Dachel Media Update: 10/26

Oct 26, 2012, The Union-Times San Diego: Twelve year old with severe autism finds freedom in running

Oct 25, 2012, The Toronto Star: Autism: Environmental factors often neglected in search for a cause 

The Union-Times: Somehow we’re all supposed to accept that for no known reason kids who are fine can suddenly stop developing and become disabled for life.

“After developing normally for about 18 months, he suddenly stopped speaking. It was then that his parents found out he had regressive autism, a severe form of the disorder.

“‘He lost all language and pretty much just sat and rocked,’ she said. ‘This was a kid that they basically told me, ‘You need to put him in a home; he’s never going to function.’”

The Toronto Star:

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of epidemiology at the UC Davis MIND Institute, a nationally known expert on autism, said that environmental factors need to be explored further in autism research.  Her remarks were made at an autism conference in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 25^th.  If you’re like me, you’re stunned by the inability of experts to do anything worthwhile about autism.  With one in every 88 children with autism, a leading expert is just now waking up to the fact that something is impacting our kids and it’s not just genes?  Anyone connecting an out-of-control vaccine schedule to autism is also soundly dismissed by Hertz-Picciotto. 

“Studying the environmental causes of autism has not been popular, [Hertz-Picciotto] says, because so many people equate their work with the famously flawed studies that trumpeted vaccines as a cause of autism, which led parents astray for years.”

Hertz-Picciotto isn’t interested in looking at the link to heavy metal exposure because, as we’re told here, “

“In one analysis, they examined whether children with autism had more heavy metal toxicity than the typically developing children. In fact, the reverse was true: neurotypical children had slightly higher levels of mercury in their system.

“As it turned out, those children tended to consume more fish. Once that was controlled for, autistic and non-autistic children had the same heavy-metal levels. Parents, the study suggested, should probably save money that would have been spent on expensive chelation, or heavy-metal elimination, therapies.”

So if it’s not heavy metals or vaccines, what are possibly environmental factors?

“According to a study conducted by one of Hertz-Picciotto’s students, there is a small but significant correlation between the month of conception and a child’s risk of developing autism: of the cases they examined, babies conceived in December, January, February or March had a slightly higher risk of being diagnosed with autism.”

Also low folic acid levels in mothers and living too close to a freeway.

Comments

[Getchen Wilson]

Could Monsanto's GMOs be causing autism? I have heard several doctors on the internet said it could.

Thanks,
Gretchen Wilson

[Cherry Sperlin Misra]

One adjective for this article is "wierd". Are we to think that Hertz-Picciotto or some other scientist has done a study of the amount of mercury in autistic brains? We are not talking about mercury in the "system" for autism. We are speaking of mercury in the brain. Does Hertz-Picciotto have something to say about the 90 studies that show that mercury is a plausible cause of autism? Would she be willing to debate the Geiers or Dr. Boyd Haley on this issue?
Can she explain why autism is more common in populations that eat fish? Does she have anything to say about the symptoms of mercury poisoning being similar to the symptoms of autism? Does she realize that mercury is the one candidate for cause of autism that explains why more boys than girls are autistic? Exactly HOW is she an expert on autism? Does the Mind Institute require some new minds?