The Charlie Kirk Show - Is Tylenol Causing Autism? and other Autism Questions

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

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00:01:09.000 All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:11.000 I'm Andrew Colvett, executive producer of this show.

00:01:15.000 We have a special episode for you guys, and it's all about autism.

00:01:19.000 This is a conversation that has become very much front and center in the national dialogue, of course, with the Maha movement, RFK studies, and this discussion about Tylenol and potential treatments for it.

00:01:31.000 And so we wanted to make sure that we address this issue head-on so that you guys have all the information that you need in order to make wise decisions for yourself, for your family, for your kids.

00:01:41.000 And to help me make sense of this is going to be a very special guest, Dr. Richard Fry.

00:01:46.000 You are a medical doctor, you're a PhD.

00:01:49.000 You're a pediatric neurologist studying treatments for kids with autism.

00:01:52.000 You're also the director of research at the Rosignol Medical Center, and you were the president of the Autism Discovery and Treatment Foundation.

00:02:00.000 It's very, very amazing resume that you got there.

00:02:04.000 And we also have Riley Marty, who's actually on our team as well.

00:02:07.000 And Riley is a passionate, passionate advocate for, I think, it'd be safe to say, for doing this the right way, the right studies.

00:02:16.000 You and your husband Ryan both have some sort of medical background and studies and school and that sort of thing.

00:02:22.000 And so you're kind of our resident expert.

00:02:23.000 So I wanted Riley to be here with me as we go through this very important topic.

00:02:27.000 But Dr. Richard Fry, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:02:29.000 Well, thank you so much, really.

00:02:30.000 Thanks for having me.

00:02:31.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:32.000 And so as I understand it, you have been way out front on this issue in a way that it was, you know, you almost have to use that expression, you know, they're not crazy.

00:02:42.000 They're just early.

00:02:43.000 That was kind of you, right?

00:02:45.000 You were studying autism and ways to treat autism before it became part of our zeitgeist, part of our national dialogue.

00:02:53.000 Tell me, what made you start in this way?

00:02:56.000 When did you start noticing that autism rates were increasing and why did you decide to get so involved in this area of study?

00:03:03.000 Yeah, no, I appreciate the question.

00:03:05.000 And I'd like to say autism found me, you know.

00:03:08.000 So I was, you know, very interested in neuroscience.

00:03:12.000 I was talking to Riley before and, you know, very interested in how the brain works and the wiring of the brain.

00:03:18.000 But being a doctor, you know, you think of things beyond just kind of academics of, you know, the interesting science of it of how to make kiddos better.

00:03:28.000 So I was actually very interested in learning disabilities when I was in residency and I did a fellowship in learning disabilities and behavioral neurology.

00:03:37.000 But what was happening is, you know, I was interested in dyslexia, but, you know, I was also a doctor.

00:03:42.000 And as a doctor, you know, when I'd see patients, there was a lot of kids with dyslexia and learning disabilities that would come to me.

00:03:49.000 What was happening, this was the early 2000s, and I was a fellow, you know, and all these autism was being recognized more and more.

00:03:58.000 So parents were bringing their children to the neurologist to say, my child has autism.

00:04:03.000 You know, what can I do about it?

00:04:05.000 And of course, nobody really knew all that much about it, how to treat it or anything.

00:04:09.000 And when they come to the department, what do you do if nobody really knows?

00:04:13.000 You give the patient to the fellow, right?

00:04:15.000 See what they can figure out.

00:04:17.000 And so parents would come to me and they would say, well, my child just got diagnosed with autism.

00:04:24.000 They say they don't know what causes it and they don't really know what to do about it, but probably has something to do with the brain, so maybe you can figure it out.

00:04:30.000 And I kind of took it as a challenge because, you know, I wanted to make these kiddos better.

00:04:35.000 And I was doing my residency, you know, in neurology.

00:04:37.000 So we knew how to do EEGs to look at seizure activity.

00:04:41.000 And we know that some kiddos with autism have strange type of seizure type of phenomenon.

00:04:49.000 So I knew I could do an EEG.

00:04:53.000 And then a friend of mine had a child with autism who had a mitochondrial disorder.

00:04:57.000 And I had been very actually interested in mitochondrial disorders when I was in pediatrics.

00:05:01.000 So I said, well, I know how to test for that.

00:05:03.000 Well, I can do that.

00:05:04.000 So I can do an EEG.

00:05:05.000 I could do, you know, I could look for mitochondrial disorder.

00:05:10.000 And then I went on to get a job.

00:05:12.000 And so in academia, I was in academia for about 20 years.

00:05:16.000 And I'd go to the department, of course, and my colleagues would say, you know something about autism?

00:05:21.000 Because I have a whole clinic full of them and I have no idea what to do with these kiddos.

00:05:26.000 So they gave me all their kids with autism.

00:05:28.000 And finally, I had to make my own clinic where I was seeing pretty much only kids with autism.

00:05:35.000 And as I saw more and more kids, I started to figure out other things to do.

00:05:40.000 And as, you know, as neurologists, one of the things we do when we can't figure things out is we do what we call lumbar puncture to look at the chemistry in the brain to see if there's something wrong with the chemistry.

00:05:52.000 And I was at a very big center.

00:05:55.000 And so we were very good at doing these things.

00:05:58.000 So I'd send kids for these lumbar punctures.

00:06:01.000 And I noticed that the biochemical findings were abnormal.

00:06:05.000 And I found a couple of kids that had low folate in their nervous system.

00:06:11.000 And I looked at it about the same time, really, cerebral folate deficiency was really described in about 2005.

00:06:18.000 So this is just a little bit about the same time.

00:06:20.000 I said this brand new research.

00:06:21.000 I said, oh, maybe I can treat it with this drug leukovorin.

00:06:25.000 And I did.

00:06:26.000 And the kiddos had some amazing results.

00:06:28.000 Well, and I want to pause right there because I actually have a personal experience with this.

00:06:33.000 Not me, not my family, but it was, you know, Riley's been helping get this interview set up and kind of telling me some of the backstory.

00:06:41.000 And it finally was like, I'm literally texting with a dear friend whose son is nonverbal, four or five years old, and all of a sudden is taking this drug and is adding words, additional words to his vocabulary.

00:06:54.000 He literally didn't talk.

00:06:55.000 And now all of a sudden he's using multiple, multiple new words every week.

00:06:58.000 And the parents are ecstatic, as you might imagine.

00:07:01.000 But let's, before we get to the Lucovorin conversation, I want to kind of take a step back because Charlie had somebody on this show named Craymu.

00:07:12.000 He's got a Twitter account, X account.

00:07:15.000 And he's kind of like a statistician almost.

00:07:18.000 He looks at big, broad things.

00:07:19.000 And they discussed, this wasn't that long ago, they discussed whether or not what we're calling this rise in autism is, is it more statistically?

00:07:32.000 Is it more because we broaden the definition of what autism is?

00:07:35.000 Or is it really, really truly, you know, what are they saying?

00:07:38.000 What are the rates in California?

00:07:39.000 One in 22 kids or something like that in California.

00:07:42.000 It's one in 30 across the nation, something approximately like that.

00:07:46.000 Do you, I mean, is it maybe a bit of both that we've opened the aperture and now we're considering more kids with learning disabilities or what have you autistic?

00:07:54.000 And we just simply didn't classify them that way.

00:07:57.000 So, it's misrepresenting the numbers, or is it also that there just simply are more kids that are autistic?

00:08:03.000 I think it's a little bit of both.

00:08:04.000 Yeah.

00:08:05.000 I know when we went from the different definitions, so we used something called the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to diagnose the DSM.

00:08:14.000 We went from the DSM four to five, we actually thought it was going to be more strict and that we'd lose.

00:08:20.000 But instead, we went the opposite way.

00:08:23.000 And so, they have studies that you know.

00:08:25.000 So, who determines the definitions?

00:08:27.000 So, that's a group, a group of experts that look at these different symptoms and they decide how you can best define these.

00:08:39.000 And that's one thing that we have to understand.

00:08:41.000 Yeah, and it's a limitation of our diagnostic methods.

00:08:45.000 So, the DSM looks at behavior.

00:08:49.000 So, all we look at is behavior.

00:08:51.000 And when these behaviors come together, we say it's a certain disorder.

00:08:55.000 And we don't always look at the underlying biology.

00:08:58.000 And that's something that's really lagged behind, right?

00:09:01.000 And it's many times thought, you know, for a long time, thought maybe there wasn't any biology to it, but we learn more and more that there is biology.

