Autism had my daughter.

My daughter never had autism. Autism had my daughter. 

Along with all that I surely passed to her in the womb, she was also exposed to toxins in vaccines, until her near death reaction, when we stopped giving them to her. She also comes from a long line of autoimmune disorders, putting her at greater risk for vaccine reactions, and autism, though I didn't know that until after the fact. 

Inability to detoxify, overgrowth of yeast in her entire body, and exposure to foods which affected her brain, were all symptoms which had her trapped. In pain. Freaking out. Screaming. Banging her head.

My daughter never had autism. Autism had my daughter.

We began by avoiding further exposure to poisons. We got rid of plastic, aluminum, and non-stick coating in the kitchen. Any unhealthy cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, everything we could think of. 

Then we did the seemingly logical thing, and got some therapists. They came with good intentions of course, but for a year, people were talking in front of our daughter, pointing out and dissecting her every flaw. Sure, she didn't appear to know what they were saying, she didn't even appear to know what was going on around her, but it affected her. 

I got rid of the therapists and started telling her how proud I was of her, how I knew she could do anything she wanted to do. I got to reading and researching, and that's when I found out about DAN! doctors, and the diet. 

Within days of the gluten-free/casein-free diet a lot of the autism went away.

My daughter never had autism. Autism had my daughter.

We began working with a DAN! doctor and nutritionist, fighting the yeast, healing the intestines, adding the vitamins. More and more the autism went away.

My daughter never had autism. Autism had my daughter.

Now, well into a year of chelation, she is beginning to emerge. Personality, sass, typical childlike behavior. I delight in her newly acquired language, the way she cuddles with me, the attitude, the singing, and the laughter. 

The autism is leaving and she is coming to life. 

My daughter never had autism. Autism had my daughter.

Gardasil Goes On

"Twenty-eight women have reportedly died from Gardasil. The CDC and the FDA say they have received thousands of reports of adverse reactions to the vaccine, but the government adds, it continues to find that the benefits of Gardasil outweigh the risks."

Try telling that to the families of the girls who have died and are dying. 

"Gabi received three Gardasil shots in November 2007 and February and June 2008.

Gabi was a healthy, strong teenage girl prior to her first shot of Gardasil. She was the epitome of the All-American girl…beautiful, smart, and caring with a heart of gold. She was a varsity and competitive All-Star cheerleader, gymnast, Honor Roll student involved in leadership and sang in a Bel Canto Choir at her high school.

Gabi had taken a vow to wait for the man she would spend the rest of her life with and she had many dreams she was going to fulfill before she got married. There is cervical cancer in our family and we both wanted to do everything possible to protect her from getting cervical cancer someday. That is why we decided to have her get the series of Gardasil shots.

Immediately following her first shot of Gardasil, her arm went numb and remained that way for several minutes. Within a week of receiving her first shot, Gabi’s life began to change.

On December 4, 2007, she experienced the first of many symptoms involving severe muscle fatigue. Gabi began developing conditions that were unexplainable: excessive fatigue; headaches; muscle weakness and pain; joint weakness and pain; a rash that resembled a sunburn; loss of concentration; and numbness and tingling in her hands and feet. During this time we were completely unaware that these things were side-effects of her recent Gardasil shot.

Still not knowing what was going on with Gabi’s body, she received her 2nd vaccine in February 2008. Immediately following this shot, her symptoms got worse. Her grades started dropping. She became more irritable. Her condition deteriorated. She began to “shiver” for no apparent reason.

The doctors started looking for answers and giving us conflicting advice like she needed to condition her body more, she needed to slow down or she was a normal teenager. We were at a loss. She had been a gymnast since she was four years old and had been in perfect health and shape.

In June 2008 Gabi reminded me that she needed to get the 3rd shot in the Gardasil series. I scheduled her appointment and took her in for that last shot, both of us convinced we were doing something that was going to save her from getting a horrible disease someday.

Again, immediately following the shot her arm went numb. This time, she complained that she was dizzy.

In the weeks following, Gabi’s condition progressively got worse. She spent more time feeling sick and without feeling in her hands and feet. She was swelling in her face, hands and feet when she woke up in the morning and would stay that way for several hours. Her menstrual cycles had become extremely heavy and irregular. Gabi began losing hair by the handfuls. Her body ached the majority of the time. The doctors could give us no explanation except that she was a typical teenage girl and probably needed to cut back on her activities.

In September 2008, Gabi collapsed from an episode of severe chest pains and shortness of breath. She insisted that it was because she had overworked herself at the gym. Two days later she collapsed with the same symptoms: severe chest pains and shortness of breath. She once again made light of it, thinking it was nothing more than dehydration from an intense workout at the gym.

Two days later we were driving her to a football game where she was supposed to cheerlead when she began complaining the she couldn’t breathe and was in severe pain in her chest. We rushed her to the emergency room, for the first on many trips to the hospital. They examined her thoroughly and, despite the rapid, irregular heart beat and low oxygen levels, they sent her home saying that they had no explanation as to why my daughter was exhibiting heart attack like symptoms.

