U.S. Autism Rates Jump 30% From 2012

reply to post by Nyiah


That could definitely be a cause, I don't see why not.

It could be fast food.

A lot of fast food is not specifically actually food, with all the artificial flavors and colors being used. Microwaved food maybe? I don't trust microwaves, don't use them, don't have one. Maybe it's just because most foods meant to be microwaved are junk food anyway. Probably just any irrational paranoia, but whatever.

Could be all the extra radio waves effecting brains of fetuses and infants. All the Wi-fi, microwaves, radio waves, cell phone signals, radar. It could have a cumulative effect that has compounded over generations?

reply to post by Pimpintology


Yeah, it doesn't look like I'm going to win that one.

Vitamin D deficiency? sure why not?

But isn't extra vitamin D being pumped into everything these days? I don't know.

I couple thoughts on this...

First, and directed toward absolutely no one in particular... I flat don't have time for people who suggest this doesn't exist or it's a made up 'big pharma' condition. Ignorance isn't always my problem to address and I'm hearing this sentiment expressed in far less generous but more colorful ways by other parents I'm around in the real world. I live this. I am literally woken by it at 6am, every weekday and maybe..if I'm lucky..8am on the weekends. I end the day with it, at 10-11pm, every night. 7 days a week..and with obvious changes to times where needed, have been for 13 years of my son's life.

Is it over diagnosed? Absolutely. Yes. Is it over medicated? Absolutely. Yes. Does it exist? Absolutely YES. There are MILLIONS of us, as the parents of children who fall somewhere on the autistic spectrum, that would give our own lives if it would see our children never having suffered or needing to endure what they do on a day to day basis. No sane person wants this for themselves or their kid as a diagnosis. It's not fake.

-----

To the Op, thanks for catching this! I'd seen the numbers on the Autism jump and my stomach sank. What the hell?? I was shocked by the numbers 10 years ago, when I first began to educate myself as a new parent facing...who knew what, then? They've jumped at least twice for stats since, and now this. Does it need to be 1:10 before they realize....something is wiping out a generation or two of our people?

I'm also ready to just throw this out to ponder...is it JUST the kids? How many adults do you and does everyone else know, who memory or sharp critical thinking wasn't always anything to give a second thought to...but has become an issue, even in small ways, over recent years? I've come to notice more than I'm comfortable with, as I've started to look that way. More than I like to think about at all...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


At the same time, how loose is too loose?

Start diagnosing anything and everything that doesn't quite fit the perceived paradigm of "normal" as autism and you begin to trivialize people who really do have and suffer from serious issues related to it.

It would kill me to see kids who are genuinely suffering for it - can't make eye contact, freak out over being overly stimulated, have cognitive or verbal impairments because their perception of the world interferes with daily interaction, and then the kid next to them who is pretty much normal in every way but has that mother who says, "Well, he has autism because he's socially awkward ..."

reply to post by ketsuko


FWIW, My son is mainstream regular classroom on part of his day, and high functioning would be a very accurate thing to say. In fact, computers? Very good with. A natural.. TOO much so. Just wait until he discovers where Daddy spends so much time in more than an abstract way. (laugh) That should be fun all around...

What you're describing is profound autism for symptoms and the folks that have severe limits to normal daily function. That does run one side of it to define how far it goes. The other side comes closer to normal, in passing casual contact anyway, than some obviously can believe.

I can assure you though, living with high functioning autism leaves no question...in any way...that the condition is there. Day and night. Some of the issues can be subtle and some very much obvious. You may see little at all, in a casual meeting. It's a messy thing, and the sooner we find some causes to confirm (the NBC story looks good. I'll wait to see more after hearing similar things in the past years) the sooner we can stop losing a generation or more.

What isn't casually seen is profound, whether it SHOWS that way or not. (heavy sigh)

www.ageofautism.com...


Just saying! Don't shoot the messenger. I believe they also have almost non existent dementia / alzheimers.

reply to post by watchitburn


Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)

The global prevalence of the disorder has increased between 20 and 30 times since the late 1960s and early 1970s, CDC researchers wrote in the new report, published March 27 in the CDC's journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Another seemingly obvious potential culprit that has to be considered is hormones. With the widespread use of artificial hormones in therapies of all sorts and the undeniable potential for disruption to the normal biological gestation of a fetus, it can't be discounted.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I'm not saying they don't. I've worked with kids who've run the gamut. But I think we're getting a little too loose when we start saying that we define it just by social issues alone now.

