Autism Linked To Environmental Factors

Photo credit: Baston

Numbers of autistic children have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. Medical officials used to think that this is an artificial trend and is actually caused by increased awareness and changes in diagnoses practices.

But according to newresearch, the increase in autism cannot be explained by changes in doctors’ diagnoses and is most likely caused by babies and fetuses’ exposure to environmental hazards such as pesticides and chemicals in household products.

Many parents believe that childhood vaccines cause autism because they used to contain Thimerosal, but Thimerosal was removed from most vaccines in 1999, and autism rates are still rising.

Many chemicals in the environment are toxins that alter the brain’s growth. While exposure to some of these has declined in recent decades, exposure to others, including flame retardants, has increased. Other household products such as antibacterial soaps could also have harmful ingredients.

Similarly to autism, there’s been a significant rise in cases of childhood asthma. As with autism, the rise cannot be explained by increased reporting alone. Officials now acknowledge that many more children are asthmatic than in the past. Experts suspect that environmental pollutants could be responsible for this epidemic too.

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