Items 1 through 8 have been deleted, since they are primarily for families
living in Virginia and Maryland, and I did not want to send useless
information to the folks in the rest of the country. However, please let me
know if you live in Virginia, Maryland or DC; so that I can add you to my
private email distribution list for events in those states.


9. "'This was not about autism'" dated 24 May 2006 by Phil Luciano from The
Journal Star at
<http://www.pjstar.com/stories/052406/PHI_B9TC9LDB.033.shtml>
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/052406/PHI_B9TC9LDB.033.shtml.

"Don't blame autism for the death of Katherine McCarron, says her paternal
grandfather. "I am positively revolted when I read quotes that would imply
any degree of understanding or hint at condoning the taking of my
granddaughter's life," says Michael McCarron, 62, of Indianapolis. " ... I'm
dealing with a very straight-forward murder case. "This was not about
autism. This was not about a lack of support." On May 13, the 3-year-old
Morton girl was suffocated with a plastic bag, allegedly at the hands of her
mother, Dr. Karen McCarron, 37. The mother has been under suicide watch at
the Tazewell County Jail, where she is being held under $2 million bond and
faces two counts of first-degree murder. Michael McCarron called me this
week after having read numerous stories about the case, some of which he
says point the finger of guilt in the wrong direction. For instance, though
polite, he ridiculed the notion of his daughter-in-law's friends who have
portrayed her as distraught over a lack of autism treatment in the Peoria
area. "Katie wasn't in central Illinois (until May)," he calmly says. "
.... So what programs central Illinois has or doesn't have ... has not one
ounce of applicability to (the death of ) Katherine McCarron." After
Katherine was diagnosed with autism almost two years ago, parents Karen and
Paul McCarron searched for the best treatment possible. They found two
autism-centric schools in Raleigh, N.C. Karen McCarron could not easily
leave her pathologist's job in Peoria. So she remained in the couple's home
in Morton and took care of their daughter Emily, now 2. Helping with child
care was Karen McCarron's mother, Erna Frank of Morton. Paul McCarron, an
engineer with Caterpillar Inc., transferred to a company outpost in North
Carolina. He rented an apartment outside Raleigh, where he resided with
Katherine and her paternal grandmother, Gail McCarron of Indianapolis -
Michael McCarron's wife of 38 years. To move to Raleigh, Gail McCarron had
to quit her longtime job as a legal secretary in Indianapolis, her husband
says. "It was a sacrifice," he admits. " ... (But) this was not a chore."
He says the elder McCarrons were glad to help Katherine during her 20 months
in North Carolina. "This was our first granddaughter," says Michael
McCarron, who'd already had grandsons. "Autism or not, you don't get any
more special than that." ..."

10. "Details emerge in child slaying" dated 25 May 2006 by KAREN McDONALD
from The Journal Star at
<http://www.pjstar.com/stories/052506/TRI_B9TND8F6.006.shtml>
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/052506/TRI_B9TND8F6.006.shtml.

"Karen McCarron was playing with her 3-year-old daughter when thoughts about
killing the girl entered her mind. Alone at her mother's home on May 13,
McCarron suffocated Katherine McCarron with a plastic bag. She told police
the murder took about two minutes. "She talked about how quick it was. She
listened for a heartbeat and did not hear one," Morton police Detective Ray
Ham testified Wednesday during McCarron's bond reduction hearing. McCarron
had told her mother, Erna Frank, who was visiting, that she was taking
Katherine on a car ride to calm her down for a nap. Instead, she killed her
autistic daughter at Frank's home, then drove a couple blocks back to her
own home, 390 Idlewood, Morton, Ham said. There, McCarron carried her
child's body inside past Frank as if she were sleeping and put her in bed.
She took a shower and went to the grocery store to buy ice cream. McCarron
then drove back to her mother's house, grabbed the bag she used to suffocate
Katherine and threw it in the garbage at a gas station, Ham testified. Back
at home about 4 p.m., McCarron told family members Katherine wasn't
breathing when she went to wake her from her nap. McCarron rode with her
daughter in an ambulance to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria,
where the girl was pronounced dead. During a May 18 recorded phone
conversation from jail, Karen McCarron told her mother she was overwhelmed
with Katherine's autism. For that, her mother responded, "You could have
trusted me, you could have talked to me. There were other ways to deal with
this," Ham testified. ..."

