Free Republic

Pediatricians fed up with parents who refuse to vaccinate their children out of concern it can cause autism or other problems increasingly are "firing" such families from their practices, raising questions about a doctor's responsibility to these patients. Medical associations don't recommend such patient bans, but the practice appears to be growing, according to vaccine researchers. In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal, and a recent survey of 909 Midwestern pediatricians found that 21% reported discharging families for the same...

Robots from around Europe are flocking to London this week - but, thankfully, we won't need to call Doctor Who to fend off this particular onslaught. More than 20 cutting-edge robots from around Europe will be on display at the Science Museum's Robotville exhibition this week - including a robot designed to help autistic children, and a robot that can (sometimes) catch a ball. Naturally, many of the robots look like slightly spooky human beings - but other fields of robotics will be represented instead, including 'swarm' robotics, where tiny robots work together, a relatively new idea being pioneered in...

The Albuquerque Public Schools superintendent is speaking out after a seven-year-old autistic boy was handcuffed at school. Maria Quesada spoke with KOB Eyewitness News 4 Monday night and said she was outraged to find her son cuffed at school. Photos showed marks left on his wrists. According to APS police documents, the boy was out of control and unplugging cords from outlets, throwing chairs and kicking a teacher and a police officer at Mary Ann Binford Elementary School. Quesada said she does not think the 4-foot tall, 50-pound boy deserved to be handcuffed. Superintendent Winston Brooks spoke Wednesday afternoon, weighing...

The presence of extra bronchial passageways in children may be a marker for autism and autism spectrum disorders, results from a novel study demonstrated. "Autism continues to remain underdiagnosed or missed altogether, unrecognized and undiagnosed because appropriate tools for screening for autism have not been available," lead investigator Dr. Barbara A. Stewart said during an interview in advance of the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians, where the study was presented. "Until now, there has been no objective evidence for autism spectrum disorder." Dr. Stewart of Nemours Children’s Clinic in Pensacola, Fla., conducted bronchoscopic evaluations in 49...

One family's surprising experience leads to an innovative initiative.Gage Gilbert is a bright, 3 1/2-year-old boy with ocean blue eyes and golden blond hair. He loves reading books about science and enjoys singing songs with his Mom. His teacher says he’ll go to Harvard one day.But right now, his parents’ biggest wish for him is to go to a regular kindergarten class. That’s because a year and a half ago, Gage was diagnosed with autism, a neurological disorder affecting 1 in 100 American children.Gage is just one among a growing number of autistic kids. But as parents and researchers pursue...

People with 'mild' forms of autism are more likely to be atheists, according to a controversial new study — and more likely to shun organized religion in general. The study, which looked at posts on autism forums, focused on people with high-functioning autism such as Asperger's. The study, from University of Boston, speculates that common autistic spectrum behaviors such as 'a preference for logical beliefs' and a distrust of metaphor and figures of speech, could be responsible. The study authors, Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Patrick MacNamara studied discussions by 192 different posters on an autism website. They also looked at a...

The nation's leading group of independent medical experts on Thursday weighed in on the debate over vaccine side effects, releasing a report that found few serious health problems are linked to immunizations. After reviewing more than 1,000 scientific articles, experts at the Institute of Medicine found the controversy over certain vaccines and autism was completely unfounded. It also rejected any link between immunizations and Type I diabetes, Bell's palsy and asthma. The report did find evidence of rare vaccine-related adverse effects that can range from mild seizures to fainting. For most of the more than 150 possible reactions studied, experts...

Yet another panel of scientists has found no evidence that a popular vaccine causes autism. But despite the scientists’ best efforts, their report is unlikely to have any impact on the frustrating debate about the safety of these crucial medicines. “The M.M.R. vaccine doesn’t cause autism, and the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn’t,� Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, the chairwoman ... --snip-- The panel did conclude, however, that there are risks to getting the chickenpox vaccine that can arise years after vaccination. People who have had the vaccine can develop pneumonia, meningitis or hepatitis years later if the virus used...

I cannot imagine life without my autistic grandson, Max. However, the chilling truth is, there are plenty of people who can. Autism Spectrum Disorder, which runs the gamut from profoundly disabled to high-functioning individuals capable of living fairly normal lives, affects millions of families: 1 out of every 1,000 births today are autistic kids. As I have told you over the past two days, the families of these children, like my grandson Max, don’t see these children as burdens but, instead, as blessings. Not because the parents are in “denial,” but because they love their children, and that love has...

