International scientists have found autism's cause. What will Americans do?
Five clear, replicable, and related discoveries explaining how autism is triggered have formed an undeniably clear picture of autism’s causation.
STAFFORDSHIRE, England —Dr. Chris Exley of Keele University in England and his colleagues published a paper that for the first time ever looked at the brain tissue of subjects with autism to determine the level of aluminum (note: they spell “aluminum” as “aluminium” in the United Kingdom) found within their brain tissue. For anyone trying to convince the world that “the science is settled and vaccines don’t cause autism,” the study’s findings are deeply contradictory to that statement. In a blog post written by Professor Exley on the day his study was published, he explained the groundbreaking results:
“…while the aluminium content of each of the 5 brains [of people with autism] was shockingly high it was the location of the aluminium in the brain tissue which served as the standout observation…The new evidence strongly suggests that aluminium is entering the brain in ASD [autism spectrum disorders] via pro-inflammatory cells which have become loaded up with aluminium in the blood and/or lymph, much as has been demonstrated for monocytes at injection sites for vaccines including aluminium adjuvants.”
Dr. Exley’s quote includes a reference to “monocytes at injection sites” and the fact that the interaction between these monocytes and aluminum has been demonstrated in previous published science. I know, that sounds pretty technical, but bear with me. A “monocyte” is a type of white blood cell, of which one form of monocyte is a “macrophage.” A macrophage can be thought of as the garbage man of the immune system, eating up foreign substances, cell debris, etc. As you will see in a moment, macrophages appear to be playing a critical and devastating role in triggering autism, serving to escort man-made aluminum injected from a vaccine directly into the brain, where it can disrupt brain development and trigger autism.
Dr. Exley’s study — “Aluminium in brain tissue and autism” — is arguably the final piece of a puzzle that first started to come together in 2004, and picked up steam after 2010, that has dramatically furthered the scientific understanding of exactly how a vaccine can trigger autism. This timeline is critical to recognize, because the Vaccine Court in the United States dismissed the vaccine-autism hypothesis in 2009, long before most of what I’m about to explain even existed. Science is a continuum, an emergence of truth through many different studies that often have to be pieced together before the picture becomes clear. And, scientific progress can sometimes move slowly until that moment when an emerging truth presents itself in such a way that it can no longer be denied. In my opinion, Dr. Exley’s study provided the only data missing from an airtight explanation of what happened to my son and so many other children, and provided all the doubters with the “biological plausibility” of how, exactly, a vaccine injected into a baby’s shoulder can trigger autism.
For Americans, the race to discover what’s causing all this autism will likely be won on foreign shores. As you’ll soon see, ALL of the science explaining how autism can be caused has come from other countries, even though a Caltech scientist pushed the first domino way back in 2006.
Why is aluminum in vaccines at all?
Aluminum is a critical component of most vaccines given to children. It serves as an “adjuvant” meaning the aluminum serves to “wake up” the immune system, provoking the immune system to recognize the “antigen” within the vaccine for whatever disease the vaccine serves to protect against. The amount of aluminum in vaccines given to children skyrocketed beginning in the early 1990s for two reasons: 1), more vaccines were added to the children’s vaccine schedule and, 2), the vaccination rate for all vaccines given to children rose (from 50–60% of children vaccinated in the mid-1980s to over 90% today). A child in the mid-1980s would have received 1,250 micrograms of aluminum from their vaccines by their 18-month birthday if they were fully vaccinated. Today, that number is 4,925 micrograms, a near-quadrupling of total aluminum. You can read more about this in an excellent study published by Neil Miller, here’s an image from the study:
Mystifyingly, aluminum has never experienced biological testing to consider its safety for being injected into babies, having been “grandfathered” into our modern safety standards. Canadian scientists Dr. Chris Shaw and Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic addressed this omission in a critical study they published in 2011 in Current Medicinal Chemistry titled, “Aluminum Vaccine Adjuvants: Are they Safe?” They wrote:
“Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science’s understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences.”
ICAN decided to test the CDC and NIH’s ability to produce any studies to show the safety of vaccine adjuvant through a FOIA lawsuit, by now I’m guessing you know how that ended…read the whole article.
“CDC and NIH’s responses to ICAN’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding aluminum adjuvant reveal a stunning admission: they do not have a single study to support the safety of recommending repeated injection of this cyto- and-neuro toxic substance as part of the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule.”
Ground zero at Caltech
When Caltech scientist Dr. Paul Patterson passed away in 2014, I had little appreciation that he had triggered a chain of events over the course of his career that may now provide a clear and unambiguous explanation of how and why my son developed autism back in 2004. Knowing exactly how my son’s autism was caused is incredibly important to my wife and I, because the more information we have about causation, the more chance we have to do something about it, and perhaps recover my son from an affliction now impacting 1 in 32 American kids.
What you’re about to read is the product of more than two dozen very recent peer-reviewed published scientific studies, with really no original thought by me. I’m a businessman and a father, but what follows is a “grand theory of autism” so complete and well-supported that I think it deserves the attention of every member of the autism community. When the totality of this explanation became clear to me, not only did my jaw hit the floor, but I was immediately consumed with thoughts about how this clear explanation might impact the way we treat our son’s autism, and I hope it does the same for you and perhaps your doctor as well. What I’m certain of is that this “grand theory” needs to be heavily debated, and I hope by putting it in the public realm I help move it along that path.
(I’m indebted to an anonymous scientist who runs a website called Vaccine Papers, where many of these insights came from. I will quote VP throughout this piece, referring to VP as “VP.” I highly recommend you read the totality of his website, where the explanations are far more scientific than what you will read here.)
It shouldn’t be a surprise that all of this science has been published outside the United States. I’ve listened closely to the stories of American scientists wanting to study autism and complaining that any studies that are even remotely controversial are nearly impossible to fund or get approved.
Discovery #1: “Maternal Immune Activation” can cause autism
While Dr. Patterson’s passing wasn’t something I was aware of at the time, it was certainly recognized by the scientific community, of which his obituary from Caltech explains in great detail.
Dr. Patterson’s “research focused on interactions between the nervous and immune systems — a connection that was not universally acknowledged in the early days of neuroscience”explains his obituary, “he became intrigued by epidemiological studies that had linked a severe viral or bacterial infection during pregnancy with the increased risk of a woman giving birth to a child with a neurodevelopmental disorder such as schizophrenia or autism. Patterson and his coworkers reproduced this human effect in mice using a viral mimic that triggers an infection-like immune response in the mother, producing in the offspring the core behavioral symptoms associated with autism and schizophrenia.”
In 2006, Dr. Patterson introduced his complex understanding of the interaction between the immune system and neurodevelopment through an excellent article in the Engineering & Science journal, titled Pregnancy, Immunity, Schizophrenia, and Autism. I hope you’ll take the time to read this for yourself, Dr. Patterson does a great job of explaining his discovery to the uninitiated, it’s really a seminal work. Here’s a quote":
“As we learn more about the connections between the brain and the immune system, we find that these seemingly independent networks of cells are, in fact, continually talking to each other. As an adult, the activation of your immune system causes many striking changes in your behavior — increased sleep, loss of appetite, less social interaction — and, of course, headaches. Conversely, stress in your life (as perceived by your brain) can influence immune function — the brain regulates immune organs, such as the spleen, via the autonomic nervous system. Recent evidence shows that this brain-immune conversation actually starts during the development of the embryo, where the state of the mother’s immune system can alter the growth of cells in the fetal brain. As we shall see, such alterations can lead to an increased risk of schizophrenia or autism in the offspring.”
