David Kirby at The Huffington Post and, possibly, the CDC officials he quotes are misrepresenting the prevailing scientific belief about autism. The prevailing scientific view of autism isn’t, as Mr. Kirby claims, that “autism is probably a purely genetic disorder”. Here’s a quote from the CDC’s pages on autism:
We have learned a lot about the symptoms of ASDs and have improved efforts to track the disorders, but we still don’t know a lot about the causes of ASDs. Scientists think that both genes and the environment play a role, and there might be many causes that lead to ASDs.
Family studies have been most helpful in understanding how genes contribute to autism. Studies have shown that among identical twins, if one child has autism, then the other will be affected about 75% of the time. In non-identical twins, if one child has autism, then the other has it about 3% of the time. Also, parents who have a child with an ASD have a 2%–8% chance of having a second child who is also affected
If Mr. Kirby has contracting citations from legitimate authorities on this subject, I hope he produces them and I’ll retract and apologize. Making arch statements about unnamed authorities is unhelpful.
My understanding of the prevailing view of autism is that its causes are multi-factorial—there isn’t a single cause. However, there are several things that can be said with some confidence:
- Autism isn’t caused by vaccinations and other immunizations per se.
- The use of thimerosal as a preservative in vaccines isn’t a major cause of autism if it’s a cause at all.
I wouldn’t be shocked if somewhere, somehow there’s a kid out there who was harmed by thimerosal or vaccinations but the notion that they’re the sole cause of autism or even a cause of a significant number of cases is simply unsupportable. Raising that idea is irresponsible.
The verdicts are not yet in at the Federal Omnibus Autism Proceeding. Read the expert testimony at this link.
http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/omnibus-autism-proceeding
Also read about the Hannah Poling vaccine/autism concession by scientists at the DHHS. Here’s an interview with her father, Dr. Jon Poling, a Johns Hopkins neurologist. The mother is an ICU nurse and attorney.
http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/20080306/dad-in-autism-vaccine-case-speaks-out
Fact beats conjecture any day.
I see no reference in the Kirby piece or his longer treatment at his home page to the Stockholm cluster of autism among Somali immigrants. These suggest sunshine/Vitamin D contributions, not chemical exposures.
The only conjectures at this point are that vaccines are the cause of autism. That’s not just conjecture it’s crankery.
The vacine courts, with their lowered legal and scientific thresholds of proof, won’t demonstrate anything. And the Poling case involved aggravation of a pre-existing mitochondrial disorder; it didn’t establish any autism/vacination link.
What about prenatal causes of autism. There’s quite a lot of liberal practices done during pregnancy – high use of ultrasounds, amnio’s etc that could cause cell demage which doesn’t manifests itself until later in life. (eg epilepsy has been shown to manifest between the ages of 20 and 30 when forecepts are placed incorrectly behind the baby’s ears during delivery).
Similarly, autism doesn’t manifest until ~ 2 years or so.
As for Vit D – that doesn’t explain why it’s more prevalent in boys than in girls
The Vitamin D/Sunshine theory is that the mother’s testosterone levels are impacted when moving from an equatorial region to a darker region, and that the testosterone levels impact rate of prenatal development. Not that this would specifically explain all autism.
As to thimerosal, I think this about says it all:
“I also interviewed David Kirby for several hours by phone. We both agreed that our respective positions were destined for a definitive test – for thimerosal had been removed by the beginning of 2002 from all vaccines in the routine child vaccine schedule. If thimerosal were a significant cause of autism then autism rates should plummet by 2007. If not then they would continue to rise until they plateau at the true rate. Well, it’s 2008 and autism diagnosis rates have continued to rise without a blip. This fact alone rules out thimerosal as a significant contributor to autism rates (as always – really just as a point of logic – an effect too small to be detected by the available data cannot be ruled out).”
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=341
Places where thimerosal has never been used in vaccines still have autism. That if nothing else constitutes definitive proof that thimerosal is not the sole cause of autism.
As I said in the body of the post, the causes of autism are multi-factorial. Not only are there multiple causes for all cases of autism there may well be multiple causes for each case of autism.
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time among kids with autism and the parents and families of kids with autism over the period of the last 30 years. Believe me, I understand how desparate many of them are for answers not to mention support. I don’t think that looking for a culprit is the way to go about it.
As I said in the body of the post, the causes of autism are multi-factorial. Not only are there multiple causes for all cases of autism there may well be multiple causes for each case of autism.
ABSOLUTELY. And to make it even more confusing for the layperson, “autism” is a generic term for autistic spectrum disorder, which is not one single well-defined syndrome but a catch-all label for groupings of developmental disabilities exhibiting similar symptomology.
Now, there may not be multiple causation for each individual case…some cases will be single-factor. But what defines “autism” (ASD) is symptoms, not causation(s).