8.12.2009

A Theory on Autism

Page A-26 has long been on its soapbox about the total and absolute capitulation of America to China. Setting aside the political, military, and economic chokehold China already has on us -- yes, they could roll us right now three ways to Sunday if they wanted to; believe it -- public health and safety is the issue d'jour.

Page A-26 theorizes that there might be a correlation between the skyrocketing rate of autism in the United States during the last 15 years and the similarly staggering volume of Chinese imports brought into this country during the same time period. No, we are not claiming that the mere act of importing cheap goods from China is the cause of autism, but we are questioning whether there is a relationship between the high volume of these poorly manufactured goods and current public health issues.

Doctors and scientists aren't sure what causes the spectrum of neural disorders generally called autism, but theories are legion. From medical professionals to parents to ranting paranoids like Page A-26, autism theories are like, well, autistic kids -- seems like everybody's got one. Theories range from genetic predispositions to mercury in vaccinations to statistics and reporting.

Currently, the medical profession is fixated on the idea that autism is congenital. Their collective theory is that, as with many other diseases, there must be a certain gene or gene sequence that predisposes some people to autism.

Page A-26 has a whole new theory on the causes of autism, a theory that has major repercussions for not only public health in the United States, but also for the international economy.

Page A-26 theorizes that the sharp rise in autism in the United States over the last 15 years is a direct result of the massive increase in Chinese imports brought into the country during the same time period. We further posit that the search for genetic markers is a wild goose chase, because we believe that every human has the genetic markers for autism -- it's not about the markers, it's about the triggers. Specifically, Page A-26 believes that chemicals exhausted and leached from cheap Chinese imports made with substandard and outright dangerous materials are the triggers which activate the autism gene markers.

Now before you go off screaming Sinophobia at the top of your lungs, don't. This isn't an attack on the Chinese people or culture. China is the focus of our theory because it is now the world's supplier of cheap, plastic, and poorly manufactured goods. It could just as easily be Mexico, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Romania (in fact, their products are also probably suspect), but as anybody who has done any shopping in the last 10 years will tell you, just about every damn thing for sale in this country was made in China.

In the last three years, there has been no shortage of news stories about recalled Chinese toys, food, and other products found to be too dangerous for human consumption. Each time we are bombarded with propaganda telling us that it was just a manufacturing anomaly and not the result of any kind of systemic deficiencies. And then it happens again. This is no accident. The corporations selling this stuff know damn well that the materials and processes being used to make these products in China aren't safe, but they don't care about safety, they care about profits.

Whether it's lead, arsenic, polyvinylchloride, and mercury in children's toys or radiator fluid in pet food or simply bisphenol A and phthalates in everything from baby bottles to car upholstery, dangerous chemicals are in everything we buy that says "Made in China" on it.

And not just a little contaminated. Lead levels in toys and other products have been found in some cases to be 116,000 PERCENT HIGHER THAN THE ACCEPTABLE LEVELS SET BY THE US GOVERNMENT. Nobody knows exactly what has been causing the elevation of autism rates in this country over the last 20 years, but it is very telling that NONE of the current theories makes any mention of contaminated Chinese imports as a possible line of investigation.

Again with the China, Page A-26? Yup. But China isn't really to blame. Like Colombia, they're just fulfilling a ravenous demand in the American market. Instead, blame the American corporations and politicians who intentionally put Americans at risk in order to increase their profits and power. You see, the European Union has already figured out that these cheap Chinese imports are dangerous and its politicians have set very stringent safety standards for consumer goods. So stringent that most Chinese manufacturers have separate facilities. One set of facilities produces high-quality goods for the European market's tough safety standards; the other set produces cheap, dangerous goods using harmful chemicals and substandard manufacturing practices for the American market. Don't believe us? Look it up and start paying attention, because its real.

But back to the autism discussion. Page A-26 did a cursory statistical survey to see how the increase in autism tracks against the increase in Chinese imports to the United States over the last 10 years. Now granted, Page A-26 is not a credentialed scientific organization, and also granted, the information we used to create our comparison was grabbed at random off the Internet, so don't get caught up in the methodology. In fact, Page A-26 feels that because we randomly pulled data off the Internet from different sources, the results are more objective and credible than some study commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce or the American Chemistry Council or the goddamn White House.

