There has been a fair degree of publicity recently, more in some parts of 
the world than others, in relation to the research that has linked the MMR 
vaccine to autism. What is the most publicised is that UK researcher Dr 
Andrew Wakefield and his group of researchers studied children who 
developed Crohn's disease and autism and linked them to the MMR vaccine 
that they had been administered (Lancet 1998).

It is good that this is being brought to light, but since parents have been 
repeatedly reassured by many doctors that the vaccine is safe, which they 
now can see is not true, it is important for them to logically reason that 
they cannot trust ANYTHING they are told by doctors, particularly about 
vaccination, and see that they need to research the whole vaccination 
issue. Sadly, when this is done, it is realised that this MMR/autism link 
is only the tip of iceberg.

There are various relevant very important issues which are not addressed by 
this publicity, and which I will cover here. It will then be recognised 
that this is a much wider problem, and only after understanding this can 
parents make an informed decision about what to do. The issues are as 
follows:

1.Is the MMR triple vaccine the only cause of autism?
 2. Is the administration of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines 
individually a solution to the problem of autism?
 3. Are gastrointestinal problems the only mechanism causing brain 
dysfunction characterised by the diagnosis of autism?
4. What constitutes the evidence of causality?
5. What IS the solution to the problem?

The answer to the first three questions, which we will address first, is a 
resounding NO! The fourth and fifth questions are addressed subsequently.

1. Is the MMR triple vaccine the only cause of autism? There is not only a 
documented link of autism to the MMR vaccine, but also to the other 
vaccines, such as the DPT and polio. We also know of a case of a child 
developing autism after the  Hepatitis A vaccine and others after the 
Hepatitis B vaccine.

2. Are gastrointestinal problems the only mechanism causing brain 
dysfunction characterised by the diagnosis of autism? Even though it is 
evident and proven that the MMR causes bowel problems which result in 
malabsorption and malelimination of waste product of digestion, which 
results in brain dysfunction called autism, autism as a diagnosis was 
defined for the first time by Kanner (1943 and 1944).  This was the time 
when the measles, mumps and rubella (and the MMR) vaccines did not exist. 
 However, it WAS the time of intensified diphtheria, pertussis (whooping 
cough) and tetanus vaccination.  The recipients of these vaccines developed 
encephalitis (or encephalomyelitis) and the mechanism of behavioural 
problems described by Kanner as autism was soon described by others as 
postencephalitic syndrome. This is another, in fact the original, 
explanation for the observed behavioural problems often alternatively 
described as post--vaccinal encephalitic syndrome and caused by ANY 
vaccine. This is amply described in a book written by Harris I. Coulter: 
"Vaccination: Social Violence and Criminality, the Assault on the American 
Brain."

3. Is the administration of measles, mumps and rubella vaccines 
individually a solution to the problem of autism? The researchers above and 
parents, particularly in the United Kingdom, are calling for the three 
vaccines (measles, mumps and rubella) to be administered individually as if 
this were the solution to the problem. However it is not just the combined 
vaccines, such as MMR or DPT that cause autism, and therefore the separate 
administration of the vaccines will NOT resolve the problem.  In fact we 
know of cases of autism occuring after the individual vaccines. Indeed, the 
risk may, to the contrary, be even increased.  Dr Wakefield has not 
referred to ANY research that has looked into the relative risk of 
developing autism after the separate vaccines as opposed to the combined 
MMR (and we are not aware of any), so there is no basis for such a 
recommendation.  It appears to be purely based on speculation, and even 
that speculation can be said to be founded on a poor amount of study of the 
available published refereed research, which shows in more detail what the 
cause of the problem actually is. Much of this research is covered in 
"Behavioural Problems in Childhood - The Link to Vaccination", by Dr Viera 
Scheibner.

It is important to understand that ANY of the vaccines - any type and given 
either singly or combined, can disturb the balance in the body and cause 
autism.  In fact it has even very rarely developed after an immunological 
assault that was NOT vaccination (we know of 2 such cases), but it does NOT 
develop otherwise in unvaccinated children.  Notably, we know of NO cases 
of autism in which there was no clearly identifiable immunological assault 
preceding its development.

