SCHAFER AUTISM REPORT "Healing Autism:

No Finer a Cause on the Planet"

The Autism Calendar, November 2002 Update is out!

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November 4, 2002 Promote Your Event - Free! - Send a CALENDAR

RESEARCH

* Brain Imaging Study Of Secretin Announced by Repligen, Hospital

* Researcher Sees Hope On Autism Genes

* On Cradles And Children With Autism

TREATMENT

* Pictures Help Autistic Children Speak

* Hope for a Son's Rise

CARE

* Group Offers Support To Cope With Asperger's

FORENSIC

* Update on the DeFelice vs. ARI/Rimland Lawsuit

AWARDs

* Rimland Featured in Magazine, To Be Awarded at NVIC Conference

* Readers' Posts

RESEARCH

Brain Imaging Study Of Secretin Announced by Repligen, Hospital Secretin is active in a brain region implicated in autism

Researchers from the Brain Imaging Center at McLean Hospital and Repligen Corporation reported today the results of a clinical trial designed to assess the neurological activity of secretin by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results demonstrate for the first time in humans, that secretin is active in the central nervous system and that it potentiates activity in the amygdala, a region of the brain involved in social integration and implicated in autism. The findings were presented today by Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, Ph.D., of McLean Hospital, the study's Principal Investigator, at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR), a satellite meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

"Our results demonstrate for the first time that secretin is a neuroactive peptide in humans and that it acts on a brain region known to be important for social interaction," stated Yurgelun-Todd, Director of Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Brain Imaging Center at McLean Hospital. "These findings suggest that secretin may have a role in modulating certain social behavior in humans."

The study was a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial in 12 healthy men. Each subject was presented with a series of pictures of faces with either a neutral, happy or fearful facial expression to establish a baseline response. Following an injection of either secretin or a placebo, the subjects were again presented with the series of facial expressions. Throughout the experiment, the activation of the amygdala was recorded with MRI. There was a significant activation (p=0.001) of the right amygdala by secretin when the subjects viewed pictures of a fearful face compared to both the placebo group and the baseline response to the pictures in the secretin group.

By contrast, there was no difference in amygdala activation when subjects viewed pictures of neutral or happy faces. Failure to activate the amygdala when viewing fearful faces is a characteristic of people with autism and patients with amygdala damage. The current study was initiated as part of ongoing research efforts to understand secretin as a neurologically active peptide. Repligen previously reported a finding that treatment of rats with secretin specifically activates the neurons in the amygdala. Repligen is currently developing secretin for autism in a Phase 3 clinical trial program.

"These studies show that secretin is active in a part of the human brain involved in social interaction and potentiates its activity during a social task known to be difficult for people with autism," stated Walter C. Herlihy, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Repligen Corporation. "These data provides a plausible biological mechanism for the improvements in social interaction we observed in our Phase 2 clinical trial."

The Amygdala and the Social Deficits of Autism

The amygdala is part of a complex neural system that is critical for ascribing emotional value to stimuli and influencing affective responsiveness and emotional learning. One of the core deficits of autism is impaired reciprocal social interaction, including eye contact, joint attention and an inability to deduce the mental states of others from facial expressions. Reduced activation of the amygdala in patients with autism has been documented using fMRI with specific impairment noted in their ability to respond to facial expressions of fear. Other studies indicate that patients with either surgical or congenital amygdala damage show similar face recognition defects. Lack of activation of the amygdala is recognized as an important correlate of the social deficits of autism.

Repligen's President and CEO Walter C. Herlihy, Ph.D. also presented data from its Phase 2 clinical trial. The Phase 2 study evaluated three administrations of secretin or a placebo in 126 patients aged 3 years to 6 years 11 months with moderate to severe symptoms of autism and gastrointestinal disorders. The primary finding of the Phase 2 clinical trial was that younger children, 3 and 4 year olds, showed improvements in reciprocal social interaction as judged by a standardized clinical instrument for the assessment of autistic symptoms. Repligen is currently conducting a Phase 3 clinical trial of secretin for the improvement of reciprocal social interaction in young children with autism.

