Today on the Dr. Oz show, Dr. Mehmet Oz discussed Autism and what causes it. He says that 1 in every 110 children born in the United States will have autism. Boys are more prone to it, at 1 in 70 children.
Dr. Oz says that autism is a neurological disorder that robs a child of an emotional foundation. More and more children are being diagnosed with it each year too. Why is autism on the rise? Mainly because doctors are getting better at diagnosing it, and also because the diagnosis has spread to include children with milder forms of it.
Alison Singer, President of the Autism Science Foundation, says that there’s a strong genetic component as to the cause of autism. It’s not 100% of the cause though, so they are researching environmental factors that interact with the genes to trigger the disorder.
Dr. Oz outlined three theories as to the cause of autism. First is vaccines. But that is extremely controversial because the original research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield was proven to be fraudulent. Still, many parent associate the onset of their child’s autism with vaccines, and not just mercury. Aluminum in vaccines should be researched.
Dr. Oz brought on a panel of pediatricians to discuss what causes autism. Most of them said that science shows vaccines are safe, which the audience (of parents with autistic children) seemed to disagree with.
Dr. Oz then had Dr. Bob Sears, author of “The Autism Book,” speak to the subject. Dr. Sears vaccinates children, but on a different schedule. He does the important ones first, spread out farther apart, and saves the lesser important ones until the child is a bit older.
Dr. Ari Brown, spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, however voiced concern that delaying vaccinations leaves the youngest, most vulnerable babies at risk. She brought up a measles outbreak that happened due to unvaccinated children, and one of them was Dr. Sears’ patient. Dr. Sears then rebutted by saying that the studies which prove vaccinations are safe are funded by the pharmaceutical companies. He is calling for better studies that parents can trust.
Dr. Oz revealed that he did immunize his children but on a delayed schedule.
Another theory about the cause of autism is environment. Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto from UC Davis talked about a study that showed women who lived within a quarter-mile of a freeway during their pregnancy have about a twice the likelihood of their child having autism. She does not think there’s one cause of autism. She thinks there will eventually be found a number of contributing causes.
The third theory is the age of the parents…not just the mom. Dr. Brown says the study shows that for every 10 years increase in age of the mom, the risk of having an autistic child goes up by 30%. For fathers, for every 10 year increase, the risk goes up over 20%. Alison Singer also say that science indicates an increased risk of autism with fertility treatments. Dr. Oz pinpointed the age of 35 as being the age over which the risk appears to start growing.
Dr. Sears talked about dietary tips. He says he’s seen so many children improve on the gluten-free, casein-free diet.
Alison Singer talked about how early intervention makes a huge difference, so if you see any early warning signs in your child, get him or her screened.
According to Dr. Ari Brown, author of “Toddler 411,” some early signs of autism in children under one year of age are: lack of eye contact, failure to respond to name, constant repetitive behaviors, preference for unusual comfort objects, lack of symbolic play or imitation, no babbling by 12 months, no gesturing by 12 months.
Signs in the second year of life are no words by 16 months, lack of social skills, not following simple commands, not pointing to show you something, not looking when you point at something, not pretending or imitating, seeming disconnected, seeming deaf when not, does not feel pain or is fearless, no interest in toys or doesn’t play with them appropriately, keen interest in inanimate objects.
I have a three year old and she is currently lined up for a series of evaluation appointments but the waiting period is 8 n- 14 mnths for pretty much all of them. Our GP mentioned ASD but she would not diagnose because she is not sure, but I am very concern. What are the signs I should look for?
Erin Szonyi makes a good point. How can any research or study duplicate or even show what has happened inside an over-vaccinated human toddler? I’ve read and continue to read daily about vaccines and autism. New information shows up slowly. Why..$$$. Government supports vaccine makers and doesn’t want to fund studies that will show cause, because vaccination rates will plummet. Vaccine producers have been given blanket immunity from all types of lawsuit in the U.S.A.. Why? Those of you coming to the defense of vaccines need to ponder that. Ponder also WHY is there a vaccine court and vaccine injury compensation program? How could one conclude these government mandated forms of protection stem from the overall safety of vaccines? If you truly believe that, you need immediate help from a councellor, psychologist or phychiatrist.
There was no mention from Oz or his white coat wearing experts about the much heralded Genome Project. A huge finding by the Project was that autistic children who’s family’s were studied, had genetic mutations that did not originate with their parents. That is HUGE! From birth till 3 years, when autism strikes something happens to cause mutations. Here’s a hint. Search mercury and /or aluminum and spontaneous genetic mutation. Yes people these heavy metal neurotoxins can cause spontaneous genetic mutation. That incredible fact was not mentioned by Oz or his “experts” why not?
The type of autism that is being associated with vaccines is REGRESSIVE AUTISM. Not Aspergers not genetic autism. Regressive autism comes with lots of medical issues. There is treatment for this kind of autism. email if you have questions jabwatchdog@live.com
Okay here is the deal, vaccines serve a purpose and they have a place. However they do not belong in a new borns body or a very small infants body. Bottom line, they do harm to certain individuals. My son was 7 weeks old when he contracted a intestinal virus. He spent 2 weeks in the hospital and was cleared by every type of doctor including a neurologist. At 9 weeks he was one week behind on his shot schedule and his doctor informed me it would be good for his immune system do get vaccinated, so being a good military wife and mother I listed to the doctor. That was 13 years ago and alot has changed since then. Now doctors will not vaccinate a child that has been ill or running a fever. My son has not had any vaccinations since he was 18 months old. Since then he has spent years in therapy and taken tons of vitamins. Finally at the age of 13 he is starting to appear to be somewhat normal and he finally has a routine bowel movement thanks to probiotics. I will never vaccinate him again because I went to his doctors to have his titers done and I was informed by his doctor that it was pointless because they will come back showing full immunity even though he has not been fully vaccinated since he was 18 months old. I don’t know why more people don’t ask for titers before sticking their child or why they are not recommended in place of the 4-6 year old shots. Why must we pump our children full of more vaccinations if there is a blood test out there that can tell a parent of a child is in danger of losing their immunity. And lets not forget about the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund that is required by the government for the vaccine companies to set a side a small dollar amount of each vaccine sold to go into a big fund to compensate individuals who have a severe reaction or die because of a bad vaccine. Vaccines do save lives no doubt about that but they also take lives or such a fund would not exist, they are not 100% totally safe to everybody, they should always be administered with caution and reactions even mild should not be brushed off by the health care professionals as no big deal. When my son was arching his back, breaking out in a rash, running a fever and having constant constipation after every round of vaccines has has ever been given I called to report it and I was brushed off. I just wonder how much under reporting there actucally is. And by the way military children are more likely to develop autism than the general population 1 out of 80 children. If you are in the military and you want to take your child to the Child Development Center or day care you must produce a shot record and if you cannot you must get a copy or make sure you child is up to date on his/her shots or your child cannot attend day care. What is one to do in this situation, the soilder must report to duty or face court martial and if a military wife wants to work then she is also compliant. The drug manufactures have a captive audiance with the military the pressure to vaccinate is tremendous.
I also want to close by saying, choosing not to vaccinate my child after 18 months almost cost me my marriage. My army officer husband was not happy to say the least with my choice and for years we fought and for years I researched every article I could find and my decision did not come easy and to choose not to further vaccinate my child was one of the more difficult discissions I have ever had to make but in the end I could no longer watch him slip away I knew I had to do something and I know in my heart and my soul that what I choose was the right decision because every day he gets older and every day his body grows and has a change to recover from the injury it suffered from birth to 18 months. If we all don’t fight for a better shot schedule and take more responsibilty for how we live our children will continue to pay the price someday.
I was born in 1966 and I did not receive more than 5 vaccines before my 6th birthday but the flip side to that is my mother did not work and McDonalds did not have an inside play center and the only other contact I had with other children was at church on Sundays or my older sister. I did not miss 10 zillion days of school due to infections and the only childhood disease I suffered from was chicken pocs. Our society has changed alot and I am sure we are spreading more germs than we use to so if a parent chooses not to vaccinate then I think they should be conscious about where they take their unvaccinated children for the childs own safety. We can’t have it all like we were lead to beleive in the 80’s….autism has shown us that.
So can anyone provide a link or title of any of these so called vax vs unvax studies? How about a study proving vaccines don’t cause autism?
You know what? I’m tired of people trying to play the blame game with ASD. I have personally dealt with Asperger’s Syndrome every day of my life, and yes I was vaccinated as a small child, but so what? Does that mean that the fault lies with the vaccinations? NO! Vaccinations exist because there are very complex organisms out there, diseases, viruses, call them what you will, that a child’s undeveloped immune system stands little chance of defeating or staving off. The Amish (the truly traditional ones at least) also don’t use electricity. Are you now going to say that electricity is bad? Have you ever tried to read by the light of a single candle? It’s hard to do, it hurts your eyes, it gives you a headache, and ten years later you have half the visual accuity you once did. Stop trying to put the blame on vaccines and instead maybe put it where it belongs. No matter what beliefs you have, whether you be christian or evolutionist, you must agree that all humans are related, if you trace the genetics back far enough. Maybe its just a result of a thousand generations of people mating with what are basically extremely distant cousins. Maybe a magical autism fairy is present at a child’s birth, and she decides his fate. I don’t really think that any of us who are diagnosed with any of the various symdromes and disorders that make up the group you call ASD really want other people arguing for us like we’re incapable of rational thought. We get vaccines because they keep disease at bay when we are exposed to unfamiliar environments (and to a baby, EVERYTHING is unfamiliar), and the Amish do not because typically they DON’T LEAVE THE FARM!!! If they do, its just to go into town and re-stock the pantry, or buy fabric to make their next batch of clothes and bed-stuff. My mother is a doctor in rural Missouri, and for most of my young life she made house calls in the areas Amish communities. Of course they don’t like hospitals and “New Medicine” but they always seemed to respect her knowledge of the body and its vulnerabilities. She would tell them what was wrong and they would use their own knowledge, typically, to provide a solution.
Sometimes people are just different! How dare all of you sit here and gossip back and forth and argue about the causes of ASD! Some of you are clearly of high intelligence, and maybe, rather than spending your time with this he said she said, yes it is no its not, absolutely pointless online debate, you should devote your time to supporting and forwarding research regarding ASD. Maybe then we would learn the causes. But maybe not, because you’re all clearly too opinionated on the subject to conduct and impartial and unbiased study. I guess thats why you get online and talk to other people like they don’t know anything at all. Not so pleasant when someone tells YOU what’s what, is it?
In closing, I would just like to say that as a person diagnosed with Aspergers I have tried to understand exactly what that means, and I have come to the conclusion that it seems to have been amplified by my experiences with people during my social developmental years. Yes, I already had an aversion to social situations, but so does everyone in the very beginning. I had two older brothers, and they are the only two people in my entire life to have still treated me as a normal person. For that I love them both dearly, even though it means that I got the crap kicked out of me every day of my life until they moved away. I have noticed, also, that with extremely high intelligence there are always mental issues of one sort or another, and I believe that Aspergers is simply the price I must pay for having been born with–not to toot my own horn or anything–an extremely high level of intelligence.
In truth, I just want to be left alone to do my own thing, which is exactly what every other person I have met with Aspergers wants. So do us a favor? Stop feeling bad for us, because we don’t need your pity. Stop treating us special because we don’t need that either. All we have ever wanted or needed was understanding and patience from those around us. Simple needs that seem to be the same exact thing everybody else needs. To be allowed to bear what fruit we will, instead of being asked to grow bananas instead of apples, or figs instead of oranges. I do apologize for the overall tone of this comment, and for the abrasive nature of my personality, but I really don’t care what you think of me so long as you understand that most of us with various forms of ASD are not handicapped, we’re not special, we’re just different. Stop bothering us all the time, let us read our books and if we want to make a friend then we will make a friend. The end. Game over. This concludes our broadcast day.
“AND WHY HAS THERE NEVER BEEN A SIMPLE STUDY COMPARING THE AUTISM RATE IN FULLY VACCINATED AND UNVACCINATED CHILDREN?” There have been many. Twenty four of them in five different countries. All of those studies showed the percentage of people with autism in the vaccinated group to be THE SAME as the percentage of people with autism in the non-vaccinated group. It is time to lay the “vaccine causes autism” theory to rest. It was based on fraud to start with. It is a pity that so much money and effort and is spent on study after study about vaccines instead of looking for what actually causes autism and what therapies can help.
It is a great disservice to go around all alarmist, telling people not to vaccinate their children. Have you ever had mumps? Whooping cough? TB? More and more children are getting (and sometimes dying of) these preventable diseases because of the vaccine alarmists. Your neighbor’s family decides not to vaccinate against whooping cough. They catch it and are sick, but they get through it. Your baby, however, is too young to be vaccinated, catches the disease from the neighbors, and dies–gasping for breath. We don’t pee on the sidewalk and we do get vaccines–not just to protect ourselves but because it’s the right thing to do in a civil society.
I wish the vaccine alarmist would go chase another conspiracy theory that would cause less damage to society. Go look for Elvis or something.
It is the vaccines. They are ineffective and dangerous. Natural immunity works. The Amish do not vaccinate; and they have no Autism.
My son is autistic. He will be four years old in March. He is the youngest of six children and the only one who has autism. Yet of all my children, he is the only one that DID NOT get his vaccines on schedule. His state medicaid was canceled when he was one, the last immunization he got was at 6 months (until after the developmental delays were well documented and he began the formal autism evaluation. He was going to be attending the Early Childhood Special Education preschool and that required he be immunized.) The first tell tale signs that something wasn’t normal with him began to emerge the same age they do in most children with ASD, about 14 or 15 months. Looking back, now that I know what the signs are, he showed many others since birth. I just thought he was an unhappy baby when he would cry and wouldn’t be soothed, and when he was swaddled as a newborn, you’d think he was being tortured by the screams. I assumed colic… Could it have been a sensory overload? I know that can happen in NT babies, so why wouldn’t it happen more so in autie babies? He wasn’t atypical as far as his development goes, at least early on. He was ahead of the curve for a lot of things. He was crawling at 4 months, standing at 5 months, walking at 8 months and he began to use small words at 9 months old. after his first birthday, gradually over the next few months, he lost his ability to say those words and reverted to babble, stopped making and keeping eye contact and would prefer solitary play. I look back on videos of him now and see moments when he is clearly stimming. Nothing classic like hand flapping, but looking at things from the side of his eyes and moving his hands together in front of his eyes. He also would spin objects and himself regularly. Things became much more pronounced when he reached the age he should have been talking and he just wouldn’t, or couldn’t. By age 2 and a half we knew he needed to get evaluated. The same age that most other children would have received their MMR vaccines, he didn’t, yet he still developed the signs, right on schedule. You can’t tell me vaccines cause autism. If that were the case, shouldn’t we all be autistic?
There was no such thing as Autism before they came out with vaccines. Around 1930 when they started putting mercury in the vaccines the rate of Autism was very low. 1 in 2000 children. The more vaccines they add to the rigimen the higher the rate of Autism.More vaccines means more mercury. I have watched it grow from 1 in 2000 to 1 in 500 and now, we have all these new vaccines, like hepatitis, flu shot for infants, the list goes on, the rate of Autism is now at 1 in 110. That is unacceptable. Women in their 40s are affraid of the 1 in 200 risk of having a Downs Syndrome child, but we are not affraid to vaccinate our children with a 1 in 110 risk of them getting Autism? The whole thing is ludacrius. Vaccines are legal child abuse. You can put me in jail or cut my head off before I will ever allow anybody to stick my child full of a bunch of poison. Come on people. We were all born with God given intuition. Please don’t try to convince yourself that your gut feeling not to do it is lying to you. It’s just so obvious. i will admit that I went against my gut feeling with ,my 2 oldest kids. They are 20 and 18 now. Back then there were not 50 vaccines before kindergarden and I still had a bad feeling. No, my daughters do not have autism, but they are not nearly as healthy as the little ones who did not ever get a shot. And one does have ADHD. That’s another problem with the vaccines, is them causing ADHD. So, one out of 2 of my kids that got vaccinated came out ok. I have to live with myself is all I can say. If only I would not have done that to my 2 oldest daughters. Once again parents, please just listen to your gut and not the doctors who get big money for pushing these vaccines. Infact if a doctor does not offer your child the vaccines they could lose their license to practice medicine. That’s the reality of it. I had a doctor tell me, you have made the right decision not to vaccinate, but he also said, please never tell anybody I told you this, he went on to say that he could lose his license to practice medicine. He also told me that he does not vaccinate his own kids but that , that was a secret too. I live in California. I don’t know what the laws are in other states. But here we just have to sign a waiver to get them into school without the vaccines. I have 5 kids and 2 grandkids so I have seen the drastic difference between vaccinating and not. By the way, my grandkids are not vaccinated either. Pia Baroni in California
Why weren’t there parents on this show who saw their normally progressing children suddenly and dramatically descend into autism after routine vaccinations?
