Dear April,

            I was asked to provide a brief summary on autism for someone here in Los Angeles. I am pleased to share it with your readers and to encourage them to forward it to others, including politicians and health department officials. In the article, I have tried to provide a comprehensive and balanced view of the factors leading to autism. The paper notes that brain damage is probably present at birth in many children who subsequently become autistic. It is most likely that an atypical virus infection is the major cause of the brain damage. As you know I have called these viruses stealth adapted because they have managed to avoid recognition and elimination by the cellular immune system.  Identifying stealth adapted virus infected newborns could possibly go a long way to helping prevent autism from occurring. It would justify parents making extraordinary efforts to strengthen emotional and verbal communications and to encourage social interactions with other children. As mentioned in the paper, autism susceptible children might also be helped by taking products that work by activating an alternative cellular energy pathway. Being stealth adapted virus infected could also provide a warning to proceed cautiously with any vaccination program that could activate these viruses or trigger a cell damaging auto-immune response. Support for avoiding or delaying routine vaccination will require that Public Health officials accept the existence of these viruses. So far they have been reluctant to do so or to even test a sampling of autistic children for evidence of an infection. This is where your readers' persuasive powers could help. Kind regards, John.

 

Autism: A Stealth Virus Infection

W. John Martin, M.D., Ph.D.

Institute of Progressive Medicine

 

Introduction


            Autism is a diagnostic label applied to neurological disorders of early childhood onset that primarily manifest as deficits in social interactive skills including speech. Considerable variability exists in the severity of illness in autistic patients. At one extreme there is a somewhat arbitrary distinction between grossly affected autistic children and a devastating neurological condition known as childhood disintegration disorder. At the other end of the spectrum, mildly affected autistic children can share many characteristics with children showing delayed normal development and/or attention deficit disorders. In recent years there has been a marked increase in relatively mildly affected autistic children who are commonly referred to as having high functioning autism.

 

Autism spectrum disorder is usually diagnosed during the second year of life with a failure of normal speech and impaired socialization. With some children there can be an abrupt loss of certain acquired skills (regressive autism).  In most autistic children, however, subtle indications of impaired and/or delayed development were present even during the first year of life. Most autistic children will also show a wider variety of clinical manifestations than implied by a single diagnostic label. These manifestations can include epileptic seizures, gastrointestinal disorders and endocrine dysfunctions. Recovery from autism can occur especially among relatively mildly affected children.

 

While many millions of dollars have been spent on autism-related research, only a few studies have provided important insights into the underling cause, prevention and treatment of this disease. This report will provide a brief summary of the issues that are commonly discussed in relation to the possible cause(s) of autism. The thesis will then be presented that autism is the result of brain damage caused by stealth-adapted viruses.


Accepted Research on Autism


1. Autism has a Genetic Component: This is apparent from the higher incidence of autism among boys. It is also supported by the relative concordance of disease among monozygotic (genetically identical) twins compared to dizygotic (genetically different) twins. Still there are examples where only one of two genetically identical twins has the disease. Several well defined genetic disorders can lead to autistic-like abnormalities, including Rett's syndrome, an illness that occurs more commonly in girls.  Genetic factors typically would not be expected to change markedly over time and, would not, therefore, easily explain the increasing incidence of autistic disorders. Nevertheless, since genes regulate many aspects of brain functioning, it is understandable that genetics will be a contributing factor to the expression of autism from whatever cause. Until the genetics of brain behavior are far better understood, it is unlikely, however, that gene based therapies will offer real benefits to presently affected children.  .

 

2. Brain Abnormalities are Present in Autistic Children: Head circumference has been accepted as a marker of brain size. While essentially normal at birth, the head circumference of many newborn autistic children increases significantly more than that of normal children. The increase growth rate especially occurs within the first several months of life and stabilizes thereafter. This important finding indicates that an abnormal brain developmental process is in place at the time of birth. Brain imaging has also shown enlargements in certain regions of the brain, most noticeably in parts of the cerebellum. Equally impressive are various functional studies that show deficits in brain activation upon certain types of sensory stimulation, and in blood flow patterns in autistic children. The question arises whether these functional changes are a consequence of autism, rather than its cause. Limited histopathological studies on brain tissue from autistic patients support the view that certain brain cells are damaged and/or do not normally develop.

