What Causes Autism? RFK Jr. Says He'll Know By September
Genetics? Diet? Vaccines? Tylenol? Fluoride? Refrigerator Moms? A Look at Theories and Evidence.
Last week,
made a rather bold promise to the American people.“By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic. And we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
This claim, naturally, has pissed a lot of people off (and I suspect this essay will too, but as always, I ask you to stay with me to the end). Others are celebrating. Some people, like me, are skeptical — but hey, I wish him good luck, and I suspect he’ll be able to provide some answers by September, but a definitive list of all the causes of autism? I doubt it. Autism is way too complicated for the puzzle to be pieced together in such a short period of time.
This is a topic I’ve heavily researched and have some strong opinions about (as anyone who has read some of my past essays and recent notes will be well aware — there will be some repetition if you’re a frequent reader). So I’m going to go out on a limb and talk about the history of autism, some of the theories out there, the evidence for them, and make some predictions.
Conversations about autism tend to be fraught, and one of the reasons for this is that autism is most likely not a single condition, but rather an umbrella term for a cluster of symptoms that can arise from a variety of causes.
Andrew Solomon, in his bestselling book, Far From the Tree, states:
“It seems likely that autism is a blanket term. Autistic behavior may prove to be a symptom of a variety of causes […] No single gene or consistent set of genes causes the syndrome, although many genes that have been identified as functionally connected to one another, forming a network in the brain. It is not yet clear whether autism-related genes always or sometimes require environmental triggers to become active, nor, if so, what the triggers may be.”1
And in The Matter With Things,
writes:“Autism is, in my view, not a unitary condition. In keeping with this, I believe, on the one hand, that the variety of presentations of autism is so great that we should talk about autisms; and it is well recognised that schizophrenia, too, takes many different forms.”2
Later, he adds:
“The point is that though there may be a virtually infinite number of causes of a complex system’s malfunctioning, there are only so many ways in which that malfunction can manifest itself.”3
Or, as neurodiversity activists succinctly put it: “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”
In other words, there is no one cause of “autism”, and in all likelihood no single case of “autism” has only one cause, and no cause applies to all cases. When I start talking about the potential causes, if you see items on the list that you believe don’t apply to you and/or your child(ren), I already explicitly said that no cause applies to all cases. I even bolded it for you! No need to swear at me or call me names in the comments section.
I’m going to start with the original — and most controversial — theory about autism. This is one that RFK Jr. and his team are almost certainly not looking into or reviewing the literature on, in part because bringing it up risks people freaking out at you, trying to destroy your career, and/or icing you out of polite society.
“Refrigerator Mothers” and Early Childhood Emotional Neglect
“As we struggle to explain the increase in the numbers of children diagnosed with conditions on the autism spectrum, ADHD, and other social and developmental disorders, we have to consider that this rise may be directly related to increased maternal stress and the lack of consistent, intimate engagement of mothers (and other caregivers) with children.”4
The term “autism” was coined in 1911 by German psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. Just over thirty years later, the two landmark papers describing “autism” in children were published by Hans Asperger (Germany, 1944) and Leo Kanner (United States, 1943). Asperger’s paper went largely unnoticed until the 1980s (Nazi Germany and all that), but Kanner’s paper sparked the first controversial theory of the cause of autism.
Kanner states (emphasis mine):
“It is not easy to evaluate the fact that all of our patients have come of highly intelligent parents. This much is certain, that there is a great deal of obsessiveness in the family background. The very detailed diaries and reports and the frequent remembrance, after several years, that the children had learned to recite twenty-five questions and answers of the Presbyterian Catechism, to sing thirty-seven nursery songs, or to discriminate between eighteen symphonies, furnish a telling illustration of parental obsessiveness.
One other fact stands out prominently. In the whole group, there are very few really warmhearted fathers and mothers. For the most part, the parents, grandparents, and collaterals of persons strongly preoccupied with abstractions of a scientific, literary, or artistic nature, and limited in genuine interest in people. Even some of the happiest marriages are rather cold and formal affairs. Three of the marriages were dismal failures.”5
However, Kanner then gave the following important caveat:
“The question arises whether or to what extent this fact has contributed to the condition of the children. The children’s aloneness from the beginning of life makes it difficult to attribute the whole picture exclusively to the type of the early parental relations with our patients.”6
Despite Kanner’s caution, his paper would set the stage for the rise of the “refrigerator mother” theory of autism (also known as Bettelheim’s theory of autism), which was popularized by Bruno Bettelheim in the mid-1900s.
From Bettelheim:
“The precipitating factor in infantile autism is the parent’s wish that his child should not exist.”7
Bettelheim’s theory has “fallen out of favour” since the 1970s, and Bettelheim — who was revealed to have lied about his academic credentials and was allegedly abusing autistic children put in his care after he prescribed “parentectomies” — has been thoroughly discredited. However, a handful of psychologists and doctors, such as
, Frances Tustin, and Alice Miller, continued to believe that there was an element of truth to the refrigerator mother theory, and the theory is still believed by some people in Europe (e.g. in France) and South Korea.Even renowned trauma guru Gabor Maté once published a paper “Autism is the Child of Social Disconnection”, which received some backlash (for example). Maté then dropped the subject, and his most recent book, The Myth of Normal (2022), conspicuously makes no mention of autism — although Maté does reiterate his claim, from 1999’s Scattered Minds, that ADHD is caused primarily by childhood stress and trauma. He is presumably aware of the high comorbidity and significant symptom overlap between ADHD and autism, but does not mention this.
Alice Miller wrote:
“A child’s autism is a response to his environment, sometimes the last possible response open to a child […]
I heard of similar, though still rare cases of autistic children being cured. A technique was developed, the “holding” technique, aimed at the need of the lost, lonely, alienated child to be held […]
I have known that this is not necessarily a genuine cure. The mother’s complete physical and psychic devotion to the autistic child can no doubt work miracles, provided she refrains from making making pedagogic demands; otherwise she will create the drama of the gifted child — the very thing the child was warding off with his autism.”8
To provide an example as to why Miller was cautious about the “holding” technique, consider this passage from Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes:
“Holding therapy required mothers to “tame” their children by hugging them for an hour each day — by force, if necessary — while gazing intently into their eyes and confessing their innermost feelings […]
In one of [Margaret Welch’s] training vider heos, a mother lies on top of her autistic daughter in bed, telling her how angry she is because her daughter doesn’t listen.
“How does that make you feel?” the mother says.
“I can’t breathe!” her daughter groans.
“Well, I don’t care about that right now,” the mother snaps back. “You’re not going to get up until we resolve this.”9
In Toxic Psychiatry (1991),
apparently argues that the refrigerator mother theory was discarded because of pressure from parents (I haven’t read his book so I cannot confirm or provide a quote).Here’s the thing — it’s well established in the psychological and counselling literature that parents with Cluster B disorders make some of the worst parents. People with Cluster B disorders are famously incapable of taking responsibility and for lashing out at anyone who causes them “narcissistic injury”. So it logically follows that parents with Cluster B disorders would freak out at anyone who tried to point out a relationship between how they nurtured (or didn’t nurture) their children and their child’s autism. (See
’s work for more on Cluster B parents).I tried to track down studies “disproving” that “cold” parenting was a cause of autism (as opposed to studies finding other possible causes of autism, which abound), and was unable to find any. I did find multiple articles, social media posts, and books claiming the theory was “debunked” and there was “no evidence” for it, always with no sources cited. And yet there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence from autistic adults who claim to have had one or more parents with narcissism or borderline personality disorder (examples here and here).
A 2016 study found that parents of autistic children have higher rates of psychopathology:
“The frequency of having personality disorders was higher in the parents of autistic children than controls (p<0.01). The most common psychiatric conditions among parents of autistic children were melancholic personality, persistent depression and negativism (44.6%, 29.2% and 25.4% respectively). Alcohol and substance use and antisocial personality were the least prevalent. Clinical patterns of personality disorders (avoidance, depressed, sadist, negativist, masochist), severe personality pathology (schizotypal, borderline, paranoid), clinical syndromes (generalized anxiety, somatoform, bipolar, persistent depression, PTSD), and severe clinical syndrome (thought disorder, delusional disorder) were higher in parents of autistic children than controls (p<0.05) and prevalence of histrionic personality disorder was lower (p<0.01).”
There are a lot of Instagram and TikTok accounts run by mothers which are centred on and exploit their “autistic” children (some of these children have not yet been diagnosed, despite their mother’s fervent doctor-shopping). I frankly think this — and all exploitation of children on social media by their parents — is one of the great evils of our time.
While I do not think all parents of autistic children are narcissistic or emotionally negligent (most probably aren’t, I’m going to discuss other causes later), I do think the parents who exploit their “autistic” children on social media, or otherwise parlay them into some sort of “activist” career, probably are. Simply because this is a really narcissistic thing to do.
Almost all of these “autism moms” appear to be white (or white-passing) and middle class to affluent. It’s worth noting that this is the same demographic that has unusually high rates of trans-identified children (see Lisa Littman’s 2018 study) and also the group with the highest rates of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy cases (more than 90% of MSBP cases are perpetuated by women, specifically mothers).
There is also anecdotal evidence that high-functioning autistic adults (Asperger’s) are more likely to be estranged from their parents. Studies from orphanages have found that lack of nurture increased the likelihood of autistic traits and even death in infants.
As described in the video above, neglected and abused children also have higher rates of disordered eating, including anorexia — which is highly co-morbid with autism.
This is further supported by animal studies; for example, in Harry Harlow’s famous monkey experiment where rhesus monkeys were raised in isolation:
“Some would sit alone, clutching themselves. rocking “autistically.” Others would be markedly inappropriate in their hierarchal or sexual behaviors.”10
It is well-established from research that disabled children, including autistic children, are more likely to be abused — and murdered — by their parents. One study found that around one in four autistic children who were admitted to psychiatric care had a history of being abused, while another study found that between 40% and 50% of autistic adults reported being sexually abused in childhood.
A frequent criticism of the “refrigerator mother” theory is that many of the “cold” parents described by Kanner were autistic or sub-clinically autistic themselves — and thus passed their autism onto their children genetically, not through nurture. I’ll discuss genetics later in this essay; for now, I’ll simply note that this is a reasonable point, one which Hans Asperger actually made back in the 1940s.
From his paper, “Autistic psychopathy in childhood” (emphasis mine):
“We want only to state briefly that over the course of ten years we have observed more than 200 children who all showed autism to a greater or lesser degree. We have been able to discern related incipient traits in parents or relatives, in every single case where it was possible for us to make a closer acquaintance.”
He also pointed out — as many neurodiversity activists do today — that autism appeared to present differently in girls and women.
“While we have never met a girl with the fully fledged picture of autism, we have, however, seen several mothers of autistic children whose behaviour had decidedly autistic features. It is difficult to explain this observation. It may be that autistic traits in the female become evident only after puberty.”
