Re:Fw: Autism and toxic landfills - Xue Ming et al

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http://www.la-press.com/redirect_file.php?fileId=1420 & filename=EHI-2-Ming-et-al & \

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This report by Ming et al contains misleading information which will undermine

the validity of the findings. Specifically, in table 1, column 2 (autism

incidence) utilizes data from the Dept of Ed to establish the number of Autists

living in the States. This data has been shown to be inaccurate (by Laidler

among others) as the schools are not terribly consistant about the accuracy of

their diagnostics/reporting (for myriad reasons). As such the Dept of Ed

numbers grossly underreport the number of Autists, leaving the attempt to

correlate incidence with superfund sites futile at best. One example is NJ,

which according to the Dept of Ed stats had 0.28% rate of autism, but according

to the CDC's 2002 report published in 2007, NJ had 1 in 94 ASD, which translates

to 1.06%, a difference by a factor of about 5. Another example is WV, which

according to Dept of Ed had a rate of 0.14% but according to the CDC had a rate

of 1 in 140, or 0.71%, again a

factor of about 5 difference.

A far better method (although time consuming) would be to map superfund sites

and then get parents of autistic children to report where they lived during

gestation and early childhood. There are myriad support groups which give

access to these parents for them to report, not the least of which are the ASA,

NAA, AS, Generation Rescue, ARI, and EOH. I believe that Ming, et al may indeed

have a valid theory, that exposure to significant background pollution may

increase incidence or at best aggravate severity of ASDs. But I believe we will

need to get more accurate datasets to compare if we are to trust any

correlations that may be found.