Mastodawn

Thinking about all this stuff where people are trying to link #vaccines and other #medicines (like the mellinia old #tylenol) to the supposedly large increase in the rate of #autism, and it's reminding me of something...

When my mother was #pregnant with my older brother, there was some sort of gas leak, and she was exposed to fumes which gave her headaches over several months. My mother was otherwise not really exposed to many drugs: she remembered the #thalidomide scandal. When my brother was a baby, he began displaying #autistic behaviors before he had his first #vaccine.

What occurs to me as I think about it now is, there is a lot of talk about commonplace and relatively safe #medications and vaccines supposedly causing autism to climb significantly (of which I have doubts), but none of these people seem to be talking about the various and increasingly exotic #pollution that pregnant women are exposed to on a regular basis...

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#environmentalism

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Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Sep 27

My inner #conspiracy theorist wonders if this is somehow by design, if maybe the #OilIndustry or other #corporations responsible for all this #pollution in the air and water from #coal, #lead, #fracking, and other #industry which cause exotic #chemicals to be dumped into the environment are actively encouraging people to pay attention to this, and not the pollution factor. Clearly, they have a vested interest in us not asking the question, "Could coal plants and fracking be causing autism?"

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Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Sep 27

Of course, it's also #conservatives who are far more concerned about this, as, from what I can tell, most of people's issues with #autism aren't actually behaviors that are far outside what seems to be natural for human beings, but the fact that autistic people are more likely to behave in ways that are outside the conservative cultural norm.

We saw this with #masking during the first year of the ongoing #COVID epidemic, when people who supposedly didn't have autism went through autism like meltdowns over being asked to wear masks and make some minor lifestyle and schedule changes. Suddenly, it didn't seem like autism was a behavioral issue, just a typical response to sensory overload in a society that isn't geared to sensitive people: when everything is uncomfortable, you're going to act like someone who is being put through extreme discomfort... Like these non-autistic people jumping on tables while screaming and ripping off their clothes because they were asked to wear a mask.

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Raccoon🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈Sep 27

So, If you need a zinger here, tldr, conservatives may be polluting themselves into having to deal with more people who do things they don't like, and blaming modern medicine to keep the corporations off the hook.

But seriously, we should probably be drawing more attention to the fact that pollution is causing in utero and early childhood brain damage, just at it was with leaded gasoline, and that, if autism rates actually are increasing (again, there is no conclusive evidence they are), there is actual scientific study linking pollution to it.

https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/air-pollution-linked-with-increased-risk-of-autism-in-children/

Air pollution linked with increased risk of autism in children | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Exposure to fine particulate air pollution has been linked with significantly increased risk of autism spectrum disorder in children, particularly if exposure occurs during the third trimester of pregnancy or during early childhood, according to a meta-analysis from Harvard Chan School.

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health