Over and out with autism

Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?  Not that I didn't know what was going on when we were shuffling through treatment after treatment and witnessing which had the propensity to heal our son from the symptoms we called autism and PANDAS. But now that I am reading through research and looking back at the very vivid image of what was, I can see it so clearly now!

Our son, who is now 13 and recovered from both autism and PANDAS (well, PANDAS is more of a remission sort of thing) began life a bit rocky.  After 13 hard hours of labor, he was viciously sucked into the world and out of my womb with two attempts of each, the vacuum and forceps.  It was so vicious in fact, that he was left with a severely misshapen head for more than a few days.  We were so excited to meet this little dude that we didn't blink and eye, we were just glad he was with us and had ten fingers and ten toes. Although now, I think I might have gladly given one of those fingers or toes (or my own) to have avoided what was to follow.

Our experience is likely not much different from many others in the same boat.  Our son went on to struggle with so many symptoms and deficiencies that it would save time to just run a bulleted list to give you an idea of what our flavor autism looked like:

• Significant sleep disturbance lasting well over six months and involved me having to go to sleep when he did at 7pm, just so I could enjoy the first 4 hours of sleep each night, because the rest of the night was riddled with waking/crying episodes every 45 minutes all. night. long.  for at least 6 months and quite honestly, even when we got his sleep figured out, he still often woke at least 5 times a night, but at least went back to sleep more easily.
• Colic, which I now know was due to the formula he was being fed.  Formula is a dairy product and is filled with corn syrup solids, which feed bad bacteria.
• Chronic ear infections, of course resulting in prescribed antibiotics that harm the beneficial gut flora.  The chosen antibiotics in his case, I also discovered, encourage the overgrowth of insidious pathogenic microbes in the clostridia family (more about this later).
• Chronic rhinitis was evident from birth until we removed dairy years later.
• Loose stools which lasted most of his early life.
• Regression after vaccinations and with illnesses, eventually leading to a sliding backwards that no longer recovered on it's own.
• Sensory integration disorder even from very early on like hating dirty hands to the point of severe tantruming and sensory defensiveness resulting in him hating cuddles or hugs, he pushed away from us from BIRTH, no joke.  I have a picture of him pushing hard against his father, while we were still in the hospital.  He arched his back away from me during nursing which was a culmination of sensory and dietarily related issues.
• Auditory functioning disorder, which was part of the sensory disfunction, caused him to say "What?" frequently.  It would appear like he didn't hear us, but it was more about surrounding sounds that caused confusion in what he was hearing.  We had his ears tested and they were fine, although nutritional deficiencies did cause a lot of ear wax to chronically accumulate in his ears.
• Sound sensitivities causing him to scream while squeezing his ears hard or to react physically.  One time he punched me in the face for flushing a very loud public toilet when I was crouched down at his level to help him.  Another time he literally scaled his father's 6 foot tall body to get away from a nearing motorcycle outside.  Fear of sudden loud sounds would set off a cascade of high cortisol responses to everything following the event.  
• Frequent rocking while sucking his fingers hard enough to cause bleeding.
• Severe startle reflex requiring swaddling until swaddles no longer even fit him.  I had to cut the bottom of them open so that he could still have his arms swaddled for sleep.
• Hand flapping when he was excited and/or upset, and this was one of the first things to resolve when we began treatments.
• Incessant lining up of cars which is inappropriate play.  He would freak out if anyone interrupted his rows.  He would put rows of cars all over our couches and floors and we couldn't touch them for fear of an extreme tantrum.  This also resolved very early on with treatment.  It did return briefly through a healing crisis with homeopathy, which we found very interesting.
• Overstimulation couldn't be self regulated.  Even from infancy, if he was overstimulated by bright or busy toys, he would become physically agitated and hyper, then he couldn't fall asleep for a nap or at night, and the sleep problem would snowball creating more sleep loss in the days that followed.  
• Transitions were extremely difficult for him to navigate.
• When his hair was wet, even having just taken a bath, he had a wet dog smell, indicating an overgrowth of fungus.
• He had a variety of body, vocal and facial tics that shifted and changed from time to time.
• Hypoglycemia
• Self-limiting to foods containing gluten and casein due to the opioid-mimicry of the proteins.
• Severe debilitating OCD which interfered with his sleep, eating, brushing his teeth and playing.
• Daily aggression and defiance.
• Extreme mitochondrial fatigue - we thought he was just a chill kid and liked his stroller during busy events and long walks.  We didn't experience the toddler-walking struggles most parents go through at age two when their kids want to walk all by themselves everywhere, but by five years old, when he was STILL demanding to sit in a stroller and carriages instead of walking (resulting in wild tantrums) we knew something wasn't right.  One time, when I tried to force him to keep walking beside me in a grocery store after having JUST arrived, he laid on the ground and cried, because he physically couldn't go any further.  
• Wild tantrums with a hair-pin trigger.  It didn't take much to set him off.  0-60!  These tantrums were paired with his low threshold for frustration.  There was no ability to cope with stress of any kind.
• He had an unnatural fear of bugs, birds and dogs, more of a phobia.
• Significantly bloated belly (See picture below) which started from when he was a baby.  I recall family members talking about his "cute Buddha belly" well beyond chubby baby days.  He looked malnourished with thin, low muscle limbs and bloating. 
• Low muscle tone.
• Slow growth, so slow that there were periods when he didn't grow for over a year! And this is after having been in the 95% as an infant.

Now fast forward to the year 2019,  I can often be found indulging in reading studies, literature and books about microbiota.  Not only do I believe that the condition of Grayson's microbiome was terrible from birth, but I believe that is the sole reason for his diagnosis of autism, and may even be the reason he reacted so severely to his vaccinations at 12 months old.  I know, these are some strong words, but our experience coupled with the evidence being highlighted in recent studies makes a strong case.

The cause of a poor microbiome is quite varied, but factors include: diet (mine while pregnant and while nursing), antibiotics (of which he had SIX courses of in his first year of life), chemicals and toxins, chlorinated tap water, plasticizers (we used plastic baby bottles for his warm GMO formula), glyphosate, lawn chemicals....and so on and so on.  

So let's get a little more technical about this.  His gut bacteria were out of balance, probably from birth, then we used six courses of cephalosporins for chronic ear infections starting at just 3 months old.  Research has found that Celphalosporins trigger an overgrowth of pathogenic Clostridium species bacteria.  

Countless studies have also confirmed a connection between elevated Clostridium and autism.  

I believe it, because when Grayson was four, a stool test revealed elevated Clostridium and no growth of the beneficial Lactobacillus species, exactly as described by the studies I've seen. 

Digging further into his history, when he was three, an Organic Acid Test revealed Clostridia markers three times higher than the top of the normal range, along with excess yeast overgrowth markers! Some were almost four times higher than the top of the normal range.  We were on to something, but at the time, we didn't know how to navigate the challenge of eradicating this nasty bacteria.  

