Weekly Wrap: No, Adam Lanza Did Not Have Asperger’s
This week’s New Yorker has a gripping article by Andrew Solomon on Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, based primarily on interviews with his father, Peter. To me, the first thing to pop out is that his diagnosis – Asperger’s disorder – doesn’t make any sense.
Here’s the key part: “Adam Lanza was never typical. Born in 1992, he didn’t speak until he was three, and he always understood many more words than he could muster.”
Well, if he didn’t speak until he was three, he didn’t have Asperger’s. Straight from my hefty copy of DSM-IV, retrieved from the box in the garage: “In contrast to Autistic Disorder, there are no clinically significant delays in language (e.g., single words are used by age 2 years, communicative phrases are used by age 3 years).”
Now you tell me, but assuming his own father has his personal history right, Adam as an infant did have clinically significant delays in language. So if he had an ASD, it had to be autistic disorder or PDD-NOS. Since this quickly turns into alphabet soup, here's a footnote from our book The Age of Autism – Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic:
“’Pervasive developmental disorders’ is the diagnostic category often referred to as autism spectrum disorders. The three main categories of pervasive development disorder (PDD) include autistic disorder, PDD-NOS (not otherwise specified), and Asperger’s syndrome. A diagnosis of PDD-NOS is similar to but less severe than autistic disorder and includes language and communication delays, unlike Asperger’s.”
So my question is, how on earth did Adam Lanza get an Asperger’s diagnosis? Yes, in some ways he was functional, although he had the full panoply of seriously autistic traits – “such hypersensitivity to physical touch that tags had to be removed from his clothing. … A doctor diagnosed sensory integration disorder, and Adam underwent speech therapy and occupational therapy in kindergarten and first grade.” His shop teacher said he could hold a Bunsen burner to his wrist and not flinch.
He also had terrible OCD, a strange gait, massive inability to connect with other kids, failures in school and at home and in every other possible way. Terrors, meltdowns.
Solomon tells us that “when Adam was thirteen, Peter and Nancy took him to Paul J. Fox, a psychiatrist, who gave a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. … Peter and Nancy finally knew what they were up against,” Solomon writes. ‘It was communicated as ‘Adam, this is good news. This is why you feel this way, and now we can do something about it,’ Peter recalled. But Adam would not accept the diagnosis.”
Well, it was the wrong diagnosis, was it not? Asperger’s and its weird-but-smart stereotype was manifestly not what they were up against. At 14, his parents took him to Yale’s Child Study Center for further diagnosis. “The psychiatrist who assessed Adam, Robert King, recorded that he was a ‘pale, gaunt, awkward young adolescent standing rigidly with downcast gaze and declining to shake hands.’ He also noted that Adam ‘had relatively little spontaneous speech but responded in a flat tone with little inflection and almost mechanical prosody.”
I find it kind of amazing that in an upper middle class, educated household seeking psychiatric evaluation in the New York metroplex, and at Yale, this elementary misdiagnosis is the result. (Of course, this was the result when upper middle class, educated parents first brought similar children to Leo Kanner at John’s Hopkins in the 1930s).
Kids like Adam Lanza are sick (I'll leave the question of evil to the ethicists and theologians), and the question is why so many are so sick, in such similar and new ways that they suggest a common environmental etiology.
This week in the Washington, D.C., area where I live, police provided insight into another young killer in the Adam Lanza mold. Darius Marcus Aguilar, 19, shot two people at a mall in Columbia, Md., and would have killed a lot more if they had been children trapped in classrooms rather than adults running in a mall. His Internet tracks, like Lanza’s, showed a fascination with guns – in fact, he was trying to enact a replay of Columbine.
“At the same time,” the Washington Post reported, “he sought out clues to mental illness and joined a chat room filled with people contemplating suicide in their search for a way out.”
He apparently was hearing voices. “He knew he was sick,” the police chief said. So did Adam Lanza. No wonder he didn’t accept his “good news” diagnosis. Neither should we.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
He had Lyme disease.
Posted by: Ronnie | March 07, 2016 at 08:36 AM
I want to agree with the person who said mental illness is what is more likely to start in adolescence than ASD. But I want to also comment on the original article. While Aspergers does not cause speech delays, people with speech delays can still have Aspergers. Perhaps this is because there are different types of speech delays. My child did not have a language delay, but had a speech "delay" so it was more of a speech impediment, maybe you would call it. But he was quite advanced with his language, reading chapter books before kinder and spelling words for people when they could not understand him. And he definitely has Aspergers. But he is not like Adam Lanza. It seems to me that Adam Lanza was misdiagnosed. I would be curious to know how the Aspergers DX came about. Did he simply go to a doctor who claimed he had it? Or did he spend days on testing?
Posted by: Lila | September 05, 2015 at 02:59 PM
I would like to say the following about the conspiracy theory that the journalists are engaged in when they talk about whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism. Yes, it is a conspiracy, but it is an unwitting conspiracy. It's the co-operation between people who are on the same page and yet are adhering to concepts that are as old as mercury itself and false.
Mercury has been a known poison for as long as people have used it for all its known purposes. But because it appeared to be so useful it became in itself a co-conspirator. Mercury is insidious like that because it fools people into mistakenly thinking that it might/can be used as a medicine. Offit iterated what Paracelsus had said over half a millennium ago that the "dose makes the poison."
