Autism in US more common than previously thought; wider screening, better diagnosis cited

[Julian Englis]

Source: The Washington Post

Autism cases are on the rise again, largely due to wider screening and better diagnosis, federal health officials said Thursday.

The rate of U.S. cases rose to about 1 in 88 children. The previous estimate was 1 in 110.

The new figure is from the latest in a series of studies that have been steadily increasing the government’s autism estimate. This new number means autism is nearly twice as common as officials said it was only five years ago, and likely affects roughly 1 million U.S. children and teens.

Health officials attribute the increase largely to better recognition of cases, through wide screening and better diagnosis. But the search for the cause of autism is really only beginning, and officials acknowledge that other factors may be helping to drive up the numbers.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/autism-is-more-common-than-previously-thought-1-in-88-us-children-have-it/2012/03/29/gIQAwMJoiS_story.html

[HockeyMom]

1. I have worked with kids on the autism spectrum

what I have observed, and wondered about, is why are boys in the majority? We have had 3 austisic classes in one school with not one single girl in any of the classes. I have also seen that usually if one child in a family has it, others will also. Again, with boys. The daughters in these families didn't.

You would think research would be done on this aspect? Could it be something carried on the male gene in certain families?

[KamaAina]

3. The ratio is about 4 to 1

among other things, this makes it very, very hard for an Autistic man like myself to find a female of his own kind.

No one is really sure why, but it pretty much has to be genetic. Oddly, Rett's syndrome, another pervasive developmental disorder with more pronounced neurological symptioms, appears only in girls.

[HockeyMom]

14. BiPolar also seems to dominate among girls

I cannot even remember any boy or man I have worked with being BiPolar. Could these also be related to left/right brain dominance, or male/female "wiring", so to speak? Most of these development disorders do seem to run on a male/female basis. ADHD is another that is more frequent in males. Maybe there is a case to be made?

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. It's now being considered that ADHD is a possible sign of later onset of bipolar. I know

that anecdotally this was true in my case, and I suspect down the road it may be true for my younger son as well. (Although, it's also possible that what is being called ADHD in us is really a mild early onset bipolar that just takes off and gets worse as we get older.)

As for bipolar in women, I swear that there is some sort of hormonal component. My bipolar-2 is definitely is affected by my monthly cycles to some degree, and it even seems to have really kicked in after I first started my cycles in Jr. High. Again, it's anecdotal but it might mean something. (I also know that I had a hormone imbalance when I was in my late 20s early 30s. Too much DHEA in my system. No idea what my levels are like now. Don't have the insurance coverage to find out.)

[HockeyMom]

21. Now that you mention it

My daughter took mood stablizers for about 4 years, but she also started taking the Pill for painful and very heavy periods. After she took those, she found that her moods stabilzed and she stopped those meds. That was years ago. Maybe there is a a elminate to that female horomonal imbalance?

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. Maybe. My mom was on hormone replacement therapy when she was

menopausal mainly because she was getting very forgetful, but then the whole concern about increased chances of strokes came up so they took her off of that and put her on Prozac. Whether it was the drug or the lack of hormones I dunno, but she was happier (and thinner) than she had been in years. She wasn't bipolar, though, and unfortunately for me the Prozac was only "meh." (Like most drugs I've tried. Either useless or make me crazy.)

We're hearing more and more about outside influences on our hormone levels, like BPA. I would not be surprised to find out that a lot of our health problems are due to toxins in our bodies!

[Neoma]

37. I've met a lot of guys who are bi-polar.

NAMI, psychward and outpatient experience talking.

[Throckmorton]

7. I have one of each,

My Oldest son has Asbergers, and my daughter has PDD-NOS.

My youngest son is not on the spectrum. He is adopted, the older two are my children with my first wife.

[Odin2005]

15. There is an interesting book called "The Imprinted Gene" that...

...gives an interesting hypothesis for why that is. It essentially deals with the the regulation of maternal and paternal genes. Some genes only turn on if they are from a particular parent. The author suggests that disturbances of this in brain development genes are important in Autism and Schizophrenia.

[BlueIris]

60. Thanks, Odin.

You always give us the best info.

[TheWraith]

2. Cue someone blaming vaccines in three... two...

It's like the Obama birth certificate of medical science. Even after it's been proven wrong, some people still believe.

[HockeyMom]

5. One boy's family blamed it on the vaccines

but his older sister had the same vaccines, from the same doctor, and she wasn't austic.

[sakabatou]

9. So how does the family try and explain it?

[laundry_queen]

46. Probably the same way

my mom explains how I'm not allergic to fish but my brother will die if he eats it.

Some kind of genetic fluke.

[Bearware]

26. three... More likely an extreme shortage of the pro-hormone Cholecalciferol

Last edited Fri Apr 6, 2012, 01:58 PM - Edit history (1)

A significant chunk of the ASD population is likely autoimmune and the initial cause is a combination of very low levels
of vitamin D3 and direct stress on the the immune system by a virus or a vaccination. No, it's not the mercury in the shots but the shots are designed to stimulate the immune system.

If a child is low on vitamin D3 and is exposed to a virus or vaccination it is not guaranteed they will develop ASD as genetic
predispositions are probably important and a roll of the dice is involved. The currently recommended daily minimum requirement for D3 is roughly 10% of what is vitamin D researchers recommend. There are a number of newborns in well-to-do families with rickets. Where would one be with 10% of the recommended amount of thyroid hormone?

A substantial number of ASD kids given therapy to reduce the reactivity of the immune system will show reversal of some to many symptoms.

[harun]

34. Until the source is known nothing should be taken off the table.

[TheWraith]

36. In that case, I declare that autism is caused by unicorn shit.

After all, I actually have a better case for it being caused by defecating mythical beasts than anyone does for vaccines, since vaccines have been shown repeatedly to have absolutely no link to autism whatsoever, and the only studies that claimed such have been withdrawn by their originators as being fraudulent.

[proverbialwisdom]

39. Stay tuned.

RE: "absolutely no link" -

Please see POST #32 below. In recent interviews (WNYC and NPR radio, respectively), Dr. Walter Zahorodny (Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ and lead researcher on the NJ portion of the study cited above) and Dr. Gerri Dawson (Autism Speaks Science Director) beg to differ.

Are you in the Dr. Brian Strom camp?

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/05/dr-brian-strom-an-honest-moron.html

Here’s the detail, from a CBS News report:

“University of Pennsylvania's Dr. Brian Strom, who has served on Institute of Medicine panels advising the government on vaccine safety says the prevailing medical opinion is that vaccines are scientifically linked to encephalopathy (brain damage), but not scientifically linked to autism.”

Also, apart from grossly mischaracterizing the claims of the withdrawn Lancet article, here's an update (not widely reported):

FYI, Professor John Walker-Smith is widely regarded as the co-founder of pediatric gastroenterology as an independent field, with Allan Walker of Harvard Medical School.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002395958

Professor John Walker Smith Exonerated in Autism MMR Case

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/10131156

MMR doctor wins High Court appeal

Press Association, Tuesday March 6 2012

Professor John Walker-Smith appealed against the General Medical Council's (GMC) determination that he was guilty of serious professional misconduct. His fight for his reputation was supported by the parents of many children with autism and bowel disease seen by him at the Royal Free Hospital, north London, up to his retirement in 2001.

Mr Justice Mitting, sitting at London's High Court, ruled the GMC decision "cannot stand". He quashed the finding of professional misconduct and the striking-off.

Calling for changes in the way GMC fitness to practise panel hearings are conducted in the future, the judge said of the flawed handling of Prof Walker-Smith's case: "It would be a misfortune if this were to happen again."

<...>

In a written ruling, the judge made it clear the judgment was the end of the case, and the GMC did not intend to appeal.

http://www.canaryparty.org/index.php/the-news/82-senior-author-of-mmr-paper-john-walker-smith-wins-appeal

Senior Author of MMR Paper, John Walker-Smith, Wins Appeal

Written by The Canary Party
Wednesday, 07 March 2012 16:13

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s co-author on controversial Lancet “MMR paper” completely exonerated of all charges of professional misconduct

World renowned pediatric gastroenterologist Prof. John Walker-Smith won his appeal today against the United Kingdom’s General Medical Council regulatory board that had ruled against both him and Andrew Wakefield for their roles in the 1998 Lancet MMR paper, which raised questions about a link to autism. The complete victory means that Walker-Smith has been returned to the status of a fully licensed physician in the UK, although he had already retired in 2001 — six years before the GMC trial even began.

Justice John Mitting ruled on the appeal by Walker-Smith, saying that the GMC “panel’s determination cannot stand. I therefore quash it.” He said that its conclusions were based on “inadequate and superficial reasoning and, in a number of instances, a wrong conclusion.” The verdict restores Walker-Smith’s name to the medical register and his reputation to the medical community. This conclusion is not surprising, as the GMC trial had no actual complainants, no harm came to the children who were studied, and parents supported Walker-Smith and Wakefield through the trial, reporting that their children had medically benefited from the treatment they received at the Royal Free Hospital.

While John Walker-Smith received funding to appeal the GMC decision from his insurance carrier, his co-author Andrew Wakefield did not — and was therefore unable to mount an appeal in the high court. This year, however, Dr. Wakefield, who now conducts his research in the US, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Brian Deer, Fiona Godlee and the British Medical Journal for falsely accusing him of “fraud.” The suit is currently underway in Texas, where Wakefield now lives. The ruling today bodes well for Dr. Wakefield’s suit against Deer, on whose reporting the entire GMC hearing was based.

<...>

Today, almost 14 years after the paper was published, the high court determined that John Walker-Smith was innocent of the wrongdoing alleged by the GMC. Judge Mitting reported that the GMC, “on the basis of sensible instructions, does not invite me to remit it to a fresh Fitness to Practice panel for redetermination. The end result is that the finding of serious professional misconduct and the sanction of erasure are both quashed.”

More at link.

From today's news:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/bmjs-godlee-swears-she-did-not-know-wakefield-lived-in-texas-in-face-of-documentary-evidence.html#comments

BMJ's Godlee Swears She Did Not Know Wakefield Lived in Texas In Face of Documentary Evidence

'On Thursday 12 April 2012 British Medical Journal's appeal against Andrew Wakefield's libel suit being heard in Texas goes before Travis County Court in Austin. John Stone, AoA's UK editor, reports on developments in the case.'

