The Autism-Mercury Link… Debunked?

Let us all stand tall and rejoice!  The truth has come down and has set us free!  OK, maybe that’s not how I feel but it seems like that’s how the pharmaceutical companies are feeling after the release of a new “study” that shows that Autism is not linked to thimerosal in children’s vaccines.  That being said, I am not closed minded and am willing to consider the possibility that this “study” actually is based on facts and not just full of crap.  I consider myself to be somewhat intelligent and therefore able to think logically and rationally.  If I was adamant about my position without considering the other point of view then I would be no better than some crazy nut job… like George W. Bush, for example (please read my other posts for my opinion of him).

There have been several studies and many doctors who believe that there is a link between Autism and the mercury based preservative, thimerosal, that is commonly found in children’s vaccinations.  There is a large body of evidence that has been compiled, much of which has been dismissed by the FDA, the CDC, and major pharmaceutical companies worldwide.  They have all spent considerable time and money conducting studies that seem to put the theories of a link in the same category as those who believe Elvis is still alive today.  They have smeared their “findings” all over the media in an attempt to cover their asses and hide the truth from us.  What that truth is we are still searching for.  As a parent of a child with Autism, I hope we find the truth sooner rather than later so that we may help all the autistic children in the world to recover and live normal and productive lives.  That’s not too much to ask, is it?

While reading the latest article this morning debunking the myth, I was reminded of several things that seem to blatantly defy what this study has to say about the link.  For instance, autistic children have been found to contain high amounts (much higher than the norm) or heavy metals, including mercury and lead.  So what does this finding tell you?  Well, it says that autistic kids have high levels of mercury in their system.  Is this true?  Yes, it is true.  So what causes these high levels?  Well, honestly, no one really knows yet.  And if there is no link between mercury and autism then why are the characteristics of autism similar to those of mercury poisoning?

Advocates against thimerosal claim that it is mercury from vaccines, which is a plausible theory; it is plausible because an infants’ immune system is not developed enough until the age of 4-6 months to respond to the vaccine that’s been given, let alone properly and safely excrete the levels of mercury that are injected into its body.  Take the Hepatitis B vaccine, for example: it contains 12.5 micrograms of mercury.  This vaccine is administered without fail to ALL newborns within 12 hours of birth.  Before their immune system can even begin to work, it is being bombarded with a lethal neurotoxin that can have life-long damaging consequences.  This vaccine is given to newborns who are not at risk; they are not born to mothers who have used IV drugs or engaged in unsafe sexual practices.  It is a blanket immunization that is unwarranted and unsafe.

Another vaccine linked to autism is the MMR vaccine (Measles, Mumps, Rubella).  It is known that thimerosal is being phased out and that the majority of MMR vaccines do not contain mercury anymore.  However, I believe there is another factor involved with this vaccine.  The MMR vaccine uses a live virus strain of each disease in order to get the immune system to build up the necessary antibodies to become immune; essentially, the child is infected with three viruses at the same time.  This would put a strain on any immune system, let alone that of an infant.  According to Stephanie Cave, M.D., “Our children are being injected with foreign, disease-causing substances before their immune systems have matured to the point where they can cope with such invasions.  We are also giving our children multiple, simultaneous vaccines, which may cause reactions not seen when a single vaccine is given.”  I’m a hockey playe and will use an analogy here.  Consider your immune system to be a goalie: it is there to protect the goal (the person) from the puck (the disease).  Shoot one puck at the net and the goalie will stop the puck.  However, shoot 3 or more pucks at the net at the same time and the goalie is inadequate in stopping everthing.  Basically, the more live virus vaccines you inject into a still developing immune system, the more likely the chance that one or more of the viruses will not be fought off, causing autoimmune disorders.

