The Japanese banned the MMR vaccine and saw a spike in Autism cases.
I know these families are looking searching hoping to find a cause for this mysterious disease but I think they are looking in the wrong place.
Environmental factors could be the cause but nothing is conclusive.
I know these families are looking searching hoping to find a cause for this mysterious disease but I think they are looking in the wrong place.
Environmental factors could be the cause but nothing is conclusive.
television, computers, video games etc...to blame IMO
people genetically predisposed with autism risk likely gets brought out more often due to constant bombardment of shit
most people today have a somewhat mild from of ADD
the increase in ADD almost certainly can be attributed to the boob tube, video games, etc...
the last thing the powers that be want to blame it on is the boob tube.....gotta get into those kids heads early and make them want lots of shit they don't need
-----------------------
As more children are diagnosed with autism than ever before, the disorder largely remains a mystery in the medical community.
Now, Michael Waldman, a Cornell University economics professor, has written a research paper suggesting that scientists study the connection between early childhood television viewing and autism. His basic thesis: Excessive TV viewing by children with a genetic disposition to autism makes them more likely to develop the disorder.
Waldman became aware of the possible link when his son, 2½ at the time, was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. His son's troubles began after the birth of the Waldmans' second child, a daughter. The summer after the baby girl was born, life became hectic at the Waldman home, and the boy began watching more TV. Within a few months, the boy's behavior deteriorated and soon he was diagnosed with autism.
"The first thing we did was follow the specialists' directions. There were special classroom settings, a psychologist, etc. I never thought about not following their advice," Waldman said.
Evaluating the Environment
However, his immediate reaction was that the change in his son's behavior must have been triggered by something in his home environment.
"There was a huge change in his life when my daughter was born. He was 2½ when he was diagnosed, and usually the diagnosis comes much earlier. Within four months of my daughter being born, he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder," Waldman said.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, autism spectrum disorders can often be reliably detected by the age of 3 years, and in some cases as early as 18 months. But it is estimated that only 50 percent of children are diagnosed before kindergarten.
Considering the circumstances of his son's diagnosis, Waldman thought about what had changed since the birth of his daughter.
"I realized that he had been watching much more television during that time, because we were so busy with my daughter. So I turned off the TV," he said. "On a day to day basis, we didn't notice a change. But week to week and month to month, the change was dramatic. He was making rapid progress. Within six to eight months, all of his attention and language problems were gone."
Waldman didn't stop there. He continued researching and, and using his skills as an economist, found a statistical connection between "the dramatic increase in autism diagnosis rate ... and the simultaneous dramatic increase in early childhood viewing."
Further, he found a statistical connection between high autism rates and areas of the country that experienced bad weather -- areas where kids were more likely to be indoors, watching TV.
Unpopular With Parents, Psychologists
Waldman's findings have been less than popular with parents. His son's own psychologist was unmoved by his theory. Members of the medical community have criticized Waldman's study because he's an economist, not a doctor. They also argue that just because two variables are related does not mean someone can claim that one causes the other.
But Waldman maintains he's not trying to pin autism on any one source, or make the claim that watching TV at a young age causes the disorder. He believes scientists should look into every possible cause for autism.
"I'm not trying to blame anybody, but one in every 150 children is diagnosed with autism, and I think we should look under ever single, plausible stone," he said. "I don't want to make anyone feel bad, including my wife. But I've found some intriguing evidence, and two development pediatricians are seeing the same thing. I don't think you can turn away from it."
people genetically predisposed with autism risk likely gets brought out more often due to constant bombardment of shit
most people today have a somewhat mild from of ADD
the increase in ADD almost certainly can be attributed to the boob tube, video games, etc...
the last thing the powers that be want to blame it on is the boob tube.....gotta get into those kids heads early and make them want lots of shit they don't need
-----------------------
As more children are diagnosed with autism than ever before, the disorder largely remains a mystery in the medical community.
Now, Michael Waldman, a Cornell University economics professor, has written a research paper suggesting that scientists study the connection between early childhood television viewing and autism. His basic thesis: Excessive TV viewing by children with a genetic disposition to autism makes them more likely to develop the disorder.
