Why Are American Children So Sick?
Important questions that nobody is asking about susceptible groups and synergistic toxicity...
Several years ago, I was enrolled in a Master of Social Work program at the University of Southern Indiana. My goal was to become licensed as a clinical social worker, so that I would be able to practice independently in the state, without having to work under the direct supervision of either a Ph.D. psychologist, or an M.D. I did not finish that program because, while I was able to claim religious exemption from vaccines for my classes, those exemptions did not apply when it came time for clinical practicum, which was a necessary requirement for graduation. This was something I did not think about in advance, and it’s something I caution everyone to look into before spending the money, time, and considerable effort going into ANY field that is in anyway related to “health care.”
While I was in the social work program, I learned a lot about how social workers investigate and assess for signs of abuse and neglect of children. As a parent of a child who was seriously injured by vaccines, and as someone who had been trained as a Defeat Autism Now! provider, I had heard many horror stories about children being removed from their parents’ care because of suspected abuse. When it comes to children diagnosed with autism, who are often non-verbal and who may also be self-injurious, I knew this was an area where my fellow students and future social workers could benefit from additional information that might help to inform those investigations.
The following is a presentation I developed and delivered to my classmates. The child who is featured in the case study at the end of this presentation lives in what is known as "the sacrifice zone" for coal production. Like many other children who have been diagnosed with "regressive autism," he got very sick after receiving vaccinations. Vaccines destroy the ability of children to detoxify heavy metals and other environmental toxins. When a child lives in an area where there are very high amounts of heavy metals from coal the damage is ongoing.
Much of this presentation focuses on heavy metals from coal, because Evansville, Indiana, where I was living at the time, is in the center of a 100-mile radius containing 150 coal-burning power plants. The only other place that exceeds that concentration is China.
I did not focus on the problems with Glyphosate or pesticides in this presentation. However, it should be understood that toxic exposures are cumulative and synergistic. Synergistic means that exposure to two toxins has a greatly magnified effect and is not just the sum of the two. A good illustration of synergistic toxicity can be found in a story that Dr. Boyd Haley (Ph.D. Chemist) used to tell, in which a group of researchers dosed a hundred mice with lead and 1 out of 100 died. They dosed a hundred mice with mercury and 1 out of 100 died. They then dosed 100 mice with the same doses used in the other groups, but this time they gave the mice both lead and mercury. All 100 mice died. So, the effect of 1+1 is not 2. The synergistic effect of the two toxins together means 1+1=100 (in this example). Keep this in mind as you go through this presentation and consider that we are talking about the effects of toxins in vaccines, toxins in the environment (heavy metals, pesticides, air pollution), toxins in water (microplastics, pharmaceutical drugs, fluoride, aluminum, chlorine, etc.), and toxins in our food (preservatives, petroleum-based dyes, glyphosate, etc.). There is also a big issue with where the food is being grown, with much of America’s food (wheat, corn, soy, eggs, dairy, beef, and pork) being produced in the Midwest, and on farmland that is contaminated with heavy metals from coal.
This photo shows the playground of an elementary school in Mount Vernon, Indiana. Notice the cornfield. Just beyond that is a field of soybeans. The heavy metals coming out of the smoke stack are going into the air, and into the ground. They never degrade. They continue to build up year after year. That corn is feed corn, used to feed chickens, cows, and pigs. It not only affects the meat, but it also affects the eggs and the milk. What you see in that photo is extremely common in Indiana and throughout the Midwest. The food produced in the Midwest is exported throughout the United States and to other areas of the world.
The toxins are not only going into our children. They are going into our food supply. This affects EVERYONE. Not just those living in the sacrifice zone.
This presentation was originally developed in 2010. I have updated and added information where required to present more accurate data for 2024.
Why Are Our Children So Sick?
