
How Odd Behavior in Some Young Horses May Reveal a Cause of Autism - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/how-odd-behavior-in-some-young-horses-may-reveal-a-cause-of-autism
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jtheory
This is fascinating, but (it's important to point out) still very much
preliminary even for horses, and then applying any conclusions about foals to
autism in human babies is another huge leap that may not pan out into useful
information.

These kinds of articles bother me, not because I think the research isn't
worthwhile -- it absolutely is! -- but article authors rarely tread lightly
around the implications of these things on readers, and they need to.

There's a pretty strong movement out there for purely natural childbirth -- no
c-sections except when desperately needed, home births if at all possible, no
pain meds (in particular, no epidurals), midwives instead of doctors,
crouching or hands-and-knees birth position instead of flat-on-the-back, no
bottle/formula feeding whatsoever, etc..

There's a lot in here that's fairly well-supported, rationally and
scientifically; but if I continue the list it commonly runs into "no
vaccinations" and sometimes really dangerous choices, like treating
potentially life-threatening complications with homeopathy instead of saying
"time to call the ambulance".

There's a kernel of truth inside the distrust of highly-medicalized
childbirth; see the bloody history of bad or fatal "best practices" from well-
meaning scientists and doctors who didn't know what they didn't know.

But I'm very wary of feeding that distrust with non-information like this;
it's too easy to jump to blaming autism on mothers who accepted (or requested)
c-sections. Even though Brazil, for example, with a 46% c-section rate,
doesn't seem to be overwhelmed with autism....

~~~
cbd1984
> There's a lot in here that's fairly well-supported, rationally and
> scientifically; but if I continue the list it commonly runs into "no
> vaccinations" and sometimes really dangerous choices, like treating
> potentially life-threatening complications with homeopathy instead of saying
> "time to call the ambulance".

It's called crank magnetism: Someone who believes one insane thing tends to
believe others, as well.

[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism)

[http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/06/28/crank-
magnetism...](http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/06/28/crank-magnetism-1/)

> Consistency be damned, they just want to see science with egg on its face so
> they can prove that they are being persecuted.

~~~
jtheory
This doesn't feel like an accurate label, though.

The problem is that the "standard" medical childbirth has flaws that are only
being addressed in a haphazard way, only in some places.

The "flat on her back" position is actually far from optimal for the mother
(...it's optimal for the doctor to have a clear view; that's the reason). But
it can still work; it's not a disastrous error.

There really are plenty of unneeded c-sections out there -- especially as the
active doctor nears the end of his/her shift ("well, let's wrap this up!").
And a c-section is major abdominal surgery, so it poses a risk of
complications that's non-negligible... but it's a quick, well-known procedure,
so it's easier to deal with (for the doctors) than a prolonged labor that may
require them to come running unexpectedly. And the surgery risk isn't
disastrous, of course; I'm not sure the overall risk is really different from
a vaginal birth. But a vaginal birth can go wrong in a wider _variety_ of
ways, so the doctors will generally prefer birth by surgery.

Breast-feeding vs. formula feeding has a lot of research around it as well;
but it's still only partially understood. Breast milk contains the mother's
antibodies, bacteria in it determine the baby's gut flora for the rest of its
life, it changes based on various factors in the mother's life, it makes a
high level of skin contact with the mother automatic (and I believe there's
been research showing that's important; something about cortisol levels, and
brain development?) -- things no formula can provide. To make the hospital
birth seem still worse: having a c-section makes it much harder to avoid using
formula (since the milk doesn't start easily without the birth trigger). BUT
what kind of risk is actually involved, in using formula?

Again, if you could put numbers on this stuff, I suspect the _real_
differences in the child's life are quite small, and very much overwhelmed as
influences by life experience. Even if someone has a few more illnesses as a
child... maybe this will mean they stay home with their grandmother more
often, and form a powerful bond that dramatically affects their entire life.

The problem is that regular people see healthcare decisions like these as
binary. Right decision vs. wrong decision. They don't really understand levels
of risk, and the doctor doesn't talk in those terms either. Just "do this". Or
sometimes a slightly passive-aggressive "well, it's up to you".

In those terms, the new parent-to-be sees 5-6 things in a row where the advice
of the well-paid professional is the _wrong thing_ , according to pretty
reasonable logic.

