Why do so many kids have autism now?

They didn't years ago.

A change in diet?

Vaccines? People used to get only a few essential vaccines and now their is a new shot every day of the week. My sister is a nurse and feels guilty in her role as a vaccine administrator.

What is to blame for the epidemic. Vaccines? Or is this just a conspiracy theory? If so, what is the alternative explanation?:?

I also think more people today eat a little more than is good for them and get less exercise. True?

While I agree that autism seemed to have increased in recent years, vaccines save lives and DO NOT cause autism, the research on this is quite clear and convincing. Case in point, the largest measles epidemic in the US in the last 25 years is happening right now, because too many have opted out of vaccines.

I think other environmental factors are to blame...what exactly they are... to be determined!

There are not more autistic children about, it is only that the term is being used to categorise personality types that were formerly regarded as no more than awkward or eccentric.
Remember that homosexuality was once classed as an illness. We don't need to treat children as being diseased when all they are is a little different.

dargelos said:

There are not more autistic children about, it is only that the term is being used to categorise personality types that were formerly regarded as no more than awkward or eccentric.

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Yes, diagnostic criteria has changed.

There are a number of reasons why so many more children are diagnosed with autism now than in the past, but I don’t know of any research that indicates more children are born with it.

If you do a bit of research you quickly discover that the reason for huge increase is unknown.

See:
cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/research.html

And also:
ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Autism-Spectrum-Disorder-Fact-Sheet#3082_5

In my own opinion one reason is advanced parental age.

As for vaccines, as I say my sister is a nurse. There are particular vaccine she, and other medical professionals she knows, have some concerns about. Note, that they are not concerned about the 'core' vaccines.

In everything there is a weighing up of risks. Perhaps you end up with more cases of autism (or more severe cases of it), but the cost is worth paying because of what the vaccines prevent. The conundrum here is will medical leaders acknowledge vaccines have a downside? If they do, even a little bit, and people lose faith in vaccines, you would have less autism for example, but other horrors might start to creep back into to our populations.

Consider that for many years flouride was considered not just safe but fully advantageous by various governments. And now, many governments have banned it from public water. Why?

Sometimes governments allow things they shouldn't and it can take years, even decades for the realisation to dawn.

In any event vaccines might be only one among several causal factors. One last thing, my own 'anecdotal' experience: growing up in the seventies I suppose you might know one kind who had mild symptoms, but today I look around me and there are more severe cases. You cannot miss it. Had the same level of these severe cases existed in say the seventies, it would absolutely have been noticed. We might have been innocent about many things (including vaccines?) but we were not zombies who didn't notice such severe cases. Even in my own extended family there are three cases of bad autism. Not just mild symptoms. Children who find it very hard to function normally. When the kids are at a family gathering everyone cannot help but notice something has changed. At similar family gatherings in the past, you did not have all these severe cases. It is as simple as that.

You could argue that 'special' children were all kept locked up in closets in the seventies? No! I had plenty of cousins back then, and none were locked up. We would have known. People talk and gossip. The truth in my experience is that there are more severe cases today.

I wonder is it the same globally, or just in particular regions?

Tottrop said:

A change in diet?

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Yes - the microbiome has been implicated in inducing autistic behaviour in mice.

It has also been implicated in the other question in the OP.

The promise of genetic medicine will not be realised until there is a similar level of expertise in both the fields of gut bacteria and genetics because, at the cellular level, we are all minority human.

The fact that nobody has ever heard of autism 50 years ago can be explained rather simply: The phenomenon of autism was just identified 50 to 60 years ago by Kenner and Asperger.

Before that people called it "wolfskinder" (wolf-children) or something like that.

I would say there has been a big increase in the last 10 years alone.

It's alarming. Hard to see children suffering.

Once the causes are identified, a cure becomes possible.

If you compare the increase in reported cases of autism to the increase in the numbers of people giving up smoking, you can see a close correlation.
Therefore, autism is caused by people who quit smoking.
Therefore, to cure the problem, all those selfish quitters need to start sparking up the gaspers again, for the childrens sake.
Fifty years ago everybody smoked and nobody had autism. Case proven.

@dargelos, if you take the time to carefully examine the research and the data, the cause/s are unknown. That is a fact. It is as simple as that. And there has been an increase in terms of real prevalence. I am not referring to ambiguous cases here.

I cannot definitively say vaccines are a causal factor, or even a primary causal factor, but by the same token neither can you definitively say they are not.

Ergo, you cannot be so confident. We are all in the same boat.

Since this is a psychological condition there are many possibilities. I would say with confidence that a parent coping with autism right now is not dismissing 'little' possibilities like injecting substances into the body that then remain in the body for life. We cannot know fro sure this is not having unwanted impacts in a minority of children.

A measure of caution, and an open mind in the face of unknowns is entirely reasonable.

Since I work with autists there are some things that might useful to know: Autism is not a psychological condition, it is a special neurological one. Autists have to go therapy and psychiatrists can do it but there is one thing clear: It is not a disorder that you gain and lose again after doing some session with a shrink.