The usual immunization of MMR occurs between 12-18 months.  According to the Recommended Immunization Schedule for Person Aged 0-6 Years (2008), a child will receive approximately 23 vaccinations prior to receiving the MMR (at least 3 hep B vaccines, 3 rotavirus vaccines, 4 DTaP vaccines, 4 Hib vaccines, 4 pneumococcal vaccines, 3 polio vaccines, at least 1 flu shot, as well as the possibility of 1 varicella vaccine and possibly 2 Hep A vaccines).  In 1999, the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research (CBER) confirmed that thimerosal was present in over 30 licensed vaccines in the US in concentrations of 0.003% to 0.01%.  According to the agency’s calculations, an infant six months old who got all vaccine doses on schedule would receive 75 micrograms of mercury from three doses of DTaP, 75 micrograms from three doses of Hib, and 37.5 micrograms from three doses of hepatitis B vaccine – a total of 187.5 micrograms of mercury.  According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the safe limit for mercury is 0.1 microgram of mercury per kilogram per day.  So the 12.5 micrograms of mercury in the hepatitis vaccine injected into, say, an eight pound baby newborn (approximately 3.6 kilograms) is dramatically higher than the safe limit of 0.36 micrograms set by the EPA.  It should also be stated that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) do not agree with the EPA’s safe limits and say that the limits are actually higher.  I think, however, it is prudent to air on the side of caution and accept the lower limits in order to minimize adverse reactions and consequences.  Wouldn’t you agree?  If you accept the EPA’s limits, which I prefer to accept, you are injecting your newborn with more than 34 times the amount of mercury that can be processed safely and excreted from the body.  Does it make sense to inject that much of a poison into an innocent, new life?  Perhaps the interaction of the mercury with multiple live virus vaccines plays some part in autism.

Recently, the rule has been to give the MMR with the varicella vaccine, another live virus vaccine combating the chicken pox.  Now, perhaps I am being cynical but I believe the best antibodies you can have come from actually having the disease and fighting it off naturally; this is the purpose of our immune system as it has continued to evolve over tens of thousands of years.  I’m not against vaccines that help save lives but a childhood ailment that guarantees never having the ailment again sounds better that having multiple vaccines only to push the onset of a disease into adulthood where it can actually prove to be fatal.  This is the trend we are seeing with the varicella vaccine: it tends to protect into adulthood but then you become susceptible to contracting the disease, which in adulthood can prove to be much worse than had you had it as a child.  So why create such a vaccine?  Simple… money. 

According to Stephanie Cave, M.D., “the reason is that the government was looking for a way to save businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in lost production time, because mothers had to stay home when their children got sick.  The solution: develop a vaccine for chicken pox so moms could keep working instead of taking time off to nurse their kids.  The savings, calculated by Merck Laboratories, the makers of the only chicken pox vaccine on the market, were estimated at $400 million.  Apparently marketing the vaccine to every child in the United States does have a cost benefit.  So the bottom line is that Americans have yet another vaccine mandated in many states as a requirement for children to get into school.”  Does this mean that the true origin of the varicella vaccine isn’t one of protecting our children from the “deadly” childhood disease of chicken pox, but rather one that helps to ease the burden that businesses must bear when their workers take sick leave to help their children recover from an illness?  Perhaps.  But again, maybe I’m just being cynical when I think that the government does not have the public safety in mind.  It is not right that a government dictate to its citizens that children be vaccinated with 37 vaccines before the age of 6, just so they can attend school.  They use this threat as a means to ensure that everyone gets vaccinated.  Sounds a little like communism to me.  What happened to the freedom of choice?  I mean, a woman can still have an abortion if she chooses and she won’t be shunned from society, so why should we shun our children who’s parents have decided that they should not receive all their vaccinations?  Does every child not deserve an education in this country?  Why force parents to immunize their children with vaccines that prevent diseases that they could just contract and be done with for the rest of their lives?  I have had chicken pox and measles and I am not afraid of ever catching them again because I have the natural immunity now.  Isn’t that what we are trying to accomplish with vaccines?  I understand the desire to protect our children from harm and pain, but without allowing the immune system to do its job and continue to evolve naturally, without the aid of 40-50 vaccinations throughout childhood and adolescence, won’t we be dooming them instead to a life of sickness and poor health with an immune system that is incapable of properly defending itself?

