The Great, Fantastic, Amazing DAN! Conference

I attended the DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) Conference on Sunday. It was a three day conference, but I could only fit in one day, but that one day blew my mind. Really. I have no brain left, because after trying to understand all the biochemistry being thrown around by the speakers, my brain exploded. I miss it. It helped me do things. You know, thinking and all.

Well, I do have some brain left, but I told Hubby that he would have understood a lot more than I did, since he was the chemistry major/pre-med guy in college. (I was the pre-veterinary school until I took biology and calculus, scraped by with Cs, and decided to be an English major instead. I had dreamt of being a veterinarian or marine biologist for most of my young life, but the whole science thing ended up being a wee bit hard. Go figure. I was like the old talking Barbie doll that said, "Math is hard!" Yeah, Barbie, it is!) Anyway, when I got home from the conference I told Hubby what the big points were, and what the researchers were excited about, including Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT). Hubby flipped through the conference book, looking at all the powerpoint slides of hard science compiled there, and asked, "How many atmospheres were they talking about for treatment?" Blank stare from me, followed by, "Er, I don't know." Hubby, "Hmm, I wonder if you could get similar results from a tent, or if you have to use a tank." More blank stares from me.

I did listen and take notes, though, so I'll put the important stuff below for anyone interested in the latest ideas in biomedical Autism treatment. For those of you who don't know much about Autism, let me say that there are two big groups most people fall into when it comes to Autism treatment. There's the Biomedical group, which believes that Autism is treatable, and that it is possible to recover children with Autism, so that they can heal their brains and bodies enough to help deal with the toxins and diseases and live somewhat "normal" lives. The other side is the, well, it's hard to sum them up with one word. How about the "Defeatists?" Not to be too down on them, but this is the group that believes the only treatment for Autism is ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis), that Autism is part of who their kids are, and they don't want to change them, and that those of us who believe in biomedical treatments are wasting our money and falling for the fake science of a bunch of quacks. Now, as far as Autism being part of who Hutton is...yes, I agree that it is part of him, but I liken it to saying, "You know, my child has cancer, but I don't want to treat him because it's a big part of who he is!" I don't think trying to remove toxic metals from my child, restore the delicate chemical balance of his body, or heal his injured gut is crazy, or that doing so will change his personality for the worse. I think he'll still be a quirky, funny, brilliant kid, but one who is healthy and happy. Why is that wrong to want that for my child?

Some interesting points to consider: Many of the scientists and doctors at the conference were discussing how ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) could be considered to be on the Autism Spectrum. Now, how many of the people drugging their ADHD kids would say they don't want to "cure" their children because they don't want to change their personalities? That their inability to function in school without drugs is "part of who they are." I don't think many would think that. Of course, there are people who DON'T drug their ADHD kids, because they don't like having that "drugged child" effect. And this is not what we're talking about with DAN biomedical treatments for Autism. DAN Biomed doesn't involve giving your kids Risperdal. As one of speakers at the conference, Dr. Sidney Baker, said, "If you are sitting on a tack, it takes a lot of Risperdal to make it feel good. The appropriate treatment for tack-sitting is tack removal." (So you know, Risperdal is a drug FDA-approved to treat psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There is talk of it soon becoming approved to treat Autism, though if you look at the drug facts, it says in big letters that it is not for use by people under 18. Yeah, I'm sure they'll keep that in mind.) The DAN approach of "tack removal" involves clearing toxins from the body, restoring the immune system, and replacing depleted nutrients so they body and brain can function normally.

The final speaker summed up the conference by going over the latest possible "pathways to recovery." These were:

Behavioral Therapy Program (this would include ABA, and other early intervention, speech therapy, etc.)

Elimination/Rotation Diet - Many children with Autism (estimated at 70 - 80%) have gastro-intestinal problems -- overgrowth of bad bacteria and fungi, chronic T-cell inflammation, lesions, chronic Measles virus in the gut. We saw slides of these damaged intestines, and they didn't look good! The guts are very important to the immune system, and when they are full of lesions, don't absorb nutrients from food, are overrun with T-cells with no regulatory IL-10...well, the basic idea is you must restore the gut. There is a big auto-immunity aspect to Autism (the body attacking itself), which leads to food allergies and disbiosis, so if removing gluten and casein from the diet helps heals the gut, go for it. Probiotics and cultured foods are important, too, for helping restore healthy gut flora.

