Autism linked to second-trimester fetal brain development

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This just proves how dangerous thiomersal is – it can travel through time.

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Eh? How so?

I mean, it’d be one thing if they claimed autism was present long before conception… :stuck_out_tongue:

It was a joke, son.

I’m aware, I just like my jokes to be internally consistent.

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This is an interesting bit of news. That will have absolutely ZERO effect on the anti-vaxxer movement, of course.

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Internally, huh? snerk

Reminds me of a tween joke (the internal inconsistency is going to drive you nuts):

Two sperm were talking about what great memories they had. The first one said “I remember being all warm and floaty and then all of a sudden there was a long period of struggle followed by a bright light and screaming before I was wrapped in a blanket and put into my mother’s arms.” The second one said “that’s nothing…I remember going to a party with my dad and coming home with my mom.”

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Of course! Note how similar the name is to thiotimoline.

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{RECALCULATE}

{RECALCULATE}

Well, obviously vaccine poisoning skips generations!

DAMN you Jonas Salk!


SRSLY, while the whole mercury-poisoning-via-vaccine theory is and has been bullshit, and chelation therapies are hokum born of desperation, we can’t ignore the environmental contributions – including heavy metals – to messed-up brain development.

But how do you figure out the most problematical environmental contributors? And if we identify (say) the top three smoking guns, how do you get them out of the environment / products in the face of industries ready, willing, and able to deploy F.U.D. to defend their profits?

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Aha!

I’m not crazy, they were born this way!

Does that mean that we will now get a whole range of new and improved conspiracy theories?

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Well, it’s obviously caused by the vaccines that the MOTHERS have gotten.

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It’s due to pesticides and herbicides. A quote from an open-access journal:

"Using exposure estimates from a historical pesticide use database, a study of mothers living in the California Central Valley showed that children born to mothers who had been exposed to organochlorine (OC) insecticides that were agriculturally applied within 500 m of the home between gestational days (GD) 26 and 81 (during neural tube closure) were 7.6 times more likely to be diagnosed with ASD than the children of mothers who lived in the lowest exposure quartile. "

Here’s the link.

Eat organic, kids, at least if you’re are planning on having kids…

From the link:

Conclusions: In animal studies, we encourage more research on gene Ă— environment interactions, as well as experimental exposure to mixtures of compounds. Similarly, epidemiologic studies in humans with exceptionally high exposures can identify which pesticide classes are of greatest concern, and studies focused on gene Ă— environment are needed to determine if there are susceptible subpopulations at greater risk from pesticide exposures.

That’s not nearly as certain as you imply.

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naturally. there are genetic components as well. Often certain alleles of the P450 may or may not detoxify these chemical assaults. But the point is that the huge rise in autism and ASD correlates quite well with the increased used of pesticides.

LOTS of things correlate well to increased use of pesticides. Just like LOTS of things are correlated to the rise in autism.

Is it completely possible the pesticide exposure is involved? Sure, I suppose. But it is FAR from proven. Given how little we know about autism (including, one should point out, whether the symptoms we call autism represent a single thing or lots of different, similar things) and a very real ongoing debate over how much the rise in autism rates can be attributed to an actual increase in cases vs. an increase in diagnoses and awareness … well, frankly, I think it’s pretty shortsighted to decide you have found THE answer in one paper.

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Thanks for sharing your opinions. I speak with some authority though
having a Ph.D. in chemistry and having worked in process chemistry making.
… You guessed it herbicides. The evidence is actually pretty strong.
Read the paper I linked. Why the almost 700% increased in autism for women
in the central Valley but only in a certain period during fetal
development? Because the pesticides interfere at a very specific point in
fetal development when the neurons are differentiating. And there are
dozens of papers making this connection. I linked the one that is open
access.
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It’s likely to be an oversimplification, because there are documented cases of what we’d now call autism from the 1700’s and 1800’s - people were autistic long before organophosphate or organochlorine pesticides were in wide use.

My pet (groundless) theory: Genes that improve brain function are like aces in a pack of cards - you’re better off holding some of the genes than none, but the rules of the game mean if you get dealt a hand containing all four aces, you become susceptible to develop autism, or schizophrenia, or some other undesirable condition - most people in the population gain a benefit from holding a subset of the genes responsible, so the conditions have not been bred out of the population.

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It seems to link living in these areas, not just ingesting foods grown with pesticides. People seem to eat fruit and vegetables wherever they are, but perhaps this is about a geographic connection, rather than just consumed food.

People in my area are really enthusiastic about eating organic food, and we have a pretty high rate of autism in the Santa Clara Valley. Doesn’t seem to be much about ingestion, in my opinion.

With my degree in nuclear physics, imagine how much more qualified I must be to speak on developmental neuropsychology!

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