|
Published Tuesday, home
April 25, 2000,
in the San Jose Mercury News
KIDS' HEALTH
Study confirms autism increase
CDC study supports a widely held belief
BY SARA SOLOVITCH
A federal investigation confirmed for the first time last week what parents and medical experts have been decrying for years: There is a staggering number of autistic children in Brick Township, N.J. And the problem may not be confined to Brick. Researchers at the CDC suggested that the rates may in fact reflect what's being seen throughout the country--an inexplicable rise in one of the least understood known psychological disorders. ``When I heard about Brick, I went to our local school district in Granite Bay and found the same kinds of numbers,'' says Rick Rollens, father of an autistic son and parent advocate. ``Brick Township isn't a cluster. It's a snapshot of what's happening elsewhere in the country. This study challenges the whole concept that autism is rare.'' Autism is a spectrum of disorders that affect a child's ability to communicate and socialize with other people. Poorly understood and barely studied, autism is thought to have a strong genetic component but to be triggered by environmental factors. There are no known causes or cures.
Large increase
Last year, a report in California helped focus national attention on this growing problem. It found a 273 percent increase in the number of newly diagnosed autistic children admitted for services to the 21 regional centers throughout the state within an 11-year period. Autism now accounts for 36 percent of all new cases at the Department of Developmental Services, which serves clients with mental retardation,
cerebral palsy, epilepsy and autism. Twenty years ago, autism accounted for only 3 percent of the agency's total cases. Throughout California, the response to this long-awaited CDC report was immediate. It would have been eye-opening a couple years ago, but ever since the California study, it seems rather anti-climactic, says Bernard Rimlind, director of the Autism Research Institute in San Diego. Rimlind, an early proponent of the idea that genetics plays a major role in autism, took issue with the
CDC's decision to forgo taking blood samples and he blasted the agency for failing to address a concern--popular among some parents--that their autistic children were damaged by routine vaccines.
Role of genetics
There is no question that genetics play a role, but this explosion has little to do with genetics, says Rimlind. There is no such thing as a genetic epidemic. There are susceptibility genes. And if you have those genes, you're susceptible to some environmental impact, such as vaccines. The study was prompted by Brick Township parents, who requested federal assistance after conducting a study that suggested that the local rate of autism was much higher than the established norm. Some were suspicious that the increase was linked to chemicals in their drinking water, their former landfill and the Metedeconk River.
Though the CDC confirmed that the groundwater beneath the Brick Township landfill is contaminated with a variety of hazardous substances, it rejected this source since residents are supplied with water by the municipal water system and would not have been exposed to the groundwater. Irrespective of autism, when you put toxic chemicals in the same place where people live, eat and play, it's not a good thing, and one doesn't need outbreaks to figure that out, says Dr. Robert Byrd, a behavioral epidemiologist at the University of California-Davis. Byrd is heading a state-funded study on autism that will look at possible causes -- including maternal age, genetics, vaccinations and other environmental factors--by mapping out the areas, or ``pockets'' of California, where there are high and low rates. Just because they didn't find an environmental cause doesn't mean there isn't an environmental cause, Byrd says. It just means they haven't found an association.
Contact Sara Solovitch at solo@cruzio.com
Two articles connecting autism to vaccines 190.
|
|
