Should Obama stop this?
- Thread starter franklin
- Start date
If there were medicines for autism, perhaps. I'm not aware of any.
I'm not sure what a false positive is supposed to be, but in a disease which happens in degrees, which is basically a form of developmental delay and so tends to change over time, and which has symtoms that are subjective, I am sure false positives are inevitable.
Your article discusses 80% of th population qualifying, but the diagnosis rate is still under one percent. I'm not familiar with this site. Is this sort of hyperbole typical?
I agree generally that over- and under-diagnosis is could be a problem. On the other hand, not every diagnosis requires treatment; there are various levels of functionality.
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
Another aspect of this could be that they are narrowing the spectrum so they can regain school funds that go to help kids with autism function in a school classroom.
No doubt. Autism is big money.
TheSilencer1313
Well-Known Member
Read more on Newsmax.com: 5 Top Drugs for Autism
"false positive" is a test which returns a diagnosis of disease/pathology which is not true. You have nothing wrong with you, but you are told you do. A poorly-defined test or criteria is subject to many false positives and false negatives. A test which is termed "highly diagnostic" is one that very reliably discriminates between the pathological condition and whatever is normal health.
From Scat's link:
If 80 percent of people are something, for example, it isn't a psychological condition, and autism has been extrapolated so far that virtually anyone can be considered 'on the spectrum' or one of its derivatives if they want to be.
https://www.science20.com/science_20/redefining_autism_dsmv-86289
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Probably, if you'll read this again, you'll understand the statement. It doesn't say 80% qualify. It says anything that almost everybody has isn't a "disease", and then says that unless the diagnostic criteria aren't narrowed, almost anyone could qualify if they wanted to. In this case, the fact that only 1% has been labeled ASD could be used to make the argument that some restraint has been used in using the old criteria.
I've seen places where more than 80% of the adults were alcoholics, but I'd still call that a disease. Same if 100% had heart failure, cancer, or diabetes, or were grossly obese. I know that it's harder to get objective evidence in pyschological disorders, but I'd put liberalism/progressivism on my list if they were 99%. hahaha. But that's Michael Savage's theme, and I should give him credit for that wit. And for being pretty smart, if a neocon.
The newsmax article specifically said the drugs are used to treat symptons, not autism. The symtoms would be present with or without a diagnosis of autism; the drugs would be prescribed with or without a diagnosis of autism.
I understand the general concept of false positive, I'm not sure that the concept is easily applied to autism-spectrum disorders. I already commented on the disparity between the 80% in Scat's article and the less than 1% in real life.
Hey One Brow, you're kind of a dick
Some topics really get under my skin.
My understanding pretty much matched what you wrote, with a slight difference between the 80%-1% divide. I think the 80% fidgure comes in large part from using the diagnosis criteria poorly, mixed with hyperbole. If you use the criteria as it was meant be used, I don't think you would get anything close to 80%, probably not 2%.
Hey One Brow, you're kind of a dick
Unibrow has an autistic son. I'm sure he's taking this thread much too personally.
He's actually high functioning. He has a part-time job, washes dishes, babysits, etc. So, I don't have it nearly as bad as others do.
%
I know you might not be within reach of being informed here, but you're still not understanding the statement. The 80% illusratiton was purely conjectural, not meant to say anything about any specific pathology by the writer. And sure they were using some hyperbole in saying that the current criteria could be abused to an extent clearly beyong any appropriate kind of medical/psychiatric reason. The meaning was addressing the need for the new effort to produce some better criteria, and were clearly not meant to undermine the reality of the suffering or need for care for those who are needing it the most. It was an argument that we should not waste our resources on the marginal cases and focus on the central ones.
I suppose some onlookers at our discussion would find at least some of the criteria of autism evident in our squabble, being that neither of us seems to learn much from the effort, and obviously lack some common relationship skills.
So show them they aren't just right to be worried.
laugh sometimes.