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Kids battle mysterious syndrome

Kristen Twedt
 

Likely, you have never heard of Neuro Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (NIDS.) If your toddler can walk, talk and engage freely in the bliss of unhindered development, then you have little cause to care about NIDS. But for families affected, it is a torturous story of stealth viruses, genetics, allergies and hope.

What is NIDS? The symptoms involve some of the same baffling characteristics of autism. Dr. Michael Goldberg, a UCLA graduate and private practice pediatrician in California, has studied hundreds of children suffering from this mysterious syndrome and defines it this way: "The autism we were taught as doctors was autism of 30 or 40 years ago. It is not what these children represent today. When you look at the data we have on these children, the viral markers and the progression of development with these children, it becomes very obvious that we can only explain this by a disease state."

Huge increase

Too technical for you? Here's more food for thought. Data from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Annual Report for 2002 shows a 701 percent increase in autism incidence rates comparing U.S. Department of Education figures from 1992-1993 to 2001-2002.

Feeling uneasy now? You should. Whether you have children or not, we have an American epidemic of developmentally challenged children on our hands, more than 3 million of them. This translates into an economic and public school nightmare in terms of future financial demands and more importantly, the loss of what Dr. Goldberg and others insist are children who can be saved, if we act now.

I have talked with parents of NIDS kids. They tell the stories of pediatricians and neurologists and psychiatrists who scratch their collective heads and know that these patients are not like any they have seen before. They start out normal. They usually roll over, sit up, smile, and speak on schedule as babies. But then the cloud descends. Children who could talk, stop. Some babies never creep or crawl. They fall into a struggle to thrive. They endure a host of symptoms usually found only rarely in children. Yeast infections. Unyielding eczema. Low muscle tone. Language and motor delays. Endless ear infections and bowel disturbances.

Kids can improve

Physicians who insist NIDS is just a new form of autism must be blind to the remarkable recovery of children who were never even expected to say "mama." Neuro-Spect brain scans and blood panels compiled by Dr. Goldberg and associates document drastically improved brain and immune system function in his patients. They get better. Many are completely well.

NIDS is real, a disease process of the immune system that is stealing our children. It is not Kanner autism, not a psychiatric condition treatable only through behavior therapy and waiting. It results from a still undefined dysregulation of the immune system and deserves immediate attention and funding of research. NIDS scientists have their eye on the promise of immune modulators, the curative form of hope that just may rescue those who, unlike this columnist, cannot speak for themselves.

For information on NIDS, go to www.nids.net.

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