Sharyl Attkisson Reports: Flu Shots Not Effective in Elderly
Weekly Wrap: Eight Years of Age of Autism, and a Chance to Double (and Deduct!) Your Money

New Estimate 1 in 45 American Children Have Autism

Blue tearThis should shock Americans for two reasons. One, the sheer epidemic numbers of this life and demographic landscape altering diagnosis is appalling and unacceptable. Two, the CDC continues to prove its inability to keep track of American medical conditions and provide any measure of protection.  Like school shootings, autism has continued to rage across the nation unabated. Cui bono? Not families. Not the children, many of whom are now young adults.

Detroit News

— The government has a new estimate for autism — 1 in 45 U.S. children — but other federal calculations say the developmental disorder is less common.

The latest figure released Friday is one of three estimates that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives for autism based on different surveys; the most rigorous one gives a lower estimate of 1 in 68 children.

The new number is from a survey of parents of 13,000 children, who were asked last year if their child were ever diagnosed with autism or a related disorder. The lower CDC estimate is from researchers checking health and school records for more than 47,000 children.

The 1 in 68 will still be treated as the best estimate, said Michael Rosanoff, director of public health research for the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

But the new number supports a belief that 1 in 68 is an underestimate, he added.  Read more at Detroit News.

Comments

Stewart Simonson

Correlations between autism and high gain microwave radiation antennas in California

https://www.academia.edu/18019528/Evidence_for_increased_autism_due_to_electromagnetic_pollution_from_high_power_high_gain_microwave_antennas

cia parker

I think we also need to categorize kids with autism. I'm totally willing to believe it's one in forty or one in twenty, but realistically speaking, most of these are not severely impaired. I'd really like to know how many are as impaired as my daughter, or more impaired. In middle school she was in an autism class for one hour a day of social skills, which was way over my daughter's head. It taught things like how to negotiate with teachers. Give me a break. My daughter is struggling to say Hi, how are you? Great! in the correct order. She was the least verbal student in that autism class. We ran into a boy from her class, and he said Hi, are you C's mom? It's nice to meet you. I'm ---, from her autism class. ??? He seemed absolutely typical to me. We need to define categories and classify the kids, and then count them.

cia parker

Linda,
Have you read Robert Mendelsohn's How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor? I hope we never see the day when it is mandated to take your child to the doctor whenever he is sick. What next? Make it a law that you have to give them whatever drug the doctor recommends? Tens of thousands of parents have taken their families' health back into our own hands and rarely go to the doctor. The last time I took C to the doctor, other than three perfunctory check-ups in the years she did horseback riding therapy, was ten years ago, once for a sinus infection which I thought might have on miserably for a long time, and once when she had a mold allergy and wheezed all night long for several months. The doctor wanted to put her on a steroid, but I have a horror of steroids, asked if it would be life-threatening if I refused it, he said no, and I refused it. They depress the immune system and stunt growth. I thought it was going to be a permanent seasonal allergy, but she never got it again after that one late summer and fall of '06. I have many books on natural remedies and use them all the time. I just bought some ferrum phos 6x to use next time we're getting a cold. I never go to the doctor either, and would have to think a million times before taking any prescription drug. And I think we're the healthier for avoiding the doctor. How would they enforce making parents take sick children to the doctor? Have spies everywhere phoning in reports of children seen coughing or blowing their nose? God forbid.

Doctors feel they are occupying a niche, however spider-like that niche is. If they can't even find ten minutes to research vaccines however perfunctorily, I'm certain they're not going to take responsibility for scientific collaboration. I hope they one day mandate that doctors type in a simple report on all their patients so the information can be collated in a database to be studied, but would it be possible to prevent that situation from turning into a police-state sort of surveillance?

Linda1

Cia,
My mouth just about hit the floor years ago when I asked my son's MD, a specialist, about current research and the doc's answer was that he doesn't know, he doesn't get involved in that end, he's "just a clinician". That was the day that I realized that he had no intention of ever curing my son, that my son's illness was his bread and butter.