Back to mercury.  So if there is mercury in the system and it hasn’t come from vaccines, as the evidence always seems to point to, then where does it come from?  Some researchers believe that the mercury comes from fish.  While it is true that fish does contain mercury (approximately 17 micrograms in a 6 ounce can) there is a big difference.  First, how safe is a poison?  Mercury is toxic for everyone, including people who eat tuna or have mercury filling in their mouth (called amalgams).  High levels of mercury can cause brain cells to die; lower, chronic levels can result in silent, insidious effects that affect the immune system at the cellular level.  The first signs of low level mercury poisoning may be an inability to get rid of the flu, bronchitis, or a yeast infection, or it may lead to cancer.

Much more important to this argument is the second point: the ethylmercury in the vaccine is being injected into the bodies of infants who do not have a fully developed immune system, and their bodies can’t get rid of the mercury properly.  The mercury from the tuna, on the other hand, is not injected into the bloodstream; it is eaten, which means it goes through the digestive tract, and the liver has the opportunity to help rid the body of this poisonous toxin.  In infants, the blood-brain barrier (a membrane between circulating blood and the brain that prevents certain harmful substances from reaching the brain) is not yet able to keep out toxins that can damage the brain.  This means that mercury sent directly into the bloodstream enters the brain and converts to a form of mercury (inorganic) that remains in the brain, where it does the damage.  Once in the brain, mercury gathers in the areas that affect motor skills and attacks the nerves, affecting emotional and mental functioning.

To further illustrate my point that mercury is linked to autism, I will now compare the characteristics of Autism and mercury poisoning.  I will list the characteristic, followed by symptoms of autism followed by symptoms of mercury poisoning.  Let’s begin:

Movement disorders: Autism – arm flapping, jumping, spinning, rocking, circling; abnormal posture and gait; clumsiness, uncoordinated; difficulties crawling, lying down, sitting, walking; difficulty swallowing or chewing; walking on the toes.  Mercury Poisoning- arm flapping, ankle jerks, rocking circling; uncoordinated, clumsiness; inability to walk, stand, or sit; difficulty swallowing or chewing; walking on the toes.

Sensory abnormalities: Autism – oversensitive to sound; abnormal sensation in the mouth, arms, and legs; doesn’t like to be touched.  Mercury Poisoning – oversensitive to sound; abnormal sensation in the mouth, arms, and legs; doesn’t like to be touched.

Speech, hearing, language problems: Autism – Delayed language or failure to develop speech; mild to severe hearing loss; problems with articulation; word use errors.  Mercury Poisoning – Loss of speech or failure to develop speech; hearing loss; deafness at very high doses; problems with articulation; word retrieval problems.

Cognitive problems: Autism – borderline intelligence, mental retardation: may be recovered; poor concentration, shifting attention; difficulty following multiple commands; difficulty comprehending words; difficulty understanding abstract ideas and symbols.  Mercury Poisoning – borderline intelligence, mental retardation: may be reversed; poor concentration and attention; difficulty following complex commands; difficulty comprehending words; difficulty understanding abstract ideas and symbols.

Visual problems: Autism – poor eye contact; blurred vision.  Mercury Poisoning – poor eye contact; blurred vision.

Physical problems: Autism- decreased muscle strength, especially in upper body; incontinence; rash, dermatitis; abnormal sweating, poor circulation, high heart rate; diarrhea, constipation, gas, abdominal discomfort; anorexia, feeding problems; seizures; tendency to have allergies or asthma; family history of autoimmune symptoms, especially rheumatoid arthritis.  Mercury Poisoning- decreased muscle strength, especially in upper body; incontinence; salivating; rash, dermatitis; abnormal sweating, poor circulation, high heart rate; diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain; anorexia, nausea, poor appetite; seizures; sensitive individuals more likely to have allergies, asthma; more likely to have autoimmune symptoms, especially rheumatoid arthritis.

Unusual behavior: Autism – sleeping difficulties; injures self, such as head banging; staring, unprovoked crying, social isolation.  Mercury Poisoning – sleeping difficulties; injures self, such as head banging; staring, unprovoked crying, social isolation.

Seeing autism and mercury poisoning compared side to side, do you still have doubts that there is a connection?  You might, I won’t deny you that, but you have to admit that there are similarities between the two, which does suggest some sort of a link between the two.

