Lots of top experts have chimed in about the good job the medical community is doing.  When the one in 150 rate came out, world renowned vaccine defender Paul Offit told ABC's 20/20, 'People that we once called quirky or geeky or nerdy are now called autistic.'  Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp from the CDC was in Newsweek saying that it isn't that 'the rates of autism have gone up, just that now we have some more definitive data.'  And Julie Gerberding, then head of the CDC, took a little of the credit for herself explaining that the new numbers were because 'our estimates are becoming better and more consistent.'
 
Experts haven't deviated from that stance.  Recently, Larry King Live covered the autism-vaccine debate with Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, Dr. Bernadine Healy, and J. B. Handley on one side and Dr. Margaret Fisher and Dr. Max Wiznitzer on the other.  Wiznitzer was billed as an autism expert with over 25 years experience in the field.  Not only that, but he also made a name for himself testifying against parents who claimed that vaccines injured their children.   On LKL, Wiznitzer denied an increase in autism.  He said more kids are now called autistic because of a "loosening of the diagnostic criteria."  He threw in other phrases like "genetic causation" and "pre-natally based" in an effort to explain why kids become autistic. 
 
Too much of a good thing?
 
It's becoming clear that "better diagnosing" may be responsible for a major problem.  News stories are out ever yday about parents of autistic kids who can't access help for their children with autism.  State by state efforts are being made to mandate insurance coverage for autism treatment because most insurance plans won't help you if your child has autism.
 
As I listened to Wiznitzer talking about the controversy on LKL, I realized that with over 25 years experience in the field, he was one of the architects of the better diagnostics when it comes to autism.  After all, 25 years ago doctors weren't as good finding autism.  Wiznitzer himself must be doing his job a whole lot better than when he started practicing medicine and he sees nothing to worry about with a waiting room filled with spinning, hand-flapping kids. 
 
Doctors may have gone too far. 
 
If the zealous efforts of Wiznitzer and others in medicine have led to the labeling of so many kids with autism and because of it, they're being denied needed help, maybe they should stop it.  On April 11, Forbes Magazine put out a story on insurance for autism.  In "Michigan part of growing push for autismcoverage", HERE readers learned that one family had to spend $19,000 on autism treatment in one year alone.  "Many families can't afford the therapies and are forced to go without them."  The situation of Michigan families is the same all over the U.S.
 
Rep. Joan Bauer from Lansing was quoted saying, 'Excluding autism from coverage is completely arbitrary.  It's unfair. It's wrong. And it sets back efforts to understand and to treat this disorder. These are treatments our children need to help them live their daily lives.'
 
One part of the Michigan story jumped out at me.  The same family paying $19,000 for therapy had another son who wasn't autistic, but who also needed speech therapy.  "The Ingham County couple says their 9-year-old son Lane, who isn't autistic, has had some of the same speech therapy. But his was paid for by insurance companies."
 
This made me wonder if calling kids "autistic" ends up causing them to be excluded from getting therapy.  We're told regularly by the people who know that autism hasn't increased.  If these kids have always been here, we must have done something with them.  I mean it's a little hard to miss an autistic child, even a mildly affected one, so we must have provided for their special needs.  If all this greater awareness and better diagnosing is the cause of the problem, it may be necessary to stop calling kids autistic.  I'm sure lots of parents would be happy having their kids called 'geeky' or 'nerdy' instead of autistic if it means that they can get insurance coverage.  
 
In addition, I'm worried about just how much better the "better diagnosing" might actually get.  Recently in Britain, Cambridge University released a study that showed that their autism rate was at a jaw-dropping one in every 60 children, one in every 38 boys.  It's realistic to think that kids on both sides of the Atlantic are pretty similar, therefore I'm afraid that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. autism rate is updated to one in 60 too. 
 
We should act now in order to prevent this from happening.  An autism rate of one in 60 in the U.S. would only mean that even more kids are excluded from therapy.  So stop calling them autistic.  The crisis will be over.  Parents won't see their finances drained paying for help because insurance companies would stop discriminating.   
 
