Toxins and Autism

Check out Nicholas Kristof's recent column in the New York Times. Actually, I think the possible autism-toxin linkage may just be the tip of the environmental toxin iceberg.

Carolina snow

It's all gone now, but we've had a decent amount of snow this winter. I love snow, and I'm disappointed I didn't get to experience my hometown's Snowpocalypse. I'm also bummed that what little snow we did get interfered with Andrew's visit for my birthday. We were going to have dinner with his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, but the roads were too nasty to get together. Here's what it looked like:



Then last weekend we had just an inch or so overnight, enough to make everything look really pretty. These pictures don't do it justice - if I had felt like carrying my camera on my run to Whipoorwill Park I could have gotten some lovely shots. For only about half an hour or so the clouds cleared and the snow was still on the trees against a bright blue sky background.







It completely melted away by the time my mom arrived at 2:30.

Abstinence only?

If you know me or have read my blog for a while you know how I feel about "abstinence only" sex education. However, you also know how I feel about carefully conducted scientific research, so perhaps in light of this study I need to rethink my position. Yes, it's true - the study actually found that an abstinence education program was more effective at delaying sex in a group of teens compared to a comprehensive program. One noteworthy difference between this abstinence program and some of the religious based ones was that this program "did not disparage condoms" and did not encourage delaying sex until marriage, but rather until one is ready.

So it does sound a bit different from the Bush-funded abstinence only programs, but I dunno, I'm still a bit skeptical (and I'm not the only one; for example, this Washington Post blogger gives some valid reasons for using caution in drawing strong conclusions from the study.) Delaying sex is almost always healthier for both the individual and society, and that should be the goal we're all working toward. However, I still stand firm on my belief that EVERYONE who intends to have sex sometime in their life, married or not, needs to know about STDs, contraception, pregnancy, hormone cycles, and anything else important and relevant that I'm leaving out. Delaying sex until marriage does not make you immune to STDs and unwanted pregnancy! People might as well learn the basics about sex at the same time they learn the basics about everything else: in school! In the aforementioned study, 33% of the teens who went through the abstinence program had sex within two years of the program. So what I'm wondering is, among the teens who did not delay sex in both groups, abstinence and comprehensive, who was the most well-equipped? They say that the abstinence approach had no negative effect on condom usage, but condoms aren't everything, you know.

On a separate subject, if there are other people out there who use blogger and know how to prevent or minimize spam comments, please enlighten me! Ugh.