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Researcher Sees Hope On Autism Genes

Therapy likely to be far off, specialists say

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Within a year, researchers will probably identify the first "strong candidate genes" that make children vulnerable to autism, Joseph Daniel Buxbaum, who heads the neuropsychiatric lab at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, said yesterday.

Buxbaum, who has spent five years searching for the genes, said that laboratories working on the genetic roots of autism have made surprising progress over the past year. Autism is a brain disorder that leaves children unable to communicate or form normal relationships.

"I go through periods of optimism and pessimism, and I've been optimistic for a good long time now," said Buxbaum, who spoke at a conference on the disorder sponsored by LADDERS, a neurological clinic affiliated with the Massachusetts General Hospital.

But he warned that families should not assume that the discovery of the first genes will translate into treatment or prevention over the short term or even within their children's lives.

"It's the first thread," said Buxbaum, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "Families want to know when the ball of yarn is going to unravel. Scientists want to know when it is going to start to unravel." The hunt for the autism gene, begun with great optimism in the mid-1990s, has proven far more difficult than expected, and many parents and advocates contend that it is caused by environmental factors such as vaccines or infections.

Diagnoses of autism - an inability to communicate and form relationships - are increasing nationwide, radically in some locations, although some scientists believe that better diagnosis may account for the sharp rise. A study commissioned by the California Legislature reported last month that autism had increased by 273 percent between 1987 and 1998.

Few brain disorders have been more perplexing than autism, which strikes at the age of 18 months to 3 years and leaves children isolated from the world around them.

Researchers studying twins have found that many, but not all, identical twins share the disorder, suggesting that genetic factors are important, but that environmental factors can make a child more vulnerable.

Meanwhile, lawsuits have proliferated as parents identified environmental causes for their children's illness, most commonly, a childhood measles vaccine that contains minute traces of a mercury preservative.

US Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, whose grandson has autism, urged a congressional inquiry into what he terms an epidemic.

Two years ago, researcher Buxbaum's hope to find the cause and a treatment for autism had reached a low ebb, even as advocacy for the disease grew stronger. Emerging from a successful quest for the genetic roots of Alzheimer's disease, he had expected to isolate three or four genes linked to autism in the course of a year or so. It didn't happen.

"It seemed like we weren't going to get it," he said. "I was telling people to stay in the business just so that we would have a holding pattern." But the last year has brought increased collaboration between international research teams, increased funding, and better technology. By dividing sample sets according to special characteristics, researchers have found much stronger links between regions of the human genome and the illness. Once the first genes are identified, Buxbaum said, later genes should be identified with less time and effort.

Scientists from Tufts-New England Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital warned against attaching too much hope to the the research. Unlike sickle-cell disease or Tay-Sachs disease, autism has such complex causes that there is little likelihood of a simple prenatal screening test for the disease.

Even if researchers succeed in identifying genes that make children susceptible to autism, it is unclear whether the discovery would lead to the development of new therapies in the near future, Buxbaum said.

Susan Santangelo of the Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Unit at MGH said, "If we find something that directly positive, we'll be extremely lucky." But if it turns out that the genes launch a process that begins very early in a child's development and affects an area deep inside the brain, then the prospect of developing a preventive therapy may seem more distant than ever, she said.

Santangelo said she is less optimistic that a major discovery will be coming in the next year. "I kind of don't like to hear things like that, because it really is hard on the parents," she said. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

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On Cradles And Children With Autism

The Cradle of Thought: Exploring the Origins of Thinking Peter Hobson.

London: Macmillan, 2002. Pp 296. £20.00. ISBN 0 333 766334 4.

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First among those to whom Peter Hobson's book is dedicated is his long-time colleague Beate Hermelin, who is well known for her pioneering work on the talents of autistic savants. Last year Hermelin's wonderful personal story of her research was published (Lancet 2001; 358: 515). In many ways, The Cradle of Thought is also a personal account of Hobson's experiences as a researcher and clinician.

