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CDC Declares National Autism Crisis
April 1, 2007

No, this is not about President Bush.

The CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) announced in February that about one in 150 children in the U.S. is autistic. This revelation was derived from statistics gathered in a 2002 study conducted in 14 states.

Although these recently released statistics tend to support suspicions I’ve always harbored about politicians, military officers and attorneys, the study is basically flawed.

Alison Singer, spokeswoman for Autism Speaks, said the report underlines the need for more early intervention services, more therapists, and more political support for families with autistic children. Advocates apparently believe U.S. taxpayers should fund hundreds of millions of additional dollars for autism research and activities.

This scenario is typical of the mental health community which has a well-rehearsed step-by-step procedure to manipulate public expenditures for therapy and research. It goes something like this:

Step 1: Arbitrarily expand the symptoms list for a mental illness or physical disorder so more people will believe they have it, or know someone who does.

Step 2: Conduct a new study incorporating the expanded symptoms.

Step 3: Produce creative statistics from the new study that suggest a larger problem or prevalence of the condition than previously believed.

Step 4: Publish the flawed study so advocacy groups can foster public fear and hysteria over the alleged problem.

Step 5: Renew lobbying efforts in state and federal government organizations to solicit more taxpayer money for research and services for the problem.

People with autism unfortunately derive little or no benefit from the 5-step process. They are merely poster children being manipulated for fund-raising purposes.

The bottom line is that after an indeterminable amount of wasted money (yes, I said “wasted”) over a long period of time, the cause of autism is still unknown. The only apparent benefit is to thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists, behavior therapists and researchers who created paying jobs for themselves by capitalizing on autistic children and their parents.

I believe any researcher who comes up empty-handed after being funded with taxpayer dollars should have to pay back all of the money. Research “grants” should be totally discontinued. Researchers should receive “loans” to do their research. If, after a stipulated period of time they provide credible research results and answers, the loans will be forgiven and written off. If the research proves fruitless (as most taxpayer-funded research tends to be), the researchers must repay the loan.

The CDC pretty much established its incompetence as an agency with the support and publication of this study. The CDC even went so far as to stipulate the states used in the study are not demographically representative of the nation as a whole. They cautioned against using the results as a national average since the study did not include some of the most populous states including California, Texas and Florida. That leads me to wonder why the report was even released.

The lead author of the study, Catherine Rice, stated the study could not be used to make conclusions about trends. Guess what Catherine; this study can not be used to make conclusions about anything at all, and you owe us all the money back.

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