Gabi was seen a total of four more times at the hospital the same weekend, with the same result. This was just the beginning of a horrific battle to try and get answers as to what was happening to her. It was a painful time of finding someone who was willing to help her and not tell her and me that she was crazy.

Gabrielle’s condition is progressively getting worse. The symptoms she is currently dealing with on a daily basis are as follows:

Excessive fatigue
Loss of concentration
Difficulty with speaking
Memory loss
Muscle weakness and pain
Joint weakness and pain
Dizziness
Loss of appetite
Weight loss
Severe headaches
Severe chest pain
Shortness of breath
Difficulty breathing
Nausea and vomiting
Recurring rash
Tingling and burning in hands and feet
Severe sensation of burning throughout the body
Tremors
Hair loss
Abdominal pain
Partial paralysis
Partial loss of vision
Seizures daily, non-responsive to medication
Transient Ischemic Attacks, or “mini-strokes”

Gabrielle is taking numerous medications several times a day to try and control what is happening to her body. At 15 years old, she is on a beta-blocker for heart problems; aspirin to try and prevent another stroke; medication to help with the severe headaches; and several medications to try and control the seizures. Gabi will tell you that she is a 15 year old girl trapped in the body of an 80 year old woman.

After unsuccessfully attempting to go back to school in wheelchair, Gabi has been out of school since October 2008 with the exception of a few hours here and there trying to go to school. She has been placed on a home-based program. The administration, staff and teachers of her high school have been absolute angels, providing support and help not only academically but personally as well. They have gone above and beyond what we could have ever dreamed of or expected.

Her struggle to maintain passing grades increases daily and she fears that her chance of a college education is slipping away. She has lost almost all social interaction with her friends and has learned a hard lesson about friendship. She knows she has changed and is different but she continues to smile and treat her friends the same even if some of them don’t treat her the same.

Gabrielle is currently under the care of pediatric neurologists. She has been diagnosed with Inflammation of the Central Nervous System as a result of a Gardasil vaccine reaction. Her prognosis is not good. Without a medication or something that can be done to stop or modify what this vaccine is doing to her body, we have been told she will die. The progressive deterioration has been rapid.

We are pleading for help and answers. We pray for a miracle.

Gabrielle has come to terms with the fact that she may not make it. Her hope and prayer is that she will make a difference in the lives of others and keep this from happening to another girl. If you were to ask her if she had the opportunity to ask just one question, what would it be? Her reply would be “WHY?”

Gabi has been robbed of a normal life. She may never have the opportunity to achieve her dreams. I may never get the opportunity to watch her be all she can be as a young woman, a college student, a wife and a Mom. All of this because of a vaccine that was intended to save lives of millions, a vaccine that was “fast-tracked” and lacked long term safety studies.

Thousands of girls are reporting they are suffering side-effects from the Gardasil vaccine. Ask any one of those parents with a daughter suffering if this is what they wanted for their daughter. Ask any one of those parents if they were warned this could happen. Ask any of those parents if they knew they were risking their daughter’s life to possibly avoid getting a cancer that is almost 100 percent preventable with routine pap exams and is 100 percent curable if identified and caught early.

Gabi’s life has been forever changed. Neither of us had the information we should have had before she got vaccinated. Without help Gabi will never have a chance to live the life she so much deserves."

Gabrielle’s Gardasil Vaccine Reaction
by Shannon, her Mom
December 2008

www.nvic.org

Shoot Em Up

I bought this DVD a couple years ago, when it first came out, and it was worth every penny. Our daughter's immediate reaction to a round of vaccines was unmistakable. Her decline into autism was immediate. She disappeared.

This documentary is so educational; every parent should have to watch it before they bring their baby to the pediatrician and shoot 'em up.

Why I was up all last night.

Last night I stumbled across a blog, written by a mom of a child with autism. I was so sickened and upset by what I read, that I couldn't sleep. My heart raced, my chest pounded, my arm pits sweat. In short I was a wreck.

Here is a portion of what I read that got me so upset:

"Dont Mourn For Us. By Jim Sinclair.

I invite you to look at our autism, and look at your grief, from our perspective:
Autism is not an appendage
Autism isn't something a person has, or a "shell" that a person is trapped inside. There's no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person--and if it were possible, the person you'd have left would not be the same person you started with.
This is important, so take a moment to consider it: Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.

[This article was published in the "Our Voice," the newsletter of Autism Network International, Volume 1, Number 3, 1993. It is an outline of the presentation I gave at the 1993 International Conference on Autism in Toronto, and is addressed primarily to parents.]"

If you know a different kind of autism, the one that my daughter and I know, then perhaps you too have a pounding feeling in your heart right now. My reaction to this is:

Oh yes! I’ve heard about this before!
Children with autism aren’t in need of any help!
They are enlightened!
They have a higher level of consciousness!
That’s why my daughter screamed all day long,
Her eyes bugging out of her head,
Her hands flapping,
Like she was hallucinating!
Why she banged her head on the floor and the wall,
Why she couldn’t sleep all night,
Why she doubled up in stomach pain,
Threw heavy objects,
Hurt other children,
Ran into heavy traffic,
Acted like she was deaf,
Pooped and peed in her pants and
Didn’t speak!
How silly of me to help her.
I must have been a fool.


