NYT: Do Toxins Cause Autism?
Please comment on this article by Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times. Nevermind, an astute reader just told us NYT closed the comments at 192. Tell your friends to comment here at AoA.
Do Toxins Cause Autism?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 24, 2010
Autism was first identified in 1943 in an obscure medical journal. Since then it has become a frighteningly common affliction, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting recently that autism disorders now affect almost 1 percent of children.
Over recent decades, other development disorders also appear to have proliferated, along with certain cancers in children and adults. Why? No one knows for certain. And despite their financial and human cost, they presumably won’t be discussed much at Thursday’s White House summit on health care.
Yet they constitute a huge national health burden, and suspicions are growing that one culprit may be chemicals in the environment. An article in a forthcoming issue of a peer-reviewed medical journal, Current Opinion in Pediatrics, just posted online, makes this explicit.
The article cites “historically important, proof-of-concept studies that specifically link autism to environmental exposures experienced prenatally.” It adds that the “likelihood is high” that many chemicals “have potential to cause injury to the developing brain and to produce neurodevelopmental disorders.”
The author is not a granola-munching crank but Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, professor of pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and chairman of the school’s department of preventive medicine. While his article is full of cautionary language, Dr. Landrigan told me that he is increasingly confident that autism and other ailments are, in part, the result of the impact of environmental chemicals on the brain as it is being formed.
“The crux of this is brain development,” he said. “If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime.”
Concern about toxins in the environment used to be a fringe view. But alarm has moved into the medical mainstream. Toxicologists, endocrinologists and oncologists seem to be the most concerned.
One uncertainty is to what extent the reported increases in autism simply reflect a more common diagnosis of what might previously have been called mental retardation. There are genetic components to autism (identical twins are more likely to share autism than fraternal twins), but genetics explains only about one-quarter of autism cases.
Suspicions of toxins arise partly because studies have found that disproportionate shares of children develop autism after they are exposed in the womb to medications such as thalidomide (a sedative), misoprostol (ulcer medicine) and valproic acid (anticonvulsant). Of children born to women who took valproic acid early in pregnancy, 11 percent were autistic. In each case, fetuses seem most vulnerable to these drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy, sometimes just a few weeks after conception.
So as we try to improve our health care, it’s also prudent to curb the risks from the chemicals that envelop us. Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is drafting much-needed legislation that would strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act. It is moving ahead despite his own recent cancer diagnosis, and it can be considered as an element of health reform. Senator Lautenberg says that under existing law, of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200. “Our children have become test subjects,” he noted.
One peer-reviewed study published this year in Environmental Health Perspectives gave a hint of the risks. Researchers measured the levels of suspect chemicals called phthalates in the urine of pregnant women. Among women with higher levels of certain phthalates (those commonly found in fragrances, shampoos, cosmetics and nail polishes), their children years later were more likely to display disruptive behavior.
Frankly, these are difficult issues for journalists to write about. Evidence is technical, fragmentary and conflicting, and there’s a danger of sensationalizing risks. Publicity about fears that vaccinations cause autism — a theory that has now been discredited — perhaps had the catastrophic consequence of lowering vaccination rates in America.
On the other hand, in the case of great health dangers of modern times — mercury, lead, tobacco, asbestos — journalists were too slow to blow the whistle. In public health, we in the press have more often been lap dogs than watchdogs.
At a time when many Americans still use plastic containers to microwave food, in ways that make toxicologists blanch, we need accelerated research, regulation and consumer protection.
“There are diseases that are increasing in the population that we have no known cause for,” said Alan M. Goldberg, a professor of toxicology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. “Breast cancer, prostate cancer, autism are three examples. The potential is for these diseases to be on the rise because of chemicals in the environment.”
The precautionary principle suggests that we should be wary of personal products like fragrances unless they are marked phthalate-free. And it makes sense — particularly for children and pregnant women — to avoid most plastics marked at the bottom as 3, 6 and 7 because they are the ones associated with potentially harmful toxins.
