Can the paleo diet heal the gut damage of "autistic" children? I have had my
son on the paleo diet with huge , simply huge improvement, but not a cure.
Awesome improvement.  But he is still labelled "high functioning autistic"...

There are still gut/bowel problems. We still have chronic, recurrent yeast.
Some parents say they have overcome this with thyroid medication..

Those on the various autism lists say our children have a measles infection
of the intestinal mucosa.

They say the human immune system does not know how to fight off an
artificially induced infection such as this, because if came into the body
through a needle.

I need any ideas.

What would you guys do if this had happened to YOUR child??

Thanks,

Mary

ps note they are connecting the gut infection to ADD/ADHD as well

Most conditions like arthritis clears up quickly on paleo diet, why does
this take so long??? OR was the brain inflammation so great (encephalitis
post vaccination) that he will never heal???

 Autism, MMR and 60 Minutes
 Another Pediatrician’s Perspective
 
       [This is from F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP TL Autism Research in
 Falmouth, Massachusetts.]
 
       The recent 60 Minutes program on MMR vaccine was an excellent
 awareness-raising report on the debate surrounding regressive autism and its
 explosion.  What struck me most are the following:
       *  The tragic pictures of the little boy who opened the show and his
 parents’ heart-breaking pain and suffering;
       *  The beautiful mother, standing with her arm raised, like most of
 the audience, because she believed her child was injured by the MMR
 vaccine -- caught crying by the scanning camera; and
       *  Andrew Wakefield, sincere, truthful, principled, unassuming and
 ready to sacrifice everything in the pursuit of the truth.
       First, my background:  I am trained in infectious diseases and
 pediatrics.  During my training I personally cared for children and adults
 with serious and complicated contagious illnesses. I subsequently “really”
 practiced pediatrics and was a school physician for 34 years.  I personally
 administered my own vaccines and enforced every Health Department mandate.
 I also informed myself thoroughly about regressive or late onset autism.
 Because of research I am now conducting, I strongly suspect that there is an
 autism-vaccine connection (*below).
       The following crucial facts were unfortunately not discussed in the 60
 Minutes piece:
 
       *  The measles virus was isolated from the gut wall of children with
 autism. It was further identified by very precise PCR techniques by O’Leary,
 and was confirmed to be of vaccine origin by Kawashima and his group.
       *  Sixty new cases with autistic enterocolitis were reported by
 Wakefield in the September 2000 issue of the American Journal of
 Gastroenterology.
       *  Children with autism have statistically significant co-existing
 high titers of MMR and Myelin Basic Protein antibodies (Singh).
 
