Another Piece In The Vast Puzzle Of Autism
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome back to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. Now, time for more of our National Lead. It's potentially one more small piece in the vast puzzle that is autism. A new study just released this hour suggests that there's an association between inducing or speeding up labor and a heightened risk of developing the disorder. The findings were particularly pronounced among boys with a 35 percent increased risk of autism, if their mother's contractions were both induced or sped up, or what doctors call augmented. Joining me now is associate professor Simon Gregory from Duke University School of Medicine who did this study. Simon, these findings are going to terrify a lot of concerned parents and parents to be. How big a risk are we talking about here?</s>SIMON GREGORY, DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Hi, Jake. So the type of risk that we're looking at is in the realms of say a mother who decides to have children at an older age, a mother who's got potentially birth complications or complications that the unborn child experiences in the uterus. So, we're talking about, say, an elevated risk of 30-odd percent, as you said.</s>TAPPER: But that's not an elevated risk from all pregnant women who would induce or augment labor, it's just for ones who are in high-risk groups?</s>GREGORY: No, what we found from our birth cohort, so</s>TAPPER: OK. Just to be clear for our viewers, the takeaway is not that doctors should stop inducing labor necessarily but is there a takeaway that you see? Would, for instance, you recommend against a mother, a pregnant woman having her pregnancy -- her pregnancy induced or augmented if she were in these high-risks groups?</s>SIMON GREGORY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DUKE UNIV. SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: No, absolutely not. The point of the study is really to find if there is an association. The potential negative effects from not inducing or augmenting a labor far outweigh the risks we've identified. The health care professionals will recommend or indicate induction or augmentation for specific medical reasons. And those reasons are really important. What we've found is sort of an elevated risk in the induced and augmented mothers, and, as you said, in boys, which is interesting for us because autism affects more males than females. But what we really need to do is work out where the association is coming from, what is the cause of this association. And we're absolutely not recommending that where it's medically indicated that a woman decides against induction or augmentation.</s>TAPPER: So we've done a number of stories about studies about possible links to what causes this disorder. A few months ago, we talked to somebody who talked about possible environmental factors. Where does your paper rank with other risk factors that doctors have concluded, whether it's environment or older mothers or certain types of drugs? Where do you think this ranks?</s>GREGORY: I think we have to put it in the context that autism is a spectrum of disorders. It's no one particular disorder. Kids with autism can have a broad range of display of the disorder itself. And as you cited, the development of autism is really based on genetic predisposition, the genes that we inherit from our parents but also the environment we're exposed to. In this instance, we're talking about an in-utero exposure potentially with the induction or augmentation. But potentially as well, it's really the maternal health and the health of the child in the uterus, which is important. So, it's really a marrying of the genetics and environment or the effects of the environment on that genetic background. It's a very complex disorder. And it takes studies like this to start pulling apart these environmental effects.</s>TAPPER: All right, Simon Gregory, thank you so much.</s>GREGORY: You're welcome.</s>TAPPER: Coming up on THE LEAD, come for the fried butter sticks, stay for the political momentum. That's always been the logic behind White House hopefuls visiting Iowa. And a deluge of potential 2016 candidates have already touched down there, years before the election. We'll talk about that. And later, what's worse than the boss calling you into the office and canning you? Try getting fired on a conference call with a thousand people listening in. Stay with us.