Conor, Autism Disorders and Traffic-Related Air Pollution

Photo by Harold L Doherty, Toronto, CN Tower, 2008

Conor Doherty, 1 Day Old, February 20, 1996 

Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital, Burlington

Photo by Dad

A new study Traffic-Related Air Pollution, Particulate Matter, and Autism published online in the JAMA Archives of General Psychiatry examines the relationship between traffic-related air pollution, air quality, and autism.  The study researchers found that Children with autism were more likely to live at residences that had the highest quartile of exposure to traffic-related air pollution, during gestation and during the first year after birth compared with control children.  In the study abstracts the researchers concluded:

"Exposure to traffic-related air pollution, nitrogen dioxide, PM_2.5, and PM₁₀ during pregnancy and during the first year of life was associated with autism. Further epidemiological and toxicological examinations of likely biological pathways will help determine whether these associations are causal."

Autism Speaks has issued a news release which comments on the study report: 

"Despite an increase in research and funding, “we have not yet fully described the causes of ASD or developed effective medical treatments for it,” Dr. Dawson writes. “[This issue’s] articles point to an urgent need for more autism funding. We especially need more research on prenatal and early postnatal brain development in autism, with a focus on how genes and environmental risk factors combine to increase risk for ASD.” .....  Research presented in this issue reports a three-fold increase in autism risk associated with exposure to high levels of traffic-related air pollution during pregnancy and the first year of life. The study’s lead author, Heather Volk, Ph.D., M.P.H., is the recipient of an Autism Speaks research grant to study autism risk and gene-environment interactions involving air pollution." [Bold, underlining added -HLD]

The possible association between autism and traffic related air pollution is of specific interest to me.  We were living in Burlington, Ontario when my wife Heather was pregnant with our now 16+ son Conor who has severe Autistic Disorder.  We moved back to Fredericton, New Brunswick 4 months after Conor's first birthday.  Burlington is located between Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario off the Queen Elizabeth Highway, the QEW, which runs between those two cities. It is  one of the busiest automobile traffic areas in Canada. 

Like the study's careful authors I do not jump to any definite conclusion about the the traffic related air condition as a cause of Conor's autism.  I do strongly suspect the combination of environmental pollutants in that area MAY have been factors in causing or triggering autism in Conor.  In addition to heavy auto traffic Burlington is also adjacent to Hamilton with steel mills that emit considerable air pollution as was described in  a study I commented on in 2008 in Autism, Environment and Genetic Mutations: Hamilton Steel Mills and Conor's Autism Disorder. including references to a study Germ-line mutations, DNA damage, and global hypermethylation in mice exposed to particulate air pollution in an urban/industrial location and a Toronto Star article which reported on the story:

"Mice breathing the air downwind from Hamilton's two big steel mills were found to have significantly higher mutation rates in their sperm, a new Health Canada-led study says. While there's no evidence that residents of the area are experiencing the same genetic changes, the project's lead author says the findings do raise that question. "We need to do that experiment and find out," said Carole Yauk, a research scientist with Health Canada. A future study will look at "DNA damage in the sperm of people living in those areas."

...

Dr. Rod McInnes, director of genetics at Canadian Institutes of Health Research, said the mice could be "the canary in the coal mine" signalling the genetic risks to humans of breathing toxic air. ... While genetic changes in sperm would not affect a male directly, they'd get passed on to the offspring that receive his DNA. The story reports on a study indicating that the mice living under the Burlington skyway downwind from 2 Hamilton steel mills and breathing the air from those mills for a period as short as 10 weeks were found to have significant sperm mutations."