00:09:08.000 And the more we look into it, we find out that there's actually medical causes that are causing the brain and these behaviors to actually occur.

00:09:16.000 So, right now, we're still left at that point where we're using this behavioral definition without having any blood tests or scans or anything.

00:09:25.000 So, it's the American Psychiatric Association, which determines the DSM guidelines.

00:09:30.000 Exactly.

00:09:31.000 Right.

00:09:31.000 So, you're saying that they are looking at behavioral outcomes and not looking at the underlying biology, or in this case, blood work or hormones, whatever that you're noticing that is deficient.

00:09:44.000 So, there's underlying.

00:09:45.000 But in an even deeper sense, is there something that's causing the underlying abnormal situation?

00:09:53.000 Whether it's you were talking about folates, is it our diet?

00:09:58.000 Is it the toxins in the environment?

00:10:01.000 Is it plastics?

00:10:02.000 I mean, do we know more about what these underlying causes are?

00:10:05.000 I think what we know is that it's complex, you know.

00:10:09.000 But definitely, there are predispositions, sometimes genetic predispositions, and there's a lot of-button between 1950 and well, this is the very interesting thing.

00:10:22.000 Yeah, so this is the interesting thing.

00:10:25.000 And what I've started to talk about a lot is this fact that a lot of people for a long time, for the last 20 years, we've assumed that autism is genetic because it's very heritable.

00:10:36.000 Okay, and we think that most of what's heritable is genetic, and that's not completely true, and that things that are genetic are untreatable.

00:10:45.000 Both of those things are not true.

00:10:47.000 So, first of all, what we're learning is those genetic mutations are what we call de novo.

00:10:53.000 So, they're non-inherited, they're new mutations.

00:10:56.000 So, it's a kind of interesting way to try to think about it because, yes, autism is genetic, but it's also environmental because you have to get those mutations somewhere.

00:11:06.000 Okay, so and that's an interesting question.

00:11:08.000 When you're talking about mutations, is that something that will happen in the parents' life?

00:11:13.000 So, they're having kids, let's say, at 30, but something happened between 20 and 25, and a genetic mutation happened, and then they pass that on, or is it happening in conception?

00:11:24.000 So, all of the above, and it's different for men and women.

00:11:28.000 Okay, because for females, their eggs are actually made when they're developing in their mother's room. 0.96

00:11:35.000 So, you can go back to their mother, the grandmother.

00:11:38.000 And men, we're making sperm all the time. 1.00

00:11:42.000 So, actually, we can have mutations throughout our life.

00:11:45.000 Do we know what causes mutations?

00:11:47.000 Well, there's all types of environmental toxins.

00:11:50.000 So I think we can look at one, you know, there's certain types of toxins in the environment that we're exposed to that cause problems, but there's also the other aspect of the nutritional aspect of it.

00:12:02.000 So, and that's kind of where the folate comes into it too, is because we know that folate abnormalities will cause problems with replicating DNA.

00:12:12.000 Interesting.

00:12:14.000 So we know that there's two sides of it.

00:12:16.000 One, not having enough of good stuff and having too much of bad stuff.

00:12:22.000 So these are very complex.

00:12:24.000 So that's why you can't really say it's this or it's that.

00:12:27.000 It's really this complex soup of things that have changed in our society, both probably poor nutrition and also maybe more toxins too.

00:12:37.000 So could you give me a couple of examples of real lived experiences that would actually change somebody's genetics?

00:12:45.000 Because you're right.

00:12:46.000 We sort of think of genetics as being the set formula.

00:12:51.000 This is your sequence of DNA.

00:12:52.000 It's set for life.

00:12:53.000 You're saying those genetic mutations can happen in a human during lived experience.

00:12:59.000 Would it be the cleaners that you use inside your home?

00:13:04.000 Is it smoking?

00:13:04.000 Is it drinking too much?

00:13:06.000 Is it a traumatic experience?

00:13:08.000 Is it stress?

00:13:08.000 Like what can make somebody's.

00:13:10.000 Yeah.

00:13:10.000 All of the above.

00:13:11.000 Right.

00:13:12.000 I mean, you know, that's where we think of it, and not only autism, but cancer, right?

00:13:16.000 Many times we have cancer because something has happened to the genetics of some of the cells.

00:13:20.000 And it's more of the cells that are replicating.

00:13:23.000 So some of our cells don't replicate.

00:13:25.000 You've made them, they're there.

00:13:26.000 But there's also cells that renew themselves.

00:13:28.000 And many of those are the ones that are more likely to have those changes because they're making new DNA all the time.

00:13:35.000 And what are those for men that's making the reproductive cells, the sperm, we're making them all the time.

00:13:41.000 So those are going to be more susceptible to having those mutations along the way.

00:13:45.000 Understood.

00:13:46.000 Now, that's super helpful to know.

00:13:48.000 So it's basically like a very complex situation just got way more complicated.

00:13:53.000 Right.

00:13:54.000 Exactly.

00:13:55.000 It's now more difficult because of our evolving understanding of the way the human genome works and the way cell replication works and DNA replication works, that you could identify multiple nodes along the life cycle of reproduction and development where you could isolate a potential mutation, which could then lead to autism or other abnormalities.

00:14:18.000 Right.

00:14:18.000 And then we find that's just one piece of it.

00:14:20.000 It's the genics.

00:14:21.000 Sometimes there's pure genetic syndromes, you know, where it can be the genes that are very, but then more likely it's a genetic predisposition.

00:14:29.000 And then there's some type of environmental agent that interacts with that to predispose to change the way our bodies work.

00:14:38.000 And we know that one of those major, you know, the most, probably the most influential environment you have is those nine months in your mother's belly.

00:14:46.000 You know, so we know that that influences the way that the baby develops.

00:14:51.000 And, you know, there's been many links to certain types of both, of course, low folate, but also certain types of environmental agents that can change the way that those cells develop, that can change the physiology.

00:15:07.000 And so that's one of the mysteries we think of, you know, how do we have this heritability, right, without having necessarily those genetic mutations, you know, is because much of what we think is happening is that the environment in the mother is changing the way the baby develops.

00:15:29.000 So you're actually inheriting changes that are due to the environment you had in your mother's womb.

00:15:38.000 And so let's say if the mother has a problem with having processing folates, let's say, that's going to be transmitted to the baby.

00:15:48.000 So the baby is going to develop that way with abnormal folate metabolism, and that baby is going to change its development.

00:15:57.000 Same thing with other types of metabolic disorders, which we find that run in families.

00:16:02.000 That environment in the mother's womb is going to be different. 0.98

00:16:08.000 The fuels that the baby gets, the different types of metabolites that may be off because the mother isn't metabolizing things as well.

00:16:17.000 That changes the way the baby develops.

00:16:22.000 For example, one of the studies that we did, and this is associated with another study.

00:16:28.000 It was a really good study by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

00:16:34.000 Some of my colleagues there, they did some really amazing research where they actually can take baby teeth, and baby teeth start to develop at the end of the first trimester.

00:16:45.000 So what you can do is you can go back and look at what's deposited in that teeth and tell what toxins, but also what nutrients the baby was exposed to.

00:16:56.000 Interesting.

00:16:56.000 And so one of the things.

00:16:57.000 It's almost like rings on a tree.

00:16:59.000 Exactly, exactly, exactly.

00:17:00.000 And so one of the first studies, they did a very, very nice study that was published in Nature, one of the best journals, where they showed out of twins that the twin that developed autism, that they were deficient in zinc and manganese in, I think, about the second or third trimester.

00:17:20.000 So for some reason, that nutrient wasn't getting to that baby, and there was changes in the physiology of that baby.

00:17:29.000 We actually showed when we, you know, were very interested in mitochondrial function.

00:17:33.000 We showed that the function of the mitochondria as a child was actually correlated with those levels of manganese and zinc that they had prenatally.

00:17:45.000 So this is a change that happened prenatally that then probably programmed the physiology, how the body works long term.

00:17:53.000 So what was the difference?

00:17:54.000 Could they tell between the two twins?

00:17:57.000 So yeah, so that was divided.

00:17:59.000 Mitochondria.

00:18:00.000 So we found that, well, they found that there was the zinc and manganese, and we found that those nutrients correlated with mitochondrial function later on in life.

00:18:10.000 And was that a genetic, I guess, predisposition of the autistic right.

00:18:17.000 So that's still an open question.

00:18:18.000 Why did that twin, you know, get more of those nutrients or less?

00:18:23.000 All we know is that they tended to get more or less of those nutrients for some reason.

