If It’s Raining, There’s More Autism?
November 3, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A study to be released today in the November Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, reports on a link between high levels of rainfall and increased rates of autism. From the LA Times blog, Booster Shots:
Cornell University economist Michael Waldman found that in areas of California, Oregon and Washington that experienced high levels of rain and snowfall during the years 1987-2001, autism rates among school-aged children rose when measured in 2005. Those children diagnosed with autism would have been under 3 during the periods of high precipitation, the period during which autism is generally diagnosed.
There was mention of a precipitation-autism link in 2006, in Prof. Waldman’s study on TV causing autism—more on that finding (which was, may I say, received with many grains of salt) is here.
And it may help to remember, that correlation does not equal causation.
From the LA times blog,
“…Both Waldman[author] and Dr. Noel S. Weiss of the University of Washington, Seattle, who wrote an editorial about the study in the Archives, cautioned that the findings are very preliminary and stressed that they opened a world of possible explanations for autism besides rainfall itself.
…
Weiss suggested that the data from which Waldman drew his autism statistics could be unreliable, as diagnoses and records of those diagnoses vary from state to state and county to county.”
…They DO realize that Microsoft is in Seattle (well, Redmond, but that’s right on top of Seattle), right?
Right?
….so what is is now….Autism autism go away, come again another day?
I need fresh air!
xR
lmao…omg!! It’s funny the links they try to create. And of course the never put a disclaimer about correlation and causation!
From Noel S. Weiss’ editorial on,
Waldman, M., Nicholson, S., Adilov, N., Williams, J. (2008). Autism Prevalence and Precipitation Rates in California, Oregon, and Washington Counties. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med., 162(11), 1026-1034.
…In the next few paragraphs I will: (1) provide the basis for my opinion that this observation may well not lead to any insights into the etiologies of autism and (2) argue that the authors’ analysis and the editor’s decision to publish it are to be lauded, despite the uncertain ultimate contribution of this work and the possibility (likelihood?) that nonprofessionals are going to misinterpret and misuse it… [my emphasis]
Weiss, N.S. (2008). Precipitation and autism: Do these results warrant publication?
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med., 162(11):1095-1096.
My own questioning thoughts, admittedly without reading the full text yet, is to wonder what happened to the data from the other states that were initially included in the TV causes autism manuscript–why was that excluded? I will also be interested to see whether this time Waldman, et. al. took into account the differential educational criteria used in OR vs WA and CA, and what was the level and basis of determined association.
Anyway, plan on looking at both the full paper and the full editorial tonight.
I’m here in Redmond, with two spectrum kids, one ADHD, all three have anxiety. Spouse is a software mgr…. Have often wondered about the Vitamin D deficiency/lack of sunlight link.
Hello, these kids live smack dab in the middle of the tech sector. Duh. Techie genes, people. Techie genes. My husband is an engineer, and ALL of my autism mom friends are married to engineers or men in math-oriented fields.
Genetic, genetic, genetic.
Here’s the abstract:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/162/11/1026
This could explain why autism is often said to be an umbrella diagnosis
tinted…
I love it…umbrella diagnosis…does that include the rainbow?!?
xR
Regan quoted some of the editorial accompanying the study—here is more:
And the study’s being talked about under such headings as Does Rain Trigger Autism?
and
AMA Journal Publishes Study Showing Evidence of a Major Environmental Trigger For Autism——note that “major”??????
Kristina,
Are you taking any of this seriously? I recognize the inclusion of environmental consequences, but rain….lack of vitamin D….it defuses more and more..
xR
I was a little dumbfounded when I read about the study and where it is published—–I’m still sighing about the original TV study!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgTpELkfRaA
This report recounts the trajectory if Waldman’s TV autism paper and then this second one.
And David Kirby talks about rain possibly “[pulling] mercury down from the skies” in the Huffington Post—it’s quite an image to contemplate.
What was it that Dr. Weiss said?
“…despite the uncertain ultimate contribution of this work and the possibility (likelihood?) that nonprofessionals are going to misinterpret and misuse it…
Count on David Kirby to corroborate that reservation by immediately proceeding to causation, contrary to the caveats and limitations stated by both author and editor, and managing to squeeze vaccines into the argument as well.
Some apologies for the musical intermission, but between “Blame the Rain” and “Oregon”, I couldn’t resist.
“Better Every Day”
Performed by Blame the Rain
Oregon Records
I actually saw this on the local news and just couldn’t stop laughing. Are you kidding me?
You know… the link here is so broad and general that one could think of any number of reasons why rain could be linked to autism. But… given this is a correlation study with that kind of subject matter breadth (and I pose this as a honest question to someone who knows more, like Regan)… what good would ever come out of this study?
Cliff
Cornell University’s eClips has just posted a video interview with Michael Waldman in which he discusses the correlation between rain and autism. You can watch video clips from the interview on the eClips blog (http://cornell-eclips.blogspot.com) and visit eClips (http://eclips.cornell.edu) to see over 12,000 video clips.
