Buy vitamins with In addition to the current epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, say another epidemic—an epidemic of autism—was upon our children? What if the autism epidemic began at the same time the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency began? What if both epidemics had worsened in unison? What if one theory explained all the unexplained facts about autism? What if both epidemics had the same root cause: sun avoidance? What if both were iatrogenic, that is, medical advice to avoid the sun had caused both epidemics? Be warned, what follows is not light reading—autism is not a light disease.

Does The Vitamin D Theory Best Autism?

The theory that vitamin D deficiency, during pregnancy or childhood, causes autism is just a theory. However, the theory has a plausible mechanism of action, explains all the unexplained facts about autism, subsumes several other theories, implies simple prevention, and is easily disprovable—all components of a useful theory. A genetic lesion (abnormality) in some component of the vitamin D system—a lesion vitamin D’s unique pharmacology could overcome—would explain why monozygotic (identical) twins are highly affected while fraternal twins are not. Varying brain levels of activated vitamin D during later life would explain why some identical twins get severe disease while others are barely affected. Falling vitamin D levels over the last 20 years due to sun-avoidance explain autism’s rapid increase in incidence during that same time. The very different effects estrogen and testosterone have on vitamin D metabolism may explain why boys are much more likely to get it than girls are. Lower vitamin D levels in blacks may explain their higher rates of autism. The vitamin D theory has tenable explanations for all the epidemiological features of autism.

What’s The Risk of Going in The Sun?

The window of opportunity to affect brain development is limited. Time is of the essence if the vitamin D theory of autism is correct. Ask yourself, what is the risk of taking your autistic child outside to play in the sun? What’s the risk of pregnant women sunbathing for a few minutes every day? Children always played in the sun before the epidemic of autism; your pregnant grandmother spent time in the sun as well. Physicians considered that sunshine was healthy before the sun-scare, that is, before autism became an epidemic. buy vitamin with fast cash

Misinformation about autism is very common. Claims of a cure for autism are constantly presented to families of autistic individuals. There are various treatment models found within both the educational and clinical settings. Yet, there is only one treatment approach that has prevailed over time and is effective for all persons, autistic or not. That treatment model is an educational program that is suitable to a student’s developmental level of performance. For adults, that treatment model refers to a vocational program that is suitable to the individual’s developmental level of functioning.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) Act of 1990, students with a handicap are guaranteed an “appropriate education” in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), which is generally considered to be as normal an educational setting as possible. As a result of this legislation, autistic children have generally been placed in a mainstreamed classroom and pulled out for whatever supplementary services were needed. Depending on the child’s needs, he or she could be placed up to 100% of the school day in a mainstreamed or a special education setting or any combination of the two.

There is an increasing trend, however, among the advocates for autistic children, to segregate these children into small, highly structured and controlled academic settings that are almost free from auditory and visual stimulation. All instruction is broken down into manageable segments. Information is presented in tiny units and the child’s response is immediately sought. A classic stimulus-response approach is used to maximize learning. Each unit of information is mastered before another is presented. A fundamental behavior such as putting hands on the tabletop, for example, must be mastered before the child is required to perform any other tasks, or before more information is presented. The long-term effects of this type of treatment as well as the ability of the child to transfer this to a broader context continue to be evaluated.

Autistic individuals must be taught how to communicate and interact with others. This is not a simple task, and it involves the entire family as well as other professionals. Parents of an autistic child or adult must continually educate themselves about new treatments and keep an open mind. Some treatments may be appropriate for some individuals but not for others. Many treatments have yet to be scientifically proven. Treatment decisions should always be made individually after a thorough assessment and based on what is suitable for that child and his or her family.

It is important to remember, despite some recent denials, that autism is virtually a lifelong condition. Treatment will change as the individual develops. Families must beware of treatment programs that give false hope of a cure. Acceptance of the condition in a family member is a very critical, foundational component of any treatment program and is understandably quite difficult.

Several medications have been tried or are under current scrutiny for the treatment of autism. No medication has consistently proven to be of benefit in closely controlled clinical trials. In the past, a piece on a television news show prompted a great deal of interest in the hormone secretin as a treatment for autism. An autistic child with chronic gastrointestinal complaints showed dramatic improvement following some routine testing performed by a gastroenterologist during which a small dose of secretin was administered. The family and their physicians felt that the secretin may have resulted in the improvement in the symptoms of autism. Many physicians began prescribing secretin, which can be costly for their autistic patients. However, studies published appear to completely refute the claim that secretin treatment benefits autistic patients. This example underscores the importance of good clinical trials in determining whether a drug will help patients with autism.

Autism At A Glance

• Autism is characterized by impaired development in social interaction, communication, and behavior.
• The degree of autism varies from mild to severe.
• Severely afflicted patients can appear to have a profound intellectual disability.
• The cause of autism is unknown.
• The optimal treatment of autism involves an educational or vocational program that is suited to the developmental level of the child or adult, respectively.

Hours after a baby is born, her parents are told it’s best that she receive her first shot before she leaves the hospital. And that’s just the beginning. By the child’s sixth birthday, she’ll have had at least 35 vaccinations—if she goes by government recommendations. Meanwhile, during those six years, her parents are likely to see hundreds of media reports and online message-board debates about which vaccines are necessary or even safe. It’s confusing, to say the least.

To sort through the onslaught of information and misinformation about childhood immunizations, we asked Austin, Texas-based pediatrician Ari Brown, coauthor of “Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for your Baby’s First Year,” to debunk some of the most common vaccination myths.

