In 1970, Autism was rare: fewer than 1 in 10,000 children. Today, it’s 1 in every 31. We owe it to our children to find out why.
Posted by Orangutan
In 1970, Autism was rare: fewer than 1 in 10,000 children. Today, it’s 1 in every 31. We owe it to our children to find out why.
Posted by Orangutan
17 Comments
This is according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. From pictures it does sadly look like our population is probably unhealthier than it was earlier in that century.
I think air pollution is a factor. I remember seeing somewhere the first time someone was recorded with autistic like behaviour it was in england just before the industrial revolution. england also seems to be where it started going on the current distribution figures
*diagnosis of autism.
Who knows actual rates in either time.
Also, the use of institutions has changed over the years. As well as how we treat these types of things.
Pre 2000s, a lot of people were just told to deal their problems and that the world wouldn’t change for you.
It’s similar to how shell shock slowly became PTSD and something people actually took and treated seriously.
There was worse air pollution with lead gasoline, no epa, chemicals spilling into waterways in the 70’s then now.
For starters, don’t take anything RFK jr says with any truth, the dude does not know anything about health. Secondly, it’s being able to diagnose people better, as with anything that can affect the body, the better we are at going “oh that’s what’s going on”, the easier it is to diagnose them. Especially when we had very little understanding. I imagine most things, especially to do with mental health, will have a “spike” in them since the 1970s because the area of medicine has improved.
Just because there are more people being diagnosed does not mean the cases have increased, just that we are better at catching it.
That stat sounds scary, but autism didn’t magically explode 300x overnight. We’re seeing more diagnoses because we finally have the language and understanding to recognize neurodivergence. Honestly, neurodivergent folks might just be the next step in human evolution
a few things led us here. first, people are more likely to seek treatment for their kids in the first place + widening diagnostic criteria. second, people are having kids later in life, and the father’s age is a big factor in autism risk. third, internet poisoning, which is not really “autism” per se but we don’t have a term for this yet.
Autism is overdiagnosed
In 1970 autism was a rare DIAGNOSIS. It was often diagnosed as something else. Only severe cases got that label and understanding the spectrum was unheard of. We have more cases because more people are being properly diagnosed. Kennedy, like so many, want simple answers to complicated problems and ignore or misrepresent things that disagree with their opinion.
Er, they weren’t diagnosed properly in the 70s?
it wasn’t rare, it was just undiagnosed. The way they people manipulate their base by illness shaming is wild
Today I learned that diseases don’t exist until you define them!
Idk I’m a believer that the more autism the better.
Obviously the way the world is right now- no, it’s not made for autistic people. But eventually if everyone’s a bit autistic that could be good?
No right answer probably.
Left-handednes was at 4% in 1900 and 12% in 1960, where it stayed till now. Why?
And vaccine manufacturers owe it to their shareholders, to work with their captured regulatory agencies, to ensure that we never find the answer. Now stop asking questions and go back to taking your meds for your vaccine related allergies and autoimmune disorders.
and completely coincidentally the amount of childhood vaccines received under a near 1:1 timeline have gone from like 5 to 65.
wak a wak a
It was always there just undocumented, people would hide children that were different or sent them to an institution. Also most cases today are mild autism that was never caught before, he just an active kid, he will grow out of it etc etc.
I think personally it’s a title given out pretty liberally today.