Hi All:

I'm new to this list and I want to congratulate David on an
extraordinary book that will benefit the lives of so many.

I want to thank the many people who jumped to the defense of Generation
Rescue and I like the level of debate (except for the mean words) that
this site already invites.

It's frustrating for me to hear from parents who think their child's
autism is unrelated to mercury because I cannot help but picture their
child and my heart aches at the thought that they will not have the
opportunity that my wife and I and so many others are seeing as our
children return to us after the mercury comes out of their body.

If you do not believe there is a correlation between autism and mercury
but have never had your child tested for mercury and/or tried
chelation, I do not view that as a credible conclusion on your part. If
you have done all the proper testing for heavy metal toxicity and seen
nothing or have chelated for more than 18 months and seen no
improvement, then you have credibility with me.

And, if you have not done any of these things (testing and treatment)
and you have an autistic child and you read all the posts from parents
like me that say their kids are getting better, what the fuck are you
thinking? I really do not understand why you wouldn't TRY, for the sake
of your kid, ANYTHING to get them better. If you are scared to do the
tests to SEE if heavy metal toxicity is an issue, that should tell you
something: You're in denial, get over it for the sake of your kid.



Here's something we wrote that works for me. Best to all of you,

JB

Mercury Poisoning: Labels


Old Paradigm: "Mercury may or may not be one of the causes of autism.
Once you have autism, it is life long. Autism is genetic. Treatment is
behavioral therapy with a psychologist or social worker. Prognosis for
recovery is poor."

New Paradigm: "Mercury causes mercury poisoning, which has been
mislabeled as autism. Mercury poisoning can be resolved by removing the
mercury. Mercury poisoning is an issue of toxicology. Treatment is the
removal of mercury through a process called chelation. Prognosis for
recovery is very good."

The most commonly used label in this website is "autism" because most
articles and reports use the word autism to describe the current
epidemic of mercury-induced neurodevelopmental disorders. For the sake
of simplicity, we have often defaulted to using the word autism, too. A
more appropriate term, we believe, is mercury-poisoned children.

Autism is not a disease. There is no medical test for autism. We often
say a child "has autism" implying it is something someone "acquires"
or "catches" or "is born with". Autism is simply a label for a range of
observed behaviors. These behaviors are typically assessed and
diagnosed by a psychologist using the DSM-IV criteria which identifies
12 groups of abnormal behaviors. A child exhibiting any 6 of these
behaviors results in a diagnosis of autism. This diagnostic process
means that two children exhibiting the opposite six criteria would both
be considered autistic. It is also entirely plausible that a single
child diagnosed separately by five psychologists could receive five
separate diagnoses like autism, Asperger's, ADHD, PDD-NOS, and a
developmental delay. It is an imperfect and subjective process that
results in a description of symptoms, not cause.

That many autistic children seem to share physiological manifestations
like food allergies, gastrointestinal distress, suppressed immune
systems, recurrent ear infections, yeast overgrowth or candida, gross
and fine motor delays, sensory processing distortions in hearing,
sight, and touch, sleep disturbances, and impaired detoxification
pathways has not been publicized, noted, or considered by the vast
majority of professionals involved with diagnosing autism. You almost
never read about these common physical symptoms when researching
autism. Practically every child has them, but they have either gone
undetected, are viewed as coincidence, or somehow considered part of
the mysterious, unknown "disease". Again, autism is currently solely a
diagnosis of observed behaviors. There is no medical test to "confirm"
it or underlying cause ascertained.

None of these observations change the underlying fact that autism and
mercury poisoning have identical symptom profiles. They are one in the
same thing. The current paradigm for thinking about these mercury-
poisoned children is broken and unhelpful. "Autism" will always be a
mystery without a cure. The search for the "Autism gene", so far
fruitless, will be endless. How can you have a gene for a "disease"
that does not exist? When you know the cause, you can focus on cure.
When you begin to think of autism as a misdiagnosis for a mercury-
poisoned state, things start to make more sense. All of the physical
symptoms and behaviors are explained by the presence of mercury. Curing
autism is a miracle; curing mercury poisoning is a medical procedure.

It would also be erroneous to say that mercury "causes" autism. The
notion of cause, once again, implies that autism is something different
from mercury poisoning. By saying mercury causes autism, it is again
implying that you "have" autism, that your fate has been decided, that
you will have a disease for life, whatever the cause. Instead, what is
true is that mercury causes mercury poisoning. A mercury-poisoned state
can be addressed medically. Children greatly or fully resolve their
symptoms when the mercury is removed from their bodies and brains.
Toxicologists have successfully treated people with mercury poisoning
for decades.

