With an epidemic of autism in Leominster, Mass which was situated next
to a sunglasses manufacturer, I'm wondering about the possibility of
exposure of colored lenses/sunglasses to babies as having a causal
effect of autism.  My guess is most of the reseach done in Leominster
after the epidemic was discovered was on the effects of the polution,
but not on the possibility that the babies may have been looking into
unusual or harmful lenses as a result of novelty baby picture taking.

As a joke photo, I put my prescription sunglasses on my cousin's baby
on the day she was born, and she now has been diagnosed as with
autism.

Note:  A google search led me to the Irlen Syndrome which studies the
use of color to eliminate perceptual problems began as a federal
research project in 1981.

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Clarification of Question by mickeysimple-ga on 06 Nov 2002 15:38 PST

Another idea; the possibility that babies in Leominster were involved
in promotions, studies, or product testing of sunglasses for babies.

As your question indicates that you have been searching the Net on the
subject of autism, I'm sure you've noticed the tangled and
contradictory mass of information. Autism became "popular" in the
1990's, causing a large amount of unsubstantiated information to flood
the Internet, obscuring the actual research.  Because of this, I went
to a personal source. As I mentioned in the comments, I have a
personal friend with a PhD in Cognitive Science who specializes in
autism. This person has an autistic younger sibling and has
experienced this condition from both personal and clinical aspects.
This person also has access to the most current research and the
necessary background to sort the wheat from the chaff. Here is the
response:

--------------------------
Unfortunately I have never before heard of the possibility of colored
lenses causing autism, so I can't point you to any documentation
there.
However research so far indicates that whatever goes wrong to cause
autism
originates prenatally.  For example, autistic brains have abnormally
few
Purkinje cells in the cerebellum.  The cerebellum is normally highly
structured, with regularly-spaced P-cells.  The cerebellum of an
autistic
person just has gaps where you'd expect to see P-cells, but with no
damaged support cells or any of the other indicators that show that a
P-cell *used* to be there but died.  Instead it looks more like those
cells never developed to begin with.  And P-cell development and
migration
is completed before birth.  
--------------------------------

The above indicates that it is highly unlikely that your sunglasses
could have caused the baby's autism.

Here is a link to the Autism Society of America. They seem to have a
reasonable, non-agendized site to get some basic information and links
to other resources.
http://www.autism-society.org

A Google Search using: autism causes
turns up lots of information, but be aware that many of the pages are
not impartial or necessarily valid sources

There is a newsgroup for autism: alt.support.autism

Best wishes to your family and your cousin's baby.

- Hammer

I appreciate your communication with the researcher and the links. 
I'll attempt to continue this discussion on the newsgroup.  Thank you.

I'm not a medical professional, but a mom, professional child care
provider, and educated medical consumer who has cared for children
with autism.  As a mom, I've been concerned about my child becoming or
displaying autistic tendancies as any mother might fear for the health
and safety of their child.  I've not heard of such an epidemic in
Mass, just of one in California. All that I've heard recently on
autism (in the news) is the possiblity of its being related to mercury
and a source of mercury potential for children sensitive to mercury
(more so than others) was in the preservative Thimerosol (sp?) that
is/was used in vaccination and to which I believe that most
vaccinations now given to children do not use this preservative. 
Although the possible link is strongly "written off" by the medical
profession, I think many vaccination manufacturers have stopped using
this Thimerosol as a result of the controversy.  I wonder in what ways
Mercury may be used in the manufacture of sunglasses, and whether
there is a causative autism relationship to the element.  I could not
begin to fathom how putting any type of glasses on anyone of any age
could cause such serious problems as autism, no matter for how long
the person wears them.  I'm quite positive that is not what has caused
your cousin's baby's difficulties!

Thanks for your comment, Marshella. Please see the linked article:

http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/vol23/23GSJ18a.html

This study shows there was an "Autism epidemic" in Leonmister, Mass. 
Leonmister had a huge sunglasses manufacturing plant in the city.  I
discovered this out by typing "autism" and "sunglasses" in Google. 
You can imagine how weird I felt when I read the link.  Or course, the
research would have necessarily focused on the pollution of the plant.
 It made me wonder if the company that made the sunglasses were
involved in any promotion, study, or product testing for sunglasses
for babies.

Another Google search led me to see that there's research that some
folks as having been diagnosed as having autism have been helped by
using colored lenses when driving or reading:

http://www.readingandwriting.ab.ca/judypool/irlen.htm#Irlen

Incidentally, I saw a clip of a Dateline NBC story where a child was
having what looked like an epileptic fit.  The child was wearing
sunglasses.  Another coincidence, almost definitely, but still...

I, too, think that the chances my cousin's baby's behavioral patterns
were caused by her looking through colored lenses on the day she was
born are very, very, very slim.  Still, I'd like to see anything I can
find about the study in Leominster.

Thanks again for your comment.  A researcher had the question locked
for two days, but gave up!

autism has nothing to do with sunglases, or does it...?

I suppose that Marcella suspects that chemicals related to sunglass
manufacture may be a contributor to the occurence of autism. However,
it seems that the connection is only speculation at this point, so I
think that definitive studies on this connection haven't been made
yet.

Here's a link of a just published Danish survey that says Autism is
not linked to vaccination:

http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/110702dnnatautism.9ede7.html

I have a friend who is a Doctor of Cognitive Science and specializes
in autism. I've written to this person to see if they have any input
on this. I'll post if they get back to me.