SCHAFER AUTISM REPORT "Healing Autism:

No Finer a Cause on the Planet"

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September 19, 2002 FOR YOUR CALENDAR LISTING: EVENTS@doitnow.com

RESEARCH

* NIH Awards Grants For Two New Autism Research Centers

COMMENTARY

* HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views

* Big Deal: The FDA Finally Shows Interest In Safety Of

Animal Drugs

TREATMENT

* What's Wrong With Wheat?

* Is New Autism Treatmemt "Breakthrough" or SpecEd Decoy?

* SWAP Inspiration: Enabling Communication in Children with Autism

ADVOCACY

* Autism 'Pressure Groups' Efforts Reach the BBC: Call For Urgent

MMR Research

* Public Strong On Opinions – Weaker On Knowledge

* Readers' Posts

RESEARCH

NIH Awards Grants For Two New Autism Research Centers

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced grants totaling $19 million to support the first two research centers of a major network of facilities to focus on the biomedical and behavioral aspects of autism. The overall initiative, called STAART (Studies to Advance Autism Research and

Treatment) Centers Program, was established in response to the Children's Health Act of 2000, which calls for five new autism research centers by the end of FY 2003.

The STAART program will expand NIH's commitment to autism research, which last year totaled $56 million. The NIH Autism Coordinating Committee

(NIH/ACC) coordinates autism research conducted by its five member

Institutes: The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). All will contribute funds to the STAART program.

Autism is a brain disorder that affects social, communicative, and behavioral functioning from an early age. It is a lifelong condition for which there is currently no cure. Recent findings indicate that autism rates are increasing. Although it is known that genetics and brain dysfunction are involved in autism, exact causes have yet to be identified.

"These awards reinforce NIH's longstanding commitment to autism research and will help advance our knowledge about this devastating condition," said Richard Nakamura, Ph.D., acting director of NIMH and co-chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC).

The two centers, funded for 5 years each, were selected by NIH through a Request for Applications. The grants were awarded to: Fred Volkmar, M.D., and Ami Klin, Ph.D., at Yale University (with a site at Oberlin College,

Ohio) for "The Social Neuroscience of Autism and Related Disorders." Research includes:

· Eye Tracking Studies of Social Engagement

· Gaze Processing in Young Children with Autism

· Roots of Social Communication: Auditory Preferences

· Behavioral and Neural Plasticity in Face Recognition

· Fluvoxamine in Children and Adolescents with Anxiety Disorders Joseph Piven, M.D., and James Bodfish, Ph.D., at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (with sites at University of Iowa, Institute of Psychiatry - King's College, and Duke University) for "Gene-Brain Behavior Relationships in Autism." Research includes:

· The Neuropsychological Basis of the Broad Autism Phenotype

· Neuroimaging of Cognitive and Social Deficits in Autism

· Novel Approaches for Finding Genes in Autism

· Gene Dissection of Autism-Related Behaviors in Mice

· Developmental Psychopharmacology in Autism Other funding for the STAART Centers program includes one-year developmental grants, which were already funded at six universities and research institutes to help research teams prepare applications for future centers.

The competition for the additional STAART Center sites is underway. The Children's Health Act calls for a total of at least five centers, so at least three more will be selected in FY 2003. The research centers, along with a data coordination center and collaborative projects among the centers, will constitute the STAART program. Each center will contribute to the autism research base in the areas of causes, diagnosis, early detection, prevention, control, and treatment. Plans also include interaction with the Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism (CPEA), eight funded projects sponsored by the NICHD/NIDCD Network on the Neurobiology and Genetics of Autism.

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COMMENTARY

HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views

Issues Touch Autism on Various Levels'

The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as patients' rights and public health, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views and in other cases replacing members with handpicked choices.

