The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly

The Washington Times ^ | April 18, 2005 | Dan Omstead

[agsloss]

Lancaster, PA, Apr. 18 (UPI) -- Part 1 of 2. Where are the autistic Amish? Here in Lancaster County, heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, there should be well over 100 with some form of the disorder. I have come here to find them, but so far my mission has failed, and the very few I have identified raise some very interesting questions about some widely held views on autism. The mainstream scientific consensus says autism is a complex genetic disorder, one that has been around for millennia at roughly the same prevalence. That prevalence is now considered to be 1 in every 166 children born in the United States. Applying that model to Lancaster County, there ought to be 130 Amish men, women and children here with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Well over 100, in rough terms. Typically, half would harbor milder variants such as Asperger's Disorder or the catch-all Pervasive Development Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified -- PDD-NOS for short. So let's drop those from our calculation, even though "mild" is a relative term when it comes to autism. That means upwards of 50 Amish people of all ages should be living in Lancaster County with full-syndrome autism, the "classic autism"...

-snip-

I have identified three Amish residents of Lancaster County who apparently have full-syndrome autism, all of them children. A local woman told me there is one classroom with about 30 "special-needs" Amish children. In that classroom, there is one autistic Amish child. Another autistic Amish child does not go to school. The third is that woman's pre-school-age daughter. If there were more, she said, she would know it. What I learned about those children is the subject of the next column.

[Orgiveme]

Here we go again!

Hmm.

[TheBattman]

the fact is that all vaccines produced since 2000 have no thimerosal in them.

That's not what the FDA's own info says:

http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

[Egon]

There are some very interesting findings coming out that indicate the children who do not have good pathways to rid their bodies of heavy metals are the ones who are susceptible to Autism from heavy metal exposure.

This would logically follow, I suppose.

I'm familiar with some of these treatments, and my brother has responded to some and others. I'll refer my Mom to this post.

Thanks!

[RFEngineer]

"That's 14 fully immunized people, a small sample, but without autism, nonetheless."

Clearly you are just a shill for the drug companies who want to hide the harmful side-effects of vaccines so that they can bolster their bottom-lines.

[TomB]

TomB You are mistaken - although thimerosal has been reduced and eliminated in some vaccines, it is still present in many

Which ones? Other than the influenza vaccine.

And the fact remains that many vaccines are still produced using aborted fetal tissues. Quite honestly - I would rather not have vaccines if it meant that less babies would be murdered.

No vaccines are using aborted fetuses. Some were developed using EXISTING stem cell lines obtained from murdered fetuses. But they don't need to use any more stem cells once the vaccine is developed. So using a vaccine doesn't not lead in any way to a murdered baby.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Part 2 - Posted? Title please. Or a LINK? I can't find it on a search.

[ArGee]

After all, we're not discussing this on DU, where the majority of the blind sheeple hang out.

Don't be mistaken. FReepers have their sacred cows as well. One of them is quite clear: Progress = good. Congress = bad.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

Shalom.

[freedomfiter2]

The thing is you must inject your child or no school


No vaccine=no government school. Wow a win/win situation.

[hobbes1]

Uh, you are comparing ethylmercury to methylmercury. There is a BIG difference. Check here

Ummmm...I did, and stop trying to sow misinformation. (if your error was inadvertant, my advance apoligies).

THIS IS FROM YOUR PROVIDED LINK

As part of the FDAMA review, the FDA evaluated the amount of mercury an infant might receive in the form of ethylmercury from vaccines under the U.S. recommended childhood immunization schedule and compared these levels with existing guidelines for exposure to methylmercury, as there are no existing guidelines for ethylmercury, the metabolite of thimerosal. .... depending on the vaccine formulations used and the weight of the infant, some infants could have been exposed to cumulative levels of mercury during the first six months of life that exceeded EPA recommended guidelines for safe intake of methylmercury.

Apparently, you are diecidedly in the minority as to the magnitude of difference between Ethyl, and Methyl.

[montag813]

Autism, along with numerous cancers and liver/kidney diseases in children, is caused by children who have a genetic deficiency in de-toxification of oxidants. Make sure to give your child vitamin supplements from an early age.

[Dunstan McShane]

My grandfather (Mennonite) wasn't certain if he should put lightning rods on his barn, since he didn't want to interfere with God's will if God should decide to strike his barn.

I have a feeling that if God had decided to strike your grandfather's barn, He wouldn't have drawn up short at the sight of a metal rod stuck there, thinking, "Dang! The crafty old fellow outsmarted Me this time!" but more along the lines of "Screw physics--the barn's goin' down!"

My own experience has convinced me that it's not very smart to get into a battle of wits with Omniscience.

