EBD Blog

Writing in the Chicago (IL, US) Tribune, Trine Tsouderos has published an informed and valuable story about the use of Lupron to treat Autism.

Desperate to help their autistic children, hundreds of parents nationwide are turning to an unproven and potentially damaging treatment: multiple high doses of a drug sometimes used to chemically castrate sex offenders.

The therapy is based on a theory, unsupported by mainstream medicine, that autism is caused by a harmful link between mercury and testosterone. Children with autism have too much of the hormone, according to the theory, and a drug called Lupron can fix that.

“Lupron is the miracle drug,” Dr. Mark Geier of Maryland said after meeting with an autistic patient in suburban Chicago.

Geier and his son developed the “Lupron protocol” for autism and are marketing it across the country, opening clinics in states from Washington to New Jersey. In the Chicago area, the treatment is available through Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, a family practitioner in Rolling Meadows.

As is usually the case with these sorts of therapies, testimonials are the main source of evidence about effectiveness. There are no controlled studies of pharmacotherapy with Lupron for children with Autism. The drug, which decreases secretion of gonadotropins, is legitimately used in treating prostate or breast cancer, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, or precocious puberty.

Link to “‘Miracle drug’ called junk science: Powerful castration drug pushed for autistic children, but medical experts denounce unproven claims.” Also, see a companion piece entitled “Autism doctor: Troubling record trails doctor treating autism,” in which Patricia Callahan and Ms. Tsouderos provide a detailed report of the history of one of the physcians in the Chicago area, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, who has been prescribing Lupron for children with Autism.

The Council for Children with Behavior Disorders (CCBD), an international group concerned about children and youths with EBD, published statements about the use of seclusion and restraint with students. Although the documents appear to be in preliminary form, they began circulating on the Internet today, so I’m posting copies of the PDFs here. Watch for an update of them.

• CCBD’s Position Summary on Physical Restraint & Seclusion Procedures in School Settings
• CCBD’S Position Summary on the Use of Physical Restraint Procedures in School Settings
• CCBD’S Position Summary on the The Use of Seclusion in School Settings

Link to the CCBD Web site.

Reporting on US National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Joanne Silberner presented a story about police officers handling incidents in which they encounter people with emotional and behavior disorders who are behaving in ways that appear threatening to the officers. Although her story uses adult cases for illustrations, this topic should also be of interest for youths who have EBD and for the families of children with EBD.

Here’s an excerpt from Ms. Silberner’s report.

It’s a situation no one wants to see: An armed police officer is called because someone is in the throes of a psychotic episode. “How the officer handles that situation can have a significant impact,” says Russell Laine, head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Continue reading ‘Officer training for handling incidents’

Over on Behavior Mod Info readers can find several entries about the hearings regarding US schools’ use of seclusion and restraint. The hearings were conducted by the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor.

(Apologies for the cross-posting to those who read Teach Effectively.)

Link to ICDR
Stakeholders Site

As noted here earlier, people have a chance to influence future priorities for research about disabilities. It’s an opportunity for families to affect policies and shouldn’t be missed. Here’s a reminder that the time for public voting on the importance of the priorities ends tomorrow (15 May 2009).

The federally mandated Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) utilized a Web-based approach to collect online disability research comments to assist in developing a federal disability and rehabilitation 2010 research agenda. The comments were submitted from March 27th until April 17th. Additionally, registered participants were invited to review all research related comments submitted and to vote on their top 10 concerns in each topic area from April 22nd through April 29th.

As we indicated previously, the voting was suspended on April 23 to modify the database application due to the overwhelming number of recommendations. If you voted previously, it will be necessary to recast your votes during the new one-week timeframe: May 8-15, 2009. We apologize for this inconvenience and encourage you to return to the site to vote for your research priorities. For more information, please visit www.icdr.us/stakeholders.

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