In the past few weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services has retired two expert committees before their work was complete. One had recommended that the Food and Drug Administration expand its regulation of the increasingly lucrative genetic testing industry, which has so far been free of such oversight. The other committee, which was rethinking federal protections for human research subjects, had drawn the ire of administration supporters on the religious right, according to government sources.

A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.

The changes are among the first in a gradual restructuring of the system that funnels expert advice to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.

That system includes more than 250 committees, each composed of people with scientific, legal or academic expertise who volunteer their services over multiyear terms.

The committees typically toil in near anonymity, but they are important because their interpretation of scientific data can sway an agency's approach to health risk and regulation.

The overhaul is rattling some HHS employees, some of whom said they have not seen such a political makeover of the department since Ronald Reagan took office in 1981.

HHS spokesman William Pierce said he could not provide a tally of the number of committees that had been eliminated or changed so far, but he denied that the degree of change was out of the ordinary for the first years after a change of administration.

He acknowledged that Thompson has irritated some HHS veterans with his "top down" approach to reshaping the department, but he defended Thompson's prerogative to hear preferentially from experts who share the president's philosophical sensibilities.

"No one should be surprised when an administration makes changes like this," Pierce said. "I don't think there is anything going on here that has not gone on with each and every administration since George Washington."

Routine or not, the restructuring offers a view into how tomorrow's science policies are being constructed -- and how the previous administration's influence is being quietly dismantled.

One example of the recent changes is the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing, created during the Clinton administration after a major federal report concluded that the public was at risk of being harmed by the emerging gene-testing industry.

One of the first topics tackled by the committee was how to deal with the proliferation of so-called home-brew genetic tests, which are offered by a growing number of companies and doctors.

The blood tests can detect DNA variations that may increase a person's odds of getting a disease or affect a patient's response to medicines.

The Food and Drug Administration has long asserted that it has the authority to regulate these tests, but it has opted not to do so -- in part because of a lack of resources. As a result, companies are free to market tests for genes even if those genes have no proven role in disease susceptibility or any proven usefulness at all. A growing number of companies are doing just that -- at no small expense to consumers -- in some cases needlessly alarming people with meaningless results and in other cases offering false reassurance.

The committee convinced the FDA to use its authority to oversee the marketing of these tests, and the agency was developing rules when the Bush administration took over. Suddenly the FDA's stance changed: The agency was no longer certain it had the regulatory authority in question. Oversight plans stalled. Today the FDA is still mulling whether it has authority, Pierce said, and last week members learned that the committee's charter, which just expired, will not be renewed.

"This is a real turnaround. It's bad. It's terrible," said Neil A. "Tony" Holtzman, a Johns Hopkins University professor emeritus who chaired the HHS task force that led to the committee's creation.

Wylie Burke, who chairs the department of medical history and ethics at the University of Washington and was a member of the committee, said gene-test oversight is needed now more than ever because companies are starting to advertise tests directly to consumers and are offering questionable services over the Internet.

"People need to know what they're getting," Burke said. "We were making real headway with informed-consent issues and with categorizing levels of risk. It would be a shame if that does not get completed."

Pierce said the committee's demise had nothing to do with its recommendations or regulatory approach. Rather, he said, HHS intends to create a new committee that will deal with a broader range of genetic technologies. The department has not said who will sit on that committee.

Another example is the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee, created under President Bill Clinton after a series of government reports found serious deficiencies in the federal system for protecting human subjects in research. The call from HHS to disband "came out of the blue," said committee chair Mary Faith Marshall, a professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Kansas in Kansas City.

Some sources suggested the committee had angered the pharmaceutical industry or other research enterprises because of its recommendations to tighten up conflict-of-interest rules and impose new restrictions on research involving the mentally ill.

"It's very frustrating," said Paul Gelsinger, who became a member of the committee after his son, Jesse, died in a Pennsylvania gene therapy experiment that was later found to have broken basic safety rules. "It's always been my view that money is running the research show," he said. "So with this administration's ties to industry, I'm not surprised" to see the committee killed.

