Talk:Frequency of autism/Archive 2

message: I think the first graph is very unclear. Why not just provide an graph with the percentage of the population diagnosed with autism, that would be the best way to demonstrate what is going on, and also would be clear for the averege reader. --KimvdLinde 20:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Graph is very unclear 

message: A mess.  At present it looks as though someone either used voice recognitiion software, or themeselvs had misheard incidence as instance.  THere is more wrong with it, but that makes nonsense of it.  Copyediting may be more useful to this article than trying to show humanity is speciating over mercury excretion.  Even written perfectly it may not be a useful article.  But give it a chance.  Start with a title that doesn't label it with a conclusion "Autism, Changes in Incidence" would do well. Midgley 22:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  second sentence 

message: bad heading.  Midgley 22:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Leaky Gut Syndrome and related 

message: "Microsoft became the first major US corporation to offer employees insurance coverage for the cost of behavioral training for their autistic children in 2001, due to the high prevalence among the children of its employees."  Hmm.  Not genetic or environmental then?  
Your "average" "nerd" "most likely" has an Autism recessive gene. If there is an “industry” that draws “nerds” (i.e. Microsoft), “most likely” these “nerds” with Autism recessive genes will meet each other at work, fall in love, get married, and have Autistic children (two recessive genes equals one dominate gene)…DUH?!?
Autism is genetic. If there are more children with Autism now it just means those “nerds” with recessive Autism genes are getting “luckier” (by “luckier” I mean…well you figure it out) than they were in the past.
The heading under which that item appears is another remarkably bad headline.  Is there any likelihood that a structure for the article could be agreed in discussion? Midgley 22:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caused by Microsoft? 

message: not the same.  
Denmark: "The incidence of autism reported in the study appeared lower than the prevalence reported in the US and other countries."
What does the enumeration of the countries add to Wikipedia?  
Midgley 00:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incidence and prevalence 

message: I am willing to do a major revision, that is, kick out everything that is crummy, not supported and make a basic version. After that, I need someone to do english editing. Furthermore, this will raise some objections of some people, so I am not going to do that unless there is a substantial number of editors that can agree with doing this, and who will watch this page after that to prevent the reinsertion of blatant crap. I have already removed the complete nonesense regarding NatSel causing this. IS there support for his? KimvdLinde 01:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you look at Autism (Incidence) as a starter please?  It needs several editing cycles of taking stuff out and a very little bit of the embedded comments bringing out into text, some citing for things I simply took on faith but cannot persist if not verifiable and so on, but the English is reasonable.  Good morning to all you cheerful cooperative readers.  Midgley 09:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Name corrected. Midgley 19:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Major revision

message: This is a broad generalization, isn't it?  Who wrote this, and what verification is there for this?  A citation?
"The majority of mainstream scientists view the concept of an autism "epidemic" with skepticism, noting that autism is predominantly believed to be of genetic, not bacterial, viral or man-made causes."
Also...
The generalization about engineers being social misfits is stereotypical to the point of being absurd.   It is as ludicrous as the old wives tale that geniuses are anti-social.  That stereotype has long been debunked in studies that show geniuses are often gifted in a variety of disciplines and are often more socially adept than average.  
I note that there is no citation for this bald statement about 'geeks' and 'nerds' being anti-social. Jgwlaw
This article has well over 30 incidents of "citation needed".  At least 1/3 of those are within the California section.  Well below Wiki standards.  This may just be the best test of Wiki power, or lack therefore, to seperate the wheat--68.6.44.175 12:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations - Generalizations and Stereotypes

message: Given disagreements on the title POV, and the fact that the article is still on a notable topic, I propose, as has been in the past, that the article title be renamed to 'Autism Prevalence'. Neurodivergent 19:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could see this as a nitpick, but one of the big arguments ver autism seems to be more related to _incidence_ than _prevalence_ in teh epidemiological senses.  Incidence and Prevalence are the key numbers in Epidemiology, so one could reasonably write about both or eitehr of them in an article Autism (Epidemiology).  On the collaborative medical reference project at http://ganfyd.org/ we have not as yet found it necessary to split the epidemiology of any disease out of its article, AFAIK, although we have no objection to doing so.  Similarly, before running an article on epidemiology of x one must show that the article on x is already too large and unwieldy to tolerate empidemiology of x as a section.  Midgley 19:22, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. The distinction is important. There are those who claim incidence is dropping in California, for example, while prevalence is clearly still rising. (I don't believe it's correct incidence is dropping, but this will become clear soon enough). Neurodivergent 19:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repeat proposal: Change article title 

