Does castration cure autism?

[JesusA (imported)]

Lupron is the chemical castration drug of choice for prostate cancer patients. Contrary to the article below, there is evidence, though disputed evidence, that high prenatal testosterone is correlated with autism [see Notes 1 & 2]. And certainly castrating a 14 year old would calm him down and reduce his frequency of masturbation. Curing autism after birth though…..

Lupron therapy for autism at center of embattled doctor's case

Some parents embrace alternative treatment for autism that scientists don't support

By Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun

Los Angeles Times

June 16, 2011

Since Sam Wessels was diagnosed with autism at age 2, doctors have offered his mother a litany of drugs for the boy from Prozac and Ritalin to Metadate CD and Strattera, commonly used to treat ADHD. Other "alternative" medicine pitches have included special diets and even nicotine.

"This is the best you can do?" Sam's mother Lin Wessels wondered.

Wessels, like many parents, has waded through a lot of legitimate — but much more illegitimate — research on therapies in the struggle with autism, which affects 1 in 110 children and has no cure. She eventually came to embrace a drug, Lupron, prescribed by a Maryland doctor who now faces disciplinary action related to his autism treatments.

Beginning Friday, an administrative law judge will hear an appeal from her doctor, Mark Geier, whose license was suspended in April by the Maryland Board of Physicians for putting autistic children at risk. The panel charged Geier, who runs a chain of clinics, with misrepresenting his credentials and misdiagnosing too many autistic children with "precocious," or early, puberty and prescribing Lupron.

The drug is used to treat prostate cancer in men and fibroids in women, though Geier has said he's given it to hundreds of children for precocious puberty, a rare disorder not generally associated with autism. He declined to comment while his case is pending but said in an opinion piece to The Baltimore Sun that he views the matter as a difference of opinion on research and diagnoses.

"I have spent thousands of hours talking to the families of children with autism — evaluating their condition, publishing research in peer-reviewed journals and trying to add to the medical profession's broad base of knowledge about autism," he wrote. "I understand that not everyone agrees with some of what our research has concluded, just as I don't necessarily agree with what other physicians have written."

The precocious puberty diagnosis adds a wrinkle to the belief perpetuated by small but vocal set of advocates that autism is caused by mercury in vaccines. Geier says precocious puberty results when the mercury exacerbates elevated testosterone in autistic kids.

But the mercury-autism link has been discredited by repeated scientific studies, and Geier's research has been found to lack merit by the Institute of Medicine, the premier advisory commission.

Doctors including Dr. Neal A. Halsey, director of Johns Hopkins' Institute for Vaccine Safety, said parents of children with autism are seeking answers and looking for people who will provide them.

"The evidence is now overwhelming that vaccines don't cause autism," Halsey said. "And there is no scientific evidence to support" the testosterone link.

The board of physicians noted that insurance generally covers the $10,000 monthly cost of the drug for uses approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, including precocious puberty in children. Wessels' son, Sam, was diagnosed, and despite the scientific evidence and warnings, she joins other parents who still believe it worked and still believe in Geier.

Wessels, who lives in Rock Rapids, Iowa, took Sam to see Geier in his Indianapolis office two years ago. She said there were months of genetic and hormone tests, and then the diagnosis. She began injecting Sam with Lupron daily.

She said the diagnosis made sense to her. Sam was not only having trouble communicating and difficulty learning, but he was tall for his age, had hair on his legs and began constantly masturbating by the time he was 5.

She said there was no "wow" moment where Sam snapped out of his autism, a spectrum of disorders where sufferers lack an ability to communicate and interact properly. But in the course of the next year, Sam's reading improved from 35 words a minute to 85 and he focused in class. He stopped masturbating as much.

Wessels thought Sam was naturally advancing and planned to taper the Lupron at some point — at 9, he had reached the generally accepted age limit for a precocious puberty label.

The day came abruptly four months ago when a nationwide shortage cut off Sam's supply. Wessels said she saw Sam return to his old habits, from flapping his hands, to pacing, to forgetting how to get to his classes.

"I felt like I got a glimpse of the child my son was meant to be, not the one autism gave me," said Wessels, fighting back tears. "It's so sad to watch your child fade away again."

She's now hoping the Lupron supply increases and Geier or another doctor will give her a new prescription.

But a new prescription may be tough. Precocious puberty is rarely diagnosed, and medical experts have said that treating it is generally only done for social reasons or to ensure children achieve a normal height.

There is no scientific basis for Geier's Lupron protocol, said Dr. Paul Kaplowitz, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children's National Medical Center in Washington who has written and spoken extensively on precocious puberty.

