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Continued Rise In Autism Diagnoses Puzzles Researchers, Galvanizes Advocates
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised eyebrows, and concern among current and prospective parents, with a new report documenting that the rate of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in the United States jumped 30% between 2008 and 2010, from one in 88 to one in 68 children. CDC officials don't know, however, whether the startling increase is due to skyrocketing rates of the disorder or more sensitive screening, or a combination of both."
'Nuff Said
about a century and a half ago, nobody ever heard about autism.
you wouldn't be diagnosed an autist, but simply made to stand in a corner of the class with a dunce cap a lot.
i can picture the headlines.
autism discovered!
sudden surge in number of autists baffles scientists!
as we get better at diagnosing conditions like this, naturally there will be a rise in the number of positive diagnoses.
I suspect a lot of diagnoses concern borderline cases, that would previously not have been counted as verified autism - so before, people would be classified as "odd" or "geeky" but not as someone who carries a mental disability.
The same thing happened with depression. In the old days, depression was virtually unheard of, aside from extreme cases of people constantly trying to take their own lives. Nowadays, everybody and their dog gets depressed at some point during the year, and prescribed medicine.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
At last, the real culprit is revealed: zinc.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Not saying that all or even most of the diagnoses of autism are false positives, but when you're living in a world where human communities are dwindling and become more insular - so there is less direct social engagement, extended families are spread across continents - so this core social unit is less dynamic and extensive, and people spend more and more time in front of screens - at work and at home, this sort of result is not overly surprising. Shit, when did the first iPhone come out? Mid 2007? Coincidence? iThink not.
Increased screening sensitivity is probably playing a big factor as well: "Tommy seems rather introverted and shuns the company of others. He also throws a huge tantrum when we take away the tablet with the toons on it. Probably autism." I'm not saying this is due to negligent parenting, but when there is an obvious diagnosis that fits the symptoms, why look any further? Again, these are the marginal cases which are sufficiently prevalent to cause this spike.
1 in 10 is not a disorder.
It's a harem.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Part of the problem in the UK (so may not be the same in the US) is that there is additional funding and support for kids with diagnoses like ASDs so there is a big incentive for schools and parents to push for it. It's driving a whole approach of medicalising behaviour. Kids who in the past would have been simply regarded as a bit unusual and who a teacher would have had to just cope with are now being given medical diagnoses and possibly additional help.
As discussed in the article what would be interesting to see is more detail on the distribution of ASD diagnoses, in terms of where they sit on the spectrum. If there is an increase the diagnosis of severe autism (the kids who would reasonably have been diagnose as autistic 30 years ago) then that would suggest that there is some environmental factor at work. If, on the other hand it's mostly high functioning and borderline then it seems likely to be mostly down to diagnosis.
While I'm very much in favour of education being better able to deal with kids' differences, I'm not sure medicalising it is the way to go.
Paul Leader
There is much, much more to the process of professional evaluation and diagnosis than what you describe. The process is a whole lot more rigorous than idle speculation.
Ohh, how I wish it was something like 9 out of 10. Or better 99 out of a 100. Can you imagine how many women will be left "unattended"? Can you?
I never understood the hatred towards gay men. It means more women for the rest of us, you sillies! Now, lesbians are another matter entirely...yet heterosexual males looooove lesbians [or at least lesbian porn] but hate gays. So weird...
Um, no. It wouldn't.
http://tallguywrites.livejourn...
No sig today...
Please stop spreading the vaccine-autism bullshit. It's been consistently debunked and was only ever supported by a single flawed study that a celebrity took charge of spreading to scare parents out of vaccinating their children.
The way we feed has changed radically in a few decades. Nowadays we can only find often GMO sources of some foods, not talking about plastic food and MGS sources ... cookies, potato chips, bread... As a pure anecdotal "evidence" I was recently with my wife in the Philippines two and half weeks, and despite eating far much more, she lost weight, and I lost my belly.
The question is simply answered: diagnoses are more prevalent because the drugs to treat those patients now exists. It is not mere coincidence that the FDA approved the use of Risperdal in late 2006, and its generic, Risperidone, in late 2008. There were more than a few doctors who have made more than a few dollars from prescribing tis medication. Johnson & Johnson has to pay a $2.2 billion dollar fine for illegally marketing this drug through the use of kickbacks to doctors and pharmacists. So don't tell me the pharmaceutical isn't dirtier than a whore's whose-its. Everyone relax. Autism rates will decline when these drugs get a bad enough name. Then, a more expensive drug will be produced to treat a more common malady, and everyone will freak the fuck out again.
