By Susan Redden
CARTHAGE, Mo. — A year after his death, physician Alan Clark’s legacy continues to raise concerns about a mercury-containing additive in some vaccines.
Money contributed to a memorial fund established by Clark’s wife, Lujene, is underwriting research on the impact of thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that the couple believed caused their son, Devon, to develop a form of autism.
Alan Clark, an emergency-room physician for 30 years who had worked at Freeman Health System and St. John’s Regional Health Center in Springfield, died Feb. 7, 2006, of complications from lung cancer. He had never smoked.
On Jan. 24 — Alan Clark’s 56th birthday — Lujene Clark was in Jefferson City for a state-sponsored symposium titled “Mercury in Medicine: Separating Science From Fiction.”
The host was state Sen. John Loudon, R-Chesterfield, sponsor of a bill passed two years ago that will allow no more than trace amounts of thimerosal to be used in vaccines administered to pregnant women and to children younger than 3 starting in April. Clark was among those who testified on behalf of the ban.
“When the bill was being debated, one of the things they agreed to was doing an educational symposium,” she said.
Speakers from both sides addressed the issue, then met with lawmakers and their staffs.
Clark also has lobbied recently in Nebraska, where lawmakers are considering legislation to ban thimerosal in some vaccines.
But most exciting, Clark said, is the start of a new research project that studies the effects of thimerosal on the adrenal system. Money to underwrite the work is coming from contributions made in Alan Clark’s memory.
“People were so generous, and there’s nothing Alan would have liked more,” she said.
She said discussions she had with her late husband were the genesis of the idea, which she pitched to potential researchers at an autism conference in Chicago. She said most of the work is being done at the University of Rochester in New York, though there are other “collaborators.”
“Mercury does have a big effect on the adrenal system, and you’ll find children with autism-spectrum diseases also have a disruption of the pituitary and thyroid, and elevated testosterone levels,” Clark said. “We think testosterone makes mercury more toxic, and that’s why autism affects more boys than girls.”
The Clarks began a campaign against the use of thimerosal in vaccines after their son, then 5 years old, developed a form of autism after receiving a flu shot in the wake of a series of childhood vaccines.
The couple did their own investigation, then met with other doctors and researchers before coming to that conclusion. Clark said tests on Devon at the time showed his blood had elevated levels of mercury.
“The diagnosis was Asperger’s, but he was mercury-poisoned,” she said.
Devon at one time was taking six or seven medications a day for Asperger syndrome and asthma. After the Clarks switched the treatment to vitamins, minerals and an infrared sauna chelation therapy to remove the heavy metals — including mercury — from his body, illnesses and behaviors associated with his autism began to diminish. Now, he no longer is diagnosed as having a form of autism, his mother said.
The couple also formed NoMercury, an organization to raise concerns about the issue, and began lobbying on behalf of bills to remove the substance from all vaccines, especially childhood inoculations.
While the substance has been removed from most childhood vaccines, it still is in some flu and tetanus shots that children can receive, Clark said.
Susan Redden writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.
CDC stance
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sets national vaccine requirements, has rejected any link between thimerosal and autism-spectrum disorders.
The CDC contends that the best scientific studies have not borne out that connection. Scientists are putting more focus on possible genetic causes, according to a recent Stanford University study.
