As far as Friday Freakouts go, this is it. It's like having a drought and a flood at the same time. Not coincidentally.
There is a whooping cough wave crashing on California right now. We're closing in on 10,000 cases in 2014, a 24% increase over last year. The cause is unvaccinated yuppy hippy children.
Whose parents read blogs and facebooks and stop vaccinating their children because they hear it causes autism. It does not. Just vaccinate your kids already, or they will get pertussis when it comes around.
But autism? What about autism, you say? AH, BUT AUTISM IS CAUSED BY CARS.
A new Harvard study links increased ASD diagnoses to exposure to particulate matter--airborne pollution--during pregnancy, especially the third trimester.
Which supports a study reported here almost four years ago to the very day--it's beginning to look a lot like Pollution-linked Autism Season!--that found increased likelihood of ASD among kids born to moms who lived near freeways. In California.
Maybe we can start calling it Cartism. Smogtism. LAtism.
California whooping cough epidemic worst in seven decades [cir.ca]
Autism Spectrum Disorder and Particulate Matter Air Pollution before, during, and after Pregnancy: A Nested Case-Control Analysis within the Nurses' Health Study II Cohort [nih.gov via dt freakout senior correspondent dt]
