US Take Action: New Autism numbers up 15% in two years

     The new autism prevalence numbers are out from the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, and it isn’t good: 1 out of 59 eight-year olds had an ASD diagnosis in 2014, 31% also had a diagnosis of intellectual disability (IQ of less than 70.) That is up from the 1 in 68 number from the ADDM 2 years ago, or a 15% increase. In the first results from the ADDM in 2008 the number was 1 in 149.

Please click on the take action link to send a copy of this message with the links below to the studies to the President, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, CDC Director Robert Redfield, and your state and federal legislators.

This number is significantly lower that the 1 in 36 for all children aged 3 through 17 revealed by the CDC’s own National Center for Health Statistics’ National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for 2014/16 relased last November. The epidemic not only continues, but it is growing rapidly with approximately 1.9 million children diagnosed with autism, and a growing but uncounted number of adults and infants.

Despite all the evidence of a catastrophic public health disaster, the CDC still claims they cannot determine if there is a real increase. The CDC says in a statement, “More people than ever before are being diagnosed with ASD. It is unclear how much of this increase is due to a broader definition of ASD and better efforts in diagnosis. However, a true increase in the number of people with an ASD cannot be ruled out.” This is the same institution that can mobilize thousands of healthcare workers and of billions of dollars within days of finding a few cases of measles or zika.

After more than a decade of study without conclusive results isn’t it obvious that the CDC simply isn’t up to the task of finding the single largest epidemic to affect American children in the modern era. It is long past time for government at all levels to take the autism epidemic seriously and devote the resources needed to finding the causes, prevention, treatments, and cures, and providing support for the afflicted.

Here are the studies.

ADDM:

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/ss/ss6706a1.htm?s_cid=ss6706a1_w

NHIS:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db291.pdf