11. "US scientists back autism link to MMR" dated 28 May 2006 by Beezy
Marsh and Sally Beck from The Telegraph (UK) at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/28/wmmr28.xml
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/28/wmmr28.xml>
.

"The measles virus has been found in the guts of children with a form of
autism, renewing fears over the safety of the MMR jab. American researchers
have revealed that 85 per cent of samples taken from autistic children with
bowel disorders contain the virus. The strain is the same as the one used in
the measles, mumps and rubella triple vaccine. The findings will spark
fresh concern about MMR, because they back theories of a causal link between
the jab, autism and painful gut disorders suffered by a number of autistic
children. The study replicates findings made by the gastroenterologist Dr
Andrew Wakefield in 1998 and
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=D3OM0GM2L11ULQFIQMFSF
F4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2002/06/16/nmmr16.xml> Prof John O'Leary, a
pathologist, in 2002. Parents say their children were developing normally
until they had the MMR jab, given when a child is between 12- and
18-months-old. The children now suffer from regressive autism. One theory
is that the virus passes through the gut, causing damage, and into the
bloodstream, from where it is able to attack the brain. More than 2,000
families claim that their children have suffered damage but the Department
of Health reiterated last night that MMR is safe, a stance supported by the
British Medical Association and all the Royal Colleges. Last year Government
scientists failed to reproduce research results by Dr Wakefield. Research
to be presented this week in Montreal, Canada, provides fresh evidence that
the measles virus is present in the guts of autistic children. Dr Stephen
Walker, of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, North Carolina,
studied children with regressive autism and bowel disease. "Of the handful
of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain," he said."

12. "Donations tie drug firms and nonprofits- Many patient groups reveal
few, if any, details on relationships with pharmaceutical donors" dated 28
May 2006 by Thomas Ginsberg from the Philadephia Inquirer at
<http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/14687073.htm>
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/health/14687073.htm.

"The American Diabetes Association, a leading patient health group,
privately enlisted an Eli Lilly & Co. executive to chart its growth strategy
and write its slogan. The National Alliance on Mental Illness, an outspoken
patient advocate, lobbies for treatment programs that also benefit its
drug-company donors. The National Gaucher Foundation, a supporter of people
suffering from a horrific rare disease, gets nearly all its revenue from one
drugmaker, Genzyme Corp. Although patients seldom know it, many patient
groups and drug companies maintain close, multimillion-dollar relationships
while disclosing limited or no details about the ties. At a time when
people are making more of their own health-care decisions, such coziness
raises questions about the impartiality of groups that patients trust for
unbiased information. It also poses a challenge for groups trying to hold
patients' trust and still raise money to serve them. An Inquirer
examination of six groups, each a leading advocate for patients in a disease
area, found that the groups rarely disclose such ties when commenting or
lobbying about donors' drugs. They also tend to be slower to publicize
treatment problems than breakthroughs. And few openly questioned drug
prices. At the same time, the groups perform an important function by
providing services unavailable elsewhere, such as patient education and help
in obtaining medications or affording insurance. They also try to police
themselves. For example, each declares it does not endorse or reject
products. All formally require that industry grants be "unrestricted,"
meaning that there are no strings attached. One of them, Children & Adults
with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or CHADD, formally caps
pharmaceutical donations. ..."

13. "Testing Policy Under Scrutiny- Requirements Upset Some Disabled
Students" dated 29 May 2006 by ROBERT A. FRAHM from the Hartford Courant at
http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-testanxiety.artmay29,0,2582811.stor
y?coll=hc-headlines-education
<http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-testanxiety.artmay29,0,2582811.sto
ry?coll=hc-headlines-education> .

