I have 3 children, 2 born in a hospital and had vit K shots, one at home without. 2 had jaundice , 1 in hospital, 1 at home. I always thought it was an RH factor issue that caused the jaundice.

Hi Kapan,
The "Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" by LLL explains clearly how normal/physiologic jaundice occurs as part of a normal physiologic process; how bilirubin is a by-product of excess red blood cells that have been needed in utero to carry oxygen; comments on outdated recommendations such as weaning if you are breastfeeding; and info on treatment options such as a fiberoptic blanket (no eyepatches needed) which can now be rented for home use along with doctor checkups.

They make the point that nearly half of all newborns appear jaundiced to a mild or moderate degree with no ill effects. Jaundice in the newborn is a common and usually harmless condition. Nursing baby frequently right from birth (colustrum has vast lifetime health benefits as well as bringing your milk in) is an excellent way to keep jaundice from becoming a problem.

Your Rh comment: WAB says that Rh incompatibility is becoming relatively rare, but that ABO incompatibility, a much milder condition is more common. By checking Mother's blood type before the birth, Doctor can be ready to watch for these conditions. WAB describes early signs and other causes of abnormal jaundice, particularly in premies or sick babies, when rare high concentrations of bilirubin can cause brain damage.

Trey, you've pointed out a personal link between Vitamin K shots and jaundice. That's interesting, but the article is about an apparent link between jaundice and autism.

"The most puzzling findings were that the risk of autism disappeared for firstborn babies, for those born before 40 weeks gestation and for babies born in the warmer months, April through September."

My firstborn - an autistic 12-year-old - was induced a couple of weeks early, in mid-August, and was mildly jaundiced. If he beat those odds, should we take him to Vegas?

Vigintiphobia - it's back!!!

pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/115/6/1747

I had 5 children, they all had jaundice, two of them were serious enough to be put under the lights in the hospital AFTER I had brought them home. Not one of them is Autistic or has experienced any learning disabilities. Unless that accounts for 3 of them hating math. But one of them was born during the "dark" months and she was a 4.0 all the way through college. She is now raising a child with aspergers, but that child is adopted.

There are to many children born who get jaundice, and I don't see the correlation between that and autism. I still lean towards the theory of putting babies in front of the tv or movies or video games too early in life that causes their brain waves to fire out of control. Especially since symptoms don't show up until they start their developmental/social stages which is around (but not limited to) the age of 3.

You can't ignore the increase in diagnosis's in the last few decades, so what has changed? Jaundice has been around for a long, long time. Every home having a tv set has only been common for about the last 5 decades. VHS and DVD players about the last 3. Childrens movies, Little Einstein movies; all getting children infront of the screen at a much younger age.

This is only one of many theories, but it makes a lot of sense.

Wow Krissy, your right lets take away every t.v set on the planet I assure you we will have smarter kids but I'm also sure that it won't stop kids from getting autism.

krissy - the reason many chidren aren't diagnosed until they are older is because children develop at such different rates up until they are 5 or 6 that it is very difficult to tell if a child is developing at a different rate than they should be. Children, within themselves also don't develop at the same rate. The reason for the increase in cases is because the medical community now understands more about Autism and the entire spectrum than they did 50 years ago.

This posting has raised my eyebrow. I have a 13 year old who has Aspberger's a and a 7 year old who is autistic and both of them were born in the month of January, and both of them had jaundice when they were born, my oldest was born full term and my other son was 4 weeks premature. However, I have two more girls and they were not born with jaundice and they are in good health. Very Interesting!

I'm sorry that you are so ignorant as to blame parents for children receiving an autism diagnosis. I have found that people who throw stones usually reap what they sow at the most inopportune times.

Surely someone in your lineage is capable of producing a birth child who is on the spectrum and God help them if they do.

Krissy,

Several points that might help:

1) There has been a group of scientists for at least 20 years who have thought there was a link between natal liver function (including jaundice) and autism. But pilot studies in this country have been opposed by very vocal groups who wanted all the research focused on vaccines and Thimerosol. The NIH funding process is extremely political and has been very hesitant to cross these very vocal parents. Without pilot (small) studies, larger studies cannot take place. So we have had to wait for the Scandinavian countries which have universal healthcare (and the medical records that go along with it) to conduct the research. These are small countries and they have much smaller research budgets, so it takes a while for them to get around to the things that we can't do.

2) Both autism and natal liver function are not like the common cold --- either you have it or you don't. Both are continuums --- that is you have kids with barely any symptoms of autism all the way to kids with very profound and obvious symptoms. Aspergers is somewhere toward the middle to lower end. More are being diagnosed every year because psychologists and physicians are getting better at making diagnoses at the lower end of the continuum. Liver function is very much the same way --- you have some babies with slightly elevated bilirubin all the way through severely jaundiced babies who require treatment.

3) What this study found was that 67% more of babies who had severe enough jaundice to receive treatment had autism in some degree. Because both of these things are highly variable and the historical data has changed over time, it could be that Autism Spectrum Disorder could be very closely related to natal or pre-natal liver function. Or it could also be that ASD and irregular liver function have a common cause.

But this sort of research moves us closer to understanding what is going on. Hope this helps.

Unbelievable! I am the mother of an autistic son who DID NOT spend his formative years in front of the TV... Krissy how could you possible believe that! You have NO clue what it is like to raise a child with autism, to not know what caused it, to question every thing you did while pregnant and during the first 3 years. I wish you and all the people who have no idea what we live with would just shut up and leave the theories and ideas to those researching autism!

My first child was severely jaundice where the whites of her eyes turned yellow. She graduated as valedictorian and is currently in grad school. She was born in "a dark" month, October. But back then they did not immunize children until 9 months. There may be a link between jaundice and immunizations at 1 or 2 days old. If the body is already not functioning well as a result of the jaundice then the immunizations are built up in their bodies until the liver starts to function properly. Although I know some parents whose children in the 1970's and 1980's that reacted severly with immunizations that caused severe physical and mental damage but not to the extend we are seeing with autism today. I still firmly believe there is a link to the immunizations. Ask any parent who had a child who reacted after an immunization. I would not allow my child to be immunized at days old. Nine months was soon enough and then space the shots apart. My oldest did react at age 6 when they demanded booster shot of MMR/DPT/Polio. She now has guillian barre syndrome as a result of the immunizations. I asked the nurse and doctor when she received all 3 at once if that was ok since all the other shots were spaced apart. I should have gone with my instinct. My other two younger children had their boosters spaced apart as a result. Those were the last shots any of my children received. Even the doctors said that if my oldest who reacted received a flu shot or any other shots they can't gaurantee it may not kill her. That now limits her ability to travel to other countries. There are homeopathic tissue salts that you can take for measles, mumps, etc that have no thermisol, eggs or formeldehyde and who knows what else. These work on the same basis and are much safer. Trust me my children will be going this route with my grandchildren!

Think about it how many shots did those of us who are 45 and older have for MR/DPT/Polio. I had one shot for each. I have never contracted any of these diseases as a result of not having boosters. I do not know of anyone my age or older who got any of these diseases as a result of only having 1 immunization shot. Children are being over immunized. I have reacted with the flu shot 3 times so I no longer get it. Several of my siblings have the same issue. I believe there is something in those shots that we may be allergic to - possibly the preservatives? My children and I now use homeopathic tissue salts for the flu and have no adverse reactions and they work!

I only bring up the TV as one "possible" theory. So far, that's all we've been given; theories. I also think we should be checking to see if the additives/preservatives put in our foods have a link?

My sister and niece both specialize in working with autistic children and educating others about the disease. Television is one of the many theories that they see as a possible issue.

I hold reservations on blaming vaccinations, but only on personal experience. All of my children were vaccinated as well as my many nieces and nephews. The only case of autism in our family is one of our nieces who refused to have her 2 boys vaccinated, they are both autistic. One mildly, one severe. Again, all I have to go on here is personal experience.

I appreciate the comments and the information to better educate me and others on the findings of this study as well as others. But like many of you, I would like to see some proof/ progress. It helps to know that people are still looking to find a link between autism and something. Once that link is determined, then it can only help in the progress of treatment or finding a cure. That is what we all hope for.

Concerned,

Your mind is clearly made up with no evidence to support your conviction, so there is nothing anyone can ever say that will change your mind about vaccinations. One cannot prove a negative, but study after study has found no link. And yet, people will not give up the irrational belief that vaccinations cause autism. The insistence of people like yourself clinging to this incorrect belief is part of what is holding back true understanding of the disorder.

But I am glad your jaundiced daughter is doing well. There is nothing in this study to suggest anything else should have been the outcome. What the study says is that a very small subset of another subset of all children born during a certain period of time developed autism. It is just that this subset is significantly larger than the subset of another subset. The thing about subsets of subsets is that there are going to be a lot of people who do not fall into that subset. You daughter would be one of these. The odds of her normal development and success would be expected, even if jaundice displays higher co-morbidity with autism among a certain subset. The MAJORITY of children in the study, whether they were part of any of these subsets or not, still developed quite normally. So saying your daughter is normal in no way invalidates this study.

I would go into a long evidenced base retort to the ridiculous idea that vaccines cause autism, but i find that uniformed people will believe whatever they want to believe, no matter what evidence you put in front of them.

Honestly the cause is likely multifactorial and much more complicated than on thing. Jsut like everything else in this country, people want (or can only understand) a simple explaination.

Sure, jaundice has been around for as long as children humans have given birth to live-offspring (ie, millions of years).

But it's only rather recently that we'd been able to intervene in saving the more severe cases.

