SCHAFER AUTISM REPORT "Healing Autism:

No Finer a Cause on the Planet"

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September 24, 2002

*** NOTE GET YOUR EVENT INTO THE OCT. CALENDAR - WED. SEPT 25 DEADLINE!***

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TREATMENT

* The Feelings Game Feels Ready

RESEARCH

* Autism: Researchers Shed Light On Early Brain Growth

* Imitation is a Lot More Than Just The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

* Genes, Biological Factors in Autism

* Some Results Gene Hunting for Autism

FORENSIC

* New Hampshire City Setting Up Mental Health Court

AWARENESS

* Moms Doubt Drug's Safety

LETTERS

* On Dr Frank Marone's Commentary on ASAT

* On Autoimmunity and the Blood-Brain Barrier

* On Autism and Immune Reactions Article

* Others

AWARD

* Schafer Autism Report Publisher Feted With Public Information Award

* Readers' Posts

TREATMENT

The Feelings Game Feels Ready

The free on-line game starts with activities that focus on the visual discrimination of facial expressions and matching labels with expressions, and then progresses to activities that teach about emotions and emotional expression.

The game uses photos of real people and includes established special teaching methods such as cheerful and child-friendly graphics, positive feedback for right answers only, and randomized presentation of faces to avoid pattern learning.

The game incorporates the latest research findings on recognizing facial expressions, including concepts such as having 3 selectable faces because age and sex have an effect on the way emotions are understood, and using neutral colors in the pictures since wearing colors like red affects the emotions perceived.

A separate Facial Expressions Game at the same web site lets a person manipulate the parts of a computer face to duplicate these expressions, or make different expressions. To support these on-line games, the site also offers picture cards for communicating expressions, as part of its over 380 free printable picture cards.

This game is supported by Grant R44-HD41289-01 from NICHD, National Institutes of Health.

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Autism: Researchers Shed Light On Early Brain Growth

[From CAN-Alert. CURE AUTISM NOW. Article in thePain & Central Nervous System Week, 09/23/2002.]

NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net - Children with autism exhibit abnormal brain development during the very early years of life, according to two separate studies published in Neurology.

Both studies used MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanning technology to analyze brain volume in those with autism, and age-matched control groups.

In the first study, which set out to explore anatomical differences in the brains of very young autistic children, the brain volume measurements of 45 autistic children, ages 3 and 4, were compared with those of 26 children with typical development and 14 children with developmental delay.

"We found that the autistic children had significantly increased cerebral volumes compared with typically developing children and developmentally delayed children," said study author Stephen R. Dager, MD, with the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington.

The average cerebral volume - including measures of the cerebrum, cerebellum, amygdala, and hippocamus - was 10% larger in autistic children than in typically developing children. The difference was 12.5% between autistic and developmentally delayed children. He said the study shows that abnormal brain development processes occur very early in autistic children.

Dager said more research is now under way to better ascertain the causes of the abnormalities as well as the disease's progression. The children in the study will undergo brain reimaging at age 6-7 years old, which will make it possible to track changes in behavioral symptoms and corresponding brain volume.

The study was supported by a grant from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Deafnesss and Communication Disorders, and the Cure Autism Now Foundation (CAN). Using a separate sample, researchers at the same university hypothesized that brain growth among autistic patients is rapid in the early years of life, but brain size decreases slightly around age 12, about the same time that normally developing children experienced a growth spurt in cerebral volume. The study showed that by adolescence and adulthood, brain volume levels out to normal size.

The study measured cerebral volume and head circumference of 67 autistic children and adults and 83 healthy controls, ranging in age from 8 to 46 years old. Among those with autism age 12 and under, average brain volume was 5% larger than in the controls. By age 12, there was no difference in volume, but head circumference was 1-2% greater in autistic individuals than controls, whether children or adults.

"This increased head circumference among adults as well as children with autism is further suggestion of accelerated growth in brain volume among autistic children," according to study author Elizabeth H. Aylward, PhD.

Aylward ventured that the accelerated brain growth in children with autism may be a sign of increased numbers of neurons and premature growth of synapses. She acknowledged that the lack of participants under age 8 was a limitation of the study because they were unable to determine when the brain enlargement began.

The study was supported by the U.S. National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the University of Pittsburgh's Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism.

