Autism: The Other Global Pandemic
By Anne Dachel
Long Live The Big Lie
A number of years ago I started writing about something I call The Really Big Lie about Autism.
Here’s my original 2006 article about “The Really Big Lie.”
In the following years I put out additions to the “Really Big Lie” story because it’s the lie that can’t ever die.
So what is “The Really Big Lie”?
This is the rule written in stone that there has not been nor will ever be a real increase in the number of children with autism—no matter what the rate.
In my original piece in 2006 I talked about my experiences when my son, who is now 35, was first diagnosed in the 1990s. Back then autism was this rare, mysterious disorder.
It’s important to note that the U.S. autism rate back in 2006 was one in every 166 children, as announced in 2004. That, of course, was the result of “better diagnosing/no real increase.”
One in 166 is nothing compared to the statistics we’ve grown accustomed to over the years.
2007: one in 150, 2009: one in 110, 2012: one in 88, 2014: one in 68, 2018: one in 59, (also in 2018: one in 40 according to a separate study published in JAMA), 2020: one in 54.
STILL each and every increase was the same, no increase in the actual number of kids with autism.
I have to point out that there have been little additions to these inexplicable numbers, additions that were neatly and quickly swept away with no follow-up.
I’m talking about news reports on research showing that in many places the autism numbers are through the roof. For instance, North Carolina: one in 39, South Korea: one in 38, New Jersey: one in 32, Hong Kong: one in 27, Northern Ireland: one in 22, and most recently Toms River, NJ: one in every 14 students, one in every 8 boys.
There’s a lot of disparity here. Shouldn’t someone try to make sense out of unrelenting increases and figure out why individual places have such horrific numbers? Is there no end in sight? When will things get bad enough for health officials to wake up to what’s happening?
None of that will ever happen.
Each and every increase in autism has been explained away by some notable from the CDC, often in a US Public Health uniform, advising us that officials do not know if THIS increase shows a real increase in the number of children with autism. (Actually that cryptic statement means FROM THE LAST BIG LEAP IN THE AUTISM RATE, but the press dutifully reports on it as NO REAL INCREASE EVER.)
Arguably the medical community and US health officials have done nothing over the last 20 years to address the autism epidemic except watch the numbers of disabled children explode while telling us it wasn’t real.
It’s clear that three things are inevitable because events are beyond our control now:
- Autism statistics will not level out; they will only get worse because we’re doing nothing to stop them.
- Health officials will continue to accept whatever the numbers are with no alarm or even real concern. (No one at the CDC has ever referred to autism using the word “crisis.”)
- The CDC will continue to repeat “The Really Big Lie,” no matter how bad things get.
I added that third point because it’s way too late for anyone at the CDC to announce, “Oops, there really are more children with autism. It’s not better diagnosing/greater awareness/expanded definition. We messed up on this big time. Sorry.”
This brings me to the latest official fantasy about autism from the UK.
All one has to do is look at my website, Loss of Brain Trust to understand that Britain is on borrowed time when it comes to handling autism.
On Loss of Brain Trust I report on news stories about the decline of education due to the massive numbers of disabled students, and I show that the UK is now overwhelmed with special education costs, predominately because of the growth of autism.
The words “increased demand” and “expected growth” are endlessly chimed with no explanations given. Everywhere in Britain they are spending millions locally on new special schools/autism schools. The same thing is happening in Ireland.
The national government in each country pours billions into schools to provide for the disabled, yet educators continue to show no real alarm. The adjectives “excited” and “delighted” are often the terms used by officials when talking about having to add autism classes, units, and even building whole schools for autistic students. Don’t worry, everything is fine. We’re “delighted” to be doing this.
Projections
We’re also told it’s not going to stop. Many places in the UK expect the exponential growth to continue. County councils provide school funding, and they routinely forecast MORE AUTISTIC STUDENTS in the years to come.
So, how long can this disaster continue before everything just collapses moneywise?
There are some people raising questions. I’ve seen stories, but anyone even hinting that we should look into the special education numbers is immediately slammed as attacking the disabled.
In the midst of this impossible situation is the latest research from Exeter University in Britain. Only the totally clueless will take this seriously, but it is getting media attention. It’s the latest update on the REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM, a kind of new spin on the old lie.
A 787 percent increase in autism over the lasts 20 years in the UK is due to “increasing recognition” of the disorder in girls and in adults. Case closed.
Here’s the spin:
Irish Times:
The number of people diagnosed with autism in England has jumped more than twentyfold in two decades, with a greater rise among females and adults, new research has found.
University of Exeter researchers say the 787 per cent rise from 1998 to 2018, identified using the GP records of more than nine million patients, is likely due to increasing recognition and understanding of autism.
The UK Times:
A diagnosis of autism has become meaningless, one scientist has claimed, after the number of new cases rose by 787 per cent in two decades.
There has been an explosive growth in autism diagnoses in England, largely due to an increase in recognition. The rise, between 1998 and 2018, was greater in women than men, and the highest rise recorded in adult diagnosis.
Uta Frith, a neuroscientist and emeritus professor of cognitive development at University College London, said the figures showed that urgent changes were needed in how the condition is diagnosed. “It strongly suggests that the diagnosis of autism has been stretched to breaking point and has outgrown its purpose,” she said.
Medical Express:
The number of people diagnosed with autism has jumped by 787 percent in the past two decades, a new study shows, likely an effect of increasing recognition. The exponential increase—between 1998 and 2018—was greater for females than males, with the greatest rises among adults.
iNews:
Adult diagnoses have been a particular feature of the rise and the University of Exeter researchers who carried out the study believe the huge increase in cases is attributable primarily to better identification.
Daily Mail:
Autism diagnoses in England have soared nearly eight-fold in the past two decades, a study has shown.
UK researchers said the 'explosive' rise was likely due to increased awareness and screening for the condition. …
Lead author of the study Ginny Russel said this growth was driven by more cases in girls and adults, which suggested better identification of autism as the cause.
(Several of these stories do admit that a real increase “may have contributed to the increase in prevalence,” but that caveat is buried deep in the story and certainly not in the headline.)
The lie lives on.
So an autism rate that is based on studies of eight year olds is growing because we’re finally diagnosing it in two neglected groups, namely females, along with adults in general. How does that work exactly? No one asks.
In 2011 research from the UK showed that, as a result of a phone survey, the autism rate among adults was comparable to the rate we see in children. Case closed.
That was bogus of course, but it got a lot of press coverage. No one bothered to ask why the autism we see in children leaves them nonverbal, self-abusing, chronically ill and learning impaired. This group would hardly be able to respond to questions over the phone.
The latest “science” claiming that more females and adults diagnosed with autism explains why they’re building whole schools for autism in Britain is a real stretch of the imagination.
Studies like the one in 2011 and this latest one from the UK have to be funded of course. They’re the red herrings that allow everyone to sleep nights.
Annie You go girl. ROAR it out.
Posted by: Benedetta | October 05, 2021 at 09:44 AM
Francis Collins has resigned.
October the 4th; 2021.
2016, I stood in my garden about the same time of year, and had spiritual moment that caught me totally by surprise.
What does it mean?
Will Fauci be next?
Will then the data that Geiger and Geiger tried to extract, that JF Kennedy Jr. tried to extract with Trump's blessing in 2016 before the Devil waltz into the room in the form of Bill Gates be at last revealed?
Will we soon know for sure what the numbers are?
Is the truth coming?
I think it is. It feels like it is.
Posted by: Benedetta | October 05, 2021 at 12:01 AM
Bendetta,
I’ve perfected the art of mumbling & whispering. Time for me (us) to roar!
