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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."
The autism-vaccine connection was 'research'
purchased by a law firm for almost a million dollars.
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.
I agree, this is a dangerous game to play with. Having Asperger's Syndrome, I fall on the autistic spectrum as currently defined, and would NOT want to be 'cured'. (I might opt to have some of my more frustrating quirks toned down, though.. my pseudo-synaesthetic tactile sensitivity precludes many things)
The best solution that occurs to me (when faced with the problem of an autism cure, not just this treatment) is to let people choose for themselves, with of course informed consent, a waiting period, and a minimum age. In the case of people who are crippled to the point that they are incapable of communicating thier decision (or having it communicated to them), is to go ahead and give them the treatment in an experiment. I doubt a profound autistic could handle the change from their normal life to "normalcy". I doubt I could make that transformation.
Oh, as a slight tangent... I realize that many people who are not diagnosed (and probably not even aspie) are 'proud autistics', but is there really that many people who claim Asperger's as a reason for their eccentricities? I have spent the last decade and a half of my life trying to fit in, and have only just in the last half a year had reasonable success. It seems incredible to me that significant portions of the nuero-typical population would pretend to be on the spectrum.
The problem with informed consent is that once you get sufficiently far along the spectrum to be clearly in need of treatment, you are likely to be so cut off from other people that it's going to be almost impossible for anyone to regard your consent (or otherwise) as "informed".
Messing with peoples brains (their personalities - their 'souls' to use a quaint term) is dangerous stuff. What happens if you cure them - and only after they are "normal" do they clearly and coherently point out that they were happier beforehand?
Not easy.
I recently started to have hearing problems - and was told by the audiologist that a CAT scan of my head would help him to see what was going on. During the scan, they found a 2cm x 1cm x 1cm tumor on my temporal lobe - totally unrelated to the hearing problem. This (needless to say) put me into a complete state of panic - but they told me that from the way the brain was folded around it, it must have appeared when I was a small child and stopped growing in my early teens - and has not changed since. I remarked that maybe it would be a good idea to get rid of it anyway - but as the doctor pointed out - your temporal lobe is where your 'personality' lives. If we "fix" this problem you may not be "you" afterwards. Which makes me think - if that thing hadn't popped into my head at age 12 or so - I wouldn't be the "me" I am now. If I had had truly "informed consent" back when I was a kid, would I have taken it? Would I take it in hindsight?
www.sjbaker.org
I did think about asking slashdot, but they were sod all use when I lost my Swiss army knife. P.S. I found it now - no thanks to you. Bastards.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."