"When her eighth-grade son, who has epilepsy, attempted to take the
Connecticut Mastery Test this year at his Bristol middle school, he couldn't
read it, Darlene Wojtusik said - and the stress overwhelmed him. "Every
time he walked in to take the test, he would have a seizure," she said.
"Finally, I said no more testing until I can get an answer from somebody."
She said her son cannot read or write at his grade level. How," she asked,
"can you give him an eighth-grade test?" That is exactly the kind of
question top-level state education officials are asking about the impact of
the pressure-packed annual test on at least a handful of disabled children
with serious academic problems. Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act,
those children are required to take the six to seven hours of mastery tests
at their actual grade level - tests that parents and educators believe are
beyond their ability to comprehend. As in the Bristol case, the results can
be distressing. ..."

14. "Family, friends mourn 5-year-old- Autistic child drowns in Noblesville
retention pond" dated 30 May 2006 by Katie Robbins from The Noblesville
Ledger at
<http://www.thenoblesvilleledger.com/articles/5/071735-1345-111.html>
http://www.thenoblesvilleledger.com/articles/5/071735-1345-111.html.

"The principal and staff at White River Elementary are mourning the loss of
a 5-year-old boy who died Friday morning after wandering from his home and
into a nearby retention pond where he drowned. Korey Penwell, 5, was found
at 7:27 a.m. in the pond in the Morse Pointe subdivision. He was floating
face down, said Noblesville Police Capt. Brad Arnold. He said Korey, who
lived at 19305 Pathway Pointe, had autism and was known to have a
fascination with water. "White River (Elementary) will help the family in
any way it can," said Sharon Trisler, spokeswoman for Noblesville Schools.
"It just breaks everyone's heart around here," said Marilyn Hensley, the
school's music teacher. Korey didn't attend her music class, but Hensley
said it's sad to hear about any student tragedy. "My heart goes out to the
family," she said. "It's a sad situation." It's unknown how long Korey had
been in the water, but Arnold said the boy had to walk across the street and
through some houses to reach the pond. ..."

15. "6-Year-Old Fla. Girl Charged With Felony For Kicking Teacher's Aide"
dated 31 May 2006 from WKMG6 News at
<http://www.local6.com/news/9296454/detail.html?taf=orlpn>
http://www.local6.com/news/9296454/detail.html?taf=orlpn.

"A 6-year-old special education student who kicked a Naples teacher's aide
and spent several hous in juvenile jail is facing felony battery charges.
Her mother, however, wants to know why the case has gone so far. Takovia
Allen suffers from behavioral problems and attends a special class at Lely
Elementary in Naples. According to an arrest report, on May 2, a teacher
was trying to line up students to go to music class. Takovia refused to go
and kicked the teacher's aide in the ankle. After a discussion among school
officials and two law enforcement officials called to the school, the girl
was arrested. Takovia was taken to juvenile jail and held there for several
hours before being released to her mother. She is being charged with
battery on a public education employee. It's possible she will enter a
program that includes counseling. If she completes the program successfully
the charges could be dropped."

16. "6-year-Old Goes From Classroom To Jail- A mother asks: How did her
daughter, who suffers from behavior problems, end up charged with a felony?"
by Chris W. Colby from the Naplesnews.com at http://tinyurl.com/rr7wh
<http://tinyurl.com/rr7wh> .