Other sources said the committee had run afoul of religious conservatives when it failed to support an administration push to include fetuses under a federal regulation pertaining to human research on newborns. Some within HHS said they'd heard the department may reconstitute the committee with a purview that includes research on human fetuses or even embryos -- a change seen by some as part of a larger administration effort to bring rights to the unborn.

Consistent with that possibility, HHS officials recently told committee members they hope to name Mildred Jefferson to a reincarnated version of the committee that the department hopes to create. Jefferson is a medical doctor who helped found the National Right to Life Committee and who three times served as that organization's president.

Pierce said HHS had allowed the committee to expire not because of the direction of its work but because, as with the genetic-testing committee, the department wants to create a new panel with a broader, as yet undetermined, charge. That committee has yet to be created or its members named.

Yet another committee caught up in the recent upheaval is one that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Environmental Health on a range of public health issues from pollution to bioterrorism.

Thomas Burke, the Johns Hopkins public health professor who has chaired the committee for almost five years, recently learned that 15 of its 18 members are to be replaced. In the past, he said, HHS had asked him to recommend new members when there were openings. This time, he said, a list of names was imposed. He was among those who were let go.

Burke said he was not offended that his own membership, which was expiring, was not renewed. "There's constant turnover on these boards," he said. "What's of concern though is to see so much turnover at one time, especially at such a critical time for the CDC."

He mentioned another concern: One of the committee's major endeavors has been to assess the health effects of low-level exposures to environmental chemicals, yet as first reported by Science magazine last week, several of the new appointees are well known for their connections to the chemical industry.

They include Roger McClellan, former president of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, a North Carolina research firm supported by chemical company dues; Becky Norton Dunlop, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation who, as Virginia's secretary of natural resources, fought against environmental regulation; and Lois Swirsky Gold, a University of California risk-assessment specialist who has made a career countering environmentalists' claims of links between pollutants and cancer.

The committee also includes Dennis Paustenbach, the California toxicologist who served as an expert witness for Pacific Gas and Electric when the utility was sued for allowing poisonous chromium to leach into groundwater. The case was made famous in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

"It's in the nation's interest to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest on these committees," said Burke, the former chairman. "To see friends of the administration . . . clearly that's what we're seeing here. It's wholesale change. The complexion has changed."

HHS's Pierce said the committee remains balanced overall, and no prospective member of any advisory committee is subjected to political screenings.

"It's always a matter of qualifications first and foremost," Pierce said. "There's no quotas on any of this stuff. There's no litmus test of any kind."

At least one nationally renowned academic, who was recently called by an administration official to talk about serving on an HHS advisory committee, disagreed with that assessment. To the candidate's surprise, the official asked for the professor's views on embryo cell research, cloning and physician-assisted suicide. After that, the candidate said, the interviewer told the candidate that the position would have to go to someone else because the candidate's views did not match those of the administration.

Asked to reconcile that experience with his previous assurance, Pierce said of the interview questions: "Those are not litmus tests."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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Big Deal: The FDA Finally Shows Some Interest In The Safety Of Animal Drugs Because They End Up In The Food Supply

Shocking. The FDA is on the case. The agency is actually proposing an APPROACH to determine the safety of animal drugs. Why? Because these drugs may end up in our food.

Is that a good enough reason to finally awaken from a deep sleep? Well, it’s 2002. The FDA has, for example, noticed that perchance livestock antibiotics might somehow be involved in making people sick. I would imagine that at least one person in the agency has known this for a few years, if not longer, given that antibiotic resistance isn’t exactly a new and bold issue.

I see that Brad Stone, an FDA spokesperson, has called the agency’s new watchfulness a "significant step." What kind of significant step? Is waking up to a major health issue the significant step? Imagine - and again, let’s not forget it’s 2002 - the FDA revealed in its proposal that humans may be exposed to harmful bacteria via the food made from animals. Gosh. Give the FDA a Nobel! Immediately! Do people at the FDA actually read? Have they not discovered that environmental and health groups have warned for years against using VAST QUANTITIES of antibiotics in animal feed? Well, what can we possibly expect from a regulatory agency that sleeps with the drug industry? This week’s SCREAM is the FDA.

