Power Plants and Autism Rates in Texas
A study published in the journal Health and Place makes a correlation between rates of autism and the proximity of schools in Texas to power plants. Under Raymond Palmer, associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center, researchers examined the amount of mercury released from 39 coal-fired power plants and 56 industrial plants around the state along with the autism rates in 1040 Texas school districts. According to the April 23rd My San Antonio,
The team looked at mercury released from 39 coal-fired power plants and 56 industrial plants around the state and examined the autism rates from 1,040 school districts in Texas.
Researchers found that for every 1,000 pounds of mercury released into the environment, there was an overall 2.6 percent increase in autism rates in Texas school districts.
That rate jumped to 3.7 percent when looking at emissions from power plants alone. But it fell by 1 to 2 percent for every 10 miles from the source.
“This is an association we would not expect to see by chance alone,” Palmer said.
Palmer used 1998 mercury emission data from the federal Toxics Release Inventory and 2002 autism rate data from the Texas Education Agency. This would have been roughly the
But note that, from 1994 to 2003—when the rates of autism diagnosis increased—the rates of diagnoses of mental retardation and learning disabilities decreased (as noted in a 2006 study by Washington University professor Paul Shattuck). Also, in 1994, the DSM-IV criteria for “autistic disorder” were revised and broadened—-it’s not, that is, so easy to make a direct correlation between power plants and autism rates.
According to Gary Myers, professor of neurology and environmental medicine at the University of Rochester, said “studies like Palmer’s can’t substantiate any links between environmental pollutants and autism”:
“They are interesting in the sense that they give people ideas, but they don’t prove anything……The thing that is missing here is that you don’t know the actual exposure of any given child. All you know is that mercury was released in the general region.”
And a mere idea can go a long way in discussions about what causes autism.
Tags: , asd, asperger, autism, Diagnosis, Environment, Health, mercury, Parenting, pdd-nos, texasRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Cause, Diagnosis, Environment
26 opinions for Power Plants and Autism Rates in Texas
C. S. Wyatt
Apr 24, 2008 at 12:35 pm
There is also a correlation between poverty and proximity to power plants, poverty and proximity to manufacturing, and poverty and proximity to aerial application of pesticides…
Do any of these cause the poverty? Or, more likely, the lower your income the more likely you have to settle for a lousy housing location.
We can find all manner of similarities between autism clusters. Which ones we select to promote to the public do matter a lot. What if I were to suggest the lower-incomes were related to early childhood health care and diet?
My point is that X:Y relationships do not prove anything. Technically, lab science can only accept or reject a null hypothesis — all things are percentages of likelihood, not certainty. (Of course, there is a point at which we act on the likelihood and talk of strong correlations.)
My only point is that while I don’t question the potential risks of living near a power plant (especially coal power), there are a lot of other risk factors the nearby communities might also share. Any and all of these would have to be tested for correlation as well.
With the clusters in California being studied by U.C. Davis, I’m unwilling (timid) to blame pesticides, power plants, chemical manufacturers, high selenium levels, or any of the other correlations we have confirmed. There are too many to know which one(s) are potentially causative. But, I could (technically) tell the world “There is a high correlation between X and autism.” I would not be lying — I would be omitting other correlations.
Chuck
Apr 24, 2008 at 12:47 pm
The counter is also true
X:Y relationships do not disprove anything
passionlessDrone
Apr 24, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Hello friends -
I’ve seen some other armchair analysis on this paper, and another by the same group that seems to make taking any conclusions from their research, questionable at best.
Among the criticisms were that the authors ackowledged that the greatest factor for having an autism diagnosis was being close to the city, as opposed to in rural areas; much stronger than mercury exposure.
I’m not in favor of living next to power plants, and I’m sure their emissions aren’t good for anyone, especially infants and the unborn, but I”m not sure we can use this research as a guidepost for much.
- pD
Joseph
Apr 24, 2008 at 1:34 pm
This is the second such study by Palmer. In the first one, he failed to take urbanicity into account. I understand in this study, urbanicity and wealth were taken into account. A small effect was still found to occur. And that’s good progress. In ecological studies of this nature, you keep eliminating the likely confounds that way and the findings become more solid.
One thing that is obviously not controlled for is that pollution emission sources are likely emitting substances other than mercury.
