Lisa Jo Rudy and I seldom, if ever, agreed on autism issues while she was the host of the About Autism web page. Lisa Jo has a high functioning autistic son and leans towards a Neurodiversity perspective on most autistm issues while my son is severely autistic and I have NEVER been accused of buying into Neurodiversity ideology. I did, at one time,  actually praise Lisa Jo Rudy though for her courteous approach to me and others with whom she disagreed on autism issues:

Now that Lisa is no longer the host of the About.com Autism page though she appears to be taking a new approach to discussing autism issues. She has done a  Full Bettleheim in order to promote her new book "Get Out, Explore, and Have Fun: How Families of Children With Autism or Asperger Syndrome Can Get the Most Out of Community Activities."

In promoting her new autism book Lisa Jo demeans parents who employ evidence based ABA therapy to help their autistic children by actually stating that their resort to ABA therapy for their children is more about dumping their kids with the therapists and freeing themselves up to go shopping than in helping their autistic children. In a Wicked Local Cape Cod article linked by Autism Speaks "In the News" section the following segment appears:

“Rudy said although the most common form of autism therapy is Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) she opted for another method.“The ABA recommendation is for 40 hours a week and it’s more about handing your child over to a therapist while you go to the grocery store,” she said. 

Please watch Medicare's Orphans which details the fight for inclusion of health care treatment for autism disorders in Medicare in Canada and specifically the fight for medicare coverage of ABA. The medicare coverage of  ABA treatment for autism disorders is important because:

The abstract for the study Disrupted Neural Synchronization in Toddlers with Autism,  reported in the current issue of Neuron, indicates that autism is tied to disrupted cortical synchronization, weak "functional connectivity" across two hemispheres of the brain:

Will the DSM5 render meaningless all autism research to date? Will the DSM5 make it impossible to determine whether autism disorders are increasing or whether they are triggered or caused by environmental factors? The odds are good, given the difficulties in answering these questions resulting from the expansion of "autism" disorders in the DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR to include Asperger's, that our understanding of autism prevalence and causation will be hampered substantially, and perhaps totally undermined, by yet another revision of the autism diagnostic categories in the DSM-5.  Even our understanding of what autism is will likely change, again, as a result of the DSM-5 revisions.  The intellectual disabilities that characterized the vast majority (Yeargin-Allsopp) of persons with classic autism will now be totally  replaced by the "socially quirky" model of autism.

Autism is now recognized globally with a World Autism Awareness Day each April 2.  While the day is used for autism fund raising, and celebrating the color blue,  it does little to actually raise awareness about the nature of autism, the numbers of persons with autism disorders, or the causes or treatment of autism.  Amongst the leading factors that contribute to our inability to qualitatively improve our understanding of autism disorders is the changing diagnostic definition of autism, increased social awareness and according to some at least, the widescale availability of autism treatments and education accommodations prompting diagnostic substitution by professionals, often prompted by parents.

Roy Richard Grinker is one of the best known advocates of the "don't worry, be happy" autism is not really increasing school of thought.  A 2007 copyright summary of Grinker's  book Unstrange Minds tells us all what was really happening with autism increases ...  in Grinker's opinion:

"Unstrange Minds shows how the shift in how we view and count autism is part of a set of broader shifts taking place in societies throughout the world. The growth of child psychiatry, the decline of psychoanalysis, the internet, the rise of international advocacy organizations, greater public sensitivity to children's educational problems, and changes in public policies have together changed the way autism is diagnosed and defined.


Societies are becoming more aware of children's behavioral and learning differences at earlier and earlier ages and more comfortable with diagnosis, medication, and psychiatric labels. Under the rubric of autism we now find a multitude of emotional and cognitive problems, problems that used to be given other diagnostic labels or that were even considered within the range of the normal. Doctors now have a more heightened awareness of autism and are diagnosing it with more frequency, and public schools in the United States, which first started using the category of autism during the 1991-1992 school year, are reporting it more often, developing ways to help children with autism, and directing parents to appropriate resources. Epidemiologists are also counting it better.


As a result, the statistics on autism that we have today - 1 in 166 -- are the most accurate we've ever had."

