Major new study to seek answers on autism

In a bid to unravel the confounding mysteries of autism, researchers yesterday launched a comprehensive study to track families with an autistic child through another pregnancy, birth, and the following three years.

Hundreds of environmental factors - from diet to infection, pesticides and medications - will be examined for possible interplay with genetic makeup. Perhaps 100 children with autistic spectrum disorder will be born, researchers said, to the 1,200 women they hope to enroll at four study sites nationwide, including Philadelphia.

"These families know there is susceptibility, because they already have an affected child," said principal investigator Craig J. Newschaffer, a professor at the Drexel University School of Public Health, during a teleconference with reporters yesterday.

About one out of every 150 children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a group of neurological disorders that cause delays in language development and impairment in the ability to relate to others.

For siblings of children with autism, the risk may be 10 times greater - one reason that genetics is believed to play a large role.

While diagnoses have increased dramatically in recent decades, it is unclear how much of that is due to increased public awareness and better testing. The specific causes of autism are unknown.

Some parents believe that childhood vaccinations, which also have increased in recent years, could be a trigger. Medical research has found no solid basis for this idea, but vaccines are among the many environmental factors that will be examined in the new study.

The effort is unusual because "we are collecting the information in real time," said Lisa A. Croen, an epidemiologist with the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Northern California, which is part of the study.

So-called prospective research is considered more accurate than medical studies that enroll people after a diagnosis and ask them to look back.

Daureena Williams, 26, has two sons - a 2-year-old with autism and a 1-year-old without - and has told investigators that she wants to be part of the study if she gets pregnant again.

"I just want to know where autism comes from," she said last night from her West Philadelphia home.

Anthony Shawn Williams Jr. was born in August 2006. While something seemed wrong within weeks, at 10 months "he started talking, saying 'Mommy' and 'Daddy,' " she said. Then he had the first of two seizures, and he was later diagnosed with autism.