Interesting article on why the American Amish dont have high incidence of Autism

[mamadadawahwah]

This article is about amish kids studied for autism. those who did develop autism lived in the northern part of the country and near mercury producing areas. Very interesting.

www.mercola.com/2005/jun/7/amish_autism.htm

Um, that mercola chap doesn't seem entirely reliable.

Don't know about this report but am pretty convinced of a mercury/autism link in some genetically vulnerable children. JImjams has posted extensively on this subject.

I know the autism/mercury link is a popular theory.

I'm just saying this website is pretty flaky-looking. Lots of "find your metabolic type to lose weight and be gorgeous with incredible coconut milk and the secrets the FDA doesn't want you to know".

Is it you think he is crap, or is it that he dosent tout the usual stuff you hear or read elsewhere. I wonder what the majority believe to be true in terms of science. Scientific American and the Lancet, as opposed to anyone else? If we took this attitude, homeopathy would never have got a look in, in my opinion. Yeah, he is selling stuff but I have found a lot of interesting stuff on this site, info you would NEVER find yourself. Take it with a grain of salt, but I dont see the need to discount it totally.

We as the general public are entrenched in what we learn from the media/internet/personal research. Myself included. Many of us have never had the need to question a doctor or a scientist, after all they went to university and they must know, right? I went to University too, and realised how much I didnt know.

A friend of mine is a doctor and was on the radio a few weeks back talking about the Roy Meadows case. She said that the more the medical community learns about our bodies, the less ability they have to fix the problems. They just know more and more and more, but they just dont know how to fix it.

I'm afraid what I accept to be science is, you know, science. And no, homeopathy isn't science. And no, what most people think isn't what decides what's science.

Obviously, a lot of this stuff works for people. Which is fine for them. I just don't understand an attitude of complete skepticm about anything from science, and complete belief about anything new agey.

Oh goodness, medical science has never claimed to have all the answers. And they're generally geared towards "how to fix?" more than "why?", which limits what they understand.

But science, unlike a lot of this stuff, has a structure and a system for evaluating claims and ideas fairly. It moves forwards. There is absolutely no way that our current medical knowledge is 100% accurate. It improves constantly. That's the strength of science.

Before I came to know about homeopathy I never would have believed it. My doctor said it was a bunch of crap (as probably the majority do). But i went ahead and tried it out on my son's excema. Magically, after two sulphur pills his excema went away. It wasnt a remission. It just went. He was still on milk and it still was kept at bay.

When it came back, i tried another homeopathic remedy and it went away again. Coincidence? What i am saying is the amount of information out there is so large. We only have so much time to look into things. There are discoveries every day we will never hear about because the scientist cant get funding or it is politically not a hot potatoe.

I'm happy it works for you. But that doesn't make it science.

what is new agey about homeopathy, etc. Its just an alternative. For example, the "hopi" ear waxing thing stems from the greeks. Whats new agey about that.

Its all about our perception of what is science and how is it being achieved and what its progress is contributing to. Is science really all about health?? Is it really all about progress and making it better for us humans? If so, why havent the cars they created 30 years ago which emit no carbon monoxide been developed seriously.

As a very spiritual person, God isnt science either and he works for me. Every day. Let science figure that one out first then I will listen to the scientists.

What is science today will be bunkum in 30 years.

The Amish are very inbred and have all sorts of different incidences of disease because of the small genetic pool. My money would be on them happening not to have susceptibility genes in that population.

Science isn't about health or progress. It's about understanding what works and what is truth.

And yes, (some of) what is science today will be bunkum in 30 years. That's because science moves forwards.

Look. If my son falls and hurts his knee, I kiss it better. That's not science either, but it works. I'm not claiming that only science works.

Tamun, so are the irish. I know cousins who have married cousins. A very small gene pool dosent necessarily equate with disease. Look at the first nations people. Healthy as can be until the foreign whites came and dessimated them.

this thread is going all over the place. Science might be about moving forward, but forward for whom. As I said before, if you were every a political lobbyist and worked with the american administration or even the british, you would know what "science" gets money and what does not, and why.

You misunderstand. The Amish, as it happens, have a very high incidence of bipolar because the gene is so common in their population. No reason on earth not to believe that they have genes that help them to avoid autism.

Huh? How would we know how healthy they were?

And the Amish are a lot more inbred than most other ethnic groups.

Goodness I'm tired. I normally have more sense than to get drawn into this sort of thing.

Oh, and it's "decimated". Related to "decimal". As in, kill 10% of them. (And we think much more than 10% of the Native population died.)

Not, i though you were tired. And thank you for correcting my english. That really puts a different spin on things.

Message withdrawn

Agree with tamum.

I DO believe that mercury is a big factor in the development of autism BUT only to susceptible children. So your genetic background makes you unable to process mercury efficiently, and this you are more vulnerable to developing autism.

Most things are not all genetic or all environmental (although some are!) but a mixture of the 2.

If the amish have a good ability to detoxify heavy metals (say -to stick with other research- healthy happy metallotionein proteins) they will be unlikely to have autism triggered by mercury in their [populations.