Kaplowitz said he's reviewed Geier's research and was asked several years ago to review the charts of some of his other patients. He concluded those children did not have precocious puberty and that Lupron wouldn't help them. He said many autistic kids exhibit behaviors such as masturbating, and Lupron isn't a treatment for masturbation.

"Dr. Geier has a very loose and sloppy definition of what is precocious puberty," Kaplowitz said. "Precocious puberty is much less often diagnosed in boys than in girls, and when it is present, one sees growth of the penis and testes as well as pubic hair as well as specific changes in hormone levels. A little bit of body hair, some aggressive behavior and a borderline elevated testosterone is not precocious puberty."

Geier claims that Lupron works by lowering elevated testosterone levels in autistic kids, but few if any of his patients have elevated testosterone measured in a reliable laboratory, Kaplowitz said.

Kaplowitz said there have been other claims by doctors and parents of benefits from a variety of treatments for autism, including Secretin, a hormone causing release of digestive juices. However, a controlled trial published in 1999 showed it was no better than a placebo.

He and Halsey couldn't explain improvements some parents claim from Lupron, other than that the children progressed normally or that the placebo effect was strong. But they agreed there was no scientific foundation for doing a study of Lupron as a treatment for autism.

"I don't mean to belittle the parents' concerns or beliefs," said Halsey. "But people have sold mineral water for all kind of illnesses, and people — educated people like these parents — become absolutely convinced it helped when it couldn't have."

One of those still convinced Lupron works is Lisa Sykes, an associate pastor at Welborne United Methodist Church in Richmond, Va. She doesn't have much faith in mainstream medicine anymore and said she has all the anecdotal evidence about the drug she needs.

Her son, Wesley, was diagnosed with autism at age 2. When he was 4, she saw a doctor who performed a "chelation challenge," the controversial use of a binding agent to test for mercury in urine, and was told his levels were "off the charts."

She began advocating for the removal of mercury that remains in some vaccines and came to know the Geiers. And when she said Wesley began masturbating and growing leg hair at 8, he was diagnosed with precocious puberty and put on Lupron injections.

She said he became less hyperactive, more affectionate and better able to learn, though he still can't speak. His masturbating declined.

Now 14, he's gone off Lupron, but she said he's still taking another oral drug to lower his testosterone because she believes it helps control his behavior.

"One day, Lupron will be the standard of care for mercury-induced autism," Sykes predicted.

But Kaplowitz says there is no chance it will become a standard treatment for autism.

"Parents often believe a drug works for their child because they're told it will," Kaplowitz said. "There just no plausible reason Lupron would work in the patients that Dr. Geier has treated."

http://www.latimes.com/health/bs-hs-aut ... full.story

Notes:

1. Auyeung, B, Baron-Cohen, S, Chapman, E, Knickmeyer, R, Taylor, K & Hackett, G, (2009) Foetal testosterone and autistic traits. British Journal of Psychology, 100, 1-22.

2. Auyeung, B, Taylor, K, Hackett, G, & Baron-Cohen, S, (2010) Fetal testosterone and autistic traits in 18 to 24-month-old children, Molecular Autism, 1:11.

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[punkypink (imported)]

Baron-Cohen, S ?

Surely not Ali G/Bruno/Borat?

[JesusA (imported)]

Sacha Baron-Cohen is the comedian. His cousin Simon Baron-Cohen is a professor at Cambridge who has done important work on neurology and experimental psychology. The Baron-Cohen family has produced interesting people in a number of fields. Erran Baron-Cohen, brother of Sacha, is a composer and trumpet player. Another cousin, Dan Baron-Cohen, is a playwright and is currently president of the International Drama and Education in the Arts World Congress.

Some family members have dropped the “Cohen,” such as filmmaker Sam Baron and songwriter Kate Baron. The set of cousins includes playwright Richard Greenblatt, film director Mark Robson, chemistry professor Seymour Rabinovitch, and Judith Rabinovitch, a professor of Japanese language and literature.

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[punkypink (imported)]

Sacha Baron-Cohen is the comedian. His cousin Simon Baron-Cohen is a professor at Cambridge who has done important work on neurology and experimental psychology. The Baron-Cohen family has produced interesting people in a number of fields. Erran Baron-Cohen, brother of Sacha, is a composer and trumpet player. Another cousin, Dan Baron-Cohen, is a playwright and is currently president of the International Drama and Education in the Arts World Congress.

