A group of senators has called on Congress to enquire into why infant autism has reached such proportions.

Unable to deny the figures, proponents of vaccination have argued that before 1991 nobody kept close count of cases. However, most scientists are worried. Life, 16 August 1999, reported that Martin Babayco, Director of the California’s Unified School District, had created a special section for autism: “During the last two years the number has shown regular increase and our experience has been corroborated elsewhere."

“I think the increase is undeniable,” says Marie Bristol-Power, coordinator for Network on Neurology and Genetics in Autism at the National Institute of Infant Health and Human Development, which has launched a wide enquiry into the subject.

Certain scientists think that pollution and pesticides are responsible but many parents see a definite link with childhood vaccinations, particularly that for hepatitis B and combinations such as the MMR.

Rick Rollens of Granite Bay, California, is one such. He is an ex-Secretary of State for California and a co-founder of FEAT (Families for Early Autism Treatment). His son, Russel, showed first signs of autism at 7 months immediately after receiving routine vaccinations: “I know what happened in my son’s case and after talking to other parents I’m certain there’s an undeniable time relationship between the onset of autism and the vaccinations.”

Jeana and Darrell Smith of Baton Rouge are convinced that genetics has nothing to do with their son Jacob’s autism because his twin brother Jesse has not been affected. Jacob had a HB jab at one month, whereas Jesse was not done for another 3 months. At 15 months both received the MMR. “From that moment,” Jeana recalls, “Jacob’s behaviour changed and his verbal skill deteriorated. I believe the hepatitis-B upset his immune system and the MMR did the rest.” Both parents have been firmly in favour of vaccination but will not now submit their daughter of 7 months.

Portia Iverson, founder and President of CAN (Cure Autism Now) at Los Angeles, says that about 50 per cent of parents calling her organisation speak of sudden changes in their children’s behaviour after vaccination. Dr Bernard Rimland, researcher in psychology and father of an autistic child, is founder and director of the Autism Research Institute of San Diego. “It’s a veritable epidemic,” he says. “It’s grotesque to pretend there’s no link between autism and vaccination except by coincidence. The truth is that infants are being damaged by vaccinations.”

Bruno Bettleheim blames indifferent mothers, arguing that autism arises from a lack of love, but Dr Rimland points to biological and neurological mechanisms and dysfunction in the immune system. Over a period of 33 years he has studied some 30,000 cases of autism across the world and discovered that, prior to the 60s, parents were reporting autism in the course of year one, whereas from the 60s they were speaking of 18 months. He noted that autistic infants came from cultivated, well-to-do families of the kind who would want to take early advantage of medical discoveries such as antibiotics and vaccines.

In 1965 parents had already seen autism appear in their children after DPT. When another triple vaccine, the MMR, was introduced “alarming reports from parents increased very significantly,” according to the Los Angeles Times, 26 April 2000.

In 1996, despite protests from health officials, damages and interest were awarded under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in behalf of a child who became mentally retarded and displayed autistic behaviour 4 hours after DPT vaccination.

Clinical Immunology and Immunopathy published, in 1998, a study of autistic infants by immunologist Professor Vijendra Singh and his team. They indicated that exposure to measles virus could produce an auto-immune response causing interference with development of myelin: “Although there is no data base, parents of autistic children are reporting problems immediately after inoculation with MMR and DPT.”

Solicitors Dawbarn’s of Norfolk, GB, have in hand more than 600 cases of MMR-related complications, 287 of which concern autism.

In the USA disinformation is at work just as much as in France. Dr Samuel Katz, Duke University, is a keen supporter of the vaccination policy in his country, being adviser to Immunization Action Coalition. He notes that “There is much that we don’t know about vaccines,” but he doesn’t hesitate to imitate all his colleagues in adopting the stance that “there is no proof that vaccines are responsible for all the cases of autism, diabetes, asthma, multiple sclerosis and cot death.”

This throws new light on the subject when we learn that Dr Katz co-directs Vaccine Initiative, an information group receiving funds from six vaccine manufacturers, and that Immunization Action Coalition is sponsored by several pharmaceuticals such as SmithKline Beecham, Merck, Connaught-Pasteur-Mérieux and Wyeth-Lederle. The same can be said of John Hopkins University’s vaccination pioneer, Dr Neal Halsey, who, like Katz, sits on the ACIP and Red Book committees and believes the HB vaccine is safe.

American Medical News, 2 August 1999 (Vol 42, No 29), explained: “Victims’ families are tending to see a chronological link since the symptoms manifest when immunization is induced by the vaccine. Although the links have rarely been proven by diagnosticians, the word goes round in a population with no experience of childhood infections and the vaccines get the blame.” But is it necessary to have great experience of childhood infections to take the view that side effects appearing immediately after a vaccination must have some connection with that vaccination? In the same issue Samuel Katz is somewhat condescending: “Parents believe – in good faith – that the problem has been triggered by the vaccination.”

Medical journalist Nicholas Regush questioned these doctors and noted that they took care not to furnish proof of their assertions. On 14 October 1999 on ABC News Regush concluded: “I devined that all was not well – it was more like politics than science.” American infants receive 21 injections in their first year and 200 new vaccines are currently being researched, some of which will be administered in nose spray, others in fruits and vegetables. “I call that vaccinomania,” says Regush, “We can no longer defend this scientifically.
To introduce new vaccines into the body without knowing their effect on the immune system with time approaches criminality.”