We’ve gotten much better at integration since the start of the autism wave, but it comes with risks, too.

I used to work for an autism treatment program, but now I work on an addiction and detox unit. Recently, I was sent a video from a series posted by the Des Moines Register titled “The Lost Boys of Heroin.” The video featured an anguished mother telling the story of her son’s overdose, summed up by the caption: “Richard, was a bright young man who loved fixing computers and navigating the web.

He began using heroin to cope with the social stresses that came from having Asperger’s.”

Twenty years ago, the “autism epidemic” was making headlines and felt like a crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released graphs illustrating steep increases in autism spectrum diagnoses (ASD). Articles, documentaries, news specials, and websites devoted to the autism epidemic dominated the cultural landscape. Celebrities, politicians, doctors, and writers publicly shared their or their children’s diagnoses. The increase in ASD had our attention, and we argued over vaccines, diagnostic criteria, and gluten-free diets. Meanwhile, prescription opioids and cheap potent heroin infiltrated our small cities, rural towns, and upscale suburbs. It is not a surprise that the autism and opioid epidemics intersect. If the rise in autism diagnoses was thought to be a crisis 20 years ago, we may be about to experience the second wave of that crisis.

Read the full article here