Autism, Amalgam Fillings, Mercury Poisoning

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Autism and Mercury Amalgam Fillings

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Autism and Mercury Amalgam Fillings

Something to Think About

We know that chronic mercury poisoning, from amalgam silver fillings, has a harmful direct and indirect affect on all aspects of our health. But I believe that chronic mercury poisoning plays an even greater role in autism and I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on it here. Even if you or your family have not been touched by this heartbreaking syndrome I know you will find it worth reading.

Autism

Entire books have been written, deservedly so, on this subject but I will just briefly focus on the role mercury, particularly from amalgam fillings, plays in this disturbing problem. Detailed information about how mercury does its damage, both directly and indirectly is found in my book, Mercury Detoxification: The Natural Way to Remove Mercury from Your Body. I will also expand on this in an upcoming book about amalgam fillings, and will continue to provide information on my Websites.

I am writing this primarily for women who are planning to have children. My sincere hope is that it will stimulate those women to seriously consider having these toxic fillings safely removed prior to becoming pregnant. I also hope it will stimulate those who are more directly involved with, or have an interest, in autism, at any level, to look at the role mercury (from amalgam fillings) plays in the cause and severity of autism in a new way.

Cause of Autism

No one really knows what causes autism. As such, many potential causes and contributors cannot be ruled out and it could very well be that there are multiple factors involved. But it is a neurological disorder and a majority of the symptoms associated with autism are identical to those expressed by chronic mercury poisoning. I found the similarities extraordinarily revealing  and I absolutely do not believe they are coincidental (to view these similarities, you can go to (www.heart-disease-bypass-surgery.com/data/articles/44.htm). In fact, after reading this I’m sure you will agree that chronic mercury poisoning cannot be ruled out as either a major contributor to, or a distinct cause of, autism.

Supporting Evidence

To date, most of the available evidence seems to point towards genetics as a major factor in autism. This happens a lot in medicine when the ideology (cause) of a health problem is unknown. Others strongly feel that vaccinations play a big role. Actually, it’s the organic mercury found in thimerosal, which makes up 50 % of the preservative in vaccines, that is thought to be the culprit. While I do believe that genetics, and the acute doses of mercury found in vaccinations are definitely a contributing factor to the cause and severity of autism, they fail to answer many of the key questions about it’s cause.

The incidence of autism has increased so dramatically that blaming genetics will not sufficiently address that theory. Vaccines containing thimerosal cannot explain it away either as there are those who suffer from autism who have never been vaccinated. There are also those who were given the full range of vaccinations and didn’t develop autism. In addition, thimerosal is being phased out of vaccinations and yet the dramatic increase in autism continues.

I’ve no doubt that many factors, known and unknown, contribute to it, as every disease/syndrome undoubtedly have numerous implicating causes. But I have a more realistic theory that will go much further toward solving the mystery around the cause of autism.

I’m convinced that mercury poisoning is the number one causative factor in autism. The only reason this hasn’t been proven is that no scientific studies have gone back far enough to consider children’s first exposure to mercury.

First Exposure: Where it all Begins

A child’s first exposure to mercury from amalgam fillings* can occur at the moment of conception. Think of that and the implications it holds! At first glance it may sound like a crazy idea and easy to dismiss but it is absolutely true and cannot be discarded. If the mother has mercury amalgam silver fillings in her teeth the fetus will not only be exposed to mercury released from her fillings at the moment of its conception, but throughout the entire gestation period. It is being exposed to elemental mercury from dental fillings before it even has a tooth!

However, the bad news doesn’t end there. If a mother has amalgam fillings while she nurses her baby it will also be exposed to mercury released from her fillings—for as long as the child is being nursed. In addition, most babies in modernized countries will receive 10 vaccinations by age 5. These 10 vaccinations will consist of 33 doses of the vaccines, beginning shortly after birth and continuing through early childhood. Each dose will consist of approximately 237 micrograms of mercury. But for tens of millions of babies, its first vaccination doesn’t appear until it has been exposed to mercury for 9 months!

It also isn’t a stretch to see how devastating it would be to a nursing baby that was exposed to high amounts of mercury as a fetus, to then get such large doses of mercury in vaccinations. It could be possible that without the added effect of the vaccinations a child would not have developed autism. Such is the interconnectedness of this relationship involving early exposure to mercury, in all forms.

