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Autism: An
Epidemic is Finally Acknowledged
James Ottar Grundvig, The Epoch Times, December 30, 2005
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The year 2005
will be a year to remember in the autism epidemic: The debate
came to a head between parents of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)
children and the federal government, which has long denied an
autism epidemic exists.
The ebb and flow has turned in the favor of these long-neglected
children, who today number well over one million in the United
States alone. Governmental agencies in charge of children's
health and the pediatric-psychiatry-pharmaceutical axis had
erected a wall to protect their errant policies regarding baby
vaccinations. In 2005 that wall began to shows signs of
cracking.
Turning Points
The turning point came not as a single event, but a timely
confluence of several streams. In April, New York Times
contributing writer, David Kirby, came out with the book
"Evidence of Harm" that tied the increase in vaccines to the
rise in autism. Others, like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and radio
show host Don Imus drove the vaccines-mercury-autism debate home
last summer. The efforts of these high-profile individuals
combined with those of autism not-for-profit organizations and
parents like myself—who have filed a deluge of vaccine-injury
cases on behalf of their children in the "vaccine court" created
in 1986 by Congress—to help remove the shadow of ignorance from
autism. The prevailing hypothesis that autism is a psychological
disease rooted solely in genetics was debunked.
In 2005 Iowa and California became the first states to ban
thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative used in many baby
vaccines. For a long time, most parents of ASD kids have
suspected that thimerosal was the major culprit in the sharp
rise of autism cases, particularly the regressive form of the
disorder. New York State jumped into the act by passing a law
that will ban thimerosal from vaccines. The only problem: the
law won't go into affect until 2009. Better late than never. I
suspect those states, which will undoubtedly be followed by
others in the coming years, realized that with the spike in
autism comes a spike in costs for special education and
healthcare that has placed an enormous burden on the tax
coffers. Yet none of those states' actions against thimerosal
would have been necessary if the federal government, namely the
CDC and FDA, had acted in 1999.
Where Has the Federal Government Been?
Seven years ago, those agencies were warned, informed, and had
ample opportunity to ban the known neurological toxin, but
failed to do so. Because of their inaction, tens of thousands of
babies born since 2000, including my son, won a most unfortunate
lottery. America's ASD children were given vaccines with just
enough thimerosal to shutdown their ability to filter out heavy
metals, while simultaneously poisoning their brains and central
nervous systems.
Instead, the CDC suggested to the pharmaceutical companies, like
Merck (maker of the hepatitis B "birth dose" vaccine) and Eli
Lilly (grandfather of thimerosal, invented in the 1920s), to
remove gradually this known toxin from vaccines. Of course,
Merck & Co.'s suppression of the bad reports on the painkiller
Vioxx, and subsequent attempts to keep Vioxx out of the courts
and the press, provides an example of how Big Pharma can't be
trusted. And the CDC's actions on thimerosal suggested the
government might be too close sometimes to that industry.
So it came as a shock this December to learn that ASD children
were receiving an early holiday present, gift wrapped by the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Although barely
covered in the news, the NIMH finally admitted that autism is an
epidemic. And genetics alone can't cause epidemics, since genes
only mutate from one generation to the next. The cause for the
epidemic might still be an issue, but such a revelation in the
wake of all those denials is the jump-start that is needed to
make other guardians of our healthcare system look at the very
least foolish, and at the worst promoters of terrible
propaganda.
An Opportunity for Change
How should the Pediatric Association of America, which continues
to state that vaccines are safe, take this news? And what about
the legions of psychiatrists and psychologists who have long
sold the mantra that there wasn't an epidemic, only people who
were not properly trained in the past to diagnose autism in
children? What do I think? They should be ashamed of themselves
for choosing to protect vaccines over the health of children.
I grew up in a small town in Westchester County, north of New
York City. In the 1960s, there were no children on the spectrum
there, and that was for kindergarten through 12th grade. In the
past year I learned that beside myself, three other students
within two grades of my own (the average grade size was 120 kids
per class) have ASD children. For me, nothing has been more
powerful than that fact. All the denials, disinformation, and
twisting of numbers of the amount of thimerosal in a given
vaccine couldn't cloud the truth. Autism is an epidemic.
For the New Year, there will still be people, companies and
agencies that deny there is an epidemic, let alone one caused by
the over-use of vaccinations. Some are ignorant; while many will
do anything to protect the status quo, due to the financial
windfall that the twenty-plus vaccines given to each newborn
baby within its first two years brings to the vaccine-makers.
Now is time for the CDC, FDA, the White House, and our
congressmen and senators to join the NIMH and admit that autism
is an epidemic. It is time for the news media, which have too
often under-reported this plague of the twenty-first century, to
do the same. Then maybe the frontline defenders of
children—pediatricians and child psychologist—can come clean and
join in chorus with the parents. That would be an enormous first
step in defeating autism.
Until that day, there will be an epidemic. And it's not going
away until those in charge of the American healthcare system
admit they have a crisis on its hand.
Its name is autism.
James Ottar Grundvig lives and works in New York City. He is
the father of an autistic child.
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