In truth, quibbling over the label or pretending that autism is some endemic condition that's always been around is like arguing over where we want to sit in the life boat.  We are in the midst of a catastrophe.  No one can reasonably explain why so many kids can't behave, communicate, or learn.  The list of diagnoses given to children for learning/behavior problems is endless.  
 
News articles everywhere on the Internet paint a much darker picture than what Wiznitzer described.
 
April 4 AR: Arkansas Democrat Gazette Autism-treatment bill falters in House panel HERE
"Parents of autistic children can't afford to spend $50,000 a year for the treatment."
"A bill to require insurance coverage of autism treatment failed Friday in the state House Insurance and Commerce Committee after opponents said it would wreck some insurance plans." 
  
April 5, ME: Foster's Daily Democrat Maine bill would require insurers to cover autism
HERE. " 'All too often, parents of children with developmental disabilities find it difficult and impossible to afford the expensive tests needed to properly diagnose this disability and after the diagnosis, to provide the treatment necessary to help the child,' he said. 'Given the tendency of insurance companies to avoid covering expensive diagnosis and treatments, I believe that this mandate is necessary.' " 
 
April 6, NY: Albany Herald Autism center to host walk HERE "The school systems are overloaded; it is becoming more and more prevalent, and there are not enough doctors to meet the need," she said. "Behavioral therapy is not covered (by insurance), so it is very expensive-and it's all private pay." 
 
April 8, MI: The Detroit News State lawmakers push for autism treatment coverage
HERE "Currently, most health insurance companies cover only screening for the disorder, leaving families with autistic children to bear the high costs of treatment on their own. Treating autism can cost a single family $50,000 or more annually."
 
April 13, VA: Roanoke Times Bouncing for autism HERE "The cost of therapy sessions -- between $200 and $300 per hour -- is prohibitive."
 
At the end of Larry King there was an exchange between JB Handley and Max Wiznitzer that showed the truth about what autism is doing to our children.
 
Handley: "It's going to be shocking for parents to learn that the CDC and the AAP don't actually acknowledge that there's been a real rise in autism cases.  The Department of Education in 1992, 16,000 kids were getting autism services--today, 225,000.  That means that in 1992, they were missing 93 percent of kids with autism.  Where are the adults with autism?  They don't exist.  These numbers are real, but if you don't acknowledge there's been a real rise, you don't have to go find the environmental agent that caused it."
 
Wiznitzer: "...In 1992, we weren't counting as much as we're counting now. ...Families recognize the value of having a diagnosis for their children to get services and there's lots of services and there's lots of money that follows it.  As these individuals get older, frequently they become less symptomatic and you may no longer see the features of full-blown autism and they may get another label.  And that raises the issue of what do we do with them when they get older.  How do we make sure they have quality lives...quality work...quality living resources."
 
Nothing in the stories above describes a situation where an autism diagnosis leads to "lots of services" and  "lots of money that follows it" as Wiznitzer described.  And nothing in Wiznitzer's response to the statistics given by Handley had a basis in reality.  What evidence has the CDC or AAP ever come up with to prove their insane claim that we've always had so many disabled children around?  The CDC gets billions of dollars to run health care in the U.S. and they can't even give us the current autism rate.  They can't show us the adults with autism that people like Wiznitzer claim are out there somewhere.   Based on what research does Wiznitzer say that autistic adults may lose the symptoms of autism?  The CDC has never shown us a significant adult population with autism, much less one where individuals have become less symptomatic.
 
Since Wiznitzer doesn't think there's been an epidemic increase in autism, I have to wonder why he's concerned about making sure "they have quality lives" as adults.  According to Wiznitzer autism is nothing new.  If that's true there should be lots of provisions already in place to care for them as adults. 
 
It is becoming abundantly clear that autism looms over us like an approaching tsunami.  On April 4, the Washington Post laid it all out with stunning numbers.