Since this presentation was developed in 2010, the Infant Mortality Rate in the United States has continued to worsen in comparison to other nations. We are now ranked 37th among developed nations. When it comes to deaths of infants during their first 24 hours of life, the United States is number one - with more babies dying than any other developed nation in the world. Babies born in the United States are more than 3 times as likely to die before their first birthday as are babies born in Finland, Japan, and Norway. One big difference in the lives of babies born in the United States is the number of vaccines they receive during the first year. Compared to those countries with the lowest Infant Mortality Rates, American babies receive about double the number of vaccines.
(source)
The following graph is presented to show that there are possible geographic differences (perhaps environmental toxins?) that may make a difference in susceptibility to vaccine injury (aka "autism").
The rate of autism diagnosis has increased considerably since the above graph was published in 2007. In 2008, one year after the above data was published, the CDC announced that 1 in 88 American children were on the autism spectrum. The “official” number is now 1 in 36 (1 in 22 in the state of California). There is still considerable variability in the rates from state to state.
(The CDC announcement of the 1 in 150 rate for autism was actually made in 2006, not 2007. The data at the time of the announcement was four years old, so those numbers reflect the rate in 2002.)
The point of this is, there is a vast difference in the incidence of "autism" depending on where you live. Why?
It's important to understand that Indiana grows a large percentage of crops exported to other states and other nations. As noted at the beginning of this post, the heavy metals from coal burning power plants are one of the sources of environmental toxicity affecting our children’s neurodevelopment.
These graphs show the association between environmental toxins and autism/special education diagnoses. (source)
Spencer county has the highest rate of autism/special education diagnoses in the state of Indiana. Dubois county, which is located North-East of Spencer and Warrick Counties, has the second highest. (Hint: the wind blows North-East)
Southwestern Indiana has the highest concentration of coal-burning power plants in the U.S. The amount of toxins our children are exposed to is exceeded only by children living in China - which has the most coal-burning power plants in the world.
The next several slides provide data regarding the specific toxins children in SW Indiana are exposed to, as a result of coal-burning power plants. The information at the top (in blue) provides numbers for all power plants within a 50-mile radius of Evansville (including Kentucky plants). The information at the bottom (in red) is just for Indiana power plants.
If you were a social worker, what would you do?
Lesson: We cannot and must not make decisions about what has happened, solely based on what we see on the outside.
This child looks like he has been starved. If you were a social worker in charge of investigating this child's parents, what would you do?
Read the information above, before deciding to take this child away from his parents.
This is NOT "stimming." This is a child in pain, who is putting pressure on his belly.
What’s going on with these children? In order to parse out the truth, we need more information. We need to look into the medical and developmental history.
Before you (as a social worker) make the decision to recommend removal from the parents, you need to gather information about the child's history. If any of the above issues is true, you need to take a deep breath and investigate further.
If you (as a social worker) are investigating parents for suspected abuse, you need to review the child's medical history and look for clues. The bullet points in the slide directly above are indications of significant gastrointestinal illness. Gastrointestinal illness is extremely common in children diagnosed with autism. The pain can often cause them to become self-injurious. Look for behaviors that escalate around mealtime as another possible clue.
If you (as a social worker) find evidence of these issues in the medical history, you need to be EXTREMELY cautious before recommending removal of the child from the parents' custody. You may be taking him/her away from the only advocate he/she has.
The next several slides present information about behavioral (outward) signs associated with autism. We MUST start considering what is going on physically that may be CAUSING the behavioral issues.
NOTE: Children who regress after vaccination are often very social as babies. They often make very good eye-contact, interact with parents and others, develop normally and are often advanced compared to peers. Many exceed expectations in meeting developmental milestones in speech and language.
They were not "born with it." They regressed after vaccines.
Again... these observations are interpreted from the point of view that "autism" is a behavioral disorder.
Many children diagnosed with "autism" also have underlying viral and bacterial infections. Imagine how you feel when you are sick. Are you social?