The problem with that mantra, when it comes to mercury, is the fact that the signs of poisoning do not show up quickly. A deadly dose can kill months after dispensing it. The reason for that is how mercury achieves it deleterious effect. It does it by attaching itself to enzymes after it has reached the blood stream. These enzymes are rendered useless. If most of a person's enzymes are thus rendered useless, the organism cannot feed the cells and the person essentially dies of starvation. This is the case because enzymes are the transporters of nutrients to the individual cells of all the body parts.
Different enzymes do different things, but if they are loaded with mercury they cannot be used for their essential functions, and there is a limited number of enzymes in each individual. So when there is more mercury in the body than enzymes, the body is sure to die.
That's not the only way mercury works. It also attaches itself to organ systems. It can sit around nerves and just cause them to act in a deranged manner if it doesn't destroy them. It can go into cells and maim them or render them useless. At any rate. They do damage insidiously, and mercury is definitely not like Lime disease or any other infectious disease.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | March 26, 2014 at 02:48 AM
I saw a picture of Adam when he was in the sixth grade, smiling, handsome, he looked like a normal, happy kid. He had speech delay, so yeah, mercury poisoning, but he was apparently a normal child? Diagnosed with Asperger's at 13, as others here have said, middle school, adolescence (the time when schizophrenia may first manifest? I know there's no evidence he heard voices, but still.) It doesn't seem like an expected scenario, when kids like my nephew start out pretty affected as small children but then improve over time. Can Asperger's start at 13? Or some mental illness not yet clearly defined?
Posted by: cia parker | March 18, 2014 at 06:05 PM
My son had language delay. He talked when he was 3 and a half years old. It was obvious very early that he was intelligent which later was proven by a test. His IQ was 135. It was obvious that something affected my son early. IN his case it was the fact that a pediatric dentist claimed that my son had over 30 cavities before he was three. This man inserted 30 amalgam fillings into his teeth. If I had know then what I know no, life would have been different with him. Another thing, when I was pregnant 1965) with him, the pediatrician gave me fluoride pills that were thought to make the babies' teeth cavity-free. My other children were not born with fluoride pills in their system. The pediatrician suddenly decided that fluoride pills were not good for pregnant women. Back to Adam Lanza. To say that Aspergers children do not have language delay is questionable. What is not questionable is the fact that children who were mercury poisoned have language delay. I contend that a very good case could be made that Adam Lanza was mercury-poisoned. There should be an investigation how Adam Lanza might have been poisoned by mercury. Hint the area around Newtown was the hub of felt making.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | March 18, 2014 at 04:40 PM
@Taximom5 I never thought of SV40 and breast cancer before because breast cancer is not singled out as being associated with SV40. But there is thought that there could be a viral component to breast cancer, and mammograms could provide the trigger necessary to activate whatever virus is present. The current Congressional investigation of the FDA in its monitoring of whistleblowers' computers had to do with devices that the whistleblowers felt pressure to approve despite their belief that the devices emitted too much radiation. I think some of the devices included Mammogram machines, but I'm not sure. So it could be that whatever virus is the culprit seems harmless like SV40 until the yearly mammogram with excess radiation sets the stage for breast cancer development. But there are so many possible triggers for breast cancer that each association gets diluted. I wonder if a study has been done comparing numbers with breast cancer in women who had mammograms versus those that had no mammograms.
@ Jenny - I'll bet you're right about bullets causing neurological problems after years of remaining in the body. It's just a sad irony that the young man is reduced to taking big pharma's pills that he once advocated against.
Posted by: Betty Bona | March 17, 2014 at 01:14 AM
Ammunition is mostly made out of lead and jacketed by copper. To leave it in - is to
As in eating canned foods in lead cans; ending up like
Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
And finding graves of Franklin's mean
I am just now reading Peanut Allergy by Heather Fraser - kindle has it for just 1.99 right now.
But I might have to order it and give it to all my health medical friends.
It says that back in the 40s that there as this real huge increase to cottonseed oil allergy -- turns out cottonseed was intergrated into everything.
It waas traced to aluminium/pertussis/cottonseed vaccine. they took it out and the allergy went down.
So why won't they do it again?
Is it because of the 1986 ruling they can't be sued and they don't give a dam
Is it because they are stupid beyond measure?
Is it because they are culling (no it is not because they are getting rid of the guys with the best immune systems) just thought I would point that out.
Is it because they want to make us all sick and make new drugs and make lots of money.
Is it because some one really does want ot lower the population of humanbeings on this earth to make more room for black bears?
Take your pick - but something is going on that is way over the top.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 17, 2014 at 12:14 AM
@BettyBono: SV40 virus and lots of radiation? What, you mean like, yearly mammograms? How many women get breast cancer now? 1 in 4? More?
Posted by: Taximom5 | March 16, 2014 at 08:44 PM
There are so many ways to silence unwanted rhetoric. One of my favorite possible scenarios is to take a little "harmless" SV40 virus, add lots of radiation, and you've induced cancer. I have heard some suggest this in relation to the cancer that caused Jack Ruby's death. It sounds way to far fetched, and in the old days I would have totally disregarded it, but now I keep it in the back of my mind in case it ever needs to be revisited. Ruby died less than three weeks after diagnosis with brain and lung cancer (and maybe some other cancer as well). SV40 is associated with brain and lung cancers. Before the diagnosis, he indicated more than once that he had important disclosures to make. Now whenever I hear of some important person dying of cancer, especially brain cancer, I get an uneasy feeling - especially if that person is the source of unwanted rhetoric.
