jchrisobrien | Hey, I'm back

My Christmas has officially drawn to a close. Today I returned from my trip to New Jersey. It seemed shorter that past visits, or perhaps more focused. We watched an episode of Nightline that featured my autistic cousin Paul. The special focused on how Paul is functioning in the world as an adult with autism, and how unprepared we are as a society for the huge numbers of kids with autism who are becoming adults. Paul has it lucky, relatively. He can go to work, and function during the day with a high degree of skill. He does still have problems with social situations (like when he asked me if I was going to be marrying Theamazingjb, who was my traveling guest). What shocked me most was watching my aunt say on national TV that Paulie wouldn't be able to go on living if she and uncle paul died. I forgot to press on that point in person, but hey that's what email and the telephone are for.

Driving lost distances in the rain, when the road and the sky become one grey blur, isn't something that I'd recommend doing. I was pretty keyed up, but I managed to wind down by doing some cleaning and organizing. That will likely be a theme for the next few days. Another theme will involve browsing through my old journal entires. We all go through our periods of mocking Livejournal, but for me it has proved a useful tool for going back and seeing the road I walked during the year. Maybe my NY resolution should be to do these reviews at the end of each month, so I can save time at year's end. Heh.

Time to get a good night's sleep. I should have a half day tomorrow, which will be a nice start to my three day weekend.

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You forgot to mention that he didn't just ask you, quietly, in another room.
But in a room for of your whole family, completely and utterly out of the blue.
It took me by surprise.

The craziest thing is the numbers.
There has been an 805% growth in cases of autism since 1992.
That is 1 in 155 or 1 in 165 versus the previous 1 in 5000.

He caught be by surprise for a second, but the look on your face was priceless.

Wow, I'd heard it said that autism had become more common.
But, I'd never gotten any real statistics before, or I wasn't paying enough attention. That's really alarming! Do they have the slightest inkling as to why there has been this seemingly huge leap growth?

It is highly suggested that the increase may be due to the vaccines that kids receive. There are extremely high amounts of mercury in one of the vaccines. China is also having a surgence of autism. They also started receiving and using out vaccines.

"In America, researchers found some infants who are being vaccinated using multidose vials with thiomersal can receive 62.5 micrograms of mercury per visit.
This is 100 times more than the intake considered safe for the average six-month-old by the US Environmental Protection Agency. "

!!!
And I assume we're still using the same vaccines?
That's insane.

So from what I could find, the vaccines are changing in the US, but not in developing countries because of cost. However, the flu shot seems to high high levels of bad things as well.

And some more scary facts:
In the last 20 years there has been an increase in the diagnosis of autism in pockets around the world, which cannot be explained by genetics alone, nor can this increase be secondary to only increased awareness. A California review completed in 1999 showed that autism (all categories) increased 210.43 percent, while other categories such as cerebral palsy, mental retardation and epilepsy increased 42.84 percent, 48.74 percent, and 30.69 percent respectively. In comparing autism with other pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), autism (CDER level) increased 272.93 percent, while other PDD types increased 1,965.79 percent.

There is really not good evidence for the vaccine idea - the higher apparent incidence is probably due to a much higher rate of recognition & diagnosis.

I think that it is definately true that greater diagnosis means greater incidence.
And definately, genetics plays a factor.
But with such a riduculous increase, I kinda have to think that there is something more than just better recognition.
The time periods for these studies are fairly recent.
For instance, schools in Washington state went from 113 cases to 1,972 cases from 1994 to 2001. With a steady increase each year.

I keep finding studies that push the correlation and, of course, the government cover ups. (Strange things, like how the first testing for the vaccines were done on terminal ill patients.) Who knows how much of the information is viable.

I can't believe that the mercury is helpful. However, I think that there may be a larger problem with all the toxins that we just experience now in everyday life. But I don't even think you can do a study on that sort of thing.

I'm with you. On one hand, yes greater diagnosis means greater incidence, but those numbers .. .wow! Those numbers are impossible to ignore and strongly indicate there there must be some other variable in play. If not the mercury, then something else.

I don't think monthly reviews would be valuable because we need a certain amount of distance and perspective.

Honestly even "looking over this past year" isn't really valuable.

However, going back and looking at a "year in review" from three, four, eight years ago -- that's valuable.

A monthy review would probably be too fresh to gain anything from. But at least it would be less time consuming than doing it all at the end of the year. I suppose I should wait until after work to tackle it!

I have a few of those started, but never finished. It would make for interesting reading.

Hey, I'm back

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anything I can do to distract myself from work..

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Wonders of the internet- Information at your fingertips that may or may not be pretend.

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