April is Autism Awareness Month (1 Viewer)

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CNN coverage on autism

Today CNN will have special coverage on autism throughout the day. There are also some great stories and videos at their website.

Autism: News & Videos about Autism - CNN.com

 

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Today's article - autism and adults

Autistic and Overlooked

By Linda H. Davis
Wednesday, April 2, 2008

As people around the globe acknowledge World Autism Awareness Day today -- proclaimed by the U.N. General Assembly last December -- it is important to consider an aspect of this devastating disorder that has been curiously and persistently neglected: the lifelong care of autistic adults.

While greater media attention on autism is certainly welcome, virtually all coverage of autism in recent years has focused on a cure or on the education of young autistic children. You would think that, like children in a fairy tale, autistic children never grow up. Yet parents are getting old, tired and ill caring for their adult children. And they are doing it while state and federal budgets, already lean, are getting perilously thinner. How is society going to pay for the permanent care of millions of our citizens? What kind of lives are we going to give them? How are we going to support their families, many of whom care for their children into adulthood as they themselves wear down?

The explosion in autism is striking: A disorder on the autism spectrum is diagnosed in roughly one in every 150 American children. Assuming that that rate holds, by 2016, less than a decade from now, the number of American adults (those 22 and over) with autism is expected to be nearly 1.5 million. The costs to society and to American families will be staggering.

continued: Linda H. Davis - Autistic and Overlooked - washingtonpost.com

 

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Today's article - teenaged autistic poet

Autistic poet gives rare glimpse into mystery illness

By Colleen McEdwards
CNN

Tito Mukhopadhyay shuffles to the front door of his home in Austin, Texas. He's coming home from school, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

His mother, 45-year-old Soma Mukhopadhyay, is considered a pioneer in a breakthrough treatment for some autistic children who face the stigma of being considered "mentally mentally challenged."

That was a label Soma never accepted for 19-year-old Tito. And after hearing Tito's story, you'll never look at an autistic child the same way.

"How was your day?" Soma asks.

Before Tito can answer, he obsessively moves around the house, placing the TV remote in its proper place, arranging the salt and pepper shakers just so. Then he sits down in front of his specially designed keyboard to type his response.

"It was like a floating kangaroo that kept itself invisible," Tito answers.

Tito's cryptic reply is part of his medical condition. But his distinctive way of speaking is also a gift that has made him famous in a misunderstood community.

continued, with video link: Autistic poet gives rare glimpse into mystery illness - CNN.com

 

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To give this thread some life, here's some ammunition for the vaccine debate...

Here's a new unneccessary vaccine, IMO...if so many kids get rotovirus anyway, and do okay, why do we need yet another vaccine? This would be one that I would opt out of, if I had an infant.

I've added a few of my comments throughout the article...

Glaxo wins FDA clearance for rotavirus vaccine By Lisa Richwine
Thu Apr 3, 8:26 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A second oral vaccine to prevent a leading cause of severe diarrhea in infants won approval from U.S. health officials on Thursday.

The GlaxoSmithKline Plc vaccine Rotarix fights infection with the rotavirus, which causes about 55,000 hospitalizations in U.S. children each year and kills more than 600,000 children worldwide, mostly in developing countries. [so why do we need to require a vaccine for it here in the U.S.?]
Rotarix already is approved in more than 100 other countries throughout the world. The vaccine competes with Merck & Co Inc's rotavirus vaccine called RotaTeq.

Without vaccination, nearly every child in the United States likely would be infected at least once with rotavirus by age five, the Food and Drug Administration said. [sounds like a normal childhood virus to me...]

In studies of more than 24,000 infants, Rotarix prevented severe and mild cases of rotavirus-caused diarrhea and vomiting during the first two years of life.

"This vaccine provides another option to combat and reduce a potentially severe illness that affects so many children," Dr. Jesse Goodman, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement announcing the Rotarix approval.

The most common reactions reported during clinical trials were fussiness, irritability, cough, runny nose, fever, loss of appetite and vomiting, the FDA said.

An earlier oral rotavirus vaccine sold by Wyeth was pulled from the market in 1999 after it was linked to a rare, life-threatening type of bowel obstruction known as intussusception.

In a Glaxo study of more than 63,000 infants, there was no increase in the problem compared with a placebo.

Higher rates of convulsion and pneumonia-related deaths were seen in Rotarix patients in that study but not in other Glaxo trials. [so they'd rather face this risk than the risk of a very small percentage of kids having severe rotovirus in this country? Seems like the vaccine is worse than the actual virus in many ways]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080404/hl_nm/glaxo_vaccine_dc_1section=money_latest

Again, I'm all for vaccines, but IMO we're not looking at the big picture...this vaccine in and of itself is a good thing, but when you're adding it to the ever-growing plate of "recommended" vaccines, most of which are live versions of the actual disease, you have to wonder if we're exposing our kids to too many diseases at once, all in the name of building an immunity to said diseases. I agree with this principle, but at what point are their bodies not going to be able to build immunities to the multiple, given-all-at-once "small doses" of these diseases and instead give in to them, or to other problems? I think we're asking their little bodies to carry too much, too soon...and that is why I'm selective on what vaccines I allow my kids to get. Again, JMO...I think we need to take a closer look at whether or not the benefits of each vaccine outweigh the risks for our own kids. For some, the risks do outweigh the benefits, but for others, not so much.