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Possible Cure For Autism
Henry V .009 writes "Scientists in New Jersey are claiming that children with autism are unable to metabolize key fatty acids that fight brain-damaging inflammations. They have already developed urine/blood tests to identify at-risk children. A preventive cure to autism may be as simple as a 'therapeutic cocktail' of fatty acids. Human trials could start later this year."
... definitely, definitely.
What will happen now to the legions of slashdotters who claim to suffer from autism/aspergers ? How can i relate to Knuth now? I'm doomed.
I guess all those "high functioning aspergers" people on the Internet are going to finally realize they don't have some excuse anymore when it turns out they don't have autism at all.
This is great. It's about time they tied this down to something that can be tested for so the people with real problems can get help, and all the Internet whiners can learn to deal with life instead of always searching for a cop-out.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Hey kids!!! Eat your cookies!
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Drink some funky oil cocktail and give up my hugbox? Fuck that, let's get outta here Bram!
Trolling is a art,
So, my daily diet of fried chicken and beefaroni is responsible for me being somewhat social lately? People just said it was bad for me.
It can be very hard living with Asperger's Syndrome. This is particulary evident when you have to keep many variables in your mind at once such as in any typical programming or scripting Let's go ride BICYCLES!!
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Bombay Gibson, sweet.
Make it a double.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
it won't cure autism. It sounds like the treatment would prevent the brain from being damaged, not that it would reverse any existing damage, for everyone with The Geek Syndrome.
"Scud Storm!" -- Jeremy of PurePwnage.com
*looks down at his waistline*
It would appear I have no problem metabolizing fatty acids. I'm definitely safe.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
I know that spelling, grammar, and punctuation, are lost causes for Slashdot editors, but proper use of quotations is easy. I didn't write the sentence "human trials could start later this year." Nor is it accurate exactly. The only "human trial" starting up later this year is a preliminary study of the effects of fatty acid supplements on autistic children aged 5-7.
Also, I'm not responsible for the story link that pops up a big Printer Dialog when you click it.
There are going to be people vocally declaring that we have no right to "cure" (or prevent, as the case may be) autism, and that it's not a disease. At the same time, others will insist that we should do everything in our power to mitigate the effects of autism, which can be quite formidable...I myself know a family friend a year younger than me who has pretty severe autism, he lives in a group home, but he plays the piano like a concert pianist (and has since he was 12) as well as being completely bilingual. He is quite intelligent but really can't function independently in society. I'm going to reserve judgement on this until the trials are completed and the results are in, but I can promise that there is going to be a HUGE amount of controversy over this.
Now they need to find a cure for printer dialogs.
'Same speed C but faster'
You're an idiot, and need to have your tinfoil hat adjusted.
Oh great. Now we'll have another drug to dope our kids up on. I predict an increase in the diagnoses of autism in children as soon as this gets marketed.
"Drink your fatty acid cocktail, dear, your psychiatrist has a new BMW to pay for..."
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Caveat: I don't know anyone with full blown autism or have much experience with anyone like that. I do, however, know a large number of people with asperger syndrome, which is often considered the low end of the autism spectrum. People with autism often have amazing abilities. They have social problems, to be sure, but if we offer people the ability to prevent/cure autism, then it will be difficult to do any research on the subject, and honestly, what's more important than how to improve the capacity of the human mind?
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Autism can't be caused by brain inflammations, it is already caused by your grandmother being raped by a Neanderthal (literal)!
Please stop spreading this lie. You are killing people by convincing them to avoid vaccination. It is more likely a result of trans-fats in food. Or a new neurological virus caused by sexual promiscuity (cerebral herpes maybe). How do I know these things? Well, both have increased at the same time as rates of autism. And, both can get a rise out of people by making them feel abused by others or powers at be.
And that, is the Modern Scientific Method.
You would sing a different tune if your child contracted polio or smallpox and died.
Freaking moron.
Stop trolling.
English is easier said than done.
Well if they didn't create diseases then what would the growth potential be once they cured everything? You have to think of the stockholders! They have more money than the children anyway.
I think they're coming out with a chickenpox vaccine...now that's a bad idea. Kids sick for a week, then immune, or vaccinate everyone wait a generation for a serious outbreak...
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
It's about time we start curing stuff like this, with all the tech we have I think that a whole lot of diseases and conditions are going to be cured soon. (but lets just hope that the new tech doesn't cause new health issues)
I'd like to see the data you refer to in the last paragraph of your post. I'm certain the reactions to, say, the polio vaccine are _far_ worse than polio itself. Don't paint "all vaccinations" with a broad brush if you have concerns with a specific vaccine--you'll get labeled as a loon and for good reason. What about flu vaccination for the elderly? Do you oppose that, too?
Also, here is a link that contains information that should do a lot to refute your hypothesized link between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. I'd like to see the Danish studies to which they refer--I'm a little disappointed they didn't provide a link.
I'm not fond of the big pharmaceutical companies, either--but please don't paint conspiracies where are are none. You're discrediting people who are interested in the legitimate concerns about Pharma (things like marketing drugs to consumers).
Here's an informative Slate article on why there's no autism epidemic:
http://www.slate.com/id/2157496/
Essentially it boils down to the fact that correlation does not equal causation. Then, when you look at history, you see there isn't really any correlation at all!
I was going to mod this down, because much of what you say is not true. But simply modding you down doesn't correct the misinformation present.
... and just as I've previewed, I see that you've been modded as a troll. I don'k know that's totally fair, but there you go.
There is no medical evidence that vaccinations cause autism. In particular, the MMR vaccination is given at around 3 years old, which is when autism starts to show, because expected neurological functioning does not develop. But the autism has been there all along! Correlation is not causation!
There is more autism around now because the diagnostic criteria has been refined and expanded into groups. Aspergers, for example, are counted as austistic because it falls within the autism spectrum, although a high-functioning autistic person (ie. aspergers) is quite capable of living a full, productive life.
The growing numbers of autistic and ADD and ADHD children can be attributed bad parenting and unreal expectations. Every child is special and above average - that's what we want to believe. Unfortunately, not every child is above average. There are equally numbers of above average children as there are below average children - it's called the Bell curve. If you put a below average child into a high average class, they may not be able to comprehend the work, and thus exhibit bad behaviour, which leads to a diagnosis of ADHD and then a course of Ritilin. Now, that is overly simplistic and is not meant to deny that there are ADHD suffers out there. But the vast bulk are not.
Given ADHD, above, it's not too big a step to see that a child who keeps to themselves and is quite; well they can't possibly be normal, therefore autism.
Now that I've had my rant. I'll be off...
IIRC, there was a film about this years ago. Can't remember the actress' name, might have been Meryl Streep??? Basically this mom didn't want the doctors to tell her nothing could be done, so she found some info blah blah and in the end started feeding the kid crisco or some such and all turned out better for the kid?
Does anyone else remember this? It was a made for tv type movie.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
If Autism is caused by mercury why has a gene recently been found that correlates highly? Why does a vaccine "transform" one child (anecdotally) but not affect anyone else in the class?
How many other growth trends have been occurring while the rates of autism have been growing? Global warming? The strength of the Japanese economy? The price of oil?
Leave the "A mother's story: We must fight against the growth of the Japanese economy for my special little autistic Suzy" stories to geocities please, and leave medicine to the pharmacologists (who recently discovered a key genetic link).
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
Now I think about it, psychiatry doesn't sound like such a bad career choice after all.
Actually, I don't think they'd vaccinate only once a generation. You'd give it to the kids as they reach some pre-defined age, therefore giving them immunity. It would be a continuous process, like getting DTP vaccine, (diptheria, tetnus, polio), etc etc.
I just heard a lecture on this subject today, so I can assure you that there has *NEVER* been any reputable study that showed a link between autism and childhood vaccinations. The entire argument is based on a post-hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: children get their vaccinations while around 1 years old, and the first signs of autism are noticeable about 6 months later, therefore the vaccinations cause autism.
What have the studies shown?
1) There is no difference in the rates of autism between vaccinated and un-vaccinated children.
2) Rates of autism have increased even though thimerosal was removed from the vaccines.
3) The increased rate of autism diagnosis is due to better identification and broader criteria, not due to a new cause.
Regardless, this has generated so much controversy that thimerosal has been removed from nearly all vaccines.
Don't get me wrong: vaccines do have a risk associated with them. But as far as the best science shows, autism is not one of them.
