978-1572305441

Sally, Ann, and Danny 117
ever, he seemed to be a different child. He became lethargic, withdrawn,
and reclusive, and over the next few months he stopped using his words
altogether. He no longer smiled or brought objects to show his parents.
He was cranky and irritable. Soon he started to show a fascination with
bits of paper, ripping them up into little pieces, rolling them into little
balls, and throwing them down the stairs. He would also spend hours
flipping through the pages of his father’s law books.
His parents were of course devastated by this turn of events. They
had in effect lost their son; to them it felt as if he had died that night of
the convulsion. Robert’s mother was deeply distressed, and his father
tried to be supportive, but he too felt a deep loss. They started seeing
doctors in their local area but became angry, frustrated, and disappointed
with the answers and opinions they received.
Eventually, Robert was given a diagnosis of autism by a specialist.
But this did not end his parents’ search; they now began an intensive
and exhaustive search for a cause. They were convinced that something
must have caused this regression in his social and communication
skills—perhaps the vaccination. But they could not get the doctors to
agree with them. It’s true that regression like this can occur in about
thirty percent of children with autism, usually in the eighteen- to
twenty-four-month range. In the vast majority of cases, though, no discernible
cause can be identified, and this can cause the parents a great
deal of frustration. (This is not the same as disintegrative disorder, another
ASD subtype, where the period of normal development is much
longer than twenty-four months.)
For this new appointment with me, Ron and Carol have sent along
a rather large stack of medical documents that chronicles the story of
these investigations and consultations carried out around the country.
Robert had several magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerized
tomography (CT) scans done and many other investigations, but
nothing specific showed up. Similarly, all the blood tests gave results in
the normal range. In the meantime, he became very fussy about food
and would eat only chicken nuggets and drink apple juice. He soon developed
frequent diarrhea. As a result of this new set of problems, he
had several gastrointestinal investigations, including X rays of his digestive
system and biopsies of his intestines. These produced some nonspecific
findings suggestive of colitis. Ron and Carol had read on the
Internet recently that vaccinations for measles, mumps, and rubella
(MMR) can cause colitis and that this may alter the permeability of the
digestive system, allowing toxins into the bloodstream. According to