Sick children untreated due to MMR fears

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BL Fisher Note:

Vaccine injured children are being victimized twice by mainstream medical doctors: the first time when they suffer an often preventable vaccine injury and the second time when they are denied acknowledgement and treatment that could take away their pain. One of the reasons more doctors will not step forward and help these children is because they are afraid that, like Andrew Wakefield, M.D., they will be targeted for destruction by government health officials and other doctors if they acknowledge a child's suffering is vaccine-induced.

www.sundayherald.com/40427

Sick children untreated due to MMR fears

Families seek care in US as UK doctors dismiss complaints to avoid triple jab controversy
By Liam McDougall, Health Correspondent
7 Mar 2004

AUTISTIC children in Britain are being forced to fly to the US for treatment because of the ongoing political controversy surrounding the MMR jab.

Up to 10 British children, including a seven-year-old from Edinburgh, have been treated at a specialist centre in Florida for painful bowel diseases after the NHS refused to recognise their symptoms.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald has revealed that despite medical evidence of a link between the disorder and autism, NHS doctors are ignoring or dismissing the connection because they fear becoming embroiled in the triple jab controversy. Instead of acknowledging a previously unknown condition that inflames the children's bowels, they say the painful symptoms are caused by constipation.

The families claim that because the bowel disease was discovered by Dr Andrew Wakefield in the same research where he first suggested a link between the vaccine and autism, doctors are too frightened to test autistic children for suspected bowel problems.

It is feared the latest furore over the MMR jab - which re-ignited last month after it emerged that Wakefield carried out his research while being paid by parents who believed their children had been harmed by the triple vaccine - will lead to more children who have the bowel disorder being ignored.

One UK bowel specialist, who did not want to be named, said he had refused to examine or treat children for bowel problems because he did not believe treatment would improve their autism.

Instead of conducting an invasive examination, which could reveal inflammation associated with the new disorder, he said the only treatment that could be given was a course of laxatives.

A clampdown on examining children for bowel problems was also carried out at London's Royal Free Hospital following Wakefield's departure in December 2001.

However, the Sunday Herald has discovered that children who underwent treatment in the US centre have had a marked reduction in the severity of their autism. Ken Ross, a lawyer from Edinburgh, was told his son James would never talk and would have a poor quality of life. His bowel problems were dismissed as "nothing, other than diarrhoea".

After being refused treatment at centres across the UK, the family had to pay to fly to the US and have their son treated by Jeff Bradstreet, the medical director at Florida's Inter-national Child Development Resource Centre. James was found to have internal inflam mation and was treated with medication, His parents were advised to put him on a gluten-free diet.

Now the child is speaking and is attending mainstream school. The severity of his autism has decreased markedly.

Ross said: "We were being offered no support or options in relation to problems with our son's immune system and bowel problems. We were faced with active opposition because of the supposed link to the MMR jab.

"As far as the NHS is concerned, there is no connection between the bowel and the brain. But in our experience, there's a very clear connection."

He added: "You have to kick and push and shove to get through the system. But because everyone is caught up in this MMR [jab] controversy, the profession does not recognise the link."

The Sunday Herald has also talked to two mothers in England who each spent �3000 to take their autistic children to the US to be treated after being refused care in the UK. They too have noted an improvement in their youngsters' autism after their bowel disorders were treated.

Both are currently raising funds to revisit the Florida centre next month.

Despite these apparent improvements, autism campaigners say that many children are suffering in the UK because of the medical profession's obsession with the MMR jab issue.

Other parents whose autistic children are also displaying symptoms of bowel disorders say they they too have been refused treatment. In one case all that was offered was a test for coeliac disease (an inability to digest gluten) and in another, no treatment was offered despite signs that the child had inflammation in his bowel.

Joyce Gillespie, from Glasgow, says her eight-year-old son was examined for bowel problems in 2002. She claims that despite being told by the specialist that Sam had inflammation, no further treatment was offered. Two years on, Gillespie says her son, who cannot speak, is still in severe pain.

"I feel that Sam has this bowel disorder but we can't find out for sure because there is nowhere for him to go. It's as if the medical profession is being told to keep quiet about this," she said.

While the link between the MMR jab and autism is being rubbished by the government and scientists - including Lancet editor Dr Richard Horton - even Horton believes that Wakefield's science on bowel disorders is sound.

"I do not regret for one second publishing details of the new syndrome," Horton said. "I'm disappointed that Liam Donaldson [the chief medical officer] has stated this was poor science. By stating that he dismisses a very important, novel observation."

Bill Welsh, chairman of the Glasgow-based Action Against Autism, said: "It is clear that many autistic children are victims of medical politics. In the furore over the role of vaccination in the worldwide epidemic of autism, the bowel problems identified by Wakefield and being experienced by these unfortunate kids has been deemed 'inconvenient'. The result is that children and their parents are being abandoned by the medical profession."

Speaking from Florida, Bradstreet confirmed that "five to 10" British children had been treated at his centre. He said: "Irrespective of causality, children with autism have inflammatory bowel disease. It's well published.

"Doctors in the UK believe if they accept there is inflammatory bowel disease they need to accept Wakefield's hypothesis. They have to get off this MMR [vaccine] thing and help children who are in pain."

07 March 2004

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