From Michael Baron
I am provoked by the timely article on autism (13 August, p 36) to repeat what I wrote some years ago in a letter you published (7 April 2001, p 53). I said then that autism expands with the number of people making a living from this neurological condition – researchers, statisticians, doctors, teachers, journalists, TV and film-makers, novelists, poets, alternative-medicine charlatans, administrators, staff of charities and private-healthcare providers.
The widened parameters of diagnosis of the disease to engulf larger and larger numbers of people have enabled Simon Baron-Cohen to reveal recently, “At least 40 people with Asperger syndrome are studying at Cambridge University today.” When I was there, 55 years ago, I am fairly sure the number was about the same. They were just eccentric chaps, that’s all.
Loweswater, Cumbria, UK
