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A long article in a major New York City area newspaper, "Newsday," entitled "Researchers: New understanding of autism is near," contained several good examples demonstrating why the "medical establishment" has been so unsuccessful over the last few decades (the "war on cancer," for instance, was supposed to be "won" by 1980):
QUOTE: "I had been doing cancer research since I came to the lab in 1977 and the basic method that we used in cancer was to ask what's different about the genome of cancer compared with the normal genome?
"Many of the tools to do that were developed by me," Wigler said, "so we turned to those tools to ask questions about autism." UNQUOTE.
And we get the usual vague promises, based on "genetic understanding," with hints of "therapies" that will make life more bearable:
QUOTE: Based on his work to date, Wigler surmises a clear genetic understanding of the numerous ways in which autism manifests may be tantalizingly close: "I expect that we'll have a very good bead on a number of the [genetic] causes," of autism in the not-too-distant future, Wigler said. "And I suspect there will be a way to treat children to lessen the symptoms." UNQUOTE.
A non-scientist, however, points out a major flaw in the notion that this approach will lead to a "cure:"
QUOTE: Alison Singer, executive director of Autism Speaks, a national advocacy organization... said what's missing in Wigler's work is the mechanism that causes genes to mutate. Susceptibility genes, she said, often need an outside stimulus to set off a genetic chain of events. UNQUOTE.
But then Ms. Singer states: QUOTE: "We want them to pursue the science wherever it leads," Singer said. "But we don't want to get into a situation where we blame the parents. When some parents read stories about older fathers or older mothers, they can become very sensitive. UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsauti125331613aug14,0,1913106.story
Do we want the scientific method to be followed, or not, Ms. Singer? There is no way to "pick and choose" - once that happens, all kinds of influences (social, political, economic, etc.) can come into play, which can lead to false claims that are presented to the public as "scientifically proven."
In any case, the key point I'd like to make here is that genes need to be "turned on," and that since autism is "on the rise," why are scientists not focusing most if not all of their research on what is doing this? For example:
QUOTE: Since the 1990s, there's been a dramatic increase in autismautism among school-age children.
The data are from the U.S. Department of Education, and the report hints that the increases seen with time are real.
Research has suggested that the rise in autism could be largely explained by changes in diagnosis, with children who might have been classified as mentally retarded or speech impaired before the 1990s now being classified as autistic.
Lead researcher Craig J. Newschaffer, PhD, says the Department of Education figures do not show this, but he adds that the increase in autism may never be fully understood.
"I don't know if we are ever going to be in a position to explain what has gone on over the last decade," he says. UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.webmd.com/brain/Autism/news/20050307/study-childhood-rise-in-autism-cases-real
It seems that these researchers must be totally ignorant of the experiments demonstrating that the dietary oils that have become so common over the last few decades do turn on transcription factors (which "turn on" genes): QUOTE: It is concluded that corn oil rapidly activates NF-kappaB in Kupffer cells via oxidant-dependent mechanisms. UNQUOTE.
Source: Carcinogenesis. 1999 Nov;20(11):2095-100.
Therefore, it only makes sense to start with this simple dietary intervention, and then just observe if the incidence of autism decreases substantially. Instead, even if the researchers can "find the gene," there is no way to know if it will lead to anything at all. My hypothesis about autism's cause is a bit more complicated than this, involving what kinds of polyunsaturated fatty acids are in the children's mother's cells, but one could certainly see if dietary intervention beginning at birth would lead to a much lower rate of autism, and if so, a "cure" for at least autism would then exist.
One last point that I've made before is relevant on this post, which is that scientists don't win Nobel Prizes by telling people what food items they should avoid. In fact, one wonders if a scientist could do better than teach at the community college level if he or she made such statements. Fortunately, I'm an independent scholar who is able to examine large amounts of evidence, without worrying about what my "superiors" might think of my conclusions.
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In this post, I will cite molecular-level evidence for my proposal:
QUOTE: ...Biochemical analyses of brain homogenates from PPA treated rats showed an increase in oxidative stress markers (e.g., lipid peroxidation and protein carbonylation) and glutathione S-transferase activity coupled with a decrease in glutathione and glutathione peroxidase activity. Neurohistological examinations of hippocampus and adjacent white matter (external capsule) of PPA treated rats revealed increased reactive astrogliosis (GFAP immunoreactivity) and activated microglia (CD68 immunoreactivity) suggestive of a neuroinflammatory process... UNQUOTE.
