According to a new study, children whose last names begin with D, K, or P and are born on Tuesday or Thursday are more likely to have autism.
Researchers at the NIH-funded Autism Cause Discovery Center studied 2,547 children born between 2008 and 2009 and found a 38 percent increase in autism in children whose last names begin with D, K, or P. The increase rose to 53 percent in children who are also born on Tuesday or Thursday.
“We have yet to fully understand these findings,” said James Forrester, M.S., Ph.D., and director of the center, “but we are excited. What we do know is that people whose surnames begin with D, K, or P frequently live between 108 and 113 degrees north latitude and 31 and 37 degrees west longitude. When we delved a little deeper, we discovered that if these same children were also born on Tuesday or Thursday, the incidence of autism was even higher. That’s when we knew we were onto something monumental. The statistics are indisputable, and everyone at the center agrees that it bears further investigation.”
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Dr. Forrester goes on to say that although avoiding last names that begin with D, K, or P could be a challenge, doing everything possible to ensure that most babies are born on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday shouldn’t be as difficult. “It would be easy, for example, for OB-GYNs to schedule inductions on those days,” he says.
Colleague Susan Mahoney, Ph.D., D.Sc., agrees. “So many causes of autism have been proposed, from vinyl floors, household dust, and flame retardant in pajamas to the age of the father, a history of abuse in the mother, proximity to a freeway, and even vaccines. This new discovery can finally put an end to the long, costly search for answers and allow researchers to turn their time and effort—not to mention money—to the real cause and eventually stop autism in its tracks.”
[feature_box style=”9″ only_advanced=”There are no title options for the choosen style” alignment=”center”]Notice to the readers: This article contains satire. All names are fictitious. Research what is being injected into your child.
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