I am Audience.
Why are people so quick to say vaccines are connected? Wait until some weirdo declares that soap causes autism, and see how the world behaves even after the claim is debunked times over. Just like with vaccines. Enjoy the smell of the (literally) unwashed masses then.
One thing that is certain is that vaccines save the lives of hundreds of thousands of children every year. But by all means, forego them if you really don't want to "take the risk."
Yep. There's a strong correlation between being in a car and having a car accident but we're not trying to ban cars, are we?
PS: http://tallguywrites.livejourn...
No sig today...
Or maybe, just maybe it's a combination of factors, each bearing its own small risk and in conjunction increasing the rate. Or maybe it's simply better and more sensitive diagnoses of the condition.
One thing is certain. The link between vaccination and autism has been extensively searched for and there isn't one.
So the neighbor kid was diagnosed with this... and I didn't want to irritate his parents by pointing out the obvious but that kids just obnoxious, there's nothing wrong with him. But oh well... then the school brought in a specialist for MY kid, and they determined that my kid was having trouble in school because he was bi-lingual. You see, my son was born in Africa and we adopted him when he was 2. The funny thing is, he never spoke their language. The only word he knew in his native language when we got him was "Abas" which means "Father" which he'd yell whenever he was afraid of something. I pointed this out to the school but they insisted. Being somewhat of a libertarian I objected to the school wasting money on a special program for him. Then they got nasty. I was trying to impede the progress of my child and it would not be tolerated. A week later the teacher had an assistant 2 days of the week provided by the state to handle her "Bi-lingual" class. Ah, it was all clear now... The school diagnoses disabilities to garner more aid, and more resources from state and federal agencies. They push parents to doctors they know will produce favorable diagnoses and use anything they can find in the childs background to get the result they want.
any fucking site that says' detoxify or anything related should ring alarm bells. it's fucking sham scams.
Not knowing what causes autism and yet knowing beyond reasonable doubt that vaccines don't is entirely consistent with all the medical evidence. Confusing these facts does not demonstrate that medical science is wrong.
Secondly, if there were a link, then we should expect to be able to observe it thanks to the activity of celebrity morons like Jenny McCarthy. If vaccination or the minute traces of an antimicrobial called thimerosal (a mercury compound) used in some vaccines were the cause of autism then surely it should observable in the rates of autism? After the scare, less people vaccinated and manufacturers removed thimerosal from childhood vaccines so there should have been an observable effect on autism rates. There wasn't.
They aren't. The question as to whether vaccines are related to autism has been heavily studied. We may not know what causes it, but we are quite certain as to the fact that vaccines do not. One can exclude a possibility without settling on an answer, you know. You may never figure out who was stealing from your cookie jar, but you can still be certain it wasn't Richard Nixon.
Doctors will NEVER admit they're wrong.
And you're right, they don't know what causes it, why are they so quick to say the vaccines aren't connected?
"Are so quick"? Several different Universities have done research on the subject over many years and all came to the same conclusion, Autism rates are the same in people who get vaccines as people who don't.
Is this a serious question? There was one study which suggested a link (Wakefield). This study's data was fabricated, and was later retracted Wakefield's license was revoked. There were then a flurry of studies showing no link between vaccines and autism. You really think that's "quick to say"?
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Beware of conflating autism with autism spectrum disorders and asperger's syndrome. Classical, pre-2000s autism isn't a faddish behavioural disorder, it's the kind of debilitating condition that can require life-long professional care.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I would blame Obama, but that doesnt fit the same time window.
That doesn't stop people.
A Third Of Louisiana Republicans Blame Obama For Hurricane Katrina Response Under Bush
(poll data here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/1619... )
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
First of all, just going to say it again. The definition or classification "autism" is too broad. Different people under the classification have different ranges of impairment. It needs to be broken down. In one area, Asperger's, it once was and has since been blocked in with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Why? (perhaps part of the larger trend of tyring to label more people as "mentally incompetent" as a means of separating people from their rights?) I don't know.
But instead of creating a broad classification and diagnosis, there needs to be increased study into variants and ranges of disability. Some people are just fine and are a bit awkward while others are completely incapable of taking care of themselves. It's inaccurate to simply put it all under that one umbrella and treat things under a "common core" and ultimately unhealthy to do so.
