The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic

445 Pages·2010·63.65 MB·English

by  Dan Olmsted & Mark Blaxill

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DAN OLMSTED AND
MARK BLAXILL
Praise tor The Age affix/firm
“The Age (r/‘le/I/imz lays out disturbingevidence that mercury from manv *
smirces is a major factor in the rise ofthis tragic epidemic, andvaccines areby no
means offthe hook. Make sure your doctor sees a copy ofthis timelv book.”
‘—I)liIR1’)RIi [M L' s‘
“A fascinating medical detective story that should change the way
we think about and investigate environmental toxins and neurological disease.”
__(i A R Y (i R Ii Ii N B If) R ('i ,authorofAIdilzrfllcl‘urmg,I)c reg/'01)
l“\/
/
“'I‘be [llgc (Mi/111173721 shatters many myths ofthe very
real autism epidemic that is happeningbefore oureyes. livery parent
will benefit fro'm ()linsted and Blaxill’s well—rescarcl‘ied story ofthe
environmental factors contributing to autism."
——‘] li N N Y M c (I A R "l‘ ll Y ,authorof1.0m/er T/Jd/I “NU/”(15:
,‘l 1"IO/lfl’l‘3:70111721’j’ in I[cullingAlli/ml
“()lmsted and Blaxill drill deepinto evidence that will shock you,
angeryou, and leave you with one burningquestion: \Why are we still allowing
mercury to poison ourworld, ourchildren, ourselves?"
—l)() N N A I A (I K 80 N N A K AZAW A ,authorof
‘ “'17.70 kl(Ira/'I/zllzunc If/JI'c/c/Iz/c‘ '
THE AGE
OF
AUTISM
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
S'I‘. NI.-\RTII\"S PRESS
NEW YORK
THOMASDUNNEBOOKS.
AnimprintofSt. Martin’sPress.
QuotationsfromthearticlebyKannerandAdamsreprintedwithpermissionfrom
theAmericanJournaltquyc/ziatiy(Copyright© 1926),American Psychiatric
Association.
THEAGEOFAUTISM. Copyright© 2010byDan OlmstedandMarkBlaxill. Foreword
copyright© 2010byDavidKirby.Allrightsreserved. PrintedintheUnitedStates
ofAmerica. Forinformation,addressSt. Martin’sPress, 175 FifthAvenue,New
York,N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
ISBN978-0-312—54562-8
BookdesignbyMspace/MauraFada'enRosentlzal
FirstEdition: September2010
10987654321
FROMDAN: 7?)Mark, Mark, andMark—in thatorder
FROMMARK: 76Michaela, Sydng», andElise——
andalltheotherfamiliesafi‘ectea'[yr thetragedy (fautirm
CONTENTS
ForewordbyDavidKirby ix
Introduction:TheSeed 1
PART ONE: THE ROOTS
ChapterOne:TheAgeofSyphilis 19
ChapterTwo:TheAgeofHysteria 56
ChapterThree:TheAgeofAcrodynia 84
ChapterFour: Pollution 109
ChapterFive:TargetedToxins 137
PART TWO: THE RISE
ChapterSix:Germination 163
ChapterSeven:TheWrong Branches 200
ChapterEight:Growing LikeaWeed 233
ChapterNine:FruitofthePoisonedTree 260
ChapterTen: DiggingUpthe Roots 295
Epilogue:TheNightmareandthe Dream 347
Acknowledgments 365
AppendixA:NotesontheTuskegeeStudies 371
AppendixB:SelectedPapersandPatentsofthePlantPathologyNetwork 374
Endnotes 377
Index 407
FOREWORD
When it came to collecting quicksilver, the ancient Romans would send
condemned criminals and slaves into the mercury mines to extract the
poisonous metal from the earth’s crust. Thework, so gruesome andhaz-
ardous the miners would soon die a crazed and anguished death, was
considered unsuitable foreven the lowest classes ofRomans.
But once it was mined, the Romans had no qualms about using the
powerful neurotoxin formedicine and otherpurposes.
Theywould have been farbetteroffleaving the stuffin the ground.
Humans have always been exposed to limited amounts ofnaturally
occurring mercury from, say, volcanic eruptions, springwater, or fish.
Over the millennia, these low-level exposures have spurred the develop-
ment ofnatural defenses (called “mercaptans,” from the Latin for “cap-
turing mercury”) that bind with heavy metals and eliminate them from
the body.
Butthen humankindbegan to mine mercury, drawingitup from the
rocks below and using it for all sorts ofstrange purposes. Mercury, the
second deadliest element on earth after plutonium, ofcourse does not
break down, dissolve, or turn into something else. Instead, it accumu-
lates—in our food, air, andwater.
And though.we maylaugh at the Romans forbeingso ignorant as to
use mercury in medicine (and lead in waterpipes), the risky and unnec-
essarypractice continues to this day.
Worldwide mercury exposures have been skyrocketingin the last de-
cade or so, and dwarfanything seen in the time ofDickens and the in-
dustrial revolution. American lakebeds reveal astronomical levels ofthe
metal in recently settled sediment. Small fish and even songbirds are
turning up with high levels ofmercury contamination, which was hith-
