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>> the increase in autism > Is largely illusory. Huh? First off autism rates are provable increasing in the US. It is multi-factor for sure that includes in

>> the increase in autism > Is largely illusory. Huh? First off autism rates are provable increasing in the US. It is multi-factor for sure that includes increased awareness and more access to autism tests, but... It is a proven fact that older fathers have a higher change of having offspring with autism [1] and it is also a fact that in the US (as like many places in the world) men are having their children later [2]. Together these two accepted scientific facts lead directly to increasing autism rates, no? Or do you disagree with this reasoning? The link I am positing but there isn't quite as much acceptance is that sperm degradation that leads to autism, isn't only caused by age but also influenced by plastics. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/autism-rates-rising-more-prevalent-versus-more-screening-rcna67408 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/autism-rates-risi... [2] https://biox.stanford.edu/highlight/fathers-american-newborns-keep-getting-older https://biox.stanford.edu/highlight/fathers-american-newborn...

ceejayoz 2y ago
> First off autism rates are provable increasing in the US. Yes. That's what happens when you make a brand new label. (And then redefine it a few times; Asperger's used to be separate, now it's part of the spectrum. Or when we started realizing that, say, women are underdiagnosed with it and started working to address that.) Rates of female "hysteria" are at an all-time low, for similar reasons. > It is a proven fact that older fathers have a higher change of having offspring with autism… Which could be just because of biological changes from their age, or environmental exposures during that time, but also could have other explanations, like autistic people having a harder time on average finding long-term partners.
- d1sxeyes 2y ago
  All solid points, but not well-aligned with your original argument that the increase in autism is largely illusory.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    Why? The rise in autism diagnoses is not the same thing as a rise in autism. We've had plenty of autistic people all along. We just called it different things. They're the "weird uncle" or "idiot savant" or the guy who went off to live in a silent monastery of eras past. Insane asylums. Or they wandered off at age three into a snowstorm in an era where baby gates weren't a thing.
    - d1sxeyes 2y ago
      Well it sort of is, actually. Autism is quite literally what we define it to be: there’s no physiological or neurological test we can use to diagnose it, there’s no biomarker that defines autism. If we change how we diagnose autism, we change how we define it. The evidence by the way seems to indicate that there is a significant increase in diagnoses, and not all of that can be attributed to changing definitions.
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        > If we change how we diagnose autism, we change how we define it. But the incredibly obvious corollary to this is "you can't then turn around and compare case rates before and after that definition". You can't go back to the 1400s and reassess cases of witchcraft and demonic possession to get an accurate, modernly-accurate rate of autistic people in that era to compare against. RFK Jr. is out there saying things like "autism epidemic" and implying the cases come out of nowhere, when many of those cases are just changing a diagnosis code on an existing condition. Simpler version: We didn't see bacteria until 1676, and didn't give them a name until 1828… but it would be deeply wrong to claim no one got bacterial infections prior to that.
        d1sxeyes 2y ago
        A bacterial infection is an objectively verifiable condition. You can see the bacteria under a strong enough microscope. There’s no such definitive way to diagnose autism, it’s diagnosed based on the definition we came up with to describe a cluster of symptoms. If everyone dismissed the increase in diagnosed bacterial infections as due to the discovery of bacteria, a lot of medical research into diseases like TB would have stalled. It is worth looking at the increase in diagnoses to understand if there is some kind of underlying mechanism (for example parental age or environmental pollutants for autism) which could explain it rather than just dismissing it as an illusion, especially if we don’t understand the underlying cause of autism. RFKs rhetoric is clearly unhelpful and aimed at targeting autistic people, but the idea that “we have more people diagnosed with this condition than we ever had before, is there something to it beyond just relabelling?” is a valuable starting point for research. Caution is warranted (vaccines causing autism, despite being completely debunked, is an example of how NOT to research something like this), but throwing the baby out with the bathwater helps no one.

ceejayoz 2y ago

> First off autism rates are provable increasing in the US. Yes. That's what happens when you make a brand new label. (And then redefine it a few times; Asperger's used to be separate, now it's part of the spectrum. Or when we started realizing that, say, women are underdiagnosed with it and started working to address that.) Rates of female "hysteria" are at an all-time low, for similar reasons. > It is a proven fact that older fathers have a higher change of having offspring with autism… Which could be just because of biological changes from their age, or environmental exposures during that time, but also could have other explanations, like autistic people having a harder time on average finding long-term partners.

d1sxeyes 2y ago
All solid points, but not well-aligned with your original argument that the increase in autism is largely illusory.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Why? The rise in autism diagnoses is not the same thing as a rise in autism. We've had plenty of autistic people all along. We just called it different things. They're the "weird uncle" or "idiot savant" or the guy who went off to live in a silent monastery of eras past. Insane asylums. Or they wandered off at age three into a snowstorm in an era where baby gates weren't a thing.
  - d1sxeyes 2y ago
    Well it sort of is, actually. Autism is quite literally what we define it to be: there’s no physiological or neurological test we can use to diagnose it, there’s no biomarker that defines autism. If we change how we diagnose autism, we change how we define it. The evidence by the way seems to indicate that there is a significant increase in diagnoses, and not all of that can be attributed to changing definitions.
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      > If we change how we diagnose autism, we change how we define it. But the incredibly obvious corollary to this is "you can't then turn around and compare case rates before and after that definition". You can't go back to the 1400s and reassess cases of witchcraft and demonic possession to get an accurate, modernly-accurate rate of autistic people in that era to compare against. RFK Jr. is out there saying things like "autism epidemic" and implying the cases come out of nowhere, when many of those cases are just changing a diagnosis code on an existing condition. Simpler version: We didn't see bacteria until 1676, and didn't give them a name until 1828… but it would be deeply wrong to claim no one got bacterial infections prior to that.
      - d1sxeyes 2y ago
        A bacterial infection is an objectively verifiable condition. You can see the bacteria under a strong enough microscope. There’s no such definitive way to diagnose autism, it’s diagnosed based on the definition we came up with to describe a cluster of symptoms. If everyone dismissed the increase in diagnosed bacterial infections as due to the discovery of bacteria, a lot of medical research into diseases like TB would have stalled. It is worth looking at the increase in diagnoses to understand if there is some kind of underlying mechanism (for example parental age or environmental pollutants for autism) which could explain it rather than just dismissing it as an illusion, especially if we don’t understand the underlying cause of autism. RFKs rhetoric is clearly unhelpful and aimed at targeting autistic people, but the idea that “we have more people diagnosed with this condition than we ever had before, is there something to it beyond just relabelling?” is a valuable starting point for research. Caution is warranted (vaccines causing autism, despite being completely debunked, is an example of how NOT to research something like this), but throwing the baby out with the bathwater helps no one.