So what does this mean?  Well, for starters it means that there is a lot about autism that we still don’t know or understand.  The key right now is to not eliminate any possibilities when it comes to causes.  Does mercury play a role?  I tend to think it does.  Mercury poisoning and autism share similar characteristics and autistic children test for high levels of mercury in their systems.  Does the mercury come from the vaccines?  I think there is a connection, seeing as how there has been a mad scramble to eliminate thimerosal from vaccines.  But other factors could play a role.  For instance, California reports more cases of autism that any other state.  They also happen to be down-wind from China’s coal fired power plants, which happen to release mercury into the atmosphere.  Do genetics play a role?  Possibly.  Autism incidence is 4 times higher in boys than girls.  Obviously there is/are some genetic factor(s) involved in autism.  Would stem cell research help in the fight against autism?  I don’t think it would hinder it, that’s for sure.  There are so many opportunities for stem cell research to help in a vast array of medical conditions.  Ethical bias aside, it is a step in the right direction for medicine.  Besides, stem cell research uses unwanted embryos; it’s not like we would be impregnating women and forcing them to have abortions in the name of medical research.

One thing is sure: autism is an epidemic and the first step is understanding it.  Once we understand what causes it, we will be better equipped to find a cure for it.  In the meantime, we need to improve services for autistic children while increasing access to the same services.  ABA therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy: these have all been proven to help autistic children learn and become able to interact socially.  With the estimated cost to the government associated with autism approaching $5 million per person over their lifetime (including social cecurity payments, medicaid benefits, etc.), and an incidence rate of 1 in 150 children being diagnosed, can we really afford not to do whatever we can to treat autism and lessen the effects of the disease, thereby enabling our children to function somewhat normally, resulting in a smaller cost over their lifetime?  If we properly rehabilitate autistic children, they will have a much better chance of becoming productive members of society, thereby reducing the amount of government assistance they will receive.  Spend a little now or wait and spend a lot later?  Until we know for certain what causes autism and how to cure it, we need to address their behaviors while providing them with an environment that is conducive to learning.  It is no different than sending a non-autistic child to school.  And if you’re unsure of what to do, ask a parent of a child with autism what they want.  Who else is better equipped to know what their autistic child needs?

Super Tuesday

On the eve of Super Tuesday, commonly known as the vote to determine the front-runners for President of the United States, I am left feeling uneasy.  The American people have been held hostage for the last seven years by a man who barely won the Presidency… once… in 2004.  He was “voted” in in 2000 on a platform of limited government and no nation building.  Yet here we are, seven years later, with such atrocities as “the war on terror” or the war in Iraq, however you feel comfortable identifying it, as well as a little branch of the government called Homeland Security.  President Bush has managed to turn a $4 trillion surplus into a $5 trillion deficit… in just seven short years… based on his platform of limited government and no nation building.  Can you imagine where we’d be if he had campaigned for larger government and Vietnam… er, I mean Iraq???  He squandered the support of the entire globe in the aftermath of 9/11 by inventing supposed weapons of mass destruction in a country that had nothing to do with the previously mentioned attacks.  Why did he do this?  The answer is unclear, but there are many theories.  Greed for oil (there’s lots of it in Iraq), war profiteering (carrying on in the footsteps of his father, George H.W. Bush and his grandfather, Prescott Bush, who incidentally helped fund the Nazis before WWII – don’t believe me??  Look it up!!), stupidity (do I really need to cite examples here??), or perhaps just plain ol’ delusions of grandeur.  Whatever the reason(s), we are locked in a war that was poorly planned, even more poorly executed, and completely lacks an exit strategy or time-line.  That being said… who wants another Republican at the helm for another 4 years??

Yes, President Bush cut taxes, however, the majority of the tax cuts went to the rich who ended up paying less taxes.  In conjunction with this, Bush also did away with the Estate Tax, which is a tax paid on the estate of someone after their death, but that doesn’t take effect if their estate isn’t worth so many millions of dollars.  Bear in mind many of these estates contain money that never paid a cent in income tax to begin with, which happens to be the reason the Estate Tax was instituted in the first place.  Then Bush decides to go to war.  I know what you’re thinking… he couldn’t possibly cut taxes again, could he?  Well, yes he did.  He is the only war time President to do so.  Now ask yourselves this question: where did that money come from to pay for the war?  Well, lowering taxes for his rich friends, including abolishing the Estate tax, meant that he had to find money that he could cut from spending.  Enter the middle and lower class supports that President Clinton worked to build up.  President Bush cut back Medicaid spending, Section 8 housing spending, welfare, social security, after school programs, and many other social programs designed to help out lower income people and families.  So not only did these people not benefit from the tax cuts, as Bush had promised in one of his debates with Al Gore in 2000, these people have lost essential services necessary to their daily lives.  It seems as though he has forgotten those who helped to vote him in…  wait a minute… was he voted in?  If those ballots from Florida had been counted, some 70,000 I believe and mostly from African American voters, would he have been elected?  Maybe that’s why his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush ordered the recount to be halted and declared his brother President of the United States of America.  Sounds a little fishy, right?  There’s more.  Voters were turned away from polling stations because they were convicted felons, well at least their names were similar to convicted felons.  A soldier who would go on to serve in Iraq was denied his vote because they said he was a convicted felon.  He wasn’t alone.  An independent investigation revealed that a P.I. firm had been hired by the State of Florida to do background checks on residents, find out if they were legal to vote, if they were criminals, and so on.  Well, they compiled a list of names of African American voters who’s names matched those of convicted felons from all over the U.S., disqualifying them from voting.  And the polls at that time showed that African American voters were more likely to vote Democrat for Al Gore.  Hmmmm…  Could this be true?  Could we really be witness to the greatest crime ever committed in history?  I think we were, and I am afraid it might happen again.

I have a feeling that the Democratic candidate for President (honestly I’m hoping for Hillary Clinton because I have a feeling she’ll shake some things up and it’s about time we let a woman in to run things – for the record, I’m a man, not a woman, so don’t think I’m hoping she wins because I have some feminist agenda because clearly I do not) will have so much support that one of two things will happen.  First, the election will be a landslide for the Democrat and there will be no chance of rigging the election as they have done in 2000 and 2004 and Hillary (I hope) will be elected President.  Should this happen, expect another “attack” or some other catalyzing event such as 9/11. 

Before I proceed I would like to clarify something: I am not Middle Eastern, I am a white male.  I am not a terrorist, just a concerned citizen who sees too many parallels between the U.S. of today and Germany of the 1930s.  They had the Reichstag, we had 9/11; they had Homeland Security, we have Homeland Security; they invaded the country of an enemy who did not attack them (Poland), we invaded the country of an enemy(were they an enemy at the time??) who didn’t attack us (Iraq).  There are more historical examples that don’t sit too well with me. 

For instance, there is the event that brought the U.S. into WWI: the sinking of the Lusitania.  A passenger liner, the Lusitania set sail from New York for Europe through U-boat infested waters after the German embassy took out ads in the newspapers warning that the vessel would most likely be targeted and destroyed.  Whether they listened to the warnings or not, the ship set sail and was sank, losing over 1400 people. 

Then there was Pearl Harbor.  I’m not insinuating that the government or anyone else had anything to do with that, but I find it strange that some 3 months before Pearl Harbor was attacked, Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt were discussing what it would take to get a swell of support for U.S. involvement in WWII.  Three months later, Pearl Harbor. 

Then there was the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the first incident, not the one that just happened a few weeks ago.  This was the mitigating factor that got the U.S. involved in the Vietnam War, an incident that has since had several witnesses come forward and say that it was staged, that it never happened. 

Then we had 9/11.  The world stopped and gasped in horror, myself included.  We found out that Saudi extremist boarded planes with the intent to strike several targets.  Three planes hit their intended targets and the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania… or did it!  All you need to do is look at the “crash site” and ask yourself these questions: where are the engines?  Where are the luggage?  Where are the bodies??  All you saw on TV was a crater and no physical evidence that a plane crashed there.  Then you have Donald Rumsfeld on TV saying something about the plane being shot down?  And if it crashed, why was the search grid 8 square miles instead of something closer like 2 or 3 square miles, as would be indicated by a plane crash?  An 8 square mile search indicates an explosion took place in the air, not upon impact.  Think back to when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry several years back.  Remember how far that wreckage was spread out?  They were much higher than a plane could be and wreckage was spread over several states.  Just think of this fact: roll a ball on the grass and see how far it travels, then throw the same ball at the same speed and see how far it goes.  Which do you think will travel farther??? 