In addition to this, there might be a more subtle confound than urbanicity. When we talk about urbanicity we’re really talking about a proxy of other confounds, such as availability of autism specialists and awareness.
I think that a prerequisite for these kinds of studies should be determining to what extent regional differences in autism prevalence are real. This is doable.
Chuck
Apr 24, 2008 at 7:56 pm
“I think that a prerequisite for these kinds of studies should be determining to what extent regional differences in autism prevalence are real.”
How is this possibly doable given there are no gold standards for diagnosis integrity or population census in a region?
Jess
Apr 24, 2008 at 8:33 pm
Am I crazy or what? If the criteria for diagnosing Autism has changed (became a much larger, wide spread spectrum) Then Absolutly your numbers are going to up. Why does it seem so simple to understand and yet people make it so difficult with oh so many studies!
Emily
Apr 24, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Lots of problems with this one, from questions of how long coal-fired plants have been around to how long coal-fired anything has been around and whether or not this correlation is something new or old and man, China had better watch out.
Emily
Apr 24, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Oh, Jess, don’t be so sensib…I mean, crazy.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 24, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Don’t get me started on those who make accusations about mercury emissions or something like that wafting across the Pacific from China…….
H6
Apr 24, 2008 at 10:47 pm
When will we know if the “Diagnostic Substitution” theory of the increase in autism is correct? In a decade if the rate of autism stays the same while the definition also stays the same?
And if the rate goes up will that indicate that it’s wrong?
If it becomes the dominant theory, controlling research and the public perception of autism, it will affect a lot of lives one way or the other.
Cliff
Apr 24, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Jess, you see that would involve something called “unexpected logical thinking”. This, in simple terms, is a no-no.
But it is hard to tell for sure when it would be consistent (it’s not even so much only substitution as increased diagnosis on the whole of it; it’s not clear some individuals would have gotten one at all, while others clearly would have gotten something else). The rates would be consistent along with rates of screening and cultural and economic bias accounted for consistently; this, in and of itself, becomes a rather distinct issue to control for in such studies.
Cliff
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 25, 2008 at 12:20 am
@H6, you wrotes about the diagnostic substitution theory:
“If it becomes the dominant theory, controlling research and the public perception of autism, it will affect a lot of lives one way or the other.”
I’m thinking that it is already affecting lives and in positive ways—I’m not at all certain that my son would have received an autism diagnosis in the past, but perhaps one of MR and emotional/behavioral disorder. And I’m inclined to think that he would not have been given the education that he has received, or the opportunities that stem from it.
Harold L Doherty
Apr 25, 2008 at 4:38 am
Diagnostic substitution and definition change are real and undoubtedly have a substantial impact on the increased number of autism diagnoses. Nor
Such factors do not preclude possible environmental factors involved in causing autism. There will always be other possible factors complicating the study of causation of autism. This study simply suggests a link to one factor. Given the undisputed toxic qualities of mercury though it would be foolish in the extreme to disregard evidence of a possible link. The ideology of those who want to believe, as an article of faith, that there are no possible environmental causes will preclude them from ever accepting any evidence, or any attempt to find evidence of possible environmental factors.
Some of that faith based reasoning is present in the comments on this topic. Fortunately the research continues despite the existence of such ideology amongst some autism groups.
Emily
Apr 25, 2008 at 8:56 am
I don’t know anyone who believes that there are no possible environmental causes. Does anyone know anyone like that?
What I do know is that coal-fired power plants have been around for, like, a century and that people have been burning coal by the ton for hundreds of years, choking off the air and blackening people and homes and belongings–think Victorian London, for example–and yet there are people who think there wasn’t any autism until the mid-19th century but if coal burning and mercury release thereof were linked to it or causative, seems like Victorian London or any-time Beijing would be wall-to-wall people with autism.
Emily
Apr 25, 2008 at 8:58 am
And since I completely lack faith in almost anything, I don’t really have a good capacity for faith-based reasoning. What I do see on this thread are several excellent comments and analyses touching on the scientific merits of this study and the inferences that have been drawn or suggested from it.
daedalus2u
Apr 25, 2008 at 9:56 am
I am pretty sure that I completely lack faith too.
