The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #71282

Issac Pessah, PhD, Children's Health and Disease Prevention, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, 530 752 6696, heilig@sfms.org

The U.C. Davis Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research is undertaking multidisciplinary research to understand environmental risk factors contributing to the incidence and severity of childhood autism. Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder defined by deficiencies of social skills, and by repetitive behavior. The majority of cases seem likely to arise from a multiplicity of yet unidentified susceptibility genes. Genetically complex disorders, such as autism, possess functional variants in susceptibility genes that confer an increased risk of developing the disorder. However each locus is insufficient alone to cause the full clinical phenotype. A recent report to the California State Legislature documented an increase of 273% in reported cases of profound autism in California between 1987 and 1998. Recent estimates indicate the frequency of mild to severe autism may be as high as 1:150. Thus there is growing concern that prenatal and postnatal exposure to xenobiotic (e.g. organic mercurials, halogenated aromatics, and pesticides) and biotic (e.g. vaccine antigens) factors may act synergistically to alter the penetrance of as yet unidentified genetic factors conferring susceptibility to autism.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn in depth about the importance of signaling activity from the immune system during critical periods of neurodevelopment in prescribing both normal and pathophysiological outcomes, which has been firmly documented within the last five years, and will learn how the Center is working to understand how the interaction of susceptibility genes with exposure to “environmental” chemicals may increase the risk and severity of autism.

Keywords: Environmental Health,

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.