 The 2007 summary was written more than a dozen years after the last diagnostic definition change for autism disorders in the DSM manuals.  Yet the CDC recognized rates have moved upward twice since then to 1 in 150 and most recently to 1 in 110.  I am no cultural anthropologist but with a change from 1 in 166 to 1 in 110 it seems fool hardy to simply assume that the increased rates of approximately another 50% in 4 years are accounted for solely on the basis of diagnostic and social ascertainment factors. 

It is worthy to note that the IACC has acknowledged that the almost 100% dedication of autism funding toward genetic focused research has come at the cost of needed environmentally focused research, that the current thinking is that autism arises from the interaction of genetic and environmental factors (hardly a radical concept) and that the IACC view is that the social and diagnostic changes account for only approximately 50% of the dramatic increases in reported cases of autism disorders.

It seems that, finally the feel good, autism is 100% genetic and is not really increasing view of the Grinker (and Neurodiversity) model of autism is about to be seriously challenged and hopefully researched.  But wait a minute ... along comes another autism diagnostic revision in the DSM-5. 

PREDICTION: The DSM-5 autism diagnostic revisions will once again be used to cloud and confuse our understanding of autism rates and causation.  Many concerned parents and concerned professionals will be  Out of Luck in hoping for more understanding of autism.  Roy Richard Grinker, however, and those for whom exploration of potential environmental causes of autism are a nuisance, should be happy that Grinker's 100% genetic, stable model of autism will be protected from serious research challenges for decades to come.

The past 2 years have seen an onslaught of attacks on anyone who raises any questions about vaccine safety and in particular against anyone who suggests that vaccines might be implicated in causing or triggering autism disorders in some children.  Dr. Paul Offit has been the New York Times go to guy in promoting vaccine programs for almost a decade. His crusade to prevent discussion of possible autism vaccine connections was kick started with his New York Times Op-Ed "contribution" in March 2008 criticizing the results of the Hannah Poling case. 

With that opinion Dr. Offit expanded his unquestioned status as a vaccine expert to include his self appointed/self anointed status as an autism expert AND as a legal expert. The Offit Offensive began in full force in January 2009 with the New York Times' ceaseless coverage of  Offit's False Prophets and his drive to shut down discussion of vaccine safety issues.  The criticism of those who raise autism and safety issues has intensified with the ceaseless attacks on Dr. Andrew Wakefield and the unproven fraud allegation of the  BMJ (after the fact admitter of conflicts) and its adoptee  Brian Deer.

The result of the Offit Offensive? After years of attacking vaccine questioners public health authorities continue to see declines in vaccination rates and continue to blame those who question vaccine safety particularly those who are concerned about possible vaccine autism connections.  In just the most recent example in the news Minnesota doctors and health authorities are again tying declining measles vaccination rates and increased measles outbreaks to "erroneous" allegations of vaccine autism connections. 

As the parent of fully vaccinated sons I have never blamed vaccines for my younger son's autistic disorder and profound developmental delays.  I myself receive vaccines when I think them necessary or when advised by my family doctor. I believe vaccines to be important public health tools but like all of man's inventions I do not believe that they are  flawless.  Vaccines have caused injury in the past.  That is fact and it is reasonable for people to ask questions about the safety of vaccines.  The anecdotal evidence of vaccine autism connections, even acknowledging the weakness of anecdotal evidence, can not be ignored unless and until strong studies are done to convince parents that what they believe they have seen is not what really caused their children to lapse into a serious neurological disordered condition.  Failure to persuade the public is the failure of the health authorities and the persuasion strategies they have adopted to promote vaccine safety.  Decline in public confidence in vaccines is the failure of the health authorities not the public they are trying to convince.

While portrayed as being a front line crusader for the safety of children by vaccination Dr. Paul Offit is not in fact on the front lines.  It is parents who are on the front  lines fighting for their children's well being and health day in an day out. Calling them ignorant or irrational won't win their hearts and minds.  Blaming them for the decline in vaccination rates in some areas will not win the day for vaccine programs. Solid, credible studies free of pharmaceutical company influence by credible, trusted research authorities will.