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Autism bloggers are having a field day this week with a new study recently released by Cornell economists Michael Waldman, Sean Nicholson, and Nodir Adilov that attempts to link autism with TV watching. If the study wasn't enough fuel for a fire, Gregg Easterbrook of Slate then wrote a provocative essay showing support for the study titled TV Really Might Cause Autism.
Referencing both the study as well as Easterbrook's article, Claudia Wallis of Time-CNN questions the researcher's methods and writes, "The alarming rise in autism rates is one of the biggest mysteries of modern medicine, but it's irresponsible to blame one factor without hard scientific proof."
Steven D. Levitt of Freakonomics and co-author of the book Freakonomics takes a good look at the study and the empirical evidence in the paper and writes that he doesn't find it "very compelling." He proposes an alternative theory:
"The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that there might be a causal link between rainfall, TV, and autism, but not the one suggested by the paper.
My theory: when it rains a lot, parents watch more TV, see more shows about autism, and this leads them to seek out a diagnosis of autism for their kids. They have the same kids, it is just that TV makes them believe that their kids are autistic."
Ginger Taylor of Adventures in Autism writes a post that references a letter written by Ann Dachel (a school teacher, a member of the National Autism Association, and the mother of a boy with autism and a daughter who developed epilepsy after receiving a Hepatitis B vaccine) to Cornell University regarding Sean Nicholson, who was part of the study and a possible proponoent of the pharmaceutical industry. In her letter, Dachel asks the question: "Who funded the study?"
"Although the research on TV as the cause of autism makes no mention of the drug industry, many in the autism community would find it interesting that a strong proponent of pharma comes up with this theory.
If TV causes one in every 166 children to become autistic, then the heated controversy linking vaccines laced with mercury to autism would be irrelevant."
Sam of Play Is The Work writes of the study:
"I believe it creates more anxiety in parents that are already convinced the world is conspiring against them and unless they do everything perfectly (no sugar, no tv, no antibiotics) they are putting their children at risk. I think that’s irresponsible."
Dr. Kristina Chew of Autism Vox, who will be speaking this Friday at the Autism Advocacy Conference in New York City, hits the nail on the head when she writes that the study once again puts blame on moms:
"Michael Waldman’s theory of TV causing autism bears more than a casual resemblance to the supposedly outmoded refrigerator mother theory of autism—-what kind of mother parks their young child (their toddler, their baby) in front of the television to be entertained, edutained, and babysat by the likes of Baby Einstein and the PBS kiddie cohort? We have gone, as another mother of an autistic child noted, from refrigerator mother to TV mom. It would be well for Eastbrook to note that the “TV causes autism†hypothesis contains echoes of this terrible and simply incorrect theory that has ruined the lives of autistic persons and of their parents."
After Kari of The Karianna Spectrum stops laughing, she blogs about the study and sums up her thoughts:
"Life is not so black and white. It all boils down to finger-pointing. But is that the best use of our time, money, and resources?"
And even thought she doesn't directly reference the Cornell study or subsequent Slate article, Squid of the adventures of leelo and his potty-mouthed mom writes that "it has been a long time since [she] read an autism article that wasn't partially beamed in from outer space..." Squid suggests readers spend their time reading the Scientific American article Broken Mirrors: A Theory of Autism.
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BlogHer Contributing Editor Mary Tsao also blogs at Mom Writes.
Image credit: Mary Tsao.
