Subject: Autism cluster - EMF concentration?? (guru)
Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 052310 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers"
To: emfguru
--------------------------------------------------
.......The thing that caught my eye in the following news story ...
is the belief that the rate of autism illness in our society is on
the increase..... So is the rate of EMF/EMR exposure..... And
some of the EMF bioeffects appear to be of a nature that the brain
and nervous system are being affected.....
Of course -- none of the investigators are looking at EMF/EMR
exposure......??
Cheerio......
Roy Beavers (EMFguru)
roy@emfguru.com
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
NEW!!! Website... http://emfguru.com
...................People are more important than profits.................
_________________________________________________________________
10:08 PM ET 04/18/00
Feds: Autism Cluster Found in N.J.
By LINDA A. JOHNSON=
Associated Press Writer=
BRICK, N.J. (AP) _ A federal investigation of a possible autism
cluster here found that worried parents who pushed for the study
were right: The neurodevelopmental disorder is far more common here
than once thought.
But the investigation stopped short of finding an autism
cluster, a higher-than-average rate of the disorder in an area.
Officials said there is not enough data on autism nationwide to say
that a cluser exists.
The investigation did find that the water was not contaminated.
Still, a father who led the fight for the study said he's not
convinced that there's no environmental cause for the high number
of autism cases in Brick or the apparent increase in the disorder
around the country.
``I'm slightly disappointed that (the federal experts) aren't
staying in town long enough to answer the questions in the
community this is going to provoke,'' said Billy Gallagher, a
commercial fisherman with two autistic children, Alanna, 9, and
Austin, 7.
After the most intensive federal study of autism prevalence ever
conducted, researchers said Tuesday that they found a rate of 4 in
1,000 children with autism in Brick and 2.7 in 1,000 with
autism-like disorders.
The rate is several times higher than past estimates, although
the true rate of autism is controversial because there has never
been a nationwide study.
Until the early 1990s, autism was thought to afflict 1 in 2,000
children. Preliminary data from a just-completed federal study of
children in the Atlanta area show a rate of 2-3 in 1,000 with
autism.
``The major question for me is whether it's just more prevalent
(than previously thought) or it's on the rise,'' as some parents
and doctors suspect, said Dr. Eric London, vice president of
medical affairs at the National Alliance for Autism Research in
Princeton and a consultant for the investigation.
A poorly understood disorder, autism is thought to occur early
in pregnancy. In moderate to severe cases, autism makes it
difficult to communicate or relate to the outside world, and drives
some to obsessively repeat certain motions, even hurt themselves or
others.
Data from California, South Florida and other areas have shown a
sharp increase in recent years in children receiving special
educational services for autism, and parents in New York's Staten
Island and other communities have complained of possible autism
clusters, though no autism cluster has ever been documented.
In 1997, a group of worried Brick parents conducted a survey
that found a high enough level of autism in this coastal town of
71,000 that state health officials and politicians won federal
funding for a comprehensive investigation.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry began investigating in
January 1999.
The CDC found 60 children ages 3 to 10 who had autism or
autism-related disorders, said Jacquelyn Bertrand, a developmental
psychologist at the CDC.
``I think this (study) is going to bring more and more attention
to autism and the fact that it's not a rare disorder, that we need
more attention to diagnosis,'' so affected children can get
treatment earlier and reach a higher level of function, said Dr.
Audrey Mars, an assistant pediatrics professor at the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey who examined many of the
children.
___=
On the Net: CDC report:
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/programs/cddh/dd/brick.htm
National Alliance for Autism Research: http://www.naar.org
_________________________________________________________________
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com