Vaccines do *not* cause autism ~ here’s why…

I’m autistic/an Aspie.  I’m also a doctor.

…which makes the confession that I’m about to make that much more embarrassing.

I used to be one of Those People, who was convinced that vaccines did cause autism.  I was also one of Those People who was convinced that autistic people were locked in some kind of cognitive and psychological cage.  (My face is beet-red with shame right now.)

My intentions were pure, I promise.  I wanted to help Those People who had been “affected” and “stolen”.  I wanted to help “rescue” them.  (If anybody wants to flog me, you’re more than welcome to; I deserve that.)

I was sadly “vindicated” when a friend of mine had taken her son in for his vaccinations.  She had given birth to him fairly late in her childbearing years, and I was concerned.  Don’t do it, I thought.  But I kept that to myself.  This was 2009, after all, and the Vaccine Debate had heated to a scorching temperature already.  The internet had become mainstream roughly 15 years prior, and by then, everybody knew they could jump on Google and find information for themselves.  I figured she had researched the topic and made an informed decision.  But although something nagged at me from my gut–something foreboding, an impending doom–I remained polite and silent.

I was shocked but not surprised (if that makes sense) to learn that the little newly-vaccinated boy was never the same again.  I had been right.  Suddenly, the little boy was crying, staring, inattention, behavior problems, and lots of other issues became the focal point of this loving family.  My heart broke.  My resolve to push back against “Big Pharma” and the “monster of autism” strengthened.  Something had to be done.  This had to be stopped.  Stories like this needed to fade into history and become past-tense only.  I even joined a couple of vaccine awareness/advocacy groups, dominated mostly by mothers of children who developed odd and mysterious symptoms after receiving vaccinations.  (Does everybody hate me yet?  I wouldn’t blame you if you did.)

Fast-forward seven years.  What I hadn’t been aware of and didn’t realize, were two game-changing FunFacts:

1. Surprise!  I’m on the Asperger’s/autism spectrum, too!  And I’ve been there since probably before birth.
2. Vaccine reactions, often mistaken for autism or autistic “symptoms”, are not, in fact, likely to be autism; they’re probably something else.

I have no doubt that vaccines cause problematic issues for some children.  My friend, mentioned above, is not a quack or a flake.  She’s not a militant anti-medical, anti-science crusader.  In fact, she’s absolutely intelligent and sensible.  Her world is different now, forever changed, but she is still who she is.

And, searching the internet, one can find hundreds of stories like hers.  I believe her son was diagnosed with autism, as were the children of so many of the other parents who have taken to the internet, registered domain names, built websites, and collected (albeit cherry-picked) volumes of information.

Those mothers’–and their children’s–stories need to be acknowledged and discussed, without judgment, politics, shaming, excess emotion, sensationalism, or agenda.

But I have a theory…

What these mothers are witnessing, what their children are experiencing, and what their pediatricians are diagnosing as autism is NOT, in fact, autism itself.

It’s something else.

Let’s take a (detailed) look.

If you search on the internet for “autism + vaccine” (which I would only recommend if you’re curious to find out which specific vaccines are in the hot-seat), you’ll find that the DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus; link to decent Wiki article; also called “DTP”, “DTaP”, or DTwP”) and MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella; link to decent Wiki article) find themselves in the cross-haired list of Usual Suspects.

These particular vaccines aren’t angels, per se, but then, neither are the diseases they protect against.

The whole purpose of a vaccine is to induce the body to jumpstart production of immune chemical messengers called cytokines.  Just like hormones are bossy little chemicals that run around telling different cells and organs what to do, cytokines are bossy little warriors that run around defending your body against Bad Things.  By showing your body a prototype of what a Bad Guy looks like, your immune system figures out beforehand (i.e., before it gets exposed to said Bad Guy for real) how it’s going to launch its army against said Bad Guy, and the body can then start to coordinate its resources and perch them in their foxholes, ready and waiting.

In order to accomplish that goal most efficiently, vaccine manufacturers usually add “adjuvants”, or booster-chemicals that amplify and exaggerate the immune response.  This goads the body into getting its act together, almost like a practice drill for real combat.

So far, so good.

