Researchers in Colorado – along with colleagues at five other sites across the country – will spend the next five years and nearly $6 million trying to solve the mystery of what is behind the soaring rates of autism.
“We’re very excited,” said Diana Schendel of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is coordinating and funding the study.
With a goal of 3,000 children studied, it will be the largest and most comprehensive effort to date to understand what is behind what autism advocates say is a growing epidemic.
Colorado state health department epidemiologists, along with researchers at JFK Partners, a University of Colorado- affiliated center that treats developmental disabilities, hope to begin recruiting participants in early 2007, said Dr. Lisa Miller of the health department.
“We’ll have three groups of kids – one group with autism, another with other developmental disabilities, and another will be typical kids,” Miller said.
The study will involve detailed surveys of parents, as well as tests on hair and blood samples from the children and their parents, Miller said.
Those samples will be tested for genetic factors linked to autism, proteins, hormone levels and levels of mercury, among other things.
Rates of diagnosed autism have soared in the past two decades, from roughly one case in 10,000 births in the 1980s to about one case out of every 166 births in 2003, according to the CDC.
But, as with nearly every aspect of this condition, there is disagreement among scientists even about the prevalence of autism and the accuracy of its diagnosis.
According to the CDC, the national study will focus on a number of factors with a suspected connection to autism, including genetics, the body’s immune response and whether the child’s mother smoked or drank during pregnancy.
Conspicuously absent from that list is a specific focus on vaccinations as a cause of autism. But Schendel said vaccines will be looked at.
“Clearly, getting a vaccine is a treatment that can cause the body to have an immune response, so that fits” with one of the factors being examined,Schendel said.
In addition, the researchers will look at the mother’s vaccine history – in particular, did she have a flu vaccine – which is one of the few that still contain the mercury derivative thimerosal – while pregnant.
Autism is a spectrum of conditions characterized by difficulty communicating and socializing, and often accompanied by developmental disabilities and repetitive behaviors.
Some parents believe their children’s autism is linked to – if not entirely caused by – exposure to thimerosal in vaccines.
Thimerosal is a form of mercury that was routinely used as a preservative in vaccines. In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics urged vaccine- makers to stop using it. By 2001, no vaccine routinely given to children contained thimerosal.
In addition to Colorado researchers, the study participants include the CDC, Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in California, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the University of North Carolina and the University of Pennsylvania. Together, those institutions make up the Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology Network.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