Virtually all mercury exposure comes from diet (usually fish) and not from inhalation (except in acute exposure to metallic mercury spills). Virtually all coal fired power plants have very tall stacks and emit their exhaust hot, so it rises as it mixes with the air. The SO2 and NOx present in power plant exhaust has many more acute health effects than mercury does. If there were acute toxic effects from mercury from these power plants, there would be greater acute toxic effects from SO2 and NOx.
No one is saying that mercury is good for people, or that mercury should be emitted, or that controlling mercury emissions is a bad idea. Just because mercury is toxic at some level does not mean it causes autism at some other level. Autism is not characterized by any symptoms of toxicity. People with autism have larger brains with more neurons in them. More neurons is not consistent with exposure to any neurotoxin. If exposure to something caused a larger brain with more neurons it would not be classified as a neurotoxin.
It is the idea that mercury causes autism that has become an article of faith. There is no evidence to support it. Elevated levels of mercury are not found in autistic individuals. Not after autism has been diagnosed, not in their first hair cut baby hair. Elevated mercury in cord blood is not associated with autism. Chelation of individuals with autism doesn’t remove lots of mercury (because the mercury isn’t there to begin with), and the symptoms of autism don’t go away following chelation. The well known symptoms of mercury poisoning don’t mimic the well known symptoms of autism.
Acute symptoms from mercury poisoning require very large doses. Virtually never do symptoms of mercury poisoning occur in a few days following exposure unless that exposure is extremely high. Symptoms within a few days of vaccination with a vaccine containing 15 micrograms of mercury are not due to the mercury. 75 years ago, many millions of children were each exposed to many thousands of times more mercury in teething powders than any child has been exposed to mercury from vaccines. Over 1,000 children died from mercury poisoning from mercury in teething powders.
At this point, continuing to believe that mercury causes autism in the face of the reliable evidence that it does not requires faith and a willingness to suspend disbelief in the face of reliable evidence. That is not something that I can do and it is not something that I have a desire to be able to do.
I think there are environmental effects that lead to and exacerbate ASDs. Those environmental effects would be the bacteria I am working with.
Cliff
Apr 25, 2008 at 11:48 am
Personally, I don’t know anyone who says that there are no possible environmental causes. I know people who say there may be no environmental causes, and have made good arguments to the point, but I haven’t seen anyone say there are no possible environmental causes.
It certainly doesn’t preclude looking with a close eye at such environmental causes in so far to see if they actually make a good case for their respective theories, and I do actually think I haven’t seen much strong in that regard, genetics aside (it’s a tricky matter, though, because that as a matter of principle is harder to control for than a simple causation subject).
But, no, I haven’t see anyone say that “there can be no environmental factors”. That would be a little definitive.
Cliff
Translating Autism
Apr 25, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Hello Kristina, I just wanted to clarify one point about this study. The authors did not model autism rate changes over time. The authors simply modeled rates in 2002. The statements about predicting “increased risk” do not refer to increases of autism rates over time, but increases of rate of diagnoses within schools as a function of proximity to sources, and total mercury released (not as a function of time).This limits (albeit not entirely) criticisms of these results on the basis of the possible non- or limited existence of true autism increases, such as it would be the case if the increases in autism are due to diagnostic substitution. Cheers, Nestor.
Emily
Apr 25, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Nice work, Daedalus.
daedalus2u
Apr 26, 2008 at 8:33 am
Just to be clear, I didn’t want to impugn people of faith by the implication that the mercury causes autism idea is the same as other ideas of faith. There is a difference between Faith and Delusion. Faith is the belief in something without evidence. Delusion is belief in something with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The evidence that virtually all autism is not caused by mercury is overwhelming. Why some people are unable to abandon a belief that is obviously wrong is not something that I understand.
It is something that I am working on trying to understand. I think it does relate to Theory of Mind stuff, and how for NTs, there are neural structures that force the Theory of Mind of the NTs in the group to all be “in sync”, even if that Theory of Mind is wrong. This is the essence of group think, and mob psychology. In politics this is known as “drinking the Kool-Aid”, the act of adopting a delusional mind set as your own. This is what causes fads, and political momentum, and jumping on the bandwagon. It is going along to get along, not because the bandwagon is going in the right direction. I think that bullying the odd person out is a way of reinforcing group think and group norms.
