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Old 11-24-2006, 11:47 PM #1
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Arrow First Nat'l Autism Surveillance Program

Consumer Health
Ped Med: Surveys, studies peek at autism
By Lidia Wasowicz
Nov 24, 2006, 19:00 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, United States (UPI) -- In search of answers to the multi-faceted questions surrounding the intractable disorder, federal scientists are pursuing the nation`s first ongoing autism surveillance program.

Among other purposes, the project aims to monitor changes in the rate of the disorder over time. Launched in metropolitan Atlanta, the survey has spread across the country to at least a dozen other areas.

'We`re asking the questions: `What`s the prevalence of autism in the (United States)? Are there certain groups that are more likely to develop autism? Is the rate increasing? What factors may contribute to the changes in rates? Is the type of autism changing?`' said Dr. Jose Cordero, director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

'There`s a spectrum there,' he said at an autism conference sponsored by the Brookings Institution in Washington. 'It`s really more than one condition, and probably there are more subtypes that still have to be identified or defined.'

To find out just how many and what kind there may be, the University of California, Davis, M.I.N.D. Institute -- a collaborative network of parents, scientists, clinicians and educators undertook in March what it termed the largest and most comprehensive biomedical assessment of autistic children to date.

The so-called Autism Phenome Project, conducted by multidisciplinary teams of physicians and researchers, is enrolling 1,800 youngsters ages 2 to 4 -- 900 with autism, 450 with developmental delay and 450 with typical growth patterns.

Over several years the children will undergo thorough medical examinations as well as analyses of their immune systems, brain structures and functions, blood proteins, genetics and environmental exposures.

The aim is to bring some order to a disorder whose extreme variability -- from severe disability with concurrent cognitive and/or physical impairments to near-normal functioning with no co-existing problems -- has had researchers scratching their heads for more than 60 years.

'I don`t think anything that you`ll find about autism will apply to all children with autism. I`m getting more and more convinced it`s a multiple causal disorder,' said project co-director David Amaral, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical Center and M.I.N.D. research director.

'The evidence we know from the field is virtually anything you look at is only happening in a fraction of the kids with autism,' he added. 'So, 30 percent of kids with autism have seizures, but 70 percent don`t. A certain percentage of children have severe gastrointestinal problems, but a certain percentage don`t.'

He continued: 'We don`t even know what the percentages are there. There`s the regressive form versus the innate form of autism. The best guess is that the regressive form is 20 percent to 30 percent, whereas 70 percent perhaps is not. But we need to come up with a better handle on these numbers.'

In addition to autism`s head-spinning heterogeneity, limited access to reliable data has hampered attempts to get at the disorder`s underbelly.

Various studies have yielded a hodgepodge of telling results, but because the disorder touches on so many diverse disciplines -- from immunology and genetics to behavior and psychology -- it can be difficult to contrast, compare and combine all the relevant information.

Two years in the making, Amaral and company`s ambitious new program proposes to overcome such obstacles -- and provide a shortcut to determining the roots of and developing remedies for the disorder.

'Our goal is to identify specific types of autism and develop a database of biomedical information that can be shared with the worldwide community of autism scientists,' Amaral explained at an international meeting on autism in Boston.

'This is crucial to refining our understanding of autism and to developing targeted treatments for a specific `type` of autism as early as possible so children can reach their fullest potential.'

Another sizeable cooperative effort targeting autism`s core -- a study of 2,000 tots ages 2 to 5 -- got off the ground in 2001 and is slated for completion toward the latter part of 2007.

The 'Childhood Autism Risks From Genetics and the Environment' inquiry, CHARGE for short, has united investigators from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, UC Davis and the University of California, Los Angeles, in a pursuit of causes underlying the innate form of the disorder and contributors to the regressive kind.

In the latter, what appears to be normal progress in development not only stops but starts taking backward steps, with children often ceasing to speak, losing their sociability and entering a world all their own.

The investigators have been making a thorough sweep of suspects. These run the gamut, from chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyl, or PCB, certain pesticides and metals suspected of causing interference with neurodevelopment to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and shots containing the mercury-based preservative thimerosal, which some parents, physicians and researchers think can trigger autism in children with certain biochemical, metabolic, immunologic or genetic vulnerabilities.


(Note: In this multi-part installment, based on dozens of reports, conferences and interviews, Ped Med is keeping on eye on autism, taking a backward glance at its history and surrounding controversies, facing facts revealed by research and looking forward to treatment enhancements and expansions. Wasowicz is the author of the forthcoming book, 'Suffer the Child: How the American Healthcare System Is Failing Our Future,' to be published by Capital Books.)
Next Article in this series: Attention shifting from psychology to biology


http://news.monstersandcritics.com/l...peek_at_autism
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