What social issues are we talking about? When is a social issue just normal on the part of the child and when do they start calling it abnormal or autistic?

reply to post by watchitburn


Could be something to chemtrails and envirotoxins, even GMO by Monsanto. I think they're getting us in infancy and in our later years with alzheimers. I don't drink soda from aluminum cans although I do drink a beer once or week from them. make us collapse from being weakened with too many to care for and to sustain an economy and society. Its not just flooding us with third world illegal immigrants to drive down wages and lower the standard of living. Rome had lead poisoning and we have far worse. Hormone blockers in plastics and drinking water, pesticides in corn, corn syrup, metabolic disorders form processed foods, arrgghh.

reply to post by ketsuko


I guess that depends entirely on what we're defining as social issues. It took me a few because I had to hunt to find the DSM V text that deals with this.

Autism spectrum disorder is a new DSM-5 disorder encompassing the previous DSM IV autistic disorder (autism), Asperger's disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, Rett's disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. It is characterized by deficits in two core domains: 1) deficits in social communication and social interaction and 2) restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, and activities.

(Typed from text of DSM V)

Thats under the DSM V appendix for changes between IV and 5. The Social terms used there, by experience with my son's case and doctors, cover a very broad range of things which go far beyond social in the way I think we'd consider that, not having the same issues.

I'll agree again, it is over diagnosed. Does that account for the number changes? No..I don't think it does and I'm seeing more kids with visible symptoms in daily life and just around in public. That confirms with my eyes what the numbers are saying and what it suggests by the kids we're with in waiting rooms for my son's regular appointments.

reply to post by DenyObfuscation


For anyone interested in the actual conclusion of the NEJM original article:

Conclusions In this small, explorative study, we found focal disruption of cortical laminar architecture in the cortexes of a majority of young children with autism. Our data support a probable dysregulation of layer formation and layer-specific neuronal differentiation at prenatal developmental stages. (Funded by the Simons Foundation and others.)

The abnormal brain structure they are citing was also found in one of the normal kids brain tissue. There were only 11 samples. This is only an exploratory study. No smoking gun and it does not explain Autism with late onset.

more information about regressive autism

It's not a disorder. Well, from inside the matrix it is. It's probably the new stage in the human spiritual evolution. 2012 anyone?

This CDC article itself says the definitions have changed slightly over the past decade and that autism has grown to encompass a larger scope of previously not linked indices and presentations, so are we to assume that this 30% number corrects for these new parameters? I couldn't tell from the article.

In poking around a bit about this, I ran into some global maps...one was autism rates globally, one was Alzheimer disease rates globally, and one was income globally. I was going to post them because of the shocking similarities ("wealthier" countries have more of both autism and Alzheimer disease) but then had a few realizations about why this was probably true and also perfectly logical.

It would be premature to draw any conclusions from these correlations (vaccines, fast food, and so on) because the wealthier countries with the higher rates of both are also the ones with the ability and access to define and study it most and push the most drugs for both too.

However, I do firmly believe that there is probably correlation between vaccines and some neurological impairment (Tourettes, autism, and so forth), but that's from a personal experience, which by the way was remedied by chelation and strict diet), so I watch these stories with interest.

what about the giant horse-pill "vitamins" the pregnant mothers are given? Any thoughts?

My wife didn't take em and both of my girls are 101% normal.

just sayin

reply to post by watchitburn


Autism has a direct genetic cause. There is added material to specific genes and even a doubling in some cases. There is a very real chance that autism is simply a part of our genetic heritage that has become more successful in contemporary society than it was in the past, so there is a breeding reinforcement of this trait. This could be very simple and everyone is so busy looking for that one particular tree that they can't see the forest for the distraction.

redhorse
reply to post by watchitburn

 

Autism has a direct genetic cause. There is added material to specific genes and even a doubling in some cases. There is a very real chance that autism is simply a part of our genetic heritage that has become more successful in contemporary society than it was in the past, so there is a breeding reinforcement of this trait. This could be very simple and everyone is so busy looking for that one particular tree that they can't see the forest for the distraction.

