![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
There is no mention of "level one" autism as the diagnostic category least susceptible to ambiguous diagnosis and hence increases in diagnoses of that category are most likely to reflect a real increase rather than merely increased tendency to diagnose.
I think the first graph is very unclear. Why not just provide an graph with the percentage of the population diagnosed with autism, that would be the best way to demonstrate what is going on, and also would be clear for the averege reader. -- KimvdLinde 20:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeh, right, the autism epidemic is 'theoretical'. Try telling that to the millions of families around the globe who are dealing with the consequences of the skyrocketing autism rates right in their households. Try telling that to the Iowa state epidemiologist, who just this week has declared that 17 cases of mumps constitutes an epidemic. The tag is entirely without merit. Ombudsman 21:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
While the term "epidemic" may be debatable, there is no question that the number of reported cases has increased dramatically. Without a doubt, people will argue endlessly whether it's because of greater awareness, blah, blah, blah, until the CDC finally concedes that a whole generation of children has had their health wrecked. There is a significant number of people here who seem to believe that "not definitely proven" = "definitely refuted," much like Bush says there is no reason to worry about global warming. I am open to a move with a less biased title, but the issue is definitely worth an article. The charge that it is original research is, well, stupid. The article discusses at length the basis for the assertion that it is an epidemic (or not), citing lots of sources. --
Leifern
19:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
A mess. At present it looks as though someone either used voice recognitiion software, or themeselvs had misheard incidence as instance. THere is more wrong with it, but that makes nonsense of it. Copyediting may be more useful to this article than trying to show humanity is speciating over mercury excretion. Even written perfectly it may not be a useful article. But give it a chance. Start with a title that doesn't label it with a conclusion "Autism, Changes in Incidence" would do well. Midgley 22:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
bad heading. Midgley 22:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
"Microsoft became the first major US corporation to offer employees insurance coverage for the cost of behavioral training for their autistic children in 2001, due to the high prevalence among the children of its employees." Hmm. Not genetic or environmental then?
Your "average" "nerd" "most likely" has an Autism recessive gene. If there is an “industry” that draws “nerds” (i.e. Microsoft), “most likely” these “nerds” with Autism recessive genes will meet each other at work, fall in love, get married, and have Autistic children (two recessive genes equals one dominate gene)…DUH?!?
Autism is genetic. If there are more children with Autism now it just means those “nerds” with recessive Autism genes are getting “luckier” (by “luckier” I mean…well you figure it out) than they were in the past.
The heading under which that item appears is another remarkably bad headline. Is there any likelihood that a structure for the article could be agreed in discussion?
Midgley
22:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
not the same.
Denmark: "The incidence of autism reported in the study appeared lower than the prevalence reported in the US and other countries."
What does the enumeration of the countries add to Wikipedia? Midgley 00:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I am willing to do a major revision, that is, kick out everything that is crummy, not supported and make a basic version. After that, I need someone to do english editing. Furthermore, this will raise some objections of some people, so I am not going to do that unless there is a substantial number of editors that can agree with doing this, and who will watch this page after that to prevent the reinsertion of blatant crap. I have already removed the complete nonesense regarding NatSel causing this. IS there support for his? KimvdLinde 01:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a broad generalization, isn't it? Who wrote this, and what verification is there for this? A citation? "The majority of mainstream scientists view the concept of an autism "epidemic" with skepticism, noting that autism is predominantly believed to be of genetic, not bacterial, viral or man-made causes." Also... The generalization about engineers being social misfits is stereotypical to the point of being absurd. It is as ludicrous as the old wives tale that geniuses are anti-social. That stereotype has long been debunked in studies that show geniuses are often gifted in a variety of disciplines and are often more socially adept than average. I note that there is no citation for this bald statement about 'geeks' and 'nerds' being anti-social. Jgwlaw
This article has well over 30 incidents of "citation needed". At least 1/3 of those are within the California section. Well below Wiki standards. This may just be the best test of Wiki power, or lack therefore, to seperate the wheat-- 68.6.44.175 12:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Given disagreements on the title POV, and the fact that the article is still on a notable topic, I propose, as has been in the past, that the article title be renamed to 'Autism Prevalence'. Neurodivergent 19:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
This article (if it survives or is renamed) could really do with using the new citation/footnote stuff rather than all these inline links, many of which are broken. Some effort is required to find the primary source for the references rather than link to newsletters, etc. Sources that don't meet Wikipedia's "reputable" guidelines should be removed. This article would also be improved if it clarified that statistics for "autistic spectrum disorder" do not necessarily correspond to those for "autism". It also uses the words "incidence", "incident" and "prevalence" interchangably.