Waldman became aware of the possible link when his son, 2½ at the time, was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. His son's troubles began after the birth of the Waldmans' second child, a daughter. The summer after the baby girl was born, life became hectic at the Waldman home, and the boy began watching more TV. Within a few months, the boy's behavior deteriorated and soon he was diagnosed with autism.
"The first thing we did was follow the specialists' directions. There were special classroom settings, a psychologist, etc. I never thought about not following their advice," Waldman said.
Evaluating the Environment
However, his immediate reaction was that the change in his son's behavior must have been triggered by something in his home environment.
"There was a huge change in his life when my daughter was born. He was 2½ when he was diagnosed, and usually the diagnosis comes much earlier. Within four months of my daughter being born, he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder," Waldman said.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, autism spectrum disorders can often be reliably detected by the age of 3 years, and in some cases as early as 18 months. But it is estimated that only 50 percent of children are diagnosed before kindergarten.
Considering the circumstances of his son's diagnosis, Waldman thought about what had changed since the birth of his daughter.
"I realized that he had been watching much more television during that time, because we were so busy with my daughter. So I turned off the TV," he said. "On a day to day basis, we didn't notice a change. But week to week and month to month, the change was dramatic. He was making rapid progress. Within six to eight months, all of his attention and language problems were gone."
Waldman didn't stop there. He continued researching and, and using his skills as an economist, found a statistical connection between "the dramatic increase in autism diagnosis rate ... and the simultaneous dramatic increase in early childhood viewing."
Further, he found a statistical connection between high autism rates and areas of the country that experienced bad weather -- areas where kids were more likely to be indoors, watching TV.
Unpopular With Parents, Psychologists
Waldman's findings have been less than popular with parents. His son's own psychologist was unmoved by his theory. Members of the medical community have criticized Waldman's study because he's an economist, not a doctor. They also argue that just because two variables are related does not mean someone can claim that one causes the other.
But Waldman maintains he's not trying to pin autism on any one source, or make the claim that watching TV at a young age causes the disorder. He believes scientists should look into every possible cause for autism.
"I'm not trying to blame anybody, but one in every 150 children is diagnosed with autism, and I think we should look under ever single, plausible stone," he said. "I don't want to make anyone feel bad, including my wife. But I've found some intriguing evidence, and two development pediatricians are seeing the same thing. I don't think you can turn away from it."
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Out of 30,000 Children, Zero are Autistic who have not been Vaccinated
The Age of Autism: ‘A pretty big secret’
By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor
Published: Dec. 7, 2005 at 2:08 PM
CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) — It’s a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill.
But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don’t have autism.
“We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we’ve taken care of over the years, and I don’t think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines,” said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst’s medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated.
The few autistic children Homefirst sees were vaccinated before their families became patients, Eisenstein said. “I can think of two or three autistic children who we’ve delivered their mother’s next baby, and we aren’t really totally taking care of that child — they have special care needs. But they bring the younger children to us. I don’t have a single case that I can think of that wasn’t vaccinated.”
The autism rate in Illinois public schools is 38 per 10,000, according to state Education Department data; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the national rate of autism spectrum disorders at 1 in 166 — 60 per 10,000.
“We do have enough of a sample,” Eisenstein said. “The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We’re all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there’s no communication. It’s frightening. You can’t touch them. It’s not something that anyone would miss.”
No one knows what causes autism, but federal health authorities say it isn’t childhood immunizations. Some parents and a small minority of doctors and scientists, however, assert vaccines are responsible.
This column has been looking for autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children in an effort to shed light on the issue. We went to Chicago to meet with Eisenstein at the suggestion of a reader, and we also visited Homefirst’s office in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows. Homefirst has four other offices in the Chicago area and a total of six doctors.
Eisenstein stresses his observations are not scientific. “The trouble is this is just anecdotal in a sense, because what if every autistic child goes somewhere else and (their family) never calls us or they moved out of state?”
In practice, that’s unlikely to account for the pronounced absence of autism, says Eisenstein, who also has a bachelor’s degree in statistics, a master’s degree in public health and a law degree.