The worst thing in psychopaths like the GP is that they tend to be ACs not only on slashdot. Usually people with views like that are child molesters, or they spank homosexuals, or do some other stupid acts while covering as role model citizens, and here at slashdot they troll as ACs because they are not man enough to assume their opinions.
Your ad could be here!
A study showed that Denmark used the same Themarisol-based vaccination with nowhere near the levels of autism in the US. This is nonsense.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Lorenzo's Oil? But I am no fatty acid expert.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
"key fatty acids" = aka Fish Oil/Cod Liver Oil = Essential Fatty Acids
As a parent of a child with autism who follows the DAN! protocal EFAs are essential to my son's progress. He takes a daily dose of fish oil. This is nothing new or great or even a "cure"....for those of us parents who are working on recovering our children this has been around for a while.
In fact EVERYONE can benefit from a daily dose. Its much better than the cod liver oil of the past, many are flavored now or in gel cap form, my entire family takes them and we're better off for it.
The autism-vaccine connection was 'research'
purchased by a law firm for almost a million dollars.
"The sad thing is, if you actually compare the data for most diseases for which children are vaccinated, the extreme negative side effects (caused by the drugs / shots, even if only in a small percentage of children) are so, so much worse than if the kid contracts the disease in the first place. Plus, vaccinations produce immunity that is not passed on to your offspring (by mothers), so vaccinations eff with nature's own process of protecting our offspring. Instead, if a child fights an illness naturally, their body will build a natural immunity and their immune system in general will be much better at doing what it's supposed to do - keep the kid healthy."
ROFLMAO. I started laughing at the point you said 'so much worse than if the kid contracts the disease in the first place'. Now, what is the rate of autism? 1 in 100. From vaccination, we have wiped out smallpox, polio, diptheria from Australia. Do you have any clue of the rates of getting diptheria/polio are in other countries? India, one of the remaining countries still trying to complete a immunisation program against the disease has DISABLED 20 million people in the country. Polio by itself has had a greater than 1% rate in the population there.
Imagine what life would be like without immunisation having eradicated smallpox. The estimate of the number of people who died from smallpox in the 20th century was 300-500 million people.
You go and live in your dream world of no immunisation-I imagine that you'd find the world a lot less pleasant than the current one. The rest of us would far rather live in a world where EVERYBODY is immunised, so that such diseases will eventually be eradicated.
THANK YOU! (Someone please mod parent all the way up!)
After my son was born, I had concerns about thimerosol as a preservative in various vaccines. The way I looked at it, mercury is a known neurotoxin, and I'd rather not introduce it into his system if I could help it. I had concerns. I didn't know the differences between methyl mercury and ethyl mercury (nor do I know much more now as I'm not a chemist, but those articles were helpful).
Shockingly, my wife's OB didn't know squat about my questions, or even what thimerosol was. Our pediatrician, while very good with most everything, was likewise ignorant and somewhat dismissive of my concerns. I'm happy to read any scientific material to help me make my decision, and this stuff would have been a huge help. But in my state of ignorance (at the time), I went ahead with all the vaccines but crossed my fingers, the shadow of doubt far in the back of my mind.
Why can't OBs, GPs and Peds be more informed on this kind of stuff? Oi! I felt when I said the word "thimerosol" I was getting funny looks. I wondered if I knew more (albeit misinformed) than the doc on this topic, and found that alarming.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
We all know where this will lead us
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Obligatory claim of relevance: I am a pediatrician with developmental training. I am also the parent of a teenager with severe autism. It is my informed (but not omniscient) opinion that the odds that this is anything other than a complete red herring are too small to measure accurately.
We will begin with the obvious problem that they are treating autism as a single disorder. We don't know a great deal about the spectrum, but we certainly know that autistic symptoms can be found in a large number of discrete conditions. "Autism" is probably a final common pathway of subtle neurologic failure, and the idea that a single enzyme is associated has been discredited repeatedly. In fact, every time we think we've found "the" cause, more research shows us that we have found, at most, "a" cause, and usually not one that is common. Fragile X syndrome, Rett's syndrome, and others were all previously lumped in as "autism", and I don't think we're done finding things.
The next obvious problem is that if we indeed have a single liposomal storage disease causing most or all autism, you would find it with brain biopsy and/or MRI. We have not found this. You would expect other commonalities as well, since failures of fat metabolism generally have organ impacts outside the brain. We have not found these. I would be unsurprised to discover that there is a rare disorder of this sort with autistic symptoms present, but it means nothing for the vast majority of individuals with autism.
Don't get me wrong - I would give the rest of my life willingly if it would cure my son. I will be grateful beyond words if this works. But it won't, any more than secretin did when it was the last great hope for autism. I have learned much in the fifteen years of my son's life, and the thing I have learned most is that people who claim to have "the cure for autism" are lying. Not always in an evil fashion, and not necessarily knowingly, but they are saying something that is not true.
You know people may actually listen to you if you take the little boy's dick out of your mouth.
You're right, and I feel that the anti-vaccination people are both crazy and dangerous, but you should probably pick some other disease instead of smallpox, which hasn't been a routine vaccination for the citizenry of the US since 1972. Maybe diphtheria or hepatitis B? :)
Thimerosal has been virtually eliminated in childhood vaccines in the US, yet we see no decline in autism rates. A large scale Danish study http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/ full/112/3/604/ persuasively argued that there was no link between autism rates and Thimerosal. As in the US, they found that the elimination of thimerosal had no effect on the rate of autism. What causes autism? Hell if I know, but it sure doesn't seem that thimerosal does.
You know nothing about autism.
It's not bad parenting -- or wouldn't all my kids be autistic? Was I all of a sudden a bad parent with my youngest, rendering him completely unable to speak?
His neurologist, developmental pediatrician, occupational therapist, speech therapist, the social workers, the audiologist, all wrong. They testing, the analysis, everything out the window. My son would be able to speak if I was a better parent -- like the parent I was to my eldest who spoke at 9 months.
Autism is more than just bad social habits and shyness, or lining a bunch of toys up. For some children, it is a very debilitating illness. My son may never live an independent life. Yes my other two children will. So explain to me what my parenting has to do with all this?
Ok, I'll bite.
How much more evidence of trans-fat induced mental illness can you provide than currently exists showing that mercury is a known, proven poison for developing brains? Seriously, one question. That's it. Every doctor on the planet will tell you that mercury is toxic. What evidence exists showing that trans-fats have anything to do with autism? Or brain development?
It's rather suprising how nobody seems to question doctors, pharmacos, or the drones of citizens who read a fucking marketing brochure and think all of their problems are solved with a magical pill or shot. What the hell happened to critical thinking?
Look, as kids in the 80s (or earlier) everyone received a handful of shots, and this was drastically increased around 1990 to be way more than 3 shots. The FDA references citing tolerable amounts of mercury are talking about ONE SHOT. They do not discuss taking that tolerable amount and multiplying it for each shot the kid gets, which results in 4x or 8x or whatever.
Seriously, you think transfats are what's turned a 1 in 2,500 autism rate into 1 in 100 in 10 years? And that mercury in most vaccines and shots has nothing to do with it?
Why is parent getting modded 'troll' and 'flamebait'? This seems to be an example of the bad habit of modding down people that the modder disagees with. P presents a sane and reasonable argument, and backs it up with references. FWIW, my opinion is that he and his references are dead wrong, but his style does not deserve the negative mods.
If you disagree with P strongly enough to mod him down, it would be better to reply and tell him why he is mistaken.
Please save the negative mods for people who actually lower the level of discourse, not for those who are in error.
That was a good theory, but they pulled the mercury out of childhood vaccines back in 2000 and it hasn't helped. If the thimerisol was causing autism, we should be seeing almost no new cases now that it's seven years later. Unfortunately, that's not the case. Yeah, the increase over the past few decades points to an environmental factor. But thimerisol is looking like a worse and worse candidate every day.
They also take care of the largest population of patients with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, where the people self mutilate themselves, biting off their lips/tongues,fingers, etc. They often have most of their teeth prophylatically extracted to prevent bodily harm. What's worse is that they know when they are about to start doing it, and will ask for help to be restrained.
New Jersey is also the state with the most Nobel prize laureates (although, I'm not sure about that now, since a few died).
..........FULL STOP.
But why am i even replying? You are obviously trolling.
