Hints of a Link Between Autism and Vinyl Flooring 356
SpuriousLogic sends in a link from Scientific American to a study by Swedish and US researchers that reaches the surprising conclusion that there may be a link between autism and vinyl floors. "Children who live in homes with vinyl floors, which can emit chemicals called phthalates, are more likely to have autism, according to research by Swedish and US scientists published Monday. ... The scientists were surprised by their finding, calling it 'far from conclusive.' ... The researchers found four environmental factors associated with autism: vinyl flooring, the mother's smoking, family economic problems, and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation. Infants or toddlers who lived in bedrooms with vinyl, or PVC, floors were twice as likely to have autism five years later... than those with wood or linoleum flooring. ... Several scientists who did not participate in the study cautioned that it has too many limitations to draw conclusions, but they suggested that new studies be designed to look for a connection between autism and indoor air pollutants."
Album collection? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a friend with a large vinyl album collection. Some 5,000 vinyls!
Funny, I always thought he was a bit of an introvert. Now I know why. ;)
Re:Album collection? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Album collection? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tangentially, what about new cars? Part of the "new car smell" is phthalates and other plasticizers outgassed from the car interior... I wonder if there is a higher incidence of autism in children whose parents bought a new car early in their life?
Unrelated to autism (I think), I get nauseous in new cars, or in limos with the "new car small" releaser thingy on the dashboard. So much so that I'll never buy a new car without having my wife use it for the first few months... but since she does the majority of schlepping the kid around, maybe I should rethink that strategy.
Re:Album collection? (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus. And just thing of the number of babies that buy new cars each year. This is big. This is huge. This could go all the way to the White House.
How long before ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long before ... (Score:5, Funny)
Good point. We should be looking for a common cause, something that causes BOTH autism AND vinyl flooring.
Or possibly that autism causes pre-emtive vinyl flooring
Why is this funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
Low income. Increases the likelihood of smoking, vinyl flooring, poorly ventilated housing and... oh look, it's right there in the list: "family economic problems".
Re:Why is this funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Why is this funny? (Score:4, Funny)
After studying young adults, it has been noted that keggers cause jumps to conclusions later in the study.
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Re:Why is this funny? (Score:4, Informative)
In any event, there are plenty of rich families with autistic children. Instead of vinyl flooring, they've probably got Italian marble, or carpeting made from the eyelashes of Andean llamas, or a zen rock garden in the kitchen, or whatever the hell passes for luxury flooring these days.
Re:Why is this funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why is this funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
Low income. Increases the likelihood of smoking, vinyl flooring, poorly ventilated housing and... oh look, it's right there in the list: "family economic problems".
New tag: "Unsupportedwildspeculationisnotcausation".
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Re:How long before ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How long before ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm unsure why you're labled funny. I think you managed to hit the nail on the head. Autism an autistic tendencies might very well lead to a taste for minimalism.
This is a testable hypothesis: are there any other ways in which the interior of these houses is minimalistic? Interior blinds instead of (draped) curtains, leather instead of fabric on the chairs and couch? Vynil _or_ tiles instead of carpet?
I do think alternative underlying reasons for the correlation can and will be found :).
Causation & vinyl flooring. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its very unfortunate that everyone in the world doesn't know the difference. It would solve so many problems in the world, if everyone was forced to learn the difference throughout school and in everyday adult life. Everyone would find life so much better as so many arguments would be avoided and things would get fixed quicker. The people behind funding education in science need to focus a vast amount of time, money and effort into promoting understanding in this simple yet vital bit of education. (I would go as far as to say we need a day per year to remind everyone, like a "world correlation is not causation day!"
"autism AND vinyl flooring."
It could also simply be for example, (on average) more autistic people prefer and enjoy the look, patterning, practical ease of use, feel and/or smell of vinyl flooring. Its like saying, which comes first, Autism or Vinyl flooring.
