Mice Cured of Autism 233
noahisaac writes "My brother just sent me an article he posted for the Rett Syndrome Research Foundation about a cure for Rett Syndrome, a form of autism. According to the article, researchers successfully re-introduced a fully functional version of the MECP2 gene into mice that had been born with damaged MECP2 genes. Contrary to their expectations, the mice improved. In the article's words, 'restoration of fully functional MECP2 over a four week period eradicated tremors and normalized breathing, mobility and gait in mice that had previously been fully symptomatic and, in some cases, only days away from death.' The ramifications for people suffering from Rett Syndrome are obvious, but mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders."
Misleading title (Score:4, Insightful)
Jim Sinclair (Score:5, Insightful)
Autism isn't something a person has, or a "shell" that a person is trapped inside. There's no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person--and if it were possible, the person you'd have left would not be the same person you started with.
This is important, so take a moment to consider it: Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.
Therefore, when parents say,
"I wish my child did not have autism,"
what they're really saying is,
"I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead."
Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.
Re:Algernon (Score:5, Insightful)
What then? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Algernon (Score:3, Insightful)
Alice called -- she wants your next progress report.
This is slashdot, not alt.sysadmin.recovery -- not many people are likely to spot the reference here unless it involves Star Wars or Zero Wing.
Classic autism aside (Score:3, Insightful)
Classic autism aside, I think a lot of people are suffering from a sociological autism that will *not* be improved by gene therapy. What is autism exactly, is there a definition? I can imagine one, but I'm not sure everyone is on the same page with this relatively new disease.
In other words, I don't think gene therapy will get my dad to shop at designer clothing stores, get his car tuned, or hire contractors to improve his house.
word games... (Score:2, Insightful)
Therefore, when parents say,
"I wish my child did not have the flu,"
what they're really saying is,
"I wish the sneezing, sniffling child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-flu-having) child instead."
Duh.
Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:2, Insightful)
This experiment won't 'cure' autism directly, but it will provide data that might provide treatment for others.
Mod Parent up.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I have been officially diagnosed with Aspergers and I can attest to much of what the parent has stated.
If I had been born with a typical neural system I would not be the person that I am today. True, I spent time (and still do) obsessively pursuing new interests while other people were busy making friends, but those things that I learn are all useful and many of them allow me to earn a decent income. In fact, I suspect having Aspergers allows me to become proficient at new things more quickly than most people because once I get interested in something I work at it every chance I get.
In a way, having Aspergers is an asset despite the price that I pay for it (the price can be rather steep in the areas of personal relationships and physical aptitude since I also have Dyspraxia [wikipedia.org]) -- most people spend their lives becoming specialized on only a few things; due to the fact that I remember everything about my past interests I am constantly becoming more versatile and I have an ever-increasing skill set.
Rett!=autism. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be true for high functioning autistic children, but it's cruel to put guilt trips on parents who have autistic kids who can't speak or be potty-trained for wishing their beloved children were not stricken with such a horrible disorder. It's a 'way of being' as much as Down Syndrome is.
(and I speak as someone with (diagnosed) Asperger's and two severely autistic siblings.)
I just wanted to say. (Score:5, Insightful)
Deaf Culture and Medical Treatment (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue is that there has developed the attitude among (some) deaf people that being deaf and speaking sign have created a deaf community and culture separate (or at least equally valid) as that of the 'hearing community.' More to the point, they view medical treatment for deafness as an imposition and threat to their culture. From Deaf Community [wikipedia.org] at Wikipedia: "A belief commonly shared by Deaf people from around the world is that deafness should not be regarded as an impairment or disability."
An analogy I've come to appreciate is that of deaf culture to the gay community: One could argue that being gay is a genetic flaw, as it gets in the way of the most efficient possible reproduction rates. However, most gay people (and an ever-growing number of straight people) would say that being gay does not mean they are "flawed." In the movie 'The Family Stones' there is a scene where one character asks a gay man whether he would want the child he is attempting to adopt to be gay, because it must have been incredibly difficult growing up gay in this society. The gay man's mother objects, saying there is something wrong with society, not with her son. (That's from memory, so it may not be exactly right, but it's the basic idea of the scene.) There are people in the deaf community who would argue the same thing, that being deaf is not a disability or disadvantage, and it is only because society makes it difficult to be deaf that there are problems. (I think the scene is also interesting because the man is also deaf, but that's not really important for the analogy...)
