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News- Page 2
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Cameroon: Autism Needs Attention
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Posted by lightfoot on Sunday, May 04, 2008 (06:56:14)
By Effa Tambenkongho of the Cameroon Tribune
The Ministries of Social Affairs, Health and Basic Education must collaborate to rescue Autistic Children in Cameroon.
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Autism One conference 2008
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Posted by lightfoot on Saturday, March 22, 2008 (07:22:11)
In the Chicago area?
KEYNOTE ADDRESS – JENNY McCARTHY
5 Days That Will Change Your Child's Life
The Sixth Annual Autism One Conference Returns to Chicago
Wednesday, May 21 – Sunday, May 25
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Presidential Candidates and Autism
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Posted by lightfoot on Sunday, March 16, 2008 (17:59:32)
Posted by : Julie in Parenting Children with Special Needs Blog
Autism may be one of the hottest disability topics for this year’s presidential candidates. All the major candidates have addressed it in some way, which isn’t surprising, given the rapid rise in autism (1 in 150) and all those children with autism have parents and grandparents who are presumably voters.
A site called AutismFACTS has compiled information on the presidential candidates’ stance on autism and the government’s involvement. The information on this website is a bit dated, since most of the original candidates are still posted there. But for the big three, AutismFACTS gives both Clinton and Obama a “C†and McCain a “C-“. They give Ron Paul a “Bâ€.
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'Eli Stone' To Premiere Amid Autism Controversy
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Posted by lightfoot on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 (16:50:25)
The nation's largest pediatricians' group on Monday said ABC should cancel the first episode of a new series because it perpetuates the myth that vaccines can cause autism
ABC's new drama, "Eli Stone," debuts on Thursday. It features British actor Jonny Lee Miller as a prophet-like lawyer who in the opening episode argues in court that a flu vaccine made a child autistic. When it is revealed in court that an executive at the fictional vaccine maker didn't allow his own child to get the shot, jurors side with the family, giving them a huge award.
The show's co-creators say they're not anti-vaccine and would be upset if parents chose not to immunize their children after seeing the show.
But, said Dr. Renee R. Jenkins, president of the influential American Academy of Pediatrics, "A television show that perpetuates the myth that vaccines cause autism is the height of reckless irresponsibility on the part of ABC and its parent company, The Walt Disney Co."
"If parents watch this program and choose to deny their children immunizations, ABC will share in the responsibility for the suffering and deaths that occur as a result. The consequences of a decline in immunization rates could be devastating to the health of our nation's children," Jenkins said in a statement.
Greg Berlanti, a co-creator of the show, said the episode is fictional but designed "to participate in what is a national conversation" about a controversial subject. He said the boy who plays the autistic child has autism, but that the show's producers have no connection with advocates involved in the autism debate.
"We would be deeply upset" if parents opted against vaccination because of the episode, Berlanti said.
Marc Guggenheim, who helped create the show, said the first episode shows how a fictional company covered up a study that raised questions about its product, and that the message is really about "the downside of the corporatization of America."
30th January 2008 on accesshollywood.com
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Continuing Increases in Autism Reported to California's Developmental Services
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Posted by lightfoot on Saturday, January 26, 2008 (00:05:38)
Robert Schechter, MD, MSc; Judith K. Grether, PhD
Diagnosed cases of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have increased in recent decades. The extent to which this increase reflects changes in occurrence, case definition, recognition, or referral patterns of ASD is the subject of vigorous debate. Young children receive immunizations in the period preceding the typical manifestations or diagnosis of ASD. Increased exposure to thimerosal, a preservative that contains 49.6% ethylmercury by weight, has been postulated to have contributed to the upswing in reported cases of ASD.
Vaccines were the major source of thimerosal exposure for young children in the United States before its removal in recent years. Thimerosal has been used to prevent microbial contamination of vaccines, especially those in multidose vials, since the 1930s. Before 1991, the combined diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and whole-cell pertussis vaccine (DTP) was the sole thimerosal-containing vaccine (TCV) recommended for all infants and children in the United States. In 1991, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and hepatitis B virus vaccines were also recommended; most formulations of these newer vaccines contained thimerosal.
Prior to any hypothesis that thimerosal might cause autism, the US Food and Drug Administration, in response to its Modernization Act of 1997, compiled and analyzed a list of vaccines and their thimerosal content. By 1999, it became recognized that, under the recommended childhood immunization schedule, infants at 6 months of age were potentially exposed to *****ulative doses of ethylmercury that, using an inexact surrogate benchmark in the absence of data, exceeded safety standards (maximum values of which vary from 65-501 µg) for ingestion of another mercury compound, methylmercury. In July 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Public Health Service agreed as a precautionary measure that thimerosal be removed as soon as possible from childhood vaccines while maintaining high vaccination coverage levels of children. By 2000, new lots of all Hib and hepatitis B virus vaccines in the United States contained at most trace amounts of thimerosal. By March 2001, all vaccines in the recommended infant immunization schedule for the United States became available with at most trace amounts of thimerosa; the remaining lots of TCVs had expiration dates in 2002. Shortages of the diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acel*****ar pertussis (DTaP) vaccine during this period may have accelerated its use before expiration. A study of 6 vaccine lots released in 2000 estimated that 90% of the doses in the lots had been used within 9 months of release. In 2004, inactivated influenza vaccine, frequently administered from multidose vials that contain thimerosal, was newly recommended for all children aged 6 to 23 months in the United States. Based on available estimates, the maximum mercury doses from recommended vaccines for healthy infants younger than 7 months varied from 75 µg in 1990 to 187.5 µg in 1999 and less than 17.9 µg in 2004. For healthy children younger than 2 years, the estimated maximum mercury dose from recommended vaccines varied from 100 µg in 1990 to 237.5 µg in 1999 and less than 40.2 µg in 2004 (modified from 2004 estimates).
Several studies since 1999 have attempted to examine whether exposure to thimerosal in vaccines is associated with autism. Beginning in 2001, the Immunization Safety Review Committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies critically reviewed available epidemiologic data and concluded in 2004 that evidence "favored rejection of a causal relationship between TCVs and autism." Among the evidence presented to the IOM Committee in 2001 was an ecological study that displayed similar trends by birth year in the prevalence of children with autism born from 1985 to 1995 who were reported to the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and estimated thimerosal exposures from vaccination by 19 to 35 months of age, with both trends peaking for children born in 1994. Although the IOM Immunization Safety Review Committee judged this correlation in the ecological data to be uninformative with respect to causality, it recommended in its 2004 report continued "surveillance of ASD as the exposure to thimerosal declines," noting that:
If TCVs are the primary cause for the rise in ASD, as some have argued, then one would expect to see a sharp decline in the incidence of ASD as thimerosal is removed from vaccines and other biological/pharmaceutical products and exposure declines. If rates of ASD continue to increase following the removal of thimerosal, however, then TCVs could not be the primary cause. . . .
To evaluate whether reduced exposure to thimerosal has been associated with a decrease in reported autism, we analyzed DDS data to estimate time trends in the prevalence of autism in children reported in California. Although not inclusive of all children with ASD in California and subject to a variety of administrative and diagnostic biases, the DDS client records represent one of the few data systems available to track time trends in young children during the period in which thimerosal exposure changed in the United States. We find that the prevalence of autism in children 3 years and older reported to DDS has continued to increase regardless of the exclusion of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines.
For more details please see;
Archives of General Psychiatry
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