Pass the Mustard, or Just Pass on the Hot Dog?

Comment by Andrew W. Saul
Editor-In-Chief, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service

(OMNS July 2, 2010) More hot dogs are eaten at the 4th of July holiday than at any other time of the year. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yes, an all-too-real trade organization) says that "during the Independence Day weekend, 155 million will be gobbled up" and that Americans will consume more than seven billion hot dogs over the summer. "Every year," they proudly proclaim, "Americans eat an average of 60 hot dogs each." (1)

That looks to be a modest average of just over one hot dog per week per American. But there are at least 7 million vegetarians in the US, and another 20 million who would be inclined to avoid meat. (2)

This means that even if you do not eat any hot dogs at all, someone else is eating your share.

But a hot dog or two a week? Big deal!

Maybe it is. Children who eat one hot dog a week double their risk of a brain tumor; two per week triples the risk. Kids eating more than twelve hot dogs a month (three a week) have nearly ten times the risk of leukemia as children who eat none. (3)

And it is not just about kids. Of 190,000 adults studied for seven years, those eating the most processed meat such as deli meats and hot dogs had a 68 percent greater risk of pancreatic cancer than those who ate the least. (4) Pancreatic cancer is especially difficult to treat.

Think twice before you serve up your next tube steak. If your family is going to eat hot dogs, at least take your vitamins. Hot dog eating children taking supplemental vitamins were shown to have a reduced risk of cancer. (5) Vitamins C and E prevent the formation of nitrosamines. (6,7)

It is curious that, while busy theorizing many "potential" dangers of vitamins, the news media have largely ignored this clear-cut cancer-prevention benefit from supplementation.

May I also suggest that you have your kids chew their hot dogs extra thoroughly. In landfills, "Whole hot dogs have been found, some of them in strata suggesting an age upwards of several decades." (8)

Bon appétit.

References:

(1) http://www.hot-dog.org .

(2) http://www.vegetariantimes.com/features/archive_of_editorial/667 .

(3) Peters JM, Preston-Martin S, London SJ, Bowman JD, Buckley JD, Thomas DC. Processed meats and risk of childhood leukemia. Cancer Causes Control. 1994 Mar; 5(2):195-202.

(4) Nothlings U, Wilkens LR, Murphy SP, et al. 2005. Meat and fat intake as risk factors for pancreatic cancer: The Multiethnic Cohort Study. J Nat Cancer Inst 97:1458-65.

(5) Sarasua S, Savitz DA. Cured and broiled meat consumption in relation to childhood cancer: Denver, Colorado (United States). Cancer Causes Control. 1994 Mar; 5(2):141-8. Comment at http://www.ralphmoss.com/hotdog.html .

(6) Scanlan RA. Nitrosamines and cancer. http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html

(7) Cass H; English J. User’s guide to vitamin C. Basic Health Publications, 2002, p 64-67. ISBN-10: 1591200210; ISBN-13: 978-1591200215.

(8) Smithsonian, July 1992, p 5.

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Ellis, M.D. (Australia)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, Ph.D. (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

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Vitamin C and Cardiovascular Disease
A Personal Viewpoint by Alan Spencer and Andrew W. Saul

(OMNS, June 22, 2010) Linus Pauling was aware that studies of the animal kingdom showed that most animals have the ability to manufacture vitamin C in their bodies. Humans cannot. Furthermore, on average, mammals make 5,400mg daily when adjusted for body weight, and make more (often considerably more) when under stress or ill. This is about 100 times as much as the 50mg we get from a typical modern diet. It prompts the question, why do animals make so much vitamin C, and what purpose does it serve in the body?

A small number of animals which are known to share our inability to make vitamin C include the apes, the guinea pig, the fruit bat, and some birds, all of which will normally get a lot of vitamin C from their food. If you deprive a guinea pig of vitamin C it soon develops a form of cardiovascular disease (damage to its arteries showing within a few weeks). Similarly, studies of genetically modified mice have shown that if you switch off the gene that enables a mouse to produce vitamin C it will also soon show signs of heart disease. Re-introduction of a high vitamin C diet enables the damage to be reversed. While heart disease is rare in the animal kingdom, it is becoming a problem for apes in zoos where their diets are perhaps not as rich in vitamin C as when they are in the wild.

Collagen
A very important function of vitamin C in the body is its role in the production of collagen. Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body, and forms into fibres which are stronger than iron wire of comparable size. These fibres provide strength and stability to all body tissues, including the arteries. Vitamin C is absolutely essential for the production and repair of collagen, and is destroyed during the process, so a regular supply of vitamin C is necessary to maintain the strength of body tissues. Severe deficiency of vitamin C causes the total breakdown of body tissue witnessed in scurvy. Linus Pauling believed that whilst humans normally obtain sufficient vitamin C to prevent full-blown scurvy, we do not consume enough to maintain the strength of the walls of the arteries. He suggested that of all the structural tissues in the body, the walls of the arteries around the heart are subject to the greatest continual stress. Every time the heart beat s the arteries are flattened and stretched, and this has been likened to standing on a garden hose thousands of times a day. Many tiny cracks and lesions develop and the artery walls become inflamed.

Dr. Pauling believed that in the presence of adequate supplies of vitamin C this damage can be readily repaired and heart disease is avoided. However, in the absence of adequate levels of vitamin C, the body attempts to repair the arteries using alternative materials: cholesterol and other fatty substances, which attach to the artery wall. (1-8)

Cholesterol and Lipoprotein (a), Lp(a)
The most abundant amino acids (protein building blocks) in collagen are lysine and proline, and when collagen strands are damaged lysine and proline become exposed. A special kind of cholesterol, lipoprotein(a), is attracted to lysine and proline and will attach itself to the exposed damaged collagen strands. It is an attempt by the body to repair damage to the collagen of the artery walls in the absence of adequate levels of vitamin C. Unfortunately the repair is not ideal and over many years repeated deposits can cause the artery to become narrow and inflamed. Heart attack or stroke is likely to follow (usually caused by a clot forming at the site of the narrowed artery, or by a piece of plaque breaking off and blocking a smaller vessel downstream). When vitamin C levels are low, the body manufactures more cholesterol, especially Lp(a). Conversely, when vitamin C levels are high the body makes less cholesterol.

If high blood cholesterol were the primary cause of heart disease, all bears and other hibernating animals would have become extinct long ago. They naturally have high cholesterol levels. One reason bears are still with us is simple: they produce large amounts of vitamin C in their bodies, which stabilises the artery walls, and there is therefore no tendency to develop cholesterol deposits or plaque.

Keeping healthy
The low levels of vitamin C that are available through diet are inadequate to prevent many people developing arterial plaques, and over time this may result in cardiovascular disease. Post mortem examinations showed that 77% of young American soldiers killed in the Korean war (average age 22) already had well-advanced atherosclerosis (heart disease), and post mortem studies from the Vietnam war gave similar results. Heart disease is not just a disease of the elderly, although it does not usually become life threatening until later in life.

How can we prevent it? Pauling believed that once we start taking high levels of vitamin C, the disease process is halted, or at least slowed, as Lp(a) cholesterol is no longer needed as a repair material. He also believed that when we take adequate levels of vitamin C, existing arterial plaques may start to be removed from the arteries. He found that the removal of plaques is more rapid if the amino acid lysine is taken along with vitamin C. Lysine appears to attach to the Lp(a) in existing plaque deposits and helps to loosen them. Linus Pauling recommended at least 3000mg of vitamin C per day as a preventive dose, and significantly higher levels of both vitamin C and lysine for the treatment of existing heart disease. Dosage is a key factor: low doses are ineffective.

Retention in the body
Another important point is that a single dose of vitamin C is not retained in the body for very long. This fact has been used for a long time by those who do not support the use of high doses of vitamin C as evidence that the body does not need and cannot use large doses. After a single large dose of vitamin C, the blood level quite soon returns to a low level. A lot is excreted, the high blood level only remaining for a few hours.

The key factor here is that the body is not designed to function with just a single large dose of vitamin C once a day. Animals are able to manufacture vitamin C in their bodies and do so continuously throughout the day. They have an enzyme which converts glucose to vitamin C, and each day they produce on the order of a hundred times more vitamin C than we are able to get from even a good diet. When animals are ill they manufacture even more, perhaps thousands of times more than we can get from our diet.

How much should we take?
For people who are essentially fit and well, the Vitamin C Foundation recommends perhaps 3,000mg of vitamin C per day, taken in divided doses as 500mg every four hours, as a protection against the development of heart disease. The problem with even this protective dose is that taking a tablet every four hours is not something that many people would want to adopt as part of their daily routine. But there is good evidence to suggest that this level of intake will help maintain the strength of the arteries and prevent the build up of cholesterol plaques. If everybody were to do this, perhaps heart disease would become a largely a thing of the past (as might many other chronic diseases).

When treating illness, "bowel tolerance" is the indicator of dosage level that should be used. This means taking just under the level of vitamin C (in divided doses) that results in loose stools. Everyone is different. Note that while a few 1,000mg doses a day might make you loose when you are fit and well, your "bowel tolerance" might increase to ten or even a hundred times this when very ill. So, for illness, the levels suggested by the Vitamin C Foundation are 6,000mg to 18,000mg of vitamin C per day (or up to bowel tolerance) plus 2,000mg to 6,000mg of lysine. These vitamin C levels may seem high, but are perhaps not particularly large when compared with levels seen in the animal kingdom. A substantial amount of lysine may be obtained from diet. For example, one may obtain 3,000 to 4,000 milligrams of lysine from about can and a half of beans. Supplementation reduces the need to consume that much.

Controversy
"Even though some physicians had observed forty or fifty years ago that amounts of vitamin C a hundred to a thousand times larger (than the RDA) have value in controlling various diseases, the medical profession and most scientists ignored this evidence." (Linus Pauling, How to Live Longer and Feel Better)

In medical circles, Pauling’s recommendations remain controversial. However, his theory seems reasonable, and the implications are so significant that some major scientific trials should have been undertaken to assess it. This has not happened. Supporters of high-dose vitamin C have had their applications for research funding denied repeatedly, and have had to be content with carrying out small scale research projects and case studies. These have been very positive. Over the past fifteen years, Pauling therapy advocates have received hundreds of reports from heart patients who have self administered the therapy. It is reported that these people typically recover within 30 days, and the majority experience significant relief within as little as a week or two. In 1994, Linus Pauling wrote, "I think we can get almost complete control of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes by the proper use of vitamin C and lysine. It can prevent cardiova scular disease and even cure it. If you are at risk of heart disease, or if there is a history of heart disease in your family, if your father or other members of the family died of a heart attack or stroke or whatever, or if you have a mild heart attack yourself, then you had better be taking vitamin C and lysine."

