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Feb 3, 2007
A mother's battle against
mercury
February 3, 2007
By TONY HOLT
wholt@hernandotoday.com
SPRING HILL — Mikey was oblivious
to the racket coming from the other side of the glass a few inches
from his face. His mother, Barbara Lupo, had parked her car in the
parking lot of the Spring Hill Wal-Mart and had walked to the rear
passenger side door. She playfully tapped on the window to get Mikey
to laugh.
But Mikey did not react. He did not
even turn his head. Lupo knocked again and again, each time banging
the glass harder with her knuckles while screaming Mikey’s name.
She unbuckled her 15-month-old son,
pulled him out of the car, held him in her arms and tried to
establish eye contact, but he was unresponsive.
“I was a panicked wreck,” Lupo
said. “It’s like he had lost his personality.”
The abrupt change in Mikey’s
behavior, his mother said, occurred less than 24 hours after he had
been given his immunizations for the measles, mumps, rubella and
Hepatitis B.
At the time, she thought something
was wrong with his hearing. She called her husband and the two
decided he should go to a Tampa-area clinic for some tests.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, he is going
to need a hearing aid for the rest of his life,’” Lupo recalled.
“Now I wish that was all he would have needed.”
After medical specialists
discovered nothing wrong with his hearing, Lupo took her son to
three different physicians seeking answers. Three months after his
vaccinations, he was diagnosed with autism and mental retardation.
Lupo disputes the latter diagnosis,
based on her son’s development. He is 10 years old and is
functioning better than most expected, she said. He has an acute
sense of direction, can read at a rudimentary level and can safely
ride a bike.
Mikey is also drawn to more
hands-on activities that require tools. Earlier this week, his
mother took him shopping at a local hardware store. They walked out
carrying nearly $70 worth of items.
“Trust me, it wasn’t funny,” Lupo
said with a heavy dose of dry humor. “My husband wanted to kill me
afterwards.”
In spite of his improvements,
Mikey’s autism remains a significant handicap. The most obvious
signs of his disorder occur daily. His behavior can change in a
matter of seconds, from mild-mannered to ferocious.
His tantrums involve more than
screaming and crying. Mikey is a bulky child who could easily injure
anyone who gets in the way of his flailing arms and balled fists.
Lupo has suffered from dislocated
shoulders, a dislocated wrist and a dislocated hip while trying to
calm her son during his frenzies.
“He’s strong as an ox when he has
those rages,” she said.
One day last month, Lupo was in the
front yard with Mikey trying to keep him occupied with an outdoor
light she had bought for him at the Home Depot. He wanted to hang it
in his room. His mother was tightening a screw, trying to attach the
base of the light to a small square of dry wall, but was having
difficulty.
Mikey grew impatient. He
immediately snapped into another tantrum, shaking his head back and
forth and screaming at the top of his lungs. Spittle was flying out
of his mouth. He raised his hands over his head and it looked like
he was about to slam his fists downward, but Lupo did not flinch.
She sat inches away from him,
glared at him with a stern look on her face said, “Listen to me. No,
don’t do that. Daddy will be home soon.”
Mikey looked into his mother’s eyes
and settled down. He still had saliva on his chin.
“Wipe your mouth please,” Lupo
said.
Mikey brought his arm to his face
and wiped his chin with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
Preparing for vaccine court Most of
Lupo’s efforts center on two goals — providing for her three
children, namely Mikey, and making sure the latter is financially
set for the remainder of his life.
Not long after she learned Mikey
had autism, she discovered there were legions of parents like her
whose children showed severe neurological symptoms after receiving
their vaccinations. They were convinced their children were poisoned
by the mercury-filled preservative, known as thimerosal, formerly an
ingredient in childhood vaccines.
Lupo joined the fight. She and her
husband filed a federal petition, along with nearly 5,000 other
parents, seeking a monetary settlement.
The cases are heard by the U.S.
Court of Federal Claims, created by Congress in 1982. It specializes
in vaccine-related cases and is commonly known as “vaccine court.”
Lupo’s attorney, John Clark, of the
Ferrero Law Firm in Miami, said the number of petitioners would have
been significantly higher had it not been for the court’s “onerous
statute of limitations.”
“These parents must go before the
court within three years of the first sign of the first symptom,
which is rather hard to do,” Clark said. “A lot of these parents and
children were locked out.”
Mikey Lupo is 10 years old. He was
diagnosed with autism at 18 months. Barbara Lupo filed before the
statute of limitations expired — a clear sign of how much time it
takes for one case to go through the process.
Clark’s firm represents 65
petitioners, but the upcoming “causation hearing,” scheduled for
June, will affect all of the petitioners’ cases.
“The catch is, there has never been
any (scientific) connection between vaccines and autism,” Clark
admitted.
In spite of the lack of evidence,
there are several medical experts, as well as parents, who have
surmised beyond a reasonable doubt that thimerosal causes autism.
Insurance companies have
accumulated a vast database consisting of reports of adverse
reactions to vaccines. Whenever a parent complains his or her child
has shown symptoms from a vaccine, it is added to the records.
As of now, that database has been
off limits. Attorneys for the petitioners thus far have been barred
from accessing them, Clark said.
“We need to get our experts to get
their hands on that information and crunch the numbers,” he said.
The government has said it does not
have the authority to grant access because the database belongs to
the insurance companies.
Attorneys argue the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services does have the authority, and moral
obligation, to release the records, Clark said.
The decision on whether those
records can be accessed will be made by a special master, the
vaccine court equivalent to a judge. The case would be greatly
impacted if the database made available to the petitioners’ lawyers,
Clark said.
Either way, causation needs to be
established in order for the cases to go forward. If the special
master rules in favor of the defendants, or respondents, then no
monetary settlement can be sought by Lupo or any of the other
petitioners.
“If that happens, then it’s going
to be squashed,” Clark explained. “If there is no way to prove the
connection (between vaccines and autism), then we are not eligible
for compensation. That won’t stop anyone from filing a civil suit,
but the standards are tougher there.
“A lot of families’ hopes are
riding on what happens in June,” he said.
No proof, yet no more mercury The
best-case scenario for the Lupo family is a $250,000 settlement.
That is the maximum amount given to a petitioner who wins a
liability case in vaccine court.
For every vaccine purchased since
that time, Clark said, a tiny portion of the money went into a pot.
Over the years, the dollar amount has grown well into the billions.
The pot was intended to be the
source of money that gets dispersed to those who are ultimately
injured by vaccines, Clark said. Instead of suing pharmaceutical
companies, the parents of the sick children are supposed to take
their cases to vaccine court. If they win, they are awarded money
from the pot.
Some families have more grandiose
hopes and have filed civil suits. Those court battles may be more
difficult to win, but the rewards are much higher, Clark said.
Some think if a judge ruled in
favor of the plaintiff in a vaccine case, it would make the tobacco
company settlements from more than a decade ago seem paltry by
comparison. Furthermore, if pharmaceutical companies were found
liable of poisoning children with mercury, the monetary result would
have a gargantuan effect on the U.S. economy. That gives the federal
government a serious motive to prevent civil suits from going
forward, critics have said.
One of the leading crusaders in the
fight against pharmaceutical companies and their alleged government
conspirators is Rep. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., D-N.J.
He has accused the government of
covering up “damaging data” connecting thimerosal to autism.
Kennedy said a group of government
scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting in June 2000
in Norcross, Ga., to discuss the data.
In a 2005 published report
entitled, “Deadly Immunity,” Kennedy accusatorily wrote, “many at
the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about
thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry’s bottom line.”
Referring to a transcript of the
meeting, he quoted a doctor who said, “We are in a bad position from
the standpoint of defending any lawsuits.”
Pressure had already been mounting
against the government to remove mercury from vaccines. In spite of
no medical proof of the link between thimerosal and autism (an
extensive study was conducted by the Institute of Medicine, the
results of which were published in 2004) mercury was pulled out of
all childhood vaccines by 2002. A voluntary recall of the original
vaccines was implemented. Many pediatric offices still administered
thimerosal-filled shots during the next two years.
Today, only flu and tetanus shots
contain thimerosal, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The latter is only administered to those ages 7 and older.
