There should be no becoming comfortable with autism

There should be no becoming comfortable with autism

Two articles about autism appeared in the March 22 Vindicator. One was about a fund raiser for the Potential Development Center, a school that teaches children with autism, and the other about the Rich Center for Autism. Autism just two decades ago was a strange and unfamiliar word. Autism now seems to be the disability du jour. People unaffected by it probably assume that it must be being overly diagnosed. Trust me, you can’t miss a young child with autism. The way some of these articles are written, I sometimes wonder if people think it is now almost normal to have autism. It’s not.

The Rich Center article highlighted that the center has recently been designated a Center for Excellence by the state and YSU. It stated the center will now be focusing more on research. I have a request for the Rich Center. In your new research capacity, could you please figure out what is now causing so many children to have such a once rare disorder and please put a stop to it?

So far no one has any conclusive answers as to why autism has been rising — the only thing we have been told ad nauseum is vaccines don’t cause autism. No one can say what does cause it, but they are certain what doesn’t. I find that so peculiar.

What’s incredible is this conclusion has been reached despite lacking very essential information. Research has looked at children who got some vaccines versus some who got a different amount of vaccines, but no one has studied children who have been vaccinated versus children who have not been. This is the only way to know the effects of vaccines.

What about looking at susceptible sub-populations? Many parents have reported their child regressed after a series of vaccines. Why are these children not being studied? Clearly autism has genetic undertones, but it is impossible to have genetic epidemics.

Most with autism will need lifetime care. Many will require such intense care the cost will run into millions of dollars per individual over their lifetime. I recently learned 30,000 disabled individuals are currently waiting for some sort of disability waiver in the state of Ohio. Why the wait? They don’t have the money. We simply can’t afford all this autism.

Thinking about all the children I know who have autism and worrying about their futures makes me feel filled with anxiety. And seeing how people are just so comfortable adjusting and adapting to our autism crisis really disturbs me.

Andrea Keller, Canfield