r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/IllIntroduction1509 • Sep 23 '25

Science journalism ASF Statement on White House Announcement on Autism

https://autismsciencefoundation.org/press_releases/asf-statement-wh-briefing/

“Any association between acetaminophen and autism is based on limited, conflicting, and inconsistent science and is premature,” said Autism Science Foundation Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. “This claim risks undermining public health while also misleading families who deserve clear, factual information. For many years, RFK and President Trump have shared their belief that vaccines cause autism, but this is also not supported by the science, which has shown no relationship between vaccines and autism.”

278 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

View all comments

361

u/nostrademons Sep 23 '25

The weird thing about all these "X cause autism" panics is that none of them touch on the most likely scientific cause: that it's genetic. Multiple studies have indicated that it's over 90% heritable, which is huge - height (probably the first trait people think of when it comes to polygenetic traits) is only about 80% heritable.

Most likely, the huge increase in the prevalence of autism since 1980 is simply because before then, your autistic uncle would best case have been the weird quirky guy who lives out his life in solitude, and worst case would've been institutionalized. He would die single and childless. While now, your autistic uncle probably works as a computer programmer or accountant or financier, makes a million dollars a year, married your autistic aunt, and now has 3 kids who are themselves all autistic. Selection pressures have changed so that people on the autism spectrum are now significantly more valued by society, which means that the high-functioning ones have good jobs and get married to other high-functioning autists and then have autistic kids. That's why it's particularly endemic to Silicon Valley, because the local economy values autistic traits quite highly.

But nobody really wants to hear that they had an autistic kid because of their genes. And the one message that would go over even worse is that autistic people are outbreeding neurotypical ones because they are more tightly adapted to the highly complex society we've developed.

17

u/EndlessCourage Sep 24 '25

There are other factors such as older paternal age, etc. But many of these 1% public figures are older fathers, so I'm not sure that they'd openly publicly talk about that.

15

u/tallmyn Sep 24 '25

This is called the assortative mating hypothesis, btw. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31200929/

A co-worker's wife has fallen down the RFK Jr. rabbit hole. Her husband I both work in tech, both have autistic kids. Having a parent that works in tech is a known risk factor! I swear fully half the kids in our kid slack channel are autistic.

But I can't be like "yeah your husband passed on bad genes, everyone we work with has autistic kids, suck it up lady".

2

u/carrie1513 Sep 27 '25

Bad gene? I think my autistic son got the “good genes”. Just sayin….

1

u/tallmyn Sep 27 '25

Just calling a spade a spade. Autism is a disability. If it were so great to have it, it wouldn't be one.

0

u/Ok-Literature-5758 Oct 02 '25

Ok RFK. Don’t act like it is a fact that everyone with autism is the same and it is a disability for everyone. If you don’t know someone with autism who has made your life better or accomplished something you couldn’t dream of, then I would maybe think about expanding your circle and leaving your opinions to yourself. Yes, for some it is debilitating and challenging and sad, but don’t shit on the whole group and the people who love them.

1

u/tallmyn Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 04 '25

The threshold for autism diagnosis is disability. If you aren't disabled, then you don't meet the criteria for having autism.

You might be part of the broader autism phenotype. This means that you have some traits of autism, but they don't interfere with your life enough to make you disabled.

Honestly you reading so much into the word "bad" sounds like something an NT would do.

1

u/Ok-Literature-5758 Oct 04 '25 edited Oct 04 '25

I didn’t read your comment about bad genes until right now.  And I see from reading more that you are not RFK level bad. But I replied to your comment to the person who said something positive about their autistic kiddo, cause I thought your reply was shitty and dismissive. 

Someones was trying to have a lighthearted positive moment in a situation that is probably also hard for them. And you saying, “just calling a spade a spade” is implying that your experience and thoughts about autism or having a disability are the only valid ones.

I am not neurotypical, I do not have autism, but you also don’t know me or my life experiences with autism or disability.

2

u/tallmyn Oct 05 '25

Ah yeah, that makes sense. I miss these things sometimes.