This article was prepared by Pain & Central Nervous System Week editors from staff and other reports. (c) Copyright 2002 Pain & Central Nervous System Week via NewsRx.com

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Imitation is a Lot More Than Just The Sincerest Form Of Flattery Researchers claim to have proof that not just babies, but also mature people, tend to learn new behavior and motor actions through copying their fellows

Imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery. But it even seems to form the heart of our humanity. Indeed, imitation appears to be a vital key to understanding human development, from behavior and language to empathy and social skills.

Compared with most other species, human beings are so immature at birth that they require an exceptionally long period of nursing and shelter. We spend our long infancy and childhood adapting to the widely varying and complex socio-cultural environment that surrounds us. This allows us to interact and operate successfully within our environment throughout our lives.

From the outset, even before we develop the ability to use spoken language, nonverbal communication drastically shapes our personality and sense of self. Children learn by watching adults and other children, developing important skills under continuous social feedback. This feedback enables proper production and, later, understanding, of emotion-related facial expressions that the subject herself cannot see. Fortunately for human development, healthy children find imitation enormously gratifying. They enjoy both imitating and being imitated.

Imitation is so essential to mastering basic social skills and transferring cultural knowledge that it is likely to have an organic basis in the brain. Mirror neurons, first discovered in monkeys, may serve such a function, providing a common code between the sender and receiver of a nonverbal message. A monkey's mirror neurons are activated both when he himself is acting, say, taking a raisin from a tray, and when he is viewing another monkey (or the human experimenter) performing the same act.

Brain imaging studies have now shown that the human brain contains a similar mirror-neuron system (MNS). For example, merely viewing another person's movements activates our own motor cortex, which we normally use for precise control of our actual movements. As sports fans, musicians, and students of body language know, watching other people's movements and postures may facilitate the viewer's own motor schemes, sometimes resulting in unintended imitation.

One can copy movements and motor acts without understanding their meaning. This happens when a flock of geese suddenly takes flight from a lake, "blindly" following the flock's first frightened member. For humans, the MNS may provide a more sophisticated copying mechanism that helps us to understand the intentions of other people -- in a sense, to read their minds. Humans compute other people's intentions and emotions continuously, constantly observing their movements, postures, and gaze. These mind-reading skills are essential for successful social interaction.

Researchers have found that a key part of the human MNS is Broca's region, an area of the brain that, when damaged, prevents the patient from speaking. Broca's region is the human counterpart of the monkey mirror-neuron area. As both human and monkey mirror neurons code hand manipulation and facial gestures, some interesting hypotheses have emerged. For example, the presence of mirror neurons in Broca's region suggests that human language co-evolved with hand and facial gestures rather than arising directly from vocalizations.

In humans, Broca's region is found in the left brain hemisphere, whose dominance for speech is well known. But the corresponding area is larger also in the left brain of great apes, further indicating that the Broca's region evolved first for gestural communication and only later for speech.

Behavioral studies, too, have shown that gesturing is closely related to speech production. To take a familiar example, we gesture even while speaking on the telephone, when others cannot see us. Indeed, congenitally blind persons gesture -- even while speaking with people they know to be blind as well! The existence of the human MNS means that the same brain areas may be activated when we perform a motor act and when we merely observe another person perform a similar act. This leads to an obvious

question: how do we know that we actually performed a motor act rather than only seeing it? For most people, physical feedback provided by muscle and tendon sensors helps in resolving this, as does proper communication between brain areas. But mis-attribution of one's own acts does, in fact, occur in some psychiatric disorders.

Other disorders are associated with defective imitation skills. For example, autistic individuals imitate others less and in a different manner than healthy subjects. They also have poor mind-reading skills. Some patients, by contrast, suffer at the opposite extreme of dysfunction. They "echo," imitating almost all movements of other people.

Perhaps most intriguing, the MNS could provide a platform for mental simulation of future actions -- one's own and those of others. It might also be part of a larger mechanism that allows intentions, emotions, and even the intensity of pain to be matched by gestures and communicated between individuals.

New imaging tools enable us to study these and other questions about human brain function more productively than ever before. We can now accurately follow in both time and space the brain's processing routes, which are determined not only by genes, but also by all the experience that an individual has gained during her entire lifetime.

