Interesting. I really don’t know that much about autism, but my new neighbor’s son is autistic, so I guess I’m about to find out a bit more. I would want to know more about the parents’ personal histories to see if there are any similarities - environmental or anything else.
I have a autistic daughter. Did alot of reading on possible causes for autism. If autism is just a natural genetic problem that was misdiagnosted in the past, then historical retarded kid rate should be at 1 per 150 (assuming autistic kids are lumped together with retarded kids). Our current combined rate of retarded with autistic kids per 1000 kids is much higher than past historical data. We are doing something in the modern life style that is triggering autism in kids who are prone to it that did not happen in the past. IMHO it is the preschool vaccines. It is not the mercury preservative, but in my opinion it may be the large numbers of vaccines givened to the child in such a short period of time and there are possible drugn interaction of side effects with a young child’s body which is undergoing rapid development (especially the brain). We are looking at up to 16 vaccines before the child enters Kindergarten and the states are still adding more required vaccines to the list. When I went to school over 40 years ago, I was givened only 7 shots for school admission. This theory comes from a new theory on the Gulf War Syndrome that struck our soldiers in the first Iraqi war. Soldiers were developing many symptoms that could not be narrowed down to one particular cause, however some military doctors are wondering if the huge multitudes of vaccines givened to the soldier in one day before deployment can be the cause (side affects interacting with side affects). I would like to see a state do an experiment and spread the vaccine schedule out or start eliminating vaccines against nonlethal child diseases and track the autism rate in the state.