I'm not judging adults like Jim Sinclair, who are healthy and happy, so why does this article make me so furious? Because I have devoted myself to helping my daughter, who was not healthy or happy, and this article stands in judgement of me. This article insults me because it supposes that my daughter is fine, and that I am wrong to "change" her. It accuses me of doing her harm, which is the exact opposite of what I have done.

My daughter is a different person now. She is healthy and happy now. And I take full blame. Shame on me.

There is no Autism Epidemic.

It's been nearly two years since the release of my book, "Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic - A Medical Controversy," and I continue to be vilified by critics who insist that mercury does not cause autism, that autism is a stable genetic condition, and that it cannot be an "epidemic."

I am going to declare a New Year's truce, and announce that my critics are 100 percent correct.

This year, I hope we can ALL agree on one thing: There is no autism epidemic.

Among my most spirited and articulate detractors is a group of adults with autism who belong to a movement that refers to itself as the "neurodiversity" community.

These adults argue passionately that autism is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather a natural and special variation of the chance genetic imprint left upon human behavior. Most of them, I believe, have what science calls "Asperger's Syndrome," or very high functioning autism.

From their eloquent and well reasoned point of view, autism has no "cause," and it certainly requires no "cure." To suggest otherwise is to brand these adults with the stigma of disease and disability, which is patently absurd given their educational and intellectual achievements.

It's like saying that left-handers or gays are deviant and need treatment - something that reasonable people stopped doing years ago.

So maybe autism really is just an odd genetic peculiarity that yields atypical people whose own set of talents and gifts can lead to perfectly happy and fulfilled lives, with little or no dependence on others for their survival.

If that's the case, then autism has always been with us at some steady, but largely overlooked rate. Growing awareness and better diagnostics have certainly helped us identify and count more people with the condition, who might have been mislabeled as "quirky" or "nerdy" a decade ago.

But if that's autism, then the kids that I have met suffer from some other condition entirely. When I talk about "curing" autism, I am not talking about curing the "neurodiverse."

I am talking about kids who begin talking and then, suddenly, never say another word.

I'm talking about kids who may never learn to read, write, tie their shoes or fall in love.

I'm talking about kids who sometimes wail in torture at three in the morning because something inside them hurts like a burning coal, but they can't say what or where it is.

I'm talking about kids who can barely keep food in their inflamed, distressed guts, and when they do, it winds up in rivers of diarrhea or swirls of feces spread on a favorite carpet or pet (no one said this kind of "autism" was pretty).

I'm talking about kids who escape from their home in a blaze of alarms, only to be found hours later, freezing, alone and wandering the Interstate.

I'm talking about kids who have bitten their mother so hard and so often, they are on a first name basis at the emergency room.

I'm talking about kids who spin like fireworks until they fall and crack their heads, kids who will play with a pencil but not with their sister, kids who stare at nothing and scream at everything and don't even realize it when their dad comes home from work.

These are the kids I want to see cured. And I don't believe they have "autism."

Scientists tell us that 1-in-104 American boys are currently diagnosed with some form of autism spectrum disorder. But the mildest, "high functioning" forms of autism have seemingly little in common with the most severe or even moderate cases.

My hunch (and yes, that is all it is) is that most of these kids do not have "autism" at all, and it's probably time we started calling it something else.

American kids are in huge trouble. One in six has a learning disability. Asthma, diabetes, allergies and arthritis are ravaging their bodies in growing numbers. And little of this is due to "better diagnostics" or "greater awareness."

It can only be attributed to radical changes in our environment over the last 10-20 years. There is something, or more likely some things in our modern air, water, food and drugs that are making genetically susceptible children sick, and we need to find out what they are.

Mercury remains a logical candidate for contributing to "autism spectrum disorders," either alone or in combination with other environmental insults. Mercury exposure can kill brain cells. It can cause loss of speech and eye contact, digestive and immune dysfunction, social withdrawal and anxiety, and repetitive and self-injurious behaviors.

So maybe we should leave the autistics in peace and focus on these environmentally toxic kids and what it is that ails them.

Maybe what these kids have is not autism, but something like, say, "Environmentally-acquired Neuroimmune Disorder," which we could call E.N.D. (Great slogan: "Let's End E.N.D.).

Maybe that would explain why a recent CDC-funded study of the San Francisco Bay Area showed that kids with "autism" were 50% more likely to be born in neighborhoods with high levels of airborne toxins, especially mercury. If a second study underway in Baltimore yields similar data, it will be that much harder to defend the "better diagnosis" argument, (other studies have shown an association between autism rates and proximity to coal-fired power plants).

So maybe what we have here is just a semantic failure to communicate. Columbus thought he had met "Indians," and we only recently began to use the term "Native American."

Columbus was not in the Indies, mercury doesn't cause autism, and there is no autism epidemic.

-By David Kirby