PLT Test Blog

Michele Zappella was Head of the Department of Child Neuropsychiatry  at Siena   Hospital from 1973 to 2006 Today’s post is the one I mentioned some time ago about odd behavioral reactions to Group A Streptococcus.  It does veer off to Italy and Tourette’s Syndrome and the interesting sounding Dysmaturational Syndrome, which probably accounts for many of those autism “recovery” stories that are used to support some pretty odd therapies. Several readers of this blog have noticed that exposure to Group A Streptococcus causes their child’s autism to worsen.  Quotes range from facial grimacing, to raving like a lunatic. Much has been written about the conditions PANDAS and PANS.  The proposed mechanism behind PANDAS/PANS is highly disputed, with some strong evidence showing it not to be valid. What is clear is that in some people, following a strep infection, they change overnight from completely normal to something quite different.  This is the PANDAS/PANS...

I was interested to receive a comment from a reader of this blog who finds that the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin has a major impact on her child’s  autism, debilitating tics and OCD ( Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ). Regular readers may recall that when looking at so-called PAK1 inhibitors, which look like the Holy Grail for both common cancers and autism, it turned out that two already exist.  One is an old anti-parasitic drug called Ivermectin and the other is a substance found in certain types of bee propolis from Brazil and New Zealand. It then turned out that a handful of “alternative” practitioners in the US are already using Ivermectin for autism, but for entirely different reasons.  They believe that various parasites exist inside the children and cause/exacerbate autism. I thought this was intriguing and quite likely another case of “the right therapy, for the wrong reason”. Tics and Ticks Tics are those sudden, repetitive involuntary actions that can vary from...