There are, alas, some fundamental flaws with some of the inferences made in this paper (and in the comments on this paper) on autism spectrum disorder and infections 1/n
I am particularly concerned with the section on clinical histories of children. In this analysis they looked at whether "prevalence of hospitalizations due to infections in males (but not in females) is associated with future development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD)." 2/n
That wording is from the abstract and seems fine to me as all they were doing was looking for correlations / associations. The problem is that in the main text of the paper they switch to inferring that the hospitalizations actually contributed to the ASD development 3/n
Here are some more details: Given the possibility of some smoke in the air today, I went out really early this AM to #YoloBypass in the hopes of getting some pictures w/ a red sun. I got there before the gate was opened and then, when it was opened at 625 or so I headed in 1/n
I parked at this wildlife viewing area in the rice fields and started walking East looking at the red sun, hoping to see something fly in front of it. After a few near misses I saw an egret flying at just about the right height off in the distance. 2/n