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Mar 6, 2015    |       103 comments

Part 1A: Immune Activation and Autism

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“And what does a vaccination do? It activates the immune system. That’s the point of vaccination.” (emphasis in original)
-Dr Paul Patterson of CalTech: Leading Autism and Immune Activation Researcher, 2006

“Autism is not an immune-mediated disease. Unlike autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, there is no evidence of immune activation or inflammatory lesions in the central nervous system of people with autism.”
-Dr Paul Offit: Vaccine promoter, vaccine profiteer, and self-appointed autism pundit, 2009

“These MIA (maternal immune activation) animal models meet all of the criteria required for validity for a disease model: They mimic a known disease-related risk factor (construct validity), they exhibit a wide range of disease-related symptoms (face validity), and they can be used to predict the efficacy of treatments (predictive validity).”
–Dr Kimberley McAllister, UC Davis MIND Institute, Science, August 2016 (i.e. this paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/772 )

For decades it has been accepted that the children of women who have an infectious illness (any illness) during pregnancy are much more likely to become autistic or schizophrenic. For many years, this was a well-proven, but mysterious association. Nobody knew why it happened. But it was very clear that something about the infection, or the immune response to it, had a profound, long-term effect on the child’s brain. Infection during pregnancy could cause schizophrenia 20 years later, even though the child appeared perfectly normal.

Before proceeding, it is necessary to provide definitions:

Cytokine: Protein substances that are used in cell signaling, especially by the immune system. Interleukins and interferons are two specific categories of cytokines (there are several others). During infections, the levels of (most) cytokines in the blood and other tissues increase as the immune system is responding. Cytokines control immune function, and also affect the brain. Cytokines can increase or decrease immune activity (“proinflammatory” or “antiinflammatory”, respectively). However, cytokines sometimes can not be categorized as “pro-” or “anti-“, since the effect on inflammation depends on the tissue and cytokine-cytokine interactions. Its complicated.

Neurons: The brain cells that process information by electrical impulses. The ones you are familiar with.

Neuroglia, Glial cells (same thing): Specialized immune cells that live in the brain and spinal cord. Two main types are microglia and astrocytes. In normal, healthy conditions, glial cells are at rest, and simply monitor and help the neurons. Glial cells can become “activated” by infection or toxins. When glial cells are “activated” they look for pathogens like bacteria, release cytokines, and can damage or protect the neurons. Glial cells do not process information. They defend against infection and help repair injury.

Microglial activation: When the immune system cells of the brain (“microglia”) are activated and think there is an infection nearby, or some problem they have to deal with. Microglial/neuroglial activation is immune activation in the brain. Also can be described as “brain inflammation” or “neuroinflammation”.

Purkinje cell: A type of neuron in the cerebellum, a part of the brain. Purkinje cell loss and damage is one of the most consistent observations in autistic autopsied brains. Purkinje cell loss and damage is present in over 90%+ of autism cases.  This has been replicated in several studies. Purkinje cells are damaged by immune activation.

The Big Discovery
In 2005, a groundbreaking paper was published by Dr Vargas of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The Vargas paper has been cited 295 times (on PubMed). It’s a very important paper. Paper (Vargas): : Neuroglial Activation and Neuroinflammation in the Brain of Patients with Autism

The study was simple. Brains and spinal fluid from deceased autistic people (ages 5-44) and age-matched controls were analyzed for cytokines and other indicators of chronic inflammation/microglial activation. The findings were dramatic: every autistic brain at every age had very high levels of brain inflammation (elevated cytokines), compared to controls. Vargas et al stated:

“We demonstrate an active neuroinflammatory process in the cerebral cortex, white matter, and notably the cerebellum of autistic patients.”
AND
“neuroglial reactions…are important in the mechanisms associated with neural dysfunction in autism…”
AND
“the presence of neuroinflammatory changes among the cases we examined suggests that this may be a common pathogenic mechanism in some patients with autism.”
-Vargas et al, 2005

Vargas also observed damage to Purkinje cells in all but one autistic brain, a confirmation of prior reports. This is why the cerebellum is mentioned specifically. The Purkinje cells of the cerebellum were heavily damaged.

Today, the evidence for a chronic inflammation in the autistic brain is overwhelming. For example, in the following excellent study, brains of autistic and matched normal subjects were scanned for markers of microglial activation by positron emission tomography (PET). The autistic brains had widespread microglial activation throughout the brain.
Paper (Suzuki et al.): Microglial activation in young adults with autism spectrum disorder

Autism brain scan
Above: Positron emission tomography (PET) images of autistic subject and normal control. Colored areas indicate regions of microglial (immune) activation. Colored areas are “inflammatory lesions”. Dr Paul Offit claims the colored areas in the autistic brain do not exist. Dr Offit tells this lie because he knows the inflammatory lesions implicate vaccines as a cause of autism. From Suzuki et al.
ASD=Autistic Spectrum Disorder. 

And for good measure, here is another paper reporting chronic brain inflammation in autism. Elevated Immune Response in the Brain of Autistic Patients  There are many papers confirming chronic inflammation in the autistic brain.

These results unequivocally contradict the above statement by Dr Paul Offit. Dr Offit was wrong when he wrote the above-quoted statement in 2009, and he is even more wrong today. Autism is an immune-mediated disease. Autistic brains have chronic inflammation and are loaded with inflammatory lesions.

However, in autism only the central nervous system is inflamed. Autistics do not have elevated inflammation in the blood. Citation: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5217649/

Immune Activation and Brain Development
Dr Paul Patterson, a biologist at the California Institute of Technology, noticed the Vargas results and other reports of microglial activation in autistics. In view of the studies linking prenatal infections with autism, Dr Patterson suspected that immune activation during critical stages of brain development causes the chronic neuroinflammation and brain damage of autism.

Dr Patterson wrote an excellent article in Cal Tech’s technology magazine in 2006, explaining this background, and his initial results. The article is here: Pregnancy, Immunity, Schizophrenia, and Autism-Patterson. This article is highly recommended as an introduction to the science.

Dr Patterson worked with pregnant mice. During pregnancy, the mice were injected with “poly-IC”, an immune-system stimulant that mimics viruses. When the immune system detects poly-IC, it becomes activated, because it thinks there is a viral infection happening. But there is no actual infection. Poly-IC cannot cause infection. The only effect of poly-IC is to activate the immune system.*

Poly-IC injection causes increased cytokine levels, fever and sickness behavior. The injected mouse lies in the corner for a few hours, has a fever, sleeps a lot, and generally acts sick (even though they are not actually infected with anything). After several hours, the mouse returns to normal. In the experiments, the pregnant mice received 1-3 injections of poly-IC. In this way, the developing fetuses are exposed to immune activation and associated high cytokine levels and fever.

The offspring are born, grown to maturity and then tested for behavioral abnormalities and dissected to look for signs of brain damage. These tests were specifically designed to look for autistic traits. The results were dramatic.

The mice exposed to immune activation displayed behavioral abnormalities analogous to human autism. They displayed reduced social interactions, reduced communications with other mice, and repetitive, compulsive behaviors. The Purkinje cells of the cerebellum were damaged, just like in human autism. And male mice were more strongly affected than females, just like human autism.

Also, Dr Patterson found that immune activation caused permanent changes in brain cytokine levels, into adulthood. The cytokine changes from immune activation were similar to cytokine changes observed in human autism in the Vargas study. The exposed mice had chronic neuroinflammation lasting a lifetime.

Immune Activation Causes Autistic Behavior
Dr Patterson did many experiments, and published several papers. We will now look at one of the most important.

Paper (Malkova et al): Maternal immune activation yields offspring displaying mouse versions of the three core symptoms of autism.

Autism is always diagnosed in humans by its behavioral characteristics. There is no objective or laboratory (e.g. blood) test for autism. The core symptoms of autism are:
1) reduced social interactions
2) reduced language and communicative ability
3) repetitive, compulsive behaviors

These traits can be reliably measured in mice using a variety of behavioral tests, which are monitored by computers.

Mice are highly social animals and communicate constantly by ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs). These vocalizations can be measured in number and duration in specific social situations (e.g. isolation, social encounters etc). These are well known and accepted research methods.

Vocalization During Separation
When baby mice are separated from their mother, they vocalize. In this test, mouse pups are separated from mothers, and vocalizations are recorded. Mice exposed to immune activation displayed significantly fewer vocalizations, and spent less time vocalizing. And the vocalizations had abnormal syllables, distinct from normal mice.

MIA Vocalization-separation
Above: Immune activation causes reduced ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs, “mouse speech”) from young mouse pups separated from their mothers. This behavior is analogous to human autism. From Malkova et al. 

Vocalization During Social Encounter
In this test, adult male mice are introduced to unfamiliar adult female mice. Male mice exposed to immune activation displayed significantly fewer vocalizations when meeting the unfamiliar female. And once again, the vocalizations had altered syllables, distinct from normal mice. These results show that the reduction in communicative behavior persists into adulthood.

MIA vocalization male female encounter
Above: Immune activation causes reduced ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in social encounter of adult male with an unfamiliar female. This behavior is analogous to human autism. From Malkova et al. 

Sociability Test
Mice were tested in the “three chamber social test”. A mouse under test can enter two rooms: one contains an inanimate object (like wood block or rock), and one contains an unfamiliar mouse. Normal mice are social and prefer to spend time with the unfamiliar mouse. Mice exposed to immune activation prefer to spend time with the inanimate object. Once again, this behavior is analogous to human autism. Here are the results:

MIA Three chamber test
Above: Immune activation causes reduced social interactions. Immune activation-exposed are more interested in inanimate objects and less interested in other mice. This behavior is analogous to human autism. From Malkova et al. 

Repetitive, Compulsive Behavior
Mice were tested for repetitive/compulsive behavior, with the well-known “marble burying test”. In this test, a mouse is place alone in a cage with dozens of marbles. Mice like to bury things, and all mice will bury at least a few marbles. But some mice are obsessive about burying marbles and will tend to bury them all. This behavior is analogous to the repetitive, compulsive behavior common in human autism.  Here are the results:

MIA marble Burying
Above: Immune activation causes a dramatic increase in repetitive and compulsive behavior. This behavior is analogous to human autism. From Malkova et al. 

 

Conclusion
Immune activation in mice during early stages of brain development causes autistic behavior like that observed in human autism. This obviously implicates immune activation as the fundamental cause of human autism. This is  reinforced by the studies showing an association between maternal infection and autism in the child. The evidence that immune activation causes autism in humans is diverse, consistent and compelling.

Part 1B in this article series describes the physical (physiological) effects of immune activation, including damaged/missing Purkinje cells, chronic inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and microbiome disruption. http://vaccinepapers.org/part-1b-physical-effects-immune-activation/

Part 2 in this article series explains the specific immune signal (cytokine) that causes autism: http://vaccinepapers.org/part-2-interleukin-6-autism/

Objections
Vaccine advocates make several objections to linking vaccines with immune activation experiments. The objections are addressed in the following articles:

Objection 1: “The mechanism for what is happening is not clear, and so cannot be linked to vaccines.”
Answer: The damage is caused by the cytokine interleukin-6 (and interleukin-17a). See Part 2:  http://vaccinepapers.org/part-2-interleukin-6-autism/

Objection 2: “These are mouse experiments. Since autism is defined by behavior, a mouse model of autism is dubious.”
Answer: Immune activation experiments have been replicated in monkeys, with the same results: See part 3:  http://vaccinepapers.org/part3-monkey-experiments/

Objection 3: “The studies are of maternal immune activation. Vaccines are given postnatally, without any maternal involvement.”
Answer: Both mouse and human brains can be damaged postnatally by cytokines. No maternal involvement is necessary, since the infant brain can produce cytokines: See part 4:   http://vaccinepapers.org/postnatal-immune-activation/

Objection 4: “Vaccines do not cause strong enough immune activation to injure the brain. A vaccine cannot cause a surge of cytokines in the brain.”
Answer: Vaccine adverse reactions can cause very large cytokine expression in the brain, including expression of IL-6, a proven cause of autism. Aluminum (present in most vaccines) stimulates IL-6 production in the brain: See Part 5: http://vaccinepapers.org/vaccine-reactions-aluminum-il-6/

Objection 5: “There is no direct evidence that immune activation from vaccines can affect the brain.”
Answer: Yes there is. A groundbreaking study demonstrates that BCG (vaccine for tuberculosis not used in the USA) and Hepatitis B vaccines, given postnatally, affect rat brain development. See this article: http://vaccinepapers.org/two-vaccines-opposite-effects-brain/
Also, studies demonstrate that influenza vaccines given to animals during pregnancy affect brain development (with beneficial effects). Some types of immune activation benefit brain development. Immune activation caused by aluminum adjuvant has adverse effects on brain development. See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25014010

_______________________________________________________________

NOTES:
*Poly-IC mimics double-stranded RNA, which only occurs in viruses. Poly-IC evokes an antiviral-like immune response.
**LPS=lipopolysaccharide. LPS is a substance in the outer cell wall of bacteria. LPS evokes an antibacterial-like immune response.

Papers in this post:

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  • Tim Lundeen

    The paper on “Structural and functional features of central nervous system lymphatic vessels” [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14432.html] likely explains some of the connection between immune response and brain damage, through this connection between the immune system and its connection to the brain.

  • Kim Ladin

    Why is the author of this article not listed? Or a disclosure of potential conflicts of interest?

    • I dont want to be a public figure on the issue of vaccines.

      I have no conflicts of interest. No stock or business interests in the medical or vaccine fields. Not trying or have any faint expectation of making money from vaccine refusal or policy. I wrote the content here purely because I am alarmed by the lies in the media about the science. Whats being reported in the media and told by the government about vaccines is the opposite of whats being reported in the science journals.

      • Kim Ladin

        Your secrecy seems a little sketchy, given that anti-vaxxers accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a “pharma shill” at the drop of a hat.

        • Read the science. You dont have to take my word for it. All the scientific papers are provided.

          And please don’t accuse me of “accusing accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a “pharma shill” at the drop of a hat.” This is not done on vaccinepapers.org. On my website, we focus on the science.

