Yeah, they redefined the autism diagnosis and the number of autism cases jumped.
Unless you were British and wealthy, and then you were eccentric.
Okay, I see how that would account for a jump over a short period of years, but how does it account for the ever increasing numbers?
Does Autism encompass ADD and ADHD diagnoses?
I hate anecdotal evidence but my wifes sisters kid is autistic, and the school were keen to classify the other, naughtier kid as autistic too just so they could transfer him out.
Also, and feel free to slap me down if im wrong, but i suspect there’s not a chance me and the rest of my fellow school lunchtime RPG club betas wouldn’t have been put somewhere on the spectrum these days.
A fair amount of the developing science is focusing on environmental toxins, particular industrial pollution, which is of course, still on the increase. Parental awareness is also on the increase, which increases the application of the new standards for diagnosis. A standards change means nothing if a kid isn’t tested.
No, that’s a different thing.
But “Aspergers” isn’t a thing anymore, it’s all autistic spectrum now.
The continuous increase of autism diagnosis is due to the increasing penetration of the notion of the disease in the population at large. Doctors aren’t magical oracles who only emit correct mechanical diagnoses; their understanding and behavior reflects the interests of their patients and of the media and the pharmas and the seminars they attend and all these other social factors.
To piggyback onto these points, parents of children with difficulties are often put into severe stress, especially as it relates to schools. Many school systems have developed a mechanism through which additional assistance can be offered to children with demonstrated need. That frequently creates a scenario where parents have to advocate for special needs status for their child (a somewhat bizarre inversion of how kids respond to the “retard” label), and if they are successful then accommodations (funding and otherwise) are able to be made for the child. Without that decision, children are - out of fairness to the others - generally limited to “mainstream” education with minimal special assistance. So there is a pressure that comes from parents who are overburdened, educators whose hands are tied, and psychologists & therapists who work with kids in need to broaden the scopes of diagnosis and to be more liberal with testing.
So this gem of a post has been shared by a number of anti-vax friends on my facebook. Link here: https://www.facebook.com/kimphair22/posts/10153132222024905
OK… I just cannot bite my tongue any longer. This new discrimination and hate speech that is being spread towards parents that don’t vaccinate is ignorant at best and completely disgusting and shameful at worst. I have seen articles floating around suggesting that parents who don’t vaccinate should be sued? Thrown in jail? Packed up and shipped away to a private island? LOL (ok, this option actually sounds alright to me!) But really, lets just think logically about this for a minute… Vaccinations have increased in number from 10 to 38 since the 80’s. Could you imagine if we lived in a place where we had no right to choose what medical procedures our children undergo? What changes could possibly be made in the medical community in that time? Would you be OK if your children received over 60 vaccinations in the first year of life? Oh wait, you might not have a say! The decision to vaccinate should be an educated conscious choice not a passively corporative one. How about instead of doctors just handing out a ‘vaccine safety sheet’ why don’t they disclose vaccine inserts and let you read the ingredients and contradictions yourself? How about instead of ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ we thoroughly assess each child individually, because contrary to popular belief, vaccination is NOT safe for every child across the board and how are we supposed to know until it’s too late? Speak to any mother of a vaccine injured child. Take a look at VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)) and know that only 10% of vaccine injuries are actually reported because many happen days after the inoculation and doctors never want to attribute it to the shot. Take a look at the national vaccine compensation program (National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program | HRSA). Did you know that over 108 million was paid last year to vaccine injured recipients. With a whopping 8 million paid just last month!? Some ingredients in common vaccinations include - aluminium, formaldehyde, antibiotics, MSG, polysorbate 80, monkey kidney cells, aborted cow blood, chicken embryo etc. Still sound safe? My family makes a conscious effort to avoid these ingredients in our food supply, why would we inject this directly into our young babies nervous system? For the slim chance of producing an antibody that is temporary at best?
Since everyone is up in arms about the measles lets look at some facts the mainstream media and your doctors office is probably leaving out - luckily you don’t need to be a medical doctor to have access to medical journals, university and research papers - it’s the year 2015 and these are published on the world wide web for all to see. Measles is an illness characterized by "a generalized rash lasting ≥3 days, a temperature of ≥101°F [≥38.3°C], and cough, coryza, and/or conjunctivitis.” (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6322a4.htm…) Wait, it’s not a death sentence? No. Not even close. There has not been a death from measles in North America in over a decade. Imagine that. But… but, measles can cause encephalitis (in less then 1%) it can cause deafness (from an untreated ear infection which I think is safe to say will be properly diagnosed and treated with western medicine)… you know what else can cause encephalitis and deafness? The vaccine. So… the measles virus has caused 0 deaths in the past 10 years. How many deaths have been attributed to the MMR vaccine in the past 10 years? 98… yes you read that correctly, ninety eight (http://vaccineimpact.com/…/u…/sites/5/2015/01/MMR-deaths.jpg) Anyone with access to a computer can search here; Search VAERS Database. I would even go as far as saying that number is higher because not all injuries/deaths are even reported properly. That’s not even the tip of the iceberg for unsettled claims…
Did you also know that BEFORE vaccination measles deaths (in developing countries) had decreased by nearly 100% from better hygiene, sanitation and nutrition. Take a look at the below graph from vital stats. Measles outbreaks are happening all over the world and it’s actually not happening in places where people are refusing vaccinations the most (California 1.1-2% vs. Vermont & Michigan over 6%) Perhaps this could also be an issue of a vaccine flaw or a mutated virus? Or simply the fact that the majority of the population doesn’t even have immunity anymore because of previous vaccination diminishing (http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/…/29/infdis.jit143.full.pdf+h…). If this recent measles outbreak has taught us anything it’s that vaccinations don’t always work, perhaps it seemed like a good idea at the time, but now no one actually has natural LIFE LONG immunity to anything (except for the lucky ones who are able to catch the wild strain measles) and all these diseases are going to make a come back and let me tell you it’s not because of these babies who are unvaccinated. You know what would protect these innocent babies or immunocompromised individuals? A mother who has naturally been exposed to measles who can then pass the antibodies on through her breastmilk, and medical literature even suggests this protection could last up to 10 years! (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/…/j.1651-2227.2008.0118…/full) OR the good old fashion way of contracting the disease naturally resulting in life long immunity.
If you or someone you know is immune compromised then these individuals should most certainly avoid recently vaccination people as any live virus has the ability to shed for up to a month afterwards (http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx…) Don’t travel. Avoid exposure during an outbreak. But wait, for the record, since we’re going there - these immunocompromised individuals can infact be vaccinated after all (Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP): Use of Vaccines and Immune Globulins in Persons with Altered Immunocompetence - not that I think they should…)
Call me selfish but never in a million years will I force my child to undergo a medical procedure and potentially put them in more danger for the sake of being a team player. Unless people are getting their blood and titres tested after vaccination how do we even know if these individuals produced an antibody response? What about the general population who has little to no immunity because of earlier vaccination that has diminished over time? What about the 5-15% of the population that are non-responders and don’t even have the ability to produce antibodies - from wild exposure or vaccination… without proper testing we don’t even know who all these disease ridden germ infested individuals are… lurking anonymously on the streets… gasp
You know what we should all be focusing our efforts on? Installing elevators in all our homes because over 1000 people die every year from falling down the stairs….
I’m just so sick of this cyber bullying and fear mongering from the media that is happening all over the place lately. I can tell you every single parent I know that has chosen not to vaccinate IS educated on the topic and they have not gotten their information from random blogs or porn stars… And believe it or not, their kids are extremely healthy. We all want the best for our children and the way we build up their immune systems and/or protect them in this world looks different. And that’s OK. I don’t think it’s just the small non-vax % that should get constantly slammed - there are many ways we can improve the system and put our energy towards more constructive solutions. If you’ve researched and you believe in vaccinations that’s awesome, good for you! I would never call you a bad parent because it goes against my belief. For all I know you are an awesome parent, who without a doubt loves your child just as much as I do. If you’ve ever had a doubt or felt uncomfortable then by all means ask questions, dig deeper… because it is our right and it should remain that way.
““The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” — Adolf Hitler”
That is a chain letter of stupidity (and broken links).
I assume this is just a joke, but is the R really .99 if so that is pretty remarkable.
Pretty sure it’s accurate. It’s not hard to find a “correlation” all you need is anything that increases over time and the fiddle with the scale until it fits. XKCD did it years ago for something else and people have done it with all sorts of things to make people try to understand correlation vs causation.
I assume this is just a joke, but is the R really .99 if so that is pretty remarkable.
If you’re not testing a specific correlation, but rather searching through unrelated data to find one, it’s not remarkable at all.
Good grief but that is a massive pile of stupid. And sooooo easy to pick apart that I wonder if it’s just a troll.
Seems relevant:
http://www.tylervigen.com/
Also:
This new discrimination and hate speech that is being spread towards parents that don’t vaccinate…
My first thought: not a protected class.
Next you’re gonna be telling us that the bible code isn’t real.
My daughter has dyslexia. We had her checked out outside the school system but then had to get the school system to accept that diagnosis in order to get my daughter the benefits of a school program. My daughter hated us doing that as it made her “different”, made her standout. She did like the fact that the local junior college gave her priority registration for it though.
That’s great to hear that it worked out well. My sister had a similar experience with my nephew. Wonderful kid, but he struggled massively in school with a couple of clinical issues. She originally had a plan in place at his school that helped a good deal, but then they moved to a new state which required an entirely new process to begin in order to implement their plan. They finally accepted the various diagnoses after a couple of hearings, and implemented a plan that made learning change from a nearly insurmountable task to something a lot more workable. Unfortunately, he also still has issues with other students who notice the differences in how the teacher treats him. Hopefully when graduation comes, he’ll also have a positive experience like your daughter did.
What really changed things for my daughter was “The Hunger Games”. She always had trouble reading (dyslexia) but decided she wanted to read the Hunger Games. Well, she did, and she hasn’t stopped reading. She reads all the time now, and it has made reading for school a much easier thing to do.