On 6 October 2006, The US Centers for Disease Control announced a multi-site study of autism. To be called the Centers for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology (CADDRE) Network, the sites will be located at Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in California, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Johns Hopkins University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Pennsylvania; the CDC itself will also participate in the study. The research will focus on thousands of young children and span the autistic spectrum.
In this five-year study, The National CADDRE Study: Child Development and Autism, a number of factors will be studied for their potential association with ASDs, including:
- infections or abnormal responses to infections in the child, mother or father
- genetic factors in the child, mother and father
- mother’s reproductive history
- abnormal hormone function in the child, mother or father
- gastrointestinal problems in the child
- family history of medical and developmental problems
- smoking, alcohol and drug use in pregnancy, and
- parent’s occupation and other socio-demographic factors.
Link to the CDC press release or linkto the CDC Web site about autism.
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Should paternal age be a factor studied????
Lena, based on what we saw from this study I cited here, it sure appears that paternal age should be considered. I trust that the folks conducting the individual studies and those coordinating the enteprise will have picked up on the report by Professor Reichenberg and his colleagues, as the journal in which it appeared—Archives of General Psychiatry—is well known to researchers. There is no reason not to correspond with Dr. José Cordero, who is cited in the CDC press release as the person in charge of the center under which CADDRE will be housed, recommending incorporating paternal age as a variable; he would probably pass the recommendation along to the relevant researchers.
There is an informal study of paternal age and autism on the ASD-CARC web site. John, I am not articulate enough to correspond with Dr. Jose Cordero. Maybe you could find someone who could do a good job.
Advanced paternal age has been found to be a robust risk factor for schizophrenia in many studies and the CDC and the March of Dimes do not advertise this.
Thanks
Lena