The last statement should read, "APPEARS detached from the feelings of others." As many parents of children who have been vaccine-injured will tell you, their children ARE empathetic. They often care too deeply about others, but due to neurological injury (Traumatic Brain Injury), they may not be able to express what they are feeling and may withdraw from interaction because it hurts them. If you’ve ever had a migraine, or a really bad headache, imagine how you would feel if you were made to spend 4-6 hours in a preschool or kindergarten classroom. Would you feel social? Would you want to interact with others? Or would you want to curl up in a ball and isolate from everyone?
These issues are consistent with what happens when children "regress" after vaccines. Vaccines are DESIGNED to manipulate the immune system. There is no other medical procedure that does not adversely affect a subset of the population. Why would we assume vaccines will not harm a certain subset of children, if they are administered to 100% of the population?
The statement, "I was vaccinated, and I don't have autism, therefore vaccines don't cause autism," makes no sense. That's like saying, "I can take penicillin and it doesn't cause me to go into anaphylactic shock and die, so therefore, penicillin never killed anyone."
Many of the "symptoms" associated with "autism" are also associated with other syndromes present in conditions of known brain damage and deterioration (such as Alzheimer's Disease).
Children diagnosed with autism frequently have very high anxiety. Neurotoxins such as mercury and aluminum, and the homologous recombinant DNA (from aborted human fetal tissue) target neurons (brain cells). Specific targets include Neuron-Axon Filament Protein (NAFP), Myelin Basic Protein (MBP), and the Synapse. All of these are involved in the sharing of information and the interpretation of data from the primary sensory areas. When axons, myelin, and synaptic transmission are damaged, nothing makes sense. The world is chaos, and this leads to fears; particularly when things change unexpectedly. "Inappropriate attachment to objects" may be a child's (or an adult's) way of calming himself or herself. By focusing intently on a familiar object, the child is able to help tune out the chaos in the surrounding environment, which helps to reduce anxiety.
Eating the same foods all the time (usually things that contain gluten and casein) is frequently a sign of food allergies. If the child has an injured gut and if toxins have deactivated the enzymes necessary to break down gluten and casein, the child's body may be misidentifying those proteins as endogenous opiates. In this case, those foods are addictive, and the child will not eat anything else because he is not eating for nutrition; he is consuming a substance that supplies his "fix."
Using the same object or wearing the same clothes helps to reduce anxiety. The less things change, the fewer surprises there are, and the fewer adjustments have to be made.
Children with autism often rock or flap when they are upset or excited. Imagine if you were unable to express how you feel when you are experiencing an extreme wave of emotion. Being very happy or feeling very afraid is difficult to contain when you can't speak. Movement is sometimes necessary to process those feelings.
These are all signs of physiological damage. Toxins cause damage in every system throughout the body.
Children with inflamed central nervous systems are often in pain. They are hyper-sensitive to everything: lights, noises, activity, movement, smells. In response to an environment that is over-stimulating, the child may react with hyperkinetic behavior, or he may shut down completely. It is important to remember that children with autism often have chronic viral infections, and they may just feel very poorly. Think how you might feel if you had the flu every day for years. You may not want to be touched or held because it may be painful.
Eating or chewing on unusual things is called Pica and it may be a sign of nutritional deficiency. Nutritional deficiencies are extremely common in children on the autism spectrum (as well as those with ADD/ADHD). Toxic metals such as mercury and aluminum dysregulate important minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc, and elemental lithium, among others. Nutritional deficiencies often result in certain signs and behaviors. For example, zinc deficiency causes a loss of smell, and lithium deficiency (natural form; not medication) can cause a feeling of pressure in the head, which may result in hitting oneself, putting the head against another person (butting like a goat), or pushing the head against the floor in an attempt to relieve pressure. Removing clothes often may be due to temperature dysregulation, itchy or burning sensation in the skin (from viral infections, elevated liver enzymes, rashes, or eczema).
As noted previously, children with traumatic brain injury from toxic overload are frequently very anxious because the world around them does not make sense. It's unpredictable. Things go too fast and because neurons aren't making connections and synapses aren't sharing neurotransmitters, sensory chaos ensues. Not being able to communicate those fears or frustrations can lead to behavioral explosions. The key word in the first item of this slide is "apparent." There is always a reason; it's just often not easy to figure out what that reason is.
