xiiiWe believe no one has presented the predicament of human life more accu-
rately than Rachel Carson in her book when she stated:
As crude a weapon as the cave man’s club, the chemical barrage has been
hurled against the fabric of life – a fabric on the one hand delicate and
destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of
striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life
have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have
brought to their task no “high‐minded orientation,” no humility before the
vast forces with which they tamper.
Rachel Carson, 1962, Silent SpringIn 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA,
one in 68 children suffered from Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD); and, in
2015, one in 45 children were considered autistic. If a doomsday prediction is
to become a reality, is one out of two children to be born autistic within a
decade?
For the literally millions affected by ASD, our silent offspring, and even more
desperate parents who find themselves bewildered at the alarming rise of
autism, we need to identify and curb the “chemical barrage” and further
onslaught that harm mankind’s future.
In this book, we have done our best to present scientific data supporting
previous observations that were only anecdotal to attempt to understand the
complex puzzle that is autism. We describe the rapid proliferation of syn-
thetic chemicals in our modern world and the effects on the developing
human brain, endocrine‐disturbing chemicals that alter DNA, epigenetics,
and hormones. From chemical fragrances to herbicides, synthetic chemicals
are abundant in everyday life and the chapters in this book examine the evi-
dence surrounding these chemicals and their effects, including on the devel-
oping human brain, and how that might explain certain characteristics
observed in autism.