The New Frontier in Autism Treatment with Dr. Eric Weiss

Sponsored by CleverCat Marketing

In this episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Dr. Eric Weiss, a pioneer in regenerative medicine, joins Rich to discuss the groundbreaking potential of stem cell therapy in autism treatment. Dr. Weiss, founder of North Florida Stem Cells and co-author of Educating Marston, shares his personal journey with his son, Marston, and the transformative impact of stem cell therapy on his life. He dives into the science behind umbilical cord blood, how stem cells target brain inflammation, and why this approach could revolutionize treatment for autism and other neurodegenerative disorders. Dr. Weiss also discusses the rising autism diagnosis rates, potential causes, and the future of regenerative medicine. This compelling conversation sheds light on an emerging field that offers new hope to families affected by autism.

This episode is sponsored by CleverCat Marketing, your partner in innovative, client-focused marketing strategies. Visit clever-cat.com to learn more.

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Stem cell therapy, Orange Park, FL umbilical cord stem cell therapy for autism

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Eric Weiss, a leader in advanced regenerative medicine and the co-author of Educating Marston A Mother's and Son's Journey Through Autism. Dr. Weiss is founder of North Florida STEM Cells and one of the few doctors in the U.S. using umbilical cord stem cell therapy to treat autism. He and his wife, Christine, have experienced firsthand the transformative effects of stem cell therapy, therapy with their son, Marston. And they are on a mission to share this knowledge with the world. Dr. Weiss has treated over 300 autistic patients from across the globe. And today he's here to talk with us about the incredible potential of stem cells, their impact on autism and the lessons learned from his family's journey. We'll also explore whether we would see an uptick in autism diagnosis post COVID 19. Dr. Ruiz, first of all, welcome to the show. And I have to ask, because even though those of you listening this is being recorded on October 2nd, how did you guys make out with Helene or were you impacted at all? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 1:14
Yeah, just but minor. Minor. Okay. No power for about 24 hours. Right. The power came back on, you know, kind of at the end that it kind of moved a little bit west. And we're on the Far East side of Florida. 

Rich Bennett 1:28
Right? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 1:29
But the Panhandle and obviously the mouths of Georgia and North Carolina just you know, they've never seen rain like this. And oh, it's crazy. And I my anesthesiologist has a house in Asheville and he doesn't even know if it's there anymore. And 

people it's kind of like that Johnstown flood in Texas where thousands died. I think we're going to see unfortunately, more people are dead than they expect. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:55
Well, somebody made the comment. Somebody said it's catastrophic, but somebody else made the comment, said, no, this is biblical. And if you look at it, I mean, it's it was I don't think I've ever seen a hurricane where it went that far inland like that and did that much damage. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 2:15
Right. And I think the biggest problem was Atlanta and above that area. They got about ten inches of rain the day before it hit. Yeah. So they got hammered and then they got 24 inches of rain, like in a, you know, eight hour period or something crazy. 

Rich Bennett 2:31
Oh, yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 2:31
And it's just, you know, you can't I mean, water kills, rising, water kills. And I don't think anybody was even aware of the possibility this could happen. 

Rich Bennett 2:44
Yeah, I don't think anybody was prepared for that. I can't remember. 

I can't think of any hurricane with the exception of Katrina, of course. But but again, that was closer to. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 2:58
It was coastal states, right? 

Rich Bennett 2:59
Yeah. I mean, but inland, I never I can't think of anything like this anyway. That's, that's a whole nother podcast. So for those who may not be familiar with the concept, can you explain what umbilical cord stem cells are and actually how they work in the body? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 3:18
Certainly. And it's I'll give you 2 minutes of history. 

Rich Bennett 3:24
Okay. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 3:25
Because the history is fascinating. So we when World War Two and everybody's happy, you know, then in the mid-fifties, the Russians get the bomb and then the Cold War is off and running. And then, you know, our our government is really concerned about radiation fallout. Radiation. So we start studying that as doctors. And what we found out was that young rats tolerated radiation injury much better than older rats. And they did a beautiful experiment, which sounds simple because it is simple. They took an older rat and sold them to a younger rat 

that had the same genes. So there was no rejection. So they made kind of conjoined twins out of them. 

Rich Bennett 4:05
Right? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 4:05
Then they radiated the old rat, but it healed like a young rat. And due to due to other things that were just known about rats, they knew how many liver cells in all rats should make every day. They knew how much lung capacity an old rat should have. They knew how many heartbeats an old rat should have. And everything about that old rat got younger as soon as they sewed the young rat to him. Wow. So the whole question was, what then? Circulates in animals? Bodies in our bodies, too. That gives us youngest the capacity for youngest. And so it then took 60 years for science to catch up. And we discovered these things called adult stem cells. And there's kind of a big division between stem cells. There's embryonic stem cells which are designed to make a baby, and then there's adult stem cells which are designed to heal. And it it doesn't make sense unless you really think about it. But halfway through the second trimester, the the stem cells change in a baby from embryonic to adult initially. Correct. Because the embryo is fully formed. It's done form in all it is is growing. 

Rich Bennett 5:21
Okay. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 5:22
So umbilical cord blood is chock full of these stem cells which are designed to heal. And it has almost everybody realizes, you know, if your four year old gets a cut, it's healed a whole lot quicker than if your grandfather gets a cut. And so, yeah, these these adult stem cells were were recognized. They were found in the human body. They're found in dental pulp, they're found in muscles, they're found in the bone marrow, they are found in peripheral fat, they're found in menstrual blood, but they're, they're found in the greatest numbers in umbilical cord blood. But by the time you're done your teenage years, you've lost 90% through mid-thirties, 95% mid-fifties, you know, 87 and a half percent. And really, aging is your loss of healing capacity, loss of regenerative capacity. And so by the time you're mid eighties, you don't have any more of these things. And so umbilical cord blood cells are designed to heal it. They're amazing little guys and they're chock full of of these stem cells and umbilical cord blood. 

