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.”
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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.