Pesticides and Autism

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Are pesticides linked to autism? This could explain why the disorder is more common among suburbanites (lawn chemicals). I know that they are androgen disruptors and that children with autism often look young for their age, have poor muscle tone and coordination, a passive demeanor (say little or do not initiate conversation), and have anxiety disorders. Could this be the result of hormone imbalances during pregnancy caused by androgen blocking pesticides?

I tend to be weary of such theories.

I am not sure, but pesticides have a lot to answer for.... I think one day enough people will finally realise how damaging they are to the human race! I try to eat mainly organic food these days.

It's a good question, but sadly, no one can say for sure at this point about any theory, though personally I still find it interesting to consider each theory.

Ironically, organic foods usually have lots of natural pesticides--substances plants produce to ward off insect attacks. They are poisonous to humans, too, but present in such small amounts that our bodies easily deal with it.

No, autism is not linked to pesticides. It's more common among "suburbanites" because the middle and upper classes have better access to medical care and thus diagnosis.

The only thing autistic children have been decisively linked to is a family history of autism and other neurological atypicality, and parents with autistic traits. Fragile X and Down syndrome can involve autistic-like traits or full-blown autism. There are also a few cases of autism associated with congenital rubella syndrome, but this is relatively rare now with the availability of a vaccine.

Autism is largely genetic. There are non-genetic contributions to its cause, but environmental effects seem to be more along the lines of tipping sub-clinical into barely-diagnosable autism, rather than "triggering" full-blown severe autism somehow. Autism is the most strongly genetic non-single-gene mental disorder we know of at the moment; I think we are better off studying how to make autistic children's lives easier, perhaps by removing harmful environmental factors, rather than trying to prevent autism by controlling the environment. I don't think that's possible except in very borderline cases.

Callista covered most of what I wanted to say. The only thing I have to add is that I don't think that the OP's pesticide hypothesis makes sense in that, if pesticides were a causative factor in autism, you would expect that the highest incidence/number of diagnoses of autism would occur in rural/farming communities rather than the suburbs. The volume of pesticide used on lawns in suburbia is minuscule compared to the amount used on crops.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something to do with androgen, but, I do not live in suburbia, nor do I ever see myself as the suburban type (total city girl here).

There are so many environmental factors in my life I wouldn't even know where to start though.

If that was the case wouldn't their siblings have autism too? And the neighbours kids. In fact the whole school playground.

I was born in the city but we moved way down south pretty early in my development. It was really isolated, population of 800.

The only other person to ever have my symptoms was my dad.

I moved back to the city and most of the kids I see are as NT as they come.

Exactly--most kids would have autism, instead of the other way around.

There is a mild environmental influence, but it really isn't much. Most of autism is genetic.

Actually I heard environmental factors are more important to severe autism than it is to mild autism.

AFAIK--yes and no. "Do I have autism?" is mostly genetic. "How well am I coping with my autism?" is largely environmental. A child with severe autism can be so sensitive to their environment that they can lose their ability to communicate because of fluorescent lights in the room, a trace of an allergen in their breakfast, a cold, or a minor change in routine. The more tenuously you're clinging to your skills, the less it takes for you to lose access to them.

Then you have to remember that severe cases are often associated with comorbid conditions--other disorders, physical and mental disability that makes it harder to deal with autism, period. If you have just autism and you're very healthy, you're going to be able to take advantage of therapy much better than if you have autism and are also dealing with seizures every few hours, poor digestion, allergies, cerebral palsy, and hearing loss. (This is not an uncommon sort of thing to happen; autism-plus-lots of other things often means that the autism will be severe, and causation is really hard to tease out.)

If you want to talk about environment causing autism (and nothing else), then what I said about environment most likely tipping you over the edge of diagnosis is probably the case in reality. But if you want to talk about children who have a whole list of problems like the example above, then yeah, I can see there being more environmental factors than usual because of how everything interacts and gets tangled together.