8 ms·

Much of the rise in autism is likely a statistical mirage

68 points by leephillips 4y ago

AzzieElbab 4y ago
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Care to elaborate?
- Jedd 4y ago
  Criminal is a strong and unwarranted claim. TFA posits the 'the numbers keep rising' - that's not in contention so you can't use it as a counterpoint - though the idea that it's attributable to diagnostic changes isn't new. I'm sure I read about this in one of the Freakonomics books, but can only find this reference to a paper they discussed on their site 15 years ago: https://freakonomics.com/2007/06/revisiting-the-autism-epidemic/ https://freakonomics.com/2007/06/revisiting-the-autism-epide... In terms of credible causes, changes (in DSM) to diagnostics, and incentives around the subject have changed, and that seems to be a sufficient cause to explain the numbers. Do you have other credible causes in mind, with some citations to accompany?
  - AzzieElbab 4y ago
    I stand by “criminal”. We live in societies that incentive us to have fewer kids and to have them later in live(considered risk factor for autism ). In the meanwhile pediatrics are not keeping up. So saying all is fine is criminally counter-productive.
    - Jedd 4y ago
      I don't think anyone's asserting everything is fine. To me it read that TFA is saying the rise is numbers is a consequence of changes in diagnostics. You asserted criminality originally because numbers are rising (not in contention) and credible causes have been identified - are you saying rises in numbers are purely due to trend of later-age in parents, or are there additional? Do those explanations cover younger parent cohorts that also see a rise in diagnosed cases?
- kcplate 4y ago
  My opinion—we are now attributing autism to kids now that in the 60s, 70s, and 80s would never have got that diagnosis. Used to be we called kids today who are said to be “on the spectrum” words like “weird”, “troubled”, or “socially awkward”, and “nerdy”. Know many folks from back in the day, including a good friend I have known for over 4 decades.
  - jimmygrapes 4y ago
    Don't forget "shy". I got saddled with this and all it's subsequent attempts to "break me out of [my] shell" and the vast majority of those attempts just drew unwanted praise/attention leading to me avoiding any situation where I'd be noticed for a very long time. It was not good for me when my parents crowed to anyone nearby if I had the temerity to respond to "hello" with "hello" -- to my parents it was a breakthrough, a thing to celebrate, but to me it was a struggle to fit in that was instantly crushed once their response drew attention. Took decades to fix.
    - kcplate 4y ago
      Ahh yes, that was definitely adjective that was often used. “Quiet” is another.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    I just feel as if folks have been "on the spectrum," all along, but people are looking for it, these days. Nonverbal autistic people are still quite rare. I know a few (actually, I know their parents, and, through them, their children). Tough gig. High-functioning autistic folks can actually have advantages. We can be socially awkward (usually, abruptness, and nonreactive to emotional stimulus). It would easily be brushed off as "He's just a bit odd." Doesn't seem to be an actual disability; especially if the person is a wizard at some skill. In my case, I'm a really, really good programmer. I can map out a fairly complex system map in my head. It helps me to avoid writing things down, which affords flexibility. I am also anal about Quality and formatting. Most of y'all would probably laugh at my code. An ex-employee of mine was absolutely jaw-droppingly good. He regularly stunned the scientists and engineers in Tokyo, and he had a high school diploma.
crims0n 4y ago
That article was a bloated mess, and the author seemed to have it out for conspiracy theorists. tl;dr is expanded diagnosis criteria and relaxed reporting requirements.
Andaith 4y ago
"Now researchers believe they know what’s responsible for the bulk of the rise: Nothing. Much of the rise in autism is likely a statistical mirage." I've kind of always thought this, ever since I read a tumblr post about how the sudden change in toddlers would have been called "my child being switched with a changeling", and other such tales. Also, I think most of pre-industrial life would have been more bearable for autistic people: No sudden noises like ambulance sirens, solid routine and repetitive jobs, not as many large crowds.
- jhardy54 4y ago
  > tumblr post Was it this one? https://writingonthecastlewalls.tumblr.com/post/181877541942/hazeldomain-oockitty-coldalbion/amp https://writingonthecastlewalls.tumblr.com/post/181877541942...
- bluGill 4y ago
  In many old books there is some form of 'Larry, he never leaves the farm.' We will never know what Larry had, but the meme was common enough several hundred years ago.
  - verilux68 4y ago
    Hey there! I tried to google this but just found another one of your comments from a few months ago haha, any chance you could share some examples?
    - bluGill 4y ago
      To kill A Mockingbird. Been about 30 years since I read it, but there was the guy who they concluded just liked to stay home. Or something like that, as I said been years. Many other books written in the 1800s have something similar.
  - dieselgate 4y ago
