Research for Autism Gene Shows Absurdity of the Search

November 24, 2012 by admin in Science with 0 Comments

Autism research is directed into genetics because it’s a hot research topic, so it sounds convincing. And sounding convincing is the goal. Finding the cause has nothing to do with all the genetic research surrounding autism.

by Heidi Stevenson

The current holy grail in mainstream autism research is a genetic basis for the condition. Barrels of money are funneled into research attempting to show that the primary cause of autism is a genetic defect. But the more they dig, the clearer it becomes that the concept itself is bogus.

There certainly appears to be a strong will behind the autism gene search. The amount of money poured into it is astronomical. Yet, the best they manage is to find more and more potential genes and combinations of genes and bits of genes and coded names of bits of genes. None of them are found in most children suffering with autism. But they’re determined!

A recent study, hyped as “massive” by its funder, the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI)^[1], and published by the Nature journal, Molecular Biology^[2], exemplifies the utter lack of sense in the search for a genetic basis in autism. The SFARI article’s title, “Massive genetics study reveals autism-linked variants”, gives the impression that a major step has been made in identifying a genetic basis for the condition. However, closer inspection makes the proclamation look downright foolish.

Quoting from the SFARI article:

The new study merged both collections [of data] and compared all the sequences to those of 13,696 controls. The researchers found 30 CNVs [copy number variants] that are significantly more likely to crop up in affected children than in the controls.

The focus is on variants in genes. They looked at deletions and duplications of these gene variants. Following is data, which is relevant to the point made here, from the four tables:

Notice that the variant bits of genes that are listed as potentially associated with autism appear only very rarely in children with autism. The first gene variant listed, 22q11.2 (BP4-BP5), occurs in only 1 in 167 children with autism! And it gets far worse from there.

Far fewer instances of these variants were found in children without autism. That may seem significant, but in the face of how few children with autism have those particular variants, it doesn’t matter. If any gene can be found to cause autism, it certainly must be found in a far larger proportion than 1 in 167.

But the situation is even worse than that. The focus of research is on combinations of gene variants. But with each combination, the number of children with that particular combination who have autism will be even lower. At most, a slightly increased risk of developing autism from other causes is shown—but that certainly is a far cry from demonstrating any sort of genetic cause-and-effect.

The study referenced is the latest and greatest thing out there in the search for a genetic connection to autism.

Let’s put it like this: If they were to do a thorough investigation into the genetics of people who come down with a disease during an epidemic, in all likelihood, they’d find that some genetic variants, or combinations of variants, would be more likely to come down with that disease. So what? What difference does it make? Blaming a person’s genes for causing a new pandemic disease is obviously absurd. And these scientists are engaged in exactly the same sort of absurd search.

Even if they thought they’d found some sets of genetics that were more likely to be associated with autism, they’d still have an insurmountable hurdle to overcome. What’s the explanation for how this particular variant suddenly became pandemic? Genes are spread through—dare we say it?—sexual contact. But not just any sexual contact. It must result in a baby. That, of course, eliminates the vast majority of incidents of sexual contact.

So, they’re suggesting that a bunch of strings of genetic mutations have occurred, which, in several combinations, are a cause of autism. Even more, they’re suggesting one of two things. One is that all these mutations just recently occurred in all those particular combinations and somehow spread pandemically—via sexual intercourse that produces babies—throughout the world. That’s absurd on its face.

The other suggestion, that these combinations of variant genes have always been there, but only now cause autism, clarify the reality:

Autism is not a genetic disease. Autism is a disease that’s induced by something new in the world.

There is no other possibility. All this money being spent on finding a genetic basis for autism is redirection away from the obvious: We’re doing something that causes autism. And that something is almost certainly vaccination. There may be other environmental factors, but nothing else can possibly explain this horrific pandemic.

If there were any chance that something in the environment could be blamed, don’t you think that the focus of research would be directed there? No, the reason it’s directed into genetics is that it’s a hot research topic, so it sounds convincing. And sounding convincing is the goal. Finding the cause has nothing to do with all the genetic research surrounding autism.