By John Stone

In an attempt by British Medical Journal to wrest Andrew Wakefield’s libel case from the jurisdiction of a Texas court its editor Fiona Godlee has denied ‘under penalty of perjury’ that she and her colleagues were ever aware that Wakefield resided in Texas, despite numerous references in the journal to this fact since 2005. The declaration which was made to the court twice, first on 28 February 2012 and then on 5 April, coincided on the second occasion with the presentation by Wakefield’s lawyers of annotated evidence that the fact had often been reported by the journal.

This claim must cast doubt on Godlee’s competence and reliability as a witness.

It follows her remarkable claim last year, at a meeting of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, that she did not know that BMJ’s business partners Merck and GSK were manufacturers of MMR vaccine .

It also follows the revelation last month that BMJ had not had the article by Brian Deer – on which its claims of fraud against Wakefield were based – externally peer reviewed, as claimed at the time of publication, (See BMJ HERE.)

More at link.

Backstory:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/05/andrew-wakefield-sues-bmj-mmr

Andrew Wakefield sues BMJ for claiming MMR study was fraudulent

Ian Sample, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 January 2012 13.17 EST

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's Libel Writ Against The British Medical Journal

See http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/01/04/BritMedJ.pdf

.

[X_Digger]

4. A bit of logic miss there..

It's not that there's more autism ('autism cases are on the rise again'), it's that we're detecting the existing cases via better screening and diagnosis.

The same would happen if we expanded the definition of autism.

Shoddy journalism.

[sakabatou]

6. +1

[Throckmorton]

10. I recall a resent study of late middle age people

That showed that there were a lot of autistic people in that age group that were undiagnosed, the numbers pretty much in line with the under 20 age group.

[zipplewrath]

11. Funny you should mention that

The definition of autism has gradually expanded, and “autism” is now shorthand for a group of milder, related conditions, including Asperger’s syndrome.

I'd be curious to know how much the frequency has increased due to a greater frequency of diagnosis of ALL of the conditions now under the umbrella. I'm seeing alot of parents now being told their kids have Aspergers. Outwardly, it's fairly mild compared to the cases I used to know in engineering school.

[X_Digger]

13. *nod* Or a study (were it possible)..

.. of old psychological records, to see how many of them would have fit the criteria we use now.

I'm sure in some of them, they wouldn't be able to make a determination because the right questions weren't asked, but I'd bet a lot more would be identified nonetheless.

[HockeyMom]

17. While that is definitely true,

there is a backlash happening with testing. The public school I worked in stopped all testing, for anything, until age 8. If there are problems, they should be tested younger, so intervention can start before they get that far in school. The school said if the parents wanted their child tested on their own, and pay for it, then they would follow the directives of the private findings. Can you say Money?

You put an undiagosed austic 7 year old in a mainstream class with 25 other kids, and a teacher not trained to work with developmental disablities, it will cause major disruptions in that class. It will do nobody any good.

[TheWraith]

23. You were expecting accurate journalism?

[X_Digger]

24. I live in hope.

I'm frequently disappointed.

[sakabatou]

8. For years I was diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder

It was only a few years ago that I was diagnosed with actually having autism.

[Odin2005]

12. See, I TOLD people that it is about more people getting diagnosed.

NOT an increase in the actual incidence. But did the anti-vax lunatics believe me? NOOOOO...

[AverageJoe90]

44. I agree with you on the anti-vax folks.

TBH, though, I can't help but think that some of these 'There's more Aspies than you think' people are just as loony, or at least almost so.

[midnight]

16. Higher rates in Utah? Didn't someone just post an apology letter from a grandparent

apologizing for the nuclear effects of that States Nuclear sites on the children in their community? Since officials admit other factors are driving up the numbers, maybe it could be the leaching of these chemicals into our children's food water, etc..... but another five years will go by with more mindless statements about how they just can't figure it out..... I say we do an environmental turn about... Stop putting chemicals in our food, water, etc for the next decade and see how that affects the population of young children...

[Marrah_G]

18. I know two families with Autism

My best friend has twin identical girls- one is higher functioning, one is moderate. They've had alot of help from the state and schools and are doing well.

Then my cousin had Quads, two girls (fraternal) and two boys (identical), the boys are autistic, one more mildly and the other is the savant type, non communicating type.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. In the old days, the low-functioning autistic kids would have simply been labeled

"retarded," while the kids on the Asperger's end of the spectrum would simply have been labeled "nerdy" or "weird kids."

First autism was recognized as a separate category, and then Asperger's was classified as a type of autism.

So I think it's a matter of diagnostics rather than actual increase.

[proverbialwisdom]

25. OFFICIAL DATA: the autism rate for boys born in NJ in 2000 is 1 in 29 reports Mark Blaxill (@ 4:09).

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/our-nations-children-are-becoming-brain-damaged-what-could-possibly-be-more-important.html#comments

Canary Party "Autism is 1 in 88" Press Conference Live

Posted by Age of Autism at April 04, 2012 at 5:46 AM

VIDEO

Editor’s Note:

I wasn’t at the press conference Monday in New York, but I just watched it, and I feel like I’ve gotten the most up-to-date and important briefing on autism in memory.

Our own Mark Blaxill gave a powerful presentation on the shocking new autism numbers and the CDC’s pathetic response; Katie Wright, an AOA Contributing Editor, talked about her experience with her son, Christian, that led to the founding of Autism Speaks; Barry Segal of Focus Autism described his own deepening awareness of vaccine injury and autism; Louise Kuo Habakus – whose quote above showed what’s at stake – called for greater government accountability; and Mary Holland emceed and added her own perspective.

Please watch – it’s a must-see.

– Dan Olmsted

http://www.canaryparty.org/

The Canary Party and Grassroots Autism Organizations Call for Firings of Health Officials in the Wake of New Autism Numbers

Written by The Canary Party
Monday, 02 April 2012 12:28

CDC has announced that the autism rate is now 1 in 88 children and autism groups have called the Obama administration's handling of the autism epidemic a disaster. Press conference held to call for investigations, hearings, the declaration of an emergency, and the firing of government health officials.

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 02, 2012

The Canary Party and other grass roots organizations gathered today to demand drastic action in response to the government’s failures in addressing the autism epidemic, after CDC releases new autism numbers showing that the autism rate doubled in five years.

This morning, the Canary Party joined a group of grassroots autism organizations in a press conference in Manhattan to discuss how we have reached the catastrophic rate of 1 in 88 children, and 1 in 54 boys, having autism in this country. The Age of Autism, AutismOne, Autism Action Network, Autism File, The Canary Party, Center for Personal Rights, The Coalition for Safe Minds, Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy, Focus Autism, National Autism Association and Talk About Curing Autism have declared that this is a national health emergency, and that our government has failed us.

The video from the press conference can be found at http://CanaryParty.org.

The Canary Party and her partners believe that the current situation is intolerable and will not remain silent, watching more children and more families face the overwhelming burdens of autism. Together our groups are demanding that:

1. Secretary Sebelius fire those who have been in charge of autism policies in this Administration. Dr. Insel, chair of IACC must be fired. The new members of IACC should all be dismissed, and the new Chair of IACC should commence a new search for committee members.

2. Secretary Sebelius meet with a group of representatives from this coalition to discuss the autism health emergency. It is clear that the Secretary is disengaged and does not comprehend the urgency of this situation.

3. The views of all presidential candidates on autism be are clear. President Obama called himself “the Autism President” in 2008 and said that he would help to solve the crisis. He will stand on his record. This is an issue that this community will vote on.

4. The General Accounting Office study past autism funding to see why almost all money went to genetic research, which we now know, based on peer-reviewed science, is not the predominant factor – environment is. We want to understand if corporate interests or other improper interests distorted research priorities.

5. Hearings in the Government Reform and Oversight Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives be held. It is time for Congress to examine the role of the federal authorities in this crisis. No Congressional committee has looked seriously at the conflicts of interest and inaction towards autism in almost a decade. As part of this process, Congress must examine the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and how it has been quietly acknowledging autism as a vaccine injury for almost 25 years. We need real inquiry by our representatives into this government debacle.

Canary Party Chairman Mark Blaxill, speaking on behalf of these organizations, representing tens of thousands of families, have committed to the public and to officials that, “We are not going away. We cannot. We all live with autism every day in one way or another. We will not stop pushing until we get accountable leadership and until we reverse this devastating epidemic.”

RECOMMENDED:
http://www.canaryparty.org/index.php/the-news/56-the-canary-party-massachusetts-pursues-vaccine-exemption-rights
(Includes testimony of Dr. Janet Levitan, pediatrician, adjunct at Harvard Medical School; Dr. Richard Deth, Professor of Pharmacology, Northeastern University; parents)

What is the Canary Party?

The Canary Party is a movement created to stand up for the victims of medical injury, environmental toxins and industrial foods by restoring balance to our free and civil society and empowering consumers to make health and nutrition decisions that promote wellness.

[proverbialwisdom]

27. "Living in Utah... baby boy will have a 1 in 32 chance of being autistic, the highest risk in US."

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/53862628-82/autism-utah-autistic-environmental.html.csp

Utah’s alarming autism rate

By brian moench
First Published Apr 07 2012 01:01 am • Last Updated Apr 07 2012 01:01 am

Warning to prospective parents: Living in Utah means your baby boy will have a 1 in 32 chance of being autistic, the highest risk in the nation. A new federal study confirms that Utah is the epicenter of an accelerating epidemic of autism.

Even though that diagnosis can include people within a broad range of disability, there is no way to avoid this conclusion: This is a steadily expanding public health emergency and it deserves the highest level of engagement from local, state and federal authorities.

While there is still much to be learned about the cause, if we wait to respond until every bit of doubt has been erased, then decades will elapse and hundreds of thousands of new victims and their families will have had their lives impaired and in many cases ruined. If your house is on fire you don’t wait until you know what caused it before you pour water on it.

This is what we know so far:

A 2011 Stanford University study with 192 pairs of twins, with one twin autistic and one not, found that genetics accounts for 38 percent of the risk of autism, and environmental factors account for 62 percent. Supporting an environmental/genetic tag team are other studies showing autistic children and their mothers have a high rate of a genetic deficiency in the production of glutathione, an antioxidant and the body’s primary means of detoxifying heavy metals. High levels of toxic metals in children are strongly correlated with the severity of autism.

Low levels of glutathione, coupled with high production of another chemical, homocysteine, increase the chance of a mother having an autistic child to one in three. That autism is four times more common among boys than girls is likely related to a defect in the single male X chromosome contributing to antioxidant deficiency. But there is no such thing as a genetic disease epidemic because genes don’t change that quickly, so the alarming rise in autism must be the result of increased environmental exposures that exploit these genetic defects.

