Clues in the Cause of Autism and Hip Dysplasia

It seems to me that all medical trained professionals have to be good detectives to be effective be they in human or veterinary medicine. In veterinary medicine the patient cannot offer many clues via the voice box so it may be we are better suited to arrive at the correct evaluation of important clues. I asked one of Vermont's excellent Senators for help in pursuing my ideas as to the cause of Autism and right from the podium he offered a clue to add to my conclusion as to a possible and likely cause. Senator Saunders proclaimed that huge financial funds have been and are being spent at the present time to find an answer with poor results so far. I shall mention why Senator's remarks amounted to an important clue.
Please follow my reasoning and fault it as favor to me. The first clue comes from an evaluation of a problem you have heard of in our dogs, Hip Dysplasia. Long after retiring and moving to Brattleboro in my bachelor pad and wondering of all things why had that problem effected all breeds of dogs other than Greyhounds. Imagine that was clue one. In the first place my profession has considered Hip Dysplasia to be a genetic defect as some have claimed Autism in humans is. First reported in 1935 and never having existed in nature, at least never reported before that time. Genetic defects do occur in our dogs such as a few puppies born without much hair and were selectively bred to create a new breed of dog, Mexican Hairless. Such a condition does not spread to all breeds of dogs. What else might have caused it? Clue two: some environmental problem. I believe the most obvious cause had to be dietary. What ingredient had been introduced so widely that all breeds of dogs were involved? An ingredient in diets is clue three about which I will comment eventually.

It was that time I began to wonder if some dietary condition affected all of dogdome might it be something that might affect man's best friend? After all dog food is the same as human food only in dehydrated form so that if something was added to a food such as to wheat flour it would be in all dog food as well as most human food such as pastries including breads and pastas.

I began to explore serious human illnesses that had not been reported until the cause of the dog problem and clew four: Autism was first reported in humans in 1933. The next clue came of all places from the fact that Greyhounds, for years appeared never to have been affected by Hip Dysplasia and that involved my own new hobby of running. Studying running I was surprised to find many areas of health in man that resulted in runners being the healthiest part of our population. My detective work in that field resulted in deciding that with running the blood flows through internal organs much more rapidly in runners than in couch potatoes and that seems to clear the system of toxins in runners.There was c;ue five. So what has that to do with Greyhounds? The Greyhound breed was well and growing because the breeders were people who bread and raised them for being fast runners. Those breeders thought that by running pregnant bitches their puppies would be faster at racing. So that concluded the reason for Greyhounds to be free of Hip dysplasia. Racing the pregnant bitches resulted in the elimination of wastes that caused the problem in non-exercising dogs. That was clue five, the food was the problem and if so it may be the problem in the higher animal.

Next comes an answer as to the very material added to food massively at the time the dread problem of crippled dogs appeared. Experiments with vitamins reported on and as information became available they were added to foods and preservatives were important life savers in many cases. Except for biochemists many of the small print chemicals on food labels are unknown as to why they are included.

One additive interested me on a personal level. In my new hobby of running the ads were voluminous in advising athletes to drink athletic formula sports drinks. I found I had to get up mights to urinate and that I had never done before. I wondered about the words citric acid in all sports drinks and asked the head chemist of the Conn Agricultural Experiment Station about it. She informed me that citric acid is a diuretic and incidently is GRAS standing for, "Generally Regarded As Safe."There was clue five.

Studying citric acid on my computer I found there are two strains of it. One strain is found in nature in limes and lemons and the second strain is produced in metric tons by the fermentation of the fungus, Aspirgilla nigri with sucrose. What is citric acid used for? First it is classed as a pesticide. When I was young my mother used to have to strain the flour to get the bugs out of it. With citric acid the bugs are killed so its an insecticide. It is listed in some places as a preservative and a fungicide. I find it has been used in a 16% solution to kill frogs in an outbreak of frogs in Hawaii and is presently used as an insecticide for at least 5 agricultural crops in California. With citric acid there is no need for my late mother to strain the flour.

Clue six: if it is so versatile and so effective, how come it is listed as gras and as gras not mentioned on many labels on foods? So it was Senator Sanders with his statement of how much effort has been spent on investigating the cause that if so many avenues of investigation have been explored and found to be wanting, perhaps my food additive theory is valid. Senator's statement was clue seven.

Let me make it clear that I cannot accuse citric acid of being involved with the human disease or the canine problem but from the above do you think the evidence is at east valid enough to urge more investigation of the strain of citric acid that may have and therefore perhaps is causing one or both of the problems mentioned?

Finally I lie in bed nights wondering if I am correct and it being known, lives could be spared or at least problems could be prevented and I further think of the many human problems with unknown causes that may come under one umbrella.