David Kirby exonerates thimerosal
October 28, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
So thimerosal’s not the “‘smoking gun‘” linking vaccines to autism, according to David Kirby, whose 2005 book, Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy argued that thimerosal—-a mercury-based preservative—-was the culprit behind what he calls the “autism epidemic.”
From an article in today’s Star-Ledger (New Jersey) about an October 23rd forum on infant and child vaccines at the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center:
[Kirby]…..said he believed that thimerosal, which still exists in trace amounts in some childhood vaccines, was no longer the “smoking gun.” Several national studies have found no connection, and a California study found that, even after thimerosal was removed from vaccines, diagnoses of autism continued to rise.
But, he said, the links between vaccines and conditions like autism are still strong and more research is needed. One area to look at is to determine which children might have a genetic propensity for a condition such as autism, for which vaccines may act as a trigger.
……
“New Jersey is lousy with mercury,” he said, much of it from air pollution that is spread in rain.
But he also pointed to the “universality of vaccines” as an explanation for so many children’s contracting chronic illnesses.
“Not everybody lives near cell phone towers, uses the same baby food or household products, but everyone gets vaccines,” he said. He cited the example of the immigrant Somali population in Milwaukee. Pregnant women, mothers and babies were given up to 10 vaccines “and the autism rates among Somali refugees are through the roof,” he said.
So Minneapolis (not Milwaukee) is “lousy” with Somali children who have autism (which is not, of course, a “chronic illness”)?
As everyone knows, it’s generally said that New Jersey is simply “lousy”; based on the autism education Charlie’s gotten here, with speech therapy and OT and daily PE integrated into his school day, and good lines of communication between the teacher and me thanks to email and the phone, I would beg to differ. (But I do tend to weigh education and schools heavily in my thinking.)
And as for it raining mercury here in Jersey? It has been raining all day here—-snowing even in some places—-Charlie and I got a bit wet on our way to the dentist office. He’s never been inclined to use an umbrella—-good thing we both have hooded rain jackets—-neither of us has yet to become more autistic.
So now that thimerosal’s off the suspect list for causing autism, what’ll be next?
Well, my interpretation is different. Now that causation as such in terms of only cause has been considered not operative, new research is opening more clues ( I hope) to present more well-defined questions to adverse reactions to vaccines-especially looking at vaccines as medications and genetic susceptibility ( the innate immune system role, the inflammasome role, autoimmunity and inflammation role, the fertile field hypothesis etc).
I’m still picking myself up off the floor.
Lousy with mercury? As lousy with it when people were taking it as medicine? And perhaps someone else with patience can step in and discuss issues of bioavailability and routes of uptake. Or perhaps even discuss how autism exists in populations that aren’t vaccinated and did before vaccinations. Maybe there’s no one left with that kind of patience.
Kristina,
I am glad to hear Charlie even gets to the Dentist. That can’t be easy.
On your comments on Mito Dysf or Disorder. Have you have done any research on whether more genetic testic at birth may help prevent at least some of the symptoms of Autism. Since it is a multifaceted disorder, and generally there is a genetic pre-disposition and it’s not always caused by the same environmental factor. What I mean is, almost all kids in the spectrum have digestive issues, many had food allergies and other feeding issues even from birth, but not all. Others have Mito disfunction, or hormonal or metabolic issues. I know some states are beginning to increase their requirements, some of these genetic disorders can cause developmental delays if left untreated, so it seems to make sense. Just wondering your thoughts on that.
“almost all kids in the spectrum have digestive issues”
source??
Of all the Autistics I know personally (”Asperger’s” or otherwise), none have ever had chronic or long-term “digestive issues.”
Clearly, some Autistics do. But “almost all”? Not by a long-shot.
Mine don’t.
My son doesn’t have any digestive issues…he will gag himself by putting too much food in his mouth but has an iron stomach for everything that makes it there!:)
@Cristina,
Here’s a recently reported new method for genetic screening in ASDs:
http://www.autismvox.com/new-method-for-genetic-screening-in-asds/
There’s mention of how this might lead to diagnosing children early/earlier and starting them on “treatment”; no mention of autism and metabolic disorders and the like. It’s primarily organizations like “Defeat Autism Now!” (DAN!) that argue for those sorts of biomedical theories about what autism is.
said he believed that thimerosal, which still exists in trace amounts in some childhood vaccines, was no longer the “smoking gun.”
But for at least 3 years he claimed so, with a pit stop at Chinese cremations wafting over the Pacific, and has stirred the pot with suggestive innuendo, flourishes of rhetoric, and speaking tours, even in the face of disputing evidence.
