I get you. I think the problem is this has been abused very, very badly in the past. See Wakefield and his vaccines study, also convinced there may be a link between autism and bowel disorders. He abused the entire system, and chose autism as the lynchpin because many parents responded powerfully to the idea it had all happened for a reason and might have a solution.

This Dr. Brasler doesn’t sound bad, his fecal transplants sound promising in many ways to many groups. Plus it’s replicable, which is a huge boon to it being something that can prove useful.

But the problem I have is the insinuation that the rise in autism diagnoses is linked to something. The last time we went there it did decades of harm to the autistic community. It still isn’t solved today.

The public is very bad at interpreting scientific studies, and hear “a study concluded” as “truth verified”. It takes a very long time to build consensus, and therefore extremely measured use of language can be extremely helpful on the public facing side to stem conclusions by the public and then harming a whole community.

The research is valid, and should continue, but Wakefield used and abused may horribly, and so autism should receive extra care in terms of how future studies portray it lest a bandwagon of harm spark again. It’s a more sensitive arena of study than others.

That’s all I’m saying.

The counter argument is that they seem to have always been a part of human culture, long before chemicals were commonplace and plastics invented. But no one had the knowledge to identify what was happening.

I am against micro plastics and industrial chemical waste, but I don’t feel convinced they cause everything that is off the path termed “normal”.

For instance, the criteria for women to be diagnosed has been expanded recently, so now more women CAN be diagnosed as the previous criteria were male behavior centric, and research has shown separate patterns. So that is one way diagnoses would go up without environmental factors.

I guess I would hope to urge people to spend more time accepting and understanding the differences rather than try to find a root cause and terminate that root cause. I quite like my ADHD brain. I don’t think I was poisoned to become like this. I quite dislike common culture, and see it as a far larger problem than my symptoms.

Oh, I hate that. So much. I personally feel repulsed by power, hierarchies and the power structures they rely on, but the typical track is to find hierarchies and rise on them. Chase money, get a big house, all that.

The fact that the priorities I have and way I spend my free time is often judged as lazy or farting around aimlessly when the traditional culture is to sit down and watch a 4 to 6 hour televised sporting event. I spend that time painting or constructing ludo narrative embracing rules systems for table top RPGs or designing adventures for them. I have a thing afterwards that is mine and will always be.

And when I play a great video game for hours, I am challenging myself and often enjoying a profound story. People just don’t “get it” so I must be wrong and lazy. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

sigh The way you’re handling this isn’t giving me a lot of faith in it.

I had hoped there could be a dialogue about how complex the issue is but I guess not. This doesn’t feel like the way we grow or seek the truth.

I would personally prefer different terminology than disorder myself. I do believe disorder makes it seem abnormal or aberrant. From all appearances, all forms of neurodivergence are just the expression of traits that change needs, the priorities of needs and the manner in which needs are satisfied coupled with a differing processing and perception.

I’m only out here advocating against using the term disease because that is the most harmful term. Once understanding and acceptance has increased enough, I’d still hope we can then overturn disorder. Perhaps syndrome would be fine?

Anyways, I do want some medical signifiers to the diagnosis, because neurodiverse individuals have broad needs that rarely get met by the system. So I still want it accepted as a medically protected state of being. Because it isn’t as simple as just treating us as the same as everyone. My needs are super different, and my priorities and goals are too.

It will be a long road, but egalitarian treatment will end up relying on acceptance, inclusion and having actual, real space in society for neurodiverse individuals designed around their needs rather than neurotypical needs. Among hundreds or thousands of other factors.

For now, just getting to the point where we all don’t have to mask so damn much and so strongly would be a good start.

Autism “may” also be caused by overstimulation of the amygdala during infancy, causing that part of the brain to be oversized and develop faster than others.

Wakefield, who harmed the autistic community so badly and continues to harm them to this day with his misinformation, also used the word “may”. He, too, thought swelling in the gut “may” lead to autism.

The problem with the whole insinuation is the notion or idea that autism could have been prevented “if only we had…”. This leads to parents mourning their choices, treating the child differently and focusing on trying to cure them. Whether or not that is the documentaries intent, I’ve worked in the world of children with autism long enough to see the difference between parents who think their child’s behavior is somehow curable versus those with broad acceptance that this is just who their child was always going to be.

I believe you there IS a link between a neurodivergence in all forms and delicate gut health. Most people I know with neurodivergent traits have gut health issues, I have IBS myself, my partner does too. I’m ADHD, they are autistic. My issue is your title parses as “internal microbiome may be linked to the rise in…autism.”

I find this misleading because we have to determine first that autism actually IS on the rise, or if diagnostic ability has risen to the level to catch and diagnose cases effectively. Secondly, the sentence insinuates that internal microbiome is raising the number of autistic cases.