Ben Barnhard finally had reason to be optimistic this summer: The 13-year-old shed more than 100 pounds at a rigorous weight-loss academy, a proud achievement for a boy who had endured classmates' taunts about his obesity and who had sought solace in the quiet of his bedroom, with his pet black cat and the intricate origami designs he created. But one month before school was to start for the special-needs teen, his mother, psychiatrist Margaret Jensvold, shot him in the head, then killed herself. Officers found their bodies Tuesday in the bedrooms of their home in Kensington, Md., an upper-middle...

A Marietta McDonald's manager is accused of punching a mother who brought a service dog and autistic children into the restaurant. A Cobb County warrant charges Tiffany Denise Allen with simple battery, simple assault fear and disorderly conduct. According to the warrant, Jennifer Schwenker entered the Marietta McDonald's located at 1291 Bells Ferry Road with her children and service dog on July 12. Allen, off-duty at the time, became irate that the dog was in the restaurant, the warrant says. Schwenker explained to Allen the dog's purpose and told the manager the dog was legally allowed to be inside the...

Though people with autism face many challenges because of their condition, they may have been capable hunter-gatherers in prehistoric times, according to a paper published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology in May. The autism spectrum may represent not disease, but an ancient way of life for a minority of ancestral humans, said Jared Reser, a brain science researcher and doctoral candidate in the USC Psychology Department. Some of the genes that contribute to autism may have been selected and maintained because they created beneficial behaviors in a solitary environment, amounting to an autism advantage, Reser said. The "autism advantage," a...

Analysis suggests that girls are partially shielded from effects of the changes. The most comprehensive search yet for spontaneous genetic mutations associated with autism spectrum disorders suggests that hundreds of regions in the genome may have a hand in causing such conditions. Analyses reported in three papers published this week in Neuron1,2,3 dramatically expand the list of known genetic culprits. Two of the studies also shed light on a long-standing mystery: why are boys four times more likely to have autism than girls1,2? The researchers found that girls with autism tend to have many more mutated genes than boys with...

Institute uses punishment machine to discipline severely autistic and emotionally disturbed children by giving them electric shocks The founder of a controversial school that treats severely autistic and emotionally disturbed children by shocking them into submission with the use of electrodes has been forced to quit the institution and serve five years' probation. Matthew Israel, a Harvard-trained psychologist, has created a treatment that is unique to the US and possibly the world. The Judge Rotenberg Center, just outside Boston, disciplines its students using a punishment machine that Israel invented called the GED, which gives a two-second electric shock to the...

A passenger with autism was attacked on a San Bernardino bus and the assault was caught on tape. It happened near 15th Street and Medical Center Drive on April 10. Police are asking for the public's help finding the suspect. Surveillance video from onboard an Omnitrans bus on Sunday, April 10, just after 5 p.m. The suspect can be seen walking up and boarding the bus. After a short conversation w More..ith the bus driver, the suspect deposits his money, and walks toward the back of the bus to find a seat. That's when for some reason he becomes agitated...

Davos, Switzerland (CNN) -- Microsoft founder Bill Gates sat down recently with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta in Davos, Switzerland. The billionaire philanthropist was attending the World Economic Forum to push his mission of eradicating polio by 2012. Gates, through his foundation, also pledged $10 billion to provide vaccinations to children around the world within a decade. Gupta asked Gates for his thoughts about the alleged autism-vaccine connection. He also asked: Who holds ultimate accountability for the billions of dollars being spent on aid? Is a certain amount of corruption and fraud expected? Below is an excerpt of their...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that Americans have a 'right' to know if their drinking water is safe. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) (CNSNews.com) – Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson told a Senate panel that preventing children from being exposed to contaminated water could spare them from autism.Jackson made the remark on Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in response to questioning by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who asked if a recent executive order by President Barack Obama about regulations and the regulatory process means that...

There's a bit of a she-said, they-said situation going on near Seattle, with the mom of an 11-year-old boy saying Microsoft reset his gamerscore unfairly and the company saying it was done because he was cheating. Regardless of the truth, the boy has been branded a cheater on Xbox Live and has to earn whatever achievements he had before all over again. Jennifer Zdenek told Q13 FOX News that her son Julius Jackson went online recently only to discover that his gamerscore had been reset and his account branded as belonging to a cheater.

In 2005, Salon published online an exclusive story by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that offered an explosive premise: that the mercury-based thimerosal compound present in vaccines until 2001 was dangerous, and that he was "convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real." The piece was co-published with Rolling Stone magazine -- they fact-checked it and published it in print; we posted it online. In the days after running "Deadly Immunity," we amended the story with five corrections (which can still be found logged here) that went far in undermining Kennedy's exposé. At the...

TUESDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- The disgraced doctor who published a study more than 10 years ago claiming that a common childhood vaccine -- the measles-mumps-rubella inoculation -- causes autism may have been motivated more by money than conviction, investigators say. ..... in a three-part investigative series in the medical journal BMJ, Dr. Andrew Wakefield was retained by a lawyer seeking to extract money from vaccine manufacturers as his research was just beginning. He also allegedly applied for a patent for an alternative vaccine, set up a business to profit from that vaccine as well as diagnostic kits and...

(01-09) 22:01 PST Chicago, IL (AP) -- Close birth spacing may put a second-born child at higher risk for autism, suggests a preliminary study based on more than a half-million California children. Children born less than two years after their siblings were considerably more likely to have an autism diagnosis compared to those born after at least three years. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/01/09/state/n211244S23.DTL#ixzz1Ac7M9mPQ

On Wednesday, the British Journal of Medicine published the first of several articles detailing the systematic fraud Andrew Wakefield engaged in writing a study in 1998 claiming measles-mumps-rubella vaccine triggered autism in 12 children. News outlets have posted accounts of the fraud as 'breaking news." They also note Wakefield's false research led to fear of vaccines and to kids dying from lack of shots. Wakefield's fraud is beside the point. He was able to do so much damage for so long because the media, the scientific community, politicians and trial lawyers found it in their interest to believe and lionize...

Global warming, Vaccines v. Autism, DDT, Saccharine, Alar . . . Aside from the fact that these claims always begin with a dubious “scientific” study and then escalate as other “scientists” climb on the funding bandwagon, the other element is always the role that the mainstream media plays in keeping the fraud alive until the sheer weight of evidence makes it impossible to do so. Ultimately, this destroys the trust we normally accord to legitimate scientists, exhausting our ability and willingness to embrace the science that has prolonged and protected the lives of millions.

Some may wonder why anyone still wondered about the credibility of an infamous study conducted by Andrew Wakefield and published by The Lancet that purported to show a link between vaccinations and autism. Two years ago, the Times of London published its exposé of Wakefield’s “research,� in which Wakefield faked data and drew conclusions from a ridiculously small sample — a fact that should have warned the Lancet to refuse publication in the first place, even if Wakefield hadn’t faked the data. However, belief in Wakefield’s claims continues, even after Reason addressed the issue in May 2010 once again as...

Controversial research claiming a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism has already been discredited, but now the researcher behind the study is accused of making up the data. Dr. Andrew Wakefield made the link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and the development of autism. He claimed, after studying 12 children, eight showed behavioral symptoms, 6.3 days after being vaccinated for MMR. The report caused parents worldwide to stop vaccinating their children. Wakefield's theory was de-bunked in 2009. Now, the prominent British Medical Journal calls Wakefield's study an elaborate fraud. "I think what Dr. Wakefield did was a moral crime, if...

The British Medical Journal on Wednesday accused a disgraced British doctor of committing an "elaborate fraud" by faking data in his studies linking vaccines with autism. Andrew Wakefield's work convinced thousands of parents that vaccines are dangerous. Such fears have not only caused parents to skip vaccinations for their children, which critics say has led to ongoing outbreaks of measles and mumps, but have forced costly reformulations of many vaccines.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield's 1998 report in the journal Lancet purporting to show a link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella "was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud," says Dr. Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, in an editorial published Tuesday. The editorial accompanies the first of three reports by British investigative journalist Brian Deer that document how Wakefield manipulated data in his attempts to prove something that he "knew" before he started his research. Most of the information in the reports has been published previously, but...

What causes of autism? Researchers have blamed vaccines, hereditary factors, and certain heavy metals. And now they're adding another suspect to the list: Air pollution. That's right. A new study shows that children in families who live near freeways are twice as likely to have autism as kids who live off the beaten path. Researchers in Los Angeles looked at 304 children with autism and 259 normally developing children and found that those whose moms were living within 1,000 feet of a freeway when they gave birth had a increased risk for autism. The study was published online in...

Glenn Beck had Luke Tait, the college student who took the infamous video of the TSA agent doing a pat down of the shirtless little boy, on his show this morning to discuss the incident at the airport. During the interview, Beck said that he learned from a ‘refounder’ (Congressional insider) that the little boy didn’t actually set off the metal detectors as the TSA reported, but rather the boy had on a baggy shirt that caught the attention of the TSA and thats why they wanted to do a pat down. Beck said he also learned a detail that...

ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2010) — Dogs may not only be man's best friend, they may also have a special role in the lives of children with special needs. According to a new Université de Montreal study, specifically trained service dogs can help reduce the anxiety and enhance the socialization skills of children with Autism Syndrome Disorders (ASDs).

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Administrators at a Florida school said a teacher who bit a severely autistic 6-year-old boy on the arm will not be allowed back. Nat Harrington, public information officer with Palm Beach County Schools, said the events leading up to the incident were unclear but two other teachers at Belvedere Elementary in West Palm Beach saw the substitute bite the student on the arm, WPTV, West Palm Beach, reported Friday. The man was told by the principal that he would not be allowed back inside the school, officials said.

Ray Hart, an 11-year-old West Prairie South Elementary student, works on an iPad. An education app, “abcPocketPhonics,” has helped Ray improve his writing. On a recent Monday morning at West Prairie South Elementary in Colchester, Ill., Ray Hart, 11, used a stylus to trace a small “t” on an iPad screen. After he successfully traced the letter, the tablet computer made a cheering sound. Ray looked up at his teacher, Lori Thompson, and smiled. Working on the iPad, which was released by Apple in April, has helped Hart dramatically improve his handwriting and boost his confidence. “The first time I...

<p>Saiqa Akhter, 30, has been charged with a single count of capital murder in the deaths of her 2-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, police said. Dallas County Police spokeswoman Jamille Bradfield said the single count covered a child under 5 and would probably be changed either to include multiple victims or to add a count.</p>

An Irving mother accused of strangling her two children with an antenna wire told a 911 operator that she killed them because they were "not normal." "Both are autistic," she said. "I don’t want my kids to be like that. I want normal kids." Saiqa Akhter, 30, was arraigned this morning on a single charge of capital murder in the death of her 5-year-old son Zain, who died Monday. Family members have said the boy was autistic and had a speech impediment.

DALLAS (AP) - A suburban Dallas mother accused of strangling her two young children told a 911 operator she killed them because they were autistic and she wanted "normal kids," according to a 911 tape. Irving police released the recording Wednesday after Saiqa Akhter was charged with one count of capital murder in the strangling of her 5-year-old son, Zain Akhter, at the family's apartment Monday night. Police spokesman David Tull said another capital murder charge is pending in the slaying of her 2-year-old daughter, Faryaal Akhter, who died Tuesday night.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- The parents of an 8-year-old autistic girl who was arrested at her northern Idaho elementary school are suing the school district and the sheriff's department, saying the agencies violated the Americans With Disabilities Act......

SHANGHAI (Hollywood Reporter) - Action hero Jet Li gives a respectable turn as a terminally ill father grooming his autistic son to survive on his own in "Ocean Heaven" -- a decent, if orthodox job by Xue Xiaolu. Film Xue off-sets some of the wholesome soppiness of this genre by keeping the tone light, the story simple and steered clear of grueling ordeals. Compared with another father-son story "Together," which she co-scripted and Chen Kaige directed, it is less melodramatic and artificial. Set mostly in a marine park in Qingtao province, its interpretation of autism owes less to "Rain Man"...

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--An international consortium of researchers working under the auspices of Autism Speaks, the world’s largest autism science and advocacy organization, has announced new genetic discoveries from the second phase of its collaborative study: the Autism Genome Project. The results were published June 10, 2010, in the journal Nature, one of the world’s most respected peer-reviewed scientific publications. The Autism Genome Project (AGP) (www.autismgenome.org) consists of 120 scientists from more than 60 institutions representing 11 countries. Included in the consortium were scientists from Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Stanford University. Joachim Hallmayer, M.D., associate professor of Psychiatry, and...

Autism Genome Project Phase 2 results published in Nature Mount Sinai researchers and the Autism Genome Project Consortium (AGP) announced today that they have identified new autism susceptibility genes that may lead to the development of new treatment approaches. These genes, which include SHANK2, SYNGAP1, DLGAP2 and the X-linked DDX53–PTCHD1 locus, primarily belong to synapse-related pathways, while others are involved in cellular proliferation, projection and motility, and intracellular signaling. The findings were published today in Nature by researchers at the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, together with an international consortium of researchers...

