Are older fathers more likely to have an autistic child?
September 5, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Men in their 40’s are nearly six times more likely to have an autistic child, according to researchers in the US and Israel after analyzing the military records of more than 300,000 men and women in Israel. The study, under Abraham Reichenberg, Ph.D., of Mt. Sinai, will be published in the September issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, as reported in the September 4th MedPage.
“Among the possible mechanisms for an effect of paternal age on autism spectrum disorders risk are point mutations or structural chromosomal aberrations in the father’s germline, or imprinting, in which an allele inherited from the father suppresses the expression of the mother’s allele and determines the expression of a particular gene,” the authors wrote.
Mothers are off the hook on this one—the researchers did not find an association between the age of mothers at the time of a child’s birth and autism—but I hope more fathers now do not start “blaming themselves” for their child being autistic.
Sometimes you get what you wish for – I was hoping you saw this Kristina.
Dang – those dads are in the spotlight now…I like to take credit for everything! (just joshin). I hope there aren’t too many arguments in households across the nation due to this research.
This was presented very badly on BBC television, Autism was mentioned as suffering and disease, as if this were the punishment for the sins of the father who did not do his duty in procreating. Almost goes back to Onan.
And I wonder how long it is before the kook who blames autism on circumcision trauma does not have something to say about this study being carried out in Israel.
One thing this study does not show, is a cause for autism, because although it may statistically be more likely with older fathers, it is not inevitably so.
Anyway I do not regard autism as genetic damage at all but simply a different expression of genetics, it all comes down to the interpretation of the evidence. The survey also makes little sence without more knowlege of the precise genetics of autism and more knowlege about the prevalence of autism in the families studied other wise it is not more significant than a study which might prove most autists were born when the home football team lost or whatever.
Although I have not read the original publication, my understanding is that the “findings” are broadly extrapolated from data collected by the Israeli government some 25 or so years ago. It may be giving too much credit to call it a “study.”
I think “findings” is a more appropriate term, indeed.
Laurentius-rex, what you note about how the study was reported on the BBC are the sort of hasty, and harmful, assumptions (that will masquerade as “truths,” no doubt) that I can see resulting from this research.
Well look what I have just found out
“In December 1992 a letter signed by Rabbi Yisrael E. Waintraub was published in Bnei Brak. The topic of this letter was autism, and the writer concluded that God created autism “to our weakening generation in so far as belief based upon the senses” so that “we will be able to see with our senses, clearly, reincarnation, and this will strengthen our hands in the belief that God rewards the righteous and punishes those who disobey his will.” According to Rabbi Waintraub, autism is a form of reincarnation that comes as a punishment to the reincarnated soul. Although this topic has been raised by Ashkenazi Haredim, discussions and interpretations of this nature are less common among them than among Sephardim, and tend to raise negative responses from the former. Reincarnation seems to be a popular approach among Haredim to explain the birth of crippled or mentally disabled children.” Kimmy Caplan GOD’S VOICE: AUDIOTAPED SERMONS IN ISRAELI HAREDI SOCIETY1 Modern Judaism 17: 253-280.”
My ex-husband is older than me however I do NOT think that should play any part in Autism. My ex-husband takes care of our two sons that have different learning disabilities(yes one is in the austism spectrum) AND he does an EXCELLENT JOB taking care of them and ADVOCATING for their needs when appropriate.
I am hoping this “bill” will HELP those families that really need the much needed respite care,counseling, and the much needed chance for the parents to just take a needed break once in a while. FYI I no longer live with my boys because I had a stroke and I myself went thru major changes in my life. My ex husband is the BEST person to care for my two sons and I never regret my decision.
The cause of autism is this: all the rest of us “normal” people have many many lifetimes behind us.
For people with autism, this is their FIRST lifetime. THe Earth is so overpopulated, there are no more old souls in the spirit-dimension in the belt surrounding the Earth, so NEW SOULS have to be created, and these souls enter the bodies of children in the womb. These souls have no past life experience, so they seem “unreachable”, and noone can reach IN. The Earth was only designed to manage 300-million human-beings. We are severly overpopulated as a planet, because folks think they have a God-given right to have children. But as more children are born with brand-new souls, the more we will see autism. We have overpopulated and polluted our planet to death.