"Takovia Allen is 6 years old. She's a special education student at her
elementary school. And for about four hours several weeks ago, she was a
juvenile jail inmate. Her mother wants to know why. Tamara Williams, 30,
said Tuesday she wants to understand how the problem went that far, so far
that Takovia is now charged with a felony. Her daughter suffers from
behavioral problems and attends a special class at Lely Elementary. On May
2, before the teacher began trying to line up the students to go to music
class, Takovia refused to go. According to the arrest report, the girl
demonstrated that refusal by kicking Debra Dolan, the teacher's aide, in the
right ankle and trying to trip her. "Dolan had to use a chair to maintain
her balance," according to the report, written by the arresting deputy, John
R. Barraco. "Dolan had an abrasion and redness on the top of her ankle."
After discussion among the school dean and principal, the deputy and a
detective, both of whom were called to the school to respond to the battery
call, and a Collier County Sheriff's Office supervisor contacted by phone,
3-foot, 9-inch, 50-pound Takovia was to be arrested and charged with battery
on a public education employee. That's a felony. Williams was called and
came down to the school, where she and the deputy led Takovia to the patrol
car to be taken to juvenile jail. The girl was held there for about four
hours, after which she was released to her mother's custody. The State
Attorney's Office won't comment on pending juvenile cases. So it's unclear
how prosecutors will handle the case. It's possible Takovia will enter a
diversion program, which would include counseling and ends with a dropped
charge if she completes the terms of the program. Collier County Public
School officials declined to comment on behalf of the district, the school
or Dolan, citing confidentiality regulations preventing officials from
releasing information about individual students. Williams is a School
District employee herself, working with students at Naples High School who
have behavioral problems in a program called ESE, for exceptional student
education. It's the same kind of program Takovia attends at Lely. Hers is a
class of six students ranging from kindergarten to second grade. "Being in
that classroom, the teachers are aware of the students and their behaviors.
The aides know too," Williams said. Takovia has attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder, in which children have difficulty paying attention
and focusing on tasks. And she has trouble with authority figures if
problems aren't handled a very specific way. What started the conflict that
led to the arrest involved another student and the teacher's aide's failure
to follow Takovia's "behavior plan," Williams said."

17. "Abuse, Deaths in D.C. Group Homes Detailed- Citing Scaldings and
Starvation, Filing Urges Court to Hold City in Contempt" dated 31 May 2006
by Petula Dvorak from The Washington Post at
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR200605300
1224.html?referrer=emailarticle>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053001
224.html?referrer=emailarticle.

"Newly filed court papers give vivid and startling details about the extent
of abuse -- from severe scaldings to fatal starvation -- that mentally and
physically disabled residents have endured in some of the District's group
homes. Emily, 60, who liked movies, shopping and piling mountains of
stuffed animals on her bed, weighed only 50 pounds when she died in 2004,
the Justice Department wrote in a court filing last week, warning that hers
was not an isolated case. Caregivers effused about Mike's love of eating
out, watching sports and going for walks. The same caregivers stood by as
his weight dropped precipitously, according to court papers, and he suffered
anemia, gangrene of the stomach and organ failure. He slipped into a coma,
then died last year at age 41. At his group home, Jake, 52, had periodic
problems with diarrhea for 10 months before his death last year, and none of
his caregivers increased his fluids or changed his diet, the Justice
Department said. Matthew died at age 43. He loved eating out, going on
trips and watching sports. Like the others, he was chronically underweight
and, like the others, was not given proper attention, the Justice Department
said. He died a month and a half after his housemate, Emily, dropped to her
fatal 50 pounds. Each of these people was a mentally disabled ward of the
District who died in the past two years after inexcusable lapses in care,
the Justice Department said, urging a judge to hold the District in contempt
of court for not meeting repeated promises of reform. Other mentally and
physically disabled residents of group homes were beaten, berated, sexually
accosted, neglected or targeted for theft, Justice lawyers said. ..."

18. "Siblings Coping With Autism- Workshops Help Kids Share the Pain of
Dealing With Disabilities" dated 31 May 2006 by John Donvan from ABC News at
<http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2025829>
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2025829.

"One aspect of autism that rarely gets talked about is the brothers and
sisters of autistic children whose lives are also profoundly affected by the
disorder. "There is no one I know who is more vulnerable to me than my
brother," said writer Judy Karasik. She's lived with autism since her
childhood, as her 57-year-old brother has the disorder. They've written an
illustrated book, "The Ride Together: A Brother and Sister's Memoir of
Autism in the Family," about their childhood, and the story is not always
sweet. "He had bigger needs than the rest of us," said Karasik. "And you
can say it made me a better person, but you don't always want to be a better
person, and that's the truth." It's also the truth that your childhood is
turned on end when your sibling is autistic, as parents become absorbed in
the life of that child whose needs can put severe limits on family
activities. "In my work, I find myself in this frequently ludicrous
position of having to remind people who claim to be really interested in
families, having to remind them that brothers and sisters are part of the
family," said Don Meyer, who is based in Seattle but runs sibling workshops
all over the country. His "Sib Shops" give the brothers and sisters of the
autistic the chance to share their experiences and learn they are not alone.
At one such workshop in Wisconsin, kids spoke of the embarrassment they
occasionally experience in public when other people notice their autistic
siblings. They also live with the fear that their brother or sister will
get hurt, or end up lost if they fail to keep watch, which is a lot for a
child to bear."

