It’s the countdown to the end of 2008 and here is some of what was going on at the beginning of the year:
The trial of Dr. Karen McCarron began on January 7th. On January 16th, McCarron was ruled guilty on all counts. On April 1st, she was sentenced to 36 years in prison for the May 13th suffocation of her then 3-year-old daughter, Katherine “Katie” McCarron.
January also saw the publication of further evidence refuting a link between vaccines and autism, with the publication in the Archives of General Psychiatry on the decline in thimerosal exposure and the continue increase …read more

Grace at Genetics and Health posts about research on regions of DNA that may increase the risk to hereditary autism (from Craegmoor Healthcare). The findings were reported on at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Philadelphia:
According to the Scientist, a large-effect allele that provides protection against autism was found on chromosome 5 near the semaphorin 5A (SEMA5A) gene, which is involved in guiding neural axons during development. The same group also found two genes not previously linked to autism, one at the tip of chromosome 20’s short arm, and one at the end …read more