Posted by: Betty Bona | March 16, 2014 at 04:03 PM
I wonder, in the case of Mark Taylor, if there is also heavy metal overload going on? What happens to a body when surgery can not remove all bullets? What are they made out of? What if metal just sits in there, what if it's close to the nervous system? Could that lead to chronic system inflammation? It's known that anesthesia can change the brain, too. Was his in pain after his surgery period and taking acetaminophen? It's possible he got flu shots on top of that all. Could that combination all contribute to brain inflammation and the inability to detox? It's certainly a very similar possible combination of circumstances we read about on this site every week.
I don't condone at all what was done to him, but I ask because I know a man who had his leg amputated after decades of having lead shot in his leg they couldn't get to w/surgery when he was younger. His muscle spasms looked like tics, and balance and speech were all ongoing problems and the doctors thought amputation might solve the problem. His gait & balance had gotten so bad he had to give up his golf game, the love of his life. Being in a conversation meant 2-3 word strings of basic responses and observations combined w/head tics, absolutely no problem understanding what was going on, though. And he wasn't born that way, he was on his way into professional sports at the time of his injury.
Posted by: Jenny | March 16, 2014 at 03:42 PM
Taximom,
You're right. I don't know the specifics of the last case, but it could be the same in that all 3 were targeted, just different tactics were used. They couldn't get away with a chemical lobotomy on Dr. Wakefield, although I bet they would have liked to.
Posted by: Linda | March 16, 2014 at 01:59 PM
@Linda, I'm less worried about Mark Taylor having been "Wakefielded," and more worried about his having been kidnapped, tortured, and seriously injured, perhaps permanently.
That's why I'm thinking Justina Pelletier.
It looks to me like attempts to permanently silence evidence of Pharma Harm:
"Mark Taylor spouted off about SSRI's being responsible for mass killings? Let's silence him by kidnapping him, diagnosing him as mentally diseased, and then force-feeding him SSRI's until he's brain-damaged, then we'll point to his brain damage and ask how anyone can possibly believe him."
"Justina Pelletier has a mitochondrial disorder? Uh-oh, we'd better silence her and her family, or else someone will figure out that our vaccines and/or drugs actually caused it; let's kidnap her, diagnose her with mental disease, force-feed her SSRI's, and blame her parents."
Posted by: Taximom5 | March 16, 2014 at 01:26 PM
Mark Taylor's story is horrible. I went on the ColumbineFamilyrequest.org web site and watched his videos. Because Mark spoke out against SSRI's and the Pharmaceutical industry, they forced him into treatment and then chemically lobotomized his brain with SSRI's leaving him in a zombie like state. He is not the same bright, articulate young man he used to be and can no longer drive or live independently. He can barely hold a conversation now. We are dealing with monsters here!
Posted by: autismmom | March 16, 2014 at 01:06 PM
Taximom,
I wasn't thinking Justine Pelletier. I was thinking more like Andrew Wakefield. Of course I don't know (I hope someone finds out), but it is Pharma's policy to attack anyone who threatens their business. If this is what happened to Mark Taylor, it is beyond horrifying. What happened to Andrew Wakefield, not only what was done, but the fact that there are uncountable accomplices in high and low (Brian Deer) places and that at least up until this moment they have gotten away with it, is also beyond horrifying.
Again, I don't know, but I wonder if the goal of Mark Taylor's "treatment" was and is to silence him permanently and to make an example of him.
Posted by: Linda | March 16, 2014 at 10:02 AM
Vicki Hill, true that you can't blame everything on meds, but there is an association between anti-depressants and violence.
See Dr. David Healy's books and blog.
http://davidhealy.org
Posted by: Twyla | March 16, 2014 at 01:46 AM
@ Linda and @BettyBono:
I had never heard of Mark Taylor, so I googled, and found this:http://columbinefamilyrequest.org/mark-taylor-defense-fund/mark-taylor/
Sounds like Justina Pelletier all over again....
Posted by: Taximom5 | March 16, 2014 at 12:47 AM
Dear Dan,
As a parent of a now adult son with autism, vaccine induced, but still labeled as having ASD, I'd caution folks to use what in is print to speculate on causation of something as tragic as Sandy Hook. This is especially true when it involves others who will attribute such acts to being connected to an individual with autism no matter how that is deflected. We have felt this collateral damage before from such negative press and this article is no different for a variety of reasons. I don't see it as gripping at all and am very, very disappointed that again we have to pull up our boot straps and defend autism. I also don't feel we can negate Adam's Lanza's Asperger Syndrome diagnosis as being not applicable due to this story and the characteristics noted. Many diagnosed with AS had speech difficulties as children too Dan and that may be a different disability not related to AS. Please don't pigeonhole a dx and say it is not possible. However when we look at this I do think from comparing all accounts that there was a medical illness never addressed that caused his health to erode. Sad really when you think this family had the means to seek proper medical intervention.
Please also consider that Peter Lanza is providing this picture into Adam as he wants it framed and to do what is most likely best for him and chose Andrew Solomon for a reason to write this piece. Nancy Lanza is not here to defend it nor is anyone else for that matter. Peter Lanza did not physically see his son the last two years of his life and as many know, adolescent males who have absent fathers often suffer emotionally from what is felt to be abandonment, especially those with ASD. Additionally what made me feel worse as a parent was Lanza using the word "weird" to describe his son, not once but several times. It's obvious that if he felt this way about his son to discuss it, Adam most likely knew he felt this way as well. For the many of us that know our children, they are very intuitive to the ways others feel about them.
