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Hints of a Link Between Autism and Vinyl Flooring
SpuriousLogic sends in a link from Scientific American to a study by Swedish and US researchers that reaches the surprising conclusion that there may be a link between autism and vinyl floors. "Children who live in homes with vinyl floors, which can emit chemicals called phthalates, are more likely to have autism, according to research by Swedish and US scientists published Monday. ... The scientists were surprised by their finding, calling it 'far from conclusive.' ... The researchers found four environmental factors associated with autism: vinyl flooring, the mother's smoking, family economic problems, and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation. Infants or toddlers who lived in bedrooms with vinyl, or PVC, floors were twice as likely to have autism five years later... than those with wood or linoleum flooring. ... Several scientists who did not participate in the study cautioned that it has too many limitations to draw conclusions, but they suggested that new studies be designed to look for a connection between autism and indoor air pollutants."
I have a friend with a large vinyl album collection. Some 5,000 vinyls!
Funny, I always thought he was a bit of an introvert. Now I know why. ;)
... someone says correlation is not causation?
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
April Fools! ... ...
I've just scanned the article and I cannot see a link to the actual published paper (or even the name of the journal). Anyone have a link?
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
I've really no idea if this is a legit article or a joke. Linking things to autism is always a cheap headline grabber and studying Vinyl flooring among the other more typical factors seems weird.
The article was published on March 31st but there are scores of sites which publish their 'jokes' early. I'm leaning towards this being real but god knows.
April Fools gets lamer every year, especially given the increasing number of sites who feel the need to post believable, possible stories as real.
this is why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Authorisation_and_Restriction_of_ChemicalsREACH is so important. from wikipedia : "There were 100,106 chemicals in use in the EU in 1981, when the last survey was performed. Of these only 3,000 have been tested and over 800 are known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction." So, only 3% of chemicals in use by man have been tested for environmental and health safety.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
... a recent study found that all autistic children breath air.
so is /. just going to be a melangé of all the April Fools jokes from around the web today?
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
The other three factors mentioned are economic, are poor people more likely to have vinyl flooring than, say, wood flooring? Anecdotally it would seem so to me...
One of the funnest things on April Fools Day is trying to pick out the one or two legit stories on the Slashdot front page. I'm really not sure whether this is one of them. The website is SCiAM.com though, so maybe it's trying to tell us something.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
How is this pre-empting them? All you have done is predict that people will say it, that isn't a counter argument, 'correlation is not causation' may be over-used and formulaic, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
To have any effect, the vinyl plastic must degrade somehow, perhaps because of abrasion or other chemicals. If there is a connection, it could be to any chemical associated with vinyl floors, such as the chemicals in the cement used eventually diffusing through the vinyl.
The article says, "The researchers found four environmental factors associated with autism: vinyl flooring, the mother's smoking, family economic problems and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation."
I assume they mean vinyl flooring throughout the house. Most people in the U.S. have vinyl floors in the kitchen. I notice that people who have vinyl floors throughout the house do not clean them as often as a kitchen floor is cleaned.
All those factors occur because a family is poor, and therefore under a lot of stress. So maybe adult stress causes autism in children. It certainly causes numerous other problems.
Be careful about the potential for fraud. The article says, "Is vinyl bad for baby?" If it is bad for a baby, it is bad for everyone. Follow the money: Someone who wants to sell alternative flooring would profit. Just that single statement in Scientific American will sell a lot of alternative flooring. That statement is suspiciously strong considering the facts in the article.
From the Wikipedia for Polyvinyl chloride: "PVC is the third most widely used thermoplastic polymer after polyethylene and polypropylene. In terms of revenue generated, it is one of the most valuable products of the chemical industry. Around the world, over 50% of PVC manufactured is used in construction."
Not too long ago I learned that phthalates were used as "softeners" in plastic containers. That's not a problem normally but if you put plastic boxes that aren't supposed to be recycled into your dishwasher to use them as a lunch-box then you have a problem since they weren't designed for such high temperatures and the phthalates are released. Same thing if you microwave it.