4. What constitutes the evidence of causality?

Let us start by not relying on the words of medical "authorities" in 
western countries.

A clear illustration of how truly authoritative their assertions are can be 
seen from looking at what has happened in other countries. For example, 
Sugiura & Yamada (Pediatr Infect Dis J, 1991;Vol 10(3):209-13) describe 
what happened in Japan. Very briefly, when the MMR triple vaccine was shown 
to cause meningitis in 1 in 2026 recipients, not only did the Japanese 
health authorities recognise the causal link to this vaccine, they also 
discontinued its use (and also significantly, no unusually large epidemic 
of any of these infections followed).  Not surprisingly, the incidence of 
vaccine-caused (and overall) meningitis plummeted (the minority who were 
hell-bent on getting the vaccine could still get it). So, there is a 
precedent of a whole major country abandoning the offending vaccine and of 
a recognition of the causal link between the offending vaccines and the 
observed reactions.  Yet despite this, medical "authorities" in other 
countries, such as Australia, the UK and the US, continue to ignore (or not 
read?) the research in published, refereed medical journals, and claim that 
there is only a temporal and coincidental association.

It is important to note that the only studies that have claimed to discount 
the link of the MMR vaccine to autism have been funded by vaccine 
manufacturers (the most recent being Merck, which makes MMR, and reported 
in January 2001 in The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal). This is a 
case of history repeating itself - how many times have tobacco companies 
published research "demonstrating" that cigarettes do not cause cancer or 
heart disease, etc?

Looking at the arguments in relation to the causal link

It is unfortunate that rather than simply caring to take the scientific 
approach of searching for and studying the published literature revealing 
the mechanisms for how vaccines cause the development of autism, vaccine 
promoters will simply follow the politician's approach of making weak 
claims and reasoning to discount the link. They even deny such literature 
exists, presumably because they have never searched for it.

An example of this is that Dr. Eric Fombonne, from the Institute of 
Psychiatry in London, UK claims in a letter in Pediatrics (Pediatrics 
2001;107:411-413) that the rise in the number of reported cases of autism 
over the past 30 years was caused by doctors adopting a broader definition 
of the disease and using better diagnostic tools. Whilst doctors may be 
more aware of autism now and as a result look for it more, the reason they 
are more aware of it is because it is more evident - it is now occurring at 
a much higher rate. Autism is not just a label. Autistic children are 
placed into special schools, or special extensions of existing schools, 
because it is so obvious, and always would have been, that their needs 
cannot be met in a normal classroom. Special schools for autistic children 
are now overflowing and greatly increasing in number. Further, it is well 
documented that there has been a rise in the numbers of children who are 
diagnosed with a host of developmental, speech and learning disorders, 
regardless of what you choose to call their problem. These facts should put 
an end to any debate over diagnostic criteria changes.

Dr. Luke Tsai, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University 
of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, said that if the disease was 
caused by a vaccine, "we would see hundreds of thousands of kids with 
autism. And we don't." Well, if Dr Tsai has studied so much medicine and 
yet has still no concept of variations in susceptibility from one 
individual to another (let alone all the other factors that vary from one 
administration to the next), one really has to wonder what they DO learn in 
medical school, apart from pharmacology (i.e. which toxic concoctions 
interfere with which efforts of the body to defend or heal itself). Apart 
from that though, with autism occurring at the rate it does, there ARE at 
least two or three hundred thousand children in our developed countries 
around the world with autism! What planet does he live on?

Vaccine promoters also commit another politically motivated lapse in logic: 
they admit that the REACTIONS to all vaccines do occur, but say that they 
are only TEMPORAL and COINCIDENTAL.  To our dismay, many of them seem to 
actually believe this nonsense which represents an insult to basic 
intelligence. This is because firstly, the word "reaction" itself is a word 
that directly implies causality. Secondly, establishing a TEMPORAL 
relationship is the first precondition of causality. Thirdly, why do they 
not even consider the significant fact that these REACTIONS never occur 
BEFORE and always AFTER vaccination? The magnitude of this "coincidence" is 
impossibility in the realm of probability calculus.
 

It is actually considered prudent medical practice that if a medical 
procedure is administered and symptoms occur afterwards, that procedure 
must be considered as the cause. However further to this there is plenty of 
information available that enables one to piece together not just that 
there IS a link, but how the damage occurs.

Suppose you are a parent who has never even picked up any medical 
literature at all on vaccination or autism.

To start with you might know only that vaccines do SOMETHING to the immune 
system. Then you observe that after a vaccination your child develops a 
condition that clearly involves an immune disorder - you can see this 
because when the child eats certain foods his behaviour goes particularly 
abnormal.
Then you communicate with other parents of autistic children and lo and 
behold, they have observed the same temporal link. A statistical 
probability then forms. If you read that more than one in 175 of all 
children in the UK ("Telegraph", 18 Feb, 2000), and similar in other 
"developed" countries with high vaccination compliance, suffer autism, but 
not in developing countries, which have low vaccination compliance, you see 
a statistical link on a larger scale. (Notably, a similar pattern of 
confinement to developed countries occurs with cancer, leukaemia, asthma 
and other modern scourges of children.)

Then you learn what is in vaccines - .01-.025% each of formaldehyde, 
mercury (or substitute #6-pheno-oxyethanol, a protoplasmic poison), 
aluminium, paint thinner, coolant, anti-freeze, dye, detergent  phenols, 
solvent, borax, disinfectant, MSG, glycerol, sulfite & phosphate compounds, 
polysorbate 80/20, sorbitol, polyribosylribitol, betapropiolactone, 
Amphotericin B and other chemicals, plus hydrolized gelatin, casein, dead 
animal tissue and blood (e.g. cow, chick embryo, monkey, sheep, pig, dog, 
etc), aborted human foetus cells, mutated (more virulent) human viruses, 
contaminant animal viruses (e.g. SV40, which causes cancer in humans), 
bacteria, bacterial endotoxins, antibiotics, yeast & animal, bacterial and 
viral DNA (which when injected can be incorporated into the recipient DNA).

You reasonably conclude that perhaps it is not enormously healthy for your 
child to be injected with this big mixture of poisons, and it just MIGHT 
cause some damage to the immune system?

Then you might go further and look at what these poisons are documented to 
do. You might start with the first one on the list - formaldehyde. You ask 
Poisons Information or the National Research Council what its potential 
effects are and they give you this list:

Eye; nasal; throat and pulmonary irritation; acidosis; acute sense of 
smell; alters tissue proteins; anaemia; antibodies formation; apathy; 
blindness; blood in urine; blurred vision; body aches; bronchial spasms; 
bronchitis; burns nasal and throat; cardiac impairment; palpitations and 
arrhythmias; central nervous system depression; changes in higher cognitive 
functions; chemical sensitivity; chest pains and tightness; chronic 
vaginitis; colds; coma; conjunctivitis; constipation; convulsions; corneal 
erosion; cough; death; destruction of red blood cells; depression; 
dermatitis; diarrhoea; difficulty concentrating; disorientation; dizziness; 
ear aches; eczema; emotional upsets; ethmoid polyps; fatigue; fecula 
bleeding; foetal asphyxiation (and they say they don't know what could 
cause SIDS?); flu-like or cold like illness; frequent urination with pain; 
gastritis; gastrointestinal inflammation; headaches; haemolytic anaemia; 
haemolytic haematuria; hoarseness; hyperactive airway disease; 
hyperactivity; hypomenstrual syndrome; immune system sensitiser; impaired 
(short) attention span; impaired capacity to attain attention; inability or 
difficulty swallowing; inability to recall words and names; inconsistent IQ 
profiles; inflammatory diseases of the reproductive organs; intestinal 
pain; intrinsic asthma; irritability; jaundice; joint pain; aches and 
swelling; kidney pain; laryngeal spasm; loss of memory; loss of sense of 
smell; loss of taste; malaise; menstrual and testicular pain; menstrual 
irregularities; metallic taste; muscle spasms and cramps; nasal 
congestions; crusting and mucosae inflammation; nausea; nosebleeds; 
numbness and tingling of the forearms and finger tips; pale, clammy skin; 
partial laryngeal paralysis; pneumonia; post nasal drip; pulmonary oedema; 
reduced body temperature; retarded speech pattern; ringing or tingling in 
the ear; schizophrenic-type symptoms; sensitivity to sound; shock; short 
term memory loss; shortness of breath; skin lesions; sneezing; sore throat; 
spacey feeling; speaking difficulty; sterility; swollen glands; tearing; 
thirst; tracheitis; tracheobronchitis; vertigo; vomiting blood; vomiting; 
wheezing.

Then you investigate mercury?

Aphthous, stomatitis, catarrhal gingivitis, nausea, liquid stools, pain, 
liver disorder, injury to the cardiovascular system and hematopoietic 
system, deafness, ataxia, headache, paresthesia of the tongue, lips, 
fingers and toes, other non-specific dysfunctions, metallic taste, slight 
gastrointestinal disturbances, excessive flatus, diarrhea, chorea, 
athetosis, tremors, convulsions, pain and numbness in the extremities, 
nephritis, salivation, loosening of the teeth, blue line on the gums, 
anxiety, mental depression, insomnia, hallucinations or central nervous 
system effects. Exposure may also cause irritation of the eyes, mucous 
membranes and upper respiratory tract. Acute poisoning may cause 
gastrointestinal irritation, renal failure, fine tremors of extended hands, 
loss of side vision, slight loss of coordination in the eyes, speech, 
writing and gait, inability to stand or carry out voluntary movements, 
occasional muscle atrophy and flexure contractures, generalized myoclonic 
movements, difficulty understanding ordinary speech, irritability and bad 
temper progressing to mania, stupor, coma, mental retardation in children, 
skin irritation, blisters or dermatitis. Exposure may be fatal.

Well how about that? These ingredients cause exactly the type of damage 
that your child is suffering. Even these two ingredients, let alone the 
rest, cause sensitisation to the immune system for example, and your child, 
since the vaccination, is sensitive to certain foods, which intensify his 
autistic behaviour.

You learn about Dr Wakefield's, Professor O'Leary's and others' research 
where they are developing an understanding of the damage the vaccines can 
do to the gastrointestinal system, and how this is intricately linked to 
the condition. You quite likely note that your own son has been suffering 
tummy problems at the same time (if the autism developed by that mechanism, 
and not from encephalitis), and again only since that vaccination. You 
remember how after his vaccines in his first year he started getting 
several bacterial, particularly ear infections, and was frequently on 
antibiotics, which you know could have increased the susceptibility of his 
gastrointestinal system before the 12-15 mth MMR and Hib or 18 mth DPT. You 
recognise the typical pattern.

You might even ask on email lists if there are any unvaccinated children 
that have developed autism, and you may get back a negative response. We 
ourselves have only been able to find 2 such cases, and in each case there 
was another clearly identifiable immune assault. We have found NO case of 
it developing in a previously healthy unvaccinated child.

Then you discover, and read, whole books that are compilations of a huge 
amount of medical research on vaccination and behavioural disorders 
(including autism), each research study they reference establishing a link 
that makes up one or more pieces of the jigsaw. These books include Dr 
Viera Scheibner's "Behavioural Problems in Childhood - The Link to 
Vaccination", Greg Wilson's "Vaccination and Behavioral Disorders - A 
Review of the Controversy", Harris Coulter's "Vaccination: Social Violence 
and Criminality, The Assault on the American Brain", Karen Seroussi's 
"Unraveling the Mystery of Autism". The first two of these books document 
over 500 relevant medical papers between them.By now we have the situation 
that if this were put to trial in a fair court, the verdict would be 
"Guilty beyond all reasonable doubt." If courts required further proof than 
this before they came to a verdict with traditional "garden-variety" 
criminals, our jails would be empty and murderers would be running around 
loose on the streets. Of course unfortunately for "common" murderers their 
activities are not protected by a multi-trillion dollar industry.