References:

 (1) Rath M, Pauling L. Immunological evidence for the accumulation of lipoprotein(a) in the atherosclerotic lesion of the hypoascorbemic guinea pig. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Dec;87(23):9388-90. PMID: 2147514. Free full text download: http://www.pnas.org/content/87/23/9388.full.pdf

(2) Rath M, Pauling L. Hypothesis: lipoprotein(a) is a surrogate for ascorbate. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1990 Aug;87(16):6204-7. [Erratum in: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1991 Dec 5;88(24):11588.] PMID: 2143582. Free full text download: http://www.pnas.org/content/87/16/6204.full.pdf

(3) Rath M, Pauling L. Solution To the Puzzle of Human Cardiovascular Disease: Its Primary Cause Is Ascorbate Deficiency Leading to the Deposition of Lipoprotein(a) and Fibrinogen/Fibrin in the Vascular Wall. J Orthomolecular Med, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p 125. Free full text download: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1991/pdf/1991-v06n03&04-p125.pdf

(4) Pauling L, Rath M. An Orthomolecular Theory of Human Health and Disease. J Orthomolecular Med, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p 135. Free full text download: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1991/pdf/1991-v06n03&04-p135.pdf

(5) Rath M, Pauling L. Apoprotein(a) Is An Adhesive Protein. J Orthomolecular Med, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p 139. Free full text download: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1991/pdf/1991-v06n03&04-p139.pdf

(6) Rath M, Pauling L. Case Report: Lysine/Ascorbate Related Amelioration of Angina Pectoris. J Orthomolecular Med, Vol 6, 3&4th Quarters, 1991, p 144. Free full text download: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1991/pdf/1991-v06n03&04-p144.pdf

(7) Rath M, Pauling L. A Unified theory of Human Cardiovascular Disease Leading the Way To the Abolition of This Diseases As A Cause for Human Mortality. J Orthomolecular Med, Vol 7, First Quarter 1992, p 5. Free full text download: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1992/pdf/1992-v07n01-p005.pdf

(8) Rath M, Pauling L. Plasmin-induced Proteolysis and the Role of Apoprotein(a), Lysine and Synthetic Lysine Analogs. J Orthomolecular Med, Vol 7, First Quarter 1992, p 17. Free full text download: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1992/pdf/1992-v07n01-p017.pdf

For More Information:

Fonorow O. Practicing Medicine Without a License? The Story of the Linus Pauling Therapy for Heart Disease. 2008. Lulu.com. ISBN-10: 1435712935; ISBN-13: 978-1435712935. Reviewed in J Orthomolecular Med, 2009. Vol 24, No 1, p 51-5.

Hickey S and Roberts H. Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C. 2004. ISBN-10: 1411607244; ISBN-13: 978-1411607248. Lulu.com. This book contains 575 references, and is reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/ascorbate.html

Hickey S, Saul AW. Vitamin C: The Real Story. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-59120-223-3. This book contains 387 references, and is reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/realstory.html

Levy TE. Stop America’s #1 Killer: Reversible vitamin deficiency found to be the origin of all coronary heart disease. 2006. ISBN-10: 0977952002; ISBN-13: 978-0977952007. (Dr. Levy is a board-certified cardiologist.) Reviewed in J Orthomolecular Med, 2006. Vol 21, No 3, p 177-178. This book contains 60 pages of references. To download the review: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2006/pdf/2006-v21n03-p175.pdf

Pauling L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better (Revised edition). Oregon State University Press, 2006. ISBN-10: 0870710966; ISBN-13: 978-0870710964. Reviewed in J Orthomolecular Med, 2006. Vol 21, No 3, p 175-177. To download the review: http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2006/pdf/2006-v21n03-p175.pdf

On the Web:

The Vitamin C Foundation http://www.vitamincfoundation.org

AscorbateWeb, a historical compendium of 20th-Century medical and scientific literature demonstrating the efficacy of vitamin C. http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/

Putting the "C" in Cure: Quantity and frequency are the keys to ascorbate therapy. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n11.shtml

Vitamin C Saves Lives. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n02.shtml

RDA for Vitamin C is 10% of USDA Standard for Guinea Pigs. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n08.shtml

Vitamin C: What Form is Best? http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n10.shtml

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Ellis, M.D. (Australia)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, Ph.D. (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, M.D., Ph.D. (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

This article is © www.orthomolecular.org and has been republished with permission.

Although a final report on this study is about to be published by Micro Trace Minerals’ Dr. Eleanore Blaurock-Busch (the laboratory who donated their time and effort to analyze the samples) - I wish to comment on some of the points offered as fact in your Journal Vol. 34, No. 2, 2009, 102-5⁽ⁱ⁾, which are incorrect and foster confusion or even apathy with regards to the presence of high levels of uranium found in the damaged children of Faridkot.

What I wish to comment on is that the children’s collective hair samples showed not only high uranium, but also high levels of virtually every other toxic metal as well as significantly disturbed mineral and trace element levels. 

Out of 143 hair samples taken the following trends emerged:

• 109/143 children high in aluminium in hair (implicated in seizure activity, ataxia, speech disorders, neuro-fibrillary tangles)
•   14/143 children high in cadmium in hair (strongly implicated in kidney damage)
•   70/143 children high in lead in hair (implicated in cognitive impairment)
•   80/143 children high manganese in hair (implicated in movement disorders, cardiovascular function as well as gastrointestinal tract, kidney, liver, skin and blood and prostrate)
•   73/143 children high magnesium in hair (disturbed magnesium!)
•   27/143 children high in silver (highly oxidative metal)
•   84/143 children high in strontium in hair (associated with tooth decay in humans and rickets in animals, bone deformity in pigs and posterior paralysis)
•     9/143 children high in tin in hair (associated with growth disturbances, reduced hemoglobin in animals; it influences the metabolism of several other minerals; influence on the cytochrome P450 mediated drug metabolism pathway)
•  113/143 children high in uranium in hair (associated with kidney damage due to chemical toxicity, lung cancer due to radiation by its progeny and affects reproduction and the developing fetus)⁽ⁱⁱ⁾.

Your statement under the heading “High levels of Uranium found in Faridkot children” on page 103-5 reads: ‘Of the 149 children studied, 53 showed more traces of uranium’ is disturbing. 

May I ask:  “More than what?”

This author’s statement suggests that a mere 35% of the children sampled had elevated levels of uranium.  This is not true:   In actual fact a total of 143 samples of hair were taken of children between the ages of 5 and 12 years and of these 143 children, 113 of the children had elevated levels of uranium in their hair. 

The article uses the phrase “more traces”, but in some cases the level of uranium in specific children was more than 44 times higher than the reference range – that can hardly be depicted as a mere “trace” of uranium. 

On average the level was 2 – 8 times higher than the reference range for uranium in hair in the general population.  These levels correspond closely to what Sengupta and Mandal (2005)⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ reported with regards to the contamination of ground water because of thermal plant fly-ash in Kolaghat in West Bengal, when they stated: “The dose, emitted from the ash pond to the surrounding (area) is about three times higher than the world average of 51 nGy-1”.

The number of 113 children with elevated levels of uranium in that one Centre for Disabled Children in Faridkot constitutes no less than 79% of that specific population of very ill, deformed and physically as well as mentally disabled children we sampled.

I am deeply concerned about the under-reporting of these facts. I hereby request that a prestigious journal like yours records the necessary corrections – especially as such reporting on critical facts will have an impact on the lives of children. 

As it is currently reported it leaves much room for governmental departments and industry to skirt around the issue of high uranium in this population of children and rather than spur them to action it has the potential to lull them into a false sense of security.  Some have even denied in the press that the exceptionally high levels of metals found in these children could be a contributing factor to their disabilities.

In this study, 27/113 children, who showed high uranium levels in their hair samples, live in the city of Bathinda, where the Guru Nanak Dev and Lehra Mohabbat Thermal Power Plants are.  These thermal plants produce high quantities of fly-ash from the burning of coal.  31% (almost a third) of the children tested (who are afflicted with the most severe neurological and cognitive conditions) come directly from a radius of less than 15 kms of this power plant.  More than 70% of India’s electricity generation is produced by coal-based thermal power plants^(iv).  The environmental impact of the coal industry and thermal power plants in Punjab can and should not be minimized or under-estimated. 

Mishra^(v) (2004) points out: “the problems for the future are formidable from ecological, radio-ecological and pollution viewpoints.”

 Singh, Kumar and Kumar^(vi) reported on how combustion of coal frees nearly every naturally occurring element, including radio-active isotopes, into the biosphere, mainly because of the high coal-ash load generated during such combustion processes (between 55 – 60%) (Mishra^(vii), 2004).  Singh et al^(viii) (2004) pointed out how the accumulated fly-ash load contaminated ground and surface water. 

Punjab is irrigated by an elaborate network of canals and waterways staring up in Himachal Pradesh in the Himalaya Mountain range at the Bhakra and Nangal Dams which feed the Nangal Hydel Channel.  Each of these has the capacity to carry the element-dense waters from village to village, to towns and cities many kilometers away from a coal-fired power plant. 

In a study done at the Borako Thermal Power Station by Singh et al.^(ix) (2004) it was found that the leaching study of coal ashes over a 300 day period showed that especially Ca, Na, K, Fe, Pb and Cd as well as other dissolved ions leached at significant concentration levels.

Mukherjee & Zevenhoven^(x) quantified the fly-ash load across the Indian subcontinent and stated that as much as 80 – 90 million tons of fly ashes are generated from the 85 existing coal-based thermal plants across India.  Of particular interest is that coal-ash also contains Mercury, which is highly toxic to all life – humans as well as aquatic fauna.  These authors point out that India has become synonymous with being a “dumping ground for mercury”.  Other literature reviews indicate that mercury from fly-ashes is negligible to zero, but that the wet and dry deposition of Hg from the flue gases (i.e. living within the “stack shadow”, is problematic^(xi) ,^(xii).  Hence children and their families who live in and around Bathinda are much more at risk from mercury than those children whose families don’t.

