Posted on 01/19/2009 2:35:56 PM PST by motherof2
Please investigate correlation between peanut allergies and autism (medical community will deny any relationship ) but look at the onset dates of sudden increase in cases along with the population effected (children) and the rate of occurence ...seems like the same thing might be triggering both symptoms/diseases.
huh?
Investigate the correlation between “the pill” and autism.
DUH!!!
It might be an interesting study but chances are the only common denominator is hyper parenting and self-fulfilling prophecies. I don’t mean to denigrate those with serious challenges here but I think the increases may be a tad over-reported. A lot of health diagnoses seem to go through phases where they are the disease du jour. For example, I remember when everyone and their dogs and cats were diagnosed with asthma. My entire family got that diagnosis although only my husband actually suffers from the condition. Too many parents want a medical excuse for why their child doesn’t fit the mold of everyone else’s kid or someone else’s superkid. This results in people shopping for diagnoses that cheapens the real victims of these conditions. First look for a clear critieria of autism and peanut allergies, then for correlation, then for causation. Good luck.
Ok, I looked it up on the web and found hundreds of bloggs talking about the connection between anything an autism, including peanuts.
But I still say - what?
Autism in all its ranges is a challenge for the individual and their family. Trying to find out the why of when the human body is different from one individual to the next is frought with peril. Peanuts have been around for thousands of years as a staple food source. Maybe we are better at diagnosising brain abnormalities today, just not that much indication over the years. Love your children and don’t worry about who to blame.
I doubt very much that simply pointing the finger of blame is the issue, I'm sure it's more a question of finding a cure or a method of prevention.
Find out why folks are different, especially when that difference is severe and detrimental enough to be called 'disease', is what medicine is all about. Having no answer is not acceptable when it's your own child. Parents keep looking long after the doctors give up. They make movies about such parents (Lorenzo's Oil).
Some parents are seeing progress under the assumption it's a bacterial cause. You can follow the progress of an Aspergers patient at: Lightomni's progress , going through the Marshall Protocol. It's being used with a strongly autistic child too, but with slower progress: Jason's progress.
Other folks using the MP have noted their allergies and asthma disappear, so there are links between allergies and autism, both may be caused by bacterial infections.
Yep, and cat allergy rates have gone up, too, and so have cancer and leukemia rates, and heart disease rates, and ADD and ADHD, and there have been increases in cases of just about every other medical issue that’s not something like smallpox or the plague... I think the only common factor is improving medical technology and increasing awareness means that children are getting diagnosed with greater accuracy and at a younger age.
Either that or there’s a big trend of parents saying “Oh, no, my child is different, I must find a legitimate medical reason why!” so that even the mildest cases of anything get diagnosed.
Yes, Miss Pollyanna, I suppose it could be so. However, talk to grade school and pre-K teachers with 20+ years of experience and you find that that's there has been a real change in the number of learning disabilities.
Diabetes has grown dramatically as well. Yet the tests for it haven't improved that much. Wether you are or are not insulin dependent hasn't changed. Yet the number of insulin-dependent diabetics is up. It isn't a valid argument to use the wide brush of 'better diagnostic tools' to cover all the bases you want to cover, since some don't fit.
There are not “links” between allergies and autism. The problem with so much of what happens is that people confuse correlation and causation. They are not the same. I have friends who have children who are autistic. These children are wonderful people (I have volunteered my time at a local school that has many in attendance). I understand a parent’s desire to “make their child whole” but MOST ( not all) are not competent or capable in the research fields. The latest fad diet, the latest round of “what works” has them running in circles. It gives false hope and false direction. Many of these parents becaome “crusaders” and we as a society are the worse for it ( eg shots cuase autism).
Somebody has to crusade. And parents seem to do it better than the DYFS types and other government agencies, who just say 'trust me' and go on to other priorities.
If you want this to be a priority, you have to be out there competing with the crusaders for HIV cures, breast cancer cures, etc.
You are introducing a strawman argument here about correllation==causation. I did not say that. 'Link' is defined as correlation, not causation. The link is that both are in a boom time, raising the possibility that they share a cause, not that one causes the other.
Sometimes, the 'latest fad' pans out. Note the many recent articles on how a low-carb (e.g. Atkins) diet beats out low-calorie or low-fat diets. A lot of M.D. and Ph.D. folks came down hard on the Atkins diet when it first came out. Maybe it wasn't the last word in low-carb science, but it really upset the applecart of the carbs-are-great crowd.
Statistically, there is a link between the number of storks in Florida and the number of live human births. Who cares what “link” is found. It is bad science and bad medicine.
Really, now I think you are just making things up. I doubt very much if anyone has run those numbers.
In the mean time, both autism and asthma have been called auto-immune, inflammatory conditions. It's the auto-immune group of disease that is blooming.
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