Hmm, that is an interesting postulate.

You are saying that because our anti-darwinian cooperative society has not eliminated the tendency of some lineages to mutate toward the autism spectrum and that genetic predisposition is reinforcing that trend through subsequent breeding.

However, this seems to be happening too quickly for the cause to be that alone but, a valid hypothesis that should be explored.

watchitburn
reply to post by Nyiah

 

Could be all the extra radio waves effecting brains of fetuses and infants. All the Wi-fi, microwaves, radio waves, cell phone signals, radar. It could have a cumulative effect that has compounded over generations?

Was just thinking about this.

Since 2002, autism cases have seen an increase of over 100%.

Since 2000, our wifi and 3G now 4G data streams have increased substantially.

Today your average American family probably has something like four cell phones, two tablets and a laptop in their homes. Not to mention all the other wifi gadgets like Roku, Chromecast, the PS4 and Xbox, etc.

If recent research is correct and autism does start in the womb, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that the child is getting bombarded with a multitude of these wireless signals throughout its stages of development on a daily basis.

Now what would be interesting would be to compare poor American families who can't afford all these technologies with the average tech family and their respective children for autism rates. I realize there would also be many more factors that play in here than just wireless tech gadgets but still it would make for an interesting comparison.

reply to post by InverseLookingGlass

For anyone interested in the actual conclusion of the NEJM original article:

If you're gonna quote it shouldn't you link it?

The abnormal brain structure they are citing was also found in one of the normal kids brain tissue.

No it wasn't, according to the article. One sample from the kids with autism did not have the abnormal structure. One might question "how autistic" that child was.

There were only 11 samples.

There were 22.

For the latest study, Courchesne and colleagues got brain samples from 11 children with autism who died young, mostly from accidents such as drowning, when aged 2 to 15. They compared their samples to brain tissue of 11 kids without autism who also died suddenly.

To their surprise, they found extremely similar changes in 10 out of the 11 children with autism. They found “patches” of abnormal development in the tissue taken from the brain regions important for social development, communication and language. The visual cortex was unaffected.

www.nbcnews.com...

No "normal" kids had the "abnormal brain structure".

If NEJM said otherwise please post it.

kushness
Was just thinking about this.

Since 2002, autism cases have seen an increase of over 100%.

Since 2000, our wifi and 3G now 4G data streams have increased substantially.

Since 2002, autism cases have seen an increase of over 100%.

Since 2000, 'Beverly Hills, 90210' ended its run.

Wake up, sheeple!

Brain Changes Suggest Autism Starts In The Womb

The symptoms of autism may not be obvious until a child is a toddler, but the disorder itself appears to begin well before birth.

Brain tissue taken from children who died and also happened to have autism revealed patches of disorganization in the cortex, a thin sheet of cells that's critical for learning and memory, researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Tissue samples from children without autism didn't have those characteristic patches.

Organization of the cortex begins in the second trimester of pregnancy. "So something must have gone wrong at or before that time," says Eric Courchesne, an author of the paper and director of the Autism Center of Excellence at the University of California, San Diego.

The finding should bolster efforts to understand how genes control brain development and lead to autism. It also suggests that treatment should start early in childhood, when the brain is capable of rewiring to work around damaged areas.

Neuron Number and Size in Prefrontal Cortex of Children With Autism

Context Autism often involves early brain overgrowth, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Although prefrontal abnormality has been theorized to underlie some autistic symptoms, the cellular defects that cause abnormal overgrowth remain unknown.

Objective To investigate whether early brain overgrowth in children with autism involves excess neuron numbers in the PFC.

Design, Setting, and Cases Postmortem prefrontal tissue from 7 autistic and 6 control male children aged 2 to 16 years was examined by expert anatomists who were blinded to diagnostic status. Number and size of neurons were quantified using stereological methods within the dorsolateral (DL-PFC) and mesial (M-PFC) subdivisions of the PFC. Cases were from the eastern and southeastern United States and died between 2000 and 2006.