There must have been a time when doctors were not just robotic parasites. Whether that is true or not, what needs to happen is that the everyday practice of medicine needs to be a part of research. Everyday clinical findings and clinical experience needs to be rolled into the knowledge base and examined and reexamined in an ongoing relentless emergent endeavor to figure out what the hell is going on here. Patients should not be merely subjected to a checklist, then stamped with "autistic" and sent on their way to struggle on their own for the rest of their lives. There should be extensive testing, investigation and analysis of each case, each child, and then the medical community should be meeting frequently on their own initiative to compare notes. I am not talking about researchers. All practicing pediatricians should be working OVERTIME, frantically putting their heads and resources together to define this host of conditions now lumped together as autism which is literally stealing and ruining lives. Pediatricians and the whole medical community need to take responsibility and the practice standard for the medical profession as a whole needs to be reformed so that any pediatrician without a high level of skills and productivity, should lose his/her license. This is their responsibility. If there is a "puzzle", especially a puzzle causing an epidemic, they need to figure it out as soon as humanly possible and not pass the buck to some "researcher" elsewhere, or to the CDC or the NIH or Autism Speaks. They need to step up and grab hold of this problem because it is THEIR PROBLEM TO SOLVE. And if they won't, the problem needs to be taken away from them because they are either too lazy, unwilling and/or incompetent to do the necessary work.

Who is going to pay for all this testing and care? This is where the billions of dollars should be going. Not to these idiots who torture lab mice all day long and to the parasitic Insell's of the medical industrial complex, not to blue light bulbs and expensive cute PSAs, not to CEOs and administrators who manage "charitable org" funds and public relations, not to raising awareness, while actual patients go without proper care and adequate expert analysis. The activities of all these people are a complete waste of tax and charitable dollars, as are the activities of the IAAC. All that money should go directly to the pediatrician's effort to intensely investigate and treat each patient with the goal of finding etiology and a way to reversal and prevention. Each pediatrician should be reaching out for and demanding that this occur, and the medical societies should be laser focused on this responsibility, this duty that is theirs alone, by virtue of their licensing and the authority given to them by society. Your kid is sick? You go to a doctor. If you don't, it's medical neglect, by law. You can go to prison and/or lose custody of your children for not purchasing their services. Medical doctors must then practice according to a very high standard, which is far from the case now.

That's what should be happening. But then if they look, they will find that they are the problem. Autism prevention will require a major overhaul to the practice of pediatrics. That's why pediatricians go along with the CDC. They're in too deep. A proper investigation will lead back to pediatricians as perpetrators of a great crime against humanity. That's why autism remains a puzzle, not only pathophysiologically, but in simply counting cases. We're told all that is too hard to figure out. We can't expect this crime to ever be solved when the detective is the perpetrator.

cia parker

@Cia,
You're right, and studies have also shown that these diseases are much more frequent among the vaccinated. Just ANOTHER form of vaccine damage. We may run out of words to describe all the kinds of severe, permanent damage caused by vaccines. Although I guess they might cover them all with vaccine-induced inflammatory bowel disease. Maybe separate them into vaccine-induced chronic brain inflammation resulting in autism, ADHD, seizure disorders, and/or learning disabilities, and vaccine-induced chronic GI inflammation resulting in constipation, diarrhea, colitis, Crohn's disease and/or colitis. I think they say that celiac disease isn't caused by vaccines, but maybe they've changed that opinion.

Bayareamom

@Cia Parker,

That article, as noted above, was written in 1984! That's why this article is so significant:

"If physicians only understood that... they are giving a neurological poison... it isn’t a secret, except it’s not generally known."

For the most part, physicians learn about DPT vaccine at medical school, in medical journals and in the leaflet manufacturers include with the vaccine. The national Centers for Disease Control provides updated information for parents through public health clinics.

"I tell students very little," said Dr. Philip A. Brunell, professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas in San Antonio and chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Red Book committee. "That’s a major problem at medical schools. We are derelict in that..."


Read what these physicians are stating! Believe me, you would NEVER, EVER read something like this in today's literature.

I hope people who read this article that I've posted, will share it far and wide. Most especially the younger parents today need to read this...

Benedetta

Has the new rules from the new DSM book for diagnosing autism taken effect for the new little 7 to 8 years old, yet?

Perhaps the parents they called are the 9 year olds? Would that be how this could be?