HPHPA is the marker for Clostridia.

So what is it about Clostridia that creates the perfect storm in our kids?  According to David Perlutter, MD, the Clostridial species produce propionic acid (PPA) in abundance, which isn't a good thing, especially if it passes into the bloodstream, as in the case of a child with leaky gut syndrome.  This is especially concerning during a time when their brains are still developing. Simply put, PPA produced by Clostridia is toxic to the brain and it increases gut permeability. Other influences PPA has on the body are that it effects cell-to-cell signaling which cripples the way one cell can communicate with the next, it leads directly to compromised mitochondrial function altering the brain's ability to use energy (note above where one of Grayson's symptoms was severe debilitating physical fatigue), it increases oxidative stress harming proteins, cell membranes, vital fats and even DNA and it depletes the brain of various molecule such as antioxidants, neurotransmitters and omega-3 fats (mood stability issues anyone?). 

In "Brain Maker", Dr. Perlmutter goes on to describe a few studies that demonstrate the connection between autism and propionic acid.  Let me just say right here though, I KNOW without a fraction of doubt, that Clostridia was, in fact, Grayson's autism.  I know this because of the direct correlation between his symptoms when he had it (seen on the testing posted above) and the resolution of symptoms once we used high doses of probiotics to combat the Clostrida, which resulted in a much improved test!  See the results below!  Normal range HPHPA (and candida).  One month of high dosed probiotics did this.  We had tried to control the overgrowth for three years, using antibiotics like flagyl at the direction of a well-meaning but misinformed biomedical doctor and high doses of natural anti-microbials (every kind you can think of along with multiple combinations).  It wasn't until we stopped them all and just kept increasing his probiotics that we suddenly saw glimpses who our little boy was.  It's essential to have a soil based strain in them to see these results, because we had tried numerous other high dose probiotics to no avail, previously.

So as I was saying, studies that confirm this...

In one study, they fed pregnant rats and their offspring diets high in propionic acid.  By the time the pups were four to seven weeks old, their brains showed developmental changes similar to those seen in children with autism. When Derrick MacFabe's research team from Western Ontario University injected PPA into animals, they exhibited symptoms commonly associated with autism almost immediately.  The rats developed repetitive behaviors, and hyperactivity, and were seen turning in circles, moving backward, and losing their desire to socialize with other animals.  They demonstrated increased anxiety and would "fixate on objects versus other animals"; they even had "favorite" objects.  Incredibly, these effects happened within two minutes of administration of the PPA and lasted about 30 minutes, at which point the animals would revert to normal behavior.  MacFabe's group also demonstrated increased inflammation in various cells in the brains of these animals. He believes autism to be an "acquired disorder involving altered PPA metabolism."  

Another study connected woman who get the flu during pregnancy (and in my opinion, the flu vaccination) with the risk of delivering a baby with autism, but wait for it....this also involves a molecule like propionic acid!  Pregnant mice were injected with a mock virus which resulted in offspring that displayed classic signs of autism and leaky gut syndrome.  When their blood was analyzed, the "autistic" mice contained a staggering 46 times more of a molecule like PPA, produced by gut bacteria and known to induce symptoms of autism when it's allowed to seep from the intestines into the blood. What was even more staggering is that by lacing the animal's food with a probiotic that has been shown to treat GI problems in mice, five weeks later, the leaky gut in the "autistic" mice had sealed up and their levels of the offending molecule in their blood had plummeted!  Their behavior also changed, showing fewer symptoms of autism, they became less anxious and more social, and they stopped the repetitive behavior.

Another very interesting fact to make note of here, is that undigested gluten is fermented by intestinal bacteria to produce propionic acid in the gut!! Gluten is one of the very few things that still has the potential to regress Grayson and now I fully understand the connection!  Gluten also creates leaky gut and creates an opioid effect, plus it's a carbohydrate which feeds bad bacteria.  It is absolutely essential, in my opinion, to avoid gluten in any chronic health condition.  Propionic acid and calcium propionate is also an FDA food preservative often found in wheat, bread, cheese, juices, as well as dried fruit.

It's clear that the interesting link between Clostridia and gluten, propionic acid, is to blame in our case.  What I found so fascinating about MacFabe's study above, is that Grayson used to carry around a favorite object of choice each day.  He wouldn't put it down for ANYTHING, we couldn't take it from him without inducing a tantrum and he wouldn't even play with it, he just had to hold it all day.  He even took these objects into the bath and to bed with him! I've never seen mention of this strange behavior before reading his study. 

To give you an idea of how severely infected Grayson was with Clostridia, here is a before picture and a few after pictures of him.  The change we experienced by switching him from gut-altering anti-microbials to just high doses of probiotics is quite evident, don't you think?  

Now granted, probiotics isn't ALL we did, in fact, I am writing a book, because the other things we've incorporated into our healthy lifestyle are too many to list in a simple blog entry, but the obvious turning point in his recovery was specifically associated with eliminating Clostridia and the one and only thing we did differently at that particular stage in his recovery was eliminate the anti-microbials and introduce probiotics in high doses!  Please know that we were already eating incredibly healthy with no refined sugars or preservatives in our diets so the combination of the probiotics and the healthy organic diet which aids to feed the good bacteria was essential. We also worked on our home environment extensively to reduce toxins around us and we decided to home school our boys so that we would have complete control over their exposures during this critical time in their development.

To see my blog entry from 2012 about the introduction of the probiotics, click here.  

I'll save the PANDAS piece for another blog entry, but put simply, that was mold related and there is an entire story behind that journey, which traveled parallel to this one, at times.  There was definitely some overlap, but as in this situation where I can say definitively when things shifted, the same goes for PANDAS and mold.  So stay tuned!

Patterns of Protection

Life consists of a string of moments designed to open our eyes to the reality of our direction.  Unfortunately, we aren't always open to the acceptance of this reality.  For that reason, we create patterns of protection and we cling to them from our subconscious.  Do you find yourself repeating certain patterns, same story, just a different day?  Have you ever asked yourself why, and I don't mean, "Why me"...I mean a deep soul-searching why, with intent to divulge (and accept) the truth that surfaces?

Our patterns have a perfectly designed purpose.  Some patterns protect our hearts, some boost a deflated ego and many are born out of sheer necessity.  They were most likely essential to survival on some level, but when do they begin to cross the boundaries of destruction?  Are we capable of seeing our own destructive patterns?  I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that if something has become a protective pattern, it's most likely cloaked like a wolf in sheep's clothing.  I'm not suggesting that all patterns are destructive or protective.  We can, after all, partake in healthy patterns too, but I would guess that they were conscious decisions that required self-reflection.

