The fact that Sweden makes a serious investment in children and families is, from my perspective, a huge aspect of their success as a country. Those sky-high taxes that they pay effectively creates a near-monolithic miidle class. Very few people are poor, very few are rich. Yes, a homogeneous society but a "good society" as well.

I'd love to see more taxes paid in our country so that we could start dealing with issues like educational equity which have long-term consequences for all citizens. For example, there's a direct correlation between educational attainment and incarceration. Perhaps we should pay more to educate and care for children rather than jail them when they are older. Just a thought.

Another poster wrote something about both parents having to work in Sweden due to high taxes. Just so you know, parental leave is subsidized so people don't go broke staying home to care for their babies. Also, as in other Scandinavian countries, a large segment of children are born to unmarried women. The implications of single-parenthood are nothing like those in the States.

In Sweden, costs are paid through taxes. Everyone bears the costs of childcare, education through university, subsidized housing, medical care, etc.. It probably helps that Swedes don't have to pay $150 billion a year for a war in Iraq, which gives them the ability to spend taxes in things that help their citizens. I've always been amazed at the way many in the U.S. view the Scandinavian approach. One would think that we paid very little in taxes. Totally untrue.

When were you last there? Sweden is NOT full of white people. It's a diverse country thanks to liberal asylum laws. Sweden has many foreigners, African, Asian and Iraqi (more than we have in the US BTW). Stockholm reminded me of NY city only clean, safe and prosperous. Foreigners can adapt quite well. They go to the same schools and receive the same benefits as all other Swedes.

You're just wrong. Sweden has a very diverse population. First, stop equating Finland and Sweden. Sweden in particular has absorbed large populations of refugees such as Iraqis and other groups in the Middle east. Here are some facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#Demographics

"As of April 2007, the total population of Sweden was estimated to be 9,131,425.[66] The population exceeded 9,000,000 for the first time as of approximately 12 August 2004 according to the Statistics Sweden. Of the 2004 population, 1.1 million, or 12%, were foreign-born[67] and approximately 16.7% (1.53 million) had at least one parent born abroad or were themselves born abroad.[68] This reflects the inter-Nordic migrations, earlier periods of labour immigration, and later decades of refugee and family immigration.

Sweden has been transformed from a nation of emigration ending after World War I to a nation of immigration from World War II onwards. In 2006, immigration to Sweden reached its highest level since records began.[69]

The largest immigrant group living in Sweden as of 2005 consists of people born in Finland, followed by people born in Iraq, Former Yugoslavia, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, Poland, Russia and Iran.[67]

Today, Sweden has one of the largest exile communities of Assyrian Christians (also known as Syriacs, Suryoye, Arameans and Chaldeans).

Immigration from the other Nordic countries reached a peak of more than 40,000 per year in 1969-70 when the new immigration rules introduced in 1967 had made it more difficult for immigrants from outside the Nordic region to settle in Sweden for labour market policy reasons.[67] Immigration by refugees and immigrating relatives of refugees from outside the Nordic region increased drastically during the late 1980s, with many of the immigrants arriving from Asia and America, especially from Iran and Chile. During the 1990s and onwards another large immigrant group came from former Yugoslavia and the Middle East.[70]"

Thanks.

I totally sympathize with Jenny McCarthy. She is living a parent's worst nightmare. She has a profoundly impaired child and has no real idea WHY it happened. Like many parents of children with Autism, she has gravitated desperately to finding her own answers since medical science has not offered a definitive cause so far. The problem is this: just because science can't as yet state precisely why a disorder has struck, doesn't mean that they can't rule out other causation.

Vaccines have been essentially ruled out as a primary cause of Autism because the preservative that allegedly caused Autism has been removed and, critically, Autism rates haven't shifted downward in response. The fact is that vaccines are given to huge numbers of children and yet Autism is a relatively rare disease. In addition, the propensity for the disorder to strike in multiple births and in families leads credence to the hypothesis that there is a genetic link.

So many parents have various theories on why their child is Autistic. Chelation therapy has been widely debunked by medical science. In fact, it's very dangerous.

I grant that we don't know exactly why and how Autism strikes. Some children seem to be stricken from infancy. others at around age 2. The problem is research shows that vaccines simply couldn't be the problem. if they were, then Autism would strike far many more children. It also doesn't explain at all clusters of Autism in families. keep in mind what the research is telling you about how Autism works.

The reason that more children test on the Autism Spectrum now than 20 yrs ago is primarily due to correct diagnosis. ASD only became a separate diagnosis from MR in 1990.

I would agree though that there appear to be more children with ASD. However, pinning the blame on vaccines doesn't seem to have research support. There are clusters of ASD in the states of NJ and CA, as well as the countries of Japan, Iceland and the UK. All are areas surrounded by or near large bodies of water. There is some evidence that there may be an environmental link, something that flips a switch so to speak on the Autism gene(s).