autism

There were two pretty big developments on the autism story today. You've no doubt heard that for a while there it looked like a preservative in vaccinations given to children for measles, mumps and rubella was responsible for the increasing incidence of autism in American kids.

Not so much, it seems. Today the Lancet medical journal retracted a pivotal scientific paper in support of this concept. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal offered some tantalizing research tidbits that, while not identifying a cause, certainly seem to point toward an environmental factor or factors... or possibly social factors.

The backdrop here is that autism rates are skyrocketing in American children. My InvestigateWest colleague Carol Smith was onto this trend more than a decade ago, when the incidence was running  no higher than 1 out of every 500 children. It's now up at something more like 1 in 100 children. That's 1 percent of the population!

In today's news, first the retraction: It was a paper by a bunch of scientists led by one Dr. Andrew Wakefield that in 1998 set off a bit of a panic among parents, particularly in Britain, about the possibilty that vaccinations could be causing autism.

It was an appealing hypothesis, because it would explain why autism rates are increasing seemingly all over.

But years of studies followed.

Researchers, including some from the University of Utah, have found additional strong evidence that a susceptibility to autism is hereditary. While autism has long been known to run in some families, it's been less clear how the complex disorder may be inherited. More than 100 genes have been suspected of involvement in the condition, which causes a spectrum of communication disorders, social attachment problems, and repetitive behaviors, reports Lisa Rosetta of the Salt Lake Tribune.

 In a large studied published in Nature this week, researchers found multiple rare mutations near a gene that codes for a protein involved in neuron development.

"Anytime a gene is implicated in really large sample like this, it's of more interest because we have more confidence that it's real," Hilary Coon one of the co-authors of the study told the Salt Lake Tribune.

The study looked at 1,031 families that included 1,553 children with autism.

Autism is a highly complex disorder, and its causes and treatments have been widely debated over the years. One of the most common and effective treatments for it is a form of intensive, behavior-based therapy that few insurers will cover. Findings such as the one this week should make it harder for insurance companies to argue that autism is not a medical condition.

During the 2009 Legislative session, Utah Republican Sen. Howard Stephenson sponsored a bill called "Clay's Law" that would have mandated insurance coverage for autism. But the bill died for lack of a vote before the session ended.

B.C. Minister of Children and Families Mary Polak is cutting funding for an early intervention program for autistic children across seven B.C. communities, reports Lindsay Kines of the Times Colonist. The intensive program focused on 70 preschool children who received more one-on-one attention than their slightly older counterparts, a situation Polak said was unfair to the other 800 children under age six with autism in the province.
"We were not seeing any appreciable improvement in the outcomes for those kids," Polak says.

The preschool children each receive $70,000 per year in treatment funds, which Polak is slashing to $20,000 per child to put them on par with the other children. The plan also cuts 39 jobs from the Queen Alexandra Centre where the intensive program takes place.

Nicole Strong, whose son Isaac has autism, says he benefitted immensely from the intensive program. She disagreed with Polak's statement that the extra $50,000 in treatment per year didn't make a difference.

"For them to say that there would be no appreciable difference when you actually get 13 hours more of therapy [a week] is ridiculous," Strong says.

Strong also says children who go through the intensive program are much more able to deal with school and stressful situations than those who haven't.

Jackie Burrell at the Contra Costa Times sheds light on the hazards faced by many students with Asperger's syndrome and other forms of autism as they go to college and try to have an independent life. 

It's not a question of intelligence. It's regular life they have difficulty with — getting up in the morning, prioritizing tasks, and taking care of themselves. Autism affects executive functioning, the brain's ability to process the overwhelming surge of information that streams through our lives every moment. They have trouble interpreting events and social cues, and formulating an appropriate response.

UC Berkeley offers a two-year-old College Internship Program for young adults with Asperger's and similar disabilities. The program works to bridge the gap between the highly specialized youth programs and the traditional college experience that students with autism get launched into with little preparation -- and often little success.

Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/lLGS3