Autism is defined in the dictionary as “a developmental disorder characterized by severe deficits in social interaction and communication and by abnormal behavior patterns, such as the repetition of specific movements or a tendency to focus on certain objects. Autism is evident in the first years of life. Its cause is unknown.” Top medical authorities add their statement that there is no known cure.
This is not encouraging to families trying to discover what causes autism and how to help their child or loved one suffering from the condition.
Back in 1998 some promising results began to occur when something called Secretin was administered to some autism patients. Secretin is a natural hormone of the body that stimulates the pancreas causing it to create the enzymes needed to break down food. The pancreatic fluids created by the stimulating effect of Secretin contain bicarbonate and neutralize acid conditions in the intestine. Secretin also causes the stomach to produce pepsin and the liver to produce bile.
These effects are of interest in that children with autism often have very bad gastrointestinal problems.
An early article on the subject was called “Improved Social and Language Skills After Secretin Administration In Patients with Autistic Spectrum Disorders” – Journal of the Association for Academic Minority Physician Vol.9 No.1, pp. 9-15, January, 1998.
The authors reported that “Within 5 weeks of the secretin infusion, a significant amelioration (meaning a betterment, an improvement) of the children’s gastroinstestinal symptoms was observed, as was a dramatic improvement in their behavior, manifested by improved eye contact, alertness, and expansion of expressive language. These clinical observations suggest an association between gastrointestinal and brain function in patients with autistic behavior.”
The fact that Secretin had relieved symptoms of autism and had perhaps opened the door to what causes autism became widely discussed in the media in theUSandBritain. The public interest in Secretin treatment rose considerably when the a mother from New Hampshire reported that her son Parker had been a total non-responsive child but that after a few weeks of taking Secretin he could concentrate on an exact task, was able to sleep at night and had become potty trained.
However, a series of scientific studies were carried out in the next few years with more and more research studies indicating that the causes of autism had not been learned and that Secretin was a blind alley and showed no better results than those experienced by patients given a placebo. These doctors recommended no further research be done with this hormone treatment as they had proved it didn’t work.
Despite these reports by medical authorities, parents of autistic children continued and still continue to report stories of how much Secretin has helped their child. This perhaps indicates that the cause of autism in a portion of autistic patients is indeed related to problems of digestion.
One 6 year old autistic boy exhibited a total inability to walk or talk. The child was completely dependent upon professional care givers. Following taking Secretin for the 4th time, he began to walk and speak some words. His almost daily physical crises with his blood pressure were relieved and he no longer required a skilled nurse practitioner’s care.
One mother inMichigan, herself a physician, had a four year old autistic child. He had three Secretin treatments and three with a plain salt solution. She reported that she could tell which were the Secretin injections as each time her son slept through the night, did not have diarrhea and had an improved attention span.
Another parent from an early study reported that within three weeks her son had progressed from a two word vocabulary to hundreds of words and short sentences.
The Autism Research Institute in 1967 began collecting questionnaires from parents to rate the effectiveness of different drugs, bio-medical non-drug substances and special diets tried on their autistic children. They published a chart in 1998 tallying the replies from 26,000 of these forms. Ritalin showed 45% of the childrens’ symptoms got worse, 44% of the children who got better.
Bio-medical non drug treatments like De-Tox (Chelation), Vitamin B-12, and Melatonin scored very high on “Got Better” as did special diets such as Gluten Free/ Casein Free and special Carbohydrate diets with very low “Got Worse” scores.
Despite such evidence as to causes of autism, today autism is listed in the DSM, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the psychiatric profession. That means it was voted on by a show of hands and thus determined to be a mental disorder. It doesn’t seem to matter that the effective treatments as far back as 1998 were hormones, vitamins and diet changes not psychiatric drugs as reported by thousands of parents observing their own children.
Clearly the causes of autism are medical in nature. Treatment with psychiatric drugs is damaging. Abandoning promising avenues of research like Secretin treatment betrays these children.
In summing up the story of Secretin, one parent pointed out that the dramatic improvements were achieved using a natural version of the hormone taken from pigs. However, the later clinical studies which “proved” Secretin had no value were done with a synthetic version of Secretin known to be ineffective.
It appears that the causes of autism remain a mystery to some parts of the medical establishment while the parents who deal with autism symptoms day in and day out have gathered in many forums to share what has worked for their children.