If you think about this for a moment, it isn’t difficult to imagine the effect mercury can have on the neurological development of the child before it even gets its first dose of mercury from a vaccination! The most important aspects of neurological development take place during fetal development and it is during this period that the fetus is the most susceptible to mercury. There are those that believe that it will only take a small amount of mercury atoms to cause or contribute to a birth defect.

Certainly a child will be exposed to mercury from his or her own fillings, as early as 3 years of age, but by that time the main symptoms of autism have already appeared. I’m not saying that the mercury from their own fillings couldn’t add to, or make the symptoms worse, but they alone wouldn’t be the primary causative factor. The first symptoms of autism show up earlier than that.

 

*Of course, the fetus can also receive mercury from other sources that the mother is being exposed to, particularly mercury contaminated fish. But while those sources cannot be discounted, they are not the 24/7 exposure to mercury that comes from amalgam fillings.

Why Mercury is so Poisonous to the Fetus and Baby

First, it is vital to know that if the mother is exposed to organic or elemental mercury the fetus and baby will also be exposed to a high percentage of what the mother receives. Mercury easily passes from the mother, via the placenta, into the fetus. Mercury also passes into breast milk and enters the nursing baby through its mother’s milk. Exposure to mercury at this stage of growth is very damaging to neurological development. But what makes it even worse, much worse, is that the fetus has not developed an effective blood brain barrier and its immune system is practically non-existent. In effect, the fetus has no defense against mercury exposure.

As you know, the fetus and the nursing baby are infinitely more susceptible to any toxin, let alone one of the most poisonous ones on the planet. Admittedly, there are many factors involved when it comes to determining how much mercury a fetus or baby will receive from the mother. I cover these in Chapter 2 in my book, but briefly they include:

  • How many amalgam fillings the mother has;

  • How large they are;

  • How long they were there;

  • How often they were removed and replaced;

  • How the fillings are stimulated;

  • How long they are stimulated; and

  • How often they are stimulated.

Another important factor is whether or not the mother had mercury amalgam fillings removed or placed while she was pregnant or nursing. This is significant, because for people who have amalgam fillings, their greatest exposure to mercury occurs when those fillings are placed or removed.

What it Means!

Once we understand how fetal exposure to mercury can take place, we have no choice but to seriously consider the possibility that chronic mercury poisoning is the major risk factor in the dramatic increase in autism over the past 30 years. This makes sense, because it could very well explain:

  • Why some children who haven’t been vaccinated or haven’t received the full series of vaccinations still develop autism;
  • Why a child who was vaccinated with vaccines that didn’t contain mercury became autistic;
  • and The role of genetics in autism (a powerful mutagenic, mercury could easily contribute to autism).

Thus, there’s good reason to believe that mercury directly and indirectly plays a major role in causing autism.

One also must consider that autism isn’t the only problem that exposure to mercury is known to cause or contribute to, in babies and young children. Many learning disabilities have been attributed to mercury poisoning and the same consideration must be given to amalgam fillings to them as it is to autism.

Yet, in spite of the evidence, diehard pro-amalgam fanatics continue to say that the amount of mercury released from amalgam fillings isn’t great enough to be a health hazard. If you’ve read Chapter 2 in Mercury Detoxification: The Natural Way to Remove Mercury from Your Body, you know this simply isn’t true. The evidence is clear: chronic mercury poisoning can directly, or indirectly, be the cause or contributor to an extraordinarily large number of symptoms and diseases in adults. Nonetheless, there’s still a debate over whether or not the mercury from amalgam fillings causes health problems for adults. But no sane scientist or health professional would EVER suggest that it’s O.K. to knowingly subject a fetus, nursing baby, or young child to any amount of mercury—let alone significant amounts of it on a continuous basis.

Summing it Up

No amount of mercury is safe, for anyone—period! No one who understands how early a person can be exposed to mercury, and how very toxic it is to the fetus and nursing baby, could ever think that mercury is not a major cause of autism. Most people have not been made aware of amalgam fillings as being a source of this poison and this ignorance sadly puts the mother, fetus, and baby at great risk.

Thirty years ago, autism showed up in 1 of 10,000 births. Today, some estimates suggest it now appears in 1 out of 250 births. We know that mercury has been implicated in autism from vaccinations. We know that it cannot be excluded as a contributing cause of autism. Knowing that, under certain conditions, amalgam fillings may well be the source of significant mercury exposure at a critically important stage of neurological development should provide an objective person significant reason to ponder.  

