New study blaming rising autism on diagnostic changes ignores environmental toxins

• Autism rates have risen to one in 31 children born in 2014, nearly five times higher than when CDC tracking began in 1992.
• A new study in JAMA Psychiatry blames broader diagnostic criteria for the surge, but Children’s Health Defense scientists argue environmental toxins are the true cause.
• Brian Hooker points to skyrocketing toxic loads from vaccines, acetaminophen use, and GMOs as overwhelming children’s genetic defenses.
• CDC data shows nearly two-thirds of autistic children now have severe intellectual disability, contradicting the over-diagnosis theory.
• Mainstream media used the study to attack vaccine skeptics, ignoring CDC’s own retreat from claiming vaccines do not cause autism.

The autism epidemic is now running rampant across America, with the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing that one in every 31 children born in 2014 now carries an autism diagnosis. This is nearly five times the rate recorded when the CDC first began tracking prevalence in 1992. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called the crisis “a thousand times more threatening to our country than COVID-19.”

But a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry is attempting to explain away this staggering rise by suggesting that broader diagnostic criteria, not environmental factors, are driving the numbers. Children’s Health Defense scientists are pushing back, arguing that the study’s authors failed to consider the elephant in the room: an avalanche of environmental toxins overwhelming the nation’s children.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD’s chief scientific officer, told The Defender that changes in diagnostic criteria may be a factor but “there is no way that it explains the steep increase in autism and ADHD rates since the 1990s.” Hooker pointed directly at the skyrocketing toxic load children face today. “What we’re seeing instead is a lowering of the genetic threshold required to reach a toxic tipping point as the toxic load between 1994 and 2016 skyrocketed with the expanding vaccination schedule, acetaminophen use, the GMO revolution, etc.”

The genetic threshold argument

The JAMA study analyzed genetic data from more than 37,000 individuals in Denmark diagnosed with autism or ADHD over two decades. Researchers found that genetic risks for both conditions decreased over time while diagnoses increased, leading them to conclude that broadening diagnostic criteria were responsible for the surge. They examined three hypotheses — wider criteria, lumping of other disorders into autism and ADHD diagnoses, and better detection — but never once considered environmental toxins.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., CHD senior research scientist, questioned why the authors would limit their analysis so narrowly. “Why did none of the hypotheses take into account the explosion of toxic exposures like pesticides, vaccines and wireless radiation since the 1990s?” He argued that the authors “never considered that genetic susceptibility to toxic exposures — as in, a person’s genetic risk for autism — could be getting washed out by the avalanche of toxic exposures. Instead, the authors jump to the ‘over-diagnosis’ conclusion when evidence for the genetic risk of autism diminishes.”

Acetaminophen and the mounting evidence

A review published in BMC Environmental Health in August 2024, analyzing 46 prior studies involving more than 100,000 participants, found “strong evidence” that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, could increase the risk of autism and ADHD. The researchers noted a troubling correlation: as acetaminophen became the recommended pain reliever for pregnant mothers, autism and ADHD rates rose more than 20-fold, although they cautioned the relationship is associational and more research is needed. A separate study from UT Health San Antonio found that parents with high chemical intolerance scores were 5.7 times as likely to have a child with autism and 2.1 times as likely to have a child with ADHD.

The severity crisis

Perhaps the most powerful rebuttal to the over-diagnosis theory comes from the CDC’s own data. The share of autism cases involving children with higher IQs has fallen steadily, dropping to just 36.1% in the latest survey. Nearly two-thirds of children with autism now have severe or borderline intellectual disability. If broader diagnostic criteria were the main driver, one would expect more mildly affected children in the data, not fewer. Minority children are being hit hardest, with Black, Asian and Hispanic children showing both higher prevalence and more severe outcomes than white children.

The media pivot

Despite the mounting evidence, mainstream outlets used the JAMA study to attack vaccine skeptics. Medical Xpress claimed it “challenges existing narratives that blame a single environmental factor or vaccines.” NewScientist said it contradicted “unfounded claims about childhood vaccinations and prenatal exposure to paracetamol.” That framing is difficult to square with the CDC’s own November 2025 revision of its autism webpage, which acknowledged there is no evidence supporting the blanket claim that vaccines do not cause autism — a notable retreat that much of the press corps ignored. Parents and researchers who spent years raising these concerns deserved better.

Sources for this article include:

ChildrensHealthDefense.org

USNews.com

News.UTHSCSA.edu

HHS.gov