Rich Bennett 6:31
I'll be darned. I didn't know that. The only thing I knew about was the adult stem cells and how especially a lot of athletes use it to help heal. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 6:39
Correct. It's the same thing. You know, I think that, you know, they have access to them because they make a lot of money. But right now, anybody over the age of 50 who's getting a major surgery, you know, in my book should get some stem cells infused. You know, a week after the surgery. Yeah. To help them heal. But the way they come into play with with with autism is amazing. And most people don't know this is that the rate of autism has been rising. And so the NIH commissioned an autopsy study. You know, we need to find kids with autism that died of other means, you know, drowning car accidents, you know, house fire, you know, whatever. Let's look at their brains. And what they found out was that over 90% of them had brain inflammation, had had abnormal pathology in the areas of speech, speech and language 

socialization and certain behavioral issues. And that's what defines autism. Right. And so what they did was then they took animals, mostly rats, and they induced inflammation in those areas of the brain. And it and it was amazing. These rats kind of became autistic. They stopped communicating. They started repetitive behaviors and wow. And antisocial behaviors. And so that did two things. It gave us a an animal model for autism that comes and it gave us what was wrong with the autistic brain. And then once again, this was this was kind of discovered in 2005, 2006. And at that time, if you can remember, we were really into chronic traumatic encephalopathy. You know, how could, you know, profession or athletes or even members of the military because they were getting these concussive blows from IEDs. MM And and they were developing severe PTSD for dementia ten or 20 years later. Yeah. And so what the researchers found was, was the IED as well as a subconcussive blow. Can start a an inflammatory process in the brain that never stops. And it just keeps eating the brain up and eating the brain up and making it smaller. So there was a trial of medications trying to stop this brain inflammation. And number 30 was umbilical cord blood, because some researchers had found that that it impacted the immune system. And so they induced brain inflammation in these animals and they they gave them umbilical cord blood and not only did the inflammation go away, which is amazing. Yeah, but it started brain restoration, actually growing new brain cells. 

Rich Bennett 9:22
Really? Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 9:24
And it's never been shown that an adult can grow new brain cells and which is why this is going to. To revolutionize neurodegenerative disorders. Yeah. That's not Alzheimer's. Parkinson's. Oh, wow. It's ALS, autism. And so obviously it impacted me mostly because I have an autistic son. And so that's how I, you know, how did the guy that, you know, you know, went to Davidson College and got a degree in chemistry, then went to Duke Medical School, then became a general surgeon and became a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. How did I get to stem cells? Well, I got the stem cells because my son and I was always trying to help my son. 

Rich Bennett 10:06
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 10:06
And then I read these reports and then Duke came out with a study that said we gave umbilical cord blood. Listen to this. To to a bunch of kids with cerebral palsy, because cerebral palsy is a neuro inflammatory disorder, because 88% got better, 88, 88, like craziness, like kids that were blind started to see kids like kids that were in wheelchairs, started to walk, you know, biblical type stuff. And so then they they gave it to autistic kids and 60% got significantly better kids that started that weren't verbal, started to talk, kids that, you know, displayed poor social behaviors, started to socialize, kids that had all these crazy aberrant behaviors with flapping and clapping and spinning started to get better. 

Rich Bennett 10:54
Wow. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 10:55
It's so I called Duke. I went to Duke. I know the people there. 

Rich Bennett 11:00
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 11:00
And they said, you know, Eric, we're seeing some crazy stuff, but, you know, your kid's an adult and we don't think, you know, we can do it. We don't know if it'll help or not, but we don't think we can do it. So then I called Panama and asked them the same question and they said, No, we don't treat anybody over 18. And, you know, there's nobody better, you know, not even an FBI agent on a hot trial and a mother whose kid is sick. Yeah. So my wife was looking for somebody who knew about stem cells and she found a great doctor in Chicago, Thomas Logue, who was the head of pediatric surgery at St Jude Children's Hospital. Famous guy, 

world class knowledge, knew about stem cells, and so he had a pediatric brain injury study going and I called him. He's a regular guy. Yeah. My secretary said, you know, he'll call you at the end of the day when he's done with his operations, which is exactly what I would have said. Mm hmm. I ended up talking to him for an hour on my drive home and it just turned out that we had people in common. He trained at UCLA when I trained at UC San Francisco, and he just told me he said, Eric, he said, if this was my son, I would do it because I'm seeing kids in comas waking up and, you know, stuff that I've never seen before. Wow. And so I took my kid to Chicago and he got a dose from Dr. Loeb. And it was amazing. I mean, he started talking and we didn't. 

Rich Bennett 12:30
Really. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 12:30
Yeah, we didn't tell anybody we had done this, you know, because people think you're crazy and people think they're out on a limb and, you know, you're spending money, you know, inappropriately. But we got confirmation when my niece called me and said, you know, what's up with Masten? And I go, You know what? I don't know. Something wrong with Masten? And he said, he just called me on the phone and that's the first time he's ever reached out, you know, And he's only one year younger than his cousin. And so they kind of grew up together. They're they're good friends. He called her on the phone and had a conversation. And so it obviously that changed our lives. And it's so, 

you know, it's hard to have a 22 year old be part of a pediatric brain injury study. It's so, you know, Thomas Loeb said, you know, let me teach you how to do this. And he taught me how to do it. And I thought, well, I'll treat my son, which I did. 

