“You Know Nothing About Autism, John Snow”

IN THE TELEVISION PRE-HISTORY FICTIONAL MINISERIES ‘GAME OF THRONES’, a female character named Ygritte is fond of telling her lover, a Night Watchman, who lives caught between two warring cultures, the expression “You know nothing, Jon Snow”.  She tells him this to remind him that he has no idea why the Wildings, a tribe of undead people, are attacking their peoples, and, as hint to the fact that in spite of their different origins as people, she loves him.s

There is another Snow of merit who lived between cultures – a culture of science and a culture of stoic and unforgiving ignorance. This John Snow has an important lesson for our time.

In 1854’s, London Physician John Snow was confronted with a severe outbreak of cholera.  The prevailing view of the cause of the cholera at the time was the ‘miasma’ theory, in which ‘bad air’, or something called ‘vibrones’ which the medical community postulated caused the spread of the illness.

London’s Soho District at the time was typical of London neighborhoods in the 1850’s.  Most homes had cess pits under their homes for human waste, and if the waste production exceeded the soil’s capacity, it would he hauled away, for a fee, and dumped into the river Thames.

The good Dr. Snow, pictured to the right, was not satisfied by the miasma theory. As the cholera outbreak worsened, he began mapping cases and eventually recognized that most cases were clustered near a water pump on Broad Street. His careful observations led him to conclude that whatever ‘cholera poison’, as he referred to it, was behind the outbreak, it was somehow connected to the water pump. This was before germ theory was established and pathogens such as bacteria and viruses were unknown to medicine.

A religious colleague, The Reverend Henry Whitehead, from St. Luke’s Church, was a believer of the miasma theory. As any good man of the church would so, he attempted to disprove theories, and when he turned his attention to Dr. Snow’s theory of that cholera was a water-born illness, somehow connected to human waste, he was turned away from the nondescript miasma theory by the evidence accumulated by Snow in his maps. He even accompanied Dr. Snow on a hunt for the connection between human waste and the water pump, and together they discovered a home that had a cess pit that drained to a old cess pit only a few feet away from the well at the Broad Street Pump. The homeowners routinely dumped diapers (nappies) into the cess pit under their home.

Together, Snow and Whitehead convinced the town’s government to break the handle off the pump. Thereafter, the cholera epidemic ceased; however, the government (The London Board of Health) refused to acknowledge the links between human waste, water and cholera, instead sticking by the ill-defined miasma theory. (Beer drinkers, rejoice – the villagers turned to beer for their liquid intake – which of course was free from cholera due to the fermentation process).

CDC’s Miasma Theory of Autism

 

In their fervor to convince the public that no link exists between vaccines and autism, the CDC has neglected to propound (offer) any viable theory for the increase in autism. Others have tried to blame changes in diagnosis, or genetics for the rise in autism, but neither of these two factors can explain the incredibly rapid rise from 1 in 3000 in the 1970’s to 1 in 68. In fact, the CDC has shown a remarkable lack of curiosity about what DOES cause autism. The CDC’s amorphous theory of autism is, empirically, identical to the miasma theory for cholera – because neither vibrones, nor CDCs’ theory of autism exist.

 

Cherry Picking: CDC’s Woeful, Biased Representation of The Available Science

In all of their communications to the public on causes of autism, CDC fails to consider the bulk of the available science that not only shows association between autism and vaccines, but also points squarely to the role of aluminum and mercury as fundamental to the etiology of autism via chronic microglial activation. I know this because I’ve read the science the CDC has not read. Between November 2015 and February 2016, I read over 3,000 published and peer-reviewed studies on autism – not on vaccines intentionally – but rather on autism.  I took the position of  geneticist who wanted to know how traits as unique as autism – lack of or loss of language abilities, aberrant motor movements, differences in executive functions – might be explained considering both genetic and environmental factors.