There is a reason most change comes arm and arm with pain. Changing patterns of protection means lifting that protective veil and consciously exposing your vulnerabilities.  This is just plain uncomfortable, isn't it?!  Therein lies the reason for the pattern.  We don't WANT to be uncomfortable.  Resistance is a common response to discomfort.  In fact, we all go out of our way daily to avoid discomfort so it's no surprise that we would protect ourselves with the comfort of familiar habits. Resistance to change stems from discomfort, but ironically, this pattern has the potential to prolong and magnify the associated discomfort in the long run.

If there is one thing autism taught me (there are many actually), it's that there is no room for complacency.  Complacency doesn't change anything.

"Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change."  -Wayne Dyer

We have to be willing to sit in our emotions surrounding vulnerability and to let them hang around a little bit, if we want to understand them.  Our vulnerabilities are a gauge and covering them up only removes them from sight.  It's natural to want to push discomfort away, to remove it from awareness, but if we are willing to recognize that pain is the result of attachment, we can begin to not only dissolve the pain, but to transcend the pattern!

Attachment is a funny thing.  Being attached to an outcome means we are projecting into the future.  The future is, and always will be an unknown yet we actively and regularly engage in a pattern of trying to control it.  If we are to be successful at practicing mindfulness, we must remain present.  How can we be in both places at once?  We can't! To choose presence requires acceptance of where we are today.  The good news is that by living your truth today, your future will organically unfold according to your purpose.

My own personal experiences with the growing pains of change have always resulted in the most remarkable shifts in awareness, eye-opening, life-changing acceptance.  The best version of me emerges after a period of deep self reflection.  If you want something in life to change, be willing to open the doors to your heart, regardless of how uncomfortable it might be.

The act of creating or even replacing habits from a conscious (and often vulnerable) state of mind has the incredible outcome of spiritual alignment within yourself.

Are you grounded?

What does that mean exactly?  To be grounded?  My kids would say that it means they can't go outside to play with their friends so I suppose it depends on who you ask.  To me, being grounded definitely involves my interaction with others, but in my case (unlike when my children are grounded) I actually WANT to be grounded!

You've heard others say it, I'm sure, "stay grounded" or "I'm not grounded right now".  It can be an off-the-cuff sort of statement for some people, but for others, it holds deep conscious meaning in their lives.  Most of the time, we don't even realize how powerful this cliche can be in reality, when applied effectively to our lives.

Being grounded can take on many shapes, but in general remaining grounded really is exactly what it sounds like.  Imagine a tree, rooted in the soil.  The wind can't blow it over uprooting it, those roots run deep and they are the tree's lifeline.  Without the roots, a tree wouldn't receive it's nutrition and strength.  Without staying firmly grounded in the soil, the tree wouldn't survive or grow and regenerate.

When we are successfully grounded, we are present in our daily lives, we are firmly rooted in the here and now.  No matter what is going on, we stay balanced, centered and aligned with our higher purpose and best interest.  It means we are able to control our reactive, knee-jerk, behavioral patterns which are driven by our ego.  When we stay present, we don't allow ourselves to be swept up in thoughts or emotions about the past or the future, we can't be uprooted by the wind or stomped out.  Being present enables us to take on life's unexpected challenges with grace, because our roots hold us firmly in place.  Today is the only day that matters, right here, right now.  The past is gone and the future hasn't unfolded yet.  If we are swept up in our emotions about the past or the future, we lose our footing and we stumble, losing ground on what matters most.

Emotions are important and I am not suggesting we shouldn't honor every emotion we experience, because each emotion has a distinct purpose in our lives, but experiencing a strong emotion doesn't have to uproot us sending us into a tailspin either.  Instead we can observe the emotion as a passing experience, because that is exactly what it is.  Emotions come and go, and then new ones also come and go.  If we allowed ourselves to be influenced by every emotional whim that surfaces, we would be like the wind, with no roots to keep us firmly planted in the soil.  When something emotional comes up for me, I like to try to imagine that emotion sitting next to me on the couch. It's there, but it's not me.  I see it, I feel it's presence, but I don't have to succumb to it's power, because I hold the power to choose my actions.  It passes and then I have choices to make about what triggered the uprising of the emotion in the first place, which was likely rooted somewhere in a past experience or a fear about the future.

I thought this was a great example, blogged by Sabrina Reber in "How to Raise your Vibration"

For example, if someone in the grocery store accidentally bumps into your cart and you are grounded and aligned with your higher wisdom you will simply look at the person smile and move on. However, if you are ungrounded....you may be thinking about something in the past that upset you, and when the person bumps into your cart you may fly off the handle and yell at them telling them they should pay more attention......not only did you have a knee jerk reaction but you also projected your energy of “not paying attention” onto the other person when you weren't paying attention to what was going on in the present moment either.

Consciously grounding yourself is an act of mindfulness, with the ability to impact you on a much larger scale, long-term.  Mindfulness itself tends to be more task-oriented, like the grocery cart example above.  On the larger scale, we can see how remaining grounded can improve our overall life immensely.   The bigger picture begins to form as we shift our habits from ego-driven behavioral patterns to conscious awareness of our current situation and surroundings.  But how do we make that shift is the real question.  For me, it took a number of years to first recognize my need to focus on being present more, but that was only the beginning.  Awareness is good, but action is the only way to truly exhibit presence in your daily life.  It takes action!  When an event sets you off, you can try to remind yourself to stay calm in the moment, but that might be asking a bit much of yourself since the pattern has already been set off by that point.  As with anything else in life, practice is essential.  We must water the seeds we want to grow.  For me, I had to actively pursue grounding work in the way of meditation, introspection, reading and paying more attention to how my thoughts effect my life (and the lives of those around me).  I often had to step out of my comfort zone to see the benefits. The ultimate lessons in my life, however, always evolved through my experiences with my children.  I began to recognize that if I viewed everything through a lens touched by my children, I would see things completely differently.  How would I want my children to handle themselves in this same situation, what advice would I give them?  Bingo, my answer was suddenly clear as day.  How's that for perspective?  It was then that I began to also recognize how much control I had over my own perspective of each situation.  I could choose the view and I could influence the outcome, just like that.

In Sabrina Reber's blog, which I referred to above, she shares some grounding advice which is quite simple, so I will share that with you too.  I have always used a very similar exercise (linked in #1 below).  In addition to using it daily through some periods of my life, I also use it whenever I feel out of touch with my purpose or just plain out of control emotionally.

