Snacks and autism

Santi Hendrawati's article in The Jakarta Post of Jan. 2, 2002 entitled Snacks: Delicious but dangerous may send a ripple of concern through those who have small children.

To date, there have been no reports that monosodium glutamate (MSG) can cause disorders in the development of a child's brain. Despite the fact that MSG consumption in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore is far greater than in Indonesia, the intelligence levels of both children and adults in those countries are no lower than those of Indonesia.

In the stomach, MSG will be broken down into sodium chloride and glutamic acid. Glutamic acid represents a building block of nearly all kinds of protein and is found in milk, cheese, meat, beans, tomatoes and even in breast milk.

Quoting Andang Gunawan, Santi Hendrawati dramatically described a story of a one-year-old child who waved goodbye to his father heading to the office in the morning but was surprisingly unable to recognize him and other people at night because the child had contracted autism.

Autism is a very rare infantile psychosis affecting four to five out of every 10.000 children. Autism is not attributed to food or food additives but to hereditary factors and appears before a child reaches the age of 30 months.

Therefore, the account about autism being linked to snack consumption was misleading and will only cause anxiety.

SUNARTO PRAWIROSUJANTO

Jakarta