Both books grapple with the mystery of autism, but lead to different conclusions. Hermelin highlights the contrast in cognitive style between ordinary people (who get the gist of things but often miss details) and autistic savants (who use details as a base for extracting patterns and structures, visually, musically, or numerically). Hobson, by contrast, locates the difference as between, rather than within, people. Very simply put, Hobson's view is that "triangles of relatedness" provide infants with alternative perspectives on the world that when integrated form the foundations for symbolic thinking. Children with autism lack an innate emotional sense of other people being like themselves, and so fail to integrate other people's perspectives with their own, which leads to deficits in pretend play and other symbolic activities.

Unlike Hermelin, who gives an incisive account of a specific phenomenon, Hobson addresses a panoply of topics, moving from research on normal developments in infancy and toddlerhood, to the disturbed interactions of mothers with borderline personality disorder and their infants, to research on why children with autism lack a "theory of mind" (the ability to attribute mental states to self and others). This range of issues is the book's strength and weakness. The reader is caught up in a whirlwind tour of research findings and clinical insights, which makes the book a genuine page-turner, but is left with a feeling of unease because of the vagueness of some of Hobson's proposals and a few curious omissions.

For example, exactly what kind of "thought" is Hobson talking about? In the preface, he refers to Wittgenstein's philosophical account of how people understand minds as being a seminal influence on his work. It is noteworthy that Wittgenstein is thought by some clinicians to have displayed features of Asperger's syndrome, but was, nevertheless, a great thinker. Hobson's view of how mental life is affected by autism is perhaps too global, and runs against a recent shift towards viewing cognition in autism as being different rather than deficient.

Although Hobson does not believe that autism results from bad parenting, he fails to mention that psychoanalysts have, in the past, claimed just that. Given the damage to relations between parents and professionals after the publication of Bettelheim's thesis in 1967, which claimed that autism was caused by "refrigerator mothers", we have good reason to treat psychoanalytic views of autism with caution. Unfortunately, Hobson does not spell out just how his account of autism differs from previous psychoanalytic interpretations.

Although autism is an enigmatic disorder, careful experimental research has led to advances in our understanding. This progress is the result of experimental studies that require testable hypotheses--a method that allows ideas to be reformulated if necessary. This is not to say that observations and case studies are not inspirational (they are, and are useful for sifting out implausible accounts). Neither is it to deny the importance of taking emotional understanding and relationships seriously--both factors have been neglected by researchers. But, if, as Hermelin suggests, autism involves a qualitatively different mode of thought, then Hobson's leaps between research findings on normative individual variation and on autism may be dangerous. Finally, theory-of-mind research carries a lesson for psychoanalysts who, by focusing so hard on the mother-child relationship, risk missing all the action (and emotion) that occurs between siblings, peers, and friends. So yes, relationships matter, but in more ways than one.

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TREATMENT

Pictures Help Autistic Children Speak

The Anna Sullivan Centre in Lima uses PECS to help people with autism and learning difficulties.

Teachers urge students to communicate through pictures. For instance, if a child wants a drink they will present a picture of a drink.

After a while, they are able to construct simple sentences using pictures. They are then taught to associate the pictures with words and many go on to speak.

The centre's founder, Liliana Mayo, says PECS has helped many people to learn to communicate.

"This system has offered them the possibility of expressing what they want, how they need, how they feel, even if they are happy. But if they feel pain too," she said.

The programme has made a big difference in many people's lives.

"It has made a big difference because many children used to have a lot of behavioural problems - crying, screaming and hitting," she said.

"Once they start to show us with the pictures what they want, their life changes not only for the child but for the family.

Overcoming problems

"Families often say I didn't understand what they wanted to ask me."

She added: "The most important aspect of any human being is their voice and PECS is like the voice for the children.

"When kids didn't know how to talk they were very frustrated that they could not communicate."

Around 350 students, all with varying degrees of learning disability, attend the centre each day.

Many could not speak or communicate in any meaningful way before they started.

Milagros Rodrigues said she had seen dramatic changes in her daughter Camilla.

"Before using PECS Camilla was able to repeat words in Spanish, but she didn't understand them," she said.

