The California Numbers: Autism Declining Among Three Year Olds

During a presentation Kirby gave in May, he mentioned that someone had paid California to study only the three year olds and that in the first quarter of 2007 their autism rate declined.

This quarter they went down again.

And how sad is it that a private citizen had to pay California to run autism numbers on 3 year olds? If they wanted to know what was going on with the children in that state, they would have run the numbers on their own.

Is Autism Declining?
David Kirby
HuffPo
Posted July 12, 2007 | 02:28 AM (EST)

For quite some time, the American government, health establishment and mainstream media have repeated the mantra that mercury containing vaccines were eliminated "several years ago," yet the number of autism cases continues to climb - the inference being that injecting organic mercury into newborn babies has now been proven to be 100% safe.

The problem, though, is that there is no proof that mercury was eliminated "years ago" and, more importantly, now there are signs that autism rates among the youngest children might actually be falling.

On Wednesday, the California Department of Developmental Services released data from the second quarter of 2007, showing that the number of 3-5 year olds with autism in the state system increased by 169 children over the first quarter of 2007. This is about the same quarterly increase seen in the state over the past several years.

But it turns out that a private citizen has paid the state each quarter to analyze the autism numbers according to year of birth, and not just by age group. State law requires that such privately funded analyses be made available to anyone else who asks for it.

So I asked for it. What I got was rather interesting.

After breaking down the current data among 3-5 year olds by year of birth, you notice that the number of cases among children born in 2002 (who are now roughly five years old) and 2003 (or roughly four years old) continued to go up.

But among those kids born in 2004 (who are now turning three years old) the number of cases has fallen, as compared to kids born in 2003.

For example, at the midpoint of 2006, there were 2,250 children born in 2001 (or roughly, five-year olds) with autism counted in the system. By the same period of 2007, the number of kids with autism born in 2002 had risen to 2,490, an increase of 240 children, or 10.7%.

Among "four year olds," the increase was even more dramatic, with 326 more kids diagnosed with autism midway in 2007 than in 2006, a startling jump of 17%.

But among the very youngest kids counted, the story was the opposite. At the end of June 2006, there were 688 children born in 2003 with autism diagnoses. This June, the number of kids born in 2004 with autism was 632, a statistically significant drop of 56 children, or 8.1% less than last year at this time.

This marks the second drop of its kind among the youngest children in California (which tracks "full spectrum" autism only, and not milder forms of the disorder). It follows the first quarter of this year, when 251 children born in 2004 entered the system, compared with 264 kids born in 2003 who were enrolled in the first quarter of 2006 - a modest decline of 13 students, or 4.9%.

Keep in mind that these drops are being reported despite the fact that:

1) Rates among kids born just one or two years earlier continue to spiral upward

2) California has experienced a recent baby boomlet (the number of 0-4 year olds rose by 9,369 in 2002, according to census estimates; but jumped by 62,393 in 2004).

3) Legal and illegal immigration continues to rise from countries that still use the full amount of mercury in childhood vaccines.

4) Aggressive early intervention campaigns have consistently brought down the average age of autism diagnoses.

Intriguing though the numbers may be, it is far too early to know if this refreshing downward movement will turn into a bona fide trend. The deficit of 56 children could be made up by the end of the year.

But the decline does not come in a vacuum. Minnesota, for example, tracks autism among children as young as two years of age, (though the counting is done through the school system, and is considered less reliable than California's data).

The rate of two-year-olds diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Minnesota peaked in 2003, at 4.45-per-10,000 kids. By 2005, the rate fell to 3.88-per-10,000, and last year it was 3.55-per-10,000, a drop of 20.2% since 2003.

We will have to wait until these kids get a bit older to see if the decline holds true.

Meanwhile, back in California at the massive Kaiser Permanente healthcare, officials reported that, among 5-9 year olds in their system in 2006, the rate of ASD was 93-per-10,000. But among the youngest kids, 2-4 years old, it was 66-per-10,000 - some 40% lower.

One would naturally expect to see fewer 2-4 year olds than 5-9 year olds with an ASD diagnosis. But in 2004, Kaiser began recommending routine ASD screening for all children at 24 months of age. Presumably, the majority of the 2-4 year olds in the system have now been screened for ASD, which must, by definition, appear before age 3 for a diagnosis to be made.

Sadly, more 2-year-olds at Kaiser will end up with ASD, and some stragglers among the 3-and-4-year-olds will also turn up. But whether they can make up the 40% deficit compared with their older siblings remains to be seen.

Are autism rates dropping? I would never say they are for sure. We simply have to wait and see.

But there are tantalizing hints that autism is indeed starting to decline among the very youngest children, born and vaccinated more recently, when mercury was transitioned out of most shots.

Which brings us to the, mercury was removed "several years ago" mantra, whose best retort is probably: "Says who?"

According to the Boston Herald, the last mercury-containing shots given to US children expired back in 1999. The Washington Post, meanwhile, put the date at 2001, the FDA said it was 2002, the Institute of Medicine and the Immunization Action Coalition said 2003, and the Council of State Governments claimed it was "early 2004."

Who's right? We may never know. But we do know that companies were still manufacturing mercury-containing shots for American kids in 2001, and most vaccines have a shelf life of about two years. And we know that 90% of flu shots given to pregnant women and infants still contain the full amount of mercury today.

The number of California kids born in 2004 who have autism is, by any measure, still too high. True, we don't know how many of those 632 children were exposed to mercury in routine vaccines overseas, or flu shots here at home. But with numbers this lofty, it's highly unlikely that thimerosal alone was responsible for the entire autism epidemic.

If mercury is but one cause of autism, there must be other causes as well.

Let's say that autism cases among three-year-olds fall by 10% or so by year's end. Could thimerosal be the cause of 10% of autism cases? That would still mean tens of thousands of Americans injured by mercury in their vaccines. Moreover, identifying the cause in just 10% of cases might help us discover what is causing the other 90%.

But I am writing way ahead of myself here.

Regardless of one's position on the mercury-autism contretemps, I hope everyone can agree that an actual drop in the numbers, no matter what the cause, would provide a welcome respite from the endless chorus of grim news we all seem to face these days.

[At the request of Kristina Chew and David Kirby I had removed the following two updates. I have since thought better of it and replaced them. I thought it was a move to keep the peace, but as no peace has been kept, I will repost it. Censorship, especially after the fact, is rarely a good idea, and I am sorry that I did it. I will be offering a full discussion on the matter in another post.

As I cannot repost the deleted comments from Ms. Chew and Ms. Clark, I invite them to repost them to the comments section if they wish.]

UPDATE: Roy Grinker, epidemic denier at GW, leaves an comment on the HuffPo piece, but doesn't use his real name. Kirby calls him out and offers a public debate.

RE: This comment on Huffpost:

“Unfortunately, Mr. Kirby continues to believe that California's DDS enrollment figures constitute epidemiological data. They do not. The author even makes a claim about statistical significance! He also introduces a new term into the discussion -- "full spectrum" -- (which he suggests is equivalent to Autistic Disorder) -- and states that the DDS counts only Autistic Disorder, not PDD-NOS, or Asperger's, or Down's Syndrome children with autism, or any other phenotype. This is absolutely wrong. Not even the best epidemiological studies are particularly good at distinguishing among the subtypes. It is truly disappointing to see the Huffington Post continue to publish phony epidemiology.”

Signed: Mfano

But “backstage” I see that his email is actually rgrink@gwu.edu

If Dr. Grinker would like to debate this subject out in the open, using his real name, I would be more than happy to take part. You would think that someone of his stature would have more pressing things to do with George Washington University’s time and bandwidth than send anonymous, erroneous comments to national political blogs.

Update: From "celiacdaughter" on the EOH list:

...If you search some of his (Mfano) previous posts you will also note that he enjoys using the third person when discussing himself:

"So Foresam, tell us: how Grinker should look for autistic adults? The woman Grinker and Chew wrote about in the blog wasn't on record anywhere as autistic. Grinker doesn't say, but she probably bit herself and smeared feces too. No one missed her. She was called mentally retarded and given lots of treatment and care. She just wasn't called autistic"...

Update: Back to the original point. A mom in Iowa says Autism rates are dropping there too.

"It seems to me, there is a story in the Iowa stats as well. Iowa being the first state to remove/ban thimerosal, with exception to influenza, and our rates reflect a 20% decrease."

http://www.vaproject.org/statistics/autism-statistics.html

National Autism Prevalence Trends from United States Special Education Data

The following is taken from the official State statistics produced by the Department of Education in the United States, for numbers of children aged 3-5 served by IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) who have autism. It compares the increase over five years between 2000-01 and 2005-06:

State	2000-2001	2005-2006	Percentage Increase
Alabama	84	178	112
Alaska	27	X	X
Arizona	94	287	205
Arkansas	95	106	12
California	3,422	7,968	133
Colorado	53	157	196
Connecticut	152	412	171
Delaware	62	101	63
DC	16	39	144
Florida	847	1,598	89
Georgia	272	550	102
Hawaii	88	149	69
Idaho	28	86	207
Illinois	670	1,256	87
Indiana	456	777	70
Iowa	128	102	-20
Kansas	87	172	98
Kentucky	168	270	61
Louisiana	121	294	143
Maine	150	311	107
Maryland	371	641	73
Massachusetts	231	1,370	493
Michigan	631	1,212	92
Minnesota	345	1,159	236
Mississippi	34	69	103
Missouri	134	283	111
Montana	40	44	10
Nebraska	37	154	316
Nevada	89	422	374
New Hampshire	55	112	104
New Jersey	397	734	85
New Mexico	6	96	1,500
New York	2,244	X	X
North Carolina	261	780	199
North Dakota	17	39	129
Ohio	326	397	22
Oklahoma	9	57	533
Oregon	429	782	82
Pennsylvania	594	2,063	247
Puerto Rico	147	116	-21
Rhode Island	48	121	152
South Carolina	121	281	132
South Dakota	35	80	129
Tennessee	153	416	172
Texas	1,108	2,123	92
Utah	58	247	326
Vermont	14	48	243
Virginia	222	548	147
Washington	64	409	539
West Virginia	14	33	136
Wisconsin	410	485	18
Wyoming	21	37	76
Total	15,685	30,171	92

Source: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act data, US Department of Education.
X - Figures not available