UCD M.I.N.D. Institute Study Finds Autism Increase Is Real [In the Sacramento Bee. Commentary by parent advocate Rick Rollens]
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/4828799p-5841971c.html
Sacramento — The unprecedented increase in autism in California is real and cannot be explained away by artificial factors, such as misclassification and criteria changes, according to the results of a large statewide epidemiological study: “Speculation about the increase in autism in California has led some to try to explain it away as a statistical issue or with other factors that artificially inflated the numbers,” said UC Davis pediatric epidemiologist Robert S. Byrd, who is the principal investigator on the study. “Instead, we found that autism is on the rise in the state and we still do not know why.The results of this study are, without a doubt, sobering.”
Key findings of the study are that:
• The observed increase in autism cases cannot be explained by a loosening in the criteria used to make the diagnosis.
• Some children reported with mental retardation and not autism did meet criteria for autism, but this misclassification does not appear to have changed over time.
• Because more than 90 percent of the children in the survey are native born, major migration of children into California does not contribute to the increase.
• A diagnosis of mental retardation associated with autism had declined significantly between the two age groups.
• The percentage of parent-reported regression (loss of developmental milestones) does not differ between two age groups.
• Gastrointestinal symptoms, including constipation and vomiting, in the first 15 months are more commonly reported by parents in the younger group
“While this study does not identify the cause of autism, it does verify that autism has not been over-reported in the California Regional Center System and that some children diagnosed with mental retardation are in fact, autistic,” Byrd said.
Byrd and his research team earlier this year enrolled 684 California children who received services from one of the California Regional Centers to participate in the study. They systematically gathered information for children in two age groups - 7 to 9 years of age and 17 to 19 years of age -from families of 375 children with a diagnosis of full syndrome autism and309 children with a diagnosis of mental retardation without full syndrome autism.
Byrd, a pediatrician with UC Davis Children’s Hospital, and his colleagues, conducted the study for the M.I.N.D. Institute at UC Davis to help explain reasons behind significant increases in the number of autistic children entering the state’s 21 regional centers. A 1999 report by the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS), which operates the centers, found a 273 percent increase in autism cases between 1987 and 1998. The report was the catalyst for the state Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis to direct DDS and the M.I.N.D. Institute to identify factors responsible for the increase, funding the effort with a $1 million appropriation.
Autism is a complex and severe developmental disorder that affects a person’s ability to communicate, form relationships with others, and respond appropriately to the environment. Those affected may avoid making eye contact and lack the ability to read faces for signs of emotion or other cues. Children typically do not engage in social play or games with thei peers. Unusual behaviors such as rocking, hand-flapping or even self-injurious behavior may be present in some cases.
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Commentary By Rick Rollens Parent advocate
The take-away message today from the M.LN.D. Institute’s groundbreaking and comprehensive three year $1 million study is that California’s rapidly growing autism epidemic is REAL, and that this epidemic cannot be explained away by increased awareness, better diagnosis or having missed these children in the past, or by confusing autism with other disorders, or by families moving to California for services for their autistic children.
It is clear that a purely genetic basis for autism cannot explain the rapidly increasing numbers of new cases of autism in California; in fact, as we all know, you cannot have a purely genetic disease epidemic. We now know that environmental factors are at play. As a result of this study, those who have simply refused to believe that we are in the midst of a real autism epidemic no longer can put forth their simplistic explanations and denials that the epidemic exists, indeed those explanations and denials have now been scientifically removed from the debate.
We now know that more parents then ever are reporting cases of regressive autism and gastrointestinal problems that plague their autistic children. We also know that over one-third of parents of young children with autism believe that vaccines caused their child’s condition. This study sustains what many in the autism community believe, that is, that the autism epidemic is real and growing and that a major commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars to support research and treatments for this national health emergency is urgently needed. That efforts such as those that are underway at the M.I.N.D. Institute to examine the role of environmental factors such as toxic and viral exposures, as well as autoimmune issues, and childhood vaccinations in the development of autism should be immediately accelerated to the top of the autism research agenda.”