The findings, which are based on a study of laboratory animals presented at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego this week, raising the troubling possibility that products present in virtually every American home may be contributing the significant rise in autism cases diagnosed in recent decades.
 

"Our research points to potentially preventable causes of autism, which remains a diagnosis with enormous social costs and limited solutions," said lead researcher Stephanie Degroote, a Ph.D. student at the University of Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada.
 

Phthalates are in many household plastic products and brominated fire retardants are used on most furniture foam cushions. They are known endocrine disruptors that can impair growth and bodily processes controlled by hormones. Past studies have linked exposure to them in the womb can affect mental and motor development and can provoke attention deficit problems.
 

Degroote and her colleagues found that the rats whose pregnant mothers were exposed to the chemicals showed behaviors similar to those seen in humans with autism spectrum disorders.
 

The animals had reduced social interactions and increased hyperactive movements, compared with unexposed  rats.
 

"Our research finds that the developing brain is extremely sensitive to chemical additives found in our daily environment, and these chemical can contribute to the development of autism," Degroote said. "The good news is that these exposures are avoidable, contrary to genetic risk factors, which are almost always not modifiable."