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I love how the female reporter worries that she might have to give up her hair spray and make-up "which we all use".
Liked that too. I have never been a hairspray user, or my mom, or her mom. I don't know what was in lipstick in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s but that's about all the makeup that was in the picture in my family. And not by me at all in the 70s and 80s. And my family is multigenerational for Asperger's.
It also did not specify what types of autism they are talking about. I still think there are some genotypes that are more vulnerable to environmental assaults that would result in some form of autism. And there are a lot of other things, diseases like cancer and asthma, that have increased with exposure to chemicals. Regardless of what they think might "cause" autism, for damn sure we didn't evolve dealing with all that crap, and you know it can't be good for us. Phthalates have been linked to obesity, cancer, type II diabetes, and antiandrogenic effects. So does that mean exposure will cause autistic fat boys with diabetes and man boobs? Not enough data to be sure but enough to look into it.
I DO NOT think they're thinking eugenics, folks. I DO think they want to prevent suffering. (It's the same thinking that wants to prevent cystic fibrosis, and I suspect everybody here would have no problem with that.) They just don't realize that a lot of the suffering related to autism, for both parents and children, is actually a result of giving birth to a cat or a monkey and trying to make it be a dog. Try to teach a cat to bark, or expect a monkey to be satisfied to play fetch. Try to get them to follow the pack. No matter what happens, the best we can do is learn to pretend to be a dog, but we still aren't. But try not to be too hard on the dog parents who don't know what to do with their monkey children. Their intentions are good and they are just trying to follow their doggy instincts.