Re: Re: Under Suspicion ~ autism and genes

[Guest guest]

Thank you for posting such an amazing article!! I am in the middle of writing my

thesis on Combined Interventions and their Affect on the Core Symptoms of

Autism. Part of my thesis includes detailed literature regarding possible causes

of pervasive development disorders-specifically Autism. I have been working with

children on the spectrum for over 10 yrs and I have ALWAYS believed that there

is a genetic/environmental link. It just doesn't seem possible to " all of a

sudden " develop autism!! It appears to me that there must be a genetic

component and that certain environmental issues " trigger " the onset of syptoms

associated with autism. I am thrilled that the medical community is finally

looking at " non-medical " possibilities with a combination of genetic factors.

Again, thank you for this post.

Lesli Bernanke

Under the Umbrella

blessingsx10@... wrote:

Researchers now believe that autism can be caused by genes in combination

with environmental triggers. Duley hopes the new study on autism will

answer the " burning questions " that torment many parents of children with

autism. (Photo courtesy of University of California at )

(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/)

Under suspicion

Researchers now believe that autism can be caused by genes in combination

with environmental triggers. The question is, what are those triggers?

By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff | August 13, 2007

Duley wants desperately to know why her daughter Kira, happy and

healthy in her first year of life, then " slipped away into her own little world "

-- the isolation of autism. To that end, when Duley was recently pregnant with

her third child, she eagerly gave blood samples to researchers, and kept

batches of urine samples in her freezer for them to collect.

" When no doctor can tell you why your child has autism, or how you could

avoid it or treat it or cure it, as a parent that is the most horrifying feeling

to have -- that there are no answers, " Duley, a resident of Fairfield,

Calif., said last week.

She was speaking at a press conference at the University of California at

announcing $7.5 million in new federal funding, including about $2 million

for a groundbreaking study that seeks to track, earlier and more closely

than before, potential environmental triggers for autism -- beginning in the

womb.

As the ranks of children diagnosed with autism grow, researchers are focusing

more on such efforts. They are casting an ever-widening net to try to detect

possible environmental factors -- such as chemicals or infections -- that

could be interacting with genetic risk factors.

Money is beginning to stream toward researchers who are on that trail,

supporting a new wave of studies.

" Environmental research will be a much bigger field going forward, " said Dr.

Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. " A lot of

parents have been telling us about their concerns; now we're listening very

closely. "

Until recently, about 90 percent of autism research has focused on genetics,

and only perhaps 10 percent on environmental factors, said Dr.

Goldstein, chairman of the scientific board of Autism Speaks, a national

research and

advocacy group. In the coming years, he expects the ratio to be 1 to 1.

Dr. Martha Herbert, a Harvard neuroscientist and Massachusetts General

Hospital neurologist, said a few years ago, autism researchers would be

marginalized if they talked about environmental factors. But now, " any major

article or

proposal concerning the causes of autism is coming to be considered

incomplete if it doesn't talk about a potential role of environmental factors. "

Some say this shift in autism research did not happen sooner because it has

been so hard to find obvious targets to track.

" There's been no smoking gun, " Insel said. " There's been nothing like tobacco

and lung cancer. "

For years, many parents have argued that the smoking gun was thimerosal, a

mercury-based preservative used in many vaccines. But studies have failed to

bear that theory out, and autism rates continue to rise even though thimerosal

was removed from most childhood vaccines several years ago.

The dispute over thimerosal long tainted the whole idea of environmental

triggers for autism, discouraging scientists from entering the field, some

researchers and parents say.

Career-wise, " It has not been safe for scientists to work on this problem " of

possible environmental factors in autism, said Mark Blaxill of Cambridge,

cofounder of Safe Minds, a parent group. But the rates of autism have reached

epidemic proportions, he contends, and clearly, genes cannot account for such

rapid change.

Even with broad agreement that the attempt is worthwhile, the challenge of

pinpointing environmental triggers remains daunting. Researchers must examine

thousands of chemicals in the environment that could be damaging children's

brains and creating the social and communication impairments of autism.

Last month, California public health researchers reported early findings that

among 29 women who had lived near farmland sprayed with pesticides called

organochlorines during the first trimester of pregnancy, eight bore children

who developed autism. That was six times the risk of autism in a control group

who did not live near sprayed farmland. The researchers cautioned that the

findings were highly preliminary, but called for further research into a

possible pesticide-autism link.

And toxic chemicals are only one category of possible environmental factors:

There may be infections, medical procedures, medications.

" We are starting with such an open field, " said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an

environmental epidemiologist at UC , who focuses largely on autism.

One of her current studies is gathering data on a wide array of possible

environmental exposures from parents of more than 500 children with autism. It

asks hundreds of questions about the mother's pregnancy: Did you have a urinary

tract infection? What household products did you use? And it continues with

questions encompassing childhood exposures: Were pesticides sprayed near the

home? Did you use flea powders on your pets?

It also examines biological specimens: blood drawn from the child as a baby,

locks of baby hair, and urine samples, looking for signs of everything from

heavy metals to infection.

Hertz-Picciotto and colleagues are also leading the new study whose funding

was announced last week with Duley's help.

Markers of Autism Risk in Babies -- Learning Early Signs, or MARBLES,

includes the sophisticated analysis of specimens from women even before they

give

birth, along with cord blood from the baby at birth and the mother's breast

milk later on.

Duley, one of its first participants, said she hopes to answer the " burning

questions " that torment many parents of children with autism: " Why is this

happening? What did I do? Is there anything I could have done to prevent this? "

A huge study underway in Norway aims similarly to follow 100,000 children

from the womb through age 6 in search of causes of a broad range of diseases,

and its leaders have agreed to collaborate with Columbia University researchers

to try to track factors in autism.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also gathering

biological and environmental data on hundreds of children with autism, and

planning

to examine hundreds more.

Herbert, the Harvard neuroscientist, argues that environmental exposures

might not only help trigger autism, they may also continue to influence an

autistic child's health and mental state, creating " striking good hair days and

bad hair days. " The mechanism may involve the immune system or brain chemistry

or the body's metabolism -- or all three.

If continued exposure is part of the problem, she says, perhaps such ongoing

effects could be treatable, even reversible.

Goldstein, who is also president of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in

Baltimore, recalled wistfully the success of epidemiologists who cracked Reye's

Syndrome, a rare brain-swelling disease that killed young children in the wake

of

benign infections such as chicken pox. Researchers figured out that Reye's

was triggered among genetically vulnerable children by that staple of the

sickroom: aspirin.

" The proof of the pudding was, take away the aspirin and it's gone, " he said.

" Wouldn't it be wonderful if we found something like that? "

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