As noted above, you're proceeding from the faulty assumption that vaccines are only utilized for a limited period of time. Some vaccinations are maintained in use pretty much permanently, like MMR, DTP, and others.
Additionally, it's well and good that children who get chicken pox are only sick for a short time and very rarely have long-term problems from the disease, but take a look over yonder and find out some more before you dismiss it as being no big deal. Specifically, it notes that even amongst children, about one in ten who contract the disease will suffer complications serious enough to see a doctor, and, yes, it's possible for chicken pox to kill. Why take the chance if people can be vaccinated against it?
--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.
Sorry, no links.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I am not advocating the mercury link. However, IIRC the theory is that about 0.4% of the population has a genetic defect
that makes them more susceptible to mercury and those are the people who are affected by the mercury in the vaccine.
There was some deaf kid, and when doctors discovered that his hearing could be restored surgically, the deaf community freaked right out. Apparently some people have started to think of deafness as some wonderful gift that makes them unique and special, rather than as the hideous disability that it really is.
I've even started hearing about people who regard Down's syndrome as a legitimate form of Human variability, rather than as a compelling argument in favour of offering all pregnant middle-aged women free abdominocentesis and karyotyping.
Speaking as someone who has a disability (APD in this case), anyone who would try to force children to live with a disability despite the availability of treatment is someone that is in desperate need of a bullet-related attitude-adjustment. Forcing a child to live their lives without a sense of hearing, or with autistism, or with any other treatable disability, is truely criminal.
As a parent of a child with autism, I can definently tell you that the rising cases of autism is not due to parent's with high expectations or misdiagnosis. Try reading the DSM-IV guidelines and you may get a better idea of the traits involved in a child with autism. The explosion of autism diagnosis today usually falls in the area of spectral or ASL. My son was diagnosed with this and he actually quite social. Kids don't really want to play with him when he is babbling and waving his hands in their face. He has actually gotten alot better at not doing that but he struggles everyday to stay focused and learn. He perseverates on pirates and is barely learning his letters/numbers at the age of 7. He can't keep eye contact for more than a second and I have to constantly and patiently repeat instructions to him.
The problem with autism is that there is no single cause or traits. The DSM-IV does an okay job at trying to categorize the different types of disabilities associated with "autism" but IMO, it is very early in what we actually know about this disease. In the end we could see that there are many contributing factors and disorders that stem from the general disorder label. As someone who deals with it first hand, I am not ruling out vaccination and neither is a majority of the autism community. Our geneticist has ruled out the disorder as being genetically passed but my wife did get an MMR before we knew she was pregnant during first trimester. The fact alone that newborns are basically given a multiple vaccine cocktail that induces high temperatures in the recipient does give pause for thought. I don't think vaccines are the sole reason for this explosion in diagnosis, but I am not going to disregard it either. It hasn't been the first time that the science community has missed the mark on something like this (eg. Asperger's was originally thought to be associated with unresponsive parents.) I wouldn't attribute the explosion to irresponsible diagnosis either. It took 3 years for me and my wife to actually label our child as "autistic." In fact, many educators try to avoid the diagnosis, because admitting it means that the child is entitled to more therapy in their IEP. As someone who has battled the school system for years, I have seen it first hand.
It really pisses me off when people make these armchair science assessments about such complex and involved issues like autism. Googling autism and doing an hour research will not give you an understanding about the problem. Try actually talking to parents of children with autism or the doctors that specialize in it, and maybe then you can make some comment of value.
As a bitter ex-UMDNJ employee, I am glad these guys actually had the money to carry out there research. Our project involving AIDS and children was shutdown as a cost-saving measure because of the various and sundry financial scandals at that hellhole. Bully for them.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
While I don't agree with the asshat who responded to your original post, I will tell you this. My son displayed the signs of autism far before his two year shots (typically the ones autism is blamed on). Your assessment that it has to be "caused" rather than genetic is flawed.
It took me quite a while to come to grips with the fact that my son has this condition. I've also done a lot of thinking on why so many kids today are being diagnosed with it as opposed to twenty years ago and the answer came from my Mother of all people. She saw nothing wrong with my son. "He's just a little behind" she said. "Your brother didn't start speaking until he was almost three" she said.
Explaining away the condition as some medical conspiracy is ignorance at its finest. Perhaps in the future you should study a little more and get a little more experience with topics you feel you need to comment so strongly on before you make such absurd statements (and no, the internet, while fun, is not the best place to learn if you're looking for facts).
While I appreciate the fact that you took five minutes out of your day to give the matter some thought and you decided that in your limited experience you've never heard of or seen anything that would lead you to believe autism was anything more than mercury poisoning, I'll have to side with the researchers and the doctors and the therapists I've spoken with who have actual years of experience dealing with children afflicted by this condition.
Just because you'd never heard of it in such numbers before doesn't mean they weren't there. They were simply explained away, ignored, or treated quietly while the rest of society went about its business. Not understanding a disease is not the same as it not existing.
For the record, there is now a vaccine for varicella (chickenpox) and they are already requiring it in some areas before children can start school.
Complete and utter bullshit. There is zero scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism.
Your 1 in 100 statistic is also complete fabrication.
Fucking unscientific loon.
The only reason that you are hearing about Autism more today than you did when you were a child is because it's being diagnosed today and it wasn't when you were a child. My uncle is autistic, but since there was no diagnosis when he was growing up people just thought he was weird, antisocial and non-communicative. Especially with neural diseases, it's easy to mis-diagnose as feeble-mindedness (the catch-all diagnosis for a very long time) or some other completely inaccurate nonsense. Oh, and your whole anti-vacinnation rant? Tell that to the kids paralyzed by polio. Oh, wait. There aren't any now. Hmmm...wonder why that could be?
The chickenpox virus doesn't go away after the itching stops. It hides in your nerves, and it can surface many years later in which case the adult version is called "shingles". Shingles is a fucking misery at best, and can cause nerve damage and lasting pain long after the spots are gone. If you get it on your face, it may get into your optic nerve and cause blindness.
There are healthy people with Savant-level mathematical skills. But no one really cares. But in someone with no real personality, someone who doesn't have conversations, someone who doesn't do any of the normal things that we're all used to, the extraordinary skills are the only things left to notice.
It's like walking into an empty white room that has a pornographic magazine sitting on the floor. The magazine will probably be the only thing you notice. But if you walk into a normal teenage boy's bedroom, there could be dozens of pornographics magazines lying around and you'll probably never notice them because your attention is being taken up by a few slices of moldy pizza, mounds of dirty clothes, the poster of Caprica-6 on the wall, the Slayer CD playing at 95 dB, and the precarious tower of empty soda cans that contains enough aluminum to jumpstart a small nation's airplane industry.
The FDA says that most children's vaccines -- and all vaccines for children under 6 -- haven't had more than a trace amount of mercury, if anything, for years. Critically thinking under your assumptions about mercury, one would expect that when the amount of mercury in vaccines dropped to little or nothing several years ago, the incidence rate of autism would have dropped. But they haven't.
Unfortunately, the anti-mercury (I think they're really anti-vaccine, just using the hip reason of the moment) people will then tell you that doctors are still using the old vaccine because they have it lying around. Then, in the bonus round, they'll claim that we're trying to hurt the third world by sending them vaccines with mercury preservative in them (I'll buy that attempts are made to hurt people in the third world, but not in quite so sinister a fashion).
Unfortunately, once an idea like this gains traction, usually promulgated by the media (from news programs to Oprah and all the small stops in between - in this case, mainly from one guy trying to sell his book), it becomes almost impossible to control. This is why many modern myths persist despite reality - one example would be people who still believe that HIV can only be transmitted through homosexual sex. It's often too late to educate these people because the media moves on to some other topic - after all, real science is boring compared to conspiracy theories - and so the believers remain misinformed.
So- of those few vaccines that still contain thimerosal, such as Fluzone (the most I can find in the tables, at 25 micrograms mercury for a 0.5 mL injection), how does that compare with what you eat?
You get twice that much by ingestion from a single gram of chunk white tuna. Or, from the Mercury Calculator, two ounces of canned albacore is 180% of what a 40-pound child should eat in a day.
Of course, injection is very different from ingestion- but the example I give is extreme. After the influenza vaccines, thimerosal levels drop off dramatically- and virtually all use of thimerosal was discontinued years ago.
So stop whining about vaccinating your kids. There are low- and no-thimerosal options for everything but straight TT (tetanus toxin), and you can get your kid stuck for tetanus without thimerosal by using Tdap or another vaccine with a tetanus component. And in another 5 years or so, we'll know for sure if the thimerosal was responsible. Until then, your kids get way more exposure from food, water, and air than vaccines.
And you would feel different when your son stops talking after a MMR shot.
Three years before my son started talking again and after 10 years he has yet to call me Dad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I don't know if it is the mercury or just the stress of having 3 live viruses injected at the same time but I do know that my son changed after getting his second MMR shot. Worst was he knew it was happening as he laid in his crib repeating the couple of dozen words he knew.
Ended up he was just about finished kindergarten before he restarted talking and interestingly after we cut him of of milk.
And he was very frustrated with not talking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
But what if the simple bloodtest comes out and all those people claiming to have autism/aspergers actually DO?
Do you go and cure your entire technology sector?
Get a country with a whole lot more social people, but suddenly no one can hook up a modem?
Again, not saying this is what I think will happen, but it's an interesting idea. Could there be a crisis of no ubergeeks, due to cheap medication to fix them?
I respond to your sigs
...it should have been "Cure for geekhood / nerdism found" since the lighter version of autism is required for geeks and nerds. Just look at allmost all nerd thru history and they clearly display some symptoms of autism.
possibly as there is likely more than one cause or the fact that low-dose mercury poisoning early in life can produce similar symptoms and that certain people may be more genetically disposed to be sensitive to that mercury.
it is highly likely that there are many causes and contributing causes. this specific story was on the news last night and said that this breakthrough could "explain as many as half of autism cases". provided that statement was actual from the finding, what about the other half?
"there is only one disease as complex as autism. it's called cancer."
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Google turned up this page too: Smallpox vaccine failure quotes:
I had teh chicken pox once, with a total of 10 pox - the minimum threshold for being diagnosed with "Chicken Pox". Follow the money, and it'll all make sense. Vaccines are unnecessary for people with healthy immune systems, but Big Pharma can't profiteer on garden products - hence the government mandates.
"Autisim is not a disease. It is part of who you are."
Pretty soon they'll be cured, all right...
Social situations are always going to be a little difficult, but if you are one of these awkward, 'mild Aspergers / autism-spectrum' people, then you can probably do a much better job of fitting in if you put some effort into it.
I was pretty damn awkward in high school, never looking people in the eye, saying weird things in conversation, slouching oddly, etc. But with a few years of work, my behavior is a lot more normal. People feel much more comfortable around me, and I'm somewhat more comfortable around them.
In everyday situations, look at people now and then and try to figure out what they're doing, what you're doing, and how you can emulate them. If you keep at this, and spend just 15-20 minutes a day of practice in front of a mirror, you really can accomplish a lot. It can also help to ask a trusted friend for advice, but this isn't as important as consciousness of your surroundings, and practice.
You can't change your personality in this way -- not that I'd want to -- but it really can help in interacting face-to-face with other people. Of course, it is not easy, it takes continual effort, and I seriously doubt that a program of self-correction would work for someone who is actually autistic.
But I really think that 90% of you Slashdotting Aspergers-syndrome geeks (usually self-diagnosed) are using this condition as an excuse for stop trying. And yeah, it is difficult, but I urge you: get out there, be brave, and try to enrich your life.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. Most definitely not from being below average as far as learning ability, but from actual chemical imbalances in the brain. Ritalin helped. Placebos didn't, in case you're wondering about whether I just thought I was supposed to be doing better. I'm going to go out on a limb, and assume that in most of the other cases where Ritalin helps, and placebos don't, it's an actual problem. Either that, or Ritalin needs to start being marketed as the drug that will kick your IQ up a couple dozen points so that the slow kids in the fast classes can suddenly start comprehending everything.
If anything, my problem was the opposite. Everything was easy for me all throughout my formative years, things like reading at levels in excess of my teachers by 6th grade, and doing math at a grade level three grades higher than the rest of the class starting in second grade when someone noticed I was using an awful lot of my math time looking around, and still had everything done. Of course, my failure to ever bother learning proper study or work habits came back to bite me in the ass when high school hit and work output was more important than just being the smartest guy in the classroom. I ended up graduating in the lower half of my class due to a blend of laziness, procrastination, and a failure to carry out the tasks that were not interesting.
Now, considering that my personal experience can refute so much of what you have said, why on earth would I believe the rest of your statement?
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
It's not "my" hypothesized link between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. Despite the flames I've received from WarCraft addicts on /. tonight, and lots of folks putting words in my mouth, or misquoting me (for example, you yourself quoted me as having written "all vaccinations", which I did not write) there are many, many people - some of them probably smarter than both of us - who suggest links between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. Proof? No. Suggestion? You bet. Any other competing theories that make more sense? Sure, there are other theories, but at best they're only as provable or sensible as thimerosal-autism causation is.
o n/oped/articles/2005/07/01/autism_mercury_and_poli tics/):
I don't see what's so difficult for people to accept: mercury is toxic; toxic things should not go inside your body; if they do, bad things might happen to you. If, as some people suggest, thimerosal (which is ~%50 mercury) causes no health risks to children, why is the FDA working to remove thimerosal from all vaccines? http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimfaq.htm#q3 As an aside, I just spent a few minutes reading the answers to other questions on the FAQ, and I'll be damned if that wasn't written by a team of lawyers. Several of those questions do not have answers, but rather a barf of text that - if you can limp through reading all of it - will probably only confuse you.
Here's something from The Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opini
"Numerous animal, DNA, epidemiological, and other studies point to Thimerosal as a culprit in America's epidemic of neurological disorders. Autistic children have been shown to have higher mercury loads than nonautistics, and there have been reports of significant improvements in some brain-injured children by removing mercury from their brains. Most of the symptoms of autism are similar to the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Scientists have been able to induce autism-like symptoms in mice by exposing them to Thimerosal. A recent study by an FDA scientist, Dr. Jill James, found that many autistic children are genetically deficient in their capacity to produce glutathione, an antioxidant generated in the brain that helps remove mercury from the body."
So the FDA scientist found that some kids can't flush mercury from their bodies as well as others. Why would this matter if mercury weren't a poison that was introduced into their bodies? Of course it matters, which is why the FDA wants thimerosal usage to stop. Most kids get tons of shots and flush the excess mercury without problems, but some of the kids do not flush it and they are negatively affected.
To recap, pharmacos use thimerosal, thimerosal is %50 mercury, mercury is toxic, some kids cannot flush mercury like others, mercury lingers in the body, mercury poisoning is similar in characteristics to autism, and the whole chain started from the shot. Seriously, you think this sounds like a conspiracy theory?
Also, what's up with the blinking 12:00 on VCR's? Are they trying to give us all epilepsy!? God forbid anyone contract epilepsy, it's obviously a debilitating affliction for hateful executives in black suits to inflict upon us as they infect us with autism, too.
Additionally, why hasn't the intentional demolition of the World Trade Center by Halliburton been investigated? Halliburton had everything to gain and nothing to lose - and gain they have! Clearly the WTC was demolished, not attacked. Look! Wingnuts have found evidence!
Furthermore, I'd like to see some attention directed towards the moon landings. Obviously, they were staged so that the many billions dolled out to NASA could be siphoned into CIA plots against the persecuted majority. Look! Wingnuts have found evidence!!!!!!!
(Although Aspergers differs mechanistically from the other types of autism, by my understanding of the fMRI studies on the subject, it is entirely possible that "classic autism" is simply Asperger's with any other disorder that disrupts the brain's ability to filter and process data correctly. Asperger's might also be the point of intersection of autism and an as-yet unidentified condition. Or one of any number of billion other possibilities.)
I agree that there are probably no "cures" for autism, as there is still so much uncertainty as to what it is we mean by autism and what it is we mean by "cure" in this context. And even if these were known, it would seem unlikely that the means to implement such a cure exist. How do you go about fixing a mirror cell? Certainly not by any kind of classical medicine. Are there methods of limiting its impact? Possibly. An interesting book, "Somebody, Somewhere", documents an interesting theory - that some forms of autism limit the ability to cope with the flood of information from a "noisy" world and that people with this form of autism may be coping with this by setting up mental blocks to avoid being totally overwhelmed. If this sounds reasonable, then it would seem to me that replacing coping mechanisms that don't work well for an individual with ones that might work better could help a lot.
