Early detection and intervention is key, and yet...

The article Some autistic kids' parents dispute criticism of nontraditional treatments addresses familiar themes about the validity (or not) of 'alternative' treatments for autism such as chelation, special diets, hyperbaric chambers, etc. Nothing really new.

But there were a couple of paragraphs in the story that caught my eye (emphasis mine):

Joseph was born healthy at 5 pounds, 14 ounces. He developed normally, his parents said, until he was about 10 months old, when he began to flap his hands, a common behavior with autistic children.

He started talking and interacted well, but then his language regressed. He had tantrums. He'd lie on the floor, pace or jump.

His parents, both lawyers, felt Joseph was being stolen from his body. But several pediatricians said not to worry.

It is disturbing to think that one parent could find "several" pediatricians consecutively that don't seem to understand the early indicators of autism. This doesn't seem to present a very good image of the state of the level of knowledge about autism in the medical profession.

tagged as: Autism, Pediatrics, Early Intervention

Autism Research Could Lead To Lab Test

This article, Autism Research Could Lead To Lab Test, is interesting in many aspects. The one that jumped out at me, however, was the implication that autism isn't something you have, it is something you can get (emphasis below is mine):

The study also might lead to a lab test that could detect if someone is at risk of having autism. Right now, the only way to diagnose autism is through behavior. The discovery that too much of a particular protein in the body linked to autism could lead to a blood test for this disease.

'If we know that children are at higher risk and we have a way to screen for it, we can certainly intervene much sooner,' she said.

Just like cancer or heart disease, where some people are more susceptible to "catching" it than others, no matter how much/little environmental influence there is. (I think we all know people who have smoked all their lives and never gotten lung cancer, while there are those who seem to 'catch' it for no reason at all.)

Perhaps this is a first step along the way of showing that nature/nurture - genetics/environment link between autism and environmental triggers?

Of course, it also brings up questions of what it means to 'cure' autism, or even prevent it. Is a child "at risk" of becoming autistic when they are 6 months old, or are they already autistic but just don't know it.

I won't even go into the questions/issues related to pre-natal testing for autism. At least not right now....

tagged as: Autism, Genetics,

Is it the genes? The environment? Or both....

Watching Discovery Health this afternoon, I heard the following quote:

Genetics loads the gun, but environment pulls the trigger.

The show was about teenage obesity. A teenage boy was unusually big for his family - neither his parents nor siblings had weight problems. His problems were attributed to some genetic influence somewhere on the family tree. As the story went on, an expert on obesity made the statement that genetics contributes about 30% to the problem of obesity, while the environment (ie, what we eat, how much/little we exercise) contributes the remaining 70%. Which, of course, led to the quote above.

I couldn't help but make the connection between this and the question of the enviroment on autism. It has been said in various places that the recent rise in autism cannot be attributed to genetics alone (because of the relatively slow process that would be). The argument has also been made that thimerosal can't be the cause of autism, since not every child that received shots with thimerosal has become autistic. Obviously (at least to me), there must be a middle ground.

So many things have changed in the environment in which we live today. The widespread increase in obesity can be linked to some aspects of this change. But not everyone is affected.

If the gun isn't loaded, pulling the trigger doesn't matter.

I think that this is also the case with autism. Is it thimerosal? Maybe. Is it something else? Who knows? Is it something we can change? I guess that depends on what it is? Is it something that we would change if we could?

tagged as: Autism, Obesity, Genetics, Discovery Channel

Autism Blog - My Son's Autism

A few days ago, I posted about an article about Jonathon Lerman, an 18 year-old autistic artist with an exhibition in Toronto. Turns out the organizer of the exhibition, Estée Klar-Wolfond, is also the mother of a 3 year-old autistic son.

Check out her blog, My Son's Autism.

tagged as: Autism, Art, Theory of Mind, Jonathan Lerman, Blogs

Seems like a simple enough question

This question from David Kirby (as posted at the Huffington Post) pretty much sums it up:

Why is it so controversial to suggest that a known neurotoxin injected directly into the systems of pregnant women, newborns and infant children above federal safety levels MIGHT have caused a neurological disorder in a subset of children with a genetic predisposition against metabolizing mercury efficiently?

tagged as: Autism, Thimerosal, David Kirby