I was just reading my new American Baby magazine and there's a little article about the Autism/Vaccines debate. It talks about a recent study done by CA Dept of Public Health. The study tracked kids 3 and older for 12 years, and found that Autism rates actually went up after 2001, when drugmakers removed Thimerosal from vaccines. What do you think about this new information? Just curious. What do you think is causing the recent spike in autism cases?
The autism research was actually started by a doctor here in canada who is now up for medical malpractice because he skewed the findings to suit pharmaceutical companies.
Autism rates are rising no matter what – we need to look at other factors such as environment, etc. May be linked to certain areas, geography, food we eat.
Who knows -but NOT getting your child immunized because of this "scare" is more scary….many people are not vaccinating because they heard this.
I honestly think it has less to do with the vaccine, but more to do with the willingness to overdiagnose autism. I know that there are kids out there who truly have autism, but there are alot of kids diagnosed with it who don't have it as well…
Just my opinion.
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The autism research was actually started by a doctor here in canada who is now up for medical malpractice because he skewed the findings to suit pharmaceutical companies.
Autism rates are rising no matter what – we need to look at other factors such as environment, etc. May be linked to certain areas, geography, food we eat.
Who knows -but NOT getting your child immunized because of this "scare" is more scary….many people are not vaccinating because they heard this.
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It could be a number of things- something in the environment (pollution etc) or we it is because we have better screening techniques. I worked in the school system in the special Ed department from 2001 and 2006. In those five years we were given vast amount of new studies and information that let us test kids for autism that we would have likely not tested in the years prior.
I not sure what the study exactly found (actual stats and other important information) but this is just my guess based on the information presented.
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I work with the disabled and autism kind of covers alot of different areas. It seems to me that if the Dr. doesn't exactly know what is going on they tend to call it autism or cerebral palsey. As for an increase in rates, people are looking for answers alot more now than they used to. I do not believe that immunizations cause autism but that autisms classic markers are not noticeable to the untrained eye until after one or two years of age
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I think that the recent spike in Autism cases is a combination of over diagnosis and a broader spectrum of what is considered Autistic than what used to be. Sure there may be a slight increase in severely Autistic children as diagnosed by the older means, but how many people are diagnosed with disorders today that were not considered disorders in the past? There is a combination of fear and minimal information making people scared and wanting specific reasons for behavior, so the behaviors are pigeonholed into a disorder.
Don't get me wrong, there are clear cases of Autism. I have a severely Autistic cousin who was completely normal until he was 9- a little shy, but he did not do the whole jumping around and shrieking thing until he was 9. No one knows why he started doing it, either, just like no one knows what causes Autism. Then there are the kids who are a little shy and slow and because they are not up to snuff and fit a few diagnostic criteria they get diagnosed as Autistic when 30years ago they would just be called kids with lower IQs.
So, in conclusion I don't think there is a real increase in Autism or other disorders, I think they are just being diagnosed as particular disorders more frequently than they were in the past.
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Personally we all took the same vaccines that our children are taking and are we autistic?, no. I think its a bunch of bs that parents are blaming on the vaccines and refusing to take them. Well i rather take the chance at autistic then having my child die of an infection because he or she didnt want their child to have the medication that could of prevented it. Every time i hear this topic come up i just laugh at it. Also you can walk with a limp and they would consider it being autistic these days. Theres hundreds of autisms.
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Hmmmm . . . what else happened in 2001?
Increase in cell phone use as companies made cell phones more affordable and 9/11 made people want to be in closer contact?
Increased microwave use?
Global warming?
There are so many variables in the autism patients that it's difficult to determine the cause or combination of causes that can lead to the disease. I also agree with the previous post that the disease is diagnosed more now than ever before, partly due to the funding of special education departments in public schools.
I thought that this list on Wiki is interesting: historical figures suspected of having a form of autism:
Hans Christian Anderson – author
Lewis Carroll
Author Conan Doyle
George Orwell
Beethoven
Bob Dlyan
Mozart
van Gogh
Andy Warhol
Einstein
Hitler
Thomas Jefferson
James Joyce
Michelangelo
Newton
Jonathan Swift
Now, all of this is speculation because these people cannot be tested. But it's interesting that some names on this list are the most well known people of their time. This doesn't include the list of people sent by parents to mental institutions.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....n_autistic