Judy Skatssoon, National Medical Writer
11/07/2002

Advertisement: Explore Within This Space

SYDNEY, Nov 7 AAP - There was insufficient evidence to say whether Australia was experiencing an increase in autism despite concern about a worldwide "epidemic of autism", a Sydney researcher said today. Dr Katrina Williams of the Children's Hospital at Westmead and Sydney University said, based on NSW figures, at least 3.5 children in every 10,000 were newly diagnosed with autism in the year 2000. This compared to a 4-in-10,000 incidence rate for all children known to have autism in the 1960s and 70s, she said. Dr Williams will be a speaker at the World Autism Congress that opens in Melbourne on Sunday. She said at least 222 NSW children up to the age of 15 were newly reported as having classical autism in 2000. "We had 150 children aged 0-5, and that gives us an incidence of 3.5 per 10,000 newly recognised children with autistic disorder in the year 2000," she said. "That's very similar to the earliest reported prevalence figures for autistic disorder." However, she said there was still insufficient evidence to reach any conclusions about whether more Australian children were being diagnosed with autism. Meanwhile Dutch research published in the New England Journal of Medicine has further weakened the controversial link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination. The Danish team looked children born from 1991 and 1998 and concluded it was coincidental that the symptoms of autism appeared around the time children were vaccinated. Dr Williams said a large study of the roles played by genetic and environmental factors in the development of autism was needed. "The study should look at risk factors for autism so we can try and put environmental factors like MMR and diet into the context of genetic predisposition and other factors like adverse perinatal exposure," she said. West Australian researcher Emma Glasson said research she conducted for the University of WA into autistic siblings added weight to evidence that autism was related to genetic factors. Ms Glasson found children diagnosed with autism were more likely to have experienced a difficult birth and caesarean section delivery than those without autism. She also found siblings of autistic children were more likely to experience difficult births than brothers and sisters of non-autistic children. "It shows that kids who get autism are different before birth so whatever's causing autism is more likely to be before they're born, and what you think of as
genetics," she said. "The fact that my siblings had increased complications is good support for that." A recent Californian study of 648 children found the incidence of autism had nearly tripled between 1987 and 1998. AAP jjs/ph/sb

Copyright 2002.  All Rights Reserved.

Financial Times Information Limited - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire