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Titer Test. Your child may not need that booster shot and the law is on your side.

Dads and Autism — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:22:00 GMT

In our case Little Emerson showed signs of autism since birth, but was not diagnosed until after the age of two, after his initial MMR vaccine. From that point after so much angst, expense, tears and most of all, effort we were making progress towards healing him. Little Em was finally starting to say words and look us in the eyes, then came time for his MMR booster shot. We were sick to our stomachs wondering if this booster would cause regression and thwart all our efforts. The vision of injecting him with something that could hurt him further literally brought tears to my eyes. After much research I found a few things out about the MMR "booster" and what our rights are in the State of New Jersey.

First, the MMR booster is not a booster at all. The initial vaccine inoculates approximately 94 to 95% of the population receiving it. The booster is later administered a second time across the board to simply increase the inoculation percentage up a few points to about 97 to 98%. So out of 100 children who initially receive the MMR, about 95 already have enough antibodies and do not require the follow up shot. Secondly, you are allowed to get what's known as a titer test. This is a blood test to measure the amount of antibodies in the blood stream. If they are high enough, your child is exonerated from the follow up MMR vaccine. All day care facilities and schools must accept this and cannot prevent your child from attending if your child passes the required antibody levels on the titer.

Don't Be Surprised If Doctors Are Resistant.

In our case we waited until we were in the doctor's office to receive the booster when I notified the nurse who came in with the vaccine that we wanted a script for a titer. She became quite flustered and insisted that the booster was required. I calmly requested to meet with the doctor. He complied and wrote a script for a titer test, but what I find so disturbing is even with the knowledge of my son's condition, I still had to garner this information elsewhere. Long story short, my son's antibodies were high enough and he did not require the booster. I can't say that vaccines had any ill effect Little Em, but after all we have been going through we didn't want to risk anything.

Because of Little Em's autism we meet so many other parents in the same situation with the same pit in their stomach when it comes time for booster shots, but to my surprise they don't know of the titer. Why isn't this common knowledge? With all the concern over vaccines how come school authorities and doctors don't advertize this choice? Sadly I think it's part economics, and part that the public is used to lining up like lemmings when it comes to doctor's orders (imagine how much less money the Pharma companies would make if 95% of the population didn't get their booster shots because they didn't need it.)

The titer test is available for the following vaccines:

MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)
Hepatitis B
Diphtheria, Tetanus
H. Influenza (Hi
Hepatitis A
Chicken Pox, (Varicella - zoster)
Influenza A and B
Polio
Pneumococcal vaccines

So if you're up at night worried about an upcoming vaccine shot for your child, research your state laws and see if a titer test is available. And spread the word. With autism now affecting 1 in 100 children, (1 in 66 if it's a boy) everyone now knows someone who affected by this condition. Who knows, at the very least you may help save another parent from that awful pit in their stomach.

EPIGENETICS Can A New Science Finally Be Up To The Task of Building The Bridge Toward "Evidence Of Harm?"

Dads and Autism — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:37:00 GMT

There's anew science that may finally be up to the task of explaining autism's causes. What scientists are discovering is what we do today may not only affect our health and future, but also children and our children's children.

Standing on a soap box and callingout, "It's Thimerosal, it's Vaccines, it's Pesticides, it's Mercury fromcoal burning power plants," without the "Evidence of Harm" toback up such accusations only causes our cries to fall on deaf ears anddiscredit our position. Especially when the Parma companies, politicians andindustry leaders lay back on their laurels and say "There is no conclusiveevidence." Fortunately that's all that is about to change.

Up until now every theoryattempting to connect toxins like thimerosal, pesticides and methylmercury fromcoal burning power plants have always run into a conundrum. When thimerosal wasfinally removed from infant vaccines one would think there would at least be aleveling off of autism, but just a week ago, the incidence rate of autism increasedfrom 1 in 150 children to 1 in 100 and from 1 in 94 boys to 1 in about 66. Therate is still climbing exponentially. When we call out the pesticide and coalburning power plant companies, they say "show me the evidence," andmany times when blood tests are run on our children there are no elevated levelsof these suspect compounds. Even when scientists have shown increased rates ofautism is directly correlated to proximity of the pesticide ridden fields orcoal burning power plants, it's only been relegated as "coincidence."

So where is the "evidence ofharm?" Where is the bridge that can finally be built to connect suspectcompounds like thimerosal, pesticides and mercury from power plants? How do we prove that subtle poisoning overgenerations is finally pushing our genetic material beyond its limits when ourhard DNA strands show no damage and our blood samples come back clean?

Enter the new science ofepigenetics. Our understanding of static genetics,biology, the environment and how they interact is quickly changing. Epigeneticscience is proving to be the very bridge we are looking for. In 2001 themapping of the human genome was thought to solve all of life’s mysteries.Scientists imagined once they had the book of life, they could then comparedisease to genetic codes – change the codes back to where they belonged andcure it. But they soon discovered that disease still reared its head withoutany gene mutation. It was particularly evident in identical twins developingprofoundly different diseases. Schizophrenia, autism or cancer would afflictone twin while the other was unaffected. This left the scientists scratchingtheir heads after their genetic codes were proven identical. So what was goingon?

When youthink about the fact that every cell in your body carries your full geneticcode, how do your skin cells know to only become more skin cells? What’sprogramming them to only use (or express) the genes needed to create that cell?Triggers outside the entire gene strand that individually express or suppressthem have been discovered. The gene’s expression is known as methylation. Thisis the cornerstone of epigenetic science. It’s a tough concept, but I think ofit like this. Imagine a grand piano as a cell. Each string on the pianorepresents a single gene on the DNA strand. Each key (or gene) is designed toexpress a specific note if triggered or make no sound if untouched or (suppressed).Now imagine a pianist sitting before the keyboard – he is the epigeneticexpresser. He begins to play a beautiful song, hitting each key (or gene) releasingits code. He composes a perfect melodic body of sound. He can even play thekeys soft to partially express the gene. One set of keys expressed in a certainorder create a skin cell. Another set of keys played represent nerve cells. Onecan close their eyes to the beauty as the soothing cacophony of notes gel inperfect unison to make a whole. But then the Pianist (or epigenetic trigger)gets disturbed by a fly buzzing around his ear or a cough from the audience(the environment) and he hits the wrong key (expresses the wrong gene.) Thewrong note rings sour changing the entire melody or in this case, cause a nervecell to not form and function properly. The body of music or physical nervecell is no longer in tune. Simply having the notes misplayed can have asdramatic effect as a broken piano string.

A genemutation would be equated to a snapped piano wire. What has been so elusive toscientists in the past is that the piano (or genes) were not damaged, making itimpossible to explain why things were going wrong. What they realize now iserrors in gene programming can cause as dramatic and cataclysmic physicalproblems in the body as hard gene mutation.

So what’schanged over the last sixty years to cause the diagnosis of ASD to growexponentially? What scientists are proving is the epigenome system is much moresensitive to environmental factors than the hard genes. Even though the genesaren’t mutated, profound adverse affects can still occur not only on theindividual, but to our dismay, can also effect many future generations down theline in ways scientists never imagined. Over a person's life time,environmental factors alter our epigenetic programming. What’s worse yet issome of these epigenetic mutations can be passed down to future generations. Itused to be believed that the epigenetic changes that took place over a person'slifetime were not passed down, but that's been proven untrue in manyexperiments. For instance, MichaelSkinner, a professor of molecular biosciences at Washington State Universityand his team described how they exposed rats to a pesticide and documented theill effects. Not surprisingly, increased cancer and neurological disorders weredocumented in about 85% of the rats. They were checked for any gene damage andthere was none. I repeat – no hard genetic damage.

