Tag Archive for 'effective treatment'

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Chelation clinic closed

Published on 19 July 2009 in Autism, Families, News, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

According to Mary Ann Roser of the Austin (TX, US) Statesman, a clinic that provided chelation therapy for Autism is apparently under investigation by federal authorities. Ms. Roser did not report the nature or cause of the investigation of the CARE Clinics.

CARE Clinics, an autism clinic on Bee Cave Road that was being investigated by insurance companies over insurance claims, was raided by the FBI and IRS agents today.

The clinic has been closed, perhaps permanently.

Agents are removing dozens of boxes of documents, but they declined to say what they are looking for. They directed inquiries to Special IRS Agent Mike Lemoine, who did not immediately return a call.

In an article in May of 2009, Ms. Roser reported that the clinic was having financial trouble.

The owner of an Austin-area clinic that treats children with autism — using techniques that are controversial in mainstream medicine — says investigations by three major insurers have left it with a pile of unpaid claims and a crisis: She’s had to lay off most of her staff and drastically reduce the clinic’s hours.

In addition, Kazuko Grace Curtin said the Texas Medical Board is investigating her medical director. She and the doctor — Jesus Caquias — say the investigation is a way of harassing them because they offer nontraditional care for autism patients.

Link to Ms. Roser’s post entitled “Autism clinic raided by federal authorities” and to the earlier article, “Insurance companies question autism clinic’s charges” Check the discussion following the blog post (the first link).

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Systems of care for ADHD

Published on 9 July 2009 in ADHD, Families, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Children and youths with ADHD and their families ought to know about systems of care. Systems of care are networks of services that are coordinated across different agencies and groups within the community. A system of care focuses on the needs of individuals and should be designed so that it takes advantage of that person’s strengths (i.e., is “strengths based”) and unique characteristics (e.g., ethnic background and native language).

Systems of care have been studied extensively in the disciplines focused on Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. They are not just for kids “lost to the streets.” The coordination of services can be beneficial for individuals with ADHD, too.

Learn more about ADHD and systems of care from the SAMHSA, the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Download a PDF.

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Consumer Watchdog on Autism therapy insurance

Published on 1 July 2009 in Autism, Families, News, Policy and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

On behalf of the families of two children with Autism, a consumer advocacy groups claims that regulators in California (US) are allowing insurers to deny access to needed therapy. Consumer Watchdog seeks to require the Department of Managed Health Care to mandate that insurers pay for treatment based on applied behavior analysis for children with Autism.


KABC LA coverage

On the heels of the recent agreement in Michigan (US), I have to wonder whether advocates for children with Autism are seeing the beginning of a wave of changes in insurance support for early and intensive behavioral treatment of Autism.

Consumer Watchdog, which was previously known as “Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights,” has a pretty broad agenda. In addition to insurance issues, it addresses patients’ rights, political corruption, corporate excesses, and other topics. Consumer Watchdog’s site has links to multiple items regarding Autism.

Also see coverage by Lisa Girion of the Los Angeles Times: “Autism patients’ treatment is denied illegally, group says“; Ms. Girion covered this topic previously (see 10 Mar 2009). For other earlier posts on EBD Blog about insurance coverage for children with Autism, see 25 Jun 2009 and 20 Sep 2008.

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Autism and insurance in MI

Published on 25 June 2009 in Autism, Families, News, Policy, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

In the US state of Michigan, a major health insurance provider will now reimburse families for the cost of providing therapy for children with autism. The case, Johns v. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, arose because Blue-Cross-Blue-Shield denied payment for behavioral treatment often called “ABA” to the family of a child with Autism. The case was settled in favor of the family last week.

Represented by Gerard Mantese, Mr. Christopher Johns alleged that the insurer should pay for the therapy for his son under the provisions of the policy. The insurance company refused and Mr. Johns sued. During depositions, Mr. Mantese and others on the Mr. Johns’ legal team learned of a draft memorandum identifying the behavioral therapy as effective and that a representative of the insurer would probably elect the behavioral therapy if that representative had a child with Autism.