I was interested enough in the Hamilton steel mill's air pollution study that I contacted Dr. Yauk referenced in the Toronto Star article quoted above. Dr. Yauk was kind enough to reply to my email in some detail:

"Dear Mr. Doherty,

I'm very sorry to hear of your son's autism. Certainly many of the chemicals emitted from the steel industry into the air are highly mutagenic. There are numerous sources of mutagenic chemicals in that evironment (emissions from the cars/trucks on the QEW will be high as well), and we have definite plans to follow-up our earlier results. At the moment, we are applying for funding to continue the research. There will be 2 arms of work: one on mice to try to look at a full panel of potential health effects and causative agents, and the other will begin to look at DNA damage and changes in sperm from men living in the area. One of the things that I would like to investigate is whether there is evidence of large rearrangements and gains and losses in DNA regions in mice breathing air in that environment. These types of mutation have been shown to be associated with autism in an earlier study from another group (and various

other types of diseases). However, these experiments are extremely expensive, and we have not been successful in obtaining funding as of yet (it is very competitive these days to get grants). Hopefully we'll have some success soon - I am optimistic as we have an outstanding panel of investigators on the project from McMaster University, McGill, and Health Canada.

Thank you for your interest. Please feel free to email me again in the  future.

Best regards,

Carole

Carole Yauk, Ph.D.

Research Scientist, Health Canada

Adjunct Professor, Carleton University

Associate Editor, Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis.

Environmental Health Centre"

The gene environment model of autism causation has gained ground in recent years. Autism Speaks deserves some credit for this advance with its more balanced funding of genetic and environmental studies.  

Scientists like Dr. Carole Yauk, Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Dr. Heather Volk, Dr. Philip J. Landrigan and Dr. Linda Birnbaum are the people advancing our knowledge of possible causes of autism disorders.  This father of an autistic son  salutes them and wishes them well in their never ending efforts to enhance our understanding of the environmental factors contributing to the very real autism crisis confronting our children. 

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Autism Rates Reach New Epidemic Levels? Round Up the Usual Suspects!

"The usual suspects

The people habitually suspected or arrested in response to a crime. The phrase is usually used in regard to scapegoats rather than actual perpetrators of the crime in question.

This expression has a specific and unambiguous origin. It was spoken by Captain Louis Renault, the French prefect of police, played by Claude Rains in the 1942 U.S. film Casablanca. The context was a scene in which the Nazi, Major Strasser is shot by Humphrey Bogart's character, Rick Blaine. Renault was a witness to the shooting but saves Rick's life by telling the investigating police to "round up the usual suspects"."


-The Phrase Finder

CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, playing the part of Captain Renault from the film classic Casablanca, rounds up the usual suspects as the CDC announces stunning new autism rates in the US of 1 in 88 children, 1 in 54 boys:

"DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 

There are a few things that we know for certain and there are some things that we don't know. And we always want to be up front about what we do and don't know.

We know for certain that doctors are getting better at diagnosing autism. We also know for certain that communities are getting better providing services to children with autism and that at CDC we've gotten better at tracking all of the children in a community who may have been diagnosed or identified with autism.

So we know that some of the increase is certainly because we're detecting more cases of autism. Whether that's all of the increase or not, we simply don't know. But we do know that there are many children with autism and that many of them need services and that diagnosis is often too late.

So whether this is a real increase or not is really secondary to saying that this is a big problem, lots of people are out there who need services and would benefit from services."

There is no dispute that diagnostic change, increased awareness and better detection probably explain some of the repeated and astonishing increases in autism diagnoses.  There is, however, no definitive study, or group of studies, which assigns 100% responsibility for the pre-2012 increases entirely to these factors.  There is absolutely no credible basis for anyone to state that the recent increase from 1 in 110 to 1 in 88 over a period of a few years is entirely attributable to diagnostic and social factors.  

Autism research funding has historically been directed overwhelmingly towards genetic autism research.  Only in recent years has any significant support been provided for environmental causes or triggers of autism, causes and triggers which might, and probably are, involved in these stunning increases in the numbers of children diagnosed with autism.  

The safe route to take in the face of such astonishing numbers is to invest more monies in treatment, education and residential care of those affected by autism disorders and to invest substantially more research dollars in exploring the environmental causes of autism disorders.  We must search for all the possible suspects as we try to determine what is causing the epidemic of autism disorders that increasingly affect more and more of our children.  

