_________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday, July 9, 2020 Vol. 16 No. 21RESEARCH
Study Reveals Potential Triggers for Autism
Hunting for Autism’s Chemical Clues
Schizophrenia, Autism May Be Linked In Families
TREATMENT
NJ Teen Is First Patient In Autism Clinical Trial
PEOPLE
Family of Scotty Meyer Thanks Rescuers, Speaks Out About Ordeal
Better Late Than Never: Under Pressure, 50 Cent Apologizes for Offensive Tweets
Canadian Couple Buy $2m Florida Home To Be Used As Respite For Families With Autistic Children
COMMENTARY
It's Not OK To Kill Your Child - Even If He Has Autism
RESEARCH
Study Reveals Potential Triggers for Autism
Research examines medications in water supply
A new study indicates pharmaceuticals that find their way into the water supply may contribute to increased rates of autism in children.
A team of Idaho researchers exposed small fish called fathead minnows to psychoactive medications, including the antidepressants Prozac and Effexor, and an epileptic medication called Tegretol. Researchers then examined the brain tissue of the fish after exposing some to the individual pharmaceuticals, and others to a mixture of all three.
The use of antidepressants by pregnant women has been associated with autism. Therefore, the researchers were looking for an environmental trigger that would link pharmaceuticals to the development of idiopathic autism.
“Idiopathic autism seems to be triggered by something,” says Dr. Michael Thomas, associate professor of biological sciences at Idaho State University and lead scientist of the study. “We know that those markers to genetic susceptibility are interacting with something, and we suppose that it’s interacting with some sort of environmental trigger."
Idiopathic autism refers to a type of autism exhibited when no specific underlying cause can be determined.
The results of the study reveal that the administered dosages altered the genetic pathways of the minnows. The altered pathways are the same as the genetic pathways associated with those of idiopathic autism spectrum disorders in humans.
While there are a host of environmental triggers that could cause idiopathic autism, research has not been able to conclusively identify any.
“No one says anything about pharmaceuticals,” says Dr. Thomas. “We don’t really know how much is in our drinking water."
Advertisement “Even though we’ve looked at relatively high concentrations—our concentrations were substantially higher than what you actually see in drinking water—those concentrations are many times lower, like orders of magnitude lower, than concentrations that people think would ever stimulate gene expression patterns in fish or humans."
The findings of this study are startling, because it found effects from concentrations so low they were previously considered insignificant.
“We were looking at concentrations that were similar to half of a teaspoon in an Olympic-sized pool,” says Thomas. “That’s pretty dilute. Everyone who has ever considered this has totally dismissed that concentration as ever being something that would be of interest or concern,” says Dr. Thomas.
“Our next experiment will be scaling those concentrations down so that they’re actually concentrations that we see in drinking water,” he said.
Diluted or not, the study reveals that idiopathic autism could in fact be linked to the trace amounts of pharmaceuticals that find their way into water supplies.
+ Read more.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT AUTISM NOW  . . . Read, then Forward the Schafer Autism Report. $35 for 1 year - or free! www.sarnet.org |
Hunting for Autism’s Chemical Clues
scienceblog.com
Left to right: Charmion Cruickshank and Troy Wood. Wood, an associate professor of chemistry, heads a study that could one day contribute to the development of a biological test for autism.
On her laptop computer one recent afternoon, University at Buffalo researcher Charmion Cruickshank calls up a mass spectrometry readout showing the breakdown of chemicals in the urine of a child with autism.
She has similar information for nine other children — four with the disorder and five without — and she has spent the past few years sifting through this puzzle of data for autism’s chemical clues.
The goal of the research, led by UB chemist Troy Wood, is to pinpoint an array of molecular compounds that appear in distinct amounts in the urine of children with autism. If the team is successful, a biological test for diagnosing the disorder — so far elusive — could be within reach.
Such a test would provide clinicians with a more objective way of identifying autism, which is currently diagnosed by observing behavior.
“We’re trying to understand, at the molecular level, how autism is occurring and manifesting itself,” said Wood, an associate professor of chemistry. “A biological test for autism could assist with early diagnosis, which is critical because if you can identify children with autism early in life, the outcome is going to be better."
Pilot studies in Wood’s laboratory have uncovered what may be a number of distinctive chemical traits in the urine of children with autism.
For example, compounds that appeared at depleted levels include the reduced form of glutathione — a finding that Cruickshank, a UB PhD graduate, outlined in the dissertation she defended this May. Levels of stercobilin, another substance, also seemed abnormally low.