Benedetta

I thought that when they rewrote the DSM book and teased out the PPD-NOS into communication disorders that it would decrease the numbers that have autism?

How can this BE?

cia parker

Bayareamom,
Your links to classrooms fifty to seventy years ago were fascinating, I got sidetracked with suggested videos in the margin, an English preschool in the '30s with the latest modern coat rack, others with all the rooms in a typical English house in the '40s, one which showed how the mom carefully closed double layers of curtains during the black out during the War. A coal saver with a dial which said Break Hitler's nose. Your favorite was neat, about how CAREFUL all the pupils were not to make ANY noise which might disturb the others. How long will it be before people decide that we want and need to go back to that. I recognize that it was staged for the camera, but I remember how quiet and orderly the large classes were in the '60s. My school in Las Vegas was state-of-the-art, funded with taxes from the casinos, but when we moved to Jefferson City when I was in the fifth grade, I had a wooden desk with a lift-up top, a hole for an ink bottle, and a groove at the top for pencils, like the desks in the 1950 video. Cool nostalgia.

@Cia

Not to mention that Crohn's and Crliac disease is exploding!

Science is pure.  People are corrupt

Greg -

'The last time the schedule increased was in the late 90s so indeed we should expect this age group of 3 to 17 yrs to have relatively the same autism rate.'

Bear in mind also that children born during the late 80s and early 90s at the start of the wave of autoimmune illness are now old enough to be parents, and their children will have increased susceptibility.

cia parker

Linda,
There was a behavioral checklist by which classic Kanner's autism was diagnosed. I have thought about there seeming to be other, primarily GI, conditions which seem to be called autism now. I really think they need to come up with a new name for conditions other than Kanner's autism, since, as you say, it muddies the waters when you can shove cases here and there into different categories at will.

cia parker

Bayareamom,

Why in the world would Andrew Dodd say that physicians are innocent victims? They know about the furor, many of them are kicking out patients who don't comply with all the vaccines. They can't take ten minutes to even google the dangers of the different vaccines, not even to save the life of their patients? They are guilty as SIN, no excuses. And parents who don't take ten minutes to investigate the vaccines they're thinking about getting for their children are almost as guilty. I had a friend who said that doctors are just SO busy saving lives that they DON'T have even ten minutes to google the questions using alternative sources of information. Sure, they have time for golf and cruises in the Caribbean, but no time for finding out if they're killing or disabling many of their patients? (Her father is a retired doctor, so I guess it's a case of circling the wagons around your own.)

Linda1 on "50 Cents a Dose"

Cia,
I think there is more than one condition labeled autism, but we'll never know because those in charge of finding out are too busy building service businesses to take advantage of whatever it is. They don't seem to have a need to know what they're treating, as long as the money is good and there's plenty to go around.

The whole enterprise is a sham, from the vaccine manufacturers to the regulators in bed with them and the robotic pediatricians on autopilot giving the vaccines and not having the expertise to know what they're doing. Autism should have been well defined a long time ago, and the epidemic rise in cases should have been given top epidemiologic and clinical priority. Instead the health care system is permanently out to lunch, because autism is a euphemism for brain damage caused by birth injury or environmental toxins, the most prevalent being vaccines, brain damage that the health care system will ignore and deflect blame for, for as long as they can.

Re the woman who thinks she can count cases once every decade - in another decade it will be Game Over.

cia parker

Greg and John,
Prevnar was recommended in 2001, but due to shortages was not universally available until 2004. The hep-A vaccine was available in the '90s, but no one ever proposed giving it to my daughter, so I don't think it was on the recommended list. Gardasil was introduced in the US in 2006. The flu vaccine first recommended for all children in 2004.

Bayareamom

Didn't know where to put this, but will put it here, and above:

http://www.whale.to/vaccines/fresno4.html

SNIP:

Are doctors told enough?
Fresno Bee, DPT report 1984

"Doctors are as much victims as we are. They do what the American Academy of Pediatrics says," said Ed Hodges, president of California Dissatisfied Parents Together.

"Physicians are innocent victims," said Los Angeles attorney Andrew Dodd." It’s a very sad situation and it’s a scandal, in my opinion, of enormous proportions. And I’m ashamed of it. I am ashamed that I know more than a pediatrician [about pertussis vaccine]. That is not right."

