Time: For the First Time, a Census of Autistic Adults (There is no "Epidemic")

[Odin2005]

I repeat, THERE IS NO EPIDEMIC!!!

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1927415,00.html

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Among the many great mysteries of autism is this: Where are all the adults with the disorder? In California, for instance, about 80% of people identified as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are 18 or under. Studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) indicate that about 1 in 150 children in the U.S. have autism, but despite the fact that autism is by definition a lifelong condition, the agency doesn't have any numbers for adults. Neither has anyone else. Until now.

On Sept. 22, England's National Health Service (NHS) released the first study of autism in the general adult population. The findings confirm the intuitive assumption: that ASD is just as common in adults as it is in children. Researchers at the University of Leicester, working with the NHS Information Center found that roughly 1 in 100 adults are on the spectrum — the same rate found for children in England, Japan, Canada and, for that matter, New Jersey.

This finding would also appear to contradict the commonplace idea that autism rates have exploded in the two decades. Researchers found no significant differences in autism prevalence among people they surveyed in their 20s, 30s, 40s, right up through their 70s. "This suggests that the factors that lead to developing autism appear to be constant," said Dr. Terry Brugha, professor of psychiatry at the University of Leicester and lead author of the study. "I think what our survey suggests doesn't go with the idea that the prevalence is rising."

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Can we stop with the "Epidemic" scaremongering now?

[trotsky]

1. You should really post this in Health too.

Not that it will mean anything to the twue believers, but it needs to be out there.

[Orrex]

2. It will be misconstrued.

The anti-vaxers will conclude that these so-called "adults" with autism contracted it after getting vaccinations later in life, especially since those later vaccines might contain Thimerosal.

[Warpy]

3. You misunderstand

Antivax true believers are impossible to reach. The people you post things for in health are the people who read the board who are possible to reach, whether or not they comment.

That's why I post in Health, just enough to set the record straight but not enough to get into a pissing contest with fool with a closed mind.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I posted the story in Health 2 weeks ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x69975 (link I gave doesn't work now, unfortunately). It sank like a stone - not hysterical enough. :shrug:

[salvorhardin]

4. Other studies have shown that diagnostic preferences account for the supposed "epidemic" too

Here's one from 2006:

RESULTS. The average administrative prevalence of autism among children increased from 0.6 to 3.1 per 1000 from 1994 to 2003. By 2003, only 17 states had a special education prevalence of autism that was within the range of recent epidemiological estimates. During the same period, the prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities declined by 2.8 and 8.3 per 1000, respectively. Higher autism prevalence was significantly associated with corresponding declines in the prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities. The declining prevalence of mental retardation and learning disabilities from 1994 to 2003 represented a significant downward deflection in their preexisting trajectories of prevalence from 1984 to 1993. California was one of a handful of states that did not clearly follow this pattern.

CONCLUSIONS. Prevalence findings from special education data do not support the claim of an autism epidemic because the administrative prevalence figures for most states are well below epidemiological estimates. The growing administrative prevalence of autism from 1994 to 2003 was associated with corresponding declines in the usage of other diagnostic categories.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/4/1028

In other words, previously children diagnosed as autistic would have been instead diagnosed as retarded or having learning disabilities.

[Odin2005]

5. I point that out constantly.

Seems to have no effect. One annoying poster in particular in fact used my AS as an excuse to dismiss my rebuttals to her nonsense as "typical autistic close-mindedness". :eyes:

[SheilaT]

6. I hav a son with Asperger's.

He's 26, and even though I now realize that he had Asperger's from the day he was born, he wasn't diagnosed until half way through his senior year of high school. And he couldn't have been diagnosed before 1994, when the DSM with Asperger's came out.

I get so tired of trying to get idiots to understand that (at least in this case) Asperger's isn't caused by vaccines, or dietary insufficiencies or anything other than he has brain wiring different from what we call normal.