          • Kim Ladin

            So, what line of science are you in? And what type of degree do you have? Or are those a secret too?

          • Doesn’t matter. Read the science.

            From FAQ page:

            Who are you guys? Why don’t you say who you are? How can we trust you if we don’t know who you are?
            Because it really doesn’t matter, unless you are in the habit of judging ideas by where they come from, instead of by the scientific evidence.

            Vaccine advocates are addicted to the lazy, intellectually vapid practice of “argument by authority”. For them, all that’s required to resolve the issue of vaccine dangers is to assert the CDC, WHO, and AAP as “authorities” and parrot what they say. It’s so easy! No need to look at the science, or think for yourself, according to vaccine advocates. This is absolutely foolish.

            Scientific ideas and opinions must be judged by the evidence, not according to whether the source is perceived as an “authority”. All that really matters is the science and the evidence. To determine if VP is trustworthy, all you have to do is consider the opinions on these pages in view of what the science says. Then do the same for the CDC, WHO, AAP and other so-called “authorities”. We invite vaccine defenders to find flaws in our arguments and write critical comments in the comment section.

            Don’t wonder who we are, because it doesn’t matter. Wonder, instead, about the evidence and what it means.

            Two of the most accomplished scientists of the 20th century agree with this approach:

            “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” –Richard Feynman

            “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”–Albert Einstein

          • Kim Ladin

            Ah, so you have no science background, but still think you’re completely qualified to pick apart complex, nuanced scientific literature and draw your own conclusions? That would put you firmly on the “incompetent” side of the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon. Which means, specifically, unfounded intellectual hubris.

            “The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. The bias was first experimentally observed by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University in 1999. Dunning and Kruger attributed the bias to the metacognitive inability of the unskilled to evaluate their own ability level accurately.”

            Perhaps you would also like to present your own analysis of how the earth is really flat, only 6,000 years old, and not warming at all?

          • No i have a scientific education and background. I did very well actually.

            If reading the science here is too difficult for you, then 1) maybe vaccinepapers.org isn’t for you, and 2) disclosing my identity isn’t going to help. If you have questions about the science, I am happy to answer them.

            I am familiar with D-K concepts. In order to make such accusations about me, you need to show how/why I get the science wrong. You have not done that. Lots of critics have read my articles, but Im still waiting to hear what I get wrong about aluminum and immune activation.

            Global warming is real and anthropogenic and the Earth is billions of years old. Like I said, I have a scientific education and background. Its not clear why the age of the Earth and climate change science are relevant to the science of vaccine dangers, however.

          • Kim Ladin

            Your answer to the question, “Who are you guys? Why don’t you say who you are? How can we trust you if we don’t know who you are?” is “Because it really doesn’t matter, unless you are in the habit of judging ideas by where they come from, instead of by the scientific evidence.”

            So does that mean that you will not hesitate to accept the results of research conducted by pharmaceutical companies, the CDC, and Dr. Offit? Unless, of course, you can find specific problems in the research?

          • Yes absolutely. Unless there are defects in the research, or there is evidence of corruption or the like, then we will accept scientific results from anyone.

          • Kim Ladin

            I’m glad to hear it. What do you mean by evidence of corruption or the like? How do you evaluate Andrew Wakefield’s Lancet study against that criteria?

          • Examples of corruption would be the recent revelations from Dr Thompson at the CDC, for example, or the criminal behavior of Dr Poul Thorsen for example. Another example would be the contradictory conclusions by Dr Verstraeten of the CDC regarding mercury. He reported two different results from the same dataset. One result was published publicly, and the opposite result was reported internally at the CDC.

            Wakefield is wrong. His behavior is unethical and he is irrelevant. We make no reference to any of his papers or theories. Wakefield is a straw man used by vaccine promoters.

          • Kim Ladin

            I have to disagree with your assertion that Wakefield is merely a straw man. He has been and continues to be a major figure in the anti-vaccination movement, as evidenced by his involvement in the Thompson CDC affair. I am glad to hear that at least one person on your side is willing to disavow him.

            I’m surprised to hear you buy into the “corruption” story about Thompson given the paucity of actual facts in the matter.

          • The smart people and opinion leaders in the vaccine critic movement have been ignoring Wakefield for a long time. Wakefield has become an attention-seeker, in order to obtain money for himself. Also, we make absolutely no use of Wakefields paper or theories. So for discussion on vaccinepapers.org Wakefield is absolutely a straw man.

            The story about Dr Thompson is very real. The CDC eliminated subjects from their MMR-autism study in order obtain a negative result. Thats scientific fraud. When the analysis is conducted according to the original protocol, a strong statistically significant association is observed between MMR exposure and autism in black boys. Dr Thompsons group abandoned the original protocol and came up with a new one in order to hide this result. Dr Thompson has the documents and data to prove it. Dr Brian Hooker already published the correct, original analysis using the CDCs data provided by Dr Thompson. There is no paucity of facts.

            However for our present discussion, the details of the Thompson affair are less important than the fact that criminality is being alleged by a CDC scientist.

            Dr Hooker provides the full story in this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiU3I1yUnyM

          • M&S

            Interesting – someone said one should be evaluated based on the quality of his science not some other unimportant things. Plus I too seek attention to earn money, but that’s my marketing not personality fault.
            Plus I really wonder what you have to say on the Vaxxed – (1) made by Wakefield (2) about the CDC scandal.

          • Theories should be evaluated on the quality of the supporting scientific evidence. People can be evaluated by their behavior.

            I have not seen the movie. The William Thompson story is important and based on good quality evidence. But its a small part of the vaccine story. ALL vaccines cause autism, not just MMR. And the mechanism for MMR causing autism might involve the mobilization/transport of aluminum adjuvant nanoparticles received from prior Al-containing vaccines, as explained here: http://vaccinepapers.org/al-adjuvant-nanoparticles-can-travel-brain/

          • zapp7

            Hooker’s analysis was deeply flawed. Also, if you want to say that MMR causes autism in African Americans based on this study, you must also conclude it doesn’t do that for anyone else. I’m guessing you won’t concede this.
            http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/08/22/brian-hooker-proves-andrew-wakefield-wrong-about-vaccines-and-autism/

          • No I definitely do not. In my view, the reason why the effect of MMR is only observable in blacks is because healthy user bias is weaker in this population.

            Healthy user bias is a function of health-seeking behavior and medical system access. The greater this behavior+access, the less that neurological impairment affects vaccine usage. So, white people, assuming they have greater behavior+access, will have more neurologically-sick people in the unvaccinated group. In the black population, neuro-sickness has less effect on vaccine uptake, and this makes the effect observable.

            Healthy user bias is explained here: http://vaccinepapers.org/healthy-user-bias-why-most-vaccine-safety-studies-are-wrong/

          • zapp7

            Access to health care reduces the use of health care? That’s ridiculous. That’s not how healthy user bias works. This is the worst case of special pleading I have seen in a long time. If anything, the healthy users would be getting their infants vaccinated (before even thinking about autism). If this contention that vaccines cause autism is true, this would further increase the rate of autism in the vaccinated group.

            That you would harp on about potential mechanisms of MMR causing autism when the epidemiology turns up nothing says a lot about your bias.

          • Access to health care reduces the use of health care?

            Yes. But its more an issue of quality. Better quality health care access results in fewer vaccinations in the neurologically-injured. Vaccination is contraindicated in cases of neurodevelopmental disorders. When care is low quality, contraindications are ignored. Wealthy/middle class families with higher quality health care have more vaccination delays than the poor.

            But this is just one possibility for why the effect would show up in blacks. Another possibility is that black people have greater incidence of vitamin D deficiency, which is associated with autism (and damage from immune activation generally). Vitamin D deficiency causes greater cytokine expression/inflammation in response to immune stimulus.

          • Twylaa

            The data also showed correlation between on-time receipt of MMR and what they called “isolated” autism.

          • Twylaa

            VP isn’t conducting research, as far as I know. He’s citing research. You can read the cited research for yourself and see who conducted the studies and where. He is also making logical arguments regarding that research. You can read his arguments and decide what you think of them. He’s not making proclamations based on authority or credentials.

          • AutismDad

            And you ask why he doesn’t reveal himself with your type around?

          • Kim Ladin

            Excuse me, exactly what do you mean by “your type”? Mothers? Females? Americans? People who like both cats AND dogs? Please explain.

          • AutismDad

            Neanderthals

          • Kim Ladin

            AutismDad, you’re calling me a Neanderthal? On what basis exactly?

          • AutismDad

            It just seems to fit. Hey there are worse things. I’m sure you’re a nice Neanderthal living in a well kept cave.

          • No name-calling please.

        • AutismDad

          That’s right shill

        • Dana Dunagan Waldrop

          To some of us, your suspicions seem almost shill-like. Or maybe you’ve just not seen the reports of scientists and doctors who mysteriously die or suddenly become suicidal…

          http://www.healthnutnews.com/34-year-old-doctor-cancer-researcher-found-dead-in-field/

    • AutismDad

      Author doesn’t want to be attacked professionally or personally for speaking out about how unsafe vaccines are.

      • Which is a reasonable expectation. It serves no purpose nor leads to any increase in understanding. Given the CDC’s cherry-picking the science they bother to bring forward, pointing to 16 studies (some of which have been found by IOM to be fatally flawed and outed by Dr. Thompson as the product of subjective manipulation), and the thousands of studies on autism that are not given their due consideration, ad hominem attacks are irrelevant and reveal much more about the attacker than the one being attacked. Especially when they misfire. How dare we discuss science???

        • AutismDadd

          I think oxymoron describes pro-vaccine zealots or just moron.

  • I just saw this paper yesterday: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/09/24/1500968112

    It is interesting because it is an RCT on monkeys that investigates the full pediatric schedule. So it is quite a rare find and it shows no decrease in Purkinje cells and no connection with Autism. My first thought was that they only followed the monkeys for 18 months, whereas human diagnoses usually happen after 4 years and most before 6 years of age. But I should probably allow for the 4 times faster development of monkeys, which turns a 6 year time-frame into about 18 months, so I think the time-frame is probably appropriate. I could not find any conflicts of interest, and while some of the funding was from a Johnson family (from J&J?), funding was also from SafeMinds.org and Tom Burbacher is in the acknowledgments.

    Then I started to think about the sample-size where each group is about 12 monkeys and then I thought, how many monkeys would you expect to get affected if 0.7 to 2.6% of all humans are diagnosed with Autism? Well, none basically! So what should the sample size have been? What is an appropriate size for this kind of study when we are studying rare events?

    I read the links below and then worked out something to the order of 430 to 550 for 80% power and 5% confidence interval. What am I missing here? Why did the researchers feel like 12 would be enough?

    http://www.bu.edu/orccommittees/iacuc/policies-and-guidelines/sample-size-calculations/
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK43321/

    • The problem with this study is definitely lack of statistical power. But monkey studies are expensive. A study with 500 monkeys would be perhaps 10s of millions of dollars. I think this money should be spent (its crumbs compared to what autism and other brain damage is costing us, and compared to what is spent by the government on vaccines). I think $1 billion would be a reasonable amount to spend on a monkey study of the vaccine schedule.

      I expect that they used 15 monkeys per group because thats all they could afford.

      I think the best way to do a study like this, given present financial constraints, would be to both increase the sample size and increase the exposure. For example, use 3x or 5x the vaccine exposure. After all, vaccine promoters claim that the vaccine schedule is extremely safe, with a very wide safety margin. This may allow observation of an effect with perhaps 100-200 monkeys per group.

      Another problem is that they didn’t use the full vaccine schedule. Polio, pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines were omitted. Pneumococcal contains aluminum. So this study design can be expected to produce an effect size SMALLER than the CDC vaccine schedule.

      The issue of statistical power is simple math. It should have been predictable that this study would fail to observe anything. But maybe thats why the study was funded. Cynicism is a rational response to the fake science and false claims from the vaccine promoters.

      This paper is a good candidate for a study review.

    • Another possible issue with this study is vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency increases autism risk, possibly by a very large amount. If these monkeys had outdoor access and/or adequate vitamin D, then the autism risk will be even lower than 1-2% and the effect even harder to observe.

      Wild monkeys can have vitamin D levels of about 80-120ng/mL. But deficient humans can have levels in the single digits.

    • Liora

      This study was set up specifically to appear to refute Laura Hewitson’s work, is why.

    • SafeMinds has released their analysis of the paper. Note especially how the study was transferred to another university part way through phase 2 where presumably the leadership changed. Also note that this was a “direct submission” paper and bypassed the normal peer-review process. The editor chosen was on the scientific advisory board of the Autism Science Foundation whose official position is that there is no link between vaccines and autism. None other than Paul Offit is on the Board of the same group and wrote the commentary. SafeMinds assets that bias and other factors were the likely cause of the negative conclusion.

      Given that the phase 2 results allegedly showed the opposite of the already-published positive phase one results (that is, the monkeys were showing autistic behavior) and the leadership changes that occurred once phase 1 results were showing a link (that’s why SafeMinds helped fund Phase 2, after all), this may be another candidate to join the “intercepted” studies along with the Verstraeten and Thompson reports.

      http://www.safeminds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Review-of-Vaccine-autism-primate-research-vG.pdf

    • Dana Dunagan Waldrop

      What you’re missing is that the study is designed with the outcome in mind. 😉

  • AutismDad

    Wow. Powerful evidence.

  • zapp7

    Don’t the tens of thousands of antigens and germs that babies are exposed to every day also cause immune activation?

    • Very mild immune activation thats not strong enough to impact the brain. Immune activation events can vary enormously in magnitude.

      • zapp7

        What is the mechanistic difference between a strong and weak immune response?

      • zapp7

        Any studies comparing the cytokine expression due to vaccines vs. that caused by background antigen exposure?

        • Part of the problem in studying this stuff in humans is that there is a very wide individual variation in cytokine response. Some people respond strongly, and others weakly, to the same immune stimulus.

          Background, ordinary antigen exposure (not associated with illness) causes no detectable cytokine increase because the immune system is not really activated.

          • zapp7

            If there are no studies showing that background antigen exposure is significantly different from those in vaccines, is it really possible to be 100% certain that vaccines are the cause?

