Vaccines and Your Child’s Brain
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

There has been a great deal of controversy over the early inoculations of infants that are given before we can possibly know what the child is allergic to. Many parents ascribe the recent soaring increase in autism as the result of these inoculations. The medical establishment is sure that these vaccines do not cause autism. In fact, many doctors will no longer serve parents who refuse these inoculations. How can they be so sure? We don’t know.

An infant’s brain at this early stage of development is extremely vulnerable to disruptive influences. For example, according to Dr. Richard Restak, author of The Secret Life of the Brain, “Most congenital (present at birth) brain defects result from disruptions of the normal progress of neural growth, development, and migration…. Deprive the baby’s brain of light and sound and human contact, and it will remain stunted.”

Mothers who believed that their children were born perfectly normal have complained that after an inoculation, their children became autistic. Indeed, David Kirby, author of the 2005 book Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, writing in the Huffington Post, Feb. 11, 2011, made these interesting observations:

I have been speaking to young parents in my neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn lately about vaccines and autism…. These are highly educated, affluent and politically progressive people — doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, writers and other successful professionals. And like half of the American population in one poll, many of my neighbors (though certainly not all) say that there is, or may be, an association between autism and the current U.S. vaccine schedule. In one recent presentation of data, for example, mothers with masters degrees were significantly more likely to forego the Hepatitis B vaccine birth dose than mothers with an 8th grade education.

Some of these parents actually keep up with the science, including a new review of autism studies in the Journal of Immunotoxicology which concludes: "Documented causes of autism include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis following vaccination."

It's a fact that many children with ASD [autism spectrum disorder] regressed following normal development just as they were receiving multiple vaccines at regular doctor visits. Health officials say the timing is entirely coincidental.

Regression usually occurs between 12 and 24 months, though one study found that some children show signs of autism as early as six months, but never before that age. By six months of age, most U.S. children have received about 18 inoculations containing 24 vaccines against nine diseases. Over the next two years or so, they will receive another nine shots containing 14 vaccines against 12 diseases.

So whether a child regresses at six months, or 18 months, the tragedy happens during a period of intensive vaccination. In many cases, parents report that the child had an abnormal reaction after being vaccinated (seizures, spiking-fevers, diarrhea, lethargy, high-pitched screaming and/or other symptoms).

These parents, and grandparents, naturally share their stories with brothers, sisters, friends, coworkers and the media, and before long half the population is questioning authorities who insist that there is zero chance of any association whatsoever.

So what is the truth? The simple truth is that, as Kirby says, most children by six months of age have received about 18 inoculations containing 24 vaccines against nine diseases, and over the next two years they will receive another nine shots containing 14 vaccines against 12 diseases. You would have to be quite dense not to suspect that some children might be negatively impacted by some of these vaccines, which may even cause serious brain damage in some kids.

And that is why I am much more likely to believe the parents than the “health officials.” After all, it’s been proven that the whole-word method of teaching reading can cause dyslexia, and yet the educators keep on doing it. In other words, the health officials are not as concerned about your child’s well-being as you are, and they are not about to find out the truth about autism and vaccines. And that is why parents have to use their own judgment in deciding what is best for their children

Kirby also points out that Somali parents in Minneapolis believe that vaccines have caused the high incidence of autism among their children, about 1 in 28. These Somali refugees came here to escape the horrors of their own country only to find that in America health officials can make your children autistic and public educators can make them dyslexic.

And now there is a new report by Dr. Russell Blaylock of Newsmax Health, who claims that aluminum, which has been added to vaccines for about 90 years, is detrimental to the healthy growth of a child’s brain. He states: “Compelling research has demonstrated that aluminum is an accumulative neurotoxin, even in small concentrations. It has a tendency to concentrate in the hippocampus, an area of the brain vital to crucial functions including learning, memory, and behavior…. Of the 36 vaccines children get, 18 of them contain aluminum.”

Common vaccines that contain aluminum include:

• DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) — 625 mcg;

• Hepatitis B — 375 mcg;

• Hepatitis A — 250 mcg;

• Hib (haemophilus influenza type B) — 225 mcg;

• PVC (pneumococcoal conjugate vaccine) — 125 mcg; and

• HPV— Gardasil — 225 mcg in each of the three required doses,

So what is a parent to do? There is now more than enough evidence that these heavy doses of vaccines may not be all that healthful. After all, every human being is born with an immune system, which may be heavily taxed in infants by huge doses of vaccines. What kind of foreign matter is in the 38 vaccines injected into the child? Is all of it benign? What is better, a vaccine, like a shot in the dark that may cause lifelong injury to your child’s brain, or getting whooping cough or the measles?

Those of us who grew up before all of these vaccines were available inevitably got the measles, chicken pox, or mumps. We got over them, and our brains were intact. We salute the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies for supplying us with all of these wonder drugs. But some of them have been proven to be harmful, like Thalidomide. That may be the price of progress, but it ought not to be paid by your child.

Then there is the problem with mercury used in vaccines. According to an article by Dawn Prate, posted on Sept. 22, 2005 on Natural News website:

Thimerosal is the preservative of choice for vaccine manufacturers. First introduced by Eli Lilly and Company in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the company began selling it as a preservative in vaccines in the 1940s. Thimerosal contains 49.6 percent mercury by weight and is metabolized or degraded into ethylmercury and thiosalicylate. Mercury, or more precisely, ethylmercury, is the principle agent that kills contaminants. Unfortunately, mercury also kills much more than that.

Studies indicate that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with vaccines. Mercury poisoning has been linked to cardiovascular disease, autism, seizures, mental retardation, hyperactivity, dyslexia and many other nervous system conditions. That's why the FDA rigorously limits exposure to mercury in foods and drugs.
Some common sources of mercury include dental amalgam fillings, various vaccines and certain fish contaminated by polluted ocean waters.

A friend of mine had to have all his dental fillings removed because of the mercury that was causing him endless migraine headaches. Since the toxicity of mercury has been long recognized, is it not possible that many of the children who were vaccinated when mercury was still in use became autistic? However, studies show that autism is still on the rise despite the fact that mercury has been largely removed from the vaccines. An article in the website Science Based Medicine reported on January 7, 2008:

The scientific data, taken in totality, do not support a link between mercury in vaccines and autism. Today yet another important study by Robert Schechter and Judith Grether was released published in the Archives of General Psychiatry entitled Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California’s Developmental Services System: Mercury in Retrograde that utterly failed to support the hypothesis that mercury in vaccines is an etiological factor in autism. It is yet another nail in the coffin of the medical myth that mercury in vaccines causes autism.

Well, who is right? If autism is still increasing despite the removal of mercury from the vaccines, there ought to be an easy way to find out if something in the vaccines is responsible for the increase in that dreaded condition. Do any of the children of parents who have rejected the inoculations become autistic? And how many children who’ve been inoculated become autistic? That ought to be easy enough to find out.