WHY POLIO? WHY NOT AUTISM?

By Anne McElroy Dachel

It is becoming more and more obvious that we have a growing crisis on our hands in the U.S., yet we’re at a loss on how we should deal with it. Increasingly, we’re hearing about autism. There are walks and ribbons to create awareness for autism. Parents support groups have formed all over the country. Schools have had to focus on the needs of the growing number of students with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. This debilitating, neurological disorder seems to be affecting greater numbers of our children. For a long time we’ve just been told that the reason there seems to be more autistic children is because of "better diagnosing" by health care officials and "greater awareness" on the part of schools and others. It is becoming apparent that those explanations cannot possibly account for the 6,000 percent increase in the last twenty years, from one in 10,000 to the very frightening figure of one in every 166 children. The most recent numbers from the state of Oregon put the rate there at one in every 120 children. With 80 percent of autistic Americans under the age of eighteen, this looms a potential welfare disaster when these individuals can longer be cared for by family members.

As scary as these figures are, they don’t seem to be considered a major concern yet by many. The attitude of medical and education professionals seems to be one of acceptance, not alarm. When we hear the word "epidemic," polio is usually the first thought that comes to mind, not autism. Many people can remember the frightening time of the polio epidemic in the 1950’s. This devastating disease affected hundreds of thousands of Americans.

As tragic as polio was, the numbers don’t come close to those for autism. At the height of the polio epidemic in 1952, polio infected one in every 4,000 Americans. The government, medicine, and the press sounded the alarm over polio. Everyone from the President to local officials addressed it. Magazines and newspapers continually reported on it.

Autism hardly causes a ripple compared to the national focus on polio fifty years ago. There are a number of understandable differences between the polio outbreak and the autism increase. First of all, the cause of polio was more easily identifiable. This was a contagious disease and there were ways to stop it, most notably, the polio vaccine. The theories on the cause of autism seem endless, with some people challenging the idea that there is really any increase. Others say it’s genetic. Increasingly, parents, reporters, scientists, and doctors are claiming that it’s linked to the use of a known mercury-based neurotoxin in vaccines called thimerosal.

The medical establishment and federal health agencies who approved, mandated, and promoted vaccines with mercury, understandably tell us it’s safe. They say their studies show no link. Few seem to realize that saying that our studies show no link between mercury use and autism, is not the same thing as saying independent research proves mercury in vaccines is safe. The federal health care agencies can’t say that because they’ve never conducted specific tests on the neurotoxicity of thimerosal. The work of independent researchers such as Mady Hornig, Columbia University, Boyd Haley, University of Kentucky, Jill James, University of Arkansas, and Thomas Burbacher, University of Washington, along with many others, however shows thimerosal is a deadly additive that has no place in medical products.

As the debate rages on and the numbers overtake us, autism must receive the prominence that polio once did in the American mind. Maybe the only real difference between the polio and the autism epidemics is that it couldn’t be claimed that polio was linked to the federally mandated vaccine program.