The percentage of children classified as autistic has risen a lot in recent years. But is autism actually rising? Or are autism cases inflated by the fact that the definition of autism has expanded? The Doomslayer discusses this, saying:
For years, public health debate has often fixated on a supposed rise in the prevalence of autism. Various culprits have been named, including the well-investigated but unsubstantiated claim that vaccines cause autism. More recently, additional risk factors have been proposed — many by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — including maternal Tylenol use, food dyes and additives, chemical manufacturing agents and other possible stressors affecting perinatal development. Concerns about autism have been spotlighted within the larger Make America Healthy Again movement, motivated by a well-founded alarm over the nation’s devastatingly high burden of chronic disease and psychiatric illness. But there is a bigger problem with the autism epidemic: It doesn’t exist.
Autism diagnoses have indeed risen dramatically in recent decades. The most recently released Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on autism, which was published in April last year, revealed a nearly five-fold increase in the prevalence of autism between 2000 and 2022, from 67 to 322 cases per 10,000 children. However, diagnostic criteria can change even when the underlying health phenomenon remains unchanged. A large-scale study published in December, drawing on CDC data from 24,669 8-year-olds across the country, suggests that the dramatic rise in autism diagnoses may be entirely driven by children with mild symptoms and no significant functional impairment. Between 2000 and 2016, there was a 464 percent increase in diagnoses among children with no significant functional impairment whatsoever. In fact, during the same time period, there was a 20 percent decrease in the prevalence of moderate or severe autism, from 15 to 12 cases per 10,000 children….some advocates support the narrative that autism is on the rise, because an ever-expanding “spectrum” that produces more diagnoses draws more attention and research funding — even if children’s underlying psychology remains unchanged.
In good news, Stem cell therapies for Parkinsons disease and heart failure have been approved in Japan.
An experimental drug cuts seizures by 80 percent for a form of epilepsy. Annual child deaths have fallen by eight million. Chile has eliminated leprosy. 172,717 new cases of leprosy were detected in 2024, across the world.
Anti-obesity drugs will soon get much cheaper in many countries. Ozempic may be helpful not just in fighting obesity and diabetes, but also in slowing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
A single pill can now cure the deadly disease of sleeping sickness, which used to require a treatment that killed at least a tenth of the people who received the treatment.
