Why Don't The Amish Have Autistic Children?

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Why Don't the Amish Have Autistic Children?

 

The Age of Autism: The Amish anomaly

By Dan Olmsted

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

 

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050321-115921-9566r.htm

 

Lancaster, PA, Apr. 18 (UPI) -- Part 1 of 2. Where are the autistic

Amish? Here in Lancaster County, heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country,

there should be well over 100 with some form of the disorder.

 

I have come here to find them, but so far my mission has failed, and

the very few I have identified raise some very interesting questions

about some widely held views on autism.

 

The mainstream scientific consensus says autism is a complex genetic

disorder, one that has been around for millennia at roughly the same

prevalence. That prevalence is now considered to be 1 in every 166

children born in the United States.

 

Applying that model to Lancaster County, there ought to be 130 Amish

men, women and children here with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

 

Well over 100, in rough terms.

 

Typically, half would harbor milder variants such as Asperger's

Disorder or the catch-all Pervasive Development Disorder, Not

Otherwise Specified -- PDD-NOS for short.

 

So let's drop those from our calculation, even though " mild " is a

relative term when it comes to autism.

 

That means upwards of 50 Amish people of all ages should be living in

Lancaster County with full-syndrome autism, the " classic autism "

first described in 1943 by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner at Johns

Hopkins University. The full-syndrome disorder is hard to miss,

characterized by " markedly abnormal or impaired development in social

interaction and communication and a markedly restricted repertoire of

activities and interests, " according to the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

 

Why bother looking for them among the Amish? Because they could hold

clues to the cause of autism.

 

The first half-dozen articles in this ongoing series on the roots and

rise of autism examined the initial studies and early accounts of the

disorder, first identified by Kanner among 11 U.S. children born

starting in 1931.

 

Kanner wrote that his 1938 encounter with a child from Mississippi,

identified as Donald T., " made me aware of a behavior pattern not

known to me or anyone else theretofore. " Kanner literally wrote the

book on " Child Psychiatry, " published in 1934.

 

If Kanner was correct -- if autism was new and increasingly prevalent

-- something must have happened in the 1930s to trigger those first

autistic cases. Genetic disorders do not begin suddenly or increase

dramatically in prevalence in a short period of time.

 

That is why it is worth looking for autistic Amish -- to test

reasoning against reality. Largely cut off for hundreds of years from

American culture and scientific progress, the Amish might have had

less exposure to some new factor triggering autism in the rest of

population.

 

Surprising, but no one seems to have looked.

 

Of course, the Amish world is insular by nature; finding a small

subset of Amish is a challenge by definition. Many Amish,

particularly Old Order, ride horse-and-buggies, eschew electricity,

do not attend public school, will not pose for pictures and do not

chat casually with the " English, " as they warily call the non-Amish.

 

Still, some Amish today interact with the outside world in many ways.

Some drive, use phones, see doctors and send out Christmas cards with

family photos. They all still refer to themselves as " Plain, " but the

definition of that word varies quite a bit.

 

So far, from sources inside and outside the Amish community, I have

identified three Amish residents of Lancaster County who apparently

have full-syndrome autism, all of them children.

 

A local woman told me there is one classroom with about 30

" special-needs " Amish children. In that classroom, there is one

autistic Amish child.

 

Another autistic Amish child does not go to school.

 

The third is that woman's pre-school-age daughter.

 

If there were more, she said, she would know it.

 

What I learned about those children is the subject of the next

column.

 

= = = = = =

 

The Age of Autism: Julia

By Dan Olmsted

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

 

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050417-052541-5549r.htm

 

Leola, PA, Apr. 19 (UPI) -- Part 2 of 2. Three-year old Julia is

napping when I arrive at the spare, neat, cheerful house on Musser

School Road near the town of Leola in Lancaster County.

 

She is the reason I have driven through the budding countryside on

this perfect spring day, but I really do not need to meet her.

 

In the last column, I wrote about trying to find autistic Amish

people here in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, and noted

there should be dozens of them -- if autism occurs at the same

prevalence as the rest of the United States.

 

So far, there is evidence of only three, all of them children, the

oldest age 9 or 10. Julia is one of them. I found out about her

through a pediatrician in Richmond, Va., Dr. Mary Megson. I had been

asking around for quite some time about autism and the Amish, and she

provided the first direct link.

 

Megson said she would give my name to this child's mother, who could

call if she chose. A few days later the phone rang. It was

Stacey-jean Inion, an Amish-Mennonite woman. She, her husband Brent

and their four children live simply, but they do drive a vehicle and

have a telephone. After a few pleasantries, I told her about my

trying to find autistic Amish.

 

Here is what she said, verbatim:

 

" Unfortunately our autistic daughter -- who's doing very well, she's

been diagnosed with very, very severe autism -- is adopted from

China, and so she would have had all her vaccines in China before we

got her, and then she had most of her vaccines given to her in the

United States before we got her.

 

" So we're probably not the pure case you're looking for. "

 

Maybe not, but it was stunning that Julia Inion, the first autistic

Amish person I could find, turned out to be adopted -- from another

country, no less. It also was surprising that Stacey-jean launched

unbidden into vaccines, because the Amish have a religious exemption

from vaccination and presumably would not have given it much thought.

 

She said a minority of Amish families do, in fact, vaccinate their

children these days, partly at the urging of public health officials.

 

" Almost every Amish family I know has had somebody from the health

department knock on our door and try to convince us to get vaccines

for our children, " she said. " The younger Amish more and more are

getting vaccines. It's a minority of children who vaccinate, but that

is changing now. "

 

Did she know of any other autistic Amish? Two more children, she

said.

