Cerwin

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Savannah Cerwin
Ms. Elizabeth Caruso
UWRT
12 April 2016
Defense Paper
During the initial research of my topic, I did come to the conclusion that vaccines
somehow played a part in a whether or not a child developed autism, so I decided to make a
website for my product. My hope is that through this website, mothers will have a place to come
to learn about their child if they develop autism and also have a place to chat about it, like a blog
style. While researching this, I found a certain diet that is said to cure autism, so I also added a
section on the website that shares recipes that follow this diet to give mothers a head start on how
to cure their child.
I want to begin with the question: what is autism? Autism is a mental disability that
interferes with the childs ability to communicate, interact with others, and form relationships.
Since autism is usually discovered at such a young age, it does affect the brains natural
development. This causes the child to have lifelong challenges connecting to the world around
them (Block, pg. 8) The causes of autism have been unknown for a while, but there have been
some researches done that state that environmental and risk factors during pregnancy play a role,
along with with genetics (Shih, n.d.). This is where I begin to disagree.
I do believe that developing autism does relate to genetic factors, but after all the research
I have done, I think that vaccines play a role in this as well. Vaccines contain a mercury based
preservative called thimerosal. Although the CDC did recognize that this was dangerous, they
only removed some of the thimerosal, thus still leaving trace amounts of the preservative in the

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vaccines (Minnesota Department of Health). With the amount of recommended shots for a child
today, the thimerosal is no longer a trace amount in their body. By the time a child today is six
months old, they have already received more vaccines than his/her mother did by the time she
graduated high school (The Canary Party).
Since I do believe that the development of autism is somehow correlated with the amount
of vaccines that are recommend for children at such a young age, I wanted to make a place for
new parents to come. There is a blog spot for parents to share their experiences with vaccine
induced autism, and even share some GFCF recipes that they enjoy. I wanted this to be helpful
for them whether their child had already begun to show signs of autism or if they are just curious
about how to go about their new childs vaccination schedule. There is an information page
including everything you need to know about the relationship between the two. One of the
scholarly articles that I found said that there is no scientific relationship between the two at all
(Bearman, 2010). I did make sure to back that up by showing that some researches are flawed.
The only vaccine that has had research done on it to determine the relationship with autism is the
MMR vaccine. That is one out of the many vaccines that children receive when they are younger.
That is a very important point in my information section of my product.
The MMR vaccine is the only vaccine that has been tested because the government
makes so much money off of vaccines. The Department of Health and Human Services owns the
patents for vaccines, so they profit directly from the all of the vaccines that are purchased for the
United States (The Canary Party). Most importantly, I made sure to inform the parents that
access my website how important it is to make sure that their children are vaccinated at some
point, with the the necessary vaccines, to ensure the safety of the other children that they come in
contact with. I want to get the point across that the vaccine schedule is excessive and rushed. All

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parents should be informed about the harms of injecting their children with so many vaccines in
such a short amount of time.
Although most of my research is based off of blogs because this is a fairly new
conversation, I did find scholarly articles on the autism diet. It is a gluten and casein free diet
(GFCF diet). Basically, the child with autism completely cuts out gluten (wheat) and casein
(dairy) from their diet. Switching to a diet that is this new and drastic can be really scary for most
people I am sure, so I made a beginners grocery list and I also made a section that shows them
the foods that they need to avoid. "The GFCF Diet is one of the very first recommendations
made by the Autism Research Institute. (Reichelt, n.d.). An autistic childs body does not
produce gluten and casein correctly, so when they are removed, the childs behavior, attention,
speech, and socialization skills slowly improve (Elder, 2009). While making this website, I even
tested out some of the recipes I included on the website to make sure that I wasnt putting
anything in there that I wouldnt eat myself. I didnt test them all, but I did test the pancakes, the
salmon and the mac and cheese, and they were surprisingly really good. I put a disclaimer at the
bottom of my website saying that I did try these, so it shows that even the average person can
enjoy this and they arent gross things that are going to ruin the way your child eats forever. I
found a lot of information regarding this that would be helpful to new mothers coming into this
journey, so I made sure to include all of that when making my website.
The autism rate has gone from 1 in 10000 to 1 in 68 over the past 10 years (Shih, n.d).
This is not something that is random. The vaccines that the government is forcing on our children
is harming them in ways that we can prevent. My website will help these parents realize that. I
hope that through my website, parents will get an idea on how serious this autism and vaccine

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debate is, and take action. They will learn that they need to vaccinate their children, but not at the
rate that the government suggests.

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Works Cited
(NEW- Scholary Sources)
Bearman, Peter. "Just-so Stories: Vaccines, Autism, and the Single-Bullet Disorder." Social
Psychology Quarterly. 73.2 (2010): 112-115. Print.
Block, Martin E, Vickie E. Block, and Peggy Halliday. "What Is Autism?" Teaching Elementary
Physical Education. 17.6 (2006): 7-11. Print.
Elder, Jennifer Harrison, Ph.D, RN, FAAN. "The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet in Autism:
An Overview With Clinical Implications." The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet in
Autism: An Overview With Clinical Implications. The American Society for Parenteral
and Enteral Nutrition, Jan. 2009. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Elder, Jennifer H, Meena Shankar, Jonathan Shuster, Douglas Theriaque, Sylvia Burns, and
Lindsay Sherrill. "The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet in Autism: Results of a Preliminary
Double Blind Clinical Trial." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 36.3
(2006): 413-420. Print.
(OLD)
The Canary Party. "Do Vaccines Cause Autism?" YouTube. YouTube, 07 Sept. 2013. Web. 13
Apr. 2016.
Minnesota Department of Health. Thimerosal and Childhood Vaccines: What You Should
Know. Thimerosal and Childhood Vaccines. 5 July 2012. Web. 13 April 2016
Reichelt, Karl. "The GFCF Diet Intervention." n.d. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
Shih, Andy, Ph.D. "What Is Autism?" Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks Inc., n.d. Web. 11 April
2016
Usher, Kimberly. "Vaccine Injury Crime.": Dept. Health and Human Services (DHH) And/or

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World Health Organization (WHO) Charged with Pushing Vaccines That Harm Children.
18 Aug. 2013. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.