CDC Sees “Many Causes” of Autism

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, responding to this website, says there are many causes of autism and it is “not specifically looking at different sources of radiation” as a possible cause.

CDC, whose budget for 2016 is $11.5 billion, has been headed since 2009 by Dr. Tom Frieden.

Tom Frieden

The email statement from the CDC News Media Branch is as follows.

“Autism Spectrum Disorders is a complex disorder, and most scientists who study ASD believe that there is no single cause. We have learned that there are likely many causes for multiple types of ASD. There may also be many different factors that make a child more likely to have ASD, including environmental and genetic factors. Understanding more about these factors will help us learn more about the causes.

“Currently, CDC is working on one of the largest studies in the United States to look at what factors might make a child more likely to develop ASD. This study, called the Study to Explore Early Development, is examining many factors—from genes to characteristics of the pregnancy, birth, and newborn period. SEED is unique because it has a large sample of children that allows complex analysis of child characteristics and environmental and genetic factors to see how they all interact to increase a child’s risk for ASD.

“At this time, we are not specifically looking at different sources of radiation and their potential association with ASD. Federal efforts to coordinate autism research are reflected in the Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder Research by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. If you would like to submit a public comment to the IACC, please visit their website”

The email provided links to the “Strategic Plan...” and IACC but the first one brought the reply that the link had been “removed” and the second one that access was not authorized.

EMF Health Advocates Blame Radiation

EMF health advocates see a connection between the rise in autism and the rise in pulsed radiation from cellphones and other sources.

The Australian ADHD Foundation (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) has studied the issue and has concluded that, “The number of children diagnosed with ASD has and is still growing at an alarming exponential rate.”

Its findings are:

In the 1950s it was estimated that 1 in 25,000 children was diagnosed with Autism.

• In 1970s and 1980s, about one in 2,500 children was diagnosed with ASD.
• In 2000, the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the prevalence of ASD had reached 1 in 150 children.
• In 2004 this figure had reached 1 in 125 children
• In 2006 The figure was one in 110 children
• In 2008 this figure reached 1 in 88, based on the CDC’s ADDM network of 14 monitoring areas across the US. These ranged from 1 in 208 in under-populated states to one in 47 in populated eastern states.
• In March 2013, the US National Health Statistics Report indicated that 1 in 50 children across the US were diagnosed with ASD. In populated US cities this is already 1 in 27 children. If one extrapolates the trend from these figures as shown in the following graph, we could easily be looking at a 5% incidence in Autism by 2020. That is one child in every 20 children across the US having a diagnosis of ASD by 2020.

Foundation Doesn’t Mention EMF

The Australian ADHD Foundation does not mention electro-magnetic radiation as a possible cause of the rise in autism.

It theorizes that refined foods and chemical additives may be the problem. Also, “modern wheat” differs from traditional wheat, it adds.

Says the Foundation: “The exact causes of Autism in general, and for each individual child with Autism remain elusive. Scientists have been researching the ‘gene’ that may cause Autism, amongst families with Autism, with no success.

“This is not surprising, as single genes that cause a specific disease (as in cystic fibrosis) are very rare. However, there is widespread agreement amongst scientists involved in Autism research that Autism arises from a combination of a cluster of mutated genes (the genetic predispositions), interacting with nutrient deficiencies in our modern diet and environmental toxins. This view is consistent with epigenetics research, which teaches us that factors outside of genes profoundly affect their expression.”

Daily Kos Sees Celltower/Autism Connection

The website Daily Kos, noting there are more than one million cell towers and antennas in the U.S. plus more than 6,000 satellites circling overhead, sees a connection between the rise in autism and the proliferation of cell towers and other sources of pulsed radiation.

It has charts showing that the rise in the number of wireless subscribers tracks almost perfectly with the rise in the incidence of autism.

Daily Kos says:

“The Federal Communications Commission standards for the amount of radio frequency that can be safely emitted by a cell phone are based on models of a man's head.

“What few parents know is that radio-frequency signals reach much more deeply into children's thinner and smaller heads than ours--—a fact established through the pioneering work of professor Om P. Gandhi, the leader of the University of Utah's electrical engineering department and confirmed recently by studies developed by Niels Kuster and his colleagues in Austria.

“While these two engineers may differ on the details of their models of the brain, their work makes it clear that children’s brains differ in important ways from those of adults. Their skulls are thinner. Their brains contain more fluid.

“The agency that offers recommendations on cell-phone emissions in the U.S. — the FCC--doesn't employ a single health expert. The standards it adopts are based on advice given by outside experts, many of whom work directly for the cell-phone industry. Unlike with drugs that are tested before being used, the Food and Drug Administration lacks the authority to set standards for cell phones and can only act if a phone is shown to release hazardous signals."