"Lacks common sense" could be restated as, "Does not have an accurate perception of danger, social rules, or conventional modes of behavior." This is due to neurological damage, sensory overload, and high anxiety. When a child or adult with autism becomes upset, he or she may run, and because they are hyper-focused on their feelings of fear and danger (the flight response), they often will not attend to danger around them and are more vulnerable to being hit by cars, getting lost, and being harmed by unscrupulous people and the elements (abuse, hypothermia, drowning, etc.)
Gastrointestinal problems are extremely common. A person with autism may exhibit constipation, diarrhea, a combination of both, acid reflux, frequent burping/belching, and farting. Often, the child has had multiple rounds of antibiotics due to immune system dysregulation. This leads to problems with fungal overgrowth in the GI tract, which is an underlying cause of bowel irregularities. Food allergies, B-vitamin deficiencies, aluminum and mercury toxicity are also associated with bowel problems, as are viral overload and parasitic infections.
Twin studies do give evidence of a genetic component in autism, but the rates of co-occurrence in identical twins point to environmental factors also being very important. NOTE: Much more is known at this point about genetic SNPs in the methylation pathway that are extremely common in children who regress after vaccination. The methylation pathway is a major detoxification pathway and is very important in ridding the body of heavy metals (and aluminum, which is a “light” metal). So, the genetic predisposition is not to “autism.” It’s a genetic predisposition that increases the risk of vaccine-injury (and synergistic response to other environmental toxins), which leads to neurological and immune inflammation and damage, which leads to the behavioral signs and symptoms, which leads to the diagnosis of “autism.”
The genetic SNPs in the methylation pathway interfere with the ability to excrete heavy metals, especially mercury. Mercury loves fat cells. The brain is the most fat-dense organ in the body in babies and young children. Once mercury gets into the brain, it is very difficult to get out.
Note: The article from Mothering Magazine has been deleted from the internet. Here is a really good article from Bill Walsh, in which he goes into great detail about the synergistic effects of genetic predisposition and environmental toxic exposures in autism spectrum disorder.
Important Note: The FDA changed the rules about labeling of vaccines containing mercury. If mercury is used as a preservative (as it is in multi-dose vials of flu shot and meningococcal vaccines), that information must be included on the label. If mercury is used in the manufacturing process, and is not used as a preservative, it does not have to be disclosed. The makers say that most of the mercury is filtered out, and what is left is “Trace Amounts.” That makes it sound like this is nothing to worry about; however, when someone has a problem with methylation, and when they cannot detoxify metals, even “trace amounts” can become extremely problematic. Considering the synergistic toxicity of metals discussed at the beginning of this article, “trace amounts” become even more problematic when combined with aluminum in higher amounts, as is the case with several vaccines, including DTaP and Tdap. To understand the magnitude of what can happen in this situation, I strongly recommend watching the documentary film, Trace Amounts, which tells the story of what happened to a full-grown adult man when he received a single Tdap vaccine containing “trace amounts” of mercury.
Note: NVIC’s Vaccine Ingredients Calculator is no longer available. Here is where you can get the current vaccine manufacturer's inserts. Please read the inserts before you agree to vaccination: http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/package_inserts.htm
In 1983, American children received 24 doses of 7 vaccines between 2 months and 18 years of age. The rate of autism was estimated at 1 in 10,000.
Note: 7 vaccines: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella
In 1989, the HiB vaccine was added to the United States Childhood Schedule. It was recommended as a single dose at 18 months.
Hepatitis B vaccine was added to the Schedule in 1991. It was initially recommended only for those children "at risk" due to maternal infection, but fairly quickly that was changed. After being added for universal administration beginning at 1-2 months, the rate of uptake was still lower than the CDC's desired goals, so in 1994, Hepatitis B vaccine was recommended to be given at birth (before hospital discharge).
