Does Attachment Parenting Cause Autism?
It is perhaps the ultimate irony that advocates of attachment parenting who reject vaccination because of fear of autism have ignored the possibility that it is attachment parenting itself that causes autism.
Consider the ever growing body of evidence:
1. Both autism and attachment parenting have increased dramatically in the past two decades. The origin of attachment parenting is credited to Dr. William Sears, who first mentioned it in his book in 1988. Studies show that in the VERY SAME YEAR, the incidence of autism began to rise dramatically. (Environ. Sci. Technol., 2010, 44 (6), pp 2112–2118).
2. Regardless of who practices attachment parenting or how they define it, no one can deny that the practice of attachment parenting ALWAYS precedes the diagnosis. There are no known cases in which attachment parenting practices began after autism was diagnosed.
3. The purported mechanism is thought to be the sensory deprivation caused by baby wearing and extended breastfeeding. During the critical early months and years, when babies should be learning about the world and making millions of neuronal connections, babies exposed to AP are deprived of contact with the outside world (many are constantly carried in a position where they can see nothing but the surface of the mother's clothing) and their exposure to other individuals such as fathers, grandparents and childcare workers is severely limited.
4. No one has EVER shown that attachment parenting does not cause autism.
5. Even those who strongly reject the notion that attachment parenting causes autism acknowledge that there are MANY children raised with attachment parenting who are subsequently diagnosed with autism.
6. Many of those who deny a link between attachment parenting and autism stand to lose money if attachment parenting is shown to be harmful. Authors, lactation consultants, and sling manufacturers, among others, have a strong economic motivation for discouraging investigation of this link.
It is time to launch a comprehensive investigation of the harmful side effects of attachment parenting in general, and the relationship between attachment parenting and autism in particular. It's hardly coincidental that the same people who make money from attachment parenting have NEVER bothered to study these harmful effects. They insist that attachment parenting is beneficial, but there is no way they can know for sure.
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Those who have read this far have probably figured out that this is a satire. I'm satirizing the "thinking" of vaccine rejectionists on the purported relationship between vaccines and autism. The purpose of the satire is to demonstrate that what seems to vaccine rejectionists to be compelling "reasoning" is nothing more than nonsense, and logical fallacies.
I've tried to highlight the major rhetorical gambits of vaccine rejectionists. Number 1 is the claim that because both vaccination and autism have risen in recent decades, vaccines must cause autism. That claim is foolish as can be seen when the same observation is made about attachment parenting and autism. Just because the incidence of two phenomena rise at the same time does not mean that one caused the other. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that rates of vaccination have actually been FALLING while rates of autism have been rising.
Number 2 is the temporal connection. Early childhood vaccination precedes the observation of autistic symptoms, but a lot of things precede the observation of autistic symptoms. That's because those symptoms typically do not appear until the early toddler years and anything that takes place during infancy (like attachment parenting practices) will precede the observation of symptoms.
Number 3 invokes a spurious mechanism of action. It is certainly plausible, but no evidence is presented that it actually occurs. Vaccine rejectionists play the same tricks with claims about the deleterious effects of "toxins" in vaccines.
Number 4 is the "argument from ignorance." The argument from ignorance dares the opponent to prove a negative and when a negative cannot be proven (since that is a logical impossibility in most cases), the conclusion is proclaimed that this "shows" that vaccines cause autism.
Number 5 is the "fallacy of the lonely fact." Since some children have developed autism after their parents practiced attachment parenting, the conclusion is drawn that large numbers of children will develop autism after their parents practice attachment parenting.
Number 6 is the conspiracy theory that undergirds almost every attempt to defend vaccine rejectionism. But when the same "reasoning" is applied to attachment parenting, it is easy to see that the conspiracy theory does not have much explanatory power. There is ALWAYS someone who stands to benefit from any recommendation or practice. That does not mean that those who benefit are actively hiding information on harms and risks from everyone else.
The concluding paragraph is the seemingly innocuous call for "more research." But we cannot and should not waste time "researching" connections that have no basis in science. If we did, we could spend a lot of time "researching" whether the moon is made of green cheese or whether clouds are made of marshmallows. The call for "more research" is just away to add gravitas to what are often ridiculous claims. We do not need to "research" every wacky idea that vaccine rejectionists devise and our refusal to "research" those ideas without basis in science or logic is not a sign that someone is hiding something.
The key point is that what passes for "reasoning" among vaccine rejectionists is not reasoning at all. It is nothing more than wild accusations, logical fallacies and conspiracy theories. There is no more reason to take seriously the idea that vaccines cause autism than there is to take seriously the idea that attachment parenting causes autism.
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I am sadly not surprised at the number of people posting comments here without having understood the (very well written) article. The piece is about the shockingly poor reasoning and arguments put forward by the vaccination-causes- autism groups. The fact that those who are anti-vaccination can't grasp this, says a lot.
...its likely that more than just one thing causes autism . I think its very possible vaccines can cause it, but that doesn't mean every child who get vaccinated is going to get autism. I think there are genetics in play, as well. I think parents just want to do what's best for their children and would like to see, when there is a correlation of one thing to something harmful, testing and research done in an attempt to find out if that correlation is cause for alarm or just simply a coincidence. I also think the idea of comparing this call for research and testing to the call for research and testing of whether or not the moon is made of green cheese or clouds are made of marshmallows is going a bit too far. We already know what the moon and the clouds are made from, anyway. I get that you were trying to illustrate ridiculousness and futility here, but these two examples weren't good ones.
