Autism and the Amish
An article in two parts (one, two) in the The Washington Times examines an interesting question of “are there any autistic Amish?”. The Amish , made famous in the Harrison Ford film Witness, are a reclusive religious group who eschew the trappings of modern life which includes vaccinations. If autism is a genetic condition then there should be over 100 Amish with autism in the community the article looks at. Yet the journalist can only find one and that is an adopted child from China. The article goes on to look at the role of mercury and thimerosal in vaccines. For more information see Mercury and Autism.
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May 3rd, 2005
Autism, Current Affairs
Comments on: Autism and the Amish
I read your the article, “Autism and the Amish community”. I am intriqued by this study, due to the fact that I have an autistic daughter (age 5) with all immunizations, and a son (age 1) with no immuniztions, that is showing intestinal yeast overgrowth (as so many autistic children do), as well as learning delays.
With all of the talk of immuniztions (mercury) causing autism through vaccinations, one would think I would be a good test subject for study!
Posted by: Jennifer Kasfeldt July 28th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
After reading this article it has made me think about Autism even more. The amount of individual that have been diagnosed with autism has increased throughout the years. Yet in this study it has shown that in the Amish community there has been report only one indivudual that has been diagnosed. If autism is a genetic condition then there should be over 100 Amish with autism in the community yet the journalist can only find one and that is an adopted child from China. I feel like after reading this it makes me feel as though maybe genetics is not the cause of autism. Maybe the other factors are the toxicans that our communities are exposed to and the Amish community is not. There are so many factors that can be related to this increase in diagnosis. If anyone has any other insite on this topic please send my way. Very interesting article
Posted by: Kristen September 25th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
No, the reason the Amish are not affected by autism is because it is a genetic disorder. You see the Amish are a genetically closed population. They only marry within their group and they have been closed off from the rest of the population for hundreds of years. The original founder’s of the Amish simply must have not had any of the genes (there are many, it’s a complicated disorder) that have been linked to autism. However, they tend to have disorders (like Ellis-van Creveld syndrome) that are practically non-existent in outside populations. And the Amish do not universally reject vaccination, but do have smaller numbers of vaccination then the general population. Large scale vaccinations have actually occurred in response to outbreaks of disease…which were caused by their lack of vaccination in the first place, but no rise in autism occurred afterwards.
Posted by: Annie October 25th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
No, this idea that the amish are a closed gene pool might work if they were the only ones but they are not – check out this article http://www.infowars.com/articles/science/autism_none_for_unvaccinated_amish.htm
Posted by: Heather Wilson September 28th, 2009 at 2:33 am
If gentic they would have autism and adhd, but they dont. Also if gentic why did we not have it so prevelant 30 years ago and rare or none 70 years ago. I think both are a combintion of vac. diet (high fruitose corn sryup) hypes a lot of children with adhd but pure cane sugar does not.
Posted by: parent of 2 sons with adhd November 19th, 2009 at 4:53 am
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