Much obliged, pal o' mine. Marketing certain has many aspects, and like all things, can be used for good or ill. Packaging can be a good alternative to marketing products without diminishing their health value (some companies use colored bottles instead of coloring the soda) but also it can misdirect (making the cereal appealing because of the colorful character or sexy person, etc.).

Yeah, I don't know what's up with autism, or even allergies. When I was kid, I never heard of a food allergy, and even allergies to cats or seasonal factors was far less prevalent.

This stuff is so hard to track. Something you do could build up and not even affect you for 20 years, and it's hard to nail down causes when there are so many variables.

Cigarettes are a good example. It's generally thought of as a no-brainer that they're horribly detrimental, and exposing someone to second-hand smoke is all but utterly prohibited (at least here in NYC). But my grandmother sat in a small smoke-filled kitchen with my grandfather and uncle for 50 years and never had an ill effect. Even the two grandparents I had who smoked died at 84 and 90, and though one of them died of lung issues, at that point it's not unreasonable to suppose something is going to break down. Even if smoking made the lungs a weak link, if it wasn't that, it would have been something else. Meanwhile you have people in their 40's who die of lung illnesses who smoke. So there's more variables here, and it's not so simple as "If you do that, you'll die", at least in this case.