Easter Seals Apology for Calling Autism an Epidemic - For Real?
This email snap was on FB yesterday. Is it a hoax or did Cameron Robbins receive a call or email or cry-o-gram from a Neurodiversity group complaining that Easter Seals had called autism an "epidemic and crisis" and have to issue an apology?
Odd, since on their website, Easter Seals plainly states:
Help and Hope for 85 Years
Easter Seals has been providing services and support to children and adults with disabilities, and to the families who love them, for more than 85 years. Over the last 20 years, Easter Seals has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people with autism the organization serves -- both through its services developed specifically for people with autism and through services that include children and adults with autism among other service recipients.
As Many as 1 in 88 Children Now Diagnosed
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) new findings on the prevalence of autism validate what many have believed for some time -- autism is an epidemic of our time. The fact is, many families are living with autism today and there is an urgent need for increased funding, services and supports for individuals with autism.
So which is it, Easter Seals?
If a real email, you owe every family with a child diagnosed since the good old days of 1 in 10,000 an apology.
".... Dan, I know Dr. Treffert. When I told him the anti-vax crowd was citing his 1970 study, he laughed.......
**************
According to the latest CDC estimate, the rate of autism is now 1 in 50.
If the autism rate really hasn't changed since the '70's, and the best the "expert" Dr Treffert could do was to peg it at 1 in 10,000.... shouldn't the rest of the world be laughing at him??
Posted by: Barry | June 18, 2013 at 06:53 PM
Hi ANB, nice to see you here; I miss our discussions on Lisas website.
I knew a young lad with autism in the 70's growing up; he would probably now have a diagnosis of aspergers. His parents were advised by several doctors to instuitionalize him. (They did not ,AMA.) In the days before special ed that was the default position of the doctors when faced with children with differences.
SO what I am saying is people with mild autism were sometimes institutionalized in the 70s.
If you really still believe that autism rates are still at the same level as they were in the 70s, I do think you are fighting a losing battle with the facts.
interesting to look at other autoimmune illnesses also. Asthma, Type I diabetes(deadly if not diagnosed, so they weren't missing cases unless the kids were dying), gluten sensitivity are all going up. If you want studies I can find them..
All the best,Hera
Posted by: Hera | June 16, 2013 at 11:46 AM
Hi Ken (Autism News Beat),
Last time we had an exchange about this you were splitting hairs about whether the present rate was 1 in 50, or a bit less because some children lost their diagnosis: my calculation was that this would deliver a rate of 1 in 60 which you did not dispute. 60 into 10,000 generates 166.6 recurring cases, so on this basis 165.96 recurring cases per 10,000 remained unidentified and were living happily at home in 1970. I think you might need to go back to the drawing-board!
John
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2013 at 06:35 AM
Sean
I recall in discussion with a senior clinician c. 1996 that they were thinking at the time that autism cases were appearing in families where their had been more minor developmental quirks in previous generations. It did not occur to me at the time, only retrospectively, that the speculation probably was that the sudden crop of autism cases came from families which may have had "quirks" but were being pushed over the edge by some unmentioned factor.
Posted by: John Stone | June 16, 2013 at 04:06 AM
Easter Seals are just picking up the damage at the end, and that's a business in its own right. I have a friend who is on good money just to assess damaged kids, and if she does her PhD in that area (God knows what's in that), she can make even more money. So there's a fabulous aftermarket for more people to clean up the mess after the doctors and big pharma have wreaked their havoc. The bizarre thing is, when I've raised the vaccine causation possibility with my friend, she's adamant this is not possible -- on a very scientific basis -- and that they can see the traits in the parents. So my comeback is, well, hang on, the parents are functioning OK, so what can you 'see' in these functioning parents that they and nature would produce this completely non-functioning child? Apparently studying genetics, or epidemiology, or scientific reasoning of cause and effect do not form part of this amazing PhD. Although the number of genuine quality epidemiology studies responsibly conducted is almost nil for some reason, so there isn't much to study there, is there?
I think it's only a matter of time as more and more people wake up to this in the present day before the doctors and big pharma get their come-uppance. They have already manoeuvred things in legislation to avoid liability by passing indemnity acts wherever possible. The amount that would have to be paid out in lawsuits for every child killed or maimed -- SIDS, ASD, ADHD, asthma, allergies, childhood diabetes -- would completely destroy those companies and every single medical practitioner and all their insurance companies put together -- the amount of damages awarded would run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions.
