Heroin and Cornflakes

“Renaissance men developed a delightful, yet horrible way of dealing with their mad denizens: they were put on a ship and entrusted to mariners because folly, water, and sea, as everyone then “knew,” had an affinity for each other. Thus, “Ship of Fools” crisscrossed the sea and canals of Europe with their comic and pathetic cargo of souls. Some of them found pleasure and even a cure in the changing surroundings, in the isolation of being cast off, while others withdrew further, became worse, or died alone and away from their families. The cities and villages which had thus rid themselves of their crazed and crazy, could now take pleasure in watching the exciting sideshow when a ship full of foreign lunatics would dock at their harbors.”

(Jose Barchilon,’ Madness and Civilization’).

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior.(1)

New research adds to evidence that autism is a brain ‘connectivity’ disorder. Scientists speculate that in autism, wiring may be abnormal in the areas of the brain involved in social cognition. (2)

Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Children’s Department of Neurology (2009), has been studying additional genes previously found to be deleted or duplicated in patients with autism.  He realized that deletion of some of them, causes neurons to produce multiple axons, resulting in mixed systematic behavior patterns.

Before the discovery of the pattern of symptoms now known as autism, people with the condition, were lumped together either with the mentally retarded, or the insane.

It might be expected that we have inherited sufficiently-detailed descriptions of such people that we would be able to see a pattern suggesting autism among them, but there have not been many descriptions that suggest autism.(3)

One description though is of a boy found in the 19th century, named Victor.  At the time, some assumed he had grown up without human contact in the forest. The story was recorded in the book The Wild Boy of Aveyron. Victor is considered by many to be the first documented case of autism.(4)

It was not until 1911 that the term ‘autism’ was first introduced by Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist.  However, that term applied to adult schizophrenia.

In 1943, Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins University, described autism for the first time.  He observed 11 children between 1938 and 1943, who had withdrawn from human contact as early as age 1.

During the 1940’s through the 1960’s, the medical community still felt that children who had autism were schizophrenic. However, during the 1960’s, people began to understand autism, and more precisely, identify autism symptoms and treatments.(5)

Many of the symptoms showed children with ASD engage in repetitive movements, such as rocking and twirling, or in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. They also tend to start speaking later than other children, and may refer to themselves by name, instead of ‘I’ or ‘me’.

Children with ASD don’t know how to play interactively with other children. Some speak in a sing-song voice about a narrow range of favorite topics, with little regard for the interests of the person to whom they are speaking.(6)

For many years, autism was rare – occurring in just 5 children per 10,000 live births.  However, since the early 1990’s, the rate of autism has increased exponentially around the world, with figures as high as 60 per 10,000.  Boys outnumber girls, four to one. (7)

In February, 2007, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), issued an autism prevalence report. The report, which looked at a sample of 8 year old’s in 2000 and 2002, concluded that the prevalence of autism had risen to 1 in every 150 American children, and almost 1 in 94 boys.

So what’s going on?  Who, or what, is to blame for this dramatic increase?

In the 1960s, there was a widespread belief that the condition was caused by the way the parents treated their children, and the term ‘refrigerator mothers’ was often used. When evidence to the contrary was uncovered, yet not widely known, parents had to act as their own advocates. Even today, parents still sometimes find themselves in the position of trying to explain how the fault does not lie with themselves, since the general public’s information on autism is still sometimes dated or wrong. (8)

Why is this the case?

It is fairly obvious that this disorder is linked to our modern lifestyle, and environmental changes that accompany this lifestyle.

Why do we make this statement?

Because there is little acknowledgment in recorded history of the occurrence resembling the condition of autism, among very young children.

What is now known is that autism runs in families. Siblings of autistic people are more likely to be autistic, and twins are extremely likely to share autistic traits. This means there is almost certainly a genetic component to autism. This is confirmed by Skuse 2007, who states ‘autism is a genetically heterogeneous disorder, with an estimated heritability of >90%’.

However, it is hard to believe a genetic trait could have infiltrated a population so rapidly since the 1990’s without assistance.

Environment

This leads to suggestions that genetics is not the only risk factor for autism. Most researchers believe that a combination of several genetic differences, plus some form of environmental “insult,” lead to a wide range of gene mutations, chromosomal anomalies initiating the onset of autistic symptoms. (9)

Vaccines

Many have suggested this environmental “insult” includes vaccines. The Mumps/Measles/Rubella (MMR) vaccine uses several live viruses to immunize children against what have, in the past, been disabling and even fatal illnesses. In 1994, the vaccine was mandated for all school age children. Thus with the rise of cases of autism from the 1990’s, there can be justification in suggesting a correlation is evident. (10)

Look at the case of Hannah Poling. She had an uneventful birth; she appeared to be developing normally — smiling, babbling, engaging in imaginative play, speaking about 20 words by 19 months. Then, after receiving a group of vaccines, she fell ill and it all ceased.

Hannah, now 9, recovered from her acute illness but she lost her words, her eye contact and, in a matter of months, began exhibiting the repetitive behaviors and social withdrawal that typify autism.