    Not quite sure what the parent comment is referring to either but it made me think of Lennie from Of Mice And Men. Lennie just likes to pet things on the farm
swayvil 4y ago
How about tv? That is to say, this evolving technology for delivering illusions. Books, radio, tv, internet, videogames. More and more accessable and popular. More and more people spending a large part of their day focused on tiny illusions dancing in their head. That seems like a good cause for autism. Just wait till vr ramps up. The whole population is gonna check out. And yes, I'm thinking that it propagates to the tv-enthusiast's fetus.
- thenerdhead 4y ago
  I'm sure you're going to get downvoted, but I do agree with Jerry Mander's ideas back in the day about how television can't be reformed and might be causing many of these issues that are prevalent in 2022. It's been a long 5 year journey to break free from most of it and it's hard given I work in big tech, but my attention has come back and I'm able to do much more than I ever thought before. All because I ditched television and most importantly consumerism of digital media. I moderate as much as I can and still have much more work to do. Progress!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- samplatt 4y ago
  Happily, VR should work in the opposite direction to books, TV and the internet. In addition to some games involving intense cardio work, it also forces the brain to constantly judge distances and using your arms and hands to interact with visual stimuli keeps you engaged while transferring attention between objects and concepts. At least, that's the thinking. I don't have a source to prove any of that.
  - webmaven 4y ago
    > Happily, VR should work in the opposite direction to books, TV and the internet. [snip details] > At least, that's the thinking. I don't have a source to prove any of that. You have a very narrow conception of games that will be played in VR. I rather imagine that 3D immersive environments will be popular for many sorts of activities, including ones diametrically opposed to your exemplars, such as puzzle type games that reward hyperfocus, voyeuristic immersive drama and reality shows (algorithms like NERF are about to make converting SPoV video into 3D environments and content straightforward), and narrative heavy interactive fiction. I'm not at all certain what genres and formats will prove popular, particularly with the general public, but I'm pretty sure that none of it is going to save people from their own impulses and obsessions. “The drawers, he knew, were full of beetles. Hundreds of thousands of beetles. He was free, now, to do nothing with his time but study them, sketch them, annotate them, classify them: specimen by specimen, species by species, decade after decade. The prospect was so blissful that he almost keeled over with joy.” — Greg Egan, Permutation City
bitwize 4y ago
Inb4 "no double-blind vaccine studies have been done" and "chelation therapy/the Andy Cutler protocol cured my autism-like symptoms, which turned out to be chronic mercury poisoning all along according to my pet 'mercury-literate' doctor".
hamiltonians 4y ago
1/150 is still quite rare though. i assumed it would be higher given all the attention it has gotten and famous ppl like elon being on the spectrum.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
haihaibye 4y ago
See this paper from 2015: "Increasing prevalence of autism is due, in part, to changing diagnoses" https://science.psu.edu/news/increasing-prevalence-autism-due-part-changing-diagnoses https://science.psu.edu/news/increasing-prevalence-autism-du...
mgamache 4y ago
Over half of the article is a polemic preamble against various theories, that usually means they don’t have a good case (not sure in this instance). Diagnostic substitution and increased diagnosis probably account for some of the increase. Even if 60 percent of the increase is not real, there still is a very large real effect that remains unexplained.
- webmaven 4y ago
  > Even if 60 percent of the increase is not real, there still is a very large real effect that remains unexplained. A major plausible proposed cause that didn't get a mention is assortative mating (the effect may not be strong enough to account for all the remaining increase, though): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31200929/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31200929/
toss1 4y ago
In short: This is an 'epidemic' of diagnosis, caused by expanding the definition, not an actual increase of cases. From requiring full set of signs and diagnosis before age 3 to allowing anything on the spectrum and any age, that immediately qualifies many cases who wouldn't begin to qualify in the '80s, and of course awareness by physicians and parents also increases diagnosis. It's good to see a team really examine a good and huge dataset and apply some proper science.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Yeah, I've seen some people here say things like "adhd and autism is the same thing", which is ridiculous if you are used to what qualified as autism and adhd in the 80's. Nowadays it seems like all you need for an autism diagnosis is that you struggle in social situations. But I've seen a class of autism/asperger cases in the 80's, they started speaking very late as kids, have strange walking styles, don't run smoothly so run way slower than you'd expect for their size, are bad at sports for the previous reasons, have strange/unnatural sounding speech/voice etc. Many of them still do very well in school however. Compare that to adhd, who have none of those problems but can't direct their attention properly and therefore have problems in many social situations where you need to be patient, class at school being the major one, there is no way you'd mistake one for the other.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
I'm skeptical of the "it's just selection criteria" When the Somalis came to settle in Minneapolis, they called Autism the "Minnesota Disease". Now, that could be because it was suddenly diagnosed, but the impression I got is that it was unknown in the homeland. I also read once that autism tracked cable as it installed into neighborhoods. All of this is of course unsourced. But I think some of autism spike has a real component and my suspicion is that it has something to do with sun exposure, to link to the other non-coding post of the day: vitamin D, skin cancer, and sun exposure. https://rtc.umn.edu/autism/ https://rtc.umn.edu/autism/ https://slate.com/technology/2006/10/tv-might-cause-autism.html https://slate.com/technology/2006/10/tv-might-cause-autism.h...
- elliekelly 4y ago
  Wouldn’t having cable television in the 1980s be a pretty reliable indicator of a family’s socioeconomic status? Which would also be a pretty reliable indicator of the level of care, especially behavioral and mental health care the family could access? This seems a lot like “increased ice cream sales causes increased robberies” to me. Your comment about the Somali immigrants and the Minnesota healthcare system reminds me of a really fantastic book I’d long since forgotten called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Catches_You_and_You_Fall_Down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Catches_You_and_Y...
- pvg 4y ago
  it was unknown in the homeland. Somalia's child mortality under five is 20 times that of the US - it was, for many years, one of the most troubled spots on earth. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT?locations=SO-US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT?locations=S...
  - tsol 4y ago
    You'd still expect to see some autistic people, unless for some reason autistic people died more often. I don't see any reason for that though
dlsa 4y ago
Can a brain scan detect autism? Is it objectively detectable without interviews or behavioral observation?
- turminal 4y ago
  No, it isn't detectable like that. At least not yet.
  - ragnarok451 4y ago
    Has there been a study done yet similar to the racial bias in medical imaging study to see if a neural net can detect it?
    - 77pt77 4y ago
      >similar to the racial bias can you give pointers please.
  - TT-392 4y ago
    I think it sorta is, but those are specifically tests that monitor brain activity when someone is thinking about stuff. Autistic brains are like a bit less organized in where thoughts happen or something like that iirc
- 77pt77 4y ago
  Like most "brain" problems, like schizophrenia, ADHD and bipolar, the answer is no. There is no imaging or biochemical test to diagnose any of these conditions. It all comes down to whether someone with authority likes the "patient" and deems them "worthy of life".
bluedevil2k 4y ago
I’m not a woke SJW or anything, but man I absolutely HATE this kind of language from the article - “Mothers are understandably concerned”. Sexist and demeaning to men, no different than the commercials that still play on the “omg a father is trying to do something with his young child, disaster will ensue” trope.
- sitkack 4y ago
  The writing in the article cringey and trite.
derbOac 4y ago
From the abstract of the cited study: "Changes in reporting practices can account for most (60%) of the increase in the observed prevalence of ASDs in children born from 1980 through 1991 in Denmark." In other words, 40% of the increase could not be accounted for changes in reporting practices. That's quite a bit and not consistent with the tone of the essay. One has to be careful with these types of arguments, at least in the US, because clinicians tend to use different diagnostic standards, especially with things like autism. If they don't fit one definition, they use a "not otherwise specified" or "not elsewhere classified" diagnosis. That is, even if the DSM or ICD or whoever changes its criteria, it doesn't necessarily impact clinicians, who might have been using a different standard all along.
0fcb88 4y ago
> Autism increase mystery solved? > No, it’s not vaccines, GMOs, glyphosate—or organic foods 1. "Gut microbiota and neurological effects of glyphosate" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161813X19300816 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618... -> "Gly impacts on central nervous system and others neurobiological disorders, due to the gut-brain axis." 2. "Perinatal exposure to a glyphosate-based herbicide causes dysregulation of dynorphins and an increase of neural precursor cells in the brain of adult male rats" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300483X21002456 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300483X2... 3. "Urinary glyphosate concentration in pregnant women in relation to length of gestation" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121011051 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139... 4. read more: https://scholar.google.hu/scholar?q=prenatal+glyphosate+gut+brain https://scholar.google.hu/scholar?q=prenatal+glyphosate+gut+...

68 points by leephillips 4y ago

jeromegv 4y ago
Care to elaborate?
Jedd 4y ago
Criminal is a strong and unwarranted claim. TFA posits the 'the numbers keep rising' - that's not in contention so you can't use it as a counterpoint - though the idea that it's attributable to diagnostic changes isn't new. I'm sure I read about this in one of the Freakonomics books, but can only find this reference to a paper they discussed on their site 15 years ago: https://freakonomics.com/2007/06/revisiting-the-autism-epidemic/ https://freakonomics.com/2007/06/revisiting-the-autism-epide... In terms of credible causes, changes (in DSM) to diagnostics, and incentives around the subject have changed, and that seems to be a sufficient cause to explain the numbers. Do you have other credible causes in mind, with some citations to accompany?
- AzzieElbab 4y ago
  I stand by “criminal”. We live in societies that incentive us to have fewer kids and to have them later in live(considered risk factor for autism ). In the meanwhile pediatrics are not keeping up. So saying all is fine is criminally counter-productive.
  - Jedd 4y ago
    I don't think anyone's asserting everything is fine. To me it read that TFA is saying the rise is numbers is a consequence of changes in diagnostics. You asserted criminality originally because numbers are rising (not in contention) and credible causes have been identified - are you saying rises in numbers are purely due to trend of later-age in parents, or are there additional? Do those explanations cover younger parent cohorts that also see a rise in diagnosed cases?
kcplate 4y ago
My opinion—we are now attributing autism to kids now that in the 60s, 70s, and 80s would never have got that diagnosis. Used to be we called kids today who are said to be “on the spectrum” words like “weird”, “troubled”, or “socially awkward”, and “nerdy”. Know many folks from back in the day, including a good friend I have known for over 4 decades.
- jimmygrapes 4y ago
  Don't forget "shy". I got saddled with this and all it's subsequent attempts to "break me out of [my] shell" and the vast majority of those attempts just drew unwanted praise/attention leading to me avoiding any situation where I'd be noticed for a very long time. It was not good for me when my parents crowed to anyone nearby if I had the temerity to respond to "hello" with "hello" -- to my parents it was a breakthrough, a thing to celebrate, but to me it was a struggle to fit in that was instantly crushed once their response drew attention. Took decades to fix.
  - kcplate 4y ago
    Ahh yes, that was definitely adjective that was often used. “Quiet” is another.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  I just feel as if folks have been "on the spectrum," all along, but people are looking for it, these days. Nonverbal autistic people are still quite rare. I know a few (actually, I know their parents, and, through them, their children). Tough gig. High-functioning autistic folks can actually have advantages. We can be socially awkward (usually, abruptness, and nonreactive to emotional stimulus). It would easily be brushed off as "He's just a bit odd." Doesn't seem to be an actual disability; especially if the person is a wizard at some skill. In my case, I'm a really, really good programmer. I can map out a fairly complex system map in my head. It helps me to avoid writing things down, which affords flexibility. I am also anal about Quality and formatting. Most of y'all would probably laugh at my code. An ex-employee of mine was absolutely jaw-droppingly good. He regularly stunned the scientists and engineers in Tokyo, and he had a high school diploma.

That article was a bloated mess, and the author seemed to have it out for conspiracy theorists. tl;dr is expanded diagnosis criteria and relaxed reporting requirements.

Andaith 4y ago

"Now researchers believe they know what’s responsible for the bulk of the rise: Nothing. Much of the rise in autism is likely a statistical mirage." I've kind of always thought this, ever since I read a tumblr post about how the sudden change in toddlers would have been called "my child being switched with a changeling", and other such tales. Also, I think most of pre-industrial life would have been more bearable for autistic people: No sudden noises like ambulance sirens, solid routine and repetitive jobs, not as many large crowds.

jhardy54 4y ago
> tumblr post Was it this one? https://writingonthecastlewalls.tumblr.com/post/181877541942/hazeldomain-oockitty-coldalbion/amp https://writingonthecastlewalls.tumblr.com/post/181877541942...
bluGill 4y ago
In many old books there is some form of 'Larry, he never leaves the farm.' We will never know what Larry had, but the meme was common enough several hundred years ago.
- verilux68 4y ago
  Hey there! I tried to google this but just found another one of your comments from a few months ago haha, any chance you could share some examples?
  - bluGill 4y ago
    To kill A Mockingbird. Been about 30 years since I read it, but there was the guy who they concluded just liked to stay home. Or something like that, as I said been years. Many other books written in the 1800s have something similar.
- dieselgate 4y ago
  Not quite sure what the parent comment is referring to either but it made me think of Lennie from Of Mice And Men. Lennie just likes to pet things on the farm

swayvil 4y ago

How about tv? That is to say, this evolving technology for delivering illusions. Books, radio, tv, internet, videogames. More and more accessable and popular. More and more people spending a large part of their day focused on tiny illusions dancing in their head. That seems like a good cause for autism. Just wait till vr ramps up. The whole population is gonna check out. And yes, I'm thinking that it propagates to the tv-enthusiast's fetus.

thenerdhead 4y ago
I'm sure you're going to get downvoted, but I do agree with Jerry Mander's ideas back in the day about how television can't be reformed and might be causing many of these issues that are prevalent in 2022. It's been a long 5 year journey to break free from most of it and it's hard given I work in big tech, but my attention has come back and I'm able to do much more than I ever thought before. All because I ditched television and most importantly consumerism of digital media. I moderate as much as I can and still have much more work to do. Progress!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
samplatt 4y ago
Happily, VR should work in the opposite direction to books, TV and the internet. In addition to some games involving intense cardio work, it also forces the brain to constantly judge distances and using your arms and hands to interact with visual stimuli keeps you engaged while transferring attention between objects and concepts. At least, that's the thinking. I don't have a source to prove any of that.
- webmaven 4y ago
  > Happily, VR should work in the opposite direction to books, TV and the internet. [snip details] > At least, that's the thinking. I don't have a source to prove any of that. You have a very narrow conception of games that will be played in VR. I rather imagine that 3D immersive environments will be popular for many sorts of activities, including ones diametrically opposed to your exemplars, such as puzzle type games that reward hyperfocus, voyeuristic immersive drama and reality shows (algorithms like NERF are about to make converting SPoV video into 3D environments and content straightforward), and narrative heavy interactive fiction. I'm not at all certain what genres and formats will prove popular, particularly with the general public, but I'm pretty sure that none of it is going to save people from their own impulses and obsessions. “The drawers, he knew, were full of beetles. Hundreds of thousands of beetles. He was free, now, to do nothing with his time but study them, sketch them, annotate them, classify them: specimen by specimen, species by species, decade after decade. The prospect was so blissful that he almost keeled over with joy.” — Greg Egan, Permutation City

bitwize 4y ago

Inb4 "no double-blind vaccine studies have been done" and "chelation therapy/the Andy Cutler protocol cured my autism-like symptoms, which turned out to be chronic mercury poisoning all along according to my pet 'mercury-literate' doctor".

hamiltonians 4y ago

1/150 is still quite rare though. i assumed it would be higher given all the attention it has gotten and famous ppl like elon being on the spectrum.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

haihaibye 4y ago

See this paper from 2015: "Increasing prevalence of autism is due, in part, to changing diagnoses" https://science.psu.edu/news/increasing-prevalence-autism-due-part-changing-diagnoses https://science.psu.edu/news/increasing-prevalence-autism-du...

mgamache 4y ago

Over half of the article is a polemic preamble against various theories, that usually means they don’t have a good case (not sure in this instance). Diagnostic substitution and increased diagnosis probably account for some of the increase. Even if 60 percent of the increase is not real, there still is a very large real effect that remains unexplained.

webmaven 4y ago
> Even if 60 percent of the increase is not real, there still is a very large real effect that remains unexplained. A major plausible proposed cause that didn't get a mention is assortative mating (the effect may not be strong enough to account for all the remaining increase, though): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31200929/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31200929/

toss1 4y ago

In short: This is an 'epidemic' of diagnosis, caused by expanding the definition, not an actual increase of cases. From requiring full set of signs and diagnosis before age 3 to allowing anything on the spectrum and any age, that immediately qualifies many cases who wouldn't begin to qualify in the '80s, and of course awareness by physicians and parents also increases diagnosis. It's good to see a team really examine a good and huge dataset and apply some proper science.

