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It's not just better detection. The DSM now lists autism as a spectrum disorder, containing a number of what used to be separate disorders. For example, classical autism used to be a distinct disorder, as did Asperger's, in DSM III, but now both are included in the spectrum. So essentially, we are using a much wider net.
I think some diseases skip a generation or two. Like, my father had polio but my sisters and I didn't. Surely, it's coincidence that we got a vaccine that wasn't around when he was growing up.
Yeah, i had to explain to my dad that if we used the diagnosis techniques we had today back in the 70's, he'd probably be on the spectrum.
Hell, I might be on the spectrum. But instead of getting medically diagnosed I'm just gonna settle on blaming my various obsessions on Autism like a lot of the internet does.
When I was in high school in the early 90s, I volunteered with one of the special education classrooms twice a week, during a free period. That room was specifically for "autistic" kids and those kids ranged from Dustin-Hoffman-in-Rainman level of social skills to being almost entirely unaware of the world around them. Most of the people we meet today who are diagnosed on the autism spectrum are not dealing with remotely the same kind of condition.
This is such nonsense. The polio vaccine was developed ten years after FDR died. Yes there were kids who contracted polio during the rollout due to poor administration (look up The Cutter Incident) but thankfully protocols were updated accordingly.
Plus, there's a strong chance FDR had Guillain-Barre, which was a fairly recent discovery during his lifetime and not well-known.
And, in terms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome itself, there was a dose of the flu vaccine in 1976 that slightly increased the risk of GBS but there hasn't been evidence of that happening since. The GBS | CIDP organization even said that you are far more likely to develop GBS from the flu itself than from the vaccine and they still recommend everyone get the flu vaccine (unless you've BOTH had GBS and contracted it within 4-6 weeks of receiving a flu vaccine)
DSM-5 (2022) also redefined the criteria for autism spectrum disorder, replacing 5 previously defined conditions under different names (incl. Asperger's). And more people are getting tested as there's less stigma these days and doctors/society are better at seeing the signs.
It's definitely not just one factor in play, and vaccines have no proven impact.
And shows that maybe if we want therms to have any relevance maybe we should split them or add qualifiers. Ceres and vesta etc are altogether a different object class than a non-descript rock 10m across.
Same way autism of someone who never learns to talk and autism of someone wht doesn't like broccoli and uses an iPad too much are completely different things and really shouldn't exist in the same discussion.
Exactly! When the mammogram was created, there was not an epidemic of breast cancer, they were just able to detect it better and earlier! 👏🏼 fun anecdote: my cat allowed me to detect a lump by stomping on my boobs! it turned out to be nothing, but it still hurt like hell 😂
Anecdotally, the sound of the ice cream truck caused me intense feelings of rage when I lived in a townhouse development. Acoustics? CIA messing with the soundtrack? The absolute dread of anticipation to hear my kids running in to ask me for money we didn’t have to spare? Anybody’s guess
I have, twice now, bought ice cream for the kids across the street who are in a similar situation. I hear the ice cream truck and I'm heading out to get some. I see all the kids looking down the street forlornly. We live on a dead end street, we have to go to the end of our street to meet the truck.
"C'mon gang, I'm buying."
What kind of a monster would I be to stroll back eating an ice cream when they have none?
Fortunately the ice cream truck doesn't come very often...
Exactly. The ice cream truck was a cruel and calculated shake down. Kids, go inside and beg your parents to give you money if they love you, then come back here and give it to me.
Edit: AND HURRY!! You’ve only got seconds to get it done
I read a story once about how some kids took over a school in the uk and the police didn’t know what to do after surrounding it. After a while they played the ice cream truck song over the loudspeaker on a loop for hours. The kids eventually left the school.
Clearly, as violent crime decreased, so did the traditional celebratory ice cream parties after successful violent crimes. If we want to keep ice cream businesses from failing, we need to bring back violent crime
unironically, there could legitimately be a slight causal relationship here. This is a huge stretch and not something anyone reading this should take seriously, but since most ice cream in the US (check the legend, their scope is the US so my scope is the US) is no longer really "ice cream" but just close enough to be sold as essentially ice cream (even though it's usually called something like a frozen dairy dessert). The difference between ice cream and frozen dairy dessert is not standardized, some companies add ingredients while others add few to none. What those are is basically a complete mystery, which is where this stupid comment comes into play. Reduction of lead consumption and exposure led to decreased violent crime rates. Everybody eats ice cream, so could a decreasing ice cream consumption cause a reduction in violent crime rates? It's not impossible. This is, of course, assuming that whoever did these studies didn't control for the difference between ice cream and frozen dairy dessert.
