What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism

The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist

"Across the world" rates of bowel cancer in young adults rising

The end of childhood
May 3
1 min read

April 30, 2025, The Economist: Rates of bowel cancer are rising among young people

Childhood exposure to a common gut bacterium could be responsible

AT EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS across the world, patients are presenting with undiagnosed cancers at an advanced stage. Their tumours have gone unnoticed for so long because these individuals defy the picture of the typical cancer patient: they are young, seemingly healthy, and without any family history of the disease.

Worryingly, their numbers are rising. Increased incidence of early-onset cancer, as the diagnosis is called for adults under 50, has been documented for more than a dozen cancers, including those of the breast, bowel, lung, ovaries and pancreas.