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 ...
Glad to be of help. The Internet is awesome.
The wakefield and o'leary studies do posit a mechanism.
It involves a PCR DNA test to find the M of the MMR in the intestines and lymph nodes.
There is quite a bit out there out that you are not likely aware of....
No, you didn't state my name in your response. Your blanket statement also didn't specify that it was only a section of people that you were talking about either. I'm sure you can see how a reasonable person would be confused as to which group you were lumping him into, can't you?
Let's take a step back and examine the logic of the arguments so far:
So far the only cause that's pointed to at all by the data is genetics. A lot of people don't like that answer because they think it reflects on them in some way, it doesn't, we don't get to pick our genes or how they'll divide and combine with our spouses genes. But some folks blame themselves anyway, and the only way for them to stop is finding some external cause no matter how tenuous the evidence.
My experience with people's motivations is often the opposite: they'll blame themselves first, often to the exclusion of any evidence to the contrary. But let's put that aside for the moment...
Actually, the vast majority of the studies that have attempted to link autism with genetics have come back negative. Case in point: a recent study by Stanford University (June 2004, I believe) came to the conclusion that stopped well short of a genetic link. They concluded, instead, something that many of us have believed for quite awhile, namely: genetics will give one a predisposition toward autism, given exposure to the actual cause-- whatever that is.
This isn't a huge stretch. Genetics plays a part in pretty much every part of life. It's the primary reason one smoker dies of emphysema at age 40, when another lives to be 103. Genetics doesn't cause emphysema, smoking does-- but there is a link.
Quite frankly, if there was a direct genetic cause to autism, it would most likely be a lot easier to trace-- it would simply be a matter of tracing the lineage of the syndrome back through the ages. The fact of the matter is, though, that the epidemic of autism does not follow a pattern that would point to a genetic cause.
...you can't deny there is a section of the people trying to link autism and vaccines that are just plain anti-vaccine. There's a crowd of luddites in this world that likes to attach themselves to these kind of emotionally charged issues, and they're all pigs because they play with the emotions of people put in unfortunate circumstances to get backing and cover.
I'm sure you're right. I see none of them here. Do you?
The majority of people that I know are not anti-vaccine. On the contrary, they've crossed their fingers, prayed, hoped for the best, and innoculated their children-- because they recognize the horrors of the alternative. They're not trying to scare people into not innoculating their children-- they're trying to raise awareness and point to the need for more testing. The panic is already there, based on the anecdotal evidence we've been discussing all over the thread. The only way to counter this already-existing panic is with further study.
While we're on the subject of fear-mongering, though, examine your own statement:
I sleep very soundly, and will sleep more soundly when the crowd trying to banish vaccines is finally kicked back to the 19th century where they belong so they'll no longer be trying to destroy our herd immunity and render us defenseless against diseases we should be able to consider conquered.
The implication here is that there exists a possibility that vaccines will be done away with, and we'll start dying again from diseases such as polio, measles, etc.
Given the fact that, since the vast majority of people on both sides of the issue still believe in the importance of vaccinating against these horrible diseases, this doomsday scenario is highly unlikely to occur, which one of us is attempting to sow seeds of irrational fear?
This statement also also points to something which you claim to lack: bias. It's subtle-- probably so subtle that you're not even aware of it yourself-- but it's there.
You don't want anything to be found in the vaccination/autism studies. You want them to be found safe. If they're not, we might sink into the "19th century" again.
You know what? I hope they don't find anything either-- I share your fear-- but I suspect they will.
TV definitely affects the brain, thought processes, and emotions. Remember several years ago a children's cartoon on Japanese TV affected several hundreds of children - some got epilepsy type attacks, I can't remember everything that happened.
If someone doesn't watch TV for a long time and then watches it, it's a huge, huge shock to the brain, eyes and ears. And so many kids are immersed in it hours a day.
Kids are way better off with no TV at all.
>>Kids are way better off with no TV at all.<<
Spot on!
Yes, I wondered about that myself. With young people leaving for the world and college, etc., it will either get worse or they will die off. That would be too bad.
They used to put mercury in shots. Imagine what that did!
Yep. Evil is good, good is evil. You see it more and more as time goes on.
No, a reasonable person would realize that "they" is not "you" and not jump to conclusions that they are being accused.
You missed and added in your list:
your 2 is worthless, the plural of anecdote is not fact, there is no such thing as "mounting anecdotal evidence" of anything ever, anecdotes aren't evidence.
You also miss that the definition of autism is growing exponentially, which is a plainly obvious reason for the growth rate of the diagnosis. If set of symptoms X wasn't considered autism 25 years ago, but it is now then simple logic tells us the rate of diagnosis of autism will have grown by the number of people with set of symptoms X even if no other factors have changed. And the reality of autism is there's half a dozen sets of symptoms that are now considered autism that weren't, that's a lot of new sets of people to be adding to the statistics.
From these things I conclude that there is no evidence of problems with vaccines BECAUSE no study has shown a causative link.
