We can’t blame our genes for this horrible disease anymore! What’s causing the increase in Autism cases in children?
The danger of having an autistic child is very real.  According to the CDC about one out of every 100 children are born with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  But what is the cause of this horrible disease?
For a long time scientists believed that autism is caused by bad genes.  Until recently. Since 1980 there was a dramatic rise in the new cases of Autism.  This was difficult to explain with bad genes, because if a disease is linked to genes, its prevalence is relatively stable.  But what happened with autism looked more like an epidemic.  Because there is no known epidemic in genes, they started looking for explanations (1).  What they found was that the mathematical model can be explained by bad genes only in 38 percent of new cases (2).  What about the rest?  They did not have any choice then to admit that environmental factors can play a role. That matches a second recent study (3) that found the link between using antidepressants during pregnancy and autism.  Even though they say that the risk is low it is there.  Is it antidepressants themselves or is something wrong with depressed future mothers?
Below are suggested alternative explanations of Autism (4):
1.  Heavy metals, mostly mercury, because its neurotoxicity is very well known.  Remember the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland?  That story was based on well-known documented cases of hatters in the early 1900s. Mercury was used in the hat making process years ago, and because of this hat makers were often exposed to large amounts of it, making them act crazy, or mad.
2.  Pesticides.
3.  Vaccines.  It was suggested that vaccines themselves as well as mercury containing preservative Thimerosal can play a role (5,6).
Who is right and who is wrong?  What needs to be done?
Only the future will let us know. We have to wait to see an increase or decrease in the number of cases and find out more about why the numbers have been on the rise.
References:
1.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/health/research/05autism.html?_r=1&re…
2.  http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/archgenpsychiatry.2011.76
3.  http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/archgenpsychiatry.2011.73
4.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism
5.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11339848
6.  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1047279709002075