To Radhika, You merely need to talk to anyone in primary schools, nursery schools, and those who work in the special sections and those who work in the schools for autistic kids, to know that there was a huge explosion in cases of autism, starting - to be more accurate - in 02 to 03. Autism, prior to those years was found among the Indian communities who eat a lot of fish and was virtually unheard of among those who did not. In my nursery school, the first rare cases that we saw prior to year 2000 were in children who had travelled from abroad during the first 2-3 years of their lives, and had, no doubt received extra vaccines, close together, prior to travel. I am quite sure that if you interview people who run nursery schools in Delhi you will find a rate of one autistic child for every 30-40 students, as well as other kids who show some typical autistic symptoms but would not be diagnosed as autistic. My impression is that the situation is somewhat better in the smaller towns and it is somewhat better among children whose pediatricians have given them imported vaccines.
The answer to this situation is easy to see- Simply pick up a copy of the current vaccines schedule from any pediatrician and an insert from any hep B, or DPT vaccine by Serum Institute of India - 25 micrograms of ethylmercury via Thimerosal in every pediatric dose. Add the mercury in the fish, and you have the answer for the majority of autism cases in India. (But of course, the director of Serum Institute of India disagrees with me- according to him this is just "perceptions" )
There are also many other injections and vaccines given to babies, toddlers, and pregnant women that contain high levels of mercury, but for brevity I have not named them.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | February 26, 2010 at 10:38 PM
Just a point of clarification: nothing dramatic happened in India related to autism in the year 2000. Autism has been diagnosed (and reported in the academic literature) in India dating back to the 1950's and early 1960's.
Posted by: Radhika | February 26, 2010 at 06:37 PM
"This is the new Pharma PR strategy. Deflect criticism from vaccines with ubiquitous environmental toxins causing autism."
yes, yes - this is worth punching up again. It occurred to me last night as I drifted off to sleep that this article wasn't about environmental toxins at all! Its a new way to 'slip' in that vaccines definitively do not cause autism without addressing the issue. Bloody brilliant strategy.
Posted by: Sorsha | February 26, 2010 at 01:28 PM
I found this link to send Kristof an email:
http://www.nytimes.com/gst/emailus.html
HERE'S WHAT I SENT....
Dear Nicholas,
I'm sure you know that your NY Times piece asking the question, Do Toxins Cause Autism? has stirred up a lot of reaction. Personally,
I'm surprised it was even in the Times. The Times has long promoted the idea that all the autistic kids everywhere are merely the result
of better diagnosing by doctors and an expanded definition of the disorder. They love to tell us that autism is genetic.
Also published in the Times this month was the piece by Roy Grinker advising
us to celebrate all the autism awareness out there. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/opinion/10grinker.html He adamantly denies
that there's been any real increase in autism.
Your piece opened the door to the idea that genetically susceptible kids end up developing autism because of some environmental trigger.
You cite the writing of Dr. Philip J. Landrigan: 'The crux of this is brain development. If babies are exposed in the womb or shortly after birth to chemicals that interfere with brain development, the consequences last a lifetime.'
You name mercury as one of the "great health dangers of modern times."
You remind us that "journalists were too slow to blow the whistle" about the damage done by other toxic exposures.
You note that "of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200."
That said, I'd like comment on your quick dismissal of any dangerous side effects from vaccines, saying only that it's "a theory that has now been discredited."
The people most often responsible for telling us that vaccines don't cause autism are the folks that run the vaccine program. We continue to give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the last word on vaccine safety ignoring the fact that they have everything at stake in denying a link to serious side effects like autism. They always have the latest study proving vaccines are safe, but sadly, none of the journalists who report on them ever seem to look at any of them. If they did, they'd see that every one is conflicted by a web of ties to the vaccine makers. See the work of Julie Obradovic who has researched each of the fourteen studies: http://www.fourteenstudies.org/studies.html
I'd like to expand on your idea that a lot of dangerous toxins have never been tested and also that mercury is deadly. It should be pointed out that the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, was never tested or approved by the FDA, yet we're told it's safe to inject babies with levels of mercury far-exceeding EPA standards. Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company invented thimerosal and they said it was safe after testing it on 22 patients who were dying of meningitis. After the creation of the FDA, its use was simply continued.