The list of autism’s possible environmental triggers is long and comes from many studies that show higher rates of autism with greater exposure to flame retardants, plasticizers like BPA, pesticides, endocrine disruptors in personal-care products, heavy metals in air pollution, mercury, and pharmaceuticals like antidepressants.

During the first three months of gestation, a human embryo adds 250,000 brain cells per minute, reaching 200 billion by the fifth month. No chemical elixir can improve this biologic miracle, but thousands of toxic substances can cross the placenta and impair the process, leaving brain cells stressed, inflamed, less well developed, fewer in number and with fewer connections with each other. Autistic brain architecture can be revealed by MRI scan as early as six months of age.

Doctors have long advised women during pregnancy to avoid consumption of alcohol, drugs or chemicals. But as participants in modern society we are all now exposed to over 85,000 chemicals from the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the consumer products we use.

Pregnant women and their children have 100 times more chemical exposures today than 50 years ago. The average newborn has more than 200 different chemicals and heavy metals contaminating its blood when it takes its first breath; 158 of them are toxic to the brain. Little wonder that rates of autism, attention deficit and behavioral disorders are all on the rise.

Utah residents should demand answers and solutions. Just like a crime investigation, every possible environmental suspect should be on the table. The Great Salt Lake has the highest concentration of mercury of any water body in the U.S. We are constantly inhaling dust and emissions from Kennecott and the expanding dry beaches surrounding the Great Salt Lake, all of which contain mercury, lead or other heavy metals. Utah has the nation’s highest rate of antidepressant use. Our air pollution is sometimes the worst in the nation, and the toxic brew from five oil refineries penetrates every home within miles.

Autism is a lifelong, individual and family tragedy. That Utah has become the nation’s autism capital constitutes tragedy on a grand scale. There are times for government activism and intervention. This is certainly one of those times.

Brian Moench is president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.

[proverbialwisdom]

28. ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS: Occupy EPA Action, 3/30/12,"If the EPA were occupied with sound science..."

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/53862628-82/autism-utah-autistic-environmental.html.csp

...Doctors have long advised women during pregnancy to avoid consumption of alcohol, drugs or chemicals. But as participants in modern society we are all now exposed to over 85,000 chemicals from the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe and the consumer products we use.

Pregnant women and their children have 100 times more chemical exposures today than 50 years ago. The average newborn has more than 200 different chemicals and heavy metals contaminating its blood when it takes its first breath; 158 of them are toxic to the brain.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_25169.cfm

Occupy EPA Videos - Helen Caldicott, Alexis Baden-Mayer
Occupy EPA, March 30, 2012

Under the Occupy 2012 banner of the "American Spring," the movement spearheaded the largest protest ever against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last Friday in Washington D.C. The Organic Consumers Association's political director Alexis Baden-Mayer spoke at the rally. Here are two videos from the demonstration. The first includes Alexis's speech. The second is an important speech by Helen Caldicott on current nuclear dangers. The text of Alexis's speech follows, along with Take Action links.

Text of Alexis Baden-Mayer's speech at the Occupy EPA action March 30, 2012:

Thank you so much for coming here today to Occupy the EPA.

Our lives depend on being able to kick the polluters and the toxic chemical companies out of the EPA. We need to replace corporate influence with sound science and common sense regulations that protect public health and the environment.

My name is Alexis Baden-Mayer. I work for the Organic Consumers Association's Millions Against Monsanto campaign and I'm 5 months pregnant.

As a pregnant woman in North America, eating a typical North American diet, in all likelihood, I have toxins genetically engineered by Monsanto coursing through my veins. I have a 9 out of 10 chance of having Monsanto's genetically engineered Bt toxin in my blood and the baby inside of me has an 8 out of 10 chance of the same toxic contamination. We're also likely to be contaminated with Monsanto's herbicide RoundUp. How did these toxins get in our blood? What does this mean for our health? And what is the EPA doing about it?

It's the food we eat. Almost all processed foods contain genetically engineered ingredients. A soda is mostly genetically engineered high-fructose corn syrup. French fries are cooked in genetically engineered trans fats. Meat, milk and eggs come from animals raised almost exclusively on genetically engineered grains.

All of the genetically engineered crops are engineered to either to withstand herbicides or produce pesticides. Monsanto's RoundUp is the number one herbicide of all time. We've never used more of one agriculture chemical. Now Dow and Monsanto are working on crops that are genetically engineered to withstand outrageous amounts of the herbicide 2,4-D. 2,4-D is half of the formula for Agent Orange. It's the 7th largest source of the dioxin pollution that continues today, even though the EPA for the last 27 years has been collecting evidence that shows dioxin is the most toxic compound synthesized by man. If we start growing this Agent Orange corn we're going to be using 50 times the amount of 2,4-D used today and this is only going to put more dioxin into our farmland, our food and our bodies.

Genetically engineered foods are dangerous. The genetically engineered Bt toxin found in the blood of pregnant women and our babies kills human cells. Other countries have banned it, but we're just growing more and more of it.Where is the EPA? Genetically engineered crops greatly increase the use of herbicides and pesticides. The EPA should be banning these dangerous chemicals. The EPA should ban 2,4-D. The EPA should ban RoundUp. These pesticides cause birth defects. As a pregnant woman, if I were a Minnesota farm worker my baby would be 1.6 times more likely to have a birth defect because of exposure to pesticides. If I were pregnant in Argentina, living near the massive plantations of genetically modified soy where Monsanto's Roundup is sprayed, my baby would be 46 times more likely to have a birth defect. If I were pregnant in Vietnam where Monsanto and Dow's Agent Orange was used, my baby would be 131 times more likely to have a birth defect. If the EPA were occupied with sound science, if the EPA were occupied with common sense regulations -- and not occupied with the corrupting influence to corporations like Monsanto, toxic chemicals would be banned and all women could have healthy babies.

[proverbialwisdom]

29. Of mice & children: does this happen in infants & should it comprise a contraindication, like fever?

(to routine well-baby visit protocols)

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_16248.cfm

Study Finds GM Corn Disturbs Immune System of Mice

By Ken Roseboro, ed.
The Organic and Non-GMO Report, December 2008

Italy's National Institute of Research on Food and Nutrition recently published a report online in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry (read study here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf802059w?prevSearch=MON810+immune+system&searchHistoryKey= ) documenting significant disturbances in the immune system of young and old mice that have been fed the genetically modified corn MON 810.

The study evaluated the gut and peripheral immune response to corn in mice in vulnerable conditions-either very young or old. Weaning and old mice were fed a diet containing GM MON810 or its parental control corn or a pellet diet containing a non- GM corn for 30 and 90 days. MON810 maize induced alterations in the percentage of T and B cells and of CD4+, CD8+, γδT, and αβT subpopulations of weaning and old mice fed for 30 or 90 days, respectively, at the gut and peripheral sites. An increase of serum IL-6, IL-13, IL- 12p70, and MIP-1β after MON810 feeding was also found. These changes were not detected in the mice fed the non-GM diet.

The researchers said that the study's findings underscore the importance of considering the gut and peripheral immune response to GM crop ingestion as well as the age of the consumer when evaluating GM crop safety.

A press release issued by the Institute of Science in Society stated, "It is clear that genetic modification is inherently hazardous, as it invariably results in unpredictable and uncontrollable changes in the genome and the epigenome (pattern of gene expression) that impact on safety."

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf802059w?prevSearch=MON810+immune+system&searchHistoryKey=

Intestinal and Peripheral Immune Response to MON810 Maize Ingestion in Weaning and Old Mice

Alberto Finamore, Marianna Roselli, Serena Britti, Giovanni Monastra, Roberto Ambra, Aida Turrini and Elena Mengheri*
Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Roma, Italy

J. Agric. Food Chem., 2008, 56 (23), pp 11533–11539

DOI: 10.1021/jf802059w

Publication Date (Web): November 14, 2008

Copyright © 2008 American Chemical Society

[AverageJoe90]

45. I'm sorry, but 1 in 32!?!?

Sorry but that is pure fearmongering on the part of Dr. Moench pure and simple. I don't mean to knock his research on the negative effects of heavy metal poisoning, which is a real issue, but 1 in 32? Really? I don't think any dishonesty was meant here but some people do go too far with this. It's part of the reason why many people haven't woken up yet. =(

[proverbialwisdom]

48. Wrong, sorry. The stats are from ADDM, a project of the CDC and its parent agency, DHHS.

This is heart crushing, but even if you are loathe to do so, read ALL the relevant posts by Mark Blaxill collected here: http://www.ageofautism.com/mark_blaxill/

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/03/best-of-age-of-autism-mark-blaxill-on-lies-damned-lies-and-cdc-autism-statistics-.html

Posted by Age of Autism at March 28, 2012 at 6:31 AM
Best of Age of Autism: Mark Blaxill on Lies, Damned Lies and CDC Autism Statistics

...This is the third airing of this post as the numbers continue to climb with no sense of the urgency and action this epidemic demands.

...Nowhere is the institutional pattern of negligence, deception and propaganda surrounding autism more apparent than in the work of the Autism Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) network. The design of the ADDM, a project of the CDC and its parent agency the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), reveals in sharp relief how determined CDC is to evade its autism responsibilities. And while there is no evidence of fraud in the preparation of the ADDM data, that’s about the only good thing you can say about the work. To be blunt, every ADDM publication so far has betrayed a fundamental dishonesty, reporting analysis that has been twisted for bureaucratic purposes to mask and suppress the magnitude of the autism problem. It’s a disturbing display of the triumph of public relations over professionalism, propaganda masquerading as science.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/04/mark-blaxill-public-comment-to-iacc-a-time-to-lead.html

Posted by Age of Autism at April 12, 2011 at 5:47 AM
Mark Blaxill Public Comment to IACC: "A Time to Lead"

A Time to Lead

My name is Mark Blaxill. I am the father of a 15 year old daughter diagnosed with autism, a Director of SafeMinds and editor-at-large of Age of Autism. I am also a co-author of The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine and a Manmade Epidemic. Since our book was published last September I have had the privilege of traveling across the country to meet with dozens of groups and thousands of families affected by autism. I was deeply impressed by the affected individuals, mothers, fathers and family members I met on our tour. Above all else, I was impressed by how so many families have the same story to tell and by how many of us are asking for the same things. We are asking for bold leadership that unfortunately we have not yet seen.