No studies of any repute have shown any link between vaccines and autism. I'll take a minority of studies over a complete lack of studies every single day. Genetics is the leading probable cause with the data we have today, the last possible cause on the list is vaccines since there's no data supporting it.
yes genetics plays a predisposition in almost every disease, well known and well understood. But there still is absolutely no evidence that it's a combo genetics AND vaccines, if it's genetics AND something the evidence says it's something other than vaccines.
Actually if it's a direct genetic cause it's likely incredibly difficult to trace back. Because of autism's rarity we can guess immediately that it isn't a single gene problem, it's got to be a combination of genes probably all recessive traits that need to be present. This will doubtless cause autism to skip for many many generations. Add to that the fact that we've only recently gained enough understanding of autism to include forms that leave the sufferer able to function in society (which means that up until recently all known autism sufferers were probably the last step on their genetic train, which means you can't find out what their genes do in the next generation and beyond), and you've got yourself an incredibly sticky genetic puzzle.
The fact of the matter is there is no epidemic of autism, unless you're positing that it's contageous, which would again rule out vaccines.
There does exist the possibility that vaccines will be eliminated, or that at least enough people will chose to stop vaccinating their kids to destroy our herd immunity. The luddites are gaining a lot of followers, vaccination rates are dropping, the future of our society is at stake.
Wong again, stop inserting things in what I say. Every time you've done it you've been WRONG, your ASSumptions are side tracking the conversation with bulldada. If there is something wrong with the MMR or ANY other vaccine I want it found and fixed as soon as possible. So far nothing has been found, and given the number of studies it seems highly unlikely at this point. Safe vaccines are vital to herd immunity, if the vaccines aren't safe people won't (and shouldn't) use them. If there is a problem I hope they DO find it... IF there's a problem.
Yeah, I think this issue is really an individual thing for a Christian; at least that's as far as I've come on this issue to date.
That is where the vested interest (bias)(motivation) issue comes into play, I believe. If you have that, your eyes are looking for the clues and your brain is putting the links in the chain together.
Actually, it's this same principle that consistitutes part of the testing for epilepsy (the portion that uses strobe lighting). We have used a colored light therapy for our son's autism (had a calming effect, actually) using a similar approach, and finally used a passive non-cognitive computer-modulated EEG-based neurobiofeedback therapy that marvelously helped his neutrotransmitter levels to the point where he was much less "triggerable" for the temporal lobe seizure-based tantrums he (and we) suffered, based on the same mechanism. You can learn more about this type of therapy in connection with Dr. Len Ochs on the internet. This therapy also induces vasodilation to the brain, which I suspect is where the actual benefit derives. It turns out that this approach, because it's gentle (if done correctly), is also homeopathic in its effect. It turned out, incidentally, from testing at Lawrence Livermore Lab, that the therapeutic power wasn't even the (very low) lights (LEDs) in the goggles; it was the electromagnetic radiation (good kind) coming off the (grounding?) lead.
One important principle we learned, though: less is better, and the brain is highly sensitive to input, preferring quieter stimulation and resisting "loud" stimulation. That is why sensory integration works better than sensorimotor integration in overcoming disabilities; it's quite powerful because it's more gentle.
The head of North Bay Regional Center (back in 1998, anyway) (Regional Center is California's statewide disabilities provider) thinks it is an epidemic, and a similarly-placed person (but perhaps in the public school education field) in Colorado, who wrote an article for (I think) The Journal of Autism and Related Disorders (I may be getting that title wrong) also believes that the statistics are being skewed on that because she is also representing that there's an epidemic taking place and that it's not merely a difference in diagnostic parameters. That article dates back to 1997, I believe (late winter or early spring). I can't remember her name, and I think the title I have wrong, but I remember the article well.
I think if you Google autism and epidemic you will find a reference to that article and other supporting input.
One of my pet peeves in this world, and it's by no means limited to autism discussions, is the gross misuse of the word epidemic. Contageous diseases can be epidemic, non-contageous things like autism and obesity can't. Journalists love big scary words and phrases like "epidemic" and "perfect storm", and they should be slapped for that kind of sloppy sophomoric language.
I think I understand some of what you said... not being the scientific type.
I have some knowledge of various "alternative" disciplines; many work with emotions and brain function in a subtle way. For instance, color therapy, aromatherapy and sound therapy can deeply affect mood, thought processes, and so on.
Of course, there's a lot of bogus junk out there; I study very, very carefully.
Definitely we're going to be looking him up as we've already seen vasodilatory/stimulation benefits in the other two therapies before now with our son.
I've been under the impression (mistaken or otherwise) that epidemic or pandemic, etc., had only to do with incidence; I have understood that the contagion aspect, per se, is only an aspect of the incidence.
I wish you the best with your son. I know that many types of therapy that are not mainstream are often scorned by the AMA, but many work. I am a student of Ayurveda and do a little informal health counseling, have helped myself and some others.
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