For an excellent history of the use of mercury in vaccines, see David Kirby's best-selling book, Evidence of Harm: http://www.evidenceofharm.com/introduction.htm
Mercury hasn't been removed from childhood vaccines like the CDC often tells the public. See this report from ABC 7 in Detroit:
http://www.wxyz.com/content/news/investigators/story/Wilson-Some-Vaccines-Still-Contain-Mercury/2qKdWV73REiVLhJB8ztX_Q.cspx
Most frightening of all is the recommendation that pregnant women get the flu shot starting in 2004, despite the fact that this vaccine has never been tested on pregnant women .
See: http://www.mcs-america.org/SafeMindsAlertFluVaccinesWhatYouNeedtoKnow.pdf
Finally, I'm always in amazement over the fact that members of the media pretend that only parents claim that vaccines are linked to autism. Reporters neatly ignore the words of former head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Bernadine Healy on CBS News in 2008. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/12/cbsnews_investigates/main4086809.shtml She said the studies haven't been done to disprove a link to autism.
Former Chief Scientific Officer in the UK, Dr. Peter Fletcher was in the Daily Mail in 2006, saying that he'd seen mounting evidence from leading universities that the MMR vaccines is linked to bowel disease and autism. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-376203/Former-science-chief-MMR-fears-coming-true.html That should have gotten massive attention, but it didn't.
I was most interested in your comment, "In public health, we in the press have more often been lap dogs than watchdogs." That says it all when it comes to how one-sided and incompetent the press has been in covering the controversy over vaccines and autism.
I would welcome any response.
Sincerely,
Anne Dachel
Media editor: Age of Autism http://www.ageofautism.com/
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | February 26, 2010 at 12:10 PM
My memory may be faltering, but wasn't Dr. Andrew Levinson providing documentation of teflon in breastmilk -- one of a plethora of unwanted toxins present in large numbers of tested people -- several years ago at DAN! conferences? Where was the press then?
Posted by: Beanie | February 26, 2010 at 12:50 AM
Totally agree with you PAssion whatever. LOL...we set up the vaccine injury by oxidatively stressing the mom and child. This may explain why one child doens't get zonked with autism by vaccine and another goes relatively unscathed, barely...we must enlarge our minds....this is an obvious set up disease...by teh time a child has a vaccine with poisons injected into them, they have been exposed to fluoride water, sky high iron in their formula, toxins in their baby foods, or from their mothers breasts, ingested even gluten through mothers mlk if they are sensitive, soy crap, sugar, preservatives, MSG (that's another rant), and aspartame. Dioxins in their diapers, BPA in their baby bottles, mothers with low functioning thyroid glands due to all these toxins (which affects T3 in the brain which affects brain development), low vit D, low selenium, air pollution, mold in the home, cleaners, benzene in the gasoline, barium if you live next to an airport or flyway, viruses and bacteria from vectors like lyme, or from the parents vaccine series, and whala...you have a fully loaded gun, double barreled aimed at your child's CNS. Makes sense to me?
thanks for your comment.
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | February 26, 2010 at 12:23 AM
PD,
A pregnant mom reading this article might stop wearing perfume and nail polish, but will still shoot herself up with a mercury-laden flu shot.
And that's why we're not jumping for joy - not because we don't "get it" that synthetic chemicals are bad.
Posted by: pass the popcorn | February 25, 2010 at 11:02 PM
Gee, Toxins.... mmmmmm... ???
could a possible TOXIN BE MERCURY injected into toddlers with the damn CDC flu shots at 50 to 100 times what the EPA would allow...