Holistic physician versus
anthropology professor, author Dr. David Berger, a holistic
pediatrician out of Tampa who specializes in treatment for
autism-related disorders, said the proper research has not been done
on thimerosal. He is convinced previous studies were too broad.
He thinks there is a biological
explanation as to why certain children who have been injected with
thimerosal have acquired autistic symptoms.
The human body, Berger said,
contains a protein that is used for the detoxification of
potentially hazardous substances, such as mercury or other metals.
If a protein-deficient child is
injected with thimerosal, then he or she is more likely to develop
autism, he said.
“In my heart of hearts, I think
there was something to it,” he said. “I talk quite frequently about
this.”
Many local parents of autistic
children have consulted Berger in spite of their HMOs not covering
visits to holistic physicians. Because autistic children require
more medical care, an appointment with such a doctor could cost them
thousands of dollars.
Many physicians, like Berger, are
sold on the alleged link between mercury and autism. Others are not.
There are those who emphatically
deny there is an epidemic in the first place.
According to Dr. Roy Grinker, a
professor of anthropology at George Washington University and author
of “Unstrange Minds: Remapping the World of Autism,” the rise in
autism diagnoses is the result of an enhanced knowledge of the
disorder on the part of the medical community. He compares the
recent spike in autism numbers to those for depression, Alzheimer’s
disease, fetal alcohol syndrome, melanoma and breast cancer.
“To argue that an increase in the
numbers of people classified in school or public health care
assistance records is evidence of a true rise in autism would be
like arguing that the increase in successful coffee houses like
Starbucks is by itself proof of an increase in the number of coffee
drinkers in the U.S.,” he said.
Berger scoffed at Grinker’s theory.
“If you have ever spent five
seconds with a child, you know he is autistic,” Berger said. “Autism
is so obvious. Were these symptoms showing up with the same
frequency in kids 10 years ago? Absolutely not.
“There is no way we went one in
10,000 children (with autism) 10 years ago to one in 166 just on
better diagnosis,” he continued. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“Dr. Berger’s answer is an answer
from the gut,” Grinker said of Berger’s reaction. “It feels like an
epidemic. It really does ... (but) just because something feels like
an epidemic, it doesn’t mean there is one. Science has not found
that there is a true increase in autism.”
Grinker has his own personal
connection to the subject. His 15-year-old daughter is autistic.
Debate rages on “Everyone is
entitled to their opinion,” Lupo said of Grinker.
When told the professor has an
autistic daughter, the outspoken mother remained steadfast.
“I don’t care if he has 10 autistic
kids, he wasn’t there when my son changed overnight,” Lupo said.
“Everybody who knew Mikey saw it.”
Had Clark overheard the
conversation, he would not have been surprised by Lupo’s reaction to
Grinker’s conclusion. He has gotten to know her well in the seven
years he has handled her case.
“There have always been those
deniers who say ‘it’s not so until you prove it to me,’” Clark said.
“Then there are those parents who know they had happy, healthy and
normal children until they took these vaccines. There will be no
convincing them otherwise.”
Grinker, who has received scads of
hate mail since his book was published, said he is perplexed at the
number of parents who are invested in the belief there is an autism
epidemic.
“I think the media are to blame, in
part,” Grinker said. “I also blame scientists for not speaking out
enough. They are scared because autism is such a sensitive topic.”
His critics point to the relatively
low number of adults with autism, but Grinker again was dismissive.
So many autistic adults were misdiagnosed as children, so
unbeknownst to most of society, “they are living all around us,” he
said.
“An autistic person can make a
tremendous amount of progress,” Grinker said.
That is the one opinion of
Grinker’s that sits well with Lupo.
“I definitely know we’ve come a
long way with Mikey,” she said. “He knows how to wash his hair. He
cleans up his room. He knows when he comes home to take off his
shoes. He knows to put his dirty clothes away.
“I’ve seen so much progress,” Lupo
said, stressing the amount of effort she and her husband have put
forth to make their son’s life easier. “He’s going to be a
successful member of society even if it kills me.”
Reporter Tony Holt can be contacted
at 352-544-5283.
This story can be found at:
http://www.hernandotoday.com/MGBE2H8MQXE.html
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