Rich Bennett 13:27
Mhm. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 13:28
You know, happy wife, happy life. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:32
Oh yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 13:32
You know, my wife said, you know, how are you going to meet your maker and said you did this for our child and you didn't do it for anybody else. You know what, I tried to convince her I had a day job doll and she tried to convince me otherwise. And I do think this has become a spiritual journey. I've never advertised it. And and now I'm getting more consults for stem cells and neurodegenerative disorders than I am for plastic surgery. And this will be you know, I've operated enough I've been a surgeon for 30 years. Yeah. And I believe some of these these kids are the forgotten people of our health care system, you know, And, you know, not to you know, when your kid gets diagnosed with leukemia, you know, they tell you your child has leukemia, but then you get put on this conveyor belt. You know, the pediatric oncologist, they're ordering chemotherapy, they're getting a spinal tap. You go into the hospital, there is a whole team involved. But when your team when somebody says, you know, your child has autism, they slap you on the back. They say it's going to be lifelong. Think about an institution, you know, try to get some therapy and there's nobody to even talk to you about it. So when I talk to people going, we now know what the overriding pathophysiology is in autism. Yeah. And I think we have the ability to treat it. They're dumbfounded. They're going like, Well, how come my doctor doesn't know? And I go, I don't know. And I know that I know it because I was searching, you know, not every day, but probably at least two or three days a month looking for any new type of therapy. And I came across this one article from Duke and then it all you know, it all makes sense to me. And it's it's interesting how it makes sense because now that we know that it's a neuro inflammatory disease and now we know that we have an animal model, we've now induced inflammation in a mother rat and she's given birth to rats that have signs and symptoms of autism. And so mothers can pass inflammation on to their child. And a beautiful study was done, you know, in the Scandinavian countries. And because they have national health care and they have all the records, right, that if a pregnant mom was had a significant bacterial infection in the second trimester or a viral infection in the first trimester, they're like ten times more likely to have an autistic kid. 

Rich Bennett 16:06
Really? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 16:07
Yeah. Even if if your first trimester takes place in the wintertime, you're more likely to have an autistic kid because you probably get some type of viral insult while you're pregnant. And so we're starting to unravel the the immunology of autism. It turns out that all these kids have immunologic abnormalities that now can be targeted. It I tell moms, it's like the gym. You can't give your son therapy if he's incapable of learning from therapy. 

Rich Bennett 16:42
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 16:42
You know, you can't lift £100 before you can have £20. And so with my son, when when he got treated, it almost like it gave him the ability to learn, you know, then he went through, you know, then he you know, he started trying to make words and he started making words and then he started talking to people. But when you talk to people, people talk back, you know, then you have to come up with your next your next line. And it completely it taught him how to learn. And, you know, if you would have told me five years ago that, you know, he would be able to drive a car, live on his own and have a job, I would tell you, you know, you're raising God's ear, you know. 

Rich Bennett 17:22
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 17:23
But I saw I've seen it happen. And there was more change from year 22 to 27 than there was from two years old to 22 years old. 

Rich Bennett 17:34
Well, okay, wait a minute. You said he's living on his own and driving a car now to correct. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 17:39
Wow. Right. And he he you know, he lives in a place called the Ark Village. And he has a mentor that checks his apartment twice a twice a week. 

Rich Bennett 17:50
Right. While. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 17:51
But he's fully capable of of doing it. You know, there's still a few roadblocks. He doesn't do well with understanding money. But, you know, I got him a debit card and that makes him be able to get gas and go to a restaurant and things like that. But he he's you know, he's got a regular job. He loves going to work. I think, you know, not to 

rail on the younger generation, but people forget in the honor of working and getting up every day and going out and and meeting people and and helping other people. And that that has changed his life significantly, too. 

Rich Bennett 18:30
So with now with stem cells, what is it, an injection. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 18:34
Correct It this this stuff is amazing. And so these are adult stem cells in back to umbilical cord blood. It's like chicken soup for healing. It's got five different types of stem cells in it, but it has all sorts of things that help regulate your immune system. But what we found out is if you just inject them into the body, they have the ability to circulate in your bloodstream and seek out inflammation. So the inflammation is in your knee. That's where it's headed. If the inflammation is in your gut, that's where it's headed. If the inflammation is in your brain, that's where it's headed. And at the the mechanism of how they work has even been worked out. And it's amazing. Yeah, because they, they migrate to the inflamed area, they nestle up to the inflamed cell and just from reading the environment, they know what's wrong with that cell and they secrete a little packet of information called an exosome, which is just a little packet of proteins. And then that protein leaves that cell fuses with the injured cell gets released into the cell and it turns on the genes in that cell to fix that cell. So it's it's it's a crazy way. But all this is all this science is brand new. And I think so I think this will be the biggest advancement in medicine since antibiotics. Because because right now, nobody's dying of infectious diseases. Yeah. Typhoid fever, pertussis. You know, hepatitis can even be treated now, you know, yellow fever, malaria, all the things that the tuberculosis at the turn of the century, you know, those were wiped out with, you know, good sanitation, good hygiene, throw throwing some antibiotics and vaccines. And, you know, we've knocked it down by 99.9%. But as infectious disease wane, chronic diseases have increased. You know, the the CDC has been tracking chronic diseases since 1960, and it's been a slowly rise just in children. It's risen from 1960 was 1.8% and now it's up to 25% of children have a chronic disease, whether it's asthma, ADHD, ADHD, autism, you know, cerebral palsy, you know, all the things that you see in childhood. But but it it it these cells have the ability to to help that out. Plus, you know, looking for the root cause of the inflammation. 