....with a 1930's material that the FDA has never bothered to TEST to modern standards... that the CDC considers safe by analyzing vaccine data from bankrupt HMO's ????
a TOXIN banned for vaccines in many countries 20 years ago, who for some reason are not keeping up with the 36 shot, liability free, US vaccine program...
How did the NY Times think of this first ???
Posted by: cmo | February 25, 2010 at 10:56 PM
Sorry, but as another commenter pointed out - the pharmaceutical industry is the only industry that INJECTS environmental toxins into our bodies.
Posted by: A Mom | February 25, 2010 at 07:39 PM
Hello friends -
This isn't a mirage, and treating endocrine disrupters as subterfuge is deadly to your credibility. A lot of these chemicals are known to interferre with thyroid metabolism; and maternal hypothyroidism has already been shown to be associated with a variety of developmental disorders, including autism.
I'm not a believer in exhonerating vaccines, but if any part of a true increase in prevelance is real, it doesn't all have to be about vaccines. The different environment our children, and our mothers, are facing is far more nuanced.
These are the kinds of studies, and acknowledgements, that you should be jumping up and down with joy about; the realization that the sea of sythentic chemicals our infants are exposed to are dangerous. Armed with a wealth of data on the endocrine disrupting effects of these types of chemicals, the 'increase is greater awareness' argument falls to tatters.
This is good. Not bad.
- pD
Posted by: passionlessdrone | February 25, 2010 at 07:07 PM
Chemicals in the environment are surely a factor in autism, but that doesn't change the fact that unvaccinated kids have much lower rates of autism.
Posted by: Kristina | February 25, 2010 at 06:43 PM
"This is the new Pharma PR strategy. Deflect criticism from vaccines with ubiquitous environmental toxins causing autism."
It's subtle to point of being almost subliminal. We are a very sleepy society.
Posted by: Randy | February 25, 2010 at 05:06 PM
Here's how you can tell this is just a regurgitated Pharma press release:
"Publicity about fears that vaccinations cause autism — a theory that has now been discredited — perhaps had the catastrophic consequence of lowering vaccination rates in America."
I've seen several articles associating toxins with autism - in which very nearly this same line was included in the article.
This is the new Pharma PR strategy. Deflect criticism from vaccines with ubiquitous environmental toxins causing autism.
Pharma threw the Kathleen Seidels and Autism Divas under the bus with that one.
Whatever works.
Posted by: pass the popcorn | February 25, 2010 at 03:57 PM
Hey, guess what, VACCINES HAVE TOXINS IN THEM!
Posted by: Amber | February 25, 2010 at 03:31 PM
"of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200"
"Evidence is technical, fragmentary and conflicting"
“Our children have become test subjects”
"In public health, we in the press have more often been lap dogs than watchdogs"
Lemme see if I understand this - industry appears to be poisoning our kids, to what extent we don't know, gov't regulators are doing essentially nothing about it, and the media is either complicit or asleep. Kristof nails each point - but then closes his eyes and whacks his own thumb with the same hammer. I realize this article is more an indictment of the chemical industry, but it's also an indictment of government's (lax) oversight regarding the health of our kids. So the matter of fact statement to the effect that the autism - vaccine theory has "now been discredited" is crap in that same context. Is it such a stretch for a journalist to assume that maybe, just maybe, other industries are also getting away with murder? Or are some laps still just a bit too comfortable right now?
Posted by: Randy | February 25, 2010 at 03:24 PM
"On the other hand, in the case of great health dangers of modern times — mercury, lead, tobacco, asbestos — journalists were too slow to blow the whistle."
I wonder which "health dangers of modern times" from mercury exposure he feels journalists were too slow to blow the whistle on?
Posted by: JenB | February 25, 2010 at 03:02 PM
Hmm... First, I will add that this is just a humble opinion. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution we, generation after generation, have been subjected to more and more materials. Food additives, material additives, materials themselves, medications, chemicals, G.M. Foods, air pollutants... Is it only coincidence that we are seeing a higher percentage of some disorders and diseases? I really wish that we, humans, could collectively step back and take a real hard look at what we are surrounding ourselves by...