It's not that hard to then convince them that maybe vaccines are also not a
good thing, because the ground has been laid already. And sadly, there's lots
& lots written by all kinds of people trying to convince you that vaccines are
dangerous.

It kind of freaks me out, honestly, but I do see how people get there. It just
takes this existing distrust (partly merited), a misunderstanding of basic
statistics, and a handful of examples of autistic kids who started showing
symptoms somewhere around the time of the vaccinations ('cause yeah, these
things happen around the same time of life...).

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s_q_b
"Autism" is probably like "cancer" in that it is likely a series of
pathologies with similar presentation rather than one specific disease.

It wouldn't surprise me if neurosteroids and neurohormones are involved, as
they're the next frontier in psychopharmacology. They affect the brain further
up the metabolic chain, so they don't have the nasty rebound effects of
monkeying around with neurotransmitters directly.

~~~
robotresearcher
> "Autism" is probably like "cancer" in that it is likely a series of
> pathologies

Why "probably"? What evidence is there for that one way or another?

~~~
s_q_b
To assume that autism is a single disorder is to get the scientific method
backwards. There's no proven underlying cause, just symptoms that vary greatly
from individual to individual. What evidence is there that autism is a single
disorder with a single underlying cause?

~~~
robotresearcher
I guess that's true, but Occam's Razor applies too. I'm not claiming anything
either way.

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salgernon
This reminds me of the "rebirthing" movement, sometimes used as demonic
exorcism. As a parent of an autistic child,I can certainly attest to feeling
line she is possessed.

A lot of empirical data says that heavy blankets and pressure help sooth many
such children, although in our case it just pisses her off...

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jessaustin
It may be important to note that "dummy" foals display those symptoms at
birth. It's my understanding that autism typically does not become apparent
until months later. If birth conditions are to blame, it may be difficult to
counteract their effects when those are hidden for so long.

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loosescrews
Foals are far more developed at birth than humans. I looked up the timeline
for human development, and it appears that autism starts to become apparent
around (or a little after) the time that humans reach parity with the physical
development of a newborn foal.

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jessaustin
It's pretty clear that normal foals are far ahead of normal human infants in
musculoskeletal terms, but they're about even in terms of breathing, nursing,
digestion, etc. (And human infants are _far_ more effective at vocalization.)
The sort of comparison you make reminds of the flawed concept of "dog years":
there are no linear relations here. Anyway, the most troublesome symptom of a
"dummy" foal is that it doesn't nurse properly. I haven't heard that about
autistic children.

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Stefan333
To begin with, the etiology and pathogenesis of autism are still far from
fully understood. There are no objective diagnostic criteria, like e.g.
biomarkers. Given this state of affairs it's impossible to know if any
particular animal model of autism is correct. Additionally there are plenty of
reasons to be cautious about drawing far-reaching conclusions about a complex
pervasive neurodevelopmental human condition based on a study of a nonhuman
animal. For reasons frequently related to funding it's popular to proclaim
that a finding has or soon will have great importance to the understanding of
autism, especially with more funding to the reporting team.

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ScottBurson
Reminds me of Temple Grandin's hug machine [0]. I wonder if there's a
connection?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hug_machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hug_machine)

~~~
s_q_b
It also reminds me of "soothe rocking" in autistic children, which frequently
involves tightly constricting the knees up against the chest with both arms,
creating pressure.

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O____________O
This reminded me of the Swedish study that noticed a _correlation_ (they were
very clear about this!) between vinyl flooring and autism in their data:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/link-between-
autis...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/link-between-autism-and-
vinyl/)

That was way back in 2009, and I never heard anything more about it. Searching
for information in later years yields an echo chamber of stupidity, so I
wonder if anyone else has heard of actual research into the topic?

~~~
e2e8
I did a quick search and came up with this review:
[http://www.cppah.com/article/S1538-5442%2814%2900074-1/abstr...](http://www.cppah.com/article/S1538-5442%2814%2900074-1/abstract)

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shirro
It must be the MMR vaccine all these horses get /s

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raverbashing
Or maybe they should go gluten free

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instant_hellban
Well I guess that explains the My Little Pony phenomenon.

