Autism-Vaccine Link Raised in Hearing

Declaring that autism has reached “epidemic” proportions, the head of San Diego’s Autism Research Institute testified Thursday at a hearing on Capitol Hill that the disease may be linked to routine vaccines that millions of children are required to receive--a theory that is disputed by other medical experts.

Bernard Rimland, a research psychologist who has studied the symptoms and possible causes of autism for 35 years, joined other scientists, public health officials and parents of autistic children to discuss the increasing rates of autism throughout the country.

The hypothesis that the disease may be linked to vaccines is of particular controversy, and many public health officials argue that it is “extremely unlikely” there is a causal relationship.

“To date there has been no convincing scientific evidence that links any vaccine to autism or any other kind of behavioral disorder,” said Dr. Thomas R. Reardon, president of the American Medical Assn., in testimony submitted to the House Committee of Government Reform, which called the hearing.

But Rick Rollins, a co-founder of an autism research center at UC Davis and the father of an autistic 9-year-old son, said a California state study released last spring that showed a 273% increase in autism over an 11-year period is a strong argument for further research into a possible vaccine-autism connection.

“There is not one single thing here that may be the cause. This is a complicated disease,” said Rollins, a former secretary of the California Assembly. “But we need to really accelerate good scientific research and funding.”

Autism is a developmental disorder marked by social isolation, uncommunicativeness and strange repetitive behaviors that can range from mild to profound. It is three to four times more common in boys than in girls and is usually apparent by age 3. No cure exists, but some problems can be alleviated with intensive behavioral therapy.

Candace Pert, a research professor in the department of physiology at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, said that, while recent research has shown a genetic contribution to autism, the findings suggest that no more than 20% of autism cases are genetic.

Some proponents of the theory that vaccines may cause autism say the sheer number of vaccines that children receive--at least two dozen doses before they enter first grade--may overload a young child’s immune system. Some parents of autistic children point anecdotally to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine as the most likely culprit, saying that their children were “normal” until they received that vaccine, which is typically administered from age 12 months to 15 months.

Rimland’s findings mirror that hypothesis. “Autism starting at 18 months rose very sharply in the mid-1980s, when the MMR vaccine came into wide use,” he said.

Dr. Michael Goldberg, a Los Angeles pediatrician and director of the Neuro Immune Dysfunction Syndrome Research Institute, hypothesizes that vaccines do not necessarily cause autism but serve as catalysts for the disease in children who are genetically predisposed to it.

Goldberg said that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine can serve as a common trigger for autism because it is highly “immunogenic,” meaning that it stimulates the immune system.

Yet another hypothesis is that mercury, which is often used as a preservative in vaccines, may be related to autism. The presence of heavy-metal toxicity, notably mercury, has been found in some autistic children.

Environmental toxins may also be a contributing factor, as is pointed out in a study recently finished, but yet to be released, conducted by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry on Brick Township, N.J., a community north of Atlantic City where the childhood prevalence of autism is reputed to be 1 in 200.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who chairs the committee that called the hearing, has a 3-year-old grandson whose autism he attributes to vaccination. But Burton said he is “not against vaccinations” and doesn’t think that every autistic child acquires autism after receiving childhood immunizations.

In a news conference preceding the hearing, Burton said that the rise in the disease is not just an “aberration.”

The federal Department of Health and Human Services “says there is no correlation between shots and the dramatic rise in autism. I am very concerned about the closed-minded attitude of this agency,” Burton said. He continued to say that he intends to subpoena people from the pharmaceutical industry to appear before his committee to explain the dramatic increase in autism.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, the committee’s ranking Democrat, agreed that vaccines “shouldn’t be off the table” as a theory for the increase but said “we must not get ahead of science or raise a false alarm.”

Waxman also criticized the proceedings as skewed toward proponents of the theory that vaccines cause autism.

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California Autism Cases Up

Recent studies show that autism occurs in about 12 of every 10,000 births, although some researchers believe the rate to be as high as 1 in 500 children. In California, the number of autistic children and adolescents enrolled in programs run by the state Department of Developmental Services has grown sharply over the last decade.

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August 1993: 4,911

January 2000: 12,150

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Source: California Department of Developmental Services