So now that he has decided thimerosal, per se, is not the “smoking gun”–although it is somewhat unclear what the new “smoking gun” candidates will be, and I am pretty sure that Mr. Kirby is not going to be one of the direct researchers, the main question that I have is,
Why would I give a hoot what he believes…at all?
OK, I just started listening to the presentation that the story refers to–I think that “exoneration” might be an overstatement of what Mr. Kirby said. The presentation sounds like a lot of what has been said in the past, including parental report of paraphrases of “mercury poisoning” after vaccination, temporal associations, powerpoint slides of provoked urine tests, dispute of epidemiologic studies, the Burbacher study, his theories on Hannah Poling, etc.
Kristina, you’ve already blogged on alot of this in the past, but if you are interested in what he said first hand,
To register for the webcast:
http://register.webcastgroup.com/event/?wid=0701023084365&WebcastID=4365&n=&e2=&c=&nf=&nl=&r=&i=
Off-thread,
Snow? Wow.
‘Glad Charlie had a good visit to the dentist.
Have a good day.
“And as for it raining mercury here in Jersey? It has been raining all day here—-snowing even in some places—-Charlie and I got a bit wet on our way to the dentist office. He’s never been inclined to use an umbrella—-good thing we both have hooded rain jackets—-neither of us has yet to become more autistic.”
That comment made me snort. LOL. I love it.
@jypsy
Source – just my life experience – which may well not be others – I respect that. Perhaps the parents of autistic kids I hang around have the same things in common as we do. But it wasn’t meant to be a scientific comment.
The genetic screening I was refering to is listed in the March of Dimes website under Newborn Screening. Many of the disorders listed, can cause MR and developmental delays (according to the March of Dimes). Could we prevent this at least in some children, by testing a child at birth or even at age 2 for a disorder on the list (Biotin disorder, or Fatty acid disorder, just two examples).
“What I mean is, almost all kids in the spectrum have digestive issues, many had food allergies and other feeding issues even from birth, but not all.”
That’s news to Dr. Timothy Buie, my son’s GI physician. He told me on our last visit that there are still no studies that have been done to see if there is a difference in the rates of GI disorders/diseases in the autistic population. We can only assume it is the same rate as the NT population at this point.
Please do us (autistics) a favour and not state as fact something that is purely personal speculation. The science doesn’t back you up. It appears personal experience here doesn’t either. Making false claims about autism, what it is and isn’t, can be very harmful and isn’t at all helpful.
I guess Kirby’s admission will mean that he can no longer promote his “Evidence of Harm” book. No one will be buying it anymore. I wonder if he has another book he is working on so he can continue to make money off of parents of autistic children. It doesn’t look like he has another source of income. He’d better hurry and write the next book on aluminum or whatever he can think of before somebody else beats him to it. A guys got to make a living.
Gastrointestinal Symptoms in a Sample of Children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders.
Autism spectrum disorders: concurrent clinical disorders
Relationship of dietary intake to gastrointestinal symptoms in children with autistic spectrum disorders.
“Reported frequency of GI abnormalities, including abnormal stool consistency (e.g., bulky or loose), was increased (54%)”
I do agree that all people eat the same food or the same cleaning supplys BUT there is one thing most people do use is WATER FOR DRINKING AND COOKING. From what I can find out that all or most of NJ does drink fluoridated water, and sence about 70% of the population dranks the same water why could it looked at a source of some of the problem? Becuse we know that EAD and ARSENIC is not good for childern!
Maria, thank you for the links! I will pull the articles.
It does look like the third article you quote from didn’t necessarily measure the rate of GI disorders in the autistic population as their stated purpose in the abstract is looking at their dietary intake:
The purpose of this study was to 1) describe dietary intake of a cohort of children with ASD compared with normative data and 2) determine whether GI symptoms and stool consistency are related to dietary intake.
But very interesting. We last saw Dr. Buie in June, and the first article was published this September. It looks like from the abstract it is the one specific for GI disorders and quotes a rate of 22.7% in the autistic children, hardly “almost all kids”. But it includes my kid, who has inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s) with severe gastritis. He has responded well to treatments and I was thankful to get a full night of sleep after it was under control!
The second article abstract talks about “GI dysfunction”. I want to read the full article to see if they were evaluated by pedi GI doctors and how they evaluated them, did they scope and biopsy them all? It will be an interesting read.