Controversial Issues Relating to Autism

1. Autism is the Result of Vaccination. Reports of marked clinical deterioration and even the initial onset of autism within days of being vaccinated have prompted the view that the vaccine has caused, or has possibly precipitated, clinical illness. Initially the focus of concern was on diphtheria/petussis/tetanus (DPT) vaccine. The focus next shifted to MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine. In the case of measles, vaccine-derived viral material has been seen using immunohistochemistry and molecular based assays within hyperplastic lymphoid tissue present in the gastrointestinal tract of autistic children. Similar findings were found in non-autistic children with lymphoid hyperplasia. Although there are reasons for concerns with live viral vaccines, including the finding of retroviral related reverse transcriptase activity in MMR vaccines, a primary etiological role of measles vaccine virus is not supported by data indicating prior brain size abnormality. Proponents of the vaccine theory have also failed to indicate the lack of cell damage in lymphoid cells positive by immunohistochemistry for measles antigens. Measles vaccine virus was generally not detectable in the cerebrospinal fluid of autistic children.  A detrimental effect of MMR vaccine has been dismissed by many authorities based on the results of various epidemiological studies that fail to show a statistically significant correlation between vaccine usage and disease prevalence.

 

The focus has since returned to killed vaccines that contain thimerosal as a preservative.  It has been argued that increasing the number of thimerosal containing vaccines has exposed children to neurotoxic levels of mercury, a component of thimerosal. It has been further suggested that children lacking normal capacity to either excrete or detoxify mercury may be at particular risk for developing autism. In none of these studies has scientific validation been obtained for the many suppositions being promulgated.   For example, the issue of impaired excretion of mercury arose from the observation that mercury levels in hair samples obtained from autistic children were actually lower than those from unaffected children. One could equally well argue that the autistic children were holding onto mercury for beneficial reasons. Moreover, many autistic children have not received thimerosal containing vaccines. Environmental mercury contamination is a feature of gold mining operations in developing countries that have not experienced an unusually high incidence of autism. Mercury was a common component in 19th century medicines and when poisoning was reported, kidney rather than brain damage tended to dominate the clinical picture. Unfortunately, emotional rather than scientific arguments have been thrust onto parents with a disregard for contradictory and non-supportive data.


2. Autism is a Primary Biochemical Disorder. Elevated levels of one or more neuropeptides were reported to be present in neonatal blood samples obtained from virtually all children subsequently diagnosed with autism. Although these observations were not confirmed in a subsequent study using a different methodology, the inference is again supportive of brain damage being present prior to birth. Elevated serum levels of the neuropeptide BDNF, have also been reported in autistic children. This is interpreted as a possible response to ongoing brain damage in autistic children.  Urine analyses on autistic children have also shown markedly elevated levels of various metabolic products. An inference is that the levels of these chemicals would also be increased in the brain and that they somehow interfere with normal brain function. A prime example is the opiate-like peptides resulting from incomplete digestive breakdown of casein and gluten proteins. This view is bolstered by noticeable clinical improvements in some autistic children when placed on a casein and gluten free diet. Peptides from abnormal bacterial and fungal bowel flora may also been suggested as having neuroregulatory activity whose levels may be reduced by antibiotics. A role for cell associated peptidase is suggested by unpublished studies that peptidase IV inhibitory fragments may also be present in the urine of some autistic children.

 

3. Autism is an Auto-Immune Disease.  Antibodies that react with brain tissue or with neuropeptides have been detected in some autistic children. The idea has been advanced that a brain damaging immune response has possibly been triggered by a viral illness or by the inoculation of a virus vaccine. These suggestions disregard the data indicating preexisting brain abnormalities unless it is argued that an auto-immune disease occurred in the mother.

Autism: A Stealth-Adapted Viral Encephalopathy

             The increasing prevalence of autism is consistent with an infectious process. Indeed many commentators have referred to an autism epidemic. A minority of cases of autism result from prenatal infection with conventional viruses, including human cytomegalovirus. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to suspect that many other cases of autism may also be the result of atypical viral illnesses.  Viral infection could render a person susceptible to further brain damage from vaccines and other environmental factors. Several lines of evidence exist that are supportive of, or at least consistent with a stealth virus cause of autism. These data provide a framework for therapy and management of autistic children.


1. Blood samples from autistic children consistently induce readily identifiable cell damaging (cytopathic) effects using viral culture methods adapted for the detection of stealth adapted viruses. Stealth virus testing of blood samples from autistic children has been subjected to formal "double blind" analyses. Furthermore, cerebrospinal fluid and gastrointestinal biopsy have similarly yielded positive cultures. Clinical testing for stealth adapted viruses was discontinued in 2002 under orders from the Federal Government.

 

2. Assays intended to detect conventional viruses and bacterial pathogens are sometimes positive in autistic children and their parents. These results can be attributed to serological and/or molecular cross-reactivity with stealth virus components. For example, various bacteria-derived genes have been detected in cultures of stealth-adapted viruses that can explain misdiagnoses of Lyme disease or mycoplasma infections.

