Autism - Caused by Immune Response to a VIRUS?

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Autism May be Caused by an Immune System Response to a Virus


Autism is a developmental disorder that affects brain function, interfering with reasoning ability, imagination, communication, and social interaction. Children with autism start talking later than other children and when they do speak, their communication skills are extremely limited. They often avoid looking at other people and don't learn to read others' faces for signs of emotion or other cues. These children typically are unable to play creatively and some engage in repetitive, sometimes self-destructive, behavior, such as rocking, hand flapping or head-banging.

Antibodies found in the blood of autistic children suggest that at least SOME cases of autism are caused by a misguided immune response, triggered by exposure to a virus, researchers in the University of Michigan's College of Pharmacy report. The researchers found that autistic children who had been exposed to certain viruses in the past showed unusually high levels of antibodies to brain proteins, suggesting an autoimmune response.

No single cause of autism has been found and researchers believe that genes and environmental factors (such as viruses or chemicals) both may contribute. The kinds of brain abnormalities found in people with autism suggest that the disorder arises when something disrupts normal brain development. One possibility is that early exposure to a virus prods the body into mounting an immune response that somehow goes awry. In addition to producing antibodies against the virus, the body makes antibodies against itself, resulting in damage to tissues and organs.

This autoimmune response is what happens in autoimmune diseases such as lupus and some researchers think a similar response may account for the brain abnormalities found in people with autism. In their study of 48 autistic children and 34 normal children and adults, the researchers measured levels of antibodies to two viruses -- measles virus and human herpes virus-6 -- in the subjects' blood. These antibodies were chosen because they are often used in research on known autoimmune diseases.

The researchers also measured levels of two brain autoantibodies (antibodies to brain tissue). One, anti-MBP, is an antibody to myelin basic protein, a protein found in the protective sheaths around nerve fibers in the brain. The other, anti-NAFP, is an antibody to neuron-axon filament protein, a protein that makes up the nerve fibers themselves. Virus antibody levels were essentially the same in autistic and non-autistic subjects, as the researchers expected. But the majority of autistic children who had virus antibodies also had brain autoantibodies. The higher the level of virus antibodies, the more likely an autistic child was to have brain autoantibodies. NONE of the NON-AUTISTIC subjects HAD BRAIN AUTOANTIBODIES.

The strongest link found in the autistic children was between measles virus antibodies and anti-MBP, suggesting that exposure to the measles virus may trigger an autoimmune response that interferes with the development of myelin, Singh said. If myelin in the brain doesn't develop properly, nerve fibers won't work as they should. This could be one way that the brain abnormalities associated with autism arise. The question of how exposure to measles virus occurs raises a controversial issue. Parents of children with autism OFTEN report that the children STARTED SHOWING SIGNS of the disorder SHORTLY after being immunized with measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) or diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) vaccine, but no scientific studies have shown a link between vaccines and autism. In the U-M study, almost all the subjects had had MMR immunizations and NONE had ever had a case of measles.

Clinical Immunology and Immunopathology October 1998

COMMENT: No one has studied or is studying these vaccines for safety or effectiveness! As I have said before, nearly one-third of my new patients have autism. It is absolutely amazing to me how many of these children have a clear-cut, obvious development of their autism shortly after their immunization. There are one half million children affected with this illness. Clearly, not all of them were induced by immunizations. But even if it were a minority (though I fully believe it to be the majority), it would be a crime against humanity to induce this type of damage into children and their families. I believe autism is one of the worst medical nightmares a family could have inflicted on them. Fortunately, optimized nutrition, and in many cases IV secretin, help to repair the brain injury that causes the problem.

http://www.mercola.com/1998/archive/autism.htm

Viruses are one theorized cause. Bacterial, chemical, viral, genetic and whatnot; it's postulated that autism itself is the end stage from one or more of the aforementioned causes.

E: Ha, which is what the article said; I should really read stuff first (I cannot however).

Speaking for myself the researchers are on the right track. But it is probably a little too far fetched to say that viruses cause autism. Viruses and probably any pathogen or irritant that triggers the immune system will set off an autistic cascade. However, triggering autistic symptoms does not mean causation.

"I believe autism is one of the worst medical nightmares a family could have inflicted on them. "

That attitude is just as frightening."

But, I'll go along with the MMR vaccine having a detrimental effect on very young, fragile brains - in the way explained in the report. It makes a lot of sense. I never bought the mercury-vaccine line.

It doesn't explain the heritable incidences though.

You guys really need to know what stage of Science we are in these days....

immunizations, hes an idiot really, just after money, on countless more vaccine, mercury poisoning would only effect someone who has had high exposed to heavy metals, humans have heavy metals in they body, you can easy tell if that is true by getting a TMA test It will tell if any of your chemicals are out....