Most directly, in the midst of the greatest childhood epidemic of all of our lives, we are trapped in an historic failure of the scientific process. Thomas Kuhn taught us how communities of “normal scientists” can prevent progress and trap important field of inquiry in scientific orthodoxy. We have seen this pattern play itself out in autism, first in the idea that parents and especially mothers caused autism because they hated, indeed even wanted to murder their children. More recently we have been trapped in the equally failed search for inherited autism genes. In the meantime, we are investing next to nothing in environmental causation. This is a fundamentally irrational approach, yet the orthodox researchers who benefit from this irrationality have defended their territory while they invoke science in the name of their own interests. Not a single dollar spent in the process has prevented a single case of autism. Worse than that, we are spending millions of dollars to promote denial.

In an environment of increasing budget scarcity, this is more than just a scientific failure; it’s an economic one as well. We are wasting taxpayer resources and approaching the governance process with a lack of urgency that seeps into all aspects of autism science. As a near monopsonistic buyer, NIH has a unique power in setting scientific agendas. The IACC should serve the consumers of autism science. Instead you appear to most of us to serve the medical industry, aiding and abetting the fiction that the controversies over autism research pit “parents vs. science.” In reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The real controversy is one between critical consumers of autism science and the orthodox producers whose work has failed us. In the debate between the autism community and the medical industry, your responsibility here should be clear.

This is not an abstract problem. Before 1930, the rate of autism was effectively zero. Before 1990, autism in the United States was exceedingly rare, as low as 1 in 10,000. Today, with roughly 1% of children born in the 1990s, it should be breathtakingly clear that autism is manmade. And that makes the autism epidemic not merely a public health crisis but a crisis of public ethics and morality as well. Hundreds of thousands of children, now growing to adulthood, are victims of preventable injury, a form of invisible violence. It is a form of violence that requires witnesses. Yet because of the nature of the injuries involved those witnesses must typically have scientific, medical or technical training. In large part, this witness pool also has career and economic interest in the medical industry, one of the main suspects. Tragically, but perhaps not surprisingly, we are seeing a moral failure of enormous proportions, as potential witnesses are sanctioned, censored and intimidated while the entrenched power of the orthodoxy has successfully sustained its prerogatives. This is not right. More to the point, it is not good. And it is long past time for a change.

More than any other single group of individuals, you members of the IACC are in a position to lead that change. That requires many things of you. It requires you to pay attention. It requires you to think independently and rationally. It requires you to take personal risk. It requires you to challenge close friends and colleagues who are part of the orthodoxy that perpetuates the problem. Above all, it requires moral courage. The only thing it does not require is that you wade through the complex machinations of denial because the problem is simple and staring you in the face. We are staring you in the face. And because autism is what it is, we will be standing in front of you until we are gone, or until you have done the right thing, whichever comes first.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/223265-it-is-time-to-re-engage-on-the-autism-epidemic

It is time to re-engage on the autism epidemic

By Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) - 04/24/12 09:15 AM ET

On March 30, 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released their latest figures on the number of autistic kids in America. The numbers are sobering. Thirty years ago it was estimated that autism affected only 1 out of every 10,000 individuals. The latest CDC figures put the number at 1 in 88 American children (one in 54 boys); a 550 percent jump in cases since 2000. We are literally in the midst of a nationwide epidemic.

In the late 90s, my grandson was diagnosed with autism. Like other family members who have been touched by autism, I wanted to know more about this condition. During my tenure as Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform (1997-2002) and the subcommittee on Human Rights & Wellness (2003-2004), I held no fewer than 20 hearings examining the state of federal scientific research into the cause of and treatment for autism. I am proud of the work we did to raise awareness of autism and draw more attention to the need for research; and I am firmly convinced that the work we did back then laid the groundwork for the historic Combating Autism Act and for the $1 Billion in Federal research into autism that is happening today.

Unfortunately, a great deal of misinformation has been thrown around in public and private about the Committee's focus on mercury in medicines as a possible factor in the autism epidemic. I’m not a scientist, but the Committee heard from many credible scientists and experts who are convinced that mercury is a contributing factor; and the theory is no less worthy of exploration than the theories being propounded today that the pregnancy weight of the mother or the age of the father at conception influences whether a child becomes autistic. When you have no idea what is causing a disease, policymakers and scientists should never be afraid to investigate any plausible theory. In fact, researching possible environmental factors is a central component of today's research on autism.

Regrettably, lost in the controversy over mercury are two other issues the Committee explored.

<...>

That is why I introduced the “White House Conference on Autism Act of 2011” (H.R. 3489). It will require the President of the United States to convene, no later than December 31, 2012, a White House Conference on Autism charged with developing policy recommendations on ways to address the autism epidemic and its impact on Americans. I hope to see this bill signed into law before I retire from Congress at the end of this year. Although I am retiring from Congress, I am not retiring from the fight against autism, because I firmly believe as a nation we have a collective responsibility to do everything we can to not only stop the further spread of this disease but to help the millions of children, adults and families afflicted by it.

Rep. Burton (R-IN) has chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 1997-2002.

[AverageJoe90]

55. I'm terribly sorry, but........

One of the Blaxill articles said that autism was basically non-existent in the '30s. I'm sorry, but that kinda ruined the article for me..... The truth is, if it truly is mostly man-made, and I have long suspected that it is, then it isn't at all a new problem, as pollution, of all sorts, was actually far, far worse in the 1930s than it was when I was born(early '90s), especially in the areas where certain industries dominated. This disease may have only been recently named but it isn't something that just sprung up out of thin air, not like AIDS did. This condition has been around for as long as humans have had their food & water supplies contaminated by hazardous materials(in fact, one must wonder if the two girls from Salem responsible for the Witch Trials may have become autistic thru ergot poisoning?). Blaxill also seems to be unwilling to consider the possibility that some cases of ASD may indeed be caused by child abuse and/or neglect. Unfortunately, these days, most members of the medical establishment aren't willing to admit this, either.

An okay article overall, but there are a few things that should've have been edited out. His highly absurd, and just plain unprovable assumption that autism didn't exist in the 1930s was one of them.

And, I'm still very much sticking to the side that ASD's are indeed a problem, but have been very, very, overdiagnosed over the past couple of decades, mainly due to incompetence and fearmongering. I'm sorry, but the 1 in 88 figure is just f***ing bullshit.

You may wonder why I feel so damn strongly about this. Well, best to be honest with you and just come out already: I was misdiagnosed myself some 18 years ago. The regimen of 'special' schooling, and pills, contributed to ensure that I would have long-term underlying emotional issues to deal with on top of growing up in a somewhat screwed up family(not really too terribly bad, but still problematic enough at times). If the psychiatrists in the Dallas-area school district where I grew up attending hadn't been bungled this so badly I'd probably be better off, even if only somewhat so.

[Throckmorton]

30. Runs 1 to 2 in my house.

I have two autistic children, 1 boy (17 with Asperger's syndrome) and 1 girl (15 with PDD-NOS). I also have a neurotypical 5 year old boy (who is adopted).

Makes for some interesting time round these parts.

[panzerfaust]

31. Consider $$$ as factor in increase of this diagnosis

The increase in this diagnosis may well reflect the lack of universal health-care in this nation.

A health-care provider generally will not receive third-party (insurance) payment for any condition which does not have an ICD code (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems Code).

If you are providing care for a child having problems, if you can find support for an ICD diagnosis, then you will be paid. If not, then the insurance company will deny the claim.

Thus, there is strong incentive to "make a diagnosis" rather than simply taking care of someone. Given the subjective and soft criteria for making a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder it is an easy way to come up with an acceptable ICD code.

The increase in this disorder reflects the allotment of medical care in this country, and is not reflective of ever-more deranged kids.

Autism does exist, and is a terrible condition, but there is a wide range of psychological traits - and my belief is that there is tremendous pressure to narrow the spectrum of what is 'normal.'

Soon simply being a child will be considered pathological.

[proverbialwisdom]

32. You MUST read this even if a more nuanced explanation is ultimately more accurate (eg post #26).

http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2012/04/dr-walter-zahorodny-believes-vaccines.html

Posted by Ginger Taylor at Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Dr. Walter Zahorodny Believes Vaccines Cause Autism. And Geri Dawson???

From a Radio Listener in NYC:

I was listening this AM to WNYC – Kurt Andersen, of all hostile people, did a segment on the ADDM numbers with Walter Zahorodny, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark. Zahorodny was the lead researcher on the New Jersey portion of the study.

Kurt Andersen (Seth Mnookin's friend): “I guess we know what they (the causes of autism) aren’t, for instance childhood vaccines. Right?”

Dr. Zahorodny: “Vaccines don’t play a significant role in autism increasing. Some small number of children probably do have autism because of an adverse vaccine reaction, but they don’t make for the overall rise.”

D'oh!

What's that you say Dr. Z? Vaccines don't cause most autism, but they do cause some autism?? You don't say?!

When the brainwashed "science media" can't even get those involved in the research to hold the "vaccines do not cause autism" line any more... we can be assured that the Hungry Lie is falling apart in earnest and the end of the vaccine age is near.

If anyone can confirm or has audio, would love to hear it.

UPDATE:

Confirmation. Starts at 13:20: AUDIO AT LINK.

It is CRAZY how blase he is about this. Like he is reporting a light rain moving in from the west in the late afternoon. Drops a bomb and strolls on by.

Worth listening to the whole interview as it counters many of the media talking points.

His thoughts are that:

•NJ high rate is because they have a better reporting system and they looked at both educational and medical records, where other states only looked at medical records, so other states are likely as high as NJ
•The increase is real
•The NJ 2002 rate and this number is a real increase because the reporting system was designed to measure that exactly
•Fluctuations due to 1994 DSM4 changes would have been settled in the first years and would not impact rates now
•Most cases they found were serious autism, not a load of high functioning cases that would have been mised before
•DSM5 will "muddy the waters" on autism tracking

UPDATE:

So is Geri Dawson joining Dr. Zahorodny? Looks that way to me!

Only a year ago, Autism Speaks science director Geri Dawson said we are not allowed to talk about vaccines any more. But now she says this...

Tom Ashbrook interviewed her on NPR:

Ashbrook: "Dr. Dawson, here's a question online from Melrose, has the link between MMR vaccine and autism been completely discredited. I notice that the word 'vaccine' has not even come up so far in this hour. Is that...for some years that had a lot of attention, is that off the table now, Dr. Dawson?"

