Autism Speaks About Environmental Factors that May Increase the Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders

We are all listening...one heart beats within us all.

I have a spot in my heart for families dealing with any of the disorders in the Autism  Spectrum.  My daughter, Reece, was in school (until a couple of years ago) with a very special boy.  This very special boy (young man now) is the son of a friend of mine and the twin of one of Reece's girl friends. I watched my daughter all year in Kindergarten sit beside him and fall in love with his heart and his passion for portraying his message to all of us.  My friend told me the story one day of how one vibrant little "baby" boy left and was replaced with a very different son in a matter of days.  One day my friend's son was smiling and waving into the video camera and a few days later (after the MMR vaccine) he was almost totally unresponsive and changed into someone new.

You know my father is in a wheelchair from a Hepatitis-B vaccination (validated and compensated by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Board) and I have a special place in my heart for all of those families living with the changed life that toxins in our lives can bring.

I think this is what I miss most about my dad being in a wheelchair...be it on his boots when I was a little girl or on the day he gave me away, I really miss dancing with my dad.

I am not a scientist, but from all of the study, posts on Autism, living and digging I have done, I do not believe it is just the vaccines that contribute to Autism and other illnesses which we find on the rise in the new Millennium.  Perhaps it is more of an onslaught of environmental factors including things like pesticides and other chemicals in our lives that possibly, when combined with pre-existing mitochondrial disorders, reach a tipping point (at various ages and stages) and create the disorders within the Autism, Autoimmune and Neurological spectrum's.

My dad in the red shirt with his MSU Spartan hat on is sitting in his wheelchair because taking a  Hepatits-B vaccination gave him CIDP.  Man that thing goes up and down has lights and can go like 35 miles per hour...seriously.  My little one likes to get rides all of the time.  Yea, it's fun.

Anyway...I try to stay on top of research on the causes of Autism and I wanted to pass on this PR release that came across my desk.  The Press release in from Autism Speaks and says, in part,
"The dramatic increase in autism prevalence over the last decade – increasing 600 percent in the last two decades – underscores the need for more research on environmental factors. "Our understanding of typical brain development combined with what we've learned from examining the brains of individuals with autism indicates that it is important to investigate the roles of the prenatal and early postnatal environment," explains Dr. Dawson. "To investigate environmental factors that may be active during this time, researchers are casting a wide net on potential environmental agents that can alter neurodevelopment, including exposure to infection, pesticides, and chemicals."

One of the ways that researchers are looking at interactions between the environment and genetic susceptibility is through epigenetics. Epigenetics refers to changes in the expression of genes caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying sequence of DNA. Through epigenetic mechanisms, environmental factors can change the way each bit of genetic code is read, amplifying the product of a certain piece of code while turning off another such that it is not read at all. The notion that environmental factors can have such dramatic effects on how DNA is read makes research on epigenetics an important priority."  Read More>>

P.S.- I am really glad that you stopped by our Environmental Booty Blog and I hope you have learned or shared a thing or two.  I hope that , now that you've found us,  you won't lose us!  You can join our green living online community, subscribe to our posts,  download our community toolbar or Come Shop with Me to stay in touch!  Whatever you do, just remember that our future depends on our knowledge and actions.  The choices you make today will change your health and the health of our world tomorrow.  Together we CAN find the path that leads to a greener, more sustainable future. Peace, Love and Eco- Shane