The Damning Evidence That The Medical Establishment Has Chosen to Ignore The Mail on Sunday, London, England April 9, 2000 by Lorraine Fraser Specialist Writer of the Year
For Rosemary Kessick it was a moment of vindication. And of utter sadness. On the screen before a hearing of the powerful US Congress Committee on Government Reform, the pictures of her son William flashed up. To the left was a bright-eyed baby with everything to look forward to; on the right, the dull countenance of the child he became - severely brain damaged, and trapped in the nightmare world of autism. Minutes later, she heard the scientific announcement hundreds of parents of autistic children such as William have waited for. Under oath, and speaking in a calm Irish lilt, Professor John O'Leary told how his state-of-the-art laboratory had identified the measles virus - something which certainly should not have been there - in samples taken from the intestines of no fewer than 24 of the 25 patients with William's condition. The findings of his vitally important study, reported for the first time at Thursday's Congressional hearing on autism, provide compelling new evidence linking measles virus infection and this terrible affliction. And they raise urgent new concerns over the safety of MMR vaccine - the combined mumps, measles and rubella vaccination given routinely to hundreds of thousands of children in Britain every year. It is more than five years since Rosemary Kessick, desperate to find out why her previously healthy baby had developed terrible bowel problems and was suddenly behaving uncontrollably, first sought out the man who provided Professor O'Leary with those crucial biopsies from the autistic children. She approached Dr. Andrew Wakefield, an honorary consultant gastroenterologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London and an acclaimed researcher on inflammatory bowel disease. He had never befor seen a child like William, whose autism had descended on him almost overnight. And when he examined the lining of his bowel with a fibre-optic camera he was stunned to discover an inexplicable abnormality. In February 1998, having seen 11 more patients with identical symptoms, he dared to suggest that parents such as Rosemary, who believed their children had developed autism after receiving the MMR vaccine, should now be taken seriously. In a scientific paper, published in the leading medical journal, The Lancet, he and his colleagues described how they discovered this same pattern of inflammation of the bowel, which they believed was part of a new disease, autistic enterocolitis, in all 12 children. They reported that parents of eight of the children said that the youngsters' behaviour began to deteriorate after their MMR vaccinations. While there was no direct evidence of a link, Dr. wakefield said it must be properly investigated. He stressed he was not anti-vaccine, and only wanted safe vaccination programmes for children. But within the medical establishment there is no greater heresy than to even question the safety of a childhood vaccine. Dr. Wakefield was quickly accused of undermining parents' confidence in MMR and of putting children's lives at risk because large numbers of parents decided to shun it. >From that day on, he was ostracised by the medical community. His meticulous studies on the 12 children - and subsequently hundreds more like them - were ignored by this Government and dismissed by 'experts' from the Medical Research Council. He was ordered by his bosses at University College London not to speak to the Press. Now, says Professor O'Leary, a leading independent pathologist from the Republic of Ireland, the new evidence from his laboratory must change all that. He is doublyconcerned because another independent research group to Japan has also found the measles virus in the blood of three of Dr. Wakefield's patients - and they say the genetic fingerprint is 'consistent' with the strain used in MMR vaccine. Further studies, he says, are now imperative. He said: 'The findings that I presented to Congress are the results of independent work carried out by my laboratory on material referred to us by Andrew Wakefield. 'The material that was given to us was sent in a blinded fashion. We did not know the name of the patients, the diagnosis or age before our tests were completed. There was no bias in terms of changing diagnosis or changing results to suit a particular hypothesis.' He said that of the 25 children with autistic enterocolotis his laboratory screened, 24 harboured the measles genetic fingerprint. Only one of the 15 control children - those who do not have autism - contained the virus. 'That is 96 per cent compared with 6.6 per cent, which is highly statistically significant and implies as association between the measles virus and this disease,' said Professor O'Leary. 