It's all the rage at the moment. Skeptical Inquirer has it. Skeptic magazine has it. Even the NZ Skeptic magazine has it (although it's not on the website yet).
What is it? I'm talking about articles that look critically at the link between autism and immunisation, and, basically, how any semblance of a link is bunk (all offense intended to vapid women who go on about the "mommy instinct" being more power than medicine.)
So when I saw the following article on Stuff, I didn't believe the title: No explanation for 'scary' rise in autism.
Amazingly, they get through the whole article without one mentioning immunisation, but they do mention other possibilities: "The increase was not explained by the population increase or another suggestion that it was now easier to diagnose."
But I am cynical, and now await for the expected headline "Protecting your child from diseases WILL KILL THEM!" 'Cos you know someone's gonna do that...
[END]
Friday, 9 November 2007
Autism and immu... wha??
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2 comments:
I suspect there's a perfectly reasonable and obviously explanation for the so-called 'scary' rise in autism. I think it's likely that more people are being labelled autistic because there's now much better awareness and acceptance of the condition. I've read an article which looks at the high rates of autism diagnosis in the USA and it seems that many underperforming school students have been diagnosed as autistic without just cause, simply so that extra tutition is made available to them. Also, autism covers a wide range of conditions, and people with mild autism are might go their whole lives without being diagnosed.
They do mention the ability to diagnose at not one of the reasons.
And I thought they always blamed bad classroom behaviour on ADD.
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