I agree with you 100%, it does need to be a national priority. We are seeing the numbers increasing however there has been a change in the criteria for what constitutes/qualifies as Autism so more people now meet the criteria and are being labeled as having Autism. I am a National Board Certified Special Education teacher who has over 17 years experience working with children with Autism and other disabilities. In recent years, more children have qualified as having Autism, but their characteristics are all completely different and this has made creating education plans for each of them challenging. Regarding the belief of a correlation of vaccines and this disorder, I have worked with many parents who say prior to their child receiving a vaccine their child was completely normal. There are too many of them for me to dismiss the possibility of a link. I have read the original study that has been debunked and I have also read other studies too. In my opinion finding a definitive cause or a possible cure for this condition is as elusive as finding a cure for cancer.
“... their child was completely normal”.
Was it the 18 month MMR? I have read that as well.... I agree that this condition is as elusive as finding a cure for cancer.
I believe that you are seeing a classic example of confirmation bias. They probably saw the behaviors prior to the vaccinations and dismissed them as quirks, or maybe did not even recognize them as abnormal. But they started noticing the behaviors after the vaccinations--maybe because they had to get their children vaccinated prior to school or preschool, and now they observe other children whose behavior is normal. They see that their child is not normal, and they've heard the (very discredited) claims of a vaccine-autism link. So they conclude (wrongly) that the vaccines caused their child's problems when, in reality, the problems were there all along. It's classic confirmation bias.