Rates of autism have skyrocketed 1000% since 1990 - Vaccines?

Natural News

[Scythian]

Natural News

Vaccines cause autism: Supporting evidence
October 6 - Rates of autism have skyrocketed 1000% since 1990, yet defenders of vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry keep scratching their heads in confusion: What could be causing this? Lots of clues point to vaccines...

Autism rates double in children as vaccines poison an entire generation
According to a U.S. government survey just published, rates of autism in children have doubled since 2003. Today, an estimated 1 in 91 children are being diagnosed with autism ...

[jacquej]

I am old enough to have had all the childhood diseases that they vaccinate young’uns for these days. Mumps, measles, 3 day measles, chickenpox, etc.

Lots of us had these childhood diseases, and have life-long immunity as a result. I am sure that some children had bad consequences from these illnesses, but not as many as the press would have you believe.

Now, as I understand it, some of the vaccines for these childhood diseases do not confer life-long immunity, leaving young adults vulnerable to far worse cases of these illnesses than if they had had them as children.

As a parent, if I had the freedom to choose, I would vaccinate against the worst of the illnesses, such as polio, perhaps whooping cough, and TB, but would pass on the mumps, measles, etc, making sure that my children got them when these were “in season”. I would also make sure my children were in the best of health, very important detail.

But, I respect the opinion of those who have fragile children, those who believe that vaccines for everything are the way to go, and who can’t live with the normal inconvenience of these childhood illnesses.

Since so many families have both parents working, I can understand why taking time off from work to nurse a sick child is a major problem. Back in my day, most mothers were at home, and had the time, and the skills to manage a house full of sick kids.

[catnipman]

Three years ago, a Cornell statistician, Gregg Easterbrook, published a paper showing the rates of autism diagnosis increased during long periods of wet weather. His theory as to why this was the case was based on the increased amount of television watching during rainy weather.

Naturally the “vaccines cause autism” bunch hooted him down. They want to blame an exogenous factor, such as vaccines, rather than have to face the possibility that their own child-rearing technique, namely using the TV as a baby sitter, might be implicated. Unfortunately for the vaccine crowd, there’s not a single credible demographic study that implicates vaccines, and several very big studies have been done in several different countries.

To some degree, the TV theory makes quite a bit of sense. Infant brains are still intensely wiring up their brand new neurons and most of that wiring is predicated on early inputs. Motion and sound are two of the biggest inputs, as infants track what is going on around them and their new brain is furiously trying to makes sense of it all.

Now if you set that infant down alone in front of a big screen TV with surround sound, with continuously flashing images that make no sense whatsoever and continuously blaring sound that makes no sense whatsoever, what do you think is happening inside that baby’s tabula rasa as it furiously finishes knitting its unfinished neurons, recording the nature of its discovered world.

I think Easterbrook’s theory merits further investigation. It would be fairly easy to design studies that compare rates of autism amongst various cultures with varying amounts of infant TV watching. Other studies could compile statistics based directly on questionnaires.

Autism is a terrible thing, and it is indeed increasing. All reasonable avenues need to be pursued, regardless of politics. Just think. If it turns out TV is implicated, then prevention can be achieved simply by better parenting.

[Mamzelle]

Has a study been done comparing the rate of autism to the ages of the parents (both parents) of the autistic children? I have talked to someone in the field of study that says there are a lot more older parents than there used to be, and that this might have something to do with this disturbing trend.

[GOPJ]

Or Chinese food additives, "vitamins", and plastic baby bottles made out of "God knows what"...

Too bad babies can't say, "mommy, this tastes funny..."

[pollywog]

puppypusher, this is my granddaughter! she has Asperger’s syndrome.We discovered it very early however. She was 6 months old and because I had worked with autism for 15 years I spotted the tale tale symptoms. She sounds more severe than your son however.

She didn’t use language until she was 2 years old. She has oddity’s both in social skills and the real/versus fantasy world. Obessesions with dolphins. etc. She may or may not graduate in 2010 but will never be able to work in the real world.

[DesertRhino]

Also, if your kid gets an autistic or ADD diagnosis, they get unlimited time on the ACT, SAT, etc,, Parents game this. And Liberals love to be a victim of some kind. The slightest awkwardness, or shy behavior can make you “autistic”.

Autism is like global warming,,,or flouride in the water, mostly pop-culture hype.

[DesertRhino]

“statistical correlation between the locus with highly intelligent people and autistic children very interesting”

And these same corridors of “highly intelligent” will report much more of every politically correct malady. They swear they can already feel the effects of global warming, and they think bottled water is dangerous too, because its in a plastic bottle. Their spawn is on ritalin, and they are all on Zanax.