That all being said, the fact that many parents of autistic children are autistic or sub-clinically autistic themselves can also point to the passing down of intergenerational trauma (as well as genetics; it’s probably both — epigenetics). Yes, genes run in families, but so do parenting styles, trauma, and environmental and dietary factors.
Consider this:
Mothers who had traumatic childhoods are significantly more likely to have children with ADHD or autism.
High levels of anxiety and depression in mothers are linked to worse behavioural outcomes in autistic children.
Prenatal maternal stress is associated with increased risk and severity of autistic and ADHD traits in children. As well, complications associated with stress, such as preterm birth (second source), preeclampsia, and NICU stays are associated with increased risk of autism.
Research has found that autistic children’s symptoms improve when their parents are trained to better understand and interact with them; one California-based study reported in Today’s Parent found that “[b]abies treated early for symptoms of autism showed no signs by age [two].” In The Guardian, one mother describes how with professional help she was able to go from a “refrigerator mother” to a “super parent,” leading to improvement in her child. Another article in The Atlantic tells the story of an autistic father who consciously worked to be more nurturing and has a healthy daughter. The evidence that nurture matters more than genes is also backed up by animal studies, such as this 2005 study by Michael Meaney.
Modern neuroscience finds that the right hemisphere of the brain is disproportionately developing and dominant during the first three years of life. As
notes in his books, autism is related to right hemisphere abnormalities and dysfunction and left hemisphere dominance — he also claims this of narcissism, borderline personality disorder, body dysmorphia, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and anxiety disorders, all of which are known to be highly co-morbid with autism or to have significant symptom overlap.Erica Komisar, a clinical social worker, writes:
“The first three years of your child’s life are a critical window in which to develop your baby’s right brain and nurture her emotional health and social development through attachment, play, and nonverbal communication. The development of right-brain attributes, like the ability to read social cues, relate to others, and develop lasting emotional connections, lays the foundation for later cognitive development; without that foundation a child may not be able to tolerate the frustration and mistakes for effective learning or the resilience to recover from making a mistake.”11
In The Matter With Things, McGilchrist notes:
“It is relevant that the important areas for mother-infant attachment, recognition of the mother’s face and voice, and of self-other distinction are all in the right hemisphere, which is normally dominant in early childhood.”12
The other main criticism I’ve seen of the “refrigerator mother” theory is that parenting is no worse today than in previous generations — and so “cold” parenting cannot explain the dramatic spike in autism cases or autism severity. This strongly points to the “autism epidemic” being caused by modern environmental factors. I agree with this criticism more than I agree with the “genetics” one, however, I think the following should also be considered:
More mothers work full-time now than in the 1940s-60s.
Consequently, early daycare use has ballooned. Even under the best circumstances, babies and toddlers will be emotionally neglected in a daycare setting due to the child-worker ratios. (
wrote an interesting piece arguing that the rise in daycare use is contributing to the autism epidemic). It’s worth noting here that, depending on the child, daycare use after the age of two or three does not appear to have any significant negative consequences — and for kids who are socially oriented, it may be something they very much enjoy.Many researchers and cultural commenters have observed that rates of narcissism have been steadily increasing in the West since at least the 1970s. This means that there would be more narcissistic parents (and grandparents) today.
There is higher mobility now, people are more likely to move away from their parents and extended family — more people are raising children without the benefit of grandparents and other extended family members, resulting in lower overall nurture due to lack of allo-parenting.
Many millennials are reporting that their boomer parents are unwilling to help (very much) with childcare, suggesting that even when grandparents do live close by, they are providing less support to parents and contributing less allo-parenting than in previous generations (this is also related to people having kids older, and thus grandparents are older).
There are more only children who are growing up without the social benefits of siblings (and cousins they see regularly).
There are more children of single parents.
The invention of the smart phone and proliferation of social media also means that more parents (and grandparents!) are addicted to their phones, social media, games etc. From 2006 to 2009, the number of 30-49-year-olds who were on social networks rose from 6% to 44%.
Social media use may exacerbate narcissism.
Narcissistic parents now have more opportunity to exploit children than in previous generations due to social media.
The history of parenting books and practices in the West is also relevant here. According to Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good (1980), starting shortly after the invention of the printing press, parenting books started being published — primarily out of modern-day Germany — advocating for practices that many would consider emotionally neglectful and/or abusive, which she referred to as “poisonous pedagogies”.
For example, Dr. Moritz Schreber wrote several bestselling parenting books in the 1800s which, among other things, instructed parents not to hug or cuddle their children. Schreber is credited with being largely responsible for multiple generations of German children growing up “without direct, loving contact with their parents” and other family members. All three of his children were later diagnosed with mental illnesses, with one committing suicide, and another becoming a famous case study for schizophrenia and gender dysphoria. Miller suggests that “poisonous pedagogies” contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany.
I discuss poisonous pedagogies in my essay “The Dark History of Parenting Books.” I include a list of traits which Miller describes as being common in children who were raised under “poisonous pedagogies”, many of which also frequently appear in descriptions by self-identified autistic people of their experiences (e.g. “masking”).
I am aware that intergenerational toxic parenting practices are not unique to the Western world, but an in-depth discussion is beyond the scope of this essay.
As well, common and relatively new parenting practices such as using a stroller (instead of carrying babies in a wrap or sling) and putting babies to sleep in a crib and sleep-training (instead of co-sleeping) contribute to babies today growing up with less physical contact and face-to-face interaction than hundreds of years ago.
Erica Komisar writes:
“I see many children on the streets of New York in their strollers, facing away from their mothers or nannies who are on their cell phones or who look disengaged themselves; they are anything but present. The babies have a glazed look in their eyes, which is the result of feeling disconnected from the person who is central to their secure attachment. This kind of emotional withdrawal is the basis for depression in older children, adolescents, and adults. In my consulting room I see the same look in the eyes of my adult patients who have experienced absent mothers.”13
I discuss this further in my essay “The Lost Girls and Boys.” But here, I just want to emphasize that there is cultural problem with childrearing, one that cannot be blamed on individual parents.
There are also unusually high rates of autism diagnosed among immigrant children, clustered at the low-income end of the spectrum. While I suspect that many of the environmental factors I’ll discuss later disproportionately apply to low-income immigrants, the “nurture” explanation here is that children of immigrants are more likely to grow up without the benefit of extended family, and language and cultural barriers make it more difficult for them to connect to their peers. There may also be more trauma in the family background, and higher levels of stress.
That all being said — even if there are higher rates of early childhood emotional neglect nowadays, which is debatable — this cannot account for the increase in severe autism cases and I sincerely doubt this is a factor in all cases. Evidence suggests that autism is a condition of modernity. While writers and researchers have speculated that many famous figures were high in autistic traits, the earliest case of high-functioning autism suggested by Silberman is Henry Cavenish (1731-1810) and by Christopher Badcock14 Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). However, this may reflect the limitations of our historical knowledge; the printing press was only invented around 1440. McGilchrist notes that there are clear descriptions of depression and bipolar disorder in Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sources, and descriptions loosely matching borderline personality disorder going back to Ancient Greece.15
However, I do think stress plays a significant role in the autism epidemic, in interaction with other factors I’ll discuss below.
As I mentioned above, I searched for sources “debunking” the “refrigerator mother” theory, and was unable to find any (if you know of any, please drop them in the comments!).
One of the only useful sources I found on this topic, an article in VeryWell Mind, credits Bernard Rimland with “debunking” the refrigerator mother theory. However, the article fails to mention that one of the ways Rimland “debunked” the theory was to implicate vaccines instead. Rimland was the parent of a son with autism, and the founder of the Autism Research Institute and Defeat Autism Now! (aka the “DAN protocol”). The latter program was terminated in 2011, as Rimland’s approach to “curing” autism had no evidence to support it and “led many to undertake risky and expensive treatments.”16
So it would appear that the “refrigerator mother” theory was mostly “debunked” with the introduction of a new controversial theory — one which, in the mainstream media, is today also described as being “debunked” and “pseudoscience.”
Vaccines
I’ll keep this one short — I do not trust pharmaceutical companies, and the “anti-vaxxer” movement and my own experience over the past few years has convinced me that “vaccines”, broadly speaking, are not as safe or effective as advertised, and that many of the illnesses we vaccinate for are not particularly dangerous. I’m glad RFK Jr. is looking into this. I suspect that an honest inquiry into vaccines will find that some have a net benefit, whereas with others the risks outweigh the benefits.
My older daughter is a fan of the show Little Bear (1995-2001). We were watching it recently when an episode where Little Bear gets the mumps came on. The show depicted it as not a big deal — Little Bear’s mom even gives him ice cream and says that’s good for the mumps (it’s not, we’ll get to that).
Consider also this video from Instagram comparing how the measles were portrayed in popular media in the 1960s compared to today.17
However, I also think that many people in the anti-vax movement are overstating the adverse effects of vaccines. A lot of the evidence that “vaccines” are the main cause of the autism epidemic are based on correlational data — as the number of vaccines children receive have gone up, so have the autism rates — and there are too many confounding variables to draw reasonable conclusions. There are studies that find no link between autism and vaccines, and those that do find a link are frequently accused of being methodologically flawed.
Critics of vaccines will also point out that there are significantly lower rates of autism in unvaccinated children. I think this is probably true, but nonetheless, there are still cases of autism in unvaccinated children. There would also be numerous confounding factors, including that parents of unvaccinated children are probably more skeptical of Big Pharma and Big Food generally. Religious people are also less likely to vaccinate their children, but they also tend to be more family and community-oriented. Autism is associated with atheism, and so it’s likely any genetic factors in autism would also be lower in religious populations.
There are many parents out there who insist their child regressed into autism after vaccination — and I believe them — as well as many adults who claim to be vaccine-injured (for example, see
on Substack). I suspect in the majority of these cases there were other interacting factors that increased vulnerability to vaccine injury; in particular, nutrient deficiencies (especially of Vitamins C and D), Tylenol use (I’ll get to this), stress, inflammation, and processed food consumption during the sensitive window after vaccination when many kids experience a decrease in appetite. As well, vaccinations appear to be safer when they are spaced out. Which is all to say, there is a harm reduction approach that came be taken here.I suspect (at least some) vaccines are contributing to the autism epidemic. There is no way they are the sole cause, and I suspect they are not the main cause either.
That all being said, the “anti-vax” activists have convinced me that there are numerous other risks, besides autism, to at least some of the vaccines currently pushed on the population. From personal experience, I got two Covid vaccines while I was pregnant in 2021, and my daughter ended up in the NICU after a rough birth and resuscitation. The diagnosis I later received was “unexplained placental inflammation.” A friend who was pregnant at the same time and also got vaccinated also had issues with her placenta.
has since released a book linking issues with mother’s placentas to Covid vaccines (listen to her interview with ). Our kids are both fine, but, you know, mine could have died, and the NICU stay was traumatic, so I’m a bit salty about this.As well, I’ve noticed that critics of the “anti-vax” movement rarely engage with any of their actual arguments or evidence. Their counter-arguments tend to read a bit like “Haha, look at those stupid anti-vaxxers! That’s been debunked! That’s pseudoscience! That’s misinformation!”, which is not convincing. It’s also a bad look when the mainstream media stirs up hysteria that, for example, an unvaccinated child died with the measles recently, without clarifying that the child died from other complications and medical error may have contributed.
