I have always considered myself a traditional allopathic physician. And like most traditional allopathic physicians, I am much more knowledgeable about treating illness than preventing it, and much better at controlling the symptoms than correcting the cause. This is compounded by the fact that my area of specialty is emergency medicine where my job is to treat acute disease and leave the chronic conditions for others to worry about. Specialization provides a degree of comfort in what is otherwise an overwhelming amount of information. The human body is so complex and medical research so vast that it would be impossible for one person to be an expert in every aspect of it. Allopathic physicians, in particular, tend to separate organ systems and focus on them individually and refer to other “specialists” when symptoms don’t entirely fit within our fairly narrow realm of practice. Unfortunately, our bodies don’t work that way. There is an intricate and complex web of interactions between body systems that help us to control our internal environment in the face of an onslaught of external stimuli. Disease results when these interactions are disrupted. In spite of new technology and thousands of years of study, much of the human body is still very poorly understood. In medical school, we spend a lot of time memorizing biochemical pathways but never really remember why they are important in relation to normal or impaired body functioning. What we do learn is quickly relegated to the hidden corridors of our brains as soon as the exams are completed. Undoubtedly the answers to many of our medical dilemmas lie within the context of these biochemical pathways. Pharmaceutical companies make medications that manipulate our body’s biochemistry. Allopathic physicians are very comfortable with prescription pads. It is a large part of our practice. However, there are other ways to manipulate our biochemistry. These include nutritionals, vitamins, herbs, or collectively, nutraceuticals. We allopathic physicians easily discount the importance of nutraceuticals in the treatment of illness. We consider doctors who look outside of the pharmaceutical box to be “quacks” or “alternative.” Doctors, in general, are not very good at admitting ignorance and tend to disregard theories without spending much time looking into things that they don’t understand very well.

I have also developed through my years of medical training a healthy skepticism of the medical literature. I spent a lot of time in residency learning evidence-based medicine, i.e. practicing according to the best available evidence rather than relying on established medical dogma. Very often the treatment methods that have been passed down through the medical community and accepted as truth or “standard of care” are later disproven or modified as further research is done. Often these dogmas are based on nothing more than the opinions of a few individuals. Unfortunately, much of the time the evidence doesn’t exist or is incomplete, leaving you to rely on your best judgment based on sound biological principles. Through the critical study of the literature, I also learned that much (if not most) of it is biased on several fronts and often the conclusions do not match the data. Surprisingly, most physicians do not regularly take the time to read the methodology of the studies, and yet, not uncommonly will change their practice based on these faulty conclusions or incomplete evidence. Many physicians just rely on the standard practice of those around them and then follow the crowd as new medications or interventions are introduced, without even looking at the literature. And sadly, we are all influenced much more than we like to admit by the aggressive marketing tactics of pharmaceutical companies, who push their product regardless of weak or inaccurate clinical trials.

It is with this background that I entered my journey into the field of autism. My second son, Aaron, was diagnosed with autism shortly before his third birthday. He had an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth and seemed to be developing normally for the first year and a half of life. He was an engaged, happy, interactive baby and we had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. Sometime in his second year, we noticed that he didn’t seem to be hearing us when we walked into the room. He would never acknowledge me when I came home from work. He would not want us to play with him or read him a book. Our first thought was that maybe he had a hearing problem. But we knew that he wasn’t deaf. He could recite the ABC’s. In fact, he did this repeatedly. We were thrilled that he was so smart. He would also frequently repeat lines from his favorite movie, Toy Story. My wife, Laurie, felt at this stage that there was something wrong. I discounted this as just his “independent personality.” When Laurie talked to our pediatrician about her concern that he wasn’t developing language at the same rate as his peers or our older son, she was told that some boys don’t start talking until much later and not to worry about it. At that point, the word “autism” had never crossed my mind. What I knew about autism was not much more than anyone else who had watched the movie, “Rainman.” I had treated some teenagers with severe autism in the ER before and they were severely disabled, minimally-verbal individuals who shrieked whenever they were touched. My son, certainly, was not like that. He loved to be held and was a happy child who was usually very content and seemed to do okay with breaks in his routine. I agreed with his doctor that we should just watch him and I fully expected him to simply “grow out of it.” By the time that he was two and a half, though, it was clear that he was not spontaneously going to get better. In fact, he was getting worse. He would now only play with Toy Story toys or ABC letters, he would spin in circles in the middle of the floor, he would giggle and shriek for no apparent reason. He wouldn’t call us by name and would never look us in the eyes. Although he knew some words, he never used language to communicate. Shortly before this, our nephew was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. So, we began looking on the internet and reading stories of other children with autism and realized that they were describing our little boy.

