In support for a White House Conference on Autism

Dear President Bush:

      I am a pediatrician with 22 years of clinical experience.  For more than a decade I directed pediatric education in a residency training program.  In 1996 I became concerned about a trend towards increasing incidences of allergic, autoimmune, and chronic illness in children.  At the same time, the incidence of attention and learning problems as well as autistic spectrum disorders seemed to be skyrocketing.

      It seemed clear that something had changed to cause this abrupt change in pattern of illness.  I initiated a collaborative effort among agencies in my community to examine this problem.  We established a coalition with the Lynchburg City Schools to undertake medical assessments of children with these problems whose needs were not being met.

      For 16 months I worked without a salary and was on call for two years except during rare trips.  Currently I am doing the most challenging work of my career for a salary that is one third of my former colleagues. I felt compelled to make personal and professional sacrifices for this crisis in children’s health. In the last two years I have read over 50 books and attending over 150 hours of lectures to try to understand this phenomenon.

      It is abundantly clear that we must examine these children objectively and with our best science.  It is clear that we must examine the potential causative effects of our vaccination programs, which have saved thousands from acute illness but may have damaged a genetically susceptible population with chronic illness.  We must acknowledge the Law of Unintended Consequences.

      The vaccine experts who added new vaccines into the routine schedule in the late 80’s and early 90’s have acknowledged that they did not add up the cumulative doses of mercury to which our children were exposed.  The CDC ’s own data shows an increased risk of 2.48 for autism in children who received full immunizations by six months compared to a less vaccinated population.  Mercury is a known neurotoxin, and has profound effects on the gastrointestinal and immune system.   My patients have objective and verifiable evidence of immune dysregulation, intestinal dysfunction and biochemical abnormalities which are consistent with mercury toxicity.  We cannot assume that these profound abnormalities are not related to thimerosol just because it is too painful to think that we may have harmed a generation of children.

      MMR vaccine and other live viral vaccines have always carried warnings about administration to immune compromised individuals.  If, as the clinical evidence now suggests, a subset of children had immune and gut dysfunction at the time they were given live viral vaccines, they would have been vulnerable to chronic infection from the MMR vaccine.

      It is crucial not to be misled by population based epidemiological studies, which may not have the statistical power to detect associations between vaccines and the susceptible population I describe.

      For the sake of these children and their families, please proceed with a White House Conference on Autism as recommended by Congressman Burton.  It is vital that physicians with patient care experience be allowed to describe their clinical findings.  I suggest that you invite the following physicians and scientists: Sidney Baker, Ken Boch, Jeff Bradstreet, Tim Buie, Stephanie Cave, Jane El-Dahr, Jerry Kartzinel, Arthur Krigsman, Mary Megson, Jon Pangborn, Paul Shattock, and Andy Wakefield.  Remember, “no child left behind.”

Respectfully,

Elizabeth Mumper, MD

President and CEO

Advocates for Children

Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics

University of Virginia School of Medicine

Elizabeth Mumper, M.D., FAAP 
President and CEO
Advocates for Children

http://www.advocates4children.com/index.php

Dr. Mumper is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Family Medicine at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center. She graduated magna cum laude from Bridgewater College, where her mother worked, and her father taught history. She attended the Medical College of Virginia, did residency training at the University of Massachusetts and University of Virginia, and was invited to serve as Chief Resident of Pediatrics at UVA. She spent five years in practice at Hopkins Pediatrics. She spent over a decade as Director of Pediatric Education at the Lynchburg Family Practice Residency Program. Dr. Mumper has been honored to receive many awards over the years, including being named a Miracle Maker in Central Virginia in 1996 by the Children’s Miracle Network and Woman of the Year in Health and Sciences in 1998 by the YWCA. She was privileged to accept a national award for corporate public service at the National Press Club in Washington on behalf of the Bike Helmet Safety Campaign she co-chaired for many years. Recently she has been working on book chapters about allergy, immunology, behavioral problems, and developmental pediatrics to be published in a textbook for medical students and distributed nationally. She struggles to balance her roles as pediatrician, medical educator, clinical researcher, and writer with her joys and responsibilities a wife, daughter, and mother of two children.