During most of his early childhood, Zack Barsamian sat quietly under a table lining up his toys – he didn’t understand how to properly play with them. Often his hands covered his ears. Alone in his world, he didn’t like noise and he didn’t show typical child-like expressions of joy or happiness.
When Zack was 3 years old, doctors diagnosed his condition as “mid-functioning” autism. He also suffered from liver dysfunction and had difficulty digesting food.
Five years later and after his parents spent more than $400,000 out of pocket for Zack’s treatment, the boy smiles, relates and enjoys other children in his second grade class. He plays on a soccer team. He even has a best friend.
The $400,000 paid for conventional autism treatments including speech, occupational and behavioral therapists, and neurologists as well as testing and unconventional treatment to remove heavy metals from Zack’s body, expenses to travel to New York, North Carolina, Texas and Mexico to see specialists and the cost to build an in-home clinic.
Last week the Barsamians, along with 8,500 other parents of children with autism, participated in the Green Our Vaccines Rally, in Washington, D.C.
The participants hoped to raise awareness and push for elimination of toxins in vaccines, and to change children’s vaccination schedules. Some people believe the mercury-based preservative thimerosal found in vaccines is the main cause of autism. But the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is no link between vaccines and autism after examining the results of 19 major studies.
It began with IVs for nutrition and chelation to remove heavy metals from the blood.
The detoxifying treatment removes toxins in the body caused by internal factors such as diet and external factors such vaccines, the air we breathe, or the water we drink, said Jennifer.
Zack’s treatment also included oxygen therapy, which increases oxygen and blood flow to the brain. Twice a year Zack and his family travel to North Carolina where Zack receives treatment in a chamber for 100% pure oxygen.
To supplement that treatment, at home Zack receives one to two hours of daily supplemental oxygen therapy in a special chamber his parents built in their basement.
But the cost the Barsamians pay for treatment is high – between $3,000 and $7,000 each month because it is not covered by insurance.
More and more kids are recovering from autism, according Wendy Fournier, president of National Autism Association, a parent-run advocacy organization located in Missouri.
“Doctors are realizing it’s medically based. If you treat them medically – treat them with what’s going on in the body, they get better,” she said. “The problem is the medical community looks at them like they have some incurable mental illness. Autism is thought of as a mysterious mental illness.”
