Just in case there weren't enough possible answers to the burning question of what causes autism, here comes one more contender: rain. A new study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine looked at data from California, Oregon and Washington, and calcualted that children living in the rainiest counties of those states had autism rates up to 30 percent higher than those in drier climes.
The study's author, Michael Waldman, is a professor of economics at Cornell, and the father of a child with autism; he's not a medical doctor. Still, some in the medical community think he might be onto something -- whether it's that rain itself can carry and transmit environmental toxins that can trigger the disorder, or that kids growing up in rainy climates tend to spend more time inside and watching TV. Others point out possible complications of the study, including the fact that autism itself is increasingly broadly defined and that this kind of numerical analysis is ripe for overreaching explanations. Still, for a growing nation of families hungry for anything that could help them help their children, Waldman's work may provide another clue -- and who knows, it might even help reinvigorate the housing market in the post-boom sunbelt.
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