But the complete and utter resistance to seeking out causes blows me away. If one in 68 children were missing limbs at birth, there would be an international outcry. But because the impairment isn't readily visible, people want to ignore it and especially many want to deny it even exists at all seeking to classify it as a "choice" or "behavior disorder." Those people seem to be incredibly selective of their understandings of the connections between the body and the mind. On one hand we all agree and understand that hormone and other chemical balances of the body and especially nutrition and the use of drugs have a profound effect on the mind. Yet at the same time, there is a set of people who want to believe something entirely different despite knowing what they surely already know. (We're magical spirit creatures inhabiting bodies... ignore the fact that taking chemicals can change how your spirit creature feels and acts. People seem immeasurably incapable of connecting the body and the mind.)
Why aren't we investigating more? Why?!
This problem definitely fits the definition of "epidemic" and yet somehow it doesn't warrant investigation and study? Is it because important business models will be threatened? I believe that will be of high likelihood. Some might think it's worse than that and I hope that's not it but there are documented and unclassified cases where out very own US government really and truly has done things to people -- horrible and terrible things. Sometimes it was intentionally and other times perhaps out of wilful ignorance. The question of intent is important, but we do have some basic facts we can at least point to:
1. The rate is high and climbing still.
2. The problem isn't being studied properly.
That's enough for now. It needs to be proven or disproven. There's no need to go any deeper than that at this point.
Here's an exercise: count up how many of the posts above begin with "I'm not a mental health professional, but..." or "I don't have any scientific data to back this up, but..." followed by some theory about how autism is overdiagnosed/not real/etc. It's amazing how people will lambaste (rightfully) a woman--famous for showing her vagina and advertising electronic cigarettes--for claiming without evidence that vaccines cause autism, and yet turn around and promulgate some other ridiculous claim about autism, all while ignoring 1) the clinical evidence that exists, and 2) the interpretation of that evidence by those most qualified to interpret it. Pot, meet kettle.
1) They're very quick to play hero when the other doctor is wrong
2) a) They weren't "quick to say" it, they produced an enormous body of evidence.
2) b) The moon disappears. You're blamed. I'm pretty sure that you can show you're not responsible without knowing who the actual culprit is.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Let’s see rising levels of mercury in fish, arsenic in rice, methylbromide in bread, adding fluoride [*] to drinking water ON PURPOSE, BPA in plastic food containers, volatile PBDE flame retardant in yout furniture, VCOs in your paint and building materials, trans fats. I can go on and on and on.
Besides eating a diet excessively high in carbs and low in other nutrients, we’re poisoning the shit out of ourselves. And you’re surprised that some people aren’t handling it well?
[*] Fluoridation is controvercial, the target of commie conspiracy theories, etc. In reality, it’s shown to have a substantial positive impact on tooth development in children, it’s dirt cheap, and kills many pathogens in water. However, it’s also strongly linked with lowered IQs and thyroid disease. It’s basically poison. If you’re smart, you’ll get a fluoride filter for your water and give your kids high doses of iodine instead, which has the same effect on teeth, the same disinfectant properties, and is an essential mineral.
Herd immunity starts to fail and those idiots that don't immunize start to affect those that can't be immunized such as pregnant women and babies. imo, you refuse to immunize you should be placed on No fly list, refused entry into school, government buildings etc. Treated like a leper, yes.. but you had the choice of a freely available cure.
If you don't use soap ever, you probably are human contact free too... although what did they use before soap was made?
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this study yet. Perhaps Hypothyroid rates are skyrocketing and with it autism? http://www.sciencedaily.com/re... Autism four times likelier when mother's thyroid is weakened Pregnant women who don't make nearly enough thyroid hormone are nearly 4 times likelier to produce autistic children than healthy women, report scientists from the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute and Erasmus Medical Centre in an upcoming Annals of Neurology. The association emerged from a study of more than 4,000 Dutch mothers and their children, and it supports a growing view that autism spectrum disorders can be caused by a lack of maternal thyroid hormone, which past studies have shown is crucial to the migration of fetal brain cells during embryo development.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
Ahm.. you do realize that the use of 'Quick Silver' in that piece is in reference to their company name? Oh and look, the person claiming that the particular compound that was in vaccines was dangerous has built a personal empire off the myth, selling products and services including a fake cure for a non-existent situation. Oh and look, he is not a medical doctor, nor a chemist... his degree is in Environmental Sciences from a satellite campus of University of Illinois.
