Hundreds of families come to our office every year, frightened, disillusioned, angry, and eager to explore and discover alternative ways to help their children. They come in hopes that their sons and daughters will achieve higher functioning and more optimal well-being.

The diagnoses are most often the same: autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The most common question we hear: Is it possible that vaccines caused or contributed to the creation of our children's neurological problems? The question is logical and correlative, yet the answer the parents often receive from the conventional medical community is, "It's just a coincidence." But these parents see regression right before their eyes, repeatedly. Each of their stories corresponds to a vaccine event, they say.

The number of children in this country who have ASD has increased (it's now 1 in 150), and one in six reportedly have some form of neuro-developmental delay, with boys affected more than girls, by a 4-to-1 ratio. So it is reasonable for parents and practitioners to consider larger questions: Genetic epidemics don't exist, so what is contributing to the increasing rate of ASD? What role do vaccinations play in selecting for these neurological problems? What, if any, underlying considerations need to be studied, and by whom?

Is it possible that couples conceiving babies today have weakened immune systems and are passing this down to their children? How does exposure to toxins from food, water, air, antibiotics, medications, pesticides, plastics, flame retardants, cosmetics, heavy metals, electromagnetic radiation, sonograms, epidurals, C-sections, formula, AND vaccines play a role in impairing optimal function in their bodies, which is passed on genetically to their infants, who are then exposed to many of these factors in utero and after birth in early infancy?

Possibly all of the above-and maybe none. But the literature is beginning to fill with answers that support our suspicions and you, the public, are being prevented from seeing the results.

In our office we encourage parents to feed their children healthier diets. We support children's digestive function and provide vitamins and minerals to compensate for deficiencies. We make sure that children are neurologically balanced and support participation in behavioral therapies. We specifically ask parents to stop or wean medical interventions (drugs, antibiotics, medications, vaccines), to give their children's immune systems an opportunity to rest, rebuild and, over time, to adapt and compensate optimally.

The children improve...and become more functionally balanced.

Do vaccines cause or contribute to the onset of neurological problems and autism?

Maybe it's time for us to be more open-minded, to explore the variables. It is our children and the coming generations that will suffer from our unwillingness to question and study. Science, after all, is the study of asking questions and discovering answers-and accepting these answers, regardless of what our preconceived notions may be about the outcomes we expected or wanted.

We offer you a paraphrase of an ancient proverb: Beware of those who think they know but know not that they know not.