1. Do this grounding exercise when you get up in the morning, before and after you have meditated or done any type of spiritual/healing work and always before you head out of the house into a public space. Click here for: GROUNDING EXERCISE
2. Throughout the day, bring your consciousness....your awareness into your body. Become aware of where you are and what you are doing.....become aware of the smells, sounds and temperature.
3. Become aware of your thoughts.....if you are in heavy mind chatter you are in the past or future. Bring your thoughts into the present and state whatever you are doing. “Right now I am washing the dishes.” Right now I am cooking dinner”. “Right now I am present.”
4. If you are ungrounded, focus your energy on your feet. Bring all of your consciousness to your feet....wiggle your toes, feel your connection to the Earth. (added by Jessica - I would even go as far as to envision your feet growing roots into the ground here, breath deeply as the roots dig deeper, works wonders for me!)
5. Command yourself to ground. “ I command for my energy fields to align and be brought back into balance and for me to ground fully into the present moment.
6. If you are going to an appointment, an event, a meeting etc....where you feel you could get upset and ungrounded ask for help. Pray to Creator Of All That Is for what you would like to experience and ask your "I Am" Presence to help you stay calm, grounded and aligned with your higher wisdom.
7. Be aware. Be alert. Be conscious. Be present. Be here, NOW.

As with anything else that takes practice, be gentle with yourself and trust that you will seek grounding more naturally over time once your awareness has developed.  With practice, grounding yourself when you need it most will become second nature.

Namaste!

Finding Happiness

I think it's safe to assume that a good majority (if not all) of us believes that the key to a good life is happiness, right?  What do we want for our kids most, above all things?  We just want them to "be happy".  So we jump through hoops to make our children happy, hopefully teaching them how to find happiness in their own lives.  But what IS happiness exactly?

Joy is often a word used interchangeably with happiness.  No surprise there, right?  What is the difference anyway?  Most of us want to "find happiness" and believe that we must "seek joy" in order to do that.  The thing is, we cannot find happiness like it's a lost twenty dollar bill on the street that we were lucky enough to find before the next passerby picks it up. We must CREATE it, and contrary to what many believe, seeking joy does not sustain long term happiness!  Let me clarify here, I'm not suggesting there is anything wrong with joy, joy is great, we all need joy in our lives.  The distinction I am referring to is that joy is a temporary emotion that passes by just like the other emotions we experience in any given day (or fleeting moment), but happiness is a state of mind.

Does your favorite snack bring you happiness, even though it will be gone in 15 minutes?  No, but it sure does bring you joy for those 15 minutes, doesn't it?

Does your new toy (or purse for the ladies reading this) bring you happiness even though it will eventually wear out and end up in the trash some day?  Just like your favorite snack, it too will bring you joy...for as long as you like it.

Does the newest Star Wars movie bring you happiness even though it will end in a few hours?  It may teach you something about happiness, but the short-term effect is pure joy, for two hours.

I could go on, and I am sure that you can list a billion things that bring you joy.  What all these things have in common is that they bring you temporary joy.  And like I said earlier, joy is great, we should be seeking joy, but we should not be confusing this with happiness.  Joy is not a replacement for happiness.  Happiness, as a permanent state of mind comes from doing the work, from developing our-inner-selves and doing it for ourselves, not to please someone else.  It is not a passing emotion, it's a state of mind that you cultivate according to your own deeply rooted belief system.  One question you can ask yourself to separate short term joy from long term happiness is this; if you were to take away the thing you are questioning, are you still the same person without it?  Joy is a form of pleasure, often a sensorial experience, not a deeply mental experience and it is gone once the experience is gone.

True happiness is cultivated daily and the truth is we are already doing things every day to develop and model happiness.  But can we do more?

• Long term happiness is finding your confidence even when it's hard to believe in yourself, or better yet, believing in yourself especially when no one else does!

• Long term happiness is choosing to defend a cause that is close to your heart despite having to go against the grain.

• Long term happiness is getting back up on that bike even though you fell off of it three times already and believing you can do it, because you can!

• Long term happiness is paying it forward and doing something kind without the need for recognition or praise.

• Long term happiness is taking the time to understand a bully rather than learning to hit him harder.

• Long term happiness is forgiving the one who hurt you. 

• Long term happiness is serving others.

• Long term happiness is praying or meditating to deepen your consciousness.

• Long term happiness is recognizing the good in everyone.

• Long term happiness is making the right decision even when the wrong decision is easier (and more joyful).

When we live a life cultivating our inner happiness, we are more capable of navigating the intricacies of this unpredictable world without falling hard and floundering in a perpetual haze of hurts.  We fall down, get back up, dust ourselves off, find the lesson in our fall and move on wiser and happier.  Happiness is the foundation of our lives and we must always believe we ARE happy, not that we must find it.  Happiness must not be seen as a future goal.  As long as we are consciously and mindfully living our truth day in and day out, and modeling it for our children, we don't need to look for it.

And how do we teach our children to be happy?  We simply model it.  They can learn to open doors for others even when they are in a hurry, they can learn to forgive easily, they can learn compassion and unconditional love, they can learn to serve others, they can learn to try again even when there is fear, they can learn to compassionately stand up for themselves, but we must model these behaviors for our youth in order for them to become ingrained in who they are.

If you desire to attain happiness and if you wish to live in a world of harmony and peace, you must understand that the journey begins with you.  It is only then that you can reach out and touch the lives of others and change the world.  -Dalai Lama

So rather than "finding happiness" today, repeat this affirmation to yourself every day - I AM HAPPY - and believe it!

Let's bridge the gap

Black lives matter...this movement stirred up something in me, something I have felt for along time, yet it has nothing to do with black lives, ironically.  Instead, it has to do with the way in which we choose to react to distinct groups of people.  You can put any label on it.  Sure, black lives DO matter, and so do autistic lives and Muslim lives and police lives and well, I could go on, but you get my point.

My husband and I took our boys to the Tenement Museum in NYC this weekend and the curator of the "Irish Outsiders" tour said something that dug into this deeply rooted feeling I have about all prejudice.  After educating us on how in early America the Irish were persecuted against and treated like trash, even depicted in newspapers as apes with low intelligence, she said that the trend of prejudice still exists today and over time, all you needed to do was replace one race or group with yet another.  It got me thinking about all groups which are judged, it includes anyone who does something different, believes something different, looks different or behaves differently from the accepted societal "norm" and that is subject to personal interpretation.  What creates this divide is misunderstanding, a clear lack of good old human compassion.  It's easy to brush off that which we do not know or personally understand, but if you think about your own life, isn't it possible that there are groups that don't understand something about you too?  It may not be the color of your skin, but what about your political perspective, your religion, it might even just be how you choose to eat or dress or even the car you drive.   Do you ever feel different from another group and thereby judged unfairly?  More importantly, what IS the remedy?

