Air Pollution Linked to Autism

Paging Jenny McCarthy. According to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health, women who are exposed to high levels of air pollution during their third trimester of pregnancy may be twice as likely to give birth to a child with autism. Researchers focused on 1,767 children born from 1990 to 2002, including 245 diagnosed with autism. “One of the unique aspects of the study we did is that it provides an even stronger piece of evidence for there being a causal effect,” said Marc Weisskopf, an associate professor of environmental and occupational epidemiology at Harvard who was an author for the study. “It’s really the pollution doing it.”