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By Bob Sipchen in the LA Times.
latimesblogs.latimes.com/schoolme/2007/01/emotions_best_d.html#more

Emotions best described as fatherly push at Alfredo Reyes' face.
He is among two dozen or so parents gathered in a hotel conference room for an L.A. Unified School District-sponsored "Training for Parents of Students With Disabilities." Most, including Reyes, have children who have just entered or are about to enter public schools, and these anxious moms and dads have reason to think their child is somehow different from other students.
They want to know what's wrong. They want to know what can be done.
Reyes, 28, is still trying to sort out where his 3-year-old son, Lenny, fits on the spectrum of human behavior. He's also struggling to understand where he, himself, fits into the parallel universe of special education parenting. The fact that he came out on this rainy Saturday morning offers a pretty good clue.
He and his wife, Miriam Covarrubias, 29, noticed early on that Lenny was not like his cousins. The boy loves Thomas the Tank Engine. But whenever Thomas toppled off his tracks on TV, Lenny would topple onto the floor. The sound of a passing motorcycle or television static terrified him. He was slow to speak. He learned some things then quickly forgot them. Covarrubias, who packages frozen foods, speaks no English. Reyes, a metal cutter, has been working hard on his, in part because it's the language of so many of the people who hold keys to his son's future, he says.
About a year ago, Reyes had district specialists assess his son. The boy began receiving weekly speech therapy at his preschool, but the father still has lots of questions. As he asks the district representatives about options and the inconsistencies in his son's diagnosis, I can almost see Reyes envisioning his enthusiastic, difficult son in classrooms two, five, 10 years from now.
He looks worried. A bit puzzled. That's understandable.
Until about 50 years ago, schools tended to exclude students who were too far out of step with their peers. Today, laws require public schools to educate kids with disabilities while treating them, as much as possible, like any other student.
L.A. Unified was slow to embrace such reforms, and for a decade the federal courts have exerted pressure on the district to do a better job of complying with the myriad rules concerning disabled students. For once, I have a measure of sympathy for what the bureaucrats are up against.
About 84,000 L.A. Unified students receive some type of special-ed intervention. About three-quarters of them have relatively minor problems processing what they see or hear, says Donnalyn Jaque-Antón, the district's associate superintendent for special education. The rest have more severe disabilities, such as Down syndrome or total blindness.
All are entitled to some services, ranging from, say, a few visits with a speech therapist to full-time enrollment in specialized nonpublic schools at district expense — including, in some cases, specialized residential programs in other states.
Tensions arise when parents and the district have different ideas about a child's abilities or how much help a school should offer. Given the fuzziness of diagnoses, the range of professional opinion concerning how to educate these students, and the fact that there's not really a magic ATM with an infinite supply of cash atop the district's Beaudry Street headquarters, full agreement isn't all that common.
A couple of weeks after that Saturday morning, I stop by Reyes' neat two-bedroom home in South Los Angeles.
With Lenny and his younger sister, Melanie, alternatively climbing onto Reyes' shoulders and playing with a box of blue Thomas the Tank Engine tracks, the father opens an accordion file and pulls out his son's 24-page Individualized Education Program.
An IEP is the document that determines how a child will progress through the system, and Reyes has clearly spent many hours going over this one.
Although no one can seem to fully agree on a diagnosis, the current consensus is mild autism, he says.
As it happens, one of my Times colleagues has a son with a similar diagnosis. For years she has struggled on two fronts: to raise a boy whose behavior problems seem all too obvious and to persuade the district that the child has problems and is entitled to additional help.
Those all-important IEPs are done annually, and she now has a small stack of the intricate forms. Thumbing through, she points to a page listing all the people — therapists, an attorney, a psychologist, etc. — who attended one meeting on her son's behalf. This one cost $300, this one $150, this one $50, she says, running down the list. So far, she figures her head-butting with the district has cost her well over $20,000, not counting the days of missed work.
My colleague's a journalist, adept at sorting through complex information. Her ex-husband is a Harvard-educated attorney. They find the process daunting, frustrating, infuriating, befuddling.
Reyes, who came to the U.S. from Mexico 11 years ago, remains determined. He has been researching autism, along with all the other possibilities of what could be wrong (schizophrenia causes the greatest concern, he says, gazing again at the grinning boy). He has joined a support group down the street. Eager to share what he has learned, he talks to every parent of a special needs child he can find. He stays in touch with his son's doctor and preschool teachers. A while back he quit his second job to spend more time trying to understand how to get the help Lenny will need to live the best possible life.
I watch him try to stoically suppress the intensity of emotion on his face, and believe him when he says: "I will never give up."