To return to one of my favourite quotes from Christian scholar Paul Johnson:18
“The louder the abuse, the bigger the lie.”
At the same time, many “anti-vaxxers” discredit themselves with wild claims such as “vaccines are the primary cause of rising rates of LGBTQ+ identified people.”
In short, vaccines are probably neither as dangerous as the anti-vaxxers make out, nor as safe as the mainstream insists.
To read more about the potential adverse effects of vaccines, I recommend the work of
:Many more articles are available over on his Substack.
Heavy Metals
Studies have found that autistic people have higher levels of various heavy metals in their bodies, in particular lead, uranium, cesium, arsenic, cadmium, thallium, chromium, mercury, and aluminum.
The most common theory for how vaccines cause autism has to do with heavy metals — specifically aluminum, which is added to vaccines as an adjuvant, and mercury-containing thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines. However, the majority of doctors, scientists, politicians, and journalists insist there is no scientific evidence for a relationship between aluminum and mercury in vaccinations and autism.
One of the most popular and frequently-cited researchers on the potential relationship between aluminum and autism is
— you can read his Substack here. Exley has suggested that conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, and dyscalculia are “simply ‘mild’ forms” of more serious neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.19Vaccines are far from the only cause of heavy metals exposure in pregnant women and children. Prenatal vitamins have been found to frequently be contaminated with heavy metals, including lead, thallium, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury — other common supplements and protein powders have also been found to have heavy metal contamination. As well, some children’s toys, baby formulas, baby rice cereal, and processed, packaged baby foods (e.g. food pouches) have been found to contain heavy metals.
Heavy metals are also frequently found in some herbs and spices, in particular cinnamon and spice mixes, as well as leafy greens and root vegetables like potatoes and carrots. Disposable paper coffee cups have been found to leach heavy metals (and micro-plastics!) into hot drinks, including lead, chromium, and cadmium. Chocolate is another common source of heavy metals such as lead and cadmium — and many women eat a lot of chocolate during pregnancy due to magnesium cravings. Unfortunately, cadmium also depletes magnesium, which can create a toxic feedback loop where you crave more chocolate.
Air pollution is another source — and may partially explain why urban centres have higher rates of autism than rural areas. Certain types of seafood contain high amounts of heavy metals (this is why pregnant women are told to avoid them). As well, many popular cosmetics — and even teeth-whitening toothpastes! — contain heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, mercury, aluminum, zinc, chromium, and iron.
Parental Age and Birth Proximity
Studies have found that autism is correlated with having an older father, or a very young or older mother. The theory goes that sperm and egg quality diminishes with age, and thus children of older parents are at increased risk for autism and various other disorders. This is probably true, and so the fact that more people are having children later in life is a likely contributing factor to the rise in autism rates — however, I think a very minor one.
Older fathers would be more likely to be in age-gap relationships, so the sociocultural factors involved in an older man impregnating a much younger women confound the research. As well, men and women who are highly career-oriented and not particularly family-oriented, people who either had one or more previous divorces, and people who struggled to find a partner earlier in their lives (for various reasons) would be overrepresented among older fathers and mothers. As well, it’s likely that people who are high functioning autistic or sub-clinically autistic are more likely to have children at an older age compared to the rest of the population — for example, religious people tend to have children younger than atheists, and atheism is correlated with autism.
As for younger mothers — mothers under the age of 20 — maternal stress during pregnancy and single parenthood (a risk factor for low nurture — it’s much more difficult to be a single mother) would be confounding variables. Young and single mothers are also more likely to live in poverty or near-poverty, further confounding this relationship. Egg health probably has nothing to do with the association between autism and teen moms.
Research also suggests that children born after shorter intervals between pregnancies are also at an increased risk of autism, in particular when pregnancies are only around two year apart or less — when a second child is conceived within a year of the first being born. This likely has to do with how taxing pregnancy is on the body — mom doesn’t have time to fully recover. However, I’ll throw it out there that looking after a young toddler is hard and you basically have to watch them at all times to make sure they don’t kill themselves. Mothers alone with a baby and a toddler would have no choice but to give the infant less attention, because a toddler demands so much. Allo-parenting by extended family members and lots of support for mom would attenuate these effects.
Genetics
While certain genetic factors absolutely increase autism risk, the skyrocketing rates of autism diagnoses and autism severity seen today cannot be explained by genetics. Genes don’t cause epidemics.
As
writes in the :writes:“Scientists have been unable to define how autism is genetic. Over the past two decades, an increasing number of genes have been blamed in causing the disorder. It’s now argued that 500 to 1,000 genes are involved, which amounts to 7 to 14 percent of all the genes used in brain function. This is like saying a cut on a leg is caused by genetics, and pointing to the leg-related genes from the site of the cut as proof. Other genetic disorders lack this tautology — Down syndrome is caused by an extra chromosome 21, Rett syndrome is caused by mutations in one gene.”
“As the autism rate exploded throughout the U.S., the state of California hired eleven of the best geneticists in the country to examine the role of genes in autism. They concluded that genetics explains at most 38% of autism cases and in two places they explained that this was likely an overestimate (Hallmayer et al., 2011). Whatever is driving the surge in autism prevalence, it is not primarily genetics.”
Even Steve Silberman, generally considered a hero in the neurodiversity movement, admitted:
“The authors of a major study published in Nature admitted that even the most common genetic factors brought to light in their research were found in less than 1 percent of the children in their sample. “Most individuals with autism are probably genetically quite unique,” said Stephen Scherer of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. UCLA neurogeneticist Stanley Nelson added, “If you had 100 kids with autism, you could have 100 different genetic causes.””20
A reminder: genes run in families and in ethnic groups, but so do parenting styles, cultural factors, trauma, and environmental and dietary factors.
There are some genetic conditions which are associated with a significant increased risk of autism, such as Fragile X syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, and Angelman syndrome. However, at most only around half of kids with Fragile X, around 80% of children with Angelman syndrome, and around a quarter with Prader-Willi also have autism (dietary issues and excessive eating in PW likely contribute to this risk).
As well, there is some evidence that inbreeding increases the risk of autism, and “autism may be the result of the widespread inbreeding of ancient generations.” It is speculated that many members of the famously-inbred Habsburg family may have been sub-clinically autistic. Autism rates are high in the Middle East, where consanguineous marriage is also more common. However, I can think of multiple confounding factors here — and South Korea has one of the highest rates of autism, while banning marriage between third cousins or closer. As well, rates of autism are higher in Jewish Israelis than in Muslim Israelis, despite Muslims having higher rates of consanguineous marriage. However, it is more common for Jews to have high-functioning autism (formerly Asperger’s Syndrome), whereas autistic Muslims in Israel tend to be lower-functioning.
Too many genes have been implicated in autism for me to discuss them all. Instead, I will hone in on three genetic hypotheses I find particularly compelling.
The Imprinted Brain Hypothesis
Christopher Badcock, a sociologist from the London School of Economics, has written two obscure books and a Psychology Today column about his controversial “imprinted brain” hypothesis. Badcock, along with his research partner Bernard Crespi, posit that there are two types of cognition — mechanistic and mentalistic — and that autism and schizophrenia are diametrical disorders of mentalism (hypo-mentalism and hyper-mentalism respectively).
According to Badcock and Crespi, there is a tug-of-war between maternal and paternal genes during gestation, they argue, with over-expression of paternal genes resulting in autism and maternal genes schizophrenia. Badcock is explicit in noting that their theory is different and incompatible with Simon Baron-Cohen’s more well-known “extreme male brain” theory of autism.
“[A] recent brain-imaging study of a large sample of high-functioning male and female adults with autism found no evidence of an extreme male brain in the male subjects, even though it did find evidence of male brain development in the females […] All the difficulties are resolved by the imprinted brain theory and by its more subtle insight that it is not so much a question of autistic having an extreme male brain as risk of ASD being characterized by an extreme paternal brain.”21
Badcock also implicates genes on the X chromosome in autism. One of the mechanisms he suggests is something called “lingering Lyonization”, named after its discoverer, English geneticist Mary Lyon. (Most) females have two X chromosomes, and so one is inactivated in each cell of the body — on average, half the cells in a woman’s body express one X, and the other half expresses the other.22
Badcock writes:
“[T]he known possibility that X-inactivation imprints placed on specific X genes in a woman’s body might be accidentally retained on the X chromosome she passed on to her children. If these inactivating imprints affected the very same genes implicated in [autism syndrome], the striking sex ratio of the disorder’s incidence would be explained. AS affects approximately 10 to 20 times more males than females (depending on the exact diagnostic criteria). Because males have only a single X, they could be predicted to be much more vulnerable to lingering Lyonization than a woman’s daughters, who would always have a second, paternal X chromosome lacking such imprints to compensate and dilute the effect.”
However, Badcock does not address what might increase the risk that inactivate imprints would be passed down after a recombination error. Maternal stress seems to me like a plausible contributing factor here, and is, as noted earlier, a well-established risk factor for autism in children.
There are notable issues with the imprinted brain hypothesis, including that Badcock and Crespi’s characterization of schizophrenia is inaccurate, and that they fail to adequately explain why autism and schizophrenia are highly co-morbid (autism was initially thought of as “childhood schizophrenia”, and it’s possible that many people today are now getting diagnosed with “autism” when they would have been diagnosed with “schizophrenia” in the recent past). In addition, I do not think Badcock does a good enough job of addressing reasons why autism rates are rising — although he does address dietary factors, noting that autism is more likely with a calorie surplus, and schizophrenia with a serious calorie deficit. If autism is a disorder of extreme paternal brain, then why the shift in genetic imprinting?
Imprinted genes and lingering Lyonization strike me as a relevant mechanism in the rising rates of autism, but not an underlying cause.
Yamnaya Ancestry
I was recently alerted to this theory by
, who posted this note a few weeks ago:
Here’s the study he is referencing.
An article in New Scientist refers to the Yamnaya as the “most murderous people of all time” (I don’t see how it’s possible to know this, but whatever — maybe the most murderous people in recorded history). What historical evidence objectively reveals, however, is that between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, the Yamnaya people and their descendants violently conquered most of Europe, carrying the Indo-European language family with them.
Modern-day Central and Northern Europeans have the most Yamnaya ancestry (38.8%-50.4%), followed by South Asians (6.5%-50.2%) and Southern Europeans (18.5%–32.6%) — with Calabrians, Sicilians, and Sardinians having lower amounts than other Southern Europeans.
Yamnaya ancestry is also associated with increased risk of multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s — both which are associated with autism.