00:18:27.000 And so then you have to go back and ask why.

00:18:29.000 Why was one delivered to one child and not the other?

00:18:32.000 Yeah.

00:18:35.000 Thanksgiving holds so many memories, and I'm sure it's the same for you.

00:18:40.000 Right now, there's a girl finding out she's pregnant. 1.00

00:18:42.000 In the next couple of weeks, she's going to make a decision.

00:18:45.000 And whatever decision she makes will become her memory of this Thanksgiving for the rest of her life.

00:18:50.000 What will she be thankful for a year from now?

00:18:53.000 You.

00:18:53.000 She'll be thankful that you introduced her to her baby by providing a free ultrasound.

00:18:58.000 And she'll be thankful that she chose life as she prepares for her baby's first Thanksgiving.

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00:19:37.000 So in regards to mitochondrial diseases, If a mom is predisposed to a mitochondrial X-linked disease, what would you suggest or is there anything that that mom can do if she's planning on having a baby, if she's currently pregnant, to help minimize those risks of the baby inheriting that disease?

00:19:59.000 Yeah, well, first of all, if it's a genetic disease, so we divide these into what we call mitochondrial disease and mitochondrial dysfunction.

00:20:08.000 So what we find is that some type of mitochondrial disease is due to actually problems with the genes, you know, and the genes that run the mitochondria.

00:20:18.000 What we're finding is that there's many other diseases, including autism, where the mitochondria isn't working well because other parts of the body aren't working well.

00:20:27.000 So it's trying to compensate for other factors that are not working correctly in the cell.

00:20:34.000 So it might be working harder.

00:20:35.000 So we actually find that some kids with autism, their mitochondria actually works twice as hard as it should be.

00:20:42.000 And it puts it in actually in a more vulnerable state, is that what we found.

00:20:46.000 Some have this more mitochondria that work not very well, and that's more of the mitochondrial disease standpoint.

00:20:55.000 So there's two aspects of it.

00:20:57.000 If a mother has mitochondrial disease, if the child has that gene, then they're going to be more predisposed for the child's body not to work well. 1.00

00:21:08.000 But if they don't have that gene, we have to make sure that the abnormalities and metabolism in the mother is not interfering with the baby the way the baby grows.

00:21:17.000 So is this like the new front line, the forefront of the research that's going on with autism is how to identify these abnormalities prenatally and treat them in the womb.

00:21:30.000 Right, exactly.

00:21:31.000 Right.

00:21:31.000 Even preconception.

00:21:33.000 So if we can figure out, you know.

00:21:35.000 So even further back.

00:21:36.000 Right.

00:21:36.000 So we're finding is that many of these metabolic disorders and inflammatory disorders run in families, you know, and they may be influencing the baby and when the baby is growing, you know, prenatally.

00:21:51.000 But if you can go back and identify those things before time, you know, and control them, then you have a much better chance of the child.

00:22:00.000 Could it be supplements?

00:22:01.000 It could be supplements, yeah.

00:22:02.000 So there's really.

00:22:04.000 Yeah, what are the treatments?

00:22:05.000 Yeah.

00:22:06.000 So I would say for really very simple things, okay, and this, and you know, and we've written some blogs on this, that it's not even that difficult because we know things that predispose to autism and intellectual disability.

00:22:19.000 You know, folate, you know, iron, iron deficiency, you know, thyroid abnormalities, you know, and carnitine.

00:22:27.000 Carnitine's really important.

00:22:29.000 That's a really important vitamin that helps with what we call fatty acid metabolism.

00:22:36.000 But it's also important for clearing a lot of toxic molecules from your body.

00:22:40.000 So it's really important.

00:22:42.000 Yeah, so I have like a thousand questions.

00:22:44.000 I'm sorry.

00:22:44.000 I was just like my brain is spinning.

00:22:47.000 So say you're a 28-year-old couple and you're thinking, we're about ready to start a family.

00:22:53.000 Maybe you're 25.

00:22:55.000 Could they go to a doctor like you and be like, hey, run some tests, see what I'm predisposed to.

00:23:00.000 And you would do some blood work and you would test their levels and you'd be like, okay, you're good, good, good.

00:23:05.000 There's a little bit of lightness here.

00:23:07.000 You're not in a folate or there may be some indications there's a mitochondrial situation or this vitamin.

00:23:12.000 I can't even remember the carnitine.

00:23:15.000 So here's some supplements.

00:23:17.000 Try and switch your diet like this.

00:23:18.000 I mean, is that essentially, you know, you've got a thyroid situation, so we want to deal with it.

00:23:23.000 Right.

00:23:23.000 And you would do this pretty trying to conceive a child.

00:23:26.000 And yeah, so that's the idea is that pre-conception, you actually look at how the body is working to optimize the way the body works.

00:23:33.000 And then you do things that are smart.

00:23:37.000 There's another foundation I work with called the Neurologic Health Foundation.

00:23:41.000 We have something called the Healthy Child Guide.

00:23:43.000 And so, what we did is really review the literature to see what evidence there is, you know, even vitamin D.

00:23:49.000 So, there's really simple things.

00:23:52.000 Charlie talked about vitamin D all the time.

00:23:54.000 Yeah, it was mostly about COVID, but yeah, he was a big believer in it.

00:23:58.000 So, yeah.

00:23:58.000 But these are simple things, you know, that you don't have to do any fancy tests or anything.

00:24:02.000 They're very simple things that if you watch, you know, and you make sure you get ahead of the game, you know, that you can increase the chances of your child being healthy without chronic disease.

00:24:13.000 We find a lot of these things not only related to autism, but other types of chronic disease, especially inflammatory disease like asthma and eczema and all these other so-so, are there genetic markers that you could also screen for it?

00:24:26.000 Like when me and my wife, we you know had our first child, our daughter, we, you know, our OBGYN did a genetic screen to see if we had any inheritable diseases.

00:24:38.000 We didn't, thank God.

00:24:39.000 But could you do a test like that that is a new iteration of it that would test for, you know, does that test exist when it comes to autism to see how likely you might be in certain risk factors or whatever?

00:24:53.000 Well, so there's a so there's a difference between two things.

00:24:56.000 There's mutations.

00:24:56.000 So when they do those genetic tests, they look for things called mutations.

00:25:00.000 And those are changes in the genome that will absolutely cause some type of disease.

00:25:05.000 Sure.

00:25:06.000 If both parents usually share the same marker.

00:25:09.000 Exactly.

00:25:10.000 But there's now we're looking at things called polymorphisms.

00:25:14.000 So polymorphisms are small changes in the gene that are very common and make your body work better or worse.

00:25:22.000 Okay.

00:25:22.000 And you can, what we try and do is look at these changes to see how maybe some of, you know, if you have a pathway that has a number of weak spots, weak links, maybe you need to be supplemented in one way or the other.

00:25:39.000 You know, and this is, and it's very complex.

00:25:42.000 So we combine this with not only looking at the genetic changes, because one of the problems with looking at combinations of genetic changes, right, is you have 23,000 genes in your body.

00:25:54.000 So, you know, it's hard enough to look at all those 23,000 genes.

00:25:57.000 Think if you're going to start to look at all those combinations.

00:26:00.000 You know, so this is what's really kind of limited us in a lot of ways.

00:26:04.000 So you have to be smart in how you look at those things.

00:26:07.000 And then you really have to look at the biochemistry.

00:26:09.000 That is, what do those changes do to the function of the cell?

00:26:14.000 So it takes a lot of science to come up with really very definite recommendations.

00:26:22.000 So now we know some of these polymorphisms, how things work a little bit worse or better.

00:26:28.000 But still, the science of what that solution is is still developing.

00:26:33.000 But that's what you are doing.

00:26:36.000 That is the purpose almost of your professional career, right?

00:26:41.000 Right.

00:26:41.000 Like looking how to take the science and then apply useful treatments.

00:26:45.000 Exactly.

00:26:46.000 And then if we can do things, yeah, and that's the thing is that these things may be preventable.

00:26:51.000 And that's the only way we're going to reverse the trends right now.

00:26:54.000 Well, just one other question on the trends.

00:26:57.000 Do you notice a difference in boys versus girls as far as autism rates?

00:27:02.000 It seems to be my impression at least is that more boys are getting information.

00:27:06.000 Well, definitely more boys have autism or diagnosed with autism in girls.

00:27:10.000 And there's different theories of why that may be.

00:27:13.000 Which theory do you prescribe to most?

00:27:16.000 Or are you open-minded?

00:27:17.000 I'm open-minded.

