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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Thoughts on Autism and Genetic Research

Katie Wright is the daughter of Suzanne and Bob Wright, a former NBC executive, who started the largest fund-raising organization for Autism research called "Autism Speaks" because their grandson, Christian Hildebrand was diagnosed as Autistic.

Autism Speaks has raised a lot of money recently for research on Autism, but nowhere acknowledges biological treatments for Autism and no money goes toward researching any possible environmental components in causes for Autism.

Katie Wright came out on "Imus in the Morning", and publicly stated that she believes her son's Autism was triggered by vaccines and that biological treatments, in fact, were working on her son. She shares her son's story in Chapter 19 of the book "Mother Warriors."

If the only research we are funding with enough money is on genetics, then does this mean that 1 in 100 of all children born in this generation are somehow "genetically defective?"

And if mothers are given a genetic test during pregnancy, will the various Autism genes (there isn't just one gene) be enough of a reason to abort the baby? That's a lot of abortions. Its also genocide. This is eliminating an entire genetic type in our children. What if these genes code for something like intelligence? A lot of Autistic children are very intelligent in specific areas.

I think that funding for genetic research is being focused on for three reasons:

1. If you can find a drug that 1 in 100 children will have to be taking for a lifetime, you have a lifetime source of continuing income for your drug company.

2. If you are a company that manufactures vaccines, and you want to keep on increasing the number of vaccines, that ALL children will have to take, you certainly don't want EVEN ONE of those vaccines to be found unsafe or unreliable for any reason.

3. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
If all that allopathic medicine has to offer, is mainly drugs and surgery, then the only things researchers are going to get paid to do is figure out a drug or surgical treatment for anything. Researchers already know how to research drugs really, really well, since that is where all the funding is coming from; the sale of drugs. One drug's sales pays for the research of new drugs. And so the researchers are all trained to look for drug solutions, even if the best way to deal with the problem isn't by using a drug.

Wouldn't the best solution of all be to find things that don't require us to give costly drugs to young children, perhaps for the rest of their lives, just so they can deal with something in their environment that didn't exist a generation ago?

Wouldn't the best solution be found by looking at all the possible triggers and influences, not just the ones inside our children?

And furthermore, what if the genes that are found are influenced by the environment (they are "turned on" or "turned off" by various environmental triggers), but we never find this out because we are only looking for a genetic "flaw" and a drug "cure?" And what if it is something as SIMPLE as spacing vaccinations out differently, or combining them differently, or screening out vaccinating children with a lingering cold or allergic reaction, or manufacturing them with one type of process instead of another? Instead of seeing 1 in 100 children as genetically flawed or genetically mutated?

If the problem is triggered by something in a child's environment, and we are looking inside the child for the answer, then who are we hurting? The child.

We should not make our children a pawn in our financial medical games.

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