Boxes that are "microwave/dishwasher safe" don't have this problem naturally. This is generally printed on the container itself.
And phthalates aren't good for you. Even if you're an adult.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
...or will it?
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Male babies are more likely to be autistic than female babies.
An already well verified statistic, go google it before getting in a lather about that bit.
since the discovery years ago that leisure suits cause cancer.
Geez... no Slashdot today for me.
This makes me angry! Seems like I can't go anywhere without being tricked by some stupid trick.
Ahhh, at least I can view my cat videos on YouTube without any prob....
qnno no up
Low income. Increases the likelihood of smoking, vinyl flooring, poorly ventilated housing and... oh look, it's right there in the list: "family economic problems".
Meta will eat itself
http://xkcd.com/552/
So how do you study carcinogenicity: Simple. You feed a couple of rodents that you don't particularly like 5% of their bodyweight of a certain stuff each day, and see how many of them develop cancer within their short lifespans. Now comes the fun part: You extrapolate the 5% bodyweight daily ratio to 1 ppm bodyweight daily ratio, and similary divide the rate of mammal acquiring cancer. Voila, a new PhD promotion based on the completely meritless assumption that there is any kind of linearity involved in these rates.
I know a lot of current research is not so stupid, but most of the 1970's cancer scares were based pretty much on the scenario I just described.
Determining whether or not a compound is carcinogenic in humans is extremely hard, except for the really bad ones.
"correlation is not causation" ... and i'm not joking, we really need to get everyone in the world finally past this stumbling block.
... because they will find (if they bother to study it) that most Autistic people will (on average) enjoy spending longer looking at the sea waves with their every changing details and changing specular highlights as they break and merge combined with the complex yet rhythmic sounds of the waves breaking on the beach etc..
Its very unfortunate that everyone in the world doesn't know the difference. It would solve so many problems in the world, if everyone was forced to learn the difference throughout school and in everyday adult life. Everyone would find life so much better as so many arguments would be avoided and things would get fixed quicker. The people behind funding education in science need to focus a vast amount of time, money and effort into promoting understanding in this simple yet vital bit of education. (I would go as far as to say we need a day per year to remind everyone, like a "world correlation is not causation day!"
"autism AND vinyl flooring."
It could also simply be for example, (on average) more autistic people prefer and enjoy the look, patterning, practical ease of use, feel and/or smell of vinyl flooring. Its like saying, which comes first, Autism or Vinyl flooring.
They could just as easily say looking at the sea causes Autism
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Its not funny, he is sadly correct.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
But there are some things you just shouldn't do on April Fool's Day, and one of them is encouraging parents of autistic children desperate to blame something for their children's condition. I mean, come on; this is a group that thinks vaccines can cause autism; they'll swallow this one hook, line, and sinker.
None of those factors were present around my autistic son.
Bad research, go try again.
Autism research has a history of this sort of thing. Nothing new here,move along.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Condensation on windows doesn't imply bad ventilation, as the study authors suggest. Condensation happens when windows leak, so that the cold air coming through the leak chills the warmer air inside next to the window, lowering its dewpoint. So condensation on windows implies more air exchange between inside and out, not less. Air exchange of course is ventilation.
Now, leaky windows with condensation tend to be older windows. Might they be older vinyl windows? Might they be older, wooden, lead painted windows? I don't know what's typical of windows in Sweden.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
...There were 100,106 chemicals in use in the EU in 1981, when the last survey was performed...
Water is a chemical. So are oxygen, nitrogen, glucose, all proteins. You are a big bag of chemicals yourself.
Every single one of them can kill you, given a large enough dose. Think about that. Every time you exhale, you emit a noxious cloud H2O, CO2 and various organic compounds mixed in with the left over air. CO2 has been widely implicated in various environmental threats to the survival of life on earth.
The only way you can avoid being surrounded by chemicals is to retreat to the vacuum of deep space.
What? Male sex?
Well, I guess we know whats on your mind... think adjective, not verb. That disease is much more common in boys than girls.
What is "autistic spectrum"?
