[George W. Bush]

I prefer they start later, and give less vaccines at once.

Considering the contents of these vaccines, the kinds of stuff present in no adult vaccine, it seems only prudent. And to introduce so many of the vaccines at once seems reckless to me. I'd never let anyone give me that many major shots at once. Let alone a newborn baby. Yet, unless parents take a strong stand, the hospitals rush them through it.

I agree that trying to pretend there is no increase is like burying your head in the sand! When my 19 yr old was first diagnosed, there were 2 other children in our community with a similar diagnosis.

Even if it were true that we're only seeing a shift of diagnosis from retardation to autism, that doesn't explain the many accounts of children who developed normally and suddenly seemed to regress. At any rate, I'm glad you're upbeat and committed to loving your boys. As I know from observing a special needs cousin, loving parents really do make all the difference. So many people just don't seem to understand that, probably because they lack experience with such children.

[cas7boys]

One thing I find interesting is the genetics in some families that seem to at least predispose a child to autism. When my older boy was first diagnosed at UCLA years ago, the doctors were studying families that had more than one child that was autistic. In our case, the common factor that my three boys share is me - my older son is from my first marriage, and my twins are with my husband. yet all three are on the spectrum, and have varying degrees of the disorder. And the twins are NOT identical. There are several people on my side of the family who probably would have been diagnosed with Asperger's but it was not as widely known during that time period.