Autism Vox

On the Causes, and the Cause, of Autism

by Kristina Chew, PhD on May 3rd, 2007

“More than 900 scientists, physicians, activists and parents from all around the world are gathering in Seattle this week to collaborate on solving” a certain “mystery”—the “medical mystery” of autism, notes an article in the May 2nd Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the upcoming 6th International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in Seattle (May 3rd-May 5th). Reporter Tom Paulson notes that, while “Most of those attending the conference are likely to be focused on topics such as the findings pointing to some of the genes involved in autism, potential drug targets and better means of diagnosis or treatment,” popular discussion of autism has a different focus:

The public dialogue on autism, however, tends to focus largely on speculation about its cause.

Vaccines, wheat gluten, artificial sweeteners, any number of environmental pollutants and even overexposure to television all have been proposed as potential causes of autism. Though often based on studies of dubious scientific merit, the lack of a firm answer on causation has created a firestorm around those studying the disorder.

“Firestorm” might seem to be something of an understatement to describe discussions in the autism community about causation. In a post today, Orac refers to “zealots” who are willing to go through some elaborate mental calisthetics to prove a hypothesis (mercury causes autism) that is not borne out by the scientific evidence. An editorial in the May 2007 Nature Neuroscience compared the tactics of some autism advocates—and in particular, of those promoting a vaccine/mercury-autism link—to those of “certain animal rights groups.” The language in comments addressed to anyone—such as myself—who disputes certain theories (such as that of a vaccine/mercury-autism link) is often accusatory, if not minatory.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that it is “speculation” about the causes of autism that public dialogue tends to focus on, and the attention paid to claims that melamine is connected to autism—-or that ultrasounds might be—bears this out. And speculation is fine and good, and indeed I welcome it in my college classroom, when my students are (for instance) talking about what sorts of legal rights a Roman woman might have had regarding her property. It is one thing to speculate about how much power or potestas a Roman woman might have had allotted to her depending on what form her marriage took: This is material for an essay topic for undergraduates. But speculation about the causes of autism seems quite often to lead directly into suggestions for treatment of autistic children, and into treatments (such as chelation) whose efficacy and safety are as yet unproven.

Further, because of the internet, parents today can find out about this or that latest treatment for autism simply by doing some research via Google. By way of comparison, to find out about the everyday lives of Roman women, one must read numerous primary and secondary sources (many of which are to be found only in university libraries), study representations of women in artwork (many of which are to be found only in various museums), study Roman buildings and ruins to learn about the physical and material realities of ancient Rome. (Of course, one must also study and know Latin, to catch the nuances of what Cicero, Ovid, Juvenal, and many others—extant writings by Roman women are few—wrote about the other half of the population.) This is to say that today, parents can find out a lot of information, and potentially a lot of misinformation, about autism and treatments for it while sitting at one’s computer, one ear tuned to the verbalizations of one’s autistic child. And the question is, how does one sift through the potential miasmas of misinformation to find out what is right and true? Especially when a parent, at the end of another difficult day of so much crying and not any words—-with a glimpse of one’s child striking himself on the head—goes on the web with only a cup of tea for fleeting comfort and reads words of “recovery”; “fully mainstreamed”; “lost the diagnosis”; “no longer autistic.”

My own introduction into the information-providing power of the internet occurred at the same time as Charlie’s being diagnosed with autism in July of 1999. I read about the gluten-free casein-free diet and within a few hours was bringing home bags of new foods from the health food store. It was a frantic, frenzied time of reading anything with the words “autism treatment” or its synonyms, looking at Charlie (who sort of played with maybe two toys), speculating: Maybe this will work. Maybe this will be the magic bullet and he’ll talk. Maybe; what if; maybe. I glanced through articles with a lot of terminology about genetics and neuroanatomy; I was in search of actual things that I could do for Charlie, to help him get better.

You can imagine, that is, what research to be presented at IMFAR I would have been interested in—anything about cause or cure—-and what research I would have steered clear of (genetics, epidemiology, diagnosis).

I would like very much to be at IMFAR, to attend the panels, to match faces to the names of scientists whose research I have been following. As it is, I will be in my classroom reviewing classical Greek verbs, the uses of the Latin infinitive, and the Roman laws of person, property, and obligations. (Final exams are coming up.) Regarding the word causa—meaning “cause, reason, foundation” and also a court case—it is noted that

Scholars have rightly observed that it is one of the vaguest terms in Roman legal language.

Indeed: Causa can refer to the reason why (for instance) someone committed some wrongdoing, as well as referring to an actual lawsuit brought against a perpetrator; to a judicial process. In medical language, causa indeed means the cause of a disease; in later Latin, it comes to mean a disease itself. Bring up causa among a group of Latin legal scholars, or simply among a group of classicists, and you can get a lot of discussion—-of speculation—-and differences of perspective on the word based on whether one is thinking in terms of medicine, or law, or rhetoric, or literature, or ancient science.

For myself these days, I am happy even to be able to consider differences of definitions of the Latin causa, or the causes of autism, or of autism. My own first cause—my son Charlie—who has lived through many a firestorm—school placements, tough behavior moments, stares—is well, a schoolboy looking forward to another day with his teachers and to grinning at us through the window of the yellow school bus.

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POSTED IN: Cause, Classics, Environment, Genetics, Health, Legal Issues, Science, Treatment, Vaccines