However, many of the countries with significant amounts of Yamnaya ancestry do not have abnormally high rates of diagnosed autism — and, if they do, this is largely because of high rates of low-functioning autism among children of immigrants (migration during pregnancy may increase autism risk, likely in part due to stress). For example, DNA evidence suggests a strong genetic link between Germans and the Yamnaya (see also the Wikipedia article on the Corded Ware culture). However, Austria and Germany are on the list of countries with the lowest rates of diagnosed autism.
The key word here is “diagnosed.” There is no medical test for autism, it is diagnosed primarily based on behaviour and social functioning (common physical symptoms such as gastrointestinal distress, sensory processing issues, and vitamin deficiencies can also contribute to a diagnosis). It is very easy to find people online speculating that all Germans are a little bit autistic (also possibly the Japanese?), and the popular autism forum Wrong Planet has a lengthy thread speculating that Scandinavians are more autistic on average than other peoples — which would support the theory that autistic traits are associated with Yamnaya ancestry.
Joseph Henrich’s work on “WEIRD” populations23 and Iain McGilchrist’s theory of brain hemisphere lopsideness in the Western world24 also support the Yamnaya theory, as they suggest that Western and Northern Europeans and their descendants are more “autistic” on average than other peoples.25
Presumably, then, high-functioning autism (formerly Asperger’s Syndrome) would be unlikely to be diagnosed in Northern and Western European countries where the average person is more sub-clinically autistic, simply because autistic traits (in the absence of intellectual disability) are not seen as abnormal.
MTHFR Mutations
The MTHFR enzyme “facilitates the addition of a methyl group to folic acid, rendering it usable by the body.” It is essential for folate utilization. It also “plays a crucial role in the conversion of homocysteine into methionine, vital for proper metabolism, muscle growth, and the creation of glutathione [an important antioxidant].”
Studies have found a significant increase in vulnerability to autism spectrum disorders in people with a MTHFR C677T (rs1801133) gene polymorphism or a A1298C (rs1801131) polymorphism. Both polymorphisms are associated with a higher risk of several other conditions, including cancer.
G/G on rs1801133 and T/T on rs1801131 are considered “typical” and a low-risk of methylation issues. A/A on rs1801133 (two copies of C677T) indicate around 70%-80% reduced activity, whereas G/G on rs1801131 (two copies of A1298C) indicate around 20% reduced activity. If you are heterozygous on rs1801133 (A/G) then you have around 40% reduced activity. Heterozygous on rs1801131 (G/T) indicates a mild reduction. These mutations indicate a risk for higher levels of homocysteine in your blood.
Around 40% of the world population has one or more of the C677T and/or A1298C polymorphisms. The C677T polymorphism is very common in Ashkenazi Jews (nearly 50%) and Europeans, in particular Italians and Spaniards. Black people are the least likely to have either of these genes (1-2%).
While studies consistently find higher rates of C677T among autistic people, it appears more than a quarter of diagnosed autistics do not have this mutation. One meta-analysis also found that there was no relationship between autism and the A1298C polymorphism.
Autism rates have been more rapidly increasing in the Black populations in the United States and the United Kingdom — despite unusually low rates of the relevant MTHFR mutations. More importantly, the vast majority of people with one or more of the C677T and A1298C polymorphisms are not clinically autistic.
If the C677T and A1298C polymorphisms are playing a role in the rising rates of autism, it is through interaction with new environmental factors. Because they are so common, I suspect these polymorphisms once served an adaptive purpose. Both the C677T and A1298C polymorphisms are associated with reduced folate usage, and so I wonder if they are an adaptation to lighter skin in hotter/sunnier climates to retain healthy levels of folate in the body, as sun exposure rapidly depletes folate. However, this adaptation became a liability when folic acid — a synthetic form of folate — was introduced.
Which brings us to the next section:
Folic Acid and Prenatal Vitamins
Folic acid first appeared on the market in prenatal vitamins introduced in the late 1970s and popularized in the 1980s — which coincides with an uptick in autism diagnoses — in order to prevent neural tube defects (e.g. spina bifida) from low folate in pregnancy. In the late 1990s, folic acid was added to many “fortified” and “enriched” grain products and processed foods in several countries, including the United States and Canada.
“Folic acid” is made from petroleum products, chemical acids and acetylene.
People with the C677T and A1298C polymorphisms have an impaired ability to utilize and break down folic acid as well as folate.
“Unlike folate, not all of the folic acid you consume is converted into the active form of vitamin B9 — 5-MTHF — in your digestive system. Instead, some folic acid is converted to 5-MTHF in your liver. Yet, this process is slow and inefficient in some people […] Even a small dose, such as 200 to 400 mcg per day, may not be completely metabolized until the next dose is taken. This problem may become worse when fortified foods are consumed in addition to taking folic acid supplements. As a result, unmetabolized folic acid is commonly detected in people’s bloodstreams.”26
Folate from food sources, unlike folic acid, does not accumulate in the blood. There is no upper limit for folate consumption. Unmetabolized folic acid may lead to accumulation of dihydrofolate, disrupt the one-carbon cycle and adversely impact DNA synthesis and repair, and methylation.
Our bodies prefer folic acid to folate — this means that folic acid binds more readily to receptors than folate, and can block the receptors from using natural forms of folate. This can cause a “functional folate deficiency”, where symptoms of folate deficiency appear despite lab tests reporting normal or high “folate” levels.
Excess folic acid (not folate!) may slow brain development. Research has also linked high folic acid consumption during pregnancy to an increased risk of insulin resistance, to a higher risk of obesity, and to poor psychomotor development in children. As folate modulates the epigenome and plays a critical role in methylation, excess folic acid may also “potentially alter gene expression and lead to aberrant epigenetic programming.” Both insufficient folate and excess folic acid in pregnancy has been linked in studies to a higher risk of autism in children.
Children with the vulnerable MTHFR mutations may be at higher risk for autism if mom consumes a lot of folic acid during pregnancy, and/or if the children consume a lot of folic acid during development.
Prenatal vitamins may cause or worsen morning sickness in some women, with synthetic iron, choline, and iodine being the main culprits. Nauseous mothers are more likely to eat more foods like bread, crackers, and pasta — all of which can be high in folic acid, depending on where they live. Unfortunately, refined sugars and flours also rapidly deplete Vitamin B1, and a Vitamin B1 deficiency can cause low appetite, which may in turn worsen nutritional deficiencies and reliance on processed foods during pregnancy. If women are taking prenatal vitamins with folic acid and eating a lot of fortified grain products and processed foods, they can easily go well over the recommended amount of folic acid and experience issues related to that.
I wrote about MTHFR and folic acid in detail in “Down the Folic Acid Rabbit Hole.”
Glyphosate
Many common crops — including grains — are sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup), a popular herbicide in many countries, including North America, parts of South America, Denmark, Poland, Netherlands, Portugal, and Israel. It has been banned or severely restricted in other countries, including France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar due to its link to higher rates of various cancers, celiac disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Glyphosate was introduced as a herbicide in 1974 by Monsanto.
The authors at the Weston A Price Foundation argue that glyphosate disrupts the body’s effective use of folate, and its use was a cause of rising spina bifida cases in the 1970s and 80s (emphasis mine):
“[F]olate is produced from products of the shikimate pathway, and this is the pathway that even Monsanto admits is disrupted in plants and microbes by glyphosate. Furthermore, the microbes that synthesize folate for the host, lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, are the ones that glyphosate preferentially kills. A continued rise in spina bifida would raise public awareness of a hidden environmental toxicant that might be causing this rise. Making sure that pregnant women were well supplied with external folic acid might mask the problem.”
Glyphosate has also been linked to the rising rates of autism. Dr. Zach Bush, in a video for the YouTube channel After Skool, argues that glyphosate is one of the main driving forces behind the autism epidemic.
In his thorough essay “The Story of Autism”,
writes the following:“Glyphosate causes most-to-all modern disorders and diseases, including autism, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes, according to six papers published from 2013 to 2016 by Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff. It does this by, among other ways, breaking down gut and blood-brain barriers; suppressing cytochrome P450 enzymes (used by animals to metabolize toxins, synthesize endocannabinoids and hormones, activate sensory neurons); disrupting the shikimate pathway in plants and microbes, causing animal deficiencies in at least serotonin, DMT, 20 opioids, nine vitamins, dopamine, melatonin; and by being erroneously inserted into thousands of proteins because it resembles glycine, one of the 22 amino acids that life uses to build itself.
Seneff, a senior research scientist at MIT, has argued that glyphosate, which the U.S. uses the most out of any country — spraying it on an area equivalent to around three Californias — is the one toxin most responsible for the autism epidemic. In a 2016 paper, Seneff and James Beecham described at least seven ways that glyphosate could cause autism, including through adverse effects on the thyroid glands of mothers and children during gestation, by disrupting calcium inflow to immature neurons, and by causing mothers to pass cytokines to the placenta/fetus […]
[T]ests from multiple labs on 19 vaccines confirmed [contamination by glyphosate], which to many people was not surprising, since vaccines contain soy, sucrose, fructose, lactose, bovine serum, egg protein, and gelatin derived from glyphosate-sprayed crops and factory-farmed animals fed heavily contaminated soy, corn, and beet pulp.”
Please see Lin’s essay in the
for details and citations.Returning to the role of heavy metals, Lin notes in his essay that glyphosate may interact with aluminum in vaccines:
“Two glyphosate molecules wrap around an aluminum atom, hiding its charge and producing an uncharged small molecule that easily crosses barriers. This glyphosate binding allows aluminum to be carried past the gut barrier and into the brainstem nuclei, where an acidic environment prompts the glyphosate to release it.”27
He later clarifies:
“It seems that the modern brain—multigenerationally malnourished, chronically sleep-deprived, immersed in anthropogenic radiation—is overwhelmed by thousands of old and new poisons crossing leaky gut and blood-brain barriers, leading to chronic brain inflammation, causing the symptoms of autism and other disorders.”
Proponents of the MTHFR mutation theory of autism have also pointed out that glyphosate exposure appears to have greater adverse effects on people with the C677T and A1298C polymorphisms. This could (partially) explain the discrepancy in autism rates between Jews and Arabs in Israel — where glyphosate is used liberally and prenatal vitamins with folic acid are recommended — as Jewish people are significantly more likely to have the C677T polymorphism.
As Dr. Will Powers pointed out when I interviewed him for my essay “Down the Folic Acid Rabbit Hole”, many countries used glyphosate without seeing the spike in autism until folic acid fortification was introduced — “it seems to not be the primary driver of the problem.” As well, there are still increasing rates of autism in some countries that have banned glyphosate.
Diet, Nutritional Deficiencies, and Processed Foods
Autism and autistic-like traits have been found to be associated with nutrient deficiencies in Vitamins A, C, D, E, K, B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B6, B7 (biotin), B9 (folate), B12, iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, iodine, calcium, and Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as deficiencies in glutathione, cysteine, taurine, glutamine, melatonin, and circulating endocannabinoids. In several studies, supplementation or dietary changes to treat deficiencies were associated with improvement in one or more autistic symptoms in at least some children in the samples.
