In the news this week are two so called treatments for autism that do not help in the slightest, and that may be very harmful. Parents who were considering these treatments, or who are currently having them administered to their child, need to select a different, healthier, treatment option instead.
There are many things that are yet to be discovered about autism. There have been all kinds of theories about what the potential causes might be, but nothing is definitive. Autism is not the only disorder that has a lot left to be discovered, but somehow, it is the one that seems to inspire people to attach outlandish ideas to it about the causes and the cures of autism. Sadly, this misinformation can be harmful.
There are a couple of things that we know, for certain, about autism. It has been shown that Applied Behavior Analysis treatment helps children who have autism to learn the types of social skills that children who do not have an autism spectrum disorder pick up automatically. It is also called ABA, and is a scientifically validated approach to understanding behavior and how it is affected by the environment.
We also know that the M.M.R. vaccine does not cause autism. The reason people thought that it did was due to the work of Andrew Wakefield, which has been discredited. It has been renounced by ten of the twelve authors of the article. The M.M.R. vaccine does not cause autism. It prevents children from catching measles, mumps and rubella.
Parents of children who have autism need to beware of things that are being presented as treatment that absolutely are not a form of treatment. Often, these supposed treatments do nothing other than cause harm.
A company named Health Partner has teamed up with Generation Rescue (the group founded by Jenny McCarthy). They want to sell you a sauna. In short, they want you to believe that sticking your child in a hot sauna will cause him or her to sweat out toxins, and that this will somehow cure them of autism.
Keep in mind that Generation Rescue is still of the mistaken belief that the M. M. R. vaccine causes autism. The sauna is expensive. It is entirely possible for children to overheat or dehydrate while in a sauna.
Parents also need to know that Dr. Mark Geier has lost his license in Illinois and Missouri. He was injecting children who have autism with a drug called Lupron. This was his “Lupron protocol”.
The drug has not been approved as a treatment for autism. Lupron is used to chemically castrate sex offenders. It is an injection hormone inhibitor. The unproven hypothesis was that children had autism because their level of testosterone was too high.
Image by Tyler Nienhouse on Flickr