Autism is becoming more prevalent among young children.
Earlier this year, a new study published in the journal Pediatrics analyzed data from more than 4,000 8-year-olds in New York and New Jersey and found that the prevalence of autism has tripled in the last 16 years, Forbes reported.
On Thursday, the CDC released its updated report on the expected prevalence of autism among American children.
The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network included 11 sites (Arizona, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin) that monitored Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence for 2020.
According to the study, more children of color (Black and Hispanic) than White children are being diagnosed with autism for the first time.
Prevalence via CDC:
- About 1 in 36 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) according to estimates from CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network. [Read article]
- ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups. [Read article]
- ASD is more than 4 times more common among boys than among girls. [Read article]
- About 1 in 6 (17%) children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability, as reported by parents, during a study period of 2009-2017. These included autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, blindness, and cerebral palsy, among others. [Read summary]
According to federal health officials, COVID prevented early intervention and treatment for some children.
Robert Kennedy Jr., a major figure in the vaccine resistance movement, wrote on his Twitter, “Why does CDC refuse to investigate the cause of exploding Autism epidemic far more devastating than COVID?”
Why does CDC refuse to investigate the cause of exploding Autism epidemic far more devastating than COVID?https://t.co/FzROk44lEU
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) March 23, 2023
Toby Rogers, Ph.D. said, “The unwillingness of the CDC to even ask why these numbers are increasing is a massive ‘poker tell’ that they know but are prohibited from talking about it.”
The Defender reported:
The trend has persisted for decades. Autism prevalence in the 1990s, which was 1 in 1,000 children, already represented a tenfold increase over the condition’s estimated prevalence in the 1970s.
Commenting on today’s report, Mark Blaxill, from the Executive Leadership Team at Health Choice, told The Defender:
“As the American culture wars have intensified, the harsh reality of the autism epidemic has been tucked away into obscurity as attention has turned to a whole new set of health concerns.
“Today’s new report from the CDC’s ADDM [Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring] Network places the latest ASD rate at 1 in 36 children born in 2012, but that’s not even the largest number out there (a recent survey using NHIS data reported a rate of 1 in 29 children in 2020).”
Commenting on the CDC’s assertion that children of color have higher rates of autism than white children because of improved screening and awareness, Sallie Bernard, co-founder and board president of SafeMinds, told The Defender:
“That does not explain why their rate is higher than white children. As a group, no racial or ethnic minority here gets better assessment and diagnosis than white children, so to explain the disparity in the rate now as due to better assessment for minorities is just ludicrous.”
But the report makes no comment on the causes of autism, nor does it offer an explanation for the rising rates beyond increased testing.
Toby Rogers, Ph.D., had this to say about the CDC’s claims that better testing is behind the growing number of autism cases:
“The unwillingness of the CDC to even ask why these numbers are increasing is a massive ‘poker tell’ that they know but are prohibited from talking about it.
“Two high-quality, multi-million dollar studies in California (Byrd et al., 2002; Hertz-Picciotto and Delwiche, 2009) both concluded that better awareness, changes in diagnostic criteria and earlier age of diagnosis only explain a small fraction of the rise in autism.
“The authors of these studies urged public health officials to place greater emphasis on researching the toxicants that might be driving the increase in autism prevalence. [For a longer discussion of these studies please see Rogers, 2019.] The fact that the CDC is still refusing to properly investigate autism causation is outrageous.”
Read more here.