19. "State finds special-ed placements race-based" dated 31 May 2006 by
Richard Quinn from the Asbury Park Press at
<http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060531/NEWS/605310397&Searc
hID=73246430406409>
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060531/NEWS/605310397&Search
ID=73246430406409.

".H. is a girl with significant cognitive and development issues. B.W. is a
boy suffering slowed development with speech and language skills and
cognitive issues. The two youngsters face strikingly similar struggles as
they enter the educational system, yet special-education officials in
Lakewood proposed a half-day, in-district placement for the girl and a
full-day, out-of-district placement for the boy. The reason for the
disparate approaches, according to a state Department of Education
investigation, appears to be race: The girl is black; the boy is white.
"The Lakewood School District is not making placement and program decisions
based upon the individual needs of students with disabilities," according to
a report from the state Department of Education. "Rather, program and
placement decisions can be directly correlated with a student's race." The
simple line, buried near the end of a 31-page report sent to the district
last week, asserts segregation in Lakewood's special-education placement
policies for preschoolers. The state's investigation focused on how the
district placed children ages 3 to 5 in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 school
years. Other state reports have determined that over the past few years,
while only about 30 percent of Lakewood's special education students are
white, about 80 percent of those in out-of-district placements are white.
And now the state has demanded the district submit a plan within two months
to reform its policies. The state has also mandated close monitoring of the
district's placement policies in the coming school year and required the
district to review the past two school years to determine if any black or
Hispanic students are due "compensatory services." ..."

20. "TRACKING WANDERERS" dated 1 June 2006 by Vicki-Ann Downing from The
Easton Enterprise at
<http://www.enterprisenews.com/articles/2006/05/31/news/news/news08.txt>
http://www.enterprisenews.com/articles/2006/05/31/news/news/news08.txt.

"Jacob Mooney, almost 4, wasn't interested in the bracelet on his wrist that
sported a Thomas the Tank Engine sticker. He only wanted to wriggle free to
climb in his wading pool. But the bracelet means the world to his mother,
Susan, who is home fulltime with Jacob and 5-year-old Hannah, and to his
father, Jon, who reports for duty today with the Army Reserves at Fort
Devens. On Tuesday morning, Jacob Mooney became the first person in Bristol
County to be fitted with a Project Lifesaver bracelet, a battery-powered
device that will allow police to locate him if he wanders from home. Jacob
has autism. Keeping him safe is a full-time job. "I have two kids and I
always try to keep an eye on them. He bolts. He likes to run all over the
place," explained Susan Mooney, 34. More than anything, the bracelet "is
peace of mind," she said. The Bristol County Sheriff's office has nine
bracelets available to distribute to adults with Alzheimer's disease and
children with autism and Down syndrome - people who "have that tendency to
wander," said Sgt. Jeffrey Nicholas. Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson introduced
the Project Lifesaver program to Bristol County with $20,000 in his budget
for equipment, training and bracelets. TRIAD groups in Easton, Mansfield,
Rehoboth and Attleboro also raised money for the bracelets, which cost $300
each. TRIAD is a partnership of the sheriff's office, local police and
councils on aging. "We created the program out of our budget, based on a
model out of Norfolk County," said Hodgson. "I invested the $20,000 up front
for equipment for testing and startup bracelets. We donated the equipment to
those four communities." Nicholas, who directs Project Lifesaver in Bristol
County, said that if Jacob is ever missing, his mother will contact Easton
police, who will then alert the sheriff's office. ..."

21. "New Study Shows Autism-Related Developmental "Red Flags" Identifiable
At Age Two In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders- Findings Present
Window of Opportunity for Detection and Intervention Before Typical
Diagnosis at Age Three or Four" dated 1 June 2006 in a press release from
the Kennedy Krieger Research Institute at
<http://www.kennedykrieger.org/kki_news.jsp?pid=5261>
http://www.kennedykrieger.org/kki_news.jsp?pid=5261 or
<http://tinyurl.com/qbhyn> http://tinyurl.com/qbhyn.

