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The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly
The Washington Times ^ | April 18, 2005 | Dan Omstead

Posted on 04/20/2005 8:26:42 AM PDT by agsloss

Lancaster, PA, Apr. 18 (UPI) -- Part 1 of 2. Where are the autistic Amish? Here in Lancaster County, heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, there should be well over 100 with some form of the disorder. I have come here to find them, but so far my mission has failed, and the very few I have identified raise some very interesting questions about some widely held views on autism. The mainstream scientific consensus says autism is a complex genetic disorder, one that has been around for millennia at roughly the same prevalence. That prevalence is now considered to be 1 in every 166 children born in the United States. Applying that model to Lancaster County, there ought to be 130 Amish men, women and children here with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Well over 100, in rough terms. Typically, half would harbor milder variants such as Asperger's Disorder or the catch-all Pervasive Development Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified -- PDD-NOS for short. So let's drop those from our calculation, even though "mild" is a relative term when it comes to autism. That means upwards of 50 Amish people of all ages should be living in Lancaster County with full-syndrome autism, the "classic autism"...

-snip-

I have identified three Amish residents of Lancaster County who apparently have full-syndrome autism, all of them children. A local woman told me there is one classroom with about 30 "special-needs" Amish children. In that classroom, there is one autistic Amish child. Another autistic Amish child does not go to school. The third is that woman's pre-school-age daughter. If there were more, she said, she would know it. What I learned about those children is the subject of the next column.

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: amish; autism; cooksbrains; mercury; rx; vaccines
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To: AppyPappy

Actually - the Amish have been extremely resistant to vaccination from the beginning of the practice.

Just a simple search of "vaccination Amish" revealed the following:

http://www.avn.org.au/Vaccination%20Information/Measles_casestudies.htm

Which actually mentions the lack of vaccinations among the Amish.

And then this from another site:

Vaccinators failed to eradicate measles, so now they claim success in reducing measles incidence between 1970 and 1987. However, it has been published that the very unvaccinated Amish communities did not report a single case of measles between 1970 and 1987. Then, since 1987, both the unvaccinated Amish and the well vaccinated outside communities started experiencing huge outbreaks of measles. Quite obviously, vaccination was totally irrelevant. Quite likely, the sustained small outbreaks of measles between 1970-87 in the vaccinated was achieved by vaccination, which kept measles occurring.

(http://www.eaglefoundation.net/Hearings%20on%20HepB.htm)


61 posted on 04/20/2005 9:19:12 AM PDT by TheBattman (Islam (and liberals) and gasoline producers and sellers- the cult of Satan)
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To: Explodo

Listen you incompetent freak, 1 in 166, up from 4 in 10000, is an epidemic.


Period.


There is no such thing as a genetic epidemic.


62 posted on 04/20/2005 9:19:50 AM PDT by hobbes1 (Hobbes1TheOmniscient® "I know everything so you dont have to...." ;)
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To: Explodo
I can bring in just as many, and just as well documented Studies saying the exact opposite thing... Place the Root cause properly before your knees jerk out of socket and allow the Childhood Killers(Polio....WHooping Cough...etc..) to come back and kill humans by the millions...

So please do that for the sake of those who are reading this thread, and then remember that it is still up to you and me to decide whether or not the studies are being truthful. That's a whole 'other issue.

And while you're at it please identify whether or not you have a family member who has been affected by any of these conditions: it just helps everyone to know whether we're "asking the man who owns one."

63 posted on 04/20/2005 9:19:54 AM PDT by Orgiveme (Give me liberty orgiveme death!)
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To: agere_contra

"thimerosal contains 49.6 percent mercury as a preservative, which is one of the most dangerous toxins known to scientists.

mercury is known to cause neurotoxicity and brain damage that mirrors the symptoms of autism."

This is making me a bit nervous. I've been suspicious that my daughter's problem might have been due to head trauma to the forehead due to a fall (the area of the intellegence function of the brain), hence her IQ of 70. The mere thought NOW that the MMR could have been the culprit.... I could lose sleep over this.

But hey, what am I going to do now? My daughter's not autistic as was once suspected (Asberger's disorder). And we are lucky that she is a highly functioning MID. It's up to me to help her future be the best it can be.


64 posted on 04/20/2005 9:21:02 AM PDT by peacebaby (I have hope.)
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To: agsloss
Just a thought, but the Amish probably don't use recreational drugs either.

I'm close to an Autistic.

Its rough.

65 posted on 04/20/2005 9:21:17 AM PDT by AdamSelene235 (Truth has become so rare and precious she is always attended to by a bodyguard of lies.)
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To: TomB

Yes, they have. and they are going down steadily.


66 posted on 04/20/2005 9:22:15 AM PDT by hobbes1 (Hobbes1TheOmniscient® "I know everything so you dont have to...." ;)
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To: agsloss

Interesting. Can you ping me when you post the follow-up article?


67 posted on 04/20/2005 9:22:45 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: agsloss

Or more likely as rather independent people they don't spend a lot of time with hassling a doctor about every little thing so they don't get any of the so called "mild" form of autism diagnosed, thus putting them back to how autism was diagnosed back in the 60s and 70s before anybody had decided there was such a thing as functional autistics.


