RCRS Email Update August 1999
I recently watched a video (See resources below) on the experiences of Victoria and Gary Beck, and their son Parker. After developing normally as a toddler, one day Parker suddenly became uncommunicative, unresponsive and unruly with a tendency to repetitive movements, such as turning in circles. The parents were devastated when told by doctors that the child was autistic. These unique parents were very doubtful about the diagnosis. They couldn't believe it, and they didn't believe it. For two years they sought one doctor after another to help explain the sudden onset of this condition in their little boy.
They suspected it might have had something to do with an MMR vaccination, which was the only remarkable event near the onset of the symptoms that might be connected. I assume they were told that there could be no connection between the vaccine and the disorder. These two individuals are thinkers and they were combing all the available data of their first hand experience with the child to try to understand what was happening. What was going on?
Instead of drifting into a state of surrender and despair, they probed. For one thing, Parker had chronic diarrhea and was subject to vomiting. That aspect was easier to overlook as an infant, but as he got older, this became a matter of note (it should have been a matter of note to the physicians long before). So the parents arranged to have an endoscopy performed. It appears they almost had to lobby for it, since their care-providers seem to resist their efforts every step of the way.
The tests seemed to check out ok. Then about 10 days after the procedure, Parker underwent a noticeable, even a profound transformation. Parker became "autistic" before he could really speak. One of the characteristics of autistic children is that they live as in a shell. A speech therapist working with Parker contacted the parents soon after the procedure and said they should come see what she was witnessing. The child began to follow the therapist's cues in a picture-point exercise, and correctly responding to her directions, and he began to progress in speech.
The doctors said it was a spontaneous remission. Naturally, in keeping with their inclination to seek out causes, the Becks doubted this too, and they went back over the procedures involved in an endoscopy, the only remarkable event near the time of Parker's second change.
The Becks looked into the procedure in exacting detail. Finally they decided it might have something to do with a compound used in analysis of digestive function: Secretin, a hormone. The synthetic hormone, a neuropeptide consisting of a mere 27 amino-acids, is used intravenously to stimulate the pancreatic exocrine function for purposes of analysis.
Following the hunch that this might have been what induced the change, they somehow convinced a physician to give Parker another injection of secretin...and he showed further progress. In a comparatively short time, Parker was acting more like a normal child: communicative, playful, wide-eyed and curious.
But how would the MMR, a live virus vaccine, induce the change in Parker? Why did he recover after secretin was used? I don't know what theories are most favored right now, but I wonder if the proteins in the vaccine may have somehow affected the receptors on the pancreas cells responsible for exocrine function.
We don't know how extensively the pancreas acts as an immune organ, but it is conceivable that besides acting as the primary organ of digestion, it provides enzymes to the internal system that act both as protective against foreign materials, but also function as signal activators. We know the compartment surrounding the pituitary is rich in proteolytic enzymes that activate the inactive precursor hormones. It may be that some of these enzymes arrive there from the pancreas or are affected by such circulating enzymes.
One thing is telling: after receiving the vaccine, the child had chronic diarrhea and subject to vomiting. It would be interesting to know if he was also more than normally susceptible to infections in the skin and lungs.
It is our view that the pancreas is an immune organ. The fact that amylase and other pancreatic enzymes are normally found circulating in the plasma and lymphatic fluids, weakly inhibited, but capable of activation suggests that this is not merely an artifact of an imperfect system. Evolution favors useful not sloppy functions. If we assume that circulating enzymes are capable of functioning as a form of parenteral digestive agents, in other words, that they will digest foreign materials that don't belong there just as they do to foreign materials taken in as food, we have a probative basis for thinking of the pancreas as an immune organ.
Then consider a viral coat or any foreign material that may resemble the glycoproteins or neuropeptides we call hormones. The receptors that normally tell the pancreas to secrete the digestive enzymes, either into the digestive tract, or by some other means into the circulation, might be deactivated by such pseudo-hormones, or hormono-mimetic proteins. In biochemistry, we recognize that enzymes and receptors are both subject to deactivation by competitive inhibition. This is how antihistamines work. For another example, the intestinal walls have receptor-type enzymes called cytochrome p450. Factors in grapefruit juice have been known to deactivate these microsomal enzymes. Thereby drugs that normally would be degraded can enter into the system unchanged. The p450 in the liver are also affected and a drug or other materials can accumulate and become dangerously toxic to the system. (For an informative search on Medline, just type "grapefruit juice".)
When secretin is injected, the pancreas receives a higher concentration of this hormone, and the inhibitor may be displaced allowing the return of normal functions. I admit I don't know what is going on with the MMR vaccine. The people seeking the release of secretin as a therapeutic agent believe they need a continuous supply to bring their children back to normal and to keep them there. Whether this means that the children actually revert to autistic patterns after a time or not, I don't know. If so, then mere competitive inhibition seems an unlikely answer to what is happening. It depends on the life or turn-over of receptors and inhibitors responsible for and affecting normal function. I'll do more study on it and anyone with more information should write me. R.
Resources:
Secretin in Autism (Video) Autism Research Institute 4182 Adams Avenue San Diego, Ca 92116 http://www.autism.com/ari/ For a very interesting read: http://www.autism.com/ari/secretin2.html
Autism and Secretin by John Wills Lloyd, University of Virginia Curry School of Education: http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/cise/ose/information/secretin.html
Allergies and Food Sensitivities Written by Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D. Center for the Study of Autism, Salem, Oregon: http://www.autism.org/secretin.html
For an interesting notice on MMR: Asthma & Allergy Associates of Florida, P.A.: http://www.allergyweb.com/articles/mmrvacc.html
Horvath, K., Stefanatos, G., Sokolski, K. N., Wachtel, R., Nabors L., & Tildon, J. T. (1998). Improved social and language skills after secretin administration in patients with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of the Association for Academic Minority Physicians, 9, 9-15.
Roger Cathey rsc@navi.net http://www.navi.net/~rsc