"The traditional system of language therapy was not successful with her. She could repeat words, she was able to repeat the word mesa or table but when I told her go to the mesa, she didn't know the meaning of mesa."

For Camilla, Spanish was like a second language, even though it is her mother tongue.

Now, armed with a scrap-book full of pictures and a sticky ruler on which to pin the appropriate image, she can tell the difference between, say, a sandwich and an orange.

Most importantly, she can now tell other people which one she would rather eat.

Successful as PECS has been, it is not appropriate for all people with autism. Those that can already talk, for example, do not need it.

Great progress

Similarly, it is not just children with autism that benefit from PECS. Elsa Dawson, a Briton living in Peru, comes to the centre with her seven-year old daughter Elisa who has Angelman syndrome.

Her symptoms include communication difficulties, imbalance and a short attention span. Elsa had tried using PECS before, but with little success.

"We've only been at the Anne Sullivan for two or three months with Elisa, but the progress that she's shown is really incredible," said Elsa.

"She's learning to dress herself, she's learning to communicate through the PECS system, she's learning to use the toilet, how to sit quietly in the classroom.

"And although she's not really very happy, we think she's enjoying the fact that she's learning these skills, which unfortunately she wasn't learning at the special schools she was at in England."

This story is featured in the radio programme Health Matters on the BBC World Service.

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Hope for a Son's Rise

Daring to seek a cure, parents try an untested program

Julian Nazar spends his school days in an attic playroom showing the volunteers what to do. They paint, discuss dragons and bounce on a trampoline -- the adults taking their cues from the animated, autistic 5-year-old while his parents watch through a one-way mirror.

It is an intense effort to prepare Julian for public school next year. It is also risky -- inviting unskilled volunteers to teach a child who finds it difficult to cope with change and social situations.

The unusual program, called Son-Rise, is based on the notion that working closely and intensively with autistic children can make them better. No data, however, support it. It's expensive and time-consuming. And only about 30 North Carolina families have tried it since the program started at a for-profit training institute more than 25 years ago.

But Son-Rise offers the Nazars what no one else would: a possible cure.

Behavioral therapists don't. Neither does the nationally recognized TEACCH program at UNC-Chapel Hill, which many local public schools follow. They treat autism as a lifelong disability families can learn to live with.

Doctors discovered Julian had a mild form of autism two years ago. His parents realized they mistook symptoms -- withdrawal, tantrums, repetitive speech -- for jealousy because his mother was pregnant and getting more attention.

Julie Nazar, 44, recalls the diagnosis as "very tragic" for her and her husband.

"It felt like a death sentence," she said. "It was a grieving process. ... You go through all those stages: denial, why me? There were many times we'd just break down sobbing, both of us.

"It didn't give any hope."

Neither did most of what they read about autism. Books told them Julian's brain was wired differently from most kindergartners'. He could not hold a pencil well enough to draw. He saw the world as a mass of confusing images and noises. He was fine alone, but when a couple of children came over or when he went to the grocery store, he threw monster tantrums. "Meltdowns," the Nazars called them.

Or else, his parents said, Julian silently retreated, trancelike, into "his world." It is a place where he hits his head against the wall repeatedly and says he likes it, where creativity is difficult, eye contact more so.

Ask Julian to pretend to be a panda bear, he says no. Name a zoo animal and he demands the name of another, and another. Set up a plastic castle and he wants every piece to remain in place for weeks.

He looked like the normal pre-schooler his parents wished him to be, with wide chocolate-brown eyes and a quick, impish grin.

Autism affects about one in 500 children, a total of 1.5 million people nationwide, with the number diagnosed rising more than 10 percent each year. Boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed. Children can suffer mild symptoms like Julian's or, in more severe cases, mental retardation.

Last year, Wake County schools saw 401 autistic students enroll, nearly twice the number in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the state's largest school system. One reason is that there are more resources in the Triangle, and families dealing with autism are drawn to the area.

Many moved to the Triangle to be closer to TEACCH, the UNC program that trains teachers, parents and psychologists to use visual aids and other tools to help autistic children in the classroom.

