This question: “What’s the cause of autism?”
– belies our attachment to an old model of medicine in which diseases have linear causes and one-drug remedies. In today’s health market, sickness is syndromal. It is a collection of symptoms without a single identifiable cause, and without safe or effective treatment options. It is a hamster-wheel lifestyle of doctor’s visits and piles of prescriptions.
In functional medicine, we use the analogy of a bucket. Our buckets get filled with genetic variants, toxic environmental exposures, stress, nutritional deficiencies, and pharmaceutical burden until, one day, our buckets overflow. That’s the day we go to the doctor. Autism is a bucket diagnosis. Vaccination may be the only trigger that can overflow the bucket in one single exposure. With government-compensated cases of regressive autism after a single vaccine, plausible scientific mechanism[1] [2] [3], and now a top-level CDC whistleblower admitted to suppressed data on the connection between the MMR vaccine and autism, the claims of millions of parents around the world are vindicated.
This said, it would be hypocritically reductionist to focus only on vaccination to the exclusion of ultrasound, tylenol, pesticides, endocrine disruptors, and air pollution, for example.
A new commentary in Medical Hypothesis by Strifert calls birth control pills to the carpet. With close to 11 million women in the United States using oral contraceptives, or 82% of reproductive age women, this is an exposure almost as universal as those listed above.
She begins with the powerful, but almost obvious statement that,
The suppression of ovulation produced by estrogen–progesterone is an indisputable abnormality.
The article is an exploration of the dearth of longitudinal research on oral contraceptives despite 60 years of clinical use. Because of presumptions of safety, further research has largely come to a halt. Plausible basis for risk association includes:
- Temporal correlation between use of oral contraceptives and increased prevalence of ASD.
- To date no definitive cause or contributing factors for increase in ASD prevalence has been established.
- Oral contraceptives disrupt the endocrine system
- Oral contraceptives directly and deleteriously affect both the ovaries and ova.
- Likely effects of oral contraceptives on progeny are an open question.
- The called-for further study and controlled follow-up of the possible transgenerational effects of oral contraceptive use has not been executed.*
* 1966 FDA report advising controlled follow-up by Roy Hertz, M.D., and 2009 article on epigenetic side-effects of common pharmaceuticals by M.B. Szyf.
Ethinylestradiol – the estrogen in the pill – is categorized as an endocrine disruptor, “11-27 times more potent than natural estrogen (E2)” which is combined with a synthetic progesterone. The inflammatory, nutrient depleting, and hormonally disturbing impact of this pharmaceutical each contribute risk factors to women considering a pregnancy. Women, who, if they are anything like I was, stop birth control the month before they try to conceive.
When we treat women’s bodies like repositories for chemicals, we clear the path for the same treatment of their children, and their children’s children. It is time to drain our buckets, beginning with avoidance of pharmaceuticals marketed as safe, effective, and even necessary.
[1] http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/14/11/2227
[2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24354891
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24354891
Hi Kelly,
Have you any thoughts on what is the safest method of contraception? How do you rate the contraceptive injection versus the pill?
Hi! I recommend this – http://bit.ly/1tpNVzi
This is a brave article, Dr. Brogan. I really admire you for speaking out and questioning the relationship between chemical contraception and autism.
Thank you, thank you Dr. Brogan. This IS a brave article and long overdue from the medical community. Thank you for speaking out about the long term impact girls/women have absolutely no information on this subject from their trusted doctors. I’ve tried to speak about the dangers of the pill and feel like much of the information falls upon deaf ears. It is critically important women know all the facts before they start taking the pill. But when girls are starting at the age of 13 and sometimes younger it becomes a difficult task. Thanks for all you’re doing to get this information out.
Dr. Brogan, Thank you. I researched birth control pills in scientific studies (PUBMED). Scientists studying the deleterious effects of the pill on fish saw males become females, aggression, and lack of mating behavior among males. Even more astounding the smallest measurable amount of birth control hormone resulted in destructive physiological effects in the fish. Since hormones are stored in fat and can be released at any time during a woman’s pregnancy, then during the growth of the fetus, the endocrine disrupter can cause abnormalities. This field of study is called Epigenetics and pesticides that act like hormones in the body have been shown to cause abnormalities during the growth of the fetus.
Hi Contact me. This looks like a comment that I myself would have made. I too have researched and found that there is a new field of biology called epigenetics. When the fetus is exposed during a critical time of growth, I think around the 13-14 week of gestation, then the change is irreversible and passed on genetically to all generations.
Not only is the “pill” part of the problem, but what about vaccinations? Aren`t they also responsible for this? With me and also my husband and brother, we all had our “vaccinations” and survived, but what about the poor child/person that has a very sensitive system to vaccinations {maybe healthy as a horse otherwise} that the chemicals in the vaccinations triggers such things as autism etc. in these people.
I have 2 out of 4 kids with Autism, and I have NEVER taken an oral contraceptive, or used anything other than NFP. I’m not saying it isn’t in my water-it is in everyone’s water- but I’ve never taken it. I know a large percentage of women in the US do, so it might be hard to find a lot of mothers with autistic kids who don’t. I have lots of friends with Autistic kids and lots who have never used the pill, but I can’t think of overlaps there right now.
Did your mother or grandmother take the pill? Do you know anything about epigenetics? Perhaps you or your mother were exposed to the chemical in the uterus. Even an exposure to a very small concentration during a critical gestational time can result in a permanent change handed down to subsequent generations. This genetic change combined with pesticides that act like hormones in the body, could result in autism.
I googled birth control pills and autism and found the article by Kim Strifert. The reason I looked for this is because of my sister and neice. My mother took birth control pills while pregnant with my sister to stop bleeding. This was in 1967. She has suffered with emotional problems and learning difficulties her whole life. When looking at the symptoms of adult autism I was suprised to see her in a lot of them. In 1967 autism wasn’t well known. We always chalked everything up to premature birth and jaundice. My sister has a daughter with severe autism. She took bcp’s while nursing. I guess her doctor told her it was safe to do so. I had a daughter three weeks after she did and the miltary nurse also told me I could nurse while taking them. I stopped nursing after I began using them. My daughter is fine. So anyway I thought there might be a connection between the bcp’s and the autism.