Dr. Dawson: "There is no evidence that the increase in prevalence that we're seeing in Autism Spectrum Disorder is linked to the MMR vaccine. You know, if vaccines play a role, and there has not been any evidence thus far to show that it has, it would be a very small minority of individuals who have an underlying medical condition where the vaccine may have triggered an onset of symptoms for an already existing condition or vulnerability. So we do not believe that vaccines are an explanation of the increase and we strongly encourage parents to get their children vaccinated."

So again... thrown the softball and didn't take it!

Ashbrook, like Andersen, took the initiative of bringing the vaccine question into the interview, and in both cases it was merely an invitation to declare the vaccine hypothesis DOA. And neither Zahorodny or Dawson took the opportunity to do so!

They BOTH could have said, "Correct." And just moved on. But they didn't!

They both contradicted their interviewers presumptive statements, and said a version of, "Incorrect, vaccines do cause autism in some children, and it is a smaller number of cases than people think, but I don't see that vaccine induced autism could be playing a major factor in the increase."

IMHO... no way in h-e-double hockey sticks that these two didn't know exactly what they were doing. They had every chance to run from vaccine causation and they didn't. They confirmed it. Then they minimized it.

We have just witnessed the very quiet pushing of the envelope. Dr. Geri Dawson and Dr. Walter Zahorodny have just joined you and me and all our friends in taking our position that vaccines cause some cases of autism, just not all the cases of autism. Now we are only separated by the degree in which we believe the vaccine induced autism is a factor in the skyrocketing autism numbers.

Geri said something very interesting... and true...

"You know, if vaccines play a role [in rising autism prevalence], and there has not been any evidence thus far to show that it has."

...if by "evidence" of course, she means "scientific research" because there is plenty of data to show that vaccines cause autism, but none that I know of to show how often vaccines cause autism. Remember... we are all still pretending that it doesn't happen at all. So can you imagine the research funding proposal that would read, "It has been established that vaccines are one of the causes of autism, this team endeavors to discover how much of the rise in autism cases are due to vaccine induced autism." HA! Betcha Autism Speaks and CDC would just THROW money at that ask!

Which brings us back to the statement that David Bowman of HRSA issued three years ago:

"The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.

Some children who have been compensated for vaccine injuries may have shown signs of autism before the decision to compensate, or may ultimately end up with autism or autistic symptoms, but we do not track cases on this basis."

Not even the government keeps track of their own cases of vaccine induced autism!

So do vaccines cause autism? YES! Now we just need to know how often that happens!

[proverbialwisdom]

33. HHS Press Release naming new public members of Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee:

http://iacc.hhs.gov/news/news_updates/2012/news_2012_iacc_new_members.shtml

News Update

Thursday, March 29, 2012

HHS Secretary Names New Public Members to Serve on Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee

The Department of Health and Human Services today announced the names of the fifteen individuals invited to participate as public members of the newly reauthorized Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). The diverse group invited by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to join the IACC includes three autism self-advocates, several parents of affected children, a practicing developmental pediatrician, several researchers, and leaders of autism services and research organizations. Many of the nominated individuals serve dual roles, dedicating their professional careers to autism because of a family member with the disorder. National advocacy organizations represented by the invited individuals include Autism Speaks, Simons Foundation, Autism Science Foundation, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, SafeMinds, and the Somali American Autism Foundation.

Pending formal procedures to confirm their appointment to the committee, these public members will serve together with federal representatives to craft an annual strategic plan for ASD research and provide guidance to HHS Secretary Sebelius. The committee, which was initially established in 2006 under the Combating Autism Act, was renewed in late 2011 by the Combating Autism Reauthorization Act. After an open call for nominations for members of the public to serve on the committee, Secretary Sebelius selected this group of individuals to best advise her on research opportunities and emerging needs in the community.

Dr. Insel, Chair of the IACC and Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is eager to begin work with the new members. "The individuals that have been selected by Secretary Sebelius each bring with them a great amount of expertise and valuable insight," he said. "I have seen the committee's evolution since its early days and I am hopeful we will continue to build upon previous progress."

The individuals invited to serve on the renewed Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee include:

Idil Abdull
Ms. Idil Abdull is the parent of a son with autism and Co-Founder of the Somali American Autism Foundation. As a Somali-American mother, she has worked to raise awareness about the high prevalence of autism among Somali immigrants living in Minnesota and has helped to change autism policies in the state. She also has a special interest in serving as a voice for underrepresented groups more broadly, including those that are struggling with language, cultural, and economic barriers as they seek ways to help their family members with disabilities. Ms. Abdull holds a bachelor's degree in Health Care Administration.

James Ball
Dr. Jim Ball is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D) who is the President and CEO of JB Autism Consulting. He has worked in the private sector field of autism for more than 25 years, providing educational, employment, and residential services to children and adults affected with autism. He is a Board member of the Autism Society's (AS) Board of Directors and is currently the Chair of the National Board. He received his Doctor of Education degree from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Anshu Batra
Dr. Anshu Batra is a developmental pediatrician specializing in autism and early childhood developmental disorders and the mother of two sons with autism spectrum disorder. She currently works in a private practice that provides medical services to more than 600 patients with developmental disabilities, the majority of whom have an autism diagnosis. The practice is unique not only in terms of the racial, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity of its patients, but also in its scope. Dr. Batra has become an outspoken advocate to educate both the professional and lay communities about autism and considers how to best integrate a growing subpopulation of individuals on the spectrum into society. She received her M.D. from the University of Michigan and trained in Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Noah Britton
Mr. Britton was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome a decade ago as a freshman in college and has spent every year since working directly with people on the spectrum. He is an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Bunker Hill Community College and has presented on autism as a guest lecturer at the University of Virginia and Tufts University. Prior to that Mr. Britton worked directly with teenagers on the spectrum as head counselor for the Northeast ARC's Spotlight program and as a drama teacher at the New England Academy in Massachusetts. Mr. Britton currently serves on the scientific/educational advisory board of the Autism Higher Education Foundation. He received his master's degree in psychology from Hunter College in 2010.

Sally Burton-Hoyle
Dr. Sally Burton-Hoyle, sister to a person on the autism spectrum, has focused her life and career on improving the education of people with autism and other challenging behaviors. She serves as area coordinator of the Masters of Autism Spectrum Disorders program at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). This program is based on Positive Behavioral Supports and family/community involvement. Dr. Burton-Hoyle has been at EMU since 2006 and was Executive Director of the Autism Society of Michigan prior to EMU. In addition, she has classroom experience as a special education teacher. Dr. Burton-Hoyle holds a doctorate in education from the University of Idaho and a master's degree in special education from the University of Kansas.

Matthew Carey
Dr. Matthew Carey is the father of a young child with multiple disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder, and is a frequent contributor to the Left Brain/Right Brain blog and the Autism Science Foundation blog. His writing focuses on reviewing current autism research in an understandable way for the public and he is deeply committed to communicating the importance of getting the science right for autism. He is also interested in analyzing trends in health and education public datasets. Dr. Carey is an active industrial researcher in computer hardware whose current research interests include magnetic thin films, spintronics, and magnetic nanostructures. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, San Diego, and his M.S. in Physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Dennis Choi
Dr. Dennis Choi is the Executive Vice President of the Simons Foundation, the second largest funder of autism research, and he was previously a member of the Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board. Past positions have included Vice President of Academic Health Affairs at Emory University, Executive Vice President of Neuroscience at Merck Research Labs, and professor and head of Neurology at Washington University Medical School. His research experience has included work on the physiological mechanism of action of benzodiazepine drugs and the processes responsible for nerve cell death after ischemic or traumatic insults. His research on mechanisms of brain and spinal cord injury has been recognized with several awards. Dr. Choi received his M.D. from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, as well as a Ph.D. in pharmacology and neurology residency/fellowship training from Harvard University, before joining the faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine from 1983-1991.

Jose Cordero
Dr. Cordero is the Dean of the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Puerto Rico. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Cordero was an Assistant Surgeon General of the Public Health Service and the Founding Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. He served in this capacity from the time of the establishment of the center on April 16, 2001 until his departure in 2006. Dr. Cordero worked for 27 years at the CDC and has extensive public health experience in the fields of birth defects, developmental disabilities, and child health. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico in 1973, completed residency training in pediatrics at Boston City Hospital and a fellowship in medical genetics at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1979, Dr. Cordero obtained a Masters of Public Health degree from Harvard University.

Jan Crandy
Ms. Jan Crandy is a case manager for the Nevada State Autism Treatment Assistance Program (ATAP) and has been a leader in raising awareness and treating autism spectrum disorders in Nevada for more than 15 years. She is a dedicated advocate and parent of a child with autism. In her current position at ATAP, Ms. Crandy manages and develops programs for more than 65 children with ASD. In 2007, Ms. Crandy was appointed to the Nevada Autism Task Force by Governor Jim Gibbons. In that role, Ms. Crandy helped develop policy recommendations for state policymakers on ways to improve the delivery and coordination of autism services in Nevada. She also serves as Chair of the Nevada Commission on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Ms. Crandy began her career in advocacy in 1996 when her daughter was diagnosed with autism. With the support of family and friends, Ms. Crandy started a nonprofit organization called Families for Early Autism Treatment (FEAT) to help parents of children with ASD in Southern Nevada.

Geraldine Dawson
Dr. Dawson is the Chief Science Officer for Autism Speaks, where she works with the scientific community and other stakeholders to shape and expand the organization's scientific vision. In addition to her work with Autism Speaks, Dr. Dawson holds the positions of Research Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at University of Washington. Dawson is a licensed clinical psychologist who has published extensively on autism spectrum disorders, focusing on early detection and intervention and early patterns of brain dysfunction. In collaboration with Dr. Sally Rogers, Dawson helped to develop and empirically-validated the Early Start Denver Model, the first comprehensive early intervention program for toddlers with autism. She has collaborated on numerous studies of brain development and function and genetic risk factors in autism. From 1996-2008, Dawson was Founding Director of the University of Washington Autism Center where she directed three NIH Autism Center of Excellence Award programs of research focusing on genetics, neuroimaging, early diagnosis, and clinical trials. Dr. Dawson has served as a public member on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee since 2010 and has been invited to continue her service. Dr. Dawson received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology with a minor in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington.