What I found were studies that clearly showed that neurotoxins such as aluminum, (read this before you claim aluminum is not a neurotoxin), mercury, valproaic acid, thalidomide, and other toxins are picked up by macrophages, deposited in the brain, and interfere with astrocytic glutamate uptake. The excess glutamate prevents microglial cells from de-activating, once activated, and the microglia consume dendrites and neural precursor cells. The autistic brain becomes uni-polar, with many one:one axon:dendrite connections. The microglia in their activated form are not available to shepherd multiple axon:dendrite connections during reinforcement learning, and thus the structures for inhibition feedback are missing. The autistic brain allows perceptual signals to get into the brain too far, too fast, and this is why their are perception sensitivities to light, and sounds. There are also perceptual differences, more easily controlled by shutting down one eye, for example (the sideways glance forces the use of peripheral vision, which reduces the input level to tolerable, so autistic are actually try to look and focus and pay attention by such behavior, not ignoring you!). Further, the input signals can travel so far so fast throughout the brain that they can activate motor neurons, leading to repetitive and uncontrolled behaviors.

This is just a small part of what we know – the rest is in the book. There is much, much more that is known about autism than the CDC’s Miasma-like position would allow for. And all of this amassed knowledge, paid for by our tax dollars, conducted by researchers outside of the CDC, is ignored by the CDC and summarily dismissed as ‘unreliable’. Consider, for example, the interchange between Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rear Admiral Schuchat (excerpt from “The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism“:

“Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren asked Dr. Schuchat a few questions and in each response, Schuchat reassured her that vaccines were highly safe and effective and that ‘dozens of studies’ had been conducted that showed no association between autism and vaccines.

Warren: Is there any scientific evidence that vaccines cause profound mental disorders?

Dr. Schuchat: No.

Near the end of her testimony, the following interchange occurred:

Warren: Parents should know that all of the credible scientific evidence suggests that modern vaccines are safe, modern vaccines are effective and modern vaccines are our best chance of protecting our children from diseases that can kill them, is that right?

Schuchat: That’s right.

The emphasis on “all of the credible scientific evidence” is mine, but the words are Warren’s, agreed to by Schuchat and they are critically important.

Schuchat dismissed most of the evidence cited in this book so far, which is a mountain of peer-reviewed, credible scientific studies. Since she agreed with Warren’s statement, Schuchat testified that all of the evidence that contradicted her own and the CDC’s conclusions was not credible.” – (James Lyons-Weiler, “The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism, (C) Skyhorse Publishing).

Here, Senator Warren, and the rest of the Senate, and by extension, the People of the United States of America are being lied to by the most senior ranking official in the CDC about not just a few paltry studies that might show links between vaccines and autism – but about ALL studies showing how, and why, vaccines can cause autism in some people.

That’s right. LIED TO.

The science that Schuchat is lying about is valid, and much of it is outlined in detail here, and in “Causes“.

Think about this misrepresentation the next time you hear someone say “the issue is settled” or “the science shows no link” or “all of the published studies show” no link between vaccines and autism.

Those statements are 100% incorrect. Here is the rest of the science.

Anti-Vax? Pro-Vax? How about a Third Option: SCIENCE.

The fact that the word is out that the CDC also omitted results from a key study, and over-cooked the data analysis as a matter of routine to make associations between vaccination and autism disappear – is scaring people. Like Schuchat. And Dr. Frank DeStefano. And Dr. Coleen Boyle. They have misled the public for over 15 years on autism. But more and more pediatricians are accepting that vaccines may cause autism, and therefore the CDC is fast becoming irrelevant. By fudging their results, they lied to their fellow scientists. They lied to the rest of the US Government. They lied to the People of the United States. They lied to Pharma. They lied to the FDA, the NIH, the NIAID, the AAP, the AMA.  They have lied to the Press. They have lied to the so-called internet ‘trolls’ who spend inordinate amounts of time insulting and demeaning the vaccine-risk aware population.

I have read the CDC’s so-called “science”, and I can see how they fudged their results. Remember, I’m an expert is multivariate and high-dimensional analysis. I know how to interpret a significant interaction term in a linear model – evidently the CDC apparently does not even know they exist.

The National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine rejected 17/22 studies put forward by the CDC as flawed. That leaves a scant 5 studies upon which our public health policy is based.

Given that they have tried so hard to warp our perception, I propose that we move on from the CDC – and start doing bona fide vaccine safety science. Every vaccine, all health outcomes. Let’s use Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), screened for epitopes that match important human proteins, and reduce autoimmune diseases. Let’s use VLPs with sufficient antigen loads so adjuvants are not required. Let’s make them sterile and free from preservatives.

