….so maybe we can stop blaming America!
We have written several times on these pages about the high levels of autism in children in Somali communities in places like Minnesota and Scandinavia. Now comes word that the completely discredited work of a British doctor had given false hope to Somalis in Minneapolis. If they stopped vaccinating their kids, autism would go away!
The now disgraced British doctor who scared the world with his theory linking childhood vaccines with autism, recently spread his debunked theories to Somali families in Minneapolis.
Andrew Wakefield’s 1994 research paper has just been declared a “deliberate fraud” by the British Medical Journal.
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He’s since been stripped of his medical license in the U.K. But didn’t stop him from coming to Minneapolis in December to spread his debunked theories among desperate Somali mothers and fathers of autistic kids.
When the realization came to Somalis in Minneapolis that their children had higher rates of autism than other ethnic groups they were happy to latch on to the vaccine theory because maybe then the government would owe them something. But, increasingly the focus on autism is headed toward several theories including a genetic link (polygamy would quickly spread such genes). Or, and this is what I think as just an observer with no medical training.
It’s the sun stupid (or lack of it)!
No one wants to talk about it—-the possibility that autism is linked to a Vitamin D deficiency during a mother’s gestation period—because it means Islamic practices might be the culprit. If you think about it, the rates of autism shot up just about the time that everyone in the US went crazy worrying about skin cancer (we all hid from the sun and slathered up with sunscreen)! I’m digressing from the focus of this blog, but everyone should have a blood test for Vit. D and if deficient (almost everyone is!), get your levels up.
So, it stands to reason that a woman living in the far north and covered from head to toe would be severely deficient in the vitamin. Here is just one report on this theory discussing research from Sweden and Minneapolis.
It would save enormous amounts of tax dollars (to the educational system in Minnesota) if the Minnesota Dept. of Health blood-tested (for a D-deficiency) every pregnant woman who is covered, all those not covered up for religious reasons too, and everyone stop pointing the finger of blame at America and vaccines.
Just as I was wrapping up this post I came across this interesting 2008 report on the various possible causes of high Somali autism rates. Although it is focused heavily on the now-discredited vaccine theory it did raise the Vit. D question. But this is how the author wraps up:
“Some autism families have returned to Somalia,” said one mother, who did not want to be identified. “They were angry and disgusted with the United States. The nation that offered them refuge was the same nation that made their children so sick,” she said.
“They think that, by returning home, maybe they can make their children better.”
But wait! I thought it was so dangerous in Somalia and that is why we have taken nearly 100,000 Somalis since the 1980’s?