David Mandell
Dr. David Mandell is a health services researcher and psychiatric epidemiologist who seeks to identify the best ways to organize, finance and deliver services to children with psychiatric and developmental disabilities. He is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine. The goal of his current research is to improve care for children with autism and their families by developing successful interventions at the individual, provider and system levels to decrease the age at which children with autism are recognized and enter treatment, and to improve the services and supports available to them and their families. Dr. Mandell holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Columbia University and a Doctor of Science from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Lyn Redwood
Ms. Lyn Redwood is Co-Founder, Vice President and Board Member of Coalition for SafeMinds and Co-Founder of the National Autism Association (NAA). She became interested in autism research and advocacy when he son was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder. Ms. Redwood served on the Department of Defense Autism Spectrum Disorder Research Program from 2007-2009 and was acknowledged for a decade of service by Spectrum Magazine as their Person of the Year in 2009. Ms. Redwood has served as a public member on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee since 2007 and has been invited to continue her service. Ms. Redwood holds a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Alabama and is a registered nurse in the state of Georgia.

Scott Michael Robertson
Mr. Scott Michael Robertson co-founded the Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) in 2006 and currently serves as ASAN's Vice Chair of Development. Mr. Robertson, an adult on the autism spectrum, is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in information sciences and technology at Penn State University's University Park campus. His research pursuits in the fields of disability studies, human-computer interaction, and computer supported work/learning focus on understanding and improving the lives of people with neurological and developmental disabilities. Beyond his research, Mr. Robertson has actively served the cross-disability and autism communities as a mentor, teacher, advocate, public speaker, and writer. Mr. Robertson holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in human-computer interaction from Carnegie Mellon University.

John Elder Robison
John Elder Robison is an adult on the autism spectrum who grew up in the 1960s before the Asperger diagnosis came into common use. At age sixteen, Mr. Robison left high school to join his first band as a sound engineer. Within a few years he was building equipment for Pink Floyd's sound company, touring the hockey rinks of Canada with April Wine, and creating the signature special effects guitars for the rock band, KISS. John went on to design sound effects and other circuits for some of the most popular electronic games and toys of the era before moving into more conventional engineering management. In the late 1980s, John left electronics for a new career - cars. His company, J E Robison Service, grew to be one of the largest independent restoration and service specialists for BMW, Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes, and Rolls Royce cars. Mr. Robison is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts, speaks publicly about his experience as a person on the autism spectrum, and is the author of popular books about living life with autism, Look Me in the Eye, My Life with Asperger's, and Be Different, Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian.

Alison Singer
Ms. Alison Singer is Co-Founder and President of the Autism Science Foundation, a not-for-profit organization launched in April 2009 to support autism research. The Autism Science Foundation supports autism research by providing funding and other assistance to scientists and organizations conducting, facilitating, publicizing and disseminating autism research. Ms. Singer is the mother of a daughter with autism and legal guardian of her adult brother with autism. From 2005-2009 she served as Executive Vice President and a Member of the Board of Directors at Autism Speaks. Ms. Singer has served as a public member on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee since 2007 and has been invited to continue her service. Ms. Singer graduated magna cum laude from Yale University with a B.A. in Economics and has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Public announcement of the formal appointments of federal and public members to the IACC will follow in the coming weeks.

***

The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) is a federal advisory committee that was created by Congress in an effort to accelerate progress in autism spectrum disorder research and services. The IACC works to improve coordination and communication across the Federal government and work in partnership with the autism community.

The committee is composed of officials from many different Federal agencies involved in autism research and services, as well as people with ASD, parents, advocates and other members of the autism community.

[proverbialwisdom]

35. Ouch, PUSHBACK. The devastating grievances detailed here warrant attention.

Thankfully, Jake's on it, though as an Obama supporter, I reject the first sentence of the concluding paragraph.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/obama-administration-gives-uk-blog-federal-autism-committee-representation.html

Obama Administration Gives UK Blog Federal Autism Committee Representation

By Jake Crosby

Leftbrain/Rightbrain, a pharma-friendly UK blog, has now been given as much representation on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) as the world’s largest autism charity, Autism Speaks. The UK blog is actually cited on the HHS website as a leading reason Matt Carey (left in photo), who anonymously blogs on the site under a pseudonym - the cartoon character “Sullivan,” - was made a public member of the IACC, even though Leftbrain/Rightbrain is neither owned by a US citizen nor has a registered US domain name. Meanwhile, the following US autism organizations have no representation on the only federal committee that advises HHS solely on autism policy:

National Autism Association (NAA): http://nationalautismassociation.org/
Autism Research Institute: http://www.autism.com/
Talk About Curing Autism: http://www.tacanow.org/
Age of Autism: http://www.ageofautism.com/
The Autism Trust USA: http://www.theautismtrustusa.org/
AutismOne: http://www.autismone.org/
Generation Rescue: http://www.generationrescue.org/

Carey was falsely cited by HHS as having blogged frequently for a U.S. autism organization when in fact he had only written one blog post for it prior to his nomination. He has written many hundreds of posts for the UK's LeftBrain/Rightbrain.

Despite the fact that the vaccine-autism controversy is a dominant issue in the autism community, the Obama Administration appointed numerous promoters of vaccine industry talking points and only one person sympathetic to the other side. This violates the HHS’ own policy for federal committees, as stated on the IACC Call for Nominations:

The Department strives to ensure that the membership of HHS Federal advisory committees is fairly balanced in terms of points of view represented and the committee’s function.

Of the total 15 public members, only two are known to have cited the role vaccines may play in causing autism. The remaining 13 members include a former Merck VP, a vaccine industry front group president, an academic colleague of a millionaire vaccine industrialist and a Simpsonwood attendee who wrote Pediatrics urging the journal to publish Poul Thorsen’s fraudulent thimerosal study. And of course, that list includes Matt Carey.

More at link.

Two years ago, in an interview with Arthur Allen for Reader’s Digest, Sebelius revealed a major strategy of her department in covering up vaccine injury:

"There are groups out there that insist that vaccines are responsible for a variety of problems despite all scientific evidence to the contrary. We have reached out to media outlets to try to get them to not give the views of these people equal weight in their reporting to what science has shown and continues to show about the safety of vaccines.”

Carey supported this cover-up and the silencing of thousands of people in the autism community:

“I agree with what Secretary Sebelius says—don’t give equal weight.”

He goes even further:

“I have to say, I even take issue with the idea that this is some suppression of the voices of the “Vaccine Safety Voices”. Really? Vaccine safety?”

More at link.

What is ironic though is that when pressed on Sebelius’ quote supporting censorship, her department replied:

“No one here can remember or determine that this quote is factual.”

However, Sebelius has never officially retracted or denied the quote attributed to her, leaving room for speculation that she might or might not have said it. I guess her appointment of Matt Carey answers this question.

More at link.

Jake Crosby has Asperger Syndrome and is a contributing editor to Age of Autism. Jake is a 2011 graduate of Brandeis University with a BA in both History and Health: Science, Society and Policy. He currently attends The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services where he is studying for an MPH in epidemiology. Jake was nominated for an IACC public position but did not expect to be appointed by Kathleen Sebelius.

[proverbialwisdom]

40. Harvard Health Publications: The Autism Revolution by Martha Herbert, MD, PhD, with Karen Weintraub.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/books/the-autism-revolution

The Autism Revolution
by Martha Herbert, MD, PhD, with Karen Weintraub

[img][/img]

After years of treating patients and analyzing scientific data, prominent Harvard researcher and clinician Dr. Martha Herbert offers a revolutionary new view of autism and a transformative strategy for dealing with it. Autism is not a hardwired impairment programmed into a child’s genes and destined to remain fixed forever, as we’re often told. Instead, it is the result of a cascade of events, many seemingly minor: perhaps a genetic mutation, some toxic exposures, a stressful birth, a vitamin deficiency, and a series of infections. And while other doctors may dismiss your child’s physical symptoms—the diarrhea, anxiety, sensory overload, sleeplessness, immune challenges, and seizures—as coincidental or irrelevant, Dr. Herbert sees them as vital clues to what the underlying problems are, and how to help. In The Autism Revolution, she teaches you how to approach autism as a collection of problems that can be overcome—and talents that can be developed. Each success you achieve gives your child more room to become healthy and to thrive.

Drawing from the newest research, technologies, and insights, as well as inspiring case studies of both children and adults, Dr. Herbert guides you toward restoring health and resiliency in your loved one with autism. Her specific recommendations aim to provide optimal nutrition, reduce toxic exposures, shore up the immune system, reduce stress, and open the door to learning and creativity—all by understanding and truly meeting your child’s needs. As thousands of families who have cobbled together these solutions themselves already know, this program can have dramatic benefits—for your child with autism, and for you, your whole family, and your next baby as well.

A paradigm-changing book that offers hope and healing for the millions of families who have autism in their lives, The Autism Revolution shows that there’s plenty you can do every day to give someone you love the best possible gift: a life lived to the fullest potential.


Martha Herbert, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a pediatric neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is the director of the TRANSCEND Research Program. She sits on the Scientific Advisory Committee for Autism Speaks.

Karen Weintraub, MA, is an award-winning journalist and freelance health writer for outlets like The Boston Globe, USA Today, and the BBC. A past recipient of a prestigious Knight Center for Science Journalism fellowship, she also teaches journalism at the Harvard Extension School and Boston University.

