ASD Epidemic

Post Reply New Topic

Australia's ABC Radio National http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/default.htm has a program on Autism Spectrum Disorder

Monday 02 October 2006

This week on The Health Report a special feature about Autism Spectrum Disorder. This condition is being diagnosed in increasing numbers in Australia and overseas. Some say it's an epidemic and put the blame on vaccines for measles mumps and rubella or even on mercury used as a preservative in vaccines. Norman Swan talks to two leading researchers in North America to shed some light on the debate.

This will be replayed later today (8:00 EST Australia)

Last edited by BazzaMcKenzie on 01 Oct 2006, 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think it's an epidemic; I think it's just increased awareness.

No I came down with a bad case of ASD this year before that I was a popular, jock,
stud, high paying job, fancy car, goodlooking wife, million dollar lake front home,
longer little TheMachine1, shiney white teeth, wash board abs, tought social skills at a
ivy league school, rubbed elbows with the rich and famous and could program a VCR.

TheMachine1, you shouldn't have had that MMR shot!

audio is available as a download now
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/

Why do you see having a high paid job as being unaspie?

No, but sarcasm is unaspie

Last edited by BazzaMcKenzie on 01 Oct 2006, 9:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I thought being able to program a vcr was an aspie trait.

I had never even heard of AS before 6 mths ago.....and I worked with teens for 8 years..of the hundreds of clients ho passed through our doors in those years(1993-2001)...I find it amazing that none of them had AS.....In spite of the number of years this has been an official DX,I think the Psyc's have along way to go to catch up.Not to mention family physicians,teachers,social workers.I think the numbers may also be growing because f the number of adults who have been miss DX and are only now seeking DX....there is a lot of catching up to do and then I think the numbers will even out.

I'm skeptical all over the place. Most obviously, I'm glad these guys told me I was "high functioning" because I find it impossible to function in human society at all. One of them kind of implied that, then they went into talking about developing a scale that everybody can agree on. I thought it was funny that they used the IQ scale as an example. So professor, was Einstein smarter than Beethoven? Let's look at the numbers on your scale and we'll all agree. Their next project is to come up with a numbered scale that everybody can agree on for evaluating art, music, books and movies.

Human shoe size is described using two variables, one for length and one for width. These experts think that human intelligence or autism/asperger's can be described using only one. I ain't that smart, but my brain is more complex than my feet.

Medical research is paid for by grants, and a lot of these grants come from the pharmaceutical companies. I'm not surprised medical researchers say the drug companies have nothing to do with causing autism. That means they don't want to work at Burger King. But the mercury poisoning theory sounds unlikely. Aspie brains tend to be above average at certain things, and I don't see how a nerve toxin would improve anything.

I wish I had better skills with people, then I could be a mental health professor too; big money, and nobody would care if I was making any sense.

I'm trying to pass as NT so mine is blinking 12:00

Canyonwind.....My brain is also more complex(evidently have a lot of complexes),then my feet...
It really amazes me how much we aspies have in common!! !!(LOL in case you missed it,I know how humourless we aspies are).....What amazed me about my DX is that I took no tests.He spent 4 sessions asking me "my opinion" about what I was "like" growing up.My mom did tell me a few things that I had no memory of....I use to pull my hair when I was angry then go in my room and not talk about it(what else could a kid do when they get in trouble for trying to "reason" with a crazy adult)

I have "mixed" thoughts about the DX....I have always tended toward skepticism and trusting "experts"
but I know "something" is "different" about how my mind works....If this information ends up assisting me in making the positive changes "I" want to make without sacrificing my "personality...WTF?" then it will be useful,otherwise,its just something more to write on my toetag......If it helps me see myself as a "wiring issue" rather then a, "pathology" that could get progressively worse,that may help my self esteem(which is the natural function of all good delusions)maybe it is a good thing?

Hi Krex, i have to go for a DX in about 10 days and the only AS consultant there is to see me is a peadiatric consultant. I will have to take my mother so she can explain about my early developement, i am 37 but feel like a 10 year old most of the time.

Do you think i will get a lollipop for being a good boy?

Hey krex

I think you hopped threads there, but it's ok, Bazza won't notice, he's busy trying to figure out which side of his hat to fold up so when he can't stand up and he's leaning against the wall in the pub washroom his hat won't get knocked off and fall into the puddle he's making on the floor.

That was an important point you made about the possibility that you might have something that gets worse with time, or something they can do something about. I got diagnosed a while back with depression - it was about as obvious as my hair color - and after prozac turned me into a zombie I ended up taking wellbutrin, which helped my depression but of course didn't help what was causing the depression: the worst marriage in history and my aspie inability to influence events which involved other people's judgements. If it had been just regular depression, though, it would have helped me a lot.

It's pretty obvious that I have a tendency to overgeneralize, mental health people being a case in point. It's theoretically possible that there's some sensible people working in mental health whose opinions are worth listening to. Ol' Hans Asperger was a mental health professional, and I'd be a lot worse off if he had done something else instead. Who knows how long it would have taken for somebody else to notice what he noticed.

I remember when I was a kid, reading about the discovery of the coelacanth, that fish that everybody thought had been extinct for millions of years. It was closely related to the first fish that came up on land. The scientist saw a stuffed one in some out of the way small town museum, where they thought it was just a weird fish. He recognized it immediately and wanted to learn all about how it was put together, but they told him they had long ago thrown away everything except the skin. "I'll never get another chance for something like this in my life," he said.

His wife told him, "If there's one, there must be others."

This is a serious shortcoming in my ability to accurately perceive the world I have to live in. It was driven home by the recent long and bitter arguments by the aspie males driven mad with an insane hatred for women. It was disturbing because I used to be there. I'm grateful I never hurt anybody else too badly, I never hit a woman or raped anyone, or influenced anybody else's opinion - everybody could see I was crazy, and other people had not experienced the depth and fullness of the aspie male experience - but I know how much pain I caused myself for so long. Impotent rage is no fun at all, and it takes over your life.

I'm still not sure how I got beyond all that. A lot of it had to do with finally realizing that males didn't like me any better than females, I just hadn't noticed because females have these female faces and female bodies and female voices. What's most significant is that it took over so much of my life, and it wasn't reality. Maybe I just got old; maybe I just gave up; I'm not sure, but I know I wouldn't want to go back.

Lao Tze said, "When you are sick of sickness, you are no longer sick." I'm sure you know the AA people say something very similar. There's no chance I can do anything to improve my life if I can't perceive what's really going on in my life.

I kinda have another theory. There may be some atmospheric influence - who knows? But I think it's a combination of increased awareness (modern society does love political correctness and labelling people into boxes) and the explosion of CHOICE in society in general.

I'm not saying choice is a bad thing, or that choice causes ASD. But in some cases the fact that people have more choice now than they've ever had is probably making ASD show itself more clearly. Whereas a hundred years ago society was a lot more structured and there was a lot less choice, now the opposite is true.

That's what I think, anyway. I don't think it has anything to do with MMR jabs. My mother refused to let me have it at the time, and I was Aspie when I was born judging by the way I behaved as a baby :S My sister on the other hand had the measles jab and she's not Aspie ^_^.

Apple

I only feel like making a short post here:

AS and autism have most likely been around for a very long time; the apparent increase might only be because diagnoses have become more accurate, and there's been a general increase in awareness of diversity. Also, I feel it's wrong to label it as an epidemic, as if it's a deadly disease