http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/nyregion/21yitta.html WHEN Yitta Schwartz died last month at 93, she left behind 15 children, more than 200 grandchildren and so many great- and great-great-grandchildren that, by her family’s count, she could claim perhaps 2,000 living descendants. Mrs. Schwartz was a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, whose couples have nine children on average and whose ranks of descendants can multiply exponentially. But even among Satmars, the size of Mrs. Schwartz’s family is astonishing. A round-faced woman with a high-voltage smile, she may have generated one of the largest clans of any survivor of the Holocaust — a thumb in the eye of the Nazis.

At the shiva last month, another Bergen-Belsen survivor recalled her own mother dying at the camp; Mrs. Schwartz took it upon herself to prepare the body according to Jewish ritual, dig a grave and bury the woman.

“We didn’t feel even one minute that she was a widow,” Mrs. Mayer said. “She used to say, ‘When there are so many problems in life, I should put myself on the scale?’ ”

That’s all the news for today (so far).

A Seasonal Pass entitles you to admission** to Magic Kingdom® Park, Epcot®, Disney’s Hollywood Studios™, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park Except the following dates:
* March 15 – March 28, 2008
* June 7, 2008 – August 14, 2008
* December 21, 2008 – January 3, 2009

* April 4 – April 17, 2009
* June 6, 2009 – August 13, 2009
* December 19, 2009 – January 1, 2010
**Except for activities/events separately priced.

You also get:
* The exclusive “Mickey Monitor” Passholder newsletter
* Special offers on Walt Disney World® dining, merchandise, backstage tours, and much more!

When you order the Seasonal Pass, you will receive an exchange certificate in the mail. Redeem the exchange certificate for a Seasonal Pass at any Walt Disney World® Theme Park ticket window by presenting the exchange certificate and valid photo ID. The Seasonal Pass is valid for 365 days from exchange certificate redemption.

Proof of Florida residency is required — you must provide any one of the following:
* Florida driver’s license
* Florida state-issued ID card (must have Florida address)
* Florida voter’s registration card with corresponding picture ID
* A college ID for a Florida college
* Florida- based military ID

Passes are non-transferable, are only valid during regularly scheduled operating hours and exclude activities / events priced separately. No additional discounts apply.

http://tickets.disney.go.com/buy/TicketTrans#subcat2

(you can put in 32181 as a zip code – that’s mine!)

Today Michael took Atos to the vet. He has an ear infection, but we can use the meds we have for Sasha, and she only charged us for the test on his ear, not the visit itself. He is otherwise healthy and friendly. We both ran down to Lauderdale and picked up Sasha’s Interceptor (the Abandoned Pet Rescue gave us a months supply for 80$ instead of 12 pills for 80$)  and she started that today. The gal in charge there said she should start to look better in a couple of weeks. Yay!

Once we were done in Lauderdale we came back up to Coral Springs and signed the boys up for camp for next year. I never did hear back from Camp Gan Israel, so we signed them up for three days a week at the place they went last summer. I am going to make plans for the other two days a week, so we should have a busy summer! I inquired about VPK for Eshiva for next year, and tomorrow morning we’re going to fill that paperwork out. KIM offers a 50$/week full day of pre-K when coupled with VPK. 7:30 – 3 (VPK runs 9 – 12, so we can drop her off after the boys and I can pick her up after the boys too). She also gets one day a week of swim instruction (not the full day of course, but the instructor comes in once a week) as well as time in the gym and daily school stuff, etc. It’s a great deal, and Olivia waived the registration fee since we’re bringing Eshiva for VPK.

Ah… we also went to Target and went food shopping. Eshiva spent some of her birthday  money and got a Hello Kitty CD/Tape/Radio player. I burned her a couple of CD’s today and she is in heaven. Michael got a full sized acoustic guitar and is going to learn right along with Dorian, who has a kid sized acoustic. He got a video from NetFlix and they are going to do it on Mondays. We went to GameStop and the boys bought some games with their cash. We went back to GameStop and bought a new PS2 because the dog broke ours (total accident). Today was a money kind of day At least camp is paid in full and I don’t have to fret about it (ha, fret/guitar) and we saved a little to contribute to the fence fund.

