Autism Groups React to New CDC-Reported Prevalence of 1 in 68 Children
AUTISM POLICY REFORM COALITION URGES GOVERNMENT EXAMINATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL CAUSES, AND FOCUS ON TREATMENT AND SERVICES
WASHINGTON, DC (March 27, 2014)—Today, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the newest autism prevalence statistics. For children born in 2002, the prevalence of autism was 1 in 68; 1 in 42 boys. Almost 60,000 US 12 year-olds likely have autism. Thirty years ago, autism affected 1 in 2,500 children; there has been a 37-fold increase.
Katie Weisman of SafeMinds stated, “Broader criteria and awareness cannot account for this magnitude of increase. The federal government continues to spend millions of dollars ineffectively and ‘potentially duplicatively’ according to a recent GAO report. We need to identify environmental triggers for autism, prevent them, and develop effective treatments.”
Holly Bortfeld of TACA stated, “The federal government has spent $1.6 billion on autism since 2006, but the money is not helping those affected in meaningful ways. We need to improve medical treatment for the many co-occuring health concerns of individuals with autism and address the wave of students who are aging out and entering an adult world with no plan for them. ”
The Autism Policy Reform Coalition (APRC) is advocating for changes in the U.S. Government’s response to the autism crisis and represents a constituency of over 100,000. The APRC is calling for significant changes in the Combating Autism Act, which is to be reauthorized by Congress this year.
“Since 2011, 44 U.S. children with autism have died after wandering away from a safe environment," stated National Autism Association President Wendy Fournier. "Our federal government must recognize these deaths, and the urgent needs of our most profoundly affected population. They suffer silently in pain from untreated medical issues; they are abused, bullied, and may be at increased risk of suicide. Their deaths and injuries are preventable through an appropriate federal response, which our coalition is dedicated to securing.”
###
The AUTISM POLICY REFORM COALITION includes: Autism is Medical, Defending Academic Integrity and Research Foundation, Generation Rescue, National Autism Association, SafeMinds, Talk About Curing Autism, and The Thinking Mom’s Revolution. Its mission is to educate public officials and to encourage legislation that will make a measurable difference in the lives of the persons with autism and their families.
To view the report in it's entirety, click here.
Just want to say that my family was recovered from autism and other disabling diagnoses. We tested positive for all the reasons that autism is on the rise (reactions to vaccines, mercury toxicity, genetic folate absorption mutations, low vitamin D, tickborne infections, chronic strep, intolerance to gluten, electrosmog sensitivity. We responded very well to N-acetyl-L-cystein, which is used to reverse the damage from glycophosate herbicides which indicates that the gmo foods are also a problem, as we do get ill from eating those as well. So, just saying, it's all at fault, and we need to make a lot of changes. The governing regulatory agencies have failed us, allowing numerous toxins into our lives, telling us we can not sue. Companies and docs have no accountability. Everyone wants to just make money right now, not caring that everyone's health is suffering. Whether autism, cancer, MS, alzheimers, etc. It's all in epidemic proportions. Stop the madness!!!!
Posted by: HeidiN | March 30, 2014 at 08:14 PM
To Doreen- thanks for bringing this up. Dr. Lynch has some important things to say about folic acid. Apparently it has been used wrongly in pregnancy, with a mistaken understanding of physiological action. It;s something simple - like it should not be given alone, but along with something else, vit B maybe. But I dont think it gives an answer for autism, because the criteria for the rise of autism after about 1985 (a steep rise) is that it has to be something that affected all children of the U.S. in all states, starting at that time. I doubt if the introduction of folic acid began like that (But increased vaccines with mercury did)
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | March 29, 2014 at 03:17 AM
Dr Ben Lynch has a very interesting theory about MTHFR and methylation and how the addition of folic acid (not folate) supplements for pregnant women coincides with the increase in autism rates.
