California’s sevenfold increase in autism is most likely due to environmental exposures, according to scientists. A new study advocates a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on environmental factors such as pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products.

Many medical officials argued that the rise was due to changes in diagnoses or migration patterns rather than a real rise in the disorder. But the new study concludes that those factors cannot explain most of the increase in autism. The researchers found that doctors’ diagnoses explained less than half of the 600 to 700 percent increase in diagnosed autism cases.

Conventional medicine likes to point the finger at genetics, but science shows that only 1% of autism cases are likely due to a sole genetic mutation. Despite this, funding for studying the genetic causes of autism is 10 to 20 times higher than funding for environmental causes, according to Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiology professor at the University of California, Davis, who led the above study.

It may be time for  “modern” medicine to catch up with the independent research on this issue, as the picture is becoming much clearer as to the real underlying causes of autism.

It is possible that a pregnant woman’s exposure to chemical pollutants, particularly metals and pesticides, could be altering a developing baby’s brain structure, triggering autism and other symptoms along the spectrum. Many parent groups also believe that childhood vaccines could be responsible.

The one topic that’s discussed by scientists and parents is the commonality among most children with autism that their pathways of detoxification have become overwhelmed by both man-made and microbial toxins.

Some of the toxic exposures that top this list are:

Children with autism not only have overwhelmed detoxification pathways and heavy metal toxicity, but, according to Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, MD, PhD, who is known internationally for his successful treatment of neurological illness and chronic pain, they also have a silent, daily toxin production in their bodies caused by toxic microbes.

This EMF can affect the fetus while in utero according to the latest research done in a Swiss laboratory. This research is fascinating and may hold a very important key.

Researchers covered a culture of mold in the laboratory. When they uncovered it and left it exposed to the ambient electromagnetic radiation in the laboratory (and just outside it) like the lights, computers, cell phones, and the cell phone tower located in close proximity to the lab, they discovered that the production of biotoxins in this culture increased more than 600 fold. It not only increased but it increased to a more virulent potent form of biotoxin.

Researchers, along with Dr. Klinghardt, have postulated that a pregnant mother who has low-grade infections in her body (non-symptomatic), and is exposed to significant electromagnetic radiation – such as in the Swiss laboratory – will have an increased and more potent form of biotoxin being produced in her body.

This radiation and consequent increased toxic insult has been shown to alter the DNA structure of the fetus, creating certain genetic alterations that can lead to the avalanche of neurodevelopmental problems we are seeing in births in the last 15 or 20 years.

There is also a link between rampant Vitamin D3 deficiency in pregnant women and the proportionate jump in autism, which has recently been highlighted by Dr. John Cannell. The vitamin D receptor appears in a wide variety of brain tissue early in the fetal development, and activated vitamin D receptors increase nerve growth in the brain.

There is belief among some objective, independent scientists and nutritionists that a deficiency of sun exposure (vitamin D) to the pregnant mom, and subsequently to the fetus, may be the single largest contributing factor to autism.

So, one of the most important changes that could radically reduce autism is to make certain that ALL pregnant women have their vitamin D levels normalized to 50-60 ng/ml.

There seems to be growing evidence that the cause of autism and symptoms along the autism spectrum are a combination of both genetic and environmental factors. As one DAN (defeat autism now) doctor stated some years ago: “Genetics loads the gun but environment pulls the trigger.”

When it comes to neurodevelopmental disorders it would seem that truer words were never spoken.