Can We Blame Rain for the Autistic Brain?
In a study to be released today in November's Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Cornell University economist Michael Waldman found that in areas of California, Oregon and Washington that experienced high levels of rain and snowfall during the years 1987-2001, autism rates among school-aged children rose when measured in 2005. Those children diagnosed with autism would have been under 3 during the periods of high precipitation, the period during which autism is generally diagnosed.Waldman doesn't actually suggest that rain causes autism. Instead, his theory is that, by keeping kids indoors too much, we subject them to a million and one possible environmental toxins (including too much TV). One of these, surely, could be the cause of autism.
Indeed, it is possible to find a statistical link between rain and autism. It's also possible to link ANYthing new or newly prevalent to autism. Make a list of everything that has changed or increased in prevalence since 1992, and you will find a statistical link between that thing and the rise of autism diagnoses. More office cubicles. More items manufactured in China. More cell phones, computers, headsets, digital cameras, MRIs, ultrasounds, anti-depressants, video games, pokemon characters, TV channels, midi files, organic fibers, genetically engineered corn, bioterror attacks, older adults... you name it.
The point here is simple. Statistical associations can be useful tools - but they are also a terrific way to create FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), particularly among a group of people who are already on edge. Be careful, as you read headlines like those in the LA Times (Link found between autism and rainfall) that you separate out actual causal evidence from mathematical boondoggles.
Comments
I think this study was done in California, there around. What I find interesting in this study is, before my infant/ toddler was known to have autism, we did not spend a whole lot of time outside anyway. My neightbors have 3 young kids, the youngest being 7 mths today, then 2 and 4. They aren’t outside all that much either. And winter, forget going outside!
What one has to do is live their lives making the best choices that they can, cross fingers and toes and know if your child does end up with autism, there’s great support out there.
Rain, Autism, and Mercury
By David Kirby
Huffington Post
A new study out of Cornell University says that children growing up in the rainiest or snowiest areas of the country seem to have a higher risk for autism than children living in drier climates.
The authors estimated that removing precipitation as a factor in autism would slice the prevalence of the disorder by 33% to 43%.
Among the possible explanations given were: A lack of vitamin D from a sun-deprived life under the clouds, an increased amount of time spent indoors amid toxic household chemicals, or the presence of dangerous neurotoxins in the precipitation itself, which in turn might trigger a genetic predisposition to ASD.
One of the most omnipresent, growing (and obvious) air-borne neurotoxins in the world to consider, of course, is mercury.
For a number of years, I have questioned whether rising levels of mercury from coal-fired power plants and other sources might be contributing to the overall body burden of heavy metals in pregnant women and infants in North America and elsewhere.
This “background” mercury, combined with mercury from maternal seafood consumption, dental amalgams, the vaccine preservative thimerosal, and other sources, might combine and accumulate in the systems of genetically susceptible infants and fetuses, resulting in autism, I have speculated.
It is not clear how mercury fallout onto land and surface water can cause higher levels of inorganic mercury in the bloodstreams of humans. But a recent study of federal data showed that the percentage of Americans with detectable levels of inorganic mercury in their blood increased eightfold between 2000 and 2004.
These are the same years that we see burgeoning levels of mercury being spewed into the atmosphere from industrializing areas of the world, particularly in China and other Asian countries.
The US Government has detected “mercury plumes” that carry the dangerous neurotoxin in great quantities across the Pacific and, within five days, found them hovering just offshore of San Diego, California.
At a recent vaccine forum at Hackensack University Medical Center, in New Jersey, I made this observation, and mentioned that the mercury carried aloft through the atmosphere will come down in the form of rain along the west coast or, during drier periods, continue eastward until it finds wetter, rainier parts of the country, where it is washed to the ground.
The evidence to show that rainy weather leads to increased mercury deposition on the ground is ample. In fact, scientists use rainfall as a measure to estimate mercury deposition in the environment.
One study from the University of Central Florida, showed that 80% of the atmospheric mercury fallout in Florida occurs during the rainy season. In fact, the average amount of mercury deposited on the ground per square meter, per week, was three times higher in the wet season (600 nanograms) than the dry season (200 nanograms).
There is likewise evidence to suggest that higher levels of background mercury are linked to a greater risk of autism. Two peer-reviewed studies from the University of Texas have suggested an increased risk of autism associated with physical proximity to mercury-emitting coal-fired powered plants and other industrial facilities.
A third study, funded by the CDC and published in the NIH journal Environmental Health Perspectives, showed that children born in the most polluted tracts of the San Francisco Bay Area (heavy metals like mercury carried the highest risk) were 50% more likely to develop autism.
“Our results suggest a potential association between autism and estimated metal concentrations in ambient air around the birth residence,” concluded the government-sponsored study, (which was essentially ignored by the media).
Suddenly, the “Mercury Rain” hypothesis starts to make a little more sense. Not that coal from China could cause autism directly, but prenatal mercury exposures might make children more susceptible to other environmental triggers, including vaccine ingredients.
Richard Lathe, an autism expert from Pieta Research in Edinburgh, Scotland, told the Washington Post that the new study’s findings almost certainly implicate rainfall, at the least.
