Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. Originally published on May 28, 2023.
This interview was recorded at the annual Academy of Integrative and Integrative Medicine (ACIM) convention in Orlando, Florida in November 2018, but was only available on the site last year. At the time there was concern that the topic was too controversial, but now that six years have passed and COVID has changed the controversial landscape, we thought it would be good to release a video on this important topic.
I had the opportunity to interview two experts on autism and waste electricity, Peter Sullivan and Dr. Martha Herbert, who wrote “The Autism Revolution: Strategies to Help the Whole Body Do All Life Can Do.”1 Here, we discuss some of the toxic factors that contribute to the development of autism, especially the role of electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) and waste electricity.
Sullivan’s Journey
Sullivan struggled Electromagnetic hypersensitivityAnd it is still to some extent, which was the main motivation to learn more about it. As a result, it has become a source of knowledge. As a software engineer in Silicon Valley in the 1990s, he had a passion for personal technology.
“I studied at Stanford. I’ve done all kinds of human and computer interactions. I’ve worked at many companies: in Silicon Valley as a troubleshooter, engineer and software designer at the end. I’ve worked at Netflix and other companies that people might know.” He says.
In the early 2000s, problems began to take root. The children were struggling with developmental delays, with increased fatigue and food allergies. He eventually learned that he had toxic levels of mercury in his system.
Around 2005 I took a leave of absence from work. I said it was ridiculous to have two people working in my family while all these things were going on. I was focusing on my children’s health and wellness and had some time and energy to really go deep and find out what was out there.
I had a great doctor, Dr. Raj Patel … I had an integrative medicine doctor who talked about candida overgrowth, mercury and all that. He put us on the road. Eventually the kids slowly got better, but I didn’t even after detoxing. I got worse.
I was down to 131 pounds. I became an electric sensation. My mind kept telling me, ‘Everything is safe and well tested. I love technology.’ But my body was reacting like something was really wrong. I was throwing the cell phone – feeling cell phones and then plugging in the transformers.
He eventually learned about dirty electricity, and once he started reporting his exposure, he regained 10 pounds and his health within two months. Today, he is eager to share information about EMFs and the dangers of waste electricity and how to address electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
“We’re trying to share the information, to keep the field honest, because it’s very trustworthy, and to make sure people don’t suffer,” he said.
He even created an EMF-free tent that people who bring him to various seminars and conferences can sit in, since many of these events are held in areas with very high levels of EMF exposure. He funded some of Herbert’s research.
Herbert’s story
In the year I met Herbert at a Cure Autism Now event (Autism Speaks Now) in 2009. Herbert’s two children struggled with symptoms of autism when they were young. Today, both have grown and made a full recovery. Her initial focus was on mercury toxicity, looking at ways to screen for non-toxic metals.
A lifelong environmentalist, Herbert entered medical school after earning his Ph.D. in the history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She studied pediatric neurology after inheriting the first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan in 1989 for autistic children.
“I was one of the first people – but not the only one – to identify white matter abnormalities in autism with brain imaging, not gray tissue.” says Herbert. “This behavior violated the pattern from the cortex. I was already a kind person. I was seeing patients.
[Some of them]had these rare neurological diseases that they trained in pediatric neurology. But everyone was coming with diarrhea and vomiting, and they couldn’t sleep. It was almost like primary care in neuropsychiatry. That’s where I made my way to a whole body approach.
In the year In 1999 I had an epiphany… the things I was seeing in my patients could actually be related to the environment… I started to piece it together and realize that this is actually a systems (biology) approach to these conditions.
A systems biology approach to autism
Systems biology sees everything in biology as a web, in which everything is connected to other things. When you drag one part of the web, the rest of the web changes. In conventional science, individual entities and variables are studied separately. This is how clinical research is designed.
“We’re looking for pure forms of disease. But mostly what we’re talking about in these situations is chaos.” says Herbert. “Each person has a different set of[symptoms]some more prominent than others. In the beginning to recognize autism as a systemic disorder, I was looking at specific language problems or language disorders.”
But if you look carefully at these people, they have coordination issues… you see this brain precision and fine tuning… Finally… I found a great article about the networks in the brain that are involved in mental disorders (not just autism, but schizophrenia, depression, etc.).
The junctions of these networks have a very high-frequency gamma frequency… This gamma frequency is activated by very high-energy mitochondrial-centered cells…
We now have enough research to show that metabolic processes in the brain are related to networks in the brain. In some of these cases, the degree of network disruption was shown to be proportional to the degree of mitochondrial dysfunction.