Here’s the most frighteningdiscovery. As they were bred, the percentage of offspring affected with thesame ailments continued at the same rate four generations later. Even though there was no genetic damage ordirect contact with pesticide, the offspring four generations down the linebehaved as if they had been directly poisoned. Digging for moreinformation, they found altered DNA methylation of certain genes. (Now correlate this finding to our exposure to pesticidessince the 1940's, thimerosal since the 1920's and methylmercury from coalburning power plants over the last few generations and you can see why it’sbeen so hard to find ‘direct causal effect’.) The minute exposure and subtlepoisoning began generations ago.

Discoveringthe rats passing down epigenetic mutations is called genomic imprinting.Indeed, much of the research today illustrates the genetic anomalies associatedwith autism are improper gene expression that was passed down from parents. Inother words the genetic mutations associated with autism are for the most partepigenetic. The piano is whole and intact, but the pianist has lost his abilityto play the tune correctly. This helps explain why trying to find the ‘damagedgene’s’ has been so elusive to scientist. The genes are not broken; they’resimply the victim of improper expression or suppression.

Epigeneticsties together the elusive gap of “causal relationship” of methylmercury,thimerosal and pesticides when it comes to connecting it to our children. Asthis and other startling experiments illustrate that epigenetic changes mayendure for at least four subsequent generations presents the argument that solong as thimerosal laced flu vaccines are pumped into our bodies in adulthood,each vaccination chips away at our epigenetic programming and only increasesthe chances of passing down neurological maladies. (Thimerosal is still lacedin vaccination and flu shots for children ages five and up.) The older we getthe more damage our epigenetic code endures and the greater chance we have atpassing down maladies that will profoundly affect a newborn even though he orshe has never been directly exposed to the toxins.

Our sheet music of life isnaturally altered as we grow older; however, compounds like thimerosal,pesticides and methylmercury are shredding it beyond repair. Epigenetic expressionis designed to be malleable to allow an organism’s quick adaptation for survivalso it can endure rapid environmental changes. What nature hasn’t prepared foris the unnatural super toxic manmade neurotoxins that have disseminated intoour environment over the past handful of generations. The terrifying specterthis raises is these elements are wreaking havoc not only on us, but on ourchildren and possibly for generations to come.

Epigenetic science provides the onlycomprehensive picture that ties together many of the ‘loose ends’ that theseparate theories of autism could not answer:

1.) Why it has it been sodifficult for scientist to pin down the genes that cause autism? The geneshave not mutated, therefore the scientist are missing what’s really happening.Only when they looked into gene methylation did they start to see many ‘hotspots’ correlating to autism.

2.) Why are some children‘born’ with autistic symptoms before being vaccinated? The damagedepigenetic code inherited from the parents is expressed in a newborn.

3.) Why are children bornwith neurological disorders, yet don’t show elevated levels of mercury orpesticides in their system? Their epigenetic code was already altered bythe parents grandparent or even great grandparents before they were born. This isperhaps the most profound bridge that has eluded proponents of thimerosal andother environmental poisons from proving causal relationship. No one knew theseheavy metals and other toxins could leave DNA intact, yet still wreak havocdown a multigenerational level as proven with recent experiments.

4.) Why are older couples aremore prone to sire autistic children? The longer we live, the more ourepigenetic code is assaulted by adult thimerosal laced flu shots, pesticides,methylmercury, smoke and all the other every day environmental hazards of life.Furthermore, this presents an excellent argument to rid ALL vaccines ofthimerosal. Even though our adult bodies can tolerate thimerosal in fluvaccines and such, we are damaging our epigenetic code for our futuregenerations.

There may be some questions thatI’ll try to answer: If epigenetics istrue, is there research to being done to reprogram epigenetic malfunctions?Yes, as a matter of fact there is and it mostly is in the realm of cancerresearch. In essence epigenetic therapy is to not kill the cancer cells, but tobe more subtle. The idea is to correct the expression or suppression of thegenes to get the cancer cells to behave as they were originally programmed. Tosay, ‘hey you’re not a cancer cell,’ and remind it to be the lung cell it wassupposed to be. This is wonderful for the treatment of cancer because it wouldspare the person the poisonous remedy and horrendous side effects ofchemotherapy.