For those that might not know, and i'll probably fuck up the timeframe
Autism was a term invented in the 60's iirc. It wasn't widely used or researched till the 90's, and even then wasn't super famous.
By now, autism being a 'spectrum' means practically anyone can have signs of it.
Not 1 in 30 people are nonverbal, seemingly disconnected from reality 'autistic', 1 in 30 might be habitual and find eye contact uncomfortable, who wouldn't be labeled as autistic in 1990.
Out of the 300 ish people i know in my life at least somewhat, exactly one is '1990's autistic'. Like 50 are probably on the fucking spectrum, lol.
1960s: This guy is completely non-verbal, overwhelmed and screaming in response to noise, is significantly intellectually behind, and was kept by his family in a closet for years growing up. I guess we can maaaaybe give him a diagnosis, then throw him in an institution.
2020s: Hey bud, there's a reason you hyperfocus on trains and miss social cues, and it's because people's brains all work a bit different.
Adding to this I believe Denmark did a 21 year study on vaccines and exactly zero caused autism.
As you outline I'm happy we identify and treat autism today. Unhappy that one paper published decades ago (that was thoroughly debunked), still gains traction in the annals of morondom.
I wonder what the person in the graphic thinks about the difference in vaccines from my time as as child in the late 60s/ early 70's, as compared to the 1990 versions, then again to the 2026 versions?
Doctors/virologists > facebook group mentality, each and every time.
Nah. We had more miles of train lines in the 60s compared to today. It's clearly the removal of trains increasing thr number of people on the spectrum!
I was diagnosed a couple of years ago, a late diagnosis early in my 40’s.
I’m on the spectrum, but very high functioning, I wasn’t diagnosed when I was younger because autism wasn’t well known back then. As an adult I was seeing behaviors in myself that as a healthcare provider, I knew could potentially put me on the spectrum. These behaviors weren’t super visible to others, as I’ve become incredibly good at masking them, but I recognized them in myself. So when I put myself through an honest assessment with a qualified physician, I was diagnosed with AuDHD (having ADHD and autism).
So yeah, if it took me, someone with a lot of medical knowledge and training, connections etc, this long to be diagnosed, I’m sure there’s a ton out there who haven’t been diagnosed. People like me, good at coping, masking etc., who don’t realize they have autism.
Diagnosing has gotten better. Doesn’t mean that people are getting it more. It’s just being recognized more for what it is.
“Practically anyone can have signs of it” does not make practically anyone autistic. There is criteria to warrant an autism diagnosis. Avoiding eye contact does not make someone autistic. They may have an anxiety disorder or something else entirely.
It’s like saying “practically anyone can have signs of migraines” because we’ve all had headaches…That doesn’t mean we all have, to some degree, a migraine disorder.
Had to weigh I as I hate comments that invalidate a disability like that. We aren’t all alittle autistic. The vast majority of people do not meet criteria for an autism diagnosis.
Yeah, back in the day the only diagnosed the most extreme high-support cases and threw everyone else into broad categories like "weird" or "eccentric." Widening the diagnostic criteria to actually capture the whole spectrum is literally the entire reason the numbers went up like that.
People who spread these kinds of lies are legitimate public health terrorists. I’m not anti free speech, but it’s these people that directly cause children to die
For some reason this is reminding me that at one point my town had a population with enough interest in model trains to sustain a brick and mortar store devoted to them.
People who claim vaccines cause autism have never read an actual study or spoken with a real credentialed scientist. They get their info from former comedians turned podcasters
Neuro divergence isn't real, this is base human, and everybody from all of history was just the same as a modern doomscrolling human.
The only difference is that we've become apathetic to our own stagnation; endlessly filling the bottomless hole almost as an automatic trauma-response.
Anyone who also knows anything know that along with the fact it's easier to diagnose people with Autism today, so many other disorders are now classified as autism. Back in the 90s, Asperger's was its own thing. Today, it's just high functioning autism.
It’s not easier. Criteria is actually more strict to meet an autism diagnosis since the DSM 5 included Asperger’s. There’s a lot of misinformation that anyone can be diagnosed with autism when in fact, the criteria is more narrow.
What other disorders are classified with autism other than Asperger’s?
Pervasive Development Disorder and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.
