# Does match.com cause autism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2004, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381 "2004-03-10T00:18:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/21 "2004-03-10T14:39:09Z")
The logic seems kind of specious to me. Using the same thoughts, can’t I say that we’re slowly breeding intelligence and responsiblity out of humanity? See, because the most responsible people (and IMO intelligent) are those who know where babies come from. As such, they use methods to prevent those babies in most typical cases (after all, how many people reading this board were actually completely planned pregnancies?). So, the people NOT having kids due to the availability of birth control are those who are responsible adults who understand the consequencs of an hour or two of carnal delights. On the other hand, those more likely to reproduce are those who are too stupid (babies are found in cabbage patches!), too irresponsible (don’t worry, baby, I’ll pull out at the last moment), or too convinced of their own specialhoodliness (It can’t happen to ME). Then again, looking around at the world I see, I may have just convinced myself that the article was actually correct. Damn. -Joe, an accident ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/22 "2004-03-10T15:24:50Z")
> [@Reader99](#): > > sounds like the [match.com](http://match.com) thing is a joke. but some people contend that the increase in autism is directly related to the increase in the number of vaccines administered to infants, and the fact that until very recently most such vaccines used a mercury-based preservative. they argue that any one vaccine might be safe, but that taken together they can cause mercury poisoning, the impact of which on the nervous system is apparently similar to some varieties of autism. > [http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/03/02\_354.html](http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/03/02_354.html) Of course, they have no evidence to back this up. The only study they had linking vaccines and autsim turned out to be [done by a corrupt doctor](http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA40D.htm). The “mercury based preservative” was thimerosol. Am I gonna get autism from all the preserved saline I used with my contact lenses? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/23 "2004-03-10T15:45:00Z")
Well, it was the vaccine conspiricy theorists (always another vaccine on a grassy knoll) that I was referencing when I said that this hypothesis is better than others that get more press. Short version: the only evidence that the anti immunization crowd ever had is that diagnosed autism is up and something must be causing it - prove it isn’t the shots. It’s been proven now. Not the shots. ---
**Author:** ![WernhamHogg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a587f6/32.png) [@WernhamHogg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WernhamHogg)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/24 "2004-03-10T15:58:09Z")
I think the most rational explanation for the “epidemic” of autism is better screening and diagnoses. A higher number of children are labeled as autistic… this doesn’t mean that a greater percentage of children actually have autism. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/25 "2004-03-10T16:07:22Z")
> [@skutir](#): > > …It doesn’t strike me as very sensitive if these are real children Considering the source ([rotten.com](http://rotten.com)) it is sensitive to a Leo Buscaglia-ish extreme. If you haven’t been to other parts of the site I’d recommend against it. I have a pretty strong stomach and some of their pictures still haunt me. ---
**Author:** ![WernhamHogg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a587f6/32.png) [@WernhamHogg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WernhamHogg)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/26 "2004-03-10T16:21:50Z")
I’ve made that mistake in the past, and let’s just say I will never drink orange juice again. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/27 "2004-03-10T18:31:22Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > [li]_Is_ there any evidence that autism has genetic causes?[/li] Give us some time. We’ve started looking for possibly gene polymorphism associations as you write. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/28 "2004-03-10T18:55:54Z")
> [@Dogface](#): > > Give us some time. We’ve started looking for possibly gene polymorphism associations as you write. What does this mean? I don’t have (any) biology background, and the hits Google returned on it only made a loud “WOOOSHING” sound for me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/29 "2004-03-10T19:02:59Z")
Anyone interested in the current state of immunization-autism allegations can look at [the cdc website](http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/autism/default.htm#aap) . Funny thing about the thimerosol accusation - it has been out of routine shots for something like four years now. If it was at all etiologic then one would be seeing a drop-off of new cases. Hasn’t happened. The pity is that so much good research money has been diverted to defending good medicine against bad science instead of getting at real root causes and more effective early identification and intervention. I didn’t look at the [rotten.com](http://rotten.com) article but probably it was a joke (no doctor would want a name change if they were serious). Still the underlaying point is still a reasonable thought. Autism is mainly genetic and the brain differences begin in utero. The genes that contribute only do so in combination; no single gene variant is causitive. The variant forms of the individual genes may have benign or even beneficial effects for some in isolation of being combined with other alleles. Just contributing to that broad autistic phenotype which may have some processing advantages in certain feilds. If circumstances exist that make it more likely for those genes to come together in combination, then more auitsm would result. A tech-focused world and the tools to find others with the same narrow range of interests would result in such a situation if those aspects of the broad autistic phenotype have a genetic basis as one reasonable presumes they do. If one believes that there really is much more autism. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/30 "2004-03-10T19:12:52Z")
Metacom, (s)he is talking about stuff like this > [@](#): > > Novartis Found Symp. 2003;251:48-63; discussion 63-9, 109-11, 281-97. > > Strategies for autism candidate gene analysis. > > Barnby G, Monaco AP. > > Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Roosevelt Drive, Headington, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK. > > The identification of autism susceptibility genes has moved a step closer over the last four years with the completion of eight whole genome screens for linkage. Several overlapping areas of linkage have been reported, most notably on chromosomes 7q22-31 and 2q32. These regions of replicated linkage provide a focus to search for candidate genes whose normal functions in neurodevelopment are altered to increase the risk for autism. Strategies that aim to narrow further the rather broad size of these linkage regions, such as high density single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based association studies, currently suffer from practical and statistical limitations. Alternatively, positional candidate genes can be screened for deleterious variants in autistic individuals selected from large samples such as those collected by the International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium (IMGSAC). Targeted genotyping of candidate gene variants in this large multiplex family sample will then be performed to confirm association with autism. > > PMID: 14521187 ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/31 "2004-03-10T23:12:21Z")
Once again, a series of informative and topical posts from **DSeid**. Thanks! (For anyone still hanging around and interested in the earlier brief sidetrack, Skeptical Inquirer has a [good article](http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-01/anti-vaccination.html) on vaccine paranoia in general–it’s amazingly common–on the web.) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2004, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381/32 "2004-03-10T23:39:57Z")
Reminds me of a joke: This guy has a new neighbor, and is talking to him to get to know him. So he asks him what he does for a living and gets back the response, “I teach deductive reasoning at the local college.” “Deductive reasoning? What’s that?” asks the guy. “Well… For instance, I see that you have a doghouse in your yard. From this I can deduce that you have a dog. From this, I can tell that you probably have children. If you have children, then you must have a wife. And so I know you are a heterosexual.” The guy just looks at him and goes “Wow, that was amazing. You’re right!” And then they continue to talk about various other things. That night the guy goes to a bar to meet up with one of his friends, and ends up telling the friend about his new neighbor. “Deductive reasoning? What’s that?” asks the friends. “Well, do you have a doghouse in your yard?” “No.” “…Fag.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-match-com-cause-autism/233381.md?page=1)