Rich Bennett 21:15
Yeah. So how often does Marson actually get the injections. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 21:22
It's interesting. And in the United States, a phase one study is, is it safe? A phase two study is does it work? A phase three study is proper dosage administration in a phase four study is this currently better than anything on the market? So phase one study was has been done from below cord blood. And I want you to know as well as everybody else, umbilical cord blood is not new to medicine. It's been used in the United States for 60 years to treat usually pediatric malignancies. There's something called inborn errors of metabolism. Okay. Probably 15 years ago or maybe even 20 years ago, you know, we heard a lot about bone marrow transplants. Yeah, you know, little Johnny has leukemia. Nobody in his family, you know, has the right bone marrow. So people are going to churches and schools looking for a match. Well, well, we've learned, you know, not necessarily me, but doctors have learned how to take umbilical cord blood and make a complete immune system out of it. And so we don't need bone marrow transplant. So, you know. Wow. So that's so we know the safety profile of it because we've been using it for 60 years. And so the phase two studies are going on now, and there's never been a study done on multiple doses, you know, So I gave one dose and to be honest, you know, the Duke study and other studies have backed it up that only probably about 60 to 70% of kids benefit the autistic kids from umbilical cord blood in stem cell therapy. It's unclear why 30% or so don't benefit. Right. And I went up to Duke and I asked them and, you know, right now we're not even looking at the non-responders. You know, it might be that, you know, some are genetic abnormalities. You know, some may not be inflammatory based. That's just might be the answer. You know, brain inflammation is very difficult to pinpoint exactly. There's not a great, you know, non-invasive way. You know, it was discovered by autopsy only, you know, MRI's and things like that don't necessarily show this type of inflammation. Wow. So anyway, well when we gave them one and he got so much better, it was much easier to give to. 

Rich Bennett 23:42
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 23:43
And so I believe at at three he was he was not really autistic anymore. He was, you know, conversant. He was, he was in, you know, in the game fully emerged. Now I've given him two more. He's gotten a total of five 

because 

when he had his brain injury which led to the inflammation, he lost a lot of brain cells. So he was born with a brain circumference of the 56 percentile. So kind of right smack dab, middle of normal. 

Rich Bennett 24:19
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 24:20
But he ended up in the neuro neonatal intensive care unit. By the time he was six months old, his brain was less than a second percent. So it went from the 50. And so through MRI eyes, we can see that the his brain took a hit. 

Rich Bennett 24:38
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 24:39
And like I said before, this is the only product that we've seen that will grow new brain cells. In fact, you know, to to jump ahead. UCLA just did a study on on people with Alzheimer's. It gave them a single dose of a of the called an MSI product. The they have a trade name called Loma Selby, but it's a very similar product to umbilical cord blood. 

And all the inflammatory markers started getting better. And these these people with autism, I mean, these people with Alzheimer's, but more importantly by MRI, many of them, their brains started to regrow while they get bigger. You know, And one of the signs of Alzheimer's is your brain shrinks because you're losing cells. Mm hmm. So I'm trying to drive, you know, his IQ, let's say his cognition, because right now he still has some issues, but he is getting smarter. I can. I can see. 

Rich Bennett 25:36
It. Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 25:38
And so that's why he's got more. But I think because right now, these things have been shown to be beneficial and traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke if if you get this product because currently right now the speak about stroke, there's two types of stroke. You can have a blood clot or you can have a bleed. If you have a bleed, there's no treatment. It's just whenever you wake up, you get therapy. But right now, if you get umbilical cord blood and therapy, you get a much better response than therapy alone. And that's because, as you would suspect, when you have a stroke, it starts off an inflammatory process. And so these cells stop the inflammatory process. They protect brain cells that you would have lost. So the zone of entry gets smaller, right? It's much easier to rehab and it calls the new cells. So so this this is going to revolutionize brain issues as well. Now, you know, not everybody can get a heart transplant. And as you get congestive heart failure, whether you've got it from, you know, cardio myopathy from a a vaccine cardiomyopathy that has been in the news because of the cocaine from COVID 19, which you can get cardio myelitis or cardio myositis. You can get it from atherosclerotic heart disease, you can get it from heart attacks. You can have congenital abnormalities. But what they've been shown is when you start to lose muscle in your heart, it starts a cascade of inflammation, which leads to more muscle cell in essentially pump failure. But now you can get an injection of umbilical cord blood and there's actually stem cells, a different type of stem cell that treats the heart instead of the brain that has shown an increase in ejection fraction and better quality of life. 

Rich Bennett 27:34
Really? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 27:35
Really. So like I said, all these chronic illnesses are going through this this crazy phase over the last couple of years, because all this was kind of discovered in kind of 2019, followed by the pandemic. So there was kind of a 2 to 3 year period where not much was happening. Then everybody's kind of jumping in full time right now. So it's a it's an amazing time to look at regenerative medicine because truly, I believe, you know, and I'm a surgeon, I make a living by cutting people open. Right. That need to be fixed. But I truly believe if you can find a way for the body to heal itself, it's better than any medicine or surgery. 

Rich Bennett 28:14
Oh, yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 28:15
You know, And so and I believe we're starting to unlock the, you know, stem cell therapy. And I think that, you know, everybody wants lifespan and health span to be the same. You know, nobody wants to be in a wheelchair. Nobody wants to be in a nursing home. Nobody wants to be demented. And, you know, if you take care of yourself and you know, you do some wellness, your lifespan can equal your health span, you know, and you can live up to your age very healthy. You know, nobody's shown that these these cells lengthen lifespan. Right. You know, but they treat, you know, because every cell is eventually going to die. And but these cells have the ability to fix broken cells, you know, And so it can keep you with as healthy as you can be. 

