well, there is a distinct problem with this study...

""The causes underlying autism are very variable but with a state-of-the art diagnostic workup it is possible to find a cause in up to a third of patients," said pediatrician Dr. Clara van Karnebeek.
In a study reported in the Journal of Medical Genetics, she and her colleagues studied 25 adults with autism and by using a battery of tests found the cause in nine of them."

1st of all, It occurs to me that both Lovaas and Wakefield have been unilaterally dismissed by critics who cannot fault their science simply on the grounds that there sample size was too small to draw a conclusion. So I should hardly think that having a sample size of 25 would be adequate to state unequivocably that the source had been found. (Of course those who criticized both Ivar and Andrew are almost assuredly going to jump on this as proof positive)

2nd, I hardly think that inteviewing adults with autism about events that occured prior to their birth would be viewed as accurate investigation.

But let us look at the information itself...

"Abuse of alcohol or drugs during pregnancy, different genetic defects and metabolic disturbances were among the causes they found. All of them in some way damaged the brain, they said."

Truer words were never spoken. Drugs and alcohol CAN in some way damage the developing fetal brain. Our schools are peppered (some areas more than others) with fetal-alcohol babies, and crack abbies, and heroin babies, and judging from the sheer amount of marijuana consumed in this nation each year, we must be literally up to our armpits in hemp babies. However, none of the clearly defined children show autistic symptoms, and the offspring of the major alcoholics and narcotics users have symptoms which are as easily identifiable as autism to those who know what to look for.

So they must be talking really about some other forms of drugs and alcohol than the ones that we already know.

Differing genetic defects can cause damage to the developing fetal brain as well. Fragile X, Down's Sydrome, and Rhett's are three good examples. Fragile X children can be or may not be autistic (one of the women in my local support group has 4 children 2 + 2. Both boys are Fragile X but only the younger boy, the baby is also autistic.) Rhett's is sometimes considered Spectrum and sometimes not.

We also strongly suspect that Asperger's has a strong genetic component, and we also suspect that autism likewise has a strong genetic component (although I do not believe the genetic component when finally identified will be an autism gene per se). So this is not really news.

Metabolic disturbances can also cause autism. Well this is really what we have been saying all along really... Metabolic disturbance like an immune system that reacts to an otherwise safe vaccine lke the MMR and turns the body's own immune system against the myelin sheath of the brain (Singh's disease). Metabolic disturbances like the isruption of the MT protein mechanism that causes many autist9ic children completely unable to withstand the assaultof mercury which 80% of the children tolerate with no discernable problems. Metabolic disturbances like having your digestive system fail in a manner that allows yeast or other organism to colonize the gut, shut down the pancreas, and flood the body with toxins and peptides that deplete cognition and demand the child be placed on a higly restricted diet just to be HFA.

""Autism should be considered a symptom, caused by a variety of underlying disorders," Van Karnebeek said in the study. "

Doesn't sound like news to me. We have been saying this for years now.

So in 9/25's of the people they studied, they have identified tentative sources of autism. Really, I am much more interested in the 16/25 that they failed to point to a reason. How many of those people have had a mercury overload, followed by the injection of dangerous combinations of live viruses and other toxic substances.