          • What do you mean by “background antigen exposure”? If you are talking about number of antigens, this is not relevant, because it does not predict cytokine production.

            Normal baseline levels of cytokines are well known and studied. Its also well known and studied that adverse vaccine reactions can produce very large cytokine production in the brain, comparable to levels produced in these animal studies.

            Its proven that cytokines cause brain damage, if high exposure occurs during early brain development. And its proven that vaccines can cause high cytokine production.

          • zapp7

            Can you provide references for all those claims?

          • Yes, of course.

            There is an upcoming article on cytokines and adverse vaccine reactions.

            This article describes the science showing that the cytokine IL-6 causes brain damage and autism specifically: http://vaccinepapers.org/part-2-interleukin-6-autism/

          • zapp7

            I find it strange that you admit in the body of the text of that link that the evidence isn’t enough to prove causation, then at the end you say “its really quite obvious that vaccines cause autism.” Not only is the inference of causation unjustified, but you generalize to all vaccines, which is problematic at best. For example, the BCG vaccine in your other article has the opposite effects. Also, large scale epidemiology finds no connection not only between MMR and autism, but of thimerosal containing vaccines and autism. Do you believe MMR causes autism? You should be careful about your phraseology because as it stands, it points to a clear bias.

            The most promising evidence you’ve shown is the connection of Hep B vaccine and increased IL-6 at eight weeks. Even that is problematic:

            1) small sample size (n=6)
            2) You make the case for Hep B vaccine that 8 weeks in mice is equivalent to decades in humans. But then, how can you claim that Hep B causes autism, a disease in which symptoms show up around the age of 2?
            3) You still haven’t shown actual evidence that the cytokines induced by vaccination is any worse than other antigens. At the very least you should show that cytokines from vaccination are higher than actually getting the disease it protects against. Somehow I doubt this, because actually getting the flu, for example, seems to be a much larger immune response than getting a vaccine. Cytokine storms caused by the flu are all over the literature. If I wanted to extrapolate in a direction opposite to you, I could say that the flu vaccine prevents autism because it prevents the cytokine storm that ensues.

          • You are correct about BCG, a very unusual vaccine (Its the only live-attenuated bacterial vaccine) that causes Th1-type activation and contains no Al adjuvant. Al adjuvant causes Th2 and IL-6 expression.

            The articles here have been updated as new scientific results become available. When these articles were started, there was a little wiggle room about autism causation. Today, that is not so. I have been updating the articles to reflect an increased level of confidence that vaccines do cause autism.

            1) small sample size (n=6)

            The results are significant and there are other measurements in that study showing Th2 activation, which is associated with IL-6. Also there are a number of human studies showing IL-6 expression, especially in cases of adverse vaccine reactions.

            2) You make the case for Hep B vaccine that 8 weeks in mice is equivalent to decades in humans. But then, how can you claim that Hep B causes autism, a disease in which symptoms show up around the age of 2?

            It is merely SUGGESTIVE that an 8-week delay in rats may correspond to many years delay in humans. We know that immune activation damage in humans can take 20-30 years to manifest as schizophrenia. We also know that immune activation damage can manifest almost immediately, or within a couple years as autism. We do not know why autism seems to have a faster course than schizophrenia.

            It can be autism or schizophrenia, both of which are caused by immune activation and have similar types of damage. The manifestation of immune activation brain damage can also change over time. Also, there are unknowns and differences between human and mouse brain development.

            3) You still haven’t shown actual evidence that the cytokines induced by vaccination is any worse than other antigens. At the very least you should show that cytokines from vaccination are higher than actually getting the disease it protects against. Somehow I doubt this, because actually getting the flu, for example, seems to be a much larger immune response than getting a vaccine. Cytokine storms caused by the flu are all over the literature. If I wanted to extrapolate in a direction opposite to you, I could say that the flu vaccine prevents autism because it prevents the cytokine storm that ensues.

            Its the outliers that are important here, not population averages. Vaccine adverse reactions can cause IL-6 spikes comparable to IL-6 spikes observed in animal experiments where brain damage (autistic behavior) results. Even “normal” vaccine reactions, without fever, can produce cytokine reactions greater than flu.

            Also, vaccines contain Al adjuvant, which causes inflammation and IL-6 expression in the brain. Aluminum causes long-term, chronic IL-6 expression in the brain. Normal infections do not do this.

            The issue of vaccine-induced cytokine response is the subject of an article in preparation.

          • zapp7

            Your healthy user bias explanation is illogical. You say that MMR causes autism, yet claim that neurological things (like autism) precede MMR in so many people that we shouldn’t believe the studies. Having your cake and eating it too? Oh, except for black people! as you point out in your defense of Hooker’s flawed analysis. It’s interesting how healthy user bias only applies when you don’t like the result. Your page on healthy user bias is just stacking the deck with all kinds of dubious assumptions.

            It’s clear I won’t get anywhere here. Cheers.

          • You do not understand healthy user bias. It is strongly dependent on medical decision-making in subjects with contraindications.

            The page on healthy user bias is accurate and objective. None of the MMR-autism studies make any effort whatsoever to control for healthy user bias.

          • zapp7

            1) Healthy users are more likely to vaccinate. If vaccines cause autism, that means more autism in the vaxxed group.
            2) Reporting bias: healthy users are more likely to report adverse events after vaccination.
            3) Unless immune compromised, doctors are more likely to recommend vaccines to more vulnerable patients
            4) Vaccine-averse parents shy away from the medical system, which further contributes to under-reporting of adverse events in the unvaxxed group

            You focused in on one convenient aspect and then used a mathematical model to examine its effect without considering other effects.

          • Ascertainment bias is another problem with the non-randomized MMR-autism studies. Healthy user bias is greater than ascertainment bias in the case of autism.

            There is evidence that healthy user bias is strong enough to reverse the outcomes of the MMR-autism studies. Example: http://vaccinepapers.org/review-of-jain-et-al-jama-2015-and-comments-on-mmr-autism/

            **1) Healthy users are more likely to vaccinate. If vaccines cause autism, that means more autism in the vaxxed group.

            Wrong. Like I said, you dont understand healthy user bias. Pre-existing (i.e. prior to MMR) conditions produce high autism incidence in the NON-vaxed group. The MMR studies almost always show HIGHER autism rate in the NON-vaxed group. Why is that? Its because parents with neuro-damaged children dont give them MMR.
            High autism in the NON-vaxed group conceals the effect of MMR. Read the article again: http://vaccinepapers.org/healthy-user-bias-why-most-vaccine-safety-studies-are-wrong/

            **2) Reporting bias: healthy users are more likely to report adverse events after vaccination.

            Citation needed. Vulnerable patients may have more opportunities to report adverse events, due to more contact with medical system. Further, adverse events are routinely ignored. Reporting is as low as 1%. Also, autism is not necessarily associated with an acute adverse event.

            **3) Unless immune compromised, doctors are more likely to recommend vaccines to more vulnerable patients.

            Backwards. Doctors are LESS likely to vaccinate vulnerable patients. There are numerous contraindications to vaccination (e.g. neurodevelopmental delay), and vulnerable patients are more likely to have these contraindications. This is a fundamental cause of healthy user bias.