Except that peoples’ bodies don’t always read the physiology textbooks.  That was our  joke in med school for someone who came into our office with symptoms or concerns that we couldn’t make sense of.  It’s not as dismissive or nonchalant as it sounds; hell, my own body somehow didn’t get the memo on how it’s supposed to function; nothing about my body makes much sense.

As rosy and sound as the vaccination goal appears, a lot can go wrong.  (It’s not the vaccine’s fault, per se.)  In order for a vaccine to be effective, the body does have to respond properly, with its armies of cytokine troops (link to a medical journal out of Oxford).  Some people’s bodies just don’t respond well, which fuels the claim that “vaccines don’t work”, or “I got vaccinated but still got sick!”  Well, don’t blame the vaccine entirely; take a look at the recipient’s body, too.

And then there’s the other end of the (immunological) spectrum–sometimes it works TOO well, meaning that TOO much of a cytokine response is produced.  Cytokines are responsible for pretty much everything you feel whenever you get sick – the fever, the muscle aches, the fatigue, the chills, the pain, the nausea, the malaise, the crabbiness, the mucus congestion, the sneezing, the coughing, even…intestinal food-flow reversal (yuck).  Excessive or disrupted/unbalanced cytokines are also at the root of all allergic/histamine issues, most food intolerances/sensitivities, and all autoimmune disorders, such as Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Diabetes Type 1, Autoimmune Thyroiditis/Hashimoto’s Disease, Celiac Disease, and Pernicious Anemia, just to name a few.

Over the past few decades, hormones have gotten the most attention, neurotransmitters (the nervous system chemical messenger counterpart) have gotten increasing amounts of attention as well, but cytokines remain unknown and undiscussed.  This is a bad thing, since so much of what people face these days are disruptions and imbalances in their cytokines, and they can nosedive one’s quality of life.  OK, jumping off of that soapbox now; back to regularly-scheduled programming…

So anyway, cytokine responses definitely explain why vaccines can cause unpleasant symptoms, especially the fever, fatigue, nausea, malaise, redness, skin itching, and swelling that people feel on a short-term, temporary basis.  Here’s a slightly-more-detailed list of cytokine-related misery:

• Low mood/Depression (research abstract)
• Social withdrawal (research abstract)
• Anxiety (study abstract)
• Insomnia (study abstract)
• Pain (study abstract)
• High fever (study abstract), and thus
• Febrile seizures (study abstract)
• Intermittent hot flashes (regardless of menopause) (study abstract)
• Brain swelling (study abstract)
• Nausea (study abstract)
• Dizziness (study abstract)
• Headache (study abstract)

Any one or combination of these can be amplified in a phenomenon known as a “cytokine storm” (link to research article abstract).

Most of the time, this is short-term/temporary.  The chronic version involves the same mechanism and symptoms, but with different players.  There are two broad categories of cytokines (link to research article summary).  Some cytokines are first-responders (think soldiers who go to battle to deal with an immediate perceived problem), while others are the long-term reinforcements (the ones who hang out in regions long after the war is over, in the interest of “keeping the peace” and maintaining the order or boundary).  Indeed, cytokine imbalances fuel the long-term symptoms of chronic disease, too (including those thought to be non-immunological in nature; link to research article summary).

Let’s look at some of the symptoms most commonly known to occur after receiving a vaccination.

Short-term symptoms are easy to find, and include (but might not be limited to):

• temporary pain
• redness, swelling, or soreness where the shot was given
• short-lived flu-like symptoms, such as:
• mild fever
• upset stomach
• vomiting
• loss of appetite
• headache
• fatigue

(Source of list above: About Kids’ Health Canada (AKHC))

I can hear some people hollering now.  “What about the symptoms that arise quickly after vaccination….and stay there, without letting up??”

I hear you.  Longer-term symptoms are a little harder to find; I do find a little fault with the conventional medical establishment for being as vague and zip-lipped as they often are.  AKHC mentions a few, but the first symptom they list–and the most commonly “accepted/acceptable” symptom (relating to allergic reaction)–is also the least common of the long-term effects.

