Vaccines and Autism: What You Need to Know

The increase in numbers of American children diagnosed with autism is frightening. Autism cases have skyrocketed between 20 and 30 fold since the early 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

In 2014, the CDC released a report stating that one child in 68 had autism, a 30 percent increase from only two years earlier. For boys, the risk was even worse — one in 42.

The condition, which causes difficulty communicating and limited social skills, was so rare in past generations that the term autism wasn't even used in the modern sense until 1938. Autism wasn't classified as a specific illness until the late 1960s.

As the numbers of victims began to rise, desperate parents searched for help — and for answers. Doctors were as clueless as the parents about the cause. Many parents believed their children were normal until they began receiving regularly scheduled vaccinations. Speculation centered around the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, since some parents saw a dramatic spiral into autism immediately following the MMR inoculation.

Holistic physician David Brownstein, M.D., has seen first-hand the agony faced by parents of autistic children. "For over 20 years, I have seen many parents who reported that their child was developing normally until they received a vaccine," he says. "Within hours to days of the vaccine, particularly the MMR vaccine, these parents claim that their children changed in their behavior and attitude.

"The story was always similar," he tells Newsmax Health. "One day the child was normal, the next day he or she was crying and irritable and began regressing on all fronts — neurologically, behaviorally, and emotionally.

"From this point on, the lives of the parents and affected children were changed forever," he says. "Nearly all of these children were eventually diagnosed as autistic."

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