http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0211/20/cct.00.html
Nov 20, 2002
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Picture perfect, a happy, healthy
baby. Then at 15 months, just like every other baby, Russell Rollins got his
measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination.
ROLLINS: He has a very physical reaction to those vaccines including a
high-pitch scream and days of high-pitched crying and listlessness.
DORNIN: Ten years later, those problems continue. Russell Rollins is autistic.
How do you describe what you go through as a parent of an autistic child?
ROLLINS: It's a living hell. It's a living hell for everyone involved. It's a
living hell for my son who suffers terribly from this disorder.
DORNIN: And it's a struggle that most autistic kids go through in the classroom.
We're at the ABC School for Autistic Children, classes are full. Are you seeing
bigger numbers, more kids knocking at the door to get in places like this?
ROLLINS: Yes, both in our school and in our in-home services, even in comparison
to last year. We probably have 15 more kids than we had the year previous.
DORNIN: And parents are asking questions. No one knows what causes the brain
development disorder but Rick Rollins who has become an activist for autism
thinks the vaccine is connected.
ROLLINS: Thirty-three percent of new families with children of autism believe
that vaccines played a role in the development of their child's autism.
DORNIN: But a recent, well-respected Danish study found no link between
vaccinations and autism. Epidemiologist and pediatrician Robert Byrd doesn't
believe the measles vaccine is a problem but he says concern about what's in
some vaccinations is justified. Byrd applauds the removal last year of a small
amount of mercury used as a preservative in some vaccines.
DR. ROBERT BYRD, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: To have anything that's potentially harmful
packaged with something that's supposed to be entirely good is a bad package.
DORNIN: Byrd authored a recent study that ruled out better testing and
population increases as possible causes for California's dramatic increase. He
believes what's happening here is probably happening nationwide. California has
the only system for registering autistic children.
There is no biological test for autism. Some researchers believe there could be
connection between genetics and the environment, but Rollins says he knows
vaccines are only one possibility. Do you believe there could be other factor as
well?
BYRD: Absolutely. You know I don't think anyone in any area of research in
autism believe there's one single cause. We worry day and night about his future
and who's going to take care of him when we're gone.
Give me a kiss.
DORNIN: Rusty Dornin CNN, Sacramento, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZAHN: And joining us now is Bernard Rimland, head of the Autism Research
Institute in San Diego. He believes childhood vaccinations may be the culprit.
Good of you to join us. Welcome, sir.
Why do you think vaccinations may be part of this equation?
BERNARD RIMLAND, AUTISM RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Well, I've been studying this matter
for some 35, 40 years.
Way back in the '60s, I began collecting information from parents about the
possible causes of autism in their kids. Even back then, there were a number of
parents who said their kid was quite normal until they got vaccinated. Nowadays,
of course, the evidence is very, very convincing that the autism has extremely
accelerated in its prevalence.
The California study is one of many which shows this huge increase. The evidence
that vaccines are a major cause of the increase comes from a number of
directions. One direction that's been largely ignored are the laboratory
studies. There are at least seven laboratory studies, clinical studies, of
blood, cerebral, spinal fluid, biopsies of autistic children which show huge
differences between autistic children and normal children in terms of the
presence of things like measles vaccine virus in their intestinal tract, for
example, or their neurons. So, there's one line of evidence.
Another, of course, is that we have data from thousands of parents who testify,
often with videotapes and photographs and eyewitness reports, that their kid was
perfectly normal. And they can demonstrate it, as I say, very conclusively with
tapes until after the vaccine. The kid retreated into autism. There's just
converging evidence from many, many directions.
ZAHN: But, Doctor, it's also true that not every child who gets
vaccinations ends up with autism. And there are some scientists who believe that
there is a preexisting genetic weakness that makes them almost predisposed to
contracting autism. What do you say to those scientists?
RIMLAND: Well, I totally agree with that. As a matter of fact, my autism book,
"Infantile Autism," which was published in 1964, established beyond any doubt
that there is a strong genetic element in autism.
In the present instance, the genetic element seems, on the basis of a good deal
of evidence, that the children have a tremendously difficult time detoxifying
heavy metals, including mercury. There's the differences of 10,000 percent in
the sensitivity of some individuals vs. others in their sensitivity to mercury.
Many of the vaccines that these autistic kids have been given contain huge
amounts, very, incredibly large amounts of extremely toxic mercury, which what
was put in there as a preservative.