A study of the significant radioactive contamination of soil around coal-fired thermal power plants by Papp et al^(xiii) confirmed that there was significant radioactive contamination of soil around a coal-fired thermal power plant in Hungary.  They pointed out that the contamination was a direct result of fly-ash fallout.  They state: “Inside the town are 4.7 times higher, on average, (235U and 226Ra )… in the top (0-5cm depth) layer of soil in public areas…. Than those in the uncontaminated deeper layers, which means there is about 108Bq kg(-1) surplus activity concentration above the geological background.”

These carefully researched findings are in sharp contrast to the off-the-cuff statements made by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to the media that the children who were deformed in Faridkot and surroundings were such because of genetic reasons and that they were not suffering from birth defects due to uranium toxicity/radiation, after a brief, one-day visit to Faridkot, and the taking of a small number of samples in the Centre. 

 The Tribune News Service^(xiv) reported in an article entitled “Experts reject report on uranium traces” and reiterated that the level of uranium detected in their sampling of water, soil, vegetation and the hair of children “was not alarming”. 

Dr. Surinder Singh^(xv), Professor, Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, emphatically stated that BARC’s comments to the press were deceiving as they never collected samples from across the state and intimating that the water didn’t have high uranium levels, was a direct attempt at subterfuge and even a deliberate lie. 

Several studies done by this university since 2005 have indicated that ground water levels in this region exceed WHO standards of 15 micrograms per litre^(xvi).  Some levels reported were as high as 224 micrograms per litre.  Dr. Singh^(xvii) (2009) further elaborated by saying: “The state government had got samples tested for uranium in Chandigarh too and high levels of uranium were detected.  There are no fixed limits for  uranium in soil and air as these have natural uranium, but high levels in water affects crops too.  I feel the BARC report is an eyewash.”

In addition to these comments, suggesting that it is in the interest of BARC and the Indian government to cover up the extent to which the power plants are causing damage to the bio-sphere and that they have deliberately lied to the public regarding the extent of the contamination, Dr GS Dhillon^(xviii), former Chief Engineer, Irrigation Department and Director, Irrigation Research Institute, Amritsar, for 14 years, stressed that high uranium in water was due to fly ash from the two thermal power plants in Bathinda and Lehra Mohabbat.  “Coal has natural uranium and when burnt it vaporizes and gets deposited on fly ash from thermal plants.  A pond is used to extract uranium from fly ash.  China is doing it.  The two ponds at the thermal plants are not controlled properly, it seems. So uranium concentration here is high”.

Where a similar situation raised concern in Bengal^(xix), with three power plants resulting in high concentrations of uranium in the area, the government of Bengal in East India shut down the three power plants till a way was ultimately found to control uranium levels.

Mandal and Sengupta^(xx) (Department of Geology and GeoPhysics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India), discussed the radionuclide and trace element contamination around Kolaghat Thermal Power Stationin West Bengal and its environmental implications saying: “Trace element analysis reveals that toxic elements (Pb, Cu, Ni, Fe, As) are sufficiently enriched in pond ash than their crustal abundances, and preferably in the lighter size fractions.  Radionuclides (U, Th) also show enrichment of 3 – 5 times in coal ash compared to their crustal average and are much higher than in the pond ashes of other thermal plants in India.” 

Of interest is that chemical analysis of the water sampled from tubewells near the ash ponds corresponded quite closely to those samples taken in the Bathinda district some 4 – 5 years ago^(xxi), and showed high concentrations of trace elements (Al, Li, Ni, Fe, As, Zn, B, Ag, Sb, Co, Si, Mo, Ba, Rb, Se, Ph, V, Cr, Cu, Cd, Mn, Sr) – most of these levels were also elevated in the children from whom we took hair (2008) or baseline urine samples (2009).  Sengupta and Mandal^(xxii) state that the distribution of these elements is mainly controlled by the ash deposited in the area.  Certain elements were specifically elevated in the tubewell water near the ash pond, implying significant imput from the ashpile (Al, Li, As, Zn, Ag, Sb, Si, Mo, Be, Rb, Se and Pb).

A key statement from their report “Research Communications”^(xxiii) (2005) underscores the danger thermal plants pose to natural water sources: “The enrichment of some elements (Al, Fe, As and Mn) above WHO guidelines for drinking water denotes significant contamination of the groundwater from the toxic elements leached from the ash pile”. All ground water in the region around thermal power plants, where the fly-ash ponds are not properly controlled are vulnerable to metal contamination due to waste disposal and leachate percolation^(xxiv);^(xxv).

Sad to say, in Punjab the exact opposite seems to be happening – instead of the Punjabi government acting on the concerns by transparently investigating the suspected sources of contamination and by assisting the overwhelmed community of parents, children and health workers, the government and statutory bodies have closed ranks and the Centre in Faridkot was warned that it did not have a remit to drive such research.  They were threatened with closure if they persisted in speaking to the media – their only recourse.

In addition to this the Indian and regional governments are making no efforts to stop the contamination of the bio-sphere and particularly of vulnerable children and pregnant woman within a radius of 100 km of the Thermal Power Plants Bathinda.  Hence we find higher levels of uranium than in the rest of the population in children from villages, cities and towns surrounding thermal power plants across the region.

Here are some more figures which might be revealing: 

• Faridkot, where 12 of the 113 children are from and were high uranium in hair were sampled,  is a mere 55.0424 km from Bathinda.  Other towns with affected children within a small radius of Bathinda are
• Malaut – 42.8380 km (4 children);
• Kotkapura, where 5 children were sampled is only 42.6095 km from Bathinda;
• Ferozpur (6 children with high uranium) is 84.3920 km away from Bathinda; Abohar (5 children) is 71.2269 km away.
• High levels of uranium in the hair of disabled children were also found in Patiala, Sangrur, Ludhiana, Mandi, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Tarn Taran in Punjab.

Faridkot, where the initial sampling of hair was done in 2008, finds itself in the unenviable position to be sandwiched between no less than 4 thermal plants to the north west of it in Pakistan (less than 100 km away) and a further 3 thermal plants to the south east and east of it (between 50 and 180 km away).

The Malwa-belt that forms the buffer between Pakistan and Punjab is said to have significant increases in cancer in recent years^(xxvi). 

Although experts in Punjab are still debating why there is such a marked increase in the number of cancer cases, Dr. JS Thakur^(xxvii) (WHO’s Non-Communicable Diseases Department) who reported damage to the people of Punjab’s DNA linked to cancer, loosely attributed the rise in cancer to the chemical toxicity of the local waters.

In writing to you I trust that your Journal will help to correct incorrect perceptions pertaining to uranium, as scientific investigation into coal-fired power plants and their detrimental environmental role, is more than clear.  Assisting in the manner is particularly crucial as The Journal of Medical Physics publishes at that crucial junction between medicine and physics. 
Children are failing to thrive in India.  Children have growth defects, are medically ill, epileptic, mentally retarded or their movements and speech are severely disordered.  I firmly believe, based on evidence provided above, that toxicity in the water is playing a critical role in the aetiology of their diseases – clearly not only uranium, but especially  uranium as it was detected in such high quantities in so many of the children randomly sampled. 
Finding high uranium levels in the children has apparently unmasked the key culprit – the thermal power plants.  Your fair and full reporting of this matter can cast a forceful light onto the problem and we trust that as you do, policy makers, politicians and industry will receive a wake-up call.  This affects us all – not just the most vulnerable among us – many of the policy makers in government and CEO’s of industry who run a government or a region’s economy, live in that region too, and they and their families are as much at risk as the sick and deformed children of Faridkot’s Baba Farid Centres for Special Children – uranium is most certainly not a respecter of persons.
Please assist us in ensuring that a correction is published and that this story gains the publicity and peer review it deserves.

References

Die behandeling wat hy ontwerp het staan bekend as Ouditiewe Integrasie Opleiding of “AIT”, en resorteer as ‘n behandeling onder Sensoriese Integrasie Tegnieke. Deur middel van AIT het Dr Bérard sy eie progressiewe doofheid gestuit en selfs gehoor herwin, wat hy vandag, meer as 30 jaar later, steeds behou het.

Die elektroniese apparaat wat hy ontwerp het in Frankryk, staan bekend as ‘n “Audiokinetron”. Hierdie apparaat veroorsaak distorsies van ‘n musieksein wat deur die apparaat gestuur word. Dit word gedoen deurdat daar vinnige en onvoorspelbare sarsies hoë en lae frekwensie seine in die musiek ingevoer word deur die Audiokinetron.

Hierdie gemodifiseerde, hoë energie, puls-klanke word aan die luisteraar gespeel deur hoë kwaliteit oorfone, vir 20 halfuur sessies. Navorsing en ervaring het bevestig dat die gehoor-meganisme sigself op ‘n semi-permanente basis aanpas, sodate dit ‘n meer effektiewe herleier van ouditiewe inligting word.

Dr Bérard self vergelyk die effek van die elektroniese modulasie met ‘n tipe van fisio-terapie van die gehoormeganisme – ‘n tipe van ‘n “aerobic work-out”. Die behandeling begin teen ‘n medium luidheidsvlak, soos ‘n matige-pas aerobiese sessie, maar die intensiteit verskerp geleidelik totdat ‘n optimale “oefeningsvlak” bereik word. Dié vlak word daarna vir die oorblywende sessies gehandhaaf.

Tekens van Verandering:

Gedurende AIT is daar soms tekens van gedragsverandering wat toegeskryf kan word aan moegheid en die persone se reaksie op veranderinge in hulle perseptuele velde. Moegheid kom heel dikwels voor, soms hoofpyne, en partykeer ‘n verandering in slaap en eetpatrone. Partykeer is daar ‘n sarsie opvlieënde en weerstandige gedrag, en enkele kere is daar gevind dat sommige kinders regressie na vroeëre gedragstadia toon. Hierdie veranderings is almal egter tydelike en verdwyn ná die behandelingsperiode.

Wat verblydend en bemoedigend is, is dat die gedragsverandering verwelkom moet word as tekens van ‘n positiewe en blywende verandering in die werking van die ouditiewe prosesserings-meganisme. Hierdie aanpassing lui ‘n periode in waar daar ‘n impak is op die kind/volwassene se gedrag/leer is wat oor die daarop volgende drie tot ses maande plaasvind. Die verandering is dikwels stadig en onopvallend, maar seker; soms is die verandering dramaties! Dit is belangrik om daarop te let dat die verandering en verbetering volgehou word.

Hoe om die veranderinge to boekstaaf?