In the 1920s, for example, most severely jaundiced children would have simply died. In the 1980s, we were able to save far more. And for each succeeding year, we can likely save more of them.

Because a person had a child born in month X, with condition Y is irrelevant because the person is using a population size of 1. That means that the error marging is, around 100 percent (ie., if the results were changed for just ONE member of the cohort, then entire scenario would be reversed in significance).

For about 1 in 30,000 children, vaccinations pose a special problem and we have to have special concern for their feelings. ALL vaccinations have some side effects. That is just a fact. Scientists work constantly to find ways around them, but the fact is that the body's immune system is very, very complex --- perhaps too complex for us to ever understand completely. And when you are tinkering with the immune system, you are trying to help the many while acknowledging the risk of harming the few.

This is why the drug companies do not want to manufacture vaccines. They are all generic and have been commoditized so there is no profit in them. They are risky because they are so subject to contamination. So the government steps in and subsidizes vaccinations (they pay for batches that have to be destroyed because of contamination, for example) and they have special courts (with extremely low standards of proof --- far below the normal civil standard) to compensate the few victims) to handle the victims of vaccinations.

And the whole epidemiological theory of vaccination is not that a vaccine even absolutely prevents the occurrence of a specific disease in a specific individual. For example, you can get the vaccine and still get the mumps, especially as an adult. Vaccination works on a principle call "herd immunity" which basically says that if something over 70% of people are vaccinated the free transmission of a disease is impaired to the point that it cannot become pandemic. (The actual number varies with the disease.) So the true importance is not that an individual child be vaccinated, but rather that almost all children be vaccinated. The bottom line is that when a parent has their child vaccinated, they are doing it partially for the protection of that child, but mostly as a contribution to preventing disease in society as a whole.

But that is all so little consolation to a parent whose child is one of those rare ones who has a side effect from the vaccination. The fact that the incidence of Guillain-Barre Syndrome is about 1 in a million from flu vaccinations (it is 1-2 per 100,000 otherwise) does not really help to comfort the parent of that one in a million child. That, in developed countries, the sub-type that results from flu vaccinations is almost always completely recovered from does not help when your child is still partially paralyzed or has to spend the rest of their lives wondering about other auto-immune reactions. I truly feel bad for any parent placed in that situation. The "what-ifs" have to be overwhelming.

This just in--

Studies linking Autism to ____________- ARE ACTS OF DESPERATION.

Krissy,

Schizophrenia isn't usually diagnosed until kids are between 17 - 21 as autism isn't diagnosed until a child is 18 months or older. Sorry, but it doesn't have a thing to do with t.v. but merely the fact that some disorders take time to develop to the stage where they can be diagnosed.

Schizophrenia isn't usually diagnosed until kids are between 17 - 21

Krissy, increasingly, unfortunately, you are wrong about this.

One Million Kids on Anti-Psychotics

Big Pharma's Next Big Thing: Antipsychotic Medicines for Preschoolers

in fact, one "award winning" psychiatrist wants to drug your kids before they experience ANY TYPE OF SYMPTOMS, just in case, I guess.

Australian of the Year Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry accused of misleading public to secure his pre-drugging kids agenda

As a person who was diagnosed at 10 with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Aspergers, Krissy. Please. Just no. While everyone is allowed their own opinion. It's one thing to put yourself out there and sound logical and another to well not sound so much.

Even if your relatives treat people with different severity of Autism. That doesn't make a person an expert. Just as well even if I have a form of Autism that does not make me an expert. However I can speak about it based on personal expierences like with thinking processes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Aspergers is somewhere toward the middle to lower end."

Aspergers is on the side of High-functioning side of ASD. Even then the severity is different for every case.

People are surprised when I tell them I have AS and GAD. I grew up in an evironment that allowed me to develop instead of hinder. I do think that taking up music and continuing to develop my skills within drawing, since that is my general area of studies currently. As well as just renforcing things like patience and persistence.

I also did learn about the condition I had which helped me a lot in working on things like, Eye contact (took 5 years to feel comfortable), and learning when to leave situations (when it's possible) that are over-stimulating, and conversing with people.

Krissy,

There is a paradox in science called the Universal Correlation Paradox. There are things that everyone does routinely --- drink water, for example. That means that if you look at correlating anything (say, colon cancer) with drinking of water, you will find a 100% correlation. That does NOT mean that drinking water causes colon cancer. (But it also does not mean that it does not.) When things become pervasive, such as watching TV, at a time when you are defining a new set of symptoms, there is bound to be a very high, but meaningless correlation. Sorting this sort of thing out statistically is one of the things scientists are very good at, but that the public has little understanding of.

But we also have to watch for negative correlations. Thimerosol is a good example. Thimerosol was put in childhood vaccinations because contamination with other bacteria had been a long-standing problem with childhood vaccines, killing scores of children each year in this country. The contamination problem was many times more pronounced when multiple vaccines were combined into a single shot. Adding the Thimerisol reduced the number of children who died from this cause to zero. But it came at a time what Autism Spectrum Disorder was being discovered, defined, and expanded and physician and psychologist awareness was going up dramatically. So you could make a case that there was a correlation (though not a causation) between the two. But Thimerosol was removed from virtually all childhood vaccinations, and Thimerosol-free versions of all vaccinations (including the flu shot) became available. But the diagnosis of ASD continued to rise. This is a negative correlation. It means that there is no relationship. Period.

And for a correlation to become a causation, the mechanism by which A causes B must be completely understood. And this is a tough nut for biological science to crack. But we have made more strides in understanding mechanisms of the human body and how it works in the last 15 years than in all previous human history. And we have a loooooooong way to go.

On the other hand, a little common sense goes a long way. iPod (and other earplug music sources) use and hearing loss currently have a high correlation in both children and adults. The mechanism by which loud sounds inflict the damage is well-known and well-understood, to there is not only a high correlation, but a causation. These are areas where we can focus our concern much more safely.

calm down barb. no one can possibly take you seriously if you are hysterical and irrational.

This research in my opinion proves there is a link between poor liver function and autism. Maybe we should get some liver biopsys of autism childern and figure out why their livers aren't functioning properly. The liver's primary job is to remove toxins from the body, therefore, toxins are most likely the primary cause of autism. So the link between autism and vaccines may be true, because vaccines introduce multiple toxins, preservititives and viruses/bacteria into the bodies with already poor functioning livers.

Chris "But it came at a time what Autism Spectrum Disorder was being discovered, defined, and expanded and physician and psychologist awareness was going up dramatically. So you could make a case that there was a correlation (though not a causation) between the two. But Thimerosol was removed from virtually all childhood vaccinations, and Thimerosol-free versions of all vaccinations (including the flu shot) became available. But the diagnosis of ASD continued to rise. This is a negative correlation. It means that there is no relationship. Period."

The problem with this statement is the use of Thimerosol-free vaccines didn't decrease the use of Thimerosol vaccines, because the thimerosol based vaccines are made cheaper.

Thimerosal is GONE from vaccines (it's not as if both thim.-free and thim.-added versions are out there in circulation).

His point is valid: you would see a decrease if the thimerosal were responsible for autism.

Thimerosal is GONE from vaccines

Unfortunately, this isn't entirely correct either. Thimerosal has been removed from the higher profile child vaccines but it IS still used currently in different inoculations which THE SAME AGE DEMOGRAPHIC CHILDREN might be given for associated procedures such as anesthetic or anti-biotics.

#7

And there are theories suggesting that the associated drop in autism we would see if there were a Thimerosal link due to its removal can be attributed to other factors. Such as Thimerosal given to parents during the 50's, 60's, and 70's.

As a CNS mutagen mercury may irreparably harm the parents whose only evidence would be their offspring. There may be additional factors as well such as the degree to which BOTH parents had been exposed or the amount and length of exposure which might be the reason as to those parents of a single autism spectrum diagnosis child who have multiple children.

I'll say it again, The pharma industry has spent MILLIONS SCREAMING the idea that there is no Thimerasol link.

#THOUDOSTPROTESTTOOMUCH

Reason and Logic,

You are partially correct, but mostly wrong. Thimerosol has been removed from all childhood vaccines except for trace amounts in multiple disease vaccines for about six years. As an alternative to the multiple vaccine shots, each shot is available separately with no Thimerosol. And yes, they are more expensive because you are paying for three times as many vaccinations. Insurance generally does not cover the difference.

The only vaccination that is still contains Thimerosol is the flu vaccine. It is simply impractical, because of time pressures to remove it and it is never available in a single vaccine form (which, again, would be 3-4 times as expensive and require 3-4 shots.)

But if you are a parent and concerned, no childhood vaccinations except the flu shot currently contain Thimerosol. And if the multi-vaccine issue bothers you or the issue that multi-vaccine shots still contain a trace of Thimerosol, you can request multiple single-dose shots that do not contain even a trace of Thimerosol and you can get the shots staggered so that they are not all at once. Your insurance might not cover it, however.

You are absolutely wrong in your belief that Thimerosol is still in childhood vaccines. It is not and has not been for over 6 years. The CDCP decided that the public health issue of parents not getting their kids vaccinated was sufficient threat to herd immunity that they requested that it be removed.

In the intervening six years, the numbers of diagnosed cases of ASD have continued to increase as the same rate. This pretty much makes the case that Thimerosol was not linked to ASD.

The reason that Thimerosol is in multi-vaccine shots is that a three-vaccine shot is about 600 times as likely to develop contamination problems as three single shots. The reasons are too complicated to go into in a post, but you can read them online. Before Thimerosol scores of children died each year of vaccine contamination. This is why it was developed and put in, not to somehow make them cheaper. That number has dropped to zero.

So you are mis-informed about why Thimerosol is used (to prevent deaths from vaccine contamination), whether it is in childhood vaccines (it is not). And its presence in the flu vaccine is a totally different issue. Each spring the CDCP and WHO try to guess what are the 3-4 most likely strains of flu to be the dominant one next flu season. Then they grow and combine vaccines with those strains. Thimerosol is the only real way to guarantee than there will be a minimal amount of contamination and that the required number of doses will be available by flu season. Basically, you can do a do-over for the other vaccines if they arfe contaminated (just thrown them out and do it again) but not for the flu.

Chris...

Thank you for your many insightful and knowledgable comments...and your kind and humble attitude in presenting them. Very refreshing to see.

A question...do you know anything about Rhogam injections...any possibility that they could play any part in this jaundice/autism correlation, in your opinion?

Take2la, you're right studies linking autism is due to desperation. The desperation of a parent who wants to know what went wrong, if she did something wrong, if she can help her child become a happen, engaged individual again. Parents of children with autism grapple for answers every day of their lives. You fear for your child that has autism on what the future holds for him, and you fear for his siblings and hope they do not develop autism. Parents of children with autism desperately wants answers in the hope that they can help their children become whole because to know what causes autism is to hopefully find a cure for it or at least prevent it. It sounds like you've never known such desperation. Good for you. As for us parents who deal with issues of autism on a daily basis, we hope to get the answer/s someday so that we can prevent the occurrence of autism.

Take2LA -- I meant that thimerosal was gone from the regular childhood vaccines...yes, it is still in some inoculations that are not widely used, but the point is that if most children never see a trace of thimerosal, you would see a drop in autism rates.

Chris - Thanks for the excellent comments and explanations about some of the most common errors in logic that are seen in these forums.

Supreme Court hears case about vaccine side effects

Grace- I agree parents are, exasperated, exhausted, and desperate. And they should be LIVID at pharma's continued efforts to spin, by creating & funding, concocted, drummed up, ghost written, "study findings" AS SCIENCE instead of what they are- DESPERATE DAMAGE CONTROL, which support their litigation defending position.

These pharma studies and positions are nothing more than BIG TOBACCO HAULED BEFORE THE SENATE saying with a smirk, " Studies show NO CAUSAL LINK (I believe tobacco is not addictive)."

Independent studies have shown not even correlation, much less causation, in a link of autism to vaccines. To continue to proliferate this falsehood is just plain ignorance (or worse) on your part.

That is the one aspect that does not perplex me at all. What perplexes me is that this is presented as some kind of news that requires further research. Thirty years ago when I had my two children, each with higher bilirubin counts, it was explained that breast-feeding children who do not get exposure to natural sunlight are at a much higher risk for developing higher bilirubin counts. I delivered both by c-section with complications requiring a longer stay in the hospital; which is to say my babies were forced to be in an environment with almost zero natural light. (Ugh I hate the huge windy mazes and harsh lighting of hospitals!) Both of my children had to go under the lights and be monitored for some weeks afterward. I was instructed to keep their cradle in front of a window with full light. Each child developed higher bilirubin counts by day three. In addition to the doctors advising me 30 years ago about this, La Leche League was also very familiar with this. So I'm perplexed as to why this is presented as some startling new discovery requiring further research.

Editing my comment: what was known was not the link between autism and jaundice, but the link between breast-fed newborns deprived of natural sunlight and jaundice. What perplexed me in the article were these quotes:

"

Perhaps more daylight contributes to lower bilirubin levels or faster resolution of the liver condition, the study suggested. Maimburg is hoping for future funding to answer those questions.

The findings also might be confounded by the rules of the Danish health system, which keep first-born babies in the hospital for up to three days — long enough to be diagnosed and treated for jaundice — while babies born to previous mothers are sent home shortly after delivery"

That's very good info, Deb. Thanks much!

Some things to be considered...

A link to low vitamin D levels in the mother (and thus newborn). Vitamin D comes from the sun...in the warmer, sunny months pregnant mothers are often getting more sun exposure. The full term data could have to do with a "window of opportunity" during the last month(s) of gestation. Also, the rise in the statistical incidence of autism over the past decades coincides with increasing numbers of pregnant women working...indoors...wearing sun screen when outside...and not getting as much sun exposure, as well.

Another factor to be considered...chemical leaching from plastics. Newborns treated for jaundice under phototherapy are exposed to the bilirubin lights (without clothing or in only a diaper) so as to expose their skin to the lights which helps to break down the serum bilirubin to be excreted in urine and stools. Thus, they are kept in the WARMED plastic isolettes which have air intake units. They are also sometimes treated with other medical equipments containing plastics...sometimes require blood transfusions through vinyl/plastic tubing, etc...and possibly some of the chemicals from plastics are breathed/absorbed by the infant, and this plays a part in raising the risk of autism...maybe in combination with other factors/exposures in pregnancy/early infancy.

I do agree that chemicals from everyday items we use can contribute.

I just think its one of these things that will remain a mystery, I mean how long have then been working on cancer and it still cant be 100 percent beaten or detected

I think if it remains a mystery, it's because we dont want to find the answer.

I might be cynical, but it's hard to view the sick care industry as truly invested in our well being. They dont make money if the general population is healthy and takes care of itself, they make lots of money if we are chronically sick. I dont think individual doctors are conniving and scheming up ways to keep people sick, but rather...arent very invested in finding ways to keep people healthy.

So when we find credible links that are worthy of far more in depth studying, why isnt there a rush by industry professionals to fund such research? Because if you eliminate health problems, you eliminate the jobs of doctors to treat those problems.

Cancer is a trillion dollar industry, on all fronts...I struggle to believe there are more people invested in a cure, than there are people invested in treating the sick. Look at where the money raised for research goes - drugs to treat cancer, not links to solve cancer.

River-Dog,

There has long been a consideration that elevated billirubin and the "dark month" were related to sunlight exposure. That is why they started using UV lights as a treatment. (And it works.)

Cultural anthropologists postulate that perhaps early humans were more likely to conceive during the winter months when movement and calorie usage was more limited and children were mostly born in early summer when food would be more available. (A remnant of that behavior would be the number of people who suffer from seasonal depression --- a natural way of limiting calorie use in the winter.)

This could mean that as humans evolved, their abilities to have babies year-round did not evolve as fast as their food sources. You have to remember that men were hunter-gatherers for 8 million or so years and have had reliable fixed food sources for less than 30,000 years.

Just throwing that out there for the Vine.. :)

I have read research and reports till I'm blue (not yellow as my son was) who has Asperger's. However, the "dark month" connection is found if you Google, "Autism & Vitamin D Deficiency." It's one theory. I personally believe that it will be eventually found that an underlying medical condition at birth (my son had Jaundice & Low Blood Sugar) in conjunction with early vaccine (like Hepatitis B which if I'm not mistaken, in 1996 was given to my son before he left the hospital). It's NOT plopping them in front of a TV. I don't really care so much "how" he got it...I would like to see much more energy and money for treatment and help to school districts! He has it...I can't give him back...so what to do about it is the question to ask.

I struggle to believe there are more people invested in a cure, than there are people invested in treating the sick. Look at where the money raised for research goes - drugs to treat cancer, not links to solve cancer.

Your cynical view is based in very illogical arguments. First off, of course there are more people working to treat the sick than to find a cure for cancer. Doctors everywhere treat sick patients, yet only a small number of researchers are working on finding a cure for this specific disease. That's like you saying you're surprised that more people drive cars than are actually working on making them.

Are we trying to find a cure? Certainly, but don't associate the lack of a fool-proof cure with the idea that we are trying to keep people sick. It's a complicated disease with many different causes. Radiation, smoking, genetics, etc. can all contribute. Cancer is also a very tough disease to treat. You essentially have to kill mutant, out-of-control cell growth -- and if you leave one or two cells after getting rid of most of the tumor, it can come back. Believe me, it's a battle we're getting better at, but to state that people are intentionally not working hard to find a cure -- that's ludicrous. The first company to find an ultimate cure will make billions of dollars by themselves. To say that they're keeping status quo to make a little money now vs. making oodles of money with a cure is stupid.

These kinds of studies are the main reason why your argument doesn't mesh. There are tons of studies all looking at different reasons for autism, cancer, etc. When we find a correlation, the pharma industry, college labs, and gov't labs all fund studies to look into these potential causes, then look to come up with a solution. We make small strides every day, yet because we don't arrive at the finish line immediately, you think the race isn't happening. Or worse, that the contestants are intentionally losing the race. You're just completely ill-informed.

Jessica- I honestly hate to say it, but yup, I think you hit at least half the nail on the head. Personality traits that used to be considered a bit of an oddity, maybe even "weird" NOW have to be named and "treated"(usually drugged). More and more I see the parents of children that are happy, active and imaginative before they hit the strictures of Pre-and/or Kinde school suddenly being told their child NEEDS assesments for anything that varies from a very narrow middle "norm", when in actuality the scale of what is considered "normal" in these young age groups is VAST.

Jessica you're right, as a pediatrican I am not vested in keeping my patients healthy. I love it when patients are sick and suffering, really makes my day............

Perhaps the more logical answer is that what makes people sick is super complex, more complex than the average person can understand. We are still trying to figure out what causes some cancers. The trick is to find a solution that doesn't kill the person while killing the disease. Thats really, really hard to do. That's just one example. Or lets look at the fact that people just make poor medical decisions. Sometimes it because they don't know any better and sometimes they chose to make bad decisions. Do you have any idea of what obesity and smoking are linked too? That much of todays diseases are totally preventable if people stopped smoking and eating crap?

