12/23/2025
MED MAPS Article of the Week!
McCullough Foundation Report: Determinants of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Important points to note from his report:
“Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is now estimated to affect more than 1 in 31 children in the United States, with prevalence rising sharply over the past two decades and posing an increasing burden to families and public health systems. Most of the literature on ASD characterizes it as a complex neurodevelopmental condition shaped by multiple determinants, including genetic liability, immune dysregulation, perinatal stressors, and environmental toxicants.”
“We found potential determinants of new onset ASD before the age of 9 years old to include: older parents (>35 years mother, >40 years father), premature delivery before 37 weeks of gestation, common genetic variants, siblings with autism, maternal immune activation, in utero drug exposure, environmental toxicants, gut-brain axis alterations and combination routine childhood vaccination. These diverse genetic, environmental, and iatrogenic factors appear to intersect through shared pathways of immune dysregulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation, culminating in neurodevelopmental injury and regression in susceptible children.”
“The totality of evidence supports a multifactorial model of ASD in which genetic predisposition, neuroimmune biology, environmental toxicants, perinatal stressors, and iatrogenic exposures converge to produce the phenotype of a post-encephalitic state.”
Read more about the article here: https://zenodo.org/records/17451259
