Autism Statistics

• 58% of Americans say that they know someone "who has been diagnosed with autism, formally known as 'autism spectrum disorder', including Asperger's".

• Among this majority of Americans who have been touched by the autism epidemic, 15% say the affected person is a member of their family, 26% a member of a family they know, 30% someone they know from work, and 12% someone they know from their community or school.

• 52%, as opposed to only 8% feeling otherwise, believe the people they know with autism are not receiving proper medical treatment covered by their health insurance.

• Even among the 34% of Americans saying they do not know anyone in their own lives touched by autism, there is a nearly 3 to 1 margin of belief (35% versus 12%) that people with autism are not receiving proper medical treatment, covered by their health insurance.

•      By a margin of 2 to 1 (41% to 20%), Americans believe that unknown environmental factors, rather than better diagnosis, explains the surge in autism prevalence reported by the CDC.

Autism policy and politics ‐

• 61% of Americans agree (while only 35% disagree) with the statement "finding preventions, cures and treatments for medical conditions such as autism is as important and necessary a use of tax dollars as anything else the federal government should do."

• By a margin of 49% to 36%, Americans disagree with the statement "we just can't afford more money on anything right now, including things that sound good, like medical research on autism."

• By a margin of 55% to 33%, Americans support a doubling of federal resources to "find the causes of and treatments for autism."

• 78% of Americans agree that there should be a health research institution in the federal government dedicated to autism research, just as there is an Office of AIDS Research, a National Cancer Institute and other similar organizations.

• 65% of Americans believe "big company health plans should be required to end discrimination against people with autism."