Lara
07-11-2007, 04:40 PM
I've not read more than the first paragraphs yet. It just appeared for me.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2060575.ece
From The Times
July 12, 2007
Autism: the truth
As the leaked and incomplete results of a study on autism again raise fears among parents, the scientist leading the research tells our correspondent that the new reports are alarmist and wrong
Anjana Ahuja
If you want to stoke parental anxiety, there are few better ways than announcing a dramatic rise in the incidence of autism. That is exactly what happened at the weekend with a story that the incidence of autism was far higher than previously thought – as many as one in 58 children – with the MMR vaccine back in the dock as a possible culprit.
The story was the result of the leak of an unpublished report put together by a team of British scientists including Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, head of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University and one of the most authoritative figures in the field.
A definitive number from the study, the professor hopes, will be published this year. It is possible that the one-in-58 figure comes from ARC’s use of the Childhood Asperger’s Syndrome Test (CAST), a questionnaire that parents can use to assess whether their child may have autism. The ARC team has used it on Cambridgeshire children in mainstream schools. However, it does not provide a diagnosis and is known to result in a high number of false positives. Around half the children flagged up by CAST as possibly having autism turn out not to.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2060575.ece
From The Times
July 12, 2007
Autism: the truth
As the leaked and incomplete results of a study on autism again raise fears among parents, the scientist leading the research tells our correspondent that the new reports are alarmist and wrong
Anjana Ahuja
If you want to stoke parental anxiety, there are few better ways than announcing a dramatic rise in the incidence of autism. That is exactly what happened at the weekend with a story that the incidence of autism was far higher than previously thought – as many as one in 58 children – with the MMR vaccine back in the dock as a possible culprit.
The story was the result of the leak of an unpublished report put together by a team of British scientists including Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, head of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University and one of the most authoritative figures in the field.
A definitive number from the study, the professor hopes, will be published this year. It is possible that the one-in-58 figure comes from ARC’s use of the Childhood Asperger’s Syndrome Test (CAST), a questionnaire that parents can use to assess whether their child may have autism. The ARC team has used it on Cambridgeshire children in mainstream schools. However, it does not provide a diagnosis and is known to result in a high number of false positives. Around half the children flagged up by CAST as possibly having autism turn out not to.