"Early detection of autism is critical for early intervention, yet autism
spectrum disorders (ASD) are typically not diagnosed until after three years
of age. However, a study published today in the Journal of Child Psychology
and Psychiatry found differences between typically developing children and
those with ASD are detectable by two years of age. Because there are
currently no medical diagnostic tests for autism, identifying developmental
disruptions in infants and very young children with ASD may allow for
earlier detection and critical intervention. The study examined development
in 87 infants at 6, 14 and 24 months of age using a standardized development
test. Based on data and clinical judgment at 24 months, participants were
classified as: unaffected, language delayed (LD) or ASD. Researchers
compared development across groups at the three target ages and observed
statistically significant differences between the ASD group and the
unaffected group at 14 months. By 24 months, significant differences were
detectable between the ASD group and both the unaffected and LD groups.
"Introducing behavioral interventions even one year earlier can make a
tremendous difference in the lives of children with autism and their
families," said Dr. Rebecca Landa, Director of the Center for Autism and
Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, MD and lead
author of the study. "If we are able to educate professionals to identify
red flags in development we can then recognize and diagnose the disorder at
one-and-a-half or two years of age, instead of three or four, allowing for
earlier intervention and ultimately better outcomes." ..."

22. "Uses of Disenchantment: TV Anchor-Mom Fights Autism and Films It"
dated 5 June 2006 by Ron Rosenbaum from The New York Observer at
http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=12907
<http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=12907&ic=Ron+Rosenbaum>
&ic=Ron+Rosenbaum and http://tinyurl.com/oh5fh <http://tinyurl.com/oh5fh> .

"I want to talk about something barbaric and something beautiful and heroic.
Also about a buried Freudian scandal involving Bruno Bettelheim and
refrigerators. Let me explain. It was prompted by the ordeal my longtime
friends Lauren Thierry and Jim Watkins and their son Liam have been going
through. Lauren and Jim are two exemplary New Yorkers, people blessed with
talent, smarts, charm and kindness; Jim's a much-admired anchor for the
WB-11 News at Ten, Lauren was a rising star anchoring financial news on CNN
for five years. I say "was" because, five years ago, she abandoned her job
to care full time for Liam after he was diagnosed with autism. I used to
spend a lot of time on the phone with Lauren, gossiping about people in the
media. But after the diagnosis, most of my conversations with Lauren were
conducted from her car phone as she was driving Liam all over the tristate
area, telling me about her maddening search for a decent school and therapy
for her child. It's a reminder how fate can step in and suddenly, utterly
and terribly turn the enviable lives of people you know into a nightmare-and
a challenge. But in a way, I didn't fully understand until I saw the short
documentary film Lauren made about the lives of mothers of autistic kids.
The film, Autism Every Day, has caught on. On May 10, Don Imus played it in
its entirety on his MSNBC morning show; NBC chairman Robert Wright and his
wife, Suzanne-their daughter Katie has an autistic child-are said to be
taking a longer version of it to Sundance. And Suzanne Wright and Mr. Imus'
wife Deirdre hand-delivered DVD's of it to every member of Congress, because
there's now a bill pending, the Combating Autism Act-but more about that
later. First I want tell you about the film. It's less than 15 minutes
long, but it's a killer. It will break your heart; it will make you cry-I
guarantee it. It's skillfully done, in a low-key way that recognizes there's
no need to hype the emotionalism. The matter-of-fact-ness is enough, almost
too much. The dailiness is the point. (You can watch it yourself at www.
autismspeaks.org/sponsoredevents/ autism_every_day.php on the
autismspeaks.org Web site.) The film consists mainly of interviews with
mothers (and scenes of them with their autistic children), mothers whose
lives have been utterly transformed. The situation of these mothers is just
unrelieved, unrelenting. Many if not most autistic kids are not merely
withdrawn and silent, they are often constantly, violently-often
self-destructively-acting out. There's no break from the nonstop attention
and protection these children require. The mothers describe incidents in
which the kids have escaped their houses and heedlessly run out into
traffic. ..."