But no, its doctors and the medical researchers that are "keeping people sick." Occams's Razor states that all things being equal, the simplest solution is the most likely explaination. What's the simplest solution? That there is a massive worldwide conspiracy encompassing millions of health care proffesionals designed to keep people sick and that no one has been able to find any evidence of this, or that diseases are complicated and that people don't take good care of themselves?

I would also point out that you question why dont researchs act on new findings but they complain that "trillions are spent on research." As with most things, it is easier to treat cancers than to figure out the cause, hence it take more time to do this. There are literally thousands of PhD's looking into the cause of cancer. Lots of money goes into treating cancer, but you are just wrong when you say that none of it goes into finding a cure.

Chris:

That makes good sense. Nothing I like more while on the Vine.....actually learning something.

And I want to add something to what jmills said:

There have not been trillions spent on cancer research --- it is in the very low billions. And government funding of ALL health care research is not going up ---- it has plummeted. NIH funding ten years ago was at the 18% level. That means that of research grant proposals that had been repeatedly reviewed and found to be useful and significant, only the top 18% (as scored by scientist peers) were funded. (My wife is a internationally-respected and well-known and heavily cited researcher who is currently in Washington doing volunteer work reviewing NIH grant proposals in her area of expertise.) The number is now down to less than 5%. There is simply less money going into medical research than at any time since prior to WWII.

And if you think your "pink ribbon" things count toward research, guess again. Virtually all those things are a highly organized scam. Over 95% of all money collected by "pink-ribbon" associated charities go to overhead. Less than 5% goes to actual research. (Contrast that to St. Jude's Childrens' Hospital where 116% of all money collected goes to research or treatment [there are a number of companies who automatically match certain contributions, driving the percentage over 100%].)

Mark Twain wisely observed over a hundred years ago that any conspiracy involving more than one person was destined to failure. People simply cannot keep their mouths shut long enough to conspire successfully. Conspiracy theories are simply a modern form of religion that attempt to explain things that people do not or will not take the time to understand. The larger the ignorance, the greater the conspiracy required to explain it. This was acceptable when men lived in caves and could not grasp why lightening occurred. In this "information age" it is just a sign of a lazy mind.

While I agree with you in principle, you can't honestly tell me there's no overhead at the St. Jude Children's Hospital. Your statistic for low percentages is really for ANY charity, due to the overhead necessary to keep the place running. But you have a point that it's better to give to an organization directly than to the middleman to then send to the organization. In all honesty, though, it's better to give than to not give, in any case.

All fundraising for St. Judes is done pro bono. All advertising is free as a public service and volunteers do everything else out of their pocket if necessary (I know, I rented a tent once for an event.) At one time Tennessee enacted a law that 85% of all money collected must go to the purpose intended. Then also added a bunch of other restrictions such as a requirement that the charity have a full-time board of directors. St. Judes has a full-time board of directors, but they were volunteer. Now they are paid a dollar a year.

I am talking about the overhead of advertising, sending out flyers, paying staff and other activities that are totally unrelated to the operation of the charity. Even St. Jude's has to pay the electric bill. I didn't mean its internal overhead.

Most of these "walks" and "runs" and "drives" are organized and put on by professional "fund-raising groups", such as Smokey Mountain Charities, Inc. They manage to end up with almost all the money. The "pink ribbon" charity events are currently the most common scam being run by these people. There are a few that are legitimate (such as my state will give you a Breast Cancer Research license plate for an extra $5 and all that goes to the American Cancer Society, but those are few and far between.

I know what you were trying to speak to, but it came across as odd. You're talking about the fundraising arms of these places. Any firsthand collector of these funds is going to get most of the money. So it does make sense that you would contribute directly to the organization, rather than through a middleman.

But you made it seem like unless you contribute to St. Jude's that your money would be wasted with overhead. So St. Jude's advertisements, commercials, etc. don't cost money? While the money is funneled directly to them, they do have overhead that they have to pay for doctors, supplies, etc. And many walk-a-thons, etc. do funnel the money directly to these organizations, with minimal overhead.

I think what your point was is that you should watch out for the "middleman" charity organizations that are not volunteer groups, since they will keep most of the money to keep their business alive, and only funnel part of the money you donate to the actual charities.

penguin,

Sorry if I left that impression. I intended to point out that there are charities who get people to donate all services and manpower for fund raising activities, versus those who professionally raise funds, buy advertising and pay all manpower, including their own management. No, St. Judes flyers, TV commercials and mailings are not paid for by St. Judes and do not use up money collected. They get "sponsors", often large corporations to supply these as a donation. TV and radio stations can count it against their public service announcement time. I am not talking about the administrative overhead of the hospital, I am talking about the overhead of their fundraising.

But even at that, St. Jude's is a very low overhead operation. Many physicians and lab people and nurses are actually volunteers who give a day a week to the hospital. Supplies and pharmaceuticals are often donated by drug companies and medical supply and equipment companies.

But there are plenty of other charities who are good, honest, and effective as well.

There are some walk-a-thons and such that do give all the money top research, but they are few and far between. Right now "pink ribbon" activities are very much in vogue. People participate and donate thinking that somehow most of the money gets to breast cancer research, treatment, or even assisting the poor to obtain treatment. For many of these events, less than 5% goes to the charity (which is often not even specified.)

Ten years ago it was robo-calls to aid the families of fallen policemen. Those families saw less than 1% of the money collected.

Almost every state offers a site that gives information on this issue to consumers. Here is a link to Tennessee's site:

http://www.state.tn.us/sos/charity/

Agreed. It's unfortunate to have dishonest people running fake charities, and it's also unfortunate that charitable organizations have to funnel only 5-10% of their funds to actually helping the cause (in most states).

I think that you have the wrong idea. Autism was a problem way before people started using marijuana. Where Marijuana ia a dangerous drug, majority of mothers of unborn children never smoked or smoked it prior or during to pregnancy. But there maybe a connection between women who smoke cigarettes during pregnancy. My sister smoked during pregnancy and her youngest daughter has autism. My neice is 27. She does have a job, even though she lives at a state mental institution. I do not think that scientist will ever find a way to prevent autism. Allergies are going to come closer to finding out what starts autism.

People always want to blame the mothers for everything. My son has autism, and I've gotten used to it. They don't blame the father for anything. When my son was diagnosed I had an ignorant early intervention specialist who still went by the "refrigerator mothers" theory. personally i find this study ridiculous. like thimerosol, and too much t.v. next they will say it's caused by chicken nuggets.

That's rediculous Dale. No one puts chemicals in marijuana, unless of course you pay extra. Drug dealers exist to make a profit and the addition of extra chemicals, or "lacing", would lower their profit.

Pot? Really? Someone is reaching for that one.

Chemicals "added" to marijuana arent added by the dealer. They are added by our ( and others) government in an effort to eradicate the crop......pesticides.

I have had a very non scientific hunch that the increase in Autism is related to cocaine use in some instances. Parents don't jump all over my claim until you do a bit of research.

Jeez, we were having a very serious scientific debate, and then someone interjected an opinion about marijuana and everything immediately started getting bogus.

Tom.

As a mother of three, two being Autistic.....and NEVER have had cocaine...I debunk your ridiculous claim.

I can attest to also several other people I know with Autistic children who didn't do drugs either, including before during and after pregnancy.

My comment said "Some" not all. Google it and learn something.

Dale and Tom,

I don't smoke anything and have NEVER used illegal drugs. Both my children are on the spectrum. My family doesn't smoke, hasn't smoked and never will smoke. None in the immediate family use illegal drugs or have been addicts or alcoholics. So there goes that "theory" (aka guess) as to the cause of autism.

Now go back to your play toys and let the scientists and doctors work on this issue. Guessing based on nothing doesnt help and isnt a good use of any of our time especially those of us who live with autism everyday.

Like I said Google it. There are 4 instances of autism among my family members and they led very clean and sober lives. Some of my family members are national published experts on the subject so don't make a personal attack on me with such words as "Play Toys"

when you stop accusing the parents of children with autism of being drug addicts.

That sort of attitude is most of the reason why the United States is 50th in infant mortality. Of course, you can blame it on illegal immigration, high taxes on the wealthy, Obama, and too big government, but the fact remains --- in this country too many babies die because of our poor medical delivery system.

Or just don't know how to maneuver through the medical system efficently and effectively to get the best treatment out there. Eh.

You forget that immediately after a baby is born, antibiotics are put into their eyes because a handful of women have gonorrhea. And then we wonder why we have so many antibiotic resistant strains of bacterium.

Light Weaver,

It has been my experience that neonates have virtually no ability to "maneuver through the medical system efficiently." And a dead baby is a dead baby. I have lost two grandchildren --- live births, one at 20 weeks and the other at 24 weeks. In Denmark the first (who died after three days) would have had about a 50/50 chance. The other (who died after 10 days) would have had around a 85+% chance. Their parents had insurance and intensive high-risk pregnancy monitoring for the second child. The mother was on strict bed rest for several weeks and had "purse-string" surgery, so she "maneuvered" quite well. But the fact is that pre-natal and neo-natal care in this country is substantially behind the rest of the industrialized world. (And my apologies to physicians who are doing the best they can with the training, procedures, and equipment they have to work with.)