Dietary deficiencies are both a cause of and a symptom of autism. Many autistic children are picky eaters — in its extreme form, this manifests as “avoidant restrictive food intake disorder” or ARFID.
A diet high in refined carbohydrates and processed foods — which are filled with preservatives and other toxic chemicals — can lead to gut dysbiosis — low gut microbiome diversity and surplus of “bad” bacteria — as well as gastrointestinal issues such as chronic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Common “safe” foods in ARFID include: white bread, pizza, french fries, sweets, chicken nuggets, plain noodles, crackers, and cereal. Ultra-processed foods may be as addictive as smoking. Refined sugars may be more addictive than cocaine. Further exacerbating picky eating, deficiencies in thiamin (B1), folate (B9), B12, and Vitamin D may cause low appetite, while folate, B12, and zinc deficiencies have been linked to an altered sense of taste and smell.
Treating ARFID and disordered under or picky eating may require first treating nutrient deficiencies (or “hidden hunger”) that contribute to low appetite and disrupted taste. “Healthy” multivitamins — made from whole foods — have entered the market targeting parents of autistic and picky-eating children. Many parents have endorsed these products, stating that their child’s behaviour and/or picky eating improved after starting on the multivitamins. Two brands I’ve observed to consistently receive positive reviews (I have never purchased them myself) are First Day and Subluna.
Eating lots of highly-processed foods may also cause an aversion to healthy, whole foods. In one interesting study by Paul Kenny, he found that rats who were fed a processed-food diet for a while, when the junk food was taken away and replaced with healthy food, rejected the healthy food.
Low glutathione is also a serious concern in autism, as glutathione is a critical antioxidant for detoxifying heavy metals from the body, among other things. Low glutathione would make children more vulnerable to “vaccine injuries” and various toxin exposures. Vitamin C and glutathione are mutually essential to each other, and so a low Vitamin C intake can exacerbate the issue (which is partially why research on vaccine injury finds Vitamin C deficiency is a risk factor). Making things worse, a high refined sugar intake interferes with Vitamin C absorption.
Higher rates of autism have been found to be associated with formula-feeding (instead of breastfeeding), in particular with soy-based formulas. There may also be a relationship between autism risk and use of prepackaged baby foods — and there are currently active lawsuits against baby food companies because they’ve been found to contain high amounts of heavy metals and have been linked to the development of autism. “Food pouches” — which are very popular — are also far more unhealthy than advertised, as they contain high amounts of added sugar, the heating process to make them destroys most vitamins and minerals in the food, and the “nutrients” on the labels are typically from synthetic vitamins added in.
I highly recommend this article by
on the ingredients that many popular synthetic vitamins are made from. Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of petroleum byproducts, formaldehyde, and ammonia.Autistic children are also more susceptible to hyponatremia and it is possible low sodium can contribute to or exacerbate autism.
“Autism is a complex disorder with many likely causes and genetic links. However, one theory holds that autism could be a disorder of overhydration, with low sodium levels in the blood depleting certain essential brain nutrients, such as taurine and glutamine. This may be one reason why children with autistic disorders tend to have salt cravings. Children with autism may benefit from consuming more salt, whereas low-salt diets may actually worsen their condition. Oral rehydration salts may also be of benefit in autism.”28
A loose, general observation that I have made — both on social media and from my real-life interactions — is that many parents who report their children are “picky eaters” (common in autism) prepare “healthy” foods that a bit unpalatable, largely due to under-seasoning. For example, raw and steamed broccoli are both kind of gross and it’s not surprising that children offered broccoli this way would come to think they don’t like it. But properly seasoned with salt and olive oil and roasted in the oven, broccoli is delicious. Lightly salted eggs and moderately-salted homemade chicken broth were two of the first foods I fed my kids, and they’re both very healthy — and I frequently get comments that my older daughter is one of the least picky kids other people have encountered.
Mainstream advice to parents is to not add salt to baby foods, however, these guidelines lack scientific rigour and evidence suggests that there are health benefits to adding a small amount of salt to foods fed to babies. I am not saying it’s fine to give your babies highly-salty processed or canned foods — over 70% of salt consumption in the United States comes from processed and packaged foods, which is troubling — but sprinkling a little sea salt on their cooked veggies, eggs, and meat might be a good idea if you want them to enjoy these foods.
In The Salt Fix (2017), James DiNicolantonio suggests that a low-salt diet in childhood — and during pregnancy — may contribute to sugar cravings, disordered eating, metabolic syndrome, and obesity in children. Low sodium levels can also contribute to constipation. While his book is controversial, my husband and I have personally found we both feel a lot healthier and enjoy our food a lot more with a bit of added sea or kosher salt. And we both feel like crap after eating even a small amount of refined sugar, supporting the theory put forward by people like DiNicolantonio and Robert Lustig29 — that refined sugar is driving the modern health crisis, not salt.30
Nearly one in ten children worldwide suffer from constipation (another source claims between 1% and 30%). Chronic constipation affects up to 4% of preschool-age children in the United States and Canada, including around a quarter of autistic children. Constipation is also common during pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the adverse effects of a poor diet can be compounded by one of the most common treatments for constipation. Which brings us to …
Polyethylene Glycol 3350 (PEG) / MiraLAX
PEG 3350 is a synthetic polymer produced through polymerization of ethylene oxide molecules, derived from the by-products produced during the refinement of petroleum, natural gas, or coal, and chemically similar to ethylene glycol in antifreeze. It is the most commonly doctor-recommended treatment for constipation in adults (including pregnant women) and children, despite the FDA only approving its use for those ages 17 and older.
MiraLAX was introduced on the market in 1999, coinciding with the start of the dramatic spike in autism diagnoses (see the graph from the “Folic Acid” section above). It became an over-the-counter drug in 2006, and is now so commonly used, that a shortage was reported in 2023.
I first became aware of MiraLAX when I read this article in The Epoch Times.
The article includes a handful of interviews with parents who believe their children were harmed by MiraLAX — including shocking accounts of behavioural changes. The Epoch Times suggests that MiraLAX may harm children in the following ways:
Killing beneficial gut bacteria, causing gut dysbiosis and altering serotonin production.
Depleting short-chain fatty acids, which are critical for brain health.
Disrupting the absorption of nutrients, in particular B vitamins and magnesium, leading to deficiencies (MiraLAX is an osmotic laxative, and thus blocks the absorption of nutrients in the small intestine).
“[MiraLAX’s] extended use may result in severe malnutrition-related disorders, particularly in young children and older adults. Autism is one such disorder. It may take only two weeks of an acute iron or iodine deficiency to cause autism in a child younger than two.”
Common psychiatric side effects of MiraLAX reported by parents include depression, anger, anxiety, mood swings, violent behaviours, and tics.
A Facebook group, “Parents Against Miralax Restoralax Movicol (PEG 3350)”, has over 100,000 members as of April 2025. The website “No PEG” also features dozens of testimonials from parents.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has stated that there is no evidence to support the claim that MiraLAX causes autism. While I’m not sure whether MiraLAX is one of the potential causes of autism that RFK Jr. is investigating, PEG is on his radar as it is also an ingredient used in the Pfizer and Moderna Covid shots — and some people reported that they developed a PEG allergy after vaccination.31
Antibiotics
This one is pretty straight-forward so I’ll keep it short. Some antibiotics can wipe out the gut microbiome, including all healthy or “good” gut bacteria, leading to gut dysbiosis — obviously, sometimes you need to take antibiotics, and if you do, eating lots of pre- and probiotics during and after use can help prevent issues.
As discussed above, low gut microbiome diversity, low levels of healthy gut bacteria, and gut dysbiosis are all implicated in autism. Antibiotics can cause nausea, and serious gut disruption can occur if you rely on easy-to-eat carbohydrates such as bread — this can lead to a nutritional deficiencies and an addiction to refined flour and sugars. This is something to be wary of in particular with children (and adults!) who are already picky eaters or have ARFID.
“Antibiotics can also reduce appetite by increasing yeast overgrowth and damaging the intestine’s lining. Yeast overgrowth can turn the intestines into a fermentation machine. When yeast digest sugars, the intestines bloat, sending either a “full” signal or a call for more carbohydrates.”
Maternal and early-life exposure to antibiotics are associated with an increased risk of autism and ADHD.
Tylenol
Tylenol has been touted as a safe pain relief and fever reduction option for pregnant women and young children — however, recent studies have found that Tylenol use during pregnancy and early-life can significantly increase the risk of autism and ADHD in children. This is because Tylenol depletes glutathione, one of the body’s most important antioxidants. Glutathione plays a critical role in detoxifying the body from heavy metal exposures; as such, some research shows that the risk of autism is significantly higher when Tylenol is given to children before and/or after vaccination.
Another researcher has suggested that Tylenol use may interact with amoxicillin (a common oral antibiotic) and glyphosate exposure to increase autism risk.
Other sources argue that this correlation is due to confounding factors — and it seems likely that if Tylenol is a causal factor in autism, it would be in interaction with other factors and vulnerable genes (for example, the MTHFR polymorphisms discussed earlier can result in lower glutathione levels and increased vulnerability to Tylenol).
A class-action lawsuit was recently filed against Tylenol, arguing that it caused autism and ADHD in children.32
Hormonal Contraception / Birth Control Pills
Study results are mixed as to whether the use of birth control pills prior to pregnancy increase the risk of autism in children. The risk seems to be higher when mothers use hormonal birth control up to just before (<3 months) or during pregnancy than past use (>3 months)— the obvious confounding variable here is that women who use birth control up until or during pregnancy disproportionately were probably not trying to get pregnant. The association in the study I linked to was also driven primarily by non-oral progestin-only birth control.
There’s a few theoretical mechanisms as to how use of birth control could cause autism. The depletion of nutrients is one — birth control has been found to deplete B Vitamins (including folate), Vitamin C, magnesium, selenium, and zinc, which would cause some immune impairment, but a healthy diet is protective here. Birth control use is also associated with poorer mental health, and women on birth control are more likely to be prescribed SSRIs. At least one study has linked birth control to impaired judgement and empathy in women — but the sample size was small and effects were mild. Some people believe that past use of hormonal birth control can cause issues with fertility, but the majority of mainstream sources claim this is a myth.33
There’s also this one woman’s theory that hormonal birth control could disrupt gene imprinting and impair estrogen receptor expression (see the sub-section on imprinted genes under “Genetics”) — if she’s on to something, and I’m not claiming she is, I imagine that affected offspring would disproportionately be female and higher-functioning, and thus “autism”, if it is diagnosed at all, would be in the late teens or early adulthood, and thus missed by the majority of studies.
Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, and Other Psychiatric Medications
Antidepressant use during pregnancy has been found to be correlated to an increased risk of autism in children, but, again, there are multiple confounding variables, study results vary, and the effect size appears to be small. The same applies to benzodiazepines, ADHD medications, and antipsychotics. The general consensus is that maternal mental illness increases autism risk through genetics and environmental factors, not the medications used to treat them.34
Fluoride
Higher fluoride exposure during pregnancy has been linked to autism in children, as is chronic fluoride exposure during early childhood.
