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1 in 50 with Autism now??!!

post #1 of 56
3/20/13 at 11:21am
Thread Starter 

Autism numbers rise in latest count

 
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/20/children-autism-frequency/2000131/

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post #2 of 56
3/20/13 at 11:32am

It better diagnosis, don't your know! All those professionals must have missed or mis-diagnosed a staggering number of children with ASD in the past.

post #3 of 56
3/20/13 at 11:51am

I always wonder why there haven't been any autism studies which directly compare vaccinated vs unvaccinated children vs parental age, etc. 

 

I'd love it if someone could provide some compelling evidence either way because I'm totally on the fence about the issue, I'd love to be as confident as some people that I'm right and made the right decision for my children. 

 

I was unvaccinated and contracted meningitis as a child, a co-worker lost a baby at 6 months overnight because she contracted it as well. I even went to school with a kid who was paralyzed from polio (I'm aware how extremely rare that is now and it's almost extinct). But for me the threat of a deadly illness seems more "real" than the threat of autism (that's just my personal opinion, not debating whether it is or it isn't baseless). 

post #4 of 56
3/20/13 at 1:44pm

There have been studies - they've just never found a link and so are always dismissed as being either biased, not large enough, or otherwise planned to upset the anti-vax lobby. 

 

There's an IOM report which discusses vaccines and adverse reactions, splitting them into ones which favour a link, ones in which there's not enough evidence, and ones in which the evidence favours no link. Autism falls into the latter group. That's the best you'll get for a null result from epidemiology. 

 

Link: http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Adverse-Effects-of-Vaccines-Evidence-and-Causality.aspx

 

 

 

Quote:
The committee finds that evidence convincingly supports a causal relationship between some vaccines and some adverse events—such as MMR, varicella zoster, influenza, hepatitis B, meningococcal, and tetanus-containing vaccines linked to anaphylaxis. Additionally, evidence favors rejection of five vaccine-adverse event relationships, including MMR vaccine and autism and inactivated influenza vaccine and asthma episodes. However, for the majority of cases (135 vaccine-adverse event pairs), the evidence was inadequate to accept or reject a causal relationship. Overall, the committee concludes that few health problems are caused by or clearly associated with vaccines.
post #5 of 56
3/20/13 at 3:50pm
Thread Starter 
Searches related to 1 in 50 children have autism
post #6 of 56
3/20/13 at 4:44pm
More kids are diagnosed with autism. How is that related to vaccines? The number type and doses of vaccines are not increasing at the same rate that the number of autism cases are. I know no one here wants to acknoweldge that the expanded definition of autism and more screedings is playing a role, but it clearly is.

I would like to see what the rate of CLASSIC autism is and how it is increasing from years past. 50 years ago 25 years ago and even 15/10 years ago those are the only cases that would be counted as autism. So what is that rate today? How much is the rate of autism increasing. I would like to see apples to apples to see how much is better and different diagnoses. Asbergers has not always been counted as autism and plays a part of the increasie. As does pervasive development disorber-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) in years past these kids would have been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities (or mental retardation depending on the time frame) the rates of those diagnoses have went DOWN as the autism went up. Other kids would have been deemed "awkward" and not diagnosed with anything.

Aside from the diagnosis piece I think the vaccine issue dominates too much discourse. It has been researched extensively. Also like I said why is the autism rate rising when the rates of vaccination are not? Shouldn't we look for enviornmental signs that ARE rising at the same speed as atism? Like cell phone towers, Wi FI etc?
post #7 of 56
3/20/13 at 4:59pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
 Also like I said why is the autism rate rising when the rates of vaccination are not?

i think vax rates  are rising..more moms now are routinely vaxed in pregnancy, something that wasn't done even 10yrs ago...the vaccine schedule has also increased in the last 10yrs too, meaning more exposure to toxins via direct injection into the body.   Gmo foods could play a part too, who knows?   One would tend to think if autism is genetic, why isn't there an in-utero test available yet when they screen for other genetic disease?  i think the gun (the fetus) is already loaded, so to speak, and once born into this world, who knows what the bullets are that do the damage....

post #8 of 56
3/20/13 at 5:35pm
Thread Starter 

here is a link to the vaccines pregnant moms can have..yes, there IS an uptick in vaccinations

 

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/776783_3

 

scary and ridiculous

 

flu

dtap

hep a&b

pneumovax

meningococcal

post #9 of 56
3/20/13 at 6:27pm
"The numbers keep climbing in part because of different methods of counting."

