Study: Autism rise from labeling, not epidemic
Monday, April 3, 2006
CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- A rise in autism cases is not evidence of a feared epidemic but reflects that schools are diagnosing autism more frequently, a study said Monday.
Children classified by school special education programs as mentally retarded or learning disabled have declined in tandem with the rise in autism cases between 1994 and 2003, the author of the study said, suggesting a switch of diagnoses.
Government health authorities have been trying to allay widely publicized concerns that vaccines containing the mercury-containing preservative therimerosal, which is no longer used, were behind an autism epidemic.
There may be as yet unknown environmental triggers behind autism, study author Paul Shattuck of the University of Wisconsin at Madison said, but his research suggested the past decade's rise in autism cases was more of a labeling issue.
Autism was fully recognized in 1994 by all states as a behavioral classification for schoolchildren, who receive individualized attention whatever their diagnosis, he wrote in the journal Pediatrics....
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/04/03/health.autism.reut/index.html