            ** 4) Vaccine-averse parents shy away from the medical system, which further contributes to under-reporting of adverse events in the unvaxxed group.

            Reporting is very low in either case, even for people with high access to medical system. Adverse events are denied by doctors. Reporting is estimated to be as low as 1% of adverse events.

          • zapp7

            1) Your definition is one aspect of healthy user bias. Another “arises when patients who adhere to preventive therapy are more likely to engage in other healthy behaviors than their non-adherent counterparts.” I.e., healthy parents getting their young infants vaccinated vs those that don’t.
            http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3077477/

            You have failed to account for this effect, while focusing only on the physician recommendation part of it. I concede that your definition is a part of it. My statement was still perfectly valid. You need to show that one is significantly bigger than the other rather than just considering one effect.

            2) See number 1. There are more health-conscious people in the system. The AE’s in those outside of the system are not being reported.

            3) Again, you’re focusing only on the HUB aspect that suits you.

            4) Speculation.

          • Both phenomena move the data in the same direction: toward an observation of no effect or inverse association. So the effect you propose is additive to the effect of doc recommendations. It strengthens healthy user bias.

            Healthy people are more likely to get vaccines, and sick people are more likely to be told to not get vaccines.

            People at higher risk are concentrated in the unvaccinated groups of these studies, and thats healthy user bias.

          • Also, large scale epidemiology finds no connection not only between MMR and autism

            The MMR-autism studies are wrong because of healthy user bias: http://vaccinepapers.org/healthy-user-bias-why-most-vaccine-safety-studies-are-wrong/

            If I wanted to extrapolate in a direction opposite to you, I could say that the flu vaccine prevents autism because it prevents the cytokine storm that ensues.

            true. But it must be considered that wild flu affects only about 3-5% people per year, whereas for the vaccinated, they receive the flu vaccine every year. The flu vaccine does not contain aluminum, so I tend to think that it does not contribute to autism (unless perhaps its combined with other vaccines). Also, I believe that the flu vaccine mostly causes Th1 activation.

          • ZoeyMO

            Multi-dose flu vaccines DO contain mercury, which sure ain’t helping. By the way, the flu vaccine has been having exceptionally low efficacy in recent years, making the statement “it prevents the cytokine storm that ensues” problematic at best.

  • war_blur

    babies are subject to tens of thousands of antigens in a typical day, all of which activate the immune system. that’s one of the reasons this dangerous anti-science crap is wrong.

    • Number of antigens is irrelevant and misleading. What matters is cytokine production and Th1/Th2 balance. http://vaccinepapers.org/two-vaccines-opposite-effects-brain/

      Vaccine criticism is supported by the science, as this website clearly proves. Vaccines cause brain damage and autoimmune diseases.

      • Jeff Fountain

        This absolutely and completely FAILS to explain why this never happens in 99.9% of those that are vaccinated. What say you?

        • People have different genetics, nutrient intake and environmental exposures.

          I’m skeptical of your 99.5% figure. Vaccines injure a lot of people.

          • Jeff Fountain

            Obviously people have different genetics. You can look at people and come to that conclusion.

            Do you know what REALLY activates the immune system? An infection. Do you understand the difference between a primary immune response and a secondary (memory/adaptive) response?

            The reason why you feel sick when you have an infection is BECAUSE of your immune system. When you are sick, a primary immune response cytokines are released systemically. Some cause you to have a fever (such as IL-6). That is until you get a specific T-cell response which can take up to a week after which time the pathogens are cleared rapidly. In the absence of antigenic stimuli, most T-cells will die off leaving a small memory pool. In a secondary response the response is rapid and the pathogen is cleared, and you don’t get sick!

            With a vaccination, antigen is limited to the site of the injection. dendritic cells or antigen presenting cells will carry antigen to the lymph node, present antigen to its cognate T-cell, clonal expansion occurs, and the T-cells will travel to the site of the injection. With the lack of further antigenic stimulation, a memory pool of T-cells will persist, waiting for an infection.

            It’s very important to note that you are clearly misrepresenting the research papers you presented. I’ll only touch on a couple of them for the moment. Vargas et al, which is cited 298 times mind you, according to PubMed, makes it clear that they do not know the source of the glial cell activation, just that it is elevated with respect to some pro-inflammatory cytokines (and anti-inflammatory as well). So it is a very far stretch to ASSUME that it has anything to do with vaccinations. In fact, it makes a better argument FOR getting vaccinated to avoid primary immune responses.

            Suzuki at al makes no mention of vaccines either, and their study was limited to high functioning ASD and a very big limitation in their study, which they do disclose is the non-specific binding of the tracer that they used. Basically it’s shitty. Which you didn’t care to mention at all when you made your case.

            In just these two studies they make it clear they don’t know the source of the glial cell activation in ASD brains. It could very well be intrinsic in the disorder itself as glial cells are important in creating neural networks, and impaired function can lead to neural developmental disorders. In fact it has been shown that NK cells are impaired in many cases of ASD.

            I highly suggest you carefully read the papers and not make spurious conclusions. You’re not doing the ASD community and their families any justice by doing so.

          • Jeff Fountain

          • Thanks I will check it out.

          • Jeff Fountain

            Just following up, did you read the paper I provided to you?

          • Yes. Not much new there for me. I have read a lot about the silly genetic theories of autism. Of course it appears almost purely genetic when the environmental exposure (vaccines) is almost universal. Lead poisoning would also appear to be genetic if 100% of people were exposed to lead.

            Autism is a gene-environment interaction, obviously. The genes we cannot do anything about. The environmental exposure is immune activation and brain inflammation, mostly from vaccines.

          • Jeff Fountain

            Right, nothing much new there for you. Silly genetic theories? Do you even know what the word theory even means? This is how a non-scientist uses that word, therefore, you clearly are not a scientist, and making conclusions from these papers that the authors are not making. Furthermore, you can’t just conveniently shrug off evidence that is inconvenient to your pet hypothesis. In the face of evidence you must be willing to change your mind, and trash your pet hypothesis.

            What you need to get clear is not every little snowflake is born perfect. I’m sorry but evolution is a bitch. Mounting evidence is beginning to show that autism is evolutionary conserved and plays a very big role in intellectual diversity. Some autistics have profound abilities and some do not.

            Lead poisoning would also falsely appear to be strongly genetic if 100% of people were exposed to (the right amount of) lead. ???
            Your understanding of science is really quite inferior. I guess we scientists were too stupid to blame genetics when we made laws to eliminate lead from paint and gasoline.

          • Insults will get you banned from this website.

          • Yes lead toxicity would appear to be genetic under those conditions, because sensitivity to lead is influenced by genetics, like probably every other environmental exposure. People with the genes would be harmed by lead, and everyone else would be unaffected. In this situation, naive people looking at the evidence would declare lead toxicity to be genetic.

            Obviously, you are arguing that autism is a genetic disease, and now you are denying this?

            I am not shrugging off ANY evidence. But the genetic evidence isnt very meaningful because exposure to vaccines is almost universal. Only 1=2% of people are fully unvaccinated. Its also contradicted by the fact that the autism epidemic is new. You are aware that an epidemic of genetic disease is oxymoronic, correct?