Dr. Kevin Geraghty: "A pediatrician is more likely to believe that the dangers of his stethoscope choking him are higher than DPI causing the degree of damage that I would say it does."

When Geraghty began studying DPT vaccine 18 months ago, he said his goal was to debunk the critics of the vaccine. "I am a pediatric immunologist; I was trained in immunology. It didn’t take very long for me to know something was very, very wrong."

But another doctor might not know that. Said Dodd: "When he is administering a mass-immunization product — polio, rubella, DPT — he assumes that the vaccine is almost as sate as water. ‘Mass immunization product’ — that means something to him.

"...He’s not going to take the time to read the medical literature because he knows the reactions. . . are very, very rare. The trouble is It’s wrong. it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

"If physicians only understood that... they are giving a neurological poison... it isn’t a secret, except it’s not generally known."

For the most part, physicians learn about DPT vaccine at medical school, in medical journals and in the leaflet manufacturers include with the vaccine. The national Centers for Disease Control provides updated information for parents through public health clinics.

"I tell students very little," said Dr. Philip A. Brunell, professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas in San Antonio and chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Red Book committee. "That’s a major problem at medical schools. We are derelict in that. ..

There also are differences in practice in various parts of the world. For example, doctors in Japan, Europe and Soviet-bloc countries generally do not give DPT shots to children with histories of neurologic problems.

U.S. manufacturers have included that caution for years in the leaflets that are shipped with the vaccine. But until two major medical groups made the same suggestion earlier this year, the practice did not become standard in this country.

Manufacturers revise the product leaflet periodically, with necessary approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Over the years, there have been disagreements about what the leaflets should say..."

In June 1979, Wyeth Laboratories wanted to include warnings about crib death, based on reports from the CDC.

Wyeth wanted to say the vaccine should not be given when there are signs of fever, acute respiratory or other infection, failure to thrive, neurologic disorders or periodic breathing problems — including those associated with crib death.

"We deem it imperative that these changes be incorporated in our package circular as soon as possible," wrote Dr. Alan Bernstein, Wyeth’s managing director.

Dr. Harry M. Meyer Jr., then director of FDA’s Bureau of Biologics, replied July 11, 1979. He agreed to insert the crib death information into the section on side effects and adverse reactions, but refused to include it in a section telling doctors when not to use the vaccine.

Meyer wrote, "There is no evidence that such a change would prevent crib death, yet it would certainly deprive many infants of protection against pertussis during the months when exposure to whooping cough is most likely to result in life-threatening or disabling disease."

Four months earlier, the Bureau of Biologics had heard Dr. Daniel C. Shannon of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston describe adverse reactions to DPT in 200 infants who already had a brush with crib death and were on breathing monitors.

Twenty percent of those infants had another near-death reaction within 24 hours of DPT shots.

"We do have this data," Shannon said at the meeting. "It is all recorded

However, those details were not included, in two articles published in medical journals. Shannon explained that they were excluded because "I can’t say there definitely appears to be an association. I haven’t done the kind of study that needs to be done."

cia parker

Greg,
The schedule increased in 2004 when they added the flu vaccine every year for children: before that it was not recommended for healthy children. And many of those kids have gotten the mercury-containing version (not that the mercury-free version is by any means safe). Prevnar was added in 2002: they never proposed giving it to my daughter, born in 2000, but we used to go to a play group in 2002 where a Korean mom said they had given her one-year old son Prevnar that day, and asked me if I knew what it was for. Many places added hep-A in the oughts. Wasn't Gardasil introduced in the early oughts? The autism and other disabilities caused by these additions are still being played out.

cia parker

Linda,
The problem is that there is no clinical test for diagnosing autism, it is just done by checking off items on a list: if you check five items in the abnormal development and use of speech, and three items in either the group of symptoms in the deficient social interactions list or the perseverative, stimming, hand/arm flapping, toe walking group, then that adds up to a diagnosis of autism. I diagnosed my daughter myself, and when I took her to the public school and said she had autism but had never been diagnosed by a doctor, the speech therapist (the one we ran into at roller skating a month ago) asked me how I had been able to correctly diagnose her myself. Duh! If you get a "professional" diagnosis, you just have to pay an arm and a leg to have them stentorously ask you if your child does the items on the list with a certain frequency, they check them off, then add them up. Seven plus four equals autism.

cia parker

Visitor,
They'll have to call it something other than neurotypical since autism will be the norm.

Barry

In fact the rate seems to have risen ~240% in seven years, so actually the situation is catastrophically awful and getting worse - more cases at the younger end, and more to come

*********
Hmmm…. 240 % increase in just seven years, marked by a higher percentage of cases at the younger end.

Wasn't it about seven years ago, when the CDC switched its stance and started recommending flu shots for pregnant mothers? And then shortly afterward, added toddlers to the list as well?

cia parker

Thank you, Bayareamom, I'm glad there's some evidence. I wish they put it on the evening news once a week, juxtaposing classrooms then and now.

cia parker

HW,
Our county case manager last year said that the numbers of the autistic really were exploding, that ALL of them were still living at home with their parents, and that the state had NO plans for feeding and housing them when the parents die or go into nursing homes. The new case manager told me that autistic young people over 18 get between two and seven hundred dollars a month in SS Disability. Right. WHAT are they going to do when all these kids rely on public support for their continued existence? We're talking BILLIONS! Just imagine what the press is going to say when the truth finally comes out, public outrage, and, I hope, deep public shame when they realize how stupidly misplaced their trust in the authorities was, and how much their stupidity is going to affect their pocketbook for the rest of their lives.

Cynthia Cournoyer

Lately the "news" isn't afraid to blatantly report the new autism numbers. The vaccine skeptics will see it as confirming what they already believe or react to it with new energy to fight. The pro vaccine side always has ulterior motives when they come out with such devastating news that never corresponds with the needed outrage. And that is, a natural progression toward making autism a normal part of childhood. They tried explaining it in a myriad of ways... pollution, older parents, better diagnosing, manipulating stats, and nothing makes it go away.

So the only thing left to do is to make it normal so we will stop looking for reasons, treatments or cures. Articles like these and those that will follow have an underlying theme: JUST ACCEPT IT ALREADY!

Maybe we can study this in reverse. When autism is one in two children, maybe some curious scientist will study the child who is not showing signs of autism and try to figure out why!

Jeannette Bishop

The prenatal vaccine schedule increased/changed (the H1N1 pandemic involved two flu vaccines that year) during this time frame.

They really ought to release the data by birth year.

Cherry Misra

@Greg - You are absolutely right. How can we explain it any other way- senior public health people , even today, requesting the governor of California, to allow flu shots with mercury to be given to children and pregnant women- when all the mercury toxicologists say things like
"There is no safe level of mercury in vaccines"
"I consider the ethylmerury in vaccines to be the most dangerous form of mercury."
The only way you can explain such a request, is that someone has some inside information that the autism rate in California is FALLING after the removal of mercury in 2006 (law instituted) and they dont want the doctors to notice that and figure out the truth. So they have come up with with two bright ideas-
1. Dont give out yearly data on incidence- Give it out for decades at a time.
2. Put some mercury BACK in the vaccines so that the rate does not fall TOO MUCH.
Am I wrong? Dont hesitate to tell me so if you think so.
I only get to see one area of California, where I notice that the classroom that has the youngest autistic kids has fewer kids every year and the kids seem to have mild autism. ( Ha Ha the teacher of the class gets furious when I ask the aides, waiting outside the classroom if they have noticed the number of kids decreasing.) "Thats confidential information! " she screeches. I wonder why she is so invested in the rate of autism ????? She need not worry- The aides are clueless. It never occurred to them to ponder such questions.
Hey friends, Dont you just love it when the CDC special forces go to the ends of the Earth to ferret out the diagnosis of some kid who has a disorder which affects one in a hundred thousand children? ( and ignores the million kids with autism)

Reader

I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg and his wife will give their baby girl every single vaccine on time, including hep B at birth and 6 month flu vaccine??? They had several miscarriages...