Great care should be made not to generalise and expand or reinterpret what the sources say. Taking two sections as examples:
The article says:
The first reference is to a newsletter hosted by TMCnet "The Authority on VoIP..." What a bizzare source! Anyway, I think I've tracked down the actual research paper:
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)This does indeed state "The prevalence increased 10 fold over a 16-year period". The study involved 177 children in Barwon region - so it is relatively small. The abstract doesn't indicate how they established this 10 fold increase - the full paper is not free. Their conclusions are "The relatively rapid increase in prevalence is consistent with overseas studies and suggests significant changes in diagnostic criteria, increasing community awareness and the need for support at all levels of intellectual functioning. Increased occurrence in siblings and relatives gives further evidence for a genetic cause.".
The second reference is to a page that contains a summary of a number of articles. The actual source article is
This article confirms the 276 percent jump in state-school students with ASD between 2000 and 2005. However, it would still be best to get at the primary source of this information.
The rest of the above-quoted paragraph, whilst correct in iteself, is irrelevant to this article on autism. The special needs being discussed will include all sorts of conditions including learning difficulties, ADHD and dyslexia, for example. The news article goes on to speculate some reasons for the rise in disabled students in state schools:
The "significant underestimate" quote is also irrelvant to autism incidence. The professor claims "most academics believed at least 10 per cent of school children had extra learning needs" - in other words, his feeling is that far more children require help than are getting it (through the school disability and language disorder programs). He is not arguing that cases of autism are being under-reported -- which is the impression a casual reader might come away with.
A revised paragraph could be:
The article says:
The reference for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's quote is broken. An alternative could be the article
Whilst it would be acceptable to use this article when discussing Kennedy's personal views on the causes of autism, it isn't an acceptable source for an encyclopedic entry on the prevalence of autism in China. Kennedy's statement/article has a clear non-neutral agenda (thimerosal), he does not cite his sources, and is obviously not personally the source of this "information". A quick Google shows that he has got his facts wrong. Two examples:
The Chinese Stars and Rain Institute for Autism. was founded in 1993 ( [8]). Their web site has the interesting statement "There are an estimated 2 million people in China with autism, yet only 20 doctors are qualified to diagnose the disorder; an increase from the three physicians qualified a decade ago.". [9] If this is true, then any estimates regarding the prevelance of ASD in China now or in the past must be given a huge margin of error.
The following facinating paper mentions enrolling 250 children with autism into a study in 1999.
It should be noted that this is Hong Kong, which may vary from PRC. It is interesting that autism is known as the "Self-Shut-Off Syndrome" in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the "Lonely Syndrome" in the PRC. Also that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, "no such disease called autism exists".
Therefore, the quote from Kennedy must go as he isn't a "reputable source" on the prevelance of autism in China. I suspect it will be virtually impossible to get accurate figures for any increase in autism in China. There are just too many variables and there is a lack of historical stats.
Colin° Talk 17:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=299&a=3527 is where I got to, but the secondary source that is pointed at in th reference gives a reference to an original report, whcih does not end in a document at present. The NAS site seems prefereable to a reporting site which the author may argue is WP:RS but may not convince everyone of. Either way, the figures given by the NAS don't seem to match those quoted in teh WP article or the vacciantion news item. THe reference should be pointed correctly, and directly, I think. Midgley
Medscape article, free subscription required. Autism "Epidemic?" Sandy 21:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
For the record, these are the reasons why it is fair to conclude that an actual epidemic of autism (not just an increase in administrative prevalence) has not happened:
Neurodivergent 20:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the new title is still POV, there is no epidemological data presented at all, just some random incidence data and a suggestive graph that is misleading. KimvdLinde 22:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
the opening is still a mess. Someone using voice-recognition, perhaps? Midgley 12:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
This article actually has a paragraph about how it is presenting a point of view not a concensus... THe aim of the article seems to be to keep the title in place. Midgley 12:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Prevalence might be a good title... as distinct from incidence Midgley 10:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Even though I think the vaccine theory of autism is nonsense, and after looking at data on administrative prevalence I'm quite sure there is no "epidemic" at all, completely removing the sections on the vaccine theory seems quite POV. They should at least be mentioned. It just seems dishonest to exclude them. Under what principle are they not elegible for inclusion? Neurodivergent 16:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
If ... "the remainder of this article is built on a proposition challenged by large portions of the autistic community and the scientific and medical community." ... would it not be as well to be more specific about whom it is proposing this? And characterising them in some fashion, perhaps? Midgley 03:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry but i think that the sources in this article should be reviewed, they clearly have not gone under academic scrutiny and have fallen to the media hypes and exagerations. The statistics are un-reliable and mis-represented. Please can i suggest that someone attempts to scrap the whole article until an expert on the subject can be consulted; and i say that as an academic researching in the field!
