Autism in Infancy: Predetermined or Produced by Active Treatable Processes? presented by Martha Herbert, MD, PhD

Is autism stamped into the brain by genes from conception? Or does it develop? If it develops, what influences that development? And how can we influence those influences? If the brain isn't indelibly stamped with autism, then what happens to it to transform it so that it starts producing autistic behaviors? At what range of prenatal or postnatal ages might this start? Is there any way of detecting those changes in living babies? If we can head off the emergence of the debilitating features of autism, how can we prove we did this if we can't be sure ahead of time whether this might be where a baby is headed? Does it matter whether our measures are specific for autism or not? How can we make medical screening and prevention measures the standard of care? What would we need to demonstrate to make this happen, and how would we do this most powerfully? What are the biggest obstacles we would need to overcome? What would population-wide health-promotion and health-protection measures look like? What would be the most efficient and effective ways to carry this out? How much is our success in this a function of how well we answer the above questions?

Saturday, May 29, 3 pm
Judy Mikovits, PhD, presents:
XMRV
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share common clinical features including immune dysregulation, increased oxidative stress, increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, mitochondrial dysfunction and chronic active microbial infections suggesting an underlying immune deficiency may be involved in subgroups of CFS and ASD. We recently demonstrated the first direct isolation of an infectious gammaretrovirus, XMRV, from the blood of CFS patients. We have developed quantitative assays to detect XMRV replication and infection in cell culture. Moreover, we found evidence of XMRV infection in >85% of more than 200 CFS patients tested to date. These data implicate a role for XMRV infection in the pathogenesis of CFS. Because of the clinical similarities of CFS and ASD, we hypothesized that XMRV infection may also be detected in subgroups of ASD. This presentation will update the status of XMRV research, show evidence of XMRV infection in ASD and discuss the implications of XMRV infection in the pathogenesis of neuroimmune disease including ASD.

And . . . . at a special time yet to be announced:
The Age of Autism Editors and Andrew Wakefield!

This session will focus on how "The Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic" is covering key stories and fighting to balance coverage that is regularly skewed by the mainstream media. No story has been more important -- or more skewed -- than Andrew Wakefield's General Medical Council Hearing, followed by the Lancet MMR study retraction. Editor Dan Olmsted, Managing Editor Kim Stagliano, and Editor at Large Mark Blaxill will discuss AOA's mission in the coming year and discuss with Andy how to continue to tell the truth about autism. Special guests include several AoA Contributing Editors.

HOPE IS ALWAYS REAL . . . . RECOVERY IS HAPPENING

www.autismone.org