Marin County Reports Decline in Autism Rates

Marin County, California, became the first U.S. county to experience a decline in childhood autism rates. This shift began around 2000 when wealthy white and Asian parents in the county started to question the safety and number of vaccines recommended by the CDC. Instead of following the CDC's vaccine schedule, they chose to limit vaccinations, which researchers believe contributed to the decline in autism rates—a phenomenon never before observed in the U.S. Cynthia Nevison and William Parker, who studied autism prevalence in California, found that while autism rates increased statewide, they plateaued or declined in wealthy counties like Marin where vaccination rates were lower. The article criticizes the CDC for not investigating this potential link between reduced vaccination and declining autism rates, suggesting that regulatory capture may be influencing their decisions.

Nevison outlined her findings in a 2020 peer-reviewed study conducted with William Parker and published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

  • “County-level ASD prevalence was estimated using an age-resolved snapshot from the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) for birth years 1993-2013.

  • “ASD prevalence increased among all children across birth years 1993-2000 but plateaued or declined thereafter among whites from wealthy counties.”

  • “In contrast, ASD rates increased continuously across 1993-2013 among whites from lower income counties and Hispanics from all counties.

  • “These disparate trends within the dataset suggest that wealthy white parents, starting around 2000, may have begun opting out of DDS in favor of private care and/or making changes that effectively lowered their children’s risk of ASD.”

The data collected in Sonoma/Marin and counties with the lowest vaccination rates in the state are the sole exception to the skyrocketing autism rate in California.

The answer is simple: stop vaccinating the kids. That's why at Heal Earth we are calling for a moratorium on childhood vaccines:

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