How To Treat Autism According to Dr. Wakefield

Dr. Andrew Wakefield is in the news again, claiming that “diet and drugs” (with no mention of education) ought to be the components of a treatment plan for autistic children. Dr. Wakefield will issue a “stark warning” about autism at the Autism is Treatable! Biomedical Conference on February 10th in Bournemouth, England, as reported in the February 3rd Daily Mail. Dr. Wakefield was the primary author of the first paper suggesting an MMR mercury-autism link (a paper that has since been retracted by the journal that published it). As reported in the Daily Mail:

Dr Andrew Wakefield will claim that thousands of children with autism should not be receiving psychiatric help, but should be treated with drugs and a change in diet.

Dr. Wakefield faces a General Medical Council hearing for misconduct this year. It has also been also recently reported (see the articles written by journalist Brian Deer) that, two years prior to his published study on a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, Dr. Wakefield had begun to receive payments from the very lawyers who were pursuing lawsuits against vaccine makers on behalf of autistic children in England (see Buying Results: On Bias in Research).

Dr. Wakefield is quoted in the Daily Mail article as saying that autism is “‘not a psychiatric disease and it is not just a neurological disease. It is a disease that affects the brain rather than being simply a brain disease.’” (Dr. Martha Herbert’s presentation at the Autism is Treatable! Biomedical Conference is specifically about this.) He calls for treatment via “diet or conventional anti-inflammatory drugs,” as a result of which, he notes, “a lot of the intestinal and behavioural problems are resolved.”

I am not sure what Dr. Wakefield means by “resolved.” If his meaning is that “behavioral problems” are extinguished—are no longer a factor—-I have to say that I find his statement rather sweeping and even short-sighted. An autistic child might cease to have terrible stomachaches and rashes as a result of a change in diet, but what then happens when this child is placed in a school setting, whether a special education setting or an inclusive setting with typical children? It is a wonderful thing if an autistic child beings to talk after a certain treatment, but that is just the beginning. My own autistic son, Charlie, can now say any sound clearly, but this does not mean that he can use language in the most effective of ways, and his attempts to use the language he has can still result in “behavioral problems.”

Tthe Daily Mail article implied that his going to England is something of a controversial act—”Dr Wakefield’s rare trip back to Britain from America to speak at the Autism Is Treatable conference – funded by the parents of autistic children – comes amid growing criticism of his work”—-and I am not sure if a maelstrom is being made out of a minor event here. As a study by Stanford University researchers published in the February 2007 Nature Reviews Neuroscience notes:

Brain and Behavior Research on Autism
• 41 percent of research funding and published scientific papers
• 11 percent of newspaper stories in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada

But:

Environmental Causes of Autism
• 13 percent of published research
• 48 percent of the media coverage

That is, stories about vaccines, mercury, pollution and other environmental causes of autism dominate mainstream media reporting about autism, in constrast to what scientists are actually researching (brain, genetics, and behavior research). What we, the public, have the most access to reading is stories about possible environmental factors that cause autism and that can convey a sense that there is an epidemic of autism.

How many parents are able to visit medical school and university libraries to read the full text of articles from academic journals? For that matter, how many parents are able even to find the time, and a babysitter, to attend a conference or support group or go out (as one mother in the Autism Every Day video laments) for a bagel? It is no surprise that the Internet has become the key source of information for parents of autistic children, whose lives are dominated by the realities of meeting the school bus, taking a child to therapy appointments, teaching a child to cope with everyday situations like a trip to the supermarket or library. The Internet is always there for a parent to log onto and parents—-especially after a particularly difficult day—want answers, and want them now so tomorrow will not be as bad as today was.

And while “diet and drugs” might foster some notable, and even immediate, changes in a child, if there is one lesson I have learned in nearly ten years of raising my autistic son Charlie, it is that the single answer, that “this is the one thing” remedy, is never the answer. Change and learning and enlightenment, in Charlie and in my own understanding of autism and of him, happen over time and through hard work and even struggle, especially on his part.

But these are lasting changes achieved through real solutions over many minutes, hours, days, months, years, over the long life I hope to live with Charlie. With autism.