The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism

The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism delves deep into the full body of past and current research to reveal how genetic predispositions and environmental factors can combine to produce the conditions autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

To make this groundbreaking volume, Dr. James Lyons-Weiler combed through the past fifty years of published research on autism, exploring subjects such as genetic variation, mechanisms of neurotoxicity of metals and pesticides, and the central and combined roles of each in causing autism.

Lyons-Weiler provides a major overview of all aspects of the condition of autism, reviews changes in diagnoses and treatments, and explains how genetic information can be used to tailor effective treatments, and sometimes reversals, of the symptoms. He also presents practical forward-looking suggestions on how to design future studies to facilitate the discovery of biomarkers for autism risk and how to classify the full range of autism spectrum disorders.

Autism is considered one of the most mystifying conditions of our day, and alarmed scientists, doctors, politicians, and parents are desperately trying to understand why the condition is escalating. According to the CDC, rates in the United States have risen from an estimated one in two thousand children in 1980, to one in sixty-eight in 2012, and a new National Health Interview Survey shows a rate of one in forty-five. By the time you read this book, that number may have changed yet again.

While most autism researchers focus on either environmental or genetic causes of autism, Lyons-Weiler’s opus demonstrates that to fully understand the condition and to finally put its rate on the decrease, it is essential to pay attention to the science showing how the two classes of factors interact.

James Lyons-Weiler is the president and CEO of the Institute for Pure and Applied Knowledge, an advocacy group that pushes for accuracy and integrity in science and for biomedical researchers to put people’s health before profits. An established academic and researcher, he has a bachelor’s degree in biology, a master’s degree in zoology, a PhD in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology, and a postdoctoral in computational molecular biology; and he’s the author of Ebola: An Evolving Story and Cures vs. Profits. Lyons-Weiler lives in Pittsburgh, PA.

“With nearly one in fifty US children being diagnosed with autism, The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism could not come soon enough. The information in this book needs to be read by all medical students, physicians, and parents. I highly recommend this book.”
—Dr. David Brownstein, MD, medical director, Center for Holistic Medicine

“Dr. Lyons-Weiler is an inspired American scientist. . . . I can say without reservation that this learned person has the ethics of a true teacher, the type idealized from the roots of Western Civilization. He analyzes scientific data for the sake of improving the human condition without monetary influence. . . . His work is encyclopedic.”
—Dr. Edward “Ted” Fogarty, MD, chair, Department of Radiology, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences

“With over one million new cases per year, a current incidence of one in 45–68 children, and a projected incidence of one in two children within two decades, autism is more than an epidemic—it is a national crisis. At this rate, our entire nation will either be autistic or caring for someone who is. While nearly all efforts and public pronouncements are about management and care, very few are exploring cause. We hear from the medical community that autism is a tragic but inevitable outcome of genetic roulette. Dr. Lyons-Weiler, an impeccably credentialed biologist . . . clearly explains the environmental causes of this terrible spectrum of disorders. In so doing, he provides much-needed hope for its prevention and cure. If you are a parent, health professional, or scientist, this is an essential book to read.”
—Michael Gaeta, DAc, MS, CDN, clinician and educator

“This book is a Bible for anyone who wants to understand the deep science behind the autism epidemic in America. Dr. Lyons-Weiler shows us convincingly that autism is not a mysterious disease with no known cause and no known treatment: it is the expected outcome when you expose a child with a certain genetic makeup to multiple neurotoxins simultaneously.”
—Dr. Stephanie Seneff, senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

“[Dr. James Lyons-Weiler’s new book is a call to action] for the pediatric community to ‘awaken from its dogmatic slumber.’ . . . Until our understanding of [autism spectrum disorders] (and their environmental, genetic, and immunological underpinnings) is secure, we must all be willing to evolve as practitioners and scientists and, thusly, light our own candles in the darkness, lest we fall into an abyss.”
—Dr. Anthony Kovatch, MD, pediatrician, Pediatric Alliance

“Lyons-Weiler has done us all an immense service by putting together this well-documented and highly informative overview of autism. Those who are really seeking answers and a way forward will welcome this book. Those whose interests are threatened will not. Indeed, Lyons-Weiler will be able to measure just how much he has stung big pharma by the number of pharma-paid negative reviews in the media, and by the troll attacks, and the denunciations by the CDC. He should wear all these as a badge of [honor] for ultimately the truth will come out. This book will help the truth emerge.”
—Christopher A. Shaw, PhD, author of Neural Dynamics of Neurological Disease