John Stone

Greg

To put it another way this is just slightly more subtle news management than usual. It is to say there is a concern but nothing much to worry about - when in fact the figures show that the whole thing is completely out of control (vaccines, environmental toxins, EMF, whatever): it is ridiculous manipulation of opinion. It is really another way of saying "Nothing to see here folks, move along please". Actually, the more I read it, the madder I feel. And at what point will Jill stop feeling cool, God help us?!

@John and Greg

There are also many more combination vaccines. MMRV and Pediarix or such. And 9 year old boys and girls are being given HPV vaccine. Children are certainly having more seizures and auto-immune disease is vastly rising, especially among women. Flu vaccine every year from 6 month is certainly significant.

Greg

http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/have-i-been-vaccinated

John, the above link provides a timeline of past vaccination schedules. The current schedule has remained pretty much the same since the 2000s. Your comment re introduction of the flu vaccine and strict adherence to timing, however, is duly noted.

Cheers, Greg

John Stone

Greg

I think you have to weigh the fact that Jill Escher is vaguely concerned against the low key approach. In fact the rate seems to have risen ~240% in seven years, so actually the situation is catastrophically awful and getting worse - more cases at the younger end, and more to come. Is it right that US schedule has not changed since the late 90s? But what about flu vaccine? What about tighter adherence to timing?

John Stone

Science is simple

Well, thats interesting and mark that diagnosis in that age group is not going to be complete.

Greg

John, to be fair, I found nothing troubling with Jill Escher’s argument that we should look beyond year to year and consider the decade to decade numbers. Indeed, with this study, the year to year increase isn’t that alarming, with its finding that there may be some diagnostic substitution going on, supported by the overall DD figure only growing marginally. And John, again, to be fair, these are the numbers we should expect. If one believes that vaccines cause autism (as I firmly do) then kids vaccinated on the same schedule should have the same autism rate.

The last time the schedule increased was in the late 90s so indeed we should expect this age group of 3 to 17 yrs to have relatively the same autism rate. What we should not expect to see is kids that were born prior 2000s, or in previous decades, having the same autism rate, and the decade-to-decade numbers are indeed confirming this autism explosion. Essentially saying autism is not increasing, while referring to current younger kids, is the greatest non sequitor that does not address the bigger argument of whether there has been an exponentially increase in autism among generations of kids. It’s the greatest sham of an argument that we ‘anti-vaxxers’ continually call-out when we ask to be shown the autistic kids in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

A previous commenter mentioned that this study is meant to confuse. I agree and would point out that it’s meant to confuse in a certain way. We have reached a point that autism has exploded to such a dramatic rate that its impact and cost to society can no longer be ignored. Public health officials really do want to sound the alarm bell, but in doing so, they also don’t want to raise suspicion as to what is fueling the rise. This study that points out the dramatic rate and while it provides figures that muddle the waters as to whether there is a true increase is a furtive attempt to achieve these apparently incompatible aims.

Science is pure.  People are corrupt.

John Stone -

The numbers given equate to a rate of approximately one in forty of three to ten year old children, so they do show that the rate is continuing to rise although the study methods do not lend themselves to putting much faith in the exact percentages.

John Stone

Greg

I don't know why Jill Escher isn't concerned about the annual trend as well as the decade on decade trend given that it gets worse by the year. It certainly reduces the urgency if you can say lets come back in ten years and see where we are. But wouldn't that be stupid?

Bearing in mind this is a survey of 3 to 17 year olds you really need to to look at what is going on at the younger end - this apparently is an update of the survey which gave a figure of 1 in 110 in 2007, so the older part of the cohort ought to be in the earlier study: the rate would likely be way above 1 in 45 at the younger end for this to balance out.

Greg

So we now have 1 in 45 autistic kids, but it's no real increase, just better detection?

Taken from the Washington Post, here’s a reaction to the 1 in 45 rate…..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/11/13/autism-cases-in-u-s-rise-to-1-in-45-a-look-at-who-gets-the-diagnosis-in-8-simple-charts/


“It’s not the year to year numbers that concern us. It’s the decade to decade. The fact that we have 1 in 45 children with a very serious neurological condition is a catastrophe by any measure,” said Jill Escher, president of the Autism Society of San Francisco.

