The Battle Over Autism's Origins

I have not thought about the Autism caused by vaccinations theories for a couple of years. After all I had read many a review articles that discounted this aged theory years ago. Yet again this week I came across a news article discussing yet another study disproving the theory and a discussion of how "activists" (which should not necessarily be read as scientists) are still not accepting the study.

These activists are quick to point out flaws in the research. The latest study postulates that since mercury has been removed from the vaccinations that were originally theorized as having an autism link and the cases of autism diagnosis has remained stable or increased that this could not be the cause. Makes sense. It is not as medically oriented as most studies but it is just another part of the picture. The activists though say that they didn't include immigration. A bizarre argument to me, and one that is only valid if they can prove that the study included an increased ratio of immigrants who had been exposed to the vaccinations.

It made me wonder why these activists are pushing such an old theory and agenda so strongly. I suspect there is a few factors:

• Money. As we saw with NLP and the recent cognitive re-training LD programs there is big money in theories related to specific schools of thought. Books; lecture tours; support materials.
• Money II. Lawyers! It is hard to sue someone for a genetic or neurodevelopmental disorder. It is a lot easier to sue over a vaccination. A class action in this area would be worth billions.
• The last option is a sad one: Blame Shifting. Though current research shows no reason at all for parents to blame themselves for their Autistic child, it is a lot easier to shift any blame one feels to anger by explaining away what appears to parents as a regressive disease as being the fault of something tangible.

The most unfortunate part of the article I read (available here) was the statement by one pharmacologist that stated, "The final answer to me will come when that paper is written that says, 'This is what causes autism'." This is a very unfortunate stance. If you look at all of the disorders we deal with (Learning, attention, mental illness) we are clearly a field that works with symptom profiles not etiology. As a result we likely have created categories that can result from multiple causes (for a concrete example look at Barkley's breakdown of ADHD into genetic/developmental/acquired causes). The "this is the cause" study that explains all cases will never come.