Posted on 04/20/2005 8:26:42 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
I'm not sure it's just television. People today are bombarded from all directions by stimulus, far more than in the pre-electronic past. How often do people actually experience long periods of silence, anymore?
When Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In first came on in 1967-68, people commented on how you couldn't keep up with the jokes, because they came at you so quickly. I saw some reruns of it, and the show seems incredibly slow paced today. Modern movies use scene to scene cuts far more frequently than the old movies, and I think the constant bombardment of changing stimuli has resulted in shorter attention spans and several other changes in basic thought structure of the average American. Video games are part of it, also.
"they do take good care of their children" . . .
I think there's more to it all than just vaccinations. Nowadays, women have fallen for the feminist bunk and left their children in droves to be "cared for" en masse at some daycare center or the other from six weeks on. Generally, the average modern day mom's idea of a well balanced diet is a slice of pizza dough with some tomato sauce and an orange soda pop for themselves and for their child. It is rip and run, rip and run, slam bam, bang bam all day and home at night to a full plate of homework, computer games, and overstimulating tv shows. Of course, the kids have their own tv's and phones because modern parents want to see that they have everything. No wonder babies are being born already shrinking from this crash bam bang slam overstimulating, overcomputerized world that never rests. The Amish choose a peaceful, quiet lifestyle without all the hullabaloo.
And before someone chews me out for not understanding that some moms "have to work", let me say that most women I know who work are really losing money by the time they pay childcare providers, car payments for the new car they just have to have to drive to work and gasoline to run it, plus all the clothes and $15 pantyhose they go through keeping up the appearances that the boss requires (tacitly, of course) at their workplace. It is just not glamourous to stay at home with the babies and the kids. I think some women I've known who worked outside the home felt that they would be depriving the world of something wonderful if they didn't get gussied up every day and get out there and butt heads in the world. I understand there are exceptions.
Thank you for your post....your observations may serve, at least, to stimulate questions regarding the habitual use of pitocin and vaccinations. Isn't it a funny thing that our society is averse to "street drugs" but "doctor prescribed" drugs should never be questioned.
I'm sorry, I don't wait for science to make a statement in order to take common sense seriously.
For example, doctors are still telling people to limit their calcium intake when they get kidney stones, even though this has been shown to cause more kidney stones. I knew this before the doctors. Why? Because everyone I ever knew who said they had a kidney stone said to me "it's funny, because the doctor said I should start drinking less milk, and I had already cut down on the amount I drink recently." Did I know the causitive factor? No. However, I did have enough common sense to see the pattern.
Of course, today, even after the studies have shown the _lack_ of calcium to be a prime factor in kidney stones, doctors _still_ recommend patients reduce their calcium intake to avoid stones.
Grrrrr....
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/328/12/833
I would normally agree except that I know the complications list on chicken pox; the only "chicken" thing about it is the name.
However, having said that, we have killed chicken pox in this family of four kids no less than four times, one kid right after the other as they showed up with spots -- with vitamin C, about 6 gms when the spots appear. It's easier to kill than a cold, and they never caught it again, either.
We were about to leave a wintry area of the country to drive halfway across country for a move with kids ranging from ages 11 down to 1.5, all coming down in turn with chicken pox, with a huge Ryder van, a sedan and a small station wagon, and only two drivers. We love vitamin C for chicken pox.
We DON'T recommend the route down to Winnemucca from Idaho even sans chicken pox in the loads -- very dangerous and highly traveled by truckers and people scurrying over the state line to gamble. They like to pass on hill/curves (and didn't like me for blocking them from passing my whole family -- all three vehicles -- on those hills and curves) -- (smile).
Many of us are for safe vaccines. The drugs have a mandated monopoly and cant be sued bacause of the 1986 trust fund. Meanwhile Shalala made very difficult to file a claim from the fund. shades of hillycare in our future.
The government has no incentive improve vaccine or even require proper reporting of reactions.
I thought the same as you did, until two people I know were injured by vaccines and very likely a third to due colitis.
Hmm. Wonder if it's true. We'll never know.
Excellent point. These observations, when collected, are first called "anecdotal evidence". Dismissed by some, scorned by others-- eventually, the majority are dragged, often kicking and screaming, to enlightenment.
Unfortunately, we'll never get past this first stage if those with whatever bias or incentive force us to remain there.
Bring on the studies! I don't care how they turn out initially. The more studies, the more chances there are for some researcher to exclaim, "Eureka! I've found it!" ...whatever the cause or solution.
True on 188. just like some can smoke and live long.
I honestly don't think so. My own personal memory of childhood in a big, polluted city area contains not only no memory of autistics at all, but none of the similar disorders. Nor did we hear much about them in medical circles. I have only learned of one 50 year old (would have been born sometime in the 30's or 40's) in our history of talking with other families. Even the literature reflects a dramatic increase in an earlier amost-unheard of autism condition or related disorders.
Even in the 1960s you never heard of it and if you did it was considered rare in the extreme. I literally had to look up the word autism from memory when a preschool staff mentioned the word "self-stimulating" to me in 1981. It was THAT rare -- and I had a medical background at that time; in fact, I was in premed classes at the junior college where my child was in preschool -- and that's the ONLY reason he was in preschool (that and his obvious lack of growth: I was trying preschool to see if it would stimulate him and it was inadequate).
Don't forget these:
I have read about chelation too. I have read about cases where it seems to work. Especially if it is caught before the child is five. There were older
I am not on this thread to debate. I am here to trade info with freepers who feel they may have been injured by vaccines. The numbers even here are surprising.
One thing you can do with is space the vaccinations out and make sure no thimersol is your child's lot. We were hit with this in the last month.
I am interested in following the evidence. Wherever it may lead. The history of vaccines turns out to checkered --rotovirus vaccine anyone?
Well, perhaps I should have worded it differently. I think what I meant to say is that observation of possibly connected events leads to formulating a theory of the connection between those observed events and that an empiric approach to proving/disproving that theory is then worked out. It's always possible that there's a flaw in the logic anywhere along the line, but it makes a big difference if you have an observational opportunity as opposed to not having one.
My observational experience was initially limited to four individuals (my own children) but quickly expanded, in a sense, through talking to other parents of disabled (often autistic spectrum disordered) children. I guess you could say I started with an "anecdotal cluster" of my own four children.
I'm not sure what point you're contesting.
I think you may be right.
True but adverse selection increases the chances if I remember my hs biology.
You are proving the point I keep trying to make with people who are untouched by this personally: Ask the man who owns one.
I appreciate their seeming logic, untouched as it is by our reality, but I don't think it's good logic, either. The alternatives are being hushed up for the sake of $$$$$, as usual.
For everyone who reads this and thinks vaccinations are valid in spite of the outcome for some children (more and more, it turns out, as they get more and more aggressive with them): study homeopathic nosodes as a viable alternative -- I said VIABLE.
So that's where a college classmate of mine got her polio. I always wondered.
I firmly believe the vaccines did not cause our son's autism, either, but I firmly believe the vaccines are causing autism -- maybe even without the mercury in them.
Firmly believe away.
That is the truth. Our families are left to cope with this devastating situation, often, on our own. Finances will be strained especially as they grow older. I've been mocked for investigating alternative or anecdotal treatments by those who don't know what it means to live with an autie and especially by the 'traditional' medical establishement that doesn't want to "deal" with an autie. I've arrived at the point where I will pursue these alternative treatments even if they cannot be verified through double-blind studies. As long as a remedy works for my son, that's enough proof for me and for him to continue with said anecdotal remedies.
if you read the book above,there are many cases like yours. This is why reactrions are underreported.
You should definately make a vaers report
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.