Deficiencies of both of these compounds are an indicator of oxidative stress, which some researchers believe plays a role in autism, Wood said.
To verify these preliminary results, which have not been published in a journal, Wood is hoping to complete a larger, validation study. Such a study would analyze 75 to 100 urine samples from children with autism, and an equal number of urine samples from children in a control group.
Besides stercobilin and reduced glutathione, Wood and his team have also identified a handful of other compounds in the urine that may be correlated with autism. He noted that for a biological test to be reliable, scientists will need to identify not just one or two compounds that are biomarkers for autism, but several.
Cruickshank, now a postdoctoral researcher at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colo., and Zachary Fine, a former UB student who helped process urine samples in Wood’s lab, said they hoped their work would eventually lead, one day, to real benefits for children with autism. Both researchers have friends who either had the disorder themselves or had family members with autism.
“The hope is to be able to eliminate some of the subjectiveness in diagnosing autism, and to get a better understanding of what’s actually causing it,” said Fine, who graduated in May with a bachelor of science in chemistry and is now a quality assurance analyst at Johnson & Johnson. “They’re saying that more children have autism today than before, but it’s not clear if that’s because they’re understanding the disease better, or if people are just diagnosing it more."
The research in Wood’s laboratory on autism biomarkers is conducted, in part, with a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer that was purchased in 2011 using a National Institutes of Health stimulus grant.
• • •
Schizophrenia, Autism May Be Linked In Families
By Genevra Pittman
Image: Laguna Design/
Science Photo Library
Researchers found that kids whose parents or siblings had been diagnosed with schizophrenia were almost three times more likely to have an autism spectrum disorder, including autism and Asperger syndrome.
The link was weaker for bipolar disorder, but still consistent, according to findings published this week in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
"Most people with a family history of one of these disorders actually get nothing - the vast majority in fact," said Dr. Patrick Sullivan, the study's lead author from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Still, he told Reuters Health, "Maybe there is something that is more fundamental but common to both," such as certain changes in gene patterns that are passed from parents to children.
The number of autism diagnoses in the United States has been rising, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates one in 88 kids has an autism spectrum disorder. That's up from one in 150 a decade ago.
One of the questions in recent autism research has been how much genetics is involved in who gets the condition, versus the prenatal or early childhood environment.
Sullivan and his colleagues note that autism used to be considered the childhood version of schizophrenia, before researchers learned more about the two disorders. And some research has continued to suggest certain genetic changes are common in both conditions, as well as in bipolar disorder.
So for the new study, the researchers analyzed information from three separate databases, including two that tracked kids and families in Sweden and their medical diagnoses and a third that recorded data on all Israeli citizens entering the army draft, including sibling pairs.
All in all, Sullivan's team had data on more than 30,000 young people with autism.
The researchers found that in the Swedish studies, kids whose parent or sibling had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to family medical records, were 2.6 to 2.9 times more likely to have autism. The trend was the same for siblings of teens with schizophrenia in Israel.
When a parent had bipolar disorder, on the other hand, kids were 1.6 to 1.9 times more likely to have autism or another autism spectrum disorder.
"It's been questioned for many years, whether there's a relationship" between schizophrenia and autism, said Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a neurologist from the Lurie Center for Autism at MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Lexington, Massachusetts.
"In fact, I think those of us that see a lot of patients with autism have seen this relationship in relatives for a long time," he added.
Sullivan said there are certain rare genetic mutations that seem to predispose people to both autism and schizophrenia.
And there could be other gene variations, he said, where differences in a person's environment in the womb or growing up could influence whether the same mutation ends up leading to schizophrenia, autism or nothing.
"Just because two things share a risk factor doesn't mean that they're the same thing," Sullivan added. "The needs of people with autism and schizophrenia, and the treatments that we know work for one or the other, don't overlap very well."
Zimmerman, who wasn't involved in the current research, told Reuters Health there are still many questions about how the conditions may be related.
The new study "is important because it makes us think," he said. "It doesn't tell us whether (autism and schizophrenia) are genetic or environmental - certainly both are still possible - but it makes us think there might be relationships between the two."
SOURCE: bit.ly/Lr1zTT Archives of General Psychiatry, online July 2, 2012.