Because Mr. Johns’ complaint was part of a class action suit, many other families will also benefit from the settlement. In an independent analysis of the case, Tresa Baldas discussed the implications.

The $1 million class action settlement from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan comes amid a legislative wave in which a growing number of a states are passing laws that require insurance companies to pay for autism treatments and screenings. To date, 13 states have such laws, the most recent being Connecticut, Colorado and Nevada. New Jersey is currently considering an autism bill, and Pennsylvania’s law goes into effect July 1.

The June 17 Michigan settlement, meanwhile, has autism advocates hopeful that insurance companies will stop claiming that behavioral therapy for autistic children is experimental, and start paying for it.

“It is a significant victory for the families, obviously, and it marks a trend, hopefully, that insurance companies will start to look at autism treatment differently,” said Areva Martin, an attorney at Los Angeles-based Martin & Martin who is currently handling about 30 autism cases. She believes the labeling of autism treatments as experimental is “absurd.”

I wonder what this will mean for the California rules that do not expressly exclude behavioral therapies, but set requirements for deciding whether they are reimbursable (see my earlier post on that story).

Link for a quasi-news article about the settlement. Read another of the law firm’s press releases. Here’s link to Ms. Baldas’ analysis of the case.

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Ted Carr dies at 61

Published on 22 June 2009 in Autism, News, Research and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Edward G. Carr, a widely respected respected authority on Autism, was killed in an automobile accident Saturday 20 June. I’ve posted an obituary on SpedPro.

Dangerous therapy

Published on 23 May 2009 in Autism, News, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

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.

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CCBD on seclusion and restraint

Published on 22 May 2009 in Autism, Behavior management, Families, News, Policy, Professsional development, The press and Treatment. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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.

Link to the CCBD Web site.

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HBOT links

Published on 30 April 2009 in Autism, News, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Over on Autism Street, Dad Of Cameron (“Do’C”) has assembled a list of sources that have questioned the strength of the evidence about hyperbaric oxygen therapy for Autism. I’m flattered that he included the entry from EBD Blog.

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Does Rossignol et al. show HBOT’s effective?

Published on 21 March 2009 in Autism, Families, Musings, News, Research and The press. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

“Hyperbaric treatment for children with autism: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial” by Daniel A. Rossignol, Lanier W. Rossignol, Scott Smith, Cindy Schneider, Sally Logerquist, Anju Usman, Jim Neubrander, Eric M. Madren, Gregg Hintz, Barry Grushkin, Elizabeth A. Mumper appeared as an on-line publication 13 March 2009 and will appear in print in BMC Pediatrics. The article URL is http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2431/9/21

The recently published study by Rossignol and colleagues about hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for Autism has generated lots of commentary and is sure to lead to more. Because it is a treatment study and employs more careful methods than are common in many of the therapies promoted these days, I sat up and said, “Hmm. I ought to read this one.”

So I did. And I found it to be, indeed, a cut above much of the ersatz research that’s passed off as evidence in the Autism arena. But, I found some concerns, too.

Those concerns led me to poke about a bit on the Internet to see whether there were any others who were raising questions. There are. And I still have some more poking to do. But, I thought I ought to record my concerns. Thus this post.

Continue reading ‘Does Rossignol et al. show HBOT’s effective?’

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Behavior mod and Autism

Published on 4 February 2009 in Autism, Behavior management, News, The press and Treatment. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Over on Behavior Mod Info I posted an entry about CNN covering brief, intensive intervention for a family with a child who has Autism. The story covers work done by the Autism Partnership. Here’s the link.

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MMR-Autism link loses another

Published on 12 September 2008 in Autism, Causes, Families, News, Research, The press and Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

In “Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study” published on line by the Public Library of Science, Mady Hornig and colleagues knocked out another argument supporting a causal link between vaccinations (specifically, those for measles, mumps, and rubella) and Autism. The research team—composed of scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health’s Center for Infection and Immunity, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Trinity College Dublin (IR)—examined the cornerstone studies that started many down the road to the hypothesis that vaccinations cause Autism. They examined material from the gastrointestinal systems of children with and without Autism to see whether those with Autism harbored the genetic remnants of the measles virus. No go.

