April 15 (UPI) — Diagnosed cases of autism in the United States are seeing an uptick, according to new data by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A new CDC report released Tuesday highlights that an estimated one in 31 cases of autism spectrum disorder in 8-year-old children were diagnosed in 2022 versus one in 36 in 2020.
CDC data shows that only one in 150 children in 2000 were diagnosed with autism.
The ASD spectrum means symptoms will vary by person, with some individuals requiring more support than others while others may also be nonverbal.
The CDC’s report says ASD was at least 3.4 times more prevalent in boys at around 49 kids per 1,000 vs. 14.3 per 1,000.
However, less than 40% of children with ASD were classified with an intellectual handicap.
But the report, which did have limits with data via 16 universities or other U.S. institutions in only 14 states and Puerto Rico, further highlighted racial and ethnic disparities with a lower prevalence in white children when compared to other racial minority groups.
A 2023 study suggested how the chance is good that if one child in a family has autism, another is more likely to also develop the disorder.
ASD rates for Black children, according to the CDC’s new report, stood at 36% next to a 27% rate per 1,000 for white children, 38% for Asian and Pacific Islanders, and 37.5% for native American and Alaskan native kids.
At age 8, about 1 in 36 children were identified with autism spectrum disorder, according to data released in 2023 from 11 communities in the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network.
A study published last year in October in the journal JAMA Network Open showed that over 12 million patients enrolled in major U.S. healthcare systems found that between 2011 and 2022 the number of people diagnosed with autism climbed by 175%, with autism on the rise on children.
Last week, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in the midst of his so-called “Make American Healthy Again” campaign that he will “know what has caused the autism epidemic” by September and vowed to “eliminate those exposures.”
However, medical experts in the autism field point to a better awareness, enhanced access to screening and services, an overall better understanding of the wide scale of autism disorders, developments in AI detection and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Disruptions due to the pandemic in the timely evaluation of children and delays in connecting children to the services and support they need could have long-lasting effects,” Dr. Karen Remley, director of CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said in March 2023.
The authors of the CDC study, however, wrote how the improvement in early detection has “been apparent,” adding the “differences in the prevalence of children identified with (ASD) across communities might be due to differences in availability of services for early detection and evaluation and diagnostic practices.”
Overall, medical experts say it reflects a positive trend, but the Autism Society of America refuted Kennedy’s characterization of an “epidemic.”
It said that prevalence data should drive “equity and access,” stated the Autism Society’s CEO Christopher Banks.
“Not fear, misinformation or political rhetoric,” Banks continued.
