Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Asperger’s syndrome – about time to rename it?

2023; Springer Nature; Volume: 95; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/s41390-023-02885-8

1530-0447

Cynthia F. Bearer, Steven H. Abman, Carlo Agostoni, Phil Ballard, Joe Bliss, Willem P. de Boode, Fuat Emre Canpolat, Lina F. Chalak, Maria Roberta Cilio, Olaf Dammann, Jonathan M. Davis, Dina El‐Metwally, Donna M. Ferriero, Stephanie Ford, Elena Fuentes‐Afflick, Dawn Gano, Dino A. Giussani, Fernando F. Gonzalez, Alistair J. Gunn, Marije Hogeveen, Alex Y. Huang, J. Kaplan, Mark A. Klebanoff, Peter Lachman, Robert H. Mak, Anil K. Malhotra, Steven P. Miller, W. Beau Mitchell, Eleanor J. Molloy, Sarah B. Mulkey, Damian Roland, Venkatesh Sampath, Guilherme Sant’Anna, Pam Schaff, Lynn T. Singer, Annemarie Stroustrup, David G. Tingay, Claudio Tiribelli, Gergely Toldi, Jeanie B. Tryggestad, Enza Maria Valente, Dee Wilson-Costello, John A. F. Zupancic,

Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

As Editor-in-Chief of Pediatric Research, I was both delighted and fascinated to be asked to moderate the Historic Perspectives session during the 2023 Pediatric Academic Societies' meeting.I was aghast when I learned about the impact of Naziism on pediatrics in Vienna in the 1930s and 1940s, which had lasting effects.I appreciated, in hindsight, that although I was born after this period in history, what the Nazis had done during the Holocaust had a powerful impact on my family.When we discussed these events, it was incomprehensible that humans could treat other humans in that manner.However, the scientific presentation during the PAS meeting disturbed me profoundly because I learned that some pediatricians of that era were engaged in murdering children. 1,2This killing of children was separate from the estimated 1.5 million mostly Jewish children killed in the concentration camps during the Holocaust.In Germany and Austria, another type of child murder was practiced even before the war, that of Child Euthanasia."Kinder-Euthanasie" was the organized killing of children up to 16 years of age who were diagnosed as severely mentally or physically disabled.The practice of Kinder-Euthanasie occurred during the Nazi era in several dozen children's wards.At least 5000 children, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were murdered in this manner, predating the killing of children in concentration camps during the Holocaust.Dr Hans Asperger was a Viennese pediatrician engaged in this practice.