23. "Cracking the Autism Puzzle- Scientists home in on elusive autism genes
and the environmental factors that may trigger them. Can a blood test to
check for autism in newborns be far behind?" by Joshua Tompkins from June
2006 edition of Popular Science at
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/c8dedaef32d05010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrc
rd.html
<http://www.popsci.com/popsci/medicine/c8dedaef32d05010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdr
crd.html> or http://tinyurl.com/mwvl4 <http://tinyurl.com/mwvl4> .

"A pair of twins is born, and both infants begin to develop normally. By
their first birthday, however, the male sibling has begun to diverge from
his sister, showing less eye contact and affection. He often wears a
spaced-out expression and fixates on certain puzzles and patterns. By age
three, his mounting symptoms lead to a diagnosis that has become
disturbingly routine in recent years: autism. What causes the disease,
which now strikes 1 in every 166 children, and why does it affect four times
as many boys as girls? Geneticists at the University of California at Los
Angeles are closing in on the answers. This spring they announced that they
had pinned down the likely location of an autism gene on chromosome 17. The
evidence was found only in families with autistic males, indicating a
hereditary basis for the disease's gender bias. Reporting the discovery in
the American Journal of Human Genetics, the scientists will next try to find
the actual gene among the 50 or so clustered nearby, a painstaking process
that could take another year. "If we're lucky," says co-author Rita Cantor,
a professor of genetics at the university's David Geffen School of Medicine,
"we'll be able to explain 10 percent of autism." To complicate matters,
researchers believe that the gene is probably just one of dozens linked to
autism, many of which may trigger the disease only if a genetic
predisposition is activated by some external factor. ..."

24. "Nutrition: Eating our Way In and Out of Symptoms" by Colleen Huber
from Naturopathyworks.com at http://tinyurl.com/ntst9
<http://tinyurl.com/ntst9> .

"We truly live at a strange crossroads in human history. Over the last few
decades, the human species has been hypnotized by the temptations offered by
the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. The 1950s ushered in the "better
living through chemicals" age. And we believed, and we bought and swallowed
and injected and are still consuming them in massive amounts, and, most
recklessly, injecting such chemicals as ethyl mercury, ethylene glycol
(antifreeze), aluminum and formaldehyde into our babies as part of vaccines,
without any prior safety testing. But now with massive chronic disease
plaguing our most industrialized populations, autism closely following
children's shots, and more pathology coincident with concentrated chemicals,
we are beginning to wake up from our long post-World War II slumber. Now
begins the next era when synthetic chemicals are starting to be seen as,
however useful in many applications, best kept at a distance from our
bodies, homes, public spaces and wilderness. The old era of unthinking
reliance on a synthetic existence is showing severe disadvantages, just as
the urgency to forge new relationships with nature is becoming apparent.
Plants and other whole foods are coming into their own new era as
naturopathic physicians and other well-informed health practitioners rely on
them for their central role in healing. ..."

25. "Hard to Link Measles Vaccine, Autism Intestines of some autistic
children contain the virus" by M. Paul Jackson from Journalnow.com at
http://tinyurl.com/l9lj8 <http://tinyurl.com/l9lj8> .