In 1994, American children vaccinated according to the Schedule received 31 vaccine doses between birth and 4-6 years of age.
Here is the CDC’s 2024 Childhood Vaccine Schedule:
Pretty big and confusing, right? The brilliant Melissa Floyd put together the following graphic, which provides a breakdown of the 2024 schedule (rate of autism is 1 in 36) in comparison to the 1983 schedule (when the rate of autism was 1 in 10,000).
This is a child I saw for consultation. In this photo, he has the measles, which he got after receiving the MMR vaccine at 15 months of age.
He was a healthy, happy, well-developed baby before vaccination at 15 months.
After vaccination, he regressed into "autism," and became chronically sick.
This is the same child (with his face blacked out to protect his identity). He got the measles a second time, 17 months after being vaccinated.
This is the link to the interview (2008) between Dr. Bernadine Healy and Sharyl Attkisson, for CBS News. Please read the article, which contains the transcript. The video has been removed from the internet due to censorship.
Susceptible groups…
This is the actual history of the little boy in the previous photos. This was taken from the developmental history form I initially developed while working in a neuropsychological private practice in Maryland. I have continued to use it since then and modify it often, adding new questions whenever I start to see patterns in the kids I have seen.
More from the developmental history of the child who developed persistent measles after MMR vaccine and was later diagnosed with autism.
Note: This information is all from the child who developed measles, shown in this presentation. (I have no idea why the next slide is black… please overlook the inconsistency!)
Toxins accumulate in the body. Metals like lead, antimony, arsenic, and mercury accumulate in the mother’s body and can be passed to the baby in utero.
This is the hair analysis from the little boy in this presentation who developed persistent measles and autism after MMR vaccine. Arsenic, Antimony, Bismuth and Lead are all heavy metals produced by the burning of coal. Mercury is low on his hair analysis. This is the case with many children diagnosed with autism and often indicates that they are unable to excrete mercury because their methylation pathways are broken, and the mercury is being stored in the body. This child is definitely exposed to environmental mercury. It should be in his hair if he was excreting it properly.
We live in a toxic world. We are surrounded by environmental toxins from a variety of sources. It is extremely important for the health and future of our children that we take steps to reduce exposures wherever possible. We can’t always move. We can do what is within our power to reduce exposures through diet by buying organic whenever possible, reducing or eliminating processed foods, cutting out artificial dyes, and avoiding GMO products. We can improve our water by installing good water filtration systems. One very important way to reduce our children’s toxic exposures is to avoid vaccines, thereby avoiding the onslaught of exposure to aluminum, mercury, and all the other (non-metal) neurotoxins they contain.
If you’ve made it this far, I commend you for sticking it out. This is a long article. It took a long time and a lot of effort to put it together. I appreciate you making time to read. Please share. We need to do better for our children.
Additional articles you might be interested in:
Autism is Medical - Not Mental
Autism is Treatable: Biomedical Interventions Overview
Vaccines and Autism: Thimerosal? MMR? or the 800-Pound Aluminum Gorilla?
Questions and Answers about Vaccinations
Fetal DNA in Vaccines: You Can’t be Pro-Life and Pro-Vaccine
Such great work and I appreciate all the hard work that has gone in to put all that together. I think it is blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain that neurotoxins cause autism. I think aluminium, mercury, endotoxins, fluoride and glyphosate all have a role to play. Sadly 98% of the population have been brainwashed into a zombie like state and are no longer capable of logical reasoning.
Have you seen this one from the brilliant Geoff Pain;
https://geoffpain.substack.com/p/autism-is-caused-by-endotoxin-in
Excellent piece.
US children have more poisons put into their bodies than other children. Vaccines are a huge component of this mass poisoning. Many, many other things are in play as you point out.
Another item to consider is that in the US "acceptable levels" of heavy metals "allowed" in soil are astronomically higher than what is allowed throughout the EU. This then becomes a standard component of the US food supply.