"Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD is an authoritative, comprehensive and easy-to-read resource guide to a wide range of therapies useful in the treatment of autism. It introduces ant-fungal and antibacterial therapies, gluten and casein restriction, homeopathy, vitamin therapy, gamma globulin treatment, transfer factor therapies, treatment of food allergies and alternatives to antibiotic therapy."
Dr. William Shaw is an analytical chemist who has developed laboratory tests which help us understand the physiological processes involved in autism and pdd (pervasive development disorder.) This book is fascinating because Dr. Shaw is a very clear thinker and writer and unlike so many in this field, has really connected the dots. He comes at the problem of autism as both a scientist and a parent. For example he cites his experience with NAET, a type of acupuncture based allergy desensitization, and admits that it worked in his experience even though he cannot fully explain it 
scientifically. For the most part the book is devoted to newly available laboratory tests which start to explain pieces of the puzzle of autism. For example, there is a theory that many autistic people and possibly others, handle the proteins in wheat and dairy differently so as to produce morphine like chemicals, caseomorphin and gluteomorphin, which can be found in their urine. He explains the significance of the large amounts of an unusual sugar, arabinose, found in the urine of many autistic patients. The sugar is produced in the gut by fungal species and it causes massive crosslinking of proteins, notably in the brain, causing neurofibrillary tangles, found in Alzheimer's as well as autism.
Dr. Shaw does not hesitate to delve into biochemistry but this book is written both for the professional and lay person, specifically parents of autistic kids. It is full of references for those so inclined, but he takes each topic step by step so the intelligent lay person can follow his presentations.
This book represents the best of an emerging area of medicine, or should I say healhcare. The area is using new understandings of physiology and biochemistry which lead to relatively non-toxic and primarily non-drug treatments. I say healthcare rather than medicine, because so far, mainstream medicine has steadfastly ignored these developments and tends to persecute those few MD's who offer this kind of treatment to their patients.
Dr. Shaw's contention is that many cases of autism follow the administration of multiple doses of antibiotics primarily to treat ear infections in very young children, causing medically induced fungal overgrowth in the gut and subsequent changes in immune function, leaky gut, food allergies and the consetllation of symptoms found in autism. He also discusses the highly controversial issues of childhood vaccination, other chronic gut infections, many also related to antibiotic use, and heavy metals and other toxins.
Much of this work has applications to many other chronic and difficult to treat conditions such as dyslexia, ADD, Tourette's syndrome, depression, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. As Dr. Majid Ali has said, chronic fatigue syndrome, more than anything else, is likely to drag mainstream medicine, kicking and screaming, into the alternative realm. Here are some exciting new tools in that struggle.
Biological Treatments for Autism & PDD, 3rd Ed. (link to Amazon)
William Shaw, PhD
Sunflower Pub; 3rd (revised) edition (August 14, 2008)
216 pages
Dr. George Manlove
© 2010 George Manlove, DC All rights reserved.
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