Saturday I saw one of my Aunts & Uncles, and Gram & Zaide. They brought down some studio lights from another Uncle, so I get to tool around with those tomorrow. I need to get Michael to come outside with me and his dremel and fix up my PVC piping so I can get my backdrop stand to, you know, stand. Had a fab visit. I may bitch and moan about my family, but I really miss having more of them live locally, and I should make more effort to visit the ones that are local.

I put all my tattoo equipment in Michael’s car tonight. I haven’t had time to work with it in months. I wont have time for a while yet, and my focus is kind of on my photography at the moment anyway.  I started out with the intention of learning how for the sake of knowing how, and well, I know how, so that’s that. I’m not going to go work in a competing shop, and I wont be hired to work at the shop Michael is at, so I feel like it was getting kind of pointless anyway. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be?

Starting in August I’ll have a full day to myself. I suspect I’ll have a very clean home (I hope so anyway!). I’ll have time to repaint the front room. I’ll have time to find a place for everything. I’ll have time to set up some bad ass photo shoots and put together props to show off how cute my kids are. I’ll have time to finish my digital work during the day so I am not up doing it at midnight. I’m pretty excited about it!

So, that’s the news!

Vaccine Court: Hepatitis B Shot Caused MS

By David Kirby

All eyes are on Vaccine Court this week, as people await rulings in the autism “test cases” on MMR and thimerosal. But another omnibus proceeding involving Hepatitis B vaccine and autoimmune disorders in adults, including MS, has already been quietly ruling in favor of several petitioners. (HERE)

The most recent case was announced about a week ago. In it, the Court ruled that the victim, an adult female, had contracted a form of demyelinating disease and MS, and eventually died, after receiving the Hepatitis B vaccine series. It was just the most recent case in a rash of rulings in the omnibus proceeding dealing with hepatitis B vaccine and “demyelinating diseases such as transverse myelitis (TM), Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), chronic inflammatory demyelinating disease (CIDP), and multiple sclerosis (MS),” according to court papers.

“Petitioner has prevailed on the issue of entitlement. The medical records during decedent’s final hospitalization reflect that she died from demyelinating disease. Not only did decedent have a vaccine injury, but also her death was vaccine-related,” wrote the Special Master in the case.

Interestingly, the US government chose not to present any expert witnesses, nor to contest the case any further.

But the family of the deceased woman had presented testimony from an expert witness who stated that, “It is biologically plausible for hepatitis B to cause demyelination because vaccines are composed of organic compounds of viral or bacterial origin, whether recombinant or otherwise, whose purpose is to initiate an immune response in the recipient,: the Court noted in the ruling. “But if any of the vaccine antigens shares a homology with the recipient’s antigens, the host’s immune response will attack both the vaccine antigens and the host’s antigens, resulting in an autoimmune response. This concept is also known as molecular mimicry and is well-established in immunology.”

In the last few years, it turns out, the Federal Vaccine Court has issued a number of rulings in favor of petitioners seeking compensation for Hepatitis B vaccine-related demyelinating diseases, especially MS.

What is also notable about all the Hep B rulings is that they fly in the face of the reasoned opinion of an IOM panel that looked into the matter in 2002. That committee determined that “the epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between the hepatitis B vaccine in adults and multiple sclerosis.” Likewise, the panel said that it “does not recommend that national and federal vaccine advisory bodies review the hepatitis B vaccine on the basis of concerns about demyelinating disorders.”

Apparently, Vaccine Court Special Masters are willing to make their rulings independent of what the IOM has decreed (and given the IOM’s spotty track record on the etiology of illnesses such as Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome, perhaps there is a solid legal underpinning for that).

So, what does any of this have to do with the autism cases? Perhaps nothing. But, if the autism Special Masters suggest that more research is needed, one area that scientists may want to explore is demyelination in autism and its many potential causes.

Myelin is the fatty acid sheath that protects and insulates nerve cells and the brain. Some people with autoimmune disorders, including MS, present with damage to myelin in the brain.

Myelin damage has long been suspected in autism, though the jury is still out on this question. One thing that does seem to be certain is that children with ASD appear to have unusually high levels of antibodies to myelin basic protein, or MBP. That would suggest they might have myelin damage as well. Some studies have also shown highly elevated levels (up to 90%) of MBP antibodies in ASD children who received the MMR vaccine. The development of MBP antibodies could possibly be caused by a reaction to the live measles virus in the vaccine, because the virus may mimic the molecular structure of MBP. (The finding of antibodies to MBP is also associated with MS, which is a demyelinating disorder).

