French news channel suggests link between autism and polluti

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https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/fo ... y-to-blame

Interesting how they now say it’s impossible for human genetics to evolve at the speed that would explain the increase in diagnosis.

I'm not buying this theory. other's opinions may vary. considering that I have a traceable history of autism in my own family (genetics) from my great great grandmother born in 1854 right through the present generation (my offspring and their cousins ) and pollutants were of a different sort "back when".... anything to promote political agendas... my 2 cents. Thanks for this post.

If a wave of 30-70 year olds were newly diagnosed along with the young ones; does it mean that there's an epidemic?

How about those who died long before that? But then there's no way to find that out anymore.
How about at least more than a century and a half years ago, before psychology?


Eh.
The illusion of the idea of what's "normal" should be taken down for what humanity truly is.


I don't think it's just autism.
There's much more going on; and it's that's been there for a very, very long time.

It's just unnamed, likely suppressed by the lack of term for it or hidden by something else.
It is now labeled, perpetuated and categorized by whatever moving goal post standards that the world humans made into.


If anything else; there's more than just the environmental pollution.
There's the diet, the hormones and conception, the lifestyle, the technologies, the paradigms between eras...

There's the endless list of "causes of autism".

Humans have this funny trend of blaming one thing for something; be it success, failure or something like this.

There's the endless list for it, too.
Endless list for "getting rich and productive", "youth being disrespectful", "gaining weight and not losing it", "causes of ADHD", "causes of depression and anxiety", etc.

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Although, I do believe some environmental factors have an effect, to a degree; I don't believe pollution is linked to an increase in diagnosis. Rather, I'm more inclined to believe that modern psychologists are understanding the neurology just a little bit better than what it used to be, hence an up tic in diagnosis. Also, as someone mentioned before, genetics.
I am grateful for the up tic in diagnosis. This means more people might get the resources they need as well as improvements to modern medicine.

It's epigenetics.

There are a lot of people with polygenic risk for autism but they don't have it because they (or their preceding sperm / ovum) were not exposed to the stress / inflammation / drugs / pollutants which "turn on" the relevant genes during brain development.

Much of the huge increase in autism diagnoses is due to increased knowledge and diagnostic changes. However, some of the increase is likely due to aspects of modern life (eg. pollution, pthalates, pesticides) which are acting epigenetically.

For instance, I suspect my AS might be related to my grandparents smoking when expecting their first child (my mother). My mother's developing ova (including one that became me) would have been affected by the toxins from smoking.

I think people in general, and scientists in particular, should focus less on what causes people to develope what we label as autism and more on how to help autistic people to have a better life. At this point "autism" is just a symtom, like "chest pain". It may be a couple of different conditions that give this spectrum of symtoms we lump together and call autism.