Welcome to America! – Hope you like the Autism!

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

They come to America in search of a better life.  Their children get autism. 

I wonder if they wish they’d just stayed home.

As reported by Elizabeth Gorman in the Minneapolis Post and David Kirby in the Huffington Post (click HERE), there’s something unusual going on with immigrant Somali children in Minnesota and autism.  It might also be happening with other immigrant groups.

According to Gorman’s article, about 6 percent of Minneapolis’ students are Somali-speaking, but “more than 17 percent of the children in the district’s early childhood special education autism program are Somali speaking.”  (It’s estimated that 15,000 to 40,000 Somalis live in Minnesota, the largest Somali population outside of East Africa.)

She later goes on to quote Dr. Chris Bentley, the director of a nonprofit in Minnesota that assists children with autism and their families as saying, “We’re definitely seeing it, and something is triggering it.”

In the meantime, the Minnesota Department of Health is struggling to put together a study to determine if there is an unusual pattern of autism among the Somali children.  Anne Harrington, an early childhood special education coordinator for the Minneapolis district is also sounding the alarm.  “We have a number of families who have two children on the spectrum and sometimes more.” 

Harrington adds that she knows of one apartment building “with Somali residents in which every family has at least one autistic child.” 

She also noted that immigrant children are given more vaccines than regular American children and they’re often doubled up to make up for lost time.  They may also receive some vaccinations in Somalia, but then are re-vaccinated when they enter this country.

Curiously, the Somalis don’t seem to have this problem in their native country.  According to David Kirby, the Somalis refer to this as the “American disease.”  Somali immigrants to Sweden are also noticing an increased autism rate, which has some experts in that country suggesting it may be a result of the Somalis dark skin and the differing amount of sunlight in Sweden, affecting the amount of vitamin D they receive from the sun.

It’s ironic that the CDC notes that those most likely to delay or refuse vaccinations are the well-educated because of concerns abut a link to neurological problems.  Immigrant Somalis are asking similar questions about the vaccines they’re receiving.  It’s like that old saying that if everybody says your haircut looks bad, you should probably wear a hat.

Experts in the United States have been able to portray our concerned citizens as ignorant
of their family histories, or as one relative put it to me, “it used to be in the old days that if a doctor saw something wrong with a kid, well, they’d just . . .” and drew a finger across her throat. (Okay, she’s a kooky cousin, but I’ve heard that sentiment expressed more than once.)  However, like many urban legends, I don’t believe my forefathers and foremothers were more likely to murder disabled children than our currently enlightened citizenry.

But if there is a kernel of truth that Americans have in the past been more likely to conceal medical conditions, I really don’t see how that applies to Somali society.  East Africa is the area in which the human race began and the tribal societies there have preserved the wisdom of generations past.

Knowledge in these societies is passed on through oral tradition, rather than the written word.  Pulitzer-prize winning author Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) is well-known for his observation that while tribal people may not have written language, their knowledge of the local environment is extensive.  It's the reason so many pharmaceutical companies consult local elders about the possible medicinal properties of plants in their area.

But apparently the Somalis have never seen anything like autism in their own land.  It's something they seem to have picked up on their journey to the west.

It’s something which should get everybody talking.

Kent Heckenlively is Legal Editor of Age of Autism.

Comments

[Gatogorra]

Thank you for the post and the insights about Somali customs. As much as Africa is the cradle of civilization, right now America is getting awfully close to representing the grave considering what's happening here.

What struck me as particularly profound was your reminder that oral history (of the cradle of civilization) is a typical custom in Somali culture because this especially illustrates how atrocious an affliction autism is: it not only destroys the invididual and the family but silences the culture. Because how can there be oral history when there's no one left to tell it and no one left who understands?

[What a surprise!]

"East Africa is the area in which the human race began and the tribal societies there have preserved the wisdom of generations past."

The region has endemic cholera and malaria. When you inject the people with vaccines and they have both of these diseases essentially engraved into their bodies from generations past, you are inviting them to trigger auto-immune disorders and chronic disease.

What I don't get is the surprise element. Public health officials should know better. And if not, they should consult immunologists who know a thing or two.

[Kelli Ann Davis]

(Incredibly the newsperson who gave viewers this statistic showed no alarm and said it's because "our schools identify kids who need special services earlier.")

This doesn’t make sense. If the kids are caught earlier, that would be aside from the *school system* i.e.; Head Start, early intervention services from a different agency within the county, etc and I don’t think official *counting* occurs until they reach the school system, no?

In other words, if the school system is getting the children when they come in at Kindergarten --just like they did a decade ago -- how could *earlier diagnosis* effect the increase in numbers?

Unless, they actually *are* enrolling children earlier than Kindergarten and including them in the number counting???

It seems to me if there has been no change in the way that the children are being enrolled, then the NUMBERS ARE REAL and represent a true increase.

[nhokkanen]

Minnesota is ground zero for vaccine promotion, what with the IAC, Mayo, HMOs and an overzealous Department of Health. Public health administrators and doctors say they have good intentions -- but in so doing are also paving a proverbial superhighway to autism hell. These people refuse to see the damage they are doing to children, which is especially hard for immigrant families. On a daily basis they deal with numbers instead of the human beings they've damaged.

[Lawrence]

Kent,

In 2006, John Donnelly wrote this in the Boston Globe:

"There may be no harder place in the world to fight AIDS than Somalia.

For the United Nations and Western charities, some areas are off-limits because it is so risky. But even in places where they operate, the basic task of testing someone for the virus is widely considered too dangerous.

'If we tell someone that they are HIV positive, they might take revenge,' said Josef Prior Tio, general coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in this central Somali town and in Mogadishu, the capital.

'You could get killed,' said Halima Hasan Osmani, a supervisor at a Doctors Without Borders clinic that specializes in care for pregnant mothers but does not test for HIV. A nearby hospital does offer tests, but the Doctors Without Borders staff will not ask whether a patient knows his or her status."

I don't know if Donnelly's report has any bearing on the Somalian autism cluster in Minnesota, but it does indicate some cultural hesitation in dealing with at least one disease in Somalia.

Ironically, HHV-6, increasingly recognized as (at the very least) an AIDS co-factor, and, as you have reported in one of your posts, a possible autism trigger, would have to be a major issue in Africa, given the size of the AIDS epidemic there.

If wherever you find AIDS you seem to find HHV-6, researchers should ask if there is any connection between the AIDS epidemic in Somalia and the rise in autism in Somalian children here--possibly triggered by HHV-6. Is autism triggered by HHV-6 an epiphenomenon of the HHV-6/AIDS epidemic?

Do we really have a handle on how many cases of autism there are in Somalia?

The theory that these disturbing numbers in Minnesota are the result of something that happened here is certainly very reasonable. But if the autism epidemic is just as big in Somalia, then all bets are off.

[Scott Taylor]

We have a very big Somali immigrant population here in Maine. One figure I read was 2,500 in the city of Lewiston which is about 7.5% of the population. I think we should look into this community too.

[hawa samatar]

I am shocked and disturbed by the high rate of autism in the Somali community. Something is seriously wrong, and someone needs to take immediate action. I have read several comments by different people, some stating that it might have something to do with the Somali diet!! Why is it that Autism has not been a problem for the Somalis in Somalia? And now all of a sudden when they came to America they are faced with this problem? The Health Department,local Pediatricians,CDC, the Dept of Human Services, Somali families,Somali leaders and professionals need to get together as soon as possible and find out why this is happening.Why are the Somali children getting double doses?

[Sandy Raitt]

The one in 81 kids in Minnesota having autism statistic comes from Age of Autism's article of February 13, 2008 Autism Today: Charting the Rise provided by Dan Hollenbeck posted at Fighting Autism, part of Thoughtful House Cener for Children. Minnesota is the worst in the nation! Outrageous!
Sandy Raitt

[Anne Dachel]

On the WCCO-TV report, Dealing With Autism As Children Become Teenagers, http://wcco.com/local/autism.teenagers.adolescents.2.775748.html
and we were told that the rate for autism in MN is one in 81.

(Incredibly the newsperson who gave viewers this statistic showed no alarm and said it's
because "our schools identify kids who need special services earlier.")

It's interesting that autism rate in MN is unusually high across the general population and even worse for this minority group.
MN boasts a high vaccination rate among the children living there. We need to examine the vaccinations given to this newly
arrived community.

Anne Dachel
Media editor

[Elizabeth]

A friend of mine recently adopted a child from Ethiopia. One of the requirements was that upon bringing the child to the U.S., she would take her to get the recommended vaccinations. My friend carefully researched doctors and found one that would spread out the schedule for the child.

Well, when she went to pick up the child, she found that they already took care of the vaccinations for her. How nice of them.

[Lisa]

There are so many interesting factors about this story. The vitamin D factor, the naming of the disease as "American," -- and I wonder if their diets, which must be drastically different than in Somalia -- have left the children's gut flora severely depleted, and therefore less able to process out toxins like mercury --the theory put forth in The Gut and Psychology Syndrome, by Natasha Campbell McBride. This is criminal, and SHOULD make everyone wonder what's going on.

Lisa
http://www.holistic-treatment-for-depression.com