A Quick Analysis Demonstrating that a ~1 in 30 Autism Rate is Not Natural

Both neurodiversity activists and those who consider autism to be negative but also promote vaccination consider a 1 in 30 autism rate to be normal for humanity. 1 in 30 is the approximate current rate of autism among children in the United States. As these groups believe that autism is genetic, it must follow that they consider this rate to be relatively consistent across recorded history, because the human genome has not radically changed over this period. As such, it follows that, even given the limitations of recorded history in terms of preservation of evidence, there must be significant evidence of autism in past societies.

In this post, I am simply employing informed common sense to the idea that, for example, the Roman empire or Victorian London had a 1 in 30 autism rate.

It is surprising, when you look at their posts and accounts, how little plausible evidence they are able to dredge up of autism examples prior to the twentieth century. I don’t rule out a few cases of autism existing before vaccines because it is possible that substances such as aluminium, mercury, etc could have got into someone’s brain in another way. Usually, neurodiversity activists point to say, Isaac Newton, or some other example of a figure considered to be positive in history as an example (funnily enough, I have never seen them point to someone who is considered to have had a negative impact on society).

But to prove autism is normal, a few scattered examples are not enough. They have to prove 1 in 30, or they at least have to prove close enough that 1 in 30 is a plausible extrapolation. At this, they have failed miserably. In fact, I haven’t even seen an example where they make the attempt.

Another significant problem for the account that autism is natural is the unemployment rate and financial burdens of autism and its relation to human societies. We can use an employment rate as a reasonable proxy for the ability to function in a society. In the United Kingdom, the unemployment rate for autism is 78%. If we do a little simplification on the maths, we can use two-thirds unemployment as a rate generous to autism. Then, if we simplify our 1 in 30 rate to 1 in 33 or 3/100 to give us a rough approximation, it follows that if 3/100 people in the population are autistic and 2/3 of those cannot work due to autism, then 2/100 of the population is unemployed due to autism.

Think about this for a moment. Really think about it. Does it seem plausible that societies with fewer modern economic resources could sustain such a population? No.

We can start by going back within the past 50-125 years with modern welfare state systems. Are we supposed to believe that governments never noticed the huge amount of benefits being spent on autistic children and adults? Especially more conservative governments, who are always talking about the need to cut benefits? While estimates of the economic burden of autism are necessarily rough and somewhat problematic, it has been stated that to provide for an autistic without intellectual disability costs around a million pounds when taking into account all economic costs.

Going back further, in the Victorian era, there were systems such as Poor Law relief and as a last resort workhouses. Are we supposed to believe that no one noticed severely autistic children as a cause of this burden on families?

If we want to go back further, do we really believe that hunter-gatherer societies could have dealt with such an autism rate? Even high functioning autistic people would have been a heavy burden because of the necessity for communication and social cohesion in these societies.

As such, autism promoters need to provide some hard proof that this autism rate is normal and natural before I am even willing to consider that vaccines are not the primary cause.