He's coloring!: December 2009

Aluminum Poisoning: The Untold Story

I find it surprising that the subject of aluminum toxicity in children has not gotten more attention. About a year ago, I decided to do a personal investigation into the reasons my children developed so differently. Why did my first child regress after the MMR vaccine and improve without treatment and why did my second son fail to progress specifically in the area of language development? Born in 1997 and 2002, the two boys had completely different sets of vaccinations; the earlier set had DTP with whole-cell pertussis and several other thimerosal-containing vaccines, and the latter set had DTaP (with acellular pertussis), additional aluminum, and minimal thimerosal. I hypothesized that the difference in the fate of my younger child, who is much more severe, must lie in the additional aluminum.

With that in mind, I hit the books reading everything I could about aluminum. What I found scared me, made me angry, and in a way, was unbelievable. My research centered on aluminum’s effect on speech. In researching this, I came across several studies on Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, Parkinson’s Disease and Dialysis Dementia patients that caught my attention. These reports confirmed that as aluminum levels rose, people lost not only memory, but motor planning, control and speech. Speech disorder was the result of impaired memory and motor planning and control. These characteristics are all important in indentifying the aluminum-toxic child.

Beginning with memory, we find that the process requires an uninterrupted network of neurons firing in the brain to be able to pass information back and forth. What is interesting about memory is that it is intricately intertwined throughout the human speech process. One of my second child’s chief problems in speech was the inability to build on the language he had. He seemed to learn new words, but forget words he already knew. I was greatly disturbed when someone suggested this might be due to seizure activity. Being told your child may be having seizures is scary to any parent and it is tempting to dismiss if your child is not having violent shaking episodes followed by unconsciousness.

However, as with so many areas that concern the subject of autism, there are lesser forms of these conditions that cannot be dismissed when searching for pathology. It broke my heart to find numerous studies of monkeys being made epileptic by injection of alumina gel (aluminum hydroxide). These studies dated back to the 1950s . I was stunned and found it completely absurd, if not criminal, that the cause of epilepsy is known and yet our children are still being injected with the culprit. The monkeys were test subjects for seizure drugs. I suppose someone forgot to mention the epilepsy when they decided to use aluminum hydroxide as a vaccine adjuvant.

Part of speech development is also motor planning, and this is where it gets interesting. The aluminum-toxic kids, in my opinion, are different from the mercury-toxic kids in that they understand and comprehend speech well, but have difficulty forming it. The French neurologist, Broca, discovered an area in the frontal lobe of the brain that is involved in the motor processes needed for speech formation. Injury to this area is called “Broca’s Aphasia”. If you look into what aluminum does to the frontal lobe in hemodialysis (HD), you are able to make the connection. Here is just one quote from an abstract, “Our results suggest that dialysis-related hypotension plays a role in progressive frontal lobe atrophy in HD patients.” . There are several reports of speech disorders as a result of dialysis; hence the term “Dialysis Dementia” is widely used.

If your memory is scrambled and your frontal lobe is damaged, speech is very difficult if not impossible. There are several effects aluminum has on the body that may be responsible for this damage. One of the well-known facts about aluminum is that it takes the place of iron on transferrin receptors and down-regulates surface transferrin receptors. It has been suggested that lack of iron homeostasis may cause mutations in transferrin receptor 2 (TFR2) which result in an increased storage of iron as a defense mechanism. The reaction of the body supplanting iron with aluminum would explain the decrease in healthy red blood cells (iron deficiency anemia) and perhaps also the decrease in platelets (thrombocytopenia) some of our children have or did have. I believe my son’s anemia caused pica, the eating of non-food items, which contributed to him becoming lead poisoned and infected by parasites at an early age as well.

Hemochromatosis, or iron overload, causes a buildup of iron in the liver and other organs. Interestingly, aluminum is often found where iron should be (in the lungs, for example) and iron is found in excess in other places. In 2003, William Walsh, PhD., of the Pfeiffer Treatment Center reported, “Iron free radicals (ions) represent the primary oxidative stress in the brain of most humans. Autism involves oxidative stress during early brain development. In theory, elevated iron in the brain could result in autism. A genetic inability to regulate iron might be causative in 1/3 of autism cases.” A study of iron deficiency anemia in Japan states, “the results of this study suggests that iron-deficiency anaemia may affect child development especially speech development.”

In Kent Heckenlively’s Age of Autism piece, “A Tale of Autistic Blood” , he explained and showed a video of the interesting features of blood taken from kids with autism. I was very intrigued by that article because I recall my son’s blood being very hard to draw. I found that aluminum has an affect on the sodium-potassium pump involved in regulating cell volume. Magnesium is required to stabilize the pump. If magnesium is not available, the body can use aluminum in its place. Aluminum increases the activity of the pump and is able to disrupt Ca2+ homeostasis by causing a decrease of intracellular calcium and an increase of extracellular calcium. This causes cell shrinkage. One study states, “We observed that aluminum induces lipid peroxidation and aggregation of human blood platelets.” Platelet aggregation is also an occurrence among dialysis patients.

Can it be coincidence that some children with autism have so many biomarkers in common with aluminum-related illnesses? So why don’t all kids get aluminum-poisoning symptoms from vaccination and other sources? The effects of aluminum are cumulative; some kids are more at risk than others because of their family history. In my son’s case, the risk factors were: I was exposed to aluminum-containing products my whole life; I received several mercury and aluminum-containing vaccinations; I have a family history of thyroid disorders and always had low blood pressure; I have been diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia in the past; I took aluminum-containing antacids during my pregnancy with him; and his father is a welder and often came home from work dirty with metal residue. Some diseases related to aluminum-toxicity and hemochromatosis are: Celiac Disease, Diabetes Mellitis, Macrophagic Myofaciitis, and Down’s Syndrome.

I don’t believe anyone goes undamaged from injected aluminum; the symptoms only become evident when extensive damage is done. I patiently wait for the day when a sequel to the journal article, “Autism, a Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning” comes out. I would call it, “Autism, Also a Novel Form of Aluminum Poisoning”, because that is exactly what I believe my younger son’s autism is.

Elizabeth is the mom of a 7 year old boy with autism and an advocate for truth and treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

He's coloring!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Aluminum: The Untold Story

Aluminum: The Untold Story

Followers

Blog Archive

About Me