Daar word ‘n Bérard luistertoets (AIT praktisyn) of ‘n oudiogram (oudioloog) gedoen vóór, gedurende en ná AIT. Hierdie toetse boekstaaf in grafiekform watter verandering in die prosesering van suiwer tone plaasvind. Daar is dikwels ‘n wegkwyning van skerp pieke/dale in die grafiek, beduidend van meer “normale” en beter ouditiewe prossering na vyf tot tien dae. Dié proses word gewoonlik volgehou vir drie tot ses maande ná die AIT-behandeling, soos gemeet in opvolg tuistertoetse/oudiogramme. Ouers/Familie word ook soms gevra om ‘n Connors Vraelys, ‘n Fischer’s Ouditiewe Probleme Vraelys of ‘n Afwykende Gegragsvraelys in te vul. Ander objektiewe toetse wat al in navorsingsituasies toegepas is, is EEG’s, breinstam metings en PET skanderings. Sommige persone het ook positiewe veranderinge in unien-peptiede analises getoon. Ouer- en professionele verslae van verbeterde vordering, alhoewel nie objektief kwantifiseerbaar nie, is ook waardevolle bronne om die waarde van die behandeling te boekstaaf.

Wat die “Audiokinetron” / “Earducator” doen?

Daar is verskeie teorieë waarom AIT so effektief is. Hier volg ‘n meer gedetaileerde verduideliking van hoe die apparaat sy werk doen.

Die modulasie van die musiek wat deur die apparaat gespeel word, word gedoen deur middel van ‘n sisteem van filters, wat reageer op ‘n program in die apparaat en wat ook reageer op sekere aspekte in die musiek, vandaar die eienskap dat die gekose musiek sterk-ritmies moet wees. Die sleutel-eienskap van die apparaat is eger dié apparaat se vermoë om op ‘n onvoorspelbare (“random”) wyse tussen hoë/lae frekwensies oor te skakel vir ‘n volle halfuur. Meer as enige ander faktor skyn dít die wese van ouditiewe integrsie-opleiding te wees.

Die onvoorspelbare seinafwisseling gebeur sonder dat daar ‘n pattroon gevestig word en die brein kan dus nie die volgende hoë/lae sein antisipeer nie. Dehalwe kan die brein nie die ouditiewe sein “blokkeer” nie.

Blik op twee van die vele Teorieë oor waarom O.I.O. werk en ‘n opsomming navorsing: 1993-1995
(Verdere navorsingsversale beskikbaar op navraag by Synapse Africa Neuro-Nutritional Clinic)

1. A.I.T. – ‘n loods-studie
Dr Bernard Rimland en Stephen M Edelson
AUTISM RESEARCH INSTITUTE – San Diego
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 1995, 25,61-70

Hierdie studie het ‘n blinde-plasebo eksperimentele ontwerp gebruik. Agt persone in die navorsingsgroep het A.I.T. ontvang en nege het ‘n plasebo (nie A.I.T.-musiek) ontvang. Drie maande ná die behandeling was daar ‘n statisties – beduidende verbetering in gedrag en ouditiewe probleme van die toetsgroep. Geen veranderings in klank-sensitiwiteit in die oudiogram van die persone is gevind, alhoewel die meerderheid van die toetspersone nie aangemeld is vir klanksensitiwiteit nie; die meerderheid was ook oudiometries ontoetsbaar as gevolg van hulle outisme.

2. Die Effek van A.I.T. in Outisme
Bernard Rimland en Stephen M Edelson
AUTISM RESEARCH INSTITUTE – San Diego
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1994,5, 16-24

Hierdie studie was ‘n oop-kliniese navorsingsontwerp met etlike ingeboude kontroles. Daar was 445 outistiese toetspersone in die studie, tussen ouderdomme vier tot een-en veertig jaar. ‘n Statisties-beduidende afname in klanksinsensitiwiteit is gevind, bebaseer op die aanbieding van suiwer-toon ouditmetrie vóór en onmiddelik ná die A.I.T. – behandelings. Ontleiding van die oudiogramme wat voor die behandeling gedoen is en daarna weer ná vyf ure en ná tien ure van luistertyd, het aangetoon dat gehoor ietwat verbeter het en dat die mate van wisseling in prosessering tussen frekwensies op die oudiogram afgeneem het. Toetspersone is op ‘n willekeurige basis toewys aan verskillende filters (filters vir ouditiewe pieke, geen filters, filter van pynlike frekwensies). Laasenoemde het egter nie ‘n beduidende of noemenswaardig verskil in die uitkomste van die A.I.T. teweeg bebring nie.

Ouers wie se kinders aan die navorsing deelgeneem het, het verskeie verskillende vraelyste op ‘n maandelikse basis voltooi oor ‘n periode van nege maande. Die volgende vraelyste is ingevul:
Afwykende Gedragsvraelys (ABC); Connor’s Ouer Evalueringslys (C.P.R.S.); en die Fischer’s Probleme Vraelys (F.A.P.C.)

Op al bg. skale was daar ‘n beduidende afname in probleemgedrag wat begin wys het ongeveer een maand ná A.I.T. Hierdie statisties-beduidende afname was konstant oor die volle nege maande van die studie se post-A.I.T. evalueringsperiode.

Toetspersone is willekeurig aan een van drie verkillende A.I.T. tipes apparate toegewys. Geen verskille in die graad van verbetering was onderskeibaar tussen die die apparate nie.
Korrelasie-analises is gedoen om te probeer bepaal wie meer sou baat by A.I.T. Slegs twee statistiese beduidende verhoudings is geïdentifiseer. Laag funksionerende individue het die grootste verbetering na A.I.T. getoon (A.B.C.) en (P.R.C.)

Geen beduidende verhouding is gevind tussen gedragsverbetering en ouderdom, graad van klanksensitiwiteit of hoeveelheid wisseling tussen frekwensies in die pre-A.I.T. oudiogram.
Vir verder inligting oor AIT skakel 011-763-8404 of skryf aan Die Instituut vir die Verryking van Leerpotensiaal, Suite 337, Postnet Hillfox, Privaatsak X09, Weltevreden Park, 1715, Gauteng, Republiek van Suid Afrika.

Veranderinge in Eensydige en Bilaterale klanksensitiwiteit na A.I.T.
A.I.T. D. Woodward
Woodward Audiology, McLeansville, N.C.
The Sound Connection, 1994, 2, p4

Verdraagsaamheid van luidheid van klank is ondersoek in 60 kinders met outisme en aanverwante afwykings. Ongemaklike Luidheidsvlakke (O.L.V.) is getoets vóór en onmiddelik ná A.I.T. Voor A.I.T. was die resultate van aanbiedings aan een oor op ‘n slag (elke oor onafhanklik van die ander) sowel as twee-orige aanbiedings (aanbieding aan beide ore gelyktydig) veel laer as 90dBHTL, waar 90dBHTL die normale laer afsnypunt is vir ongemaklike Luidheidsvlakke.

In preparing to write this article I reflected on what it means to try and find a “cure” for something as debilitating/devastating as a (terminal) disease, Parkinson’s, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Senile Dementia, Gulf War Syndrome, Autism – the list seems endless. “Cure” in Standard English would mean to heal, treat, make well, restore to health or alleviate. In this article, however, I wish to explore deeper and more profound meanings of the word to cure.

Lexicon

The linguistic root of the word “cure”:

in Latin, meant to cure, or take care of, or to prepare.
In Welsh, the word means a blow or stroke, affliction, to beat, throb, strike, to trouble or vex, to pine or waste away, and
in the French, “curer”, means to cleanse.
In Italian the root means to care, give diligence, to cure, attend, protect (also to value or esteem).
Spanish is very workman-like in its approach to meaning: “cura, curar, curiso” means to cure, a remedy, guardianship, to administer medicines, to salt (as meat), to season (as timber), to bleach thread or linen (implying a chemical process), but it also connects with overtones of psycho-aesthetics – meaning curious, neat, clean, handsome, fine and careful.

What an interesting concoction of meanings the word conjures up! It opened up new vistas as to the role of the physician or therapist, and as to what is implied when one is to cure someone of an affliction, disease or illness.

Noah Webster² sums it up in drastic and panoramic terms: “The radical sense of this word is, to strain, stretch, extend, which gives the sense of healing, that is, making strong, and of care – superintendence. But the Welsh has the sense of driving, a modified application of extending, and this gives a sense of separation and purification.”

Here are the meanings he lists in his dictionary:

CURE: To heal, as a person diseased or a wounded limb, to restore to health, as the body, or to soundness, as a limb.

A healing, the act of healing, restoration to health from disease, and to soundness from a wound. We say medicine can effect a cure.

Remedy for disease, restorative; that which heals.

To subdue, remove, destroy or put to an end to; to heal, as a disease.

To remedy, to remove an evil, and restore to a good state

To dry; to prepare for preservation, as to cure hay, or prepare salt, so as to prevent speedy putrefaction.

Purpose of two-part article

My purpose with the first article is to describe the Basal Ganglia, its neuro-anatomy and physiology and to discover why diseases of this sub-system of the human brain leads to such devastating disease conditions. I wish to focus on both the anatomical and physiological qualities of the Basal Ganglia, on the diseases, which ravage this sub-system of the brains of millions of individuals, I will also show what “cure” might be expected if the root causes are addressed, which may be helpful in preserving its life-sustaining functions. In the second article, I will show, how, having an understanding of its anatomy and physiology and “cortical software re-use”³ principles, one can hope to re-pattern and re-activate the Basal Ganglia by means of Sensory-motor pathway stimulation.

When a person or child is sick and suffering from an extremity, a disease that robs one of self-worth, vitality, communication, independence, sanity and ultimately life itself, the anguish this brings drives carers, parents, professionals and self to seek a cure, something which will restore the lost health, vitality and the former sense of well-being.

In order to understand how damage or impairment of the Basal Ganglia may imprison the sufferer’s consciousness, communication, reason, movement, memory, mood and rhythm of self, I would like to give a brief overview of the neuro-anatomy of this structure as structure always underlies function as it displays such interrelated neurological complexity.

What is the structure of the Basal Ganglia

The Basal Ganglia is made up of a number of sub-cortical structures, that includes the caudate and putamen, segments of the globus pallidum, the pars reticulate, and finally the compacta of the substantia nigra, as well as the sub-thalamic nucleus. The Basal Ganglia, just like the cortices, consists of two parts – a left and a right ganglion.

The Basal Ganglia roughly has two “departments’ – one which receives information and one which dispatches information. The receiving department is the neo-striatum and this area is informed by the entire cortex (“thinking cap”) as well as that which is about to be passed into consciousness by the intra-laminar nuclei of the thalamus (central relay station for all sensations excluding smell and taste).

