The Amish

[BarbinNC]

http://12160.info/m/discussion?id=2649739%3ATopic%3A1536735

[Greentree]

Ummm. Sorry, Charlie. The Amish and Mennonites in my area have several....they have their own school, and can be kept hidden.

[Jan in Key West]

Years ago, my son wrote a grad paper regardiing the pervasiveness of autism/mentally challenged children in the Amish/Mennonite/German Babtist/Old Order communities. If I remember correctly, his conclusion was that they had a higer incidence due to inbreeding and incestual relations.

[Lynda (Fl)]

I would think they would have problems with the smaller gene pool.  Marrying within a small community seems to do that.

[BarbinNC]

Well, I don't really know … but I don't think we are throwing inbreeding/incest/mental retardation in with the autism spectrum, are we?  At least in my mind, that's not what autism is.  I am looking at the prevalence  of babies, who are "normal" at birth, and developing all the milestones,  to suddenly drop into this condition, where they lose contact with the world outside of themselves, and don't communicate, no eye contact, no hugs, emotions  etc.  It's not the same thing, look up the definitions.

[Lynda (Fl)]

I have no idea, Barb, does anybody really know where this heartbreaking condition comes from?

[Barbara from New Jersey]

Years ago, the "garden variety" mentally challenged, developmentally delayed and very rare autistic spectrum was indeed the result of a small gene pool, on going health issues and limited medical care in those communities.  Poor personal eating habits didn't help. Many women had untreated health problems such as diabetes.  These groups had little prenatal care and home births with mostly with midwives assisting and few medical doctors available just in case something went wrong. Hospitalizations were rare.

Any issues during pregnancy, birthing and aftercare were treated by the local community doctor who may or may not have had a medical degree and possibly "read" as many medical treatises as were available and apprenticed with an older doctor.  Most provided excellent care, but many times the advice was not followed or services were not sought until it was much too late.  In some communities, the women worked even when they didn't feel well and weren't allowed to rest.  Often, a long ride in a horse and carriage didn't help matters.

The autistic spectrum we see now is not caused by inbreeding or poor prenatal care.  It is most probably the result of our CAFO and GMO food supply which is stripped of nutrients and possibly all those vaccinations.  What we do know now is that the gut biome in these children is different than "normal" and their condition improves when placed on various grain and sugar free diets, not just Wheat Belly.  Like Pottinger's Cats, each generation suffers more and earlier than the previous one with health issues.  There are more allergies in today's children than when we were growing up.

[BarbinNC]

Great summary, Barbara, and exactly what I was getting at.  There is something new and overwhelming about these increasing autism cases that show up in toddlers, and like you stated, all is pointing to GMO and vaccinations.  Chelating therapies seem to be helping and "curing" some children, that does point to toxicity rather than genetic causes.  It would be great if there was more honesty in the medical and pharmaceutical research communities, so we could find out just what is causing the problems, I'm sure someone knows.  But as usual, we will only find out when it's too late.

[Greentree]

Could it possibly be iodine deficiency?

[Lynda (Fl)]

I don't know that much about the Amish but always thought they grew their own food, so they would have less of our modern pollutants.

[Barbara from New Jersey]

They grow most of their own food, but still use available seeds, fertilizers and so forth.  When you go into an Amish store, you will find many prepared foods and bakery items, although made from scratch, are very sweet and made with lots of refined grains.  Perhaps these are made for "tourists" but in the last forty years I have seen the Amish in NY State and Pennsylvania who are doing business with non-Amish, eating more national brands of foods which they are not organically growing within their community.  While they do take care of their own animals, their farms are selling items to larger distributors for income and these may be using CAFO type techniques.  My metropolitan area is a big market for their products, especially for eggs and poultry.  I used http://buyingpoultry.com to double check and some products were rated AVIOD.  This surprised me.