00:27:18.000 Yeah.

00:27:18.000 What are some of the theories?

00:27:20.000 Well, I mean, some people think that it has to do with changes in the endocrine system.

00:27:26.000 So certain types of toxins can be endocrine modulators that change things.

00:27:31.000 It may be that girls are more resilient, you know, because Right. 1.00

00:27:37.000 They have 2X chromosomes, so they're more resilient.

00:27:40.000 They're going to double up the redundancy.

00:27:42.000 They have more redundancy baked in.

00:27:44.000 They think that.

00:27:45.000 And some people just think that women are more, their brains are more socially wired, so it's harder for their brains to change. 1.00

00:27:53.000 So they have less social abilities.

00:27:56.000 They kind of are compensated already.

00:27:58.000 Interesting.

00:27:59.000 So, and this is, why don't you come in here, Riley, and explain for our audience, because I know it enough to be, I would say, 50% right here.

00:28:12.000 But essentially, there was a big press conference that came out earlier in the year.

00:28:16.000 RFK, it must have been a cabinet meeting, basically said, we're doing a moonshot.

00:28:20.000 We're going to find out what the cause of autism is.

00:28:23.000 And this is going to take our conversation into this folate, Tylenol, this drug that we talked about.

00:28:29.000 I always forget the name, Lucovorin.

00:28:32.000 Lucovorin, which is apparently amazing for a subset of autistic conditions.

00:28:39.000 So give us the update of the FDA, Dr. Marty McCary, came out and gave some presentation recently.

00:28:48.000 And I think it sparked as much confusion as it did hope and clarification.

00:28:53.000 So walk us through what he announced.

00:28:55.000 Towards the end of September, RFK, as well as FDA Commissioner Dr. McCary, had announced this approval, FDA approval for Lukavorin to treat kids with autism.

00:29:08.000 I think a lot of people thought at the time it wasn't very clarified as to if this is for all autism cases or if this is just for a subset.

00:29:22.000 If you could go into detail on how this isn't necessarily a cure-all for autism, but it is a step in the right direction for where we are right now.

00:29:31.000 Sure.

00:29:31.000 So yeah, to clarify the announcement, the FDA is not approving it for autism.

00:29:36.000 So they're approving it for genetically confirmed cerebral folate deficiency.

00:29:41.000 And so that's kind of the model is we think many kids with autism have cerebral folate deficiency, or we call insufficiency, not enough folate.

00:29:50.000 So it's very different.

00:29:51.000 The genetically confirmed cerebral folate deficiency, there's about 47 cases actually described.

00:30:00.000 So 47 kids are now approved to take leukavorin.

00:30:03.000 Right.

00:30:03.000 And so, yeah, and I from the FDA, at least from the FDA.

00:30:06.000 And you can understand, I mean, if they were to say, oh, I'm just going to suddenly approve this drug, you know, I mean, that would just open up a, you know, a Pandora's box of, you know.

00:30:16.000 So what they did is they looked at these 47 cases, you know, that were, and when you have that, you know, those few cases, they're what we call case studies.

00:30:25.000 So we have very dense clinical data that shows, okay, you give this medication, this is exactly what it does to the body, you know, so we can definitely say, you know, why this happened and this actually was a therapeutic agent.

00:30:40.000 So when you look at large numbers, like kids with autism, you don't have that very granular data where you can see that.

00:30:47.000 So the idea of leukavorin, so leukavorin is a type of folate, vitamin B9, and it's really important for everybody to understand that leukavorin and what we call reduced folates are very different than folic acid.

00:31:06.000 So we think of folic acid, that's the folate that we take.

00:31:10.000 Folic acid is the synthetic form of the drug.

00:31:15.000 And there's certain caveats because of that.

00:31:19.000 Because of that, our body has to actually activate it for folic acid to be useful in the body.

00:31:27.000 And we have an upper limit to how much we can activate.

00:31:32.000 And certain Estimates have put that at about 400 micrograms, which is what's in kind of a high-dose multivitamin.

00:31:41.000 So, if you need extra folate in your body, if you have some type of folate deficiency or your body systems need extra folate, you can't do that with folic acid.

00:31:51.000 Because you can only process so much.

00:31:53.000 Exactly, exactly.

00:31:54.000 So, you have to use special types of folate like leukovorin.

00:31:58.000 Some people use 5-methotetrahydrofolate.

00:32:00.000 We know leukavorin is something that's been around for 80 years almost.

00:32:05.000 So, it's been used to treat to rescue the body from the side effects of chemotherapy.

00:32:11.000 Okay.

00:32:12.000 So, we've used it for 80 years in oncology.

00:32:16.000 If we've injected it, given an IFC, was that because that treatment created a folate?

00:32:22.000 Yes, exactly.

00:32:23.000 Yeah, so we know that cancer cells, one of the ways that they grow quickly is that they need a lot of folate.

00:32:29.000 So, one of the treatments is to block folate.

00:32:31.000 But then you don't want the body to get sick, so you have to supplement folate.

00:32:37.000 Interesting.

00:32:39.000 So, leukovorin has been around a long time.

00:32:41.000 So, that's one of the reasons that it was started to be used because it's really a known quantity.

00:32:46.000 So, that's great.

00:32:46.000 You know, we're starting out with something that we know.

00:32:49.000 So, what was found is that some kiddos with autism had what we call cerebral folate deficiency.

00:32:58.000 And this was going back to about 2005 or so.

00:33:01.000 These are the 47 cases.

00:33:03.000 So, yeah, it's a small cell.

00:33:05.000 Well, no, it's actually not the 47 cases because it's very interesting.

00:33:09.000 When this was first discovered, that there was low folate, as I had mentioned, you know, we do lumbar punctures, we find there's low folate.

00:33:17.000 And so, a doctor by the name of Dr. Rainmakers in Europe discovered this.

00:33:22.000 And he noticed that these kids that either weren't developing or actually had regressed, had lost skills very early on.

00:33:29.000 He did a lumbar puncture and he found there was low folate.

00:33:32.000 And we know that the major way that folate gets into the brain, because everything that goes to the brain has to be carried there.

00:33:39.000 There's a big barrier, is this thing called the folate receptor alpha?

00:33:44.000 And so, he said, okay, that was his first idea: there must be a genetic problem with it.

00:33:49.000 And so, he sequenced a gene in these cases.

00:33:51.000 He didn't find any genetic mutations.

00:33:54.000 So, that's when he collaborated with Dr. Edward Quatros, who's at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, who actually had been working on that same folate transport mechanism, but for women's health, and had discovered that there's this antibody that the body makes.

00:34:10.000 So, you know, antibodies usually, you know, attack viruses and bacteria and such.

00:34:16.000 But sometimes your body makes antibodies against yourself.

00:34:19.000 So, he found that some people had this antibody that attached to this mechanism, this pump that brings folate into the brain.

00:34:28.000 And so, they tested those kids for that antibody, and they found out that, yes, indeed, most of those kids had this antibody, and that's the reason why folate wasn't getting into the brain.

00:34:39.000 Interesting.

00:34:39.000 So, how do you treat it then?

00:34:41.000 So, leukovorin.

00:34:43.000 So, so what's interesting is so the levels of folate in the brain are two to three times higher than they are on the blood.

00:34:50.000 So, what's important about the folate receptor alpha is that it actually pulls folate into the brain.

00:34:56.000 So, it has to pull it uphill, right, because of the higher concentration.

00:35:00.000 So, if that's not working, how do you get folate into the brain?

00:35:05.000 Well, there's something called a reduced folate carrier, which is a backup system.

00:35:10.000 But it doesn't like folate as much, and it doesn't pump folate into the brain.

00:35:14.000 It's kind of like a tube.

00:35:16.000 So, I say, like, the folate receptor alpha is kind of like a fire hose that puts folate into the brain, and the reduced folate carrier is like a straw.

00:35:26.000 So, now what we have to do is we have to push folate through that straw and a special type of folate.

00:35:31.000 It only transports reduced folate.

00:35:34.000 So what we have to do is increase in the blood levels of reduced folate and essentially now push it into the brain to restore those levels in the folk.

00:35:42.000 Well, how do you do that?

00:35:43.000 And so that's where leukovoran comes in.

00:35:46.000 So is leucovorin just a special type?

00:35:51.000 What was the second type of reduced folate?

00:35:54.000 Reduced folate?

00:35:55.000 Is that what it is?

00:35:56.000 Yes, it's a special type.

00:35:57.000 So you're just flooding the system with...

00:35:58.000 Essentially, yeah.