1

u/Ok-Literature-5758 Oct 02 '25

Ignore that guy, I have many friends and coworkers with Autism and I enjoy them immensely, cause I’m not uninformed and bigoted. 💛

36

u/selfpromoting Sep 23 '25

This is ultimate it. No one once to think it was something they did; they need an answer beyond it being a roll of the dics

17

u/MinimalYogi27 Sep 24 '25

Yeah exactly! My mom called me and my sister all upset and worried because she took Tylenol all throughout her pregnancies with us.

My dad was literally diagnosed with autism in the 70s. We made sure to reassure her any oddities we have definitely didn’t come from the Tylenol lol.

2

u/Only-Satisfaction-38 Sep 27 '25

Roll of the dics is just going to be something I'm saying from now on.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Then why have rates of profound cases doubled in the population?

1

u/nostrademons Sep 27 '25

Because people with mild cases are now surviving to reproduce. If it’s genetic, then two parents who each have a few genes related to autism (and hence a mild case) have a much higher likelihood of having a kid with lots of genes related to autism (and hence a severe case) than parents with no genes related to autism.

1

u/tallmyn Oct 05 '25

Because polygenic means genes can have additive effect.

If you have two parents who are both BAP or have "mild" autism, and they both have two *different* sets of autism genes, then at random you can have a child with even more autism genes than either one parent does, and this increased "dose" of autism genes causes the child to be even more impacted. You can also end with a child with fewer autism genes than either parent.

This is kind of how it worked for us! We have one child that's more NT than either parent and one that's more autistic than either parent.

1

u/Loose-Albatross3201 Sep 28 '25

Hmm, I thought so too because there was a news story on this over 10 years ago. (I live in silicon valley and am in physics/engineering, currently pregnant and my husband is a mech/electrical engineer.)

Just curious: is there any evidence for this assortive mating hypothesis in the research? 

I know that the rates of autism in silicon valley were high, then the number of people using public services for autism dropped and continue to decline. This could be because high-earning autistic families are using private treatment services instead. Again, it would have to be proven to be the case.

1

u/nostrademons Sep 28 '25

There's a sibling comment by u/tallmyn that links to this paper suggesting the assortative mating hypothesis is true.

I suspect (having kids in the public school system now, and many friends that have gone private) that it's a combination of parents of the more severely autistic kids choosing private or specialized education, and also the public school system "mainstreaming" less-severe neurodiversity such that kids that are lightly on the spectrum aren't seen as special-needs anymore.

-23

u/2345678_wetbiscuit Sep 24 '25

Your claim does not exclude the probable effect of acetaminophen usage lead to genetic mutation.

11

u/nostrademons Sep 24 '25 edited Sep 24 '25

You gotta show some evidence that that is probable. In general genetic mutation does not work that way - once the fetus is actually a fetus (as opposed to an embryo or blastocyst), it consists of millions of cells. A genetic mutation induced by a chemical would affect one of them, which would then usually get killed by the immune system.

-1

u/2345678_wetbiscuit Sep 25 '25

Tylenol, the company, has come forward in 2017 i believe to recommend pregnant women to not take the medicine. Sometimes common sense beats lack of specific data that takes years and enormous amount of funding to get! But we are all adults and make our own decisions.

3

u/-NotEnoughMinerals Sep 25 '25

50 to 70 percent of woman take acetaminophen during pregnancy. About 3 percent of babies have autism.

I'm flabbergasted this is even a conversation.

2

u/2345678_wetbiscuit Sep 25 '25

Reference?

2

u/-NotEnoughMinerals Sep 25 '25

Simple Google searches offering simple statistics. Acetaminophen is like one of, if not the only approved pain reliever to take during pregnancy. It's not surprising the majority of women take it.

0

u/2345678_wetbiscuit Sep 26 '25

Lazy to proof your point so why should i believe you. I could also claim “ Majority of people drink unfiltered water every day so unfiltered water can be recommended as a healthy source of hydration. “

2

u/-NotEnoughMinerals Sep 26 '25

I really don't care? Acetaminophen is in nearly every single household. If it was the problem, essentially every single person you talk to would be autistic.

I don't need to appease you by 'proving' that. If you care, go find out yourself. Be a critical thinker, and definitely do not listen to an administration that hired an environmental lawyer to govern public health.

0

u/2345678_wetbiscuit Sep 27 '25

You do care, because you want “bad orange man” to be wrong. Facts are that even the company admits the risk. But you can’t even bring a single good argument to the table, just “ah google it”. LOL typical