And it's the genetic predisposition, plus the mercury, plus a huge number of
increased vaccines that kids are getting which causes the increase. When my son
was born -- my autistic son was born in the '50s -- kids were getting three
vaccines: DPT, one shot of DPT vaccines before the age of 2.
Now, if the kids get the recommended amounts, they are getting 22 vaccine doses
before the age of 2. And, as the number of vaccines the kids are given before
the age of 2 has increased, the population of autistic children has
concomitantly increased.
ZAHN: What is your best recommendation to parents? I think of when I had all
three of my kids inoculated. When the doctor hands you this horrible pamphlet
with all the conceivable things that could happen to your child, most of them
bad, and you have to sign on the dotted line that you understand all that, what
are you supposed to do?
RIMLAND: Well, there are some really very closely agreed-upon recommendations
that the experts make.
One is, make sure the kid does not get a vaccine that contains mercury. Mercury
is used in a preservative called thimerosal. And it supposedly was taken off the
market. Or at least the vaccines were manufactured starting in '99, I believe,
without that mercury in them. But an awful lot of the vaccines still on doctors'
shelves in warehouses and in pharmacies still contain the vaccines. So, make
absolutely show that there's no mercury in the vaccines given to the kids.
Another extremely important rule is, never have a kid vaccinated when the child
is sick or has any sign of immune system dysfunction, a cold or anything of that
sort. And still another rule which I really think should be strongly enforced as
a policy matter, do not start vaccinating kids as young as they are now
vaccinating them. Some kids are given multiple vaccines before they leave the
hospital. Some experts say don't vaccinate before the kid is 1-year-old. Others
say before the kid is six months old. But delay it as long as possible.
ZAHN: Well, you've certainly given us a lot of information to think about and to
debate. Dr. Bernard Rimland of the Autism Research Institute, thank you very
much for your time tonight.
RIMLAND: You're most welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.
ZAHN: We also wanted to address this dilemma parents face when they have to
decide whether vaccinations are work the risk, or the alleged risk. So we asked
our own medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, to give us a hand.
You are by training a neurosurgeon.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right.
ZAHN: And you know what it's like for any parent that sits down with their
pediatrician and tries to read through these pamphlets. It is scary. And you ask
yourself as a parent: "Do I want my kid to get this dreadful affliction or do I
inoculate him or her and live with the possible risk of having autism be
contracted?"
GUPTA: Yes. Well, I think Bernard Rimland made some good points. There's no
question.
The number of vaccines that a child gets today compared to 20, 30 years ago has
almost tripled, if not quadrupled, in some cases, in some of those particular
vaccines. And, as a result of that, a lot of those childhood diseases, a lot of
those scourges of childhood have been all but eliminated as a result.
When you think about some of the diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, actually
being able to get rid of those diseases, that benefit far outweighs any of the
possible associations we've seen with...
ZAHN: But you heard the same interview I just did. The doctor said that they
found these traces of the measles virus in the neurons.
GUPTA: And they were talking specifically about the polyps within the
intestines. And they were saying that it was possibly a way that certain
bacteria and viruses could get into the body.
There's a lot of research on this. This is perhaps one of the most researched
things in childhood medicine. And a lot of that, you can find papers really on
both sides of the aisle. Whether or not some of these vaccines actually led to
autism as a result either because of this mercury derivative that we've been
hearing so much about or otherwise, has never been proven.
ZAHN: Well, that doesn't make me feel good either that any of us who inoculated
our kids pre-1999 shouldn't stop worrying about this stuff. So what is the best
advice you can give us tonight? GUPTA: You bring up 1999. And he made a good
point there.
In 1999, the CDC, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, a lot of
organizations came together and said: "You know what? We're going to get rid of
this mercury derivative in the vaccines. It used to be at a certain level. We're
going to essentially get rid of it altogether. Why? Because we believe there's
enough lack of public confidence now in these vaccines because of all of this
that people won't do the right thing, which is get their kids vaccinate."
They never, on the other hand, admitted liability, admitted culpability, or
confirmed any association between these vaccines and any of these other things,
autism being the most commonly-discussed one now. Thimerosal, the name for the
mercury derivative, doesn't exist in those vaccines today. So the best advice is
really to continue getting children vaccinated. That association was never
proven. And now, with this thimerosal, this mercury derivative being gone, it's
even less likely.
ZAHN: Thanks for the house call, Sanjay. It helps