[Always Right]

He probably said something to the effect that autism is like ADD, way over diagnosed. Certainly there are kids with serious problems, but it should not be to the point 1 out of three kids need to be on medication.

[JasonC]

Correct. The rate of autism up to about 1980 was 4 per 10000. That is a good indicator of the incidence of the real disorder. But today, 4-5 times that number are diagnosed with autism. Speculations about real increases are too silly to merit comment. In one study, a researcher found that only 25% of those diagnosed today would have been under the standards and definitions prevailing in 1980. In other words, the meaning of the term was deliberately changed to sweep in a vastly larger number of cases. Then the sympathy and concern rightly focused on the original, actual sufferers, is appropriated by the larger, looser meaning and group. Which is typical stalinist claptrap and obscene. For some details from an independent (and uncommitted) source, see -

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=95

Fake epidemics deserve conservative scrutiny and scorn, because they have become a favorite left-wing social engineering tactic over the last generation.

[AnAmericanMother]

I think this is an accurate observation.

Autism is over-diagnosed.

It used to be that only the profoundly autistic children were diagnosed as such -- the kids who're nonverbal, don't interact with others, and spend their days in repetitive actions such as rocking or banging their heads against the wall. Some friends of mine have a son who is profoundly autistic, and believe me there is no mistaking it, and no question that he will never be able to function on his own in any way. He will have to be institutionalized when his parents are no longer able to care for him.

Now they have "autistic spectrum disorder" and "Asperger's Syndrome" and so forth -- not children that you would immediately pick up as "autistic" in the usual sense. In fact, I would describe a lot of them as just "geeky kids".

As to why this is going on -- follow the money. Federal money for treatment, schooling, etc. = more diagnoses.

[Nathan Zachary]

There are a lot of “fraudulent” autistic children out there.

That’s probably what he was talking about. Savage likes to hear himself talk and is full of crap a lot of the time, but this seems to be way out of character.