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AUTISM POINTING TO AN EPIDEMIC?

Private Eye 17 May - 30 May 2002

A staggering 1 in 86 primary school children has autism, says a National Autistic Society (NAS) survey. This alarming figure, double the official estimate, suggests Britain is indeed experiencing an autism epidemic.

Rates in primary schools appear to be three times higher than in secondary schools; and this will fuel parents' fears about the MMR, the triple mumps, measles and rubella vaccine. It was introduced in 1988 when the autism rate was around one in 2,200.

The NAS surveyed schools in Birmingham, Cardiff, Nottingham, North London and Nottinghamshire; and its findings suggest previously unrecognised consequences for education authorities and social services.

The Government urgently needs to find out what is happening to these children, but last weekend it was still reluctant to accept the evidence. A spokesman said it was still unclear if there was a real rise in autism or simply greater awareness of it.

Meanwhile a scientific paper by the team at the Royal Free hospital in North London, which has been looking at children with autism and bowel disease, went largely unnoticed in the media. Maybe this was because it didn't mention measles or MMR. But it did provide another clue to what might be happening to some of the children. The team, led by consultant paediatric gastroenterologist Simon Murch, confirmed what many had long believed: the autistic children are suffering an autoimmune gut disease. In other words, for some reason the immune system has turned on itself to cause tissue injury.

The team established this by examining intestinal samples from 25 autistic children, with 18 "normal" control samples and 11 from children with a different stomach disease and five with cerebral palsy. The autistic children had far greater numbers of "T" immune cells at the site of the inflammation. But most strikingly researchers found that an antibody in the circulating blood of the autistic children was binding to the intestinal wall in exactly the same way and place as chemicals associated with gut inflammation - suggesting an autoimmune reaction.

The paper raises the question of whether this gut involvement in autism causes or exacerbates the type of autism these children seem to be suffering. Autoimmune disease tends to run in families - a genetic weakness that often requires a trigger like a virus to start it off. Although the latest paper does not say so, it is known from previous work by the Royal Free team under Dr Andrew Wakefield that the measles virus has been found in most of the autistic children. Could that be the "environmental trigger" for the autoimmune disease?

One man who thinks the answer to both questions is yes is Jonathan Harris, a father of six. His two eldest children, Ashley, 16, and Laura, 14, had single measles vaccines and are well and "normal". The two middle children, Thomas, aged 11, and Oliver, 8, had the MMR vaccine and both declined into autism and bowel problems. No wonder Mr Harris and his wife have declined MMR for the two youngest children, Maisie, 4, and Alistair,3.

In the meantime Direct Health 2000, the biggest UK provider of single jab alternatives to MMR, is receiving extraordinary attention from the Department of Health. Its clinics have been visited four times in as many weeks by inspectors from the new National Care Standards Commission. Direct Health has now given single jabs to about 28,000 children and reports - contrary to government suggestions - 97 pe rcent success rate in completion of the single jabs course.

Instead of appearing to harrass the company, perhaps the Commission should ask to compare the health of those 28,000 with a similar sample of children who have had MMR.

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