Structure informs Physiology (Function)

The main dispatching department consists of the globus pallidus and substantia nigra. Interestingly enough, some of these projections from the two named areas go back into the thalamic region [where the information is emotionally charged], before being projected upwards into the cortex of a person or downwards to the brainstem, via the sub-thalamic nuclei. Most of the Basal Ganglia’s activity, however, is structurally streamed in an ever-ascending direction – either directly from the substantia nigra to the neo-striatum, or to the globus pallidum, then to the thalamus, on its way back to the neo-striatum, before emergence in the cerebral cortices.

Sensation governs thought and movement, speech and rhythms of life

What struck me in studying this system is not merely its complexity (loops-within-loops, parallel systems which intertwine and feed-back on themselves in splendid self-modulation) but how all that happens here is strongly informed by sensation – as Barker⁴ states: “Neuro-psychologically, the Basal Ganglia take highly processed sensory information and converts it into some kind of motor programme” (emphasis mine). It is then taken through to higher levels of reasoning, planning, evaluation, decision-making, inhibition, throughout being modulated by a cocktail of neuro-chemicals (glutamine, GABA, dopamine) and finally filtered back into the Basal Ganglia.

Here a motor package is prepared [or a non-motor response is generated (mainly involving visual reasoning / acts)], by which time the action (impulse) has become gloriously multi-dimensional, exactly trimmed, carefully edited, pedantically planned, then poured through an emotional grid, time-stamped, speed-regulated and fine-tuned, so that frame-by-frame “freeze”-shots, are blended into a real-time movie-like flow. The end result is like listening to and watching a symphony being played by a philharmonic orchestra, which blends in exquisite harmony, compounding (emotional) energy and skill and it is regulated by a split-second orchestrated impetus, towards that which is smooth, melodious and proficient, which Luria⁵ termed – a “kinetic melody” – in referring to a person’s signature on paper.

Using music as an exemplar of Basal Ganglia function isn’t arbitrary. The Basal Ganglia is not only activated by, but functions as if by the energy of a musical score. No wonder, Sacks⁶ alludes to the power of music as both the agent of cure and the allegorical “release agent” of movement in the Parkinson’s sufferer, stating: “The power of music (can) integrate and cure,… liberate the Parkinsonian and give him freedom while it lasts (‘You are the music/while the music lasts,’ T.S. Eliot), is quite fundamental…”.

Later he adds in his book Awakenings⁷, speaking of a patient who suffered from encephalitis lethargica and who emerged for a while after being administered L-Dopa, that: Music serves to arouse her own quickness, her living-and-moving identity and will, which is otherwise dormant for so much of the time.” He stressed that a kind of “rhythmic impetus” has to be present, but that this has to be “embedded in melody. Raw overpowering rhythm, which cannot be so embedded, causes pathological jerking; it coerces instead of freeing the patient, and thus has an anti-musical effect”.

Chemical espionage and memory banks inform movement and thought

The Basal Ganglia “reports on itself” as it were – there is a dopaminergic feedback loop from the substantia nigra, which controls the level of activation of the inhibitory output nuclei of the Basal Ganglia to the Thalamus. Nothing happens without the Basal Ganglia being informed by its myriad of chemical messengers, who not only report on function, but keep tabs on how that function is up- or down-regulated by means of inhibitory or excitation processes. Constant checks and balances in this system ensure a smoothness and an updating, a categorizing and re-categorising of memory-content, imprinting repetitive motor plans, firming and smoothing actions and carrying echoes of previous experiences (the brain lives its own past by using existing pathways as tracks upon which future perceptions, thoughts, actions and emotions will be executed)⁸. Thus actions and thoughts bring about newly conceptualised motor acts, imbued with the memories and embellished with practiced skills that went before. “Edelman describes how consciousness and memory (which he sees as dependent on continual ‘re-categorization’ ) are, normally, continually ‘updated’; and how this updating depends, in the first place, on movement, on free and smooth and orderly movement. The basal ganglia are necessary for this – Edelman calls them the “organs of succession”.⁹

“With you I can…”

This is again not something which the Parkinson’s patient or someone with damage to the Basal Ganglia can easily enjoy, as paths seem horribly disrupted – one encephalitis lethargica patient explained her loss of independence in these stark terms: “I can do nothing alone, she said. I can do anything with – with music or people to help me. I cannot initiate, but I can fully share. You ‘normals’ you are full of ‘go’ and when you are with me I can partake of all this. The moment you go away, I am nothing again.”¹⁰

Toxicity factors in Basal Ganglia damage – Gulf-War Syndrome and Autism – a parallel

There are many sufferers who have had insults to the Basal Ganglia: Parkinson’s-, Alzheimer’s-, Encephalitis Lethargica-, old age-, brain injury-, Gulf-War veterans and many other less obvious categories of sufferers. In this article I will focus on one such group that deserves attention – the Gulf-War Veterans and link this group and their dysfunction to the developmental enigma of autism.

I am vicariously reminded of an article on findings published by a UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas study, published in the American Medical Association’s Archives of Neurology¹¹ , which linked brain cell loss in the left basal ganglia of sick Gulf War veterans with out-of-control production of a brain neurotransmitter chemical called dopamine. “With injury to the brain cells that normally control dopamine production, the cells at first go wild, overproducing dopamine,” said Dr. Frederick Petty, a UT Southwestern professor of psychiatry and staff psychiatrist at the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He indicated that over time these over-stimulated cells might wear out and die, causing degenerative brain diseases.

The Gulf War Syndrome Veterans can be placed in three distinct categories of dysfunction and these categories have implications when tracking where damage occurs in the neuro-anatomical/-physiological array of the Basal Ganglia structures:

1. The first group were classified as having impaired cognition (thinking, communication and socialisation impaired) – that means that the processes from the Basal Ganglia into the pre-frontal and frontal cortices were affected.
2. The second group were classed as having had confusion-ataxias (movement impaired). This group would have the motor projections of the Basal Ganglia most severely affected.
3. The final group suffered severe, debilitating and prolonged pain (sensation impaired), and it is my understanding that the processes to the thalamus would be most significantly impacted in this group, as thalamic syndrome is a condition where one can’t process pain until it suddenly becomes over-whelming and so intense that it causes extreme trauma.

Of special significance with regards to these physiological markers, there are parallels with other diseases / syndromes, which, like those with Gulf War Syndrome, fall in the categories, determined by unique toxicity issues:

Gulf War Syndrome Veterans – Group 1 – impaired cognition: They wore pesticide-containing flea collars (endocrine disrupters)^12,13.

Group 2 – confusion ataxias: They were exposed to low-level nerve gas and experienced side effects from anti-nerve gas, or pyridostigmine bromide (PB), tablets (suppression of/or destruction of birth-sites for catecholemines such as dopamine).

Group 3 – prolonged pain sensitivity: wore insect repellent with high concentrations of DEET and experienced side effects from the PB tablets (as above – VOC’s destroy nerve cells). My own exploratory observations into the aetiologies of autism, led me to see some interesting parallels. Autistic children are diagnosed by means of a triad of impairment, affecting communication (cognition), movement (apraxias/dyspraxias) and stereotypical behaviours (self-stimulatory – often due to disturbed sensory hungers – sensation impaired).

My own exploratory observations into the aetiologies of autism, led me to see some interesting parallels. Autistic children are diagnosed by means of a triad of impairment, affecting communication (cognition), movement (apraxias/dyspraxias) and stereotypical behaviours (self-stimulatory – often due to disturbed sensory hungers – sensation impaired).

Many autistic individuals (as also seen in Gulf-War Syndrome sufferers – GWSS’s), struggle with severe cognitive issues, have major dyspraxias, dysarthias, apraxias, whilst some are ataxic and there are those who experience all of the above, but have their condition exacerbated by hyper- (or hypo) sensitivity to sound, smell, taste, light, touch, pain, etc.

The connection is clear, at least to me, that system breakdown for both GWSS’s and Autistic individuals may be identical, i.e. I wish to infer that the same elements of damage/dys-regulation which have been detected in Gulf War Syndrome sufferers, may also be wreaking havoc in the brains of autistic individuals. Now that we have explicit proof¹⁴ that there is neuronal loss in the brains of the GWSS’s, can we not infer that autistic individuals may be dys-regulated for the same reason? Whether subtle or explicit damage, I believe that the “cure” of Autistic individuals would lie in the same place where we would find a “cure” for GWSS’s.

Having said that, I propose that toxicity issues drive both conditions. The “disappearance” from normal of an autistic individual one fair day in their first, second or third year of life, may have more to do with a bio-chemical or neuro-immunological insult of the Basal Ganglia, than what it has to do with purported psychological harm done by a frigid parent or pre-birth rejection of the unborn child by a mother faced with an unwanted pregnancy!

Do I have any facts in corroboration of my hypothesis? I certainly do! Since 2000 our Institute, Synapse Africa Brain Dynamics Clinic, has been sending urine samples to the Paediatric Research Institute in Oslo, Norway, to one of the world’s foremost researchers in protein peptide research, Dr. Kalle Reichelt – to date more than 400 samples have been initiated by our Institute.

These urine samples were sent to detect whether children with autism and a variety of other learning disabilities, such as late onset of speech (motor), stuttering (motor), oral dyspraxias (motor), dyslexia (cognitive), visual-motor learning disabilities (motor), sensory integration disorders, such as hyper-acute hearing, touch defensiveness, etc. (sensory), which have taken their toll on emotion, communication, socialisation and cognition, may have any roots in the excess opioid theory of Jaak Panksep, researcher in the late 1970’s who postulated that autistic individuals had raised opiate levels in their brains.

The sample results consistently and conclusively support that virtually every, single autistic child ever tested, plus a large percentage of learning disabled, attention deficit, behaviourally, sensory and cognitively dys-regulated individuals, show remarkably high levels of opioid peptides in their urine (gluta-morphines, caso-morphines and gliadino-morphines) [mal-digested protein due to enzyme deficiencies].

These opioids dys-regulate the normal neuro-chemistry of the brain and particularly in the basal ganglia’s substantia nigra. The opioids have a drug-like effect and are designed to perform neural pruning (excessively zealous pruning when apoptosis – [programmed cell death] should have been concluded, opioids prolong the process of programmed cell death, beyond that which is desirable!).