The black lives matter movement was created with good intent.  But all the violence and anger that has been drudged up isn't all that good, is it?  It creates a greater divide.  This anger has merit and it proves that there is still deep pain and healing that must occur for those who express such resentment outwardly.  This isn't just a black lives matter issue though.  For example, I know many many angry autism moms.  We have been dubbed "warrior mothers" because we are fighting a battle, we are on the front lines of a war, so to speak.  I get it, there is a lot to be angry about.  We can focus on what sent our kids down the autism path, we can focus on the government corruption, we can focus on the unfairness of our children's lives....the pain, the hurt, the anger.  Here's the thing though, if we put out anger, what we are going to get in return is more anger.  It's a law of nature, you get what you give!  Let me spin it this way, couldn't we also focus on how these experiences have changed us for the better too?  I for one, am grateful for how much I learned about our health and environment and I feel blessed to have the strength and desire to help others who are seeking help.  There is much to learn from every group, all we have to do is be open to it and to change our own perspectives!  How can anyone expect change, if we aren't willing to be the change we want to see (thank you Gandhi)?

Think about the power a group can exhibit if they pull together to spread the best of themselves and their cultures rather than showing their weaknesses?  What if "black lives" put focus on traditions and qualities of their ancestry that can improve the world?  According to the Black Men's XChange there is an African tradition of accountability that would benefit every. single. person.

"In this African tribe, when someone does something harmful, they take the person to the center of the village where the whole tribe comes and surrounds them.
For two days, they will say to the man all the good things that he has done.
The tribe believes that each human being comes into the world as a good. Each one of us only desiring safety, love, peace and happiness.
But sometimes, in the pursuit of these things, people make mistakes.
The community sees those mistakes as a cry for help.
They unite then to lift him, to reconnect him with his true nature, to remind him who he really is, until he fully remembers the truth of which he had been temporarily disconnected: 'I am good'."

Think of the ripple effect something like this would have!  Sharing cultural traditions like this could change the world! Our perspective can be influenced.

"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."  Wayne Dyer

And likewise, the autism community has so much to offer the world.  I spend much of my time educating others about the things I've learned from autism and PANDAS.  I prefer to see the beauty in what we have learned, but I can't control how it's received by those who cross my path.

My own personal experience of trying to raise my children with this compassion requires rewiring my own thought patterns.  We don't even realize how much we've been indoctrinated by society and it requires really taking a good look at our own behaviors first.  When we experienced bullying with one of our boys, I could have seen my child as a victim and encouraged entitlement by demanding respect from the other child.  Instead, I asked my child to use compassion in his approach, I asked my child to begin the flow of change.  First, we focused on examples of how the other child might have been driven to treat him and then we had to take the reigns and do something to encourage growth in the relationship rather than more anger and pain.  You know what, it worked!  Instantly.  It reinforced this form of problem solving for my child.  I can't tell you how many times I have heard people talk about teaching their kids to fight so they can overpower the bully (I don't even like using the word bully, which carries a negative connotation regarding a child who is acting out of pain and/or fear).  All this does is perpetuate the problems while reducing our sensitivity to human connection!  Of course, I do think children should be empowered to defend themselves in case they ever find themselves in a dangerous interaction with someone, especially someone larger than them, BUT I don't think we should encourage fighting as a response to the obvious expression of pain from someone else.  Ironically, in our case, even before I had heard of the above African tribe and their beautiful display of building up a person in pain, I taught my child to compliment people, to listen to others and to spend time making them feel worthy and cared for...especially if they are behaving like a bully!  Buddha once said that it's those who are angry that need the most love.  Thich Nhat Hanh eloquently explains it like this.  “When you express your anger you think that you are getting anger out of your system, but that's not true,” he said. “When you express your anger, either verbally or with physical violence, you are feeding the seed of anger, and it becomes stronger in you."

Only understanding and compassion can neutralize anger.

An experience from my childhood shapes this frame of reference for me.  When I was a teen with my own first car, I noticed that my mother wasn't locking her car doors.  I immediately brought her attention to it, asking why she wouldn't want to protect herself from theft.  Her answer was two-fold.  First, why create an obstacle for the thief to create more damage (ie - having to break the window to achieve success) and more importantly, she said, "besides, if they want or need something from my car and they need it so badly that they are forced to steal it, they can have it."  At the time, I didn't even realize how Buddhist this is.

Here are a few examples of short zen stories:  

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen
A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, " I wish I could give him this beautiful moon."

and another

The Thief who Became a Disciple 
One evening as Shichiri Kojun was reciting sutras a thief with a sharp sword entered, demanding either money or his life.  Shichiri told him: "Do not disturb me. You can find the money in that drawer." Then he resumed his recitation.  A little while afterwards he stopped and called: "Don't take it all. I need some to pay taxes with tomorrow."  The intruder gathered up most of the money and started to leave. "Thank a person when you receive a gift," Shichiri added. The man thanked him and made off.  A few days afterwards the fellow was caught and confessed, among others, the offense against Shichiri. When Shichiri was called as a witness he said: "This man is no thief, at least as far as I am concerned. I gave him money and he thanked me for it."  After he had finished his prison term, the man went to Shichiri and became his disciple.
 
These examples show us how kindness has more power than anger.

If media could get it right, they have the power to reshape how we see the world.  They go after the hype and drama, because sadly, it gets more ratings!  And ratings equates to dollar signs.

This bears repeating...
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."  Wayne Dyer

Is it Genetic?

We hear this a lot as the ultimate explanation for illnesses, diseases and health challenges, "My doctor

said it's genetic and my [insert relative] had it so that explains why I would too."

But what if this statement was completely false?  Would that change how you view your health?  Would you be empowered to take control of your health, if you knew you could change the outcome of your "genetics"?

Let's start with a little cutting edge science, simplified.  

"It takes 10-15 years for science to take a fact from it's first inception to get it out into the public."

Textbooks are all at least 10-15 years old.  Ponder that thought for a minute.  The science being taught in school had the potential to be outdated by the time it reached the classroom.

The statement above was made by Dr. Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., a nationally known cellular biologist who writes and lectures about genetics and epigenetics.  He discovered the power of our thoughts and how they influence cellular activity, the biology of perception.  In his research, he discovered the true power of our minds, how our thoughts create our reality, right down to the cellular level.  In his genetic research, he was lead to the reality "that it was the perception of the environment that controls the cell.  At human levels, perceptions are beliefs and it turns out that it's actually our beliefs that select our genes and select our behavior."

Well that certainly changes things, doesn't it?  Here is a little background on that.