This vaccine-myelin association was also supported by a study in the October, 2008 issue of the journal Neurology. It reported that exposure to Hep B vaccine in children was associated with a 50% increased risk for CNS inflammatory demyelination of 50 percent (OR: 1.50; 0.93–2.43). This was especially true for children who got GlaxoSmithKline’s Engerix B vaccine, in which case the risk was elevated by 74% (1.74; 1.03–2.95). Among ASD children with confirmed multiple sclerosis, the risk increased by 177% (2.77; 1.23–6.24).

“Hepatitis B vaccination does not generally increase the risk of CNS inflammatory demyelination in childhood,” the authors concluded. “However, the Engerix B vaccine appears to increase this risk, particularly for confirmed multiple sclerosis, in the longer term. Our results require confirmation in future studies.”

Of course more studies are needed, but it is becoming more difficult these days to argue that there is no active immune/inflammatory response going on in the brains of autistic individuals, and even harder to contest that MBP is associated with at least one aspect of that response, although there are likely others. The MBP findings are not 100% concordant, but there is a fair amount of supportive evidence.

Equally intriguing, along these lines, is a new study published in the Journal of Child Neurology. That paper reported that “anti-myelin-associated glycoprotein positivity” was found in a stunning 62.5% of the autistic children studied. And, a family history of autoimmunity was five times more common in ASD children (50%) than controls (9.4%).

“Anti-myelin-associated glycoprotein serum levels were significantly higher in autistic children than those without such history,” the authors wrote. “Autism could be, in part, one of the pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders. Further studies are warranted to shed light on the etiopathogenic role of anti-myelin-associated glycoprotein antibodies and the role of immunotherapy in autism.”

This information is tantalizing, to say the least. And it could provide new avenues of research into the role of vaccines, demyelinating diseases, “autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders,” and autism.

If the HepB series can destroy myelin in some kids and adults, and cause full-blown MS in adults, then is it really that “fringe” to investigate the plausibility of a biological mechanism whereby some vaccines (including MMR) in a subset of susceptible infants might produce symptoms that are characteristic of autism and/or other neuro-developmental disorders?

For years, the US Government and the IOM have insisted that Hepatitis B vaccine does not and can not cause MS. But the Federal Vaccine Court has now, essentially, overturned that opinion. Will the Court now do the same for vaccines and autism? I don’t think so – not this week. But it just might keep that door slightly ajar for the future.

David Kirby is author of Evidence of Harm and a contributor to Age of Autism.

Just spreading a little fantabulous news, Malachai had his therapy evals last week, and he is done with PT! This is amazing, because not six months ago he would fall over standing still. No joke. Now he can balance on one leg so long he can’t count that high (ok, maybe he can, but it’s a long time!)  He is still in speech and occupational therapies, but those are improving too. They will re-evaluate him in another six months. Maybe in the next six months he will learn how to sit in, and stay in, a chair

Not only is therapy going well, but he only missed one word on his spelling test today (out of ten words) and he has been helping me read Coraline at night. His speech therapist suggested I talk to the school and see what kind of literature we can tie into his daily work to keep him interested. He reads like crazy for her, not so much for me. Apparently, I just hadn’t picked the right books. We’re reading The Tale of Despereaux next (Dorian’s choice). I think I will be moving a bunch of books down the shelf for Eshiva, and finding some more appropriate books for Mal & Dor.

Speaking of Dorian, he is doing basketball after school once a week and he loves it. I think we’ll continue to do it once it’s up. It runs in five week sessions and he started last week. I looked into the local rec center for something for both the boys to do, as our PT suggested Mal do some type of sport. I don’t know what, but we’ll find something. I think they are looking into karate (ok, I am pushing karate) but I am not going to push it if he’s really not into it. We were also thinking bowling, but the PT specificaly said sports that work the entire body. We need to increase (and maintain) his muscle tone, as it’s significantly “below age level.” Eshiva is going to be taking a dance class once a week in the mornings, and she is uber-excited about that. She wont stop talking about it, in fact.

Shivie is a little chatterbox, and thinks she’s a princess. She recently discovered dinosaurs (and I wish we lived closer to DC, because there are no decent dino exhibits around here that I can find) and barbie. She turns four on Feb 10th and woe be unto you if you try and tell her she’s three.