“Studies have shown that chronic exposure to fluoride can have neurotoxic effects, affecting various aspects of neurological function. These effects include metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and inflammation, immunoexcitotoxicity, and melatonin level disruption.”
Fluoride was first added to drinking water in Grand Rapids, USA in 1945, and the first fluoride toothpaste appeared on the market in 1955. Today, just over 70% of the water in the United States and around 40% of the water in Canada has fluoride added to it.
Prior to the discovery that fluoride prevented cavities, it was “considered to be a toxic waste product of the aluminum and phosphate mining industries, and a chief contributor to environmental pollution.”35
Many criticisms of fluoride involve its calcifying effects on the pineal gland.
“The pineal gland is an endocrine gland whose main function is the biosynthesis and secretion of melatonin, a hormone responsible for regulating circadian rhythms, e.g., the sleep/wake cycle. Due to its exceptionally high vascularization and its location outside the blood–brain barrier, the pineal gland may accumulate significant amounts of calcium and fluoride, making it the most fluoride-saturated organ of the human body. Both the calcification and accumulation of fluoride may result in melatonin deficiency.”
In addition to disrupting sleep, fluoride accumulation in the pineal gland may speed up the onset of puberty (at least in girls). In one study, Jennifer Luke found that animals exposed to fluoride showed signs of earlier puberty. Girls with autism, on average, enter puberty earlier than their non-autistic peers.
High fluoride exposure may also contribute to magnesium deficiency — this has cascading effects, as our bodies cannot use Vitamin D properly without adequate magnesium levels.
As well, a recent New York Times article admitted that fluoride exposure has been linked to lower IQs in children.36
Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) and Microplastics
EDCs are natural or man-made chemicals which are known to interfere with or disrupt hormone production and the endocrine system. Microplastics can be carriers of EDCs — and can cause oxidative stress, DNA damage, organ dysfunction, metabolic disorder, immune response, neurotoxicity, as well as reproductive and developmental toxicity.
Examples of natural EDCs are tea tree and lavender essential oils — both of which have been linked to early puberty. Common examples of man-made EDCs include atrazine (a popular herbicide), BPA (frequently found in packaging, toys, paper receipts, household cleaners, and canned foods and drinks), and phthalates (frequently found in cosmetics, fragrances, and household cleaners).
BPA exposure prenatally and in early-life has been linked to an increased risk of autism — but only in male children. Moreover, adverse effects of BPA exposure may be transgenerational. Animal studies have also linked atrazine and other pesticide exposures to autistic-like behaviours. Phthalates have also been linked in studies to an increased risk of autism. I am not aware of any research linking naturally-occurring hormone disruptors like lavender oil to autism, but it’s still a good idea not to over-expose your children to these.
While Simon Baron-Cohen’s “extreme male brain” theory of autism received a lot of attention, overwhelming evidence suggests that it is incorrect.
A competing theory, the “gender incoherence theory”, predicts that “[autistic] males should be more similar to [typically-developing] females and ASD females should be more similar to TD males.”
There is good evidence of physical masculinization—or at least de-feminization—in autistic women.37
A 2012 study noted that “somewhat paradoxically, many individuals with ASD display androgynous physical features regardless of gender.” The authors state: “Rather than being a disorder characterised by masculinisation in both genders, ASD thus seems to be a gender defiant disorder.” Many autistic people have androgynous facial features.
Either way, this indicates that hormone disruption is a factor in at least some cases. (Nutritional deficiencies, e.g. of Vitamin D, would also contribute to hormone disruption).
Overall, evidence supporting a relationship between prenatal and early-life exposure to EDCs and autism is limited and inconclusive.
Electric and Magnetic Fields (EMFs) and … Mold?
Sigh. Here’s an essay by
summarizing why EMFs — including from your WiFi baby monitor — may be partially responsible for the rising rates of autism and other health complications. Quite a bummer if true. Apparently we should all be turning our WiFi off at night?As well, mold exposure is a suspected contributor to autism, and apparently EMFs may exacerbate mold growth.
Vitamin D Deficiency and Sunscreen
Vitamin D is one of the most common deficiencies seen in autism. Symptoms include bone pain, muscle weakness, fatigue, anxiety, depression, mood swings and irritability, increased pain sensitivity, sleep disturbances, hormonal imbalances, menstrual irregularities in girls and women, and an impaired immune system and wound healing. Vitamin D deficiencies during pregnancy have also been shown to increase the risk of autism in children.
While there are some decent food sources of Vitamin D (e.g. egg yolks, fatty fish, and fish liver oils) the best source of Vitamin D is the sun. You only need around 5 to 30 minutes of direct sun on your skin between 10 am and 4 pm — depending on where you live and your skin colour — to meet your daily needs.
Sunscreen blocks the absorption of UVB light and therefore frequent, daily use may contribute to lower Vitamin D levels. Obesity can also contribute to Vitamin D deficiency as excess fat may negatively impact the bioavailability of Vitamin D — obesity also increases the risk of sunburn. Darker skinned people living in cooler climates and areas with less sun are also at a higher risk of Vitamin D deficiency than pale people — in the United States, black people have higher rates of Vitamin D deficiency. As well, women who wear modest religious clothing such as the burqa are at an increased risk of Vitamin D deficiency. Certain pharmaceuticals, such as SSRIs, can also increase sun sensitivity and the risk of sunburn, thus contributing to low Vitamin D levels. Low levels of Vitamin C, Vitamin E, zinc, and essential fatty acids can also increase sunburn risk, as can dehydration or excess alcohol consumption while sitting in the sun.
Sunscreen ingredients are absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin, and many popular brands include endocrine disruptors — however, there are safe options available such as zinc oxide-based sunscreens.
I’ll admit this is an area where I’m a bit of a radical — I rarely wear sunscreen and I go out in the sun quite a bit. I just spent a month in Mexico and didn’t put the stuff on once. I have olive skin and Mediterranean ancestry and tan very easily, but I’m a far cry from dark — and yet, I rarely burn, and when I have, it’s been very mild.38 My kids are paler than me but neither of them have ever had a burn, despite only rarely wearing sunscreen. Some people look good with pale skin, but I am not one of those people, so I prefer to rock a bit of a tan.
While this is controversial, many people believe that processed foods — and in particular seed oils — can increase the risk of burning. I’ve spoken to people who are very pale — think Irish ancestry — and report that they are far less likely to burn when they avoid seed oils.
The introduction of sunscreen and rise in sunscreen use correlates with the uptick in autism diagnoses — but like many other possible factors in this essay, the correlation does not prove causation.
has a great essay about “dermatology’s horrendous war against the sun”, which I recommend everyone give a read. He suggests, among other things, that low sunlight exposure might increase cancer rates and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.Nature Deficiency and Air Pollution
As previously mentioned, autism is associated with right hemisphere hypofunction or dysfunction. The right hemisphere is dominant when we interact with living things — other people, animals, and nature. (The left hemisphere, on the other hand, is dominant when we interact with objects and machines).
In addition to the issues with low Vitamin D, a lack of time spent outdoors and in direct contact with the earth can contribute to low gut microbiome diversity.
Several studies have shown that spending more time outside in nature has significant benefits for autistic people (and for everyone else too).
One obvious barrier to getting outside is air pollution — which has been linked to an increased risk of autism in children. As previously mentioned, air pollution can be a source of heavy metal toxicity. It is likely that one of the reasons why autism rates are higher in urban centres than rural ones is access to nature and air pollution.
“Screen Time”
Screen time is getting a lot of attention these days as a potential driver of the youth mental health crisis. When we interact with screens — in particular with smartphones and iPads, which use more focussed vision — our left hemisphere is dominant. Excess use of screens can therefore exacerbate left hemisphere dominance and right hemisphere dysfunction, especially when that screen use comes at the expense of RH-dominant activities such as in-person socializing and spending time in nature.
However, this also applies to other activities — including excessive reading, which may actually exacerbate left hemisphere dominance more than watching television.39
Back in 2015, Iain McGilchrist tried to sound the alarm about smartphones making younger generations “borderline autistic.” From what I’ve discerned from the research on this, it would seem that the greatest risk for exacerbation of autistic traits would come from using text messages as a primarily mode of communication — i.e. reading text on a screen instead of talking to people in person. The right hemisphere processes non-verbal communication (e.g. body language, tone of voice, facial expressions) and all of this information is missing when we talk to people over text.
Christopher Badcock argues that reading is inherently “mechanistic” and that literacy is “‘autistic’ to the extent that it not only mimics the autistic savant’s ready recall of words verbatim or facts with perfect precisions, but allows private, personal access to another person’s thoughts without having to interact with that person in a social context.”40
Generally speaking, I think the harms of allowing children to watch television are overblown (I agree that smartphones and iPads are very harmful). I believe what’s on the TV matters more — I only let my kids watch music (e.g. Jewish a cappella and Tiny Desk concerts), musical movies, and slow-paced children’s shows like Bluey and Little Bear. Similarly, I believe the content of books has a significant effect on the value of reading — I’d rather my daughter watch a good show than we read a really stupid book to her. Obviously there is reason for concern if a child prefers screens to other activities, but I do not have this problem with my kids.
Many parents — including me — turn the TV on for their kids so they can get other stuff done. I’ve tried baby-wearing in the kitchen, and it is not safe. If someone else is around to play with my kids while I’m cooking and cleaning, great, that’s obviously preferable, but it’s also simply not the case a lot of the time.
However, I still believe that screens are a significant contributor to the autism epidemic — but the bigger issue is not children’s screen time (although that is an issue), but rather parents (and grandparents!) who are addicted to their screens.
Last year, in a post wondering “Are Millions “on the Spectrum” Now?”, Dr Naomi Wolf observed:
“I saw lots of affluent younger moms pull a plastic covering, like a clear Zip-Lock bag designed for baby humans, right over the toddlers in their strollers — rain or shine — and, as if the moms have closed up a business venue for the day, they’ll then wedge their phones against the push-bars of the stroller and walk the stroller, with their eyes glued to the screens.”
While researchers such as
and Jon Haidt have done a good job of discussing how smartphone use has negatively impacted children and teenagers’ mental health, they rarely, if ever, discuss how smartphone use by parents might be playing a role: from 2006 to 2009, the number of 30-49-year-olds who were on social networks rose from 6% to 44%.I have also observed many parents and other caregivers ignoring their children because they are staring at their phones. This is no doubt a significant contributing factor to early childhood neglect, which, as discussed above, is likely a risk factor for autism and other mental health struggles in children.
It is fairly obvious that lack of face-to-face time in infancy and toddlerhood could be a cause of prosopagnosia, or facial blindness, which is seen in around a third of autistic adults without intellectual disability, or of the difficulty many autistic children have with eye contact. It is fundamental to neuroscience that cells that fire together, wire together. Babies learn faces from interacting with faces, not from “screen time” or playing with toys or smiling into Mom’s cell phone camera. When we’re looking at our phones, we are not looking at our children.