When we graphed the two sets of data from two different sources for the years 1995 to 2003, we found that they were nearly identical. Both sets of data reveal strikingly similar year-on-year percentage growth as well as similar growth arcs for the entire eight-year period we looked at. Coincidence, or . . . ?



As we suspected, our theory has met with everything from goofy grins to outright annoyance as people wave off such out-of-the-box thinking as the ranting of a radical left-wing wackjob. Guess what? You better start thinking seriously about this theory, because it's not just autism, it's pancreatic cancer, overian cancer, MS, ALS -- these cheap products made with dangerous chemicals are everywhere and you are kidding yourself if you think that they're safe just because the corporations and manufacturers profiting from them and the corrupt American politicians who are beholden to the corporations say they're safe. In fact, the latest recall of toys were actually replacements for previously recalled toys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092702160.html?hpid=moreheadlines
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092700231.html?tid=informbox

These products are not safe -- they are killing us. In fact, you can just assume that every single thing you purchase, from food to clothes to toys to medicine, contains ingredients that are harmful to the human body. It's all contaminated.

As mentioned, our theory has met with much resistance. Nobody wants to acknowledge that the cheap crap they buy at Wal-Mart might be why they have asthma or why their kid has autism. Americans long ago made the decision that they prefer cheapness over quality, convenience over health. And speaking of health, Page A-26 wonders if a comparison of pharmaceutical company profits and the rise in autism over the last 15 years would yield similar statistical results. We're thinking yes.

Page A-26 first started thinking about this link between dangerously manufactured Chinese imports and autism after seeing several news stories that reported the mysterious rise in autism rates and how it's one of the great mysteries of our times. Gosh darn, it seems like nobody can figure this out.

So, unlike the medical researchers who insist that the answers can only be found by deciphering the Human Genome, Page A-26 feels that the answer lies in the environmental factors that activate the genetic markers for autism. If we were running the research, we would start looking at historical, environmental, economic, and scientific factors that have occurred simultaneous to the huge spike in autism in the U.S. over the last 15 years. Could be the increased exposure to harmful chemicals from cheap Chinese imports, could be global warming. The point is, doesn't it seem a bit easier to investigate and address the human-created conditions that might contribute to conditions like autism rather than trying to figure out the inner workings of the human genetic code?

It could be that the powers that be don't want to figure it out -- just like the same powers that be don't want to acknowledge global warming. Those making money off cheap Chinese imports don't want that gravy train threatened and those in the medical and scientific community are too arrogant to consider something they hadn't previously considered. Oh yeah, and one more thing: if a legitimate study was to be done, and that study was to determine that there was a link between the dangerous chemicals in cheap Chinese imports and the explosion of autism in this country, it would shake the very foundation of the US and the world economies -- and the powers that be are never going to let that happen.

For example, yahoo.com has a bunch of links on its site for shopping for baby toys and consumer reports tips on buying baby products, but none of them mention anything about chemical contaminants or say anything about China. This content is certainly intended to drive commerce, not to inform the public about the things they really need to know about.

Go ahead, shout it out: it's a goddamn conspiracy. Actually, it's two conspiracies. First is the conspiracy among governments and corporations not to protect the consumers from harmful products in order to make greater profits. Second is the conspiracy to overlook the connection between these harmful products and the recent, sharp rise in medical conditions like autism.

Because the American economy is totally dependent on cheap Chinese goods, nothing will ever be voluntarily done that could possibly jeopardize that relationship or profit margin. In fact, China has the US economy so securely by the balls that last year, Mattel issued a groveling apology to China!

