Yet another place to look for XMRV

[anciendaze]

Strictly speaking, this topic is not about XMRV or CFS -- yet. I'm posting this anyway for reasons most people reading this section will immediately grasp.

The BBC is reporting on a link between autism and immigration. They don't mention infection by anything as a possible cause. They do mention stress and social isolation. Infection might explain why results on autism and genetics have been so thoroughly mixed.

I don't know about social isolation, but I'm well aware that stress, or exposure to new viral infections, can trigger latent viral infections which have been held in check by a reasonably healthy immune response. Considering Dr. Mikovits comments on XMRV in autism, this sounds like an obvious line of research.

Does anyone have a link to actual research? I didn't find one in a cursory search.

 

[garcia]

I would have said that vitamin D is probably the overriding influence here (possibly by having an effect on pathogens). Although surprisingly the authors say:

The study took into consideration that it may just be a case of ethnicity - rather than migration - that caused the rise in cases. However, researchers compared their results with children born of UK-born parents with Caribbean, African and Asian roots. "We found when we analysed the two factors together, that the risk fell considerably.

 

[natasa778]

I am not convinced of the stress factor, or YES BUT it would have to be a combo of "stress+something very modern" (such as reactivation of novel retro/viruses by stress) simply because both stress and immimigration have been with humans since the beginning of times, and autism wasn’t (at least not in todays shape and numbers)...

There was one study showing increased rate of autism in mothers exposed to hurricanes in the States - again stress was hypothesised. But then again hurricanes have been with us since ... and autism explosion is very recent. Meaning 'yes stress could be reactivating factor BUT...'

Re this study, when they say Europen immigrants (ie no increases in rates there) I wonder if they compared rates btw Western and Eastern European immigrants, esp those from Balkans as parents would have been exposed to lots of stress in the 90s...

Lack of VitD theory would also be worth pursuing. Also pursuing whether those parents with higher rates asd children were exposed to lots of vaccines when entering UK - that is the case in the States, where immigrants are required to go through a 'catch up vaccination' and then some...

Btw Somalis in Minnesota have skyhigh rates of autism, something like 1 in 20 boys are affected! The parents all had many many vaccines, and many received all required shots TWICE or MORE, in a very short period of time after arriving to US.

 

[Gerwyn]

I am not convinced of the stress factor, or YES BUT it would have to be a combo of "stress+something very modern" (such as reactivation of novel retro/viruses by stress) simply because both stress and immimigration have been with humans since the beginning of times, and autism wasn’t (at least not in todays shape and numbers)...

There was one study showing increased rate of autism in mothers exposed to hurricanes in the States - again stress was hypothesised. But then again hurricanes have been with us since ... and autism explosion is very recent. Meaning 'yes stress could be reactivating factor BUT...'

Re this study, when they say Europen immigrants (ie no increases in rates there) I wonder if they compared rates btw Western and Eastern European immigrants, esp those from Balkans as parents would have been exposed to lots of stress in the 90s...

Lack of VitD theory would also be worth pursuing. Also pursuing whether those parents with higher rates asd children were exposed to lots of vaccines when entering UK - that is the case in the States, where immigrants are required to go through a 'catch up vaccination' and then some...

Btw Somalis in Minnesota have skyhigh rates of autism, something like 1 in 20 boys are affected! The parents all had many many vaccines, and many received all required shots TWICE or MORE, in a very short period of time after arriving to US.

It might be worth mentioning that if a child with latent XMRV recieved a vaccine that vaccine would activate XMRV.In the developing brain the neural representations,circuits and networks are being actively formed with links between neurons being continually being formed broken and reformed.XMRV blocks XPR-1 receptors.These are the very receptors needed to create new synaptic conections in response to environmental stimuli.Males have no progesterone with which to upregulate XPR-1 receptors so the same amount of virus released would cause more damage.Male testesterone would inhibit the reinsertion of XMRV and potentiate the neurotoxic effects.It is only a hypothesis but to say that vaccines could not be a causative factor in the development of neuro toxicity is not even a hypothesis just dogma

 

[JillBohr]

I am very interested in this because I am an American that had my 1st son in the Netherlands and my 2nd in Germany. When I enrolled my first son in the HPT (school for special needs), I noticed a huge number of parents that were born outside of Germany. I was also in a parent support group and the psychologist at the Heckscher Clinic would show us videos once on ASD children and the children they showed were American and it was filmed right there in Germany with that German psychologist. Canada came out with an article quite a few years ago on this very topic.

 

[JillBohr]

I am very interested in this because I am an American that had my 1st son in the Netherlands and my 2nd in Germany. When I enrolled my first son in the HPT (school for special needs), I noticed a huge number of parents that were born outside of Germany. I was also in a parent support group and the psychologist at the Heckscher Clinic would show us videos once on ASD children and the children they showed were American and it was filmed right there in Germany with that German psychologist. Canada came out with an article quite a few years ago on this very topic.

O.K. I found one link but not much detail: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/06/06/autism-immigrants.html

 

[natasa778]

That is interesting Jill, could it be said that Americans in Germany were under some kind of "immigrant stress" ? Was this amongst US military personnel?

btw Gerwyn many/most of the proteins that are screwed up in autism are regulated by CREB ...

 

[JillBohr]

O.K. Going back to the Italian Study on ASD post-mortem brains where they found that 67% of ASD had a combinition of JVC, SV40 and BKC virus vs 23% of the controls. Just pure speculation but I wonder if a certain geographical group has a certain amount of viruses they can take, when put into another geographical area, they are exposed to yet another virus (or viruses) and eventually a trigger is pulled.