By Patricia Crosby First Coast News 1.22.07

Link http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?ref=rss&storyid=74021 (includes video)

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- When Dr. Julie Buckley talks about autism and recovery, it's more than just her life's work, it's personal. Dr. Buckley's 8 1/2 year old daughter Dani was diagnosed as profoundly autistic at the age of 4.
"I think the thing that will always haunt me, was the waking up in the morning, the crying and the moaning. As a mom, all I wanted to do was it make it better," says Dr. Buckley.
And, as a pediatrician Dr. Buckley found a way to make Dani better. Through research and contacts she learned about DAN which stands for Defeat Autism Now. She delved back into her medical books and is now one of four leading DAN doctors in Florida, treating more than 600 children with autism locally and around the world.
After a few years of using the DAN approach Dani is now considered gifted in her third grade class. "Her recovery was pretty dramatic, but for each child recovery happens at a different pace," says Dr. Buckley. "All of my patients are either in recovery or are recovering, and all are feeling better," she says.
Amazingly, Dani remembers the time when she couldn't communicate. She says, "The words just wouldn't come out, they just wouldn't come out. And, I was pretty much acting up and stuff."
She goes on to say, "Back then, it was very difficult for me to make friends, now I can make friends. I like to draw, I like neo-pets which is a virtual pet website." says Dani.
Dani also dreams of being a doctor like her mom one day. And, she has a dream for other children like her. "Keep on hoping that there one day may be a cure, so everyone will be the same and no one will call them names," says Dani.
With the DAN approach, Dr. Buckley treats her patients with a combination of enzymes, vitamins, supplements, hyperbarics, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.
Looking back, Dr. Buckley believes what happened to their family is a blessing since it encouraged her to look for answers to autism.
"Many parents when they get the diagnosis of autism, they are devastated. They then get the therapy, and eventually plan for a group home. That's not what I signed up for. I signed up for the wedding, the grandchildren, and that's what I want for everybody," says Dr. Buckley.
Autism is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to socialize and function in society. Right now, there are about 1 1/2 million people living with autism in America.
If you'd like to learn more about the DAN approach to treating autism, there is a DAN conference scheduled for Jan. 27 & 28th at the Florida Community College in the Times Union Center for the Performing Arts. Just call 1-866-208-0207 or go to www.DANconference.com.

There is No Autism Epidemic - www.huffingtonpost.com

It's been nearly two years since the release of my book, "Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic - A Medical Controversy," and I continue to be vilified by critics who insist that mercury does not cause autism, that autism is a stable genetic condition, and that it cannot be an "epidemic."

I am going to declare a New Year's truce, and announce that my critics are 100 percent correct.

This year, I hope we can ALL agree on one thing: There is no autism epidemic.

Among my most spirited and articulate detractors is a group of adults with autism who belong to a movement that refers to itself as the "neurodiversity" community.

These adults argue passionately that autism is neither a disease nor a disorder, but rather a natural and special variation of the chance genetic imprint left upon human behavior. Most of them, I believe, have what science calls "Asperger's Syndrome," or very high functioning autism.

From their eloquent and well reasoned point of view, autism has no "cause," and it certainly requires no "cure." To suggest otherwise is to brand these adults with the stigma of disease and disability, which is patently absurd given their educational and intellectual achievements.

It's like saying that left-handers or gays are deviant and need treatment - something that reasonable people stopped doing years ago.

So maybe autism really is just an odd genetic peculiarity that yields atypical people whose own set of talents and gifts can lead to perfectly happy and fulfilled lives, with little or no dependence on others for their survival.

If that's the case, then autism has always been with us at some steady, but largely overlooked rate. Growing awareness and better diagnostics have certainly helped us identify and count more people with the condition, who might have been mislabeled as "quirky" or "nerdy" a decade ago.

