Therefore, Kennedy is wrong about autism
A reader calls and sounds worried.
– It is not only the United States that is affected by the autism epidemic. The same thing happens in Sweden, he claims.
It is true that more Swedes are diagnosed, I explain, but autism has not become more common than before.
I notice that I am already starting to lose the reader. He hums in the handset and interrupts me:
– But the children’s vaccines then?
The link between autism and vaccine is a medical myth; Disrupted by serious researchers, I say. Then the reader puts on the handset.
After the pandemic, the vaccine skeptics have been low, but now they get new energy from Kennedy’s hunt for a simple explanation. His investigation will find the cause of autism. Kennedy already seems to be sure of the answer: it is something new that has been introduced to the environment in recent decades. When we know what it is, we can stop the exposure – and flip, no one will get autism.
Previously, Robert has Kennedy Jr. focused on vaccines, but now he is looking broadly. Is it the water? Environmental toxins? Or maybe child rearing?
Autism is a disability that affects, among other things, the ability to social communication and interaction. There is not a Cause, without several. Genes play the greatest role; Both random changes in the genetic material and heredity. Research on Swedish twins, among other things, shows that the risk of getting autism can be explained to 80 percent of genes, while environmental factors account for about 20 percent. In many cases, it is probably an interaction between genes and the environment that leads to autism.
Researchers have also investigated thousands of different factors in the environment to find links to autism. One of the most important factors seems to be the woman’s pregnancy. If the mother gets a serious infection when she is pregnant, the immune system can give up on the fetus, which increases the likelihood that the child will receive autism.
Another factor are different substances that can affect the fetus. An example is the substance Valproat found in, for example, epilepsy drugs. However, Countless studies have shown that vaccine does not cause autism. So why does Kennedy and other vaccine skeptics still think so? One explanation is that the first signs of autism sometimes appear at the same age as the child receives their vaccinations. It can create a sense of connection between the two. But that two things happen at the same time does not mean that one causes the other.
A third environmental factor is parents who are relatively old when the child is born. There is also a connection to a large age difference between the parents.
The reader who called I am right in that the number of autism diagnoses is increasing, both in the US and in Sweden.
Researchers I have spoken to say that most of the increase is due to the fact that the boundaries of being diagnosed have changed, more girls and young women are diagnosed, stigma around autism has decreased and that social changes made it more difficult for people with autistic behaviors to cope without support.
But Robert F Kennedy Jr., however, fades such explanations for the increase. He is in search of a new cause in the environment.
It’s human to want simple answers. But when it comes to autism, science shows that the causes are complex. Rather, the increase in the number of diagnoses is about changing vision and better understanding than a sudden epidemic. In the pursuit of a scapegoat, the US health minister risks missing the most important thing – to provide support to those who actually live with autism.
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