Dachel Media Update: Still Waffling on Autism Screenings?
By Anne Dachel
Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD, an online supplement retailer for patients with special needs.
Aug 23, 2015, BeforeItsNews.com: CDC Vaccine Whistleblower: The Silence that Kills
Aug 23, 2015, Columbus (OH) Dispatch: Pediatric Research: Long-term studies needed on autism screenings
BeforeItsNews.com
It's now been a year since William Thompson, long-time CDC researcher, publicly admitted he concealed evidence that indicted the MMR vaccine for its connection to autism.
. . . We want to hear from him in a public setting, in front of a hearing where he can speak at length, where he can fill in details, where he can air all his claims without censorship.
At the moment, the possibility of such a hearing is remote, because the US Congress is bought and sold.
Another call for hearings. Another charge that the cover-up extends to Congress.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently released a draft report of its recommendations on screening for autism in young children.
Many believe that the task force missed the mark because its report is at odds with autism advocacy organizations and the screening guidelines of several professional societies.
The task force concluded that there is insufficient evidence for screening all young children for autism. It also determined that there is insufficient evidence to recommend against screening.
The word insufficient is a formal term used by the task force to mean there are not enough hard facts to justify a recommendation. After nearly two years of a detailed data review, the only clear recommendation is a call for more research.
The draft report rubs professional societies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics the wrong way.
Dr. John Barnard, president of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, is concerned about autism. He writes the recent questions being raised over autism screening at well-baby visits. He thinks we need a study of the effectiveness of such screening. (I sent him an email and posted the comment below telling him a report on NPR in April revealed that most doctors aren't doing the screenings anyway and the AAP called for universal screening eight years ago.)
Barnard can't bring himself to refer to autism as a crisis (it's only a "concern") and he doesn't bother to give us the rate.
WHEN WILL DOCTORS GET SERIOUS ABOUT AUTISM? I asked Dr. Barnard. I await his response with eager anticipation.
Dear Dr. Barnard,
I read your piece about the need for long-term studies on the effectiveness of screening young children for autism in the face of the findings of the Preventive Services Task Force.
"The task force concluded that there is insufficient evidence for screening all young children for autism. It also determined that there is insufficient evidence to recommend against screening."
Yes, it is true that the American Academy of Pediatrics is in favor of screening all children for autism. It was hyped at their annual meeting in 2007.
That was eight years ago, yet this story from NPR, Aril 15, 2015, revealed ". . . most doctors and other health care practitioners aren't trained to identify those early signs."
It's clear that autism is not a major concern for either mainstream medicine or public health officials.
"It is not clear where this story will lead, but we should not leave it at irreconcilable differences. At the very least, the task force’s report should serve as an embarrassing wake up call for government agencies and nonprofit foundations . . ."
What should be an embarrassing wakeup call for doctors and government agencies is autism itself. While you don't mention the current rate, it's one in every 68 children in the U.S., one in every 42 boys.
The definition of autism was broadened to include high functioning Asperger's Syndrome in 1994. A once rare disorder immediately had a dramatic rate increase. And it shows no signs of stabilizing.
1995 1:500
2001 1:250
2004 1:166
2007 1:150
2009 1:110
2012 1:88
2014 1:68
With each increase there was a public health official right there to assure us that they weren't sure if THIS INCREASE represented a true increase in the number of affected children. All the kids with an autism diagnosis everywhere, as we're constantly told, are just the result of "better diagnosing" on the part of doctors. In other words, they're always been here, we just called them something else.
The problem with the claim of better diagnosing is that no one has ever been able to show us a comparable rate among adults--especially adults with severe autism whose symptoms are easily recognized. The rate is always based on studies of eight years, not eighty year olds. Maybe additional research should look for adults with autism. (And if we can't find adults with autism like was see in our children, what does that tell us?)
Dr. Barnard, you refer to autism as "a major public health concern." That is also the strongest language ever used by officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when speaking about autism. The disorder with no known cause, prevention, or cure continues to be something less that a crisis to those in charge.
"Autism is a major public health concern with long-term emotional and financial effects for millions of families in the United States."
What will it take to make autism an official CRISIS in the U.S.? When will doctors be able to explain to parents why healthy, normally developing children suddenly lose learned skills, including speech, and regress into autism? This regression is often accompanied by other chronic health problems like bowel disease and seizures? Doctors attribute this to the mystery of autism.
"I hope the report will motivate urgent funding of a large-scale study specifically designed to answer the question of universal screening and early intervention."
There has been a pathetic response to an epidemic of neurologically impaired children in America. We've had years of dead-end official population studies linking autism to bad behavior and bad choices by parents. Studies blame old moms, young moms, fat moms, drinking moms, smoking moms, mom who take antidepressants, moms who marry old dads, moms who have babies too close together and moms who live too close to highways. (It seems we are not far removed from the days of blaming "refrigerators mothers" for autism.) Millions of dollars have been wasted looking for the genetic cause of autism. Maybe when a million children with autism age out of school and are dependent on the taxpayers for their support and care we'll get serious about addressing this disorder.
The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Lee Silsby Compounding Pharmacy and OurKidsASD. Lee Silsby is one of the most respected compounding pharmacies in the country and is committed to serving the needs of the Autism community. OurkidsASD is an online retailer for nutritional supplements for patients with special needs. OurkidsASD carries thousands of products from more than 60 brands and offers free ground shipping on all orders.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which is on sale now from Skyhorse Publishing.
Thanks, Anne. They should stop doing something they aren't doing, because they aren't seeing a benefit from it? Kind of like that vitamin study that didn't see benefits in the vitamin taking group that wasn't taking them? I wonder if such a policy under ACA required record keeping and coding would have to be tracked, and there's "no value" in that?
I think this is another link for the BeforeItsNews.Com post:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/cdc-vaccine-whistleblower-the-silence-that-kills/
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | August 24, 2015 at 11:57 PM
CNN iReport post by Jon Rappoport on Posey's speech:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1265699
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | August 24, 2015 at 11:12 PM