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We Got Mail!

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simply me4/01/2009 8:45:12 pm PDT

Here is the link to an AP story on the high prevalence of autism in the US Somali population
google.com

The article says:

Researchers found the percentage of Somali children in the programs was two to seven times higher than non-Somali children.

The article ends:

Anne Harrington, who worked for the past 21 years in early childhood education for the Minneapolis schools, has been monitoring severe autism in the Somali community in for years.

She said the community is desperate for answers about a disorder that doesn’t even have a name in their native language and wasn’t known in their East African homeland.

“The Somali community is justifiably concerned that there is something happening here in Minnesota or Minneapolis that could be causing autism that they weren’t seeing in their children in Somalia,” she said.

This would seem to rule out genetics per se. But possibly support a genetics and environment interaction.