Transcend Research Program
Herbert created a brain research program called TRANSCEND at Harvard.2 (Review of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Treatment, Research and Neuroscience). They use MRI, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalogram (EEG). MEG measures the brain’s magnetic activity, while EEG measures electrical activity.
“When you have electric motion, it’s magnetic at 90 degrees. You’re measuring the same thing, but in a slightly different way,” Herbert said. Her hypothesis is that autism is not something you are born with. It is something they develop in response to environmental conditions.
“To study that, I started studying babies from the time they were in their mothers’ wombs. We got biosamples from the mothers. We got biosamples at birth, and until the mothers stopped breastfeeding – we got biosamples from them, plus EEG and autonomic…
What we found is something that can be interpreted in many different ways. We are working on publishing this. We have EEG data from 2-week-old infants, predicting their outcome at 13 months.
Now, I conclude that I think autism is something you develop. That sounds like you were born with it, but you can’t say they have autism. The way I think about it is if their brain is really excited and angry. So, what happens (to make them in their original environment) is more important.
A whole-body wellness approach may reduce the risk of autism.
Using this early predictive ability, a small number of primary care pediatricians are beginning to implement whole-body approaches for parents and children, where whole-body lifestyle modifications, such as avoiding toxins and allergens, none of these susceptible children actually develop autism.
“My feeling is that what we need is a public health intervention that teaches people how to stay healthy from pre-pregnancy to childhood. If they get an EEG, their brain is angry, they don’t want to do drugs … they want to do things that are safe and healthy, because[drugs and toxins]are the problem in the first place.” says Herbert.
There are many stories from families with autistic children that suggest EMF causes problems, and Herbert and Sullivan are developing an online database to capture this information.
“When you turn down the Wi-Fi, the signal goes down a lot. I knew one kid who was crazy. He used to stir in the dishwasher. Guess what, there’s dirty electricity in this dishwasher. They fixed that and stopped that, and a lot of the signal was fixed.” says Herbert.
Common risk factors
Basically, Herbert believes that autism can be predicted by looking at the level of mental frustration in the child. But what can contribute to this kind of frustration? Sullivan believes that mercury, EMF, and glyphosate are the three main triggers, even more so. Vaccinations.
Herbert believes that integrated food is another big contributor. “Just reducing allergens in the mother’s diet from preconception through pregnancy is a big deal,” says Herbert. That said, it’s really the overall load that matters, not any specific factor.
“There are 10,000 different ways to damage mitochondria. It all adds up. All these seemingly innocuous exposures add to the pile, so they’re all important,” she says. Sullivan has created a video lecture and booklet called “Facilitating Autism Improvement and Recovery.”3,4 This includes a list of suspects for parents to consider.
One big thing that few see is the de novo mutation of sperm caused by exposure to wireless radiation from cell phones and laptops. Men who want healthy children should avoid putting their cell phones in their pants pockets when their cell phones are on. If you keep it in your pocket, make sure it’s turned off or in airplane mode.
Herbert is currently enrolling patients. Children’s Health Inventory for Recovery and Prevention (CHIRP) studyCollects data on the association between total environmental stressors and exposures and chronic disease in children. If you have a child between 1 and 15 years old, you can apply5 By completing two pre-screening questionnaires to determine your eligibility.
Most parents start treatment at the wrong end.
Herbert and Sullivan have worked with autistic children and counseled parents for a long time. What are some common mistakes you see people making? Sullivan replies:
“People think it’s a problem with the child. They jump in and start treating the child. They think it’s genetic, and they do behavioral therapy. The things I would do for myself again, if I could do it all over again, I’d start with the environment. I’d start with EMF, especially at night.
We turn off the baby monitor, the wireless phone base station, the Wi-Fi and sometimes the bedroom circuit breaker… a wired baby monitor is safe… plug everything into the power line. Place the wall on the wall. When you go to bed, just unplug the power supply. Plug it back in the morning. It’s not hard. Or put it on a timer.
I’d say it’s an overload for the whole family, not just the kids… There are (many) things you have to do (to clean your environment). The key is in order. Do the simplest things that will have the greatest impact.
That’s why we start with EMF. Because once you reduce that, you start sleeping better, and then you start getting more energy. You want to build a capacity curve. You start to turn up…
Martin Pal’s paper6 Neuropsychiatric effects from microwaves and EMFs show that this is a big factor, as is sleep, because sleep and (reducing) inflammation are fundamental to good mental health.
More information
For information on autism and wireless radiation, how EMF affects sleep, and for EMF meter recommendations and EMF safety tips, see Sullivan’s website; ClearLightVentures.com. At Herbert Station, drmarthaherbert.comYou can find information on how to improve your overall health and how to reduce your overall body stress for a healthy pregnancy and baby.
