25/09/2025
We know it’s been quiet here. Crickets, even.
Our leadership team has been recovering from burnout and the kinds of things that knock the wind out of you when you’ve got nothing left in the tank. But this week has been a lot, and we’ve been thinking about you all.
Now feels like a moment to drop by and touch base.
First, we have an announcement. NeuroClastic is merging with Kind Theory, another autistic-led organization doing beautiful work with the autistic community. We are moving slowly right now, keeping our resources available and hoping to resume some of our operations in the future in partnership with Kind Theory.
And now, let’s talk about yesterday.
When powerful people stand up and announce they’ve found “the answer to autism,” it can feel really frightening. I’m seeing a lot of jokes, and I’ve made some myself — because that’s what we do, right? We turn terror into humour and freeze trauma in a punchline, because sometimes laughter is how we hold each other when the world is so heavy.
We know that for many of us, yesterday was frightening. We watched our lives, our children, and our bodies become someone else’s talking points. For autistic people — and for autistic parents especially — it’s very personal.
We want to say this clearly: you didn’t do anything wrong when you reached for relief in your moment of pain. The data in the study referred to in yesterday’s announcement does not say that Tylenol causes autism.
It shows correlation without causation.
It’s like saying 100% of people using umbrellas have wet shoes; therefore, umbrellas cause wet shoes. The two things happen together, but one doesn’t cause the other.
We wouldn’t be NeuroClastic if we told you what to think. Instead, we explain some research terms and factors that can influence data, which are useful to understand when reading studies:
🔎Observational/cohort-style: when researchers watch what’s already happening in the real world instead of setting up an experiment. They don’t assign people to groups or control what happens, just observe and collect data.
🔎Recall bias: When a study relies on people remembering things from the past, memory isn’t always reliable. Some people forget details, some recall incorrectly, and some remember more clearly if the event had a significant emotional impact.
🔎Confounding variables: something that sneaks in and makes it look like two things are directly related - like the shoes and umbrellas.
Differences in measurement: what does ‘use of acetaminophen’ mean for this study, how much, when, frequency, duration, etc.
🔎Population differences: when the group of people studied isn’t the same as the group of people you’re trying to understand, the results may not apply in the same way.
🔎Conflicts of interest/funding: when the people doing or funding a study have something to gain (or lose) depending on what the results say. It doesn’t always mean the research is false, but it does mean you should read it with extra caution. In the case of a pharmaceutical study, it might mean looking at whether an alternative drug is recommended and who might benefit, etc.
Autism diagnoses are rising, yes, but not because there’s ‘an epidemic’. It’s because more of us are finally being counted. Criteria have widened, awareness has grown, stigma has lessened (still a way to go), kids with complex health needs are surviving, families are seeking diagnoses for services, and, importantly, autistic people often find one another deeply attractive. What looks to some like an epidemic is partly love.
Autism is not a tragedy, and our lives are not a disease, but some autistic lives are exceptionally hard. Some of us wouldn’t change being autistic for anything, some of us would change it in a moment if we could, and many of us don’t have the privilege of reliable communication to say what we’d choose given the chance. None of us are wrong. Pride and pain can exist together.
So many parents who are hurting want relief for their kids and for themselves, and that doesn’t make them villains. What is dangerous is when leaders exploit that love and fear to sell cures or scapegoat the most vulnerable among us while calling it care.
What’s needed now, more than ever, is people who are willing to see the full humanity of autistic lives. We need nuance and critical thinking. We need accomplices who will stand with us in this moment.
And friends, you do not need to prove your worth. Your lives are not valuable because of productivity charts or compliance points or how easy you are to manage; you are valuable because you exist.
You are not here to feed capitalism or to justify yourselves through usefulness.
We matter because we are here, and we are human. We are an essential ingredient of humanity.
-Kate