          • Twylaa

            “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” – Socrates

          • This article is one in a series. This article was written to introduce the concept of immune activation, and show that its involved in autism. Other articles introduce the research on IL-6, the times when the developing brain is sensitive to immune activation, and the experiments with monkeys that overcome the arguments that mouse studies are not relevant.

            The line of reasoning is more involved than you understand from reading this one article. I am well aware that Vargas and Suzuki and others do not mention vaccines.

            Vaccine adverse reactions and aluminum adjuvant stimulate IL-6 production in the brain and peripherally. IL-6 causes autism, whether the exposure occurs prenatally or post-natally.

            The ASD community has been brutalized by a corrupt medical establishment. We now have enough science so show where and how they made egregious mistakes.

          • Jeff Fountain

            The line of reasoning you’re using doesn’t support the conclusions you’re making from this pathetically short list of research articles on the matter.

            The article was NOT written to introduce to extremely complex subject of immune activation. All it shows is a correlation. It does NOT explain HOW one causes the other whatsoever.

            IL6 is a pleiotropic cytokine. It is produced by and affects many cell types. Its receptor is a heterodimer of gp130 and IL6R, of which gp130 is expressed on many cell types. There’s also a soluble form of IL6R which means that any cell expressing gp130 can respond to IL6. IL6 is produced during acute and chronic infections and is implicated in a great many of inflammation disease states, including diabetes.

            Making the argument that IL6 causes autism is like saying that CD4 causes HIV. IL6 causes transcriptional changes in many immune cell types, especially B cells, to combat the infection. The authors are careful to explain that while IL6 is indeed an mediator, molecular events that occur upstream and downstream from IL6 signaling needs careful investigation. So to completely implicate IL6 is the root cause is absolutely absurd and completely ignores what the authors are attempting to show.

            The ASD community has been brutalized by a corrupt medical establishment? Where did that come from? I thought we were talking about the science.

          • There is lots more research where this came from. I cited the best stuff. I didnt want to write a book.

            I am familiar with IL-6. Its normally present in low concentrations of about 1-5 pg/mL. High concentrations occuring during brain development cause permanent damage. The research is very clear about that.

            I suggest you read the article on IL-6 and autism.

            Cytokines can cause tissue damage, especially high levels during development. Surely you know this, correct?

            “Making the argument that IL6 causes autism is like saying that CD4 causes HIV.”

            Preposterous argument. Surely you can do better than that. There are controlled studies on this that you should read before commenting on the matter.

            “So to completely implicate IL6 is the root cause is absolutely absurd and completely ignores what the authors are attempting to show.

            Of course, but I did not make this argument. Nobody knows what the “final” cause is. But we DO know that its probably downstream of IL-6. Blocking IL-6 activity during immune activation blocks the brain damage. Read the next article on IL-6.

            A new study has found that IL-17a also causes autistic behavior, and may act downstream of IL-6. IL-6 and IL-17a are closely connected, and they each induce the other. Its here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26822608

            The study states:

            “It was previously shown that the pro-inflammatory effector cytokine IL-6, a key factor for TH17 cell differentiation (19), is required in pregnant mothers for MIA to produce ASD-like phenotypes in the offspring (7). We found that poly(I:C) injection into pregnant dams lacking IL-6 (IL-6 KO) failed to increase the serum levels of IL-17a at E14.5, consistent with IL-6 acting upstream of IL-17a. Conversely, recombinant IL-6 injections into wild-type (WT) mothers were sufficient to induce IL-17a levels comparable to those of poly(I:C)-injected WT mothers (fig. S1E).”

          • Jeff Fountain

            You do realize that the authors are talking about an infection, don’t you? In the least they are arguing implicitly that it is very important to be vaccinated, because during a real infection, serum levels of cytokines can reach very high levels. That’s why you feel sick, because of the immune response.

            This does not happen during vaccination. The inflammation is highly localized. During an adaptive or memory immune response serum levels of cytokines are no where near what they are during a primary naive immune response. You’re reaching, and you’re not succeeding.

          • Wrong, they are talking about immune activation. And further, they have proven that the damage is caused by cytokines. Read the quotes again. Better yet, read the actual papers.

            vaccines can cause very high production of IL-6 in the brain, for example in cases of febrile seizures. levels of IL-6 can be just as high as observed in the immune activation experiments. Further, the Wei experiments demonstrate that chronic exposure also causes autistic behavior and damage. Al adjuvant from vaccines stimulates chronic IL-6 expression in the brain.

            I have heard all your arguments before a million times. Read the articles and papers and come up with something new, please.

          • If you really beleive that vaccines cannot cause cytokine expression/immune activation strong enough to influence brain development, then read this article: http://vaccinepapers.org/two-vaccines-opposite-effects-brain/

            The full paper is provided.

          • New article on vaccine adverse reactions and IL-6: http://vaccinepapers.org/vaccine-reactions-aluminum-il-6/

          • Twylaa

            When people discuss vaccines stimulating the immune system in a way that causes autism, there are often people on the opposing side who argue that if vaccines can cause autism surely wild cases of the diseases would be even more likely to cause autism. But the fact is, back in the 1960’s when we all came down with measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, and flu, before vaccines for these diseases existed, the rate of autism was way lower than it is now. There is something different about vaccines – as VP has described – the adjuvants whose purpose is to magnify the reaction, the fact that we are exposed to several diseases at once (even though the microbes are attenuated or dead), and that the exposure is via injection instead of via inhalation, digestive tract, or surface of the skin – which are the common natural routes of exposure.

          • Here are quote from papers by Dr patterson:

            “IL-6 is central to the process by which maternal immune activation causes long-term behavioral alterations in the offspring.”

            AND

            “…blocking IL-6 prevents >90% of the changes seen in offspring of poly(I:C)-injected females, showing that gene expression changes, as well as behavioral changes, are normalized by eliminating IL-6 from the maternal immune response.”

            AND (in a separate paper)

            “IL-6 is necessary and sufficient to mediate these effects since the effects…are prevented by injection of pregnant mice with poly-IC combined with an anti-IL-6 antibody, and are mimicked by a single maternal injection of IL-6.”

            And here is a slide from a paper from Pineda et al. I added the red underline.

          • Understanding the causes of autism cannot be conducted by focusing on one molecule – but criticism of those who focus on one part of the process begs the question. There are numerous routes to conditions that fall under the Autism/ASD umbrella. Toxin+Genetics -> Glutamate Increase -> increased microglial activation is one. There are many steps in between. The discussion will benefit from “root cause” (ultimate cause) and “proximate cause” (intermediate steps). When there are interactions among root causes the effect may be found in the interaction.

            Thus, for those who have read hundreds of studies from cell lines, animal models, and studies involving human subjects, when I read “IL-6 activation” it brings the rest of the downstream effects to mind backed by evidence by a variety of studies. Comprehension is improved for me by focusing on specific cells and receptors as main actors and intra- and intercellular signaling for what it is – proper/improper transfer of information within and between cells.