The symptoms range from pretty freaking minor to pretty awful. Despite there being no firm obvious medically detectable difference between diseases, and also that it is always possible to find a patient right in the middle of two precisely defined "definitions" the medical community overall prefers to label different degrees of one disease as entirely separate diseases, and a semi-passive aggressive way to make fun of that is to refer to "the autistic spectrum". Not all doctors agree, and many of them also use terms like "autistic spectrum".
Can parents report autistic behavior accurately?
Guess you didn't read the article, since it explained that 72 parents told them they had a diagnosis, then the surveyors checked up on ten of them by talking to their doctors, and the story from the parents matched the doctors story. Ten out of ten told the truth, so probably, at least 90% of the 72 did accurately report a positive diagnosis. There are also some notes in the article about how they had to follow the swedish rules for medical reporting with regards to finding that info, no idea what that requires. There are some diseases that people lie about, most commonly the level of obesity, also there are mental health problems that inherently involve lying, but lying about a positive autism diagnosis is apparently not an issue, at least in Sweden. Doesn't look like they checked up on people whom claimed negative but perhaps their doctors might say positive, so its not exactly a perfect study, but not too bad.
Was whoever wrote the article or placed the article in Scientific American paid to sensationalize the story?
Dude don't know if you've read SciAm over a long period, but over decades its gone from a somewhat light version of Science or Nature toward something that I feel is the "weekly world news" or "national enquirer" of the science journalism world. Also page count has gone from small town phone book to mid double digits at best. Its a shame the editors ran it into the ground and stomped on the corpse... if they had not, I'd still be a subscriber. In fact, if they had not run it into the ground, I'd be glad to pay twice the subscription fee. So, in summary, uh, yeah, it might be just slightly sensationalized.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This possibility is very plausible. I went scuba diving once with the guy from the EPA who discovered toxins released into the air by carpets. He got death threats from the carpet industry.
More research is needed, but it would not surprise me for this link to be real. Given that knowledge of gases and toxins from man made fibers in carpet, its not hard to believe that the Vinyl flooring could cause similar problems.
On a side note, some areas are banning vinyl mini blinds because they contain lead.
http://parenting.ivillage.com/baby/bsafety/0,,429c,00.html
Is lead in vinyl flooring also?
Think Deeply.
The article, which was released yesterday, is dated 31st March! How often will this have to be said in this thread before people actually read it?
I agree, unhelpful jest, hope you find some better class of april 1st humor elsewhere.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Of course, the same motions are done with lino and wood flooring, and the same chems are used on lino, but there was no correlation with these.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is not an april fools:
- It was posted on SCiAM on 31 march
- This isn't remotely a subject that SCiAM would make fun of (a more likely example would be an article claiming irrefutable evidence for intelligent design)
- Falling for this, if it were a joke, wouldn't result in a minor embarrassment to be laughed at
- Someone already posted links to the scientific articles:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1182839&cid=27413449
If it IS vinyl flooring, it isn't from the kid, it's from pregnant mom, I think. Although we didn't have vinyl floors (and because of insurance screw-ups, didn't get my son properly vaccinated well until after he was full blown autistic), I was exposed to a lot of toxins (airborne) during my pregnancy. But the interesting thing is, in retrospect, he had signs of autism almost immediately after birth. Part of autism (which he has to the point where he cannot speak, and most likely will never live independently) can be sensory problems, and his are oral/eating related. He would not breastfeed. He would not take food from a bottle. He could not leave the hospital for two weeks because of this. Even when he got home, formula or breastmilk would pour down his face as much as it would pour into his mouth. I've spoken to other parents who saw signs, small ones, very very early on. Yes, my kid did have a bit of that 'developing ok and then all of a sudden went backwards' stuff, but he was already a bit off, I think. And he still does that today -- over the summer, without school, he lost the ability to communicate completely. It's just that parents seem to notice that first change. So vinyl floors? A bit of a reach. Something happening during pregnancy? A possibility. Toxins? A possibility. But my wood floors didn't 'save' my son.
I find that "correlation is not causation" to be a great way to filter out those with zero (well actually negative because they are actively spreading misinformation) knowledge of statistics.