Are you with me so far? Basically, what Dr. Patterson is saying is that if a pregnant mother gets sick (virus, bacteria) while pregnant — an event that “activates” her immune system — that activation can impact the neurodevelopment (how exactly the brain is constructed) of her fetus, potentially leading to neurological problems after birth. Dr. Patterson took this explanation a step further, explaining that the brains of people with autism reflect the immune system activation that took place, even decades later, as he cites valuable work being done at Johns Hopkins:
“There is also very striking evidence of immune dysregulation in the brain itself. Just last year, a group led by Carlos Pardo at Johns Hopkins found what they’re calling a “neural inflammation” in postmortem examination of brains of patients with autism who died between the ages of eight and 44 years. But these people weren’t infected — they died of such things as drowning or heart attacks. The study found that the microglial cells, which act as the brain’s own immune system, were activated. The study also found amazing increases of certain cytokines in the brain, and of others in the cerebro- spinal fluid. This is is a landmark paper, in my opinion. It presents the first evidence that there’s an ongoing, permanent immune-system activation in the brains of autistic people. It’s a subclinical state, because there’s no overt infection. But it’s there.”
While Dr. Pardo and colleagues were the first to find this “microglial activation” in the brain of children with autism, this finding has now been replicated many times, here’s a study from Japan in 2013 finding the same thing:
“In conclusion, the present PET measurements revealed marked activation of microglia in multiple brain regions of young adults with ASD. The results strongly support the contention that immune abnormalities contribute to the etiology of ASD.”
If you’re going to take one thing away from this section, I’d recommend an excerpt from Dr. Patterson’s quote worth memorizing:
“there’s an ongoing, permanent immune-system activation in the brains of autistic people.”
Is that what happened (and still is happening) to my son?
Further Refinement of Discovery #1: Immune Activation from the Cytokine Interleukin-6
If you’re an autism parent, you’ve probably heard the expression “cytokine storm” and half-understood what that might mean (anything with “storm” at the end of it can’t be good — what this really means is a chronic, slow burn inflammation in the brain). In 2006, Dr. Patterson and his colleagues were speculating that the immune system’s cytokines might be responsible for altering the brain development of the fetus during gestation:
“Cytokines are produced by the white blood cells, and their levels in the blood increase when we get an infection…We think that maternal immune activation alters brain circuits…there’s that permanent, subclinical, altered immune state in the autistic brain — those increased cytokine levels…are they [cytokines] actually interacting with the brain in an ongoing fashion, with consequences visible in the patients’ behavior? I favor [the cytokine] hypothesis.”
Study Link HERE
Just a year after Dr. Patterson’s excellent article about Maternal Immune Activation (“MIA”), he and his colleagues produced the first study that took their understanding of cytokines to a more detailed level. Knowing that MIA was producing offspring with neurological disorders (in their mouse model), they wanted to find out what — exactly WHAT — was causing the altered brain development. They figured it was a cytokine (of which there are many), but which one? As the Patterson and his colleagues noted, “however, the mechanism by which MIA causes long-term behavioral deficits in the offspring is unknown.” That is until they discovered it:
“Here we show that the cytokine interleukin-6 (IL-6) is critical for mediating the behavioral and transcriptional changes in the offspring. A single maternal injection of IL-6 on day 12.5 of mouse pregnancy causes prepulse inhibition (PPI) and latent inhibition (LI) deficits in the adult offspring.”
In the case of the 2007 experiment, Patterson and his colleagues injected pregnant mice with a specific cytokine — interleukin-6 (“IL-6”) — and saw changes in the neurology of their offspring.
Replication of Dr. Patterson’s discovery about MIA and IL-6
Dr. Patterson’s work was groundbreaking. He tied the immune system and brain together in ways previously not recognized. Like all great new discoveries in science, Dr. Patterson’s theories have since been replicated many times. In 2012, Dr. Patterson and his colleagues produced this paper,which was more autism-specific and reached a similar conclusion:
“These results indicate that MIA yields male offspring with deficient social and communicative behavior, as well as high levels of repetitive behaviors, all of which are hallmarks of autism.”
In 2014, the M.I.N.D. Institute at UC-Davis published an important study that took Dr. Patterson’s work in mice and replicated it in monkeys. Why do monkeys matter? The study authors explained:
“Maternal infection during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia and autism in the offspring. Supporting this correlation, experimentally activating the maternal immune system during pregnancy in rodents produces offspring with abnormal brain and behavioral development. We have developed a nonhuman primate model to bridge the gap between clinical populations and rodent models of maternal immune activation (MIA).”
And, the M.I.N.D. Institute scientists saw similar results to what had been found in mice:
“In this rhesus monkey model, MIA yields offspring with abnormal repetitive behaviors, communication, and social interactions. These results extended the findings in rodent MIA models to more human-like behaviors resembling those in both autism and schizophrenia.”
There are many additional studies that support Dr. Patterson’s findings, here’s one more to make the point from Neuroscience — Brain IL-6 elevation causes neuronal circuitry imbalances and mediates autism-like behaviors — published in 2012:
“In summary, our study supports a critical role of IL-6 elevation in modulating autism-like behaviors through impairments on synapse formation, dendritic spine development, as well as on neuronal circuit balance. These findings suggest that manipulation of IL-6 may be a promising avenue for therapeutic interventions.”
Dr. Patterson helped establish as scientific fact that an MIA during pregnancy can cause autism. As a parent, I’m haunted by Dr. Patterson’s words that “there’s an ongoing, permanent immune-system activation in the brains of autistic people.” If that’s really what’s happening to my son, it creates an obvious question: What can we do about it? It’s why understanding exactly what happened to my son is so important…
…And why there’s something else Dr. Patterson mentioned in his 2006 magazine article, something that today might get him run out of Caltech but was still allowed in the scientific discourse back then, he said this:
Finally, I want to ask a question that’s come up in the literature in the last few years — should we really be promoting universal maternal vaccination? The flu vaccine has been recommended routinely to pregnant women in the United States since 1957. The official policy of the Centers for Disease Control states that “administration of vaccines to women seeking prenatal care is an opportunity for preventative intervention that should not be wasted.” Now you might say, “Well, of course, you don’t want to get the flu if you’re pregnant!” But remember that double-stranded RNA experiment — we activated the immune system, and it caused all these downstream effects on the fetus. And what does a vaccination do? It activates the immune system. That’s the point of vaccination. In practice, not all pregnant women receive flu shots, and I think that universal vaccination of pregnant women could get us into a whole new set of problems.
Dr. Patterson said it, so I don’t have to be the first to bring it up. He said a vaccination “activates the immune system” and he also told us that “immune activation” can cause autism. How exactly does a vaccine activate the immune system?
Answer: Aluminum hydroxide, aka “aluminum adjuvant”.
Discovery #2: Aluminum Adjuvant causes immune activation and is far more neurotoxic than previously thought
Aluminum compounds (Al hydroxide and Al phospate) are the most common adjuvants used in vaccines. They are currently used in the hepatitis A, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis(DTaP, Tdap), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), human papillomavirus (HPV) and pneumococcus (PCV) vaccines. Aluminum adjuvant “activates” the immune system, which induces long term immunity to antigens in the vaccine. The scientific understanding of aluminum adjuvant toxicity has changed and deepened dramatically in recent years.