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TREATMENT

What's Wrong With Wheat?

Nutritional therapists are blaming this dietary staple for everything from IBS, diabetes and arthritis to depression. Are they right?

Bread. For centuries it's been the main staple of our diet. Seen as the essence of goodness, no meal was complete without it. But in just a few years, there's been a major shift among health-conscious people, and for many of us wheat has become something to be avoided, shunned, a newly fashionable demon. Is it just a fad? Or is there some sense behind this behaviour?

There's no doubt that giving up wheat has moved from the fringes to the mainstream. The proof is in the high street. Stylish sandwich eaterie Pret a Manger has started serving open sandwiches made from wheat-free bread alongside its traditional triangles; while Sainsbury's proudly advertises its "Free From" range, 60 different products that contain no wheat, dairy or gluten, ranging from desserts to fish fingers.

Both have responded directly to their customers' changing behaviour. Sainsbury's began its new range when it found that 14 per cent of its customers follow some form of exclusion diet. And at Pret a Manger, after requests for wheat-free bread flooded in last year, management began to look seriously at the issue. Emma Blackmore, the group's development chef, says: "We have a food team who eat out all the time, who know what's kicking around. And in London, especially, it's become very fashionable to give up wheat. Our customers have shouted and we need to listen to them."

But while these food outlets see it as more than a passing trend, the jury's still out for the medical establishment as to the need for such behaviour. What all scientists agree on is that there are people who have classic allergic reactions to gluten, a constituent part of wheat, and to a lesser extent rye, barley and oats. This reaction, which can be severe, is known as coeliac disease, and now affects as many as one in 300 in the British public. It's detected in standard blood tests by measuring certain antibodies, and giving up wheat and other foods containing gluten is still considered the best form of treatment.

What is less clear-cut is the question of wheat intolerance. Many in the complementary field, and some in the mainstream, believe that this is also an immune-system response, but one that is different from coeliac disease - less intense, and slower to show itself. Symptoms may appear two days after eating bread, for example. The thinking goes that the body reacts to wheat as if it were an invader, and can set up a chain of events that interferes with the body's normal processes, causing everything from irritable bowel syndrome to thyroid disorders, arthritis, diabetes, asthma and eczema.

But where orthodox and complementary medicine really part company is on the extent to which other symptoms can be attributed to wheat intolerance. An amorphous batch of vague, "under-the-weather" symptoms is now being connected to wheat by many nutritionists and alternative practitioners - headaches, a feeling of ill health, bloating, tiredness, depression.

Exactly how (and, some would argue, if) these are linked to wheat is not yet fully understood. It's believed, for example, that intolerance could produce a mineral imbalance, causing a deficiency of magnesium, which could lead to tiredness. There's little mainstream scientific evidence to back this up, however - so doctors have been reluctant to accept these ideas.

More research would be an advantage, but that hasn't stopped nutritionists advising their patients. Dr Brian McDonogh, the first medical doctor to gain a post-graduate degree in nutritional medicine in the UK, says, "Why do I recommend giving up wheat? Because I know it works for my patients."

Neil Blair, 35, a London lawyer, is typical of the kind of people who have given up wheat recently. Feeling bloated, sluggish, "generally not on top of my game", he went to see a GP-turned-naturopath. When a wheat-intolerance test showed positive, he was recommended to give up bread and cereal. Within weeks, he lost half a stone (although he admits this could be due to exercise, which he started at the same time) and now feels lighter, and his uncomfortable stomach symptoms have disappeared. "I'm now convinced, and am preaching the cause!" he laughs.