Apparently almost all autistic children have methylation and detox issues which could make them more vulnerable to environmental toxins, vaccine damage, etc. If these kids were identified at birth through a $99 genetic test, maybe with special supplementation and different vaccine schedules the outcome would be a lot fewer autistic kids. Also if prenatals and processed foods were supplemented with folate, not folic acid, we could all be better off. Hope I didn't misstate Dr Lynch's theory. Please check his website for info.
Posted by: Doreen Stevens | March 28, 2014 at 11:34 PM
People people, less mercury, vaccines = more autism #Danishstudy
Autism starts in utero #Dr.NancyisaSaint
I'm trading in my motorcycle for a surf board #CDCrocks
Posted by: @ Real Poul Thorsen I'm not in Aruba Twitter | March 28, 2014 at 02:33 PM
ADHD is Autism lite. 4 to 1 boys to girls / and exploded /arrived at the school systems in 1995-96
The better data & stories might be with the schools rather than with the CDD who will ...HIDE anything... related to the truth.
It would seem nearly time for the President to play the "Autism card" and demand some answers and gain 20 to 30 points in the polls by standing up to the vaccine industry.
Dr. Nancy this morning stated that Autism happens during late pregnancy and of course "it is not the vaccines."
Posted by: cmo | March 28, 2014 at 01:57 PM
40 years have passed since that first group of parents showed up in the first Congressional hearings on DPT vaccine reactions.
So how are those adults?
I see them -- but you have to know what you are looking at - know the families, and back ground does help- after all it is as Tocci said - kind of invisible.
They are for the most part:
Unmmarried but not always. They live close to home or in the home of their parents, they have a low paying job and seems satisfied with that. If they have a trailer - they seem to be clueless about building some steps up to the front door. As for as any - home repair they seem to never get around to it.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 28, 2014 at 01:56 PM
On Huffpost,,
Altzhieimers numbers under reported. Altzheiners has increased by as much as 68% in the past decade. Sound familiar?
Posted by: Jen | March 28, 2014 at 01:36 PM
Hi Ken, thanks for the link. It appears that number (0.5) actually includes kids; (i.e. 15 years old and up.)
There does not appear to be a break down of actual adults versus kids, and of course statistically, it is probably true that most very young children won't have a diagnosis yet, even if they will go on to get one. ( Who diagnoses low IQ in one year olds, unless there are exceptional circumstances or genetic disorders?)
Of course people with low IQ without autism also exist, and that would also have to be included in the child group to get comparison rates.
It seems that you aren't the only person who doesn't hangout with lots of adults with low IQ and autism. No one else seems to hang with them either...
(Anecdotally, I do know of one gentleman in his 40s with low IQ, he definitely does not have autism however.
I do know of lots of kids with an autism diagnosis, some with low IQ.I also know some kids with low IQ without an autism diagnosis.)
The "no programs or group homes for adults with autism to go to" that is a common complaint of people with various different views on causation of autism disorders, seems to indicate that there is not a mysterious place where massive numbers of adults with low IQ and autism have been quietly hiding from everyone..
Posted by: Hera | March 28, 2014 at 01:15 PM
Let's not forget the absurdity of the "hidden hoard". Presumably as the school autism population grows the unidentified adult population must grow with it. But in two decades with all the incentives in the world for CDC/NIH to locate the cases in justification it has never happened. And yes, there have been people who have been missed, but the great hypothesis doesn't work.
Posted by: One Born Every Minute | March 28, 2014 at 12:13 PM
Hi Hera,
The prevalence of intellectual disabilities in the US adult population is estimated to be .5% (US Census, 2010). Those with learning disabilities are another 1.6%. I don't spend a lot of time in adult group homes and institutions, so no, I don't see twice as many adults with ID as children.
http://www.oppi.gobierno.pr/Censo_C_SPAN_Slides_Disability2012.pdf
Posted by: Ken | March 28, 2014 at 12:07 PM
Ken;
Let us just sit around and wait for some kind of fancy book to come out then to tell us how to dignose a brain injury after we all witnessed a vaccine reaction.
I was there 30 years ago, but it really started 40 years ago, and I was sort of there then too - just not in the fray.