P dEnt
Posted by: P dEntremont | February 25, 2010 at 02:47 PM
Thalidomide?? Seriously? They are talking about Thalidomide which has not been perscribed since 1961, and they don't bother to mention Terbutaline which is still being perscribed to pregnant women against the warnings by the FDA. Do a search on terbutaline and autism. The connection is obvious, and the refusal by doctors to stop prescribing it to pregnant women should be considered nothing less than malpractice. It is mind boggling that it has taken so long for the powers that be to look at these connections, when we parents have suspected it for ages.
Posted by: Maria | February 25, 2010 at 02:46 PM
Gee environmental toxins - These are really clever thinking - right up there with global warming and cow farts.
1.) That candle you light for the Christmas cozy effect.
2.) Depakote Now that is a common every day drug that one percent of the population is taking. Lots of people with epilepsy now a days and increasing by the day. it is the first drug of choice given to autistic children that has epilepsy. Let us finish them off.
3.) plastics and the microwave a for sure killer!
Clever thinkers they are - clever enough to have two definitions for primay and secondary metabolite when making up adjuvants for vaccines. Wonder which one they prefer?
Definition of a primary metabolite is a fast poison - kill you dead as soon as you take it.
Definition of secondary metabolite is a slow poison - no one will notice as they rake the food out on a ceramic plate from the plastic bowl.
For further references: for Environmental causes of autism:
See Age of Autism's article; Oct 15, 2007 Kent Heckenlively, Esq "Vaccine Ingredients from A to Z"
Posted by: Benedetta | February 25, 2010 at 02:40 PM
At long last, someone in the media is on the right track. Now Mr. Kristoff, all you have to do is to ask your smart scientist friends, what was the toxin that appeared in the environment in all 50 states of the US at the same time in 1985 and in India in year 2000.That shouldnt be too difficult, should it- but maybe you're not really INTERESTED. Its time to write a new column on some other topic, isnt it.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | February 25, 2010 at 02:35 PM
I hope Senator Frank Lautenberg will also try to get rid of the law requiring pre-school age children get a flu shot to attend day care or school. That is a great place to start!
Posted by: Meg | February 25, 2010 at 02:30 PM
they aren't accepting comments at NYT any longer Finally looking at toxic exposure shortly after birth and while the brain is developing. 36 vaccines by age 2 during prime brain development. You really, really have to NOT want to see it. Its just too depressing.
Posted by: Sorsha | February 25, 2010 at 02:09 PM
FYI Times Website says comments are no longer being accepted and directs readers to write letters to the editor for consideration of publication.
Posted by: Garbo | February 25, 2010 at 02:06 PM
Do toxins cause autism? yes, if by "toxins" you mean vaccines!
Posted by: Maggie | February 25, 2010 at 01:58 PM
"Publicity about fears that vaccinations cause autism — a theory that has now been discredited — perhaps had the catastrophic consequence of lowering vaccination rates in America."
Discredited by whom? Why, by the very same people who manufacture and promote them; the very same people that he writes about in his article, i.e. money grubbing corporate interests.
Whew! I feel so much better now that the companies that make and promote vaccines have given them a clean bill of health.
I'm sure that if Enron would have been allowed to investigate themselves with no oversight that the whole Enron scandal would have come back as being a simple misunderstanding.
Posted by: Craig Willoughby | February 25, 2010 at 01:33 PM
Hmmm, the article moves away from quoting Landrigan too heavily and I think I know why. I read Landrigan's chapter in the book, "Bipolar Children" by Sharna Olfman. The chapter is almost all about mercury exposure and learning disabilities/behavior disorders. Landrigan would not discuss vaccines, but he focused on mercury all the same.
Depakote also has about a dozen effects on the brain which overlap with the specific effects of mercury and, to some degree, other vaccine toxins.
Posted by: Adriana | February 25, 2010 at 01:23 PM