Commenter Erin brought up the recent hubbub regarding induced labor and autism, and while I’d like to comment on it, Science Based Medicine has already done a pretty thorough job. They put the breakdown quite succinctly:
In the case of this study, either inducing/augmenting labor triggers autism in some children, children with autism are more likely to require induced labor, or some other factor(s) is a risk factor for both developing autism and needing to induce or augment labor. This current study does not contain data that can differentiate among these possibilities.
Induced labor is a hard thing to study because (unlike c-sections) induction is very rarely completely elective. It is almost always precipitated by some other complication. It’s an interesting study though, and definitely indicates a need for more research. Anything that gets people off the vaccine thing makes me happy.
Nice summary. I always love it when people try to boil complex systems down to a simple cause-effect equation.
Speaking of “the vaccine thing”, this is a new explanation I hadn't seen before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo&feature=share
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