Ind. air pollutants might cause autism

Jacob Perry was already 18 months old when he learned to say “Mommy,” “Daddy” and “cat.” By 19 months, his language had regressed drastically.

Jacob’s mother, Jennifer Perry, said it is no coincidence that he lost his language skills after receiving his MMR vaccine, an immunization shot against measles, mumps and rubella.

Now, seven years later, Jacob is living with autism.

Perry said she does not blame the vaccine for her son’s diagnosis, but she said she believes it agitated a pre-existing condition.

By Jacob’s first birthday, Perry said she noticed many signs that triggered her initial concern. She began research on Jacob’s symptoms and remembers sobbing when she found they corresponded to autism.

Despite Perry’s concerns, no doctor would diagnose her son before the age of 3.

Medical experts now aim to diagnose autism within the first 18 months to provide early intervention and a better chance of treatment. And the number of children they are diagnosing is on the rise.

A study by the Thoughtful House Center for Children, a nonprofit organization that researches developmental disorders, claims the number of children living with autism has risen from 15,580 in 1992 to 333,234 in 2009.

Some have stated this increase is due to improved diagnosing and reporting methods rather than an increase in frequency.

Steven Higgs, editor of the Bloomington Alternative and adjunct lecturer for the IU School of Journalism, has been blogging about his research on the topic for the past two years.

“The first time I read a study in the Lancet that one out of six children have a developmental disability, it didn’t register in my mind,” Higgs said. “It was a surreal experience. It’s a phenomenal number.”

The number piqued Higgs’s interest. He then started looking at other statistics within Indiana and discovered that one out of five children in the Ohio River Valley area has a disability that qualifies them for special education.

Higgs said he accepts that autism is caused by a number of factors, including genetic predisposition, but he cannot deny that environmental toxins are to blame for the rise in autism — especially in a region so polluted by coal plants.

“I don’t know of any instance in history where so many people have been exposed to toxic chemicals,” Higgs said. “There’s a whole generation of children exposed to mercury in the environment and in vaccines.”

Higgs said mercury is the most studied of the toxic elements that come in contact with humans.

The autism research group Generation Rescue is one of several that attribute autism to mercury poisoning. Yet the chemical is still administered in vaccines and emitted into the atmosphere by coal plants.

“Not every child can drink milk,” Higgs said. “And not every child can handle massive amounts of mercury in their systems.”

Cathy Pratt, director of the Indiana Resource Center for Autism at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, said she is not sure how accurate any of the studies linking autism and environmental pollution are. 

“There are multiple reasons autism occurs,” Pratt said. “Environmental issues is certainly one of them, but there needs to be more research.”

Pratt, being a part of the autistic community, has heard many parents of autistic children claim that vaccines worsened their children’s disability. She said no one has ever recommended skipping the vaccine.

After Perry saw the MMR vaccine’s effect on her son, she said she began to question how the vaccines are administered.

“When Jacob was vaccinated, I didn’t even question it,” Perry said. “I didn’t realize he had already gotten his first immunization while we were still in the hospital.”
Perry said parents are more knowledgeable about the vaccines now and have more resources available to them.

She said the vaccines should be administered, but it is a matter of getting the timing right.

Higgs said doctors are instructed to avoid speaking about vaccinations and autism
together.

“Nobody is saying ‘Don’t vaccinate your children,’” Higgs said. “But vaccinate on a basis of informed consent.”

While Higgs said he is worried about mercury, a chemical that accumulates faster than it decays in the body, he said a bigger concern is the chemicals that are not studied.

“There are 80,000 toxic chemicals the EPA allows industry to release into the environment every single day,” Higgs said. “Almost none of them have been tested for anything. Some have been tested for cancer, some have been tested for birth defects, but there is no way to say definitively how these chemicals affect us individually.”

Higgs said until researchers begin to examine the link between autism and the environment there is no hope for the situation to improve, especially considering Gov. Mitch Daniels’ plans for more coal plants.

Perry said there is no reason to deny the link and avoid further investigation.

“Until something big happens really close to here, it’s really easy to say ‘So what?’ if you’re not personally affected,” Perry said.