Isthere any success in this research? Yes. It is very preliminary, but thereare tests with some very positive results. Take MDS, cancer of the blood andbone marrow. It is a type of leukemia. There was no known cure and peoplediagnosed with the disease were typically given only a few months to live. Anexperimental drug was administered with the idea to correct the epigeneticexpression of tumor suppressing genes. It was believed that over the course oflife that the tumor suppressor gene was accidentally turned off or suppressed.The drug was designed to turn it back on. In nearly 50% of the patients thedisease completely disappeared after administering the drug. This is an immensebreak though since previous mortality rates were 100%. It’s obvious thatepigenetic science is not simply theory or conjecture. It is working science.

Isthere any research looking to correct the improper DNA methylation in autisticchildren? Not that I'm aware of. To me, the problem with taking thisapproach towards "curing" autism is trying to do it the hard way. Aswe are seeing, autism has an infinite amount of variables in how individuals areaffected. And as scientists delve deeper into discovering which genes areimproperly expressed, they're finding this task to be laced with infinitevariables. The toxic compounds mixed and exposed to us in variable amounts overgenerations on something so complicated as our epigenetic system has thepropensity for an infinite amount epigenetic mutations. Trying to find everysingle malady and individually chemically repair it is a road we've been forcedto take, but it's ass backwards. I have an idea, let's take a stronger approachto not expose ourselves to the chemicals in the first place. Scientist can tryto chemically fix the three legged frogs in the polluted pond, but we're stillgoing to keep getting deformed frogs so long as they're still swimming in atoxic soup. Once we prove causal relationship to certain chemicals and autismwe can begin to really get to the heart of stopping it by cleaning up thechemicals that are causing it in the first place.

So is any amount of toxic exposure safe?

The Federal Government hasstandardized what it perceives as a ‘tolerable or safe level’ of mercury andpesticide exposure and they still have not removed thimerosal from adultvaccines. But at that time they had nounderstanding of epigenetic accumulation, environmentally induced epigeneticalterations nor how parental epigenetic mutation can be passed down tochildren. The revelations in epigenetic science illustrates there will never bea safe or tolerable level of these toxins.

Methylmercury, pesticides, andthimerosal are much like the deadly gases in the coal mines. They’re silent,odorless and invisible – especially when their effects are epigeneticallypassed down to our children. They have insidiously poisoned the minds of ourhelpless children without leaving behind a telltale trail of genetic mutationsor toxic chemical/heavy metal signatures in the bloodstream that everyone waslooking for. The causal relation of these neurotoxins to autism has beenelusive, but our eyes are now open, at least for some. I imagine sooncontrolled lab tests will reveal how minute amounts of pesticides, thimerosaland alike will directly affect specific gene expression. These results can thenbe compared to expression in afflicted children and the evidence will becomeundeniable.

This is a manmade catastrophe and only man can turn this around. Butperhaps the most frightening revelation of epigenetic science is that even ifwidespread environmental changes were immediately instituted, it may takegenerations before the tsunami of autism will ebb.

Formore information on Epigenetics, the DVD documentary by NOVA called: Ghost In Your Genes is a greatresource. Other articles of interest maybe: Environmentalmercury release, special education rates, and autism disorder: an ecologicalstudy of Texas.

Visit: http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/seed.pdf

California study draws possible linkbetween pesticides, autism

Visit:www.nctimes.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/article_7df7cae6-7330-58d2-91fb-1a4cc66781e1.html

Epigenetics of autism spectrum disordersHumanMolecularGenetics200615(ReviewIssue2):R138R150;doi:10.1093/hmg/ddl213)http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/suppl_2/R138

Divorce and Autism: They don't have to go hand in hand. A father's struggle to heal his son, his family and beat the odds.

Dads and Autism — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 14:18:00 GMT

Let meintroduce myself. I’m EmersonDonnell. Born and raised in New Jersey Iwaited until my 40’s to have a child. Little did I know I was a perfect match, a statistical poster of thetypical parent who sires an autistic child, (an older white male living in NewJersey, the state with the highest incidence of autism.) And little did I know after the birth of myson Emerson that my wife Jen and I were being railroaded right into the next widelyaccepted statistic. Supposedly over 80% of marriages that sire an autisticchild end in divorce. Some even say it's more like 85%. First I wanted to verify if it was true, butin my research I could not validate this "statistic." However, after being force fed into autism's meatgrinder of financial distress, anger, frustration and heartbreak I don't doubtit for a second.