It's also interesting that the author of this article, Andrew Solomon, did his PhD thesis on Attachment Disorder and has a connection to the pharmaceutical industry. Solomon's father, Howard Solomon, is on the Board of Directors for Forest Labs which produces Lexapro.
http://investor.frx.com/investor_center/board_of_directors
He also was the one that worked to get FDA approval for the drug Celexa after he attributed it to assisting Andrew Solomon while he suffered from depression. Solomon has been linked to controversy before within the autism community after writing this piece and is very supportive of the use of medications, something he discloses in this article "The Autism Rights Movement". He also discloses in this piece he has dyslexia and his parents attempts to address that which made him feel marginalized it seems.
http://andrewsolomon.com/articles/the-autism-rights-movement/
Additionally it has been previously noted that Solomon's book "From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity" is a dismal portrayal of children born who have no connection to their parents. The book features sections with interviews of parents of children who have autism.
As a side note it is interesting to see that Forest Labs profits last year were 3 billion dollars and they just acquired Aptalis, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company focused on gastrointestinal disorders and cystic fibrosis, for 2.9 billion dollars. Sounds to me like this article was prepared and provided much more purpose than to provide an insight into Adam Lanza.
Thank you and hopefully you will look into this possible connection because I see no benefit to the ASD community in this article, the very opposite is true unfortunately.
Posted by: Carolyn | March 15, 2014 at 11:47 PM
I hope some investigative reporter looks into what happened to Mark Taylor, ending up on antipsychotics after suing Pharma and being an activist against the sale of their products.
I don't think it's fair to judge Adam Lanza's father. No one knows what that family went through, what their relationships were. What the father is now left with is an enormous burden that he will bear for the rest of his life. Judge the medical system, the press, the government, Pharma - they are all obviously guilty of contributing to the conditions that led to Sandy Hook, but we can't know to what extent if any the father is responsible. To speculate is to pile on to a man who is already coping with more than any person should have to bear. I got choked up when I heard that he said he wished his son was never born. I can't imagine a parent saying that about their child. I don't know if they had a strained relationship, but even if they did, sometimes poor bonding occurs between parent and child for biological reasons beyond conscious control. We shouldn't judge. The whole thing is tragic for him any way you look at it.
Posted by: Linda | March 15, 2014 at 11:10 PM
Information on the status of pharmaceuticals used by Lanza seem to be guarded. There is also a lot of controversy about pharmaceuticals and the Columbine shooting. One of the victims (Mark Taylor) who survived the shooting became an activist against the use of antidepressants. Apparently he sued an antidepressant drug maker (the maker of the drugs prescribed to the shooters) and settled for some unknown sum of money. He continued his activism, but more recently, he was held in a psychiatric hospital and placed on anti-psychotics (ironically). In the more recent videos I have seen of him, he seems incoherent. He had other controversial stories about the Columbine shooting as well, and the whole story seems incredibly bizarre. None of it makes the news. I wonder if there will be the same sort of bizarre unreported stories in the years to come following the Sandy Hook shooting. In general, people just don't want to hear about conspiracy theories.
Posted by: Betty Bona | March 15, 2014 at 08:54 PM
Sorry I meant to address my comment to Twyla also, not just to Teresa and Hera.
I am so sorry about the Hep B - things were bad enough as it was.
Lisa; hmmmm when some one obsesses it is hard. I have been in the position (not with guns) but with a car -- I should have taken it away from one of mine and did not. Well I did for a while -- well maybe a car is hardly the same as a gun or food -- I have been seeing on the TV the morbid obest can be pretty hard on their caregivers. THere is this whole be thing that is rather complicated about enablers. Sounds like the Parents could have used some thearpy.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 15, 2014 at 06:56 PM
Hera; Tereasa;
Middle school is time for puberty.
He became sicker at that time
Remember puberty causes-- things started back in baby hood to esculate - such as more profound irritability/depression, more seizure activity, girls have more trouble with their periods (mine did) all this happens when the endocrine system is matureing-- and more things become apparent of what has been damaged in the past.
So it does not have to be another flu shot or bullied, or stressed at that time - just horomones.
It is a continuation of damage that had occurred in childhood and had yet to---- heal.
Not all of us get on the low carb- gluten free/casein free diet. Not all of us find out that we can't break down long chain carbohydates -- instead - like me -- they continue at that age to give them the typical American diet - with lots of corn syrup and very extra gluten wheat. Seizures and the Ketogenic diet will get you there -- but it is not as well known that it can heal mood issues too. But it is coming along. I was shocked to see that it is true that 1 out of 3 families have gone gluten free.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 15, 2014 at 06:45 PM
Lyme Disease can cause many of the symptoms of mercury listed below, and they are known to be faithful companions, as mercury trashes the immune system allowing Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses to flourish and create additional havoc.
Adam Lanza was born and raised 70 miles from Lyme, Connecticut. But of course no "professional" thought to look for Lyme, and even if they did, most likely employed the useless CDC criteria for antibody results. The fact that they took him to Yale pretty much guarantees it.
The parent community is discovering (thanks in great part to social media) that children with Lyme often have more "psychiatric" and neurological symptoms than physical (pain, fatigue, rashes), including OCD, anxiety, rages, tics, autism spectrum disorders, seizures, mood swings, suicidal ideation, and the list goes on.
Four years ago, I feared my son could end up in jail or dead by the time he was an adult. Thanks to treatment for Lyme and other bacterial infections, chronic viruses, parasites, heavy metals, gut imbalances, food allergies, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, etc, he is well on his way to a normal, happy and productive life.
