

Children of parents in technical jobs at higher risk for autism - ekm2
http://www.uth.edu/media/story.htm?id=ef956e31-9815-42e7-a555-9a07959ce415

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Camillo
AFAIK there is a well-known correlation between father's age and autism risk.
People who spend a longer time in education tend to marry and have children
later. It's not surprising that the effect is stronger for doctors, who take
several years to go through med school, specialization, residency etc., than
for engineers, who can often find a good job with just a BSc.

~~~
hypron

      AFAIK there is a well-known correlation between father's age and autism risk.
    

This is correct, here's a source:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3645857/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3645857/)

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mxfh
_" Fathers who worked in engineering were two times as likely to have a child
with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Those who worked in finance were four times more likely and those who worked
in health care occupations were six times more likely to have a child on the
autism spectrum."_

~~~
_tb
it looks like is the other way around, i don't get it.

~~~
cbhl
I haven't seen the paper, but presumably the authors used a binary definition
of "technical", which I suspect actually means "job that requires higher
education", which might also correlate with "job in which fathers tend to have
children later".

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klinskyc
Couldn't a partial explanation for this be that those in higher paying jobs
(i.e engineering) are more likely to take their children to specialists to be
diagnosed?

~~~
Havoc
Exactly...engineers & finance I could maybe see doing the semi autism thing,
but when the article claim docs have a even higher rate...no way. Docs are
patient facing..there is no way that flies under the radar. There has to be
some other factor interfering (like your theory).

~~~
6d0debc071
> Docs are patient facing..

And expected to maintain a certain degree of clinical detachment. If they were
basing their parenting relationship on doctor-patient relationships, I'd not
be surprised if they had a high rate of autism in their kids.

Not that I'm saying they do, just that if that were the line of logic one
_were_ to go down.

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bendmorris
It's a very short article. I wasn't able to figure out whether the "higher
risk" might just be higher rates of diagnosis. Tech worker parents are
probably more affluent than the average and can afford better healthcare. This
might also be why parents in finance and health occupations have even higher
"risk."

~~~
threatofrain
It would only be a partial explanation, though, since the mother's career by
itself doesn't appear to have the same relationship.

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insensible
Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt established an extremely pronounced correlation
between a pregnant mom's night-time wireless exposure (2.4 GHz = cordless, Wi-
Fi, cell phones as well as microwave ovens) and incidence of autism.

Heavy Wi-Fi/smartphone data use has some serious negative effects that have
been documented, but aren't popular!

~~~
gjm11
Dietrich Klinghardt is not necessarily the most credible source of
information.

See, e.g., [http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/26/your-friday-
dos...](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/03/26/your-friday-dose-of-
woo-2/) for some critical commentary (from a source consistently critical of
all That Sort Of Thing; read with appropriate caution if your general opinion
of "energy medicine", "integrative medicine", kinesiology, homeopathy, etc.,
is more positive).

So, when Klinghardt established this extremely pronounced correlation, where
did he publish the results and by whom have they been checked?