In fact, the published research on aluminum adjuvant is so new it has not even been considered by our FDA or CDC, who are still basing their recommendations about aluminum use in vaccines on a study published in 2011 that erroneously concluded that aluminum from a vaccine likely ends up in the body’s skeletal system:
“While the contribution of vaccines to an infant’s aluminum body burden can be slightly higher than that of the dietary contribution in our model, the fact that the primary pool where the aluminum is residing, as a long-term storage depot, is likely to be skeletal and not a more sensitive soft organ system is reassuring.”
Most of the guess work about aluminum is based on dissolved aluminum, not aluminum hydroxide, which is the type of aluminum used in vaccines. We’re now learning that aluminum hydroxide is a nanoparticle, absorbed by our body’s macrophage (the immune system’s garbage man) where the macrophage can then easily transport the aluminum hydroxide to the brain (the macrophage passes easily through the blood-brain barrier). If you’d like to see a complete takedown of the “safe level” of aluminum argument still made by the FDA and CDC, see VP’s excellent work, here’s a short excerpt:
“It is not reasonable or scientific to use studies of ingested, water-soluble aluminum salts (like AlCl3 or Al-lactate) to establish a safe dose of injected aluminum adjuvant (comprising aluminum hydroxide/phosphate nanoparticles). The chemical forms and route of administration are different. It is well-established today that nanoparticles can have higher toxicity than bulk orsoluble forms of the same material…It’s the vaccine promoters that created this inherently-invalid approach to aluminum adjuvant safety. Vaccine critics including me argue that the safety of injected aluminum adjuvant can only be tested using injected aluminum adjuvant, not ingested aluminum salts like AlCl3 or Al lactate. This should be common sense. So, leaving aside the important issues of nanoparticle toxicity and administration route, I want to address the question: is it really true that animals (mice or rats) are not harmed by ingesting 62mg/kg/day or 26 mg/kg/day aluminum? After all, this is the fundamental basis for aluminum adjuvant safety. Vaccine promoters rely on Keith and Mitkus to make the case that aluminum adjuvant is safe, and Keith and Mitkus depend on the claim that these dosages are safe for animals to ingest. If the 26 mg/kg/day dosage is in fact harmful to animals, then the analyses by Keith and Mitkus are wrong and unsalvageable. Several studies clearly demonstrate that dosages much lower than 26 mg/kg/day are harmful, and they are presented below.”
The first time I personally woke up to the the idea that the aluminum adjuvant used in vaccines might be far more toxic and dangerous than I knew was when I started reading about the incredible work of Dr. Chris Shaw at the University of British Columbia in Canada. In 2007, Dr. Shaw published the first study looking at injected aluminum adjuvant in this paper, Aluminum Adjuvant Linked to Gulf War Illness Induces Motor Neuron Death in Mice and sounded a worldwide alarm about the dangers of aluminum adjuvant:
“In addition, the continued use of aluminum adjuvants in various vaccines (i.e., Hepatitis A and B, DPT, and so on) for the general public may have even more widespread health implications. Until vaccine safety can be comprehensively demonstrated by controlled long-term studies that examine the impact on the nervous system in detail, many of those already vaccinated as well as those currently receiving injections may be at risk in the future. Whether the risk of protection from a dreaded disease outweighs the risk of toxicity is a question that demands urgent attention.”
In 2009, Dr. Shaw’s and his colleagues in British Columbia published another study looking at injected aluminum hydroxide, and the results were deeply disturbing:
“Overall, the results reported here mirror previous work that has clearly demonstrated that aluminum, in both oral and injected forms, can be neurotoxic. Potential toxic mechanisms of action for aluminum may include enhancement of inflammation (i.e., microgliosis)…”
2012: Mechanisms of aluminum adjuvant toxicity and autoimmunity in pediatric populations
Three years after his groundbreaking study, Dr. Shaw and his colleague, Dr. Lucija Tomljenovic, published this paper in 2012, expressing grave concerns about the limited understanding of aluminum adjuvant’s toxicity:
“…it is somewhat surprising to find that in spite of over 80 years of use, the safety of Al adjuvants continues to rest on assumptions rather than scientific evidence.For example, nothing is known about the toxicology and pharmacokinetics of Al adjuvants in infants and children…Yet, in spite of these observations children continue regularly to be exposed to much higher levels of Al adjuvants than adults, via routine childhood vaccination programmes.”
The two scientists called for an urgent reevaluation of the safety profile of aluminum adjuvant-containing vaccines:
“However, the existing data (or lack thereof) raise questions on whether the current vaccines aimed at pediatric populations can be accepted as having adequate safety profiles. Because infants and children represent those who may be most at risk for complications following vaccination, a more rigorous evaluation of potential vaccine-related adverse health impacts in pediatric populations than what has been provided to date is urgently needed.”
2013: Slow CCL2-dependent translocation of biopersistent particles from muscle to brain
In 2013, French scientists demonstrated that aluminum adjuvant, when injected into the body of a mouse, ended up in the brain 1 year later. The study authors expressed serious concerns about this very new discovery:
“However, continuously escalating doses of this poorly biodegradable adjuvant in the population may become insidiously unsafe, especially in the case of overimmunization or immature/altered blood brain barrier…”
The authors chose their words carefully, recognizing the ubiquity of aluminum adjuvant’s use in pediatric vaccines all over the world, which is why their choice to call aluminum adjuvant “insidiously unsafe” should cause any parent worry. Unfortunately, the very thing they express real concern about — escalating doses — is exactly what has been happening to children since the early 1990s, when the immunization schedule in the U.S. and all over the world more than tripled, largely due to new vaccines being introduced that contain aluminum adjuvant.
2015: Biopersistence and brain translocation of aluminum adjuvants of vaccines
In 2015, another study from Université Paris Est Créteil (UPEC) in France further supported this new view of aluminum adjuvant as a dangerous, biopersistent, and ultimately brain-injuring toxin. (The study confirmed that aluminum adjuvant slowly makes its way to the brain, where it then stays, possibly forever.)
The study explained that aluminum adjuvant can generate a long-term immune response because of its “biopersistence”, which basically means our body has no ability to rid itself of aluminum adjuvant, because its a man-made substance we have no natural designs to eliminate:
“Thus alum and other poorly biodegradable materials taken up at the periphery by phagocytes circulate in the lymphatic and blood circulation and can enter the brain using a Trojan horse mechanism similar to that used by infectious particles. Previous experiments have shown that alum administration can cause CNS dysfunction and damage, casting doubts on the exact level of alum safety.”
November 2016: Non-linear dose-response of aluminium hydroxide adjuvant particles: Selective low dose neurotoxicity
And, in 2016, the most important and revealing study yet done on aluminum adjuvant provided more bad news, and more insight.
It’s safe to say that this study’s conclusions have revolutionized our understanding of aluminum adjuvant. From the journal Toxicology, the French study authors were very concerned about the widespread use of aluminum adjuvant:
“Concerns about its [aluminum adjuvant’s] safety emerged following recognition of its unexpectedly long-lasting biopersistence within immune cells in some individuals, and reports of chronic fatigue syndrome, cognitive dysfunction, myalgia, dysautonomia and autoimmune/inflammatory features temporally linked to multiple Al-containing vaccine administrations.”
