Homosexuality

With my observation of traits caused by a pregnant mother ingesting toxic material during pregnancy has on its list of possibilities not only Autism in humans and Hip Dysplasia in canines but also varying sexual traits such as homosexuality. Also on my list is the possibility of MS, MD, Alzheimer, ALS and many less obvious conditions. We humans are exposed to thousands of chemicals our ancstors were never exposed to while evolving in Africal. An example of one condition scrableing genes while the embryo was developing was the result of the drug, Thalamide ingested while pregnant. It is critical that research be directed toward that possibility.

Another View of Major Medical Problems

Please do not be turned off by the seemingly unimportant nature of the first paragraph but read on. This is perhaps an important observation concerning health for you to have heard articulated here for the first time. The story goes something like this. King Arthur was in his castle dining with all his Knights when the sound of horses' hoves was heard outside the castle. He announced to his Knights that if in the future they ever heard the sound like they had just heard they should think of horses and not Zebras.
My computer tells me that yearly over a billion dollsrs is spent on Autism research with no light at the end of the tunnel. I have to ask, is the research being invested on a zebra hunt here in the U,S? My Mother had Alzheimer's when she died and huge funds are spent to attempt unraveling the cause or causes. Are the scientists looking for Zebras? Go down the list of Autism, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, ALS, late appearing diabetis and other problems with so far, unknown causes all because each is considered a zebra problem?
For me as a scientist who has been involved in research it seems of primary importance to examine the most obvious possibilities of causes of the above before looking for zebras. When I realized that Greyhounds did not have the dread dysplasia of all other breeds and recognized that the running exercise of the pregnant bitches when pregnant was a sound reason I concluded the Greyhoounds' exercise eliminaated the toxin(s) that caused the problem it was logical to suspect diet as the cause. Researchers looked for the genomme for the answer not thinking that that was a zebra hunt.
Granted one or more of the unsolved problems above may have predated the food
additive(s) that cause others but it seems almost crininal that food additives and combinations have not been thourghly investigated and that brings up some reasons why.
We live in a fire department culture in which we tend to treat problems as emergencies with heroic effort but if a problem takes long periods of time between cause and effect the answers may be lacking. In the case of the weed or flower in our gardens, lupine eaten at just a short period in the gestation period of a cow her calf will be born defective. If a pregnant woman takes the drug, Thalidimide her baby will often be defective for its life.
With the current situation it was in 1933 that Autism was first reported in humans and in 1935, Hip Dysplasia in dogs. The first food additive that was added in great quantity to both human and dog foods happens to be citric acid. Hundreds of thousands of metric tons each year most of which goes into food. Doesn't it seem like common sense to do long time research if only observational research? As a start have that one item removed from the diets of pregnant woman in one group of volunteers.
As a veterinarian I am confident some enterprising dog food manufacturer could actually produce a citric acid free diet and advertise it as just that, a diet to determine if their diet would be effective in the prevention of that canine problem. Even charging twice the usual cost of dog food there will be enough breeders who would be not only willing but anxious to try it on their pregnant bitches and thus to make it a financial success.
So often members of the Veterinary Medical profession have led the way for progress in the Human Medical profession as with a Dr. Salmon in salmonella and in solving the gastric ulcer problem in humans that was considered a psychiatric problem and a bacterial problem of hogs. We were right there, too. The veterinarians who proved that insects can carry and spread disease to others and orthopedic surgery are all veterinary contributions.
If the most obvious possibility is found lacking then go to the next most obvious and then come the combination's but all should be suspect before the zebras.

The Short Life of a Diagnosis

The title concerns an issue reported in the N Y Times this morning. It raises some interesting ideas that I would like to mention and perhaps see some comments on. So come along to a conclusion I have reached and play detective with me. Where the issue raised In the Times concerns humans, as a veterinarian I shall add a bit about lower animals to help reach my final thoughts. First there are clues that we must accept. The first one being that pregnant mammals can, by what is ingested, affect developing embryos. The history of pregnant women injuring their developing embryos by what they eat must be agreed upon. An example is the resulting babies born defective from the mothers having ingested the drug, Thalidomide. the second clue, in lower animals an example is a cow ingesting a plant that must be called poisonous when deformed calves are produced after a mothers eating it.
The subject in the Times report was autism and the Asperger Syndrome which together are considered one by many experts.
The next clue concerns the observation of autism. It appeared in a significant number of cases about 1940 and Aspergers was first reported in German in 1944. Prior to those dates if the problem existed, it had not been recognized worthy enough to be named. I believe a case can be made that the problem did not exist prior to about those dates. That statement may be suspect and should be investigated.
Let's go on. If autism is a new disease, science has focused on symptoms and not cause. With such a newborn problem, what are the possible causes? Science must place it in the group with problems such as ALS, cancer and the likes. With autism, could it be in the catagory with such as gastric ulcers?
Between the cause and treatment of gastric ulcers in humans was a 20 or so year period during which time the veterinary profession had identified the cause and treatment for hogs as a bacteria and the treatment. For the higher mammal during the years to find the answer it was speculated that it had a psychological answer and patients were cataloged as certain types of personalities that were involved. scientific papers were published until someone made the discovery that the vet profession had solved that cause and cure 20 years before. The human solution was the same one that cured the pigs without addressing their personalities. My point here is that perhaps the vet profession could help solve the autism problem not even recognized in lower animals. So we are nearing some possible answers. The first question may be, "What could have happened in the environment at around 1940 that could have caused such a problem as autism?" Now let's leave that question to ask again shortly. In about 1940 a new problem appeared in the vet world. It was called hip dysplasia in dogs. It was reported in the literature as a genetic problem but and that but is important because the problem was soon identified in all breeds and genetic traits don't spread from one breed to all breeds in dogdome. Now we can ask the identical question asked above,namely,what could have happened in the environment at around 1940 that could have caused such a problem?" That presents another question, "Could there be something new in the environment that could have affected both humans and canines simultaneously?" Another question comes to mind, "But the problems are so different." an answer could be, "So are the species."
I have tried to answer that question and find that a substance classed as "grass" became popular at about that time and should be suspect until proven otherwise. The word grass stands for, "generally regarded safe." With such a classification and I don't know how that was arrived at, is it possible a toxic substance has flooded our food without having been thoroughly investigated? Of course with new preservatives and combination's of additives, could our testing of combinations of additives fallen through cracks?
We all know that preservatives starting with heating have saved countless human lives but if it is a preservative that depends for effectiveness on the rolling of the dice with some helped and others helped into the grave, a pause is suggested for investigating a possible injurious one.