The evidence is clear that the neurodevelopmental epidemic caused by
the increase in ethylmercury injected into children based on additions
to the vaccine program in the early 1990s is far greater and
devastating than just "autism". Autism, Asperger's, PDD-NOS, ADHD, ADD
and speech and learning delays are all labels assessed through
observation of behaviors, and they are all, ultimately, differing
degrees and manifestations of the same cause: mercury poisoning.
Children manifest mercury toxicity in a wide range of symptoms
depending on the age and amount of exposure, gender, the presence of
other synergistic toxicities like antibiotics or other heavy metals in
the system, and genetic susceptibilities. The wide range of symptoms
and behaviors produced by mercury toxicity simply has been divided and
classified under several different labels. Again, these labels are
applied based solely on behavioral observation versus any sort of
confirmatory medical test.

Mercury is also implicated as causal for many auto-immune and other
health disorders including asthma, food allergies, juvenile onset
diabetes, eating disorders, depression, and many other childhood
illnesses. Mercury is that toxic and that damaging to the developing
system of a child.

The scope of this human tragedy is almost incomprehensible. It is a
crime against an entire generation of children without precedent. The
truth needs to be revealed so corrective measures can be taken. That
the information is out there yet those responsible are choosing to hide
and protect themselves while an entire generation of children suffer is
inconceivable. In the meantime, parents are compelled to take matters
into their own hands and utilize their judgment to ascertain truth so
that they may chart the best path to heal their children.

The following three quotes highlight what labels do to obscure the
scope of this epidemic:

"I know the "statistical trick" used by some epidemiologists of
dividing all of the autistic spectrum disorders into many
different "medical definitions" such as autism, ADHD, PDD, Asperger's,
speech disorder, etc. In my opinion, this trick of dividing the
thimerosal (ethylmercury) caused illnesses into several groups can be
used to keep the total number of any single group from reaching a high
level of statistical significance, allowing manipulation of the data to
show little effect of thimerosal from vaccines. Note that most of these
illnesses have a higher boy to girl ratio like autism, and have shown a
dramatic increase that correlates with the advent of the mandated
vaccine program that increased infant exposures to thimerosal like
autism. That is, they appear to have the same causality with different
resulting clinical effects or levels of neurological damage. It will
also be much more difficult for all children with autism spectrum
disorders to gain compensation if they are divided into different
medical categories. I am trying to eliminate use of this statistical
trick by calling attention to it, and placing all of those affected by
thimerosal toxicity under one general causation described by one name."
- Boyd Haley, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Department of Chemistry,
University of Kentucky

"This is from the Department of Education Data. In the middle 1970s the
estimate of autism rate was 1 in 25,000. In the 80s it was 1 in 2,500.
In the 90s it was about 1 in 250. Currently the estimate in the United
States is about 1 in 150 and incidentally, that estimate is by Eli
Lilly who makes thimerosal. This is an enormous rise. It's a meteoric
rise, but worse than that, it's not limited to autism. Reading
disorders are up 30 fold. Speech disorders are up - currently 1 in 8
children in the United States are in special education. You have to be
six years old to be in special education so, we're all shaking to see
what the next figure will be for the next 6 years and we already have
some early indicators. It's going to come out between 1 in 6 and 1 in
5."
- Mark Geier, M.D., Ph.D., Noted Geneticist, President, The Genetic
Centers of America

"The injection of mercury appears to only affect certain children, but
I fear that we have underestimated the devastation by concentrating on
the autistic children. We are measuring elevated levels of mercury in
other children with milder difficulties like learning disabilities,
ADHD, and Asperger's syndrome. We do not have any idea what the scope
of this problem is at this point. There are no safety standards for
infants getting bolus doses of ethylmercury. Our medical training did
not adequately prepare us for this challenge. We learned little about
testing for heavy metals and even less about treating. The
word 'chelation' is not in the vocabulary of most physicians. The few
physicians who are treating these children are inundated with them in
their practices. The good news is that they are responding well to the
chelation treatment. The changes in neurological functioning are
remarkable with each day of treatment."
- Stephanie Cave, M.D., Author, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About
Children's Vaccinations