Thoughts on the Autism "Epidemic"

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Not read whole of thread but personally I am glad, I got a diagnosis, have felt a freak all my life.
I wonder if the condition was suppressed so a couple of generations could feel lost.

Nope.....it wasn't "suppressed."

The diagnostic criteria for autism until 1994 was very limited. It was confined to what in the DSM-IV was called "autistic disorder," and approximately Levels 2 and 3 within the DSM-V (of "Autism Spectrum Disorder).

Basically, you had to not initiate social interactions, and (for the most part) be nonverbal. Many clinicians still believe that if someone initiates social interaction, and talks well, that person is "definitely not autistic."

One of my queries with the notion that changes in diagnostic criteria have resulted in the increased diagnoses is that the changes to the criteria occur only once every few years. So for instance, one would expect the diagnostic changes in the early 1990s to produce a noticeable increase in diagnoses over the next few years, but that the rate of increase would level off over time. Instead, we are seeing a year-on-year increase over time with no levelling off. So that does not seem to fit?

This from wikipedia entry on autism epidemiology:

I attribute that to increased awareness from the general public over these years.

In fact, there HAS been a slowdown in increased incidence over the past few years. The greatest increase was probably during the 2000-2010 period.

I’m not saying “the broadening of the criteria” is the SOLE reason; but I believe it is the MAIN reason.

I’m not precluding other causes.

M-hm. You may be right.
It may just be me who has the feeling there's an underlying driver of the increase that we're missing.
And I can't find many convincing studies either way.

Ah, here we are.
A study linking epigenetic markers (DNA methylation) in the father's sperm to autism in the child.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.11 ... 20-00995-2

and I noted this:

This is very interesting also, regarding possible reasons for the rise in prevalence:

https://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102 ... 9022a.html

I’m definitely not precluding genetic causation—but it is not inevitable that an autistic parent produce autistic children.

I know you’re not saying this—but an autistic person who denies his/herself the opportunity to have children is blocking his/herself from the potential good in having children. Many autistic folks have been good parents. We have many parents here.

We are not “genetic defectives.”

Indeed, there is much evidence for epigenetic causation, too.

Yes, I'm not disagreeing with that.
But I was thinking more about finding the environmental triggers of epigenetic changes.
In other words, say you have a pair of identical twins with the same genes, and one develops autism and the other does not. What triggered the autism in that case?

That’s true.

I often wonder whether the trauma of vaccination, rather than the ingredients in the vaccines themselves, could lead to autism in those with a predisposition towards it.

(No.....I’m NOT an anti-vaxxer!

Genetic evolution or mass poisoning, you decide! the data is inconclusive.

I've read some twin studies which confirm that, frequently, either the severity of the autism is different from one twin to another----or that one twin has autism and the other twin doesn't.

Twin studies are actually fairly common in the autism literature.