Ok, Saudi extremists.  Did you know that they found the passport of one of the terrorists at ground zero?  Do you know what that means?  The passport flew through 1400 degree flames, without catching fire, and landed nicely at the base of ground zero for law enforcement to find.  Does it seem a little bizarre to you that a fire that is hot enough to vaporize bodies isn’t hot enough to vaporize a paper passport?  What would you say if I told you that 5 of the terrorists who hijacked the planes were still alive?  Remember the passport they “found” at ground zero?  He was one of the guys who came forward and say look at me, I’m not dead!!  But the FBI to this day have not changed the list of terrorists.  The men who are still very much alive are still listed as those who perished in the attacks of 9/11.

The Pentagon.  All I have to say is this: if a passenger plane hit the Pentagon, where is the footage?  The Pentagon is the most heavily fortified building in Washington; lots of cameras and defensive measures – they have anti-aircraft missiles for Christ’s sake.  So why didn’t they fire at the “passenger jet” as it made it’s approach and miraculous descent to it’s target of an unoccupied under renovation section of the building?  Had they hit on their original approach vector, before their acceleration and banking took place, they would have hit the front of the Pentagon and take out Donald Rumsfeld’s office.  Seems like a more appropriate target to me if you’re trying to make a statement, don’t you think?  Next question: where are the 10 tons of steel that were the engines of the plane?  Steel cannot vaporize from the heat of a jet fuel fire, it is an impossibility and has since been proven.  Next question: why is the impact hole only 16 feet across, when a 767 is much larger?  And why were the adjacent windows still intact – windows that should have been broken by something on the plane called a wing??

Want more?  I could go on for hours and sounds even more like a conspiracy nut but I won’t.  Yes, I might be a conspiracy nut but why should we believe a government who fails to provide us with evidence that what they are saying is true?  That’s right, they say it will “embolden our enemies”.  WTF???  Forget our enemies and emboldening them because at this point, the whole world is our enemy because of how President Bush has acted.  What about the citizens who elected you?  Why can’t you answer to us?  What exactly are you hiding??  If you’d like to learn more about what I’ve just ranted about, check out the movie Zeitgeist or go to youtube and search for Alex Jones.  These two sources will provide you with more than enough material to form your own judgement. 

You may or may not believe what you watch, that’s up to you.  What you need to come away from this is a willingness to question authority.  They are the elected officials and they answer to us.  A government of the people, for the people, and by the people.  We are the powerful, not them.  On Super Tuesday, you have the chance to start the healing process.  In November you will have the chance to make history.  Please do not sit silently by while this country sinks further into despair and ever so closer to the brink of collapse.  Do the right thing and send a message to the Republicans: GET OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE!

Higher Learning in Everyday Life

It’s been almost eight years since I graduated from my selected institute of higher learning with my degree in psychology.  I know what you’re thinking… that degree isn’t worth using to wipe my ass… and you may be right.  Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed my years in school as I studied hard and usually partied harder.  In retrospect I should have done the opposite but that, as they say, is water under the bridge.  I have always considered myself to be somewhat smart, otherwise I would not have been admitted into a post-secondary institution, and recently I have begun to broaden my knowledge once again.  No, I haven’t gone back to school… yet, although that is ultimately my goal.  As to what I will study still remains a mystery to me as my thoughts on that seem to change on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. 

The current book I am reading has touched on something inside me and has me wanting to go to med school.  I guess that’s always been in my mind since I was young – I did major in psychology with the intent to help people and doctors certainly DO help people.  Of course I might attribute my desire to go to med school to watching six seasons of Scrubs reruns…  However, this book is quite intriguing.  Titled The Oxygen Revolution – Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapyit has rekindled my thirst for knowledge and I find that I cannot put it down.  The book discusses the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen being administered to patients suffering various ailments, most notably stroke, cerebral palsy, asthma, birth injuries, brain injuries, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, and Autism.  This book, naturally, is touching on a very personal matter for me.  My son suffers from Autism, being diagnosed almost 3 years ago.  Naturally, my wife and I are quite interested in any treatments or therapies that may help facilitate his learning so that he may live a somewhat “normal” life when he grows up.  That being said, Hyberbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) offers some hope. 

I know what you’re thinking: hyperbaric…  isn’t that something they use for divers who ascend to the surface too quickly?  If that’s what you are thinking then you would be correct.  Hyberbaric chambers are used to reverse the effects that nitrogen bubbles can have on the brain and other organs, or at least that is what it was thought to do.  This book sheds some light on research, both recent and not so recent, that points to something different – research that shows that Hyperbaric Oxygen actually has a much broader range of applications in terms of treating different maladies.  The research discussed by the author, a prominent hyperbaric medicine physician from New Orleans, illustrates that HBOT actually allows oxygen to flow to oxygen deprived areas of the body (such as the brain after a stroke) that can repair the damage that has been caused.  I would like to highlight some examples where HBOT would be beneficial. 

The book discusses using HBOT to treat trauma to babies during the birthing process – sometimes the baby can be caught or stuck in the birth canal, resulting in an oxygen deprived low blood flow situation that can cause brain injury due to oxygen deprivation – similar to drowning (another example of HBOT application).  Instead of intubating the infants which can result in more trauma, babies have been placed into a crib sized hyperbaric chamber to be resuscitated – a procedure that cause no additional trauma to the child.  The results are identical to intubation, but with one stark difference – the child is usually only intubated by someone extremely skilled in order to prevent damage to the airway, a practice that is rare in hospitals since the specialist has to be on call 24/7.  Using HBOT and administering 1 dose to combat the acute trauma reverses the damage caused by restricted oxygen and blood flow in the birth canal without inserting a tube into a newborns airway.  As a parent, this is an appealing alternative with absolutely no risk of hurting my newborn child.

Another example involves brain injuries caused by trauma to the head, such as falling out of a speeding car.  This was another patient the author treated with success.  A young man had been comatose for several hours after falling from a speeding car and landing on the right side of his forehead.  His scans showed hemorrhaging in the brain, as well as blood between the skull and the membrane that surrounds the brain.  The doctors treating him had no idea what to do.  The author was approached and asked to treat the patient, even though he couldn’t guarantee anything from the treatment.  Within weeks, the boy had regained consciousness, regained his speech and regained his mobility, although his cognitive abilities hadn’t fully recovered.  At that point the boy’s parents moved him to a neurorehabilitation clinic and were advised by the staff there to discontinue HBOT treatments.  The parents coalesced and treatment stopped.  When the treatment stopped, the boy’s improvement stopped as well.  Several months passed before the parents decided to resume HBOT treatments.  With the therapy came a return of his improvement to the point where he returned to college.  His dream was to be a surgeon but his accident didn’t allow him to pursue that dream.  Instead he returned to school, completed college and went to work for a bank.  His story was one telling of the benefits of HBOT: without HBOT the chances of his recovery to his current level were virtually non-existent.  He could have stayed in his coma for weeks, months, or even years and by that time the damage could have left him in far worse condition than he was when he started HBOT.

This book has opened up another avenue of hope that is worth looking into.  The only foreseeable problem is one of money: HBOT treatments can run upwards or $200 per treatment, with a run of 40 treatments per diagnosis cycle.  There have been cases of over 100 treatments to a single patient in order to maintain the benefits permanently.  With HBOT treatment being funded by Medicare for diabetic patients with foot injuries, the door has been opened to let a flood of research come to light so that the funding can be expanded to treatments of much more debilitating ailments.  It’s time to take a look at the cost-benefit of dumping a bunch of money into a therapy that could in the long run save the government a lot of money in disability payments as well as return those affected citizens to the ranks of contributing member of society.  Breakthroughs in medicine only happen when pioneers are willing to think outside the box and pursue new avenues.  This line of thinking brings me hope.  With hope comes renewed optimism and the willingness and desire to never give up.