People often like to know that they have a disease, it helps define them, they get to wear a ribbon, a wrist band, get to go to support groups, but often it is not the disease but other psychological factors driving the sense of having a disease.
Now autism also falls in this area. Dr Frances in Project Syndicate has an interesting and telling piece. He states:
Not long ago, autism was among the rarest of disorders, afflicting only one child in every 2,000-5,000. This changed dramatically with the publication in 1994 of DSM IV (the manual of psychiatric diagnosis widely used around the world). Soon, rates exploded to about 1 per 100. And a large study in South Korea recently reported a further jump to 1 in 38 – an astounding 3% of the general population was labeled autistic. What is causing this epidemic and where are we headed?
As he continues all of this growth is due to a change in definition. The DSM IV and soon the DSM 5 allows diagnosticians the broadest latitude to diagnosis these psychological disorders. Unlike say a melanoma, which at times may have some difficulty, there are no well defined boundaries in autism. Parents often like to have a diagnosis for a poorly behaved child, for it surely is not their fault that the little brat just will not conform to society. So out comes autism.
Imagine that 1 in 38 children have the disease, then if so we will have an explosion of exorbitant special education classes and the like. Perhaps the parent just has not done their job, for the left the child in the care of some third party, they continually hand the child off but at the same time tell the child that they are "special" and soon the little one really blieves and acts out the tale they are told.
With DSM 5 it is likely that we will get back to the massive amount of psychological disorders we once saw in the 1950s. Won't that drive up health care costs.
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