Origins

Whether your child has been diagnosed with autism or someone close to you has, when you begin your quest for information about autism, it is inevitable you'll find yourself feeling the need to chose the camp in which you belong:  the vaccine camp or the genetic/not vaccine camp.  Prior to my son's diagnosis, I was aware of the debate but I hadn't devoted much attention to it since it wasn't personal.  I felt removed from the issues and felt secure in my distance from autism that I didn't put a lot of thought into it other than to wonder curiously whether there were any risks with vaccinating my children.  This obviously changed after my son was diagnosed.

Since every parent shares the feeling that their child is precious, it is understandable that the emotions piggy backing this debate are heightened and intense.  Anytime I find myself thrust into one of these heated, polarizing debates, I find it difficult to take sides because I feel that nothing is black or white, and I also respect people's right to their beliefs.  When a parent states that their child was fine before they were vaccinated, I feel it is unfair of me to dispute that.  As far as they're concerned, this is what they experienced. 

For my child, the signs were there from very early on even though we did not recognize them at the time.  Interestingly, one of the first signs my son was autistic involved another heated debate among parents. Prior to the birth of my child, I had read plenty about the benefits of breast feeding.  Since I obviously wanted the best for my son, I was driven to breast feed my child.  Unfortunately, my son resisted this.  He would feed for a few seconds then pull back forcefully.  He hated being held closely like that but, at the time, I misinterpreted his behavior as a reflection of my inability to feed him.  I had convinced myself that my son should not be fed formula yet my son would not feed.  We hired a lactation specialist and we were still unsuccessful.  In my drive to feed my child according to my beliefs, I instead pumped for 4 months in order to feed him breast milk instead of formula until I could no longer maintain the rigorous schedule.  When we switched him to formula, I felt that I had failed.  I had reached my limit.  At the time, I felt so inadequate because I was unable to breast feed my son but, now, I understand why and I realize that I did the best that I could have possibly done under the circumstances.

I eventually shed any guilt that I had.  My resistance to the zealousness of those who insisted that breast feeding their child is the only way was eventually validated by my son's diagnosis.  I had struggled for so long with that sense of inadequacy over breast feeding that I am now resistant to anyone suggesting they know the answer to any particular issue related to my child.  As for the issue of vaccines, I personally do not feel that vaccines had anything to do with my son's autism.  I can't speak for parents who feel that their child's autism was caused by them.  I tend to trust the research that does not support a connection between vaccines and autism.  Instead, I feel that perhaps there are different onsets of autism:  those that are early onset like my son's and those that are regressive like those who feel that vaccines caused their child's autism.  I feel for the parents who feel that there child's autism was caused by vaccines, and I hope that they are able to find answers soon because I can only imagine how painful it must be for them.

Tonight, I found myself watching a video posted by Autism News of a lecture by Dr. Robin Hansin (http://www.theautismnews.com/2010/03/13/the-many-faces-of-autism-from-behavior-to-biology/) about the many faces of autism.  I found the research she detailed to be fascinating.  To summarize the research does it a disservice but she describes the result of research on the possible biological and behavioral differences of early onset verses regressive autism.  The research provides details about possible differences and similarities between these two types of autism suggesting that perhaps there are different biological mechanisms influencing the disorders.  Quite interesting to me was that their research suggests an immunological mechanism that may be influencing the onset of the condition and, in particular, with that of the early onset (which goes against a theory of vaccines adversely impacting a child's immune system and thus causing regressive autism). 

I won't pretend to suggest that I understand what causes autism.  I won't invalidate the claims of parents who say their child changed after vaccines.  What I will say is that we should all be open minded and evaluate all the possibilities and to consider that, just as autism manifests in a variety of forms, perhaps the etiology of the disorder may also be heterogeneous as well.  As for the heated debate regarding the causes of autism, I plan on sitting back on the sidelines and waiting for the research to find an answer.  Over the years, I think we'll discover hints as to the cause of our child's conditions but it may or may not be what we are thinking today.  As far as my son is concerned, what created his autism is somewhat irrelevant.  Simply put, my son is autistic and it is more important that I focus on how I can help him adapt to the neurotypical world than to focus on what caused it.