Donald Trump has spoken a shock about a medical trend that surprised doctors for decades: why are autism rates rising so quickly in the US?
In a late nocturnal truth social post on Tuesday, the president wrote: '20 years ago, autism was 1 in 1,000 in children. Now it's 1 in 34. Wow!
“There is really something wrong. We need Bobby !!! 'The post referred to Robert F Kennedy JR, who is about to be confirmed as head of the Ministry of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The numbers of Trump were somewhat out – one in 150 children under the age of 18, not one in 1,000, had autism in the early 2000s.
And the latest data suggest that one in 36, instead of one in 34, had it in 2022, although it is unclear whether the president is aware of newer figures.
Yet experts have expressed similar concern about the rapidly rising autism, which they say are not only due to better diagnostics and consciousness.
Dr. Cooper Stone, a psychiatrist in Philadelphia, previously told DailyMail.com: 'There is a strong conviction that environmental factors can be partly involved in the development of this condition.
“Although there are no direct environmental causes linked to ASD, there are many associated risk factors that seem to have a relationship.”
Donald Trump, depicted here, posted on Truth Social 'Something's Really Mass' about rising autism rates in the US.
Trump's post also criticized that RFK JR has previously approved invalidated theories that cause vaccines to cause autism.
But a growing number of recent research suggests that other external factors cannot be rejected as conspiracies.
Some studies have shown that the growing pollution and chemical contamination in food and water allows toxins to infiltrate the bloodstream of pregnant mothers and travel to the brains of the developing fetus, causing inflammation that cause nerve signals that lead to autism.
Some experts have also speculated that an increase in the use of pesticides can also be responsible for lower IQs and delays in children.
Moreover, more babies are born prematurely than in recent decades, making them more vulnerable to developmental arrears and autism.
This can be related to the fact that women have children older than ever, or other changes that have to do with parents, such as the rising prevalence of obesity.
However, the increased prevalence of autism may not be a unique American phenomenon.
In the UK, a record of 200,000 British in 2024 was reporting to be screened for autism, a ninefold increase compared to 2019.
According to the latest CDC data, one in 36 children in the US has autism. This is slightly less than 2 million.
In general, most with the condition are diagnosed in five years, although some can be tested as young as age two.
Research published last year in Jama Network Open between 2011 and 2022, the diagnoses of autism increased by 175 percent, from two per 1,000 people to six per 1,000.
Children between the ages of five and eight are the most likely group that is diagnosed, with a percentage of 30 out of 1,000.
However, the biggest increase was in young adults aged 26 to 34, with a jump of 450 percent, suggesting that they were delayed to get a diagnosis.
This suggests that doctors have indeed become better in detecting the condition instead of being more cases.
Another recent change that took place was a tweak for the diagnostic definitions of the American Psychiatric Association ten years ago.
The updated diagnostic and statistical manual for mental disorders (DSM-5) is used to diagnose mental conditions such as anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder.
But in 2013, the changes of autism, Asperger syndrome and an in -depth developmental disorder collapsed in one category, autism spectrum disorder.
This may have led more children to be considered autistic.
Dr. Courtney Scott, medical director of Momentous Recovery Group, previously told DailyMail.com: 'The introduction of new diagnostic criteria by the DSM-5 has resulted in the considerably broader Scala of presentations and behaviors that clinici associate with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
'This strategy is beneficial because it also includes milder or less typical symptoms of ASD, so that more people with this condition that would probably be missed earlier are able to get extensive support resources.
“Such an increase in the number of diagnoses can also be explained to a certain extent by this extensive point of view.”
But a series of recent studies have also suggested that environmental factors such as pollution could be in the game.
An assessment from 2023 found people with a genetic predisposition for autism, such as a parent who had the condition who were exposed to pollution, because children were more likely to develop autism than those who were not exposed to it.
Elder research by Harvard also showed that exposure to air pollution such as particles in early childhood can increase the risk of autism by no less than 64 percent.
In the womb, exposure can increase the risk of ASD by 31 percent.
The experts suggested that particles in the early childhood have been inhaled or can travel through the bloodstream in the womb and can bypass protective layers in the brain, causing inflammation that impedes nerve development.
An Australian study that was published earlier this year also discovered that boys were exposed to endocrine-disturbed chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in the womb, six times more likely to be diagnosed with autism before the age of 11 than without exposure.
That team suggested BPA – which plastic and metal food packaging, an ever -growing polluting substance in the modern world – was associated with neurological and behavioral changes associated with autism.
The US has also seen an increase in the use of synthetic pesticides, some of which say they can also contribute.
The use of these chemicals has increased 50 -fold since 1950.
In 1952, for example, only one in 10 corn fields used pesticides to kill vermin. But in 1982, 95 percent of the corn fields used them.
Some studies indicate up to 80 percent of Americans who have detectable levels of pesticides in their blood.
The graph above shows the increase in autism -diagnoses from 2011 to 2022 per age group, according to research published in Jama Network last year
The graph above shows the gap in autism -diagnoses between men and women, suggesting that diagnoses in women catching up in men
Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an emergency suspension of the pesticide -Dimethyltetrachloroteraatate (DCPA or Dacthal) because of proof that suggests that babies exposed to the uterus can be born and with a reduced IQ and development.
Moreover, an assessment from 2021 showed that “the chance of an autism -diagnosis was 3.3 times higher in people who were premmerious than in the general population,” because premature babies are vulnerable to birth combinations and inflammation associated with autism.
This means that the increase in autism can be due to more premature babies surviving birth, because the survival rate has risen from 76 percent between 2008 and 2012 to 78 percent between 2013 and 2018, according to research by the National Institutes of Health ( Nih).
About one in 10 babies in the US are born according to the CDC premature, which means that they were born before 37 weeks of pregnancy.
Although none of the recent research has found a definitive cause for the peak in autism, Dr. Scott that it could recognize the situation earlier and could prevent this.
He said: 'Although no causes have been achieved so far, [study] Results help an enigma of ASD to unravel and in the long -term help in the formulation of better ways to prevent and treat the condition. '
