Articles labeled: autism caused by genetics

A new study claims to have found more clues that autism is clearly a genetic disorder, and not caused by outside influences such as vaccinations.

Dr. Christopher Walsh and Dr. Eric Morrow of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues, studied 104 volunteer families in the United States, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates with high incidence of autism. In the Middle Eastern families cousins commonly marry, making the likelihood of passing on recessive genes more probable, and Middle Eastern families usually have more children than United States families providing more subjects to study. In 88 of the Middle Eastern study families, where the parents are first cousins, autism appears to be caused by faulty DNA and something in the physical or social environment of a child after birth.

“There appear to be many separate mutations involved, with each family having a different genetic cause.” Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute on Mental Health, said in a statement. The institute helped pay for the study.