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| |    'Miracle' Therapies for Autism: The Secretin Story by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. reviewed by Christine Barry, Ph.D. A great number of medications, special diets, megavitamin regimens, and other therapies have been promoted as miracle cures for autism. To date, none has fulfilled its promise. Typically, one or a handful of case reports emerge about children who were apparently cured by a treatment. These generate a lot of excitement, and many parents adopt the new therapy with high hopes. Later, carefully designed studies show that the new treatment either doesn't work or only helps a few children to a limited degree. Often no real harm has been done, except that the considerable time and money devoted to the new form of therapy has diverted a child from less exciting treatments that might, in the long run, be more helpful. This is not to say that all new therapies are bad, or that autism will never be cured--only that parents must thoroughly examine a new treatment's claims before committing their child to it. This is well illustrated by the secretin story. The hormone's history Secretin is a hormone that helps control the release of digestive enzymes into the intestines. Like many other intestinal hormones, it also plays a role in the brain that is not completely understood. Some autistic children have digestive problems that are not central to their condition but are related in some way. In 1998 doctors in Maryland reported that three children who had been given secretin injections showed remarkable improvement in their intestinal functioning and, most amazingly, in their communication and social skills. Soon after, secretin success stories began to circulate on the Internet, and demand for the costly treatments skyrocketed. Sadly, what happened next is typical of so-called miracle cures: Two studies found that secretin had no significant effect on the symptoms of autism. These studies differed from earlier reports in that they involved a greater number of subjects (20 in one study, 60 in another), and the children were randomly assigned to receive either secretin or a nonactive injection (a placebo). Standardized behavior ratings were then collected from parents and doctors who didn't know which treatment their child had received. The analyzed data showed that the children who received secretin fared no better than the children who were injected with the placebo. Practical implications The secretin story can teach us several lessons:
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