MTN Dew Causes Autism

This ought to be fun. First, let's go to the most immediately obvious source of information - the Mountain Dew ingredient label. Now, I'm no mountain dew drinker - far too much caffeine and sugar for me! - but that's okay! Never fear, the internet is here with a full list of the ingredients in a bottle of mountain dew [1]: "CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CONCENTRATED ORANGE JUICE, CITRIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR, SODIUM BENZOATE (PRESERVES FRESHNESS), CAFFEINE, SODIUM CITRATE, ERYTHORBIC ACID (PRESERVES FRESHNESS), GUM ARABIC, CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA (TO PROTECT FLAVOR), BROMINATED VEGETABLE OIL, YELLOW 5 " Oh, and for the record, these guys are required by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) to put every ingredient down here [2]. Trust me, the FDA is decently strict. Anyways, I don't really see any "extra chromosomes" in there as their "secret ingredient". If you do, I invite you to show me some conclusive evidence regarding this matter. In case it's not clear what these ingredients are, I've re-written them below in common terms to make it more obvious what these substances are: "Carbonated water, syrup, orange juice, citric acid, flavoring, a preservative, caffeine, a flavoring/preservative, a naturally-derived preservative, a stabilizer (to prevent unwanted reactions between ingredients), another preservative, a thing to make the ingredients stop separationg, and a food dye" [3] I still don't see any "extra chromosomes" in there. The chemical you'd be looking for is deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA for short. Even if there were "extra chromosomes" in mountain dew (somehow concealed from the FDA? ), it wouldn't make a difference - your cells don't really absorb just any DNA they find lying around. If they did though, even THEN it probably still wouldn't cause autism! Why? Because we don't understand what causes autism in the first place [4]. You might note that the source I cited says that it's *probably* due to disruptions during the child's development in the womb. Now, I don't know if you have a little bit of insider information that I don't, but I'm fairly sure that mountain dew doesn't have a product available for fetuses yet! And if the mother drinks the mountain dew. .. ? I don't know. Do you? I seriously invite you to show me concrete proof - facts, numbers, statistics, a relevant medical study, for example - to demonstrate a strong, causal link between mountain dew consumption by pregnant women and autism in their children. Also, one last thing - your source (which I hesitate to give that title). I'd like to point out that the image is a bit low quality - it's quite possible that camera shaking induced the vertical pupil thing in the picture, or that the photo was just doctored. The last time I checked, George W. Bush's eyes were pretty normal looking [5]! In any case, the picture you provided is in no way relevant to the point you are trying to make - that mountain dew allegedly causes autism. All you have shown is a picture of George Bush with some weird looking eyes. Again, this proves no more about mountain dew causing autism than a picture of George Bush mooning the sun does. [1] . http://goo.gl... -- sorry for the shortened link, the actual link failed to embed properly due to a weird URL formatting thing. This link is a source for the mountain dew ingredients. [2] . http://www.fda.gov... [3] . https://en.wikipedia.org... [4] . http://www.ninds.nih.gov... [5] . https://upload.wikimedia.org...