ABC News

A Florida elementary school teacher who was fired for feeding an autistic child hot sauce soaked crayons is being re-instated on the orders of a judge who rejected the school district's appeal to keep her out of the classroom.

Lillian Gomez was fired from her job at Sunrise Elementary School in Kissimmee, Fla., in February 2012 after school officials found out that Gomez had allegedly put jumbo-sized crayons in a cup and soaked them for days in hot sauce before moving them to a bag that was labeled with the student's name.

Gomez denied force-feeding the crayons and said she did it to deter the student from eating art supplies, her attorney said. . . .

"I think she made a bad judgment in the way she went about it," he said. "But her purpose was good."

The National Autism Society of America told ABC News that there are ways to curb certain behaviors in autistic children that don't require abusive treatment, unlike Gomez's case.

"There are also hundreds of school teachers and professionals across the country who can handle challenging behaviors such as pica [eating inedible objects] in a sensitive, human manner that upholds the dignity of each child," said the Autism Society's spokeswoman Ashley Parker. "A behavior like eating crayons in a child with autism should not automatically be viewed as a delinquent behavior."

Gomez's case isn't the first instance of hot sauce punishment.

"Her purpose was good"? What? I wonder what the reaction would be if this were a child with Downs Syndrome. A blind child?

I have no words for this. 

CBS News

Not much is known about what causes autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), a group of developmental disorders characterized by social, communication and behavioral difficulties.

While they can't be cured, there are some treatments that may help manage the disorders. Early intervention is encouraged to obtain the best outcomes with a child's development, and include behavioral therapy to teach a child how to talk, walk and socialize with others. Dietary methods may be employed, which involve avoiding certain foods that may cause food allergies. Medication may help mange some of the symptoms like high energy levels, tantrums, aggression and depression.

But, doctors are still searching for more ways to treat those with autism. One new trial that has shown some early success uses whipworms (Trichuris suis), a parasitic intestinal worm.

Doctors at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City gave 10 high-functioning adults with autism whipworm eggs for 12 weeks. In total, they ate about 2,500 eggs every 2 weeks. They also spent 12 weeks taking a placebo.

The doctors found their patients were less likely to engage in repetitive behaviors and found it easier to adjust to their surroundings when on the worm egg regimen. . . .

The researchers believe the worms help based on the theory that autism may be an autoimmune disease. That theory suggests some of these disorders happen because a person doesn't have enough microbes or parasites earlier in their life. The worms may help the body build an immune response.

Whipworms have been deemed safe for human consumption, Hollander noted. The gut naturally gets rid of the whipworms every two weeks.

"The whipworm doesn't reproduce in the gut, and it doesn't penetrate the intestines, so it doesn't cause illness in humans," he explained.

The U.S. government estimates that one out of every 50 U.S. schoolchildren may have a form of autism, or about 1 million children. It affects children of every race, ethnic and socioeconomic background, and fives times as many boys as girls. However, minority children tend to be diagnosed 2.5 years later than white children, and a study suggested doctors diagnose autism in Hispanic children at much lower rates than other ethnicities.

Researchers believe the genetic risk factors, as well as taking the prescription drugs valproic acid and thalidomide, may increase the chance of developing the disorders.

Michelle Castillo at CBS News isn't worried about the fact that we don't know the cause of autism or how to cure it, even though she tells us that it affects one in every 50 U.S. schoolchildren. She states that genes along with prescription drugs, valproic acid, thalidomide increase the risk.

I doubt if she's looked into this at all. It seems she just picked out a couple of the things associated with autism and listed them. It's a little tedious to include the endless array of triggers associated with autism.

Notice that Castillo doesn't ask the researchers how come the immune system isn't functioning well in ASD kids. This study is the latest guess about autism, the medical mystery we'll never really understand.

Fox News

A new study has revealed that two novel - and somewhat unusual - therapies may help treat symptoms in individuals with autism.

One involves using hot tubs to raise body temperature - and the other involves the ingesting of parasitic worms.

Detailed at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) Annual Meeting, this research helps to support the theory that disruptions in the body's inflammatory response may contribute to the onset of autism.

"There's been considerable evidence recently suggesting that inflammation may play an important role in mediating neuropsychiatric symptoms," lead author Dr. Eric Hollander, a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, told FoxNews.com. "There's a hypothesis called the hygiene hypothesis, which claims that as people move from rural to urban areas, some of the gut flora that are present in rural areas are not present in urban areas, and that might be associated with some immune inflammatory illness."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 88 children suffers from some form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and growing evidence suggests that the condition may be a result of an overactive immune system - which results in high levels of inflammation.

This theory is supported by the fact that about a third of autistic individuals show clinical improvement when they have a fever. In response to high body temperature, the immune system may release protective anti-inflammatory signals in the body, which may explain the effect on autism symptoms.

To test this idea, Hollander and his team tried to mimic a fever by placing children with autism in hot baths - one set at 98 degrees Fahrenheit and one set at 102 degrees Fahrenheit. . . .

Eric Hollander may be linking the immune system and inflammation to the development of autism but he's not really interested in what damaged the immune system/caused the inflammation in the first place.

Hollander's worm therapy was talked about on Fox News last Jan.

Two years ago, Hollander told CNN that autism was strongly genetic, although the environment "can play a role." Again, what the possible triggers might be is a complete mystery.

Kim Stagliano wrote about Hollander and his plan to drug autistic kids back in 2008.

I guess we can just continue to guess about autism treatments and never show any real concern about what happened to make kids this way. And no one talks about preventing children from developing autism

Fox Business, Imus in the Morning

Deirdre Imus said this when asked about Bloomberg's call for mandatory flu shots for day care and preschool kids:

"This is insane. . . . The flu shot? To mandate it? . . . He put so many children at risk. There's mercury in these vaccines. There's no legitimate scientist who will tell you that is safe, that mercury is safe. Twenty-five micrograms of mercury. . . "

Alan Colmes: "The bigger point is that it should be up to the parents. . . ."

Deirdre: "The vaccine manufacturers. . . . There's no liability. They're not even held accountable if anything happens. Children have died from flu shots. Children get mitochondrial disorders, brain inflammation, encephalopathy, which leads to these 'autism-like symptoms'--cause they're still in denial about it causing autism. This is very serious because our children are getting 88 doses of diseases by the age of five. How does that even make logical sense."

As the guests joked about how strongly she felt about this, Deirdre said, "You know why? Because I know so much about the facts and what's been covered up and what the lie is that is being spun by the CDC."

Don: "But the parents have the option to opt out for medical or religious reasons."

Deirdre: "Go ahead, you'll see what happens. To opt out for religious reasons, you actually have to have a priest or someone write a letter. Then they challenge that letter. . .a "

The bantering went on about the pros and cons of this new requirement, then Deirdre said, "I want to hold Bloomberg accountable for when a child dies from the flu shot or gets autism or some other chronic illness because of the shot."

The coverage that this controversy is getting can't be good for those trying to convince us that there is no link to autism.  A mandate for this vaccine for just day care and preschool may not have seemed like a big deal.  It may have been proposed as a backdoor approach to eventually requiring a flu shot for all school children in NY City. 

The reality is that it's putting the whole debate over vaccines and autism right on the front page once again.

Thank you, Deirdre Imus, for talking about mercury and the absence of any liability. 

My High Plains, Amarillo, TX

Although a lot of people avoid them, vaccines are recommended. Experts say they can prevent viruses that could sicken people, and spread to their families and communities. . . .

For instance, each year, on average, about 60 people in the United States are reported to have measles, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But this year, experts are already seeing twice as many cases.

That could be in part because some are refusing to vaccinate their children believing that the measles, mumps, and Rubella or MMR vaccine causes Autism. . . .

There are no legitimate studies that show the MMR vaccine is linked to Autism. But still many children go unvaccinated.

There are studies, but they're not legitimate?  Telling people that studies show no link hasn't worked in the past, but they keep on saying it. I only posted two comments because links weren't allowed.