Thursday, April 10, 2025

Causes of Autism

 A very good summary from the Wall Street Journal last month. The writer is quick to apologise "we don't know," but then shows what we do know (it's not vaccines or thimerosol), and how far we have narrowed the field in what does cause it. She suspects that not having a definite "this causes autism" to point to is part of why the vaccine idea won't die.

There remain few nominees from the environment having more than marginal effect. The strongest predictors are still genetic and early intrauterine effects. The correlation with age of mother and especially age of father at conception has a highly plausible explanation tied to changes in sperm and eggs over time.  It is possible to call that an environmental or epigenetic effect depending on definitions.

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