Vaccinations and Autism: One Pediatrician's View Recently a
report from the CDC's Autism and Developmental Disabilities
Monitoring (ADDM) Network indicated that the prevalence of
autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) amongst 8-year-old children had
increased from 6.7 per thousand children in the year 2000 to
11.3 children per thousand children in 2008. That means that in
year 2000, one in 150 children was diagnosed with ASD and in
2008 it was one in 88 children. The question is why has the
incidence increased so steadily? None of us medical
professionals currently know, but most believe the majority of
the increase is due to our greater awareness of the diagnosis
and improved record keeping. There are likely many factors that
account for the increase in incidence of recorded ASD and
researchers continue to search for exposure or risk factors.
However, there are a number of established risk factors for
developing an ASD and these include genetic and non-genetic
associations including: One of the major challenges of