Bolstering this statement is this previous study by the CDC on trends in the prevalence of developmental disability and autism over decade (1997 –2008)

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/developmentaldisabilities/features/birthdefects-dd-keyfindings.html

Over the last 12 years, the
Prevalence of DDs has increased 17.1%—that’s about 1.8 million more children with DDs in 2006–2008 compared to a decade earlier;
Prevalence of autism increased 289.5%;

No real increase? We think not!

PANDAS Mom

I think the one and only purpose of this AP article was to confuse people.

Patience (Eileen Nicole) Simon

Linda1, excellent insights!!! Bob Moffatt also. Put search term autism into nypost.com, and read about Darius McCollum!!! The other day Greyhound was missing a bus, but found its gps in Brooklyn with guess who behind the wheel? And he told the police he's stealing a plane next. Looks like we'll have many more such characters ridin' around in the future.

Linda1

Could you imagine if they did cancer epidemiology this way? Lump all forms of cancer into just "cancer" and determine prevalence by asking a couple of thousand people every once in a while if they have "cancer"?

Not even attempting to get an accurate count, or to distinguish between the different forms? Lung, brain, lymph, blood, colon, skin, kidney, etc., all lumped into one inaccurate estimate. That's what they're doing with autism. High functioning, low functioning, verbal, nonverbal, comorbidities, etc. No attempt to find out prevalence along the spectrum.

I just saw this on Autism Speaks' site under diagnosis:

"The American Psychiatric Association is currently revising the medical definition of autism spectrum disorder in ways that are expected to change its diagnostic characteristics. This change will go into effect in May 2013. Stay tuned for more information!"

For how many years do we have to "stay tuned"? How pathetic is that?

And, the AAP has acknowledged that there is a "knowledge gap" in pediatricians when it comes to autism. This is a euphemistic way of saying that pediatricians are incompetent. Any pediatrician who is not an expert on autism SHOULD NOT HAVE A LICENSE TO PRACTICE PEDIATRIC MEDICINE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPfGUcBaTxg
https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/diagnosis

Linda1

So is this latest pronouncement meant to make sure that young parents line up for "services"? Is the motivation purely economic? An advertisement for the autism industry?

Why are they surveying parents and not looking at official medical records for diagnoses? Because the former is easy to discredit?

In what other condition is epidemiology determined by stopping the man on the street to ask for a casual yes or no, do you think you have this disorder?

Bob Moffitt

Today's .. Saturday .. insert of USA contained a SMALL item under headline "In Brief .. more than 2% of kids have autism" with the predictable response .. longer than the report received .. by Katherine Walton, an assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology at Ohio State University .. who wasn't involved in the study .. claiming .. "the dramatic increase in autism rates in this latest survey suggests that parents used different labels to describe their children than in earlier years".

As pitiful as the "coverage" that USA Today gave the stunning statistic of "1 in 45 children .. more than 2% of all children" offered .. the NY Post was worse .. as evidenced by NO MENTION of the study .. instead squandering their "small items" on really important things .. such as .. John Lennon's birthday, a panda cub's first steps .. and .. the deer population in Staten Island is growing.

How in God's name do these editors consider themselves worthy of their profession .. indeed .. how do they sleep at night?

Visitor

This says it all.

"Better diagnoses -- and improved strategies for estimating prevalence -- may be useful to parents who want to get improved treatment for their children at an early age, added Walton.

"I think people should understand that autism is a relatively common condition at this point and if you are concerned about your child... there are an increasing number of services out there," she said."

http://www.afp.com/en/news/autism-rate-doubles-us-one-45-kids-survey

"At this point." !!!!!!!!

Visitor

How prevalent does Autism have to become before it is found to actually have become more prevalent. The lens they look through causes whatever rate found to be only the rate at which it has always been. It is truly pathological thinking on the matter. In 20 years the reports will be talking about a condition called "neurotypical" and whether they have always been around and how the condition is caused by not vaccinating.

Bayareamom

@Cia,

Just found a few videos from back in the 1960's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eEf313VjH0;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XIo3eLq7aw;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acNny_uNP1Q;

This one is my favorite; it's called "QUIET IN THE SCHOOL," circa 1950:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSMZkTL77gE

Honestly, the above is pretty much what school life was like for many of us (circa 1960's). Not so much anymore, is it...