This country's infant mortality rate is a disgrace. And as far as illegal immigrants go ---- you have to remember that the vaccination rates in EVERY Central and South American countries are higher than ours. And EVERY Central and South American country has lower infant mortality than we do. And it is an urban myth that illegal immigrants bring in disease. Studies have shown over and over that illegal immigrants tend to be much younger and healthier than the general American population. Because of this, they also tend to be far less users of the medical system. In fact, studies in California have shown that illegal immigrants contribute more in confiscated state income taxes (for which they never get refunds) than they use in state services.

So much for "political" correctness. Let's go for factual correctness. Blaming everything on illegal immigrants is silly, ill-informed, and stupid. (And BTW, the top four of the top ten cities in the U.S. with the lowest crime rates are in border states (including Phoenix and San Diego --- so I guess illegal immigrants dilute the crime rate.)

In Georgia,

It's silver nitrate, not antibiotics in most cases, and it has reduced the number of cases of infantile blindness from STD's to nearly zero. There was one of those fad things that went around about 20 years ago that the silver nitrate caused temporary blurred vision and many parents postulated that this could interfere with "bonding" with parents. Some pediatricians began to substitute tetracycline and other antibiotics, but subsequent research showed that voice sounds were the most important ingredient in neonatal bonding, and most pediatricians went back to silver nitrate because it is cheaper and much safer.

Chris-749391, I think the reporting on infant mortality rate is deeply flawed because if you are using the recent worldwide reports as a point of reference, each country decides what they consider as a live birth. For the U.S. any live birth is considered IF the child shows any sign of life, regardless of gestation and weight while other countries have a higher threshold. For instance, some countries do not consider a birth live unless the child meets a certain weight or gestation (usually around 24-26 months which is considered as the edge of viability). So that, a baby born at 20 weeks who shows signs of life is considered a live birth in the U.S. but such a birth in Sweden will be considered a stillbirth. Also, remember that many U.S. hospitals are more aggressive in trying to implement life saving measures. The hospital where I delivered my children will conduct life saving measures for a child born at 23 weeks unless the parents say otherwise.

As for vaccinations, in the U.S. they are voluntary while in some countries they are "highly encouraged" whether its through incentives offered by the government, or mass vaccinations in schools or even compulsory vaccinations.

Grace,

You are absolutely wrong. The CDCP wrote the criteria and the World Health Organization uses the same Uniform Infant Mortality Protocol for each country that reports its data. For countries which do not report their data, such as Venezuela, estimates are used. Implying that somehow Sweden "cooks the infant mortality books" is simply mal-informed or just something you pulled out of the air.

If anyone is "cooking the books", it is people like you who insist that this country is always Number One, whether they are or not. And in health care we are not number one, floods of Canadians do not come to this country for legitimate necessary medical treatment. It is just the other way. Over a million Americans a year immigrate to Canada, versus 6-7,000 a year of Canadians immigrating to the U.S. The biggest reason for immigration to Canada is given as their healthcare system. The second reason is the lifestyle.

Chris, I'm going to have to disagree with you on a few fronts.

First, it's really hard to immigrate to Canada, as you must obtain a job before you're allowed to immigrate there. Second, the population of Canada doesn't even increase by a million each year, so to suggest that over a million Americans leave the U.S. for Canada is insane. That would amount to a 3% population growth each year, just from Americans, not including any other immigrants or population growth among the Canadian people.

On the infant mortality rate, here's what Wikipedia states:

WHO defines a live birth as any born human being who demonstrates independent signs of life, including breathing, voluntary muscle movement, or heartbeat. Many countries, however, including certain European states and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and raises their rates of perinatal mortality.

So we're not comparing apples to apples here when you compare U.S. data with other countries. Additionally, many countries that are "better" than the U.S. at infant mortality are in countries with VERY low birth rates (e.g. San Marino), so you cannot really compare a country with a few thousand people to ours.

I'm certainly not saying we're number one. But we adhere to tighter criteria for infant mortality, so the data is skewed and cannot be compared apples to apples.

DCS...

Not so fast...I have never believed that childhood innoculations were wholely responsible for autism, but I am wondering if this study took into account the infants who developed autism whose mothers were blood type Rh negative. When an Rh negative mother gives birth to a Rh positive infant, the blood incompatibility can cause some of the most severe incidents of jaundice...thus, pregnant women who are Rh negative can and do usually receive Rhogam injections to help prevent this sensitivity effect on future pregnancies and the resulting infants...normally after, and with pregnancies AFTER the first pregnancy (unless that has changed in recent years). This could account for the research showing first borns not falling in line with this study statistics. I hope the researchers will look at this, if they have not yet, to see if there may be a link...something like a Right House...Wrong Door situation, concerning innoculations and their possible role in autism. I am not saying this is so, and again it could be a combination of several factors...maybe even with subsequent childhood innoculations sometimes triggering or worsening effects, to the point where they are identified. But definately something to be considered and possibly ruled out or in, I would say.

Oh i wouldnt say that innoculations arent to blame... this study says that 67% of those with autism had jundice as a baby, id wonder if you then did a study of those that had jaundice, and which vaccines they had, and when, it would show a correlation?

It`s been years (decades more like it) since I have taken prenatal vitamins. Is Vitamin D part of them? If so, then mom should not have a deficiency even in long winter months.

Almost every routine blood panel done by your physician in a physical includes Vitamin D levels. I just found that out a couple of years ago. I take a supplement, but did some reading and found out that they used to think that Viatmin D deficiency pretty much caused rickets and that was it. That's why they started adding it to milk --- and rickets virtually disappeared from this country. But more recently they have found links with low Vitamin D levels and depression, diabetes, heart disease and solid tumor cancers. That does not mean that Vitamin D deficiency causes these things, but that they are related somehow. So there is a lot more attention being paid to it these days. And when you pay a lot more attentions, you will make even more correlations.

My little inside joke is that I have had three basal cell cancers removed (not something dangerous, but annoying) so I try to limit my direct exposure to sunlight. I wear a t-shirt when swimming and a baseball cap most of the time and use sunscreen when doing yard work, for example. And now my physician is telling me to get more sun exposure. LOL

Although supplements...and foods...can help as sources of vitamin D...the sun is by far the BEST source to be absorbed by the body.

If you apply the percentages of occurrence to the same number of babies it would look like this:

698,600 (without jaundice) = 1,019 with autism.

698,600 (with jaundice) = 34,930 with autism.

To me those numbers would at least suggest that the study isn't brushed off. They aren't saying jaundice by it self absolutely 100% percent = autism, but they are saying there seems to be some sort of link.

Makes a lot of sense JasonFinPA, especially about the mothers possible lacking something in the winter months.

JasonFinPa...

Well said.

Jason - you're not reading the numbers correctly.

698,000 without jaundice = 1,019 with autism

34,930 with jaundice = 1700 with autism

So 95% with jaundice do not have autism.

"698,600 (without jaundice) = 1,019 with autism.

698,600 (with jaundice) = 34,930 with autism"

and

"698,000 without jaundice = 1,019 with autism

34,930 with jaundice = 1700 with autism"

are confusing please elaborate :D. with something like :

698,000 without Jaundice= 1,019 with autism = .14% (or whatever the percentage is) of the total.

34,930 with jaundice= 1,700 with autism = 4.9% (or whatever the percentage is) of the total

I interpret that Jaundice may occur along side of austism, however it is not a definitive "symptom" of Austim. So there isn't that much exclusivity of the condition towards just Austism Spectrum Disorder. ?

In the article it states that 5% of the children with jaundice have autism which equals the 1,721 kids out of 35,766 that had jaundice.

What I am doing is showing how big of a difference the percentage is, because they don't prepare the numbers properly. Kids without jaundice only have autism 0.1% of the time. So to put the numbers in better perspective I am using the same number of kids for each scenario.

So given the percentages of occurrence that is what the numbers would work out to:

If you had 698,600 kids without jaundice, the 0.1% occurrence rate would = 1,019 children with autism.

If you had the same number 698,600 kids WITH jaundice, the 5% occurrence rate would = 34,930 children with autism.

I just thought the percentage difference was huge but they were doing it an injustice by comparing the percentages only to the separate number of children. The percentages used against the same number of children would show that children with jaundice are almost 35x more likely to have autism.

Dave T

You are correct, 95% of children with jaundice do not have autism. However, 99.9% of children without jaundice do not have autism. Whether you present the facts of how many have it, or how many don't have it. It still works out to a 5% difference. As far as I know, that's pretty huge in the scientific world, especially considering the enormous sample size.

I do not think there is a single factor, but I think the jaundice study shows that the destructive qualities of too much bile in the blood can affect the brain, and result in autism in higher percentages than those without jaundice.

I agree Jason, except when people are starting to say that the last three months of the mother's exposure to sun has an effect. The autism rate goes up with babies born beginning in October. That measn the last three months of pregnancy are Jul-Sept (or late July through late Oct.). These three monthe essentially have the same amount of sunlight as April-June (early March through early June), but in reverse order (solistice is late June). If it was the mother's exposure to sunlight, the rate would start going up later. Of course, it depends where you live, too. Denmark is pretty far north, so their daylight time reduces far faster in after summer solistice than in Arizona, where I live.

And everyone seems to be missing a point. Hippocrates pointed out that "correlation does not equal causation." Popular press articles try to convince people that, in this case, jaundice causes autism. This study did not have any such finding. All it found was a correlation --- that the two are statistically related.

