Autism Causes, Treatments and Research

A Book Review of Dr. Paul A. Offit’s Autism’s False Prophets

Oct 13, 2009

Dr. Paul Offit is a widely admired scientist. His latest book takes a hard hit look at what we know about the subject of autism and what we don't -- and why it matters.

Fifty years ago, parents spent summers worrying about polio. Each summer they held their breath as a wave of epidemic cases swept through the nation. Parents could point to the very president of the United States as illustration that no one, not even the head of the most powerful nation on the planet, was safe from the scourge of the disease.

Autism Diagnosis Rates

Today parents look with much the same fear at another illness. Autism remains one of the most baffling illnesses of our time. Autism diagnosis rates have climbed in recent decades. Parents hear story after story of children being labeled autistic. They worry and then they worry and then they worry some more.

Autism is a broad spectrum illness with many different symptoms. Signs of mild autism may include an inability to relate to other people or read facial expressions very clearly. More involved signs of autism may include an inability to absorb even basic information. Very severely affected individuals may face a lifetime of institutionalization away from family and peers. Caring for a child with autism can be tremendously expensive. Worst of all, treatment may not be covered under medical insurance.

Almost more terrifying than the specter of cost is the uncertainty of treatment. Parents who search for a reason why their children have autism and how to treat it face a bewildering array of studies. Many such studies and causes of autism seem quite contradictory.

Dr. Offit's Verdict

Dr. Paul A. Offit attempts to address some of these treatments in his book. Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine and the Search For a Cure confronts this issue head on.

The result according to Dr. Offit? Many popular treatments for autism are a sad mishmash of poorly thought out alleged solutions and treatments that neither help nor treat the illness. Even worse such alleged solutions may discourage parents from vaccinating and thus endangering their children and all those around them.

Dr. Offit’s book begins with a description of what he considers to be the shoddy work of Dr. Andrew Wakefield. In the late 1990s, Dr. Wakefield published a paper that would be debated for many years to come. In the paper, Dr. Wakefield asserted that the MMR or Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine could be found in the guts of autistic children. Dr. Wakefield further asserted that the vaccine could actually cause autism in certain patients.

Dr. Offit takes the reader through the consequences of this assertion and how it has been repeatedly proven false.

Thimerosol in Vaccines

The Wakefield contention was followed with an explosive article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy (and many others) have argued that minute amounts of a chemical compound called thimerosol in vaccines allegedly triggered autism in selective individuals. Congressional hearings were held to investigate this claim.

Offit documents how this belief was repeatedly given play in the media despite the fact that an examination of the facts indicates it cannot be true. Thimerosol was taken out of vaccines, yet autism rates have continued to rise. Not only have autism rates continued to rise, but measles outbreaks have also broken out in countries such as the United States and U.K. where Wakefield’s assertions have helped caused tremendous panic.

Promising Treatments for Autism Unfunded

In the meantime, parents of autistic children have turned to radical diets, ingestions of substances such as charcoal and massive doses of vitamins, all to little avail. Funds have been diverted from helping parents cope with autistic children and researching promising avenues of treatments into rallies against vaccination and campaigns let by those who fail to understand scientific principles.

Agree or disagree, but Dr. Offit’s book makes a convincing case that autism sufferers should not be injected with chemicals that do not work. More importantly, the search for the causes of autism remains maddeningly elusive.

MMWR Weekly "Outbreak of Measles San Diego California -- January / February 2008" February 29th, 2008

Offit, Paul. A. "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine and the Search for a Cure," Columbia University Press 2008

The copyright of the article Autism Causes, Treatments and Research in Autism Research is owned by Stacy Herlihy. Permission to republish Autism Causes, Treatments and Research in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.