New Article

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This new article gave me reason to pause. You should go to pubmed and read

the entire thing. HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL! RICH

Med Hypotheses. 2005;64(2):312-5. Related Articles, Links

Could one of the most widely prescribed antibiotics amoxicillin/clavulanate

" augmentin TM " be a risk factor for autism?

Fallon J.

1234 Central Avenue, Suite 1B, Yonkers, NY 10704, USA.

Autism is an ever increasing problem in the United States. Characterized by

multiple deficits in the areas of communication, development, and behavior;

autistic children are found in every community in this country and abroad.

Recent findings point to a significant increase in autism which can not be

accounted for by means such as misclassification. The state of California

recently

reported a 273% increase in the number of cases between 1987 and 1998. Many

possible causes have been proposed which range from genetics to environment,

with a combination of the two most likely. Since the introduction of

clavulanate/amoxicillin in the 1980s there has been the increase in numbers of

cases

of autism. In this study 206 children under the age of three years with

autism were screened by means of a detailed case history. A significant

commonality was discerned and that being the level of chronic otitis media.

These

children were found to have a mean number 9.96 bouts of otitis media (with a

standard error of the mean of +/-1.83). This represents a sum total for all 206

children of 2052 bouts of otitis media. These children received a mean number

of 12.04 courses of antibiotics (standard error of the mean of +/-.125). The

sum total number of courses of antibiotics given to all 206 children was 2480.

Of those 893 courses were Augmentin. with 362 of these Augmentin courses

administered under the age of one year. A proposed mechanism whereby the

production of clavulanate may yield high levels of urea/ammonia in the child is

presented. Further an examination of this mechanism needs to be undertaken to

determine if a subset of children are at risk for neurotoxicity from the use of

clavulanic acid in pharmaceutical preparations.

PMID: 15607562 [PubMed - in process]