;)
Personally I think it's a soundbite that states the obvious and is often abused.
Science is the bussiness of correlating models to observations via pedictions, maths provides the language to do that. Soundbites can mean whatever you want them to, the easiest way to attack junk science is to attack the explicit and implicit assumptions it makes. The easiest way to dismiss someones work is with a soundbite.
Papers like this are simply pointing out what common elements they found in the environments of parental-selected Autistic children. There were other correleations in the paper which, if nothing else, are usefull for showing what someone hasn't found. You report what you find, in a lot of cases that is "nothing". However an experiment that did "nothing" also lead to relativity.
Disclaimer: I am assuming there is a peer-reviewed publication somewhere? - I don't care to read it but it would add credibility to the argument that the author(s) already understand basic statistical analysis. An alternate hypothisis is it's you who is missing something "obvious". The test of course would be to read the paper, OTOH if the "significant finding" is the vinyl/autisim thing then I can't think why a non-epidemiologist like me would bother.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The article seems serious. Weird, but serious. All the citations and names check out.
Best Slashdot Co
Low income. Increases the likelihood of smoking, vinyl flooring, poorly ventilated housing and... oh look, it's right there in the list: "family economic problems".
Er, economic problems? How long before someone mentions the words "bailout" and/or "unemployment rate"?
Obama is blamed for autism in 3..2...1...
Note that just because correlation is not causation, doesn't mean that correlation is not important...
Besides the article being dated March 31, 2009, joking about autism isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. Apr 1 seems to have turned into some kind of trial of trust of the media now, which pisses me off.
I know that autism isn't a laughing matter and all, but I'm not sure what's funnier, you looking for trust in the media or the fact that you're pissed that it's (shockingly) absent.
vinyl flooring, the mother's smoking, family economic problems, and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation
trailer park. the end.
What? Male sex?
Well, I guess we know whats on your mind... think adjective, not verb.
Don't you mean, "Think noun, not noun?"
A pregnant mother who smokes poisons her baby.
Nonsense! My mother smoked and I have no mental problems, you inanimate object that exists only for my amusement!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
For people from cultures that doesn't really have the slightest sense of April Fool's, it is actually very annoying to finally realize that this might not be real.
(10) Just trying to spell vinyl will mess you up.
(9) One word: boomerang (pattern).
(8) With vinyl floors you can skate indoors and hit your head on the far wall.
(7) 100% vinyl floors on basement apartments. The noise from the guy upstairs with the stepmaster will drive anyone crazy.
(6) Most houses have vinyl floors somewhere. If you visit autistic homes and snoop around, you will almost always find some.
(5) One word: Plastics.
(4) If this were true then workers in the umbrella, raincoat, new car seat-installing, and shower-curtain industry would be drooling morons. More than expected, anyway.
(3) One word: falafel (Phalafel?) (Phatalate?)
(2) How can you resist not counting the squares each day to make sure none have gone missing?
(1) And the last one: Don't vinyl floor tiles also have formaldehyde plasticizers and asbestos fillers?
Having calmed down a bit, I understand what they were trying to do. It's about all these fools out there claiming that there is a single silver bullet cause. I've heard people preach about mercury in vaccines so many times I just want to scream. They didn't use mercury any more when my son was vaccinated and if anything, he gets way more mercury exposure from coal burning power or even the environment than he does from a vaccine. IT's just incorrect.
Believe me, I understand the urge to find that one thing that, if you could fix your son, you would. I read the article, and I was like, "ahah, the vinyl floors have got to go!". But, there's no magic fix, just a lot of ABA therapy, and an acceptance that my son is going to be different - and, a healthy re-examination of myself - perhaps I'm on the spectrum too, and gave a piece of it to my son.
This is my sig.
Would you mind telling why we should treat manmade compounds different from nature made compounds? Say for instance PTFE versus wasp poision?
Preempting isn't about a counter-argument... it means (generally) to do something first to prevent others from doing it. A preemptive strike is meant to keep your oppenent from striking. A preemptive bid in bridge is meant to keep your opponents from making low-level bids to exchange information. A preemptive bid in contract bidding is meant to close the bidding process before the open bidding process even begins (like to forestall an auction).