(I have Asperger's and actually don't want a total cure. It is actually a big help in the IT profession. However, I could do without some of the more debilitating aspects, if it's possible to benefit from the positives whilst limiting the negatives.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
All the epidemeological evidence points toward no causal link between MMR and autism. They may seem to be related, but that's just because of the timing of the vaccination and the emergence of autism symptoms. So, if you're beating yourself up for getting your son vaccinated, please get over it. Seriously. Trying to get through life with that kind of guilt is hell, and you don't have to do it.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I actually used to be against abortion. Then I actually studied some developmental biology. It was interesting to learn that up to 80% of fertilized eggs aren't viable, and that as many as half of those that ARE viable simply fail to implant, fail to develop, or whatever else, ... all simply by chance.
If foetuses are Humans, then Human life is cheap and worthless. The idea that 80% to 90% of Humans don't make it past their first five minutes of life (the time between fertilization and death) doesn't really mesh well with the idea that life is a precious gift that is worthy of preservation and respect.
Besides, how is a foetus even remotely alive? It's brain doesn't work, it's organs don't function, it's blood doesn't flow. It It has none of the qualities associated with being alive, other than in the sense that we consider tumours to be alive.
How much more evidence of trans-fat induced mental illness can you provide than currently exists showing that mercury is a known, proven poison for developing brains?
The grandparent post mentioned 2 possibilities. You tear down one, but ignore the other, where your objection is not valid. Herpes has become far more common in recent generations; the majority of the adult population have an immune response to HSV-1 (Herpes Simplex Virus, type 1; generally acquired during childhood), and a sizable minority (20% or so) respond to HSV-2. Furthermore, herpes is known to be able to cause serious neurological damage - when it attacks the brain (amusingly there was even an episode on House mentioning that). Other viruses in the same family can cause lasting neurological damage as well (postherpatic neuralgia).
I am not claiming that herpes is in any way a likely explanation for the rise in autism. But, on the face of it, it is about as plausible as mercury in vaccinations - both are known to potentially cause brain damage, and both have risen in prevalence in recent generations. So, the grandparent post had a valid point. The conclusion should be to investigate such suspicions (it would not be hard to e.g. check for immune responses to herpes among autistic and normal children). So far tests regarding mercury seem to indicate it is not the culprit, according to the research I have read, at least.
What a load of crap. Smallpox no longer exists in any living human. But visit the slums in India and you'll see places with sanitation and poverty as bad as medieval Europe.
Your explanation is totally inadequate. Improvements in sanitation cannot account for the extinction of smallpox.
For a refutation of your points, please see the other replies to your post. The short of it is that you're using bad science, too few good scientific references, interpreting the FDA's movements to suit your needs, using good science in the wrong way, and are basing your hypothesis on tenative links at best, all while presenting an emotionally-charged, logically-flawed argument on a controversial subject while insulting your critics. That's not a recipe to win people over.
My son was also showing signs before his 2yr shots; in fact, at 18 months his ped strongly encouraged us to get into an early intervention program. He was effectively non-verbal until after he turned 3 (total vocabulary was probably less than a dozen words). According to standardized testing his cognitive development was in the 0th percentile, none of the tested areas showed him above the 33rd percentile. Quite depressing.
Now 3 years into intervention programs I can't shut the little bugger up and he'll be in a regular kindergarten next year (with some time in a resource center). He still has "food issues" and he's still behind developmentally, but he's made progress in leaps and bounds.
No one cares that a foetus LOOKS human after 11 weeks. Corpses look Human too. So do mannequins. Looking Human doesn't mean anything. The lack of a brain or functional organ systems is rather more telling, and in that regard a foetus at 11 weeks is much more like a corpse or a mannequin than it is like an actual Human.
Incidentally, there's a HUGE difference between killing people Down's syndrome and aborting a foetus. One is killing a living being with thoughts and feelings, the other is excising a tumour-like growth from the uterus. That's the problem with anti-abortion sociopaths -- they can't seem to tell the difference between an unfeeling lump of tissue and a relatively fully-formed individual. That's what leads them to do all the stupid, inane things they do, like comparing the aborting of embryos (which have a 30%-40% chance of aborting by themselves anyway) to the holocaust (which involved people that had an incredibly low chance of gassing and incinerating themselves). See the difference?
If one foetus -- just one, that's all I'm asking for -- asks to not be killed, I'll accede that they're people. Hell, if one would just put up a bit of a fight. Even cows and tapeworms will occasionally resist when you try to kill them. What do foetuses do? They autoabort, they grow into the endothelium and kill the mother, they develop in the abdominal cavity killing the mother, they grow with their heart on the outside of the body, etc. Foetuses are about as far from being meaningfully alive as it's possible to be, short of being like, a rock or something.
Think of it as evolution on a macro scale. Smallpox killed the entirety of the human species with weak "smallpox defenses", and those who survived have superior genetic instructions for defending against that particular virus.
There was more to it than improved sanitation. Other diseases have taken Smallpox's place for those currently living in squalid conditions: AIDS, tuberculosis, etc.
Exactly, anybody who thinks Autism is a disease is a ****ing idiot, However there is no way to cure Autism because you simply can't cure or "treat" Autism with drugs or any other whacko remedies.
Autism Rates Drop After Mercury Removed From Childhood Vaccines
e wsid=38784)
An article in the March 10, 2006 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons shows that since mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, the alarming increase in reported rates of autism and other neurological disorders (NDs) in children not only stopped, but actually dropped sharply - by as much as 35%.
Using the government's own databases, independent researchers analyzed reports of childhood NDs, including autism, before and after removal of mercury-based preservatives. Authors David A. Geier, B.A. and Mark R. Geier, M.D., Ph.D. analyze data from the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) in "Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines."
The numbers from California show that reported autism rates hit a high of 800 in May 2003. If that trend had continued, the reports would have skyrocketed to more than 1000 by the beginning of 2006. But in fact, the Geiers report that the number actually went down to only 620, a real decrease of 22%, and a decrease from the projections of 35%.
(etc. at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?n
"one example would be people who still believe that HIV can only be transmitted through homosexual sex."
According to the CDC, roughly 70% or the HIV cases in the US in 2004 were due to male-male transmission. Another 16 percent were due to injection drug use. That totals a mere 86 percent (including the cases where there is overlap).
That leaves a whooping 14 percent of cases to distribute among the vast majority of the population (90+ percent?) who do not have male-male sex (lesbians don't get AIDS from sex) and who do not inject drugs. In short, while it is not impossible to contract HIV/AIDS from heterosexual sex, the myth that it is impossible is much closer to the truth than the (often officially sanctioned) myth that heterosexual sex is just as dangerous as male-male hanky-panky.
I'm the father of two autistic children, 1 had the MMR , 1 didn't , what was your point again?
The issue is, if people are really faking, and they *can* be likable, what is it they need an excuse for?
:)
You are forgetting that there is a class of people who are not likable, AND who do not have Asperger's. Such people have a strong motive to fake Aspergers, to explain to themselves and others why they are unpopular without having to make any difficult or impossible changes to themselves.
Jeez, what happened to formal logic? You're basically going:
People with Aspergers are not likable.
Therefore, people without Aspergers are likable.
Therefore, people without Aspergers would not fake Asperger's.
It's like you have the inability to metabolize key fatty acids or something
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
The kind doctor says, "We will begin with the obvious problem that they are treating autism as a single disorder."
There's a good discussion at National Institutes of Mental Health that provides something of an overview about the wide variety of behaviors you'll see.
My own son has been classified as "high-functioning autistic" by some physicians and medical practitioners, but not others. We've gone through the usual battery of testing, including MRIs, physical and behavioral exams, and enough blood tests that would bring a vampire to orgasm.
The truth is that, at least for the medium term (the next 20 years), we'll need to consider how to bring non-magic bullet therapies to these children, and then -- holy shit! -- continue to offer these people support well into their adulthood. My own son is very young, but I'm hearing horror stories of autistic children turning 18 or 21, and they and their families being left in a wilderness to fend for themselves, unable to cope with everyday living without support that's too expensive to provide because the person with the disorder no longer meets eligibility criteria.
I still hope Timothy Mrs. Frisby are happy in their new home, though.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
As the father of a 23year old with Asperger's, I would personally give anything for a cure. You would not believe the heartache and anguish that his 'disability' causes. Fortunately I am in a strong relationship where we support each other. People who makes jokes about it not being 'real', being imagined etc make me really sad - imagine it from the point of view of a father or a suffere, particularly when there is suggestion that it is genetic - ie I have passed it to him. Please keep your jokes and jibes to things that really are amusing. This has really saddened me, I hoped that there were actually people out there who are more tolerant and not just a bunce of small minded bigots. Just think of the effects you comments are having, I am typing this close to tears, please have some feelings.