For more info visit www.AutismRevolution.org

http://www.amazon.com/The-Autism-Revolution-Whole-Body-Strategies/dp/0345527194/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334851882&sr=8-1

The Autism Revolution: Whole-Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be [Hardcover]
Martha Herbert (Author), Karen Weintraub (Author)


Product Details

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 20, 2012)


Editorial Reviews

Advance praise for The Autism Revolution

“Martha Herbert’s book gives us a new approach to understanding how autism affects many different body systems. It is essential reading for learning more about sensible biomedical treatments.”
—Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures and The Way I See It

“This book offers hope and practical guidance to heal your child’s whole body system. It will be an important reference for everyone who knows someone with autism or has an interest in the field to read, study, and use.”
—Robert L. Hendren, DO, professor and vice chair, Department of Psychiatry, and director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco

“Combining meticulous, world-class research on autism’s biomedical causes and treatment with an artful presentation of the condition as a whole-body phenomenon, Martha Herbert elevates to a new level the thinking about, understanding of, and developing of interventions for supporting individuals on the autism spectrum. The Autism Revolution is a unique and valuable resource.”
—Stephen M. Shore, EdD, assistant professor of special education at Adelphi University

“Written by a brilliant scientist in easy-to-understand language, The Autism Revolution gives parents two life-changing gifts. First is the gift of realistic hope; the second is the gift of knowledge. Drawing upon her vast knowledge of research and an eclectic array of approaches, Dr. Herbert helps parents understand their child in a new, holistic way, sending them on a journey of exploration and opportunity.”
—John L. Martin, director, Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities

“The Autism Revolution is a remarkable book. Complex evidence is summarized in easy-to-read prose, and practical advice is sprinkled throughout the book. A convincing case is made that autism is a disorder of both the brain and the body, and that there are many features of the environment—from the foods we eat to the pollutants that we breathe—that may play a role. This book will provide a blueprint for the future research agenda on this fascinating condition.”
—Richard J. Davidson, William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, and founder and chair, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison

“It is clear that Dr. Herbert cares deeply about the subject of autism and the people affected by it. Covering the topic as a physician, a scientist, an anthropologist, and a philosopher, she uses her exploration of autism to guide people to possible factors they may not have considered.”
—Timothy Buie, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Link from: http://nourishinghope.com/east-coast-tour/

[proverbialwisdom]

41. Previous links.

Old forum: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=222&topic_id=109466&mesg_id=109468

http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2009/07/maine-cdc-autism-conference-genes-and.html

VIDEO: Maine CDC Autism Conference: Genes and Environment, Developmental and Chronic: An Inclusive Approach to Autism Science

Martha Herbert, MD, PhD

Pediatric Neurologist
Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard Medical School

http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2009/05/sun-rises-first-in-maine-or-maine-way.html

May 14, 2009

The Sun Rises First in Maine Or Maine, The Way Life Should Be

On Tuesday, May 12th in Augusta Maine, the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention, Department of Health & Human Services, the American Academy of Pediatrics - Maine Chapter, the Maine Medical Association, the Maine Osteopathic Association, the Maine Emergency Medical Services, the Autism Society of Maine, the Downeast Association of Physician Assistants, national figures in autism research, causation and treatment, state developmental pediatricians, state DAN physicians, biomed parents, non biomed parents, and autism treatment and therapy providers of all kinds met to do something that has never been done before in this country.

Listen to one another...


Full conference video available; excerpt above.

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/18567384/index.html

POSTED: 4:10 pm EDT January 26, 2009

Martha Herbert MD PhD, "It frustrates me that we are not focusing a massive quantity of energy like a Manhattan Project type of energy on what is going on in an entire generation." Herbert, a child neurologist at Mass General Hospital, says nothing in her training prepared her for the number of kids coming in with autism, ADD, ADHD and other developmental disorders..." (part 1, minute 54)

Excerpt from ABC's Chronicle: Toxic Kids (4 parts)
What is making American children sick? Cancer rates are climbing. Cases of autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma are through the roof. Is the answer all around us " in the food our kids eat, the air they breathe, and the clothes they wear?" Tonight, Chronicle investigates a provocative thesis about the American lifestyle and its effects on children's health.

[polly7]

42. I know very little about autism, but saw this at Alternet today,

and wondered what those of you dealing with it, or having family members with it feel about this information:

http://www.alternet.org/story/155119/why_is_autism_so_drastically_on_the_rise_an_environmental_horror_story/

Why Is Autism So Drastically on the Rise? An Environmental Horror Story
An investigation into the relationship between environmental poisons and human health is riveting -- and terrifying.
April 23, 2012 |

_640x675_310x220

If horror is your genre, environmental writer Brita Belli’s The Autism Puzzle, is the book for you. Her terrifying look at the chemicals we eat, drink and breathe is guaranteed to make your hair stand on end.

We should thank her for it.

Statistics released earlier this spring by the Centers for Disease Control revealed that one in 88 U.S. born toddlers has an autism spectral disorder—from the less severe Asperger’s Syndrome to the so-called classical form of the ailment. Worse, it’s not just a North American phenomenon; Belli also reports a 57 percent spike in Asia and Europe.

The question is why. Perhaps, some posit, medical professionals have simply become better diagnosticians and people previously labeled eccentric or developmentally disabled were in fact, autistic. Or, perhaps there’s a genetic culprit since ASD typically runs in families. Belli gives credence to both theories, but ultimately concludes that there is more to the puzzle. “If the rise in autism numbers were only due to improved diagnosis and awareness of autism among the medical community—or if the roots of the epidemic were primarily genetic—professionals would have seen an increase in adult or adolescent patients who had not been diagnosed or who had been misdiagnosed in the past,” she writes.

But they haven’t. This realization piqued Belli’s curiosity and her investigation into the relationship between environmental poisons and human health is riveting. “The idea that a toxin can cause autism is neither controversial nor speculative,” she begins. In fact, thalidomide, a medication used in the 1960s to control morning sickness in pregnant women, was tied to autism almost 20 years ago. Likewise valproic acid, used to treat bipolar disorder, misoprostol, an ulcer drug, and chlorpyrifos, an insecticide.

more ........

Sorry about the big picture, it was a lot smaller in the article!

[proverbialwisdom]

49. More on Brick Township, NJ reported by Mark Blaxill here:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/04/cdc-autism-what-did-they-know.html

Posted by Age of Autism at April 03, 2012

Best of AofA: CDC What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?
By Mark Blaxill

<...>

The CDC lost its way on autism in Brick Township, NJ.

<...>

I know little about the CDC's activities in the years up to 1997, and there are few signs of a broader recognition of an autism problem that one can find before then. But in the fall of 1997, at a parent support group in eastern New Jersey, a few people started commenting about how many new autism cases seemed to be cropping up in Brick Township, and how there seemed to be an unusual number of 3-4 year old children with a new autism diagnosis. One of the attendees at the support group, a mother named Bobbi Gallagher who had two young children with autism, was struck by this coincidence. Living in New Jersey (although Brick is on the Jersey Shore, not the polluted stretch of highway along the New Jersey Turnpike that makes a mockery of New Jersey’s nickname, “The Garden State”), the thought of environmental contamination came naturally to mind and she wondered if there might not be a cluster of autism cases in Brick. Perhaps, she thought, there was something in the water. So she resolved to do something about it. She decided to send around a survey to see if she could count the autism cases in all of Brick, a town of some 70,000 people.

So as the new 1997 school year was starting, Bobbi Gallagher distributed her survey form everywhere she could think of in town. And in a few short weeks, she got a surprising result. Based on the responses to her impromptu survey, she counted over 40 autistic children in Brick Township alone and over 30 who were just three or four years old. Armed with these results, Gallagher formed a group called the Brick POSSE (Parents of Special Services and Education) and organized a meeting at the local library a couple of months later. They contacted Eric London at the National Alliance for Autism Research (NAAR) who in turn invited a number of academic epidemiologists. To a full house at the library meeting, Bobbi Gallagher shared her findings. One of the epidemiologists present, Craig Newschaffer, decided the numbers were disturbing enough to contact the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, who in turn contacted the CDC. In the meantime, the Brick POSSE arranged a meeting with their congressman, Rep. Chris Smith, who invited them to a meeting in his office in Washington.

Within weeks, a more organized response took shape. Bobbie Gallagher received an invitation to another meeting in Washington, this time in New Jersey Senator Robert Toricelli's office. Gallagher remembers the date for this meeting vividly, April Fool's Day, 1998. And when she walked into the room she was astonished at how quickly plans had emerged. She had expected again to play the role of supplicant, pleading with the government officials to take action. Instead, she found a prompt and aggressive action plan being put on the table. In the room that day were representatives from multiple departments within the CDC who had come to the Senator's office equipped with a multi-part plan, the first part of which was a prevalence study for Brick Township, an in-depth survey of the town's autistic population that would pick up where Gallagher's survey left off. CDC had identified a core team of staffers to lead the effort, including Jacquelyn Bertrand and Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp from the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) and Frank Bove from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR). Their proposal: to diagnose every child with autism in Brick Township between the ages of three and ten years old. They would start canvassing for cases and conducting interviews beginning with the start of the 1998 school year in September. And they planned to move quickly (at lightning speed really), to have their initial results ready by the end of the year.

They were true to their word. Two diagnosticians, Dr. Bertrand and Dr. Audrey Mars from the nearby Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, spent several days a week diagnosing children in the fall of 1998. And by January 12, 1999, the CDC had confirmed the findings of Gallagher's initial survey. Out of an initial estimated Brick population of 6,000 children from 3-10 years old, they had found over 40 cases of autism, giving a preliminary rate that was 12 times the estimated prevalence in the rest of the country. "I think there is a cluster here. I don't know why," lead investigator Bertrand said in an article by the Associated Press the next week. "If [we find] it's something that can be taken out of the community, that will be done," she said. According to AP she also added another intriguing tidbit: that "the researchers are eager to solve the puzzle here because of escalating calls the last few years about possible, but less credible, clusters elsewhere in the nation."

It all seemed to Gallagher like a dream: the cavalry had arrived and somehow they were going to get to the bottom of the issue. But then, something strange happened. Suddenly, the lines of communication with the CDC team went dark. After several months of intensive planning, intensive collaboration and rapid response, the CDC team told Gallagher that they were not at liberty to discuss the results with the parents any longer. According to Gallagher, one of the CDC staffers informed her that the mere mention of the word "cluster" had provoked a reaction from the higher ups within the CDC. Apparently, there was now even a debate as to whether they could use the word "elevated" when describing the prevalence rates. So from January 1999, until the release of the final study in April of 2000, there was no more interaction with the CDC. Not a single word.

More at link.

Mark Blaxill is Editor At Large for Age of Autism.

[proverbialwisdom]

50. More on NJ Senator Lautenberg's Safe Chemicals Act here.

http://www.alternet.org/story/155119/why_is_autism_so_drastically_on_the_rise_an_environmental_horror_story/

...Regardless of where scientific research goes in the next few years in its conclusions on the environmental connections to autism, we are undoubtedly in an environmental crisis.

And that current environmental crisis will take more than individual action, which is why Belli believes the government needs to enforce and strengthen environmental protections. The Toxic Substances Control Act was first passed in 1976 and has remained essentially unchanged—that is, toothless--for 36 years. When the Act passed Congress it grandfathered in 62,000 chemicals, in essence giving a free pass to known toxins such as trichloroethylene and BPA. To remedy this, Senator Frank Lautenberg has introduced the Safe Chemicals Act (S. 847), which would, for the first time, require industry to provide information on the health and safety of chemicals in order for them to be introduced or remain on the market. It would further allow the EPA to take immediate action on hazardous chemicals including lead, mercury and flame retardants.