Hi Stordok Please look that the first article is related to PDD ( a wide diagnosis); the third one is related to Gi disturbances in ASD. I have more to comment and if you are interested, more links to present-Dr Horvath et al work for example and others. Please let me know
Dear Jypsy
Althought I am not an autistic (diagnosed) I also have many of the communication, social deficits, non-verbal language issues, anxiety, add, above average cognitive ability, and more. I don’t have severe digestive issues, but I feel I need to speak up for my children who do. Maybe they are related, maybe they are not. I would not want to insult any autistic, just as I would not want to insult my children (or even myself). I do not participate in any DAN protocol or Cure Autism Now. I simply go by what my doctor recomends for their issues. And I must say that my children are slowly but surely progressing. And both will be attending college. However, I still see their digestive issues as being directly related to their behavior, I believe in teaching more than treating autism. But if I could have prevented or treated their digestive issues, by knowing more about what caused them in the first place I would have. I am not a scientist just a mom. Perhaps you would rather moms not participate in this forum?
Cristina,
This forum is published by a Mom. Forget that “I am just a mom” talk here.
I’m just a mom too. I don’t profess that “almost all kids in the spectrum” have any trait, DSM autistic or otherwise, that either of my ASDxed kids have.
I’m all for mothers participating!
Hi Cristina – as “just a mom” of 5 kids, 4 with asd’s, I have to say that to date none of my kids have had digestive issues. They have an uncle and an aunt with Celiac Disease, so we know what to look for in terms of symptoms.
I think it is an interesting question you raise – how many children had digestive issues before their parents became concerned about their development/learned they had autism? After all, if you are told by other parents and read online that kids with autism have gluten/casein issues, isn’t possible you may be influenced by that and assume it must be true for your child as well? And again, just because my kids have never had those issues doesn’t mean I’m saying that other autistic kids don’t. But I think it’s a fair question to ask.
Go moms!
Epi Wonk listened to the presentation and got the same take that I did.
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=1601#comment-54008
And by influenced, I mean that you will start over analyzing and will see mountains in mole hills (been there, done that myself).
My kids get diarrhea on occasion, and constipation too. So do I. That doesn’t mean we have a chronic condition. But if you’re suddenly looking for signs of a chronic disorder it can be easy to misinterpret situations like that.
- I think everyone is missing my point. I am not speaking of Gluten Free/ Casein Free issues. I am talking about other things like the inability to digest for example Omega3 Fatty Acids, or inability to absorb Biotin, or B vitamins. I still don’t have an answer for why my 10 year old walks around naucious and in pain all the time, he has other things going on besides autism anyway, or why my 13 throws up when he drinks/eats Omega 3 fortified foods. I am glad to see that most parents on this forum don’t have to deal with these issues. I certainly wouldn’t wish it on any of you.
No, “everyone” is not missing your point.
Did you get mine?
Hey Christina,
I am sorry about your kids’ stomach issues and glad that they are slowly improving.
My daughter has lactose intolerance, but that’s not an enormous shock, since both I and my brother, her uncle do too. Fortunately, that’s about it and easily addressed.
I know some diagnosed kids who have GI problems and others who do not. I know a lot of families who do specialized diets, in particular the GF/CF–except for milk, we do not.
I have no particular objection to early screens–one of the first state-mandated tests Eleanor had as part of her well-baby checks was for phenylketonuria. That was negative, but I would have appreciated the heads up if it had been positive. When we were going through the diagnostic process the doc requested a battery of the currently available metabolic dysfunction tests in addition to Fragile X, Rett’s, Landau-Klefner. Those were also negative, but again, I would have appreciated the heads up if it had been otherwise.
I could be wrong, but I think except for the guys, everyone commenting here is a mom.
.
Cristina,
I did not mean to be dismissive of what your family goes through dealing with those issues. I know how Celiac’s affects my brother and sister-in-law and I see the challenges they go through. Fortunately for them, eliminating gluten has been pretty helpful in reducing the severity of their symptoms.
One of the frustrations with autism is that there are so many generalizations about the disorder and how it affects people. So many people think they know my kids because of this generalized idea of autism they have. I’d like them to see my children for the unique, wonderful individuals that they are.
As for early screens, I agree with Regan – any heads up I can get I appreciate it. Knowledge allows me to be a better parent and make better, informed choices for my kids.
I ran across this study from the BMJ, the full text is online (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7361/419).
BMJ 2002;325:419-421 ( 24 August )
Primary care
Relation of childhood gastrointestinal disorders to autism: nested case-control study using data from the UK General Practice Research Database
Corri Black, research associate, James A Kaye, senior epidemiologist, Hershel Jick, associate professor of medicine.
Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program, Boston University School of Medicine, MA 02421, USA
Correspondence to: C Black cxb2@ph.abdn.ac.uk
Objectives: To assess whether children with autism are more likely to have a history of gastrointestinal disorders than children without autism.
Design: Nested case-control study.
Setting: UK General Practice Research Database.
Subjects: Children born after 1 January 1988 and registered with the General Practice Research Database within 6 months of birth.
Outcome measures: Chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, coeliac disease, food intolerance, and recurrent gastrointestinal symptoms recorded by the general practitioner.
Results: 9 of 96 (9%) children with a diagnosis of autism (cases) and 41 of 449 (9%) children without autism (matched controls) had a history of gastrointestinal disorders before the index date (the date of first recorded diagnosis of autism in the cases and the same date for controls). The estimated odds ratio for a history of gastrointestinal disorders among children with autism compared with children without autism was 1.0 (95% confidence interval 0.5 to 2.2).
Conclusions: No evidence was found that children with autism were more likely than children without autism to have had defined gastrointestinal disorders at any time before their diagnosis of autism.
Following up on Regan and this comment from Epi Wonk—I didn’t think it would be a total change of heart from Kirby. As Orac notes, Kirby is doing his usual goalpost shifting and searching for new culprits and still talking about mercury from other sources in the environment. It might be said, his statements are generally quite “lousy with mercury.”
@Cristina,
Hi—-I think one thing many commenters here do not think accurate is that most or all autistic persons have digestive and other issues. Some children certainly do and there’s been more than a few times I have traced a “tough moment” for my son to him having a stomachache; he does not have enough language to explain such. I’m never entirely sure, though. He used to take a number of supplements (when he was younger) and he’s been fine without him. For him, regular exercise seems to help (in the long run) with his stomach and eating.
and a PS @ Regan,
Also seems to me that Kirby is quite fine saying two things, two “truths,” that might be contradicting; to saying thimerosal’s not the smoking gun but there’s still “mercury poisoning”—-seems saying one thing and meaning another is not out of the question for him.
So he can talk out both sides of his mouth at the same time…can he drink water too while doing it?
Before I listened first-hand, I thought maybe he was living up to his 2007 promise to give up his theory if autism rates did not decline, but I see that goalpost has shifted to 2011, and if you include every potential and combination therein…well, there’s a lot of material there.
The full presentation was a little longer than I had time for last night, so I want to go back and listen to the Public Health folks and physicians’ presentations, too.
Cristina,
My son, who is autistic, had diarrhea and severe pain, severe flatulence (gas) from birth on. He never slept through the night, and was up at least 6 times a night. We thought it was the GI symptoms, because when he woke up, he would scream and grab his belly and roll around until he either had a diarrhea stool or flatulence, then the pain receded. He was finally diagnosed with Crohn’s disease (inflammatory bowel disease) and severe gastritis by Dr. Timothy Buie at Mass General Hospital when 2.5 years of age. It took 6 months of treatments with medications until he finally was stabilized and having a normal BM once a day with no pain. My son was able to learn more easily without the pain and with getting sleep at night and absorbing nutrients, he has made steady progress.
I know how hard it is to live with GI diseases, I was also diagnosed with Crohn’s 2.5 years ago. It is extremely painful. I thought I had IBS all my life and I just lived with it.
Have your children seen a pediatric gastroenterologist for their GI symptoms? If not, I would insist on a consult with one. I had to go a long ways to find Dr. Buie, who listened to us. There was one pedi GI doctor who blew us off before we found Dr. Buie, because my son couldn’t talk and say he had pain and where. Dr. Buie understood that my son communicated his pain in different ways.
I think you are hearing more about GI problems in the autistic population because parents tend to talk about them more, you read about it on the web, and I know the DAN doctors throw out a lot of “information” about the GI tract, much not substantiated by medical studies. But as a physician, my patient’s used to tell me a lot about their NT kids having all kinds of GI disorders. In the medical books on GI disorders in children (in Dr. Buie’s office!) I read about a lot of NT children having GI disorders. You just never hear about it, their parents don’t tend to talk about it. I mean, the estimates for IBS in children range from 5-15% of all children, that is actually a lot of children! You just don’t hear about it.
I understand your frustration, and if you’d like to communicate further, send me an email from my blog.