While it is all well and good that a small number of medical professionals intend to pretend that an autism epidemic does not exist, their numbers pale in comparison to the millions of parents, families and children affected adversely by the exponential increases of autistic spectrum conditions in recent years. Unvaccinated populations (e.g., the Amish and Homefirst Health Services patients) only have a handful of children with such symptoms, not surprisingly those that have been identified were attributable to severe pollution in a few cases, and vaccines administered to children while outside their communities. Indeed, it is very clear that Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger had every reason to treat the symptoms as unique, since nothing similar to the distinct symptoms of autism had ever been seen by them before, nor were such symptoms ever reported by others before. Really, there wouldn't even be any skepticism about whether or not an epidemic now exists, given the zero to millions exponential growth, except for the issue of immense financial liability, an issue that has largely been dodged by means of vast expenditures on legal fees, lobbying and political contributions.
In fact, the epidemic is so staggering now that even the corporation-dominated US Senate passed the watered down Combating Autism Act this year. Autism was virtually non-existant in 1943, as would be expected for populations which had not been subjected to the corpulent vaccination schedules that have become so bloated in recent years. In the late 1990s, vaccines further contributed to the epidemic due to bolus concentrations of ethylmercury (but worry not, finding the article on the thimerosal scandal now only takes navigation through a redirect, to an obscure name for the neurotoxin, and then a secong 'soft' redirect to a page that has deliberately been made difficult to goofle).
Regardless of the minority opinion of the vastly outnumbered medical professionals who insist on pretending the epidemic doesn't exist, the article title should be accurate. The Wiki should aim at providing the most useful answers about the epidemic from the millions of parents who are now raising children with autistic conditions. Accuracy begins with proper article titles. Ombudsman 04:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that a neutral term might be Epidemiology of autism, in which all the issues that are being argued about here might be framed in an appropriately encyclopedic way. I for one think that incidence vs prevalence vs changing diagnostic criteria vs increased awareness vs more likely reporting be examined carefully. We are not going to reach agreement on these issues on talk pages or in the article spaces, nor are we supposed to; but we are supposed to explain what the disagreements and/or conflicting evidence is about. -- Leifern 16:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I think that this page could well be retitled "Links between Autism and vacination rates", because that is essentially what the page covers. Passages like "In a July 2005 interview, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stated that, "six years ago, autism was unknown in China. We started giving them our vaccines in 1999. Today there's 1.8 million cases of autism in China." are not scientific in any way. I note that the Proposed Causes section differs from this, but the sections that deal with incidence in specific countries certainly needs rewriting/balancing. For now I'll tag the page as non-neutral. aLii 13:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
The end of the sentence:
seems like original research to me. I have just been and read articles from the time, most notably [10]. There is no mention of the reason behind this offering other than the vice-president has an autistic child and wanted everyone in the company to get the same care as his kid. It's nothing to do with an especially high prevalence. I shall remove the comment, and it should only be reinstated with the a proper citation. aLii 10:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Just reading through all this and finding so much that I find POV or think needs rewriting because it's nonsense, I'm coming to the conclusion that I agree with the suggestion that this article should be merged into the two mentioned articles. The title of this article is misleading, as I've noted above. The Autism (incidence) article is basically what this article should be. I think that we should perhaps negotiate a date for anything missing from that article to be moved into it, and then on the date this article should be turned into a redirect to there. The causes of austism article or perhaps an entirely seperate article should contain the details about the vaccine controversy. I know there are other editors watching this page. It'd be nice to get some input this time. aLii 12:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
"According to Vaccination News, one in eighty-six primary school children in the United Kingdom has autism, compared with one in 2,200 in 1988. [11] " The reference is to a study referred to here, later in teh paragraph, which gives different figures. If VN gave figures from a different study then it would be worth considering whether it is WP:RS but as it doesn't we need not go so far. Midgley 00:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought we agreed to rename this article Epidemiology of autism, which we all agreed was neutral. I don't want to make the change, lest someone misconstrue my intention, but can we just see if anyone objects to it? -- Leifern 13:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
"In Europe, Hans Asperger coincidentally described a similar syndrome during the same period."
This asserts that Europe is in the same place as America, which is untrue for large granularities of cosmography; or alternatively that it was a coincidence that Asperger described it rather than being for instance a result of independent hard work. One is wrong, the other is editorial. Alternatively it is another instance of the addition of extra words where what is needed is extra precision of meaning. What it actually means is that "In Europe, Hans Asperger described a similar syndrome during the same period", which may be a good way of saying "Hans Asperger in Europe contemporaneously described the similar syndrome which bears his name." for a suitable reading age, or not. "In Europe" is less suitable as a subject for that sentence than "Hans Asperger", but should not come at the end of the line or it will seem to geographically restrict the syndrome, rather than the doctor.
But none of this is part of Ombudsman's editing, becuase Ombudsman is not here to collaborative edit an encyclopaedia article, but rather to present not merely a point of view but a form of words. It is not helpful to the general effort, nor I think to autists. Another RFC, or referral back to ArbCom?
Midgley
17:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
"Sharp rises in the frequency with which autism is diagnosed has become a concern and debating point in many countries. Members of the medical and scientific community are generally quite skeptical about characterizions of the increasing numbers as indicators of an 'epidemic'.[1][2]"
That is not acceptable quality. Midgley 17:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
This is basically what I find wrong with this article. Neutrality and factual accuracy disputed, excessively long, and overuse of words that most people probably don't understand without looking in a dictionary every other sentence. Also, it focuses too much on the mercury theory.
Please do not ban me. -- 75.33.62.252 02:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that a CDC study across 14 locations that concludes that 1 in 150 children in comparable cohorts should put to rest any argument that there is no increase in the incidence of autism. I'd also argue it's time to call this an epidemic, when faced with this kind of incidence and the CDC's view that it is of "urgent concern." -- Leifern 22:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
(Resetting indent) I agree that the graph falls into the "lies, damn lies and statistics" category, but a couple of things here:
In short, I'm open to working on this article to make it better. But to make believe that "epidemic" is completely irrelevant, or that possible environmental factors should be ignored, amounts to dishonesty. -- Leifern 11:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, all of the relevent information has now been merged into Autism (incidence), so I think the time has come to discuss whether Frequency of autism should redirect to Autism (incidence). aLii 01:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Looking at another page I see someone has reasonably enough asked why "California is considered[citation needed] to have the best reporting system for autism in the US" which is a trope harvested from this page. Therefore I have tagged that with the need for a reference. It would be convenient if, when this is referenced here, it was referenced there as well. THis page would benefit from critical assessment, as will others. Midgley 21:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
One in 58 --or more-- UK children is affected by an autistic spectrum disorder. The latest epidemic surge makes it incumbent upon the Wiki to acknowledge that the raging autism epidemic is not only quite obviously real, but also deserving of an article reflective of that reality. The new UK study was prepared by the autism research team at Cambridge University. Two members of the study team have --as a result of the latest stunning confirmation of an epidemic-- broken ranks with the mainstream medical establishment by acknowledging that the MMR vaccine may have played a part in causing the epidemic. Claims to the contrary, usually based on the assertion that symptoms had previously gone undiagnosed, are insulting to the physicians and other professionals who allegedly missed the signs for decades after the condition was first described subsequent to the development of commercial ethyl mercury products, and before Bernard Rimland and other early whistleblowers recognized the onset of the epidemic was evidently linked to vaccine injuries. It is high time for the article associated with this talk page to be restored to its proper location at ´autism epidemic´. Ombudsman 20:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
There is no mention of "level one" autism as the diagnostic category least susceptible to ambiguous diagnosis and hence increases in diagnoses of that category are most likely to reflect a real increase rather than merely increased tendency to diagnose.