But if that's autism, then the kids that I have met suffer from some other condition entirely. When I talk about "curing" autism, I am not talking about curing the "neurodiverse."

I am talking about kids who begin talking and then, suddenly, never say another word.

I'm talking about kids who may never learn to read, write, tie their shoes or fall in love.

I'm talking about kids who sometimes wail in torture at three in the morning because something inside them hurts like a burning coal, but they can't say what or where it is.

I'm talking about kids who can barely keep food in their inflamed, distressed guts, and when they do, it winds up in rivers of diarrhea or swirls of feces spread on a favorite carpet or pet (no one said this kind of "autism" was pretty).

I'm talking about kids who escape from their home in a blaze of alarms, only to be found hours later, freezing, alone and wandering the Interstate.

I'm talking about kids who have bitten their mother so hard and so often, they are on a first name basis at the emergency room.

I'm talking about kids who spin like fireworks until they fall and crack their heads, kids who will play with a pencil but not with their sister, kids who stare at nothing and scream at everything and don't even realize it when their dad comes home from work.

These are the kids I want to see cured. And I don't believe they have "autism."

Scientists tell us that 1-in-104 American boys are currently diagnosed with some form of autism spectrum disorder. But the mildest, "high functioning" forms of autism have seemingly little in common with the most severe or even moderate cases.

My hunch (and yes, that is all it is) is that most of these kids do not have "autism" at all, and it's probably time we started calling it something else.

American kids are in huge trouble. One in six has a learning disability. Asthma, diabetes, allergies and arthritis are ravaging their bodies in growing numbers. And little of this is due to "better diagnostics" or "greater awareness."

It can only be attributed to radical changes in our environment over the last 10-20 years. There is something, or more likely some things in our modern air, water, food and drugs that are making genetically susceptible children sick, and we need to find out what they are.

Mercury remains a logical candidate for contributing to "autism spectrum disorders," either alone or in combination with other environmental insults. Mercury exposure can kill brain cells. It can cause loss of speech and eye contact, digestive and immune dysfunction, social withdrawal and anxiety, and repetitive and self-injurious behaviors.

So maybe we should leave the autistics in peace and focus on these environmentally toxic kids and what it is that ails them.

Maybe what these kids have is not autism, but something like, say, "Environmentally-acquired Neuroimmune Disorder," which we could call E.N.D. (Great slogan: "Let's End E.N.D.).

Maybe that would explain why a recent CDC-funded study of the San Francisco Bay Area showed that kids with "autism" were 50% more likely to be born in neighborhoods with high levels of airborne toxins, especially mercury. If a second study underway in Baltimore yields similar data, it will be that much harder to defend the "better diagnosis" argument, (other studies have shown an association between autism rates and proximity to coal-fired power plants).

So maybe what we have here is just a semantic failure to communicate. Columbus thought he had met "Indians," and we only recently began to use the term "Native American."

Columbus was not in the Indies, mercury doesn't cause autism, and there is no autism epidemic.

Help the Environment, Get a Flu Shot

From www.huffingtonpost.com

Worried about mercury in the environment? Here's one way to help: Go get a flu shot.

More than 100 million doses of flu vaccine have been delivered this year, with another 10-15 million on the way -- a US record (the previous record was 83 million) to help meet the CDC's goal of vaccinating two out of every three people in the country.

But now it seems that "drumming up demand for so much vaccine," as The New York Times put it on Sunday, has been too great a challenge for the CDC, leaving medical officials like Matthew Stefanak, health commissioner of Mahoning County, Ohio, to give flu shots away "by the carload."

Because flu vaccine can only be used in a single year, one official was "concerned that we'll throw away 20 million doses" this year, a number that could go much higher if the current flu season remains mild.

But you can't just "throw away," flu vaccine. You practically need a hazmat team.

Most flu shots contain thimerosal, a vaccine preservative made with 50% mercury - a deadly neurotoxin. Each adult dose contains 50 micrograms of thimerosal, in a solution concentration of 1:10,000, or the equivalent of 50,000 parts per billion (ppb) of mercury.