Autism experiment

Being a new bachelor and living alone there is almost enough time to think about insignificant ideas as well as important ones. I drive for over two hours to 5k races in my old stamping grounds, Conn. and back to Brattleboro, VT. What a wonderful two hours they are because I can have a friendly argument with myself about what is important and what's just fun. Here is an important argument. In another Blog I mentioned a theory about the cause of autism in humans. If my theory is correct then every obstetrician should advise his or her pregnant patients to stop eating citric acid between certain months of pregnancy.
With the knowledge of this theory a physician who knows and does not tell the patient will be found to be guilty of mal-practice if one of his patients develops autism out of 150 newborns that is the present figure given. This may sound like trying to con members of the medical profession but please look at it from my personal point of view. If I don't tell members of the profession then I feel I am personally guilty and that I am not ready to be. On the other hand what a chance for recognition and everything that goes with it if our local hospital adopts a plan to so advise patients and after a thousand babies are born without one case of autism they will be in the position of reporting on that fact and so start a movement country-wide to judge the validity of the theory in larger numbers of infant births. Nothing ventured nothing gained. There is a negative side and that is that if such a study were to be widely broadcast it could influence citric acid's use to be unfairly curtailed. This is an industry that produces 175,ooo metric tons or more of citric acid yearly. About half the food on grocers' shelves contain citric acid. Discount the fresh fruit and vegetables and the percent rises remarkably. When I was a kid the main cause of our daily bread's growing old was the presence of fungus, sometimes the fungus that gave us penicillin among others. Today I can keep a loaf of bread in my fridge for weeks with no sign of fungus growth. If you study ingredient labels you will find citric acid listed as the second item in a few items in produce and ingredients are listed in order of the most to the least of the ingredients listed. More over if an ingredient is listed that comes with multiple ingredients the trace ones are not mentioned. So as with a food with breadcrums could have no citric acid on the label and be full of it. It is my belief that some food additive was widely added to many foods about 1950 when the large numbers of autism were first reported. That holds for hip dysplasia in dogs. Commercial dog food often lists bread meal as the first ingredient and not a bit of citric acid but the meal is loaded with it. To make a dog food without citric acid would difficult to say the least. For humans we can bake our own bread and eat no commercial jams and jellies all of which are loaded with it during the suspected months of pregnancy. I do not know if those time periods are even known in human physiology as they are known in such as sheep and cows in veterinary physiology. Watch for developments in this area. Incidentally I read that years ago a pamphlet was circulated that was negative about citric acid and that pamphlet was recalled. Being cynical about many things around us I wonder if someone was paid off by an industry that did not appreciate the information in that pamphlet.

A theory of Autism and Hip Dysplasia

Is it possible that a retired veterinarian has found the cause of two horrible maladies, one with humans and the other with canines? Let me offer my thinking. At the onset it is a well accepted fact that developing embryos in mammals can be affected by dietary insult. In the pregnant bovine one particular weed can result in deformed calves born dead or so malformed that they die. So has it been identified by pregnant woman who, if ingesting a medical substance such as Thalidomide during pregnancy have similar results.
Now consider another subject that may be directly related. It was about 1950 that a new disease was described in dogs causing hip or shoulder problems so severe that as puppies matured they had to be destroyed. Hip Dysplasia was called a genetic problem in German Shepards. Soon all breeds were affected and I have not heard any one challenge that statement until here and now.
Concerning autism in humans, it was about 1950 that that malady was first described in numbers although a somewhat similar case was described about 1900.
It was about 1950 that more and more preservatives became widespread. If there is a dietary explanation, some significant addition to the diets of canines and humans must have taken place.
Food of humans are similar if in different form.
Something that may seem Innocent but may actually be deadly. Citric acid comes to mind or some other additive not researched properly.
As a side light, from my early observation of hundreds of dogs produced for genetic as well as nutrition, research there were never any young dogs that became cripples or even had weakness in their rear legs. We raised large number of Bloodhounds used in police work and many other smaller breeds such as beagles, cockers and crosses of many never to see the dreaded hip dysplasia. So that problem arose after about 1950 when I had been in practice for 5 years. At present breeding programs are helpful in, as I suspect, breeding only those who have resistance to the causative agent. Although these two problems sound so unrelated they are so serious, all stones should be overturned to find answers even if the search is unsuccessful.