I think the first graph is very unclear. Why not just provide an graph with the percentage of the population diagnosed with autism, that would be the best way to demonstrate what is going on, and also would be clear for the averege reader. -- KimvdLinde 20:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeh, right, the autism epidemic is 'theoretical'. Try telling that to the millions of families around the globe who are dealing with the consequences of the skyrocketing autism rates right in their households. Try telling that to the Iowa state epidemiologist, who just this week has declared that 17 cases of mumps constitutes an epidemic. The tag is entirely without merit. Ombudsman 21:31, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
While the term "epidemic" may be debatable, there is no question that the number of reported cases has increased dramatically. Without a doubt, people will argue endlessly whether it's because of greater awareness, blah, blah, blah, until the CDC finally concedes that a whole generation of children has had their health wrecked. There is a significant number of people here who seem to believe that "not definitely proven" = "definitely refuted," much like Bush says there is no reason to worry about global warming. I am open to a move with a less biased title, but the issue is definitely worth an article. The charge that it is original research is, well, stupid. The article discusses at length the basis for the assertion that it is an epidemic (or not), citing lots of sources. --
Leifern
19:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
A mess. At present it looks as though someone either used voice recognitiion software, or themeselvs had misheard incidence as instance. THere is more wrong with it, but that makes nonsense of it. Copyediting may be more useful to this article than trying to show humanity is speciating over mercury excretion. Even written perfectly it may not be a useful article. But give it a chance. Start with a title that doesn't label it with a conclusion "Autism, Changes in Incidence" would do well. Midgley 22:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
bad heading. Midgley 22:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
"Microsoft became the first major US corporation to offer employees insurance coverage for the cost of behavioral training for their autistic children in 2001, due to the high prevalence among the children of its employees." Hmm. Not genetic or environmental then?
Your "average" "nerd" "most likely" has an Autism recessive gene. If there is an “industry” that draws “nerds” (i.e. Microsoft), “most likely” these “nerds” with Autism recessive genes will meet each other at work, fall in love, get married, and have Autistic children (two recessive genes equals one dominate gene)…DUH?!?
Autism is genetic. If there are more children with Autism now it just means those “nerds” with recessive Autism genes are getting “luckier” (by “luckier” I mean…well you figure it out) than they were in the past.
The heading under which that item appears is another remarkably bad headline. Is there any likelihood that a structure for the article could be agreed in discussion?
Midgley
22:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
not the same.
Denmark: "The incidence of autism reported in the study appeared lower than the prevalence reported in the US and other countries."
What does the enumeration of the countries add to Wikipedia? Midgley 00:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I am willing to do a major revision, that is, kick out everything that is crummy, not supported and make a basic version. After that, I need someone to do english editing. Furthermore, this will raise some objections of some people, so I am not going to do that unless there is a substantial number of editors that can agree with doing this, and who will watch this page after that to prevent the reinsertion of blatant crap. I have already removed the complete nonesense regarding NatSel causing this. IS there support for his? KimvdLinde 01:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a broad generalization, isn't it? Who wrote this, and what verification is there for this? A citation? "The majority of mainstream scientists view the concept of an autism "epidemic" with skepticism, noting that autism is predominantly believed to be of genetic, not bacterial, viral or man-made causes." Also... The generalization about engineers being social misfits is stereotypical to the point of being absurd. It is as ludicrous as the old wives tale that geniuses are anti-social. That stereotype has long been debunked in studies that show geniuses are often gifted in a variety of disciplines and are often more socially adept than average. I note that there is no citation for this bald statement about 'geeks' and 'nerds' being anti-social. Jgwlaw
This article has well over 30 incidents of "citation needed". At least 1/3 of those are within the California section. Well below Wiki standards. This may just be the best test of Wiki power, or lack therefore, to seperate the wheat-- 68.6.44.175 12:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Given disagreements on the title POV, and the fact that the article is still on a notable topic, I propose, as has been in the past, that the article title be renamed to 'Autism Prevalence'. Neurodivergent 19:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
This article (if it survives or is renamed) could really do with using the new citation/footnote stuff rather than all these inline links, many of which are broken. Some effort is required to find the primary source for the references rather than link to newsletters, etc. Sources that don't meet Wikipedia's "reputable" guidelines should be removed. This article would also be improved if it clarified that statistics for "autistic spectrum disorder" do not necessarily correspond to those for "autism". It also uses the words "incidence", "incident" and "prevalence" interchangably.