MUMBAI: New research by a team of Bangalore-based scientists has given hope to those with emotional problems caused by the inheritance of a fragile X chromosome. The researchers, for the first time in the world, mapped defective connections between nerve cells in the emotional hub of the brain of mice who had Fragile X Syndrome. The research has just been published in the online edition of the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In humans, while a fragile X chromosome may be passed from one generation to the next with no debilitating effects, the syndrome does affect one...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A controversial study into the possible link between the use of cells form babies victimized by abortions in vaccines and an increase in autism rates was presented late last month to the International Meeting for Autism Research in Philadelphia. Dr. Theresa Deisher, the founder and lead scientist of the Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute (SCPI), which conducted the study, presented the paper touching on the apparent link found in childhood immunizations with Autism and Austim Spectrum Disorder.The study, which Deisher said was "met with both shock and gratitude," focused on "improper integration of the residual DNA...

Amity Regional School District officials say it just doesn’t make sense: Why is the district being punished for having too many white autistic kids? And it’s the federal government’s punishment that is raising tempers — cutting the crucial funding used to educate the autistic students. It’s a thorny issue for all sides. When one racial group — black, white or otherwise — appears to be getting a disproportionate amount of special education funding, red flags go up at the federal Department of Education. But local educators said they are powerless to control the racial makeup of their community and who...

Clifford Grevemberg doesn't want to go to jail. On Friday night, the lanky 18-year-old was arrested by Tybee police on a disorderly conduct charge in front of the Rock House on 16th Street. He says he was Tased twice and thrown to the ground, breaking one of his front teeth and leaving scrapes on his face and knee. But Grevemberg, who suffers from a form of autism, still wants to know what he did wrong. "I just wanted to go to sleep," the 6-foot-9-inch tall, 170-pound teenager said Saturday. "I sat down on the curb and put my head in...

A gastroenterologist who persuaded millions of parents worldwide that the vaccine used to prevent measles, mumps and rubella might cause autism has been banned from practicing medicine in his native Britain after the country's top medical group said Monday he conducted his research unethically. Dr. Andrew Wakefield was the first researcher to publish a peer-reviewed study suggesting a connection between autism, inflammatory bowel disease and the MMR vaccine. In February, Britain's leading medical journal, "The Lancet, "retracted Wakefield's controversial 1998 study just days after Wakefield was found guilty by a British panel of acting unethically in his research on autism....

LONDON (AP) - Britain's top medical group on Monday banned a doctor whose research suggesting a link between a common vaccine and autism caused millions of parents worldwide to abandon the shot for measles, mumps and rubella. Dr. Andrew Wakefield was the first to publish peer-reviewed research suggesting such a connection, even though the study was later widely discredited. The ruling by Britain's General Medical Council found him guilty of serious professional misconduct. Wakefield, 53, then moved to the U.S. and set up an autism center in Texas, where he has a wide following, but faces similar skepticism from the...

The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR vaccinations and autism is to be struck off the medical register. The General Medical Council found Dr Andrew Wakefield guilty of serious professional misconduct over the way he carried out his controversial research.

May 17, 2010 Mother Charged With Murdering Autistic Boy, 11, At Airport Hotel Judith Evans A mother was charged today with murdering her autistic 11-year-old son at an airport hotel in Wales. Yvonne Freaney, 48, of Penarth, was arrested after police found her with her dead son, holding his hand, at Glen at the Sky Plaza Hotel on Saturday. Glen had last been seen alive on Thursday. Police believe that Mrs Freaney had spent the interim in the hotel room with her son’s body. South Wales Police said that Glen’s friends and family had contacted them on Saturday, concerned about...

(May 14) -- A 14-year-old autistic boy in Georgia faces felony charges of making terroristic threats after he drew a stick-figure version of himself firing a gun at his teacher. After discovering the crudely rendered drawing that Shane Finn had made on his classwork, officials at Atlanta's Ridgeview Charter School suspended the eighth-grader and decided to pursue charges against him, Fox News in Atlanta reported.

When science hands us a way to pre-natally diagnose Autism, the horror will be unspeakable. And its coming. Our friend Leticia reminds us to be careful when we donate to disabilities charities. With some charities, the bulk of the funds goes to pre-natal diagnosis. Of course, the reality of the matter is that R&D into pre-natal diagnosis is usually not about a cure. As Leticia puts it, "AKA search and destroy techniques to kill babies with the disability. Not curing our children who already have the disability. " This is what happened with March of Dimes. Such was the case...

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. - A fourteen-year-old autistic boy is facing terrorist charges after a sketch he made in school. The sketch shows two stick-figures. One of them is labeled ‘Me’ and is shown shooting a gun at another with a teacher’s name above it. [snip]