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My 26 year old stepson has just recently been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and the challenges of daily living with him has been and continues to be physically, emotionally and financially exhausting for my husband and myself. We have discovered that there is little help available to parents and other caregivers because of lack of knowledge and understanding of this illness/condition. Hopefully, more people will acknowledge and support further research with this important health issue. Another health related consequence that is increasing, is the number of adult autistic individuals that are "self-medicating" with alcohol, prescription drugs, inhalants and other drugs to hide their being "different".

In the absence of knowledge, all we have is belief.

Reporting on this "controversy" is mostly useful insofar as it illuminates the belief systems that exist in our society regarding science, medicine, and c ausality. It's human behavior. to seek explanation, particularly when is becomes clear that something affects so many children.

The bias towards correlational thinking is a strong survival trait. Eat something unusual, get sick and you'll likely never eat it again. When we don't understand, those correlations are important.

How does it relate to the "Controversy"? Well, when the Institutes of Mediciine looked at the rise of autism in California, they found correlations:

>>Dr. Liebermann then talked about ecological studies. In 2000 the Institute of Medicine presented data showing the amount of thimerosal in vaccines and cases of autism diagnosed in California by year of birth. The data show increases in the amount of thimerosal given to children by birth cohort and increases in the rates of diagnosis of autism, and they track fairly well. The rate of autism rose in the mid-eighties, even before an increase in thimerosal. However, anything that increased in the nineties tracks with diagnoses of autism, including use of home personal computers and cell phones. This kind of data only shows that two things were increasing at the same time. It says nothing about a possible association.
http://www.autism-watch.org/rsch/thimerosal.shtml<<

I have no quarrel with challenges to "conventional wisdom", medical or otherwise. Once there was no reason to link handwashing and other sanitary practices in the operating room with post-operative infections. But those challenges should be structured to test assumptions and scrutinize belief-driven logic, not to replace one set of assumptions and beliefs with another.

It's interesting to read what the WSJ Health Blog reports:

>>The father of a girl who developed autism-like symptoms after receiving several vaccinations in a single sitting doesn???t oppose vaccines.

???I want to make it clear I am not anti-vaccine,??? Jon Poling, who has an MD and a PhD, told WebMD. ???Vaccines are one of the most important, if not the most important advance, in medicine in at least the past 100 years.??? But, he added, ???every treatment has a risk and a benefit. To say there are no risks to any treatment is not true.???.>>

Informed consent is never a bad thing.

But in a world where pediatricians have 90 seconds of discretionary time, it is incumbent on parents to learn the objective facts, fit those facts to the objective circumstances and then discuss any questions that result with their pediatrician.

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Posted By: JoyFord @ 03/28/2008 3:14:37 PM

My 26 year old stepson has just recently been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and the challenges of daily living with him has been and continues to be physically, emotionally and financially exhausting for my husband and myself. We have discovered that there is little help available to parents and other caregivers because of lack of knowledge and understanding of this illness/condition. Hopefully, more people will acknowledge and support further research with this important health issue. Another health related consequence that is increasing, is the number of adult autistic individuals that are "self-medicating" with alcohol, prescription drugs, inhalants and other drugs to hide their being "different".
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Posted By: BeckyLynn @ 03/28/2008 7:36:57 AM

I'm very bothered by the description of Autism in this article! I wonder if the author bothered to spend time with a child with autism and if so was it more than one. My child is autistic and does not fit any of the descriptive characteristics mentioned in the first paragraph explaining characteristics of autism. No wonder why "the world" and autism is such a mystery and misunderstood.
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Posted By: GWL1950 @ 03/23/2008 9:34:57 PM

In the absence of knowledge, all we have is belief.

Reporting on this "controversy" is mostly useful insofar as it illuminates the belief systems that exist in our society regarding science, medicine, and c ausality. It's human behavior. to seek explanation, particularly when is becomes clear that something affects so many children.

The bias towards correlational thinking is a strong survival trait. Eat something unusual, get sick and you'll likely never eat it again. When we don't understand, those correlations are important.

How does it relate to the "Controversy"? Well, when the Institutes of Mediciine looked at the rise of autism in California, they found correlations:

>>Dr. Liebermann then talked about ecological studies. In 2000 the Institute of Medicine presented data showing the amount of thimerosal in vaccines and cases of autism diagnosed in California by year of birth. The data show increases in the amount of thimerosal given to children by birth cohort and increases in the rates of diagnosis of autism, and they track fairly well. The rate of autism rose in the mid-eighties, even before an increase in thimerosal. However, anything that increased in the nineties tracks with diagnoses of autism, including use of home personal computers and cell phones. This kind of data only shows that two things were increasing at the same time. It says nothing about a possible association.
http://www.autism-watch.org/rsch/thimerosal.shtml<<

I have no quarrel with challenges to "conventional wisdom", medical or otherwise. Once there was no reason to link handwashing and other sanitary practices in the operating room with post-operative infections. But those challenges should be structured to test assumptions and scrutinize belief-driven logic, not to replace one set of assumptions and beliefs with another.

It's interesting to read what the WSJ Health Blog reports:

>>The father of a girl who developed autism-like symptoms after receiving several vaccinations in a single sitting doesn???t oppose vaccines.

???I want to make it clear I am not anti-vaccine,??? Jon Poling, who has an MD and a PhD, told WebMD. ???Vaccines are one of the most important, if not the most important advance, in medicine in at least the past 100 years.??? But, he added, ???every treatment has a risk and a benefit. To say there are no risks to any treatment is not true.???.>>

Informed consent is never a bad thing.

But in a world where pediatricians have 90 seconds of discretionary time, it is incumbent on parents to learn the objective facts, fit those facts to the objective circumstances and then discuss any questions that result with their pediatrician.