ertothe soleprovince oftop-of-the-food-chainpredators. Mercurydepo-
sition rates rise each year, much of the mercury coming from coal
burning in the Far East, whose metal-laden emissions cross the Pacific
and settle onto North America in the form of rain fallout, only to be
kicked up again into the atmosphere by raging wildfires near increas-
inglypopulated areas.
Allofthis “background” mercurymeansthatourownpersonallevels
x FOREWORD
are rising as well. People might poke fun at the actorJeremy Piven and
his claims ofquicksilver toxicity (via a diet heavy in sushi), but consider
this: A new study has shown that inorganic mercurywas detected in the
blood of30 percent ofUS. women in the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC)’s most recent National Health and Nutrition Ex-
amination Survey(NHANES). Thatfigurewas 1,500percenthigherthan
whatwasreportedinthe 1999—2000survey,whenonly2percentofwomen
had inorganic mercuryin theirblood.
No one knows the exact effect ofthese rising mercury exposures in
people, and especially in pregnant women and their unborn children.
But we do have some idea. Mercury can ravage the immune system,
trigger autoimmunity, attack mitochondria (the “batteries” inside cells),
increase oxidative stress, activate brain cells called microglia, spark
chronic neuro-inflammation and block production ofglutathione—the
body’s most powerful mercaptan that protects us from mercury in the
first place. And all ofthese problems can be found in at least some chil-
dren with autism.
Today, one in six American children is born with mercury levels in
their blood that are high enough to cause neurodevelopmental deficien-
cies later on in life. Perhaps coincidentally—or perhaps not—the same
numberofAmerican childrenwillgo on to develop alearningdisability,
and one in one hundred will develop an autism spectrum disorder
(ASD).
These poor kids are born already set up for neurological failure.
Manyofthem are alreadyatthe exact toxic tippingpointwhen itcomes
to prenatal and neonatal exposures to toxic metals. So why on earth
would we inject them with vaccines containing organic ethylmercury
and aluminum salts beginning on day one, and repeated at regular in-
tervals over the nextcouple ofyears?
There is now ample science to tie mercury toxicity to autism,just as
there arehistorical examples totie mercuryexposure to what appears to
be mental illness. After all, mad hatters’ disease was an affliction ofthe
felt trade, which used copious amounts of mercury in its production.
And just outside Phoenix you will find the defunct cluster of Dreamy
Draw mercury mines, so called because ofthe mildly psychotic state in
which the miners emerged from their shafts. (Today it is the site ofthe
MercuryMine School.)
In the following pages, Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill—two men I
consider friends, colleagues, and patriots—walk us through human-
FOREWORD xi
kind’s disastrous dalliances with mercury over the centuries, leading us
inexorablytoward our own new and unsettlingAge ofAutism.
One verydisturbingtrend emerges in this book, and thatis the igno-
rance andarrogance ofmedicalprofessionals,whohave insistedoverthe
years thatmercurials in medicine could treatorpreventthe onsetofhor-
rible, disfiguring diseases, while utterly ignoring or dismissing the evi-
dence that their “medicine” was often doing more harm than the
diseases itwas designed tofight.
Whether the problem was syphilis or teething pain, doctors often
prescribed mercury. As Olmsted and Blaxill so eloquently describe, this
blind beliefin a known poison was misguided, immoral, and in some
cases, patentlycriminal.
Mercury, they argue forcefully and convincingly, is found at the root
of many “plagues” of the industrialized world—from the “lunacy” of
Dickens’scoal-chokedEngland,toFreud’s “hysterical”Viennesewomen,
to the collection ofsymptomswe nowcall autism spectrum disorders. In
each case, the metal left behind its insidious footprints. Olmsted and
Blaxill have done a masterful job of retracing these clues through an
encyclopedic history ofmetal-induced madness.
Can toxins trigger plagues? They can. Autism is a man-made dis-
ease, Olmsted and Blaxill warn us. But that is cause for hope. By crack-
ing autism’s code and revealing its underpinnings, we may solve the
mysteries lurking behind many modern-day scourges, including Alz-
heimer’s, Parkinson’s, andLou Gehrig’s disease. Anyoneconcernedwith
environmentalhealth owesittohim-orherself(andtotheworld) toread
this revolutionarybook.
—DAVID KIRBY