"A researcher at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center said
yesterday that there is not enough evidence to support the idea that the
measles vaccine might cause autism, a concern that emerged about four years
ago. A 2002 study published in England suggested that the measles vaccine -
which uses strains of the measles virus - could cause autism in children.
Children are typically inoculated against measles, mumps and rubella between
12 months and 18 months old. The vaccines are given shortly before children
with regressive autism begin to show signs of the disability, leading to
fears about a possible link between the vaccine and the condition.
According to Stephen Walker, an assistant professor of physiology and
pharmacology at the medical center, such a link is tough to prove. Walker,
who studied children with regressive autism and bowel disease, presented
research this week showing that a high percentage of autistic children with
chronic bowel disease show evidence of the measles virus in their
intestines. He drew no conclusions about autism and the virus. The findings
were presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Montreal.
Even if physicians can prove a link between the virus and bowel disease,
"the conclusion will be simply that there is measles virus in the gut of a
large number of children who have regressive autism and bowel disease,"
Walker said. "We haven't done anything to demonstrate that the measles virus
is causing autism." Autism is a developmental disability that prevents
people from properly understanding what they see and hear and can inhibit
social interaction. Regressive autism is a condition in which an autistic
child develops typical communication skills, such as speech, then gradually
loses those skills - essentially "regressing" into an autistic patient.
Concerns about autism have been growing steadily. About 1.5 million
Americans are autistic, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Incidences of the disability have also grown, according to the Autism
Society of America, an advocacy group in Maryland. Walker said that
researchers still need to determine what is causing bowel disease in
autistic children. Relieving bowel discomfort has been shown to improve
other conditions associated with the disability, including cognitive
abilities, he said. "There's case after case where kids improved
cognitively, behaviorally and biomedically when you treat the bowel
disease," he said. "There is a great improvement from better nutrition
alone."

26. "Copy Number A Major Source Of Variation" by Ishani Ganguli from The
Scientist.com at http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23372/
<http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23372/> .

"Thanks to engrained lessons from cytogenetics, researchers largely regarded
variations in gene copy a rarity, synonymous with defects. Increasingly,
however, researchers have found that large-scale deletions and duplications
are the norm and represent a significant source of human variation.
Jonathan Sebat and colleagues based at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
published a highly cited paper on this topic in 2004,1 as did Charles Lee at
Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.2 Sebat and his team were running
two normal DNA controls for a cancer genome study, and "copy number
differences jumped out at us," he says. When they analyzed the
high-resolution genomic arrays of 20 people, they found 76 unique
copy-number polymorphisms (CNPs) of roughly 465 K, many affecting key
functional genes. On average, individuals differed by eleven CNPs. Lee is
now databasing such variants, which he says account for a staggering 100
million nucleotides of reference DNA. Several groups have been looking to
see how these heritable or spontaneous structural variations contribute to
variations in disease susceptibility. Sebat says his team will soon publish
on CNPs they have connected to autism. They provide a new tool, he says, to
understanding complex diseases and have altered how scientists view
evolution."

27. "New Environmental Tests Find Poisons In Children's Blood, Urine" by
Dennis Bueckert from the Canadian Press at http://tinyurl.com/pwrh9
<http://tinyurl.com/pwrh9> .

"Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has accepted a challenge from an
environmental group to have her blood and urine tested for toxic
contamination. Ambrose agreed to be tested at the request of Toronto-based
Environmental Defence, which has been raising alarms about contamination of
Canadian children. On Thursday, the group released results showing that the
bodies of seven children tested are contaminated by a cocktail of toxic
chemicals ranging from PCBs to flame retardants. "The minister cares about
that and that's why she's going to take up the challenge," Ryan Sparrow, a
spokesman for Ambrose, said in an interview. The study found an average of
23 known or suspected toxins - including carcinogens, hormone disrupters and
neurotoxins - in the bodies of the children tested. The researchers tested
13 individuals from five families, six adults and seven children. The
families live in Vancouver, Toronto, Sarnia, Montreal and Quispamsis, N.B.
"Our children are being poisoned every day by toxic chemicals that surround
them at home, school and play," said Rick Smith, executive director of
Environmental Defence. He said Ambrose will be tested using the same
methodology, and results should be available in the fall. Health Minister
Tony Clement and NDP Leader Jack Layton have also volunteered to be tested.
Smith said the study was intended to change the pollution issue from "a
theoretical, abstract debate to a highly personal discussion of health,"
said Smith. He said most environment ministers in Europe have been tested,
and this has contributed to a strong push to control toxic chemicals. The
adults in the Canadian study were contaminated by 32 chemicals, and had
higher concentrations of some products no longer in use, such as DDT and
PCBs. But the children had higher levels of newer chemicals such as
brominated flame retardants (PBDEs) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), used
in stain repellents and non-stick coatings. "It is common to expect adults
to be more contaminated by harmful chemicals than children because they have
had a longer time to accumulate chemicals in their bodies," says the report.
"The results of this study, however, show that this is not always the case."


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