 

" One of them, we're very certain it was a vaccine reaction, even

though the government would not agree with that. "

 

Federal health officials have said there is no association between

vaccinations and autism or learning disabilities.

 

" The other one I'm not sure if this child was vaccinated or not, " she

added.

 

During my visit to their home, I asked Stacey-jean to explain why she

attributed the first case to vaccines.

 

" There's one family that we know, their daughter had a vaccine

reaction and is now autistic. She was walking and functioning and a

happy bright child, and 24 hours after she had her vaccine, her legs

went limp and she had a typical high-pitched scream. They called the

doctor and the doctor said it was fine -- a lot of high-pitched

screaming goes along with it.

 

" She completely quit speaking, " Stacey-jean said. " She completely

quit making eye contact with people. She went in her own world. "

 

This happened, Stacey-jean said, at " something like 15 months. " The

child is now about 8.

 

For similar reasons, Julia Inion's Chinese background is intriguing.

China, India and Indonesia are among countries moving quickly to

mass-vaccination programs. In some vaccines, they use a mercury-based

preservative called thimerosal that keeps multiple-dose vials from

becoming contaminated by repeated needle sticks.

 

Thimerosal was phased out of U.S. vaccines starting in 1999, after

health officials became concerned about the amount of mercury infants

and children were receiving. The officials said they simply were

erring on the side of caution, and that all evidence favors rejection

of any link between Autism Spectrum Disorders and thimerosal, or

vaccines themselves.

 

Julia's vaccinations in China -- all given in one day at about age 15

months -- may well have contained thimerosal; the United States had

stopped using it by the time she was born, but other countries with

millions to vaccinate had not.

 

Stacey-jean said photographs of Julia taken in China before she was

vaccinated showed a smiling alert child looking squarely at the

camera. Her original adoptive family in the United States,

overwhelmed trying to cope with an autistic child, gave Julia up for

re-adoption. The Inions took her in knowing her diagnosis of severe

autism.

 

I tried hard -- and am still trying -- to find people who know about

other autistic Amish. Of the local health and social service agency

personnel in Lancaster, some said they dealt with Amish people with

disabilities, such as mental retardation, but none recalled seeing an

autistic Amish.

 

Still, I could be trapped in a feedback loop: The Amish I am

likeliest to know about -- because they have the most contact with

the outside world -- also are likeliest to adopt a special-needs

child such as Julia from outside the community, and likeliest to have

their children vaccinated.

 

Another qualifier: The Inions are converts to the Amish-Mennonite

religion (Brent is an Asian-American). They simply might not know

about any number of autistic Amish sheltered quietly with their

families for decades.

 

It also is possible the isolated Amish gene pool might confer some

kind of immunity to autism -- which might be a useful topic for

research.

 

Whatever the case, Stacey-jean thinks the autistic Amish are nowhere

to be found.

 

" It is so much more rare among our people, " she said. " My husband

just said last week that so far we've never met a family that lives a

healthy lifestyle and does not vaccinate their children that has an

autistic child. We haven't come across one yet. "

 

" Everywhere I go (outside the Amish community) I find children who

are autistic, just because I have an autistic daughter -- in the

grocery store, in the park, wherever I go. In the Amish community, I

simply don't find that. "

 

UPI researcher Kyle Pearson contributed to this article.

 

This ongoing series on the roots and rise of autism aims to be

interactive with readers and welcomes comment, criticism and

suggestions. E-mail: dolmsted

 

= = = = =

 

Why Don't the Amish Have Autistic Children?

 

http://www.mercola.com/2005/may/4/amish_autism.htm

 

Autism is a difficult disorder to miss, as it is characterized by

noticeably abnormal or impaired development in social interaction and

communication and a markedly restricted array of activities and

interests. And while scientific consensus claims autism has been

around for millennia at generally the same prevalence, that

prevalence is now considered to be one in every 166 children born in

the United States.

 

Therefore, with this devastating statistic in mind, one reporter set

out to analyze the autism rates among Amish communities. Why? Because

perhaps searching for autistic Amish children would reveal clues to

the cause of autism ... and it did.

 

The Clues Come Together

 

Since they have been cut off for hundreds of years from American

culture and scientific progress, the Amish may have had less exposure

to some new factor triggering autism in the rest of population. The

likely culprit: vaccines.

 

Traveling to the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country in search of

autistic Amish children, the reporter, based on national statistics,

should have found as many as 200 children with autism in the

community -- instead, he found only three, the oldest age 9 or 10:

 

* The first autistic Amish child was a girl who had been brought over

from China, adopted by one family only to be given up after becoming

overwhelmed by her autism, and then re-adopted by an Amish Mennonite

family. (China, India and Indonesia are among countries moving fast

to mass-vaccination programs.)

 

* The second autistic Amish child definitely had received a

vaccination and developed autism shortly thereafter.

 

* The reporter was unable to determine the vaccination status of the

third child.

 

Dangerous Effects of Thimerosal

 

In some vaccines, they use a mercury-based preservative called

thimerosal that keeps multiple-dose vials from becoming contaminated

by repeated needle sticks. After health officials became concerned

about the amount of mercury infants and children were receiving

through thimerosal-tainted vaccines, the toxin was phased out of U.S.

vaccines starting in 1999.

 

However, due to mislabeling and other problems, its presence is still

being felt, and more and more children are suffering because of it.

 

Fidyl

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