And you also have to look at this from another perspective. This is "data mining." They are looking at medical records for kids who have been diagnosed with ASD and babies who were treated for jaundice. The problem here is that over the years more and more kids are being diagnosed with ASD because diagnostic criteria are getting better and physicians and psychologists are paying more attention and watching for symptoms more closely. The same goes for jaundice --- jaundice is "yellowing" caused by irregular liver function --- high billirubin being the marker. Most elevated billirubin goes away on its own quickly and is never treated, so few, if any medical records exist.

The next step is to design a study where you specifically watch liver function in neonates and follow the kids for years and test closely for ASD symptoms. This sort of study will require a minimum of 7-10 years to design, recruit subjects, conduct, and evaluate once the funding is obtained. Right now NIH funding is at the 5% level ---- that is 5% of grant proposals deemed "significant and useful" are being funded. That is down from 18% ten years ago. My guess is that a significant study like this, conducted in this country, would run around $30-$50 million dollars. (Guess whose wife is a NIH-funded researcher? LOL) I have a couple of good friends who do research in autism treatment (a husband-wife team) and they complain constantly that there is simply no funding available because there are simply too many good ideas chasing too few dollars.

Chris 749391:

I find your multiple comments thoughtful and incitful. I too and deeply disturbed at the abysmal lack of quality care for (especially) children in our nation. We should be ashamed when the Swedes and Danes spoend less and have better quality and outcomes.

Lastly, as far as "dark months" and Vitimin D go, my daughter was born 35 years ago and has always lived in dark Seattle. Five years ago she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Those "MS Studies" indicate a rise in MS in the dark Pacific Northwest and recently there has been talk of Vitimin D as somehow connected as ONE part of the puzzle...Interesting stuff but no Nobel prize yet.

I try to stay up on the subject. My wife is a PhD research psychologist and we have a couple of good friends who are autism researchers. Whenever we get together, the three of them cannot be prevented from "talking shop." This leaves me with the choice of staying up a little on the subject so I can participate or just sitting like a frog on a log until something else comes up.

children with autism are also a blessing. I have learned to take each day at a time. My son teaches me about love, and living in the moment.

Did you miss the part where the article stated that for whatever reason this doesn't apply to firstborn?

Veryblessed,

They said in the article that just because a child developed jaundice did not mean that the child would develope Autism. The article just noted the relation between the rates of jaundice and Autism in the population over the past ten years and clearly stated that there would need to be more study to determine if there was any kind of link between the two numbers, not that there was a direct link.

The non-application to firstborns makes complete sense when you consider antigen/antibody reaction. There is something to be said for marrying your blood type which almost guarantees a non-jaundiced baby.

I have no experience with autism, but do you think one of the major causes in the rise is just the fact that doctors are better at diagnosing it now, thus the rise in numbers? I know that it is now understood that there are many different variations in autistic people, with many living very normal lives where the average person would not even notice any difference in that person. It seems to me that just the recognition of the very mild cases of autism would cause a huge rise in the numbers, but like I said I don't have any experience, I am just trying to better understand things.

I would agree with you JasonFinPA that doctors are getting more skilled at recognizing autism. For example, I volunteered years ago at the Special Olympics and I encountered children who were termed with Down's Syndrome who struck me more as being autistic. Autistic children learn differently and have communication issues. This could easily be taken as Down's Syndrome. My point is better recognition of autism I am sure has contributed to the increase in numbers.

Yes, that is what I have always thought when I hear about how more prevalent autism is. I do also believe that there very well may be other factors, such has how many chemicals we eat and put in our homes, but it just seems like no one mentions the fact that it is also just better diagnosed now. Whatever the case, it is obviously a very difficult thing to figure out, and hopefully more studies will continue to find different links and that will lead to a definitive answer in the near future.

Additionally, the definition has changed dramatically over the past 20-25 years. Essentially, you had to be similar to Rain Man to be autistic 20 years ago. Now, the definition now includes Asperger's and the full spectrum. So the definition now encompasses more kids, thus a part of the increase as well. I do agree, though, that a better awareness of it in doctors and parents has contributed as well, just like ADHD was the "diagnosis du jour" in the 1990s.

@Stuart - I am not sure how you could confuse someone with Down Syndrome and someone as Autistic. A child born with Down Syndrom has an extra chromosome and very distinctive facial features, whereas children with Autism are completely normal looking, which is why it is often not diagnosed until they are older.

FYI, Down Syndrome and autism cannot be mistaken as one another. First of all, Down Syndrome is a genetic disorder of the 21st chromosome which causes very VISUAL & IDENTICAL characteristics (almond-shaped eyes with epicanthial folds, small/flat nose, large tongue, simean crease in both palms/feet as well as webbing between digits, hyperflexibility of joints -- just to name a few). Now while Down's patients can ALSO have autism, much of their behavior is more likely due to the mental retardation that is also inherant with the condition. I have a brother with Down's and I've been with Special Olympics since it's inception in the early 70's, and only rarely come across those individuals who were actually both (by medical diagnosis).

For the past 50 years or so, Down's syndrome (aka trisomy 21) has been known to be caused by the presence of an extra chromosome. Someone with Down's syndrome could also have autism, I suppose, but it would be nearly impossible to misdiagnose someone with autism (and autism only) as having Down's. You just count the chromosomes. If there are three copies of chromosome 21, that's Down's.

JasonFinPA I share your opinion that greater knowledge about the autistic spectrum is a significant factor in the rise in diagnosis.

Our son is a person with Asperger's Syndrome (he's 25 yrs. old), and when I first started researching "mild" autism after hearing the word applied to my son at age 3.5, not much at all was known about it. In 1994 (son was 9 by this time), Apsperger's Syndrome appeared in the DSMIV, the tool used as THE reference guide for diagnosis. There must be a causal relationship to the expansion of autistic spectrum disorders recognized "officially" and the rise in occurrences reported.

BTW, in our case, we are firmly convinced this was inherited, as both my husband and I have long familial histories of "odd" but brilliant people in our lineage. My sister, his brother...and on and on back through decades based on family reports.

Natedom, I did encounter "normal looking" children who appeared to me to be autistic rather than Down's Syndrome at the Special Olympics event. My point is that due to the autistic kid's learning disability, they were grouped in with Down Syndrome kids for lack of better diagnosing at the time (about 13 years ago).

AMFH - I think you are absolutely correct, after all, look at Einstein. No one would question that he was brilliant, but history clearly states that the man had no socialization skills.

As a person who has a higher functioning form of Autism (AS), I don't buy the vaccination bandwagon. Sure it's easy and very comforting to simplify a medical condition to being solely the cause of a vaccination combination compound.

But come USE YOUR BRAIN! If this condition has been around since the time "refrigerator moms" were deemed as the cause (though I doubt that did help the child's development already with the condition), how is a vaccine anymore likely to be the culprit.

I was diagnosed after months of testing when I was 10. Along side with GAD. After five years previously having a seizure which lasted around 1 hour and 45mins in my sleep and having been hospitalized for 3 days (haven't had one since thankfully).

Being diagnosed with childhood epilepsy and my parents not understanding why I "felt" too much when I worried. At the time before the diagnosis it didn't help that part of the medical treatment I recieved for the epilepsy was blood drawings.

As well as being vaccinated as a baby when being naturalized through international adoption and recieving the proper vaccinations.

It's one thing to assume the vaccines are clearly the cause however, I look at it this way if you don't know your own family's past medical anomalites and conditions, how likely is it that the vaccine just triggered a preset set down generations ago. I don't know my birthmother nor father's medical history since it wasn't an included thing as far as the type of adoption I was from.

Plus Genetics is complex just because your genes show an expression for a certain condition that doesn't mean it guarantees one will develop the condition like Hodgkins which is a Domianiant-Recessive Transmission type of Genetic Condition. Paternal, Maternal, RNA (ATP production and what not), and expresstivity (varies in severity of certain conditions) are also things that have to be taken into account as well.

You would have to assume that more diagnosis (and associated school/social progam funding) is at least part of the increase.

Couldn't a hereditary problem combined with the issues of jaundice equal a situation for increased risk of autism? They seemed to have stated as a plain fact, that too much bile in the blood left untreated will damage the brain, and none of the other experts in the article said anything against that fact.

Just because a person is born with a condition like Jaundice doesn't mean it is that they will develop AUTISM. While it may occur in some cases along side with Autism it doesn't mean it will ALL THE TIME. Most research on Autism is still too vague to assume brain damage will cause the condition...if it was already definitive there would be better knowledge of the condition and how to treat it, not just with medicene but cognitively as well.

As far as I know I didn't have liver issues as a baby, I was just allergic to Iron. Yet I still developed with the condition within the higher fuctioning (AS) area of ASD.

So please don't generalize complex medical conditons. Every case is different and every case is treated along some basic guidelines however treatment for each individual differs. Some may have more conditions on the side while others with the same condition don't.

Umm... I wasn't generalizing anything. My response was to Benjoh stating it has nothing to do with autism and that autism is all hereditary. I was simply saying that isn't it possible that a hereditary factor combined with the issues of severe jaundice could contribute to the development of autism.

As I say while it might come about along side Autism, it would be assuming a lot to say.

I still developed this condition even without prenatal care and lack of proper nurtrition. So go figure. But I know I do enjoy soup which is what my birthmother had a lot of while I was in the womb because that was what she and her mom along with siblings could afford. Plus when it comes to autism it is a developmental condition, so I'm not so sure as there would be damage to the brain as there would just not be enough blood going to the brain to fully allow development to take place at the normal rate. But oh well.

Yes, I am not saying it is a proven fact. I am just saying it is a feasible cause, which could be one of many causes. When someone comes up with good research and numbers that draws attention to certain possible factors, it should be further researched.