I grieve for the Lanzas that their story ended in tragedy when it probably didn't have to.
Posted by: PANDAS Mom | March 15, 2014 at 06:32 PM
For those who question, I'm going on the basis of (1) The New Yorker, where Dad said he had refused all psych medication after that early negative reaction, as well as (2) an early report where a police officer said they found no medications in the house and (2) the autopsy as reported publicly, which gave no indication that any medications had been found in the body.
As to JerseyGuy's quote above, I had never heard that, so I just Googled it and found the video of it here: http://www.infowars.com/state-of-connecticut-refuses-to-release-adam-lanzas-medical-records/ If you listen to it, you quickly realize that you have misinterpreted it. He did NOT say that Lanza had been using a medication. Rather, he said that the premise that he might have been using something was not adequate to qualify for a report under Freedom of Information and...even if he did, it would still not be appropriate because it might cause someone in very different circumstances not to take their medication. The gentleman speaks English as a second language, which explains his curious choice of wording. But he absolutely does not say that Lanza was taking anything.
I have a son with symptom development much like Lanza's. Lanza was taken to a psychiatrist because of symptoms BEFORE he was first given medication. So was my son. While I understand the fears and concerns regarding medications, I know firsthand that psychiatric symptoms can and do show up in some people BEFORE any psychiatric medication has ever been tried. You just can't blame everything on meds.
Posted by: Vicki Hill | March 15, 2014 at 06:10 PM
I don't think it matters that much what type of ASD Lanza had. These are just descriptive categories and yes they probably should be accurate but just look at Adam Lanza's face. He has the face of a medically ill, tortured person, whatever diagnosis you call it I call it mercury poisoning and until proven otherwise that's what I think it was.
As for the father, I admit to not knowing anything about this family personally, but when I hear a guy remarried and left his ex wife caring for a terribly ill son...well, even if he gave a lot of money, it doesn't sound that great to me. The guns were also a terrible idea. The first thing doctors tell families of people with depression or any mental illness is to get weapons out of the house. I think if this father was plugged in he would have picked up that this situation needed to change. Other people paid for that neglect very dearly. I don't buy the idea that guns are a healthy culture and having semi automatic weapons is a fine sport. Really ridiculous in my view. Get real people! If your son is on meds and has no friends and is terribly ill, don't give him a gun for Christmas and say, no problem there. There is a problem and if you can't figure it out then some genius doctor from Yale should spell it out for you. This affects others, not just your family.
This bothers me a lot because it didn't have to happen. It was not like a tsunami or something.
Posted by: Lisa | March 15, 2014 at 05:51 PM
Just to clarify what I was saying earlier; it certainly seems like Adam Lanza had an autism spectrum disorder, and that his condition got worse in middle school. It would be interesting to know if Adam had a reaction to possible booster shots given in middle school. Or if he had some severe trauma happen to him around then.
it just seems that their is a lot not being said about his time at school, and why he was pulled out. The unpopular kid with no friends, that no liked, but who no one remembers "ever" being bullied? Yeah, right.
Some kids who are bullied develop PTSD and someone with an autism spectrum disorder may have even less resources than the average person to cope with dealing with it.
And I could well imagine that anti depressants could also have pushed him over the edge.
I'm just guessing though that being bullied and possibly abused at school might also be part of the picture.
Posted by: Hera | March 15, 2014 at 04:39 PM
Like Teresa, I was immediately struck by Adam Lanza's year of birth 1992. This was one year after the CDC began recommending a Hepatitis B vaccine on the day of birth for all newborns, even though newborns are only at risk if the mother is infected with Hep B. At the time this vaccine contained thimerosal, a preservative which is 49.6% mercury. After that, if his parents went along with the vaccine schedule (which is likely as they seem to be respectful of mainstream medicine) he would have received many vaccines containing thimerosal, which was used in many vaccines until it began to be reduced in the 21st century. More recently, he may have received annual flu shots, most of which contain thimerosal, and other vaccines containing thimerosal which are recommended for teenagers.
People vary greatly in their ability to detoxify mercury. Many of the attributes described in the New Yorker article are typical of the effects of mercury toxicity in someone who is especially sensitive to this toxin. If our health authorities were not in such a totally defensive mode - declaring all vaccines safe, not studying those with adverse reactions, not studying mercury toxicity, not studying how best to treat adverse reactions - perhaps some of the "experts" could have offered medical treatments to help Adam. This is a terrible travesty and tragedy.
