Hello Again Everybody

   Finally, some great news for our kids here in PA. who have autism. Our congressmen and women in this state are taking a lead and doing something to help these families. It is time to say Thank You for a job well done. I have sent my letter of Thanks. I hope you will too.

Forwarded from our friends at Thoughtful House

An Opportunity to Support Dr. Andy Wakefield

The Austin American Statesman, the only daily newspaper in Austin, has run a disparaging story on Dr. Wakefield in yesterday’s paper.

“Austin Autism Researcher is Investigated: Man behind discredited study on autism and vaccines now runs Austin center for autistic children”

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/07/17/0717wakefield.html

This is another in a long line of attacks that ignores the facts and relies on recycled propaganda. We want to send a message to the Statesman that this is a poor attempt at telling this complicated story and they owe their readership and the autism community something more. This story is full of inflammatory language, misquotes and mistakes and clearly calls in to question the nature, quality, and validity of the work we do here at Thoughtful House.  It is vital to our efforts that this publication be told the truth and set the record straight.

Please send a brief email to the reporter and her editor letting her know your thoughts.

Send your email to:

maroser@statesman.com; dharmon@statesman.com; roppel@statesman.com

You can include any/all of the following:

• A brief version of your child’s story
• It is incorrect to say that that Dr. Wakefield’s first study was discredited and renounced. The only retraction was a retraction of the interpretation that the press made following the release of the study. It had nothing to do with the facts in the paper.
• Dr. Wakefield’s work has been replicated and supported by subsequent, peer-reviewed publications by other researchers
• A statement about what Dr. Wakefield’s work means to you and your family
• A request for a retraction or an article clarifying these inflammatory remarks

OR if you do not have time but would still like to support Dr. Wakefield, you may fill in, cut and paste and send the following message:

To Mary Ann Roser

My name is ______ and I have a _________ year old child that has been diagnosed with ____________. Your story regarding Dr. Wakefield was full of inaccuracies and innuendos that are an injustice to the families affected by autism spectrum disorders. There is a significant amount of peer-reviewed, published literature that supports his work. Many of the inaccuracies you reported are recycled, inaccurate facts that have been perpetuated through a long line of regurgitated stories. Trust and responsibility are crucial in journalism, something that seems to have been lost here. You owe the community you report for to tell an honest story, even if it is a complicated one.

Organizations that care for children with ASD, particularly those that actually listen and address real medical concerns, should be applauded. Dr. Wakefield, and all of his colleagues at Thoughtful House, should be given credit for taking care of children that others left to languish in pain.

If you are going to write a story, you should at least take the time to understand what you are saying.

Sincerely,

Your name

Think Autism. Think Cure. ^TM

Hello Everybody

  Today is a sad day indeed ,for the advocacy of autism. As you will see in the following article, we are losing perhaps our best ever, investigative journalist. I do not know of anyone who has done more research on the reality of autism. Not nessesarily from a scientifically approved methodology but, from the standpoint of those who suffer with autism and those who do not.

   I ask you to join me in this farewell to a man who stood above the rest in regard to honesty and integrity.He has opened many doors for us. Now it is time for us to go and see what is on the other side.

By DAN OLMSTED
UPI Senior Editor
WASHINGTON, July 18 (UPI) -- This is my 113th and final Age of Autism column. United Press International, which has been the hospitable home for this series, is restructuring, and I'm off to adventures as yet unknown -- although I intend to keep my focus on autism and related issues.

Why? Because it is the story of a lifetime.

"Autism is currently, in our view, the most important and the fastest-evolving disorder in all of medical science and promises to remain so for the foreseeable future," says Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University's school of medicine.

Most mainstream experts believe autism is a genetic disorder that's "increasing" only because of more sophisticated diagnoses. But based on my own reporting, I think autism is soaring due to environmental factors -- in the sense of something coming from the outside in -- and that genes play a mostly secondary role, perhaps creating a susceptibility to toxic exposures in certain children. As the saying goes: Genes load the gun, environment pulls the trigger.

So to me, the issues autism raises -- about the health and well-being of this and future generations, about the role that planetary pollution, chemical inventions and medical interventions may have inadvertently played in triggering it -- are so fundamental that by looking at autism, we're looking very deeply into the kind of world we want to inhabit and our children to inherit.

It is impossible to summarize all the issues I've raised in my columns, but to me, four stand out:

-- The first question I asked when I started looking at autism in late 2004 was this: What is the autism rate among never-vaccinated American children? Vaccines are the leading "environmental" suspect for many families of autistic children. So I was stunned to learn that such a study had never been done, given that it could quickly lay to rest concerns that public health authorities say are dangerously undermining confidence in childhood immunizations.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., introduced -- and just reintroduced -- a bill to force the Department of Health and Human Services to do just that (generously crediting this column for finding enough never-vaccinated children to show that such a study is indeed feasible). She calls it "common sense," and it is an example of ordinary people -- through their representatives -- telling the experts they want better answers, and fast.

Recently, such a study was in fact done with private funds. It was a $200,000 telephone survey commissioned by the advocacy group Generation Rescue that, as limited as it is scientifically, suggested a disturbing trend: Higher rates of autism in vaccinated vs. never-vaccinated U.S. children, along with similar ratios for other neurodevelopmental disorders like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

I reported the same possible association in the Amish community. That's been criticized as inherently unscientific and undercut by the fact that Amish genes may differ from the rest of us and that increasingly, the Amish do receive at least some vaccinations.