Nevertheless, I’ll start with their list:

• serious allergic reaction or anaphylaxis, including itching, rash, swelling around the mouth and face, trouble breathing, and low blood pressure
• seizures
• high fever
• joint pain or stiffness
• pneumonia

I had to dig a little deeper to find more; seeking a balanced view (a perspective that includes an exploration of both sides of the issue), I also visited the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), which does cite many of their sources, plenty of which actually lead back to correctly-interpreted medical journal articles (albeit some of them old, although even some of the older ones are still accurate).

Here’s their list (link to their page containing the list):

• Brain Inflammation/Acute Encephalopathy
• Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction
• Anaphylaxis
• Febrile Seizures
• Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS)
• Brachial Neuritis;
• Acute and Chronic Arthritis
• Thrombocytopenia
• Smallpox, polio, measles and varicella zoster vaccine strain infection
• Death (smallpox, polio and measles vaccine)
• Shock and “unusual shock-like state”
• Protracted, inconsolable crying
• Syncope
• Deltoid Bursitis

The first two on the second list, Brain Inflammation/Acute Encephalopathy and Chronic Nervous System Dysfunction might begin to explain the armies of parents the internet-world over who describe a mysterious phenomenon currently (unfortunately) known as “regressive autism” (link to brief-but-sound Wiki article, for general background purposes).

“Regressive Autism” is characterized by:

• Precipitating psychological events were observed (in just over half the people studied)
• The mental developmental level including speech and sociability function at 5 years of age was significantly lower (than that of control subjects)
• Severe behavioral disorders such as “stereotypic behavior”,
• “Extremely hyperkinetic behavior”,
• and “Self-abusive behavior”
• Lower adaptability (such as at school)
• Higher incidence of epileptic seizures -and/or-
• Febrile convulsions

(Source: research article abstract on the clinical features of children who experienced autistic-like “setbacks” as babies)

By (stark) contrast, the official diagnostic criteria for the autism spectrum itself include (the short version, since this is well-trodden ground already):

A.  Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently  or by history:

1. Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity–abnormal social approach, abnormal conversation, reduced sharing of interests, emotions or affect, etc.
2. Deficits in nonverbal behaviors in interaction–abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures; to lack of facial expressions, etc.
3. Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships–difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts, with imaginative play or in making friends, or absence of interest in peers.

B.  Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history:

1. Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech–echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases, etc.
2. Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of behavior.
3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus.
4. Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment.

C.  Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).

D.  Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning.

E.  These disturbances are not better explained by intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder) or global developmental delay. Intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder frequently co-occur; to make comorbid diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability, social communication should be below that expected for general developmental level.

In addition, we, the people actually on the Asperger’s/autism spectrum, frequently report (sources vary from social media to blogs to books):

• Anxiety, often due to sensory overload or certain situations of social interaction
• Insomnia
• EDS (a genetic connective tissue disorder)
• Empathy, from normal-to-high levels
• The “mental jukebox”
• Gender fluidity and/or non-conformity, in terms of both identity and sexual orientation
• Straightforwardness, saying what we mean
• Childlike (not childish) genuineness, lack of game-playing
• Physically appear younger than we actually are
• Average-to-above-average intelligence
• High aptitude for creative and/or scientific realms

Now that the lists are all spread out on the table, I’ll try to make some sense of them… (Deep breath)…

The list involving the short-term, commonly-experienced post-vaccination symptoms is pretty straightforward.  The initial cytokine spike can indeed induce these symptoms, all a part of a general immune response.  The immune system is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.  No problem there.

The driving force behind the two-part list regarding the more chronic, long-term symptoms that have arisen after receiving a vaccination (“two-part list” meaning the combination of lists of symptoms from AKHC and NVIC) is a bit murkier, but I’m pretty sure that the items on that list have to do with the longer-term players of the immune system.  If someone is experiencing symptoms like these, chances are pretty good that their immune system was unbalanced to begin with.

