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Higher Occurrences of Autism at New Jersey School
By Richard | October 18, 2007
“The task force found:
• The 24 staffers had children during or after the time they had worked at the school.
• Of 42 children born to them, 24 — or 57 percent — were diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Ten — or 24 percent — were diagnosed with autism. That’s the equivalent of one child in four with autism, Rosen said.”
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Autism study hints at school cluster
Karen Sudol | NewJersey.com
A research study has found a possible autism cluster among children of teachers who worked at a Northvale school.
“While we cannot yet determine the cause of these findings, we can say for certain today that the prevalence of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders … is statistically significantly higher,” said study leader Dr. Lawrence D. Rosen.
The study’s task force will now look at environmental factors at St. Anthony’s that could have caused rates of autism and other learning disorders to be higher than state or national levels.
“Whether the building is contributing is speculation,” said Rosen, also the medical adviser for the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center, which initiated the study.
The findings released Tuesday were based on interviews with 24 school staff members who came forward after 500 letters were mailed to present and past employees. Rosen said he doesn’t know the total number of teachers with children who have worked at the school during the past 10 years but that he wants to interview all of them.
The task force found:
• The 24 staffers had children during or after the time they had worked at the school.
• Of 42 children born to them, 24 — or 57 percent — were diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Ten — or 24 percent — were diagnosed with autism. That’s the equivalent of one child in four with autism, Rosen said.
A federal study made public in February found New Jersey had the highest rate of autism ever recorded in the United States: one in 94 children. The national rate is one in 150 children.
“We are concerned about these children, their families and our community,” Deirdre Imus said Tuesday.
The St. Anthony’s problem was first suspected after two instructors who had worked in the school gave birth to children with learning disabilities. Officials later discovered that other employees had similar experiences.
St. Anthony’s, on Walnut Street, is owned by the Newark Archdiocese but is leased to the Northern Valley Regional High School district, which for 30 years has used the building to educate kids with autism and other disabilities.
Superintendent Jan Furman said when the district learned of the problems, summer 2007 programs were moved out of the school’s main building. This year, students have been relocated to schools in Harrington Park, Old Tappan and Haworth.
The lease with the archdiocese is being negotiated, Furman said.
“At this point, I don’t see how I could recommend the students and staff be returned to the facility,” she said.
Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness said Tuesday he couldn’t comment on the task force findings because he hadn’t seen a copy of the report.
The archdiocese hired the PMK Group, a Cranford-based engineering firm, to survey the site and the surrounding area. Goodness declined to release the report’s findings, citing potential litigation, but said it showed there “were no problems with the property.” He said no further testing will be done by the archdiocese and the building isn’t being used.
The state Department of Health and Senior Services completed a walk-through to evaluate the building but found “no abnormalities” regarding environmental samples, said Thomas Slater, a department spokesman.
Dr. Walter Zahorodny, director of the New Jersey Autism Study and assistant professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, said it’s difficult to conclude an autism cluster exists based on the study’s limited scope.
“It’s not really interpretable scientifically. I wouldn’t say it’s meaningless, but it would take some more basic investigation to show if this was indeed a cluster,” he said. “It seems what’s being reported is an informal survey based on a small number of cases.”
Both Rosen and Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, a task force consultant, emphasized the study was a preliminary evaluation.
“We realize there are limitations to any survey,” said Rosen. “But we have what we have which is an extraordinarily high rate of autism in a small population.”
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