Everyone else is well. Dad and Michael and still employed (yay!) and I am still getting enough work to buy fun stuff by freelancing (also yay!). Michael and Sara are looking into the SAT and making plans and doing all that fun 17 year old stuff.

Ah… I think that wraps us up! I’m sure there is more, but it’s daily stuff. I was just so excited about Malachai! He is still having troubles, but there is a light.

and I posted this to PM’s yesterday:

Michael was given written notification today that the therapy place we go is closing on Friday.

Fucking economy.

They are going to try to farm everyone out to other locations, and we may be able to keep our OT if the other place she works can fit him in (and if they take our ins and if it’s in a reasonable drive). Our ST was an intern.

What really stinks is I really, really like our ST, and WTF giving us one weeks notice?

I know we can find someplace else (hell, maybe the place a few blocks down the street takes our ins and offers what we need) but this still stinks.

and I posted this today as a follow-up:

Yay!!! Our rockin speech gal called me up this morning and told me that she interviewed this morning at a place that is even closer and they are working their hardest to absorb all of the speech therapists AND their clients AND keep the same schedule!

She gave me the number of the new place, and I left a message around 10AM. She phoned me back around 5:30, apologized for it taking so long to get back to me, and told me what was going on. They do take our insurance, and are working to have the approvals transferred to them from our current place. She is hoping to start Monday!

We see Courtney tomorrow and Thursday and I am just thrilled it sounds like we won’t have a lapse, at least here.

I still need to find out where the place our OT works is located (she was split between the two places I guess), if they take our ins, and if we can fit in over there. I really like our OT as well – not like I like our ST, but she is awesome with Malachai. I’d hang out with our ST, not so much with our OT.

But wait, there’s more! We’re adopting a new puppy!

So, we’ve been thinking about getting a companion for Malachai for a while now. Therapy dogs are quite expensive, and the “free” ones take a lot of paperwork and legwork. No doubt they don’t deserve it, but it was more than we needed. It’s not like we were looking for a seeing eye dog or anything, you know? So, we found this little guy! We’re picking him up either Thursday or Sunday.

He’s been there for a year! I can’t imagine why someone didn’t want to take him home, but I am glad they didn’t! We drove down to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday and went back to meet him. He is so friendly, and energetic and playful. He jumped up on Eshiva, but did not knock her down. The gal who showed him to us said he gets along with all the other dogs/cats in the rescue, have never bitten anyone, and is healthy. Apparently he was purchased from a pet store, and then got sick. He had demodectic mange (yes, just like our Yorkie) but his fur is full and thick and I didn’t feel any scabs or anything on his body. They said nothing about meds or anything else, and he is neutered. This is good, because Sasha is so sick, putting her through surgery to spay her would be too taxing on her immune system (so says the vet).

He is a year and a half old, and is the perfect size. Yay!

From the rescue site:
More About Patches/Atos: Patches was purchased from a puppy store. He is a sweet fellow who is good with other animals including cats. He is waiting for a forever home with lots of playmates or toys. Walks in the park or just around the block. Nice yard to play in but not totally necessary. Patches loves his toys!

Oh, he’s a beagle/basset mix. Cuteness!

Anything else? Probably not. I am sticking with good news right now.

Child Elopers’ Africa Plan Foiled : BBC News

Two German children – aged six and seven – have been stopped by police from eloping to Africa to tie the knot in the sun, reports say.

The budding lovebirds, identified as Mika and Anna-Lena, packed bathing costumes, sunglasses and a lilo and headed for the airport.

Sweet sweet story. Scary for the parents, but super sweet for the kids.

You know, I trust my kids school. I trust their teachers. I trust that my kids will tell me if anything inappropriate is going on, you know, like being locked into “time out” rooms that are little more than broom closets in some cases, or worse.

That said, articles like this make me want to keep them home again, hoomeschool, stay away from people in general.

I wish I lived in the world before America’s Most Wanted, before CNN, before news like this was world wide. I want to live ing a safe world made up of my neighbors and my local village. I am tired of living in a global village where abductions two thousand miles away and horrors commited in school almost a thousand miles away impact my daily life. I want my kids to be able to play outside without my worrying they will get hit by a car or stolen or worse. Logically I know the odds aren’t the great, but I also know a little girl was abducted from inside her home not two miles from my home not too long ago. It doesn’t happen often, but once is too often.