Health, Autism | featured news

A large new government study should reassure parents who are afraid that kids are getting autism because they receive too many vaccines too early in life. The study, by researchers at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, found no connection between the number of vaccines a child received and his or her risk of autism spectrum disorder. It also found that even though kids are getting more vaccines these days, those vaccines contain many fewer of the substances that provoke an immune response.

The biggest study yet into genetics and mental health has come up with a stunning result: The five most common mental illnesses -- autism, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disease, schizophrenia and major depression -- all have a common genetic root.

A new study suggests that some people who have received an autism diagnosis are able to improve significantly and not qualify for the diagnosis later in life.

Doctors trying to find some of the causes of autism put another piece into the puzzle on Monday: They found women who had flu while they were pregnant were twice as likely to have a child later diagnosed with autism.

Researchers announced Tuesday the beginning of a FDA-approved clinical trial that uses umbilical cord blood stem cells to ‘cure’ autism. Dr. Michael Chez, director of pediatric neurology at Sutter Neuroscience Institute in Sacramento, Calif., said he and his colleagues have been processing the trial for more than a year now, and they have high hopes it will succeed.

Vaccines can cause certain side effects but serious ones appear very rare - and there's no link with autism and Type 1 diabetes, the Institute of Medicine says in the first comprehensive safety review in 17 years....

Siblings of kids with autism have a higher risk of being diagnosed with the disorder than previously believed, suggests a new study.