Actually, smallpox was eradicated by the WHO in the 80ies. It was a worldwide campaign- the first of three previous campaigns that succeeded in the deliberate removal of a disease. At least that's what Dr. Larry Brilliant says. He lead the project. He's now the executive director of the Google Foundation. You can hear him talk about the campaign here:
y =l_brilliant
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?ke
Where is TFA? I would actually like to read this one, or did slashdot turn into self service over the weekend?
No!!, I don't want to print TFA!!
STFU
My niece is autistic (moderate to severe), she showed no signs before immunization, shortly after, she stopped talking and became withdrawn to her own world.
Does that mean mercury poisoning caused it? No, but I believe it had it's hand. Regardless if mercury is a contributor, it doesn't mean it would necessarily be the cause in all causes. Also children could be exposed to mercury through other pathways.
Or maybe it's combining more and more immunizations. Now I'm not saying kids shouldn't get their shots, that would be retarded. But I debate the logic of combining more and more shots for convienence when we don't know how if there isn't any additional risk long term.
But more than anything, what makes me think it is related is Bush's move to supress evidence.
First, asking that all the records surrounding the cases be sealed by in 11/2002. Lying, saying this wouldn't have any effect on the ongoing lawsuits, knowing full well that the Patriot Act would be for no particular reason, be giving Eli-Lily and Co., blanket and retroactive immunity.
You don't cover someone's ass when it's covered.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
1) Stick tongue between lower teeth & lower lip & open mouth ...
2) Bend wrists to 90 degrees and wave arms in front of body.
3)
4) You!!!!!!
Don't be so hard on yourself. Your's was a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.
t m
See:
"Underground History of American Education"
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.h
"The shocking possibility that dumb people don't exist in sufficient numbers to warrant the millions of careers devoted to tending them will seem incredible to you. Yet that is my central proposition: the mass dumbness which justifies official schooling first had to be dreamed of; it isn't real."
Or:
"The 7-Lesson Schoolteacher"
http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
This free school teaches all kids without coercion or drugs:
http://www.albanyfreeschool.com/overview.shtml
"Though we are by no means a special school for problem children, we frequently serve as a safety net for children who have been falling through the cracks of the conventional education system. At any given time, approximately half of our students are referrals from the public and parochial schools. Our reputation with students that are struggling academically and/or behaviorally, and whose needs the system has failed to meet, is such that an increasing number of kids are coming to us having previously been tagged with labels like ADHD and placed on Ritalin and other biopsychiatric medications. Their parents seek us out because they're concerned about the side effects of the drugs and because they've heard that we work effectively with these children without drugs of any kind. Our active, flexible, individually structured environment renders the drugs entirely unnecessary."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Obviously the borderline between the chemical and the social world is hard to define but nonetheless, its pretty much accepted amongst serious
investigators that autism is caused by social factors.
I thought that most people (apart from the (needlessly guilty) parents of autistic children and deliberately ignorant drugs companies) were aware of this but maybe not.
Worth bearing in mind that its growth could be explained by better detection and changing definitions of what constitutes an autistic condition.
Also, just because you can cure a headache with asprin does not mean that it was a shortage of asprin that caused the headache in the first place. You might suppress the symptoms but you won't cure the condition with this kind of bull.
This has been an interesting dialogue to read.
1 7/04352504 8682,00.html
T oddlers__TV_habits_m.shtml ... The researchers didn't know what shows the children watched, but Christakis said content likely isn't the culprit. Instead, he said, fast-paced visual images typical of most TV programming may alter brain development."
s ible-Decisions-Alternatives/dp/0892819316
Just to throw in another possibility previously discussed on slashdot, perhaps "TV" helps cause autism in those susceptible to it. See:
"TV Really Might Cause Autism"
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/
Though others disagree:
"Does Watching TV Cause Autism?"
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,15
(even suggesting indoor air quality might be part of the problem).
See also:
"Toddlers' TV habits may 'rewire' brains"
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/04/05/Worldandnation/
"Very young children who watch television face an increased risk of attention deficit problems by school age, a study has found, suggesting that TV might overstimulate and permanently "rewire" the developing brain.
Autism (or other similar seeming behavioral issues) it likely to be a multi-factorial disease, with many interacting causes -- genetics, diet, heavy metal exposure, viruses, TV, stress, and so on. Some of these factors may weigh more than others -- probably all are involved to some degree or another, and the amount may vary by individual based on how well their genetics can compensate for various problems whether they are too little good fats, too much heavy metals from whatever sources, or exposure to rapidly flickering changing scenes on TV. And it remains true that eating right, exercising, moderation in vices like TV, and trying to reduce stress are all good things to do in almost any situation (which is why I like that omega-3 suggestion, because it is probably not going to hurt, but generally may improve health). So too for not watching TV -- getting rid of your TV can't hurt much, and probably will improve health. Vaccination is admittedly a much more controversial topic. Here is one of the less sensationalized books on that:
"Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent's Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives"
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccinations-Thoughtful-Sen
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
so what should they invent now?
This article makes it sound like autism is a bad thing like the HIV virus. "A preventative cure" You cure diseases, you don't cure an alternative intelligence. I was diagnosed with Aspergers at a young age and have recently been confirmed by another expert. Sure I sometimes don't take subtle hints but how is that a disease? My inability to lie (that part of my brain doesn't work) is actually a benefit in so many ways. I'm upfront so people would be more comfortable in partaking in a business deal with me rather then with someone who can and does lie.
Oh wow maybe we should cure all that so I can lie, cheat and steal. My brain is perfectly fine as it is. It's people's attitudes to autism that are the problem. I'm fed up of people presuming I'm stupid and incapable because I have a form of autism. That is the disease, not the autism itself.
There have been many times when dealing with people that I wished I could kiss my own butt goodbye
I take it you are one of those people who make money off claiming essentially normal (whatever that means) people have some odd disease.
I guess you'd fit in with ad executives and telephone sanitizers.
More than a few people have hypothesized that autism is a mental (and, naturally, much more complex) version of sickle cell anemia. One set of the genes is beneficial. Two sets are harmful. This is obviously an over-simplification, but it is worth pondering. There is definitely a strong correlation with regions with technology workers and rates of autism.
Also, (assuming it works - big assumption) it's worth noting that this is not so much a "cure" as a "prevention". Once the brain gets wired a certain way, it's going to take an awful lot to rewire it. Proper fatty acid metabolism by itself won't fix wiring that's already messed up. (And, yes, I know that the brain is not simply a computer with wires, etc.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I've thought for a while that a lot of what we think of as "disease" or body failures, are actually a subtle form of diseases.
It started about 15 years ago, when doctors finally realized that stomach ulcer were actually an infection, not a symptom of worry.
A recent article suggested researches had found that nerve inflammation was linked to childhood diabetes, which until now was one of those "auto-immune" who-knows-why-it-happens diseases.
Consider Michael J. Fox, one of several people working on a TV show in Vancouver about 20 years ago who have developed very early onset Parkinsons - another "who knows why it happens" condition - half a dozen unusual cases in close proximity, sounds like a somewhat communicable disease to me. Treatments like stem cell or embryonic brain cells are effective for a while then fade - almost like something is still attacking.
Now they as suggesting that the inability to process certain fats may cause brain inflammation, which could lead to autism. Hmmm, inflammation. In the brain. Sounds like some sort of disease is responsible, these people just happen to be less able to fight it.
The same could be said of most other conditions with seeming random onset, especially with an auto-immune or inflamation component (And especially if it messes with th brain). Autism, aspergers, arthritis, heart disease, alzheimers? Is a clogged artery a sign of the blood cells trying to cover over an infection? Is it surprising that a person with clogged arteries clogs right up again after angioplasty or bypass surgery? (Or through better lifestyle afterwards, fights off that infection and goes on to remain healthy for years?) If anyone remembers how difficult it was to fin the AIDS virus at first, if we're not even looking for something, and the effects are very subtle and long-term, is it any wonder it's not been noticed yet?
Oh. My. God.
Wikipedia is doomed!!!
