A new report by the US centers for the control and prevention of diseases (CDC) indicates that autism diagnostics in the United States continue to increase and trigger inflammatory rhetoric of government officials, while experts are largely attributable to improved screening and a better understanding of the disease.
The CDC reported on Tuesday that an estimated one of 31 eight -year -olds in the USA has autism and used data from 14 countries and Puerto Rico in 2022. The previous estimate-AB 2020-WAR one of 36.
The CDC checked the health and school documents for eight-year estimates because most cases are diagnosed at this age.
Boys are still more diagnosed as girls, and the highest rates are indigenous and black among children who are Asian/Pacific is insulans.
The CDC acknowledges that its report does not cover the whole country or creates “nationally representative (autism spectrum disorder) prevalence estimates.
The numbers also vary greatly depending on the location – from one of 103 in Laredo, Texas to one of 19 in California.
CDC researchers say that this may be due to differences in the availability of services for early detection and evaluation. In an initiative in California, for example, hundreds of local pediatricians were trained to check and transfer children for early assessments, and the state also has numerous regional centers that make ratings.
In response to the report, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Us Health and Human Services (HHS), claimed in a explanation that the “autism epidemic is widespread” and that his “risks and costs … are more threatening for our country than Covid-19”.
Why do the numbers rise?
According to the Autism Society of America, the increase from 2020 could reflect several factors, including greater awareness and improved screening and diagnostics.
“This increase in prevalence does not signal an” epidemic “if stories claim – it reflects the diagnostic progress and an urgent need for political decisions based in science and the immediate needs of the autism community,” said the organization in a statement.
Canada’s latest figures date from 2019, when the Canada of 50 children aged 1 to 17 years was diagnosed with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with men being diagnosed about four times more often than women.
Remi Yerdeau, Canada Research Chair for critical disability studies and communication at Carleton University, says that the CDC report is just a “snapshot” and does not give the whole story behind the numbers.
According to Yerdeau, the doctors have become more on the recognition of autism and the various possibilities in which autistic properties manifest themselves in humans.
“People like to make comparisons and say things like:” When I was a child, there were no autistic people, “said Yerdeau.” They forget things like institutionalization and shift in diagnoses, so that people who may have been diagnosed with a different disease are now diagnosed. “
The diagnosis has been rare for decades, only for children with serious problems with communication or conviviality and those with unusual, repetitive behaviors.
In the early nineties, each of 10,000 children was diagnosed with autism. At this time, the term became a short form for a group of related conditions known as ASD, and the number of children called a form of autism began.
In the first decade of this century, the US estimate rose from 150 to one. In 2018 it was one of 44. In 2020 it was up to one of 36.
‘Especially’ rhetoric
According to Yerdeau, a “language of panic” follows to follow these reports and is worried about the damage from Kennedy’s “dehumanism” rhetoric.
“There is a very real way how this kind of panic for autistic people does not lead to great results – such as disabilities and disabled people to see something they feared,” they said.
“When people create this rhetoric of panic, they create an accompanying rhetoric that we have to do everything to solve them. And really bad things can happen if you remove this special approach from this perceived despair.”
Kennedy swore last week that the country’s top health authority will precisely determine the cause of autism by September and promised to “remove these exposure” in an announcement that medical experts and supporters were made aware of concerns.
The supporters of Kennedy and Anti-Accine have long pushed a discredited theory about vaccines in childhood, which are referred to on a preservative that is referred to as a thimerosal and which is no longer in most vaccines in childhood, or that autism can be the cumulative effect of several vaccinations.
For decades of research, no connections to vaccines have found and showed that genetics play a major role in autism, but that there is no specific “autism gene”. There are no blood or biological tests for autism that are diagnosed by having judgments about the behavior of a person.
The US national health facilities, which spend more than 300 million US dollars annually, list a few possible risk factors, such as: B. Penstertical exposure to pesticides or air pollution, extreme premature babies or low birth weight, certain health problems or parents that occur at an older age.
Kennedy was committed to David Geier, a man who repeatedly claimed a connection between vaccines and autism and was punished by the state of Maryland to practice medication for a child without a doctor’s license to guide autism research efforts.
