There are just a couple of studies looking at autism and formula-use, and
they find more autism in children who are formula-fed than those who are
breastfed.  One study done in Japan suggests that breastfeeding prevents
many early infections in infancy that might contribute to autism.

Most experts feel that autism is a "caused" by a wide variety of factors.
For example, suppose there are 20 different factors that may contribute to
autism.  It takes, let's say, seven (7) in order to show mild symptoms, and
the more contributing factors you have, the more severe.  It's a lot more
complex than this, but hang in there with me.

Some of these factors are *clearly* genetic factors, and some of these
factors are *clearly* of the gestational-insult variety (fever/illness in
the mother during pregnancy, etc.), and some of these factors may be
post-birth, such as early fever/illness in the child.

In the 'good old days', the top three causes of mental retardation in order
of frequency were "unknown," "Fragile X" and "Down Syndrome."  I suspect
that some of the increase in apparent autism and autism spectrum disorder
that we are seeing is better diagnosis and labelling of kids in that huge
category that we used to just call "unknown."

The ingredient in immunizations that some people think might be related to
autism is thimerisol (a type of mercury used as a preservative).  Since
thimerisol has been removed from virtually all vaccines in the last year or
so, then, IF it was a major contributing factor to autism, we should see
plummeting rates of new diagnoses of autism in the next few years.

I don't think it was/is thimerisol, personally.  To the extent that there
has been a real increase in autism (and ADHD) in the past decade or so, I
wonder if it isn't something in the specific makeup of formula from these
decades that is different from the 1970s and 1980s formula.

Kathy Dettwyler



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