NEWS Columbia Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute

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Phone: 212-543-5353

Dacia Morris
Public Information Officer
Phone: (212) 543-5421
Fax: (212) 543-5220

NYS Psychiatric Institute
at Columbia University Medical Center
1051 Riverside Drive,
Unit 30
New York, NY 10032

Higher Autism Rates? Columbia Psychiatry Expert Says Genetics One Cause

(October 8, 2009)

A Department of Health and Human Services report released Monday says that the autism rate in the U.S. is higher than previously believed -- about 1 in 100 children have an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the report says, up from the previous estimate of 1 in 150…And of course, there''''s the genetic link: “Autism is probably caused by many, many things, most of them genetic, and this is one of them,” mitochondrial expert Salvatore DiMauro of Columbia University and the author of a study of autistic individuals with mitochondrial disease, tells the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative…