Never Never Land Children, the Vaccinials, as of 2008 births, are 1 in every  55  39  36 28 kids – and rising. Meanwhile our fake skeptics dwell in a propter hoc ergo hoc solus fairy tale of their own crafting.

By 2060, my team preliminarily estimates that in excess of $185 Billion US Dollars will be spent by US families (not the US Government) in an effort to care for their adult cerebral injury children. Each year we currently add 35,000 new fully disabled (not simply Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosed) children to these upcoming burden rolls. Let us be clear: this cost was shifted to American families by a corrupt government, agri and pharma infrastructure. It is a hidden cost today, borne by parents who will not always be around to care for their adult live-in-home children. And no, we did not simply miss or miscount these children back in 1970.

These are the forgotten generation of kids.  These are The Vaccinials (1994 – 2017)

Be forewarned. No manner of one-liner, exclusion biased study, nor conflict of interest voice of ‘skepticism,’ is going to be able to counter the will, acumen, organization and anger of this group of informed-activist parent.

Never Never Land: Where We Send Our Cerebral Injury Children to Pretend that Our Science is Ethical and Complete

Currently, 83% of adults with autism live with their aging parents (see: DisabilityScoop: Few Young Adults with Autism Living Independently). If you are in the social skepticism community, you deny most statistics about autism, especially if they originate from a group who studies autism or supports its injury focused community and their parents. The subject is a big threat to your clients. If you have an autistic child, and you do not toe the line of ‘wondrous genetic diversity’ and ‘disorder with no cause’ pseudo-science, rest assured that in today’s perverse political hack climate, you may be regarded by the holier-than-thou among us as an ‘anti-science’ rabble rouser, worthy of the highest disdain a memorized talking points sheet can muster.  There are those appointed to patrol forums and social media, to ensure that your voice is never heard, or if it is, that you pay a dear price for speaking up. Is it any surprise that the fake skepticism movement threw its hat into the ring of industry protectionism, before the science was even in, on this critical issue facing American families? Not to me. Perhaps it was part of their effort to support forces who want to cap Federal assistance to adults with autism (new rules can be found at 42 CFR Part 430 et seq and here), by denying that autism is increasing at all. A disorder group which used to be so rare that most Americans had never heard of it, now hitting every 7th house on our street and in our neighborhood overall. But according to skeptics, the increase only exists in our collective heads. Problem solved, we can all go home and relax. Parents, victims, adult sufferers are angry, questioning and not sitting down for the memorized set of talking point doctrine, as exemplified by the following industry propaganda:

“There is no doubt that the number of autism diagnoses has increased in the last two decades, but the evidence strongly suggests this increase in an artifact of how autism diagnoses are made, and not representative of a true increase.” – Steven Novella, Autism Increase Continues to Only Stem from Diagnosis Changes

Let’s be clear here. Steven is not arguing whether or not Autism Spectrum Disorders exist. No one is arguing this. What is being argued against here is the idea that these injuries should be examined scientifically for their cause. If there exists no associative increase, there is no necessity to examine cause. The occult mission of deception. I can avoid liability for my clients by citing that the burden of the $185 billion in care for the injured should fall on the shoulders of the parents who had the quirky DNA in the first place.

The study he references (‘a) does not contain evidence – rather a set of case studies, and neither does the ‘evidence’ ‘strongly suggest’ anything. It merely presents an argument for consideration. Fake skeptics accept such studies as proof when they like them, and reject them as anecdote when they do not. Ethical skeptics are students, observers of such chicanery on the part of fake skeptics. Steven has hammered such fallacious logic in arguments he does not favor; but here does not even catch it, when in his favor. The bare essence of conflict of interest.

Oligarch Skepticism is advocating that we should regard the phenomena under a business-as-usual policy: “We’ve slipped by without fault so far, so why should things change now?” i.e. ASD as simply a natural expression of genetic diversity, manifesting mostly in certain genetics, through no particular cause – there is no need to look any further. Those unfortunates who are harmed simply must bear this on behalf of the rest of us; without recourse, without recognition, without help. Never Never Land.

Ethical Skepticism says: Bullshit. This is what is called a ‘pretense of doing science’ or pseudoscience. Or what is also known in the philosophy of science as Manipulative Rational Ignorance:

Manipulative Rational Ignorance

/philosophy : science : pseudoscience : rhetoric : argument/ : a form of rhetoric wherein an arguer contends rational ignorance applies inside an argument, or the ignoring of a pathway of science because the cost or effort entailed is too high versus the results or lack thereof to be obtained from the effort. When in fact the arguer in reality fears the cost or penalty which would be incurred should the outcome of the scientific effort result in an observation or conclusion which he fears.

Of course, don’t take my word for it as a highly involved observer, but rather some who have done professional research on this very question as well (courtesy of the pragmaticalskeptic):

No, these children were not slipping by under the old methods of diagnosis. The lack of ASD diagnosis in 1990 was not going to also mysteriously develop that erstwhile 1990’s child to the point where they can tie their shoes at age 14 or suddenly qualify to go to college.

No, this malady, this Autism Spectrum Disorder, AND the ensuing number of unequivocal under any context – fully disabled children (Level 3/Severe/Profound) is on the increase as well.¹ ² This cannot stem from a ‘change in diagnosis protocols’ as these severe diagnoses were always manifest.

One might, and that might requires a ton of evidence more than our ‘skeptics’ currently hold, might claim increases in diagnostics based upon hair-shade different methods of how mild symptoms are categorized, or through their co-diagnosis. But when there is no doubt as to an autism diagnosis, and there is no doubt as to its fully disabling impact, and statistics of this ilk are on the dramatic increase as well – then you know that a segment of the industry, habitually compensated to defend two specific industry verticals from tort risk, is boasting when they make this ‘substitution diagnostics’ claim. (’a Dev Med Child Neurol. 2008 May) In a logical calculus, a scientific reduction critical path, this claim is an impossibility. A soulless and predictable smokescreen.

Nonetheless, let’s examine this claim to knowledge and evidence further. Two factors override the necessity of making such a claim that we should just ignore autism growth rates and not seek a causative factor other than ‘wonderful genetic diversity.’

I.  The diagnosis ‘substitution’ claim is Incompetent, Ignorant or Malevolent depending upon the practices used to arrive at its conclusion.

So what do Dr. Novella and the case study he cites mean when they make the claim of ‘diagnosis substitution?’ In fact, Dr. Novella’s ‘theory’ is developed off of a single suggestive study of 38 people (’a Dev Med Child Neurol. 2008 May) and a data review of 670,000 children born between 1980 and 1991 in Denmark. The authors of many articles which have sprung up since have attempted to propose through these two suggestive anecdotes that ‘Language Disorders’ were employed as a ‘substitution diagnosis’ (in the DMCN 2008 study’s expression and definition) in lieu of what today would be diagnosed as ‘mild to moderate ASD.’ More recent analysis has served to disconfirm this. ‘e

These trends did not support the hypothesis that diagnostic substitution for ID can explain the ASD rise over recent decades, although the hypothesis appeared more plausible when the data were aggregated across all states and ages.

~ C.D. Nevison, M. Blaxill, Diagnostic Substitution for Intellectual Disability: A Flawed Explanation for the Rise in Autism (Sep 2017)

Notice the Simpson Effect which shows inside this data and is common to most autism statistical studies. In general, there are three forms of diagnosis substitution which are recognized; albeit the final form constituting simply a form of retired ignorance and not in reality a proposed substitution. When the article writers all get in a froth over fictitious growth, they more than likely mean ig-diagnosis. The simple fact is that ig-diagnosis only appears to hold up under a cursory examination of the evidence. The three forms are per below: Ex-diagnosis, co-diagnosis and ig-diagnosis.

What Did Not Happen

1. Ex-diagnosis – this claim species contends that other malady populations, under a new and better understanding of symptoms and etiology, are now categorized within new malady sets. This is observed by citing a drop in diagnoses rates of the older understood malady, commensurate with an exact and inversely proportional signal rise in the newly understood diagnostic malady.

FALSE -Neither the signal trends, nor the underlying increase figures allow for a mathematical possibility of an ex-diagnosis situation.

a. No malady sets, bearing a confusion with ASD symptom sets, have decreased – they have all risen dramatically as well. Certainly not a single one has decreased in inverse proportion signal to the rise in ASD diagnoses.

i. The Annual Increase in ASD cases:   89,000 New cases each year.  A 218% growth in occurrence.¹ ² Meanwhile,

ii.. Epidemiology of non-autism Intellectual Disabilities shows an aggregate growth in all categories of 93% between 1970 and 2014 including: ¹ ² ³ ∈ ’b ’c

“Mental Retardation” “Developmental Delay or Language Disorder” and “Other Encephalopathies and Palsies” rose from a 1970 rate of 2.75% of the population to a current 5.4%. The criteria for these (IQ <70) – has not changed in the last 45 years.

b. If this practice set were the case, we should have seen a sympathetic signal rise in the number of Cerebral Palsy cases, as the understanding of its subtle forms also became manifest and appropriately categorized in parallel to ASD. We did not indeed observe such an effect with Cerebral Palsy.

2. Co-diagnosis – Under this claim species, older indistinct malady sets, such as language impairment or mild mental retardation, are now diagnosed coincident with new diagnoses falling within a new understanding of the ASD spectrum. In other words, under this claim what was once diagnosed as a language delay, is now diagnosed as both a language delay AND autism.

FALSE – No co-diagnosis signal has been observed in the trend and every single co-diagnosis malady is also rising at an alarming and ‘naturally occurring from the environment’ curve signal.

a. If this were true, we would have seen a discrete rise in diagnosis during the 2 years it would take to get the new diagnostic protocols (Autism Diagnostic Observations Schedule – ADOS) into the hands of nationwide medicine professionals (see collapse of ulcers in 2006). We would have seen a discrete rise in ASD diagnoses the very two years in which this new understanding was promulgated, and upon each iteration thereof. Indeed we did not, and have not seen such a signal at all – quite the contrary. The diagnoses have risen along a trend signal characteristics of an outside environmental influence. ¹ ² ³ ∈ ’b ’c

b. Every pairing of coincident malady set, LD/ASD, MR/ASD have seen BOTH maladies in the pairing rise despite their co-pairing. Under the co-diagnosis scenario, ONLY the newly coincident diagnosis rises, when in fact, this has not been the case at any time during the 1970 – 2014 measured horizon of new autsim (see above). ¹ ² ³ ∈ ’b ’c Given that language and other developmental disabilities have risen to affect up to 15% of the US 3 – 17 year old population in recent years, (‘d) this is going to be a daunting claim to substantiate.

c. If this practice set were the case, we should have seen a sympathetic signal rise in the number of Cerebral Palsy cases, co-diagnosed with LD and mild MR. We did not indeed observe such an effect with Cerebral Palsy.

3. Ig-diagnosis or Combination of all three – Under this claim species, in older days, the malady sets now observed were ignored as just normal childhood challenges and were not categorized into any distinct symptomology or malady group. The ig-diagnosis option, includes any form or variant of a combination of all three – ex-diagnosis, co-diagnosis and ig-diagnosis.

FALSE – No ig-diagnosis signal has been observed in the trend and the most severe forms of ASD (unmistakable under any context of timeframe) are also rising at an alarming and ‘naturally occurring from the environment’ curve signal.

a. If this were true, we would have seen a discrete rise in diagnosis during the 2 years it would take to get the new diagnostic protocols (DSM III, IV and V as well as Autism Diagnostic Observations Schedule – ADOS releases) into the hands of nationwide medicine professionals (see collapse of ulcers in 2006). We would have seen a discrete rise in ASD diagnoses the very two years in which this new understanding was promulgated. Indeed we did not, and have not seen such a signal at all – quite the contrary. The diagnoses have risen along a trend signal characteristics of an outside environmental influence. ¹ ² ³ ∈ ’b ’c

b. The simple fact is that our disabled autism group of young girls and boys has grown – 43% since 1990 for ASD and CP causes combined. ¹ ² ³ † And our annual contribution of newly diagnosed group of fully disabled (severe and profound categorizations) autism/ASD kids has grown a whopping 1500% since pre-1990 rates.² ‡ That is 35,000 kids a year we just missed in 1980. Sure. Right. In other words, for the ig-diagnosis scenario indeed the case – it is mandatory that the yellow band on the graph to the right and the yellow line on the actual rates graph below (Level 3, severe and profound cases) stay within its traditional bounds. This in fact, has not occurred.

c. If this practice set were the case, we should have seen a sympathetic signal  rise in the number of Cerebral Palsy cases, as the understanding of its subtle forms also became manifest and appropriately categorized in parallel to ASD. We did not indeed observe such an effect with Cerebral Palsy.

What Did Happen

Choose your poison – claims of substation diagnoses are ones of Incompetence, Ignorance or Malevolence. The claim rises nowhere near to the lever of rigor or analytical support base commensurate with something regarded by science as a ‘theory’ (see pseudo-theory). I seriously doubt that our doctors in 1990 were counting this malady as some other or no other disorder altogether. That contention would shed a light of incompetence on medicine that Science Based Medicine has claimed does not exist. No, this set of data entails an addition of 89,000 new cases of ASD each year, currently and rising. (Please note that the ‘slow’ periods on the blue line in the graphic to the right, are not really periods of slowing – rather simply periods of time in which we simply did not look).

Were this rise to have been an effect of newly released protocols, we should have seen bumps in diagnosis of ONLY MILD ASD commensurate with the release of the new guidelines. We have not. What we have seen is what is called an ‘environmentally induced’ curve in BOTH mild ASD as well as Level 3 diagnoses – moderate, severe and profound. All categories are rising, and there never has been a protocol basis for mistaking severe and profound autism. Yet this category is rising too. Neither will parental interview forms (2001’s ADI-R for instance) contribute to this category.

If protocols and collection methods were to blame, we should see a 1500% rise in mild autism with only a nominal rise in Level 3 autism. In fact, we have seen just the opposite – a more robust rise in unmistakable-under-any-protocol severe autism.

Comparatively, all other cognitive diagnoses have failed to decline by this commensurate rate or amount – contrary to what Dr. Novella is implying above. Cross contributions cannot possibly account for the rise in ASD, much less the rise in persistent, severe and profound cases of ASD. This contention is simply a case of wishful thinking, probably stemming from lack of a suitable sample horizon on the part of the Dev Med Child Neurol. 2008 May study referenced. I understand and sympathize with this desire to find perhaps a reassuring comfort to the challenge of growing autism, in that somehow it does not exist. But we are all better if we ethically face the reality of science and the supremacy of precaution, as a society. However, thankfully the Centers for Disease Control is well underway on a study to examine this very issue inside the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED).(‘d)

Our parents of autistic and ASD children are demanding more than what Dr. Novella has offered. I await more detail from this CDC SEED study before I could think to make a Novella style ‘strongly suggests’ countermand of the precautionary principle regarding ASD, especially if I were a media ‘science communicator’ and doctor in the public view. The Novella claim of ‘strongly suggests’ is not reality. Were Dr. Novella to petition the CDC and SEED team for specific studies of a specific nature to follow up this observation set, I would respect and be in full support of such advocacy. Curious that he does not. He would rather draw a conclusion. Sound familiar? Science is a method. Posturing is pseudoscience.

Each of these claims, ex-diagnosis, co-diagnosis and ig-diagnosis are extraordinary claims, if indeed this is what we are to infer from Dr. Novella’s new ‘theory’ he is touting on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry.

Meanwhile, consilient data (yes science) arrives from other disciplines and approaches which corroborate this inferred increase in the rate of ASD and related encephalopathy. There is NO MISIDENTIFYING disabling levels of encephalopathy. None. And to presume that this stark increase – relates simply to a change in diagnostic protocols becomes more and more each year, as the curve in the graph above continues to rise, a malevolent fantasy played out at the expense of innocent children and their parents. History will not be kind to Dr. Novella. We here, are just ahead of the curve.

And since the evidence virtually falsifies the ‘theory’ he is touting – Ockham’s Razor dictates that it should not be added as a theory.

A parent with an autistic child, or those who study the prevalence of moderate, severe and profound categorizations, might respond to each of the three species of substitution with the technical term: Bullshit. Parents of ASD children know now, and would have known in 1970 as well, that this is much more than simply an issue of ‘language delays.’ The only reason this idea survives is because of the relative ignorance about autism on the part of the general audience population and their gullibility towards self-proclaimed ‘science communicators’ in the media. Spinning plausible – propter hoc ergo hoc solus – (I have proposed a plausible counter-explanation so now no further study is warranted) explanations for phenomena they are wishing to deny, is a master skill of those majoring in skeptic quackery.

If on the other hand, indeed the rise in ASD is simply a case of ‘substitution diagnoses’ – then something extraordinary is going on because all versions of Intellectual Disability (led by language developmental delays) have grown in rate 93% over the last 25 years. ∈ ’a ’b If we debit the ASD side of the balance sheet, and credit the former Developmental and Language Delay side, we have simply shifted the argument to a broader playing field – and not resolved the primary concern.

At best, if I really cheat to support it, the ‘substitution diagnosis’ claim is simply an etiological magic trick, shifting the argument cleverly into another reductive domain.

II. I don’t have to ‘prove’ any of this in finality in order to demand action/real science accountability from the two risk bearing parties.

Moreover, the simple fact is, I do not have to ‘prove’ a connection here, in order to demand action in the first place. There are only two risks of dependency in relation to Autism Spectrum Disorders as we are experiencing them today: pharmaceuticals or pesticides administered during the first 18 months of life. That is it. One or both of these groups is lying about a contributory factor. The signal runs parallel as a matter of fact to 17 other maladies currently on the exponential or arithmetic increase. To deny this is simply obdurate stupidity. Cowardice. The worship of career, status and money, over ethics and service to mankind.

Yes it is not as simple as post hoc ergo propter hoc. But neither is it as simple as ‘let’s ignore it and see if it goes away.’ The latter default artifice is the true fallacy.

The burden of proof, whether under a hypothesis reduction, or even in light of the precautionary principle, has been shifted. Plurality has been established and the onus is now on those two industry verticals to prove their innocence. Prove it with real – and thorough science. No, saving dollars is not a sufficient argument of necessity to approve a science prematurely. Neither is ‘feeding the world.’ Efforts to squelch this research are the only means left at the disposal of the oligarch. These are the tactics in this case, of one who does not really understand science, or even worse, is participating in a corruption-in-ignorance.

The burden of proof has been shifted. Claims that ASD increases are fictitious, only serve to shift the argument context via a form of very familiar hand-eye magician trick. These are the last resort claims one makes when undertaking extraordinary measures to block science. Science which threatens one’s clients.

Clients who now owe us all an answer, supported by real science.

Never Never Land: Where We Send Our Cerebral Injury Children to Pretend that They Don’t Bear a Cost

Our current rate of newly diagnosed Never Never Land Children, as of 2008 births, are 1 in every  55  39  36 kids – and rising. Even if we freeze the increase at this 2008 rate, we will need to be building 80+ care centers a year by 2036, to take care of even a conservative portion of these abandoned children..

Here are the facts. At the current rate of rise in persistent moderate, severe or profound autism, annually in the United States we will diagnose as of 2014, 89,000 new victims of Autism each year. This is 218% higher than the same rate measured in 1990. And remember, that cases of persistent, moderate, severe and profound autism are growing commensurate with this aggregate rate. These are diagnoses which could not have been overlooked as simply speech delays in 1990. The contention that this rise is simply a case of substitution is impossible in any frame of logical calculus.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control have made it clear that the autism diagnosis epidemiology contains a heavy genetic factor component.¹ ² Victim families tend to cluster into specific genetic groupings. Statistics which are easily watered down or hidden inside the suspect method and data of large aggregate studies, and an abject refusal to follow up or examine the excluded data group itself, or any focused subsets of inclusion. With large studies or big data, we can just issue a meta-analysis and call the science ‘finished consensus.’ Baloney. Clueless, no observation, baloney.

