Financial and opportunity cost ("lost lives")
Children with ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) require long-term intervention and support services. Special education costs for a child with ASD are over $8,000 per year, with some specially structured programs costing about $30,000 per year, and care in a residential school costs $80,000 - $100,000 per year.
Autism unravelled conference--'the biology of autism--unravelled'
Aside from the social and emotional issues for both the person with autism and their family, it has been estimated that the cost to the UK for lifetime care of one person with autism is approximately pounds sterling 3 million.
How To Quell the Rising Rate of Autism
Don
Harkins, a reporter for the Idaho Observer, says the epidemic of autism
represents a national emergency. He
asks: "What sociological
perils await a nation where two percent of its people are destined to be
terminally institutionalized for being unable to see outside of
themselves?" [Idaho Observer,
June 2000]
About
3.9 million children are born in the USA annually. At the rate of 1 in 250 children, some 15,600 children born
each year, 156,000 in a decade, would exhibit autistic behavior.
This estimation may be very low.
There
is a disparity in figures used to number the autistic population in the US.
According to the Center for Mental Health Services about 125,000
Americans are affected by these disorders, striking three times as many boys as
girls. According to a resolution
before the US Congress, autism has robbed at least 400,000 Americans of their
ability to communicate and interact with others.
The government resolution said autism disorders now affects 1 in every
500 children in America, not the 1 in 250 figure cited above.
Autistic symptoms usually appear within the first three years of life. The current estimated cost of autistic care is estimated at $13 billion per year. Life time care of an autistic person averages $2 million.
Autism 2001: The Silent Epidemic
The
vaccine authorities still assert that the reported increase is unrelated to the
use of the MMR vaccine but offer no other reasonable cause. The toll in human
suffering is immense, and the actual financial cost per child for a lifetime of
care and support services is a staggering 2 million plus British pounds.