message: This article (if it survives or is renamed) could really do with using the new citation/footnote stuff rather than all these inline links, many of which are broken. Some effort is required to find the primary source for the references rather than link to newsletters, etc. Sources that don't meet Wikipedia's "reputable" guidelines should be removed. This article would also be improved if it clarified that statistics for "autistic spectrum disorder" do not necessarily correspond to those for "autism". It also uses the words "incidence", "incident" and "prevalence" interchangably.
Great care should be made not to generalise and expand or reinterpret what the sources say. Taking two sections as examples:
===Australia===
The article says:
:Australia is apparently experiencing a surge in autism spectrum disorders, where a ten-fold rise in diagnoses have been made in the past decade.  The Australian Education Department reported a 276 percent jump in students with autism spectrum disorder between 2000 and 2005.  As of 2005, a total of 23,083 Victorian students were placed in school disability and language disorder programs, rising 74 per cent from 13,257 students in 2000.  An expert from the Royal Children's Hospital in Sydney, Australia said the figures were "a significant underestimate."
The first reference is to a newsletter hosted by TMCnet "The Authority on VoIP..." What a bizzare source! Anyway, I think I've tracked down the actual research paper:
* 
This does indeed state "The prevalence increased 10 fold over a 16-year period". The study involved 177 children in Barwon region - so it is relatively small. The abstract doesn't indicate how they established this 10 fold increase - the full paper is not free. Their conclusions are "The relatively rapid increase in prevalence is consistent with overseas studies and suggests significant changes in diagnostic criteria, increasing community awareness and the need for support at all levels of intellectual functioning. Increased occurrence in siblings and relatives gives further evidence for a genetic cause.". 
The second reference is to a page that contains a summary of a number of articles. The actual source article is
*
This article confirms the 276 percent jump in state-school students with ASD between 2000 and 2005. However, it would still be best to get at the primary source of this information.
The rest of the above-quoted paragraph, whilst correct in iteself, is irrelevant to this article on autism. The special needs being discussed will include all sorts of conditions including learning difficulties, ADHD and dyslexia, for example. The news article goes on to speculate some reasons for the rise in disabled students in state schools:
* Improvements in recognising disabilities 
* Parents were finding it hard to get disabled children into independent schools (anecdotal)
* There was greater funding for disabled children in the state rather than the private sector
* Funding policy encouraged schools to claim financial help for more children and also to exaggerate the severity of their condition.
The "significant underestimate" quote is also irrelvant to autism incidence. The professor claims "most academics believed at least 10 per cent of school children had extra learning needs" - in other words, his feeling is that far more children require help than are getting it (through the school disability and language disorder programs). He is not arguing that cases of autism are being under-reported -- which is the impression a casual reader might come away with.
A revised paragraph could be:
:A study in 2004 involving 177 children in the Barwon region of Western Australia, found a 10 fold increase in the prevelance of ASD over a 16 year period. The Australian Education Department reported a 276 percent jump in students with ASD between 2000 and 2005.
===China===
The article says:
:In a July, 2005, interview Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stated that, "six years ago, autism was unknown in China.  We started giving them our vaccines in 1999.  Today there's 1.8 million cases of autism in China."  Shanghai alone has over 10,000 known autistic children.  However, this seems to conflict with a 1997 study, in China, about teaching Chinese to autistic children,  as well as a 1991 study of a Chinese "calendar savant". 
The reference for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's quote is broken. An alternative could be the article 
*
Whilst it would be acceptable to use this article when discussing Kennedy's personal views on the causes of autism, it isn't an acceptable source for an encyclopedic entry on the prevalence of autism in China. Kennedy's statement/article has a clear non-neutral agenda (thimerosal), he does not cite his sources, and is obviously not personally the source of this "information". A quick Google shows that he has got his facts wrong. Two examples:
The Chinese Stars and Rain Institute for Autism. was founded in 1993 (). Their web site has the interesting statement "There are an estimated 2 million people in China with autism, yet only 20 doctors are qualified to diagnose the disorder; an increase from the three physicians qualified a decade ago.". If this is true, then any estimates regarding the prevelance of ASD in China now or in the past must be given a huge margin of error.
The following facinating paper mentions enrolling 250 children with autism into a study in 1999.
* 
It should be noted that this is Hong Kong, which may vary from PRC. It is interesting that autism is known as the "Self-Shut-Off Syndrome" in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the "Lonely Syndrome" in the PRC. Also that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, "no such disease called autism exists".
Therefore, the quote from Kennedy must go as he isn't a "reputable source" on the prevelance of autism in China. I suspect it will be virtually impossible to get accurate figures for any increase in autism in China. There are just too many variables and there is a lack of historical stats.
Colin°Talk 17:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: The article says:
:In a July, 2005, interview Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stated that, "six years ago, autism was unknown in China.  We started giving them our vaccines in 1999.  Today there's 1.8 million cases of autism in China."  Shanghai alone has over 10,000 known autistic children.  However, this seems to conflict with a 1997 study, in China, about teaching Chinese to autistic children,  as well as a 1991 study of a Chinese "calendar savant". 
The reference for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's quote is broken. An alternative could be the article 
*
Whilst it would be acceptable to use this article when discussing Kennedy's personal views on the causes of autism, it isn't an acceptable source for an encyclopedic entry on the prevalence of autism in China. Kennedy's statement/article has a clear non-neutral agenda (thimerosal), he does not cite his sources, and is obviously not personally the source of this "information". A quick Google shows that he has got his facts wrong. Two examples:
The Chinese Stars and Rain Institute for Autism. was founded in 1993 (). Their web site has the interesting statement "There are an estimated 2 million people in China with autism, yet only 20 doctors are qualified to diagnose the disorder; an increase from the three physicians qualified a decade ago.". If this is true, then any estimates regarding the prevelance of ASD in China now or in the past must be given a huge margin of error.
The following facinating paper mentions enrolling 250 children with autism into a study in 1999.
* 
It should be noted that this is Hong Kong, which may vary from PRC. It is interesting that autism is known as the "Self-Shut-Off Syndrome" in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the "Lonely Syndrome" in the PRC. Also that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, "no such disease called autism exists".
Therefore, the quote from Kennedy must go as he isn't a "reputable source" on the prevelance of autism in China. I suspect it will be virtually impossible to get accurate figures for any increase in autism in China. There are just too many variables and there is a lack of historical stats.
Colin°Talk 17:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: China