The simple fact is that, even with only the current 35% rate of full intellectual disability,‡ and a 16.8% employment success among the intellectually disabled,‡ that there remains an annual 35,000 ASD and CP group each year who will never be able to live outside their parents’ homes for the remainder of their parents’ lives. ¹ ² ³ ‡  The cost burden on these genetic subsets of families and society is enormous, currently in the $260 billion USD range, according to the Autism Society.‡ That is $74,300 per every family with an autistic child, per year, with a good 30-50% of this burden borne directly by those household budgets in terms of special education, special medical services, and accommodations for life of resident care/no employment.

Now the good news is, that only 35% of ASD victims are permanently unable to work. A portion of ASD victims can recover in part and some attend college and take on professional careers.  If we weight-combine this 35% ASD disability with the 100% disability profile of cerebral palsy, we obtain an aggregate 57% rate of disability among the ASD/CP population. Additional good news can be found in that 16.8% of these disabled individuals can still obtain some form of employment. Unemployment is 83.2% in this category of individual.‡ This means that, our true group of concern, our individuals who will be left destitute if not cared for by a head of household, is much lower than the overall rate of ASD/CP diagnosis.

But still, this group of the potentially destitute ASD/CP injured grows at a rate of 35,000 people annually, for those born in 2006. The overwhelming majority of these individuals live with their parents in their family home until their parents pass on.

This is is how the industry hides the burden currently. Both they and the government shifted the burden to the victim families and pretend that the cost does not exist. We are so scientific! But, beginning in 2020 they will not be able to hide The Hollowcost much longer. They think the ‘anti-science’ screaming is shrill now? Just wait until phase II of the deception kicks into high gear, per below.

Never Never Land: Where We Send Our Cerebral Injury Children to Pretend that They Never Grow Up and Their Parents Never Die

In similar burden, this condition only exists as the honeymoon period of the age of autism in which we exist. What our experts have ignored to date is the upcoming economic burden of caring for these children, who cannot live outside their parents’ homes, at a future date when those parents are retired, disabled or deceased.  This is The Hollowcost we have ignored.

Based on current rates of persistent, severe or profound autism, along with cerebral palsy cases, our annual rate of contribution to this growing group of individuals is projected at:

      The Future Cost of Caring for Disabled ASD and CP Kids (now borne by living parents)

A total annual household burden exists today in the range of $26 Billion USD‡, just to currently bear the needs of our autism spectrum and cerebral injury children. That equates to around $35,000 per year for life for every single individual currently diagnosed as disabled autistic or cerebral palsy, in terms of today’s cost in the home of their parents.  A cost which the pharmaceutical and agriculture industries pretend does not exist. But that is just today’s cost.

The chart to the right is developed from actual long term care residency center profit & loss statements and their established trends.  It reflects a projected $186,000 a year cost, in terms of 2060 dollars, for resident life in a full autism/CP care-residency center. Here is what the average family would need, after retirement in assets at death, in order to care for the average ASD/CP child under this context – once there is no longer a home/parents to take care of them. This is what they have to start saving for NOW.

$ 2,100,000    USD liquid estate in 2060, earning at 4.0 – 5.0% post tax, for every disability autistic or CP child left behind when the parents die.

94% of American families with Autistic and CP children will not be able to handle this burden when it arrives. And no, our current costs of insurance, healthcare and taxation rises will not allow these families to keep their homes after the parents pass on. These kids have to go somewhere.