 

3. Direct studies have provided evidence for stealth virus infections among family members of autistic children. Many of the family members will, upon close questioning, report symptoms of neurological and/or immunological dysfunction consistent with an underlying pervasive infectious disease.



4. The cytopathic effect caused by stealth adapted viruses is enhanced by including live measles vaccine virus in the cultures, or by the addition of sub-lethal levels of toxins such as thimerosal. A reasonable argument can be advanced that stealth adapted virus positive infants should be exempted from the overt immunological stimulation induced by repeated inoculations of mixed vaccines, whether live or containing thimerosal. The focus of Public Health concern should, however, be more on stealth adapted viruses than potential precipitating factors.

 

5. Knowing that a newborn infant is infected with a stealth adapted virus would encourage efforts to develop and to sustain strong interpersonal behaviors as he or she undertakes the difficult tasks of acquiring language and emotional relationship skills.

 

6. Most importantly, studies on stealth adapted viruses have led to the recognition of an alternative (non-mitochondria) mechanism by which cells can obtain energy. Cultures of stealth adapted viruses undergo a healing process mediated by materials termed alternative cellular energy pigments (ACE pigments). Various natural products have ACE pigment activity. Although marketable as dietary supplements, they can not legally be promoted for disease therapy. It is even difficult to obtain FDA approval for investigational studies on some of these products. Enhancing the ACE pathway has, nevertheless, helped expedite healing from conventional viruses, such as HSV and HPV. In another study, an ACE product markedly alleviated diarrhea in children living in a developing country.
 

Three issues appear to be limiting the acceptance of stealth adapted virus infection as the underlying cause of autism. Sadly, one of these factors is the money being made out of the autism epidemic. Parents pay to attended meetings in which they are presented with scientifically incoherent and commonly contradictory presentations by so called experts. In some of these meetings, eager parents need to pay more for a private session with a speaker as if really important information is being withheld from the public talk. More disconcerting is to see a speaker, fresh from receiving a standing ovation, devising with fellow physicians and healthcare providers a franchising opportunity to profit from the calamity that has befallen families with autistic children. Equally bad are discussions of kickback schemes to encourage ordering of unwarranted laboratory tests, or the peddling of unproven medical devices as income generating additions to questionable medical practice. Biased opinions are also encouraged by being given monetary value as lawyers solicit support for planned litigation against vaccine manufacturers.

 

The second major factor is that Public Health authorities are reluctant to embrace the concept of a viral epidemic, especially one that could be traced in part to vaccine contamination. This attitude was probably largely responsible for prohibiting further clinical testing for stealth adapted viruses. In spite of data indicating the presence of monkey cytomegalovirus DNA in licensed polio virus vaccines, neither CDC, NIH or FDA have publicly tested blood samples from autistic children for the presence of stealth adapted viruses.

 

The third factor is that most of those involved in autism research and clinical care are simply not well trained even in conventional virology yet alone fully understand the concept of stealth adaptation. Stealth adapted viruses do not provoke an inflammatory reaction, the accepted hallmark of an infectious disease; and can be somewhat difficult to culture. New concepts are often resisted but especially so if they undermine a profitable enterprise. Founders and directors of many autism support groups have seemingly been overly influenced by those making their living from autistic children. In spite of millions of dollars expenditures, the autism epidemic continues.

           

            I firmly believe that parents have the right to request/demand that Federal and/or State Health Departments do appropriate virus cultures on a sampling of autistic children. The methods need to be appropriate for the detection of stealth adapted viruses and have been published. The California Department of Health has also been provided very detailed protocols. The Government has access to several isolates of stealth adapted viruses deposited with the American Type Culture Collection, a national repository of biological samples. The Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) can also contact individuals infected with monkey derived stealth adapted viruses that presumably originally entered humans from contaminated polio virus vaccines. This is a call for effective action; do what it takes to get the cultures done.

 

Confirmation of a stealth virus cause of autism will hopefully be followed by the demonstration of clinical improvements in children treated with anti-stealth virus therapies. Although the immune system is ineffective, the body has an auxiliary defense system based on generating an alternative (non-mitochondria) pathway of cellular energy. Various products are becoming available that can provide alternative cellular energy (ACE) and/or activate this pathway. Clinical trials using these methods are urgently required.

 

            If anyone would like to e-mail me directly, please do so at s3support@mail.com I can also host a teleconference if enough parents are interested. I would appreciate receiving copies of any correspondence with CDC, State Health Departments or politicians. The web site www.s3support.com has additional information on stealth adapted viruses and the ACE pathway.

 

 

 

 

DEFINITION * TREATMENT * PREVENTION
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