Autism holocaust denial

For me, the denial that there is an autism epidemic is the medical equivalent of denial of the holocaust.  In the spirit of protecting the vaccine industry from any linkage to autism, the pro-vax side not only denies that vaccines may be linked to autism but denies that there even is an autism epidemic.  What a wonderful country.  If there is no autism epidemic then vaccines don't cause autism.  Case closed. March on with impugnity. 

But the denial is even more important than that.  The pro-vax side has no explanation for an autism epidemic.  They have no way to explain the countless number of children who have changed with the sickness brought on by the childhood vaccines from normal and healthy to autistic other than to say that it is a coincidence.  They have no way to explain why the autism rate which was so low when I grew up in the 60's to 1/160 now.  So, it has always been that way.  Problem solved. 

I have always kept this tidbit in the same place as the denial of the actual autism rate which the CDC did up until February 2007 when they finally admitted that the autism rate is not 1/2500.  My son was in elementary school from 1992 to 1998.  At the time in a school of 250 children there were 3 autistic children.  The odds agains that happening with the autism rate being 1/2500 are absurd.  If it were a statistical test, it would be well beyond significant.  (And I should blindly believe what the medical community tells me about vaccines and autism?) 

The denial has always fallen into that category.  I was thirty years old when I witnessed my first example of autism on sixty minutes.  Now if I want to find an autistic person besides my son, I simply look down the street.  Just as with the CDC's autism rate, simple observation belies the autism epidemic denier's claim.  Still, there are those who try to convince me that the autism rate has never changed.  They have always been there.  We have always had children change as toddlers from normal progress to autism. 

Now the University of California has come out with a study that shows that the autism epidemic is not a matter of diagnostics.  It is real.  http://journals.lww.com/epidem/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2009&issue=01000&article=00016&type=abstract  But the autism epidemic deniers will attack it because it is so important that there is no link between autism and vaccines. 

This is what happens when you start with the conclusion and look only for the evidence to support it.