Do Toxins Cause Autism?

Do Toxins Cause Autism?

Nicholas D. Kristof asked this question in the New York Times the other day.

Here's the answer I sent him:




Dear Mr. Kristof,

Thank you for bringing up the autism/toxicity question. You are closer to the truth than you may have imagined. An example that you didn't mention, is the Somalis: They have one of the highest autism rates in the world - but not at home. It’s only after they come to America.

The problem is huge. Its financial implications are already crushing the families who are raising these children. In the future it will be just as crushing for America. These children are not going to pay any taxes, they’re going to need a lot of care, and they’re not going to die young. In that perspective, one autistic child can equal at least 25 retiring baby-boomers for the long-term financial health of our societies.

This is a problem that hits 5 times more boys than girls. By a lucky coincidence, it takes 5 (female) caregivers to look after my son round the clock. That’s six people out of the productive workforce for 1 case of autism, not counting me ... and I’m TIRED.

We’re starting to look at autism rates of 1%, up from 0,05% when my son was diagnosed.

This is a tsunami story. The wave is already out there. It’s gainging force. New children are being added to it every day. Its first tendrils have already started creeping up the beach, towards health bueraucrats that are sitting with their heads in the sand, thinking that as long as parents are taking care of the children, they somehow don't count in the national equation. What are they going to do when the full force of the wave hits? Divert 5% of the national workforce to take care of the 1% that have been sacrificed on the altar of cheap products and scientific shortcuts?

We’re also looking at a Semmelweiss story. You write in your article that "... fears that vaccinations cause autism — a theory that has now been discredited..." I suggest you study this further.

* Our health authorities have spent enormous amounts of energy on discrediting people who reported what they saw, and asked a question that had to be asked.

* Our authorities have so far only managed to camouflage the problem, with poorly designed statistical studies (unless the point of the studies was not to investigate, but to discredit).

* Meanwhile, other scientists have repeatedly replicated the original findings, and the question is still open: Can we add autism to the list of possible side effects of these vaccines?

* However, the witch-hunt against the scientists who asked the question first, is making everybody else a little jittery about repeating it in public.

All vaccines are not safe for everybody. That's why we have compensation systems. By pretending that they are safer than they are, i.e. that autism is the one side effect that vaccines can't possibly have, even in sensitive individuals with a high toxic load, our health authorities have exposed that their reactions are based on a belief system rather than science. Most people don’t see this yet. When they do, we’re going to need other people in charge who can restore the confidence in the vaccine schedule that it deserves, with proper scientific backing, instead of the present mess.

Another part of this tragedy, now that I’m at it, is that autism can actually be treated if we start early enough, and take into account what we already understand about the underlying pathologies. The chief difference between my son (lifetime need for round-the-clock care) and my stepson (getting good grades in high school, socially integrated and on track to becoming a good taxpayer) is not the diagnosis nor the symptoms nor the treatment they received, but the fact that my stepson received that treatment at 21 months, while my son was 8 years old.

Solving the autism problem will be expensive, because it will involve retiring some products that are cheap and otherwise useful. Not solving it, and not using what we know about treatments, already amounts to a national disaster.

Thank you for your help!
Jorgen Klaveness