An article in Slate concerning the alleged connection between Autism and watching TV has stirred quite a controversy online lately.
Gregg Easterbrook writing for Slate said:
"Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders."
Michael Waldman, of Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management, and fellow economists Sean Nicholson of Cornell and Nodir Adilov of Indiana University-Purdue made some controversial conclusions, even though the viewing habits of children ages 1 to 3 haven't been studied in any large-scale way.
Still, they asserted that, "Approximately 17% of the growth in autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s was due to the growth of cable television," and "just under 40% of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching due to precipitation."
While some scientists have acknowledged that the research is interesting, it is far from conclusive in any way.
Vanderbilt University geneticist Pat Levitt responded:
"You have to be very definitive about what you are looking at, how do you know, for instance, that it's not mold or mildew in the counties that have a lot of rain?"
The study is scheduled to be presented Friday at a health economics conference in Cambridge, Mass.
With this type of shaky evidence, and knowing the buzz that it would create, I've got to think that this is a marketing ploy that has worked really well. There is just enough information in the study to make it sound like it has some legitimate thoughts.
The fact that it was economists that authored the study, rather than specialists in the field, seems to support this conclusion. No serious scientist was going to put their name on this study. The economists did it knowing it wouldn't hurt them in their field of expertise.
Do you think I'm being too cynical about it? What are your thoughts on the conclusions of the study?
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