Harvey Karp: Cracking the Autism Riddle: Toxic Chemicals, A Serious Suspect in the Auti... - 0 views
www.huffingtonpost.com/...the-autism-riddl_b_221202.html
autism toxic chemicals research endocrine disrupting chemicals EDC
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One group of substances of particular concern is a ubiquitous family of hormone twisting compounds, known as endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
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Our exposure to EDCs is no mere theoretical concern. In 2000, a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study found detectable phthalates in 99.9% of adults including women of childbearing age.
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there is evidence that even minuscule amounts of these chemicals -- levels commonly present in a woman's body -- may disturb fetal brain development during highly sensitive periods of neural development known as windows of vulnerability.
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Our increasing exposure to EDCs lends support to a new hypothesis about the cause of autism, called the "extreme male theory." This theory, proposed by Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen and colleagues, speculates that autism is caused by something changing a fetus' hormonal balance that then leads to over-masculinization of the developing brain. Could that "something" be the slurry of hormone-altering chemicals we're exposed to every day? Are EDCs the reason autism-type disorders are 4-9 times more common in boys? (Vaccine side effects never show such lopsided impact on boys versus girls...a glaring fact that is totally ignored by those promoting the vaccine theory of autism.)
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Here is where the very interesting link to EDCs comes into play: EDCs often act as weak estrogens and estrogen feminizines the body, but in a fetus' developing brain estrogen actually has the opposite effect...it causes masculinization.
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The NCS will establish over one hundred study centers across the US to test the blood of 100,000 newborns for scores of synthetic chemicals, including many EDCs. (Workers have already begun going door-to-door enrolling pregnant moms into the program.) For the next 21 years, scientists will carefully follow the children's health, comparing the body burden of chemicals at birth to diseases developed later in life.
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Within 3-4 years, we expect to have enough data accumulated to start detecting what chemicals might be linked to autism.
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Beside the NCS, I support other new studies to look at: 1) the autism risk in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated kids; 2) the metabolism of vaccine ingredients (like aluminum, added to make shots work better), 3) more accurate determinations of the true incidence of autism.
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The presence of EDCs in women of child-bearing age is especially worrisome. That is because there is evidence that even minuscule amounts of these chemicals -- levels commonly present in a woman's body -- may disturb fetal brain development during highly sensitive periods of neural development known as windows of vulnerability.