61–69 of 69 posts
This kind of quackery has crossed into abusive territory, and heavy flogging as seen as in the Passion of the Christ would be appropiate for the physician and the parents.
If you’re inclined to take this paper seriously, or if you feel like reading a very badly produced article, I recommend reading the full paper. It’s just a few pages, and a light read. Also, you’ll get to ponder how in the “List of abnormal clinical symptoms of the child with an autism spectrum disorder prior to antifungal therapy”, the first entry is “Silly”. No standardized assessments of autism (e.g. the ADOS) are…
I honestly thought you were joking or at least over exaggerating. You aren’t, haha. Some others from that list: - Curious/into things - Likes fans - Farting (stinky) - Looks sick Amazing criteria.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shaw_(laboratory_own...
Lol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shaw_(laboratory_own... Leave it to HN to fall for grifters, but then again I suppose this must just probably just a massive conspiracy by the big bad Illuminati or something to profit off mainstream understanding of autism and we should trust the “science” this time. (To be fair, I can’t find anything that points to the main author being nearly on the same level of quacker…
The guy is a menace, and is Facebook Karen Mom bait to the highest degree. He has done more to harm research into ASD than almost anyone, being second to only Andrew Wakefield (the only man ever to get a straight up middle finger from The Lancet for managing to slip one pass them, and getting a front page retraction for his trouble).
ASD exists, its real, it is a collection of symptoms that likely have multiple causes, and we know why that is likely true (immune system cross-reactivity in the parts of the immune system we don't understand well, and is also likely the root cause of a lot of poorly understood conditions; this is why there is also a high rate of ADHD comorbidity in ASD people).
The gut most likely is the "culprit" in the sense that the gut bacteria is no longer sending the correct chemical signals to engage the immune system, and the immune system gets confused and thinks we're stuck in some sort of Cold War with an Unseen Enemy, and just slowly fucks you up, but we simply don't understand this well enough for anyone to even consider something as a possible "cure". William Shaw is undermining the process and making it harder for actual researchers to research a possible cure.
This makes me wonder if there is research on pathways that 'cause' autism, or perhaps how we can find the 'vulnerability' which then is 'exploited' by something using those pathways. I'm using a bunch of quotes in there because I'm not well-versed enough in medicine terminology to know what the correct wording would be (and as such I also haven't had much luck in searching PubMed or NIH for that matter). I would imag…
As far as I'm aware, the autistic neurotype is caused by a different distribution of connections in the brain, caused by a deficiency of some chemical that I can't seem to find the name of (I swear I saw it somewhere, but there's too much SEO garbage for anything to find things other than vitamins and anti-vax propaganda). ASD is diagnosed by disordered symptoms that are consistent with autism, and can sometimes occu…
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As far as I'm aware, the autistic neurotype is caused by a different distribution of connections in the brain, caused by a deficiency of some chemical that I can't seem to find the name of (I swear I saw it somewhere, but there's too much SEO garbage for anything to find things other than vitamins and anti-vax propaganda). ASD is diagnosed by disordered symptoms that are consistent with autism, and can sometimes occu…
If you ever find out the name of that chemical, I hope you'll post it on the chance I'll see your reply. I'm very curious to know more.
> Some of this work indicates that autism is characterized by underconnectivity between distant brain regions and overconnectivity between neighboring ones; others show differences in connectivity within certain brain networks. In one study, connections within the default mode, or ‘daydreaming,’ network of autism brains looked especially weak.
> For example, mutations in the autism-linked genes MET and CNTNAP2 produce patterns that differ from those in people without these mutations.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/cntnap2-variants-alter-bra...
> Ashley Scott, a graduate student in Geschwind’s lab, scanned the brains of 16 high-functioning boys with autism and 16 age-, sex- and IQ-matched healthy controls during a difficult memory task that requires activity in that brain circuit. She also collected saliva samples from the children to see which ones carry the CNTNAP2 variants.
> Because the variants are common in the population, most participants — 11 of the children with autism and 12 of the controls — have at least one copy.
> Scott found that these children have increased connectivity among local areas of the prefrontal cortex. In contrast, long-range connections between the prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex — a region toward the back of the brain that’s part of the frontal-striatal loop — are significantly stronger in the children who do not carry the risk allele.
I don't remember if this is it or not, but there's something that stimulates the generation of long neural connections, and a deficiency in something can cause those connections to be shorter on average - you end up with the same amount, but they are distributed differently and more localized, which is what causes the "attention to detail" effect (as well as underutilization of potential connections, and connections between unwanted areas).
Still trying to find the original source where I heard that, though. Sucks that I do so many of my impulse searches in incognito mode.
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If you ever find out the name of that chemical, I hope you'll post it on the chance I'll see your reply. I'm very curious to know more.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/connectivity-theory-autism... > Some of this work indicates that autism is characterized by underconnectivity between distant brain regions and overconnectivity between neighboring ones; others show differences in connectivity within certain brain networks. In one study, connections within the default mode, or ‘daydreaming,’ network of autism brains looked especially weak. > For exam…
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Not an expert but the wiki article says he proposed a link with acetaminophen, which has recently been demonstrated by papers and spawned a lawsuit: https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/acetaminophen-on-trial-ove...
Two points: 1. Lawsuits are completely irrelevant to what is actually causative. E.g. there is essentially no evidence silicone breast implants are carcinogenic, but that didn't prevent implant manufacturers from going bankrupt due to legal judgments. 2. From your own link: "The studies in people are observational. Some conditions that might prompt acetaminophen use during pregnancy, such as fever and severe infectio…
There’s a lot of interesting observational research on this topic, and in particular I found this paper[1] interesting because it shows a similar link with Tylenol and autism in young infants, but did not find the same effect for ibuprofen, which to me almost rules out fever/infection as the root cause.
There was another paper I saw that even suggested the anti-vaxxer conspiracies may stem from the fact that doctors and parents give Tylenol to their kids to manage the side effect of some vaccines.
Interestingly, there is also a separate body of research[2] that has shown experimentally that acetaminophen causes emotional blunting and reduced empathy in adults - could be related?
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When my son was diagnosed with autism a quarter century or so ago, we would see claims like this popping up now and again. At first we would get excited, but over time we learned to ignore them. Desperate parents make easy targets for grifters and quacks so you have to expect this kind of thing. The worst part is when well-meaning family and friends keep excitedly sending you articles or giving advising you on these…
My special needs brother predates autism. I was always annoyed with the question 'what's wrong with your brother' as if slapping a label on him would fix things. And big picture there isn't anything wrong with him other than a few deep deficits which no ones going to be able to undo. My brother has a few friends with similar deficits, just different ones. That makes me dubious of the idea of autism as a particular 'd…