Complications during pregnancy, viral infections, and genetic disorders have all been associated with autism. Now, a new study further confirms this link by showing that pregnant women who live within a mile of farms and fields where pesticides are employed see their risk of having a child with autism increase by 60 percent — and that risk actually doubles if the exposure occurs in the third trimester. Pesticides are one of the toxicants that appear to have the strongest association with autism, says Dan Rossignol, an autism expert at Jeff Bradstreets International Child Development Resource Center in Florida who did not participate in the study, published today in Environmental Health Perspectives.
Comments are closed.
