The – ahem – Rapture, and an update

Well, since the Rapture didn’t happen, I have to go to work tomorrow. Oh well.
As I said, my computer decided to go on the Fritz after getting a download it didn’t like. I had wanted to blog about certain thing in that week, so I’m going to do that now.
Firstly, a study carried out in South Korea found that the prevalence of Autism may be as much as 1 person in 38, or 2.64%.
The study looked at 55 000 children in the South Korean city of Goyang. It found that a lot of children were not diagnosed, but were on the spectrum. The news report mentioned that the school curriculum in South Korea is highly structured and can last for 12 hours. This would be beneficial for autistic students. The study didn’t give suggestions as to why it returned a rate more than double the current estimate.
Once again, the antivaccinationists continue to flagellate a deceased equine. A group of them, including Mary Holland of anti-Microsoft protest “fame”, released a “study” claiming that children compensated from the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program had a higher than normal rate of autism. The study has been pretty much dismantled by Orac and Prometheus. Short version – the authors started with a hypothesis and twisted the “data” to support the hypothesis.
Finally, some very sad news.
A baby by the name of Kailis Smith caught Whooping Cough at five weeks old. I had hoped that his story would have a happier outcome than that of Dana McCaffery, but it wasn’t to be. Kailis Smith died on the 22nd April at 69 days old.