Other Causes
Let’s be real — the above isn’t a complete list. There’s definitely a ton of other contributing factors to the autism epidemic out there, and other pathways to cause or exacerbate autism in an individual. Basically anything that can cause brain inflammation and/or gut disruption. Traumatic brain injuries come to mind (I mean, I’m pretty sure brain swelling and damage from my fall onto my right parietal lobe as a toddler is one of the reasons I turned out a little odd). C-sections save lives, but they are also correlated with an increased risk of autism in children (through a variety of mechanisms and confounding variables; notably, C-section children miss out on the microbiome transfer from passing through mom’s vagina — if you have a c-section, you can always look into maternal-child microbial seeding interventions). Maternal viral infections have also been linked to increased risk of autism — but I fail to see how this could account for the uptick in diagnosis since viral infections have always existed.
Some people speculate that ultrasounds may contribute to autism and other chronic health conditions in children. Some people blame flame-retardants in children’s clothing, mattresses, and popular household products. Some parents are convinced parasites are the problem, and some report that parasite cleanses improved their child’s symptoms. Some parents have given their autistic kids Ivermectin. Other people say that good worms can treat autism.
If you know of or suspect any causes I missed, feel free to drop your knowledge in the comments section!
The Right Hemisphere and the Four Subtypes of Autism
There is a general theme to all of this.
As Iain McGilchrist pointed out, autism is a symptom of right hemisphere dysfunction and left hemisphere dominance. The right hemisphere is dominant is processing our relationships to other people, to our own body in a holistic way, to nature, and to spirituality / God. “Autism” in this broad sense, is in part a symptom of the West’s mechanistic worship of “Science” — many of the suspected culprits in the autism epidemic come from a lab or are a product of recent scientific advancement.
We need to find a balance between the right and left hemispheres, between science and spirituality / nature.41 I am not arguing that in an ideal world, there would be no “autism” or “autistic” traits. There are some benefits to higher functioning and sub-clinical autism. As Hans Asperger wrote:
“It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential. For success, the necessary ingredient may be an ability to turn away from the everyday world, from the simply practical, an ability to rethink a subject with originality so as to create in new untrodden ways.”
As Temple Grandin has claimed:
“If all the genes and other factors that cause autism were eliminated, the world would be populated by very social people who accomplish very little. The really social people are not motivated enough by “making things” to spend the time necessary to create great art, beautiful music or master-works of engineering that require attention to detail. It’s just not part of their mindset. Yet, that’s often where people with ASD excel.”42
In this vein, some of the genes that have been implicated in autism have also found to be associated with higher intelligence.43 I suspect, at a genetic level, some people with autism (Subgroup 1 in the graphic below) are more sensitive and have higher neuroplasticity, and thus are more vulnerable to adverse effects from an unhealthy environment, unhealthy food, pharmaceutical toxins, and low nurture.
There are many people out there who believe that autism doesn’t need to be treated. Much of the backlash to RFK Jr. has come from media pundits, parents of high-functioning autistic children, and self-described autistic activists who believe that autism is mostly genetic and shouldn’t be prevented or cured.
This stems in part from confusion — as autism is not one condition — and from willful misunderstanding. While I believe every individual with autism is unique, a recent study has found that cases can be loosely clumped into four useful subtypes. All four of these subtypes would be associated with the right hemisphere dysfunction and left hemisphere dominance described by McGilchrist, but otherwise there are significant neurological differences between the groups.
RFK Jr. seems to be almost entirely focussed on “Subgroup 2” in the above graphic, whereas his critics seem to come from Subgroups 1, 3, and 4.44
Language impairments in autism are likely a result of some combination of poor diet / nutritional deficiencies (in particular of folate, B12, and Vitamin D), heavy metal accumulation, environmental toxins, and adverse reactions to pharmaceuticals.
This is the group that suffers most and has the lowest quality of life, and it makes sense for RFK to focus on helping them — however, he should do a better job of acknowledging in his public statements that other types of autism exist and that some of the high and average-IQ autistics who successfully parlay their atypicality into a career in tech or writing (etc) or as a social media influencer feel differently about their diagnosis.
At the same time, high functioning (and self-diagnosed) autistic people and parents of higher-functioning children need to stop attacking parents of low-functioning autistic children and people like RFK Jr. who are trying to help them and their kids. Fine, if you want to be really pedantic about it, we can say that “autism” is not the problem, but do you know what objectively is? Severe nutritional deficiencies, chronic painful gastrointestinal issues, disordered sleep, debilitating anxiety, heavy metal accumulation and other types of poisoning, chronic migraines and other types of pain, and self-harming behaviours (etc).
Just because you experience your particular subtype of autism as a blessing, a gift, a career asset, something that makes your or your child super-special, and/or an opportunity to gain followers on Instagram and TikTok doesn’t mean you can speak for everyone with this diagnosis. Maybe it is mostly genetic in your case — a lot of neurodiversity activists have Yamnaya and Germanic vibes — but it isn’t for everyone.
Personally, when I was suffering from chronic gut issues, migraines, anxiety, and distressing “autistic” traits, I wanted to get better. And so I went through an incredibly difficult healing process with magic mushrooms, made a ton of lifestyle changes which improved my health, and worked on my social skills — and now I’m doing a lot of work to try to raise children who are happy and healthy in the hope that they will not suffer as much as I did.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to healthy, or wanting your children to be healthy. And guess what? Even after all those health improvements and rewiring my brain with psychedelics, my IQ more or less remained intact, as did my heightened sensitivity and tendency to obsess over things (see: this essay). Also and alas, I still have some “stimming” behaviours, such as nail-biting, and I’m still clumsier than I would prefer. But I ditched most of the poor health, while keeping the parts of me that were kind of special and unique. You do not have the right to bully or silence people who want that for themselves or their children.
Closing Thoughts
At pretty much every step of my “journey” into motherhood I’ve been bombarded with awful advice from healthcare workers. I’ve been told to give my kids Tylenol for basically everything, including an upset stomach. I was told to supplement with baby formula when my older daughter wasn’t gaining weight as quickly as is “normal” (I didn’t, she’s healthy and both tall and strong for her age — formula causes more weight gain then breastmilk, and my daughter was giving no indication that my boobs were running dry). I’ve been told not to bed-share, to give my kids Cheerios and rice cereal as first foods, not to salt their food, that they won’t learn social skills if don’t put them in daycare, not to let my babies’ skin touch the sun. I’ve been told that my daughter will get cavities if I don’t use fluoride toothpaste and breastfeed her to sleep (alas, the dentist had to admit her teeth look perfect). She got constipated recently after a bout of the flu, and the doctor told me to give her MiraLAX. It only took a few days to relieve the issue using natural remedies.
I was told to take SSRIs during pregnancy when I was mildly depressed. I was told to take prenatal vitamins — when I refused the second time, multiple midwives told me that was just fine; actually, there’s no evidence the majority of women with a healthy diet need them. Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and stool softeners were pushed on me postpartum — I took them the first time and refused them the second, and I healed in a fraction of the time the second time around. I was also told to go back on birth control pills immediately after giving birth — and when I raised concerns about the negative effects on mental health and nutrient levels, the midwife told me I was correct and that she personally wouldn’t use birth control pills — but it was “her job” to advise me to take them. When I refused the Vitamin K shot for my second child, I received a fear-mongering lecture that she could bleed out from a small cut because her blood wouldn’t clot. She ended up needing to get the foot prick test three times because her blood was clotting so well — I guess all the Vitamin K-rich foods I ate during my third trimester did something after all.
I ask about natural remedies, and most of the time, the doctors and nurses haven’t even heard of them — and when I tell them about natural remedies that worked, they either shrug it off, or lower their voices to tell me that they know — but they could lose their jobs if they recommended them instead of the pharmaceuticals they are paid to hawk.45
I followed the advice of healthcare workers for my first pregnancy, and my daughter ended up in the NICU. I “did my own research” and followed that for my second pregnancy — including skipping the prenatal vitamins — and I literally had a complication-free second pregnancy and birth.
The autism epidemic is not parents’ fault — even when early childhood emotional neglect is a factor, as it almost certainly is in at least some cases (some parents are more guilty than others).
As I’ve written before, both surveys and my own personal experience talking to parents indicates that the majority of mothers wish they could only work part time or not work at all so they could spend more time with their small children — and, yes, fathers and grandparents also make good primary caregivers too. The issue is that most families cannot afford to do this.
In most cases “cold” nurture is a result of lack of time and support — and this applies to the reliance on packaged convenience foods too. I have two kids and being alone with a baby is difficult. When I’ve been alone with one of my babies, I talk less, I get bored, I have no choice but to put them down if I want to prepare a healthy meal. The “village” is gone for most of us in the West. Mothers are burnt out and stressed-out. Blaming and shaming mothers (and fathers) misses the point entirely — parents need more support, in particular from extended family like grandparents, to raise healthy children. We need to take care of mothers, not blame them — and yes, we can do this while still acknowledging that crappy and abusive mothers exist. Families need to have the option to have a stay-at-home parent. We need to start valuing mothers and motherhood again.
As
writes:“To connect the dots would have meant acknowledging that mothers at home perform an invaluable service to the health of our nation and that the solution to said problem rests, in large part, in more mothers quitting their jobs and going home.
We all know how well that message would go over. This, despite the fact ever since mothers stopped being valued for the thankless and relentless work they do, Americans have never been sicker.”
Our culture is toxic. We’re swimming in bad advice, “poisonous pedagogies”, and bad “health” advice sponsored by money-hungry pharmaceutical and “food” companies. Parents, doctors, and nurses (etc) are gaslit and shamed when they try to raise the alarm. I’m not blaming healthcare workers either — most enter their fields with a sincere desire to help people. They receive subpar Big Pharma-sponsored training and risk losing their jobs if they go off-script.
But I digress — this post started off being about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and so I’ll end with him.
There’s no way he’ll know all the causes of autism by September. That’s ridiculous.
RFK Jr. will not know the “cause” of autism by September because autism is not a disease or even a singular condition. It is an umbrella term used to describe a cluster of symptoms that arise from a variety of causes — genetic, environmental, pharmaceutical, nutritional, and nurture-related. No cause applies to all cases, and no case only has one cause.
Similarly, there is no single “cure” or “treatment” for autism, nor any government policies that could “prevent” all types of autism. What is helpful in some cases will be ineffective in others. It depends on the symptom profile and underlying causes. But, loosely speaking, the treatment for autism is to strengthen the right hemisphere, to reconnect to “Spirit” — to other people, to nature, to healthy whole foods, to own’s own body. And just to be even more controversial, I suspect that psilocybin (magic) mushrooms will emerge as one of the more effective ways for adults to do this. (Not recommended for children).
