Write To Life     by Elana Horwitz

No Need To Stigmatize

Originally published in Hamodia

To the editor:

In your Health, Science and Technology section (22 Adar I, 5768 / February 28, 2008), you report researchers as saying that mercury in vaccines does not cause autism. In the Magazine section of the same issue, the writer of the article on stigmas in shidduchim states that a genetic cause has not been proven for autism.

Autism, and its variation Asperger's syndrome, has to be caused by something. The autism community itself is divided over theories about the cause of this condition.

But what causes autism seems to be irrelevant to the Magazine writer's point that autism in a family member does not have to be viewed as a stigma. A person with autism or Asperger's syndrome, like other people, may want to seek a compatible marriage partner. As with any shidduch, each side would benefit by bearing in mind that every person, with or without a medical diagnosis of any kind, has unique challenges as well as assets.

A sibling of someone with these conditions can be viewed as any other eligible single, since studies have not shown autism to affect particularly the nieces or nephews of a person with the condition.

Elana Horwitz
Raanana