00:35:59.000 Which is making it easier for this backup system to have enough to sort of push through the tube into the brain to balance out the chemistry in the brain.

00:36:09.000 Exactly.

00:36:10.000 And the great thing about B vitamins is they're what we call water-soluble.

00:36:14.000 So at the end of the day, you pee them out.

00:36:16.000 Sure.

00:36:16.000 So your body has a safety mechanism where they can't build up in your body.

00:36:22.000 So that makes them very safe.

00:36:24.000 Okay.

00:36:24.000 And we say like the worst you can do is make expensive pee.

00:36:27.000 Right.

00:36:28.000 Right, right, exactly.

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00:37:40.000 So this is kind of full circle to this.

00:37:44.000 My friend's son, who was nonverbal to four or five years old.

00:37:48.000 And it obviously was terribly stressful for the parents.

00:37:52.000 And, you know, they were asking a question, was it because we got this vaccine?

00:37:55.000 Did we over, you know, those were where their heads went.

00:37:58.000 Did we overdo the vaccines?

00:38:01.000 And so Lukavoran comes in within the last, I guess, month, and all of a sudden verbal skills are developing with their son, and they are over the moon ecstatic.

00:38:11.000 I mean, it's every day a new word or a couple new words.

00:38:14.000 And I've seen some of these videos of the mom just so excited, you know, because she loves her little boy so much, of course.

00:38:20.000 And all of a sudden, watching it, and it's because of this drug.

00:38:24.000 So you're saying that probably it's, or at least it's possible that this kid, and I have not asked follow-up questions of the diagnosis, but what you're seeing a lot is that there's actually an antibody that is working against the body's ability to get folate through mechanism one, the normal mechanism into the brain, which will help with verbal processing and social skills.

00:38:49.000 Yes, yeah.

00:38:50.000 Okay, so that's probably the diagnosis.

00:38:52.000 You would probably guess.

00:38:53.000 Right.

00:38:53.000 So what we find now, there's other reasons too.

00:38:56.000 So that's kind of the most prevalent and straightforward reason.

00:39:01.000 Now, also, as I said, that this folate receptor, alpha, actually pulls folate into the brain, so that takes energy.

00:39:07.000 So it ends up that if the mitochondria isn't working, that also that's another reason.

00:39:12.000 And so, and we found that in individuals with mitochondrial disorders that have cognitive issues, actually that that is the mechanism sometimes that they have some cognitive issues.

00:39:22.000 And there's another mechanism that we can help those individuals.

00:39:26.000 Describe what mitochondria is, just for people who don't know.

00:39:31.000 I mean, mitochondria is like a weird thing to me because it doesn't have its own DNA and it's like the power center of the cell.

00:39:38.000 And I mean, there's like crazy theories about where mitochondria came from, and we don't need to go into that.

00:39:44.000 But like, just explain what mitochondria is.

00:39:47.000 Yeah, so mitochondria, we think of it as the powerhouse of the cell.

00:39:51.000 It makes the energy currency of the cell called ATP.

00:39:54.000 ATP.

00:39:55.000 So it takes, it can usually take carbohydrates, but it takes fats.

00:39:59.000 Also, it can take amino acids and take all these things, and it can make energy.

00:40:04.000 But, and your cell has anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of mitochondria, depending on each cell, each cell.

00:40:13.000 So you have many of them.

00:40:15.000 And it's different genetically from it has its own genome, too.

00:40:19.000 Right, which makes a complex situation incredibly much more complex because you not only have your DNA, then you have mitochondrial DNA.

00:40:28.000 Yeah, the mitochondria, which you inherit from your mother.

00:40:31.000 And then it ends up that not all the mitochondria that you have, if you have a hundred mitochondria, not all of them may have the same DNA.

00:40:39.000 Some may have mutations on it.

00:40:41.000 And we call that heteroplasmy.

00:40:43.000 So that makes it even more complex to understand how mitochondrial DNA and mitochondrial inheritance goes on top of what we call Mendelian inheritance.

00:40:54.000 And the mitochondrial DNA also is very sensitive.

00:40:58.000 It's more sensitive to environmental stressors.

00:41:01.000 Right, okay.

00:41:01.000 And so is the mitochondria.

00:41:03.000 It sounds like maybe that because the environmental stressors, we talk about all these toxins and plastics and cleaning material.

00:41:10.000 I mean, it's like there's a thousand theories on what's causing environmental toxins to build up in our society and just our lived experience.

00:41:19.000 And so you're saying that mitochondria is more susceptible to that, which makes me think that that's probably, I mean, maybe you could correct me.

00:41:26.000 Are you seeing more autism being linked to mitochondrial dysfunction or to or to just miss?

00:41:34.000 So yeah, definitely we think that mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the major parts of autism that's driving autism.

00:41:44.000 So when we look at the biochemistry and how the cells aren't working, we find that there's kind of three pillars.

00:41:51.000 We find that there's mitochondrial dysfunction.

00:41:53.000 There tends to be there's high levels of what we call oxidative stress.

00:41:56.000 The body can't handle certain types of stresses that can come from toxins or not having enough nutrients.

00:42:05.000 And then we see the inflammation too.

00:42:07.000 So all of these three things kind of can reinforce each other in a bad way and cause a vicious spiral, which we think cause chronic disease.

00:42:16.000 Could you also explain how severe mitochondrial diseases truly are and how catastrophic they can be in more detail?

00:42:26.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:27.000 So definitely, you know, kind of your traditional mitochondrial disease many times, you know, starts very early on in life, especially, you know, at birth.

00:42:38.000 And the mitochondria is so important for energy and for many things, actually, for actually brain development.

00:42:46.000 We know that the mitochondria is important for actually putting the neurons in the brain in the right place, you know, helping them get there.

00:42:53.000 So if the mitochondria isn't working prenatally, you know, actually the brain doesn't develop correctly.

00:43:00.000 So and so if we don't have those, that energy, then our bodies can't grow, especially very early on, right?

00:43:08.000 Because one of them you need the most energy is when you're little and your body is going from very small to very big.

00:43:14.000 It has to build up.

00:43:16.000 If you don't, one of the things that happens is the body, if the mitochondria energy, it can use different things for energy, including, as I said, carbohydrates, fats, but also amino acids.

00:43:28.000 And amino acids are important for building your body and your proteins to make your body bigger.

00:43:34.000 So if your mitochondria is under stress, it'll actually use that protein in your body as energy instead of building up your body.

00:43:42.000 Go ahead.

00:43:43.000 So if you have mitochondrial disease, it'll actually break down your proteins.

00:43:48.000 Is that what you're saying?

00:43:49.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:50.000 Yeah.

00:43:50.000 So one of the treatments that sometimes for mitochondrial disease is just to pour in proteins so that the body, so the mitochondria can use those proteins and the body can actually also build itself.

00:44:03.000 And how does the ketogenic diet play into that?

00:44:06.000 I know that with mitochondria, it comes to energy and you need to boost up your protein, but you also, with keto, it is low carb, but it's the high fat.

00:44:16.000 So is the body utilizing that fat as the energy source to kind of compensate?

00:44:22.000 It is.

00:44:22.000 No, it does seem that it's utilizing that as an energy source.

00:44:27.000 It's a very dense energy source, so it can get more energy out of it.

00:44:31.000 But there seems to be other properties of the ketogenic diet that make it anti-inflammatory too, and an antioxidant diet too.

00:44:38.000 So it has many different types of properties that will actually help protect the body than using carbohydrates.

00:44:46.000 It changes the program of how the cells work and changes the way that the mitochondria works to make it more efficient.

00:44:55.000 And, you know, one of the things is that it may actually help repair the mitochondria too.

00:45:02.000 And so, you know, that's one of the things that we're trying to do.

00:45:05.000 At some point, we think of mitochondrial disease.

00:45:07.000 We're trying to stop the body from not falling apart, but we know we're trying to go to that next level of now how do we repair the mitochondria, you know.

00:45:17.000 And there's a lot of people working on that of how do you take that next step and have the mitochondria repair because the mitochondria can repair themselves, you know, and you can make more good mitochondria.

00:45:27.000 So how do you promote the cells to make more good mitochondria so that the body actually repairs itself?

00:45:33.000 So is your message to maybe parents or people that want to become parents that if you know that you have a mitochondrial disorder, you're scared about that maybe impacting your son or daughter that you're hoping to have, that there is hope.

00:45:48.000 There is potential solutions, treatments.

