Episode 9: You can pick your friends; you can pick your services; but you can't pick your genes

• Scientists Link 'Sets' of Genetic Abnormalities to Autism Risk (March 01, HealthDay News)
• Peter White and his colleagues published research findings in the March 1 issue of Molecular Psychiatry, which indicate a correlation between "copy number variations" (CNVs) and the development of autism spectrum disorders.  CNVs are changes in the gene when it is copied from one individual to another and researchers believe that some 800 such groups of copy number variations are responsible for the neurological differences in the brains of individuals with autism.
• The researchers are quick to point out that this implies many more than one single cause of autism, that there are "many different, possibly even hundreds, of genetic paths to autism..." - Peter White 
• This would add more dimensions to the spectrum of autism because it would become more and more clear that there are many more subtypes of ASD, differing due to different causes.
• Some who believe in a connection between fluoride and autism may be intrigued to know that AK is moving toward passing two bills, one mandating that fluoride be added to the water supply of populations over 5,000 and one mandating that private insurance companies cover care for autistic individuals.  Some may argue that this may be causing a problem in order to solve it and, simultaneously, support insurance companies since we will soon be forced to buy health insurance at increased cost to the individual or family.
• Personally, I think standards for care are important.
• Couple denies they caged, endangered severely autistic sons in unsanitary home.
• Authorities accused the couple of caging their son, but couple argued that they used soccer nets to close off a space for their son so he didn't endanger himself at night. 
• Officials claimed that the house had substantially poor ait quality, which could mean anything from carbon monoxide to cigarette smoke.  
• Was this couple just trying to the best they could under limited circumstances or were they negligent?  Does the government have the right to critique your living conditions or those of a developmentally disabled individual when he's in his family home, especially when they do not offer any better alternative.  State houses don't have soccer nets, but they have alarms, sensors, cameras, a night-shift of staff, locks, and motion-sensitive lights.  They're all means to the same end, only the government's cost an arm and a leg and working-class parents cannot afford such luxurious means of control.
• Freedom to Choose Leisure Activities Benefits People With Autism (March 3, ScienceDaily)
• NO DUH!
• Researchers "proved" that individuals with ASD did better on measures of social skills and communication after participating in a program that encouraged individual choice of leisure activities.
• This is why science can never overcome the insight that someone like a parent has.  Scientists had to take over a year and a lot of money to illustrate a point that is intuitively obvious to anyone with a measurable degree of intimate knowledge, empathy, or appreciation for anyone, including people with autism.
• Dad and autistic son reunited after High Court judgment (Mar 2, Dan Coombs, Uxbridge Gazette)
• Government overstepping its bounds isn't only an American phenomenon; when a father in the UK, Mark Neary, came down with the flu, his son with autism was sent to an agency that would care for him during his father's illness.  But, when his father recovered, the agency told him that his son needed to stay in their care as a matter of health and safety.  This was because the his son reacted very negatively to being removed from his normal life and forced into an entirely new system, with new rules, routines, and challenges.