"You have to remember that Stone Age man didn't eat wheat," points out Dr Nick Avery, a former GP who now runs the Centre for the Study of Complementary Medicine and is the consultant for Boots on homeopathy. "It was introduced only 10,000 years ago with the cultivation of crops. Which is relatively recent compared to the diet of millions of years ago, for which our bodies are better adapted - nuts, berries, fruits. We overdose on wheat and end up eating it for breakfast, lunch and dinner - toast, sandwiches, a pizza. It's too much."

Dr Avery believes that not enough is yet known of what exactly in wheat is triggering the symptoms he sees in his patients, but he is suspicious of the chemicals used to grow wheat today, as well as modern processing and the preservatives that are used in British bread-making. "My patients give up wheat and feel a lot better, then they go to Paris for a romantic weekend, eat baguettes - and say they're OK! Over there baguettes are baked fresh twice a day; here you can get a loaf that keeps for seven days in the supermarket."

These theories are still in their infancy, however, and for many in orthodox medicine the biggest sticking point is the tests used for wheat intolerance. Unlike those for allergies, there are no medically accepted tests for wheat intolerance, so unproven techniques are being used, such as electric currents on the skin.

"It's witchdoctory," dismisses Professor John Warner of the University of Southampton, who specialises in allergies in children. "There's no evidence that these tests diagnose anything at all. You need a proper test, not some crazy test which uses hair or nails sent through the post."

In his view, the only accurate way to detect an intolerance to a food such as wheat is to carry out double-blind tests in which someone is given a food, but doesn't know if it contains the substance or not. He is worried that many people are eliminating wheat from their diets without proper advice or supervision, which may mean that their diet becomes nutritionally unsound.

Dr Wendy Doyle from the British Dietetic Association views the demonisation of wheat as something of a fad. "My worry is that there are a lot of people who are wheat free who don't need to be. It's said that 20 per cent of people claim that they have intolerance, while only 2 per cent actually have it."

But given the practical difficulties of giving up wheat, it seems unlikely that people would do it without needing to - or believing that it's helping. Says wheat-free-diet devotee Neil Blair: "It's almost impossible to avoid, so I haven't gone mad, I just avoid bread and cereals. But that can be tricky. Lots of my lunches were just sandwiches - now I eat meat and salads, which is difficult in terms of expense and time."

And then there's the taste of many wheat-free products. "Pretty awful," said the Sainsbury's developers when they were testing what was available on the market. So they spent time creating products they'd want to eat, which also include dairy-free and gluten-free. Soon they'll be launching three new breakfast cereals, a white loaf and a rice-based tikka masala sauce. Clearly, for them, the wheat-free way is here to stay.

(c) Independent Newspapers (UK) Limited 2002. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, distributed or exploited in any way.

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LETTERS

Is New Autism Treatmemt "Breakthrough" or SpecEd Decoy?

SWAP Promoters' "Unjust And Unprofessional" Slam of Lovaas' Work

In your September 18 article regarding the research of the South West Autism Project (SWAP), the authors (Webster, Feiler & Webster ) state that "[Lovaas'] findings have not been replicated and there are large question marks about the research methods used and the conclusions drawn."

I encourage parents to read this carefully before rejecting Lovaas conclusions.

While the SWAP article only offered a brief summary of the results of this research, it presented enough to raise serious questions. For example, the gains shown are based on measurements using the PEP-R test to determine changes in developmental age. The way this was used may not be valid. Paul Trehin, Secretary General of the World Autism Organization and a proponent of TEACCH says, "...even though the PEP-R in itself is a fairly well established assessment tool, it can be used inappropriately, the average developmental age that can be computed is meaningless, what counts is the developmental age in each of the domains and the profile that results from

autism is that deficits are not global but vary from one skill to another (language, social, behavior, academic). Gains in an area of strength, can raise the "average developmental age" while the child make little progress in areas of greatest weakness.

