When John Rodakis’ autistic son was diagnosed with strep throat, he was prescribed a ten-day treatment of amoxicillin, the standard procedure for children with the disease. Rodakis noticed his son’s autism symptoms improved while taking the medication.

“He began making eye contact, which he had previously avoided,” said Rodakis in an article published in Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease. “His speech, which was severely delayed, began to improve markedly; he became less ‘rigid’ in his insistence for sameness and routine; and he also displayed an uncharacteristic level of energy, which he had historically lacked.”

Rodakis spoke with other parents of autistic children and discovered that many had had similar experiences. Yet the correlation had not been well studied.

Rodakis consulted published medical literature. Eventually, he came upon a thesis paper from 1999 written by Ellen Bolte. Her hypothesis was that autism is linked to gut bacteria. A small clinical trial showed that autistic children had less gut bacteria than normal children. However, the idea of the microbiome (that is, the collection of micro-organisms living on and in the human body) having an effect on a mental disorder sounded too far fetched 15 years ago.

In the course of his investigation, Rodakis began to collaborate with Dr. Richard Frye, the head of the Autism Research Program at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

“Careful parental observations can be crucial,” said Dr. Frye. “In science we take these observations, put them through the scientific method, and see what we find. This is what can lead to ground-breaking scientific discoveries and breakthroughs in the field.”

Together, they contacted researchers around the world with the intent of creating a large-scale research trial and a medical conference on the subject. ‘The First International Symposium on the Microbiome in Health and Disease with a Special Focus on Autism’ was held in June of last year.

“Current research is demonstrating that gut bacteria play previously undiscovered roles in health and disease throughout medicine,” said Rodakis. “The evidence is very strong that they also play a role in autism. It’s my hope that by studying these antibiotic-responding children, we can learn more about the core biology of autism.”