'Measles virus is present in the gut of these children. It shouldn't be there. The next question is to find out what it is doing there and there needs to be a full investigation of this with proper funding.' His laboratory - an internationally recognized centre of excellence - is now urgently working on sequencing the genetic make-up of the virus to see if it matches the vaccine strain. It will be four to six months, he says, before they will have the answer. The biggest criticism fired at Dr. Wakefield when he first voiced his concerns was that he had no evidence of vaccine viruses in tissue from the autistic children he was studying. But if his findings prove to be correct the implications will be enormous. It will suggest that while MMR may be safe for the vast majority of children, some - perhaps a minority who are somehow genetically susceptible - may be seriously damaged by it. Andrew Wakefield has now examined almost 150 children like William who, by all accounts, were beautiful, normal babies until something, inexplicably, went wrong. He told the Congressional hearing that their gastrointestinal problems, such as diaahoea, seemed to be closely associated with their mental decline. This was not the 'classic autism' where children fail to develop normally at all, but appeared to be an entirely new disease. Affected children, he said, tend to have a history of allergic conditions such as asthma and eczema and a strong family history of 'autoimmune disease' - where the immune system goes wrong and begins to attack the body. Crucial areas of the small and large intestines are inflamed. And their immune system appears odd. They have low levels of white blood cells, but there is evidence of a strong reaction to the measles virus. How could all these physical changes cause such profound problems in the brain? There is evidence that when the gut wall is damaged harmful morphine-like substances, which would normally be broken down in a healthy person, pass via the bloodstream into the brain. But how could MMR possibly be involved? The vaccine, launced in the UK in 1988 and now given to children at 15 months and again before starting school, contains only tiny doses of weakened, if live, mumps, measles and rubella virus. Dr. Wakefield admitted to the Congressional committee that he does not know. There is evidence from 30 years ago, however, to suggest that having more than one of these childhood infections at one time may increase the chance of autism. Studies had also shown that the mumps part of the MMR vaccine can interfere with the body's response to the measles and the rubella compeacats. The theory is that if they inject a child at the same time, say through a combined vaccine, measles and mumps viruses may interact. This may explain why, if it is the measles virus which triggers autism, there were not more cases when measles was more prevalent. Yesterday, the parents of autistic children in Britain and America, Rosemary Kessick among them, were demonstrating on the streets of London, Edinburgh and Washington DC in an attempt to shame governments into taking the disease more seriously. Rosemary, 43, a former business analyst from Peterborough who runs the charity Allergy Induced Autism, has been told that samples from William, now 12, were among those that Professor O'Leary's laboratory tested positive. William needs constant supervision and the mother of three said: 'I weep for the children who have been lost since I first took my own son to Andy Wakefield. 'I feel our children have been sacrificed for the greater good. The authorities just do not seem to be able to see that although the vaccination has done a lot of good it is possible it may have done some children harm. 'My child was never exposed to measles. Nobody I ever knew when he was little had it, so where did the measles virus in his gut come from? The only contact that I, as his mother know of, is through the live, attentuated part of the MMR vaccine.' Parents in the UK came under enormous pressure from health visitors and GPs to have their children vaccinated with MMR, with some families thrown off doctor's medical lists for refusing. The Government blocked the import of measles-only vaccine last year. Parents who want the single vaccine are forced to go overseas. If measles virus infection - from whatever source - is confirmed to be causing the chronic bowel changes and brain damage in at least this group of autistic children it may be possible to find a treatment. Indeed, many parents have found that a strict diet can help. Last night, the Department of Health poured scorn on Professor O'Leary's study. Interestingly, however, a week ago the Medical Research Council announced a massive survey of two million people across the UK aimed at finding out more about autism and which would 'be able to examine any possible association between autism and the MMR vaccine.' The potential importance of Professor O'Leary's results will not be lost on solicitors for some 200 children - large numbers of them autistic - who are already suing the makers of MMR vaccine. The Professor, who has now decided to widen his collaboration with Dr. Wakefield, said: 'The time now is for real research. We need to work out what is going on.' For the hundreds of parents like Rosemary Kessick, that research cannot be done soon enough. -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. 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