To put this in perspective, any liquid that exceeds 200 ppb mercury is considered to be "hazardous waste," (and drinking water cannot exceed 2 ppb). The flu shot, therefore, contains mercury in levels 250 times higher than what hazardous waste regulations say is safe.

And according to my math, 20 million doses at 25 micrograms per dose leaves us with 500 grams (1.1 pound) of mercury to somehow dispose of.

It's not really clear if anyone is responsible for rounding up all that mercury from every clinic, hospital, supermarket, etc., and disposing of it in a way that will harm neither humans nor the environment. (The US Army, according to its website, calls for the incineraton of expired flu shots, and forbids discharge into a "sanitary sewer").

But incernation is not the answer, of course, because all that mercury will be returned directly to the environment and one day end up in somebody's fish sandwich.

Unless, that is, we all go out this week and get a flu shot. We can each do our part to eliminate this potential ecological mishap while also delighting CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding, who is on the air now exhorting us all to "catch the holiday spirit and not the flu," and go get that shot.

Then again, perhaps you don't relish the idea of injecting hazardous materials directly into yourself or your children. If you are a 100-pound woman, you should know that those 25 mcg of mercury will put you five times over the EPA daily exposure limit. Of course, if you are pregnant, most of the mercury will be absorbed by your fetus, which is good news for you, but...

Is the flu shot important for certain sectors of the population? Of course it is, and I am glad we have enough to inoculate them. Anyone who feels they need protection from the flu should be able to obtain a vaccine easily, if not "by the carload."

But is it too much to ask for a flu shot that's not too hazardous to pour down a sewer?

All of Dan ’ s Age of Autism work can be found at this link http://www.theageofautism.com

The Age of Autism: A new environment

By DAN OLMSTED UPI Senior Editor http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20070109-033800-9016r

WASHINGTON , Jan. 9 (UPI) -- We are all environmentalists now.

At least that's the impression you get from reading the discussion surrounding the Combating Autism Act that President Bush recently signed into law.

Much attention -- and properly so -- has gone toward what the bill does not do. It does not, after the House got through amending it, set aside a specific amount of money to look into environmental causes of autism. And it does not specifically mention research into whether vaccines are involved in the ten-fold rise in diagnoses in recent years.

But here's what it does do: It says the director of the National Institutes of Health will coordinate research into "the cause (including possible environmental causes) ... and treatment of autism spectrum disorder."

Those might be the most important parentheses in recent American history. What's afoot is nothing short of revolutionary -- a fresh attempt to find what's causing autism without taking anything off the table.

Taking things off the table -- sweeping them under the rug, in the view of many -- has been tried before. People familiar with this issue know about the 2004 Institute of Medicine report that not only exonerated vaccines as a factor in autism, but suggested it was time to stop funding research into the possibility.

The question now is whether government researchers will take their cue from Congress or the Institute of Medicine, and considering who writes the checks in this town, the former is far more likely.

Plus, there are the comments by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the man who held up the bill until it was amended to his liking. Here's what he said in a statement on the House floor:

"With respect to possible environmental or external causes of autism, some have suggested a link exists between autism and childhood vaccines. In the past several years, several major epidemiological studies have been conducted to look into the question of whether vaccines cause autism.

"Examining the published studies, the non-partisan Institute of Medicine has concluded that the weight of the available evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.

"However, I recognize that there is much that we do not know about the biological pathways and origins of this disorder, and that further investigation into all possible causes of autism is needed."

That means, Do it.

In the Senate, several members went on record to make the same point.

"I want to be clear that, for the purposes of biomedical research, no research avenue should be eliminated, including biomedical research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components, and autism spectrum disorder," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.

"Thus, I hope that the National Institutes of Health will consider broad research avenues into this critical area, within the Autism Centers of Excellence as well as the Centers of Excellence for Environmental Health and Autism.

"No stone should remain unturned in trying to learn more about this baffling disorder, especially given how little we know."

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., followed up with this:

"In our search for the cause of this growing developmental disability, we should close no doors on promising avenues of research. Through the Combating Autism Act, all biomedical research opportunities on ASD can be pursued, and they include environmental research examining potential links between vaccines, vaccine components and ASD."

So what the Combating Autism Act has already accomplished is pretty impressive: putting some powerful members of Congress on record that "no research avenue should be eliminated."