68 posted on 04/20/2005 9:23:21 AM PDT by discostu (quis custodiet ipsos custodes)
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To: Explodo
I can bring in just as many, and just as well documented Studies saying the exact opposite thing... Place the Root cause properly before your knees jerk out of socket and allow the Childhood Killers(Polio....WHooping Cough...etc..) to come back and kill humans by the millions...

Which is the mindset behind protecting the NIP, rather than admit the truth, and heal the sick, while quietly doing away with thimerasol anyway.

69 posted on 04/20/2005 9:23:47 AM PDT by hobbes1 (Hobbes1TheOmniscient® "I know everything so you dont have to...." ;)
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To: Balding_Eagle

I too feel that I should have joined (the Marines) when I was young, but I was too Mennonite at that point to do so.


70 posted on 04/20/2005 9:23:52 AM PDT by ikka
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To: agere_contra
We should bottom out this Amish thing. If it turns out that Amish really do have low incidence of Autism - and they also avoid jab mercury, then its a correlation that may lead to a breakthrough. Correlation is indeed not causation, but it IS a scientific observable. As long as it is not abused correlation is a vital datum. For instance: Jenner's observation of correlation between employment and immunity to smallpox (being a dairymaid = immunity) eventually led to the destruction of smallpox.

...ah...the voice of reason -- thanks!

71 posted on 04/20/2005 9:24:30 AM PDT by Orgiveme (Give me liberty orgiveme death!)
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To: libtoken
Do you have any idea how offensive your post is to this grandmother of a beautiful, loved, well cared for, 3 year old autistic child?

We're also contributors to the National Alliance for Autism Research where they KNOW what they're talking about.

72 posted on 04/20/2005 9:24:33 AM PDT by ShowMeMom
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To: Explodo
The 'discovery' of autism by an American physician coincided with the increasing availability of the pertussis vaccine in the '40s. At that point, autism was unknown in other countries.

After WW2, the vaccine spread to Western Europe and Japan. The first cases of autism appeared soon afterwards without fail in all of those countries.

Throughout the following decades, there were many theories that speculated on the genetic nature of autism, since mainly wel-educated, well-off families experienced the disorder. With the spread of vaccine to all strata of society over the decades, autism became prevelant in all races and classes, and those theories were discarded.

There are MANY anecdotal experience of parents with joyful, bright child. The child is vaccinated, is clearly damaged, and is then diagnosed with 'a complex genetic disorder' known as autism.

73 posted on 04/20/2005 9:24:33 AM PDT by servantoftheservant
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To: hobbes1
Yes, they have. and they are going down steadily.

Again, incorrect; although the number of vaccines with the compound has decreased-- and I'd be interested in THAT correlation.

As of two years ago, when we started looking into vaccines for our son, there were still vaccines you needed to watch out for that were STILL available with Thimerosol.

Additionally, here in Minnesota, our current flu vaccine-- recommended for ALL ages, contains Thimerosol.

74 posted on 04/20/2005 9:26:34 AM PDT by Egon (Liberals: The only group of people they don't want to kill are those that kill others.)
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To: YankeeinOkieville

Good one! When criticizing, the criticizer should make sure his post is perfect!


75 posted on 04/20/2005 9:26:57 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: Clara Lou

I have set up an elephant defense system, and not one elephant has penetrated it in 30 years!


76 posted on 04/20/2005 9:28:30 AM PDT by expatpat
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To: hobbes1

This is what happens when cousins marry. We have an Amish community close to us and they have an extraordinary incidence of cystic fibrosis. The gene pool is shallow.


77 posted on 04/20/2005 9:30:34 AM PDT by wordsofearnest (St. Louis bring back Torre.)
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To: colorcountry
I'm sure I'll be flamed for this, but I didn't have my children vaccinated. (mostly because I was young and against doing anything someone told me I "had" to do). The 5 of them have grown into very healthy adults, with strong immune systems. My 4 immunized granchildren are not so lucky. They have allergies, ongoing ear infections, and at 4 years old, my grandson got leukemia.

It should be hard to argue with an invested multi-generational observer, but I'm sure most doctors would (and what does that tell you?)

78 posted on 04/20/2005 9:31:25 AM PDT by Orgiveme (Give me liberty orgiveme death!)
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To: Egon
Your facts are incorrect.

No, ALL CHILDREN's vaccines (the flu vaccine isn't on the child vaccination schedule, you are not required to get it) have had thimerosal removed from them for years.

CDC website

79 posted on 04/20/2005 9:32:06 AM PDT by TomB ("The terrorist wraps himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives." - S. Rushdie)
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To: peacebaby
The mere thought NOW that the MMR could have been the culprit....

The MMR vaccine never, ever had thimerosal in it.

Many of the people on this thread are throwing out disinformation and do not know what they are talking about.

80 posted on 04/20/2005 9:34:45 AM PDT by TomB ("The terrorist wraps himself in the world's grievances to cloak his true motives." - S. Rushdie)
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