine, even five shots worth, is not doing the job.

I have never been a fan of the chicken pox vaccine, and research data makes me feel like even harsher criticism is deserved.  Research now indicates that immunity from the vaccine disappears after only 5 -7 years.  That is a triple “ouch”, the first for the shot, the second because the shot did not protect for very long, and you can read the third in the next paragraph.

Adding to the uncertainty, there are data indicating that lowering the rate of chicken pox has increased the rate of shingles suffered by adults.  Projections are that as high as many as 50% of adults will develop shingles because their immune systems will not be not “reminded” about the virus, due to lack of virus exposures in daily life. Formerly the incidence was believed to be under 5%.

Of course, most of us would choose to risk our health in favor of our children’s health.  However the small to moderate risk of serious problems with each could make this rationale debatable.  Chicken pox is usually a mild illness, and many times parents of children who have gotten chicken pox have expressed their surprise to me, as what they had read of the disease had made them quite afraid.  That said, as many as 5,000 children a year were hospitalized in the USA with complications before the vaccine became available.  Then again, in the same time period, we averaged 100,000 pediatric hospitalizations annually for diarrhea.  Postherpetic neuralgia, a complication which occurs in about 13% of shingles cases, typically causes pain for months and sometimes years.  Unfortunately, at this point I think there is more justification for shingles vaccine in our aging population as a consequence of vaccinating children.

It seems to me that, even without questioning immunizations for other reasons, there is rising cause for skepticism and critical reappraisal.  The bottom line is that these immunizations are, at best. not as advertised. They are not working very well and it is unwarranted to simply blame those who choose to limit vaccinations for failure of the vaccinations.  Many physicians were surprised by a recent study which found that almost 3/4 of parents had concerns about immunizations.  I am surprised also, but by the minority who did not have questions.