The Boston Globe and Mail article by Carey Goldberg, July 5 07 should get people wondering about several huge issues. First of all, why are we always talking about children with autism?

The CDC statistics of one in every 150 nationally refers to studies of 8 year olds, not 80 year olds. If autism hasn't increased, as officials never tire of telling us, then are the older adults with autism? Why isn't there even one study that has been able to find one in 150 in 30-, 50-, and 70 year-olds with autism who were misdiagnosed in the past before all the "better diagnosing" we presently enjoy?
Thousands and thousands of parents of autistic children desperate about their future would like to know. Where are the older adults with autism living, and what are they doing? No one seems willing to look for them.

WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE?

One big question looms out there: How will we pay for all these children disabled with autism? Carey Goldberg talked a little about the financial aspects and noted that the costs are ever increasing. "The legislature is recognizing the need: Starting in fiscal year 2006, it gave the state Division on autism its own line item in the budget, and in the pending budget, allocates $3.2 million to the division, up from $3 million in the last fiscal year".

Actually, this is nothing compared to the future cost of autism. Research by Michael Ganz at Harvard makes the chilling prediction of the future cost to our society, as more and more autistic kids become autistic adults. Ganz reported, "It can cost $3.2 million to take care of can autistic person over his or her lifetime. Caring for all people with autism over their lifetimes costs an estimated $35 billion per year".

The Ganz findings are felt by others to be a gross underestimate of the eventual autism price tag. Research from Lifespire, and organization dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities, puts the eventual estimated lifetime cost for one autistic individual at $10.125 million. This is based on an annual cost of $225,000 per person with a life expectancy of 66 years.

With numbers like these circulating, clearly the problems with meeting the needs of children with autism will be dwarfed by the enormous burden of providing support and care for an overwhelming number of autistic adults in the next five to ten years, as more and more of them age out of childhood.

Newpapers have occasionally covered the exploding numbers. Several months ago, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported "Fourteen years ago, Wisconsin school districts identified 200 children with autism. Today, there are at least 200 students in the Green Bay School District alone. In December 2005 (the most recent numbers available), DPI identified 5,085 students in the state with an autism spectrum disorder".

The full version of this article first appeared in CounterPunch here: http://counterpunch.org/dachelt07072007.html.
Anne McElroy Dachel, , is a board member of A-CHAMP and a member of the National autism Association (NAA)
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org and Generation Rescue, http://www.generationrescue.org