[montag813]

Autism, along with numerous cancers and liver/kidney diseases in children, is caused by children who have a genetic deficiency in de-toxification of oxidants. Make sure to give your child vitamin supplements from an early age.

[Egon]

No vaccines are using aborted fetuses. Some were developed using EXISTING stem cell lines obtained from murdered fetuses. But they don't need to use any more stem cells once the vaccine is developed. So using a vaccine doesn't not lead in any way to a murdered baby.

I accept everything but the last statement.

That's like saying: my toking weed doesn't lead to an increase in supply.

Are you saying that no other vaccines are currently in development or under consideration?

[RFEngineer]

"Vaccines almost certainly cause auto-immune disease and autism"

Not for my kids. Vaccines are HIGHLY SUSPECT as the cause of them not cleaning their rooms though.

[najida]

I don't know...

Walkin' through any of the old graveyards around here and counting 1, 2, 3, sometimes 4 dead children per family during the last 200 years or so makes me see why vaccinations may have caught on like they did ;)

[Orgiveme]

It is my belief that one component in the rise of autism is the relative decrease in the exposure of most parents/older siblings to their preschoolers.

This is interesting. I completely disagree based on our own experience -- autistic children do benefit from stimulation but lack of stimulation doesn't CAUSE it -- I think this is directly connected to the vaccination issue: when you use daycare, you are necessarily exposing your young child to a population he/she would be otherwise unexposed to. Frinstance, the possible P.A.N.D.E.S. effect we may have also added to our already-autistic child's problems came from a church nursery on Mother's Day. I had largely kept our children out of daycare-type situations and even church nurseries; that was a standout exception, and a very lax mother who had been raised in a very lax tropical environment (missionary's kid from the Philippines) warned me only AFTER our baby sucked on her baby's bottle (as opposed to helping prevent that, including keeping her child at home that day) that her baby was suffering from BOTH impetigo AND strep infection. (To prevent a tangential thread from developing: I didn't catch the bottle-grabbing and inserting-into-mouth until just a bit too late -- typical with autistics kids who have wonderful peripheral vision and grab things off to the side without even looking directly at it before you know what's happened.)

So you bring up an interesting thing that all daycare-using parents already know: all diseases within a family go up with daily exposure of their children to communal settings, including regular public school -- and that includes the adults' exposure, as well.

[Egon]

Walkin' through any of the old graveyards around here and counting 1, 2, 3, sometimes 4 dead children per family during the last 200 years or so makes me see why vaccinations may have caught on like they did ;)

Please don't make a mistake and dismiss the argument because it appears that one side of the argument is "no vaccinating" and the other side is "always vaccinate".

[Orgiveme]

Then, since 1987, both the unvaccinated Amish and the well vaccinated outside communities started experiencing huge outbreaks of measles.

Is it possible that the sudden appearance of measles in the Amish comes now from somewhat more contact between the two populations? The Indians before the Europeans arrived were completely measles free and then devastated by the disease after contact.

[HamiltonJay]

Well you should have told your grandfather the same thing Franklin told the world when they thought his newfangled lighting rod was interfering with God.

Why do you put roofs over your head? Is it not God's will you get wet? There is no difference with the lightning rod... none would claim putting a roof over ones head to protect oneself from rain was evading God's will... but somehoe a lightning rod was?

[TomB]

Nice try, but you left out an important qualifier:

The various mercury guidelines are based on epidemiological and laboratory studies of methyl mercury, whereas thimerosal is a derivative of ethyl mercury. Because they are different chemical entities - ethyl- versus methylmercury - different toxicological profiles are expected. There is, therefore, an uncertainty that arises in applying the methylmercury-based guidelines to thimerosal. Lacking definitive data on the comparative toxicities of ethyl- versus methylmercury, FDA considered ethyl- and methyl-mercury as equivalent in its risk evaluation. There are some data and studies bearing directly on thimerosal toxicity and these are summarized in this Section.

But since you take the FDA's information as accurate, I'm sure you'll find this passage from the same page interesting:

In 2004, the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee issued its final report, examining the hypothesis that vaccines, specifically the MMR vaccines and thimerosal containing vaccines, are causally associated with autism. In this report, the committee incorporated new epidemiological evidence from the U.S., Denmark, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and studies of biologic mechanisms related to vaccines and autism since its report in 2001. The committee concluded that this body of evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, and that hypotheses generated to date concerning a biological mechanism for such causality are theoretical only. Further, the committee stated that the benefits of vaccination are proven and the hypothesis of susceptible populations is presently speculative, and that widespread rejection of vaccines would lead to increases in incidences of serious infectious diseases like measles, whooping cough and Hib bacterial meningitis.