I've only personally known one autistic person, but the things he can do with his mind consistently astound me. I definitely consider myself to be of genius level intelligence, and there are things that this guy can do that simply go beyond intelligence... he's capable of figuring out things that I don't think any amount of thinking would allow me to know, but which are quite obviously correct when he states them. I'm extremely aware of my internal thought processes, but this guy has a degree of awareness and control that I can barely imagine. On top of that, he told me that he's able to disconnect his conscious and subconscious mind and then have his subconscious feed information to him - ideas will just pop into his conscious mind, fully formed and seemingly out of nowhere, but when he logically analyzes them they're 100% correct. At the same time, it definitely does impede his social abilities to a certain extent. Autism, at least his sort, seems in many ways like an evolutionary step beyond the typical person, but at the same time is a step back... Ideally, I'd like to see a thorough genetic understanding of autism allow us to integrate it's benefits into our minds without the detrimental effects.
FSM, grant me the serenity to preview that which I cannot change...
I'll start by making it clear that I'm by no means an expert or even knowledgeable on autism. I understand that some cases are so extreme that they can't have the most basic things. However, I've seen a documentary on autists who made me think they are gifted people, not sick people, and that they don't need or want any cure, and so they said. At least some of these people are just major geeks: really good at something, very smart, and terrible at social skills. There's nothing bad with that; they don't waste their time making puns or c(/s)hit-chatting, and concentrate their high intelligence on a profession. One guy was an architect and built an awesome house for himself. His wife -yes, wife- was also autist, and she was a mathematician. So why and with what authority would us "normals" diagnose and "cure" others that are not like us? It's not like they are disabled. In fact, I consider at least these to be more abled than me. After what I saw, I honestly admire them (at least these cases) and think perhaps it would be more interesting to treat social monkeys to make something useful and productive out of them.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
Autism is just another one of those words we use to describe "Unspecified abnormal mental behavior". This is kind of like saying "We cured cancer!" then going on to specify "this one specific occurrence of this possibly rare type can possibly be mitigated by this".
My two little brothers have William's Syndrome, someone not knowing this would classify them as autistic...and they wouldn't be wrong, its just that kind of broad spectrum label. So broad, its almost meaningless.
I am not advocating the mercury link. However, IIRC the theory is that about 0.4% of the population has a genetic defect
that makes them more susceptible to mercury and those are the people who are affected by the mercury in the vaccine.
IIRC they've done large population studies of those receiving thimerasol vaccines and those receiving thimerasol-free vaccines. The rates of autism were not significantly distinguishable.
There are other environmental sources of mercury, but the vaccine scare is just that. Another good reason to switch over to nuclear power plants.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Ritalin cures next Picasso"
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
Digital Divide? I think you meant to say uncanny valley.
Everyone want to feel special. And the reality is that the vast majority of people are ordinary.
But I put it down to laziness. I truly introspective person knows their weaknesses and attempts to get better at stuff. If I hate speaking in front of people, it's because I need to figure out why, work hard at improving it, and then practice to get better. That's hard work.
How much easier to claim I have a phobia or autism or something that takes away responsibility and lets me be mentally lazy by claiming I have a disease.
"I'm really shy around girls. I have a hard time concentrating. I looked it up. I have . I don't really need to get better because it's not my fault, it's 's fault"
I have a different take. So you have a disease. So friggin' what. If you're a fidgety kid, you don't have a disease. At least not one that putting you over my knee a couple times won't cure. If you're being an asshole, you don't get a pass. You're an asshole. Get better or get out.
"I have alcholism. It's a disease".
"Yeah, well, so what. Stop drinking. Boom. I cured your disease"
"I'm fat, I have low metabolism"
"Of course you're fat. You eat too much"
People are so eager to find an excuse. They'll work really hard at not fixing their problem. Instead, they claim they have a disease. Life is tough all over. Get over it. Improve. Work harder. Get better.
Cripes. Losers.
Sodium is a violently reactive metal that is bad for you! Oh wait, in a compound like table salt, the sodium ion behaves completely differently? Oh my, high-school chemistry defeats your scare mongering. Go back to high school.
Lots of sound and fury, but also lots of grief, denial, misinformation, "not me"s, and other nonsense.
Aspergers is NOT autism. Having a son with autism, and having met the neighbor's son with Aspergers, I can definitively tell you, through emperical experience, there is a fucking difference. Stop lumping them.
Autism is not a personality disorder. It is a SENSORY DISORDER. Stop saying "people with autism will have their personality changed, they won't be the same", yada yada yada. So much noise, and it's not even true.
Autistic disorders are being "lumped" to get treatment (dollars) but not to cure the issue at hand. People complaining that there are snakeoil treatments need to take another look. Some of it really is snakeoil - just folks out to make a quick buck on grief - but some of it is effective, DEPENDING ON THE CHILD. I have seen children respond to gluten/casin therapy, and I have seen children where it didn't make one iota of difference. There is no universal "cure" or "therapy" because there is no ONE AUTISTIC HEALTH CONDITION, but several, all lumped together by diagnosis so that people receive help "as a group". The problem is, that the "group" really doesn't have the same problem - so when we perform research to see "what the cause is", nothing adds up.
Scientists need to delve deeper into the cause of each individual case, and determine if there are similar groupings, no groupings, or a single grouping of individuals that exhibit the same symptoms, responses, etc. It's like they're doing autistic research by shining a small flashlight into an unlit gymnasium - they see glimses of things here and there, and from these fleeting images before them they can proclaim "this and that provides great hope", but the real hope lies in seeing the entire picture. How can you cure a disease or disorder, when you don't know what causes the same? We need to turn on those high-power lights in the gymnasium, and all will be made clear that way. And we can stop fumbling around in the dark, groping for this or that.
My son is very loving, kind-hearted, and middle-functioning. He will struggle with his condition for his lifetime, and I fear not what will happen to him as an adult, but what will happen when my wife and I are deceased, and there is no-one around to help him.
Just as a side note, I find it interesting that even with a stricter criteria for diagnosis of autism, one would find a marked increase in the number of people diagnosed with it. I can't say if this is a proportional increase due to an increase in the general population, if it is truly an environmental factor (industrial polution, increased use of synthetically generated food additives, or some other change in the general environment) or who knows what...again, like research scientists, I'm left holding a small flashlight in a huge, dark room.
Someone turn the light on, please?
Actually, Keiser Permanente continues to use thimerisol in thier vaccinations. In fact, there's alot of MMR vaccinations occuing with it to this day.
check. check. check. check.
Crap, I think I'm autistic!
Is dead on. Therefore, I must recommend to all slashdot geeks who feel socially akward, or wonder if they don't fit in, and wonder what they can do to read Dale Carnagies book: "How to Win Friends and Influence People."* If you are any sort of geek, you will devour the book, and start to take advantage of the information inside. I read it four times in a row as it pointed out things to me that I was previously unaware of. After reading it, I started taking a deep interest in people and personal interaction as you do in classic cars. I am now deeply interested in social interaction, and as a wonderful side effect, I have been told by a number of people that I am socially aware. Which I find amusing, as I certanly was not only a few years ago. But then, I have had to work at it.
I now feel comfortable with idle chit-chat, enough so that I can actually manage to go out on first dates and enjoy them without a feeling of abject terror as I once experienced.
* No, it is not a book on how to manipulate people. Pick it up and read it for yourself. If you don't get social skills, this is a great place to start.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
One film that I think EVERYONE should watch is the Australian film "Malcolm" (1986). http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091464/
Colin Friels portrays someone who appears to have Aspergers extremely well, and it's a very funny film to boot. You don't have any excuse not to get it, the Australian DVD is region 0 so it'll play in any DVD player as long as your setup can handle PAL format.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
L-Tryptophan is key to the production of 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP) and N,N dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a neurotransmitter that helps break down social filters in the brain to make you feel more connected to the whole symphony of life. Thrilling studies show that just one gram of L-trytophan taken three times per day can help a person gain self-confidence and sociability. As the direct precursor for 5-HTP, it also enables you to get a good night's sleep, and as a precursor for the "happy" hormone, serotonin, it can help boost your mood and overall outlook on life. L-Tryptophan is an essential amino acid. That means the body doesn't manufacture it like many other amino acids, but it depends on you to provide it. If you're not eating enough high quality protein, consider trying an L-Tryptophan supplement. - Swanson Health Products
Is he your 1st?.
When my 2nd daughter was just over a year old, when she was just at the stage of babbling a few words or so, I came home from work one day, and she looked up at me and said clear as day, "Hello Daddy". She hasn't repeated that phrase since. (she's almost 2 now)
Both my daughters will do incredibly neat things until I get a camera, then they become lumps. It's very normal for children to make developmental leaps and then backpedal for awhile.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I am disturbed by how often people with high-functioning Asperger's Syndrome try to speak for people with more severe autism. I understand that the nature of Asperger's Syndrome, itself, may make it difficult for you to assess the difficulties and frustrations of others. But you should understand that while it is easy for you to live with the difficulties that Asperger's Syndrome presents to you, there are others on the autistic spectrum who are far less functional than you are. There are people who can't hold down jobs. There are people who can't even speak.
I don't believe that this latest news from New Jersey is a cure. I think it's being over-hyped for what it is. It may be a beneficial treatment for some cases, however. There are those who are already employing nutritional modifications to treat people with autism.
That said, I would never venture to suggest that anyone who is happy with their neurology, and is functioning just fine, should do anything to adjust it. Abnormal psychology is measured primarily by how one adapts and functions. There are plenty of people who are different, but not abnormal.
However, there are people with autism who do have problems functioning. There are those who cannot function at all without the support of others. It is not wrong for their caregivers to want to give them treatments which may improve their well-being. Their experience is not like yours, and you should respect that.
A preventive cure to autism may be as simple as a 'therapeutic cocktail' of fatty acids. Human trials could start later this year."
Its about time we get the medical community looking into "natural" fixes for our problems, rather than big pharma trying to make billions off of us with man-made chemical symptom fixers.
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
Why fucking bother with the goddamned autistic fucktards? Why not let natural selection take its course instead?
GO AHEAD FUCKING FLAME AWAY
OR WASTE YOU GODDAMNED MOD POINTS
FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE!
Some good news for a change for Mr. Bill Gates!
Its possible that the number of people who carry the genetic mutations that allow for autism to develop is constant over time, but the exposure to the environmental triggers have increased in the past 20 years. This is what people who say Autism has increased due to the number of vaccines that were added to the schedule in the 80s/90s... and the initial reports of a dropoff of autistic diagnoses after mercury was removed from the vaccines starting in the late 1990s.
I don't know for sure what exactly causes autism, but I do know for a fact that there isn't any good reason to have mercury in vaccines or dental fillings. Its been a known toxin for centuries...
RUBBER TIRES NEVER BREAK
My uncle got polio from a vaccine, as did everyone else in that group of (I think it was 4) vaccines.
My dad was supposed to get that shot, but my uncle stepped in front of him in line.
Do I think we shouldn't give vaccines? No, but not all of them are completely safe. Shit happens.
You have a son with autism and a neighbor with Asperger's. That is probably the most common formula for misrepresenting the distinctions between the two (if any indeed exist) that there is. I even used to fall prey to it: I was diagnosed with autism and a family member with Asperger's. I used to think the difference between the two of us was the "difference between autism and Asperger's", and that how different the two of us were drove home the point of how different the two conditions were. I have now -- through a combination of books, Internet, conferences, and school -- been acquainted with dozens to hundreds of people with all of the labels on the autism spectrum. Autism, Asperger, PDD-NOS, Rett's, CDD, high-functioning, mid-functioning, and low-functioning. One thing I have found is that two people with the exact same label can be as different as your son and your neighbor's son, or as me and my family member. Two people with different labels (one autism one Asperger's) can be very similar but have a few striking but superficial differences. Many, you would not be able to tell by looking which one had which label. There are many ways that autistic people differ, often strikingly, from each other, but the autism/Asperger line is primarily about early speech development and many people with different early speech development can still be mostly similar and people with similar early speech development can still be mostly differet. That's how it was with the original autistic people studied, too. Some of Asperger's patients had speech delays, which would make them "autistic" by today's standards. Some of Kanner's patients spoke early and memorized a ton of information, developing special interests in intellectual subjects. This divide many promote was not there, or not as much there, in the beginning. I have also read up on the changing definitions of autism throughout the years. Kanner's autism is used in some older publications as synonymous with high-functioning, because people regarded as lower-functioning were added to the spectrum later. (I don't agree with these terms, I'm just reporting on them.) Then that became the new stereotype. Autism is neither a personality disorder nor a sensory disorder. It is a cognitive-perceptual condition, as far as research is actually finding. (Some of the perceptual stuff gets labeled, in error, sensory.) It provides consistent perceptual advantages (for people everywhere on the "spectrum") as well as disadvantages that are tied in with them. (See Mottron et al.) The differences in autistic perception range across both social and non-social domains and pervade every aspect of how a person perceives and understands and reacts to the world, making it not personality at all but something far deeper. That particular research was done because of all the groping around in the dark for a "core deficit" of autism, and when they abandoned the deficit model they came across a strength instead (not denying that autistic people have deficits, but saying the thing that unites autistic people -- and contributes to our many patterns of deficits and strengths -- is not itself a deficit). You would not know this from what I write here, but I have dealt with (in myself) most of the difficulties and unpleasantness that people bring up when they talk about curing autism, and I still need significant assistance to get through the day. Writing happens to be an area of strength, don't let it fool you into thinking I'm some super-aspie.
Now it's a comfortable balance of both society and i being screwed up.
Society is fucking psychotic. Almost by definition. It is mass hysteria.
KFG
The fact is, as long as citizens aren't free to handle their own healthcare (ie: I can't pick up some morphine for an associate who is in pain, or buy a copy of gray's anatomy and perform any surgery I like), the government is responsible for guaranteeing the quality of healthcare. And that means doing certain things, like ensuring that the poor can get affordable access to treatment, that doctors aren't writing unnecessary prescriptions and performing unnecessary surgeries, etc.
Those things would be fine if there was true competition and freedom. If I can perform appendectomies for people too poor to go the ER, then there's no issue. They can get their surgeries from whoever seems most reliable and offers the best price. If I'm allowed to make codeine in my basement lab, then there's no need for the government to regulate drug prices. As long as we DON'T have those freedoms, healthcare has got to be heavily regulated to guarantee that I can get codeine when I need it and that those poor folk can get appendectomies without having to sell their remaining organs to cover the cost.
Look at the number of claims that Autism was caused by immunisation/vaccination injections or a food allergy or amalgam(sp?) fillings. Some parents claim that their child was perfectly normal before these events and then very rapidly developed what later turned out to be Autism.
It makes some sense to me that if these children had a 'fragile' metabolic makeup then 'shocks' like the above events could lead to these sort of brain malfunctions (eg of the part of the brain that automatically processes social cue's).
It might also explain why the incidence of ASD's are so much higher these days (better detection aside)... I'm guessing that the average diet these days has quite a different fatty acid makeup than 20, 50, or 100 years ago...
You can know you can read these book and look at them and say
:(
WOW I HAVE THIS or NOW I KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY CHILD !!
My whole childhood was taken from me with these words!!!!!
Who doesn't have something today???
Is There a normal???
I am the middle child in my family
My Big Sister before me was a Bad child she drove my parent's crazy to the point by the time they got to me,
They were so worried they would get it wrong i was seeing a psychiatrist when i was 3 yrs old.
I have been out of rehabs and have had most my life Taken away from me by this type of talk,
Yeah maybe i do analyze Everything and see social life a bit different but that's cause my parents
always assumed something was wrong with me and told me it loud and clear..
Everybody in my life was told it too....
So by the time I got around to the social skills my system was filled with so med's and being told I am different I believed it.
I am 23 years of age and until the last year have been a in home for disability..
I have been out of that environment for a year now my,
Thnx to my girl telling me and supporting me every step of the way
When ever I would doubt myself she would tell me
"You know Who is normal because you wake up active and analyze everything "
The first job I had since I got out of this environment I was told I was Management Material
This coming from a kid that could take out THE BIG BOOK OF MEDICINE and go down the list and say
" WAS ON THAT ONE DID THAT TRIED THAT ON EVERY FREAKING PAGE "
What happened to us as human Beings and saying maybe i am unique ?
My Advice is to Trust and believe in yourself
"Don't let anybody ever tell you there is something wrong with you"
(Everyone is Different = No one is Normal)
This has been a post by a Guy that has been on 40 different types of Medicine 6 Mental Facilities
and Always been in the back of the Yearbook in the section they put the special Class
Maybe i do this not as a Post as something for myself