I am not an activist. I am a mother and a grandmother and someone who cares deeply about the future of our children and of the planet. Through my work with my husband, John Green MD, I have witnessed first-hand the scourge that we call autism and its devastating effects on the children and families it touches. And autism is just the tip of the iceberg as many children suffer from related problems yet do not have formal diagnoses.
I am nearly 60 years old. In my childhood, I knew no one with autism and our school had no special education classrooms. Now, we all know someone with an autistic child, a quirky child who doesn’t quite fit in or a child with one of many “alphabet soup” diagnoses such as ADHD.
Autism now strikes 1 in 36 children. In 1970, the number was 1 in 10,000.
What most people do not know is that autistic children are sick. They can suffer from seizures, brain inflammation, intestinal, mitochondrial, methylation and detoxification problems, endocrine disorders as well as food allergies and intolerances. Their bodies don’t process the world in the same way a neurotypical child would, often making it a scary place.
Why are we unaware of this epidemic? If the cancer rate had changed so drastically so that it now affected 1 in 36 of our precious children, would we be so passive and silent? Would we accept the big Pharma and corrupted science views that want us to believe that autism is a genetic problem? Or that we are just detecting it better? Outrageous!
It is time for us as mothers and grandmothers to raise the battle cry to protect our children and grandchildren and their grandchildren.
The first step is to educate ourselves that autism is usually an environmentally triggered problem. Extensive scientific research has failed to find a unifying genetic cause of autism. We have always had genetic susceptibilities, but the epidemic of autism is new, unfolding dramatically in the past two generations.
My husband and I believe that there is not one particular cause of autism, but instead multiple threats that produce a “perfect storm” called autism. These threats include environmental toxins such as heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs and flame retardants, as well as plastic derivatives, processed nutrient-depleted foods, electromagnetic pollution, and overzealous use of poorly tested vaccines. In addition, our children’s intestinal microbiome is harmed by overuse of antibiotics from prescriptions and our food supply as well as the increased rate of caesarian births (which deprive the baby of exposure to the mother’s microbiome as s/he passes through the birth canal).
Children today face a gauntlet of man-made chemicals, some of which are known to be neurotoxic and toxic to the developing fetus. Only a tiny fraction of the more than 80,000 man-made chemicals released into the environment have been adequately tested for safety, as the number of tests required makes it physically impossible to perform all the necessary safety studies. The outcome of this lack of testing is evident in the declining health of our children.
In addition, vaccines have not been studied for safety, in particular the effect of giving multiple vaccines at once and the intensive schedule by which they are given. Did you know that vaccine manufacturers are immune to lawsuits? Hmm… how did this happen? Essentially, autism and other similar new diseases are casualties of modern civilization and our children have become guinea pigs in this societal experiment.
Perhaps you are not an activist either, but you have people in your life whom you love with all your heart.
Spread the word. Autism may be preventable. We don’t know everything, but we know enough to try.
Are you or your loved one considering pregnancy? Here are some action steps to take:
- Take the quiz on our website, https://www.childrenandautism.com to learn about simple lifestyle changes
- Sign up for our mailing list to receive a free chapter of our e-book, The Biology of Autism Prevention, to learn more about all of the factors which contribute to the perfect storm of autism.
- Purchase The Autism Prevention Guidebook to learn about all the ways we know to decrease the chance of a child being born with or later developing autism.
Even if you are beyond child rearing age, purchase the book, educate yourself, spread the word. The non-pregnancy suggestions in the e-book apply to all of us. The younger generation is getting hit by autism and other neurological disorders and our generation is threatened by dementia, MS, ALS and Parkinson’s.
Spread the word.
We do not know everything, but we know enough to start to stem the tide of this epidemic. We can wait no longer. Our children are threatened and it is up to the mothers and grandmothers to protect them.
Educate yourselves.
Spread the word.
Our kids are counting on you.
Polly Green, MSW