Well, if rain causes autism, my country should be SWARMING with autistic people by now. Like, we should be the majority.
This is an example of a “scare of the day” newstory. The real story will future study results on why this might be true(vit D, tv, pollutants). We will never hear news if it turns out to be just a coincidence.
I would not make fun of the rain and causing autism, as it is not rain itself but what is in the rain. When the wind biow across the smoke stavks of a power plant the wind picks up the mercury from the smoke and when the rain washes the murcury out it lands on he land and if you have cows eating the grasses the you drink the milk or eat the cheese or any thing thing is made from the milk you ge the mercury. A mother might drink milk when pregant she is thaking in mercury witch is then passed onto the bady. What happens to the baby if it is given mercury either by the mother or a vaccine?? All you have do is look to what happned to the lakes on the eastern side of the united states the rain killed them. Kristina I hope that Charlie is gettin his brownie wit the Dark Choclate icing?
“I would not make fun of the rain and causing autism, as it is not rain itself but what is in the rain. When the wind biow across the smoke stavks of a power plant the wind picks up the mercury from the smoke and when the rain washes the murcury out it lands on he land and if you have cows eating the grasses the you drink the milk or eat the cheese or any thing thing is made from the milk you ge the mercury. A mother might drink milk when pregant she is thaking in mercury witch is then passed onto the bady. What happens to the baby if it is given mercury either by the mother or a vaccine?? All you have do is look to what happned to the lakes on the eastern side of the united states the rain killed them. Kristina I hope that Charlie is gettin his brownie wit the Dark Choclate icing?”
Well, this is *almost* as bad as my prediction as to what the “mercury-to-rain” hypothesis would be, but not quite.
Cliff
Cliff; Iwould like to hear your hypothesis to see if it is as interesting as mine. But today it is not mercury but lead and arsenic in the drinking water known as FLUORIDE to keep your teeth in good shape. It is all ways good to hear a good story.
“Cliff; Iwould like to hear your hypothesis to see if it is as interesting as mine. But today it is not mercury but lead and arsenic in the drinking water known as FLUORIDE to keep your teeth in good shape. It is all ways good to hear a good story.”
I wouldn’t call it my “hypothesis”; but if you want to hear my thoughts on this whole thing, I put something up on my blog as to that. Feel free to read.
Cliff
Orac gets to work on the study and notes “the desperation is palpable here.”
Shoot! Kirby did go with the mercury-in-air hypothesis! (My guess he’d go for the beyond ludicrous and try and suggest that people are more likely to vaccinate their kids on rainy days. But I guess he’s finally seeming to have drop thimerosal… finally. Though that could be a mistaken assumption)
Cliff
David Savitz said “When the wind biow across the smoke stavks of a power plant the wind picks up the mercury from the smoke”
The study was done on counties in California, Oregon and Washington. The rainy counties with the most autism were the ones closer to the coast in the west. The counties with the less autism were the dryer counties east of there (the mountain ranges, the coastal ranges and the Cascade Mountains create a rain shadow).
I have family members who complain when smog and smoke filtering through the Cascade Mountains on to the Columbia Plateau. Are they in a rainy or dry county? Which direction is the wind blowing?
Pray tell, where are the smoke stacks dumping mercury on Astoria, OR, San Francisco, CA and Forks, WA, and Longbeach, CA?
Do you have a map? Do you know how to read a map?
Hi HCN; When I talked about mercury I was thinking more about NJ Getting all of that smoke from Va,WVA,OH because the wind go from west to east in this part of the country. It gos over the Appalachan Mtns and down to DEL and NJ.I thank that NJ is called the garden state because of the amount of produce they grow, so the rain fall on all of this produce witch may have mercury in it. That is all i am saying is that some of the mercury may get into the food chain. I just read the ORAC report and all he could talf about the vitamin D thing. The one thing he did not say who was not getting the vitamin D the moother or child, how much vitamin D con you give a 2 yr old. I said it before and Iwill say it again that baby has autism beform it is born!! Yes I have a map of CA. When I see the fire fighters who are fightering the fire thy say the Santa Anna winds are blowing the fire to the coast, witch would mean the winds were going from east to west and ther is very big power plant over in Arizona that would be east of CA I belive. I will say Iam not sure about OR and Wa. Iam not sure of how many Coal fired power plants you have as I thank most of you power comes water power so I would have to go back to the water that you drink with the fluorid also the sme in Ca. AS you know that fluoride is made up of LEAD and ARSENIC
The study only covered California, Oregon and Washington. You should have looked at more closely.
HCN; I did look at study and I would like know if they separatenorthen CA from southern CA because see the weather you have two different states.The north is rainey and the south not so much. I like how they jacked the numbers around to make the results come out with what they wented. So you have to look on how many days each stayed in doors or out just in CA. So I did not thank much of that study. As for the northwest I naver paided much attention becuse the are not all ways on fire. Be cause you seam to have more rain and fog in that area so they may have more time inside. Another thing is how much can tv can a child who is only 3 watch, as there is lot of nap time.