Because vaccines are the water pump, and autism is our cholera.  Wakefield, Hooker, Schoenfeld, Shaw, Seneff, Gallager, Goodman, Delong, Sharpe, Tomljenovic, Geier and Geier, Young, Nataf, Yasuda, Tstusui,  Blaurock-Busch, Molina, Bradstreet, McDonald,
Singh, Holmes, Lee, Vargas, Poling, Mikovitz, Palmter, Mohamed,  and many others, especially Dr. Russell Blaylock and Dr. William Thompson of the CDC… these are today’s John Snows [1].

Today’s John Snows have been calling for us to clean up vaccines – not to break the handle off the pump – but to clean up vaccines, and to shut down the epidemic. They do not wish to ban vaccines.  Quite the opposite – their goals are to make them so safe that the myths of vaccine safety perpetuated by the CDC become true, and then everyone can enjoy the full benefits.  Their science – and it is valid science, regardless of what Rr. Adm. Shuchat tried – and failed – to get us to believe – has shined a bright light on what is wrong with the current formulation of most vaccines.

Here is the CSPAN video of the interview in which Rr. Adm. Shuchat dimisses with one word ALL of the available peer-review science the CDC has decided is unreliable (that is, any science the CDC has not done themselves.

You can help move vaccination science away from the everlasting debate by moving on from the CDC as well. (See IPAK). The CDC vaccine division and leadership have consistently proved themselves to be unreliable as a sources of information on the science of vaccines. We have many more qualified scientists outside of the CDC than inside of the CDC who are capable of performing vaccine safety research. Let us wrest it from the CDC and put it in the hands of the NIH, NIAID, or Department of Homeland Security, under the following model:

Every vaccine, studied for 4 years, each studied independently by 5 institutions (extramural), focused on efficacy, and safety, with proper research oversight – run the studies as randomized prospective clinical trials. Three (3) of the five institutions win contracts by lottery, and two by competitive peer review. This will break any chance of intrusion by monied interests. All should publish their studies independently. Each vaccine should be subject to approval by the FDA, with separate committees studying safety and efficacy.

Autism is a public health crisis – but then so is autoimmunity. We know that certain epitopes in vaccines induce autoimmunity. All epitopes in pathogens with clear functional mapping to autoimmunity (such as basic mylein protein) should be banned from use. And we should conduct genetic screening to see if we can predict which patients are most likely to suffer from adverse events from vaccines.

Let’s leave the handle on the pump, and clean up the water. Everyone will be happier, safer, and, most importantly, healthier. And the collective denial of autism/vaccines can end.

 

Dr. John Snow’s report:

“On proceeding to the spot, I found that nearly all the deaths had taken place within a short distance of the [Broad Street] pump. There were only ten deaths in houses situated decidedly nearer to another street-pump. In five of these cases the families of the deceased persons informed me that they always sent to the pump in Broad Street, as they preferred the water to that of the pumps which were nearer. In three other cases, the deceased were children who went to school near the pump in Broad Street…

With regard to the deaths occurring in the locality belonging to the pump, there were 61 instances in which I was informed that the deceased persons used to drink the pump water from Broad Street, either constantly or occasionally…

The result of the inquiry, then, is, that there has been no particular outbreak or prevalence of cholera in this part of London except among the persons who were in the habit of drinking the water of the above-mentioned pump well.

I had an interview with the Board of Guardians of St James’s parish, on the evening of the 7th inst [September 7], and represented the above circumstances to them. In consequence of what I said, the handle of the pump was removed on the following day.”

 

Dr. William Thompson’s Report:

“I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism.”

Dr. William Thompson, statement from his lawyer.

“I can’t believe we did what we did, but we did… The CDC knew about the relationship between the age of first MMR vaccine and autism incidence in African-American boys as early as 2003, but chose to cover it up…we’ve missed ten years of research because the CDC is so paralyzed right now by anything related to autism.”

Dr. William Thompson in a taped conversation with Dr. Brian Hooker

[1] Note to colleagues – if your name is not here, and it should be, send me a note, I will gladly add it.

Much of the information in this article on Dr. John Snow comes from this entry in Wikipedia.

You can directly support reformed vaccine safety research at The Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge.

—

James Lyons-Weiler, PhD

Dr. Lyons-Weiler’s latest book, “Cures vs. Profits”, has just been released an is available via Amazon.com.  His book “Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism” is due out in November, 2016.

 

Cures vs. Profits: Successes in Translational Research (World Scientific (323 pages). To help support the publicity campaign, click on the book cover, above!