• • •
TREATMENT
NJ Teen Is First Patient In Autism Clinical Trial
By Barbara Williams - The Record - Associated Press
She lives in a world no one else can enter, unable to speak or interact with others. But 16-year-old Rebecca Singer may be playing an important role in science.
Rebecca has become the first patient in a clinical trial testing a drug that researchers hope could pull her out of her reality and eventually lead to a groundbreaking autism treatment.
In the study led by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and assisted by a research team from Rutgers University, the Tenafly girl is taking a growth factor hormone that was shown to reverse in mice some of the deficits associated with autism.
Researchers aren't expecting a cure but are hopeful for a "disease modifying" outcome, said Dr. Alex Kolevzon, one of the physicians working on the study and the pediatrics clinical director at the Seaver Autism Center at Mount Sinai.
"We know that humans don't always respond the way mice do, but there's the potential for significant benefit," Kolevzon told (http://bit.ly/N5Sda0) The Record of Woodland Park.
Such words are remarkable to parents of children with autism. "I'm trying not to get my hopes up that this could be the miracle we've been waiting for," Rebecca's father, Jon Singer said. "But there is the possibility that it could be and even if this hormone only helps in a small way, it's a start."
Autism rates are rising at a startling pace. One in 88 children nationwide now has the disorder. New Jersey's rates are even higher — one in every 49 children, including one in every 29 boys — according to a report released in March by the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention.
Rebecca and two other children in the 7-month blind study are being injected twice a day for three months with growth factor IGF-1 or a placebo, separated by a four-week resting period. The insulin-like hormone is typically used for children not growing appropriately for their age.
In a trial last year, IGF-1 was shown to reverse nerve cell communication damage in mice. People with autism seem to have the same type of deficits.
All the trial participants have a mutated or missing gene on chromosome 22, which causes Phelan-McDermid Syndrome, a rare genetic disease that causes severe disabilities and, often, autism. Chromosome 22 is involved in processes crucial for learning and memory; the loss of it can impede neuron communication.
People with Phelan, estimated at fewer than 700 worldwide, typically have profound intellectual disabilities, chewing and swallowing problems, no formal language, and autism.
"Rebecca seems to understand certain things and can use a fork and drink from a cup, something we didn't think would ever happen," Singer said. "She turns the pages of a book when we're reading to her but we're not sure how much of it she understands."
Though Rebecca doesn't speak, her family understands her rudimentary method of communicating, like when she stops what she is doing to sit on a kitchen chair — meaning she's hungry. When she wants to go to her favorite place — anywhere outdoors — she stands in front of the door. Her father, her mother, Michey, and 12-year-old brother, Sam, can interpret the sounds she makes to know whether she's agitated or happy. And anyone can see her face-wide grin when she's in a pool or riding her bike.
"She's a real trouper — she's been poked and prodded so much and she doesn't really cry or give us a hard time," her mother said. "I'm cautiously hopeful this trial will be groundbreaking and even if it doesn't help Rebecca, it will help someone else down the road."
Now that Rebecca is in the study, her loved ones are watching carefully for any improvements — better eye contact or more fluid movements — though no one knows whether she's taking IGF-1 or the placebo.
"Sometimes I think she's doing better with her fine motor skills but I have to remind myself how powerful suggestion can be," her father said. "Her teachers will tell us they believe she's making longer eye contact, but we have to keep all this in perspective. Even though everyone is trying to be objective, sometimes you see what you want to see."
While others look for hopeful signs, Michey Singer has her eyes trained on the conditions that indicate her daughter may be suffering from the growth factor's side effects — low blood sugar, light-headedness or a more pronounced limp.
"I test her blood sugar three times a day and watch if she's limping," Michey Singer said. "Even without the trial, there's constant worry with Rebecca — she can't tell me when something is wrong so I'm always listening and watching to see if something seems off."
+ Read more.
PEOPLE
Family of Scotty Meyer Thanks Rescuers, Speaks Out About Ordeal
By Aarik Wood
Prescott - WQOW - It was a nightmare scenario for a Pierce County family after their five-year-old son went missing.
Scotty Meyer, who has autism, wandered away from home on Tuesday. He was missing for nearly a day, prompting thousands to turn our for the search. Thankfully, an Ellsworth man who was actually taking a break from the search found him safe. But it's 21 hours the family will never forget.
Scotty's family got to meet his rescuer Sunday at a press conference.
"I never, ever want to go through this again," said Scotty's mother Barb Meyer.
It's been an emotional roller coaster for the Meyer family this past week.
"I feel for any parent out there that their child is missing and they haven't found him yet. Because I don't know how they do it," Meyer said.
Five-year-old Scotty Meyer, who has autism and cannot speak, wandered away from his town of oak grove home Tuesday. Scotty's mother barb said one of their sons simply followed another out the door out of curiosity during a visit by a technician. Thousands of people from around the area showed up to help in the search. Barb addressed the media on Sunday, thanking everyone for their help.
"Words cannot describe the amount of appreciation for all of the law enforcement, EMS, fire and rescue, and all of the individuals who searched, donated items, and offered support. We were overwhelmed by the amount of people who stopped what they were doing, and rushed to our home to help find our son," said Meyer.
It would be 21 hours for the Meyer family before they were reunited with Scotty.
"I'm still not back to normal, I still don't have full range of my emotions. I wish I could give you words for what it felt like, but I can't," Meyer said.
Jason Moser and his dog, autumn, joined in the search Tuesday and Wednesday. The two found Scotty on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River Wednesday morning. Jason, who has a young son himself, talked about how important it was for him to be involved.
"It's pretty easy for me to exchange Liam for Scotty, they're both cute little kids, very similar. I can picture Liam being out there the same as Scotty was. And there was no way that I could give up a minute not to be out there," said Moser.
And the roller coaster wasn't quite over for Barb, even after being reunited.
"When I got to the ambulance and I realized I couldn't step up with him, I had to set him down. And then when he started to cry, it just broke my heart again. But on the ambulance ride in, I started to recite the Hunger Caterpillar book to him, and he turned and gave us the most beautiful smile. Because I recite that book to him all the time, and that is when I felt he knew who we were. I think he always did, but it was just so stressful to him," said Meyer.
Now the Meyer family is hoping to prevent this from happening again.
"Some time ago we had discussed the Project Lifesaver tracking device since all three of our boys are autistic. We used watchbands to see their reaction to wearing something on their wrist. With the sensitivity issues our boys have, they rubbed their wrists raw trying to get the watchbands off. We have spoken with Sheriff Hove and will be given wristbands minus the tracker so that we can start to desensitize the boys' wrists. Once they are able to wear the bands, we will be obtaining the full system," Meyer said.
Scotty is doing just fine, but is staying close to his family.
+ Read more.
• • •
Better Late Than Never: Under Pressure, 50 Cent Apologizes for Offensive Tweets
blogs.babble.com
(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Better Late Than Never: Under Pressure, 50 Cent Apologizes for Offensive TweetsBetter late than never, right?
50 Cent finally tweeted out an apology for tweets he sent out last week that outraged many families and caused autism advocate Holly Robinson Peete to issue an open letter to the rapper, asking him, “Seriously, THIS is how you use your platform of 8 million plus followers??"
50 Cent had Tweeted to someone, “I just saw your picture fool, you look autistic” and “I don’t want no special ed kids on my time line go follow somebody else."
Parents flooded 50 Cent’s Twitter feed with photos of their children with autism, with the hashtag, #whatautismlookslike. In an apparent peace offering, the rapper retweeted one of the tweets, with a photo of a handsome, smiling little boy.
Ultimately, he did delete the Tweets, but stopped short of apologizing. Until now.
However much pressure it may have taken, 50 Cent did finally man up and apologize. ”I realize my autism comments were insensitive, however it was not my intention to offend anyone and for this I apologize,” he tweeted.
A couple of people have asked me, essentially, what the big deal is. Why should anyone care what 50 Cent thinks? I care because he has nearly 8 million Twitter followers, and he used “autistic” as an insult. As Holly wrote in her letter, ”If you’ve read your mentions today I am sure you have felt the wrath of autism parents. We are no joke. Neither is autism. We are not about to let you attempt to make ‘autistic‘ the new ‘R-word‘ under our watch."
That is the big deal.
If this was all an ABC After School Special, what would 50 Cent have learned?
1. Think before you tweet.
2. Autism isn’t a “look."
3. Apologizing costs nothing and is good business sense when you have nearly 7 million Twitter followers, a multi-million dollar empire, and a new album out.
4. Holly Robinson Peete is way fierce.
5. Pissed-off moms are way more annoying to feud with than the Wu-Tang Clan and Rick Ross combined.
6. Don’t mess with the mamas.
How many of these lessons do you think 50 Cent actually learned?
• • •
Canadian Couple Buy $2m Florida Respite Home For Families With Autistic Children
By Nadine Bells, Good News
Luis and Mary Navas' son Lucas, 6, was diagnosed with autism when he was 2 years old.
Mr. Navas uprooted his family from Toronto to Miami so that Lucas could get access to a range of programs not available in Canada. The move was worth it: Lucas is now walking, swimming, and no longer has stomach problems. He even speaks in short sentences.
Mr. Navas, his wife, and his daughter, Bianca, understand that their situation is a blessed one, and want to give back to other families affected by autism.
Mr. Navas' international consulting company, Global Governance Advisors, helped his family raise $2 million to buy a 2,400-square-foot home that sleeps 14 along the Emerald Coast on the Florida Panhandle. Mr. Navas hopes to make the house a year-round, no-cost getaway spot for families with autistic children.
"You are really limited to what you can do when it comes to travelling," Mr. Navas said in an interview.
"These are families who are not only probably more in need of a vacation than the average family, they're also the families who have the most difficulty getting away. These are families who are likely already going broke on medical bills and therapists. Not to mention facing the challenge of finding special needs-friendly destinations at any cost," the Stir's Jacqueline Burt writes.
Mr. Navas is currently working with a Canadian group to help reach out to families who might be interesting in the Florida vacation spot.
He says his generosity was inspired by a CEO who gives away most of his income. The CEO felt he had been blessed and wanted to forward that to others.
"It's an interesting perspective on executive compensation," Mr. Navas told the Globe and Mail.
• • •
COMMENTARY
It's Not OK To Kill Your Child - Even If He Has Autism
By Jo Ashline, The Orange County Register
Has the headline of my post gotten your attention?
Good. That's the whole point.
Now, for most of you, "It's not OK to kill your child" will illicit responses such as, "Of course it isn't!!" and, "Who in their right mind would think it's OK?!"
Our job is to love and protect our children - not just during the good times, but during the bad times, and especially so. As a fellow autism parent, you'll find ZERO pity from me for parents who end their children's lives.
Yesterday a news story out of Grand Junction, Michigan, informed readers that Yodi Jackson, mother of 25-year-old Chad Jackson, who had autism, was arrested in connection with his 2011 death. It took investigators a full year but after gathering enough evidence, law enforcement charged Yodi yesterday with second-degree murder and second-degree felony abuse.
Now, let me remind you, a young man lost his life, and yet comments on the article all but justified Yodi's alleged actions:
"It has to be difficult, and it would be wrong to pass judgement. I guess we'll just see how it plays out in court. It's all about the evidence."
"I am a mother of a child with 2 Autism Spectrum Disorders ... let's listen to her first, listen to the facts. If she killed her son, she needs to be held accountable. If she didn't (as a friend said) where were the respite care givers, friends, etc. giving her the much needed break? Never judge until you have walked a mile in that person's shoes."
"What level of support did she get for raising an autistic son? Was there any affordable relief for her?"
I for one, am confused and disturbed by this growing trend. While I'm well aware of "innocent until proven guilty," if this were any other parent being arrested for the death of their child, the victim would be mourned and the parent would hardly be pitied.
So why are we so quick to forgive or validate the heinous actions of parents who raise children with autism and suddenly lose their cool?
Personally I get the sense that because the greater population cannot imagine what it's like to raise a child with special needs, many end up viewing the child -- in this case, an adult child with autism -- as a severe burden. Which makes justifying killing him so much easier, doesn't it?
No!!
Let me tell you firsthand, and honestly, what it's like to raise a child with what professionals refer to as low-functioning autism (though I really hate that term). It's hard. There. I said it. It's really, really hard.
But more than hard, it's rewarding and beautiful and amazing and fulfilling and even on the most exhausting days I feel like the luckiest mom in the world to have my son in my life.
Are there days when I want to lock myself in the bathroom and sob from frustration? Absolutely. Are there days when I have to pray extra hard for strength and patience and guidance? Absolutely. Are there days when I feel like a failure, that I haven't done enough, that after all of these years I still have no idea what I'm doing? Absolutely.
Are there days when I consider killing my own child because it's just too much and my life would be better off without him? NEVER. I can't even write those words without feeling sick to my stomach.
My son, in all of his imperfect beauty, makes this imperfect mama feel blessed each and every day. He is my miracle and the world is a better place to live because of him, not in spite of him.
I am the rule, not the exception.
+ Read more.
|