message: Medscape article, free subscription required.  Autism "Epidemic?" Sandy 21:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medscape article 

message: For the record, these are the reasons why it is fair to conclude that an actual epidemic of autism (not just an increase in administrative prevalence) has not happened:
* The characteristics of the autistic population have changed with time. The proportion of mental retardation and epilepsy drops as prevalence increases. This can be observed in the California DDS data.
* The 'epidemic' is largely confined to certain urban areas. In California, there's really not much of an 'epidemic' outside Los Angeles. Comparison of characteristics between regions suggest that these differences in prevalence are administrative as well.
* There is evidence of diagnostic substitution. This applies to learning disability and mental retardation. It may also apply to childhood schizophrenia, ADHD, etc.
* There is no evidence that co-morbidities of autism are on the rise, and we know for a fact some of them are not on the rise.
* There is no evidence of an incidence drop following removal of at least one possible environmental trigger, thimerosal. 
* There are no conclusive indications of an actual prevalence increase from epidemiological studies, when we compare apples to apples. 
Neurodivergent 20:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why there's no epidemic 

message: I think the new title is still POV, there is no epidemological data presented at all, just some random incidence data and a suggestive graph that is misleading. KimvdLinde 22:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of the "incidence" stuff is prevalence.  Disentangling that is critical in an epidemiology article.  The Incidence article is fairly clean now, and would give a sizeable section for "Incidence".  It may also populate a section on confounding factors, or why it is difficult to measure prevalance and incidence of this group of conditions in the societies where most debate occurs.  I suspect that in welfare states the figures will be less convincing than in the US, due to different perverse effects, and a more even spread of resources according to need rather than diagnosis may have occurred.  Midgley 23:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why has the increasingly common use of common sense terminology 'autism epidemic' caused anyone to try and twist the English language into politically correct mumbo jumbo?  The renewed attempts at renaming this article simply shows the lengths to which some editors will go in order to deny the reality behind the skyrocketing number of autism diagnoses.  Since medical doctors are utilizing the diagnosis at an ever escalating rate and in epidemic proportions, then the facts that have led to the obvious conclusion that there is an epidemic of diagnoses must be addressed honestly.  Sugar coating this iatrogenic nightmare with doublespeak terminology is not going to absolve big pharma from culpability, it will only make the Wiki look ridiculous for taking an Orwellian turn for the worse.  Only the industry's vast lobbying and propaganda warchest may, just may, absolve big pharma from the eleven or twelve digit financial liability.  Big pharma has basically acknowledged its culpability for triggering the autism epidemic by means of its enormous expenditures on massive lobbying and propaganda campaigns aimed at shielding itself financially from the millions upon millions of potential vaccine injury claims that are multiplying rapidly around the globe.  Ombudsman 00:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Moved the thing to "alleged autism epidemic" which more aptly catches the nature of this dispute. - Nunh-huh 01:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds better. However, there is also a Autism (incidence) page, which is much less infected with POV speak. And Ombudsman, We know your strong POV on this. KimvdLinde 01:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Soapbox.  Midgley 12:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new title is as POV as old one 