That said, I disagree with the concept of deaf culture and would tend to agree that deafness is a disability. However, I also feel very strongly that being gay is not a disability and that it is society's 'fault' that gay people have problems existing in the world. I've thought a lot about it (the comparison of gay-ness and deaf-ness as genetic 'problems') and have come up with primarily emotional reasons for feeling the way I do, rather than logical ones...
I'm only aware of the idea of deaf culture because my mom works extensively with the deaf students and is fluent in sign language. Although neither she nor I are deaf (or even have any particular hearing problems) we've talked a lot about this and I feel qualified to comment on it. I must add that this is all my understanding of things and someone who is deaf would probably know better than I.
If you're still interested in the idea of deaf culture, the movie Sound and Fury [pbs.org] might be interesting, as it's a documentary about a deaf culture (in part) and much of the movie focuses on a family of two (genetically) deaf parents with children who also have genetic hearing problems. A question throughout the movie is whether or not to 'fix' the children with cochlear implants (which can provide partial hearing, depending on the cause of deafness). The documentary ends with the decision to not get the implants in most of the children, but there was recently a followup documentary in which almost all of the children (and some of the adults) have now gotten cochlear implants and are enjoying having partial hearing. The wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] on Sound and Fury has some more info.
Phew! That was more than I thought I was going to type. Hope it's helpful to someone...
-Trillian
Re:I just wanted to say. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot is doomed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:5, Insightful)
I was seriously bullied and discriminated against at school (by teachers and pupils) and all through university and subsequent life, I have literally no friends or anyone to talk to outside of immediate family members, no chance of ever being in a loving relationship as the only women prepared to have anything to do with me turn out to be menatally ill - seriously, of the two women who've slept with me one turned out to be a schizophrenic and the other had Munchausen syndrome - and a career which has stalled due not to a lack of ability but rather to my inability to connect with people and the fact everyone at work finds me just so damn weird. As a result of these and other problems connected with my AS I now, at the age of 35, suffer from chronic intractable depression. I was, in fact, formally diagnosed with AS after being referred to a consultant psychiatrist for depression last year.
I fully acknowledge that if I did not have AS I would not be the same individual that I am. That does not bother me. So far as I'm concerned AS has caused me to have a life that is not really worth living and I would have been quite happy (in so far as that concept has meaning when discussing an emotional reaction to non-existence) for someone else, with a slightly different set of genes to me who would have been better at life and enjoyed it a little more, to have taken my place (my therapist hates this line of argument btw - we have huge rows about whether people who say they are happy with AS really believe what they say or are just fooling themselves in a desperate attempt to bolster their self esteem and playing the "noble, stoic cripple" role that society prefers its handicapped members to adopt). If there was a cure I would jump at it.
I also have to say that, although it's a moot point (see above), if I did ever find a woman willing to breed with me, having had the life I've had and having gone through what I've gone through I would seek genetic counselling and take whatever steps were available to prevent any child of mine from being born with AS (or any other form of autism). I know that the question of whether a bad existence is better than non-existence is extremely difficult from a theoretical perspective but, so far as I'm concerned, if you bring child into the world who you know will have a hellish existence and you could have prevented it, you've done wrong.
But do we really 'need' to cure them? (Score:3, Insightful)
Amazon clip:
Corporate life in early 21st-century America is even more ruthless than it was at the turn of the millennium. Lou Arrendale, well compensated for his remarkable pattern-recognition skills, enjoys his job and expects never to lose it. But he has a new boss, a man who thinks Lou and the others in his building are a liability. Lou and his coworkers are autistic. And the new boss is going to fire Lou and all his coworkers--unless they agree to undergo an experimental new procedure to "cure" them.
The short version: Autistics all have gifts that we just don't recognize, what if they don't want to be 'cured'
Hallelujah (Score:3, Insightful)
I've also written numerous times that I believe that the overwhelming predominance of autism in the Linux community is the single main thing holding Linux as an operating system back. Autistics who use Linux (Stallman being primary among them) believe that their philosophical view is morally superior, when I feel that in reality it (particularly the degree of repetitive consistency of the message over time) is simply a result of their neurological disability.
The "five freedoms" aren't things Linux users care about so strongly because they're people with an inherently more developed moral sense than most people, or because of the inherent moral value of the ideas; they're things that Linux users care about to that degree because autism causes rote, uncontrollable fixations with certain concepts or areas of interest, sometimes on a long term basis. In some kids with Asperger's it's trains or a collection of toilet brushes. In the case of Stallman and the Debian developers, it's a perverted definition of software freedom. The fixation is with an abstract concept rather than physical objects, but that's about the only difference.