Health Crisis or Crisis of Opportunity?

I started writing this as a reply to Harold Doherty's blog on the impending health crisis brought on by the increased diagnosis of autism and the lack of urgency in both the US and Canada for the generation about to impact the coffers of both countries as they turn to adults. I decided to see if I could expand it into a cohesive coherent post (fat chance, but here it goes anyway!)

I fear that Ms Dachel is more concerned with trying to prove the mercury/autism link than trying to help those affected by autism. She's trying to 'save' those poor souls about to be impacted by a lifelong illness and if she could just garner enough support, a 'cure' could be found. In short, she favors finding causations over treatments. While her goal is admirable, you don't just 'find' world peace or a single cause or 'cure' for autism.

We do indeed need to find better ways to circumvent, to mitigate, to eliminate symptoms of autism. The inability to communicate, the self injurious behaviors, the sometimes violent outbursts, the inability to concentrate, the lack of life preserving fear are some of the things that need to be worked on to improve the condition for autistics and their caregivers. But isn't it more an educational and societal crisis with some medical undertones than it is an health epidemic of mythic proportions as Ms Dachel likes to portray?

I would also like to put forth that those autistics writing essays may be some of our best advocates. The ones that can show society that these people are not just mere throw away, institutional-bound burdens on society. If we can get past the communication issues; the self injurious and violent behaviors; the ticks and stims, we do have potential productive members of society. Even if these autistics are the exceptions rather than the rule, don't they serve as benchmarks to show what CAN be achieved?

Part of my problem with this whole impending 'crisis' attitude as if pertains to the aging out of these 1 in 150 is that we honestly don't KNOW how many more children are seriously impacted. Do we truly have a large upcoming adult population of autistics that will need services or do we just have a handle on classifying a group of people that were just there to begin with? Do we have a brand new entire group of non verbal autistics coming up that will overwhelm the system with tsunami-like power? Or do we have better classifications of those formerly labeled as mentally retarded who now have an opportunity to be better helped because of the new classifications?

I honestly don't know what the next 10 years will bring. I'm pretty sure it will be somewhere between the budget shattering catastrophe that is being predicted by Ms Dachel, and the Y2K dud of a firecracker being foretold by some on the autistic advocate side. We simply don't know what positive impacts early interventions will have; everyone can agree that widespread early intervention and early diagnosis for that matter have only been around for less than 10 years. Most of this new 'autistic generation' aren't even teenagers yet. We simply don't know the impact of having many kids 'reclassified' as autistic instead of generically mentally retarded will be. Will the better understanding yield better results? We simply don't know how many quirky kids were missed in the past who were really the Aspergers we classify them as today.

Granted, there are enough challenges facing us over the next 10 years with regards to autism to fill a stadium. We do need better strategies for therapies for each 'color' of the spectrum. What we don't need, however is someone telling everyone the sky is falling or is about to fall. We need people like yourself, Mr Doherty, to get up there and show Parliament what you know and what needs to be done for these groups. I have no doubt that you have, you do, and you will continue to advocate in the future. We have their ear (somewhat anyway). Let's not shout in it, let's talk it through with them and work to mitigate this autistic Y2K bug on the distant horizon.