WhenLittle Emerson was first diagnosed this specter of collateral damage wasrelegated as not only unavoidable but something my wife and I simply had tosurrender to. I remember wondering why wasn't anyone addressing this? What'sgoing wrong and where are the books to help families hold it together? When toomany soldiers die on a battle field the commanders and strategists don't justshrug their shoulders and say "oh well." No, they sit down, figure out what's goingwrong and set plans to prevent it from happening again.

Now thereare many reasons why families divorce even when nothing so tragic happens, butone glaring cause seemed to be revealed from recent research. And I can attest to the findings because Iwas living this very experience. Recentstudies from the University of Florida found most families fall apart becauseDads check out. Furthermore, it wasn't due to the fact his child was autistic,it was how autism was affecting his relationship with the child. They couldn'tconnect. It's not that dads didn't want to connect, it was that they didn'tknow how.

Here'smy personal example of how the nuclear family stricken with autism can suddenlydisintegrate. As most dads, I had warm Christmas like visions of my son runningto my arms when coming home from a hard day’s work. But every night when I camethrough the door my hands were left empty. My son was deaf, blind andemotionless to my arrival. There was no response whatsoever. His indifferencecrushed my very foundation of fatherhood. Autism is so insidious, it can seep intothe family fabric and begin to tear it apart before you even realize it'sthere. After his diagnosis, I discovered this was very typical of an autisticchild, but it still didn’t lessen the pain. Night after night I came home, gotinto my son’s face and vied for his attention. Inside I begged for someresponse, anything, a quick glimpse back or maybe even a smile, but each nightwas the same. I couldn’t rip him out of his thousand mile stare. I was lost.After another night of irrelevance, I remember tossing my car keys on thecounter and cursing under my breath. My evening was ruined again and mybehavior was about set the whole house into another emotional tailspin. Despitemy best efforts, I couldn’t help but become more detached as hopelessness and depressionset in. It's not that I didn't want to connect with my son, it was that Ididn't know how. I was becoming overwhelmed, I wanted to "fix" thesituation, but had no idea how to go about it.

A fatherwanting to connect with his child for his own fulfillment may sound like aselfish endeavor, that he's not thinking of the child's best interests. But onthe contrary. Creating bonds and developing proper emotional responses to aparent may be arguably the most important therapy a child can receive. Recentstudies found that when a father learned to connect with his child and"stay in the game" the child's vocabulary typically increased by over50%! Furthermore, developingaffectionate behaviors early on can help break through the gray shell of autismand bring out the colorful humanity hidden within these children. As awonderful side effect, learning to connect will help weave the family fabricback together.

This allsounds great, but if you're a parent struggling with this very problem, Iimagine your thinking, so where do Ibegin? There are so many areas to work on but let's get down to thenitty-gritty, and revisit the above scenario of family greetings.

Cominghome at the end of the day and trying to get into your child's face in the hopeof a reaction is basically a formula for failure. It may not sound very fun,but being calculating and pragmatic is the best approach. The goal here is toget your child out of his world and for your arrival and presence to berelevant to him.

As withany other ABA program you may have to first physically prompt him, but the keyis to get the child physically involved in the greeting process. 1. Call yourspouse ahead of time so he or she can prepare the environment. Turn the TV off,get any food or drink out of the child's hands. Start to talk about "Daddycoming home," and physically get him facing the door. By doing this youare narrowing down distractions and setting up the environment. Dads (or Mom -whomever is coming home) should not simply walk through the door, but knock onthe door, call his child's name. If the child does not respond, mom should helpthe child walk to the door, physically prompt him to open the door ifnecessary. (Do not just pick up the child or open the door for them. The goalis to get them involved and participating). Dad should be bent down at hislevel and come in with a hug.