I think this is fundamentally an NT trait (in its extreme forms) and it is a necessary and inherent factor in how humans develop language and communicate. Many NTs simply don’t have the ability to examine their beliefs rationally. They adopt their beliefs the way they adopted language, by learning it from someone else.
RAJ
Apr 26, 2008 at 10:52 am
“Diagnostic substitution and definition change are real and undoubtedly have a substantial impact on the increased number of autism diagnoses”.
Kanner’s highly specific core defining feature of autism is “A profound indifference to the existence of other people”.
In 1987 (DSM-III-R) Kanner’s criteria was listed as one of five symptoms in the social domain needed to meet the new diagnostic criteria for autism.
In 1994, DSM-IV completly eliminated Kanner’s definition and replaced it with the ambigous, vague and subjective ‘Qualitative impairments in social reciprocity’.
It can be reasonably argued, and I challenge anyone to refute, that none of the sixteen isolated symptoms contained in DSM-IV (of which 8 out of 16 must be met) are specific to autism.
This phenomena has led to such diverse conditions as mentally retarded Fragile X boys,whose social problems are social anxiety, not an indifference to the existence of others,
to Romanian orphans who spent at least six months in snake-pit orphanages, and who experienced extreme emotional deprivation to all meet the new criteria for autism (DSM-IV, ICD-10, ADOS,ARI-R, etc.)
If the new concept and diagnostic criteria for autism is valid, then Bettleheim’s model of the refrigerator theory becomes newly relevant and subject to argument and debate.
Kanner in 1965 also commented on the misinterpretation of the concept of autism and complained about clinicians misdiagnosing autism, jumping on a diagnostic bandwagon to the point where ‘autism’ was becoming an ever-ready label for any ‘brain-injured’ child and ‘a multitude of autistic children began appearing everywhere’:
http://neurodiversity.com/library_kanner_1965.html
He also commented on how children meeting a few ‘isolated symptoms’, shared by many unrelated neurological and neuropsychological conditions, but who did not meet his original highly specific definition were being given an ‘autism’ diagnosis.
In the various subcategories of Pervasive Developmental Disorders, the two subcategories that account for the bulk of the ‘epidemic’ are PDD/NOS and Asperger Syndrome.
Matson has correctly noted that PDDNOS is defined by what it is not - autism. Many people carrying an Asperger Syndrome diagnosis previously met criteria for Schizoid Personality Disorder.
It is impossible to make any more than glacial progress in understanding causes and treatments for a condition that no one can define or has been rendered meaningless by inclusion of a host of unrelated neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions under the umbrella of Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 26, 2008 at 12:35 pm
If there were no psychology—if “psychology” as we know it had not been invented—-would there be something called “autism”…
S.L.
Apr 26, 2008 at 6:59 pm
My husband has been doing a lot of work in school about correlations, causation, statistics, etc. As he discusses his class debates, we always end up talking about autism and all the many, many, endless correlations that surround it.
Great quick-read on correlation vs. causation:
http://www.genuinevc.com/archives/2005/05/my_pet_peeve_co.htm
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Apr 26, 2008 at 8:23 pm
[…] Power Plants and Autism Rates in Texas A study published in the journal Health and Place makes a correlation between rates of autism and the proximity of schools in Texas to power plants. […]
Joseph
Apr 26, 2008 at 8:45 pm
It can be reasonably argued, and I challenge anyone to refute, that none of the sixteen isolated symptoms contained in DSM-IV (of which 8 out of 16 must be met) are specific to autism.
If you’re a purist who believes that autism as conceived by Kanner is the only true autism, then you’re right to an extent. For example, Kanner did not talk about social give and take, but a profound lack of affective contact. It’s really two different things. Clearly not all children we now call autistic would be considered autistic by Kanner. It’s likely, however, that all children considered autistic by Kanner would also be considered autistic today.
The current definition of autism has come about through expert experience, obviously. It’s supposed to be a refinement of earlier definitions based on years of accumulated knowledge about the condition. Of course, it’s all simply the evolution of a cultural construct that has never had a broad biological foundation, be it now or in the days of Kanner. I don’t necessarily argue that the current view of autism is superior to the old one, though.
Jess
Apr 29, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Thought this was intresting, I use babycenter.com for my homepage and right on that page is states “mercury linked to autism” Then when clicking on that link it brings you to this study. On babycenter talk about sending parents into a tizzy!
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