I seriously doubt that Tylenol is responsible for the increased number of diagnoses of autism. I do think it would be interesting to know if there were a correlation between maternal headaches during pregnancy and autism in their children. That would probably be quite difficult to determine.
As I’ve written multiple times here I think that autism is multi-factorial, i.e. it doesn’t have just one cause, and I suspect that the increase in diagnosed cases has more to do with how and why it’s being diagnosed than any factor in the environment.
If pressed I would list genetic factors, selective breeding, and, broadly, environmental factors including chemicals in the food we eat and beverages we drink, the air we breath, the things we touch, and in the soil, and social factors like early childhood upbringing. It’s a complicated subject and I don’t believe there’s any “magic bullet” solution to it.
It’s mostly a change in how we diagnose. We have always had kids who cause trouble in school or dont do well there. They got kicked out or sent to special classes. Now you can give them a diagnosis, a treatment plan and meds. While the rate of autism diagnosis has increased high school graduation rates have increased so maybe it’s not such a bad thing.
On tylenol, there are a few studies that show a mild association but it’s clouded by not knowing why they were taking tylenol. To date, the largest and generally thought to best quality study showed no association.
Steve
Its interesting; in recent years, several observation studies have pointed towards a small association (note this is not causation) between Tylenol and autism. This is a pretty objective statement of what is known (https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/what-the-research-says-about-autism-and-tylenol-use-during-pregnancy/).
The key part is its an association (if there is one), so it may mean there’s a common cause that tends to increase risk for autism in pregnancy and drives a need pain for relief; that autism in pregnancy causes a higher need for pain relief or finally addressing pain relief via Tylenol can increase the risk from autism in pregnancy.
The uncomfortable truth is there is an addressable risk for autism; parental age (having kids after 40 increases the risk more then 2X vs having them before 30), but its lot easier to talk about “Tylenol” or “vaccines” then to address that.
Kind of something seeing the anti-vaccine groups melting down because autism isn’t being blamed on vaccines (if its true).
Real problem is a dizzying array of disinformation leading to a loss of trust.
The worst offender in my eyes may be Facebook, accepting ads from charlatans promising to cure COPD in a week with their pills, free dental implants just fill out the form, give us your info, that’s our real product. I thought at one time there were truth in advertising laws but ?.
Find a way to restore public confidence.
You’ll solve this problem.
Are we sure that autism is not being over diagnosed? Like ADHD?
I have a daughter with autism, and I will say up front that I don’t know what causes autism. A couple things I do believe:
1) Autism is more likely to be diagnosed than in the past (better and sometimes overdiagnosis).
2) Real autism rates have increased significantly. It’s not just a diagnosis thing. I see this among my daughter’s friends compared to my childhood friends.
The cause of something like this is really tough to identify. Some of the factors to look at are really tough to control against. For example, something like tetraethyl lead in the 1970’s could still impact people long after it is removed from gasoline (I don’t think TEL is the cause of autism, but it shows why determining cause/effect is so difficult). If TEL affects egg development in a fetus of a girl, the impact may be on the children of the baby being delivered (decades of delay from cause and effect). Are there other chemicals affecting this?
It can also be other factors we don’t think about. I seriously wonder about the lighting – specifically fluorescent and flashing lights. One DoD program looked at ways to incapacitate groups of people with flashing lights. About 1/3 people could be limited by flashing lights. For me and my daughter, fluorescent lights are the devil. There is a flicker pattern that normal people don’t see, but it hammers us. In 2001, I moved from a house with incandescent lights to fluorescent lights. Shortly thereafter, I started developing ocular migraines. They also trigger migraines in my daughter. I say this as a potential cause as the highest autism rates are in Singapore, South Korea and Japan where bright lights and electronics are everywhere. Among Amish communities, this type of lighting is almost non-existent, as is autism. I have no idea if this is the cause, but I wonder.
I hope we are able to find the root cause, but politics will make it more difficult for real science to occur.