Social Darwinians sought to explain crime, alcoholism, poverty, prostitution, homelessness, and, of course, insanity as the price paid for the inheritance of “defective germ plasma.” That is, all society’s problems were seen as genetic. The way to solve them was through eugenics, a systematic attempt to increase desirable and decrease undesirable genetic traits in the population. To illustrate, British scientist Francis Galton promoted these ideas in two basic ways. “Positive eugenics” encouraged the healthiest and most intelligent to marry and procreate. “Negative eugenics” included the institutionalization, castration, and sterilization of those, including schizophrenics, who were considered “defective” or “undesirable.”


Is Autism Genetic?
We know for sure that autism runs in families. Siblings of autistic people are more likely to be autistic, and twins are extremely likely to share autistic traits. This means there is almost certainly a genetic component to autism.

“about half of the twins who share identical genes with a schizophrenic victim do not develop the disorder.”

Scientists aren’t certain what causes autism, but it’s likely that both genetics and environment play a role. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder. Studies of people with autism have found irregularities in several regions of the brain. Other studies suggest that people with autism have abnormal levels of serotonin or other neurotransmitters in the brain. These abnormalities suggest that autism could result from the disruption of normal brain development early in fetal development caused by defects in genes that control brain growth and that regulate how neurons communicate with each other.

These fluctuations suggest that there may be a social or environmental “trigger(s)” promoting acute schizophrenic episodes. Differences between the four major subtypes of the condition also imply that there is unlikely to be a common cause for all forms of schizophrenia.

The illness, therefore, is probably a syndrome, associated with several environmental
“triggers,” and/or genetic abnormalities.

I think it's more likely a trait that passes on to successive generations, like redheadedness or eye colour, or being able to curl your tongue.

It crops up in some individuals because of a crossing of complimentary genes, causing it to seem like a spontaneous generation of Autism, but it's usally hereditary.

Of course, there are possibly many causes that exhibit the same symptoms or traits.

It wouldn't surprise me. As I've said, viruses are implicated in so many things these days, from cancer to depression. Why should autism be any different?

Why is Dr. Mercola a quack?

When they can explain my Grandmother with Asperger's, born in 1890, and my Father with Aspgerger's, born in 1913, neither one of which were immunized with the possible exception of my Father and smallpox as an adult, and can explain to me how both of them were CLASSIC Aspie's, without ever having been immunized, then I'll listen to the vaccine crowd. My brother's were both born in the early years of World War II in rural West Virginia. Both demonstrate clear Asperger's traits and neither were immunized as children. Explain to me, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Mozart, Michelangelo, and other PRE-immunization people who CLEARLY demonstrated several spectrum traits... Classic (severe) Autism has been around for thousands of years. Some societies viewed them as "God touched" and fed them, some simply killed them, Aspie's were able to prosper as artisan's, innovator's, medicine men, we've been around since the beginning of the modern human race, and we've had vaccines for what? 50 years? On a widescale basis. On a much smaller basis we had smallpox and rabies vaccines for over 100 years now... I don't see how the two reconcile.

Are you not listening? I'm not against vaccines because they cause autism, because I don't believe they do.

I'm against them for a whole host of OTHER reasons, all of which I've gone over time and again.

It's you lot who keep coming back to the mercury/vaccine/autism thing.

I apologize if you felt my post was directed against you in particular LeKiwi. Actually it was in general response to the OP. I really would like to pin down why we are the way we are. All the evidence I've got from my own genetic heritage (and my wife's family as well) is, it predates vaccines. That's my sole point.

Are there negative reactions to vaccines? Absolutely. For a very small percentage of individuals. And for those people it can be very bad, if not fatal. Vaccines overall, have saved possibly a billion lives. The extinction of smallpox alone has saved millions, if not hundreds of millions.

I suspect we will have a pretty good idea of the "etiologies" in the relatively near future. The rate at which new findings are coming in has stepped up significantly.

Except that there are studies now showing that things like movement patterns as an infant and behavior at the first birthday party is enough to discriminate children who will develop autism later. They did studies looking at old home video footage of autistic and NT kids (where evaluators didn't know which kids were which). Autism doesn't magically appear after the vaccination- it's just that the age at which vaccinations are given is the age at which the better-known symptoms of autism become most apparent.

This reminds me of article/link Ozzy posted about possible role of Herpes II virus and other megacyto something viruses, which can affect brain development in babies. Though it sounds like a diff mechanism.

Interesting idea that it is the immune response itself to the vaccine material that causes the disruption of brain development path.
I seem to remember that a measles infection during pregnancy is known to have serious effects on babys development in the womb. Mothers to be were always warned about that. The same thing might be true of the "measles" injected to an infant in a vaccine in first months/ year of life when brain still in middle of fundamental development processes.