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Children Who Are Not Vaccinated Never Get Autism!
It’s a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill. But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don’t have autism.
“We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we’ve taken care of over the years, and I don’t think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines,” said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst’s medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated.
The few autistic children Homefirst sees were vaccinated before their families became patients, Eisenstein said. “I can think of two or three autistic children who we’ve delivered their mother’s next baby, and we aren’t really totally taking care of that child — they have special care needs. But they bring the younger children to us. I don’t have a single case that I can think of that wasn’t vaccinated.”
The autism rate in Illinois public schools is 38 per 10,000, according to state Education Department data; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the national rate of autism spectrum disorders at 1 in 166 — 60 per 10,000.
“We do have enough of a sample,” Eisenstein said. “The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We’re all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there’s no communication. It’s frightening. You can’t touch them. It’s not something that anyone would miss.”
No one knows what causes autism, but federal health authorities say it isn’t childhood immunizations. Some parents and a small minority of doctors and scientists, however, assert vaccines are responsible.
This column has been looking for autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children in an effort to shed light on the issue. We went to Chicago to meet with Eisenstein at the suggestion of a reader, and we also visited Homefirst’s office in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows. Homefirst has four other offices in the Chicago area and a total of six doctors.
Eisenstein stresses his observations are not scientific. “The trouble is this is just anecdotal in a sense, because what if every autistic child goes somewhere else and (their family) never calls us or they moved out of state?”
In practice, that’s unlikely to account for the pronounced absence of autism, says Eisenstein, who also has a bachelor’s degree in statistics, a master’s degree in public health and a law degree.
Homefirst follows state immunization mandates, but Illinois allows religious exemptions if parents object based either on tenets of their faith or specific personal religious views. Homefirst does not exclude or discourage such families. Eisenstein, in fact, is author of the book “Don’t Vaccinate Before You Educate!” and is critical of the CDC’s vaccination policy in the 1990s, when several new immunizations were added to the schedule, including Hepatitis B as early as the day of birth. Several of the vaccines — HepB included — contained a mercury-based preservative that has since been phased out of most childhood vaccines in the United States.
Medical practices with Homefirst’s approach to immunizations are rare. “Because of that, we tend to attract families that have questions about that issue,” said Dr. Paul Schattauer, who has been with Homefirst for 20 years and treats “at least” 100 children a week.
Schattauer seconded Eisenstein’s observations. “All I know is in my practice I don’t see autism. There is no striking 1-in-166,” he said.
Earlier this year we reported the same phenomenon in the mostly unvaccinated Amish. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told us the Amish “have genetic connectivity that would make them different from populations that are in other sectors of the United States.” Gerberding said, however, studies “could and should be done” in more representative unvaccinated groups — if they could be found and their autism rate documented.
Chicago is America’s prototypical “City of Big Shoulders,” to quote Carl Sandburg, and Homefirst’s mostly middle-class families seem fairly representative. A substantial number are conservative Christians who home-school their children. They are mostly white, but the Homefirst practice also includes black and Hispanic families and non-home-schooling Jews, Catholics and Muslims.
They tend to be better educated, follow healthier diets and breast-feed their children much longer than the norm — half of Homefirst’s mothers are still breast-feeding at two years. Also, because Homefirst relies less on prescription drugs including antibiotics as a first line of treatment, these children have less exposure to other medicines, not just vaccines.
Schattauer, interviewed at the Rolling Meadows office, said his caseload is too limited to draw conclusions about a possible link between vaccines and autism. “With these numbers you’d have a hard time proving or disproving anything,” he said. “You can only get a feeling about it.
“In no way would I be an advocate to stand up and say we need to look at vaccines, because I don’t have the science to say that,” Schattauer said. “But I don’t think the science is there to say that it’s not.”
Schattauer said Homefirst’s patients also have significantly less childhood asthma and juvenile diabetes compared to national rates. An office manager who has been with Homefirst for 17 years said she is aware of only one case of severe asthma in an unvaccinated child.
“Sometimes you feel frustrated because you feel like you’ve got a pretty big secret,” Schattauer said. He argues for more research on all those disorders, independent of political or business pressures.
The asthma rate among Homefirst patients is so low it was noticed by the Blue Cross group with which Homefirst is affiliated, according to Eisenstein.