This SafeMinds study summarizes symptoms/characteristics of mercury toxicity, culled from historical accounts of various kinds of exposures (such as mercury spills into waterways, industrial exposures, eating seeds coated with mercury pesticides…) compared with symptoms/characteristics reported in people with autism:
Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning
http://m.safeminds.org/pubs/autism-a-novel-form-of-mercury-poisioning-bernard-et-al-2001.pdf
Psychiatric disturbances
Social deficits, shyness, social withdrawal
Repetitive, perseverative, stereotypic behaviors; obsessive-compulsive tendencies Depression/depressive traits, mood swings, flat affect; impaired face recognition
Anxiety; schizoid tendencies; irrational fears
Irritability, aggression, temper tantrums
Lacks eye contact; impaired visual fixation (HgP)/problems in joint attention (ASD)
Speech and language deficits
Loss of speech, delayed language, failure to develop speech
Dysarthria; articulation problems
Speech comprehension deficits
Verbalizing and word retrieval problems (HgP); echolalia, word use and pragmatic errors (ASD)
Sensory abnormalities
Abnormal sensation in mouth and extremities
Sound sensitivity; mild to profound hearing loss
Abnormal touch sensations; touch aversion
Over-sensitivity to light; blurred vision)
Motor disorders
Flapping, myoclonal jerks, choreiform movements, circling, rocking, toe walking, unusual postures
Deficits in eye-hand coordination; limb apraxia; intention tremors (HgP)/problems with intentional movement or imitation
Abnormal gait and posture, clumsiness and incoordination; difficulties sitting, lying, crawling, and walking; problem on one side of body
Cognitive impairments
Borderline intelligence, mental retardation – some cases reversible
Poor concentration, attention, response inhibition (HgP)/shifting attention (ASD)
Uneven performance on IQ subtests; verbal IQ higher than performance IQ
Poor short term, verbal, and auditory memory
Poor visual and perceptual motor skills; impairment in simple reaction time (HgP)/lower performance on timed tests (ASD)
Deficits in understanding abstract ideas & symbolism; degeneration of higher mental powers (HgP)/sequencing, planning & organizing (ASD); difficulty carrying out complex commands
Unusual behaviors
Self injurious behavior, e.g. head banging
ADHD traits
Agitation, unprovoked crying, grimacing, staring spells
Sleep difficulties
Physical disturbances
Hyper- or hypotonia; abnormal reflexes; decreased muscle strength, especially upper body; incontinence; problems chewing, swallowing
Rashes, dermatitis, eczema, itching
Diarrhea; abdominal pain/discomfort, constipation, “colitis”
Anorexia; nausea (HgP)/vomiting (ASD); poor appetite (HgP)/restricted diet (ASD)
Lesions of ileum and colon; increased gut permeability
~
Adam Lanza experienced many of the above. If mercury toxicity were recognized, understood, and treated - instead of most problems with vaccines being hushed up - perhaps a group of small children and school employees in Newtown, Connecticut would still be alive today.
Posted by: Twyla | March 15, 2014 at 03:38 PM
re: "when Adam was thirteen, Peter and Nancy took him to Paul J. Fox, a psychiatrist, who gave a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. … Peter and Nancy finally knew what they were up against.. ‘It was communicated as ‘Adam, this is good news. This is why you feel this way, and now we can do something about it."
Yeah, right. The diagnosis immediately sparked effective treatments.
Posted by: Twyla | March 15, 2014 at 03:26 PM
Autism or Asperger's doesn't cause people to commit murder, but many antidepressants do. The public has a right to know what medications Adam Lanza was taking, or had previously taken within the last 6 month of his life. The families of the victims need to know. Not releasing that information isn't about preventing people from stopping their medication. Most of those drugs are very painful and difficult to stop, and I doubt many people would do so. This is only about protecting the pharmaceutical companies.
Posted by: Kristina | March 15, 2014 at 02:22 PM
Vaccine Compensation Court -- admits -- (say the word) vaccine induced brain injury.
What most of us on here are disagreeing with is the "RATE" this is happening.
They say RARE
and we
say EVERYBODY.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 15, 2014 at 01:30 PM
Oh, and the medicine if it is the right kin/dosage of medicine does help.
She is fully functional.
That and making her adhere to a no gluten - low carb diet.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 15, 2014 at 01:22 PM
I think it's a mistake to assume that specialists have been able to construct accurate boxes in which to place people with ASD. Reality has always been more complex and confounding. I couldn't believe my daughter had autism because I had read people with autism were aloof and unable to connect or communicate with others. My baby was happy, smiling and laughing all the time. When she was nearly one, she loved her binky, and I thought it was funny that several times she took it out of her mouth and tried to put it in mine, to share the pleasure. She loved to be held and cuddled, and the Parents as Teachers woman was amazed that, when she started to cry, and I picked her up and started singing familiar lullabies to her, she immediately calmed down, as though by magic. Thinking about it, I realize that after the DTaP booster at 18 months, that I don't have pictures of her smiling and laughing anymore, but just a lot of ones with her somber and unsmiling, but still beautiful with her blong Italian curls and blue eyes.
I was very slow to speak, and even when I started kindergarten at four and a half, no one could understand me when I spoke, and I was put in the slower class, even though I had already taught myself to read, and did little else. My mother had also not started to speak until she was nearly in school (reaction to diphtheria vaccine), and would hide her head in her mother's skirt when people talked to her, and they would say Has the cat got your tongue? My daughter, of course, had two words erased by the DTaP booster and didn't speak again until nearly three, continued to be very delayed, and is still extremely low-verbal. My older nephew, diagnosed with Asperger's, was extremely delayed in starting to speak. His brother and sister, considered NT, were slow to speak as well, though not as much.
They say that Einstein didn't speak until he was three.
This is just to say that I don't think it's correct to say, as they do, that Asperger's people did not have speech delay as small children. The important factor seems to be whether at some point they acquire the ability to compehend verbal and written communication and express ideas themselves. The more they can, the higher they ascend on the ASD scale, moving up to and past high-functioning autism to Asperger's, and then up into the broad range of neurotypical, without any completely definitive diagnostic boundaries.
Posted by: cia parker | March 15, 2014 at 12:44 PM
It is kind of like seeing some one get hit by a car. Until we take off all their clothes, use X rays, and hopefully ask a person where it hurts -- we don't know how a vaccine has damaged the hypothalamus. Hummmm for that matter; most of the time we are not noticing them being hit by a car, but finding them laying in the yard - where the car knocked them/ as in we did not notice the silent vasculitis; the vaccine caused until there is a significant malfunction.
