Talk:Frequency of autism/Archive 1

message: I think one thing this article could benefit from is a more inclusive overview of possible factors in the autism-breakdown-by-country. Vaccines, assortative mating, nutritional deficiencies, and so forth are offered as possible causes/triggers for autism in the section exploring causes, but the first part seems extremely biased in favor of the vaccine theory to the exclusion of any other cause. It'd add a lot of value to this article if that section also talked about various countries' autism rates as their nutrition and tech industries, etc changed.
Secondly, as long as we're casting light on the (hypothetical but interesting) MMR-autism connection, it'd be good to put in some science as to how this might happen. Correlations are fine, but as the article covers, changes in methodology, changes in industry/geeks marrying geeks, etc, hampers any definite conclusion. If the MMR vaccine is going to be the star of this article, let's integrate some actual science as to why it should be. 
Cheers,
Kharhaz 17:55, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Balance and Science

message: Could we compress the cluster information a bit?  There isn't a lot of information under the lowest subheadings, and they all seem to boil down to, "there's a cluster here, and there's no agreement on what caused it.  X children out of Y in small-town Z were affected."  I'd do it myself, but I'm unfortunately occupied in the real world this morning. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 12:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Clusters

message: How about some citiations? The article keeps claiming stats and the studyX said but it doesn't give a reference for the study or a source for the statsGeni 00:12, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: citations

message: User:Geni insists on referring to NVIC as an "anti-vaccination" group, which is an opinion he is entitled to, but the group's mission is as follows:
:The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is dedicated to the prevention of vaccine injuries and deaths through public education. NVIC provides assistance to parents whose children have suffered vaccine reactions; promotes research to evaluate vaccine safety and effectiveness as well as to identify factors which place individuals at high risk for suffering vaccine reactions; and monitors vaccine research, development, policy-making and legislation. NVIC supports the right of citizens to exercise informed consent and make educated, independent vaccination decisions for themselves and their children.
One could hold them accountable for adhering to this mission, but it is entirely inappropriate for us to state as a fact that they are lying.  --Leifern 23:13, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
:A 2005 use of "anti-vaccination" in discussion.  Not the only one.Talk:Anti-vaccinationMidgley 09:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NVIC 

message: ATTENTION: This article should have never existed in the first place. An epidemic is a widely spreaded and affecting disease, which autism is not. Autism is a neurological difference and should be accepted as such. The "mercury poisoning = autism" theory is pure quackery, as well as the "milk = autism", "plastic = autism", "fish = autism", and "living = autism" theories.
Nothing can be proven from the Danish epidemiological study, as it was funded by the National Alliance for Autism Research, total and complete quacks, except perhaps that having degrees in this and that does not necessarily prove intelligence. Anyone in their right minds would not listen to NAAR, even if they claimed they told the truth, á la Big Brother.
Mercury levels have as much to do with autism as batteries have to do with the phrase "all your base are belong to us". "Mercury poisoning" and "autism" should probably not even be used in the same sentence, as it is for "autism" and "epidemic", whose combination helped lead to the totally disputed article which was formerly here.
Saying the neutrality of the article was disputed is an understatement. The neutrality, factual accuracy, honesty, and pretty much everything else in the article was.
If you ask me, I think the article this once was should be put up for speedy deletion and the use of "autism epidemic" or any similar terms be blocked. This includes "autism epidemic ON WHEELS", which would probably be used so the curbies who created this should get past the block in the style of Willy on Wheels.
Please accept this as a speck of truth to attempt to add so to protect the sensitive, gullible minds people like CAN, Generation Rescue, and the aforementioned NAAR enjoy so muchly and even have themselves in some cases. Do not revert this, whatever you do, or else another mind filled with gullibility will believe the nonsense previously on this page before this edit. Thank you.  69.223.221.67 23:40, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Commentary removed from article

