Discussion was dominated by two stories, that of 13-year-old Adam Race, against whose parents a priest filed a restraining order, and of 5-year-old Alex Barton, who was voted out of his kindergarden class by his classmates, at the suggestion of his teacher, Wendy Portillo. These two incidents sparked some very heated and often acrimonious exchanges and remind me of why there’s a need to think about autistic persons and the community, in faith communities and all others.
Also: It was reported that there had been 72 cases of measles so far in the US, the highest number since 2001—-and the number …read more

February brought on winter doldrums and also a topic that came to dominate 2008, the presidential election, starting with a post on the candidates’ views on autism prior to Super Tuesday on February 5th.
There was more evidence refuting the vaccine-autism link—and specifically the MMR vaccine—from the Archives of Disease in Childhood. We need to get the word out about the evidence that there is no link, as it’s been reported that more parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children, because they fear that vaccines or something in vaccines might cause autism. And measles cases have been on the rise …read more

MMR and autism have become indelibly linked in the public consciousness.
What about MMR and asthma?
A study in the December 1st American Journal of Epidemiology asks if there is an association between receiving the MMR vaccine and asthma in early childhood. 871,234 children were examined; researchers Anders Hviid and Mads Melbye looked at rates of hospitalization in those with asthma diagnoses and (for a subset of the cohort) the use of anti-asthma medications. Significantly larger numbers of children who had received the MMR vaccine were less often hospitalized with an asthma diagnosis and also used anti-asthma medication less than unvaccinated children. …read more

Made it through Thanksgiving; did some holiday shopping from the comfort of home (and here’s some gift suggestions); time to get back on the school bus!

Autism and Schizophrenia: The Same “Disease”?
According to the latest theory, “an evolutionary tug of war between genes from the father’s sperm and the mother’s egg can, in effect, tip brain development in one of two ways.”
Girls and Getting a Diagnosis
Are girls and women sometimes not diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum because they do not have the same symptoms as boys and men do?
Denis Leary Tries (Tries) to Defend Himself
Contrary to …read more

Earlier this year, reports that the US Federal Court of Claims had conceded that vaccines had contributed to the onset of autistic symptoms in the case of Hannah Poling led to much speculation and debate about (1) if mitochondrial disorders could be linked to autism and (2) how common mitochondrial disorders might be among autistic children. A number of experts on mitonchondrial disorders met in June to discuss the “controversial case” of Hannah Poling. An article in the November 26th PLoS One entitled Mitochondrial Disease in Autism Spectrum Disorder Patients: A Cohort Analysis investigates the medical records of 25 …read more

1049 cases of measles have been reported in England and Wales so far this year, the highest number in 13 years and exceeding the number on 2007, when there were 990 case. Today’s Guardian reports that health officials are seriously concerned about a possible epidemic of measles of between 30,000 – 100,000 cases. Measles has been spreading more easily because of the “relatively low uptake” of the MMR vaccine in the past decade:
The fall in uptake of MMR was triggered by now-discredited research claiming there was a link between the jab and autism.
Health officials in the UK are planning a …read more

Is the “warrior mother” not—as proclaimed in the Warrior Mothers book put together by Jenny McCarthy—the opposite of the “refrigerator mother” of the previous generation, but rather her “distorted mirror image”? So argues Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, author of another new book, Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion, argues in yesterday’s Spiked. As Fitzpatrick writes in his essay, The ghost of the ‘refrigerator mother’,
The ‘warrior mom’ is yet another reflection of the culture of mother-blaming and a manifestation of the burden of guilt carried by parents as a result of the influence of pseudoscientific speculations about the causes of autism……
…….
A number of …read more

Well, here’s a headline that hasn’t been heard so much of late, it seems:
Immunization rate among children rising (from MSNBC via WTHR TV)
According to a recent CDC survey, 77 percent of children have been fully vaccinated in the schedule of recommended vaccines, while less than 1 percent of children had received no vaccines by age 19 to 35 months. Vaccination rates among children are “at or near record levels, with at least 90 percent coverage for all but one of the individual vaccines in the recommended series for young children.” In Indiana, 94 percent of public schools and 68 percent …read more

Regarding yesterday’s Today show piece on vaccines, autism, and Dr. Paul Offit:
Kudos to Dr. Nancy Synderman, especially at the end of the piece when she made it very clear to Matt Lauer, there’s no controversy about vaccines and autism. Vaccines don’t cause autism. [ABC News has a story on Dr. Offit that emphasizes how "ugly" the discussion about vaccines and autism has become: It's entitled "Death Threats, Hate Mail: Autism Debate Turns Ugly: Vaccine Researchers, Autism Community React to Account of Death Threats and it seems to me that we really ought rather to keep discussion focused on autistic persons.]
When …read more

The Today Show website has posted an excerpt from the beginning of Dr. Paul Offit’s Autism False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure.
At the Parengs Bloggers Network, some parents describe a “feeling of betrayal” in regard to the “overwhelming fears and sadness surrounding autism and the still hotly-debated autism-vaccine link” discussed in Dr. Offit’s book. Excerpts from some parents’ reviews of the book are here
And if you’re watching the Today Show in the 8:00 half-hour tomorrow (Thursday, October 30th) morning, there’s a segment on vaccines and autism. I was interviewed for it, and I think …read more