They also discovered, through mouse-models, a deeply alarming unique characteristic of aluminum adjuvant: low, consistent doses were MORE neurotoxic than a single bolus dose:
“We conclude that Alhydrogel [aluminum adjuvant] injected at low dose in mouse muscle may selectively induce long-term Al cerebral accumulation and neurotoxic effects. To explain this unexpected result, an avenue that could be explored in the future relates to the adjuvant size since the injected suspensions corresponding to the lowest dose, but not to the highest doses, exclusively contained small agglomerates in the bacteria-size range known to favour capture and, presumably, transportation by monocyte-lineage cells. In any event, the view that Alhydrogel neurotoxicity obeys ‘the dose makes the poison’ rule of classical chemical toxicity appears overly simplistic.”
Read study HERE
This a counter-intuitive conclusion, but profoundly important, so I’m bringing in VP to further explain:
A paper (Crepeaux et al.) by the Gherardi research group in France reports important results on the toxicity and transport of aluminum (Al) adjuvant in mice. This single study is especially valuable because it looked at many outcomes: behavioral effects, immune (microglial) activation in the brain, and Al transport into the brain. The study tested dosages of 200 , 400 and 800 mcg/Kg, injected intramuscularly (IM). The Al adjuvant used was AlOH (brand name Alhydrogel), the most common vaccine adjuvant in use today. It is used in the tetanus, Hep A, Hep B, HiB, pneumococcal, meningococcal, and anthrax vaccines. Remarkably, the study found that the lowest dosage (200 mcg/Kg) was the most toxic! For many outcomes, the 400 and 800 mcg/Kg dosages had no observable adverse effects, but the 200 mcg/Kg dosage did. The low toxicity of the higher dosages appears to be a consequence of dosage-dependent inflammation at the injection site. The high dosages caused intense inflammation at the injection site, forming “granulomas”. The 200 mcg/Kg dosage did not produce granulomas. Granulomas are hard nodules in tissue produced in response to injury, infection or foreign substances. Its a way the body “walls off” injured tissue and prevents the spread of infection or toxins. The granuloma appears to provide protection from Al adjuvant toxicity; apparently the granuloma prevented Al adjuvant particles from leaving the injection site. This explains why the 200 mcg/Kg dosage affected the brain and behavior, while the higher dosages did not. This suggests that it is more dangerous and harmful to administer numerous small injections of Al adjuvant, compared to a large single injection capable of inducing a granuloma.
The study authors also disputed the way the FDA and CDC currently think about aluminum adjuvant toxicity, basically saying that the current approach is wrong:
“As a possible consequence, comparing vaccine adjuvant exposure to other non- relevant aluminium exposures, e.g. soluble aluminium and other routes of exposure, may not represent valid approaches.”
And, the French scientists finish with a conclusion that all parents should find very troubling:
“In the context of massive development of vaccine-based strategies worldwide, the present study may suggest that aluminium adjuvant toxicokinetics and safety require reevaluation.”
Discovery #3: Aluminum can increase IL-6 in the brain
One of the only frustrations of the remarkable toxicity studies on aluminum adjuvant coming out of France is that many scientists did not explicitly measure the mice brains for the cytokine IL-6 which we know can be released during an immune activation event and also know is strongly associated with causing autism. But, a study from the Middle East provides a strong foundation for the IL-6-aluminum adjuvant connection.
In this case, scientists were using aluminum to induce Alzheimer’s in rats, which they appear to have done successfully, showing that aluminum caused a 4-fold increase in IL-6:
“The results also showed that aluminum administration increased the hippocampus pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α by 3.8-fold, IL-6 by 4-fold, and iNOS by 3.8-fold compared to the normal control group.”
If any of this remains confusing, I think VP’s description of aluminum adjuvant in the body will fill in any holes:
Most vaccines contain aluminum, and aluminum is a proven neurotoxin, in amounts received from vaccines. Vaccines in combination can result in toxic aluminum overload. Even the aluminum in a single vaccine can be harmful because the aluminum is in a form that is more dangerous than ingested aluminum. Specifically, vaccine aluminum is in nanoparticulate form, which is harder for the body to eliminate, and because it is transported around the body differently than ingested aluminum.
It is natural and normal to ingest small doses of aluminum from food and water. Its not good for you, but the body has adequate defenses. Absorption of ingested Al is low, about 0.3%, so about 99.7% is eliminated in feces. Ingested aluminum is in ionic form (individual charged atoms), which is readily removed by the kidneys. Also, ionic aluminum is blocked from entering the brain by the blood brain barrier. The low absorption, rapid elimination by the kidneys and barrier to brain entry adequately protects the brain from aluminum.
However, nanoparticulate aluminum from vaccines cannot be removed by the kidneys. The particles are far too large to be filtered out by the kidneys. The Al nanoparticles do dissolve slowly (converting to ionic aluminum). But long before they can dissolve completely, the Al nanoparticles are “eaten” by immune system cells called macrophages. In other words, the particles wind up inside the macrophages. Once loaded with the Al nanoparticles, the macrophages spread aluminum as they travel through the body. This is dangerous, because the Al-loaded macrophages carry Al nanoparticles to tissues (e.g. the brain) that are damaged by very small amounts of aluminum.
Quick Pause: The chicken-egg of immune activation
I want to address a topic that triggered much of the exploration that drove me to write this article in the first place. Back in the day, I got into a bit of a public squabble with Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine patent holder who also serves as a spokesperson for the vaccine industry. Dr. Hotez also has a daughter with autism, so this debate is very personal for him, as it is for me. Dr. Hotez is convinced that autism is “created” in utero as he explained to me, “my read of the scientific literature is that brains of children with autism, like ours, were that way by the first or second trimester of pregnancy.” Dr. Hotez bases his conclusion about autism’s timing on the work of a single study by Dr. Eric Courchesne and colleagues titled, “Patches of disorganization in the neocortex of children with autism.”which was published in 2014 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Hotez even took his refutation of some of the things I have publicly written about autism and vaccines a step further, and I think this is really the dividing line for many scientists, he wrote to me:
“A vaccine given in the first year of life could not possibly cause a total reorganization of the brain architecture, it just defies reason.”
Does it? Does it defy reason that the re-wiring of the brain — that we now believe is caused by an immune activation event — could never happen after a child is born?
This is the single most important question that needs to be answered to determine autism’s cause, and I think the answer will govern the autism causation debate from here on out:
· If vaccines cannot cause a “reorganization of brain architecture” after a child is born, then vaccines are unlikely to be the cause of autism (however, vaccines given to a pregnant women may still pose a risk to triggering a Maternal Immune Activation).
· If, however, vaccines given after birth can cause the brain to “reorganize”, then we have a serious, serious problem with vaccines.
I believe the science is very clear on this point. Read on.
The evidence for post-natal autism triggers is strong
The study that Dr. Hotez mentioned to me, the study that proved to him that autism was determined in utero, I have now read probably a dozen times. You can read it for yourself, it’s a study where scientists looked at the actual post-mortem brains of children with autism, and found striking differences in brain architecture. What the study didn’t do, because it would be impossible to do with post-mortem brains, some as old as 15 years, was speculate exactly WHEN the brain disorganization took place. And, really, how could they? I’m guessing Dr. Hotez was thrown off by the conclusion of this study, where the authors offered up a guess:
“In conclusion, we identified discrete patches of disorganized cortex in the majority of postmortem samples obtained from young autistic children that we examined. These patches occurred in regions mediating the functions that are disturbed in autism: social, emotional, communication, and language functions. Such abnormalities may represent a common set of developmental neuropathological features that underlie autism and probably result from dysregulation of layer formation and layer-specific neuronal differentiation at prenatal developmental stages.”