Rich Bennett 29:10
I I'm I'm just blown away by all this because we've talked to people on the on the show before who have kids of autism. And I don't think anybody's ever mentioned stem cells. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 29:28
Well, it's funny because Autism Parenting magazine asked me to speak at their at their national symposium. 

Rich Bennett 29:35
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 29:36
And they said, well, what do you want to talk about? And I go, Well, I think we should talk about the biology. The biology basics of autism. And I said, Well, well, what's the biology of autism? And I'm going like, Well, it's a neuro inflammatory disorder. Then all of a sudden, you know, the people who, you know, there's such a dearth of of knowledge concerning what what we do know about autism. Right. You know, and and I'm you know, I get this, you know, I believe in neurodiversity and, you know, not everybody's the same. And but to say that, you know, my son has autism, he just thinks a different way doesn't mean you shouldn't try to help. 

Rich Bennett 30:21
Exactly. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 30:22
You know, because because everybody speaks a different you know, things are different way. You know, when you get down to it, you want to prepare your child for the world the best way you can. And I think the more you start to learn about what we've learned about autism and what what tools are now in your toolbox that that stem cell therapy will become much more universal. 

Rich Bennett 30:45
Yeah. You mentioned earlier there was an uptick of people born of autism. Do we know why 

it. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 30:54
That's unclear. But it's been growing up. You know, when I was young it it was one in 10,000. Mm. And currently, I believe it's one in 33. Why are on the autistic spectrum. Correct. It has been going up every year, you know, so you know everybody says well it's better diagnosis or it's, or it's genetic related but it's not. The diagnosis of autism hasn't changed in 20 years. And you know, the biology of our genetic makeup doesn't change that much. And so I have some theories and and, you know, and everybody's concerned about vaccines and I'm concerned about vaccines. 

Rich Bennett 31:32
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 31:33
But but there's other ways to get 

neuroinflammation besides vaccines. And if you look at that original study of the of the autopsy study where they showed they had brain inflammation, they actually broke it down between kids that were kind of neurotypical until, you know, 18 months or two years and then regressed. And then they had a group of kids that were were never hit their milestones from the time they were born. And so and there was no difference in the brain inflammation. 

Rich Bennett 32:08
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 32:08
And so so there might be multiple causalities. But, you know, I would say our diets have gotten terrible. And absolutely, if you look at today, two thirds, 66% of all pregnant women who get pregnant today are either overweight or obese. And we know that women who are overweight or obese have more inflammation in their bodies. But more importantly, it's been shown they have more inflammation in their uteruses. And we've shown really yeah, we've shown that that inflammation can be transmitted. So I think diet is huge. I think that, you know, the one thing that we've started to do is, is vaccinating pregnant women. You know, most people don't know pregnant women now get for vaccines. 

Rich Bennett 32:59
I didn't know that yet. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 33:01
It's now recommended they get the flu vaccine. They get the COVID vaccine. They get I want to say the RSV, respiratory syncytial and the DTaP ad because those are all things that, you know, I've decided it would be good to have those maternal antibodies go across the the the placenta into the trial. But you know, what they didn't consider, I don't think is that well, we're inducing inflammation in the mother to produce these antibodies. Yeah. And maybe the the inflammation would be a bad thing, just like the Kobe vaccine, you know, And I think it was a little bit of groupthink. But, you know, the first thing they said is, you know, people got COVID. They said, wow, they have antibodies to the spike protein. Let's make a vaccine that makes antibodies to the spike protein. And what they notice is they said was, well, everybody has a level of X after they get COVID, let's make the vaccine have a level of two X or four x, so they get a lot of antibody. So we're really protected, right? Well, they never thought that the spike protein might be toxic. You know, it might bind to your epithelium or endothelium and give you blood clots or give you a stroke or give you a heart attack or give you, you know, cardio myositis or, you know, they never you know, and, you know, I mean, I don't think anybody had any evil intent. They just say, you know, if X is good, two X is better, you know, But but maybe two X isn't better, you know, two times the antibody level. 

Rich Bennett 34:44
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 34:45
And so that's my personal belief. But yeah, but then the question is, you know, where are they getting the inflammation, you know, from the environment. I would assume whether that's, that's eating overweight a vaccines before certainly vaccines after, you know I believe before your child gets to first grade. Now he's at 72 vaccines. 

Rich Bennett 35:07
Jesus. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 35:08
You know, I don't know how old you are. I think I had six before I went to first grade. 

Rich Bennett 35:14
I remember you're the biggest one I remember was the polio one. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 35:17
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 35:19
That's the biggest one I remember. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 35:20
I remember in school getting a shot in the arm. 

Rich Bennett 35:22
And what there something else with the sugar cube? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 35:26
Yeah. That was the polio vaccine, too. 

Rich Bennett 35:28
Oh, okay. I just remember the sugar cube. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 35:33
The sugar gene found out the oral polio vaccine doesn't work too well. 

Rich Bennett 35:36
Yeah, And then there was another one. It looked maybe that was the polio like. Yeah, almost like seven needles or whatever. And it left the ram mark on your arm. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 35:44
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I have that, too. You know, the that, that was when, you know, the beginning of this big thing and yeah. 

Rich Bennett 35:55
It's maybe it was the measles or chicken pox. I don't know. Right. But that was a long time ago. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 36:01
When you got chicken pox. Probably because you know, we're of the age where as soon as one kid in the neighborhood got it, your mom sent you down to go play with them. 