In these studies, neurologists, psychiatrists, geneticists, and behavioral researchers all contribute to realizing their common interest in discovering how the human brain operates. Brain imaging, combined with the new conceptual framework implied by research on the mirror-neuron system, promises to uncover a more holistic "social" brain. This brain's functions and dysfunctions -- its very structure -- will broaden dramatically our understanding of the relationship between the self and others.

Riitta Hari is a member of the Academy of Finland and head of the Brain Research Unit of the Low Temperature Laboratory at the Helsinki University of Technology. Copyright: Project Syndicate

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Genes, Biological Factors in Autism

ds=12238023&dopt=Abstract

[Article in Czech]

Sedlacek Z, Havlovicova M, Hrdlicka M. Ustav biologie a lekarske genetiky, LF UK a FNM, Praha. zdenek.sedlacek@lfmotol.cuni.cz

Autism is a severe psychiatric disorder characterised by deficits in social interaction, disturbed communication and adherence to stereotype routines and interests.

Nowadays it is completely clear that this disorder has a biological basis and many observations show strong genetic determination of autism.

The importance of genetic factors is supported by frequent association of this disorder with known hereditary diseases or with various chromosomal aberrations, by high concordance of the disorder in monozygotic twins, higher risk for the siblings of autistic patients and also by the frequent occurrence of milder symptoms of the autistic spectrum in more distant relatives.

All these findings show that the autistic phenotype results from unfavourable combination of alleles of several genes in interplay with factors of the environment.

This model of multifactorial inheritance of autism serves at present as the starting point for the search for predisposing genes in the human genome.

The association is tested between autism and alleles of candidate genes selected based on known biochemical and physiological role of their protein products, or based on their location close to recurrent chromosomal rearrangements or in regions identified by whole-genome linkage analyses.

Studies of most of these genes have not yielded clear-cut results yet, but the participation of some of them in the aetiology of autism is possible.

PMID: 12238023 [PubMed - in process]

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Some Results Gene Hunting for Autism

ds=12238024&dopt=Abstract

[Article in Czech]

Havlovicova M, Propper L, Novotna D, Musova Z, Hrdlicka M, Sedlacek Z. Ustav biologie a lekarske genetiky, LF UK a FNM, Praha. marketa.havlovicova@lfmotol.cuni.cz

BACKGROUND: Many observations indicate that genetic factors play an important role in the aetiology of autism.

Up to now, however, no genetic markers have been convincingly identified which influence the predisposition to this disorder.

Complex genetic analysis of autistic patients and their families may therefore lead to the identification of features which could help to direct further search for the predisposing genes.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We have analysed a sample of 20 patients with autism spectrum disorders.

The patients have been subjected to clinical genetic examination, cytogenetic analysis and DNA analysis of the FMR1 gene.

In the sample studied we have observed more boys (15/20), various degree of mental retardation (18/20), high frequency of complications during pregnancy (10/20) and delivery (10/20), increased incidence of psychiatric disorders, behavioural abnormalities and suicides among the relatives, and increased head circumference and unusually formed ears in the probands.

Three patients had different chromosomal aberrations or variants (t(21;22), inv(9) and inv(10)).

One patient harboured expansion of the trinucleotide repeat sequence in the FMR1 gene on the full mutation level which is characteristic for the fragile X syndrome, and one patient is suspected to suffer from the Rett syndrome.

CONCLUSIONS: Our observations confirm and extend the results reported in the literature.

Most interesting are mainly the macrocephaly which may be associated with the recently described increased neonatal levels of neural growth factors in autistic individuals, ear malformations which may indicate aberrations in the HOXA1 gene pathway, the occurrence of chromosomal inversions recurrent in autism, and peculiarities in the pedigrees of the patients.

PMID: 12238024 [PubMed - in process]

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FORENSIC

New Hampshire City Setting Up Mental Health Court

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A pilot program in Keene is designed to help people with mental health problems deal with the legal system.

The Legislature set up the program in Keene District Court.

The idea is to increase coordination between the court system and mental health providers and improve public safety.

For instance, if an expert determines an offender has a mental illness or developmental disability and the problem is connected with the crime, he or she will be referred for treatment.

Statistics show that the average length of stay last year at the Cheshire County House of Correction was 30 days.