They could just as easily say looking at the sea causes Autism
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See, the biggest problem with "correlation is not causation" is that it's a tool most frequently used by post-conclusion rationalizers -- people who start from a conclusion, and then create a rationale to justify it. Such people only feel compelled to discount evidence that runs contrary to their conclusion, which is much easier than actually justifying one's position in the face of alternatives. "Correlation is not causation" is a very simple formula for discounting overwhelming bodies of evidence.
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Yes, while the correlation != causation is a time-honored /. tenet, the researchers here do actually clearly grasp this concept, note all the clear caveats on just the summary.
To -prove- a causation requires a correlation.
You can either theorize a causation and later prove correlation (Einstein/Relativity)
Or find a correlation and later construct a causation that explains it (Gravity, Why girlfriends dump guys after they show off their Battlestar Galatica action figure collection) [often requires additiona
Re:Causation & vinyl flooring. (Score:4, Insightful)
really? those children are making decoration decisions about flooring?
"correlation is not causation"
I hate that statement. How about:
"correlation does not necessarily mean causation"
However, you will have correlation if there is causation.
All this is covered when they said it is not conclusive. from what I read it seems to me there is enough evidence to warrant another study.
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That sounds like it could be one of the side effects of Vaxadrine [wikiality.com]
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Good point. We should be looking for a common cause, something that causes BOTH autism AND vinyl flooring.
Like a specific character in parents ? That both makes them like the easy-to-clean vinyl flooring and autism in their kids ?
Or possibly that autism causes pre-emtive vinyl flooring
Heh, don't dismiss that so easily. There could have been a popular book about autist kids raising that would suggest that carpets floor are bad for them, that vinyl is better, and urge parents to provide such an environment. Okay, that is a bit improbable, but don't forget to consider these things, possibilities exist.
Re:How long before ... (Score:4, Funny)
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Not too long. The summary's title says "hints at", and TFA actually mentions that The scientists were surprised by their finding, calling it "far from conclusive." Because their research was not designed to focus on autism, they recommend further study of larger numbers of children to see whether the link can be confirmed., which is almost repeating the correlation/causation thing.
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Er... my point was that both the summary and the article had said it before the call for "who's first?" even came out.
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Maybe adult stress causes autism in children. (Score:2)
The article says, "The researchers found four environmental factors associated with autism: vinyl flooring, the mother's smoking, family economic problems and condensation on windows, which indicates poor ventilation."
I assume they me
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Do THAT many houses have vinyl floors these days? Most every house I know of, that is either new, or has been restored/updated...have wood, tile and even carpet on the floors.
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I wonder....is this maybe regional?
I live in the South...and most homes I know of down here, especially new ones, are mostly done with wood and tile as the primary flooring materials, along with carpet. I'm seeing carpet even not being put on that many new places. Just anecdotal observations mind you.
And I'm talking largely suburban areas, in that there aren't that many 'urban' areas down h
Re:Maybe adult stress causes autism in children. (Score:4, Interesting)
To have any effect, the vinyl plastic must degrade somehow
PVC *does* degrade, all by itself. Pure PVC is very brittle (like your PVC drain pipes), so any flexible PVC product has lots of plasticizers mixed in. Some of these are volatile and gradually evaporate out of the plastic at room temperature. It's the plasticizers that are under suspicion here.
However, I would imagine that most babies and toddlers are exposed to more PVC emmisions from the vynyl mattress covers in their cribs and beds. After all, they spend half of each day with their heads a couple inches away from the mattresses. These things are extremely stinky when new, and over the course of a year or so they seem to lose much of their plasticizers into the air and become brittle (and no longer stinky). Unfortunately, at that point they often shred into ribbons and must be replaced.
IMO, given the safety questions that have recently come up regarding the phthalate plasticizers used in PVC products, it's probably worth the extra cost of buying polyethelene mattress covers for kids.
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Re:The article and abstract seem very weak to me. (Score:5, Informative)
Male babies are more likely to be autistic than female babies.
An already well verified statistic, go google it before getting in a lather about that bit.
Re:The article and abstract seem very weak to me. (Score:5, Informative)
What? Male sex?