Posted by: annie | October 04, 2021 at 10:03 PM
Just to convey a sense of how much all of this is costing, our younger autistic daughter (Flora) is in a group home, not far from Toms River, where she costs of state of New Jersey $150,000 a year, considerably more than my salary. In economic terms she is basically unproductive, so we must add to that all the potential earnings lost over a lifetime. For the more severely affected, the cost of care is still higher. And that's purely the monetary cost, not counting the impoverished quality of life. Flora's group home is excellent, but we know of many terrible cases of abuse and neglect. The staff:resident ratio in her group home is roughly 1:1, so if 1 in 14 children in Toms River is autistic, we are gradually approaching the point where 1 in 7 New Jerseyites will be either autistic or taking care of someone who is autistic. Add to all that the fact that the national birth rate has been dropping steadily since 2007 (partly because of ovarian failure caused by the HPV vaccine), and you can see where all this is headed: an ever-growing population of retirees and the disabled supported by an ever-shrinking population of healthy, productive, and taxpaying workers. Eventual economic collapse seems inevitable.
Posted by: Jonathan Rose | October 04, 2021 at 07:51 PM
The religious argument was bolstered when Fauci used the word imprimatur about some CDC document or policy. This is a seal given by the Catholic church to approve a religious book. Freaked me out.
He knows he is preaching religion not science
Posted by: MR bodily integrity | October 04, 2021 at 05:38 PM
Cherry,
Thank you for your comments about regressive autism in India.
It’s a huge part of the cover-up. No one is interested in the children that were normally developing, but who then lost learned skills and descended into ASD.
They have to be ignored if the "autism is genetic" myth is going to fly.
I’ve had a number of parents say to me, “He was just fine when he was little.”
I’m sure these parents were told by their doctors that they just imagined their child was developing normally. They missed the signs.
As long as the folks in the white coats are not worried about autism, you just have to go along.
The day is fast approaching however, when we’re going to be desperate for answers. This cannot continue.
Anne
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | October 04, 2021 at 05:31 PM
Thanks Anne Back then in the early days, when Oor! Dan Olmsted, compared the Amish unvaccinated with the rest of the vaccinated it was a master stroke, Yet nobody seen anything alarming apart from Dan and us on here. Nobody listened. We got lip service. Even now with COVID i get friends and family say to me "you need to be really careful where you shop as your not vaccinated" sometimes I say nothing (not very often) ... no answer for the pharma mind clusterfwash. yet!
I think todays school kids have grown up with Autistics et-al and they think its the norm as they do now the really young ones 4 year olds wont go out the house without a mask..now that's SCARY.
The big lie continues to snowball until one day it will get so big it destroys itself the sooner the better.
Pharma For prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | October 04, 2021 at 03:03 PM
Annie;
Stupid Peter Hortez needs to understand that the childhood vaccines are all causing those little inflammation of the hearts, and the young people dying of covid, or old --- already had pervious run ins. He is a stupid, foolish man that was so stupid that he has a daughter with autism in his midst that his very job and industry caused. Pretty tough.
We lost our 34 year old nephew to covid -- not the vaccine a year ago.
But he was already sufferings from depression a lot. As a child had ADHD, really; really bad, he had a lazy eye, and unbeknown to us - inflammation that involved the heart - on blood pressure medicine, just ripe for the covid virus to block what few Ace 2 receptors he had .
Peter Hortez is a Fool, let us all mumble that to ourselves, and whisper it to others. .
Posted by: benedetta | October 04, 2021 at 02:12 PM
What's happening to these ever-increasing numbers of nonverbal, chronically-ill and learning impaired? Presumably they're not going to college or getting anything other than menial jobs--if they're getting jobs.
People who don't have autistic children probably don't encounter these masses of disabled children, making it easy to misinterpret the statistics. More kids are quiet and awkward, so what?
I was told that there were two classrooms of special ed students at my daughter's elementary school, but I never saw them. (Such classrooms didn't even exist in my schools in the 50s and 60s.)
