What's driving the autism epidemic? Where Jill Escher and I disagree

Robert Kennedy will give us the answer

In October, 2024, Jill Escher, president of the National Council on Severe Autism and mother of two adult children with autism, published a report entitled, Getting Real About Autism’s Exponential Explosion, https://www.ncsautism.org/blog//autism-explosion-2024

This was a wakeup call raising an alarm over the nonstop increases in the rate of autism.

Though denialism remains in vogue (for now), there is overwhelming evidence for a true, devastating increase in autism, a surge that began with births in the late 1980s and has continued unabated.

Escher has done probably the most thorough job investigating the explosion of autism in the U.S., more detailed than anyone else I can think of.

All of her work is intended as evidence that there has been a true increase in autism, something no U.S. health official has admitted.

Where we differ is in what’s behind the increase.

In her piece, Escher cited my efforts cataloguing stories on Loss of Brain Trust about the decline of children worldwide, but at the same time she totally disagrees with my position on vaccines.

(As someone who has battled against the debunked vaccine hypothesis of autism, I am loath to refer to a website authored by one of its proponents, but we should give credit where credit it due. A website by Anne Dachel catalogues over 9,000 news stories relating to the growing rates of autism, especially in the schools. Though her suggested reason for autism’s ascendance is clearly erroneous, she is a helpful shepherd of an avalanche of stories reflecting the dire impact of the torrential and unrelenting increase of autism.)

According to Escher, autism doesn’t result from the ever-increasing number of vaccines children receive, but from toxins parents were exposed to that affected their eggs and sperm.

Robert Kennedy’s position

In an article published on November 15th entitled, Trump, RFK, and the Autism Dilemma, Escher criticized the prospect that Kennedy’s would pursue the link to vaccines.

Trump, RFK, and the Autism Dilemma

Kennedy and the president-elect are asking why more kids like mine are disabled by autism. They have the power to find real answers—and it’s not due to vaccines. . . .

But the last thing we need in addressing the national emergency of autism is more nonsense about vaccines or heavy metals—another RFK Jr. discredited favorite. And we certainly don’t need more duplicative federal efforts that fail to advance our understanding of autism. . . .

I have long advocated for research on new concepts about autism’s origins. This relates to how toxic exposures impact not the fetus, but the parents’ germ cells—that is, their eggs, sperm, and precursor cells. There is vast scientific territory open for exploration here.

The increases are real

In February, 2024, Escher put out her fascinating interview of Walter Zahorodny, Ph.D., Director of New Jersey Autism Study at Rutgers University.

Zahorodny is a top expert on autism and is responsible for the statistics for New Jersey.

It’s important to note that Escher is from California and Zahorodny is from New Jersey, two states known for very accurate statistics on autism.

During the interview, Zahorodny challenged what the Centers for Disease Control has long said about autism: All the autism is the result of better diagnosing and greater awareness and not a true increase.

Autism's Rising Rates: A Deep Dive into Autism's Increasing Prevalence and 50 Years of Data

Zahorodny revealed some stunning facts about autism.

In some selected counties and regions of New Jersey, as many as five to seven percent of the pediatric population. . . .

There’s no doubt as well that while New Jersey’s rate is quite high, we’re not the only region with high rates, but that these high rates are now reflected from data in California.

My second and third premises or statements of what’s essential reflect the fact that autism has increased very dramatically in the sixteen year period from 2000 to 2016.

It’s increased across all subgroups, all forms of autism, across all demographic groups. . . .

The fourth object of my attention is that autism, in spite of better awareness, better recognition, is still widely UNDER DIAGNOSED. . . .

Even at age sixteen, one in four adolescents with autism were undiagnosed. They were diagnosed with other conditions or other concerns, but not with autism.

Autism prevalence for 2022—that is for the next surveillance cycle—will be higher than found previously. This is inevitable because autism prevalence has not peaked. Even in the most recent surveillance and still higher estimates are likely as we acquire better ability to identify minority and low SES individuals. . . .