The truth is, that those self annointed uber-smart corridors are able to see a disorder in almost every variation in behavior.

[DesertRhino]

Just look at the kid in the photo at the beginning. Clearly looks like a spoiled little prick.

[Ann Archy]

I read where they are making vaccines with HUMAN EMBYONIC STEM CELLS!!! Need I say more....God will NOT be Mocked!

[Scythian]

Just look at the kid in the photo at the beginning. Clearly looks like a spoiled little prick.

Wow, looks like somebody didn't buy gold when they were told too ...

[DesertRhino]

“Field trips were a nightmare until those boys got their magic pills.”

I bet they were. Did they act like boys?

[mysterio]

The vaccine-autism study was a hoax. The researcher has admitted as much.

[Scythian]

Right, uhuh? The amount of evidence cannot be ignored ...

[mysterio]

The facts don't support the vaccine-autism theory.

[puppypusher]

So sorry for your Granddaughter.It’s very tough watching a child grow up when you have hopes that they would one day accomplish something good in this world and it can be damn frustrating at times.

My son has sociolization issues in that he hates living home for Anything.He actually gets very uncomfortable if he has to do anything in public unless my wife and I are with him.

Since he’s been seeing his psycologist things are improving if slowly.He’s also got a life skills coach to assist him in becoming more sociolly adaptable.He has even learned to cook for himself and he does that better than I can.The only thing we need to improve on is his grooming.Even that is improving slowly.

[DallasMike]

Those with an Engineering education make up less than 1% of the population of the US. This latest statistic would not only make every Engineer (I r 1) Autistic, but every mathamatician and scientist as well.

Blessings for you and for your son. He does have a tough road ahead but, as an obviously loving parent, his life will be made easier because of you.

It's interesting that you and others have mentioned engineers. My degrees are in chemistry and chemical engineering and everyone scientist and engineer I know could be classified as a bit "different" from, say, business majors.

All of my co-workers have extraordinary powers of concentration. My wife often has to call me and remind me to come home. I think that it's 4:00 PM, it's really 8:00 PM, and I haven't noticed that almost everyone -- except my fellow engineers -- have left. I would make a very good absent-minded professor.

I have loved rocking chairs since my earliest memories, and have set my chair at work so that I can rock, but only a small fraction of an inch. I just simply feel better when I rock.I'm the most social and outgoing person among my co-workers, but it's partly because I've learned to fake extroversion. I'm actually a slight introvert and get my batteries recharged by being alone. Many of my co-workers are classic introverts and about 15% are totally unable to interact with other people. They literally live in fantasy worlds. They're considered strange even by those of us who are used to dealing with strange people.

Do I have a very mild version of Asperger's syndrome? I don't know, and it really doesn't matter because my life is quite happy and normal. This quote from Wired magazine caught my attention though:

It's a familiar joke in the industry that many of the hardcore programmers in IT strongholds like Intel, Adobe, and Silicon Graphics - coming to work early, leaving late, sucking down Big Gulps in their cubicles while they code for hours - are residing somewhere in Asperger's domain. Kathryn Stewart, director of the Orion Academy, a high school for high-functioning kids in Moraga, California, calls Asperger's syndrome "the engineers' disorder." Bill Gates is regularly diagnosed in the press: His single-minded focus on technical minutiae, rocking motions, and flat tone of voice are all suggestive of an adult with some trace of the disorder. Dov's father told me that his friends in the Valley say many of their coworkers "could be diagnosed with ODD - they're odd." In Microserfs, novelist Douglas Coupland observes, "I think all tech people are slightly autistic."

[Scythian]

Those with an Engineering education make up less than 1% of the population of the US. This latest statistic would not only make every Engineer (I r 1) Autistic, but every mathamatician and scientist as well.

Yes, that might be true, but most of our statisticians have now died, all drowing in a river whose average depth is 1" deep, what are we to do?

[pollywog]

alk to the long-time pre-school and grade school teachers. It isn’t just the money, something has changed.

AMEN!

[pollywog]

Your comment is uncalled for!

I am almost 70 years old... a mom, and a grandma many times over. I also have been a foster parent for special needs children, and my husband and I have adopted 5 of those children.

To look at a autistic child and say that they look like a “ Spoiled little prick”...is a real low chop !!

[neverdem]

Thanks for the ping. These incidence/prevalence numbers always struck me as somewhat shaky.

Just some random thoughts:

Genetics seems to be increasingly implicated. I wonder how much epigenetics could be involved.

PubMed has 25366 citations on breast feeding, breast feeding and autism has 8 citations and breast feeding and autistic spectrum disorder got 12 citations.

Besides the noted benefits of breast feeding, could there be an another argument to bring back wet nurses?