The average stay for inmates with mental illnesses was three times longer and one out of five inmates needed mental health services.

Criminal justice systems are not typically set up to deal with the mentally ill, said Kenneth Jue, CEO of Monadnock Family Services.

The percentage of those with mental illness in the system is growing, he said, and the criminal justice system is becoming a revolving door.

The program may start as early as January.

A grant for $150,000 could be awarded in four weeks.

Work on the program began two years ago when an 11-member inter-agency team visited mental health courts in Seattle.

The team brought back information and the hope of starting their own version of the Seattle program.

The Legislature established an oversight committee, led by Rep.

McKim Mitchell, D-Chesterfield.

"I would like to think that Cheshire County will succeed and prevail in this pilot program to the point where the rest of the state will then take action because it is the right thing to do," Mitchell.

"It is not fair that we simply lock these people up."

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Moms Doubt Drug's Safety

Mary Miller holds two pictures. Together they tell a story in the eyes of her son Jamie.

In the first photo, Jamie's expressive eyes dance, a wide grin reveals a toddler's glee.

The second picture is the same boy, about 11 and grown handsome. His eyes, ringed by darkened circles, seem empty.

Miller remembers when her son changed. He was still a toddler, just beginning to talk. He was happy and healthy.

"Then he began waking up at night screaming," she said.

He would thrash and bang. On car rides, Jamie would howl like a wounded animal.

And when he was calm, he was too calm. Jamie became impassive and detached. He no longer talked and, when he did, he could no longer make the simple sentences he had begun to string together.

Miller went to doctors.

"They were saying he was manipulating me," she said. "We knew he was in intense pain."

The cure, once it came, seemed simple enough. Her son was diagnosed as gluten and dairy intolerant, so the fam- ily removed breads, yeast and milk from its diet. Jamie's banging and screaming stopped.

But his empty stare and his hopelessly arrested development stayed.

And Miller again started looking for answers.

"There was no map for us to go by," she said. It took five years for doctors to finally diagnose autism but, once the diagnosis came, the pieces fell in place.

According to some studies, one in 150 children has some form of autism, a syndrome characterized by impaired social, communication and sensory skills. Affected children are prone to repetitive movements and display an unnatural need for sameness.

The number of children diagnosed with autism nationally has risen steadily over the decades, from one in 10,000 when the disorder was first tracked, to one in 500 just about a decade ago.

Miller, along with a growing movement of doctors, scientists and hopeful parents, thinks she knows why.

Two years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told pharmaceutical companies to stop using thimerosal as an ingredient in some early-childhood vaccinations.

Thimerosal, a concentration containing a 50 percent mercury compound, is used as a preservative in the vaccines and in countless over-the-counter children's medications. Over the years, it has been yanked from ingredient lists for everything from infant stuffy-nose drops to children's eardrops and eyedrops.

Mercury is a known cause of birth defects and brain damage.

Miller's son's symptoms appeared within weeks, even days, after his first round of childhood inoculations.

She is part of a growing multiparty suit being planned against pharmaceutical companies that produced thimerosal-containing vaccines. The suit is waiting for lawyers in a number of states to organize their strategy and for science to catch up with their theory. A number of other class actions have been filed.

The FDA has never said thimerosal is a danger, though it sets safe exposures to mercury at 0.1 micrograms per kilogram of a person's weight, far less than what infants receive through thimerosal-containing vaccinations.

The FDA and drug companies are cooperating to phase out use of thimerosal but, by some estimates, hundreds of thousands of doses of thimerosal-containing vaccines remain stockpiled.

Despite guidelines, many children younger than a year old are vaccinated with old vaccines. Following the FDA's recommended schedule of vaccines, a child receiving the old vaccines receives 62.5 micrograms of mercury during a single doctor's visit. By age 2, children may receive as much as 237.5 micrograms of mercury through these stockpiled vaccinations.

New vaccines without thimerosal, by comparison, expose children to just 37.5 micrograms over the same period.

An FDA spokesman declined comment and referred calls to the administration's Web site.

The site references a number of studies that showed no conclusive link between mercury and autism. It says studies continue because "while the available scientific data do not establish that these neurodevelopmental disorders are caused by Thimerosal, at the same time, they do not establish that these neurodevelopmental disorders are not caused by Thimerosal."

