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Dr. Goldberg. Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, 
thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak here today. 
I wish to take a moment to examine the urgency of this 
epidemic.
    I am Dr. Michael Goldberg, a practicing pediatrician for 
over 20 years in Los Angeles, and I am on the clinical teaching 
staff of UCLA. I am also the founding member of the NIDS 
Research Institute, a parent-physician partnership developed to 
expedite research on behalf of children with special needs.
    Out of necessity and a desire to help, my practice is 
comprised primarily of children with autism, ADD, and other 
special needs. I am here before you today to share my 
frontline, everyday experience with these children, experience 
that has overwhelmingly convinced me and my colleagues that 
this is a disease that can be treated.
    In turn, I hope to propose a unique medical research model 
that combines the tenets of basic science and strong academics 
with an unprecedented sense of clinical urgency.
    To understand this new autism that everyone keeps speaking 
about, one must actually step back and look at the increased 
understanding and incidence of autoimmune diseases across the 
board from the mid-1970's to the present date. All that one has 
to do is look at the medical literature to realize that every 
disorder we have associated as an immune-connected, immune-
mediated defect of the immune system--lymphomas, multiple 
sclerosis, Alzheimer's, lupus, ulcerative colitis, irritable 
bowel syndrome, rheumatoid disease, and even aging--have all 
become recognized as in part an autoimmune process or illness. 
As Dr. Galpin, an authority in infectious disease immunology 
and a pioneer in the application of immune-modulators and a 
member of the NIDS Medical Board likes to say: The friendly 
fire of our own bodies causes the damage.
    We either have to assume that the increase in these 
disorders in the human population is mass hysteria, mass 
psychosis, schizophrenia and/or behavioral-developmental 
disorders, as was thought in the old days, or we need to step 
back and realize that maybe we have a large number of adults 
and children suffering a disease process that is affecting how 
their brain and nervous system functions. I have family after 
family within my new practice in which there is a mother or a 
father with chronic fatigue syndrome, an older child with ADD/
ADHD, and a young child or two with autism/PDD.
    Unless we assume that this is all random, unfortunately, 
there is a logical connection between the above disorders and 
the rapid emergence of this crisis. We must rapidly realize 
that almost all of these disorders result from a treatable 
disease process.
    When you look at the factors among the children that I am 
seeing, many of them have low natural killer cells. These are 
part of the findings being reported in many of those other 
disorders. Another frequent finding is the presence of active 
HHV-6 virus and other related herpes viruses in some of these 
children. Similar findings are being reported for various adult 
autoimmune disorders, and recently, even the Centers for 
Disease Control published an article focusing on our emerging 
knowledge of HHV-6 and related disorders.
    Fortunately, while people talk about the unknown entity of 
autism, I can show you picture after picture after picture that 
has allowed me with the help of researchers, Dr. Ismael Mena 
and Dr. Bruce Miller, to look at NeuroSPECT scans and 
understand what is going on in the brains of these children. 
For the majority, there is a decrease of blood flow and 
function of the temporal lobe of the brain, areas that are 
consistent with that predicted by neuro-anatomists.
    We have a large collection of scans that show a decrease in 
blood flow that is reproducible, quantifiable. Blood flow 
corresponds directly to function. When compared to MRIs and 
CAT-scans, they help to confirm no pre-existing damage but 
rather point toward a neuro-immune direction etiology. In fact, 
as we learn more through imaging and scans and technology about 
the brain, in a recent New England Journal of Medicine article 
a year ago, they discussed the immune-brain-endocrine 
connection in the hippocampus, a system that, with the CA1 and 
CA2 nuclei and neuron, affects cognitive function, fatigue, and 
memory.
    Today I have come to look upon this as a reversible 
condition. Thankfully, many children return to normal/above 
normal functioning by combining steps reflecting diet control, 
a combination of antivirals, antifungal, and low-dose SSRIs.
    Parents who are told that their children will never be 
independent, will never be able to earn a living, will 1 day 
might have to be placed in an institution, have seen their 
children become top of their class academically. I have 
children within the practice scoring in the 97th and even the 
99th percentile in California and Illinois State testing. This 
past week, a mother came to me with her 5-year-old child, who 
has been with me in the practice for about 8 months. She 
related an instance where the child said, ``Mom, do you want me 
to pretend I cannot talk? Remember when I could not talk?''
    We have so misunderstood and misjudged these children. What 
harm are we doing to these children as a result?
    Hopefully, tomorrow, we will see new agents which will let 
us work better with the immune system. If we can focus a 
unified effort to identify a subspecialized set of immune 
markers, that will let us understand which patient is the most 
likely candidate for which immune agent, separate out this 
mixed group of children into logical subgroups.
    In my written submission to the committee, the NIDS Medical 
Board outlines a hypothesis which is supported by over 60 
journal references on children with autism and the neuro-immune 
disease process that is potentially reversible.
    It is interesting to note that that hypothesis has been 
reviewed by at least four pharmaceutical companies, and there 
are no holes or deficits in that hypothesis.
    Within the NIDS Institute, our researchers are all heavily 
credentialed, and many are involved in current NIH projects and 
other activities at the NIH and the FDA. Using this technology, 
their past experience, and a computerized data base, we can 
unify researchers in institutions across the country. We can 
literally pick and choose top physicians and researchers around 
this country and around the world to focus on the crisis it has 
become.
    For instance, I am pleased to announce that members of the 
Mind Institute are hopefully looking at joining and combining 
efforts, and my hope would be that many independent groups can 
focus in a scientific manner on answering the questions being 
raised by this committee today.
    Another significant benefit of exploring this disease 
process with a sense of urgency would be the unprecedented 
ability to screen children who might be susceptible to vaccines 
or any other factors which have been implicated as potential 
roles in subsets of these children. Any injury or loss of a 
child that could have been prevented remains unacceptable. 
There is no way to adequately console the parent of a lost or 
damaged child.
    If focused correctly, we do have the ability to accelerate 
understanding and identification of potentially high-risk 
children. If we can identify these children, adjust their 
vaccine schedule appropriately, we have begun the process of 
stemming this epidemic and will have created a preventive 
health policy which would be part of a collective legacy for 
generations to come.
    In 1996, I was a speaker at the Autism Society of America, 
attended by over 2,000 parents and professionals. My wife made 
the comment: ``Where are the M.D.s?'' The medical community had 
essentially abandoned these children once they became labelled 
as autistic.
    The NIDS Medical Board is designed to help logically, 
academically, scientifically circumvent the expected learning 
curve as we see physicians coming back into this field make a 
radical shift in direction and orientation from what we might 
have been taught as physicians.
    I plead with you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 
committee. These children are supposed to be a productive part 
of this country's future, not a health cost and burden. These 
children have the potential for full, productive, intelligent 
lives. Contrary to the old idea, their genetics are not the 
determining factor. A child cannot develop normally, develop 
some language, and lose it all, except in a disease process. We 
can apply good, sound science and logic to help solve the 
crisis now.
    We must embrace what is literally a paradigm shift in the 
world of medicine and begin to view autism and other related 
classifications like we do Alzheimer's disease, cystic 
fibrosis, childhood cancer, and multiples sclerosis. 
Tragically, if we accept the status quo, we will be sacrificing 
millions of kids and will likely lose more in subsequent 
generations.
    I implore you to investigate the concepts I have 
introduced, evaluate them, test them--do whatever it takes to 
convince you that we have a crisis for which inaction is 
politically and medically more risky than action.
    I am extremely fortunate to have three healthy children and 
one healthy grandchild. I selfishly want the rest of my future 
grandchildren, all of yours, and others out there to have the 
same chance.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Burton. Thank you, Dr. Goldberg. As I think you can 
probably guess, we are going to pursue this for a long time.
    Dr. Goldberg. I hope so.

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Note/Warning:

Autistic people have fought the inclusion of ABA in therapy for us since before Autism Speaks, and other non-Autistic-led autism organizations, started lobbying legislation to get it covered by insurances and Medicaid. 

ABA is a myth originally sold to parents that it would keep their Autistic child out of an institution. Today, parents are told that with early intervention therapy their child will either be less Autistic or no longer Autistic by elementary school, and can be mainstreamed in typical education classes. ABA is very expensive to pay out of pocket. Essentially, Autism Speaks has justified the big price tag up front will offset the overall burden on resources for an Autistic’s lifetime. The recommendation for this therapy is 40 hours a week for children and toddlers.

The original study that showed the success rate of ABA to be at 50% has never been replicated. In fact, the study of ABA by United States Department of Defense was denounced as a failure. Not just once, but multiple times. Simply stated: ABA doesn’t work. In study after repeated study: ABA (conversion therapy) doesn’t work. 

What more recent studies do show: Autistics who experienced ABA therapy are at high risk to develop PTSD and other lifelong trauma-related conditions. Historically, the autism organizations promoting ABA as a cure or solution have silenced Autistic advocates’ opposition. ABA is also known as gay conversion therapy.

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[Note: Autism is NOT a disease, but a neurodevelopmental difference and disability.]

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Fact: Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism.

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