Did you catch what the study said, the part that Dr. Hotez turned into fact to support his claim (and by the way he has cited this study repeatedly in public writings about autism’s cause)? The authors said the disregulation they saw in the brains of children “probably” happened during “prenatal development stages.” I think the evidence you will see actually points to the opposite. VP explained it well:
The “patches of disorganization” paper is actually further evidence implicating immune activation and therefore vaccines. Immune activation experiments have shown that immune activation/cytokines causes disruption of neuron layers. So a vaccine could definitely do this. I believe that autism-associated differences in the prenatal period are simply indicators that the baby is particularly susceptible to immune activation injury. Immune activation works like this: each time there is an activation event, the immune system becomes more sensitive and reactive to immune stimulus. So, an activation “hit” during gestation can render the baby more susceptible to immune activation injury postnatally. This increased reactivity is known to occur with microglia in the brain (microglia are immune cells in the brain). its called “microglial priming”. Once microglia are primed by immune activation, they become hyperreactive for a long time, perhaps a lifetime.
VP went a little farther than Dr. Hotez did, providing this image which is hard to shake once you’ve seen it:
What you can see fairly clearly is that the brain is far from done developing once a child is born. In fact, 5 separate phases of brain development are either in process or yet to start. Could an immune activation event after the child has been born impact brain development? Yes, it could.
And, the published science also supports this view. In a study done in 2012, Wei and colleagues induced autism-like symptoms in mice by injecting them with IL-6 AFTER they were born. This is NOT a maternal immune activation event, this is an immune activation event of a newborn that leads to the development of symptoms of autism.
Read study HERE
The authors noted:
“Here we show that mice with elevated IL-6 in the brain display many autistic features, including impaired cognitive abilities, deficits in learning, abnormal anxiety traits and habituations, as well as decreased social interactions. IL-6 elevation caused alterations in excitatory and inhibitory synaptic formations and disrupted the balance of excitatory/inhibitory synaptic transmissions. IL-6 elevation also resulted in an abnormal change in the shape, length and distributing pattern of dendritic spines. These findings suggest that IL-6 elevation in the brain could mediate autistic-like behaviors, possibly through the imbalances of neural circuitry and impairments of synaptic plasticity.”
Still think Dr. Hotez has a point, that autism happens during gestation or never? Then this study will really blow your mind, from all the way back in 1981.
Read study HERE
In this case study of three children, published in Child Neurology, the authors describe three cases of sudden onset autism, all caused by infection and inflammation of the brain.
It appears that not only can an infection trigger an immune activation event that leads to autism after a child is born, it can even happen to a child who is 5, 7, or 11 years old (the ages of the three children in this study). Are you reading this, Dr. Hotez?
“During an acute encephalopathic illness, a clinical picture developed in three children that was consistent with infantile autism…In our cases, the abnormalities are acquired and not developmental, but they clearly fit the critical clinical features of the childhood autistic syndrome.”
Discovery #4: Hepatitis B vaccine induces IL-6 in postnatal rats
When this paper was published in China, no one I knew in the autism community mentioned it, I’m guessing because it was hard to patch together its significance. You had to appreciate all of Patterson’s work. You had to understand the IL-6 connection to autism. You had to appreciate the brand new insights about aluminum adjuvant toxicity, the low dose implications, and that aluminum adjuvant was ending up in the brain. And, you had to read a paper from China that covered a lot of other ground, as well as providing a missing link in the aluminum adjuvant-cytokine (IL-6)-autism hypothesis that it helped fortify.
Read study HERE
VP has written extensively about this study, I will start by quoting VP, but if you want a highly detailed scientific analysis of this study, check this out.
“An important new study by Li et al. reports the effects of bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG) vaccine (for tuberculosis) and hepatitis B vaccine on brain development in infant rats. The study relates the observed brain changes to the type of immune activation (Th1 or Th2, explained below) stimulated by the vaccines. The BCG and hep B vaccines had opposite effects on the brain (BCG being beneficial, and hep B being detrimental), and a combination of both vaccines resulted in cancellation of the effects.
This is the first study to test the effects of immune activation by vaccination on brain development. All other studies of immune activation have used essentially pathological conditions that mimic infection and induce a strong fever. A criticism I have heard often from vaccine advocates is that the immune activation experiments are not relevant to vaccines because vaccines cause a milder immune activation than injections of poly-IC or lipopolysaccharide (two types of immune system activators). This new study demonstrates that vaccines can affect brain development via immune activation. Hence, the immune activation experiments are relevant to vaccines…The hep B vaccine increased IL-6 in the hippocampus (the only brain region analyzed for cytokines).”
And, VP continues, explaining the timing of the injury to the Hep B rats:
“An important finding in the rat BCG/Hep B study is that many of the effects of hep B vaccine did not appear until age 8 weeks. This finding undermines claims of vaccine safety, which are almost always based on short-term outcomes of a few days or weeks. Furthermore, 8 weeks is a long time in rats. 8 week old rats are almost fully mature adults. This suggests that adverse effects of vaccines may take years or decades to appear in humans. This is consistent with what is known about immune activation and schizophrenia. Immune activation in the fetus can cause schizophrenia 20–30 years later.
The accumulating scientific evidence and the Li et al study in particular suggest that vaccination may cause mental illness. The mental illnesses would emerge years or decades after vaccination of an infant. Vaccines are likely contributing the the rise of mental illnesses in the USA over the last 25 years. The rise in mental illnesses in the USA is coincident with the dramatic increase in vaccination that started in the 1980s.”
This study is extraordinary! There were three different groups of rats: rats receiving the BCG vaccine (not given in the U.S.), rats receiving the Hepatitis B vaccine (given on day 1 of life in the U.S.) and a control group with no vaccine. The BCG vaccine does NOT contain aluminum adjuvant and the impact on the rat’s brains from BCG was actually positive! The Hep B vaccine rats, however, showed the kind of immune activation event we are seeing in autism (high IL-6)
This is biological proof of the link between a vaccine — given to a post-natal animal — inducing an immune activation event, including the cytokine marker for autism, IL-6. A scientific first.
Discovery #5: High levels of aluminum in autism brains
Earlier, I mentioned the study published by Professor Chris Exley — “Aluminium in brain tissue and autism” — that found incredibly high levels of aluminum in the brain tissue of five people with autism. In an interview soon after his study was released, Dr. Exley explained:
“The amount of aluminum in the brain tissue was, I would say, extraordinarily high. Very high. My group has measured the aluminum content of probably more than one hundred human brains, and these brain tissues taken from the individuals with a diagnosis of autism were some of the highest we’ve measured bar none. The only ones we’ve seen that are similar were a recent study of familial Alzheimer’s. This in itself is a very important finding.”
Professor Exley and his colleagues were startled by something else: the location of the aluminum within the brains:
“Perhaps equally important if not more important were the microscopy studies. The microscopy studies enable us to identify where the aluminum was in the brain tissue. When we looked at our brains of people with a diagnosis of autism, we found something completely different and something we’ve never seen before as yet in any other set of human brains. We found that the majority of aluminum was actually inside cells, intracellular. Some of it was inside neurons, but actually the majority of it was inside non-neuronal cell populations. So we found that these cells were heavily loaded with aluminum. We also saw evidence that cells in the lymph and in the blood were passing into the brain, so they were carrying with them a cargo of aluminum from the body into the brain. This is the first time in any human brain tissue we have seen this so this is a standout and as yet unique observation in autism. For myself, it very much implicates aluminum in the etiology of autism.”
