FW: STUDY CONFIRMS AUTISM INCREASE

[Guest guest]

> RAYMOND GALLUP wrote:

> Published Tuesday, April 25, 2000, in the San Mercury News

> KIDS' HEALTH

>

> Study confirms autism increase

> CDC study supports a widely held belief

> BY SARA SOLOVITCH

>

> A federal investigation confirmed for the first time last week what

> parents and medical experts have been decrying for years: There is a

> staggering number of autistic children in Brick Township, N.J. And the

> problem may not be confined to Brick. Researchers at the CDC suggested

> that the rates may in fact reflect what's being seen throughout the

> country -- an inexplicable rise in one of the least understood known

> psychological disorders. ``When I heard about Brick, I went to our local

> school district in Granite Bay and found the same kinds of numbers,''

> says Rick Rollens, father of an autistic son and parent advocate.

> ``Brick Township isn't a cluster. It's a snapshot of what's happening

> elsewhere in the country. This study challenges the whole concept that

> autism is rare.''

>

> Autism is a spectrum of disorders that affect a child's ability to

> communicate and socialize with other people. Poorly understood and

> barely studied, autism is thought to have a strong genetic component but

> to be triggered by environmental factors. There are no known causes or

> cures.

>

> Large increase

> Last year, a report in California helped focus national attention on

> this growing problem. It found a 273 percent increase in the number of

> newly diagnosed autistic children admitted for services to the 21

> regional centers throughout the state within an 11-year period. Autism

> now accounts for 36 percent of all new cases at the Department of

> Developmental Services, which serves clients with mental retardation,

> cerebral palsy, epilepsy and autism. Twenty years ago, autism accounted

> for only 3 percent of the agency's total cases. Throughout California,

> the response to this long-awaited CDC report was immediate.

>

> It would have been eye-opening a couple years ago, but ever since the

> California study, it seems rather anti-climactic, says Bernard Rimlind,

> director of the Autism Research Institute in San Diego. Rimlind, an

> early proponent of the idea that genetics plays a major role in autism,

> took issue with the CDC's decision to forgo taking blood samples and he

> blasted the agency for failing to address a concern -- popular among

> some parents -- that their autistic children were damaged by routine

> vaccines.

>

> Role of genetics

> There is no question that genetics play a role, but this explosion has

> little to do with genetics, says Rimlind. There is no such thing as a

> genetic epidemic. There are susceptibility genes. And if you have those

> genes, you're susceptible to some environmental impact, such as

> vaccines. The study was prompted by Brick Township parents, who

> requested federal assistance after conducting a study that suggested

> that the local rate of autism was much higher than the established norm.

> Some were suspicious that the increase was linked to chemicals in their

> drinking water, their former landfill and the Metedeconk River. Though

> the CDC confirmed that the groundwater beneath the Brick Township

> landfill is contaminated with a variety of hazardous substances, it

> rejected this source since residents are supplied with water by the

> municipal water

> system and would not have been exposed to the groundwater.

>

> Irrespective of autism, when you put toxic chemicals in the same place

> where people live, eat and play, it's not a good thing, and one doesn't

> need outbreaks to figure that out, says Dr. Byrd, a behavioral

> epidemiologist at the University of California-. Byrd is heading a

> state-funded study on autism that will look at possible causes --

> including maternal age, genetics, vaccinations and other environmental

> factors -- by mapping out the areas, or ``pockets'' of California, where

> there are high and low rates. Just because they didn't find an

> environmental cause doesn't mean there isn't an environmental cause,

> Byrd says. It just means they haven't found an association.

>

> Contact Sara Solovitch at solo@... or (408) 920-5663. Fax (408)

> 271-3786.