Washington – For many experts Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The promise of “withdrawing the curtain” to find the causes of autism in a few months is discordant and unrealistic.
This is because it seems to ignore decades of science that link around 200 genes that play a role, and the search to understand the differences within the brain that may be present at birth.
“Virtually all evidence in the field suggests which causes of autism, and there will be multiple causes, it will not be a single cause, they all affect how the fetal brain develops,” said autism researcher David Amaral at the UC Davis Mind Institute.
“Although we may not see the behaviors associated with autism until a child is 2 or 3 years old, biological changes have already taken place,” he said.
Kennedy announced on Wednesday the National Health Institutes would create a new database “Discover the fundamental causes of autism and other chronic diseases” through the fusion of medical insurance claims and medicate with electronic medical records and other data. He has cited growing autism rates as evidence of an epidemic of a “preventable disease” caused by some type of environmental exposure and He has promised “Some of the answers in September.”
Autism is not considered a disease. It is a complex brain disorder better known as autistic spectrum disorder, to reflect that affects different people in different ways.
Symptoms vary widely. For some people, deep autism means being nonverbal and having significant intellectual disabilities. Others have much softer effects, such as difficulty with social and emotional skills.
Autism rates are increasing, not between deep but soft cases, said autism expert Helen Tager-Flusberg of Boston University.
This is because doctors gradually found out that the softest symptoms were part of the autism spectrum, which led to changes at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s in diagnostic guidelines and grades for educational services, he said.
The link between genes and autism dates back to twin studies decades ago. Some are rare genetic variants that pass from one father to another, even if the father does not show signs of autism.
But that is not the only type. As the brain develops, the cells that are divided quickly make mistakes that can lead to mutations in a single type of cell or part of the brain, Amaral explained.
Non -invasive tests can detect differences in brain activity patterns in babies that will not be diagnosed with autism until much later, when symptoms become evident, he said.
These types of changes come from the alterations in the brain structure or its neuronal circuits, and understanding them requires studying the brain tissue that is available only after death, said Amaral, who is the scientific director of a brain banking collaboration called Autism Brawnet. The bank, funded by the non -profit organization Simons Foundation, has raised more than 400 donated brains, approximately half of people with autism and the rest to compare.
Researchers have identified other factors that can interact with genetic vulnerability to increase the risk of autism. They include the age of a child, if the mother had certain health problems during pregnancy, including diabetes, the use of certain medications during pregnancy and premature childbirth.
Any concern for measles vaccines could be linked to autism He has been discredited for a long time, emphasized Tager-Flusberg, who leads a new coalition of autism scientists who delay the erroneous statements of the administration on the condition.
The United States, with its fragmented medical care system, will never have the type of detailed medical monitoring available in countries such as Denmark and Norway, places with national health systems where research shows similar increases in autism diagnoses and without environmental smoking weapons.
Experts say that Kennedy’s planned database is not appropriate to discover the causes of autism partly because there is no information about genetics.
But researchers have long used insurance claims and similar data to study other important questions, such as access to autism services. And the NIH described the next database as useful for studies focused on access to attention, treatment effectiveness and other trends.
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