The list pertaining to the symptoms of what “they” call “regressive autism” doesn’t actually resemble autism at all.  Nowhere in the diagnostic criteria for the autism spectrum are symptoms such as “self-abusive behavior”, “hyperkinetic behavior” (restlessness), or severe behavioral disorders mentioned; i.e., these symptoms do not appear in the autism spectrum diagnostic criteria.  So where the hell, then, do researchers and healthcare professionals get off linking them to autism?  There’s no link!  Those two lists–the two-part list of longer-term vaccination symptoms and the list of diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum–have hardly anything in common.

The two-part list of chronic post-vaccination symptoms does, however, have more in common with the list of cytokine hyperactivity.  They share seizures, pain, and lots of “-itis”s (indicating inflammation).  Inflammation doesn’t have to be limited to the injection site; cytokines travel and circulate–and then inhabit–the entire body, so if they’re carrying pro-inflammatory messages, they can go systemic and cause low-grade, often-invisible swelling all over.

Tell me… Parents of young pre-verbal children, you know that when your child gets fuzzy or starts crying, they’re probably in some kind of pain or other discomfort (such as nausea), right?  Also, when they’re tired or “zoned out” or fatigued, they might stare into space, lose previous cognitive abilities, and display other symptoms, right?  (I feel you!)

Now take a look at the list of “cytokine storm” symptoms… (I’ll rewrite the list here, too):

• Low mood/Depression (research abstract)
• Social withdrawal (research abstract)
• Anxiety (study abstract)
• Insomnia (study abstract)
• Pain (study abstract)
• High fever (study abstract), and thus
• Febrile seizures (study abstract)
• Intermittent hot flashes (regardless of menopause) (study abstract)
• Brain swelling (study abstract)
• Nausea (study abstract)
• Dizziness (study abstract)
• Headache (study abstract)

Now look at the symptoms for “regressive autism”… (I’ll include that list here as well):

• Precipitating psychological events were observed (in just over half the people studied)
• The mental developmental level including speech and sociability function at 5 years of age was significantly lower (than that of control subjects)
• Severe behavioral disorders such as “stereotypic behavior”,
• “Extremely hyperkinetic behavior”,
• and “Self-abusive behavior”
• Lower adaptability (such as at school)
• Higher incidence of epileptic seizures -and/or-
• Febrile convulsions

Could a particularly severe instance of the “cytokine storm” list be what’s fueling the “regressive autism” phenomenon?  Perhaps the child has a headache so intense that that’s why they’re banging their head against the wall (self-abusive behavior) or acting extra-fidgety (hyperkinetic behavior).  The child may be in so much pain or nausea that they exhibit lower adaptability at school (a phenomenon which has been termed “autistic enterocolitis” – say what?  Although gastrointestinal issues are common among the community, that’s more of a result of anxiety-induced low stomach acid than it is anything else; GI distress is NOT in the autism diagnostic criteria, nor is it universal across the community).  The child may be experiencing brain swelling (low-level), which in adults causes symptoms described as “brain fog”, which might reduce the child’s ability to make eye contact or make them stare into space (stereotypic behaviors).  Maybe they’re so dizzy that they’re preoccupied with that and thus they demonstrate verbal regression.  Maybe their fever is getting so high that it’s causing the febrile seizures.

But they can’t tell you what’s going on.  Since they haven’t developed adequate language or vocabulary yet, they can’t tell you that the room is spinning and thus they can’t look into your eyes.  They can’t tell you that they’re so nauseated that they don’t want to be hugged or picked up or cuddled with right now.

It sucks, it really does – but that’s just the nature of small children in distress.

I won’t argue that vaccines can contribute to biochemical distress.  After all, when you take a physiologically compromised child (as what happens when a mom has, say, for example, a known (or unknown) autoimmune disorder or toxic chemical excess or gut bacteria imbalance or what-have-you, which is increasingly common and nobody’s fault) with unbalanced immune function, and you inject the child with a cocktail of dead “bugs” and adjuvants designed to stimulate an immune response (not necessarily a bad thing in itself), then some children’s bodies are bound to respond in exactly that way.

It’s terrifying, and it can be tragic.  But it’s not autism.

A cytokine storm is a volcano going off in the immune system, between the ages of infancy to toddlerhood.  The autism spectrum is different neurological wiring, its stage set in utero and becoming more apparent in early development.  The diagnostic criteria for autism do not include fever, self-abuse, self-harm, or seizures.