The conventional belief, according to scientific journals, is that the nucleus of a cell is it's command center, in other words, it is considered to be the brain of the cell.  The cell is an exact replica of the human and vice versa.  Everything that is in a human is also found in a cell: a respiratory system, a digestive system, an endocrine system, a reproductive system, a nervous system, an immune system, etc.  The brain of the human controls the human body, therefore the nucleus would appear to be the brain of the cell and it would seem likely that this nucleus would be the control center for the cell.  What would be the consequence of taking the brain out of an organism?  Clearly, death would result.  But what happens if you remove the nucleus of a cell?  Dr. Lipton did this and then studied the behavior of the cell without it's nucleus.  If the nucleus is the brain of a cell, it should die when you remove it's nucleus, which is also it's genes.  The result of Dr. Lipton's research is that the behavior of the cell was effected in no way by the removal of the nucleus!  The cell will eventually die without the nucleus, but not for the reasons you would think.  This means that the nucleus cannot be the control center of the cell, because the cell still has control without it's nucleus!  The cells Dr. Lipton studied continued to behave the very same way they did before the nucleus was removed.  They continued to move away from toxins and toward food, communicate with other cells, eat, grow, eliminate waste, build up their structure, etc.  Genes do not control biology.  This is an assumption that was made by scientists years ago and was never actually proven scientifically.

If it were true that our genes provide all of our characteristics for life, then it would also mean that our whole life is determined at conception, according the the conventional belief of genetic and cellular function.  Yet, people acquire and heal from diseases every day.  Something has changed within that organism to change the outcome, regardless of the genetics of the organism.  If this outdated scientific theory were true, the human genome project should have resulted in the findings of a required 120,000 genes, yet it turns out that there are only less than 35,000 genes in the human body.  Over 2/3 of the "required" genes are not present, why is that?  Because our belief system was wrong!  Genes do not control biology like we thought!

So what actually does control the cell?  The brain of the cell is actually the membrane of the skin!  I will try to keep this simple, but it's important to understanding the point I am trying to make.  As Dr. Lipton explains, according to embryology there are three germ layers, each one connected to certain organs and tissues.  The outer layer which is also known as the ectoderm, only gives rise to two organs in the body, the skin and the brain/nervous system.  Your brain is derived from your skin.  The skin of a cell is the interface between the environment and the cytoplasm.  The skin reads what is going on and then tells the proteins in the cell what to do.  The nucleus is not the brain of the cell, it's the gonad of the cell, it's reproduction!  The nucleus, although important to life, has no intelligence.  The cell membrane reads environmental signals and converts them into the signal that controls the proteins within the cell.  Life is due to how the cell responds to the environment.  Human life is how we respond to the environment.  Behavior is not due to the genes, it is due to how we see the environmental "signal" and convert that signal into selecting the right protein for our response.  Do you see where this is going?  I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of these scientific findings or it will become a long drawn out (and possibly boring) blog entry, so feel free to look into Dr. Lipton's magnificent work, it truly is incredible stuff and he is so fun to watch, not a boring moment in his lectures.  He has a knack for making the task of learning about cellular biology fun and engaging.

So the gist of his research is that there is a molecular connection in how a belief actually switches on a gene.  In the study of epigenetics, it has been determined that our environment can turn the expression of our genes on and off.  This means that although we may have certain genes and/or gene mutations, they are not necessarily being expressed.  In other words, having the dreaded breast cancer gene doesn't mean you will ultimately have breast cancer some time in your life, it just means that you are susceptible and your environment (physical and emotional) will ultimately determine if that gene gets expressed and turns on.  How is it that stage 4 cancer patients can recover from their illness with alternative therapies?  I think you are probably on the right track with me here.

You can change your beliefs.  So what does this actually mean for our health?

"Knowledge is power.  The more you are aware, the more capable you are at succeeding and lack of knowledge results in a lack of power."  -Bruce Lipton, PhD.

I've taken this statement quite literally in my son's recovery from autism and PANDAS.  I chose to educate myself extensively, which empowered me to feel like I could change the circumstances enough for him to heal.  That is exactly what happened.  I changed the circumstances enough for him to heal.  He's recovered.

Old outdated belief:
We got our genes from our parents, therefore we have no power over the outcome of our life.  This lack of power manifests itself in our lives and it is dis-empowering to us, because it says we are less powerful than our genes.

New belief:
Our environment and our belief system actually controls the outcome of our lives on every level, including cellular activity, which determines our health status.

Historically, doctors and scientists have poo-pooed the power of the mind in studies where they see improvements with their placebo patients.  Why wouldn't we harness this power rather than discard the information like garbage?  Lissa Rankin, M.D. has researched this powerful effect in the medical journals and she puts on a great Tedx talk about it.  You can find that link here.

When a doctor says your son's allergies are genetic, the old belief would tell you that there isn't much you can do about those allergies other than medicate and ease the symptoms, because well, they were bred into his genetics, right?  Wrong.  Yes, the susceptibility is there, genetically passed down, but the power to change the expression of those genes is in you and your child.  And why did your child express those genes is the bigger question.  If you have also carried down certain beliefs emotionally and you have eaten similar or the same foods, and your toxin exposures have been similar....these are all environmental triggers causing gene expression to switch on or off.  Likewise, you can also do things that switch the gene expression back to a healthier state.  It takes a conscious effort with intent, you must BELIEVE you can do this and remember, knowledge is power, the more you are aware, the more capable you are at succeeding.

Is it the chicken or the egg?
When we think about genetic diseases like cancer, diabetes, allergies, autism, and so forth, our belief system has the ability to automatically take our power away, but is it really "genetic" or is it that you "believe" you will fall prey to the same illnesses as your ancestors?  That belief system feeds into your genetics, it turns on the very proteins inside your body that will ultimately express the illness you believe you are destined to acquire.  And when you do acquire that disease, you believe you are destined to it, because your ancestors had it and it's "genetic".  It can become a vicious cycle and often does.  We have the power to change our thoughts and our environment, which changes our genetic expression and ultimately our health.

Our belief systems define us, they shape us, they label us and they determine where we are headed, but these belief systems aren't just the obvious conscious beliefs that we "know" about ourselves.  Sure, there are the obvious beliefs we hold about ourselves and society like how we should look, what role religion plays in our lives, how our parents raised us and what we expect of ourselves from these beliefs.  We hold beliefs on many levels in our body, mind and spirit.  Some are subconscious, developed through experiences without conscious definition by our mind.  They can be subtle, but powerful.  This is where healing on a deeper level comes in.  Practices like yoga, QiGong and meditation reach these subconscious levels and it is not uncommon to witness miraculous recoveries of illnesses like cancer when the person adds in practices like these to their physical healing regime. I wrote another blog entry about changing negative thought patterns with various self-help practices called Conscious Parenting.

Remember, we have the power to change, if we choose to, because after all, you are what you believe. 

VAXXED: from cover-up to catstrophe

My husband and I made the trip out to New York City to see this highly controversial documentary this weekend.  Even though I already knew the details of what was being divulged in this movie, I wanted to see how it was going to be portrayed.  As we know, journalists have an uncanny knack for spinning a story to meet their own agendas, so I wanted to know, was this documentary going to provide the proper transparency this topic demands? 

