A Speculative Possibility for the Role of Vaccines in Autism

I can speculate based on my theory, and I mean speculate wildly and probably unhelpfully, at a role for vaccines in autism as a trigger of symptoms in children who are predisposed to autism, who almost certainly would develop the condition anyway. I can see two ways this could work.

     Autism as a Biological Stressor

One fact we know about vaccines is that they can be stressful on the body. In fact, they are intended to be stressful - that is how they work. They involve introducing a pathogen into the body that is either dead or reduced in virulence. Either way, it is designed to trigger an immune response. If 5 vaccines are clustered together as is often done, the immune response required to create the necessary antibodies to each of the exposures necessary effectuate the vaccine could be fairly substantial. While the body is very caparable of engaging in this process, that does not mean that the process is not stressful and that it does not have other unintended effects. It is quite conceivable that the stress induced through vaccination after vaccination builds up over time and can function to trigger (like various stressors do throughout our lives) a vulnerability that was preexisting and that almost certainly would have become manifest at some point in time in the near future upon exposure to another stressor, like a flu virus, or a really hard day, or a change of residence. This theory is generally supported by writings of Richard Kelley, a biochemical geneticist at Johns Hopkins University who first diagnosed Hannah Poling, an autistic girl whose autism is tied to a rare mitochondrial disorder, who is discussed on this site. He has argued that during brain development, timing is everything. Kelley theorizes that if children with specific types of mitochondrial disease are exposed to a “stressful event” — which might include an immune reaction — between the age of one and two years, “they’ll often develop the phenotype of autism.”

The question of why does autism consistently show up regressively around 18 months of age (which is a reason autism is often associated with the MMR booster given at that time) is addressed on the 'My Theory - In Detal' page of this site, in the 'Responses to Objections' subpage.

     Autism as an Inducer of Neurological Hyperexcitation

As discussed in the Theory in Detail section of this site, autistic individuals exhibit significant overstimulation of external sensory pathways, with the auditory and tactile pathways being most impacted; for instance, many autistic children have tactile problems with many foods that result in severely constrained diets. Less well known is that many autistic children also have excitatory abnormalities with various internal sensory pathways as well. For instance, these children often have trouble with internal temperature regulation and body position awareness.

I have developed a theory, supported by some research, that the immune system also acts as an internal sensory processing system. The immune system sends copious amounts of information to the brain both electrically and through the blood stream in oder to keep the brain informed as to the integrity of the internal defensive system against external pathogens. The brain acts upon this information to adjust internal state, such as when it induces a fever to battle invaders. I speculate this internal sensory processing channel can also be subjected to electrical imbalance. And, I speculate that vaccines when given in large numbers in restricted time periods could potentially tip this sensory pathway into overstimulation, which induces system wide excitatory imbalance, and triggers the onset of autistic symptoms. But, this is just speculation.

My Recommendation

My recommendation is that children should be vaccinated. Vaccination protects all of us against diseases that used to kill us by the millions. Vaccination only works if a very high percentage of the population receive their shots. If individuals start to opt out in large numbers from vaccination based upon poorly conceived theories in an effort to narrowly protect their families, then we know we will all have a big problem.