At best the test has been called “premature.” Others have suggested the test is “misleading,” built on “shaky data,” and will be inappropriately marketed to a desperately worried and motivated group of women. The test at the center of this firestorm is the MAR Autism test (Maternal Autoantibody-Related) developed by Pediatric Bioscience (PB; Sacramento, Calif.). The company, which declined a request to speak to DTET, claims MAR is “an informational test which determines if an individual has an increased chance of having a child with autism” and is intended for use as “a family planning tool” in women of child-bearing age who have already had a child with autism and child-bearing women over the age of 30  years, as well as in women of children 12 months to 24 months seeking a diagnosis for their child’s developmental delay. The test, the company says on its Web site, currently measures eight specific autoantibodies specific to fetal brain proteins that have been linked to the MAR form of autism. The test, which is expected to be commercially available in the second half of 2014,  is based on work by a group of University of California, Davis researchers, including Judy Van de Water, […]