Posted by: Carol | October 04, 2021 at 02:04 PM
Anne, thank you, as always for this article and for all the hard work you do compiling the information.
It will not go unnoticed. I use AoA articles often to counter the ridiculous claims of 'better diagnosis' which will now be 'girs and adults' presumably. I rarely get a response back, presumably because there is no logical argument they can use given the statistics and the fact that autism rates were approx. 1:10,000 in the 1970s.
Posted by: susan welch | October 04, 2021 at 12:47 PM
Peter Hotez is tweeting out that “anti-vaxxers” won’t tell you that myocarditis is more common among people who get Covid then people who have been vaccinated with mRNA covid vaccines.
Vaccines & vaccine schedules are sacrosanct. They will only marginally be held responsible for anything, and their benefits are always regarded as outweighing their risks. How much logic has to be defied before the vaccine religious admit that they are not practicing science?
https://mobile.twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1444780463571312641
Posted by: annie | October 04, 2021 at 11:41 AM
With folded hands, a big thinkyou of gratitude to Anne Dachel for her valiant summation of the autism disaster, the real historical view, forgotten by nearly evryone. I too recall the approximately 20 yearsof running a nursery school in India , when I looked and looked for an autistic child and could not find one. Then one day a mother of a child who was alternately wild, or sitting on a swing for hours, never speaking, told me that her child had been able to speak at about age one. I listened without comment, thinking that she must have imagined that some sounds her child made were speech. But I was wrong ; she went on to describe exactly how her child spoke, There was no doubt in my mind after that. I knew something had happened to make this happen, but I had no idea what. A year later a mother who was speaking about her older child, having problems in a primary school, made this statement, " But I am SURE this child was normal earlier " Those early years were followed with years in which as many as ten percent of my students had severe to mild autism symptoms. Trusting parents spent large sums of money on THERAPY that did little to help the children. Finally there was a smart mom with a background in physical therapy who realized that she was wasting her time, energy and money and made her own program to help her child, and it really worked .
Did Autims herald a new age of NOT listening to the patient? I think so. It signaled a return to irrational worried parents, hysterical women , people preparing for a law suit and a nice new term, "attention seeking behavior " - all allowing doctors to be dismissive., and consider autism something nearly normal.
On another topic, I would like to tell you all about a phone call I had recently with my old friend in Tanzania. Listen to my friend: " At first there was no covid in Tanzania, and then it did come, but it is strange- you see, we can see , for example, the people out in the street selling fruit. Nothing has happened to them, My family and friends take precautions but the general populace does not. But the UK is angry with us that more people have not taken vaccines. "
Posted by: Cherry Misra | October 04, 2021 at 09:05 AM
Anne .. God bless you for your relentless effort to expose THE BIG LIE … you remind me of the proverbial CANARY in the coalmine … issuing ignored warning after ignored warning about the ever increasing danger to minors ..
Yesterday our TALIBAN HIGH PRIEST OF PUBLIC HEALTH FAUCI was interviewed .. again .. wherein he expressed his growing frustration with people who do not accept MANDATES FOR COVID VACCINE … smugly explaining to viewers we have MANDATED VACCINES FOR CHILDREN FOR DECADES .. IF THEY REFUSE THEY ARE DENIED ACCESS TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
I can't disagree with this arrogant tyrant .. for DECADES our community at AoA and elsewhere have been demanding the right as PARENTS to decide if we want our children to accept the known RISKS OF ''ONE SIZE FITS ALL' VACCINES. It should surprise no one the TALIBAN have now come for EVERYONE .. NOT JUST CHILDREN. Once again I post my AoA article on MEDICAL TYRANNY SOON TO MANDATE VACCINES FOR ADULTS;
https://www.ageofautism.com/2016/02/dr-benjamin-rush-forewarned-nation-on-medical-tyranny.html
Posted by: Bob Moffit | October 04, 2021 at 08:23 AM