Dachel Media Review: Doctors' Autism Predictions
By Anne Dachel
MedPageToday.com: HOT TOPICS 2014: Autism
What do you anticipate will be the most important clinical development in autism in 2014? We asked four specialists from around the country for their views: Susan L. Hyman, MD, of the University of Rochester, Robin L. Hansen, MD, of the University of California Davis, Max Wiznitzer, MD, of UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, and Joseph Piven, MD, of the University of North Carolina. Their answers touched on gene-environment interactions in early life, technologies for diagnosis and treatment, and the importance of lifelong attention to patients' needs.
Top experts make predictions about what the medical community will do about autism in 2014.
Dr. Hyman: "There's so much exciting neuro-biological research going on. We know so much more about how the brain works. . . but what's going to make a difference in 2014 is the evidence that we have for rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work of evidence-based intervention that involves early screening, early diagnosis, and intense treatment that's generalized to the home. We also know from neuro-biologic research that treatment continues to be effective throughout the lifespan. So continuing intervention through adulthood is incredibly important. There is no magic. It's rolling up your sleeves and doing the hard work and that's going to be helped by the autism insurance legislation that's state by state working its way across the country. . . . "
Dr. Hansen: "I think really we won't see big, big breakthroughs in looking at gene-environment interaction at multiple levels in terms of understanding autism better in this next year. And I think particularly in terms of how gene environment interactions impact immune regulation. I think that's become a more promising field of research and addresses a lot of what we see clinically and taking it lower to the biological mechanism."
Dr. Wiznitzer: "2014 will be a year of technology. Technology to further the diagnostic abilities to identify children with autism. Technologies such as EEG, technology such as MRI, and other technologies that as being developed. We'll also be using technology to define the reasons why they have autism. And this references next generation technology in genetics. And we'll be using technology to further the abilities of individuals with autism to achieve behaviors that are as near normal as possible. These will be technologies for communication purposes, technologies to help train them in social skills, and similar activities. In addition to that we'll also have changes that will occur within autism that will lead to interventions. Not only interventions for the young children, but also interventions for the high school individuals, for individuals as adults. We're going to deal with transition issues. We're going to find things for the adult population to do. We're going to make sure they can be as great contributing members of society as possible."
Dr. Piven:This year there were several major papers on development including a molecular genetic study identifying at what point in early brain development autism genes may be having their effect and behavioral studies of infants who later develop autism showing abnormalities in how they look at faces in the first few months of life. Together these studies suggest that brain and behavior problems and autism seem to unfold in early development and prior to the age of diagnosis at two or three. In 2014 and beyond, I think that the interplay of genes, early brain and behavior development and the very early development of autism will become an increasing area of research and have important implications for early prediction and intervention.
So four top doctors in the field of autism still have NO ANSWERS. They're very big on diagnosing kids as soon as possible and starting that great early intervention.
Dr. Hyman finds research 'exciting,' but she can't really tell us anything new.
Dr. Hansen cautions that there won't be any 'big, big breakthroughs' not that we were expecting any anyway.
Dr. Wiznitzer is glowing as he talks about technology and all the great things it's going to do for autism. I'm really interested in what he comes up for adults to do, especially the ones in diapers and wearing helmets and who can't talk. I can imagine that he's talking about lots more Ipads.
Dr. Piven still pretends that autism is a solely genetic disorder.
I PREDICT...that 2014 will be another year of millions of dollars wasted. No answers. More suffering children.
According to Wiznitzer, there hasn't been an increase in autism. (Mar 20, 2013, CNN: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/20/cdc-number-of-children-with-autism-higher-than-previously-thought/comment-page-1/) He's been saying this for years.
Not one of these doctors sounded worried. Not one of them acknowledged the failure of the medical community to give us a single definite answer about autism. Nobody brought up GI issues or regressive autism. I'm sure autism has been a cash cow for lots of researchers. The studies have been endless and still all they can say for sure is that early diagnosing and intervention is a good idea.
Meanwhile in the area of infectious disease. . . http://www.medpagetoday.com/HOTTOPICS2014/special-reports/SpecialReports-Videos/362 . . .
Dr. Gregory Poland from the Mayo Clinic is predicting the beginning of adjuvant use in our vaccines "to boost antibody response and increase our protection added to vaccines. Those are already licensed in Canada and Europe. We'll begin to see them here in the U.S."
Poland then talked about the coming of a universal influenza vaccine.
Dr. John Treanor predicted getting vaccines to market faster.
The Atlantic magazine article: "Living Sick and Dying Young in Rich America"
http://tinyurl.com/kypevl4
... raises concerns about an emerging "mystery" that .. "despite the fact that America shells out more money on healthcare than any other country in the world .. a hefty 75 percent of those dollars are going toward aiding people with chronic conditions .. almost half of American adults had at least one chronic condition in 2005"
"But it's not just that Americans are getting sicker .. it's that YOUNG Americans are getting sicker. A 2013 report by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicines echoes the shock of that fact. "The panel was struck by the gravity of its findings" it reads. "For many years, Americans have been dying younger at ages than people in almost all other high income countries". In particular .. women are less likely to live to age 50 if they're born in the US than other high income countries, he says. 'I have a chart where we show this pattern going back to 1980. Back then if you looked at the survival of women to age 50, the US was in the middle of the pack. Over time, not only has the US fallen down in the ranking, they've fallen off the chart. That's something we're trying to understand"
Isn't it odd the "mysterious" increases in autism and chronic autoimmune diseases began in the very same year .. 1980? Isn't it odd the US dramatically increased the numbers and doses of "vaccines" being given children in that very same year ... 1980?
Not to worry there should be any concerns about the "coincidence" of rising autism and chronic autoimmune diseases .. because one of Anne's "experts" is quoted thus:
"Dr. Gregory Poland from the Mayo Clinic is predicting the beginning of adjuvant use in our vaccines "to boost antibody response and increase our protection added to vaccines. Those are already licensed in Canada and Europe. We'll begin to see them here in the U.S."
God help us .. we live in a world gone completely mad.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | January 11, 2014 at 09:55 AM
Another 4 morons-Confirmed! Anne-keep doing this and maybe throw in some politicians as well. Like I told a congressman a couple of months ago- your children may be fine but just wait until your grandchildren are on the way. The rate will be 1 in 9 in 8 years! Those odds suck!
Posted by: helpingspecialkids | January 10, 2014 at 10:24 PM
Once again, only the calendar has changed- The public health doctors have not. They still dont even realize that Joe the Plumber's son, who has a little toddler of his own, and the dealers in the casinos in Reno, know more about the cause of autism than they do. Its easy to do that when you remain within the walls of your comfortable hospitals and only interact with other doctors . Actually, the word "cause", is rarely found in the vocabulary of our public health doctors, when it comes to autism and Alzheimers and so many other disorders.
Linda, I suspect that the phrase "Do the hard work" is one more sign of the devil- That is the medical- pharmaceutical devil, who can be seen in every article on autism that just happens to mention that autism is "highly heritable". I heard the phrase "Do the hard work" for the first time about 15 years back from an enthusiastic autism mom who told me that the parents had to "Do the hard work" Perhaps the idea is that if you cant directly blame the parent, you can pass off the job of recovery to him/her.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | January 10, 2014 at 07:25 PM
For most doctors growing autism epidemic is only a fat milking cow. They are very happy and excited to make more money by testing and "treating" sick children with useless toxic medications, but they refuse to admit the obvious - that it is their medicine and poisonous vaccines, which make these children sick. Of course, they know very well that vaccines maim and kill children and they would not vaccinate their own children/grandchildren, but poisoning others is a great business for them and for their criminal pharma-medical sponsors.
Posted by: no-vac | January 10, 2014 at 12:04 PM
Those "interviews" are nothing more than PR/marketing for the medical industry. Like car salesmen, they're telling us how effective and advanced their new products will be this year and how they'll be able to bring them to so many more people at younger ages. Except it isn't really their job to sell treatments if there is any way that can be avoided. It's their job to prevent the need for treatments in the first place - to safeguard public health, to remove those environmental toxins, not to leave them and even add to them and then "do the hard work" of fixing the resulting damage over the lifetime of the injured. Those people are disgusting.
Posted by: Linda | January 10, 2014 at 10:05 AM