What is the connection then with toxicity? If one studies the effects of heavy metals on the metabolism of the human body, it soon becomes clear that heavy metals (now strongly implicated in autism)¹⁵ cause major
disruption of almost all detoxification pathways in the human body, as well as on digestion, due to the effect that these toxic elements have on the body’s enzymes that regulate life processes.

Of late (2003 – 2010) our Institute, has also been instrumental in having mineral hair analyses¹⁶ done on the hair of children with autism and those with developmental delays and learning disabilities plus on adults with a variety of psycho-social and emotional problems (also seen in GWSS’s). The results support that the population of autistic, LD, ADD and behaviourally/emotionally dys-regulated individuals consistently show evidence of the presence of potentially toxic elements, lead, aluminium, mercury, cadmium, antimony, nickel, uranium, etc.

My hypothesis that requires further research and scrutiny is that these toxic metals/elements may have a similar effect on the brain, as did the pesticides, the nerve gases and the vaccines that Gulf-War Syndrome sufferers were subjected to during their stint in the Gulf…

Antibiotics, micro-organisms and toxicity issues impacting the Basal Ganglia

The last marker for toxicity in autism, which I offer in corroboration of my hypothesis that there is a distinct parallel between those who suffer with GWS and autistic individuals, can be traced when studying micro-organism organic acids as toxicity producing agents in the human body. Our Institute has carefully looked at the work of Dr. William Shaw¹⁷. He offers evidence that autism and other syndromes, which are present as developmental delays, may be caused by myco-toxins from microbes, such as Candida, and bacteria, such as Clostridia. The former give off organic acids which are both neuro-toxic and muscle toxic (tartaric acid, citramalic); they also seem to be implicated in the formulation of arabinose in the body, a sugar, which only occurs in people who are seriously colonized by colonies of yeasts. Elevated protein-bound arabinose has also been detected in the serum proteins of schizophrenic individuals, in children with behavioural problems, such as conduct disorder and Dr. Shaw¹⁸ believes that arabinose may affect biochemical processes in autism as well as other diseases. Arabinose, for example, causes pentosidines which lead to neuro-fibrillary tangles in the brains of Alzheimer patients.

One of the times when yeasts and fungi proliferate at exponential rates is when the body is subjected to (high/repeated) doses of antibiotics, where good flora is destroyed in the GI tract and toxicity-producing micro-organisms can overgrow unchecked (dys-biosis).

There is once again a parallel between those with Gulf War Syndrome and those with Autism: both show significant cognitive, sensory and motor problems, so debilitating that some actually die. Both show exposure to toxins (whatever those toxins may be) and an auto-immune breakdown reflecting a breech in the body’s immune response to foreign invaders, as well as an inability to detoxify and to maintain vitality. Gulf War Syndrome sufferers were fed a cocktail of several vaccinations and chemical warfare “protective” agents, which some¹⁹ say were intended to be a human experiment. [There is an issue of ethics and a question whether there shouldn't be criminal culpability on the side of the USDoD as these soldiers had not volunteered to be subjected to these chemical insults, but were ordered to submit to procedures that violate the vitality of their persons – not central to this discussion though!].

Dr. Scheibner²⁰ explains that despite very low direct casualties of the war (only 148 men were killed in combat and 467 were injured among the US units), that the indirect casualties of this war were incalculable: She states that: “The compounds given to the Gulf War personnel fulfilled none of the requirements to justify their administration. They made the recipients very ill, some 6000 personnel died from them and they incapacitated tens of thousands more who had to perform while suffering symptoms caused by the compounds.”

Defence Department funded research into the neurological status of these Veterans revealed that the most likely sites for brain injury would be the Basal Ganglia neurons and it took its toll on dopamine production because the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome strongly resemble early symptoms of well-studied degenerative diseases of the basal ganglia like Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Wilson’s and Fahr’s diseases. Typical symptoms of Gulf War syndrome include chronic fatigue, dizziness and attacks of vertigo, general body pain, attention and concentration problems, personality changes, depression, and tremor²¹.

A final comment on the parallels between Gulf War Syndrome Veterans and autistic individuals is that a routine organic acid screening test run by Dr. Shaw’s laboratory in the USA, frequently shows elevated urine levels of homovanillic acid in autistic children – twice the upper level which constitutes normal. This too could be due to the disruption that micro-organisms, such as Candida and Clostridia, cause in the body’s bio-chemical regulation in autistic individuals. Catecholemine-secreting tumours can be responsible for excessively high levels of HVA, as can a disruption/destruction in the Dopaminergic pathways in the Basal Ganglia due to chemical damage to these pathways. The Gulf War Veterans who showed a 9% destruction of the cells in the Left Basal Ganglia on proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, with significant damage to the dopamine production centre (substantia nigra) in a lateralised pattern, giving rise to elevated levels of HVA (homovanillic acid) – which is used to assess central dopamine activity.

Refferences

¹Sacks, Oliver, 1990: Awakenings.
²Webster, Noah: 1828 – American Dictionary of the English Language, CURE
³Reilly, Ronan, 2001: http://cortex.cs.may.ie/research – 24/04/24 – Cortical Software re-use: A Computational Principle for Cognitive
Development in Robots.
⁴Barker, Roger, (2002) – The Functional Organisation of the Basal Ganglia, p.1
⁵Luria, A. R. (1973). The Working Brain. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-09208-X.
⁶Sacks, Oliver, (1990), p. 60

⁷Sacks, Oliver, (1990), p. 61
⁸Reilly, Ronan, http://cortex.cs.may.ie/research,( 2004) – Cortical Software Re-use.
⁹Sacks, Oliver,(1990), pp. 83/4
¹⁰Sacks, Oliver,(1990), pp.61
¹¹Arch Neurol. 2000 Sep; 57(9):1263.

¹²Thomas, Pat, (2003), p. 9

¹³Thomas, Pat,( 2003) pp. 65/6: Pesticide: “The word ‘esticide’ covers a range of lethal chemicals such as insecticides, herbicides and rodenticides, …Pesticides contain Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) as both active and inactive ingredients. …are harmful to humans …contain a ‘cocktail of chemicals (causing) cancer, foetal damage, liver and nerve damage, skin problems, and irritation to the eyes and respiratory system.’
¹⁴Arch Neurol. 2000 Sep;57(9):1263.
¹⁵Schafer Autism Newsletter – April, 15th, 2010 – Vol. 13, # 36 -http://www.sarnet.org/lib/SARtext14-36.htm
¹⁶Micro Trace Minerals Laboratory – more than 800 samples sent to date – April, 2010
¹⁷Shaw, William, M.D., (2002), Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD, p. 36 – 38.
¹⁸Shaw, William, M.D., (2002), Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD, p. 36 – 38.
¹⁹Scheibner, Viera, PhD, (2000), Behavioural Problems in childhood – The Link to Vaccinations, pp. 96 – 109.
²⁰Scheibner, Viera, PhD, (2000), Behaviouiral Problems in childhood – The Link to Vaccinations, pp. 96 – 109.
²¹Arch Neurol. 2000 Sep;57(9):1280-5.

Remedial teaching has for years narrowly focused on the symptoms of conditions such as ADHD, and dyslexia, attempting to address them by means of behavior modification, repetition, or compensations, utilizing a student’s strengths. This approach has had mixed results. Some students respond well while others seem to “outgrow” their deficits. However, a significant number of students remain heavily dependent on outside help both in and outside the classroom. Some were mainstreamed, and for a while we thought we had managed to redeem their futures only to find an unhealthy number filtering back into remedial situations or becoming school dropouts. What can we do with these children, who test with average and even above average IQ scores, but who never seem to quite “get there”?

Neuro-Cognitive Reconstructive Therapy™ approaches learning disabilities from a premise that a true learning disability is intrinsic to the student and is not caused by a student’s environment or by the educational system. Therefore, changing the system (i.e. accommodations, tutors, etc.) will not change the learning disability.

A true learning disability, a deficit due to central nervous system dysfunction, can only be truly remediated by addressing the cognitive and perceptual deficits within the individual.

Hemispheric Asymmetry and LD

The normal human brain is structured for optimal learning through asymmetry – that is, the two sides of the brain look and act differently. The left hemisphere is well suited to logical, sequential, organizational types of tasks while the right is at its best with more creative, conceptual duties. Competitive hemispheric function is a result of two hemispheres that are too alike in structure and function. Where a child’s genetic predisposition brings about greater symmetry, the effect is often lack of concentration. Other tell-tale signs of hemispheric competition are stuttering, dysfluency, dyspraxias and various visual-motor integration deficits. The percentage of those with bilateral language deficits is approximately 9 – 11%, the same percentage of students who struggle with attentional and learning deficits.

The most severe impairments stem from language control in the wrong hemisphere, such as when language and speech is controlled in the right instead of the left hemisphere. This condition frequently leads to the most resistant forms of dyslexia, as the language dominance is in a hemisphere ill suited to language function. The right hemisphere is not logical, cannot sequence, isn’t analytical and cannot think in time – all critical skills for effective language control. Statistics reveal that approximately 4 – 9% of the population has language controlled in the right hemisphere, a close correlation to the percentage of those considered to be severely learning disabled.

Brain Plasticity

If it is true that learning disabilities are intrinsic and that such brain structures are not conductive to learning, how then can these students learn? Previously it was thought that neurological loss was permanent. However, the latest research in neurocognition, shows that the brain is essentially plastic at any age. Replacement tissue for damaged neurons can grow in the brain. A rethinking has emerged based on the work of scientists like Dr. Ira Black, Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ. She and other scientists have set out to find out what makes the brain plastic. Their work focuses on the “trophic” factor, or the amazing survival potential of every cell of the human body, including the brain. Dr. Black maintains that the unique ability of the brain to survive against great odds can be attributed to the brain’s flexibility, altering structures and functions in response to its environment over time. The development of new thinking patterns may arise simply because the brain has been intensively challenged to form novel organizations.

Taking Time For Change

Change is possible and that is how this population of at-risk children will learn. However, time is essential. So often parents and teachers have heard it said “Johnny has reached his potential, he has reached a ceiling…” or “He is too old for this kind of intervention.” Gazzaniga et al. (1995) state that the plasticity of the brain is enhanced from one millisecond to the next, building a grid, which is read by the nervous system as quasi-permanent if used often enough to maintain that grid. Weak and faulty memory banks can be rebuilt and strengthened. These changes take place over days and weeks. The more acute the stimulus, the more permanent are the changes in the neural structure.

