The Political Economy of Autism

Autism is a global epidemic. An estimated 1 in 40 children in Australia, 1 in 64 children in the U.K., and 1 in 36 children in the U.S. have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This is an enormous increase from the first known autism prevalence study in the U.S. in 1970, that established an autism prevalence rate of less than 1 per 10,000. Several studies have shown that changes in diagnostic criteria account for only a small fraction of the increased prevalence. Families of children on the spectrum face extraordinary additional expenses and decreased earnings as one parent often becomes a caregiver. Autism cost the U.S. $268 billion (1.5$1 trillion (3.6% of GDP) in 2025 (as a point of comparison, U.S. Defense Department spending is 3.1% of GDP). Over the last decade, several groups of leading epidemiologists, doctors, and public health experts have published consensus statements declaring that toxicants in the environment are contributing to the rising prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders including autism. Beyond the consensus statements, a range of independent researchers have identified many additional factors that appear to increase autism risk. Given rising prevalence rates and the extraordinary impacts of ASD on individuals, families, and communities, what explains why public health authorities, thus far, have failed to ban or restrict toxicants that have been shown to increase autism risk? I argue that autism is not only a public health issue, it also represents a crisis of political economy. In this thesis I will show that: capitalism has transformed science and medicine from a focus on use values to a focus on exchange values; regulation is largely a reflection of political power not scientific evidence; and cultural and financial capture are blocking the sorts of regulatory responses that are necessary to stop the autism epidemic

Paper folding, Riemann surfaces, and convergence of pseudo-Anosov sequences

A method is presented for constructing closed surfaces out of Euclidean polygons with infinitely many segment identifications along the boundary. The metric on the quotient is identified. A sufficient condition is presented which guarantees that the Euclidean structure on the polygons induces a unique conformal structure on the quotient surface, making it into a closed Riemann surface. In this case, a modulus of continuity for uniformizing coordinates is found which depends only on the geometry of the polygons and on the identifications. An application is presented in which a uniform modulus of continuity is obtained for a family of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms, making it possible to prove that they converge to a Teichm\"uller mapping on the Riemann sphere.Comment: 75 pages, 18 figure

Twin Studies: Research in Genes, Teeth and Faces

This volume is about an ongoing long-term research initiative led by researchers from the School of Dentistry at the University of Adelaide. The aim of this book is to provide an overview of the studies of the teeth and faces of Australian twins and their families that have extended over more than thirty years

Dual echo positive contrast bSSFP for real-time visualization of passive devices during magnetic resonance guided cardiovascular catheterization

Abstract Background: Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) guided cardiovascular catheterizations can potentially reduce ionizing radiation exposure and enable new interventions. Commercially available paramagnetic X-Ray devices create a small signal void in CMR images, which is ambiguous and insufficient to guide catheterization procedures. This work aims to improve real-time CMR of off-the-shelf X-Ray devices by developing a real-time positive contrast sequence with color overlay of the device onto anatomy