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.

[Old Professer]

Your argument does not improve with verbosity.

[fooman]

We are on it. But the only exemption in NY is for 'religious' reasons.

Do you have an airtight example?

[fooman]

Your doc should have reported this. They typically dont, since they are not held liable if they dont.

I think www.909shot.com gives info on how to report your reaction to the CDC database. Since only 2.5% to 10% of the cases are reported, we never are able to study the full problem.

[fooman]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1387819/posts?page=1

New article on this today from the Scotsman.

[Orgiveme]

"The FDA removed its approval of the use of Pitocin in 1978." How can hospitals use it if it isn't approved? Isn't that against the law?

It's termed an "off-list" use. Puppy breeders quit using it a long time ago because there were too many damaged puppies.

[Orgiveme]

any genetic disease or pre-disposition to disease, which is X-chromosome linked is more prevalent in boys (since they have only one, and if that one is "bad", there isn't another one to provide a compensating normal gene).

Thank you so much for this! I wondered about that and figured it was cephalopelvic disproportion during birthing -- and that certainly probably plays a part in the system jumping to intervention -- but your reasoning sounds correct.

Having said that, Stanford's study of families with more than one autistic is only indicating a weakness in (I think three) genes that causes a predisposition.

[Orgiveme]

Reagan started the vaccine trust fund due to all the lawsuits.

Another reason to hug his neck if we only could.

[Orgiveme]

My wife wouldn't let anyone into the delivery room but me-- certainly not our attorney, if we had had one.

Incidentally, one of the best reasons for having a recognized coach with you in labor, besides your spouse, is that they can and do as a legal brake on what the meds might otherwise try to do to/with you.

[Orgiveme]

And I wouldn't go to Mercola for the time of day.

But I bet you love Quackwatch...which the book Medical Monopoly Wars has exposed for what it is (other than a big load of vitriol).

[Orgiveme]

The thing is you must inject your child or no school.

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

LOL

[Orgiveme]

is caused by children who have a genetic deficiency in de-toxification of oxidants

I don't mean to nitpick, but I think you must mean that it is caused in children with a genetic deficiency, etc. Having said that, I think there probably is some antioxidant tie-in, but I think the amino acid metallophthalein is the protective agent actually deficient in the gut (not missing, however) and it is unclear whether that is a cause of autism or a result of autism (or whatever has caused the autism, which can include simple brain trauma from what Temple Grandin has indicated about a woman who acquired autism symptoms after being run over at the beach by a dune buggy -- compression injury of the neck and lower head).

Temple offered that story in support of my theory about the kind of injuries we have seen in our child from a Pitocin-induced delivery. The injury with Pitocin can be and probably is mediated in four different ways:

(1) increased need for anesthetic;
(2) decreased biofeedback in the mother's body for purposes of natural management of labor to increase the baby's chances of survival;
(3) "pounding" of the baby against the cervix and perineum, causing brain bruising;
(4) auto-immune reaction by the baby's brain's own oxytocin system against the foreign protein in the Pitocin/Syntocinon.

[Orgiveme]

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.

Our family had a great laugh over this!

[ShowMeMom]

I don't think the posting you're responding to was meant to be offensive at all, and I responded to it elsewhere.

I don't think it was intended to offend either. What I think is that it was just ignorant. I'm offended by that.

And speaking of ignorance (my own), I have no idea what you're talking about in the treatment you described. Our grandson is responding to and making great progress with LOVE, attention, therapy and special education. He is the coolest little person I know!!

[Orgiveme]

I remember hearing my Granny weep

I've lost count of how many times I've heard my son wail because he's lost his life. Thankfully, he doesn't know the real reason he can't live with his own family, which he wants more than anything else in the world but can't have because we can't maintain him due to his emotional volatility.

His is a living death, thanks to autism, and our mourning will not cease until we die.

[Orgiveme]

That's an awful lot of studies and co-conspirators. Are all these countries in this together?

Gee, that would be a real stretch.

[Orgiveme]

In Bureaucratese this body of evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship .... 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. Means, We cant Disprove it, you cant prove it, but we like the overall effects of the NIP, so deal with it.

If anyone needs an education about how bureaucracies can work evil, they just need to read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. The lesson I learned from reading about the way the US government dealt with the Indians was this: "Cooperate with the government or you could die" actually meant "Cooperate with the government and you're sure to die." The Indians who cooperated the least were the ones who fared the best.

The US government (and others that are arguably worse) is somewhat different than the US government ideal "of, by and for the people." You gotta keep the two separate -- please.

[Orgiveme]

I've read the studies and there's absolutely nothing that indicates a causative link.

I hate to have to say this, but I'm really not interested in your opinions about autism if you have no direct vested interest in it because it's been a burden in your own personal life.

Your "logic" has no basis in reality; it's simply something that the meds/FDA are pushing in order to stave off the growing realization by the public (who are more and more intimately affected by this formerly "rare" and mostly unheard of affliction) that this thing is growing, is devastating to the individuals AND their families and if this increase in incidence doesn't stop it will prove very crippling financially and in every other way to a growing portion of the civilized world. I said years ago that Congress would finally show some real interest in this problem when it started affecting THEIR family members; that finally happened, and -- thank God -- it was a couple of conservatives who got hit with it, so they paid close attention.

Relationship to someone you actually know with autism: _____

[Orgiveme]

Also I wonder how many people were affected by whatever the cause is, but not to the point where they were debilated.

Brilliant! We have one child mildly affected and he's so subclinical you can't even tell -- I could tell once we had our youngest son because of the similarities, but no doctor would have seen it -- it was too subtle. They both had the same Pitocin induction delivery but the first was handled much better at a university hospital and the other was done by a non-OB/GYN at a small rural hospital.

I have talked to many, many parents over the years with kids who fit the ADHD picture who also had Pitocin-induction deliveries. They're the lucky ones who didn't get autism.

You're getting the picture: it's a continuum of damage, with multiple possible causes but some that are being dished out constantly willy-nilly to a dumbed-down population that worships medical "science." That would be you and me IF we continue to believe their lies.

The latest lies: it's not connected to vaccines after all, and it was always there but now we're just diagnosing it better.

Here's what's really ridiculous: what in hell is all this flap about if there's no problem and it's not connected to vaccinations and it was always here and just undiagnosed? Who on God's earth would believe such preposterous crap unless they have disengaged their brains (or are just blissfully untouched by the problem -- yet)?

For me: I have no regard whatsoever for people touting the "AMA/FDA party line" when they have no personal investment in the issue but are just interested observers mouthing secondhand nonsense. It is refreshing to get a comment by someone who has their brain in gear -- thank you so much!

[Orgiveme]

Mercury in vaccines has all but been eliminated and the diagnosis of autism and Aspergers is on the increase.

The British Lancet, 6/91, four-hospital study out of Japan showing 19% autism rate with use of oxytocin as much as two weeks before delivery.

This was the culprit BEFORE the vaccine problem started in the 80s. And it's STILL THERE, they're still pushing it in the delivery suite even though it was disapproved for that use way back in 1978. It's legal but considered off-list, and the puppy breeders won't use it anymore as it damages too many puppies.

[Melas]

This is interesting. My godchild is autistic, and we believe it may be due to the MMR hab

Why do you believe this? I'm presuming you have some reason, and it wasn't a flip of a coin.