Rather, the reaction to vaccination is more than likely a link to Dravet Syndrome (link to good Wiki article), a little-known but probably-very-underdiagnosed/under-realized issue.  This does match the symptoms of “regressive autism” and cytokine flare-up, and in people with certain previously-silent gene variations/mutations, vaccines could indeed Stir Things Up in terms of supposedly-“autistic” symptomatology.  Although Dravet Syndrome is currently thought to be rare, the scientific community used to think the same about many health issues we now know are quite common (the gluten reactivity spectrum, autoimmune disorders, and even the autism spectrum, to name a few).  Dravet Syndrome could be much more common than we thought, and all this time, these vaccine-reactive children were being labeled as autistic, when Dravet Syndrome would explain the phenomenon much better (link to research paper).

The lack of a link between autism and vaccines would also explain why, despite the removal of thimerosal from all vaccines in Sweden and Denmark (in 1992), and in the United States (in 2001) (link to CDC’s timeline), autism spectrum diagnoses continued to climb (read: skyrocket).

It’s not a matter of vaccine injury.

It’s not even a matter of increased incidence/prevalence.  Autism is not skyrocketing; it has always been here.

It is matter of: we’re getting better and more proactive in general at evaluating, recognizing, and diagnosing autism.

Again, for the cheap seats:

• I’m truly sorry if your child has had an unexpected and serious response to a vaccine.
• I don’t care what the pediatrician or counselor/therapist/psychologist says: it’s not autism.
• To the less-informed (not a criticism or a slur), some of the signs of “regressive autism” or Dravet Syndrome may look similar to those signs exhibited by autistic children.
• But that’s more likely a cytokine storm or Dravet Syndrome–not autism.
• Autism is a different wiring, a different operating system, if you will.  It’s present before birth, but doesn’t typically become noticeable until at least 18 months.  Thus, there is no early screening.
• Autistic people are not generally affected by vaccines, unless they also have serious cytokine dysfunction (which goes unchecked and therefore, unnoticed/unknown) or Dravet Syndrome.

It’s important that the mechanisms behind these issues are explored fully and reported honestly, and without bias or politics.  It’s important that we begin with the right terminology and a firm understanding of the fundamental information.  (If we don’t have a solid grasp of definitions and physiology, and we simply toss around terms like “autism” as a catch-all, then that only muddies the research and the gathering/accumulation/evolution of the collective knowledge base, which helps no one.  The “wars” will continue between parents and the scientific community, children will continue to suffer, and the genuinely autistic/Aspergian adults will only continue to be viewed as “tainted” and “damaged”, and we’ll keep getting marginalized.  Nobody wins.)  However, if we arm ourselves with the basic knowledge and use the terms correctly, only then can we move forward, treat and cure what needs to be treated and cured, and leave the rest of us alone and let us be different, embracing and accepting those of us running different operating systems instead of chastising or dismissing us. 🙂

---

Further Reading:

Thimerosal Exposure Does Not Affect Autism Rates ~ A Conversation On Autism (blog – very well-informed, analytical post)

The Autism-Vaccine Myth ~ Public Broadcasting Service (PBS): NOVA (United States)

The Importance of Vaccines ~ VaccineInformation.org

How My Daughter Taught Me That Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism ~ Voices For Vaccines (blog – also a well-written post)

Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses ~ Clinical Infectious Diseases (an Oxford Journal property)

Immunization Schedules ~ US Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

Into the Eye of the Cytokine Storm ~ Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews (medical journal)

Vaccine Reactions ~ Vaccine-Safety-Training.org (how to navigate the statistics)

Vaccine Information Sheets ~ World Health Organization (has downloadable sheets on each common individual vaccine)

Vaccination and the Onset of Dravet Syndrome ~ Epilepsy Currents (medical journal published by the American Epilepsy Society)

Timeline: Thimerosal and Vaccines 1999-2010 ~ US CDC

A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine-Autism Wars ~ Proceedings from the Library of Science (PLOS) (medical journal)

Inflammation ~ Oregon State University, Linus Pauling Institute

***

This is one of my more popular posts (via social media)!

❤

❤

❤