Child psychologists at TEACCH advised the Nazars that Julian would always be a bit eccentric. Marcus Nazar pictured his son learning to follow social conventions the way other children learn to play piano.

Lee Marcus, clinical director of the TEACCH center, says he never tells families that autism can be cured.

"We just assume that if this person has this, autism, it's a part of their life," he said. "They can make gains, they can get jobs and live lives that are fine, but we don't talk in terms of normalcy any more than we would if someone had cerebral palsy."

Calling in the village

Since TEACCH had a year-long waiting list, the Nazars had time to consider options. Julian started kindergarten, and they tried their own brand of behavioral therapy. When Marcus Nazar caught his son repeating a phrase interminably -- "My name is Julian, I'm a boy" -- he firmly told him to stop, and Julian complied after a few more repetitions.

But moments later, his father despaired when he found his son crouched behind a sofa, repeating the phrase quietly to himself.

The Nazars wanted Julian to really change, not just mimic normal behavior.

They read about Son-Rise, which told them to follow Julian's lead until he wanted to stop. They tried that approach. After a week, Marcus Nazar said, Julian stopped repeating the phrase. "And it was not artificial," he said.

Instead of registering Julian for school, the Nazars decided to try the program full time. In June, they built the isolated playroom described in Son-Rise books. Julie Nazar quit her job as an English as a Second Language teacher at Wake Technical Community College to stay home with her son.

But she and her husband, a 44-year-old computer programmer, realized they would need help. Julian would have to stay in the playroom at least six hours a day. So they did what other parents in the program have -- they sought volunteers, asking friends and posting fliers at grocery stores and the Cary Public Library.

By August, the couple had selected about 10 helpers, and they are eager to add to the group. It includes a computer programmer, a physician's assistant, a stay-at-home mom and a retired couple. Most are acquaintances, but some are strangers who wanted to help.

"This program really allows friends and family and community an opportunity to really grow," said volunteer Susan E. Humphries, 29, of Raleigh, a state Medicaid program supervisor. "It gives you a very unique space and place to really get in touch with people who have challenges."

The first time each of the unpaid volunteers works with Julian, they come prepared. The Nazars lend them a BBC documentary video about the program and some books written by program founder Barry Kaufman, including

"Son-Rise: The Miracle Continues," which chronicles the success of his autistic son, now an Ivy League graduate.

Julian leads them into his playroom, about the size of a spacious walk-in closet. A padded cream-colored linoleum floor muffles distracting sounds. High shelves and nearly bare walls minimize distracting sights. For the next two hours, they follow his lead.

"This is the nature of the program," Marcus Nazar said. "Follow him into his world, and he has to follow us back into ours -- if he chooses."

One of the Nazars silently observes through the one-way mirror and afterward, the adults huddle to analyze what was accomplished. Did Julian look them in the eye when they read him a story or talked about their dog? Did he share his toys? Volunteers said they often wonder if they let the boy go too far.

"I got worried about him slamming into the mirror," volunteer Karen L. Ziegler, 49, a nurse from Durham, wrote earlier this month.

"His experience makes me want to explore further what it is that causes Julian to take an activity to its extreme until it becomes out-of-hand," helper Bernice Harvey, 73, a retiree from Lillington wrote last month after Julian started coating himself with black crayon.

Despite such behavior, the Nazars and their volunteers say Julian has made rapid progress. So do the daily reports, which describe him making regular eye contact, inventing stories about a boy in Africa and drawing a picture of himself covered in marshmallows.

Untested, untrusted

The program's critics say such measures of success are too subjective. Son-Rise has not been independently studied. Kaufman says such studies include control groups that are refused treatment, and he is not in the business of turning people away.

Son-Rise is a business, which poses another problem, critics say: the significant up-front investment of time and money.

The Nazars spent several thousand dollars to renovate the playroom and send Julie Nazar to Son-Rise headquarters in Sheffield, Mass., for training.

The Nazars are trying to raise money to attend a month-long session in Sheffield with Julian in May. The cost: $10,000, not including $200 for follow-up phone consultations.