Whether passage would roll back autism levels to what they were 20 or 30 years ago is impossible to know. What is certain is this: The number of autism diagnoses is spiraling and is cause for immediate concern and immediate action. One child in 88 will soon be one adult in 88. And then?

http://www.eenews.net/public/EEDaily/2011/12/14/3

Lautenberg still vowing to hold TSCA reform markup, but the calendar is no ally

Jeremy P. Jacobs, E&E reporter
E&E Daily: Wednesday, December 14, 2011

http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9322985

Fri Oct-15-10 08:45 AM

Reform of Toxic Chemicals Law Collapses as Industry Flexes Its Muscles

<snip> Last fall, a group of congressional Democrats vowed to overhaul the 34-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to make it easier for EPA to take dangerous chemicals off the market and ensure that the substitutes are safe. But one year, six congressional hearings and 10 "stakeholder sessions" later, the bills are dead, a testament to the combined clout of $674 billion chemical industry, the companies that process their compounds into air fresheners, detergents, perfumes, cosmetics, toys, medical devices and other consumer goods, and the stores that sell them. Their campaign to block reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act won out over EPA's support, an unprecedented campaign by public health advocates fueled by the industry's own admissions that the current law does not fully protect public health.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), and Reps. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who introduced reform bills, say they'll reintroduce them next year. But industry lobbyists will also be back, making it likely that the stalemate will continue -- even if the Republicans don't gain any additional seats in Congress. <snip>

[AverageJoe90]

43. My view is the EXACT opposite.

Has anybody else noticed that there's been a trend behind all this autism hype(yes, that is exactly what it is)? Just 20 years ago it was only one in like 5,000 or something.

I'm sorry, but something has LONG smelled totally off about this whole thing. I'm not willing to call it a conspiracy or anything but there is something terribly wrong with this picture.......incompetence, maybe? IDRK, but it seems plausible to me. The U.S. medical community isn't exactly close to perfect, unfortunately.

[Odin2005]

47. A lot of Autistic people were misdiagnosed or undiagnosed until...

...The English-speaking world discovered the research of Hans Asperger back in the 80s. The turning point was the emergence of Asperger's Syndrome as a diagnosis in the early 90s as well as the idea of an Autism as a spectrum. I was misdiagnosed as ADHD. A lot of older autistics were diagnosed with mental retardation, childhood-onset Schizophrenia, and Schizoid Personality Disorder among other things.

[AverageJoe90]

56. It's kind of ironic, but.......

I have to be honest here: The reason I have such a strong opinion on this is because I was actually pretty badly misdiagnosed as supposedly being Asperger's/ASD back in the early-mid '90s, thanks to some bungling school psychiatrists in the Dallas area where I grew up. Unfortunately, the 'special' schooling did not, at all, have a positive effect on my life(it certainly didn't help that my family situation wasn't always rosy either).

I have done some researching in recent years and have been able to conclude that not only do I NOT have any of the 'ASDs', but that I most likely have a slight, to moderate case of Attention Deficit Disorder, with a few ADHD symptoms(something I had long suspected anyway.....leaning more towards the latter. I often had some noticeable trouble paying attention in school, especially later in life, which should have been a red flag of sorts).

[raps]

51. I have aspergers

The head of the group who writes the DSM criteria is set to modify autism in the next version because he says the current requirements are being interpreted too broadly and that is accounting for much of the increase in diagnosis. He also thinks that many of the children diagnosed as autistic are not really autistic but have symptoms that either go away over time or are a result of other disorders.

Having aspergers myself I'm not saying this is not important or something that needs to be addressed. I'm just saying that misdiagnosis is becoming more and more common as autism and aspergers become the go to disorders taking the place of the old go to's like ADHD and OCD.

Oh, and hi everyone. This is my first post here.

[gkhouston]

52. Welcome to DU!

[Odin2005]

53. Welcome!

[AverageJoe90]

57. As an ADD guy who was misdiagnosed as supposedly being Aspie........

This is honestly a breath of very fresh air. Oh, and welcome to DU, friend.

[proverbialwisdom]

58. Physicians for Social Responsibility: Impending Vote on Safe Chemicals Act!

http://www.psr.org/take-action/environment-and-health/impending-vote-on-safe.html

Impending Vote on Safe Chemicals Act!

May 3, 2012

We are all alarmed by rising rates of early puberty and breast formation, certain childhood cancers, infertility, learning and developmental disabilities. Studies show links between toxic chemicals we’re exposed to every day and many of these negative health trends. And almost all pregnant women in America have toxic chemicals in their bodies.

While we can educate people to avoid certain plastics or learn which fish have mercury, only legislation will protect us from chemicals we cannot avoid such as toxic flame retardants (in plastics) or bisphenol A (in canned food).

We need your signature on a petition in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, which would vastly improve the pre-market testing of many chemicals. Together we can counter the $52 million the chemical industry spent last year lobbying to block this bill!

Take Action » http://action.psr.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=6001&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS

[jmowreader]

59. Could school funding have anything to do with it?

I have read descriptions of the autism spectrum, and (at least to me) it looks like anyone who isn't really extroverted falls into it somehow.

Now, I know schools get more money for special-needs children than they do for non-special-needs children. It wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to think that a school might want to classify as many of its students as special-needs children as they can, and autism (because, at its root, EVERYONE is a little bit autistic) is a pretty easy way to do it.

I'm a little bit cynical on this because we ran this AP story about autism...in it, they described two kids. One of them was quite clearly suffering from severe autism. The other was described as "a charming, seemingly healthy little boy who is completely obsessed with trains, to the point of being able to name every train station in his state." Uhh...that's how little boys ARE, guys. They get into trains, dinosaurs, big rig trucks or firefighting and they know everything there is to know about that subject. Thirty or forty years ago, those little boys were just normal boys. Now they're Autistic and the school gets more money to give them an appropriate education.

I have no doubt there would be more autism today than ever before because now we know what to look for. But the thing is, have we broadened the definition of autism to the point where it's essentially meaningless? I think so.

[proverbialwisdom]

61. "Not 1 newborn American baby has been tested without finding 100's of chemicals in umbilical cord."

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/05/whats-really-behind-the-increase-in-autism-rates.html

What’s Really Behind the Increase in Autism Rates

By Alice Shabecoff

The just-released data on autism shows a count of 1 in 88 children, up from a rate of 1 in 110 three years ago and one in 150 five years ago. With each change, the response remains the same: Oh, that’s because of better detection and broader definitions.

How, then, do we account for the sharp increase in childhood asthma -- 15.7 percent higher today than 10 years ago? Or an increase of the same magnitude in preterm births? Or the indisputable fact that childhood cancer has climbed an inexorable 1 percent, year after year, over the past 30 years? As has Down syndrome. And among rarer illnesses, too, the rates keep going up and up – from the increase in malformations of the penis among newborn boys, to the doubling in a generation of endometriosis, a deformity of the uterus, among girls.

There is no way that these wildly different childhood illnesses can be chalked up to -- and written off as -- an increase in detection and/or diagnosis.

Maybe instead we should look at these ever-escalating statistics as real numbers. Then we can ask what these childhood illnesses have in common.

There’s an answer out there, but it seems everyone is doing his best to run away from it.

Our children have become sick because they were among the vulnerable harmed by toxins, either in the womb or in their early childhood years. And our children are becoming sick in ever greater rates because year after year after year the load of toxins has increased.

Not to overdo the statistics, here are just a few. The U.S. makes or imports 27 trillion pounds of chemicals a year, up from 200 billion in 1980. We use roughly 4.5 billion pounds of pesticides a year, compared with 400 million pounds in the 1960s. Not one newborn American baby has been tested without finding hundreds of chemicals in her umbilical cord. And that’s without mentioning the effects of nuclear pollutants.

The National Academy of Sciences has reported that half of all pregnancies will end either in fetal death or in a less than healthy child. A massive body of recent science describes how pollutants work their harm.

We need to take our collective heads out of the sand and face the reality behind the numbers: Our children are sick from preventable causes, not from better diagnoses.

Alice Shabecoff is the coauthor of Poisoned for Profit: How Toxins Are Making Our Children Chronically Ill www.poisonedforprofit.net .

Posted by Age of Autism at May 11, 2012 at 5:45 AM

http://www.poisonedforprofit.net/authors.php

THE AUTHORS

Philip Shabecoff was the chief environmental correspondent for The New York Times for fourteen of the thirty-two years he worked there as a reporter. After leaving the Times, he founded and published Greenwire, an online daily digest of environmental news. He has appeared on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Washington Week in Review, CNN News, C-Span, National Public Radio, and the BBC. For his environmental writing, Shabecoff was selected as one of the “Global 500” by the United Nations’ Environmental Program. He received the James Madison Award from the American Library Association for leadership in expanding the public’s right to know. His previous books include A Fierce Green Fire: A History of the American Environmental Movement.

Alice Shabecoff is a freelance journalist focusing on family and consumer topics. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and the International Herald Tribune, among other publications. She was executive director of the National Consumers League, the country’s oldest consumer organization, and executive director of the national nonprofit Community Information Exchange. Her previous books include A Guide to Careers in Community Development.

http://www.poisonedforprofit.net/

POISONED FOR PROFIT is an updated and expanded version of POISONED PROFITS, first published in hard cover in 2008. It includes significant political, economic and scientific developments since then, an Afterword that discusses what those developments mean, and new resources for parents.

Solutions: http://www.poisonedforprofit.net/solutions.php

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/05/dr-david-berger-on-mimizing-autism-incidence.html

Dr. David Berger on Minimizing Autism Incidence

By Anne Dachel

WTSP-TV in St. Petersburg, FL posted some amazing news coverage on May 2. 2012 ( http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/253469/0/Doctor-claims-to-have-3-ways-to-lower-the-risk ).

It was on children and autism and ways to lower the risk of families having future children with neurodevelopmental and chronic health issues. There’s a Tampa Bay doctor, David Berger, MD, who seems to be doing just that.

I’m certainly not used to hearing about anyone in the medical community who has developed preventive strategies to try and minimize the incidence of ASD. Doctors rarely tell us anything helpful about autism. They usually say that there is no known cause or cure. Parents generally get a diagnosis and are told there’s little that can be done to help their children except possibly behavioral and other educational therapies.

After viewing the news video and reading the story, I got in touch Dr. Berger and found out about what he is doing to help children with developmental issues

There are really two things to understand about Dr. Berger’s practice. First, he is out to prevent autism from developing in babies born to the families he treats and he’s been successful at doing that. Second, he treats children who come to him with autism and he’s able to offer parents the chance of real improvement of their symptoms and even recovery.

More.

[Odin2005]

62. Age of Autism = Bullshit.