zlacker

I have autism and can definitely say that my mother didn't drink diet soda. My partner has autism and I can say his mother also didn't drink diet soda. I know anecdata doesn't invalidate things like this, but I'm highly suspicious of the conclusion.

>>Dobbs+(OP)
Suppose a study linking cigarettes to cancer, and an asbestos miner objects that he never smoked a single cigarette. The study isn't saying that aspartame is the only cause of autism; your anecdata would refute that claim but that's not what they're saying.

The study does suggest that the effect is caused by one of the metabolites of aspartame, methanol. Methanol doesn't only come from aspartame in diet soda (and for that matter, aspartame isn't only found in diet soda, any chance your parents used aspartame to sweeten their coffee or tea?) The paper points out that methanol may also come from processed fruit and vegetable juices. (It's also found in liquor, particularly moonshine, but the paper doesn't mention this.)