Hoping for the best. Photo: CC/Jordan
One percent of Air Force/Army/Navy/Marine brats have autism. That’s double the rate for the general population.
So I’m not surprised to read the US Defense Department’s announcement of a $2.2 grant to help the military better treat its personnel, and their families, who’ve been affected by the disease.
It may be that military moms and dads are exposed to more heavy metals in their jobs, as well as chemical and biological weapons. That, and experimental vaccines.
As a military spouse who has been contributing to Age of Autism since it was Rescue Post, I am especially thrilled. We’ve seen growth here at Age of Autism, but we’ve also seen growth of the autism epidemic both in the military and civilian community. We’ve also seen a rise in the challenges, or problems, that come along with this heartbreaking rise. In the military community the most recent FOIA shows that as of 2007, one in every eighty-eight military dependent child of an active duty member has autism. This figure most likely doesn’t include my own boys because of how and when the stats for the FOIA were tracked. Currently we’re waiting on new statistics.