message: OK, I've been eyeing this article for a while... and it could use improvement. Over half of it is seems to dwell on the vaccine theory (the first part involving the countries seems like it needs a rewrite). There doesn't seem to be an adequate explanation of any of the other theories presented on this page, and some of them appear to not be discussed at all...  That includes brain trauma, viral/bacterial infection and brain testosterone theory.  
Refrigerator mothers should probably be taken out - its explained in the main autism page, plus I do not believe it has nothing to do with the epidemic.
Sources need to cited at the bottom and footnoted...
Vaccine theory section - all the other sections need to be as long as this.  Worse is that the whole Vaccine thing here is that it seems to be in contradiction with the main autism article, in which we've basically said that most current evidence does not support the theory.
""The current genetic research estimates that no more than 10% of all autistic cases are genetic in origin. Simply put, the remainder 90% of autistic cases is sporadic with a non-genetic etiology," according to Vijendra K. Singh, Ph.D., a professor of neuroimmunology at Utah State University."
Claims like these should cite sources.
Nutritional deficiencies section needs a proper cite for that lancet journal entry. 
High technology enclaves have been noted repeatedly for having relatively high prevalence rates of autism spectrum disorders.
This really must have a source...
I should really emphasize that this should explain and expand on the points on the autism article... anyway hopefully that will give somebody some ideas...
P.S. Speculation about Bill Gates really shouldn't be here and at the least should be cited...
--Ryan Norton T | @ | C 10:39, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions for cleaning up 

message: In the section on environmental theories, a researcher is identified as an 'eneticist'. It seems very likely that this is just a typo for 'geneticist', but I didn't want to change it as I suppose this word could mean something. Totoro 04:54, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo? 

message: I agree that this article is a load of crap, but I think the issue needs to be addressed because so many believe it. I think the absence of Oregon is telling. Oregon has had the HIGHEST rate of reported autism increase in the country and is probably responsible for that "scary" graph at the top of the page.
However, it's well known that the Oregon school system defines autism much more broadly than the DSM-IV does, and the "diagnoses" are made by school officials. This, this autism "epidemic" is little more than a repeat of the ADHD "epidemic," when a known neurological difference turned into a fad diagnosis willy-nilly assigned to children. In the case of ADHD, anyone who was disruptive was said to have it. This even lead to children who were not hyperactive receiving ritalin--a stimulant which, on a non-hyperactive child, has an effect not unlike that of crystal meth. In the case of autism, probably any child with learning disabilities or introversion is being called autistic in some quarters. But, mostly, I think autism is being recognized where it was not before.
More proof of the quackery of this page--nowhere does it mention that in the last decade thousands of adults have been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome for the first time. They ALWAYS had it, but nobody knew what it was! Asperger's is an autism spectrum disorder by convention and is sometimes called "high-functioning autism". It is a learning disability (failure of implicit learning) but it's so minor that school systems didn't use to take note of it among the much more serious learning disabilities. Far from an epidemic, what we have is a change in awareness, parental hysteria not-withstanding. 
Frankly, I think the autism-vaccine nonsense is no more than an attempt to look for someone to blame, and if you're looking for blame and calling yourself a victim, you are doing real damage to your child.
:Those are some good points. I almost want to just AfD this article. Or rename it "percieved Autism epidemic",:). I agree with RN, just because somethings new is diagnosted more oftendue to increases testing and lowered standards, does not mean that there is an outbreak.Voice of All(MTG) 18:44, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
:Just to add a voice of support :-) In a hear-say kind of way, my sister has lost count of the number of times she's been diagnosing a child and called the parents in, and one of them (usually the father) appears to have undiagnosed aspergers, or otherwise is broadly placed at that end of the autistic spectrum. (ie, they would probably have been diagnosed autistic if they had been growing up now). I'd be interested to know if there are any stats of prevalence sorted by cohort, into age groups, so that someone recently diagnosed, but who's been autistic for 30 years, isn't counted as a 'new' case. 14:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oregon 

message: This is very black and white; I wen't to the dictionary(Oxford) and saw this definition:
(3)"a wide prevalence of somthing usu. undesirable"
n. 1,2plague, pestilance, disease; outbreak, scourge.
So this clearly could be called an epidemic if there is a  large outbreak.Voice of All(MTG) 06:19, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
: Forgive the hard language in advance, but as an Autist myself I'd just like to say: Fuck that. To call this an epidemic is to suggest that Autism is essentially undesirable, which I very much dispute as I see it as being a one-sided view of a semi-informed group. Robrecht 03:49, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the term "Epidemic" is fine 

