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Now the Rain’s to Blame?
By Erica Westly | November 6, 2008
Credit: noii via Flickr Creative Commons
Sometimes, I think the New Scientist can be a little sensationalistic, but I thought this editorial was pretty spot on. The author takes reporters to task for overhyping a study that, for some reason, correlated autism cases with rainfall, and includes some ridiculous headlines, the most hilarious of which appeared in the Palm Beach Post. It reads simply, “Autism: Blame It on the Rain.” Like the New Scientist author, I love the Milli Vanilli reference.
Actually, having read the press release and abstract, I’m not so sure the study should have been published in the first place. The lead authors are economists, and economists tend to look at these things differently. For them, making random correlations and then speculating about possible causes for the effects is routine. It’s not so much about proving causation as it is in other fields.
I doubt seriously whether the paper would have been accepted by an epidemiology journal. In fact, I have to wonder where these guys got the idea to examine the precipitation connection in the first place. Did they read about the notion that autism could be triggered by environmental factors and then say, “Hmm, that’s interesting. Maybe it’s because the kids watch too much television, and maybe kids in rainy areas stay inside more?”
As titillating as the environmental trigger idea may sound, though, there isn’t any concrete evidence for it. At all. Most medical researchers agree that 1.) we are not experiencing an autism epidemic. Increased diagnoses do not necessarily mean increased rates, especially when you consider how new the Asperger’s diagnosis is to the mix, and 2.) there is overwhelming evidence suggesting autism is genetic.
True, the exact mechanism is unknown, but researchers are getting closer. I’m not buying the gene-environment interaction argument in this case, at least not in terms of causation. In my opinion, this line of inquiry is no more productive than the refrigerator mom hypothesis of the ’50s.
Topics: Biology, Environment, Psychology | 2 Comments »
November 7th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Actually, that is sort of interesting – a friend of mine works for birth-to-three, and sees a lot of developmentally delayed kids. While her caseload tends to skew toward the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, the kids with suspected or diagnosed autism are pretty evenly distributed. Anyway, it seems like the kids provided with less stimulating environments (depressed stay-at-home moms who don’t interact with their children much, people who seldom take their kids out of the house, etc.)do not fare as well as those with parents that are more effective. Obviously this isn’t the cause of autism, but could it exacerbate the symptoms? And meanwhile, the kids provided with lots of interaction with other children and with more stimulating environments, and whose autism is fairly mild, have slipped under the radar?
BTW, I noticed that you write about the gene-environment thing a lot. I was wondering, wouldn’t the whole capsaicin thing be an organism with the best survival rate is most likely to pass on its genes type of thing?
I am supposed to be studying for a microbiology exam. Thanks for distracting me from responsibility!!
November 8th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hey, Krista. I think you’re probably right that, in some cases, the home environment an autistic child grows up in can have an effect on their symptoms. In others, though, behavioral therapy and social stimulation don’t seem to do anything. Of course, I don’t have personal experience with this, but that’s my impression from talking to various therapists and parents dealing with this issue. With developmental disorders, I think the challenge is to separate which symptoms are related directly to the disorder and which are related to developmental changes.
I do find the gene-environment relationship very interesting. My problem with a lot of the epigenetics studies is that they usually can’t demonstrate a specific mechanism that leads directly to a specific phenotype. So, if you’re going to take an environmental factor, like, say, chemicals from household cleaners, and try to link it to a specific disorder like autism, you have to be able to show all the steps of cause and effect clearly. It’s not enough,, for me, anyway, to just show an increase in a generic cellular response, such as methylation or a boost in cAMP.
That being said, I do think researchers will be able to show more specific epigenetics pathways as lab techniques become more sophisticated. As for the capsaicin example I mentioned in a previous post, you’re right in guessing that it might not actually be an example of epigenetics and more just an adaptive response that evolved in the pepper plants living in the bug-rich region. I might have jumped the gun a bit on that one in assuming the aphids might be stimulating the peppers at the gene level.