Homefirst follows state immunization mandates, but Illinois allows religious exemptions if parents object based either on tenets of their faith or specific personal religious views. Homefirst does not exclude or discourage such families. Eisenstein, in fact, is author of the book “Don’t Vaccinate Before You Educate!” and is critical of the CDC’s vaccination policy in the 1990s, when several new immunizations were added to the schedule, including Hepatitis B as early as the day of birth. Several of the vaccines — HepB included — contained a mercury-based preservative that has since been phased out of most childhood vaccines in the United States.
Medical practices with Homefirst’s approach to immunizations are rare. “Because of that, we tend to attract families that have questions about that issue,” said Dr. Paul Schattauer, who has been with Homefirst for 20 years and treats “at least” 100 children a week.
Schattauer seconded Eisenstein’s observations. “All I know is in my practice I don’t see autism. There is no striking 1-in-166,” he said.
Earlier this year we reported the same phenomenon in the mostly unvaccinated Amish. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told us the Amish “have genetic connectivity that would make them different from populations that are in other sectors of the United States.” Gerberding said, however, studies “could and should be done” in more representative unvaccinated groups — if they could be found and their autism rate documented.
Chicago is America’s prototypical “City of Big Shoulders,” to quote Carl Sandburg, and Homefirst’s mostly middle-class families seem fairly representative. A substantial number are conservative Christians who home-school their children. They are mostly white, but the Homefirst practice also includes black and Hispanic families and non-home-schooling Jews, Catholics and Muslims.
They tend to be better educated, follow healthier diets and breast-feed their children much longer than the norm — half of Homefirst’s mothers are still breast-feeding at two years. Also, because Homefirst relies less on prescription drugs including antibiotics as a first line of treatment, these children have less exposure to other medicines, not just vaccines.
Schattauer, interviewed at the Rolling Meadows office, said his caseload is too limited to draw conclusions about a possible link between vaccines and autism. “With these numbers you’d have a hard time proving or disproving anything,” he said. “You can only get a feeling about it.
“In no way would I be an advocate to stand up and say we need to look at vaccines, because I don’t have the science to say that,” Schattauer said. “But I don’t think the science is there to say that it’s not.”
Schattauer said Homefirst’s patients also have significantly less childhood asthma and juvenile diabetes compared to national rates. An office manager who has been with Homefirst for 17 years said she is aware of only one case of severe asthma in an unvaccinated child.
“Sometimes you feel frustrated because you feel like you’ve got a pretty big secret,” Schattauer said. He argues for more research on all those disorders, independent of political or business pressures.
The asthma rate among Homefirst patients is so low it was noticed by the Blue Cross group with which Homefirst is affiliated, according to Eisenstein.
“In the alternative-medicine network which Homefirst is part of, there are virtually no cases of childhood asthma, in contrast to the overall Blue Cross rate of childhood asthma which is approximately 10 percent,” he said. “At first I thought it was because they (Homefirst’s children) were breast-fed, but even among the breast-fed we’ve had asthma. We have virtually no asthma if you’re breast-fed and not vaccinated.”
Because the diagnosis of asthma is based on emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, Eisenstein said, Homefirst’s low rate is hard to dispute. “It’s quantifiable — the definition is not reliant on the doctor’s perception of asthma.”
Several studies have found a risk of asthma from vaccination; others have not. Studies that include never-vaccinated children generally find little or no asthma in that group.
Earlier this year Florida pediatrician Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said there is virtually no autism in home-schooling families who decline to vaccinate for religious reasons — lending credence to Eisenstein’s observations.
“It’s largely non-existent,” said Bradstreet, who treats children with autism from around the country. “It’s an extremely rare event.”
Bradstreet has a son whose autism he attributes to a vaccine reaction at 15 months. His daughter has been home-schooled, he describes himself as a “Christian family physician,” and he knows many of the leaders in the home-school movement.
“There was this whole subculture of folks who went into home-schooling so they would never have to vaccinate their kids,” he said. “There’s this whole cadre who were never vaccinated for religious reasons.”
In that subset, he said, “unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating, I’ve not had a single case.”
Federal health authorities and mainstream medical groups emphatically dismiss any link between autism and vaccines, including the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Last year a panel of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies, said there is no evidence of such a link, and funding should henceforth go to “promising” research.
