Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below. Scott Gottlieb New York Autism is about 10 times as common in the United States today as it was in the 1980s, concludes the largest epidemiological study of the condition yet to be carried out. The study, conducted in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996 found that 3.4 in every 1000 children aged 3 to 10 years had mild to severe autism, on the basis of a review of their medical records. Surveys in the before the mid-1980s had found that only 4 to 5 in every 10 000 children were affected. The researchers in the Atlanta study, from the ...