Serotonin is a brain chemical that carries signals across the synapse, or gap between nerve cells. The supply of serotonin is regulated by the serotonin transporter (SERT).

The researchers conclude that a lack of serotonin during development may lead to long-standing changes in the way the brain is wired.

The K.I.T.E. Center: Wine & Cheese Fundraiser 2012

The K.I.T.E. Center held its first annual Wine & Cheese Fundraiser March 10th at The Crown Winery in Humboldt. The event was an overwhelming success.  This was the first fundraiser for K.I.T.E., a premier school for autism, now in it’s third year of operation.  The event was the first in a series of events that K.I.T.E. will be hosting over the coming months.  K.I.T.E. is located in Jackson, TN.

More information about K.I.T.E., visit their site @ http://thekitecenter.com/

A new one for the “might cause Autism” list …  IMMIGRATION.  Specifically in this study, immigrating to Sweden.

“This is an intriguing discovery, in which we can see strong links between a certain kind of autism and the time of the mother’s immigration to Sweden,” says principal investigator Cecilia Magnusson, Associate Professor of epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet. “The study is important, as it shows that autism isn’t governed only by genetic causes but by environmental factorstoo.”

The study, which is published in the scientific periodical The British Journal of Psychiatry shows that children of immigrant parents, particularly from countries of low human development, are disproportionately likely to develop autism with intellectual disability, a connection that appears to be related to the timing of migration rather than complications in childbirth. Children, whose mothers migrated just before or during pregnancy, ran the highest risk of all.

“At this juncture we can but speculate about the causes, but our assumption is that environmental factors impacting on the developing fetus, such as stress, new dietary habits or infections, could lead to the development of autism with intellectual disability,” says Dr. Magnusson.

The Big List of S*%# Linked to Autism

• Abortions - (Prior abortions increase risk of autism in subsequent children)
• Air Pollution (Mercury in air pollution = more autism)
• Anti-Depressants (Mom on autism = more autism)
• Birth Weight HIGH (more weight = more autism.  Related, see big head.)
• Birth Weight LOW (less weight = more autism)
• Brain size (Bigger brains = more autism)
• Brain Cells (Too many neurons = more autism)
• Cell phones (More cell phones = more autism)
• Clever Parents (Smart parents = more autism)
• Clomid (Clomid = more autism, see IVF)
• Closely Spaced Births (Born soon after sibling = more autism)
• Complications at Birth (Catch all, any complication = more autism)
• Father’s age (older dad = more autism)
• Flame retardant chemical (exposure to flame retardant
  BDE-47 linked to autism)
• Genetic (squirrely genes = more autism)
• Highways (Mom lives near freeway = autism twice as likely)
• Immigration - (Immigrate to Sweden when women is pregnant = more autism)
• Internet (Increased Internet usage = more autism)
• IVF (Invitro Fertilization) - (IVF = More autism)
• Lead (More lead exposure = more autism)
• Lyme Disease (linked to autism)
• Metabolism (Poor metabolism = more autism)
• Missing DNA (missing DNA in boys = more autism)
• Mother’s age (older mom = more autism)
• Neanderthals (Evolution vaguely linked to autism)
• Pasteurized Milk (Pasteurization = more autism)
• Pesticides (More pesticides = more autism)
• Premature birth (Premature baby = more autism)
• Rainfall (higher precipitation areas = more autism)
• Smoking (Mom smoking during pregnancy = more autism)
• Television (More TV watching = more autism)
• Tylenol (More Tylenol = more autism)
• Vinyl Flooring (House with vinyl flooring = more autism)
• Winter Conception (Mom and Dad get busy in the Winter = more autism)

A new one for the “might cause Autism” list … Winter Conception.

A new study has revealed that those conceived in winter have up to a 16 per cent greater risk of autism than those conceived in July.

