Aspies For Freedom

A new cause is being postulated, and get this, they even think they know the exact date that the "autism epidemic" started!  :evil:

Debate Grows Over Folic Acid's Possible Link To Autism
Nutrient Has Capability To Influence Genes

A nutrient added to the American diet is doing a great job protecting our kids against certain birth defects. But there's now growing debate about whether folic acid may have some other consequences, and not all of them are good, Local 2 reported Friday.

Some scientists are looking at whether folic acid could increase rates of autism, although it's still speculation at this point.

Researchers said the nutrient has the capability to influence genes, possibly making some children more susceptible to disease.

From flour to cornmeal, pancakes and cereal, all grain products in your grocery store are fortified with folic acid -- from 10 percent to 30 percent, and in some cases, even 100 percent.

"There are a lot of foods that manufacturers are choosing to add higher amounts of folic acid than is required by the Food and Drug Administration," said Dr. Kim Waller, an epidemiologist with the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Fortification started on Jan. 1, 1998, the same time that rates of autism started to increase.

"The main purpose of fortification is to reach people who do not eat a lot of fruits and vegetables," Waller said.

It was implemented to prevent serious birth defects like spina bifida. Waller said it is working.

"The estimated rate of decline in spina bifida are 20 to 30 percent," Waller said.

Waller said the amount of folic acid we're getting from enriched foods -- bread, cereal, pasta, flour -- is only a quarter of what we would get from a daily vitamin. Yet pregnant women are told to take four times more. The question is -- could it be too much?

"Some of these are from autism families where there's changes in chromosomes," said Dr. Art Beaudet, from the Baylor College of Medicine.

Beaudet is taking a different approach at looking at the problem.

"We've been exploring the idea that a large portion of autism may involve epigenetic changes rather than genetic changes," Beaudet said.

Epigenetics are subtle changes in DNA sequencing. Think of it as a sudden variation of font in a series of letters.

Beaudet said folic acid plays a role in the chemical modification of DNA.

"There are some data in mice and in humans that folic acid intake can alter epigenetic information to some extent," Beaudet said.

It possibly can set the stage for autism.

"We've been interested in whether any kind of nutrient issue could be at the root of this supposed increase in incidence of autism," Beaudet said.

Although much more research is needed, now that fortification is in place, it may be difficult to determine if it's causing any problems. One thing is clear -- birth defects are down.

"We, by no means, want women to stop taking prenatal supplements. They're very important. They provide a lot of things besides folic acid," Waller said.

Again, there is no evidence that folic acid or any other nutrient causes autism. Scientists say much more research is needed.

http://www.click2houston.com/health/3915033/detail.html

I made another post recently where the person stated that autism rates have been doubling every four years since the eighties, yet now the epidemic has a specific start date, I am so sick of this kind of bullshit!
Folic acid has been proven to help prevent birth defects, and they are down about 30%, this mean actual lives saved too as many babies with birth defects are aborted. This kind of scaremongering could deter women from taking something knowingly beneficial from the hype and fear of "causing autism".

Damn, no author listed!

Anyone wanna give an e-mail to someone in charge then?

Wouldn't it be a good idea if they kept the word autism for those of us who have it genetically, and something different for those who are braindamaged or poisoned? There's a debate on AI now that keeps going around in this same circle were some point out that, however similar some of the outward appearences may be, the underlying cause can not be the same in these diverse cases, but no one is prepared to come out and just say, some diagnosed "Aspies" are naturally so, whilst others are brain damaged NTs.

While the medical industry may well profit from such confusion, why is it so many Aspies won't come clean? It's screamingly obvious we are dealing with at least two distinct categories here, and if researchers are to make any sense of what they are seeing, then they need to keep this foremost in mind!

As for the folic acid business, why am I once more reminded of the spurious arguments for removing tryptophan? What's the betting that, within a few months, some Big Pharma will come out with a patented new miracle drug that will "safely" mimic the "beneficial" aspects of folic acid, whilst eliminating the "down side"?

If folic acid had a long shelf life I'd say, stock up! Regretably it does not, so I say be alert, and if you see any suspect science at work here, be loud in your condemnation. Once natural products get banned, they never come back on the market...

Dr.Andrew Wakefield, responsible for so many children not receiving their vaccines, and for scaremongering parents, is criticised here for his potentially huge money making scheme-

MMR scare doctor planned rival vaccine
by Brian Deer
THE doctor whose work provoked a worldwide scare over MMR failed to reveal that he was developing his own commercial rival to the vaccine.

It has emerged that a patent was filed on behalf of Dr Andrew Wakefield for a measles vaccine and other products that would have stood a better chance of success if public confidence in MMR’s safety was undermined.

Wakefield now faces criticism that he should have declared the conflict of interest when he announced a possible link between MMR and childhood autism. Since then there has been a decline in the number of children inoculated with the vaccine for mumps, measles and rubella.

An investigation by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches programme has found that Wakefield and the medical school of the Royal Free hospital, London, where he worked, made a series of applications to patent measles-related products. The first was filed at the Patent Office nine months before Wakefield’s press conference in February 1998.

Three months after the conference, Wakefield was named as the inventor on a follow-up document trying to patent a “measles virus vaccine”. Although he never produced a vaccine, the fact that he was planning a rival to MMR while casting doubt on its safety has raised concern.

Full story - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,...05,00.html

  remember the Dvorak keyboard? No one was ever able to replicate his study that "proved" the querty layout slowed people down!

