Latest autism statistics

Sorry it was so screwed up in the original post.

State….1992-1993..1999-2000..% Increase

Alabama……68……..670………885
Alaska……..8……..165…….2,053
Arizon……199……..897………351
Arkan……..30……..560…….1,767
Cal…….1,605……8,376………422
Colorado…..14……..350…….2,400
Conn……..164……1,032………529
Delaware…..15……..248…….1,553
DC…………0………65…..(infinite)
Florida…..582……3,114………435
Georgia…..262……1,602………511
Hawaii…….52……..198………281
Idaho……..39……..239………513
Illinois……5……2,435……48,600
Indiana…..273……2,080………442
Iowa………67……..543………710
Kansas…….74……..471………636
Kentucky…..38……..739…….1,845
Louisiana…409……1,032………152
Maine……..37……..358………868
Maryland…..28……1,551…….5,439
Mass……..493……..543……….10
Michigan….288……3,449…….1,098
Minnesota…296……1,958………561
Miss……… 0……..333…..(infinite)
Missouri….336……1,361………306
Montana……20……..127………535
Nebraska……4……..289…….7,125
Nevada……..5……..273…….5,360
New Hamp……0……..268…..(infinite)
N Jersey….446……2,378………433
New Mexico…16……..193…….1,106
New York..1,648……4,951………200
N Carolina..786……2,391………204
N Dakota……9………98………988
Ohio………22……1,574…….7,055
Oklahoma…..31……..547…….1,665
Oregon…….37……2,218…….5,895
Penns…….346……2,707………682
Puerto Rico.266……..408……….53
R Island…..19……..238…….1,153
S Carolina..141……..717…….5,021
S Dakota…..36……..168………367
Tennessee…304……..819………169
Texas…..1,444……5,134………256
Utah……..105……..472………350
Vermont…….6……..160…….2,567
Virginia….539……1,714………218
Washington..476……1,376………189
W Virginia..101……..262………159
Wisconsin….18……1,445…….7,928
Wyoming……15………83………453

Total….12,222…..65,396………435

DAD: So what is going on here (in your considered opinion!)?
Is this the result of increased dx of milder autism-spectrum ‘disorders’ as opposed to more severe cases, due to improved knowledge? Do these stats represent something horrible that the powers that be would like to ignore? Or???

You are talking to a woman who refuses to give her child the flu shot the CDN govt is now pushing by taxpayer funded commercials, but who did after much consideration do the regular immunization thing…but who comes from a family who are a bit ‘odd’ in general, and whose child has been identified by elementary school teachers as ‘quite odd’ since they seem to think a 6 year old who invents dialogue for his toys is pretty strange…and who comes also from a long line of twitchers, tappers, grimacers, and jigglers…and has a sneaking but deep-seated sympathy for anyone who is less than ‘average’, especially as ‘average’ is defined in our elementary school system…

I’d love to hear your insights if you wish to share them…as usual thanks in advance for any knowledge, speculative or otherwise, that you are moved to share…
best wishes,
Elizabeth

Actually, truth be told, my opinion isn’t worth the keystorkes it would take to place it here. I am neither a clinical psychologist, nor a seasoned researcher, but an acct w/ an autistic child who has read a thing or two online as I search for answers.

However, there are several people who DO have an opinion, and of these there is no more accomplished team that Sallie Bernard and Theresa Binstock and company, A group of doctors, psychologists and others who have made autism their life’s work.

Dr. Bernard Rimland has probably more experience than any person alive today with autism, having worked nearly exclusively on the issue since the early 60’s. He was the first to make the connection between autism and vaccines, specifically the mercury used as a preservative in most shots.

http://www.autism.com/ari/contents.html

http://www.autism.com/ari/mercurydetox.html

Dr. Amy Homes has also seen the connection between autism and mercury, and her practice has treated literally thousands of autistic children for toxic metals, helping many, many children into a much higher level of functioning thru chelation.

http://www.healing-arts.org/children/main.htm

http://www.healing-arts.org/children/holmes.htm

Additionally, Dr. Paul Bradstreet has also made this connection, as is one of the most repspected researchers in autism today.

