By Neil Z. Miller
http://www.thinktwice.com/xpeditions/autism.htm
In 1943 the well known child psychiatrist, Leo Kanner, announced
his discovery of eleven cases of a new mental disorder. He noted
that "the condition differs markedly and uniquely from anything reported
so far..."(1) This condition soon became known as autism.
What is autism?
Autism (alternately referred to as autistic disorder, childhood
disintegrative disorder, or pervasive developmental disorder) is a
complex developmental disability a neurological derangement that affects
the functioning of the brain. This condition usually appears during
the first three years of life, and often strikes following an early childhood
of apparently normal development. Mental and social regression is
not uncommon. Although the severity of the affliction varies from child
to child, the following symptoms are typical: inadequate verbal and
social skills, impaired speech, repetition of words, bizarre or repetitive
behavior patterns, uncontrollable head-banging; screaming fits, arm
flapping, little or no interest in human contact, unresponsiveness to
parents and other people, extreme resistance to minor changes
in the home environment, self-destructive behavior, hypersensitivity
to sensory stimuli, and an inability to care for oneself.(2-4)
What causes autism?
When the first cases of autism began to appear in the 1940s,
researchers were puzzled by the high incidence of autistic children
being born into well-educated families. Over 90 percent of the parents
were high-school graduates. Nearly three-fourths of the fathers and
one-half of the mothers had graduated from college. Many had professional
careers. As a result, scientists unsuccessfully tried to link autism
to genetic factors in the upper class populations.(5) Meanwhile,
psychiatrists, unaware of the neurological basis of the illness, sought
psychological explanations. The mother was often accused of not providing
an emotionally secure home environment, and was presumed to be the cause
of her afflicted child's ailment.(6,7)
Today, researchers have discounted these earlier notions but still
do not have an adequate explanation. Although autism has been linked
to biological and neurological differences in the brain, and genetic factors
appear to play a role in the etiology of this disease, no single
cause has been identified.(8) However, recent dramatic increases in the
number of children stricken with this debilitating ailment coincident
with the introduction of new vaccines may shed some light on this medical
mystery.
How common is autism?
According to several researchers who investigated Kanner's claims,
autism was extremely rare prior to 1943.(9) By the 1980s, over 4500
new cases were being reported every year in the United States alone.(10)
By 1997, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was reporting
that 1 of every 500 children is autistic.(11) Today, autism is a raging
epidemic; in some parts of the country 1 of every 150 children is
permanently damaged by this devastating disease.(12)
Autism and the pertussis vaccine:
The first cases of autism in the United States occurred at a
time shortly after the pertussis vaccine became available. When the
pertussis vaccine was initially introduced (during the late 1930s), only
the rich and educated parents who sought the very best for their
children, and who could afford a private doctor, were in a position to
request the newest medical advancements. (Remember how researchers
were puzzled by the high incidence of autistic children being born into
well-educated and "upper class" families.) However, by the 1960s
and 1970s parents all over the country, within every educational and income
level, were seeking help for their autistic children. Socioeconomic
disparities began to disappear during this period. Today, autism is
evenly distributed among all social classes and ethnic groups.(13) Once
again this puzzled the researchers. Many simply concluded that earlier
studies were flawed. But there is an explanation. Free vaccinations at
public health clinics didn't yet exist in the 1940s and 1950s. Compulsory
vaccination programs were still on the horizon. And as vaccine programs
grew, parents from across the socioeconomic spectrum gained equal
access to them. The growing number of children suffering from this new
illness directly coincided with the growing popularity of the mandated
vaccination programs during these same years. Autistic children were
now being discovered within every kind of family, and in dreadfully greater
numbers than ever before imagined.(14)
The same correlations between autism and childhood vaccination
programs may be found in other countries as well. In Japan, the first
autistic child was diagnosed in 1945.(15) When the United States
ended the war and occupied Japan, a mandatory vaccination program
was established. Hundreds of new cases of autism were being diagnosed annually
in Japanese children shortly thereafter.(16)
Europe began promoting the pertussis vaccine in the 1950s; the
first cases of autism began to appear there in the same decade. In
England the pertussis vaccine wasn't promoted on a large scale until the
late1950s. Shortly thereafter, in 1962, the National Society for
Autistic Children in Britain was established.(17)
This article was excerpted from Vaccine Reactions: The Hidden
Epidemic, a soon-to-be-published book documenting many of the
dangers associated with mandatory vaccines. Expected date of availability:
Spring 2002. For more information about vaccines, please visit the
Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute http://www.thinktwice.com
or the Thinktwice Vaccine Bookshelf. http://www.thinktwice.com/vaccine.htm
References to this article will be published in the original book.
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