Thimerosal, which is 49.6 percent ethyl mercury by weight, was phased out of most U.S. childhood immunizations beginning in 1999, but the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and last year began recommending them for children 6 to 23 months old. Most of those shots contain thimerosal.
Thimerosal-preserved vaccines are currently being injected into millions of children in developing countries around the world. “My mandate … is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized … this year, next year and for many years to come … and that will have to be with thimerosal-containing vaccines,” said John Clements of the World Health Organization at a June 2000 meeting called by the CDC.
That meeting was held to review data that thimerosal might be linked with autism and other neurological problems. But in 2004 the Institute of Medicine panel said evidence against a link is so strong that health authorities, “whether in the United States or other countries, should not include autism as a potential risk” when formulating immunization policies.
But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children? Based on our admittedly anecdotal and limited reporting among the Amish, the home-schooled and now Chicago’s Homefirst, that may prove to be a significant omission.
The Age of Autism: ‘A pretty big secret’
By DAN OLMSTED, UPI Senior Editor
Published: Dec. 7, 2005 at 2:08 PM
CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) — It’s a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill.
But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don’t have autism.
“We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we’ve taken care of over the years, and I don’t think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines,” said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst’s medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated.
The few autistic children Homefirst sees were vaccinated before their families became patients, Eisenstein said. “I can think of two or three autistic children who we’ve delivered their mother’s next baby, and we aren’t really totally taking care of that child — they have special care needs. But they bring the younger children to us. I don’t have a single case that I can think of that wasn’t vaccinated.”
The autism rate in Illinois public schools is 38 per 10,000, according to state Education Department data; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the national rate of autism spectrum disorders at 1 in 166 — 60 per 10,000.
“We do have enough of a sample,” Eisenstein said. “The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We’re all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there’s no communication. It’s frightening. You can’t touch them. It’s not something that anyone would miss.”
No one knows what causes autism, but federal health authorities say it isn’t childhood immunizations. Some parents and a small minority of doctors and scientists, however, assert vaccines are responsible.
This column has been looking for autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children in an effort to shed light on the issue. We went to Chicago to meet with Eisenstein at the suggestion of a reader, and we also visited Homefirst’s office in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows. Homefirst has four other offices in the Chicago area and a total of six doctors.
Eisenstein stresses his observations are not scientific. “The trouble is this is just anecdotal in a sense, because what if every autistic child goes somewhere else and (their family) never calls us or they moved out of state?”
In practice, that’s unlikely to account for the pronounced absence of autism, says Eisenstein, who also has a bachelor’s degree in statistics, a master’s degree in public health and a law degree.
Homefirst follows state immunization mandates, but Illinois allows religious exemptions if parents object based either on tenets of their faith or specific personal religious views. Homefirst does not exclude or discourage such families. Eisenstein, in fact, is author of the book “Don’t Vaccinate Before You Educate!” and is critical of the CDC’s vaccination policy in the 1990s, when several new immunizations were added to the schedule, including Hepatitis B as early as the day of birth. Several of the vaccines — HepB included — contained a mercury-based preservative that has since been phased out of most childhood vaccines in the United States.
Medical practices with Homefirst’s approach to immunizations are rare. “Because of that, we tend to attract families that have questions about that issue,” said Dr. Paul Schattauer, who has been with Homefirst for 20 years and treats “at least” 100 children a week.
Schattauer seconded Eisenstein’s observations. “All I know is in my practice I don’t see autism. There is no striking 1-in-166,” he said.
Earlier this year we reported the same phenomenon in the mostly unvaccinated Amish. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told us the Amish “have genetic connectivity that would make them different from populations that are in other sectors of the United States.” Gerberding said, however, studies “could and should be done” in more representative unvaccinated groups — if they could be found and their autism rate documented.
Chicago is America’s prototypical “City of Big Shoulders,” to quote Carl Sandburg, and Homefirst’s mostly middle-class families seem fairly representative. A substantial number are conservative Christians who home-school their children. They are mostly white, but the Homefirst practice also includes black and Hispanic families and non-home-schooling Jews, Catholics and Muslims.