Restoration of Glutathione - Cysteine. Sorry, this went way over my head. There was a big chemical diagram that showed how "the methylation and transsulfuration pathways provide the reduced glutathione (GSH) to repair oxidative damage." Uh-huh. Yeah. How about, "microglia and astocytes depend on glutathione to defend neurons against glutamate toxicity and oxidative stress." No, I didn't quite get that either. The main point of that, that I sort of understood was, "oxidative stress = bad" and "glutathione = good."

Secretin and Oxytocin Nasal Sprays - Hmm. I know I didn't fall asleep. I must have been in a chemistry-induced coma. Sorry, have know idea what this point is about.

Methyl B12 (injections and/or nasal sprays) I don't have much on this, either. It involves more of that Methylation/Sulfation stuff I don't understand.

Antioxidants: Vitamin C, Reduced Glutathione, Others

Detoxification: clean diet, proper bowel function, probiotics, removal of heavy metals. Many of the speakers discussed chelation for removal of heavy metals. They all agreed that transdermal chelation wasn't as effective as they'd like. Dr. McCandless, Dr. Green, Dr. Usman and possibly others I didn't hear on Saturday all preferred IV chelation using DMSA, DMPS, or CaEDTA (IMPORTANT - NOT NaEDTA, as this was used incorrectly in a child last year and lead to the child's death!) or using oral DMSA and DMPS. Dr. Levinson and others prefer DMSA or DMPS suppositories. Yeah, I know, sounds fun, doesn't it? All of the doctors agreed that the individual child had to be taken into account. Will my child be calm enough to sit through IV treatment for an hour? (Having an expert IV inserter is key, too!) Will sticking something up my child's ass be very traumatic for him, or will it be something he can handle? A good joke one doctor made while reading a question from the audience: Q: "How do you put in suppositories comfortably?" A: "Leave them in the box. Or taking them out of the wrapper first helps." He then added, seriously, to make sure to tell your child about the process of placing the suppository, and do it at bedtime.

Nutritional Support: vitamins, probiotics, minerals and essential fatty acids, enzymes, carnitine, carnosine, ribose, CoQ10 (or Ubiquinone), 5HTP or Tryptophan

Hyperbaric Oxygen - emerging data on this were favorable. Showed a slide of the increase in oxygen in the blood after treatment - impressive stuff!

Immune Balance: Complex, IVIG, IBD drugs, Singulair, Oral Cromolyn, Low Dose Naltrexone, steroids, Actos and Sprionolactone. The last one really got Dr. Bradstreet excited.

Another line that got lots of laughs was when Dr. Wakefield said, "In a study by the CDC, God bless them..." Pause for audience laughter. Yeah, we're a jaded bunch, the Autism parents. However, all of the doctors made sure to cover their asses by all saying, "I'm not saying NOT to vaccinate your children, but..." All of the doctors I heard speak did not think giving newborn babies the Hepatitis B vaccine was a good idea. Or getting flu shots with mercury. Or having mercury-containing dental amalgams placed in one's teeth, where toxic mercury vapors would have easy access to the brain when the amalgams off-gassed, which is a pretty much never-ending process when mercury is present in one's teeth. Shocking stuff, there! However, LEAD is just as problematic, and possibly more overwhelmingly present in our kids, who don't have the ability to rid their bodies of toxic metals. As the scientists said, "The EPA 'safe levels' for lead keep going down every year, and they'll eventually have to tell us that there is no safe level of lead in the body." Another big "duh" moment. Oh, and just so you know, our environment is extremely toxic, and basically our bodies are all overrun with toxins. Oh, and Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies are the new childhood epidemics. Comforting, isn't it?

Even so, I left the conference with a renewed enthusiasm for recovering Hutton. Now I just have to find the right doctor. I scheduled an appointment for next week with a doctor who attended the conference. Hope she understood more of it than I did!