message: the opening is still a mess.  Someone using voice-recognition, perhaps?  Midgley 12:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh all right, I've done it.  Instance = one case, incidence  = how many cases.  
This article actually has a paragraph about how it is presenting a point of view not a concensus...  THe aim of the article seems to be to keep the title in place.  Midgley 12:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  When the title is sorted out,  

message: Even though I think the vaccine theory of autism is nonsense, and after looking at data on administrative prevalence I'm quite sure there is no "epidemic" at all, completely removing the sections on the vaccine theory seems quite POV. They should at least be mentioned. It just seems dishonest to exclude them. Under what principle are they not elegible for inclusion? Neurodivergent 16:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why should they be included here? Vaccine theory is described in Causes of autism. I only let information relavant to the increase of autism be in this article. The rest was moved to the relevant articles and removed. You could insert a reference for vaccine theory, but I don't think this is necesary. There are many other reasons for changes in prevalence, so we would have to bring over the entire Causes of autism article here.--Rdos 04:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree there's some redundancy in Causes of autism, Controversies in autism and Heritability of autism. But it's probably necessary redundancy here. The article lists theories and hypothesis that attempt to explain the rise in number of diagnoses, not the causes of autism. Other hypothesis listed are about as speculative as the vaccine theory. (Incidentally, the real verifiable causes are not well explained in the article). Neurodivergent 15:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, if somebody wants to add some kind of *summary* of vaccines and the increase in autism, I won't complain. However, the long sections I removed is hardly motivated for this. A few lines of text should be enough. --Rdos 17:33, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vaccine Theories Removed? 

message: If  ... "the remainder of this article is built on a proposition challenged by large portions of the autistic community and the scientific and medical community." ... would it not be as well to be more specific about whom it is proposing this?  And characterising them in some fashion, perhaps?  Midgley 03:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is really only curebie subgroups of the autism community that propose this; specifically, groups that have a pet theory, such as the thimerosal theory or the MMR theory. And that does seem notable enough to be spelled out. Neurodivergent 02:27, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Should we list the Autism Fries theory too? :) Neurodivergent 02:30, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Are any of them notable and identifiable enough to be used as citations?  If so they ought to be so used.  The section on caveats is an odd one - some of it makes sense in relation to _frequency_ (incidence, prevalance, lifetime risk or whatever else "frequency" is serving as a shorthand for), but a chunk of it is an apologia for the word epidemic... which has its own article.  Pruning that section drastically, and removing the diagnositic criteria - which must be in the autism article surely already , would make it shorter and more clear, which are no worse aims for a good article than a bad one. Midgley 18:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  proponents 

message: I think that this page could well be retitled "Links between Autism and vacination rates", because that is essentially what the page covers. Passages like "In a July 2005 interview, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stated that, "six years ago, autism was unknown in China. We started giving them our vaccines in 1999. Today there's 1.8 million cases of autism in China." are not scientific in any way. I note that the Proposed Causes section differs from this, but the sections that deal with incidence in specific countries certainly needs rewriting/balancing. For now I'll tag the page as non-neutral. aLii 13:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral?!

message: The end of the sentence: 
:Microsoft became the first major US corporation to offer employees insurance coverage for the cost of behavioral training for their autistic children in 2001, due to the high prevalence among the children of its employees.
seems like original research to me. I have just been and read articles from the time, most notably . There is no mention of the reason behind this offering other than the vice-president has an autistic child and wanted everyone in the company to get the same care as his kid. It's nothing to do with an especially high prevalence. I shall remove the comment, and it should only be reinstated with the a proper citation. aLii 10:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Microsoft Original Research?