Further I would suggest that parents in the UK question Professor Webster about whether the primary goal of his program is to provide the best outcome for the children or if that is secondary to their goal of providing the "best value provision" for Local Education Authorities. Clearly, this research is a dream come true for school districts. For example, their conclusion that "Breaks in programme delivery did not impede - and may have facilitated - progress" will excuse schools from providing summer programs. This conclusion goes against both the prevailing research and common sense. What may excite schools most is the stated result that "No parent receiving SWAP has successfully challenged the LEA for alternative provision".

I wonder if the goals and results of this research teach us more about how to manage parental expectations than how to effectively treat autism.

David Eland deland@kc.rr.com

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SWAP Inspiration: "Enabling Communication in Children with Autism"

London: Jessica Kingsley

Potter, C. and Whittaker, C., 2001

Dr Feiler, Prof. Webster's research associate, when contacted by SAR reader Stephen Gallop seeking more information, indicated that "much of the work in the SWAP programme is geared to enabling children to develop spontaneous, intentional communication, and we found the book by Potter and Whittaker very useful for guiding this approach." It is noteworthy that the authors' backgrounds are education and not medicine or psychology. -LS

-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-7424157-7962350?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 <- - address ends here.

Here is what Amazon.com says about the book in its lead review, which appears to be supplied by the publisher.

The early stages of lingustic and social interaction are crucial in the development of every child, but particularly in children with autism. Potter and Whittaker show how these children may be significantly affected by a range of social and environmental influences, including classroom management, levels of motivation and interaction with adults and other children.

From their clinical, practical and classroom research they show how the communication skills of children with autism can be helped by the skilful use of an integrated range of strategies and approaches.

As well as providing an overview of the major theoretical issues involved, Enabling Communication in Children with Autism provides practical ways of modifying unhelpful environments in order to enhance communication skills. Potter and Whittaker argue that encouraging spontaneous communication should be viewed as a major educational goal and that children with minimal or no speech can and do communicate when they have access to enabling environments.

The creation of such environments forms the central theme of this book.

Book Info

(Jessica Kingsley) Addresses the issue of what constitutes a communication enabling environment for children with autism who use little or no speech. Shows the communication can be affected by a range of social and environmental influences. Argues encouraging spontaneous communication should be viewed as a major educational goal for these children. Softcover.

About the Author

Carol Potter, PGCE, M.Ed, has worked extensively in the field of autism as teacher, lecturer, consultant and researcher. She cuurently combines teaching with independent research and freelance staff training consultancy. Chris Whittaker, M.Ed, DAES, ACP, TCert, has taught, lectured and published in the field of special education for the last thirty years, with a special interest in children with autism and complex learning disabilities. He is currently a Research Fellow at the University of Durham, and also works as a freelance consultant.

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ADVOCACY

Autism 'Pressure Groups' Efforts Reach the BBC: Call For Urgent MMR Research

Parents of children with autism have petitioned political leaders for urgent medical tests to be carried out into the safety of the MMR vaccine.

Despite repeated assurances from the Department of Health and the majority of medical opinion, some parents are still convinced that the vaccine may be responsible for some cases of autism.

Pressure groups handed petitions to Downing Street, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly on Wednesday.

Not only do they want the government to fund urgent research into MMR, they are also calling for free access to clinical medical examinations and treatment for an estimated 20,000 children diagnosed since 1990 with autism.

Disgraceful

Bill Welsh, chairman of Action Against Autism, who is from Glasgow and grandfather of a seven-year-old boy with autism, said: "Research that is taking place at the moment does not reflect the urgent nature of this tragic episode.

"For 20,000 kids to be seriously ill and not receive medical examinations is a national disgrace.

"We believe these children are victims of medical politics - in other words, because the vaccination programme may be implicated in what has happened, the medical profession has turned its back on these cases."

Richard Miles, member of the Autism Research Campaign for Health, and father of a 13-year-old boy with autism, said: "We want treatment and we want to know why these children have the measles virus in their gut and blood."