And about taking the claims about geography and autism prevalence with a grain of salt. There are other factors that are at least as significant.
Anywho–’day’s a wastin’. Have a good one.
My child has no digestive issues. I know about five children all under the care of DAN practitioners whose parents report chronic stool problems. These children are all under six years of age. I sometimes wonder whether following the DAN protocol leads to these problems.
I was talking to the father of a 16-year old, high functioning son. Thoughts of driving have come to fore and he is worried about his son’s ability in that area. Currently the lad bicycles to school on his own.
To tie it back to the digestive arena. The son, I’ll call him Mark was on multiple supplements. They cut those out because the anxiety of trying to give those to him outweighed any perceived benefit. Mark was also gluten/casein free. His parents did not want to have this be a barrier to building relationships. If his peers were having pizza, they would let Mark join them in the feast. The move caused little in the way of gastric distress, and Mark became more a part of the gang.
————————
Hi stardock
I have several aspects to consider from the study you posted-especially considering the manuscripts from Horvath et al. Medical conditions like reflux are manifested by pain but (potentially ) missed because the behavior associated is not correlated to pain and stomache but with “autism” for example.- pressing the stomach against surfaces or screaming or others. GERD is not listed in the manuscript.
One of the most recent published manuscripts form the Dr Horvath group (2002) reported for 36 children with ASD symptoms like chronic diarrhea, abdominal discomfort and distension. The histological examination revealed grade I or II reflux esophagitis in 69.4 % (25/36), chronic gastritis in near 40 %(15/36) and chronic duodenitis in near 66.6 % (24/36). Twenty two of the 25 children with reflux (88%) had night awakenings, signs of abdominal disconfort and pushing on the abdomen. None of the patients had H. Pylori.
Low intestinal carbohydrate digestive enzyme activity was reported in 21 children of 36 (58.3 %), even when no abnormality was found in pancreatic function. 27 of 36 children had an increased pancreatico billiar fluid output after intravenous secretin administration. 21 of 36 children had diarrhea (near 60 %). Low lactase was found in 14 patients. One kind of cells, the Paneth cells, showed similar results to studies done to Chron´s patients.
Kushak R and Buie T reported lactase deficiency in 58-65 %, isomaltase/palatinase deficiency in 30 to 40 % in ASD. Children with intestinal inflamation are 77 % deficient in lactase and 64 % in isomaltase.
Same author studied the possibility of GER (Gastroesophageal reflux) with GI complaints and aggression or self-injurious behavior GER was identified in 5 of 5 patients tested by wireless pH testing. Esophagitis was seen in 3 of 6 patients biopsied.
* pH testing data are reported in a scale called de Meester score. Normal is less than 14.72. Autistic Children showed from 19.7 to 75.1.
* Authors conclude that aggressive or self injury behavior may be a manifestation of pain from GERD
The manuscript you posted did not consider digestive enzymes defficiencies or GERD or subtle nutritional defficiencies or liver and kidney function for example. With the problems with communication of pain there is no information about how the doctors selected the conditions only they listed in the table and they did not measure others such as acid-base status or Ig measurements or even the basic mineral was not addressed.The average age is low compared with other studies and the range is not provided, for example.
Thank you for posting these studies and information. I will look more into them. We have begun the process through a ped GI doc. Still going through testing and soon the scoping. It’s not Celiac, we know so far. IGa is low (about half of normal range), he has a single kidney. My oldest will begin the process in January.
@Cristina, hope you find some answers……. very best….
I do have bowel issues (nothing a diet helps, by the way), but I don’t think it has anything to do with autism: we have several things that run in the family (including the above) and I just happen to have collected quite a few of them.
While I have not seen the fall in autism cases that one would expect from taking thimerosal out of vaccines, I do not allow our family physician to give my son any vaccine that has thimerosal. I say this without regard to whether thimerosal is causes or triggers autism. My reasons are as follows:
1. Mercury is a cumulative toxin. I will not deliberately add to my son’s mercury load, not with vaccines, not with fillings.
2. Ever since Dr. Rosemary Waring did her experiments with tylenol there have been indications that autistic children have different glutathione chemistry than the rest of us. Since this chemistry is responsible for handling mercury, I will separate my son from any source of heavy metals I can.
3. Although it would require a long explanation, suffice it to say that my son’s history supports the idea that autistics do not handle heavy metals the same way the rest of us do.
The vitriolic debate which Kirby’s book is only part of has done us a disservice. Thimerosal is not safe for autistic children. That will be true irrespective of whether it is part of autism’s causality.