Autism

This research team from the University of British Columbia investigated the impact of aluminum exposures administered through vaccine adjuvants on the development of infant mice. They injected one group with a “high aluminum (Al)” schedule of injections designed to mimic the 2010 U.S. childhood vaccine schedule; a second group received a “Low Al” schedule based on the Scandinavian schedule; and a third group received saline injections. Relative to the saline controls: the High Al group showed elevations into adulthood in weight in males and females, with males more severely affected; the High Al group showed increased anxiety and reduced exploratory behavior into adulthood that was more severe in females; the High Al group of males showed reduced locomotor activity. The authors concluded that their “current data implicate Al injected in early postnatal life in some CNS alterations that may be relevant for a better understanding of the aetiology of ASD.”

This team of independent researchers examined the effect of thimerosal-containing neonatal hepatitis B vaccine administration on the early postnatal acquisition of reflexes in monkeys. They found that 3 survival reflexes, the root, snout and suck reflexes, showed significant delays in thimerosal-exposed monkeys compared to unexposed, with effects to a fourth survival reflex, the startle reflex, that were similar but did not reach significance. By contrast, motor (grasping and clasping) and sensorimotor (auditory and visual orientation and following) were not significantly different between the two groups. The authors noted why such survival reflexes were important, stating “Neonatal motor reflexes, also referred to as “survival” reflexes, are necessary for survival of macaques in the natural environment… If an infant primate is not able to suck, the animal is not able to obtain milk and is at risk for starvation.”

This team of independent researchers performed this pilot study as part of a larger investigation into the impact of the U.S. vaccination schedule in the period 1994-99 on primate development. The exposed animals were vaccinated with the thimerosal-containing vaccines DTaP, hepatitis B and Hib as well as the MMR II vaccine. This pilot analysis examined the difference in brain growth in 12 exposed and 4 control monkeys. They found the vaccinated monkeys had a different pattern of amygdala growth and differences in the binding capacity of opioid receptors than controls. There was also evidence of greater total brain volume in the vaccinated animals. The authors concluded their results “suggest that maturational changes in amygdala volume and the binding capacity of [11C]DPN in the amygdala was significantly altered in infant macaques receiving the vaccine schedule.”

This team of Peruvian researchers examined the effect of thimerosal exposure in hamsters exposed to 3 vaccination “visits” in doses designed to mimic the 2001 U.S. vaccination schedule. These hamsters were compared to two control groups exposed only to saline injections. The thimerosal-exposed hamsters showed reduced weight gain and reduced height compared to controls. In addition, thimerosal-exposed hamsters showed abnormal brain cell development in numerous ways, including reduced neuron density, increased neuron death, demyelinization of axons and gliosis. The authors concluded “our results…. clearly indicates [sic] the toxic nature of this substance, at the same dose and the same chronology as human immunizations.”

In a continuing program of research on thimerosal exposures in a rat model, this team of Polish researchers investigated the effect of two levels of exposure on brain cell development. Their dosage levels included a lower level chosen to approximate the amount provided to infants in many childhood vaccination schedules, while the higher level was 20-fold above that. Following administration of 4 postnatal thimerosal injections, the researchers followed the rats into adulthood, or 8 weeks of development. They observed numerous neuropathological changes in the young adult rats at both exposure levels, including neuronal degeneration, the presence of “dark neurons” and the atrophy of glial cells. They also found pathological changes in blood cell development. The authors concluded that their study “provides clear evidence of neurotoxicity of pharmacologically relevant doses of [thimerosal] in developing organisms, lending further support to the hypothesis implicating mercurials in paediatric neurodevelopmental disorders.”

This team of Polish researchers investigated the effect of thimerosal administration on rat brains using a range of exposure levels, from levels similar to those seen in childhood vaccination schedules to levels 20, 120 and 250-fold higher. They found reduced levels of motor activity and exploratory behavior in rats exposed at all levels. In terms of social interactions, they found little overall difference but a pronounced difference in behavior by sex, with females showing reduced social interaction and males showing divergent patterns. They also reported changes in brain development, including reduced dopamine receptor density at the lower exposure levels. The researchers concluded “Taken together, this study documents that administration of THIM during the early postnatal period produces dose-dependent changes in rat behavior — some subtle, other robust — which include locomotor deficits, enhanced anxiety or neophobia, and impaired social interactions, accompanied by alterations in brain dopaminergic system, which persist in adult life.”

