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Autism Spikes, Toxins Suspected
STEVEN HIGGS
Counterpunch
Tuesday, Nov 3rd, 2009
As the national focus on the H1N1 pandemic rages,
additional evidence of a more insidious epidemic has emerged,
with an all-too-expected shrug from the mainstream media. Results
from two federal studies announced in October say parents have
a 1-in-100-or-greater chance of having a child with an Autism
Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Since boys are four times more likely
to have an ASD, their odds are as high as 1 in 60.
On Oct. 2, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius told the press and about 50 members of the autism community
that an unreleased Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) study shows the incidence of 8-year-olds born in 1996
with ASDs is 1 in 100. The agency's last two studies of children
born in 1992 and 1994 put the chance at 1 in 150.
On Oct. 5, the journal Pediatrics published the results of
HHS's Maternal and Child Health Bureau's "2007 National
Survey of Children's Health," which showed 1 in 91 children
between the ages of 3 and 17 had autism.
ASDs include Autistic Disorder, Asperger's Disorder and Pervasive
Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS), which
are characterized by lifelong developmental deficits in social,
behavioral and communication skills. According to the CDC, citizens
with ASDs "have significant impairments in social skills
and communication. They often have repetitive behaviors and
unusual interests."
The National Survey of Children's Health data was drawn from
telephone surveys of 78,000 parents who said their children
had been diagnosed and still have ASDs. While its methodology
has been criticized, the results aren't too far out of range
of other recent reports.
In Indiana, a grossly polluted state with comparatively high
rates of autism, data reported to the Indiana Department of
Education, by every public school system in the state, have
shown spikes in the numbers of children enrolled in special
education under the category "autistic" over the past
three years. The federally required counts are called Child
Count Data.
"Last year 1 in 128 students were served under the eligibility
category of Autism Spectrum Disorders," Cathy Pratt, director
of the Indiana Resource Center and chair of the National Autism
Society of America, said for a story last spring. "This
year's identification rate is 1 in 113."
In June, Pratt reported the latest figures in an e-mail to
The Bloomington Alternative: "Now the Child Count Data
is showing 1 in 101." In another e-mail last week she confirmed
its currency: "That is the latest data I have."
***
As Huffington Post blogger David Kirby observed in his post
of Oct. 9, the mainstream media's response to the new CDC data
has been "rather nonchalant." But the implications
of the new incidence measures are anything but mundane. They
are "startling," as Kirby, author of the best-selling
book Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic:
A Medical Controversy, says.
Improved diagnostics and changing criteria have long complicated
the sometimes incendiary national debate about autism, its incidence
and its causes.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders,
Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), published in 1994, expanded the ASD
criteria to include Asperger's and PDD-NOS. So the 0.44 autism
cases per 1,000 live births that the California Department of
Health Services found in 1980, for example, couldn't be accurately
compared to CDC studies that showed the rate at 6.7 and 6.6
per 1,000 in 1992 and 1994. The California subjects were diagnosed
before the DSM-IV changes, the CDC subjects after.
But the new 1-in-100 ratio of children born in 1996 appears
to be a legitimate comparison. All three subject groups were
identified under the same diagnostic criteria. And while the
actual study will not be released until later this year, it
doesn't appear that the CDC has altered its methodology.
And federal officials' reported response to the new numbers
suggests drama. In an Oct. 5 piece in Age of Autism, Kirby described
Sebelius's call to the autism community as a "hastily arranged
telephone 'visit,'" during which she announced that the
"prevalence of autism might be even higher than previously
thought."
The secretary then hedged a bit -- "We don't know if it
has gone up, and we are hoping to unlock these mysteries."
-- declared autism an "urgent public health challenge"
and "promptly ended her visit," Kirby continued.
The Associated Press reported on Oct. 5 that CDC announced
the unpublished 1-in-100 findings "during an embargoed
press briefing" in response to the published children's
health survey's 1-in-91 rate.
Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of
Mental Health and chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating
Committee, provided more detail.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, he sounded a cautionary
note similar to Sebelius's. "It is not entirely clear what
(the) increase is due to," he said. "It is not clear
more children are affected rather than just changes in our ability
to detect."
Another interview with an AP medical writer was more sobering.
"The concern here is that buried in these numbers is a
true increase," Insel said. "We're going to have to
think very hard about what we're going to do for the 1 in 100."
***
No one knows what causes autism, let alone what is responsible
for the statistical evidence that its prevalence is spiking.
“Honestly, if someone was going to give a talk on the
etiology or causes of autism, it would be entirely speculative,”
according to Dr. Christopher McDougle, an autism researcher
and chair of the psychiatry department at the Indiana University
School of Medicine. “There’s nothing that’s
known.”
Research has focused on perinatal and prenatal causes, he said,
because autistic symptoms appear between the ages of 1 and 1½.
Prenatal suspects include fetal damage from medications, abnormal
brain development from genetic causes or infections. Contributing
factors at birth could be prematurity, lack of oxygen to the
brain, prolonged labor or infections. Shortly after birth: infections
or environmental contributions.
A growing number of researchers believe that autism is triggered
in genetically predisposed individuals by an "environmental
hit," McDougle said.
Count Kirby among those who argue that environmental pollution
is the likely culprit in the autism epidemic. Federal health
officials who led the AP to report, “Greater awareness,
broader definitions and spotting autism in younger children
may explain some of the increase,” are misguided, he argued.
“Some have called it ‘good news’ that doctors
are now so proficient at diagnosing the milder forms of ASD,”
Kirby wrote in the Huffington Post. “… Many will
call me an alarmist, but I believe that 1-in-60 boys with an
autism spectrum disorder is a national crisis -- and not just
a reassuring confirmation of how things have always been.”
Plus, he added, to buy that argument is to accept the conclusion
that 1-in-60 American males, young and old, have an ASD. “Do
you really believe that 1 in 60 American men are autistic?”
he asked.
For Kirby, the parallel rise in environmental pollution and
autism rates are related. And federal officials need to shift
their focus accordingly.
“They don't seem to feel that rising levels of environmental
toxic exposures in genetically susceptible children might also
be at play here,” he wrote in the Huffington Post. “I
personally believe that toxins like mercury can trigger ASD
in children. These toxic exposures are on the rise, and so is
the incidence of ASD.”
"When the people find they can vote themselves
money, that will herald the end of the republic."
- Fall Of The Republic - Buy
the DVD here
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INFOWARS:
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