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Autisten und interessierte Zeitgenossen

It’s a film about autism. It focuses on the very real increase in the rate of autism and what a lot of experts have to say about it. Included are interviews by Smith with people like Dr. David Amaral, Research Director at UC Davis MIND Institute, Rick Rollens, Former Secretary of the California State Senate, Co-Founder of the U.C. Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, and autism lobbyist in California, Sheri Marino, to Autism Think Tank/Autism Healthcare Collaborative (or now Autism Healthcare collaborative), Dr. Walter Zahorodny, Director of the New Jersey Autism Study and the leading researcher for the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM).

Dr. Walter Zahorodny says that he’s has been working on autism since 2000, and he’s responsible for the New Jersey autism numbers, considered the most accurate in the country at one in every 34 children. He’s an insider and his views have a lot of credibility.

There are a number of topics covered in this film, but what was most intriguing were the comments on what the autism numbers really are and what we’re going to have to deal with in the not-too-distant future. I transcribed the entire film, but I wanted to share the parts that truly spell disaster.

Zahorodny begins his comments by rejecting the claim that all the autism in children today is simply the result of better diagnosing.

I’m always struck by the fact that people think the prevalence is increasing because we’re just getting better at identifying subtly affected children.

That’s definitely not the case.

Autism is going up and has increased significantly across every group that we look at: boys and girls, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, all up significantly. Children from rich communities and poor towns, up significantly.

[...]

Michael Smith adds this about Zahorodny’s findings:

One of the most compelling epidemiological studies that I’ve seen in recent history is the study from Dr. Zahorodny in New Jersey showing that 4.4 percent of the boys in the State of New Jersey now have an autism spectrum disorder.