Just today I had a coffee with a friend and she mentioned one of her boss's two kids has autism, and they changed personality and stopped developing within 2 weeks of an MMR. How long before the community wakes up to the risks of early and intensive vaccination schedules for infants?
Posted by: Sean | June 16, 2013 at 03:40 AM
Dan, I know Dr. Treffert. When I told him the anti-vax crowd was citing his 1970 study, he laughed. Treffert relied on a 1970 computer database of Wisconsin children institutionalized with an autism diagnosis. So you're comparing the known prevalence of children so severely impaired in 1970 that they needed institutionalization to kids who attend school and live at home today. That's not just comparing apples and oranges - more like apples and giraffes.
And now we have come to the part where you delete my comment.
Posted by: AutismNewsBeat | June 15, 2013 at 09:05 PM
Polio peaked at about 1 in 3000 in the late 50's. Every American parent was waiting day by day for a vaccine to be developed.
Some children were given early, experimental vaccines that did not work, but instead gave the child polio.
I believe New Jersey STILL leads the nation in the "not a real epidemic" Autism / at 1 in 29 boys. ...With of course... their long-standing annual "flu vaccine mandate" to attend a day care.
Posted by: cmo | June 15, 2013 at 04:57 PM
So where is the CDC, AAP (Paul Offit etc.) on this issue?? Do they not think autism is a public health crisis? If they do not respond to this then they are giving tacit approval to this notion that there is no public health crisis where autism is concerned. God, just once,could one of them at least have the honesty to acknowledge an important truth like this and stick up for the kids?! Or will they just bow down to what can only be presumed as the neurodiverse agenda.
Posted by: Jen | June 15, 2013 at 02:14 PM
treffert, wisconsin, 1970, 0.7 classic autism per 10,000 -- see p 207, the age of autism
Posted by: dan olmsted | June 15, 2013 at 01:54 PM
If a real email, you owe every family with a child diagnosed since the good old days of 1 in 10,000 an apology. "
Which study showed a 1:10,000 prevalence?
Posted by: Harbin532 | June 15, 2013 at 01:08 PM
I want to know who objected to it being called an epidemic or public health crisis. They are no friend of the children!
Posted by: Jen | June 15, 2013 at 11:16 AM
Oh. My. God. At first I thought the sentence read,"autism IS a public health crisis! I will never support this organization because clearly they don't understand that it is not just better diagnosing. This is a great example of political correctness gone awry. As many older teachers will attest to, there is a problem when many many children can't speak, communicate (even with a communication device), can't even feed themselves, can't toilet themselves, bolt. My God, does nobody care about these kids with autism. What WOULD an emergency or crisis be to them???
Posted by: Jen | June 15, 2013 at 11:14 AM
Easter Seals came into being because of the polio "epidemic".
Let us compare the numbers between polio and autism. I am too tired.
Easter Seals provided money for research on polio, and gave a few wheelchairs to kids that had polio. So they will provide for kids with autism -- what?-- Language services?
Language services are so hard - with total nonverbal- even when they become verbal - the schools won't touch them. Lazy things.
There are so many layers of stuff here, I don't know were to begin.
Everyone pretends to care, pretends to offer a hand, pretends they care.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 15, 2013 at 08:31 AM
I received both e-mails as well. The only problem I had with the original is that it said "There is no cure for autism" and while technically true, so many of you have been able to recover your children it is not really an accurate statement. This was my e-mail response to the 2nd e-mail:
Seriously?? NOT an epidemic? NOT a public health crisis? Are you kidding me? 1 in 88 children – and those numbers are low and based on old data – so it is probably much worse. What would you call it then? A walk in the park, rainbows and kittens? I don’t know who you are trying to placate, but it certainly is not the parents of children with autism who KNOW it is an epidemic and KNOW it should be considered a public health crisis.
Easter Seals must be clueless then or just trying to make happy some big donor who thinks autism is just wonderful because they have someone on the “high” end of the spectrum with a decent life. It is not for most of them. My child can’t communicate, has gastrointestinal issues, has sensory issues, etc. My child and hundreds of thousands like him suffer every day. You should know that and use your vast platform to help the rest of the world know and understand that as well because our children (and adults) need help and they need answers. The sooner the medical community and government realize it and try to help them the better off everyone will be. Shame on ES for backtracking and rescinding the truth.
A very disappointed, previous supporter of ES.
Posted by: MelissaD | June 15, 2013 at 08:28 AM