Research also shows that such plasticity follows a person throughout life. Kaas (Gazzaniga, 1995) states that changes in damaged cortical perceptual and perceptual-motor maps can be affected even in adults, within minutes, hours, days or weeks. Black explains that growth factors play a uniquely unifying role in the brains of adults as well as children, in the sense that they integrate experience (input from the outside world) with impulse activity and synaptic pathways, thus becoming more and more plastic and enabling neural architecture to change – regardless of the age of the person. The brain left unmediated will gravitate toward less plasticity. Conversely, the brain which is challenged and stimulated will grow toward greater plasticity.

If the above research holds a caveat for educators and parents, it is this: It is inexcusable for anyone who knows change is possible to allow students to struggle and become frozen in a disability, maintaining that they are beyond help or have “reached their ceiling”.

The key for all mediators of learning is to understand that we need to be kind yet insistent, applying respectful pressure to those deficit areas in perception and cognition, pushing against the old dysfunctional neurology, until new, functional patterns emerge. The process is tedious, often painstaking, as it may feel as if we are trying to impress prints in wet sand. However, the process yields remarkable results. Patience is needed as molecules change cells, that in turn change transmitters, which change synapses, affecting change in circuits that govern perceptions, that govern memory banks, that feed thoughts and conceptualizations and ultimately change thinking patterns from dysfunctional to functional.

What is Neuro-Coginitive Reconstructive Therapy?

Neuro-Cognitive Reconstructive Therapy™ is an intervention which addresses the lack of cerebral asymmetry and/or other perceptual deficits by presenting the brain with tasks that require logical, analytical and sequential processing, the aim being to establish language control in the left hemisphere. Such processing involves multi-modal integration, meaning that both hemispheres and multiple modality centers must work together. Interactive language between therapist and student is the basis for the process since the location and dominance of the language centers are important aspects of optimal brain function.

Further benefits of Neuro-Cognitive Reconstructive Therapy™ are improved attention, visual-motor and sensory integration, memory, and processing speed, more efficient thinking and decreased impulsivity. These outcomes are achieved through two one-on-one 80 minute sessions per week. Each therapy session consists of a variety of techniques customized to address specific deficits and develop flexibility of thinking. The techniques require high multi-modality integration (visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic) and are part of every student’s program. These and other techniques are implemented in a program of progressive challenge, constantly mediating the student to his highest potential.

The belief in deficit stimulation was an idea ahead of its time in the 1960’s as an organization in the USA, NILD’s Educational Therapy™ was being developed. Yet today it is receiving continual confirmation through research, particularly in the neurological sciences. Pushing deficit areas in perception and cognition remains a key to seeing the brain miraculously restructure itself and rewire its faulty circuits. Change is possible, and Neuro-Cognitive Reconstructive Therapy™ is a powerful agent of that change!

Refferences

Black, I. B. (1995) Trophic Interactions and Brain Plasticity. The Cognitive Neurosciences, pgs. 8-19, Gazzaniga, M.S., Ed. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA

Gazzaniga, M.S. (1995) The Cognitive Neurosciences. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA

What is THE DIET I’m referring to? It is a gluten-free, casein-free, gliadin-free diet. I instruct those with significant health problems who see me to take all grains, dairy, legumes, nuts, seeds and pulses out of their diets.

The nett result? No more allergies, no more asthma, eczema gone, IBS gone, no more constipation, no more diarrhoea, children who are autistic stop bizarre behaviours and start speaking, children and adults with sleeping problems start sleeping though. Others lose weight, say their blood pressure problems have diminished or disappeared, their cancers are receding and their depression has lifted. Schizophrenics move back into reality and those with bi-polar disorders regain control over their lives….

So, in short, does it work? It most certainly does and I am delighted to be the recipient of the many, many good-news stories!

Please feel free to either share your story or post your comments/questions and let’s get the ball rolling in discussing this crucial and life-changing intervention.

And oh, what CAN you eat? All meat, chicken, eggs, vegetables (except beans of any kind, which includes coffee beans, cocao beans, broad beans, soya beans, lupine beans, baked beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas) and fruit. I allow corn, sorghum and brown rice and for those who do not have thyroid problems, I allow millet once or twice a week, as millet is a thyroid disrupter.

Many people are worried that they won’t get full on a low carbohydrate diet – I allow potatoes, sweet potatoes (yams), butternut, pumpkin, turnips, parsnips, squashes, banana and as I said above corn, brown rice and sorghum, with the odd day’s millet.

These diets are NOT nutrient poor, in fact, they are VERY COMPREHENSIVE, but need management, such as ensuring that super-nutrition (*my phrase which means nutrients given in addition or above food intake*) is carefully monitored. Here I think of at least the RDA of Calcium, Magnesium, B-Complex and some Vitamin C in high doses.

Fish is totally out, unless you can see it’s head and tail on the palm of your hand and even then don’t consume more than 1x per week.

I always ask people to drop the deadly (white) killer, sugar, from their diets and start reading labels – all that sucrose, maltose, lactose, fructose, and what-ever other -ose they can hide in our foods – please stay away from these. Honey, loved and touted by many as a healing compound, can cause intestinal disruption, so use sparingly, if at all. Some of you just simply CAN’T use honey, as it’s glucose content is HIGH and your glucose metabolism is poor.

I hope these initial few comments help set the scene for an excellent discussion. If you have questions we can’t manage on this forum, please feel free to book a consultation at Johannesburg office. Tel. 011-760-2951.

There are three levels on which these behaviours classify a child as autistic: Impairment of

1. Social interaction (“world of their own”)
2. Communication (can’t communicate at an age appropriate level)
3. Imagination (doesn’t play in the same way as other children do).

Whatever the behaviours are, Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is marked by a narrow, repetitive range of activities and self-limiting behaviours.

Few parents know what to do when their child receives as diagnosis of autism and as a Clinical Metal Toxicologist, I wish to express today that autism is NOT a life-long, condition for which there is no hope. The Autism Research Institute, USA (www.autism.com) has pioneered an intervention called Defeat Autism Now! – one of many hopeful intervention strategies which has show-cased to the world at large that children with autism can and do recover.

In order to understand how protocols like the Defeat Autism Now! Protocol works, one needs to first understand the foundational truths about this condition: ASD is not primarily a genetic disorder, though there are genetic links that has been uncovered which can give rise to more than one sibling becoming autistic in a single family. In May 2005 studies were published that stated that there were between 5 – 20 genes implicated in autism – with location on chromosome 11 & 17.

Dr. Devra Davis, from the Mt. Sinai Medical Institute recently visited South Africa and said about cancer: “Genes give you a loaded gun, but environmental factors pull the trigger”.

What dr. Davis suggested for cancer is equally true for ASD. For many boys and girls the loaded gun is what makes it impossible for them to properly detoxify. Leading scientists conclude that non-genetic factors may at least be partially responsible for current epidemic proportions of the diagnostic incidence.

There are at least 51 overlapping genes which show a genetic predisposition for autism and a sensitivity to environmental factors.

Unfortunately there is no “magic bullet” – no single biomedical test available which can pinpoint with a great amount of certainty that a child is or isn’t autistic, or what the cause might be.

Currently upwards of 1/6^th of all children in the USA suffer from autism, ADD, ADHD, dyslexia and other learning disabilities. “Kids at Risk” – the US News and World Report already announced on 19th June, 2000 that there is a definite link between chemicals in the environment and the rising numbers of children with learning disabilities.

From uterus throughout adolescence a series of complex nerve processes develop in a carefully timed sequence. Cells proliferate; move to the correct spot, synapses form, neural circuits are refined, neurotransmitters and receptors grow. Neuro-toxicants may slow, accelerate or otherwise modify any of these neural processes and the end result could be autism.

In California the rise in the number of children becoming autistic has been recorded as follows: 1987 – 1998: 210% increase in cases diagnosed from 3,164 to 11,995. Learning disabilities in the state of New York soared by 55% from 132,000 to 204,000 between 1983 – 1996.

In March 2000 research in the state of New York revealed that pregnant women breathed in at least 3 neuro-toxic pesticides which were able to cause disorders in foetuses as they commute to work.

Why are these figures so disconcerting? They frighten us because toxic metals and pesticides are ubiquitous: apples, for example, are sprayed with arsenic-containing pesticides 14 times per season before the fruit makes it to market.

Research has shown that PCB’s (Poly-carbon-bi-phenols) are involved in language delays. Increased exposure to aluminium has dire implications for the developing brain: it is implicated in speech delays, seizures, muscle problems, and the like. It also causes hesitancy, stuttering, disarthria, dyspraxia, dysphasia, myoclonic movements, directional orientation, constipation, colic, nausea, gastric irritation, and loss of appetite, local numbness, loss of energy and even senile dementia and Alzheimer ’s disease. Experts now speculate that Autism might be a form of juvenile Alzheimers disease (Shaw, 2001). Aluminium hides itself in cooking utensils, salts, food additives, antacid tablets, anti-diarrhoea medication, cosmetics, baking powder, pharmaceutical and personal hygiene preparations, soya baby formulas, drinking water and dental fillings!

Of all the interventions which brought children out of their autistic shells, the Autism Research Institute ranked detoxification from heavy (toxic) metals at the very top of their list with a rating of 35:0 – that is for every 35 children recovering from detoxification not a single child got worse) (Baker and Pangborn, 2005)!

Other hopeful interventions were: removal of

• milk products (32:0),
• chocolate ( 30:0),
• addition of vitamin A (powerful anti-oxidant – 23:0),
• introduction of fatty acids (protection against cell membrane peroxidation by toxic metals – 23:0),
• introduction of digestive enzymes (toxic metals suppress enzymes – 20:0),
• introducing zinc supplementation (zinc is a key part of metallothioneine – a protein which binds to toxic metals and removes them from cells – 20:0),
• gluten and casein from the diet – 20:0).

One of the most devastating exposures in fetuses and young children is exposure to mercury in fish (in 1976 the Canadian government already warned pregnant women not to eat any fish caught in Canadian waters – coastal or inland – due to the heavy mercury poisoning of the food chain by industry). Babies in my practice show high mercury shortly after birth because of breastfeeding from a mother who has mercury amalgams in her teeth. The higher the mercury load is in the mother, the more certain that she will chelate her mercury through her breast milk to baby.

In a recent campaign to bring awareness about the dangers of mercury in children’s vaccines, the CIMIV (Children Injured by Mercury in Vaccines) lobby posted a huge advert asking the following question: “Does your baby weight over 500 pounds?” As ridiculous as that might sound, the fact is that according to the Environmental Protection Agency a person must weigh over 500 pounds ( 227.27 kg) to “safely” process the amount of mercury still present in certain vaccines, like the DPT, including flu shots. And yet, these shots are recommended for pregnant women and infants.

