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More Evidence of Increase in Profound Autism
I am Jack's username writes "The New York times has an article (no registration required) about an increase in profound autism in California of 273% between 1987 and 1998. Between 1999 and 2001 more than 6 500 cases were reported, similar to the number reported between 1970 to 1995. The increase cannot be accounted for by misdiagnosis, increased awareness, childhood immunizations, emigration, birth injuries, and genetics. Some autism experts think the actual cases to be dramatically more than reported in the UC study. See also previous discussions about high-function geek rich areas like silicon valley."
I know very little of the condition, but considering autistic people have some extraordinary abilities, is it possible this could be an evolutionary step?
Surely the way to chase this down is to get some clever cross-disciplinary folk on the case. Meanwhile, here's two links that don't require registration:
The Independant's version of the same story.
The BBC is bringing up the MMR "link".
I mean they say that a baby breaths in twice the carsinogens in thre first day of life in california than what has been deemed safe for a life time.
what is the autism rate in other parts of the country or the world?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Current theories suggest it's more like sickle-cell mutations. If you have 'half' of autism, you're good at living within your mind/interacting with machines and information - the classic 'geek' skills.
:}
However, breed the right mix together and you get the full whammy, an individual incapable of interacting with social 'reality' at all. As of yet, there's no "niche" for the poor kids (no evolutionary advantage off getting on Maury Povich), but maybe they'd be killer ML coders had we direct-brain interfaces.
If this *is* a consequence of "geek inbreeding," it'd be interesting to consider the sociological factors that make it so widespread.
Of course, I don't think they've ruled out environmental factors yet, either. Could be another thalidomide at play.
This is also being discussed over at kuro5hin.
The cake is a pie
Parents in the study were asked what might have caused their child's autism. Nearly half the parents in both groups said they did not know. A third blamed genetics; smaller numbers cited immunizations, birth injury or environmental factors.
So, just about half of parents are intellectually honest, then. We don't know what causes autism--there is nothing approaching a consensus among researchers, and there are few well-designed studies that even suggest a possible cause. Asking parents what caused their child's autism is like asking a non-technical person why their hard drive crashed. The answer as likely as not will be "I dunno, maybe I've got a virus?" Interesting for investigating the biases of the hapless user, but not a useful diagnosis.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm just surprised that nobody in the study thought to blame living near power lines--unless that's an "environmental factor".
Hypothesis: The incidence of autism is higher because children aren't being allowed to eat enough dirt. Exposure to more microorganisms when young strengthens the immune system. There exists a microbe (virus, perhaps) as-yet-uncharacterized that causes autism. (This happens sometimes with diseases. For example, most stomach ulcers are caused by the bacterium h. pylori and can often be cured with antibiotic therapy. This fact only came to light very recently, after decades of assuming that ulcers were essentially untreatable.) Children's weaker immune systems don't fight this pathogen as effectively as they used to, so they develop autism more frequently.
Solution: Feed all young children dirt.
This hypothesis actually has about as much grounding as many of the other suggested causes of autism. Based on very weak evidence, some parents have started to avoid immunizing their children, putting them at much greater risk for measles and other potentially deadly diseases. Bless the internet and its unquestioned authority on medicine.
~Idarubicin
Some forms of autism make one not like to be around people. I wonder if I have some of that. People who talk too much about non-geek things drive me crackers. Some people just cannot shuddup. My mom, for example, can stretch a 2-minute story into a 20-minute one by providing details that are useless to the story, but I cannot tell her off because she is my mom. She is the reader's digest in reverse.
Mild autism may be what makes a lot of geeks geeks. You never know.
Table-ized A.I.
So this is what happens when all those parents spend too much time reading /. and sucking up monitor radiation!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
California is no where near as polluted as it used to be. There are many other areas of the US which are substantially worse (Houstan, Atlanta). In addition, if it were an issue of pollution, you'd see substantial differences in Southern California, where smog hangs over the city, and the San Francisco Bay Area, where the prevailing winds blow most of the smog eastward.
The cake is a pie
"...will have to suffer their entire lives as unattractive and anti-social."
Austism has no connection with how you look. In some cases there may be other complications from the autistic person, such as downs, but that's a whole differnt disorder.