Well, I guess we know whats on your mind... think adjective, not verb. That disease is much more common in boys than girls.
What is "autistic spectrum"?
The symptoms range from pretty freaking minor to pretty awful. Despite there being no firm obvious medically detectable difference between diseases, and also that it is always possible to find a patient right in the middle of two precisely defined "definitions" the medical community overall prefers to label different degrees of one disease as entirely separate diseases, and a semi-passive aggressive way to make fun of that is to refer to "the autistic spectrum". Not all doctors agree, and many of them also use terms like "autistic spectrum".
Can parents report autistic behavior accurately?
Guess you didn't read the article, since it explained that 72 parents told them they had a diagnosis, then the surveyors checked up on ten of them by talking to their doctors, and the story from the parents matched the doctors story. Ten out of ten told the truth, so probably, at least 90% of the 72 did accurately report a positive diagnosis. There are also some notes in the article about how they had to follow the swedish rules for medical reporting with regards to finding that info, no idea what that requires. There are some diseases that people lie about, most commonly the level of obesity, also there are mental health problems that inherently involve lying, but lying about a positive autism diagnosis is apparently not an issue, at least in Sweden. Doesn't look like they checked up on people whom claimed negative but perhaps their doctors might say positive, so its not exactly a perfect study, but not too bad.
Was whoever wrote the article or placed the article in Scientific American paid to sensationalize the story?
Dude don't know if you've read SciAm over a long period, but over decades its gone from a somewhat light version of Science or Nature toward something that I feel is the "weekly world news" or "national enquirer" of the science journalism world. Also page count has gone from small town phone book to mid double digits at best. Its a shame the editors ran it into the ground and stomped on the corpse... if they had not, I'd still be a subscriber. In fact, if they had not run it into the ground, I'd be glad to pay twice the subscription fee. So, in summary, uh, yeah, it might be just slightly sensationalized.
Re:How long before ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I find that "correlation is not causation" to be a great way to filter out those with zero (well actually negative because they are actively spreading misinformation) knowledge of statistics.
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How have you come up with this finding? What was your sample size?
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I can't tell what you're saying. Are you actually trying to say "correlation is causation" because that is simply not true. Correlation is not causation, but hell that isn't even what most people say. "Correlation does not imply causation" which is also true, correlation doesn't say anything about the nature of the relationship between two events.
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Correlation does not prove causation, but yelling "correlation is not causation" on Slashdot sure correlates pretty strongly with being a clueless blowhard.
And it will be because you mentioned it.... (Score:2)
...or will it?
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They'd better do it soon. Five minutes to Wapner.
Oblig. XKCD (Score:2, Insightful)
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The summary didn't say it's the cause. The correlationisnotcausation tag isn't entirely relevant here.
Re:How long before ... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Hints of a link' becomes the next press campaign leading to millions of worried parents. These kinds of reports can be very damaging.
Re:How long before ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the problem is the fact that it is easier to get diagnoses as Autism. In the past minor forms of Autism were ignored or just considered bad behavior, Even Moderate-High Autism the person was just considered Stupid. So the past records are faulty. Espectially before the age of Vinyl flooring.
OMGPONIES (Score:3, Insightful)
April Fools! ... ...
Re:OMGPONIES (Score:5, Funny)
Besides the article being dated March 31, 2009, joking about autism isn't exactly a barrel of laughs. Apr 1 seems to have turned into some kind of trial of trust of the media now, which pisses me off.
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It's good if it makes people question the truth of the media for the other 364 days of the year.
Obama meets Brown for G20 talks ...pfft, yeah right.
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Disagree. If you haven't figured out how to question authority by the time you're out of school there's no hope for you, whether there's a day of the year supposedly dedicated to it or not. There's quite enough bullshit on the internet as it is, without degrading the established science sites down to that level on one day of the year.
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Apr 1 seems to have turned into some kind of trial of trust of the media now, which pisses me off.
I dunno. I like to think of it as "National Skepticism Day."