"The study looked at children ages 6-17 and was based on parent reports, while last year's study looked at 8-year-olds whose diagnosis was noted in school district or other official records."

"The higher numbers recorded in the new study suggest that officials are getting better at counting kids with autism – not that more have the condition, several experts said."
post #10 of 56
3/20/13 at 6:35pm
Emmy I know more vaccines are approved for use during pregnancy and more are even recommended, but are you sure the actual rate of vaccination went up over the time period when these women would've been pregnant? 1996-2007? We're more vaccines even recommended during pregnancy during that time frame? I don't have the timeline down enough to know for sure.
post #11 of 56
3/20/13 at 6:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by emmy526 View Post

i think vax rates  are rising..more moms now are routinely vaxed in pregnancy, something that wasn't done even 10yrs ago...the vaccine schedule has also increased in the last 10yrs too, meaning more exposure to toxins via direct injection into the body.   Gmo foods could play a part too, who knows?   One would tend to think if autism is genetic, why isn't there an in-utero test available yet when they screen for other genetic disease?  i think the gun (the fetus) is already loaded, so to speak, and once born into this world, who knows what the bullets are that do the damage....

According to the article the biggest change was in older kids with mild symptoms, so I wonder how many of them would have fallen outside of this ten year time frame for pregnancy/infancy and toddlerhood?
post #12 of 56
3/21/13 at 10:24am

Don’t worry guys, sure, autism is more common then we thought– but it’s no more common now than it used to be since this increase is accounted for by an increase in diagnoses. No need to panic.

 

post #13 of 56
3/21/13 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dakotacakes View Post

More kids are diagnosed with autism. How is that related to vaccines? The number type and doses of vaccines are not increasing at the same rate that the number of autism cases are. I know no one here wants to acknoweldge that the expanded definition of autism and more screedings is playing a role, but it clearly is.

I would like to see what the rate of CLASSIC autism is and how it is increasing from years past. 50 years ago 25 years ago and even 15/10 years ago those are the only cases that would be counted as autism. So what is that rate today? How much is the rate of autism increasing. I would like to see apples to apples to see how much is better and different diagnoses. Asbergers has not always been counted as autism and plays a part of the increasie. As does pervasive development disorber-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) in years past these kids would have been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities (or mental retardation depending on the time frame) the rates of those diagnoses have went DOWN as the autism went up. Other kids would have been deemed "awkward" and not diagnosed with anything.

Aside from the diagnosis piece I think the vaccine issue dominates too much discourse. It has been researched extensively. Also like I said why is the autism rate rising when the rates of vaccination are not? Shouldn't we look for enviornmental signs that ARE rising at the same speed as atism? Like cell phone towers, Wi FI etc?


I have to say I agree. My DD is diagnosed and she was never vaccinated. None of my kids have been (nor will be). While I think vaccinations are off the table for us for other reasons than the fear of Autism - I am curious whats going on in our environment. GMO foods? Pesticides? Cell phone towers (as you mentioned)? etc.

post #14 of 56
3/21/13 at 3:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Onemoreontheway View Post


I have to say I agree. My DD is diagnosed and she was never vaccinated. None of my kids have been (nor will be). While I think vaccinations are off the table for us for other reasons than the fear of Autism - I am curious whats going on in our environment. GMO foods? Pesticides? Cell phone towers (as you mentioned)? etc.

This blog article on the germline might be of interest to you, as the parent of an unvaccinated child with ASD.

 

http://prenatalexposures.blogspot.com/search?q=germline

 

Also this from the same blog

 

http://prenatalexposures.blogspot.com/p/what-else-causes-impaired.html

 

Then there is this research that just came out:

 

http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1666654&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21857403

post #15 of 56
3/21/13 at 3:14pm

Thank you Mirzam. Nice to meet another ASD parent who didn't vax. I was starting to feel like I was dying on the hill of "Just to be difficult!". lol

Checking out the links now. joy.gif

post #16 of 56
3/21/13 at 3:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Onemoreontheway View Post

Thank you Mirzam. Nice to meet another ASD parent who didn't vax. I was starting to feel like I was dying on the hill of "Just to be difficult!". lol

Checking out the links now. joy.gif

Sorry if I mislead you, I do not have any unvaxed children on the spectrum, mine are both NT. I do have a vaxed child who experienced a adverse reaction to the DPT and has ADD. I do believe vaccines can and do cause minimal brain damage that manifests autistic behaviors in children. But for those that have not been vaccinated, obviously it was something else. 

post #17 of 56
3/21/13 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mirzam View Post

Sorry if I mislead you, I do not have any unvaxed children on the spectrum, mine are both NT. I do have a vaxed child who experienced a adverse reaction to the DPT and has ADD. I do believe vaccines can and do cause minimal brain damage that manifests autistic behaviors in children. But for those that have not been vaccinated, obviously it was something else. 

Oh no, the fault is purely in my reading comprehension. Nice to meet you anyways. I am having a lazy day and really enjoying reading this first link you gave.

It made me remember that I took an anti depressant for about a month during that childs pregnancy. Interesting...ofcourse, correlation not causation but...interesting.

post #18 of 56
3/21/13 at 4:21pm

Here is an article with a bit more data:  http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-autism-20130321,0,4801274.story 

 

Two parts that combined are rather telling:

 

 

Quote:
The most comprehensive assessment of autism prevalence in the U.S. comes from a surveillance network set up by the CDC in the 1990s. It periodically scours school and health records of 8-year-olds in several states, looking for autism diagnoses and clusters of symptoms.

Its most recent analysis, using 2008 data, found an overall rate of 1 in 88, up from 1 in 150 in 2000.

 

 

Quote:
The rate among youths 14 to 17 more than doubled, from 0.7% to 1.8%. Nearly 14% of these received their diagnoses after 2007, though their symptoms would have been present long before. And nearly 70% of these cases diagnosed later were classified by parents as mild.

 

Kids who were 8 for 2008 data would have been born around 2000 and would be 13 or so now. 

 

A rate of 1 in 88 is 1.1%.   This is considerably less than the 1.8% for youths 14 to 17, all who would have been born prior to 2000, some as early as 1996. 

 

Unless kids are actually coming down with autism  after age eight rather than just finally being diagnosed with autism they already had, that kids born 1996-1999 had a much higher rate of autism than kids born in 2000 is a pretty clear indicator that autism cases that had previously been undiagnosed and uncounted are now being diagnosed and counted.  

post #19 of 56
3/21/13 at 6:52pm
Thread Starter 

I think  the criteria for diagnosing autism, from what i've been told, has also changed, from what it was in the late 90's, to now, to include more kids than before, making for higher numbers.   

post #20 of 56
3/22/13 at 6:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by emmy526 View Post

I think  the criteria for diagnosing autism, from what i've been told, has also changed, from what it was in the late 90's, to now, to include more kids than before, making for higher numbers.   

I'm pretty sure that's it. I know several people with "autistic" young children that I couldn't spot anything different about if my life depended on it. Growing up, we all had those children in our class who struggled in school or struggled socially but none of them had labels put on them. Now because there is so much awareness, people are tilting their infant children to one side to do the "autism test" before they can even sit up. 

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Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Health › Vaccinations › Vaccinations Discussion and Debate › 1 in 50 with Autism now??!!