The official stance of the American Association of Pediatrics is that there is no connection between thimerosal and autism.

A fact sheet on the association's Web site takes a firm stance: "There are no studies that show a link between Thimerosal in vaccines and autistic spectrum disorder."

Drug companies, too, have affirmed their stance that thimerosal is safe. They cite independent scientific studies, more than 60 years of use and the more than 350 million doses distributed as evidence of safety.

Eileen Dolich, a spokeswoman with Merck & Co. Inc., which manufactures vaccines that previously contained thimerosal, said she could not comment on the issue because of pending litigation related to the preservative.

Miller is not convinced.

+ Article continues at:

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LETTERS

On Autism and Immune Reactions Article

These organisms are both bacteria. This is somewhat nitpicky, as it is known that both viral and bacterial antibodies can induce an autoimmune response (the best known autoimmune response to a bacteria is probably E. coli 0157:H7 which induces hemolytic uremic syndrome).

The second is the statement by Dr. Volkmar that he would not recommend a change in "your child's diet" without further evidence. I can certainly understand such a statement in regards to medication or supplements which may have adverse effects. However, in this diet in which the nutrients are obtained easily from other sources, the only barrier, in my opinion, is the difficulty in preparation of food and knowledge of how to protect your child from contamination.

The worst that would happen, in my opinion, is that you would unwittingly allow casein or gluten in your child's diet. I believe that such a benign intervention *should* be attempted by those willing to make the effort. I know that our child seems to have benefitted, if not enormously, at least substantially. There are certainly numerous sites and boards on the internet for self-education in this.

- Naomi E. Scearce, MD, mother of Sam 4yo, autism

On Autoimmunity and the Blood-Brain Barrier

I am responding to the post of 9/23 about autoimmunity and the connection with a faulty blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier is not intact in infants until at least 6 weeks of life. This is why a newborn with a fever must be subjected to a spinal tap to rule out menningitis. Any virus or bacteria that a newborn is exposed to can go directly to the nervous system.

This is why the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth is so dangerous. Between 1991 and 1999, when the shot contained thimerisol, giving it at birth would have resulted in mercury crossing into the brain since the blood-brain barrier was not yet intact. As a nurse, I'm concerned that this information about the normal timing of a blood-brain barrier forming is not more readily known.

I think this normal delay in the forming of a blood-brain barrier is an important piece of the puzzle and one of the reasons for the surge of autism in the 90's.

Mary Barbera RN, MSN

On Dr Frank Marone's Commentary on ASAT

In his commentary on ASAT, September 9, 2002, Dr Frank Marone stated "we don't know what 'autism' is. At present, we utilize a purely behavioral diagnostic procedure without the possibility of physiological quantitative confirmation."

There is now absolute quantitative measurement of a whole set of aberrant, but accurate, physiological measurements present in Autism Spectrum Disorders. These are absolutely 'science-based'! Maybe he doesn't know about them?

* First, the work of the Sunderland (UK) University Autism Unit's discovery of trans-indolyl-3-acryloylglycine (IAG) metabolites. So accurate is the peculiar dispersion of IAG in the samples, the researcher (Paul

Whiteley) can differentiate if the subject is autistic, or a higher functioning problem as ADHD or Aspergers. I have attended his workshops and seen the lab work.

* The discovery, by four widely seperated medical hospitals/ Institutions (Dublin, Maryland, London, Harvard) of vaccine measles virus in the gut of these children, accompanied by hyperplasia of the lymph tissue. These tests have been repeated and replicated several times.

* Tests for Hg (mercury) poisoning have tested positive and ACCURATELY quantified. And "J"-curve correlations of Hg in vaccines and autism has been proven by the CDC (albeit in a 'hidden' study, now revealed by the Law firms use of "Discovery").

* The fact that these undeniable laboratory results have been either ignored or ridiculed or in some other way discounted, is strong evidence of political interference - now being challenged in the Courts by angry parents, several of whom (and many more to follow) have found that chelation of Hg has improved their children. Moreover, the CDC has been 'caught' hiding the above-mentioned study (have you seen it it? - the senior author James Verstraeten, now works for the drug company who manufactured thiomersal - the Hg preservative).

