272 Vaccines and Autism
have discovered significant neurotoxicity of vaccines containing thimerosal
and shown serious neuromodifying effects of many live vaccines on fetal brain‐
like neurons in vitro (unpublished data).
As it is evident from the quotations shown at the start of this chapter, the
vaccination debate has taken a political tone and it is difficult for individual
parents to decide if exposure of their children to an organomercury containing
vaccine would lead to a higher risk of regressive autism [62].
At this juncture, we would like to explain that there is a huge difference
between classical autism and the kind of autism that children acquire after
receiving a vaccine (either containing thimerosal or not containing thimero-
sal). In the case of regressive autism, children are born healthy, have apparently
normal development, and have been reaching their developmental milestones
(as clearly documented in their medical records) and then suddenly develop
autism‐like symptoms shortly after receiving a schedule vaccine. In some cir-
cles, regressive autism is called atypical autism and referred to as a condition
“where young children lose early language and social skills.” This does not
clarify the fact that in some cases this happens just after a child has received a
vaccine [61,62]. Regressive autism is twice as common in African‐American
children as compared with Caucasian children, and 50% higher in Hispanic/
Latino children as compared with Caucasian children [63]. We will discuss in
detail the underlying scientific evidence and why we think this happens.
In order to provide the basic evidence and reasons for regressive autism,” we
first present the latest evidence in support of increased risks for regressive
autism. Then we will discuss that out of millions of children who have received
the same vaccines, why we believe only a small number of children suffer from
regressive autism, and how it can be prevented with a reasonable degree of
certainty if specific, easy to carry out screening can be implemented a few min-
utes before delivering a vaccine to a child. This latter idea will be presented as
a hypothesis based on our ongoing research and related testing of the BBB.What is the Evidence That Organomercurial Vaccines Pose a Higher
Risk of Regressive Autism?
Recently, Geier et al. [64] published an interesting research report that explored
potential risks of thimerosal‐containing hepatitis B vaccine (or HepB).
Three doses of this vaccine are given to children before the age of 18 months.
They evaluated a large number of individuals (i.e., 15,216) who received HepB
vaccine and concluded that [64]: “Cases diagnosed with atypical autism were
statistically significantly more likely to have received greater overall and dose‐
dependent exposures to thimerosal‐containing mercury from TM‐HepB vac-
cines administered within the first month of life, first two months of life, and
first six months of life than the controls. Similar phenomena were observed
when cases and controls were separated by gender.”