Autism in US more common than previously thought; wider screening, better diagnosis cited

[proverbialwisdom]

32. You MUST read this even if a more nuanced explanation is ultimately more accurate (eg post #26).

http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2012/04/dr-walter-zahorodny-believes-vaccines.html

Posted by Ginger Taylor at Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Dr. Walter Zahorodny Believes Vaccines Cause Autism. And Geri Dawson???

From a Radio Listener in NYC:

I was listening this AM to WNYC – Kurt Andersen, of all hostile people, did a segment on the ADDM numbers with Walter Zahorodny, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark. Zahorodny was the lead researcher on the New Jersey portion of the study.

Kurt Andersen (Seth Mnookin's friend): “I guess we know what they (the causes of autism) aren’t, for instance childhood vaccines. Right?”

Dr. Zahorodny: “Vaccines don’t play a significant role in autism increasing. Some small number of children probably do have autism because of an adverse vaccine reaction, but they don’t make for the overall rise.”

D'oh!

What's that you say Dr. Z? Vaccines don't cause most autism, but they do cause some autism?? You don't say?!

When the brainwashed "science media" can't even get those involved in the research to hold the "vaccines do not cause autism" line any more... we can be assured that the Hungry Lie is falling apart in earnest and the end of the vaccine age is near.

If anyone can confirm or has audio, would love to hear it.

UPDATE:

Confirmation. Starts at 13:20: AUDIO AT LINK.

It is CRAZY how blase he is about this. Like he is reporting a light rain moving in from the west in the late afternoon. Drops a bomb and strolls on by.

Worth listening to the whole interview as it counters many of the media talking points.

His thoughts are that:

•NJ high rate is because they have a better reporting system and they looked at both educational and medical records, where other states only looked at medical records, so other states are likely as high as NJ
•The increase is real
•The NJ 2002 rate and this number is a real increase because the reporting system was designed to measure that exactly
•Fluctuations due to 1994 DSM4 changes would have been settled in the first years and would not impact rates now
•Most cases they found were serious autism, not a load of high functioning cases that would have been mised before
•DSM5 will "muddy the waters" on autism tracking

UPDATE:

So is Geri Dawson joining Dr. Zahorodny? Looks that way to me!

Only a year ago, Autism Speaks science director Geri Dawson said we are not allowed to talk about vaccines any more. But now she says this...

Tom Ashbrook interviewed her on NPR:

Ashbrook: "Dr. Dawson, here's a question online from Melrose, has the link between MMR vaccine and autism been completely discredited. I notice that the word 'vaccine' has not even come up so far in this hour. Is that...for some years that had a lot of attention, is that off the table now, Dr. Dawson?"

Dr. Dawson: "There is no evidence that the increase in prevalence that we're seeing in Autism Spectrum Disorder is linked to the MMR vaccine. You know, if vaccines play a role, and there has not been any evidence thus far to show that it has, it would be a very small minority of individuals who have an underlying medical condition where the vaccine may have triggered an onset of symptoms for an already existing condition or vulnerability. So we do not believe that vaccines are an explanation of the increase and we strongly encourage parents to get their children vaccinated."

So again... thrown the softball and didn't take it!

Ashbrook, like Andersen, took the initiative of bringing the vaccine question into the interview, and in both cases it was merely an invitation to declare the vaccine hypothesis DOA. And neither Zahorodny or Dawson took the opportunity to do so!

They BOTH could have said, "Correct." And just moved on. But they didn't!

They both contradicted their interviewers presumptive statements, and said a version of, "Incorrect, vaccines do cause autism in some children, and it is a smaller number of cases than people think, but I don't see that vaccine induced autism could be playing a major factor in the increase."

IMHO... no way in h-e-double hockey sticks that these two didn't know exactly what they were doing. They had every chance to run from vaccine causation and they didn't. They confirmed it. Then they minimized it.

We have just witnessed the very quiet pushing of the envelope. Dr. Geri Dawson and Dr. Walter Zahorodny have just joined you and me and all our friends in taking our position that vaccines cause some cases of autism, just not all the cases of autism. Now we are only separated by the degree in which we believe the vaccine induced autism is a factor in the skyrocketing autism numbers.

Geri said something very interesting... and true...

"You know, if vaccines play a role [in rising autism prevalence], and there has not been any evidence thus far to show that it has."

...if by "evidence" of course, she means "scientific research" because there is plenty of data to show that vaccines cause autism, but none that I know of to show how often vaccines cause autism. Remember... we are all still pretending that it doesn't happen at all. So can you imagine the research funding proposal that would read, "It has been established that vaccines are one of the causes of autism, this team endeavors to discover how much of the rise in autism cases are due to vaccine induced autism." HA! Betcha Autism Speaks and CDC would just THROW money at that ask!

Which brings us back to the statement that David Bowman of HRSA issued three years ago:

"The government has never compensated, nor has it ever been ordered to compensate, any case based on a determination that autism was actually caused by vaccines. We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.

Some children who have been compensated for vaccine injuries may have shown signs of autism before the decision to compensate, or may ultimately end up with autism or autistic symptoms, but we do not track cases on this basis."

Not even the government keeps track of their own cases of vaccine induced autism!

So do vaccines cause autism? YES! Now we just need to know how often that happens!