So, while you are right that his post doesn't preempt people who wish to make the C != C argument... it's not because he doesn't present an argument against them... Theoretically, he DID preempt them, because he brought it up first so all who follow are redundant and should be modded down.
But that's all moot, anyway. He failed because he was slow -- to b silly, you might say he post-empted them... oe of them got it in before he did.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
As stated above, low income can result in all the other conditions. Obviously, household income isn't a cause of autism, so you need to find the cause of low income.
Could it be autism or asperger's? Affected social skills, introversion, and other "quirks" could very well result in someone being unable to hold or progress financially in a job, forcing them to stay in a low-income area. And has been suggested in the Silicon Valley, when you put a bunch of people with asperger's together, the likelihood of them pairing up increases. If that's the case, then the cause becomes genetic, not environmental. The environment is simply a symptom of the problem.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Its a shame the editors ran it into the ground and stomped on the corpse... if they had not, I'd still be a subscriber.
There are good alternatives, such as 16 pages of weekly ad-sparse science coverage.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This is the one day we can trust the media. Granted the thing we are trusting is that they are full of crap, but that's better than not knowing whether or not they are serious or full of crap.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Almost as soon as you get causation != correlation, you get trolling like this. Once you accept that causation != correlation, you can also accept that other reasonably intelligent people will accept this also. The authors of the report make no claim to causation. But this does lead to important questions that deserve to be investigated. So please, just don't post if all you want is a soapbox for your politics.
Think global, act loco
(1) Does the article or summary assert causation at any point? No, they don't. Therefore, "correlationisnotcausation" is an entirely irrelevant response here.
(2) Is correlation the strongest possible result from research like this? Yes, it is. To demonstrate causation you'd need a designed experiement, with babies raised for years in a controlled environment with vinyl to see how many became autistic; experiments like that are not possible.
(3) As another poster said, "correlationisnotcausation" has become Slashdot shorthand for "I choose to ignore all of your scientific evidence". Compare to: "Evolution has not been proved, it's only a theory."
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Someone was going to...
Condensation on windows is not a sign of a poorly ventilated house. Condensation forms when humid air comes in contact with a much cooler surface. So, for example, if you have no storm windows on your windows but you are running a humidifier you will get condensation in the winter.
Vinyl windows will actually reduce condensation because they are like built-in storm windows. The inner pane isn't as cold as a single pane of glass -- yet vinyl windows also reduce airflow, meaning that ventilation is reduced.
That part of the study just doesn't make sense.
Leonard Sax's book Boys Adrift discusses potential impact on boy's normal development by Pthalates. The text is searchable on Google.
Computers obey me.
I would be very surprised if Scientific American posted something like this as a (poor attempt at a) joke.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
So I guess all those mornings spent licking the floor was a bad plan.
science news is bi-weekly now
Global warming causes autism. In before Al Gore.
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
Was that serious?! OMG! I really thought it WAS a joke.
One though I have heard mentioned occasionally - autism, parkinsons, diabetes, even heart disease are all caused by diseases. Brain rot eats your flesh!
Basically, if there is no direct link to a specific biological anomaly - like Huntingdon's where a specific genetic problem means EVERYONE with the gene gets the disease at the certain time - then it's a disease. Diseases pop up randomly. They unpredictably flare up and attack people. The same sort of thing happens with syphillis (brain rot late in life) or polio (post-polio syndrome - nerve rot, later in life). While stress or other factors can cause for example, an outbreak of herpes or cold sores (Herpes 1) the timing and predictability is random. Maybe even cancers - after all, HPV is blamed for most cervical cancer.
Similarly with childhood diabetes; it pops up randomly in children - one day they're fine, the next they have to pee like a racehorse and something inflames their pancreas. based on the situation of Michael Fox - a cluster of 5 or 6 people who worked in the same studio in Vancouver ended up with early onset Parkinsons? Also consider the earliest stem cell research - injections helped some people for a while, but then they regressed; almost as if the stem cells tried to replace what was missing, but then were attacked in turn by the same agent. It's almost like the brain has plenty of spare capacity until something slowly destroys so much that nothing spare is left to compensate and the person suddenly starts going downhill.