Please read The Rest Of This Article

http://www.upi.com/Consumer_Health_Daily/Reports/2007/07/18/the_age_of_autism_the_last_word/5761/

Greetings All

    As you will see in the following message from The National Autism Association, there is yet another plea for help from the Bush Whitehouse. Personally, I don't believe Mr. Bush is at all concerned about the possibilities of immunizations and vaccines being harmful to our children.l am convinced that he is much more concerned with protecting the bottom line profit margins of his corporate supporters. His entire presidency has been little more than an assult on the common people and a huge benefit to corporate America. Go ahead and write to President Bush and ask him to help our children with Autism. Then, when you are finished with that write some more letters to Nancy Pelosi and the rest of congress and demand that Bush and Cheney are removed from office.

ACTION ALERT

Please call the White House and tell them not to veto the House Labor HHS Bill which contains provisions to protect children from mercury in vaccines.  Demand that President Bush uphold his campaign promises!

Comments:  202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

For Immediate Release                                                     

Bush Set to Veto HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill Due to Provision to Remove Mercury from Infant Vaccines

SafeMinds and autism community call the White House declaration “irresponsible and dangerous.”

Washington , DC – According to the Congressional Quarterly, the White House stated on Tuesday that President Bush would veto the HHS-Labor-Education Appropriations Bill because of the cost and “objectionable provisions” such as a measure to ban the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative.

Autism advocacy groups are outraged because President Bush stated in a questionnaire during his 2004 campaign: “I support the removal of Thimerosal from vaccines on the childhood national vaccine schedule.  During a second term as President, I will continue to support increased funding to support a wide variety of research initiatives aimed at seeking definitive causes and/or triggers of autism.  It is important to note that while there are many possible theories about causes or triggers of autism, no one material as been definitely included or excluded.”

But since 2005, President Bush has steadfastly refused to issue an Executive Order banning high amounts of mercury in vaccines that would protect children and pregnant women despite repeated requests from the autism community that he uphold his campaign promise.  Under his current administration, mercury has been and will continue to be knowingly injected into the youngest of American citizens. The controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal has been linked by thousands of parents as being the cause of their children’s mercury poisoning and autism.

The flu vaccine which continues to be manufactured with mercury is recommended for all pregnant women, infants and children despite the fact that the Institute of Medicine in 2001 recommended against the policy of exposing these same sensitive groups to thimerosal containing vaccines. According to the EPA, one in every six women of childbearing age already has blood levels of mercury high enough to cause neurological damage to their unborn children due to environmental exposures alone.  “Injecting even more mercury into the bodies of pregnant women, infants and children when it is not a necessary component of vaccines is just bad medicine,” said Lyn Redwood, president of SafeMinds and parent of a mercury-injured child. “It defies logic that a flu vaccine must be disposed of as a hazardous waste if it is not used, but somehow injecting the same mercury-containing vaccine into a baby is safe.”

###

Think Autism. Think Cure.

Hello Everybody

    Here is yet another research scientist who attributes much of the autism epidemic to enviromental factors. What could be more of an enviromental factor than injecting mercury into our babies some 24 times prior to them even reaching school age.

      Here's what Dr. Bryan Jepson thought he knew about autism six years ago: that it was a rare, genetic, developmental, untreatable brain disorder. But that's the "old autism," he says.

Bryan Jepson

      Jepson, who graduated from the University of Utah School of Medicine in 1995, says what he knew about autism then he mostly learned from the movie "Rain Man." Later, in 2001, his lovable, happy 18-month-old baby began to change — to "fade away," as Jepson puts it. The toddler no longer wanted to be read to, wouldn't look his parents in the eye and liked to spin in circles in the middle of the floor.
      A child psychiatrist told Jepson and his wife, Laurie, "Prepare yourself for the time when Aaron will need to be institutionalized. Forget experimental therapies."
      Instead, Laurie Jepson took to the Internet. And before long, her husband — who categorizes himself as a "mainstream" physician — was deep in medical literature about the biochemistry of autism. Soon he was convinced that autism is a complex metabolic disease that has as much to do with the gut as it does with the brain.
      Bryan Jepson, who is now director of medical services at Thoughtful House Center for Children in Austin, Texas, is back in Utah this week to talk about his new book, "Changing the Course of Autism: A Scientific Approach for Parents and Physicians." On Saturday, he will speak at a free workshop sponsored by Porter's Hope, a Utah-based company that assists the families of children diagnosed with autism.
      "All of a sudden, there's an explosion of autistic kids," Jepson says. As recently as 1980, autism was rare, with a rate of about 1 in 5,000. Now, he says, it's 1 in 160.
      It's an epidemic, he says, "and there's no such thing as a genetic epidemic."
      At the same time, the "new autism" is less likely to show up within the first six months or year of a baby's life, and is much more likely to be "regressive," showing up at 18 months to 3 years to rob the child of previous skills — sometimes almost overnight, sometimes as a gradual decline.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,695195442,00.html