00:45:51.000 Yeah, no, I think that's, you know, the, and I say one of the most important parts with that announcement of leukovorin, you know, as a treatment for autism is the fact that somebody's actually said there's a treatment for autism.

00:46:06.000 You know, so as I said, the mantra has been it's genetic and you can't treat genetic disorder.

00:46:12.000 So it's, it's, you know, genetics is just one little part of it.

00:46:16.000 And actually we find out that leucovorin actually treats a lot of genetic disorders also, because many genetic disorders have these same physiological abnormalities that we see in autism.

00:46:27.000 So if you say you're living in Cincinnati, Ohio, or wherever, and you're worried about these things that we're talking about right now, what do they do?

00:46:37.000 What does a would-be or current parent, who do they look for?

00:46:41.000 Are they looking for what, like, is it a neurologist?

00:46:44.000 Is it a psychiatrist?

00:46:46.000 Is it a, I mean, who do they go to for help?

00:46:48.000 Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, as you say, that's it, you know, science really hasn't gotten there yet, you know?

00:46:54.000 And still, it's very surprising to me that there's been a lot of resistance to, you know, this revelation about leukovorin.

00:47:03.000 It's not really a revelation to me, right?

00:47:04.000 I've been doing it for 20 years.

00:47:06.000 But now we have, you know, five blinded controlled studies that show that leukovorin helps with kids with autism.

00:47:15.000 You know, and they're all positive.

00:47:17.000 Yeah.

00:47:18.000 So we should.

00:47:19.000 Yeah.

00:47:19.000 I mean, so two questions.

00:47:23.000 And so please wrap up, but I, but we got to get to Tylenol.

00:47:28.000 And leucovorin sounds super promising for a specific type of autism, right?

00:47:35.000 This folate lack of folate.

00:47:38.000 And it's important, yeah, to say that, you know, leukavorin or anything, autism is very complex.

00:47:44.000 So there's no autism pill.

00:47:46.000 You know, leukavorin sometimes works great.

00:47:49.000 As you said, your friend's son started talking.

00:47:51.000 And we have patients on the news, you know, that we interviewed with, but that doesn't always happen.

00:47:57.000 Sure.

00:47:58.000 And it actually, it helps many, many, many children, but you don't have that dramatic effect.

00:48:03.000 And that's because, you know, autism is very complex.

00:48:06.000 There's many other problems that are associated with autism for kids.

00:48:10.000 And you have to take a look at the whole body and the whole child.

00:48:14.000 So I want to talk about Tylenol.

00:48:15.000 I want to talk about vaccines.

00:48:17.000 But you have a yes, before you go into that, we were talking earlier.

00:48:21.000 I think with the research that you've done on this medication and the different formulations that you have found and what you have found that works best and go into detail on that because that was very interesting.

00:48:33.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:48:34.000 Yeah.

00:48:34.000 So this is something that is very important, yeah, is that, you know, we thought at some point that, you know, that some kids with autism just didn't, you know, react very well to the commercial forms of leukavorin because one of the problems is that commercial formulations have additives in them, you know, and there's actually a study that estimates that 50% of what we think are allergic reactions to drugs that we take are really to the additives,

00:49:02.000 not to the drunks, you know, and so we, what are those additives?

00:49:05.000 What is this?

00:49:06.000 There's all types of dyes, lactose, other types of.

00:49:11.000 So what we finally figured out last year, actually, that they were good brands and bad brands.

00:49:20.000 So brands that kids seem to tolerate really well and brands that they didn't tolerate really well.

00:49:26.000 Are you comfortable sharing some of the good ones versus the bad ones?

00:49:30.000 Well, I'll tell you the story because that's kind of academic because what I started doing at the beginning of this year was only prescribing the good brands.

00:49:39.000 And in March of this year, that manufacturer ran out of their year supply.

00:49:44.000 Seriously.

00:49:45.000 Just seriously.

00:49:46.000 And you're prescribing it.

00:49:48.000 Just me and maybe I tell my colleagues, but yeah.

00:49:52.000 How long is it going to take them to get the good one again?

00:49:53.000 Well, they only make so much a year.

00:49:55.000 So all these guys, the drug companies, it's a generic drug.

00:49:59.000 So they produce X amount for the year, right?

00:50:03.000 And when they run out of that, they're producing all these other drugs.

00:50:06.000 They're not going to go and just produce more just because they ran out.

00:50:10.000 They sold out.

00:50:11.000 So next year, maybe they'll produce more.

00:50:13.000 So it shows you the fragileness of the supply and the fact that these and the fact that leukavorin isn't made for this population. 0.68

00:50:26.000 So right now, I will only prescribe leukavorin from a compounding pharmacy that I know well that's going to make a very high quality leukavorin.

00:50:38.000 So you can still get it from this group, this so you can get it from a compounding pharmacy.

00:50:43.000 Yeah, okay, fine.

00:50:44.000 And so, yeah.

00:50:45.000 So right now, that's what we're trying to do is actually making a special formulation of leukavorin just for kids with autism so that they will have something that they can tolerate and that will be useful for them.

00:50:58.000 But we see all also all these over-the-counter formulations now of folinic acid, high-dose folinic acid, where you can get doses that are medicinal up where leukavorin should be.

00:51:11.000 And so, and these are completely uncontrolled.

00:51:14.000 So, you know, it's very important for parents, I think, to know that not all the formulations are the same.

00:51:21.000 Okay, well, that's really good to know.

00:51:23.000 Is there a resource where they can go maybe that are on one of your websites that you would point them in the right direction?

00:51:30.000 Sure, sure, sure.

00:51:31.000 So they can go to our foundation website, the autismdiscoverypeer.org.

00:51:36.000 Yeah, we've got it up there on the banner right now.

00:51:38.000 And you have an easy-to-find tab where you recommend certain formulations.

00:51:44.000 Yeah, I mean, we definitely can direct them to the things that the formulations we think that are best.

00:51:50.000 Okay, great.

00:51:51.000 And that's on your website right now.

00:51:52.000 We'll put it on our website.

00:51:53.000 We'll put it on.

00:51:56.000 I wanted to give you an ad.

00:51:58.000 I'm kind of putting you on the spot here.

00:51:59.000 I totally get it.

00:52:00.000 But it's something we should have.

00:52:02.000 No, you're right.

00:52:03.000 Yeah, because there's going to be parents all over the country that are going to be watching this interview, and they're going to be like, well, I don't live in Arizona.

00:52:09.000 I don't know how to find a guy like him in my backyard.

00:52:13.000 So where do I go for this, you know, and we're struggling with autism.

00:52:17.000 So I want to make sure there's like things that they know to do.

00:52:20.000 We will put something.

00:52:20.000 We have lots of information about folate and all that stuff, but we'll put in suggestions so that people will know where to go.

00:52:27.000 Wonderful.

00:52:28.000 Also, before you do your title thing, what are some questions that parents should ask their pediatricians if they're interested in this Lukavorin to help treat their child?

00:52:40.000 What are amazing questions that if their pediatrician isn't as adverse in Lukavorin as you might be, what's something that could kind of get them to where they need to be?

00:52:52.000 Yeah, I mean, definitely the parents should, they can do a number of things.

00:52:58.000 You know, there's varying amounts of comfort, you know, and I can understand that if a pediatrician doesn't know anything about it, you know, they want to prescribe something they're not comfortable with, you know.

00:53:10.000 So they should, you know, ask their pediatrician about it.

00:53:14.000 We have all of our, one of the things we've done for every article that we've written, we have both parent articles and we have science articles.

00:53:22.000 We have a lot of parent articles.

00:53:23.000 We have a lot of videos and such.

00:53:27.000 So the parents can actually print it out and bring it to their pediatrician, ask their pediatrician to look into it.

00:53:32.000 You know, if their pediatrician doesn't want to take that step, ask if they can be referred to somebody that will, you know, actually prescribe the Luke Vorin.

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00:54:45.000 So, Tylenol.

00:54:47.000 It's a big thing I made about Tylenol.

00:54:50.000 All the liberals, this is for me that you don't have to weigh in.

00:54:52.000 All the liberals are like drinking Tylenol on TikTok and all this stuff.

00:54:56.000 What's the truth?

00:54:58.000 So as I said before, autism is complex.

00:55:02.000 There's lots of things in our environment that are toxins, you know, that if we're vulnerable, we may be vulnerable to.

00:55:09.000 You know, Tylenol is, if you take too much Tylenol, you can overdose, right?

00:55:14.000 People, as we've seen, you can kill yourself with Tylenol actually causes liver failure.

00:55:20.000 So The fact that we have it in every single different cold medicine, every single different pain medicine has Tylenol in there.

00:55:30.000 And a lot of times we're not aware of how much Tylenol we may take.

00:55:35.000 And when you're pregnant, there's very few things that you can take.

00:55:39.000 And so many women, they're told to use Tylenol. 1.00

00:55:43.000 And so we know that one thing that Tylenol does is the way that it becomes toxic is it decreases something called glutathione.

00:55:53.000 And we know that kids with autism and possibly the mothers have low levels of glutathione.

00:55:59.000 So there may be a vulnerable population you can think of where maybe somebody that's vulnerable takes too much.

00:56:06.000 You know, it could be a factor.

00:56:09.000 Is it causing autism?

00:56:10.000 But that's only during gestation, right?

00:56:14.000 That's only during when a mother's pregnant. 1.00

00:56:17.000 We're not talking about when the kid is born or anything later, or what is that window of time?

00:56:21.000 You know, I mean, it's definitely possible.

00:56:24.000 There's a story.

00:56:26.000 So I've written a book also on NSylcysteine, which is the antidote to Tylenol.

00:56:32.000 And so one of the developers of that compound wrote the first chapter.

00:56:38.000 She's at Stanford, and she talks about a little girl, seven years old, that was brought into the ER by her grandparents in liver failure.

00:56:48.000 And the child was taking, the grandparents were taking care of the child over the weekend, and the child had a cold.

00:56:56.000 And so they just kept giving the kid cold medicine, cold medicine, cold medicine, not realizing that Tylenol is in all of those.

00:57:02.000 And it was enough to put this little girl into liver failure. 1.00

00:57:05.000 Thankfully, she did well when she came to the ER.

00:57:09.000 So is it something that's isolated just to gestation?

00:57:16.000 Who knows?

00:57:16.000 Tylenol is at high doses.

00:57:19.000 We know that it's toxic.

00:57:20.000 And it's something that I think anything we put in our body, we have to kind of question about how much.

00:57:29.000 So anything, I think, at too much can be toxic, right?

00:57:32.000 So, you know, is there a case where you're using too much of something and you also have this vulnerability that you don't know about?

00:57:39.000 You know, possibly.

00:57:41.000 So, you know, I think that we have to, you know, look at these things carefully and kind of reevaluate.

00:57:47.000 I think in every drug you put into your body, you really have to question.

00:57:50.000 Do you think there are other pain medications for kids that you would recommend more than Tylenol?

00:57:57.000 Yeah, I'm usually I suggest avoiding Tylenol when not necessary.

00:58:04.000 And I don't think it's Tylenol itself.

00:58:06.000 Most parents will use Tylenol for fevers.

00:58:09.000 Or they'll use Motrin or Advil or Motrin, Advil.

00:58:13.000 You recommend that more?

00:58:15.000 Well, yeah, and sometimes you have to use both.

00:58:18.000 You can alternate between the two if the fevers are really high.

00:58:21.000 But yeah, I would more use the non-Tylenol medications.

00:58:27.000 For children, because with women who are pregnant. 1.00

00:58:31.000 So that's a whole nother problem.

00:58:33.000 So the problem with women that are pregnant is they can't take those, what we call the NSAIDs, because the chemistry of what regulates labor is influenced by those.

00:58:44.000 So they can put themselves into labor. 0.73

00:58:46.000 So they're told only to take Tylenol.

00:58:47.000 So are there other things they can do?

00:58:49.000 I mean, I think, you know, the other thing is to kind of, you know, and I'm not saying just don't take any pain medication.

00:58:56.000 It's probably my wife didn't. 0.76

00:58:57.000 My wife just completely abstained from pain medications during pregnancy. 1.00

00:59:01.000 Yeah, so she just ducks it out.

00:59:03.000 That's amazing.

00:59:04.000 Yeah.

00:59:05.000 Not during birth.

00:59:06.000 No, no, during the breadth of process, she took all the pain medications proudly, actually.

00:59:13.000 And there's some women that are, you know, they believe that that's not the right thing. 1.00

00:59:18.000 But anyways, the point is, so if you are a woman that's pregnant and you've got a migraine, you've got some sort of ache pain, like it becomes debilitating.

00:59:28.000 Yeah.

00:59:31.000 So the thing is, ask your doctor.

00:59:33.000 Of course.

00:59:34.000 Ask your doctor.

00:59:34.000 But it's a safe way to get on, doctor.

00:59:37.000 This is non-binary.

00:59:38.000 Where do we have to get you to sign here that lets you off the hook?

00:59:42.000 But the general advice is to take Tylenol.

00:59:48.000 It is.

00:59:49.000 It is.

00:59:50.000 But that is now changing, I think.

00:59:52.000 Or there's confusion about it.

00:59:54.000 I think that there's confusion.

00:59:54.000 That's why I'm producing it better.

00:59:56.000 I mean, I just think it's the idea that too much of anything is real good.

01:00:01.000 So that, you know, if you, so think twice, you know, and, you know, there's other, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, women should just, you know, tough it out. 0.92

01:00:09.000 Or, you know, there's other things.

01:00:10.000 There's meditation, there's relaxation, you know, possibly that could be helpful too.

01:00:16.000 So it may just think of those other things, you know, and use them in conjunction.

01:00:21.000 First and see if they work before you end up putting a chemical in your body.

01:00:24.000 Exactly.

01:00:24.000 And being more mindful during your first trimester and how important development is to the baby at that point.

01:00:33.000 Right.

01:00:33.000 So it's important.

01:00:34.000 Your nutrition, everything you put in, your water, your food, everything you do, you really have to think about during gestation.

01:00:41.000 So we can't talk about autism without talking about vaccines because it's just been, it's just too there.

01:00:47.000 Even if I don't bring it up, like all the comments are going to be like vaccines.

01:00:51.000 So what is your opinion on the level of vaccines that we, you know, I mean, there's far more vaccinations now than there were in the 1980s.

01:01:03.000 Could this, you just got done saying with Tylenol, the level at which it becomes toxic, you know, maybe there's a vulnerability.

01:01:12.000 Couldn't you then extrapolate that same logic and say, well, if we're doing more, at some level, does it become toxic?

01:01:20.000 Do you not ascribe to that?

01:01:21.000 Do you not ascribe to that general theory of things?

01:01:23.000 No, I mean, I think it's, you know, it's true we're doing more.

01:01:27.000 First of all, you know, we don't know what causes autism.

01:01:29.000 So I think everything's open, right?

01:01:32.000 We've got to look at everything, everything that's changed.

01:01:34.000 You know, did we give more vaccines?

01:01:36.000 Yeah.

01:01:36.000 You know, is that having a role in our immune system?

01:01:39.000 We know that, you know, autism does seem to have this immune component.

01:01:43.000 You know, could early exposure to some of these vaccines that many, you know, reprogram the body?

01:01:51.000 Maybe.

01:01:52.000 We really don't know.

01:01:53.000 Well, why is there such a reticence from the establishment medical community to even address it?

01:01:59.000 It's like, you take your darn vaccines or you're an anti-vaxxer.

01:02:03.000 Well, you know, maybe we want to take the vaccine.

01:02:06.000 We just want to space them out a little further for our kids or maybe not have to take this particular one for school because there's quite a bit of, for our kids to attend like a public school or whatever.

01:02:15.000 Sure.

01:02:16.000 I mean, why is there such a reticence and such a resistance within the medical establishment?

01:02:22.000 Well, I mean, I think the thought of giving vaccines early is that you have the kids there, right?

01:02:28.000 You tend to lose the kids as they get older.

01:02:31.000 That doesn't feel like a very good because they're there.

01:02:36.000 Well, yeah, you know, and now you've pumped them full of drugs and they can't talk.

01:02:41.000 I don't know.

01:02:41.000 I'm just saying, like, I'm not, listen, I am not anti-vax.

01:02:46.000 We have vaccinated our children, but we spaced it out.

01:02:50.000 And we had a bunch of doctors, and we're still spacing it out, actually.

01:02:53.000 We had a bunch of doctors totally refuse to continue being our pediatricians.

01:02:57.000 Yeah, I don't understand that.

01:02:59.000 I mean, I think, you know, I've made my career at listening to parents and listening to their concerns.

01:03:04.000 Because I think that, you know, the thing is, even if vaccines have nothing to do with it, a parent, if their child, you know, develops autism And they were coerced into having five vaccines, you know, they're going to question: did I make that wrong decision?

01:03:24.000 And did I cause my kid to have autism?