As amajor note, do not expect this to all go smoothly. To put it lightly pulling anautistic child out of his comfort zone to participate in normal affectionatebehaviors can be a battle of wills. Expect melt downs, flopping and resistance,but this is unfortunately a natural process of acclimating autistic children toour world. One day may not better than the last, but chances are you will beginto see progress through weeks and months. Also, like other ABA regimens, developing this behavioral habit ofcoming to the door at the sound of a parent's voice, opening it and embracingwill be infinitely easier to ingrain when they are younger. Autistic childrenare known for developing "habits" and creating these specific typesof habits can have profound positive effects. Though they may not have thecapacity to understand the intrinsic good feeling of an embrace, I have foundit can be taught and may blossom back in ways never imagined. Finally getting your child to independentlyrun to the door at the sound of your voice will be priceless. This is the stuff that keeps families togetherworking for more.

Convert the bane of a typical autistic behavior into therapy:

Dads and Autism — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 11:22:00 GMT

Every child's autism is different and unique, however, there are also many common traits. One of the most frustrating and dangerous is what I call the deaf run. This is where the child will bolt from a parent's hand for some desired object. Normal children do this as well, however, many autistic children are particularly talented at ignoring their parents. They also may be quite fixated on a particular item or object which acts as a terrible distraction when attempting a therapy session. For instance I remember seeing a four year old bolt from his chair to go push a spring loaded door open so he could watch it automatically shut. The therapist repeatedly chased him down, took him by the arm and brought him back to the desk in an attempt to get the child reengaged at the task at hand. Of course the child resisted, flopped and whined making the time spent on therapy little more than a complete waste of time. I saw this as a terribly missed opportunity.

Personally I remember my son,Emerson, bolting from my hands to run for a small creek behind our house. Heloved it down there and I provided every opportunity to go. Problem was he gotso excited he would simply run and leave me in the dust. I had to perpetually chase him down and tryto reign him in, but nothing seemed to work. I wanted so desperately to connect,but I had no idea how to go about it.

Most any parent of an autistic child can tell a similar heartbreaking story of how their child runs off, ignores their attempts of eye contact or any acknowledgment of their voice. So why not use this object of desire to connect, incite eye contact, develop speech and get a little joy all at once? Here's how.

Let's take the incident of the little boy running for the spring loaded door. Imagine the therapist engaging with the boy's desire instead of repeatedly trying to redirect him. By turning him toward the door, bending down and getting her face up into his, she asks if he wants to "go?" Depending on the child's verbal ability this can be expanded on. If you are just inciting speech, this is a great opportunity to have their undivided attention to learn how to request for something. Teaching a child a word like "go"involves action on their part and attempting to incite speech on something that is so desired and relevant to them will typically be much easier. The child will most likely be looking right through you towards the desired object, but guess what, now you're becoming naturally integrated into their world. If they can't talk, perhaps you may get them to point or even partially speak. One other thing I did with Emerson was to verbally count down with my fingers in front of his face, "one, two three!"before bolting towards the creek. It took some time, but after repeated exercises, his little fingers began to move as he was attempting to count. Here's a trick, once you say "go!" run backwards and watch the joy on their face as they bolt free towards the desired object. At three years old it was perhaps the first time I saw a wide smile and lucid glimpse from my son's beautiful blue eyes.

For the therapist, this exercise can be repeatedly done as a game of sorts, each time bending down,counting down, getting the child to communicate in some way their desire to go toward the object. And each bolt for the door will be met with giggles and laughs instead of a firm grips and words to redirect them back.

Sometimes the best therapy involves the use of things you never imagined like the spring loaded door. But at the end of the day, developing that happy connection can be arguably the most important therapy of all.Developing that connection cracks open those ever so small windows for communication and makes way for other more formal therapies.

Contributed by Emerson B.Donnell III, Author of Dads And Autism, How To Stay In The Game.

Welcome

Dads and Autism — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:30:09 GMT

Welcome to my blog. Please check back soon for new entries.