Why is this "satire" even necessary? Vaccines and their risks are nothing to joke about! Every baby born in the USA is subjected to this poison for an illness that is contracted only through IV drug use or sexual promiscuity. That is seriously questionable and flawed decision making on the part of the AAP, CDC and FDA.
We need some "satire" showing newborns shooting up drugs and bed hopping. That would really be funny.
Not shooting them up with toxins that the labels say have not even been evaluated for their carcinogenic and mutagenic effects. Or their potential to impair fertility. But we're TOLD again and again how "safe" vaccines are with absolutely no proof whatsoever. Just because vaccines have been around for so many years does not in and of itself prove or make them "safe." In fact, just the opposite since they keep injuring babies and have even more victims stacking up. Kinda hard to keep denying the enormous mountain of casualties. What is it down to now? 1 in 110?
The comparison you're making is the flaw in your argument. I agree that proponents of non-vaccination can be fueled by scare tactics and conspiracy theories but comparing a benign, human parenting tactic to a man-made concoction of manipulated virus and chemicals makes no sense. It's natural for us to raise our children, and attachement parenting is just one method of doing this. It is not, however, natural for us to be vaccinated and this is why the latter raises more controversy and questioning than the first. Better to make a comparison between vaccination and the rise of plastic surgery rates or something that is also in the medical field and is equally man-made, something about which similar questioning and controvery can be raised.
...I'm not 100% sold on whether or not vaccines cause autism . I do believe it can exacerbate and/or trigger symptoms, but whether they are a root cause, I don't have a strong opinion one way or another.
That said, I do really appreciate the satire you're going after. "Attachment parenting " is bullshit (what you were trying to get at, and I fully agree with that), but to say it causes autism maybe a little over the top (surely you don't actually believe that).
Anyway, thanks for the laugh, nonetheless.
At the end of the day, neuro-behavioral disorders like autism are brain disorders. Regardless of cause (genetics, vaccine injury, etc.), if your loved one has autism, why not start with interventions involving the brain? Take a look at what Brain Balance – http://brainbalancecenters.com has to say about changing the brain and correcting mis-communications between the two sides of the brain. They can perform an in depth assessment to determine your child’s strengths and weaknesses. While their site doesn't discuss cause per se, it's worth a read.
At the end of the day, autism is a full body disorder. Often, bowel disease is one of the most crippling symptoms. The effects on the brain can alert us to the problems occurring in the body. At this website, you can view free conference webcasts where some of the top researchers and medical professionals present the latest discoveries and most up-to-date information about autism: http://autism.com/pro_webcasts.asp
This is absolute bonkers and I think a serious look should be taken at where it comes from. The notion that autism affects unvaccinated kids at all is total bonkers. I have studied huge amounts of UK data for fourteen years and have never found a single proven case of an autistic child who was not vaccinated or exposed to vaccine materials in the womb. Even though around three million kids in the UK since 1966 were never vaccinated.
Unvaccinated is unautistic. Provide the evidence if you know of any child anywhere who is autistic and was never vaccinated.
Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.
Tony Bateson, you've been wandering through the blogosphere for years making this claim. Yet you personally know it is untrue; your fellow anti-vaccine zealot Kim Stagliano's youngest daughter, never vaccinated, unfortunately has autism . She has acknowledged this quite openly on several autism websites that you frequent. Others have pointed this out in responses to your comments dozens of times on Orac's blog alone.
In my own practice, there are six families (to my knowledge) who decided not to vaccinate subsequent children after a first child was diagnosed with autism. Three younger siblings nonetheless have autism as well. It is time to look beyond the vaccines towards what really is causing this, so we can really help these families. The unfortunate victims of the "It's Got to be the Vaccines" mentality are the children themselves, who are continuing to suffer. We're probably on the same side: we want to figure out what causes autism, and prevent or treat it more effectively. It's not the vaccines. It's time to move on.
You would be unique in my experience. I have bigger and better connections in the UK autism area than most people. I became involved as a Board member of the National Autistic Society in 1979 having worked for better schools and care centres since 1969. I remain a Trustee of Stroud Court since 1982 that means that I have immediate and direct connections with dozens of autism families. I have attended 20 conferences within the autism community in Britain and the USA. I have run a website autismobserved.net since the late nineties. At every occasion when the question could be asked I asked it. Who knows of unvaccinated autistic people? Aggregate numbers of over 2,000 or so did not reveal a single case. At Arlington, Virginia 250/300 people who listened to my presentation in Nov 2002 did not point out the error of my ways. Like the medic who says he has three cases in his practice I was rebuffed by a Harley Street doctor in the UK who conspicuously failed to substantiate his claim that he had such individuals in his practice. Eventually he said he had left his papers in his rooms in Dubai! They haven't turned up yet to my knowledge. Kim Stagliano could let me know that she has such a child but Kim has not done so. I think it is possible that there are such children but they are virtually impossible to find. When they are found, they are so vanishingly rare that science might benefit hugely from looking at the pathway of their condition. People who reject my claim out of hand never substantiate their case (it could be done anonymously if confirmed by independent third party review) nor do they suggest any conclusions.
Dr Poul Thorsen far from being a bit player in the Danish 'no link' studies was the psychopath driver of this lucrative research.
Even if you claim he is not in hiding there is still the question of $2 millions missing and his dismissal by Aarhus University. Not a glimmer of this in the mainstream media by the way. The problem is that there are paid liars in this murky pit, I am not paid a cent, perhaps others might disclose their links.
Tony Bateson, Oxford, UK.