I've been asked by many what my review of the movie is.  I really needed to process my own personal accumulation of emotions about it first, before I could even begin to think more about the big picture.  Not that I didn't already know how the information in this movie impacts the nation, I have had those opinions for over a year (since Dr. William Thompson came forward publicly), but when you sit through the movie, it forces you to take inventory of your own baggage associated with it.  I had to allow the dust to settle in my brain before I could contemplate a broader opinion of the movie itself and how I would like my perspective to impact others.  I am, by no means, done processing the implication this movie has for the greater good, but I am ready to share my interpretation of it.  And frankly, there is no better review for a movie like this, then your own, so please go see it, if it is an option.

I first want to shout out a big thanks (and hugs) to the producer Del Bigree, Andrew Wakefield and Polly Tommey for taking on this mammoth of a project!  They have gone where no man has gone.  They are taking on Big Pharma without an ounce of fear!  Del Bigtree has repeatedly asked where the reporters are, why aren't they covering this story?  The answer to that question just confirms what we already knew, that Big Pharma has a noose around the necks of many people in these positions.

As much news coverage as there has been regarding the Tribeca Film Festival pulling VAXXED from their line-up, still there seems to be a media blackout on what is actually IN the film.  Journalists are labeling this film an anti-vaccine film without actually seeing it.

Even though I knew the basis of the story that would unfold on the big screen, it was harder than I anticipated to stomach the details as they were being shared by these fellow parents who know the horrible pain of vaccine damage.  They poured their hearts out for us to learn from and I couldn't hold back the tears, my body heat rose and I shook in my seat as I recounted the emotions we had in common.  All of us with vaccine damaged kids know that feeling of being invisible.  We know, without a doubt, what happened to our kids.  We know when our children sneeze, when they don't feel well, and we know when an incident causes them to suddenly regress.  Yet we are invisible to the doctors, we are invisible even to some of our friends and family.  We are left alone in the dark abyss of researching what happened to our children and how we can help them live the best lives they can, given such crappy circumstances.  This is when we begin to shine though.  Suddenly we separate ourselves from the crowd and we excel at something mothers have been known to do for decades, we develop solutions.  Even if we are totally alone in this journey, we continue to dredge our paths and do you know what happens when these numbers climb?  More and more parents connect, they share their (very similar) stories, they get louder and and louder and eventually they demand change.  And change is exactly what we need right now.

If you are not already familiar with the premise of the movie, I would like to state, first and foremost, that this is not an anti-vaccine film.  It is a documentary dedicated to information transparency and it is attempting to educate the masses about corruption in the CDC.  Learning about the corruption provides you with an ability to empower yourself going forward.  Remove thoughts like, "They wouldn't do that to us!!" or "Why wouldn't it be all over the news, if it were true?".  Start with a blank slate and allow yourself the opportunity to view this movie from a neutral state.  You will be making educated decisions about your child's healthcare.  If parents decide to protect their child by not vaccinating him or her, it is still not an anti-vaccine movie. 

So what IS this movie about?
Quite simply, VAXXED is "An investigation into how the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the government agency charged with protecting the health of American citizens, destroyed data on their 2004 study that showed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism."

In my earlier blog from 2014 "Vaccine Safety Conundrum",  I shared the CDC Whitle-blower timeline of events with multiple links to valid sources of information.  One of these links was to Dr. William Thompson's Whistle-blower Attorney's  website, where Dr. Thompson himself responded to the outcry of requests for more information with a press release.  You can either click on the link above to see the letter on MorganVerkamp LLC's website directly or you can read it below:
__________________________________________________________________________
Statement of William W. Thompson, Ph.D., Regarding the 2004 Article Examining the Possibility of a Relationship Between MMR Vaccine and Autism

August 27, 2014/in Press/
My name is William Thompson.  I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998.

I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information  in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased  risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report after the data were collected, and I believe that the final study protocol was not followed.

I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue  to save countless lives.  I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated  with their administration are vastly outweighed  by their individual and societal benefits.

My concern has been the decision to omit relevant findings in a particular study for a particular sub­ group for a particular  vaccine. There have always been recognized risks for vaccination and I believe it is the responsibility of the CDC to properly  convey the risks associated  with receipt of those vaccines.

I have had many discussions  with Dr. Brian Hooker over the last 10 months regarding studies  the CDC has carried out regarding vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes including autism spectrum disorders. I share his beliefthat CDC decision-making and analyses should be transparent.  I was not, however, aware that he was recording any of our conversations, nor was I given any choice regarding whether  my name would be made public or my voice would be put on the Internet.

I am grateful for the many supportive e-mails that I have received over the last several days.

I will not be answering  further questions at this time.  I am providing information  to Congressman William Posey, and of course will continue to cooperate with Congress.  I have also offered to assist with reanalysis of the study data or development of further  studies.  For the time being, however, I am focused on my job and my family.

Reasonable scientists  can and do differ in their interpretation of information. I will do everything I can to assist any unbiased and objective scientists inside or outside the CDC to analyze data collected by the CDC or other public organizations for the purpose  of understanding whether  vaccines are associated with an increased  risk of autism.  There are still more questions than answers, and I appreciate that so many families are looking for answers  from the scientific community.

My colleagues and supervisors at the CDC have been entirely professional since this matter  became public. In fact, I received a performance-based award after this story came out.  I have experienced  no pressure  or retaliation and certainly was not escorted  from the building, as some have stated.

Dr. Thompson is represented by Frederick M. Morgan,Jr.,  Morgan Verkamp, LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio, www.morganverkamp.com.
_________________________________________________________________________
The movie VAXXED is in direct response to this event and I know that I personally am grateful for reporters like Del Bigtree who is willing to put his career on the line to review the evidence, interview Dr. Thompson and others so that parents are better informed.

Here are a few of the major points that can be taken away from the movie:

It is not an anti-vaccine movie
I know I said this earlier, but I want to say this again, because I think this movie is losing viewers based on the preconceived notion that it is encouraging families not to vaccinate their children.  This movie is pro-transparency.  This is a movie documenting a very specific case of corruption involving the very study that most doctors refer to when they tell their patients that "it has been proven that the MMR vaccine does NOT cause autism".  The data that was manipulated paints a very different picture which does in fact connect autism and the MMR vaccine, particularly so when given between the ages of 12 and 18 months.  The data also indicates that  black boys are at a significantly higher risk than the general population for some reason.  The data that was omitted results in an increased risk of autism at well over 250% higher when this vaccine is introduced between 12 and 18 months of age.  Guess when my son received this and many other vaccines?  Just before 12 months of age.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's paper has been approved for reinstatement by a court of law
Let me repeat that again, so it sinks in....Dr. Wakefield's paper, which was originally withdrawn from the Lancet, has been approved for reinstatement by a court of law.  It is NOT considered a fraudulent paper.  I have heard SO many comments from people disputing Dr. Wakefield's validity, one of the most common being that his license was revoked and his paper pulled from the Lancet.  What people aren't aware of is that he went to court and won!  It was determined that his paper was to be reinstated, yet that has not yet happened, because again, the powers-that-be have a firm grip on this information.  It is also a misconception that Dr. Wakefield's paper stated that there was a definitive connection between the MMR and autism.  It did no such thing.  The information he discovered in his research did, however, warrant the need for more research on this topic.  His written suggestion was to merely separate the MMR into three individual vaccinations rather than giving them all together, which brings me to the next topic.