Source: Behav Brain Res. 2007 Jan 10;176(1):149-69. Epub 2006 Sep 1.
QUOTE: ...According to the Autism Society of America, autism is now considered to be an epidemic. The increase in the rate of autism revealed by epidemiological studies and government reports implicates the importance of external or environmental factors that may be changing. This article discusses the evidence for the case that some children with autism may become autistic from neuronal cell death or brain damage sometime after birth as result of insult; and addresses the hypotheses that toxicity and oxidative stress may be a cause of neuronal insult in autism... UNQUOTE.
Source: J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2006 Nov-Dec;9(6):485-99.
QUOTE: Autism is a neurological disorder of childhood with poorly understood etiology and pathology. We compared lipid peroxidation status in the plasma of children with autism, and their developmentally normal non-autistic siblings by quantifying the levels of malonyldialdehyde, an end product of fatty acid oxidation. Lipid peroxidation was found to be elevated in autism indicating that oxidative stress is increased in this disease. Levels of major antioxidant proteins namely, transferrin (iron-binding protein) and ceruloplasmin (copper-binding protein) in the serum, were significantly reduced in autistic children as compared to their developmentally normal non-autistic siblings. A striking correlation was observed between reduced levels of these proteins and loss of previously acquired language skills in children with autism. These results indicate altered regulation of transferrin and ceruloplasmin in autistic children who lose acquired language skills. It is suggested that such changes may lead to abnormal iron and copper metabolism in autism, and that increased oxidative stress may have pathological role in autism. UNQUOTE.
Source: Life Sci. 2004 Oct 8;75(21):2539-49.
QUOTE: It is thought that autism could result from an interaction between genetic and environmental factors with oxidative stress as a potential mechanism linking the two. One genetic factor may be altered oxidative-reductive capacity. This study tested the hypothesis that children with autism have increased oxidative stress. We evaluated children with autism for the presence of two oxidative stress biomarkers. Urinary excretion of 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and 8-isoprostane-F2alpha (8-iso-PGF2alpha) were determined in 33 children with autism and 29 healthy controls. 8-iso-PGF2alpha levels were significantly higher in children with autism. The isoprostane levels in autistic subjects were variable with a bimodal distribution. The majority of autistic subjects showed a moderate increase in isoprostane levels while a smaller group of autistic children showed dramatic increases in their isoprostane levels. There was a trend of an increase in 8-OHdG levels in children with autism but it did not reach statistical significance. There was no significant correlation between the levels of the biomarkers and vitamin intake, dietary supplements, medicine, medical disorders, or history of regression. These results suggest that the lipid peroxidation biomarker is increased in this cohort of autistic children, especially in the subgroup of autistic children. UNQUOTE.
Source: Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 2005 Nov;73(5):379-84.
QUOTE: ...Taken together, these studies suggest increased oxidative stress in autism that may contribute to the development of this disease. A mechanism linking oxidative stress with membrane lipid abnormalities, inflammation, aberrant immune response, impaired energy metabolism and excitotoxicity, leading to clinical symptoms and pathogenesis of autism is proposed. UNQUOTE.
Source: Pathophysiology. 2006 Aug;13(3):171-81. Epub 2006 Jun 12. |
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This is disturbing
""We want them to pursue the science wherever it leads," Singer said. "But we don't want to get into a situation where we blame the parents. When some parents read stories about older fathers or older mothers, they can become very sensitive."
Um. How do you practice science yet worry about offending people? Science doesn't care about people's feelings, and you can't practice "politically correct" science or else its not science.
That's the big problem with "AIDS" science is that it has to be politically correct. I think AIDS scientists could save more lives if they stopped worrying about peoples feelings and told them what they needed to hear. The problem is that telling gay people what they need to hear is associated with Right Wing Religious zealots, and people don't want to be associated with that. |
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| I think the problem is that if you do just the politically correct science or follow the "mainstream religion" you can get enough funding for your work as well as steadily grow in your scientific career. |
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| Yes, and I would add that for many people there likely develops a subconscious feeling of loyalty to "the system," and so rarely if ever is there a thought about reassessing things considered fundamental and "beyond question." |
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