Was it the tuna?

I was thinking about this Saturday Night Live skit I saw in the late 1980s: John Larroquette is dead and in heaven, and he meets the Angel Gabriel, played by Dana Carvey (or somebody, I didn't google the details so I could be getting many of them wrong) and he gets this chance to ask all the questions to things that he would never have known the answers to otherwise. Questions like "Is professional wrestling real?" (it is) and "which is the one true religion?" (it was something crazy like snake handling or Assembly of God [CS: *wink*]), and I was thinking about all the things in the world that we don't actually know. We may think we know the truth, with our research and our strong opinions, but the reality is that for some things, we really and truly just don't know. And we never will (as long we we're alive, anyway).

When I was pregnant with Child 1 I ate about 4-5 cans of tuna a week; I thought it was good for us, with that healthy fish oil and Omega whatevers. He was about 2 months old when the media first reported on the high levels of mercury in fish and the effects that could have on a developing fetus. I remember saying to somebody that since the kid wasn't born with 3 eyes I guess there were no problems there! Later on, after he was diagnosed, we read about the symptoms of mercury poisoning and how they can mimic autism. Was there a connection? Like I said earlier, I can research my ass off, and I can have an opinion on the subject, but the truth is that I will likely never actually know the truth; the real truth, that only Dana Carvey could tell me after I die.

That would be my question, though, if I end up like John Larroquette, getting all my questions answered (although probably not by the Angel Gabriel, because Supernatural fans will know that not only is that dude a total dick, he's also totally dead): Was it the tuna? If I hadn't eaten all that tuna when I was pregnant, would Child 1 not have been autistic?

Now, don't misunderstand me here, I'm 8+ years past diagnosis and I've moved well beyond blaming myself. They didn't give you those warnings not to eat fish when you were pregnant in 2001, I didn't know. Nobody knew, except probably the tuna companies, and so nobody was able to tell me. If there is a connection, I know that it wasn't my fault. And I'm not asking for articles or studies that prove or disprove the theory: trust me when I tell you I've already seen it. I'm just saying that before my Reaper leads me off to the neverending Dead show in the sky (Shoreline, August 1991) it would be nice to be able to actually get an answer to the question. SNL style.

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