Autism

Q. A recent column featured a letter from a parent of an autistic 5-year-old who was searching for support and information. Please print the address of the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD). It will help people like that parent.Not everyone has access to a computer or the Internet. For a small fee (which is waived in cases of hardship), NORD will forward valuable information about rare diseases and disorders, including support groups and places to go for more help.A. Thank you for your excellent suggestions and the address of NORD: National Organization for Rare Disorders Inc., 100 Route 37, P.O. Box 8923, New Fairfield, Conn.

Actress and comedian Jenny McCarthy was working on her latest book one Sunday when her 4-year-old son wanted to talk. He was so chatty -- and distracting -- that McCarthy finally said, "Evan, can you please just stop talking for a whole five minutes today?" Then she covered her mouth with her hand. "Wow. Flash back in time and think about how I had wished and prayed to say that to my kid," she wrote in her best-selling memoir, Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism. "I got down on my knees and said, `No, Evan, Mamma made a mistake.

IT'S THE phone call you don't want to get, from the person you don't like to hear from. Perched in front of my living room window for 80 minutes, I anxiously waited for Madison's bus to arrive. The phone interrupted my worries. The assistant principal, whom I've known for years, identified herself by first and last name as well as her position. I knew there was trouble. "Is Madison home yet?" "No," I stammered. "Is everything all right?" "There's been an accident," she continued. "All the children are fine, but there is a significant delay.

STANFORD, Calif. - The U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health have launched a campaign to get a government program created to "identify" children with autism at age 2 and then subject them to "intensive" early intervention for 25 hours a week or more. It sounds good, but so have so many other government programs that created more problems than they solved. Just who is to "identify" these children and by what criteria? A legal case in Nebraska shows the dangers in creating a government-mandated dragnet that can subject all sorts of children to hours of disagreeable, ineffective or even counterproductive treatment for something they do not have.

Vaccination is safe We are at the precipice of a crisis when it comes to vaccines. Celebrities spread false accusations of danger, perpetuating the myth of a causal link between vaccines and autism. When science does not support their statements, they accuse the pediatric physician community of being in the pocket of the vaccine companies, accepting large grants and small gifts in exchange for our continued support of vaccines. They falsely claim we make large profits in our practices from the sale of vaccines, and that this alone would cause us to turn our backs on all that is true, safe and ethical.

Jeanne M. Simons, a psychiatric social worker and pioneer in the field of autism who established the Linwood Children's Center in Ellicott City, died Tuesday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Vantage House in Columbia. She was 95. Miss Simons was born near Brussels, Belgium. After graduating from a teachers college in The Hague, Netherlands, she taught school from 1927 to 1933. She came to Washington with the outbreak of World War II and worked with emotionally disturbed children at Children's House.

A day after Dr. Mark Geier's medical license was suspended in Maryland over allegations of putting children with autism at risk, state officials were seeking to remove his son from a state commission that advises the governor on the disorder. The officials were also struggling to explain why David Geier, who has an undergraduate degree in biology and does not have a medical license, was identified by the Commission on Autism as its "diagnostician. " The commission's website had listed him as a doctor until Wednesday, which officials said was a clerical error.

HONOLULU -- Kalma Wong has tried almost everything for her two autistic children: special diets, intense behavioral therapies, flying in experts from the U.S. mainland at exorbitant costs. Some efforts have yielded modest success. Others have done next to nothing. But like other parents of the more than 1.5 million autistic children in the U.S., Wong has vowed to keep trying until she pinpoints the treatment that most helps her kids. Her latest attempt is one of the most long-shot therapies yet, a protocol some doctors praise but that others call a waste of time that gives desperate parents false hope and exploits them financially.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Krieger Institute are joining in what is being called one of the largest studies to examine early causes of autism. Medical experts have been trying for years to unravel why children develop autism. Is it genes? Could it be their environment? While other studies have focused on one or the other, the four-year investigation announced yesterday will examine both questions about the puzzling neurobiological disorder that affects about 1 in 150 children nationwide.

In an unadorned 10-by-12-foot room in the basement of his parents' Jacksonville home, 7-year-old Billy Noon lives in his own world.His friends have spent thousands of hours trying to coax him back to this one. They've been at it for more than a year.Now -- encouraged by an occasional smile, a nod, or an unexpected response -- they're beginning to find their way past the frayed outer edges of an autistic child's universe.Linda Reeves, one of the 15 friends who have dedicated time and emotional energy to an intensive form of therapy constructed for autistic children, wrote a parable about the journey.