One of the most dangerous things about the Internet is being able to research a certain topic, create a blog post about it and those who haven’t really done much research on the issue believe that the person is an expert not an amateur stating their misinformed beliefs. There’s been an article circulating around since late February in which a mother who has a child with autism blames herself and lists nine reasons on how she gave it to her son.
She states “I am admitting here for all the world to see: I gave my son autism. I did it. Me. And no one can ever take that away.”
Before getting to that point her claims is “I’m pretty sure that I will never forgive myself, for my transgressionsare embodied in a beautiful seven-year-old who tells me daily that I am ‘the best Mom in the universe.’ I know the truth. And someday, so will he. All of these ‘unforgivable’ actions were done with the best of intentions, but we all know what they say about “good intentions” and “the road to hell.”
Now what is her rationality for jumping to this conclusion? Ultrasounds, high-fructose corn syrup, Lortab-Acetaminophen, Pitocin, C-Section, antibiotics, vaccines, Acetaminophen-Paracetamol and Flouride.
After looking at a couple of the most recent articles that relate ultrasounds to autism the studies and used Lancet a study from 1993. Interestingly in 2004 the final report indicated that “there were no significant differences indicating deleterious effects of multiple ultrasound studies at any age as measured by standard tests of childhood speech, language, behavior, and neurological development.”
Pasko Rakic a researcher from Yale found in mice that ultrasounds do have an effect on the brain of the developing fetus. Yet, it was continuously for over 30 minutes and over the last three days of gestation he would subject the mouse to anywhere from five minutes to seven hours. He even said “It would be very wrong if women stopped having medically indicated ultrasounds because of this. Our study in mice does not mean that use of ultrasound on human fetuses for appropriate diagnostic and medical purposes should be abandoned.”
Typing in high-fructose corn syrup and autism will get an article that an editor felt the need to admit a mistake in the way the article got published. In it Scott Rosenberg stated “some furors are healthy. As an editor I’m always happy when work that I publish gets people to consider new ideas and information that challenges their assumptions. But some furors are more like, ‘guys, you messed up.’ I’m afraid that from where I sit this was one of the latter kind.”
He also went on to say “in drawing attention to the HFCS study without adequately evaluating it, we steered right into some very treacherous waters, and we should have known better. In the public discussion of the causes of autism, there is a decade-long record of bad science being promoted by opportunistic or gullible media coverage.”
As for the Lortab and Acetamiophen argument even in the post she makes the claim “I couldn’t find any specific links between Lortab and autism, but common sense dictates that this was not good.” Common sense actually means not making false assumptions. The drug itself is habit-forming so if it’s necessary to take during the pregnancy once the baby is born it will be physically dependent on the opiods.
Pitocin is a drug that gets used to induce labor. Lead author of this study from Duke University Dr. Simon Gregory stated “these studies produced conflicting results and consisted of a relatively small number of subjects.” An article from Age of Autism believes that this is just another scare tactic and three ways to look at how the information gets presented. One is by Wash, Rinse, Repeat, Regurgitate, Repeat, Regurgitate, second is regurgitate with new conclusion and deny, ignore, and never mention the biggest toxic exposure.
Back to Dr. Gregory’s study about inducing labor in it looked at children born between 1990-1998 and looked at their school records from 1997-2007. Exclude were children that included a diagnosis in addition to autism. More importantly his study according to Forbes “this study didn’t show that induction or augmentation during childbirth substantially increases the risk for autism, although it hints at a greater influence of socioeconomic status and by implication, healthcare access.
As for antibiotics HO Atladóttir published an exploratory study in November of 2012. He looked at children between the ages of eight to 14-years old in Denmark. Then looked at information regarding infection, febrile episodes and use of antibiotics.
His conclusion “our results do not suggest that mild infections, febrile episodes, or use of antibiotics during pregnancy are strong risk factors for ASD/infantile autism. The results may be due to multiple testing; the few positive findings are potential chance findings.
When it comes to vaccines this still somehow comes up. It’s been proven that getting a child vaccinated doesn’t cause autism. The original author of the study is a fraud and from day one got discredited by his peers.
In the blog post the mother stated “Of everything I did wrong, if I could have my pick of one thing to take back, it would be the shots. No question.” Unfortunately there are those who believe like this and have not gotten their children vaccinated and as a result there’s been outbreaks such as measles.
While acetaminophen/paracetamol are receiving studies on its use with children. It ignores one important aspect of autism it’s not a disease it didn’t magically appear when the child regardless of age took the medication. Meaning that no matter how hard the researchers attempt to study the medication there will be no direct link.
As for fluoride there’s no study out that has linked it to autism. In reality all this list is searching to place blame on something that this woman had no control over. From her decision to get ultrasounds to fluoride it’s trying to place blame on something that she had no control over and it’s a shame.
No matter how hard researchers look to find an answer and attempt to explain the mystery of autism and its exact cause. The simplest explanation the child was born with it and there wasn’t any external cause that contributed to the child getting diagnosed with it.
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