“In the alternative-medicine network which Homefirst is part of, there are virtually no cases of childhood asthma, in contrast to the overall Blue Cross rate of childhood asthma which is approximately 10 percent,” he said. “At first I thought it was because they (Homefirst’s children) were breast-fed, but even among the breast-fed we’ve had asthma. We have virtually no asthma if you’re breast-fed and not vaccinated.”
Because the diagnosis of asthma is based on emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, Eisenstein said, Homefirst’s low rate is hard to dispute. “It’s quantifiable — the definition is not reliant on the doctor’s perception of asthma.”
Several studies have found a risk of asthma from vaccination; others have not. Studies that include never-vaccinated children generally find little or no asthma in that group.
Earlier this year Florida pediatrician Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said there is virtually no autism in home-schooling families who decline to vaccinate for religious reasons — lending credence to Eisenstein’s observations.
“It’s largely non-existent,” said Bradstreet, who treats children with autism from around the country. “It’s an extremely rare event.”
Bradstreet has a son whose autism he attributes to a vaccine reaction at 15 months. His daughter has been home-schooled, he describes himself as a “Christian family physician,” and he knows many of the leaders in the home-school movement.
“There was this whole subculture of folks who went into home-schooling so they would never have to vaccinate their kids,” he said. “There’s this whole cadre who were never vaccinated for religious reasons.”
In that subset, he said, “unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating, I’ve not had a single case.”
Federal health authorities and mainstream medical groups emphatically dismiss any link between autism and vaccines, including the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Last year a panel of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies, said there is no evidence of such a link, and funding should henceforth go to “promising” research.
Thimerosal, which is 49.6 percent ethyl mercury by weight, was phased out of most U.S. childhood immunizations beginning in 1999, but the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and last year began recommending them for children 6 to 23 months old. Most of those shots contain thimerosal.
Thimerosal-preserved vaccines are currently being injected into millions of children in developing countries around the world. “My mandate … is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized … this year, next year and for many years to come … and that will have to be with thimerosal-containing vaccines,” said John Clements of the World Health Organization at a June 2000 meeting called by the CDC.
That meeting was held to review data that thimerosal might be linked with autism and other neurological problems. But in 2004 the Institute of Medicine panel said evidence against a link is so strong that health authorities, “whether in the United States or other countries, should not include autism as a potential risk” when formulating immunization policies.
But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children? Based on our admittedly anecdotal and limited reporting among the Amish, the home-schooled and now Chicago’s Homefirst, that may prove to be a significant omission.
www.venusproject.com/ethics_in_action/Children_Autism.html
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Sorry to burst your bubble on this, but my daughter was NEVER vaccinated and she is diagnosed with PDD-NOS. Admittedly the least severe form of Autism, but still on the spectrum.
This is where the autism people really got it wrong. The spectrum disorders are complicated and over-focusing on thimerasol or even vaccines in general just ends up making it too easy for everyone to dismiss the connections. The issue isn’t as simple as “get a shot – get autism”. The problem with vaccines is that they are yet another direct neurological insult that can affect some children. There are hundreds of these neurological toxins in our world (food, medications, pollutants in water/air/soil, chemicals, etc), and Amish children are also less exposed to many of these. As are homeschool children who tend to live healthier less ‘factory-farmed’ lifestyles. That said, the over-vaccination of children is a huge problem. All vaccines contain numerous neurological toxins. However children can acquire spectrum disorders from other environmental factors or congenitally from genetics. I have a son with mild Aspergers who was never vaccinated until age 7 and only for tetanus. He has the genetic predisposition toward spectrum disorders and showed signs from birth of neurological sensitivities. There was no change after receiving the tetanus shots. However, if he’d been given the full vaccine schedule of 20+ shots by age 2, he very likely may have ended up a full classical autistic and I can’t imagine taking that kind of risk with my children for what are primarily nuisance diseases.
To: Kirkton
If you think that on the basis of your case of one, you are “sorry to burst a bubble on this”, then you reveal yourself to be an absolute scientific ignoramus.
I also know of another non vaccinated child who is on the spectrum. However, we must understand that the health of the mother, the food she eats, the amalgam in her teeth and any mercury built up in the body is passed to the fetus.
Hi PB Rudnick, I think the persons point was to the article, not to think if it happens to one it could happen to all. The article stated, in 35k kids, he thinks there isn’t one case. And poof, heres one case outta one.