What will happen is that the US retailers and Chinese manufacturers will make incremental changes to move the toxicity of the products right to the edge of acceptable contamination levels, but will make no effort to complete clean up their products. As soon as the American public stops complaining and this latest wave of recall publicity dies down, it will go back to business as usual. (For example, one PR line that retailers are using is the design flaw versus chemical contamination angle -- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/29/content_6810132.htm)

And hey, save some of that blame for yourselves. The next time you read a story in the news about some type of recalled Chinese import or see something on TV about how nobody can figure out what causes autism, maybe you will take a couple minutes to really think about whether there might be a link between the two. And then ask yourself why nobody is interested in investigating a link between the two. And then ask yourself if anybody besides you actually cares whether you and your family get sick and die from these products. And then ask yourself whether you really need that Thomas the Tank Engine toy for your son or that nonstick cooking pan or any of the other crap you were thinking about buying at Wal-Mart.

Only we have the power to protect our health -- by not buying these contaminated, dangerous, and unhealthy products. Don't buy them. We know that it's hard to find anything that isn't made in China, but that's part of the point here.

We are being poisoned by the omnipresence of these goods in our lives.

Until we put pressure on the retailers and branded companies that KNOWINGLY sell us these contaminated products, why would they ever change their practices? They are making huge profit margin at the expense of OUR HEALTH.

Don't buy this stuff, and tell the merchants that you buy from that you won't buy any products made in China. If we all took this kind of stand, however difficult and inconvenient it might be (please note that the title for the jumplink to the second page of this article is titled, "Boycotting Chinese toys 'impractical'" -- a subtle but clear message to the American public that they need to shut up, bend over, and take it), the cheap, dangerous products wouldn't sell and the corporations would be forced to replace them with something that will, like maybe the safer, healthier products they produce for the European Union.

It's our health America.

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1 Comments:

At 8/18/2009 9:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting. Just a few thoughts as they occur to me--certainly not a thorough scientific critique (which I did see you disclaimed clearly ;-) )

Was this article motivated primarily by a concern with contaminants in Chinese products (with autism just being one of many possible effects), or primarily by a concern over autism (with the Chinese stuff being your chosen target)?

It's worthy of consideration. Of course, correlations like these support the hypothesis, but a lot more data are needed to strengthen the evidence. Certainly, you'd need to control for other possible causes that have also changed during those years.

And it would be ideal to do a nice experimental reversal--shut off the China pipeline and remove all their products from stores for a few years, then open it back up again, and assess for changes in autism rates.

Of course, that isn't going to happen, so the best we can hope for is a "natural experiment" in which other factors change the independent variable of interest. There aren't any reversals in your China import data, but the relative flat-lining in 2000-2001 does not have a corresponding effect in autism rate during that or subsequent years (assuming it may take a while for the effect to show). That dings the theory a bit.

It would be interesting to compare similar data for other countries during the same years, especially countries for whom Chinese imports did not increase (or at least not nearly the same rate). Ideally, you would observe the same parallel in lines, some steep and some flat (and, if possible, some declining) but all in parallel. If the association were to hold only for US data, that suggests that something else is going on, a confound that just happens to be associated with Chinese product import levels.

Data on biological plausibility are necessary. Have any of the contaminants in Chinese products been studied independently in relation to autism? Can we be certain that the only exposure to these toxins is from Chinese products?

Can you rule out the possibility that the increase in autism is a long-delayed effect of exposures to other toxins, possibly of local origin? What if today's parents' reproductive systems were affected by increasing environmental contaminants while they were children in the 1980s? (This is related to my first question above, about confounds.) Many of the toxins in Chinese products were widely found in US made products up until so many years ago.

Still, a very thoughtful read, and not as crackpot as some may think. It worthwhile to consider plausible hypotheses, even very molar (ie, Chinese imports broadly considered as opposed to specific chemical contaminants) ones like this one. Let it stand or fall on the data. The mercury-in-vaccines hypothesis has fallen quite soundly (although many still refuse to believe it).

And as far as genetics go, the field is slowly swinging back toward center. It was GENESGENESGENES!!! for a while. Then it was gene-enviromnment interactions (static genes that only function when in a specific environmental context). Now it's epigenetics (genetic stuff that is modified by environmental events). Very gene-environment, but I think genetic influence is highly over-rated. Ttruth is there has been VERY little done of practical significance with genetics, aside from predicting a few diseases. The % of variance in disease and behavior attributable to genetics is, in the main, extremely small. Yet the researchers keep searching the haystack for that holy needle.

-A public health scientist

 

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