42 Introduction to Autism Spectrum Disorders
contains mercury. This has caused considerable concern, and has been linked
to the rise of ASD. From several sources, including the CDC, the data show no
apparent link between the type of mercury found in thimerosal and ASD.
However, several recent highly comprehensive studies from unbiased, inde
pendent and reliable investigators have clearly shown a higher risk of ASD in
children who received organomercury containing vaccines. For example, Geier
et al. [112} have explored the potential risk 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 (15,216)
who received HepB vaccine and concluded that: “Cases diagnosed with atypi
cal autism were statistically significantly more likely to have received greater
overall and dose‐dependent exposures to thimerosal containing mercury from
TM‐HepB vaccines 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.”Thimerosal Containing Mercury Stays in the Body and Is Very Toxic
A documentary “Vaxxed” has been released that shows that the adverse effects
of thimerosal were hidden and later the scientific data were destroyed by the
CDC. This information came to light via the lead scientist who worked for the
CDC on this specific project, suggesting that the MMR vaccine might have
caused ASD‐like symptoms in children who were given the vaccine when
under 12 months old. We have also investigated this issue and it appears that
exposure to live MMR (which is the version given to children) causes severe
damage to human fetal brain cell lines. We believe that since the adverse
effects are generally reported in a very small percentage of young children
(under 18 months of age), it is likely that these children were suffering from a
leaky blood–brain barrier (BBB). The BBB becomes leaky if the young child is
suffering from an asymptomatic underlying infection when administered a
MMR vaccine. This can cause severe neurological damage to a young devel
oping brain. We will provide details of this topic in Chapter 9). We also believe
that pathology of ASD experienced after vaccination (so called regressive
autism) is very different than the mechanism we have described above due to
synthetic chemicals that interfere in neurodevelopment during the fetal
development. Regressive autism may be the direct result of the toxic effects of
actual vaccine ingredients and not a fetal developmental problem. There are
numerous disclosed and undisclosed chemicals as well as live viruses that can
penetrate the BBB if it is leaky and can directly damage the neurons. We will
discuss this issue as well as a potential solution to prevent regressive autism in
Chapter 9.