Friday, August 21, 2009

Critical Thinking Skills (or the lack therof)

This morning I was doing something I do fairly frequently, combing through blogs related to autism. The blogs that I tend to read are those that are science based, rather than the paranoid, vaccines caused it, hyperbaric O2, special diets, vitamin supplements and experimental treatments du jour cured it. Being a nurse, I want research, I want reproducible, credible, peer reviewed studies.

What I DON'T want is some former Playboy centerfold who has no scientific background feeding me unproven theories that every bit of science available have shown to be false.

Being the parent of an autistic child, I understand full well the kind of desperation that the initial diagnosis can bring on. I know all about being willing to do ANYTHING to help your child, fighting like mad to connect with them, pouring over every bit of information available in the hope that something will leap out as the one answer to the ever present "WHY?".

But as a nurse of over 14 years, and as a pagan of nearly 20 years, I also know that sometimes we don't get that answer. Sometimes, we're not supposed to. Sometimes we have to simply accept that this is how things are, we're not ever going to know why, and we have move forward from the moment that we're in, and do the best we possibly can with what we're given.

I've written on several autism message boards about this. My perspective is that the why isn't as important as the now. I've written that the most important thing that we can do as parents of special needs children is to focus on meeting our childs needs, and helping them reach their highest level of functioning. I've said that sometimes as parents we get so caught up in looking for something to blame for the fact that our children aren't typically developing, that we forget to focus on what our kids CAN do. I've also said that there are many, many unprincipled people who have no qualms about preying on the pain and desperation of parents in order to make money.

I've been soundly trounced for saying these things, which is why I no longer post on autism message boards.

But, since this is MY page, I'm going to say whatever the fuck I want!

SO here goes: Vaccines DO NOT cause autism. The initial culprit that people were blaming was the mercury based preservative thimerisol. The US vaccine supply has been COMPLETELY thimerisol free (with the exception of the flu vaccine) since 2002. Initially the Vaccine Cause Autism crowd believed that autism diagnosis rates would drop once thimerisol was removed from vaccines. That hasn't happened, rates have continued to climb. So, the next target of blame was the MMR vaccine. There have been multiple studies both here and abroad to verify the safety of the MMR vaccine, and it's been proven safe. There is absolutely NO credible, scientific evidence that the MMR causes autism.

Gluten/Cassien free diets have been touted for years as a cure for autism, as well as chelation, hyperbaric O2 therapy, and now stem cell therapy. The G/C diet is nutritionally limited, prohibitively expensive for most families, and has no proof of effectiveness. Hyperbaric O2 and Chelation are both potentially dangerous, in fact the CDC just shut down a study on chelation and autism because of the danger posed to the children whose parents volunteered them to participate. Stem Cell therapy is being done outside the US, in Costa Rica and China (neither one of which would be a first line choice for me in terms of medical care for MY child!), because it's illegal in the US and Europe. Why is it illegal? One of the dangers of stem cell therapy is that the signals in the body that tell the stem cells to differentiate, that trigger them to develop into what's needed by the body are SHUT OFF once the organs develop. So, there's just as much of a chance of undifferentiated stem cells producing lung or liver cells in the elbow as there is of the cells producing what's actually needed by the body.

The thing that so many ASD (autism spectrum disorder) parents seem to forget, in all the stumbling around for the why, and trying to cure their child, is that ALL children do improve over time. To varying degrees, yes, but even the most severely autistic child will be markedly different at 10 than they were at 2. The earlier we as parents intervene, the more time we spend helping our children develop the skills they need to function (communication, self care, fine and gross motor skills), the more progress they'll make further down the line.

And that concludes my rant for the morning.

1 comment:

Scott Robinson said...

"I've said that sometimes as parents we get so caught up in looking for something to blame for the fact that our children aren't typically developing, that we forget to focus on what our kids CAN do. "

As the spouse of a pediatric hospitalist, I can attest to this. And our litigious society fans those flames something fierce.

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