Zahorodny was at a loss to explain WHY the increases never stop.

We really don’t understand what’s driving autism prevalence. We don’t know the risk factors, so the best one can say apparently is that the increase might be due to better awareness or recognition.

Without a doubt, the most important factors or improvements that we could recommend involve enhancing and promoting studies which attempt to identify autism risk factors and triggers.

These are not genetic factors. These are environmental factors and it’s necessary to understand which ones are driving and have driven autism prevalence twofold and threefold over the last fifteen years.

He feels the best we can do is early diagnosing and intervention

Since we don’t yet understand, and I see no prospect for understanding the autism risk factors or triggers in the near future, I think it’s very important that we try to promote universal autism screening of toddlers and preschool aged children. . . .

Escher asked Zahorodny why there was all this denial of a real increase in autism by health officials. He said that the CDC has looked into possible environmental causes, but were unable to determine any.

Clueless

Unfortunately, no agency or program in the United States has the resources as the CDC to identify the potential risk factors for autism, and they’ve committed the most resources to identifying and to understanding this phenomenon, and yet we’ve gotten nowhere.

I’ve been part of the ADDM Network since 2000, and so I was there at the initiation and across the development and enhancement of the network. I think when we started there was true interest and excitement and surprise regarding the first of all high rates and the escalation of rates, but somewhere after third or fourth cycle, it become clear that there were no plausible ideas or hypothesis that the CDC felt compelled to investigate. It would be therefore less complicated and less dangerous to prevail with a search for risk factors.

According to Zahorodny, the CDC refuses to acknowledge a true increase in the autism rate, more children actually having autism, because they can’t explain it. Their only recourse has been to deny that there’s more autism.

It would be much less controversial to acknowledge what is possibly responsible for a small increase in case determination, that is better awareness.

It’s uncomfortable to identify a phenomenon and not to be able to explain it.

If I were to say, if I were to conjecture what a motive could be by some organization such as the CDC, I would be implying something in that direction.

. . .The explanation of escalating autism based on better awareness is hard to puncture once it’s established because people resort to it automatically.

Without there being a well identified set of hypothetical risk factors, it’s just easier to retreat behind the concept of better awareness.

As far as vaccines being the cause, Zahorodny dismissed the possibility.

The first wave of speculation in this field was concerning vaccination and the vaccination hypothesis, though wrong, was very compelling on a number of grounds, and it was very distressing to the Centers for Disease Control to have that hypothesis out there.

Once the hypothesis was debunked or failed to gather evidence, supportive evidence, and no other hypothesis that was compelling enough come into the field, and so we’re kind of stuck repeating the same pseudo explanations.

Escher was in agreement and added that the now debunked claim of a link between vaccines and autism has fueled the drive to deny any increase in autism.

This is a divide between Jill Escher and others in the autism community.

In July, 2021, the NCSA published Escher’s article, New Paper Makes Case that Autism Tsunami May Threaten American Economy , which slammed Mark Blaxill, Cynthia Nevison and Dr. Toby Rogers for purporting that the massive growth in autism is linked to the vaccine schedule.

A new paper published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders makes the case that the rising prevalence of autism in the U.S. poses a substantial threat to the American economy. Because the paper was written by notorious anti-vaxxers and is based on the steadily increasing birth-year prevalence of autism, it has already come under fire by critics.

The study, Autism Tsunami: the Impact of Rising Prevalence on the Societal Cost of Autism in the United States, by Mark Blaxill, Toby Rogers and Cynthia Nevison, concludes that future costs of autism could be $589 billion/year in 2030, $1.36 trillion/year in 2040, and $5.54 (4.29–6.78) trillion/year by 2060. They say, “the future costs of autism loom so large that, rather than responding with a sense of urgency as one might expect, policymakers thus far have generally failed to engage with the policy implications at all…. We hope this paper will serve as a wakeup call for the public health emergency that the societal cost of autism represents to the economic future of the U.S.”

