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July 05, 2005
By DAN OLMSTED
Lawyers, it is said, never ask a question to which they do not already know the
answer. This column has adopted the opposite tack, asking questions to which
nobody knows the answer.
Where are the autistic Amish? That was one such question, and it led to our
tentative conclusion autism seems surprisingly rare in this isolated group.
What could that mean? In our next question, we speculated the Amish might not be
exposed to some factor that contributes to a higher autism rate in the rest of
the population.
Some readers objected to this approach as hopelessly unscientific and anecdotal
and doubtless subject to its own biases. We agree, but we also think somebody
must start somewhere and see where things go.
Notably, in response to the Amish articles, a top government official last month
told parents he is considering whether to launch a study of the autism rate
among the Amish or other unvaccinated populations. (Some parents think a
mercury-based preservative in vaccinations triggered their children's autism.)
The last Age of Autism column started with another such question: Where are the
autistic children from families who homeschool and choose not to vaccinate? We
quoted a doctor in Florida who treats autistic children, has an autistic son,
and has homeschooled his daughter.
"It's largely nonexistent," Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said. "It's an extremely rare
event." He said he had tried to get epidemiologists to do a scientific study,
but they doubted the results would apply to a broader population. (We heard the
same thing about the Amish -- until the government health official expressed
interest.)
Among the 2 million children homeschooled in the United States, we deduced that
the population of unvaccinated kids could easily surpass 4 percent, equal to the
upper range of exemptions in some public school districts. That would mean tens
of thousands of homeschoolers are likely unvaccinated, and a minimum of several
hundred would be autistic at the current rate of 1 in 166 children born in the
United States.
In the past week, a number of people with information and insights have accepted
our standing invitation and gotten in touch. Here is a sample:
Until my son's (autism) diagnosis last year at age 3, we were non-vaccinating
homeschoolers. I know of another homeschooling mom who didn't vaccinate: she
refuses to admit her son is on the spectrum (he obviously is). In the homeschool
group we were involved in: three boys were on the spectrum, high functioning.
The parents refused to label their sons. This is why they homeschool. I do not
know if these parents vaccinated, but I am almost certain they did not.
Using low DIAGNOSED autism rates among non-vaccinated homeschoolers to prove
vaccines are dangerous (which I believe for certain kids, they are) is a flawed
argument. There are autism spectrum disorders among non-vaccinated
homeschoolers, but many of these parents don't get an official diagnosis
PRECISELY because they do not want to deal with the school districts (and after
my experiences, I can see their point).
Homeschooling and autism are not independent. I'm unlikely to homeschool my
autistic son in algebra or Bible studies or Latin, because he can't count or
speak or understand English. If you check the number of autistic children
enrolled in normal public school curricula, you'll find they're missing there
too (at least the most severe autistics are). They're all getting special ed
from wherever seems best to get it, which isn't normal public schooling, and
isn't homeschooling either.
The question is not, is there some association between homeschooling or lack of
immunization and low autism rates, but does public schooling cause (or
exacerbate) autism? Public schools in the last 20 years have become far more
intolerant of behaviors that are not in the center of the spectrum and public
school employees are now predominantly neurotypical. Put 100 Amish kids in the
public school system and the rate at which the public school will think they are
autistic will be the same as their non-Amish kids.
I am the mother of a 4-year-old high-functioning autistic son who is
unvaccinated and I homeschool him. I live in Lane County, Ore. I have not found
any other situations like mine, of an autistic child who is unvaccinated and
homeschooled.
This first round of feedback contains some interesting threads. One is that the
same impulse that motivates parents to homeschool their children could also lead
them to avoid an autism diagnosis. A second is that fewer autistic children are
likely to be homeschooled in the first place.
Clearly, there are unvaccinated children with autism in families that homeschool
-- a point Dr. Bradstreet had stipulated, adding it would prove "an extremely
rare event."
He also told us, "Unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of
amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating,
I've not had a single case."
One such child's mother "lived next to a volcano, had 27 amalgams and ate fish
twice a day," he said.
So it's worth pointing out that in Lane County, Ore. -- the home of the
4-year-old unvaccinated boy with autism -- elevated mercury is a prominent
issue. In April of last year the state updated a warning first made in 1997 "of
increased levels of mercury in fish caught from Dorena Reservoir." They said
children six and under should eat no more than one four-ounce meal every two
months and that women of child-bearing age should limit their intake to 8 ounces
per month.
The statement attributes the mercury contamination to "natural volcanic rocks
and minerals and geothermal activities in the upper drainage areas. The movement
of mercury into waterways and the bioaccumulation of mercury in fish may be
influenced by past mining practices in the watershed, but this subject is not
well studied."
Also interesting: Oregon has the highest reported autism rate in the country,
and Eugene's is even higher. Why? That is another question no one knows the
answer to.
A recent study in Texas found an association between environmental exposure to
mercury and autism rates in that state's counties. A fascinating exception was
one county where the autism rate was high, yet the level of mercury exposure
from coal-fired power plants and incinerators was not. On closer inspection,
that county turned out to have been the site of a large mercury mine.
So, we have gotten just a couple of responses from parents of homeschooled,
unvaccinated children with autism, though we know tens of thousands of parents
of autistic children are following this column. We hope to get more.
Hearing right off, however, about an unvaccinated child with autism living in an
area with an inexplicably high autism rate and an issue with mercury is ...
intriguing.
It is particularly so because the same anecdotal association appeared in our
Amish reports. We came across only a handful of Amish with autism, and in
several cases they were in the minority of children who had received
immunizations.
One doctor said he was treating six autistic Amish children who had not been
vaccinated. He said four of them had very high levels of mercury in their
bodies, which he attributed to environmental pollution. He believes that caused
their autism, although most medical experts say there is no evidence of a link
between mercury and autism, however the exposure might have occurred.
(The other homeschooling parent quoted above lived in both California and New
York state, moving frequently, making it impossible by her own account to plot
any correlation to geography.)
It cannot be overemphasized that intriguing information is not scientific data.
But it makes this column all the more eager to hear from readers with anything
to add to this topic -- consider this an all-points bulletin. And it makes us
hopeful that the government will indeed muster its resources to find out once
and for all: Do unvaccinated groups have fewer autistic children? Is there any
sign that environmental mercury is associated with the cases that are
identified?
When you ask questions to which you do not know the answer, you never know what
you will find.
The Age of Autism welcomes reader input. E-mail:
dolmsted@upi.com
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