Even heart disease - there's still a disagreement if there is any correlation with cholesterol. Perhaps simple small inflamations give the arterial clots somewhere to latch onto and start building obstructions. Installing stents can open the artery, but the clots just grow back over if the artery still has the same problem.
We see the same symptoms with autism - fine for a while, then suddenly -poof! All is lost. Is it a disease? Something attacks a cerain area of the brain, building damage until suddenly there is nothing to compensate for the missing function? A form of brian rot which randomly strikes at-risk children like measles or chicken pox, but with far stronger results and less obvious communicability? perhaps Aspergers is just a later or less destructive form of the infection?
Remember until the 1990's, stomach ulcers were stress-induced symptoms of character problems, the sign of an obsessive worry-wart? Then they discovered that, oh, these are simple infections that an antibiotic can cure, the perceived character flaw was the result of the pain the ulcer caused?
Any number 3 plastic has phthalates that tend to bleed out of plastic when they come in contact with saliva. Often these are rubber toys (for the puberty-stricken Slashdot crowd, get a cold shower, I am not talking about condoms) for kids who commonly put them in their mouths. I've even seen some sipping cups and one-time use products (e.g. energy drinks) that use 3 or the other two problematic plastics 6 and 7. Basically, it is a known fact that phthalates are problematic. Couple that with the fact that they are pretty much everywhere and we got a real problem. As a result, autism is on tremendous rise, particularly in US...
See, this one seems too serious to be an AF, but at the same time it's kinda plausable. Of course, I haven't really read the article any more than a brief glance to see whether it was obviously an AF.
So the moral of the story is... don't announce anything serious today! Especially if it sounds kinda weird.
I'm a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar...
-Lucy-
1st, lo-income housing is usually well-ventilated: leaks & drafts from bad weatherstripping; upscale houses are usually v.tight, ironically leading to poor ventilation, unless u go further upscale & install heat exchangers...
2nd, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aspergers_pr.html and geeks usually aren't lo-income...
I came across this article a while back; there's speculation that the correlation between rainfall and autism is caused by kids staying indoors most of the time; whether that meant a lack of exposure to something important outdoors or an exposure (constantly) to something dangerous indoors was an open question. This continues down that path, accidentally.
I have to wonder if it would be a more accurate link between the amount of time a child spent in near proximity to vinyl flooring and not just whether or not the household had it.
In other words, if children who spend more time sitting in their homes, crawling the floor, etc, are more prone to Autism than children who spend a greater percentage of their time outdoors.
Additionally, I wonder if a similar correlation exists if there is extensive parental exposure to phthalates prior to conception.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. -- George Orwell
Have they condsidered that perhaps families with autistic children are more likely to put in vinyl flooring? It is, after all, easier to keep clean than, say, carpet, and cheaper to replace than hardwood if damaged.
This is so true. I definitely become autistic whenever I'm near vinyl. It's so nice to finally be vindicated by science.
NPR has a phthalates story today. It explains how certain phthalates were banned from children's products based on scientific evidence that they were dangerous, but other phthalates were banned just this year for political reasons despite scientific evidence that they were safe.
Vinyl flooring is generally the cheapest flooring available, so it would be more prevalent in low income house holds.
Smoking is more common in low income households.
Family economic problems should be more common in low income households.
Sounds like low income is a common factor in the above.
On the whole, without knowing how the data was collected, how the families were selected, and whether any participants were removed from the study, there is no way to actually validate the study.
I find this telling:
I also question this part of the article:
Has there been an increase in the rate of autism or the rate of diagnosis. Starting in the mid 1980s there has been an increase in the awareness of autism, an increase in the education of medical personal in the symptoms of autism and a corresponding increase in diagnosis. One would have to study the records of people classified as mentally deficient or ill in childhood since about 1970 or so to determine how many would now be diagnosed as autistic. Then, and only then, one could claim an actual increase in autism.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Areas with higher rain fall have been shown to have greater incidents of Autism. This is starting to make sense.. more rain = less time outside = less fresh air (or more exposure to polluted indoor air).