That's part of the new dynamic that I said in my last column makes me think 2007 will be a very good year for the truth. Another reason: An expert panel requested by Congress and convened by NIH recently raised disturbing questions about one of those "major epidemiological studies" that found no link between thimerosal and autism.

"I think there's more work to be done," chairwoman Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine, told me last month.

"It's an 'open question' whether anything about vaccines -- timing, dose, preservative -- is related to the rise in diagnoses," she said.

Believe it or not, this is all that those concerned about an environmental risk for autism have ever asked -- an open mind. This looks like the year they'll get it.

The Age of Autism: The AOA Awards '06

By DAN OLMSTED UPI Senior Editor

http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20061226-014109-7740r

WASHINGTON , Dec. 27 (UPI) -- As this column heads into its third year, the time is right to cite those who made 2006 a memorable year in the history of autism -- and set the stage for even more remarkable ones to come.

And the winners are:

Person of the Year: Anne Dachel. This Chippewa Falls, Wis., mom and member of the National Autism Association keeps chipping away at the mainstream media's wall of indolence and incuriosity.

She sent e-mails to just about every reporter who wrote about the subject this past year along with letters-to-the-editor of their publications, as well as penning articles of her own.

She praises, she pushes, she relentlessly raises the questions at the heart of the matter: Why have the number of cases risen so dramatically? Why aren't journalists asking tougher questions of Important People?

A recent example: "We need the press to continue to investigate and report on the generation of affected children in the U.S. We're being overwhelmed by a disorder that was unheard of a few years ago, yet the press isn't calling for answers. If one in every 166 children were suddenly developing blindness, I'm sure it would be a front page story."

Some no doubt find this a bit much. But what Dachel represents is persistence. Private citizens have every right to question elected officials and keep the media on their toes, whether the pooh-bahs like it or not. It's an old-fashioned thing called citizenship.

Person of the Century: Bernard Rimland, who died this year, is all that. What's more, you can pick the century -- in the one just past, he made a massive contribution by demolishing the idea that parents' behavior can make their children autistic.

In his landmark 1964 book, "Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior," he laid out the case against the then-conventional wisdom. What's more, he laid the foundation for all serious research on the subject when he wrote that "conviction (must be) subordinated to evidence. The history of science proves this to be the first step toward progress."

Using that same approach, Rimland concluded that medical treatment could help many autistic kids. That's his contribution to the century just begun and the promise it holds for both prevention and treatment.

He thus exiled himself from most of mainstream medicine, but he may have helped thousands of children. Which would you rather have as your legacy?

Because of his guts, grit -- and perseverance -- he'll be remembered for leading not one, but two, medical revolutions.

Not So Hot National Magazine Story of the Year: Newsweek, which did a cover story on the looming caregiving crisis as thousands of autistic children "age out" of mandated care into an uncertain adulthood.

So far, so good. But the magazine failed to come to grips with the obvious: Why are there so many kids with autism?

Fishy Factoid of the Year Award: ABC News, which did a story much like Newsweek's and simply asserted that "up to 1 million" adults are living with autism.

Where are they?

Quote of the Year: From Irva Hertz-Picciotto, chair of an expert panel convened by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the request of Congress. The panel poked some gaping holes in the kind of data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses to assure Americans that there's no link between autism and the mercury preservative in vaccines called thimerosal.

"I think there's more work to be done," said Hertz-Picciotto, a professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine.

"We know there's a major genetic component to autism, but genes cannot explain a rise over a short time period of a few decades," she said, sounding a lot more like Anne Dachel and Bernie Rimland than Newsweek, ABC and the CDC.

"It's an 'open question' whether anything about vaccines -- timing, dose, preservative -- is related to the rise in diagnoses," she said.

That's right -- an open question, one that requires an urgent and definitive answer.

Not So Hot Magazine Story of the Year, Local Division: The Washingtonian, which ran an article in its November issue titled, "Something Happened and We Don't Know Why," about twins with autism.

Although the twins' mom thinks vaccine mercury did trigger their autism, she is brushed off with the author's comment that "many large-scale studies have disproved a link between thimerosal and autism."

Yeah, large-scale studies li