Rich Bennett 36:08
You know. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 36:09
Because everybody gets the chicken pox, you know, 

In fact, it was funny because, you know, my kid got chicken pox and, you know, it was like four days later my wife started to break out. She goes, What's this rash? And I go, Well, it looks like chicken pox. She goes, It can't be. I got chicken pox. I had chicken pox. I go, Well, it looks like chicken pox maybe. You know, I went to medical school, you know and she called her mom and she goes, No, no, all your sisters house, you know, But now they have a vaccine for it. So I think that, you know, vaccine the testing is not as rigorous as any other drug. And I think Bobby Kennedy, you know, I think I don't think anybody's anti-vax, but it should be studied some more. Absolutely. And, you know, if you look at measles, mumps, rubella, the MMR, which a lot of people correlate with that, those are benign childhood illnesses. You know, you get a little rash, you feel bad for a little bit, but you get those as a child, because if a pregnant woman gets any of those, she could have a very a child with very severe birth defects. So you're not taking it for you were taking it so you don't give it to a pregnant mom. Well, there's some countries in Europe now where they say, well, why should we vaccinate babies? We should vaccinate any boys. We because the reason you get an MMR vaccine is to protect a pregnant woman from getting measles, mumps, rubella, because nobody dies of measles, mumps and rubella. You know, back in the early 1900s, you did because kids would scratch the measles and they would get a staph infection and they would they would pass away from the the bacterial superinfection. Well, now we have soap and water and running water and good indoor plumbing, but more importantly, we have penicillin and and all these other drugs to treat staph, whereas before they didn't that. So in the Scandinavian countries are starting to move toward just vaccinating like 13 year old girls. You know, because really it's only women that need to have antibodies to measles, mumps and rubella before they get pregnant. 

Rich Bennett 38:21
So do you think that stems stem cell therapy could actually become a standard treatment for autism, or are you hoping that it does? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 38:31
I'm I'm hoping it will, because it's the only thing that's been proven to change a child's brain on a cellular level. You know, And I believe well, it's hard to say a child, but because we have animal models of autism now, we've given human umbilical cord blood to animals and they've they've improved. And then we've we've, you know, sacrificing animals and look in their brain and we can tell that the inflammation has gotten better. And then more importantly, there's these cells in our brain which support our neurons called glial cells. And these glial cells also can either live in an inflammatory state and stem cells have been shown to switch them from pro restoration, and they secrete something called brain derived neurotrophic factor and something called neural growth factor, which the people that described, I guess, won Nobel Prize just not long ago, because that's what causes your brain to make new connections and and to grow and at Duke, they devised an MRI, which is pretty cool because it doesn't give you a picture of the brain. It gives you a number. And that number is how many connections are in your brain and so they did MRI's before the stem cell therapy. It showed that these kids with autism had smaller amounts, less than normal amount of in the speech. Language and behavior issues are areas of the brain. And they showed after a single dose, that number went up and it went up significantly and so it's the only time where researchers have shown that the brain eggs got better, that their brainwaves were stronger, it had more energy in the areas that they test. So I believe that it should be the standard of care. I mean, obviously lot of research needs to be done on who benefits, who doesn't benefit. Why do some why don't Because for all we know, it's a dosage issue. Maybe the kids and benefit needed more. 

Rich Bennett 40:30
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 40:31
You know, because unfortunately this stuff is kind of hard to get 

you would because 9 billion cards are being thrown away. You know it's still. 

Rich Bennett 40:41
I was going to ask you about that. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 40:43
It's still classified as biologic waste. And so every woman who's pregnant should be asked two questions, I believe. Do you want to save your own stem cells in case your child has an issue? Or if you don't want to save it, would you donate it? And so I think there are some mine and can't consent to donate something. Yeah. Which you know obviously I've never had labor and I would hate to say what the state of mind would be for all our women listeners, but I would think there'd be some time in the hospital, there'd be a five minute period or after the epidural thing or something where you'd say, Well, I'm not going to 8 hours. It could be saved. 

Rich Bennett 41:22
Yeah, well, actually with that we can you still use the umbilical cord, the stem cells from like if it's a miscarriage or anything. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 41:31
You probably can it just if there a lot of or not, you know these are living cells. Yeah. It's, it's almost like a blood transfusion, you know, when you get a blood transfusion, that blood is kept in or, you know, refrigerated and thought need to be. And so these things are kept that way as well. And so I don't know that to be true or not. I think it's a slippery slope. Then all of a sudden you're starting to use aborted tissues because the nice thing about adult stem cells, it comes from live, healthy birth. You know, genetic screening on the mother and the father. And then the mother, you know, gets tested for all communicable diseases from HIV to hepatitis to Zika, West Nile, Lyme disease, Chagas Bay, all things that could potentially it's passed down the window of people who can donate, but not a lot. But the biggest thing is just getting people to agree to do it before they get to hospital. 

Rich Bennett 42:30
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 42:32
And so I think either that there has to be a national outreach or something, too, or, you know, I don't know how you change laws, but. 

Rich Bennett 42:41
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 42:42
But you would think that in this day and age there would be a window where somebody could say, Yeah, why not instead of throwing them away? 

Rich Bennett 42:50
Yeah. I mean, if you're saving lives, right? I mean, it makes sense. I want to talk about the book real quick. Educating Marston Mothers and Sons Journey through Autism. You and your wife both wrote that, right? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 43:06
Correct. I would say she wrote 92% of it. 