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Why Autism? An Excellent Question

"at this moment some one with autism is being born, the question is W H Y"

Kevin Fox, UK autism dad, posted on facebook

Hopefully, some day in the not too distant future, researchers and public health authorities will ask themselves the question Kevin Fox asked on facebook. WHY autism? Simply assuming that autism is 100% genetic is not science. It is long past time for the "it's gotta be genetic" mindset identified by Teresa Binstock in 1999 to be put aside and research conducted to understand all of the causes and triggers of autism - genetic, biological and environmental. If those causes or triggers include vaccines or vaccine ingredients then so be it. This parent, and most parents, want to know why their child has an autism disorder. With numbers of autism diagnoses rising society has an interest in knowing W H Y.

Why autism is a question which remains unanswered. Public health authorities and researchers who are afraid to explore all possible answers to that question for fear that the answer might point to vaccines, or to industrial products, should step aside and let real scientists and researchers, those with open minds and without conflicts of interest weighing them down, do the necessary research to answer it.

Why autism? Let's get busy and answer that excellent question.

autism

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Baron Cohen on Autism Causes: Autism Must Involve Environmental as Well as Genetic Factors

This autism causes quote of the day is dedicated to my Neurodiversity blogger friends at lbrb and autism.change.org. It is part of a polite email exchange between Dr. Baron Cohen and Anne Dachel at Age of Autism:

I completely agree that autism must involve both environmental as well as genetic factors (a point that nowadays hardly contentious).

Dr. Simon Baron Cohen, Age of Autism, Dr. Baron Cohen Responds

autism

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Translating Autism: An Autism Research Blog - Check It Out

A member of the Autism Awareness Facebook group posted about this autism resource blog Translating Autism: An Autism Research Blog. It is an informational blog intended to rapidly disseminate the latest scientific findings related to the nature, causes, & treatments of autism spectrum disorders.

The host of the blog claims to be a clinical psychologist and neuroscience researcher working at a large Midwest child psychiatric institute but is not an autism specialist. His/her name is not published on the site although it is available by email. The host also indicates that he/she is not a proponent of one cause over another, one treatment over another, one philosophy over another and takes no philosophical position simply translating research findings into applicable and useful information that could help parents, teachers, clinicians, and consumers make better informed decisions.

Looks like Translating Autism could be a valuable resource for anyone with an interest in autism.

I urge everyone to check it out.

autism

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Autism Quote # 4 - The Most Accepted Hypothesis For Autism

We show that if Cdk5 fails to facilitate CASK, then there is a very profound defect in synapse formation, .... The most accepted hypothesis for autism is that there is a defect in synapse formation," .... mutations of genes directly connected to CASK have already been identified as being associated with autism.

Li-Huei Tsai, PhD, and Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

autism

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Autism and Alcohol? Not Very Likely

Any potential cause of autism should be examined. One recent report suggests that alcohol consumption by expectant mothers is, or may be, a factor. I find this suggestion as highly unlikely as the Television causes autism speculation but if credible evidence is found then lets see it. For now color me unconvinced, totally unconvinced. Obviously alcohol consumption by expectant mothers is unwise for a number of other serious health reasons including and especially Fetal Alcohol Syndrome but autism?

For the record I would like to offer the following information. I have two sons one 13 and one 11 1/2, the younger of whom is profoundly autistic by pediatrican diagnoses and psychologist assessment. Their mother, who is an extremely rare consumer of alcohol to begin with, consumed no alchohol during either pregnancy or during the period immediately prior to either pregnancy. In both cases we were consciously seeking to have children and my wife was extremely cautious about what substances she consumed. In fact, she consumed no alcohol at all, nor even caffeine (though she likes Diet Coke). In fact Conor's mom took no pain killers of any kind even Aspirin, Anacin etc. during the two pregnancies or the periods preceding them.

Alcohol causes autism? Wellllllll ..... may....be , who knows, but not in the case of Conor Doherty

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