Autism and the False Equivalence of Science Denial

In recent years autism has been on the rise. There have been a lot of explanations: overdiagnosis, vaccines, the age of the father, the age of the mother, pesticides, etc., etc.

More and more, it's looking like pesticides are the problem. 

The study by the University of California, Davis, MIND Institute found mothers exposed to organophosphates had a two-thirds increased risk of having a child with autism. And the risk was strongest when exposures occurred during the second and third trimesters of pregnancies, the research showed. 

It makes a lot of sense. Many pesticides are neurotoxins, just like chemical warfare agents. Certain pesticides (neonicotinoids) have been banned in Europe because of their contribution to the colony collapse disorder that has been devastating bee populations across the world. The nerve toxins make it difficult for bees to find their way back to the hive, which makes the other problems the hives face that much worse.

It's clear that autism is linked to something in the environment. The rate of autism in Somalia is low, but Somali immigrants to the United States have an even higher rate of autism than white Americans. Some have tried to blame it on vaccines, which started in the 1990s when a British researcher published a fraudulent article linking vaccines to autism. At that time it made a certain amount of sense, because thimerosal was used as a preservative (it contains mercury, a known neurotoxin).

It's not just the young that who are affected by pesticides. There are strong links between pesticides and Parkinson's disease: people exposed to pesticides have a 70% higher incidence of the disease.

When conservatives get slammed for being anti-science with their stands on climate change and evolution, the false-equivalencers insist that liberals are just as anti-science with their opposition to vaccines, pesticides, herbicides and genetically-modified (GMO) crops.

But the charge doesn't stand up. Even the most virulent and well-known anti-vaccine celebrity, Jenny McCarthy, insists (at least most of the time) that she's not against vaccines: she's against bad vaccines. When vaccines contained thimerosal there was very good reason to demand they be changed: it's toxic, especially for developing brains. That's why vaccines for children no longer contain mercury.

(For the record, everyone should be vaccinated. It's essential for "herd immunity," and the risk of death or other dire consequences from actually contracting these diseases is much higher than getting vaccinated.)

Pesticides and herbicides, on the other hand, are powerful poisons, extremely toxic and often lethal to humans in even relatively small doses. This is a scientific fact, not some liberal talking point. Although plant, insect and human biology are vastly different, many of the same underlying processes are identical -- all life shares the same basic DNA, cells utilize many of the same basic proteins.

Since we know pesticides and herbicides are toxic, the only question is what level of exposure is safe for humans? And that depends on many things: fetuses are extremely sensitive to environmental insults; even the tiniest dose of a hormone or chemical at the wrong point in development can screw up brain development, causing autism or a host of other birth defects. Different people have different genetics, live in different places, eat different things. For example, it could be that the Somali genetic makeup is much more susceptible to neurotoxins, or they eat a diet which has higher levels of pesticides.

Similarly, much of the opposition to GMO crops is that the genetic modification makes the plants immune to pesticides like Roundup, which allows farmers to more of these toxins, which means that people will get more of them in their food. Furthermore, these modified genes are spreading to weeds, which then pick up Roundup resistance. Half of all US farms now have glyphosate-resistant weeds. Other engineered genetic traits could be spread to other plants; it's debatable whether we have spent enough time and conducted enough research to ensure that these are completely harmless.

These are real problems that real scientists acknowledge; opposing GMO crops because of these problems is not unscientific: it might ignore the economic realities of farming, putting the well-being of children ahead of the profits of multinational corporations like ConAgra and Cargill, but it doesn't deny basic science.

So, when a conservative insists that climate change is hoax, and evolution is the work of the devil, it is nothing like liberals who prefer organic food. Liberals who oppose herbicides don't think they come from the pit of hell, they think that the EPA's maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) of glyphosate in food and drinking water is far too high, especially for developing fetuses.

Why don't liberals trust the EPA's numbers on these toxins? For pretty much the same reason that conservatives don't like the regulations the EPA places on the companies that make these poisons. Government agencies don't set these numbers in a vacuum. They are pressured by politicians, lobbyists, manufacturers and farmers to make contaminant levels as high as possible. Many of these numbers were set during Republican administrations, when political interference in regulatory agencies was inherent to the "get the government off my back" ideology.

But even absent political interference, setting these values is very tricky. Since they can't experiment on living human beings, they can't really know what safe levels are. Using animal studies and other research, the EPA tries to pick levels that should be harmless for most people. But they know full well that some individuals will become one of those unfortunate statistics that is harmed by these poisons, either because their individual genetic makeup is particularly vulnerable to the toxins, or because the toxins will be concentrated in some individuals due to diet, habit or accident.

Is it unreasonable for someone to want to avoid having their children or spouse become one of those unfortunate statistics?