UC Study Authors: Autism is Environmental - Can We Move On Now?

[Guest guest]

Hello! What I've been saying for YEARS!!!

http://www.cherab.org/news/Save.html

UC Study Authors: Autism is Environmental - Can We Move On Now?

Kirby on The Huffington Post

I have always said there may be a small percentage of people with

autism spectrum disorder (perhaps those with Asperger Syndrome) whose

symptoms are a result only of their genetic makeup, with no

environmental factors involved at all.

But a new study out of UC ' MIND Institute says that it's time to

abandon science's long, expensive, and not very fruitful quest to find

the gene or genes that cause autism alone, without any environmental

triggers.

" We need to keep (environmental) studies going, " Irva Hertz-Picciotto,

the co-author of the study and professor of environmental and

occupational health and epidemiology at UC , said in a statement.

" We're looking at the possible effects of metals, pesticides and

infectious agents on neurodevelopment, " Hertz-Picciotto said. " If

we're going to stop the rise in autism in California, we need to keep

these studies going and expand them to the extent possible. "

Autism is predominantly an environmentally acquired disease, the study

seems to conclude. Its meteoric rise, at least in California, cannot

possibly be attributed to that shopworn mantra we still hear everyday,

incredibly, from far too many public health officials: It's due to

better diagnosing and counting.

The autism epidemic is real, and it is not caused by genes alone: You

cannot have a genetic epidemic. It really is time that we, as a

society, accept that cold, hard truth.

" It's time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible

for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California, " Dr.

Hertz-Piccotto said.

The study results suggest that " research should shift from genetics,

to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment

that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of

California's children, " the statement added.

The UC Study, funded in part by the National Institute of

Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) found that the rate of autism

among six-year-olds in California mushroomed from less than 9 per

10,000 among the 1990 birth cohort, to more than 44 per 10,000 for

kids born in 2000.

This increase, " cannot be explained by either changes in how the

condition is diagnosed or counted, " the statement said, " and the trend

shows no sign of abating. "

(It is important to keep in mind that almost every child born in 2000

would have received many vaccines that contained the mercury

preservative thimerosal, which was not completely phased out of most -

but not all - childhood vaccines until at least 2003.)

Of the 600-to-700 percent increase in autism reported in California

between 1990 and 2000, fewer than 10 percent were due to the inclusion

of milder cases, the study found, while only 24 percent could be

attributed to earlier age at diagnosis.

There was only one logical conclusion: some thing or things in the

environment had to be at play here.

I have always said that all environmental factors should be considered

in at least some subgroups of autism. This position has been met with

considerable ridicule. I believe that opponents are afraid that, if we

start looking at toxins like heavy metals, it might one day lead back

to thimerosal. Likewise, if we consider live virus triggers, we may

have to take another look at the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (which

thousands of parents swear was the trigger than sent their children

tumbling into autism).

Now, it's always been easier and more reassuring to tell ourselves

that autism was almost purely genetic, that it was always with us at

the rate of 1 in 90 men (1 in 60 in New Jersey) and that, gee, weren't

doctors doing a great job these days of recognizing and diagnosis this

disorder.

This pathetic groupthink has helped create hugely lopsided funding

priorities in autism, where genetic studies get lavishly funded, while

environmental ones are lucky to even pick up the dollar scraps left behind

" Right now, about 10 to 20 times more research dollars are spent on

studies of the genetic causes of autism than on environmental ones, "

Hertz-Picciotto said. " We need to even out the funding. "

I agree.

Yes, we must continue to look for the susceptibility genes that make

some kids more vulnerable to environmental triggers - possibly through

a diminished capacity to detoxify themselves.

But the sooner our best minds in science and medicine come to grips

with the fact that these poor, hapless kids have been exposed to the

wrong environmental toxins and/or infectious agents at the wrong time,

the sooner we can find out how to best treat what really ails them.

It is illogical for us to oppose the study of, say, mercury exposures

and autism, because it might somehow implicate thimerosal, and by

extension, vaccines.

After all, heavy metal studies into autism could very well incriminate

background environmental sources, but exonerate metal sources found in

vaccines, such as mercury and aluminum.

And that would be a good thing for everyone.

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[Guest guest]

,

Have the rates of autism cases fallen since 2001?

Hello! What I've been saying for YEARS!!!

http://www.cherab.org/news/Save.html

UC Study Authors: Autism is Environmental - Can We Move On Now?

Kirby on The Huffington Post

I have always said there may be a small percentage of people with

autism spectrum disorder (perhaps those with Asperger Syndrome) whose

symptoms are a result only of their genetic makeup, with no

environmental factors involved at all.