Great care should be made not to generalise and expand or reinterpret what the sources say. Taking two sections as examples:
The article says:
The first reference is to a newsletter hosted by TMCnet "The Authority on VoIP..." What a bizzare source! Anyway, I think I've tracked down the actual research paper:
{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)This does indeed state "The prevalence increased 10 fold over a 16-year period". The study involved 177 children in Barwon region - so it is relatively small. The abstract doesn't indicate how they established this 10 fold increase - the full paper is not free. Their conclusions are "The relatively rapid increase in prevalence is consistent with overseas studies and suggests significant changes in diagnostic criteria, increasing community awareness and the need for support at all levels of intellectual functioning. Increased occurrence in siblings and relatives gives further evidence for a genetic cause.".
The second reference is to a page that contains a summary of a number of articles. The actual source article is
This article confirms the 276 percent jump in state-school students with ASD between 2000 and 2005. However, it would still be best to get at the primary source of this information.
The rest of the above-quoted paragraph, whilst correct in iteself, is irrelevant to this article on autism. The special needs being discussed will include all sorts of conditions including learning difficulties, ADHD and dyslexia, for example. The news article goes on to speculate some reasons for the rise in disabled students in state schools:
The "significant underestimate" quote is also irrelvant to autism incidence. The professor claims "most academics believed at least 10 per cent of school children had extra learning needs" - in other words, his feeling is that far more children require help than are getting it (through the school disability and language disorder programs). He is not arguing that cases of autism are being under-reported -- which is the impression a casual reader might come away with.
A revised paragraph could be:
The article says:
The reference for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr's quote is broken. An alternative could be the article
Whilst it would be acceptable to use this article when discussing Kennedy's personal views on the causes of autism, it isn't an acceptable source for an encyclopedic entry on the prevalence of autism in China. Kennedy's statement/article has a clear non-neutral agenda (thimerosal), he does not cite his sources, and is obviously not personally the source of this "information". A quick Google shows that he has got his facts wrong. Two examples:
The Chinese Stars and Rain Institute for Autism. was founded in 1993 ( [8]). Their web site has the interesting statement "There are an estimated 2 million people in China with autism, yet only 20 doctors are qualified to diagnose the disorder; an increase from the three physicians qualified a decade ago.". [9] If this is true, then any estimates regarding the prevelance of ASD in China now or in the past must be given a huge margin of error.
The following facinating paper mentions enrolling 250 children with autism into a study in 1999.
It should be noted that this is Hong Kong, which may vary from PRC. It is interesting that autism is known as the "Self-Shut-Off Syndrome" in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the "Lonely Syndrome" in the PRC. Also that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, "no such disease called autism exists".
Therefore, the quote from Kennedy must go as he isn't a "reputable source" on the prevelance of autism in China. I suspect it will be virtually impossible to get accurate figures for any increase in autism in China. There are just too many variables and there is a lack of historical stats.
Colin° Talk 17:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=299&a=3527 is where I got to, but the secondary source that is pointed at in th reference gives a reference to an original report, whcih does not end in a document at present. The NAS site seems prefereable to a reporting site which the author may argue is WP:RS but may not convince everyone of. Either way, the figures given by the NAS don't seem to match those quoted in teh WP article or the vacciantion news item. THe reference should be pointed correctly, and directly, I think. Midgley
Medscape article, free subscription required. Autism "Epidemic?" Sandy 21:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
For the record, these are the reasons why it is fair to conclude that an actual epidemic of autism (not just an increase in administrative prevalence) has not happened:
Neurodivergent 20:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I think the new title is still POV, there is no epidemological data presented at all, just some random incidence data and a suggestive graph that is misleading. KimvdLinde 22:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
the opening is still a mess. Someone using voice-recognition, perhaps? Midgley 12:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
This article actually has a paragraph about how it is presenting a point of view not a concensus... THe aim of the article seems to be to keep the title in place. Midgley 12:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Prevalence might be a good title... as distinct from incidence Midgley 10:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Even though I think the vaccine theory of autism is nonsense, and after looking at data on administrative prevalence I'm quite sure there is no "epidemic" at all, completely removing the sections on the vaccine theory seems quite POV. They should at least be mentioned. It just seems dishonest to exclude them. Under what principle are they not elegible for inclusion? Neurodivergent 16:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
If ... "the remainder of this article is built on a proposition challenged by large portions of the autistic community and the scientific and medical community." ... would it not be as well to be more specific about whom it is proposing this? And characterising them in some fashion, perhaps? Midgley 03:30, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry but i think that the sources in this article should be reviewed, they clearly have not gone under academic scrutiny and have fallen to the media hypes and exagerations. The statistics are un-reliable and mis-represented. Please can i suggest that someone attempts to scrap the whole article until an expert on the subject can be consulted; and i say that as an academic researching in the field!
While it is all well and good that a small number of medical professionals intend to pretend that an autism epidemic does not exist, their numbers pale in comparison to the millions of parents, families and children affected adversely by the exponential increases of autistic spectrum conditions in recent years. Unvaccinated populations (e.g., the Amish and Homefirst Health Services patients) only have a handful of children with such symptoms, not surprisingly those that have been identified were attributable to severe pollution in a few cases, and vaccines administered to children while outside their communities. Indeed, it is very clear that Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger had every reason to treat the symptoms as unique, since nothing similar to the distinct symptoms of autism had ever been seen by them before, nor were such symptoms ever reported by others before. Really, there wouldn't even be any skepticism about whether or not an epidemic now exists, given the zero to millions exponential growth, except for the issue of immense financial liability, an issue that has largely been dodged by means of vast expenditures on legal fees, lobbying and political contributions.
In fact, the epidemic is so staggering now that even the corporation-dominated US Senate passed the watered down Combating Autism Act this year. Autism was virtually non-existant in 1943, as would be expected for populations which had not been subjected to the corpulent vaccination schedules that have become so bloated in recent years. In the late 1990s, vaccines further contributed to the epidemic due to bolus concentrations of ethylmercury (but worry not, finding the article on the thimerosal scandal now only takes navigation through a redirect, to an obscure name for the neurotoxin, and then a secong 'soft' redirect to a page that has deliberately been made difficult to goofle).
Regardless of the minority opinion of the vastly outnumbered medical professionals who insist on pretending the epidemic doesn't exist, the article title should be accurate. The Wiki should aim at providing the most useful answers about the epidemic from the millions of parents who are now raising children with autistic conditions. Accuracy begins with proper article titles. Ombudsman 04:13, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that a neutral term might be Epidemiology of autism, in which all the issues that are being argued about here might be framed in an appropriately encyclopedic way. I for one think that incidence vs prevalence vs changing diagnostic criteria vs increased awareness vs more likely reporting be examined carefully. We are not going to reach agreement on these issues on talk pages or in the article spaces, nor are we supposed to; but we are supposed to explain what the disagreements and/or conflicting evidence is about. -- Leifern 16:04, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
I think that this page could well be retitled "Links between Autism and vacination rates", because that is essentially what the page covers. Passages like "In a July 2005 interview, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. stated that, "six years ago, autism was unknown in China. We started giving them our vaccines in 1999. Today there's 1.8 million cases of autism in China." are not scientific in any way. I note that the Proposed Causes section differs from this, but the sections that deal with incidence in specific countries certainly needs rewriting/balancing. For now I'll tag the page as non-neutral. aLii 13:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
The end of the sentence:
seems like original research to me. I have just been and read articles from the time, most notably [10]. There is no mention of the reason behind this offering other than the vice-president has an autistic child and wanted everyone in the company to get the same care as his kid. It's nothing to do with an especially high prevalence. I shall remove the comment, and it should only be reinstated with the a proper citation. aLii 10:47, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Just reading through all this and finding so much that I find POV or think needs rewriting because it's nonsense, I'm coming to the conclusion that I agree with the suggestion that this article should be merged into the two mentioned articles. The title of this article is misleading, as I've noted above. The Autism (incidence) article is basically what this article should be. I think that we should perhaps negotiate a date for anything missing from that article to be moved into it, and then on the date this article should be turned into a redirect to there. The causes of austism article or perhaps an entirely seperate article should contain the details about the vaccine controversy. I know there are other editors watching this page. It'd be nice to get some input this time. aLii 12:49, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
"According to Vaccination News, one in eighty-six primary school children in the United Kingdom has autism, compared with one in 2,200 in 1988. [11] " The reference is to a study referred to here, later in teh paragraph, which gives different figures. If VN gave figures from a different study then it would be worth considering whether it is WP:RS but as it doesn't we need not go so far. Midgley 00:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought we agreed to rename this article Epidemiology of autism, which we all agreed was neutral. I don't want to make the change, lest someone misconstrue my intention, but can we just see if anyone objects to it? -- Leifern 13:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
"In Europe, Hans Asperger coincidentally described a similar syndrome during the same period."