Neither I nor anyone else can tell you how much mercury you’re receiving from your fillings. Nor can anyone know how much mercury enters the fetus, or how much short- and long-term damage it will do. But we do know one unalterable fact: no amount of mercury is safe for you or your child. Even if you have only a few amalgam fillings, is it work the risk to unnecessarily exposing your child to mercury? I personally don’t think so, especially since that risk can so easily be eliminated.

Of course I can’t speak for you, but if I were a mother with amalgam fillings and I was planning a family I would not be willing to take the risk of exposing my child to any amount of mercury, regardless of the source.  It has been scientifically proven that mercury vapor is released from amalgam fillings, enters the body and can travel to the fetus through the placenta. We know it's a neurotoxin, mutagenic, and has been proven to be a cause and contributor to learning disabilities and developmental disorders. I don't know how much more we actually need to know about how this poison damages the body. And if I were a soon to be mother, I certainly wouldn't wait until someone came up with a scientific study that conclusively proved that mercury is one of the primary causes of autism before I safely removed and replaced my amalgam fillings.

Suggestions

This was just a brief overview of this critically important subject, but it is my hope that you are now more informed than before. I can assure you, it is a lot easier to remove these fillings and prevent the side-effects of chronic mercury poisoning than to have to treat related health problems later. This includes autism. If you are planning a family I can only offer you two suggestions. The first is to have your mercury amalgam fillings safely removed and replaced with a non-toxic material, as many days prior to conception as possible. The second is to participate in a mercury detoxification program as soon as possible prior to becoming pregnant.

There are those who don’t believe you should detoxify from mercury if you are pregnant or nursing. There are many opinions as to why but as yet no consensus. I do believe that as long as you are no longer being exposed to mercury from your fillings or mercury contaminated fish, you will have dramatically decreased the risk of mercury poisoning to the fetus and nursing baby. Also, even though there still could very well be mercury stored in your body, once it has attached itself to a protein or enzyme, etc., it doesn’t readily move around; again minimizing the risk to the child. But an overly aggressive detoxification program during pregnancy or nursing could cause some mercury to move around, possibly exposing the fetus or baby. But these are just educated guesses and no one knows with certainty if that is the case.

I believe the final decision is between you and your health professional. I would certainly encourage the use of vitamins and nutritional supplements necessary to support a healthy life and protect you from the added stress on the system from a pregnancy.

But I would avoid mercury mobilizers, such as cilantro, and never use a pharmaceutical chelator during this period. However, I personally would not have a problem with any of the vitamin supplements recommended in my program that the body needs for health and either manufactures or must obtain from outside sources.

If You have an Autistic Child 

As you well know, if you have an autistic child there are no simple answers or suggestions. But I have included sources of information that could be of help to you in dealing with what you and your child are faced with. I have found the information from Dr. Amy Holmes to be very impressive and informative and I would highly recommend her, and her detoxification program, to anyone who is raising an autistic child. There are other sources as well and I’ll let you be the judge of their value.

Resources

www.healing-arts.org/children/holmes.htm. Dr. Amy Holmes’s website that brilliantly deals with chelating mercury from the autistic child.

www.tacanow.com. Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) provides the information and connection to improve the quality of life of people with autism in their families.

www.healing-arts.org/children/index.htm. Important information about alternative therapies for treating children with developmental delays and other neurometabolic conditions and disorders.

www.vaccinationnews.com/DailyNews/July2001/AutismUniqueMercPoison.htm. A great source of information about all aspects of autism by Sallie Bernard and others. One of the best sources of I’ve found.

www.drnicola.com/5901/14001.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*. This website discusses the various test for autism.

www.eas.asu.edu/~autism/DANConsensusReport.htm. This site discusses the many treatment Options for Mercury/Metal Toxicity in Autism and Related Developmental Disabilities.

Of course there are more websites with information about autism than those I’ve listed above, but these are the ones I would begin with. They are not in any particular order of importance so please don’t infer anything from the order I’ve placed them. I’d also like to suggest that you go to these sites sooner than later and print any information from them that you feel is important. Although these sites have been around for some time, websites do come and go and this will insure that you will have the information you want from them.


    

 

   

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