The government has highlighted a series of studies which show no link between autism and MMR.

The group who came to hand over a petition at Downing Street included people whose children were not affected by autism, such as Dr Jayne Donegan from London.

She said: "We should be looking for answers rather than saying everything is safe, which is how the Government reacted to BSE and look what happened there.

"We don't want to have any more tragic, damaged children."

Heather Colvin, a care officer from Kentish Town in north London said she was lending her support as the confused parent of an eight-month-old girl.

"I don't trust what the Government says but I just don't know what to do about getting my daughter vaccinated."

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Public Strong On Opinions – Weaker On Knowledge

The public's knowledge of topical science issues appears to be only slightly improved by either their education or their consumption of news media, according to interim findings from a research project at Cardiff University, UK.

However, lack of knowledge, where it exists, does not prevent British people from holding opinions on subjects like climate change, biotechnology and the alleged risks of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Strong views are also held on their Government's response to such questions.

Research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, at the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University is examining the relationship between science, the public and the media by combining the results of the knowledge and opinion survey with a detailed media analysis of television, newspaper, radio and magazine content.

The survey asked more than 1,000 people what they thought and knew about three topical areas of science: climate change; the MMR vaccine; and human and animal biotechnology. They were also asked how much they trust scientists and the media.

- Out of 12 scientific questions, on average the public answered 4.42 correctly. Those with scientific educational qualifications did better (5.26), as did those with a degree in any subject (5.85). Likewise, although broadsheet newspaper readers scored higher (5.78) than tabloid readers (4.13), the difference was less marked than might be thought.

- Those who watch television news very regularly scored a little higher than less frequent viewers. While 15 per cent now cite the internet as one of their main sources of news about science, television (81 per cent) and newspapers (57 per cent) remain dominant.

MMR vaccine. The public has a higher knowledge of the political than the scientific aspects of the matter. Most correctly understood British Prime Minister Tony Blair's response to questions about the vaccination of his young son. A substantial majority (67 per cent) also knew that MMR has been linked by some scientists with autism, but most also thought that the evidence in favour of such a link was either evenly balanced, or favoured a link. In fact, most published scientific evidence, and official advice, denies the existence of any link.

A further indication that the public is inclined to think the worst on scientific matters where the evidence is contested emerges in the finding that half of those surveyed thought take-up of MMR vaccine had fallen by more than 25 per cent since 1998 when, at the time of the survey, it was down by only 6 per cent. Levels of knowledge about MMR were highest among women, presumably because of their closer contact with child health issues.

The issues surrounding human and animal biotechnology. Forty-four per cent of those surveyed described current developments as 'worrying', while only 34 per cent said they were 'encouraged'. Half of the respondents believed the Government was not doing enough to limit this technology but also displayed considerable ignorance about the actions government has actually taken.

+ Article continues at:

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Readers' Posts

Our 10 year old autistic daughter is nearing puberty. Does anyone know of any good sources of information on how to deal with the issues that go along with it including proper hygiene? She has some definite sensory issues that are going to pose problems. happs65@yahoo.com

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We are looking for Gluten free disposable gloves to be used in our son's speech therapy. Anyone know of any? dgfindley@yahoo.com

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TreeHouse is a charity providing an educational centre for children with autism using ABA. We seek a Behaviour Analyst for the leadership, training and development of rigorous ABA practice across the school and to contribute to charity's future direction. Required: High level of ABA expertise: BCBA qualification or or BCBA eligibility; Substantial experience of teaching and training and of supervising ABA practitioners; Understanding and experience of organisational behaviour; People management skills and exper. Contact Christine@treehouse,org,uk or tel. 020 7681 9982 by Fri. 11 Oct.

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I tried to respond directly to the person who had asked the question about RhoGam. My mail was returned as undeliverable. There is another option called BayRho, which does not contain Thimerosal. Jody G. [momtobandj@earthlink.net]

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