possible cause of autism?

Earlier this year RFK Jr. pledged to find the cause of Autism by September (BBC). I guess time is running out, so fingers are being pointed.

As Martin  has explained, even if there is something to this, it is not "the cause", just maybe "a cause" and a niche one at that.

Still, this is the post truth era, so watch this space over the next few weeks.

Dear Online Community users

Thank you for engaging critically with the study shared in this post. We value open dialogue, but we also recognise the need to provide accurate information and context, especially on sensitive topics such as the causes of autism. As a reminder here is a link to our guidance on the causes of autism: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism/the-causes-of-autism

Kind regards,

Sharon Mod

It is worrying, but then people are discouraged from questioning and challenging, at best you get shushed at worst you end up talking to the police and if you question them arrested. You get mocked for asking for music in shops to be turned down because "everybody likes it". You can be kicked out of restaurants for asking if they have veggie, vegan and dairy free foods, or just laughed at and mocked, others join in too. It seems to take increasingly more courage to question things, people have lost the ability to agree to disagree.

DormouseAtRest_25 said:

I note that this study: is sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services; whose Secretary is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

I did a big more digging in the article to see if I could find much evidence of it being influenced by the current regieme.

1 - all articles they have compiled as part of the research pre-date the current Trump administration.

2 - Research started on Feb 2nd but Kennedy only took the position on the 13th of Feb. Most of the work will have been done before he even got there.

3 - the National Institute of Health has funded a massive number of project before and since this one. This funding in itself is no indication that it was intended to give a desired outcome.

4 - the first sentence of the conclusion says:

Our analysis demonstrated evidence consistent with an association between exposure to acetaminophen during pregnancy and offspring with NDDs... preclude definitive causation.

They say there is no definitive cause, just that the evidence deserves more study because the facts point that way. They even suggest to carry on using the drug, just to use the minimum amount to be safe.

I don't see this report having any hallmarks of an agenda or misinformation as some have suggested or stated here.

Critical thinking is the process of analyzing available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to make sound conclusions or informed choices.

I recommend using this for further discussion.

Lotus said:

Paracetamol was not available in UK without a prescription until 1988

Who knew, sister?!  That is so cool to know!!  Thank you.........and yet......even as I type this response to you.......that weird "memory bank deposit" at the back of my mind is starting to fire!!!!?  I now think that I did know....but had just forgotten = not rare with me.....AT ALL!!

It's worrying how little people question stuff.

Not all of us follow infuencers and other social media stuff, some of still rely on proper journalists and journalism, the so called legacy media, which from what I've seen is still much better by far, especially when attempts are made to be impartial.

I don't think this country does to well at teaching critical thinking, or how to research. When we allowed to do "projects" as part of course work and were encouraged to go and look at books I think we all did far better and enjoyed it more, by that sort of thing fell by the wayside in various "reforms" that tried to prop up the exam system.

I can't just say it happens in state schools either, I was shocked when talking to privately educated fellow students, who had so much spoon fed to them by tutors that although they might have had good exam results, didn't seem to have actually learned much.

TheCatWoman said:

I think a lot of it comes from bad journalism

We don't really have much journalism any more. Most of this is from "influencers" of some shape of form who lack any training or credentials but know how to say things that appeal to their echo chamber audiences.

TheCatWoman said:

I don't think most people know how to research, it's not really taught in schools, nor is critical thinking

From what I see is happening in the USA, critical thinking is being actively discouraged in schools and history is being rewritten to match the agendas of the party in power.

Other countries right leaning parties are seeing the success there and are considering if they can achieve the same in their countries.

I think a lot of it comes from bad journalism, in the silly season, ie now in summer theres often not a lot of politics to report so journalists go looking for things to cause a flap and ND being topical it's an easy target for misinformation. Then there's the people who only get their news from social media so they see all sorts of rubbish and believe it because they "like" the person peddling it.

I don't think most people know how to research, it's not really taught in schools, nor is critical thinking, people mistake critical thinking for criticising and being dismissive or rude. With the absense of any ability to know how to sift facts, how to ask questions of questions, or that it's often not a case of being right or wrong, that a theory isn't a fact, it's an idea that without further research may or maynot be true, then how do people gain the knowlege?

Expecto_Patronum said:

the fact it can be circulated to the general public will forever be a problem.