As for this vaccine thing the scientific facts are clear:
There once was a study published in “The Lancet” in 1998 that suggested a connection between vaccination and autism.
Other studies tried to reproduce the results but none of them have found a connection. The Lancet retracted the paper in question in 2010 after it had been debunked over and over.

So far so good, it's a pretty normal thing for science. Sometimes things prove to be right, sometimes to be wrong.

But nine years later it’s still going around the internet, mostly used by people who are strongly against vaccination anyway.

edit:
I found this article from 2010
https://anonym.to/?https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831678/

ihno said:

Since I work with autists there are some things that might useful to know: Autism is not a psychological condition, it is a special neurological one. Autists have to go therapy and psychiatrists can do it but there is one thing clear: It is not a disorder that you gain and lose again after doing some session with a shrink.

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A personality disorder is psychological by definition. But from the psychoanalytical perspective, it is utterly permanent. Behaviours can be thought, but the disorder remains in the background. It is essentially the same with Autism. And at base, all is neurological anyway. Caveat: there are always a small percentage of exceptional cases, that 'prove the rule'.

As for vaccines, practically all children get them. More vaccines are issued now than ever before. Is there a downside. You have to be brave to ask that question and you have to treat ordinary people and parents with the respect they deserve and credit them as being intelligence, caring and thoughtful human beings. If millions of parents have doubts, then maybe they are onto something.

This modern world of ours comes with a long list of price tags. Perhaps autism is one of them.

And maybe dargelos is right with the smoking thing. I guess he's intelligent, caring and thoughtful too.

But seriously: As someone who works in the field I can only say it would be irresponsible to let a mother or a father of an autistic child stick on a debunked theory and believe they have caused the autism with a vaccianation. There is no scientific evidence for it.

But let's just agree to disagree before it goes into circles here.

dargelos said:

If you compare the increase in reported cases of autism to the increase in the numbers of people giving up smoking, you can see a close correlation.
Therefore, autism is caused by people who quit smoking.
Therefore, to cure the problem, all those selfish quitters need to start sparking up the gaspers again, for the childrens sake.
Fifty years ago everybody smoked and nobody had autism. Case proven.

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Lol children aren't quitting smoking. Well, maybe a very tiny number of them. Besides which there countries in the world where smoking levels are still just as high. And the autism problem is just the same there, in China for example. Even 1 in 4 Chinese physicians are smokers.

But a huge number of children do get vaccines, whether in the USA or in China.

So your comparison fails. It can't be smoking or lack there of, but it might still be vaccines.

But of course you are right to say there is not enough evidence. Until there is evidence, it might be vaccines, it might be increasing exposure to wireless technology, who knows.

ihno said:

The fact that nobody has ever heard of autism 50 years ago can be explained rather simply: The phenomenon of autism was just identified 50 to 60 years ago by Kenner and Asperger.

Before that people called it "wolfskinder" (wolf-children) or something like that.

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But as recently as 1995, there were 1 in 500 cases vs 2019 when it's 1 in 59 cases. By the nineties 'autism' had long since been identified.

UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute study shows California's autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis

A study by researchers at the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute has found that the seven- to eight-fold increase in the number children born in California with autism since 1990 cannot be explained by either changes in how the condition is diagnosed or counted — and the trend shows no sign of abating.

Published in the January 2009 issue of the journal Epidemiology, results from the study also suggest that research should shift from genetics to the host of chemicals and infectious microbes in the environment that are likely at the root of changes in the neurodevelopment of California’s children.

“It’s time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California,” said UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute researcher Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of environmental and occupational health and epidemiology and an internationally respected autism researcher.

So maybe it is chemicals?

"you have to treat ordinary people and parents with the respect they deserve and credit them as being intelligence, caring and thoughtful human beings"
The majority of violence against children occurs within the family.
The overwhelming majority of sexual assault against children occurs within the family.
It's nice to imagine that parents always act in the best interests of their offspring.
If only that were true.

Big pharma claim that their ambition is to have 'a pill for every ill'
It's closer to the truth to say that they dream of an ill for every pill.
The legal drug pushers have an interest in promoting any research that leads to an increased rate of diagnosis of any ailment, selling more pills is what it's all about.
It's nice to imagine that pharmacutical companies always act in the best interests of patients.
If only that were true too.

dargelos said:

"you have to treat ordinary people and parents with the respect they deserve and credit them as being intelligence, caring and thoughtful human beings"
The majority of violence against children occurs within the family.
The overwhelming majority of sexual assault against children occurs within the family.
It's nice to imagine that parents always act in the best interests of their offspring.
If only that were true.

Big pharma claim that their ambition is to have 'a pill for every ill'
It's closer to the truth to say that they dream of an ill for every pill.
The legal drug pushers have an interest in promoting any research that leads to an increased rate of diagnosis of any ailment, selling more pills is what it's all about.
It's nice to imagine that pharmacutical companies always act in the best interests of patients.
If only that were true too.

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Totally with you on big pharma. They get their cut on vaccines you can be sure.

Good parents ask tough questions too.

How do we explain the alarming increase in the rate of autism in California for instance, per the research above?