Autism rates among children in the United States has skyrocketed at an alarming rate in the last few months, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The results of the study has left public health researchers at Guandong Pharmaceutical University in China completely baffled. The study looked at data from the annual National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to data, there has been a massive 52 percent increase in ASD diagnoses among children and adolescents in the U.S. recently.
Thevaccinereaction.com reports: Using data from the NHIS, 2.46 percent of children and adolescents in the U.S. were diagnosed with ASD.
By 2016, this had increased to 2.76 percent, then it declined to 2.29 percent in 2017. As of 2020, the number was up noticeably to 3.49 percent.
The 1 in 30 figure also represents a marked increase when compared to last year’s CDC estimate of 1 in 44 American children with ASD. However, that analysis published by the CDC in November 2021, was limited to data in 2018 from about a dozen states in the U.S. and only focused on eight-year-old children, so the study published in JAMA Pediatrics would appear to be more comprehensive, more current and, consequently, more accurate.
The study in JAMA Pediatrics did not comment on what may be causing the continuing rise in ASD diagnoses, but there has been much speculation that the trend may largely be attributed to greater public awareness of the disorder and also changes in diagnostic criteria.
Genetics has also occasionally been brought up as a possible contributing factor.
There is another belief, though, that the autism epidemic is real and that it may indeed be biological and tied to environmental exposure factors.
In a recent article, Dr. Joe Mercola wrote:
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