This research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing investigated the impact of thimerosal on the development of infant mice. They used a dosage schedule designed to expose these mice to up to 20 times the amount of thimerosal used in the first 4 months of the Chinese immunization schedule. They found that thimerosal-treated mice showed developmental delay, deficits in social interaction and evidence of depression. Brain cell examination showed evidence of altered neuronal development, synaptic function and endocrine function. Despite acknowledging the problem of modeling exposures ranging from 5, 10 and 20-fold higher than human exposure, they defended their methods and noted, “[t]o our knowledge, this is the first report to systematically elucidate pathways possibly involved in thimerosal-induced autistic-like behavior. Besides the alternations of neuronal development and synaptic function pathways, up-regulation of pituitary secreting hormones… reveals a possible mechanistic link between thimerosal-induced autistic like behavior and gender bias.”

This study, led by primate researchers at the University of Washington and environmental scientists at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, compared the body-wide disposition and brain distribution of total and inorganic mercury in infant monkeys exposed, respectively, to thimerosal and methylmercury. The authors’ findings suggested that the mercury from the vaccine preservative thimerosal might be more hazardous than previously thought. The reason for this is that the type of mercury in thimerosal – ethylmercury – quickly crosses the blood-brain barrier where it converts to a form of mercury that is unable to leave the brain. The result is that more than twice as much mercury remains trapped in the brain from equal doses of ethylmercury in thimerosal compared to methylmercury, the highly toxic environmental form of mercury.

This team of researchers from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University investigated the effect of thimerosal exposure on mice strains that were genetically susceptible to autoimmune disease. These mice were compared to 2 strains without autoimmune sensitivity and all mice were exposed to a series of 4 vaccination “visits” designed to mimic the 2001 U.S. childhood vaccine schedule; some mice were exposed to thimerosal only; some were exposed to DTaP and Hib vaccine components as well. The autoimmune sensitive mice were negatively affected in several ways, including delayed weight gain, reduced motor and exploratory activity, and abnormal brain cell development. The authors concluded, “These findings implicate genetic influences and maturational factors as critical determinants of postnatal thimerosal-related sequelae and highlight the importance of interactions of gene, environment, and timing in the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders.”

This team of researchers at Utah State University examined a set of immune responses in serum samples from 125 autistic children and 92 controls. They measured antibodies to the MMR-II vaccine as well as autoantibodies to myelin-based protein (MBP); all children had been vaccinated with MMR-II. The autistic serum samples showed a significantly higher level of MMR bodies than controls, over 7-fold higher in one test. Over 90% of the autistic children who tested positive for MMR antibodies also tested positive for MBP autoantibodies, suggesting an association between the MMR response and autoimmunity in the brain. The authors concluded, “we suggest that an inappropriate antibody response to MMR, specifically the measles component thereof, might be related to pathogenesis of autism.”

This team of neurosurgeons at Houston Methodist Hospital examined white blood cells (B cells) from the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) collection. Using cells from 11 families, including individuals with ASD, their non-autistic twins and siblings and comparing them to matched controls, they studied the effect of thimerosal on cell proliferation and mitochondrial function in both groups. In a subset of 8 individuals from 4 of the families, they observed a hypersensitivity to thimerosal that was absent in the controls. The authors concluded “[t]his suggests certain individuals with a mild mitochondrial defect may be highly susceptible to mitochondrial specific toxins like the vaccine preservative thimerosal.”

This independent research team, led by a Harvard Medical School professor, examined mercury content alongside markers of oxidative stress in the cerebellar tissue of 9 autistic and 10 control individuals. They found that the oxidative stress marker 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) was significantly elevated in autistic brains by 68.9%. They also found a highly significant association between cerebellar mercury and 3-NT levels. Mercury levels were highly variable, so the 68.2% increase in autistic mercury levels was not statistically significant. The authors concluded that their “preliminary data suggest a need for more extensive studies of oxidative stress, its relationship to the environmental factors and its possible attenuation by antioxidants in autism.”

This independent research team, including a researcher who first measured aluminum content in autism brain tissue, obtained brain tissue from 20 controls without recognizable neurodegenerative disease. They compared aluminum content in the brain tissue of these controls with tissue data from subjects with Alzheimer’s disease, ASD and multiple sclerosis. All disease groups had significantly higher brain aluminum content than controls. The authors conclude “[t]he data for the control group demonstrate that high content of brain aluminium is not an inevitability of living in the aluminium age.”

This research team based primarily at Keele University in the U.K. measured for the first time the aluminum content of brain tissue from donors with autism. The 5 tissue donors ranged in age from 15 to 50 years of age and included 4 males and 1 female. All 5 donors had average aluminum content in each measured lobe of the brain that was “towards the higher end of all previous (historical) measurements of brain aluminum content,” including some of the highest values ever measured, the highest of which was in the 15-year-old male. The authors concluded “[w]e have made the first measurements of aluminium in brain tissue in ASD and we have shown that the brain aluminium content is extraordinarily high.”

