Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
Talk about Pressure

Only The Onion would have a headline like this: “Autistic child ruins marriage he was born to save.”

Mar 11, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Study Linking Autism to Vaccine Retracted from Journal

Consider it the final nail in the coffin of the whole ‘Vaccinations Cause Autism’ paranoia:

The venerable British medical journal The Lancet has retracted a 1998 study suggesting a link between autism and childhood vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella MMR vaccine.

The Lancet tells WebMD that it has retracted “10 or 15” studies in its 186-year history. The retraction follows the finding of the U.K. General Medical Council (GMC) that says study leader Andrew Wakefield, MD, and two colleagues acted “dishonestly” and “irresponsibly” in conducting their research.

Feb 02, 2010 :: Tagged under: , :: #

Researchers Find Early Signs of Autism in Infants

Good or bad news from TIME.com, depending on how you look at it:

Show the average 18-month-old a video of toddlers at play, and you can bet that the tot will be mesmerized by scenes with strong emotion: a fight or kiss. But some babies have other interests. At the Yale Child Study Center, psychologists Warren Jones, Ami Klin and Sarah Shultz measure when toddlers stop blinking — a reliable indicator of rapt attention. The typical child will stare at the scene of a kiss, but a child with autism will be transfixed by the opening and closing of a door.

Experiments like these, presented at a recent conference at Columbia University’s Teachers College, are helping researchers identify the signs of autism at ever earlier ages. For parents, says Wendy Stone, director of Vanderbilt’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, “the average age of first concern is 17 months, though a diagnosis isn’t typically made until age 3. That’s a long time to be concerned and not know what to do.”

Generally, signs of Autism Spectrum Disorders in babies is a scary thing for parents. But tools for screening for these signs are becoming increasingly refined, as the article states.

The good part of this lies in that early recognition can lead to early intervention efforts, with the potential to prevent reduce the symptoms of ASD that are secondary, or not hardwired, like those affecting social interaction skills. Perhaps more importantly early recognition leads to preparation, allowing parents the time to realize that Autism is not the plague of humanity and that living with a child on the spectrum may not be preferred or easy, but can be a very gratifying thing.

One other good part about this news: Throw this into the mammoth pile of evidence that will hopefully, finally, lay to rest that ridiculous notion that childhood vaccination causes Autism.

Since Autism is now becoming recognized at earlier ages, prior to the period most children get vaccinated for measles, mumps, and rubella around age two, it’s increasingly implausible to peg a child’s onset of Autism onto these vaccines. Coincidence ≠ causality, so it’s odd to see how this concern has been brought up, but whatever the case, scientific research continues to disprove again and again that such a link between Autism and childhood vaccinations exists.

If you don’t want your kid to get vaccinated, that’s up to you – but don’t keep your from getting the shot because you’re afraid of Autism.

May 04, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #