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Thursday, October 13th, 2005

California Reports: New Autism Cases Continue To Decline

Decline coincides with the phasing out of mercury from childhood vaccines.

Rick Rollens

According to information released today by the California Department
of Developmental Services (www.dds.ca.gov), the number of new cases of
professionally diagnosed full syndrome DSM IV autism entering California's
developmental services system declined from 734 new cases during the second
quarter of 2005 (April through June) to 678 new cases during the just
completed third quarter of 2005 (July through September), a 7 1/2% decline
in one quarter.

During the first three quarters of 2003 California added 2449 new
cases, last year in 2004, California added 2267 new cases of autism, and
most recently, during the first three quarters of this year, 2005, there
have been 2148 new cases added to the system.

The recent continuing decline of new cases of autism is occurring
against the backdrop of over two decades of record setting consecutive years
of new cases of autism entering California's 36 year old system.

Even with the declining numbers, autism as a category, the other
categories being mental retardation, cerebral palsy, and epilepsy, now
comprises 66% of all new intakes, or 2 out of every 3 persons now entering
California's system has been professionally diagnosed with full syndrome,
DSM IV autism, easily making autism the number one disability entering
California's developmental services system.

It is important to note, that in California's developmental services
system, children under the age of 3 years old are NOT counted in DDS's
quarterly reports. Also, only those persons with professionally diagnosed
full syndrome autism, not including PDD, NOS, Asperger's, or any other
autism spectrum disorder, are included in these reports.

The latest quarterly report confirms the trend of decreasing number of
new cases entering California's developmental services system.

Rick Rollens is an autism advocate from California.

SOURCE

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