What you as a parent should know is:

• Mercury is STILL present in all vaccines in South Africa except the MMR, which contains 3 live, attenuated viruses that pose their own risk to the fragile immune system of your infant.
• These vaccines are STILL being injected into children and pregnant women and strongly encouraged by our national health ministry.
• Numerous scientists from the best universities in the world are proving that mercury is vaccines kill brain cells as well as immune cells.
• 1 in 6 children currently suffer from learning disabilities
• Most flu shots and several other vaccines contain 50,000 parts per billion mercury. Landfill waste must be less than 200 parts per billion mercury!
• Mercury is not a necessary component for vaccines, but it does increase the profit margin for pharmaceutical companies.
• Only 15 people – The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in the USA – tell the Centres for Disease Control in the USA which vaccines to put in that country’s national immunization schedule.
• In 1999 the federal government of the USA and physician groups vowed to remove mercury from children’s vaccines – but when a first world county like the USA decided that, the glut of unusable vaccines manufactured for that market was dumped on third world countries and developing countries like South Africa.
• The ACIP refused to honour the promise made by the USA government, physicians and President Bush if re-elected to office.
• TODAY, IF YOU ARE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO FIND A VACCINE WHICH IS MERCURY FREE – it’s still a multiple-in-one vaccine and the “new” preservative to drive up profits is… Aluminium (Sanofi-Pasteur – own communication, 2008).

Our babies are born into a frightening world of chemical excesses. There is much we can’t prevent, but when it comes to toxic metal exposure there are steps you as a parent can take:

• Avoid smoking and insist that no-one smokes near you – don’t let being polite harm your unborn child.
• Avoid eating fish, especially tuna, during pregnancy – you need Omega 3, but obtain it through a filtered, guaranteed mercury-free supplement source.
• If you have amalgam fillings in your teeth, don’t fall pregnant before removing these safely (www.smilestudio.co.za) and NEVER have amalgams inserted or removed during pregnancy.
• Drink Reverse Osmosis filtered water with the good minerals and trace minerals reintroduced.
• Don’t sit near an open fire where there’s smoke (avoid braais).
• Defer your child’s vaccines and try and go for homeopathic alternatives to vaccines, especially if there is left-handedness, allergies and immune system problems in your family.
• If you HAVE to vaccinate, demand that the state remove mercury from vaccines as well as aluminium.
• Peel all fruit and vegetables after washing them thoroughly.
• Move / change your job if you live near any mining operations, gold / coal or coal-fired power plants – coal-ash from power plants product 10 times more radiation than nuclear reactors because the concentrate trace amounts of radioactive elements with pollute water, air and soil (Scientific American, December, 13, 2007).

If we remove the toxins from our mouths, stopped smoking and held national (nuclear) regulators responsible for more stringent environmental protection laws governing radiation, toxic waste and dirty energy production, we’d have nothing to lose and everything to gain. At the very worst, it can’t hurt us if we clean up our act, but, at best, we might save the lives of millions. I vote for the latter!

Dear Friends, these photos aren’t promotional pics – they represent real children, with real needs, which Berard AIT has helped over the past decade and more that I’ve been involved in this field. A year ago the little boy, H., above only had autistic jargon in English…. now he speaks his mother-tongue fluently and has even won an Eisteddfod in his local town for best interpretation of a poem …

I spoke to the mom of one of the boys above [D. is his name], this morning. She volunteered that he has had the best year in his entire academic career this year and she knows that AIT, which he’s had for the 3rd time a few months ago, has played a huge role….

I have to remind myself that it’s because of these moms and their sons and daughters that AIT has stolen my heart….. In the picture on the left are two little boys, both with developmental delays. Both have had AIT 3 times, both have made immense gains!

When Dr. Berard wrote “Hearing Equals Behavior ” the Pragmatist in him said: “Let’s just DO IT!” and he did! He chopped and changed his method to suit the needs of those whom he came to serve…. and now we’ve been cast into solid concrete – rigid, no relenting, no negotiation – the filters are the filters, the rules are the rules and somewhere in all of this, I mourn, because we’ve lost the heart of AIT, the spirit and the vision that brings change, because AIT is a change agent in the lives of the countless thousands who have been treated and can testify to what it set in motion in their lives….

So, perhaps our contribution is only a drop in the bucket. I’d like to think that what you and I have contributed in terms of life and healing in the lives of scores of children counts for something – we’ve done a great work, just because we’ve flung ourselves on the principles of a rather reckless pragmatist, whose method turned broken lives into something amazingly valuable and vibrantly alive!

When Dr. Berard wrote “Hearing Equals Behavior ” the Pragmatist in him said: “Let’s just DO IT!” and he did! He chopped and changed his method to suit the needs of those whom he came to serve…. and now we’ve been cast into solid concrete – rigid, no relenting, no negotiation – the filters are the filters, the rules are the rules and somewhere in all of this, I mourn, because we’ve lost the heart of AIT, the spirit and the vision that brings change, because AIT is a change agent in the lives of the countless thousands who have been treated and can testify to what it set in motion in their lives….

So, perhaps our contribution is only a drop in the bucket. I’d like to think that what you and I have contributed in terms of life and healing in the lives of scores of children counts for something – we’ve done a great work, just because we’ve flung ourselves on the principles of a rather reckless pragmatist, whose method turned broken lives into something amazingly valuable and vibrantly alive!

You see it in their eyes – the pain, the lost-ness, the longing to belong and to deep yearning to communicate and be heard. Above is one of the most courageous little guys, a real “cool dude” as he likes to be called, who has fought his battle with Cerebral Palsy and won; who scaled the walls of autism and triumphed; who struck a breech into the cold, dark walls of speech delay and emerged with vibrancy – a voice to remember, a boy to salute.

Without you, Dr. Berard, all these amazing victories would never have been possible! I salute you, the children and parents of the world salute you -your work and the years of wisdom that gave us the flexible, dynamic tool to work wonders in broken brains!

Thanks for what you did to release AIT into the hands of faithful practitioners. We don’t hold it against you that in the closing chapters of your life, you trembled and faltered – uncertain whether this great work would survive, and bequeathed you life’ work into the hands of ones less honorable than yourself. Sadly greed now threatens to steal the light and leave many to curse the dark as many endeavour to make AIT unattainably expensive and wish to entrench it in the practices of only a few select people. I implore those who have chosen personal profit above the joy of setting lives on fire with skill, to PLEASE re-think and look long and hard at these faces and what they represent, before you close down our practices and with it the gift that it is as we impart our knowledge and Berard-styled magic to the LD world.

Colds, respiratory illnesses, intestinal viruses, mono, and other infectious diseases are constantly present in American schools. In response, my teenage kids have placed four bowls on the kitchen counter – a large one in the middle full of vitamin C surrounded by three smaller bowls of niacin, vitamin D, and thiamine tablets. They help themselves to the vitamins when they feel the need, and many of their friends have adopted the idea as well. Regularly, the kids report that the vitamins actually work. The most frequent comments are, “Wow, I can breath through my nose again!”, and “I was sure I was getting sick yesterday but I feel fine today.”

How did this start? My father introduced me to vitamin C as a teenager and I was further inspired by Linus Pauling’s “How to Live Longer and Feel Better.” (1) In order to safely raise my kids on extra vitamins with maximum effectiveness, I started actively researching orthomolecular medicine. As a result, I advised my teenage children to focus on responsive dosing of four vitamins that are underrepresented in modern diets. I provided the following suggested daily doses as a starting point:

6000 mg of vitamin C
4000 IU of vitamin D
200 mg of thiamine
250 mg of time-release niacin

There is an obvious association between vitamin intake and poor health. Teenagers can understand this. Some might think that it is not good parenting to let teens have unfettered access to nutrients. We need to constantly remember that these and other vitamins are non-prescription for a reason. (2) As previous Orthomolecular Medicine News Service articles have pointed out (3), vitamins are remarkably safe. They are far better then sugary candy, fast foods loaded with sodium and fat, or caffeine-laced soft drinks.

Vitamin supplements have been widely available for only a few decades. For the first time, families have the ability to independently control intakes of essential nutrients. A very large amount of research has repeatedly shown that proactively controlling micro-nutrients is necessary to optimize health.

Easy access, peer acceptance, and occasional obvious usefulness, in that order, appear to me to be important motivators for teenagers. I am hopeful that my kids are more sensitive to their own health and the health of their friends, and are looking for an association between supplement use and improved health.

The kids know I’m the family “expert” on vitamins and I have occasional in depth conversations. I rarely maintain their interest. Vitamins have not, in my opinion, taken health care’s center stage because this theory is not particularly exciting. But you can prove it works by giving it a fair trial.

The vitamin revolution is about behavior. I don’t care why the kids take vitamins B1, B3, C, and D. I just care that they take them, and stay well as a result. Watching my children and their friends independently control their vitamin intake has been a turning point for me. I believe that my kids are ordinary kids and that most kids will respond similarly.

Media scare stories aside, the overwhelming scientific evidence is that we are living in a time of epidemic vitamin deficiency. Supplements correct that when food groups eating does not or can not. Deficiency of just these four vitamins is often responsible for the multitude of disorders that qualify children for special education and asthma medication. Later in life, inadequate vitamin intake clearly contributes to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, excessive dental cavities, anorexia, depression, dementia, and sleep disorders. Persons wishing to confirm or question this statement are encouraged to look at the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service archive, freely accessible at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml.

With the stakes so high, all methods of increasing consumption of these four vitamins are worth consideration. My kids have definitely benefited from supplemental vitamins. I’m hopeful that other parents will find this simple option equally useful.

(Stephen H. Brown received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale. He has worked for industry in the field of heterogeneous catalysis since 1988 and has 80 patents. Dr. Brown has been blogging at www.cforyourself.com since 2006, and contributing to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service since 2007.)

References:

(1) Reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/livelonger.html.

(2) Bronstein AC, Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Giffin SL. 2008 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System (NPDS): 26th Annual Report. Clinical Toxicology (2009). 47, 911-1084. The full text article is available for free download at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2008annualreport.pdf. Vitamins statistics are found in Table 22B, journal pages 1052-3. Minerals, herbs, amino acids and other supplements are in the same table, pages 1047-8.

(3) More than 75 OMNS news releases are available at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, PhD (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

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