What Professor Exley found were macrophages, the kind the French scientists discovered were transporting aluminum into the brains of mice, loaded with aluminum, and serving as carriers to bring the aluminum into the brain. Dr. Exley’s study showed that the conclusion being drawn in the laboratory with mice were equally true in the brains of people with autism. It turns out the biological experiments using mice to gauge the impact of injected aluminum adjuvant were equally accurate when extrapolated to humans. In fact, Professor Exley was so shocked by the findings, it altered his view of the safety of using vaccines containing aluminum.
“I did not see a role for aluminum in autism. And I didn’t see a role for aluminum in vaccines in autism. I have to change my mind now on both of these. I have to change my mind that aluminum has a role in autism, I believe it now does. Now, because I have seen the same cells that we will see at an injection site carrying a cargo of aluminum into the brain tissue of individuals who died with autism I would now say that we have to think very carefully about who receives a vaccine that includes an aluminum adjuvant. We need to think carefully, is this vaccine a life-saving vaccine or not? If it isn’t, don’t have it with an aluminum adjuvant.”
Dr. Exley just told parents not to get vaccines that constitute MOST of the childhood vaccine schedule. Dr. Exley, a tenured professor at Keele University of Bioinorganic chemistry and without peer the leading expert in the world on the neurotoxicity of aluminum. (Of course, like all scientists willing to touch this topic, Dr. Exley was pushed out of Keele University in 2021).
As an aside, and as to be expected, Dr. Exley’s study was subjected to withering criticism. As a parent really only interested in the TRUTH, I’m fine with this, it’s important that every meaningful criticism is considered and every conclusion criticized. I sent Dr. Exley’s study to a former colleague of Dr. Paul Patterson. He’s not impressed, he writes, “I honestly don’t think it should have been published because it has a critical scientific flaw… The authors didn’t use any healthy control tissue, so we have no way of knowing what normal Al levels in a brain would by their method. Imagine, for example, if the blades they used to cut the brains had trace levels of Al that contaminated their tissue. If they had used healthy controls, you would have also seen high Al levels in the healthy brains as well. Since they had no such controls, their results are scientifically meaningless.”
I share this response, in an email exchange, with Dr. Exley himself. His unedited response:
“Our measurements of Al in human tissue are the most respected anywhere and the reasons for this are our attention to all details and specifically extraneous contamination as suggested by this person. Please see the Metallomics paper cited in our paper to provide a specifc response to this. Our quantitative analyses on the brains of 5 individuals represent the ONLY donors available at the autism brain bank in the UK. We discussed control tissues but the only available were not age-matched and nor were they true controls as the donors were individuals in their 40s and 50s who died of a certain disease or condition. No age-matched healthy donor brain tissues were available. However, we have more data on the Al content of human brain tissue than anyone else and so we are in a position to compare our autism data with other data relating to almost 100 human brains. This is how we can come to our judgement that the values measured were some of the highest values ever measured in any individuals. No one questioned similar data published this time last year for familial AD.”
I ask him that it’s been like since the study was published, is it being considered by any “mainstream” scientists or organizations? What is the political fallout from your study like? Do you have a concern of being “Wakefielded” for your study (which, of course, he was)? He responds:
“There is a blackout of this research by mainstream media. My research on Al has experienced something similar for many years though perhaps much more so in the last few years. The science is extremely robust and therefore the only defence is to ignore it!”
Five discoveries, a clear path to autism
Here’s a simple graphic that I think spells out the process of triggering autism very clearly, as demonstrated by the published science I have just shared with you:
(This graphic is from a great brochure created by Vaccine Papers, you can get a complete copy right HERE.)
Published studies are showing that autism is caused by an immune activation event. The adjuvant in vaccines — aluminum adjuvant — can activate the brain’s immune system and is far more neurotoxic than previously realized — all the new science has been published in just the last few years. Aluminum can cause IL-6, the key cytokine implicated in autism. Chinese scientists — for the first time anywhere in the world — used a vaccine to trigger an immune activation event, and recorded elevated levels of IL-6 in rats. THIS is a biological basis for HOW a vaccine can cause autism. Remember what Dr. Hotez said to me? He said:
“A vaccine given in the first year of life could not possibly cause a total reorganization of the brain architecture, it just defies reason.”
But, that’s exactly what the science is showing us. Vaccines, administered early and often, are igniting immune activation event after immune activation event. Here’s a different chart looking at the development of the brain over time, from a neuro-immunological perspective. Imagine 6–7 immune activation events (right after they receive 4–6 aluminum adjuvant containing vaccines in a single appointment) in certain vulnerable children during critical phases of brain development. With everything you’ve just read, is it really that hard to imagine?
A new study summarizes all that we know
In 2022, a study titled Inflammation and Autophagy: A Convergent Point between Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)-Related Genetic and Environmental Factors: Focus on Aluminum Adjuvants was published by Crépeaux and colleagues, and it does a remarkable job explaining all that is known so far about the relationship between aluminum-containing vaccines and autism. The study contained this disturbing graphic that shows what happened to babies injected with aluminum vaccines who are genetically susceptible. If you want to send one study to your most skeptical, scientifically-oriented friend, I would send them this one!
The study authors write:
Among the variety of environmental factors suspected to contribute to the pathophysiology of NDDs [autism], repeated early exposures to aluminum (Al)-containing vaccines during critical developmental periods of both nervous and immune systems has received unique attention. In the past five decades, growing concerns have been raised among the scientific community and the general public, through sometimes counter-productive conflicts, on the effects and safety of these compounds within the organism. Among these questions, adjuvant kinetics and potential chronic adverse effects, especially when given early in life, are noteworthy
Implications and questions
I can’t help but tie everything I read and see here to my own son’s experience. Born in 2002, my son seemed to get sicker and more confused with every vaccine appointment, and his head always seemed to be hurting. And, with each appointment, unusual behaviors and odd movements began to appear. A really sad reminder of this reality appeared in a study published just last week in Nature, that described how children with autism developed enlarged foreheads:
Read study HERE
“Brain enlargement has been observed in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the timing of this phenomenon, and the relationship between ASD and the appearance of behavioural symptoms, are unknown. Retrospective head circumference and longitudinal brain volume studies of two-year olds followed up at four years of age have provided evidence that increased brain volume may emerge early in development.”
Wouldn’t the above theory about how autism is triggered do a pretty good job of explaining why these children have large (swollen) heads? As you know, the immune activation event leads to what Dr. Patterson called “an ongoing, permanent immune-system activation in the brains of autistic people.” And, guess what, permanent immune system activation means inflammation…which would lead to a “large brain” and a “swollen forehead.” Is that why children with autism are known to head bang? Perhaps you would too if you’re brain was in a state of permanent inflammation?
Question: What about gastrointestinal disorders?
So many children with autism experience gastrointestinal disorders, my son most certainly did. And, gastrointestinal distress is now fully appreciated to be a “co-morbid” condition of autism. But what, exactly, might cause it? You don’t have to look too far:
Read study HERE
“Aluminum increased the intensity and duration of macroscopic and histologic inflammation, colonic myeloperoxidase activity, inflammatory cytokines expression, and decreased the epithelial cell renewal compared with control animals. Under basal conditions, aluminum impaired intestinal barrier function. In vitro, aluminum induced granuloma formation and synergized with lipopolysaccharide to stimulate inflammatory cytokines expression by epithelial cells. Deleterious effects of aluminum on intestinal inflammation and mucosal repair strongly suggest that aluminum might be an environmental IBD risk factor.”
