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Autism Starts Months Before Symptoms Appear, Study Shows (scientificamerican.com)
A new study published this week in the journal Nature suggests there is evidence of autism in the brain well before symptoms start to appear. Typically, the earliest that children are diagnosed with the disorder is at the age of two, although often times it is even later. Scientists may now be able to detect the disorder well before a child's first birthday via a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Scientific American reports: Researchers conducted MRI scans on 150 children three times: at six months old, one year and two years. Just over 100 of the children were at high risk because they had an older sibling diagnosed with autism. The faster growth rate of the surface areas of their brains correctly predicted eight times out of 10 which of the high-risk children would go on to be diagnosed with the condition. Enlargement of the brain seemed to correlate with the arrival of symptoms, says Heather Hazlett, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina's Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD), and the paper's lead author. Still, with only 100 at-risk children, the study is too small to be considered definitive -- nor should doctors rush to use MRIs to diagnose autism, Hazlett says. But if the study results are confirmed in future research, it could offer a new option for screening high-risk children before their symptoms become obvious -- and possibly at a time when treatment will be most effective.
There is no ACTUAL EVIDENCE.
Indeed. There is no evidence, and even if there was evidence, it would be meaningless, because even the hypothesis is invalid. The hypothesis was that the mercury based preservatives ( thimerosal) in some vaccines caused autism. There were a few reports of a correlation. Those reports were discredited, and the researcher was accused of fraud and lost his medical license. But even if there was evidence (there is not), it wouldn't matter because mercury based vaccine preservatives are no longer used.
With respect, you have missed the point (completely). This isn't about finding a screening test. This is an objective, likely quantitative readout from a standard imaging study that can be used as an endpoint in clinical trials. Most clinical trials in this area fail because they use some sort of subjective behavioral scoring system, rather than a quantity that can be measured (with a very expensive ruler) from the patient. And ... 2% of the population? That's a fucking wet dream for a big pharmaceutical company. This finding has the potential to take autism from the realm of voodoo into a treatable clinical entity.
There is exactly one study that deserves the name, and it was not only proven to be based on manipulated data, it did only prove it for one specific vaccine, because the author stood to profit form an alternate vaccine that was to come out soon and would not have the autism-risk. So even the original study, faked as it may have been, does not actually support the claims the anti-vaxxers are making! These people must be complete demented and functionally illiterate. Or probably just so deep in fear that they have no rationality left and are jumping at every shadow. Because there are no "facts" supporting the vaccine-autism link.
Science says it is strongly genetic factors and some environmental factors like some infections during pregnancy, and use of alcohol or cocaine during pregnancy. Vaccination is not one of them and it has been looked into extremely carefully. Nothing there. But I guess even if medicine will eventually reliably be able to predict the condition well before any vaccinations are done, the anti-vaxxers will cling to their baseless beliefs.
Oh, wait, there is one link: The mother _not_ getting vaccinated before pregnancy does increase the autism risk for children. So not only are the anti-vaxxers completely wrong, their mistaken belief actually makes the problem worse.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.