Hot Spots, Hot Topic
Back in September, I took an opportunity to write a post on my blog about The Vaccination Debate, centered around the profound increase in autism cases throughout the US and the work and their possible link to the series of vaccinations given to children early in their life. Though argued by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an unlikely link, a growing body of research suggests that chemicals used to preserve the vaccinations are the primary triggers that cause the increased incidence of Autism in children today.
Though the link exists, the proof behind it seems to be inconclusive. We have decided to continue to vaccinate our child and ensure those vaccinations are free of thimerosal, the mercury-based chemical used as a preservative that is suspected of precipitating the disease. In fact, all shots given to children before their second birthday have some thimerosal-free formulation, but you should check with your pediatrician if you’re not sure whether they’re using the options available.
I do not debate parents’ instinct to blame vaccinations as the cause of autism in their children; enough circumstantial evidence has been documented, even on YouTube, to suggest otherwise (a quick search on autism there results in a list of videos with parents’ experiences). I do believe, however, that the link is not causal; vaccinations aren’t causing autism, though they may elicit its appearance.
This belief has been substantiated by a couple of articles I came across this week while reading up on the subject. The first I encountered was “The Geek Syndrome,” which appeared in the December 2001 issue of Wired Magazine. It actually was a fairly comprehensive review of the disorder, starting with its discovery by 2 doctors almost simultaneously in the 1940s. The first diagnosis came from a child psychiatrist by the name of Leo Kanner who was observing curious behaviors in 11 of his patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore in 1943. A year later in Vienna, a pediatrician named Hans Asperger published a paper in which he observed children sharing many unusual traits including detachment and introversion. Both doctors, though neither knew of the other’s work, called the condition autism from the Greek autòs, meaning self.
The article further distinguishes between the two scientists’ findings, and focuses specifically around some of the specific characteristics that Hans Asperger discovered during his research, all of which is a fascinating read. I was particularly interested, however, in the section of the article exploring the possibility of genetic predisposition to the disease. It grants that there is a heated debate ongoing about whether environmental factors are catalysts for triggering the disorder, such as those that have been discussed here and in other articles on the disease. However:
The one thing that almost all researchers in the field agree on is that genetic predisposition plays a crucial role in laying the neurological foundations of autism in most cases. Studies have shown that if one identical twin is autistic, there’s a 90 percent chance that the other twin will also have the disorder. If parents have had one autistic child, the risk of their second child being autistic rises from 1 in 500 to 1 in 20. After two children with the disorder, the sobering odds are 1 in 3. (So many parents refrain from having more offspring after one autistic child, geneticists even have a term for it: stoppage.) The chances that the siblings of an autistic child will display one or more of the other developmental disorders with a known genetic basis - such as dyslexia or Tourette’s syndrome - are also significantly higher than normal.(1)
This kind of data would seem to support the theory that autism is completely genetic in origin, but further empirical data released this week by Boston based researchers make an even stronger case. Released in the New England Journal of Medicine on January 9th, an extensive genome scan was performed for autism and found that in just over 1 percent of people with autism, a chunk of 25 genes had been duplicated or deleted, mostly caused by spontaneous mutations not carried by their parents. While the percentage may sound small, it’s a significant step forward in this research, according to Dr. David T. Miller of Children’s Hospital Boston.
Understanding how these genetic mutations occur could lead to the discovery of additional genes that could reveal more information about the disorder. That’s what the new Boston group, the Autism Consortium, hopes to do by bringing together families, doctors and researchers to solve the complex riddles behind autism. The current discovery they’ve had in Chromosome 16 may only be found in about 1 percent of autism patents, but in an extensive DNA study they performed in Iceland in recent years, the same mutation was only found in one-tenth of 1 percent of people diagnosted with different language or psychiatric problems, and only one hundredth of 1 percent of the general population. As research continues to develop, the group hopes to establish tests that can explain up to 75% of all autism cases, possibly even linking them directly to the toxins that trigger the mutation, as we’ve seen thus far with thimerosal.(2)
What does this mean for us? We will probably continue treating our on the schedule recommended by his pediatrician for vaccinations because the truth is none of this knowledge can fully support or refute the link between autism and vaccinations. Caution, of course, is necessary to ensure that he has limited exposure to toxins that may trigger the disorder, and he is not over-vaccinated. But the alternative, I believe, is more serious than autism…imagine ceasing all vaccinations and bringing back polio, smallpox, hepatitis and any other number of disease that can cause severe sickness or even death. In spite of the fact that autism is a terrible disorder that afflicts more and more children each year, and in spite of the fact that I would not wish it upon any of the children I know, especially my own, we continue to be steadfast in our decision to vaccinate, as long as it’s done with caution.
What do you think?
(1) See “The Geek Syndrome,” Steve Silberman, Wired Magazine, December 2001.
(2) See “Rare Genetic Hot Spot Linked to Autism,” Carey Goldberg, Boston.com (Boston Globe online edition), January 10, 2008.
