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(回答先: 自閉症 保健師の６５％理解不足 協会、厚労省に研修改善要求[産経] 投稿者 ネオファイト 日時 2005 年 5 月 15 日 17:31:06)
水銀汚染が自閉症を引き起こす可能性[Aljazeera]: 2005 年 3 月 23 日 21:18:23
http://www.asyura2.com/0406/health9/msg/708.html
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1477662,00.html
Move towards autism test at birth raises fears
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday May 6, 2005
The Guardian
Scientists have taken a big step towards a test that could allow babies to be screened for autism at birth.
Such a test is likely to be controversial. Many experts question whether much can be done to help autistic children at so young an age, and critics believe that a positive diagnosis might simply cause stress for new parents.
Autism is rarely picked up before children reach the age of three, because behavioural tests for the condition are unreliable in younger children. The value of an earlier test relies largely on how good treatments for such young children prove to be.
David Amaral, a researcher at the University of California and co-author of the new study, believes that an early test would have definite benefits. "Not being able to detect autism until a child is close to three years old eliminates a valuable window of treatment opportunity during the first few years of life when the brain is undergoing tremendous development," he said.
"Finding a sensitive and accurate biological marker for autism that can be revealed by a simple blood test would have enormous implications for diagnosing, treating and understanding more about the underlying causes of autism."
Other researchers are more cautious about testing children for autism so early.
Hilary Cass, a neurodisability consultant who works with autistic children at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, said: "Evaluation of early intervention is ongoing and there is no conclusive outcome yet. That does not mean that I believe early intervention has been proved to be ineffective."
Doris-Ann Williams of the British In-Vitro Diagnostics Association said without a reliable treatment the case for screening at birth was weak. "The other problem is that if you have a high rate of false alarms, you could be causing a lot of parents a lot of unnecessary worry," she said.
In the study, blood samples taken from autistic children revealed their immune systems were working differently to normal, with levels of specific "killer cells" boosted by 40%. The levels of other immune cells, more than 100 different proteins and smaller molecules, were also highly unusual, the researchers found in the study, announced yesterday at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Boston.
Richard Mills, research director of the National Autism Society, said knowing children were predisposed to autism or likely to develop the condition could only help parents. Standard treatments involve getting children to perform problem-solving tasks and trying to develop communication skills.
The researchers behind the study say while they are confident they have identified differences in the blood of autistic children, a test for newborn babies is some years off yet.
"We're first going to extend this work to look at children with other developmental disorders. We known these autistic children differ from the normal - what we have to find now is whether they also differ from children with other developmental disabilities," said Paul Ashwood, another researcher on the study.
A key point the researchers have to check is whether the differences they picked up in autistic children are present in babies who go on to develop the condition. The researchers will also have to work out whether the differences in the make-up of blood from autistic children is down to autism or a range of other neurological conditions that often accompany it, Dr Cass said.
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