Abstract: Here, I present a mechanistic biomedical process model (theory) of the pathophysiology of autism that reconciles the apparent paradox between the high degree of causal heterogeneity in environmental toxins, the absence of common “autism genes” and the high degree of genetic concordance (heritability) of ASD and ASD-like traits. In brief, the environmental toxin sampling liability for ASD varies among families involving different local exposures following injury to normal cellular endoplasmic detoxification and mitochondrial processes from toxic
metals.
