The Autism Diagnosis Boom
: A Story of Discovery, Not Disaster
“Something is going on,” declared Donald Trump recently. “There’s been an explosion in autism.” And in a recent podcast appearance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doubled down on a long-debunked conspiracy, stating, “We have the sickest generation in history. We know it’s not genetic... It’s environmental.”*
Whatever you think of those statements - and whatever your instinctive reaction - one thing is undeniably true: something curious is happening. The last two decades have seen a dramatic rise in autism diagnoses, both in the UK and around the world.
This has led to a flurry of speculation, pseudo-science, well-meaning concern, and in some quarters, outright panic. But let’s pause. Rather than diving into suspicion, let’s ask a more grounded question: how should we think about this rise?
Counting What Was Always There
Before you can count something, you must define it. In the case of autism, the criteria are specific and wide-ranging. To receive a diagnosis, a person must display traits from two key groups:
Persistent difficulties in social interaction and social communication.
Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities — including unusual responses to sensory input, like sound, smell or light.
And there’s one more crucial layer: autism is a spectrum. It’s not a single condition, but rather a pattern of traits that manifest differently in different individuals. Think of it not as a switch, but as a graphic equaliser with multiple sliders — a thousand variations, not one monolith.
This matters deeply when it comes to diagnosis. If we only looked for “classic” autism — the kind defined narrowly in the 1980s or ’90s — we would miss vast swathes of people. And for decades, we did.
800% and Counting
The numbers tell the story. In the UK and across Europe, studies have shown an 800% increase in diagnoses over the past two decades. In the US, autism diagnoses have risen from 1 in 150 children at the turn of the millennium to 1 in 36 today.
Cue alarm bells for some. But behind the noise lies a much quieter truth: we didn’t create these numbers - we finally started seeing them.
It’s now widely accepted that between 1% and 3% of the population is autistic. Given that girls and women, ethnic minorities, and older people have historically been under-recognised, it’s reasonable to assume the higher end of that range is closer to reality.
That means, in the UK alone, there could be up to 1.2 million people who are autistic but undiagnosed.
The Ghosts in the System
Here’s a story. In several cases, older adults in the UK were referred to dementia care due to communication difficulties or social withdrawal, only to be re-evaluated and identified as autistic. They hadn’t become autistic. They always had been. They had spent a lifetime mislabelled, misunderstood or missed entirely.
This sparked a larger review of GP data, which found diagnosis rates in teenagers were 150 times higher than in those over 70. That’s not because older people are magically less autistic - it’s because they grew up in a time when autism wasn’t on the radar.
If today’s prevalence rates are accurate—and all the research suggests they are—then the only logical conclusion is this: we have missed hundreds of thousands of people.
The Real Story Behind the Boom
Some will say, “But aren’t we overdiagnosing now?” It’s a fair question. But every credible piece of data suggests the opposite. The rise in autism diagnoses correlates with:
Better public awareness.
Broader, more inclusive diagnostic criteria.
Greater understanding of how autism presents differently in girls, women and minorities.
And crucially, the long-overdue recognition of adult and late-diagnosed individuals.
So let’s be absolutely clear: there is no sinister cause behind the rise. No MMR vaccine. No 5G. No pesticides. No plot. As autism researcher Dr. Ginny Russell puts it, “The increase is almost entirely due to diagnostic change and greater awareness, not an epidemic of new cases.”
In short, the so-called “explosion” isn’t a public health crisis. It’s a recognition of people who were always here.
Your Cut-Out-and-Keep Guide to Autism Numbers
If someone tells you “autism rates are skyrocketing — it must be the vaccines,” here’s your ready-made rebuttal:
Yes, there’s been an 800% increase in autism diagnoses since the early 2000s.
However, this is primarily among younger people as awareness and access to these resources improve.
There is massive underdiagnosis in older generations, which more than accounts for the surge.
And no, there is no credible evidence that anything environmental, including vaccines, has caused this rise.
What We Should Be Worried About
The real tragedy isn’t that we’re “making more autistic people.” It’s that for generations, we ignored them. We failed to see, understand, or support them. And we still are.
What’s needed now isn’t blame or fear. It’s support systems, timely diagnoses, inclusive education, and genuine acceptance — not just awareness.
Autism isn’t an outbreak. It’s a long-overdue unveiling. And hooray for that.
And one final thought: Nuerodivergence is seen as a minority, certainly in the way most things are designed. But what if we start to consider the entire range of thinking types? Could we have a world where more people identify as neurodivergent than neurotypical? And what does that mean for our schools, our services, our society?
This is next week’s topic.
Peace, love, happiness
Michael
*Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his controversial remarks about autism during an interview on The Megyn Kelly Show, specifically in the episode titled "Incoming HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Deep Dive, Part 1," which aired on November 27, 2024. In this nearly two-hour conversation, Kennedy discussed various topics, including his views on vaccines and autism. He reiterated his belief that environmental toxins, rather than genetics, are responsible for the rise in autism diagnoses. Kennedy has consistently promoted this theory, despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting such claims