Congratulations to our pharmaceutical and agricultural verticals. A case study in how to NOT perform economic and risk analysis. We now see the full cost of efficiency and risk, when it is tucked inside of fake studies, incomplete science, failure to follow up, disregard for the precautionary principle, fake numbers, politically correct fake skepticism, shill advocacy – all risk-shifted off to those who we do not acknowledge exist, timeframes which we pretend do not exist and money budgets we consider to be endless. To continue to protect the institutional verticals which are creating this phenomena (and only two bear a risk relationship to it), in the name of efficiency and ignored risk, is the height of obdurate cruelty and ignorance.  This will serve to bite us in the ass as a nation. In 2060, the voices screaming today that there is ‘no increase in autism or cerebral injury’ will be considered with the same disdain as is currently held for the fascist and genocidal dictator of the 20th Century. This is not an instance where flippantly regurgitating a one-liner about Godwin’s Law applies; rather it is a sobering and upsetting reality, only excused inside the heart of the most cruel, corrupt or self centered among us.

As as I usually observe in such situations, where were the ‘skeptics’ when all this evolved as material questions of science? Where were the skeptics?

Never Never Land.

epoché vanguards gnosis

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¹  Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, web: http://www.dhhs.gov. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System:

²  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Autism Spectrum Disorder Prevalence, http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html.

³  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Data and Statistics for Cerebral Palsy, http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/cp/data.html.

†  Dev Med Child Neurol. 2014 Jan;56(1):59-65. doi: 10.1111/dmcn.12268. Epub 2013 Oct 1. Prevalence of cerebral palsy, co-occurring autism spectrum disorders, and motor functioning – Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, USA, 2008.

‡  The Autism Society, Autism and Autism Based Disability Facts and Statistics, http://www.autism-society.org/what-is/facts-and-statistics/

∈  State Specific and Aggregate Rates of Mental Retardation, United States, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00040023.htm

’a  Dev Med Child Neurol. 2008 May;50(5):341-5. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8749.2008.02057.x. Epub 2008 Mar 31. Autism and diagnostic substitution: evidence from a study of adults with a history of developmental language disorder. Bishop DV1, Whitehouse AJ, Watt HJ, Line EA.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18384386?ordinalpos=5&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

’b  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: MMWR Weekly Jan 26, 1996, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00040023.htm.

’c  Cornell University Disability Statistics Resource Database, https://www.disabilitystatistics.org/reports/acs.cfm?statistic=1.

’d  CDC currently is funding and collaborating on the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED), one of the largest U.S. studies to help identify factors that may put children at risk for autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities. We also are exploring risk factors for and investigating causes of developmental disabilities through other national and international collaborations.http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/developmentaldisabilities/about.html

‘e  C.D. Nevison, M. Blaxill, Diagnostic Substitution for Intellectual Disability: A Flawed Explanation for the Rise in Autism; Sep 4, 2017 ;https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28589495

Notes (with thanks and full credit to) from PragmaticalSkeptic

pragmaticalskepticThis is an incredible write up, TES. To add to what you wrote, here is more relevant science regarding the epidemic of autism:

Nevison, C. (2014). a comparison of temporal trends in United States autism prevalence to trends in suspected environmental factors. Environ Health, 13(73). Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4177682/

“The quantitative comparison of IDEA snapshot and constant-age tracking trend slopes suggests that ~75-80% of the tracked increase in autism since 1988 is due to an actual increase in the disorder rather than to changing diagnostic criteria.”

Dave, D., Fernandez, J. (2014). Rising autism prevalence: Real or displacing other mental disorders? Evidence from demand for auxiliary healthcare workers in California. Economic Inquiry. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.12137

“These estimates suggest that at least part of the increase in autism diagnoses, about 50–65%, reflects an increase in the true prevalence of the disorder. (JEL L11, J2, J3)”

DeSoto et al. (2013). Professional opinion on the question of changes in autism incidence. Open Journal of Psychiatry. Retrieved from http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=30182

“Results suggest that among professional psychologists with a terminal degree (n=88), the majority believe that diagnostic changes can not fully account for the observed increase; 72% reported wither the true rate may have, or definitely has, increased.”

Hertz-Picciotto et al. (2009).UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute study shows California’s autism increase not due to better counting, diagnosis. UCDavis Health System. Retrieved from http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/20090218_autism_environment/

“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.”