* Further laboratory evidence - from several U.S. labs and now from our Australian labs. - shows a common pattern (usually 9/10 or 10/10) among these children, of important and severe nutrient deficiencies. To name a few briefly: zinc, magnesium, Vitamins C, B12, folate, B6, glutamine. By

adding these, would you believe, we get results! Is that so strange?

Why they are deficient is the question, which is well answered by malabsorption via the damage done by auto-immune reactions manifesting in the above-mentioned hyperplasia of the gut.

* Contrary to what Dr Marone says about so-called 'snake-oil' procedures (and he mentions the GFCF diet plus others) there is also large scale empirical evidence of the effectiveness of some of these. And is what you would expect from gluten intolerance if the children's guts were damaged, as the lab. results have shown (see Crohns Disease).

I think it very provocative to call GFCF diets to be 'snake-oil'. One only has to read the message bank of an autism Group to see hundreds of parents who have found GFCF to be a help - sometimes a very high percentage

improver. Also, in my own work, with hundreds of these children, the

Functional Medicine approach is nothing less than brilliant. Is repeateble, over and over, doctor.

Maybe Dr. Marone should try combining the Functional Medicine approach

with ABA? Wouldn't that be the honest way of proving or disproving the

methods?

- Dr Michael Sichel DO ND

Comments Responding to Ms. Maurice's Comments

I have a child with PDD/Autism, who was classically autistic at age 2 1/2, allthough there was 'something" which made us think that he did not suffer additionally from mental retardation. While there is a time and place for discrete trial, and I have done some myself, I have also worked tirelessly to make sure my son can handle being in the community. And it was no small task. We have gone to shopping centers, grocery stores, concerts, playgrounds, all typical things that children go to. He is in the local gymasatics program and he also played T-ball. He does need additional help. However he is learning, and the longer we are at it, the less he stands out. People see his activity level and not the kid underneath at first, and then they begin to understand. It is hard to go and see clearly the discrepancy between our son and the typically developing peers. People are supportive, and as they see how hard he is trying, they begin rooting for him instead of looking at him as a disruption. Although not every child will be able to do the things Connor has been successful at, I feel he is far better off and I hope others will work for a well rounded child.

- Neal Snyder

I have no idea of what Dr. Marone is trying to say - that Dr. Maurice is an ABA zealot or that folks that push vitamins, etc. are zealots or both or what?

- Kathy Harris, Parent

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AWARD

Schafer Autism Report Publisher Feted With Public Information Award

The Contra Costa ARC has announced that Lenny Schafer, editor and publisher of the Schafer Autism Report, has been selected to receive their 2002 Public Information Award. (Contra Costa County extends from the East Bay to just south of Sacramento.) In a letter to SAR, Frank Davis, President of Contra Costa ARC board of Directors, acknowledged that Stephanie Chapralis of Spectrum (an organization providing behavioral programs and services to children in Northern California) "nominated you for your tireless efforts and dedication in developing an online newsletter for families of children with autism. The information on education, research, and advocacy you have provided to families is unique and invaluable."

Said Schafer, "almost daily I receive letters from parents everywhere offering their gratitude for the material made available to them through the efforts of producing the Report. I am sometimes told how information from the Report played a key role in changing the lives of their child and the rest of the family for the better - which by itself is most gratifying and is plenty enough 'awards' to get. It is a blessing to have a "job" I love to do and is so meaningful to others.

"But it is especially nice to finally receive acknowledgement and appreciation from fellow advocates, locally - others like myself who volunteer for the benefit of our children. After over five years of creating and producing a quality and trusted information asset for parents, professionals and caregivers of autism locally, nationally and beyond, this is the only special acknowledgement of its kind that I have been so honored to receive."

The awards will be presented at the Community Service Awards Banquet in Walnut Creek on October 4.

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Readers' Posts

Houston: Weekend behavioral education classes are now forming. Classes are BCBA approved. Courses culminate in a Master of Science in Education degree. Call Mellody Panzer for details at 713-398-4246.

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We have 3 low functioning autistic sons. They are what we call "passively destructive." We have put locks on our cupboard doors and built a higher fence and nailed our windows shut to help keep them safe and maintain our sanity. We are concerned about legal issues. Does anyone have any info about this? Cynthia Cosey cynjo@earthlink.net

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