Some family members have dropped the “Cohen,” such as filmmaker Sam Baron and songwriter Kate Baron. The set of cousins includes playwright Richard Greenblatt, film director Mark Robson, chemistry professor Seymour Rabinovitch, and Judith Rabinovitch, a professor of Japanese language and literature.

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So is this Baron-Cohen, S. who co-authored those books/papers, the same Simon who's Sacha's cousin?

[Caith721 (imported)]

The board of physicians noted that insurance generally covers the $10,000 monthly cost of the drug for uses approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Insurance will typically cover a recurring $10K/month maintenance drug, but doctors routinely discourage orchiectomy (a $2.5K one-time charge) and insurance charters deny it for transgender patients??

It's insane what insurers will and won't pay, and their reasons for doing so or not.

[janekane (imported)]

Does castration cure autism?

I have some thoughts. I welcome comment, concern, criticism, rebuttal, refutation, concurrance, and whatever. I welcome other views.

Illusory correlations are illusory. Sometimes a coincidence deemed a correlation is merely an illusory correlation

For me, did castration cure my autism? No. Did it make me more autistic? Not that I can tell. Did it make me less autistic? Not that I can tell.

One person is one person; often what is true for one person is not true for others.

If castration were a sure-fire cure for autism, surely, after 25 years, I ought to be cured.

For myself, I seek to avoid being cured of autism. Had I, in the manner of my late brother, died from the sort of cancer I set out to prevent (effectively, so far...), I would be cured of autism by being cured of being alive. Phooey to that!

It is my view that anyone working to cure autism might wisely first figure out accurately and verifiably what autism really is. (And especially sort out what curing it would actually accomplish?)

There was a new story of a young boy who had his autism exorcised at a church. The exorcism cured the boy's for autism and the boy's life. As I recall, this happened during August, 2003, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As I recall, the exorcist was convicted of homicide...

What if autism is not always a disease or a disorder, and therefore does not necessarily merit being cured?

What if the autism spectrum, rather like the gender spectrum, is a normal and necessary aspect of the biological diversity which makes human life possible? What if the real dis-ease is the belief that people are supposed to be veritable replicas of one another and so are, functionally, interchangeable parts; rather than, as I observe, every person being a unique individual?

Early in the summer of 1986, I had the bilateral orchiectomy and about two months later, the colectomy with ileo-rectal anastomosis. While everything was just fin for the two months between the surgeries, the colectomy, general anesthesia, and morphine for post-surgical pain sent me off into psychiatric hospitalization. When I explained to the psychiatrist(s) that I am autistic and that something so terrible had happened to me that I could neither remember nor forget it, the psychiatrists, in sad error, decided that I was psychotic.

What had happened was my being paddled until I went into forms of agitated catatonia from stark terror because, as a seven-year-old, in second grade, I did not know how to tell lies effectively, this because of my being autistic and unable to successfully internalize the social norms of deception of self and others. In short order, I was given psychotropic medications and, after nearly three years of taking them, became "oriented times zero," not being able to know where I was, when it was, and often unable to recognize my name.

Taken off all the medications in the summer of 1989 by a major university neuropsychiatrist, my tested IQ "skyrocketed" in about two months to a tested 70, and I was deemed able to return home. In 1992, the psychiatrist who had initially prescribed the medications which apparently caused the episode of profound dementia remarked, when my psychiatric treatment came to an end, to me, (I believe this is verbatim), "You are as mentally healthy as anyone I have ever known or heard of."

It had become decently clear that I had accurately recognized my risk of dying from some rare form of cancer, and that what I had done, which was only educated guessing before my brother's terminal cancer diagnosis, death, and my cancer-preventive surgeries, had been wise and proper educated guessing. Figuring out what will likely happen when what is likely is unlikely is best done with educated guessing, or such is my best guess for now.

Why do I not seek any autism cure? Could it be that the way in which I am autistic allowed the sort of educated guessing regarding cancer risk which led me to do what was necessary to prevent my already being dead from cancer?

Suppose I was met with a two-way choice, call the choices A and B. Suppose I happened to choose A, and, after ten minutes, every effect of having chosen A was completed, so that choice was never again going to have any consequences. Suppose the total outcome of choice A seems to me to be much less desirable than the result I believe would have come at ten minutes from choice B, and I decide that I made the wrong choice.

To find out for sure whether A or B was the better choice, it seems to me that I would need to go back to the point of decision and take choice B instead of choice A. Of course, in doing supposing, one can suppose anything, I suppose. Ten minutes along choice B, the results are vastly better than choice

A was at ten minutes. Only, while choice A is over and done with at ten minutes, B is not done yet. For the next five years, the results of choice B are much better than the results of choice A, which were completed after only ten minutes.

