TV link to Autism

[mrsbrown]

"until more is known about what triggers autism, families with children under the age of 3 should get them away from the television and keep them away"

Is this enough evidence to stop you from letting your children watch TV?

If you have delayed or decided against vaccination for fear of autism, will you also reduce your TV watching? Crap! this was meant to go to booju_mooju, thanks for your comments anyway.

Comments

[hnpcc]

Speaking as someone who would be very likely to closely monitor how much TV any potential child of mine watched[1], it doesn't really worry me that much. It's certainly an interesting idea though, I'll have to read the journal article.

As to vaccines - I'd be vaccinating.

[1]I appear to be turning into my mother.

[hnpcc]

Hm, reading the comments at the bottom are also interesting. Not published in a journal? Dodgy.

Still limiting TV though (and if I can attempt to convince any children that there's no such thing as commercial tv, I will...)

[basal-surge.livejournal.com]

I'm very, very skeptical of the vaccination link to autism (suffered the raves from my doctor sister about it too many times, from when she had to deal with plague bearing families of un-vaccinated kids with anti-vac parents). I'm a bit more interested in the possibility of a genetic component relating autism to those genes that control geek-type organising brain abilities.

However, I'd avoid TV for kids because it's crap, not because it may cause autism.

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you accidentally posted it though, it's interesting.

I'm calling it a scare story - for now anyway.

This is an interview with people who suggest that the rise of autism lies entirely in the changes in its definition.

Given how much trouble we're having in the ME/CFS community because of research that fails to address definition changes, I'm rather sympathetic to this idea.