 

[sunlady]

I remember reading of Italian research, done in the 80's, which showed a link between mothers who had ME/CFS and the high percentage of their children with Autism.

I have had ME for 35 years and both my children have Autism.

Judy Mikovits is very interested in this area of research as her nephew has Autism.

One of the major issues with ASD children is their often severe levels of anxiety which is associated with cortisol levels. This could well be linked to the anxiety, (stress/cortisol) of new immigrants as well as the disturbed HPA axis, (stress/cortisol) in ME/CFS parents.

Just a thought for you scientists out there! :Retro smile:

 

[anciendaze]

poster children for neuro-endocrine-immune disorders

Glad to see these responses. I sometimes wonder if I'm starting to imagine things about where XMRV will turn up next.

While it's hard to get a great deal of public sympathy for adults who just seem to be tired, autistic children could be the poster children who will move people to say "Something must be done!"

What struck me was the 5 times increase in incidence, compared to others, presumably including those who stayed home. This kind of "natural experiment" could not be done ethically, because the consequences for those children really are tragic. If you can eliminate most genetic factors, and many environmental ones, you have a real hope of finding a cause. It would be a crime to waste the opportunity. We owe it to the sufferers.

JillBohr,

Thanks for your link. Interestingly, though that was not the same study, it also featured a high incidence of autism among children in families which came from the tropics. This could be the lead epidemiologists need to find the natural reservoir of the virus from which humans became infected.

We have two major possibilities I can imagine: 1) a latent viral infection from the original geographical region activated by stress, etc. 2) a new viral infection in the new geographical region. Either way, the research route goes through neuro-endocrine-immune disorders and infection, which area desperately needs study.

Of course, as always, I may be completely wrong. Biology is a lot more complicated than something as simple as, say, Relativity.

 

[jewel]

I don't have a published study to quote, but I do know of a study in process in my county (in Northern California) that involves screening young children for autism. They are not looking at physiological factors, but rather screening on the basis of behavioral indicators. In the area I live in, the greater number of immigrants are from Mexico and Latin America. (And, quite a few of these families are here undocumented, which adds another layer of immigration stress.) They are finding much lower rates of autism in that population, though we see high rates of other types of issues, for instance developmental speech delays. I don't know how much longer until the study is completed, but I got this information through personal communication with an acquaintance. So, the differences mentioned were large enough to be noticeable, but I did not ask if they had done statistical analysis yet. (I think they are just entering the data.)

 

[natasa778]

Judy Mikovits is very interested in this area of research as her nephew has Autism.

You must be thinking of Dr Klimas there ...

Jewel that is interesting, especially re large number of them are illegal immigrants!? Would they not be receiving 'public' medical care, not getting vaccinated, if undocumented?

 

[jewel]

Well, it depends. Many of the parents are undocumented, but most of the children are born here. If low income, they qualify for services under MediCal or California Healthy Families (over income for Medicaid (MediCal in CA) but still low- to lower middle income). Undocumented children can be covered for a low fee under Healthy Kids, which is a separate program. Healthy Kids does cover medical preventive care, including vaccines. That said, families who are living on the economic edge may not always have their ducks in a row, so to speak, to be on top of medical care, which is not to imply negligence. So, if your car just broke down, and you don't have the money for bus tickets, and the bus ride to the clinic will take you several hours, and you are in the process of looking for housing because your rent just went up, or the home in which your family is renting a room is in the process of foreclosure, or whatever, and your child is due for a vaccine, which of these issues have immediate priority? My guess is that the vaccine would wait and be rescheduled.

I am very interested to see if the kids have maintained the vaccine schedule; my guess is that they are all vaccinated. I don't know if they are looking at this, but I will ask... I'm not sure what else would be different, certainly diet, access to technology (computers) but most have cell phones, fire retardants in clothes??? I am totally just speculating here. Previously, it was thought that the difference seen in the county were based on economic and educational levels, with the more educated parents seeking diagnoses earlier. The screening program was done in a several clinics which serve high numbers of low-income children, but also serve middle income kids, many different ethnicities representative of the demography of the region...

 

[anciendaze]

weighing vacination risks

While vacination does carry risks, that does not mean the alternative is without risk. You need to weigh one risk against another. You may get the real thing instead of the vacine. If the consequences of the illness are acceptable, that is not too bad.

On the other hand, some things are really awful. I actually remember the year described in this quote:

In the United States, the 1952 polio epidemic became the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.

That summer big city newspapers ran a sort of box score on the front page, as they had been doing for years, showing the number of cases in the current year to date. Many events were cancelled and some public swimming pools, etc. were closed. The March of Dimes went door to door collecting money to fund research and pay for "iron lungs".

Even people who had been survivors of earlier epidemics continued to pay a price. My mother apparently had a brief bout with polio in 1927, and had lingering effects until she died at an advanced age.

There is reason to believe the virus had been around for thousands of years before the disease was given a name. Prior to chlorinated water supplies nearly everyone was exposed. Susceptible individuals generally died as infants, giving it the name "infantile paralysis". This specific risk was hidden in an overall infant mortality rate we would find horrifying. This is part of the "good old days" I can do without.

My thinking right now is that the connection with vacination is like multiple chemical sensitivity, evidence that there was already an undetected infection which introduced some defect in immune response. (Multiple sensitivity being an overactive response of a confused immune system.)

As always, I am not an authority. There may not be any.

Too heavy, time to introduce a signature appropriate for CFS/ME.

 

[MaryAnn]

I thought I remember seeing that Dr. Judy was presenting re autism / XMRV in Chicago this week?

 

[oerganix]

Yes, she is, and I remember from somewhere that she said they had found XMRV in 35% of samples from autistic kids.