Abstract

Background

The presence of measles virus (MV) RNA in bowel tissue from children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and gastrointestinal (GI) disturbances was reported in 1998. Subsequent investigations found no associations between MV exposure and ASD but did not test for the presence of MV RNA in bowel or focus on children with ASD and GI disturbances. Failure to replicate the original study design may contribute to continued public concern with respect to the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Methodology/Principal Findings
The objective of this case-control study was to determine whether children with GI disturbances and autism are more likely than children with GI disturbances alone to have MV RNA and/or inflammation in bowel tissues and if autism and/or GI episode onset relate temporally to receipt of MMR. The sample was an age-matched group of US children undergoing clinically-indicated ileocolonoscopy. Ileal and cecal tissues from 25 children with autism and GI disturbances and 13 children with GI disturbances alone (controls) were evaluated by real-time reverse transcription (RT)-PCR for presence of MV RNA in three laboratories blinded to diagnosis, including one wherein the original findings suggesting a link between MV and ASD were reported. The temporal order of onset of GI episodes and autism relative to timing of MMR administration was examined. We found no differences between case and control groups in the presence of MV RNA in ileum and cecum. Results were consistent across the three laboratory sites. GI symptom and autism onset were unrelated to MMR timing. Eighty-eight percent of ASD cases had behavioral regression.

Conclusions/Significance
This study provides strong evidence against association of autism with persistent MV RNA in the GI tract or MMR exposure. Autism with GI disturbances is associated with elevated rates of regression in language or other skills and may represent an endophenotype distinct from other ASD.

Hornig M., Briese T., Buie T., Bauman M. L., Lauwers G., et al. (2008) Lack of association between measles virus vaccine and autism with enteropathy: A case-control study. PLoS ONE 3(9): e3140.

Link directly to the Hornig et al. article. See the press release from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Link to Science Daily coverage of the story.

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Effective delinquency treatment

Published on 13 August 2008 in Acting out, Behavior management, Conduct disorder, Delinquency, Families, News, Policy, Prevention, Research, The press and Treatment. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Wednesday Social Programs that Work, an organization dedicated to , recognized the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MFTC) program as having strong evidence of its benefits for youths who have many strongly delinquent behavior problems. The developers of the MTFC program include Patricia Chamberlain, Ph.D., John Reid, Ph.D., Philip A. Fisher, Ph.D., and Gerard Bouwman; they are closely associated with the Oregon Social Learning Center (a long-time resident of EBD Blog’s Web resources list). Over the last ~10 years the researchers have conduct multiple randomized clinical trials testing the intervention, and they have consistently found positive outcomes for the youths and their families.

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (A foster care intervention for severely delinquent youths)

Randomized controlled trials show sizable reductions in youths’ criminal activity.

Description of the intervention: The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care program provides severely delinquent youths with foster care in families trained in behavior management, and emphasizes preventing contact with delinquent peers. Typical community treatment for such youth, by contrast, often involves referral to a group care facility with other troubled youth.

As an example of the program’s behavior management techniques, foster parents track and regulate the youths’ behaviors using a point system, with youths receiving points for positive behaviors (e.g., completing chores, attending school regularly), and losing points for negative behaviors (e.g., not completing homework, or not listening to an adult). As youths accumulate more points, they are afforded more freedom from adult supervision.

The program provides the youths and their families with individual and family therapy during their participation in the program, and program case managers closely supervise the youths/families through daily phone calls and weekly foster parent group meetings. The average length of stay in the program is 6-7 months. The average cost is about $3,600 per month (2008 dollars), which is 30 to 50 percent lower than the cost of residential group care (the typical alternative treatment, in which youths are placed in group homes with other offenders, and often provided family therapy.)

Link for the SPTW Web page about the evidence for MFTC (source for the quoted material) and to the Web site that supports adoption of the program.

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