As for medicine.
I have had someone in my family that I found laying in the yard so to speak -on antidepressants. The silly keeps messing with the vaccines --which makes that someone for a while swing into NOT the the sad type of depression, but the irritable - snarky - snappy depression kind. AND then - when they swing back the other way --- they swing really high on the mania end. You got to watch them -- cause they like that high mania and will as protective of their antidepressant as a heroin addict.
This summer was a detox off of protzac -- Sad I thought we were done with it three years ago. Now I think we really are done but we still have two types of antidepressant meds cause irritable - snappy people - even a bit paranoid -- is hard to live with.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 15, 2014 at 12:43 PM
I think that they gave him an Asperger's diagnosis because he was very smart. His dad maintains that the diagnosis wasn't the whole story, that it masked an underlying problem that he has labeled as "evil." That to me, is terrifying on so many different levels. The movie hall shooter in Aurora comes to mind, as does the Unabomber. Very smart weird people, and intent on killing other people for whatever reason.
Posted by: Autism mom | March 15, 2014 at 11:46 AM
According to the article in the New Yorker, in middle school Adam “quit playing the saxophone, stopped climbing trees, avoided eye contact, and developed a stiff, lumbering gait.”
“It was crystal clear something was wrong,” Peter said. “The social awkwardness, the uncomfortable anxiety, unable to sleep, stress, unable to concentrate, having a hard time learning, the awkward walk, reduced eye contact. You could see the changes occurring.”
So what happened in middle-school?
And a little off the path....
My overall perception when I read the New Yorker article was that Peter Lanza was trying awfully hard to distance himself and his current family from Adam. And I get why he did that. But I have no respect for it. How convenient for him dead men, or rather a dead woman, can’t tell tales. So in a nod to Bettleheim, it’s all his ex-wife’s doing, or what she wasn’t doing; doesn’t matter-look over there not over here. And what became of Adam was all her fault and Peter gets what, all the credit for how the older brother turned out?
By his own admission, when he was living with his first family he was rarely there. And then he moved an hour away. And then saw less and less of this child but that was the child & mother’s fault and wasn’t influenced by any thing the dad did like, um, starting a new family. And this dad saw enough concerning changes in this boy, and though he had lots of concerns of how his ex-wife dealt with it, he was absolutely powerless to change the circumstances. He couldn’t go to family court and get custody?
I’m not saying that either parent could have foreseen the events that were to happen. But I’m not buying the dad’s deflection and dumping of it onto his dead ex-wife.
And I agree with JerseyGuy, it is suspect that they wouldn’t release the medical records especially given the Assistant Attorney’s quote.
Posted by: samaxtics | March 15, 2014 at 11:27 AM
Vicki: The State of Connecticut won't release Lanza’s medical records because revealing the antidepressants he was taking might “cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications,” quoting Assistant Attorney General Patrick B. Kwanashie. That does seem to be evidence of a coverup -- indeed, practically an admission. Given who Solomon's dad is, I'm not sure we can trust his assurance that Lanza stopped taking Lexapro long ago.
Posted by: JerseyGuy | March 15, 2014 at 10:55 AM
Vicki Hill,
Do you have some evidence Lanza did not have drugs in his system? Did they release an autposy report? Also, even if he wasn't currently taking medications his previous use could have still had an impact. A babysitter revealed he was on Ritalin as a child. The New Yorker article discloses Lexapro and Celexa use. His father admitted he had seen several psychiatrists and psychologist over the years. They prescribe meds that's what they do.
Hard to believe Solomon's account when he neglected to reveal his own father is the CEO of the company that makes two of the drugs Lanza reportedly took.
Posted by: Andrea | March 15, 2014 at 10:27 AM
I've always assumed that at least part of Adam Lanzas problem was severe bullying at school. When he died there was NO ONE who the media noted as as ever having been his friend. Everyone described him as weird.
It was mentioned that he was put in a program for kids at risk of being bullied; but everyone is sure that even though he was put in a program for bullied kids, "no one" had ever bullied him.
Normally if a parent pulls a kid out of school permanently, as his Mom did, it is for a pretty serious reason.
I do wonder what kind of things happened to Adam Lanza at that school.
Posted by: Hera | March 15, 2014 at 10:12 AM
My daughter has Asperger's and didn't speak until she was almost 4. When I asked her neurologist how she could have an Asperger's diagnosis when she clearly had a language delay, he said her delay was a result of her speech apraxia and if she hadn't also had the apraxia, she would have spoken on time. Proof of this was her grasp of receptive language at a very early age and her ability to read at a very young age, despite her language delay. So it is certainly possible to have an Asperger's diagnosis with a language delay.
Posted by: Mindy | March 15, 2014 at 10:05 AM
Thanks for writing about this, Dan. Your looking at pieces of evidence is important and this comment -- "His shop teacher said he could hold a Bunsen burner to his wrist and not flinch."-- actually gave me a chill. My own daughter too has little perception to pain especially heat or burns.
What came to mind immediately was Mark Blaxill's post from a few years back:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/11/rat-on-a-hot-tin-plate.html
The Warsaw group’s paper followed a protocol for thimerosal administration in rodents first designed by Mady Hornig at Columbia University. Hornig’s group used two different genetic mouse strains (one that was susceptible to autoimmunity and another that was not) and in each strain compared unexposed infant mice to those injected with thimerosal (injections were on days 7, 9, 11 and 15) on a schedule designed to mimic the typical vaccine schedule for human infants (with vaccinations at months 2, 4, 6 and 15) and at comparable weight adjusted doses. The Warsaw team followed the same plan of thimerosal injections with infant rats of two different strains and followed up the exposures with measures of mercury metabolism and infant development, comparing rats injected with thimerosal to those injected with a saline placebo.
When the rats reached 6 weeks of age (an human equivalent age just under 3 years), the Warsaw experimenters tested them for impaired “nociception”, or the “neural processes of encoding and processing noxious stimuli.” In this case, they tested the rats to see how sensitive they were to heat by placing the infant rats on a hot plate (a little over 130 degrees Fahrenheit) and seeing how long it took them to show their discomfort, either by licking their paws or jumping from the plate. This “hot plate test” is a highly standardized animal protocol for pain sensitivity testing, finely tuned to provide just enough heat to generate discomfort but not enough to actually burn the baby rodents (after 30 seconds on the hot plate, the infants were removed “to prevent tissue damage” if they didn’t show any reaction). The amount of time before paw-licking or jumping is measured using a stop watch.
In the susceptible strain, the Warsaw team found that the difference between the infant rats exposed to thimerosal and those with no exposure was highly significant. Unexposed rats took about 10 seconds before they demonstrated discomfort on the hot plate (8 seconds for males and 11 seconds for females); rats exposed to vaccine level doses of thimerosal took about twice as long before they reacted to the heat (over 15 seconds for the males and close to 25 seconds for the females). The researchers concluded that this was the result of “long term neurodevelopmental alterations in brain organization and function.”
Adam was born in 1992 and like my Meg, born in 1993, the amount of Thimerosal they received was horrific.
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | March 15, 2014 at 09:37 AM
What I have found suspicious about this case is that the first reports of Sandy Hook included another shooter. The story changed and then it was reported that Lanza killed his mother and destroyed his computer. All the evidence and witnesses outside of the school didn't survive. Then the rest of the information in the case, most importantly the facts about Lanza's personal history, was largely suppressed until now. Why? I'd like to know how they can be sure that it was Adam Lanza who killed his mother and destroyed his computer. How do they know that it wasn't someone else?
I'm not sure that Adam Lanza wasn't used as a pawn. But if it did happen the way we were told, and if Adam Lanza was in fact responsible, actually whether he was solely responsible or able to be used by someone else who walked away, charlatans like Tom Insel and the IACC are at fault. Not because they didn't drug him enough, not because they didn't lock him up, because they are charlatans, because they said they were helping him, because they gave him and his parents a false promise, because they didn't help him and he was left, they were left, to deal alone with whatever it was that Adam Lanza was suffering from, because what caused Lanza's condition would continue to cause that condition in others because the charlatans don't do what they're supposed to be doing. They lie, they cheat, they point fingers when people get killed and then records are sealed to protect them.
Posted by: Linda | March 15, 2014 at 09:35 AM
Per The New Yorker interview with the father, only once had Adam Lanza tried a medication for his problems. That was years earlier, he had a bad reaction and stopped it after 3 days and from then on refused the suggestion of meds. The autopsy confirmed that he was not taking any meds.
Many people in the autism community presumed his actions were med-related, but there is zero evidence of that.
Posted by: Vicki Hill | March 15, 2014 at 09:24 AM
Interesting....
http://ablechild.org/2014/03/14/the-new-yorkers-andrew-solomon-fails-to-disclose-family-connection-to-drugs-prescribed-to-adam-lanza/
Despite revealing the use of Lexapro, nowhere in Solomon’s article does the writer disclose that his father, Howard Solomon, is the Chairman of pharmaceutical giant, Forest Laboratories, the makers of both antidepressants CELEXA and LEXAPRO. This is bizarre.
Posted by: Andrea | March 15, 2014 at 08:56 AM
There is no telling what other coexisting, mental disorders Adam Lanza may have had. It was reported that he had been on psychiatric drugs. Those drugs may have been improperly prescribed to treat his behaviors associated with autism....or maybe he had some co-existing psychiatric disorder. I have always wondered if he might have had Schizophrenia or a psychotic illness coupled with autism....which most certainly could be a recipe for an act as seemingly "evil" and most certainly incomprehensible and heart wrenchingly tragic as Newtown. I've always thought that this young man was not "evil," rather he was VERY ill, with autism coexisting with mental illness, possibly drug induced. Seems our system failed him and his family tremendously.....and there is where the blame should lie. We should all be demanding answers as to what we are doing to our own humanity rather than trying to wish Adam away.
Posted by: Pamela | March 15, 2014 at 08:41 AM
This is why DSM V changed the definitions and put it all under autism spectrum disorder. Too often the specific diagnosis within PDD was a function of the diagnostician and not the symptoms presented.
Temple Grandin has said that she has Asperger, yet she clearly had early language delays. I remember a time when people debated whether there was a difference between "high-functioning autism" and "Asperger's Disorder". When a person is age 21, it really doesn't seem to make much difference whether he started speaking at age 2 or age 4.
What is most frightening to me about the Lanza case is that there seems to be no evidence that he was hearing voices. That would be the most logical explanation for his mental illness taking this tragic twist. Those who deal solely with autism may take comfort in thinking, "Well, he was different; he had mental illness which caused this." But Lanza's case does not match that of people who had only mental illness, either. He clearly had both, and both were intertwined in his horrific actions. We really need more research on those who have both. Neither autism experts nor mental health experts understand the intersection.
Posted by: Vicki Hill | March 15, 2014 at 07:57 AM