I wanted to title this post “Would you want to know if your child might be autistic?” but after reading in the Guardian Prof. Simon Baron-Cohen’s response article titled “Our research was not about prenatal screening for autism,” I have decided to give my post a different, more neutral title, and closer to the title of the original research article.
I am talking here about a discussion in the Guardian spurred by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen’s research published in the February 2009 issue of the British Journal of Psychology, titled “Fetal testosterone and autistic traits.”
On January 12, 2009, the Guardian published a front-page article “New research brings autism screening closer to reality,”by Sarah Boseley (health editor), which was accompanied by a double-page spread inside the paper titled “Disorder linked to high levels of testosterone in womb” (also by Sarah Boseley).
The articles resulted in several comments. The same day, January 12, 2009, Michael Fitzpatrick published “Toxic treatments for autistic children” with a sub-headline “Worrying about antenatal testing is premature — there are dangerous procedures being performed on children now.”
Then on January 14, Anya Ustaszewski published “I don’t want to be ‘cured’ of autism, thanks” and Marcel Berlins published “Newton and Einstein may have been autistic. But is their genius an argument against a screening test?“(which generated 113 comments by the time the comments were closed).
Finally, on January 20, 2009, the Guardian published a response from Simon Baron-Cohen I mentioned above — “Our research was not about prenatal screening for autism,” with a sub-headline “We merely aimed to understand what causes differences in autistic traits” in which he slams the January 12, 2009 articles’ headlines and captions as “inaccurate.”
Baron-Cohen explains
The new research was not about autism screening; the new research has not discovered that a high level of testosterone in prenatal tests is an indicator of autism; autism spectrum disorder has not been linked to high levels of testosterone in the womb; and tests (of autism) in the womb do not allow termination of pregnancies.
[...]
The Guardian was reporting on our new study in the British Journal of Psychology that found a correlation between levels of foetal testosterone (FT) and the number of autistic traits a child shows at the age of eight. The study was not about prenatal screening for autism, and indeed did not even test children with autism.
Interestingly, before Sarah Boseley’s articles appeared in the Guardian, on January 7, 2009 the paper published “A prenatal test for autism would deprive the world of future geniuses,” by James Randerson, referring to Simon Baron-Cohen’s article on the BBC web site”Autism test ‘could hit maths skills’” in which he says
Research is not yet at the stage where autism can be detected prenatally using a biological test [...] But assuming such a test is developed, we would be wise to think ahead as to how such a test would be used.
I must say that while I find Baron-Cohen’s research fascinating, and liked his Guardian article and like the tone of this article overall as well, I have a huge problem with a statement
If reducing the testosterone in a foetus helped that baby’s future social development, we would all be delighted.
Frankly, I for one would not be delighted if people started meddling with babies’ “future social development” by manipulating fetal testosterone levels or in any other way. I don’t think we should be getting into the business of controlling future generations’ personalities. Do you think we should?
(Added January 28, 2009 — I found a blog, alisonleary.com, (which seems to have closed since then) with an entry on the same subject — “Testosterone Levels Linked to Autistic Traits,” which provides a link to the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, which in turn provides a link to the original, 22-page, article “Fetal testosterone and autistic traits” published in the British Journal of Psychology.)
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