Rich Bennett 43:09
Okay. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 43:09
I wrote the middle three chapters on stem cells and she rewrote them like six times because she said regular people had to understand my doctor. So she kept she kept impressive notes on her son. And it essentially when Mark Preston was born, there was no you know, there was no Google. And so it was very difficult for us to figure out what was going on. So it was, you know, from Boston Children's to Miami Children's before we got a diagnosis, you know, what worked? What didn't work? I think it's a great guide, I think for autistic parents, it has websites and phone numbers for everything that work that talks about things. We didn't do that. I've come along since it talks about kind of how we approach the problem. Like once a month we would sit down and look at what his strengths were, what his weaknesses were, what worked, what didn't work. And we, you know, we stopped things that weren't working and look for things that were working and then tried to play to his his his strengths right. But she she wrote incredible book. I think that for, you know, siblings of parents or grandparents, it lets you know because there are some lonely nights, you know, you have to find a kid that's not invited to a birthday party or or that type of thing. Or when your kid is melting down in target. It's not because you're a bad parent, it's because this kid has a brain issue. You know, nobody nobody gets upset about the kid in the wheelchair because it's really apparent that there is an issue. But but the child with autism, sometimes it's not readily apparent. 

Rich Bennett 44:46
So so this is basically a guidebook for people. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 44:49
It is. I think it's a great piece of that. It's a playbook it it has a great you know, even if you don't read the book because you're too busy that the back end is is a reference on everything we've done with like websites and and places. And then on the middle three chapters, I lay out the biologic basis. I talk about the studies I give, you know, where you go on the studies and look right. And so I like to be a or, you know, a board, You know, if you call me to talk about stem cells, I call you back. And then, yes, I'm a parent. The parent, you know, you don't get a salesman, you don't get it, you know, And I say, listen, this is how I approached my son. And it worked. I have plenty of people, you know, I have a parent call me today that said I wanted to talk to you directly because it's nothing short than a miracle. You know, my daughter got a vocal cord blood in May, and I believe she'll go from special needs school to regular classes by school. You know, and she's she's starting to talk. She's interacting with her peers. She's going to regular classes. And just she said the whole she's sleeping better, she's eating better. It's amazing. 

Rich Bennett 45:59
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 46:01
Thanks. And so that that's kind of been my spiritual call. And I'm going to bite into this. I'll stop operating next or some time probably in January. Do this full time. 

Rich Bennett 46:12
Thank you. Seriously, thank you for that. Because it's you're the first person I heard of that does this. I never knew of anybody doing it. Well, like I said earlier, only for healing. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 46:27
There's a lot of people a lot of people think it's illegal. And I think a lot of the places offshore promote that, that it's yeah, it's not illegal in the United States like like we talked about briefly umbilical cord blood being used in the United States for 60 years. There's 80 different diseases now that it's the primary treatment. So you're not new to medicine. It's new to autism. And that's because the god, the traumatic brain injury guys figured out that this can be used for a brain injury. And as soon as they figured it out, it it issued it opened up another avenue of treatment. And the way you get FDA approval first, you have to apply for something called an investigational new drug license. And the average time from investigational new drug license to to being FDA approved is 17 years, which shows you the hoops you have to jump through. So now I don't think it's going to be 17 years because this stuff's been around for 60. Yeah, and it's already FDA approved for other stuff. So a lot of the initial stuff is already done, but it might be seven or eight years. So we can use this off label. You know, I live in Florida. I don't know where you live. 

Rich Bennett 47:42
I'm in Maryland. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 47:43
Okay. Well, we have a great surgeon general who who believes that the FDA regulates drug companies. They don't regulate health care. Health care takes place between doctors and patients. Right. So if if I agree with the parents that that this therapy is safe and has potential benefit for their child, then I am free to give it without any type of of of issues from the FDA. So that would switch it off. Label use is not not allowed. 

Rich Bennett 48:16
Yeah. I don't understand why a lot of people think it's illegal. Well, number one, if it was illegal, you ought to be sitting here talking to kids. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 48:22
Yeah, right, right. 

Rich Bennett 48:23
Yeah, right, right. Well, I never understood that. The other thing I never understood is why a lot of people go out of country to get it. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 48:34
I think. Well, first of all, I think that people like me and myself, too. I had trepidation, you know, because if you get labeled a kook and it's somebody you know, then all of a sudden my surgical practice dries up. You know, I could get my license taken away if if somebody just decides that I'm not acting in the patient's best interest. 

Rich Bennett 48:57
Right. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 48:58
But I think I can back that up with tremendous amounts of paper and safety data and things like that. 

But like I said, I saw this work that was pushed by my wife and I'm starting to see the benefits now of of kids that have changed. I did a kid yesterday is second treatment and the parents you know drove down from Michigan I think and they said he's a different child. And when you take away that, you know, you don't know what it's like for them to say we can eat in a restaurant as a family. 

Rich Bennett 49:32
Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 49:33
We don't have to lock them in his bedroom at night thinking that he's going to go away. If you ask people what the number one cause of death is for an autistic kid, you know what it is? 

Rich Bennett 49:43
I'm afraid to find out here. It's drowning in a drowning. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 49:49
If they elope, they don't understand danger. They get hit by cars. You know, they they they're. They're kind of brains are on fire, and they're, you know, they don't they don't have the concept of danger. And so they they get in, you know, Son was just starting to learn, hide and seek. You know, he's ten years old and he he's missing. He's playing with his older brothers. We can't find him. It's starting to be that one and a half hour period where I'm going to call the colleges. And and my wife says, look, one more time. And she notices that there's steam on the back window of my car. And he had locked himself in the trunk of my car in Florida in the summertime. 