The Big List of S*%# Linked to Autism

• Abortions - (Prior abortions increase risk of autism in subsequent children)
• Air Pollution (Mercury in air pollution = more autism)
• Anti-Depressants (Mom on autism = more autism)
• Birth Weight HIGH (more weight = more autism.  Related, see big head.)
• Birth Weight LOW (less weight = more autism)
• Brain size (Bigger brains = more autism)
• Brain Cells (Too many neurons = more autism)
• Cell phones (More cell phones = more autism)
• Clever Parents (Smart parents = more autism)
• Clomid (Clomid = more autism, see IVF)
• Closely Spaced Births (Born soon after sibling = more autism)
• Complications at Birth (Catch all, any complication = more autism)
• Father’s age (older dad = more autism)
• Genetic (squirrely genes = more autism)
• Highways (Mom lives near freeway = autism twice as likely)
• Internet (Increased Internet usage = more autism)
• IVF (Invitro Fertilization) - (IVF = More autism)
• Lead (More lead exposure = more autism)
• Lyme Disease (linked to autism)
• Metabolism (Poor metabolism = more autism)
• Missing DNA (missing DNA in boys = more autism)
• Mother’s age (older mom = more autism)
• Neanderthals (Evolution vaguely linked to autism)
• Pasteurized Milk (Pasteurization = more autism)
• Pesticides (More pesticides = more autism)
• Premature birth (Premature baby = more autism)
• Rainfall (higher precipitation areas = more autism)
• Smoking (Mom smoking during pregnancy = more autism)
• Television (More TV watching = more autism)
• Tylenol (More Tylenol = more autism)
• Vinyl Flooring (House with vinyl flooring = more autism)
• Winter Conception (Mom and Dad get busy in the Winter = more autism)

Can’t an autism dad get a break even when unconscious enjoying some rapid eye movements?  The dreams I remember when I woke up this morning …

1. Being at a relatives house who in the dream had huge collection of ceramic figurines on shelves that covered the whole house.  Some were of my daughter’s favorite things, like Shrek and Mickey Mouse.  I was rushing around trying to keep her from destroying them.
2. One about a group home.  That’s all I can remember which is probably good.
3. Another in which I dreamed that I awoke to discover that we had accidently gone to bed and left all of the doors and windows to the house wide open.

We are attending a Halloween costume party / sensory friendly movie (Monster’s Inc) tonight at a local special needs organization. I have mixed feelings about the sensory friendly movie. We spent a lot of effort getting our daughter to act appropriately at the real movies and the last sensory friendly movie event that we attended was an all out free for all. Kids running around everywhere, the lights left on, and the sound turned down. For my daughter, this means that she will most likely pat attention to anything BUT the movie. On the other hand, it is so much NOT like the regular movie atmosphere, that I don’t know that she will even equate it with going to a movie. It’s more like going to a party where the TV is on in the room.

With that said, I recognize that there are a lot of kids with autism who can never go to a regular movie, so this event is probably a blessing to them and their families.

WASHINGTON — The Senate sent President Barack Obama a bill Monday night to extend federal autism programs after Sen. Bob Menendez reached an agreement with a Republican senator who had been blocking the measure.

The passage of a three-year extension of the 2006 Combating Autism Act authorizes $231 million in funding each year for research, education and services.

More @ http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/CONGRESS-AUTISM_6156289/CONGRESS-AUTISM_6156289/

But is it enough?

Kim Stagliano is the mother of three daughters with autism and a member of the Combating Autism Act Reauthorization Coalition. She said the funding provided by the act isn’t used efficiently and she would have rather seen a shorter extension so that it could have been reworked and the money better spent.

“I can tell you that in the five years since CAA passed, we haven’t made an inch of progress in the battle, in large part because the NIH has become captured by a failed school of orthodox science in autism,” she toldThe Stir. “In these austere times, reauthorizing a broken bill for three years doesn’t make sense. Instead, a one-year extension would allow time to rebuild the act to better meet the needs of American families facing the daunting challenges of autism in terms of adulthood and life care, treatment, and prevention.”

More @ http://thestir.cafemom.com/toddler/126538/autism_research_funding_narrowly_saved

The bill was then unanimously voted out of the Senate  Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on September 7, 2011.

Fast forward to this week, where two GOP senators are blocking passage.  Those senators are Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

Autism funding is already pocket change compared to pediatric AIDS, cancer and childhood diabetes each, despite the fact that autism affects more children than those COMBINED.   That didn’t stop Senator DeMint from stating,

“But there are many, many diseases that children and people throughout our country face, and we have put experts in place to determine where we can spend the money that we allocate for research, and we need to leave that to the experts.” *

Coburn tried saying that the NIH doesn’t want reauthorization, which does not remotely look to be the case.

Smith went to the Senate to plead with his fellow Republicans, to no avail. He said Coburn said that some people at the National Institutes of Health don’t want the law, but Smith said the “quarterback” for autism programs testified at a recent congressional hearing about how important it would be.

“I don’t know anybody at NIH, unless they’re talking out of both sides of their mouth, who don’t want this,” Smith said. *

Have Senators DeMint and Coburn lost their f*&^ing minds or is there some other reason (a sane one) behind this move to block this bill?  To put things in perspective, the per year outlay of $231 million a year that is being sought here for autism equals about what we spend in Afghanistan every 36 hours!  We spend in 4.5 days in Afghanistan saving face, what we would spend in 3 years on autism research.

Contact Tom Coburn here!

Contact Jim DeMint here!