Thank you!

One thing I noticed: you said that the preservatives in pitocin would cross the placental barrier and affect the baby for the next two weeks. Actually, it would only affect the baby until birth, and then would only continue to affect the baby if it was found in the mothers breastmilk.

1) Great post!

and

2) If someone wants to study a link to autism, by all means, but just “as pitocin use has increased, so has autism– COINCIDENCE?!” is not even close to a scientific conclusion or even a hypothesis.

Other things potentially affecting public health that have increased in the past 30 years:

-Cell phone use
-Computer use
-Seatbelt/carseat requirements
-Areas/businesses in which smoking is not allowed
-Use of unleaded gas

Etc.

And things in birth that have decreased (good and bad) in the last 30 years– like episiotomy rates, forceps deliveries, vaginal breeches, routine enemas, IV narcotics, etc.– why couldn’t they be “responsible” for autism?

There’s just something disturbing to me about both people quick to assign a cause/cure for autism– as if it had one cause and should always be “cured.” They often seem to share something with people who claim it doesn’t exist and is just an “excuse for poor parenting”– a dismissal of the idea that perhaps it’s just being (usually correctly) DIAGNOSED earlier and more often “nowadays.”

Not saying that there’s not also something else going on– there could be. But surely the diagnostic issue is a big factor– perhaps even the biggest factor.

Part of my perspective comes as someone with ADD, who is always being told that ADD doesn’t exist, is totally overdiagnosed, is “just an excuse”– or is a matter of preservatives in my diet or something. Um, how about yes, it exists, no link to preservatives, etc., has been found, it runs in my family and– here’s a novel idea– it’s not an entirely bad thing, and I wouldn’t choose to be “normal” if I could.

Come to think of it– that goes for depression, bipolar disorder, and anything else in the mental health spectrum.

You know what I blame this kind of thinking on? Transfats.

Okay, that was flip– and I’m totally in favor of studying these things, and not at all in favor of what is clearly a severe overuse of things like pitocin. But I did think some perspective may have been needed here.