Autism - What Happens When They Grow Up?
Autism is getting more much needed attention in the mainstream press. For example, it’s the cover story in this week’s issue of Newsweek.
And it certainly deserves to be. More than 500,000 people under 21 are diagnosed with autism. Approximately 1 out of every 166 children (and 1 out of every 100 boys) is diagnosed with autism (versus 1 out of every 10,000 children twenty years ago). 1 out of 6 children today is diagnosed with a developmental disorder.
The article discusses the efforts of parents and advocacy groups to pass the Combating Autism Act, which passed unanimously in the Senate and sets aside nearly $1B for autism research. Currently the bill is blocked by Rep. Joe Barton, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who says the legislation conflicts with his own proposal to reform the National Institutes of Health.
The bill approved by the Senate designated $45M for special centers that would focus on environmental research. Barton’s proposed revisions would eliminate this mandate. Also, some advocacy groups wanted the legislation to specifically include vaccines on the list of environmental factors to be assessed. The pharmaceutical industry lobbyists made sure that wording was removed in the Senate version of the bill.
(Update: Negotiations continue on the House version of the bill. Currently, the bill still includes the environmental language. Also, the last sentence in the paragraph above is incorrect. The $45M for environmental research still includes wording for research on vaccines and their components.)
The primary focus of the article, though, is on the absence of social services for people affected by autism once they become adults.
A few states like California and Connecticut, newly aware of the crisis, have launched efforts to meet adult needs. But until programs are widely available, families are left to cobble together a patchwork of solutions—from informal day care to hourly caretakers to private residential programs. But these are stopgap measures. Parents worry that they will run out of money to pay for these services—and that they won’t be around forever to arrange them for their children.
The entire article is worth reading and eye-opening to say the least.
Some Still in Denial
Amazingly, some practitioners and government representatives continue to suggest that the increase in autism rates may be the result of better diagnosis. This isn’t an issue of diagnosis. Anyone who has ever met a person affected by autism knows that the symptoms can’t be hidden.
Where are all the 40, 50 and 60 year-old autistics? Most people over the age of 30 would have trouble remembering if they met even one autistic person in school. Today, entire classes and special schools are being set up in school districts around the country to handle the dramatic increase in autistic and developmentally disabled children.
This is an epidemic, an epidemic that destroys lives and families, both health-wise and financially. And without better research into causes (including environmental factors such as mercury exposure) and effective treatments, the immense financial costs of taking care of autistic individuals, estimated to be in the trillions, will be felt by everyone.
Getting the Real Story
Unfortunately, the real story, examining the environmental influences and how biomedical treatments can help to restore function, isn’t being told by most folks in the mainstream press. There are, though, journalists, such as David Kirby and UPI’s Dan Olmstead, who have fought tirelessly to uncover what’s really going on, as well as many parents, organizations, scientists, healthcare practitioners, and even a few politicians.
Hopefully the word will continue to spread…