Dr. David Holmes is among skeptics who doubt the program will live up to the Nazars' hopes. He is director of the Eden Institute for autistic children and adults in Princeton, N.J., and chairs a panel of professional advisers to the Autism Society of America, an organization of 20,000 families and professionals in all 50 states.

Holmes isn't surprised that some parents, even in "the back yard of TEACCH" will try anything to cure their child.

"We can't cure autism because, first of all, it's not a disease. It's a syndrome, and there could be many causes," Holmes said.

Could an autistic child blend with his peers?

"There have been cases," Holmes said, like Kaufman's son.

But did the boy really overcome autism, Holmes wondered, or simply learn to live with it?

The Nazars want a son who can enjoy a soccer game with friends or play with his 16-month-old brother, Benjamin. Years ago, they donned clown wigs and face paint to entertain at children's parties. They show volunteers pictures, including a later shot of Julian in clown gear, and say they can't imagine him unable to feel life's twin rushes of joy and pain.

Some volunteers tell them they think Julian will be ready to attend public school next fall. Others say it could take longer. He reverts to old behaviors when he leaves the playroom, they point out, but is making great strides inside.

They all agree a cure is possible, despite what the experts say.

"They say it's not fair to give these people hope," said volunteer Willis B. Harvey, 76, a retired real estate developer. "Goodness, you lose hope, and there's nothing there for you."

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CARE

Group Offers Support To Cope With Asperger's

Deirdre Wright of Havertown formed Ascend to deal with Asperger's syndrome.

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After her son Graham was diagnosed with an uncommon neurological disorder called Asperger's syndrome, Havertown resident Deirdre Wright put her public-relations skills to work.

She started a group called Ascend Group Inc. that serves as a resource for parents of children with Asperger's and related disorders.

"When some people hear the words 'support group,' they think it's people sitting in a circle, crying," said Wright, the group's president. "That's not what it's about."

The goal of Ascend is to fight the isolation of parents who think "we must be the only people with this odd diagnosis," she said. "By getting together, we can share information about schooling and diagnosis and treatment."

Barb Kaplan, also of Havertown, is a member of the group. She has found help from Ascend, and she said of Wright: "She is a dynamic lady who saw a need and filled it. Marvelous!"

The group, which meets at the Grace Chapel at Darby and Eagle Roads in Havertown, has two types of meetings held in alternate months: discussions, and sessions with guest speakers. The group also has created a directory of members and resources, professionals who are familiar with Asperger's and other neurological disorders.

"We now have more than 150 member families and a dozen professional members from throughout the five-county region," said Wright, who receives several calls (610-449-6776) and e-mails (dcwright@ascendgroup.org) each week from parents and professionals.

Asperger's syndrome, named after the Viennese pediatrician who identified it in 1944, is a disorder similar to autism, but children with Asperger's can function better.

"The main problem is with social interaction," Wright said.

Because Asperger's children have trouble interpreting social and nonverbal cues, they can become easily confused and left out of conversations.

"You start out thinking your child is just shy, and then eventually you realize it's more serious," Wright said. Her son, now 7, was diagnosed at age 5, while she was pregnant with her daughter Ruby.

Graham was having temper tantrums "because he couldn't sort out what was going on in the world."

Her reaction to the diagnosis was typical, she said: "I'd never heard of it. I felt alone and depressed."

It was another year until Wright, who grew up in Cortland, N.Y., met another parent and got the group started.

Various forms of treatment can be helpful, she said, such as social-skills groups and therapy with a psychologist or behavior specialist.

Running the group takes a lot of her time, said Wright, who does freelance business writing. "It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," she said. "Sure, if I were writing about the latest hand sanitizer or something, we as a family could have more stuff, but the time I'm investing in building a community is just so important right now."

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FORENSIC

Update on the DeFelice vs. ARI/Rimland Lawsuit

As reported previously, the Superior Court in San Diego found, at a September 6, 2002 hearing, that Karen DeFelice's lawsuit against ARI, Bernard Rimland, and ARI DAN! Conference coordinator, Maureen McDonnell, was without merit, and that Karen DeFelice must pay the attorneys' fees and costs incurred by ARI, Rimland and McDonnell.