"It's nothing more than just an enhanced perception of life"
I can't really blame you for thinking of Rainman or other similar cases when thinking of autism, but to think that the average person is made better by this disorder is kind of ignorant. In most cases, it's not only a person's social development that is slowed/stopped/messed up. In fact, their cognative levels are supressed throughout their life.
Be a man! View at -1
acm.cs.uwec.edu
There is some pretty compelling evidence that gluten, a grain protein, triggers autism. Many parents of formerly autistic (!) children swear that a gluten-free diet "cured" their child's autism.
For some unknown reason the medical/scientific community has been very resistant to studying this phenomenon.
-Peter
If you think autism is "an enhanced perception of life," you are terribly misinformed.
Please, go spend some time with autistic children. Between your comments, those about "California hypochondriacs", and about evolution(!?), I am surprised at the level of ignorance about this disease. It is a profound illness, not just lonely smart kids. Not even close.
Flat5
Could I suggest that people who are really interested about vaccines consult references on both sides of the story? Or even read something based on facts, on scientific methods, peer-reviewed (scientific publications in refereed journals)?
/.! Never mind. ;-)
Oh, wait, this is
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
However, there is no shortage of theories to explain the surge in autism. There are two of them that seem to deserve some research:
- Autism is caused by mercury (thimerosal) in vaccines.
- Autism is caused by methylmercury in fish, when eaten during pregnancy.
The FDA already discourages eating some types of fish during pregnancy (they even publish mercury levels in seafood).I suggest you increase your "experiences" a bit more and read up on autism here.
:-)
Or check this out. It's a list of symptoms from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (commonly referred to as "The DSM IV").
Sure, a lot of us geeks fit the criteria, but one must be very careful to not confuse introversion with autism.
"I have to admit, it's alot of shots these days, and there's clear economic motives for the makers."
Never mind the horrors of death by Polio(you think an autistic childs a problem - try a full body polio cripple), or Tuberculosis, or Measles - the list of truly horrible diseases that killed MILLIONS and were all but eradicated by public vaccination goes on, as do the children saved with vaccinations.
This gluten story is typical of bullshitotherapists. What happens is that *some* people have an intolerance to gluten (I think it's called coelial disease), and their body reacts badly to it, with very different symptoms from person to person.
It happens that, among those few people who have this disorder, the symptoms can look like ADHD or Autism. But those persons do not have ADHD or Autism, they really have gluten intolerance! The problem is that, IIRC, this disorder is pretty difficult to diagnose, and since it's quite rare, and as a result of the confusing symptoms, most of the victims are not properly treated.
Now here comes the bullshitotherapist stupidity: blame ADHD and Autism on gluten. Et voila!
But yeah, if you suffer from this gluten problem, and you stop eating gluten altogether, the symptoms will usually go away; now the difference is that psychostimulants won't do a thing to those people: they will still have the ADHD-like symptoms. Conversely, people with real ADHD won't get any benefit from removing gluten from their diet, they'll just waste a lot of their time.
The evidence is becoming very persuasive that immunizations do bear a large portion of the blame.
Wrong. The Wakefield study that was the first to suggest a link has come under serious methodological criticism.
The most recent study (Taylor, 1999) showed the following:
1. The authors showed that the number of ASD cases has been increasing since 1979, with no jump after the introduction of the MMR vaccine in 1988.
2. The authors found that children who were vaccinated before 18 months of age were diagnosed with autism at ages similar to children who were vaccinated after 18 months of age, indicating that the vaccination did not result in earlier expression of ASD characteristics.
3. The authors discovered that at age two, the MMR vaccination coverage among ASD cases was nearly identical to vaccination coverage of children in the same birth cohorts in the whole region, providing evidence of a lack of overall association between the ASD and the vaccination.
4. Taylor and colleagues established that the first diagnosis of autism or initial signs of behavioral regression were not more likely to occur within time periods following MMR vaccination than during other time periods. However, parental concern clustered at six months post-vaccination.
5. The results of the study were similar when cases of classical autism were analyzed separately.
See the National Vaccine Information Center [909shot.com] for some good articles on links to this and other complications.