Question: What about all the other types of autoimmunity (food allergies, etc.) that are at epidemic levels, and often co-morbid with autism?
Spearheaded by Israeli scientist Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld, the scientific evidence that aluminum adjuvant is causing epidemics of a wide variety of auto-immune conditions is becoming overwhelming. Dr. Shoenfeld even has his own text book explaining this!
“With the discovery of autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA), the work of leading researchers from 14 countries on the role of adjuvants in different vaccines and how they can induce diverse autoimmune clinical manifestations in genetically prone individuals has been published in the newly released medical textbook, Vaccines and Autoimmunity.”
Dr. Shoenfeld’s groundbreaking study in 2013—Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA) 2013: Unveiling the pathogenic, clinical and diagnostic aspects—explained the role of aluminum adjuvant in triggering autoimmunity across a wide variety of conditions:
“Notwithstanding that molecular mimicry and bystander activation in a genetically predisposed individual have been called to be responsible, the finger should be pointed at the adjuvants. One in particular has raised several distresses: aluminum. Indeed, this has been used as an adjuvant for the past 90 years but it is also an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin. Experimental research has showed that alum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. Thus, efforts should be put in clarifying the potential threat of alum-containing vaccines.”
Question: What about the MMR, it has no aluminum adjuvant?
The MMR vaccine does not contain aluminum adjuvant. Yet, many (but far from all) parents point to the appointment where their child received the MMR vaccine as a trigger for autism. We need more scientific data than we have about what exactly the MMR vaccine does to the brain (does it generate IL-6 or other cytokines?), but because we don’t know, we’re left to speculate.
One obvious answer is that the MMR vaccine is the first live virus vaccine children receive (it’s typically given between age 12–18 months, most children have received 15–20 vaccines by then), and it’s a triple (measles, mumps, rubella) live virus. For an immune system bathed in aluminum adjuvant and possibly already simmering with activation events, this triple dose might push a child right over the edge. This might explain the seizures (an extreme immune activation event) that sometimes follow the MMR appointment. We also know that children who also receive the varicella vaccine (chicken pox) along with the MMR have higher rates of seizure events. This would make sense, four live viruses at once would likely challenge the immune system more than three, but we can’t explain exactly how the MMR biologically impacts the immune system the way we can for aluminum adjuvant, and now for Hepatitis B vaccine (thanks to Chinese scientists). Dr. Yehuda Shoenfeld discusses the fact that a live vaccine activates the immune system more than a vaccine using aluminum adjuvant:
“It is evident that a live attenuated vaccine is more prone than a killed vaccine to activate the immunity response.”
But, a more obvious explanation has recently emerged. Namely, the MMR vaccines triggers something in the body known as MCP-1, which serves as a beacon to encourage aluminum-laden macrophages to rush to the brain. I’ll let VP explain:
“When MCP-1 is produced by microglia, macrophages from around the body travel into the brain…‘MCP’ stands for ‘macrophage chemoattractant protein’, which of course describes its primary function of summoning macrophages…MCP-1 production is stimulated by some types of immune activation. Hence, a vaccine that stimulates MCP-1 may cause AANs [aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles](e.g. from prior vaccines) to move into the brain. Some infections or toxins induce MCP-1. Interestingly, Al adjuvant induces MCP-1, suggesting that it may stimulate its own transport…We can speculate that AANs from vaccines may remain ‘dormant’ for years, until MCP-1 production is stimulated. The MCP-1 will cause macrophages containing AANs to mobilize and transport AANs into the brain and other sensitive tissues. This may explain some of the damage from the MMR vaccine. MMR is given at 15–18 months of age, which is after Al-containing vaccines are given (at 0, 2, 4, and 6 months). The measles vaccine can stimulate MCP-1 production. Therefore, the MMR vaccine may stimulate the movement of AANs (received from prior vaccines) into the brain. This may explain how MMR could cause Al toxicity, even though it does not contain aluminum adjuvant.”
Question: Didn’t they already prove vaccines don’t cause autism?
If you’ve read this far, I assume you already know this is a fable. If you’re unsure, just look at this simple graphic. All those vaccine industry spokespeople who say “the science is settled” fail to mention that only one ingredient (thimerosal) and one vaccine (MMR) has ever been looked at for its relationship to autism.
No vaccine containing aluminum adjuvant has ever been explored for its relationship to autism, despite a growing and clear body of evidence implicating aluminum adjuvant in causing “immune activation,” the central cause of autism.
It’s also worth pointing out that in the early and mid-2000s when parents first started sounding the alarm about the connection between vaccines and autism, we had no biological evidence to support our view, we just had the collective experience of seeing our children disappear after vaccine appointments. Today, it’s a completely different world. Consider the words of Dr. Kimberley McAllister of the UC Davis Mind Institute in 2016:
“These MIA (maternal immune activation) animal models meet all of the criteria required for validity for a disease model: They mimic a known disease-related risk factor (construct validity), they exhibit a wide range of disease-related symptoms (face validity), and they can be used to predict the efficacy of treatments (predictive validity).”
It’s time for the CDC, FDA, Autism Speaks, and the American Academy of Pediatrics to face the biological evidence staring us all in the face!
Question: Aren’t you just “moving the goalposts” on the autism-vaccine hypothesis?
Of course critics will say this. First it was the MMR. Then it was mercury. Then it was “too many, too soon.” What’s different now is very important: overwhelming published, peer-reviewed science making a clear connection between immune activation events, aluminum adjuvant, and autism. That’s why this article is filled with study references, not conjecture.
What’s been true throughout the autism epidemic remains true today: an overwhelming (tens of thousands) number of parental reports of regression of their children into autism after vaccination.
Implications
I want to know what, exactly, happened to my son. When he was diagnosed with autism in 2004, the prevailing understanding of autism in the parent community was that it was growing exponentially, many parents were seeing changes after vaccine appointments, and that mercury or a live virus (measles) were the most likely causes. We had no biological science. The understanding of aluminum or the aluminum adjuvant was comically simplistic, almost a throw away point. We had no idea what an immune activation event, a cytokine, or IL-6 meant. (In fact, if you want a good laugh, see how Dr. Paul Offit is still describing aluminum adjuvant, despite its now proven extreme neurotoxicity. He states: “Parents can be reassured that the trace quantities of aluminum in vaccines can’t possibly do harm.” Based on published science beginning in 2009, this is an unsupportable lie.)
Everything you have read so far is based on published science. The grand theory of autism’s causation, in my opinion, holds together pretty strongly.
Will we look back one day and say that aluminum adjuvant caused the autism epidemic the way we say that Thalidomide triggered birth defects? I think we will, but that’s just my opinion.
Next Steps
I believe we may be far closer to a complete explanation of how autism — and many related autoimmune conditions — are being caused. Scientists from all over the world have created a compelling body of work to support an almost complete biological understanding of how autism is triggered by aluminum adjuvant inside the body, creating an immune activation event, and leading to autism — most of this research has been published in just the last 10 years. And none of it from Americans.
Is everything published and written here true? Could the explanation really be that simple? Did a rising number of vaccines containing the aluminum adjuvant trigger an autoimmune epidemic, of which autism is the most severe, but not only, manifestation? Does an epidemic of food allergies, ADHD, learning disabilities, eczema, and diabetes fall into the same realm of causation?