Jensson 4y ago
Yeah, I've seen some people here say things like "adhd and autism is the same thing", which is ridiculous if you are used to what qualified as autism and adhd in the 80's. Nowadays it seems like all you need for an autism diagnosis is that you struggle in social situations. But I've seen a class of autism/asperger cases in the 80's, they started speaking very late as kids, have strange walking styles, don't run smoothly so run way slower than you'd expect for their size, are bad at sports for the previous reasons, have strange/unnatural sounding speech/voice etc. Many of them still do very well in school however. Compare that to adhd, who have none of those problems but can't direct their attention properly and therefore have problems in many social situations where you need to be patient, class at school being the major one, there is no way you'd mistake one for the other.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

I'm skeptical of the "it's just selection criteria" When the Somalis came to settle in Minneapolis, they called Autism the "Minnesota Disease". Now, that could be because it was suddenly diagnosed, but the impression I got is that it was unknown in the homeland. I also read once that autism tracked cable as it installed into neighborhoods. All of this is of course unsourced. But I think some of autism spike has a real component and my suspicion is that it has something to do with sun exposure, to link to the other non-coding post of the day: vitamin D, skin cancer, and sun exposure. https://rtc.umn.edu/autism/ https://rtc.umn.edu/autism/ https://slate.com/technology/2006/10/tv-might-cause-autism.html https://slate.com/technology/2006/10/tv-might-cause-autism.h...

elliekelly 4y ago
Wouldn’t having cable television in the 1980s be a pretty reliable indicator of a family’s socioeconomic status? Which would also be a pretty reliable indicator of the level of care, especially behavioral and mental health care the family could access? This seems a lot like “increased ice cream sales causes increased robberies” to me. Your comment about the Somali immigrants and the Minnesota healthcare system reminds me of a really fantastic book I’d long since forgotten called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Catches_You_and_You_Fall_Down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Catches_You_and_Y...
pvg 4y ago
it was unknown in the homeland. Somalia's child mortality under five is 20 times that of the US - it was, for many years, one of the most troubled spots on earth. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT?locations=SO-US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT?locations=S...
- tsol 4y ago
  You'd still expect to see some autistic people, unless for some reason autistic people died more often. I don't see any reason for that though

dlsa 4y ago

Can a brain scan detect autism? Is it objectively detectable without interviews or behavioral observation?

turminal 4y ago
No, it isn't detectable like that. At least not yet.
- ragnarok451 4y ago
  Has there been a study done yet similar to the racial bias in medical imaging study to see if a neural net can detect it?
  - 77pt77 4y ago
    >similar to the racial bias can you give pointers please.
- TT-392 4y ago
  I think it sorta is, but those are specifically tests that monitor brain activity when someone is thinking about stuff. Autistic brains are like a bit less organized in where thoughts happen or something like that iirc
77pt77 4y ago
Like most "brain" problems, like schizophrenia, ADHD and bipolar, the answer is no. There is no imaging or biochemical test to diagnose any of these conditions. It all comes down to whether someone with authority likes the "patient" and deems them "worthy of life".

bluedevil2k 4y ago

I’m not a woke SJW or anything, but man I absolutely HATE this kind of language from the article - “Mothers are understandably concerned”. Sexist and demeaning to men, no different than the commercials that still play on the “omg a father is trying to do something with his young child, disaster will ensue” trope.

sitkack 4y ago
The writing in the article cringey and trite.

derbOac 4y ago

From the abstract of the cited study: "Changes in reporting practices can account for most (60%) of the increase in the observed prevalence of ASDs in children born from 1980 through 1991 in Denmark." In other words, 40% of the increase could not be accounted for changes in reporting practices. That's quite a bit and not consistent with the tone of the essay. One has to be careful with these types of arguments, at least in the US, because clinicians tend to use different diagnostic standards, especially with things like autism. If they don't fit one definition, they use a "not otherwise specified" or "not elsewhere classified" diagnosis. That is, even if the DSM or ICD or whoever changes its criteria, it doesn't necessarily impact clinicians, who might have been using a different standard all along.

0fcb88 4y ago

> Autism increase mystery solved? > No, it’s not vaccines, GMOs, glyphosate—or organic foods 1. "Gut microbiota and neurological effects of glyphosate" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0161813X19300816 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01618... -> "Gly impacts on central nervous system and others neurobiological disorders, due to the gut-brain axis." 2. "Perinatal exposure to a glyphosate-based herbicide causes dysregulation of dynorphins and an increase of neural precursor cells in the brain of adult male rats" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300483X21002456 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300483X2... 3. "Urinary glyphosate concentration in pregnant women in relation to length of gestation" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121011051 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139... 4. read more: https://scholar.google.hu/scholar?q=prenatal+glyphosate+gut+brain https://scholar.google.hu/scholar?q=prenatal+glyphosate+gut+...