The public is probably where the problem lies - not just in medicine but so many other aspects of life.

If only people would research something before using it as a principle / guide / proof then we would be a much smarter and hopefully wiser population.

It is no surprise to see that in the USA the government are taking so many steps to stop people getting an advanced education and are tainting the cirriculum of schools to teach more of their ideology.

The dumber the people, the more easily they can be persuaded and controlled.

That's fair enough and as I say I definitely don't think spreading misinformation would be your intention but perhaps a little more in what you've written to show that it is one study in very early days and not something to be taken as fact could help.

Honestly, I don't know the answer to controlling research. There is an issue that if it is restricted too much other scientists can't read it and carry out their own research to further evidence or debunk it completely. But the fact it can be circulated to the general public will forever be a problem.

Expecto_Patronum said:

I think you underestimate some people's ability to jump on something without knowing all the facts.

I've had more exposure to this recently than you may imagine LOL

All these points are valid, but if we are to consider any sort of cancelling of research because it says things we don't agree with then that opens a Pandoras box of restricting medical science.

How would you propose we control what research is published to avoid the articles you talk about being released?

Unfortunately, people don't tend to pay much attention to cautionary sentences. The vaccine was retracted 15 years ago. There have been plenty of medical professionals that have said there was no truth in it. There are still enough people that believe it as absolute truth that they are not vaccinating their kids to the point that there our outbreaks of diseases like measles that had at one point become rare. 

Most people wouldn't even bother to read the article/paper. They read the title. Then you get someone saying did you know that paracetamol causes autism. Next you've got a whole load of people refusing to take paracetamol.

To undo the damage that these things can do is far more difficult than spreading it in the first place.

I'm very confident that would never be your intention. But I think you underestimate some people's ability to jump on something without knowing all the facts.

Expecto_Patronum said:

Care has to be taken when it comes to matters such as this that theory isn't spread as fact and that another false cause of autism does't cause fear and more stigma.

Iain said:

It does emphasise that this is a very early stage connection and may only be contributory so it is wise not to jump to conclusions.

Does that come close enough?

I'm not saying this is misinformation. But I'd always be wary of one paper that suggests something like this. The original paper (that has caused many children to continue to go unvaccinated) which linked vaccines and autism was published in the Lancet - a prestigious medical journal. It turned out the paper was highly flawed. But many had accepted it simply because it was in the Lancet. It took 12 years for it to be fully retracted and the impacts of that paper are still very much evident today. Care has to be taken when it comes to matters such as this that theory isn't spread as fact and that another false cause of autism does't cause fear and more stigma.

VLD said:

Please don't spread these rumours

That is a bit harsh. It is an article published in a respected medical journal for peer review and seems to follow all due scientific process.

As the discussion below points out the compound in question has only been about for bout 50 years so it cannot be the root cause, but if it is a contributing factor then it is absolutely worth researching.

VLD said:

You don't know how incredibly harmful this sort of misinformation can be.

Can you back up this claim that it is misinformation?

I'm not seeing any of the hallmarks of it in the article.

For full disclosure I am not a medical professional or active researcher in this field. Can you disclose your credentials for your response please?

Please don't spread these rumours. You don't know how incredibly harmful this sort of misinformation can be. 

I'm always a bit sceptical of these things and would need to see a lot more research/evidence before I even entertained the idea of taking this as any kind of fact.

To your last point - this actually concerns me that there is so much research being done on the causes of autism because the next step that will happen in my mind once they've figured it out is how do we prevent it. And once you start trying to prevent it the stigma increases even more.

Now this is a complex issue for me. There are things in the world that I find so difficult and have seen other autistic people struggle with, do I want to knowingly increase the "risk" of bringing another neurodivergent person into the world. I may be doing that with my genetics alone if I ever have kids. But I also think neurodivergent people can be completely wonderful and I think the world needs neurodivergency. It needs people that can think differently, that don't blindly follow what everybody else says the trends and the norms are. And I really dislike the prospect that one day people will be able to take measures to ensure they do not have a neurodivergent child.

DormouseAtRest_25 said:

I note that this study: is sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services; whose Secretary is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Not the best of credentials unfortunately.

I'm just the messanger, don't deport me please...

I note that this study: is sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services; whose Secretary is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.