Re:OMGPONIES (Score:5, Insightful)
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probably not (and please tag this !aprilsfools until you are sure)
REACH (Score:3, Informative)
this is why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Authorisation_and_Restriction_of_Chemicals [wikipedia.org]REACH is so important. from wikipedia : "There were 100,106 chemicals in use in the EU in 1981, when the last survey was performed. Of these only 3,000 have been tested and over 800 are known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction." So, only 3% of chemicals in use by man have been tested for environmental and health safety.
God the old carcinogenic studies please (Score:5, Insightful)
So how do you study carcinogenicity: Simple. You feed a couple of rodents that you don't particularly like 5% of their bodyweight of a certain stuff each day, and see how many of them develop cancer within their short lifespans. Now comes the fun part: You extrapolate the 5% bodyweight daily ratio to 1 ppm bodyweight daily ratio, and similary divide the rate of mammal acquiring cancer. Voila, a new PhD promotion based on the completely meritless assumption that there is any kind of linearity involved in these rates.
I know a lot of current research is not so stupid, but most of the 1970's cancer scares were based pretty much on the scenario I just described.
Determining whether or not a compound is carcinogenic in humans is extremely hard, except for the really bad ones.
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Determining whether or not a compound is carcinogenic in humans is extremely hard
I still find every chemical must be tested thoroughly before bringing it into the environment, our livers and kidneys ar feeling the strain allready.
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You could always live in a oxygen tent and only let in fully test "chemicals". But that would make the strictest vegan look li
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We don't have the capability to test everything, we don't have the capability to test even a fraction, we don't have good methods for testing low toxicity compounds, we don't have methods for testing carcinogenicity in humans at all, because we can't experiment
All we have are epidemiological studies
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EVERYTHING causes cancer in rats. ALL laboratory rats, provided they don't die prematurely of an infection, will develop tumors.
Pet rats, lab rats, they're funny, fluffy, curious creatures, but boy are they ever susceptible to health problems, especially cancer.
There has been little selection pressure against susceptibility to cancer in their evolution, because rats are just considered so damn tasty by a huge, varied range of predators. In the wild, they won't last more than a year to 18 months, as by that
obliga (Score:2)
...There were 100,106 chemicals in use in the EU in 1981, when the last survey was performed...
Water is a chemical. So are oxygen, nitrogen, glucose, all proteins. You are a big bag of chemicals yourself.
Every single one of them can kill you, given a large enough dose. Think about that. Every time you exhale, you emit a noxious cloud H2O, CO2 and various organic compounds mixed in with the left over air. CO2 has been widely implicated in various environmental threats to the survival of life on earth.
The only way you can avoid being surrounded by chemicals is to retreat to the vacuum of deep space.
April 1 (Score:2)
so is /. just going to be a melangé of all the April Fools jokes from around the web today?
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Nothing really changes around here.
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No, don't be silly.
In other news, there's a new compiler that does automatic parallelisation. There is even an icon called piggie that'll help you ... and he flies!
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/oblig dune
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Slashdot would, but Scientific American wouldnt
Economic (Score:2)
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But this raises a question: carpets were not mentioned. Carpets are also made of plastic: generally nylon, more rarely polyester, and either may have a polypropylene backing. Carpets are known to outgas organic fumes for an extended time after they are installed. Not to mention the (usually plastic foam) padding underneath. Do those contain phthalates?
I dunno.. (Score:2)
One of the funnest things on April Fools Day is trying to pick out the one or two legit stories on the Slashdot front page. I'm really not sure whether this is one of them. The website is SCiAM.com though, so maybe it's trying to tell us something.
Also in plastic containers. (Score:5, Informative)
Not too long ago I learned that phthalates were used as "softeners" in plastic containers. That's not a problem normally but if you put plastic boxes that aren't supposed to be recycled into your dishwasher to use them as a lunch-box then you have a problem since they weren't designed for such high temperatures and the phthalates are released. Same thing if you microwave it.