Rich Bennett 50:31
Oh, my God. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 50:33
Yeah, he was damn near dead. You know, I would start to cry right now. 

Rich Bennett 50:37
Wow. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 50:38
And we were looking for him, and that's the last place we'd been. Look, we were scouring the neighborhood. You know what? He was in the garage, you know, with the car up and the sun shining in and in a black car. So, you know, it was lucky I get in storms or I'm luckily, I get kidney stones. So I always keep a bag of ivy at home. And so, you know, put him in his bed, gave him some fluids and kept him up a little bit. But but that's how kids with autism die by into dangerous situations that that they don't comprehend. And yeah it affects the lives of the whole family. 

Rich Bennett 51:17
You know what I had? Wow. I didn't realize that 

shock of that very important. Yeah. Especially if somebody wants more advice or actually wants to, you know, bring their child, you how do they get in touch with you? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 51:37
North Florida stem cells dot com. You know and there is probably a patient and I don't even go to my website which is kind of bad I guess there's like a patient intake form or there's a there's a phone number to call or simply there's another one. Eric Weiss, M.D. dot com Another. 

Rich Bennett 51:52
Name W ERISA. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 51:55
Yes M.D. dot com. The book is Educating Masten and if you want the book there's educating Marston dot com and there's links to my my website but the book's on on Amazon and Books-A-Million and things like that but it's I think it's a good you know my wife wrote a great book It's it's inspirational. She comes at it. It's funny you know I think God prepared her for her son because she had a special needs sister that had a brain injury. So so that was her younger sister. So she helped her mom, you know, take care of her little sister. So she had this this inner DNA growing up. And then it turned out that that she not only she's a sister of a special needs person, she's the mother of. Right. So she she writes it from the heart. And it's it's good inspiration. 

Rich Bennett 52:47
And I think I don't think this book is just for people that have somebody for autism in their family. I think this book is for everybody because if it's a guide book, it's teaching you more about it. And, you know, people need to know about it. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 53:04
Right, Because you don't know you know, you might know that somebody at your workplace has a kid with autism that may well, you know, but once you know what he's going through at home, you know, you have the ability to help him out, you know, because sometimes when he says, I've got to be gone at five, he's got to be gone at five, the babysitter leaves at five and his mother is white, got mom and the kid could burn down the house or, you know, whatever. He's got to be there. You know, it's not a normal 12 year old. 

Rich Bennett 53:30
Yeah, well, and the other thing is to, like you said, the number the number one, the number one way help people with autism dies from putting themselves in danger. Well, if you see somebody out and about and they look like they're in danger, you need to know how to approach them. And I'm sure this book helps that, too. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 53:54
Oh, yeah. It's funny how because once you're attuned, I was leaving my parking lot driving home and I just saw somebody there's a shopping mall or shopping area across the way where the dumpsters were lying down by the dumpsters. And so, you know, I just I went to the parking lot and I pulled in and it was a special needs report. And she had wandered away from a group home and gotten lost, you know, And she was scared. She was scared of me. Yeah. I talked to her and she said, you know, I want my mother. I'm going to call my mother. And I said, Do you have a cell phone? And she said, No. And I said, Well, you take my cell phone, and she wouldn't take it. So I ended up calling the police, you know, and not 911, but to say, hey, I just need a you know, I'm sure there's a group home who's missing somebody, Right. You know, she's with me. She got up and ran, which wasn't good. And so I kind of followed her down the road, but, you know, got everybody hooked up. But but once you start to understand their thought process and their type, then you want you see people in the community. You can you can help a bit. 

Rich Bennett 54:58
Yeah. So if you can leave one piece of advice for families facing the challenges of autism, what would it be? 

Dr. Eric Weiss 55:06
We have learned so much about the biologic basis in the last 2 to 3 years. That is not general knowledge. It would blow your mind and you just need to know about what, what, what can happen. And I understand that this this product is not in the reach of members. It is expensive. However, it's not crazy expensive. And if you look at how much you're spending on therapies, it's in line with that. But, you know, my goal is to set up a foundation and talk to parents that have means. And there's no reason why Coca-Cola, they probably have 500 employees that have that have this issue. Yeah, I have a guy from who works for Hertz Car whose daughter wasn't able to travel via plane. And when they heard that he was coming here for stem cells, they said, take one of our car, stop it, or whatever airport you want to fill it up with gas. It was just you know, it was helping their employee. But I think they'll be employers that help employees. There will be friends. That helps, you know, once they know that this is this is available. 

Rich Bennett 56:13
Well, once you get that foundation started, let me know because would love to get you back on to talk about that as well. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 56:20
Right? No, I think it could be amazing. Thanks. I think there's just there obviously who who would one. 

Rich Bennett 56:29
Oh oh, I know there is. I know. I know for a fact there is. So. Well, Dr. Weil, I want to thank you so much. And definitely keep in touch. Those of you listening, get the book after you read it, leave a full review and keep it by your side, too. So if you ever have any questions, you can always go right back to the book to find out. And if you know somebody that you know needs anything because it's more than just autism, it's also traumatic brain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but osteoarthritis. Yeah. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 57:08
Yeah, yeah. It's it's it can be a different way to give it but it's been shown to regrow knee cartilage so that's. 

Rich Bennett 57:14
Oh oh so athletes they get. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 57:19
Warmer athletes old people out. Yeah yeah, yeah. They be nice to get out of bed and let your feet hit the ground right away. Is that a dangling perfume? 

Rich Bennett 57:27
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Dr.. Hi. Thank you so much. 

Dr. Eric Weiss 57:32
Thanks for doing this. And thanks for having me. I appreciate you helping me spread the word.