Opinions on Autism

The other day I took my 30 minute lunch break in a Subway, happy to get away from all of the noise at work for a little while, just to have some time to be in the quiet, and to relax my mind.

About 2 minutes after I sat down with my food, a lady entered the restaurants with her 4 kids. She got her food and sat down, and almost immediately one of the kids began to scream REALLY loud. The screaming continued, as I wondered just when exactly the mother was going to tell her child to behave.

She didn't, and after I finished my meatball marinara sub, I quickly exited the restaurant, stealing a glance at the source of the noise on my way out.

The kid was autistic.

I felt like a jerk.

It got me to thinking though. I've noticed that that particular town that I was working in that day seems to have an extremely high rate of autism. I see and hear about autistic children in everyday conversation at the site all the time, and it got me to wondering.

Why has autism continued to become more and more prevalent in today's society?

When you boil it all down, there really could only be two reasons:

1. We have better diagnostic tests than we ever had before, or...
2. There's an actual problem that we need to address

If you read a lot of the reports out there, people will tend to say that the improved tests result for a large number of these, and though I agree that this could be part of the problem, overall I think that this answer is mainly a cop out. 

Why? Well, let's take a look at the statistics.

In the year 2000, 1 in 150 children was diagnosed with autism. In 2008, this number skyrocketed to 1 in 88 children. Then in 2010, the number went even higher to 1 out of every 68 children being diagnosed with autism (1).

Back in the 1970's the ratio was something like 1 in 25,000 children were diagnosed with autism. Do I think that better testing resulted in a larger number of children being diagnosed between the 70's and today? Absolutely. But I don't think that better testing resulted in the 45% increase in autism between 2000 and 2010. That'd make absolutely no sense.

So, let's assume that there's an actual problem that we need to address. 

Well, what is this problem? Something has obviously changed between 2000 and today to result in 1 in 68 children being diagnosed with autism.

Once again, I think that this comes down to two reasons. Either:

1. Autism is genetic, or...
2. Some environmental exposure is resulting in the greater incidence of autism

Let's start with discussing genetics.

Now certain genetic problems have been associated with autism. Down syndrome, tuberous sclerosis, and fragile X syndrome are all genetic problems that are correlated with autism. However, can we blame genetics completely? I don't think so. 

Again, I point to the increased prevalence of autism within society. I think that genetics plays a part, yes, but I also believe that there must be other factors at play here. 

So, that brings us to point number 2: is there some sort of environmental exposure that is resulting in the greater incidence of autism. And once again, I think that this question can be further broken down into two questions:

1. Is it the parent's environmental exposure to some risk factor, or...
2. Is it the child's environmental exposure to some risk factor. 

I'll start off by saying that autism is commonly diagnosed when children are around 2 years of age. So, it seems as if some kids may not be born with it, but rather develop it over time. However, some kids may be born with autism, and in this case, is it the parent's exposure to some risk factor?

Let's look at the parents first. 

We know that the age of the parents plays an important part in the child's chances of being autistic. Older parents are more likely to have autistic children than younger parents. When you couple this with the fact that the average American wedding age is 29 for men and 27 for women, much older than this has ever been in the past, this may help to explain why autism rates have jumped so high in recent years (2). People used to marry at a much younger age (which results in less of a risk factor), than they do today. 

So age alone may play a part. But what about other risk factors that parents are facing? What has really changed since 2000 to result in higher autism rates? 

Well, cell phones come to mind (as do laptops). Think about how many people you knew who had a cell phone in 2000, and how many you know who have one today, as well as the amount of use. It's a big difference. Could this be affecting the autism rates? I can't say for sure, but cell phones do emit radiation, and studies have shown that men who carry cell phones in their pockets have a decreased sperm count as well as altered sperm, so I think it's fair to include this in the conversation (3).

Am I saying that cell phones cause autism? No. There's no research to show that yet. What I am saying is that the rates have risen and we need to take a closer look at why.

What about nutrition though? Could we possibly be ingesting something that is changing our risk factors? Did you know that what you eat can change how your genes work? It's a fascinating new field of science known as nutritional genomics, a closer look at how what you eat impacts you more than you know. 

Is there some sort of preservative or pesticide that we are consuming today that we weren't consuming 14 years ago that's hurting our kids? It's hard to say. 

What about the kid's exposure though? 

If it's not the parent, maybe it's the kid. Maybe the kid is exposed to something that results in the development of autism. Living things, across the entire biological board, are more susceptible to adverse environmental factors during the developing period (4). 

Vaccines are the first thing that come to peoples' minds when they think of children with autism. But I don't see any correlation here, and neither does the CDC (5). Thimerosal is the main scapegoat people point to here, but even after its use was reduced in vaccinations in 2001, we still saw an increase in autism nationwide.

The 'no-vaccine for kids' movement is something that I understand. I get it. Having something bad happen to your little kid is scary, and nobody wants that to happen. However, at the same time, I don't think that it's scientifically sound, and overall, I think that it's dangerous as well.

There's been an increased outbreak of mumps internationally because of this movement, an infection that we previously had controlled. And get this: even though your child may have been vaccinated against a disease such as mumps, he could still get it if he hangs around enough kids that did not get the vaccination and contracted it. The vaccination is overpowered by such a significant exposure to the virus, that your kid ends up sick with something that he never should have gotten because of other people (6).

And what if your kid ends up having a complication, such as deafness, due to mumps because he was exposed to infected children even though he was vaccinated? Is it likely? No. But is it possible? Yes. This is why I think that the anti-vaccination movement seems to be detrimental to public health as a whole.

So,

If it is the kid's exposure to some agent that causes autism, what else can we look closer at? I think that food may once again play a key part. Is there something new in baby food, or is it coming through breast milk? Lead and mercury has been shown to cause birth defects and developmental disorders. Is this an issue? Dioxin and PCBs are accumulating in human tissue higher than ever before as well. Are they a risk factor? 

In conclusion...

Though it's hard to say for sure, I think that instead of just raising awareness about autism and blaming the issue on genetics we need to take a closer look at the why. We need further research. Only then will we be able to reverse the current trend.

If you really want to further your understanding of how the environment drastically effects human health, I highly recommend Our Global Environment by Anne Nadakavukaren. You can pick it up on Amazon for around $25 at the moment, and it does an excellent job of explaining not only the importance of public health, but ways to take care of yourself as well as your planet. It's not an easy read, but it is fascinating. Check it out.