Also note the paranoid quotes of the founder:
". . . If the State can tag, track down and force citizens against their will
to be injected with biologicals of unknown toxicity today,
there will be no limit on what individual freedoms the State can take away
in the name of the greater good tomorrow."
- Barbara Loe Fisher, Co-Founder NVIC
The following data is lifted directly from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/autism/au
Epidemiologic studies have shown no relationship between MMR vaccination in children and development of autism:
* In 1997, the National Childhood Encephalopathy Study (NCES) was examined to see if there was any link between measles vaccine and neurological events. The researchers found no indication that measles vaccine contributes to the development of long-term neurological damage, including educational and behavioral deficits (Miller et al., 1997).
* A study by Gillberg and Heijbel (1998) examined the prevalence of autism in children born in Sweden from 1975-1984. There was no difference in the prevalence of autism among children born before the introduction of the MMR vaccine in Sweden and those born after the vaccine was introduced.
* In 1999, the British Committee on Safety of Medicines convened a "Working Party on MMR Vaccine" to conduct a systematic review of reports of autism, gastrointestinal disease, and similar disorders after receipt of MMR or measles/rubella vaccine. It was concluded that the available information did not support the posited associations between MMR and autism and other disorders.
* Taylor and colleagues (1999) studied 498 children with autism in the UK and found the age at which they were diagnosed was the same regardless of whether they received the MMR vaccine before or after 18 months of age or whether they were never vaccinated. Importantly, the first signs or diagnoses of autism were not more likely to occur within time periods following MMR vaccination than during other time periods. Also, there was no sudden increase in cases of autism after the introduction of MMR vaccine in the UK. Such a jump would have been expected if MMR vaccine was causing a substantial increase in autism.
* Kaye and colleagues (2001) assessed the relationship between the risk of autism among children in the UK and MMR vaccine. Among a subgroup of boys aged 2-5 years, the risk of autism increased almost 4 fold from 1988 to 1993, while MMR vaccination coverage remained constant at approximately 95% over these same years.
* Researchers in the U.S. found that among children born between 1980 and 1994 and enrolled in California kindergartens, there was a 373% relative increase in autism cases, though the relative increase in MMR vaccine coverage by the age of 24 months was only 14% (Dales et al., 2001). For more on this study, see California Data on Theory of Autism and MMR Immunization.
* Researchers in the UK (Frombonne & Chakrabarti, 2001) conducted a study to test the idea that a new form, or "new variant," of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) exists. This new variant IBD has been described as a combination of developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms occurring shortly after MMR immunization. Information on 96 children (95 immunized with MMR) who were born between 1992 and 1995 and were diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder were compared with data from 2 groups of autistic patients (one group of 98 born before MMR was ever used and one group of 68 who were likely to have received MMR vaccine). No evidence was found to support a new syndrome of MMR-induced IBD/autism. For instance, the researchers found that there were no differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated groups with regard to when their parents first became concerned about their child's development. Similarly, the rate of developmental regression reported in the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups was not different; therefore, there was no suggestion that developmental regression had increased in frequency since MMR was introduced. Of the 96 children in the first group, no inflammatory bowel disorder was reported. Furthermore, there was no association found between developmental regression and gastrointestinal symptoms.
* Another group of researchers in the UK (Taylor et al., 2002) also examined whether MMR vaccination is associated with bowel problems and developmental regression in children with autism, looking for evidence of a "new variant" form of IBD/autism. The study included 278 cases of children with autism and 195 with atypical autism (cases with many of the features of childhood autism but not quite meeting the required criteria for that diagnosis, or with atypical features such as onset of symptoms after the age of 3 years). The cases included in this study were born between 1979 and 1998. The proportion of children with developmental regression or bowel symptoms did not change significantly from 1979 to 1988, a period which included the introduction of MMR vaccination in the UK in 1988. No significant difference was found in rates of bowel problems or regression in children who received the MMR vaccine before their parents became concerned about their development, compared with those who received it only after such concern and those who had not received the MMR vaccine. The findings provide no support for an MMR associated "new variant" form of autism and further evidence against involvement of MMR vaccine in autism.
There was this kid who, as he got older, never spoke. His parents took him to doctors, specialists, psychiatrists, all to no avail. In ever other way, he seemed normal. This continued until his 10th birthday, when one night at dinner, he said "These beans are cold".
His overjoyed parents asked "if you can talk, why haven't you said anything before?"
He replied "Up to now, everything's been ok".
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
My grandparents had their kids at 16, my parents had me around 20-22, my wife and I are 29-27 respectively. We haven't had children yet because we want to wait for things to become financially stable (we want our kids to have a good home)
:)
Out of all the factors in the article, it didn't seem to touch too much on the age factor. I read somewhere once that older parents can lead to all sorts of abnormalities with pregnancy. Could it be age is playing a role here?
There are a lot of similiar couples/singles my wife and I know, they're slowly approaching 30's, no children yet. Compared with our parents who all had thier kids in their 20's we're a bit behind
It seems that the older we have children, the more that can go wrong. Silicon valley is a tough place to live (financially) and the burden of buying a house here and paying the bills has made alot of my friend put off having children till their 30's. It's an enviromentally prompted response to make sure we give our successive generation a strong foothold in life.
I think the answer is as simple as, people in silicon valley have children at an older age, therefore more autistic children are born as a result.
Interestingly, the test result interpretation key says: Scores over 32 are generally taken to indicate Asperger's Syndrome or high-functioning autism, with more than 34 an "extreme" score. A "normal" score, based on control groups, is about 16 (or 15 for women and between 17 and 18 for men). A group of mathematics-contest winners scored an average of 24.5. A group of scientists scored an average of 18.5 (19 for men, 17 for women), with computer scientists at about 21, physicists at 19 and those in biology or medicine at about 15.
The Globe and Mail (Saturday October 19, 2002) has a related article (with the title given in the subject line) in print and online.
They even have an "AQ" test to see where you are on the "autism spectrum".
I'm not sure I share the enthusiasm some of the quoted experts have for the idea that a number of talented people are having children with "good genes", which is causing this recent increase in autistic behaviour. Even assuming that exteme talent implies retarded social skills, I find it hard to believe that the basic talent it takes to write code, train users and invent documentation is extreme enough to warrant this kind of musing.
Add to that the skepticism I have for anything as complex as social interaction and family having a measurable genetic quality...
Good read nonetheless.
-- clvrmnky
So, what might cause Asthma (Which may be leveling off as we speak), childhood Diabetes, increased incidence of autoimmune disorders and cancer, and increased incidence of autism?
It isn't vaccines! The science doesn't stand up. If you think it's vaccines, we'll agree to disagree, okay?
I blame the chlorinated carbon molecule.
Organochlorines have been absent from the earth, in any appreciable amounts, since before the appearance of multicelled life. They are immensely stable, but nothing natural creates them - for energetic reasons, they are purely synthetic. They have unique (powerful, TOXIC) chemistry that we can "exploit but never control", in the words of Pandora's Poison author Shalini Ramanathan. This is an excellent book if you're interested in which feature of our 20th century lifestyle is raising disease incidences.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I remember a very old 2-3 year slashdot news article mentioning this. It is no longer online. Basically a women did a study with nerdy and brilliant computer geniuses and mathematicians to find out if they are autistic to a mild degree. Turns out she discovered a separate syndrome which is in the mild autism category.
For the geeks reading this:
1.) Do you find certain social situations difficult or awkward?
2.) Do you feel out of place sometimes?
3.) Do you have bizarre certain interests that no on cares about? *computers cough cough
4.) Do you feel smart in certain area's but lack knowledge sometimes of other different area's?
5.) Do you find expressing emotions difficult even though you have them?
6.) Do you feel yourself to be somewhat clumsy ?
7.) As a kid did you feel more interested in complex things like science or weather rather then playing GI joe ?
8.) Do you find yourself to be somewhat compulsive?
Chances are you may be mildly autistic
Autism and its related aspergers syndrome is very complex. Its different then mental retardation and is hard to describe. I know because I have aspergers which is a mild variant of autism and have an IQ of 122.
I have both conditions that match autism and aspergers so I am unique. For example I can easily handle most social situations but I am clumsy and have poor eye and hand coordination. To this day I can not play a piano with two hands. The mechanism in the brain that divides the signals to my hands does not work properly. My left hand will play the rhythm of my right and my right would play the rhythms of my left. In complex situations like in relationships, I can notice my difficulties. I do not do well when women are not real direct about how they feel. Why do women do this?