But choice B is still not finished. After 1000 years, choice B is much worse than the outcome of choice A, and after 5000 years, all the effects of choice B are complete and the results of choice B are immensely worse than the results of choice A.

To know whether A or B would be the better choice, I need to take the results of both choices back to the point of decision. Of course, I will have to have measured, perfectly without error, every effect of both choice A and B, no matter how small, to get perfect scores for the two choices, in order to compare them accurately. However, when I take the scores for choices A and B back to the point of decision, I am not at the point of decision because I did not have the scores when I came to the point of decision.

There is no way to test, in advance, whether one or an other choice will eventually produce the better outcome, and this is true for every choice that can ever be made. This, I understand, it seems to me, because of the manner in which I am autistic.

I have yet to find anyone who made a choice later regretted who has been able to tell me how the choice could actually and intentionally be made differently at the time and place it was made, under the total set of conditions in which it was made. Thus, I make decisions because deciding to not decide is making a decision and it is impossible to be alive and not make decisions, and I choose to never regret any decision I have ever made, though, when a decision goes awry, I get to work to fix the mess as best I can, acknowledging that what I did resulted in, and/or contributed to, the mess.

If my being autistic allowed to think accurately enough to prevent the sort of cancer from which my brother and dad died, by what useful sense is my being autistic a disorder?

Alas, autism as defined by the DSM-IV-TR is a collection of diverse aggregations of clinical signs as interpreted by a clinician. That has not much to do with me as an actual, living person.

The formal name of the DSM-IV-TR is the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision." I have a favorite nickname for it, to wit, the "Damning and Stupefying Mishmash of Malevolent Dichotomies, Fourth Exacerbation, Trashing Reality."

I made a choice, made it as an autistic person. The choice was to stay alive as a caring person for as long as I could be a caring person. I did not know that my choice would take me into psychiatric hospitalizations due to iatrogenic blunders. Yet it was a way to do research about human diversity, and human hatred and alternatives to hatred, which it seems to me are ordinarily impossible.

My life has given me acquaintence with grief, sorrow, tragedy, pain, agony, and more; and also with joy and happiness and rejoicing that life exists at all.

Even if I could, I would not change a single moment of the life I have lived in any way whatsoever.

[paring (imported)]

A century ago, doctors thought circumcision could prevent masturbation, later they thought castration was more appropriate then came the nazi doctor who found castration to be useful to cure an other illness, later they started castrating men to cure prostate cancer, now oestrogen are known to cause prostate cancer, there has been the case of David Reimer the boy got castrated following a bad circumcision, then lately they thought they could prevent AIDS by circumcising men. All those theories were proven wrong. If only they could understand that they don't have to find any cure with castration. There are enough wannabes to get the balls rolling.

[transward (imported)]

Running trans support groups for most of a decade I have listened to hundreds of transfolk. I suspect the incidence of autism is higher among trans individuals than the general population. Watching these people going on HRT regimes, effectively undergoing chemical castration, I see no evidence that castration has any effect on individuals past puberty. Being autistic while trans can be particularly hard because our society expects women to be more aware of social niceties than men. The lack of that in many autistics stand out much more when you are trying to become female.

Even for non autistic males, puberty can be a difficult time for parents and family. There is an ongoing debate about medicating normal male puberty. When normal male puberty is compounded by the social difficulties of autism it can be hard on the family. Note in the article the emphasis on masturbation; very embarrassing. Castrating kid does wonders to make him easier to manage. (see Castrating Boys And Adolescents thread on these boards.) Suspect thats what is happening in the article.

Transward

[wannabe (imported)]

to suggest that anything can "cure" autism is completely idiotic, and any papers written to suggest autism can be "cured" are more than likely written by a "doctor" with little man syndrome just desperate to get at least one paper written for other "doctors" to read with his/her name on it so they can spend the rest of their lives with it framed and masturbating over it, when really, they haven't a fucking clue what they're talking about.

Autism is a vast vast vast complexed SPECTRUM and i hate it when people talk about the autistic SCALE ..... autism cannot be measured on a scale and any "doctor" who suggests is can needs to be given a wet willy then lynched by the nearest lamp post at once...... infact, the autistic spectrum can be looked into so deeply, that its said to be possible to fit every humn being in the world in it, yep, to a degree, every human being has autism. so castration for the world is it? .... fucking wankers i have no time for "doctors" when they're out desperate for the chance to be able to preach to other "doctors" about random nonsense, desperate to get that round of applause by a room full of other "doctors" so they can feel like the man for 10 seconds. grrrr