They tend to be better educated, follow healthier diets and breast-feed their children much longer than the norm — half of Homefirst’s mothers are still breast-feeding at two years. Also, because Homefirst relies less on prescription drugs including antibiotics as a first line of treatment, these children have less exposure to other medicines, not just vaccines.
Schattauer, interviewed at the Rolling Meadows office, said his caseload is too limited to draw conclusions about a possible link between vaccines and autism. “With these numbers you’d have a hard time proving or disproving anything,” he said. “You can only get a feeling about it.
“In no way would I be an advocate to stand up and say we need to look at vaccines, because I don’t have the science to say that,” Schattauer said. “But I don’t think the science is there to say that it’s not.”
Schattauer said Homefirst’s patients also have significantly less childhood asthma and juvenile diabetes compared to national rates. An office manager who has been with Homefirst for 17 years said she is aware of only one case of severe asthma in an unvaccinated child.
“Sometimes you feel frustrated because you feel like you’ve got a pretty big secret,” Schattauer said. He argues for more research on all those disorders, independent of political or business pressures.
The asthma rate among Homefirst patients is so low it was noticed by the Blue Cross group with which Homefirst is affiliated, according to Eisenstein.
“In the alternative-medicine network which Homefirst is part of, there are virtually no cases of childhood asthma, in contrast to the overall Blue Cross rate of childhood asthma which is approximately 10 percent,” he said. “At first I thought it was because they (Homefirst’s children) were breast-fed, but even among the breast-fed we’ve had asthma. We have virtually no asthma if you’re breast-fed and not vaccinated.”
Because the diagnosis of asthma is based on emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, Eisenstein said, Homefirst’s low rate is hard to dispute. “It’s quantifiable — the definition is not reliant on the doctor’s perception of asthma.”
Several studies have found a risk of asthma from vaccination; others have not. Studies that include never-vaccinated children generally find little or no asthma in that group.
Earlier this year Florida pediatrician Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said there is virtually no autism in home-schooling families who decline to vaccinate for religious reasons — lending credence to Eisenstein’s observations.
“It’s largely non-existent,” said Bradstreet, who treats children with autism from around the country. “It’s an extremely rare event.”
Bradstreet has a son whose autism he attributes to a vaccine reaction at 15 months. His daughter has been home-schooled, he describes himself as a “Christian family physician,” and he knows many of the leaders in the home-school movement.
“There was this whole subculture of folks who went into home-schooling so they would never have to vaccinate their kids,” he said. “There’s this whole cadre who were never vaccinated for religious reasons.”
In that subset, he said, “unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating, I’ve not had a single case.”
Federal health authorities and mainstream medical groups emphatically dismiss any link between autism and vaccines, including the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Last year a panel of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies, said there is no evidence of such a link, and funding should henceforth go to “promising” research.
Thimerosal, which is 49.6 percent ethyl mercury by weight, was phased out of most U.S. childhood immunizations beginning in 1999, but the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and last year began recommending them for children 6 to 23 months old. Most of those shots contain thimerosal.
Thimerosal-preserved vaccines are currently being injected into millions of children in developing countries around the world. “My mandate … is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized … this year, next year and for many years to come … and that will have to be with thimerosal-containing vaccines,” said John Clements of the World Health Organization at a June 2000 meeting called by the CDC.
That meeting was held to review data that thimerosal might be linked with autism and other neurological problems. But in 2004 the Institute of Medicine panel said evidence against a link is so strong that health authorities, “whether in the United States or other countries, should not include autism as a potential risk” when formulating immunization policies.
But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children? Based on our admittedly anecdotal and limited reporting among the Amish, the home-schooled and now Chicago’s Homefirst, that may prove to be a significant omission.
The Age of Autism: One in 15,000 Amish
by Ray Dequenne Thursday, Jun. 09, 2005 at 7:16 AM
WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- The autism rate for U.S. children is 1 in 166, according to the federal government. The autism rate for the Amish around Middlefield, Ohio, is 1 in 15,000, according to Dr. Heng Wang
He means that literally: Of 15,000 Amish who live near Middlefield, Wang is aware of just one who has autism. If that figure is anywhere near correct, the autism rate in that community is astonishingly low.
Wang is the medical director, and a physician and researcher, at the DDC Clinic for Special Needs Children, created three years ago to treat the Amish in northeastern Ohio.
"I take care of all the children with special needs," he said, putting him in a unique position to observe autism. The one case Wang has identified is a 12-year-old boy.
Like stitchwork in an Amish quilt, Wang's comments extend a pattern first identified by United Press International in the Pennsylvania Dutch country around Lancaster, Pa.
-- A Lancaster doctor who has treated thousands of Amish for nearly a quarter-century said he had never seen any autism. "We're right in the heart of Amish country and seeing none -- and that's just the way it is," that doctor said last month.
-- An Amish-Mennonite mother with an adopted autistic child said she was aware of only two other children with the disorder. "It is so much more rare among our people," she said.
-- UPI also found scant evidence of autism among the Amish in Indiana and Kentucky, two other states with sizable Amish settlements.
Ohio, with the nation's largest Amish population, appears no different. Asked if he thinks the autism rate among the Amish is low, Wang said: "I would agree with that. In this country, the Amish have less autism. Why? That's a very interesting topic. I think people need to look into it to do more research. This is something we could learn from."
Wang said the Amish boy's autism is of "unknown etiology," meaning the cause is undetermined. In response to a question, he checked the medical chart and said the boy had received routine childhood immunizations.
The Amish have a religious exemption from immunizations, and traditionally only a minority has allowed children to receive the shots. That number has been increasing, however, and Wang said most Amish parents in the area he serves do vaccinate their children, although that varies greatly by community.
The question arose because in Pennsylvania the Amish-Mennonite mother described what she said was a vaccine link to the cases. She suspects that her adopted daughter, who received immunizations both in China and again after arriving in the Unites States, became autistic because of the shots. She said a second child with autism in the community had "a clear vaccine reaction" and lapsed into autism.
Some parents and a minority of medical professionals think a mercury-based preservative in vaccines -- or in some cases the vaccines themselves -- triggered a huge increase in autism cases in the 1990s, leading to the 1-in-166 rate cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1999 manufacturers began phasing out that preservative, called thimerosal, at the CDC's request.
Most mainstream medical experts and federal health authorities say a link between thimerosal and autism has been discredited, although the director of the CDC told Congress she is keeping an open mind about the possibility.
Wang said he did not want to offer an opinion about whether the Ohio boy's vaccinations might be linked to his autism.
(A Virginia doctor told UPI he is treating six other Amish children with autism, none of them vaccinated. In four of the six cases he suspects their autism was triggered by mercury toxicity due to environmental pollution.)
Middlefield's DDC Clinic -- the initials stand for Das Deutsch Center -- opened in 2002 as a collaboration between the Amish and non-Amish communities to aid children with rare genetic and metabolic disorders.
The Amish are prone to genetic disorders because of their isolated gene pool. The clinic has identified 37 genetic diseases among its patients and formed partnerships with 10 research groups and several medical centers.
"The Clinic evolved from the desire of Northeast Ohio Amish families to find answers for their children with genetic disorders," the clinic's Web site explains. "These disorders require attention and research beyond that provided by conventional medicine."
The Amish hope "any research obtained from their efforts has the potential to benefit special needs children throughout the world. This is their gift to us."
That gift, it now appears, could also hold clues to autism.
This series on the roots and rise of autism aims to be interactive with readers and will take note of comments, criticism and suggestions. E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050608-132727...
by Ray Dequenne Thursday, Jun. 09, 2005 at 7:16 AM
Most Amish do not vaccinate their children. The one child who is autistic in the sample of 15000 did have the usual routine childhood vaccinations. Non-Amish, who always get the childhood vaccinations, result in 1 out of every 186 children being autistic. Now you think about that one for a while.
By DAN OLMSTED WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- The autism rate for U.S. children is 1 in 166, according to the federal government. The autism rate for the Amish around Middlefield, Ohio, is 1 in 15,000, according to Dr. Heng Wang
He means that literally: Of 15,000 Amish who live near Middlefield, Wang is aware of just one who has autism. If that figure is anywhere near correct, the autism rate in that community is astonishingly low.
Wang is the medical director, and a physician and researcher, at the DDC Clinic for Special Needs Children, created three years ago to treat the Amish in northeastern Ohio.