As a kid I fell into the autism category but as I grew up I become less and less autistic. I use to daydream at school and go into my own world whenever the teacher wasn't looking. I no longer do this. I can do things today that I could not do a decade ago. Its weird and I can not explain it but I guess maybe my brain is re-wiring itself. I have brilliant in some area's but falter in others. Especially anything doing with 3d-space or mathematics. However I am great with logic and programming which uses the same area's of the brain.
http://saveie6.com/
However, it is possible that a milder expression of the same genes does have advantages, ala tech centers. Think sickle-cell anemia, where one gene gives you malaria resistantance, but two make you very sick.
So clearly, the answer to stopping the spread of this Autism is to mandate that every geek coder in Silicon Valley must mate with a supermodel who has no math or technical skills whatsoever. They must not mate with other geeks, but only with those who get paid to wear their underwear on stage. This is absolutely necessary for the survival of intelligence and technology in our country! So please models, take one for the team!
Some people have found gluten-free diets successful in helping autistic children.
The whole gluten-intolerance area is *way* behind other areas of research; hopefully someday there will be more discoveries that can help both conditions (especially autism).
Rather than slashdotting a specific site, I'll just mention that a google search for "gluten intolerance" and autism has a lot of related sites and articles.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I'm sorry, but how can any Autism study say there's a 273% increase in Autsim and not take into account that the DIAGNOSTIC RULES CHANGED IN 1994?
The DSM-IV came out in 1994 and significantly broadened the diagnostic criteria for Autism. In my not so humble opinion, this has to have contributed directly to the 273% number the UCD study spouts.
My 3-year-old son was diagnosed with Autism last year. There are a huge number of "autistic traits" scattered through out my family. I have no doubt that if born today, I would have been diagnosed on the "autism spectrum", my father certainly would have been, as well as two of my nephews and quite likely my sister.
As it is, we were simply called "different" or "challenging" or "problematic". "Autism" was reserved for the likes of "Rainman".
The study (at least as it's being reported) is invalid. There has not been a 273% increase in Autism, there has been a 273% percent increase in the Autism cases being diagnosed.
One of the implicit themes I see here that has not gotten much open discussion is that of being smarter than other people, both as a kid and afterwards. This notion seems very deeply embedded in geek culture, and is tightly bound up the sense of alienation that seems so prevalent here. For some reason, being "smarter" than other kids seems to set one in the direction of alienting narcissism.
As Jay Matthews, a very well-spoken education columnist for the Washington Post puts it in a piece on college interviews:
This is some of this wisest advice I can imagine giving a teenager. First of all the notion of being "smarter" than other people is suspect - you have to define smart in a very narrow way to believe that. Or put another way, there sure are a lot of "dumb jerks" out there who seem to be able to accomplish many of their life goals. Are they "smart"? Who cares, they're getting what they're after.
None of this is to contest the more knowledgeable points of view on autism or Asperger's, but simply to point out that there's a pretty strong link between alienation and one-dimensional estimations of intelligence (see the work of Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences, and to encourage everyone in this very intellectual crowd, particularly those raising children (saw a couple disturbing posts of 40+ somethings who really think they're smarter than most others) to look hard at what it means to be smart, and at the consequences of teaching a child to be a particular kind of smart.
Many forms of Autism are related to the link between both sides of the brain. People with less connections (or less effective connections -- which is a different problem) tend to be geeks. The other end of the spectrum seems are the socialites. Thouse with low levels of cross conects tend to be able to focus on a problem on one side of the brain but are hopeless for problems that require both. Men typicaly have fewer cross connects than women. A high level of cross connects are very importaint for verbal communication of ideas (and they play a part in strange moodyness as well).
If your mother's father was an Engineer, your very likly to be a geek if your male. When you throw this into a social context, you will find that most of the women who like hanging around with geeks, have a geeky father or or gradfather. This means they have the gene for this and have become conditioned to the "different" level of communication. If a geek breeds with a woman who has the gene, a geeky child is very likly. Its standard genetics and it explains why the best geeks of all time had a very short line of decendants.