This team of independent researchers undertook a critical review of methodological issues in six commonly cited studies of thimerosal and autism. They identify five methodological flaws across the six studies, including 1) overmatching, a statistical error when data sets are excessively divided into strata that are correlated with the toxicant of interest, like thimerosal exposure; 2) withholding meaningful information about data problems from review of the final publication; 3) instituting undisclosed changes in entry criteria for ecological patient samples; 4) using modeling variables such as “person-years” rather than straightforward measures of exposure levels; and 5) using non-U.S. vaccination schedules to draw conclusions about U.S. vaccination exposures. The authors conclude “these six studies are in sharp contrast to research conducted by independent researchers over the past 75+ years that have consistently found Thimerosal to be harmful.”

This team of researchers from Shahrekord University in Iran undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that evaluated the concentration of mercury in tissues of ASD patients and controls. They selected 44 studies that compared mercury levels in whole blood, red blood cells, brain, hair, and urine of autistic subjects and controls. They found evidence of significantly elevated mercury levels in whole blood, red blood cells and the brain tissue in ASD subjects compared to healthy subjects. By contrast, they found that hair levels of mercury were significantly lower in ASD subjects than controls, while urinary levels were not significantly different. The authors concluded that “mercury is an important causal factor in the etiology of ASD….[and] that the detoxification and excretory mechanisms are impaired in ASD patients which lead to accumulation of mercury in the body.”

A team of researchers from South Korea, using data from the Mothers and Children’s Environmental Health (MOCEH) project, analyzed 458 mother-child pairs from 2006 to 2012 to investigate the association between autistic behaviors at 5 years of age and blood mercury levels at early stages of development: from early pregnancy to 3 years of age. The MOCEH data didn’t distinguish between the sources (environmental, dietary or vaccination) or forms (methyl or ethyl) of the mercury that was present in the blood, but the MOCEH survey data included as part of its design, diet, fish consumption and medical history. The authors “found that blood mercury levels at late pregnancy and early childhood were associated with more autistic behaviors in children at 5 years of age.”

One of the test cases in the OAP was settled and removed from the process. She was subsequently identified as Hannah Poling, the daughter of Dr. Jon Poling, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins. Writing several years prior to the settlement, a research team including an expert witness who testified for HHS in the OAP, Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, made a clear connection between vaccine injury and autistic regression along with a more nuanced causation theory. “Autistic spectrum disorders can be associated with mitochondrial dysfunction…. We describe a female patient in whom developmental regression and autism followed normal development and subtle laboratory abnormalities suggesting mitochondrial dysfunction led to a diagnostic muscle biopsy…. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.”

This independent author team investigated published cases where the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) had made awards based on a finding of vaccine injury and brain injury. They describe the Omnibus Autism Proceeding (OAP), in which the Special Masters of the Federal Court of Claims rejected six test cases and two theories of causation, thereby rejecting the injury claims of close to 5,000 individuals with autism. Their research efforts uncovered numerous cases that had been compensated outside the OAP. The authors noted that “this preliminary study suggests that the VICP has been compensating cases of vaccine-induced encephalopathy and residual seizure disorder associated with autism since the inception of the program. Through this preliminary study, the authors have found eighty-three cases of autism among those compensated for vaccine-induced brain damage. This finding raises fundamental questions about the integrity, transparency, and fairness of this forum.”

This author, a Professor of Economics and Finance at Baruch College at the City University of New York, examines the association between ASD prevalence and vaccine uptake in each of the 50 U.S. states. Other disabilities such as Speech/Language Impairment (SLI) were also included. She calculated autism and SLI prevalence rates from 2001-2007 by state (using Department of Education data) and vaccine uptake by state (using CDC surveys of vaccine uptake from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)). The author concluded “that if a given U.S. state has a 1% higher vaccination rate than another U.S. state, then the state with the higher vaccination rate might have, on average, a 1.7% higher prevalence of autism or speech disorders.”

This independent research team examined the association between calculated “change points” in ASD prevalence in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Denmark and the introduction of vaccines manufactured using human fetal cell lines, including MMR II, hepatitis A and varicella vaccines. Autism prevalence for the U.S. came from CDDS and IDEA data, and from published studies for the U.K. Australia and Denmark. The authors conclude “Autistic disorder change points years are coincident with introduction of vaccines manufactured using human fetal cell lines, containing fetal and retroviral contaminants, into childhood vaccine regimens.”

This author, an environmental scientist at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, compared temporal trends in U.S. autism prevalence to measurable exposure trends in the U.S. of a range of known environmental toxicants. She compared these toxicant trends to autism time trends from the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) and state level data collected for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), using two methods to track autism prevalence by year of birth. Many common toxicants, such as lead, PCBs, some pesticides, vehicular emissions and air pollution were declining while autism prevalence was increasing. The author noted that “among the suspected toxins surveyed, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, aluminum [vaccine] adjuvants, and the herbicide glyphosate have increasing trends that correlate positively to the rise in autism.”

This author team from the Neural Dynamics Research Group at the University of British Columbia reviewed the potential toxicity of aluminum (Al) in humans through a variety of exposure sources, including food, cosmetics, water and vaccines. They focus on the potential role of Al adjuvants in neurological disorders such as ALS, Alzheimer’s disease and ASD. With respect to ASD, the authors argue that: 1) children from countries with the highest ASD prevalence appear to have the highest exposure to Al from vaccines; 2) the increase in exposure to Al adjuvants correlates with the increase in ASD prevalence in the United States; and 3) a significant correlation exists between the amounts of Al administered to preschool children and the current prevalence of ASD in seven Western countries. Applying the Bradford Hill criteria, the authors conclude “the correlation between Al in vaccines and ASD may be causal.”

This team from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook used cross-sectional data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to examine the association between hepatitis B vaccination of newborn males and autism. They found that boys vaccinated at birth had a threefold higher risk of autism compared to boys never vaccinated or vaccinated after the first month of life. The autism risk was higher in non-white boys. The authors concluded “[o]ur findings do not suggest that the risks of autism outweigh the benefits of vaccination; however, future research into hepatitis B vaccination scheduling is warranted.”

This team from the Health Sciences Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook used cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to examine the association between the receipt of the triple series of hepatitis B vaccines and developmental disability, “proxied by parental report that their child receives early intervention or special education services (EIS).” Although not specifically targeting autism, the authors stated that “autism merits consideration because it is a developmental disorder with recent notable impacts on EIS.” They found that the odds of receiving EIS were approximately nine times as great for vaccinated as for unvaccinated boys.

This author reports on her clinical experience in a general pediatric practice in Virginia. Her practice was established in 2000 to incorporate “strategies…that were designed to minimize potentially modifiable risks of developing autism,” including modified vaccination schedules. Her research on her clinical records shows that “[o]ut of 294 general pediatrics patients followed since 2005 there were zero new cases of autism.” She contrasts that positive outcome with a contemporaneous autism rate of 1 in 50 in the broader U.S. population. The author concludes that “it is important to consider implementing strategies in primary care practice that could potentially modify environmental factors or affect the timing of environmental triggers contributing to autism.”

These authors surveyed patients in 3 medical practices across the U.S. to compare health outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated children born between 1998 and 2016. They obtained a convenience sample of 1,565 children. Fully vaccinated children had a 5 times higher risk of autism than unvaccinated children. More broadly, children who were “vaccinated and not breastfed” or “vaccinated and delivered via cesarean section” had the highest rates of adverse health outcomes.

These authors used Medicaid data from the State of Florida to assess the impact of vaccination on the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including ASDs. Their analysis included 47,155 children and showed that 1) vaccination was associated with 3.3 times increased risk for all measured NDDs and 2.7 times increased risk for an ASD, 2) preterm birth was not associated with increased risk of NDDs in unvaccinated children and 3) children with 11 or more vaccine visits had 4.4 times the risk of ASDs than those with no visits for vaccination. The authors concluded their study results “add to a growing body of evidence raising concerns about the safety of the current vaccination schedule and its possible contribution to rising rates of neurodevelopmental disorders.”

In the first major study of its kind, a group of researchers from the School of Public Health at Jackson State University working in partnership with the National Home Education Research Institute surveyed home schooling families in 4 states (Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Oregon) to compare health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. They obtained “a convenience sample” of 666 children and found a 4.2 times higher risk of ASD in unvaccinated children as compared to vaccinated children. Furthermore, vaccinated children were 30 times more likely to have allergic rhinitis, 5.2 times more likely to have a neurodevelopmental disorder and 2.4 times more likely to have a chronic health condition. By contrast, vaccinated children were 90% less likely to contract rubella, 70% less likely to contract pertussis and 74% less likely to contract varicella. The authors emphasized that their analysis was a “pilot study” and called for more research.

In a case series of 9 children with ASD, the authors found evidence for increased thimerosal in 8 of them, while the 9th was diagnosed with a genetic disorder. The remaining 8 all regressed after a period of normal development. All of the cases of regressive ASD excreted significant amounts of mercury in urine, feces and/or hair after a chelation challenge and had no known significant mercury exposure except from thimerosal-containing vaccines and Rho(D)-immune globulin preparations. The authors also found a significant dose-response relationship between the severity of the regressive ASDs observed and the total mercury dose children received.