Too many people seem to just want to blow it off. The numbers in the study clearly back up the fact that there is some correlation going on. That doesn't mean jaundice is the end all be all, or that other separate issues aren't the real answer. It just means that it should be taken seriously and looked into further.

Also, as a side note. Jaundice doesn't cause liver issues in babies, it's a condition with too much bilirubin in the blood for the liver to successfully rid the body of on it's own without the special lamps or lots of sunlight. The extra bile in the blood is proven be able to cause damage to the brain and many other organs, so correlating that condition with autism is not some crazy idea. Again, that doesn't mean it is the culprit, it just means it should be studied further.

I disagree: this was not irresponsible reporting. Several times in the article they pointed out that this is a correlation, not a causation. This study indicates that more study is needed. At no point in the article did it indicate a causation.

Here is a news flash; thimerisol is 50% mercury. Thimerisol is till used in vaccines, even against CDC recommendations. The FDA insists it is a "tiny" amount, while ignoring that there is no safe level of mercury, and that the livers of newborns already being inefficient, cannot eliminate the mercury for up to 6 months. Children are also more susceptible to the effects of smaller amounts of mercury. And www.vitamindcouncil.org has links to research on vitamin D levels and autism. This would cover the winter months link to weakness in the liver function.

Here area few articles that aren't written by the people who have big money to make by pushing mercury into the bodies of tiny babies;

http://jcn.sagepub.com/content/22/11/1308.abstract

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/08/Hepatitis-B-Vaccine-Triples-the-Risk-of-Autism-in-Infant-Boys.aspx

http://www.robertfkennedyjr.com/docs/ThimerosalScandalFINAL.PDF

http://www.infowars.com/autism-explodes-as-childhood-vaccines-increase/

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0616-31.htm

http://www.prisonplanet.com/doctors-confirm-flu-shot-disabled-woman-as-carrey-mccarthy-lend-support.html

http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/PublicHealth/ImmunizationSafety/Brown.pdf

Reposted (to Ken K-oPho)...

Not so fast...I have never believed that childhood innoculations were wholely responsible for autism, but I am wondering if this study took into account the infants who developed autism whose mothers were blood type Rh negative. When an Rh negative mother gives birth to a Rh positive infant, the blood incompatibility can cause some of the most severe incidents of jaundice...thus, pregnant women who are Rh negative can and do usually receive Rhogam injections to help prevent this sensitivity effect on future pregnancies and the resulting infants...normally after, and with pregnancies AFTER the first pregnancy (unless that has changed in recent years). This could account for the research showing first borns not falling in line with this study statistics. I hope the researchers will look at this, if they have not yet, to see if there may be a link...something like a Right House...Wrong Door situation, concerning innoculations and their possible role in autism. I am not saying this is so, and again it could be a combination of several factors...maybe even with subsequent childhood innoculations sometimes triggering or worsening effects, to the point where they are identified. But definately something to be considered and possibly ruled out or in, I would say.

#8.1 - Mon Oct 11, 2010 12:14 PM EDT

One does wonder why they'd continue to use thermisol- negative effect real or not. In the US supposedly its not used on standard child vaccines, but is still in use beyond that or 'out of band' vaccines.

Unfortunately I think its still going to fall under a several possibilities that don't stand the same chance for everyone due to genetic makeup. Lack of liver function caused by genetics, trace mercury. mom eating fish on tuesdays.

The anti-vaccine thing still strikes me like people believing they'll be 'thrown clear' not wearing a seatbelt. There IS exceptions, there will always be a case where someone survives the unsurvivable by doing something stupid. Just as there will always be the rare unlucky case of someone being hurt or killed by the thing trying to save them. Vaccines are more likely to save you than kill you... but I won't argue that putting mercury of any amount in them is a good thing. (Find a better anti-fungal agent... you'd think the PR alone would be worth it.)

The incidence of autism is 1 in 100. The likelihood of getting a childhood disease when unvaccinated is NOT 1 in 100 or tons of people would be sick with polio, pertussis, etc. As a matter of fact, in Australia, where vaccines are voluntary and about 50% choose to vaccinate and 50% choose not to, outbreaks of childhood diseases occur AT THE SAME RATE as those in the US.

There have been studies done that show clearly that it is the presence of aborted fetal cells in the vaccines that sparked the rise in autism. They can trace country by country when the cells were added and the spike that follows. When my son was diagnosed 15 years ago, the incidence was 1 in 10,000, now it is 1 in 100. Clearly there is some kind of environmental trigger here.

I got vaccinated after being internationally adopted from Peru, with who knows what chemicals go through the water due to mining in areas of the andes where possible run-off and natural water supplies combine, given that I was born into a lesser developed part of the Andes. So go figure.

It's not always medical, and vice versa. While I may never know if I got it through a vaccine, since I had a majority of mine when I was a baby, I really don't care. Its kept me healthy and illness-free. It was part of the processs, so there really wasn't any way to really NOT get them.

Well, I can give you a number for that Jrz, if you like. At least one. I have three boys, and only one of them is autistic, and, coincidentally enough, the autistic one is the one I stayed three extra days in the hospital with because he had jaundice. I'm not saying the article is right, but it is a weird coincidence.

I would imagine that if a link between jaundice and autism firms up, it would lead to more aggressive treatment of jaundice. Two of my three kids developed slight jaundice, and I was told to watch it for a few days and bring the babies in if the whites of their eyes turned yellow.

If there is a firm link, I can see treatment becoming more aggressive, especially if researchers can nail down more precisely the level of jaundice that contributes to the trigger of autism.

MsWheezer, agreed. In fact, it might become common practice to trace more primary markers for indicators of jaundice or such functional deficiencies and then the treat them much more aggressively, as sepsis and compression/rhabdo (which you treat even if it's just the threat, before conclusive 'gold-standard' tests come back, because if you're wrong, all you've done is given some treatment that easily flushed, but if you're right, you've prevented profound damage/death.

MsWheezer...

I just wanted to mention an observation that I noticed, at least in the mideast area of the U.S. that I live in, as a newborn nurse. Over thirty years ago, newborns stayed in the hospital longer...normally 3-4 days (when jaundice commonly peaks, or at least presents) and for the most part, any newborn with a total bilirubin over 10 or 12 was treated with phototherapy lights. As the years went on and science progressed (and insurance companies took more and more control of medicine) newborns stayed in the hospital a much shorter time...usually one to two days...thus we can almost guarantee some significant cases of jaundice were missed...and secondly, the total bilirubin level requiring treatment under lights (per accepted protocol) was raised to a bili level of closer to 15 or more (other factors came into consideration, as at what age the jaundice presented...an 8 hour old infant with a significant total bili level of, say 7, would be treated as it was known the level would go up in the following days). But, for the most part, infant jaundice care moved in the direction of reserveing phototherapy treatment for increasingly higher bili levels, through the past thirty years. This does coincide with the rising statistics of autism over the past decades... so a correlation that could be explored if some link is proven, betweeen jaundice and incidence of autism. As we have also discussed on this board...they could also be concurrent conditions with a related cause (say a Vitamin D deficiency link is someday proven), but not that one (jaundice) actually causes the other (autism), as well. However, I too believe that better awareness and testing (partially due to social/educational funding availability dependent on diagnostic label), and a greater number of "spectrum" disorders that now fall under the label of ASD also contribute to the rising statistics...but cannot totally account for the increase in incidence. JMHO

And to go into that thought further... How many children born in the southern or south western states end up jauntice or autistic or both...

Yet something else to ponder.

me-2317263....MsAubrey...

Here is a link to begin to search on Vit.D and autism...lot of info here..on other diseases also.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/

There is a global deficiency...WHO.. the world health org. has a tool that has been used in a lot of research that has been done on this subject.. showing higher disease rates according to higher latitudes north and south of the equator.. this link may help explain it's use in breast cancer research..

http://cancer.ucsd.edu/AboutUs/News/stories/Garland_VitD_Breast.asp

My latitude is 42 deg. north.. Denmark is 55 to 57 deg. north. The angle of the sun in the winter makes a huge difference in the availability of Vit.D obtainable. There is not sufficient D available in food..for optimum levels..The RDA is limited.. The deficiency of this nutrient seems to be connected to so many diseases, such as heart disease, 17 different cancers, diabetes, MS, fibromyalgia,arthritis and many other diseases ..I am not saying this is the answer to all diseases, but it may be a link.. It is easy enough to get blood levels checked and go from there..It costs very little to supplement with this Vit. Maybe they could do a study on the children who have autism now by testing their blood levels.. Canada public health actually distributes D to patients..

Thanks. John. It's pretty kick @ss that you have links to share.

Living in Michigan... It gets pretty dreary for at least 1/2 the year.

MsAubrey.. It gets pretty dreary for at least 1/2 the year.

Here is Lansing latitude..42 deg., Alpena 45 deg.,Houghton 47 deg., Same as Seattle 47 deg. (Seattle,Pacific Northwest has a very high percentage of MS cases..) They have connected the MS gene to a deficiency of vit.D, through research done in the UK.. There is a lot of info out there, you just have to search for it...

