"Early Thoughts on the Autism Epidemic" 

 The dramatic increase in cases of autism in children over the past few years has been in the news again in recent days.  Most notably, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain said at a recent stop, "there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines."  Which would be fine if such strong evidence existed; unfortunately, that is a mischaracterization of the current state of the literature to say the least.  McCain has since backed away from his initial comments (see this article in yesterday's  New York Times ), but the debate prompted by his comments will undoubtedly continue. 

 By coincidence, the Robert Wood Johnson program at Harvard is sponsoring a talk tomorrow on this topic.  Professor  Peter Bearman  (chair of the Statistics Department at Columbia) will be speaking on "Early Thoughts on the Autism Epidemic."  Professor Bearman is currently leading a project on the  social determinants of autism .  The talk is in N262 on the second floor of the Knafel Building at CGIS from 11:00 to 12:30.