The American Academy of Pediatrics has expressed their concerns regarding this issue, in which they beleive parents my not vaccine their children in fear of autism, and has recommended ABC not to air this episode. From AP:

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.”

I am glad that there is concern about perpetuating the vaccine myth, and I hope parents do the right thing and don’t let a TV show influence their decision about vaccinating their children.

From Associated Press

Also, Ginger from Adventures in Autism has an interesting take on all this.

A group of Canadian researchers have found a link between the ocurance of autism spectrum disorder and DNA abnormalities. This research was recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. This could lead to earlier diagnostics. Also, according to the findings, these abnormalities were not passed down from the parents:

Similar deletions and duplications of genes were not detected in parents of the children, meaning they were not inherited, said Scherer, director of the Centre for Applied Genomics at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The missing or extra genes would have arisen spontaneously in the children, likely at conception or in early fetal growth.

Also, thanks to this research, early detection mechanisms are likely to be developed:

Scherer said hospital autism clinics should begin testing children with a suspected case of the disorder for any of these genetic aberrations as early in childhood as possible. Sick Kids is in the process of developing such a test program in its autism clinic.

A prenatal test could also be developed to look for these genetic changes, he said.

Source [The Canadian Press]
[Picture Credit]

Hi to all. This is my first post on this blog (or any blog for that matter). I will use this space to share my experiences with autistic children and my perspective on this still mysterious disorder. I will try to post something new as often as I can but please understand that I do have a full-time job and I go to school.

[Image Credit]