Because of this, and because most people are NOT experts in ASD and there is so much misinformation about it, I wanted to disclaim for those going in how this documentary may be trying to sell a point as very likely when the agreement in the field is that it is highly irresponsible to claim we are anywhere close to an understanding on the cause.

The documentary could be fine, but I wish you had made a separate sentence that stated “It also touches on the feedback links between ASD and gut health.” Then I wouldn’t have felt the need to warn people to have their guard up going in.

It does. But disease implies a concerted effort to eradicate it or cure it. If my leg is diseased you either treat the cause of the disease or remove the leg before it causes damage to the rest of my body.

If someone has mad cow disease I need to be careful and possibly stay away from them.

A disorder absolutely is still a negative connotation. I have ADHD and I don’t feel disordered in my behavior at all. I do everything I need to do to be successful in society. People can tell I’m different and a little quirky, but I generally have far more positive interactions than negative ones.

I’d say from my view neurotypicals often engage in behavior patterns that are disordered in their goals at least as often as I am, and seem to seek out self destructive behavior patterns I would never engage in. But they are the dominant group, so I’m the one disordered.

I would definitely like a different term. I do not have any medical treatment for my ADHD and instead use diet, sleep, exercise and meditation to manage myself. So yes, I would prefer a new term besides disorder too, maybe syndrome.

My point is only that disease causes active harm in its use, it is a very bluntly negative, a 1/10 on the positivity scale. Disorder is a 4/10, it is negative, but does a softer, more implicit harm of separating groups of humans with one having the advantage and the other the disadvantage. It isn’t good, but I don’t wince hearing it.

I 100% agree with you. Gregor Mendel studying beans and putting them into charts to track their qualities that closely? Sounds like a hyperfixation to me.

Alan Turing being able to work incredibly long hours on the wildly complex math behind the Turing machine cracking the enigma code?

I believe it has been a consistent genetic trait expressed throughout all human history. Much like my own diagnosis of ADHD. It’s just no one knew that it was a real difference in processing the world and just used designations like “odd” or “quirky”.

I haven’t listened to this documentary, but as someone who works in the field of autism education, no definitive cause has been found. Period. End of sentence.

Be extremely suspicious of ANYONE claiming they can source autism’s cause. There is a known link to gut health with many people with ASD, but there is no understanding or consensus yet on how they interact, where the comorbidity arises from or how exactly they are related. Certainly it is not yet known that one causes the other.

People trying to source the cause of autism have done a GREAT deal of harm to that community, including the crooked Andrew Wakefield who lost his license in his vicious attempt to build panic against a 3 in 1 vaccine to sell his own. He used autism as a scapegoat to pad his pockets.

Without watching the documentary I can’t say more than either this comment title is misleading or the documentary itself contains actual misinformation. So just be wary.

You have the understanding now, the wisdom to be able to accept your mistake and the kindness to want to be part of the solution.

Those are lots of things to be proud of. If I’m going to be out here preaching acceptance, it’s got to acceptance of everyone. So that means mistakes can’t take away the inherent value you have as a person. You matter too in this massive, complex and ongoing conversation on a culture wide scale.

Thank you for being so open to feedback.

I have a longer response, but autism is medically not a disease. At all. It is a disorder. Which as an ADHD adult, a sister diagnosis of neurodivergence, I still think disorder is a shit term for it.

I don’t feel disordered. I feel passionate, clear and empathetic. I have all the typical qualifiers of a stable and successful life, and then my hyper fixations and highly specific hobbies I have invested into deeply.

Neurotypical people often come off as disordered, with some really bizarre priorities that seem to really hurt them badly on a daily basis. Which is one qualification of having a disorder. It’s an unfair moniker in many ways, as most of the tension between neurotypicals and neurodiverse individuals is in each group missing the cues and information given by the other, yet one group gets to assert dominance over the other with labels.

Again, however, not a disease. Disorder is even in the name, it’s what the D is ASD stands for.

Autism is classified as a disorder, not as a disease or illness.

Diseases and disorders are not classified under the same criteria.

Gout is a disease despite having genetic links because it is a pathophysiological response the body undergoes in response to certain conditions.

Autism is a disorder as it is a base change to the fundamental behavior sets seen as baseline.

Calling autism a disease has negative connotations in multiple ways. For one, diseases are interpreted negatively by many. Secondly, they are often treatable such that symptoms can be managed to almost nothing or simply fully curable.

Autism is a state of being and something that will never go away. It can be partially managed, but it is a change at the basic level of how the mind processes. It is not something to shame, fear or hate, it is just a difference.

Calling it a disease carries potentially harmful subtext to a group of people that are already highly vulnerable and often victimized by multiple facets of society. Being precise and kind with language can make a small difference, and is worth the effort.

We should all strive for acceptance and understanding.