CDC Statistics Show What Happens When You Don't Vaccinate

[jeff47]

26. Nope. There is zero evidence of vaccinations increasing autism rates.

At least, no evidence that uses basic scientific techniques.

Something else appears to be causing the autism rates to increase.

Nope. The rate of autism diagnosis is increasing. That isn't the same as the rate of autism increasing.

Until the 1990s, autism was pretty much only diagnosed in profound cases. More mild cases were treated as if the kid was "a little off" instead of a medical condition.

Then the 1990s and especially the 2000s happened, where those more mild-to-moderate cases were diagnosed. And conditions that used to be separate, such as Asperger's, went from "he's just a geek" to a condition to a sub-set of Autism.

In other words, you can't say the rate of autism has been going up because the criteria for autism has drastically changed over the last 30 years. Looking at just the total numbers is going to make it appear to be skyrocketing, but the changes in criteria are going to have a large effect on the total cases.

A decent proxy for changes in the autism rate would be the number of profound cases diagnosed, since the criteria for that hasn't changed. I remember hearing that the rate for profound cases was nearly constant, but I can't back that up at the moment. Unfortunately, there's enough chaff that I can't find a link to a decent study with some brief Googling.