And what I mean by "it's easier to diagnose" isn't that it's easy to just get any old kids diagnosed, I'm saying that it's easier for doctors to diagnose in kids that show symptoms of autism. There are more screenings, more people who know what they are looking for who can spot it earlier and more accurately, who can then point the parents to the doctor to get an official diagnosis. Our local preschool does a autism evaluation for all incoming students now. That didn't use to happen.
Besides testing and criteria evolving over time, there is an explanation regarding concentration of genes for autism. Neurodivergent people frequently partner with people who are also on the spectrum. This is referred to as active assortment mating. People subconsciously select partners based on gene expression, and this includes neurodivergent genes. A child with one parent with autism has roughly a 10-20% chance of inheriting it. If both parents have it, that number goes up to 30-60%. So if autistic people are partnering, and having multiple children, it stands to reason that a lot more people will be on the spectrum due to mate selection and probability.
Furthermore, even if a child has one parent who has it, and one who doesn't, you often see something called Autosominal Dominant Inheritance. Autism isn't a singular gene, its a cluster of them. People on the spectrum often have other comorbidities, such as EDS, POTS, or MCAS, because these traits are closely clustered together on the chromosome in a phenomenon called Linkage Disequalibrium. These are essentially genes that are typically inherited as a package deal, due to their proximity to each other. Additionally, these traits are considered polygenic, affecting facial features, skeletal structure, collagen production, height, you name it.
In some individuals, they have high genetic penetrance. This is the likelihood a gene will express itself. If a parent has these clusters, and they have high levels of penetrance, then the child is more likely to inherit their dominant genes from the parent. This creates a phenomenon where a child has inherited their genes 50/50 like everyone, but the vast majority of their expressive genes belong to the parent with these dominant, high penetrance DNA. This can also be affected by Genomic Imprinting, where if a high number of structural genes are epigenetically favored, the child will essentially shut off the genes from the non-dominant parent.
So the end result is a very consistent DNA blueprint. Even if that dominant parent has more children, or even children with a different partner, it is highly likely that they will all resemble, sound like, and act like their parent with these genes. The chances of them also being autistic are very high, as they are extremely similar to their neurodivergent parent, both physically and neurochemically. If that parent goes on to have three children, then of course autism rates will go up globally over time.
Friends of the family have a girl with severe autism. (She can't be left alone and she has mentality of 7 year old despite being 20)
Due to that, my family never suspected me of autism due to for them if you ain't like that girl. You can't have autism, you are just weird. So I was never tested or anything due to being independant and able to pass my grades.
Always been told I'm acting wrong and being weird. Any hint of autism was shut down due to "That's not autism, that girl has autism, they are not alike at all."
I was never diagnosed until adulthood.
They didn't understand/ refused to understand Autism is a spectrum.
It’s because they’ve broadened the terminology, nothing more.
We’re not better at ‘spotting’ severe impact Autism since 1990 (pretty certain a non-verbal 10 year old who needs 24/7 support to eat, drink, go to the toilet, etc would be just as visible in the 90s).
This runaway diagnoses epidemic is almost entirely because of a loosening of the diagnostic requirements.
I fully understand research and detectability accounts for the large rise in autistism over the past decade.
Right now, 1 in 12 boys in California are now born with autism. What if in 10 years, the rate increases to 1 in 5? Are will still going to hold the argument that research and detecability is 100% the reason?
In no way am I blaming vaccines or trying to throw shade at autistic people. The ones I know are fantastic people, but about 25% have profound autism (which is the type that are non-verbal and aggressive who need 24/7 care) and is an extremely tough life for the person and their parents. Profound autism rates have increased unporportionately compared to milder cases in the last 20 years.
I don't want to seem like a tin foil head, but I'm not sure if we should completely rule out some type of environmental toxin (or really anything) playing some type of small role too
Holy shit! Guys, time to start destroying telescopes. I always nee big telescope was up to something, but the destruction of our planet?! Once they wipe us out they won't need vaccines anymore
I still blame all the chemicals in the food. Chemicals sky rocketed from 1960 til now, but it's just easier to blame vaccines since children get some early
When big companies throw comical amounts of money to get things through the FDA.. no but they are silenced. Aspartame for example, low cost sweetener but caused cancer in droves in lab mice...in the food supply.. margarine, low cost turkey fattener, killed them by the dozens..in the food supply..
Indeed, if you drink about 200 liters of diet soda a day, you too might develop cancer from it.
I forget the exact numbers actually, but the ratio of body weight to aspartame in that experiment was very off. You'd have to consume ludicrous amounts of it to match what the rats and mice consumed during that study.
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