Has anyone else read this?

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This is the strangest thing I've ever heard, lol-was posted by someone in a parent group I'm in:

http://www.seattlepi.com/health/386399_autism05.html

Study looks at autism, rain
Washington among states examined for possible link

By PAUL NYHAN
P-I REPORTER

For decades, researchers have struggled to find the causes of autism. This week, one group suggested a reason might be found in the rain.

Cornell University researchers said children living in rainy counties appeared to have higher reported rates of autism than those in drier areas, after analyzing data from Washington, Oregon and California.

Washington counties west of the Cascades, for example, got four times as much precipitation and had autism rates twice as high as those in the East, according to the study's co-author, Sean Nicholson.

In rain-soaked Seattle, some parents saw these findings as yet another piece in a complicated puzzle. There is no known cause of autism and no established cure.

"I kind of think there is something to the kids not getting enough vitamin D," said LeAnne Beardsley, whose 4-year-old daughter, Keely-Fae, has been diagnosed with autism. "This study really doesn't surprise me at all."

Researchers stressed their work wasn't designed for Beardsley and other parents, but to guide experts toward one area that could help explain how autism is triggered in children vulnerable to the neurological disorder.

"We are trying to communicate with the autism medical community to sort of indicate where they should be looking," said Cornell professor Michael Waldman, lead author of the report and an economist.

But the findings also are sure to feed the raging debate among parents, doctors, academics and researchers about what causes autism, currently diagnosed in one out of every 150 children, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate.

The latest research, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, comes with caveats. It doesn't confirm a cause-and-effect link between rain and autism and doesn't offer definitive proof. But Waldman suggested it was an important step toward discovering environmental triggers for autism.

Fifteen years ago, literature focused on autism as a genetic condition. Now many experts believe the disorder is triggered by a combination of environmental and genetic factors -- they just don't know how.

This week's peer-reviewed paper raised the possibility that heavy rainfall forces vulnerable children indoors, where there is greater exposure to cleaning chemicals and television, and less exposure to sunshine -- and the vitamin D it produces.

"Clearly, further study is required, especially given that many of the possible environmental triggers discussed may be avoidable or correctable," Dr. John Williams, who worked on the study and practices at the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

The ideas are more fodder for parents of autistic children, who have been bombarded by both well-researched and misguided suggested causes, such as proposed connections to vaccines that were then dismissed by medical studies.

"As a parent with lay knowledge, I take it with a huge grain of salt," said Arzu Forough, a Seattle-area parent of two autistic children.

The public shouldn't jump to conclusions because these studies are valuable only after being repeatedly confirmed, according to Paul Offit, author of the new book "Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure."

The Cornell research team appeared to agree, urging more studies and promising more of their own. "Our hope is that this study will spur those in the medical community to investigate what the specific trigger might be that is driving our findings, so that countless children can be spared an autism diagnosis," Waldman said in a statement.

While the Cornell research is far from definitive, the authors said they hope it will help others understand how environmental factors spark the disorder.

If nothing else, the latest research may open a fresh line of inquiry into a health problem that has stumped the medical community for decades.

"It does raise more questions than it does answers," said Sara Jane Webb, a developmental psychologist at the University of Washington's Autism Center."

I'm with you. That seems almost like an article I would find on The Onion. They seem to really be grasping at straws there.

LOL
That's pretty funny. I was thinking Onion as well.

I am from Seattle. If anything, the area has a larger population of ND and AS because of the high tech there.
Rain ----- that would be more Seasonal Affective Disorder. lack of sun can do a lot to you - cause Autism. Good grief
I can see how the environmental triggers issue would come up though for some people

Ummmm. OK, well I was born in Manchester UK which is well known for its damp climate, and I'm an aspie.

Vanilla_Slice

This is the best bit.

It'd be snow for me.

But I get the feeling that they created this just to show how 'scientific' studies can be made to show correlations in just about anything. One study is in no way definitive, and anyone who thinks that rainfall causes Autism should be shot.

Hmmm... I was born on an island just offshore from seattle. Where there is more afluence and early intervention programs, there will be more diagnosis' made.

Yes, it's all DHMO's fault.

I was born, raised and have lived my entire adult life in the US deep south, where we have to ration water in the summertime, and fine people for wasting it watering their lawns too much.

So maybe Autism is spread by POLLEN! We may all be human Triffids!

Rain Man was way ahead of its time.

I've heard of the vitamin D causing MS theory (vitamin D is the only vitamin which is also a hormone) but this is a new one!! Might it have more to do with the fact that in-general medicine and diagnosis are a bit more advanced in temperate (therefore rainy) climes?

I do live in Scotland though, and it rains here quite a bit, but by that logic, wouldn't there be HUGE numbers of ASD's in monsoon areas? I mean, even rain is a bit of a generalisation, do they mean seasonal rain (thinking Okovango) or more regular rain? (like Denmark?) And do they mean rain, or precipitation? Does that include snow then? Haha!

The only thing I can think of that may make the rain hypothesis work is seasonal affective disorder... its pretty bad for people with ASDs, and in a rain soaked place people with ASDs may happen to exhibit symptoms earlier and worse than other places on average, simply because its always dark and damp outside.

Of course, this would also correlate to places on the eastern edge of a time zone (and perhaps worse) as well. In that case, it gets dark a full hour earlier than if you were to drive miles east to cross the time zone line, leading to serious seasonal affective disorder problems. Might be something to look at for diagnosis hotspots... but I don't believe it to be a "cause" so much as an aggravating factor in already existing ASD that causes the people with it to suffer worse, and therefore be diagnosed earlier and more often than otherwise.

Also, somebody made the good point that Seattle happens to be a high tech center. That tends to create "natural" hotspots for the occurrence of people with ASDs, as in instead of simply being more people diagnosed, there literally are more people with ASD in those regions through the factor of simple genetics.

There seems to be a lot of aspies in my city but it's like that in every city don't you think? The bigger the city, the more aspies there are. I was diagnosed with autism here in Portland and AS. My brothers don't have it but one of them has a few traits.

i read that b4, thought it was so funny, their say anything causes autism now a these days

I don't personally think that Vitamin D would make any difference to be honest, i'm all the time out in the sunshine when the sun does ever come out and I don't see any improvements apart from my mood lifting but I don't even think its even the cause of Autism...

Humbug.

That's nonsense. We get more rain west of the Cascades, sure, but liberal large city of Seattle is west of the Cascades. East of the Cascades is rural hickville with Bush voters driving large diesel pickup trucks and chewing tobacco. Guess which area will have more diagnosed children?

A mildly autistic kid would be diagnosed in Seattle and would get help. East of the mountains the kid would probably be labeled a loner and a loser and would get the s**t beat out of him every day in school.