Now 1 in 45 Kids have Autism!

Autism Rate DOUBLES!

Wait… What?…

“What we call an autism spectrum disorder now is a much wider group of symptoms than what we called autism in the past so I think that captures a larger number of children that might have received other diagnoses in the past,” said Katie Walton, an autism researcher who was not involved with the CDC survey.

Do you think this will be how the story is reported?

Do you think anyone, reporter or not, will read past the Headline?  Do you believe the expansion of associated symptoms and ‘reclassification’ of previous diagnosis’, like Mental Retardation, will be offered up as a reason for the change in the number?  For that matter will it be pointed out that diagnosis’ of MR (what we now call Mental Retardation) is falling?

No.  Of course not.

It’s also worth noting that accepted diagnosis’ of children falling into the Autism Spectrum may be provided by Teachers and School Administrators.

Sound Odd?

It Should.

Why?

There are Federal Funds associated with the number of “Special Needs” students available to schools and the Districts they reside in based on the information provided by those same Teachers and Administrators.  Expanding the ‘associated symptoms means MORE MONEY!  In fact, the last number we had of 1 in 120 children came from a single school district just outside of Atlanta.  A single School District… with Teachers and Administrators making medical diagnosis’.  And those numbers were extrapolated to represent the entire country!   This, predictably, resulted in people like Jenny McCarthy becoming hysterical who then advised parents to not have their kids inoculated, which gave us a gift of minor explosions of long forgotten diseases such as Measles, Mumps, TB, etc.

Hmmm….

Stories such as these are dropped in association with fund-raising campaigns in order to get you to throw money, directly out of your wallet or taxpayer dollars via legislation, at an issue.

They want you to be afraid.

Scared Yet?

Fear not, there is a ton of money devoted to Autism.  But as we all know, once you create a foundation you have mouths to feed.  People need to get paid, so the Fundraising must go on.

Still Scared?

There are ways of giving directly to Hospitals and Research dedicated to Autism if that is what you want to do.

All I’m saying is don’t fall for the hype… because there is always someone with their hand out waiting to make a dollar off of your fear.

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