Boxes that are "microwave/dishwasher safe" don't have this problem naturally. This is generally printed on the container itself.
And phthalates aren't good for you. Even if you're an adult.
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high temperatures and the phthalates are released.
are phtalates released only at high temperature? or does high temp just increase the rate of release ? the way I understand fysics, even an I-beam releases iron into the air at room-temp, due to backgroundradiation, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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I'm pretty sure "backgroundradiation" doesn't have anything to do with it.
Re:Also in plastic containers. (Score:4, Informative)
Consider DEHC release from PVC... the diffusion coefficients [D × 1010 cm2 min1] at 5 and 40 C are 9.1 and 156.0 according to this paper [sciencedirect.com]. Seeing as microwaves can easily create temps over 100 C, it's pretty trivial to deduce that though some phthalates are released at room temperature, high temperatures could easily cause much higher concentrations of toxins in your food.
As for vinyl floors, if the area is poorly ventilated, even a slow rate of diffusion could result in toxic contentrations of phthalates.
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It's not just phthalates that are a problem when microwaving/dishwashing soft plastics. Everyone has heard of the plastic wrap/dioxin issue... and though this is a myth, it pays to be cautious and only use recommended plastics [scn.org] in the microwave.
Some of the
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and that suits in general cause brain atrophy
God damn April Fools! (Score:2)
This makes me angry! Seems like I can't go anywhere without being tricked by some stupid trick.
Ahhh, at least I can view my cat videos on YouTube without any prob....
qnno no up
Look, I know it's April Fools... (Score:2, Insightful)
But there are some things you just shouldn't do on April Fool's Day, and one of them is encouraging parents of autistic children desperate to blame something for their children's condition. I mean, come on; this is a group that thinks vaccines can cause autism; they'll swallow this one hook, line, and sinker.
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This is serious; it's a published paper. The SciAm article is from the 31st.
Wrong on condensation (Score:2)
Condensation on windows doesn't imply bad ventilation, as the study authors suggest. Condensation happens when windows leak, so that the cold air coming through the leak chills the warmer air inside next to the window, lowering its dewpoint. So condensation on windows implies more air exchange between inside and out, not less. Air exchange of course is ventilation.
Now, leaky windows with condensation tend to be older windows. Might they be older vinyl windows? Might they be older, wooden, lead painted windo
My thoughts (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is this tagged aprilfools? (Score:3, Insightful)
The article seems serious. Weird, but serious. All the citations and names check out.
Correlation vs. Causation (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that just because correlation is not causation, doesn't mean that correlation is not important...
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No, it's vital. Correlation does not lead to causation on its own, but there MUST be correlation if there is to be a claim of causation. If you want to claim that X causes Y, you must be able to show that where there's X, there's Y.
The correlation/causation ranting has obfuscated this simple fact, leading to people buying into the raving of people like He Who Must Not Be Named, who is unable to show even a tiny fraction of percentage correlation between the te
Correlationisnotcausation Tags Must Die (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) Does the article or summary assert causation at any point? No, they don't. Therefore, "correlationisnotcausation" is an entirely irrelevant response here.
(2) Is correlation the strongest possible result from research like this? Yes, it is. To demonstrate causation you'd need a designed experiement, with babies raised for years in a controlled environment with vinyl to see how many became autistic; experiments like that are not possible.
(3) As another poster said, "correlationisnotcausation" has become Slashdot shorthand for "I choose to ignore all of your scientific evidence". Compare to: "Evolution has not been proved, it's only a theory."
Condensation? (Score:4, Informative)
Condensation on windows is not a sign of a poorly ventilated house. Condensation forms when humid air comes in contact with a much cooler surface. So, for example, if you have no storm windows on your windows but you are running a humidifier you will get condensation in the winter.
Vinyl windows will actually reduce condensation because they are like built-in storm windows. The inner pane isn't as cold as a single pane of glass -- yet vinyl windows also reduce airflow, meaning that ventilation is reduced.
That part of the study just doesn't make sense.
