Comments on article on Bruno Bettelheim
I am posting a recent (16 March) comment on the above article - together with my response - in case the person commenting missed my response. Unfortunately, the original comment appeared under a different post, so it could easily have been missed. Since these two comments were posted I posted another article on Bettelheim, originally published in the Conscious Living Seminars Journal, Volume 3 Number 9 (September 2003) - See post "Bruno Bettelheim and mental disorders again".
Anonymous said...
Hello Andrew,For reasons I can't clearly understand myself, I've hesitated to contact you after reading your piece on Bettelheim. Yet I see by your website and your personal story that we are much aligned. I too have been trying to tell my story, mostly to myself, in written form, starting with a "refrigerator mother" and six years at the Orthogenic School (1948-1954), and going through my life in what I call an "inner chronicle" that traces the rhythms of both my inner life and the outer life I share with my culture and my species. I've hesitated to email you just as I've hesitated to show my work to anyone except my wife and my brother. Can you suggest a way that you and I (and perhaps your organizaion) could launch a partnership to share our stories in some way?Steve Bellstrom
Thu Mar 16, 09:18:22 AM 2006
Andrew Reiner said...
Dear SteveThank you for your comment. I felt I needed to respond immediately though I don't, as yet, have an answer for you (regarding launching a partnership to share our stories). I would be happy to have an email from you and perhaps something may ensue from our correspondence. In any case, I will give the matter some more thought.I would be particularly interested in your experiences before, during and after your time at the Orthogenic School. With regard to the concept of a "refrigerator mother", you may have seen my comments on this on the Conscious Living Seminars website (www.consciousliving.com - see September 2003 Journal).In any case, I would be pleased to hear more from you. Perhaps, for the sake of confidentiality - at this stage anyway - we could persue this in a more private correspondence (ie email)?We'll "talk" again.
Thu Mar 16, 09:47:54 AM 2006
posted by Andrew Reiner at 3/21/2006 03:25:00 pm
1 Comments:
I have been on a meditation retreat since 22 March (but left instructions for comments to be published) and have therefore been unable to comment until now.
There are at least two compelling reasons for rejecting the hypothesis that "autism is a genetic neurological disorder". I referred to both in the second post on Bruno Bettelheim.
The first is the 60-fold increase in the rate of occurrence of autism during the very period to which you refer. This cannot possibly be the result of genetic factors - at least not in the sense in which it is commonly understood, viz as something inherited from the parents. There must be something in the environment to account for the recent autism epidemic. The evidence that is gradually accumulating linking vaccination, especially the neurotoxin thimerosal, used to preserve vaccines and now finally being banned in more and more States (in the US) is now almost unassailable (unless you listen to the vaccine manufacturers or their allies in government). I recommend you have a look at David Kirby (2005), "Evidence of harm:Mercury in vaccines and the autism epidemic: a medical controversy". The other likely environmental factor is the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine, even without thimerosal. The only way to find out what else may be responsible is to divert some of the billions of dollars now being spent on genetic research to environmental research.
The above certainly does not rule out the possibility that it is only genetically susceptible children who develop autism, for example, because of an inability to eliminate certain toxins like mercury from their systems.
The second reason for rejecting the genetic explanation you offer is the recent discovery that the environment can even change our genes! This can happen in utero, as a result of toxins being introduced into the mother's body during pregnancy (as in your first extract), or it can happen any time after birth. I quote from a recent (10 January 2006) edition of ScienCentral:
Lab experiments suggest that a pregnant mother's exposure to certain chemicals in the environment can cause reproductive problems not only for her own children, but also for several more generations of her family. As this ScienCentral News video explains, research with pregnant rats revealed what genetics researchers thought was impossible.
Enduring Effects of the Environment
One chemical is used in insecticides. The other is a fungicide used on vineyards and orchards. They are known to alter levels of reproductive hormones, but there were no signs — until now — that such chemicals could alter our genes — the DNA code we pass on to our children.
"We've made a discovery that has made us sit back and think about some general biology questions in a number of different areas," says biologist Michael Skinner, director of Washington State University's Center for Reproductive Biology. "If disease can be induced by environmental factors, and then subsequently be carried forward to the subsequent generations, then we have come up with potentially a new paradigm for disease development."
Yesterday's Age newapaper (3 April 2006) reported on a study by Dr Angelo De Marzo and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, that the ingestion of PhIP, a compound formed when meat is charred at very high temperatures ( as in a barbecue, for example), results in genetic mutation in rats after a mere four weeks, causing prostate cancer. This may explain the known link between eating red meat and prostate cancer, the Age reported. Indeed, the researchers found genetic mutations in all the organs they examined.
The 1483 studies that you refer to may, indeed, demonstrate a role for genes (indeed, how could it be otherwise?) but it requires something to take place in the child's environment for autism to develop.
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