There appears to be very little substance in the linked-to article.
The specific clarification from the affidavit is "in a subset of children with an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic energy reserves could ... cause regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder." See https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/01/06/dr-andrew-zimmermans-... .
> If such dysfunction is present at the time of infections and immunizations in young children, the added oxidative stresses from immune activation on cellular energy metabolism are likely to be especially critical for the central nervous system, which is highly dependent on mitochondrial function. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 12.1 ms ] threadThe specific clarification from the affidavit is "in a subset of children with an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic energy reserves could ... cause regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder." See https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/01/06/dr-andrew-zimmermans-... .
The associated paper from 2006 is at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2536523/ (copy at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2536523/ ).
More specifically, the paper says:
> If such dysfunction is present at the time of infections and immunizations in young children, the added oxidative stresses from immune activation on cellular energy metabolism are likely to be especially critical for the central nervous system, which is highly dependent on mitochondrial function. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.
Since most children do not have mitochondrial dysfunction (the US rate is 1 in 4000 says Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_disease), and far more people have autism ("1–2 per 1,000 for autism and close to 6 per 1,000 for ASD" says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism), it cannot be cause of most cases of autism.
Furthermore, the paper makes a specific claim that can be verified. Has that been done over the last 12+ years?
Lastly, it's not like the US was the only country looking into this issue.