Editorials & Other Articles

Some are genetic, but most are due to underused immune systems early one.

I liked one study that compared Amish and Hutterites. Both have traditionally been agrarian, fairly self-segregating, groups.

Amish kids, it had been noted, have a very low incidence of allergies. They're exposed to barns, farm animals and evidence of wild animals, plants and dirt, from an early age. Hutterites don't put their kids into serious farm work until they're about at puberty, and their incidence allergies is fairly normal for American society. Yes, they make much of their own things, but Hutterites are also less anti-tech. But both groups tend to avoid a lot of the things that RFK Jr. rails against 24/7/365.

Another, early in this line of investigation, looked at a Finnish town and the Russian town on the other side of the border. They had radically different lifestyles. The Finns were very European--nice, neat clean apartments, lots of appliance, easy access to cleaning methods. Children played on well-kept playgrounds, lots of inside time. The Russian side was under-developed, their playgrounds were woods or undeveloped village land and kids were told to either do chores, often outside, or just go out and play. Hygiene and household cleanliness was much less middle-class Finnish. The Finnish kids had far higher rates of asthma and allergies than the Russian kids (which, if it was healthy diet, you'd expect to be flipped ... Oh, wait, preservatives and artificial colors! I jest).

Autism is a punchlist from a set of symptoms, and like "cancer" is very much not a single disease. (Even if some nifty lab animal studies with playing with brain chemistry seems to help across the board, there are likely still lots of causes.)