A tidal wave of (autism) misinformation at WTAE

[HuckleB]

http://autism-news-beat.com/archives/339

"“The numbers are staggering,” says WTAE reporter Michelle Wright as she kicks off the first of five news reports on autism. What’s truly staggering is how the Pittsburgh ABC affiliate news department could get the numbers so wrong.

“A few weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new statistics showing that 1 in 110 children will be diagnosed with autism,” says Wright, trying hard to evoke anxiety and fear. “Ten years ago the numbers were one in 500. Fifteen years ago it was one in 10,000.”

Wrong.

The CDC, a source Wright has no problem quoting, found the rate of autism spectrum disorders among 8-year-old children in 2000 totaled 1 in 153. That’s not even close to 1:500.

As for an autism rate of 1:10,000, that’s a line of agit prop taken directly from a Feb., 2008 USA Today display ad paid for by nursing school drop out Jenny McCarthy and her comedian boyfriend, Jim Carrey. Epidemiologists, the ones who stayed in school and spend their careers in this field, tell us the rate of Kanner’s autism, generally regarded as the most severe form of the disorder, was about 5:10,000 40-50 years ago. If Wright was correct, then the rate of autism actually declined between 1980 and 1995. Except she isn’t.

..."

Read the whole story before replying, please.

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Ugh, is all I can say. Bad reporting. News as entertainment. Stupidity. Whatever it is, it's bad for Pittsburgh and for the everyone else.

[sakabatou]

1. I see the news does not get the scientific method.

[CreekDog]

2. I get my scientific method by using magnets

:think:

[Oregone]

3. Putting the science on autism and vaccines aside, if you look at the controversy subjectively...

Jenny McCarthy looked much better naked before she started flapping her mouth about this on any talk show she can get herself on

[Arctic Dave]

4. What is with the personal attacks?

If the writer had something important to say then they should have stuck to the facts, not bloviating.

[Iggo]

9. But she really does look good naked. (n/t)

[xchrom]

5. Recommend

[AutismNewsBeat]

6. Autism Week at WTAE

I tried several times to contact someone at WTAE to respond. No one would. I've found in my experience that most news outlets won't hold themselves accountable to the same standards they hold everyone else.

Can you imagine what a sports story would sound like if the reporter was as poorly informed about athletics as TV "science reporters" are about science?

[HuckleB]

7. It should be amazing and shocking, but unfortunately it appears to be the status quo.

Thank you for trying.

Cheers!

:toast:

[EvolveOrConvolve]

8. At the rate McCarthy thinks autism incidence is increasing

by the year 2050, 99% of children will be on the autism spectrum. It's ridiculous, but most Americans are too stupid and/or lazy to think logically and critically about the information they're receiving.

[HuckleB]

10. The allure of snake oil for parents of autistic children

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/762374--the-allure-of-snake-oil-for-parents-of-autistic-children