World Autism Awareness Day // Bloggers Unite

World Autism Awareness Day // Bloggers Unite

EPA Study: Autism Boom Began in 1988, Environmental Factors Are Assumed

If it seems like most of the people you know with autism are 22 or younger, that's because most people diagnosed with autism were born after 1987. A recent US EPA study has found a distinct "changepoint" year - or spike - in autism in California and elsewhere and concludes that it would be "prudent to assume that at least some portion of this increase is real and results from environmental factors."

"In the Danish, California, and worldwide data sets, we found that an increase in autism disorder cumulative incidence began about (the birth cohort years) 1988-1989," wrote the authors Michael E. Mc Donald and John F. Paul, of the EPA's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory.

Court Rules Against Autism-Vaccine Link

A special United States “vaccine court” dismissed three cases Friday that were attempting to establish a link between mercury-containing immunizations and autism, prompting outrage among parents convinced of the connection.

Vaccine court finds no link to autism

U.S. vaccine court found no connection between vaccines and autism in 3 cases
Cases alleged that vaccines with thimerosal contributed to autism spectrum disorders
A panel of "special masters" began hearing 3 other test cases in 2007

Washington (CNN) -- A federal court ruled Friday that the evidence supporting an alleged causal link between autism and a mercury-containing preservative in vaccines is unpersuasive, and that the families of children diagnosed with autism are not entitled to compensation.

"Fourteen Studies" Are Being Misrepresented

What's going on? If you listen to well-paid spokespeople of the vaccine industry, you’ll hear that the case is closed on the link between vaccines and autism and that the scientific consensus supports no association. It’s eerily reminiscent of the days when tobacco companies produced a consensus of science showing no link between smoking and lung cancer.

The Autism Debate: Who's Afraid of Jenny McCarthy?

By Karl Taro Greenfeld

In person, surprisingly, Jenny McCarthy comes across as corn-fed cute rather than overwhelmingly beautiful. She has a common touch, and a woman even slightly more beautiful would struggle to connect as she does. When McCarthy meets a mom, when she spits forth a stream of profanity and common sense — the foulmouthed comedian from Chicago never far from the surface — she is there as a mother, not as a celebrity or starlet. That's what got her there, but that's not who she is once she's there. She speaks to so many frustrated, despairing mothers of autistic children because she is plausible, authentic. If you needed a woman to bring hope to these mothers, you couldn't ask for better casting than Jenny McCarthy.

Journal retracts flawed study

A major British medical journal this week finally retracted a flawed study that linked the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowl disease.

"We fully retract this paper from the published record," Lancet editors said of British surgeon Andrew Wakefield's study that had been published in 1998.

Since the controversial paper was published, vaccination rates for measles in Britain have never recovered, and there are outbreaks of the disease every year.