Aluminium in vaccines may cause autism, controversial new research suggests.
Autistic children have up to 10 times more of the metal in their brains than what is considered safe in adults, a study found.
Aluminium crosses the membrane that separates the brain from circulating blood and accumulates in cells involved in maintaining a constant internal environment, such as temperature, the research adds.
Study author Professor Chris Exley from Keele University, said: ‘Perhaps we now have the link between vaccination and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the link being the inclusion of an aluminium adjuvant in the vaccine.’
The researchers speculate autism sufferers may have genetic changes that cause them to accumulate aluminium which healthy people are able to remove.
The findings are controversial after the disgraced gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield said in 1995 that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to bowel disease and autism.
Mr Wakefield’s view has since been widely discredited, however, the World Health Organization claims people’s fear of vaccines means many, particularly young children, are unprotected against measles.
In a piece for The Hippocratic Post, Professor Exley discusses how aluminium accumulates in the brains of autism sufferers and if vaccines may be to blame.
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