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November 19, 2002
Science specialist Ed Yeates reporting
Autism
now afflicts one in every 250 children. It's no longer considered
a rare disease.
Worried about the increasing numbers, the Centers for Disease
Control is forking out big research bucks to state health
departments around the country - hoping to come up with some
answers. Utah is one of those states.
Seven-year-old Cole Parker has autism. You wouldn't know
it because he has one of the milder forms. He's now considered
a high-functioning child. But it's taken five years of therapy
to get him to this point.
"We had to teach him how to play. We've had people come
over to our home and work with him one-on-one for years. And
they still come and they teach him how to play and how to
interact and how to appropriately make conversation,"
says Laurel Parker, Cole's mother.
But 11-year-old Jake Carlson is not so lucky. He has a more
severe form of what is now called the Autism Spectrum Disorders.
"We would like to know what he thinks and what he feels.
And like when his younger brother Zak was little, Zak used
to feel so bad and he would say Jake is the rudest kid, he'll
never talk to me," says Laureen Carlson, Jake's mother.
The rate of autism in kids like Jake and Cole literally quintupled
between 1992 and 2000. Are doctors simply better able to diagnose
the disease, or are the actual numbers indicative of an epidemic?
That's what the CDC wants to know. That's why the agency is
asking health departments for help.
"What the researchers are saying is they believe it's
a combination of genetic and environmental factors. But no
one at this point knows the cause of autism," says Dr.
Zimmerman with the Utah Department of Health.
Some researchers, including a neuroimmunologist at Utah State
University, believe the immune system in these kids may react
abnormally to some childhood vaccinations. The children may
be genetically predisposed for autism, but something else
has to trigger the disorder to actually make it happen.
Is it the vaccine or something else? How many other cases
are out there? Why do some kids appear normal at birth, but
autistic later on?
State health workers and the University of Utah will jointly
conduct the three year, $1.2 million study setting up a registry
to find out how many kids here actually have autism.
For more information on the Utah study, or if you would like
to participate, contact the Utah Registry of Autism and Developmental
Disabilities (RADD) Project at 801-584-8510 or e-mail URADD@utah.gov.
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