message: Just reading through all this and finding so much that I find POV or think needs rewriting because it's nonsense, I'm coming to the conclusion that I agree with the suggestion that this article should be merged into the two mentioned articles. The title of this article is misleading, as I've noted above. The Autism (incidence) article is basically what this article should be. I think that we should perhaps negotiate a date for anything missing from that article to be moved into it, and then on the date this article should be turned into a redirect to there. The causes of austism article or perhaps an entirely seperate article should contain the details about the vaccine controversy. I know there are other editors watching this page. It'd be nice to get some input this time. aLii 12:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not rename to Epidemiology of autism and merge Autism (incidence) into it? "Frequency" is not the right term. "Incidence" refers to a single metric in epidemiology. It suggests the article should not discuss prevalence, for example, which makes no sense. If the article is an epidemiology article, it should document some real epidemiology, such as the male-female ratio, proportion of co-occurring conditions, and prevalence in various different types of populations. The vaccine stuff can stay as part of a section discussing the controversy over a supposed "epidemic" of autism. Neurodivergent 14:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Autism (incidence) was demerged out of it.  It contains only the factual material relating to the incidence of autism.  I had a look at doing the same for prevalence but didn't find enough in here for an article.  Incidence is interesting, there is an argument about whether it is changing, and if so whether this is a change in autism - that which is measured and defined - or in people.  Until one has decided that a disease's incience is changing there is remarkably little point in arguing over causes of a change.  The prevalence of autism is rather less interesting, and as used in these pages is mostly tending to confuse, as arguments substitute prevalence for incidence.  The graph at the top of this article is a remarkably bad one, partly for that reason, presenting statistics as a drunkard uses a lampost, for support rather than illumination.   Frequency is indeed not a good name for this page, epidemic is not acceptable, amd as is common with any article with autism in the title one author wishes to write the same article here as everywhere else with all the same material in it.  I suspect that is why it is stalled. Why not write Autism (epidemiology) if it is not adequately covered in Autism, or [[Autism {Prevalence)]] and see how they turn out.  Midgley 20:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Let's merge this article...

message: "According to Vaccination News, one in eighty-six primary school children in the United Kingdom has autism, compared with one in 2,200 in 1988.  "  The reference is to a study referred to here, later in teh paragraph, which gives different figures.  If VN gave figures from a different study then it would be worth considering whether it is WP:RS but as it doesn't we need not go so far.  Midgley 00:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In the Canadian vaccine study you'll also see the prevalence for Kindergarten children is over 1%. It won't be long before 1% replaces the current popular figure of 1 in 166. There's really no hard upper bound in prevalence, any more than the upper bound of IQ=70 for mental retardation is part of some physical reality. One Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) study found that 2.7% of children were high scorers. Neurodivergent 17:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doesn't fit... 

message: "Sharp rises in the frequency with which autism is diagnosed has become a concern and debating point in many countries. Members of the medical and scientific community are generally quite skeptical about characterizions of the increasing numbers as indicators of an 'epidemic'.[1][2]"
That is not acceptable quality.  Midgley 17:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So rewrite it to preserve the meaning and improve the clarity, rather than characterizing it as "illiterate."--Leifern 18:09, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many rewrites have been reverted.  This article is a POV mess and maintained as such by a few editors.  Midgley 01:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose 1 in 150 children is something we should scoff at; of course, I keep forgetting my place. I'm a parent, not a medical doctor. --Leifern 00:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Of course. Too many big fancy words, and it's overlong. Severely needs cleaned up and made much more neutral. Generation Rescue and Safe Minds are not overly intelligent activists (not even knowing the real symptoms of mercury poisoning, namely death), and people really shouldn't believe everything in the news. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.33.62.252 (talk) 02:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Illiterate from the start 

message: This is basically what I find wrong with this article. Neutrality and factual accuracy disputed, excessively long, and overuse of words that most people probably don't understand without looking in a dictionary every other sentence. Also, it focuses too much on the mercury theory.
Please do not ban me.  --75.33.62.252 02:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overlong and non-neutral with lots of big fancy words that send readers clicking over to Wiktionary. 

message: One in 58 --or more-- UK children is affected by an autistic spectrum disorder.  The latest epidemic surge makes it incumbent upon the Wiki to acknowledge that the raging autism epidemic is not only quite obviously real, but also deserving of an article reflective of that reality.  The new UK study was prepared by the autism research team at Cambridge University.  Two members of the study team have --as a result of the latest stunning confirmation of an epidemic-- broken ranks with the mainstream medical establishment by acknowledging that the MMR vaccine may have played a part in causing the epidemic.  Claims to the contrary, usually based on the assertion that symptoms had previously gone undiagnosed, are insulting to the physicians and other professionals who allegedly missed the signs for decades after the condition was first described subsequent to the development of commercial ethyl mercury products, and before Bernard Rimland and other early whistleblowers recognized the onset of the epidemic was evidently linked to vaccine injuries.  It is high time for the article associated with this talk page to be restored to its proper location at ´autism epidemic´.  Ombudsman 20:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: High time to act on Ombudsman's probation terms.  Midgley 00:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Restore article