       The authorities like to repeat that Wakefield’s findings have not been
 duplicated by other researchers.  This may be true for the case of children
 with autism but only because no one has tried to.  Indeed after seeing the
 onslaught of attacks on Dr. Wakefield because of his research, it is
 unlikely that anyone would want to.  Sabra et al at Georgetown University,
 however, have described identical ileal lymphoid nodular hyperplasia in the
 guts of children with ADHD.
       Thousands of parents believe that the MMR vaccine has contributed to
 their children’s autism.  They have pictures and videos to prove the
‘before
 ’ and ‘after.’  They speak of the MMR being the only new event in their
 child’s life in that period between normal development and autistic
 regression.  They point out their children’s marked immune system
 dysfunction, something with which they were not born.
       These parents certainly did not acquire their conviction from reading
 about the twelve cases reported in Dr. Wakefield’s first paper.  Nor would
 they simply be looking for a scapegoat.  Please remember, and always
 remember, their children were normal and their disease is acquired.
 Regardless of how often the authorities attest that the MMR vaccine is safe,
 an increasing number of parents here and in Europe are refusing to believe
 them.  Safety trials not looking beyond 3 weeks post-vaccination convince no
 one.  Equally alarming to the parents is the fact that the infectious
 disease specialists and epidemiologists who make decisions and mandate
 vaccines have little knowledge of autism and its immune etiology.
       It is inevitable that the present intransigent and unbending attitude
 of the vaccine authorities will lead to measles, mumps and rubella
 outbreaks.  When these diseases return, and they will, the authorities-- and
 the authorities alone-- will have to be held responsible.  There is no
 reasonable justification to tell a parent who is adamant about not using MMR
 but who is willing to return three times for the monovalent vaccines, that
 they are simply not available and/or illegal.  Dr. Wakefield only asked that
 more research be done into the triple live-virus vaccine.  To intimate that
 his research will cause epidemics is a flagrant distortion of the truth.
       It took us a long time to perfect the single (monovalent) mumps,
 measles and rubella vaccines.  Most pediatricians and parents trusted them.
 Epidemics stopped and few adverse vaccine reactions were reported.
       When the MMR vaccine was licensed in 1971 and became available shortly
 thereafter, many pediatricians refused to use it and continued vaccinating
 with the monovalent products at 3-6 months intervals.  These pediatricians
 were concerned with the potential decreased efficacy and increased side
 effects of the combination.  Many of us were also aware that no long-term
 safety studies of the MMR vaccine were available, on going or contemplated.
       Two things happened simultaneously in the late seventies to change
 things dramatically:
       1.)  HMOs arrived on the scene and cut down the number of “regular
 check-ups” 2.)  The State Health Departments started providing the vaccines
 free of charge to the practicing pediatricians and GPs. The Health
 Departments made it clear that it was cheaper to buy and easier to store and
 distribute the 3 in 1 vaccine and, on that basis, simply mandated its use.
 Pediatricians had no choice but to comply.
       To say that we are not sure the parents will bring the child back for
 subsequent shots is false.  Certainly this argument could be made in a third
 world country but certainly not in the West. Any “practicing” pediatrician
 knows that a parent is much more likely to keep a doctor’s appointment if a
 vaccine is due.  One must be cautious not to insult parents’ intelligence.
       Secondly, to say that added injections will cause pain and discomfort
 to the child is ridiculous.  I believe that the pain caused by an aqueous
 injection administered sub-cutaneously by an experienced health professional
 does not even come close to the living hell of Autism.
       Interestingly, the only people who raise these two arguments are
 members of vaccine boards and committees and rarely treat patients.  Wouldn’
 t it be more appropriate to have the parents make that important choice if
 they have such marked reservations?  After all it is their child.  As well,
 it seems hypocritical to mention pain when the vaccine authorities are
 introducing new vaccines of questionable efficacy and safety all the time
 It was intimated on 60 Minutes that a multitude of studies involving large
 populations has proved that the MMR vaccine was perfectly safe and did not
 cause autism.  THIS IS NOT TRUE.  There is NO long-term safety research
 proving that MMR does not cause autism.  There is a sole epidemiological
 study by Taylor et al, often publicized as proving decisively that autism
 did not increase in the UK after 1988, when MMR was introduced with great
 fanfare.  This study was financed and ordered by The Medicines Control
 Agency and The Public Health Laboratory Service.
       A noted British statistician whose specialty is medical research,
 looked carefully at the Taylor study.  He wrote:  “A myth is being created
 that the Taylor et al study shows that MMR is not triggering autism. The
 evidence presented in their Lancet paper is [in fact] consistent with the
 MMR triggering a substantial proportion of autism cases in this North London
 population.  The study does not find evidence to support an association
 between MMR and autism onset because of a flaw in the study design.  This
 does not mean that such an association does not exist.”
       The reason for this expert’s comments is that the “case series
design”
 used in the Taylor study is well known to be statistically unsatisfactory
 for chronic conditions and inadequate for a small sample (293 confirmed
 cases).  Even the authors of the study themselves alluded to its
 methodological problems.
       At times, while figures clearly demonstrate an increase in autism,
 this fact is denied in the written text. At others, contradictions are
 evident:
       *  “There is uncertainty about whether the prevalence of autism is
 increasing,” immediately followed by: “Our study is consistent with an
 increase in the incidence of autism in recent birth cohorts.”
       *  "For age at first parental concern, no significant temporal
 clustering was seen for cases of core autism and atypical autism, with the
 exception of a single interval within 6 months of MMR vaccine associated
 with a peak in reported age of parental concern at 18 months,” and “Our
 results do not support the hypothesis that MMR vaccination is causally
 related to autism."
       By far, however, the Taylor study’s most serious problem was to look
 only at children born after 1987.  This effectively excluded all children
 born in 1986-87 and initially vaccinated in 1988 or later.  It also excluded
 all 2–5 year old children previously non- or partially immunized and who
 received MMR boosters in 1988 or later.  More importantly, this design flaw
 added all excluded children to the opposite group. Last but not least, Dr.
 Taylor has repeatedly refused to let anyone see his raw data, in the hopes
 of replicating his findings, thus becoming probably the first author in the
 history of the Lancet to do so.
 
       The ‘authorities’ need to get away from rhetoric.  They must look at
 and commission real science to support their claims.  Until the safety of
 the MMR vaccine is proved conclusively, it will be wise to allow parents a
 choice between the single vaccines and the trivalent MMR.  All of us who
 have been touched by the autism epidemic appreciate the efforts put forth by
 CBS and 60 Minutes.  We hope that numerous and more balanced, informative
 programs will follow.