CDC: 1 in 88 US kids have autism

[xchrom]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/29/national/a065351D26.DTL

A new government report says autism is more common than previously thought, burdening as many as 1 in 88 children.

Health officials attribute the increase largely to better recognition of cases, through wide screening and better diagnosis.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the numbers Thursday. They are the latest in a series of studies that have been steadily increasing the government's estimate for autism.

This new estimate means autism is nearly twice as common as officials said it was only five years ago, and likely affects roughly 1 million U.S. children and teens.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/03/29/national/a065351D26.DTL#ixzz1qW0KWup6

[BlueToTheBone]

1. It seems there must be something

happening in our country that isn't happening in others. If mercury has been cleared of the basis for the condition, I wonder what is causing this.

[longship]

2. Seems to be congenital

Probably not environmental.

At least that's what current science says.

Also, increase in autism is partially because they've redefined autism to include other related disorders, e.g., Asberger.

One thing that has been ruled out is vaccinations, no matter what that idiot Jenny McCarthy says.

[BlueToTheBone]

6. So, sometime during the pregnancy

something occurs which seems to be spreading through the population.

[longship]

7. Not exactly

Brain development does not stop at birth but continues through to teen age. It just so happens that a development disorder like autism first shows up when language normally develops, since that's a way to diagnose it.

Neurology is fascinating and is one which is advancing quite a bit the last few years. I've taken some interest in it, although I do not claim to be an expert. But apparently that's what the experts say.

On edit: see post #4

[mzmolly]

8. The current science indicates it's a combination

of genes and environment. Vaccines have not been ruled out, in every case of autism. Though, they are apparently not THE cause of autism and/or THE cause of any so called "epidemic" IMHO.

[longship]

11. About vaccines

Nope! I haven't heard of a single study that has any linkage to autism.

Wakefield's study has been completely discredited due to the fact that he was paid by lawyers who had a conflict of interest, he used unethical medical practices (for which he was struck off as a doctor in the UK), and stood to gain financially since he had a patent on a monovalent vaccine.

Nope! No vaccine connection to autism.

The definitive studies on this issue are the Scandenavians who take great pride in their accumulating a huge database of their population's medical histories. (They do have socialized medicine there.) The Danish study is definitive (millions of people), no causal link between vaccines and autism. But the data already showed that.

Don't believe me. Look it up.

Not saying there are no environmental influences, but there is zero evidence that it's vaccines. That dog just won't hunt.

[mzmolly]

15. I'm not surprised that you haven't heard of a "single study" given

the very specific criteria you seek.

If one understands that numerous studies suggest an interplay between environment and genetics, making a leap to vaccines as a potential trigger (in those vulnerable) isn't much of a stretch.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/01/04/mouse-study-links-immune-disorders-to-autism/33272.html

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/20080305_mindmatters_immune/index.html

http://legacy.autism.com/medical/research/advances/autism-mitopoll.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15869795

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101130161521.htm

http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info:doi/10.1289/ehp.7712

"...More research is needed to determine if there are rare cases where underlying mitochondrial disorders are triggered by anything related to vaccines. However, we know that for most children, vaccines are a safe and important way to prevent them from getting life-threatening diseases."

~ CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/mitochondrial-faq.html

I agree with the CDC. More research IS needed.

[Odin2005]

17. Broken record alert.

[mzmolly]

19. Given your replies consist primarily of

>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<

I'll consider the source.

[mzteris]

14. Recognition of the symptoms

and more informed parents and physicians, maybe?

Maybe the incidence hasn't increased at all. We just recognize it now for what it is and it has a name. Before - those kids were just "weird" or "retarded" or derogatory term of your choice.

[saras]

3. Much of it may not even be a problem except for the degree to which we demand conformists...

Face it, if Bill Gates was a kid today, he'd be medicated up the wazoo, and there's a good chance he wouldn't be terribly functional.

Maybe that would have been a good thing for computers, maybe not. But it would NOT have been a good thing for Bill Gates.

[ladywnch]

4. I just read a piece on new research that indicates autisim is caused by

an over wiring in the brain. This wiring takes place at a very rapid rate during the second and third trimesters normally and something happens in some of these fetuses that causes it to hyper produce.

I'm not going to try and recount it all here ( couldn't if I tried).....but it was very interesting.

They still don't know what triggers the hyper wiring in-utero but it now gives them a solid place to start looking. (there is some kind of protein that signals cells to divide that is also responsible for the brain wiring function)

The report also pretty well calls out that it has NOTHING to do with vaccines, parenting, environmental.......

[xchrom]

5. If could find it - could you link to it?

It sounds very interesting.

[BlueIris]

9. Yes, I would like to read it, too. nt

[mzmolly]

10. Here is the study absract from the JAMA.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/306/18/2001.short

Autism often involves early brain overgrowth, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Although prefrontal abnormality has been theorized to underlie some autistic symptoms, the cellular defects that cause abnormal overgrowth remain unknown.

Here is another, somewhat related study:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/304/21/2389.full

Conclusion In this exploratory study, children with autism were more likely to have mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA overreplication, and mtDNA deletions than typically developing children.

[ladywnch]

12. this isn't the article I read, but it references much of the same info

you might be able to use it to dig up the original research source.



http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/autism/story/2011-11-08/Autistic-children-may-have-too-many-brain-cells-study-says/51128494/1

[xchrom]

13. That's awesome! Thank you. Nt

[mzmolly]

18. Here is additional/complementary research on how postnatal brain development may factor in.

Altering the trajectory of early postnatal cortical development can lead to structural and behavioural features of autism


The postnatal maturation trajectory of the neocortex is highly heterogeneous, exhibiting large regional variability in both structure and functional development [18-22]. This issue is, however, rarely addressed in the literature despite the fact that there is a growing realization that some of the key brain abnormalities of autism can be highly protracted and continue to evolve during postnatal life [23,24]. This is not surprising given the fact that certain high-order brain regions important for social functions endure continued plastic changes and delayed postnatal maturation [25,26]. For example, unlike some regions of the primary sensory and motor cortices, the speed of cortical maturation in high-order temporal association networks is significantly slower, often extending into adolescence [18-22]. This developmental feature suggests that the trajectory of temporal lobe development may be particularly sensitive to pathogenic factors that can influence the speed of neuronal maturation, especially during postnatal life [27]. For example, culture work has shown that valproate (VPA), and analogous compounds, are potent epigenetic factors that can facilitate neuronal maturation in neurons [28-30]. However, whether VPA can influence the speed of postnatal maturation in vivo and whether this can be associated with structural and behavioural characteristics related to autism remains unknown.

Here we address the emerging hypothesis that it may be the time course of postnatal cortical development that is most disturbed in ASD.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/11/102

Hopefully combined, evolving research will merit a solution in the future.

[Odin2005]

16. More autistics are getting property diagnosed.

I said a couple of years ago that ASDs are way underdiagnosed, especially among people over 30.

[LeftishBrit]

20. A lot depends on diagnostic criteria

http://www.physorg.com/news172845617.html

Moreover the rates were similar for younger and older adults, suggesting that there has not been any increase in recent years, if the same diagnostic criteria are used.

A great deal of the increase in diagnosis is due to changes in diagnostic criteria and in level of awareness of autism. In the past, many children who would now be diagnosed with autism were diagnosed as 'mentally handicapped', 'emotionally disturbed', 'childhood psychotic/ schizophrenic' (a diagnosis almost never used nowadays), or language-impaired:

http://www.physorg.com/news126959497.html

This does not rule out some environmental factors being involved as well as genetics (we already know some, such as prematurity, birth difficulties, and some maternal infections), but it is unlikely to be something very new. I think there should be more studies for example of prenatal nutrition, and of prenatal exposure to pollutants (many of these have been around for a long time), and less single-minded focus on vaccines.

Rumour has it that the DSM5 will have more stringent criteria for diagnosis for autism than the DSM4. If so, that will lead to reduced rates of diagnoses of autism - not because the condition will become rarer, but because it will be less readily diagnosed.