A NEW DIRECTION: Hannah Poling, pictured above with her father Jon, revealed a possible underlying cause of autism that many outside the scientific community were unaware existed.
Image: AP PHOTO/W.A.HAREWOOD
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When the parents of Hannah Poling, a nine-year-old, Athens, Ga., girl who was diagnosed with autism just after the age of two, announced that a federal vaccine injury court had awarded them a settlement, the case reignited a decade-old debate about whether vaccines could potentially trigger the disorder. But what was somewhat lost in much of the coverage of the case was a little-known condition that the court said was aggravated by the vaccine, and which gave Hannah the features of autism.
That little known condition—"mitochondrial disorder"—involves the parts of cells frequently referred to as their "power plants," because they turn sugar into energy. Mitochondria are found in all tissues and organs in the body, and when they do not work properly they can cause or worsen diseases from diabetes to brain disorders. Jay Gargus, a specialist in human genetics and metabolism at the University of California, Irvine, says mitochondrial disorders are a bit like an electrical brownout: "As the electrical voltage starts falling, different appliances will start to fail," he says. "First, the television might turn off, then the lights might go off."
In July 2000, at 19 months of age, Poling received five vaccines containing nine immunizations—including inoculations against rubella (German measles), mumps and chicken pox. The girl had been developing normally, according to her parents—her father, Jon, is a Johns Hopkins–trained, practicing neurologist, her mother is an attorney and registered nurse—but in the months after the shots, she developed a fever and litany of other symptoms: diarrhea, appetite loss and intermittent screaming. A pediatric neurologist examining her in February 2001 later noted that she had lost some of the speech she had previously acquired, was no longer making eye contact, and was no longer sleeping through the night.
In its November 2007 decision the vaccine court said that the inoculations Poling received in July 2000 worsened her underlying mitochondrial disorder (which was discovered nearly a year later) and led to brain disease that appeared as symptoms of autism.
Theoretically, that makes sense: David Holtzman, a pediatric neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, notes that the brain is particularly dependent on the energy supplied by the mitochondria. "What's surprising and hard to specifically understand is why it's so characteristically affecting language function and social function," he adds. (In addition to symptoms of autism, Poling also reportedly had muscle weakness, difficulty with motor coordination, and a host of gastrointestinal problems.)
So how common are mitochondrial disorders? Could they explain why some children who receive vaccines develop autism, but the vast majority do not?
In an opinion piece in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Poling's father cited a 2005 study by a Portuguese research team that estimates as many as one in five kids diagnosed with autism also have a mitochondrial disorders. He notes that such a rate "does not qualify as 'rare.' In fact, mitochondrial dysfunction may be the most common medical condition associated with autism."
Hannah's disorder is likely due to a rare mutation in her DNA. Most of the DNA responsible for mitochondria is inherited from mothers, because mitochondrial genes are carried in the egg but not sperm. Salvatore DiMauro, a mitochondria expert at Columbia University, notes that the point mutation mentioned in Poling's case history--published in the Journal of Child Neurology--would imply that both she and her mother carried the genetic variation in all their tissues. So, he says, "you would expect to see the same results" in both the mother and the daughter. But Poling's mother, Terry, who is an attorney and a registered nurse, is not autistic.
That suggests the genetic defect responsible for Poling's condition is part of her nuclear DNA, which is separate from the mitochondrial variety, says DiMauro. This means that, scientifically, from the documents presented in the vaccine court, the Polings did not make a case that deserved compensation. (Attempts to contact Jon Poling about DiMauro's concern went unanswered; however, he agreed that his daughter's causative genetic defect was likely not in her mitochondrial DNA in an open letter on the blog NeuroLogica.)
John Shoffner, a mitochondrial disease expert who runs a laboratory in Atlanta, agrees. In at study of 40 patients with autism—including Poling, he found that two thirds had muscle weakness. If muscle weakness is seen early on in children, it may be a tip-off to an underlying mitochondrial disorder that could cause autism, because muscles are heavily dependent on mitochondria as an energy source. He also believes that the new work—he presented preliminary results last week at the American Academy of Neurology Conference in Chicago—will help explain why some children, such as Poling, experience worsening symptoms as a result of a fever.
He notes that the route from the vaccine to the child's autism was by no means direct. Hannah's mitochondria were already underperforming, so when she developed a fever from her vaccine, the increased energy requirements likely pushed them past their thresholds. A fever caused by an ear infection or the flu would likely have triggered the autism symptoms if they occurred before or between the ages of 24 and 36 months, he says, which is when classic, regressive autism, which affects one third of sufferers, usually appears.
