Risk of autism is up to 50% higher in children exposed to tr

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going by that logic autism should have been more common years ago, before the emission control laws

I mean the emphasis on the autoimmune response.

Some autoimmune syndromes are very well-studied, such as Guillain-Barre or Lupus.

Other are more speculative, such as the "too clean" hypothesis. For example, maybe the fact that most children in rich countries don't have parasites, instead of reaching a truce and a happy balance, the immune system overreacts to inocuous substances and you end up with more kids with allergies and asthma. Perhaps.

I'm familiar with those studies and have often wondered if that position isn't afffected by middle class confirmation bias. What I mean is that while the middle classes are usually fastidiously clean and tidy, this isn't always true of the more dysfunctional elements in our Western societies, particularly our underclasses. I've just seen way too many people who live in the filthiest of conditions, even here in the US.

I think what would have to be done would be to show that children who come from these dirtier environments suffer auto-immune problems at a lesser rate than those who come from squeaky clean middle class households.

It bears iteration and reiteration: I'm only tossing out objections to the various theories I've seen. Because I don't know, I take no firm positions on any of these theories.

I remember a reference to one study in which patients with inflammatory bowel disease volunteered to get a dose of whip worms (yuck factor), and for two-thirds of the patients it worked! Apparently, sometimes, a dose of parasites motivates the immune system to reach a happy balance. (Of course, sometimes the effect of the parasite might be worse than the autoimmune condition.)

And I'd want to keep in mind that there is a great deal of luck involved in all this. I come from a middle-class family, and I still remember getting (I think) pin worms as a 7-year-old and taking this medicine that made me throw up once. And I still have medium bad allergy problems.

Aardvark, I've never injested pinworms, but I do eat probiotic foods, such as naturally fermented sauerkraut, and they have done me a lot of good. When my physical health is good, my autism seems to be better, and vice versa.

Hi, I want to make it clear I was not prescribed pin worms by the doctor(!) I got them out in the wild so to speak, probably from another kid who didn't wash his or her hands as well as they should have.

And the medicine given was to kill the pin worms.

There are many studies linking X, Y, Z to autism, but one question I have is whether X, Y, Z is linked to autism or something that goes along with autism in some cases.

For eggsample, one study split children into MR, LFA, and HFA groups, and found correlations between maternal pregnancy health problems and LFA and MR, but lack of these in HFA.

But if you put LFA and HFA in one group, then correlation will still be significant, even though one group has no correlation with X, Y, Z possible causative factors.

This is correct. The fancy Latin phrase used in logic is: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which means that just because two things tend to be associated does not necessarily imply any kind of causal relationship. In fact, causal relationships are hellishly difficult to establish, and explains why most of science consists of theories rather than laws. About the most that can be hoped for is the articulation of probability for how some of these phenomena are associated with autism, and I'm not sure that has been done to accepted scientific standards yet.

interesting how societal institutions seem to have a very strong motivation to classify those of us on the Spectrum as either LFA or HFA. Mmm?

Does this mean that every kid born in a Chinese city will have autism? (The pollution there is 100x worse than it is here)

Back in the day, humans unaided by technology and science had average lifespans under 45 years.

ruveyn

^^^^True,I was very surprised to see that some of my family lived to be incredibly old.

My first white ancestor,she must have been considered ancient in the village.

more sousors:
http://www.highlightpress.com/air-pollu ... 799/sdavis
http://www.greenerideal.com/lifestyle/0 ... tism-risk/

Exactly what I was thinking. If this hypothesis is to pan out, Autism needs to be more prevalent in cities with alarmingly high carbon dioxide pollution such as Mexico City or Hong Kong. Statistically, levels of Autism would have to rise and fall with the air quality. Also you'd think they would be able to replicate such a finding in a lab setting with animal testing.

This makes me wonder are there increasing returns to scale of diagnosing autism. Although I am not sure the returns to scale of mental health of anything has been measured that much. I tried to find a paper on it but had no luck. OR are sensory issues worse leading to selection bias so more kids get diagnosed.

I somehow don't believe this but it kind of seems true. The number of kids diagnosed with autism are increasing every year almost exponentially, pollution is a bigger issue then ever before. So this story seems plausible, but I doubt it.