Before the anti-vaxxers show up with the loony talk.

*Rock grabs microphone*

All the way up already.

Now you can't post replies to this thread.

I win!

That's a sig line : not a public service announcement.

True fact.

Any idea why he would do such a thing?
Maybe a vaccination caused him to do so?

Don't listen to Orrex. Listening to Orrex causes autism. (I learned that on the age of autism website.)

I don't believe vaccines played any part.

But have there been studies done just on the kids whose language disappears, to see what commonalities they all have?

Your partners and your parent at the times of your births?

Are you plus sized?

All these factors demonstrably corelate with high statistical significance with the incidence of ALL forms ASD.

Additionally, and cooberatively, at least some forms of ASD involve measurable, physical, pre-natal developmental neural defects. A vaccine administered 12 months or more after the fact CAN NOT, NO WAY, NO HOW, be resposible for this.

The vaccine hypotheses (mercury and antigen) have been posited and demonstrated wrong.

I want to see a study on regressives. ONLY regressives.

...generally blame the just pink ones on a cat that may or may not exist next door.

Although not perfect, Wiki's entry on regressive type autism does suggest that the question has been asked as a part of the overall research to determine if vaccines have anything to do with ANY form of autism and the answer is a pretty resounding NO!

On the other hand ancestal age at paturition DOES corelate closely with the ENTIRE autistic spectrum INCLUDING regressive type autism.

All the evidence to hand suggests that Autism (in ALL it's varied forms) is genetic and epgenetic in nature, with virtually no evidence to date to suggest that environmental factors have any bearing at all.

And even if an environmental trigger was ever found, it would still only be a trigger. All the evidence available very strongly suggests that it still needs the life choices of the parents and grandparents to set the stage.

Shut the hell up about vaccines. You clearly did not read what I wrote:

And rightly or wrongly, I read into your desire for a specific study on the group of which your son is a part, a wish for any possible explanation which would somehow makes his condition not your fault, which would allow you to stop wondering if something you did or didn't do, was responsible.

I was doing my damndest to not sound like I was laying blame at your feet.

And I am NOT blaming you. Any blame to be assigned would have to go to our culture as a whole which encourages delaying childbearing into the late thirties and beyond.

Unfortunately, we did not evolve to have children late in life. It's as simple as that. And I truly believe that no granular study of ASDs will show any different.

It has long been known that developmental problems (particularly neural) become more and more frequent with advancing parental age.

The surprising thing which has come out of studies of autistic children, is the observation that the age at which the preceding generation had children ALSO strongly corelates with autism in their grandchildren.

Perhaps we should not have been so surprised, because a very similar pattern was observed in the birth weights of children in Holland in the two generations post WWII. On the other hand, between Mendel, and Watson & Crick we were strongly incentivised to focus entirely on genetics, and it has taken us a little while to realise that whilst not 100% correct, nor was poor old Lamark 100% wrong.

and that is one of the things I see as very wrong in our education system. They want us to learn everything, not a little bit of everything but quite a lot of every subject. I'm an American Historian with knowledge about European history. I would never try and lecture someone on African or Asian history because I just don't know that much about those subjects.

Parents who don't vaccinate their children are harming them as much as if they beat them on a daily basis.

what do you do when you write a commercial book ? you want it to sell and be entertaining knowing that entertainment can lead to bending down to pop culture and newsy sentiments.

I agree Sid I feel she is being led around on the book tore circus .

Study after study has debunked any link to any vaccine, including the MMR. It's only coincidence that parents begin to acknowledge the symptoms of autism around the age the kid gets the series of vaccines that includes the MMR.

Studies are pointing out, rather, that autism is a complicated disease with at least a partial genetic component. That means the kids are born with it, whether or not environmental concerns in utero contribute to it.

Links have also been found with the father's age, quite possibly because genetic errors are more likely to occur with aging male reproductive equipment.

She needs to stop blaming Mom and Dad and the medical industry. The culprit lies deep within her own DNA.

Doctors can now see signs of autism in the way six month old infants track objects. Vaccines are NOT the cause of autism.

By six months infants have already received, three hep b vaccines, three doses of dtap, hib, and others..
I don't get why this can't be polite discourse, show the science for both sides of the issue. Why is everyone grabbing a "side", this should be, as Temple suggests, studied in depth. All I've found is some errant scientist from Denmark was hired by our cdc, he completed a fraudulent study, stole USA dollars, is under indictment , yet..here's the odd catch..his "study" is being held up as some gold standard. This is important, there are one in fifty kids in this country with autism, let's do it right by these kids. Study it at a non pharmaceutical attached institution, give us some numbers. So far it seems the government has conceded that several cases were caused by the mmr, both here and in Italy. Looks good ,so far,for Temple's info. Over two billion dollars have been paid out so far for vaccine damage, looks like somethings brewing.

If this is true than how do you explain cases like my sons? He did get a high fever from the shot and than show signs of autism. It was not gradual. Genetics alone certainly do not explain the steep increase in autism. I am not against vaccines. But we need to be aware that some kids do have very adverse reactions to them. Of course it is complicated and there may be various triggers.

and that his immune system was building antibodies to the disease. That you noticed the symptoms right around that time is pure coincidence.

Again, keep up with real research instead of celebrities who are medically ignorant or Wakefield, the doctor who has been completely discredited because he started the whole business because he wanted his own immunization to be used instead of the standard.

I am sorry your son is autistic. Just know it's nothing you did. He was born that way.

Thank you for your sensible reply.

when people think that refuting claims is the same as bashing the credibility of the individual.

Dr. Grandin simply made an observation and asked a pretty simple question, has there been any detailed research that examines potential links between vaccines and a very specific group of individuals that display a common symptom (regression)?

Making observations and asking questions is a fundamental part of the scientific method. In response I see people saying she's wrong, that the larger issue of vaccines linked to autism has been debunked, etc. but nobody seems to be actually refuting her observation or providing a link to actual research that addresses the particular aspect of this issue that she asked the question about. If the research has been done, a simple cite or two would suffice. Instead, all too many choose to launch an attack on the individual, which is kind of too bad.

Fwiw, I happen to be a skeptic on the vaccine/autism issue and don't claim to have any particular knowledge or insight on it but I see this idea that only "experts" should be able to question accepted science or address particular scientific issues all too often and it is simply BS.

Several have rightly observed that she is commenting outside of her field of expertise, suggesting that she might not be conversant with recent findings.

These are not attacks.

What you've written is exactly how I read it. She did not say that vaccines caused autism. She asked questions. She's well educated and experienced in research, qualified to ask questions.

What if vaccines don't cause autism, but some how trigger the symptoms in these children? Accepting the idea of "coincidence" is not a scientific conclusion.

She also mentons older vaccines which were made with less knowledge than todays vaccines.

But then I often am.

I don't read the Times for the science. I read it for the arts, food and fashion, which are three areas at which its writers and editors excel.

She's an animal behaviorist, not a neuroscientist.