Re:Paper or it didn't happen (Score:5, Informative)
Malin Larssona, Bernard Weissb, Staffan Jansona, Jan Sundellc and Carl-Gustav Bornehag
Associations between indoor environmental factors and parental-reported autistic spectrum disorders in children 6-8 years of age [science-direct.com]
Re:Paper or it didn't happen (Score:4, Interesting)
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Of course there are a few (very small number) that really do have Autism.
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I wonder if having a parental-reported autistic spectrum disorder is the same as actually having autism?
According to the article, they talked to the kids doctors for 10 of the 72 positive reports, and the doctors agreed. So at least or around 90% of the time, and assuming the doctor is telling the truth, and assuming you live in Sweden, I'd say the answer is "yes".
Think of all the parental claims you've ever heard that are ridiculous "I don't know what he does in school, but he's a perfect little angel at home" or "my kid would never do drugs" or the ever popular, "but she's never even kissed a boy". Appare
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The short answer is, yes. Autism isn't a single classification, but in fact a wider band of classifications that produce similar behaviors and symptoms. Asperger's is on one end of a "autistic spectrum," but those with it are typically high-functioning and integrated into society. Others inflicted with more serious forms of autism aren't so readily integrated, and are oftentimes better cared for in a controlled setting. So "autism," as we typically refer to it in common terms, is really a range of related c
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You know you are replying to a comment with the bloody doi link right? You don't even have to read the paper, it's in the abstract.
Abstract
Potential contributions of environmental chemicals and conditions to the etiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders are the subject of considerable current research and speculation. The present paper describes the results of a study undertaken as part of a larger project devoted to the connection between properties of the indoor environment and asthma and allergy in young Swedish children. The larger project, The Dampness in Buildings and Health (DBH) Study, began in the year 2000 with a questionnaire distributed to parents of all children 1â"6 years of age in one Swedish county (DBH-I). A second, follow-up questionnaire (DBH-III) was distributed in 2005. The original survey collected information about the child, the family situation, practices such as smoking, allergic symptoms, type of residence, moisture-related problems, and type of flooring material, which included polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The 2005 survey, based on the same children, now 6â"8 years of age, also asked if, during the intervening period, the child had been diagnosed with Autism, Asperger's syndrome, or Tourette's syndrome. From a total of 4779 eligible children, 72 (60 boys, 12 girls) were identified with parentally reported autism spectrum disorder. A random sample of 10 such families confirmed that the diagnoses had been made by medical professionals, in accordance with the Swedish system for monitoring children's health. An analysis of the associations between indoor environmental variables in 2000 as well as other background factors and the ASD diagnosis indicated five statistically significant variables: (1) maternal smoking; (2) male sex; (3) economic problems in the family; (4) condensation on windows, a proxy for low ventilation rate in the home; (5) PVC flooring, especially in the parentsâ(TM) bedroom. In addition, airway symptoms of wheezing and physician-diagnosed asthma in the baseline investigation (2000) were associated with ASD 5 years later. Results from the second phase of the DBH-study (DBH-II) indicate PVC flooring to be one important source of airborne phthalates indoors, and that asthma and allergy prevalence are associated with phthalate concentrations in settled dust in the children's bedroom. Because these associations are among the few linking ASD with environmental variables, they warrant further and more extensive exploration.
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Linking things to autism is always a cheap headline grabber and studying Vinyl flooring among the other more typical factors seems weird.
Linking insulation and cancer was pretty weird, too.
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This is clearly not an april fools joke (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not an april fools:
- It was posted on SCiAM on 31 march
- This isn't remotely a subject that SCiAM would make fun of (a more likely example would be an article claiming irrefutable evidence for intelligent design)
- Falling for this, if it were a joke, wouldn't result in a minor embarrassment to be laughed at
- Someone already posted links to the scientific articles:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1182839&cid=27413449
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But did your study find that kids with autism were twice as likely to breathe air than kids without? No? Probably less statistically significant then.
If you're going to disprove an April Fool's story with statistics, at least make the statistics work.
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