It takes about 3 months to achieve proper levels, through taking supplements..First you have to find out what your levels are through tests..that requires getting the right lab for the testing..One of the labs (Quest)( NYT article) had been found to be giving higher levels, I think that has been corrected.. link below.. I use ZRT..online..you do it, and send it back to them. they send results.. which you can take to your health care professional..

http://medicalmalpractice.levinperconti.com/2009/01/lab_recalls_erroneous_test_res.html

There is a lot of info in the link in the comment #19.2 above..on the left side.. as I said above, start taking D blood levels of the kids with autism.. it's a good place to begin research on this possibility of deficiency.. and maybe consider giving them supplements, to see if anything changes, and I have not seen anything about that possibility at all..I think the first thing that got me, was the long period without much sun, the latitude, and the use of light to deal with the problem of Jaundice..Sure there are a lot of other possibilities such as vaccines, etc. but I grew up with not even knowing of anyone with such a disease as autism...so things have changed... MsAubrey Try to to keep warm up there in Mich.....

I wonder if there's a link between sleep disorders (specifically Narcolepsy and Hypersomnia being considered Auto-Immune Disorders) and Vitamin D deficiency... I might just have to check stats on that too.

Because this is talking about jaundice in the first few days after birth. I don't think that all of these babies were being drugged with Tylenol in their first few days of life. One small study does not mean that there's a link. I'm sure this study resulted in several other studies, likely not publicly broadcast because no link was found. After all the genetic links, etc. found to autism, you want to focus on whether parents and doctors are OD'ing their infants on Tylenol?

You seem to have forgotten how many pregnant women take Tylenol. And newborns ARE given Tylenol. The bottom line is Jaundice is often related to liver dysfunction. Tylenol overdose - even a mild overdose - can cause liver dysfunction. It is most certainly relevant. While there is likely more than one cause to Autism, the rise of Autism relates directly to the rise in use of Tylenol (as do the slight decreases during Tylenol scares...see the graphs).

Do you work for Johnson and Johnson? What good reason would there be not to investigate it.? There is a strong hypothesis for a study of the link. Just Google acetaminophen or Tylenol and Autism and you will see the evidence.

You seem to have forgotten how many pregnant women take Tylenol. And newborns ARE given Tylenol. The bottom line is Jaundice is often related to liver dysfunction. Tylenol overdose - even a mild overdose - can cause liver dysfunction. It is most certainly relevant. While there is likely more than one cause to Autism, the rise of Autism relates directly to the rise in use of Tylenol (as do the slight decreases during Tylenol scares...see the graphs).

Do you work for Johnson & Johnson? What good reason would there be not to investigate it.? There is a strong hypothesis for a study of the link. Just Google acetaminophen or Tylenol and Autism and you will see the evidence.

Yea really... and I recieved little to no prenatal treatment in the womb before I was born, due to birthmom's poverty medical treatment wasn't an option. As far as medical history goes it's pretty foggy. I still ended up with a form of Autism, heh :P.

acetyl-para-aminophenol (APAP). yay. You can thank chemistry for that invention as well as a lot of people who complained about pain. However Tylenol is an alternative to Asprin due to chemical reactions that caused irritation originally. It was originally marketed for children (go figure). The only risk there is that is deadly of is mixing with alcohol (no-brainer there) due to the build-up of chemicals in the liver that KILL the cells.

And they stopped marketing Asprin to childrenong time ago due damage to the liver in high doses. However those who are still treated with it have a risk of developing Reye's Syndrome due to the dosage of the chemical who are treated for rheumatic fever.

Internet usage has also increased as autism has increased...correlation does not mean causation.

Add to it that pregnant women do not take Tylenol exclusively (Motrin, Aleve, Aspirin, etc.), and they're all chemically different, so your point is moot.

Who says it hasn't been investigated??? In all likelihood, it (as well as many other medications) has been investigated, with no link found.

Finally, to suggest that a popular pain reliever that has been around for decades and decades is responsible for a RECENT increase in autism is ludicrous. With more medications out there for pain, you would see a DECREASE if Tylenol were truly responsible.

Just remember, A LOT of things have increased as autism has increased, not just Tylenol usage. But correlation does not equal causation.

Penguin, I agree many things have increased. But Google this article "Did acetaminophen provoke the autism epidemic?" and you will see that during the Tylenol scares, there was a corresponding decrease in incidence of Autism a year or two after. From a statistical perspective, this is cause for investigating a link between the two.

There is no reason not to investigate it. And I have researched it... Except one small study, no one has - or if they have they have not released the data.

Changes in autism's definition also occurred at that time. You'll certainly see a spike whenever a definition changes to encompass more people, no matter what the disease or disorder (see ADHD in the 1990s).

What I'm telling you is that just because it's found via Google doesn't make it true. With your theory, one would expect that in 2 years, due to the recent Tylenol shortage, you'll see a decrease in autism diagnoses. Let me know how that turns out.

Well when it's dark for most of the day, Yea... Live in the north. It's a psychological thing when it comes to ther dark... But not sure where breastfeeding comes in. Not that it is not important just not sure where it comes in.

you might consider breastfeeding when it is dark outside...for psychologiical reasons.......

That's true, the anecdotal evidence that you had jaundice and don't have autism is completely applicable to this argument.

The article states that 5% of babies who have jaundice end up with autism, as opposed to the .1 percent of babies who do not have jaundice getting autism.

So congrats, you were in the 95% percent .

i agree 100%

I am not nor is anyone in my family autistic. So my knowledge of all the possible causes is narrow. I have heard the vaccination theory, thou I don't believe that to be the obvious cause. The vaccination or Tylenol theories will likely be found to be a common reaction by an autistic person’s Liver and/or Body's rejection of the chemical(s). But I believe that there is some correlation between the Liver's functioning, Vitamin D and Jaundice to Autism. But I think it will be a common cause of the problems that relate to an Autism diagnosis. I also believe that, the comment about survival of jaundice has some relevance to the rise in Autism. If survival of jaundice rose in the 1980s, and the detection of the variable severities of Autism has improved in recent decades, there would be obvious increases in diagnosis of the disorder. My prayers for a cause and cure go out to the many parents that have been "blessed" to have an autistic child to love.

Thimerosal was taken out of vaccines during this timeframe. So, you would see a drop in autism/jaundice during the timeframe for this study (if your link to Hep B vaccine was valid). Just because you delayed the vaccine and had no jaundice does not prove or disprove anything. Jaundice was around LONG before "modern medicine methods", so to correlate Hep B vaccine with jaundice is not really accurate.

Neither of my kids were jauntice nor autistic. Both had vaxes as scheduled. I was jauntice and didn't have any vaxes until 2 weeks after jauntice was gone... Still no autism.

There's a lot more studying to be done if they want to call that link. Just my personal opinion.

Actually I think it is the vitamin K shot the can cause jaundice. That is the one we held off on. I do not think it necessarily has anything to do with it; just an interesting parallel.

"Vaccines like the Thimerosal-containing Hep B given to newborns in the first 12 hours of birth cause jaundice. I wonder if modern medicine methods are causing the rise of Autism. We waited a week to give our children the Hep B and they had no jaundice."

Well that might be true if you're born into a country with wealth and pretty much fairly ordered society.

I still do think that ASD and conditions similar to that who are not born into such a place where people can talk about the "newest drug" on the market, do not get the treatment they need. As well as growing up with such developmental differences that pretty much leave them shunned or not spoken of when one does not know a lot about modern developmental conditions like ASD terminology and what that means.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was born in a lesser developed country during the winter (may-august), in Peru, in a poorer area that was more isolated from much more urbanized citites away from the Andes.

No pre-natal care that was thing for people with enough money to afford it, and little to no proper nurtrition during my birthmom's her pregnancy due to prices of food and political conflict (violent) made it hard to do or go anywhere if one was of Indigenous Origin, like my birthmom and her mom.

Got adopted internationally and got all my vaccines (the first dose) when I was a baby coming to the US. I was allergic to Iron as a baby as well for some time but eventually that went away.

Was diagnosed with AS when I was 10 with GAD after being diagnosed with Epilespy for the prior 5 years after having an 1hr and 45min long seizure in my sleep.

Yet I still developed the Aspergers.

So for all I know given that there is not indication of who my dad was, it could be genetic. Or it could be from the quality of water and food while I was in the womb that my mother consumed, could be nutrition and evironmental. It could be from the vaccines, in that case medical, or it could be from the allergy to iron, which then would be something with the amount of blood. Who knows.

krohl, the vaccine factor doesn't come into the picture for this study. In Denmark, there is no Hep-B vaccine at birth (unless the mother tested positive for it). During the study period, there were no scheduled vaccinations during the newborn jaundice timespan for the study.

I think drinking a bottle of cheap scotch wiskey every night causes jaundice.

Sorry, GB, your lack of understanding is evident.

If we add your ONE child to the study, then we get, statistically, the same result, indicating the same conclusion.

The study's results lead you to tell what the percentages will be of a child born under conditions X,Y,Z would be (well, in Denmark, in the period from 1994-2004). But since Denmark and that period are not special, there's no general reason to assume that their numbers would not be "universal".

Actually, there is a unique aspect to Denmark that the US and many other non quasi-polar countries don't share... that's latitude. Denmark is far enough north so that they have darker months. Alaska has that, a lot of Canada (area-wise, dunno population-wise), Scandanavia and Russia share that...

It'd be interesting to see whether those other regions share the epidemiology.

Also, southern Chile might exhibit this too.

And don't forget Alaska and Russia or Australia or the Falkland Islands and the southern part of Argentina too.

Chirmly,

Your clinical reply places you in the category of those that I would "dump" as I prefer dealing with intelligent people with heart. Your understanding (or lack thereof) seems cold.

Yes, my child's June birthdate and lack of jaundice would not be part of the study. Whoops- so sorry.

Clearly your lack of understanding and seemingly complete void of empathy is obvious too.

Go back to your lab please.