One in One-fifty! One in 94 boys will have it.

[SoCalDem]

As someone who has no grandchildren yet, this is scaring the hell out of me. I don't normally ever watch Larry King, but tonight's rerun of the show he did on Autism is frightening.

Of course he has celebrities with autistic children on, so the extra special care their children need are certainly being taken care of, but what about the OTHER children born to people of modest means? How on earth will this EPIDEMIC be handled?

Toni Braxton's son is autistic, and she said he gets EIGHTY HOURS A WEEK in about 8 different therapies.

Bill Cosby's on as well, and is doing a benefit to raise money for the cause, and a doctor who specializes in autism is also on. According to her, there are MORE cases of autism diagnosed every year that AIDS & cancer COMBINED.

Is the rate as high in undeveloped countries? Other developed countries?

I know that there are better diagnostic techniques now..

When polio was "attacked" it was 1-15,000...

Scary stuff ..

[Eurobabe]

1. Personally I think we need to look no further than our food chain/environment

xenohormones, endocrine disruptors, etc. all in what we eat or breath. Plastic anyone?

[SoCalDem]

2. That's what I think too,, but where to start?

EVERYTHING we eat is adulterated..every breath we take, every drink of water.. We cannot escape the chemical prison we have encapsulated ourselves in. :(

Can you imagine the teachers of the future with numbers like that?

[stirlingsliver]

16. Don't Forget Chemtrails!

Just look up some day and see all the chemtrails in the sky.

Chemicals shower down on us.

What you say is true, SoCalDem -- EVERYTHING we eat, drink, and breathe is adulterated.

Truly, we cannot escape the chemical prison we have encapsulated ourselves in.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Personally, I need to be persuaded that there's an 'epidemic'.

>>I know that there are better diagnostic techniques now..>>>

And I'm *willing* to be; but my 'skepticism meter' just goes bonkers when this subject comes up.

There most definitely *are* better diagnostic techniques. Moreover, the *way* kids are classified has changed.

Example: I teach kids today that are "ASD" that would have been classified as "mild MR" in the eighties. There was no "ASD" back then, near as I can remember.

I say lets all take a deep breath and count to ten.

[Lerkfish]

5. great minds think alike. we posted simultaneously.

[Lerkfish]

4. I get leery of such statistics in the current pharmaneotheofascithocracy.

AS an example: Tamiflu is touted as the cure for bird flu. Just so happens, Rumsfeld (or some other neocon crony) owns the tamiflu company. Also just so happens, it doesn't work anyways.

I am suspicious of the current fearmongering on autism, thinking just around the corner some pharma corporate meglocompany has developed a slightly dangerous treatment /vaccine and wants to shove it down our throats after we're scared enough.

I'm seeing "one in a thousand" commercials on autism every damn day on tv. Who is paying for these ads? honestly, think about it.

[LeftishBrit]

6. I am a bit sceptical about these statistics...

I think that a lot of children are diagnosed as autistic who would not have been in the past. This occurs at both ends of the scale: children who might in the past have been called 'naughty' or 'odd' or 'maladjusted' or 'emotionally disturbed' are now diagnosed with 'high-functioning autism/ Asperger syndrome', while others who would have been called 'mentally retarded' without further classification are now diagnosed as 'autistic' if they have particular problems with communication and interaction.

This is, I suspect partly because of changes in the educational system, both good and bad. In the past, many children with low IQs were simply dismissed as 'ineducable', whereas now they are seen as needing education, and their problems need to be analyzed more carefully, making an 'autism' diagnosis more likely. And children of higher IQ who don't fit into the school system may be more likely to have their specific needs analyzed, rather than just being ignored or treated as 'discipline problems'. These are good changes. On the negative side, pressures to get schools to 'reach targets' may lead to greater pressures to get a semi-medical diagnosis for children who are not doing all the things demanded by policymakers and governments. OFSTED or NCLB may only be prepared to reduce demands to force a square peg into a round hole if a definite diagnosis is given.

I also think that there is some increase in incidence of autism, due to the fact that extremely premature babies and those with other life-threatening perinatal problems are more likely to be autistic, and a far higher proportion of babies with such problems survive than in the past - 30 years ago many such babies never lived to be diagnosed as autistic. There may also be some environmental factor that is increasing the risk of autism - if there is, then I suspect that it is one that exerts its main influence prenatally; and I think that there needs to be more research on factors that may affect pregnant women and their unborn babies. But I don't think that there is the massive increase in autism that some people imply; and this is a view held by many researchers on autism.


ETA: Here is a link to Helen Heussler's letter to the British Medical Journal in 2001, which gives some data to suggest that diagnostic criteria have indeed changed since the 1970s, and that this could have contributed to the apparent rise in incidence.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7313/633?ijkey=b36b9709203810ef3ef802a7009018cfcec0797a&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. Your analysis is too good to go unacknowledged.

Now... will you kindly move to *this* side of the pond?

You know... where you are really *needed*?

[Junkdrawer]

7. Deadly Immunity...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/7395411/deadly_immunity/

[WinkyDink]

9. Another disgusting example of American capitalism's (best forwarded by

Republicans) approach to human health and safety.

[rasputin1952]

10. I'd like to see a worldwide study on autism and some other situations

that exist, mainly in industrialized nations.

If the #'s pan out worldwide, I can understand the siuation, but if it is essentially only industrialized nations being afflicted, then we have a good starting point to look for what may be the culprit. Let's say 3% of the worldwide population is afflicted w/autism, but 8% is the "norm" for industrialized nations...obviously, something in the environment must have something to do with the problem. Chemicals, additives, prenatal meds and a whole host of other things need to be analyzed.

No matter how one looks at it, autism needs to dealt with in any way we can to make these people live better lives.

[Eurobabe]

11. I wonder why boys are more susceptible to autism?

Only people I know that have autism or Aspberger's are boys between the age of 3 and 15. I don't know any girls that have it.

[SoCalDem]

12. As the mother of a son with a birth defect, I can only go by what a doctor once told us.

A male fetus undergoes more "change" than does a female (since all "start out" female), and there is more opportunity for things to go wrong..

In many birth defects, males seem to be at a higher risk...even surviving prematurity seems to favor the girls :shrug:

so much for us being the "weaker sex"..

[Eurobabe]

13. I was going to say that, but didn't want the guys to feel inferior

:eyes:

I think everybody knows that biologically, women are the superior sex.

[Feron]

15. Boys probably get diagnosed more because...

being withdrawn isn't a "typical" boy behavior. Whereas girls are expected to be shy.

The book "Unstrange Minds" is great at popping the autism epidemic myth. Part of the explanation has already been touched on, but it's really too long for me to summarize it accurately.

I really wish however that Larry King, et al would interview autistics themselves. It's not a disease, it's just who we are.

A few good autism sites:

Aspies For Freedom

http://www.autism-hub.co.uk">Austim Blog Hub

Youtube Vids by Autistics:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=silentmiaow">Silentmiaow

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=christschool">Christschool

[Javaman]

14. I would love to see a map of the world showing the various locations

of the children with Autism and their relation to the ocean and coal plants.

I have read a few things about how autism might be related to living near coal plants spewing mercury and eating fish that have high concentrations of mercury.