Nothing to do with the rain per se, just being inside more. Glad I live in an old house with wood floors and poor weather stripping. (lots of fresh outside air comes in).
----------------------------
Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
But who ever heard of a bedroom with a vinyl floor?
Why was this modded flamebait? It seems like a reasonable argument to me. If you want to refute it, then do so, but don't use mod points to stifle civil debate.
Confirmation bias is a real problem, and should be addressed.
There has been some recent noise about low levels of vitamin D being a possible cause of autism. People are so worried about skin cancer that they can't make enough vitamin D from the sun. While they get enough vitamin D to prevent scurvy, it's far from an optimal amount.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-theory-autism.shtml#hd1
http://timeofgrace.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/low-vitamin-d-linked-to-autism/
Chris Mesterharm
So? how about some good studies? Anyone can write a book.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Previously on "Condensation":
Johnny: Helen, there's moisture on the outside of my glass.
Helen: It's condensation Johnny.
Johnny: But what about the fog on the windows?
Helen: It's not fog Johnny, it too is called condensation.
Additionally, this holds true for all behavioral/mental norm divergence. That is, females have a very tight distribution in terms of mental characteristics: not too many savants, idiots, dolts, geniuses, masterminds, or anything like that. Yes, there are intelligent women (or stupid women), they're just usually not as drastically predisposed (call it polarized) as men, and there aren't nearly as many of them, either.
Men, on the other hand, are less like a hump and more like a recurve bow, when it comes to the distribution. IE, there are a lot fewer 'normal' men than there are 'normal' women, statistically. Men are more statistically likely to have mental disorders (if you consider the norm a lack of disorder) than women.
This is, of course, discounting the argument that women are weak, feeble-minded, and are prone to things like fear and flights of fancy. You know, how women used to be viewed.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Different scientific fields have somewhat different practices for what does imply causation, driven often by some form of pragmatism. In physics, for example, you typically hypothesize causation, then try to think of things that your hypothesis predicts that haven't yet been shown, and see if you can find those, or find contrary evidence. In medicine and the social sciences, you often try to collect many sets of correlations and then try to factor them out of each other, e.g. compute effect of income on disease X, after controlling for level of education and geographic location and diet. Then in cases where it's practical to do so, you might try the "gold standard" of controlled experiments, though these too must often deal with confounding factors. In other fields there are yet more subtly different standards.
For one attempt to treat the issue fully rigorously, which also shows how complex it is both mathematically and philosophically, I recommend Judea Pearl's book Causality .
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As a home builder, I usually default to vinyl flooring for 'wet' areas of the home whenever price is an issue. But (even as a skeptic) I think it's worth paying a couple % more for more stable vinyl products, or eliminate the problem altogether by using linoleum or tile. This headline wasn't a surprise to anyone who's involved in 'green building'. Flooring is being targeted as one of the biggest problems with indoor air quality. It's not just the crappy vinyl, it's also the cheap VOC-laden adhesive used to install it. Seriously - do a little research on phthalates and you'll realize how potent of a toxin they are.
I often wonder, did Autism naturally occur before the creation of our chemical dependence of vinyl? How prevalent was Autism before the onset of our vast use of plastics? As a new senior and having received my first SS check, I feel our dependence on the chemical industry is partly to blame along with greed of the ad agencies touting products that haven't been throughly tested. Just look in your kitchen cabinets, I'll bet with damn few exceptions you'll have lots of plastic ware. How many fumes are released into our food when we nuke of leftovers. As a parent, I was concerned and now rightfully so, what kind of damage have we done to our children when we heated their bottles. Most parents switched from glass to unbreakable plastic bottles. Another thought for researchers, what is the rate of Autism in a Third world country vs the US? I'd be willing to bet Autism does not exist outside of the "industrialized nations". Well does it?
The fascinating and important thing about autism as a spectrum disorder is that necessarily we all fall somewhere in that spectrum.
snig