Shoffner notes that parents and advocates looking to impugn vaccines as triggers for autism—or mitochondrial disease—need direct, not just circumstantial, evidence. "If you were sitting in a waiting room full of people and one person suddenly fell ill or died or something," he says, "would you arrest the person sitting right next to them?"
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10 Comments
Add CommentBy asking for an explanation of "why some vaccinated children develop autism but the vast majority don't," you irresponsibly imply that at least some cases of autism are caused by vaccines, but then discuss no evidence that this might be so. Any mitochondrial-disorder "explanation" would also have to grapple with the extensive studies showing no increase in the rate of autism among vaccinated children. By failing to mention such studies, you are not offering illumination about the topic; you're pouring gasoline on a fire that is already out of control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I would like to know is why a vaccine manufacturer had to pay out huge sums of money for something no one could ever have possibly known would have happened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNever mind. Americans have been programmed to think all corporations, esp. pharmaceuticals are Satan incarnate.
Such a finding seems to suggest some kind of link between autoimmune processes, mitocondrial disorders and mental illnesses (hypothesis PITAND - Paediatric Infection-Triggered AutoimmuneNeuropsychiatric Disorders - brought forward by Allen in in the nineties).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question is, what is causing mitochondria to mutate? One study says ultrasound can cause "irreversible" damage to mitochondria (STEPHENS, R.H., TORBIT, C.A., GROTH, D.G., TAENZER, J.C., &
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEDMONDS, P.D. (1978) Mitochondrial changes resulting from
ultrasound irradiation. In: White, D. & Lyons, E.A. ed.
Ultrasound in medicine, New York, Plenum Press, Vol. 4, pp.
591-594), There is also evidence that prenatal ultrasound is associated with autism (see my article, "Questions about Prenatal Ultrasound and the Alarming Increase in Autism" www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/ultrasoundrodgers.asp). Although it is widely ignored, there is sound scientific evidence that prenatal ultrasound is neither non-invasive nor risk-free.
Dear Nikhil Swaminathan,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Attempts to contact Jon Poling about DiMauro's concern went unanswered."
Overall good article, but you mistate the above. I'm not aware of you ever trying to contact me.
Regards,
Jon Poling MD PhD
Thanks for writing in Dr. Poling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, two calls were placed to your office answering service on April 17 and 18. And a follow-up email was sent to an address I found for you at the Medical College of Georgia on April 18.
That being said, if there's anything in the article that you'd care to refute, I am very happy to talk about the piece with you. As noted in the piece, your side of the story is missing. I'd be happy to follow-up this story.
Thanks so much,
nikhil
The companies don't pay anything out - they get to use a "no fault" system that consumers cannot. Truth is as the shot schedule was dramatically increased beginning in 1992 no one calculated exactly how much ethyl mercury was contained in the 1% labeling. It was extraordinary levels. My son - in tracing the vaccine lots back got 375mcg's of ethyl mercury - in his first 18 months of life - an extraordinary - and I might add EPA wise - an illegal amount. Nobody not even the most powerful pharmaceuticals in the world will be able to sweep this under the rug. To cover their tracks, so there would not be a complete drop off in autism as it was removed from routine childhood vaccines - it was still included in most flu shots - which then become "recommended" down to the age of 6 months. Do not allow this stuff to go into your body or that of your children. No one is given the packaging on vaccines and y0u'd need a microscope to read the warning labels if you were. It's not listed under ingredients - but somewhere else. THis coupled with a predisposition to not shed metals - and the ongoing contamination of our food supply through bioaccumulation is what is causing Brain Damage (which is what autism is) in so many of our children. It is our governments job - not industries to do conclusive studies and stop this tragedy. kc
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow do they assume that the supposed genetic defects/mitochondrial weakness existed before the series of vaccinations were given? If applying the scientific method they would also have to consider that vaccines may be triggering that genetic damage somehow. If children are completely healthy before the shots and then develop autism after the shots it's not logical to assume that there was a pre-existing problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCheck out the book "Son Rise", you could try: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0915811618/recoverybydiscovA/ or google it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLow energy made me think of the coldness you can feel from fear. The book Son Rise makes me think of failure to fully incarnate. A needle shot could be more fearful to some souls. Would recommend warmth and comfort at the time of the shots. Most mental conditions can be traced back to some trauma.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this