Autism Isn’t Just Neurological — It’s a Whole-system Disorder, Driven by Environmental Toxins

Autism isn’t just a neurological condition, according to the authors of a scientific report published…

Children's Health Defense

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Scientific evidence shows autism isn’t just a neurological condition, according to the authors of a scientific review published Tuesday on Preprints.org.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) chief scientific officer; Jeet Varia, Ph.D., CHD science fellow; and Martha Herbert, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric neurologist and neuroscientist, co-authored the report, which is undergoing peer review with Development and Psychopathology, a Cambridge University Press journal.

The authors examined the findings of 519 studies to illustrate how autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects multiple body systems, including the immune, digestive and central nervous systems.

Herbert, an autism researcher since 1995, told The Defender the science of autism has become “enormously richer” and ASD “can no longer be considered just a ‘psychological’ problem — it’s a whole-system problem … involving many systems that influence each other.”

She and her co-authors also contend that the latest scientific evidence suggests ASD is largely driven by environmental factors. These include exposure to toxins in food, the environment, medicine or personal care products.

The authors point out that although over $1 billion has been spent on genetic autism research over the past 10 years, researchers have found no unequivocal evidence of a purely genetic cause of autism.

“Although genomic differences may make certain individuals more vulnerable to developing ASD,” Herbert explained, “there are clearly environmental factors that play a huge role in leading to ASD.”

Varia told The Defender that the scientific community needs to acknowledge and explore these environmental factors. “Something is happening in our environment for us to see such an increase in autism,” he said. “We need to ‘get over’ the scientific consensus of genetic causes and accept environmental ones.”

The authors wrote in their report:

“Only once we understand that ASD is not genetically inevitable or a genetic tragedy but an environmental and physiological catastrophe, will we truly be able to grasp and address the root causes of the dramatic rise in its prevalence.”

They said the scientific evidence they reviewed suggests that people with ASD are the “canaries in the coal mine” — meaning that they are responding to toxins in their environment that may “eventually reach us all.”

“The point henceforward,” they wrote, “becomes not just to support and seek full recovery for those diagnosed with ASD, but also how we as individuals, families, communities, and society in the contemporary era can most effectively protect future generations…