An Army buddy posted something on her FB page that grabbed my attention earlier tonight. It was a story about a study claiming pregnant women on Anti-depressants are 87% more likely to have an autistic child. You can read the actual study here.
Being a Mad Scientist of sorts (and natural Bullshit detector), I have a few concerns with what I just read in this article...
1.) "certain socio-economic factors such as being exposed to poverty" is one of their 'factors' with known links to autism? Since when do economics have ANYTHING at all to do with a most-likely genetic issue? Can someone explain that to me? It seems like a pretty strange thing to associate with pre-natal health. (Please note that I am NOT a medical doctor and my knowledge of medicine is severely limited compared to other sciences like Physics.)
2.) "The rise in autism can also be explained by the increased detection and widening of the diagnostic criteria over the past decade."
BINGO!!! They've found the (all too obvious) answer! Autism has always been part of the Human genome in one way or another. Society just didn't notice any of them except for the severely autistic people they used to simply label as 'retarded'. You can also attribute that change in diagnostic criteria to the seeming 'rise' in autism rates. It is NOT caused by a vaccine. I don't care what a C-list celebrity like Jenny McCarthy says.
3.) "Each study is observational because randomized controlled trials are not ethically possible during pregnancy. Hence, each study is describing an association."
I saw this coming from a mile away. Human trials are pretty dangerous and highly regulated by government for a good reason. (i.e. the Tuskegee experiments.) Observation alone does not usually answer these kind of scientific questions. There will have to be some kind of experiment sooner or later... How someone would conduct such an experiment though, is currently beyond me. I doubt this is a type of medical experiment that could be conducted on laboratory mice. Although, autism experiments on lab mice might explain Pinky from Pinky and the Brain. Narf! :P
- Lord Publius
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