Hello, my sons is a high spect. autistic and has never, ever had a vaccine. It burst my health bubble when he started flapping repeatedly at 2 1/2yo and my concerns were verified with further symptoms now that he is older. I’m a RN by the way and still feel we vaccinate excessively. I will not administer them personally, but do not blame them for the many neuro disorders that are at epidemic levels.
“No one knows what causes autism, but federal health authorities say it isn’t childhood immunizations.”
Now here is a statement you might expect of a third grader. If you do not know the answer how can you rule out ANYTHING? You cannot. Autism is CURRENTLY at the rate of about one in 68 for males; it has been doubling at the rate of about every four years for the last three decades or about the time we started the mass vaccination of MOST of our kids for immunosalubrious and relatively harmless “childhood diseases”. This is an epidemic of monumental proportions. How is it possible the CDC has not figured it out? IMO it is not possible. Google “CDC Simpsonwood”, always skip the disinformation source wiki, and you will see that the CDC does know about “vaccination” and Autism.
A Possible Etiology of Autism
IMO autism is a multifactor condition with the MMR vaccine often being the last straw. IMO autism is entirely man made and can be stopped by man or most likely women, in particular MOTHERS.
Note this chain of events may be thwarted or ameliorated at each and all steps leading to Autism. IMO this can be done at NO risk to either the mother-fetus or the child and should prove salubrious even if this theory is incorrect or incomplete.
Note nutritional, developmental, environmental, medical, political and other factors are involved
Low levels of Vitamin D and/or Omega EFA, zinc et al in the mother predispose fetus development
High levels of mercury or other toxins in the mother predispose fetus development
Low levels of maternal zinc and/or high levels of copper predispose fetus BBB development
Vaccines introduced into mother-fetus introduce mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, polysorbate 80, aspartame, heavy metals and other noxious substances into fetus body-brain
The vaccination process itself damages the fetus
At birth infant may present as a poor detoxifier
Continuing low levels of vitamin D. Omega EFA and zinc in infant after birth weaken infant body-brain
Low levels of infant zinc and/or high levels of copper coupled with vaccination induced oxidative stress allow infant BBB leakage this allows the neurodegenerative vaccine mercury easily into the infant brain
Even in the best case neurodegenerative vaccine mercury enters into the infant brain
Low infant body-brain levels of vitamin D, glutathione, magnesium, zinc, EFAs and other body-brain protective substances
High infant body-brain levels of mercury, excess copper, heavy metals and other noxious substances accumulate
Multiple vaccinations introduce large amounts of mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG, polysorbate 80, aspartame, heavy metals and other noxious substances into infant body-brain. Each vaccination causes ischemia throughout the infants body-brain
The vaccination process itself damages the infant thru ischemia et al
Infant’s possibly compromised digestive system may not well handle wheat/gluten, dairy, sugar et al further weakening his digestion.
Infant’s stress increased detoxification/nutritional needs, vitamin D, fiber, antioxidants, others may not be fully met
Infant may be unable to properly handle “inactivated” live virus injections
Infant is “vaccinated” on average each and every month often he is “vaccinated” with eight “vaccines” in a single “vaccination” session. No testing has been done on the interactions of these eight “vaccines”. “Just one single measles vaccination results in 98.5 to 99% immunity based on UK Desumo antibody testing and studies in Japan and India. Just one MMR vaccination at 12 months was proven in one study to protect only 69.9% of children based on antibody testing.” “Vaccination” Injury Reaching the Boiling Point in the UK
The infant’s inadequately tested, questionably approved, IMO VERY dangerous MMR vaccination is often the crux deleterious event “The autism epidemic in USA soared after the amount of mumps in MMR was sharply increased.” “Vaccination” Injury Reaching the Boiling Point in the UK
At some point the infant body-brain becomes overloaded and is unable to normally function
Our Society et al has failed this poor infant! His parents are heartbroken and racked with guilt. It is now more likely their marriage may break up. A life has been harmed from before birth. Society is saddled with a continuing expense that will likely run into the many millions. For what? So the Rockefellers et al can make a buck and help destroy this country? I sure hope there is a special place in hell for those culpable.
Autism can sometimes be reversed. It may cost upwards of 500,000 dollars to do it. MAKE the bastards in government pay. They have at least indirectly given your child autism.
