http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism

I figured the "definition" of autism would've changed, thus causing more people to be diagnosed with it. However it seems odd to me that It'd account for such a massive increase, but as I said, it has to be something. Or maybe I'm wrong, and that all of the increase is caused by changes in definition of autism. It may be some of the other thiousands of chemicals that have been taken into daily use in the past decades, but writing this all off as just a change in diagnostics is kinda reckless imo.

It's not necessarily just that we've expanded the definition (well, spectrum), but that it's something better understood and actively searched for in kids now. Go back 30 - 40 years and barley anyone even knew what autism was, we just labeled kids that didn't fit in "weird" or "retarded" and didn't take the time to consider why they acted how they did, or if we could help. Heck, it's 2015 and many people still assume that anyone with autism must be inherently stupid...

There may very well be outside factors at play, but the wider definition, better understanding and active search for symptoms seem like more plausible explanations. Especially since the increase in autism diagnoses lines up with the decrease in mental retardation prevalence.

This looks scary:

This on the other hand suggests we simply better understand what we're diagnosing:

Correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, but it's a logical conclusion that the two are related. The topic will no doubt continue to be researched to death for years to come though, so we'll see.

(Sorry if i come across as a bit blunt in this post, autism is a topic i can get a bit touchy about).

^

I see that more people have understood the possibility of diagnostics; I happen to work with kids for the past 1.5 years where many of them are in the autism spectrum, Aspberger is also common in this group. Almost all of them had other diagnosis to begin with; usually tied more directly into psychiatri, things such as anxiety, isolating behavior and even outbursts and fits of rage are often interpreted in many different ways.

It's the same with ADD; it is the go-to label for the kids that parents and/or teacher can't or don't want to handle, there is gross misuse of the term here in Scandinavia.

There is a very, very strong correlation between the absence of vaccination on a person and the people who get measles, but absolutely no correlation between people that have been subject of vaccination and autism. No further data is needed. What would really be interesting would be to understand is why people are still talking about this.

Or, instead of millions of dollars to appease the anti-science crowd, you just force them to get vaccinated.

Yeah, it once was that you just had the weird kid (i was one of those, mind, though i never had any diagnosis of anything), and that was the end of it. Now everything has to be categorized. This is not a bad thing in itself, but then it leads people to think there is an "epidemic" of this or that disorder.

Your multi-quote seems to be screwing with my ability to quote you.

The measles outbreak is not a "bad" problem in the grand scheme of things, i'll grant, but the trick of all of this is that this suffering was entirely preventable but for a few people who think that they know better. If there is a revolt, it's part of the long luddite reaction against modernity, sprouting up in odd crevices of society (interestingly, anti-vax was a buggaboo of the American Left until recently, when the Republicans are picking it up as part of their recent anti-government streak, like Tom Thillis and his "you don't have to wash your hands" weirdness). It's the revolt of romanticism against enlightenment, where the affective concept of natural purity clashes with biology and chemistry and other sciences. What you see here is a counterrevolution, as people get fed up with anti-vaxxer silliness and move to crush it.

The other end of your argument is a non-starter. In a world of pure theory your thought on a slippery slope of people being forced to take drugs is correct, but we don't live in a world of theory. In the real world, we have vaccines, tried, tested, and proven. People are rejecting these vaccines. Nobody is talking about forcing some experimental drug on people, and stamping out of anti-vax nonsense is not going to lead to that. As a macro concept, the slippery slope is a fallacy.

This is rapidly veering into conspiracy theorist territory. GMOs *are* fine, perfectly healthy as far as eating goes (what they can do to other crops is a possibility, the real controversy about GMOs is more a dispute about farmers and intellectual property and has little to do with public health). Concerns of population control are specious at best.

Aye, Monsanto is a disgusting company.

That's actually incorrect, there are a number of approved GMO's in Europe.  As of Sept 2014, 49 GMO's have been authorized.  So, your concept is a fallacy, because your statement is false.

Beyond that, every country has different testing standards.