What Causes Autism?

Hi! Okay, so in science this semester, we have to write a formal research paper. I decided to do mine on something close to my heart: What causes autism? One of the kids at my church has autism, and he is so sweet. He's a high-functioning autistic kid, which means that his autism semptoms aren't quite as severe or numerous as other kids'.

I've done research on what causes autism, and I found out some really interesting things. Many people are saying that vaccinations are causing autism, but I wanted to find out what is in the vaccines that people think is causing the disorder. The answer is this: a special form of mercury called "thimerosal" which is used as a preservative in vaccines. Apparently, there are about three different forms of mercury, and it's the thimerosal form that is in vaccines.

But then I thought, okay, let's say that thimerosal is the cause of autism. Then why do some kids get autism but not others? The answer is that some children are born with the ability to deal with or get rid of thimerosal, and some aren't. The deficiency wouldn't normally be a problem, except that children at a young age are exposed to the thimerosal in vaccines.

Still, all research says that thimerosal is NOT the cause of autism, just a trigger. The absolute cause still seems like it might be genetic. The thimerosal and other things only trigger the disorder.

One other trigger I found out about is very interesting: TV. Yup, it looks like watching too much TV as a little kid can trigger autism, if the potential is already there. Michael Waldman saw this connection. His son started watching a lot of television shortly before he was diagnosed with autism. Waldman decided to see if TV might be triggering the autism, so he made his son stop watching so much TV.

Within six months, the kid was almost completely better.

The last possible trigger for austism I've found so far is fish. Children whose mother's ate a lot of fish while pregnant seem to get autism more frequently.

Well, I hope you weren't completely bored, and if you were, that is totally cool with me. Not everyone can be fascinated by disorder triggers :) As a matter of fact, I wasn't either until I started this research. It's kind of interesting after all!