Billy the Stray Cat is Bringing a Four-Year-Old Autistic Child Out Of His Shell

              A four-year-old, who is autistic, easily was becoming , resulting in tears and temper tantrums. Then into the child’s life came a special friend. That’s friend’s name was Billy. Billy had a rough start in life, abandoned by his owners and left to his own means. Since their first […]

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Not So Rare

While devastating for severely afflicted children and their families, autism has long been assumed to be relatively uncommon, appearing in perhaps 1% of all kids. But that figure was a rough estimate at best, based largely on the population of children who have already received a diagnosis of the disorder.

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Doc Who Tied Vaccine to Autism Ruled Unethical

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist at London’s Royal Free Hospital, published a study in the prestigious medical journal Lancet that linked the triple Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine with autism and bowel disorders in children. The study — and Wakefield’s subsequent public statements that parents should refuse the vaccines — sparked a public health panic that led vaccination rates in Britain to plunge.

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A Genetic Link Between Anorexia and Autism?

At the Eating Disorders Unit at the Maudsley Hospital in London, anorexia is not seen as a social disorder — or even primarily a psychological one. While most American treatment providers blame perfection-seeking parents and the media’s idealization of hollow-cheeked actresses for eating disorders , researchers at Maudsley believe the root cause has little to do with social pressure.

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