I hope that RFK and his team will manage to identify a handful of the environmental, pharmaceutical, and dietary causes of severe autism and other chronic health conditions and make meaningful policy changes in the United States to address them. And I hope other countries, including my own, will follow suit. I pray for this, for him.
The man is a little crazy, I’ll admit. Apparently a worm ate part of his brain? As fellow brain damagee, I kind of like that.
So here’s rooting for RFK Jr., his brain worm, and his insane, impossible promises. While we definitely won’t know all the causes of “autism” by September, I appreciate that the man is at least trying.
Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, 2012, pages 249-250
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021, page 307
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things, 2021, page 325
Erica Komisar, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, 2017, page 41
Leo Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact”, Nervous Child, 1943, pages 217-250 (page 34 of PDF)
Leo Kanner, “Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact”, Nervous Child, 1943, pages 217-250 (page 34 of PDF)
Quoted in Andrew Solomon, Far From the Tree, 2012, page 231
Alice Miller, Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries, 1991, page 51
Steve Silberman, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, 2015, pages 64-65
Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, 2017, page 191
Erica Komisar, Being There, 2017, page 26
Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, 2021, page 322
Erica Komisar, Being There, 2017, page 156
Christopher Badcock, The Imprinted Brain: How Genes Set the Balance Between Autism and Psychosis, 2009, page 26-27
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009, pages 404-406
The only other person I found who was occasionally mentioned as someone responsible for “debunking” the refrigerator mother theory was Clara Claiborne Park, a popular essayist, parent of a child with autism, and author of The Siege: The First Eight Years of an Autistic Child (1967). Park was a good fit for Kanner’s description of parents of children with autism: she had a master’s degree and worked as a professor (“highly intelligent”), she was a well-published essayist who wrote about literature (“strongly preoccupied with abstractions of a scientific, literary, or artistic nature”), and her dedication to activism is evidence of her “obsessiveness.” Park was persuasive; The Siege is “credited with assuaging the guilt that so many parents of autistic children had assumed, and came to be regarded as an important source of insight for psychiatrists, psychologists, educators and advocates.”
I’ve seen some people on social media arguing that Vitamin A is the best treatment for the measles. Do not give your children high doses of synthetic Vitamin A! Acute Vitamin A toxicity is probably more dangerous than both the measles and the MMR vaccine. Give them foods high in naturally-occurring Vitamin A; good-quality cod liver oil is much safer and doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds — my kids both like it. Grass-fed butter and organic pasture-raised eggs are also good sources.)
Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, 1976, pages 51-52
Christopher Exley, Imagine You Are An Aluminum Atom, 2020, page 71. Found in Tao Lin, “The Story of Autism: How We Got Here, How We Heal”, Mars Review of Books, 2022
Steve Silberman, Neurotribes, 2015, page 15
Christopher Badcock, The Diametric Mind: New Insights into AI, IQ, the Self, and Society, 2019, pages 219-222
Christopher Badcock, The Diametric Mind, 2019, pages 198-199
Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous, 2020
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009
This is also supported by Christopher Badcock’s work in The Imprinted Brain and The Diametric Mind
Atli Arnason, “Folic Acid vs Folate — What’s the Difference?”, Healthline, 2024
Stephanie Seneff, Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment, 2021. Quote found in Tao Lin, “The Story of Autism: How We Got Here, How We Heal”, Mars Review of Books, 2022
James DiNicolantonio, The Salt Fix: Why the Experts Got It All Wrong — and How Eating More Might Save Your Life, 2017, page 139
Robert Lustig, Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition and Modern Medicine―Unpacking the Science Behind Food and Health, 2021
Here’s a trick I used to wean myself off my sugar addiction: I cut all processed foods and refined sugars from my diet, and bought a giant jar of raw honey. Every time I had a sugar craving, I ate a spoon of the honey. Raw honey (it has to be raw!) satisfies the sugar craving while feeding healthy gut bacteria and healing the microbiome. It is not addictive in the same way refined sugars are — and, unlike refined sugars, raw honey will not destroy your teeth. The nuclear option for kicking a sugar addiction is magic mushrooms, but only for adults — detailed advice and research is available here.
Alternative remedies for constipation include long-term dietary changes (eliminate or restrict refined flour, cheese, and processed foods and eat more fruits and vegetables — kiwis are particularly good!), fresh-squeezed apple or pear juice, prune juice, coconut water, blackstrap molasses, castor oil (rub on tummy and in belly button of babies or give a small amount orally to children), milk of magnesia, magnesium glycinate, and senna (Ex-Lax). Castor oil, milk of magnesia, and senna should only be used for three consecutive days or less as there is a risk of dependency. Bio-K+ probiotic yogurts may also help with constipation and other chronic gastrointestinal issues. And, of course, frequent exercise and drinking lots of water helps keep things moving.
For pregnant woman, I really recommend choking down a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses every night before bed. In addition to preventing constipation, blackstrap molasses is a good source of iron and has a significant calcium and magnesium content which can help with sleep.
If you use Tylenol, you can mediate any adverse effects by eating foods known to boost glutathione levels, such as avocados, spinach, sulfur-rich foods, Vitamin C-rich foods, selenium-rich foods (e.g. Brazil nuts), and turmeric.
Personally, I would avoid giving Tylenol to children with vaccinations or for fevers below 102 degrees F. Alternative fever reducers include a lukewarm bath, lemon balm or chamomile tea with raw honey (will also help a child sleep), and lots of fluids (homemade organic chicken broth!).
I was on birth control pills for a decade, and while I think they messed me up in many ways and I went off them at age 30, I had zero issues getting pregnant three years later and both of my kids are very healthy. There’s other reasons to be concerned about birth control pills, but as of this writing, the link to autism is tenuous at best.
While I am skeptical of psychiatric medications — and think that psychedelics (in particular psilocybin) might be safer and more effective (and non-addictive!) — they objectively help some people. Maternal stress poses a greater risk to fetal development — and psychiatric medications tend to be highly addictive and weaning yourself off them is very difficult. So if you’re on SSRIs and find yourself pregnant, talk to your doctor/midwife, keep taking them, and don’t worry about it. Do what’s best for your mental health and stress levels.
Robert Lustig, Metabolical: The Lure and the Lies of Processed Food, Nutrition and Modern Medicine―Unpacking the Science Behind Food and Health, 2021, page 84
If you live in an area where fluoride is added to the tap water, I recommend looking into a good-quality water filter. If you wish to ditch your fluoride toothpaste, there are some good fluoride-free options out on the market with xylitol and/or hydroxyapatite, both which have been shown to be reasonably effective in preventing tooth decay (the best way to avoid tooth decay is via diet).
Christopher Badcock, The Imprinted Brain, 2009, page 175
If you do get singed in the sun, the two best remedies for sunburn I am aware of are breast milk and frankincense essential oil. I got a mild burn last summer while pregnant (pregnancy increases sunburn risk) and it cleared up within hours of me applying some frankincense oil mixed with jojoba as a carrier. Do not apply essential oils directly to your skin without diluting them first!
Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, 1998
Christopher Badcock, The Diametric Mind, 2019, page 290
Recommended reading: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, 2011
Temple Grandin and Sean Barron, The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, 2005, pages 90-91. Quote found in Christopher Badcock, The Imprinted Brain, 2009, page 137.
Christopher Badcock discusses this at length in The Imprinted Brain (2009) and The Diametric Mind (2019). This is also discussed in Steve Silberman’s Neurotribes (2015).
Previous essays I’ve written about “autism” such as “The Dangers of Reading Too Much”, “The Drama of the Gifted Children”, and “The Androgynous Mind” are almost exclusively about Subgroup 1.
Recommended reading: Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It, 2004
> The invention of the smart phone and proliferation of social media also means that more parents (and grandparents!) are addicted to their phones, social media, games etc.
They may even be reading posts like this!
What a comprehensive collection ... I hope I'm in the right frame of mind to be commenting at the moment, as I have been advised by my son's preschool recently to seek an ASD assessment. It does mean I've been thinking a lot about all this.
(1) I wonder if perhaps there is more weight to the increasing maternal age part than one might expect ... a shift so drastic across population levels could well be expected to account for a significant proportion of the increase.
(2) I don't know enough to comment on the vaccine hypothesis... but I made my own choice (to vaccinate) based on research that the single highest risk factor for developing autism was being exposed to German measles in-utero. The same is probably true for other viruses (I caught Covid almost immediately after finding out I was pregnant, despite leaving to self-isolate alone in an unoccupied house).
(3) Advanced maternal age means greater likelihood of placental abnormalities which has been shown to be a risk factor (I had both bilobal placenta and a suspected partial abruption during birth).
(4) I have been thinking a lot about Bettelheim, since I found his main hypothesis (to respond to YOUR unique child, and never treat them like a puzzle box that requires an instruction manual) so useful. I do wonder, in his observations of "refrigerator mothers", if he simply failed to follow his own conclusion to its logical end: was he watching the dyad of relating differently, of a mother responding to her child as he/she required? My son responds far, far better to calm, conversational instructions than overly emotional, whether negative OR overly positive.
(5) I'm interested in this hypothesis at the moment, autism as a bifurcation from socially-mediated development to cognitively-independent development (https://larivierre.substack.com/p/what-if-the-dsm-5-got-autism-wrong?selection=02de0b1b-797c-4e82-8c18-2ca2e408d453). Yes, the issue of absolutely severe cases throws a spanner in the works here (I do wonder if the future will see the separation of ASD and Aspergers as a huge mistake) In any case, have known my son is different from about four months (despite my being a SAHM, no preschool until 1000 days, living on the coast away from pollution, being nutritionally aware and mindful of screens, and all the other knowledge you get from training as a psychotherapist). This article describes very well what I have observed about thinking, relating and exploring differently, while still absolutely being intelligent and relational.
(6) One aspect I also think gets frequently overlooked is changes in society. I’ve been having a lot of conversations about this recently, and realised just how many people in my family in older generations probably have ASD. Generally, life went something like this: stay at home with Mom until age 5, the only real expectation was that one could walk and talk by the time you go to school and half the time you were raised by older siblings as much as parents. Nobody is watching your development and milestones with hyper-awareness. If you struggle at school, it sucks but only a small top percentage of students are expected to go into higher education. You can leave as early as 13-14, and start to learn a trade. Someone gives you detailed orders and instructions all day and there’s few complex social plates to spin. You tend to get a diagnosis when you hit problems with the system. So I believe this is playing a role too, if you struggle at school today everyone freaks because OMG YOU WILL FAIL AT LIFE if you can’t perform in this way (in addition to increased awareness and broader diagnostic understanding).
Apologies for the wall of text, perhaps my own neurodiversity is showing. In short, I'm a walking advertisement for trying to mitigate all the risk I could as a late-30s AuDHD mother, but am in the process of accepting that I have very likely failed. Perhaps I am more dysfunctional than I know, or less warm and loving, or have some terrible unconscious wishes. I don't believe so, but I am prepared to entertain the possibility.