The MMR vaccination isn't available as three separated injections
Dr. Wakefield's research suggested that by separating the measles, mumps and rubella as individual vaccinations, the rate of autism didn't appear to increase like it does with the combination MMR.  The reason you can't obtain these vaccinations individually is because the patent only covers the combined vaccination.

Doctors are being lied to also
In defense of all the doctors who are getting a bad rap for giving dangerous advice and for believing in the vaccinations they administer, let's remember they are being lied to just like us!  When two prominent doctors are given the documents to review for themselves, without interference or outside interpretation, they are astounded and both plan to change the way they practice as a result.  Dr. Sears was clearly shaken when he said that he has been advising patients based on a lie for the past ten years!  The other doctor, Rachel Ross, an OB/gyn said that she would not be having her own child vaccinated with the MMR and when patients present her with the inevitable question, "Does the MMR cause autism?" she would be obligated to tell them the truth.  Like us, doctors are trusting the data they have been fed by the CDC.  Without reason to question otherwise, they will continue to trust the CDC.  We must take the time to educate the doctors whenever possible.

The vaccine injury compensation fund is paid for with YOUR tax money
I don't know if you are already aware of this little detail, but vaccine manufacturers cannot be sued by parents of vaccine-injured children, instead they are protected from lawsuits by a court ruling in February of 2011 which put the final nail in the coffin when the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986 was updated to include "design defects".   When families win a case of vaccine damage they are paid via the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, and it is YOUR tax money that is paying into this fund which has paid out over a billion dollars to date.  So the vaccine manufacturers make $30+ billion annually per vaccine/drug, yet they have no consequences for producing dangerous vaccinations.  Vaccinations are often "fast-tracked", meaning they don't go through the rigorous testing that drugs are required to go through, then YOU pay for THEIR consequences, not them.  The most basic required study all manufactured drugs must go through is the double-blind placebo study where one group takes the drug and another does not.  This study has not been conducted on any vaccine yet.  Where is the incentive to make safe products?? 

A fraudulent study has been used to deny court cases
So now we have evidence that a fraudulent study was used to deny vaccine court cases.  What are the odds they want this information made public?  What are the implications of cases that were lost based on a study that was manipulated to omit data that might have actually have helped win the case?

The CDC actually had a meeting at which they all trashed the data connecting autism with the MMR.  Without the material that was saved by Dr. William Thompson, there would be no existing data what-so-ever! In the movie, they share the documentation with hand-written notes by Colleen Boyle (Director of the CDC at the time, now a Merck employee!) showing exactly what data she instructed  to be manipulated in the study and then ultimately confirming the trash can meeting!

Congressmen have stood before Congress, for all to see, requesting and even demanding an investigation of the CDC for it's fraudulent study.  Senator Posey of Florida asked Congress to request a subpoena of Dr. Thompson (which Dr. Thompson wants to happen, since it would be illegal for him to speak out about the studies otherwise) and still a year later, nothing has happened! 

So the question on everyone's tongue is, "Should I stop vaccinating my child?"  I can't answer that question for you, but if you are familiar with my story and my blogs, you probably already know that we have one vaccinated child (who was vaccine damaged, resulting in autism and PANDAS) and a younger child who is unvaccinated as a result of our experience, and he is healthy.  You MUST educate yourself BEFORE using any medication on your child.  All medication comes with risks, vaccinations are a form of medication.

But I think there are more questions we need to be asking, such as What next?  What do we do with this information?  And  how exactly did this happen in the first place, anyway?  We must be the change we want to see in this world, and that change starts with the right questions.

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident.  There are other vaccine safety whistle-blowers out there who have come forward, there is even a whistle-blower lawsuit currently going on involving two Merck scientists who claim that the MMR success rate is severely misrepresented, aka - falsified data, again.  So how DID this dishonesty find it's way into our nation's fabric?  My response to that is complacency.  Yep, citizen complacency.  We have developed a system of trust for authority-figures like doctors, scientists, politicians and even large-company owners.  We have taken our safety for granted, ASSuming that these authority-figures always have our best interest in mind.  This is called blind faith and blind faith has no place in our lives when it involves our children's health safety.  As the parents, we are responsible for our children's health and it is up to us to maintain their safety.  How can we effectively manage our children's health, if we aren't questioning the safety of what we put into them, from food to medications?

It's easy for us to sit on our comfy couches and pray for our war heroes fighting wars of freedom on International grounds, fighting for our freedom and safety which we are failing to use.  But this, this is a war happening on our very own soil and unfortunately it is invisible to those who hold blind-faith in our government and medical establishments.  By assuming we are safe, because we believe those in high powered positions are fighting the battle for us, we are losing ground, because sometimes it's these very people who are taking advantage of that power.  How do they do that?  WE LET THEM!  When political positions were originally established, it was decided that they should not be entitled to holding these positions for life.  Political representatives volunteered their time, outside of their day to day careers.  This was a side job.  "Career politicians" are dangerous to the future of our nation, because they can be easily bought.  Their livelihood, their career and their bank account depends on their success.  It is important to get involved, before we lose all freedom on the topic of drugs and vaccination.  The government is stepping over boundaries by taking away our rights to vaccine exemptions and we are allowing it by doing nothing!!  Vaccines are drugs and no drugs come without consequences, which means we must retain the right to choose them or not.  When there is proof of children being harmed in great numbers, with thousands upon thousands of parents screaming that their child regressed after a vaccination, this is a conversation we must have no matter how uncomfortable.

Please contact your representatives and request a subpoena of Dr. William Thompson!!

The CDC openly admitted to changing their study, as well as admitting to an increase in autism in a certain age group of vaccinated children, yet they down play the results.  For those who believe this whistle-blower story is a fake, see the CDC's website for their response to this event, confirming it is not a fake at all.  Frankly, I would be concerned that they are capable of these manipulations and if they did it with this study, why wouldn't they do it with others?  When someone lies to you, naturally your trust in them diminishes.  Well, the CDC lied to you for over ten years and children have been sacrificed.

If you would like to read pages of viewer reviews of this movie, you can find them here.