Is is possible that injecting an immune system antagonist (aluminum adjuvant), all but guaranteed to cause immune activation events, has done just that in the brains of many of our children? Do even mildly impacted children also suffer from a permanent, simmering brain immune system activation? Should we believe the growing body of scientists from all over the world who are sounding the alarm about the impact injected aluminum adjuvant is having on our children?
Will these scientists who have published all this wonderful work pool their collective expertise and let the world know what they are learning? Will they take their exhortations for caution and further exploration — all buried inside their published studies — and publicly warn parents about what is becoming so clear? (In fact, many scientists tried to do just that, see the Appendix.)
In my opinion, we are much, much closer to understanding how autism has been triggered in so many children, and I hope this article is another step on the path to the truth. And, for so many of you out there doing everything you can to help your son or daughter with autism live the best possible life, perhaps a clearer understanding of how their autism was triggered will improve their chances for recovery.
Because VP was really my teacher on this topic, I will give them the last word:
Like any other medical treatment, vaccination must be justified in view of an objective risk/benefit analysis. All risks and benefits must be considered. Any rational medical treatment must do more good than harm. This is universally accepted.
The problem with vaccines is that risks have been underestimated, and the benefits overestimated. In particular, the risk of brain injury from vaccines is much higher than commonly believed. Brain injury can be devastating to the life of a child, and the child’s family. The personal and financial costs of vaccine injury are often enormous. Therefore, even a small risk of brain injury must be considered seriously. And the science strongly suggests that the risk is not small.
About the author
J.B. Handley is the proud father of a child with Autism. He spent his career in the private equity industry and received his undergraduate degree with honors from Stanford University. His first book, How to End the Autism Epidemic, was published in September 2018. The book has sold more than 75,000 copies, was an NPD Bookscan and Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller, broke the Top 40 on Amazon, and has more than 1,000 Five-star reviews. Mr. Handley and his nonspeaking son are also the authors of Underestimated: An Autism Miracle and co-produced the film SPELLERS, available now on YouTube.
APPENDIX A: Arguing with ChatGPT
I enjoy arguing with ChatGPT, which has been infected with industry talking points but still tries to apply logic to situations. Enjoy our “conversation.”
Me asking ChatGPT: Can aluminum adjuvant in vaccines cause an immune activation event?
ChatGPT: Yes, aluminum adjuvants in vaccines are specifically designed to cause an immune activation event. This is their primary function. When aluminum salts are included in a vaccine, they help to stimulate the immune system by enhancing the body's response to the vaccine's antigen, which is the substance that triggers an immune response.
Here’s how it works:
1. **Inflammation**: Aluminum adjuvants induce a local inflammatory response at the injection site. This inflammation attracts immune cells, such as macrophages and dendritic cells, to the area.
2. **Antigen Presentation**: The immune cells take up the antigen (the part of the pathogen or toxin that the vaccine targets) along with the aluminum adjuvant. The presence of the adjuvant helps to enhance the presentation of the antigen to T cells, which are a critical component of the adaptive immune system.
3. **Immune Activation**: By boosting the local immune response and facilitating better antigen presentation, aluminum adjuvants help to activate both the innate and adaptive arms of the immune system, leading to the production of antibodies and memory cells that will recognize and respond more effectively to future exposures to the pathogen.
This controlled immune activation is what allows vaccines to be effective in providing immunity without causing disease. The use of adjuvants like aluminum salts is especially important in vaccines that use inactivated or subunit forms of pathogens, which may not be sufficiently immunogenic on their own.
Me asking ChatGPT: What if health authors were wrong, and aluminum-containing vaccines caused autism by creating permanent immune activation events in the brains of some people?
ChatGPT: Hypothetically, if health authorities were wrong and aluminum adjuvants in vaccines were found to cause autism in susceptible children, the implications would be significant. Here’s how such a scenario might unfold and the likely responses:
1. **Recognition and Response**
- **Reevaluation of Data:** The discovery of a link would likely come from new, robust studies or reanalysis of existing data. Health authorities, scientists, and public health organizations would thoroughly investigate the findings.
- **Public Acknowledgment:** If a credible link were established, it would be critical for health authorities to acknowledge the mistake publicly. Transparency would be key to maintaining public trust.
2. **Immediate Actions**
- **Halt or Modify Vaccine Use:** Vaccines containing aluminum adjuvants would likely be suspended or withdrawn from use while alternative formulations were developed.
- **Development of New Vaccines:** Researchers would accelerate efforts to develop and distribute vaccines with different adjuvants or adjuvant-free options. Vaccines are essential for preventing serious diseases, so finding a safe alternative would be a priority.
- **Enhanced Monitoring:** Surveillance systems for tracking vaccine safety would be intensified to monitor any other potential adverse effects.
3. **Addressing Affected Individuals**
- **Support for Affected Families:** Governments and health organizations might offer medical, financial, and psychological support to families of children who were affected.
- **Legal and Ethical Considerations:** There could be legal actions, compensation claims, and ethical debates about the responsibilities of health authorities and vaccine manufacturers.
4. **Long-Term Implications**
- **Impact on Public Trust:** Trust in vaccines and health authorities could be severely damaged. This could lead to increased vaccine hesitancy and a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases.
- **Reform in Vaccine Development:** The process of vaccine approval and monitoring might undergo significant changes to prevent similar errors in the future. This could include stricter safety trials, more rigorous post-marketing surveillance, and greater transparency.
- **Broader Scientific Reflection:** The scientific community would likely engage in a deep reflection on how such an oversight occurred, leading to reforms in how research is conducted, peer-reviewed, and communicated to the public.
5. **Broader Public Health Consequences**
- **Loss of Herd Immunity:** Reduced vaccination rates could result in the loss of herd immunity, leading to outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles, whooping cough, and polio.
- **Re-Education and Awareness Campaigns:** Public health campaigns would need to work to rebuild trust in vaccines, likely focusing on the safety and efficacy of new formulations and the overall importance of vaccination.
6. **Learning and Moving Forward**
- **Strengthened Safety Protocols:** Lessons learned from the mistake would lead to improved safety protocols, not just for vaccines but for all medical interventions.
- **Global Collaboration:** There would likely be a greater emphasis on global collaboration in monitoring vaccine safety, sharing data, and ensuring that any potential issues are identified and addressed early.
Conclusion
While this scenario is hypothetical and not supported by current evidence, it underscores the importance of rigorous scientific research, continuous safety monitoring, and transparency in public health. The goal is always to minimize risks while maximizing the benefits of vaccination, which remains one of the most effective tools in preventing serious infectious diseases.
APPENDIX B: The three letters
In the middle of 2017, three of the most important scientists in the field of aluminum adjuvant toxicity-Dr. Christopher Shaw of Canada, Dr. Chris Exley of England, and Dr. Romain Gherardi of France-took the extraordinary step of writing letters of caution to our American public health authorities. I provide their letters below. As far as I know, they have made zero impact.
Congratulations JB, your insightful and thoughtful writing continues to help to change minds on this most difficult subject. Note, not controversial subject, there is no longer any controversy. Aluminium is a significant contributor (perhaps the most critical) to the aetiology of autism.
The premise that we are born defective and require the injection of diseases and toxins to acquire or maintain good health is ludicrous and defies all common sense and logic. Germ theory (note the word theory) and its concommitant pharmaceutical weaponry has been used and continues to be used to camouflage the ongoing poisonous assault upon this planet and humanity. It is the integrity and purity of the terrain, both inner and outer, that is essential for good health.