Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to I tend to put the link with illicit drug use, not vaccines.

Legal drugs have been a bigger problem.
Mary Anne — (archived)

The increase in autism diagnosis is likely connected to a more subtle understanding of neurology and of psychology, both physiological and behavioral.

We've gotten more specific in our ability to identify different types of syndromes. My grandfather died of complications of some form of dementia. At the time, doctors diagnosed him as suffering from arteriosclorosis, which they said cut off blood supply to his brain, but his behavior was much more in line with the symptoms of what we know now (but didn't know then) as Alzheimer's. People born deaf were routinely identified as retarded, and placed in institutions, unless their parents had the intelligence to detect the deafness or the money to hire someone who could. Diagnostic skills have been refined since then. Many ailments used to be lumped under large-tent, all-purpose diagnoses when an acute cause either wasn't or couldn't be identified.

If your theory is correct, then people my children's age (I'm a Boomer) should be more afflicted by autism, but that's not where the diagnosis increase has come.

It's quite possible that autism has been around for centuries, but merely called by other names. Asperger's, in particular, an autism in the high end of intelligence and performance spectra, has probably been identified as "eccentricity", for which the eccentric was either ostracized or accepted depending on the individual's culture.

Certain mental and physical illnesses among children are identified with maternal drug abuse: specifically, tobacco, alcohol and crack cocaine. Please notice that abuse, not use, in serious amounts over an extended period during the actual pregnancy is the clinical indicator. A glass of wine or a beer at dinner doesn't cause mental retardation. Cigarette use is tied to low birth weight and premature birth, which cause other problems. Crack cocaine is itself so addictive that one can't really be a casual or occasional user.

The big problem with the theory that parental drug use causes autism is that many children develop symptoms for no reason that can be identified with confidence. Tying autism in children to drug use among parents would have to be proven absolutely. Anything less would blame the parents for an outcome that may be hereditary, environmental, or having to do with an accident at birth, creating a punative social attitude toward families that already have problems.

Consider two other things prevalent in America -- tuna fish, a favorite childhood food with high average mercury levels (if mercury is indeed the culprit), and television, with its behavioral effects on socialization and attention span. I think that, if autism is actually on the rise rather than merely identified more often, we might look for its cause elsewhere.

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