I wonder if we could make use of this technique...publish studies that prove NTs aren't very good at science and other tasks requiring the objective application of logic maybe, and then "leak" to the press that we already have a "cure" at hand...am I getting demented already (and still so young... :cry: )

'NEVER ANY EVIDENCE OF AUTISM AND MMR LINK'

Nov 15 2004

By Alexandra Williams


THE doctor in the MMR-autism scare did not find evidence of a link, claims one of his team.

Dr Nick Chadwick, hired by Dr Andrew Wakefield to test autistic children during his research, claimed: "There really wasn't the evidence there right from the beginning to justify those claims." But he admits that Dr Wakefield queried if his tests were sensitive enough.

And Dr Wakefield made his controversial claims while developing his own rival vaccine with a patent application, Channel 4's Dispatches alleges.A vaccine was not produced. But medical journal The Lancet said it would not have published his research had it known of the alleged conflict of interest.

The Royal Free Hospital in North London, where Dr Wakefield worked, denied there was any conflict. He was under no legal or professional obligation to make the patent public.

Another proposed cause-

Some Believe Flu Vaccine Can Cause Autism In Children

November 18, 2004
Below is a transcript from Steve Burgin's Target 32 investigation, shown exactly the way it appeared.

Anchor: "There's been a lot of attention given to flu shots this year because of a major shortage of vaccine. That shortage and a recently released report on vaccine safety have given some families new reasons to speak out. They are families of autistic children."

Anchor: "Target 32 investigative reporter Steve Burgin has been looking into the controversy. And he's here with more. The rate of autism is 15 times what it was a decade ago, but why?"

Burgin: "Hundreds of studies have been done on whether there is any connection between a mercury preservative in childhood vaccines and autism. That preservative can still be found in some vaccines in trace amounts.

Mother of autistic child Emlyn Riggle: "He developed beautifully his first year of life. At 10 months he was smiling and giggling."

Burgin: "But, Emlyn Riggle says, at 14 months, her son Evan stopped developing, stopped making eye contact, and seemed to be in a fog."

Riggle: "Evan, look here."

Burgin: "At 19 months, Evan was diagnosed with autism."

Riggle: "And the pictures were he's got that glazed look in his eyes. We happened to notice within a few days to a week or so of a vaccination containing thimerosal."

Burgin: "Thimerosal has been used since the 1930s as a mercury-based anti-bacterial preservative. One of its first uses was in the over-the-counter product merthiolate."

Dr. Boyd Haley: "No one can sit and tell you that thimerosal is not toxic. They removed merthiolate from the market, they took it out of solutions for contact lenses, they took it out of several others, but they left it in vaccine and decided it was a good idea to inject it in a child on the day he was born?"

Burgin: "In the 1990s, the Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) added shot after shot to a child's vaccine schedule, without consideration of mercury exposure. In a single visit, a baby could get 60 times the EPA's recommended mercury limit."

Burgin: "In 1999, the Food & Drug Administration found 'no evidence of harm,' but, as a precautionary measure, the federal agency 'urged manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal in vaccines as soon as possible.' But, it's still being used in flu vaccines today, though in trace amounts."

Dr. W. Paul McKinney: "It's in the range of millions of a gram -- a very microscopic amount. Truly, that gets diluted out in the blood stream when it's injected."

Burgin: "Whether thimerosal triggers autism or autism-like symptoms in some children has been the subject of hundreds of studies. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine said there wasn't enough evidence to make any kind of finding, but in its final say on the matter last spring, the IOM concluded, based on several studies, that 'the body of evidence favors rejection of any casual relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism.' But that did not end the controversy."

Haley: "They're bright, educated people, and how anyone can look the data presented at that meeting, the last IOM meeting? I was there and I presented and to make that statement that we should never look at thimerosal as casual and abort all research in this area (is) transparent and systematic of somebody participating in a big cover-up for reasons I can not tell you."

Burgin: "Parents like Emlyn Riggle believe the government is playing Russian Roulette with children because some of them appear to be more susceptible to autism. Her son is now going through mercury detoxification."

Burgin: "Moms like Emlyn Riggle have problems believing the government, and they want more research. Flu shots are important in saving lives. And there is a thimerosal-free flu shot on the market, though it too is in short supply this year."

After the latest research showed, once again, no evidence for a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, I saw a mother on the TV asking, "If the MMR vaccine is safe, why did they have to carry out more research?"

I thought, "well, maybe to try to shut people like you up, though it obviously hasn't worked". I think a lot of people don't realise how difficult it is proving a negative, so that when test after test reveals 'no evidence of a link', that's about as conclusive as you're going to get.

Three years later, I still know parents who say that immunisations "made" their children autistic. I think this myth is going to die very hard.

tenaciouscj:  I remember blaming immunizations from when I first got involved in the autistic community, which was five years before that.  It will die very hard.

Er, I don't mean I remember me blaming immunizations, I just remember people doing it.

<sarcasm>
By that logic, increasing autism rates could be due to:
The Wilaya of Relizane massacres
The circulation of new Russian rubles
Ford buying out Volvo
A series of tornados in Minnasota
Disney's "Animal Kingdom" theme park opening
Apple releasing the iMac
...etc

Hmm, kind of a lot of possible causes
</sarcasm>

Gee, here's an idea..that's very Mooreian..

Maybe nothing caused it maybe it just happened.

But that's what I think too - it just happens - it isn't caused by poisoning or too big a brain or whatever.

Um, not really. For practical intents and purposes, causality is absolute. Unless you're talking about quantum physics or time travel...