Denials continue

While I agree with the noble intentions, I admit that when I saw the list of authors, my heart sunk. Both Blaxill and Rogers are known for pushing the nonsensical, disproven, and downright dangerous vaccine hypothesis of autism, a sin that, to me, makes them irredeemable and unworthy of inclusion in a scientific journal like JADD.

HERE’S WHAT I THINK

Having watched the official denials for two decades myself, I share in Jill Escher’s frustration over the government’s nonfeasance when it comes to what autism is doing to children.

The media can be expected to give them a pass when they fall back on the time honored “better diagnosing” claim each time the numbers go up.

It’s not hard to figure out why officials at the CDC have never used the word CRISIS when talking about autism.

IF it were a crisis, we’d expect them to do something. “Serious public health concern” is the strongest language anyone in Atlanta has ever used when it comes to autism. It’s much easier to simply pretend it isn’t a problem.

Actually it’s incredible that we go to the people who run the vaccine program and ask them if their vaccines are damaging children. Of course, their answer is: STUDIES SHOULD NO LINK.

No one ever asks who funded the studies or why they’re always easily flawed and manipulated epidemiological or population studies.

Robert Kennedy spent years trying to get the results of the double blind placebo studies done on each vaccine on the childhood schedule before licensure. Kennedy sued NIH to get them, but in the end they admitted they hadn’t been done. Their studies did not include a true placebo containing only an injected salt water solution.

(In the HPV vaccine study, the placebo group received high levels of toxic aluminum. See: The HPV Vaccine on Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed )

(See British Medical Journal asking if Al in vaccines was “adequately evaluated.” https://ebm.bmj.com/content/26/6/285 )

Vaxxed vs. Unvaxxed

Personally, I would gladly bow out of this argument if someone could show me a simple study comparing the health outcomes of fully vaccinated and never vaccinated children. With so many parents now too frighten to vaccinate, the study group is out there. Show us the three percent of never vaccinated children who have autism. Show us the never vaccinated children with the same levels of ADHD, asthma, allergies, seizure disorder, and diabetes as fully vaccinated children.

Our health officials are forced to pretend that more and more and more autism is just fine.

IF the vaccine connection were finally recognized, the consequences would horrific.

The possibility that the mandated vaccine program could be responsible for the pathetic state of children’s health today is the unthinkable to the people in charge of health care. They have to keep on pretending nothing is wrong.

What is undeniable is the fact that there are just too many parents out there whose normally developing children suddenly and permanently became disabled with autism after receiving routine vaccines.

Over 80 such cases were quietly compensated by the federal government’s “vaccine court.” One notable exception was the case of Hannah Poling. In 2008 the government conceded that she developed autism as a result of the vaccines she received.

None of this matters to the regulators whose job it is to defend the safety and efficacy of Big Pharma’s vaccines.

CHANGE IS COMING

The light at the end of this long, dark tunnel for me is Robert Kennedy.

Recently he said this:

At 1:10

. . .The health agencies are not working for public health. They’re working to keep us sick because the group that controls them, the pharmaceutical industry profits from chronic disease.

$4.3 trillion a year we’re spending on chronic disease that nobody’s even doing research on it at NIH.

So, that’s the big problem: the pharmaceutical industry, the oil industry, the coal industry, the chemical industry, which I’ve seen firsthand throughout my career.

Each of their agencies are captured. They’ve become sock puppets for the industries they’re supposed to regulate.

All of these agencies are controlled by an industry, and I think that is the biggest threat to American democracy.

Kennedy’s promise:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/604237105263217?locale=fy_NL

I can get the corruption out of the agencies. That’s what I’ve been doing for forty years. I’ve sued all those agencies. I have a PhD in corporate corruption and that’s what I do. And once they’re not corrupt, once Americans are getting good science and are allowed and allowed to make their own choices, they’re going to get a lot healthier.

YOUR THOUGHTS