message: Please see the comments above me, namely the ones by me and the oregon mention.  There are a lot of issues with this article. With some effort though it would be possible to quell the pov issues, however Ryan Norton T | @ | C 07:27, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag put back 

message: If a child truly develops autism primarily as a result of being vaccinated, then
the child is not really autistic. Sorry, but they'd really need to find a new
name for that condition. The neourological differences of autistic individuals
are such that it would be impossible for a vaccine to change the brain that way
(i.e. change neuron size, add neurons, brain mass, and change location of different
types of brain matter.) Really, think about it. Ironically, many of the proponents
of the vaccine theory are the same people who accuse autism rights advocates of
not being really autistic. --Jose
I disagree in that the diagnosis of "autism" and "pervasive development disorder" are subjective.  They don't scan your brain in the first place, they diagnoze a behavior.  This is the falacy of the diagnosis.  We may find out that autism is similar to schitzophrenia was when it was first discovered.  Since then it has fragmented into many different neurological disorders.  Schitzophrenia just being one of them.  Autism may actually just be a group of behaviorally similar disorders. Reboot
: Quite unlikely. I think we need to collect ADHD, Tourette and autism in a new "autism spectrum" diagnosis. --Rdos 06:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Historical note: What was originally described was "The Schizophrenias".  But yes, it seems likely that there will be further subdivision or even separation into different ... conditions ... with different aetiology, and likely different patterns of incidence and prevalance.  Midgley 12:54, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's actually a lot more complicated than dividing autism into kinds of autism. Research in genetics is showing how complex of a condition we're dealing with. There's a vast spectrum that is not one-dimensional. There will probably never be a test that is able to distinguish precisely between the 'almost autistic' and the 'just a little autistic'. Neurodivergent 19:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why vaccine theory makes no sense 

message: What are currently the NPOV issues with this article that warrant
keeping the NPOV tag? Neurodivergent 18:01, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been a lot of discussion at the Talk:epidemiology page Kd4ttc 14:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV issues? 

message: The vaccination/heavy metal debate is really raging in the autism community.  While I'm very skeptical personally, I think more research here is warranted.  Before I add anything to the article on this I want to do more research as I've been hearing more of this rather than reading.  Combined with the debate is the apparent pulling of funding by the National Institutes for Health for any study that even investigates the vaccination link.  Moreover, there seems to be a lot to suggest that thimerzol is not easily, evenly or completely filtered from vaccines.  Meaning that if you get the wrong part of a batch, you may get a heavier concentration of mercury than the portion that was tested.  
I recognize in myself that I'm pretty inherently biased against this theory, and I'd really like a hand researching it.  Generally I contribute to the wikipedia when I have an interest in researching something, finding it a productive way to organize my information.  I always try to write NPOV even if I have a strong POV and I like to have help where I do have a strong POV to prevent myself from doing biased research.  Thus if someone is interested in working with me on this and filling out that section a little more with depth, I'd appreciate the help. Reboot 15:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been a lot of discussion at the Talk:epidemiology page Kd4ttc 14:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Debate on vaccinations 

message: It is claimed that 1:500 in Nigeria would be affected by autism. However, the link goes to a subsription-only article. According to the wording in this article, the prevalence is an estimate and not the result of research. 
To put it bluntly, is this claim substantiated in the article referenced, or is it simply idle speculation interpolated from the West? If it is idle speculation, it should be removed! --Rdos 17:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A search through pubmed revealed no articles dealing with autism/pdd in Nigeria. Several articles from the 70s and early 80s addressed Africa, but abstracts were not readily available. I'm not sure where the Nigerian information was published (ie is it original research) but it should be substantiated if possible or removal should be considered. InvictaHOG 19:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed. The word "projected" there is significant. We could list every country in the world and "project" a prevalence if we wanted. Neurodivergent 15:02, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prevalence in Nigeria? 

message: There has a been a new statistic for 2006 prevailing that there are at least 1000 cases of Autism in Brick Township, either from newer residents ranging to older residents.
:Can you cite this? It seems highly improbable - my googling indicated there were 75 "Candidate cases" in the cluster, and going from UNDER 75 to 1000 is ... a significant jump. (Also, sign your talk page edits with four tildes; and it helps to be registered, as well.) Michael Ralston 03:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Higher amount of cases in Brick Township