Sure.. I am going to believe a scam artist over peer reviewed experts in actual relevant fields who would just love to find flaws in each other's research.
Not to mention that that single flawed study wasn't even anti-vaccine itself. Wakefield's original intentions were to sell his own MMR replacement vaccines so he tried branding the MMR as causing vaccines. Had he gotten his way, the MMR would have been banned, everyone would have used his replacement vaccines, and he would have gotten very rich.
Instead, he has had his medical license revoked but he came to America where he is practicing some highly suspect procedures on people and is hailed as a hero by a group of conspiracy nuts for "standing up to Big Pharma."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
LMAO, you don't know how evolution works, do you? What possible advantage could autism provide, when it renders most afflicted persons unsociable and awkward and therefore highly unlikely to pass on their genes?
LMAO, you don't know how evolution works, do you? What possible advantage could sickle-cell anemia provide, when it renders most afflicted persons breathless and weak and prematurely dead and therefore highly unlikely to pass on their genes? The real story here is probably more complicated than this, but it's a *hell* of a lot more complicated than that.
Yeah, that's known to alter behavior. However, neurologists can see inside brains now. So, we can see the fucking problems, we don't have to guess. Now, we can name this type of problem something, and if there's some other chemical or microorganism, etc. THAT'S SOMETHING ELSE. It's not a "spectrum" of shit if the underlying causes are fundamentally different.
So, if we start out noticing a behavior, and then go looking for a lot similar behaviors and then call them all a common diagnoses, like Autism "Spectrum Disorder", you know what we call that? Fucking stupid self selection bias AKA pseudoscience. Which is why the NIMH is distancing itself from the DSM5 where shit like Autism Spectrum Disorder is defined, claiming, "Patients deserve better". Know why? Because without an actual common cause a diagnoses is bullshit. Oh look, I stepped on a crack and my mother's back broke! Really? I saw her walk under a ladder. Oh, those are all indicators of Mother's Back Spectrum Disorder!
Give me a fucking break. There's more diagnoses than ever because the treatments are all about to get blown out of the water by Neuroscience gearing up to call psychiatrists on their confirmation bias bullshit, and they won't be able to make money on these type of "spectrum" diseases afterwards.
Actual clinical depression is a serious disorder and of course has existed throughout history. However, currently about a quarter of women in the US between 40 and 50 are on antidepressant drugs at any one time, and about 10% of all Americans over 12.
In particular, (I've heard that) more than 50% of adult women in the US have been treated for depression at least once in their lives.
This is a source of one of the major pushbacks against gun control proposals that ban people who have seen a shrink from ever having guns: It would disarm the bulk of women (including especially those who are being stalked or attacked, who are likely to have a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder label hung on them.)
Interestingly, while severely clinically depressed patients may be suicide risks and thus a "danger to themselves", the depressed in general are much LESS likely to be a danger to others than the average of the population - even when treated with antidepressant drugs.
(The occasional person who goes on a crime spree when on antidepressants is the result of another phenomenon: People can be both psychopaths and clinically depressed. The depression debilitates them so they don't act out. Treat the depression and you have a fully-functional psychopath. There is some discussion in the psychiatric community, as a result, over whether it might be ethical to refuse to treat the depression of severe, uncompemsated, psychopaths/)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My guess is that this 30% increase aren't more of the stereotypical autistics who are unable to care for themselves, it's identifying people who would benefit from behavioral therapy. Thus, as we better understand and better understand how to help those with it, your statistic will become less and less true. With respect to individuals who lead a very difficult life due family members or friends who have severe autism, autism itself isn't tragic, certain cases of autism are tragic. My condolences if you know someone who has a tragic case of autism. It is not my intent to exacerbate your pain.
The autistic spectrum is wide and the irony of these diagnoses from physicians is that many of the most skilled and respected physicians are high-functioning autistics. If I ever have someone doing a thoracotomy on me to repair my hemorrhaging aorta, I don't want my cardiothoracic surgeon to have a kind, bubbly, empathetic personality. I want a detail-oriented freak who understands his craft so intricately that he can save my life with nothing but unimaginable focus. The sharpness of his mind and the dullness of his personality can actually be, in fact, a benefit in many cases.
"With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone."
If you don't use soap ever, you probably are human contact free too... although what did they use before soap was made?
Ancient Romans used olive oil.