300,000 U.S. Children Diagnosed With Autism Annually
About 300,000 U.S. children in 2003-2004 received an autism diagnosis, a rate of about one in every 175 children, according to a study published on Thursday in the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Los Angeles Times reports (Maugh, Los Angeles Times, 5/5). The report also finds that boys are almost four times as likely as girls to receive an autism diagnosis (Stobbe, AP/Long Island Newsday, 5/4).
For the report, CDC researchers examined 18,885 children included in the National Health Interview Survey and 79,590 children included in the National Survey of Children's Health. Both surveys asked parents whether they were "ever told by a doctor or other health care provider that their child had autism" (Young, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/5).
One of the two surveys found that 83% of parents who reported a child with an autism diagnosis also said that their child had emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity or problems with peer relationships, compared with 15% of those who did not report a child with an autism diagnosis. The survey also found that 94% of parents who reported a child with an autism diagnosis "also reported that their child currently needs special services for a medical, behavioral or other health condition," according to a CDC summary (Reichard, CQ HealthBeat, 5/4).
CDC researchers said that the rate of autism diagnoses cited in the report is similar to rates found in earlier studies of smaller populations (Vedantam, Washington Post, 5/5). However, the report "does not attempt to answer whether autism is increasing -- a controversial topic driven in part by a debate over whether autism is linked to a vaccine preservative," the AP/Newsday reports.
Researchers said that some parents might have answered "yes" to the question about whether their child had received autism diagnosis for diagnoses of similar, less severe conditions -- such as Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder, or "atypical autism" -- which might have made the rate appear higher (AP/Long Island Newsday, 5/4).
The report also finds that the rate of autism diagnoses among Latino children was about half of the overall rate, but CDC epidemiologist Laura Schieve attributed the difference to a lower recognition of autism in Latino communities (Los Angeles Times, 5/5). Schieve added that the report provides "important results on the need to consider autism may be underdiagnosed in certain populations."
Schieve and Jose Cordero, director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at CDC, said that children ages six to 11 were more likely to receive autism diagnoses than those ages four to five. However, they said that the difference was not statistically significant and unrelated to whether children received more vaccines that contained the mercury-based preservative thimerosal, which some have said is linked with increased autism diagnoses (Washington Post, 5/5).
In the future, CDC plans to release additional reports on differences in autism diagnoses in various communities and on the length of time between diagnoses and the first appearance of symptoms (AP/Long Island Newsday, 5/4).
Cordero said that autism and related conditions "are an urgent public health issue that affect the lives of many, many families."
Melissa Nishawala, an autism expert at the New York University School of Medicine, said, "These numbers are not so different from the one in 166 that has been in use for a long time."
Robert Hendren, director of the MIND Institute at the University of California-Davis, said, "What's remarkable is if you compare it to 20 years ago. That's a big jump." According to Hendren, autism likely is overdiagnosed because parents in some cases pressure physicians for diagnoses to obtain eligibility for social and special services. However, Hendren said that such cases do not account for "most of" the increase (Los Angeles Times, 5/5).
Eric Hollander, an autism expert at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said that the report is "probably one of the best" to date on the rate of autism diagnoses because researchers used national surveys (AP/Long Island Newsday, 5/5).
According to Sallie Bernard, executive director of Safe Minds, the report indicates a link between the rate of autism diagnoses and exposure to vaccines that contained thimerosal (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/5).
ABCNews' "World News Tonight" on Thursday reported on the report. The segment includes comments from Cordero; Wendy Stone, a professor and child psychologist at Vanderbilt University; and Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.) (Potter, "World News Tonight," ABCNews, 5/4).
Video of the segment is available online.
In addition, CBS' "Evening News" on Thursday reported on the report. The segment includes comments from Cordero; Gary Goldstein, president and CEO of the Kennedy Krieger Institute; and Paul Shattuck, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Kaledin, "Evening News," CBS, 5/4). The complete segment is available online in RealPlayer.