New Study: Autism Linked to Environment

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Research links soaring incidence of the mysterious neurological disorder to fetal and infant exposure to pesticides, viruses, household chemicals

By Marla Cone

California's sevenfold increase in autism cannot be explained by changes in doctors' diagnoses and most likely is due to environmental exposures, University of California scientists reported Thursday.

The scientists who authored the new study advocate a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on potential factors in the environment that babies and fetuses are exposed to, including pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products.

"It's time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California," said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiology professor at University of California, Davis who led the study.

Throughout the nation, the numbers of autistic children have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. Autistic children have problems communicating and interacting socially; the symptoms usually are evident by the time the child is a toddler.

More than 3,000 new cases of autism were reported in California in 2006, compared with 205 in 1990. In 1990, 6.2 of every 10,000 children born in the state were diagnosed with autism by the age of five, compared with 42.5 in 10,000 born in 2001, according to the study, published in the journal Epidemiology. The numbers have continued to rise since then.

To nail down the causes, scientists must unravel a mystery: What in the environment has changed since the early 1990s that could account for such an enormous rise in the brain disorder?

For years, many medical officials have suspected that the trend is artificial--due to changes in diagnoses or migration patterns rather than a real rise in the disorder.

But the new study concludes that those factors cannot explain most of the increase in autism.

Hertz-Picciotto and Lora Delwiche of the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences analyzed 17 years of state data that tracks developmental disabilities, and used birth records and Census Bureau data to calculate the rate of autism and age of diagnosis.

The results: Migration to the state had no effect. And changes in how and when doctors diagnose the disorder and when state officials report it can explain less than half of the increase.

Dr. Bernard Weiss, a professor of environmental medicine and pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center who was not involved in the new research, said the autism rate reported in the study "seems astonishing." He agreed that environmental causes should be getting more attention.

The California researchers concluded that doctors are diagnosing autism at a younger age because of increased awareness. But that change is responsible for only about a 24 percent increase in children reported to be autistic by the age

"A shift toward younger age at diagnosis was clear but not huge," the report says.

Also, a shift in doctors diagnosing milder cases explains another 56 percent increase. And changes in state reporting of the disorder could account for around a 120 percent increase.

Combined, Hertz-Picciotto said those factors "don't get us close" to the 600 to 700 percent increase in diagnosed cases.

That means the rest is unexplained and likely caused by something that pregnant women or infants are exposed to, or a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

"There's genetics and there's environment. And genetics don't change in such short periods of time," Hertz-Picciotto, a researcher at UC Davis' M.I.N.D. Institute, a leading autism research facility, said in an interview Thursday.

Many researchers have theorized that a pregnant woman's exposure to chemical pollutants, particularly metals and pesticides, could be altering a developing baby's brain structure, triggering autism.

Many parent groups believe that childhood vaccines are responsible because they contained thimerosal, a mercury compound used as a preservative. But thimerosal was removed from most vaccines in 1999, and autism rates are still rising.

More on website below:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=aut ... R_20090113

Did they consider people moving to Canada in their study? Sillicon Valley perhaps?

It probably due to the vast increase in household cleaning products used by the millions of new hispanic housekeepers.

I've always thought environment was the trigger and genetics only accounted for the pre-disposition of people towards it.

It could go either way with me. My dad is definately at least borderline, as are a few other family members. But my mom did have to take some probably unsafe medication while she was pregnant with me. Maybe it was the combination of the two.

What was that? Expand?

Lol - sorry I meant California. Alcohol and the late hour is not good for the mind...

Well, that settles it - the internetz causes autism.

you seem to be in the trend of the time, Pensieve.

Autism, the Disease of the Internet Era
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5129671/aut ... e=true&s=x

Merle

all your internets are belong to us!

It may turn out to be varying proportions of environment, genetics, and upbringing. Moreso the first and second two than the third.

That's how far I needed to read, this is a bullshit-assumption.

That Asperger is almost 3 times as prevalent as classical autism and was not diagnosed at all before 1994, and a large part of the classical autism diagnoses is HFA, which as we know it today, also started existing in 1994. Use your own logic, YES THIS MATTER - and they ignored it, what a "study".

Sigh.

Lorna Wing worked to open the criteria with bloody good reasons, she also estimated an autism rate similar to the one we know have, after the criteria is changed, magic?

15 years ago - early 1994, thats just a couple of months before the diagnosis increased indeed, the very start was called "DSM-IV", new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

There is a theory put forth in an article in Wired which attributes the autism "epidemic" in Silicon Valley to assortive mating. It goes like this: The computer industry has attracted a disproportionate number of Aspies and high functioning Auties. After all, God made computers for the Aspies and the high functioning Auties. Anyway, with all those people with a genetic predisposition to the conditions in one place, nature took its course and Aspies and Auties tended to mate among themselves and go upstream to spawn, producing a concentration of offspring with the the genetic condition. The rest is history.

ruveyn

Housekeeping disorder topic

My mother was not much into housekeeping when we were small, and yet the neighbours had oodles of products. We used old-fashioned stuff because it was cheaper, like vinegar and washing soda. .

As far as I know none of the other children in my neighbourhood was autistic.

I grew up in a part of Ontario, the Golden Horseshoe, that was involved in heavy DDT use. Apparently (I do not have evidence at this point) there is history of a higher ratio of those with AS in that area. But remember, this is an area with a higher concentration of industry, professions, etc. because of the post war baby boom. Who knows what soldiers absorbed into their bodies during war time. Use of radioactive chemicals in war materials plants could also have been a problem, and this nasty stuff got into the soil/ground water. But then again not everyone was or is affected.

There is probably a combination of factors going on here. I like the internet connection!

I thought it was rain that caused it... Oh wait that was last week!

Next week I think it will be trees, or kittens perhaps.

milk [re,PETA].