We went to the school system, tested his hearing, saw a speech pathologist and were sent to a child psychiatrist. Before we walked into his office, we knew that our child was autistic. We were not prepared, however, for what he was about to tell us. We were told that our son met 10 of the 12 DSM-IV criteria for autism and that he carried a poor prognosis for any functional recovery. He told us that through their educational program, Aaron might improve to the point of minimal social functionality, but that we should mentally prepare ourselves for the time that he would need to be institutionalized. He also told us that we would hear about a lot of “experimental” interventions that many people are trying but not to waste our time and money because none of them had been proven. Needless to say, we left his office in a state of shock and hopelessness. How could this possibly be the future for our cute, happy little boy?

Laurie and I dealt with this news in very different ways. I was more inclined to accept that this was one of life’s challenges and that we needed to learn how to cope with it. After all, I was a doctor and had never heard anything about effective methods of treating autism other than what that psychiatrist had suggested. I knew that as long as we were physically able, Aaron would live with us in our home. We would love him and cherish the opportunity to learn from him and hope that he would be able to reciprocate some of that love. Laurie, on the other hand, was not willing to accept this bleak prognosis. She immersed herself into the internet, searching for anything related to autism. She learned about the gluten/casein free diet and started him on it in remarkable time. She learned about vitamin supplementation, DMG, antifungals, and probiotics. This all sounded to me like a good way for vitamin makers to capitalize on another “untreatable” illness. I stayed basically uninvolved and uninterested in these initial interventions because I didn’t believe they could treat my son’s developmental disorder. I felt like the only thing it was harming was my pocketbook, and that was a small price to pay for Laurie’s need to “do something.” But when she brought to my attention the possible link to immunizations, I could no longer be impartial. After all, this was striking at one of the few areas of preventative medicine that allopathic physicians are passionate about. Immunizations are good! They eliminate life-threatening disease! I have seen first-hand the success that immunizations have had at turning fairly common illnesses into rare “interesting” cases. Autism is just one more of those coincidental childhood illnesses that the crazy anti-government people are using opportunistically as an excuse to push their agenda. So, I looked at the research, largely to prove to my wife that it was unfounded. The further I looked, the more interested I became. And before long, I realized that in fact, it wasn’t based on the whims of angry activists or the wallets of vitamin manufacturers, but on real science with a foundation of strong biological plausibility and led by knowledgeable and motivated physicians, scientists, and parents of autistic children who weren’t afraid to question dogma. I was further convinced after attending a DAN! conference and hearing the presentations and stories of many other people like ourselves who are looking for answers.

It was shortly thereafter that I decided that I could not be a silent participant but had to educate people about this and offer these interventions to people in my area. Prior to that, the parents that we had met who were undergoing biomedical intervention were flying half-way across the country to be treated by a physician knowledgeable in these protocols. We established a non-profit clinic named the Children's Biomedical Center of Utah which opened officially in March 2002. We designated a three-part mission: to provide up-to-date medical treatment for people on the autism spectrum, to educate the public and medical community about the issues surrounding this disorder, and to prevent future cases by participating in research and offering vaccines on an alternative schedule that incorporates the philosophies of the DAN! movement. Over the next 3 years, I treated close to 400 children with autism spectrum disorder. Most of these children are making significant progress. Some have recovered to the point of being indistinguishable from their peers. Autism is hardly an incurable disorder. It is an under-researched, under-funded, misunderstood disease that needs to be taken seriously.

I joined Thoughtful House Center for Children in January, 2006. Thoughtful House is an exciting new clinical treatment and research facility in Austin, Texas. It is a collaborative effort between dozens of physicians, educational specialists, and scientists who are dedicated to finding the answers to the many questions about autism. What is the cause? What are safe and effective treatments? Can the many therapies that are in use be narrowed and individualized to suit particular children? I truly believe that we are on the verge of major breakthroughs that will change the way that the entire medical community views and treats these diseases, and I'm excited to be a part of it. In the time that I have been treating people with autism, I have been rewarded; rewarded with stories of children getting better and with the looks on the faces of parents who have a renewal of hope.

Dr. Bryan Jepson