Myth 1: It’s not necessary to vaccinate kids against diseases that have been largely eradicated in the United States.
Reality: Although some diseases like polio and diphtheria aren’t often seen in America (in large part because of the success of the vaccination efforts), they can be quite common in other parts of the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that travelers can unknowingly bring these diseases into the United States, and if we were not protected by vaccinations, these diseases could quickly spread throughout the population. At the same time, the relatively few cases currently in the U.S. could very quickly become tens or hundreds of thousands of cases without the protection we get from vaccines. Brown warns that these diseases haven’t disappeared, “they are merely smoldering under the surface.”

Most parents do follow government recommendations: U.S. national immunization rates are high, ranging from 85 percent to 93 percent, depending on the vaccine, according to the CDC. But according to a 2006 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the 20 states that allow personal-belief opt outs in addition to religious exemptions saw exemptions grow by 61 percent, to 2.54 percent between 1991 and 2004.

Brown is concerned that parents who opt out or stagger the vaccine schedule can end up having to deal with confusing follow-up care, which could produce an increase in disease outbreaks like last summer’s measles epidemic. A 2008 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology reported that when there are more exemptions, children are at an increased risk of contracting and transmitting vaccine-preventable diseases.

Myth 2: Mercury is still in kids’ vaccines.
Reality: At the center of this issue is a preservative called thimerosal compound containing mercury) that once was a common component in many vaccines because it allowed manufacturers to make drugs more cheaply and in multidose formulations. But public concern, new innovations and FDA recommendations led to its removal from almost all children’s vaccines manufactured after 2001. Since flu vaccines are not just for children, manufacturers still put thimerosal in some flu-shot formulations. You can ask your pediatrician for the thimerosal-free version, says Brown.

If your child does not have asthma and is at least 2 years old, Brown recommends the FluMist nasal-spray vaccination over the flu shot. “It seems to have better immune protection and it could help your child avoid another shot,” she says. (Caveat: the spray does contain a live version of the virus, which can result in a slight increase in flulike symptoms).

Myth 3: Childhood vaccines cause autism.
Reality: There is no scientific evidence that this link exists. Groups of experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Institute of Medicine (IOM), agree that vaccines are not responsible for the growing number of children now recognized to have autism.

Earlier this month, the law supported scientists’ conclusions in this arena with three rulings from a section of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which stated that vaccines were not the likely cause of autism in three unrelated children. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in an online statement following the ruling, “The medical and scientific communities have carefully and thoroughly reviewed the evidence concerning the vaccine-autism theory and have found no association between vaccines and autism.” Noting the volume of scientific evidence disproving this link, an executive member of one of the nation’s foremost autism advocacy groups, Autism Speaks, recently stepped down from her position because she disagrees with the group’s continued position that there is a connection between the vaccines and autism.

Myth 4: Getting too many vaccines can overwhelm the immune system and cause adverse reactions or even serious illness.
Reality: Children’s immune systems are capable of combating far more antigens (weak or killed viruses) than they encounter via immunizations. In fact, the jury is still out on if there’s an actual limit on how many the body can handle—though one study puts the number around a theoretical 10,000 vaccines in one day.(Visit the American Academy of Pediatrics’ site or the Network for Immunization Information for more information)

Currently, “There is even less of a burden on the immune system [via vaccines] today than 40 years ago,” says Edgar Marcuse, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington who works on immunization policy and vaccines. He points to the whooping-cough vaccine as an example where there are far fewer antigens in the shot than the earlier version administered decades ago. Brown says she supports following the recommended schedule for vaccinations, which outlines getting as many as five shots in one day at a couple check-ups.

The CDC reports that most vaccine adverse events are minor and temporary, such as a sore arm or mild fever and “so few deaths can plausibly be attributed to vaccines that it is hard to assess the risk statistically.” Of all deaths reported to the Health and Human Services’ Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting site between 1990 and 1992, only one is believed to be even possibly associated with a vaccine. The Vaccine Safety Datalink Project, an initiative of the CDC and eight health-care organizations, looks for patterns in these reports and determines if a vaccine is causing a side effect or if symptoms are largely coincidental.

If you have concerns about following the recommended vaccination, schedules don’t wait until a check-up. Set up a consultation appointment with your pediatrician, or even outline a strategy for care with your doctor during your pregnancy.

Myth 5: It’s better to let my kid get chickenpox “naturally.”
Reality: Before the chickenpox vaccine was licensed in 1995, parents sometimes brought their child to a party or playground hoping that their child might brush up against a pox-laden kid to get their dose of chickenpox over since cases were usually less severe for children than adults. But pediatricians say severe complications are possible with chickenpox—including bacterial infections that could result in a child’s hospitalization or death.

Now that there’s a vaccine for chickenpox, more than 45 states require the shots (unless your child already had the chicken pox or can prove natural immunity). Two shots usually guarantees your child a way out of being bedecked in calamine lotion for two feverish weeks, but some individuals do still come down with a milder form of the pox. Most pediatricians recommend getting the shot.

Myth 6: The flu shot causes the flu.
Reality: The flu shot does not contain a live virus, so your child can’t get the flu from this shot. But, after the shot, it’s not uncommon to feel a bit achy while the immune system mounts its response. Remember that for two weeks following the shot, your child can still get the flu, so be sure to help your child avoid that feverish kid next door.