Why wasn’t Hannah Poling mentioned? She’s the young GA girl who regressed into autism following routine vaccinations and whose case in federal Vaccine Court was conceded by HHS.
Why doesn’t anyone ask Ari Brown why neither the CDC nor the AAP has ever called autism A CRISIS? Something affecting one percent of our children and almost two percent of boys is, at best,
only a “serious health care concern” by these health experts.
AND WHY HAS THERE NEVER BEEN A SIMPLE STUDY COMPARING THE AUTISM RATE IN FULLY VACCINATED AND UNVACCINATED CHILDREN?
Dr. Lazar seems to pretend that this study has been done, but in truth no official has ever called for such a study. We need to demand this research.
What are health officials afraid of?
So many important comments were made.
The mother with THREE CHILDREN WITH AUTISM WHO WORRIES ABOUT WHAT WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER SHE’S GONE.
All the doctors in white coats can’t tell a mother how to prevent autism. And that simple fact should make autism a national health emergency.
Anne Dachel
Media editor: Age of Autism
Antivaxx activists can’t seem to understand that the antivaxx movement, to paraphrase Seth Mnookin (author of The Panic Virus): “wasn’t built on a house of cards; there were no cards there to begin with.”
Four false thread motivated the modern antivaxx movement. (1) DTP caused encephalitis—but it did not, and alleged vaccine reactions were in fact due to genetically-determined neuronal defects that produced the same clinical course whether or not the seizures happened to present in proximity to vaccination; (2) parental recall of alleged regression following vaccination–except that new, prospective studies of children AS they develop the signs of autism show that parents clearly miss the subtle, early signs and so suggest that when they finally notice a change that change must be due to something that actually occurred months or years after the first signs could have been detected; (3) in Wakefield’s words, “MMR immunization is a major determinant of the apparent … increase in rates of autism”–except that Wakefield’s work has been completely repudiated, and is now known to be not merely wrong, but, in the views of the editors of the British Medical Journal, also fraudulent; (4) although US activists suggested that the prevalence of ASD increased in the US as exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines increased, they ignored the similar increase in ASD prevalence in the UK which occurred although no thimerosal-containing vaccines had been added to the UK pediatric vaccine schedule since the 1950s, and recent evidence proves that dramatic decreases in exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines have been followed in subsequent years by dramatic INCREASES in ASD prevalence, as noted in several studies including the 2010 study of all children in a single Montreal school district, in which ASD continued to increase among children born as much as six years after thimerosal use was curtailed.
Bill Gates is right: antivaxx activists are hurting children.
I understand that evidence shows no link between vaccines and autism, but how are these studies actually preformed? When so many shots are given to very young children, so close together, how does anyone know for sure that one child’s immune system may not be able to handle so many, so soon. As adults, our mature immune system can be overloaded, and we can suffer consequences from that. These babies don’t even have a fully developed immune system yet. I think there should be more credit given to the theory that just maybe a high amount of vaccines could be a “trigger” for some children. It should also be common sense to say that if there is no definitive answer for the cause, than you can’t truly rule out anything including vaccines no matter how many studies are done. Let’s also not forget that many times in the past studies were done to prove certain drugs and procedures were deemed totally safe. Not until years later, after affecting many people/children they were proved to be unsafe.