Older fathers 'raise autism risk'

BBC ^ | 9/4/6

[copperisme]

It just goes to show that they are desperate for reasons and they are lashing out at anything that they can. The males sperm, in my opinion, has nothing to do with it. And also, I think it wrong to put blame on one gender.

[the OlLine Rebel]

That's right, blame the woman.

Just like for centuries it was women's fault when the men didn't have any boys.

Too bad they found out it is the man's fault.

[the OlLine Rebel]

It's a stat. It can happen to anyone, even remotely.

"In the group whose fathers were aged 40 to 49, the rate rose to 32 in 10,000 (5.75 times higher)."

There is still a fat chance of having an autistic child due to being an "overage" daddy. So it's not as if it's epidemic. This stat is just 0.3% of the "elder" population. Not even worth really worrying about. It's greater than the younger, but still tiny.

[pema]

Maybe you might be interested in some of these links on older fathers and risks of problems for offspring???????? http://press.psprings.co.uk/jech/october/851_ch45179.pdf
Many problems have been associated with having children,later not earlier. 35 for both men and women is beginning to be later. See James F.Crow http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/94/16/8380
This information about risks of older parenting is not new,but it has been hidden for some reason. http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/9/2371.pdf

There is research to look at if one has an open mind and if one realizes that autism is not one thing, or one gene, or if the genes exists mildly already in a person one can have an more autistic child at 20. So, maybe the older a man the more mutations in his sperm and the less ability to kill off the mutated sperm.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T6K-4B52S86-P&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2003&_alid=481273960&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=5033&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=113136870c266c7b8005023fc27a06d8
Yes, young engineer types will tend to have more autistic children, but maybe also 36 +++ men who are lawyers, and not scientists. This all does not mean that there aren't plenty of very non-autistic people with fathers who were in theirlate 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s ++. This information is not meant to blame older fathers, but knowledge is power. It takes a lot of time and will to begin to sort this issue out.

[pema]

In most of the research on autism it has been noted that the fathers were much older than average(this is when they thought mother's were to blame). In one small study done in Sweden the mothers mean age was 30.7 and the father's mean age was 34. Gillberg 1980. Both of these ages were much older than the mean age of the unaffected population.
Here is a recent article on the Reichenberg study.
http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/WSIHW000/35320/63153/491833.html?d=dmtHMSContent

The article below discusses some background on the issue http://list.web.net/archives/mnchp-l/2004-April/000508.html Finding out what is behind some of the cases of the disabling form of autism is not about blame.