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SIGHT of a bug would fill his bright eyes with astonishment. The whole
world was a wonderment then, a stimulator of speech. But at 18 months
of age, after the fourth and largest in a series of diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus
vaccinations, their babbling boy, Ian, fell into a deep, prolonged
slumber from which he never fully awakened. In almost every way imaginable
he was a different boy. His desire to speak vanished.. Instead of
sounding out the consonants in a new word, he shrieked in terror at
the slightest deviation in his inviolate schedule. His bedroom became
his self-imposed fortress, the constant droning of videotaped cartoons
his only companion. Even a hug from Mom tormented him. He was tormented - by the enlarged white matter, elevated serotonin levels and impaired limbic system in his brain. Medical doctors offered no hope of a treatment or cure. USU neuroimmunologist Vijendra Singh has been studying autism for well over 15 years. Having witnessed firsthand the emotional and financial toll on families, he is deeply disturbed by the statistics. Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in children, he says. In 1993, only four or five children in 10,000 were afflicted. Ten years later, five times that many children were being diagnosed. In Utah alone autism rates have jumped 750 percent in the past decade. No country is immune - the numbers for Mexico, India and China are as alarming as in Canada, Europe and Australia. |
Fifteen years ago, Singh began investigating a novel idea - that the immune system itself plays a central role in autism |
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Fifteen
years ago, Singh began investigating a novel idea - that the immune
system itself played a central role. Medical scientists dismissed
this line of thinking as a waste of time. Today they take his research
seriously. In testimony before Congress, and presentations before
the National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine (IOM) and
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Singh has reported
his findings: three quarters of autistic children suffer from an
autoimmune disorder. Most of these children displayed none of the
classic symptoms of autism until shortly after receiving a measles-mumps-rubella
shot. Singh recommended testing their immunity first. "Doctors
give five to ten shots at one time to a child. Six months later
they administer another battery of vaccinations. If you don't have
a healthy immune system, then you might be unable to make proper
antibodies to counter the virus." Immunity testing would not
only protect vulnerable children from brain damage but detect allergies,
which are now found in half of all children. |