Sorry, my autistic son has never had a vaccine and not even vit k at birth. This theory doesn’t hold water. I would never vaccinate for other health reasons and I do believe it contributes massively to autism, but you have not come up with the magic bullet. Sorry.
Hello Jane A-C
Your son would be a wonderful case study. Would be you willing to answer some questions as to when your son was diagnosed, when you first noticed a difference in your son, etc? Perhaps your son has some other issues that mimic the symptoms of autism.
I completely agree with this question: “…But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children?”
Nevertheless: “The evidence cited in the autism report included a major study done in Denmark, in which records of a half million children were analyzed.
About one in five children had not received the vaccine, and the researchers found that these children developed autism at the same rate as children who had received the vaccine. “
From: Introduction to Public Health By Mary-Jane Schneider, Page 146
I completely agree with this question: “…But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children?”
Nevertheless: “The evidence cited in the autism report included a major study done in Denmark, in which records of a half million children were analyzed.
About one in five children had not received the vaccine, and the researchers found that these children developed autism at the same rate as children who had received the vaccine. “
From: Introduction to Public Health By Mary-Jane Schneider, Page 146
My 21 month old – J – has never been vaccinated and I have seen classic autistic symptoms for many months…no name or speech recognition, toe walking, hand flapping, etc. I have six children, I know what is normal and commonly ‘abnormal’. Upon returning home from a short absence I noticed immediately what I had ‘kind of’ noticed before, that J is not normal. The pediatrician, after assessing him, said J has strong signs of autism.
I have always thought my 6 year old nephew has Aspberger’s, and since reading more about autism, I am convinced my 18 year old has it, his paternal aunt thought he did in elementary school, but at that time I knew nothing about it. Also, my sister said my 14 year old nephew was thought to have Aspberger’s in elementary school. These boys were all immunized, but my 18 year old was always WAY late.
SO in our family – with NO fragile X – obviously, there is a genetic link.
Just a thought.
My oldest had a dx of PDD-NOS, but later lost that dx due to dramatic improvement. We did not do chelation, but did some dietary intervention, supplements and lots of intensive therapy. We stopped vaccinating him at 2 years old.
My next one had no vaccines at all and is more severly autistic than his brother. We have had some success, but are far from recovery with him.
I have another (a girl) who has had no vaccines. She is one and looks “normal” so far, but we will see…
I breastfed my boys for over two years and plan to do the same with my third.
The autism question will not be that simple.
Autism gives every indication that it is an auto-immune disease and, like other auto immune conditions, it is linked with the occurrence of auto-immunity in parents, grand-parents, or siblings; it shares the same nutrient deficiencies as other auto-immune conditions, ie, deficiency of Vit D, zinc, and EFAs; it is made worse, or more likely, by association with any stress event, ie, infection, trauma, exposure to heavy metals, or vaccination!
Also, like other auto-immune conditions, it may be treated by a selective diet, nutrient therapy and low-dose naltrexone.
Bob Lawrence
3 of my 6 children were diagnosed with autism, from Asperger’s to Severe. None were vaccinated.
Laura, please review the articles on autism, especially one regarding gut health of mother and child — a physician in the UK is successfully helping a lot of autistics but most are very young — on the mercola newsletter site. Mercola cites authorities including Johns Hopkins, the FDA, etc. in his articles. He makes a lot of sense. this article focuses on digestion, gut, and immunity. See How a Physician Cured Her Son’s Autism… Posted By Dr. Mercola | July 31 2011 at http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/31/dr-natasha-campbell-mcbride-on-gaps-nutritional-program.aspx.
My sister has an awesome autistic daughter, Caity. She teaches us a no-nonsense wisdom and gives us a clear and direct viewpoint of life everyday. Her mother has created a new career around protecting and educating her daughter and has written 2 books to help with everyday techniques for school age children with autism. You might start with her blog at http://www.autismfamilyonline.com/public/department74.cfm .
Don’t settle for less for your children — you are not alone; and every success is a grand success for you as well as them! God bless!
Unless your children were born at home, you may never know for sure whether they were vaccinated or not. My 2 youngest children were vaccinated for Hepatitis B immediately after birth without my knowledge, and despite my specific order documented in my medical chart that I did not want them vaccinated.