Teresa Binstock:
[A mini-paper by Bernard Windham, M.D., who is a very caring, very
dedicated physician committed to helping kids with neurologic
problems, which increasingly are realized to have an etiologically
significant environmental component that in many but not all cases
provides a treatment route leading to behavioral and cognitive
improvement.]Synergistic effects of toxic metals (mercury, lead, aluminum) are
extreme

Mercury and lead are extremely neurotoxic and cytotoxic, but their
combined synergistic effect is much worse. A dose of mercury
sufficient to kill 1% of tested rats, when combined with a dose of
lead sufficient to kill less than 1% of rats, resulted in killing 100
% of rats tested(1). Thus with combined exposure the safe dose is
1/100 as much as the dose individually. Studies in Australia have
confirmed similar relationships hold for people. This means most
people in the U.S. are getting dangerous levels of these metals,
enough to cause some neurologic effects.

Similar is true for synergistic effect with other toxic metals like
arsenic, and with other toxic chemicals like PCBs(2). The level of
mercury thimerosal in vaccines has been shown to be highly neurotoxic,
but the effect was found to be much larger due to the synergistic
effect with aluminum, which is also in most vaccines(4). Studies using
U.S. CDC data have found thimerosal from vaccines to be major factors
in autism and ADHD(5), along with prenatal rhogam shots which contain
high levels of mercury thimerosal and are given to some RH negative
women during pregnancy.

Autism has increased in the U.S. more than 10 fold in the last decade.
According to the Florida Dept. of Education, the numbers increased
from approx. 300 to over 4000 during this time period. There have
likewise been large increases in the number of children with ADHD and
other developmental conditions, according to the National Academy of
Sciences and other sources. A major factor in this appears to be the
large increase in vaccinations given to infants, as noted in the
previous post. (more documentation available at the childrens
neurological page, www.home.earthlink.net/~berniew1/indexk.html)

There was an increase of over 45% in learning disabilities in
Pennsylvania between 1990 and 2000(3). But the study showed that the
county highest on the Chemical Pollution Scorecard, Montgomery, had an
increase more than double that of the rest of the state. Montgomery
County had an increase in ADHD of 32.7% and an increase in autism of
310%.

Bernard Windham, M.D.

ps. note that a high percentage of Gulf state residents have been
documented to have high levels of mercury exposure(Mobile Register
study, www.home.earthlink.net/~berniew1/flhg.html)

1. Schubert J, Riley EJ, Tyler SA. Combined effects in toxicology. A
rapid systematic testing procedure: cadmium, mercury, and lead.
Toxicol Environ Health 1978;4(5/6):763-776.

2. Philippe Grandjean P, White RF et al. Neurobehavioral deficits
associated with PCB in 7-year-old children prenatally exposed to
seafood neurotoxicants. Neurotoxicology and Teratology
2001;223(4):305-317.

3. Pennsylvania Dept. of Education, 2003, Study of learning disability
incidence in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 1990 and 2000; &
“”Polluting Our Future: Chemical Emissions in the U.S. that Affect
Child Development and Learning,”” by Physicians For Social
Responsibility, at (202) 898-0150, psrnatl@psr.org

4. Haley, BE, Pendergrass JC ,Lovell, M., Univ. of Kentucky Chemistry
Dept., paper presented to the Institute of Medicine Immunization
Safety Review Committee, Spring 2001, and on medical lab website,
www.altcorp.com

5. Geier M.R., Geier DA; Thimerosal in Childhood Vaccines,
Neurodevelopmental Disorders, and Heart Disease in the U.S. ; J of
Amer Physicians and Surgeons, Vol 8(1), Spring 2003; & Bradstreet J,
Geier DA, et al, A case control study of mercury burden in children
with Autisitic Spectrum Disorders, J of Amer Physicians and Surgeons,
Vol 8(3), Summer 2003.