Page 22 - Spring 2019 Journal

We found extraordinarily high amounts of aluminum in autism brain tissue.
ALUMINUM AND AUTISM
Ordinarily, I am somewhat of a skeptic when
I am alerted to new health issues purportedly associated with human exposure to aluminum. One recent example would be aluminum and autism. While various studies suggested a link between aluminum and autism—primarily via the aluminum adjuvants in vaccines—at first, I could not easily see a biological mechanism to support such a link. We knew that the accumula- tion of aluminum in brain tissue toward a toxic threshold occurred over a period of decades, so how might this relate to autism in infants? We had to test this link. We did so by obtaining brain tissues from individuals who had died with a di- agnosis of autism. We then measured how much aluminum was in the brain and, significantly, where any aluminum was located in the brain.
The rest, as they say, is history. To summa- rize, we found extraordinarily high amounts of aluminum in autism brain tissue, and we made the unique observation that the aluminum was
associated with a variety of inflammatory (non- neuronal) cells originating both in the brain (for example, the microglia) and outside of the brain (such as lymphocytes).6 The latter provided a mechanism to link aluminum adjuvants to the rapid accumulation of aluminum in brain tis- sue and, potentially, to autism. Our data—hard science—on aluminum and autism changed my mind; I now had to consider that aluminum could play a role in autism and that aluminum administered as adjuvants in vaccines could be a significant contributing factor.7 I am now, ap- parently, an “anti-vaxxer,” as they say—simply for following the science.
PRECAUTION NEEDED
The science that links human exposure to
aluminum with disease is now stronger and more robust than at any other time in history. Perhaps this is why research funding for this science is now rarer than the proverbial hen’s teeth. (Do we, by chance, have industry and
ALUMINUM ADJUVANTS AND AUTOIMMUNITY
The United States leads the world in the number of vaccines administered to pregnant women, children and ado- lescents—and many of the vaccines contain aluminum salts used as adjuvants. Scientists bundle vaccines with various adjuvants to increase and achieve “qualitative alteration” of the immune response to certain types of vaccines.12 A group of aluminum researchers at the University of British Columbia has pointed out, however, that “the same mechanisms that drive the immune-stimulatory effects of adjuvants have the capacity to provoke a variety of autoimmune and/or inflammatory adverse reactions.”13
Researchers have begun zeroing in on the unique risks associated with aluminum adjuvant injection. In 2011, distin- guished Israeli immunologist Yehuda Schoenfeld and colleagues proposed the term “autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants” (ASIA) to capture reports of unusual immune-mediated diseases in both humans and animals, which were arising, in many instances, after injection with aluminum-containing vaccines.14 (Cases of siliconosis—illness following silicone gel injection or implants—also fall under the umbrella of ASIA.)
ASIA shows up as “vague and sundry symptoms—chronic fatigue, muscle and joint pain, sleep disturbances, cognitive impairment, skin rashes and more.”15 One of the more extensively documented manifestations of ASIA is a condition called macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF), compellingly described in the 2017 French film, Injecting Aluminum.16 As far back as the early 1990s, French neurologists started encountering patients with what was initially a mysterious ailment; over time, and after repeatedly documenting unusual aluminum deposits in the patients’ deltoid muscles, they ascertained that injected aluminum adjuvant from vaccines was not only remaining in the muscle but was migrating to and building up in distant sites such as the brain. At a 2018 conference, one of the French researchers discussed this dangerous biopersistence, stating: “It accumulates, and the more you put in the system, the more you have. When you inject aluminum, you inject it directly into the immune system.”15 The researcher also noted that a person would have to eat “one million-fold higher aluminum to get the same level of aluminum adjuvant at the level of the immune cells.”
Since 2014, individuals suffering from MMF or other manifestations of ASIA have been able to report their clinical symptoms to an international registry intended to facilitate greater understanding of the syndrome.17 In 2018, Professor Schoenfeld and others published a description of three hundred cases reported to the registry.18 They found that, on average, autoimmune conditions developed about seventeen months after adjuvant exposure, with a range of three days to five years. Although chronic fatigue and muscle and joint pain were the most commonly reported symptoms, nine in ten patients also had another diagnosed rheumatic or autoimmune condition.18
SOURCE: Children’s Medical Safety Research Institute.
20
Wise Traditions
SPRING 2019