A word of caution:  All the articles on this blog are my own wanderings of the mind and so its probably unnecessary for me to point out that this one is as well.  But autism is a touchy subject, so I am reminding you here at the beginning of this article.  The following are my opinions.  Just bear in mind that most of what we think are facts are not facts at all.  They are just other people’s opinions and these are mine.

I was sitting at lunch with a friend of mine the other day and she was telling me about her neighbor.  The neighbor has a child with autism.  She was saying how she knows so many people who have children with autism or on the “spectrum”.  I guess most everyone knows that term, on the “spectrum”, but for those of you who don’t, I’ll explain.

Autism is a condition that varies widely amongst the children it affects.  There is a spectrum of  degrees of the disorder, from full blown symptoms to very mild attention deficit disorder.  Full blown autistic children don’t like to be touched, can’t speak, and can display obsessive behaviors such as head banging or hand waving.  Mild autism spectrum can be a slowness to learn how to speak or inability to concentrate in school to mild hyperactivity.  The mild end of the spectrum gets its own name, ADD or attention deficit disorder or ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The statistics vary, but generally 1 in 100 children suffer from autism and in some localities it can be 1 in 75 or even 50 children.  Contrast this to the 1950’s & 60’s when the rate was 1 in 10,000 children.

So my friend asked me, “Why are there so many children with autism?  Does anyone know what causes autism?”

The cause of autism is not unknown.  I am not the brightest star in the sky and I know what causes autism, so certainly there are many people more savvy than me who know as well. 

Autism is caused by neurotoxins.  It’s a condition of poisoning the central nervous system.

Here’s how this happens and how its happening as an epidemic in our children today.

The present adult generation is loaded with neurotoxins, primarily heavy metals inhaled from the air we breath, absorbed from the food we eat.  These neurotoxins are sprayed on the earth we walk on, hold our carpets, houses and furniture together, are ingested by us and the creatures we ingest, fill holes in our teeth, are inhaled as gases in the air we breath.

I understand that if one wanted to do a study on the effects of neurotoxins, say one wanted to study the difference between a person loaded with heavy metals and a person who had no heavy metal contamination, it couldn’t be done.  There is not a person on planet earth who does not have heavy metal contamination.  Even the Eskimos in Alaska and if you could find untouched natives of a desert island, heavy metals have contaminated the vast oceans as well as the air we breath and heavy metal contamination is everywhere.

So here’s what happens.  All the women of chid bearing age have neurotoxins circulating in their blood.  This started after WWII.  Before that, neurotoxins were much less prevalent in the environment and in our bodies.  The proliferation of neurotoxins used in WWII found their way into everyday life, homes and gardens.

These women of course get pregnant and something like 200 neruotoxins can now be found in the umbilical cord.  The babies being born are born with a toxic overload most of us didn’t acquire until later in life.  This is a problem unique to this and subsequent generations.

Then these babies are vaccinated before they even are a few days old and continue on a prolific vaccination schedule before they are 2 years old.  I’m not saying vaccinations cause autism.  What I am saying it that the additional stress caused by vaccinating a newborn or toddler after they are already filled with neurotoxins can just be too much.  So a child born and appearing normal, making the normal benchmarks of motor development and cognitive development, will sometimes lose these abilities and slip into autism after a vaccination series.

It breaks my heart when an autistic child comes into my office for CranioSacral Therapy and I ask the mom, “When did the child begin displaying autism?”

And the mom often says, “Right after the MMR vaccination.”  Or some other vaccination.

I have heard that repeatedly.  Sometimes the mom will add, “And I even heard that that could happen, and I did it anyway!”

The guilt they bear is terrible.  And it’s not their fault!  It’s no one’s fault actually and its all our faults together.  It’s up to us to change it and the good thing is, it all can be changed in one lifetime.

When I was a child I remember standing in line and walking up to get my vaccinataion.  They gave them to us in school.  If doctors were to wait until the child was at least 5 years old, what would happen to the autism rate?  After 5 years old, the child’s blood brain barrier is established and less damage is likely to occur.

What would happen to the autism rate if pre-teenagers were put on a heavy metal de-tox program, long before the young women became pregnant?

We have started cleaning up the environment, using cleaner fuels for our homes and cars and there is a lot more to do.  It’s all doable and we can do it now.

Along with speech and behavioral therapies, autistic children could be receiving free detox therapies.  Now the parents who want to have detox included in their child’s therapy program have to pay for it out of pocket.  Many autistic spectrum children who received aggressive detox therapies have been able to leave their symptoms and diagnosis behind and enter main stream America.

Detox takes years, not months.  So programs need to be continued for 5 to 10 years to detox the nervous system.

There are many children who are now entering adulthood as autistic.  The population of autistic adults is swelling.  This is a life time responsibility for the family and society to bear.

It is said, if we keep going without making corrections, every child will soon be born either autistic or on the spectrum.