This asserts that Europe is in the same place as America, which is untrue for large granularities of cosmography; or alternatively that it was a coincidence that Asperger described it rather than being for instance a result of independent hard work. One is wrong, the other is editorial. Alternatively it is another instance of the addition of extra words where what is needed is extra precision of meaning. What it actually means is that "In Europe, Hans Asperger described a similar syndrome during the same period", which may be a good way of saying "Hans Asperger in Europe contemporaneously described the similar syndrome which bears his name." for a suitable reading age, or not. "In Europe" is less suitable as a subject for that sentence than "Hans Asperger", but should not come at the end of the line or it will seem to geographically restrict the syndrome, rather than the doctor.
But none of this is part of Ombudsman's editing, becuase Ombudsman is not here to collaborative edit an encyclopaedia article, but rather to present not merely a point of view but a form of words. It is not helpful to the general effort, nor I think to autists. Another RFC, or referral back to ArbCom?
Midgley
17:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
"Sharp rises in the frequency with which autism is diagnosed has become a concern and debating point in many countries. Members of the medical and scientific community are generally quite skeptical about characterizions of the increasing numbers as indicators of an 'epidemic'.[1][2]"
That is not acceptable quality. Midgley 17:56, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
This is basically what I find wrong with this article. Neutrality and factual accuracy disputed, excessively long, and overuse of words that most people probably don't understand without looking in a dictionary every other sentence. Also, it focuses too much on the mercury theory.
Please do not ban me. -- 75.33.62.252 02:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that a CDC study across 14 locations that concludes that 1 in 150 children in comparable cohorts should put to rest any argument that there is no increase in the incidence of autism. I'd also argue it's time to call this an epidemic, when faced with this kind of incidence and the CDC's view that it is of "urgent concern." -- Leifern 22:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
(Resetting indent) I agree that the graph falls into the "lies, damn lies and statistics" category, but a couple of things here:
In short, I'm open to working on this article to make it better. But to make believe that "epidemic" is completely irrelevant, or that possible environmental factors should be ignored, amounts to dishonesty. -- Leifern 11:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, all of the relevent information has now been merged into Autism (incidence), so I think the time has come to discuss whether Frequency of autism should redirect to Autism (incidence). aLii 01:44, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Looking at another page I see someone has reasonably enough asked why "California is considered[citation needed] to have the best reporting system for autism in the US" which is a trope harvested from this page. Therefore I have tagged that with the need for a reference. It would be convenient if, when this is referenced here, it was referenced there as well. THis page would benefit from critical assessment, as will others. Midgley 21:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
One in 58 --or more-- UK children is affected by an autistic spectrum disorder. The latest epidemic surge makes it incumbent upon the Wiki to acknowledge that the raging autism epidemic is not only quite obviously real, but also deserving of an article reflective of that reality. The new UK study was prepared by the autism research team at Cambridge University. Two members of the study team have --as a result of the latest stunning confirmation of an epidemic-- broken ranks with the mainstream medical establishment by acknowledging that the MMR vaccine may have played a part in causing the epidemic. Claims to the contrary, usually based on the assertion that symptoms had previously gone undiagnosed, are insulting to the physicians and other professionals who allegedly missed the signs for decades after the condition was first described subsequent to the development of commercial ethyl mercury products, and before Bernard Rimland and other early whistleblowers recognized the onset of the epidemic was evidently linked to vaccine injuries. It is high time for the article associated with this talk page to be restored to its proper location at ´autism epidemic´. Ombudsman 20:04, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |