Types of Autism; What if its More Complex than Mercury?

Donna Williams

July 3, 2007

Exposure to heavy metals is part of modern life. These heavy metals are in many common household products as well as the petrochemicals in our air and waterways. If toxic levels of heavy metals, including mercury, are being found in many children with autism and blamed for their autism, what if the problem was not the heavy metals at all but something else? What if that something else suppressed production of an enzyme responsible for detoxification leading to these children being unable to detox from heavy metal accumulation that others in the population were able to naturally detoxify? What if that something else was being used daily by a large percentage of the world's population and ends up in the air, soil, waterways, in our food chain and our bodies?

Here's a tour:

Phthalates are toxic to the liver and kidneys. The liver is responsible for the PRODUCTION of enzymes necessary for detoxification. The kidneys are the bloods main detoxification organ. It's not rocket science to realise that regularly ingesting and absorbing toxic household phthalates through the skin, lungs, nose and gut are going to impair liver and kidney function and, therefore the production of detoxification enzymes.

Phthalates are linked to birth defects, behavioural disorders and immune suppression and they are in the very products not only used, sprayed, injested, rubbed on, soaked in and flushed into the waterways of houses daily but are in the fundraising products given to disability charities by cosmetic companies seeking to raise their profile.

Although regularly not listed in the ingredients of perfumed products phthalates are almost always present when tested in personal care products and are in our plastic containers and cling film which leaches phthalates into our food. These phthalates inhibit the production of detoxification enzymes in the body. In plain English that means a toxic body, leading to impaired immune function, a systemic inflammatory state and a vulnerable brain.

Then there's Quarternium which is formaldehyde, which also suppresses immune function. Why stop at daily exposure to one toxic chemical when you can multiply the effect and line the pockets of big business in the process. Formaldehyde (yes the same stuff they use to preserve dead bodies and in antifreeze) is in bubble bath, baby shampoos and baby lotions, including those labeled unperfumed. Those advertisments that ask 'how much do you love your baby' may never sound the same again.

Our waterways are also choked with billions of discarded cigarette butts washed down stormwater drains which leach an abundance of highly toxic chemicals into the water over the 12 years they take to decompose, killing animals, fish and birds along the way and doubtless not doing us much good either.

The world of natural medicine (and high cost behaviour therapy programs) will take your money as quickly as the pharmaceutical companies, but will they help you detox rather than tell you what you're already doing to block natural detoxification processes or help you discover your own expertise and advocacy skills in helping your child on the journey to personhood?

Whilst not all people with ASD have gut, immune or metabolic disorders, there are those with a (possibly inherited) metabolic disorder, a deficiency in Phenolsulphurtransferase. A deficiency in this leads to reduced detoxification processes in the body can lead to suppressed immunity, and ultimately a chronic inflammatory state, including gut inflammation. One of the natural plant toxins we have in daily diets world wide is Salicylate. It's the ingredient in Aspirin, its also 18 times the high level in things like Vegimite and yeast extracts, honey, almonds, stone fruits, berries, most concentrated fruit juices as well as artificial colorings, flavourings and preservatives.

Source: American Chronicle