HW

Who funds TASH? The government? So the government (TASH) and pHarma (ASAN) are the main sponsors of this potentially abusive and ineffective FC that they are classifying as "pseudoscience." It's bloody unreal.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/11/facilitated_communication_pseudoscience_harms_people_with_disabilities.2.html

HW

Mitsubishi? Biopharmaceuticals...it is just too funny and ironic that they try and turn around and blame the FC nonsense and abuse on pseudoscience, when it appears pharma is actually one of the major backers of groups like ASAN who have promoted it.

Lori Stella

Where are all the autistic adults over 30? I guess they all grew out of it. All the county DD boards are scrambling to accommodate those now aging out of school. Apparently they believed the "better diagnosis" tale.

HW

The interesting aspect of the Slate article was the attempt to lump it in with "pseudoscience" and of course Dr. Wakefield's name was mentioned. ASAN was mentioned but I wonder who funds ASAN?

Angus Files

And the ratio is 4-1 boys with autism...safe to say 1-11 boys now autistic..going by the figures

MMR RIP

HW

Well, well. Slate has an article out today talking about the pseudoscience of FC (fascillitated communication). Looks like Ari Neeman and ASAN are about to be called on their bs. We need to stress that it is this sunshine and rainbows view of autism (likely fronted by pHarma itself) that is trying to vastly underestimate this growing tragedy. This autism problem is costing us billions and what price emotionally?

British Autism Mother

@Anna Quandt I used to advise people to look at the State of California Department of Developmental Services (think that's the title) which used to have a comprehensive website. This listed autism numbers back into the 70s(?) and included ten-yearly reports, one of which I seem to remember recorded a 273% increase over ten years. It should be noted that children under 3 years were not counted neither were those people with a diagnosis of Asperger's.

Jeannette Bishop

"Dr. Wakefield, October 2nd 2015, Salt Lake City"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F0yWke_oMU around 4:45 minutes...

"if you extrapolate... the risk ... today in America is 1 in 25......and if you take this line ... and extrapolate it out...2032... when 1 in 2 of the population has autism, you either have it or you care for someone with it."

Linda1

Cia,
I bet your daughter's speech therapist is not old enough to remember that far back.

You know, the computerized medical records that are being mandated and currently implemented across the country have a link on each patient record for immunization status. I believe the link goes directly to a CDC database. If they can do that and have up to date knowledge of the vaccination status of the entire country and each individual, why can't they have a field for entering autism spectrum diagnoses that also goes to a CDC database? Of course, they can, but they don't. Why?

Anna Quandt

Can someone please point me toward an article explaining the methodology of measuring autism prevalence. How is it done, how often, by whom.
When I worked in international family planning, an incredible effort was made to measure contraceptive prevalence accurately. I now get the feeling we have more accurate numbers for contraceptive prevalence in Ghana than we do for autism prevalence in California.
Where do I go to learn about the measurement problem?

cia parker

I told my daughter's speech therapist this morning about the new CDC figure, and she said it's because many children have always had it, but it's just been recently that there's been a push to diagnose them. I, of course, said no, it's the increase in those who get the recommended vaccine schedule, but I don't think what I said made any difference to her opinion, which I'm sure is going to be the general reaction. Part of the universal belief that people twenty years ago or longer were unintelligent, unperceptive, and incapable of recognizing the flood of severely disabled children all around them, and just thought, since they read, behaved, and conversed normally, that they were normal. Are there archived videos of classrooms of yore showing that all thirty of the children in classes then could speak, write, converse, read and comprehend, and sit quietly and obediently in class? And if they think the autistic ones were all shunted to farms in the country or locked in special ed rooms, can they document their assertions?

educator

Early educators put it at more like 1 in 24.

no-vac

IMO autism prevalence is much greater than 1 in 45, perhaps 1 in 20/25, as many autistic children - especially those on milder end of the spectrum - have not been diagnosed professionally.

Greg

I sat on the fence initially, but it's a 'holocaust' plain and simple. Come with whatever excuse you want to justify the mass poisoning of kids, but it will never deminish the henious, evil and callousnes of it all.

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