            So “IL-6 activation” itself is not “IL-6 expression” – it’s the step before. Spelling out what activates, reduces/mediates, the site of activation (organ, cell, localized location within the cell) really helps.

            Cells: Astrocytes, microglial cells, neural precursor cells
            Cell parts: Dendrites, axons, synapses
            Molecules; Glutamate, glutamate receptors, IL-6, IL-6R, other cytokines (up- and down-regulators of microglial activation, of glial/astrocyte intercellular signalling).
            Macrophagic uptake of aluminum
            Aluminum uptake by astrocytes

            Within framework, causality can be understood starting ANYWHERE. It helps to start with the root cause. But for microglial-activated damage to synaptic formation, it starts with environment and ends with a unipolar brain (many 1:1, simplified synapses, few many:many complex, redundant synapses) and loss of neural precursor cells.

            IL-6’s other effects can be spelled out this way as well.

            Hope this helps.

  • Alexis

    https://youtu.be/uS0ioiB0_oY
    Have you watched this? Blaylock discussss all of this research (what you’ve written about) as well as the hypothesis and proof of immunoexcitotoxicity.

    • Yes I am aware of Dr Blaylocks opinions on this subject. Thank you.

      • Alexis

        Do you agree with his opinions? It’s in line with everything discussed here.

        • Yes i do. Differences between Blaylock and content here is a matter of emphasis. I believe the immune activation experiments are most important and illustrative. Blaylock focuses on excitotoxicity, which can be caused by immune activation and aluminum. I think Blaylock pursuses excitotoxicity because he is most interested in the biochemical mechanisms, and his theory of autism is based on excitotoxicity.

          Like mitochondria dysfunction and other abnormalities observed in autism, excitotoxicity can be caused by immune activation. But excitotoxicity is not specific to autism. Many brain diseases are associated with excitotoxicity.

  • Pingback: Vaccines Cause Autism - Part 1: Immune Activation and Autism - The Thinking Moms' Revolution()

  • Jeff Roberts

    Is it possible that an infant can develop autism or any neurodevelopmental disorder if the mother received one flu shot during pregnancy?

    • Influenza vaccine normally produces Th1 type immune activation, which is not the type of immune activation that causes autism. Autism is caused by the cytokines IL-6 and IL-17, which are associated with Th2 and Th17 activation. So I would not expect a normal reaction to influenza vaccine to cause autism. Th1 immune activation is actually associated with improved neurological development!

      However, adverse reactions to influenza vaccine may cause different types of immune activation. For example, influenza vaccine adverse reactions can induce autoimmunity, which is associated with Th17. So I would say that autism is possible if the influenza vaccine causes an adverse reaction.

    • Very likely yes if the shot contains ethyl mercury (in the form of Thimerosal).

      For a thorough review of the impact of EtHg, please see:
      Thimerosal: clinical, epidemiologic and biochemical studies.
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25708367

      And:
      The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism
      https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1510710868

      The above book specifically discusses genetic mutations that would prevent the fetus from properly handling the EtHg.

      In this study, EtHg is 50 times more toxic than MeHg:

      Effect of thimerosal, methylmercury, and mercuric chloride in Jurkat T Cell Line.
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23554557

      Note that the fetus preferentially takes up the mercury via the placenta.

      In rats:
      http://www.sciencedirect.com/…/art…/pii/0013935173900613

      In humans:
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9098513
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4329243/
      https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/…/40/3/40_3_685/_article

    • Barb Fitzgerald

      Yes. I had the flu shot during only one of my 3 pregnancies and thus was when carrying my son who is the one with autusm among our 3 children. I always believed after studying autism and vaccines for years that this flu shot was a contributing factor. Please read neurosurgeon Dr Russell Blaylock this issue -he is a brilliant man and has written extensively on vaccines and their devastating neurological impact on infants.

      • Dr Blaylock was the first to understand that the immune activation findings relate to vaccines.

    • Yes A recent study reports an association between influenza vaccination during pregnancy, and autism. http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2587559

      Immune activation causes many other mental disorders: schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, seizure disorders and ADHD for example. So flu vaccine during pregnancy probably causes these as well.

      The finding was statistically significant until they made a “Bonferroni adjustment” to what is considered statistically significant. The Bonferroni adjustment increases the threshold for statistical significance as the number of comparisons/hypotheses increases. This is not reasonable to apply to the central focus of a study (in this case whether vaccines cause autism). Bonferroni adjustment makes sense when a large number of parallel hypotheses are being tested The hypotheses being tested here So this study definitely has a stench of the researchers trying to burying the finding.

      Specifically, what the researchers did was say that there were 8 hypotheses being tested. 4 related to influenza infection, and 4 related to flu vaccine:
      1) exposure any time during pregnancy.
      2) exposure in 1st trimester
      3) exposure in 2nd trimester
      4) exposure in 3rd trimester

      So, since they also looked at influenza infection, this increases the threshold for statistical significance. if they had NOT consideed the influenza infection hypotheses, then the flu vaccine results would be considered statistically significant! Confused? You should be, because this is poor reasoning.

      Here is good coverage of this study: http://www.ecowatch.com/pregnancy-flu-shot-autism-kennedy-2159830326.html

      The finding was most significant during the FIRST trimester, which is expected since the fetus is most sensitive to immune activation during this time.

      The paper states:
      “If influenza vaccination during the first trimester of pregnancy causes ASD, our results suggest that it would amount to 4 additional ASD cases for every 1000 women vaccinated. Our finding of a possible association between maternal influenza vaccination in the first trimester and increased ASD risk parallels previous studies reporting an association between ma- ternal viral infection7,9 or fever and increased ASD risk13 in the first trimester.”

      Thats not a small effect!

      Here are the results. First trimester results outlined in RED.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e09d19a3dcb3575c8edd3a5ec0c8c15918e5c8438ab639f7587f4cec413c7f34.jpg

  • Zoe

    So can I just clear up. If a pregnant woman gets sick during her pregnancy, how is this immune activation event different from a vaccine induced immune activation event? (Other than the adjuvants etc). I guess my underlying question is. If a mother decides not to vaccinate but gets the flu or some other disease during pregnancy, will there be the same risk of autism in her child from the MIA?

    • Al adjuvant is a huge difference, because it can cause immune activation in the brain specifically. Al adjuvant travels into the brain. But the influenza vaccine does not contain Al adjuvant. And forms used in the USA do not have any adjuvant at all, I think.

      “If a mother decides not to vaccinate but gets the flu or some other disease during pregnancy, will there be the same risk of autism in her child from the MIA?”

      Nobody knows. But it is possible to calculate the “number needed to treat”, from the known incidence of influenza, and the efficacy of the vaccine. I recall that about 5% of people get influenza per year, and vaccine efficacy is typically about 50%. That means about 40 people must be vaccinated to prevent 1 case of influenza.

      Additionally, influenza vaccine causes non-influenza illnesses.

      From these numbers, I think flu vaccine almost certainly increases risk of immune activation injury.

      Further, vitamins like vitamin D reduce infectious disease and vaccine risk, without adding any risk. So natural alternatives are far superior. Flu vaccine during pregnancy has an inverted risk/benefit, especially compared to natural alternatives.