There are other doctors who are looking at the connection between autism and the MMR vaccine. Dr. Andrew Wakefield from London’s Royal Free Hospital (their answer to our John Hopkins) first “proved” the connection of the MMR to regressive autism via the Leaky Gut Syndrome. Despite the intense villification and forced resignation of him under pressure from the makers of the MMR (Merck), his science was never faulted, just his intent. He is being vindicated even as I type this by the work of Dr. Buie of Harvard, who has replicated his work, and now may force our govt. to take an honest and very hard look at the situation.

Additionally, Dr. Vindra Singh at Utah has also studied regressive autism and discovered that for some it is an immuno-response to the MMR vaccine gone haywire, which cause the body to develope anti-bodies specific to the protein myelin, which acts as an insulating sheath for the neurons of the cntral nervous system, causing the body to attack its own cells, and thereby “short circuiting” the brain. His work is currently under peer review, with no immediate opposition to it reported.

There are many (mostly at the CDC/NIH) who are pushing for autism to be strictly genetic. Indeed, nearly all the feseral funding in the last 10 years (95%+) has been allotted ONLY to those studies which are looking for the genetic link. Despite this, no gene has been isolated, and every gene that has come under suspect has been found to be as prevalent or more so in the nt (neurologically typical, non-autistic) population.

In the largest study of its kind, researchers in 1995 looked at 45 pairs of twins in which at least one twin had autism. 25 sets were monozygotic (identical) who shared all the same genetic stock. 20 sets were dizygotic (fraternal) which came from two separate fertilized eggs and had no more chance of identical genes than siblings born of different pregnancies. The results were 15 of the 25 sets of identical twins had both children autistic (60%). In the fraternal twins 0 sets had both children autistic.

While the second set’s findings might seem on the surface to hint that autism IS genetic, this conclusion cannot be reached. The environmental factor is not necessarily limited to in utero. The history of Pink disease will attest to that.

On the other hand, looking at the first set’s findings we see something even more interesting. 40% of children with exactly the same genes only had one autistic child. If autism is strictly limited to genetics, or in utero environmental factors, how is it possible that only one identical twin develops autism? Clearly we can see that some other outside factor is coming into play, a factor that only one twin could have received.

And even more interesting is the notion that 60% concordance with autism DOES NOT PROVE THAT AUTISM IS GENETICS EITHER. We cannot determine if it was genes or that BOTH twins suffered from the same environmental trigger. In the absence of a clear genetic marker (such as Fragile X, Rhett’s, Tourette’s, etc.) we can only hypothesize about the genes involved. First there was talk of isolating the gene. To date every gene they think they have found turns out to be as prevalent, or even more so in the non-autistic population than in autistics. Then they theorized it was a combination of up to 6 genes, but this too is failing them. Now there is talk that it is even more, possibly dozens of genes which need to be in place for a child to be autistic.

So what do I think? For what it is worth, I will commit here my humble opinion…

There is no historical precedence for autism prior to this century. Nearly every other disease, condition or congenital birth defect can be found in the annals of history. Over the centuries we have had physicians and other record keepers making note of people they encountered. The Romans, the Persians, the Chinese, the Egyptians, all had their doctors and healers who kept notes which we are able to read thru now and see that they are describing Down’s Syndrome, or micro-encephaly, or Tourette’s Syndrome. But nowhere yet have we found what we now call Kanner’s autism. It is a 20th century problem.

Kanner first found autism in the late 30’s, right around the same time that we began using the pertussis vaccine, which contained mercury. Because the original children with autism were among the wealthy, Bettleheim theorized it was “refridgerator moms” who caused their children to retreat from our world, a terible concept which took nearly 40 years to dispel although variations still rear their ugly head today. (The only LD or other condition that I am willing to accept as being mom’s fault is fetal alcohol syndrome or crack babies, period). What is interesting is that originally, vaccines were not given by the govt. in mass, but paid for out of pocket, leaving only the very wealthy to be able to afford them.

After the mass innoculations began, autism began popping up in all strata of society, albeit most were not diagnoses as autistic. The low functioning children were called MR, and the high finctioning children were either left undiagnosed entirely, or else labeled psychotic.

After the inroductiuon of the MMR vaccine here in 1971, the prevalance of autism took a huge jump, nearly doubling in just a couple years, although again, most children were not diagnosed as such. This is mirrored by Dr. Brent Taylor’s attempt at disproving Dr. Wakefield’s work. Dr. Taylor inadvertantly demonstrated the in the UK the introduction of the MMR vaccine also more than doubled the prevalance rate. When he realized what he proved, he muddied his notes to conceal this, and then refused to release any of the notes or other background for peer review, making his study the only one ever published by The Lancet (the UK’s answer to our New England Journal of Medicine) to be published without the inclusion of the notes to support the findings.

But the true explosion of autism in the US came after the introduction of the Hep B vaccine in 1989. Within 4 years we saw what was once a rare condition turn into everyone’s problem. From 1986 to 1993 the US saw autism rise nearly 600%, and over the course of the 90’s we have seen an additional climb of nearly 400%. Were this any other problem say leukemia, or Down’s Syndrome the public would be up in arms to identify the trigger and take corrective action. But because autsim is a condition of isolation for families (society treats these children as lepers for the most part) we as a nation are basically turning a blind eye to it, or even worse, denying it exists.

So what do I think is happening? I believe that as we have increased the number of shots our children must receive, we have allowed more and more of them to receive an overdose of toxic mercury in organic form (the most neurologically lethal form), which has settled into their brains and injured areas vital to speech, social interaction and sensory input (well documented). Mercury also weakens the immuno system (well documented), causing the body of some children to not react as intended to the live virus vaccine MMR. Additionally, mercury damages both the pancreas and the intestine (well documented) which allows for the emasles to settle into the intestine where it should never be (measles is in nature a disease of the upper respiratory tract), and begins the leaky gut syndrome with exponentially aggravates latent or high functioning autism. Finally, the Hep B vaccine also causes damage to the immuno system, making mroe children susceptible to damage from both the pertussis vaccine (one of the most problematic jabs we give, responsible for more claims against VAERs than all other vaccines combined) and the dreaded MMR.

It is my hope that since all new production of pediatric vaccines are to be mercury free (let us hope that the aluminum they replaced the mercury with is less toxic) and since the existing stockpiles of tainted product shall be depleted by 2004 at the latest, we shall see the prevalance rate of autism begin to turn around.

Hope this wasn’t too long for anyone.

I work in early intervention-about 2 yrs now. Had worked with “normal” children for more yrs than I like to admit before that.

The autistic kids we see do seem to come from what one might call “odd” families. Bear in mind my youngest is “odd” and Aspergers has been suggested so I’m labelling myself here as well. The right brained, nerd type thing. Im sure you know the drill from Sowells books-abundance of engineers, computer professions, musicians, etc. It truly does seem to fit.

We also have a 18 mo old who was brought to us at 6 mos by a mom who was sure he was autistic. We thought mom was exaggerating and possibly disturbed :), but time has all who work with this little guy thinking-she was right on, wasnt she? He is doing well-perhaps the very early intervention is making this a mild case rather than severe??? We will never know.

I also just did a developmental evaluation on the 24 mo sibling of a severely autistic almost 5 yr old child weve worked with at our facility for 3 yrs. I spent the entire time fighting tears because, in my admitedly inexperienced opinion, this little guy is a slightly less affected version of his brother. Meanwhile, we have the 3 yr old sister in our program as a typical peer. But..she isnt typical-not anything we can officially diagnose-and a med facility cetainly wouldnt breathe any words starting with A but…….little, soft signs. All women are still mommy, for ex. Major pronoun probs, difficulty w/questions. Something about that far away look….my son has it too. Different.

I would never dismiss the possibility of a vaccine somehow activating “something” but I do think there is a genetic tendency FIRST. I dont know if it wont take a 2 pronged approach to both identify the gene and then the catalyst. But, in these 2 yrs, Ive seen too many similarities in families of kids with the spectrum disorders to rule out genetics.

I only come here occassionally but always enjoy your posts- both from my job viewpoint and re: my own son!