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What is known about the causes of autism?

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What is known about the causes of autism?

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• First, like cystic fibrosis or sickle-cell disease, autism clearly has a genetic basis. Researchers found that when one identical twin had autism, the chance that the other twin had autism was about 90 percent; for fraternal twins, the chance was less than 10 percent. • Second, although autism clearly has a genetic basis, environmental factors can also cause the disease. For example, children whose mothers took thalidomide during pregnancy had birth defects, including malformed ears and shortened limbs. But they also had a significantly greater incidence of autism than babies born to mothers who never took thalidomide. Thalidomide clearly caused autism, but only if mothers took it early in pregnancy. If mothers took thalidomide in the second or third trimester of pregnancy, their babies weren’t at increased risk of autism. • The thalidomide experience showed that there was a vulnerable time early in pregnancy when a drug could possibly cause autism. Echoes of the thalidomide story ar

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