“Statistical correlations do not necessarily imply causality,” he said, but added, “the authors demonstrate, with better than 99 percent certainty, that the correlation is not by chance.”
Lathe believes the most likely explanation, “is that rain carries chemicals in the atmosphere to the ground.” He said that, “Emissions from manufacturing industries, power plants (ie, coal), and from domestic waste incineration generally rise to the troposphere to be diluted into the large volume of the atmosphere. Precipitation can dump this load back on the land, to be absorbed by plants and animals in the food chain.”
And, Lathe noted, “There has been a suggestion that maternal exposure to environmental toxins might contribute to autism in children,” he said.
I am not the only one to suggest that ALL mercury exposures – both environmental and vaccine-related – must be taken into account when trying to asses the risk of mercury and autism.
In my book, Evidence of Harm, I noted that Dr. Neal Halsey, director of the Vaccine Safety Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a vaccine authority, said in 1999 that, “Mercury accumulated in women is transferred to their children prenatally and in breast milk.” Subsequent exposures from other sources, “including biologic products, (ie, vaccines), are presumed to be additive to their baseline body loads.”
And in 2006, a special panel of the NIH wrote that background mercury exposures must be taken into account when assessing the risk of autism and thimerosal.
“Panel members expressed a concern that thimerosal dose, administered through a series of vaccinations, may provide a poor surrogate measure of the cumulative exposure of a child to organic mercurials. Exposures through diet or other environmental sources would not be documented reliably,” the NIH panel wrote.
Can rain cause autism? Of course not. But could it pull mercury down from the skies – mercury carried aloft from far away countries across the seas – and affect unborn and newborn children to the point of making them more vulnerable to autistic regression?
This new study makes one thing fairly clear to me: Autism is not a purely genetic disorder. Our changing, endangered, dirty environment is playing a role.
Actually, Mr. Kirby, can rain cause autism wasn’t the question in the study, it was the TV. If all the young kids were in doors watching TV, then that TV protected kids from your mercury rain.
This of course wasn’t a mercury topic and I don’t generally scroll to the Huffington Post. Very thoughtful of you to share your article here for those who do not care to scroll over there.
Actually, I find Mr. Kirby’s insight/article extremely relevant. Please note the title, “Can we blame RAIN for the autistic brain?” While the articles coming out today do focus on tv, there is also speculation within the news that it could be due to a lack of Vit D or to an increase in mercury levels both outside and INSIDE the home. I appreciated Mr. Kirby’s foray into the mercury aspect of it as it broadened my perspective and knowledge base. At the end of the day, and as has been mentioned, no one really knows what causes autism, but as a concerned parent, and echoing your sentiments Sandy, I am going to do my best to eliminate or control whatever I can (which will probably not be much at all) to ensure that my newborns are given every opportunity to grow up healthy and happy.
One possibility: mold.
My point was that, sure, rain can pull down mercury. It can cause mold. It can keep kids inside, watching TV. It can increase pollen count, create more opportunities for mosquitoes to breed, overflow sewers and drains releasing raw sewage, and it can increase humidity. It can decrease the amount of vitamin D you receive through sunshine, and it can decrease the amount of ultraviolet radiation you receive. It can a great many things.
To jump to the conclusion that rainy weather in Northern California and Washington is somehow responsible for autism, though, seems to be making a vast logical leap.
What about the fact that, during the 1990s, Northern California and Seattle were meccas for computer geeks – many of whom are likely to have Aspergers-like symptoms? Is it conceivably possible that (as per a well-known article in Wired Magazine) the rise in rates of autism is actually a matter of genetics and NOT environment?
All of these theories COULD be correct. Or none. It’s fun to speculate – but that’s all any of us (D. Kirby included) are doing. We are speculating.
Lisa (autism guide)
Give me a break. Someone needs to lock this kook up. Why are we spending time and resources pointing people away from more realistic causes of autism.
If it is genetics, why are my son’s both affected so differently? I definitely think genetics do play some type of a role, maybe the inability to rid toxins, a weak immune system/autoimmune disease, I don’t know of course; aren’t we all speculating in hopes of a known cause.
Thank you Mr. Kirby for your in depth insight and facts on this subject of environmental contributions to autism. As we continue to pollute our environment with toxins without shame; we our polluting ourselves and our children.
I found the reasoning of keeping children inside and more TV absolutely absurd. My son who is severely affected by autism had an aversive reaction when being taken out of the light into the dark while still being in the hospital after he was born. He was also exposed to the varicella virus while in utero by me contracting shingles after my eldest son received a chickenpox vaccination. More speculation.
I’d like to ask how many times would everyone have taken their children to the doctor if it weren’t for well visits/vaccination visits. Honestly, when my children were infants I didn’t take my stay at home children any other times than well visits/vaccination visits. Autism (a developmental disorder) was not even detected, questioned, or mentioned at these well visit checkups. Remind you, I have a son who is severely affected. Don’t get me wrong in my opinion I think the discovery of immunizations under the “like cures like” philosophy was wonderful; I just think it became capitalized.
P.S. Unfortunately, there is more going on with these children than autistic brains.