On November 1, 2002 the court held a second hearing, to determine the amount Karen DeFelice is required to pay to reimburse ARI, Rimland and McDonnell for their expenses in defending against Karen DeFelice's lawsuit. The official court order states: After reviewing the moving and opposing papers, and hearing the arguments of counsel, the Court rendered its decisions on September 6, 2002 and November 1, 2002. Those Minute Orders are incorporated by this reference.

Therefore, It Is Adjudged, Ordered And Decreed As Follows:

1. Plaintiff shall take nothing by her complaint;

2. Autism Research Institute and Bernard Rimland shall have and recover from plaintiff the amount of $22,334.00; and 3. Maureen McDonnell shall have and recover from plaintiff the amount of $17,460.00.

- Hon. Patricia Yim Cowett

Judge Of The Superior Court

Comment from Bernard Rimland, "While it was very clear from the outset that Ms. DeFelice had no possibility of winning her lawsuit against us, we were nevertheless compelled to defend ourselves. The $40,000 in reimbursement for legal costs, which Ms. DeFelice must now pay, does not begin to compensate for the enormously larger cost in time and attention that the lawsuit has diverted from our mission--the defeat of autism."

[Brief commentary: Karen DeFelice has a natural compassion for helping families and children explore potential benefits from their experimental use of digestive enzymes as treatments for the gastrointestinal and behavioral symptoms of autism. For her work there, she has won the loyalty of some parents who have seen improvements in the health of their children as a result of her counseling and the enzymes she promotes.

Unfortunately DeFelice also has a passion for bilious public attacking and threatening of her critics. DeFelice threatened at least one other parent advocacy group and an individual with legal action, but with Rimland and Company she followed through with her threat, hoping to intimidate the DAN! Conference people to allow her into their midst, after they refused her application as a vendor for supplements.

The autism community is indebted to Rimland and Company for holding firm and limiting her further access to the autism community through their conferences. Sad to say, whether $40,000 is enough to dissuade DeFelice from her self-destructive tactics remains to be seen as she continues to stream invective from her list group even today. What wondrous things could be accomplished would all this energy and money be put to constructive use. It's never too late. – Lenny Schafer.]

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AWARDS

Rimland Featured in Magazine, To Be Awarded at NVIC Conference

Bernard Rimland, founder of the ASA and the Autism Research Institute, continues to get well-deserved accolades from the rational folks in our community, who appreciate what he had accomplished in this forty-plus years (some may say in his "forty-odd years") of tireless struggles on behalf of autistic children and their families.

* The November-December, 2002 issue of Mothering Magazine features Bernard Rimland as a "living treasure", with a nice photo and bio on page 88.

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Readers' Posts

My son has autism. Are there any studies published about the rate of autism rise in children around the world who HAVE NOT been vaccinated? I would be interested in knowing the autism rate in that population. Or is it only a coincidence that only children who have been vaccinated are the ones who wind up with autism? Hazel hazeldorsey@hotmail.com

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Grandmother with 5 year old autistic boy wants to know if anyone who has tried Formula One (in preparation for MT Protein chelation) has seen an adverse reaction in behavior to the extreme. Don't know if this is cause or minor virus which caused reaction. Maurine emaurine@webtv.net

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My 7 year old autistic son attends 1st Grade in a General Education classroom without a Special Educator. My son is an excellent reader, but he has difficulty with the comprehension questions in his reading group. I'm not sure if the problem is him, or the way the questions are being presented. Does anyone have suggestions, for me to pass to the teacher, on how to address the comprehension questions? Douglas.Shade@baesystems.com

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Neurologist said our autistic son tested positive for antibodies on the frontal lobal part of the brain. He is 9 and very low functioning with regression. He suggests steroids. What do you think? rosalind@erols.com

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Seeking intelligent, responsible therapist to facilitate playdates incorporating theory of mind, executive function, and central coherence concepts in the Newport Beach, CA area. Hours flexible. lagunamurphy@cox.net

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