5. So what then IS the solution to this problem? Seeing the solution 
requires an understanding of the whole vaccination issue. This requires a 
decent amount of research, if all that we have believed or assumed about 
vaccination up to this point is what the medical establishment has told us. 

Before doing any such research, parents could be concerned that if they do 
not vaccinate, their children could catch these infectious diseases, and 
die or suffer permanent injuries as a result.

However once parents do more research they come to realise that this 
concern is invalid in two respects:

1) It assumes that vaccines prevent diseases. Research reveals that the 
actual effect of vaccines is actually sensitisation, the word 
"sensitisation" even specifically used in medical journals in describing 
the effect. "Sensitisation" means that the recipient is made MORE, not less 
sensitive, i.e. more, not less susceptible to contracting the infection and 
more vulnerable to it, increasing the chance of developing a 3 
to 4 year cyclic disease, and when this decline in vaccine compliance 
occurred whooping cough incidence remained at an all time low for the 
longest recorded interepidemic period. The overall infant mortality rate 
also plummeted, being also the lowest on record for an epidemic when the 
next epidemic came around.

The same happened in Japan after 1975 when the vaccination age was lifted 
to 2 years; Japan zoomed from a much higher rate (17th place) to the lowest 
infant mortality rate (1st place) in the world (Los Angeles Times, March 
1,1990).

In contrast to this, after the US mandated the DPT vaccine in 1978 there 
was a documented 300% sustained increase in the reported cases of whooping 
cough, and it is still rising, to the point that, with mandatory 
vaccination in most states and 5 doses of the vaccine, it now occurs at a 
far higher rate than before the introduction of the vaccine (see Sutter, 
R.W., and Cochi, S.L., 1992. Pertussis hospitalisations and mortality in 
the United States, 1985-1988. J Amer Med Ass;267(3):386-390).  Indeed, 
despite the overall far superior living standards in other respects - 
better housing, clean water, nutrition, etc, the US infant mortality rates 
rival those of the third world. Significantly it went from 6th place in the 
world in the early fifties before mass vaccination started to 20th place by 
1990, and it has since dropped several ranks further (down to 26th place a 
few years ago). Similarly, measles had virtually disappeared in Europe, 
UNTIL vaccination began, after which it rose again. Sadly, it seems that 
almost whatever the vaccine promoters say, you can simply change their 
claim to say the exact opposite, and then you will know the truth. With the 
few times that what they say is true, they are giving only part of the 
story, which is misleading because people then make false assumptions about 
the rest.

2) The other respect in which the above claim is invalid is that even if 
vaccines DID prevent infectious diseases, these are not life-threatening 
diseases that are untreatable.

They may be untreatable by the medical establishment, but that is because, 
with its very heavy ties with an industry that markets poisonous substances 
as bringers of health, it is unable to get away from this obsession of 
interfering with the immune system (usually by such administrations), 
instead of supporting it.  It is important to understand that the immune 
system is designed to do a job, and is quite capable of doing so - the 
complexities of this inbuilt intelligence developed, as it did in other 
animals, long before Homo Sapiens even began to evolve. Thanks to the 
damaging effect of the vaccines their mothers had, weakening the 
transplacentally transmitted immunity, young infants are now susceptible to 
whooping cough, which is dangerous (only) under 6 months, but even then it 
is still treatable. Any deaths represent the damage done and bad management 
by medical establishment (illustrated clearly in MJA March 1998); they are 
not curses of nature. It is natural to survive.

In fact properly supported (and ideally at the age of childhood, as nature 
intended, not infanthood), the exercise of dealing with childhood 
infections such as measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough and chicken pox, 
has been documented in medical literature to be beneficial- it primes and 
matures the immune system, lowering the risk of serious diseases such as 
cancer in later life (Lancet, 1985, Cancer 1966), and asthma (Lancet 1996, 
1999). It has also been seen to help the development of the brain - often 
evident in such things as children's drawings before and after they go 
through the infections. The name "measles" itself is an old Sanskrit word 
meaning "visitation by a goddess". The recognition of these benefits has 
even manifested in a tradition of measles (etc) parties, to which parents 
bring their children deliberately to be exposed to the child with the 
infection, in order to enable them to gain these benefits as well as 
immunity for later life, when it is far more unpleasant to go through. So 
even if the vaccine WERE effective, it is inappropriate to be even trying 
to prevent these infections anyway. Children will only get them if and when 
they need them, and once they have them they only need to be properly 
managed.

When the immune system fails to do its job, it is not because it is 
inherently incapable of overcoming the infection, but because we have 
denied it the resources that it needs, or interfered with its activity. All 
the resources it needs are?

* a sufficient nutritional status (not really a problem in developed 
countries today, though many people would do better if their levels of 
these, particularly Vitamin C, were higher),
* plenty of clean water, and
* energy through sufficient rest.

We interfere with its activity when?

* we divert the body's labour resources to other activities such as 
digestion (making the person eat),
* by giving Panadol and other anti-pyretics, we prevent it raising or 
keeping its temperature at the level it knows it needs (N.B. It raises it 
because for every degree rise in temperature, the rate of production and 
travel of leucocytes to the site of infection, actually DOUBLES), and/or
* we harm organisms in the body that have an important role in the immune 
system (i.e. when we give antibiotics).

Further, when a person is vaccinated, ironically it only damages and 
weakens the immune system, and further severely saps its resources, such as 
Vitamin C, and therefore only increases the challenge it has in its effort 
to deal with infections, but even these diseases are still treatable. They 
just need to be properly supported. The immune system can manage if it has 
the basic resources it needs and is then left alone to get on with the job, 
even though it causes a fair degree of discomfort in the process. Contrary 
to popular belief, the body is not suicidal! It raises its temperature to a 
level that is still safe and helps it fight the infection, not to put 
itself under threat of brain damage! Apart from this, convulsions occur due 
to it rising very RAPIDLY from normal (which is not uncommon after 
vaccination), not due to it being too high.

So, if you ever hear of a child suffering a complication or dying "from", 
say measles, ask two questions:

1) Was the child vaccinated? This is most probable, though he/she will most 
likely be assumed not to have been until the medical records are checked. 
(By vaccinated we mean at least ONE dose of ANY vaccine - not necessarily 
the measles vaccine - they ALL weaken the immune system), and

2) What treatment was the child given? Sure enough you will find that the 
illness was mismanaged, as described above.

Non-vaccinating parents in our developed countries are commonly asked what 
they "do" to their children that makes them so vibrantly healthy and alert. 
It is actually normal for a properly nourished and nurtured child to grow 
up in good health, WHEN there is no administration of toxic substances. In 
a healthy child, infections, even colds, are rarely seen, and if and when 
contracted they are dealt with easily and quickly. Indeed, most of the time 
an infection is contracted it is dealt with so easily by the immune system 
that the person does not fall ill, so is unaware of it.
 

So, in summary, the incomplete analysis and handling of the autism problem 
is muddying the issue and only results in what can best be described as a 
logical mess in relation to the whole issue of causality of autism.  Some 
parents discount the link completely because they know that their or 
other's children developed autism before the MMR, or much later (after 
another vaccine). Others expend vast amounts of energy searching for, and 
travelling long distances to, medical centres that will give separate 
measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. As a result, many thousands of 
children continue to be damaged, developing autism and many other serious 
effects, as a result of being given the MMR vaccine itself, the SEPARATE 
measles, mumps, ru