by Jane M. Orient, M.D.

When Your Doctor is Wrong: Hepatitis B Vaccine & Autism, by Judy Converse, 294 pp., paper, $18.69, ISBN 1-4010-2973-6, Xlibris.com, 2002.

According to Baker’s Law, "The entire neurologic issue is whether the patient has a neurologic disease or not. All else is mere commentary." No neurologist, A.B. Baker declared, should ever take a psychiatric history.

One of the great neurologist’s former residents, Harold Klawans, applies his mentor’s advice posthumously to the case of Isaac Newton in his 1990 book Newton’s Madness: Further Tales of Clinical Neurology. The death of Newton’s mother, his religious fervor, and other psychiatric speculations were simply irrelevant Newton himself was correct in attributing his episodic irritability, insomnia, anorexia, memory difficulties, and tremor to "sleeping too often by my fire"--which was used for his chemical experiments. Newton suffered chronic mercury intoxication, recently confirmed by hair analysis.

With regard to autism, Baker’s Law is apparently forgotten, as Mrs. Converse testifies in her book, originally titled "Saving Ben." Her child’s extreme sensitivity, sleep disturbances, vomiting, bowel symptoms, and incoordination were at first called "normal," and her concerns ascribed to the anxieties of a new mother. Later the no-longer-deniable symptoms were blamed on the parents. His mother’s observation that worsening followed vaccinations was dismissed, and on one occasion she was actually threatened with a report to Child Protective Services if she delayed a scheduled shot.

Were Ben’s terrible afflictions the result of the hepatitis B vaccine that he received immediately after birth, without her knowledge, much less her consent? Mrs. Converse eventually came to that conclusion. Her predictions were borne out in Ben’s response to the equivalent of challenge testing insisted upon by his pediatricians.

The book is really intended for parents of autistic children, who will find practical ideas on diet and therapeutic exercises. What helped Ben may help others.

Doctors can learn a lot from it too. It is a scathing indictment of the medical profession for clinical ineptitude and callousness bordering on brutality in relating to parents of a seriously ill child. It raises penetrating questions on the vaccine approval process, and the uninformed non-consent for their use.

One could wish for better editing, references rather than a simple bibliographic listing, and an index. But while Mrs. Converse is not an exemplary scientific writer, she is a heroic mother--and a better physician than many with the degree of M.D., employing techniques of careful observation and experimentation, while putting the patient first whatever the cost.

Journal of American Association of Physicians & Surgeons Spring 2003