01:03:27.000 So that's why I think it's important for parents to make their decisions and support it.

01:03:31.000 Vaccines are important in some states because, you know, the schools won't let your child go to school.

01:03:38.000 So in those instances, you're left with: do we pod school?

01:03:41.000 Do we homeschool?

01:03:43.000 You can't even send them to Christian schools, for example, in California, because they won't give you a religious exemption.

01:03:49.000 The Christian schools, in order to keep their charter, have to keep doing what the state tells them to.

01:03:54.000 So it's completely, you know, there's no options.

01:03:56.000 I mean, I've talked to the HHS and tried to say, hey, you need to do this, but it's such a local issue that federally they don't have much control.

01:04:04.000 So a lot of parents in states like California or Massachusetts or New York, they're up a creek, and there's not a whole lot that they can do other than homeschool their children.

01:04:13.000 So, and we've run into this.

01:04:15.000 It's like you've either find a doctor that's willing to shoot the thing over your shoulder and give you the slip, or which nobody wants to have to lie.

01:04:22.000 Nobody wants to have to misrepresent the truth at all.

01:04:26.000 But it's either that, homeschool, or you just say, you know, yes, sir, may I have another?

01:04:31.000 And you just send your kids off to school fully vaccinated, and you hope for the best.

01:04:35.000 Yeah, I like to be a problem solver, and I don't see that the current way that things are doing is solving any problems.

01:04:41.000 It's just causing more fracturing of things and kids maybe not getting their vaccines that they should.

01:04:48.000 Because, as you say, a lot of parents want to give the vaccines.

01:04:51.000 They just want to give it on their own schedule.

01:04:53.000 Yeah.

01:04:53.000 And then what's the deal with this MMR vaccine where they put it used to be given in separate doses?

01:04:58.000 And it feels like the only rationale I've heard for combining them into a single shot as opposed to three separate shots is that we have the kids there and we want to make sure we get them when we have them.

01:05:12.000 And that seems to be one of the vaccination that's on the schedule that is most controversial.

01:05:18.000 Yeah, no, it is.

01:05:19.000 I mean, there's been definitely controversy over the MMR, but I don't know that it's, you know, that the controversy has any more validity than anything else.

01:05:30.000 Yeah, but again, to your point, it's like if you're going to coerce a parent into having to do it, and then something, God forbid, does happen in the development of that child, then they're going to probably look to you as opposed to just spacing it out like they used to do.

01:05:43.000 I don't know.

01:05:44.000 Stuff like that does bother me simply because it does feel coercive.

01:05:49.000 It does feel like just trust your betters and shut up, plebe. 1.00

01:05:52.000 And I don't think anybody wants that experience with the health system.

01:05:56.000 Well, that's not what doctors should do, and that's not how the medical system should really work.

01:06:01.000 Really, it should be something that's a collaboration, right, between the parent and the doctor.

01:06:08.000 Well, I want to show your book here, Doctor, The Folate Fix.

01:06:13.000 And I mean, this is really exciting because I think I have just this week, that's what's so wild about having you on the show.

01:06:19.000 Just this week, I have a friend that is having this breakthrough with this drug that you've been using and experimenting with, using, treating patients with now for, did you say, 20 years?

01:06:32.000 Yeah, almost 20 years now, yeah.

01:06:33.000 And you've seen, maybe that's where we land this plane is just explain, you know, one more time so it's really clear.

01:06:41.000 If you're a parent, you have a child that you're worried about their development, you're wondering, because there is that point where you're like, they're one, two, three years old, and you're like, is everything okay?

01:06:51.000 And I think I have three kids and I've thought about it with all three of them because parents worry, right?

01:06:55.000 And thank God I think, you know, they are and they're developing on their route and the pace that they should.

01:07:02.000 But if you're a parent and you're worried about this, you know, explain, just land the plane there with this folate fix.

01:07:08.000 Tell them about your book and resources they can get from you and why they should consider maybe looking into this.

01:07:14.000 Yeah, no, I think definitely, you know, if a parent is concerned, they should bring it up with their doctor and talk to them.

01:07:22.000 You know, yeah, some kids, you know, some kids are late talkers and such.

01:07:25.000 That's true, but some of them do have signs for autism.

01:07:28.000 So you definitely want to ask your pediatrician, make sure that they do a screening for autism.

01:07:34.000 The universal screening is something called the MCHAT, which is a questionnaire that the parent fills out.

01:07:43.000 And if they screen positive for that, they should definitely take that seriously.

01:07:49.000 It's important to find pediatricians that embrace autism.

01:07:53.000 I think that some are more comfortable with it than others.

01:08:00.000 What does embrace it mean, though?

01:08:02.000 So I think that some pediatricians just don't see that many kids with autism.

01:08:09.000 So they don't know as much and they may not be that comfortable.

01:08:12.000 And then you find those other pediatricians that kind of embrace it.

01:08:16.000 They see almost all the kids with autism, you know, and they take it on as their and they're more solution-oriented, probably.

01:08:22.000 Exactly.

01:08:23.000 Because you don't have to, I think that's probably the main thing here that I'm taking away: is that if you find yourself in a situation where your kid does have autism, it could be light, it could be severe.

01:08:33.000 There are people like you out there working on solutions, working on ways to help.

01:08:37.000 And this, you know, the Lukavorin is a new breakthrough for a lot of parents.

01:08:42.000 It won't be the silver bullet for everybody, but these things are being worked on as we speak.

01:08:47.000 Yeah, and what's great also in the book is that we have 12 stories from parents about what they went through to get to get their children diagnosed.

01:08:56.000 And you can see that one of the things I always say is that really it's really important for the parent to advocate for their child.

01:09:05.000 Yeah.

01:09:06.000 And so if you think there's something wrong, you know, don't stop.

01:09:09.000 And if your doctor doesn't seem concerned, then find another doctor that may be concerned.

01:09:15.000 You know, you don't have to.

01:09:16.000 That's good advice.

01:09:18.000 For all medical situations, by the way, not just for your kid, but if it's you in the hospital, you've got to be your own advocate.

01:09:24.000 I've learned that much in life.

01:09:25.000 And there's nothing wrong.

01:09:26.000 Sometimes you just don't merge with a good doctor a certain way, but find somebody that you're comfortable with.

01:09:32.000 Don't get discouraged.

01:09:35.000 I have family members with severe autism.

01:09:39.000 And I know 20 years ago how hard it was to watch my parents go through doctor after doctor after doctor.

01:09:47.000 They just weren't, they weren't there.

01:09:49.000 They didn't get it.

01:09:50.000 And they were very standoffish to my parents saying, you know, like, is it worth it?

01:09:56.000 This, she's not worth it.

01:09:59.000 We don't want to treat her.

01:10:00.000 This isn't going to work.

01:10:01.000 And just what, and what would you say to encourage parents to don't give up?

01:10:07.000 Keep fighting for your kids.

01:10:08.000 Keep going.

01:10:08.000 And you can see some of the stories in the book of the parents and what they went through to actually find.

01:10:15.000 And what, you know, some doctors told them that they were shocking, shocked them.

01:10:19.000 They were very upset.

01:10:20.000 You know, but they actually found the solution to their child.

01:10:24.000 And that's what we used to say.

01:10:26.000 A lot of patients come to us and they say, you know, you're Dr. 51.

01:10:32.000 But what's really good is we've been finding that we're no longer Dr. 51.

01:10:37.000 More and more people are learning about it.

01:10:39.000 And so now we're Doctor one or two for a lot of patients.

01:10:42.000 So we can really treat the kids earlier and get them at start at the start so they can do better.

01:10:48.000 Yeah, and there is hope.

01:10:49.000 Even if your kid is at a younger age showing these signs and you intervene in whether it's supplements or Lukavorin or whatever the treatment that are out there, and a lot of love and a lot of attention, a lot of sociability, like a lot of prayer for friends that I know that have gone through this, They watch these young kids grow up and have full lives and breakthroughs, and whether it's speech or social ability,

01:11:19.000 those kinds of things.

01:11:20.000 So, keep the faith and keep pressing in and just love your kids, I think, is another big, big thing here.

01:11:27.000 Dr. Richard Fry, MD, Ph.D., it's been a pleasure.

01:11:32.000 A really, really great conversation.

01:11:34.000 I think we got a lot out of this.

01:11:35.000 Thank you so much.

01:11:36.000 Yeah, thank you guys.

01:11:37.000 Thank you.

The Charlie Kirk Show - November 29, 2025

Is Tylenol Causing Autism? and other Autism Questions

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