I remember; that on National TV, parents were lined up at the Congressional Hearing saying their kids were showing symptoms of what looked like autism to them, after a DPT shot. They said their kids looked like they had autism, but unsure if it was the same as autism.
In the 70s Barbara Lou Fisher figured the DPT shot was causing a severe reaction to probably 1 out of 300 children; leaving behind autism like symptoms.
In my Infectious Disease Class in 1978 - the professor who also ran a lab owned by a big pharma company spent about 20 minutes of each class meeting telling us that vaccines were not causing any problems. And DANG IT I got the exact same long lecture from him about neurological diseases showing up at the same time that vaccines were given -- that I did from my ped 10 years later. Word for word!
A brave little nurse with ust an AA degree and working on her BS degree; bravely held up her hand in the 1978 class and confronted the professor telling him that parents were coming in the ER room in droves from the DPT vaccine reaction.
Did they grow up to have autism?
Who knows cause we are all depending on a DSM manuel to tell us.
They grew up to have a brain injury though now didn't they.
My son reacted right after his DPT shot in 86 and again in 87 - it took the schools not the doctors to diagnose him with PDD-NOS.
I had no idea what that meant except that my neighbor in 1988 told me he had autism like symptoms -- as he stood very still in a corner not interacting with his peers.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 28, 2014 at 12:06 PM
Sorry for the third post; re thinking that Math.
If the rate has remained constant it would still be 1 in 204 for the adults with low IQ.
But because there are more adults, there should be still three times as many adults with low IQ and autism as there are children.
Posted by: Hera | March 28, 2014 at 11:57 AM
Sorry ; just checked quickly with an online report of the U.S. census. Persons under 18; 23.5 %
So: 3 (THREE!!) times as many adults as children with low IQ and autism if the rate has remained stable.
ie Child rate 1 in 204 with low IQ and autism
Adult rate, if constant, should be 1 in 68 with low IQ and autism
That's an awful lot of low IQ adults with autism.
Three times as many as the kids.
Posted by: Hera | March 28, 2014 at 11:50 AM
Hi Ken;
The current study has apparently a third of the children with low IQ. Pretending for a moment that every child with a higher IQ would in the past have been indistinguishable from their normal peers ( which seems unlikely ) that still leaves a rate of 1 in 204 who have low IQ and autism. Nothing like 1 in 2500.
Interstingly, rates of other immune disorders have also increased over the same period of time, including asthma and type 1 diabetes. Hard to believe type 1 diabetes is just better diagnosing, given that untreated, it is a death sentence.
Also,have you noticed that many of the adults out there with an "autism spectrum" diagnosis are extremely high functioning with what appears to be average or above average IQ? Given in the U.S. there are I believe approx twice as many adults as children, ( you can check the census for exact figures) there should be at least 1 in 103 adults with low IQ and autism, if the rate has remained constant.
Do you see twice as many adults as kids with low IQ and autism?
Posted by: Hera | March 28, 2014 at 11:43 AM
Most of them probably. Possibly not at the very socially functional end of Asperger.
Posted by: Emily Shillingham | March 28, 2014 at 11:06 AM
Hi Emily, thanks for your reply. Can we agree that DSM-III autism did not include PDD-NOS and Aspergers? How many of today's 1:68 would have received a DSM-III diagnosis 30 years ago?
Posted by: Ken | March 28, 2014 at 10:59 AM
Hi Ken
No, the reality is that autism was once vanishingly small in statistical terms (not for the poor families having to cope with it), but governments are hiding behind the fact that there have never been consistent criteria to cause confusion. And they even employ useful idiots like you to run about the web saying these thing.
Posted by: Emily Shillingham | March 28, 2014 at 10:04 AM
"Thirty years ago, autism affected 1 in 2,500 children"
Any autism study from 30 years ago would have used DSM-III criteria, so the NAA is comparing apples to oranges. Also, the 1:2500 figure used Lotter's criteria, which predates DSM-III.
http://www.mugsy.org/wing.htm
Posted by: Ken | March 28, 2014 at 09:24 AM