“Something happened after the vaccines,” says her mom, Terry Poling, who is a registered nurse and an attorney. “She just deteriorated and never came back.” (11)

Meanwhile, the official perspective of the CDC is that there is no proven connection between live-virus vaccines and autism.(12)

This is collaborated by findings in March 2005, when a study of over 30,000 children born in one district of Yokohama, a prominent port city in Japan, concluded that the rate of autism in children continued to rise (from 46-86 cases per 10,000 children, to 97-161 per 10,000) after the use of the MMR vaccine was discontinued in Japan in April, 1993.(13)

The authors’ conclusion was;

“The significance of this finding is that MMR vaccination is most unlikely to be a main cause of ASD, that it cannot explain the rise over time in the incidence of ASD, and that withdrawal of MMR in countries where it is still being used cannot be expected to lead to a reduction in the incidence of ASD.” (14)

However, people continue to point the finger at vaccines – in particular, the mercury-based vaccine preservative, ‘thimerosal’, as a cause of autism, for over a decade. Researchers have repeatedly failed to find a link even though some children may have a genetic mutation that may predispose them to develop autism when exposed to mercury, as proposed by Dr. Jill James, now of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. (15)

Past surveys of autism in Africa have revealed a critical bit of evidence.  Unfailingly, when autism was found by early researchers in African families, it occurred with overwhelming frequency in elite families.(16)

Victor Lotter reported that;

“there was amongst all the children originally selected as possible cases, an excess of the elite…this excess was even greater amongst the autistic children than amongst non-autistic children.”

Lotter defined elite as;

“any child who had been born abroad [Britain, Europe or North America], or had lived for any period abroad, or whose parent(s) had lived for any period abroad, or whose father had a non-manual job.”(17)

Are these elite families in a better position to receive a plentiful supply of vaccinations resulting in a higher incidence of the disorder?

Is this the case within non- alien populations of the U.S.A.?

In most states, a parent must bring written proof of a child’s immunizations from the health provider or clinic at the time of school registration. If a required vaccination has not been obtained, and there is no health condition or religious objection preventing immunization, the child must receive the vaccinations before school entry. So every social level amongst the population is immunized. Therefore you would expect autistic cases to be on a even keel.

However, recent studies have been released where autism clusters found in Santa Clara County were linked to higher parental education. The data, published in The Journal of Autism Research (2009), revealed 10 places where the diagnosis is more common than elsewhere in the state. In Silicon Valley, the Campbell-Santa Clara area had the largest clump of cases; while present elsewhere in the region, the number of diagnoses was less concentrated. (18)

Cases were less common among Latino and less-educated families, researchers found. A similar link between autism and education has been reported by researchers in several other nations.

The report concluded that while something in the general environment might trigger disability in a person with a genetic susceptibility, none of the hot spots found in the study shared any common toxins.

“There are thousands of chemical or physical stressors that could potentially increase risk of autism,” said Hertz-Picciotto.

“This rules out local exposure to some agent,” said Carrie Molho, a psychologist with the Campbell-based San Andreas Regional Center, a state-funded autism center that collaborated on the study and provides services to patients.

However, one has to ask if the study took into account that well educated families will, on the whole, have a higher regular income than less educated families.

Apart from having better access to medicare, what bearing does this have on proceedings?

One thing money affords in California is a high level of quality food consumption – an affordability that allows folk to eat at restaurants and consume greater amounts of local produce, such as fish.

What if this fish has been contaminated by toxins, such as mercury or radio active material?

Don’t forget, the U.S.A. conducted many nuclear tests in nearby Nevada.  And it must be remembered that in 2003, the California Attorney General’s office filed suit to force supermarkets, restaurants and tuna companies to warn customers that tuna, swordfish and shark sold in their markets, contain mercury.

The suit was based on the state’s Proposition 65, which requires consumer warnings for substances on a toxics list. The state also provided special warnings advising women and children to;

“Limit their consumption of other fish, including tuna.”

And they further advised that; “tuna steaks and canned albacore have higher levels of mercury than canned light.” In January 2005, 16 major restaurant chains sued by the state, agreed to settle and put up warnings. A few supermarkets have voluntarily posted them at fresh fish counters and in the frozen food section.

The US Tuna Foundation is challenging the lawsuit saying “canned tuna products are safe….” Citing the above-mentioned mercury advisory by the Food And Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency that states “fish and shellfish are an important part of a healthy diet.” (19)

Mercury occurs both naturally and from man-made sources. Some of it can be traced to coal-burning power plants. Smokestacks release toxic mercury emissions which rain down into rivers, lakes, and oceans. Bacteria convert the mercury to a form that’s easily absorbed by insects and other small organisms.

Mercury moves up the food chain as small fish eat the small organisms and big fish eat the smaller fish. The highest concentrations accumulate in large predators such as shark, swordfish and tuna…some of America’s favorite fish. (20)

But can the poor afford to eat these type of fish on a regular basis?

For example, the large pelagic swordfish had stable inflation-adjusted prices until the mid 1950’s, after which they rose rapidly. Prices rose three times faster than inflation until the late 1970’s, after which they appear to have slightly fallen. (21)

What about raw oysters or clams?

Typically seafood cocktails are $7-$15; clams and oysters on the half-shell $7.95 per half-dozen in restaurants.

Do people with less money eat these delicacies regularly at restaurants, or do they frequent McDonald’s more often?

Does this explain the 2005 Japanese study findings mentioned earlier – that contaminated fish is a reason for the increase?

Is the autistic child paying the price?

Because in the chapter on genetics in ‘Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine’, 16th Edition, one finds the following quotation:

“Mutations can occur in the germline (sperm or oocytes); these can be transmitted to progeny.”(22)

Who knows the answer for certain, but it’s not hard to connect the dots and narrow down the causation of autism.

Has there been more pollution escaping into our environment since the 1990’s?

Do governments and corporations that allow these toxins to enter our environment, really want us to find out?

Autism is reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S.A  – it may be cost effective for them to keep the answers away from the public.

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Thank you

Ann Margrain

Founder, ‘Heroin and Cornflakes’ blog.

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This entry was posted Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 5:05 pm and is filed under general. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.