"I take care of all the children with special needs," he said, putting him in a unique position to observe autism. The one case Wang has identified is a 12-year-old boy.
Like stitchwork in an Amish quilt, Wang's comments extend a pattern first identified by United Press International in the Pennsylvania Dutch country around Lancaster, Pa.
-- A Lancaster doctor who has treated thousands of Amish for nearly a quarter-century said he had never seen any autism. "We're right in the heart of Amish country and seeing none -- and that's just the way it is," that doctor said last month.
-- An Amish-Mennonite mother with an adopted autistic child said she was aware of only two other children with the disorder. "It is so much more rare among our people," she said.
-- UPI also found scant evidence of autism among the Amish in Indiana and Kentucky, two other states with sizable Amish settlements.
Ohio, with the nation's largest Amish population, appears no different. Asked if he thinks the autism rate among the Amish is low, Wang said: "I would agree with that. In this country, the Amish have less autism. Why? That's a very interesting topic. I think people need to look into it to do more research. This is something we could learn from."
Wang said the Amish boy's autism is of "unknown etiology," meaning the cause is undetermined. In response to a question, he checked the medical chart and said the boy had received routine childhood immunizations.
The Amish have a religious exemption from immunizations, and traditionally only a minority has allowed children to receive the shots. That number has been increasing, however, and Wang said most Amish parents in the area he serves do vaccinate their children, although that varies greatly by community.
The question arose because in Pennsylvania the Amish-Mennonite mother described what she said was a vaccine link to the cases. She suspects that her adopted daughter, who received immunizations both in China and again after arriving in the Unites States, became autistic because of the shots. She said a second child with autism in the community had "a clear vaccine reaction" and lapsed into autism.
Some parents and a minority of medical professionals think a mercury-based preservative in vaccines -- or in some cases the vaccines themselves -- triggered a huge increase in autism cases in the 1990s, leading to the 1-in-166 rate cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1999 manufacturers began phasing out that preservative, called thimerosal, at the CDC's request.
Most mainstream medical experts and federal health authorities say a link between thimerosal and autism has been discredited, although the director of the CDC told Congress she is keeping an open mind about the possibility.
Wang said he did not want to offer an opinion about whether the Ohio boy's vaccinations might be linked to his autism.
(A Virginia doctor told UPI he is treating six other Amish children with autism, none of them vaccinated. In four of the six cases he suspects their autism was triggered by mercury toxicity due to environmental pollution.)
Middlefield's DDC Clinic -- the initials stand for Das Deutsch Center -- opened in 2002 as a collaboration between the Amish and non-Amish communities to aid children with rare genetic and metabolic disorders.
The Amish are prone to genetic disorders because of their isolated gene pool. The clinic has identified 37 genetic diseases among its patients and formed partnerships with 10 research groups and several medical centers.
"The Clinic evolved from the desire of Northeast Ohio Amish families to find answers for their children with genetic disorders," the clinic's Web site explains. "These disorders require attention and research beyond that provided by conventional medicine."
The Amish hope "any research obtained from their efforts has the potential to benefit special needs children throughout the world. This is their gift to us."
That gift, it now appears, could also hold clues to autism.
This series on the roots and rise of autism aims to be interactive with readers and will take note of comments, criticism and suggestions. E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20050608-132727...
Girls and boys are vaccinated at the same rate, how do you explain the disparity between the two in Autism rates.
Trust me I feel the parents pain but if they spent as much energy looking elsewhere instead of continuing to look in just one area they would probably find a cure/cause much quicker.
dragging the kooks down the wrong path IMO
the powers that be don't give a shit about the vaccine stuff really its a distraction
but if clinical psychologists start telling parents to limit their kids viewing of TV, movies, computers under the age of 3 yo
than that would be a huge deal to business and the system at large
i mean i stopped watching tv for the most part got rid of cable many years ago
once you do you realize how fuckin mind numbing the boob tube really is...it puts it in this state of just zoned outness which is basically what happens to your brain when you have autism since you can't function properly
<<False.
A woman's body contains less water and more fatty tissue—which increases alcohol absorption—compared to a male body. And women have a lower activity level of an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which breaks down alcohol. Similar biological factors are at work in metabolizing illicit drugs.
