Genetics, cloning, IVF and other things..

[lizbud]

I think the rise in cases of autism/ADD/allergies/etc is because people are way too quick to diagnose. My child is a little shy and withdrawn, OMG he is autistic, needs special treatment. My kid is a little high strung, OMG she has ADD, get me some Ritalin! I see so many fancy names for things that not that long ago were just social quirks. Rather then getting people to work out and deal with their problems, they are diagnosed and wrapped in cotton wool. A lot of diagnoses just because a crutch for people rather then helping them.

I tend to agree with you on this. What is interesting to me is the spike
in Autism rates after the vaccine mix changed & many children reacted
badly to the amounts & mixtures of vaccines given to babies at one time.

IVF is a whole different issue & one that I know very little about.

[Pam]

Wow this thread is jam packed with things to comment on. First of all, I am daily bombarded with e-mails from my brother about why my grandchildren and his grandchildren should not have vaccines. Unfortunately those e-mails have slackened off now that he is in the hospital as a result of a car accident. (He is OK but will be off the computer for about a month due to therapy.) He has sent me so many links that one must hide their heads in the sand not to at least consider the possibility of autism through vaccines.

Secondly, my nephew and his wife are now the parents of two beautiful twin daughters conceived through in vitro. This was after years of trying to conceive. I couldn't be happier for them. The disconcerting part of all of this is that at one of the ultrasound visits it was noted that one of the twin's head size was not quite "normal" and the question of Downs arose and also the need to consider doing amnio to confirm and possibly abort. Her comment was "Forget the amnio. After all that we have gone through to have these babies, we will raise a Downs baby if that is the case." By the way, both twins are perfectly normal!!

The scary thing to me is that we have reached such a level of knowledge now that it is causing us to have to consider things that our parents/grandparents never had to think about and also creating often unnecessary fear in pregnant women. In some ways I miss the way it was. My children were born before ultrasounds (it was done back then for confirmation if twins were suspected). There was the sort of neat surprise at birth as to whether it was a boy or girl. On the other hand, I think it is wonderful that we can detect things in the womb and be ready to deal with them at the instant of birth. Good thread Richard!